Figure 4: Video Game System
Figure 4: Video Game System
“Come one! Come all! To the Greatest Show in New Jersey!”
So declared Frankie Scarpino in his shiny ringmaster outfit to the visitors entering the grounds of his circus. He used to call it the “Greatest Show on Earth”, until the B&B lawyers paid him a visit.
There was going to be a show under the big top tonight, a chance for him to shine, to show himself as the master of ceremonies, and practically force the locals to cheer themselves hoarse for him. For now, though, he was merely the puppet master of this circus, working behind the scenes to ensure that everything was just right. One example of this was the midway, an opportunity to fleece those yokels of every cent they had. Frankie walked proudly down the well-trod mud-and-dirt pathway, nodding at each of the men and women running their crooked little games or selling their grossly overpriced fair food. Those visitors who refused to pay were targeted by his pickpocketers.
He stopped at the end of the midway, the destination of almost all of the circus-goers in recent weeks, especially the families: the pony carousel. Given the massively increased demand, the $5 a ride being charged came dangerously close to being...a fair price. Something needed to be done.
“Martin, come here,” he ordered.
“Um, I’m a little busy, Ringmaster,” William said. As usual, he was attempting to put down a riot caused by yet another little girl who was being asked to settle for riding a non-unicorn pony.
With a roll of the eyes, Frankie walked up, plucked a marker pen off of the ground, and made a modification to the sign in front of the ride. It now read “Pony Rides: $5. Unicorn Rides: $10.”
“New line!” he announced to the crowd. “Stand over here if you want to ride...” What was the animal’s name? “Rarity. Right, Rarity the Unicorn.”
About two thirds of the kids in line began pulling their designated adults towards the ringmaster.
“Ten dollars!?” a father protested.
“Supply and demand, pal,” said Frankie. At seeing that a fair number of adults weren’t buying it, he switched to a different tack. “Think of it this way, kids: for $5, you still get to see the unicorn, and you don’t have to wait eight times as long to get your turn. Which means you’ll have time afterwards for candy and games, and more corn dogs than you can stand!” Yes, that did mean that there would be random spots of “yuck” behind tent corners that would have to be cleaned up afterwards. Thinking about hundreds of dollars in corndog-fueled profits generally made the feelings of disgust go away, Frankie found.
The ringmaster’s statement gave rise to an immense amount of argument, indecision and bargaining among the children and their parents (or close relatives, or poor schmucks talked into taking care of the brat for a night). What it definitely stopped was the all the screaming and yelling at William.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Frankie said to William.
“Yeah,” said William with a smile.
“I don’t suppose you’ve tried taping horns on any of the other ponies.”
Williams sighed. “I tried, but they all ended up pulling them off.”
Frankie made a disappointed grunt, before turning to go. “Maybe we can talk that vet surgeon into converting a few more of your animals into mythological beasts for free,” he speculated out loud. “Maybe even staple on a pair of wings. It should be simple enough—I just have to dig up some blackmail material.”
For perhaps the thousandth time, William wondered why he had anything to do with the Pagliacci Brothers Family Circus.
& & &
As Frankie finally walked into the big top to oversee preparations for that night’s show, he saw Julia standing at the entrance, watching the carousel.
“Hey, Sis,” he said to get her attention.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“As my main attraction, I’m holding you personally responsible for the drop in big top revenue this year.”
“But that’s because everybody’s spending their money on Rarity rides!” she protested.
“Don’t care,” Frankie said, waving a hand in the air. “Find a way to spice up the act, or I’ll send you out there to help your sister walk the ponies.”
Julia seethed.
And Frankie laughed out loud as he walked into the tent. “I love this job!” he exclaimed.
“You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen!”
Rarity waltzed into the back door of Chuckles’ Appliance Repair, a brand-new plywood shack constructed right next to the circus entrance, so that customers didn’t have to pay admission. Frankie Scarpino didn’t mind, as he got 20% of Chuckles’ profits as rent.
The constant music being played by the audio equipment inside actually acted as a form of advertisement, as it was the highest quality music that anybody in Passaic had ever heard. That at least was 100% Chuckles’ work. There was no possible way that the business would have been a success without Rarity, so the clown was very careful to keep a mental catalog of his few solo successes, for the sake of his flagging ego.
