I know you said you’re not continuing the bake-off AU & that’s fine but I am curious… in your head, do they both make it to the final? Or does one get knocked out before the other? Only to reappear then at the end when they bring everyone back for the garden party?

That is a very good question! I think it really depends who else is in the tent—tbh one of the big reasons I'm a bit leery of continuing that snippet is that I don't want to make a whole bunch of OCs, and it would feel too weird to transpose the existing cast. Like, what, now Max is from a council estate in Deptford? Dustin grew up in Cambridgeshire? My Brit creds are far too haphazard to pull that off. (when you said Scottish Eddie in the tags I was like. yes that feels right but idk why exactly?? thank you for understanding how he would obviously vibe with a Brighton relocation though, I love queercoding the hell out of him in ways that Steve is absolutely not picking up)

That said...

I think Steve's palate is probably too American to gel perfectly with Paul and Mary, so he's going to have a couple of flavour/texture combos in his showstoppers that they just don't like (and one or two that pleasantly surprise them), his signature bakes are consistently going to look too rough/homemade for their liking, and he's going to struggle a bit with some of the more classically European technicals. I think he'll make it about halfway through the series, maybe even to quarter-finals, as long as he keeps his head in the game and other bakers mess up just enough.

Eddie will take a lot of risks in his flavours, but he's a planner. (I've been mulling over a whole Thing about how he's a classical musician at heart, metaphorically speaking.) He's going to be very technically proficient and precise, which is going to work out very well in combination with his creative flair as long as he doesn't forget to keep an eye on the basics. I could definitely see him accidentally forgetting to turn the oven on or something.

I think he's going to get quite far—more than Steve, barring any unforeseen disasters—but I don't know if he'll make it to the final. He'll try something absolutely off-the-wall for the semi-finals, and it'll basically be a coin flip as to whether it works out or not.

In any case, they will absolutely 100% be officially and very blatantly together by the garden party, and the producers will need to make some significant editorial decisions about the series as a whole.

(Please note that I have never seen a single episode of the Channel 4 version of GBBO except the Derry Girls cast special. I have absolutely no idea what they're up to nowadays, aside from the GIFs I've seen of Mexican Week.)