Afterword

Just a full recap for all of you on every single Total Drama character who appeared in this story and their various statuses:

Main Villains (13): Ezekiel (returned to normal and incarcerated), Dakota (returned to normal and incarcerated), Izzy (dead), Lightning (dead), Alejandro (dead), Scott (dead), Duncan (dead), Courtney (dead), Sierra (dead), Mike (dead), Mal (also dead), Dawn (dead), Cameron (incarcerated), Beth (dead)

Allies (3): LeShawna (dead), Justin (dead), Harold (survived)

Supporting Allies (2): Josh (alive), Blaineley (alive), Noah (alive)

One-Time Villains (4): Psycho Killer (incarcerated), Heather (incarcerated), Staci (incarcerated), Gwen (really not a villain after all – dream sequence)

One-Time Non-Villains (5): Tyler (alive), Zoey (alive), Trent (alive), Cody (alive)

Final Summary: 10 characters dead, 6 incarcerated, 2 unknown, and the rest are perfectly fine, alive, and out of jail.

Plus, of course, Chris and Chef, a grand total of 30 characters, 25 of them being contestants. 10 of those 25 were new contestants (8 TDR characters and both TDWT newbies), and the remaining 15 were originals.

But wait! You may have actually taken the time to go back and THOROUGHLY count every single character listed, and it appears that I added one more to the total? BUT HOW CAN THAT BE? Easy. There was one more original character whose cameo was very brief and did not result in them later returning as either a villain or a main character. Here is my last trivia point/guessing game for all of you: Who was this character? Hint: It's a member of the original 22, and he/she appeared somewhere within the first 10 chapters. Also take a look at which category has a number that DOESN'T match the list of individuals.

The answer will be given in one week's time if no one answers correctly.

UPDATE: The correct answer is...DJ! That's right; did anyone else recognize the wimpy giant in Chapter 9: The Mole King? He's in the very beginning, before and during the attack scene on the zoo...and alongside his mother, too.

Man, I can't even count how many times I've said what I thought was my final goodbye (actually, it's been only three times –my Sly Cooper fic Operation: The Third Day, Total Drama World Tour: Second Season, and the second sequel to the aforementioned Sly Cooper story The World is Free), so at this point, I have two problems. 1: Finding a way to express what I've already adequately expressed three times before. And 2: Doing so in a manner that will convince you guys that I am finally telling the truth this time about leaving.

Truth be told, I honestly thought each one was the end. You see, in a nutshell, I knew that TDWT: SS was definitely the final installment of what has been my most successful (that is, most highly-reviewed) series here, the Second Season trilogy, so that had a great level of finality to it. Similarly, I considered Operation: The Third Day to be my single greatest magnum opus as far as stand-alone stories go. However, as that story did end on a note that could've either been final or open to continuation, and I had already written the two sequels to round out a trilogy years in advance, which I knew I simply couldn't throw away after all this time…

Thus, I did the next two stories in what become the ORNWOR trilogy, which, in terms of sheer quality, time devoted, and scale, was perhaps my true magnum opus as far as my trilogies go, although I consider all three of my trilogies – my Second Season trilogy for Total Drama, my ORNWOR trilogy for Sly Cooper, and my Zutara Angst trilogy for Avatar – all equally great in terms of quality and my personal appreciation of them, and for reasons as vastly different as the fandoms that each represent. And that's not even counting my few standalone stories, such as my two hypothetical survival/angst oneshots for Sly Cooper – An Arpeggio of Misery and LeFwee's Story – my Trent-centered oneshot What Happened?, and, of course, this. So, for brevity's sake, I'm not gonna choose a personal favorite out of any of these; I shall leave that up to you.

Although, as far as expectations go, I honestly didn't expect too much out of this story in particular. As I might have mentioned before, I suddenly started writing this story out of pure spontaneity after marathoning episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. It suddenly occurred to me that, as ludicrous as it might seem, this could actually work, 1: Because of the many fates suffered by certain characters that could subsequently be interpreted as supervillain origin stories, and 2: How the sheer preposterousness of some premises could actually pass in the universe of Total Drama, and thus pass the "lack of reality" test in this story as well.

At the same time, however, I realized that this particular story could serve an even greater purpose beyond basic parody. The way that some characters' deformities/mutations cause them to become evil could actually parody the way many of them meet unrealistic (and not to mention cruel and unusual) fates in the show. Ezekiel's feral nature, Dakota's mutation, Alejandro and Scott being placed in robotic apparatuses, Heather and Staci becoming bald, Sierra becoming crippled…the list goes on and on. This is perhaps the best way I could've possibly come out and just absolutely lambasted the original series for what has easily become its most obnoxious, most unpopular, and downright most infuriating tendency of "running gags:" Their tendency to mutate/maim/deform nearly half of their characters just for laughs. The best way to criticize this? Satire. Good old fashioned Swiftian satire. And with that in mind, I deliberately made the villains' various fates match those in the show, just so that their subsequent descents into madness and/or villainy could be all the more outrageous. And that's on top of my jabs at other clichés of the original series, including that God-awful Love Triangle. So, in a nutshell, think of this as my most symbolic middle finger to the show for all of the worst clichés that they have, continue to, and perhaps always will, shove down our throats.

And, even with the core purpose of the story being developed after it had already started, on top of the already spontaneous nature under which this story was created, this story STILL wound up an incredible success. It surpassed TDWT: SS in reviews, becoming my third-highest-reviewed story EVER (behind TDI: SS and TDA: SS); surpassed You Reap What You Sow to become my second most-favorited story ever, with 22 (behind TDI: SS and Half a Face?, with 23 each); and also set a brand new record: The highest amount of follows of any story I've ever written, with 20 (the only one that even comes close is TDWT: SS, with 15). So even something I belt out at complete random is still gonna be well-received by you guys…and that just truly goes to prove what an awesome and loyal fanbase you guys are. I've said this before, but I NEVER, EVER could've made it this far without each and every single one of you.

And I guess that's pretty much it.

I've said enough dramatic, cliché-sounding goodbyes, so instead…how about just my usual farewell?

Until next time!