IKAG Story Concepts

"I KNOW A GUY" STORY CONCEPTS

1. FORMULA-BASED
2. MISCELLANEOUS

1. FORMULA-BASED
If you need a foundation or springboard for story ideas, here are some suggestions for story formulas to use. Each formula comes with an example for the start of a new story.

Powerful/privileged/augmented student is looking for a mundane item, OR mundane student is looking for a dangerous item, OR some mixture of the two
-- Kid who wants to learn how to wave-dash to school
-- Popular girl wants a teddy bear for the chairwoman of the student council

Conner is given an item that he tries to use, with mixed results
-- Tennis racquet, he joins the Tennis Club and encourages Rudy (assuming it to be a drama-free zone) and Pepper (poster of an upcoming state tournament, doubles matches, monetary grand prize) to join; the leader Hannah soon gets annoyed at Rudy (slacking off below his potential), Pepper (backseat management, sucking up) and Conner (beating the rest of the club)
-- A manga he's reading online results in the MC turning down Best Girl in favor of Worst Girl, so he vows to draw a new better ending, but sucks at illustration

Rudy wants to be a hero, however a roadblock (a person, item request, item given in exchange, accident at home, etc) presents itself
-- Rudy’s parents fear their son isn’t being heroic enough at school, so they temporarily transfer as substitute teachers
-- Rudy has a cold, or Rudy’s sister Hayleigh has a cold and he looks after her
-- Rudy is trying to give a student some counsel when it turns out the ‘student’ is a demon in disguise, on the run from two conflicting gangs (a team of magical girls and a team of psychic detectives)
-- Conner asks Rudy if he wants some updog

Pepper and Conner with their ideological differences fight over an object that benefits both of them in different ways
-- Box of limited-edition cereal (eating and collecting)
-- Trading cards (money for a full collection, validation for a full collection)
-- Laptop full of porn
-- Alarm clock
-- Dog food

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2. MISCELLANEOUS
This is a list of ideas that were written down without strict adherence to any of the formulas above.

WIP A superhero student wants to make a grand entrance on his day at the new school, but when he realises his new class (and a lot of the school) is full of strong and interesting supers, he has to come to terms with not being the 'big fish' anymore

