User blog:Freefalling Lilacs/Finally Saying Goodbye

Hello TDFF wiki, it’s been a long time. I’m sure plenty of you have no idea who I am, though you might vaguely recognize the title of my story Total Drama Island: For Your Entertainment. Emphasis on the might. FYE is a story that was my entire high school career in the making and was popular during one of the more active periods of the wiki. If not obvious by the lack of updates in four years, it’s also never going to be finished.

I’d spent a lot of time working on FYE and the characters meant a lot to me, so knowing that the plotlines and personalities I’ve worked so hard on would have been created only to never reach their conclusions leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. So even if I have grown out of writing the story and the community, I want to give it closure and reveal what the plans were for it. Maybe I’ll reuse some of these characters and you’ll run into them again someday … but maybe not. We’ll see where my writing takes me.

I can’t just leave FYE in the limbo it’s been trapped in for years, so I’m finally going to reveal what was going to happen with the story. Thank you so much to this wiki for all of the support and advice. FYE was a passion project like no other for me and it really helped me grow as both a writer and artist, and I’m glad that this wiki was where I shared it.

Structure
The easiest way to think of the competition overall is to break it into three parts: the first segment spans from the first episode to about Elena’s elimination, the second segment starts right after that and would have ended at the end of Episode Twelve (which, ironically enough, would have been the next new chapter to be posted), and the third would have been from there until the end of the game.

The first part of the story, which was posted in its entirety, truly functions like the typical competition story: friendships develop, alliances form, and Elena thinks she rules the game with an iron fist. The readers get a feel for each character’s role in the story: Avery the self-concerned leader, Sebastian the all-knowing strategist, Isaac the bad boy, Elena the brat. Most of the challenges aren’t about playing for yourself – instead, it’s all about the team and establishing a team dynamic … or, in some cases, a lack of one. A lot of the drama came from Zack’s surprise elimination, Camille’s reveal as a criminal, and Elena just being obnoxious. Elena is the “big bad” here, so naturally this early segment of the story ended with her surprise elimination. I wanted the readers to think that she’d take Heather’s role in the story and be the competition’s consistent villain, when really each part of the story has its own bad guy.

The second segment is from Teeth to the end of Wolf in Teen’s Clothing, which – this might come as a huge surprise – would have been Sebastian’s elimination. Here, the challenges are harder, the eliminations are more serious, and there is just an overall sense of distrust in the air. When Irina gets the group together in Wolf in Teen’s Clothing, she has it right: they could all be friends, but the attitude there is just so tense. All of the eliminations within this period are kind of iffy, whether it’s Sebastian eliminating Victor under Ophelia’s nose, Allison and Avery getting together to vote off Cara, or the former Oscars working together to eliminate Risty. When Sebastian is eliminated (which will be detailed in the Episode-by-Episode section), it’s like the weight is off of everybody’s shoulders. They just got rid of the main antagonist. Life is pretty good. Once again, the arc ends with the elimination of another villain.

The third part is the longest and is really all about finishing up everybody’s storylines. At this point, there is no actual central villain, and as the competition is reaching its end more people take turns being the antagonist for an episode. It truly is every man for himself, and unexpected alliances are formed and broken. Allison has the strongest position overall by forming alliances with Paul, Isaac, and Minerva; Paul turns the tables and decides to choose the competition over the heart of his longtime crush Irina; when Wes is eliminated, Donna dedicates the rest of her time in the competition to making sure Ophelia makes it as far as possible; and Avery betrays her only friend Irina for the game and proves herself to truly be selfish in the end.

I don’t want to go all-out English teacher on you and talk about themes, but For Your Entertainment is in the end a story about figuring out who you really are and growing up, with the overall reality show structure used to move the plot forward. No matter how big the challenges were, the story was always about the characters and their interactions, and being placed in a situation where they could possibly win money brought out new sides to them. A lot of the characters began the story as vague teenage stereotypes, but by the time they were eliminated were fleshed out into unique characters.

Episode Twelve: Wolf in Teen’s Clothing
The first chapter of this episode was posted, but to quickly summarize it: Chris originally had a different challenge scheduled, but when Veronique Chevalier (the jewel thief formerly thought to be Camille) escaped from jail, the challenge turned into a Goonies-inspired treasure hunt full of caves and booby traps and puzzles to find an old rich guy’s fortune hidden under the film set.

