Fanfic / For Want of a Mohawk

Cover Art by Kika Ila

For Want of a Mohawk is a Total Drama Island For Want Of A Nail fanfiction written by CeruleanSeaScorpion.

The nail that changes the story, as one might guess from the title, occurs during "Dodgebrawl", in which Duncan refuses to wake up, resulting in the Killer Bass losing their third challenge in a row and the punk's elimination. As a result of this single change, the first season of Total Drama now goes through unexpected twists and changes that will drastically change the contestants' relationships with each other as you know them.

The further the fanfic progresses the farther it deviates from the original story, with the plot of some later episodes being virtually unrecognizable next to the source material. Challenges are often simplified and the rules made more clear, and much of the cartoon humor and wacky antics are toned down or cut outright in favor of a more serious and realistic tone. The characters make up the backbone of the story, with each of them getting far more backstory and depth than their original counterparts. The net result of all this is a fanfic which feels like a behind-the-scenes character study of the contestants than watching an animated reality TV show.

The story updates weekly and can be found on both Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own.

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• Adaptation Alternate Ending: Instead of the million dollar hunt taking place, all of the contestants refuse and Courtney pulls some of her lawyer skills when Chris protests. This effectively means TDA and TDWT never take place at all in this universe.

This fanfic contains the following tropes:

