Dad Pact

Dad Pact

A small group of men in a small town are terrible at being husbands and fathers.  Their various and diverse circumstances lead them all to the same small town church, where they get roped into an ancillary men's fellowship group.

-Edward Peters is pastor of the small church; his teenage daughter is critical of his overbearing parenting style that constantly embarrasses her and keeps her more or less cooped up.  His wife, previously supportive, begins to echo some of the same criticisms, and thinks perhaps if he busied himself with more male friends he'd relax his hellfire and brimstone grip a bit, and vies for him to start a men's fellowship at the church - something that had previously flopped from lack of interest.

-Jamison Jance is an alcoholic, lives in a trailer by himself, on welfare and weed sales, and is baled out of the drunk tank by his ex-wife one too many times.  He desperately wants a relationship with his kids, but she won't let him be a part of their lives until he cleans up, which she has no hope he'll ever do.  So Jamison goes sniffing around the church for help, possibly some kind of AA program, but that church doesn't have one, so he attends the men's fellowship, drunk, and treats it like an AA program.

-Jon Chan is insecure, sort of lazy, gets taken advantage of and pushed around at work, and he learns his wife is cheating on him.  When he finds out he immediately blames himself, but he thinks it's because he's not playing it safe enough, and the answer is being MORE generally submissive, and let her and his boss walk all over him even MORE.  He ends up at the fellowship too for some reason.

-Zeke Zuckerman is an attorney at law, who works long hours, acknowledges he gets guilty people off the hook if they're rich enough, and often spends time out golfing away from his family, with the guys, often womanizing and drinking.  His wife doesn't really approve of any of this, and his son is clearly getting into weird gang activity, so she guilts him into going to church with them one-day and he ends up reluctantly in the men's fellowship.

-Rogelio Sanchez is a single father of triplets who is exhausted, lives on a boat, and got fired after falling asleep on the job.  He basically just needs a job and fast, and is struggling because childcare is expensive.  He ends up in church almost just as a break while the kids are in Sunday school, but the pretty looking nursery volunteer agrees to watch the triplets for extra time while he goes to the men's fellowship.

While they're all in the group, most of them begrudgingly, Pastor Edward picks up on a snide comment from Zeke, which causes him to close the bible he was disinterestedly studying with them and starts asking them all pointed questions, which cascades into heartfelt personal conversations about their struggles, and inputs from the other men.  In the end, they all agree they want to be better dads, and make a pact both to do better, and to help each other do better by any means necessary.  They come up with a secret handshake and purchase matching skull lapels that they wear on their jackets.

Throughout the course of the story, they all pull various strings to help each other out.  Zeke hires Rogelio and Jamison to pull off not especially legal stakeout operations to gather intel that helps him on cases.  Jon and Edward don't really approve of the methods, but Edward starts getting other ideas, and starts initiating other men as a second tier of dads who are basically warm bodies, and the main five men conspire to make all kinds of changes to the town to benefit them, such as flooding the local school system on Edwards behalf against leftist curriculum at odds with the church's teaching and at odds with his strict parenting, and secretly and subtly destroying the life of the man Jon's wife is cheating on him with.  The men's fellowship turns into an all-out secret society as each initiate, while performing their initiate duties builds up a folder of blackmail on themselves, while also experiencing the perks of compliance, as everyone in the group has stuff to offer and stuff to lose, including tangible items, sudden raises, opportunities for their kids to go to the fancy private school on the hill after other kids mysteriously "drop out", etc.

Although all five original men have taken back their power as men, each of their personal arcs continue to suffer.  Edward only gets more power hungry, Zeke only gets more manipulative and corrupt, Rogelio becomes completely money-obsessed, and Jamison at no point stops drinking, and isn't getting anywhere trying to convince his ex to let him see his kids.  The exception is Jon, who ultimately has to stand up to them and insist everyone do the right thing, especially after their individual corruptions are starting to push each other away from each other and make them fight amongst themselves, threatening the integrity of the society.

