CORELINE: The TV Series.

CORELINE: The TV Series.

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SERIES FORMAT: Half-Hour Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Drama (Anime).

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OPENING THEME: 'Eminence Front', by The Who (edited, truncated version, using the chorus ('eminence front, it's a put-on'), one or two of the 'people forget' parts of the song and the ending being the 'come and join the party, dressed to kill' part of the lyrics).

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STORY: It is 10 years after 'The Vanishing' and The 23 Hours Of Madness-an event where an approximate 90% of humanity disappeared without a trace for 23 hours and The Fictions appeared, raising apocalyptic levels of hell.

What is more infuriating/puzzling, to those that survived, was that said 90% of humanity when it reappeared was apparently brainwashed into accepting the whole insane scenario and the beings that caused it at face value. Surely enough, human beings will always be clashing over something-but now the reasons, and the tools to clash, have become much more... weird.

Humanity and Fictions must both make the best they can to live together on the planet Earth and surrounding universe, now collectively nicknamed 'The Core Timeline' or 'CoreLine' for short (and sometimes even being shortened further into 'The Line').

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THEME: A mofit of 'lines' appears all over the series-people 'drawing a line in the sand' and defending themselves and those they care about, people crossing 'the line' of society's limits about something (or questioning whether or not to cross it, or if they have already crossed it and not know it), family lines, time lines, etc.

A driving theme is also about people being driven out of their comfort zones (and that as weird as their lives are/were, there was such a thing as a 'comfort zone' to *begin* with). Staunch people break down. Wimps become badasses. Everybody ends a story one step closer to being able to say, quite truthfully, that they have 'seen it all'.

As well, another theme is how much of a powder keg The Line is. Someone getting robbed on the street by a random junkie could escalate all the way to triggering a small war, if the disaster dominoes extend THAT far. It is the job of the heroes to do whatever it takes to prevent the powder keg from going off-or at least survive the situation while somebody else defuses it elsewhere.

There is the issue that The Line is the converging point of many alternate universes, with many alternate versions of people thrown into this universe every day. You can imagine the impact that comes from seeing many versions of 'you' running around, the myriad ways your life could have gone, the discovery that on many universes your life is a work of fiction.

Which brings the last issue: The Authored Rage. Nobody knows the actual reason why it exists-only have the assumption that it was made by those who manufactured The Vanishing, sick bastards that they are/were. The Rage triggers when a Fiction and the person who created him/her are very close to each other. A maniacal anger that at best ends with the Author having serious bruises... and at worst ends with his death.

As serious as that threat is, a message that human creativity is unstoppable (and that maybe such a thing is for the best, even when the consequences look to be pretty high, if at least at first) is present on many stories.

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STORY FORMAT: The series could be a 'Twilight Zone'-style anthology series, with different people being followed each week (although some stories could have a loose connecting story arc amongst them-like the actions of one specific hero or villain, or the effects of a certain location or artefact, on top of being all set on The Line).

Alternatively, it could follow one group of people on The Line, alternating between slice-of-life stuff (which, given the nature of the setting, is still quite action-packed) and story arcs, varying in scope from personal strife to 'save-the-world' events.

Policemen, military, adventurers, corporate members... anything goes.

An animated venue would probably be best, considering that many of the stories will be laden with action and special effects, and such a thing would be (even more) incredibly expensive on a live-action format.

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SAMPLE EPISODE IDEAS:

+'Ninja Gravedigger': Slice-of-life following a day in the life of the gravedigger of the cemetery on Konohagakure Village, in Costa Rica (or other Hidden Ninja Village elsewhere on the planet). Essentially, it looks at first blush like 'Six Feet Under' with 'Naruto' character cameos (and much less soap opera), and the gravedigger being just a normal gravedigger....
...until we find out the hard way that one of the gravedigger's responsibilities is making sure that no enemy ninja try to steal the deceased's body for whichever nefarious purposes he's got planned-and in order to fulfil THAT responsibility, he's got to be a major caliber badass.
(Guest Voice: Samuel L. Jackson as the gravedigger).

+'One Toe Tag, Many Problems': 2 or 3-episode arc. An Alternate version of Naruto Uzumaki is killed by a coked-up junkie looking for a fight and for the money in his pocket. It was just a 'perfect storm' of bad things (the junkie had The Pariah Gene, the Naruto Alternate had a lot of Chakra power but was rusty in hand-to-hand combat, was drunk, and was just too slow to prevent being stabbed in the gut as a result, etc) but those who loved him just keep crying 'assassination' and are on the edge of raising hell in retribution. The heroes of the story (assigned to investigate the murder) must take whatever measures are necessary to make the ninja understand they're in the wrong and prevent the situation from escalating.

+'The Party Cannon': Slice-of-life story. An extended flashback shows a man wanting to create a 'perfect' birthday for his son, and calls a party service which employs Pinkie Pie to arrange said birthday.
The man having a Pariah Gene (and said Gene being at high power due to stresses of the day) affects the magics of Pinkie's Party Cannon-and collateral damage ensues, wrecking a whole room of the man's house. Some tears, laughs and heartwarming ensue as the party is salvaged-and we come back to 'today', showing the absurd amounts of Serious Business and professionalism that Pinkie Pie has put into the party service following said mishap.

Although it's hard to say where does the mini-Paris Gun 'Party Cannon' (used for outdoor parties, mind you) fits...

+'Streets Of FiPhilaydelphia': A day in the life of a pair of cops patrolling the streets of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and dealing with the many weird things that happen there. Which in of itself doesn't sounds different from 'Adam-12' or even 'Car 54, Where Are You?'...

...except that one of the police officers is a Nazzadi, and the other is a Pony (the title comes from the latter's running gag of mixing up 'Philadelphia' and 'Fillidelphia' in conversation).

+'Measure Of Preparedness': Comedy episode about someone who is very Crazy Prepared-actually working as a for-hire consultant for people who want to be Crazy Prepared themselves.