#unfortunately since I’ve been occupied I’ve been on a very long hiatus but I’m getting back in the building 🥸

[2-dsimp]

Hi ^-^ I'm not really used to messaging people on Tumblr, but I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your writing! I'm actually not typically a fan of x reader content since I'm not the sort to simp for a character, but the way you handle stuff like your choose your own adventure story is so cool!

There's so many moving parts to keep track of at once, which I love in stories, and all the characters have distinct and unique ways of reacting to the player's actions! The fact that hard choices have to be made and juggled is really appealing imo.

I'm super excited to see your new project with the yokai versions of characters, and I hope you'll enjoy making it!

That's all I had to say, so I hope none of this came across as too cheesy or annoying lol

🥹🙏🏽

Thank you so much for your kind words! I could never find something as sweet as this to be annoying plus I’m a fan of being cheesy so there’s nothing to worry about in that department (>^ω^<)

I’ll always enjoy making content for y’all because you guys are what makes doing it exciting and fun! Everyone’s reactions to what I throw out never fails to bring a smile on my face so in this upcoming Halloween spin-off CYOA I’ll be needing some assistance from you dear players which I’ll ask via the polls very soon ٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و

[oops-my-fingers-slipped]

A Little Braver (Ch. 1)

Genre: Pre-debut Trainee AU

Pairings: Jisung x OC, Felix x OC

Author: Lex

Part(s): 1, 2 —–>

Description: Trainees Kira and Anna are members of Girl Project Group and participants in the new JYP reality show ‘Stray Kids’, competing against Boy Project Group for the chance every trainee dreams of… a debut.

Author’s note: ♥️Hello again! I know I’ve been very inactive lately and for that I’m deeply sorry. I still have many written and moodboard requests to finish and I can’t apologize enough for how late they are- I’m currently making progress and am really excited to finally post them ASAP😊💕! I appreciate your patience so so much~ thank you everyone♥️ But for now (since I already had this written) I figured I’ve been on hiatus for FAR too long!! 💙 Thank you guys for the constant support (it means the world) and I hope you enjoy this fanfic~ Have an INCREDIBLE day! 😂 I’m also sorry this is so long- let’s get on with the story~

ANNA’S POV:

“Very good! But, Eun, can you put more power behind your vocals at the bridge? I know the rest of us will be harmonizing but that means it might drown out your solo.” A young girl with dark bangs nods from across the table, mentally noting the correction.

To her left, Chae pipes up. “Shall we run that part again then? Starting from the bridge.”

She agrees, and the room in suddenly filled with Eun’s voice, stronger this time, and I’m once again reminded why she was chosen for this team. Though she auditioned later than most of us, Eun rapidly caught up and even surpassed some of the more experienced trainees. Her determination and ability to take corrections to heart is what drove her through training. It’s why she is 1/7th of our team’s beating heart, and we wouldn’t be whole without her. Without any of our members.

Eun finishes with a soft note held to the last second, right before the chorus is supposed to start again. Chae and I clap profusely as Eun’s smile stretches wide across her face.

“Alright! I think that just about does it.” I announce.

“Yes! I don’t think I can handle another all-nighter.” Chae sighs with relief, and I honestly couldn’t agree more. The past few weeks have been rough for all of us. Nights mainly consisting of endless choreography drilling and memorizing, days reserved for vocal training and technique.

“I think we are in desperate need of a break. Who else is starving?” I ask, rising from the table.

“I’ll tell the others.” Eun offers, smile still lifting her lips in excitement. And soon she gets up too, walking out of the room towards the practice room.

————————————————————————

KIRA’S POV:

“One and two, three and a four, five, six, and se-ven, eight, one-” My chanting echos above the sharp squeaks of tennis shoes on the practice room floor. Ahead of me, Ara, Ryung, and Li are going over the choreography and formations to the beat of my counting. They hit each move with unity and precision, however, they lack the energy they had a few hours earlier. Fatigue is starting to set in, I can tell, and i’m about to finally call it a night, but it looks like Anna beat me to it. Eun comes through the door and her giddy smile tells me she brings good news.

“Who’s up for dinner? We just finished. Do you guys still need more time?” She calls over.