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Conner gets into trouble when a black cat walks under him and sets off the school's front-gate security check
-- Conner is walking to school with a student named Terry; he's in the middle of explaining the school's compatibility system to Terry
-- there are three main groups of augmentation; body-enhancement, disability-supervision and general recovery; the compatibility grade conveys how recipient the body is to the augment; a low grade means the body will take longer to heal from general recovery, will received muted benefit from disability-supervision, and may outright reject or receive no benefit from the body-enhancement
-- the grade isn't necessarily universal; in Conner's case he has an extremely poor compatibility with body-enhancement but excellent with disability-supervision (albeit never tested yet) and general recovery
-- most of the 'normal' students are given rudimentary education on augmentation since they don't have regular access to it; Conner gets some cliff's notes about them from Rudy and to a lesser extent the student councillors
-- "oh, you're friends with the student council?!" "I--agh--no... I mean I know them, but--"
-- Conner gets tripped up by the alarm; no supernatural/superpowered/augmented entites or elements are allowed without school registration
-- the morning-assembly alarm monitor is a tomboy named Rebecca, who walks around school with a dobermann for security/anxiety reasons; she asks Conner to empty his bag as Terry leaves for class; suggest that Rebecca and Conner know each other casually but not super fond of each other
-- shortly afterwards Conner finds a cat on school grounds, a black cat whose tail is caught in a string of cans
-- the freed cat reveals it can talk and asks Conner to help her find the long-lost princess of the stars
-- Conner blinks, balks and suggests simply taking the cat to the student councillors so they can better help, but he changes his mind when the cat suggests GREAT REWARDS in store for his servitude and secrecy
-- Conner and the cat soon find the princess; it turns out to be Rebecca, who receives some guff from Manny - the delinquent-esque leader of the Mathletics Club - and thus throws him through a wall
-- Rebecca is capable of kicking ass, taking care of plants and fixing cake, but she seems to have coping issues with animals - particularly cats - hence the dobermann as the sole exception and her best friend
-- Conner asks the cat why the mission has to be a secret; with 1/3 of the planet's population being superpowered or augmented, there are plenty of services and publicly-identified heroes; the cat simply argues for the existence of spies disguised as students that could interfere, which Conner scoffs at (the student councillors would surely have found and rooted them out already)
-- therefore Conner comes up with some daft schemes to get Rebecca and the cat alone together - he lures the dog away with some of the food he made from the Cooking Club, but it causes the dog to consistently follow him expecting more (because in his speech bubble he's been sick of dog food for 4 years straight); Conner lures Rebecca away from the dog with cheese on the ground, "because as we all know, people love cheese," but it turns out dogs love cheese more than people do; he then tries a Flute of Following, which he received in exchange for a biscuit tin, and uses it to lead Rebecca's dog away from its owner, but instead of just one dog he's also hypnotised Rebecca and several of the students he danced past in the process
-- for his latest plan Conner climbs up a tree and puts the cat there, anticipating that Rebecca will either rescue the cat or the cat will jump down at Rebecca; however another teenager who looks like a poorly-disguised demon [scaly skin, wings, wears a long-coat and glasses] rescues the cat and launches it at Rebecca, assuming it's hers; she freaks out and causes a scene, the cat runs right back to Conner
-- Rebecca confronts Conner, which is the opposite of what he wanted; she then demands an explanation, which is almost exactly what Conner wanted her to do in the first place
-- Conner holds up the cat and tells her to explain everything to Rebecca, that the cat is her guardian and she's a princess in mental hibernation
-- the dobermann suddenly starts talking (which he's never done before) and accuses the cat of being a demon in disguise, come to trick Rebecca and steal her away
-- trying to decide at this point which is the better angle; the cat outing the dobermann (as a demon playing the role of a dog to keep Rebecca under surveillance, Conner inadvertently forcing Rebecca to defeat her security blanket and best friend) or the dobermann outing the cat (Conner effectively being played like a fiddle) or some third option (both animals as hidden guardians with Rebecca's best interests but arguing past each other, Rebecca still not really wanting to be a magical girl; both animals being delusional creations of science, similar to the dragon; maybe the animals had other peoples' memories transplanted into them or some psycho shit)
-- last page gag has Pepper in the process of selling a talking white cat (friend of the black cat) to the circus

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Ella wants a custom-embroidered teddy bear for Amelia, the shadow chairwoman of the student council
-- Rudy talking with a punk girl who's juggling a police interview clashing with a lunchdate, lunch with a teen who seems like a wild animal
-- "But what if I end up hurting his feelings and he goes on a rampage across the city?" "I think in your heart, you know he would never do such a thing. The only person you're really hurting here isn't the innocent bystanders - it's just yourself. You need to forgive yourself, Katie. If Dread the Skulldrinker can find something special in you, then I know you can find it too."
-- Rudy tells Conner he's helped three people today, but freezes up when Conner asks what he received in return for the bartering
-- Conner seems like he's going to get mad when he asks if Rudy forgot the basic rule of bartering *three times in a row*, but lets it slide and introduces Rudy to their new client, Ella Menopy ("but she's a student councillor" "yes but don't tell her that")
-- Conner talks up how super dangerous the councillors are ("teleporting", "throwing people through buildings", etc)
-- despite the job seeming risky Conner has no concerns
-- Ella wants a teddy and she shows the boys the picture she wants on her teddy; it's a picture of Ella with the message "To Amelia, with hugs and kisses, from Ella"; the Ella in the picture is holding up a picture, that has Ella and the same message repeating endlessly
-- Rudy: "I'm sorry to say, I think we're fresh out of teddies with that design"
-- Conner tells Rudy he'll use a sewing machine to embroider the picture onto the bear but Rudy balks; sewing is unmanly
-- Conner attempts to sew the bear himself at home but only succeeds in accidentally nipping his thumb, accidentally sewing the picture to his jumper sleeve, and sewing a large letter "T" on a practice bear
-- Conner takes his supplies to the school's Sewing Club
-- they're willing to lend him a table to work at, most everyone is busy working on augmentation-embedded uniforms and custom club shirts
-- eventually he manages to blag a machine that will print the picture and convert it into an embroidery pattern; he receives a complex set of instructions on doing so from another student, but he surprisingly catches on and does it no problem
-- now he has to take the embroidery file to an auto-embroidery machine, which has a pseudo-English menu; he asks for and receives an instruction manual
-- it's in Chinese
-- Conner's getting a little bit upset
-- he asks the Sewing Club leader Zoe for help with the machine, only to be kicked off of it since someone else needs to use it
-- the Zoe says Conner can use another specialised machine instead
-- it's the same kind as the one he had at home
-- and he's told he has to bring his own thread
-- Rudy runs to the Sewing Club's main office as Conner is having a meltdown and explains everything to Zoe, only now realising who the "Ella" and "Amelia" are
-- they all work together clumsily to stitch the bear
-- it's a mess
-- to thank Rudy for helping him after all, and to make up for his past failures in bartering, Conner allows Rudy the job of handing the bear over
-- Ella is overjoyed, kisses Rudy and runs off to give her gift to Amelia
-- Conner is livid with Rudy getting kissed; he can't exactly barter using a kiss

