Email this topic to a friend Printer-friendly version of this topic Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)		Previous Topic | Next Topic
Conferences Story Competitions Forum (Protected)
Original message

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 07-27-06, 08:52 PM (EST) "Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #4: What If He Doesn't Come Back?" LAST EDITED ON 07-30-06 AT 10:11 AM (EST) -------------------------------------------------------- After -------------------------------------------------------- {For some strange reason, I used to think we were a quasi-community of people who liked to discuss reality shows and the horrible excuses for humanity that populated them. Now, after this episode, I realize I was wrong. We're a bunch of borderline-autistic obsessive-compulsives. Forget the events of last night's show: what's most important to about fifteen percent of you is that your precious format was disrupted. We have people curled up in the fetal position all over Bashers. 'Introduction, Reward, Immunity, Tribal Council, what?!!!!!' One thing is different one time, and thousands of people have their last bit of remaining faith in a rational universe shattered. Look at all the locked threads. Forget the parrot. Forget the clearing. Forget the blood. Forget that last scream from Azure just before we instantly flashed into credits, and oh yes, let's not forget that they placed Elmore's last words after the credits, how dare they! We took a few million people with network OCD and we moved their remote an inch to the left. The screaming will stop. The screaming had better stop. Things happened in something other than their normal order. Fine: I get it. You're traumatized. Take a deep breath and get over it! My God, you'd think the Outcasts were back!} {Quick quote from my local paper: 'Is this Friday morning, or Thursday? I'm lost. At least, I thought I was Lost, but then I was in the Society Islands, and then I was really Lost...'} {Someone help me out? I can't find a parrot anywhere in this Tarot deck.} {Stand by: I'm going to indulge my OCD by counting the firsts and near-firsts. We had a segment after TC, and it was a long one. We had the camera crew on screen interacting with a contestant, which is pretty much a total shattering of Burnett's holiest illusion: that they're alone out there, really they are, would he lie to you? We had a largely music-free segment in which the focus character frequently seemed to be moving in real time: it took Alex a couple of minutes to get out there -- probably edited down a lot -- and most of it took place in total production silence. Footsteps, breathing, the movement of plants in the slight breeze -- no other sounds. No musical stings when we first heard the voice, either. Just Alex responding, doing a really good job faking being scared in order to lure out what she thought was the jokester, and then -- surprise! It's just a parrot! And it's tame, and it's friendly, and it seems to like Alex more than most of the other players do, and then -- wham. Flash to credits. Oh, and yes, Elmore's closing words went last. They tried to get him to whine about it on the Early Show this morning, but he just said he had no idea that Turare had run into that, and it struck him as being more interesting than fourteenth place anyway. And no, he also had no idea what had happened after he left, and usually they know better than to even ask that. I can't confirm it, but I think Burnett held the last few minutes back from CBS before broadcast. He didn't even hint at this in the preview commercials. They all looked so shellshocked...} {Yeah, he held that back. I think he decided he wanted the water cooler buzz the next morning instead of the 'We're just being misled again' threads the week before. And he got it, didn't he? Everyone's talking about this on every network. Even CNN gave it a few seconds this morning, although it was mostly their TV critic wondering which universe he was operating in. He was all curled up in a fetal position, rocking back and forth while muttering 'They broke the format, they broke the format...'} {The editing thread has officially exploded. Nothing from our long-timers yet, but the newbies have a lot of theories. I particularly like the one about how they're all trapped in an alternate dimension.} {Five hundred newbies -- eight hundred newbies -- twelve hundred newbies -- four of whom have actually read the guidelines...} {Okay. Let's take it by the numbers. Jeff has been very good about telling us the background of this island. Unfortunately, Jeff's our best source. I've spent most of the morning Googling, and I can tell you what the owner did to make his money before he retreated into seclusion on Yanini. I can't tell you anything about what he did after he got there. There are no pictures of him from the last fifteen years of his life, which makes it kind of hard to tell if he ever owned a parrot. The rumors about him are on the Internet, but guess what? They're from people quoting Jeff! I'm guessing the SI area just wasn't interested in posting their urban legends on Snopes. The parrot -- Azure, might as well call the thing by its own name, because usually when Burnett gives that much screen time to someone, they're going to be around for a while -- was trained to say certain phrases when it heard key words. I've been over that part of the episode a few times, and despite what a lot of our latest arrivals think, the word which set that last burst off was 'beg'. There is more than one reason to have taught Azure to say that phrase when it heard that word. Not everything is mystery and conspiracy. At least part of it is just a sick sense of humor. But there's other options, and no one likes what they might signify. I think the editing thread -- once it gets back to actually discussing editing -- is going to be fascinated with how we met Azure. Frank ran into her first, or at least came very close. We saw nothing of Frank's encounter. Just Alex openly talking with Gardener about how she's going to be the next one out, and doesn't that just stomp all over the 'long-term character' idea? Then suddenly -- Frank. Camera crew. Alex proposes a theory. What people are already calling the Blair Witch Walk. That puddle of blood, and kudos to the guy who somehow managed to shoot down when he heard Alex step in it. What's almost a light, funny encounter: deep breath after the false alarm. And then hearts stop all over the continent. Burnett scared the hell out of us, and he did it in classic horror movie fashion. Whatever this story is, Azure is part of it. But... The format isn't broken, but it's been bent beyond any shape we've ever seen before. The contestants will still play in challenges, still conspire, lie, twist between alliances, and backstab each other until the bodies are hauled off to the jury or Sequesterville. Something is happening here, and I think it's not knowing what that's disrupting our screamers worse than the distortion of segment order. We're off the map. All we've got left is a blank section of parchment and the words 'Here there be dragons.'} ---------------------------------------------------------- It started as a pretty decent morning. I got up just before sunrise, removed the earplugs -- there had been a lot of drunken singing from Mr. Brooks lately -- and started off for one of the good supermarkets. This isn't a casual investment in time: it's at least four miles each way, and even at the start of fall, it's usually a good idea to start the trip before the heat sets in. This time, I'd gotten a nice, cool morning, almost sweater weather, pleasant against my skin. The leaves hadn't changed yet, but soon enough, just wait, I'd be pushing through piles of dead color in a few weeks. Nice enough outside, virtually no traffic except for a few professors pulling into the college early and some students getting back to the dorms late. Not a bad morning in the money department, either: the clicks program was producing at a slow but (so far) consistent rate, I had a few more book orders, two new commissions, and I found thirty-four cents (twenty-four of it in pennies) before even cresting the hill. Lots of birds calling out to each other from the trees, two squirrels in the tall grass near the hospital, and a rabbit just before the downhill crest. More walking along deserted sidewalks, getting to the supermarket about ten minutes before opening, and then -- carts. Lots of carts. There had been a thunderstorm last night, one last reminder of the season passing through, and it had hit right around the time the supermarket closed. Rather than return carts and get that non-important quarter back, the shoppers had chosen to abandon coinage and run for their cars. There were laden carts all over the place, every one holding twenty-five cents, and there was no official cart wrangler in sight who would debate me on first right to the spoils... Well, fine. I was early, the wrangler was late. If he'd slept through his unintentional tip money, it wasn't my problem. Start at the left edge of the lot, lock the carts together by their short chains as I gathered them (which freed each quarter in turn -- I wanted as much money as possible in pocket before he showed up), get the long trains going and bring each home to a stall before beginning a new one. Say eight carts to a convoy: I could manage that much in a smooth push without having to worry about juggling too many offset wheels. Two dollars. Four dollars. Six dollars... I hadn't had a morning like this since last February's mini-blizzard, and while the cart wrangler had never shown up to compete against me, it had taken three hours just to get everything pushed through the snow, plus I'd lost part of it turning up the heat in my apartment enough to get the feeling in my toes back. Seven dollars, the store was open, no cars except the employees' in the lot, still no wrangler, at least twelve shopping carts to go. Absolute glory. I should think about detouring across the college on my way back just to see if this streak was going to extend to the vending machines. Eight dollars... ...coins hitting the ground, right behind me. I turned. I didn't look down first: I could check the donation later. I wanted to see who had thrown them, and they had been thrown: I'd heard the bounce. I'd also heard the car parking and the footsteps, but they'd been too distant to worry about. "Your paranoia needs work," Jeff decided, and as annoying as it was, I had to agree. There were enough people out there who hated me, and for some of them, it wasn't even all that recent. "So this is what a contestant does?" she asked. A few inches taller than me, hair fashion-black and award-cut, features bearing the inhuman perfection that came from getting everything desired in life from the first day on, with the first active wish being to look better than everyone else, forever, plus designer clothes covering a body that was two ounces away from Day Thirty, only this was intentional because the current Fashion said 'starvation is in' and as such, this one would cheerfully kill herself if it meant people would be envying her corpse. "You get on television, you have the nerdiest part of the country talking about you, and this is all you can turn your fame into: a cowgirl for little metal ponies." An artful sniff. "Of course, I suppose anything with the word 'cow' in it would come naturally..." She gestured to the coins. "I used to try to get you up to the point where you could wear first-hand clothes once in a while. Now it's just a tip for a job well done. Why, this parking lot is almost immaculate." "Hello, Cyndi." Placid, almost bored. "I didn't realize you were allowed out alone." Yes, that was definitely the kind of car she would drive: twenty miles to the fill-up, or twelve if you turned everything on, and who could stand to drive without the personal massage chair going? Another one of those sniffs. Well, now I knew what she'd done since high school: practiced her disdain. I wondered if she'd found a master's program in it at Harvard. Both sides of the hill knew what college she'd managed to get into, courtesy of the local society page, which her father -- deceased, three years ago -- had bought his way into at his daughter's will. The amount he'd had to bribe the college with wasn't exactly a secret. The numbers required to make them keep her remained a mystery. "My husband is out of town, and it's the maid's day off. Usually I ask her to pick up the little things, but -- well, you know. It's good to get out every once in a while, see what's going on. Besides, I wanted to try my hand at some French food before our trip to Paris next month, and I don't trust her to get the right spices. Sort of bright for one of her kind, but --" 8.6: needed a little more disregard in the nostril flare. "You associate with those people more than I do. I'm sure you know their ways." This was very strange. Not the hatred, not the nearly-open fear of the road not forced onto, but -- well, I'd never seen Cyndi (or Cindy, or Sindi, or Shantii for one memorable March) by herself. She had always been accompanied by three to seven other girls of the same age, same bigotry, same self-enforced boredom with a world that bent over backwards to fulfill their every desire and didn't sprain its spine in the process, which at least would have made their minute. Cyndi always traveled with a pack. Among other things, it was handy for alibis. Everyone knew exactly what hadn't happened at the moment they didn't do it, not to mention where they hadn't been at the time. "Can I see the ring?" This surprised her into an automatic response: her hand came up before she realized she was raising it. Not that she minded after it happened: yes, let me show off a little more! But... "Nice." It was. One big diamond surrounded by several rubies. "You've really come up in the world." Another reflex action: her lips started to move into a snide smile, appreciative of a compliment from an inferior. "Now instead of prostituting yourself to multiple men until their funds run dry, you've managed to find a single client who can afford to keep you for an extended engagement." And freeze, brain unwilling to believe what the ears were receiving, even though they'd gotten so many similar messages from me in the past. "Of course, I'm being unfair." I shrugged. "For all I know, you're still working six or seven on the side. You always could multitask." She released the breath in a slow hiss. "I see you haven't changed since high school. You never did know when to shut up." I shook my head. "Wrong. I learned the lesson you helped teach me: you were going to pound me if I was silent, and you were going to pound me if I said something. All things considered, since I was going to get into a fight anyway, I might as well get the words out first." The opportunity kept screaming at me, kept demanding I give it time. I pushed it back. Not yet, not yet... "Who do you hit now? Not your husband: you couldn't have gotten that lucky, not even for you. I'm guessing the maid. Right?" One step forward. Keep it casual... "Obviously no one's hitting you in your lower bullseye," she shot back. "No one would ever hit that, although God knows I did my best to fix the problem." Oh, yes. She'd done everything she could for me in that department, and then some. "Can't afford a boyfriend -- I'm not the least bit surprised they included that on the show. Now you've got an entire network trying to fix you up. What's your next series? Poor little Alex, our new Bachelorette. At least, she was going to be until we realized we'd never find twenty-five men who could lie about wanting her!" I hadn't been all that happy to have the scene included. I hadn't been all that surprised, either. What I had found interesting was that they'd chosen to show me from the shoulders up during the actual changing: no blur involved, no blur needed. Compared to Mary-Jane's full frontal distortion... "You're watching?" A little surprised. She'd already filed reality shows into the freaks & geeks category: surely there was no way she'd stoop that low, even in the privacy of her own home when she was sure no one was spying through the curtains. "You're on it," she replied, honesty mixed with anger. "I just happened to be watching the right channel when they ran the preview, and I knew you immediately, of course. Same face, same cheap clothing, almost the same figure but I guess puberty wasn't quite done with you yet at the end of senior year, and -- wearing makeup for the first time in your life. With a nice hairstyle, too! That must have made the whole thing worth it, no matter what happened afterwards. To have blush on like a normal human being! And you even got it broadcast to prove it had actually happened!" I didn't wear makeup because it cost money that was better put towards other things. My hair had been cut in the orphanage most of the time and I'd done it myself ever since I'd left. On the day of the publicity shots, I'd been herded into a chair and worked on for forty minutes, most of that spent in giving my tresses the just-above-the-shoulders cut I'd started the show with. The rest had been spent in color touchups, mascara, lipstick, and all the other little touches that made for a so-called glamour shot. The person working on me had said she wanted to go with a casual look, the sort of makeup that made it look like you weren't wearing any. I'd still been able to see the difference, and I'd knew I'd never be able to capture it myself. Another step. "And you decided to keep tabs on me? I'm touched." And another. "Well, of course I wanted to see if you could get a million dollars," she sniffed. She hadn't noticed my movement. It had always been beneath Cyndi's notice, unless I'd been running away. "Obviously not..." A nod to the carts and the still-unrecovered change. "I'm thinking you go out next episode, right?" "Tune in." I still didn't want to risk another step just yet. "You'll see what happens." Very neutral. "Are you enjoying the show?" "More than I thought I would," Cyndi admitted. "That Connie -- what a character! Do you know her background at all?" Yes. "Quite the family! And of course, she and I have so much in common..." "I can believe that." Queen high bitches of their local universes. They wouldn't get along. Only room for one queen in a hive. Step, pull my left hand back into the long sleeve. She didn't notice. Grip it from the interior. "Anything else you've seen?" "Besides the wonderful humor of finally seeing you in a swimsuit?" And that coming from someone who'd seen me nude. "The parrot." And now her eyes were ablaze -- but it wasn't hatred, not entirely now, and it wasn't disdain, or prejudice, or her normal underlying fear that she prayed no one would see if she prayed for nothing else... "What happened with the parrot, Alex? Why did they end the episode right there? Obviously it didn't try to peck your eyes out... How long had it been there? Who did it belong to? Why did it scream what it screamed? Did you ever find out?" And this was in the 'we're best buddies forever' tone she'd always used when she'd been trying to fix me up, always somehow convincing herself that I would have forgotten everything that had come before -- and that was everything. "Come on -- you can tell me! Just between us girls, just for old school friends. Before you left, did you find out if he'd killed anyone or not? I've got to know!" Stephen King called it 'the gotta': the need to go on in a story. You could hate the characters, despise the plot -- but you had to know how it wrapped up. Cyndi, who never read anything because only nerds did that, who didn't watch much television that wasn't celebrity coverage because it was the common people who kept those shows afloat -- Cyndi had the gotta for the first time in her life. Had it bad. It kept my strip going, it kept my site up, it kept me alive. Tell the story a day at a time, make them come back for what happens next. Burnett used increments of a week and worked to a scale I could only dream of, but he knew how to find it, too. Cyndi's eyes had the light of a new addict discovering her first drug. Soap operas were next. "Just between you and me?" She nodded eagerly. The fact that I'd been insulting her as surely as she'd been insulting me had either been put on hold or forgotten entirely: this was more important. Another step. "Sure." Her entire face took on that inner illumination. Cyndi had always been beautiful when she smiled, and worse, had known both that and how to fake it... "What happened next was that you let me get too close." Wham. Right in the stomach, stepped back just in time to avoid having her head hit me when she doubled over. She gasped, choked, tried to get air back. I had every opportunity to swing again. I didn't. Watching was sweeter. And -- "You're alone, Cyndi." Almost a whisper. "No one shops this early on a Friday morning, and you didn't know that because you never shop for yourself. There's no cameras in these lots because no one ever gets mugged on this side of the hill: they don't need them. You don't have a single witness. And you don't have any backup." Slowly, "I remember how you used to fight me. You'd have four friends pin me down, one to each limb, and then you'd just work me over until you got bored. You never had to face me alone and you never had to deal with the consequences, because you were always somewhere else at the time: just ask anyone." I knelt down to speak to her panting face. "You are right here, right now, and no one is going to help you. I can do whatever I want to you and guess what? I was somewhere else at the time." Toneless, "Let me know when you're ready to continue. I've got time. I've got years of time to make up. Oh, and just curious -- did your puberty ever start?" Two steps back, and I waited. She slowly straightened up, stared at me, pupils round with fright. I put my left hand out, palm up, curled my fingers in twice: come here. Cyndi blinked once -- and bolted for her car. I didn't follow. I just watched her get into the silver sports roadster, forgetting to turn off the alarm first -- it was apparently one of those ones that didn't shut off just because a key was used -- and go flying out of the parking lot at overspeed, the wail that announced her car was in the middle of being stolen by the owner accompanying her all the way through the light she ran. Her admission fee for the conversation: a dollar and eighty-five cents. Not a penny in the mix. A very good day. And I think that brings her total donations lifetime to somewhere around the hundred dollar mark. Three hundred if I counted what she'd managed to recover with the assistance of a four-girl pin and a bony elbow that substituted very nicely for a right hook. I gathered the coins, then looked around. Still no other shoppers. Still no cart wrangler. He'd probably called in sick, and since the cart wranglers tended to be college students, that was also known as 'drunk'. I went back to rounding them up. Of course, that little scene had probably insured I'd never see a penny from Cyndi again. At least she'd gone out on a high note. More than a dollar. She can't report it because she doesn't know how: she's always been the one denying anything reported on her, and her parents always backed her up: such a good girl, with so many friends. She can't sue because she has no witnesses and I didn't leave any marks, not even skin cells from the impact because my sleeve was over my hand. She can't complain all over the Internet because she needs someone to turn on the computer for her... Second-guessing. Maybe I should have feinted, made her think I was about to hit her. It could go wrong in so