The Nerve 5

The Nerve 5 is, as apparent by the title, the fifth season of The Nerve. Following the tradition of past Nerve sequels, Sundae Morning hosted as Tahlia Brookins, the Nerve Queen from The Nerve 4. As always, the format was completely different than all previous Nerves.

The Format
Every four rounds, the players are divided into two equal Patrols:

Rounds 1-4: 2 patrols of 8 Rounds 5-8: 2 patrols of 6 Rounds 9-12: 2 patrols of 4 Round 13: 2 patrols of 2

Each round, there is a "Tahlia's Challenge". The winner of this challenge (players may win consecutive challenges) is named the Model-In-Charge. After nominations have been set, the Model-In-Charge has the sole responsibility of eliminating, or "retahliating" another player.

The winning model's entire patrol is safe for the round.

Then, there is a "Patrol Competition". The winner is named the Patrol Captain, and nominates two of her Patrol-mates for Retahliation.

Following immediately after is the so-called "Retahliation Rite", where the Model-In-Charge reviews the Patrol Captain's nominations and Retahliates one of them.

The eliminated player must give her soul(s) to another remaining player. At the end, the player with the most souls will receive an automatic vote to win.

To win, the player must win the majority of nine votes:

1-7, the votes of the 9th through 3rd placed models 8, the majority vote of the 10th through 16th placed models 9, the auto-vote coming with the majority of souls.

In the event that the final two models both have seven souls, the soul vote and "loser's club" vote are both nullified, leaving the decision in the hands of the seven jurors.

Summary
At casting, the following players were selected as the final 16:


 * Allison Harvard /// NeW_sTaRt
 * Cassie Grisham /// Nade
 * Catie Anderson /// xymandopex
 * Celia Ammerman /// Vashhee
 * Coryn Woitel /// RikkuRules
 * Danielle Evans /// Dollfacex
 * Dominique Reighard /// Fashion
 * Jaeda Young /// Estquer
 * Jenah Doucette /// FierceIntensions
 * Jessica Santiago /// chantal4ever
 * Joslyn Pennywell /// antmlover4444
 * Katie Cleary /// antmfreak004 -> cinmantha
 * Lauren Utter /// RockerTannz
 * Michelle Babin /// candy_lohanfan
 * Nicole Borud /// batfoot303
 * Victoria Marshman /// OkashiM



First Patrol Selection
Monday, June 29th

In the first patrol formation, there was a mini-challenge to determine the two patrol captains. The contestants were asked to be the first to post photos of the 16 ANTM contestants in the game.

As the winners with 4 out of 16 each, Danielle and Celia had the ability to choose their patrol-mates.

Danielle chose to name her patrol the Tranny Patrol, while Celia opted for the Diva patrol. And thus, the stage was set for the first four rounds of the game.

Round 1
Wednesday, July 1st

The round began, slightly predictably, with a "race" challenge entitle "My Predictable First Challenge". In order to win the challenge, the players were required to be the fastest to complete three consecutive tasks to be named the winner.

The winner of the Tahlia's Challenge was Cassie, thus saving the Diva Patrol from danger for the rest of the round.

Following, the Tranny Patrol members participated in the challenge "Coz I'm Shy", which was a word-search puzzle in which the players had to locate 15 of the same word, "shy", to win.

Coryn won the Patrol Competition and nominated Danielle and Katie for retahliation, presumably due to their inactivity during the round. Cassie reviewed the nominees, and thus Danielle became the first player to be retahliated from the game.

Round 2
Friday, July 3rd

The second round was marred by extreme inactivity. Only two players from the Tranny Patrol were present, out of seven, and only three from the Diva patrol of eight were present.

The Tahlia's Challenge was entitled "Bring Me To Tyty", and it was a maze challenge. The players were asked to draw a continuous line from Tahlia's head to Tyra's head in the image without touching any of the walls. Celia was declared the winner, but after a hole in her line was noted, the results were revised and Dominique became the Model-In-Charge.

