u/BigTennis4580

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. Today I am going to lay out my vision for a potential One redemption arc, but you probably be wondering ‘but Mr. TV, haven’t you already done this four months ago?’ Actually, yeah I did, but here’s the thing… that didn’t age well.

Yes, it was made way before the whole trilogy was announced, but it’s now past TPOT 22 and the whole trilogy sounds like something that will keep One as a major threat for a while. My old concept had her getting redeemed way too quickly and I feel like the whole ‘civil war’ concept where One, Two, and their allies face Four, Three, X, and their allies was a bit too messy and would divide the contestants even more than they already are. It just felt forced for the sake of drama and didn't really fit the tone of the show long-term.

Also, full transparency: I’m making this post not only because I feel like my previous vision aged poorly, but also because I honestly desperately need some post ideas right now and this was the only thing I could come up with that felt worth writing. So yeah, time for a proper re-do. This version ditches the rushed redemption and the super-forced civil war vibes from my old post. Instead, we're going for something slower, messier, and way more grounded in the actual lore we've seen develop. I'm not laying out a full episode-by-episode breakdown this time (though if people want one I can drop a follow-up), just the core pillars of how I'd handle One's arc post-trilogy.

Origins of the arc:

Instead of starting way before TPOT 25 (though it would be massively hinted throughout the two episodes leading up to it), it would start after the massive battle in TPOT 25, where Two, the contestants, and many others defeated One in an epic, hard-fought climax. Four was about to send One to the moon once again, clearly haven’t learnt anything from last time, but then One snaps at Four… you know what? Screw it. I’m not gonna give you a full recap on my fanmade script  for TPOT 25 here (check the post down below if you want the full blow-by-blow). Let’s just move on.

Alright, now let’s talk about some of the things that my vision would include. You have probably seen most of these ideas on my “Peak One Redemption Arc vs Bad One Redemption Arc” post I made a while back, but let’s go through them in a bit more detail this time.

1. Solitary confinement matters, and the story would say that out loud.

One major thing about One discourse that I feel like gets glossed over way too often is that people treat her villainy like it came out of nowhere, like she just woke up one day and decided to be evil. But that’s not how it works, and frankly, that’s not how people work either. As we saw in canon, we knew why One became who she became. She was locked away in the moon for fourteen years. Fourteen years. That’s not a punishment, that is torture. Full stop. Even the United Nations recognises solitary confinement exceeding fifteen days as torture. Fifteen days. 

Nearly every scientific inquiry into the effects of solitary confinement over the past 150 years has concluded that subjecting an individual to more than 10 days of involuntary segregation results in messed up shit like anxiety, panic attacks, perceptual distortions, hypersensitivity to stimuli, paranoia, memory loss, difficulty thinking, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s from just ten days. Ten. Now imagine fourteen years.

What I want my version of the arc to do is acknowledge the root cause of One’s villainy. The arc has to look the audience dead in the eye and say: this is what fourteen years of isolation did to a person. This is the direct, documented, horrifying result of prolonged solitary confinement, and the fact that it happened to a god-like entity does not make it less real as a concept. However, I want the arc to have One not acknowledge that, and make her believe that she’s far beyond saving and that she deserves every bit of the hatred being thrown at her. That self-loathing and resigned acceptance of her own monstrousness is part of what makes the arc compelling. She walks out believing she is fundamentally, irreparably broken. Someone else has to be the first one to push back against that belief, and that should be someone like Two (which I will get to in a second).

2. Everything would tie back to Four

Here’s the part of One’s backstory that I feel like the fandom constantly dances around without ever fully confronting: Four did this. He was the one who led the whole “sealing One in the moon” group. He was the one who made the call. He saw what happened with Three, he saw One’s desperation and grief after the accident, and instead of showing any kind of compassion or understanding, he decided the answer was to lock her away in complete and total isolation for what was presumably meant to be forever. And then he just… moved on. He flew off with X, found Earth, started a game show, and spent the next fourteen years screeching contestants, zapping people, mutilating objects for fun, and sending eliminated players to eternal algebra class.

Yeah, One erased Gaty, yeah, One spent fourteen years building a revenge plot and actually executing it flawlessly, yeah, One killed Three in cold blood. But let’s be real:

If it wasn’t for Four, none of this happens. No revenge plot. No erased contestants. No catastrophic events. No chaos. None of it. Four made the call, Four set the trap, and Four walked away without a scratch while One spent fourteen years alone in the dark, slowly losing whatever was left of herself. 

Not only should it tie back to Four’s sealing of One, but also tie back to everything he has done as a host throughout BFB. The screeching. The zapping. The mutilating. Sending eliminated contestants to the EXIT, which, let’s be real, was just eternal algebra class, a place no one consented to and no one could leave. Sending X to the Burn and Limb Reattachment Center. Casually almost killing Gelatin with Zappies because he got hit by a fork. Y’all probably be like ‘but didn’t Four get redeemed after being called out by Gelatin in BFB 30?” Yeah, but let’s be honest, that was half ass and guess what? Four clearly have learnt nothing because in TPOT 6, he went back to his old ways of screeching contestants like it was nothing. So no, Four has not learned anything. His BFB “redemption” was surface level at best, and the story needs to reckon with that fully. The perfect arc doesn’t let Four off the hook for any of it.

So that’s why Four should be the main antagonist of the arc. Not the villain of the whole show going forward, just the antagonist of this specific arc. The person whose actions need to be answered for. Because when you actually lay it all out like that, Four’s moral ledger is… not great. He locked away a vulnerable, grieving person for what was presumably meant to be eternity. He started a game show and ruled it under an iron fist. He has abused so much people. And he acts like he’s the hero even though he has done all that. The arc should be the conclusion of Four’s story in BFDI. Yep, that’s right. I said what I said. Four’s arc ends here. If One’s redemption arc is done right, Four doesn’t walk away from it with his hosting gig intact and his reputation untouched. Once he gets defeated, he should either get depowered or exiled. I also came up with the idea of him gets a taste of exactly what he gave One but nobody does deserve solitary confinement, not even Four. That would just repeat the cycle of trauma instead of breaking it. 

3. The arc would be messy, long-term, dramatic, and emotionally raw

If One were to have a redemption arc of some sort, it can't be some clean, tidy little character turnaround that wraps up in a couple episodes with everyone hugging it out by the end. That's not how real trauma, guilt, or fractured relationships, especially not after everything One has done and everything that's been done to her. No quick "I'm sorry" montage, no single heartfelt conversation that magically fixes fourteen years of isolation-induced psychosis and a trail of erased contestants. This has to hurt to watch, in the best way possible.

One has to try her absolute hardest to make things right, but the universe just keeps kicking her while she's down.  We’re talking constant rejections, old grudges flaring up, people flat-out refusing to even hear her out (let alone forgive her), and setbacks that feel genuinely crushing, all while being hunted down by Four, who is dead set on finishing what he started seventeen years ago, which leads to me to my next point.

4. The situation regarding Three

 

On paper this might feel off-character for Three given how she was before the shattering. Before getting killed, she was all friendly, caring, energetic, basically the peppy mother hen of the Equation Playground who looked out for everyone and got excited over the little things. But that doesn’t mean that trauma can’t completely warp someone, especially after what One did to her. 

