I was inspired to do this take as a fun exercise by reading a myTake by @Ginnyweasly97; see it here.
I figured what's good for her goose should be good for my....also a goose.
For those of you not in the know, there's been this thing going on over on DeviantArt ever since last year about ideas for a comedy cartoon series based on the world of Prodigal-Gamer's original short story "The Tale of Emily Barnes and the Two Jens."
One incarnation of that concept is the adaptation Camelorum Adventures, set in the same world as The Trapezoid Kids and Grillitan Diner. If you've never heard of any of these, that's okay. This is a fun overview of the different institutions that matter in that series, located inside the fictional Delaware town of Dromedary Heights.
Let's...just hope you never ever wind up in a place like these, okay?
Alpacalorum Mercy Hospital
The word "mercy" is used very loosely here! This place has amazingly survived its share of scandals and malpractice suits. This is where The Gnat was stitched back together after Barry Navoz pretty much dropped a tree on him. (It was an accident!)
Rita Rigatoni, an infamous criminal, once wreaked havoc here by tainting the antiseptics with various psychotropic drugs when no one was looking. As a prank, of course.
Get your leg stitched back together? Enjoy slipping into that trance and belting out Bowling for Soup tunes uncontrollably!
(Don't worry...so is everyone else in there!)
Did I mention that the entire city of Dromedary Heights is a virtual Mecca of ska-punk? Just set your Jango radio to "Reel Big Fish," and you're in the mindset of Dromedary Heights...a town just a short ways away from the coastal city of Giddewaltz. Also in Delaware.
If you enjoyed Phineas and Ferb, you'd feel right at home in Dromedary Heights. There are bound to be a few similarities.
See you after that surgeon removes that sturgeon that is somehow going through your arm. You should've known that captain was fishy!
Alpacalorum Mental Asylum
The suffix "lorum" means "of" in Latin. This is literally the "of alpacas" home for the truly broken souls. I'm not just talking about the depressed, or those going through some sort of faith/identity crisis. I'm talking about those whose entire grasp of what constitutes reality has become so warped, that the average roller coaster is a straight line by comparison.
Rita Rigatoni was almost sent here, but was deemed slightly too culpable by a judge. To describe the kinds of patients this poor facility has to take on, I'll just defer to Jessie Rembel's description of a patient that transferred over from Camelorum:
Camelorum? Oh...I've heard rumors about that place! A man went in there once, acting like a typical sleaze used car salesman. He came out with a pegleg and an eyepatch, speaking a thick Japanese accent and preaching about the evils of undercooked spaghetti and lima beans! He was immediately sent to Alpacalorum Mental Asylum...and never returned!
Yes. A used car salesman became a PINJA chef! (Look up "pinja" on Urban Dictionary!)
Do you feel that your legs are turning into cherries, but no XomiaFaeCore Fruit Fairies are around to blame for it? Do you go to work dressed in a duck suit in case aliens try to eat your spreadsheets? You may just wind up in Alpacalorum. No telling when you'll get out.
Due to a multiversal energy wave called the Percolation, the Bison has appeared in the Dromedeverse a few times. Nobody likes that flying buffalo-zilla thing. Nobody! Getting possessed by the Bison has led to a large influx in business for Alpacalorum, as the Bisonically-possessed temporarily gain powers (mostly, laser eyes and breathing fire.)
A typical YouTube "Story Time" video by a former female patient of Alpacalorum might read something like this:
Yeah...so...I woke up one day in an office building I didn't know existed, with no idea how I got there. My hair was full of chameleons, and I didn't know what was going on. I found out I was wearing some dog suit that I probably robbed from a costume store at some point and forgot it happened. Or maybe I was abducted and put in the suit for kicks and giggles. I don't know anymore. But as soon as I started asking what was going on, I was shot with a dart and took another nap. I woke up next, in a straight jacket. All alone. I was like: Is this necessary? They seemed to think it was. I figured, this whole day has been crazy, so this is fitting. They told me I was out for three days. So I'm in there, pretty much in solitary confinement, for...another week or so, I think? No clock, I couldn't tell. I wake up at home. Not sure if I was really at Alpacalorum, or abducted by aliens. I should probably be careful saying that, or I'll be sent back. I sure hope I wasn't probed or anything...
