Author's Note:

What's up? If you're a returning reader, welcome back. If you're new here, you're probably gonna be pretty confused. This story follows lore established in Total Drama Island, Action, and Revenge of the Island, but in my series of events, OG World Tour is not canon, and instead it goes

S1 - Island

S2 - Action

S3 - Revenge of the Island

S4 - World Tour (my first story)

S5 - All Stars (my second story)

(SPOILERS INBOUND FOR THESE ^ FIVE SEASONS)

So if you haven't read Journey of My Life 1 or 2, I honestly can't recommend reading this story, as there's just gonna be too much that won't make sense to you. Do whatever you wanna do though, you have my blessing.

-As was the case with my previous story, this one features violence and sexual content

-This story sort of pivots between an overarching A and B plot. Hopefully this doesn't create flow or pace issues, but I wanted to address that here in case

-There's a few returning Journey of My Life 1 OCs in the B plot, which we'll start with in the prologue here, and a bunch in the new season (A plot)

-Regarding Mike, I ran with Total Drama's flawed/cartoonized idea of how the DID subconscious works. I understand that you don't actually have tea and crumpets with your alters in your mind, I just wanted to expand on the fictional portrayal that the Total Drama writers laid out, in a sense. I've also peppered in some realistic DID bits as well

With that out of the way, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

Rome's POV

I could hardly believe it.

It felt like forever now since I first sold my soul to Chris McLean and began the journey of my life as a contestant on his show, Total Drama. Now, the series was over, never to torment unsuspecting-or suspecting-teenagers ever again. I had a feeling of relief that it was over, yet at the same time a feeling of longing. Without the show, what was I to do with myself?

Luckily, after that point I realized I had an entire life and set of ambitions ahead of me. I longed to become any of several things: an author, an actor, TV series creator, possibly a music producer. All seemed promising to me. Hell, maybe I'd even pursue becoming a tattoo artist. Other than that, I had a great group of friends and an amazing girlfriend. Life without Total Drama was going pretty great, aside from occasional fans babbling out their words of praise-and on worse occasions, their criticism, shall we say-whenever they saw me and my fellow former TV stars out and about.

Speaking of my fellow former TV stars, I was spending an afternoon and soon to be evening with my best friends from Total Drama World Tour, Masi and Shay. Alongside them, we had Total Drama All Stars contestants, Mike and Zoey, plus my girlfriend, Kali. It was a long flight for me and Kali to travel to Canada to see the others, but it had been well worth it so far. I knew it was gonna be a good time from the moment Masi and Shay reacted positively to my new hair; I'd had it cut shorter and bleached blond in front.

Eventually, the rest of us castmates that had been a part of Total Drama's run, the many, many of us that were a part of that cast, were compensated for our participation. Nowhere near the million dollars that the previous winners earned each, but closer to $5,000.

Thankfully, the network heads and producers were much more generous than old McLean, especially due to the unexpected turn of events of the final season. Nearly having one of your contestants kill another one several times brings out that kind of charitable response, I suppose.

Anyway, I thought my time telling momentous stories was over, but here we are, right?

Journey of My Life numero tres.

You might just be wondering what sort of story I could have left in me to tell. Let me first assure you that this won't be some celebrity autobiography hogwash, chronicling the feelings associated with fame. No, nothing of that sort. Instead, relaxing into my new status of a "celebrity" wasn't quite something I could attain just yet.

There was one more obstacle to undertake before my life could return to normal-as normal as life can get for someone like myself.

We're going on one more adventure before we put this phase of my life to rest.

Let's start with where it all started. Or began. Whichever word makes the sentence sound cooler. You know, after the other two stories started and ended. It was like any other early morning; a morning so early in fact that I wondered what I was doing hanging out with people instead of my bed. The park we loitered around was grassy, split into a square with sidewalks that chopped that square into triangles. In the center of this Canadian park, there was a large, stone water fountain that spurted out a steady stream of water from its tip. Obligatory giggity. Mike, Zoey, Shay, Masi, Kali, and I sat around on a stone ring around the fountain.

"So, Zoey, what'd you spend your money on?" I wondered.

"Well," she glanced over and smiled at her boyfriend, "I went ahead and split the money with Mike to begin with."

Her boyfriend scoffed lightheartedly. "More like me and all my alters. Of course they jumped on the thought of spending half a million dollars."

"That's gotta bite a little bit," Masi commented.

"Eh, it's not so bad once you get used to it. They don't really come out so much anymore anyway. Seems like it's less and less each month. So long as I'm free of Mal, I've got no problem with sharing my body every so often-and my finances."

