Happy to announce I've finalized a plot!
TITLE: VITAMIN SEA
SUMMARY: In a seafaring society, access to fruit is extremely limited, causing sailors to pay a fortune to prevent scurvititis. There is no land whatsoever, so these fruits are grown aboard boat farms. Two boys attempt to circumvent the fees associated and end up joining a very illegal yellow-market.
ACT 1: Two young sailors, brothers, go to a doctor and get a prescription to be filled at the local dispensary. One of them has grown deathly ill. The sailors proceed to get ridiculously overcharged for a polka-dotted lemon to cure the common disease scurvititis. The disease is caused from a vitamin TRIPLE C deficiency. One symptom is that your tongue turns purple. They are so outraged that they make it their dream to grow so many lemons and sell them so cheaply that the man goes out of business. The sick sailor sucks on a lemon while they plan out this fantasy.
ACT 2: Fueled by the thought of their petty revenge, they collect the seeds from the lemons they've bought and plan to grow them, excited to see the aghast expression on the lemon seller's face. They know their mother wouldn't approve, so they coerce a close friend into growing them on their own ship. Their friend, a writer, initially declines; growing fruit trees is very illegal. She wants to give her lawyer a call. The sailors lie and claim they're just growing harmless marijuana. She is finally convinced when the brothers offer to buy all her copies of her very unpopular romance novels.
ACT 3 The lemons finally sprout, and the writer calls up the sailors in a panic: Lemons! They're growing lemons! The brothers grin, say that marijuana always looks like that before they fully develop, common mistake, and take the lemons and the lemon trees off her hands. They hide the lemon trees on an abandoned rock, and cover it in a grey tarp. Later on, they declare themselves open for business, opening up a hammy little popsicle stand next to the legit lemon seller. News spreads. Tons of people show up their rowboat, sick and groaning. The lemon seller angrily sends a telegram to report them.
ACT4: Initially, government officials try to pin the brothers under the suspicion that they're growing fruit somewhere. The brothers show their receipt for the lemons they bought, and claim they're the very same ones. They spin a tale that the Lemon Gods came down from heaven and multiplied their lemons overnight. It was a miracle.
The disgruntled official call in back-up. Soon the fruit tax collectors come to their door and claim they owe a ridiculous amount on fruit tax. Lemon seeds are government property and their genetic patent is already owned. They owe 10% on their sales, which comes up to a kazillion dollars. The sailors do the math and say that the figures don't add up. The accountants shake their head and explain that there's an additional overhead fee, wasting-our-time fee, along with a brake repair fee. The sailors stare blankly. Their family is now put under a huge debt. The writer's aforementioned lawyer appears, and advises them to call bankrupt and sell their ship. Their mother arranges things that they can live on a relative's ship.
ACT 5: The sailors recieve a mysterious visitor in the middle of the night. The brothers can't sleep anyways. The visitor offers to pay off the fees if they brothers come work for her cause. She had come to buy their fruit earlier, to see if they were the real deal, and was impressed by their idiocy. She says that they have someone undercover in the Yellow House who can waive everything by billing it as a vacation expense. The sailors agree as long as their mom gets a cool upgrade to her ship, like red flames painted on the bottom. They sign a contract but the visitor admits that it's not legally binding because she couldn't find the right stamps. They get into her submarine.
She won’t divulge the full details, but it turns out that she helps runs an illegal fruit submarine that undercuts the fruit farms. Eventually the brothers find a huge underground world of “yellow-market fruit trade” that includes the most bizarre fruit you can imagine. They plan to rebel and steal all the fruit on the government fruit ships. The government has tons of surplus fruit sitting around at the Parliament. The only problem is that most of the rebels can't really agree on how to do it. In fact, the rebels can't even agree on anything; one of them thinks the Yellow House is occupied by fishpeople.
ACT 6: Shenanigans. The motley crew somehow overtake the government at the Yellow House. However, they discover that the government is in an even bigger debt because the neighboring nation Tookistanbul, a trade partner, has been price gouging them for oil. They'd been trying to collect absurd money from the citizens in order to hurriedly pay this off. Thanks to the rebel, they're screwed. The representatives are on their way right now....
ACT 7: From a scene straight out of Breaking Bad, the crew distill the lemons using a complicated set of beakers and scales. Wiping the sweat off their brows, they declare they've created a new never-before-seen breakthrough. When the Tookistanbuls arrive, they offer them lemonade. It cures all their acne and becomes a sensation. With this new hit, the money crisis is finally over.
Epilogue: The brothers return to their mother, and their ship is tricked out with flamethrowers and painted decal that looks like flames. They lounge around and drink lemonade while the crew party with the tax collectors and accountants on the upper deck. One of the economic advisors drunkenly declares that they're all broke because the fruit bubble finally burst. Everyone laughs and congratulates each other and throws money around.
I personally think this is hilarious. How's it look?
