Orphaned Series: Difference between revisions

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I may come back to write a funny caption for this, but Candle Jack says that he'll kidna

When the author of a series abandons the storyline entirely, either from lack of interest, time, money, inspiration, or pulse, the series is said to be orphaned.

This is a distressingly common problem with Web Comics, as many are written part-time by authors who have significantly underestimated the amount of time and effort of scripting and drawing three strips a week; a series may begin to suffer more and more frequent (or longer) schedule slips, until the author either takes an extended hiatus which then becomes permanent, or else simply stops updating the series without warning to the readers. Free comic hosting sites such as Comic Genesis and Drunk Duck are littered with the wreckage of hundreds of such series, some of which have only a single introductory strip to indicate that they ever were even conceived.

On rare occasions, a seemingly Orphaned Series may be resurrected, either by the original artist or by another taking it over. Fans may wait for years in vain for this to happen, but it almost never does.

An even worse case is when the webcomic literally vanishes from the Internet, because the account it was hosted on was deleted due to the bill not being paid in a long time.

The more extreme Schedule Slips blur the line. See also Dead Fic. Compare Vaporware, which is something the creator claims not to have given up on—but almost all the fans have.

Here's an article in The Other Wiki about it.

Examples of Orphaned Series are listed on these subpages:

Waldorf: These shows aren't getting finished!
Statler: Who cares? They never should have been started!
Both: Do-ho-hoh!

