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Post by Terra on May 10, 2013 9:11:39 GMT -5
Blaze was staring in horror at the guy handing out autographs and shouting misogynistic things, and she was about to fly off the handle again when the guy who worked at the diner spoke.
"Hey, uh...Blaze, yeah? Blaze, let's just...get into the diner. Maybe not a good time for waffles, but, has to be better than being out on the street."
“Oh...” Yeah, she was realizing that all this yelling was really not good for stealth. “Okay.”
She glanced back toward the dude calling himself THE PYTHON.
“Just a moment,” she said. She picked up several of the autograph sheets and shoved them into a pocket in her backpack. “Might make good kindling.”
In case she had to go hide out somewhere to escape the murderer...
While this conversation was going on, someone had started playing some music. It was surprisingly appropriate - fairly somber music that reflected the mood that WOULD be in the air if ANYONE had ANY respect.
“Nice music,” she said to the musician. “Keep up the good work.”
She walked into the diner to order herself a hearty plate of...well, whatever had the most meat on it.
“I need to get some protein in my body,” she said. “Especially on a day like THIS.”
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Post by Celestial on May 10, 2013 11:00:26 GMT -5
Diana listened patiently as THE PYTHON (could his name be any more ridiculous?) spouted his load of drivel. His claims had no logical backings, poor grammar, no evidence to prove them and above all, were horrifically outmoded and whiggish. Nevertheless, in order to disprove any argument that was made against you, you first had to listen to it very carefully, which is what she did, although she resisted his attempts to be hugged. Academics were rarely huggy people.
She adjusted her glasses and looked over the journal that she had been presented with. While it was clearly not widely-read, it was a terrible piece of work, its articles reflecting the poor quality of the man's speech patterns. What was worse, its pages were all article, no footnotes or works cited, not even a bibliography at the back. It was very poorly-researched and it showed. There were even typos! Not to mention the horrific bias that the man clearly had towards himself. While of course she was used to bias in her profession, nobody was free of their own inherent biases, it was a bias that he did not acknowledge or make any attempt to rectify. If this was an academic article, THE PYTHON would be laughed out of the academy before he could blink. The misogyny, hamminess and the ridiculous posing was forgiveable, shoddy research was not.
Hastily, Diana took out the red pen that she kept at all times on her person and went through the article that was recommended to her, highlighting the typos, grammatical errors, lack of sources, incorrect facts and other such problems which she had been trained to spot and exorcise from her own work before putting it into the hand of the still-posing Melvin (that was his real name, she believed) and decided that she had had enough of the dead body and the mob that had gathered around it. One death could not delay her work, she was getting very close to formulating a working theory on the town of Wafflenet that accounted for its transition to a semi-industrial agrarian society and she needed these final records from Town Hall to confirm it.
Without further wasting time correcting amateur journalism, Diana went into the Waffles, No Nets diner and sat down in her usual place. The girl with the backpack, Blaze, was already sitting there not far away, as was her ritual once a month, a ritual which fascinated Diana greatly due to its origin and nature but she would have time to investigate later. Right now, she needed to throw herself into her work and forget the events of today.
"Could I get some coffee? The cheapest, worst coffee you have here," she asked the nearest person who worked here and lit up a cigarette befre proceeding to open the records that she had so carefully procured, took out a notebook and began working.
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Post by Avery on May 10, 2013 13:01:23 GMT -5
Britknee was halfway to falling flat on her butt-- and no one was like, saving her!-- when the bakery owner abruptly shoved a cupcake into her mouth. Britknee sputtered, jerked upright, and attempted not to choke on the delicious morsel. Like, what the heck? Were these weird country bumpkins trying to kill her now? Omigosh, that was so like-- uncool! Blinking back the tears of woe that pricked at her eyes, Brit swallowed down the cupcake-- gosh, now she was going to be a size triple zero only, ew!-- and tried to ignore as that weird Dove girl harassed the even weirder Osi guy over birds. Gosh, Britknee was scared of birds! They were kind of like cows, really, but they could fly. And Wafflenet had these awful giant hawk birds, she was always afraid they were going to kill her poor ickle Snuggles.