After they each hit their darkest moments, they realize Jon's right, and they meet back up for an actual, honest, men's fellowship meeting where they study the actual bible and what it has to say about being a man, husband and father.   They turn around and start making improvements to the town, such as Edward finally starting an AA group at church, which Zeke helps fill, and Jamison quits, and also Jamison helps drive the gangsters out of town except for a couple that Zeke threatens with intimidating legalese, and they are frightened into going to church and joining the fellowship, where they have to clean old people's gutters and stuff.  Zeke, besides just taking more honest cases also is home more and helps with homework and starts teaching the kids valuable law related lessons.  Finally, for Jon, destroying the man his wife was cheating on him with didn't actually make her more attracted to him, so he does two things: he has to make things right with that guy, but also he blows up a car with his mind in front of his boss or something like that to stand up for himself.  Basically he grows a spine over the course of the movie.  The end.

Transhuman in port Teague

---Intro to characters and setting

--Childhood bully scene

-Manic plays hero

-Earns nickname

--Bowling make-up scene

-Nick apologizes, gives word about competition vs collaboration

--Manic and Posie on the bus

-Exposition about Manic's accomplishments and job interview with the R&D dept

-Exposition about the R&D dept. and E.J.'s interest

--Dock party

-Intoduction to Lefty

-Her and Manic flirt with her feet in water

-Lefty vies for Manic to be an inside man in the R&D dept

-She reveals her findings on the lizard man of Bellville possibly being linked to Port Teague through the separate Bellville office also leased by E.J. 

-Posie wants to live saintly

-Melvin has complex aura vision followed by epileptic seizure  

---Plot elements and inciting incident

--Intro and tour of labs & of General Szupo, Mallory, and fellow scientist Luke

--Discussions about transhuman projects and theory

--Manic begins drafting nanotech plans

--Coffee date; Manic strings Lefty along about inside intell, as an excuse to meet up more

--Posie and Melvin discuss epilepsy and new anti-convulsants

--Melvin injects his nanobots into himself

--Reacts to and adjusts to surprise side effects/dons sunglasses, gloves and headphones

--Lefty finds lizardmen/ Manic and Posie tag along and save the day

--Manic reveals his nano tech superpowers to Posie and Lefty, and they agree to be a crime solving/fighting team

---Fun and games

--The three use Manic's new powers to hunt and capture lizard people in Bellville

--They create superhero costume/helmet designed to counteract overstimulation

--Lefty keeps getting into trouble to get her stories

--Posie helping/secretly bringing detained lizard people back to the lighthouse

--Posie goes back out alone to help the needy and people effected by the attacks

--Melvin becomes irritated Posie is spending so much time with Manic, continues experiencing epileptic hallucinations

--Manic improves on nanobots/ investigates shady operations in R&D dept, drafts and begins work on project to upload human consciousness into digital format

---Escalation

--Manic agrees to help Melvin sneak into the dept. to see where his brother supposedly is

--Melvin meets E.J. and demons in a shadowed room; talk about Gilgamesh and the flood

--Manic is meanwhile investigating and unintentionally frees something that breaks out of dept. and escapes

--Lefty catches wind, and her and Posie head straight into danger

--Manic and Mallory race to the rescue

--Revealed they cloned an ancient biblical giant

--Mallory doesn't want it killed, Manic admonishes her

--Manic fights the giant, wins

--Manic fights with Lefty about putting herself in harms way, loses

--Manic, frustrated, returns to work, improves nanobots again; cannot overcome hurtle in uploading human consciousness without frying the physical brain

---Enemies close in

--Melvin meets with Mallory, empathizes with her being afraid; Mallory shirks his help

--Lefty attempts to interview Mallory, breaks a window, gets shoved into the river

--Mallory doubles down on fixing E.J.; Szupo offers to take care of Lefty

--E.J. receives text to rope Lefty into private meeting in Bellville with Szupo; ignores it

--Manic meets with Lefty, figures out she's a sociopath, offers her interview with Szupo

--Melvin gives up jealousy, and instructs Posie to tell Manic about Sok

--Posie brings Manic to lighthouse; she and Melvin show him Sok and the lizard people

--Revealed that lizard people are transformed humans; Sok is doing her best to repair their psychologies and cognitions enough to communicate

--Melvin catches him up on E.J. and the demons

--Manic learns from lizard people that many of them used to be journalists, wanting to investigate the R&D dept.