Fictional backstory time: Aloysius Bandervilt was a late 1800s business mogul/philanthropist who in his older age decided to invest in the entertainment and film industry. He constructed a small film set on a plot of land he owned on an island that had formerly been mined for ore, and that eventually became McLean Studios. Because he was an old kook, he supposedly hid a portion of his fortune beneath the film set that could only be found after following an elaborate scavenger hunt. Veronique Chevalier wanted to steal it, which was her entire point of going on the show in the first place.

The contestants end up having a direct face-off with Veronique Chevalier, who almost kills them to try to reach the treasure, but as a team they are able to stop her by causing her to fall into a hole and plummet hundreds of feet down into the depths of the mines. The treasure ends up being the friends and memories made along the journey, but that’s beside the point.

As foreshadowed in the chapter that was posted, this episode was the peak of the Donna and Wes versus Sebastian conflict. Donna’s spirits are up and she openly taunts Sebastian while the contestants search for the treasure. Sebastian tries to figure out the source of her good mood and scares Minerva into revealing that Donna and Wes are finally together. Sebastian, being obsessed with Donna, is furious and decides to finally cash in the favor that Minerva owes him for getting rid of Elena. Sebastian didn’t want to sink this low, but he has to pull a Heather.

Through a series of events that Sebastian staged, Minerva is forced to convince Wes that his relationship with Donna is fake and just a way to get ahead in the game. After Wes breaks down in front of everyone, Sebastian convinces the rest of the cast that Donna was pulling the same scheme with him and that having two secret relationships was her way of making alliances. Ophelia sees right through his crap though and fights for her friend’s innocence, and she and Monique (who is finally getting revenge on Sebastian for dumping her as an alliance-mate) fight for Donna not to get voted off.

At the elimination,''' Sebastian is shockingly voted off. '''Chris is in disbelief that they were able to vote off the main antagonist this early in the game. Wes and Donna make up, and because everybody was kind of afraid of Sebastian, they celebrate after his elimination, finally bonding like Irina had wanted them to earlier in the episode.

Episode Thirteen: Fashion Victims
This challenge was based off of America’s Next Top Model and features the return of Tina Blanks, my Tyra Banks parody. The remaining ten contestants are broken into randomly drawn duos that compete together for this challenge: Paul and Ophelia, Allison and Wes, Irina and Donna, Monique and Minerva, and Isaac and Avery.

In the first part of the challenge, the contestants walk a fashion runway. Seems easy enough, except that the runway is suspended between two buildings skyscrapers and they’re wearing twelve inch heels … oh, and they’re also blindfolded with their only guide to avoid death being their partner’s advice in an earpiece.

In the second part, the pairs are challenged to take a photo worthy of a fashion magazine. The trick is they only have fifteen minutes to do it, and the only resources they have are an old camera and a stack of random props from one of the warehouses. These props do not include clothing, so they must find a way to use the objects to clothe or hide their partner. Tina Blanks and her army of fashion weirdos judge the photographs, and Isaac and Avery shockingly come out on top. As a twist, Chris reveals that the duo that the judges voted as having the worst photo would be the automatic bottom two for the night … which unfortunately ends up being Monique and Minerva.

A running plotline through this episode is that it is Paul’s birthday and Allison is throwing him a surprise party in the diner set. Before the elimination, everyone gets together to celebrate. Even though the intention was for the party to be fun, Minerva ends up accidentally revealing that Sebastian conned her into tricking Wes and Donna in the last episode, which pretty much targets her for elimination. Allison sees an opportunity, however, and offers to align with her for a safer position in the game. Minerva realizes how important this could be for her and, despite feeling guilty about trying to send Monique home, agrees.

Irina had been trying to ignore her feelings for Paul because he was “just a kid,” but at his party it is revealed that he is turning eighteen (aka legal adulthood) and she throws that excuse out the window. She pulls him into a closet to make out, but he surprisingly pushes her away. Despite the fact that he’s been in love since the moment he met her, Paul wants to do well in the competition and doesn’t want to be distracted by a girlfriend. He tells her they can try a relationship after the show, but pretty much just broke her heart.

At the elimination, Wes, Donna, Monique, and Ophelia vote to send Minerva home, but due to her newly formed alliance with Minerva, Allison was able to mingle at the party and convince the former Oscars to vote for Monique, so they have the majority and Monique is eliminated.

