ONLY ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!!!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!

I was only going to release one chapter every Wednesday, but felt like posting more for fun. Comments/likes/kudos are REALLY appreciated, so I can get an audience. Please share this novelization with anyone you think would enjoy it.

I've been working on it for an abnormally long time, and got really carried away doing multiple drafts, especially for the later parts. The aim was to make it better than one of those professional Disney movie novelizations. Hopefully it feels like a full satisfying book with a lot of little things that connect and foreshadow.

Chapter 9 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite is up on AO3!

Read it here! Link

Guys, only one more chapter to go after this one! It's been so much fun posting this rewrite! Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading! I can't wait to start the next movie rewrite soon!

In this chapter Magnifico gets sucked into his own black hole of misused magic, and goes through a change.

Excerpt: Magnifico was towed downward by the black hole’s current, the edges of his robes unraveling into threads. He felt himself stretching, as if time itself was taking him apart, strand by strand. Space had swapped places with time, and hurled him toward the void’s inevitable singularity. His head and feet pulled in opposite directions as intense gravity stretched him unthinkably thin. 

As his torso elongated, his legs did not immediately catch up, and the pressure on his head intensified. His arms and legs became uselessly long threads. Horrifically, the magic in his blood denied him death until he became a smeared streak, when his soul was finally released, then he floated out of himself.

Magnifico, now immaterial, continued his descent, then, below, in the blackness from which no light could escape, he began to see dozens of embers. It turns out some light survives after passing through the event horizon’s boundary. As Magnifico sank deeper, time crawled slower and slower, and the lights, getting closer, grew brighter, revealing themselves to be dimming stars. Not alive like the one he’d met, but cold, colourless orbs.

Gravity no longer affected him, so Magnifico floated leisurely through their midst.

The stars’ surfaces were webbed with cracks that spilled streams of gold like blood. Some flickered weakly, while others were grey and lightless, perhaps dead, but they were all doomed to spin round together in the current. One floated through Magnifico, its edges curled inward as if it were devouring itself. They clustered in groups, grazing each other, shedding shards of brilliance like falling snow, while a few floated alone, then disappeared into the blackness beyond. Magnifico watched one brighter star shrink away from him as if it knew he were there.

He watched the creeping shadows where the star vanished, that were creating patterns around him: an endless staircase led downward, each step dripping with despair as it dissolved into nothingness, then the shadows became piercing shards that hurled themselves at him, and stabbed through him, though they only passed through him like smoke. These burst into fragments like pieces of glass from his terrible mirrors, and Magnifico finally saw his own reflection in them. The eyes of his shadow self were empty and sunken, and he did not recognise himself.

The darkness closed in, and laughter rang out from each of his reflections, then Magnifico realised they were one and the same with him. At this understanding the dark magic's grip loosened a tiny bit, and he knew that to reclaim his sanity, he would have to confront these distortions of himself.

As he drifted further down, a shadow formed into the shape of a man.

“Is that. . .?” Now Magnifico knew he was dead. “I think I remember you.” The words he’d said to Asha earlier, during her interview echoed through his mind: “He was a philosopher, was he not? Had great magic running through his blood. Always warning people about the consequences of getting whatever your heart desires. . .”

It was him. Asha’s father, the renowned philosopher. The tall man with a short beard and an eyepatch over his right eye, whose hair still stuck straight up after being killed by lightning, spoke. “Remember when magic was the pursuit of knowledge, not a weapon of tyranny?”

Magnifico studied the philosopher, then he nearly laughed. “I should have known you would appear here to mock me. You always were popping up at the most inconvenient of times. But save your laughter. You speak falsely. Magic is not knowledge, it is power. That is all it has ever been.” He found communicating intuitive despite no longer having a body, and could not explain how.

Time became so slow it was as if they no longer moved at all, and Magnifico could not look away from the man.

“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one and sixty years?” The philosopher’s gaze pierced him. “Or have you forgotten yourself in the midst of wielding power so mindlessly?”

Finish reading here: Link

Chapter 3 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite is up on AO3. Read here: Link

The rewrite explores Magnifico as the protagonist with Asha and Amaya as villains, and Star Boy comes into the story later.

In this chapter, Magnifico holds an interview and meets Asha for the first time.