In my vision, Three gets completely recovered AFTER the battle in TPOT 25 by maybe Four. Three comes back fully aware of what happened, the betrayal by her former friend, the horrific way she was shattered and glitched, the things One has done after escaping the moon, and now finding out that Two is helping One out with her trauma and offering her a path to redemption. Three is OUT FOR BLOOD! Like, full-on vengeance mode.

Three doesn't buy the "solitary confinement broke her" explanation at all, dismissing it as a pathetic excuse to cover up everything One has done. To her, solitary confinement doesn’t excuse anything. Three sees One not as a broken victim, but as the monster who murdered their bond and her in the worst way imaginable, then spent 14 years stewing in revenge while the rest of the world tried to move on, only to escape and unleash hell on literally everyone around her.

And honestly? From Three’s perspective, can you really blame her?

Three would team up with Four to “save the world from One,” which creates one of the most emotionally painful dynamics possible for this arc. Because now you’ve got One being hunted down by not only the person who ruined her life and turned her into the turned her into the villain she became, but also by the person who at one point was her only friend in the world and someone who made fixing her as her whole purpose when she became a villain, but at least she isn’t alone this time around.

5. Two as the deuteragonist

This is where things get really interesting to me, and honestly the part of this whole vision I’m most excited about.

Two is known for being empathetic, easygoing, and genuinely warm, so they wouldn’t be really known for holding grudges and they are probably the perfect character to make One snap out of her “I am beyond saving” mentality. But there’s something way deeper than that driving my choice of Two as deuteragonist, and it all comes down to one word: parallel.

TPOT 21 showed us many parallels between One and Two when Two was talking about their backstory to Price Tag. Both of their backstories have a theme of being outcasts and not fitting in. One was actively ignored, pushed around, and excluded in the Equation Playground, desperately trying to make friends and only ever finding one in Three. Two, meanwhile, left the Equation Playground after the whole 2009 incident between One and Three, and they went out to find somewhere they could belong. And honestly? That search didn’t go great either. They tried on a few facades, explored many different planets, and even went to Earth to meet up with Four and X again, but nothing quite stuck. Four and X barely remembered them when they finally showed up on Earth. The facades never really clicked. The connection never landed the way Two hoped it would.  But the only difference between Two and One’s backstories is that Two never lashed out or killed anyone. They just kept moving. They kept searching. They swallowed their loneliness and channelled it into something constructive instead of something destructive. They end up stealing 40 contestants from Four’s show and end up becoming one of the best hosts ’we’ve ever seen in this series.

But here’s the thing that makes this parallel hit even harder in the context of a redemption arc for One: Two knows. They know what it feels like to be outcasted by everyone they know and how crushing it is to be the one no one quite makes room for.  Not only that, even though they haven’t been isolated for fourteen years, they know exactly what extreme loneliness can do to a person. Two knows that when you are left without a place, without people, without anything to anchor yourself to, the human (or Algebralian) instinct doesn’t disappear, it festers, it curdles, it turns you into someone unrecognisable.

Even though Two made it their mission to defeat One and end up being successful at it, they don’t want the cycle to continue, and they see One as someone who is just broken and desperately in need of someone, anyone, to reach out instead of pushing her further away. Two gets that extreme isolation doesn’t just make you lonely; it fundamentally rewires you. It turns the kindest person into someone capable of horrors they never would’ve imagined. And Two knows this not just from books or empathy, but from their own lived experience of drifting through the universe, never quite fitting in anywhere.

So Two becomes One’s mentor and her biggest supporter in her road to redemption. Two has seen the damage One caused firsthand. They ran a whole challenge around defeating her, for crying out loud. But Two also gets it on a level almost no one else does and they also know that nobody deserves that long of extreme isolation, not even the person who just tried to upend the entire universe out of rage.

Their dynamic is one that is genuine and emotionally layered. You’d see Two challenging One’s belief that she’s irredeemable, vouching for her, and bonding with her over shared experiences of feeling like an outsider. Two would also help One heal from her trauma and be a better of herself through stuff they learnt from Gaty when it comes to therapy and emotional support. Two's picked up a lot from those couch vent sessions and applies that understanding with genuine care and patience. This would allow for meaningful scenes where One can actually open up about her experience without being judged, dismissed, or weaponised against, something One clearly needs and has literally never had in a healthy, non-transactional way her entire life.

And here’s the part that genuinely defines who Two is in this dynamic: One erased Gaty. Gaty. Two’s best friend. After Gaty’s disappearance, Two was left depressed and bedridden for an entire year, unable to even perform their hosting duties.  That’s not something you just shrug off. And yet Two would still choose to reach out to One, not because they’ve forgotten what One did, but because Two understands, on a bone-deep level, that holding a grudge and punishing someone who is already broken beyond recognition doesn’t bring Gaty back. It doesn’t undo the damage. It doesn’t fill the hole. And Two knows that better than anyone.

But Two also knows that letting One rot, either back in the moon or just alone, doesn’t fix anything. It just breaks her even more until she becomes full-on irreparable. And Two, of all people, knows that the world doesn’t get better from leaving broken things alone to fester. You fix them. You try. Even when it’s hard. Even when it costs you something. Because Two has spent their entire existence doing exactly that.

And also, Two would despise Four for what he did. Because here’s the thing about Two that I think gets overlooked a lot: Two is not just some cheerful neutral host who floats above the drama. Two has receipts on Four.  They have seen what Four has done to his contestants, what he has done to X, and he has also saw how Four led the other algebralians to seal One in the moon which is the undisputed root cause of One’s villainy. Two watched Four seal One away and walk off like nothing happened, like he didn’t expect her to find a way to escape and go on a revenge tour on the entire universe. So, in this dynamic, One and Two would plan on taking down Four for good, not just stopping him but making sure he can never do it again. Because Two and One both had enough with Four’s nonsense. And honestly? That’s something Two should have done years ago. But that’s a hill Two is willing to die on, because they have seen firsthand what happens when broken people get left to fester, and they know what Four has done as the host of BFB. And to Two, enough is enough.

6. X’s Loyalty Crisis

 

X and Four’s relationship is one of the most fascinating and genuinely heartbreaking dynamics in the entire BFDI series when you actually stop and look at it clearly, and I think it deserves way more scrutiny than it gets.

On the surface, they look like best friends. They’ve been together since the very beginning, back in “X Finds Out His Value” in 2008,​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ and yet when you actually zoom in on the specifics of how Four treats X, it starts looking a lot less like a friendship between equals and a lot more like a toxic imbalanced dynamic where X is stuck in the role of the loyal sidekick who gets hurt, literally and emotionally, on a regular basis. 

Throughout BFB and into TPOT, we’ve seen Four casually screech X, send him to the Burn and Limb Reattachment Center, dismiss his feelings, and treat him more like an extension of himself than a true partner. X gets zapped, yelled at, and emotionally sidelined, yet he keeps coming back with that unwavering loyalty. It’s played for laughs a lot of the time, but it’s about time X has enough and enough and starts questioning it.

