Once Ler Fanfiction - Blog Posts

THANK YOU

Thank you for 40 kudos on the Lorax Rewrite!!!!!!!!!!!

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).

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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.

Lorax Rewrite (one chapter left!)

Please leave a comment if you can and let me know how you feel about this rewrite now that it's about to end. It's one of the first fanfictions I worked really hard on finishing, so I'd really appreciate knowing what people think! Thank you so much if you've made it this far. I'm so happy I finally finished it (and am posting the last chapter next week), because for longest time I'd see people say they were going to rewrite this movie and never doing it. But now it exists! And it fixes and includes all the main things people always talked about for over a decade. I hope I've done some service to the world by getting it out.

I just realized I'm two thirds done posting the whole Lorax Rewrite. What do you guys think of it so far?

There are still a few twists to come. This has been super fun to work on all summer.

Chapter 11 is up!

IF YOU HAVEN'T STARTED READING NOW, IT'S JUST GETTING TO THE FUN PART!

Excerpt:

As the meetings became more frequent, the character he had invented started to take on a life of its own. It was no longer just a way to get through the day. He would slip into his green suit, the color of money, and with it, would transform into someone else entirely. His voice would change—louder, more charismatic, filled with a confidence that didn’t quite belong to him. His handshake would be firmer, his smile broader, his laugh just a bit too loud.

Brett, Chet, and Gizette, who had seen the transformation firsthand, started calling him “Greed-ler” behind his back. They found the whole thing hilarious, completely different from the brother they knew. Gizette doodled pictures of Greed-ler on scraps of paper, turning him into a cartoon character with exaggerated features and dollar signs in each eye.

It wasn’t long before Greed-ler became more than just a private joke. The image of the green-suited CEO with a maniacal grin spread throughout the company, and soon, it wasn’t just his siblings drawing cartoons of him. Employees began to share these drawings, and Greed-ler started popping up in more official places—on company newsletters, posters, even merchandise. What began as a role to get through the day turned into the official mascot of Thneeds Inc.

READ THE FULL CHAPTER ON AO3!

This chapter is a little longer because I want to take my time showing how Once-ler's personality devolves. I've also never seen any writing about what an average day at the company would be like. As I go through the whole movie, I want to thoroughly explore every last thing like this for once. There really is more than a novel's worth of potential in this story, if it's given its due.

Also, instead of always making Once-ler doubtful about his family's selfishness, I wanted it to be clear he was joining in with them and being an equally terrible or worse person. This is key to making the story work and have a more powerful lesson.

No chapter of the Lorax Rewrite this week because I want to do some extra editing. (Unless I get it done more quickly than I think). This is gonna be the chapter that's least related to the movie's original plot, but should add some extra character development and twists in the end.

Hooray!

Thanks for 20 kudos on my Lorax Rewrite so far. That's the most I've ever gotten on Ao3, since this is the first fic I've actually tried to promote.

Reminder that Chapter 9 is up

While I like the concept of Once-ler having a mean, selfish family that shows why he turned out the way he did, I'm going to make it clear that listening to them and destroying everything was his own choice.

EXCERPT

It was unsettling how much having his family move in made Once-ler's life feel exactly as it had before.

Somehow they still managed to make him feel like the one imposing, despite them being in his house. It wasn't long till his closets were full of their clothes and shoes, and his ice box with things like "Brett's pickles, don't touch." "Gizette's hot sauce. No Oncies allowed" or "CHET ONLY" signs on the orange juice. Yuck. Once-ler patiently pushed the orange juice aside to fit eggs and milk for his pancake batter.

Since the time he'd seen them, Gizette had taken up soccer and now kept her equipment thrown across his lawn. It appeared she'd gotten her glasses somehow, glittery pink frames that she left laying around and never wore. Brett and Chet brought parts of motorbikes they fiddled around with, that Once-ler never saw in the long grass before they tripped him. His Ma seemed to have gotten even more knickknacks, clothes, and yarn than ever for someone who always complained about having no money.