--Manic rushes off to dept.

---Darkest hour

--Manic returns to dept.; combs through records and confirms that lizard people are failed transhuman project weaponized against nosey reporters

--Manic debates rescuing Lefty; has one-sided conversation with God

--Manic realizes he can't get to Bellville in time to save Lefty

--Manic uploads his consciousness, frying his physical brain

--Posie receives text from Manic; her and Melvin begin the drive to Bellville

---Climax/ save the day

--Szupo and Lefty meet in private ground floor office

--Lefty closes in on shady projects

--Szupo tells all, and reveals that the doors are locked, and the drink is spiked

--Lefty begins to decohere

--Szupo opens up case of injections, several types he grabbed the whole case in a hurry; including the lizard man injection, and Manic's nano bots

--An unmanned car drives through the wall, knocking the case to the floor spilling the needles/ Lefty attempts to escape through the hole with floppy limbs

--Szupo grabs needle from the floor, catches her

--She fights back, but gets stabbed, and goes limp

--Szupo, frightened of attention, begins to grab up the injections and escape through the back

--Lefty grabs a needle and sticks him with it, to his horror, and she escapes through the wall

--Lefty experiences side effects of nanobots, feels overwhelmed, texts Posie the address

--She pulls the car out, carries Szupo (already turning into a lizard man) out the back and over a few blocks into an ally

--Texts Posie updated directions

---Aftermath settlings

--At the lighthouse, Posie, Melvin, Sok and Lefty recap the events and department cover up

--Lefty grapples with new powers and new emotions and speculates on the human condition

--Posie follows up with her recent experience in trying to live more saint-like

--Nobody's seen Manic

--Mallory shows up to reveal Manic's body was found dead in the lab, and have uneasy conversation about E.J. and the transhuman projects

--Posie and Melvin go to Church

--Lefty returns to her hotel room, and gets long text from Manic

--She begins to cry and talk to her phone guessing at what he had done

--The phone replies

--She laughs through the tears, and asks Manic if he's still human, and he doesn't know

--She tells him she's bringing him to Posie's Church, and they exit the hotel room

Santa Begins

-Kris Kringle and Cupid (his reindeer) stumble through blizzard; trees light up in colors, before Kris is incapacitated by blowdart, sees eyes in the darkness, then a boot, then blacks out.
-He wakes up in bed in shack, meets pop and Martha, learns about the towns on both sides of the mountain, and the curse of the endless winter.  Pop also explains the territorial forest elves, and that the tree lights are their alarm before they attack.
-They call Kris "St. Nicholas" because he has an icon on a pendant around his neck.
-As pop is baffled, because no one left or entered the mountain since the curse, until Kris, he makes deal with him, to be a delivery boy between the towns, in exchange for lodging for him, and for Cupid to stay in Pop's stables along with the other reindeer.
-Goes to bar with pop, learns on the way about Ivo and how he pillages "tax collecting" on behalf of his father, Kubla Kraus, only to return to the bars the same night and secretly introduce the money that was taken back into the economy.
-Kris sees Ivo using a man's sick daughter as leverage for a trip into the woods to steal a magic bag from the forest elves.
-He volunteers on his behalf, and Ivo fails to strike a new deal with him to save face, as Kris won't be tempted by worldly pleasures (what would st Nicolas do?).  Ivo breaks down and insists he goes with.  So does Martha.
-They talk in the woods about his father and the curse, and the "legend" about how his dad had kidnapped his mom, who was the love interest of Jack Frost, who responded by surrounding the mountain and the two towns in an infinite winter.
-They are interrupted by an elf ambush.
-Friends are separated in the chaos, and Kris is kidnapped.
-Kris gives gifts to the elves, explaining that he was sent to steal a magic bag, but was hoping to strike a deal instead.
-They ask for a doll he has on him, which clearly has sentimental value to him, but without explaining, he willingly gives it up.
-The elves are moved, and after taking his jacket and boots as well, they give him the magic bag and release him into the woods.
-Meanwhile, Ivo retreats back to his carriage, which Martha criticizes him for, calling him a coward, however, he was simply retrieving magic time stop gloves he has, which he intends to use on a rescue mission because "he likes Kris".
-However, Kris shows up shivering with the magic bag, smiling from the successful mission.
-When they turn to leave, Kris starts crying.

