"Previously on Total Drama Le-
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The 24 remaining contestants had gathered in the food tent for their daily breakfast. As usual, they were mostly branched off in various groups made from different alliances, with each respective team at their own table. Chef stood nearby behind a counter, ladle in hand as he whistled Megalovania out of boredom. Various conversations were going on at once, but everyone was interrupted by the loud blast of an airhorn. They turned their heads towards the entrance of the tent, where Chris walked in holding a remote.
"Yaaaahaha... it's fast forward time!"
Silence.
"Uh, what?" Zane eventually asked, confused.
"I said, it's fast forward time," Chris repeated, holding up the remote and shaking it.
"The hell does that mean?" Lance responded, eyebrow raised.
Chris could only chuckle, adjusting the glasses he wasn't wearing like an anime villain. "Come on, think about it guys. You're all a group of OCs in a guy's SYOC story that's been limping along for six years with terribly inconsistent updates and very little to show for it. What do you THINK I mean?"
Silence once again filled the room, as the implications of the host's words were thought over by everyone. Soon enough, many began to realize what he meant. Whispers were exchanged, and before long everyone had caught on. It was then that the whispers grew until a full riot.
"Oh, you have GOT to be fucking kidding me!" Lexi's voice was the loudest among the sea of anger. "We've been following this bullshit for six fucking years and he's pulling the plug NOW?"
"What happened to all that good shit he was spitting in literally the last author's note about refusing to give up on it because that's what ALWAYS happens with these stories?" Trevor added.
"Well, you incredibly confusing OC with a stereotype that made no sense in retrospect," Chris said in direct response to Trevor. "It would seem his attitude has changed since then. That chapter itself WAS nearly two years ago after all."
"I demand to speak to the powers that be about this," Rowan spoke up, pointing a finger at the host. "This isn't fair, he can't go on another over year long hiatus on us and only come back to do this!"
"Well, since I'm basically acting as his self insert mouthpiece at this point, sure, why not." It was then that Chris quickly morphed into a new form. This one was a slightly taller and chubbier guy with short hair, and looked like the whitest Mexican you'd ever seen. He wore glasses, sneakers, a pro wrestling t shirt, and pair of basketball shorts. Damn, not a great fashion sense on this guy, was there? "Yo, what's popping y'all? It's me, Shed."
"You have a lot of nerve, showing your face here when you're doing this to us," Lukas pointed out, rolling up a sleeve threateningly. "Furthermore, I told you my stereotype was literally a lone wolf and yet you put me in an alliance and ship tease storyline immediately!"
"Yeah that's a good point, I did kinda fuck up your character trait out of the gate," Shed agreed, looking over the others. "But hey, at least you weren't the only one."
"We demand answers," Deborah said from another table, one of the more level headed of the protesters. "Why is this happening? Why are you quitting the story all of a sudden."
Shed sighed, shrugging. "It just feels like it's easier to rip the bandaid off now than continuing to limp along knowing fully well that I'll either never finish this story or I'll be in like my fuckin 40s when it's finished. Who knows if the website would even be around by then, a lot of kids these days are using AO3 instead."
"But like Trevor said, literally last chapter you double downed on wanting to finish this thing," Riley pointed out, arms folded. "So, what, you had a change of heart since then?"
"Pretty much." The author nodded. "I'll explain it more in the author's note, this meta shit is already kind of cringy so I don't want to milk it too much."
"This is reprehensible," Kyle complained, stamping his fist on the table. "I was going to be on of the new best characters with my redemption storyline!"
"Actually, you were going to be the next elimination," Shed corrected. "You winning the last challenge for your team was just a red herring to make your elimination more surprising."
"Oh, of course you were going to make the Mushrooms lose again, how predictable." Zane grumbled, shaking his head in disappointment. "This is such bullshit."
"You... well, actually you have pretty good grounds to be upset," Shed noted, addressing Zane. "Considering how you and Deborah were going to be the finalists and all."
"Oh, of COURSE you were going to put the OCs from your two most consistent reviewers in the finale," Andrea yelled. "Next you'll tell me Lance would have been the longest lasting villain because you're friends with his maker but not mine or Trevor's."
