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Chapter 1

This season should be craptacular. I'm already bored with these stupid plants.

Simon sighed as he read the forum post. Great, just great; VFTW had caught on again. They had figured out who the producers wanted to expose to the viewers, and on top of that they had located all of the plants. All of them. Simon realized that Vote For The Worst always dug up the majority of planted contestants, but they usually missed the most obscure ones. They hadn’t picked up on David Cook’s arrangements with Nigel, after all. But this time, even the most inconspicuous plant had been uprooted, so to speak. Plastered onto a tell-all blog post lay the text:


Leon Whinney was a backup singer for an obscure, failed boyband for three weeks. Tracks with his voice never made it to the album, but he's still a plant.

Simon surfed the website to the blog post again, staring at the title.
“AI8 is full of plants.” The judge scrolled down, mentally checking each name listed. Janet Brass. Madison Ellner. Taki Cohen.  Aviva Barnes. The list went on, ticking off each and every person that the producers had picked to be a contestant due to their connections.

Well, VFTW would be hard-pressed to mess with the #1 reality television show in America for another season. The change in store for the first few voting rounds would guarantee it. Simon recalled the discussed fix--two duet weeks, comprising the eliminations leading up to Top 16. The duet weeks would allow the producers to pair up cannon fodder, increasing the chance of elimination, and it would also decrease the total number of performances, which would also weaken the powervoting photochop-machine. Vote For The Worst would go through two or three contestants before the Top 10, ensuring no mediocre talent would interfere with the Season 8 Idol Tour.

A cellphone buzzed with an irritating “Bleeding Love” ringtone in Simon’s pocket. The judge lazily fished the phone out of his pocket before clicking the answer button and hoisting the cell to his ear. “Simon Cowell,” the Englishman answered.

“Simon, the pairings are settled,” spoke the digitized voice of Ken Warwick, the executive producer who was to fill Nigel’s place and consequently have much greater control over the show. “I’m faxing the list to you right now. Tell me what you think.”

Sure enough, a stale machine in the corner of the room roared to life as it gradually spat out a sheet of printer paper. In large Times New Roman font lay two columns of 12 names each, concisely revealing the match-ups. The brit strutted to the quieting faxer and snatched the list, quickly looking it over.

“It’s not stellar,” Simon remarked, “But we’ll definitely get rid of the fodder. Look, I’m wondering about this pairing here—Adolf and Ernest.”

“Difficulties arise during our work,” Ken explained. “Any other remarks?”

“None at the moment,” Simon replied, finding no other glaring issues with the list. “I think we’re getting rid of pure fodder this round.”

“Excellent. Good day, Simon.” A click registered on the cell, and then silence. Ken had hung up, so Simon did so as well, pressing the ‘End Call’ button on the phone. Simon would then return to the idling computer to continue his monitoring of VFTW.

Meanwhile, the top 24 lounged around in their shared rooms. For their entire stay on the karaoke show, they would sleep in the small apartment-like spaces, rotating every week as more and more eliminations narrowed their numbers. Despite the immense wealth American Idol dragged in from its viewing populace, the rooms reeked of dishevelment, the wallpapers bland and probably many years old, and the furniture bare and spartan. Simple, small end tables sat near creaky beds, with a rough and worn couch at the other end of each of the twelve rooms. One dresser adorned another wall of each room, the blue paint peeling with age. Yes, the contestants were expected to live in these drab and unclean areas, two to each room until a few were freed by elimination.

“I’m finding a bunch of cool stuff,” remarked a dark-haired young man as he dug through the mattress of his selected bed.

“How do you be such an optimist?” asked another slightly-older boy whose face was reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David. He did not bother to turn towards the mattress-diver, but rather occupied himself scratching away some peeling wallpaper.

“I’m just telling the tru—Oh, cool!” the optimistic one blurted out as he yanked his head from the mattress, holding a black tube of eyeliner in his hand. Written on the cap was a faint white name: ‘Cook.’ “Goin’ straight onto eBay,” he laughed. Apparently, the maids cleaned the rooms seldom and badly.