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 {{trope}}
-{{cleanup|Some examples have already been moved to subpages. The rest should follow suit, left this become a Self-Demonstrating Article.}}
 [[File:deadfic.jpg|frame|I may come back to write a funny caption for this, but [[Candle Jack]] says that he'll kidna]]
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 {{examples on subpages}}
-{{examples}}
-== [[Fan Works]] ==
-* Very common: depressingly common among [[Sturgeon's Law|The Other Ten Percent.]]
-** See [[Dead Fic]] for more examples.
-** Given that [[Dead Fic|dead fics]] are often of the other ten percent, and that the ten percent often [[Needs More Love]], it can be incredibly depressing or frustrating to an author to see that the ninety percent of crap gets more attention than their decently written fic ever will.
-* The ''Zelda'' fic ''Feel Good Hit of the Summer'' has died...after posting a very well-done [[Mood Whiplash]] [[Nightmare Fuel]] scene revealing some serious [[Break the Cutie]] in a flashback. (In fairness, it's a sequel to a decent-length complete fic, but still.)
-* The ''The Legend of Dragoon'' fic ''Rebirth of a Legend'' was four chapters from the end according to the author. He never came back to finish it.
-* The ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' Azulaang fic "Lanterns" has also gone over two and a half years without an update.
-* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1095253/1/The_New_Students The New Students]''. An incredibly good crossover between ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' and ''[[Harry Potter]]''. No, really.
-* ''[[Final Fighting Fantasy]]'', in [[Left Hanging|the most frustrating way]]. It's been 4 years since the last installment came out, and the prognosis for the final installment doesn't look good.
-* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6367096/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Breeding_Darkness Harry Potter and the Breeding Darkness]'' might have run solely on [[Plot Bunny]] fuel, but it is very well-written, possibly even [[So Cool Its Awesome|brilliant]] (although as always, [[Your Mileage May Vary]]). Unfortunately, the fic seems to have been discontinued due to lack of interest and time to continue writing for it, and has now been put it up for adoption.
-* ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' was this for a long time. The author, who started it in 1980 and began posting it online in 1997, gave it up in 2002 after her personal life imploded (mother had Alzheimer's, laid off from her job, etc.). The two-thirds of the book she'd finished remained on her website to drive readers nuts. She never thought she would finish it, but in early 2009 she was hit by literary lightning, wrote 300 pages in 3 weeks, and finished the thing. (The final product in book form is over 650 pages long.) She is now working on the long-promised sequel, ''The Keys Stand Alone''.
-* ''[[The Nunu Bot Show]]'' is in one, with creator Angry Goran not even logging onto [[YouTube]] for two months.{{when}}
-* ''[[The Shoebox Project]]'' is one of the most highly-rated ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfics ever, but it hasn't been updated since 2008 and never got a proper ending.
-* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7350801/1/Colonization_First_Contact Colonization: First Contact]'' is a ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' fanfic with the typical "human in Equestria" premise, except with a twist: instead of the typical self-insert, it features a space expedition of scientists and soldiers who stumble upon the planet Equestria. Unfortunately, it petered out just as things had started getting interesting; all we got are five chapters, and a piece of the sixth on the author's profile. The author later announced he will not be finishing the fic (and offers it to any enterprising author who would like to finish it.)
-* The ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/264446/1/Hearts-of-Ice Hearts of Ice]'' by Krista Perry Fisk.  An epic in both size and subject matter, ''Hearts of Ice'' first appeared in 1997, and over the next two years, Fisk (then unmarried and writing under her maiden name of Perry) turned out some 25 chapters of exceptionally high-quality story, with the 25th -- the penultimate chapter -- ending on a heartbreaking [[Cliff Hanger]].  And then ''stopped writing for ten years''.  Ultimately averted when she finally completed it in 2009, but not before it gained the nickname "The Great Unfinished Symphony of ''Ranma'' Fanfic".
-* The extraordinarily well-done ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1260679/1/ Realizations]'' by "Wishweaver" reached thirty-six chapters between 2003 to 2010, at which point its author abruptly disappeared.  It lay fallow for a decade, until in 2020 when Wishweaver reappeared and began posting [https://archiveofourown.org/works/25925863/chapters/63012685 a rewritten version] on [[Archive of Our Own]].  Unfortunately, as of early 2021 Wishweaver has once again reached thirty-six chapters and stalled out; at the time of this writing it is too early to say whether it is again Orphaned, but it's not looking good.
-* ''[[Girl Days]]'', perhaps ''the'' best [[Original Flavour]] ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic in existence.  Seventeen and a half chapters written between 1999 and 2002, after which its author vanished from the Net.
-* ''Tales of Ranma and Ranko'' by Jack Staik and Lady Tesser.  An absolutely epic work of ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fan fiction, it is composed of three massive (and complete) novel-sized stories (''Ranma's Secret, Ranma's Fiancees'', and ''A Matter of Romantic Chemistry'') and one short story ("Nabiki's Plan").  A fourth novel-sized installment, ''Our Wedding Day'', promised to wrap up the entire cycle -- but was left barely started when its husband-wife writing team suddenly disappeared from the Net in the early 2000s.
-== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
-* ''[[Firefly]]'' was a dead-then-resurrected-then-dead series which wasn't able to put out a full season before its final-and-actual cancellation. Some semblance of closure was attempted with the movie ''[[Serenity]]''. {{spoiler|According to [[Joss Whedon]] on the DVD extras, one of the characters was [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|glibly killed]] to focus the audience on the seriousness of the final scenes.}}
-** ''Serenity'' was in fact made because Joss had become convinced that the show could not be revived. Instead, it was intended to finish the story of River and the Academy. Main characters only died because Joss was sure the series would not be renewed.
-* ''[[Chappelle's Show]]'': When Dave couldn't handle the fame and pressure after the success of the first two seasons, he literally walked out on the production of the third, even when Comedy Central offered a bigger paycheck.
-== Web Original ==
-* The first incarnation and reboot [[Darwin's Soldiers]] on Furtopia were never finished and will probably remain that way.
-* In general, this is very common fate for online roleplays.
-* Similar to the web comics examples, this is an incredibly common result for blogs. Due to lack of time or interest in maintaining regular blog posts, the internet is littered with thousands upon thousands of blogs that are orphaned permanently. Bloggers also often bring their blog [[Back from the Dead]] after long periods of orphandom, but frequently this results only in "I've been meaning to get back to this..." and "I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long..." posts showing up at increasing intervals.
-* Played straight with [[Homestar Runner|Strong Sad's blog]], which is otherwise a parody of [[LiveJournal]]. And then [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when Strong Sad mentioned it in the Strong Bad Email "email thunder". Sadly, it seems that this has happened to Homestarrunner.com as well.
-* ''[[Xiao Xiao]]'' ended with a demo of a beat-em-up game back in 2002. There have been no signs of that demo or the series ever continuing since then. In fact, the author's whereabouts are unknown as well.
-* ''Sapphire Spindle Paw'' is either this or [[Stillborn Serial]]. Mystic (TheSpiritWolf) created a prologue video and then a first episode, then posted about their intentions to make a third video before disappearing site. Searching "Sapphire Spindle Paw", with quotes, gives around four or five results, and there is no sign of an episode 2.
-* [[Something Awful|Rock Tumbler's]] [[Let's Play]] of ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' was discontinued due to his drug use. His former partners have started it up again and finished it.
-* [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony's]] [[Let's Play]] of ''Deadly Premonition'' is looking like it won't ever be continued (at least not any time soon), having only Part 1 up on the site. This doesn't stop fans on the forums starting a new thread every few weeks or so asking when he's going to finish it...
-* [[Atlas of Medieval America]] was a very intriguing concept that never got more than a couple months of updates. [[Alternate History]] buffs have tried to carry on.
-* ''[[Super Mario Bros Z]]'', due to how time consuming it took to the animate the fights. What was meant to be a twenty-six episodes ended at eight after the creator [[Mark Haynes]] called it quits. He has since made an attempt to reboot the series, which has been progressing slowly - but progressing nonetheless.
-* The [[SCP Foundation]] story "[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/metafiction Metafiction]" (one of the most popular tales on the site) ends with ''to be continued'' on a very interesting cliffhanger. The discussion page is filled with requests, pleads and threats to the author to just finish the damn thing already.
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 {{quote|'''[[The Muppet Show|Waldorf]]''': These shows aren't getting finished!
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