The Cragmite-Verse is a series of Total Drama fanfictions written by CragmiteBlaster. Doorstopper in length, complex in plot and with a continuity just as confusing as The Legend of Zelda, they have been generally well received.
The stories have recurring themes of:-
- All kinds of morality, from Black and White, Grey and Grey, White and Grey and Black and Grey.
- Very three-dimensional characters.
- Romance and friendship.
- Topics the real show would not tackle.
The series has five completed stories, with two in progress and a further thirteen planned and revealed.
TDL Trilogy
- Total Drama Letterz
- Total Drama Letterz
- Total Drama Letterama
- Total Drama Letter Starz (All-Star Letterz season)
Tween Series
VS Series
- Total Drama: Brains VS Brawns
- Total Drama: Cliques VS Cliques
Future stories
Tween Series
- Total Drama: The Nowhere Islands (All-Star Tween season)
VS Series
- Total Drama: Reds VS Blues
- Total Drama: Famous vs Fameless
- Total Drama: Heroes VS Villains (All-Star VS season)
Journey Series
- Total Drama: Desert Journey
- Total Drama: Arctic Journey
- Total Drama: Jungle Journey
- Total Drama: Biome Journey (All-Star Journey season)
Arena Series
- Total Drama: Water Arena
- Total Drama: Earth Arena
- Total Drama: Fire Arena
- Total Drama: Air Arena
- Total Drama: Space Arena (All-Star Arena season)
Tropes for this series include:
- Always Chaotic Evil: A lot of Cragmite's earlier villains were villains simply For the Evulz and often fell under Stupid Evil. Notable examples include Kasimar, Nakia, Kim, Sarge, and Edgar, though Kim, Tabitha, Nakia, and Edgar were each given a Freudian Excuse for their actions.
- Big Bad: Grab a bag of chips, this'll take a while…
- Letterz had Kasimar, more or less a huge bully. Cruel, devious, and not caring who he hurt, he was the leading cause of conflict on the show, and escaped elimination several times, at that.
- It also had Nakia, a hair obsessed snob, who targeted anyone who had bad hair. Taken out early on, she later returned, with a target in mind…
- Tabitha, unlike the previous two, was simply a very effective villainous schemer, who kept her low opinions of her competitors to the confessionals. She almost won Letterz, coming in third. In Letterama, she received Character Development, revealing that her behavior on Letterz was due to her parents, who beat her to the point of hospitalization for minor failures. They disown her at the merge for the minor failures that occurred up to that point and come to get her back at the final four with full intention of further brutalizing her. They were stopped by Tabitha's boyfriend Rheneas, arrested, and lost all of their assets, all of which were given to Tabitha.
- Letterama's Big Bad is Kim, who was an angry, uncaring bigot, who allied with Kasimar and had sex with him in exchange for an idol, cheating without remorse. Her main target was Sasha, due to her race. She is beginning to get development as a result of the epilogue chapter of Letterama and in Letter Starz, but time will tell if she truly changes.
- Who gets the title of Tweenabet's Big Bad is up for debate. Some, including the author, claim that it is Kelly, who played the role of The Strategist throughout most of the season and took out anyone who stood in her way. Others claim that it is Tilly, who manipulated and backstabbed a number of fellow contestants. While the latter outlasted the former, it's worth mentioning that the former spent more time in the spotlight.
- Brains VS Brawns had Fosley as its Big Bad. Donning a secret identity as the Cloaked Shadow, he was the leading cause of any and all injuries that occurred. The main reason he did it? He wanted to be looked upon like a god.
- Tween Tour's Big Bad is Megan, who differs from other Big Bad characters in that her main goal isn't to win, but to study paranormal phenomena and will do anything to achieve this. Combined with her sociopathy, she will do anything to stay in the game so that she can travel the world and potentially make a discovery. She also has an irrational hatred for Craig due to Craig's flirty nature and likes to make his life miserable.
- Letterz had Kasimar, more or less a huge bully. Cruel, devious, and not caring who he hurt, he was the leading cause of conflict on the show, and escaped elimination several times, at that.
