Episode 11 - Still Kickin'

[Granny Smith]

So contrary to a lot of ponies' expectations apparently, I'm still here, alive and kickin'.

Frankly I'm offended that anypony thought it would be the end of the line for me there. Is it because of mah age? Is that it?

Well, these young whippersnapper ponies could sure learn a lesson or two, mhmmm. I've told DJ exactly what I think of her lack of confidence in me and if anypony else brings it up, they're gonna get it good too.

On that topic, I did actually briefly consider turnin' things on Rainbow Dash. 'Cause I suspect there could've been some engineerin' goin' on on Dash's part to make sure the vote was me vs. Lede. Which is fair enough, 'cause I wouldn' wanna be a target in a 4-pony TC either really, but I think Dash is a big player and thinkin' very hard 'bout the game without fully lettin' it on, and that's dangerous.

These were some PMs I got from Lede towards the end of the TC.

Hey Lede! I like ya too much to play these games with ya. I may be old but I ain’t blind. Are ya votin’ for me? I jus’ wanna know.

Yeah, I am. I like you a lot, but sticking with Dash and Pear is probably better for my game. I genuinely had no clue who I was going to vote when I sent my last couple of messages. Was waiting to hear back from you before telling you because I didn't want to just drop it on you.

I respect that and thanks for ya honesty.

Is there anythin’ I can neigh to change ya mind?

After talking it through with Dash and Pear, I don't think there is. Dash raised the point that the three of us can trust each other because of our time together on Everfree, whereas you're a social threat who may have strong connections with Crystal ponies that we haven't talked to very much. I feel like I can trust you, but that doesn't work if the others I'm with don't also feel like they can trust you. Sorry

I want to be clear that I'm not going to gun for you if you manage to flip the vote or play an idol. I'm going to be sad regardless of who gets voted out here, and if you somehow survive, I'll still be happy about you being around.

Thanks Lede.

And thank you for makin’ this game jus’ that much more fun for me. I meant what I neighed ‘bout lovin’ our conversations.

Is there anything that I can say to change your mind about who to target?

I don' really buy that Lede wasn' thinkin' of votin' for me the whole time, and there could be some degree of avoidin' responsibility for the vote ('cause we all know he was a scaredy pony at heart after all), but the last PM is what really gets me. Does he think that I was targetin' him before he was targetin' me? It sounds like that could be it. And it sounds like he didn' necessarily go out guns blazin' to target me. I mean, what would be the point in him lyin' so hard 'bout that?

Mah guess is that Dash subtly encouraged me to be the target, probably not as overtly as Lede claims, but at least a lil' bit. Maybe even mentioned to Lede that I was votin' for him.

I knew that Lede had a double vote so if we'd voted somepony like Dash together we could have achieved it. But why didn' I neigh to him to vote Dash with me.

Well, the fact is that in the lead up to TC he hadn' provided me with nearly as many sweet nothin's as Pear and Dash had, and those sweet nothin's mean somethin'!
I gave him a chance to indicate that he migh' not vote for me, but instead he neighed that he was gonna vote for me regardless of what I neighed.
As we all know, Lede was a scaredy pony so he probably would've jus' galloped to Dash if I neighed anythin' too radical.
Plus I was at work in the couple of hours before deadline so schemin' was hard.

So yeah, I didn' make a move against Dash and I'm glad I didn'. I also don' expect I'll make a move against her anytime too soon. But I got mah eyes on ya Dash.

Oh I should also touch on mah scroll-sendin'.

I sent a scroll to Coco 'cause I was worried that she was in a bad spot after the Thorax vote and so I thought it would be nice for her to get somethin'. I also intend on makin' her the pony I trust most and so I thought sendin' her a scroll might help her trust me too?

Starlight was a bit less of an obvious choice, but I thought she's bound to be somepony with a lot of social connections so I thought somethin' to build mah rapport with her would be nice.

--

Since the merge, I think I've reconnected with Coco and that it's goin' well. I may have been too much in tellin' her how much I trust her but knowin' her it should be okay.

Rarity seems okay but I plan on votin' her out soon if I can.

DJ told me she expected me to get voted out. DEAD TO ME

Soarin and I are jus' cruisin' along without much significance to our conversation yet.

I've put some effort into reconnectin' properly with FlimFlam, 'cause I think that our approaches to the game are pretty compatible, and I think that it'd be believable to them that I'd wanna ally with 'em 'cause of that.

Pinkie Pie strangely has neighed she wants to ally with me and Coco?

1. What names have you herd so far for the merge vote?
2. What’s your attitude going to be for the first merge vote? As-long-as-it-aint-me, or will you jockey for position?
3. Who is your mane ally?
4. Who is the dark horse to win the game?
5. Who’s somepony that you’re allied with now, but is going to stirrup trouble for you in the long run?
6. Who needs to get off their high horse?
7. How stable is your position?
8. What percent chance do you have of whinnying this game?