I glance over at the dance line. They’ve stopped the routine and are breathing heavily, sweat beading crowns over their foreheads. I smile wide. “Mmhm. We’re ready!” Li pipes up from her current place in the formation.

“Umm, we might wanna wash up first. I doubt it’s a good idea to show up at a restaurant with sweat stains and wild hair.” She chuckles a little at the end.

“Let’s try not get kicked out of another diner this time.” Ryung laughs, remembering a time a few weeks ago when a total of 3 drinks were spilled and our booth was occupied for hours, chatting about absolutely nothing and everything. Being seven members, it was bound to get loud and it was only a matter of time before the staff politely asked us to leave. Yeah, better not risk it.

Ara giggles at the memory. “It will only take 15 more minutes.”

“We’ll meet you guys in the lobby.” I turn back to Eun. She nods and disappears from the doorway.

We quickly head to our bags set down in front of the practice room mirror, each pulling out a brush, a few hair ties, and a change of clothes. Unfortunately, Li calls the studio bathroom first, leaving the rest of us groaning in complaint. Ara and Ryung go for the bathrooms in the studio nextdoor and I decide to use the one upstairs. Our assigned studio is on the second floor of the building so I press the ‘up’ button and wait for the elevator to arrive to get to the third. As I wait, I tap my foot against the floor and let my mind wander.

The showcase is in one week.

Seven days…

Seven days until we compete for the opportunity of a lifetime. For the opportunity almost every trainee dreams of. A debut. An official group.

It’s what most of us have given up our lives for. Some might question whether or not it’s worth it. I have yet to find that out.

A light flashes above the elevator door, snapping me out of my thoughts. The doors slide open and i’m surprised to find it occupied. A boy stands centered in the elevator, arms filled with what appears to be take-out food. The bags are so big that all I see above the boxes are his short brown locks peeking over the edge. I quickly rush inside and offer some assistance. “Hey, um do you need some help?”

He responds from the other side of the boxes. “Thanks, but I think I got it.” I faintly hear the elevator doors close behind us.

“Are you sure?”

The boy is about to respond when one of the top boxes wobbles precariously. “Actually, maybe not.” He confesses.

I carefully hook my arms around the top half of the bags of food and lift them out of his arms and to my chest, making sure they don’t topple in the process. I’m about to ask why he has enough food to feed an army, considering how heavy the bags are, but when I look up the words immediately die on my lips.

The boy’s face is that of one I could recognize anywhere. From his ear dangles two small charms, one of which being a cross. His hair falls evenly over his forehead in tuffs of brown, barely skimming his eyelids. His lips seem to be parted in a small, grateful smile until he, too, realizes who I am. I’m staring at Jisung Han, Main rapper and Vocalist of Boy Project Group. They are our group, Girl Project Group’s competition.

We both hold each other’s eyes for a split second before diverting them elsewhere, the air suddenly tense. My mind races a million thoughts per second, faster than my legs ever could.

I internally kick myself for not piecing it together sooner.

Of course he would be going to the third floor where their studio is located. What else would a young man be doing here in a JYP building?

I realize, though we’ve both heard a lot about the other and their teams, we never formally met until now. So, before the silence drags on any longer, I bow and introduce myself. Or, rather as well as I can while still clutching the boxes.

“Hi, I’m Kira Lym of Girl Project Group. Nice to meet you.”

He bows before answering, “Uh, nice to meet you too. I’m Jisung Han of BPT.”

The elevator door opens and we both step outside. “Should I walk these to your studio?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away and when he does there is uncertainty laced through his response. “Sure, it’s just to the left.”

As we travel through the hallway, arms still full with food, I try to break through this unnecessary tension.

“So, I’m guessing all of this is for the members?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, it’s been a long day.” Jisung sighs.

“I can imagine.”

We reach the door to the practice room and he balances his portion of the boxes in one hand as he pulls out the key from his back pocket. “Yeah, I bet.” And the corners of his mouth turn upward ever-so-slightly.

Jisung unlocks the door and gestures for me to place the food back onto the pile. I do so, but before turning to leave, I say. “Good luck, you’ll need it.”

He pokes his head out from the side of the boxes and confidently states, “I don’t think we will.”

