Author's Note
Okay, so this chapter is literally the hardest one I've written yet, and it might be the hardest one I will ever write, as well as the shortest. There really just isn't much to Staci, and it's hard to make up anything for her, especially when all she did was talk about herself, and she had no solid interactions with anyone.
Everyone in the production room was quiet, and looked worried. Of course, it took Josh to be the one to break the silence, "How in the hell is this going to go? At least with Katie, Sadie, and Eva, they were around their cast for 3 seasons on the sidelines, and while B is quiet, he is smart and observant. All Staci did on the show was talk about her non-existent family, and didn't even listen to anyone. This might be the shortest interview yet."
The first boot made her way through the studio in a purple sweatshirt, and pink pants, with her ponytail being longer than it was on the show. Staci opened the door, and shook everyone's hands, "Hey everyone, it is so nice to be back in the studio today, and to go over old tea, or release some new tea, yah."
Josh groaned quietly as she sat in front of him, "Hi Staci... I'm not going to lie, this interview is going to be a hard one, since you only competed in one season, and it seemed like you just chatted everyone's ear off, so I don't know how close you are to anyone else, but it seems like you're a chatterbox, so you might give some interesting tea." He reached out to get his collage, and pulled out the first picture, "From the little we saw, you and Anne Maria got into a bit of an altercation on the yacht, but that's it. What are your opinions on her?"
"Gosh, her style was SO HORRIBLE back then. Since I am an EXPERT at genealogy, family studies, and sociology, I IMMEDIATELY knew that she wasn't an Italian, and was doing EVERYTHING SHE COULD DO to appear as such. Hence all of the horrible hairspray, the ridiculous hairstyles, wearing clothes 3 sizes too small to such in her stomach, and to push out her curves, the spray tans, all of that. I called her out on it, and she got SUPER defensive, since she knew I was reading her entire life down, without even trying to be shady or mean," Staci retold enthusiastically. "She decided to spray me down, and I ignored her. Of course when she made an utter fool of herself, she wanted everyone to pity her. After a while, Anne realized that she wasn't better than anyone, so we started gossiping here and there, and serving some cocktails while we partied for the casts throughout the next few years. I was the first one to tell her that Mike and Zoey got her cut from Season 5, and she knew I had the tea. I can't take her obnoxious, loud, and rude personality, but she is decent around other gossip party girls, and in group events. I can't take her overall, and we aren't close. Hopefully she finds her real family, so she can get a sense of identity."
He just shrugged before getting the next picture, "Nothing shocking. B is next, and from what I was told, you two spent about 2 weeks together alone in Playa des Losers. We know that he can talk, so did you manage to get that out of him?"
She shook her head, "Beverly and I had an... UP AND DOWN relationship. Of course he did not speak while he was on the show, though I think a lot of it had to do with him not wanting to do it on camera. He arrived, since Dakota left before he showed up, and it was us for a few weeks. Things got very boring at Playa, so I wanted to talk and pick his brain out. B did not want to speak at all, but our dynamic kind of worked for a bit, but once I tried getting deeper into his family, and his lack of speech, being morbidly obese, and other traits comes from his other family members who were overweight, and his mother doing something wrong when she was pregnant with him. He didn't believe ANY of my stories about my family, and I was offended by it, but it DID cause him to speak, which did excite me. I had no idea that he was into genealogy and family studies, so we did get close from all of that, and then Dawn joined us. I thought we were on good terms, and became friends for a little bit, though I would kind of move on to speak to other people as the season went on, since they all spoke to more people. It was nice watching the two of them form an emotional, spiritual attraction to one another."
"Thank you for bringing that up Staci. They mentioned that you were around during most of their relationship, so what did you think of their rise and fall?" he asked, only to add a smirk with what he was thinking next. "And do you think there was a physical attraction between them?"