- Black-and-White Morality: Letterz, Letterama (the latter veering into White And Grey towards the end)
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Brains VS Brawns
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Tweenabet, Tween Tour, Letter Starz
- White-and-Grey Morality: Cliques VS Cliques
- Notably Sarge from Brains VS Brawns sees the world in Blue-and-Orange Morality due to their psychopathic mental state.
- Byronic Hero: Not as frequent as other recurring trends, but present nonetheless. Notable examples include Tabitha, Rai, and Terrence.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Given the often-cartoony tone of his fics, this is bound to happen. Notable examples include Barney, Vayvay, Otis, Moe, and Tony.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's probably easier to list the characters to whom this trope doesn't apply. One major draw of Cragmite's fics is that characters who seem one- or two-dimensional at first will often reveal why they act they way they do or how they are the way they are.
- Disc-One Final Boss: His stories also contained its share of baddies, which start off looking like the main baddie, only for the REAL Big Bad to take center stage.
- Tweenabet has Ub, who started out as simply The Strategist, but later became more and more of a Control Freak to the point where he blackmailed someone into being his in-game slave simply so he could have absolute control over someone.
- Brains VS Brawns has two. First is Sarge, who is eventually outed as a serial rapist and undergoes Sanity Slippage after the reveal, putting a lot of other contestants in danger. Second is Earl, who manipulated many of his teammates under the guise of a Cloudcuckoolander and even went out of his way to keep Sarge from being eliminated because he considered Sarge a valuable potential ally.
- Tween Tour has Edgar. A greedy, slothful obese know-it-all, who started off just stating the obvious. But once he got hypnotized by Jethro, he turned monstrous as a result. Blackmailing Vinsun into allying with him, he had the team in his iron grasp. And even when Bonnie lobbed out his devices upon her getting eliminated, it only fueled his anger some more. He even states that he liked his new evil side, and even thanked Jethro for hypnotizing him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Total Drama Letterz, as the first story, stands out with this trope due to the author not being as skilled at the time of writing (some of this also applies to early episodes of Tween Tour). Some examples include:-
- Very basic morality.
- Lots of pop culture references
- Confessionals all written in bold (every other story has just the name of the character in bold)
- The finalists were not asked questions about their time in the game prior to the last challenge.
- Very little, if any, strategy and alliances.
- Very short author notes on the voted off character, with the very earliest vote-offs not getting any notes at all..
- One note villains.
- Kid Hero: Given that the casts of Tweenabet and Tween Tour are for the most part aged ten to twelve, this trope occurs frequently in both of those seasons. It also occurs in Letterz and Letter Starz with the inclusion of Jimmy and Eleanor, though Jimmy is no longer a hero in the latter season.
- Knight Templar: A frequent character trait in his fics, with varying degrees of intentionality and deconstruction. Notable examples include Gary, Quana, Harvey, Bonnie, and Rai.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: His stories has a habit for when a funny contestant is booted, the drama quickly follows.
- Letterz had Uzuri as its main source of humor. Once she got the boot, it left enough room for the Nakia subplot to develop.
- Tween Tour's more lighthearted contestants like Dexter, Jade, Henry, and Sophie didn't last too long before the drama started to develop. And come the first merge, once Ramona and Bea left, all that remained in the lighthearted department was Tony. Once he got the boot, the drama really skyrocketed.
- Sole Survivor: Being a Total Drama writer, he has a few winners under his belt.
- Took a Level in Kindness: A lot of characters who start off negative will warm up as the season goes on, or sometimes in between seasons. Notable examples include Tabitha, Xaria, Quadesh, Donald, Trey, John, Jethro, and Lars
- Villain Protagonist: Shows up in many fics and often coincides with the Big Bad
- Letterz has Tabitha
- Letterama has Kim and Lankston
- Tweenabet has Ub, Kelly and Tilly
- Brains VS Brawns has Patsy
- Tween Tour has Jethro
