Stage 5: The Merge!

[Grand Pear]

That was the end of the tribe phase, and we were now merged! I was mostly worried about Derpy, DJ, Soarin and Glimmer, as I had barely talked to them all game and I knew they were all supposed to be really tight.

Because our former 5 was no longer a thing, a new 5 was formed. Dash, Rarity, Granny, Coco and me. Lede had been voted out and FlimFlam wasn't included in the new 5, but he could be our 6th vote if we needed it. So this was the second time that I was part of a 5 and the second time that it was composed of two double alliances of three. There was Dash, Rarity, me and there was Granny, Coco and me. I felt like I was going to end up in the F4 regardless of how I went, because Dash was planning on losing Coco at F5 and Granny wanted to get rid of Rarity. So this was a great situation for me, as long as that 5 existed. I still had a strong connection with FlimFlam and I think I rebuild my relationship with Pinkie pretty well. I very much enjoyed my early chats with Soarin, but I had a hard time connecting with Derpy, Glimmer and DJ. I think the amount of ponies being around probably made it a bit difficult to build a relationship from scratch and that's why it never really happened.

nopony won immunity. Pinky started overplaying badly and started targeting FlimFlam. Mostly everypony was on board with voting out Pinkie and it happened. Unfortunately, Pinkie pulled out an idol and my oldest ally, FlimFlam got voted out instead. This cut the ties I had to my old allies completely and I could now focus on getting my new 5 to the end. I think FlimFlam being voted out, helped me in to appear like I was an easy target without any major allies, and resulted in a number of ponies targeting me and suffering for it.


Flim and Flam

FlimFlam, I really loved to talk to you and the way you were taken out of the game, was horrible. I wish we could have had more time to enjoy each others company, because you were great! I'm not sure I'd have been as successful in the game with you around, because I'm not sure I could have brought myself to vote you out. You were with me from day 1 and you stayed with me until your last day in the game. You were the best ally I could wish for! Thanks for a wonderful game!

[Grand Pear]

New challenge, and my first immunity win! I almost never win individual immunity so the fact that it happened so much here, and that I was labeled a challenge threat, has been the biggest surprise to me. Immunity is so great to have and I got to sit back and relax!

The votes were still going Pinkie's way after the way she handled the last TC. Pinkie attempted to vote out Soarin and Derpy made a last minute attempt to blindside Coco, which failed. This made Derpy a target for most ponies, but this round, Pinkie was voted out. At this point, I really liked Soarin and I thought he was somepony I could possibly work with if something weird happened to the five. I knew Granny liked Soarin a lot too, so there was room for a cooperation there.


Pinkie Pie

Pinkie… I think you might also be one of the reasons I made it this far. By targeting me, I was able to distance myself from the Apples and find new connections. You also idoled out FlimFlam, which made me look even more like an outcast, which I don't think I was. I tried to start new with you but after voting out FlimFlam, I think that ship had sailed.

[Grand Pear]

Derpy had put herself on the outs by attempting to vote out Coco, and used her challenge advantage to win the next immunity challenge. I'm not even sure how the whole vote went down anymore, but everypony settled on Starlight Glimmer as the vote, which was fine with me because I hadn't really connected as much with them. This would eliminate one of the 4 ponies I was worried about at the start of merge so I was happy to do it.


Starlight Glimmer

I think our story was simply one of too late to connect. You had built a relationship with Pinky and Pinkie was one of the reasons FlimFlam was voted out. So I didn't think there was room for us to build anything on. I had made plans with other ponies and I'm sure you did the same.

[Grand Pear]

A new challenge and Coco wins immunity. I'm not sure that's who Derpy would have targeted if she didn't win immunity, but at the time I thought that might have been the case. Instead Derpy thought it was a good idea to target me, the pony without any connections. I knew for a fact that Soarin and DJ were also voting me so I tried convincing Derpy that it didn't need to be like this. What I was mostly worried about here is that Derpy had an idol. So I tried acting desparate and tried getting Derpy to reconsider voting for me, but he wouldn't budge. Derpy was confident that he had the votes. That's what reassured me a bit that there wasn't going to be an idol play there, and my Alliance of 5 had already told me they were voting for Derpy. I think this might have been the time where I connected with Queen Chrysalis and I formed a backup trio of Queen/Coco/me. This was important to me in case something happened to our 5 and also to have extra votes against Soarin and DJ, who were probably going to keep targeting me. I actually thought this was a really fun vote for me, because Derpy seemed confident and I knew he didn't have the votes, but I still kept trying to convince him to change his vote. I think this vote proved how well connected I actually was and that I wasn't just a pawn in this game.


Derpy Hooves
Bad choice to target me, Derpy I'm not sure what other choices you might have had at that point though. You coming after me made me realize that my connections were solid. I was worried about you almost the entire game, when I found out that Granny was your pen pal. In the beginning, I thought that Granny might have been the link that would connect us, but in the end it turned out completely different. Maybe in another game we'd be the best allies, because I do think we could have worked together well!

