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Hello everyone. I can finally start replying to some comments now. The bad news is I haven't had any time to write Episode 13 over the past 3-4 days, so it probably won't be up until Wednesday or Thursday next week instead of Monday. Sorry about this...

Hello KittyPryde1. Thanks for being so detailed and thorough with your comments once again. I really appreciate you taking the time every week to be so extensive with your replies, and they are always a pleasure to read. :)

First off, while I'm happy Aras is gone, I kinda wish it were Mary instead. Mary has just been so bitchy and so negative since the merge and I'm just getting sick of her, whereas Aras really hasn't been that negative of a character. Still, I didn't like how cocky he got at the end of the episode. Yeah, they're afraid of you. And if you didn't suck at strategy, they STILL wouldn't have voted you out because you could've had a real alliance. Also, it was really pleasing to have the first non-Aras immunity win go to my girl, Tracy. After all the crap she got on the real show about being "weak" and stuff like that, she really deserved a chance to shine and it feels nice that you gave it to her, GF. I agree that that's what the girls should've done to Erik in the real Micronesia. Teamed up against him while he didn't have a physical competition he could dominate. But If I recall, Erik hit three in a row while the girls only hit, like, two targets in total.

Thanks. I did consider the idea of Aras losing Immunity and then Mary somehow going instead because she was annoying everyone so much, but I think that would have been Tracy's plan ineffective and if Aras won Immunity again the next time, it would be boring/repetitive and make the T/M/B/E alliance look stupid. At the end of the episode, he only acted like that because he KNEW he was going home. I personally thought that his arguments with Mikey made sense and were fairly logical. The Immunity was going to either go to Eliza or Tracy, but I thought that since Tracy came up with the plan it was more fitting for her to get it. (As for the comment about real Micronesia, I'm pretty sure Natalie hit 2 of her own targets and Parvati and/or Amanda possibly hit one of their own, so the girls could have theoretically beat Erik.

As for the auction, I thought the plan was smart in terms of the idea to sharing money and food, but I also thought that the way of distributing was pretty good too. The only way it would've been better is if there was some rule like "if you go over a certain dollar amount, you can no longer compete in the challenge, but you get to keep the money". Either that, or it would've been an awesome twist if at the very end of the auction, Jeff said something like "The last item up for bid..." and then pulled out the immunity necklace, making the entire plan backfire due to Aras being so rich (although he'd be out of money at that point, I think. I don't know if you've ever done that, but I think it'd be so cool to have an auction where you have to buy immunity through wise conservation of your cash.

Glad you thought that it was a smart move about sharing food at the auction. As I said in the notes, I needed something to make the auction different bc they were getting way too repetitive, and I really liked that idea too. That would have also been a good twist that you mentioned about going over a certain amount. I didn't think of that, but I have definitely considered having the Immunity necklace as the last item to bid on in previous seasons - even in Guatemala, where I specifically said something like "it would be wise to conserve your money." Jamie got to pick a mystery box instead. I still like that idea though and might use it eventually.

I didn't like the whole food debate though. I mean, I like Eliza, but I thought that was a bit harsh, especially since Aras only lost the chicken by accident. It seems like everyone is going to go hungry, because unless Mary and Alexis plan on building a secret clubhouse and putting a "No Bitches Allowed" sign on it, then they're going to have to cook the rice and beans very publicly, which will make it kinda hard to continue hiding it. So in effect, their bitchy little plan backfired and they're put in a bad position. Once again, I think they got themselves into a plan that didn't really benefit anyone but Aras. The plan was great for him because he can still catch fish and that makes him valuable to the tribe, and he could still catch and eat a fish easily while hiding the food. but Mary and Alexis, it just wasn't a smart move to make. It just seems like a running theme. Aras leads and makes moves for ARAS while Alexis/Mary follow along blindly.

I also debated about the food hiding and whether or not I wanted to for sure have it. It could have went a few different ways, but I ultimately ended up liking it. Aras did lose the chicken by accident, but when everyone is so suspicious and untrusting of each other, I could see why Eliza wouldn't be sure. Alexis COULD have just cleared up the situation with Eliza as soon as she overhead the comment instead of running back over to Aras/Mary, so it's hard to pinpoint one person as totally responsible for the whole thing. Interestingly, if I would blame one person, it would be Tracy for initially suggesting to Eliza that Aras lost the chicken on purpose. Yet Tracy doesn't really take any blame for it. Again, very true about the plan being in Aras' best interest but not necessarily theirs.