However, he didn't know if he should complain because of how much she helped with the company. In fact, she helped a little too much, staying up all night on the phone, networking, negotiating, planning ads, and scheduling meetings for him to attend. She seemed to have become an expert manager overnight.

"Didn't you know I got a degree in business when I was in my early twenties?" she told him. "I used to help yer dad back when he was first startin' his wood cuttin’ business." Once-ler had not. She had never mentioned having any helpful skills up till this point.

Some of her ideas were better than others. Once-ler did appreciate the plans to expand the market, like with the promotions she took charge of. He liked the new top hat she picked out for him, to make him look like a proper CEO. And thanks to her fundraising efforts, the blueprints for his factory were becoming a brick and mortar reality atop the nearest hill beyond his window.

However, when it came to her suggestion about chopping down the trees to gather the leaves faster for their expanding customer base, Once-ler was annoyed.

"No. Truffula Trees take a hundred years to grow back, so that's not a good business strategy. Why don't we just use ladders?"

“Well, that’s pretty demanding of you,” said his Ma. “You make us move out here to help you, and won’t even provide the proper accommodations. Brett fell off one of those dangerous old ladders the other day, and got a big purple bruise on his nose. It’s not funny, don’t laugh. You gotta learn about bein’ a decent boss.”

Once-ler’s Ma’s opinion of a good boss seemed to be one that gave her whatever she wanted. Well, why did he have to give his family whatever they wanted all the time? His stubbornness was, indeed, the last thing still keeping him from getting out his ax and being done with it. The ladders and picker really were a pain. It would be easier to just yell “Timber!” and harvest a whole head of leaves from a fallen trunk, but he didn't want to give his family the satisfaction.

Oh, and there was his promise to the Lorax too.

Chapter Nine is Up (Everybody Needs a Thneed)

Summary:

Once-ler's dreams finally start to come true and his family joins him in the valley. Something bad happens at the end.

EXCERPT:

A short response to his letter came to the post office later that week. It read:

Dear Oncie,

It’s so wonderful to hear from you. We’ve all been doing just fine. Gizette just got an eye exam and discovered she needs glasses, but we don’t have enough money. Would it be possible for you to loan us a few hundred since we’re behind on bills? I’ll probably be able to pay it back this fall or the next. I don't think we can come to visit, the journey is too far. Thanks, love you.

-Ma.

All at once, he remembered why his family was so hard to miss.

Once-ler felt a familiar guilt that rose in his stomach whenever his family asked for help. He could hear his dad’s voice echoing in his ears, saying “We could really use the help, Once-ler, otherwise I’ll have to spend my whole night in the forest again.”

He could hear the insults of his siblings, calling him a failure who didn’t work hard enough. After all, it shouldn’t be difficult for someone who was actually successful to do small favors for their struggling family here and there. "You should have yer life figured out by now. Stop being a loser!"

Once-ler went to his bed to get out the money he hid with his old books under his mattress, and counted out three hundreds. Wait. That was all he had left? He’d been in this valley without selling anything for longer than he’d planned. He paused, running a hand through his hair, and stared at the cover of his battered copy of The Virtue of Selfishness.

Slowly he put the money back between its covers, then went back to his desk. He stared at the letter with a frown. Finally he ripped it in half, and tossed it out the window.

It was high time he started being more selfish. After all, if you didn't take care of yourself first, you'd never be able to take care of anyone else. Right?

"Self care and coffee," was a slogan Aunt Grizelda had embroidered and hung above her door, and Uncle Ubb always got away with saying he had too many health problems from smoking and had to stand up for himself. Why could the rest of his family always get away with this attitude but not him?

READ THE FULL CHAPTER AND STORY ON A03!

So far 9 out of 16 chapters are posted, but there might be a few more by the time it's done.

(Comments and kudos on ao3 are really appreciated)!

Chapter 6 is up!!!