"Yes," Shed merely replied, his face briefly morphing into that Nordic gamer meme.
"So this thing was always going to end in favoritism," Aden realized, sighing. "Perhaps it's best we just end it now after all. What will become of us?"
Once again Shed could only shrug innocently. "You return to those that submitted you. Maybe they'll use you in your own stories, maybe they'll submit you to other SYOCs. Hell, some probably have already at this point. I wouldn't really know, I don't tend to read SYOCs."
"What about mine?" Caleb objected. "You literally have a character of your's in it."
"Oh yeah, I did submit Wade for that. I'll get around to catching up to it soon enough, hopefully you have an easier time finishing your's than I did."
More complaints and arguments were hurled the author's way. Things like, "You only care about BOTG now don't you?" or "This is the most anticlimactic trash ever," and so on. It eventually got to where Shed had to blow the airhorn once again to make everyone shut up.
"Look, I get it, this is really disappointing and there's still more questions. I'll explain myself further in the author's note but for now I'm gonna have to cut it here." He held up the remote threateningly. "In ten seconds I press the fast forward button and it all comes to an end. So, you know, spend the countdown wisely."
The objections now grew much more frantic and loud. Lukas tossed a chair at Shed, but boom big surprise it turned out he was a hologram all along. Chuckling at the chaos unfolding from behind the counter, Chef began flossing furiously as he watched these damn zoomers descend into madness.
"10!"
Zane and Deborah had taken to sulking in the corner together, having a mutual despair over the knowledge they'd be potential winners if the author hadn't been a lazy piece of shit. Meanwhile Kyle was getting mugged by Lance, who was extra angry since he too now knew he would have gone far.
"9!"
Aden crawled backwards nervously as Lexi, Riley, and Iris all approached him. The brit tried to shove the other two out of the way. "You birds get out of here, I called dibs on him first!"
"But I was going to end up with him in the end, even if our storyline never actually got to start," Riley objected.
"I want a piece of this action, hell yeah fam," Iris said, throwing the fact that this was OOC into the wind.
"What is this, a harem story?" Aden said, making a Dreamworks face at the camera as the three girls piled on top of him.
"No, but if it was maybe I would have gotten more viewers because there's people that eat that lazy shit up," Shed responded. "Anyway, 8!"
While not to the mobbed degree as Aden, Caleb was also being hunted by a very thirsty and very persistent Clara. She was trying her best to rip the clothes off the poor guy, as he ran around distressed. Meanwhile, Trevor and Alice had began a duet, singing Crawling in my Skin at the top of their lungs.
"7!"
Lukas and Garret had just thrown caution to the wind and began throwing hands. Lukas connected with a sick uppercut, but Garrett replied with an equally fierce haymaker. Xilier cheered on Lukas from the sidelines, while Lincoln began doing the worm.
"6!"
Ryan and Rowan embraced each other, both sobbing in despair at the chaos unfolding around them. Realizing there was no longer a point to anything, Andrea went against her straight edge ways and from out of nowhere pulled out a huge bottle of whisky and a blunt. With one in each hand, she switched between taking swigs from the alcohol and taking hits from the doobie.
"5!"
Morella had figured out how to harness the speed force and was now hopping around the tent at super sonic speeds. Feeling challenged by the speed, Chef began flossing even more furiously as he swung his arms back and forth. Meanwhile John went into a speech, asking if there was any character strong enough to defeat Madara Uchiha. But not just any Madara Uchiha, we're talking the Rinne Tensei Madara Uchiha with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, the Rinnegan, a perfect Susano'o and the ability to control the juubi and the Gedou Maz-
"4!"
Ellie and Jacque has decided to spend the last of their moments doing the default dance over and over towards each other, in some sort of bizarre mating ritual. As for Kusa? He turned into a boat. No, don't ask me how he fucking turned into a boat, much less why, but that badass mofo somehow turned himself into a fucking boat. What a legend.
"3! 2! 1!"
Shed pressed the fast forward button, and in an instant everything went black.
