While Arlyss is the writer of Arrow: Rebirth, he's known to collaborate with a number of other writers on the Lauriver Discord. As a result, there are a great amount of ideas generated that ultimately didn't make it into the final cut. After Rebirth was canceled and Forging a Better Future replaced it, many of these ideas were reincorporated into Forging.
- General
- If Barry/Sara had not worked out, Arlyss was going to build up to Barry/Caitlin instead, as Snowbarry was his favorite Flash pairing.
- The Huntsman was originally going to be Laurel's Arch-Enemy for the series, before it was pointed out that it would be hard to take him seriously as a reoccurring antagonist after he was beaten by her in their first confrontation — and this was before Laurel had even become a vigilante, let alone a world-class martial artist trained by Lady Shiva.
- While the series was ultimately canceled, Arlyss had plans for up to at least ten volumes. Many of those plans were integrated into the plans for Forging, while others were discarded entirely.
- The new Volume III, tentatively titled Perils of Change, went through a number of different plans, as seen below.
- Volume IV would've been the fall of Lex Luthor, who had created Cadmus to experiment on both normal humans and aliens, the former to see if he could awaken their metagenes.
- Volume V would've been HIVE, starting with Hannibal Bates trying to frame the members of Team Arrow with various crimes. As a subplot, Simon Morrison would've been revealed to have become a trained agent of HIVE, tasked with murdering various loved ones of the Justice League under the guise of 'accidents' in order to distract them and keep them off-balance. These loved ones would've been Lucy Lane, Joe West, and Henry Fyff. Unlike the others, Fyff would've been a genuine murder instead of being disguised as an accident due to Morrison wanting Oliver to know he was being targeted — that would've clued in the JL, who would've hunted down Morrison. The last leg of the volume would've seen Oliver vs. Slade and Laurel vs. Darhk, with Laurel deciding to spare Darhk's life.
- Volume VI would've been the Spear of Destiny and the Legion of Doom, with Ares forming the Legion. While Black Manta, Sinestro, Ares, and a younger version of Eobard Thawne were all guaranteed, several other names were thrown around to be counterparts to Oliver and Laurel, including Tommy, Talia, Slade and Darhk, before deciding on the latter two. Oliver and Laurel would've also gotten married at the end of this volume.
- Volume VII would've been Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins, with Ra's ending his season of clemency for Star City and sending Tommy to destroy it as a test to see if Oliver would be worthy heir to him. This would've culminated in a vicious duel between Oliver and Tommy with Oliver winning. Afterward, the League would've sought out the aid of Talia and had her replace Ra's after one of them (likely Oliver) killed him in a duel. Tommy would've left the League before Ra's was killed, unwilling to serve Oliver, and remained a reoccurring foe to him for the rest of the series.
- While there were no solid plans for Volume VIII propernote , Volume IX would've been Zoom and Earth-2, with Barry and Sara as the main characters with Oliver and Laurel as supporting characters. That volume would've ended with Zoom's defeat and Barry proposing to Sara.
- The Time Skip between Volumes IX and X would've seen the birth of Olivia, Oliver and Laurel's first child.
- Volume X would've been a protracted war between Earth-1 and Earth-X, after the Nazis attacked Barry and Sara's wedding, where all of the JL would've been attending.
- The Rise of the Emerald Archer
- Diggle was supposed to stick around longer, but he was written out in part due to how Arlyss allowed his prejudice about Diggle's characterization in the later seasons cloud his perception of the character. He amended this by reintroducing Diggle in Children, as Ted Kord's head of security.
- Originally, Oliver and Laurel were going to have a brief break up in Rise, where they would both have temporary relationships with Sara and Ted, respectively. The idea was discarded due to the way their relationship played out making it unrealistic.
- Arlyss briefly flirted with the idea of making Thea the new Dark Archer in Rise due to its interesting premise and novelty, but elected to go with the more standard Tommy instead due to the direction the story ended up going.
