WEEK 3: April 15th - April 19th

[cartesio]

Third Week

The peaceful times are over. Moloch von Zinzer was murdered, and Nine was sentenced as his murderer. Everyone in Cartesio knows that.

Although life goes on, it seems the town of Cartesio isn't going to forget the tourists' transgressions. Not only they commited larceny in the cinema, they also murdered and executed in their town! It's no surprise their hospitality towards the visitors has cooled down considerably.

Not only they're maintaining a tense cordiality with them, they also have started talking behind the visitors' backs. All kinds of rumors are starting to sprout, yet nobody seems to be willing to say it to the tourists' faces. Talking directly to most passerby makes them distrustful, and nobody seems to want to be in close quarters alone with them.

It's only matter of time before the relationship between tourists and Cartesio starts degrading even further.

In the lobby of the motel there's a few more brochures, and the maps have been updated once again.

Links

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Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday

[Welcome to the third week! If you want to contact the Sergeant, please post here!. Also please remember to submit your activity check!]

Comments

ice cream parlor

[burgerprince]

[Salted caramel? Good taste. Jughead's got chocolate piled on vanilla and strawberry, and looking for a seat.]

Coming to a revelation?

[doublelammy]

[Millium pops her head up. Oh, hey, that guy that helped out in the cinema and then passed out in the projection room. Nice.]

Yeah! That salt actually does work really well in sweet things.

[There might be a story to that.]

[burgerprince]

Yeah.

[He says this like it should be common knowledge.]

You’ve never dipped fries into a shake before?

[doublelammy]

[And that suggestion is met with sparkling wide eyes.]

No. [Breathlessly.] Oh my gosh, now I gotta get fries n' a shake from the diner later! Which flavor shake is best?

[burgerprince]

[Jughead usually would find Millium's energy exhausting, but when it comes to imparting fast food wisdom he doesn't mind so much.]

If you get classic fries, vanilla. Cajun ones need chocolate.

[Hope you're noting this down, kid.]

[doublelammy]

[Some things have to take priority.]

Regular with vanilla, cajun with chocolate. Okay!

[She has infinite space in her head for useless trivia like this. There is no need for a notebook here.]

But no, I just thought it was something I messed up when baking one time n' Rean was just bein' nice when he said it actually tasted good.

[She... may have actually, literally swapped salt for sugar.]

[burgerprince]

It takes a very sophisticated flavor palate.

[He shoves a spoon of ice cream in his mouth.]

Most people won't appreciate it.

[doublelammy]

[Oh my god, Jughead. It's so good that Millium has absolutely no idea what a hipster is.]

Sophisticated, huh~? See, now I'm just wonderin' if you're usin' fancy words to try to trick me into eating something weird.

But joke's on you, if you are. I like lots of weird things.

[burgerprince]

[Okay, there's the hint of a grin as he pulls the spoon out and waves it idly by his lips.]

Do I look normal to you?

[doublelammy]

Ehehe. Tha~t's true.

Then again, don't really think anyone's normal around here. 'Cept maybe Sakura, but she's kinda the exception to most rules.

[burgerprince]

Fair point. I'm going to have to find a new way to define myself.

[Can't exactly be the weirdo when you're, comparatively, one of the more normal people here.]

You were here with Sakura before, weren't you?

[doublelammy]

I look forward to seeing what you come up with~.

[And to his question:]

Yuppers. I prolly don't know too much more than what she's already told you guys, though, if anything.

[burgerprince]

It’s messed up that you have to do this again.

[An understatement, but no cursing in front of the kid.]

Good you have each other, though.

[doublelammy]

[She has undoubtedly heard worse, but she doesn't stop to think he's censoring himself to tell him as much.]

Yeah. Though, honestly, it's more messed up now than when it was our first group, I think.

Dragging the whole town in to watch the trials... it wasn't like that when I was here before.

[burgerprince]

Probably wanted to change things up. Make it more exciting. Or make the town hate us more.

[...]

Those probably aren't mutually exclusive.

[doublelammy]

With Sarge? I think that's more like a "definitely."

I dunno what he's got – or his "superiors," whatever – against this place, but they really seem to wanna mess it up and make everyone here miserable.

[burgerprince]

You think it’s a Stanford Prison Experiment kind of deal?

[He’s leaning forward now, looking more alert.]

[doublelammy]

...Maybe? Gotta be honest with you, I don't know what that is. Somethin' from your world?

[Oh no. Are we teaching the 13 year old spy about psychology experiments today?]

[burgerprince]

[We sure fuckin are! Buckle in, Millium.]

A University held an experiment. To see how a prison environment psychologically impacted people, they split volunteers into wardens and prisoners and told them to play the part. It was supposed to run for two weeks.

[Another spoonful of ice cream.]

They ended it after six days.

[doublelammy]

...Y'know, that's almost somethin' I can see Instructor Sara doin'...

[Millium, no???]

...Huh? Why?

[burgerprince]

Guards got too sadistic. The whole thing became unethical.

[doublelammy]

...Woooah, creepy...

[Still, she thinks on this for a second.]

I mean... in a way, kinda, isn't it? Except that whatever Sarge wants, he's not gonna stop it just 'cause we're gettin' violent. He wants us to get violent.

If we're s'posed t'be the guards in that experiment, though, it's kinda funny... 'cause aren't we also prisoners?

[burgerprince]

Yeah. [That's deep, Millium.] That's the problem with direct comparisons. It's more like...

[He searches for the words for a moment.]

We're reckless, violent thugs, and they're your typical innocent townsfolk with the cleanest crime rate you can imagine. Sarge probably wants to see how quickly people will turn on and judge each other.

[doublelammy]

Well, if that's the case, he already has his answer, doesn't he? [SIGH.] About two weeks. Give or take a couple days.

I think it's gotta go deeper than that. If he just wanted them to hate us, we've done that well enough already. It's more like he wants us to destroy these people.

[And that earns a frown.]

I don't know what the goal is, here. If he wants to take over, he doesn't need to go through all this. If there's resistance, he'd only have to take out a couple people in power, not go through all this.

[burgerprince]

[There's a thought.]

Maybe you're right. What if we're the variables here, and the townspeople are who he's experimenting on? See how much they're willing to stand.

[He lets that sit for a moment.]

Doesn't make sense why he'd go all out with what he's doing to us though. Unless he just wants to break us for fun.