On pregaming:
During FTC, information came to light that Josh/Hannah/AJ had been in contact with each other. One log shows Hannah trying to get Josh to accept an invitation to play that he really didn't want to accept, another log shows shows really into the game and talking to AJ to strike a F3 alliance before the game had started.
At several points waiting for the game to start, some players asked Whydon/me as hosts if they were allowed to share with others that they were invited. One such player was Umbreon, and we told him that we did not want players to share knowledge of their invites with others. But this was not made clear to all players from the onset, and apparently some of them did share.
In the particular case of Hannah/AJ/Josh, this is unfortunate because it resulted in a player who didn't actually want to play to be on the season. Was it something that impacted the game? It's hard to say. But in any case there's no evidence that Hannah/AJ were actively trying to break rules, and so once this knowledge came to us, there was nothing to do.
All this said, like please holy fuck players,
don't sign up if you don't want to play. Also, if you sign up, be prepared for the possibility of getting blindsided by friends.
On pregame casting:
Near the conclusion of FFF, Whydon approached me and asked if he could cohost s7 with me. I accepted, and he was initially really bubbly with ideas for a season themes, particularly All Stars and Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee.
Prior to the start of the game, there was a major casting issue in the form of Umbreon vs. Hal. I did not want Hal cast from the start, due to him cheating by talking to the jury in CAP s2, and before invites went out, I told Whydon that I would be utterly miserable hosting a season with hal as a player again and that it would be mentally draining for me. Whydon thought that this was an exaggerated joke or something and he sent an invite to both Umbreon and Hal very early; once I found out Whydon sent the invitation to hal, I tried to get him to rescind the invite but he felt guilty to do so. Initially Umbreon said he 100% did not want to play if Hal was playing, and I'm one who obviously understands this sentiment. Whydon disagreed. Whydon and I consistently and bitterly disagreed about this for a huge portion of the pregame, and we talked to
Da Letter El and he advised not casting Hal because issues between him/me/umbreon were bound and to happen and it was better to avoid it all. Whydon
still didn't want to rescind the invitation to Hal even after this. After weeks of being in limbo, Umbreon agreed to play even if Hal was in there, but I still wasn't okay with Hal.
During this fight, I also became entirely disillusioned by the concept of an All Stars season at this time. We just did FFF, which was largely a returning player season, and it seemed too soon to have another one. I tried to convince Whydon to have a season that allowed for more new players before we did all stars. It felt like I was consistently overruled at these big ticket items; at some moments Whydon said he'd be willing to make changes, and in some areas he did, but I just never felt I had any direction over the season's flavor. There were some moments where I pushed back against the cast and challenges and order of twists and stuff, and I did get a fair number of challenges and stuff that I wanted. But my heart was never into doing All Stars and let alone doing a season with Hal.
On season cheating and quits:
Laurel
When Laurel was voted out, he threw a massive fit and yelled/harassed Zelfie telling him to go jump in traffic, and told Umbreon he would regret voting him out. Then, Laurel went to AJ, who was on the other tribe, and told him to vote out all of the unloyal people who voted him out and told him that Zelfie had found an idol and played it on rssp1. The salt was way too aggressive, and Laurel also effectively did cross-tribal communication by talking to AJ.
Thankfully, AJ was very quick to share this information with me, which helped at least control some of the flow of information. Ultimately, I had to tell Azelfie that AJ was leaked info about his idol, and then I told AJ that I told Azelfie this.
In casting, I thought Laurel would be the cool villain, the hal without being a total russel hantz. Laurel had a big impact on the season and was great with confessionals and being good TV, but after cheating when getting voted out and being as ill-willed towards the people who voted him out as he was not was I expected or wanted. I understand the game can be very emotional at times, but let's please not get to this level in any future season.
Steven Snype
Wish he didn't quit, he was cool. It was at a 3-3 (or 4-4?) vote iirc and things could have been weird if he stayed, but hard to say if he would have lived the vote or not. I hope he would have.
Azelfie
During one tribal council, Azelfie accidentally sent a screenshot of content that was not public knowledge to everyone at the tribal. The content wasn't THAT big of an impact on the game, but Azelfie still lost the ability to get immunity in the next tribal council... RIP. Azelfie acknowledged the mistake and accepted the penalty, and overall he was very pleasant to deal with on the subject.
Josh
Prior to quitting, Josh told someone (I think Hannah) to kill her self after he assumed that AJ/Hannah had no intentions of honoring the F3 deal he tried to set up in the pregame. Whydon tried to get Josh to change his mind against quitting, and I was LIVID at Josh for telling someone to "kys" (though I didn't talk to Josh about this until he definitely quit). Ultimately we gave Josh a few hours to see if he really really wanted to quit, and he did. If he had stayed, he likely would have been banned from an immunity challenge or two due to him saying kys.
----
I know at least some players had fun at least some of the time, and grats to AJ for his second win, and thanks for being willing and forthcoming whenever cheating or cheating-investigations occurred.
Whydon and I had disagreements prior to the start of the season and now that it's over, I regret the entire season and wish none of it had happened. We knew problems existed before it started and should have stopped or at least postponed stuff until it got sorted out, but we instead entered a season with a lot of unresolved stuff at the forefront. I still don't like it was all stars, I don't like that I was trapped in this hell hole for over a month with hal when I was very upfront with not wanting to be around him, and in general I feel like this was a massive waste of time to have a huge group of friends dominate the season (which is largely an oversight of how close hannah was with both josh and oddish, which gave her alliance members a huge edge).
There were a few moments where it seemed like the universe could be saved, like when rssp1 got voted out thanks to umbreon's idol, but in the end it was sort of a false hope. Hannah as a player has an amazing social game, but at the same time she like knows everyone and it makes it very hard to cast her without giving one of her alliances an almost insurmountable advantage in the game. At one point I thought Josh would be a savior in the game, but I didn't even know that he was as close to Hannah as he was.
Thanks circus, you never cease to amaze me.
For the love of Detective Pikachu let's get a bunch of new players next season and not do another all-returnees for at least another ten years.