Lightning and Dakota were originally the intended two campers to return at the merge in Island, but then the author decided to bring Amy back to cause more drama for Sammy, and to solve a dilemma involving the elimination in “Camp Castaways” since the remaining cast at that point didn’t have Owen or anyone suitably goofy to justify a Mr. Coconut appearance and elimination. With the addition of a third returnee, an actual elimination was in order.
B was originally not slated to compete in Action, but the author remembered Izzy’s E-scope phase posed a problem, and needed to fill that space.
B and Topher’s eliminations in Action were originally flip-flopped, but once the author realized that with Topher’s original elimination, he wouldn’t get a chance to be interviewed on the Aftermath and share his side of the rivalry between him and Sierra, which was something they really wanted to include, the eliminations were swapped.
A scene was intended at the end of the second Aftermath to show Sierra and Topher had staged their whole feud to further their careers, and were actually good friends, but the author preferred them being real archenemies instead so they left it out.
The double elimination in “2008: A Scarlett Odyssey” was originally going to take place in “Top Dog”, but when a reader mentioned that they hated the final three being skipped, the author rethought the double elimination’s appearance.
When the World Tour cast was decided, the author mentioned that had Amy been selected, there would’ve been a possibility of Amy being in a relationship with Scott.
When it came time for the team mix-up, the author’s original plan was only to have Team Victory join together with Team Chris, but later decided to mix up the teams even more than that.
Had the author gone with Tyler being eliminated in “African Lying Safari”, Ezekiel would’ve won immunity in that challenge, and the final four would’ve had no one that trusted each other. Additionally, this decision would've debunked the "both newbies get to the final four" prediction.
Leonard was originally slated to be the first boot in Revenge of the Island, but after he was the first eliminated in the Ridonculous Race in canon, the author decided to try and give him Character Development like they had done with other canon early eliminations.
Harold was originally slated to be the canonical winner of Revenge of the Island, but the author changed it to Noah due to fan demand. Had this been the case, Harold would have been voted off in All-Stars as a result of his newfound arrogance causing his team to lose a challenge, rather than him choosing to sacrifice himself to stop Jasmine from being eliminated.
When deciding the roster for All-Stars, Amy and Topher were considered for the Vultures while Tyler, Jo, Zoey and Trent were considered for the Hamsters, but all were dropped for one reason or another; Amy didn't have many story options without Sammy to bounce off of, Topher was rejected in favour of Alejandro and Scott and wasn't heroic enough to be put on the Hamsters, Tyler was rejected in favour of Lightning, Jo didn't have many story opportunities after the events of Action, Zoey had to compete with Gwen, Jasmine and Izzy for a team slot and Trent was considered during the earlier stages of Revenge of the Island (before Harold and Noah were decided on as the finalists) but was dropped to put more focus on the Harold/Jasmine drama.
The author considered making Scott more of his canonical All-Stars self if he had gotten farther and/or been the main villain of World Tour.
The original finale of Pahkitew Island was going to be Brick vs. Sky, but upon giving the season its theme of "identity", Eva replaced Sky since her character arc fit it better while Duncan swapped out Brick so there'd be a mischief maker.