"Oh my goodness, I'm gonna get in trouble for spilling," Staci almost whispered, with a coy look on her face. She looked away for a few seconds, before looking at him in the eye, "No, there was no physical attraction between them. I think B is VERY asexual, and I thought Dawn was for a bit, because she never spoke about or indicated liking anything about sex or sexuality. I would later find out that it was just HIM because there was no sexual or physical chemistry between THEM. The two of them are VERY good friends, and watching them communicate in ways that were not verbal was very cool. I just think that they bonded due to being anti-social, but Dawn is an empath, and wanted to learn more from these amazing people, especially socially. I think B is somewhat manipulative, and he is unable to adapt to ANY situation in life, so him not adapting to her social growth caused them to breakup. And I believe that he spread the rumor about her and Brick having an affair behind their backs, and using Cameron to do it. He doesn't understand love or sexuality because his parents didn't have any sexual chemistry with one another, and they never showed him any love."
Josh made a nice transition, "So we are going from one ex of Dawn's, to another ex of Dawn's, and you did admit that you think that Dawn was more physically attracted to Brick. What was your opinion of him on the show?"
She received his picture, and started laughing, "His unibrow was REALLY REALLY awful. He got that from his father, which isn't the person he thought was his father all his life. I found that out after the season, and he got SO PISSED OFF, to the point where he was threatening to sue me, and it was a HUGE SECRET that his mother was raped, and he was a rape baby. I do feel bad for that yah, I absolutely do. Anyways, I didn't speak to him much, but as people were getting booted, I was hearing stories about him and Jo, so I wanted to find out the truth. Everyone kept on saying that they had this love hate relationship, so when they both arrived, I wanted to see what it was, and I think it was a hateful lust situation between them. I encouraged Dawn to try him out, and she got us together to clear the air, since he was mad at me for discovering and calling out a family trauma of his that he didn't know about. We were always okay, but he clearly did not like me around, and it did seem like he was holding back from her, as he felt something was missing, while she was guilty for some reason."
"Apparently you found out some information about Cameron while never really competing or spending much time with him, and that information you found out caused him a lot of trauma? How do you see things between yourself, the first boot, and the winner of your season?"
Cameron's picture was given to her, and Staci had no reaction, "He looks the exact same almost a decade later. Cameron didn't bother to speak to many people outside of his clique, but we didn't have a chance of getting to know one another. After the show, I looked into everyone's backstory, and the stuff wasn't hard for me to find out. I went on ANCESTRY, and there was a reported link between Cameron and Lightning. I did some research, and with the help of LUCRATIVE SOURCES, Lightning's father was seeing two women at the same time, and Cameron's mother was a struggling crackhead. Both of them got pregnant, Cameron's mother was sent to a rehabilitation center, where she birthed Cameron, and was able to get clean, since he caused her to change her ways. But her drug issues caused some abnormalities and health issues, hence him being in a bubble. I said it to a Total Drama source, and he got mad at me. A year or so later, we got into it VERY badly, but I didn't tell a lie. Cameron and Lightning are half-brothers, but they will all take it to their graves, and they refuse to take DNA tests because he knows deep down it's true. His paranoid personality, and malnourishment is a DIRECT result of his upbringing and conception."
Josh was somewhat living for this, hence his grin, and somewhat disgusted, "Staci, you can't just be telling people's deepest family business to other people, especially if that person themselves doesn't know about it. But it does make sense as to why those two continued fighting for so long. Anyways, Dakota IS someone whose family business has been out there since Well BEFORE THE SHOW, so let's go there."
All she did she was shake her head looking at the picture, "It's so sad that she was permanently changed and altered due to what happened on the show. When she arrived to Playa after me, we DIDN'T get along. I wanted to know some tea about her family, especially since it was speculated that her father's hotel was run by money stolen through wire fraud, her mother was having salacious affairs, all of that. Dakota made fun of my looks, and said that everything about my family is a lie as well, and we went back and forth all week, especially since I mentioned that she was genetically modified in the doctors office to have her genes and looks. Dakota fled, and before she left, she said that she was going to make sure that she got her camera time. When she came back, something... changed between us, since we were the only two women who went through physical alterations through the show."
"It sucks that you both had to go through that, but it did bond the two of you. But from what it seemed like with others regarding Dakota, do you think her relationship with Dakota change once she went to transition back to her older self?"
