Well, this is probably a surprise, huh? Yeah, it is for me too, especially after the whole sappy Power Peak finale.
I'm tired of sending in Karon characters to SYOCs and going "yeah, season 1 kinda stank, so look elsewhere for examples". So, this is a proper rewrite of season 1 of the Karon series. A lot will be the same, but I will change a couple of things that I retconned in future seasons to already be retconned from the start (if you know, you know).
Luckily, I do not plan on spoiling anything in notes! You can treat this as your intro to the Karon Series if you would like! First time readers and reviewers are very welcome, and once this is done, you won't have to wait for uploads since the other four seasons are there!
Overall, eliminations most plots will be the same to not drive too much plot out the window. Most of it can't change due to future season's events. This is meant to be a rewrite, not a new timeline. But, that means if you're a first time reader, you can start with this one and read through with it! The other four seasons are done and I do not plan on rewriting them, but any author's notes will always reference the original still.
Finally, timeline: This plans to be a smaller word count than Power Peak without a doubt, and maybe even Cultivated Will or Fiery Passion. While I am much busier than before, by the time you are reading this note, hopefully most of the story is done already and chapters need editing only. I will plan on weekly uploads that will either slow down once I catch up or get a bit quicker once I'm done all of it.
This season will be structured closer to it's original/FP/CW rather than Power Peak: confessionals, intros, the whole shebang. I really enjoyed Power Peak's narrative intensity, but that is not what Karon Island was about.
Alright, enough babbling, let's get this thing done.
Episode 1: Finally, a Natural Island, Part I
The camera opened up to a large circular island. From the wide view of it, there was nothing notably hideous. A set of cabins could be seen to the east, with a beach and rocky cliff. To the west, a ravine that spanned the majority of that side of the island. In the middle, a large mountain with several tunnel entrances at the base of it. Other than that, this place finally looked to be...normal.
Standing at the dock at the front, a familiar face to all. Chris McLean stood there with a big grin on his face, ready to make this next season a giant hit. "Are we ready?" he asked, bouncing off his feet with great anticipation. Once he was cleared, he began starting to rewrite history, in a sense. "Well, well, well. Are you surprised to see me? I sure hope not, because we're coming at you live with a brand new season!"
Chris began pacing the dock as he continued his season introduction. "Last time, in our previous season, our resident zombie nut, Shawn, took home the million on our mechanical island! Pretty spooky! But, our last cast was a bit...quirky for what the public wanted it seems. So, we shut off the power switch, and we're here now...welcome to Karon Island, a remote island in the middle of nowhere!"
The host continued walking off the dock entirely, moving to another section of the island. "We have many new locations to show off here, but we'll get to them when we get there, I'd rather keep them a surprise." He gave a laugh, unable to contain his excitement. "As usual, two teams are going to compete for immunity, and eventually every camper will fend for themselves at the merge."
The camera swapped up to the highest point on the mountain. Chris was waiting there again. "Here, contestants will vote off their allies and enemies, at the highest point of Mount Karon." He stepped to the side of the peak, where a giant spring contraption was sitting. Chris held up a remote. "Upon being voted off, you'll be sent away using The Launch of Shame!" He pressed the remote, and the platform that was in the ground sprang up and flew upward at a fast speed. "Yeah, that'll clear you at least a mile from this place."
Chris sighed after taking a breath of the fresh air. "It's nice being somewhere not as metallic. Anyway, are you ready to meet our contestants? They'll be here any second, so you better get your butts in gear for the greatest season yet...Total...Drama...Karon Island!"
Intro to appear next episode
Out on a boat far away, the first five of the contestants are making their way over. The first one to be seen is overlooking the edge of the railing with excitement in her eyes. "Wow, I can't believe I'm finally competing!" she cheered. The girl had a yellow sleeveless top, denim shorts, and what appeared to be a dark blue swimsuit underneath all of it, with goggles wrapped around her wrist. Her hair was straight and red, falling to shoulder length.