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There's an arbitrary school dance coming up with a prize trophy for the best dancing couple and best solo dancer
-- Bucky, Amelia, Ella, Frank giving an assembly on the dance, with Princess Daughter casually lounging on her golden throne
-- All able-bodied students are required to attend (on penalty of 2 weeks suspension - expulsion explicitly for Conner because the student councillors know him like the back of their hands)
-- Assembly ends and the students seem excited or panicked; Conner plans to dress Rudy up as himself so he can ditch the event, but Bucky intervenes, saying that Rudy will be swarmed by fans and there'll be mass rioting if he disappears for the night
-- Conner's next plan involves sawing his leg off, taking the time off from school (and the dance) to recover, possibly with a modern cyborganic limb replacement; Rudy refuses to allow it
-- Bucky goads Conner with the knowledge that he's an inexperienced dancer while Bucky is a virtuoso (he's smug and usually aggrandizing on purpose)
-- Conner does some wild flailing and says it's the same as any other stupid dance that people have, much to Bucky and Rudy's bemusement
-- but he soon admits that his mother "taught" him this way and that years ago, they'd occasionally do that dance at home for fun; he brushes it off as soon as he suggests it
-- Bucky dismisses the flailing, saying the people will want to see "real dancing" with choreography; Bucky succeeds in riling Conner up and he soon starts practicing out of spite
-- Conner tries to learn by joining the 'Upcoming School Dance Preparation Club', but only manages clumsy movements and over-enthusiastic breakdancing
-- panics on the night of the dance, but soon realises the hall will have lots of people shuffling awkwardly so no-one will notice him, as a result he calms down and studies other people
-- Rudy being strung between all manner of girls and boys
-- Bucky and Ella stringing along all manner of girls and boys
-- Pepper making herself inconspicuous next to the catering
-- Amelia and Frank monitoring the dance hall, with Princess Daughter in attendance
-- Conner survives in the background for long enough, copying other students, until the floor opens up and Bucky publicly challenges him to a danceoff
-- Conner opens with some of what he's learned and fares well enough against Bucky, but stops himself when he realises Bucky has switched to moving around wildly (like he had done earlier on)
-- the spontaneous movement intrigues some of the crowd, and Bucky thinks that Conner will be more receptive to performing the "dance" himself and relax with everyone; Bucky encourages Conner to flail along as well
-- Conner say it's a "shit dance" and there's an immediate long pause, leaving Bucky unsure how to respond, except to question what would be a better idea; Conner says most anything else that Bucky knows will do, since Conner will just copy it for the learning benefit
-- Bucky improvises a dance with Conner as his partner, encouraging the latter to join in and improvise where possible; Conner is bewildered, repeatedly thinking "f*** f*** f***" as he waits for/fumbles opportunities and works around Bucky with split-second timing
-- Pepper joins in, taking Conner's place and proving surprisingly competent and daring; Conner's attempt to leave is thwarted by Rudy, who loves the idea and dances with Conner in competition with Pepper/Bucky
-- it's a fucking mess and that's before everyone starts swapping partners, the crowd egging them on, Conner swapping haphazardly between everything he's remembered and the wild flail
-- the dancers receive raptuous applause, Conner has never felt so humiliated in his life
-- Bucky and Pepper win the prize for 'best dancing couple', taking the heat off of Conner for a minute
-- Bucky, Pepper and Rudy perform as a small group, discussing how fun the night was; at least it was, while they still had other willing partners to dance with
-- the final panel shows literally everyone else (save for Frank and Amelia) forming a line to try and dance with Conner, who is sitting cross-armed on the side, fuming red and adamantly refusing to get up; a glowing trophy sits next to him reading 'best solo dancer'

