#lyler sabotage au

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the late night incoherent ideas have hit me again

lyler sabotage: alenoah(eather)? edition: "he stole your boyfriend? fine let's steal him back" ft. gwen and courtney friendship (only platonic bc i could never get into them as a ship) and lindsay questioning absolutely everything - linds

Linds the phrasing of this made me immediately assume Tynoah instead of Alenoah(eather) and that's. So much funnier to me for some reason?

I guess it's the idea of the remaining cast playing Boyfriend Hot Potato with Tyler. Just imagine with me; Noah: "Oh, Alejandro stole your boyfriend? Well what if we steal him back?" Lindsay: "But Noah, Tyler isn't interested in me anymore!" Noah: "...Who said you were the one stealing him?"

And then Noah and Lindsay stage a re-seduction of Tyler with the intention of having Noah break his heart, so Lindsay can come swooping in as his knight in cowboy boots and they can live happily ever after. Or something like that.

Poor Tyler.

[pahk-in-action]

me: this is a serious angsty fic

also me:

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uhhhh okay so it's a lyler rewrite where she wins the tiebreaker in paris, duncan comes back in london and promptly jumps off again so chris counts that as the elimination, and she gets moved to the amazons in greece. all thoughout teams phase alejandro is seducing tyler and she has No Clue. they get paired for niagara falls and tyler is acting weird and distant.

they break up because alejandro convinces her that it's for the best.

she has a very intense crying session and also perhaps she walks in on the (delayed) gwuncan kiss? i don't know, i'm debating that part. she decides to make a deal with the devil she knows. heather.

still working out the merge cast though

The idea of having Alejandro intentionally sabotage Lyler from both sides- by convincing the both of them that it's in their best interests, and by shifting Tyler's infatuation onto himself of all people, is so incredibly devious. I love it.

I'm a little confused as to how Lindsay would witness the Gwuncan kiss if Duncan intentionally re-eliminates himself in London, unless he refrains from doing so until Area 51 in place of Tyler's elimination- but then the Gwuncan kiss would've already happened? The timeline there doesn't really match up. You'd have to tweak around the order of a bunch of events, but that is half of the beauty of AUs, so go for it!

(If I may, I'd suggest having the Gwuncan kiss happen as per canon just to save yourself the task of rewriting the main conflicts in Greece onwards, since it's a pretty pivotal plot point in canon. Lindsay could always witness a different kiss in her breakdown- a perfect chance to either have her see Aletyler happen and thus break her trust in Alejandro, or to include one of your own ships!)

And I'm confused as to why she'd ally herself with Heather when (from her perspective) Alejandro's been nothing but helpful to her. Does she catch on to what he's really done, and align herself with the lesser of two evils in an effort to take him down? Or does she witness Alejandro, who she thought was her friend, swooping in on the newly single Tyler and just see red?

Either way, the idea of Lindsay putting aside her (justified) beef with Heather in a 'deal with the devil' type agreement to take down Alejandro is such an interesting and fun plot choice!

I'm so excited to hear where this AU goes!

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you're tempting me to write the lyler sabotage au into lindsay & noah now - lindsanon (that's my name now i guess)

Everything I touch gets Noahfied, I swear. I can't escape this sour little twink no matter how hard I try. (I don't try, he's my main skrunkly. THE blorbo from my shows.) /lh

I think Lindsay should have as many friends as possible, in all contexts but ESPECIALLY in the Lyler sabotage AU. Go wild!

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also my other misc thoughts

i'm thinking that yeah her hatred of alejandro would be more motivated by jealousy than anything else

i don't have any other huge wt ships honestly except maybe something with sierra? the main deal is that when she's on amazon lindsay hates heather, she hates courtney, so she ends up closest with gwen by default, and then she feels completely betrayed by everyone when she walks in on the kiss–because sure she hates courtney but also she's just been broken up with she's sympathetic isn't she?

(she proceeds to blurt it out during the eating challenge in a bid to distract everyone else and win heather immunity because she's getting out first round for sure)

Lindsay's hatred of Alejandro would of course be fuelled by jealousy- he stole her boyfriend! That's reason enough to dislike someone, but when that same someone also orchestrated your break up it's no wonder she despises him.