Camelorum Correctional
The Camel Derivatives. This place is a coed (but predominantly female) prison located on the outskirts of Dromedary Heights. It houses the well-meaning who've simply screwed up big time. It doubles as a paranormal research center. Think "SCP Lite." Many of the inmates here would probably be classified as "Safe" or "Euclid" if the SCP Foundation got its hands on them. They'd feel almost right at home at the X-Mansion as well.
So who are the most well-known members of their veritable breakfast club of misfits?
There are many, MANY inmates housed at Camelorum. I'll just stick with the ones in the picture above, to give you a sample.
On the far left of the image, you see Candace Mason, dubbed "Lemon Witch" by the media. After her father was kidnapped by an evil alien named XIboruty due to knowing too much about the dirty secrets at Purview Labs, Candace set out to find and rescue him. She was always an impulsive type not afraid of an occasional confrontation. A recent high school grad, she'd been to the principal's office often for fighting. She doesn't go looking for a fight; but she won't tolerate bullies. Especially when they pick on her younger brother.
Her recklessness led to a confrontation in which Xiboruty knocked her out, but inadvertently gave her the power to turn anyone into a June bug or a fruit. Or change them back. He uses this to escape, believing bonding her to the XomiaFaeCore would kill her instead. She awoke swearing revenge for having been "raped." However, she couldn't control her powers. After a fight at a mall with an out-of-control security guard that mistook her friend Jessie for a shoplifter wearing a similar dress, Candace accidentally turns the guard into a lime. She has difficulty changing him back. She is given a set of yellow gloves by Jessie as a way to prevent involuntary outbursts of her power.
With the gloves on, Candace had much better control. However, the newly-dubbed "Mr. Lime" decides to press charges. Candace surrenders to authorities on request. She is convicted of Class B felony assault, and gets 3 years at Camelorum. She is also assigned labor assignments in town as part of her sentence. She uses this as a means to further investigate her father's disappearance, and look for a way to rescue him. She becomes a superhero later on, putting her "Lemon Witch" moniker to good use.
To the right of Candace is Luin Kim, who wants to take over the world in order to prove herself to her Korean father - who is never impressed with anything she does. She is defeated in one of her bids by a cheap flying superhero. However, the hero goofs up and causes the building they are all in to come crashing down. The hero doesn't survive, but Luin does.
A nigh-invulnerable-but-really-dense gal with a Cockney accent, named Beatrice Index, was also in the building. She impulsively sees Luin about to get crushed by falling debris, and gets in the way. Beatrice is unfairly convicted of being Luin's accomplice, and the two are sent to Camelorum together. They become a sort of discount Pinky and the Brain. Along with Jenny Jane and Jenny Kay, they become part of the science team inside Camelorum. They actually spend more time in the inventions lab than they do in their cells!
In the middle is Carly Rancine, dubbed "the Glitch" or "Maddening Rod" by the inmates due to the fact that her mere presence causes terrifying randomness in the universe. She awoke at Camelorum one day with no memory of her family, and with no one able to locate any public records of her ever existing. Because of her dangerous and uncontrollable powers, which are weakest near Camelorum, she is kept there. Bitter and confused, she plays along while searching for clues to her past. Guards question if she's even truly human, treating her like she's a "glitch in the Matrix" or something similar.
She gets put out on assignments too dangerous for the other inmates. Because she can unleash Lovecraftian horror on her enemies. She is charged at one point with reckless destruction of property when she almost turns a car into a black hole - accidentally.
She is also frequently being stalked/harassed by a familiar, in the form of a flying, talking pig with a Cheshire grin and the voice of Tobey Keith.
Her boyfriend at Camelorum, Barry Navoz, is similarly treated by Cheshire's cousin, a Musketeer-hatted pig calling himself the "Worcestershire Pig." Cheshire is annoying on purpose, Worch just gives bad advice. Carly's power interacting with the Percolation also leads to Belf - a bear that talks like Alf - appearing in Camelorum. (The animals all eventually get sent to a zoo.)
Her cell is the most unusual, as every 1x8 tile of wall has been transformed by her power into a different type of wall. Her cell door also looks like something out of Wonderland. Simply because she's been inside too long.
Yes, in the pic above, a dandelion is growing out of her scalp. What do you want, a gingerbread cookie?