Blurb: It was noon the following day, and Amaya had promised to return within the hour with the most promising candidate she’d been able to find. Magnifico waited in his Wish Chamber, a hidden chamber inside his observatory that stored every wish he’d been given, but never yet granted. 

He reached out so one of the wishes alighted on his finger. The wisp flickered, leaving a trail like sparks of hope in its wake. The king admired the aspiration, and the sense of longing it radiated made his heart ache, like a tune somebody used to know, then forgot, and heard once again in the distance. He let the wish, light as dandelion fluff, ascend into the swirling cloud of others above him, where they danced in a radiant sky-revel, with stardust pirouettes and leaps.

Magnifico knew from poetry that wishes weren’t always what people should want, but rather, what they did want. They were mysterious flower buds that would unfold and unfold, and might never stop unfolding, until the world was overrun with the complications of them, unless someone did something to stop their consequences. 

His people needed to trust his wisdom, for he’d spent the last eighteen years studying the complexities of fate, and now recognised when the time was not right for a wish to unfold. The most challenging aspect of being a sorcerer was dealing with the unanswered wishes, because his subjects could fervently ask for something, believing it to be good and necessary, yet it was not always what was truly best for them. But why their wishes remained unanswered was a mystery to them. 

“I opened Pandora’s box by learning sorcery to grant wishes, but now I have a key, and can lock it up again when I need to,” the king told himself, though he was never at peace despite the fact. “But soon,” he leaned against a windowsill, “I will have someone to assist me, should anything go wrong. . .” 

Amaya had told him the candidate's name, and assured him that this time, she had complete confidence in her abilities. What had she said the candidate’s name was again? 

Gently, Magnifico traced the brass filigree of an old armillary sphere, its interlocking rings representing the orbits of celestial bodies. He studied its familiar patterns, remembering his own days as an apprentice, guided by his mentor's steady hand, and he listened to the faint, melodic hum of the wishes’ hopeful song. It filled him with peace.

A jarring shriek pierced through their tune. Magnifico spun so fast his sphere toppled off its perch on the table. 

“Someone is in my tower.”

Despite the horrific noise, the king made his expression calm, though a sinking sense of dread filled him as he feared for each delicate piece of equipment in his observatory. “I suppose this is the best candidate Amaya could find,” he thought sarcastically. “I should never have allowed our meeting to take place here. What was Amaya thinking? Well, I’ve got to give them a chance. . .”

But as Magnifico emerged from his Wish Chamber, the picture was worse than the one his imagination had leant him. A young woman had stumbled in with the grace of a toddler, and attempted to make contact with his book of forbidden magic, evident from enchanted wasps encircling her, which he’d conjured as a safety precaution, to materialise if anyone but him touched the glass case protecting the manuscript. 

The girl swatted her arms like a wild monkey, continuing to shriek as the enchanted wasps buzzed in a menacing symphony around her, and Magnifico felt a wave of pity, because she thought they could sting when they were only meant to confuse and to scare. He’d almost raised his voice to yell, but the girl was turning pink, clearly embarrassed, and Amaya had thought her worthy of coming here. There could still be virtue underneath, in spite of this careless accident. He mustered patience.

“No, no,” he laughed, making his presence known as he reentered his observatory. “Asha, is it? That book is forbidden.” Though he hurried forward, he maintained a calm composure. “Now hold still. I’ve got it.” As he raised his hands to summon the swarm, he tried to make light of her mistake. “You can’t have known, but I put, ahem, a spell on the glass guarding this book. It is actually very, very dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Then why would you have it?” Asha, still waving her arms, sounded as if she was going to cry. “I only wanted to touch the etchings around the glass because they were pretty.” 

She was so worked up she slipped, and almost kicked King Magnifico in the face just as he’d gathered all the wasps into his hands. Before they could force their way from his grasp, he called up all the magic he could, and shot them back at the case, which they melted into, becoming nothing but ornate carvings once again.

Magnifico sighed as he shut the case, then he rubbed his hands off on his robes. “A king must be prepared for everything. I hope there will never be a time this book needs to be used. Are you all right?”

“No,” said Asha, in what sounded like a whine.

Magnifico was going to overlook this, but then Asha ploughed on in a show-offish sort of ramble, “I mean yes. And I understand if you think I’m, like, totally weird and you want me to leave right now and never show my face again.”