many horrible ways if she just posted enough unconfirmed rumors, and she'd done that to me for her entire teenage life, all word of mouth, but -- -- I'd never gotten one in where she was alone before. Where she couldn't respond because there was no one around to make reprisal safe for her. Only the last victory is even partially free... I wondered if that had been the last one. I was her road not taken, and she had always hated me for that. Always would. Cyndi had never grown up, wasn't capable of it. All the world was high school, everyone around her part of different cliques. The future the same as the past, forever and ever, amen. "And have you learned anything from your time here?" Shut up, Jeff. "It's a fair question, Alex." The last four carts. She used to beat me up on a regular basis, Jeff. Her friends helped, but she enjoyed it the most. She was -- afraid of me. Because I was everything she'd missed, everything she'd been too lucky to wind up with, and luck is temporary. I was arguing with myself, I knew I was doing it... She threw money at me and then tried to get it back. I kept picking it up because I needed it so badly and if I lost it two times out of three, the one time I kept it at least helped a little. And that was the least of what she did. I remember every last bit of it, and that means that you know it too, because you're just a voice I use so I can question myself. I hate questioning myself. I wish you'd just get out of my head already. "So if I'm you -- why haven't you gotten rid of me?" Into the corral. Click into the short chain, and retrieve the last quarter. Final total for the outbound part of the trip: twelve dollars and forty-four cents. My best day of the year that didn't involve a forgotten bill. I was learning to love self-serve checkouts: so many people in a hurry... Because the game isn't over. Because you don't leave until the very end. We leave, one by one -- but you stay, and wait for the next group, and keep it all in your head somehow, everyone who's been in front of you. Because until the very last act plays out, you're stuck with us, and we're stuck with you. No, Cyndi wouldn't report it, wouldn't sue, wouldn't post her story for all the world to see. Cyndi would retreat back into her little world and pretend nothing had happened. It was what she'd done every time I'd gotten a little victory. Her next actions had never been revenge, because she never remembered that anything had happened to take revenge for. In fact, given the way her mind worked, always driving her to seek out anyone who could help her in any way -- -- if she decided I'd won, I would have been her new best friend. Reality star! Possible access to the lowest level of Hollywood, just under the pond scum! Sit at the absolute back during the Emmies! No commercials! No television or movie roles! But I could get into some really lousy parties as long as they couldn't lure in anyone better! I sighed. Jeff? "You know her. I think you're safe from that quarter. Your enemies are more distant -- and closer." Yeah. I didn't need a cart for myself. A hand basket would do. I'm not afraid of Cyndi because I know everything she's capable of. We've gone beyond the point where she can do anything that works any more. She would have been an early boot, pre-jury. Hang on just long enough for everyone to realize she's fundamentally worthless, and gone. "That's what you thought about Connie." I had four years of experience with Cyndi. I didn't know Connie. Through the doors. But -- you're right. The real world isn't the game. Personalities play out differently. I didn't know Connie. But I learned... ------------------------------------------------------------ Before ------------------------------------------------------------ {Welcome to Week #4, where the first thing we really, really have to do is wrap up Week #3.} {I know what you mean. We'd better open with Turare. The teasers have been so challenge-centric it's ridiculous. And did you see that last one? 'Do you want to see what's happening on Yanini?' Lots of challenge footage, from the same frigging challenge every time. 'Well, we're not going to tell you. You'll just have to tune in yourself.' Good lord. Burnett knows he's got us by the short hairs, and he's playing it -- and us -- for all he's worth.} {What are the spoiler sites saying?} {Same thing as last week, so take it with a salt mine. Consensus is that Turare keeps the Reward streak going, Haraiki wins the unseen Immunity because right now Alex is his main character and he doesn't want to show that she's going home. Since Haraiki wins, Alex goes home. Q.E.D.} {I want Cole out. I feel that Cole will go out. I'm just not sure it's this week. You seem to think the majority of people want her to stay. I think your precious Burnett is trying to disappoint those of us who want her to go.} {For someone who's pretty new to the series, you seem to be catching on to the general style of things really fast... And by the way, fourteen of them will go out. That's why 'when' is always the primary question.} {Thomas made it clear: as soon as they lose, she's out. Therefore, if she doesn't go out, they can't lose. How's that for a 'spoiler'?} {Err... 'Thomas'?} {'Gardener'. He has a Christian name, even if he doesn't want to use it to avoid confusion with previous contestants.} {It's not a bad theory, even when I consider the source. But there's always the hidden idol -- they could lose, and Alex might find it and bounce the vote. If she does that, and she's the minority voter, then whoever goes is whoever she wants to go. If she's thinking future contests, she'll probably get rid of Desmond. If it's personal rivalry, Gardener.} {Which means it's Desmond, because she's not going to get rid of her secret alliance partner.} {You're still going with that?} {Have you seen them talking to each other? They openly dislike each other -- at least, Gardener really still doesn't like Alex: she's hard to read there most of the time -- but he defends her, protects her, protests for her... you know he's trying to keep her around. Stop denying it.} {Oh, I'm not going to deny a thing. It'll make your reaction that much sweeter when your theory goes wrong in the end.} {Recrap! Wet clothing! Suffering! Misery! Blurred nudity, most of it belonging to Mary-Jane! We're going on tour, we're going to a challenge, we're going to have inter-gender match-ups -- not so fast. Elmore actually wins something that doesn't involve cryptic crosswords, but the rest of Haraiki takes a swim and one little quitter takes a dive. Haraiki needs a new shelter, Haraiki tries to move their old shelter instead, and now Haraiki has to stay up all night building a new shelter because their old one kind of stopped existing. It's hard to complete a challenge on no sleep, so let's have the Shortest Immunity Segment Ever, which sends Haraiki to TC and Elmore goes home at last, two episodes too late, sorry, Michelle! Normally we'd finish up right there, but this is Flush The Format week on the wild & wacky CBS evening show, so Frank comes tearing out of the bushes and look! Cameramen! This means Alex goes for a walk in the woods, we get what a third of the site thinks is the Death card and the other two-thirds think is editing shoving the possibility in our faces, we meet an island native, five years get taken off all of our lives, and guess what? Opening credits! -- oh, look at this...} {Heh. Think that's a one-time only?} {We'll see. But I dare the editing thread to analyze it. Good luck...} ---------------------------------------------------------------   Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Subject     Author     Message Date     ID    Episode #4: What If He Doesn't<... Estee 07-28-06 1    RE: Episode #4: What If He Does... Belle Book 01-06-09 8  What If He Doesn't Come Back... Estee 07-30-06 2  What If He Doesn't Come Back... Estee 07-31-06 3    RE: What If He Doesn't Come ... Belle Book 01-06-09 9  After, During? Impressions from som... michel 08-01-06 4    RE: After, During? Impressions from... cahaya 08-01-06 5    RE: After, During? Impressions from... Belle Book 02-04-10 10  RE: Survivor: The Society Islands:... vince3 08-02-06 6    RE: Survivor: The Society Islands:... cahaya 08-03-06 7

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Messages in this topic

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 07-28-06, 07:56 PM (EST) 1. "Episode #4: What If He Doesn't Come Back?: Part II" LAST EDITED ON 08-02-06 AT 03:04 PM (EST) During --------------------------------------------------------------- "I've got good news and bad news." Work instantly stops on the storage shack as the men -- including Gary, who apparently found the extra wood -- turn to face the Tree Mail path. (I'd found the entrance the camera operator had used: why go through the bushes twice?) Mary-Jane pokes her head out of the shelter, as does Frank: I can see some streaks of hydrogen peroxide painted onto his scratches and a look of deep shock on his face. None of them are saying a word. They're all just staring -- especially Desmond, who's looking at me as if he's never seen anything similar in his life. Desmond does not deal well with the unexpected. I'm really starting to wonder about his divorce. "The good news is --" keeping it completely neutral, it took long enough to get my heartbeat down and I'd rather not have any of the lingering shock out in the open "-- we're up by another tribe member. The bad news is I don't think she's going to be all that good at most of the challenges, and you're going to have a really hard time getting her to write on the parchment." Gary, who may or may not have been updated, manages a blink. "Alex -- what is that?" What is it about people that they feel the need to ask questions about things they're currently looking at and can figure out for themselves without help? "It's a parrot." Azure tilts her head slightly to the side and regards Gary as if she's considering just which of them is the more sentient being. He's currently trailing by about two laps. "You can tell by the shape of the head and beak." Gardener very slowly stands up from where he was working on what's probably going to be the shack's floor. "We can see it's a parrot. The real question is, what the hell is it doing on your arm?" Being heavy. Azure has not moved since she took the perch. I really want her on my shoulder. Or, for preference, down. "This is Frank's ghost. Say hello, Azure." And hope she does. I'm starting to think parrots are like computers. You can program certain keys to trigger given responses, but anything that isn't exactly the right key, even if it's close, will do either absolutely nothing or exactly what you didn't want it to. Fortunately, this one's the equivalent of a menu drop. "Hello! Hello!" Azure spreads her wings for a second, but doesn't go anywhere: she just switches focus from Gary to Gardener as he eases towards me, moving very, very slowly. I think he's trying not to startle her. "Okay..." Gardener says just as slowly, Mary-Jane and Frank completely emerging from the shelter as he does so. "Doesn't exactly answer my question..." I roll my eyes: he can't figure this out? This seems to amuse Azure, who tries to duplicate the feat while not being properly equipped for it. The result is remotely describable, but really hard to watch. "I found her in a clearing near where Frank heard her voice. Once I got close to her, she came the rest of the way on her own. I think she must have belonged to the billionaire or someone on his staff -- the crew says she doesn't belong to any of them, and someone had to teach her how to talk, and..." How can I put this? "There's at least one thing she says that kind of -- points to who might have trained her." Trooper's starting his approach, and Mary-Jane is moving with more speed, having convinced herself that if the bird didn't flee from me, it's not going to be bothered by her. Desmond is still hanging back, as is Frank: this may not be a ghost, but he's not taking any chances on it being possessed. Gardener's still trying to work out the details. "So you two had a nice conversation on the way back? Most talking you've done with anyone since you got here... What does she say that makes you think she was part of the mansion?" I don't want to hear it again. Having to hear it again is slightly eased by getting to put everyone else through it too. "Azure?" She knows what a questioning sound is: her focus immediately goes to me. "Beg." And the words ring out across our camp. Mary-Jane, almost close enough to stroke feathers, recoils. Frank almost falls back into the shelter. Desmond does go backwards, a single hard step that comes down on a stray branch: he slips and sits down hard. Trooper's eyes narrow. Gary takes one sharp breath. Gardener, much to my consolation, starts hard: straight back about six inches and up roughly a foot. "What the hell?" He recovers quickly, though. "What were you two talking about to bring that out?" "My next words were going to be 'for food'," I tell him. "I was thinking about her hanging around and going after our supplies. Don't ask me what parrots eat." Although Azure's clearly been doing well enough for herself without human intervention. "As soon as I hit that one -- you heard it." Desmond takes a slow, shuddering breath. Trooper's looking at Azure as if her feathers have Exhibit A woven into the pattern. Gary's much the same, but a little more doubtful. "Spooky, but... it doesn't mean much, Alex. I agree: she's probably been here for years. But I can think of a couple of reasons to teach a parrot to say that." Azure and I are both looking at him, and with the exact same lack of eyelid movement. "First, because it's sort of funny. You teach her to say a lot, you want something that'll scare people, so you work up a keyword and phrase -- I can see it now: 'I'm sick of all this chatter' -- that word -- 'for your life!' Or a much funnier phrase to that effect. And then she goes off." That brings Frank out of the shelter, slow and unsure. Mary-Jane doesn't want to go back to petting just yet. "It's a horrible thing to teach a bird... she sounded so desperate." "They're good mimics once you get past the distortion," Gary says. "Yeah, not exactly an icebreaker at my kind of party, but you can see where it would be sort of funny." "Dude -- what's the other option?" Frank, as pale as the ghost he thought he'd heard. Gary shakes his head. "That she was also taught to say it because the teacher thought it was funny..." He doesn't have to finish. We're all imagining it for ourselves, and it's worse than anything he could have said. "But there's no way to tell -- and since we can't find out, especially not from her, she's not a witness to be quizzed. She's just an orphan looking for a home." He sighs. "She must have been asleep or high in the trees any time anyone from production went by her, if they even got close -- I doubt they covered every last inch of the island. Frank, you were probably the first human she'd heard in years -- were you saying anything?" "Singing," Frank cautiously admits. "Just a little jungle tune, you know?" Trooper nods. "I can see that. She heard you, she was desperate for any kind of human contact -- obviously she hasn't reverted to wild --" nods at Azure's calm, solid, and increasingly weighty perch on my arm "-- and did her best equivalent of a yell for help. You freaked, you left -- but then Alex came around, and..." Gestures to Azure. "...it doesn't look like she's going anywhere." Which strikes me as being morbidly amusing. "Well, I am. She'd better find somewhere else to stand." Mary-Jane, still somewhat timid. "Isn't that -- uncomfortable?" I sigh. "She's not squeezing, but she's not light. Do parrots always sit like this?" "No." This from Gardener. "I've seen a couple of people walking around Ann Arbor with pet ones." He pats his right shoulder. "She's resting like a falcon. All she needs is the hood. How do you know it's a she, anyway?" "'Azure is a pretty girl,'" I quote. "Trust her to know her own gender. I just wish she'd either go to my shoulder or --" -- get down was going to be the end of that, but again, Azure doesn't give me the chance. She releases my forearm, flaps her wings -- and before any of us can react, settles down again on my left shoulder. Her feathers are warm against my hair. Trooper whistles. "Damn -- I know police dogs who aren't that well trained..." He stares into Azure's eyes. Azure stares right back. "What did production say about this?" "That she wasn't theirs." We'd had a very short, awkward conversation after things settled down. "And no birds are being rounded up until after we leave, they don't know how to, and let's face it: if she wants to go, she'll go and none of us will ever catch her. Right now, Azure can pretty much go wherever she wants to." Apparently that's 'along for the ride'. "We can't make her stay and we can't make her leave, so..." Gardener groans. "Great. Another mouth to feed. Although if she's been out here that long, maybe she should be showing us where the food is... Fine: if she stays, she stays. It's not like there's much I can do about it. Can't chase her, can't scare her, sure as hell can't eat her after Jeff's warning... But you're responsible for her, Alex. She makes a mess, you clean it up. She ruins the food, it's your fault." I shrug the shoulder Azure isn't occupying. "I get voted out, she's your problem." Another one of those half-grins. "Good point. Here's hoping Jeff lets me put two names on the parchment." I look over to Desmond, who has shown no signs of wanting to join in on this conversation, or even of wanting to be on this island right now. "Desmond -- after the shack is done, do you think you could make her a perch?" Which brings him right back to his element: within heartbeats, he's surveying materials. "Shouldn't even have to wait that long -- it's simple. Need a base, a pole, a crossbar..." And approaching. "Any way I can measure her claws?" I think they're called 'talons'. Or maybe just 'feet'. "Probably not -- just take your best guess." Desmond looks insulted. You do not ask a honest foreman to guess. "Or I could try to transfer her to your shoulder and you could work from feel." Best guess it is: Desmond retreats to the materials. The others return to work as well -- except for Frank and Mary-Jane, who hadn't been doing any thanks to injury and gender, respectively. Frank still looks tentative. "You're sure that was her?" "Positive." What's his problem? Mystery solved, and even if it opened up another one, there's not much we can do about the fresh case right now. Or possibly ever. "I heard the same words, coming from her. I don't know how to get her to say them again, but..." He shudders. "No, that's fine. Once was enough. Mary-Jane, you coming?" He's heading back towards the shelter. "In a second," Mary-Jane replies. She's looking at Azure again as Frank moves out of hearing range. "I wish you could see this from the outside, Alex. Girl With Parrot. It's a great picture." Girl with bird poop down her back, more likely: Azure's got to use the bathroom sometime. "I guess... I'll see it in a few months." She hesitates. "What do you think that was? The -- word response?" "A sick joke." Immediate. "Rich man's sense of humor. Probably trained her to say it any time he was thinking about firing someone." Mary-Jane looks a little sick. "I guess -- I know some casting couch types who'd think it was the funniest thing since Russian Roulette using six bullets." She glances at the beach path. "I think I'm going to sit in the sun for a while. Want to join me?" No. We have nothing (theoretical) alliance-related to talk about that could possibly do any good anyway, and I have a more pressing problem. "Pass. I have to see a man about a perch." Or not, because one of the camera operators is signaling me, pointing at the water path... "Or a woman about a confessional." --------------------------------------------------------------- After --------------------------------------------------------------- (From the CBS website, Survivor Gold section: Alex's sixth confessional, unedited for premium subscribers.) {ALEX enters cautiously, with AZURE looking around with evident fascination. She sits down against her tree very slowly, apparently trying not to let AZURE's feathers touch the bark. It's a little awkward, and she nearly slips twice. ALEX finally comes to a stop leaning forward at a slight angle, away from the trunk. She looks very uncomfortable.} "I don't think this is working very well..." {Off-camera voice prompt, female. 'You could just sit normally.'} "I don't want to catch her tail." {frustrated} "She must have been flying and walking on her own for years, but as soon as she finds a human sucker, free ride. This is ridiculous. What can I do to make her --" {stops} "Oh, for..." {looks directly at AZURE} "Azure -- down." {AZURE flaps down from ALEX's shoulder and starts wandering around the groove. ALEX leans back against the tree and sighs.} "When in doubt, try the obvious." {'She's very well-trained. Do you really think the billionaire owned her?'} "Him or someone on his staff. I don't know much about parrots -- I barely know anything about parrots -- but I don't think they're really migrators. That's a guess and I'm probably just telling myself I've heard it somewhere, but -- it makes sense for her to be the last of the locals. She's been waiting here for someone to come along, and now that someone has --" {looks at AZURE, still walking nearby} "She doesn't want to give them up." {'And the reaction to -- that word?'} {face neutral, voice very vaguely amused} "You don't want to hear it again either? I don't blame you... I go with what Gary said. It's a lousy sense of humor. You know the saying: the poor are crazy, the rich are eccentric? A billion dollars, and I guess you can afford to be as eccentric as you like." {looks over to AZURE again} "You can't blame her for what she's been taught to say." {more softly} "Or why. You can only blame the teacher. Teachers suck..." {'What if it turns out that what she said is connected to the rumors?'} "Can't quiz a parrot." {spreads her hands} "Can't make her swear on a Bible. Can't make her testify to what she doesn't understand... She's not human. She might remember anything -- unusual she saw, but she can't form judgments on it and she can't report back." {AZURE glances at ALEX, then flaps over and stands at her side for a few seconds before flying back to where she'd started from. ALEX watches her.} "She's just a bird. She has the experience without having it affect her..." {just barely audible} "Maybe she's lucky." {'How are you going to take care of her?'} "I can't." {very plainly} "She's been taking care of herself for years. I don't know the first thing about parrot care. It doesn't look like any of us do. All we can do is let her live with us for a while, and then when we go, someone will catch her and take her to a zoo or something -- she'll be around people all the time then, even if it's in a cage. If that's what she wants..." {sighs} "But it's not like we can ask her. I don't even know if she can want something." {'She wanted to be found.'} "Good point." {used in episode} "She's part of the tribe now, and to that extent, we'll have to protect her, the same we would anyone else." {shrugs} "At least she's safe from the vote." {end episode-used exert} "I'll have to try and find words and commands she knows... especially for staying behind. It'll be kind of awkward if she follows us to challenges. I don't think I can do most of them with a parrot on my shoulder." {'I don't think the rulebook was written for that.'