- Episode 8: Braving the Elements -
Viewer's POV
Jayshawn tumbled out of one of the trees on the front side of the Million Dollar Academy's campus, cursing to himself as he staggered back up to his feet. He frowned as he patted off dust and stray twigs sticking to his athletic wear.
"Ay, don't mind that, y'all. Previously on Total Drama Million Dollar Academy! Londyn chose to get life advice from Tracy and Zee of all people. Guess that means I must've been busy. From there, it was a game of cops and robbers, one that my team rocked. Matcha from the Dropouts came close to a win, but it was no fuckin' cigar, seein' as we got Damien put over on our team last minute, giving the Grads the advantage we needed. MK made an idiot out of Zee, Athena kicked Stephen down a flight of stairs, and after I brought my team the win-yeah, mo'fucka, I know it, hold yo' applause-some fuck shit went down, lemme just tell ya.
"Feeling sussed over Athena, MK went and printed off a nasty mugshot of that chick and spread it around. Turns out Athena was in a car crash that had beers or something like that. Anyway, Athena was able to plead her case, getting MK sent home instead of the other way around like she expected. Aside from that, Fish swore that he'd rail Londyn, and Jill and Iko started dating. Pretty uninteresting stuff, I know, but don't worry! And don't touch that fuckin' remote either! I fuckin' mean it, aight? Don't even fucking think about it! I see you out there, scratching yo' head and considering what else might be on right now! Don't! Don't! 'Cause today, you've got me, and you watchin' Total... Drama... Million Dollar Academy! Mic drop." [1]
Confessional - Matcha
"It feels like it was just a few days ago that we had the Grads on the ropes. We had eleven members to their seven. All of the sudden we're neck and neck. Couple that with our lack of winning in the recent challenges and it begins to get worrying. Chris McLean merged his casts in each season at ten, seven, six, seven again, and nine contestants. That's an average of 7.8. There's no telling whether Mercutio will close in that close, merge earlier, or push it further. Or, he'll go for the exact average and only most of one of us will be around by then."
She paused, the mortifying notion washing through her mind. "The point is, sixteen remaining contestants is six eliminations from ten, the highest of the numbers I provided. That means I need to make sure my team starts regaining the advantage."
Confessional - Athena
Athena let out a breath of relief. "Wow, it feels a lot more comfortable using this thing without MK around anymore. What a silly strategy she had anyway! It's not important what competitors are thinking, it's important what they're doing. You have to use that to your advantage. It's the same as that adage, 'Don't listen to what people say, watch what they do'. Assess a player's gameplay and adapt their style and how they conduct themselves on a day to day basis and you'll be much better off than knowing their personal thoughts. Why would that matter when you can influence that kind of thing anyway? Or so I would, uh, guess."
End of confessionals
Cody took one last look at the parts of campus he was familiar with. He saw the mountainous academy building with all the trees and patches of grass, as well as the dorms and more. Fighting some discomfort, Cody made his way down a path leading out of campus and between rows of dead trees. For whatever reason, while plenty of the other ones around campus were bountiful with green leaves, these ones told a different story.
He walked with a jerkiness about him, jolting at the sound of any kind of rustling. Eventually, as he traversed this spooky path, he reached into his baggy jean pockets and pulled out a napkin with a hastily drawn portrait of the path he was on currently. At the bottom of the napkin was a tree split in two. Or, at least, how a five-year-old might draw it. Cody looked up from the napkin to see the very same tree before his eyes. Looking around, he said, "All right, I'm here. You here, Izzy?"
"Of course!" she chirped from above, then let out a bellow as she crashed through a multitude of leafless branches. Cody shut his eyes and threw up his arms to block out falling sticks and other debris by the time Izzy landed like some kind of ancient warrior. She struck a Black Widow-esque pose, then stood normally, smiling at her friend.
"Hi, Cody!"
"Are you seriously not hurt? You just- nevermind. There's something else about Mercutio I remembered recently."
"Do tell. I wanna hear all the details, juicy or otherwise."