As the bakery owner started to help other customers, Britknee realized the positive of having the cupcake all but forced into her mouth: no one had asked for payment. Score! But wait-- what if the silly country horsie wised up and asked in a second? Brit decided to get out of there before she could. Maybe, she decided, she could go get a nice diet waffle at Waffles, No Nets. She knew it sounded like a silly concept but like, the first time she went there, she'd asked for the lowest calorie item on the menu, and the waiter had like, looked at her funny. Brit felt so demeaned! But then, hurrah, he got this devious smile on his face, and Brit thought that meant something bad, except then he'd said to her: "You know what, we have diet waffles!"
It was so hilarious, the waffle that came out tasted like bacon grease, sausage trimmings, and sugar... but Brit figured these country folks had just figured out a way to make diets tasty. Yay!
"Let's go, Snuggles," she said, petting the little poodle, and then-- poodle in one arm, face full of cupcake frosting, and strawberries still clutched under the other arm-- Brit set off for Waffles, No Nets.
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Post by Alyssa on May 10, 2013 13:55:02 GMT -5
Penny was horrified and confused.
The chaos around her was almost overwhelming, with people shrieking at each other, running off to who knows where, and to top it all off, her big brother had chosen that moment to open his mouth and offend every living thing within a five mile radius. Upon seeing Melvin, (or A REPTILE or whatever he called himself these days) strike a pose next to the murder victim, she felt physically ill and turned to find something better to look at, desperately hoping for a moldy sandwich or a broken glass jar full of slugs.
Penny was utterly worn out and needed to get away from the crowd. Noticing her sister and brother-in-law entering her shop, Penny trudged off to meet them there. She reached the building without any further incident, although she only narrowly avoided a collision with a woman who was too busy muttering about making hats to pay any attention to those around her.
She sighed as she walked into the store. It had been a most harrowing day. She had seen the salesman probably minutes after he'd been shot, she cold have helped him! At the very least, she could have found out who had killed him. She knew she would have probably met the same fate as the salesman if she'd pursued his murderer, but she still felt so hopeless.
"Hey guys" she greeted Dan and Ginz with a halfhearted wave.
After showing them to their seats and going upstairs to retrieve her cat, she set about preparing some snacks.
Since it was the anniversary of the day she found that one thing, she had intended to sell a lavish feast of several stinky cheeses, a bucket of the finest chocolate-scented chocolates and a large pitcher of "Purple Drank (It's Purple Because We Found It That Way!)", but circumstances being as they were, she set out a simple fare of sandwiches and chips.
"So..." Penny started as she sat down next to Ginz and Dan. "What do you think about all this? I mean, there's never been this kind of- of kerfuffle in our little town before. I thought it was crazy last month when the bird man had a party and the ostriches were accidentally invited, but this is so much worse!"
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Post by Avery on May 10, 2013 14:15:57 GMT -5
Round: One
Round Name: On a desolate country road...While the whole of Wafflenet was concentrated near the alley where the salesman, Stal, had Turned Up Dead, the townsperson called Yoyti was elsewhere.
Hiding, you might say.
He'd walked-- briefly, head down-- by the murder scene early in the morning. But unlike the other townspeople, who stumbled upon the body and then stood there, gaping, like a herd of sheep, Yoyti knew better. This Stal had been murdered after all! Murdered! And what if the nefarious killers were still lurking about, ready to pick off more victims? What if this death of a salesman1 had been a mere diversionary tactic, one meant to gather the town-- and then mow them all down in one fell swoop?
Therefore, as the rest of the town gawked, Yoyti hurried home. At least, towards home, because he never made it there. See, in an effort to protect himself, Yoyti had done the exact wrong thing: isolated himself. It is, you see, far easier to kill a lone traveler than a massive group of ogling citizens. Four mafiosos against the near entirety of Wafflenet? Why, that's a difficult feat. Four mafiosos against one wee man? That is far easier.