You don't have to include other ships if you don't want too, I was just suggesting different hypotheticals.

So Lindsay witnesses the Gwuncan kiss in Niagara Falls and, despite her own experiences with heartbreak, reveals their scandal to help Heather win the next challenge? That seems a little too OOC to me, not only because Lindsay holds no loyalty to Heather post-Island (and as such I doubt she'd help her win challenges, uneasy alliance or not), but because Lindsay wouldn't air that kind of secret for an international audience when she knows first-hand how much heartbreak hurts. Despite her dislike of Courtney, Lindsay isn't meanspirited in the slightest (on purpose, at least) and she'd be staunchly against using another person's relationship drama to her advantage. Absently mentioning the kiss in a moment of absent-mindedness, however? That's more in line with Lindsay's behaviour. Either that, or having her confront Gwen and Duncan directly sometime in China. After Island, Lindsay's no pushover, and she'd address any problems she's presented with straightforward confidence regardless of whatever challenge they're doing, ignorant of who may or may not be listening- think back to her confrontation with Heather in Island. Courtney overhearing her accusations and flying off the deep end would be an unfortunate consequence of Lindsay's thoughtlessness and poor timing.

Of course, that's all just my opinion. It's your AU after all! 😊

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"gwen, he got you eliminated in china" "no, I got ME eliminated in china" (the votes were 4-3). i checked on the wiki and gwen seems to actually like lindsay fine enough though.

ngl there might be a nonzero number of people that don't like heather too much but think she has a better chance of beating alejandro than lindsay does, and as i am an h-bombs appreciator i will say harold is one of them. (he likes cody better though) also sierra seeing heather as the Total Drama is real and is how i interpret her somewhat especially when i want to write it a little femslashier

other highlights now that i'm actually writing this out:

lindsay criticizes the costumes chris makes them wear (ft. greece tiebreaker, niagara falls since she gets the two-piece dress, and hawaii tiebreaker)

why was rapa nui not a final five challenge. condor. rhymes with final four.

lindsay's deal of largely repeating the same tune a previous person used (mainly in condor) which gets flipped when she does it prince ali reprise style in this is how we will end it

"you left bridgette stuck to a pole / robbed leshawna of her fabulous soul / made even tyler lose control / but you *can't* leave me wedged in a hole."

tyler, to heather from the chopper: "they're gonna make it / you can't stop them now, just you try / our fortune's waiting / and you can kiss it all bye-bye-bye" chris: "tyler, stop singing! no one wants you to! you're not even in the game!"

beth: "linds will put al through the shredder / she'll get tyler back to bed her!" lindsay: "beth?!"

alejandro makes fun of her boobs instead of her butt in versus

chris says this song is probably not able to be aired on daytime tv now

there was lots of legally blonde inspiration (yes i was the one who sent in that elle woods ask)

- lindsanon

These are all great ideas! (I'm here for the Heatherra crumbs too. 👀) (And the H-bombs mention?! Their duo is so underrated, Harold should've stayed longer in World Tour. 😔)

And it's really funny that you mention the Condor song's annoyingly rhymeless ending, because I've had that exact line of thought written in my outline for the (still untitled) Aftermath AU fic for MONTHS:

Literally. This document hasn't been edited since early December last year. Does this count as posting spoilers? I doubt anyone really cares. 🤷‍♀️

And I like the idea of having Lindsay's rehashing of others' lines turned on it's head as a sort of power play in her musical standoff against Alejandro. She's the captain now.

(And Beth being the ultimate wingman isn't something I expected, but it's so funny. 😭)

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also i'm laughing internally at how uneven the teams will be this time

alejandro: heavily bandaged blaineley (idk man the aliens attacked her or something), later owen out of pity

heather: courtney (i think she is petty enough to not support lindsay). is there anyone else who would? without like. having to be forced into it by bridgette? would bridgette even force anyone to considering the smaller teams are even this time

lindsay: everyone else (excluding tyler. he is still in drumheller.)

Lindsay is pretty universally liked, so of course her team would be the biggest!

I was going to suggest having Leshawna (and by extension Harold) support Heather, then remembered that their tentative friendship from Action was pretty much forgotten in World Tour.