-Kris makes a delivery to a schoolhouse, Ivo and Martha tagging along with the bag for some reason.
-Kris and the school teacher, Jessica, seem to have chemistry in their first interaction, both being jolly.
-Kris gives toys he made to the kids "for St Nicholas day", and finds an old hat in the bag, which the kids use for a snowman they built in the schoolyard.
-While the adults are talking and bantering, and Jessica is asking Kris if he's got kids himself (which he doesn't answer) the snowman comes to life and escapes into the woods.
-Ivo wants that hat, figuring it must be a magic hat, and Ivo jealously collects magic items.
-They go on the hunt for Frosty (which they named the snowman), and after some antics, finally catch him.
-Ivo changes his mind along the way about depriving the snowman of his magic hat, for the sake of the children (who were born after the curse, and whom he would inherit with his kingdom).
-When they return to the schoolyard, they discover that his dad, Kubla sent his mechanical steampunk soldiers to steal the toys from the children.
-Infuriated, Ivo dumps Frosty out of the bag and storms off to have words with his dad.
-Ivo and Kubla have heated conversation at castle about the dangers of religion on an empire, and how the subversive and rebellious nature of that sort of hope and practice must be squashed in order to maintain effective authority.
-Ivo sneaks the toys out in the magic bag
-He discovers Kris sneaking around town at night to give more toys to the kids, but he doesn't have enough left for everyone, and is embarrassed and is having second thoughts about the whole thing.
-Ivo shows Kris the toys in the bag and insists they leave the toys, but under a pseudonym.
-Kris suggests Sinterklaas, Dutch for St. Nicholas.
-Ivo mishears him and writes "From: Santa Clause" on all the toys.

-Ivo feeds Rudolf, a young reindeer in Pop's stables, some magic corn in hopes he'll fly, after a decree by his dad commanding the townfolk to lock their doors at night, thinking they can get in through the chimneys.
-It turns his nose red, and the other reindeer reject and act hostile toward the young reindeer.
-Ivo volunteers to take Rudolf to Jessica's school house, cutting through the blizzard
-Ivo opens up to Rudolf (who can't talk btw) about being rejected by his own people and feeling like an outsider.
-They run from the trees which light up indicating the elves are nearby and end up getting stuck in a pit.
-Ivo tells Rudolf "it's not your fault, it's mine" that his nose lights up, and that Rudolf is "just another life he's ruined by existing", lamenting that his existence is tied to the curse.
-Rudolf's nose lights up like headlights through the blizzard revealing a way out of the pit.
-Ivo forgives himself for the circumstances of his birth, reasoning that his situation, just like Rudolf's is its own opportunity to make things right. He doubles down on his commitment to collecting magical items in hopes of breaking the curse.
-Kris and Martha wake up to find all the reindeer are on the ceiling.

