Dread & Circuses Hub

_{Banner Art by Zhange}

"All the World loves a Clown." ~ Cole Porter

~ Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting ~

Alas, our renowned founder and namesake is no longer with us. No one seems quite sure where he's got off to.

The Clowns say he suddenly saw the error of his ways and became a missionary with the Manna Foundation to atone for his misdeeds.

The Carnies say he finally ran afoul of a beast even he couldn't tame, and whatever's left of him now fertilizes a patch of brown grass somewhere.

The Man with the Upside-Down Face says good riddance.

Whatever his fate, it is certain that Herman Fuller is gone, and surely someone somewhere must mourn him.

But the show must go on.

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting is proud to announce our new Master of Ceremonies. She started off as just another runaway, but through sheer talent and determination she's clawed her way up from magician, to Clown, to troupe leader and now to the Ringmaster of the Circus itself! I give you the beautiful, the astonishing, the magical Icky!

Come with us now on a mind-boggling journey through the impossible. Glimpse the wonderous magic the powers-that-be conspire to keep hidden. Experience the awe and terror of a world that forever lies just out of view.

Welcome to Dread & Circuses!

Opening Acts:

1. Herman Fuller Can Shove It Up His Ass ~ "You're going to want to insert it rectally."
2. Clown Breeding 101 with Prof. Richard C Normus ~ "My Grampie once turned a kid inside out, I shit you not."
3. Upside-Down Cake ~ "I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gives me to finally see your face the right way up after all these years."
4. A Real Humdinger ~ “Tom, if I didn’t know better I’d swear that someone up there has it out for me.”

Headlining:

Act I

1. Former Assets ~ "You're not afraid of clowns, are you?"
2. Fuller Than Full! ~ "He let out one final scream, and then popped like a balloon."
3. Fuller's Fantastic Fun-lover's Funhouse ~ “Fun-lovers? That’s what you call those… milking creatures, right?”
4. Your Call Is Important To Us ~ “OH GOD, IT’S NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! EVERYBODY PANIC!”
5. She Remembered Me ~ "Sing once again with me, our strange duet."
6. Freaky Commodities II: Freak Harder ~ "I…may have left a Sarkist and a Mekhanite together in the same room.”
7. There Are No Strings On Me ~ “Are you out of your mind? Do you know who you’ve got? Icky will send the whole Circus after you to get her back!”

Interlude I

1. So They Called Him Darke ~ "He immersed himself in the Darkness, sustained himself on the Darkness, empowered himself with the Darkness."

Act II

1. A Scip Or A Star? ~ "Coarse, irritating, gets everywhere."
2. Dark And Disquieting ~ "Lolly didn’t respond immediately, being transfixed by the sight of a bird wizard battling self-cannibalizing ethereal snakes."
3. City of Wonder™ ~ “Lesbians are family friendly now. There’s like a whole show on Cartoon Network about space lesbians. It’s awesome.”
4. The Sea Slug and the Showman ~ "He stood in the spotlight, proud as can be in his top hat and red-tailed coat, the most preposterously verbose and verbosely preposterous poppycock rolling off his tongue as he presented each new marvel."
5. Freaks, Friends and Fiends ~ “Not even the weirdest part of my day.”
6. Let's Get This Show On The Road! ~ "Can I get a Frapaccthulhu? Extra whipped cream, extra drizzle, extra existential horror? I can handle it, I'm a Clown." By RecursiveRecursion !
7. A Circus Come To Not ~ "Eat Lemon Meringue you son of a bitch!”

Special Attractions: 0. The Warrior And The… Clown? ~ "Happy April Fools Mister!"

1. ...And I'm the Star! ~ "I'm a motivated worker, most of the time, and I don't mind getting my hands dirty. Anymore, anyways." By DarkStuff !

Sideshows:

1. Saccharina Sweet's Sensationally Sublime Sugar Babies! ~ "They love alliteration at the Circus."
2. Lil' Lollipop's Little Lollipops! ~ "There's a sucker born every minute."
3. The Marvellously Macabre Mechanical Marionette Matinee! ~ "If I ever get free, I'll be hellbent, on making them my merry merry marionettes!"
4. Papa's Precociously Provocative Pickl'd Punkz! ~ "Does a mind-controlled, fusion powered mech-suit count as reasonable?"
5. The Menagerie of Mayhem's Mind-bending Mewling Monstrosities! ~ "I only got scratched… twenty-something times? And that was when they liked me." By RecursiveRecursion !
6. The Sumerian Sorcerer's Sadistically Satanic Saddle! ~ "In its active state, living horses (Equus caballus) react with panic upon becoming aware of SCP-3886's presence." By Ember16 !

