Oh Mr. Clown, Oh Mr. Clown

[maskormods]

WHO: YOU.
WHERE: Heropa Greenland Park.
WHEN: Sunday August 17th, from 11AM to 10PM.
WHAT: ImPorts participate in the local carnival, hosting their own attractions, helping with the booths and rides, and/or come looking to have a good time. Details here.
WARNINGS: None anticipated; please let us know if this should be edited.

Even in the daytime, Heropa Greenland Park appears almost dour in appearance and atmosphere. Employees of the park open the creaky gates at a few minutes before 11:00AM to allow imPorts and soldiers who have been ordered as security inside. Preparations have already started, with thick and colorful streamers lining hanging from one rusty looking lamppost another along the park's pathway. The booths look a little worse for wear and the while an effort had been made the night before, the park grounds are still coated in soda spills, popcorn, leftover hot dog bits, and other sticky and grimy messes. Sometimes the lights in the event booths flicker or burst entirely.

Needless to say, this place looks like it can use a makeover. While it fares well among its locals and those from Cape Canaveral, it has not been a place of interest among others in the state for quite some time. Right now? It looks more creepy than wholesome family entertainment.

But that's what imPorts are here for, aren't they? To liven up the place!

At the heart of the park is where employees have made enough room as possible for imPorts to set up their own attractions, booths, and whatnot. There will be small platforms for some imPorts and bigger ones may need to be shared among each other, scheduling their time slots for their own performances. There will be tables should anyone need it for performances that don't require a grand stage.

By noon there the line-up park employees had been expecting turns out even better than they had hoped. There are twice as many locals who've shown up, eager to see imPorts in action up close. By 12:30PM the park is bustling with people of all ages and all appear to be having quite the time, despite the occasional issue with the rides such as the merry-go-round (oops, it slows down more than it should), the carousel (it stops at least once every two hours), and the haunted house's lights go down at some point, though this seems to have worked in its favor.

Kids are screaming in delight everywhere, there are teens trying to do risky things on faster moving rides, and everyone is passing through the center at some point to come and check out what imPorts are going to do next.

Put on your best face and give them a show they'll remember, heroes!

Comments

[immigrantpunk]

[Oh right you are from a world of bleakness and pain and therefore don't know who Betty Crocker is.]

Sorry. It's a... big cookbook brand thing. At least where I'm from.

[lyingheart]

[ Wow way to make a girl feel alienated man ]

Does anything come unbranded around here?

[ No really there are brands for everything sigh. ]

Try figuring out one of your ovens without something to tell you how to use it. Nothing's properly wood burning anymore. It's convenient, but strange.

[immigrantpunk]

[HE'S JUST TRYING TO MAKE A JOKE sometimes he forgets who his audience is, that's all.]

Nope. [He puts on an exaggerated Russian accent.] This is America.

[A catchphrase of his own father, in fact, who had always embraced the country's aggressive capitalism with unrelenting zeal, right up until it killed him.]

My dad told me once that when the first McDonalds came to Moscow, people waited in line for three hours just to get a hamburger. Brands are pretty powerful.

[Speaking of lines, theirs is moving swiftly. They get up to the front and Jayden asks for two orders of cotton candy.]

Guess you guys never had an industrial revolution. Pink or blue?

[He's referring to the colors you can get. He also points to the machine, so she can see how how the candy is spun and collected. If stoves are a technological wonder, so probably is this.]

[lyingheart]

Blue.

[ Pink might have been found mostly in meat, and a few edible flowers, but blue really isn't. Aim for the aline. It's more interesting that way. ]

I'm not sure I understand... and no. Not in the way you understand it.

[ Their technology makes no sense, and Annie knows it, from a context of within the Walls. It's not easy to explain. ]

It sounds similar to what the brand... like an idea... represents.

[immigrantpunk]

[She's really not a great audience for his humor, is she. But he takes it in stride, orders two blue cotton candies, pays, and stands aside so she can see it being made.]

America's all about the capitalism. Everything has a brand. Everyone can come to America and make money... at least that's what they tell us. My dad was a big fan of that idea. That's why we moved here.

[Even though it never really panned out for him. Jayden's supposed to be the one who makes it big now, to fulfill the dream his father couldn't. He shrugs.]

[lyingheart]

[ She can learn, if he has patience, but she needs to understand the cues and logic behind them before she'll be amused for the sake of amusement. ]

What else comes alongside the money?