In my vision for the arc, X remains extremely loyal to Four for most of it. He’s on the “save the world from One” team with Four and backs his decisions, even as things get messier. But cracks start to show. He begins to question his friendship with Four, question if he’s Four’s lapdog or an actual friend. The dynamic between Four and X gets put under a microscope in a way the show has never really done before, and I feel like an arc involving One, someone who has a lot of history with the two, would be the perfect time.

X begins quietly questioning things. Little moments at first. The arc would put their dynamic under a microscope in a way the show has never really done before. We’d get scenes where X reflects on all the times he’s been hurt, how Four’s casual dismissiveness has left him emotionally stunted, and whether this loyalty is genuine friendship or just habit/fear of being alone.

It wouldn’t be until the second to last episode where X finally has it with Four. Maybe One and Two privately confronts X in a surprisingly empathetic way. Not to manipulate him, but because the two sees X as a good person but trapped in a really unhealthy dynamic. They would question him if he thinks that the friendship between him and Four is toxic, if he has seen how he has treated him. One, drawing from her own isolation trauma, might even point out how Four’s pattern of control and punishment (sealing her away, the EXIT, the casual violence) mirrors how he’s kept X in line.

It wouldn’t be until the final battle (most likely the episode before the show’s finale) where in the middle of it, X would SUCKER PUNCH Four right in the face, sending him to the ground. He just stands there for a few seconds before he begins to pummel Four in pure rage. Three would try to stop X but she gets hit with a clothesline by X, sending her flying across the battlefield. The shock on everyone's faces would be insane. X, the ultimate loyalist, turning on Four in the heat of the moment. X would walk over to One and Two and finish the battle on their side.

7. The messy rivalry with no easy villains (except maybe Four)

The core conflict would pit One + Two (backed by most of the contestants and some of the algebralians like Seven, Six, Eight, and Nine) against Four + X (with Three and rogue contestants/algebralians). Four is hunting down One while One and Two are planning on taking Four down for good, so the core of this arc becomes this brutal, drawn-out rivalry.

What makes this perfect (in my opinion) is that there are no true villains on either side for the most part. However, you can make the argument that Four is the closest thing to one because he's the root cause of so much of this mess, his decision to seal One away, his history of abusive hosting, and his refusal to learn from any of it. But even then, it's not cartoonishly evil. Four just holds a massive grudge and can’t let go of the fact that One nearly upended everything he built. From his perspective, he's protecting the world from a proven threat who already erased people and tried to seize ultimate power. 

One & Two’s side represents redemption, accountability, breaking cycles of trauma, and giving second chances even when it's uncomfortable and risky. They argue that solitary confinement is probably the worst thing you can do to someone and One is a prime example of what happens when you take someone already struggling with loneliness and exclusion, then crank that isolation up to fourteen years of absolute nothingness. They also argue that Four has done more than enough damage and needs to be taken out for good. One and Two’s side would push hard for the idea that true justice isn’t about endless punishment or repeating the same mistakes that created the problem in the first place. They’d highlight how solitary confinement isn’t just a punishment, it’s a form of torture with well-documented, devastating long-term consequences as seen with One. They’d argue that true progress means confronting the harm caused by both One’s actions and Four’s choices, rather than repeating the same punitive cycle that created the original problem.

Meanwhile Four & X’s side represents order, justice through strength, and protecting what they’ve built. Their mantra is essentially “save the world from One.” They view her as an irredeemable monster whose past deeds demand permanent containment. They also dismiss her reputation as quote on quote “manipulation”. They believe that One is manipulating everyone to believe that she has turned over a new leaf when in fact, she is using that excuse to worm her way back into power and finish what she started. From their perspective, the only safe option is permanent containment or elimination of the threat. They also perceive Two as either a traitor or a victim of One's influence, saying that Two needs to be saved/punished for their treachery. 

In the post I made four months ago, I gone all out with the whole thing, making contestants pick a side like a civil war within the show. However, while that sounds like a sick idea, that would just risk turning the arc into something far more divisive than the show typically handles. In this revised vision, I am scaling things back significantly. The rivalry remains brutal and long-term but almost all the contestants are on Two and One’s side (mostly because they are apart of Two’s show) while some contestants become rogues and side with Four either because they are close with him during the early BFB days, they also think One is irredeemable, or out of fear (maybe Four recruited/manipulated them and threatened consequences if they refused).

This rivalry would go on until whenever the show is up to the final 3 and the final battle will take place on the second to last episode. It would be brutal and emotional and would also determine the future of BFDI itself. Will One & Two’s side get defeated and the series gets ruled under an iron fist, or will Four & X’s side get defeated and we usher into a new era for the show, one where totalitarian regimes and brutal punishments are out of the question, and shows are built on opportunity and fairness.

8. The arc would feel like a actual redemption arc

 

An actual redemption arc is all about the former villain making things right and facing the full weight of what they’ve done, not just saying sorry and calling it a day. In my vision, One doesn’t get to skate by with vague “I was wrong” speeches or abstract atonement. She has to confront the direct, personal damage she caused, head-on, while the world (and especially Three and Four) keeps trying to drag her back down.

This means One actively works to undo what she can. She restores erased contestants like Gaty, helps rebuild the grasslands back to its former glory after all the chaos from her revenge plot, and tries to fix whatever lingering damage she left on the Earth and beyond. But it’s not just big flashy fixes, she has to deal with the personal, gut-wrenching stuff too. One needs to directly confront the people she hurt most, own every bit of the fear and destruction she caused, and actively work to make it right in ways that cost her something, all while being hunted down by Four. However, her partnership with Two would make it much easier for her. Two can vouch for her when it comes to burying the hatchet with certain people, help her as a mediator when things get heated, and just genuinely support her through the process.

9. One’s redemption arc would be a major success

 

Finally, most redemption arcs in media are mainly successful stories at their core, and this one has to be no different. If One goes through all this hell, the self-loathing, the constant rejection, the brutal setbacks, the physical and emotional warfare, the atonement work, only to get defeated at the end and sent back to the moon (or worse), then what was the point? The whole arc would feel like revenge porn dressed up as depth, and it would completely undermine the themes of breaking cycles of trauma that the story would be trying to explore

One has to earn her redemption through struggle, failure, and genuine growth, but it has to land. After everything, she succeeds. Not in a “everyone forgives her instantly and sings kumbaya” way, because that would be fake as hell. But she gets recognized as someone who has transformed. She becomes capable of empathy, growth, and making amends even if full forgiveness from everyone (especially Three) takes a long time or never fully comes.

At the end of the arc, it will be the first time One ever felt belonged and not all alone like in the Equation Playground days or those endless fourteen years in the moon. No more fractured sense of self, no more emotional numbness turning into rage. She earns a place where she can actually grow. She would finally have a community, a support system, and a new best friend in Two. That’s right, Two would become One’s new best friend after they turned her into a completely new and better person. And yeah, that’s going to hit different when you remember that 1, One ruined Two’s life and Two was literally the person who led the effort to defeat One, and 2, One spent almost her entire life with no true friend or anyone she could actually lean on. And Two, her former rival and victim, the one who had every right to despise her for everything she put them through and kill her, not only became that person she could lean on, but also be the one who saved her life and made her a better person than she ever thought she could be.