"We did speak quite a bit for a few years after the show, and because we were both friends with Dawn, I would see Dakota. It was clear that she was struggling with Sam, and when he went to film the next season, she told me A LOT about what was happening with them. We like a lot of the same things with pop culture, and when the others went out when hanging out with the first cast, the two of us stayed back, and just talked. She never got the right attention from her family, who cared more about image than one another, and I told her some stuff about my family. Things did change between us once she wanted to go back to her normal self. I don't blame her for wanting to go back to her normal self, and even my change was just hair, which grew back in a few months," Staci elaborated in her reply. "Dakota felt stifled, and how she missed some of the most important years of her life. We aren't close now, and just lost touch. An acquaintance now."
Josh grabbed the next picture, "Dawn is the next person on the list. Apparently, the two of you are friends, but from what I could get out of her, she shockingly didn't say a lot about you. Do you view your friendship with her differently than she does?"
Staci shrugged her shoulders, "Dawn was the one person that could read me like a picture book, so she wasn't entertained by my... stories and narratives, but she never made fun of me like the others did about it. For some reason, she was one of the few who saw how intelligent I was, and respected it. We did start to get to know one another after being eliminated, and I did tell her about my family, who tended to ignore me, and I had to do... things to get their attention. Dawn is very intuitive, and really wants to help people, so she encouraged me to use my... creativity to fuel other avenues. I started using blogs, and journals to fuel my... skills, and she helped me build my skills in Geneology. I did see a lot of her growth, and I found a lot of her practices interesting, which she did start to teach me as the years went on. I went to her house quite a bit, she went to my house as well."
"If that is the case, then why are you two not best friends? Those are her words, and you didn't state anything that contracted her statement, or proved it otherwise."
"I... I don't know. For some... reason, people don't want to get close to me," she started stuttering with emotions in my voice. "I was... never good enough for people. No one was interested in my stories. I was... never pretty enough, I was never... thin enough, I was never... feminine enough. She found... better people to get along with over the years, so she founds friends that are closer to her. Dawn and I are still in a good place, but it does suck that I've never been able to find a best friend, or I could only get so close to some people, and there's always a roadblock."
Josh went to grab the picture of Jo, "Well you two did not spend much time together on the show, but I'm sure you had some run-in with her, since you both are painfully messy."
All she did was sigh, "She was mad that I wanted to know more about what was happening between her and Brick on the show, when she was sent to Playa des Losers. Of course she then mentioned stuff about my weight, and I didn't understand why she was the way she was, but it makes sense once I learned that her mother abandoned her, because she was too masculine, and her father was an addict on steroids at some point. I told a blog that she was obsessed with Lightning and Brick because she was attracted to them, but neither one of them gave her the attention she wanted. There was definitely a run-in with us in between seasons, and she not only threatened to beat me up, but she would dig stuff about my family. Jo just was not worth it, and but she really needed good female role models around her."
"Now we're going to move onto Lightning. We talked a bit about his mess earlier, but nothing about your dynamics with him specifically," Josh moved on, as he gave her the picture of the runner-up. "Like Dakota, I am sure you found out stuff about his family from what was already published."
All she did was yawn, "Storm is just really lame, and he was so illiterate. He knew nothing about anything, and would throw tantrums because his brain couldn't come up with proper words or sentences. Everything people claimed about Dakota being a famewhore, and thinking that she would slide by due to having a famous parent, is everything Lightning did as well. There was a lot of stuff being posted about Cameron and Lightning before the show aired, and I knew some of the tea, after doing some of the digging. Lightning was living with half of the cast, because his father publicly disowned him after the finale, and I was asking the MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION; WHERE IN THE HELL IS HIS MOTHER?I did some digging, and apparently his parents had a NASTY divorce, and his mother was essentially exiled stop some far-off land, where she hasn't spoken to Lightning in years. Let's be honest, his team was also selling stories, and used me to push out certain narratives about Cameron, but I was honest about it. When people started looking at him, he started cursing me out, and we had to get into it. Haven't dealt with him in about 8 years, and he isn't worth my time."