• Adaptation Expansion: Chapter 12 is an original chapter detailing the winning team's spa trip following the eating challenge. In canon, this trip took place entirely offscreen.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In canon, Noah had very little interactions with Katie and Sadie, and what interactions he did have indicated that he viewed them as no different than Lindsay or Sierra. Here, due to the duo continuing to impress him with their Hidden Depths, he ends up viewing them as much his friends as Owen is and eventually gets a Relationship Upgrade with Katie as well.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At the end of the castaway challenge Chis has this to say when once again removing Izzy from the island:
  Chris: Izzy! Get off my island! Eliminated, means eliminated! Not, sneak out of the resort and squat on a nature reserve, stealing all the matches I use to light the grill. And put a shirt on, you're scaring away the family friendly advertisers!
• Bait-and-Switch: When the eliminated campers are told they're voting out the next camper in the "look in on the losers" episode, Katie and Sadie immediately waste their votes on Beth due to a faux pas, leading the reader to believe it will end up being a repeat of the same wasted votes that ended up screwing Leshawna over in the canon vote. Instead, Trent, immediately realizing how the vote works, gives a Rousing Speech to his fellow eliminatees to convince them to vote out Heather instead.
• Brick Joke: In the boot camp challenge, Geoff says that he's voting out Harold because he keeps leaving his dirty laundry all over the cabin. While telling Courtney what she's been up to since her elimination during the castaways challenge, Izzy mentions that the group she, Duncan, and Eva formed only physically targeted Harold out of all their fellow eliminatees, and that was because he kept leaving his dirty laundry all over the place.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Trent and Ezekiel are the previously-eliminated contestants who return at the merge here.
  • Izzy appears in the castaways challenge with it being revealed that she's snuck out of Playa des Losers and onto Boney Island in order to get her mind off her relationship problems with Duncan.
• The Cake Is a Lie: When Heather offhandedly mentions that she would rather be against Courtney in a jury vote, Beth realizes that her promise that she and Lindsay would go to the Final Three together is a total sham.
• Call-Back:
  • When Courtney and Ezekiel end up tied for the most elimination votes in the tri-armed triathlon challenge, Chris brings up how they were both in the bottom two at the season's first elimination ceremony. The tiebreaker challenge he has prepared for them also calls back to that episode, as rather than building a hot tub, Ezekiel and Courtney need to be the first to destroy a hot tub to avoid elimination.
  • The same interns that helped Geoff and Courtney out back in Chapter 12 show up to pick the remaining contestants (and Izzy) up from Boney Island towards the end of the castaways challenge, calling Geoff and Courtney by the same fake names they gave the interns back then.
• Dark Reprise: The story ends with Trent singing an extended version of "I Wanna Be Famous", with the lyrics soon fading into the words "I Don't Wanna Be Famous".
• Demoted to Extra:
  • As part of the fic's premise, Duncan, who made the merge every season in canon and is generally considered part of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad, is now the third contestant eliminated here.
  • Not only is Izzy eliminated two episodes earlier than in canon, she also doesn't return at the merge here.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • When trying to retrieve a sleepwalking Owen at the spa during Chapter 12, Lindsay ends up encountering Kelly from The Ridonculous Race, who also references her daughter Taylor.
  • Blaineley appears as the reporter interviewing the already eliminated contestants in the "look in on the losers" episode.
• Expy Coexistence:
  • Indirect example. While trying to get Ezekiel to tone down his rapper persona, Beth compares it to the hypothetical scenario of her acting like Paris Hilton, referencing the real-life celebrity whom Dakota from Revenge of the Island was based on.
  • Blaineley refers to Total Drama as a "Survivor knock-off" during their conversation with Chris near the end of the "look in on the losers" episode.
• For Want Of A Nail: The nail being, as the title indicates, Duncan's early elimination.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Heather uses her cheerleader skills to thwart Gwen's attempt to sabotage her during the rock-climbing portion of the trust challenge, the narration refers to the next time a pair of cheerleaders (Amy and Sammy) appear on the show.
  • The spa the winning team from the eating challenge stay at in Chapter 12 is revealed to be owned by the Milton family, referencing Dakota's father.
  • At the beginning of Chapter 13, when Heather is wondering What Does She See in Him? regarding Bridgette towards Geoff, she comments that if she ever goes into dating, she'll demand an intellectual equal. Out of the many things Alejandro can be described as, "Heather's intellectual equal" is certainly not the least of them. He also gets alluded to following Heather's elimination, with the narration stating that she'll "find someone to fill that void. Someone to challenge her and test her."
  • After Courtney's alliance's Batman Gambit in the hide-and-seek challenge to frame Owen for sleep-eating Heather's makeup, resulting in her alliance eliminating Owen and having Noah and Katie turn against her works without a hitch, the narration reveals that Scott will use that as the inspiration for his Team Killer strategy in Revenge of the Island after watching that episode.
  • At the end of the tri-armed triathlon challenge, it begins pouring rain, hinting at The Reveal in the following chapter that the castaways challenge occurs before the "look in on the losers" episode in this adaptation, instead of after as in canon.