I loved the Micro-nausea line and the Boardwalk/hotel analogy.

Thank you. Sometimes I think I've exhausted my creativity but I always try to come up with interesting lines.

Thanks for rating the episode a 9. I appreciate that! :)

Alexis/Aras/Mary: Assuming your food plan DOES work, how does doing something like that help you in front of the jury at all?

Thanks for this question. I will ask it at the Reunion Show depending on how this turns out.

Thanks a lot for those very interesting predictions, and for filling out the Popularity Poll!

First off, I think Alexis and Mary are screwed, given that even though in your universe, only one F3 has occurred, they might be thinking that something is going down and if it IS a final 3, they can't let either girl get to the end due to the fact that she would have three votes guaranteed, which would mean her opponents would need to completely sweep every other vote to win.

That's another excellent point! And it's certainly very true.

Final 6: Mary gets booted 4-2 or 3-2-1 (with Mikey throwing his vote away to curry favor with Mary).
Final 5: The fans know that going into the final four in a tie is suicide, especially since Mikey was already unwilling to risk a rock, let along put everything on fire-making challenge, so Alexis (nicer than Mary/Aras) teams up with Mikey and Tracy and blindsides Brooke and her idol out of the game. (This also keeps the idol in play JUST long enough that GF doesn't have to write about it ever again.)
Final 4: The Airai final 3 idea comes up again and Alexis takes the usual final 4 spot allotted to the somewhat boring UTR girl.
Final 3a: Ian votes for Mikey out of respect, Kathy votes for Tracy out of friendship, Sherea votes for Tracy due to not wanting Mikey to win and feeling betrayed by Eliza, Aras votes for Mikey out of respect, Mary votes for Mikey due to just thinking he's a nice guy, Brooke votes for Eliza as her closest ally and a favorite, Alexis votes for Tracy due to fan power and thinking she played the best game. Due to the tie, either Brooke switches her vote to Tracy or Eliza votes for Tracy due to girl power.
Final 3b: Mikey wins immunity and votes out Eliza to guarantee that she won't just soak up all the favorite votes.
Final 2: Pretty much everything the same as above except Brooke automatically votes for Tracy and Eliza votes for her as well, feeling betrayed by Mikey.

Very interesting bootlist speculation. At first I wasn't sure by what you meant by Final 3a and Final 3b, but I get it what you were saying now. I get the feeling that people wouldn't mind a Final 3 now as much as they did before, but I'm still not going to give that away until the finale.

Mikey - 10 (I love what his character has become)

I was hoping that with his edit turning around at the end, a lot of people would start to like him more and this has definitely happened. His popularity is over 80 right now, which is great!

Excellent job on those Edgic ratings! They're all very close to what I was going for. I'm impressed by how accurate they are, as always!

Tracy - CPM4

1. Tracy (This is the episode where she got a little bit of doubt and negativity, which is perfect for hiding the eventual winner. She has a big distraction in Eliza and she's just looking like she's got everything set to go for the endgame)

I agree that she did get a slight bit of negativity, and therefore she should be CPM and not positive. I definitely wouldn't give her a negative though.

Very good job on those Contenders / Eliminated lists. As I said to chapera rocks, it's really hard to argue with what you have there, but there could always be a surprise or two...

Thanks again for your great comments. I really enjoyed reading them, and I hope you enjoy the last two episodes. It's great to have you as a reader. Take care! :)

Hello survivormarc14. Thank you very much for your comments. Nice of you to still reply even though you didn't enjoy this one as much as before. I still appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. :)

I really thought this episode was good but,all the characters are getting too worn out.

Thanks. Glad you thought the episode was good, and I can sortof see what you're saying about the characters. It's sortof been the same type of thing since the merge with Aras' group being negative and annoying, Tracy coming up with plans, etc. I think that's what you mean. It's a good thing there are only two more episodes then!

6.7

Alright - I'm fine with that. The average so far is still the highest post-merge episode so far, so that is good.