I think, in a stretch, Sierra might align herself under Heather's banner out of 'Team Amazon Loyalty', or because she had more idol-worship for Heather in terms of her being a Total Drama Fangirl. In a perfect world, all of Team Amazon would band together under Heather's banner, but I really can't see Gwen ever supporting Heather- not after Island, and especially not after she spent her time on the jet outcasting Heather even further.

Though I could see Gwen deciding to support Alejandro instead, if only to be contrarian. She's one of the very few girls he didn't try to seduce, after all, so Gwen doesn't really have any beef against him, and I'm fairly sure she has a canonical dislike of both Heather and Lindsay- since she pretty much can't stand 'sunshine' personalities like Lindsay's (i.e. how she reacts to being handcuffed to Geoff in Island). And where Gwen goes, both Duncan and Cody are likely to follow (maybe not Cody though, he'd probably be literally carried by Sierra to whoever she decides to support).

It's really funny to imagine the whole cast, sans Blaineley and Courtney, banding together to support Lindsay though. It's What She Deserves.

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oh yes!!! yes that is such a wonderful speech and i am fanning myself in the bathroom rn.

i love open endings haha. maybe on the boat there's the vague sound of alejandro's screams of pain but they're both like "nah it's probably nothing" and hug in a friends way.

i haven't said this but duncan has to sing duncanrific the comeback song which he gets around by doing one verse and letting everyone argue until chris cuts it for going over time.

also lindsay and noah friendship: the normal way would be to build it up premerge before he gets eliminated but the au of an au way would be to change the tone of the au somewhat and have him be her merge alliance instead of heather. which also gives her a marginally better excuse for not having noticed the aletyler manipulation. i saw that nowen aftermath fic i think it works.

anyway this time ... well owen obviously wouldn't be the merge elimination this time so the options are cody heather and sierra. last two would probably be easier to get the votes for i think. (it would be funny if noah was still kind of attracted to alejandro. toxic yaoi when.) - lindsanon

Ah, thank you. I tried to heavily reference your draft speech there, so a lot of the work was already done. 🤷‍♀️

Open endings are a lot more fun than definitive ones, because you can use them as diving boards into new stories! Or, have other people inspired by your initial story carry is on, using your open ending as their starting point. OR, just having things end indeterminately for the sake of it is great too- a lot of things IRL end without cut-and-dry resolutions, after all.

Duncan being forced to sing a Fergalicious parody will never NOT be funny, I can just imagine him seething through the one verse he's made to sing. It's a smart move, getting the others to inadvertently take over the song.

I think having Lindsay keep her post-merge alliance with Heather has more impact, thanks to their shared history. Lindsay and Noah's friendship in this AU shouldn't overshadow the greater plotline/story arc; as much as we all love having Noah around he really isn't a major character. If you want to make him one, however, that's up to you.

Having Noah in a constant state of "Oh No He's Hot" whilst trying his best to keep his feelings towards Alejandro strictly negative is my bread and butter. He's the cold, logical one, things like attraction won't override his rationality (spoiler, they totally will). Toxic yaoi stays winning. But that's not the focus of this story.

Anyway, if Lyler are going to remain friend-ish by the end of the story, that means Lindsay and Beth can finally become the wholesome yuri they were always meant to be! (/hj)

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oooooooh. okay yeah that's way better *scribbles my tiny little notes*

she would definitely insist her alliance with heather is on more equal terms this time, and during the race she doesn't get a chance to talk to gwen or duncan until the actual eating challenge part. one of them (probably gwen?) sits out, lindsay gets out first, and she starts talking about the kiss (quietly, since chris doesn't want them interrupting the song) until one of them accidentally gets too loud right after a part stops...(and alejandro gets on the loser bench as well since he doesn't have someone to cheat for him probably) and courtney goes ballistic on both the remaining members and probably dunks the food in their face causing them all to be out.

tyler wins immunity since without the love triangle members i think he would be the best at eating gross foods (celebrity manhunt special clips with leshawna). heather is upset with lindsay since they could've held it for later but lindsay counters with "gwen was feeling guilty anyway", and then one of the members gets eliminated, leaning courtney? or possibly make it a double again

i have not worked out what happens next but the final four are alejandro tyler lindsay and one of heather duncan or gwen. the fourth person wins immunity, and there's a tiebreaker between tyler and lindsay which consists of finding one of the unfound fuel barrels. lindsay gets to vent out all her feelings and admits that no matter how flawed she is she still loves tyler and wants to do better until the fourth person tells her just to go look.