  • Throughout the "look in on the losers" episode, the reporter interviewing the already-eliminated contestants seems to be trying to antagonize them and stir up the most drama between them. Chris' conversation with the reporter near the end of the chapter confirms she's Blaineley.
• Halfway Plot Switch: The first half of the story that takes place during the premerge follows Courtney as she tries to rally her team, and Gwen's ongoing conflict with Heather. While other characters play supporting roles, these two plotlines dominate the game until the extreme sports challenge, when Beth realizes the truth about Heather, and the plot takes a rapid turn towards her learning to stand up to Heather after being stuck in the alliance for much longer than in canon.
• Heel Realization: Beth has hers regarding Heather after DJ gets injured saving her from a rampaging moose during the extreme sports challenge.
  Beth: (confessional) Today has been... a day. And now I'm flashing back to being on the ground, about to be crushed by a raging moose... when it hits me: Heather would have never done that for me. She's never stuck her neck out for me, she's never sacrificed anything to help me. Everything I've done for her and she was just going to watch... I... I don't want to be like Heather. I want to be someone like DJ.
• Heroic BSoD: Katie spends the first half of the boot camp challenge in this state due to Sadie's elimination in the previous chapter.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Heather demands that Noah and Katie construct her bike for her in the bicycle challenge, Katie comes up with the idea of sabotaging Heather's bike to get back at her. Guess who winds up with Heather's bike and is subsequently eliminated when it falls apart on her near the finish line after Chris reveals the "you have to ride someone else's bike" twist?
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Heather still steals and reads Gwen's diary during the talent show challenge and Justin is still the camper eliminated in that episode.
  • Gwen and Heather are still partnered together for the rock-climbing portion of the trust challenge, with the person in charge of the harness still trying to sabotage their partner (except here it's Gwen who does it and she's not as successful as Heather was in canon).
  • A camper is still medically evacuated after being injured by an animal during a challenge, except instead of Cody getting mauled by a bear during the Deer Paintball challenge, it's DJ getting attacked by a moose during the extreme sports challenge.
  • The later-eliminated half of the Katie-Sadie duo still has their earlier-eliminated friend show up to pick them up on the Boat of Losers after their elimination.
  • Heather still gets a massive Sound Effects Bleep-filled "The Reason You Suck" Speech from one of her former alliance mates only one episode later than in canon, and from Beth instead of Lindsay, though Lindsay tells Heather after her elimination that she agrees with Beth completely.
  • Lindsay still ends up giving her remaining alliance member the dare to shave her head. This time, though, it's Beth that receives the dare, who passes it to Courtney. Unlike in canon, though, Courtney accepts the dare and saves herself.
• Irony: Harold is eliminated in the boot camp challenge, the same episode in which he infamously rigged the votes into getting Courtney eliminated in canon.
• Lost World: Boney Island's fauna has been expanded into a more complete Pleistocene ecosystem, with real species of giant ground sloths and the woolly beavers from canon retconned to be Castoroides, a giant beaver that inhabited Ontario during the Ice Age.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Cody has this reaction when he realizes that Heather manipulated him into having Trent eliminated for the sole purpose of making Gwen miserable.
  • Geoff feels horrible about his role in framing Owen for sleep-eating Heather's makeup and getting him eliminated.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When introducing the eating challenge to the remaining competitors, Chris reveals that he originally wanted to structure the teams as Boys vs Girls, but due there being more female contestants left than males, decided to randomly mix the teams together.
  • During the castaways challenge, after Heather is stung multiple times by a swarm of bees, Beth helps her by giving her the same bat guano-based skin cream Courtney uses to help Gwen with her sunburn in the "I See London" episode of World Tour.
• Naked People Are Funny: Izzy spends her entire time during the castaways challenge going topless much to Courtney's frustration.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: DJ ends up being medically evacuated from the competition after getting injured defending Beth from a rampaging moose during the extreme sports challenge.
• "Not So Different" Remark: While watching Ezekiel make a fool out of himself with his new rapper persona, Beth realizes it's no different from the way she's tried to please Heather.
  Beth had dealt with guys like Ezekiel before back at home, the sort that blithely repeated the ignorance which had been passed down to them through generations. By those standards, he was a rather tame example. Though it seemed so long ago since they first came to the island, she vividly recalled everything said back then. Sure he believed that girls weren't as strong or as smart as guys, and she wouldn't hear any of that, but he also wanted to protect the girls on the island. That put him a cut above the sorts she met who also believed women to be stupid and weak, and used it to justify all sorts of scummy behavior for their own gain. Beth's parents had done a great deal to keep men like that out of her life, but in a small town full of hicks they were never far.