With the Tranny Patrol now safe, Celia and Jessica (the only Divas present) battled it out to win the Patrol Competition. Celia easily trounced Jessica 4-0 in "Copycat", where the users simply had to repost the series of smilies that Tahlia used to get the point.

With the winners set, Celia elected to nominate Joslyn and Nicole for retahliation, citing their inactivity as the reason. Dominique chose to Retahliate Joslyn for extreme inactivity, which held water as Nicole showed up almost immediately after the Retahliation Rite had ended.

After the second round, Allison decided to quit and thus retahliated herself. Katie's controller, antmfreak004, was then replaced with the user cinmantha due to inactivity.

Round 3
Tuesday, July 7th

One of the most straightforward rounds to date. In the Tahlia's Challenge, "Bingo", the contestants played Bingo with a 3x3 grid with fellow contestants that they chose. The winner of this luck-based challenge was Michelle, making her the Model-In-Charge for the round!

This meant that the Tranny Patrol was now safe. In the next challenge, "Celia", players were asked to count the number of Celia's "contemplating" face in the image. The answer was 47, and ironically the winner was in fact Celia, becoming the Diva Patrol Captain for the second consecutive round.

Celia nominated Lauren and Nicole for Retahliation. Again, activity was a big factor.

Ultimately Michelle decided to Retahliate Nicole for being the least active. Nicole chose to grant her soul to Catie.

Second Patrol Selection
Tuesday, July 7th

The twelve remaining players were asked to rank themselves and their fellow contestants from 1 to 12 in order of "closeness".

It was revealed that the 6 players with the highest closeness would become the Tranny Patrol, and the last 6 became the Diva Patrol.

Celia was the most close to players in general, while unsurprisingly Katie, who had just been replaced as a completely different player, was the most distant.

Round 5
Friday, July 10th

The fifth round began with what was regarding as the series's most frustrating challenge, "7 Minutes". The premise of the challenge was that different members of each patrol were required to post a specific sequence of items, 1 per minute, such that at the 7th minute, the challenge would be complete.

Not surprisingly, the performance on the challenge was mediocre to poor, with a huge number of rules violations and general bitchery.

In the end, the 20 minutes expired and so the last person to post an item correctly in sequence was the winner. To the surprise of many, Jenah claimed her first Model-In-Charge position, sending the Tranny Patrol to the Patrol Competition.

The patrol competition, "Who, What, How?" was a logic puzzle that players were asked to solve. Coryn solved the puzzle early on, but the challenge continued because Tahlia Brookins misidentified her response as incorrect.

Coryn, the Tranny Patrol Captain, chose to nominate Catie and Jessica for Retahliation. In the end, Jenah Retahliated Jessica with an apparent lack of remorse.

Jessica chose to grant her soul to the rapidly-aging Celia.

Round 6
The Tahlia's Challenge, "Drop Everything", was over almost as soon as it began. Dominique solved the word puzzle in an amazing time, giving her the MIC for the round and safety for the Diva Patrol.

In the Tranny Patrol Competition, "The Strongest Link", Jaeda pulled through and posted the correct answer after a few minutes of searching. She decided to nominate allies Celia and Coryn for Retahlation. Coryn wasn't around, so she was unable to plead her case.

Dominique Retahliated Coryn, and Coryn gave her soul to Cassie.

Celia quit after this round, shocking everyone. She was a frontrunner in the competition, but had to leave for personal reasons. She did express that she did not want to be there, drawing inspiration from the host, Ms. Brookins herself.

Round 8
The challenge, "Fair Squares", hearkened back to the days of The Nerve 4. The players had to strategically select sets of squares to eliminate each other. In the end, Victoria was the most effective, and became the Model-In-Charge. The Tranny patrol was safe for another round.

The subesquent challenge, "Ellis Island", asked players to solve clues to find an image. This challenge was plagued with a series of errors, but eventually Dominique came out victorious.

Dominique decided to nominate Cassie and Jenah for Retahliation. Victoria decided to Retahliate the "silent threat" Cassie, who became the first Nerve Juror.

