Hello everyone; some of you may be shocked to see this active once more, though I felt I should at least attempt to keep this active. So, I've reworked this into a development log for TPReboot. Namely, whenever a new episode comes out, I'll release one of these chapters around a day later that explores and explains some decisions I made while writing the chapters.

Do I expect this to be especially interesting to many people? No. In fact, the only readers I expect to be even remotely interested is anybody who might want to document the history of their work as well. Regardless, I'll at the very least get an idea of how worthwhile this'll ultimately be after today.

So, let us begin.

TPReboot: Total Drama Island - Episode #1
Not So Happy Campers

Finding the Setting

When adapting the Total Drama setting to the Pokémon universe. There are two ways you can go about it:

A), stick closer to the Total Drama universe, with locations identical to the real world. This is preferable for those not as invested in world building as other aspects of the writing process, or for anyone who instead wants to expand upon the more "human" aspect of the franchise.

OR B), try to bring Total Drama aspects into the Pokémon franchise instead.

Ultimately, I chose the latter. This is mainly because I wanted the setting to be familiar to fans of either franchise, motivating newcomers to the genre to read, even if they may only be interested in one fandom. But in order to make such an idea to work, first I needed to find something very important; my island.

Despite what you may think, the pickings were actually quite slim.

The first thing people may point to are one of the many Alola islands. On the surface, this seems perfect; largely woodlands, surrounded by the sea, vibrant and varied wild population, plenty of room. But a major issue arose from that they're also very populated. In fact, that's an understatement; because of their inspiration being the Hawaiian islands, they're designed to appear as the closest thing the Pokémon world has to a tourist trap. And that doesn't work for a Camp Wawanakwa stand-in; not only are they not isolated enough, they're also just too comfortable.

A similar problem came with the Orange Islands; it has many of Alola's strengths, alongside being an anime-exclusive location, thus providing me room for creativity. But it also has a far, far more notable flaw...They're just really uninteresting. The Orange Islands, on look back, are perhaps the most obviously dull primary location of any Pokémon series for me, largely due to the fact it barely even feels unique. You'd be forgiven for thinking they were still just exploring Kanto sometimes. Not helping is it still has the major issues of being heavily populated and too adjusted to the modern world.

As a result, I realized I desperately wanted two things. One, the location should preferably be from a piece of spin-off material, as it'll give me room to explore something without a larger number of needless limitations. Two, I wanted it to be in a tropical setting, without coming across as overly populated or nice to live at.

Through this, I settled on two options. First, Pokémon Island from Pokémon Snap. It's confirmed to canonically only host wild Pokémon, is quite large, and hosts a large variety of different habitats. Second, Treasure Island. While far more obscure, it is considerably similar to canon Wawanakwa, being an abandoned island that used to have people but now has given into nature, before being chosen for the show.

It was a tough battle...But I ultimately settled on Treasure Island. And the reason for why comes down to the simple fact that, in my eyes at least, Pokémon Island is simply too expansive of a setting to cover. I wanted something simple for this season, and in my eyes, it has too much going on; its one thing to dedicate an entire episode to establish the setting. It's another thing all together to have to do that several times simply because of how the location works on a fundamental level. So, in the end, Treasure Island took home the gold for the setting.

Establishing the Status Quo

On the surface...Well this was fairly obvious. I knew from the start the episode would, by and large, run through the same motions as canon.

#1. Meeting the cast at the dock.

#2. Split into teams at the campfire.

#3. Head to camp. Get settled.

It was a simple structure and one I think worked. The main issue came in the fact that, regardless of how simple the structure may be, anything can seem simple in premise. It comes down to the execution that matters most. And in this case, I had to establish a rather large cast of major characters within two chapters, alongside introducing the setting I decided on, while firmly stating the planned status quo of the competition. And that isn't getting into the fact that I also need to firmly establish the rules of the competition in-universe.

That is quite the tall order for anybody to fill. Simply put, the original Total Drama writers must be given credit where it's due; they're far more talented than some people give them credit for, as they did all of what I explained above, in 22-minutes on the strict budget and schedule of a Canadian cartoon (they're infamous in the industry for being both rushed and difficult to work on due to mandates requiring far more from your average studio compared to every other country). They captured lightning in a bottle perfectly. And no matter how many of us have tried, I do truly believe no TPI writer has ever even come close to matching the energy the canon series has with its first episode. TDI on the whole is very special; doubly so when you truly get into the nuances it had under the surface.

What I'm saying is respect the show. It and its writers are smarter than you, or I, give them credit for.

Now, as I established, the formula is simple. And...Admittedly, I decided to just handle it simply. Of course, if I truly wanted, I could possibly have gone about handling the first episode in a more unique format. But in the end, I determined practicality was better; I'd rather have a boring first episode over one that was interesting but left story to be desired.

As a result, however, I do feel the first episode falls into that similar wave as every other story in simply being yet another first episode that does the exact same thing, beat for beat. As such, I did try to mix it up, if only a little.

Namely, establishing many of the island's locations in advance. Most people know this, but in the canon first episode, only the cabins, bathrooms, and the lodge were established. This is fine...For an episode on TV. For me, that left me with a lot of time to kill, so I decided to move up introductions to far earlier than in canon (the infirmary didn't debut until Paintball Deer Hunter, the boathouse in Basic Straining, and the tuck shoppe in The Sucky Outdoors, but offscreen).