Thanks for asking these two great questions:

What is making everyone so on-edge and mean.

There's bitterness because Alexis/Mary first betrayed Brooke/Sherea back on the Ami vote, and then the reverse happened when Brooke/Sherea betrayed Mary and Alexis on the Ian vote. Combine that with the fact that Eliza tends to be seen as annoying and is somewhat prone to conflicts, and the Mary/Aras relationship was also making people get annoyed. Plus the tribe was divided between two alliances and neither side wanted the other to win. It's really a combination of things.

Do the majority have anything against Alexis.

I would definitely say they have more against Mary than Alexis, but Alexis/Eliza started to get a bit of conflict in this episode too.

Thank you for your predictions & for filling out the Popularity Poll!

Finally, great Edgic Contenders / Eliminated lists. Another person that seems to be in agreement with everyone else. That's very interesting to see the same names coming up all the time now.

Thanks again for your comments. I hope you enjoy the last two episodes more than this one, and I hope you have a great day! Thanks for being a loyal reader! :)

Hello YemaGrl1988, and thank you very much for your comments on the episode! I'm glad you enjoyed this one more than last week's, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Well I must say that this episode was MUCH better than the other one. Aras should have foreverago. I am happy that one of them finally leaves.

Thanks! Great to hear this. I like this position for Aras - I like it's reasonable to how far he'd really get in a real season, but at least he's gone now, for those that didn't like him. It was definitely time for one of his alliance to go.

Alexis getting the camp water. I lol'd.

Yeah, I really wish that this was the only thing she ended up with so she could have complained about the food even more.

Thanks a lot for rating the episode a 9! I appreciate it! :)

Thanks for those predictions, and for filling out the Popularity Poll.

Brooke - 3 (She's becoming more and more of a trainwreck... Kind of like Danielle in EI)

I would have to say that both Mary and Brooke are having some meltdown moments like Amanda had at the end of both China and Micronesia...

Mikey - 5 (I don't feel good about him)

Hmm, well, for those most part his popularity has gone up quite a it, which is what I was hoping for with his recent edit.

Thanks again for your comments. I really enjoyed reading what you had to say. Hope you enjoy the last two episodes, and have a great day! :)

Random predictions even though I've only skimmed through the past few episodes:

Predicted Boot order:

------Alexis (useless)
------Mary (dull, but with Aras going would be too predictable)
------Brooke (season's surprise boot)
------Mikey (second runner-up)
------Eliza (runner-up)
------Tracy (winner)

Thanks for the predictions, Yrik. So that would be an Airai Final Three, which would be quite an accomplishment since they came into the merge 7-3, but in a way, I guess it would be like Cook Islands with the Aitu Four.

I hope you've enjoyed the past few episodes, even though you only skimmed them.

Just as an aside, Tracy has been picked to win pretty much unanimously, so either this is the most obvious season since Cook Islands with JP winning, or Tracy is possibly going to be like Leslie, who almost everyone picked to win last season. We'll soon find out!

Oooh, I read something into that. I think you may be a little disappointed at how obvious the edgic is pointing towards a Tracy win and you're ready to get it over with and move on. At this point, Brooke/Eliza aren't going to win so the only surprise win for the viewers would be Mikey.

Basically, what I mean...is during your Fiji season, you were building the entire season towards an Earl win and people were hoping for a Stacey win but didn't think it could happen. But, it DID happen. So you were probably excited for the season to get to the end. But you said you were eager to be done with the season. So I think the season ends predictably with Tracy winning and you're ready to move on. That's my guess :P.

It's an intriguing theory, but honestly, it doesn't have anything to do with that. I just mean I'm ready (or "excited") to get the finale up and finish the season because I've just lost 4-5 days and I was hoping to have everything done by mid-August. I'm pretty sure I said the same thing about China last time about wanting to get the season done with. I'm not saying you're right or wrong though. Just that what I said had nothing to do with it being predictable or not.

Hello nordicsurvivor! Thanks a lot for your comments! Sorry to have a disappointing ending for you because I know that Aras was one of your favorites and he's been in your avatar for a long time, so I appreciate you still taking the time to share your thoughts even when you didn't like the outcome.