"Before Mercutio choked me, I overheard him talking to Stephen. The only thing I could make out was, 'Are you sure you want to use it now?' You might remember being approached by either Bowie, Fish, or Jayshawn the night we voted off Alanna."
"Mmhmm, yeah, I do! I was removing my toenails with my teeth! No, no, Jesus, I wasn't doing that. That'd be crazy. Control yourself, Cody."
Confessional - Cody
"Bowie just had to leave me alone running this investigation with Izzy..."
End of confessional
"Well, Bowie told me that it was Stephen who pushed that. I also realized that those two events happened on the same day. I'm left wondering if that means that Mercutio wanted Alanna gone for some reason? Maybe Alanna had a similar run-in with Mercutio before I did?"
"Or maybe Mercutio was allowing Stephen the chance to eliminate a single player from the game! Hence, use it now?" She imitated Mercutio's Russian accent. "You may eliminate a player of your choosing, so long as I get to go home to the Soviets and drink my vodka until Big Bertha comes home from Yugoslavia to make me pancakes soaked in borscht."
Confessional - Izzy
"Oh, Big Bertha's borscht pancakes... oh, how I miss the motherland..."
End of confessional
"Hey, that could be," Cody replied, his eyes lighting up. "Nice, Izzy. So, it's a no-brainer then that Mercutio has some kind of illegal alliance with Stephen. But you've gotta wonder why." He groaned, grabbing at his brunette hair. "None of this makes sense."
"Ease up, little boy," Izzy urged, giving Cody a few robotic pats on his head. "We've just gotta get to the library so we can do a lil o' the ol' RnF."
"'RnF'?"
"Research and foot chewing!" Izzy started dancing like a robot as she went off on another Russian accent tangent. "That is being primarily how we are doing it here in Soviet Russia. Just ask KGB-ski; Agent Oranchov is knowing all about giving American capitalist pigs run for money-ski with their grooving." [2]
The shot flashed forward in time to see Cody and Izzy peeking their heads into the library. Cody peeked his head through the doorway at about his own height, while Izzy managed to stick her head through up by the high-reaching top of the door frame.
"How are you up so high?"
"No one's here, Codester. Time to roll out."
Following Izzy's lead as she exaggeratedly tip-toed through the library, Cody approached the computers at their designated table. He was confused to see fuzzy, technicolor, glitchy screens on all of them. An error message, glitched out and too difficult to decipher was written on all of them.
"That's... unexpected."
Cody jolted and his eyes shot open at the sound of the abrupt library intercom turning on.
"You truly ought to stay out of this, Cody."
"Mercutio?"
Cody's eyes wandered the walls of the library as Mercutio's voice loomed over him, playing from all directions. It was like the host was Hal 9000.
"I would have expected our physical altercation to be the end of this, but alas, the opposite appears to be true."
"Evil library man!" Izzy snarled.
"Why don't you tell me what's really going on around here?" Cody urged.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Cody. Besides, what reason do I have to tell you anything? You're beneath me, and your incessant poking, prodding, and snooping will be your undoing."
"Okay, that kind of cryptic answer doesn't really make me want to back off."
"Have it your way. Just know that ignorance is bliss. Perhaps you should liken it to a fox. A peaceful and naive fox, blind to the true nature of its ticking timer, spends its entire life ignorant to the fact that it will not last forever. It knows that it wishes to frolic and play, eating, sleeping, and at times capturing human-made balls. If the end is inevitable, then perhaps consider spending your time enjoying the frolicing and the ball-chasing while you can grasp it."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Cody murmured, but the intercom turned off, and he was left alone with his anxieties and ruminating thoughts. "Well, did any of that make sense to you, Izzy? Izzy?"
With Mercutio's voice, Izzy too was gone. Frowning, Cody turned to look over at the fried computers one more time. "There has to be some way to figure this out... I'm starting to wonder just what's at stake here."
Meanwhile, at breakfast, Damien walked in line at the cafeteria for Tracy's food with Stephen just ahead of him and Zee behind him, everyone with a tray that Tracy placed globs of spaghetti onto.