"Don't get too excited," someone called out as he walked out to the deck as well. "You're in just as much danger as all of us." The boy sourly looked at the girl with his dark black eyes. He had brown hair and wore bright red basketball shorts that contrasted to his dark purple shirt. "You know this show revolves around pain, I'm shocked to see you so happy."
The girl didn't take an appreciation to his sour attitude, and tried to counter it. "Well, in any case, I'm Sarah, nice to meet you!" Sarah extended a hand out to the boy, hoping he would accept it. "I'm a swimmer, and by the looks of it, you seem to be pretty athletic too. We should do some sports competitions together!"
The boy scoffed. "Paul," he said bluntly, eventually shaking Sarah's hand reluctantly. Paul then began walking away. "I don't get why you're being so cheerful. Odds are we'll be on different teams, and then you'll probably end up losing to something unrelated. Odds we get to actually fight are drastically low. You understand that, right?"
"Heh, how comical," someone remarked cynically as they walked out to the deck as well. "Already some fighting and there's only five of us on this boat." The boy had on a green polo shirt with cargo shorts, and had messy light brown hair. "By the way, stay away from the other two here. I met them already and they're...interesting to say the least." He shook his head with annoyance. "Oh, I'm Norm, before you ask."
Sarah laughed at Norm's comment, seeming to find it funny. "Well, that's probably just because we haven't met them yet. I'm sure they can't be that bad!" She made her way to the entrance to the deck and opened the door to go inside the boat. As soon as the door opened, loud and obnoxious screaming could be heard. "Is that one of them?" Norm nodded with a heavy sigh. Sarah grimaced a bit. "I'm...sure it'll be okay."
In the main room inside the boat, there were two more boys. The first one, the source of the scream, was bouncing up and down off the walls. He was absurdly tall, and wore a neon yellow tank top with very contrasting short red shorts. He had short blonde hair. "Woooah!" the boy exclaimed. "Check it! Another broski is entering the building!" He gestured to Sarah. "You wanna get in on this? I'm tryna float from end to end with pure energy!" He stopped running in circles, putting out his hand for just a second. "I'm Chad, brah."
"And you're hardly speaking in English, and it definitely ceases to be proper at any instance!" The other boy was sitting in the one booth in the room, munching on chicken nuggets, very meticulously dipping it in the sauce next to it. "I'm capable of tasting this immensely delicious sauce," he muttered to himself. He watched as Sarah shook Chad's hand nervously. "For the sake of introductions, you may refer to me as Sheldon. Goodbye." He turned away to return to eating his meal, hunched away in the seat.
Sarah took another glance at the small boy. He had a red sweater vest and khaki pants. His black bowl cut seemed to match exactly the way he spoke, as did his glasses. "I wonder if anyone on the other boats isn't as sarcastic or...different as the people here," she said to herself, glancing out the window as if to try and look at the boat next to her.
On the second boat, a girl was turning green at the front of the boat. She wore a blue tank top, jeans, and had long brown hair. "Ugh, this ocean is really pissing me off," she claimed bitterly, eventually stepping away. "I hate being seasick." As she turned back, she noticed another girl at the top of the boat. "Well, that one certainly looks like a piece of work."
The girl atop of the boat was snapping pictures on her phone, in awe of everything she was seeing. "Oh this is wonderful! I can totally post these on seven different sites before anything gets confiscated!" The girl wore a grey long sleeved shirt with a black vest jacket over it, with black leggings. She had long blonde hair that was flowing in the wind as she snapped some more pictures.
"Hey! You!" The first girl yelled. "You should get down here before something kills you. Of course, it isn't my problem if it does!" She snickered. "Could be nice..." Almost on cue, a bird crashed right into the picture girl, knocking her off the top of the boat, and almost sent her right to the deck to crash. "Oh, wow, talk about clumsy," the first girl complained.
In an instant, a girl appeared out of nowhere, caught the picture girl, and safely landed on the deck. "You should be safe now," the girl politely assured her. "...Hannah, was it?" Shocked the appearing girl knew her name, Hannah nodded silently. The appearing girl had a light blue sweater with a white skirt, and oddly bright green eyes. She turned to the first girl. "And you must be Angie. I take it you prefer that over Angela."