Colorwheel

-Lemon Jefferson, a little blue boy, wakes up and sees Emmylou, a little red girl.
-They discover they can see and hear each other, but they can't touch each other.
-Nobody else can see them but each other
-Nothing red can interact with anything blue, except that these two children can see and hear each other.
-They play games with each other, exploring these rules in a way that demonstrates it visually.
-Their eyes adjust to each others "worlds", as demonstrated by the white space filling in with coloured bits of each other's landscapes (a blue tree in the red kitchen, etc)
-Some visual chaos as they learn to focus only on one color at a time, as stimuli often clashes
-Magic trick scene, in which kids are making fun of Emmylou for talking to "imaginary friend", and she uses Jefferson to "guess" what her school mates had written.
-Same scene in reverse, only Jefferson chooses to hide his interactions with Emmylou, and she's disappointed.
-Emmylou goes to Jefferson's class while he's taking a test, and he won't interact with her, so she goes to the front of the class and reads the answers off the teacher's desk.
-They have a talk about ambitions and studying and cheating afterwards at home.
-She invites him to her middle school dance, in her gym, which to him is a field.
-Some peers make fun of her again, and she responds by pulling the same magic trick from earlier, only one of the peers wrote something really rude, and he doesn't want to read it out loud to her.  Reluctantly, he does, and she repeats it to her peers' astonishment, and goes home crying.
-He tries to cheer her up, and she wants privacy.
-She tells him excitedly that a boy asked her out.
-He spies and reports back some pervy little boy stuff he said about her while she wasn't around.
-She dumps him, and the two of them agree to report this kind of thing for future relationships if it comes up.
-A few more boyfriends over the years are broken up with over something Jefferson found out about them by spying.
-They have a conversation about her feelings that there simply aren't any good boys.
-Emmylou vocalizes that she wishes she could find a guy in the red world like Jefferson.
-They talk about their hopes and dreams and fantasize a little, and things get about as close to romantic as they can until
-Their conversation snaps back to reality; they will eventually move out of their houses, and she wants kids, and they can't touch each other, or kiss or anything like that, and nobody else can see them (so no witnesses at the wedding, right?)
-After high school graduation, she reveals she's had a boyfriend, and didn't want Jefferson to spy this time, which is why she kept it from him.
-He spies anyways.
-When he reports back with dirt, they fight about it
-They fight about college, and hurt each other.
-Jefferson gets high with some friends and starts talking about his "girl trouble"
-He inevitably sounds crazy, talking about the red world and the girl no one else can see.
-Friend says he sounds like "Old Muddy Waters", the crazy old guy that lives up in the woods.
-Jefferson seeks out Muddy, learns he has same ability as Jefferson, to see and hear the red world.
-There were more people from both worlds who could see each other, and they had a society, stationed right there at Muddy's place.
-The society would help each other performing tasks, as spies, and reverse engineering each other's technologies (explaining the similar tech levels).
-They built a "color wheel", a gateway between worlds made out of red and blue pieces, but a red piece is broken off, and Muddy can't fix the wheel because he can't physically interact with the red piece.
-Upon learning about the color wheel, Jefferson seeks to find Emmylou at her college, and make things right with her, with the hope that they now have a way to be together.
-He learns that the city she moved to is built in the red world where a mountain sits in the blue world.
-Determined, he goes into some old abandoned mining caves.
-He finds she frequents a coffee shop, just below, so he digs and digs until he gets her attention.
-Jefferson confesses his feelings to Emmylou, and mentions he might've found a way for them to be together.
-She leaves, still upset.
-He returns to his room, and discovers she's there waiting.
-He asks if she wants to see a magic trick.
-She is surprised that Muddy can see her, and she fixes the color wheel.
-They touch for the first time.
-And grow up together, restarting the society, traveling between worlds.
-They also have a baby daughter
-Named Billie Holiday Jefferson
-Who grows into a toddler, which they tuck into bed.
-She wakes up and sees a little green boy.
-THE END.

Show Idea about Fairies Fixing Timelines.

The show typically follows Felicity. Episode one introduces her, and her life situation, and the events that brought her to that point. Her work, her family, her love life. A detail that stands out is that she was born under some kind of unfortunate circumstance, Like an affair or a rape or something. There also is some focus on interrelationships, especially the love life. Because Felicity meets Bruce. And whatever the circumstance they are in, they fall for each other. And they have to deal with that pull. Also, Somewhere in the middle of the episode, Felicity thinks she sees a fairy. When Felicity and Bruce make the decision to be together, whether that seems good or bad to the audience, A vortex opens up. Then. The next episode opens up and follows Felicity in a completely new life situation, as though nothing happened, Everything's different except for the circumstances of her birth. Nothing is explained. But she thinks she sees a fairy again, And again, in some different way, she meets Bruce again, who himself is in a new life circumstance set. Again, they fall in love, again they come to embrace it, again a vortex opens up. This continues to repeat through the season, only the fairies become more and more present and intrusive, And fuck with things, And sometimes the episode follows Bruce a little and we learn about him and his histories, And every time, they fall for each other and decide to embrace it. And sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's hard, depending on their histories in that episode. Their core personalities don't really change, but their attitudes, habits and what sorts of choices they make or crowds they run with tend to differ from episode to episode, which makes it interesting sometimes to find out Oh, how are they going to make it work THIS time?? So part of the draw for the show isn't whether or not these two lovers get together, but rather HOW. And the OTHER part is the overarching story (yes, despite this formula, there's an overarching story) is the fairies, Who we learn more about, even though the main characters don't get to, and we can piece the details together. We find out that the "fairies" are actually beings who were charged with mending the timeline, Which had fractured centuries ago, creating annoying alternate realities; and they are doing so by identifying soul mates, and bringing them together In every version of reality. It's a slow process and Felicity and Bruce are only a small piece of the puzzle. The idea is that only people that manage to exist in all the alternate realities HAVE soul mates, and at some point, with enough work, the fairies might be able to cultivate a situation where there are no humans in any reality that aren't in every reality, at which point they can mend the timeline. The season ends with the Felicity of that episode choosing to fall in love with a fairy, and the episode ends With the fairy and her hopping through the vortex.

