circus! circus! circus! mingle!

[uraniumcity]

At Buggy's Big Top Circus...

there's so much to see!!!

[[written for us by the noble clown bugminster ]]

THRILL RIDES!
A prewar "Tilt A Whirl"!
A mechanical swing!

GAMES!
Skee-ball that lights up when you score points!
Tests of Strength!
Darts and Throwing Contests!

SIDESHOWS!
See The Lion!
Meet A Deathclaw!
The World's Strongest Baby!
SO MUCH MORE!

REFRESHMENTS!
Drinks! Hot Dogs! Cheez Style Nachos! Popcorn! Cotton Candy!

and the BIG SHOW featuring
High-Flying Artistry - Feats of Might - Death-Defying Stuntwork
and
BUGGY THE CLOWN!!
Stay til dark for the FIREWORKS SHOW!
Special Community Outreach Night - Just One Cap At The Gate!

[ Rides and attractions may require additional fees. Enter at your own risk, but don't worry about it. ]

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BUGGY'S BULLSHIT - OTA

[bugminster]

If it's not literally Buggy's time to go on stage, he's stalking around his circus, keeping an eye on his freaks and fools and on the local morons. You cannot possibly miss our flashy and magnificent impresario because he is 6'2 and dressed like a pirate clown and he never shuts his fucking mouth. He is talking shit with every single carnie he walks past because frankly there aren't that many of them and he knows them all by name and this kind of camaraderie-assed bullshit keeps them on-side, but it's so easy to interrupt him. Come talk to our Star Clown, he's so smart and funny and you love him.

i'll match your tenses since mine are all over da place

[wastelandwander]

Lucy had shlepped herself to the location she was sent via Cram-mail (LIKE SPAM MAIL, GET IT? Aha). She honestly was super excited to meet a real clown and go to a real circus. That and ... Buggy seemed like he needed a friend. A friend who could read, and maybe help him with his hair. Poor fella.

Get this: a whole foot shorter than the Noble Clown, wearing a big birdcage full of a fluffy rooster; accompanied by a brown-and-black dog (in wonderful condition relatively speaking, and adorned with a salmon-colored bandana), a girl! Lucy, in fact! She had a perky ponytail and bangs, big brown eyes that are usually only seen on babydolls. While there wasn't any visual proof she was from a Vault, one might know what was up when they spoke to her. Lucy was armed, but her combat shotgun was safely holstered on her back, alongside the female rooster known as Egg Cake.

She's cute, but not to be fucked with! And she won't say fuck!

--Right, so, get this: this little happy-cartoon of a snail-lady nearly walks right into Buggy. Lucy can sneak, but she is not sneaking at this moment. She's looking around at the lights, the games, the sounds. THE SMELLS. She was overwhelmed.

"AHHHH!!! I'M SORRY-- Oh! It's me!" Lucy gestures with both hands at herself, curling her fingers towards herself. "Lucy! From the ad!" Her smile quickly disappears-- "About the circus! Not that other ad. That's not me, that might be a prank I have to investigate..."

[bugminster]

The thing is that she only nearly walks into Buggy, so Buggy is minding his own business and suddenly some chick is yelling AHHHH right behind him. He's startled, so naturally he gets a knife out while he's in the act of spinning around to look at what's startled him, but he's not so jumpy, he doesn't use the knife. In fact he puts it promptly away again once he gets a look at the situation. This is a customer outreach night and we're trying so hard not to have any unscripted violence, in order to encourage future sales and continued moneymaking...

He lights his face up with a grin for her. She's a customer; he's clowning. He's a funny clown guy. "Lucy the Lubber Lady, from the vault! And this must be Four-Dogs-In-One?" A thought occurs to him which pushes the acting-grin off his face. "That thing's trained, right? We've got a variety of animals in the show and we don't want any unscripted violence. Like it won't try to eat a radrat?"

[wastelandwander]

Four barks happily, and does a little circle in place. She sits up on her haunches and holds her paws up with little limp wrists. I think my dog might be gay.

