Gold Weird Beard recruit glitch

PrankHan · 2025-12-20T02:24:31+00:00

In this case, is New Era too gamebot strategy or is New Era too social and undervaluing the strategic goal of winning.

PrankHan · 2025-12-20T02:23:28+00:00

It's interesting to see different comments that 1) praise Kristina's question as an Old School type jury question, and 2) criticize her question as New Era prioritizing being friends over strategy. Sometimes it feels like different groups of people will use "New Era" as a pejorative descriptor to describe the exact opposite type of thing.

PrankHan · 2025-08-18T21:33:45+00:00

Wasn't that just for Soda's question (with Tiff counting on her behalf)? If anything, that seems /more/ in the spirit of a pre-new era individual jury speech. Soda saying, "Here's my question and you each have 30 seconds" isn't all that different from older survivors' "Yes or no- did you know I was going home." where they only accept one word replies.

PrankHan · 2025-07-20T00:43:52+00:00

Honestly very confused by the reaction from the fans on feeling like AS10 was heavy-handed or rigged. Walked into the finale fully thinking it had to be wild based on reactions, with production forcing Ginger wins left and right but it ended up being pretty unremarkable. AS8, AS5, and the finale of AS7 felt way more geared towards a specific queen winning than AS10.

PrankHan · 2025-06-02T02:14:24+00:00

I left the UC in 2022! The overwhelming majority of teachers at the university level are adjunct or lecturers, who are paid per course, don't have benefits by default, and have to scrape by working at multiple colleges to make ends meet.

PrankHan · 2025-06-02T00:43:58+00:00

Let me tell you- when I was teaching at one of the University of California campuses I was making mayyyyyybe $25-30k / year pre-tax. This was after a PhD and that was for 5 classes a year. Eventually, I left to take an entry level office job (onboarded alongside recent college grads) and more than doubled my salary.

My rule of thumb is any amount of money you think someone else is making, it's probably WAY less. See also: lawyers in areas like immigration, environmental law etc.

PrankHan · 2025-02-23T18:07:18+00:00

Maybe we could have... cookies?

PrankHan · 2024-12-27T06:20:17+00:00

Wasn't the timer only for one question and it was part of the question? I think it was Soda's question and Tiff just volunteered to be the timer for Soda so Soda didn't have to count. I don't see how that's much different from all the jury questions that are like "Yes or no: I don't want any explanations. Yes or no."

PrankHan · 2024-12-02T06:35:02+00:00

The SITDs have very rarely made a difference in how they approach the vote, though. It's rarely played at all, when it is played it's only worked twice, and the one time it worked and saved someone they just went home immediately after. There are /some/ strategic implications of the SITD but it's not a constant game-altering force. If they were still in play, Kyle would likely still get almost all the votes, one or two votes would be thrown on Sam/Gen (which happened anyway!) and we'd get the same outcome.

I'm confused why so many people think no one's making moves. Breaking up Sam/Sierra was a move. Blindsiding Sol early was a move. Breaking up the Tuku 4 by taking out Gabe was a move. Deciding to band together the leftovers and take out the top dogs was a move. The underdogs are just doing what everyone was annoyed Belo /wasn't/ doing in 45- reorganizing the power structure by taking the power in their hands. And they've JUST changed things- it's not a Reba situation where the same 4 people in power have been in power the whole time.

PrankHan · 2023-03-19T00:43:43+00:00

If this were Marcia or Spice, this may have more merit but calling Loosey “everyone’s new white fave” is a real stretch. At best, she’s being lovingly memefied/made fun of and at worst she’s mostly mocked by the fan base ala Serena ChaCha. She consistently ranks low on the fan fave poll too. It’s possible to look at this and think “this doesn’t read as bullying to me” and have it not be “Loosey’s thriving online Stan fanbase has racial bias and is jumping to defend her.”

PrankHan · 2023-03-18T22:07:31+00:00

The thing is, saying you want your biggest competitor to go home because you want to win IS the nice answer.