Third Patrol Selection
This Patrol Selection was determined by the order in which the players turned in their "Backstabbing Questionnaire". The first four were the "Trannies" and the last four were the "Divas".

Round 9
This challenge, "Backstabbing Questionnaire", was based on the results of the Backstabbing Questionnaire. It's really interesting how things like that work out, isn't it?

I know, right?

Well, players had to predict how many players out of 8 formed the majority. Jaeda was the winner of this challenge and became the Model-In-Charge.

At the Patrol Competition, the Diva Patrol was forced to encircle images of lights in various places. Most notable was a grotesque close-up of canine feces, which grossed out several players. Lauren won the challenge easily, and chose to nominate Catie and Victoria for Retahliation.

Jaeda surprised many by eliminating Catie over the absent Victoria.

Round 10
In the Tahlia's Challenge "Elimination Station", players were put head-to-head to test ANTM trivia knowledge. Jenah showed an amazing mastery of the subject matter, and powered through everyone to claim her second MIC and safety for the Tranny Patrol.

The Diva patrol went to the Patrol Challenge "The Departed", an annoying word puzzle that lasted for over an hour before Dominique deduced the true nature of the puzzle and posted the correct answer.

Lauren and Victoria were automatically nominated for Retahliation, and after the hour time-limit, Jenah shocked everyone by Retahliating Lauren.

Round 11
First, in a grueling challenge called "Burn Survivor", the players had to select spaces on a board to gain points and win the challenge. Jaeda was out first by choosing a black, auto-elimination square. Dominique, Jenah, Michelle, and Katie fell shortly thereafter, leaving Victoria the winner!

The Diva patrol was safe, forcing Jaeda, Jenah, Katie, and Michelle to head to the patrol competition, "Endurance". The players had to post their Nerve 5 avatars exactly once per minute. Jenah was out in the second minute, and Michelle shortly after. Katie and Jaeda endured an hour and sixteen minutes of the challenge before Katie made an error and Jaeda was declared the winner.

Jaeda decided to acknowledge Katie's hard work and nominate Jenah and Michelle for Retahliation. In a shocking move, Jenah attempted to play a Hidden Tiara, but it was declared a fake, so the nominations were unaffected.

Victoria chose to Retahliate Michelle, since Jenah had spared her during the previous round.

Round 12
In this round, both Dominique and Jenah failed to present themselves. Jaeda was out rather quickly in the "Fallen Comrades" Tahlia's challenge. Victoria and Katie duked it out, but Katie won the challenge and granted safety to herself, Jenah, and Jaeda.

Dominique and Victoria were nominated against each other for retahliation. In a shocking move, Katie chose to retahliate the participating Victoria over the absent Dominique.

This was the final round with this set of patrols.

Final Patrol Selection
In the Final Patrol Selection, the competitors were asked to simply sign up in patrols. Dominique signed up as a Diva, Jaeda signed up as a Tranny, and Katie signed up as a Diva, forcing Jenah to be a Tranny.

Round 13
In the Final 4 Tahlia's Challenge, players were asked to answer questions about the history of The Nerve 5. Jaeda smoked the competition and won with 8 points to Dominique's 3 and Katie's 0. Jenah once again failed to present herself for the challenge. Luckily for her, she was on Jaeda's patrol and was thus guaranteed safety for the round.

Dominique and Katie were nominated for retahliation as the losing patrol. In the end, Jaeda chose to retahliate Katie, giving Dominique her pass to the Final Three.

Finale
The final challenge, "Combination", was a massive 5-part race challenge. The challenge revisited the challenges "Bring Me To Tyty", "My Predictable First Challenge", "Drop Everything", and "The Departed", as well as having an original section called "Combination".

In the end, Jenah fell behind and Dominique was one round behind Jaeda, but as the time limit was called Jaeda was ahead and won the final MIC.

Jaeda then chose to Retahliate Jenah, who gave all her souls to Dominique.

Then, it was time for the Jury to choose the winner.

By a vote of 7 to 2, Jaeda was crowned the fifth Nerve Queen!