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Rudy's sister Hayleigh disapproves of Conner's attitude and appearance sullying her brother's reputation, so she gives him a makeover that ostensibly changes him for the better and supervises him to ease the transition
-- the comic starts with Amelia doing more overbearing secretary work, even as Bucky and Frank ask her to stop
-- she leaves the office, to the general admiration of other students, and falters slightly before recovering; Rudy steps in to help her/ask if she's alright but Conner stops him, reminding Rudy of Amelia's pride
-- Hayleigh sees Rudy and Conner together and stops them, quietly inspecting Conner (and lightly embarrassing him) before deciding his appearance "won't do" and drags him to the makeover club
-- she changes his hair and posture, and takes great pains to be careful with storing his delightfully shitty clothes in favor of new duds (normally she'd throw the old clothes away but they're extremely sentimental to Conner)
-- the new appearance makes Conner look just jazzin
-- however this also makes bartering a pain in the ass because he's lit up like a christmas tree compared to before (where he was effectively a background character)
-- more men and women are trying to be approachable to Conner, downright teasing/flirting, which he feels uncomfortable with and interprets as attempted pranks despite Hayleigh and Rudy's advice
-- Conner's change of appearance even catches Amelia's attention, and Amelia's presence usually results in a shitload of people showing up
-- Amelia theatrically falls into Conner's arms and asks him to escort her back to her office (holding onto his arm/hand), the other students look on in envy (Rudy is furious, Hayleigh can't contain herself)
-- Amelia stops Conner partway there, trying a couple subtle euphemisms that fly over his head; she resorts to bluntly saying that the two of them should go further than this; Conner admits that it's true because they haven't reached her office yet (the students alternately scream 'NO' and facepalm); fazed for a second, she smiles it off and leaves
-- Rudy (backed by the other students) harangues Conner for wasting the literal perfect opportunity, but Conner admits he knew Amelia's intentions all along; she wanted him to jump at the chance and then be made to look an enormous fool as part of an elaborate prank, but he decided to play dumb and look like a bit of an idiot on purpose; some of the students are convinced of this, but Hayleigh and Rudy aren't
-- Conner invited to a party normally reserved for the higher-grade students and teachers
-- the party is catered and includes diluted alcohol, which makes Conner mad because he'd need far too many drinks to even approach buzzed (suggest he's drank underaged on the regular)
-- Conner's anecdotes and comedy help light up the party but he perceives everyone as laughing at him or being patronising
-- Bucky approaches Conner for some light goading but Conner simply asks how people like Bucky manage to fake being nice and sociable all the time, it's an enormous effort day after day; Bucky says it simply comes naturally to a lot of people, and for others they're genuinely nice to a lot of people, not necessarily everyone of course; in the end Bucky implies that Conner is no stranger to putting on an act himself
-- feeling he is out of his element, Conner leaves and takes to his old clothes, to Hayleigh's disappointment
-- Rudy points out the lesson of being true to yourself, even if being yourself means deliberately cockblocking yourself for some reason; Hayleigh makes the counterpoint of being true when 'yourself' isn't an asshole, and you can easily change yourself into a person everyone likes way more