I’m about to retort, but all the other members emerge from the practice room and practically attack Jisung and the food. I take the opportunity to retreat, not wanting to ruin their excitement. As I do, I catch pieces of lively chatter.

“Did we really order all this food?”

“Jeongin, you ordered half of it!”

“Jisung, you brought all of it up alone? You could have texted one of us.”

“Well, not exactly…”

I finally reach the bathroom and as fast as I can manage, dress and splash some water over my face.

I’ve probably kept Anna and the others waiting for a few minutes now. I realize and move even quicker. My fears are confirmed when my phone dings from inside my pocket.

Annabanana:

Everyone’s down in the lobby, are you okay?

I smile at my phone and my heart explodes with how kind our leader is. Not worrying about punctuality but rather the well-being of her members. I dash out of the bathrooms and take the stairs this time. I emerge into the lobby and rejoin my team. We are so going to win this competition.

[kpopkrappykraftbin]

It Wasn’t the First Time

Chapter 6

Junhui x Reader

Mild Language

Word Count: 1372

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

This is gonna be the last chapter for a while since I am putting this particular story on hiatus until December which is when I will rewrite it. I’m just not happy with the way its turning out and I need to figure an actual plot. Plus the writing quality is just not up to the standards I want to give you guys. So! Without further ado, please enjoy chapter 6

    Jeonghan continued to smile while waiting for your answer. You didn’t trust him.

    “I’m here with your boss’s guest.” you replied as ambiguously as possible.

    The corner of Jeonghan’s mouth twitched in annoyance. He knew you were trying to dodge his question.

    “So you’re here with Jun.” he reasoned. You tried not to let your face express how surprised you were that he knew Jun’s name. He smirked.

    “I’ve only been able to hear a bit about his situation, but it sounds serious. Anything to make Jun abandon his precious city hideout must be pretty bad.” he dragged slightly  trying to get you to divulge any info you might know.

    Unfortunately for both of you, you knew nothing.

    “I don’t know. All I know is that we’re being chased.” you told him both truthfully and diplomtically.

    While this answer seemed to make Jeonghan relax his interrogation, it did nothing to satisfy his curiosity.

    Well aren’t you boring.” he huffed sitting down next to you on the sofa.

    You didn’t grace him with a response.

    “How long have you been Jun’s lackey?” Jeonghan asked conversationally.

    “I’ve been working with him for over a year.”

    “Working for him, you mean. No one works with Jun. You either hire him or he hires you. And he most definitely hired you.”

    You shot him a glare, he only smiled coyly at you.

    “So what makes you so special to have been invited into the lions’ den? Jun’s a drop them after a couple of months kinda guy. Not a let’s save her from certain death and risk my own hide kind of guy.” Jeonghan nonchalantly explained, “He’s had plenty of runners before but never kept them around for very long.”

    “I don’t know.” you admitted. The thought of being thrown away by Jun at this point made you nervous. You hoped for your sake that he wouldn’t ‘drop’ you like the supposed others.

    “I wish he had kept that girl, Jaeda around. She was definitely more the mafia type than you. A real spitfire. Great body too. Wonder why he got rid of her.”

    You could tell he was trying to goad a response out of you and you refused to rise to the bait. Why should you even care if Jun worked with more experienced… hotter girls before. You told yourself this but could still feel a nagging inside questioning if she was really better than you. You hated it. Your thoughts were interrupted by the open and close of a fridge door sounding in the room over. You and Jeonghan both looked in the direction of what you guessed to be the kitchen. Shortly after a a guy who you would’ve guessed to be around your age came shuffling through the doorway in pajamas, bowl of cereal  in hand.

    “Oh.” he said in halfhearted surprise, “No one told me, we would have company today.”

    “This is Jun’s lackey, who has so far remained unnamed.”

    “Vernon.” the pajama clad boy introduced himself with a full mouth and closed lipped smile. You liked him you decided.

    “I’m Y/N.” you provided.

    Vernon nodded and leaned against the wall enjoying his cereal while standing up.

    “Oh, so you tell the little punk but not me? What is my life coming to?” Jeonghan asked rhetorically, putting on his own minidrama.

    You rolled your eyes.

    “So how’s the meeting going?” Vernon asked gesturing to the room Jun had gone into earlier with his chin. As if on cue, a loud slam came from behind the metal door, making you jump in your seat.