"She's from a super secret organization, of course she is! She will attack anyone attacking me, however, which I assume is fine, since that will not be happening!" Lucy's so cheerful, because she realized that most people take to being direct in the wasteland. Kindness works, firm teacher voices work, and violence. The only thing that didn't work, she found out, were her speech skills.

Unlesssss.... "What does lubber mean again? And if the radrat is cooked, she might try to eat it." She tries to play it cool. Yeah, she's smart. Like a fox!

[bugminster]

Buggy watches the dog's performance with a bemused expression like maybe this dog is trying to upstage him on purpose. "Mohji will love you," he informs the animal.

To the human, all clownish innocence: "Yeah, of course! First of all not gonna happen and secondly self defense is like THE number one form of acceptable violence, right? Anyway lubber means you've never been to sea. What if the radrat's wearing a hat and riding a tricycle? Listen, it's nothing personal, just we already lost a rat and a half this month and we don't need to lose another half a rat into the stomach of somebody's incredibly sweet and cute widdle puppydog."

[wastelandwander]

"She actually really like hats!" Lucy looked down to Four as if the dog could understand English so completely well. The dog just barked happily, once again. And the Egg Cake, the beautiful lady-rooster crowed.

Someone should out-fit Lucy with a one-man-band type outfit. We'll make millions.

"I have not done any pricey property damage all on my own, nor with any animal friends. I assure you." Lucy knew now that she was lying slightly. Anytime something bad had happened, it wasn't completely her fault! If you are going to tell someone to NOT do something, you better tell her neurotic ass why the heck not!!

[smormon]

After hours of having his arm all but wrenched clean out of its socket by one particularly rowdy radrat and its radioactive bite, Joshua is so relieved to see that ridiculous big top that he almost forgets to be cautious. Almost.

As he enters the carnival proper, his hand never quite leaves the space above his holster, ready to draw at a moment's notice. It's obvious enough that, beneath the colourful and frankly bizarre costumes, every worker here is armed to the teeth. The raider working the gate recognized "her Royal Highness" when she saw her on the leash- even if she did stare at him- but there's no telling what will happen once he's handed his furry shield over.

Fortunately, he doesn't have to wander for long before he spots the man in charge. Even if he didn't already tower over almost every other raider here and dress like a sociopathic incarnation of the tent itself, he has the easy authority of one used to having his commands obeyed.

That, and Princess Artemisia immediately races towards him, chittering like a hailstorm all the way as she all but literally drags Joshua along behind her.

"Princess-" He skids to a halt just short of Buggy, both hands gripping the leash just to keep her from climbing straight up the clown's leg. Some of the frustration in his voice falls away as he looks up, only to be replaced by exhaustion. "You must be Buggy."

[bugminster]

"The one and only!" Buggy spreads his hands wide to present himself like he's a real prize. "You must be the guy who found our radrat. Hey, sit," he adds, pointing at the animal. "Sit - there ya go, good rat." One of his coat pockets contains a couple candies. The peanut butter chews wrapped in waxed paper are perfectly safe for a radrat to eat and it doesn't even need to be unwrapped first, which is convenient because it feels goofy to unwrap a piece of candy for a fucking radrat.

This guy's appearance is giving freak, which would be cool, we are a freak4freak establishment. Of course, we're a freak4freak establishment because Buggy wants the other freaks to like him more than because he has a principled stance about it, and there's a really big problem here which is that even more so this guy's demeanor is giving grown-up. He's got gravitas. He's got fucking gravitas while he's walking around a circus with a costumed radrat on a leash. Grown-ups with gravitas don't like Buggy the Clown, as a rule, and Buggy - very reasonably!! - doesn't like people who don't like Buggy. The bodings ain't great.

"You want a peanut butter chew?" he slightly belatedly offers the guy after he's tossed one to the rat. "Thanks for bringing 'er back. All you want for it's water and a meal? Cheap date if true."

