Well hello, handsome. How you doin?
Sup bitches? That is my first question. Well, it started snowing today, so I built a snowman on top of my car and drove around town with it seeing how long it would last before it fell down. It's still there. I had a massage and found out that my masseuse is really into spell-checking other people's first-time fanfiction. I smuggled a CD into Costco so I could wash it off in the bathroom without having to answer a lot of awkward questions, and then the hand dryer blew it out of my hands and I'm pretty sure it's dirtier than before. Had to awkwardly avoid eye contact with a 60-something Scottish grandma who tried to invite me over for gin and tonic and sex last time we met. So, you know, usual day.
(Note: that paragraph is not me being in character, all of it actually happened).
Chanel #2, I see your approach as infinitely more social game based. You were sweet, active around the board, etc. But I also find that your game was partly based in flying under the radar and that can cause one's alliance members to receive the credit/glory.
That became way longer and way more of an attempt at being insightful than I intended (#highthoughts). I also don't mean to insult any of your approaches bc I view them as totally valid and worthy of winning. So, in general, are my thoughts about your game correct?I think your thoughts are pretty spot on, for the most part. I knew going into the game that I wasn't going to have time to always be social, due to work, getting manicures, keeping my servants from organizing a violent coup, etcetera. Since I already had a pretty good idea of where my weaknesses were going to be, I was able to design my strategy around that and figure out ways of compensating in advance. I knew I would have a hard time talking people out of targeting me if I played a more obvious physical or intellectual strategy, so I kept things low-key in order to ensure that if and when people started thinking about voting me out, there wouldn't be many excuses to listen to them.
Good case in point - the first puzzle challenge. I wanted to win it, in case there were idols or something else at stake, but I also didn't want to immediately identify myself as a threat. So I set my username to "deanmunsch" and decisively won the challenge, which gave me the ability to create my own tribe later on in the game. I didn't get the credit or the glory for that win, and nobody in my alliance even knew I'd done it until it was time vote Dean out and I needed to prove that she was lying about having an idol.
So, you could say that I might have been better off openly winning that challenge and having that as something I could point to in the finals, but I think that keeping it on the down low gave me a
much better strategic advantage. I mean, the risk you always run with a strategy like this is that you get to the end, say that you've done all this stuff, and the jury doesn't really buy it, but in this case I think it shows that from day one I had a good idea of what strategy I'd use to get to the end, and how to execute it. I've already mentioned other moves that I've made, and you'll notice that even Chanel isn't entirely sure exactly how far my strategy went.
What is your reaction to my thoughts about you and the other finalists.
I think for someone that people considered pretty low-key, you've got a crazy good read on things.
Also, it's not an ORG if you don't have to do some pointless comparison question that affects no one's vote. So compare each juror to a survivor player.Dean Munsch - Val Collins (San Juan Del Sur)
Val's undoing in SJDS was the fact that someone suspected she might have an idol, and Val took that and went even further, claiming that she had TWO idols and was totally going to use them to mess up anybody who went after her. Dean Munsch had a similar strategy, claiming that she had an idol from the first challenge, and then later trying to claim that she got a second one from the Secret Room. Even if we had believed either of those things, the claims drew her a lot of negative attention and painted her as a target right away.
Earl Grey - Michael Snow (Caramoan)
I wanted to give Earl someone sexier, more likeable and charismatic than Mike Snow, but the reason why I picked him is because they had really similar story arcs. Michael wasn't the biggest threat in his alliance, but he was taken out because of his proximity to strong players who would have taken him far. One of the main reasons Earl got targeted was the worry that players like Denise or Gigi would be able to get in close to him and scoop him up for an extra number, which could have screwed up everything for the ChanRads, and that's ultimately why he was targeted.
Zayday Williams - J'Tia Taylor (Cagayan)
Zayday isn't a hot mess of failures like J'Tia, but she was really entertaining in some of her early posts, and nobody in Cagayan brought the lulz like J'Tia did. J'Tia was also highly self-aware of just how ridiculously she came across sometimes, and Zayday is the same way, owning up to her disinterest in logging into AIM and such. So that self awareness plus entertainment value makes it a perfect fit, imo.
Chanel #3 - Alex Bell (Amazon)
Alex was a smart guy and pretty likeable. Chanel #3 was also pretty smart, had a wicked sense of humor, and she definitely knew how to play the game. What ultimately undid both Alex and Chanel, though, was calling their shot too early. Alex straight-up told Rob that he'd vote him out at final four, which prompted Rob to immediately blindside him. And, as I heard it, C#3 mentioned offhandedly to someone else that she really wanted to be the last Chanel standing in the game, which of course set off warning bells for both myself and Chanel #1, and gave us plenty of reasons to mark Chanel #3 as one of the earlier merge boots.