“What?”

“Kristy Lee Cook’s eyeliner.” He chuckled. “Her fans will pay a hundred bucks for this.”

“Sure that isn’t David Cook’s?” the statuesque one questioned, not bothering to turn around. “And don’t leave any of your stuff when you get eliminated this week, Toya.”

“Bitch Pleeee~eeee~eeeease,” Toya sang with enough melisma to show that the judges would love him.

“Showoff.”

“Alright, let’s not fight, Leon.” Toya shoved his hand back into the depths of the mattress, hoping to find something from Jason Castro.

 

In another room, two women rambled on and complained. “Tch, what were they thinking!?” A tall blonde, Priscilla, whined as she pointed to the grimy wallpaper with one manicured fingernail. “It’s so tacky, and dirty! It’s all black underneath! Ewewew!” she flailed melodramatically.

“Why you think sumthin be wrong with black? You raciss!?” snapped a tannish-black walking-stereotype.

“It’s just so disgustiiiing!”

 “Donchu be messin wit me girr,” Achibe continued, “I’w kill yo raciss a--”

“Omigod, I got my nail dirty!”

While they bickered, four others had turned to more entertaining pursuits, one pair invited over to another’s room for an impromptu pillow fight. The beds came with pillows; it was only a matter of time before someone thought of it. A long-faced, long-haired man with glasses had set his optical adornments on one of the end tables and was now violently bashing a red-head guy with a nose ring in the face using the cotton sack. “Ha, Ester’s losing!” shouted a greasy zit-faced overweight guy, who promptly got a face full of pillow.

The fourth person sat reclusively on the dusty couch, a reddish-brown haired young girl. “Come on, Bell!” the long-faced man called, only prompting Bellatrix to shake her head ‘no’. She didn’t like Alexander’s idea—his glasses could get broken. “We can gang up on Ernest!” Alexander continued as he and nose-ringed Ester pummeled the greaseball. Bell just smiled and shook her head ‘no’ again.

Randy Jackson, the urban-speaking black judge, reclined in his office as he spoke to yet another contestants. "Janet, dawg, you'll at least make top twelve," he promised.

"Fuck that, I want in the tour, got it? I want that 200 thousand!" she snapped back, her retort as ugly as her crooked mouth and scrunched face.

"Awight," Randy ceded with wide eyes, "Top ten."

"How much longer do I have to deal with pond scum?" she seethed.

"Aw," Randy muttered as he looked up and thought about the general outline for the producers to follow over the course of the show. "That depends on who's 'pond scum'."

"Idiot, I'm talking about the shemale and the retard," Janet returned with an off-hand attack on two of the contestants.

"Uhhh...Paige is just on the show for buzz factor, and Bettine should be gone before finals," Randy explained. "So, a couple of weeks after it starts, tops, dawg."

"Make it one," Janet growled.



"RUNAROOOUUUND~" sang an aged, poorly-shaven man to the sound of an iPod in his ear, playing one of Taylor Hicks's flopped songs.

"Save your voice for the rehearsals," warned a tan asian girl from the far side of the contestant room, while she attempted to brush the dust off the peeling dresser. Her bright, wide eyes reflected the chipped blue beautifully. "Though, it couldn't help to practice," she added, noting the man's glaring pitch problems.

"Meh," he replied, clicking the iPod off. "What's your name again?" he asked, scratching his head in embarrassment.

"Like I said three times before, I'm Taki." she repeated patiently.

"And you're...a...flower girl." He finished. His memory wasn't too good.

"You're learning, Gerald," she smiled.



"Gorilla?"

"King Kong?"

"Right, King Kong." A thin-faced guy in gothic clothing, complete with a silver cross and the odd inclusion of clip-on headphones, stepped down from a phone book used as an impromptu pedestal. Three contestants had decided to play Charades to pass the time instead of joining the hectic pillow fight a few doors down.

"Okay, Karl went, so it's my turn,” spoke up a smiling, short woman with thick black glasses and straight, pale blonde hair. She stepped onto the phone book and thought for a moment, pondering what to imitate, before miming a few familiar actions that appeared so strange without the functional objects.