“That would certainly be for the best,” thought Magnifico, but Amaya’s words made him curious whether Asha actually had some mysterious talent not obvious at first sight. “Let’s not over react,” he said instead. “You’re here; you’ve certainly got my attention.” He turned, and wriggled his fingers so a quill leapt into the air, ready to take notes on a bit of parchment he’d laid out on a desk. 

“So go ahead; tell me why you think you should be my apprentice.” He waited with hope in his heart.

“Well,” said Asha, in the tone of someone telling a joke to their friends, “I care too much.” Then she paused, as if waiting for a laugh.

“Ookay,” said Magnifico, as hope packed its bags and took a one way trip from his heart. He waited for her to say something else, anything to imply she had some selfless intention, but she just continued staring, as if waiting for a reaction.

“That’s interesting,” said Magnifico finally.

“It’s my weakness,” she burst out, and looked so pleased with herself Magnifico thought she was going to laugh at her own incompetence.

“I see.”

“Figured I might as well get through all the bad stuff right up front,” she ruined her own joke by blabbering on too long. She was clearly used to being surrounded by a group of friends who laughed at everything she said, and was trying quite hard to be quirky.

“Fair enough.” Magnifico already couldn’t wait to send her away. This was not the way someone with common sense acted before the king. It reminded him far too much of eighteen years earlier, when no one had shown him any respect. But he would get through the rest of the interview for Amaya’s sake. He breathed out. “And your strengths? Do you have any?” 

“Glad you asked, I have many.” Asha brushed her box braids behind her ear, then pulled a vellum book from her pocket. “I’m a hard worker, and I help well, and I’m young and malleable, and I like to draw.” 

Magnifico grasped for something in all these cliches. “You like to draw?” he latched onto the most useful of these irrelevant skills. “And how long have you had this ability?”

At this, the first glimpse of sincerity appeared in Asha’s eyes, and she opened her book to detailed life gestures she’d sketched of goats and lambs. “A long time.” She flipped through more pages of life-like scribbles. “It’s something my father taught me,” she told the king with a proud smile.

When Asha said this, a distant, half forgotten memory stirred inside Magnifico, and he peered closer at the young woman's annoying face.

“I think I remember your father.”

“You do?”

“He was a philosopher, was he not? Had great magic running through his blood. Always warning people about the consequences of getting whatever your heart desires.”

Asha’s eyes glazed over at the last part, but she eagerly started talking about herself again. “Oh yeah. We used to climb that tree by the high ridge in the Hamlet, where I’m from, to look at the stars, and he said they were there to guide us.”

“Your father said a lot more than soft soap like that. He was a very wise man. Did you learn much about his philosophies?”

“Not really. After he got struck by lightning, he wasn’t able to take me out at night as much anymore. I used to want to make a wish that he would get better. But the electric shock left him with lots of burns, and his heart finally stopped one day.”

“I’m sorry. How old were you when he passed away?”

“I was twelve years old.”

Magnifico finally glimpsed something recognisable in Asha, so he attempted to dig a bit deeper.

“It’s not fair, is it?” he asked, taking a gamble as he searched her face for that sincerity again. “When I was young, I too suffered great loss.” He wasn't sure Asha would pay attention as the subject changed to something other than herself, but he went on, determined to finish, because whether she listened at this moment would decide everything. 

“Years ago, my entire family was killed by selfish, greedy thieves, and our lands were reduced to ashes,” he told her. “The devastation was beyond imagining. The streets, once bustling with life, were strewn with the bodies of those I once loved. Though the village I’d roamed was silent, I could still hear sobbing of ghosts, of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and my friends. Not a day passes without the haunting thought: if only I had known sorcery then. . .” The king shuddered as the faces of his lost kin grew clear in his memories. He looked hard into Asha’s eyes. "It is for this reason, Asha, that the very foundation of this kingdom is built upon the belief that no one should ever experience the agony of watching their dreams crumble before their eyes. I vowed to create a haven where everyone would be safe, where the horrors of my past would never befall another.”

Magnifico paused to see whether she was listening.

Asha had finally stopped rocking back and forth, and looked contemplative. When the king stopped talking, she blinked. “You’re right,” she managed. “No one should live their life feeling the pain of that loss everyday.”

The king nodded. “Yes. Exactly. And that is why I do what I do.”

Asha’s voice was serious when she replied, “And that’s why I want to work for you.”