Though, some may have noticed I excluded some notable locations from canon from that early introduction list; the stage, the arts and crafts center, and the "forest of terror" (...just the forest). Well, keep an eye out then, because there is a good chance you'll certainly see the rebooted version of those areas at some point or another.

Another thing I wanted to expand upon from canon is exactly who runs what around camp. Namely, in canon the only members of the staff we ever met were Chris and Chef, who fell respectively into the roles of "host" and "everything else" respectively. This works perfectly for a TV show, where that means you won't need to introduce as many characters in a small period of time, and it limits the number of voice actors you need to hire. The issue comes in that in a strange way limits how invested your reader can get in the dynamics outside the competition, which isn't a big deal for Total Drama...But is a big deal for TPReboot, as the staff are, in my eyes, just as important as the contestants themselves.

So, here, every member of the staff has a role in the story.

Bidoof is the host; he's the face of the series who acts as a mouthpiece for the competition, naturally acting as an antagonistic foil to them. His role in the story is to keep the plot moving, in a strange way acting as a sort of narrator or writer himself. He weaves the story and how it progresses; he is the dungeon master. The leader, or at least, he sees himself as that.

Corsola, meanwhile, is his assistant and co-host. While Bidoof handles much of the theatrics of hosting, Corsola handles the difficult aspects of it. She is largely how the show stays afloat, as shown by her knowledge of the campgrounds and connections with the rest of staff. If you pay attention, you'll notice Bidoof never interacts with anyone beyond base visualizations and dialogue. Meanwhile, Corsola actually tries to engage with others, albeit it awkwardly. She's the practical, smart member of the cast who ended up in the least respected position.

Machoke is the handy-man and jack of all trades, effectively filling Chef's role in canon as the guy in charge of getting things done that nobody else wants to do. In-universe he's probably the most important staff member, as without him, the campground would fall into chaos. Matching this, he's also the moral center, being an unabashed positive influence on everyone and everything around him. In a strange way, he's the heart of the crew; kind and virtuous, and also if you took him out, the island would probably go to Hell within days.

And lastly, Dragapult, the only character in the story created by yours truly, who acts as the camp's cook, and in another way, their muscle. Dragapult is hands down the strongest person on the island; the only one who might be able to take her is Aggron, who is a trained fighter. Dragapult just doesn't take anyone's bullshit. In a strange way she's almost the mediator of the story; she keeps it grounded and linear.

With this expansion, the staff now have the potential for depth the contestants do.

So yes, ultimately episode #1's tone and structure was near identical to canon Total Drama's. Where it differs is how I decided to expand upon it for the written format. Whether these changes were for better or worse, I'll leave up to you.

Establishing Importance

The final thing I felt was worth discussing is something I decided needed to be done with episode #1; establishing why you should care about the contestants.

From the start, I knew that every single member of the cast had to be distinct from one another. In how they talk. In how they emote. How they're introduced. How they interact with others. They had to be distinct from the get-go. Otherwise, why would anybody care? If half the cast blends together, or worse off, even just two of them do, then that means this is all for nothing.

As such, all eighteen campers had to be established as different. To ensure as much, the first chapter alone went through eight drafts compared to the four that chapter #2, and later chapters, went through. And in my opinion...I think I succeeded, at least on the front that everyone is at the bare minimum contrasting to one another. Sure, many fall into broad archetypes (the mean ones, the nice ones, the funny ones, you get the idea), but how they differ within those archetypes I still think is substantial enough to be of note.

With that said, I am aware of the screentime differences between much of the cast. Some characters clearly were favored in the second half of the episode over others, and a lot of that sort of comes back to that need to set a tone. Simply put, some characters like Braixen, Cranidos, Espeon, and Samurott just didn't as much to do as other members of the cast and largely fell into the background during all the set-up, which I take responsibility for. Ultimately while I tried to manage screentime to the best of my ability, it was simply fairly difficult to think of ways those could four could do much while I'm more establishing the setting than anything, while other, more emotional characters ended up falling into the limelight for the inverse reasons.

Rest assured, those not given special attention in episode #1 will certainly have their time to shine, especially as I did throw in a fair bit of foreshadowing for all of them to make up for it...

I want to get into this more...But unfortunately, that'd be diving into spoiler territory. If nothing else, I'm glad these chapters gave me a chance to genuinely get invested in, and grow used to writing, my new cast of characters. I genuinely believe each and every one of them to be special in one way or another, even if some may be quick to shrug a few off as little more than their labels. But hopefully you'll all eventually be able to see what I see in them.

In Conclusion...

Episode #1 was a learning experience for me. A chance to learn how to write properly. A chance to test myself and see if I can handle this sort of story. And a chance to establish a world that isn't just mine, but all of ours.

I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish with the episode on the whole...Flaws aside, of course. It's not a revolutionary product, and it wasn't really intended as such; for a "back to basics" story, we had a back to basics introduction. Perhaps it could have used another draft to iron out a few more things, but if I kept doing that this certainly never would have gotten done. In the end, I'm satisfied with the final product. And I appreciate all of the feedback I received on it upon release.

Episode #2 is in its final stages of development; expect the first chapter of that hopefully within the week.