“Um…um…” the puzzled goth stammered.

“Gymnastics?” asked the third person, a ditsy-looking girl with a small nose and unhealthy-looking grayed skin, plus a pink hairclip on her brunette hairdo.

“Cooking,” corrected Karl, tipped off by the circular motion of one hand, as in stirring a pot. “You kinda stink at this.”

The glasses-bearing woman stepped down. “Don’t worry, Bettine, you’ll get it eventually,” she predicted kindly in a smooth voice. The grayish-skinned girl giggled in response.

“My turn!” Bettine blurted out before happily bounding onto the phone book, and then falling to the ground on her side with a thud. She whined as Karl and the glasses-bearing woman dashed over to assist her. Both of them dropped to a crouch

“Hey, you alright?” the goth asked, and turned his head to face the pale-blonde woman. “Juana, does she need help?”

“I’m fine, silly,” Bettine giggled as she pushed up to a sitting position, “Lemme try that again.”

 The young girl motioned Juana and Karl to get out of the way with her hand, and then stood back up and tried to jump on the phone book again, falling once more. “I’m okay!” She attempted this one more time, with Juana and the goth watching nervously, and sure enough she failed, instead breaking her fall with a foot. Bettine just giggled and brushed some hair out of her face. “Get on with it,” muttered Karl, and Juana shook her head in disbelief at the ditsy girl.



 “…So, I find myself wondering if I should simply go by Veltin,” thought aloud a man old enough to be pushing the Idol age limits, with jet-black ruffled hair and a rough, ghoulish face. His smooth and sophisticated voice pleased the ear of any listener.

“Yeah, do that so you don’t get everybody around you,” replied a happy-looking fat guy with a black goatee. He only halfway-listened as he tapped away on a Nintendo DS, while the older man contemplated on the other side of the bed the two were sitting on, facing opposite each other.

“Alternatively, I believe my fans should know me on first name terms. Adolf—a nice sound to that; such a shame that I must deal with the negative connotation. The name should not have fallen out of use; else I would not have this problem.” As he spoke, his hands flourished in a mesmerizing grace complimenting his words.

“Uh-huh.” The other man only half-listened, occupied with his game.

"Such is why I wish now my name would be normal, like yours. Everyone shall know you simply as Henry, Henry Thorne. Yet, anyone to mention Adolf risks invoking Godwin's Law, you see?" He smiled and looked up to the ceiling, pressing his palms against the bed.

"What were we talking about?" Henry asked as he lost another life in the game.

"Oh, how easy it would be to have the distractions that so amuse you without the slightest effort..."



"What I like about you...is..." Paula paused, eyes rolled upward and palms up. "What I like about you is, you're so, lovely, and creative, and I like you a lot for that..."

"Thank you," a thin tan-black woman with a large pair of sunglasses on her face replied. Her braided hair swung lightly as she bowed her head.

"It's just so...so great, to have you here," Paula continued in her stumbling manner, occasionally gripping her judging chair for support. Currently, she was the only one behind the judging table, as Simon, Randy, and the newly appointed Kara were off somewhere else.

"You don't have a lot to say, do you?" asked a short, wavy-haired blonde with small facial features and a round head. She stood in the center of the large Idol stage, admiring the vastness of the room as she spoke her off-handed comment.

Paula paused for a moment before taking a sip out of her coke cup. She set it down and sighed before defending herself with "It's just...I never....can express the way I feel fully with words, I mean, that's something...only you can do, when you're all up on stage and dancing...it's, wow..."

"Hey Mad, Charsi, come check this out!" A false-tanned, thick-browed man with a pointed chin looked down from the balcony of the upper band area, motioning with his hand for the two contestants to move.

"It's Madison! Not Maddy, not Mad, Madison; I have a name; use it!" the blonde threw a minor fit on stage as Charsi stood by, turning her head between the fake-tanned man and the temperish girl alternately.

"Yo, come on," the man beckoned again, and the thin black woman shrugged before walking to the stairwell. Madison puffed and pouted in childish irritation and followed.