"Spag-yes-i!" Zee exclaimed. "Spagussi." Intrigued, he stared down longingly at his spaghetti pile, his eyes veering around with beads of sweat forming at his forehead. "Sh-should I? N-no..."
"You're getting some dirty looks," Tracy pointed out to Damien, spurring him to turn around, a timid expression on his face. Lo and behold, Queen and Holden were leaned up against one of the cafeteria walls, glaring at him.
"At least this is one thing we can agree on," Holden mentioned.
"Piss off," Queen muttered.
"Yikes," Damien murmured, Tracy tsk-ing and shaking his head. "It isn't my fault that I got put on a different team."
"Well, it is in the sense that you introduced the token to your chin."
"I didn't mean to! How was I supposed to know what it meant?"
"Mercutio's prior description?"
Bowie approached from further down the line. At the same moment, Zee stuck out his long neck, murmuring, "I'm just gonna sneak in here," and took a bite of a piece of bread Tracy left out on the counter.
"Damien, amigo," Bowie prodded him with an elbow. "Why don't you come take a seat with me?"
"Uh, yeah, sure."
Once the two took their spots at one of the cafeteria tables, Bowie started speaking.
"So, welcome to the team, first and foremost, also-I see you're probably in need of some new friends? Seeing as your old ones are, well, not so friendly anymore?"
"I can't expect anything less from Queen or Holden, but I think everyone else is still cool with me. Why not, right?"
Bowie squinted his eyes and stroked his chin. "Hmm, yeah, why not? Well, that's what you think. How can you say for sure? Besides, you're on a team with pre-established connections. You're gonna want a friend. The merge likely won't happen for some time, so I'm offering you that friendship."
Now, Damien was the one with the distrusting expression on his face. "Sure, that's cool and all, but what reason do I have to trust you?" Bowie started an answer, only for Damien to break it off with a chuckle. "Man, I'm just kidding! I've got no reason not to trust you, bro. It's cool."
"Being so easily trusting isn't always a great approach on a game like Total Drama. I could tell you about my many accolades and why I'm a valuable friend to have? Maybe I could show you how to style yo' stuff under that hat of yours? That English girl doesn't have jack-diddly on me."
"Nah, man, I'm just gonna trust you."
"All right, well, be careful who else you choose to trust. Fish is as fun as a barrel full of Republicans, Jayshawn is equal parts ass and hole-"
"Can I trust this guy?" Damien asked, sticking a thumb out at where Zee was standing, hunched over as always beside their table.
"Yeah, brah, you can totally trust me! Just not with a secret. I mean, the last guy to tell me a secret was Jayshawn, then I went and told someone about how he once masturbated to the thought of getting pregnant," Zee chuckled.
"Oh, yeah, who'd you tell that one to?"
Zee's smile faded. He was left with a Morty Smith-esque, droopy face. "You guys..." [3]
"Y-yes, you can one hundred and ten thousand percent trust Zee!" Bowie jumped in, then tapped the seat beside his. "Zee, love, sit here, why don't you?"
"Excellent!" he replied.
Confessional - Bowie
"This could be good. Very good. Damien and Zee are the two most likable people on the team. Let's face it, besides my fabulous self, the competition on the Grads isn't exactly serving. Oh, yes," once more with the patent pending Bowie leg slinging, he added, "an alliance with these two could be quite valuable.
"In case of any residual feelies, the moment Fish is out of here, we can add Londyn and get rid of Jayshawn, Stephen, and Cody. Ooh, or I could tag Cody on in exchange for helping his little investigation nonsense and get rid of the others that much quicker." Bowie snapped his fingers. "Jesus H literal Christ, Bowie, you've outdone yourself this time."
Confessional - Zee
"What's there not to trust about the ol' Zee-man? I've held onto plenty of secrets, secrets from all sorts of people. I remember one of those guys, think his name was Earl or something? Yeah, yeah, he went on to do editing on reality TV. Anyway, this guy Earl, when he was fourteen-"
The shot cut abruptly and then picked up further in time.
"And I was up to my knees in the stuff!" Zee let out a stereotypical surfer laugh. "Man, I've been submerged in some weird substances before, but just know there's nothing happy about happy tapioca, man."