That hits way more harder than any ‘enemies to friends’ arc we ever seen. Because it isn’t just two people burying the hatchet. It’s about a person pulling their ‘enemy’ out of the darkest, most hopeless part of themselves and saying “you are worth saving” even though that enemy has spent months ruining their life and yet they still chose to extend a hand instead of a fist. It’s not just textbook maturity from Two, but the fact that they had every right to consider One dead to them and yet chose not to. That’s not just forgiveness. That’s something rarer and harder and infinitely more meaningful than forgiveness. That’s Two actively choosing to be better than the situation demanded of them. They turned a broken, twisted person who is ‘beyond saving’ into a new version of her past self or even better, because back in the old days before the Three incident, One was kind, eager, and just desperate for someone to call her own, and now she’s back to where she is or even the best version of herself all thanks to Two.

Anyway, that’s everything I’ve got for my new vision that is up to date and honestly much better. This got way longer than I intended but honestly? I regret nothing. If people want a proper episode-by-episode breakdown of how this arc would play out, drop it in the comments and I’ll probably do a follow-up post at some point. But for now, this is the vision. Let me know what you think, tear it apart, whatever.

Even though the TPOT final 3 is based off the current remaining contestants and eliminated contestants are not included, I would have Remote be the first ever rejoiner to make it to the final 3. if it was based off all contestants, then Fanny, Remote, and Cake would obviously be in the final 3

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. So after 13 years, the final episode of BFDIA dropped and Book won.

First of all, congrats to all the Book fans out there. Genuinely. You got your girl to win a season that took nearly 14 years to finish. So yeah, celebrate. You earned that.

And before I continue, no, I won’t be talking about the episode as a whole. I haven’t watched BFDIA since episode 22, I’m not gonna watch 25, so I’ve got no business ripping into something I haven’t seen. That’s a line I’m actually gonna respect.

What I will talk about is the result itself, and my thoughts on our two finalists: Book and Needle. Anyway, let’s continue.

If you know me, I am on nobody’s side and I find both finalists pretty mid overall, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise that… I couldn’t care less who won between those two. Book taking it home isn't some massive shock or anything I’m raging about. Both Book and Needle are pretty mid finalists in my books, so yeah, not exactly losing sleep over it.

Book taking the W just feels... whatever. I’m not mad, not throwing a tantrum in the comments like some people probably will. It’s whatever at this point. But this is a hot take and will get me a lot of downvotes, but Book is a tad bit worse winner than Flower was back in BFB and that’s saying something.

Yeah, Flower isn’t exactly the most beloved or exciting winner either, but to me, she is just a bit more enjoyable than Book. I actually kinda enjoy Flower in post-split and her redemption arc was pretty solid. She had that over-the-top diva energy that could be funny at times, even if it got old. Book though? Man, she’s just... there. Super boring most of the time. Her whole “I’m a nice helpful book” thing doesn’t bring much spice to the table, and I never felt like she earned her spot in the begin with. Same goes for Needle, honestly, she’s had some decent moments but nothing that screamed “finalist material” for me. For me, Fries (or Nickel) vs Coiny should have been the real finale. Nickel was in the peak of his whole existence, Fries was an amazing sight to see, and Coiny was also amazing and his whole arc with Pin was probably the best thing that came out of BFDIA.

And the funny thing is, if it wasn’t for those sympathy votes, Book wouldn’t even be here. Let’s be real, a big chunk of why Book made it this far is because she lost almost every single challenge in the season and fans feel bad for her. And let me you tell you something, being a finalist mostly because of sympathy/pity votes is not a great look. It’s like, congrats, the fans truely care about you but you didn’t actually earn it through the competition itself. There’s a difference between being loveable and being a worthy winner, and I’m not sure Book really clears that bar for me.

At least Needle earned her spot through sheer determination and skill, I’ll give her that much, but even then, to me, there’s not really that much to write home about with Needle either. Like, good for her for making it to the end, but I’m not exactly doing backflips over it. So I’ll say this, should Needle win over Book? Yes. But is she a good finalist in my opinion? Not really, no.

To wrap this up, I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade. The Book fans are celebrating, another chapter of BFDI is officially closed after nearly 14 years, and that’s a genuinely huge deal for this community. I can acknowledge all of that while still thinking the finale we got, at least in terms of who was standing at the end, was a bit of a letdown for me personally.

Once again, congrats to the Book fans, genuinely. You waited 14 years for this season to wrap up and your girl pulled it off. I just personally think the wrong person from the cast got the win, but that’s a hill I’ve been standing on for a while now and I’m not climbing down today.

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. Today, I’m making this post to announce probably one of my most interesting projects yet.

So we all know in canon that Cake, our favourite little chocolate slice, ended up on The Losers! in BFB, becoming Loser’s biggest fan and essentially becoming his shadow for the entire run of BFB pre-split and even into TPOT (even though Loser was never on the show). A lot of people, myself included, feel like that trajectory at the end felt like a bad decision because 1, Cake is known for being pigeonholed as ONLY Loser’s fan and 2, being in Loser’s shadow basically wasted nearly all the potential Cake had as a character. So what if things had gone differently?

Welcome to “What if Cake joined Death P.A.C.T Instead of the Losers’.”

The Premise

The divergence is simple: during team selection in “Getting Teardrop to Talk”, instead of gravitating toward Loser and latching onto his coattails and instead of Remote picking Pen as Death P.A.C.T’s final member, Remote would say something down the lines of “ Then Cake is on our team. Yay!” and drags him over to join the team. Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Pen would be picked earlier and instead of being a Death P.A.C.Ter, he would end up on The Losers! This means that Cake would join the likes of Black Hole, Tree, Remote, Liy, Pie, Pillow, and Bottle, while Pen joins Firey, Loser, Pin, Coiny, Needle, etc. on The Losers! 

Let’s talk about some changes.

First of all, since Cake won’t be around Loser, his personality would really change. In this timeline, his TPOT 22/current self would be who he is from the start: independent, confident and a bit assertive while also being sometimes anxious, sweet, empathetic, and caring. He’d develop a stronger sense of self-worth much earlier, finding his own voice within Death P.A.C.T.’s whole “prevent death and create trust” mantra instead of chasing for validation from a single "hero" figure. He would be an unofficial second-in-command, stepping up when needed and being a wildcard strategist that no one expects from a dessert.

Secondly, since Pen is not on Death P.A.C.T, that means we won’t see the Liy-Pen dynamic we are all familiar with. Maybe instead, Cake and Remote have a simlair dynamic instead, a fun, budding friendship where Remote treats Cake like a little brother, always looking out for him, dragging him into shenanigans and teaching him stuff.

Thirdly, let’s talk about Pen’s role on the Losers! Unfortunately, I feel like Pen’s role would regress a bit on The Losers!. Other than Clock, he would probably be the only non-Loser centric member and would mostly just vibe with the team’s general positivity without much spotlight. He’d probably get along well with other season 1 veterans like Firey and Coiny, and we might see him and Loser also too, maybe even becoming a bit of a chill hype-man for the team without going full shadow mode like Cake did in canon.

And lastly, let’s talk about Death P.A.C.T’s loss in BFB 4. In canon, Pen was probably the main reason for the team’s loss during that ‘give Four a makeover through art or modelling” challenge because he drawed that hilariously awful picture of Four while the rest of the team spent most of the challenge trying to stop Four from getting stabbed by forks. Do I think without Pen on the team, will that still happen? Probably not. They would most likely end up actually locking in and making something halfway decent for Four, and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is one of MANY butterfly effects that this timeline has to offer.

