Okay. Toni's on her way home! Also, if anyone's asking, no, she will not be meeting Jemma from my fic "Total Bubbly World Tour". She came to the show after Celebrity Manhunt was over. Thanks for reviewing, AnonBrowser, OmnipotentAbsoluteUIGodzilla, lordgemini and timothysch22.

Really REALLY sorry this took so long. I just started a new project at work and evening classes in Spanish, I had to get a new laptop and there's just been no time.

It was sort of surreal when I finally was allowed home, allowed in whatever clothes I wanted, allowed back in school, allowed to carry my Smartphone around. The only sign that I'd ever been on TV was my Her Dorkness outfit (which I'd brought home with me) and the friendship bracelet Beth made me (which I wore on weekends, since we weren't allowed them at school). Even though I hadn't known the contestants for very long, and it had only been six weeks, I missed the show, and the bracelet reminded me that it hadn't been just a long elaborate daydream. I didn't miss the challenges, but I did miss the people. We were scattered all across Canada, so it wasn't easy to keep in contact with them the way I had during the show, where we'd been stuck together day in, day out. It was kind of hard to stop seeing them all entirely, cold turkey.

All my friends pumped me for information about the show. They'd mostly seen Total Drama Island, so they wanted to know more behind-the-scenes stuff about my castmates. Actually, most of my classmates begged for autographs and dirt and even spoilers. I decided to try and ignore it, and eventually, they got that I wasn't giving up too much and let me be. But for the first couple of weeks, I was Miss Popular. Honestly, even when I straight out told them that I was only on the show because my cousin was hosting and just wanted me so it wasn't a carbon copy of the first season, they still treated me that way. Actually, when I didn't give information, some of the alpha bitch girls started spreading that I was only allowed on the show because of Chris, but they didn't even know that they were totally right and I didn't care. I couldn't help finding it funny, that they thought they were making something up that was actually true. Eventually, things died down and I was able to get back to a normal life, even when the show began to air. My popularity went up a little bit as the show went on, but not as much as it had when I first got home, and once the season was over, everyone lost interest again. As the show aired, I began to tell my friends about what was happening off-camera per episode, little by little.

It wasn't too bad, seeing myself on TV. I was still in touch with most of my castmates, so we sometimes chatted on Facebook about the show. I was glad to be able to talk to people about stuff we all knew and not just those who had an outside view. It felt like we were still connected.

My friends started asking questions about stuff on the show. Like "How come you tried to make nice with Heather?" and "Beth's making it up that she has a boyfriend, right? Do you know?", and especially after the horror movie challenge aired, "How did the kisses feel?"

When I got that question, I just shrugged and said "All right. Duncan's pretty good. But seriously, keep watching. I got a ton of crap just for acting a makeout scene."

When Courtney first debuted but before she spoke to me, my friends noticed her glaring at me, and I had to explain "Yeah, it's because she knows I kissed Duncan. Even though it didn't mean anything. I asked him off-camera if she was going to read more into it than just acting and he said she probably would. I don't know if they'll show the bit where she accuses Duncan of hooking up with me."

They did show that part, actually. And the part where she accused me of stealing her boyfriend, when in reality I didn't even try to steal him, let alone succeed. Funnily enough, watching myself with Courtney wasn't enough to make me cross with her all over again. I just found it entertaining..

The finale came and went. November came and went. My sixteenth birthday in December came and went. Christmas came and went. And then came a new thing.

There was this gossip show, Celebrity Manhunt. They wanted to do a big Total Drama edition of the show, because Chris was starting a new season at the end of February. Not only that, but the Gemmies were coming up a little earlier in February, and we were nominated for Best Reality Show Cast, so we'd all be on the red carpet, and Celebrity Manhunt would cover us there, too. So all through January, I had to go to interviews and press conferences and I even had to answer endless questions about Duncan in a video conference. Apparently he'd broken up with Courtney and I'd been getting emails from fans forwarded by the producers telling me he was perfect for me and that I should be with him, that Courtney never deserved him anyway (apparently her performance last season netted her a LOT of hate from the fans). Soon after the conference, I actually spoke to Gwen, who said even she was getting a few emails because the fans thought she and Duncan had good chemistry (probably just friendship chemistry like mine), but she'd made a vlog, stating "Enough already. You know I'm still with Trent. Case closed."

When it got to the conference and I got grilled on the question, I just shrugged. "No, I don't want him. He's a friend. He's fun, but that's it. I've never wanted Duncan as my boyfriend. He's like my brother Aiden. How many people want to date a copy of their big brother? That kind of sounds gross, if you really want to know. I don't want to look at a face I'm making out with and see my brother. That doesn't happen with a guy friend." When asked if I thought Courtney was making the right choice, I'd said "Well, she was lucky to have him in the first place. I never quite thought she appreciated him enough. I think she'd rather have someone who'd let her walk all over them. No, she should have appreciated what was right in front of her when she had the chance. She maybe didn't make the right choice, but Duncan absolutely did."

I, of course, didn't see the footage of what everyone else had been up to in the first half of the show, apart from a vlog war between Heather and Gwen that had been online anyhow. Gwen had been doing some talking about going green and then Heather had put a video online making fun, so Gwen retaliated by putting some dirt about Heather online. But that was all I knew about what had been going on, really. I hadn't watched the reality shows Tyler and Leshawna had been on, I hadn't gone to DJ's restaurant, I never saw anyone mobbing Geoff for autographs and I didn't see Owen's commercial. Also, I didn't know when Duncan and Courtney had broken up or why, just that they had and that was only because of the emails telling me to hook up with him. Oh, well, all right, I did buy the Drama Brothers' first album – that was Cody, Harold, Justin and Trent teaming up as a band – but I didn't bother listening to anything new they put out when Harold tried going solo and the others released a new album.