} "Yeah." {stares at the sky} "I don't think the rulebook was written for this island, period." --------------------------------------------------------------- During --------------------------------------------------------------- {Yeah, that was cute. Right in the middle of Turare's cast shots, a picture of Azure with name credit. At least Alex isn't the only non-smiler in the group any more. Although Azure still looks happier than she does.} {So just a giant fakeout, and Burnett laughs while the ratings stream in...} {Maybe. We're shown everything for a reason, remember?} {Yeah. And this time, the reason was called 'ratings-boosting fakeout.'} {And finally -- Day Ten! Over at Haraiki, where the only brightly-colored bird talking up a storm has a Bronx accent, Robin's happy with their new shelter, happy to have Elmore gone, happy with Connie having received a vote, happy, happy, happy! In confessional, she hopes Connie got the message, and she's looking forward to making the merge so she'll have a few more votes to align against Connie when the time comes. If Connie even gets that far. Either Robin's looking to flip or she just signed her own pre-jury death warrant.} {Connie's loud today -- Haraiki is putting some touch-up finishes on Shelter 2.0, and she doesn't see the need. It worked fine last night, didn't it? And they don't need to exhaust themselves before a challenge again -- right, Angela? They're openly ignoring her, but you can see some doubt in the close-up shots. Angela did not win any friends with that push and subsequent Immunity loss, and even if Connie did her nagging part during it, Angela's clearly got most of the blame. She wants to lead, and Tony follows her -- but who else does?} {And that rarest of things, a confessional from Tony. I think Burnett knows it's a good idea if we don't see him talk all that often. Eye candy, sure. Ear candy -- problem. Earwax, definitely. "It's good to know I've found a girl out here, and maybe she'll even be my girl once we get back, and she's really pretty and even sort of smart, but I still have the upper hand in the relationship, and wouldn't it be something if we became the second couple to get engaged at the Reunion?" My God. He wants to be Romber. How sick is this?} {He's a minor-league baseball player in his late twenties who gave up part of the season to come out here. He has virtually no chance to make the majors at this point in his so-called career. DAWing is all he's got left.} {In case you were wondering: yes, the rice is ruined. Haraiki really hasn't been able to put together fishing equipment, and they're really hungry for protein, which means -- guess what? It's insect time! Haraiki's found some of the same slugs Turare cleared out on Day One, and they're roasting them. Everyone's enjoying a breakfast of apples and lightly baked slime. Put slug in mouth, put apple in mouth right after, chew quickly, squeeze eyes shut, swallow. They have fruit and they've stooped low enough to get some kind of meat back, but starches? Not unless Jeff comes around with another trade proposition. Denadi is now on a quest for root vegetables, hoping there's potatoes or some other kind of underground starch around here. A rice paddy is way too much to hope for. So's a potato, because her spending the whole morning grubbing in the dirt produces nothing except a few grubs, which she doesn't even save so they can eat them later. We know she's not a vegan, right?} {She ate the slugs with the others, but it depends on the degree. Some veggies will eat non-mammals -- it depends on how intelligent they think the creature was. Some just won't eat anything with a brain.} {Either way, Tony's at risk.} {Tree Mail! 'A choice you'll have of luxuries, a decision among treats. But first face down your darkest dreads, and force some eating feats.' Even Tony can figure this challenge out: gross food time! I wonder what we're going to see? This island offers a lot of fruit, but we haven't seen many gross insects -- just slugs and grubs. Maybe they'll do some imports.} {Haraiki girds their loins, Phillip tries to cheer them up by saying "At least it's something that's not fruit," and they're off.} {Choice of luxuries... 'We're not going to take anything away from you just yet, so Haraiki, you can have something you'd have to be insane to take, or you can have some more rice.' They have to try and keep this tribe alive until the merge, or at least a few barely-surviving members of it. Too bad Turare gave them the tarps -- they might all be pulling Denadis after one more storm.} {Or Denadi might Osten once she sees the food -- that's it. We need to pick a verb and stay with it.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- The rest of Day Nine is interesting. Azure wanders in and out of camp, presumably going off to get food whenever she gets hungry -- or, during one memorable moment, getting down from my shoulder before using the bathroom -- but she always comes back. We find out that if I call her, she will come: the command Trooper eventually works out is "Azure, here," which should have been obvious from the start. She'll also fly onto my arm any time I hold it out with my forearm shading my eyes, and although she'll get down on command, she will not stop moving to me if I make that gesture. (Sunglasses are quickly becoming a necessity, if only to prevent unexpected claws.) But she'll only come to me. No one else. She'll take food from the others, she'll watch them from her new perch, and she flees from no one -- but I'm the only one she actively follows or rides on. Trooper calls it 'imprinting.' "She was desperate for a master, Alex. As soon as anyone turned up who'd respond to her at all, that person was going to assume the role in her mind. To her, you're the billionaire and we're the servants." He grins. "Someone had better tell her we're working on a lower scale." With me at the absolute bottom of it. Gardener complains over dinner -- "Maybe our next project should be a muzzle, so she doesn't keep us awake." -- but when we go to bed, Azure simply gets onto her perch and goes to sleep without a word. I wake up a few times and lools out to see her either asleep, head tucked under a wing, or gone -- but always back within minutes -- or walking around the camp, investigating. The camera hut fascinates her. She keeps wandering over to get a look, and the camera operators respond by giving her a lot of nighttime shots. This can't be making them happy: one more body to track, and this one's a lot more active at night. I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping. I keep having dreams. People begging. Sometimes the person demanding them to beg has a gun. Most of the time, the person about to be shot is me, only I won't beg, I refuse to because I'm only going to die anyway whether I give him the satisfaction or not, and they always pull the trigger anyway, sometimes the gunman is Desmond, sometimes it's Gardener, sometimes it's Jeff and his weapon puts out the flame from my torch, and I die with it... Frank must be having some trouble, too: he seems sound asleep every time I look at him, but he's out of the shelter before sunrise. Mary-Jane whimpers in her sleep a lot, tosses and turns, nearly goes off her pallet, does throw her blanket off. I get up long enough to cover her again and go back to my makeshift bed for what little sleep I can find. Day Ten at last, and Azure rides with me to fetch fruit. She's been very quiet, at least for human speech. There's been some parrot noises which I can't work out, but that's it. I sort of speak cat, at least in that I've seen enough of the wild ones to know which sounds mean annoyed and which ones are just bumming for a handout, but I don't have any idea how to translate bird. She seems happy enough just to be with people again, and I wonder who she'll transfer to after I leave. Two days until that happens if we lose, Who Knows? if we win. It'll take three straight Immunity victories to bring me to the merge -- assuming we come together at ten -- and even if that happens, I still might get dumped immediately: six to three is still a majority, so get rid of the one you want least... It's not an unfamiliar position. It just usually doesn't cost me theoretical income. Still -- twelfth place. Ten thousand dollars. Money in the bank. Emergency fund, ready to go. I'd promised myself that if I reached twelfth place, I'd invest a few hundred dollars in a refrigerator: something large enough to hold a week or more worth of meals in one go. I could carry more than what my current unit can hold, and usually did when I hauled liquids up the hill. It would be nice, not having to shop as often. One little luxury, and then the rest held in reserve against bad months, bad years, illness, unexpected disasters. An actual cushion to fall back on. People like me don't make ten thousand dollars in twelve days. The most I've ever had in my hands at once, just before paying first, last, and one month's deposit worth of rent on my apartment, was two thousand dollars -- and that had been the work of years and years. Ten thousand dollars -- I know how much that is. I know what it can buy. I even know that adding it to my low income means I'll still get to keep all of it after taxes: even that amount doesn't put me over the line. I just have a hard time seeing myself in possession of it. Twelfth place. No, that wasn't bad at all. But still -- I wish I could go further. I don't want to leave just yet. I want to outlast Connie. I would love to put a little dent in Desmond's boys' club. But it isn't under my control. It's all about the numbers, and I don't have them. Without allies -- allies who held actual power -- I could wish as much as I wanted to, and it would get me to the same place every time: Sequesterville. But if I somehow got to ninth place, I'd promised myself a single trip to the San Diego ComicCon... I glance at Azure, currently riding along on my left shoulder. "Too bad you don't get a vote." Azure looks right back at me. "Damn Liberals!" Maybe that means Gardener will take her. I head back for camp, sampling the starfruit on the way. It's very unusual, but sort of good. Other people are on various morning duties, fetching wood and bringing in water. We make it early and quick: there's no telling when the challenge call will come. At least, most of us do. We wind up waiting on Frank for what I think is about fifteen minutes before his camera operator finally hauls him back, grinning sheepishly and looking completely recovered from his fright, plus twenty percent: he's clearly raring to go. Gardener fetches and reads the Tree Mail in what he probably thinks is his best Shakespearean voice. It comes out as a stump campaign speech from a very drunk dogcatcher wanna-be. Not that anything really could have helped. We all know exactly what we're doing: we just don't know what we're doing it for. "A choice of luxuries," Gary ponders. "Choice as a tribe -- individual choices... that would be a weird one, letting us make personal selections at the tribal stage." "Soap," Mary-Jane says, very firmly. "I want soap. And shampoo. I can live without makeup. I can live without pedicures. I want to scrub my scent into oblivion." Maybe that's how she's staying so clear of the bug bites: obsessive removal of summoning pheromones. Not that she has much of a scent, period. Frank has the worst hygiene, which occasionally turns his camera-destined semi-affair into a small joke: we can see Mary-Jane holding her breath, he can't. Mary-Jane and I have the best. In the bug bite competition, it's Desmond by a mile, Mary-Jane in last, and me right next to her, thanks to my cautious long-sleeve program. Trooper doesn't seem to feel his. Gary would trade the tarps for a gallon of anti-itch cream. Gardener's bemused again. "Sports page." We all look at him. "I've been out here for ten days and I have absolutely no idea what the Tigers are doing. Or what the Lions aren't doing. Pistons and Red Wings in the playoffs, and oh yeah, I work for the Wolverines. Hell, offer me five minutes with ESPN and I'll eat Azure's perch." Gary laughs. "Repellent," he says, and doesn't have to say anything else. "How about you, Alex?" I think about it for a moment. "Towels," I say. "I'm tired of generating extra laundry just to dry off, and we can't use the blankets." Mary-Jane laughs. "Just sun out." Not likely. "They could also be useful if we get another storm." I glance at Desmond, curious as to what he'd take. Of course, the rest of us have seen the store when it's open. Desmond's still looking at the security gate. "I dunno... what else is there?" Trooper shrugs. "It depends on what they're offering. Could be spices for the food, could be good food -- one meal's worth -- could be wine or beer..." "Beer," Frank cuts in. "Definitely beer." His eyes light up at the mere thought. "Come on -- you know they want us drunk eventually, just to get the good shots. We practically owe it to them." Gardener snorts. "You, maybe. My body may not be a completely sanctified temple, but I still know better than to leave the novices in charge." The production staff cuts the discussion off with a signal: time to go. Desmond gets the challenge flag, and then we head to the beach path. It takes about six steps for things to start going wrong. "Alex! Tell your parrot to get off!" I look up. Desmond's at the front with the flag, and Azure is sitting on top of the upper crosspiece, having snuck up from overhead. She's staring backwards and looks perfectly content with the view. I sigh. "Azure, down." She tilts her head towards me, but does nothing else. Maybe that only works if she's on my arm. I hold it out. "Azure, here." She obediently flies over and takes her seat. "Azure, down." Back to the ground. "Stay." Not as if the next part is probably going to do much good, but: "We'll be back in a couple of hours, tops." Another head tilt and a double blink. "Stay..." I try moving away again. Four steps later, the weight hits my shoulder. "Azure, down!" She goes back to the ground. Three steps... "She's not listening to me!" Of course she isn't. No one else in the tribe does: why should she be the first? Gardener groans. "If you can't dump her before we reach the challenge..." Trooper looks confused. "She stayed behind a couple of other times when you told her to." True. I'd told her to stay and gotten her up to the perch before heading off to find a makeshift toilet, and she'd remained in camp without complaint. "Why is she so insistent on coming now?" Since when did I become the parrot expert? "I don't know... maybe she just likes crowds." Another sigh. "Come on, Azure... down!" I don't even get two steps this time. "We do get to sit someone out, parrot, and it's going to be you..." Mary-Jane looks like she's about to have a case of the giggles again. "Congratulations, Alex -- you're the first one of us to score a groupie!" Right: instant unwanted lesbian relationship, unreciprocated. I turn to the production crew for help. "Can someone take her?" And that was a mistake: they all move away immediately. "Fine -- maybe someone on the challenge staff can do something..." I look at the others. "There's nothing I can do, guys. It's not like I can put a rope on her foot. If she wants to follow, she'll follow." Gardener looks vaguely ill. "Yeah, maybe the challenge staff can do something... I'm really starting to wish I could eat this bird..." He returns to walking. "Clarence, you had no idea how easy you had it..." Azure stays on my shoulder most of the way to Challenge Beach, looking around with obvious interest at places she's probably seen a thousand times. Twice, she takes off and circles above us for about a minute -- but she returns back to my shoulder each time, and sticks with me for the last third of the trip. We don't have to wait very long before entering: the challenge is set, and Jeff has almost been holding on us. "Come on in, Turare!" We enter. It doesn't take him very long to spot my problem. Of course, he's probably known about it for nearly a day, but he's doing a really good job of pretending this is the first sign of it he's seen. "Oh, I can't wait to hear this..." He's grinning. Never trust a grinning host. "Come in, Haraiki!" They start to troop in -- and Robin, who has the challenge flag today, freezes three steps onto the sand, staring at me -- and my passenger. Angela nearly goes into her back, and the pile-up comes close to continuing from there: there's no real collisions, but there's a series of almosts that goes all the way back through the line. "Turare getting your first look at the new Haraiki -- Elmore voted out at the last Tribal Council." Still grinning, "And here's a first: Haraiki also getting their first look at the new Turare -- which, against all odds and every rule of the game as we know it, has managed to add one. Alex, who's this?" Haraiki is not even remotely trying to hide their stares. Angela and Robin are confused, Denadi and Phillip are almost entranced, Tony doesn't seem to have any idea what's going on, and Connie is starting to very slowly smile. Maybe she likes birds. Maybe they like her. Something has to. "This is Azure... Frank heard her in the jungle --" equal blame, please "-- and I found her. She's stayed with us ever since." For her part, Azure is hoping around on my shoulder with clear excitement: more people! "We think she belonged to the billionaire or someone on his staff -- she's been trained to talk." Jeff frowns a little. "Talk? What does she say?" I really don't want to go into this in front of the other tribe. "She calls for people, and she says hello, and she obeys commands -- sometimes." Another one-shoulder shrug. "We tried to get her to stay behind, but she insisted on coming along. If you have anyone who can hold her while we do the challenge --" And Connie cuts in: "Does she say goodbye?" It sounds genuinely curious, but there's an undertone: this is a trap. I'll never know what it's meant to do unless I spring it. "Not that we've heard so far." "We'll find out in a few seconds." She turns to Jeff. "I want Alex removed from the game for a rules violation." There's a question as to whether Turare or Haraiki stiffens faster: neither tribe saw that coming. Gardener's eyes are starting to narrow, Angela's visibly surprised, Robin seems oddly irritated, and Connie's triumphant. Jeff is just starting to look tired again. "Which rule, Connie?" "You told us we weren't allowed to hunt or trap the birds," Connie reminds him. "Alex went out into the jungle, found that bird, and brought it back. I call that trapping. Frank's fine, he only heard it, but Alex is the one who 'found' it -- so she's broken the rule." Her hands go to her hips. "I'm sure no one will mind waiting while you call in the Quit Boat." Mutters and mixed reactions from Haraiki. For the most part, they seem curious to see if this is going to work, but Robin's really starting to get pissed off. I've seen she has some kind of conflict with Connie, but it should probably be taking a back seat to the chance of having the tribes go even again. My own supposed group is getting angry: they may want me out, but they want it to be their choice, and Gardener makes that clear with his solid statement. "Jeff, tell me you're starting to get sick of this. Alex didn't trap the bird: the parrot came to her. It follows her. We spent three minutes trying to get rid of it before we came here. We can't help it if she's a chick magnet." Tony chokes. Jeff briefly closes his eyes, then turns to Connie. "Alex found Azure, yes. Alex did not trap Azure: she came with her. Alex, do you have her on a rope? Any kind of restraint?" "Desmond made her a perch." Maybe they'll ultimately decide to get rid of Desmond. "That's it." Jeff locks into Connie, whose smile is already fading. "For Alex to find a parrot is not against the rules. We'd have to throw out anyone who looked up every time they heard a bit of birdsong. If she'd deliberately netted Azure and kept her secured, she'd be in violation of the rules we gave you. Azure has sought out Alex -- and our rules only cover humans." He turns to face us -- and Azure. "Azure, do you want to go?" Which is where Azure shocks all of us, because Jeff apparently just hit a trigger phrase. "Stay! Stay!" Jeff blinks. That's all the shock he's going to register for the camera, and that's probably going to be edited out. "The parrot -- has spoken." Back to the grin for a second, which does absolutely nothing to placate an irritated Connie: either she really thought she had something there, or she thinks that if she grasps at enough straws, she'll find one that'll take her weight. "Haraiki, does anyone else mind Turare having an extra tribe member who can't compete, can't vote, and will have no say in the game whatsoever?" None of the others mind. Phillip even says "Do we get to say hello?" His huge smile appears. "I've never met a bird before. Not formally or nothing." Jeff's amused. "Sure, go ahead. It's not as if any of the humans have been formally introduced between the tribes, but since Azure is outside the rulebook..." One by one, they all wander over, even Connie. Phillip's just about hypnotized. "Wow -- look at her eyes. Do you think she can understand me?" Denadi proves that Azure can at least recognize the occasional word grouping. "What a pretty girl she is..." Azure likes that. "Pretty Girl! Pretty Girl!" Robin laughs. "A little full of herself, isn't she?" "Of course it is," Connie says. "Look who it decided to attach itself to..." Looking directly at Azure, but talking to me. "Hello, you stupid little bitch." Azure rears up to her full height, spreads her wings just a little, and bellows "Hello You Ignorant Slut!" -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 01-06-09, 06:59 PM (EST) 8. "RE: Episode #4: What If He Doesn't Come Back?: Part II" A series of images show up on screen accompanied by Jeff's voiceover. Jeff (voice-over): Hariki orange buffs, 19.49. Turare purple buffs, 19.95. We now get a clip of Connie insulting Alex while pretending to talk to Azure, and Azure's reply. Jeff (voice-over) Watching Azure tell Connie exactly what she thinks of Connie -- priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For all the rest, there's MasterCard. Accepted wherever Survivor stuff is sold. ***************************************************************** And here's me laughing my head off when I hear Azure insult Connie. HAHAHAHAHAHA -- plop! Belle Book   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 07-30-06, 04:04 PM (EST) 2. "What If He Doesn't Come Back?: Part III." LAST EDITED ON 08-10-06 AT 01:29 PM (EST) After --------------------------------------------------------------- Two new (physical) mail categories. Dear Ms. Cole, After hearing about your situation this past Thursday night, I would like to offer my services. I have located hundreds of lost parents -- Crumple, toss into wastebasket near mailbox so it could compare failure notes with its friends. There had been dozens of those letters. We can find your family, we've done it before, we have ins with the service agencies that most people don't, we can get the paperwork out and track down the donors of your genetic material. We'll only charge this much for it, we charge this much per hour plus extra for expenses, we'll do it for free as long as you gave us the credit on The Early Show when your time comes. And right along with those and their Email counterparts -- -- we are your family. I gave up a daughter, I think I can see myself in the set of your shoulders. I'm not sure we're related, but if you win a million dollars, I'd like to be. I know someone who looks a lot like you: I think you need to check her out. I'm in an orphanage, we have the same eyes, maybe I'm your brother... Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. A slow, carefully-written letter that said no, I understood the hope, I'd even shared it when I was younger and saw flashes of my own features on the street, but we're not related, I'm sorry, and I know that no matter how I put it, you'll hate me forever for closing off one more tiny avenue of escape. There were so many of those letters... Email: you're an orphan, we didn't know, we guess you can't understand what a cross really means because there's this annoying separation of church and state thing, here's the names of some literature you should start with. Here's a link to an electronic Bible. Back to the tangible letters for a moment, and here's a physical Bible: twelve so far, no two from the same edition, but maybe you'd better worry about 'your' country because the Tarot decks are ahead by nine. Our church stands ready to take you in. We're still angry and you're still damned, because unless you were born to the light, you're forever cast out of it. We're sorry you were alone. We're sorry you're still alive. My own forum: long-time posters putting new spins on every storyline, viewing everything through the lens of my family-free life. How many characters had named parents? How many siblings had we seen? Let's psycho-deconstruct the last five years based on one little piece of information that should mean nothing for the work and somehow now means everything. This was part of why I hadn't wanted to say anything about my lack of family in front of the tribe -- and the camera. I'd known that one would echo back to me, and I'd also known there was no way the show wouldn't use the footage where I first had to admit it. There had already been a small complication when I'd applied, and during filming -- well, things hadn't exactly improved from there, had they? They'd used it. They had to use it. Orphans can fascinate people. They certainly give the psychiatric people some extra work: how can you want to marry your father when you don't have one? How can you secretly hate your mother for landing him first when she was never there? All those complexes we're supposedly free from -- or transfer to someone else. The show-watching portion of the world now knew I had no family, and suddenly, it was the only thing they knew about me. I was no longer 'Alex Cole, cartoonist.' I was 'Alex Cole, orphan.' Alex Cole, abandoned. It doesn't mean anything. I was willing to admit that circumstances shaped personality. If I'd grown up in a family, yes, I would be a different person. Other things would have happened to me. Maybe I would have had a happy childhood. Maybe my parents would have gotten a screaming divorce. Maybe any creativity I'd shown would have been beaten out of me, although I probably would have sought out and followed the same path I'd originally wound up on. Maybe we would have gone on a family vacation to Disneyworld and had the plane crash halfway there, no survivors (and no Survivor a decade down the road). There was no way to know. Telling people I was an orphan didn't change who I was. It might explain some of it, a very, very small amount, but -- the past was fixed. I hadn't grown up with a family. I'd spent most of my childhood in an orphanage, with occasional excursions for foster homes before that stopped completely. Over and done. I was an adult now, even if the rest of the world was currently treating me as a teary-eyed toddler weeping for her lost mother. It doesn't mean anything because it doesn't change anything. Next letter. I know you're my daughter, you have to be my daughter, nine months I carried you, more than two decades ago I lost you... Garbage. It doesn't change anything. Ms. Bracia shivered a little as she came in. She didn't like the change in seasons: miniskirt time meant prime hunting opportunities for her, and while she'd still wear them as much as possible, her legs were going to be cold all the way to her car -- and clubs -- and speed dating services -- for months now. (In the eternal war between showing off and staying comfortable, the forces of Showing Off had snuck into the opposing camp and shot the enemy in its sleep.) She spotted me on the steps. "Hey, Cole?" Another paperwork investigation offer, deposit against minimum hours of work required and non-refundable. Crumple, throw, two points. "What?" "About that parrot..." ---------------------------------------------------------------- During ---------------------------------------------------------------- {I guess our borderliners are going to have trouble with this one, too. Footage from both tribes as they start to head for the challenge -- but with Turare, we're just there for the comedy. Azure really thinks she's a part of this tribe, and she's coming along for the challenge no matter what anybody says! Of course, for her, 'gross food' is a hamburger with everything, so she might be the force that leads Turare to the next victory in their Reward streak. Imagine what's going to happen the first time we get a challenge that involves flying!} {Is anyone going to say something about how devilspawn have an unnatural relationship with animals? They keep giving you all these feed moments and you're not biting on any of them...} {Haraiki goes Keystone Kops coming in, and then Connie tries to play law & order. This is getting ridiculous. Frank's fine, Frank can stay, but she will do anything she can to get Alex out of here without a single vote cast against her. Does anyone think she had a legitimate point?} {Not really. As much as I want Cole out, I still think Connie picked the wrong time to make a move there. All that did was make her seem annoying in front of the host. Oh, and since you asked, certainly devilspawn can have an unnatural relationship with animals. But I still can't get my dog to heel more than one time in three, and I don't think that's a reflection on my saved status.} {Was that a joke? I'm almost sure that was a joke.} {Everyone comes over to meet Azure... funny choice of things to spend camera time on -- oh.} {Oh, my aching ribs... look at her face!} {Look at Alex! She didn't know that was coming either! She recovered fast enough, but it was there long enough to see!} {Burn disc -- burn extra disc in case of backup -- check to see if I'm the first to upload to YouTube -- too late...} {...is Jeff doing what I think he's doing?} {Yep. The Chenbot would be shorting out right now, but Jeff is, despite the rumors about his hair and Teflon coating, only human...} ---------------------------------------------------------------- This challenge probably won't start on schedule. Both tribes need a little time to finish what they're currently doing, which is fighting through the biggest explosion of laughter in series history. Haraiki and Turare have been united three votes early by an unexpected twist. No one, no one saw it coming, and Connie is still standing stock-still, face frozen in anger as her own tribe practically writhes in the sand behind her and mine falls all over the mat. I'm still upright, not laughing, more shocked than anything else: what was that phrase-response doing in Azure's increasingly impressive vocabulary? Gardener is enjoying himself as if the end of the world is in three minutes and the last thing he wants to do before destruction is have fun with a good joke. Phillip looks like he's got about forty seconds left on the timer. Robin, two. Angela and Tony are visibly holding each other up, weeping tears of mirth onto each other's shoulders, Denadi's finally trying to suppress and just about choking on it. Mary-Jane's half on the mat, half on the sand... ...and Jeff is doubled over the covered table, hands braced on the cloth, gasping for air. "I -- I didn't even know the local cable system showed old SNL reruns, forget about having wired the trees..." and there goes Frank again. For her part, Azure is just gazing forward contently, either undisturbed by the human chaos around her or getting more of a kick of it than any of of would have thought possible. How intelligent is this bird? Probably a little above Connie, who finally defrosts. "Jeff..." It looks like she really, really wants to put another legalistic excuse to have me removed after that comeback, but she can't find one. Or she could just be really unhappy about our supposedly neutral host semi-siding against her with his mirth. I don't think she has a complaint coming there: he's not laughing with us any more than he's laughing against Haraiki. He's just laughing. Jeff just barely manages to swallow it some of it back. "If it had been Alex, then trash talking's legal and will be forever. It was Azure, and what do you want me to do? Tell her she can't participate in the next Immunity hunt?" Even Desmond can get in on that. He abruptly points at Azure. "Shame on you, young lady! No aerial searches for you!" Azure blinks at him, then flies off my shoulder and does a quick circle of Challenge Beach before coming back to rest on her starting point -- which sends him into cascades of barks again: it looks for all the world like she was getting one last check in before the punishment took... Connie storms back to her mat, and Jeff finally picks himself off the table, half-muttering, half-chuckling. "I know they're going to use that, they can't not use that... oh, damn... Haraiki, back to your mat. We still have to play this thing today." Giggling, laughing, clutching at their sides, or silently pissed, Haraiki returns to their starting position. Jeff takes a few deep breaths, visibly smooths a few virtual feathers back into alignment, and gets down to business. "Okay -- today's challenge is for Reward." He moves over to the other covered object: about five feet tall, not very wide back to front, with circular edges pushing out the cloth on the left and right. The whip-off reveals a click-post vertical wheel of fortune, with black stickers covering the sections. "Here's how it works. We'll randomly draw for matchups: anyone can face off against anyone else. Once everyone's set, the first pair will take their spin on the wheel. Wherever the wheel stops is what you'll have to eat." He gestures -- to an empty space. Everyone stares, and Jeff switches his tone. "We'll bring it in shortly. We didn't want you getting any clues from the smells." Oh. Back to television mode. "The eating will be timed, and the fastest time wins the heat. The tribe that wins the most heats wins Reward." He looks us over. "Want to know what you're playing for?" "Yes, Jeff." I have no problem joining in on it. The wording of the Tree Mail poem has me as curious as everyone else, and the item -- or items -- has to be under the cloth on the table. "Well, I'm not going to tell you." One of those fox grins. "The winning tribe will choose their own Reward, one person at a time. There's a bunch of little luxuries waiting for you. Each tribe member will pick one thing off the table, and that item is theirs, to share or keep as they see fit. The choices will be made from fastest time to slowest, so you've got an extra factor to play for here. Turare, if you win, each person will make one choice, including whoever doesn't play -- but that person picks last. Haraiki, if you win, the person with the fastest time gets the first and last picks." Interesting... that could lead to some really loud arguments in their camp if the jealousy factor comes into play. Individual factor in a tribal challenge... "This means we will play every heat even if one tribe wins all the matchups, just to establish the picking order. Does everyone understand the challenge?" Robin. "Wait. If I've got a pound of worms and someone else has a twelve-ounce cockroach shake..." Jeff shakes his head. "Everyone's got the same amount to eat, as far as weight goes. There's no liquids." Gardener speaks up. "Both people in a pair eat the same thing?" Jeff nods. "Just checking. Okay, no problem here." Trooper's hit a possible problem. "There's six people playing -- what if we tie?" Not exactly one Jeff hasn't heard before. "Each tribe will pick someone on the other tribe to compete in one final heat. Haraiki, you won't be able to choose the person who sat out." Trooper gives Jeff his own 'just checking' expression: that's clearly what he was expecting, and he just wanted to make sure the rules hadn't changed. No one else has a question. "Turare, you've got one extra member: you're sitting someone out. Who's it going to be?" We confer. Gardener gets right to the point. "Who's got the weakest stomach?" Mary-Jane winces a little -- then sighs. "Probably me. I don't do so well with the gross stuff. I might throw up if I watch long enough." Desmond looks completely unsurprised. "There's usually decent stuff in the random draws," Gary points out. "They had apples once, I think..." Mary-Jane's already turning a little green, and it's not from visions of Granny Smiths dancing in her head. "I'm willing to try -- I just don't want to cost us the win if I heave." Gardener can accept that. "Okay -- you'll sit this one out." Which probably leaves me to sit out Immunity. Great: I won't even get to help decide if I stay -- no, that's assuming too much... "Jeff? Mary-Jane's out of this one." Angela looks somewhat disdainful. Jeff nods. "Mary-Jane, consider yourself relieved." And she looks it. "We'll draw for matchups, and then we'll get started." This is simple: we all watch as Jeff puts balls with our names written on them into two small bags, one in each tribe's color, mixes the balls up, and starts pulling them out again. "First up: Desmond against Robin." One of the women from the challenge staff writes it down. "Second -- Angela taking on Trooper." This time, we can all see it on her face: Angela just got her dream matchup. She could not be happier about this. And again -- why? "Third -- Phillip versus Alex." Oh, great: tell me that isn't a body built for power eating. I'm going to do my best, but I think I'm doomed heading in... "Fourth: Gardener battles Tony." Rematch. Gardener has a very grim look on his face, the classic 'You're not getting another one past me' from the batter's box of your choice. Tony is bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. "Fifth: Denadi meets Frank." The one we almost had at the last Reward challenge before we went ahead far enough to make it a near-moot point. "Which leaves Gary and Connie for the final match." Connie visibly sizes Gary up. She doesn't look too happy about her conclusion. "Okay, guys -- bring in the table!" Two staff members carry it in and set in down in the section of sand Jeff was pointing to earlier. There are sixteen covered platters there, arranged four by four, and the smell is foul. One dish in that group has its signature odor leaking out past the faux silver -- or possibly through it -- and it's strong enough to cover up everything else in the group. Something else has died recently, and it probably wasn't cooked very well afterwards. Mary-Jane moves two extra steps back, gagging as she goes. This really wouldn't have been her challenge: it was the right sit-out decision. Jeff steps up to the wheel. "Remember: most of the items are things you really wouldn't want to see on your normal dinner menu -- but there is some good food on this wheel. And both of you get whatever it lands on, so if one person gets a treat, the other one has to beat them in chowing it down. Desmond, Robin -- ready?" They nod and step up to the table, where the production staff further maneuvers them into filmable positions. No one's brought in a vomit bucket, but we can always try to reach Michelle's memorial bush in a hurry. "Time for the first spin." The wheel starts moving, the clicking producing a regular rhythm that's somehow strange to listen to in a world of natural sounds -- and not much else, because the tribes aren't saying much of anything about it. I think the challenge staff made a mistake here: we can't root for or against a result when we don't know what any of them are. Robin's muttering "Come on, treat...", but that's the best any of us can do until we know something to avoid or hope for. It's not as if we can scream 'Come on, big money -- and a steak!' This is going to be a problem for the cameras, and the challenge staff is just starting to realize it: worry drops into several faces and settles in for a long stay. Jeff's trying to roll with it, but you can tell he's worked it out too, and it's not making him happy. "A little noise, people..." Frank's willing to try. "Come on, fafaru!" Several people on both tribes give him dirty looks -- gross food, fine, death-before-food, no -- and the wheel slows to a stop. Jeff takes a dramatic pause before peeling off the section to reveal -- "Diaphragm." A staff member removes the cover from the lower left platter. Raw meat, stringy, sections of fat between and over muscle, a texture that's strange to the eyes -- it looks like someone tried to make a miniature weight belt out of beef. "Eight ounces' worth for each of you, which will be the size of every meal." Jeff moves to the table and hands pieces to Robin and Desmond. "When I say go, eat it as fast as you can." Robin looks really dubious about it -- but that's when Phillip gives her a little practical information. "Don't worry, Robin! That's just uncooked skirt steak!" Of course, that kind of news can benefit both sides. "Raw steak, huh?" Desmond considers as he eyes it. "I've seen worse..." Angela looks a little frustrated with Phillip, but what can she do? Robin seems more ready to face her meal after Phillip helped her: he can't help not having access to private conversations. If they're both braced now, it's better than one ready and one not when hers was the 'not' -- at least for them. Jeff puts a hand up. "Survivors ready --" -- it would be a lot easier to be ready if I knew what else was on that menu -- "-- go!!" I don't watch it all that closely. There are lots of things I want to see on this island, but the sight of teeth tearing at raw flesh is something I'd rather be spared: missing the predator and killing moment yesterday might have been the best thing that happened to me. Still, I have to get some idea of how people are doing -- so I just fix my gaze on arms and elbow movements, only occasionally glancing up to see what the mouths are doing. My quick peeks show Desmond with an early lead: the stuff seems to be extremely chewy, and they're both having trouble getting bits free -- but Desmond's got his eyes closed and his jaw in gear. No matter what happens, he just keeps chewing and powering his way through. By contrast, Robin's making the mistake of talking. "Stupid meat..." is the weakest of the epithets she tosses out between chews -- and sometimes during. This isn't a challenge where you can comment from the field, and Connie sees that immediately. "Less talking, more eating!" Connie yells, but Robin's mouth is a lot more used to releasing air than taking in part of the respiratory system, and she can't shut it down below mutter level. Desmond just eats -- and finishes first. "One for Turare!" Jeff yells. "Robin, you've got to finish -- this may count towards your Reward!" I start counting: she swallows the last bite as I'm hitting forty-nine. "The times will be kept secret until we know which tribe won the challenge." The challenge staff people are already scribbling things down. Desmond returns to us, wiping his mouth as he passes Trooper going the other way. "Not too bad," he tells us. "Hell, at least it's meat." Trooper and Angela take their spots. At least now we know to root for -- or against -- the raw skirt steak. Frank is still calling for fafaru. Jeff watches the wheel until it comes to a stop on another covered section. "Our next dish for the day --" and raw envy flashes into every face but two "-- fried chicken." In the center of the table: a selection of drumsticks. There's clearly more than a pound's worth there -- after all, the section might get hit twice. "The Colonel's original recipe, no less. You know you've got good eating when you're enjoying finger-licking-good chicken in the middle of the Society Islands." We all manage to keep our faces straight through this -- -- with one exception. "Jeff, could you take another spin?" Everyone stares at Angela. Including Jeff. "Angela -- you just got fried chicken. I know you're not vegetarian or vegan: why would you want to try again?" With careful patience, "Can't you just let me get my commercial in a few episodes early?" Camera, production, and challenge staff all recoil in shared horror: Jeff has just given away a very minor piece of the puzzle, one of the few times he's ever let anything slip that wasn't post-editing foreshadowing -- and when you consider that, it might even be his first. Anyone who lasts long enough will be eventually playing for a secret coating of herbs and spices. Angela's expression is a mixture of frustration and distaste. "I don't want to compete against him with something we can both eat -- I want to beat him with something we might have trouble with." Trooper's face is a study in calm: he's just listening to this, looking over Angela as she goes on, taking in all available evidence. "This isn't hard enough." Jeff cannot believe what he's hearing. Neither can we. "You can't reject any result from the wheel -- positive or negative." Angela's shoulders tighten. "You're going to have eight ounces of fried chicken each, and you're probably going to enjoy it. On my signal..." I try not to hate Trooper and succeed. It's just luck of the draw, and he got one of the good ones: so it goes. To his credit, he doesn't look like he's having the best time of his life: he just eats quickly and quietly, trying to beat Angela down to the bones. Haraiki, however, is looking at Angela as if they hate not only her luck, but the fact that she tried to reject it. They have no idea why she wanted to give up what had to be one of the best sections of the wheel and honestly, neither do I. But their confusion gets to recede into the background after Angela finishes a fifteen-count ahead of Trooper, tying us at one-one. Turare is still visibly thinking about it, with Gardener muttering his very incomplete diagnosis under his breath. "What's wrong with her?" Problem spotted, but cause unknown, and results obvious: she's barely acknowledging the win. I shrug -- "Azure, down" and hope she stays on the mat for a little while -- then head out to our tribe's mark. Phillip joins me, grinning again. "Heya, Alex..." He offers a hand. I look at it for a second -- oh, what the hell -- and then shake it. Surprisingly soft, gentle grip in the middle of a hand full of callouses: just enough to encircle, but fully aware of his strength and almost terrified of hurting me with it. "Never got an answer out of Gardener: what do you guys swim in? We're guessing one of those waterfalls." Oh, no. He's not getting the verification from me that easily. "Make the merge, move to our site, and find out." He laughs. "I mean to." Flash of very white teeth. Mine were professionally veneered on the show's budget before the publicity shots were taken: everyone else clearly got the same treatment. Phillip is displaying an All-American smile (featuring one slightly crooked incisor), set off against black sand. "You might come over and say howdy to us, though. No rules against it." I shake my head. "Jeff said we'd be stopped while exploring if we got too close to your camp." He's making way too much of a show out of trying to remember that. "Oh, yeah -- but we could hook up in the water, right?" True -- but Jeff puts that line of thought on hold with "Third spin --" and a rapid-fire clicking of the wheel. Phillip and I turn to watch. It takes a lot of nervous heartbeats before it comes to a stop on -- "-- sweetbreads!" Jeff announces. The