Episode Fourteen: Seeing Orange
In this challenge, each remaining contestant is paired up with one of the washed up cast members of The Shore, a reality show about young adults on a wild vacation that was cool like five years ago (and a total parody of Jersey Shore), Izzy, or Sierra. Their goal: survive a night of partying with them. Whoever is able to remain in the club the longest without leaving or getting kicked out wins immunity. Wild antics ensue.

Since the contestants are all underage, they have to wear heavy duty bracelets that indicate that they cannot be served alcohol, but Isaac convinces Izzy to help him break his off. Minerva, upset over Monique’s elimination, asks Izzy to also break off her bracelet, and The Shore members get Isaac and Minerva absolutely wasted. Meanwhile, Paul has been avoiding Irina at all costs, but Irina tries to seduce Paul into changing his mind. Just when she seems to be making progress, drunken Minerva falls off of a table on top of them, getting all three of them escorted out of the club and eliminated from the challenge.

One of The Shore guys tries to convince Wes that Donna needs a man who will stand up for her. Donna doesn’t really care, but The Shore cast bugs him about it all night, and when he sees a guy hit on Donna, Wes finally snaps and punches him in the face. This starts a massive bar fight, and everyone involved in the fight is kicked out of the club, including Wes, Donna, and Allison, who was unable to resist joining the chaos.

Now only a few customers are left in the club and only Isaac, Avery, and Ophelia are left in the challenge. Isaac is too drunk to know what is going on and Ophelia is Ophelia, so Avery thinks she has this in the bag … except now that there are less people she is forced to actually speak to her partner for the challenge: Sierra. She lasts a surprisingly long amount of time, but after Sierra talks her ear off for about an hour Avery reaches a breaking point and eliminates herself from the challenge by walking out of the bar to get away from her. Shortly after, Isaac vomits on the dance floor and is asked to leave, making Ophelia the unexpected winner of the challenge.

Before elimination, Irina is bitter over Paul rejecting her and says to Avery that they should vote off Wes or Donna to separate the last couple on the show. Since Wes, Donna, and Ophelia always seem to vote the same way, this actually is a good idea, and that night Wes is eliminated.

Episode Fifteen: Welcome to Major City
In an Amazing Race-inspired challenge, Rachel Claire gives the contestants 100 dollars and a list of bizarre tasks that need to be completed in Major City, the metropolis located near the film set, over a course of 24 hours. They were not allowed to return to the film set at any time and had to find their own sleeping accommodations. If they ran out of money … well, that’s their loss. They were instructed to meet back at the film set at exactly noon the next day with the goal of completing the most tasks.

Tasks on the list ranged from “befriend a local” to “volunteer at the local hospital” to “steal a street sign,” and some involved using social media to gather local residents to help them. The contestants were able to accomplish some of them with varying luck. Ophelia befriended a local drug dealer named She’Killyah, who guided her and Donna around the city and helped them complete many of their tasks. Isaac steals a bike and is able to get around town on that. Paul finds a local Boy Scout troop, who helps him accomplish many of the tasks on the list.

Since most of them can’t afford a place to sleep since they had to use their money in completing tasks, they make do with what they can for the night. Paul sleeps in a cardboard box. Allison sleeps in a dumpster. Minerva doesn’t sleep at all and runs on 99 cent cups of coffee from the gas station. Ophelia and Donna sleep in She’Killyah’s car.

Avery and Irina run into each other and decide to pool their money share a motel room. When Irina falls asleep, Avery (who had argued with a lot of the others during the day) thinks she will be voted off if she doesn’t win this challenge. She whispers that she is so sorry to her sleeping friend and shuts off her alarm clock, steals her remaining money and task items, and sneaks out of the motel. Irina wakes up late the next morning to find Avery, her money, and all of her items gone. Because her alarm didn’t go off, she only has a half hour to try to collect as many things as she can, but it’s ultimately not enough time.

At noon, the contestants arrive back at McLean Studios and Rachel Claire declares Avery the winner for having the most items, but then reveals a twist: the contestant with the least tasks complete is going to be eliminated immediately. Due to Avery’s trick, Irina was left empty-handed, and despite Avery’s protests it’s no use. Avery unintentionally forced Irina, her only friend, to be eliminated.

Episode Sixteen: Flashback
With Irina gone, tensions are high on the film set and everyone seems to realize just how close to winning the money they are. Avery is public enemy number one due to what she did to Irina, so she knows she has to win this challenge as well to avoid getting voted off.

