Purpose
- Showcase the storytelling capability of the 100 CC0 Wassies.
- Build structured avenues for creative contribution from the community.
About Wassie Stories
Development for Wassie Stories began in March, shortly following the announcement of the 100 CC0 Wassies. It is a collaboration between myself and "Big Sauce" aka HankMardukas#1080. Together we are "Gristle and Sauce"
1. Cooking School
A hilarious and emotionally touching story about four Wassies with big dreams to build something new, but who quickly find that they are in over their head. More information can be found here.
2. Summer School
A story-based educational content that will be developed in partnership with the LearnByWassies project. More information can be found here.
3. Wassies on an Island
This is a single-panel comic, ala The Far Side by Gary Larsen. It will be created by the community via reoccurring “Drink and Write and Draw” hosted by "Gristle and Sauce". These events will happen every other week, and will provide a gathering opportunity for lore and story-minded community members to collaborate. This comic strip is designed to build avenues for writers and illustrators to meaningfully participate in creative development. The community will work together to select main characters, build character profiles/bios, design island habitats, and write the comic strips. 
4. My Wassie and Me
This will be a live-action series, shot entirely from the POV of a Wassie... a series of 2-3 minute episodes featuring snippets from a day in the human-world. In this world, 12000 Wassies are respawning over and over. Each time they are re-born, they are assigned to a new human who needs support. This support tends to come in the form of helping their human get out of their rut and unleash their creativity. Each Wassie is unique in personality and style of support, ranging from encouraging to meddling to sage wisdom. Shenanigans and disruptions occur, but growth results. At the end of 14 days, every human reports that they felt like the Wassie experience empowered them to pursue their dreams. It is a complete mystery how these Wassies select their humans for the 14 day span, but they tend to always find themselves assigned to a human who needs support but is not asking for it.
This grant will be to create and film two episodes: The Pilot and Episode One.
Pilot - Written by WassieStories team, this episode sets up all the lore and required information for how the Wassies and humans interact in this world. How is the 14 day lifespan explained? How is the population of 12,000 explained? Why do some humans have a Wassie and why do others not? How do all these mechanics work?
And just as importantly, how are the Wassies seen by human culture? What is the general reaction to the sight of a Wassie in public?
Episode One
Building the outline - The writing and development of this show is community-based. This starts with a reoccurring "Drink and Write" where the community looks at a particular CC0 Wassie and begin to create an outline for an episode together. We look at the art and we ask, “what type of support does it look like this Wassie would offer? What type of person would they likely find themselves assigned to? What is this Wassie’s personality like?” As the community dives into these questions and more, a story emerges.
Story outlines are then handed to a writing team (Gristle and Sauce) and developed into a script. The first scene is filmed and released to a TikTok account. The video is also accompanied by the the script and filming notes for the second scene. The community is then asked to film the second scene and “stitch” it to the original scene. This process repeats until a chain of stitched videos complete the episode. The result is a TikTok-based Webisode that was written, filmed and directed by a collaborative community. In this manner the show reflects the project. The Wassies are here to support artists and to enable creative people to pursue their dreams.