1. I ain't heard no names.
2. As-long-as-it-aint-me-or-somepony-i-care-bout
3. So ideally I wouldn' have a mane ally, but I'm an emotional pony so it's Coco.
4. Queen Chrysalis is a pretty dark horse.
5. Derpy Hooves
6. Soarin
7. As stable as a stable on rollerblades
8. hahaha, I'm actually gonna neigh 20%. I think I'm in a good spot and have a good chance if I can keep it up.

[Princess Luna]

Hello Luna has been very sleepy and paid 0 attention, what's going on with the vote and stuff?

[Granny Smith]

OKAY SO HERE'S WHAT'S GOIN' DOWN

I'm gonna do an arbitrary pony rankdown, and for each pony, I'm gonna neigh who I think they're close to and who I think they would want out of the game!

--



"I'm okay not being a ship."


She's also okay not PMin' me at all apparently.

This game, she has sent a grand total of ONE PM to me. And okay I get it, we haven' been on a tribe together until we merged. But surely a ponyqueen can make time in her schedule to, y'know, actually try and connect with me. I really didn' wanna target her right out of the gate 'cause I thought, ya never know. Maybe Chrysalis and I could jus' become super secret "hey I jus' met ya and this is crazy" Carly Rae Jepsen allies, but no apparently not.

I haven' really mentioned her name to anypony as somepony I wanna target yet. I wanted to lie low at least for the first tribal council after merge, but maybe I jus' have to start mentionin' it.

Likely Allies: Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, ?Coco, ?DJ
Likely Targets: Me, ?Derpy Hooves, ?Starlight Glimmer

--



"Was there anything or anypony in particular you have in mind? everypony has been too nice so far for me to have a bad impression to go off of."


So Rarity and I are workin' together I guess, but it jus' all seemed kinda fake to me? I don' know, she was jus' out of the blue askin' if I wanted to work with her 'cause apparently I had made a good impression or somethin', but I think it was more 'cause she sees me as a social pony that is close with ponies she's close to and so she probably wants to get in on some of that Granny Smith action. But I'm glad that everypony has been so nice to her.

Likely Allies: Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Queen Chrysalis, Coco, ?Me

Likely Targets: Derpy Hooves, Starlight Glimmer

--



"I was not expecting to see you again after you guys lost that one"

So DJ is mostly this low 'cause I think outside of Chrysalis, she's the only pony that I'm not technically allies with? I think jus' like on Crystal, DJ probably has the most potential to climb mah opinion rankin's. She's jus' gotta neigh that she loves me and then it'll all be okay. (I can't be the one to neigh I love her 'cause I have too many allies already it's complicated). I really respect DJ's approach to the game and to choosin' who to work with and she seems to be less 'bout the ponyshit than other ponies here are. I dig that.

Likely Allies: Soarin, FlimFlam, Coco, ?Derpy Hooves, ?Starlight Glimmer, ?Chrysalis

Likely Targets: I'm not sure. It could be Pinkie/Rarity/Dash but then I also wouldn' be surprised if she turn on Derpy and Glimmer? It's hard to neigh. Most likely thing is she doesn' vote Derpy or Glimmer right away and is in fact plannin' to later.

--



"Well hopefully we'll keep all those hooves off of ya now!"


She reached out to me as soon as we merged which was nice and I appreciate that, but I feel like I'm more of a compartmentalized alliance to her rather than somepony she's actually properly workin' with? What I mean by that is that she obviously has other connections like from the Wonderbolt tribe, but she jus' neighs to me that she wants to work with me and Coco but doesn' mention anypony else from the Wonderbolt tribe that she wants to work with. It's like I'm an alliance side-arm rather than the centre of it and I don' like that. Also Coco seems to have concerns 'bout her so I'm lookin' forward to hearin' what those are.

Likely Allies: Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Chrysalis, Coco, ?Pear, ?Me

Likely Targets: Derpy Hooves, Starlight Glimmer, Soarin, DJ

--



"I wanted to throw that last challenge (as you may have seen by my score) because I was worried about you over there"


*sigh* Did she throw the challenge to save me? I'm doubtful, but I guess the more I think 'bout it the more I think there's an outside chance of it bein' true? I'm still leanin' no though.

But yeah, it's funny 'cause I used the scroll on her thinkin' that she would be a social power pony that I could get some influence from but it almost seems like she (and Derpy) are the least popular ponies on the tribe right now. And she ranks this low for me 'cause so far since the merge she hasn' really given me a whole lot to rekindle the connection we built on the Crystal Empire.

