#carnies

[unclefathersantateddy]

Lil practices of some of your fave side characters! :) Can't tell if I'm being super critical or if my art is getting worse, not a great feeling but not gonna dwell on it. It's practice practice practice!!!

Credit to @thelovablycynicalerinmac for the Grover ref!!!

[brantheblessed]

I remember the good days when carnival folk were strange, exciting, with a hint of danger (get in the tiltawhirl at your own risk.) Now they are all just illegals in corporate t-shirts.

[rastronomicals]

7:44 PM EDT October 13, 2024:

Rush - "Carnies" From the album Clockwork Angels (June 8, 2012)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under: Bands that first broke in Cleveland

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[neonfeel]

Nightmare Alley (2021)

[rustbeltjessie]

Carnies

That's what we went for, Holly and I, not for the rides or the games we couldn't win. What were we then, fourteen, fifteen, wearing cut-offs and our brothers' workshirts. Holly tossing her hair as we walked down the midway, her talking big and me saying nothing, a halfstep behind her. But don't you know how deep summer crawls inside you in a town like that. You can't keep still, you need fast fresh air from another place. And if boys your own age try showing off for you there, you nod and shrug but keep glancing away. You look over at the quick swipes of grease on the jeans of some muscled roustabout unlocking the safety bars on the Octopus, you watch the flutter of his T-shirt, the travel of his eyes. And when he looks at you you're caught not knowing what to do, and afraid to smile. You just move on through that broken-down music. Holly and I, we took our time getting on and off those rides, we craved that coolness just an extra second airborne, scrambling summer and Main Street and a stranger's level gaze. And you bet we'd take them home with us, their soft goddamns that followed us out, and wouldn't we toss all night with them, too.

—Debra Allbery, from Walking Distance (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991)

[johnhopkinsphotography]

Funtastic Portland at Day June 3, 2023

[germ-t-ripper]

12AUG23 Twins mayhem all the time!

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Space Oddity

Chapter 1: Fish Boy

Chapters: 1/?

Warnings: N/A

Rating: K

Characters: Garth, Donna Troy, Wally West, Dick Grayson, Roy Harper

Summary:  Garth grew up in a carnival freakshow, and he never thought about the world outside the glass walls of the aquarium until a group of kids befriended him. Their love and interest in finding his people might be the key to escaping the silent horrors of his home life at the show.

Additional Tags: Carnival AU, 60's AU, 70's AU, Hurt/Comfort, Developing Friendships, Atlantean Biology, Fish Out Of Water, No Powers AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Tiny Garth, Fab Five Throughout the Years, Found Family, POV Garth, First Person POV

Sometimes I can remember what my first home looked like. I remember the ocean. I remember the sky above me, the waves washing over my face, the sound of seagulls overhead. On other days, I can barely remember the taste of fish and seaweed on a summer’s day. I eat their strange food, but it’s familiar to me now. As far as I know, I’m the only one of my kind. I watch from my tank as people pass by. Some of them stop and look and wonder. Others point and make faces. It used to scare me. Sometimes it still does. I’m not allowed to come to the surface when we have guests. It makes me seem like a regular person when I breathe their air, and I wouldn’t mind it if I could hear what people say. They all look at me and move their mouths, but I can’t understand them through the water and the glass.

The man who found me said he’d had me since I was two or three. So, I think I was six years old the first time I saw her. The man didn’t talk much. But he taught me how to read and count after hours when the freak show called it quits for the night. I was their Aqualad, but I also overheard people call me the Fish Boy of Happy Harbor when they cleaned my tank. Everyone else had a real name outside of what they were on the stage, but I was the show’s property. My name was my title.

The Tattooed Man’s name is Luis, the Wolf Man’s name is Walter, and so on. Sometimes they came to see me. Some of them told me about life outside the Aquarium. I wasn’t allowed to leave the building, not that I’d get far. I never got to walk much further than the length of the Aquarium. Sometimes at night, the other folks from the show would visit and read to me until I sank to the bottom of my tank and fell asleep. I loved hearing their stories, but sometimes it frightened me.

We had dinner together in the Aquarium late after all the guests went home, and I sat outside my tank, eating and listening. It was the only time other than breakfast that we were all together. “Drink your milk, Fishy,” Eunice whispered as she pulled me onto her lap. I gripped my cup and drank my milk as Eunice requested.

I always ate dinner wrapped in a towel. It was the only time of day when I was dry. It was the only time of day when I was held. Eunice babied me, and I loved her for it. She stroked my cheek with her finger. “Fisher, give him another meatball. He’s a growing boy-.”

“You’re more than welcome to give him one of yours-.”

“Here, Fishy,” Walter whispered as he gave me half his last meatball. He held his hand under my chin and fed it to me.

“What do we say, Fishy?” Eunice asked. She liked to hear me talk. I was afraid to speak because I didn’t sound like anyone there. I’d never heard another child’s voice before. So, I always thought I sounded strange. “It’s alright…”

“Thank you,” I peeped.