Rarity truly proved to be a genius when it came to electronic repair, and that “eye” of hers was able to spot problems so quickly that Chuckles rarely even bothered to do any diagnoses himself during the hours when she was available to him. Therefore, as soon as he heard her enter the shop, he picked up the inexplicable little device he had been fiddling with and carried it into the back.
Rarity was seated on a meticulously clean dog cushion, looking over the various broken pieces of machinery that were laid out around her. Wire stands were used to hold up schematics behind those devices that Rarity hadn’t worked with before.
“Good afternoon, Rarity,” said Chuckles, holding the device aloft. “We’ve got a gadget here that I’ve heard a lot about, but never seen before now. It’s called an ‘Atari Video Computer System’, and apparently it lets you play multiple games on your TV using the same device! I hope this one isn’t more than you can handle.”
Rarity dismissively waved a hoof for him to place the device and its accompanying pile of folded schematics before her. And then she set to work. To Chuckles’ eyes, she seemed to skip randomly from one broken item to another, scanning one schematic with her eyes while pointing at a broken part on an entirely different device with one hoof, or with a mouth-held pointer. Chuckles had found to his amazement—but apparently not hers—that the pony’s efficiency increased tremendously the more simultaneous challenges she faced. It was like she was built for multi-tasking. All the while, the lights in her gaudy plastic horn blinked in a chaotic, mesmerizing pattern.
As she identified each problem, Chuckles would pick up the device and fix it. He’d fix nearly a dozen of them until Rarity got tired, and then he would start testing them. For the few devices that required more than a single fix, Chuckles would put them back down before Rarity for another round.
Rarity meanwhile spent her break times scanning through Chuckles’ library. He had quickly determined that her interest lay in two areas: history and fashion. Near as he could tell from the pony’s quite readable expressions, the history to her was business, while the fashion was pleasure. Understandable enough for an alien sent to this planet to determine whether it needed to be obliterated or not—Chuckles’ opinion was firmly in the “obliterate” camp, as he had explained very thoroughly to the pony on multiple occasions.
& & &
The pair’s work was interrupted by the ringing of a bell in the front part of the shop. Chuckles shut off the TV he had been testing and walked through a door to step behind a counter. In front of that counter was a large red-faced man hugging a toaster like it was a family heirloom. He was wearing a pair of small and—to judge by his constant squinting—badly prescribed eyeglasses.
“Can I help you?” Chuckles asked.
The man peered at him and scowled. “I’d like to give this to somebody responsible,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Chuckles asked coldly.
“Somebody in charge. Somebody I can give this here appliance to who won’t sell it to his shifty friends for gamblin’ money and drugs. Send me your boss, boy!”
“I’m the boss of this shop, sir,” the clown said, barely keeping his temper in check. “And you’re free to take your business to another shop if you wish. Of course, you brought it here because you heard that I’m the best, which I am. So is it possible that the only reason you’re not willing to trust your toaster to me is because I’m white?”
The would-be customer was flabbergasted. “I...what?”
“You heard me,” the greasepainted technician said, getting his face right in the other man’s. “You don’t trust me because of the color of my face! I’ll have you know that white men are responsible for some of the greatest deeds of human civilization!”
“Wait, no, I didn’t want to offend! Here, here take the toaster. I dropped it this morning and now the spring’s stuck, and if my Martha finds out she’ll skin me alive. If you can fix it by the end of the show tonight I’ll pay you $20. In fact, here’s the $20 right now, to show how much I trust you! Just...just don’t tell anybody, OK?”
Chuckles picked up the bill and held it up to the light. “All right,” he said slowly, “I won’t tell anybody that you’re racist against white folk.”
“Oh thank you! Thank you!” the man said, before scurrying out of the shop.
& & &
Chuckles cackled loudly as he returned to the back room. He stopped when he saw that Rarity was staring at him with a puzzled expression.
“So, you heard all that, didn’t you?” he asked.
The pony nodded.
“Well...if you don’t know about racism already, I’m probably the wrong guy to give you an unbiased opinion of it.”
Once Rarity had left to do her time with Chuckles, William and Antonia got to work: he to put the carousel into storage and to clean up the area where it had been, and Antonia to brush down the ponies who had been using the carousel and to care for those of her ponies who were either too sick or too fatigued to be put on it today.