    “Not well it would seem.” Jeonghan replied airily.

    You watched the door anxiously, hoping your employer was okay. Only because if he wasn’t safe, then you weren’t safe. That’s why. You weren’t worried about the weasel at all, of course not, you convinced yourself. You let your fingers lace, trying yourself busy. Vernon eyed you from where he was standing.

    “S.Coups probably just tripped and slammed his face on the desk again. He’s not the most coordinated.” Vernon attempted to assure you. At least he was trying to calm you.

    “Or he slammed Jun’s head into the desk.” Jeonghan taunted over your shoulder. Vernon gave him a less than  amused look. “You can’t say he wouldn’t deserve it.” Jeonghan defended himself.

    Both you and Vernon shrugged half way agreeing. You heard the metal door unlocking and turned your head. The first to walk out was Jun, who luckily did not have his head smashed in or any other bruises. You felt Jeonghan’s arm lay across the back of the couch behind you.

    “Vernon, long time no see! How you doing?” Jun greeted the boy standing next to you.

    “Good, my man. Better than you it seems.” Vernon replied the two meeting with a handshake and half hug.

    “No worries. No one’s better than me.” he replied to Vernon’s comment while winking suggestively at you.

    ‘Once a grease weasel always a grease weasel’

    “Hello Jeonghan. I see you’ve made yourself at home around my lovely employee.” He eyed Jeonghan’s arm accusingly. “I thought I told you to not talk to him.” Jun complained to you.

    “So that’s why she didn’t fall for my charms! You can’t tell people to ignore me you ass. I thought your girl was crazy! She wouldn’t even give me the time of day if i begged. No wonder she liked Vernon better. Phew. At least now I know why it felt like the twilight zone.”

    “Hey! People like me.” Vernon sulked.

    “Sure they do pajama boy.” Jeonghan shot back.

    While focusing on the conversation around you, you had failed to notice Jun coming closer until he dropped himself practically on top of Jeonghan.

    “Hey! Watch it!”

    “Oops.” Jun said lazily “Were you sitting here?” every word was emphasized with a scoot from Jun who was trying to push Jeonghan across the couch and away from you.

    Jeonghan just gave him a glare as you and Vernon chuckled. Where Jeonghan’s arm had rested earlier was now occupied by Jun’s own appendage. He was sitting a lot closer to you than Jeonghan had been but you didn’t mind much. His warm presence was familiar. You shook your head at yourself. Since when do you enjoy being around the weasel? It must be some sort of stockholm type syndrome. Wait but that would mean you actually like him. Which you don’t. Right?

    ‘Right.’

    You’ve just spent too much time around him today. You needed a break from seeing his flirty face. It was going to start having an affect on you if you didn’t get away from him soon.

    “Y/N,” Jun grabbed your attention, “I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine and also ally and our temporary host: S. Coups.” he gestured grandly to the now occupied doorway.

    There stood an athletic looking man in black slacks and a button down. Despite the sharp looking clothes, he only looked a bit sheepish rubbing at a rather large red spot on his forehead.

    “Told you so.” Vernon whispered in your direction.

    “Hi.” his greeting certainly fell flat compared to Jun’s set up. Jun heaved a sigh bringing his hand to cover his face in second hand shame. “You can call me Seungcheol.” he smiled at you, “Nice to meet you Y/N.”

    “Nice to meet you too Seungcheol.” you greeted, happy to find him not nearly as scary as you were imagining.

    “Well I think it’s about time we all get on the same page about Jun’s little problem.” Jeonghan could apparently not hold his curiosity in any longer.

    Vernon snickered at the unintended innuendo. You covered your own chuckle.

    “Hey! It’s not little!” Jun cried indignantly.

    “I agree.”

    ‘Are we all commenting on Jun’s package now?’ you laughed to yourself.

    “We need to talk things over. We’ll have to be careful. And we definitely need a plan.” S. Coups concluded.

    “Woozi?”  S. Coups raised his voice.

    “Yeah?” an staticy intercom replied.

    “Contact everyone. Let them know we’re having a mandatory meeting tomorrow night and to be here ASAP.”

    “You got it.”

    “Well,” Seungcheol looked around the room at all four of you, “looks like it’s gonna be a full house.”