But then, it was the Gemmies. I arrived pretty early.

"Toni! Toni!" called an unfamiliar voice. A girl with a long purple ponytail rushed up to me, holding a mic. She was apparently a superfan who was acting as reporter for the roving reporter (I later found out her name was Sierra). "So, tell me, how was it being under your cousin's thumb for six whole weeks?"

I laughed. "You're kidding, right? Chrissy has nothing on me. Remember, that's why I got kicked off?"

Sierra blinked at me. Then she asked another question. "Okay, so moving on, why don't you tell all our viewers another juicy piece about everyone's favourite host? Something really amazing."

I thought for a moment, trying to remember something I hadn't told the cameras. Then I brightened. "How about this – when I was really little, like three years old, Mom told me that Chrissy begged her to let him babysit for me. She let him try out for like, a couple hours. By the time she got back, my hair was a mess and I kept asking for food, but I was laughing because Chrissy actually had a sense of humour about himself back then and was playing one-man comedy show for me. Mom never let him babysit for me again, but she asked him to set up entertainment for my next birthday, and he kept it age appropriate."

Sierra giggled. Then she had to go off and interview Katie and Sadie, who froze up when she mentioned ten million viewers and asked them to talk about their new green outfits. I think I gave her the most gossip of any contestant. Even when Courtney and Duncan arrived at the same time, the most she got was "My lawyer says no comment," from both.

Okay, and as soon as they'd both said that, Courtney asked "You got a lawyer? For real?" But Duncan didn't bother replying to that.

After that, just about everyone arrived at the same time. Noah was last, completely blanking Sierra as he walked past, talking into his phone. Yep, still the jerkwad who'd been on the sidelines last season.

But when we tried to get into the theatre, suddenly, Chef was in front of us, blocking our way. "Famous people only!" he informed us. "And as of about five seconds ago, that excludes you!"

Gwen spoke up. "Who died and made you doorman?"

"I did!" Chris spoke up, stepping out.

"You died?" That came from Lindsay.
"Um, don't cousins of famous people count?" I asked in my sweetest voice.

"Sorry, Toni!" Chris said, grinning. "Fame only get you a certain amount of seats. And I need them for my new cast."

At that moment, Chris took the coffee and bag Noah was holding. Turned out the stuff Noah was ordering was for him, and Noah was working as his assistant.

"Cut me some slack." Noah protested when we were all staring at him. "Everybody has to work their way up in this bizz."

At that moment, Chris' new cast for something he called "Total Drama Dirtbags" showed up. They all seemed mismatched. Apparently it was just a bunch of jerks living in a mansion.

Heather spoke up at this point. "I'm nasty! That should be me!"

"Yeah, and Noah should be with you." I muttered in a voice just loud enough for him to hear. "Jerk who won't even talk to the interviewer and never has a nice word to say."

Noah gave me a cool glance and then just shrugged the insult off. Hey, I was feeling cross with being called to this ceremony and not being allowed inside.

As Chris was calling us losers, another voice sounded behind us. "Excuse me." An extremely hot guy proceeded to push through the crowd of us, knocking Cody over in the process.

"Cody?!" exclaimed Sierra, who was with us, looking extremely concerned.

Chris greeted the new guy with "Alejandro! Buddy, how's my next big star?" as he walked through the doors, totally ignoring the greetingt. Chris looked a little annoyed, but he quickly took a sip of his coffee cup. That second, he spat it out, and then yelled at Noah. "This latte's cold! You're fired!" And then we were locked out of the Gemmies. Alone. Well, okay, there were twenty-three of us, plus Sierra, but we were still outside the place where we had been nominated for an award.

We didn't get the award, by the way. We never did get inside. For whatever reason, Alejandro was the MC for the whole thing (seriously, he was probably around the same age as most of us – maybe a little younger than most of them but only a couple months older than me), and we watched it all on the TV outside. Chris, however, did win Best Reality Show Host, and proceeded to give everyone except us credit for Total Drama's success. The only interesting information we got from hearing him was that he was going to introduce the Dirtbags cast on the most famous chat show ever, the very next day.

And just like that, we were all ready to go back to our old lives and stop being famous. None of us were happy about it, but there wasn't any alternative…right?

But according to Sierra, it was. "What's the matter with you?" she exclaimed. "No one deserves to be more famous than you guys! You can't just give up! Do you have any idea how many millions of fans are out there? I've been watching, blogging, PVRing you since the first episode! I – I mean, we – have fan sites about each and every one of you! We know everything about you, and we are rooting for you! We know your eating habits, your hopes, your fears…your DENTAL RECORDS!"

"Stalker." Heather muttered, and I couldn't help nodding. If Sierra really knew all these things, how on earth did she get them? I knew crazy fans were sometimes a thing, but I didn't think a reality show contestant got them, not like pop stars and lead actors. Sierra didn't seem like she was going to tear off anyone's outfit just so she could have memorabilia, but still, she was clearly a little too obsessed with Total Drama.

Sierra's idea was that we went to the talk show studio ourselves, try to beat the Dirtbags there and hijack the interview. And we all agreed. Izzy had some crazy ideas about how to get there, but we just took a tour bus belonging to DJ and his mother.

"Wipe your feet first!" called his mom before we even took a few steps towards the bus.

"You're gonna be famous again!" Sierra declared.

And right then, it felt like it was going to turn out that way.

Again, I'm really sorry I was gone more than a month. Hope you liked the chapter anyway.