Once upstairs, the three stood in front of a prodigious copper cable, erect and buried in a wall. The tremendous wire easily spanned five feet in diameter, with a few sparks flying here and there--the insulation must have been stripped. A door was supposed to be concealing the cable, but pointy-chin guy had shoved it open upon noticing something off about the wall. "Should we, uh, close it?" Charsi asked, reaching to the door.

"Just, just leave it; I'll get it," Paula mumbled, not loudly enough for any of the three to hear. As the judge stood up, using the desk for support, Charsi quietly pushed the wire's door closed. "I said I'll get it!" Paula slurred, this time audible for the group. They all turned around sans Madison, who still chose to examine the well-hidden crack of the cable door and ignore the judge.

"Oh, well, we did it for you," The impish man called back.

"Okay, um, what are your names, again? I know Antonio, but, the other two..." Paula questioned, looking confused.

"Charsi." the sunglasses-wearing black answered.

"Madison, with three syllables and not shortened!" the blonde whined as she wheeled around stomped her foot.

"Oh, I remember now...guys...you, just, go back to your rooms, because the band has practice, in, thirty minutes, and you can't be on stage..."

 "Alright, alright," false-tanned Antonio submitted, raising his hands to chest level to indicate he'd obey, and stepped down the staircase, with Charsi following in a conformist 'follow the guy who knows what he's doing' manner. Madison pouted and would end up bickering with Paula for a few more minutes, but would eventually be escorted out by a couple of poorly-equipped security guards with verbal protest to keep exploring secrets backstage.



"So you gonna be pretty controversial, huh? How'd you get in, anyway?" queried a big black woman with braces, lounging on her contestant room's old couch which was an improvement on her skin as far as roughness and irregularity were concerned.

"I'm not sure," replied a rough, possibly deformed, androgynous voice. "I guess, maybe, just maybe, I was too good to pass up? Maybe Simon and his friends are fair?"

The big black woman laughed loudly, almost shaking the couch with a high-pitched, Cruella De Ville voice. "I thinkin' that this be show business. You know, get some scandal going and all that? You be here because no one ever sees people like you!"

"I guess," came the response, from someone laying on the bed with their hands behind their head. The person looked female in some ways, as far as the small breasts and small waist suggested, but the bony face was distinctly masculine and the hips weren't wide enough to suggest femininity. Truth be told, seeing the person would be a first for most everyone--many people do not get to see a hermaphrodite in their lives.

"Paige, you realize you ain't here because you sing well, right?" the black woman continued.

"I think I sing well enough," the hermaphrodite retorted in that disturbing voice, "Bell told me. And so did Henry, and Leon--"

"They's all nice. You just average; you sing like Sanjaya."

"So you're saying I'll make it to top 7?" Paige replied with a smirk.

"Vote For The Worst ain't gonna be voting for a--"

"Tranny?"

"You got a point." the irregular-skinned woman stood up off the couch, causing it to creak. "I'm gonna go see what everyone else be doing."

"Okay, bye Vansina!" In actuality, the big black woman just needed to get away from Paige's unusual voice, plus having someone so strange around you could be unnerving.



The three remaining contestants, for one reason or another, were alone and separated. Isabella, a big-mouthed blonde with deep and sparkly blue eyes, preferred to sit alone in her dirty contestant room and doodle on paper in solitude. Her roommate, Aviva Barnes, had left to practice dancing in the unoccupied room that resulted from ugly Ernest and red-head Bell, actually Bellatrix, leaving to join the pillow fight. Aviva radiated handsomeness, his blonde-orange hair rippling as he moved and sang a little tune in a grating, probably-won't-be-a-finalist deep voice. His body looked kind of boyish, but nonetheless a bunch of teenage slash writers would type dirty stories about him over time. The final contestant, Pascal, sat boredly in a janitor's closet, which he had had been locked inside because he kept blowing up on everybody due to anger management problems. The wooden door already had a bunch of dents and impact marking where he had tried to kick and punch the barrier open, but apparently Pascal was all bark, with a bite comparable to that of a bacterium. A scowl constantly burned anyone to look at his rough, long face with piercing sea-green eyes that could have been the keyholes of the gates to hell itself. His neat brown hair lay straight in a flat-top.