So the post-merge cast are Lindsay, Tyler, Alejandro, Courtney, Gwen, Duncan, Heather and Owen? With Owen being voted out in Niagara Falls, I'm assuming.

That's a pretty strong cast right there. I think having China change to just a single elimination would be a good idea from a storytelling point- the Gwuncan kiss just happened, so Chris would want to milk that drama for all it's worth, whilst the Lyler situation is brewing in the background.

Obviously, Lindsay and Heather would want to vote out Alejandro or someone Alejandro-adjacent; I'm thinking, if Duncan's still gunning for the pseudo-alliance with Alejandro he had in canon, that China would be as good a place as any to have him eliminated. That way, the fallout of the Gwuncan kiss can play out between Courtney and Gwen instead. Or, if you're feeling more dramatic, have China end up as a reward challenge (because Chris wouldn't let Duncan be voted out so soon after getting him back) and just make the Rapa Nui challenge an elimination round instead. Add a double elimination in the Serengeti, and you're golden.

I think having two of the three 'love triangle' components eliminated in the Serengeti would help ease the attention off of the Gwuncan fiasco and back on to Lindsay's struggle against Alejandro. If I may, I'd suggest having both Gwen and Duncan eliminated, and having Lindsay develop some sort of mutual understanding semi-friendship with Courtney over their shared experience with heartbreak via stolen boyfriend. But if you'd prefer (given you said you wanted either Heather, Duncan or Gwen in the final four), keep Duncan around instead.

Come Drumheller, I think it's be best to keep it as Lindsay and Heather vs Alejandro and Tyler, with the Lyler interaction happening as you suggested. That way, you only have to worry about the one major plotline.

Would it be more or less tragic to have Tyler end up eliminated here? Because you could lose either Tyler or Heather here, so long as Lindsay and Alejandro end up duking it out atop the volcano.

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oh did i forget to mention? duncan wins the comeback by accident blaineley style and this time chris forbids him from jumping out

this was also for the bit tbh

I can imagine Chris keeping Duncan on a child leash during the elimination ceremonies just to prevent him from jumping ship.

Duncan winning the Aftermayhem challenge is so funny to me, because he's thrown straight back into dangerous waters without a paddle into the Niagara Falls challenges; he'll either end up with his (tumulous) girlfriend, the girl who 'allegedly' has a crush on him, a crazy stalker or Heather (since it's established that Lindsay ends up with Tyler). Plus, he's tossed straight into the post-merge game, meaning he won't have the luxury of being divided by teams when the inevitable Gwuncan subplot plays out.

It would also mean that Gwen would've had to make the merge (since he isn't a 'boyfriend kisser' yet, it's understandable that her team wouldn't've voted her out). I wonder who would be eliminated in her place? (Cody? Sierra? Heather? Or would Team Amazon just have an amazing winning streak for all of the non-reward challenges?

There's a lot of potential here for both drama and some great shenanigans. Does he still ally himself with Alejandro? How soon does he get re-eliminated (re-re-eliminated?)?

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a friend mistook lyler sabotage versus lyrics for hazbin lyrics. i took psychic damage. - lindsanon

How many cuss words and sex jokes did you include in the lyrics to have them mistaken for Hazbin lyrics?

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chris only swaps lindsay bc he finds her failure entertaining

"yeah i'm gonna find that clue / i'm doing what chris proposed / for this game, i'll strip him down / 'cause if i don't, i'm hosed! totally ho-oh-oh-oh-OH–aargh!"

greece and nevada songs gotta be totally different

sierra in tiny cody top shirt send tweet

"it doesn't have to be a boat / as long as it stays afloat / oh, what the hell did we build?"

"we built some weird lump" "they're all total chumps!"