And sure enough, as most of Wafflenet continued to mill about the scene of Stal's murder, the four mafiosos briefly slipped away-- not long enough so as to be noticed, but well, long enough.
It was a young girl who found the corpse, bloodied and bloated; she was the daughter of the green-grocer, and had slept in late. Therefore, she hadn't heard about Stal's death. She'd been merrily strolling along on her way into town, her stomach rumbling at the thought of a delicious plate of waffles from Waffles, No Nets, when she came upon Yoyti's body in the road. She gasped; she screamed; and then, with tears streaming down her face, she ran into town.
When she came upon the crowd still clustered near Stal's body, she could barely choke out the words: "He's dead!" she cried. "Yoyti is dead!"
As the townspeople comforted the quivering little child, a few of the braver folks jogged to the place where the girl had claimed to see Yoyti's body. And sure enough, there he was: dead. Murdered.
No one in Wafflenet had much cared for Stal. But Yoyti-- Yoyti was one of their own! They could no longer stand idly by as the mafia performed their wicked crimes. No. Someone would have to pay for what had been done. It was time, it seemed, for vigilante justice.
Yoyti was an innocent townsperson.
1(> )>⌐■-■
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Post by Fraze on May 10, 2013 15:29:28 GMT -5
After returning to the diner, Mony realized his announcement of a sale might have come off as a bit...tactless. It came with good intentions, however, as people who are eating are generally not panicking, forming mobs, or making threatening gestures at one another. Indeed, the same could even be said about people who had recently eaten--especially at Waffles, No Nets, where the caloric density of the meals ranged from that of a hot buttered roll to straight-up butter.
Cooking, serving, and listening to the chatter was also an excellent way to get a read on the situation. You could learn a lot from the chatter in a diner. Plus, extra income.
"Could I get some coffee? The cheapest, worst coffee you have here."
It was that bookish out-of-towner. Seemed fixated on detailing the town's history or something like that, for reasons Mony couldn't quite grasp. Well, to each their own. It might be an interesting read. "One cup of warm dishwater coming right up," she answered with a perky, possibly-serious-and-possibly-not grin. He returned quickly with a tepid cup of tarlike liquid. "Can I get you anything else, maybe some toast to spread that on? Or possibly a history of the diner?"
That hoity-toity city chick came in, and Mony knew that she would order the, ahem, "diet waffle." Fried in bacon grease, filled with strawberry jam, topped with a sausage patty on one side and whipped cream on the other, it was a particular favorite of people who didn't care about trivial things like fitting through doors. Or people who worked in a field all day and needed the energy, which was rather more likely in a farming town like Wafflenet. "Can I get you a diet waffle, miss?" she asked pleasantly.
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Post by Avery on May 10, 2013 15:35:15 GMT -5
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Post by Avery on May 10, 2013 15:40:09 GMT -5
In the diner, Britknee took a booth near the door. As she waited for the server, she peered appraisingly at the other people in Waffles, No Nets. She wished she had someone she could sit with, but wasn't friendly with well, anyone in town, really. They all like, so totally rejected her awesome niceness! With a pang in her heart, she wished Courtknee would come back. She'd only spoken to Court about two or three times since the other girl fled Wafflenet for the city. This was partly because of the spotty cell phone service, but also because Brit was afraid if she spoke too much to Courtknee, she would start cursing her former BFF out for abandoning her in this godforsaken town with those godforsaken dairy cows.
"Can I get you a diet waffle, miss?"
"Oooh, yes, like, thanks!" Britknee squeaked pleasantly.
As she waited for her waffle, she noticed a sudden flutter of commotion out near the alley, where there still remained a sizable cluster of people. Squinting her eyes, Brit noticed a little girl sobbing. Hmm, that was like, so weird! Why would this girl be crying over Stal the Salesman? No one had even liked him! Britknee bit her lip and looked away from the hysterical little girl outside. Wistfully, she stared at the empty seat across the booth from her. Oh, how part of her wished that the next person who came through the door would sit with her! She sniffled and blinked back a tear, and petted Snuggles (whom she'd sneaked inside in her handbag) on the head.