Speaking of which, I have two butterfly effects I wanna tease right now 

Butterfly Effect #1: Cake becomes a fan favourite 

I feel like Cake could genuinely be one of the breakout stars of this timeline.

One of the biggest criticisms of canon Cake is that his entire identity revolved around Loser. Even the fandom kinda reinforced that, constantly reducing him to “the Loser fanboy” instead of treating him like an actual standalone alone. In this timeline, Cake gets to showcase A LOT of the untapped potential he always had. With him having his current personality way earlier and not being in the shadow of a celebrity contestant 24/7, people would finally get to see him as his own character.

With him being the unofficial second-in-command of DP and constantly bouncing off strong personalities like Remote, Tree and Black Hole without being chained to a single person, the fandom would probably latch onto him HARD. He has a fresh take on what is considered a “leader type,” he is all confident and independent while also being sweet and caring, and he has a duo with Remote that the fans would most likely EAT UP!

Butterfly Effect #2: Liy never gets eliminated in BFB 5 / long Death P.A.C.T winning streak?

Since Death P.A.C.T would win the challenge in BFB 4, that means they wouldn’t be up for elimination and that would mean that Liy never gets eliminated in BFB 5. In canon, Liy’s elimination comes from Death P.A.C.T. losing and ending up on the chopping block, where she becomes the team’s first and only boot and wouldn’t rejoin a single show until 6 YEARS LATER when she became one of the two EXITors to join TPOT. 

In this timeline, Liy would most likely stick around Death P.A.C.T much longer instead of getting axed in BFB 5, mainly because the team simply isn’t forced into that early elimination spiral. With Pen not drawing that awful Four “makeover” piece in BFB 4 which caused Death P.A.C.T to be up for elimination, Liy doesn’t get singled out. I don’t know which team would be up for elimination in Death P.A.C.T’s place, but all we know is that Liy gets to stay longer.

Now, the real question is, will Death P.A.C.T be this timeline’s version of Bleh? Well, not really. Instead of Iance losing in BFB 12, I would have Pie be too slow enough to climb all the stairs and press the button in time during the “climbing the stairs” challenge in BFB 12. Maybe Pie didn’t accidentally fall off and get catched by Black Hole (which in canon caused Pie to be flung to top of the stairs) or something like that. And remember, in this episode canonically, Remote was questioning the team prioritising preventing death which saw Remote argue with Black Hole about Pie being slow and not trying to win, which saw Black Hole call Remote a ‘slow learner’. However, with the team losing the challenge, Remote would most likely lash out at Black Hole even more intensely, questioning the team's priorities and perhaps accelerating some internal tensions within Death P.A.C.T with her storming off. Cake would most likely side with Remote and would tell Black Hole that this team needs some new strategy. Now, the question is, who would be eliminated in BFB 13? I would say either Bottle or Pie aka the two weaker links of the team.

I would like to add one more butterfly effect that would affect me and all my social media accounts, old and new.

Butterfly Effect #3 (Honorable mention): I wouldn’t be a Cake x Clock shipper and I also wouldn’t hate Loser from 2022-2025

Since Cake and Clock won’t be on the same team in this timeline, I never really end up having Clake as my OTP from 2022 to 2025 (before Fanmote changed everything). Cake would remain my favourite character in this timeline, heck, maybe Fanny wouldn’t have taken Cake’s spot as my current favourite either.

Along with that, Loser fans better rejoice because I wouldn’t be in that phase where I absolutely hated Loser’s guts for basically no other reason than me hating to see Cake being his simp. So in our timeline, I had this phase from 2022 to maybe mid 2025 where I used to hate Loser so much that I painted him as a full-blown narcissistic celebrity with a massive god complex. I even saw Loser as this manipulative force who kept Cake trapped in that “number one fan” role on purpose, holding him back so he could stay in the spotlight. And let me tell you this, I still cringe about that till this day. However, in this timeline, early days Instagram me (2022-2023) and early days Reddit me (2024) wouldn’t have been absolutely insufferable about Loser. Instead, back in the day, I probably would have really liked Loser because in canon, he is such a humble and caring person who puts his friends first and just genuinely a great guy.

So in this timeline, instead of that distorted read, Past me probably would’ve just seen Loser as what he actually is (and who I see him as now) a genuinely supportive, caring, and humble celebrity who has little to no ego and genuinely uplifts the people around him instead of needing validation from them.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. The first place will most likely come out in the next 2-3 weeks, depending on how I’m feeling. I’ll probably start with BFB 1–5 changes and note, this series will solely focus on Cake and I won’t really dive into Pen on the Losers.

I’ll see you later! Peace! ✌️

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. So, once again, I’m on writer’s block, so this is where you guys once again come in clutch. I have realised in the one-odd year I have been on this subreddit that the more time passes, the harder it gets to think of new stuff to post, so sooner rather than later, I might be at the stage where I have completely ran out of ideas, won’t post daily, and/or just straight up leave the sub altogether (that would be a nightmare scenario since I love this community to death). But yeah, that’s the future, for now, let’s focus on the present.

So the rules are the same as always. Here is a recap for those who are new to these type of posts:

• Has to be BFDI-related in some capacity. We’re on r/BattleForDreamIsland, not any other subreddit.
• No brainrot or low-effort slop. If it’s like “What if Tung Tung Tung Sahur was in BFDI?” or “Rate X character as a Skibidi meme”, I’m gonna have to hard pass on that. I want ideas with some actual meat on them.
• Keep it thoughtful and creative. I want to actually be excited to make the post, not just fill a quota.
• Nothing that’d get nuked by the mods. Use common sense.
• If someone’s already suggested an idea you thought of, don’t just parrot it back. Scroll through the comments first and bring something fresh to the table. Duplicates are a waste of everyone’s time.
• No art ideas. I can’t stress this enough. I am SHIT at art, so if you are looking for a artist, I’m not your guy. Please don’t suggest it.
• You’re allowed to suggest more than one idea this time around. In fact, please do. The last few times I done something like these posts, most of you only dropped one idea and dipped. That’s cool and all, but I need more variety to work with here. So please, give me like 2, 3, 4, maybe even more. This is your chance to have a say in my content, so why not go all out?
• Serious ideas only. I know some of you think it’s funny to suggest shitpost topics, but that’s not what I’m here for. You know who you are.

 

And that’s the refresher on the rules and remember, I got a few bangers dropping soon but those will be on a later date. For those who don’t know, here they are:

• Clake (Cake and Clock) Analysis - Dropping in time for Pride Month 2026, which is less than a month away now. 
• Mechanical Mind Analysis: October 2026, about TV, Remote, Robot Flower and Roboty (with Fanny as an honorary mechanical mind)
• Fanny Analysis - TBA 2026. This one’s still in the “maybe” pile if I’m being real with you. Yeah, she’s my favourite, but I’m pretty sure I have done a long rant about her before and I don’t want to just rehash the same points I already made. So we’ll see. Don’t get your hopes up just yet

Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Drop your ideas in the comments and let’s see what you’ve all got.  And also, please make the ideas something I can do within the week because since I have ran out of ideas right now, I’m thinking short term, not long term. Cheers!