Chanel #6 / Hester - James Clement (China)
Like James, Chanel #6 absolutely dominated the premerge. She was a solid player in a lot of the challenges, she had a pretty decent social game and connections to a very obvious powerful player (Todd for James, Gigi for Chanel #6), and access to a lot of goodies from the season's central twist. But all of those things are what ultimately drew the target onto both Chanel #6 and James, and their primary allies turning their backs at a critical moment is what wound up sealing their fate for good.
Gigi - Parvati Shallow (Heroes vs Villains)
Being a rich famous hot person, I do not impress easily. So when I say that I'm impressed by Gigi, that really does mean something. I legitimately cannot believe the amount of guts that Gigi had to strut in here, announce that she'd won the game like five times already, and in case we missed it, she put it in her signature for the entire world to see. There's an old saying that it's not bragging if you really are
that good, and from the conversations I had with Gigi, I'm not surprised that she's won that many times. Announcing her previous wins might have come off as braggy to some, but I found it to be an amazing intimidation tactic, and it made me respect her all the more. Didn't make me want to take her to the end, obviously, but definitely made me respect both her bravery and her skills. I think the same thing can be said about Parvati going into HvV. I remember being floored that Parvati even accepted the invite. She had a reputation as one of the most badass players in the history of the game, and something like half the cast personally named her as the number one person they were going to target right out of the gate. But she owned her reputation, levelled up her game, and kicked exactly as much ass as she had in Micronesia. I'm still convinced that she should have won that season, and I'm convinced that Gigi would easily have done the same if she'd made it here.
Chanel #4 #2 / Boone - Gabriel Cade (Marquesas)
Gabe and Boone were both ridiculously hot guys who were in the game for the fun of it. They were both a lot more invested in the experience, and what they (and the rest of the cast) could get out of the social side of things. Sure, this was going down in the context of a Survivor setting, but in both cases, our handsome hero was more concerned with having a good time and helping everybody else to do it too. Gabe's voteout was one of the saddest landmark moments in Marquesas, and Boone's absolutely was here. I didn't enjoy doing it, even when I knew he was putting my name down, because it sucked to have to get rid of someone who unquestionably made the game better just by being in it.
Chanel #0 / Denise Hemphill - Cirie Fields (Panama)
With the possible exception of the Grinch, there is nobody who doesn't enjoy Cirie. Her giggling is infectious, and even when she's complaining she's hilarious. Denise is basically the same way. It doesn't matter if she's bitching, or joking around, or impersonating Chanel Oberlin on AIM, whatever Denise is doing, it will be entertaining as all hell. But the caveat to both of these fantastic ladies is that they're both crazy good at Survivor. I remember meeting Denise very early in the game and thinking to myself that she was one clever bitch and if I wasn't careful I'd wind up voting for her to win a million dollars on day 39. And, sure enough, Denise kicked ass at just about everything and was universally liked by just about everybody in the cast (whatever rando drama exists between her and Chanel O aside). Not gonna lie, hearing that she found me entertaining totally made my day.
Nancy - Alecia Holden (Kaoh Rong)
They're blondes who can't figure out how voting parchments work (the pen cap incident, the parchments with half a speech on them every round from Nancy), but damned if they weren't the funniest people in the entire season. Alecia had the misogynist hater squad, and there were some sticks in the mud who didn't enjoy Nancy and thought she was faking it, but my attitude towards the whole thing was basically this: if she was faking it, who cares? Intentional or not, she was hilarious and it was consistently amusing to see what sorts of things she'd come up with. My personal favorite was when she IMed me out of nowhere, I asked "Who is this?" and she proceeded to tell me my own name and what game I was playing, assuming that I'd somehow forgotten.
If nothing else, I'm glad that Nancy made her aim and got far in the game.
Chad - Eddie Fox (Caramoan)
I originally was going to give you Keith Nale from Cambodia, but I figured it'd be an insult to not give you someone as gorgeous as your stunning self. Eddie was unbelievably loyal to his allies, and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I never got any negative vibes from you at any point in the game, and being willing to sacrifice yourself at the final four was, in my opinion, one of the most respectful and sportsmanlike moves that I've ever seen in a game. (Which I would have likened to Keith being willing to take the hit and let Kimmi keep playing at the final six TC, you see). A lot of people would've gone the greedy route and hogged a spot in the finals for themselves, but you wanted to give the game its best possible conclusion, and that's something that I absolutely respect the hell out of.
Thanks for the questions, handsome! Lemme know if there's anything else I can do for ya!
