A strict all girls boarding school is across a river from a strict all boys boarding school.
Boys and girls are forbidden from fraternizing, but they find sneaky ways to form friendships and even date. I assume there is heavily monitored internet and phones are for emergencies only so they have to resort to more unconventional methods of communication. (Messages in bottles, a system of mirrors, writing on chalkboards and putting them in the windows ect.ect.)
Until one day a shy boy at the boys boarding school tells his best friend (and the leader of a resident well meaning boys gang) that he actually feels more like a girl.
The gang leader contacts the leader of a girl gang across the river and they begin to plan an overly elobrate heist to smuggle the shy trans girl across the river in exchange for a chill tomboy and the two will assume each other’s lives until they graduate.
Hijinks ensue as they pull a ‘Great-Esacpe’ style mission to avoid detection from the overly strict headmasters and an overly passionate team of campus security guards.
Friendships are tested, there is lots of home-alone style logic to outsmart the adults, and there is romantic tension between the leaders of the gangs as they put aside their differences to help their two friends find a place to be themselves. It is light-hearted in tone but is also over the top and everyone plays it way too serious to the point of comedy. The two kids swapping places have classic “parent trap” style hijinks pretending to be the other person and avoid detection.
Think “kids next door” + “recess” but shot like a heist movie.
Add a funny character actor as a dopey but well meaning janitor and you got a stew going.
As a parent of two young impressionable children I 100% would take them to see this movie.
Yesterday I overheard someone talking about how he was taking classes at the University of Maryland because they offer free tuition if you’re over 60.
My brain IMMEDIATELY began scripting a screwball comedy in which a broke millennial who desperately want to finish his long-abandoned degree but is drowning in student debt pretends to be a senior citizen in order to attend college for free.
I’m picturing someone Channing Tatumesque, applying age makeup every morning before he heads off to class. It’s sort of a cross between 21 Jump Street and Mrs. Doubtfire. He keeps forgetting which hip is supposed to be his bad one. His classmates laugh every time he uses slang. There’s definitely a scene where he attends a college party and busts it up on the dance floor.
He catches the eye of a fellow returning student, a woman in her 50s, but she thinks he’s like 70 and she’s already buried one husband, you know? She’s not interested in doing that again. When his charade unravels (hilariously) at the end of the movie, though, she finds out he’s actually like 30 and has abs you could bounce a quarter off. And he’s still super into her. And really, maybe it’s time she gave May-December romance a chance.
I need this like I need air.
I am in serious need of this book
“Fishing lures?” said Brock. “Dude, what?”
“Shut up, man,” said Matt, checking his reflection. He stared at the lures kind of dubiously, then removed them from his shirt pocket. Yeah, maybe they were a little too much.
“And where’d you even get that outfit?!” his roommate of five years demanded, not letting up. “Did you crack open a coffin and rip it off an old dude’s corpse?”
“That’s weirdly specific,” said Matt, frowning as he uncapped a brown eyeliner. This part was tricky.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Brock said, leaning against the door of the bathroom not-quite casually, to block out anyone who might walk in on the millenial aging forty years in ten minutes. Matt snorted. It would have been convincing if it hadn’t been about the fiftieth time Brock had said it.
“You’d think you’d have gotten past the surprise stage by now,” he said. “Like, maybe four months ago, when I got my acceptance letter. Or a month before that, when I sent out like a million apps. Or two weeks before that, when I got the fake.”
The fake ID hadn’t actually been done with old age makeup. He’d just done his best to look middle-aged, and they’d dated it about twenty years ago with some paperwork for renewing it by mail.
“I know, but…” Brock hesitated. “It’s different, you know?”
“What, cuz it’s the first day of school?”
He couldn’t remember if he’d done the scar on his left or right fake-jowl during Orientation. He picked left. Hopefully no one would notice.
“People are actually going to see you,” Brock said. He sighed, and ran a hand over his face. “Be careful, alright? Look, I’m gonna go pick up Karen…”
“Is this the teacher?”
“Huh? No, that was Lisa. We broke up. Karen does retail. It’ll be the first time she’s coming over to our place, so do you mind if I move your stuff…?”
“Sure,” said Matt, picking up the brown eyeliner again. Liver spots were good. He hadn’t done them last time, but they were convincing as hell, and he intended to remedy that. “Just stuff it in my room; I’ll take care of it when I get back.”
They always did this when they had dates over – they’d clean up the place and dump the other person’s stuff into their room so their date wasn’t surrounded by reminders of a third party’s existence, like some random other dude might barge in on them while they were necking.
Plus, they were kind of embarrassed. Sure, times were tough, and rent was $2000 a month in the cheapest livable flats – three times the monthly income of a minimum wage worker, and only a little under twice of Brock’s – but it still felt kind of weird to be living with a roommate when they were almost thirty.
