Yuku free message boards

Hello The Very Insane Shark! Thank you for posting your speculation for the finale. I enjoyed reading your predictions...

5th Place: Eliza

Brooke & Eliza are still gung-ho about booting the outsider Mary, but Tracy and Mikey decide that now's the perfect time to split up the Brooke/Eliza pair. Knowing that Brooke has the HII, they target Eliza. Mary is more than happy to form (what they all think will be) a one-shot "Fans Alliance" with Tracy/Mikey and boot Eliza. Brooke will most likely play the HII, since (I think) it expires once the game gets down to the F4. Now, Brooke may have the foresight to predict a possible Mikey/Tracy betrayal and give Eliza the HII to spring on them at TC, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Very interesting scenario though, and Eliza being predicted as fifth place is becoming more and more common. We will have to see if it comes true... :)

4th Place: Brooke

I'm really going to go out on a limb here and say that Mary wins immunity, throwing a monkey wrench into the works. The "Fans Alliance" of Tracy/Mikey/Mary is pretty much forced to hold together and they send the last favorite packing.

At least this would be an unexpected thing to have happen. A Final Three of Fans would be a nice contrast to the real show where it was three Favorites.

At any rate, it should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Yes, I think it will be a great finale. It should be about as good as China's anyway, and that was rated pretty high, so I think people will like it...

Thanks again for your predictions. Hope you enjoy the finale, and have a great night/day. Take care! :)

Hello ImANewUser. Thanks a lot for your comments on the episode. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts every week, and I always enjoy reading what you have to say. Thanks for being a loyal reader! :)

-->Thanks for sending. :D I liked the drama & the fact that Tracy & Mikey are controlling the game. I do wish that Mary left before Alexis. Gawd, she's annoying. PS: LOVED the recap. ;)

You're welcome for sending you the episode - I'll make sure you get the finale right away too. Glad to see that you enjoyed the episode. Most people seemed to wish that Mary went before Alexis, but that is what I was goign for.

Thanks for the comment about the recap as well. Glad you Loved it and I hope it reminded you of all the things that went down during the season.

-->The loved ones Reward.

Thanks. It's good to know that a lot of people still enjoy this even if I think it's getting too repetitive.

->9/10

Thank you very much for the 9! I really appreciate that! :)

-->none yet

Okay, maybe after the finale.

Thank you very much for your finale and jury predictions. I have to say that a Mikey/Tracy Final Two would probably be the most interesting and suspenseful ending for me to have.

Thanks for filling out the Popularity Poll. Great to see Mikey and Tracy both getting 10s! :)

Thanks again for your comments. Hope you enjoy the finale and have a great night/day! :)

Sorry I have not been able to keep up with the latest episode(s). But, I really like this season and I will read what I haven't before Friday. I can't wait to see who wins!

Hi chad6. No worries, I have had trouble keeping up with my writing too. It's hard to write 70ish pages in 2 weeks...

Let me ask, since I've forgotten...how did you decide on (Eliza, Willard), Brandon, Tina, J.P., Stacy, Candice, Dave as the winners for your previous seasons? And how did you decide on Amy, Shane, Parvati/Nate, Liliana, Lydia, Aaron as first boots? Also, what would've been the boot orders in your originally planned Vanuatu and Palau seasons?

PICKING MY WINNERS:

For my winners, I definitely wanted to represent all four of the major demographics (younger men, younger women, older men, older women), and I always try to have the winner winning in a different way or with a different kind of story.

For Eliza, I liked that she clearly knew a lot about the game, so I figured she would be strong strategically and be cutthroat when she needed to, and I also thought that she had a great personality that she would keep things interesting for the duration of the season.

I thought Willard would be the one opportunity to have a strategic guy over 50 win, and with his story about telling everyone he was a postal worker and the other lies he told, I thought it would give him a very interesting story of how he manipulates his way to the top and beats out a bunch of young people (almost everyone in the Final 6ish were all in their 20s). I just thought he would be a good character.