  That just made it all the more frustrating to her that he was acting like this. Because if he was malicious and stupid, it would be easy to just ignore him. Instead, she was forced to watch him flounder trying to be something he clearly wasn't. He spouted off hip catch phrases that he had no clue the meaning of, which were used by the sorts of people he'd never even seen before much less interacted with. And behind it all, that desperation for approval was so transparent that even Beth could see it in every move he made.
  Then something clicked, and from that thought was born an epiphany. Was that what she looked like, whenever she was trying to act preppy and popular around Heather?
• Odd Friendship: In addition to his canon friendship with Owen, Noah also forms this sort of relationship with Katie and Sadie with the pair continuing to impress him with the Hidden Depths they display throughout the competition. This evolves into outright Ship Tease with the former following Sadie's elimination and the pair eventually become an Official Couple during the hide-and-seek challenge.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: When Ezekiel returns at the merge, while Beth is willing to give him another chance, most of the other girls are shown to be unwilling to forgive him for the chauvinistic comments he made that resulted in his elimination the first time. This ends up putting strain between Beth and her new friendship with Gwen after leaving Heather's alliance.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: When Geoff and Courtney sneak off the Island to go find a replacement for Bridgette's broken surfboard, they dress up as interns, but make no other attempts to conceal their identity beyond wearing the uniform. Later, the interns who helped them out reveal that they could in fact, see through the flimsy disguises the entire time.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: When Noah and Geoff encounter Gwen and Beth during animal capture challenge, Noah and Gwen engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat over which character in Heathers the latter would be. Geoff doesn't get what they're talking about.
  Noah: Have you seriously never seen Heathers?
  Geoff: I didn't know we had more than one! Does Heather know?
• Popular Is Evil: Zigzagged. Heather plays this trope straight most of the time as the Island's resident Alpha Bitch, but Lindsay is shown to be just as popular as she is and far more benign and likable. Beth sits somewhere in the middle, not being popular but desperately wanting to be. This leads her to commit some heinous acts in the name of helping Heather's evil schemes, but her portrayal remains sympathetic and ultimately culminates in her Heel–Face Turn.
• Pushed at the Monster: When Heather, Lindsay, and Beth encounter Chef disguised as the psycho killer with a hook and chainsaw during the slasher movie challenge, Heather grabs Lindsay by the arm and tosses her to Chef. This act ends up being the final straw resulting in Beth finally standing up to Heather and leaving her alliance.
• Rousing Speech: Trent gives one to the other eliminated contestants in the "look in on the losers" episode to convince the rest of them to vote out Heather.
• Ship Tease: In addition to the canon ships of Geoff x Bridgette and Gwen x Trent, two more ships are teased throughout the fic: Noah x Katie and Beth x Ezekiel. While the former becomes an Official Couple during the hide-and-seek challenge, Beth and Ezekiel haven't gone anywhere beyond friends yet.
• Shrouded in Myth: The campers talking about Chef during the cooking challenge invokes this.
  Geoff: Woah, dude are you crazy? You want us to mess with that guy’s stuff?
  Owen: Yeah! One time, a bear rummaged through the trash behind the mess hall, and Chef put it in a chokehold! That bear never came back.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Heather and Courtney have this relationship when Chris has them partnered together in the tri-armed triathlon challenge. Gwen and Ezekiel also have this to a lesser extent when they're teamed together in the same chapter, though by the end, they're able to become, if not friends, then at least on good terms with each other.
• This Cannot Be!: Heather has this reaction when she realizes how Katie and Sadie made fools out of her and her alliance during the Deer Paintball Hunt challenge.
• Title Drop: Occurs at the end of Chapter 18 following Noah's elimination.
  As (the boat) pulled away from the dock, he left behind a place that had changed him. Against all odds, his time on Wawanakwa had been valuable. He couldn't possibly understand how unlikely it was any of it ever happened. That, were it not for the absence of one punk, his time on the island would have been short, uneventful, and ended bitterly. He would have had no best friend to call up after the show was done. He would have never met the girl who changed his entire world.
  Daring heists, life and death situations, love and loss, even his petty feud with Beth. All of it, just for want of a mohawk.
• Trapped in Villainy: By the merge, Beth feels like she's in this situation, wanting to leave Heather's alliance but unable to due to a combination of fear of Heather's wrath and not wanting to abandon Lindsay. She finally grows a spine and stands up to Heather after Heather literally throws Lindsay to Chef disguised as the psycho killer during the slasher movie challenge, leaving her alliance in the process.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Geoff makes it clear to Courtney that he doesn't like that she framed Owen for sleep-eating Heather's makeup simply to make Heather's alliance implode on her.
• With Catlike Tread: When Owen and Lindsay try to recreate the heist from the boot camp challenge, their attempts at stealth go laughably poorly. One such attempt involves sneaking around disguised as bushes, in broad daylight in front of the guards, who are immediately tipped off by the fact that bushes don't move.

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