So here's the story idea: Short animation (or film) in the near-future.

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A guy, either a middle-aged or old man, stands beneath an orange streetlamp. He yoinks out cigarettes from his pack and chain smokes. A younger guy approaches him, like he's a celebrity. Turns out he sort of is one, because he's the last smoker alive on the Smoker Registry (kinda like the Sex Offender registry), where you have to sign up to legally buy smokes and essentially get publicly shamed for it all over the news and such (think of that Children of Men movie where the youngest person alive is an actively tracked celebrity in society).

The old man is surprised, then chuckles, realizing he's the last of his kind. He pulls out his last cigarette from the pack and lights it. The younger guy asks if he can try smoking, as he's always wanted to try it. The older guy is surprised, and almost obliges, but stops himself mid-sentence and stares at the kid.

He has a flashback of how he started smoking: He was once a younger guy just like the one in front of him, who got curious and then addicted through multiple strangers indulging his curiosity.

The old man stops. He turns away and stares coolly into the night sky, as the cigarette's orange glow starts fizzling out. He finally answers with "Nah" before the flame of the cigarette, against the night sky's starry background, blows out and fades to black. The end.

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(Thus, he has broken the cycle that roped himself into becoming a nicotine addict and left the next generation with at least one less smoker in the world.)

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Usually I write these inspired ideas down onto a Google Doc, but since this one is particularly inspired by Newgrounds, I'll just write it here to help make clear which ideas were inspired by NG and which were inspired by outside life.

Got inspired by this political BBS topic about smoking and I came up with some ideas on how to phase out cigarettes by treating it like technology rather than like a drug. If you make a superior technology, the outdated stuff is phased out by most of society. This is true of the refrigerator replacing the icebox, of the newest iPhones replacing the older ones, and even of cigarettes with filters replacing non-filtered cigarettes.

Who knows if I'll ever have enough time to animate it. But it'd be fairly simple with barely any big movements or action, unless I fill it with way too many subtle quirks. At least it'll be here in written form for now until then.