- Thea was also going to run afoul of Morgan Edge during her time in Metropolis, and was going to be helped out by either Clark (pre-Superman) or Sara. That was cut, but was reconsidered for Age after things started falling apart between Oliver and her again. It was cut again, this time permanently, because it was pointed out that the League would've snatched her up if she did run off again.
- Oliver was originally going to save the hostages from Malcolm on his own, without Sara's help. Thea and Tommy weren't originally supposed to be hostages either.
- If the former had gone through, Laurel was supposed to find some way to break her bonds so she could save Samantha and William, sparing Oliver from having to kill Malcolm in front of his son.
- The Age of Heroes
- Tommy was originally going to kill Thea as his graduation task for the League, in part because of the increased prominence of Emiko in Oliver's life. However, it was determined that Oliver would just kill Tommy if he did (which would go against the author's plans of having him a reoccurring antagonist), so the author discarded the idea.
- The original Big Bad of Age was going to be the Council of Time Masters, with the Justice League teaming up with the Legends to take them down. While that did happen, the Legends teamed up with the future Justice League instead of the current incarnation, and the Council ended up the Disc-One Final Boss instead with Zod as the true Big Bad.
- Talia and the League of Shadows were originally going to accept the Council's contract, instead of deferring it to the Ninth Circle. H.I.V.E. was also considered as an alternate option, but it was decided to keep them in the background until it was their time to be the Big Bad.
- The Ninth Circle was supposed to be part of the Big Bad Ensemble with Zod and the Council, and were supposed to try and recreate the Undertaking with more Markov devices, except use it on the entire city. The subplot was cut due to lack of originality and the forming of the Justice League being deemed more interesting.
- The Legends were supposed to have a more prominent role in Age, essentially being a second A-Plot, opposite of Oliver forming the Justice League. However, the formation of the Justice League ended up dominating the plot due to its increasing complexity, and the author didn't have enough original ideas to make the Legends' adventures uniquely different from canon. So they were demoted to the B-Plot instead; one of the subplots that was cut out as a result of this was Barry forming a 'bromance' with Nate in the stead of Ray. However, the author was able to maintain the subplots of Barry being brainwashed into Chronos and his gradual romance with Sara.
- Another idea thrown around was to make Vandal Savage part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with the Council with Chronos as The Heavy. If this had gone through, Savage would've been characterized after his sadistic comic book counterpart instead of the Arrowverse verion.
- The Legends were also supposed to join the Justice League in combating the Kryptonian Invasion (with Barry as Chronos). Ultimately, however, they disbanded, with Dick, Barry (as the Flash), and Sara joining the Justice League and participating in the Battle of Metropolis instead.
- The Amnesty Bay arc was supposed to end after the Battle of the Trench. Instead, it led to the Atlantis arc due to Arlyss' collaborators pointing out how complicated integrating Atlantis with the surface world would be.
- The assassination attempts on King Arthur and President Trumbull were supposed to be full-fledged plots, as opposed to being just mentioned, with JL spending the last leg of the arc investigating them. However, the arc was running long already so author decided to gloss them over instead.
- Slade was supposed to be the assassin targeting Trumbull, instead of David Cain. However, the idea puttered out immediately due to the author's collaborators pointing out that with Superman there, there was no way Slade would be able to escape, which would scuttle his plans to make Slade a major antagonist.
- Similarly, Laurel was supposed to take down Cain, which would've been used as another reason for Lady Shiva to take notice of hernote . However, since the plot was demoted, Superman took him down instead.
- Laurel's first outing as Black Canary after the Amnesty Bay arc was supposed to be against a released Cyrus Vanch. However, the Atlantis arc ended up consuming that episode, so Vanch remained in prison and became an antagonist for the Slabside arc instead.
- Another subplot the Atlantis arc ended up consuming was Count Vertigo. Thea and Roy were supposed to take him on before it was determined they would be too green at the time to handle someone like him yet. Rene was then considered, before the subplot was cut entirely. Vertigo was later killed off during the Slabside arc.