[ She watches the swirling of the paper cone in the machine, wisps of cottony blue collecting and turning into what looked like fine combed wool in the most absurd color. Huh. Annie doesn't look away from the process while it's going on. She can have this little indulgence, she figures. She's learning... something... she guesses. Probably. ]

[immigrantpunk]

Happiness.

[Which is weird, because there's that big English saying that money can't buy happiness. But America really is all about doing just that.]

[lyingheart]

[ Hah. She wonders just how often that fails. Linking the two is a fallacy... though money can lubricate access to what passes as happiness. ]

Does it work out that way all that often, from what you've seen?

[immigrantpunk]

Yeah. For the rich people. For the rest of us...

[He shrugs.]

[lyingheart]

[ The vendor hands over the cotton candy cones, air-light spun sugar in a cloud of strange, indeed cotton like wisps of blue sugar. Annie finds herself shaking her head. ]

Are they even happy, I wonder.

[ She reaches out, accepting one cone, blinking as she takes in how light this really is. Shouldn't it be heavier? She glances to Jayden, briefly confused. Now what? How the hell does she even eat this? ]

[immigrantpunk]

Happier than the poor people, I bet.

[Jayden accepts the other and takes a large bite out of the top of the cotton candy blob with his teeth. A chunk of the candy dislodges, leaving tendrils poking out of his mouth. He grins at her confusion and licks the rest inside with his tongue.]

[lyingheart]

Hmm.

[ No comment. She doesn't see happiness being tied up in money - hardships and the rest are different. Then again, would she know? Does she recognize happiness for herself, or only in others? Some of the happiest people she's known aren't rich... they're barely getting by. Happiness has so much to do with mindsets.

It might explain why her moments of it in recollection are so brief. ]

Are you supposed to eat it like that?

[ Annie herself ends up poking at the blue cloud with her finger - which, just damp enough, starts the predictable melting of spun sugar floss to her further surprise. Jayden's been devouring it like you could swallow part of a cloud - Annie is wide eyed watching her literally dissolving.

What is this nonsense? ]

[immigrantpunk]

You can eat it with your hands, too. Just watch out because... yeah. That'll happen.

[He laughs a bit at her confusion.]

Science is crazy, huh?

[lyingheart]

Science is interesting, this is -

[ sticking to her fingers, and she pulls them back and gives the blue crystals she finds staining her fingertip an experimental lick. tastes 100% like sugar. ohboy ]

- sugar nonsense.

[immigrantpunk]

Delicious sugar nonsense.

[He grins and bites into the cotton candy blob again.]

[lyingheart]

[ she has a love hate relationship with sugar, not used to it, and liable to get amped up and jittery. Nonetheless, she reaches forward and plucks off part of the unmelted cottony goodness, bringing it to her mouth quick as she can to avoid it all melting over her fingers.

oh wow yes that's sugar. she makes a funny face, wrinkling her nose, and shaking her head. ]

It's so - sweet.

[immigrantpunk]

Mmmhmm.

[That's all she's getting out of him, as his mouth is full.]

[lyingheart]

[ Going to pluck off a bit more, but this is - ha. Hahaha she has avoided eating much sugar up to this point, aside from that one strange ice cream taste test with that Stiles guy. ]

Think you'll want the rest of mine? It's... good, really. And rich.

[ IT'S JUST SUGAR ANNIE ]

[immigrantpunk]

You don't like it, do you?

[Still laughing.]

[lyingheart]

It's a lot of sugar.

[ She offers as explanation, paired with a half sigh. Look, she's trying, it's just baby steps. ]

It's not easy to get used to.

[immigrantpunk]

It's okay, it's okay. I guess you need to start young for this stuff.

[You haven't really lived till you've puked up cotton candy on your mom's shoes after a ride on the tilt-o-whirl.]

If you want actual food, we could try some fried dough.

[lyingheart]

How is fried anything real food?

[ no she saw this other fried thing earlier and it was



absolutely stomach turning because it involved shape changing a snail into an edible





that is so not okay ]

Is there anything normal around here?

[immigrantpunk]

[Jayden shrugs.]

Probably not.

[He licks a finger to get the stickiness off it.]

We could make a break for it, if you want.

[lyingheart]

Please.

[ CAN WE LEAVE CARNIVAL HELL NOW JAYDEN ]

[immigrantpunk]

[Eyebrows go shooting up. He didn't expect her to take him up on that.]

You sure you won't get in trouble for defecting? [Looks around the sad little park.] Although... I guess we've done our duty.