To the right of Carly is Janet Joblin, or "the Glob." The angrier she gets, the heavier she gets. No wonder her scale reads: "Goodbye, cruel world!" Similar to Marvel's Blob, this sassy black lady once got so angry at a party, she fell through five stories of a building! And was criminally charged with the damage too...after she was extracted with a forklift. Don't tempt her to want to sit on you!!!
Finally, there's Emily Barnes on the far right. A Prodigal-Gamer original. A bored rich girl, she went looking for adventure and found it with the Jens. However, the girls had too much to drink before driving to the hotel. The Jens crashed into a fountain, and exposed one of Xiboruty's underground lairs. A flash of some sort of light came out. The Jens gained super intelligence, and Emily gained precognitive color-changing magic hair. The judge threw the book at the girls, especially Emily. (Her hair was mocking him!)
Due to the signaling possible with her hair, Emily has acquired the nickname "Semaphore."
There are many, many more crazies in Camelorum, but it's time to move along in this overview. Unless you'd rather stay and develop compound eyes like a fly, that is! (Or get Percolated to another universe...but that rarely ends well.)
Camelorum Halfway
This gets built in season 3. Some of the inmates at the Correctional, who clearly don't have criminal intent, are transferred here. They are less restricted, and can go on assignments on the outside with less paperwork and fanfare. But are also chained to the most intrusive and fascist tethering system ever invented. Like a super FitBit GPS tether that can bust you even for staring too long at someone you find attractive, by measuring your testosterone levels!
Those on their way out of the Correctional get sent here to smooth their re-integration into society. Candace and most of her friends made at the Correctional get sent here in the third season. Not as dangerous a place; but you still don't wanna provoke the natives into turning you into an armadillo with mushrooms for feet, so don't press your luck.
Llamalorum Correctional
This place is also coed, like Camelorum. But it's far more conventional, and predominantly male. The worst of the worst scum in Delaware get sent here. As well as supervillains like the Spatula that are too evil for Camelorum. When Candace was threatened with the prospect of being sent here instead of Camelorum, her response was:
Shanks but no shanks!!!
Llalamorum isn't owned or run by Stan Woudean, the some-time warden at Camelorum. The two facilities are often in competition for which one gets which convict in the super-busy courts in Dromedary Heights. The accused are often not sure which is worse: getting stabbed in Llamalorum, or getting lost in the carnival of slapstick and reality-warping insanity at Camelorum.
Remember that car salesman that became a pinja? Yeah. Don't break the law in Dromedary Heights. You could get stabbed in the back. Or turned into that pinja. Or eaten off the toilet by a sea monster. Have fun with that!
Bactrian University
Just a typical, normal, no-weird, very-lame place. Right? Right??? Well, Purview Labs helps fund it. Pick a major. Or rather, go somewhere else. For better or worse, this college is oddly close by to Camelorum. Placing a prison and a college so close to each other...best idea ever???
Barry Navoz tried to attend here. And it led to him getting tripped up by some bullies at a party, which lead to a chain reaction of accidents that almost killed The Gnat! And wrecked the Gnatmobile! As for Barry? Now he's Ion Boy. Not everyone from Bactrian turns out so well.
Purview Labs
Great place to find a job? Not if you are involved in shredding documents, it isn't! A certain Eddy Mason, father of Candace Mason, learned that the hard way! This company performs all sorts of unethical experiments, and is as shady as it gets. Even corroborating with evil aliens!
But in spite their best efforts, several of their experiments have escaped and gone public. Case in point: the 20s Altered Judo Iguanas! Wycliffe, Huss, Calvin, and Zwingli. Tongue-flick power!!! And that's hardly their biggest embarrassment!
Anywhere else?
Do these places not sound like your cup of tea?
Very well. Let's just stop at the Grillitan Diner and catch a bite to eat from their menu instead. Your choice of meat quality ranges from the Rabbit Starvation Special to the Day-Later Heart Attack. Choose the burger that's right for you! Oh and...watch out for the toon sprites battling right over your head. And that creepy white rabbit spying on everyone from the bushes too.
Can't finish your meal? They have Eat-It-Later bags! So chill to some Sublime, and just hope the next Milly Bays ad has exactly what you're looking for. Ever try Fry Jam??? It's like Vegemite, you can buy it in a jar or a can!
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