Archive of Our Own

What are identity shenanigans?!

I'll use Bert and Ernie here to avoid saying "a character" over and over.

At least one character should be hiding their identity or pretending to be someone else, and/or at least one character should believe that another character is someone else. Bert can pretend to be his cousin Bart. Alternately, maybe he isn't pretending anything, but Ernie believes that he is Bart.

The "shenanigans" is a key part of the theme of this exchange. Even if a scenario has high stakes, like for spy characters or a character in witness protection, the goings-on should have some silly component or dramatic irony. Maybe Bert has to be both Bert and Bart at a fancy gala. This might require changing his outfit in the bathroom. He might see Ernie, who knows Bert, while in Bart mode. He has to hide from Ernie--in some potentially silly ways.

Twins taking each other's places, going along with a mistaken identity, someone confessing that they love Bruce Wayne to Batman's face and Bruce Wayne having to pretend he doesn't know that, Bert not knowing his mortal enemy Ernie is also his Tumblr mutual, two people who know perfectly well the other person is faking their identity but going along with it for Reasons, etc.

Real pieces of media that would fit:

While You Were Sleeping -- Lucy says "but I was going to marry him" to herself about a man she saved from getting hit by a train. A nurse at the hospital hears her and assumes that she is the man's fiancee; when his family arrives, she mentions the fiancee thing. Lucy is too afraid to tell the family the truth and has to pretend she knows enough about him to get away with it. (The grandfather figured it out but didn't tell anyone.)

Parent Trap -- twins pretending to be each other to get their divorced parents back together

Freaky Friday -- mother and daughter swapped bodies, have to pretend to be each other; daughter has to pretend to be a psychologist

Wodehouse novels -- someone falls in love at first sight; before he can introduce himself, he discovers that this woman knows him by reputation and hates him, so he pretends to be someone else. Pretending to be someone else to get into a country house the person plans to rob.

Charley's Aunt -- young Victorian-era men need a chaperone in order to propose to their beaux. They write to their friend Charley's aunt but don't hear back in time for their trip. Charley pretends to be his aunt, which works fine, until the real aunt shows up.

Importance of Being Earnest -- A man named Jack keeps that identity in the country. Whenever he wants to go to London, he says he has to visit his brother Earnest -- but he plays the role of Earnest. His friend Algernon goes to Jack's house in the country, saying that he is Earnest, hours before Jack shows up saying that Earnest has died.

Obviously you couldn't do an entire plot in 300 words! A vignette showing off a tiny part of the shenanigan works great.

Nominations: June 1-June 8
Signups: June 4-June 8
Assignments Due: June 16
Works Revealed: June 16 (an hour later)
Creators Revealed: June 19

All times 11:59 AM PST.

Rules:

Must be 18+.

Don't be an asshole.

Gifts are not guaranteed, but pinch hits will be advertised on the EAD server.

No LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, etc may be used to create any part of a work.

Nominate solo characters in this format "1: Character Name (Canon They're From)", romantic/sexual ships as "Character A/Character B (Canon They're From)", platonic relationships as "Character A & Character B (Canon That They're From)".

Crossovers and Original Works are allowed. Nominate these under "Crossover Fandom" and "Original Work" respectively. If nominating a crossover please disambiguate per character. If nominating original work and the genders of the original characters mean a lot to you please make sure to bake that into the tag.

All additional tags should have something to do with identity shenanigans. These are optional and won't be matched on, but they can be used to give your creator a sense of what you're interested in.

Works should be a fic or podfic of at least 300 words or a nice sketch on unlined paper. They must respect DNWs and match a relationship or character requested. Freeforms are for flavour and won't be matched on.

Treats to the collection are welcome.

Unmatchables may have a short grace period while the mod shows the trainee mods how to do matching, but don't count on it!

Please contact the modmail at [email protected] for any questions, queries, concerns, etc.