Once-ler tries to sell his product in town and meets the Lorax. Excerpt below (read full chapter on Ao3):

It was sticking out from a stump, covered in mossy brown fur. It was the size of a cat, but with the round bean-form of an animal Once-ler had never seen. Its most significant feature was the yellow mustache on its face that was so thick Once-ler had the urge to pick the creature up and turn him upside down to sweep a floor. It positively radiated power and adorableness both at the same time. It pulled itself up and looked him in the eye.

The foot of the creature tapped expectantly.

Once-ler straightened his grey business vest and hat. "Can I help you… sir?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, if I gave you a surprise." The creature didn't sound sorry at all. "But I think you earned the shock in your eyes. You're up to mischief, best confess. Your secret plot, your sneaky mess."

"What am I doing wrong? You mean trying to make a living? Why is everyone here so against that?" Once Once-ler started ranting, he found he couldn't stop. “At least I actually have some ingenuity. Why is that a bad thing? My family was like that too. Don't we need inventions and new ideas to keep the world going? How are people supposed to support themselves, huh? Just by working for the O'Hares, and that's it?"

"You have a point, it's true, I see. Your words hold weight, are error free. But mind your manners, and do beware, lest your sharp wit makes you an O'Hare."

Once-ler flushed. "Well, maybe you should all stop assuming that every stranger who tries something new around here is exactly like an O'Hare." He tipped his hat stiffly, and turned away.

"Hey, you're alright, don't you fret. A nice, amusing chap, I won't forget. Ambition burns, inspiring, bright, but heed my words, and do what's right. Two paths I see, a heavy choice. One leads to glory, a tempting voice. The other path is a conscience clear, but it all depends which way you steer."

"Amusing, huh? Well, I think you're annoying," Once-ler grumbled, and grabbed Melvin's leash.

The creature kept up with Once-ler's long legs at a surprisingly quick pace as it stroked its mustache. "The Lorax am I, my voice is always near. I've been watching this place, year after year. The trees and beasts, they're my sacred domain. The forest's my charge, and I'll watch over it again." It darted in front of him and stuck out its spindly hand.

Once-ler stared at the long curling fingers before hesitantly giving them a shake. "Once-ler."

"Once-ler, that's a name so odd. What could it mean, I'd love to prod. Is it a title, a moniker grand? Or a label that I can understand?"

"It means I never make a mistake more than once," said Once-ler. "Because my Ma said she wishes she hadn't.”

"And what was the woman's misstep I wonder, that gave her son such a name to ponder?"

(Full novelization on Ao3. We're going to make a bunch of high quality rewrites of movies that had too many plot holes).

Lorax Rewrite Excerpt

Without focusing on Ted, the story can start earlier and show more of Once-ler's background trying to sell his Thneed. What bad influences did he have when it came to running a business? Some of the advice in this chapter are real things I've been told...

Excerpt below:

He pulled the Thneed from his neck, and spread it on the table. "Ah, you know what, let me just show you."

"It's brilliant," said the main representative immediately.

He was the shortest man and wore a sleek white suit. "The audacity is stunning. It's the perfect balance between essential and useless. Whimsical enough to capture the imagination, yet quaint enough to be marketed as a necessity. This is, indeed, something everyone needs. We would just have to make it out of a better material. For the most part, there's not a single thing that could be improved. However…" He looked up from his spinny chair at the long table. "There's one problem."

His colleagues in smaller chairs around him nodded their heads knowingly.

"Whaddya mean?" asked Once-ler.

The salesman pressed his fingers together and leaned forward. "To sell a product, you need to have a certain degree of charisma," he explained. "The creator's image is even more important than the thing itself when it comes to commerce. That is, you can't just come into a company in your dirty lumberjack clothes, dragging a mule, singing out of tune, and expect to be a success."

Once-ler turned red. There were no barns in North Nitch, so he'd been taking Melvin everywhere with him on a leash. The buildings were so big it hadn't occurred to him there was anything wrong with it. Plus Melvin was such a well-behaved mule, or maybe it was just that he hadn't had any human friends in so long, Once-ler had unconsciously started to think of him as a person.