Good episode. I was obviously frustrated with the outcome, but that was, I guess, inevitable. Post-IC parts were great, even though it was fairly obvious Mikey wouldn't flip. Auction was also well written.

Thank you. I knew you wouldn't like to see Aras go , but I felt it was time for it to happen. Personally, I would have liked to keep him a bit longer over Alexis or Mary though. Glad you enjoyed the post-IC scene, although I agree, Mikey was not going to flip - I wanted to cause a little bit of doubt though. Glad you thought the auction was well written as well. I think those usually turn out pretty well.

Strategy scene with Mikey: not because it brought doubt but because it gave depth to Mikey.

Good to know this scene came off well. Mikey has been one of the more popular characters lately. That's definitely a change from him being the lowest after Episode 1. He even hit 81% last week!

8

Thanks for the 8. I'm glad you didn't dock it down for Aras going or anything, so I'm definitely happy with this rating! :)

Mary/Alexis: What were you thinking blackmailing your future jurors?!!

Thank you for this question. I'm going to save it for the Reunion when we know how things play out, incase one/both of them is in a Final 2/3.

(B) Who do you NOT want to be the Sole Survivor?

Mary, Alexis, Brooke, Eliza ( Kinda sad, but true )

Hmm, Eliza's taken a few hits in popularity lately, especially this week. Brooke took a major hit, yet I thought this was one of her better episodes lately and one of the least negative-ish ones. Mary and Alexis, I can't really say much about them. Mary went from low visibility positive to overly negative and Alexis has been UTR until now when she's gone MORN, so neither of those two look great.

Thank you for your predictions and for filling out the Popularity Poll!

Amazing job on your Edgic ratings! They're all extremely, extremely close to what I was going for! I'm always impressed by your Edgic thoughts every week! :)

Aras - CP5 ( Where exactly was the N supposed to come from? In the real show, people ranting for everyone teaming against them is not considered N even for a negative character. His confessionals were all "I'm doomed, I hope I can fight" rather than anything cocky. If anything, this episode he became the underdog I expected him to be earlier. And I hope nobody's gonna claim he's N for the food scene, because he most definately wasn't associated in that because Alexis did all the talking. There might've been some comical sounds or stuff like that I didn't notice, but neutral is definately more fitting this episode nevertheless. )

Initially, I thought he'd be CPM5. That's what I was thinking when I wrote the episode and then nearly everyone rated him CPN and I thought that he must have come across negative, so I thought that would be his final rating. I think some of the negativity came from his cockiness after the IC when he made those comments to Tracy about what she did to win the challenge, and then his answers at TC where he said he would beat everyone in the rest of the challenges and they were cowards if they voted him off. Still, if that was negative, I agree that there had to be some positivity to balance it out as far as everyone ganging up against him, him trying to strategize with Mikey even though he knew he was doomed, etc. And once again, he was not as negative as Mary and Alexis for the food thing. Most likely, I'm going to go with my original rating, CPM, unless there's a strong case for CPN.

Brooke - CP4 ( Exactly the same as Aras: slight tonish vibes ( both negative and positive ) but definately nothing to emphasize her tone. )

I agree that she's neutral this time too, but the majority have voted MOR3 for her again. I honestly could see CP or MOR.

Eliza - OTTN3 ( For lying about the food mainly, could see MORN too. )
Mary - MORN2 ( Only a little more depth than Eliza, but could see OTTN too. )

I agree.

Great job on your Edgic Contenders / Eliminated lists too.

1) Based on Edgic, which Survivor(s) do you think have the best chance of winning?

1. Tracy

There's no real option anymore. She got the doubt, and everyone else have such big flaws that even if you wanted to add something different to winners' edit, you couldn't add such major things.
I truely hope she wins, for edgic's sake and otherwise too.

From a reader or Edgicker's perspective, I would agree that Tracy looks like the best choice, but I would also agree that Mikey and Brooke are still possible based on Edgic. I know I've said that I think Brooke should have a few more negatives than on the chart, but I wouldn't call her overly negative yet (especially compared to Dave), and Mikey's beginning edit has somewhat turned around with him getting a positive last week.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I really enjoyed reading what you had to say, and you brought up some great points. Hope you enjoy the last two episodes, and have a great night! :)