Perhaps it was his imagination, or his own good heart deceiving him, but at that moment, Magnifico was overwhelmed, and his heart melted a little. “Come with me,” he said, and led Asha toward the tower’s back wall, where he raised an arm so the stones shifted and slid apart, and his Wish Chamber revealed itself.

“Wow,” said Asha as blue light poured over her, and the domed chamber shone upon her in all its heavenly glory.

“You’re one of the few I’ve ever invited in here.” Magnifico led her inside with sweeping strides. “But if I am to trust you, I need you to understand just how important the wishes of Rosas are.” He glanced at his guest, and was pleased to see her expression was properly impressed, her eyes wide, and her mouth shut. “You can feel them, can’t you?” 

“I can,” she whispered. “They’re, uh, everything.”

“That’s exactly it. These wishes are everything.” Magnifico paused to let her take in the brilliance of them.

“I didn’t expect them to feel so alive.” Asha reached out toward the tangible essence of someone’s deepest aspiration: a woman cradling a violin in her arms inside the orb. She shivered as the woman created the beautiful music of someone who’d put in countless hours of practice, each pluck of a string evoking a yearning that transcended the material world around them. 

Magnifico laughed a deep laugh at Asha’s first impression. “They fill you with so much longing, don’t they? But that one would do no good to grant. Ambition untempered by effort stifles the growth of character. Denying someone the trials and triumphs of their journey robs them of the refinement of their soul. To grow in virtue is to become something more beautiful than even the most vibrant vibrations of violin strings.”

Finish reading: Link

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit One Shot

Just wanted to put it out there that I also recently wrote a one shot about Oswald's tale. I'd like to make the whole video game into a book with more depth someday.

Chapter 12

Once-ler turns evil. Gets dark at the end. Read the whole thing on Ao3. Excerpt:

It was nice when he could get a second guitar without even thinking about it. Perhaps even nicer than it would have been to someone who didn't have heartbreaking memories of always being told his parents couldn't afford a good one for him. After all, hadn't it been just the other day he'd asked for one on his eighth birthday in front of the music store window and gotten tears in his eyes when his dad told him no?

He didn't have any memories of clothes-shopping as a child either. All he'd gotten was hand-me-downs for short people from his church's charity drives. Surely other people had always gotten measured at tailors to get jackets and trousers of the highest quality to fit them perfectly. This, of course, justified the exorbitant bill when he bought a new designer wardrobe complete with extra tall top hats in his favorite black and bright green colors.

It turned out, the world was full of things he'd never been able to appreciate before he'd had money:

Clothes, drinks, cars, trips, events. There were so many more opportunities when you weren't just a poor helpless urchin…

He would never go back to being poor. Never. He was even worse than his Ma, after a short time.

"Oncie, don't ya think maybe we could take a day off to have a family picnic and celebrate the end of summer like in the old days?" she said to him one day.

Once-ler looked up from the photos he was studying for a new billboard advertisement. He'd almost settled on what he thought was a charismatic picture of himself with his arms spread wide and an eye-popping grin on his face, though Brett had remarked it made him look rather possessed.

"Ha!" He slammed down the photos. "You mean the old days when we were poor and miserable? Why don't we take the whole week off and have a real party? Or better yet, a month-long tropical vacation?"

His Ma blinked. "Sounds real nice, honey, but who's gonna run the company? Didn't you just get back from a cruise? Ain't ya gettin' just a little too extravagant these days?"

"Who cares? I'm rich! We got a million employees now. Besides I deserve it cuz of all the sufferin' I went through before."

This excuse got less impressive by the day as Once-ler's new luxuries quickly outweighed any misery he'd previously endured. His identity as a lower class citizen faded even more quickly from his own memory and personality than it did into the past.

"I'm so glad that in the last year I was finally able to discover the real me," was something he'd told everyone in his family more than once since they'd returned. It never occurred to him that what he meant was: "I'm so glad I finally have money to do whatever I want without any consequences."

***

2nd excerpt:

"I just wanted to tell you, the Barbaloots are dying."

Something got through the iron-clad self absorption that had enclosed Once-ler for the last few months. He was surrounded by terrible people all the time now, but when harm fell upon innocent creatures, it was different. He remembered the little Barbaloot that had given him a hug after the fiasco in the river.

"What do you mean dying? How can they be… Surely they're not actually dying ?"