Angie backed off nervously. "You better start speaking on how you did that real quick or I'm gonna be hostile with you from the start, and neither of us want that." She eyed up the appearing girl. "You better start talking real quick about how you just did that teleporting thing, as well as how you knew our names." She kept her glare. "C'mon, do it."
The girl giggled lightly. "Oh, how rude of me. I'm Luna. I'm a psychic, so I possess the ability to teleport small distances and detect things that are easy to deduce, like names for example." She paused. "There are two more of us on this boat. I suggest we only look for one. I doubt the other plans on making themselves present." Angie and Hannah both looked unnerved by Luna's presence, and made their way into the inside of the boat.
The inside room had a boy pacing around it with an intense look on his face. He had a red T-shirt on and black shorts, and was evidently searching for something. Once Angie and Hannah went inside, he ran over to them. "Hi, sorry, I don't know your names, but have you seen Madison? I introduced myself to her and she ran off." He sighed. "Shame, I was hoping to get to know her better."
"Something tells me you may have scared her off," Luna claimed from the doorway. Everyone turned to find the girl standing behind them all. "But, she is in this room. After all, the only exit from this room is the very doorway that I'm under." She giggled again. "Jonathan, why don't you check outside anyway?" Jonathan was instantly creeped out by the psychic and ran out. "You may come out," Luna called out into the room. "I'm sure it's okay."
As Luna shut the door behind Jonathan and locked him out, Madison finally emerged from under the booth seats. She was short and had a large dark green hoodie on and black sweatpants. Under her hood she had straight blonde hair in a ponytail, but it was covered up at the time with her hood, which was also covering a lot of her face. "Th...thank..." she started in a nervous wreck, but instead gave up, and started to just sit at the booth in silence as was everyone else.
On boat number three, the door to the inner room flew open with an annoyed boy at the front of the doorway. "Ugh, out there is awful, you can hear this one guy screaming from two boats away..." This boy had short fiery red hair, a dark blue shirt with black athletic shorts. He noticed the two boys sitting at the both. "You two look relatively normal, mind if I join?"
"No problem," the one boy said with a smile. He was merely wearing a grey shirt and black sweat pants, with very average looking brown hair, almost like he was blending in with all surroundings. "I'm Daniel, and this is Juan." The second boy waved, saying something in Spanish. "Dude speaks no English I think, which is pretty cool. I wish I could speak a second language."
"Huh," the first boy said with a small nod. He looked over to Juan, who was nicely dressed with a light blue button down and black pants. "Well, I'm Ethan. I'm the youngest of like, seven, so I'm here to test my mettle and compete like no one has before. Kinda hoping whoever was screaming out at that other boat goes early, even if I have to do it."
Daniel chuckled, a bit more nervously now. "Woah, you can strategize? That's cool, I wish that was something I could do." Juan merely raised an eyebrow at Ethan's comment. "Anyway, should we all go meet the other two? I think they've been outside the whole time on the deck." He shrugged. "I mean, it could be fun."
Ethan groaned. "I'll probably have to hear that screaming again, but I guess making some potential allies could give me an edge over everyone." He paused for a second and laughed. "Wow, not even there yet and I'm already planning to make eliminations happen. I gotta cool it." With a sigh to calm himself down a bit, he got up to follow Daniel and Juan, who were already out there.
Sure enough, the screaming was already very on its way as the three emerged to the deck of the ship. "Wow, new friends!" a girl shouted, waving frantically to them. She had dark black hair that was put into pigtails, and wore a black shirt and skirt that were somehow two different shades. "I'm Gretchen, nice to meet you!" She stuck out her hand, but tripped over herself and fell on the ground instantly.
All three boys winced as she hit the deck with a thud, and noticed their fifth member taking a long nap at the edge of the boat, the wind flowing in her perfectly straight blonde hair. She was wearing a black sleeveless top and tight jeans, and seemed to be unfazed by all of the noise happening out there. "Hi, Gretchen," Daniel tried to greet the klutz politely. "Do you know who that is?"