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Pepper trying to start an official barter club, psychological battle with Conner (stealing his clientele)/Rudy (changing his attitude for the worse)
-- Pepper's father receives a cold call from an insurance agency, Pepper answers it and threatens the caller into oblivion
-- Pepper mad that her father is a pushover regarding societal conventions and his bosses, she doesn't want to be like that
-- also mad at/admiring of her father's bosses and their friends - rich, well-connected, influential, lots of power - she wants that but she resents having to step on others to get it
-- sees Conner dealing with a threatening client who takes what he asked for and leaves; sees Rudy helping some students who cut him off when he tries to be sociable with them; Pepper assumes their personalities and weaknesses and how best to exploit them
-- Pepper offers to partner up with Conner and use her own networking to expand their influence across school, turns in more students
-- offers Rudy advice on maintaining some backbone and not bending over to everyone without asking in return; encourages him to be over-forceful if he feels he's being wishy-washy
-- Conner suddenly receiving no clients whatsoever, assuming Pepper is representing him on trades, but can't get in touch with her to confirm
-- Rudy realises who his real friends are when people find they can't get free advice and have to solve their own problems, and dismiss him
-- this makes Rudy double down and become more cold to everyone else, including his sister Hayleigh; when she sadly says she'll see him later and walks off, that's when he really starts to regret his attitude
-- Conner catches up with Pepper and it turns out she's been doing business on her own just fine; she assimilated his clients with her clients, on top of blackmailing club leaders and well-connected students to give her lots of leads to go on and shutting Conner out
-- ultimately comes down to Pepper justifying herself with Conner staying in a rut rather than exploiting the opportunities he had, which he doesn't deny; he only gets angry when Pepper also shit-talks Rudy for being a doormat
-- Conner seems to have no advantage in the confrontation until Pepper boasts of setting up an 'official' bartering club, which he scoffs at, saying she can't run the operation solo
-- Pepper lists off the numerous people that will fill out the minimum requirements (president, vice-president, two pending members) and dozens more; most of whom are expecting the club to give them more official influence in the school; in actuality most of them have given verbal approval of a theoretical pitch rather than a signed agreement
-- Pepper's pitch is strong but the student council reject it immediately, citing numerous issues (the trade of contraband like drugs/alcohol/cursed artifacts, recruiting security to stop the trade of contraband, the slippery slope, undermining the [admittedly fairly useless and low-budget] stalls for student supplies already on school grounds)
-- Pepper has a lot of unhappy phone calls to make and people to talk to

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Rudy's parents are invited to a supervillain-themed barbeque but they turn down the invitation as they're not part of that lifestyle anymore
-- Hayleigh hears about the bash and wants to complain to the organiser in person for (a) organising it and (b) inviting her father and mother, both heroic model citizens; Rudy attempts to dissuade her since the people there are just in costume, they're not scheming or plotting evil, just having a nice burger and conversation
-- Rudy has to go around apologising to people, most of whom are understanding, even as Hayleigh threatens to report everyone to the police
-- Pepper surprises Rudy and Hayleigh; her father's commander was a retired villain and he thought it'd be a nice break if he brought Pepper and her father along
-- the military commander glosses over details of his own life, but a guest jokes that Pepper's father would have made an ideal superweapon rather than a military boon
-- Rudy and Hayleigh aren't savvy to Pepper's history so she sits with them and they attempt casual talk, poorly
-- Pepper discusses her father being shockproof and explosion-proof, and the military's attempts to clone him to produce a possible army of shockproof troopers, resulting in Pepper herself; the original soldier thought it was only right that he raise Pepper like his own daughter
-- Pepper leaving and returning with more food while talking
--also turns out she didn't sell the talking white cat, Icarus; he hangs around during off-school hours; Pepper recently had him registered as a "disguised sidekick"
-- the military were never sure if Pepper shared her father's superpower so they went through various tests; ambushing the two at GisnepLand with a electronic light parade gone awry; instigating Bring Your Clone To Work Day and having the two immediately take part in a (botched) tank-paratrooper exercise; Pepper and her father in a china shop when a vase falls over and inexplicably demolishes the entire shop like a landmine
-- to this day it's ambiguous as to whether or not Pepper is shockproof, and she's in no hurry to find out
-- either because of social media or Hayleigh phoning them, Rudy's parents george and barbara crash the party and apologise to the organisers (again with polite understanding)
-- Hayleigh tells her father that the guests said he was a supervillain like it was an accusation, and he admits it like it was the most obvious thing in the world; Hayleigh reacts like it's a bombshell (and Rudy and Pepper trading glances)
-- George and Barbara casually conversing with some of the guests, the topic of school comes up; Rudy's parents mentioning they were temporary teachers for a time, and some of the guests wincing at the methods of discipline used (having some standards despite being supervillains)

