Tessa

Tessa
Fizzled Fireworks
Gender	Female
Hair color	Light Brown
Episode Eliminated	"What To Expect When You're Expecting an Invasion"
Place	19th
Relationship	None
Family	Father, Mother
Friends	Riley (maybe)
Enemies	Lita, Seraphina, Bethany, Aiden, Xidorn, Ignacio, Griswold, Pascal (on her side), Easton, Ness, Zipporah,
Fear	Puppets
Talent	Gymnastics

Tessa, labeled The Big Shot, is a contestant on Total Drama Genesis. She is a member of the Fizzled Fireworks.

Biography

While coming from a privileged family, Tessa had a rough childhood. Tessa skipped a few grades and was severely bullied by her older classmates, who told her she wasn’t special and wouldn’t amount to anything. Tessa decided to prove them wrong.

Tessa began Olympics training for gymnastics. A while ago, she was able to graduate high school early before her former classmates. The next year Tessa would take gold at the Olympics and became an American hero!

Unfortunately, this isn’t where Tessa’s story ends. While taking online college classes and doing more gymnastics training, Tessa has appeared on a lot talk shows where she’s delivered speeches or talked about her rough past. She’s been an advocate for anti-bullying and supported many fundraisers.

More focused on however, are some comments she made that been seen as…’controversial’ to the say the least. Tessa has criticized fellow athletes, celebrities and various minorities or other groups over various issues and policies. Now, Tessa’s image has been split between an American hero and a conceited celebrity.

Tessa joined the show to escape the negative publicity surrounding her and try out a new kind of challenge; along with hopes of meeting new people instead of the ‘popular’ people she feels she’s been surrounded by for too long.

Trivia

• Tessa was the second member eliminated from the Fizzled Fireworks and received one cup of coffee overall.
• Tessa's name was chosen due to sounding similar to testy, fitting her personality.
• Tessa's background as a child prodigy and Olympic athlete was meant to make her a strong competitor (giving a reason why she wasn't eliminated first); Tessa won, placed high or did well in most challenges she participated in.
• Tessa mentions having a friend whose an ice skater; I imagine this as Tessa's only friend and one of her few redeeming traits.
• Tessa's introductions (particularly her shades) and some of her comments were meant to draw parallels to Heather.
  • Tessa was constructed as a foil to Heather; only seeing things a stereotypical high school social hierarchy yet Tessa identifies with being an outsider.
• Tessa's elimination was meant to be a deconstruction of characters that horribly mean yet never get voted off. Tessa was designed to be an opposite of that character and so disliked her team gets rid of her quickly.
  • Tessa's challenge skills and scapegoat possibilities were a parody of reasons other contestants have been spared in Survivor.
• Tessa's character has gone through some of the most changes since the initial idea;
  • Originally she was a character named Becky labeled as The Critic; the daughter of TV censors and be livid about Total Drama's 'inappropriate' nature. She was meant to be a reflection of biased and not constructive critics, but I felt the character was too unredeemable and annoying.
  • Tessa was changed from Becky to be a more relatable character. She was originally meant to be more politically controversial (Based on Donald Trump's presidential campaign) and express stereotypical views from the left and right. After the first three chapters I scrapped that to avoid being too political.
  • Tessa originally had a harsher elimination; she would have caused Lita to have a bigger break down, causing everyone to decide to forfeit the challenge (a playground obstacle course) to vote her off. Tessa would've tried to do the challenge herself and almost win but lose, have her head shaved and be voted off. I changed it because I wanted Tessa's character to be more positive.
• Tessa's story was meant to be about how victims can become like their bullies and how outsiders can be bad people as well. Ultimately, I think that story needed more focus and a different way to be told so it was shortened.
  • Tessa's opinions about some of the other contestants were to be a reflection on how they could come across on first impressions and or being portrayed on other shows (i.e. a jerk jock, temptress and mean girl, wannabe, hot egomaniac, fraud psychic, etc.)