End of confessionals
On the way out of the cafeteria, Jill left among other contestants, then Athena appeared next and called out her name, stopping her in the hallway.
"Hey, Jilly bean."
"Hey, Athena."
Of note, Jill's demeanor at the sight of her wasn't quite as jovial as usual.
"Is something wrong, Jilly?"
Slightly fidgety, she replied, "Not really, I just... wish you would have confided in me about some of the stuff in your past sooner."
Athena's orange eyes glimmered with sympathy. "I'm sorry. Aw, man. I ran into this trouble with Caleb. It's just so hard to confide in people, to let the real me out."
"So, you do the masking," Jill finished. "I remember, but the effects of that car crash weren't a part of what you said to me whatsoever. It just feels... I don't know," she murmured.
"Well, I just get so nervous around you. You're my best friend, Jill."
"I- I am?"
Athena nodded. "I'm not used to caring about someone so much, and I'm so, so sorry about the blunders along the road so far. The attempted kiss, not telling you about the crash-I just hope and plead you can forgive me, and give me a second chance. Us girlies gotta stick together."
"I- I get that."
Her eyes widening, Athena whispered, "I'm not sure who else we can trust. We've found friendship in each other, but what are the other people on this team really like? It's just got me so nervous. Seeing you with that Iko guy makes me even more nervous."
For the first time in the conversation, Jill started to brighten up. "Well, about Iko, I've got something to tell you, Athena."
Forcing her smile, she chirped, "Mmhmm?"
"We're dating now. We're dating! Isn't that great? He's really just so sweet."
"Jilly bean, you can't be dating on Total Drama!" Athena protested, her smile still spread across her face. Meanwhile, Jill's faded. "Those relationships never work out! Maybe you and Iko could try it after the contest, and you could be more focused on our dynamic instead?"
Jill set her hands on her hips. "I think I've done a lot for you over the past week. I don't think it's such a bad thing if I date someone-if I trust someone else."
"No, you're totally right! It's just- why Iko? Really, why Iko? He just kinda gives heebie jeebies vibes, you know? He's giving, like, stalker or something. Don't you see what I mean?"
"No, Athena, I don't," Jill snapped, then she took a breath. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to hear this from you, not after yesterday. I feel like you told me one thing, and MK revealed another thing to be the case."
"You mean... you mean, you think I lied to you? I would never lie to you!"
"Students!" boomed Mercutio's voice over the intercom. "Come and meet me outside the dorms by the newly added dumpster to start today's challenge. This one will be a little different, so I hope you're all ready for some interesting adjustments."
"Let's talk about this later," Jill muttered.
"Jilly, please-"
"We have a challenge. We'll talk later, okay?"
"Jilly."
"Please, stop calling me that. Please."
The sixteen competitors gathered outside the dorms as instructed with Mercutio and Tracy each standing by a huge, rectangular roll-off dumpster. Mechanical pieces and other miscellaneous structures made of metal stuck out from its top. Also of note were four circles cut into the grass in front of the cast. Each circle had a different symbol in its center.
"Truly, I'm not sure I want to know what any of this means," Queen admitted.
"You're after that million dollars, aren't you?" Mercutio retorted. "Then you'd best acclimate fast."
As Mercutio spoke, Cody watched him with distrusting eyes. The events of the morning hadn't faded from his mind.
"Students, today's major will be a blend of two. You see, Tracy and I had an idea for a challenge that combined two different themes. So, eventually, I figured we'd do a combination in favor of the more interesting challenge! Today's majors are astrology and astronomy! Commonly confused with one another."
Matcha raised a hand.
"Yes, Matcha?"
"Fairly certain astrology isn't a widely accepted major. I have my doubts that it's a real major at all."
"Ooh, astrology is so interesting!" Athena blurted. "I'm a Libra!"
"I'm a Taurus," Kobe added.
"Aquarius reporting in," Bowie threw in.
"I'm a-" Zee started, but Mercutio pressed a finger to his lips before the sharing could continue.
"That's all well and good, but you see, I know all of your signs. You may recall being asked to provide your birthdays in the initial casting process."