The first part of the challenge is a trivia contest about what happened in the competition so far and information about the eliminated contestants. Due to her blog, Minerva has been collecting knowledge on everybody and excels at this challenge, while Donna, Isaac, and Avery struggle due to pushing so many people away and not being able to find out much about them.

In the second part, the eliminated contestants (minus Camille/Veronique) return to help the remaining contestants with the challenge. Each remaining contestant picks one Early Out eliminee (Josh, Eric, Zack, Robert, Gabe, Elena, or Victor) and one Late Out eliminee (Cara, Angel, Risty, Sebastian, Monique, Wes, or Irina) to assist them in an obstacle course/construction challenge. The order they pick is determined by the number of points they earned in the trivia round. The teams are as follows: Minerva gets Risty and Gabe, Ophelia gets Victor and Zack, Allison gets Angel and Robert, Paul gets Irina and Josh, Donna gets Wes and Monique, Isaac gets Cara and Eric, and Avery gets stuck with Elena and Sebastian.''

Despite having the worst team, Avery is able to motivate Elena and Sebastian to help her just out of pure spite towards the other contestants, and she scores the challenge win. As a surprise twist, for the elimination that night, both the remaining contestants and the eliminated contestants get to vote. However, because she won, Avery is given the prize of being immune … but only from the eliminated contestants' votes only. Angel hears that the others are planning on voting off Isaac, the person who they think is the second least deserving of being there after Avery, and tells Allison, saying that they need to somehow eliminate Avery instead.

Allison ends up getting the remaining contestants to vote for Avery, Angel makes sure as many eliminated contestants as possible vote for Isaac. Allison gives up the immunity idol that she won during All I Want is Revenge to Isaac, which cancels out all of the Isaac votes. Avery is the contestant with the second-most amount of votes and is sent home. This ends the Isaac-Allison feud for good.

Episode Seventeen: After Elimination
The Playa des Losers special, except without an elimination because I will not let somebody be Leshawna’d. Some fun things that happen:


 * Josh discovers that if he wears blackout glasses he does not experience his camera phobia, so he is able to interact with the other contestants but is forced to be totally blind. Elena has no idea the glasses blind him and tries to get in his pants.


 * The short-lived Zack and Risty friendship is united and expanded upon


 * Avery tries to apologize to Irina


 * Sebastian uses his same tricks from the show to antagonize Eric, who just doesn’t catch on


 * Each of the losers reveals who they are rooting for to win

Episode Eighteen: Blackout
At the beginning of the episode, the six remaining contestants celebrate Avery’s elimination by gathering around the fireplace in the hotel lobby. Minerva brings a stack of screenshots taken from her blog of all of the eliminated contestants, and the final six decide to give the eliminated contestants a proper goodbye by throwing their pictures one by one into the fire and commenting on them (inspired by the torch walk that contestants on Survivor occasionally did).

Later that night, the power goes out in The Hotel. The final six maneuver through the dark to outside, where they see that power is out everywhere but in one building they've never been to across the studios. They go to that building and then are shocked by clear plastic walls going up hundreds of feet in the air, trapping them in a circular area. They go inside the lit building and find directions leading them to one of the upper floors of the building, where there is a monitor. Chris's face pops up and welcomes them to their most dangerous challenge yet – an apocalypse themed challenge. He explains that in order to win the challenge, you must collect the most keys that are spread around the area and fit them to their necessary locks ... oh, and you have to survive of course. What they have to survive, he doesn’t explain.

The power then goes out in this last building and an earthquake happens – the first of many simulated natural disasters. Each of the keys represents a disaster, and when it is paired up with its lock it stops the disaster from occurring. Disasters include fires, electricity, explosions, freezing, and more.

After stopping the other disasters, the Coliseum set opens up and releases hundreds of gallons of water. The walled off area begins to flood, with hoses pumping in more and more water and manmade tidal waves start pummeling the contestants. Eventually, the contestants are able to insert the last key to stop the flood, and the water drains. Ophelia (who inserted the most keys overall) gains immunity.

That night, Allison decides to get rid of Donna because she has established alliance with Isaac, Paul, and Minerva and Ophelia is immune. Allison convinces everyone separately to vote for Donna, so Donna is voted off and happily leaves after giving Ophelia an emotional hug.

Episode Nineteen: Urban Jungle
Inspired by the many survival-themed reality shows (Man vs. Wild, Naked and Afraid, etc.), the final five first face off in a Fear Factor-style bug-eating gross out challenge to test their perseverance and endurance. Daredevil Allison is able to come out on top in this challenge.