Officers Gloomfeld and Grukin walked into the stable several hours into this routine. They turned to leave as soon as they saw that William wasn’t there.
“Hold it!” Antonia ordered. “How’s the investigation going?”
Gloomfeld turned to Gruekin. “When did you tell her that—”
“I’m not stupid,” Antonia said. “And I don’t mind, seeing that my connections have had no better luck than yours.”
“Your connections?” asked Gloomfeld.
“The Families,” Antonia explained. She pointed at the CB radio. “I want that guy for what he did to my Rarity. Since they haven’t had any luck, I’m willing to trust in the law, for once. So spill it.”
“Well,” answered Gruekin, consulting his notes, “all we’ve been able to get out of any of his recorded taunts are references to various individuals throughout history. Including, oddly enough, the future—somebody named ‘Pinkie’ will apparently do something significant in 1987, and ‘The Flutter Shy’ is tied to the Year 2019, ‘when synthetic animals will outnumber real ones’.”
“We were thinking of trying another tack,” said Gloomfeld. “Maybe you can help.”
“What do you want to know?” asked Antonia, taking off her curry comb.
“What do you know about Buttercup II?”
“Best damn pony a man could ever know!” Antonia blurted out.
At the same time, all of the ponies in the stable reared back as they neighed in terror.
Gruekin quietly added a mark to a tally he had been using to keep track of how people responded the first time they heard Buttercup’s name in conversation. The top answer was some variation of “Who?”, but Antonia’s exact words were a close second. After a second of thought, he added the new response “[Incoherent Panic]?”. He would have put eleven tally marks after that, but felt sheepish about counting the reaction of a pony with the same weight as that of a human being.
“Why do you want to know about her?” Antonia asked.
“Well,” said Gloomfeld, “don’t you think it convenient? She disappears and opens up room for you to take in a new pony, just as Rarity shows up?”
Antonia’s jaw dropped open for a few seconds, before snapping shut. “That bastard!” she roared. She stomped over to the CB machine and picked up the microphone. “If I ever get my hands on you, you’re going to wish you never saw a pony for as long as you live!”
“Are you going to be OK?” asked Gruekin.
Antonia took a few seconds to calm down. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “So what else do you want to know about her?”
“Well first of all,” asked Gruekin, “I assume there was a Buttercup I?”
“Yes,” said Antonia, “Although since my husband handled the purchase, he’d be the one to tell you. Billy!”
“Yes, Pumpkin?” William said, poking his head in the stable.
“Could you be a dear and answer these men’s questions while I get back to the ponies? They said they might be able to find Rarity’s tormenter.”
“Oh, uh, sure.” He walked the rest of the way in. “What do you want to—?”
“Buttercup II.”
“Best damn pony a man could ever know!”
Another point was recorded.
“Buttercup I.”
“She was a farm pony,” William told the two officers. “Lived about twenty or so miles west of here. Extremely bright, according to her owner. She died in a lightning storm giving birth to Buttercup II. Although actually, her body was never found...just like what eventually happened to her daughter. All they found was a tree reduced to cinders right next to the newborn foal. Buttercup II had a white splotch on her forehead that people say looked like a lightning bolt...if those people were drunk off of their gourds, that is.”
“Dear, what time is it?” Antonia asked from the back of the stable.
William consulted his watch. “6:15,” he answered. Turning to the officers, he said, “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut off this interview—Rarity’s late.”
“That’s alright,” said Gruekin. “We’ll let ourselves out.”
“Come back any time,” said Antonia. “Out of your uniforms, of course.”
“Of course,” said Gloomfeld with a polite smile.
Antonia followed the three men out of the stable, and then closed and padlocked the front gate.
Gruekin waited five minutes for the couple to be out of earshot, and then walked up to the open screen window on one side of the stable. “Mademoiselle Rarity,” he said in a clear voice.
There were a few somewhat friendly noises from the ponies.
“Frau Buttercup,” said Gruekin.
Eleven ponies neighed in terror.
The Martins headed straight for Chuckles’ Appliance Repair to pick up Rarity. They found that the place was closed, so they went over to the prep tent, where Chuckles was putting together the props he’d use in his act in the big top that was about to start.