"Wow, you really have nothing to say about your fellow cast mates, and they didn't have anything to say about you. This interview is going by quicker than I thought," Josh verbalized, with a bit of annoyance in his voice. "Anyways, Mike is next on the list. What was your experience with him like?"
Staci received Mike's picture, and sighed in exhaustion, "He is another person who has so much weirdness going on, but would also judge others for being weird. Just from the few days I was a player, being being on the yacht with him before the season, it was obvious that he went through some sort of trauma, since he had that demeanor, and would always twitch. Mike had no interest in getting to know me, and he was a pain to deal with at Playa des Losers. EVERYONE was talking about how weird his and Zoey's relationship was in between seasons, so when I was interviewed while the season was airing, I aired out my thoughts. It was weird that he and Zoey did not share one kiss at all during their year apart, and if it's a lie, than it's even weirder for them to claim so. I said that it was not responsible for him to be on the show, since he put us all in danger throughout two seasons, and I called him out for being a compulsive liar. I found out that his parents were broke, abusive assholes who essentially... sold him off to relatives, who were also horrid people, causing him to get his D.I.D., and his parents for giving up all rights to him. Mike showed his true colors though, since he blasted my family business in an argument, and said that I had no life because I was too boring, which my family apparently stated. He's not a good person, and I haven't dealt with him in almost a decade. Perpetual victim."
He passed the photo of Sam to her, "Sam was on the Toxic Rats with you, and the both of you do share some similarities with having,... weirder interests, and being a bit overweight. He is also one of the nicer people on the cast, so I'm sure you had SOME good moments with him, right?"
"Eh... He didn't bash on me like some of the others did through the season, and Sam did try to make the effort to bond with me. We did have some conversations about being nerdier, and being overweight, which lead to a few nice moments. At the same time, it isn't enough to form a foundation of a friendship on, and it didn't help that he was B's friend, I was Dawn's friend, and their breakup did cause somewhat of a divide. With the reports of Sam being on the "All-Stars" cast that I told, and some of the other tea about how not only what the cast thought about his and Dakota's relationship, how he treated the Dakotazoid situation, he got mad at me, and started distancing himself from me. He said that I lacked empathy, though Dakota would later tell me that she found Sam lacking empathy, and it's why their relationship broke up. I got the blame for what I reported, and from what the other blogs were reporting about their breakup, instead of him being mad about the truth, which is that he wanted her to stay as Dakotazoid," Staci explained in great detail, and with some annoyance in her voice.
Josh knew that she was leaving something out, "But he claimed that you also mentioned that he GAVE HER A DISEASE as a result of this, and it caused the two of you to have a HUGE blowup. Unlike Sierra, who usually backs her stuff up with facts, you didn't, where he claimed that he got your blog shut down."
The thicker woman just rolled her eyes, "Sam... used EVERYT method possible to keep her as Dakotazoid, even giving her some ointments and whatever to do so. It made her VERY SICK, which is what I reported. Dakota was talking A LOT of stuff, and what he was giving her just made Dakota feel worse, especially with her taking drugs at the time." She had to breathe for a bit, before opening her mouth again, "I admit, I COULD HAVE written it better..., since the way I wrote it DID cause my blog to shut down. But some of the stuff he said to me was out of bounds, especially when I went with mostly the truth. I shut down my blog because everyone got mad at what I was saying, I was getting in a lot of trouble, and I initially used it to fuel the energy that I spent on the tales I told on my family. It just wasn't worth it anymore. That happened about 4-5 years ago."
"Alright, the second-to-last person on our cast list is Scott, who is also someone that was on your team, but is the main villain of the season. He did horrible antics to the people you were somewhat the closest with on the season."
"I saw Scott's number from the beginning. He literally bragged about being from a rednecked country farm, since they do anything to get by, he wore a bunch of old, worn-down clothes, and went out of his way to study past reality tv stars to become iconic. On the yacht, he kept on talking about the weird family dynamics he had in his own family, and to me, it seemed like some of them committed incest, which is why so many of them have genetic issues. I said it to him a few times on the show, and after it, but when stuff started coming out about his family, especially with how they would fraud money to fund their bootleg farms, I got the blame for it. Scott never gave me a chance, due to how close I was to certain people from the cast, so he just ignored me. I actually tried to cheer him up once he arrived to Playa severely injured, but all he did was make fun of me, and called me baldie, which was not necessary."
