A recent Lost in Translation review gave me a reason to watch a couple of the St. Trinian's films. For those not aware of St. Trinian's, it's a cartoon gag comic strip created by Ronald Searle that had been adapted as a series of movies first in the Fifties and then again in 2007. The girls of the school are, well, delinquents, the type who see field hockey as an excuse to turn their violent instincts against another school instead of one another. St. Trinian's is also the grandmother to Unruly by way of the tabletop RPG, Hellcats & Hockeysticks, itself essentially being the unofficial St. Trinian's RPG. After viewing both the 1954 The Belles of St. Trinian's and the 2007 reboot St. Trinian's, I realized one thing about Unruly.
I have to step up the Unrulies' activities.
While Caitlin could easily deal with the sixth form girls from the '54 film, the fourth form girls would give her fits. Most of that is on Caitlin - she's a Bond villain-in-training, not a criminal mastermind. She wouldn't be able to handle the raw chaos that the fourth formers provide. Most of my work so far has been with Laura and Caitlin, and the redhead is conservative, which rubbed off on her roomies.
The 2007 film, though, well, they would eat the Unrulies for lunch and ask for seconds. Just listen to their school song. The best the Unrulies have is "Tubthumping"; it's even where the school's motto, "Concidimur sed resurgimus"* comes from, thanks to my University of Alberta Classics faculty cousin and her husband. Even the '54 movie had "In flagrante delecto", or "Caught in the act". The difference is mottos and school songs reflects the difference in schools. The Gephardt Academy is there for girls who are trouble and have nowhere else to go. St. Trinian's is for budding and blooming criminals. Still, there are lessons to use.
The big one is that there isn't an Unruly version of the posh totties of the reboot movie, the girls who are getting by more on their beauty than their brains. Cassie was originally meant to be this type of girl, but she went in a different direction, and the rest of the Unrulies don't really give her the respect or credit for being able to do anything with walking her through step by step. Autumn thinks she's in that group, but she's easily distracted. Oddly, Skye may turn out to be better for the role, but she doesn't advertise the fact.
Again, putting Laura in with Caitlin means that using beauty for gains is off the table. It's just below Caitlin, and she's the mastermind of the dorm room. However, there are more girls than just that one room. I haven't fleshed out the full senior class. There's about twenty or so girls in the one class, English, they all have in common, and I've only named eleven publicly and one more in a work in progress. That gives me at least two more dorm rooms to fill, and Cassie does run the Fashion Club. There's room.
What can I do to close the gap and make the Unrulies the threat that they're supposed to be. I do have two characters who have ties to the criminal element. Vamsi fills the Flash Harry role, the go-between and fixer between the Unrulies and the Oshawa criminal element. Laura is more familiar with parts of the Toronto underground, though she's more supply side than thief. That does leave a huge gap that could be filled by a yet-unnamed Unruly. And the Academy does look for girls who are creative at breaking the law. There's always room for a Bay Street insider and a budding young cat burglar.
* "Concidimur sed resurgimus/Subjectos nos non retinebitis" for the full chorus. It does scan with the music.
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