Cake perching on Remote’s shoulder/head in the first photo is so fucking adorable!

Also, Cake turned back to normal around TPOT 23-24

And oh, for those who don’t know what I am talking about, here are the links to all three parts of my “How I Would Write a F•R•C Mini Arc“ series

https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleForDreamIsland/comments/1srjxha/how_i_would_write_a_frc_mini_arc_part_1/

https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleForDreamIsland/comments/1ssb7up/how_i_would_write_a_frc_mini_arc_part_2/

https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleForDreamIsland/comments/1stb6kd/how_i_would_write_a_frc_mini_arc_part_3_the_finale/

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. The 2026 BFDI x II tour announcement short has finally came out on both Jacknjellify and AnimationEpic’s channels, and  I’mma be honest, it was probably the most underwhelming out of all the previous crossover shorts.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty solid. Maybe around a 6.5/10. The animation looks clean as always, the voice acting is on point, and seeing the casts interact with that multiverse rift stuff that has been happening in TPOT was pretty fun. The Announcer replacing MePhone4 in that scene with Steve Cobs was a bit fun, Yellow Face butchering (don’t lie. That dude was dogshit at singing) Taco’s Tirade was genuinely funny, and II Nickel acting like his BFDI self during that elimination scene was ridiculous.

But here’s my thing, compare this to the previous crossover shorts and it just doesn’t hit the same. It’s basically “oh shit, the timeline has been disrupted. Let’s see what happens if we just swap a few iconic scenes” and then it ends with the tour plug. Feels kinda basic and formulaic at this point. I mean, yeah, it’s a great callback to the current events going on in TPOT with the multiverse rifts, but there’s rarely anything that catched my attention as much as the older ones did.

Like the 2024 one, where the two hosts of their respective shows at the time Two and MePhone4 explore every city that will have a stop during that tour was fun as hell. Or last year’s one, which had every shared character between the two shows meet their counterpart for the first time was genuinely wholesome and entertaining. The Balloon vs Balloony dynamic was fun to watch, Fan and Fanny was iconic as fuck, and the Taco vs II Taco dynamic where BFDI Taco was just being genuinely friendly while II Taco was cold as hell towards her was so weirdly wholesome and funny at the same time.  Heck, even 2023’s “TWO OF THEM!?” was more memorable just off the sheer chaos of the two Nickels meeting each other and just going absolutely feral at each other. That was hilarious. 

This one though? It’s just… scene swaps. Oh, the Announcer was built by Steve Cobs instead of MePhone4. Oh, Yellow Face replaces MePad and completely butchers Taco’s Tirade. Oh, II Nickel has been replaced by BFDI Nickel and was all silly when he found out Suitcase voted him. Yeah, all of those were neat little nods, but at the end of the day,  it’s just ‘swap a character in a scene and see what happens’. It never really evolves beyond that concept.

Once again, I’m not saying it’s bad or anything. I still had a decent time watching it and there were definitely some jokes that landed for me. Yellow Face singing is probably gonna become a fandom meme for the next month and the BFDI 1a parody with Baseball with Match instead of Pencil was a sick throwback. I also like how the concept ties back to TPOT’s rift in the sky stuff, but it felt kinda bland. I mean, I get it, there’s nothing really else you can do with this concept and the short is obviously more focused on announcing the tour itself rather than telling an actual story, but I dunno man. Compared to the energy and creativity of the previous crossover shorts, this one just feels like a bunch of “let’s see what happens if we replace this character with this character” skits stitched together.

Anyway that’s just my two cents. Curious if anyone else felt this way or if y’all actually loved it. Drop your thoughts below.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. As you can read from the title, today we are talking about the ‘main character/mascot’ and how I don’t like the idea of him soloing/defeating One in TPOT 25.

If you know me pretty well, you know that I have been pretty critical about not just Firey, but also Leafy as well. However, before you say anything, it’s not about their characters or anything like that. I actually think those two are some pretty solid characters and deserve to be where they are today. My issue isn’t with them as characters. It’s how the show (and a majority of the fandom) have essentially shoved them down our throats for over a decade now as the de facto mains, but that’s for another day. However, I wanna talk about something similar that somewhat ties back to my issue with the two.

So a few hours ago, a user (u/waddlie_waddle) posted something here about that line from One in TPOT 20: “I don’t think this guy poses much of a threat at all, anyway.” (referring to Firey). A lot of people in the comments are  saying shit like ‘It foreshadows that Firey is actually the biggest threat One has” and “if firey solos one in tpot 25 i'm gonna be the happiest being alive’. And to that I say: please, for the love of everything good in this show, do NOT let this happen.

Look, I don’t hate Firey. I’ve said it before, he’s a solid character with some genuinely fun moments, especially back in the early seasons. Competitive, loyal to his mates (most of the time), bit of a dim spark but endearing in his own way. Same goes for Leafy. But here’s the problem that no one seems to care about. We have been dealing with the same two characters being the absolute centre of the universe for 10+ years now. Firey wins BFDI, gets Dream Island (then loses it in the most iconic way possible thanks to Leafy), they have their whole dramatic friendship arc that the show keeps circling back to, and even in TPOT where they're split off doing their own thing, the narrative still finds ways to keep them relevant. I was already annoyed that Leafy got involved with the One storyline and ragebaited One because while it was fun and chaotic to watch her get under One’s skin, she doesn’t really need a big role in the overarching plot against One.

Now the theorycrafting is ramping up that Firey is gonna defeat/solo One in TPOT 25 and honestly? That sounds like the most forced possible outcome they could go with, and it’s because of one important reason: it would prove to us that Jacknjellify is NOT letting the two main characters go anytime soon.

Like seriously, it would prove to  me that Jacknjellify just cannot resist making Firey and Leafy the centre of attention no matter what season we’re in. And before anyone twists my words, no, I am NOT saying Firey and/or Leafy should never be important ever again. They’re legacy characters. Of course they’re gonna matter to the franchise. Firey is literally the first BFDI character ever created and the winner of season one, while Leafy is a finalist, Firey’s best friend, and the second mascot alongside Firey. All I’m saying is this: at some point, whenever fans like it or not, Firey and Leafy should pass the torch and take a  backseat so other characters can truly shine without constantly orbiting around them.

Y’all probably be like ‘but Mr. TV, what about SpongeBob, what about Mario? They have been their respective series’ main characters for 30+ years and no one is complaining about that.” Okay, fair point, but the difference is that SpongeBob and Mario are BUILT around being the main characters. BFDI isn’t. One of the biggest strengths of this franchise is that it has a massive cast where practically anyone can become important if the writers want them to. That’s literally why TPOT has worked so well for a lot of people. We’ve gotten focus on characters who spent YEARS in the background. Characters like Fanny, Pencil, Donut, hell even Gaty got fleshed out massively compared to where they started. The show has proven that they can move on from the old guard, that they can tell genuinely compelling stories with new focuses, that they can make lightning-in-a-bottle moments with characters people slept on for years. 

Now, let’s talk about WHO actually deserves to be the one to take down One. And in my opinion, the answer is glaringly obvious and I have been saying it for a while now: Two.