"There was something in the water that made 'em sick. Something from your factory that set in quick. It's making 'em not move and lay around. And some of 'em…" There were tears in the Lorax's eyes. "Some of 'em ain't gettin' up from the ground."

READ THE FULL THING ON AO3!!!

Wicked Rewrite Chapter 2 (Not Like Other Girls)

Didn't expect to continue this, but didn't expect to get 6 kudos that fast. Join us for a story about the Wicked Witch actually being wicked. A twist on the twist.

Excerpt:

“I don’t read the same thing every day, you know,” Elphaba said, flipping a page. “That's the thing about books. Once you get all the information out of one, then you can get more from another. You should try it sometime."

"Oh, I like reading about poetry, philosophy, and architecture," said Glinda, feeling a stab of irritation at whatever stereotype her roommate was trying to pin on her. "Like I said, I got into Shzzz for my literary merits."

"I'm sure whatever references you made to nursery rhymes were very insightful. But I'm talking about actually familiarizing yourself with our politics and history," said Elphaba. "Tonight, I’m reading some of the speeches from the Codified Chronicles of Ozma’s Reign. I want to accomplish important things, like changing our outdated laws.”

“That sounds interesting," said Glinda. "What kind of laws do you want to change?"

Elphaba let out a long-suffering sigh, as if Glinda couldn't possibly understand the depths of what she was doing. "Well," she said, finally sitting all the way up, and turning to look at Glinda down her crooked nose. She adjusted her glasses. "I think that anyone with green skin should be automatically exempt from having to share a room with anyone. And we shouldn't have to go outside to any social gatherings. The sun, after all, makes us a walking target for sunburns and rain."

"I see."

"Furthermore, I think that anyone with green skin should be legally required to wear a crown. It’s only fair. After all, if we can't blend in, why shouldn't we stand out royally?"

Glinda nodded, only half sure Elphaba was making a joke. "I don't know what to make of what you say sometimes," she admitted. "Why should anyone treat you differently for being green?"

"I think it's actually a superior way of being," said Elphaba. "I'm not like other girls, after all. My brain works completely differently. I read actual books instead of wasting time gossiping about fashion trends or boys."

"We don't really talk about those things," said Glinda, but Elphaba wasn't listening.

"Other girls are too busy looking in mirrors, but I actually look at the world around me. You know, the real world, not just my own reflection."

"I don't think—"

"While other girls are obsessing over how to please people, I’m actually trying to make the world a better place. A bit more ambitious, wouldn't you say? I don’t waste my energy on frivolous things like popularity. I’d rather have intelligence and independence, qualities other girls wouldn’t even know how to handle."

Glinda's eyes fell upon the hat on her nightstand. "I have an idea," she said, going to pick it up. "I may not have a crown for you to wear, but how about this? You don't like flashy things anyway, right? This black hat ought to match the rest of your wardrobe."

"I couldn't wear that, it's not sensible at all!" Elphaba flipped her hair over her shoulder. "It's tall and pointy. Points are childish and shallow."

"You know," said Glinda, "you say you like to be sensible, but I don't think that's really what you want. A blanket that's thin and moldy isn't a sensible choice. Dark raggedy clothes aren't practical for fitting into a school. I think what you're really trying to be is different." She handed Elphaba the hat. "Take it. Then you can really stand out."

Elphaba stared at the black pointed hat in her gnarled green hands. She traced the brim with a long nail, and her mouth twisted thoughtfully. Slowly, she raised it, and set it on her shiny mane of black hair. She shook her head to adjust it, and walked across the room to the mirror.

"I must admit…" she said, after a moment. "I think it actually suits me."

Just then, a gust of wind crashed the window shut, and heavy hailstones banged into the glass. Glinda yelped, and ran to push a table in front of it. "The latch is broken," she said. "Hand me something to fasten it with, Elphie—It's alright if I call you that, isn't it?—Elphie? Elphaba?"

She turned to see Elphaba standing by the window, her eyes wide, hands raised in the air. The storm was swirling around her, but not touching her. She seemed to barely notice it. 

"Elphaba, are you—" Glinda started, her voice faltering as she caught sight of Elphaba's expression.

Her fingers twitched as the wind howled louder. A thick, dark cloud began to gather over her head. Little bolts of lightning crackled from it, raising her hair around her pointed hat, like eerie spiderweb threads.