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Conner teaming up with a supervillain to hunt down a blue hero that's actually the alter ego of a brother and sister tag-team
-- the 'blue hero' is a suit of blue/white armor with a red visor that works the same way as conventional augments (drains energy from the user); the supervillain is a cranky old mad scientist
-- Balder, the brother is responsible, nervous, assumes a defensive stance but can get caught like a deer in headlights if he doesn't form a plan [C-rank compatible with body-enhancing augmentations]
-- Dash, the sister is irresponsible, strong-headed, causes a lot of collateral damage but gets the job done [also C-rank compatible]
-- neither have been found out by anyone yet despite needing to hide all over the city to make their strategy work at all
-- because of their tag-team strategy many villains are thrown off by a hero who seems clearly injured and then returns from out of hiding fully-refreshed ("how do they keep doing that? what is their secret??")
-- Balder wanted to borrow an expensive motor vehicle part, and in exchange he would give Conner the key to the city
-- he received the part but disappeared shortly after, forcing Conner to try and track him down
-- Conner thinks Balder is either friends with, or assuming the identity of the blue hero; investigating the media, Conner decides that the person most well-connected to the hero is his archnemesis, Dr Notnice
-- Dr Notnice is grocery-shopping in the middle of town, receiving ire from the regular townsfolk, grumbling as he's trying to go about his regular business; the cashiers serve him but are less than pleasant; many people walking on eggshells, as they're dealing with an ex-convict who used to have an army of robots at his command and could be up to anything nowadays
-- Conner "convinces" Notnice to let him tag along, thinking he'll track down the blue hero (and Balder) faster with Notnice's flying hovercraft, with back-up AI
-- Conner, Notnice and Conner's bag exceed the hovercraft's weight limit and an automated metal arm (controlled by the craft's AI) disposes of the 'excess baggage' (the doctor), setting the hovercraft to autopilot mode
-- the AI proceeds to dispose of the bag since the craft is still weighed down, but Conner argues for the contents therein being of endless value; thus the AI reconsiders and throws him out instead
-- Conner and Dr Notnice follow the hovercraft to track down and incapacitate the blue hero
-- Conner exits the hovercraft to double-check the identity of the blue hero but it turns out to be Dash the sister (and not the person he was looking for), so Conner lets her go
-- Conner being chased down by an infuriated Dr Notnice back inside his machine
-- new ending??

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WIP Mrs Conner’s mom gets super mad about how cluttered her step-son’s room is, and Pepper invites herself over as a 'friend' so she can rummage through the room

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WIP Kendo Club story with Anon-kun ("Anno") and Grieve-tan ("Gretna") - motivated by Frank's yellow-belt acquisition in karate, Conner joins and soon quits the Kendo Club; when he explains that he got "bored" of it to Gretna (to cover for getting "bored" of being endlessly hazed by her), she starts stalking him across school, getting away with her behavior due to being one of the school's sports aces
-- Conner befriending Anno in the club; gets his ass kicked by a girl with glasses and asthma; he attempts to roll with the expected punches but instead everyone sympathises with him, since he's the new 'target' of the club's ace member
-- people picking up on the fact that Conner is practicing "martial arts" and either running off or goading him
-- unsubtle stalking by Gretna; subtle stalking by Anno
-- stalking reaches fever pitch and Conner attempts to retaliate, fight in the cafeteria, he's stopped by the student council; initially calms down but Gretna fires off a remark that incites him to break his handcuffs
-- realises he's in a different room entirely and stops before he actually does it; Bucky shows up and says Conner should thank him for resolving the situation before everyone got hurt; Conner fuming but ultimately agrees
-- after school he's attacked by a gang of delinquents, but he proves well-armed ("but he's got a chair leg, boss! he's an unstoppable sitting machine!") and is soon backed up by Anno
-- things cool down and Conner gets an order filed against Gretna instead
-- Gretna attacks and hospitalises Rudy
-- Conner brings himself back to the Kendo Club and gets taunted by Gretna, he's still not allowed to retaliate against her
-- instead he challenges and trashes ten other members of the club in a row, all of whom Gretna berates
-- Anno challenges Conner (as a measuring stick, to prove he isn't mediocre, to stop Conner from getting into trouble against Gretna, etc) but is similarly trounced
-- [it's implied that Gretna was already good at Kendo beforehand and is essentially self-taught, the other members receiving little professional guidance from the club leader]
-- Grenta screaming "YOU DIDN'T WIN" as Conner leaves