He was thrilled to hand over the final picture, "And lastly is Zoey. Based on the limited interactions you had with virtually everyone else, I'm sure you don't have much with someone who was on a different team from the sole episode you competed in, and she always lasted to the end, while also not having close relationships with her closest friends."
Staci looked at the picture, and also shrugged, "She was very judgmental from the little I saw of her, from the very first week where I was in the game, and the final week, where she was a part of Playa des Losers. I get that this is a new experience, and dealing with a bunch of different people is both exhilarating and scary at the same time. When I was in the game, I told her that she seemed too naive, like she was coming from a group of relatives who had a lot to hide. That only strengthened when she came back, and told us about her traumatic experience as Commando Zoey. I told her that she needs to speak to her family about some missing elements in her, and turns out, her family was a part of the military, but they both did something so horrible that they went into hiding, changed their identities, and shielded Zoey, so no one could put the pieces together. Zoey tried to make up with, and form relationships with all of the women on our cast, but she was too protective of Mike and Cameron, and because I said the truth about their situations, she distanced herself from me as well. A few years later, I outright called her out on snubbing the women from her cast, and she was shocked that I out of all people would put it out there for everyone to break down. And then she wasn't mad about me stating where her and Mike's relationship was before Season 5; either they weren't intimate, or lying about how intimate they were."
"Alright, since you were barely close with your own cast, I doubt you built any relationships with the other two casts. But in fairness, I am going to ask you about your relationships with the other casts, in the rare chance that you did build them?" he brought up, with little intrigue in his voice.
"Actually, I am close with some of the other casts. Katie and Sadie are VERY good friends of mine, since we did have quite a bit of fun once the fifth season was filming, and we have a lot of similarities with one another. They didn't make me feel judged, and included me in a lot, so I appreciate them for that. Sierra is also another very good friend of mine, as she taught me the business of blogging, journalism, and using my innate gift of finding research on others, and gossiping to put out viable information for the masses. Beardo, Leonard, and Ella are people that I've also built solid relationships with over the years, and so have I with Topher, and shockingly Sugar. Kind of interesting that I'm closer with many people from the third cast over my own cast, but even then, I can't say that I would call any of them my best friends," Staci revealed, smiling somewhat.
He could not wait to get this over with, "So this will be the last set that I will ask you today. What have you done since your time on the show, and what have you learned from your experience on the show?"
She kind of froze for a bit, and then a hint of sadness came over her, "I learned that I wasn't as likable as I thought I was, and my methods for trying to get to know people... wasn't working. It was a hard epiphany, since I thought telling these grand tales of my family would... would endear me to people, and endear people to me, but it did... the opposite. Growing up, I had to tell a bunch of tales to get my loved ones to pay me any attention, and... it's a VERY bad coping mechanism that I learned. Getting eliminated first was a hard experience to deal with, and I had to learn how to actually listen to people, in order to have conversations that hold weight, and could be used as a foundation of building any sort of worthy interaction or bond with another person. So I took a bunch of social classes, and even then things didn't work out as well as I wanted it to, though people didn't find me as annoying. I thought getting into blogging would be a better way to channel the energy and talents that I used to tell the stories about my family."
"So we discussed about how you blogging caused a lot of the cast to turn against you, and to cut you off. The situation with Sam especially caused for your blog to be shut down. What have you done since that happened?"
"Well, I was always into Geneology, and started going to school or that, but blogging became a lot more lucrative for me at the time, so I kind of slipped off that. After the blogging business ended for me, I went back to school, and focused heavily on getting my degree, and interning for many companies. Just finished getting my Masters, and have gotten a lot of offers from the top companies like Ancestry. I'm proud of myself," Staci responded with a smile on her face. She took the initiative to shake Josh's hand, "Thank you for the interview."
He forced a smile, "Thank you too, though it's the shortest interview I've done for this so far. Glad that you're at least doing well education and career-wise."