challenge staff moves for another center platter. I can't want to see the contents, because I just got lucky! I've never heard of this dish, but from the name, it's clearly some kind of pastry. Maybe it's French or Italian, a sticky bun with cinnamon swirls and sugar... I keep it all on the inside. No point in having my tribe become jealous of me. Phillip is studying me. "You don't seem to mind," he notes. I shrug. "It's just carbs." Flaky, layered, sugar-coated carbs that might have raisins in the middle... Phillip blinks -- then laughs. "You don't know what sweetbreads are!" A huge hand gestures at the platter. "There's nothing bread about it, Alex! Sweetbreads is just what people call --" The cover interrupts him as it clangs into another dome coming off the platter. Whitish -- strips -- of something that looks almost like thick webbing, strange-smelling even in the miasma of whatever's under that one platter, clearly organic, something that's never been near a baker's oven in its existence... Jeff finishes for Phillip. "-- pancreas." I swallow harder than I wanted to in front of the others -- which is to say, I swallow. Oh. Oh, right. I don't spend a lot of time looking at the fancy meats sections in the good supermarkets. This looks so sickening that it almost has to be there. I should check it out when I get home. It's probably thirty dollars a pound and this is a rare treat for people with lots of money and no sense of taste. It has to be a rare treat: there's no way it's been cooked. "I guess I'll be okay for insulin..." Gardener enjoys that one. Phillip's still having a good time with it. "Hey, it's a first time for both of us." Angela's aggravated again: guess why. "Just call it meat and chow it down." Sound advice. I take my piece and try really, really hard not to think about how it feels in my hand. It's not working. I switch to avoiding thoughts about the smell. This doesn't work either, so I hold my nose with my free hand. Jeff allows it and Connie doesn't protest -- she's probably going to do it herself if she gets a foul one -- we're signaled, and -- -- the texture, the feel against my tongue is wretched, I close my eyes so I don't have to look at the foul gummy stuff, the taste feels like I just flushed my mouth with pus, I don't want to think about this, I want to turn my brain off, but I hear something as I force myself to tear and chew, Phillip just gagged, he's not powering it down and that might mean that if I just swallow and don't think about what I'm swallowing, it's horrible I might have a chance, just eat, just think about swallowing, don't think about what's going down, think about a possibly-personal Reward item and at least proving that I'm capable of fighting for my continued stay tomorrow myself, just get it in and bring it up later when we're back at camp, don't look, breathe only when I have to, think of fruit, think of raisins, think of water to wash this putrid taste out of my mouth, think of -- "-- Alex!" Jeff rules. "Phillip, two more bites and you're done!" I open my eyes just in time to see Phillip take the first one, which nearly sends them shut again: it's almost as bad to watch as it was to do, and the memories are far too fresh. He finishes off the last bit a few seconds later. "Nice!" he crows, still gracious in defeat. "Never thought a little thing like you could beat me --" and with a grin that has fragments of pancreas peeking out from it "-- good thing we didn't face off on that beam!" Uh-huh. Because if I'd tried the same trick with him, my arms would have either broken on the spot or been driven inside my rib cage. "Thanks..." He offers another handshake. I return it and head back to my mat. We're up two-one. I've done my part, at least. It's up to the others now. Gary speaks very softly as I step into position next to him, careful to avoid Azure, who's wandering around the front edge of the mat. "I think he's sincere," Gary tells me. "And I think some of his own people hate him for it." I look: Angela's glaring daggers through Phillip, who either hasn't noticed or is choosing not to. Connie's using virtual shuriken. The pitch was still fast enough for Gardener to catch up with it as he passes us, and he pauses long enough to respond. "He's just a friendly down-home overgrown kid..." I have to agree. Phillip clearly loves being here. The challenges are a joy, maybe the tribe politics are even a joy, the experience is his reason for coming. The possible million dollars is a welcome bonus, but it's not necessary. He just wants to have fun -- and this could make him deadly. Maybe there's nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, but one who doesn't understand what he could lose is still somewhere in the top five. Gardener against Tony, with a battle on the side: Trooper has neither forgotten nor forgiven, and his dark eyes lock onto Tony as he steps off the mat, then stay with him all the way to the mark. Tony can feel the stare, and looks over to see who it is. The answer seems to surprise him: he blinks twice, almost tries to visibly shake it off, then proceeds to the table, decidedly uncomfortable. We can all see it, and Angela looks particularly unhappy with it. Trooper, for his part, doesn't blink. Jeff does his by spinning the wheel again, and Frank continues to express his loyalty for the Shamrock Fafaru. Another sticker comes off, and Jeff gives us one of his mildly wicked looks. "The return of an old favorite. Balut egg." Oh, joy. We all know what this is: partially-matured duck chick inside the eggshell, with some leftover egg white for extra texture. It probably won't help them deal with the feathers. Gardener shakes his head. "Now this is why I'm not using my first name," he says, which draws a brief look of shock from Tony, who probably thought 'Gardener' was it. "One of the prior son of a bitches just came back to haunt me. Next thing you know, someone will be asking me to dance on the beach with a feather stuck down my boxers..." Robin laughs, and Mary-Jane revives a little. "Jeff, can we make that an official request for a future challenge?" "I'll take it under advisement," Jeff straight-faced replies. "Survivors ready --" Gardener tries, he really does, he's the first person to have sweat break out on his forehead just from the sheer concentration he's bringing to this. His eyes are squeezed shut, he's taking my silent advice by holding his nose, and he's giving it everything he has. But Tony just stuffs the thing in his mouth. Tony's eyes are open and not fixed on much of anything. He gags a couple of times, but it's because he's trying to swallow big pieces instead of chewed mouthfuls. He's forcing beak and bone and feathers into his throat, and I glance down at Azure, who isn't reacting to this at all -- why should she? it's not her egg -- and then back to Tony, who just keeps chomping away at the balut, bite after bite -- until he takes the match. Tied again. Gardener looks vaguely ill as he comes back to us, and all he says is "Damn feathers." Tony looks decidedly satisfied with his tribe's cheers and leads them on with a cry of "Ten years of bad hot dogs, Gardener!" -- although he does take a puzzled look back at Trooper, who doesn't switch focus until eight breaths after Tony returns to his position on the mat. And we have now learned something about Tony: he is a professional athlete, probably a low-level one. Minor-league baseball player is my very firm guess. I adjust my hands into a batting grip and glance at Gardener. He looks over and nods, just once. Yes, we've got him, but we're not likely to face a 'park one over the non-existent wall' challenge. Still -- every bit helps. Denadi steps out. "You seem eager," she tells Frank. "Are you eating very well over there?" Frank grins. "Oh, well enough... we're finding all sorts of interesting stuff around..." Jeff gives the wheel a really good push this time: the clicking seems to last for several minutes. Stop, sticker, and -- "Frank?" Jeff's body is in front of the wheel: we can't see what he's just revealed. "Be careful what you wish for..." He steps back. Fafaru. Frank's eyes seem to be taking up half his face, and that's before the cover is removed from the lower right platter, which makes it very clear where the smell was leaking from and sends Mary-Jane on a desperate dash for the bushes. Four flies converge out of nowhere just so they can land on it and get their share of camera time in. The grimace hits Frank's cheeks at the same time our ears tell us Mary-Jane's first upheaval has hit the sand. "I didn't mean it..." Frank tells us. Weakly, "I mean, dude, we're not in the same island grouping. I never thought..." "They're just north of us," Jeff informs the tribes. "And besides, it's such an old favorite..." We have left wicked and are heading for evil at roughly eighty per. "We just had to bring it back. Unless you want to quit this heat?" Frank looks like he's thinking about it -- but a little fantasy time is all he's willing to give that option. "I'm not quitting." Jeff turns to Denadi, who knows exactly what he's about to say and finishes getting angry about it before he stops moving. "I'll eat." Presumably they do eat. I don't look. I have my face turned away from the action just because there's arguably fresher air at a greater distance, the fafaru can't have stunk up the whole beach already. It's a great theory right up until the moment I test it and prove it false, but at least I don't have to get the visual when Jeff says "Frank nearly eats one of the flies!" On the other hand, I do get to imagine it, and spend several heartbeats talking the sweetbreads into being happy where they are. Mary-Jane's response is a dry heave. Someone else loses it two seconds later -- one of the production people, judging from the location of the sound -- and we're getting dangerously close to a full-fledged Barf-O-Rama, but everyone else seems to be choking it back for now -- or, from one very clear biological noise, re-swallowing it. Finally, "Frank wins the heat!", and after Denadi finishes (plus a ten-count waiting for the cover to be put back on the platter), it feels safe enough to turn back. Frank repeatedly spits into the sand as he comes back to us. Denadi goes right past her mat, directly to Michelle's bush, vanishes behind it, and lets us get the rest on audio. Jeff, who's the only one with enough exposure to take or leave it, patiently says "We'll just hold up until she gets back." It takes a couple of minutes before Denadi's ready to emerge. "Joe Rogan -- eat your heart out." That will never make the air, nor will what follows it. "That reminds me: one of these seasons, we should really serve heart... Connie, Gary, come on up." The most surprising event of the challenge happens as they take their marks: Connie speaks to Gary. Civilly. "So what do you do for a living?" More curiosity, but without the snare lurking in the tall grass. "We've all been wondering -- about all of you, of course." Gary takes it politely, with a small smile. "Accountant for the government. Nothing special." "Oh." She smiles. "Nothing wrong with that. Accounting's a vital profession. I couldn't get along without you people," and it's clear she means the occupation, although the editing may try to add a question mark. "You do a great service." Jeff spins the wheel. The clicks provide a background beat to the conversation. "Thanks." Gary does look complimented. I hope it's just acting. Secret ally, ineffectual ally, whatever, but not her future friend, please... "How about you?" "Oh, just a housewife," she admits. "Nothing special, really." "That's pretty vital too," Gary tells her. She smiles. "Not many of you left..." Full stop, sticker peel, reveal. "Looks like Tony just missed his calling," Jeff says. "Hot dog with everything." Another center platter, and the smell of cooked onions cuts through the lingering fafaru. "But it's not a bad one -- all-beef." I wait for a brand name, don't get one, and realize the show couldn't line up a sponsor in time. Gary and Connie look perfectly happy to be going after this one. I can't blame them. I personally don't like onions, but after sweetbreads and second-hand sickness, I'm more than willing to give them another shot. "Survivors ready --" We all cheer Gary on: if he wins, Reward is ours, and I'm very curious to see what it is. He eats quickly, he takes big bites, and he doesn't stop to savor the taste. But we all know Connie has a big mouth, and it turns out that things go into it just as easily as they come out. She eats quickly, with gusto, devotion, and more than the standard amount of mustard -- and beats him by three bites. Haraiki cheers her all the way back, she almost waltzes onto the mat, and the sweetbreads register their own protest as Jeff orders us to confer about our tiebreaker pick. It takes about five seconds to motion, second, and carry: Denadi. She just threw up: she's probably in the worst shape to face a second round. Haraiki debates for what feels like a couple of minutes, then goes with the rematch: Frank's still got a bellyful of fafaru, and if they're lucky, it won't like company. They both look resigned as they return to the marks -- resigned and as green as Denadi's blouse. Jeff steps up to the wheel. "I should really try for a controlled spin here," he tells us. "One of those The Price Is Right 'you need to hit the dollar' specials..." Frank looks as unhappy as I've ever seen him: Denadi the angriest she's ever been. "Or not," Jeff jokingly continues. "But we can hit the same dish twice..." He spins, not putting that much force into it, and Frank watches very closely as the wheel approaches the fafaru, slowing down as it does so, clicks into the section, still slowing -- -- clicks out. One more section, two more, into a black area, and full stop. Jeff peels it. "Haggis," he announces. Robin groans. Denadi's shade deepens by two degrees. Frank just looks vaguely confused. I have absolutely no idea what this is. "Haggis?" I ask the others. Gary calmly semi-whispers "I know, but I'm not going to tell you yet. Frank might hear it, he obviously doesn't know -- and he's better off." The cover comes off the platter. It looks like mounds of oatmeal with bits of assorted types of meat in it. It smells very peppery, and there's definitely some onions in there, too. Frank and Denadi will be eating off smaller plates, and they even get to use a spoon, fork, and knife: the mounds are sitting on some odd-looking meat at the base -- a very thick, irregular skin -- and Jeff is explaining that it has to be eaten, too. "Just let him work. Sometimes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing -- look at Denadi." I look, and I'm sorry I did: she looks nauseated enough to radiate illness. Some of the pulses feel like they're going to reach me: the sweetbreads really want to get some fresh air... "Let me know when it's over." Gary smiles, and I close my eyes -- but just long enough to get past the first few seconds. When I don't hear anyone throwing up, I open them to see Frank digging into his haggis with obvious enjoyment, while Denadi has to force herself for every new spoonful. Gusto against resistance isn't even a fight: Frank finishes his mound before Denadi's halfway down hers, and she silently returns her dish to the table before slumping off back to her mat. "Turare! Wins Reward for the fourth time in a row!" Jeff tells us, and even if he's counting the first mixed Reward/Immunity challenge in there, who cares? Mary-Jane rejoins us, clapping and cheering and hugging Frank while angling her nose away from his impossibly foul breath. We're about to find out what we've won, and it's like waiting for presents to be unwrapped when you know the other kids can't steal or break them... Meanwhile, Haraiki slips into a group depression. Even Phillip looks a little down. They haven't taken a Reward yet, except for the one we gave them -- and working to make the most of that one cost them an Immunity. For Immunity, we lead two to one, but with Reward, it's a shutout. They need one -- -- and they'll probably take out all that frustration when we meet tomorrow... Jeff consults with the challenge staff, looking over one of the clipboards for a while before going to the covered table. "Turare, get over here." We have been called, and we have no problem with coming. "Here's your order -- and Frank, we took the faster of your two times. Trooper goes first." How long does it take to finish some drumsticks? "Then Gary, Alex, Frank, Gardener, Desmond -- and Mary-Jane, because you sat this out, you go last. There's only one of each item, and once you've made your pick, you can't change it. You can trade, keep, or share back at camp. You'll each have ten seconds to make your decision. And with that said -- here's your selection." He whips the cloth off the table. Christmas. They must have a stock of potential Rewards back at the mansion, or maybe they just raided some of the rooms... They were definitely listening to our conversations, because some of the pieces are things we've been longing for. There's a spice rack, fully loaded. A complete toiletries kit, including soap and shampoo, easily enough to last one person for four weeks, and Mary-Jane moans with longing. Towels, three of them, huge and fluffy. A six-pack of beer next to a cooler bag filled with ice... There's also a labeled three-pound bag of rice, but we've got plenty. I'm third. Please, please let me have them, please, I'll share two of them, honest, I just want one... Jeff turns to Trooper. "You're first." Trooper nods. "The spice rack," he says immediately. "We'll all have some fun with that one." He looks at the rest of us. "Don't worry: I'm sharing." Gary uses up a few seconds on a joke. "You're sure you didn't leave the repellent and itch cream back at the production camp? -- give me the deck of cards. A little poker in the shelter will make the nights go faster." Jeff looks a little surprised at this one -- and I realize what's going on. This, in itself, is another minor attempt to either reveal our pecking order or force us to have one as people become jealous of those who got better Rewards than they did, and who got better food while winning them. The cards are one of the worst items on the table, and Gary took them as a second pick. Production plan: partially sabotaged. But that brings us to -- -- me! They left them! Mine! Well, one of them, anyway... "The towels. Definitely the towels. The top one's mine." Giant and powder-blue and covered in incredibly fine loops... "You guys can pass around the other two." I have never seen towels that large or that soft-looking. Maybe they'll let me take them home. Mine to keep, after all... Frank laughs. "Dudes, like there's any real choice? I'll take the beer, and yeah, I'm sharing. But if you guys don't drink any, I'm taking the extras." Of course, that would leave one person without a can -- except that I don't drink, and it sounded like Gardener doesn't either. Frank's probably guaranteed two. Gardener's had some time to survey the table. "I think we're all going to pass one down, aren't we?" And a fast, very hard glare at Desmond. "Hell, we've been waiting on a root-breaker to go with a relatively clear spot -- the E-tool." Jeff passes it over: an old Army-issue entrenching tool, basically a folding mini-shovel. That'll give us our bathroom if we want it badly enough, or just make it easier to cover our spots -- assuming Gardener shares. Desmond looks unhappy. "I could have stood for some soap..." he mutters. "Fine. The sunglasses. Might as well get some shade." They look like a well-done Oakley knockoff -- but I'm wrong about that, because Jeff takes the time to announce that Desmond has chosen the very real Oakleys, that Oakleys are the best sunglasses in the world, and Desmond now owns a five hundred dollar gift certificate good for more Oakleys, which he'll formally receive when he gets home. Mary-Jane could not be happier without a revealed fourth vote in front of a live studio audience. "I love you guys... the kit!" She cradles it to her halter top, almost as if she's rocking it to sleep. Tony stares. Angela spots it and immediately looks slightly unhappy. Something going on there... Jeff nods to us. "Turare keeps their streak going -- and Haraiki, until you break yours, I'm going to have nothing for you. Both tribes, head on back to your camps. Turare, enjoy your spoils." He sniffs the air. "And Mary-Jane, it's your decision as to whether you want to share or not -- but if I can offer some advice, please give Frank some of the mouthwash..." Frank laughs, which only makes the rest of us agree with Jeff. "I'll see you tomorrow." We head up our trail, each of us carrying our Reward, Azure returning to my left shoulder on command as I pass the mat. I can't wait to get to the waterfall. A clean, dry, meant-to-be-used-as-a towel! I feel like I've gotten the best pick. Maybe we all do: Desmond looked cheered when he found out about the gift certificate. Not a bad day's work -- or haul -- at all. It was just eight ounces' worth of sweetbreads. What was the harm? A little pancreas never hurt anybody, right? Frank, just ahead of me, is still working something out. "Man, that last one wasn't bad at all. Some weird tastes in there, but lots of pepper -- I'm gonna need that beer pretty soon just for the liquid." "Me too," Gary says. "And thanks for offering to share -- that was spicy mustard." Trooper nods: apparently KFC is thirst-inducing. Frank's pace slows down a little as he continues to ponder. "By the way, dudes -- does anyone know what haggis is?" Gary pauses for a long moment before replying. "I'm guessing Jeff didn't tell you and Denadi because the reputation is so widespread... Frank, it's the organs of a sheep cooked inside the sheep's own stomach. When it's done, the stomach is sliced open, and you serve right out of it. I'm guessing that was stomach lining at the bottom of your pile." Frank freezes for two long breaths -- then bolts down the path. Gary sighs. "And that," he says, "is why I didn't say anything before..." Frank rejoins us a few minutes later. No one says anything about the vomit in the middle of the trail. --------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 07-31-06, 02:29 PM (EST) 3. "What If He Doesn't Come Back?: Conclusion." LAST EDITED ON 08-02-06 AT 02:09 PM (EST) {Gross food -- yeah, right. 'Here, try to choke down this raw steak.' I can think of contestants who would have killed for raw steak. I can think of at least two who were raw steak.} {Desmond wins a match! They said it couldn't be done -- or did they say it shouldn't be done? I lost track.} {Frank is an idiot. Who in their right mind would cheer for fafaru?} {You want to talk about idiots? What is Angela's major malfunction? Other than being attracted to morons? Jeff can't believe this, and neither can I. Who's going to pass up some KFC in the middle of the game? They can boil water: it'll only take six gallons before the thirst starts to subside. Does she feel she has to prove herself by whipping Trooper over a plate of leftover Joe Schmo fake turds?} {I don't know, but she's acting like an idiot. Take your chicken and be happy. At least you're not stealing someone's religious sacrifice.} {Their what?} {Oh, right -- you're new. Just be glad you missed that season.} {And she wins, and she's still not happy...} {Boy, Phillip just loves everyone, doesn't he? We saw a little strategy play out of him on Day Three, but beyond that, isn't this a good time, doggies!} {Even that -- when he was telling Tony to work Angela -- is starting to feel like he was encouraging a romance more than an alliance...} {I did not see that coming. Alex is a hungry girl, and she was just more determined than Phillip. Not bad.