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Alejandro goes into Total Drama with one constant in mind: this is a game, and these people are all cogs acting to make it spin.
He’s a contestant on a reality show with competitors , and on one as big as Total Drama, no less. Internationally aired, hundreds of thousands, sometimes even peaking at millions of viewers tuning in each and every week to watch a gaggle of teenagers battle it out for the prize money.
Being in the game, though, makes him truly wonder how any of them got anything done. Really— the only reason any of them had made it anywhere was because they were up against each other. He was sure they’d fold at the first hint of real competition.
And fold they did. They all did — everyone seemed to, under his charming disposition and attitude. Lindsay, Bridgette, Leshawna, even people like Tyler and Owen, to an extent.
But then there’s two.
Heather, on Team Amazon, and Noah, his teammate.
Heather spits at him and tells him to his face that he doesn’t buy it. She’s a smart one, one who’ll fight tooth and nail to get to where she wants to be. She’s catty and coldhearted, though, she still has her flaws — ones that make her exploitable and fragile, in some distant sense of the word. She’s strong competition, no doubt, and underestimating her may be his downfall, but she’s manageable.
Manageable. That’s all she needs to be. That’s all anyone needs to be, to secure his win. They just need to be dealt with and managed.
Heather’s undoing may be that she’s too willing to fight too hard, that she doesn’t coast, like how some others do.
Like how Noah does.
Noah — unenthusiastic and deadpan, with a different paperback book clasped between his hands every other day. Sharp-tongued, witty, the only person who can go back and forth with Alejandro on this godforsaken plane, the only person in this place that he feels he can have a proper conversation with.
Heather, he can speak to. With Heather, the mask cracks — they, too, can go back and forth. Small doses of the teeming part of him stuffed behind his carefully constructed facade. But ultimately, she’ll never be his ally. And if things go to plan, she’ll never make it to the merge to be in any position to be his ally.
Noah , though…
Noah is his teammate. Noah should trust him. Noah should be another simple archetype in this show, he should be the know-it-all who bristles too hard and falls short of the social expertise that is required by such a game. Noah should be a pawn.
And yet.
Noah is his teammate. Noah doesn’t trust him. Noah is complex and quiet and calculating, he’s the know-it-all who bristles too hard but lets barbs roll off of him like oil mixing with water, who snarks and snaps and finds something meaningful in his chosen people anyway. Noah is a pawn who’s coasted to the end of the board.
Noah is fascinating.
Heather falls short of what makes Noah so intriguing — Heather has displayed and preened on international television before, she’s shown her nasty traits and her jagged edges and recited her plays to a camera airing for everyone to watch. Noah has not.
Noah is a variable. Noah should be taken care of.
It’s the smart choice. it’s what someone like josé would do.
It’s the better choice, in the long run. Noah doesn’t trust him, and so he must go.
he is not his brother. he doesn’t want to be
He’d said it himself. He’d said that Alejandro was slippery, he’d said he was untrustworthy, he’d said that he was a patchwork of Heather’s manipulation with a border stich of social skills. It made sense — he didn’t even disagree with what he’d said, just that he’d said it at all.
(it’d stung, a little. he quietly considered noah as one of the few people he could stand.)
Only…
Alejandro stares down at the passports in front of him, twirling the stamp in his hands as he considers aimlessly.
Noah should go, but he didn’t even push it when Tyler showed some reluctance for the vote. Noah should go, but Owen would never vote for him even if Duncan might. Noah should go, but he’s thinking too hard about this, anyway.
(he is, effectively, the swing vote.)
It’s the smart, logical choice. It’s the choice someone like Noah would make.
why does he want to be someone else why can’t he just be himself
He wonders, though, he wonders about the embers of sheer exhilaration that sparked for just a moment, when he realized Noah saw through him. He wonders what it would be like to be matched like that, to have a proper rival, to have someone potentially ruin his careful scheming and manipulation and traps and wire.
(he wonders what it would be like to have an ally. he wonders what it would be like — they could run this game and its participants into the ground, the two of them.)
Bad for the competition. Bad for him, bad, bad, bad.
Alejandro can’t help but want, though. He can’t help but crave that so badly, and the possibility is a dying flame right in front of his eyes. He has the lighter in his hand — and it’s so horrible for his chances, to keep someone around that could ruin him.
He has the lighter in his hand and he wants to burn.
He wants to feel disappointment and anger and shame and resentment, he wants to feel backed into a corner and threatened and worried and anxious — he wants, wants, wants.
Noah can give. Noah is a dying flame, and Alejandro has the lighter in his hand.
Noah is the sun, and Alejandro is a boy with wax wings flying too, too close. Noah should go. Noah is dangerous to your chances of winning.
(but he is so tired of playing to win, when the opportunity for something more is right in front of his face. he wants his cake, and he wants to eat it too, but if he chooses carefully, he might be able to be satisfied either way. maybe he doesn’t want to win. maybe he just wants this.)
Noah is a dying flame, and Alejandro has the lighter in his hand.
The flames burn. He stamps Duncan’s portrait.