"Let's get them all together," Simon ordered a few of the security guards, "Their photoshoot is in an hour and a half." The judge had stopped bothering with the 'fly buzzing around a cow' for the moment to tend to more important tasks, like the aforementioned photoshoot. With twenty-four people to prep, 90 minutes was almost a crunch for all the time needed to apply makeup and dress up in their appropriate fashions. The security guards would systematically peek in the twelve contestant rooms and call out whoever was inside.

"Picture time, girls!"

"You two, get out here!"

"Hey kid, it's time for photos!"

With variant attitudes, the eighteen people found in the filthy areas trudged out. Complaining Priscilla enjoyed leaving her hovel of dirt, Henry and Paige headed out more or less indifferent, and the pillowfight crew of Ester, Alexander, and Ernest replied with a resounding "AWWWW" at being told to break it up.  The guards rounded up the contestants in a bright red lounge, and called out each of their names to check them off their list.

"Achibe Adams?" A guard holding a clipboard spoke, not looking up at the jumble of people.

"I here."

"Gerald Barley?"

"Here."

"Aviva Barnes?"

"Here."

"Pascal Brandt?"

Silence. Murmurs came from the disorganized crowd of contestants. "Find him." The guard said to a group of three other guards lounging against the wall nearby.

 

"What the HELL TOOK YOU?" Pascal shouted as light poured in from the door of the closet. He stood up from his sitting position, with a deep scowl on his face, which glowed red with anger.  Two guards took a step back out of sync, and the other just put away his ring of keys as he ignored the shouting man.

"Follow us," the key-holder grumbled, not looking at Pascal, and motioned with his hands. Pascal half-growled, half-sighed, and followed the guard as he clenched and unclenched his fists out of irritation. As the key-holder and his group returned, they found the set of contestants talking casually and separated off into groups--Taki, Priscilla, and Ester sat on a couch, with Taki the only one sitting straight, and discussing how to fix up the rooms. Henry showed off his DS game to Adolf, one of the few standing up, ("Pokemon are much more different now," the latter commented,) and Leon chatted with Isabella about his boyband-singer past as he fidgeted with a violet pillow on the other couch the two sat in. Aside from Adolf, the only people standing up were Bellatrix and Paige.

"Who isn't here?" the hermaphrodite asked, looking around from the center of the room.

Alexander couldn't help but respond. "I'm not here," he replied off-handedly, rolling around on the floor. No, seriously, he was rolling around on the floor, since there were only a handful of people actually in the way.

"We found him," the key-holding guard announced as he motioned the visibly-steaming Pascal to enter the room. He drew out his clipboard as he stepped further into the room, avoiding Bellatrix, who had not moved from her position in the initial crowd. No one had told her she could move.

"Janet Brass? ...Oh, not again. Where is she!?" the guard shouted.

The roll call would take a long time, as gathering up the other four absent people, including Janet, required searching. Eventually, Vansina would be found blabbering on her cellphone, and the trio who had explored the Idol stage joined everyone in the lounge after Antonio made an observation: Nobody was, you know, there. Altogether, the minutes remaining to actually prepare for the photoshoot dropped to less than an hour, so by the time everyone had gathered, the guards fumed with annoyance. The key-holder made a mental note to kick the guy in charge of scheduling.

"Now that you're all finally here," he grunted, "You're supposed to apply makeup and get ready for pictures. Just follow me."

Some people didn't move. Alexander refused to stop rolling despite foot traffic, and Bettine apparently was more interested in swatting a fly, smiling all the while. Madison just gave the guard an annoyed look with her eyelids half closed, and made no effort to stop lying on "her" couch.

"NOW!" The key-holder yelled, which jarred the three into gear. He led the group of twenty four to the multiple, movie-star-esque mirrors behind the idol stage. A bunch of makeup artists stood at the ready, the several men clearly flamingly-fabulous. Since many of the contestants didn't know the best ways to beautify themselves for a camera, it took these hired professionals to perfect their faces. Such photography would be plastered on contestant profiles all season long.

