Traitor (YouTube Series)

Traitor is an action/thriller series on the Charmer Animations YouTube channel. It takes place in December of 2039 and follows the story of Jake Birch returning to Max Hound Studios for unknown reasons, only to be roped into a war that has been raging on inside of his old workplace for years. Jake teams up with heroes like Mike and Kate with the goal of getting out alive, while stopping the villainous Ink Max from taking over the world. Jake must discover the truth about Ink Max and why Max Hound Studios abruptly shut down years earlier.
== Development ==
In early 2017, following the release of Bendy and the Ink Machine, Charmer, who was at the time creating content based off of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, began developing ideas in what would eventually become Traitor. 
Originally meant as a first person video game akin to Bendy, it would've told the story of Jake Birch working at Max Hellhound Studios before one day being trapped with his coworkers due to Max coming to life and plotting violence on them. The story wouldve followed Jake as his workplace was slowly turned into anarchy before he faced Max himself and killed him.
Development of this title carried into 2018. However, no actual coding was made nor was there anything that could even hint at an actual game being made. Because of his lack of game development, Charmer ultimately changed his mind and instead rewrote the story heavily and made it an 8 episode miniseries. He later put up a casting call in late 2019, where he got ahold of his first voice actors for the series.
As 2020 began and COVID hit, Charmer was given much more time to develop this series due to getting quarantined. On March 27th, 2020, Charmer released the 1st episode to the series. To this day it remains the most viewed video out of the original 4 episodes produced.
However, as he entered 2021, Charmer was hit with standstill in Traitor, as he was also developing a film for the previously mentioned Fnaf-inspired series he had been making. After taking hiatus from Traitor for the rest of 2021, Charmer would later cancel the film and return to Traitor, constantly writing away at the plot. 
Eventually, around mid-2023, he'd announce he was restarting from scratch, rewriting the plot entirely while recasting nurmerous VAs due to them either ghosting him or no longer having interest in the project.
== Cast ==
* Nikei as Katelyn Templeton (main protagonist)
* Jeff Rosenau as Mike Andrel (main protagonist)
* Ryan Patrick Morris as Jake Birch
* Dan Stabb as Charley Smith
* Aubrey Lima as The Atlas/Maxine
* Megara as Alex Conagher
* Skyler Drake as Quarrie Heller
* Emster as Max Hound
* Andrea Corte as Ink Max (main antagonist)
* Sam.s as Ink Samantha
* Sean Cleary as Ink Charley
* Robert J Butcher as Dylan Jameson/Atmiradge
* ColdVA as Marconi Mutt
* William Livingston as Brute Hound
* Reign Reeves Pearson as an undisclosed role
* Donte M as an undisclosed role
* Diogo Neves as Connor Templeton
* Lanna Rose as Rose Templeton (alongside additional voices)
* BeablyBoy as Phineas Volkov
* Sam.s as Allisah Volkov
* Skyler Drake as Thor Anderson
* RedRageKnight and Chris Reidburn as additional male voices
* Kat Leroy as additional female voices
* SlenderVA as Sin Collector
More to be announced..
== Trivia ==
* Charmer constantly says the series takes 20 years after 2020. Despite this, Traitor takes place in 2039, making it 19 years after 2020.
** Originally, Traitor was going to take place in 2025 before it was changed.
* Charmer has stated that he would like to do a spin-off to the series, stating that some possibilities he would want would either this spin-off being a sequel to the current series or a prequel focusing on Mike and Kate's survival inside the studio during the long time skip in-between the studio's shutdown and the events of Traitor.
** This concept of a prequel was mentioned again twice, with one being talk of a series of Prequel Shorts covering more of the lore and a movie regarding Ink Max's past. Both ideas were dropped, with the prequel shorts currently being on hold and the movie being completely dropped.
**The idea was later revisited and brought to fruition with the release of Traitor: Crimson Gem. However, Charmer has said there's good chance the prequel story won't happen and will instead be replaced by Ink Escapists.
**On May 10th, 2024, Charmer announced two new prequel stories set to be released in the future. One is a remake of Ink Escapists, now titled "Traitor: The Grave" and the other is an entirely new story called "Midnight Serenade"
* Several Casting Calls via Casting Call Club were the way Charmer found the voice actors.
* Originally meant to be pure horror, the series has turned more into a Dark Sci-fi rather than horror. Despite this, horror elements still remain (Ink Max is a prime example).
* There has been discussions of a potential 2nd season of the show. Whether it will happen or not is both entirely on if Charmer wishes to continue it or if the 1st season is received well. It is currently unknown what the 2nd seasons plot will be about. Although, Charmer has said that if Season 2 happens, there will be a lot of new characters people will love.
Category:YouTube Series