Max

Max is a contestant in Total Drama: The Next Generation. He is labeled as **The Golden Boy**.

## Biography

Max, short for Maximillian, is a popular student at his high school. He is a star athlete, and has a large group of friends. Some people feel that he has had everything handed to him. This could not be further from the truth, as Max as put in an extraordinary amount of effort to be where he is. After suffering a spinal injury as a child, he was told we would never walk again. Through hard work and his positive, never say die attitude he has defied the odds and is able to function normally.

Max joined the Total Drama series in the hope of making new friends, and encouraging people.

## Total Drama: The Next Generation

Max was the second to arrive on the island, with an impressive front flip. The first to arrive, Clara, was very impressed by his display. The two bonded quickly. Max went on to describe himself as loving sports, and giving a million percent in everything he does.

Max was amazed when Romelio arrived, impressed by the muscular teen’s build, and his dramatic entrance. Romelio dramatically described his discovery of the love of theater over sports. Max and Romelio bonded almost instantly. Naveen arrived and compared Max to an actress from a favorite film, putting Max at a loss for words.

Upon Kirika’s arrival, and being tripped by mean girl, Tiffany, Max kindly approached the girl and helped her to her feet. He pointed out that he too wore braces, and introduced her to the friendly Clara.

When teams were being selected, several contestants commented that they wanted to be on a team with Max.

In the first challenge, Max fully supported Kirika’s strategy. Max attempted to eliminate Declan from the challenge. While Max was eliminated by being overpowered by Romelio, following Kirika’s strategy proved to lead to overall victory for the team.

Max was attempting to credit Kirika for the team victory, but Tiffany took credit and assumed the lead in the challenge. She assigned Max the task to get the closest to the show’s host without him noticing. While he got very close, his direct competition, Andrea, got closer and won that task. The Cool Cats, Max’s team, lost the overall challenge.

As Tiffany invited the guys on her team for a late night swim, Max declined the invitation, though something seemed to bother him about his decision. Andrea happened across Max from outside his cabin. He accidentally spit toothpaste at her. She teased him for his strict rule adherence, before leaving his presence. This also seemed to bother him.

After his team lost the pie eating challenge, Clara, an early friend of Max’s, approached him on a late night run and proposed that he join her and a few other girls to vote out the mean spirited Tiffany at the next challenge. Max was on board with the idea, but something seemed to bother him when Clara stated that she knew he would ’do the right thing’. Several contestants were stunned that Max turned on Clara, and joined Tiffany’s alliance of boyfriends and Eddy to vote Clara out instead, himself kissing Tiffany at the elimination ceremony. Clara voiced her disappointment in Max before exiting the competition.

Max explained in confessional that while he may have made a mistake in voting with Tiffany, he was tired of always being expected to do the right thing. He admitted to wanting to do something selfish, and also that he found Tiffany to be ‘really hot’.

Following the elimination ceremony, Tiffany chided Max for being too much of a goodie two shoes. She then convinced Max to get a total makeover, forcing him to change in front of several other contestants, and even cutting and styling his hair. Max was humiliated by this treatment, but admitting to liking the hairstyle. Even though she was the sworn enemy of Tiffany, Max commended Kirika for her almost singlehanded victory in the challenge.

Max later defended Kirika, and reprimanded Tiffany’s idea to throw challenges in an effort to vote out her enemy’s. He assured her that he respected Kirika, and that they would be unstoppable if she overlooked her dislike for her. Tiffany stated that she would consider it and commanded Max to rub her feet.

In the following challenge, Max was dressed as scantily clad villain, Emmet Prost. He was embarrassed by his costume, which Tiffany greatly enjoyed. He complimented Kirika’s costume, which annoyed Tiffany. The challenge involved freeing their teammates from cages, where Max was coerced into teaming up with Tiffany. As they looked for their teammates, Tiffany proceeded to demean Max by stating that he was no more than eye candy. She proceeded to describe his personality as bland, and insulted his teeth. He called her out on it, but ultimately continued to follow her lead.

When Naveen attempted to break up with Tiffany, Max and Tiffany argued about Max always defending Kirika. Time ran out, and the team was required to attend the campfire ceremony. This was revealed to be a ruse thought up by Tiffany to keep Naveen from breaking up with her, and further strategizing against her. Max agreed to a back rub as a reward for his part in the scheme, which Gabe was instructed to give to Max.

Max attempted to apologize to Naveen for his part in voting out Naveen’s love interest, Vivi. Naveen didn’t want to hear it. Naveen rejected the apology. Max stated in confessional that he was feeling very bad about his decisions. Max later tried to speak with Kirika about how he was feeling, but Tiffany dragged him away by the ear.

The following challenge involved pushing opposing team members from a platform in the water. Max attempted to direct the team, but with little success. Max was concerned when Eddy looked winded, but Eddy shrugged it off. The Cool Cats lost the challenge, but things took a tragic turn when Eddy nearly drowned. Reflecting on the serious event, Max apologized to Naveen, again, this time Naveen accepted. Max was among those that Eddy wished to say goodbye to before being medically evacuated.

Max and the other guys ended things with Tiffany, being upset with how she treated both them and Eddy. Max also admitted to Tiffany that he had been speaking to the show’s counselor’s, and that she made him hate himself more than ever.

During the escape room challenge, Max, Naveen, and Gabe ignored Tiffany and supported and praised Kirika as she led the team to victory. This involved her solving several challenging puzzles. Tiffany felt annoyed at the attention Kirika was getting, and tried to make herself look like she was making major contributions. Max and the others ignored those cries for attention.