[Grand Pear]

The weirdest immunity win ever. I still don't know how I won this. My art was mediocre at best and I don't think my story and name were that spectacular to beat some of the other entries, especially with DJ using a challenge advantage. But I was happy to win it, because it meant DJ and Soarin couldn't target me. I think I got a bit careless in this vote and I didn't pick up on the signals that were so obviously there. I was assuming this would be an easy DJ vote, but instead I got blindsided and Dash was voted out.

Granny and Coco had both signaled me that they were worried about Dash's aggressive play that round but I wiped it off the table and told them that we could worry about Dash after DJ and Soarin were gone. So they blindsided Dash and kept me out of the loop. To be fair, at that point, I also thought Dash was #5 in our 5, but I was too focused on DJ and Soarin that I didn't look at it further. I went to sleep a couple of hours before TC end too, so that's also probably the reason I wasn't informed. Dash leaving meant there was no more speculation about our final 4, because there were only 4 of us left.


Rainbow Dash

Dash, you were a delight to play with. I loved scheming with you and you were a big reason why our 5 was formed. Unfortunately, I think your aggressiveness made the others a bit uneasy and you suffered the consequences for it. I'm happy that I never voted you out and that the decision was made for me, because I was not looking forward to that F5 vote. I'm sure you were one of the spectator's favorites, because you definitely were a busy pony! Much love to you!

[Grand Pear]

The round after the Dash vote and I was super happy to win immunity here after being blindsided at the last vote. This was probably the vote I was the most nervous for, even though I was sure to survive this one. Dj and Soarin at this point, wanted to break up me and Granny. Because I was immune, DJ wanted to vote out Granny. Our "4" defaulted back to voting DJ, but after talking to Chrys about it, we noticed she wasn't too keen on voting out DJ. This raised a lot of questions because Coco and I had a side deal with Chrys and it didn't make sense for her to not go along with that. We realized that Chrys probably had a plan to the end with everypony, which appeared to be true when I talked to DJ about it. I threw Granny under the bus pretty hard here, and told DJ that I wasn't crazy enough to take Granny to the end and auto-lose. I'm not sure how much of that worked, but in the end, even Soarin and DJ voted for Chrys. I was super worried that Granny might have gone home here, and I was super happy it went how I wanted it to go!


Queen Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis, you were probably one of the sneakiest players in the game without anypony realizing it. After being on the outs at Fluttershy's Cottage, you kicked back and mad it to the F7. It was impressive how you seemed to be the odd pony out but you actually had so much connections people didn't know about. I think you played a great game, and if you had just agreed to vote DJ here, you'd have made it even further, probably!

[Grand Pear]

A new round and 2nd place in the immunity challenge. What am I doing this game to be such a challenge threat! Anyway, I'm assuming how last round ended, that DJ is going to target Granny, which he also tells me he's doing. Then Rarity and Coco tell me he's willing to vote any of Granny or me. I really thought I had made DJ think that I'd be with him if he targeted Granny but he's still not willing to not target me. I don't know what I ever did to DJ, but he must have hated me pretty hard. And another pony who thought I'd be an easy vote. BOOM, 5(with the double vote)-2 and DJ is out, leaving Soarin on his own and on the outs!


DJ-Pon3

DJ, I don't know what I did to make you hate me as much as you did, because you sure took every chance you had to come after me. In the end, it was your downfall, like it was for Derpy. I know our conversation never really went anywhere, I'm not sure why we never really connected, as you seemed to have connected to others pretty easily and the same thing was the case for me. Maybe we never really wanted it enough so we didn't try hard enough? Anyway, thanks for being my biggest enemy this game, I think we really made this game fun for each other and we both failed to target each other at least once. I hope you don't actually hate me and that you'll respect the game I played, at least

[Grand Pear]

And then there were 5. Soarin sends me a huge wall how Coco is going to win this game if we don't get rid of her. Guess who wins immunity? Coco! Soarin actually barely even talked to me since he started targeting me so this came out of nowhere. I played along and asked him what his new plan was, now that Coco had immunity. He then broke it down to voting Granny first and then trying to get rid of Coco at Onitama. He gives Rarity a similar speech. He pretty much tells us that we're not having a shot at winning if we don't take him to the end. Which first of all is pretty insulting, but also is pretty weird because why would we take him to the end if he's so sure we're easily beatable. I've been working on getting these 4 to the end since day one of the merge and now I'm supposed to throw that all away? Wasn't gonna happen. I have played a pretty honest game, I think. Never really betrayed anypony(aside from Lede, but I was Always going to betray somepony that vote) and did a great job positioning myself but also making myself appear like an easy vote with almost no connections. Taking Soarin would pretty much throw all of that out the window. And I worked too hard to make it here


Soarin

It's a sad story for me, how you and me never worked together. I loved talking to you early merge, but once Derpy decided I was a target, the conversation died completely. I think we had a good connection for a while and for a long time I thought you had plans with me. But in the end I was your target almost the entire merge. I'll give you this much: you were the last pony to target me who was voted out. Congrats on that