} {Not by much, either, but a win's a win...} {Trooper could stare down the sun.} {Gardener would rather be sitting on it than on this beach. He's getting sick of losing to Tony.} {And the idiot blows his so-called job out of the water. Oh, well -- it's not as if it's going to help him until he fixes the hole in his swing. After fixing the one in his brain.} {...karma electra, sweet karma electra...} {Frank calls his own death! Welcome to Survivor Blackjack!} {Huh?} {Don't worry. No one except Island Boy watched that show.} {Well, Frank called his own death, and then he ate it. But we did get some carnage all over the board. Cleanup, Beach #3.} {Connie likes Gary? Connie likes anybody?} {Oh, what a contest. Oh, what a challenge. Oh, what inferior pickles they must be using.} {Tiebreaker... yes, Robin's got some Scottish blood, and she's very happy not to be having a Scottish dish moving through it...} {Denadi loses. What a shock. I repeat: what. a. shock.} {And Turare picks them out. Not a bad selection, at least at the top end.} {Y'know, I think we have to keep an eye on Gary from now on? There's a chance those cards were taken with malice aforethought. This was a coconut chop Reward: he may have seen through it.} {Doubt it. I think he just had a real longing for cards. And they were clearly trying to get the beauty supplies down to Mary-Jane. As said before, they do work together, better than a lot of groups we've seen in the past -- but catch Desmond's mutter?} {I think that's the closest I've seen Alex to actually being happy. At least, she sounded like she actually wanted the towels. Kind of.} {Turare heads back, the camera stays with them just long enough for a comedy moment -- never ask a question you really don't want to know the answer to -- and we go to commercial. For KFC. And their new Survivor tie-in toys. Okay, who's the genius from Treasure Hunters that snuck onto the staff?} ------------------------------------------------- -- and right to the waterfall. Most people are trying out their personal Rewards: Trooper immediately starts cooking, and Frank's ready to pass out the beer. (I already declined a can, as did Gardener -- who does have plans for the cooler bag, although he freely admits the more grandiose ones would involve getting a source of ice.) I want to use the towel. I really want to use the towel. No one's paying enough attention to argue, so off I go, Azure riding with me as I make my best possible parrot-carrying walking speed to the lake. I'm looking forward to this so much, I'm barely paying attention to the existence of my camera operator. Get me in the water, get me out of the water, wrap me up... Arrive. Order Azure down. Strip, pile used clothing on bank, place cross on top of pile. Get in. Do the usual water-and-hands scrub. I wish I knew what soapstone looked like: all I'm familiar with is the name, and I wouldn't know it if I tripped over it on the bank. I do know what pumice looks like, but I think that's a volcanic rock, and we're not going to find any out here... "Having fun?" I'm moving before I know I'm moving, swimming for the shelter of the diving rock, not looking at the shore, not looking at anything except the partial cover offered by the outcropping of stone into the lake. A merry giggle follows me all the way, and I don't have to look out from behind the shield to know who it's coming from. "I thought Gardener was blocking you!" "Gardener's digging," Mary-Jane laughs. "I came out to try my Reward, too. Come on out: I'll help wash your hair. I'm willing to share this -- we can make it last a while even if we divide it up." "Pass." Really, water scrubs are fine. Ask nearly anyone from prior seasons. "Could you give me a second to get out and wrapped?" "I can bring you the towel..." She's in motion, and I peek out just enough to see where she's going: to where I'd left it on a smaller rock. "No!" Oh, no. Definitely not. "Just -- leave for a few minutes so I can get out, okay? Go into my confessional grove: I won't mind." I'm trying not to plead. I really am. I'm not sure it's working. I think I sound a little desperate to myself, and if it's audible to me, then... "Please?" I can just see her without coming out enough to reveal myself: she looks perplexed -- and a little sad. I don't understand why. "Typical," she sighs. "So damn typical..." Typical of what? Watch: the answer would be 'everyone in the world who isn't a borderline nudist.' Fine, she's comfortable with her body. Why does she have to be comfortable with everyone else's, too? But I'm not asking it. "Mary-Jane, I just need a minute, really..." Yes, I'm definitely pleading. Damn it. She shakes her head, looking very tired. "Do you want me to leave the shampoo?" Oh, no. I'd have to swim over for it. Add that to the time I'd need to use it, and we're way over a minute. "No, that's all right." "I'm offering." Plain, almost stark. "I'm declining." Statement of fact. Silence -- then "I didn't see anything, okay? You're pretty far out in the water and you keep yourself low." Except for the parts that tend to float. "I'll go into your grove and I'm going to leave some shampoo and soap on the bank. Just yell when you're done, all right? There's no time limit. I'll wait..." And with that, she sets her supplies down and walks into the grove. Azure glances at me, then follows her halfway to the grove before turning around, coming back to shore, and seeming to sniff at the shampoo bottle. Okay. I don't trust her, but after that little shock to the system, I'm more than happy to take some of her shampoo. I'm just not sure if she's going to walk in on me while I'm using it. (Correction: walk in on me again.) I reluctantly leave the shelter of the diving rock -- I need to reach the stuff, and I don't think I can find the words to make Azure fly it over to me -- and cautiously approach, staying as low in the water as I can without actively drowning and holding anything that bobs under whenever possible, which turns out to be 'not if you're serious about staying afloat in the deep parts, you don't'. Azure watches me with what I think is amusement as I move the items next to my towel, working from the water, get the shampoo and squeeze out a very small amount: just enough to get a little everywhere. I work fast, do a duck-rinse three times -- swimming out to the waterfall is more time for things to go wrong, and I want to stay near the towel in case the trap gets sprung, soaking wet and underwater is still coverage -- use just a little film of soap, and then clamber out to get wrapped up. The towel is absolutely gigantic: I'm covered from shoulders to ankles. It's warmed from the sun, and almost impossibly soft. Do towels have thread counts? I could stand here in it for hours... and it's big enough to let me get dressed under it. Bliss. Dry off, go over to my clothes, and work carefully. There, clothed again. Safety is mine. I could probably blame Gardener for this, a lot and for hours on end, but we all got caught up in our new toys, me included: I can't blame him for getting distracted with his. I only found out he'd been keeping Mary-Jane back three nights ago, and have I thanked him for all the previous privacy? No. And will I? No. Because he's voting me off next. "Okay, done!" Mary-Jane comes out of the grove. She's nude. For the second time in roughly five minutes, my body acts without my conscious will and still gets the action right: instant blackout. A sigh. "Damn it, Alex..." She's moving closer. I am not looking. "You wash up nude, I wash up nude. You know I do. You saw me swimming on the first day." Closer still. I wonder if I can back up without tripping over something. I know this area pretty well: it might be worth taking the chance. "I'm not trying to scare you." More quietly, "I may be trying to shock you..." I have no idea what that means. Los Angeles morals, maybe. East Coast stereotypes on West Coast residents, walking towards me -- and then turning. A splash. "Okay, I'm in the water." The sounds of swimming, which go on for a while. "And now I'm behind the rock. You're safe." The last word is three-quarters sighed, one-quarter spat. "I'll come back for the stuff after you leave. And -- I'm sorry." A long, long pause. "I won't do it again, Alex. I promise." I turn away from the shore and open my eyes. She hasn't snuck in front of me during the pause: all clear. "I accept your apology." I head down the trail. "Let's just leave it at that, okay? It's over, you apologized, we're settled." Because she has this horrible habit of continuing to be sorry long after the issue is over. Quietly, "Do you want your towel back?" I'd left the other two for anyone who wanted to use them. "No. You keep it." I leave. Azure stays behind. Presumably she'll catch up later. She may want to watch Mary-Jane swim. It's not as if Azure sees anything wrong with human nudity. It's not as if Mary-Jane sees anything wrong with -- Damn it, damn it, damn it... What is wrong with her? ---------------------------------------------------------------- {Does anyone else think that was weird? We're in the middle of the mandatory Reward-celebration segment, Desmond's coming as close as he ever will to looking stylin', we head out to see how Alex is enjoying her Reward, and...} {I think we're looking at the final dissolution of the female alliance on Turare, not that it ever did much good to begin with. Alex is not dealing well with Mary-Jane's nudity or casualness about Alex's private moments. Come to think of it -- this is a really stupid question, but did we ever figure out what Alex's religion is? Maybe she's a pretty radical fundie herself in a religion with a cross exemption.} {I think she's just shy.} {Shyer than the average DAW... and Mary-Jane got to her. She may not have meant to, but...} {I don't know. I'm pretty sure the bikini-whore meant to catch Cole -- who is clearly not a Christian -- in the nude. Anyone care to guess as to why?} {To take a cute picture of her butt in the air while she was spread out on the towel, twenty years too late for a baby album? Are you defending Alex's modesty?} {I said it last week: I don't like either of them, but I'm starting to feel Cole just missed out on being properly educated, and I said her modesty does her credit. The model has no modesty. I'm starting to think she lacks something else, too.} {We go over to Haraiki, and they're miserable. No Rewards. None at all. Just the tarps, which may do them some good -- can't hurt, given what they had before -- but they haven't won a single match in half of the challenges. Phillip is trying to keep their spirits up, insisting they'll get Turare next time and the Immunity wins do them more good than anything else, but the others are only half-listening at best. Lots and lots of moping. Tony tries to rally them, saying he's going to go out and catch fish with his bare hands and they're welcome to watch. He's clearly playing it for comedy, but they're so desperate for a break in the routine that they follow him out to the beach. In two minutes of absolute gold, he almost gets one about six times. It's like watching Marissa trying to get them out of the river all over again, and don't worry, no one watched that either. He's actually lofting them out of the water, but he can't throw them all the way to shore -- most of his tosses are one-handed because his timing isn't quite there for getting under the bellies -- and on the last one, he basically throws a fish into his own face. He does not advance his major-league prospects at all, but he does get his entire tribe laughing. It's the most he's done all game.} {And Angela just had an idea! She knots the sleeves and neck on one of her T-shirts, then offers it to Tony as a makeshift net. More comedy?} {Nope. Dinner. Haraiki has protein -- and we have a joke, because this is something that no one's really done on the show. It was partially luck, but you'd think it would be the sort of thing every contestant would have tried, and not just in getting minnows out of tidal pools. Tony's lucky enough to snag two, and it's just about enough to divide between six people. Haraiki's confidence is restored. Who knows if it'll do them any good in the Immunity challenge, and we may be set up for another fall -- but at least they're feeling better about their chances.} {Sunset, sunrise, swiftly goes the time-lapse photography, and we're back at Turare. Apparently no one got drunk on those beers, since there was no embarrassing night footage. Should have made it a twelve-pack... Mary-Jane and Alex passing fruit to each other at breakfast -- so they're talking, anyway.} {Challenge time: Gary reads the poem -- 'Stilled movement, changed with a letter, better hope that you're the better' -- it burns! It burns! -- and then -- they all sit around. They're waiting on Frank, who's gone on one of his morning wanders again. Not the first time.} {Commercials? Now? Weird timing...} {...oh no...} ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "How long do you think it's been?" Gary looks frustrated. "I can't tell time by the sun very well, it's hard through the canopy, and it works best in units of more than an hour anyway. I think fifteen minutes." Desmond's not exactly happy about the situation either. "His cameraman has to be herding him in -- I know he likes to take those walks, but he's got to be more careful on challenge days. I don't care much if he goes off for hours when the work's done. When we could be called at any time -- that's different." Mary-Jane sighs. "Don't look at me. I didn't ask him to pick me up anything when he went shopping." The attempt at a joke hits the ground and leaves a small sinkhole. "Right... damn it, where is he?" "We could go look," Gardener suggests. "Or we could if our own camera people wouldn't keep us from trying because we'd be out in the jungle searching for him and he'd be back in camp waiting on us. You know that's how it would go." Trooper tries the most basic method: he stands up, cups his hands around his mouth, and yells. "Frank! Get your rear over here! We've got a challenge to run!" No response. He settles back onto his ground pad, muttering. "Damn it... I swear, if we had the vote right now..." This would normally be good news for me, but 1. we're not going to have the vote right now 2. he's exaggerating and 3. I don't want to have the vote at all. "You don't think anything's happened, do you?" It has to be said. Gary doesn't think so. "They would have told us." He nods to the camera operators -- then tries something. "He is on the way back, right?" This directly to his own -- and much to our surprise, that one takes the walkie-talkie off his belt and whispers into it. A few heartbeats -- and then a response, audible as one, but with the details obscured. The camera operator nods to Gary: yes, Frank is on the way. They can give us that much, at least -- and more: he points off down the path Frank broke through the bushes. His usual morning start zone. "He wasn't in confessional, was he?" I ask. I don't know where Frank's area is. The same operator shakes his head. Okay -- I would have understood if one of those ran long. "I guess we wait..." Gardener snorts. "No, we don't." He gets up in one sharp movement, a bulldozer unfolding the blade. "I am sick of sitting around doing nothing because someone points a lens at me and tells me not to move so they can get those all-important boredom shots. Alex, you've been down that path. Think you can follow it again?" The camera operators are staring at him with a mixture of shock and horror: this is as close to an open revolt as any of us has come, and they're not sure how to deal with it -- other than by getting out of Gardener's way, which must be looking like a better option by the second. He is visibly unhappy and moving up from there. It's actually kind of fun to watch it happening to someone else. "Sure." I walk through my local woods all the time: I had to learn how to keep track of trails, especially when I was sneaking around. "You want to meet him halfway?" I put out my arm: Azure flies over from her perch, then transfers to my shoulder on request. Who knows? If I can somehow get her to go into her 'Over Here' mode, it should get Frank moving in a hurry. Another snort, a little louder, like a bull getting ready to charge. "Hell yes. I want the extra chew-out time. Desmond called it: you get free time on this island to do whatever you want, but the hours before challenges aren't it. He could explore tomorrow if he let us know and I wouldn't say a word if he was gone for the whole day, Council or no Council." Because Frank's in no danger of being voted out and probably isn't much of a threat to find the hidden idol for the men's alliance. "But right now, his time belongs to the tribe -- and the tribe should call him on it." He looks at his camera operator. "I'm going in after him. The others are coming with me. If it helps any, I'll carry him back if it'll speed this up. In the meantime, if you're thinking about stopping me -- don't." He takes one measured step forward. The camera operator slides off to the left, trying to make it look casual and failing dismally. "Good. Alex, you've got point." I get up -- my electronic shadow doesn't say a word -- and lead the way. The others follow. Back down the trail towards Azure's lair. I never showed the others where it was, although I did bring in some starfruit the next day. (I haven't said anything about Frank's having clear access to it beforehand. I'm going to save it for a Tribal Council in case I need it and think it might help -- very probably and not at all, respectively.) The puddle should have soaked in long ago, and we're not going out that far, anyway... I haven't mentioned that part. There's been no need. I haven't told anyone about the Tarot reading, either. That was my con game, I saw through it, and since it doesn't seem like Trina tried it on anyone else, it would just be stupid, bringing it up. She's gone. Let the non-jury departed stay out of the game in Sequesterville, where they belong. An image of an Outcast flag coming up a path to Challenge Beach dances through my mind for a few seconds before being discarded for lack of evidence. We walk. I don't need the directions from the camera operators any more: once walked, twice followed. This is easy. Turn here, move around this, step past that... "Hold it." Gary. He's just about at the rear of the group: only Desmond is behind him. I glance back to find Gary near the starfruit. "Did you see this?" I nod. "Oh. Yeah, that's where I got it from." Pause. Well, it's obviously out now, and so much the worse for Frank. "I think Frank's known about it pretty much since Day Two or so -- you can see where he's been gathering it." "No," Gary says, and there's something new in his voice: worry. He's concerned about something, but he's also unsure of it. "Trooper, come here?" Trooper walks back to him. "Could you look at this?" He points to the ground -- some of the grass. It's a very patchy area, with lots of missing bits. One of Frank's chew toy areas. So? Trooper kneels down, and he's as confused as the rest of us. "Just grass, Gary... I've seen Frank trying to whistle down it, and I know he chews on it. Nervous habit. I've got him figured for a big gum budget back home." He looks up at Gary, eyes questioning. "What's wrong?" "What's wrong," Gary says tightly, "is probably nothing. I don't know this stuff by heart, I barely know it at all, and I thought you might. But a friend showed me a picture once -- and I'm not sure that's just --" He doesn't get to finish. The walkie-talkie on every camera operator's belt goes off, all at once, a high-pitched squeal that sends everyone's hands to their ears and nearly tips Trooper over into the grass as he comes close to losing his balance. And then, in stereo, all around us, from every shadow, the same scream. "We need Medical! We need Medical right now! I need to get him to the shore or to the mansion, someone send a boat to Turare's beach, someone come and help me get him out of here!" The freeze lasts for perhaps a single heartbeat -- and then Gary's in front of his camera operator. "Which way?" There's no pretense now, no point in playing invisible. We all just joined the same team again. "Hang on -- I'll ask!" He barks into his unit. "Cameron, what's your twenty? I've got all of Turare and half the team with me -- we can help bring him out! We're on Frank's trail, next to the starfruit patch!" The reply is immediate. "I'm about six minutes ahead of you, same path, less if you run -- hurry! I can put him on maintenance if he slips further, but --!" Slips further. Maintenance. Trooper's fastest. "Trooper, get ahead of me! I'll call off directions!" He straightens up, moves. "Left at that skinny tree!" And we're moving, we're all moving as one, tribe and crew together, we're running through the jungle and the birds are screeching protests at the intrusion. Azure screams something back at them, somehow staying balanced on my shoulder as I run, trying to stay close enough to Trooper to keep giving him directions, he's too fast for me and I'm not used to or built for long dashes, I'm starting to really feel this, but it doesn't matter because he said maintenance, and there's only three letters that can be found before it in this kind of situation, and those are CPR. What could have happened to him? He couldn't have fallen into a fire! Gary, possible secret agent Gary, was looking at the grass... We run. Mary-Jane passes me. Great, now I have to keep up with two people. I keep calling out directions through increasingly ragged breaths, my lungs are starting to complain about it, this has been top speed over uneven ground for a few minutes now and we're getting close to the blood-pool plants again, my memory is echoing Amazon for the second time, and what do you find in the Amazon? Plants you find nowhere else in the world, plants environmentalists and pharmaceutical companies alike are desperate to protect, because they might contain -- -- Trooper yells back: he's found him. We all catch up seconds later, and there's Frank shaking on the ground, his pupils dilated until they nearly take over his eyes, a thin circle of pale green around a huge expanse of black, the last thing waiting to be sucked into the gravity well in endless time distortion. His camera operator is on his knees next to the prone body, helplessly wiping froth away from Frank's lips, pleading with Frank to stay with him, listen to him, don't leave, don't leave... Gardener and Trooper speak at the same moment, using the same words: "Can we move him?" They don't even bother to glance at each other after the unintentional chorus. We don't have that kind of time to waste. "We have to!" his camera operator tells us, and it's the most open begging I've ever heard. "I'm not strong enough to carry him, it'll take Medical too long to reach us, and there's no place here to land a chopper -- we have to get him to them!" Gardener acts first, going down, lifting Frank's feet. "Everybody!" he barks. "I can carry him myself, but it'll be faster if we all go together!" And we're all lifting Frank. I have my arms braced under the small of his back, Trooper's behind his head, Gary's helping to support his legs. "We've got to move as a unit -- Mary-Jane, keep an eye on his breathing! Make sure he doesn't choke on that stuff!" The froth is strangely thick: it oozes from between his lips as much as it bubbles. "Everyone with me, move together..." We move. The light dapples across us as we go back through the forest, with me calling out directions to take us back, the crew on their radios to guide Medical to us. The boat will be on the way, they're loading it up, but it has to leave from the mansion's docks. It'll take too long to clear a helicopter for takeoff: they weren't expecting to use one for overhead shots today, and they were being checked over. We may meet up at our camp, but if they can get going fast enough, it could be on the trail. We're trying to make this as quick as possible, we're trying to keep up with our fastest member. We have a challenge, and it's called Save The Downed Hunter. We can't lose. We can't... Frank's not making any sounds beyond his breathing. No moans, no pain at the little jolts we must be giving him in this run. Just staring at nothing, light pulled into the black holes and never reaching anything else... Mary-Jane is crying, but she's keeping up, she's giving us regular reports. Desmond's having trouble matching the pace, I'm having trouble, but we will both keep up or die. Whatever happens to us after this, happens. We can collapse later, we can hurt later, we can do everything later if it means Frank has a later. We are one mind with twelve legs, and we are running -- -- and we run into our camp. No Medical here, but we can hear the powerful engine coming closer: they're approaching the beach. The group mind decides to save them the steps: we break for that trail, go down it, hit the black sand just in time to see them pull up to the shore. Four people jump off, two carrying a stretcher. We run out into the water, transfer him as smoothly as we can, help lift the stretcher onto the boat, the medical team gets back on and -- -- the boat speeds away as fast as its engines will let it. The group mind, no longer welded together by a single purpose, falls apart. Mary-Jane collapses, hands and knees in the surf as her tears fall to join the ocean of sorrow. Someone sobs, and it sounds like Trooper, well behind me now. Someone else is praying: Gary. Gardener stares after the boat with closed eyes, and anything inside him is being willed to stay there. Desmond drops to his knees and hits the sand with a fist. And I stare out after the boat, watching it go, hoping for Frank, hoping against all odds, not praying because I gave up on that so long ago, just holding out for the miracles that always refuse to come -- and hating myself. Self-loathing for not seeing, for not knowing until it was too late, for not having been able to do more -- -- and for that tiny thought that creeps in from the most selfish part of me, the part that everyone has and no one ever wants to admit listening to, the bit that's bottom-line pragmatic in the face of all emotion, the part that says If he's gone -- then that's three more days... I tell that voice to stop, and it does. But the thought came. I can't make it not have come. I watch the boat, and hope for Frank, and despise everything there is about myself... ---------------------------------------------------------------- {Those are the words I never want to see. 