That left me with 2 demographics that I had yet to represent: an older woman and a younger man. Unlike all of my stories since, for Guatemala, I hadn't decided 100% who the winner would be when I started writing Guatemala. I obviously wasn't as well-versed in Edgic either because Brandon had an UTR start and Lydia ended up being pretty OTTP, so neither of them had that great of a winning edit. Both Eliza and Willard, in my mind, were fairly strategic, but since this was the first season I was actually going to post, I also wanted Brandon to end with a strong strategic edit and be almost like a "mastermind." Still, I wanted a winner that was going to ultimately be hardworking and likeable and both Brandon and Lydia fit that. Overall, I picked Brandon because I thought his story was ultimately better and he just felt like a more suitable winner than Lydia...

After that, the winner was down to an "older woman," and I wanted to have a winner this time who would win by being on a dominant tribe, and controlling a majority alliance, which is what was a huge part of Exile Island. I knew that Melinda wasn't going to win and I don't even consider her older. That left me with three possible choices. Honestly, sometimes I wish that I had went with Cirie, but I thought she was perfect in the Casaya underdogs, and I also thought that Tina having the added story of her son's tragedy would give her a little something extra to overcome. I decided that it would be interesting and different to have two older women (Tina and RM) that were fairly good strategically and actually made moves in the game and end up in the Final Two, since it had never happened before. But apparently it didn't fly with some people, and sometimes I still question it. I would have maybe had Danielle in the Final Two or something... Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

Now for Cook Islands, I was looking for yet another winner story to go with. I decided that I wanted the winner to be a leader (although Brandon and Tina sortof were too) who relied a lot on winning Immunity to get to the end because he ended up being such a threat. Yes, it was probably going to be a "he." I'll admit that when I found out about the race twist, I felt obligated to have a minority winner, even though this is something I wanted to do for a long time anyway but Vanuatu-Guatemala barely had any of them. So I was watching the Early Show cast announcement for Cook Islands and JP was the last person to be shown on it, and I immediately said that he was going to be the winner. That was it. He seemed to fit perfectly for what I was going for. I didn't know anything about it except his name, but I thought I had created a pretty good story. He later turned out to be a California model more than a voleyball coach, which I didn't like, but I was happy with him winning overall.

After three seasons of winners that were fairly positive overall, I wanted to have a winner that skewed negative and maybe was involved in driving some conflict. The cast was released and I started to figure out who would fall into what roles, and I was left with either Stacy or Jessica (maybe one other person?) as the potential winner. Stacy was the obvious choice for me here. I wanted her to be somewhat of a villain, manipulative, but I knew that she had to become a bit more sympathetic at the end for people to be okay with her winning over someone who would be the clear favorite for practically the entire season: Earl. I call this a "come from behind win," which is interesting because she was on the winning tribe at the beginning of the season, but it was the tribe that ended up getting outnumbered. I really liked her as the winner and I was happy with her edit except for that INV1 that I would like to erase.

Now we get to All-Stars, and I knew that Candice was going to win this season since before I even had a final cast picked for it. Honestly, there weren't a lot of All-Stars that I actually wanted to have win, so I narrowed it down quickly to only a few choices. Candice's win was very reminiscent (sp?) of Eliza's, since I had not written Vanautu into a full season. They both played very similar games and Candice was what I imagined Eliza to be in Vanuatu, being that they were both big Survivor fans who were willing to make cutthroat strategic moves, etc. There's not really much else I can say about this season. I also picked Jamie as the runner-up to Candice extremely early - possibly before people voted on the cast, but I don't remember exactly when. I remember making a possible list of early, mid, late boots from the Top 30 and of the ones who were in the cast, it pretty much stuck when I planned out the full season. Okay, I'm rambling now...