Firstly, Two and One have a lot of history together. Well, I mean, they weren’t really friends or enemies back in the day, but Two was apart of the whole equation playground crew in the past and was one of the many Algebralians who outcasted One. Y’all probably be like ‘but what about Four? He also has a lot of history with One and he was literally the one who led the imprisoning of her in the moon in the first place!” Well, I have one major problem with that: Four would repeat history and put her in extreme solitary confinement once again, meaning One would just go right back to being all alone and probably go even more crazy instead of actually learning from what happened and changing. That’s not justice. That’s just repeating a cycle that turned One into what she became in the first place. A broken, isolated being who just wanted a friend. You lock her back up, she rots, she comes back worse. Two on the other hand, I have a good feeling that Two would have a different approach to the whole situation than just tossing One back into a worse version of the same punishment.

And secondly, One has directly ruined Two’s life. She has erased Gaty (which caused Two to have a year long  depression where they just rot in bed), she caused multiple catastrophic events to the planet their show is on (storms, time travelling nonsense, kicking Earth out of orbit, etc), and has repeatedly put both contestants and entire timelines in danger because of her obsession with “fixing” things her own way. 

Two has the history, Two has the personal stakes, and Two has the reasons to defeat One. It would give Two a massive character payoff and a satisfying narrative resolution for the season's central conflict. Two has been positioned as the host trying to keep everything together while dealing with the fallout of One's chaos. Giving them the victory over One would feel reasonable and earned, especially given everything Two has endured throughout TPOT.

Y’all probably be like ‘but Two is too empathetic and kind-hearted to actually go through with defeating One,’ and to that I say, SO WHAT? Just because he has empathy and compassion doesn’t mean they have the guts to beat the living shit out of One. Not everything Two does has to revolve around pure kindness and forgiveness without consequences. Honestly, even though I am a day one One redemption arc advocate, I would love to see Two just pummel the crap out of her with everything they have. That would be SICK and I would pay to see a One-Two fight scene. 

At the end of the day, a Firey defeating One scenario would absolutely piss me off for two simple reasons: 1, Firey doesn’t truly deserve and need it, and 2, it would be the biggest hint that Jacknjellify isn’t going to let them go, or even just step aside for once and let the story breathe without dragging Firey (and by extension Leafy) back into the centre of everything like a magnet.

Anyways, that’s my rant. I’m probably gonna make another post soon about how Firey and Leafy have been shoved down our throats for a decade or so and how I’m getting sick of it, but that’s a discussion for another time.

So what do y’all think about the whole ‘Firey is gonna defeat One’ theory/idea? Do y’all think it’s a good direction for the story, or are you like me and would be fuming if it actually came to pass?

And this is a friendly warning to jacknjellify (that’s if they are even reading this), please, for the love of god, don’t make Firey (or Leafy) the one who ends up defeating One. That would be very underwhelming and narratively repetitive, especially given how TPOT has spent so much time deliberately trying to expand the spotlight beyond the same handful of legacy characters and be the era where Firey and Leafy doesn’t have a major impact on every single season.   

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the whole thing and I’ll see y’all in the comments. I’m expecting disagreement on this one, but please, keep it civil and actually think about what I’m saying before jumping to conclusions or calling me a hater or whatever.

Credits to u/BloomdropWasTaken for the original meme

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. Today, I am going to talk about one of the many contestants I rarely talk about it, either because I don’t like them or interest me that much. Today’s subject? Balloony, specifically his relevancy.

I’mma be honest, Balloony is really boring in my opinion. Nothing really interesting going on with him, really. Like yeah, he’s nice and friendly, and his friendship with Cloudy on BEEP is sweet and all, but that’s basically it. That’s the whole character. He’s just… the chill balloon dude who likes Rocky’s vomit for some reason. And his whole post-split run? He was on the Have Cots for like five minutes before getting booted first in “Take the Tower” with 3,516 votes. First eliminated in the entire post-split. FIRST. That tells you everything you need to know about how much of an impression he was leaving on people.

So for the longest time, if you asked anyone what they thought of Balloony, you’d probably get one of three responses:

1. “Oh yeah, that’s Cloudy’s best friend.”

2. “Oh yeah, he’s the dude that got eliminated first after the split.”

3. Wait, Balloony? Who’s that again?”

That was it. That was the whole discourse around this guy. He wasn’t loved, he wasn’t hated, he was just… there. Floating in the background. And honestly, makes sense… well in my opinion because I do find him pretty dull compared to the rest of the cast. No big moments, no real character development to speak of, no storylines that made you sit up and go “oh okay, THIS is interesting.” Just a pretty boring character.

And then TPOT 18 happens and out of all characters, it’s Balloony who was hanging out with the Announcer and got kidnapped by him. 

Okay, I gotta admit, yeah, it could be absolutely anyone, and yeah, it’s not like the show hasn’t done surprise focus characters before. I’m not trying to be the guy who is like ‘the more established characters should get the focus’ because that’s genuinely lame and I don’t wanna be that person. But I am absolutely stunned by the sheer randomness of it all. Like, out of everyone they could have picked, they went with Balloony. They picked the guy who most casual viewers (including myself) had mentally filed away under “a nobody, probably someone who won’t matter for the rest of the show.” And now suddenly he’s got a whole thing with the Announcer. 

And apparently (this is from my research on the internet), the Balloony-Announcer subplot is going to be a major ongoing storyline moving forward into the Defeat One trilogy thing that will begin in the next month or so. People are already speculating that the Balloony-Announcer thing is going to be one of those plotlines that gets resolved in the trilogy. Which means this random nobody suddenly gets tied into what is basically shaping up to be the biggest overarching storyline in BFDI’s modern era.

Wait, WHAT?!

Where the fuck was this dude before all of this?

Like seriously, let’s rewind the entire Balloony career for a second.

This is the same guy who: 

• Was Cloudy’s best friend

• Most just existed  in BEEP

• Got eliminated first in post-split like the voters were trying to make a point 

• Was one of those “oh right, that guy exists” contestants whenever people listed the cast.

• Didn’t have any significant arcs 

That’s his whole resume. And before you say, ‘but Balloony hosted in BFDIA 14–16. That came out before TPOT 18,” yeah, he did. I’m not gonna pretend that didn’t happen. But even that feels like one of those “oh right, this character exists, give him something to do for five minutes” situations rather than anything actually meant to develop him as a character.

Even if you include the hosting gig in BFDIA, my point still stands: Balloony is a textbook case of a background character and for the longest time, that was exactly where he should stay as, because for me,  there’s nothing exciting about him, there’s  nothing that suggests he should suddenly be important, and he was just a boring guy who I wouldn’t have batted an eye at if he disappeared from the show entirely and nothing changed.

Now, because of this, I just hope Balloony and Announcer encounter One and both of them get wiped out because there is no way in hell I’m supposed to suddenly care this much about a character who, up until like TPOT 18, I would’ve just shrugged and gone “oh right, it’s Balloony”

And before anyone says anything, I’m not trying to make you change your opinions or anything like that. If you like Balloony, cool, genuinely, more power to you. I’m not here to argue that he should stay irrelevant or whatever.