At the mention of Mal, I couldn't help but cringe. I tried to shake the feeling off as best I could, but the thought of spending so much time with his terrible alter, thinking it was Mike, made me uncomfortable all the way down to my core. Mal had accomplished so much evil, not to mention being the reason I lost in the final five last year. He turned out even worse than Axel: he who shall not be spoken of. It was incredibly relieving to live life free of both of those maniacs. I won't lie though, the first few days of being around Mike and Zoey again, my heart sank almost every second I saw Mike's face. Even now, I had to swallow down some less than groovy thoughts...

Despite the entire Mal experience, I was super proud of Zoey and Mike for being able to work through everything. They deserved a relationship without hardship, and in the end, it seemed like All Stars' ending had cured the two of the Mal-induced issues they'd struggled with.

"You are still free of Mal, right?" Kali asked timidly.

"Oh, yes, I am," Mike replied. "But it's a bit of a complex situation. See, I had some really extensive therapy after All Stars ended." Jubilantly, he held Zoey's hand in his. "Zoey paid for every penny. Through the whole experience, Mal ended up doing what's called 'going dormant'."

"What does that entail?" Shay wondered.

"Well, it's something that alters can do sometimes. Believe it or not, alters can merge together, too. I think the reason why Mal went dormant was because my therapist determined that whatever purpose he was trying to fulfill, whether he knew it or not, was fulfilled. I feel stronger than ever, and I truly stopped needing him."

"Right on, homeboy," Masi responded warmly.

"You can't truly believe you ever needed him?" Kali questioned.

"I understand what you mean, but I think on some really strange level I did need him. I didn't need him to do everything he did to get me to this point, but in an even stranger way, he did help me. Somehow."

"Very interesting."

"Fascinating!" Shay burst, her eyes lighting up. "What else can you say about it?"

"Mal feels very far away. By the definition of the word dormant, it just means temporarily inactive. The thing is that Mal feels very far away, like, I can't really emphasize that feeling enough. It feels like he's gone, but I can't really know for sure. I wasn't sure he could ever leave, but sure enough, I have an overwhelming feeling of having only four alters instead of five. Regardless of what's happened to Mal, I couldn't be happier that he's not here, even if it meant going through all the therapy with Zoey so we could see each other the same as we did before him. Anyway, continue, babe? What else did you spend your half on?"

Zoey smiled at him and resumed. "Spending time with Carol last year inspired me to take the time to spend money on charities. In fact, she's even started one that targets multiple issues that I put a lot of money into."

"That's so wholesome!" Shay peeped.

"What's Carol doing nowadays?" I asked.

"She's a major superstar now," Kali answered. "I feel like there's nothing she isn't excelling at."

"She even does cereal commercials," Masi threw in. "She'll come onscreen in this Rick Sanchez-looking lab coat, then say some shit like, 'Kellog's: advance your intellect.' Living the dream, that girl."

"Other than that," Zoey continued, "I've spent my half on lots of clothes. Lots of cloth and material, too. In case you guys didn't know, I make my own clothes."

"Isn't that quaint?" Masi replied with a smile.

"Seriously, though," Kali commented with a chuckle, "I wouldn't be surprised if Carol's net worth and fame has surpassed Chris' by now."

"That shouldn't be too difficult, seeing as he's in jail now," Mike responded.

"Seriously?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yep."

"Serves him right," Shay muttered.

"You know, gang," I gathered their attention, a thought entering my mind. "There's one thing I can think of that would make this hang-out even more spectacular."

"What's that, baby?" Kali wondered.

"My good friend from my hometown, Orion. I know Kali knows him, but I bet the rest of you would like him. He sort of reminds me of you, Masi."

"Do you mean Orion Harris?" Shay assumed.

I recoiled in surprise. "H-how do you know his name?"

"I saw him on TV. He auditioned for Total Drama, but I don't think he got cast."

The casualness of Shay's response had me stunned. "Tota- but wait, we just said that Chris is in jail. All Stars was the last season, too. How could that be? Don't tell me they're going Walking Dead on that shit and making spinoffs no one asked for."

"Bro, you seriously don't know?" Masi asked me, legitimately surprised by my bafflement.

"I know about as much about that as a toddler knows about how to operate an airplane."

Kali laughed. "Cute."

"Total Drama got renewed for a final season," Mike explained. "An actual final season this time. There's a new host, a new chef, a mostly new cast, new location, new everything."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "W-were any of you asked to compete?"

"Masi was," Kali answered.

"I said no because I'm over competing in reality shows. They make my asshole itch-not at all in the fun, fresh new prison inmate way."

I nodded. "Yeah, I'd say the same."

"Plus, five grand compensation for Chris being Chris, plus five-hundred grand from my beautiful girlfriend here is certainly enough for me."

"So, Orion's on Total Drama now?"

"No, like I said, I don't think he was cast," Shay reiterated.

I scoffed. "Damn. Mind blown. I can't believe that bugger didn't tell me he was auditioning."

"I was thinking we could all go back to my house and watch the first episode tonight," Zoey suggested.

"Sounds great. What's the new season called?"