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life's a circus

Life's a Circus, Friday, Second Period

"We've talked about this a little this session, but each of you has your own special skills that might not directly apply to your typical circus act," Dick said to kick off this week's workshop. As the students looked around, they probably realized they weren't in the normal big top tent, but in a smaller tent with stages all around the perimeter. "And when whatever you can do just doesn't translate to big, flashy death-defying stunts, you can always come to the sideshow."

"A lot of the time, the sideshow ends up being filled with people who are very gently called 'human oddities.' Historically, that can be anything from giants (really tall people), midgets (really short people), tattooed freaks (not much of a sideshow act these days), fat ladies, human skeletons (extremely thin people), wolfboys (men with conditions where they're covered in hair all over their face), and many more," Dick said. "But as society's progressed, a lot of those acts have started to become more uncomfortable for the customers. Also, there's the fact that you can see a lot of those act on the trashier talk shows or reality shows, so the interest isn't necessarily there."

"But one thing that you don't get on TV and that never goes out of style is people doing insane things like swallowing swords or eating fire. Really, those are skills you can learn, but most people don't bother suppressing their gag reflex just so they can shove a sword down their throat and risk a crazy kind of death," Dick said. "But that's kind of the point. The best stuff on the sideshow is just a strange talent you have that you can demonstrate in an entertaining manner. Double jointed? There's a place for you. Do you have good aim and a good arm? Try knife throwing. Do you have enough confidence in weight distribution to lie on a bed of nails and know you're not going to get hurt? It looks impressive."

"So what I want everyone to do today is just pick some random, weird thing you can do, get on one of the stages, and demonstrate it. If you need props, there's plenty over in a box by that stage," Dick said. "That should give you pretty much anything you need. And remember, safety protocols are on, so if you really want to try swallowing a sword, you can't slash up your insides and you won't choke to death."

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Like a freak!

Butters Stotch

Cara

Stephanie Brown

Mercy Thompson

Sam Puckett

Juliet Darling

Fredward Benson

Annie Edison

Jocelyn Fairchild

Richie Ryan

Jack McCallister

Find out about freaks and oddly talented people.

Mercy was standing to the side, looking wiped out and listening. She was not going to be sitting any time soon.

Stephanie would totally be doodling in her notebook during the lecture if she had one, but since she didn't she was looking around the tent, trying to get a decent sense of her surroundings.

Well, technically speaking I am part of the best kind of freakshow the circus that is good ol' Gotham has to offer, but who knew? That doesn't translate so well to the actual circus. Go figure.

Get up on stage and do something weird.

Keep it clean, people!

Yeah, Mercy couldn't think of anything weird to do right now. Pain and sleep deprivation would do that to a girl. Plus the whole moving the bottom left part of her body was decidedly unfun.

Sam could do a lot of weird stuff, but she wasn't sure how much of it was really sideshow worthy. Web show, sure, but side show?

She thought for awhile about what to do, then got up on one of the stages. "Uh," she said. "Anyone got an entire ham on them?"

Dick grabbed the Danger Shop remote and pressed a couple buttons. A ham appeared on a platter by Sam.

"Just remember, that's not real and it isn't going to be filling," Dick said.

Sam sighed sadly. Next time, she was totally going to have to bring in her own ham.

"Well, that will make this a little less impressive." And probably leave her craving ham. "But, hey, you work with what you got."

And then she proceeded to down all 10 fake pounds of the ham in a matter of five minutes.

Juliet couldn't think of anything weird she could do on her own, but she had An Idea.

"I'm a twin," she reminded Dick. "Can I get my brother and we can pretend to be Siamese twins?"

"Officially speaking, I can't condone lying to the audience like that," Dick said. "But yeah, sure. Joined at the hip or shoulder?" They were the easiest places to fake being joined as long as you had the right clothes.

"Hip," Juliet decided, very pleased her proposal had been accepted. "That way we can use our hands ... ooh, and I can wear platform shoes so the height difference doesn't show."

She shrugged a little. "It's not really lying, is it? It's more putting on a good show."

"The circus kid in me completely agrees with you," Dick said. "But the ethics of running a circus and teaching a class are different. So during this hour of the week, I try not to encourage partial truths."

Unless it was for a very good reason. Or, really, any semi-justifiable reason.

What could a girl who was good at softball and gymnastics (if you were only counting the innocuous civilian stuff, anyway) do in a circus sideshow, anyway? All the other interesting stuff she knew was strictly under-the-mask stuff (and mostly learned for the sake of a role she'd inherited, whose skillset had been largely derived from these circus skills in the first place, which was all very braintwisty and weird if she thought about it too much) and she couldn't go showing that off. Maybe most of the other students wouldn't get it, but if Dick did, he might get frowny at her for putting her secret identity at risk.

And that would be just what I need, the original Boy Wonder's disapproving face. Like a hole in the head.

Well . . . there was always knife throwing, right? Playing second base for the Gotham Heights varsity team had once translated to knocking out a robber with a diamond to the head (and the accompanying "girl's best friend" quip, naturally), so she could try that.

The knives weren't exactly Batarangs, though. Miiiiiiiiiiiight be a good idea to give Steph a bit of a wide berth here. She wouldn't be flinging blades around all willy-nilly, no, but a good number of them did whistle past the edges of the target. Ooooh. Frustration-making.

Gah.

Freddie was not a great performer. He thought about this for a second, before getting up on stage.

"I, uhhh, can answer any trivia questions about Galaxy Wars or World of WarLords?"

Neeeeeeeerd.

Who isn't showing off his weird skills because, come on, he's big top talent.

Mercy, who was NOT sitting down today, limped her way over to Dick. "I, um... can't do very much today, I'm afraid."

"So I see," Dick said, making note of the limp. "Hurt your leg?"

"Had an unfortunate run-in with a rancher and his shotgun," Mercy said ruefully.

"That'll do it," Dick said. "Actually, that'll usually do worse. You seem to be in pretty good shape today considering that." It was all relative, after all. Being alive at all was doing pretty well, considering.

She nodded. "I run pretty fast, just not fast enough to get out of the way of the second shot."

"Good job, I guess, making sure it wasn't much worse," Dick said. "And don't worry about the activity. Your sideshow talent can be having survived a shotgun. It wouldn't be the first time something like that ended up on the sideshow."

She smiled at him a little ruefully. "Then this makes my third time. I suppose that's something."

I meant to get this up last night, but instead I slept and had to put this together as quickly as I could this morning.

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Life's a Circus, Friday, Second Period

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