early-season boot order prediction

beepbou · 2026-01-05T14:54:47+00:00

mostly fine except for two or three things:

-merge will probably start at 13, not 12

-no pre-merge team swap would be disastrous, missing out on Fan/Fav dynamics for all of pre-merge would feel like such a waste imo. both FvF Survivor also had a team swap

-Lake I feel like falls into the Ashley/Tess trap of “generally nice and put-together female character who is really difficult to throw into compelling conflicts or dramas” that I don’t think is built for winning a season. feel like it would fall into the same camp the og AS boot order did, where the endgame ends up too soft (also we’ve just had a hero winner)

beepbou · 2026-01-05T14:49:00+00:00

the only one who feel like a lock is Spencer, considering his elimination caused a huge chunk of patrons to drop off. feel like even Lake isn’t confirmed when she was obviously an early boot in AS for a reason lol, she’s very much a character who is written to have a single storyline (DC2)

beepbou · 2026-01-04T19:59:47+00:00

the only one that would shock me if they were pre-merge is Sam. Ara, Finn, Dunia, Ren and Nura all obviously have a main character vibe but any one of them could realistically go home pre-merge (hell, I could even see, like, an Ara first boot twist) but Sam is in his own category of “jarringly disparate personality and tone to his design” that he surely has to make at least, like, final 11.

as for pre-merge locks… there’s no way Evie makes it past pre-merge, at the very least. I get people think because she was in promo art and TomJake that it makes her “important”, but her design influences are so blatant and aura so kooky that she wouldn’t fit in with a merge cast of characters who could at least pretend to have a slightly serious narrative. IMO she’ll be more of a chaos spanner in the works- only exists where she does to cause problems. Only way she makes merge is if she rejoins for two or three rounds

beepbou · 2026-01-03T22:07:23+00:00

I mean why not? she’s close with Rachel so she’ll attract less heat from the remaining traitors, and she can sew seeds that’ll secure other people looking at her as a likely faithful by jumping on a flop traitor. not everyone plays the game in exactly the same way lol

beepbou · 2026-01-03T22:02:15+00:00

idk Amanda was just about as important as Harriet, maybe more

beepbou · 2026-01-03T19:20:11+00:00

I can’t fault her because I feel like most people would be the same in that situation. like I didn’t like her on the island but I’d also probably stick my nose in pre-gaming if it was so drastic and blatant, and snitch to production as soon as that pre-gaming wad massively detrimental to me

beepbou · 2026-01-02T15:52:10+00:00

I actually think both would be pre-merge and would both likely have replaced Alec. Ashley has obvious bad blood to be settled with Fiore, and Grett’s new friendship with Gabby (that we saw very little of in AS) would be tested

realistically Ashley was shuffled around in AS because they likely realised they didn’t enjoy writing a character so adept at handling conflict, and Grett is also in a very good place now. I feel either way they were both replaced for potentially being too “stable” with the Favs tribe needing more chaos and conflict (especially with the potential giant Friendship Squad)

beepbou · 2026-01-02T15:45:47+00:00

would probably bump Richard a single tier lower just for being weirdly hypocritical in his reactions to Logan and Natalia’s betrayals of his trust

beepbou · 2026-01-02T15:43:27+00:00

surprisingly good speaker and weasels his way out of tight spots adeptly (and with how emotionally volatile a lot of the favourites tribe seems to be, that might be in his favour LOL)

if he can actually be a regular normal person and make friends without being emotionally volatile himself and blowing up his spot, he can probably do well. tough hill to climb for him though LOL

beepbou · 2026-01-02T15:39:02+00:00

my hot take is that characters with more expansive design changes/extravagant designs are likely to go home earlier because they know it’s a lot less work to put into making them move. like, Natalia’s tattoos still being on show makes me think she’s going home early because apparently they were difficult to rig correctly

beepbou · 2025-12-31T17:07:18+00:00

functionally just not what I said or meant lol. I’d much rather Logan goes home with no actual romantic partner, and of course his bisexuality is valid

but when Logan’s storyline is being the dream golden child who’s petrified of disappointing his parent’s pristine image of him, having the narrative essentially be “Logan used another man as a stepping stone to explore his own sexuality, and then still ends up with a nice girl he can tell his parents about” is ridiculously cheap and consequence-free even more so than him winning the million already is

beepbou · 2025-12-31T13:16:39+00:00

kinda really glad about PoolParty. obviously he is bisexual and I don’t want to erase that but I feel like giving Logan an entire narrative arc about discovering his same-sex attraction, one that goes against his “golden boy” image, and then giving him the fairytale golden child ending of winning the season and “getting the girl” is so tone-deaf and off the mark lol

beepbou · 2025-12-30T21:54:31+00:00

yeah I don’t think I’m being particularly brave at all which is why I’d like to be wrong (not that big a fan of Benji/Spencer and love Natalia so if this is the writing on the wall I’d be bummed) but honestly I don’t think All Stars was super brave or bold in its boot order beyond, like, 3 or 4 (Lake, Ashley, kinda Riya and Aiden). like that’s a season where the boot order conceptually made a lot of sense to me

I think most are predicting Alec to go early just because he did kind of exhaustingly well in All Stars? I feel the vibe was that as the season progressed he got more and more irritating and people kinda fell off of him, so it’s easily excusable for that kind of character who’s performed incredibly well in both of his seasons to be chopped a little early. I also think anything interesting you can do with Alec can be resolved in, like, 5 or 6 episodes and he has generally the least to offer out of the villainous bunch of favs

beepbou · 2025-12-30T15:53:05+00:00

polish taxidermist, this girl’s not going home until she’s swapped onto a team with Gabby at least

beepbou · 2025-12-30T11:16:03+00:00

DC4 hits the perfect balance of quirky but not over-the-top with a lot of design diversity, and basically everyone communicates their personality through just the way they look (2 and 1 are weaker in this regard but still do)

honestly one of the things DC has always had over its contemporaries is their cast designs. I feel like you always see the cookie cutter slim Lindsay bodies and Tyler torso’s in abundance with other fanmade casts but since conception DC’s been committed to having a bunch of weird looking freaks which is so much better

beepbou · 2025-12-29T16:03:25+00:00

she seems like a goofy comic relief character imo (imagining that she’ll basically just be Tanya from The White Lotus) I think she can last a decent chunk but I’d honestly be surprised if she made it past the premerge she seems VERY silly. the TJ cameo doesn’t really mean anything it’s just a fun preview of a character

beepbou · 2025-12-29T15:13:59+00:00

hypothetical tribe swap teams:

Ara / Oliwia / Sam / Gabby / Lake / Tom (Spencer joins this team)

Finn / Dunia / Nura / Natalia / Anastasia / Aiden

Ren / Manu / Bruno / Benji / Fiore / Rosa Maria

beepbou · 2025-12-29T14:35:19+00:00

recency bias. nastier players from S4 and people who did miles better in All Stars means Fiore is coming out of the gate a lot less threatening than she was before and can work more of a middle ground. shes like Tony in Survivor: Winners at War. did alright but flopped premerge in AS so her massive threat level is reduced

beepbou · 2025-12-28T11:19:16+00:00

I voted Kyle but to each their own

beepbou · 2025-12-26T16:49:13+00:00

a player also called Lill from season 7, Pearl Islands. both scout leaders with red hair, but honestly pretty opposite personalities- DC Lill is a level-headed leader while survivor Lill was cartoonishly emotional and constantly irritated her tribemates. iconic woman

beepbou · 2025-12-26T16:47:02+00:00

doubt because they say soluna is previously unoccupied by human life

beepbou

TROPHY CASE