"Alexa..." Gretchen said mysteriously. "Isn't she gorgeous? She's also been asleep the whole time, only said 'hi' to me once and then passed out. We're super close." The three boys all looked at each other, really surprised by this girl's deluded thoughts. Gretchen ran over to the edge near Alexa, tripping over her before getting back up and looking over the railing. Alexa didn't react at all. "Look! The island is in sight now!" Ethan raised an eyebrow at that notion and began inspecting it, as did Juan.
On the fourth boat, two identical girls were sitting inside. One of them was methodically fiddling with some sort of telescope in her hand, before checking out the window. "We're nearing the island, Kayla," she said to the girl next to her. Kayla had on a blue top with white leggings, and the first girl had a pink top with black leggings, both having the same facial features and brown wavy hair.
"Kara, don't bore me with that," Kayla complained back. She was bouncing up and down in her seat with anticipation. "A million dollars waits for me over there, you know that, right?" She laughed to herself, still eager to do something. "I'm gonna go look for someone else," she said while standing up. "Someone I can mess with."
Kara watched carefully as Kayla threw open the door to the deck. "Hey, there's one!" someone called from above her. Sitting at the top of the boat was a boy with long brown hair that went to his shoulders, some of it covered by a beanie. He had a grey puffy jacket, camo pants, and an orange shirt. "Name's Randall. Over there is Flora."
Flora was at the edge of the deck, waving gently at the two of them. She had a green sweater with white leggings, and wore a lily in her blonde hair. "It's so nice to meet you!" she said cheerfully. "My name is Flora Saphoreilla, Hopefully the two of us will get along really well!" She shook hands with Kayla, who was upset at how nice this person was being to her.
"That leaves...one more person on this boat still, right?" Kayla said suspiciously. "I only counted four since Kara's inside." Suddenly, things took a turn for much, much worse. As they moved, their boat seemed to have hit a rock, crashing the boat and launching everyone inside out of it, the boat too. They all flew through the air, all now rapidly approaching the island. "Well, guess I'm gonna die now," Kayla griped.
The boat went flying past the dock of the island, but the other four were all caught by their final boat member, holding Kara and Kayla in one hand while holding Randall and Flora in the other. He put them all down and clapped off his hands like lifting four people was nothing to him. "Woah..." Randall said in awe, "thanks for catching all of us!"
The final person wore grey sweatpants and a tight black muscle shirt that proved his strength for sure. He had short buzzed hair. "All safe," he said in a deep and slow voice. "You all go dock now." As they all swam, he finally introduced himself to them. "Me Helio." The other four were grateful for the boy's help, but still terrified at what he might have to offer now.
Helio properly got everyone out of the water and onto the dock, where the other fifteen contestants were already waiting with Chris and Chef as well. "Glad to see our final boat could make it..." Chris said with a grimace, "although, not the boat exactly, only the people on it...shame." He laughed to himself. "Anyway, welcome all of you to Karon Island. You've never seen this place before so let's take a tour!"
Everybody began moving, but Jonathan specifically began darting his head around again. "Where did she go?" he asked himself quietly. He slowly walked in the back to try and locate someone, but his attention was instead gotten by someone else instead, waiting with a slightly annoyed look on their face. "What?" he asked defensively.
"Uh...nothing," Angie shot back. "Just wanted to make sure you didn't have your head in the clouds yet. Get moving, you look like a stranded kitten." She promptly turned around and ran up to join everyone else, shaking her head in disbelief. Jonathan made a huff to himself before also following along, not caring for the hothead's attitude.
The first stop the group made was the dining tent, where Chef took his stance in front of everyone. "Listen up! I'm here to cook and occasionally made your life tougher! Don't get in my way, I'll think about not gettin' in yours." Everyone seemed pretty agreeable to that. "I'll see you at dinner tonight, don't be late..." his menacing glare seemed to be scaring some people in the group.