Finally, for China, I wanted to have someone who was clearly a villain win this time, and Dave was definitely an obvious choice for me once again. Most of my winners have been very strategic, but I felt like Dave was the first one who was really strategic in a ruthless kind of way. Again, I don't have much to say about this one - I think I've talked about picking Dave before. And with him having the lies and stuff, it was once again a different kind of story. Leslie's character was also essential to this since she was screwed over by him and cast the deciding vote for him to win.

And for Micronesia... I'll explain this one after the finale.

---

FIRST BOOTS:

As for the first boots, I'll start with Guatemala here: I picked Amy because I didn't think she would fit in to the Yaxha tribe and I thought that she would be a lot more bossy and abrasive than she really was. I figured that with the hike, she would get on people's nerves and it would make her vulnerable. I also had slotted other characters into more long-term roles that Amy was left out of. Sidenote: It's really interesting when I plan these stories out because I never go about it the same way. Sometimes I've picked a winner first and based the story largely around that, sometimes I've thought of the first boot first, and sometimes I've just had a bunch of mixed up ideas that all fell into place when I pulled them together, so there's no specific science to it. It usually ends up being like a puzzle.

For Exile Island, I wanted the first boot to be someone who tried to strategize and play the game too early and got the tables turned on them, which is what happened to Shane. I didn't think Dan or Bruce would do this, and Terry was definitely going to be around longer than one episode. I also (wrongly) didn't think Shane would be that great of a character for some reason, and I thought I'd have a hard time writing for him. This becomes a fairly common reason for me...

Cook Islands: I'll be honest in saying that Parvati is one of very few Survivors that I dislike, but at this time, it wasn't so much a dislike for her as thinking she would be extremely boring and bring nothing to my fanfic or the real show. With CI having 20 characters, the first episode(s) was almost like cutting out a bit of dead weight and people that I thought wouldn't be strong characters. I also thought Nathan would be fairly boring, and even after seeing him on the show, I don't think I would have been able to write well for him. It's really as simple as that with these two, which is partially why there wasn't a great reason behind Nate being voted out.

Like my winners, I usually try to keep a different reason behind the first boots whenever possible and by the time Fiji came, I wanted to have the first boot be someone that was sick and was voted out for being a weakness. It seems like young women get sick early on most frequently, and I thought that with Liliana's background in the Marines, I would be able to make her into a sympathetic character who got sick but was trying her best to stay. I wanted an OTTP first boot (but I think she was rated MORP?) Once again, I thought she'd be pretty boring otherwise (I was right about this one), and she just didn't have a part in the long-term story. I will say though that I actually ended up liking her as a character in Episode 1, and I thought I wrote her pretty well.

All-Stars was another situation where Lydia was my immediate choice, even though I knew I would feel really bad about it. I somehow felt that it was a necessary loss for the story to have Guatemala go to TC first and lose Lydia. It was a turning point for Jamie, who was already going to be the runner-up and I felt that she was also a logical choice, since she'd also be perceived as weaker. It also fit well with Judd being a villain, and Judd/Lydia's story line from Guatemala. I guess it just "felt right" to me, which is how I make a lot of my decisions.

For China, I've been open in saying that I thought Aaron would be generic and boring and not bring much to the story, which is why I chose for him to go first. Nothing more to say than that...

And again, Dave was always going to be the first boot of Micronesia when I picked him. Initially, I had Johnny Fairplay on the cast and he was the first boot under very similar circumstances of what happened on the real show (he didn't quit though), so I decided to scrap him because it would be too similar, and when I replaced him with Dave, Dave was also booted first obviously. But I also felt like this made a lot of sense and worked out well with the story...

---

BOOT ORDERS OF VANUATU AND PALAU STORIES

Honestly, I don't remember the full boot orders of either of these fanfics and I didn't plan out *a lot* of details for either of them. They were just very rough outlines, especially Vanuatu. I still have them around somewhere, but I don't know where they are right now to look.