"we built–" "tyler's face! duh?"

having trouble thinking of a word that scans with "famous" in duncanrific. criminal? notorious?

condor order goes alejandro, tyler, courtney (with sierra's tune), lindsay (also with sierra's tune), heather

hm. i want heather to win immunity in drumheller so now i'm reverse engineering dino ideas: alejandro does as in canon, tyler builds the sportosaur and lindsay is glad it has nothing to do with alejandro, lindsay builds the riverraptor (legally blonde reference), heather i don't think would build the chris dino but what would the others like...

after this is how we will end it she pretends to go along with alejandro's deal for a few seconds before rejecting it, throwing her tiara at him, and running back to the jet

"heather, alejandro's not just a boyfriend stealer!" "...you didn't know?"

tyler is the last one back with a barrel

the final chapter involves beth telling the other contestants "oh look, there's alejandro, go beat him up" to get lyler an alone moment which i think is good enough karma

- lindsanon

Chris doing things because He Finds Them Funny is so in character, that man lives for The Amusement™.

Giving Lindsay an actual singing solo instead of the sing-talking most of the songs use is really funny to be because I'm pretty sure Lindsay's one of the few characters who canonically can't sing well (at least, given her singing in Action and relative lack of singing in WT) so I've always headcanoned her are tone deaf. So the idea of a tone deaf Lindsay trying to belt out Courtney's finisher in London and just totally botching it is so good.

Sierra would start wearing the shirts she'd stolen from Cody as a sort of memoir, wouldn't she? That's valid.

As for rhyming with "famous"; you could rhyme is with "shameless", "heinous", "brainless", or at a stretch "moral-greyness", and either use that opportunity to have the cast roast Duncan OR the objectively better opinion, have Duncan roast the cast/Chris.

The idea of Beth just sicking everyone he's ever wronged on Alejandro just to give Lyler a moment of privacy is peak, Beth's the ultimate wingman!

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YOU GET IT!!! GENRE SAVVINESS IS WHY I LOVE THE SUPERFANS SO MUCH (in different ways) though gen 2/3's world tour (because that's always fun) will be considerably more light-hearted and focused on interpersonal relationships and friendships so i don't think i'll touch on the editing that much

buuuuut i'll talk about less of that and more about lyler sabotage pre-niagara brawls

jamaica: chris says that lindsay might be able to join a team if she performs well enough. at this point, alejandro is a bit conflicted on if he should keep her around to manipulate as well or get her kicked off to ensure tyler's loyalty and as such doesn't actively sabotage her. due to her weight, she comes first and team chris comes second. cody begs the others to vote him off because if they vote sierra she might sneak back onto the plane for him and he doesn't want her as mad as she was in paris. heather and gwen eventually comply.

in london, lindsay strips down the guard no problem but ends up not being able to figure out the clue. she decides to follow team chris since she knows noah is smart but she ends up only arriving after tyler is captured. noah reluctantly lets lindsay go with them although he does not get a chance to properly communicate his warning to her, and she ends up locked in the bus booth. (a little contrived but i wanted to minimize the amount of pre-merge aletyler contact she gets) chris is about to eliminate her for having "the entire team" captured when duncan jumps off in frustration. chris says he'll count that as the elimination instead.

since lindsay is the only member of victory she has to compete in every challenge. gwen and noah go for the first challenge and gwen still wins. sierra courtney tyler and owen all volunteer for the second one, tyler gets out immediately, and owen still knocks both of the amazons out. as the last two standing chris gives owen and lindsay medals automatically. heather still beats alejandro in hurdles. the tiebreaker is between noah and lindsay to see which team isn't in last (alejandro forbids tyler from going because he's worried being so close to lindsay will undo his work–i mean distract tyler), lindsay loses, and chris goes "i'm very sorry to say that team victory is being dissolved…because lindsay will be joining team amazon!"

in area 51 the pod absorbs a bit of cody's dna from sierra's clothes, makes alien cody, and after so long separated sierra absolutely loses it. she refuses to leave the pod room and the amazons lose the challenge. the others all vote her off. (sorry for robbing you. and making you go insane in all stars as well. at least that time you snap out of it?)

australia is a reward where nothing significant happens, lindsay builds the not-actually-a-boat in sweden (i'd say it's a pony but that would be a terrible boat. beth's face?), amazons win, alejandro and tyler vote for noah, noah votes for alejandro, and i'm not sure if i should have a tiebreaker or have owen talked into voting out someone else. owen is upset and noah gives the "beware of eels" warning. - lindsanon

Please indulge me and my love of genre savvy characters. It's one of my favourite tropes, especially when they break the fourth wall (occasionally. Nothing as heavy-handed as Deadpool). Topher and Sierra both make for pretty good candidates for being Genre Aware because of their Superfan status, and I think we as a fandom need to utilize that more!