"Like, this town is so awful," she whispered to him. "I wish someone would buy my stupid farm so I could like, get totally away from here!"
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Post by Lizica on May 10, 2013 16:24:50 GMT -5
Tracy kicked open the door of Waffles, No Nets. It wasn't a confrontational gesture; it's just that her arms were full, and she couldn't reach the door handle. Her bag of tin foil hats would get smushed if she didn't treat it gingerly. She glanced around at the clientele of the diner and made her way over to the person whose hat was closest to the top of the pile.
Tracy sidled into the seat across from that gal from the city--what was her name...?
"Hi, Courtknee, right?" she said rapidly. "You're from the city, so I made you a tin foil hat shaped like a skyline, see?"
Tracy produced a foil hat from her bag. One of the skyscrapers had been bent in her mad dash across the square towards the diner, and she molded it back in place. Tracy pointed to the front of the hat. "I even put a little cow on the front here, so you have a little bit of Wafflenet there, too."
She handed it to her.
"Please wear it. It'll protect you in this emergency. And it's free! So please, please wear it. I can't stress how important it is to our town's welfare." She paused, and leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. "They're bent on our destruction."
Ignoring the young woman's stare, Tracy hopped back to her feet and sifted through her bag of hats again.
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Post by Chao on May 10, 2013 18:19:01 GMT -5
When Kay O heard the wailing of the child, she instantly knew what to do for a change. No need to ponder the question, no need to write another list. Because she had just written a list.
Abandoning her tea for the second time that day, she hurried outside, determined to be one of the first on the site this time. Even if it meant encountering Melvin and whoever else had not escaped his presence fast enough.
It took Kay only a few minutes to distill enough information from the crying child's babble to realize that she was in the wrong spot. The actual site was on the country road!
"I'll go and get the doctor!" She announced before hurrying off to go find the doctor, who, due to the lack of an actual detective, would have to fill in as investigator/coroner/person in charge. And she'd also get her camera. This time they'd be more professional. This time they'd get crime scene photos. If only for the town's archives. Or the memorial announcment in the local newspaper. Depending on the quality of pictures she could get.
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Post by Terra on May 10, 2013 19:48:27 GMT -5
Blaze looked outside as she waited for her meat lover's omelette with a side of Canadian bacon, sausage, and regular bacon. Some little girl was crying in front of Stal's body. She seemed to be shouting something, too.
Blaze was immediately intrigued. She didn't like it much when people other than her shouted, but she could recognize a kindred spirit, at least.
"What's that girl shouting about?"
No one answered, at least not in a way that told Blaze anything.
"Hmph, you're all useless," grumbled Blaze. She abruptly got up, walked back outside, and screeched, "HEY! WHAT'S THAT GIRL SHOUTING ABOUT?"
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Post by Jayeee on May 10, 2013 20:21:03 GMT -5
Shortly after that horrible woman had scribbled on the magazine he had so graciously given her, THE PYTHON has decided that maybe it was time for a change. He was a flexible guy, and this town seemed to be alarmingly full of women. Well, he'd surely give them a good lesson. That was his job as a dashing model after all. Stuffing the magazine back into his pocket, THE PYTHON shoved his way through the crowd and made his way towards the outskirts of Wafflenet.
It may have seemed like THE PYTHON was escaping, but it was just the opposite. It was terribly unmanly to run from anything, and he had no intention in fleeing, least of all from a town overpopulated by women. All their fault, of course. If they couldn't keep their hands off the men, then the least they could do was actually produce sons who would be of some use to the world. Sadly, his own mother had failed in that department shortly after his arrival. He assumed it was because he had drained all of the masculinity and so there was none left for anything else. And now look what he was left with. Some whack-job girl who thought she could actually own a shop, and a failed scientist. So unwomanly, he was disgusted.