Because TPTB weren't totally fair, some of the twenty-four would receive extra treatment and some not quite as much. The professional in charge of Gerald hushed him away in less than ten minutes, leaving him looking only a bit better than his usual self, but Ester's face acted as a canvas down to the last minute before the photoshoot, and by then he appeared immaculate--although all the gunk on his face felt icky, and the makeup artist swore he'd need a touch of photoshop to look as perfect as the producers wanted him.

Slathered in various foundations, shades, and eyeshadows, the twenty four trudged off to the shooting canvas. A photographer aimed his hi-def camera at a green screen, ready to take the shots. Producer manipulation wouldn't reach here--that was against policy. The contestants could take their facial pictures at whichever angle they desired. While some, like Henry and Bell, didn't much care for which angle they were shot from, others were more requesting--Ernest specifically asked for shot in which he was looking off to the side, and Janet complained vividly about needing a fully frontal shot. ("I won't look beautiful unless you can see my face, idiot!" she seethed to the photog.) Priscilla took ages to get just the right angle, continually rejecting shot samples she didn't like, and Karl had to be convinced at length to not make a clown face.

With the photoshoot completed, the images would go over inspection and digital improvement to find just the right pic for each person. Not like it would matter, as fans would be drooling over them in real-time on screen--and Worsters would chop the people to no end.

Worsters, back at their home base website, already built the season 8 forum and the appropriate threads. Pages stacked up like skyscraper stories upon the more prominent and hateable plants. Already, buzz broke out in the site.

Can you feel the excrement?, displayed a post on the spoiler thread. For good and bad reasons, as in the new judge and the plants, the answer more or less registered 'yes'.

AI8 is full of plants

Nigel might be gone, but some things never change. This season's crapfest is just as chock full of ringers and boring plants as AI6 and AI7.

Top offender Janet Brass has ties to Randy Jackson. Janet released two studio albums Randy had a hand in directing, both of which flopped even after considerable payola. Take Me Away sold 17,600 copies and Vitality flunked at a mere 3,200, so the label finally dropped her. But that's not it. Janet also appeared as an extra in several movies.

Leon Whinney was a backup singer for an obscure, failed boyband for three weeks. Tracks with his voice never made it to the album, but he's still a plant. 

Madison Ellner released an album "The Power" under an indie label.

Alyssa Warbensheik is an ex-actress who appeared on a few Broadway shows, including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", and is a plus-size model.

Vansina Stearns, A.k.a "DJVS", served as a DJ in many electropop clubs around California. While that would be anti-idol under any other circumstances, she stole all her music.

Taki Cohen is a well-requested singer for tributes at weddings and funerals, often serving as the flower girl for the former.

Aviva Barnes is a professional dancer who appeared in high-end resort and hotel chains, including the European "Center Parks".

Toya Rany is a musical playwright. Last time the industry heard of him, he was falling on financial problems due to no one coming to his plays, which is probably why he auditioned for this crapfest.

Isabella Bosworth sings covers of covers of shitty pop-country songs, and an indie label that picked her up tried to market them for cash. So she'll basically be right at home on Idol.

Maximillion Silver played in a rock band locally. And then was asked to be featured in a song. And then a bunch more. And then he dueted with Bon Jovi. Basically David Cook on steroids.

Adolf Veltin was signed to a label that folded in on itself before completion of the album. He also appeared as a guest singer on MTV when they heard of his great singing skill, but they decided to axe the episode because his first name risked offending viewers.

Priscilla Schwarz acted as the love interest in two music videos.

Ester Sembine appeared in an iPod commercial, won the singing contest "The Best Singer In Wyoming" (self explanatory), and we suspect some ties to 19E, which we have no hard evidence of yet.

Fuck, that's 13 plants. Thirteen, bitches. Who wants to bet the top 12 is settled already?

CH 1 | CH 2 | CH 3 | CH 4 | CH 5 | CH 6 |