Unfortunately, by using the rear entrance, they failed to see the big sign at the main entrance to the big top: “See the true story of the owners of Rarity the Unicorn.”
“Where’s Rarity?” Antonia asked Chuckles.
“Oh, she went with Julia hours ago,” Chuckles answered.
“What?!” Antonia demanded.
“Yeah, she said you asked her to add Rarity to her act...you did no such thing, did you?”
“Oh, God, what is she up to now?”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice of Julia carried over the loudspeakers, “I wish to present to you a parable...starring Rarity the Unicorn.”
Antonia, Martin and Chuckles pushed their way out of the prep area into the back of the main tent. There they saw Julia standing atop Thunderbolt’s back as he galloped around the inside of the center ring. In the center of the ring stood Rarity, trying to balance on her hind legs. She was wearing a miniature version of Antonia’s patchwork dress. Her face was smeared with makeup so bright it made her look like one of Chuckles’ coworkers. Julia lowered herself down upon the black horse’s back and began to contort herself. Soon many of the parents in the audience felt the need to cover their children’s eyes. Unfortunately, they couldn’t as easily block out the sounds that Julia was making.
The horse, who had been running so hard and so long that he had begun the visibly sweat, turned his eyes to Rarity, who sort of hopped a bit in place in response.
Julia leapt off of Thunderbolt’s back and landed next to the microphone stand. “Oh!” she exclaimed theatrically. “I would never do that, William, it’s much too perverted!”
On hearing this cue, Thunderbolt bolted straight to Rarity, knocking her over.
“Oh, Sister, you brute!” Julia cried out gleefully. “It seems you two are meant for each other!” She scanned the audience, before finding Antonia standing behind her. “Oh!” she exclaimed in a stunning display of bad acting. “I didn’t expect to see you here! Oops!”
Antonia restrained herself from her first impulse—to jump her elder sister and pummel her into unconsciousness—to first turn to her husband. “Aren’t you going to defend my honor? Tell them that none of this is true!”
“Um...well,” William prevaricated. “We need to save Rarity!”
There was a loud crack from the center of the ring, and the large black stallion fell over unconscious, a bruised but triumphant small white pony standing triumphantly upon his body.
“I’ll kill her!” Julia screamed, running into the ring.
Now Antonia had no good reason to stop herself from assaulting her sister in public.
Frankie Scarpino carefully took in the entire scene before him. If this was what the public wanted, if this was what they were willing to pay for, then he had no objection whatsoever to his two sisters trying to kill each other. Profit after all was the highest possible motive. But this public was made of simpler stuff, and it was clear that they were more disgusted than titillated by what they were seeing. Frankie nodded to himself as he stepped into the limelight. “Enough of this!” he bellowed.
The two sisters froze at the dreaded voice of their elder brother.
Frankie turned down his voice in order to relay his orders to his workers/family. “You, get your horse out of here—I don’t care if you have to drag him out on your own back! You, get your pony out of this tent! And you”—this last order directed at Chuckles—“get out there and start your act! Move!” His work done, Frankie picked up the microphone stand and dragged it over to another ring, where he hoped to distract the audience from the cleanup operation.
It took some work, but it turned out that Julia could carry Thunderbolt out on her back. With his assistance, of course.
William reached out to help his wife to her feat.
“Get out of my sight!” she screamed at him, shoving him away.
“Dear!” William protested. “I love you!”
“Only after my sister was done with you! Why did you never tell me?” Her voice was descending into a shriek, more like the voice of a bird than a woman.
“I...I was afraid,” William admitted. “Afraid you’d never marry me if you knew the truth.”
“And you were right!” Antonia screamed. “I was...your second choice! I never want to see you again!”
Antonia Martin collapsed into a sobbing wreck. As William Martin exited the tent in shame, only Rarity was there to comfort her.
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So, Pinkie's going to 1987...