[zachwritesstuff]

Awesome Trevor: The Long and Winding Road

I’m very used to writing things about other people, products and properties. So this one is going to be a slightly weird one for me. It’s a story of hopeful imagination, and disappointment; Of long hours working to make things perfect, and never finding it; And going through version, formats, people, places and ideas just to keep an idea afloat. But, most importantly, it’s the story of Awesome Trevor, an idea that is eight years in the making, yet so far has not given any worthwhile fruit, no matter how hard we tried. In writing this out, I’m hoping to both show the trials and tribulation of taking an idea from concept to fruition, and how impossible it might seem sometimes. Idealism and inspiration can be a hell of a stimulant, while stalling and depression can be a hell of a… depressant. So maybe someone can get something interesting out of it, or at least find the whole saga entertaining, I don’t know. I should probably quit stalling and actually get to the point… It all started...

Part 1: The Movie

The year is 2010. Just barely out of high school, I was now in Community College, and not working, which was a dumb idea for many reasons. I had worked on independent, or more accurately, amateur, film projects a dozen times, both for class and simply because I wanted to. None of them were good. Despite the fact that I was an adult, I still was not a competent film maker (And some might say that I still am not). But I was young, and still had the delusions of being a big shot director someday. All I needed, I reasoned, was a big project to really pick things up and get a bit of a spotlight. I could continue making simple YouTube videos, but if I actually wanted to get anywhere, I needed to make something bigger.

So I had to make a feature film.

I talked to my regular cohort, Evan Greenhoe. I had known him for a few years at this point, having met when I was still in high school, and we had the same thirst for creating. While he was more of the on camera type, acting and performing music (he still is, but he was then too), I always felt more comfortable behind the scenes, writing and directing. We had talked over projects before, as we always loved making ideas and fleshing them out, and when I told him my desire to make a feature film, he almost instantly handed me the idea of Awesome Trevor.

He had come up with the idea with his girlfriend, Sarah, and had held onto the idea for a little while, never fully formed, but when we started talking about making bigger things, he figured it would be a fit. He had never really formed the idea too terribly deeply, beyond making it a video game inspired piece of a regular joe becoming a hero and saving the princess. We talked out the idea over several days, and eventually we had a strong base to work off of.

Now before I go any further, there is one important note I must add. Around this time, Scott Pilgrim vs The World had just come out. This is important because, in the beginning, Awesome Trevor was a rip off of that. In later years, we would change the story around to make it it’s own thing, but to start with, it was a story of a kind of loser dude going on a quest to save his ex girlfriend from a bunch of people from her past, one of which is even a weird ninja girl. It was a copy.

Now that we had our base, the next step was to write out this masterpiece of original fiction. This was no problem, as I had already written out a few feature length scripts before (all of them going unused, of course). While writing, though, I decided to change up the flow a bit: Instead of one movie, I would make it a six part series, and after all parts were released, I would edit them together as a movie! My genius knew no bounds…

So I got to writing this newly formatted script. I filled it with video game references, witty dialogue, and set it in local areas, so that it would be simpler to film. I introduced the amnesiac main character, Trevor; His tired roommate, Mark; The mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Mary; and the 4 mysterious bosses, Kevin Kurochi, Peyote Jones, Stephanie Connor and Samuel Tanner. The story was of Trevor, who woke up after a heavy night of drinking, to find his memories of a former girlfriend gone, and going on an adventure to get them back with the help of his quip filled roommate.

My wit, it burns....

    The scripts, well… They weren’t great. They weren’t bad for an untrained 20 year old, but I would like to think I’ve come a long way from when I wrote them. But the most important thing was, we had our scripts. Now started the pre-production.

We pretty much had our cast right off, as they were mostly friends of ours. I was going to play Samuel, who was a bouncer at a club with super strength; Evan was to play Mark, the plucky costar; Kevin (a samurai), Peyote (a drugged out metal guitarist) and Stephanie (a cloaked ninja) were going to be played by our friends Ken, Adolf and Amber respectively; And Mary, who appeared as herself in only one scene, was planned to be played by a woman named Amanda Alch. who I was going to school with at the time and was already an established actress (Bad Kids Go To Hell and Claws). It’s likely she doesn’t even remember agreeing to appear in it, which is probably for the best.