As for the Lyler Sabotage AU!

I'm here for all of it! I like the timeline- it's a little more convoluted than canon's, but still pretty followable. My only suggestions would be changing Lindsay's boat to something more plot-relevant (maybe she tries to build Tyler's face, but isn't very good at craftsmanship, so it ends up looking nothing like him?), and make the alien Cody plotline a little more coherent by having the pod extract Cody's DNA from something that was actually his, like for instance one of the many toothbrushes Sierra stole (maybe she took to carrying around Cody's belongings after his elimination as sort of comfort items? It'd be easy for her to accidentally drop a toothbrush and have it land on a pod).

But those are just ideas from the top of my head. Again, it's your AU, your rules!

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other song bits

courtney: "he's almost perfect, almost perfect! get him a better haircut and one-time immunity for this challenge! it's quite pragmatic."

tyler gets the Oldring Solo except with lines swapped to "those feet, those tiny feet / hey, birds, please! / just don't use those sharp beaks!". i mean the bird obliges...

duncan is lindsay's surfer for the comedy value of having him go NOT AGAIN when the song chime starts

courtney and harold start arguing about who gets to be heather's surfer. they then see duncan has volunteered and argue harder. - lindsanon

Part of me wants to hear how Oldring would sing, really sing, as Tyler instead of Cody. Would he go for a lower octave? Or just add a bit of growl to his voice? I know he was (apparently) super modest/shy about his voice, but man's got pipes.

Assuming that Courtney's first lyrical change is during 'Duncarific', it's a little tragic that she hypes him up just to get cheated on, but I'd never turn down an excuse to let her sing more.

And having Duncan volunteer to compete for Lindsay- or be forced into it?- only to near enough have War Flashbacks when he hears the chime of the singing bell is incredibly funny. Even more so if you keep the gag of Chef and Chris previously making him sing for a whole episode to make up for his lack of doing so throughout the season. He's so tired.

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(sending this twice since tumblr booped the first one)

the rarepairista in me wants to put owen as alejandro's second helper for the justowen moments teehee. anyway volcano stuff happens

i'm thinking lindsay goes "you're absolutely right. i do forget his name. i do flirt with other guys." (the flirting does not mean anything she just does it) and then when he's reveling she. just takes the chance to toss her sacrifice in and go "but i know what he likes, i know how he feels and i CARE how he feels". this could probably be better but it's my first idea eh

since i think the drama machine is a little much even here alejandro gets trampled by the entire cast including tyler's wheelchair but he does make it out of the lava flow

lindsay goes to talk to tyler and he says that while alejandro was tricking him he made a lot of good points about their relationship. lindsay admits he's right, but she does want to do better. it's left ambiguous if they do get back together but they're definitely on good terms again.

I think it's be more impactful to have her round off her speech with something along the lines of;

"You're right. I do forget his name, a lot. I flirt with other boys sometimes, even though I have- had, a boyfriend. I'm dumb, stupid even, I accept that. I'm working on bettering myself." Lindsay's eyes darted across the scene, tearing away from the intense, heated contact they'd maintained with Alejandro's venomous green gaze across the volcano's maw to meet the warm honey brown of Tyler's regard. Her mouth, once curled into a loathing snarl, softened into an infatuated smile as soon as she caught sight of the jock. "... But at least I love him. That's more than you can say."

And then have her drop the sacrifice dummy into the volcano.

Also, you're so right about the whole Drama Machine being overkill as a consequence for Alejandro's actions. This is Total Drama, though, so a year of isolation and entrapment in a robot suit and grievous lava burns isn't even the worst he could suffer. It's up to you if you want to play things differently, it's your AU after all!

In terms of the ending, I was rooting for Lyler to reconcile and maybe have an epilogue where Lindsay really is working on remembering Tyler's name- maybe she even gets a diagnoses for some sort of memory issue, or prosopagnosia, or something that explains why she's so prone to messing it up. BUT keeping it open is fun too! I'm really glad that you're not just having them return to the status quo.