After that, they are tasked with locating exotic animals placed in the woods around the Studios, which has been filled with jungle-themed traps to hinder their hunt. The last person to return with their exotic animal will be automatically eliminated. As a reward for winning the first half of the challenge, Allison gets a map to help aid her through the maze-like woods.

Being a Boy Scout, Paul is able to excel at this challenge and easily finds his animal. He is returning to Chris when he spots Ophelia in need of some help. Unable to overcome his nice guy personality, Paul stops to help Ophelia get out of the trap and find her animal. However, because Ophelia is chasing her animal, she fails to notice when Paul gets stuck in the trap. Minerva, Allison, and Isaac are able to come back with their animals, and Ophelia chases her animal back to the finish line, meaning that Paul is automatically eliminated.

In another last minute twist, Chris announces that this episode is a double elimination, and even though Paul was already eliminated there would still be a vote tonight to eliminate one of the contestants. Without Donna available to convince the others into not sending Ophelia home, Ophelia is voted off.

Episode Twenty: Last One Standing
Unlike in previous Total Drama finales, this season has the final three competing in one last challenge to win the title, so it is Allison versus Isaac versus Minerva in the last battle. All of the eliminated contestants (except Camille) return for the most epic challenge yet: a reenactment of all of the past challenges. Each of the previous challenges is recreated on a smaller scale on their respective sets around the studios, with brightly colored arrows directing the finalists where to go. The contestant who was eliminated in that episode is present at the scene, where they will give instructions as to what the finalists must do to earn a flag at that station.

Mini-challenges include shooting the arrows of love at a target (from The Bachelor Isn’t Interested), paddling a raft out to sea (from Safest Catch), matching up each contestant with the secret they had revealed in All I Want is Revenge, and traversing a natural disaster obstacle course (from Blackout). The challenges are suggested to be completed in order to avoid forgetting one (hence the arrows guiding them around the set), but this leads to the final three running back and forth across the film lot and exhausting themselves without even doing the challenges.

Fed up with running back and forth, Isaac decides to screw the suggested order and do the challenges based on proximity to each other and get the ones he missed later on. However, Chris surprises the final three with a mid-challenge check-in, and Isaac finds himself behind Allison and Minerva in number of flags due to his challenge skipping. Since he is performing the worst, Isaac is eliminated from the challenge, which eliminates his chance of winning the competition.

Allison and Minerva face off in the remaining challenges, and though Allison is more physically adept, the contestants that realize that Allison had some role in voting them off due to her many temporary alliances (Cara, Risty, Monique, Donna, and Avery just because she doesn’t like her) start playing against her and hinder her in some of the challenges. Allison’s late game alliance making strategy ends up being her downfall, as these hindrances allow Minerva to collect the last flag first and win the competition.

Final Notes
I’m not going to go into why exactly I chose the elimination order the way I did, but overall the characters who went the farthest were the characters who I think we some of the most multi-faceted. Avery made it to the final seven because I think she was the de facto main character of FYE, but she couldn’t make it any farther because everyone hated her. Despite their respective separate romantic plotlines, Donna and Ophelia have always been a package deal since the beginning of the competition, and their quirky friendship made me want to take them almost to the end. Paul was the most well-rounded character and the most likely to win challenges, but he seemed like too obvious of a winner so I had him surprise eliminated.

Having Allison, Isaac, and Minerva as my final three made sense to me because all three of them had roller coasters of story arcs and had been both negative and positive characters at different points in the story. They represented three very different competitors: Allison was likable but was driven by her emotions and competitive nature, which caused her to make large strategic choices throughout the game. Isaac was a slacker who made it through challenges by finding loopholes and playing dirty, but in his time in the game he really figured out who he really was and seemed to actually gain some confidence in himself. Minerva was gullible and flighty and easily frightened, but despite this was able to stay on almost everyone’s good side and make it far in the game. In the end, I guess any of these three would have deserved to win, but for some reason Minerva felt like the correct winner and always has been the winner from the beginning.

I want to just extend one more thank you to this wiki for giving me a chance to bring this story to life. I regret growing out of writing the story, but the characters and concepts will always be dear to my heart and really helped shape me as both a writer and an artist. Rather than disappearing one last time, I’m going to make this post mine and For Your Entertainment’s official goodbyes to the TDFF Wiki. Thank you again.

- FFL