At the edge of town, THE PYTHON found his car. He'd had to park it as far away from the Mahb-Maphia household as possible. He couldn't risk anybody seeing his car parked there and realising that they were actually related. The paparazzi could be anywhere. He had to keep up appearances.
THE PYTHON flung open the boot of his car and unzipped the bag in there. He pulled out a policeman's uniform – one of the many perks of being the handsome model everybody wanted was that he got to keep most of the outfits he modelled in. He took them everywhere, because you never knew when an opportunity would arise. Besides, chicks dug a man in uniform and he couldn't deny them that. If they resisted his charms, he'd take a swing at their heads with his billy-club.
Having changed into the uniform, OFFICER PYTHON made his way back towards the middle of the town to rough-house some women. He got lost a couple of times, but eventually, when the town was almost in sight he found himself tripping over something curious in the road.
“What the hell?” he shouted as he crashed onto the ground. “What woman left her stupid stuff in the middle of the road? There are men walking here,” he growled as he dusted himself off and stood up. As he turned around to see just what it was he'd fallen over, his eyes widened. “Woah. Dude!”
Naturally, he'd walked straight over to Waffles, No Nets. Not too fast of course, perspiration would ruin his hair.
When he'd reached the town, OFFICER PYTHON noticed a little girl screaming about something. Typical female, always hysterical. He pushed an elderly woman to the ground as he approached the scene. “Dude, this is most uncool. OFFICER PYTHON's ears hurt.” He nudged the girl with his foot. “Can you like, stop doing that? Men want some quiet.” he gave her one more nudge before remembering his original intention and stepped into the doorway of Waffles, No Nets, making sure to dodge Blaze along the way. He was too tired to deal with crazy today, but maybe he could call up an institution later.
“Hey babes',” OFFICER PYTHON announced as he leaned against the door frame of the diner and held onto the tip of his policeman hat with one hand. “OFFICER PYTHON just wanted to drop by and check that all you little ladies are behaving. If not, OFFICER PYTHON'll give you a roundhouse to the face.” He smiled to himself; the charm was in full-swing.
With one hand still holding lightly onto the tip of his hat, he used the other to pull a gun out of his holster. With a haphazard grin, he stuck the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger. What appeared to be a gun was actually a novelty water pistol filled with beer. “That really hits the spot,” he said, wiping his mouth with his arm. “OFFICER PYTHON's thirst has been totally quenched.”
He paused for a moment. “You bros know that there's some dawg laying dead in the middle of the road, right?”
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Post by Gav on May 10, 2013 20:37:19 GMT -5
"Well, that's just unfortunate."
Birch frowned as he looked at the dead body. He'd gotten there minutes after some girl was screaming about it, and from the looks of it, Yoyti was certainly very dead.
He didn't know the man much, aside from when he'd hobble into his practice trying to get a week off from work, but it was still kind of sad that he had died.
He bent down, gingerly turning the body over. It wasn't like he could do any sort of autopsy right here, but better get what he could before the town came screaming over and be absolutely useless.
"Hmm, stab wounds." he muttered to himself, running his hand gently over the bloody gashes. "Too imprecise to be a clean hit - he was likely trying to get away. Didn't take any money, either."
He frowned, already hearing the sounds of incoming footsteps. Well that took shorter than he would have liked, as he stepped away from the body. Best get out of here before anyone saw him with a bloody hand and jump to conlcusions.
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Post by Tiger on May 10, 2013 21:25:39 GMT -5
Mick retreated to the kitchen to get started on the orders. Cooking was usually a reassuring task, especially when waffles were involved...even when they were imaginary diet waffles. He was a little less pleased with the omelette order - he had never produced a plate of truly good eggs in his life, something probably not well-disguised even by his elaborate garnishing. But it seemed like a bad time to be ungracious. Someone had just died. Not all the sweat on Mick's brow was from the hot kitchen.
In the past, Mick had served 'diet' waffles without anything more obvious than syrup, since in his experience diet food looked as dull as the plates it was served on. On auto-pilot, he had added a hefty amount of powdered sugar to the waffle before realizing his mistake. Keep it together.