Mohji had been surprisingly consolable about the rat but it's good to not let Mohji have "missing a rat" as some kind of excuse to justify "obtaining even more fucking animals" in Buggy's opinion. Better to get this one back, but it seems shady for somebody to go to all the trouble of walking the rat back here for no reward at all. What kind of an angle is that? Sus, even if the guy does drip gravitas so heavy he had to wrap himself up in five hundred yards of towel about it.

[smormon]

Joshua resists the urge to rub his hands all over his face. He's spent the better part of the last two days struggling to get anything more than a moment of begrudging compliance out of the radrat, and even those had generally been bought with Sugarbombs. All it takes from Buggy is a couple of words and she's sitting like a prized hound, bright-eyed and happy in her ridiculous little hat and the knowledge that only two of them here are the clowns- and she isn't one of them.

Somehow, he still has enough dignity not to beg Buggy to take the leash. Refusing rat-treats is somewhat easier, which he does with a small wave and a shake of the head.

"I am a child of God, created unto good works which my Lord hath beforehand ordained. The act is its own reward- that, and I suppose what I heard about this place interested me."

He's studying the man in earnest now, cautious but curious. As raiders go Buggy is being positively hospitable- nor can he say that he's seen wrongdoing beyond what he'd expect of an Old World carnival. Eccentricity seemed hardwired into every wastelander's DNA, to say nothing of its miscreants, but this was something else entirely.

"Most raiders wouldn't have the patience to build something like this," Joshua comments, tone carefully neutral. "Why?"

[bugminster]

"A child of god, huh?" If that's a specific group it's not one Buggy's heard of before but any sailor on the east coast has met at least somebody who believes in gods, and there's a group of deadass pacifists living in Connect-the-dots a couple days south of the Commonwealth - people really do fucking anything, you know. Gods are weirdo shit for losers (oh, you have an invisible boss? Buggy can be seen and touched and he can tell you what to do, too) but it's fine, it's funny that this guy is some kind of good-deeds loser. Makes up for the gravitas.

"I guess you got one up on me cuz I don't know whose kid I am at all," he says with a grin and an air as if this joke is at somebody else's expense rather than his own. "Here, let me get the rat put away. How many times did it bite you on the way in?"

You can say a lot of shit about Buggy's crew - Buggy DOES say a lot of shit about his crew - but they do pay the appropriate and necessary attention to their magnificent and flashy Captain. All it takes is a snap and a wave and one of them's running up to take an order, and thus possession of the radrat. "Congrats, Luny, you get a break from concessions - bring this one back to the rat wagon, if Mohji ain't there then find them and tell them about it, and then get back on those nachos." Luny gives him an aye-aye so he gives her a wink and a finger gun. If you're nice to them sometimes when they're not fucking up then it makes a bigger difference when you're mean to them later when they are fucking up, you know. He likes his people to like him.

Which also sort of vaguely ties in to the answer to this latest question. "The thing is, most raiders are fucking losers and they suck," is his smiling explanation. "Meanwhile I'm built different, I was born for the stage, I have the soul of an arteest, and a clown needs a circus." The showy gestures accompanying these proclamations are fully necessary.

[smormon]

Buggy, clueless, repeats the words back to him as if they described any another gang, but Joshua is used to that. The circumstance of his own birth is not usual. Faith takes strange forms in this new world, particularly amongst those born in its meanest, most isolated towns- the kind in which a higher power means whatever horde of thugs happen to descend that month. Those were the places most in need of the good news his people brought with them on their journeys, spiritual nourishment for those starved of hope and light.

Looking at Buggy, grinning and waving his hand with the air of a runaway prince, Joshua doubts that he is hungry for much more than an audience. He'll save the sermons for another time.

"Once, when I was leashing her," he says. Subconsciously he rubs the twice-bandaged spot on the back of his hand; the wound still stings almost as much as it did the moment he extracted the radrat's teeth from within it. "I didn't give her another chance."

