Author's Notes: Happy New Year, everyone! :-D And happy birthday to this fic. Wow, did I seriously only update six times in 2010? I'll need to try harder this year. Anyway, here's a new chapter, hope you enjoy!

Current Interaction: Tyler and Sierra

Tyler didn't want to admit it, but sometimes he felt like he didn't have anybody who actually wanted him to succeed at anything.

That wasn't really true, of course—I mean, he had plenty of friends, being the big star and overall awesome guy that he was, and of course he had his parents and siblings and everyone like that. And Lindsay, who was, like, the most amazing girlfriend ever in every single way. But they sort of, you know, had to do that, precisely because they were his friends and family and girlfriend. What he was missing, though, were random people who didn't really know him, but still cheered for him, still liked him, and still felt that he was awesome enough to succeed in anything that he tried.

In a word, Tyler wanted fans.

Putting it that way sounded sort of egotistical, but honest, it wasn't that Tyler thought he was better than anybody else or something. Heck, if anything, he just wanted to be equal—everybody he knew seemed to have their own little group of fans and admirers. His dad got a ton of fan mail from people who loved his sportscasting gig. His older brother had gotten a full basketball scholarship to Acadia University. All his friends on all the sports teams had their fans and girls who wanted to date them, and Tyler...didn't. Which was to say nothing of the other guys in the Total Drama cast—he got a bump in popularity for displaying his awesome skills in season three, but he was still one of the least talked-about contestants in the TD fandom. Heck, even Heather seemed to be more popular than he was!

Tyler couldn't get why people didn't seem to appreciate all his talents. I mean, okay, so he had tripped on the soccer field once or twice this season. (It was sixteen times.) So he had gotten a little banged up on the show. (He had been in a full-body cast for months after the finale.) But for some reason, people seemed to act like he was some kind of total idiot who was gonna fail at everything! And now Coach was leaving him out of more than half the games, and he could only seem to find one website about him that focused on something other than his occasional, usually-minor injuries.

A blog that, it turned out, was actually run by someone from the show.

Tyler didn't know Sierra too well. They'd spent a total of a few hours on the same team, and really the only thing notable about the experience was that she gotten them stuck with a very unflattering name before she abandoned them for the Amazons. The only other thing he knew about her was she was obsessed with Cody, and even though they were close now the poor guy had gone on and on to Tyler about her during the season—heck, Tyler had spent a good part of their time in Jamaica helping him hide from her.

But what could he say? Tyler had to smile as he read blog posts about his impressive athletic feats, updated every time he managed to make yet another amazing play during a game. It wasn't getting as many posts or hits as some of her other fansites, but it was still awesome to read about himself, to watch the videos she posted, look through the comments by his small but vocal fandom...

Eventually, Tyler decided to leave a short comment of his own. Hey, this site is wicked! Thanks 4 making it, dude. ;-)

Sierra's response came in less than an hour, a huge block of chatspeak text in large, capital letters. OMG, I'M SO GLAD YOU FOUND THIS PLACE! ! ! UR THE 8TH "TOTAL DRAMA" CONTESTANT TO FIND ONE OF MY SITES THATS SO COOL! ! 1 IM SO HAPPY YOU CAME HERE BY THE WAY WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE BAKGROUND I WASNT SURE IF I SHOULD GO WITH BASBALLS OR SOCER...

Soon the two of them had gotten into a long series of responses, which led to another on a different thread, which eventually spilled over to their MyFace pages...talking to Sierra was different than talking to other people, somehow. For some reason his friends never wanted to talk about sports with him—or at least, any sport he was actually playing in—but Sierra didn't mind. She didn't seem to be that interested or knowledgeable about sports in general, but she was always interested in letting him explain, always thankful when he could correct a mistake in one of her blog posts, always happy to wish him luck in the next game without that tone of foreboding that most people usually had...

And it turned out that they didn't even live too far away from each other.

A few weeks later Tyler was running down the gridiron, ball tucked under his arm and the roar of the crowd in his ears, when he hazarded a look up at the stands. He saw a group of guys holding a banner for quarterback Michael Thompson, ignored them, saw Brett Steves' squad of fangirls, ignored them, and finally caught site of Sierra standing about halfway up the bleachers. She was wearing a T-shirt with Tyler's face on it, holding a pair of red and white pom-poms and cheering wildly, so enthused that several people were glaring at her in either confusion or annoyance.

Tyler stopped and grinned, waving to her. She closed her eyes and squealed excitedly, not even noticing as Tyler was tackled from behind by two enormous opponents.

Later she would burst into the locker room with her laptop before he was even done changing out of his uniform, too eager to wait before showing him her new blog post about the game.

Ah. It was nice to be appreciated.

Next Interaction: Chef and Blaineley.