He also resented his spiffy new outfit being called dirty lumberjack clothes. The fashion of his old town must've looked that way to outsiders no matter how new or clean they were. He observed the stiff, sleek blazers the businessmen wore and took note.

"There seem to be two of you here right now, Mr. Ler," the salesman said, and Once-ler got the feeling he wasn't talking about the fact that he'd brought his mule.

"On one hand, I see a powerful inventor with an ingenious work ethic, capable of bringing impressive ideas to life. But you can’t let humility hold you back. My advice to you is to try and think of yourself a little more selfishly, if you know what I mean."

"No, sir… Could you expand on that?"

"I mean stop thinking of yourself as someone small from a lowly background. You have to imagine yourself as bigger than everyone else."

The salesman hopped from his chair and drew his own short body to its full height in front of the towering woodsman.

"It doesn't matter if you're the tallest person in the world, if you never think you can reach anything." The businessman threw a pointed glance at a geeky young intern with glasses and braces. "Isn't that right, Aloysius?"

"I get it, Dad." The teenager rolled his eyes.

The salesman folded up the Thneed, and handed it back to Once-ler. "You have potential, but come back when your marketing strategy has improved. Have you ever read The Virtue of Selfishness? I look forward to hearing back from you. In the meantime, have you considered applying to other job options at one of the O'Hare companies?" He handed Once-ler a pamphlet.

Once-ler walked out of the building buzzing with embarrassment. He'd butchered his delivery on his first try. Why was it so easy to sing about Thneeds at his family's farm, in the forest, or the privacy of his wagon? He hadn't expected to start shaking like a leaf the instant he started playing for other people. He needed to practice.

Full story here:

The Lorax Novelization

Do you ever kinda wish something would exist, so you just decide to make it yourself?

Read here. I release new chapters every week.

Lorax Novelization Excerpt

Nobody ever really writes about Once-ler's life on the farm. I imagined he had to help support his family and fight for the chance to study by making a space in the barn or something. I think that would've been more relatable. Excerpt below.

Only one evening did Once-ler's Ma visit the barn out of curiosity to ask what he was doing.

"Wow," she said, when she saw what he'd done to the place.

It was practically an office now, with books stuffed into barrels and crates, one of the stalls made entirely into a library with shelves and a file cabinet. Blue prints and charts were taped to the walls and ceiling, with even more piles stacked around the floor. The big drafting table took up the wall facing the door, with magnificent designs pinned to the drawing board. In the corner Once-ler's well-loved guitar rested in a safe spot underneath the hayloft. This had been transformed into a comfortable out-of-the-way bedroom and changing area with a mattress, a neat basket of folded clothes and a curtain.

"Wow, you really have it good, Oncie," she told him. "And we don't even make you pay rent. You got this whole place to yourself while we're all crammed together in that little cottage. Brett and Chet sure don't get anythin' like this!"

She didn't mention that Brett and Chet never took the initiative to work for anything like it.

"And taking all my yarn!" she said, noticing what he'd swiped from her supply and turned into a mass of unidentifiable shapes. She tapped her foot. “Have you ever considered moving out?"

"Actually… I would love to now that hard times have come to an end." Once-ler spun around, and twirled one of the pink blobs of yarn around on his finger. "In fact, I'm almost ready to go and sell my invention. I just need to find something better than this cheap yarn to make it with."

(Read the whole story on Ao3)

Chapter Five is up!

Preview:

It’s rare that a fantasy comes true just as you’re fantasizing about it, but that’s just what happened when Once-ler’s wagon rolled over the next hill. Not only did the scene happen to be extraordinary, but it came at such a coincidental time of desperate wishfulness that Once-ler was ripped straight from his daydreams and his eyes filled with tears immediately.

PEACE! FREEDOM! INSPIRATION! it screamed all at once.

Such a heavy feeling of serenity and joy descended upon his soul that he knew immediately he was where he was meant to be. It took less than a second to decide this was home, and he would never change his mind for the rest of his days. A smile spread across his face, the kind that was so big it hurt.