Matt finished dusting his face with translucent powder and started capping all of his equipment, placing each thing by category into ziplock bags.
“Want me to come with you?” Brock asked. “I can spare an hour.”
“Nah,” said Matt. “I can take care of-” He coughed, then shrugged his shoulders and shook out his arms, loosening himself up. He hunched over, curving his shoulders in and sticking his head forward like he was peering intently at something.
“Thank you, young man,” he said, in a wheezy, dry tone. He coughed. Doing the voice was hurting his throat a little. “You’re a well-mannered young’un.” He tried his best to sound like he was choking on chalk dust.
Brock snickered. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you meet any lovely seventy-year-old grandmothers. I can always clear up my stuff for tomorrow.”
Me : wow!! I’m so excited to play dnd!!! man I’m so hype to roleplay my super cool character and form relationships!!! wow!!!!
Dm : what’s your characters name?
Me :
Alternately
Dm: and this npc stands before you, greeting you with a badass handshake in one hand and a halberd in the other. They’re hip, they’re hype, they’re everything you ever wanted.
Me: amazing what’s their name
Dm: oh no
Solution: set your campaign in a land where true names have extraordinary power, and there are fey lurking in the shadows waiting for someone to let one slip.
No one ever tells anyone their name; it’s why people have so many epithets – the grizzled warrior, the battle mage, the meatball, the hey-you-with-the-face-at-least-most-of-one-haha-don’t-point-that-thing-at-me.
Yesterday I overheard someone talking about how he was taking classes at the University of Maryland because they offer free tuition if you’re over 60.
My brain IMMEDIATELY began scripting a screwball comedy in which a broke millennial who desperately want to finish his long-abandoned degree but is drowning in student debt pretends to be a senior citizen in order to attend college for free.
I’m picturing someone Channing Tatumesque, applying age makeup every morning before he heads off to class. It’s sort of a cross between 21 Jump Street and Mrs. Doubtfire. He keeps forgetting which hip is supposed to be his bad one. His classmates laugh every time he uses slang. There’s definitely a scene where he attends a college party and busts it up on the dance floor.
He catches the eye of a fellow returning student, a woman in her 50s, but she thinks he’s like 70 and she’s already buried one husband, you know? She’s not interested in doing that again. When his charade unravels (hilariously) at the end of the movie, though, she finds out he’s actually like 30 and has abs you could bounce a quarter off. And he’s still super into her. And really, maybe it’s time she gave May-December romance a chance.
Draw dicks on all the Aces and face cards. The kings are posing seductively. The queens are leering at you with interest. The jacks are all whacking off. HAH! Where are all your poker faces now!
If you’re a casino owner and you do this, you owe me 15% of the profits.
You are an Illuminati conspiracy theorist. You share your carefully thought out, logically impenetrable theories with your friends and neighbors. They scoff at you. They cannot be convinced. But the truth is out there.
two
You are an Illuminati conspiracy theorist. Or so your friends and neighbors think. In reality, you are an employee of the Illuminati. Your job is to construct wild, elaborate conspiracy theories too bizarre to be taken seriously, with careful albeit fantastical logic always leading to the correct conclusion; thus preventing anyone from working out this conclusion themselves and finding out the true role of your employers.
three
You are an employee of the Illuminati. Or so you think. In reality, you are employed by a cover for the real Illuminati, devised to make you believe you have acquired all of the top secret information, so that you do not search for more. Your role to protect the real Illuminati through conspiracy theories is only a way to keep you occupied, so that you do not find out the truth. All of your friends and neighbors are part of the real Illuminati. They react to your theories with utter incredulity, in order that you may think, satisfied, that you are fooling them all. Reassured that you continue to be in the dark, fooled by their pretended disbelief, they continue to work in shadowy ways around you.
four
You are ignorant of the real Illuminati. Or so they think. In reality, you have found out their secrets months ago – your friends and neighbors are very bad liars. You have spent these months pretending ignorance. On the surface, this is because you fear they will kill you if they find out you know. Truthfully, this is because you do not want to hurt their feelings. You allow them to continue believing they are doing a good job of keeping you in the dark.
five
Your friends and neighbors are aware that you have been lying to protect their feelings, and are touched by your consideration. They act as though they are unaware of your awareness, respecting your pretense. By the time you realize this, it is too late, too awkward, to stop pretending. Your friends, too, wish to avoid awkwardness, continuing the act, eventually creating a spiraling chain of one layer of pretended ignorance upon another, ad infinitum.
six
History became legend. Legend became myth. You and your friends have never had secrets between you. For time immemorial, all of you have pretended to keep secrets from one another, and have respected these pretenses in turn, for reasons now much older than living memory.
NineofShades 