For Vanuatu, I really don't remember too much for sure. I know Eliza and Brady were the Final Two. Scout, Dolly, John P., and Chad all lasted very long and were Final 5/6. Rory also lasted fairly long into the game - I remember he had an early alliance with Brook. Twila and Sarge were both the first out of their tribes - that would have been a very bad move on my part. John K. was an early boot. I know that Ami and Brook were both voted out right around the merge. Everybody else went somewhere in premerge or early merge. Sorry I can't be more specific than that right now. This is just going on memory.

For Palau, Ashlee and James were the two that were not picked for tribes. Ashlee was sick and James was annoying people. Katie was the first boot for being lazy, weak, and annoying people. Wanda was the second boot for being weak. This is where it starts to get a little sketchy, but I'm pretty sure Jonathan, Jenn, Coby, Caryn were among the next few to be booted in some order. People like Jeff, Jolanda, Tom all got booted circa the merge for being big physical threats. The Final Seven was Gregg/Ian, Angie, Kim, Stephenie, Bobby Jon, Willard, with them being voted out in that order (G/I are interchangeable). Anyone else that I forgot to mention left somewhere in between, probably in late pre-merge.

---

Hope that answers everything. Back to work on the finale... :)

Wow, so Bobby Jon, Steph, Angie and Kim all made the final 5 in your story? Poor Ulong.

But the tribes were different though because I didn't know what the actual tribes would be, so it wasn't a case of one tribe losing everything in my Palau season.

Let me ask, I don't recall exactly, and I still haven't read the first half of your ASS season, but has anyone ever been voted out while in possession of the idol?

Even I have to think about this one for a minute... Sekou had the hidden Immunity and didn't use it, but he was never voted out in possession of it. No, this has never happened. The closest that I've had is Frosti when he gave the idol to Erik. I think people have generally been smarter with the idols in my stories, although Yau-Man, Jamie, and Mary have all played an idol on a night when they didn't need to.

Thanks for the info guatemala fanfic...I thought it was very interesting. I always wondered how you picked the winners. I try to pick a person to win and create a story around that also...but it doesn't work out so well for me. XD

You're welcome, tropical rain. Glad you thought it was an interesting read. I always pick things a little differently, but you just have to keep trying different things until you find something that works for you. :)

---

Erica? I don't know but she seems like a person who could cause a lot of conflict.

I don't think so, because I think Erica would be too overtly confrontational, whereas Stacy was supposed to be very stealthy and sneaky and underhanded, which is what I liked about her.

Just a question: How do you develop a story for survivor season? That is something a really have trouble with. Is it something like "This is how X wins?" or something more complex? And how do you fit 16-20 people into the story? Is it difficult for you?

It's definitely more complex than just coming up with "how X wins" or "how X loses." That's definitely an important part of it because I want to make sure that you know what the winner did to win and how they got there (and yes, to usually justify why/how the 2nd place person lost). But, I also always have a few major "themes" that continually come up and run the course of the season. Micronesia probably has the most obvious ones, and I'll explain them after the finale, but those are just re-occurring ideas that tie certain parts of the story together, such as Brandon constantly having confessionals about what you had to do to be a deserving winner and Candice was the only person to fit all the criteria.

I find it best and easiest to work with 16 people, especially with me *trying* to stay at the length of a real episode. With any more than that, I end up with a few people like Ian, Sherea, and Alexis who don't get shown a lot, and I do like to include everyone.

I do encounter some challenges while writing a season, but usually nothing major in terms of the "story." Honestly, it just comes natural to me now, and I there are clear examples that I can think of of things that connect right from Episode 1 to Episode 14 in this season (some should stand out in the recap). It definitely takes extensive planning though - that's the most important thing though, and I use 100s of pages each season just jotting things down and planning things out, etc. etc. I have a bunch of outlines on my wall while I'm writing so I can easily refer to it if I need to, and it takes an immense amount of work and organization.