Next, the group left the dining tent and went all the way to the top of Mount Karon, where they encountered a fire circle with ten seats, five in each row. Most contestants, except for Helio, Paul, and Randall, looked beat after the hike. "This is where you'll all vote each other off and test your fate," Chris told them. "We'll be doing some interesting things with the game this time around, most notably, the fact that there will not be any returns this time around. Once you're done, you're done."
A lot of gasps came around, scared that there would be no second chance. "Next, a bit of fun to ease your worries. There are not one, but two idols hidden around the island." A bunch of people looked interested at that. "First, your standard immunity idol. Find it, and all votes against you are gone. This time, there's something a bit scarier here."
Chris held up a different statue, not of his head, but with the Total Drama logo carved out. "This is the sole-vote idol. You can eliminate anyone on your team or in the merge if you play this thing, and that's the only vote that counts for the night, so you better use it wisely." This got the most attention. "I can tell everyone's very excited. We have one final new gameplay adjustment, so follow me to the beach."
Once everyone made the giant trek from the top of Mount Karon to the beach, Chris pointed behind the group. "Finally, the confessional. Free to use and vent, but it will also have a special surprise. After each elimination, your voting confessional will be public. Careful what you say." Everyone took a really long look at the confessional, shocked to hear that idea.
Other people were not as thrilled with the final piece of gameplay that Chris had been hyping up. "So...what's the point?" Paul said with a scoff. "I mean, the vote already happened and it'll be pretty clear who voted for who anyway. Why spoon-feed us useless information like that?" He had a disdained look on his face as he complained.
Chris shrugged. "Eh, you're not obligated to check, I just thought it'd be fun." He picked up a walkie-talkie. "Start making your way over," he told the person on the other line. "While we wait for the start of our first challenge, the confessional is open, and everyone is free to complain as they want. These are not public since they're not the voting ones." Instantly, Hannah was the first to push everyone out of the way and start talking.
Hannah: "I'm prepared to keep up with every social media account I run throughout my time here," she boasted. "Constant pictures and bringing in thirty phones to fight back confiscations is what I do best. It pays to be popular, and I mean that. I mean, how else am I gonna afford thirty phones?"
Kayla: "This group is a joke," she said with an arrogant smirk. "Obviously some people to watch out for...that beast, Helio, for example. But, that kid with the bowl cut who looks like a pencil? Easy launchpad fodder. I'm the only one who can perfect an aggressive strategy, just you wait."
Norm: "Tensions are way higher already than they should be on day one. I watched the girl with the blue top shoot a death glare at that tall guy." He shrugged. "Not great with everyone's name yet. My plan is to lay low for now and keep it that way, maybe make an alliance or two. Whatever."
Sheldon: "The majority of people in this confessional will claim victory is assured for them. Preposterous. I outclass their brainpower combined, and I'll make sure they all don't underestimate me."
Ethan: "Well, this is a real splendid group," he said with a sigh. "Certainly a lot of people I'd love to have on a team, so we can keep winning." He had a nervous look on his face. "I don't really wanna know what happens if my team loses."
Madison: She sat in silence for a while, looking around. "I...I guess this place is comfy, I can talk here." She sighed. "Everyone here is very scary, and there's nothing I hate more than meeting new people. Jonathan really gives me the creeps too. Hopefully we're not on the same team..."
As Madison left the confessional, she caught Jonathan looking her way. Madison quickly grabbed the first person she found, Sarah, and hid behind her. Sarah quickly put together what was happening and let her cling on like a small animal. Chris saw they were all ready, and now, there was a hot air balloon flying over him with Chef inside. "Let's get ready to pick teams!" he announced cheerfully.
Chef lowered a rope, and Chris grabbed on as the cook lifted the host into the balloon with him. "Can you all get in the middle below us for a sec?" Not knowing any better, everyone crowded around the ground directly below the balloon. Chris laughed maniacally for a second. "Well, now it's time to split you into teams, and it'll be done randomly. Heads up! Fresh explosives!"
At that sound, panic began to consume the cast. As the sticks of dynamite fell from the sky, the groups began to leave the middle. Ten of the people ran to the left, while another nine ran to the right. Standing in the middle was a very disbelieving Sheldon. "Please, real explosives would be a detriment to us, his source of income for the next- AAAAAHHHH!"