- William Clayton (as Connor Hawke) was supposed to show up in the Star City 2046 arc. However, due to the demotion of the Legends' plot, it was cut.
- Akin to Clark's first confrontation with Zod, Oliver was going to have his own confrontation with Zod in his apartment, where he would take Zod down with a Kryptonite ring and scare him off. It didn't make it into the final cut because of the debate over the danger of Oliver having a radioactive material on him constantly, an inability to find a place to fit it in, and someone pointing out that Oliver probably would use that opportunity to kill Zod and end the threat before it could begin.
- Anatoli and Brick were supposed to survive the Slabside arc. Anatoli was going to eventually escape Slabside, be ousted from his position as Pakhan and forced to work his way back up the ranks of the Bratva as KGBeast. Infiltrating Slabside and killing Brick was going to be Tommy's new graduation test in Volume III. However, the author wanted to maintain Anatoli's dignity as an antagonist and couldn't find a way to keep Brick alive during the arc without it being considered out of character for Oliver and his allies, so he elected to kill both off instead.
- Barry was originally going to join the Justice League as Chronos, and Sara and him were supposed to stay in Starling instead of moving (back) to Central. Cisco and Caitlin would've stayed with them in Starling as well. However, Arlyss and another collaborator, Okori-Prime, were able to conceive of a plausible way to make Barry the Flash earlier without the Particle Accelerator Explosion, which necessitated him moving back to Central City and taking Sara, Cisco, and Caitlin with him.
- Laurel was supposed to suffer a Near-Death Experience during the Battle of Metropolis, where her heart would momentarily stop after debris fell on her, to briefly touch on Oliver's fear of losing her again. However, the way the Battle played out, including both Oliver being put out of commission via the Black Mercy and Laurel staying at the D.E.O. to help guard him, forced that to be cut.
- Astra was supposed to play a much larger role in Age by discreetly warning Clark about the upcoming Kryptonian Invasion via mail and killing Non to protect Kara. The former was cut and Lois ended up doing the latter instead.
- One of the possible final battles of Age that was considered was Oliver vs. Zod, instead of Clark vs. Zod. The former would've resulted in Oliver winning but being severely injured in the process, with his arc in Children being getting back into tip-top shape.
- Oliver was originally going to join the Battle of Metropolis after being freed from the Black Mercy. However, it was deemed too unrealistic due to the Black Mercy being based off the Krypton version, which is far more debilitating to the host body than the Arrowverse version used on Kara.
- The Children of the Glades
- Slade Wilson/Deathstroke was going to be the original Big Bad of Volume III, before it was determined that, with the Justice League around, he wouldn't have been enough of a threat by himselfnote . Then, it was considered having him as part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E., with further backing from the Ninth Circle and Helix. However, that idea was discarded due to the decreased prominence of the Ninth Circle and the bridge-dropping of Helix. Instead, he joined H.I.V.E. and Sebastian Blood was made the Big Bad of that volume in his place, as part of the Revisiting the Roots premise of Childrennote .
- Originally, the formation of the Birds of Prey was supposed to be a minor subplot of Volume III and the main thrust of the volume was going to be Oliver and Quentin tackling the SCPD's corruption and bringing down Nudocerdo. However, due to the author electing to make the volume cover all of Season Two of Arrow, opposed to just half a season like the previous volumes, and Nudocerdo's own Demoted to Extra status, plans changed. The Birds of Prey tackling Frank Bertinelli became the main thrust of the first half of the volume, Oliver and Quentin were delegated to the B-Plot for that half, and Nudocerdo was replaced with Blood as the Big Bad.
- The original Chapter 9 (Chapter 10, if one counts the preface) of Children saw Robert and Moira brought Back from the Dead by the Presence as a gift for Oliver's heroism. The author quickly discarded it, both because it stretched the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and because he realized the storyline wouldn't go anywhere after Children was finished. According to him, he only brought them back because he wanted to see how they would react to everything that had gone on after their deaths and because he wanted to use Robert as the business candidate for the upcoming mayoral race.
