foolishmortals | MOCK TRIAL

[Perry the Platypus has died. There is no doubt about that. Those of you who were hoping that nobody would give in to the judge's demands have swiftly been proven wrong.

The students are hoarded to the studio lounge once again, where a large door has appeared, seemingly from nowhere. Inside, defying the laws of space and time, is an incredibly large room, bigger than any of the others. It's boring and brown, a perfect courtroom, and seems far more maintained than any of the other rooms.

Three very large framed portraits hang ominously over the whole proceedings. The first depicts an old mansion, decrepit and decaying, with an oddly purple tint. The second features a vintage building, tower-like in size and scope, against the backdrop of a bolt of lightning. The third...is considerably harder to make out. Namely, while a few bits of the picture appear to still hang there, it by-and-large seems to have been torn and clawed at by some very very big claws.

There is a circle of podiums, 27 to be exact, standing around a large bubbling pool of you-know-what. Be careful not to trip, kids. Each of these podiums bears a student's name, a small stool for sitting, and a screen and keyboard. You can guess what those are for, can't you? The podiums for our three minuscule friends come with stairs to reach the top of them, of course. 2 of the podiums stand empty, adorned with mini golden oscar statuettes depicting Edgar Balthazar and Perry the Platypus.]

Once everyone takes their places, Doom appears, sitting at a chair placed in front of the portraits. An ideal place to overlook these proceedings.]

The trial in the case of Perry the Platypus's death shall have very simple rules. You have accumulated enough evidence over the past hours and must now figure out who is responsible. When I call the vote, you shall type in the first and last name of the individual you hold responsible.

[His expression lights up just a little.]

Succeed in accumulating a correct majority vote, and you shall live while the culprit is punished. Should you fail to gather up a majority, or vote incorrectly...

Well. I suppose you'll find out.

[You have the evidence you need to piece this together, but can you apply it properly? Is there another way out of this situation? You'll just have to put your heads together and find out.]

(ooc: welcome to the mock trial! for those of you new to this, threadjacking and pointing out contradictions while contributing to the discussion is encouraged. if you have any questions, feel free to ask your mods!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

N-Now hold on.

[He needs to process this.]

Isn't that just... a suit? I wear a suit, Basil wears a suit, why a "person" suit?

No, he means like. A costume to make a possum look like a person.

[At least Troy assumes that's what they mean and nobody's suggesting someone made a suit OUT of a person.]

Why would they do that?

[Being an animal seems perfectly fine.]

It's like a disguise, right? [He's kind of. Looking at Kim and Rapunzel.] So we don't suspect he's an animal.

That's the idea... It's not for sure, but "not what he seems," right?

[Glances at Rapunzel.]

Not who he seems.

Who he seems. ...So maybe it's not literally like...someone in a disguise, but someone who seems okay but is actually the worst. Right?

Like with Edgar trying to poison somebody when he made all the food. Perhaps Perry was chasing after someone who seemed suspicious.

But how in the world are we supposed to tell? There's nothin' to narrow down an identity and we can't just go accusin' people of secretly bein' murderers without proof.

So we look at the evidence. ...That's how this works, right? We just know someone's suspicious, and he was lookin' into it and... Oh! That's why he was out late, right? Maybe? He was investigating! He had that detective hat, right, so...

Yeah, he was... probably investigating. Maybe that was why he was in the costume storage.

Ohhh, that gives me an idea!

Alright, so. What I think he was lookin' into somethin' completely unrelated. See, that possum was in a folder with a bunch of other pictures, and they all matched posters on the wall in the office except for him. So what I'm thinkin' now is the platypus was tryin' to learn more about him, figure out who he was and why he got cut out of things.

Whoever killed him took advantage of him bein' distracted. It -- it doesn't have anythin' to do with the possum itself.

Possum's innocent, got it. [fingerguns

WHEN FACED WITH TRAUMA YOU JOKE AND DEADPAN, THAT'S SORT OF HOW SHE IS HANDLING THIS WHOLE THING]

Maybe... Perry was trying to look through the clothes. He could've been the one who made them all ruffled and wrinkled?

That's probably a fair guess. It's like I said, we need to establish a timeline. So he was lookin' through things and he'd just found the suit when -- when he got surprised.

Then... maybe the murderer showed up?

But then what about the trail from the soundstage? How's that fit in?

Maybe the murderer was really bloody and went to wash their hands?

[He would wash his hands, anyway.]

...Oh, hey! D'you think they could've gotten all of it off their clothes? Maybe we should look for someone wearing something different, or...missing something they've been wearing all week? Most of you seem to be determined to wear the same outfit, after all.

I'm not wearing anything from here, that's for sure.

(no subject)

pinkflip - 2017-05-13 21:12 (UTC) - Expand

thedukeofficial - 2017-05-13 21:13 (UTC) - Expand

pinkflip - 2017-05-13 21:15 (UTC) - Expand

thedukeofficial - 2017-05-13 21:19 (UTC) - Expand

pinkflip - 2017-05-13 21:20 (UTC) - Expand

thedukeofficial - 2017-05-13 21:22 (UTC) - Expand

[Yeah, well, look. His clothes are normal. Familiar. He didn't want to change into random stuff he found around, that felt weird.]

That's ... that's not a bad thought.

[... WALL-E isn't wearing any clothes and thus, simply gives Kimberly a head tilt in response to this.]

pinkflip - 2017-05-13 21:17 (UTC) - Expand

I mean... doesn't it go from that dressing room to the costume room?

...Oh, no, that makes sense. [duh] Starts in the costume room, goes to the dressing room... And the whoever who did it hid him in Edgar's room since...well, Edgar's not around to, uh...protest. Right?

Maybe!

[Thumbs up...!]