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i actually have no strong feelings on the topic i just thought it'd make more sense if sierra was gone first but also "please vote me off" "if it's sierra we can just–" "paris?!" "fine." this would have almost zero relevance since the fic would probably start at niagara falls anyway but. cody in jamaica, sierra in area 51, noah in sweden?

now that i think about it owen getting eliminated is marginally less likely if heather gets paired with him. so heather/duncan, gwen/owen, and then the votes play out: owen - alejandro, tyler, heather, lindsay (since lindsay refuses to vote off tyler right now and heather wants to keep the love triangle around that's their only real option), heather - owen, not sure who the other three would vote for but it doesnt totally matter.

thinking about keeping duncan around longer for the gag of him mockingly calling lindsay "princess" because she still has the tiara from niagara falls (can you tell i only do things for the bit yet). but now that i write this out i think him doing it in front of courtney is better. so maybe gwen in china, duncan in africa, and courtney on easter island? "fine, you want to leave? leave!" *sticks him in a cage with feral zeke*

that is indeed why i went with tyler eliminated. i think heather and lindsay doing the tiebreaker and after she wins she feels like she has the upper hand for once. it stops when alejandro gets closer to the volcano but she. somehow pulls out the win at the last second.

but if the lyric is tyler who would be the one wedged in the hole? unless it's lindsay and her argument is "if you leave me wedged in a hole tyler is not going to like you anymore"

alejandro's helpers ... i mean if tyler is still knocked out i don't think he has a lot of options at this point but also having katie and sadie is lame. lindsay's helpers? one of them has gotta be beth because i have an entire scene of her thinking about what if beth won the aftermath challenge instead.

unless i make it so that tyler doesn't get knocked out, gets picked as alejandro's helper despite his many, many doubts, and turns against him last-minute? that's. certainly an idea.

Lindsay being in the hole makes the most sense thematically, and Alejandro would eventually concede to letting her out of the whole for a reason similar to why he lets Heather out in canon; it wouldn't be a satisfactory end to their rivalry. Leaving Lindsay in the hole would be synonymous with Alejandro admitting that he sees her as Too Big A Threat to face head-on, and he's far too prideful to turn down a challenge like that. (Lindsay would communicate this in a less Wordy way, of course, but the point still gets across.) The only difference here is that there isn't a romantic undertone to the song, instead Lindsay's hatred only grows.

Having Lindsay beat Heather in the tiebreaker is also pretty symbolic of her cutting ties with Heather entirely; she doesn't need her anymore, and she's not tethered to Heather's influence anymore either- she's free from the shackles of her Island-self. Like beating a Miniboss before the Final Boss.

And of course Beth's one of her helpers, they're best friends. I'd love to go the full mile and say she has a marginally rehabilitated Ezekiel as her second helper (their trio dynamic in TDDDDI lives on in my heart, like most of the dynamics in that special do) but honestly she'd probably end up with Heather, who volunteers NOT to help Lindsay but to have a part in taking Alejandro down.

Alejandro, on the other hand, doesn't really have anyone on his side. Katie and Sadie would be the most realistic option for volunteers, but even they probably aren't as enamoured with Alejandro as canon thanks to his whole 'stealing Lindsay's boyfriend' thing- they've got standards. In the end, I think Chris would incentivise being a helper for Alejandro either by offering the helpers a cut of the million should he win (which Alejandro protests, to deaf ears)or some other means. Justin would volunteer at that point- he respects the hustle of using your looks and charm to dominate the competition, and he loves money. He also hasn't been directly wronged by Alejandro, so that helps. As for the second? I'm leaning either Owen or DJ; Owen because Alejandro never outright wronged him directly, and he still thinks of the two as friends (despite Alejandro hating him), or DJ because Alejandro didn't wrong him either in this AU and he'd feel guilty for leaving Alejandro stranded at the finish line, even if Alejandro would deserve it.

As for Tyler. That's up to you, really. Depending on where his feelings lie at this point in the story, he could volunteer himself for either person regardless of his injuries (and promptly be told to Sit Down because he's supposed to be healing, not participating) or be caught up in his own indecisiveness and neglect to volunteer himself. 🤷‍♀️