- Originally, there was going to be a redux of Team Arrow's "Schism" arc from Season Six in the back-half of the story, with Roy and Rene defecting to form their own team over Oliver's 'prejudice' against Blood and Ted going with them so they wouldn't do anything stupid. That was why the early chapters had an increasing amount of friction between Oliver and Rene. It was cut, because it was predicated on an illogical Conflict Ball that saw Oliver keeping the truth about his Time Travel as a secret from the three of them for several more months, even though he already trusted all of them (and Henry) completely. Both Arlyss and Nyame realized this didn't make sense, especially since Oliver wouldn't want any dissent in the team with the Dominators coming any day. So they elected to just have Oliver confess everything to the rest of the team after taking down Division X.
- While Children was ultimately canceled, it did have plans set out and posted on the Lauriver Discord, and several chapters were written out and posted for the second half there on the story's personal channel. Among these plans include:
- Oliver spending the entire second half hunting down new members for the Justice League, going international (like he had with Diana) to find them.
- Laurel training various members of the JL and Kara, while dealing with Tommy harassing her. That would've ended with Laurel kicking his ass in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- The ongoing mayoral race, which would've seen Oliver holding several campaign events throughout the second half of the story. One of these events would've been crashed by Tommy, who would've then been decried by Oliver as being just like his father, with Laurel and Thea backing him up.
- Oliver would intentionally have Rene organize these events with the intention of training him to eventually become his Chief of Staff upon winning. This was because he intended to support Rene as his successor once his own political career ended.
- Blood would've used Oliver's frequent absences to smear him as an Attention Whore who no longer cared about Star City. This would've backfired after the Dominator Invasion, as it would be obvious after that why Oliver had been gone from Star so often in the past several months.
- Oliver's popularity would've shot up after the Dominator Invasion, which would've prompted Blood to hire Lady Vic to assassinate him. The assassination ultimately would've failed, but Oliver would've suffered a Near-Death Experience that would see him meet with his parents and confront them over all their past sins and choices.
- After defeating and capturing Blood with the help of Team Arrow and Batman, Oliver would've won the race and named Ted Kord his deputy mayor. Then he would've proposed to Laurel.
- At the end of the story, Tommy would've invaded Slabside Penitentiary as the Dark Archer and killed the surviving members of Tempest as his 'graduation task' for the League. He then would've killed Blood in revenge for targeting him with the Children.
- The Perils of Change
- Early on, it was decide to have Tommy Adapted Out regardless of whatever storyline used, as he didn't have much to contribute to the story and ultimately proved too much of a distraction from the main plot. His return instead would've been delayed to at least Volume V, where the main villains would've been HIVE.
- Oliver was supposed to take the deaths of the 502 people much harder, to the point that he was excessively depressed months later even after Sara's attempts to help him. So depressing, in fact, that he got nicknamed "Emo Bitch Ollie". This was discarded because it made both the author and Nyame, his primary beta reader, depressed and unwilling to write/read the chapters.
- After it was determined that writing about that wasn't going to work, Arlyss decided to delegate it to the Time Skip and have Oliver back to normal by the beginning of the volume. Instead, the plot would've been about Oliver and Quentin dealing with police corruption while investigating the Children, while the Birds of Prey dealt with Frank Bertinelli. The volume would've ended with the Children defeated, Nudocerdo ousted and replaced with Pike, and Bertinelli taken down after Oliver revealed his Time Travel to Helena and also revealing that Frank still had the laptop full of evidence that Helena had been collecting before Michael's death. This plot was discarded because Arlyss realized the Children really didn't make compelling villains for an entire volume.
- The final rewrite before the series' cancellation would see the first half of Season Two and the Children skipped entirely, with Laurel instead returning at the beginning of the second half. The villains would've been the Dominators, using the modified plans detailed above.