Zee replied with his voice muffled and smushy-sounding. "I wrote down my favorite color on my form. Even though you didn't ask for it, I just thought it might be interesting."
"You see where my finger is, Zee? That is supposed to imply that I'd appreciate a lack of interrupting." Mercutio took his hand away to pace in front of the cast. "In today's challenge, the teams will be divided into four based on your astrological signs. That is where the astrology portion of the day's major comes into play.
"Of the four circles, the one with the planet in the center is for Team Earth. Team Air stands on the circle with the wind, Team Water on the circle with a waterfall, and Team Fire gets the flame symbol circle. Now then, Team Fire will consist of those with fire signs: Cody, Queen, Damien, Jill, Holden, and Jayshawn." [4]
"Will I ever get a worthy batch of teammates?" Jayshawn asked the central camera. "The world may never know."
"Those on Team Water include Brook, Stephen, Iko, and Londyn. Team Air: Athena, Zee, Bowie, and Fish. Finally, Matcha and Kobe, you're Team Earth."
"Hey, how is it fair that we're a two person team?" Matcha argued. "Team Fire has six members and we just get two?"
Mercutio stroked his chin. "Hmm. Curious. You seem to think I can rewrite the stars and their alignment on the dates of your births. Believe it or not, this is not a skill I currently possess."
"You could check in again tomorrow," Tracy suggested. "Stranger things could happen."
"You are a hilarious riot, Tracy," the host patted his shoulder. "We will enjoy a bottle of Stolichnaya later. Each team will be given three hours to create a 'spaceship' that will be 'sent into the cosmos' against the other teams three separate times. In the dumpster, you will find an assortment of small plane parts. Use these, as well as some leftover paint from the art challenge, to create your 'spaceships'. Once that's done, you'll bring your 'spaceships' to four different corners of campus, each all on opposite sides of each other. Once you're ready to get airborne, the rest of the challenge will be provided for you. Capichè?"
"Capri sun, my dude," Zee responded with a chill smile and a finger gun a-blazin'.
"Split into your new teams and get to it!"
Mercutio clapped a couple times, and the contestants were off. "Out of my way!" Damien urged, rushing to the dumpster, only for Londyn to climb up over him, rushing her way to the dumpster. Multiple castmates clambered over each other, desperate to get to the supplies first. Londyn squeaked as Bowie barged her aside. "Sorry, sweetie." Holden and Jayshawn wrestled over a piece of scrap metal as Iko strained himself to climb to the top of one of the dumpster walls. "Hey, look at just how much metal-" He let out an oof as Matcha budged him off, declaring, "I won't let my teammate handicap bring me down! Not if I have anything to say about it!"
On the ground, Iko looked up to see Jill approaching him, helping him up.
"Ow. Hi."
"So, I guess we're on separate teams today."
"Yeah. Bummer, huh?"
"Yeah. Good luck."
"You too." With the overwhelming sounds of contestants wrestling against each other for supremacy of the dumpster's parts, Jill glanced aside to see Kobe relaxing in the grass, lying with a leg kicked up as he set his hands behind his head. "You look pretty relaxed, even with only one teammate."
"Matcha's goin' hog wild," he replied, vibing. "That's cool, that's her own trip."
"Get off my hair before I bleed you like a pig!" Queen growled offscreen.
"I just gotta wait for everybody in the cornucopia to chill, then I'll grab my materials. Smart, yeah?"
"If there are any left by the time they're done," Iko mentioned.
"I got faith."
"Hey!" Holden snapped offscreen, the camera focused on Kobe. "Fish, if you ever touch my ass again, I will wait until you knock someone up then fuck the kid as it's being born."
Later, Matcha and Kobe, Team Earth, assembled on the southeastern side of campus, not far from where the Bus of Shame parked at the end of each episode. Kobe eyed it with his thoughts roaming around while he calmly fastened a nut to a plane wing, a wrench in hand. Meanwhile, Matcha was breathing heavy, working as fast as she could.