For now he is grateful to have Princess Artemisia removed from his presence, and judging by the way she scampers off with her new attendant the feeling is mutual. Buggy, meanwhile- as expected- seems more than happy to indulge Joshua with his own theatrics. He's obviously practiced this little speech before.

"I've heard of traveling performers, even holomovie actors," though most of those featured in films that even a raider would think twice about showing in public, "but never like this. Do your gang all feel the same way as you?"

CABAJI'S CUSTOMER SERVICE CORNER - OTA

[bugminster]

There's a little bit of striped canvas awning over a table. On the table there's a wire cage and if you lift the wire cage there's a red button labelled EMERGENCY CALL BUTTON. If you press the button Cabaji gets really pissed off and comes back from wherever he currently is. He does have quite a bit of work to do to pull off this show, you know.

If he isn't currently busy, though, he'll be sitting on the table so you can't access the call button, smoking and aura-farming. Any questions or comments can be brought to Cabaji.

[sheepsquatch]

Aries loves a big red button. He'd scoped it out earlier, and thought maybe he could push it. Not happening.

He's back now that the horrid sun has set. Aries strides right up to Cabaji, wearing his gas mask (that he painted blue-red-yellow), dressed down in civvies, but also trying to whistle while shoving his hands in his pockets.

"If you let me push that button, I'll let you give me a cigarette."

[bugminster]

Cabaji looks at this customer in his painted up gas mask. It's not a particularly expressive look that he's giving nor receiving. At night under the carnival lights Cabaji low-key doesn't pass as well - there's a thin ring between the irises and sclera of his eyes which is noctilucent - but for one thing you need to be the kind of person who makes eye contact to even notice it, and for another what difference does it make. The little ring of reflective light on his one visible eye does not make his expression more expressionive. He's doing unimpressed goth aura farming so hard.

"That's an interesting proposal," he says. "The problem with it is that I don't want either one of those things to happen."

[sheepsquatch]

Aries' mask makes it super easy for him to ...mask! He's worn it so long that it just felt like his face at this point. He no longer needed it to keep his jaw set while healing. However, the shaded lens covering his eyes did help when attempting stealth and speech checks.

Aries was feeling kind of frisky and decided to use his powers for evil. This fella might shut that down, Aries wasn't sure yet.

In his grumbly gravely voice, Aries gets pathetic. "Please please please??"

[bugminster]

Buggypirates are pretty mid so you probably have about a 50/50 chance of beating one in a skill check I guess, like unless it's Buggy, because he's a genetic freak and he's not normal, so he's got a 33⅓ chance of beating you which on top of the original 50% means he's got an 83⅓% shot at beating you in the three way cage match at Sacrifice or whatever. But this is just Cabaji.

Cabaji sighs, and does this little theatre-kid dramatic flip of his hair while he rolls his eyes. "Non-emergency use of the emergency call button... 25 caps."

[brokeassgoing]

Currently standing before the humble juggler? sword swallower? chomping on some popcorn, peering between him and the button.

"Why didn't you just hide the button?"

[bugminster]

"If it's hidden, how will people press it if there's an emergency?"

Cabaji gets to be customer service partly because he's one of the most polite people on the crew, as evidenced by his not saying dumbass as part of this response like almost all of the rest of them would have.

Also because he's a rememberer.

"How's the popcorn this time?"

[brokeassgoing]

"Then why the hell are you guarding it like an attack mutt???" Seriously, none of it makes any sense. He raises a brow at Cabaji.

Munching some more: "Less assy."

[bugminster]

"If there's an emergency it calls me. Right now I'm already here, so it doesn't need to get pressed." It makes perfect sense.

A solemn nod. "Good. I'll let the ass removal committee know their work is starting to show."

aries: ota + joshua

[sheepsquatch]

Despite the fact that Aries had pretty much moved into Joshua's camp, they still weren't around each other constantly. Aries was actually very concerned that Joshua would be annoyed with him soon enough. They used the terminal in Joshua's cave, along with a Pip-Boy (RIP Ricky) to keep in contact. Aries liked to go out with Follows-Chalk and look at the taboo buildings with the scout, so he was out when the Pip-Boy blinked with a message from Joshua.