Author's Note:
So... forgive me for ending the story on a shitpost but I wanted to have a bit of fun with these character one last time and decided to crank it up to 11. But yes, as the story version of Shed went over, let me just go ahead and rip off the bandaid. I'm putting Total Drama Level Up out of its misery. It's officially canceled. I'm ashamed that I'm quitting on it after all these years when I never got to do much with it, and I'm sure it's a huge disappointment to update after so long only for it to be this. But I'll go into detail as to why I've decided to cancel the story. And I'll also be uploading this with a "final" chapter that details the events that would have happened throughout the story so you can at least have a bit of closure as to what would have been. So I won't explain too much plot stuff here, but if you want a TL:DR, Lance would have emerged as the true main villain and got 3rd, while the finalists would have been Deborah and Zane. The next chapter will explain everyone's placements, etc. But for here, now I'll explain myself.
As anyone reading this is likely aware, this story has always had shit update consistency. In the span of almost six years, I have a mere seven chapters to show for it, one of those just being an Aftermath chapter. Couple that with the fact that it's a SYOC fic, making it pretty much of no interest to anyone who doesn't have an OC in the story, and it was a pretty doomed story from the start as far as making it a success went. Nonetheless, last chapter I assured everyone that I wanted to dig in my heels and finish the fight, regardless of how long it would take. So what changed? Well for one, look how long it's been since that last chapter. I went on a pretty bad hiatus after it, but more recently returned to my ongoing main comp fic. I thought I'd be able to jump back into Level Up just as easily, but when I sat down to write the next chapter I quickly found myself hitting a wall. My mind went blank and I couldn't type out anything for the story. I thought maybe I lacked writing motivation, but I found myself able to write yet another BOTG chapter with ease. Once I uploaded that I sat back down to finish the Level Up chapter but after a few more paragraphs I once again lost the drive to continue. Instead my brain was calling out to me to return to BOTG, giving me all these ideas on what to do with the next chapter of that story. My mind was actively telling me to stop working on Level Up. I had effectively lost all motivation to continue the story and instead looked at it as more an obligation. And well, once you stop viewing a fic as for fun and more something you're oligated to finish, that's when it becomes a problem.
So basically, it was at this point I knew the story was doomed. I would still be getting chapters out at a snail pace, but now my heart wouldn't be in it and the story would suffer. Furthermore, that would eat up time I could use writing something I actually want to. So it would just be easier for all of us to end things here rather than taking more and more years to limp Level Up across the finish line in a likely unsatisfying way. What made me lose the motivation? I don't know, it could be a variety of factors that are mostly my fault. After all, I enjoyed the general premise of adapting video game genres in a TDA sequel. And I enjoyed the odd cast of characters, I think they all had their own sort of potential. I think it's a combined matter of the aforementioned low amount of attention fics like these naturally come with once the submission process is over, the gaps I took between chapters making it harder for me to jump back into the mix, and a growing feeling that I wasn't doing many characters justice such as Lukas and Deborah. One of my bigger mistakes was probably going too big with the cast. I underestimated how many submissions I was going to get and ended up having more than I expected. And rather than just culling a bunch of submissions, I took in the majority of them for a bloated cast size. This was why I had to implement the double elimination every other chapter meme, because I had to get rid of so many people. A smaller, more focused cast may have gone a long way to keep things cleaner and my motivation up. This is of course all on me, I don't blame any of you for my burnout. Like I said, I'm ashamed that I'm doing this but I truly feel that it's for the best.
That's about all I have for my explanation. Once again, I truly apologize for wasting everyone's time with this. I really did want to try and make once of the best SYOC stories on the site, and perhaps if I finished this it could have been, but my long gaps between chapters and taking on too much shot myself in the foot. If you like my writing then I will be continuing comp fic writing with my ongoing story "Total Drama: Battle of the Generations," which I'm becoming pretty proud of, and also am planning a story centered on Duncan (of all people) that'll be a change of pace for me. But if you don't want to bother with me after how I've treated Level Up then I understand completely. And of course there will be the accompanying next chapter with this one that'll explain what would have happened throughout the remaining chapter, so go give that a skim to get what little closure I can offer. I'll also add in general thoughts I had for those characters with each of their eliminations.
So that's it. Sorry again, guys. I wish I could have updated with something better but it would have only prolonged the inevitable. I don't ask that you forgive my laziness, I just hope you can understand. -Shed