Our starring role went to a good friend of mine from high school named Kyle Mason. Then, he was a kid in his late teens with an interest in cosplay and video production. Nowadays, he is a professional cosplayer and video producer, so he’s not doing too shabby. It didn’t take much convincing to have him play the lead role, and we were off to the races!

A Readthrough of the script, which of course didn’t go through any editing

I had even asked a dude I had met in college named James to be our Director of Photography, as he had had more experience working on original projects and camera work. Our hearts were working faster than our minds, and we skipped over dozens of important steps (setting proper schedules, storyboarding, finding proper funding, etc) in our pursuit, instead focusing on marketing, finding places to film, and practicing our parts. We even had popular content producers Video Games Awesome plug our project on their show, despite the fact that there was not any actual substance behind anything we were doing.

Timestamp is at 9:24. A preview of what never comes...

The best way to sum this up is that is was an embarrassment to filmmaking. Had we actually started production as planned, everyone involved would probably hate each other, and the entire thing would be scrapped after about two episodes. I was saved by James cancelling his involvement, probably rightly sensing that this all was half assed, causing the production to fall behind and ultimately being cancelled due to people no longer being available.

And so the first part of this story ends with but a wisp of smoke that was our hope for a movie. Though we possibly dodged a bullet, I was still frustrated and disappointed by all of it, so I put the idea on hiatus and started working on other things. It would lay there for 3 years before it appeared again…

Part 2: The First Cartoon

2013. I was out of community college, and at the University of Texas. I didn’t fit in very well, and being farther away from home and friends made me a bit of a sad, lonely hermit. I knew several people at school, and though I would consider many of them friends now, back then, they were just classmates.

To occupy my time, I was doing side work for Frederator Studios, makers of such fine cartoons as Adventure Time, Fairly Odd Parents, and Chalkzone. I had become friendly with Fred Seibert, the founder of Frederator, after interviewing him a couple years prior, and he had let me make some videos for their YouTube Channel. While I was doing work there, they started up their Cartoon Hangover project, where people could pitch their own cartoons with relative ease, and if Frederator liked it, they would produce a full cartoon short.

This seemed like an amazing opportunity for both myself and Evan, who had experience with animation. I talked to him about it, and he was on board before I even finished explaining the whole thing to him. Like we always do, we started discussing ideas, and after long deliberations, we narrowed it down to three: Captain Amazo, the idiotic superhero; Metal Mania, which was about a metal bad traveling through space to be the biggest band in the galaxy; And, of course, Awesome Trevor, back from the dead.

Well, back from the dead is a slight misnomer. We had discussed the idea once more in between, thinking of bringing it back as a comic. We got far in our discussions, but never made any physical items to go with it, and soon it went back into its slumber.

Editing note: After reviewing the article, Evan has told me that he actually made a comic cover that he never showed me. The cover, unfortunately, has been lost to time.

Both of us were still feeling the sting from the failed mini-series/movie, and as we were now a little bit older, we decided to be a bit wiser as well. Not wise enough to not choose Awesome Trevor, mind you, but also hedging our bets by pitching two shows, the other being Captain Amazo. (Note: we did plan to pitch Metal Mania as well, but we never got around to finishing it).

So this process was pretty much a rinse and repeat. I went home and made a script, and from there, we began working on a pitch. This new script, while not a ton better than the originals, was still an improvement, and since we weren’t having to go through pre-production and big planning meetings, we were able to take stuff in stride. We kept the same general story, but decided to make stuff bigger and flashier, as we weren’t limited by the shackles of real life. We also changed around some of the character designs, as we wanted to have new actors play the characters.

I’m sure I thought of the shirt designs. I’m a comedy genius.

We kept the base designs of Mark and Trevor, but Samuel the Bouncer was changed to match the person we really wanted to play him, Seanbaby. Once Satisfied, we storyboarded everything out  and sent them in to Frederator, eagerly awaiting the approval so we can start again on our dream project.

I wrote in the dialogue myself, despite my awful handwriting.