Glinda tripped backwards as Elphaba's hand moved in a sharp motion, and the storm outside obeyed, growing stronger. It was no longer a natural force, but something pulled into motion by Elphaba herself. The wind howled more fiercely, answering her every movement. A flash of lightning illuminated her bright green face as the room started buzzing violently.

"Elphaba!" Glinda shouted, eyes wide. "What’s happening?"

"It's… It's working," murmured her roommate, staring at her hands in disbelief. "Everything I've read… everything I've studied… I can do sorcery." Elphaba lowered her arm, the wind outside dying down in response. The storm ceased, just as suddenly as it had started. She stood motionless for a moment, eyes wide, breathing heavily.

Glinda stared at her roommate, unsure whether to be terrified or amazed. "You did that? With your... your hat?"

"It wasn’t the hat," Elphaba said. "It just awoke something. That was... me."

"Oh…" Glinda covered her mouth with her hands. "I guess you're really not like other girls, after all."

"Quite right." A smirk crept up on her face. "I knew that since I was born." But just as her smugness was reaching unbearable heights, Glinda slipped on a puddle and threw out her hands.

The electric feeling in the room returned more intensely, and rainbows shot out of them, followed by blinding light.

How many drafts do you usually do of your fanfictions? I can't stop re-reading and fiddling with them for at least a few months. I wonder what would happen if I did this for over a year, and how high quality I could get them.

There are so many embellishments you can add. (Connections, foreshadowing, character voice improvements, and just generally adding more interesting detail. And of course cleaning up all the technical things).

I just love how when you have a fully finished story you can always make it better. "I think I'll add some plot twists to make it more interesting." etc. It's like tinkering with a car or something, but even weirder.

GUYS, IT'S THE LAST CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE WHO READ THIS, LEFT KUDOS, COMMENTS, BOOKMARKS, ETC!!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE THE GREAT LORAX REWRITE IS FINALLY COMPLETE!

Excerpt:

He spent his days staring at the tally marks he'd scratched into the walls. They sprawled unevenly, some deep gouges, others mere scratches. He counted them again and again, fingers tracing the jagged lines, as he mumbled under his breath. "One... two... three... four..." His voice faltered and he started over. "One… two… thr—no, wait." He could only pray his count remained slightly accurate as the years went by.

Once he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, a flash of green in the broken shard of metal that hung from the wall. He whipped his head around, only to see his own reflection glaring back at him. But it wasn’t him—it was that other him. The green, twisted version, eyes hollow and black like two bottomless pits. 

"What do you want?" he whispered. "Why won’t you just leave me alone?" The reflection only smiled, a slow, creeping grin before crawling slowly away.

At night, the walls breathed. That’s what it sounded like to Once-ler—a long, wheezing inhale, a brittle exhale. The wind rushed through the gaps with ghostly arms that reached for him. He woke up, shivering, convinced he heard humming-fish singing just outside. 

"Hush! Quiet, they’re back!" he whispered to himself. Pressing his ear to the walls, the cold metal bit into his skin. All he heard was the wind. He slumped back down, knees pulled to his chest. "They were here," he murmured, rocking back and forth. "I know they were here…"

Desperate for routine, every morning, Once-ler reached for the rope he’d rigged to a bucket. It wasn’t for food or water—those needs had faded—he pulled it up just to see if the world had sent him something, anything. Most days, it came up empty, swinging in the breeze like a useless pendulum. Once or twice, he found a few broken pieces of old advertisements. He kept them, not because they were useful, but because they were better than nothing.

The gloves fused to his hands were another enemy he could never beat. They itched and burned, the skin underneath painful and raw. He scratched at the seams until his fingers bled, trying to tear them off. However, the fabric wouldn’t budge. "Get it off, get it off!" he screamed. He tore at his flesh until exhaustion took him.

The days twisted and knotted together into an indecipherable net, ensnaring him. Once-ler sat in his corner, and all he could think was, "Willingly. I chose all of it willingly." 

He wondered if the Lerkim would be his tomb. Or if, by some cruel twist of fate, he’d live forever within its rusted walls, alone with the ghosts of choices that could never be unmade.

The only other thing left to do was the thing he did most of all: Contemplate the meaning of the stones. "Unless." Unless what? he wondered.

Unless he changed his ways?

Unless he somehow escaped?

Unless he said he was sorry?

Unless the humming-fish had been trying to warn him?

Unless the Truffula trees were still out there, watching?