"You know," Kobe started, "it's crazy that we all start these seasons believing at least a little bit that we can win big, go home with the million. Yet, only one person gets to. Don't you wonder what it feels like to be the last one standing? It must be like standing at the gates of Heaven, basking in a godly light, knowing you were right about yourself, even if for just that moment."
"I can't say I've got the time to think about that," Matcha grunted, wiping sweat from her forehead. There was grease all over her skirt and businesswoman-like top layers. "Oh, god. Kobe, hand me those screws, please?"
He obliged. "You gotta relax, girl. We're gonna be fine."
"How can you be this zen at a time like this?"
"Well, even if we lose, we're unlikely to have any drama between us, so the team would probably vote someone else off, for one."
"But what if Mercutio changes the rules on us? That's typical of him, wouldn't you say? Like when Izzy went home? Maybe we could lose, then we'd have to face each other in an elimination round."
"Something bad could always happen, that's just life. Once you learn to live with that, you realize it's okay to slow down."
Matcha frantically reached for another piece of structural support to the plane, only for Kobe to grasp her wrist, calmly. She paused, looking up to see his gaze.
"Slow down. You don't need to give yourself a heart attack over this. I don't think a one man team would do any better than a two person team."
Hesitating, she finally nodded and took a few breaths. "Thank you, Kobe. I needed that."
Over on the northeastern side all the way on the other side of campus opposite Matcha and Kobe's positions, Team Air worked together to put together a plane of their own. Fish and Bowie worked side by side, little as they wanted to, to put together an engine, moving parts together that were too heavy for one person. Meanwhile, Athena scribbled down schematics on some old blueprints she found within the dumpster.
"That'll do... doo doo doo da dee dum..." she hummed.
Clang!
Bowie let out a cry of pain after Fish dropped a hunk of metal on his foot.
"Oh, my bad, bro, I didn't see that there. I was distracted by how much stomach you're showing for whatever reason."
Gripping his foot with his teeth clenched, Bowie grunted, "Figures, my body's distracting. I get that a lot."
"Dude, look at this!" Zee exclaimed. He'd found a spray can, painting on wisps of wind onto the outer wall they'd be using for their plane. He'd also sprayed on a stick version of himself riding the wisps. Stick Zee had a big smile, the backwards hat, and one of the legs doodled to look mechanical. "We've totally got some drip to our whip now, yo."
"Yeah, that's- that's really great, Zee," Bowie grumbled.
"Good job, Zee!" Athena peeped, then bounded over to her new teammates. "And while you guys were wasting our time, I was drawing up some schematics!"
Bowie put his hands on his hips. "Schematics, hmm? Enlighten us, blondie."
She giggled. "You're a blondie too, silly Bowie! Take a look at this." She opened up the blueprints to reveal layers of text and diagrams she'd drawn. "I came up with different strategies we could employ in today's challenge!"
"But we don't even know what we're doing yet. Why not wait until Mercutio gives us the description?"
"Yeah, gay boy's right," Fish added, "don't you think you're the one wasting time?"
"Waiting until Mercutio tells us what we're doing is dangerous because by then we'll have to start the challenge right away! This way, we can be ready for likely challenge possibilities. I came up with a flight map we could follow that accounts for the current the wind is following today, allowing us to build up more speed than the others. I came up with potential shield enhancements we could fortify our plane with in case Mercutio wants us to attack each other. This drawing here highlights a mechanism we could create that would shoot potatoes in case that's necessary."
"Potatoes!" Zee cheered.
"And if you take a look at diagram B-3, you'll see a model we can go with that allows for up to four people in the plane at a time. What else, what else? Oh! Here's a strategy description near the bottom left corner that allows for a defense of our building station in case Mercutio wants to go a tower-defense kind of route. I also figured out how we can build our plane to make it the most aerodynamic, which will be necessary no matter what I'd guess, and here's a little compartment by the pilot's seat for Zee's sodas."
"Yo!" he burst, a huge smile on his face as he budged his face in to see the schematics. "You're the best, Athena! I never would have considered that! I wonder if soda tastes different once it hits the stratosphere!"