As these are the first you are ever seeing of the characters or story, it’s needless to say that we were denied. The problem with it was that, whoops, we had sent a full storyboard, when in fact they wanted a beat board (like a storyboard, but using thumbnails instead of large images). He also noted that the end of this pitch was left as a “To Be Continued”, and that they were looking for standalone ideas instead of pitches for full series.

Part 3: The Second Cartoon

While again disappointed, this wasn’t a denial based on content, instead just the way it was presented. So we went back to the literal drawing board and reworked the idea into a standalone. It was at this point, in the first time since the idea was formed, that we decided to change the story up. While we kept the saving the girl idea (as to us, it felt like a very video-game thing), we made him more of a player-character like character, almost like an avatar battling in a game.

Looking back through the beat boards we made, they were lame. While I had grown as a writer, I focused way too much on trying to make something someone else would like, and wrote in a very cliched way. Instead of trying to introduce or establish characters, I made Mark and Trevor generic, and didn’t even give defined forms to the people they were fighting. The jokes were bad, the characters were one note, and for some reason I felt the need to physically write out the dialogue on the sheet, despite the fact that I have terrible handwriting.

Seriously, why did I feel the need to write in the dialogue?!

Evan tried his best to work with what he was given, but I feel that I dropped the ball on this one. And of course it showed when I sent it in and got a response from Eric Homan, who runs all the creative development at Frederator.

“Thanks, Zach, for the work and continued interest.

Unfortunately, "Awesome Trevor" is very far away from what we're looking for in our Cartoon Hangover shorts, in everything from character to story to tone.

I may have recommended this before, but I really suggest you take a look at our shorts as we begin to release them in a few weeks. I think they'll give a better indication of the types of cartoons for which we're looking.

Thanks, again.

-- Eric”

In everything from character to story to tone. That said what needed to be said. Even though I was sour at the time, with five years of hindsight, I realized that Eric was, as he often is, completely right about it, in more way than I could have thought. It was a slapdash job on an idea that was already starting to become kind of stale. We tried to change it up, but in trying to rush this idea to get it made (I checked, there was literally one month between the denial of the first pitch and sending in the second pitch), I did a poor job and let both of us down.

I of course blamed people like Eric, who was just telling me the truth, and situations like my school life, which was causing me anxiety and depression, but deep down I knew that I had done poorly. I had taken this idea, that wasn’t even mine originally, and basically ruined it to the point where we felt like we couldn’t do anything more with it. So at this point, I want to make two apologies. One to Eric, who was simply trying to help and harboured resentment towards for years, and one to Evan, who I kind put a lot of pressure on while we were working on these, and probably wasn’t the best person to work with. Um… My bad.

Part 4: The Past and Future

That last one was probably the last major wave we had in trying to produce Awesome Trevor. It pops up in conversations of ideas a lot, but nothing ever comes to fruition. The closest that ever came after the second cartoon debacle was another video game video series related idea I had. The idea was of an NPC in an open world game who breaks programming and tries to fight back against the player character, who repeatedly kills people for no reason. After discussing that idea for a while, we thought of attaching the Awesome Trevor name to it, as they were both vaguely video game related, and even started jotting down some story ideas. But, like many plans, this one faded away, and was soon in the vault, like the thousand other things we come up with…

And, well, that’s kind of the end. There might have been an expectation of some kind of twist or surprise announcement, but that’s not always how things go. At this point, Awesome Trevor is just an old idea, one that had stewed in our minds for years now. It comes up in conversations every few months, maybe trying out a cartoon pitch again, or doing it as a podcast series, but so far, nothing is set in stone. Hell, it’s possible that after this, a new vigor of interests might pop up inside of us, and the world is finally introduced to this plan that is now 8+ years in the making. You never really can tell.

The main reason I wanted to write this was to just put this all out there, and finally view something of it. Maybe I wanted people to finally see this thing that has been on my mind for a portion of my life. Maybe it’s a cautionary tale of not stepping back and taking the necessary steps to make something come to life properly. Or maybe it’s simply my plea of vanity, begging someone to tell me what I made was good. At this point, I can’t really tell. I just hope someone enjoyed it enough to get to the end.

And man, did it get kind of depressing at the end. Well, for those who made it here, here is your secret easter egg ending. Presented in full is the original draft to the Awesome Trevor Theme Song, produced by the extremely talented Evan Greenhoe. Thank you for reading!