Murray, the strong man, stared at me before glancing at Fisher. He was fairly new to the show. “How old is Fishy? And what’s his Christian name?” Murray questioned.

“Fishy doesn’t have a name. We call him Lad or Fish,” Fisher replied, “And he’s five or six maybe… I don’t know. I fished him out of the water three years ago.” I didn’t like hearing the story. I still had the scars back then and didn’t like feeling like the strangest oddity in the bunch. They all felt bad for me because they’d never seen anything like me. I shut my eyes and laid my head on Eunice’s chest. She rocked me as Fisher spoke.

“I was out fishing for dinner when I pulled up a net full of fish. At first, I heard this whining noise like the whippin’ of the wind, and when I opened the net, a tiny hand reached up from the midst of the fish…

“The nets cut him up pretty bad because he struggled like the dickens to get loose… I thought he might’ve fallen in the water, but he had on these funny-lookin’ kelp shorts, and his neck-. He had gills like a fish. I’d never seen anything like him. Once I got him loose of the fish and the net, he sat up, hollerin’ worse than any baby I’d ever heard. And the fish stopped their jumping and laid flat and still.

“When I got him home to the carnival, he’d nearly dried out, burning with fever, and I filled a tub with water, and he got to splashin’ and playin’ like nothing was wrong. So, I called him Fishy. Sometimes I called him Aqualad for the show once I got the tank together, though,” Fisher explained.

Eunice stood up, still holding me, and handed me over to someone else. “I think it’s time for Fishy to get to bed. We’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Eunice whispered. I didn’t want to open my eyes, so I kept them shut as I sank to the bottom of the tank. Then, they shut off the lights. I slept until the first summer’s crowd woke me in my tank.

It was early morning, and the guests ogled and snapped pictures, and some of the children pressed their faces against the glass. It frightened me, and I hid behind my rocks until Fisher came and glanced at me through the other side of the glass. I had to come out because I was the star. The crowds thinned out around lunchtime, and I never got lunch during the summer. I worked as long as there were people around.

But I wouldn’t have seen her if I took a break. She had to be my age because she was small like me. She held the hand of an older girl as she traveled through the Aquarium, and I swam beside them, hoping to grab their attention. Sometimes I did that to guests to get a closer look. She turned toward me and gasped. I couldn’t hear it through the glass, but I saw it on her face as she covered her mouth with both hands and stumbled backward into the older girl. I’d seen it hundreds of times. Most children were frightened, and some ridiculed me when they were that small, but she did something no one else had ever done. She stepped toward the glass and gestured with her hands for me to come close. I hid behind a boulder. The girl stepped even closer, beckoning me with a single finger. She held her hands over her heart to prove she meant no harm. I sank to the bottom of the tank and stepped toward the glass. She pressed her hand against the glass and smiled.

I placed my hand where hers was. Then, I used a trick I reserved for people that got close enough to feel it. I cooled the glass between our hands, not enough to harm the girl or crack the glass, but enough for her to know I did it. She giggled, lifting her palm away from the glass, looked at the older girl, and said something. Other guests came, and I had to leave, but I hoped she’d follow. When I returned, she was gone, and I wept bitterly. I’d never experienced loneliness or longing like that before, but it was quickly interrupted by the rapping of Fisher’s knuckles against the glass. A threat. No one wanted to pay money to see a sad freak. Fisher constantly warned me about seeming upset in front of guests, and this time was no different.

I stuck my thumb in my mouth and turned a few flips in the water to distract the guests from my short tantrum. Still, I missed the mystery girl and her sweet gesture. No guest had ever been that kind to me before. I thought about her so long after she’d gone that I forgot I was due for punishment from Fisher.

After the guests left, he fished me out of my tank —which was always terrifying. Then he gave me the speech. “See this strop here?” Fisher asked as he paced in front of me. I nodded. “I use it to sharpen my blade when I shave. It also makes a kid sharp.” He paused. “You gotta be sharp in this business, Fish. If this place goes under, where does that leave you? Huh? Do you like taking food out of all those people’s mouths? People are depending on you, Fishy. And now I have to punish you.”

I never ran. There was no point in running. I didn’t kick, scream, or fight. But boy, did I cry! Sometimes his punishments felt like they’d never end. I didn’t get supper that night. I hid in my little cave and cried myself to sleep.

[worldsewage]

My bacteria means I like it.

[danu2203]

DIRTY, STINKING, LOVELY CARNIES!

[unclefathersantateddy]

Someone buy me this for graduation so I can start my Real Life as my carnie oc

[scumgristle]

Shit MAGAnet.

we’re thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to the President of The United States of America being the Netflix adaptation of Jim Goad.

[rastronomicals]

8:31 PM EDT May 6, 2024:

Rush - "Carnies" From the album Clockwork Angels (June 8, 2012)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under: Progressive Rock, Canadian Branch

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[irreplaceable365]

[thecurefordepression]