Max approaches Kirika later and wanted to make things right for how Tiffany had treated her. He then proposed that they create an alliance with him being the muscles, and her being the brains of the operation.

The favorable treatment the guys showed to Kirika continued as they chose her as the challenge leader. Max instructed her to ignore Tiffany, again, but at one point she did listen to Tiffany and this led to the team victory. Max and the others continued to praise Kirika, however.

Later that evening, Max, Kirika, Naveen, and Gabe came across Andrea and Wolf. Max was apologetic to the pair for Gabe’s behavior, and his assumedly making Wolf uncomfortable. Gabe dropped a doll that belonged to Wolf. When Max went to pick it up, he ended up getting pricked by a needle stuck in the doll, causing his thumb to bleed.

After Gabe’s sweatshirt came off, Max put it on him backwards, pulled the drawstrings and dragged Gabe away in order to keep him from bothering Wolf and Andrea.

Max also approached Tiffany about voting with him in the impending merge, after she overheard him practicing his apology in confessional. He apologized for his harshness prior, and Tiffany agreed to vote with him. He revealed in confessional that he actually did not forgive Tiffany, and was still upset about how she treated him, but faked it in order to have the numbers advantage.

The merge was announced along with a modest party for the teams to introduce themselves. Max noticed Gabe getting close with Declan. He pulled him aside to ensure that he not get too close to the opposing team. He then asked the unintentionally honest Gabe to tell him what Declan told him.

After the challenge, Max took the lead in an effort to recruit a member of the opposing team, and decided to approach Suzy. Max was shocked when he was the one voted out. He tried to act like he was affected, but his disappointment came out on The Boat of Losers as he yelled and punched the side of the boat.

## Trivia

* Max is based in appearance on Mirio Togata from My Hero Academia. His clothing is a plain clothes reimagining of Mirio‘s hero costume. Max’s hair at the beginning of the competition was based on Mirio in flashbacks.
* Max’s full name is Maximillian. This is meant as a reference to Mirio Togata’s hero name Lemillion.
* Max also mentions in the first chapter that he gives ‘one million percent’, another reference to Lemillion.
* Max having overcome a spinal injury to be able to walk again is based on Mirio Togata working hard to make practical use of a complicated quirk.
* Max states that he himself is known to get naked, a reference to Mirio’s quirk causing his clothes to fall off.
* In the task challenge, Max approaches Jack as he is taking out the trash. This is a reference to Mirio Togata’s first encounter with Izuku Midoriya, as he was taking out the trash.
* Max’s makeover was meant to make his hair style look like Mirio Togata as a third year student.
* Max describing the superhero challenge as quirky is a reference to super powers being referred to as quirks in My Hero Academia.
* Max punches the side of the boat with ’all his might’ upon his elimination, a reference to My Hero Academia’s All Might.
* I greatly disliked redrawing Max for episode images, particularly his clothing. That’s why he only wears the original style of his outfit once in an episode image.
* Max being dressed as Jonathan in the first challenge was a reference to Max being comparable to a Boy Scout.
* I did not intend for Romelio to hit Max in the crotch in the first challenge, but the image turned out that way, and redrawing it was too challenging with the artistic method I was using at the time.
* I thought about Max and Tiffany making out often when they were dating, but ultimately decided not to. The main reason was to cut out typical dating tropes common to my previous stories.
* I considered having Max dress as Overhaul from My Hero Academia in the cosplay challenge, but decided to stick to western comics.
* Max dressed as a version of Fred Jones from Scooby Doo due to their resemblance.
* Max and Kirika shaking hands upon making their alliance was a callback to when he took her hand in the first chapter to help her to her feet.
* The Max and Kirika alliance was meant to deceive the reader into thinking the alliance would last longer than it did.
* The alliance was another reference to The Petshop Boys’ song ’Opportunities’.
* Max approached Suzy to vote with the former members of The Cool Cats, his deciding to approach her was subtly suggested by his conversing with her and Yolanda at the mixer.
* Max’s storyline was something I thought about years ago, as a potential character if I ever began writing Total Drama fanfiction, again. His story evolved over time. Originally, I planned for his alliance to be a far larger part of the story, with him teaming up with her and their friendship being far more toxic. Kirika was going to manipulate Max into doing her dirty work, and hurting the other contestant’s feelings, and doing things that Max would feel deeply guilty for.
* Max was going to go from a popular, nice guy to the most disliked contestant for his backstabbing. He would be shunned by the others, and feel so bad about himself that he would commit suicide, in the darkest version of his potential story. This was meant to that seemingly ordinary people could feel with mental health problems, and serve as a reflection to the others that his actions were only part of a game, and they should not have been so upset with him.
* Max’s drastically toned down storyline was because I didn’t want to put the characters through that traumatic of an experience. He also was going to place much higher then, perhaps as far as 4th place.
* Tiffany was also going to be in that original story, and they were not going to date.
* I hint at Max’s mental health struggles in Total Drama: The Next Generation. He spoke with the counselors, and also told Tiffany that he hated himself. He also was visibly upset about his placing.
* I also considered Max revealing that he cut himself, but thought that would not be something he would casually reveal. The cutting was something he did in the past but started again after dating Tiffany.
* Max also gave hints at becoming underhanded in his elimination chapter. His strong arming Gabe, and stealthily approaching Suzy to join his alliance were nods to this.

## Gallery

Max in his sleepwear.Max in his swimwear.Max’s original image.