With the waiters off gossiping in the corner, Mick delivered the food himself. He slid Britknee's waffle to her - "I found some...weight...loss...powder...in the kitchen. Uh, consider it on the house."
He looked around for Blaze, holding her plate of meat, meat, bacon, meat, and a runny egg trying in vain to hold some of it together, but she was already gone. Instead...there was a police officer at the door. No - no, it was Capslock McGee himself. Where he had gotten a police suit from was anyone's guess, although Mick thought it fit far too snugly in the chest, abs, and arms to be actual police gear.
“Hey babes. OFFICER PYTHON just wanted to drop by and check that all you little ladies are behaving. If not, OFFICER PYTHON'll give you a roundhouse to the face.”
"Look, man, could you just not?" Mick snapped. He was almost disapointed when the gun turned out to be a water pistol. Not the most appropriate thought, but the Mick hadn't exactly had a decorating spree with the diet waffle to work out his frustration.
"You bros know that there's some dawg laying dead in the middle of the road, right?”
"The sales guy? Yes, we know, we were there, you were - wait. Do you mean someone else? Who?"
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Post by Celestial on May 10, 2013 21:30:21 GMT -5
One cup of warm dishwater coming right up. Can I get you anything else, maybe some toast to spread that on? Or possibly a history of the diner?" asked the...person whose gender Diana could never determine. Furthermore, despite her always being sure of being female, this person, Mony everyone called them, always made her feel more...manly.
"Skip the toast but a history would be nice," she asked Mony, figuring she might as well take all the sources she could use. She could check its reliability at a later date, you could never pass up information, especially when working at the level of detail that she was. Besides, the diner was an important insitution that she had to pay attention to. While she waited for the coffee, Diana took a drag of her cigarette and opened up the town records and began to read about the new businesses that opened in Wafflenet in the last 50 years.
It was shortly thereafter that the little began screaming about a murder outside. However, Diana had no intention of seeing another corpse again. She was alright with them when they were just described on paper but in reality, they were different. Stal had taught her that. Today counted and she had to make the most of it, otherwise she was never going to get her monograph published and sufficiently peer-reviewed. She had all ambition to make professor before she was forty and that monograph was going to put her there.
Soon, the local conspiracy nut came in again and began handing out hats, hats that she continued to cling onto despite all evidence that pointed to them having no effect on anything. Then that uneducated lout with the awfully-written magasine came in. Diana usually had no problems with uneducated louts, she was keen to champion them in fact, tell their side of the story instead of those of "great men" but this one was insufferable and he was very keen to tell his own story, something which should only be reserved to those who can do it properly. Diana hated to think of what would happen if his poorly-researched, poorly-written, uneducated drivel were to be believed by the ever-so-gullible general public.
Then Blaze went outside and began asking questions, albeit in a loud voice. Nevertheless, Diana could never ignore a good question. Questions required academic answers and who was the most academic person in the entire town? Her, of course. She picked up the records (could never leave the records) and followed Blaze outside.
"I believe the little girl is shouting about a man murdered, judging from her tone of voice and the words she was saying. Of course, words do not necessarily tell us everything we need to know and we cannot trust everything that they say, plus eyewitness accounts can be unreliable due to the falliability of memory and the phenomenon of mass hysteria, possible when there has already been a murder. Nevertheless, let us assume for the sake of argument that it is true and there is a man lying dead on the outskirts of town. We must investigate how he came to be there and what factors, both short-term and long-term lead to him being murdered? I believe it was the mafia that has recently been formed who killed him, their formation a culmination of several factors including frustration at the power of the upper classes of this town and the budget cuts that have made his place so lawless, combined with the ideological leanings and psychological profles of the people who formed this mafia," she paused as she contemplated her thesis. It was a good thesis. Now she needed to gather enough evidence, primary and secondary, to either prove or disprove that thesis.
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Furgo 
Michael. 