Clown? Rat? BITE? ...Circus? Raiders.

Joshua didn't want him to follow. Of course Aries was going to have to follow him. If he was bit by a creature, and was handling a creature, why didn't he ask the Creature Hunter that was super infatuated with him?

and then!

Aries arrived at the circus, and started to snoop around. He went to the Emergency Call Box and met Cabaji, the beautiful man (possibly not human) on a unicycle (humans cannot ride unicycles).

He demanded to know where the world's strongest baby was located.

Aries could be found playing skee-ball or lifting his mask long enough to scarf some food. He felt that as an Appalachian, he was some sort of connoisseur for weird meat (haha see what I did there?)

Near dark, he will be waiting for the fireworks. This is a little low energy but please tag me I love you.

[smormon]

Joshua hadn't intended to exclude Aries, as such; he is a pragmatic man, and experienced enough to know that two faceless men represented double the risk. Besides, he hadn't planned on sticking around for long enough to make an occasion of it. Arrive, deliver the radrat, resupply, leave. Strictly no festivities included.

Really, he should have known better.

Almost as soon as he'd finished with the circus' ostentatious leader he'd found himself wandering the grounds in search of the same gates through which he'd entered. Either they'd designed this place to be deliberately confusing, or it had really had been that long since Joshua had been somewhere so loud and bright and busy.

In fact, when he finally spotted the familiar blue gas mask over by the battered old high striker, he almost thought he was imagining things.

"Aries?" Edging his way past a few hapless wastelanders- a couple of which stopped to stare, presumably deciding whether or not he was part of the show- he reached out to take the man's shoulder. Definitely real. At once, the surprise in Joshua's voice became stern. "What are you doing here? I told you to wait at Dead Horse Point."

[sheepsquatch]

Aries was admiring the high striker, even so much as touching a curled knuckle to his chin (that mask's chin?) Since he was lost in thought, he didn't realize it was Joshua who had seized him.

Aries reacted like a scared prey animal, except for the way he waved his hands around, as if reaching for a weapon (he was polite and put his plasma rifle into a big box labeled YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, even if it made him nervous to do so). "Whoa what the fu-- OH!"

How would he greet Joshua now? They had not been apart for so long as they had before... before they were roommates (they were roommates!) Aries went to clap a hand onto Joshua's shoulder in return, until he was being scolded.

"You're not my boss!" His tone quickly changed back to joyful, "C'mon, I didn't even let Follows-Chalk follow... me."

[smormon]

Joshua half-expected Aries to recoil like a child caught playing with matches, but no. He was quite unrepentant. He huffed out a sigh, only just resisting the urge to fold his arms in disapproval by reminding himself that he was not, in fact, his father- or Aries', for that matter.

"I asked you to stay because I wanted you to be safe," he said, though it sounded a pretty poor argument even to his own ears. Aries wasn't a defenseless civilian, he was an accomplished hunter. So were the New Canaanites came the wicked little answer, dredged from the same depths that prompted his request in the first place- but no. That was not rational.

The outrage was ebbing away already, leaving in its place only a vague annoyance at having been disobeyed. Joshua relented. "... I'm sorry I didn't show you the radrat. I thought you might want to keep her."

[sheepsquatch]

"You didn't want to tell me about a radrat because you think that you're weak to my begging. And you didn't want me to come with you because I'm... just a hillbilly with a plasma rifle?"

Aries didn't know if he was coming or going, but at least he was being a good sport about it.

"I'd just hate it if you didn't come back and I had to start reading the Bible." He's a little miffed that Joshua saw Aries as a bitch (Aries thoughts, not facts), and yet Aries couldn't worry about Joshua? What a stupid stupid thing, to have friends or lovers. This shit was a wash.

"Do you know how to play skee-ball?" Moodswings.