Since I chose to not change the initial teams at all, the first three episodes of BFB undergo nothing except for
pretty minor changes.
BFB 1
Robot Flower and Firey Jr. get scenes before the intro to remind the viewer that they're not the same characters
as Flower and Firey. I believe this was extremely necessary since multiple viewers got really confused about them
for a second (which was fair, as their last appearance was cameos several years prior)
Taco’s jawbreaker is set beside the 8-names' swing, rather than on it, to make the team look a little less
dumb.
It's hinted at the end of the episode that Bracelety sabotaged Team Ice Cube to ensure 8-names' safety.
Retreading old ground.
To recap the game effects, iance loses BFB 1, leading to Pencil’s elimination; BEEP loses BFB 2, leading to
Leafy’s elimination; and Team Ice Cube loses BFB 3.
In Team Ice Cube, Gelatin is eliminated instead of Bracelety. He simply does not bring enough value to any plot, and his comedic relief would be better suited to BFDIA. Bracelety, meanwhile, doesn't have other seasons to rely on, so she should be allowed more screen time.
Branching off the timeline.
The events of the challenge play out exactly the same, save for Team Ice Cube’s submission and the stinger. TIC, instead of recycling Bracelety’s stuff, instead bends forks to make a Four shape. Death P.A.C.T comments about how that's dangerous, and eventually the broken fork repellent attracts the statue.
In the stinger, we see Pillow do research on why preventing those deaths cost the team the challenge, and Pie appears to explain why she didn't help at all during the chaos. (She tried to not explode — in the character guide, it's stated that Pie explodes when she feels strong emotions; plus, the forks in the air certainly wouldn't help.) Pillow then explodes Pie on purpose, and interprets the blueberry “snack” on her face as good luck.
Liy still gets eliminated in Death P.A.C.T (If you know me, I'm a big Liy fan, so this may seem out of place, but let me cook).
Seemingly back to normal.
I think the challenge should be reworked so the other six teams actually have to do literally anything at all. Perhaps a fitting idea would be making it so the paper planes are actually air balloons, similar to one of the TPOT 15 timeline distortions!
Now, I’m not actually sure what the six underused teams would do, since there’s no really important intra-team arcs going on in BFB 5 (except for maybe a scene with ABNTT where 8-Ball doesn’t get in the way of Golf Ball leading? And a scene with Taco trying to get 8-names to be more active in the challenge would be fun, it would add to her arc about focusing too much on results through risky plans…), but I think Free Food would try to sabotage BEEP by throwing Yellow Face products at their balloon, but accidentally cut off their own balloon in the process, resulting in a similar climax to canon, and BEEP still loses.
David gets eliminated from BEEP instead of Roboty, but other than that there’s no major changes: This episode is generally one of BFB’s best.
A bit of a tangent but isn't it weird how David turns orange in canon BFB? If Four got killed before David was announced safe, who turned him orange? To correct that mistake, Calway Roboty will keep his beautiful red hue.
Plus, the characters I’ve eliminated early don’t do anything important in the canon version, so the Losers still lose.
Gelatin's iconic “6 years old” line can go to Bottle or something.
Coiny is eliminated. I don't care that this would literally never happen under viewer vote, I'm doing it anyway. Pin is under even more stress in this version of events.
The fans are going to rip me apart.
While Loser being eliminated seems like it was important for the Losers’ arc, I think we can get to a similarly loserless state without completely eliminating him. Instead of lying about the poppers, Loser gets perceived as a liar for reassuring the fellow Losers that his plan from last time would have worked, and before he can explain himself he is killed by the Coiny Ball. (it would not be called a liar ball here.) This does mean Taco survives as the only earthling in 8-names, by the way. Also the twinkle is stuck with Clock until he dies, they never really explain in canon how it got to Taco (did Donut say “go” again off screen?). In the chaos, all the other canon deaths happen (Balloony, Foldy, Bell, Naily, Pie).
The ABNTT part of the challenge goes more or less the same way, Remote bomb and all, but I think it'd be nice if there was a scene with Bracelety and Taco working together to defend 8-names' goal before the other teams realize that ABNTT is completely defenseless. A Better Name Than That still loses in the end, and Coiny ends up in space. Again.
8-Ball is out. He and Golf Ball are more amicable during the elimination (it always felt strange to me just how much they bicker on canon BFB 8…), but nothing else changes, so Donut still brings the Earth to the Moon and Saw still inhales the 8-Ball fumes. I don't like the 8-Ball fumes, but Saw is kind of a completely redundant character if she doesn't get this joke.
Eight.
Overall, the challenge plays out similarly. The main difference is adding scenes to explain stuff like “why can't they switch who's on the buzzer” (they have to lock in one buzzer for each team) or “why does Stapy need to cheat” (None of the foodies actually know the answers) In the end, Stapy still cheats and gets Free Food UFE like a complete idiot.
Foldy is out. She is also dead, but that's unimportant. What's more important is that Stapy starts disliking iance now, unlike canon Foldy, who took an extra episode.
And nothing particularly valuable was lost.
Episode 9 might be the most changed up episode in this version, because it's the only one with not the exact same challenge: instead of getting enough balls onto the basket, the goal is to have as many balls on the basket as possible when time runs out. X hosts, and, similar to canon, he forgets to specify stuff, like how taking balls from other teams’ baskets is allowed.
Free Food starts off with a lead, thanks to Marker tossing the balls. However, Stapy chooses to sabotage iance again, and Match tells iance to sabotage Free Food back.
The other teams make slow and steady progress (ABNTT has their ball strat, The Losers, 8-names, and Team Ice Cube do whatever the hell they did offscreen in canon, and Death P.A.C.T and BEEP make better use of their flying members, with Woody having the setup for his cool scene undercut by him removing Cloudy’s bandages instead of by BEEP's loss.), while the mutual sabotage leaves FF and iance on the back foot.
At the last second, Fanny reminds Lightning to fly, which gets them to safety and FF is up for elimination for the second time in a row.
Bell is eliminated. In order to keep her scene with Taco, it needs to happen before the eliminated contestants are sucked up by Four: You could have Clock not immediately tell Four about all the dead people that are eliminated (which might be better for the pacing of the episode, actually, considering that, unlike canon, three of the five boots were killed.) and Taco would desperately apologize to Bell before she's pulled into the EXIT.
The panic about bringing back Four happens the same way, save for Coiny’s absence, which requires Cake to be slightly more active in cheering Pin.
The EXIT scenes need to be changed ever so slightly to account for the new elimination order, but it's extremely minor details, like Pencil rejecting the EXIT’s new arrivals, at first struggling to find any factor that separates them from Leafy, Gelatin and Liy, but then just admitting that she doesn't like them because they're new.
The rejoin still happens at the same time as canon.
The cast is still large, and it's about to get a little larger.