Unless the wind has been whispering the answer all along?

Unless his reflection knew the truth and he didn’t?

Unless the rain spoke a language he couldn't hear?

Unless the Lorax never left and was invisible?

Unless everything that was happening was a dream?

"Unless," Once-ler whispered again, as his brain overheated with puzzlement. "Unless... I was never meant to understand."

(Read the rest on ao3).

--------

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS DONE! For over I a decade I would see people complain about this movie and how it could be better. I would see posts about how people were going to rewrite it, but they never really did beyond summaries. Now I've finally finished this, so my life is complete. This is the longest fanfiction that I took the most seriously finishing. Thank you for all the kudos, comments, bookmarks, etc. that I didn't know if it would get.

Me and my coauthor on this account are hoping to create more rewrites after this. Currently, we're almost done with the first draft of a rewrite of Disney's Wish. We're aiming to start releasing it around Christmas, depending on how things go.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS STORY! Please let me know if you have any feedback about how you liked this rewrite. We'll take it into account for how we handle rewrites in the future.

Chapter 15 is up

GUYS, THERE'S ONLY ONE CHAPTER AFTER THIS! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S COME SO FAR!

Excerpt (here I attempted to insert more logic into why the seed was never planted earlier and the Lorax didn't help or create more):

A thunderous crack interrupted his thoughts. It was louder than bulldozers, like when the factory had collapsed, but more formidable and extraordinary, a sound Once-ler could never forget, that he heard every night in his dreams.

He peeked between the boards, and, sure enough, the sky had the telltale purple hue and spiraling clouds that signaled the Lorax coming back to earth.

Brown mossy paws landed weightlessly upon the UNLESS stones, and a yellow mustache under glittering black eyes turned up to look at Once-ler.

“HELLO IN THERE!” the Lorax hollered. “Still taking care? Haven't said goodbye? You’ve yet to die?"

Once-ler didn't know what to say at first, but after spluttering for a few moments, settled on: "Well, FINALLY! Where were you this whole time? Let me out so we can plant more trees already! We need to get a head start straightening out this mess, it's gonna take a loooong time to fix!"

The Lorax held up his hands. "Calm down, I can only create one seed every hundred years. And they can only be planted under certain circumstances, I fear. Seeds (and trees, for that matter) ain't cheap consumerist stuff. Unlike Thneeds, creating living things at will is tough."

He walked up to the Lerkim, and did something Once-ler couldn't see to the lock. Perhaps he had created a cheap consumerist key, but, in any case, a clink told him the chain had finally fallen away.

Once-ler slammed his full weight against the door and tumbled out.

"Sorry it took so long, but do you know what went wrong?" said the Lorax, waiting for him to straighten himself as much as he could—Once-ler's crooked spine had been bent too many times to ever go back to normal. "I can only stay in the valley as long as the animals or trees that I protect are in it. Right now a swomee-swan is passing through for a minute."

"Right, well, anyway, we need to plant this!" Once-ler held up the seed he'd protected in the Lerkim for ten years.

The Lorax sighed. "The time still isn't right, that’s why I put up such a fight," he said. "My point, if you’d heard my pleas—is that Truffula Trees don’t sprout with ease. The good news is," he said to Once-ler's dejected expression, "that if you get one to grow, then soon you’ll see—a bloom of others follows naturally; it's like one's the mother, that hundreds of babies spring around. Plus they can clean up the air, the water, and ground—planting Truffula Trees is the first step to restore and  bring this place back to how it was before."

"Okay. So… When can we plant it?"

"We?" asked the Lorax. "There’s nothing I can do. I can't stay here, so it's up to you. And you're gonna be too old to plant it yourself in forty-eight years. When the time comes, you’re gonna need help out here. You're gonna need to give the seed to someone else. Explain what to do and pray that they’ll help. Tell them the story and the instructions I’ll leave on the stones… I have to go, I feel something slipping away in my bones. The swomee-swan is trying to get out of here fast. Goodbye, if you don’t succeed, these words might be our last."

"Wait—"

But the Lorax was positioned on the UNLESS stones, his hand pinching his fur. "Your job now is to spread the word about the seed. Until you find someone willing to do the deed. It's time to live up to your name and not keep making the same mistake. Actions have consequences, so stay awake. At a certain point you can't take your choices back. Only encourage others to stay on a better track. Just remember," he said, "Unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

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