User blog comment:Frank15/Total Drama What the Heck? Rankings/@comment-1874924-20111005062509

As I've told Rhonda elsewhere, I like the way that Jovi and Courtney continue to jockey for position despite the fact that they appear to be on good terms and Courtney has at least nominally accepted Jovi's leadership. I must say, though, that Rhonda gives me too much credit. Although I did indeed suggest the "friendly rivalry" dynamic between these Type As, I wasn't the one who wrote and developed it. That was Rhonda's doing.

I previously thought that Rhonda was focusing mainly on her OCs in the early going simply because we the readers needed to get to know them, but it's good to see that she's given some thought to an in-universe explanation. The "tired and jaded veterans" explanation certainly makes sense. I do hope we'll see more from Chef, though. Not only is he one of my favorite canon characters, but he's also sort of "my baby" in this story, since it was I who suggested that Rhonda make him a contestant after I learned that her self-insert character was going to replace him as Chris' aide.

One of the things I like most about TDWTH is that you don't see all that many decently written competition stories that unabashedly embrace the cartoonish aspects of the original. Most of the fandom's better writers, myself included, tend to prefer a little more realism in their stories.