the captivity of captivation

Cast

Story

Soul, an inspiring young freshman dreams of reforming university policies. However, dangers lurk within the student administration… as does love. 

Outline

• 1. Soul introduced and has clear platform: 

• • Admission policy reform (which obviously hurts Hair and later is revealed to hurt Panties)

  • University endowment to invest in minority scholarships

  • Student government should elected based on popular vote, rather than by status quo two-stage selection:

    • Student of each department who donates the most to university endowment automatically receives senate seat

    • Senate-at-large seats given to remaining survivors of hunger games

• 1. Introduce several characters in comically unique setting:

• • Setting: 

    • Soul is studying in library and drinking milk tea in a sealed container at a middle table, quietly minding his own business

    • To the left of Soul: Medicine, Truth, Stable, Panties, Submission and Inspiration are in an adjacent table talking a little too loudly about first week homework assignments

    • To the right of Soul: Truth, Rocket, Will, Hair and Red are covered in red liquid and uncaringly covering everything they touch in the red liquid, which has a strangely metallic smell. A sly glance around the corner of their table would reveal a series of dismembered corpses, littered in the very next isle, if anyone were paying attention. Which no one ever is. 

  • Librarian comes to the aisle of 3 tables and chastises everyone for breaking the rules! Drinking a liquid in the library, talking loudly and dismembering bodies gets all of the cast detention, except for Truth for some unexplained reason

  • In detention (unsupervised, university-level detention, of course):

    • Medicine introduced as a fangirl, who knows she’s not right for Soul. But she believes that Truth would be a great gay-interracial pairing for him. 

    • Also introduce Choo Choo as the obvious best friend to Soul, who has the best of intentions, but needs a lot of hand holding. Also has a proclivity for telling stories that shouldn’t be told

    • Submission and Inspiration are the guys who hate each other in the group, always bickering, but having generally good intentions, despite being wrong so much of the time. [Half way through script will be paired as second gay couple]

    • Stable introduced as the best study buddy

    • Panties is presented as a pseudo antagonist [who will ultimately be Soul’s love interest]

    • Rocket, Will and Red are at a separate table in detention and are presented as ‘the cool kids’. They mention Truth as their ultimate leader

    • Banter ensues amongst and between groups, which leads to Soul finding kinship with Stable and his group

    • The scene concludes with Hair urinating in the corner of the room

      • Everyone looks on

        • Most of the group look on with disgust and concern for Hair

        • Rocket, Will and Red almost roll their eyes in tandem, fully used to Hair’s behavior

      • Hair claims to need help with cleaning his accident - Soul takes pity on him and goes to help, but gets kicked into the puddle by Hair

      • Detention teacher returns to the room

        • Hair insists that Soul pissed himself. 

        • Hair demands that the teacher conduct a genetic test on the urine and forcefully extract a bone marrow sample from Soul to prove that Soul is a troublemaker. 

        • The teacher already knows that Hair urinated everywhere, because that’s what he does during every detention. Regardless, the teacher issues a stern warning to Soul because Soul is very angry looking and won’t shut the hell up.

• 1. Medicine unwittingly sets up Soul with Truth, who immediately proceeds to displace Soul’s new, healthy friends with his own (Rocket, Will, Red and even Hair) - Hair is presented as the annoying kid brother-type character. 

• • Truth gives Soul his first male kiss

  • Soul becomes infatuated with Truth, but never diminishes his need to advance his political platform

• 1. While Soul makes ground on a single issue on his platform (replacing money-based voting with popular voting), Truth is secretly undermining Soul with a misinformation campaign

  2. Panties and Soul become close over the issue of revamping admissions policies

  3. Truth sees Panties and Soul’s relationship blossoming, despite his own relationship with Soul. Truth blackmails Panties into getting Soul on camera kissing him, under threat of Panties’ old blackface pictures coming to light. Panties fights, but is ultimately too weak and gives in. 

  4. Images of Panties and Soul’s kiss come to light and Truth uses the images to spark sympathy from the student body, leading to Soul feeling broken and Truth advancing more aggressive policies of university administration. 

• • New policy is that student government and faculty eligibility will also require the candidate to present ‘the heart of the one they most love’ to the senate, in addition to large donations (effectively removing rich people who are actually good people from ever the controlling administration ever again). The argument in the policy is that love is weakness and governing requires strength. 

• 1. Stable approaches Panties after hearing soft crying coming from the bathroom - Stable tells Panties “you know what you need to do”

  2. Panties then recruits Inspiration to hack all screens at the university at the same time, so that Panties can share his unfiltered truth [pun intended]. During the conversation, Panties helps Inspiration have a revelation about his own feelings for Submission, which sparks their own spin-off, chaste romance in later stages of the story and an eventual season 2

  3. With a broken spirit, Soul looks upon his handwritten platform for a better university of tomorrow and his tears gently fall onto the paper, drawing ink from the pages. And then his computer, TV, tablet, cellphone and microwave come to life with the voice of Panties:

• • Panties reveals that he was blackmailed by Truth to kiss Soul

  • He reveals his love for Soul and publicly requests a second chance

  • He reveals his blackface picture to show the shame of his younger self

  • He then issues a dire warning of Truth’s new policies and states that love isn’t weakness

    Soul forgives Panties and they now love each other and are clearly 'soulmates'

• 1. Side-story with Inspiration and Submission

  2. Truth uses his pawn, Hair in his final attempt to usurp the university administration

  3. Big finale: Soul’s policies win approval by the student government (and their dollars subsequently pressure university administration to approve Soul’s policies)

  4. Cliffhanger ending: Will poisons Truth and Hair. Truth goes into a coma. Hair somehow gets stronger for some unexpected reason. What will Will do in season 2???