If she does end up bein' a target then I'm gonna need to decide whether I try and keep her or not.

Likely Allies: Derpy, Me, DJ, ?Soarin

Likely Targets: Rainbow Dash, Pear, Rarity, Pinkie Pie

--



"I've been running around like a headless chicken trying to find out all the info I can about the challenge"

Some ponies sure have strange priorities, but whatever floats ya boat I guess! I appreciated that she was so hones' 'bout how hard she was tryin' in the challenge at least. And y'know what? Maybe I'm bein' too skeptical of Dash here. Maybe she genuinely does consider me to be a high priority of hers. Maybe I jus' need to believe more. But I know she's a big player. I know a lot of ponies seem to like her. And I don' know if she likes me enough for me to be able to commit to her in the longer-term.

Likely Allies: Rarity, Pear, Me, Coco, Pinkie, FlimFlam, ?Chrysalis

Likely Targets: Starlight Glimmer, Derpy, ?DJ.

--



"I'm also a scaredy pony"


That ya are! But it's okay I forgive ya.

Derpy's been growin' on me a lil' actually. I still can't work out what she really thinks of me and I have no idea how long our relationship will be able to last, but I like that she's jus' a bit of weird pony and I like our lil' chats so far this TC. She jus' needs to work on connectin' with the other ponies here!

Weirdly, Derpy actually mentioned wantin' to vote for Soarin, and Derpy goin' after Soarin jus' seems like a bad idea to me and I'm tryin to communicate that to Derpy!

Likely Allies: Starlight Glimmer, DJ, Me, ?Chrysalis

Likely Targets: Soarin apparently? What?

--



"...I'm a bit murky with Rainbow and Rarity after they blindsided Fluttershy in Everfree. Fluttershy lied to them..."


I actually think what Dash and Rarity was totally up to them and fair enough, but if Soarin's gonna have an issue with 'em 'cause of it then that honestly suits me. Soarin's been growin' on me too. He's jus' a nice pony to talk and seems to have an active interest in workin' with me which is somewhat unexpected but sure I'll take it? He mentioned wantin' to vote Pinkie or Rarity to me which makes sense based on where he is at in the game and makes it even weirder that Derpy would be targetin' him. Is Derpy jus' really out of touch? Or am I the clueless one?

Likely Allies: DJ, Me, Coco, FlimFlam

Likely Targets: Pinkie/Rarity apparently?

--



"I am supa excited to wurk wit you, n feel liek u one of las ponies lef who genuinely wanna wurk wit me bcuz dey want to, not bcuz dey have to"


Flim and Flam might be too high on this list, but I guess all I can say is I like 'em, and we seem to have connected fairly well followin' the merge? It's a bit problematic that they wanna vote Starlight Glimmer apparently, but for some reason I get the impression that FlimFlam is genuine 'bout wantin' to work with me.

Likely Allies: Dash, DJ, Soarin, Me, ?Rarity

Likely Targets: Starlight Glimmer, Derpy Hooves

--

I'm tired now. Will talk more 'bout Coco and Pear later probably.

[Flurry Heart]

I really appreciate these rankings.

[Ms. Harshwhinny]

I really appreciate these rankings.

[Suri Polomare]

I really appreciate these rankings.

[Granny Smith]

ugh 10 PMs

I'll confessional more when I can

[Granny Smith]

So at first I was hearin' FlimFlam vs Derpy and I was thinkin'

"I'm GONNA FUCK Y'ALL"

and then I thought that was a very uncouth thing for an old lady pony like me to think but I was still thinkin' it anyway

and then I heard pinkie or rarity come up as an option

and I was thinkin'

"YESSSSSSSSSS NOT AS GOOD AS CHRYSALIS BUT STILL YESSSSSSSSSSSS"

[Granny Smith]

I'm votin' for Pinkie 'cause she's only actually decided to talk to me now that she's in trouble.

So much drama

So much to tell

Sorry I can't do it right now

[Granny Smith]

So I'm still confused 'bout what went on durin the Tribal Council exactly 'cause Pinkie, Starlight, Chrysalis and ?Derpy (or was it Rarity?) all voted together while other ponies were tellin' me that Pinkie had it out for Starlight and Derpy (and Pinkie indicated this to me too), which was all jus' strange.

In hindsight maybe I should've expected a Pinkie idol play and tried to organise some blindside on Rarity or somethin' but most of all I'm jus' really sad that FlimFlam is gone! As I've neighed to a lot of ponies, I felt that FlimFlam added this real element of fun to the game that was mah own aim goin' into this, and I think they achieved that even better than I did!

Plus I was actually real excited 'bout gettin' the chance to work with 'em which was cool.

Ah well

New episode confessional will be up tonight with more thoughts and stuff.