Sheldon was launched over to the right after the first explosive went off, launching him into the sky screaming, all before crashing down in front of the others who went that way. "Wow!" Chris said with a prideful grin. "I didn't think you'd all do it, but you made a perfect split! Nice work!" He clapped for the now agitated and scared cast. "Well, these are the new teams now."
Everyone on the left acknowledged each other. That team consisted of Angie, Chad, Ethan, Gretchen, Hannah, Jonathan, Juan, Madison, Norm, and Sarah. "You all will be the Happy Hens!" Chris told them, sending them a poster with a yellow rooster, which landed in Norm's arms. Madison looked relieved to have Sarah, while Angie didn't care at all for her team. Ethan and Norm exchanged an odd glance with each other.
To the right, the same thing was happening. That team consisted of Alexa, Daniel, Flora, Helio, Kara, Kayla, Luna, Paul, Randall and Sheldon. "And for our team with a small flying child, you will be the Bouncing Bunnies!" A poster of a blue rabbit was tossed over to Helio, which hit his head and hit the ground without him even noticing. Kayla and Paul both grinned at seeing Helio with them, but Kayla's face switched to disgust when she saw Sheldon there too.
Once the dust settled on who was with who, the real issue of team names was finally reaching the minds of some people. "I don't wanna sound skeptical," Kara suggested, "but we totally almost got blown up and then gave us the cutest team names ever. What's the reason there?" Kara was the first to actually bring that thought up.
Chris laughed. "Eh, I thought it was funny. Some of you are also real downers and could use some cheering up, right, Paul?" Paul merely scoffed at Chris's jab at him, ignoring it. "Well, I guess you better be content with your team, because like I said, this is set in stone, and we literally can't change it, so these are your best friends until we merge!"
Paul: The pessimist groaned loudly as he leaned his head against the side of the confessional. "How long until we merge?" he asked with desperation in his voice.
Gretchen: "I got such an awesome team!" she said with excitement in her eyes. "We got my friends Juan and Ethan from the boat ride, and we got some other really cool players, like Angie!" She sighed. "Wish we got Alexa though, but I trust my team to get us all the wins!" She pumped her fist in the air, but it smacked the wall instead. "Ow..."
Now that everything was set up, Chris came down from his balloon, with Chef flying off. "Well, with all that set up, it's time to see who prevails and who fails in our first challenge! Who will fly and who will flop? Who will reach the finish line and who will reach the end of the line? We'll see how everyone does in our first challenge next time on Total! Drama! Karon Island!"
Alright, let's talk about the changes. Without much to talk about with plot, this will be the key differences down here now.
- First of all, I updated all outfits to match Fiery Passion/Power Peak looks. Overall they're more diverse since I've had actual years to craft these kids to my image of what I wanted them to look like.
- Next, the intro. Instead of 20 boats of 1, I did 4 boats of 5, which allows for more early interactions, and some of the big hostilities that appeared early (Chad vs the world, Luna and Paul) don't exist, with new ones in place to help new plot lines. Obviously big ones like Jonathan and Madison are here, but you'll notice large aspects of that aren't in play yet.
- A lot of characters will be more unique to who they are this time. As you've probably noticed so far, Paul is fitting more into his pessimist role, Angie is actually getting angry at stuff, overall things to freshen up the cast and make them more unique.
- I'll quickly address Juan. For those of us who know Juan, I am setting this up to more easily transfer into Submerged Juan. For those who do not, there's not much to know.
- The biggest change in the two-part first episode will be the elimination. It'll be the same, but how it comes about will change severely, and make the people running the game this season have more realistic methods instead of *spoiler* "I convinced everyone right before they voted". Eh, you'll see it next time.
What did you think of this version? I think despite how much shorter it is than my later seasons it makes the original Karon shudder in its boots. I'm always open to feedback and would love to hear what you guys have to think about it, so please leave a review letting me know! I'll see you next time!