I'm trying to figure out what unhappy event happened then, and have come to the conclusion that she is either tied to:
1. Any of the 19 plane crashes during that year, (my guess is either Northwest Airlines 255, or LOT 5055)
2. The two major rail disasters (The Chase MD collision, or the Bintaro Train Crash)
3. The deaths of Budd Dywer or Malcom Baldrige
4.The introduction of the Canadian One Dollar coin
5. The Unabomber
6. Iran-Contra
7. The USS Stark incident, or the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise
8. The premiere of The Simpsons
9. The Kings Cross Fire of 1987
And most likely:
10. The Max Headroom broadcast incident
Am I right?
4941019
Hee hee. No.
Unlike Twilight and Applejack, Rarity didn't land in the middle of any major news event (so far...). Instead, she landed in the stereotypical year of the (late) 70's, 1978.
Well, 1987 for me is the stereotypical year of the (late) 80's.
Besides, Pinkie would never land in anything as boring as a news event, which eliminates everything but 8 & 10 from your list. Try to be more creative.
(That being said, in the extremely unlikely event I ever write Pinkie's story, I'm going to have to find some way to make her responsible for the Max Headroom incident, even as a throwaway action.)
...Wait a second, isn't the Canadian one dollar coin also known as the Loonie?
OK, you guessed it, Pinkie is totally responsible for the Loonie.
4941737
Right, I have two more guesses right now, and will have more later today.
1.American Bandstand films its last episode
2. Bob Barker stops dyeing his hair
More likely is
3. Sonny and Cher reunite on Letterman (when it was on NBC!)
4941758
1987 was the year that the agreement to build Euro Disney was signed.
Oh boy, this is an interesting turn of events now isn't it?
4942508
But Discord sent them to places that were the opposite of their elements (Rarity to the 70's, Fulttershy to a point where there are more fake animals than real ones, etc), so EuroDisney doesn't count.
4943098
Oh, I missed that part. What is so ungenerous about the 70's?
4943818
I misspoke. Actually, it's more like the opposite of what they like the most, and the 70's gave us bell bottoms and the leisure suit, so that's where Discord sent Rarity.
4941758
You're still way off.
Like I said, Rarity and Pinkie's stories revolve around generalities rather than specifics. I mean, there was an Atari 2600 in this last chapter, and an Egyptian attempt to foil a hijacking in Cyprus was mentioned in Chapter 2, but neither of those had any significance upon the plot whatsoever. So lots of 1987-specific things could show up in Pinkie's story (again, assuming I ever write it), but since none of them are important to the plot, I'm not bothering to include any of them in her story except as they make for interesting background details.
You are on the money, though, that Discord put her someplace really annoying. I'll give you a hint: it's a little-observed difference between the 80's and the 90's.
4943818
On top of what JZ1 said, I'd add that even though the 70s in general wasn't lacking in generosity, the very specific location where Rarity finds herself in the 70's most certainly is lacking in it.
4945080
What, Compuserve?
I've been looking for nearly an hour, and I still have nothing! Tell Meeeee!
4945374
Sigh. Fine.
I'm only giving it away because it's never going to be revealed in this story, and I really doubt that I'll write it.
Pinkie's stuck in the movies of the late 80's, the ones I grew up on. Specifically, the ultra-serious action movies they made back then, before Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or any of those other fun action movies. I mean, this is Pinkie we're talking about, so there's no reason to restrict ourselves to mundane reality. She's stuck as the perpetual victim: the innocent who always has to die in order to motivate the hero into becoming a badass. All she has to do is live to the closing credits to make it back to Equestria. But she keeps dying, only to appear in another cookie-cutter action flick. Or revenge drama. Or pretentious horror movie. Or basically anything where somebody dies and it's not funny. And it happens to her over, and over, and over again. She's getting kinda bummed about it.
So, any chance you would have been able to guess that on your own?
4945845
Not a chance.
The closest I would have gotten would have been Die Hard, and that's only after I'd exhausted all other options.
That actually sounds really cool though.
Some of your stories are hits, and some of your stories are duds.
This is a hit, in my book. Also, trying to fight a woman who can carry a horse on her back? I don't care how angry you are, that's just stupid, Antonia.
Does William even have a chin? A man that spineless shouldn't have a chin.
4945845 that's harsh, dude. Almost as harsh as forcing Rarity into clown makeup and a patchy skirt while she has to fend off an armourus stallion.
Ok I somehow lost track of what's happening after julia started her number... well it's 3 in the morning maybe I should stop here and try again after I got some sleep. ...