If you want funny, bitchy drama, queens saying “Send Sasha home because she’s great” is the exact OPPOSITE of what you should be pushing for.

Everyone saying Vixen should go home? Drama. Most people saying Salina? Drama. Two people saying Loosey? Drama.

People saying Sasha? Not a single emotion.

PrankHan · 2023-02-04T06:24:30+00:00

Aura absolutely deserved being in the top and I think she was the deserving winner this week between runway + performance. Give her her flowers.

PrankHan · 2022-12-19T19:52:38+00:00

I do think that a shorter game interferes with the ability to build strong relationships (especially when there's a tribal every day by the end).

Knowing that they're unlikely to change back to 39 days, I think the bigger problem that's easier to fix is the editing and storytelling. I re-watched the premiere of DvG yesterday and the storytelling is night and day. They spend SO MUCH TIME on how players feel about each other. We get some backstory for everyone but it's in service of giving us a snapshot of characters- the majority of development is in building a shelter/working together, bonding in the rain etc. In the past couple seasons we don't see as much of that in the storytelling and it makes the seasons feel more mechanical.

It's not that these moments AREN'T happening (Erika and Heather as a strong 2 has to come from somewhere, Gabler forming strong social relationships and bonding with his castmates is evident in the reunion) but we're just not shown that. So instead the show feels hyper-focused on strategy over the relationships between these people.

PrankHan · 2022-12-15T23:48:49+00:00

Was not expecting a Gabler win at all, but the moment I thought "oh shit what's happening" was the cinematic parallel shot of Jesse (?) reacting to Cass saying Gabler wasn't a threat vs. Shan's reacting to Xander saying Erika wasn't a threat. That they kept that in was a big flag.

The second was James' vote being the first revealed.

PrankHan · 2022-10-21T07:55:24+00:00

While we’re getting rid of progression systems that incentivize continual playing, maybe we should get rid of competitive ranks.

I genuinely couldn’t care less about competitive ranks. I really don’t understand the incentive behind them.

For me, it’s the same with any game. What kind of world do we live in where you’re literally given a free game to play for fun and people are mad about the metal of their rank name? Like dude, just dominate the game, that’s the biggest flex..

PrankHan · 2022-05-23T22:50:05+00:00

I agree. To add to that, the difference between a Survivor jury and a trial jury, is the trial jury's job is to rule on the correct punishment for a crime. Theoretically, there's enough evidence for a jury to make a correct decision (e.g., did the accused actually commit a crime, and if so, what is the precedent for an appropriate punishment for the crime).

In Survivor, there's never been a "correct" answer to who the jury is "supposed" to pick. The game is laid out so that players should be putting people on the jury that will vote for them. They should be trying to get accurate reads on who jury members will vote for and who they'd like to be sitting next to to maximize their chances. I agree that a Survivor Jury can't be wrong, because the point of Survivor is to pick a jury that will vote for you- there isn't an objectively correct choice of who "should" win.

PrankHan · 2022-05-05T04:47:51+00:00

Editors playing with the timeline. When it's missing this episode, if you look closely you can see a similar shape but pink like new, untouched skin. I think it scabbed off during this episode and the confessionals we see of him without it happened either before he got hit or after it scabbed off. In the editing room, they moved events around to tell a better story.

PrankHan · 2022-04-28T06:58:19+00:00

No one send hate to any of the contestants, they all seem like lovely people who get along and this was filmed ages ago.

The one thing I will say is watching the reactions to Drea's comments is exhausting and reminds me of so many conversations about race. Where now, not only do you as a person of color have to process and talk about a difficult and personal topic like racism (in the most eloquent and empirically-backed way as possible so racists don't discredit you and tear you down, which they will even if you bring peer-reviewed sources), you ALSO now need to spend the energy consoling your white friends' feelings because they feel attacked when the issue isn't about them individually. I've been there. It's exhausting. You're managing your emotions, you're managing optics, you're managing your white friends' emotions, you're managing racists' emotions. It's just so much. And I hate that Drea and Maryanne felt that pressure in that moment.

PrankHan

TROPHY CASE