The valley he overlooked was a forest, but not like the forest at home. He’d never dreamed a forest could be so different. Where the one behind his farm was small, dry, and gray, the one below stretched beyond the horizon, filled with the brightest green grass and dark blue water full of lily pads, duckweed, and cattails.

Wispy trees and bushes bloomed with pink, yellow, and orange silken foliage that filled his nose with sugary sweetness. Instead of being empty and boring, as if animals would rather be anywhere less desolate, it buzzed with bees, butterflies, frogs, and fish he could see even from his vantage atop the highest hill. A sense of adventure and endless discovery pierced his heart as Once-ler's wagon rolled deeper down into Heaven.

So this was how forests were supposed to be. Every choice he’d made up to that point had been right after all, if it had led him to this. When the wagon reached the bottom of the hill, the yodels died on his lips, and he threw his guitar in the back. “Come on, Melvin,” he said, leading the mule along. The forest only became more interesting from there.

Ho-li-ah Ho-le-rah-hi-hi-ah Ho-le-rah-cuckoo Fol-de-rol, laddie right Toor-a-lie-addy

“Wait, who’s singing? Oh, wow!” Once-ler stood in awe as he watched a trio of fat yellow and orange fish dancing atop a rock, using their fins as legs. They held hands, spinning with their eyes closed, occasionally kicking out their fins or breaking away to do an Irish jig.

“Bizarre,” he said, checking over his shoulder just in case it was some kind of trick. “Does anyone else even know this exists?”

A yellow butterfly soared past with wings the size of book pages. The dark spots on its wings looked like a cow's. It landed on a flower where a frog strolled by on its hind legs and started milking it into an acorn cap.

"Oh my goodness!" Once-ler hopped up and down. "I think I just stumbled upon a completely undiscovered habitat!" After his life at home, he'd begun to think there was no such thing as anything new or exciting.

"Magnificent," he said, tears filling his eyes as a swarm of orange swans flew over his head under sun-tinted clouds. They soared, then dipped, taking a dive alongside a waterfall that roared ominously.

~*~

Follow me for the rest of the rewrite! (I'm going to post new chapters every week).

I can't wait to get to the part about the Lorax. I'm going to write him so much differently than the movie that made him a useless smart aleck. I always thought he should be more mysterious and fae-like. Gonna try to make it like something Tolkien or Holly Black would write. This story is really fun to write!

Super quick Lorax concept, if he was a fae creature

original description:

"He was shortish. And oldish. And brownish. And mossy. And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy."

I'm gonna make him more mysterious than the movie in my fanfiction.

"Your presence here has run its course. Now heed my words, depart this place perforce. Ere sunset paints the valley's hue, begone, or nature's wrath you'll rue. Forces unleashed, a primal might, will curse you through eternal night. Beware, the warning's clear and grim. Your fate awaits if you stay within!"

New chapter is up!

Preview:

The first place Once-ler tried his luck was the city of North Nitch where the biggest businesses were. It was a city of rainbow, sleek buildings twisted into swirly shapes and blinking lights, filled with the latest technology, including traffic lights with seven colors instead of three. He lost track of how many times he almost got run over in traffic trying to understand what they were supposed to mean.

O'Hare's Business and Innovation Center was the biggest, sleekest, twistiest building where he made an appointment to pitch his product. He rode an elevator up to the hundredth floor at the top of the building where helicopters flew so close to the window it looked like he could touch them. The O'Hares were a famous line of CEOs who ran all the major companies in every country.

Once-ler pulled his guitar from his back, mentally going over the pitch he'd carefully prepared for the team of salesmen. He took a deep breath, and began:

"The great is Thneed… I mean, the Thneed is good," he missed a note, completely forgetting how to sing in anapestic tetrameter.

READ THE REST ON AO3!

Join me as I post an actually finished rewrite of this entire movie! Extra plot twists, foreshadowing, and embellishments, since I did multiple drafts! Nobody ever finished a full rewrite before, so I did it myself.

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.