I just don’t get the sudden pivot

Like, it’s not even a “oh wow, they finally gave this character a moment to shine” situation. It‘s a “really? This dude? You telling me out of everyone in the entire cast, this is the guy you are going to build a major plot thread around” situation. We are talking about the same person who up until recently was basically living in the same tier as “background filler until someone remembers he exists.” And the saddest part about Balloony? The thing most people remember him from… is being the first  eliminated in post-split (and also being Cloudy’s best friend, who is equally forgettable, if we’re being brutally honest). 

And look, not to hate the guy or anything, but he shouldn’t be in the spot he is right now.  And I want to stress this again before people jump me in the comments: I don’t mean “he shouldn’t be allowed to exist” or some weird anti-Balloony agenda. I just mean narratively speaking, this feels like the most left-field “promotion to relevance” I’ve seen in a while in BFDI. He has a boring personality, his only real claim to fame was being “that balloon guy who hangs around Cloudy,” and that’s basically his whole role in the ecosystem of BFDI. I can name a few other people who are just like Balloony, but he is a prime  example of a character who just sort of exists and should stay in the background. it’s for the best and… I genuinely don’t think I’m being unreasonable saying that.

 

So yeah. That’s where I’m at. Balloony relevancy came out of absolutely nowhere and I’m still trying to process why that specific balloon is suddenly part of the big story. Curious if anyone else feels the same or if I’m just completely underestimating Balloony.

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. I am making this post today to say… how am I not surprised! Jacknjellify just dropped on X that the two international spots for the BFDIA 25 screening are Brixton, London and Calgary, Alberta. London was an absolute lock because it’s the big British city that is probably one of the most predictable choices for them (huge BFDI fanbase in the UK, easy logistics, etc.). And for Canada? Of course they went with the “North American English-speaking country” option. And here’s the thing, I didn’t predict an exact location for Canada (maybe I did with Toronto or Vancouver). I said A city in Canada because it was the most obvious international English-speaking pick outside the United Kingdom.

No shade to them, but you could thrown a curveball and gone with a shocker like Dublin or even Tokyo. But nah, they played it safe and predictable as always. London + a major Canadian city was the easiest international duo they could've picked, and I called that as soon as the two international locations announcement came out. Like, you didn’t even need a crystal ball for this one.

And look, I get it. Those two are some of the well known cities in the world and the logistics are easier to work with. But the whole point is that they were the obvious, the boring, the predictable ones. Like, those picks are so bland, it would be in competition with Book or Needle for how boring they are. No offense to Book or Needle fans, of course.

But yeah, I said what I said. London and a Canadian city. Boom. Called it. No big brain prediction, no insider knowledge, nothing. For Canada, you could have told me it was in Regina or Whistler and I would still nod and be like “yeah, sounds about right.” And as for Brixton, same thing as Canada. You could have told me it was in Kingston upon Thames or Westminster and I would still nod and go “yep, makes total sense.” London is London. You don’t even need to specify the borough, because of course it’s somewhere in Greater London. Brixton just happened to be the specific spot they landed on, but it could have been Hackney, Islington, Camden, whatever, my prediction was always going to age well no matter where in that city they picked.

I mean, I’m not excited for BFDIA 25 as the next person. You probably all know that I am never a big fan of post-hiatus BFDIA and I will probably not watch the episode unless a massive moment happens, so it’s not like I’m personally invested in hyping up these screenings or anything.

What do y’all think? Was this as obvious to everyone else or am I just built different? And jacknjellify, if you guys are for some reason reading this (which you probably aren't), you could have picked somewhere actually interesting for once. Heck, come to Adelaide. Me and my fellow South Australians will welcome you with open arms, a few cartons of Farmer’s Union, and a few state of the art venues you can use for the screening.  You wanna go with the most popular one? Go with the Adelaide Entertainment Centre? Or do you fancy an outdoor stadium that hosted AFL games, cricket, Adele, Metallica (with Evanescence as the opening act) and later this year, Charlie Puth? The Adelaide Oval is your venue. Either way, Adelaide has the venues, the passionate fanbase, and the absolute audacity to host something like this. But I digress.

Anyway, that’s all I got for today’s post. This is Mr. TV, signing off! Peace! ✌️

G’day mates, Mr. TV here. Today, I thought I’d share a headcanon I’ve been sitting on for a while now regarding One and Two. This is something I made up based on a combination of canon facts and a bit of speculation on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

So, as we all know by now, One’s entire arc in TPOT has been about hunting down the other Algebralians both for revenge and for their powers, and the Algebralian she mostly targets is Two. And while it’s easy to assume that One’s targeting of Two is personal, like it is with the rest of the Algebralians, I actually don’t think that’s the case at all, which leads to my headcanon:

Out of all the Algebralians, One doesn’t actually hate Two. If anything, she respects them more than pretty much any other Algebralian out there.

The rest of them? Practically dead to her, especially Four. Although Two had outcasted One in the past like the rest of the them, One specifically finds the others dead to her for their role in sealing her away on the Moon for fourteen years. Two was off doing their own thing (or from what we saw in TPOT 21, too afraid to get involved back then), so they never took part in the sealing or the whole 2009 mess with Three. That already puts Two in a completely different category for One.

Also in this headcanon, One genuinely admires what Two has built with their show The Power of Two. She loves how welcoming, calm, and just genuinely inclusive it is, a competition that feels truly fair and open to everyone, in sharp contrast to BFB… or in One’s case in this headcanon, she’d probably call it “Four’s totalitarian regime.”

One knows what Four is as a host. She knows that Four usually screech, zap, mutilate, and just straight up abuse the contestants all while maintaining an iron grip on the contestants. One sees this as the opposite of what a proper competition host should be like. Two, on the other hand, runs things differently, calm, fair, and actually caring about the contestants and the integrity of the competition. In One’s eyes, that kind of approach is something worth admiring, especially after seeing what she views as Four’s more authoritarian style of hosting.

Her reason for targeting Two is not personal at all. If it were, she would have confronted Two directly, taken their power in a more brutal way like she plans with the others, and move on. The real reason is Two’s powers (and the other Algebralians) are a necessity. One needs all the power in the world to restore Three from her glitching and unstable state that she accidentally caused out of betrayal and pure rage. That’s the desperate drive behind everything: gathering every last bit of Algebralian power to fully restore Three to her former self, and whether One respects Two or not, that’s including Two’s powers.

Deep down, One carries a quiet, gnawing guilt over everything she has put Two through, despite the necessity driving her actions. This includes the destruction of their show’s planet, the erasure of their closest friend Gaty, and the complete unraveling of the welcoming community Two had worked so hard to build.

With the Defeat One trilogy coming, I can just imagine in TPOT 24, One secretly confronts Two and has a quiet, almost reluctant conversation with them before the real fight breaks out in TPOT 25 despite obviously being on opposite sides in the battle.

Anyway, that’s just my headcanon and probably something JNJ won’t end up confirming (because from what I see, JNJ rarely  gets ideas from its fans and usually prefers to cook things independently).

So what do y’all think? Are you hopping on this headcanon bandwagon or am I completely off in left field here? Let me know your thoughts down below. Curious to hear if anyone else reads their dynamic the same way or if I’ve just overcooked this one completely.

Cheers for reading 👍