'The following scene contains footage that may be too intense for some viewers. Parental discretion is advised.' I saw that, and I knew something was horribly wrong...} {...what happened?} {I don't know. I -- I just don't know. Something about that grass... we had someone studying botany, right? Dude, are you here tonight? Say something!} {I'm here. I didn't recognize the specific grass type. I'm trying to look it up now.} {I'll pray for Frank.} {It was months ago!} {He still needs prayer.} {He didn't die. Burnett would have found a way to promote the hell out of it. He might be paralyzed for life, or brain-damaged, or on an iron lung, but he didn't die...} {Nothing in the promos! Remember Michael screaming? We just got hit with that out of nowhere! All Burnett wants is his water-cooler talk! Tune in to see if there's a ghost! Tune in to hear the screams! Tune in, because someone might die! We'll never tell you, because we know the word of mouth and anticipation will build week to week, until in the end, you all tune in to see if the Final Two try to murder each other... I feel sick.} {Get back from commercials, damn you. I need to know what happened. I need to hear if he's okay...} {I thought you hated all of these non-people equally.} {Oh, shut up.} ---------------------------------------------------------------- We wait. All through the day, we wait. The crew gives us updates as far as they have them: Frank didn't get any worse on the boat, he didn't get any better. They seem to have him stabilized at the mansion. They have air transport now, they're taking him to a hospital. And then -- nothing. That's all they know. We move about our business, because there's nothing else we can do. We get water. We catch and prepare fish. There are endless private conferences, people taking each other aside for quick talks, but none of it is the game. Are you okay? How are you holding up? Come on, you know he'll make it... I'm on the receiving end of three of these, from Gary, Trooper, and Mary-Jane, who just really needs someone to talk at. I'm okay. I'm holding up fine. Yes, he'll be okay. I hate myself, but I'm not going to tell you that. At one point, Gary sadly tells me "You're not okay. But you're really good at lying to yourself about it," and walks away before I can think of a response to a statement I don't understand. We fix lunch, then dinner, then try to go to bed. No one can sleep, and we talk about Frank. Trooper is the most open in blaming himself. He watches the roads, he's not in the drug enforcement branch, but they're all trained to recognize certain things... Gary sighs, doesn't blame Trooper, blames himself. He'd thought there might be something unnatural about Frank's energy swings and collapses, but he'd lost the thought while pondering other things, had never followed it up. Mary-Jane tries to take some of that blame because she was with him the most, she should have picked up on it. Gardener, voice almost hollow: he has to spot illegal drug use in his kids, so why didn't he see it here? Because none of us knew this drug. There was no way we could have known. If more of us had explored -- if Gary had just seen that patch, or recognized the grass while it was being chewed instead of in the field, as he'd once seen in a picture... But that's blaming Gary, and that path is immediately closed. Some anger at Frank. How could he do this to us? Why didn't he come to us for help? We're his team: didn't he realize what would happen? -- and then we realize how selfish we're being, our helplessness mutating into self-centered words, heading for rage, and we stop, agree to try and sleep again. Some of us sleep a little. I wake up several times, always from dreams, always running through the jungle with Frank's body on my shoulders, always being chased by myself, and I always have to replace Mary-Jane's blanket when I do. She wakes up once as I'm doing it, softly mutters "Thanks..." and falls asleep again. She probably won't remember it. Every time I wake up, I go over to the camera hut. They have no news. They promise to wake us if they get any during the night. Day Twelve comes, and no news comes with it. Wash. Water. Breakfast. We're waiting... "He'll be okay," Trooper says, listlessly poking at the fire. "He's got to be okay." Another poke. "If that son of a bitch dies on us, I'm gonna kill him." The first smile in a day, just a bare ghost of one -- but it lasts long enough to register. "He'll be back in time for a late Challenge. Or maybe we'll do double-elimination tomorrow after he gets in, one from each tribe... Who knows? They'll find a way to work with it." Once again, someone has to say the words. "What if he doesn't come back?" Stares, none of them angry, many relieved. At least it's out in the open now. Gardener's smile is thin-lipped, pulled inward by the weight of the graveyard. "Then you've got three more days, don't you?" Stark, final: "I didn't want them like this." He looks directly at me. "I know you didn't, Alex." He leaves it at that. Azure, on my shoulder again, unexpectedly presses her head tightly against mine. And we wait. One of the camera operators comes out of the shielded area, walks over to us. "They want you at Tribal Council. Jeff will tell you everything there." He pauses. "Bring the torches." And we know. Silently, we gather the torches: Trooper carries Frank's. We don't light them. We can do that at Council, it's daylight -- we're having a Council during the day, that's a first... Along the path in single file in silence, the trail shadowed even in the morning, somber and quiet, the willow eternally weeping. It works if you just stew the bark into a tea, he'd said. Does it work for self-hatred? I still can't see the edges of the shadowed rocks. I still can't see where I missed things going so horribly wrong... Jeff meets us at the entrance to the valley: another first. "Come on, guys," he says softly. "Just go right to your seats." He leads the way from there, and we do as he says, the same positions as the first time, minus two people. The elephant feet aren't funny now. The place looks more artificial than ever with sunlight streaming in the open side. The three occupied plaques -- Michelle, Trina, Elmore -- are a mockery. It's just a game. We were supposed to be playing a game... Azure looks around curiously, hops down from my shoulder, wanders off to look at the set design. Jeff sits down, steeples his fingers. "He'll be okay." It all breaks free, just like that. Desmond and Gardener almost seem to melt into their stools. Gary heaves out an open sob of relief. Mary-Jane starts crying again, but she's smiling too. Trooper looks like he might stop hating himself for missing the signs any day now. I just look at Jeff and softly say "But he's not coming back -- is he?" It's not a total silence: people are still crying, still letting the stress flow out. But it's a lot quieter. Jeff shakes his head. "No. He's not. That's why I called you here." Just as softly, "We did this after Michael's injury. Some of you probably know that. None of you ever saw it. It was just a formality -- and a way to get things out. To work through the emotions and move on." Gentle, caring. "You will be voting someone out today, and that person is Frank. Those are the rules. He's out of the game: we have to make it official. But mostly, you're here so I can tell you what's going on, and so you can talk about it." Gardener nods once, slowly. "What was the grass?" Jeff sighs, and I can see just a little bit of that self-hatred touch his eyes. Somehow, he thinks he should have caught this too. The camera people, production staff. Anyone. "All the fruit here is safe for consumption. All of it. We never thought about the other plants because we never thought anyone would try to eat them..." Another sigh. "It's a very rare type of grass. It might be just about extinct if it wasn't for private growers. When you chew it, you get a mild sense of euphoria and a boost of energy. Not many people know about it. Some botanists, a small portion of the drug subculture with access to exotic reading material and some really good importers to help them out. But that group tends to ignore the other part: it's toxic. Not immediately, and not so bad if you just space out the doses. If you chew a couple of blades a week, it clears out of your system. If you do several a day, the residue keeps building up in your body until -- you saw." Yeah. We saw. "Gary, you recognized it." We are not pretending any more. Jeff is not a naive soul who doesn't get hourly updates, really he doesn't. All cards are face-up on the table -- except for my last one. "How?" Gary is nearly fifty. This is the first time I've seen him look it. "I have a friend who works in the DEA. We were talking over lunch, and he had his new briefing book with him -- stuff that had been getting into the country which wasn't outlawed yet, but that they were being told to look for. Just in case. It stuck in my head because it was so unusual. Just innocent blades of grass, with that funny pale bit near the root -- which was always in Frank's mouth." He closes his eyes for a few seconds, takes a slow breath. "How did Frank know? Was he just experimenting with stuff out there? Or was he a natural grass chewer, and he got the wrong blades?" "I don't know," Jeff honestly tells us. "We can't ask him. Right now, the medics are keeping him in a simulated coma -- giving his body the rest it needs so it can push the toxins out. It's not uncommon for a pharmacist to be a drug user." The first sign of dark humor I've ever seen from him: "You've got the tools, you've got the talent -- everything you need is right there. Would it surprise me if Frank knew what the grass was and ignored the side effects? No. Users do that -- even the ones who should have enough education to know better. He might have told himself that since he wasn't feeling anything yet, he was fine -- but those nighttime collapses were the first signs of his body trying to find a break, and then -- he hit the bad zone hard: Cameron said he'd had five blades during the walk, and he was going from joking to goofy, refusing to head back immediately or quickly, starting to react as if he was dehydrated, and then...." He sits back in his chair, just a little. "I can tell you that we did the same thing to him before we cleared him to play that we did to all of you: a full physical with blood tests included." Highly professional doctors who treated me with nothing but courtesy, which made the experience into the mildest possible torture session. "Anyone with a health condition that might be a threat to them out here doesn't make the season. Drug addictions count. The doctors thought he might be an occasional pot smoker, but that was it. That was the only thing they picked up on." Another lean forward, with the foreign sunlight streaking highlights into his hair as it picks up the redness in his eyes. I wonder how late he was up last night, waiting for news. "But he might have gone dry for a few weeks before the test to try and get onto the show... we don't know." And another sigh. "After Shane, we were really trying to avoid being a half-baked detox program twice..." He looks at each of us in turn, settling on Gardener. "How do you feel?" "Angry." It's a cold admission. "I've had some of my kids do it to me, going on the juice instead of using honest sweat, and I'm angry every time. Because they've let me down. Frank wasn't my favorite guy in the tribe, he could be a real pain in the rear to have around, but it always felt like he was trying. He pushed in the challenges, even if he didn't know enough to speak up about his own weaknesses." "The grass?" Jeff gently asks. Gardener snorts. "I was thinking of the tower." He looks at me. "Alex, you spotted it, didn't you? That Frank was afraid of heights?" I nod. Yes, that first encounter with the Cliffs. "Yeah, figured you had. And he still thought it would be a good idea to scramble a couple of stories into the air and look down. No damn wonder he didn't hit much. But there was no time to speak up." Trooper blinks. "I didn't see --" "No fault," Gardener tells him. "I should have said 'screw it' and blown up the assignments right there. I didn't." He rolls his shoulders, as if working out a cramp. "I'm blaming myself for not spotting this. I think we all are. I've got more experience than most, so..." "Not as much as me," Trooper tells him. "Even in the wrong division. I should have known." Jeff goes right for the legitimate point. "Have any of you ever seen someone on that stuff before this?" No, of course we haven't. "Then you're not equipped to recognize the effects -- which aren't that visible before the toxic stage to begin with. Even Gary only knew what it looked like, and he hadn't explored enough to find the patch. And Frank's personality is the type where any minor mental effects from the drug just blend into his natural demeanor." Mary-Jane wipes a tear from her right cheek. "Quirky." Desmond's laugh is hollow. "Yeah. Quirky." Jeff smiles. "Put mildly. Mary-Jane, you were closest to him -- how are you feeling?" She sniffs. "It was supposed to be a stupid showmance, you know? Just a little flirting and fun on the island. But --" Another tear. "He's not my type, I wouldn't hook up with him off the island, I don't want to go out with him now -- but I just want to see him for myself and make sure he's okay. I want to yell at him in person. I want..." She stops, takes a deep breath, restarts. "I want to make more sense," she says plainly. "I'm feeling too many things right now to sort them all out." Jeff gestures to a door -- the one that leads to the voting area. "Before you leave here today, you'll all have a chance to film something to say to him, if you want to. We'll play it for him when he wakes up -- and we'll record something to bring back to you." That gets a few small smiles from the group: at least we'll get to see how he's doing. "Do you all think you can stay in the game after this?" Group nods. "I thought so. Now, just for a minute -- the game aspect of all this. As I said, you'll vote Frank out tonight --" stops. Sighs. "Today. I'm not used to these hours. It is just a formality, but -- his torch was lit. His torch has to be put out." There's an odd touch of reverence in that statement. "Haraiki has not been told what happened. They were told the Immunity challenge was canceled, and that it was because of an unavoidable incident and subsequent medical emergency." Well, there's a way of putting it. "It's up to you as to what you tell them -- if anything. Obviously they'll know who it happened to as soon as you show up at the Reward challenge tomorrow. They've been speculating about the -- event for the last day." He looks at me. "Most of them think it was you, Alex." "That's just Connie's most devout wish," I wearily reply. "She's going to be so disappointed..." "No doubt," Jeff says with just enough of a smile to see. "How do you feel?" "Sick," I tell him. "I see a few addicts every day, I have a world-class alcoholic for a neighbor. It doesn't make me qualified to spot symptoms, but I'm like everyone else here: I keep thinking I should have seen something. And at the same time --" Do I really want to say this? No, I don't. I don't want to say that there's a little part of me that's so selfish, it can find the good-for-me in this horror, the three extra days in the game and the somewhat larger paycheck at the end. "-- I don't know how any of us could have." Jeff nods, and his voice is soft, even with his eyes openly wondering about that break. He's just not going to pry into it right now. This isn't for inciting conflict: this is for talking about whatever we feel we need to. I don't need to talk about that. "Absolved," he tells us. "Desmond, you probably had the most distant relationship. How are you feeling?" We talk for hours. It's amazing how many memories of Frank we're carrying after a little over ten days with him. His attempts at humor, backing off when a joke misfired, only to try again a few minutes -- or seconds -- later. All the flirting. His willingness to take on the challenges, even when he must have thought he wasn't capable of them, or deluding himself into the attempts. The work he got done around camp before his wandering sessions... It comes back to the grass a few times, it almost has to -- but that's part of the idea. It all has to come into the open. No alliances, no conspiracies, no game. Just talk about Frank, and how he made us feel, and what we wish for him, until we don't hate him any more. Hating ourselves is still an option. Jeff sends us out to the deer blind one by one: I'm third. As he said, this is also a voting Council: I write down Frank's name, display it for the camera, and put it in the cylinder. This will be a true unanimous ouster: Frank can't cast one right now. I look at the camera, which is waiting for me. This will be my message to Frank. This is what he'll see when he wakes up. What can I say to him? What would he actually hear? Finally, "I know I wasn't your favorite person in the tribe. I think you know you weren't mine. You were too -- loose, too casual, too easy-going." All the things I can never find in myself. "But if I somehow could take back yesterday by putting my own name in this thing and removing myself from the game, if I could make it not have happened... then I would. Your health is more important than any of this." The sunlight is so strange in here. "Stop trying to kill yourself. There's always going to be an excess of people who'll enjoy seeing it. Don't give them the satisfaction." And back down the steps. The others leave their messages -- Mary-Jane goes last -- and Jeff takes a few minutes in the voting area as well before returning with the cylinder. "Just recording something," he tells us. "I don't think there's any need to tally these." No. There isn't. Mary-Jane lights Frank's torch at Jeff's request, and it's snuffed without a word. "Head back to camp. Get some rest. You'll need it for tomorrow." We stand up, start to head out -- and Gardener stops. "Jeff -- one thing." Jeff is just getting out of his chair. "What?" "I don't want his torch up there," Gardener firmly says, just a touch of anger in it as he points at the plaques. "That's grotesque. He's not a trophy. We didn't get him. He got himself." Jeff nods. "We won't." And we leave. We are six... ...and now, finally, there is a 'we' of sorts. We fought to save one of our own in a life or death situation. We could almost be a real tribe. But the game still goes on... -------------------------------------------------------- {Haraiki is told something's wrong, waits around for a couple of hours, then gets the official notice in their Tree Mail. The challenge is canceled: someone's out of the game for a medical emergency, condition unknown, person unknown. Connie immediately thinks it's Alex. Make that 'really, really hopes it's Alex, and if it's any of the others, that's less okay, but if it's Alex, glory hallelujah!' Tony also feels that she's the most likely to have gotten hurt for some reason. Connie gets off a really nasty one in confessional. "I know she didn't fall into the fire -- I can't smell burning plastic." The minority opinion is Desmond, just because he's the oldest. No one thinks it's Frank.} {Turare waiting. Lots of silence broken up by lots of talking. There's no game right now.} {I found the details on that grass. Here's the Wikipedia link.} {Oh -- damn. You think you're fine, you feel mostly fine, if you don't feel fine you chew more grass until you feel fine again, and then -- you're dead. Nasty.} {Turare summoned to Tribal Council, and once again, the editing just went weird. We all heard about this for Skupin, but we never saw it. Just Turare sitting around with Jeff, talking it out.} {How strange is it to see them doing this in the middle of the day?} {Probably just didn't want to make them wait any longer. A little bit of unexpected humanity from Burnett. Then again, he did have access to the grass.} {They talk for a while. That's really all that happens here. They talk for a while until they feel just a little better. Some messages are filmed for Frank -- we see Mary-Jane's, admitting that she was just playing with him for the game, but apologizing and hoping that he at least had fun with it -- and Alex has a weird bit of philosophy there. Do you think that was aimed at us?} {Turare leaves, Jeff takes Frank's torch and places it in one of the slots behind the seats so he'll be at every Council, and -- black screen, white text: 'Frank woke up four days later, with the toxins gone from his system. He was returned to the United States and placed into counseling. Today, he is well on the way to a full recovery.' Closing credits.} {How close did we just come to an on-screen death?