Confessional - Bowie
"Wow. I've spent so much time analyzing the Grads that I've been almost blind to the personalities of the Dropouts. This Athena girl is smart, and apparently she went to jail, too? As a teenager? Best keep an eye on her... but it doesn't hurt to be on her good side. Sounds like we'll both be around by the time the teams merge," he shrugged, "I mean, being a criminal didn't stop Duncan from merging twice. It also didn't stop him from being so hot." Bowie let out an amorous purr.
End of confessional
"Launching potatoes is cool and all," Fish replied, "if you're a complete faggot that is-kinda like Bowie-but how about we use Zee's leg as a club to batter people out of the air?"
"That is an angle we can definitely consider!" Athena chirped.
Confessional - Bowie
Rolling his eyes, he moaned, "At this point, I'm almost tempted to self-sabotage if it means getting rid of Fish sooner."
End of confessional
Meanwhile, way on the northwestern side of campus, almost a straight shot up from Team Air, Team Water was nearly dead in the water. The four of them, Brook, Iko, Stephen, and Londyn, had managed to drag what seemed to be enough hunks of metal to their circle to start building, but while Team Earth had a start, and Team Air was considering a plethora of angles, Team Water stood before an assortment of pieces of metal that didn't align with the other pieces in the slightest.
Stephen stood around with his hands in his pockets, lacking any action, while Londyn eyed the supplies with her heart beating fast.
"Uh... okay, uhm, do any of you know how to build stuff?"
Brook shook her head, rubbing her elbow and feeling nervous as ever. "No."
"One time my soundboard broke, and I hired a guy to fix it for me," Iko mentioned.
"Did you learn anything from him?"
Iko looked down and slouched. "No. But I bought him some Indomie noodles. That was all I could afford with what I had left, but he seemed grateful."
Worry running through her like a stream running through a forest, Londyn glanced around at her aimless, below amateur level construction worker team. The realization of imminent issues overcame her.
Confessional - Londyn
"One time when I was doing an OnlyFans shoot, my camera broke. Literally, I could not for the life of me get it to work. I did everything, until I finally found a YouTube tutorial by an extremely helpful east-Indian man that knew just how to fix it. I borrowed a screwdriver from my mom and opened up the back of the camera. After a few hours, I finally fixed the problem. All I did in that whole amount of time, over the course of a day, was take the back piece of a camera off, replace a piece, and put it back together. That felt like a real accomplishment, but now I need to make a whole plane with two of the most timid people on the face of the planet, and Iko, someone who knows as little about what to do as me? Nobody told me when I auditioned for Total Drama that it was gonna be this hard."
[1] - Despite "seeing what else is on" being pretty dated, it still makes for funny Jayshawn-isms
[2] - A reference to Destroy All Humans! 2 - one of my favorite games
[3] - I don't really know how to describe it but in the early Rick and Morty seasons, the characters would sometimes have this droopy-lip kind of animation. It was funny looking
[4] - Canon Total Drama World Tour actually confirms that Cody is a fire sign: an Aries
Team Air: Bowie, Zee, Athena, Fish
Team Earth: Kobe & Matcha
Team Fire: Cody, Damien, Holden, Jayshawn, Jill, Queen
Team Water: Brook, Iko, Londyn, Stephen
Some quick OC descriptions:
Athena: orangey-blonde, orange contacts, black and white dress
Holden: long, scraggly hair, heavyset, short, leather jacket
Iko: slim-fat, short, stylish overcoat and vest
Jill: athletic build, red hair, tan skin, emerald green eyes
Kobe: tall, big afro
Matcha: brunette, business casual
Queen: purple hair
Fish: typical influencer look
Jayshawn: fit, muscular, dreads, gym tank/shorts
Londyn: brunette, face tattoos, gorgeous features
Stephen: early 2000s emo look
Mercutio: chiseled face, suit, wide-framed
Tracy: slim, suspenders/bowler hat
Brook: silver hair, oversized cardigan
Dropouts: Athena, Holden, Iko, Jill, Kobe, Matcha, Queen, Brook
Grads: Cody, Bowie, Zee, Fish, Jayshawn, Londyn, Stephen, Damien