Chris McLean took a long, final drag from his cigarette and exhaled, watching a ribbon of carcinogens as it rose into the orange sky like a ghost. He was oblivious to the disgusted stares from the parents nearby, just as he was to the sign behind him which forbade smoking on park premises. He used to come here as a teenager, he remembered vaguely. He'd sit with his friends on this very bench, overlooking the lake, the forest, and the playground. Back then, he was smoking joints instead of cigarettes, and the scenery was greener.

Rose-tinted glasses, he thought to himself. You could tell he was thinking this, it was written all over his face.

He flicked the butt over his shoulder and sighed audibly. The words cancelled and finished and loser chased each other around in his head as the sun sank over his childhood sanctuary. His empire was just a cartoon now, a parody of a parody, of itself. The contestants, his contestants, had all but vanished into thin air. There would be no more new seasons, no more fame and fortune. As of today, Total Drama was gone, and he was well and truly defeated.

Anyone who knew Chris McLean, really knew him, knew that it was good for him to feel this way. This is because the world of entertainment, and the world at large, were safest when Chris McLean had no tricks up his sleeve. But perhaps the world is like a teenager in that self-preservation is surpassed on the hierarchy of needs by boredom. Perhaps this is why we have black holes and supernovas and cancer and parties and love and earthquakes and laughter and drama, and why the universe dispenses all these things without discernment. Perhaps this was why, at this park at sunset, the universe sent a small woman with a cold, shriveled fingers back into Chris' life.

"Mr. McLean?"

He scowled at the woman without turning to face her. "It was one cigarette," he said, waving his hand dismissively, "and its gone now-"

"I'm not here about that," responded the woman. Her pinched mouth spread into a thin line until her lips had disappeared. "I don't suppose you remember who I am?"

At this, Chris regarded the woman. She scoffed at the blankness in the expression he offered her. "You always were a dull one."

There was a dryness to her voice that connected the dots in his head. "Principal Minx?"

The old woman nodded. "In flesh and bone."

Defeat being etched into peoples' features seemed to be a recurring theme that fateful night. Yvonne Minx leaned heavily on her cane as she stood like a shadow from the past, thrown by the sunset. She was indeed in flesh and bone; other than a tailored, pinstripe dress faded by time, she didn't appear to be much else. Chris wasn't entirely sure what to say; stunned as he was, he eventually settled on the wrong thing.

"Except you're not the principal any more," he stated, meaning to sound sympathetic and failing. "You got fired years ago, when…"

She sighed. "When the Academy was foreclosed, yes." Since he hadn't thought to, Minx invited herself to share the bench. "Those limey bastards from the legal firm. Decades of labor, gone in one an afternoon."

"I know how that feels," he groused.

She scoffed again before she responded. "So I'm aware. Give an old lady a cigarette, boy."

If you had asked Chris, or anyone who had attended the Alighieri Academy for Troubled Youth under Minx's authority, they would have told you that this woman deserved to have her empire toppled, on the condition that neither she nor her staff were around to hear them say it. Equally, if you had spoken to Chris when he was a teenager, and you had asked if he ever thought he'd be sitting next to this woman, sharing his last pack with her and watching the sunset, he would've thought you were crazy. But here they were, decades after graduation, equal in their dejection.

"Total Drama was a masterpiece," said Yvonne Minx suddenly, and Chris was sure he had misheard her. "I'm serious," she continued, reading his mind as teachers often can. "I've always known better than anyone, children are little shits. Profiting off the messes they manage to make of themselves, on national television no less, promising them fame at the price of infamy… It was brilliant, while it lasted."

Whatever residual pride that might've been swelling in Chris McLean's starting-to-sag chest was punctured with her last words, and he deflated. "While it lasted," he echoed.

"You could have that back if you were willing to fight for it."

Chris cut his eyes at her. "The network's done with me."

"And Alighieri," she countered, "is done with me. But let me ask you, what would you say if I told you we could help each other?"

Chris looked at the woman with her wiry, cold smile. It didn't look like she was smiling but rather like someone had sewn her lips together and she was trying to wrench them apart. "Help each other?"

"Stop speaking like a parrot," she snapped, hoisting herself up with her cane. "Take a walk with me."

Chris McLean only stood after Minx had, and though he would later blame this on his preexisting emotional turmoil, his shoulders were stooped so that he stood shorter than her. From my place, hidden from view, I could practically see the aura she exuded; it came off of her like a net and Chris, predictably, became like a fish. A spineless sort of fish that normally would not be sought after commercially, but then again, Minx was no commercial fisherwoman. She was a woman with an agenda that Chris McLean and I both knew well. He had seen it, this agenda, once before. I, however, was new to the experience.

I lie awake sometimes, in whatever I am calling my bed that night, still thinking of that sunset at that park and the self-destructive tendencies of this juvenile universe. If stars did not age or comets did not fling themselves towards the sun, for example, there would be nothing except human folly to stop our planet from existing indefinitely. Of course, science tells us that one of these events - a falling star or a dying one - will inevitably destroy us and all that we have ever done. This is fact, and it is inescapable.

In the same way, had Chris McLean not been at that park at sunset, or had Principal Minx had the courage to pull the trigger earlier that day, perhaps another disaster might've been averted. Perhaps funerals would not have needed to be paid for. Perhaps battles would not be waged in courthouses and wars would not be fought over legislation. Perhaps extinctions could have been prevented and floors could have been kept clean. Perhaps, any number of things.

But that is the unfortunate nature of perhaps; we only ever entertain it when we are staring down something that we cannot really change. Perhaps are the echoes of fists against an unyielding brick wall, an unbending reality.

I have taken up the mantle for this very reason. Though it is too late for me, and everyone else whom you will meet should you choose to follow me back down this pathway, I am here to tell you the story of how the Alighieri Academy for Troubled Youth re-opened its doors to a new generation. I am here to tell you of the horrible things that happened therein, over the next ninety days. I am here to tell you of the ninetieth day as well - of the bloodiest day in the history of juvenile justice. You may already know of it, if you've paid attention lately.

There is only one thing I must ask you to keep in mind, however, no matter what you see or how it affects you. It is a promise I will ask you make and to uphold; and that is to understand one simple rule until our time together has concluded.

My name is Solfeggio Kant, and the events which you are about to witness were not, in any way, my fault.

Application

Full Name:

Preferred Name:

Archetype: (1)

Gender/Pronouns: (2)

Sexual Identity:

Physical Appearance: (3)

Personality:

Background: (4)

Strengths and Weaknesses: (5)

Phobias:

Reason for Consignment: (6)

1. One noun, preceded by 'The'. (Ex. The Debutante, The Machiavellian, The Quarterback)

2. Nontraditional gender identities are more than welcome but will only be considered if done respectfully.

3. Be throughout but also be basic; include everything you want me to know, but let me fill in the gaps myself. Clothing is not necessary.

4. Give me something I haven't seen before, please. Tragic sweethearts are useless here.

5. At least four each; extras are permitted but they have to be proportionate.

6. What did they do to get them sent to a reform school? Again, I urge you to get creative. As an addendum, you may send in applications through Private Message only with the footnotes removed. Applications won't be considered otherwise.

See you soon