Queen Koopa

-Princess Peach and Mario are finally going to get married, but

-Bowser interferes and kidnaps the Princess, so

-Mario goes to rescue the Princess, when

-Wendy O'Koopa, one of the mini-bosses, captures Mario in a cage, so

-Mario questions Wendy's motives for wanting to aid Bowser in taking over the Mushroom Kingdom, when

-Bowser and Wendy have some negative interactions, so

-Wendy lets Mario go to complete the mission, but

-Wendy comes in during the Bowser fight and kicks his ass herself, so

-Mario gives her a thumbs up or something affirmative like that, and

-Mario and Peach return to the Mushroom Kingdom to get married, but

-Wendy shows up at the wedding in the clown flying thing and fires a bullet bill at the princess, presumably killing her, so

-Some Toad guards back her up against a wall, but

-She has an interaction with Mario from across the ballroom, while he's huddled over the Princess's body, explaining that she assumed Mario wanted to marry the Princess for the same reason Bowser did: to take over the Mushroom Kingdom; and now that the Princess and Mario are married, and she's out of the way, Mario is the rightful king, and for his wedding present: Mario and Wendy can live happily ever after! But

-Mario is visibly unhappy about this, so

-She beats off the Toads and uses her wand to freeze the Princess's body in an item box, and takes it away out the window, so

-Mario pursues her

-Wendy goes to Kamek, and knocks him out and ties him up.

-When he awakens, Wendy demands he tell him how to bring the Princess back to life, so

-He reluctantly tells her that King Wart has something, like a one-up or a powerstar or something like that he's been using to oppress the people of SubCon as and immortal for a century or so, so

-After getting Kamek to spill directions, Wendy continues her journey to SubCon, when

-Mario shows up shortly after to find Kamek tied up, who tells him where Wendy went, so

-Mario hijacks a Lakitu cloud and forces Kamek to guide him to SubCon.
-Wendy gets to the outskirts of SubCon and finds Waluigi living in a shack, who guides her through a shyguy city, which is visibly poor and oppressed by a sort of police state, so

-Wendy rescues Birdo, who she rides the rest of the way to Wart's castle to do battle, so
-They fight, and she cuts his head off and throws it out the window, because it totally doesn't kill him,

-She gets the item, and gives it to the Princess, when

-Mario shows up, and sees the Princess revives,

-Having undone the murder, Mario and the Princess no longer see her as an enemy, but 

-They all agree she probably doesn't have good enough PR to return to the Mushroom Kingdom, or to her home wherever Bowser comes from, when

-Out the window, the citizens of the shyguy city, who saw the head of Wart descend from the window are hailing her as a hero, and the new Queen of SubCon, so

-She decides to stay behind, however

-Some Wart loyalists return his head to his body, so

-Wendy stays with Waluigi on the outskirts for awhile, but

-Finds she can't stay out of things for long, as 

-A resistance has begun in SubCon, and rebels are spraypainting "long live Queen Koopa" on the walls and stuff

-Story ends with Wendy, Birdo, and Waluigi setting out to save the day again.