} {I don't want to think about it. I don't hate any of them that much, okay? Not like that.} {Trina's looking pretty good right about now, isn't she?} {...okay, what the **** are you talking about?} {Frank nearly died. Frank had trouble in a tower...} {That's Alex's reading. And the tower was before the cards were played. You're messing up the order.} {Burnett is sick. And do you know who's sicker? Me. Because I'm going to tune in next week anyway, because I don't know what the hell is going to happen next. I'm guessing UFO landing. And no, I don't want to hear about how Frank worked into your Picks To The End list, okay? You didn't get any points. Good for you. Go away.} {Some season, huh?} {Yeah. Right now, I've got Azure beating the slugs, 4-3.} --------------------------------------------------------------- After --------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I wonder if I've been watching as a way of hurting myself. I've been telling myself that I just wanted to see the editing, see how I was presented to the public, get a look at what was used from what actually happened and how it worked into the 'characters' the show wanted to develop. They were all very legitimate excuses, and tonight, all of them were wrong. It started so lightly. That was the hell of the episode. Azure in camp for the first time, everyone meeting her, and her deciding to stay with me. Lots of comedy: trying to get her to listen, not follow us to the challenge, and then that unforgettable greeting to Connie. The gross food challenge was a lot more fun to watch than it had been to be at: the lack of scents coming from the screen made the difference. Everyone playing with their Rewards, and -- yes, there's Mary-Jane playing around again, naturally they were going to include that. Nothing of the mini-beer party that we'd had that night -- four people with one beer each and one with two, no one got tipsy enough for the camera to care. Haraiki, and damn it, I still wished I'd thought of a blouse-net. And then -- -- I watched. All of us racing through the jungle, grim, determined, tearful, locked-in. I'm running with the others, keeping pace as best I can, not letting myself slow them down. You can see I'm hurting: it was worse that night, but faded by the morning of Day Thirteen. You can see I'm doing my part in the lifting. You can see my face. I'm not crying, filled with tension, or screaming for people to hurry. I'm concentrating. I have to keep up. I also have a parrot on my left shoulder, but I wasn't really in a place where I was thinking about that. But the last shot on the beach, the camera operator on the boat zooming in on us... you can't tell what I was thinking. I may not be thinking anything. I may not even be there. And I'm thinking about three more days. I'd never thought they'd show the private Council: Jeff hadn't believed they would. But they do, and we talk, and finally, the audience gets to see what it took us four extra days to partially find out. I hoped Frank was feeling well enough to attend the Reunion. I wanted to see him. I wanted to tell him how much I'm sorry for having missed something I had no real chance of seeing. I thought about my face on the screen, and I thought about all the things I'd wanted to say, not just to Frank, but to all of them, Turare and Haraiki alike. Some of them had come out. --------------------------------------------------------------- . . . . . . . . . . . . (End Episode #4)   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 01-06-09, 07:47 PM (EST) 9. "RE: What If He Doesn't Come Back?: Conclusion." That was a shocker of an ending! I'm glad Frank's okay! Here's my love list for the episode, including Azure, of course: 1. Alex -- nice job with the sweetbreads! Oh, and nice job in hitting Cyndi in the supermarket parking lot -- she sounds like a real ##### -- but that's outside of the game. 2. Gary -- well, at least you figured out what the grass might be. Too bad you didn't do any exploring in that area before Frank overdosed, but you really couldn't have known. 3. Phillip -- too bad you lost your round, but you didn't mind too much. You're here for the experience, which is great in most cases -- just not for Survivor 4. Trooper -- I understand why you blamed yourself for not realizing Frank was in trouble, but like I said with Gary, you really couldn't have known. At least you helped save him. 5. Robin -- too bad you lost your round to Desmond, but it was funny to hear you cheering about getting rid of Elmore and giving Connie a message vote! 6. Gardner -- too bad you lost to Tony in the Reward Challenge, but it was funny to see your reaction to the balut! And kudos to you for helping carry Frank to safety! 7. Tony -- nice job with your win in the Reward Challenge! Too bad you still lost. At least you gave your tribe some comedy moments after the challenge. 8. Mary-Jane -- I'm not too happy with your little display in front of Alex. On the bright side, at least you apologized for playing Frank in your final message. 9. Angela -- why do you hate Trooper so badly that you'd be willing to give up Kentucky Fried Chicken for something worse? I've got to wonder about you. 10. Desmond -- well, at least you weren't so bad this time. I'm still not happy with you, however. 11. Denadi -- at least you didn't totally give up. However, we learned that a little knowledge can really hurt you since you lost the tiebreaker because you knew about haggis. 12. Connie -- serves you right, insulting Alex! I lol when Azure insulted you right back! I'm looking forward to seeing your disappointment when you find out Alex is okay. Now, before I go to Frank: Azure -- that was so funneee!!!! I wish this series was real. If it was, I'd be watching you insulting Connie on YouTube a lot! And finally: Out -- Frank. Gardner's right -- you took yourself out with the psychoactive grass. I'm glad you're okay -- just give up drugs, all right? Or at least don't become an addict. Belle Book   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 6689 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 08-01-06, 10:15 AM (EST) 4. "After, During? Impressions from some time and place!" The editing thread The Haraiki tribe is still not the main focus of the story. Angela is seen as their leader mainly due to the absence of leadership skills in others. She doesn’t seem to appreciate some of her tribe mates’ attitudes, Phillip and Connie mainly but then, those two can help more in challenges. Connie was told to her face what many think of her that was great. Not only “from the mouth of babes” does the truth come out! The confrontation between her and Alex has to come to a climax after merge. It wouldn’t be the same if they were to be switched over to the same tribe. Philip is too nice a guy. Those casted on the show for the adventure are always likeable but never win. Robin isn’t shown very much. Will her arc start building or is that all there is to see? Tony’s lack of airtime doesn’t bode well for him. If he were to be part of Romber II, we’d see much more of the romance and we’d hear more from him. He will leave before his partner. Denadi should be next gone. No one seems to be on her side. In Turare , where the action is, Gardner is in charge. He is turning into quite a direct leader. His remark to Alex, “ Then you've got three more days, don't you?" shows he is in charge. Will he become as paranoid as Lex or will he be more like Aras who did understand reason? Alex has the story build around her. She has interactions with most players, from the warning from Gardner to the uneasiness we see each time she’s with Mary Jane to her inter-tribe confrontation with Connie. The one player we don’t see her with much is Gary. From the opening sequence when he came to her rescue, you’d expect something to come from those two but nothing is shown. She should be next to go but the producers have too much invested in her. She has to make the merge and we have to see a final confrontation between her and Connie after the merge. Her edit is positive, despite the negative early reactions, so that confrontation isn’t decided yet, contrary to the hopes of many of her bashers. Gary is playing a very quiet game. It could be because he has no power in the tribe or it is because he is waiting for the right time. He is always around the action but it never focuses on him. Most players seem to like him. It reminds me of Danni. Keep an eye on this player! Mary Jane is also very well presented. Will her edit change now that her romance is finished? Will she continue to hang around like she has been, well liked enough and not much of a threat to waste a boot on. Her safety could depend on her tribe winning the next 2 immunities. Desmond is disappearing now that the shelter is done. We rarely see him or hear from him anymore. He could be safe for now but one of the first gone once it gets down to the alliance turning on itself. Trooper should be the next man out of the alliance as we don’t get much from him. Will it be after the women are gone or will he show us that the boys’ club is finished? Frank should have learned from Kel that eating grass blades is not something to do on Survivor. Was Jerri somehow behind this?   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

cahaya 14104 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 08-01-06, 01:46 PM (EST) 5. "RE: After, During? Impressions from some time and place!" Overall, a very good assessment. Think of what the author-producer has us see, and what direction it is heading, and the story-telling - the edit - gives us clues as to how this may all unfold. The tribes: The strength in casting rests with the Turare. By a virtual random draw of swimming to the rafts at the very beginning, the Turare have the much stronger, cohesive tribe. This strength will continue until the merge occurs. The members of the Haraiki tribe still remain something of an unknown until the merge, when we will discover more about their individual characters. Alex is the main character. And for this reason alone, Alex will almost surely be in the final three. Alex is the kind of person who would appear either on the top or the bottom of a Love List in Fanatics (top of mine). She has the wits and detached viewpoint to play the game. Seriously play the game. She is one of the few who sees the game, and the people within it, for what and who they are. Gary is the secret agent. Not really, but his role will play a crucial factor later in the game. He and Alex seem to have a sort of implicit understanding, a mutual awareness of the game and the players within it. They'll play it together. At some point, though, only one of them can pass, and they both know it. Jump to Mary-Jane. She's a "keeper", the sacrificial pawn in the game, to be promoted to a temporary soap and suds Queen to do battle with Tony and Angela in a triangle of squares on the chessboard. And she'll lose to Angela. A sideshow with fireworks of its own, eye candy and a cat fight worthy of network ratings. Then to Gardner, who is likely to make the merge and then find himself incompatible with who remains. He will find out soon enough that he is not in charge, but shown the way to the Jury as the ego power plays shake down. He may make the mistake of making his move too early if it ever becomes necessary for most of the Turare to decide to remove a loose power player from the game. Desmond has done his job, and he's gradually becoming expendable. He may not make the merge if Turare has to trim its numbers. Trooper is something of an unknown. We've seen a surprise or two from him in his physical and forensic capabilities, and he makes us wonder if he hasn't got some other non-physical abilites innate to being an Amerind. There seems to be a good chance anyway he'd make Jury for the ultimate justice vote. It just seems appropriate for him as a law man. And for the Haraiki... Connie is the embodiment of everything Alex is not. Good vs. evil, the female version of the Anti-christ who falsely professes to the Cross (from day 1 with the beach prayer) vs. the one with the Cross. Armageddon. The ultimate fight. Connie is almost sure to be in the top three to do the Final Battle. Ratings and hate-mail will peak in a crescendo that leaves a smoking crater on the screen, both on TV and on Alex's site server monitor. Anyone who follows afterwards here is just fodder, the minions of the game... Philip is the good guy, openly liked and embraced by other players to make it toward the closing stages of the game. Alex and others may want to see him stay in the game, if only for his down home good-guy sense of fair play and justice. Making the merge, he'll have to go when the going begins to get really rough, and he'll do so gladly with enough money to buy a new John-Deere. Angela, activist and defacto leader of a leaderless tribe, is ineffectual without Tony. And when Mary-Jane shows up, *thwip* out goes M-J in a classic catfight and thumbs down by other players as M-J can't break the Angela-Tony-M-J triangle. But no way Connie will let Angela do the show-down with Alex... "Alex is mine!" With Angela's support, Tony may make the merge. He's insurance for Angela until she decides it's time for him to go after M-J. We might be treated to one more showdown between Tony and Gardner, the loser being shown the exit. Denadi ain't dumb, but she really hasn't got much of a chance. With Connie and Angela (with Tony) in the camp, and Philip too likeable, she's on the bubble. But she might be able to outmanuver Robin in being the next one out. Robin seems to be the loose end in the Haraiki camp, and the next likely one to go out, in spite of her physical abilities. If they (read: Connie and Angela) are looking to take a potential physical threat out of the game, it's going to be Robin. (*tweet tweet* It's a brutal island for most species.) Tribephyl's Foo Dogs Maybe my PTTE predictions are slightly off, after all, but I'll stick with them for now!   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 02-04-10, 08:42 PM (EST) 10. "RE: After, During? Impressions from some time and place!" Yeah -- the truth can come out of babies and parrots! I agree with Cahaya that Alex & Connie are Good vs. Evil.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

vince3 15726 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 08-02-06, 02:27 PM (EST) 6. "RE: Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #4: What If He Doesn't Come Back?" First, let's start with the fun parts: Nice to see that Azure joined the tribe quickly and provided much needed comedy relief to the serious game. The biggest laugh that I had was when Azure shut Connie up, for now... Also nice to see that the wish for the dread Fafaru got completed with a "be careful what you wish for...." to boot. Gross food challenges are good for laughs sometimes depending on who gets what and their reactions to it. Love the boards' reference to Frank's death wish with a Celebrity Blackjack mention. The way GSN's going we might not see it return again, although we can hope..... It was nice that even Hairiki got a few laughs in as well, between Connie's whammy and the fishing adventure, that is. Now the serious stuff: Just say no to drugs. We had warning signs for the past two episodes, and it came to pass for Frank, who ignored the potential bad effects of the grass habit. Also, I think Frank may owe Azure his life, because it was due to Alex finding Azure on his path that she was able to guide the tribe and crew to where he collapsed. Following the TV show's timeline, this is the 3rd ever medical evacuation of a contestant, and about the 7th Survivor to either be evac'd or quit the game before being officially voted out. (Mike, Bruce and now Frank for the evacs, and Osten, Janu, and Jenna M. and Sue H. in A$$) I do hope the previewed title of the next episode, though, is a joke, because I'm worried about what could possibly happen to cause that statement.......... A gift from Cygnus!   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

cahaya 14104 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 08-03-06, 08:25 AM (EST) 7. "RE: Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #4: What If He Doesn't Come Back?" LAST EDITED ON 08-03-06 AT 09:17 AM (EST) potential bad effects of the grass habit. What that 'grass' actually was is still bugging me. We were given enough clues in its pharmacological properties to make a reasonable guess, but a cursory google/wiki/altdrug-site check didn't turn up anything definitive. Any ideas? eta: Calamus (sweet flag) is something of a long shot guess. Some other alternatives on this site don't appear to be grasses. A work-in-progress page in wiki lists some more.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Lock | Archive | Remove

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Select another forum Lobby The Amazing Race Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Amazing Race Fanatics Forum (Protected)   |--The Amazing Race Basher Forum (Protected)   |--The Amazing Race Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected) American Idol Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--American Idol General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--American Idol Individual Contestant and Judge Discussion Forum (Protected) The Apprentice Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Apprentice General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--The Apprentice Spoilers/Speculation Forum (Protected)   |--The Apprentice: Martha Stewart General Discussion Forum (Protected) Big Brother Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Big Brother Fanatic Forum (Protected)   |--Big Brother Bashers Forum (Protected)   |--Big Brother Live Feed Updates And Spoilers (Protected) The Mole Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Mole General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--The Mole Clues & Spoilers Forum (Protected) Survivor Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Survivor Fanatic Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Basher Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Spoilers Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Games Forum (Protected)   |--Spoiler Island Fantasy Game Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor 6 Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor 8 Spoilers Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Book Forum (Protected)   |--SurvivorMarket Forum (Public) Other Reality TV Shows (Conference)   |--America's Got Talent Forum (Protected)   |--America's Next Top Model Forum (Protected)   |--The Bachelor / The Bachelorette Forum (Protected)   |--The Biggest Loser Forum (Protected)   |--Dancing with the Stars Forum (Protected)   |--Flavor of Love / I Love New York Forum (Protected)   |--I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Forum (Protected)   |--Jon & Kate Plus 8 Forum (Protected)   |--Hell's Kitchen Forum (Protected)   |--HGTV Design Star Forum (Protected)   |--Laguna Beach / The Hills Forum (Protected)   |--Project Runway Forum (Protected)   |--The Real Housewives Forum (Protected)   |--The Real World / Road Rules Forum (Protected)   |--So You Think You Can Dance Forum (Protected)   |--Top Chef Forum (Protected)   |--Trading Spouses / Wife Swap Forum (Protected)   |--Other Reality TV Shows Forum (Protected) Non-Reality TV Shows Forums (Conference)   |--24 Forum (Protected)   |--Desperate Housewives Forum (Protected)   |--Grey's Anatomy Forum (Protected)   |--Heroes Forum (Protected)   |--Lost Forum (Protected)   |--Other Non-Reality TV Shows Forum (Protected)   |--Non-Reality Daytime Soap Shows Forum (Protected) Off Topic (Conference)   |--Temporary Off Topic Forum (Protected)   |--The Help Forum (Protected)   |--Off-Topic Forum (Protected)   |--Off-Topic Sports Forum (Protected)   |--Story Competitions Forum (Protected) Other Inactive Reality TV Shows (Conference)   |--Age Of Love Forum (Protected)   |--Average Joe Forum (Protected)   |--Beauty and the Geek Forum (Protected)   |--Beg, Borrow, & Deal (Protected)   |--The Benefactor Forum (Protected)   |--Boy Meets Boy Forum (Protected)   |--The Casino Forum (Protected)   |--The Contender Forum (Protected)   |--Cupid Forum (Protected)   |--Fame Forum (Protected)   |--For Love Or Money Forum (Protected)   |--Joe Millionaire Forum (Protected)   |--Grease: You're the One That I Want Forum (Protected)   |--Kid Nation Forum (Protected)   |--Last Comic Standing Forum (Protected)   |--Mad Mad House Forum (Protected)   |--My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance Forum (Protected)   |--Nashville Star Forum (Protected)   |--Next Action Star Forum (Protected)   |--On The Lot Forum (Protected)   |--Outback Jack Forum (Protected)   |--Paradise Hotel Forum (Protected)   |--Pirate Master Forum (Protected)   |--Playing It Straight Forum (Protected)   |--The Rebel Billionaire Forum (Protected)   |--Rock Star (Protected)   |--Skating With Celebrities Forum (Protected)   |--The Simple Life (Protected)   |--Superstars of Dance Forum (Protected)   |--The Surreal Life Forum (Protected)   |--Treasure Hunters Forum (Protected)   |--Wickedly Perfect Forum (Protected)   |--Joe Schmo Forum (Protected)   |--Todd TV Forum (Protected)   |--The Real Gilligan's Island (Protected)   |--Forever Eden Forum (Protected) Starting Over Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Starting Over General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Starting Over Individual Houseguest Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Starting Over Spoilers Forum (Protected) TemptationIslandSucks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Temptation Island Everything (Protected) TheOsbournesSucks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Osbournes Everything Forum (Protected) BootCampBites.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Boot Camp Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected)   |--Boot Camp Rant/Rave Forum (Protected) LoveCruiseSinks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Love Cruise Everything (Protected) Push-Nevada.net.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Push, Nevada General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Push, Nevada Clue & Hint Forum (Protected) Inactive Forums (Conference)   |--BlowsVivor Forum (Protected)   |--2002 RealityTVWorld Blowie Award Nomination Forum (Protected)   |--September Eleven Forum (Protected)   |--Cornertime Forum (Public)   |--OLD The Amazing Race Basher Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor II: The Australian Outback Forum (Protected) TEMPORARY FORUMS (Conference)   |--Temporary The Amazing Race Fanatics Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary The Amazing Race Basher Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary The Amazing Race Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary America's Next Top Model Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary American Idol General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary American Idol Individual Contestant and Judge Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary The Bachelor / The Bachelorette Forum (Public)   |--Temporary The Biggest Loser Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Laguna Beach / The Hills Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Other Reality TV Shows Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Non-Reality TV Shows Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Survivor Basher Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Dancing with the Stars Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Top Chef Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Survivor Spoilers Forum (Protected)   |--Temporary Survivor Fanatic Forum (Protected)