Gone, But Not Forgotten

[Nairbons]

Not every story is a winner, and not every project gets beyond the concept stage. We're all still figuring things out, and sometimes you just have to leave behind your ideas and move on in the name of progress. As we continue ever onward, take a moment to reflect and recall.

In this topic, feel free to reminisce on your abandoned ideas and plans for the "next big thing." Everyone here is bound to have a few of these orphaned ideas that linger in the mind. I thought it would be interesting and maybe a little therapeutic to show the world that the intent was there at some point. Write a short postmortem analysis of what might have been, and what made you walk away. Who knows? Maybe you might get around to it someday, maybe, perhaps.



I'll begin:
"Knight Laureate" was meant to be the project that combined my love of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and freestyle rap battles. A bit like a combination of "8 Mile" and "Game of Thrones," it was set into a world of numerous, stereotypically-themed city-state kingdoms. On the day of their coronation, every ruler would have had a chosen a warrior-poet to be their Knight Laureate, who serve as a combination bodygaurd, advisor, and public representative for their monarch. The story would have started out with the young protagonist (a novice bard-barian) entering a big tournament full of wacky and varied characters to become a new king's knight laureate.

The problem here is that I had a series of fun fights and opponents planned out, but no concrete idea what to do afterwards with the plot. It was meant to be either drawn as a comic or written out as a story, but I really wanted the musical aspect to come across in the final product. That would NOT work outside of a video series or podcast. Since I don't have the musical proficiency to program new beats every few days, or the money to pay performers, this project fell by the wayside. Someday when we're all billionaires, I look forward to reviving this project as an over-produced webseries or something. For now, I just want to raise a glass to an idea that has to be put on an indefinite hold.

[Manimal]

I have a few ideas I've written scripts for or even started drawing that have yet to get through but they aren't dead yet, since you never know. My most ambitious idea The Originals which is a sci-fi story in normal life involving two people who are tested by "The Creator" and fight things and do stuff, is at it's core a passable idea but easy to over complicate and become too "edgy". Plus it's pretty well dead serious and I don't yet have the ability to write and draw a serious story. Comedy is better anyways, I tend to look past the big ol' action stories for something more grounded in reality myself so that's what I'd prefer to draw for now.

Another comedy idea I almost did was Retail Rumble!, simply a story of a guy who works at a retail store. An immature kid who seeks to win the war against the opposing store. It would be a recount of real experiences and fun to do but now that I'm not in that anymore the time for this idea has kind of passed though it could still make a fun one shot or something.

There are even older ideas I had as a kid that I never did. Me and an old friend where going to make a series of Killer _____ comics which would basically be anything. Killer Snowman, Killer Dog, whatever. We made one comic which was about our dogs turned evil but that's all we ever did. I don't remember why we didn't do anymore, but with ideas like Killer Snow Globe I can imagine why.

I had a character called Dog Catcher, a guy who was...a dog catcher. Expect evil. Visually he was a rip off of Dennis from the Sponge Bob Movie. I made a few comics with him. Once I had an idea for like this big battle comic where he had a lightsaber fight with the dogs and died in the end. I was so excited to make it that I went right ahead and did the last part and couldn't think of how to start it so I scraped it. That series never even had a story, it was strange and sadly I don't have very many of those comics anymore.

But now I don't have many ideas I would consider dead. I always look back at scripts I never used and try to see what can still be used...

[Funkermonster]

Funny this thread exists, because this is exactly what I was looking to talk about lol. I had one idea I scrapped, I didn't have a name for it or any of its characters but for now I'll just call it Vexing Doom. It would have been a slice of life, drama, and action story if I had gone along with it.

 It would've been about a schoolboy who had been best friends with another for as long as both of them could remember, and one day his buddy ambiguously joined a street gang while he followed him, finding it to their liking. There was an aristocratic girl who was constantly at odds with both boys and despised them, and another girl who held (unrequited) feelings for the boy but hated his friend and held a growing desire for him punished for his actions, but was hesitant to interfere as it'd outright make her enemies with her loved one. One day the boy is visited by a stranger from the future claiming to be his son, who warns him that the path he's following will bring his life to doomed misery and there was only one solution to it, one that he found insane: leave his old friend and his criminal activity, and make love with the girl who was his worst enemy, only she could she save his future and he must try to invite her into his life and then love, which will prove to be easier said than done...

Eventually, I came up with ideas I liked better and I now have two other stories I'm working on. My story isn't technically yet and I could one day return to it but I don't know if I will. The problem with this is that I don't even know if anyone would like this concept anymore, I haven't seen too much of the world of manga or anime yet but I'd imagine there's at least one or two shojo stories like this and they might make my story look like a ripoff or something, I fear my concept and ideas (not the overall plot) for this may be a bit too cliche' or cheesy to stand out. Furthermore, the only character I put much thought into was the aristocrat girl (who I now name Sapphire), and so far I didn't really find many ways to make the other 3 characters interesting and t lessened my motivation to continue this story, and in the next story concept I made I happened to rapidly think of characters I became far more attached to than them. It could just be because I never even tried to make them complex and maybe I'd change my mind if I did, but that's just what happened with me.

Feel free to skip this part if you wish but as an aside note..
 

Spoiler

The one character that did appeal to me tho, survived wile I kinda killed off the others and was still put into my next story and her planned physical appearance (when I actually get good as an artist that is) and background story remain mostly the same, although her role in it is much smaller than before. But as the first successful OC I ever made, I find her among the most pleasing to work with and I still intend to use her in some other form or another, and I hope I can one day think of a standalone story that would work with her being the main protagonist.

If its alright, I ask for your opinions: Do you think you would like this concept? My current 2 stories still take my priority at this point, but maybe if enough show any real interest in it, I may go back to it one day once I get the others outta the way.