Promotional Materials:

1. Herman Fuller Presents: Icky the Magic Clown ~ "I decided at a young age that I wasn't going to let fear stop me from being who I am."
2. Herman Fuller Presents: The Amazing Zoltan ~ "Anyway, he comes into the shop wanting us to make him a philosopher's stone out of molasses."
3. Herman Fuller Presents: The Skeleton Dance ~ "For as long as the preternatural performing arts have existed, men have reanimated the dead for entertainment." By PeppersGhost !
4. Herman Fuller Presents: Nixie the Nereid ~ "My sisters and I are Mermaids. Not nereids, not sirens, not sea nymphs; Mermaids!"
5. Herman Fuller Presents: The Dread Behemoth ~ "It was sheer chance I was there that day - I had an appointment with my haberdasher about expanding the storage capacity in my top hat - but what good fortune it was!"

Thanks to our Sponsors:

Marshall, Carter & Dark

1. 'Osteotronic Cubes' (VXY33/F7RQ3/9XAD1) ~ "I named mine Sans, like from Undertale, and now he's gone. You owe me for pain and suffering!"
2. 'The Dark Web' (DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6) ~ "It really goes to show that good ethics is good business."
3. 'Kaiju Caviar' (OCN39/T5FG6/7HJL2) ~ "Nonetheless, I must state frankly that I consider eating the eggs of a sea monster frivolity to the point of insanity."
4. Micky D's ~ “Carter, I am not manipulating the global economy to drive McDonald's out of business just because they share our initials."

Doctor Wondertainment

1. Vend-a-Friend ~ "My suitcase was at my feet because I didn't trust leaving it alone; if anyone were to see my stuffies, watercolors, and risperdal I'd feel terribly judged." By DarkStuff !

The Utterly Bazaar

1. Utter Depravity ~ "The catacombs were a perfect abode for a noble such as himself; vast, ostentatious, dark, and amply stocked with the preserved remains of peasants to feast upon."

About

The main reason I created this series was to finish what PeppersGhost started. He briefly mentioned a female Ringmaster in SCP-2094, with the clear intention of setting up a further narrative that was never followed up on. PeppersGhost did have an overall arc he intended to tell with Herman Fuller, but this arc was left incomplete. In private e-mails with PeppersGhost he informed me of his overall plan for the Circus, and with his continued input I hope to complete it myself to the best of my ability.

Why do this? Well, I like the Circus partially because in some ways it's the exact opposite of the Foundation. When The Administrator found his first anomaly, he decided it was something to be locked up and kept secret forever. When Herman Fuller found his, he decided to pitch a tent and charge admission. My ideology towards the anomalous is actually closer to that of the Serpent's Hand's than it is to the Foundation's. Not everything anomalous is dangerous, and the Foundation's policy of locking every anomaly up 'just in case' is both immoral and to Humanity's detriment. One of my favourite SCPs is 8900-EX because it illustrates the Foundation's edict of preserving the status quo, even if changing the status quo would be a good thing. The Circus is a place where people can see actual magic, and where anomalous people have more freedom than they would in containment.

I also have a fondness for the early days of the Foundation; whacky senior staff, insane cross testing, etc. The Circus gives me a venue to write in that style that would otherwise not be acceptable.

I will do my best to continue the story PeppersGhost started, and maybe one day the tale of Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting will be known in its entirety.

Contributing

Current Contributors:

• DarkStuff , author of the Vend-a-Friend Arc
• RecursiveRecursion , author of SCP-3718
• PeppersGhost , Creator of Herman Fuller and author of The Skeleton Dance
• Ember16 , author of SCP-3886
• DrChandra , Canon Founder and author of everything else.

I am proud to announce that Dread & Circuses is officially a Canon. If you're interested in contributing to Dread & Circuses and need feedback on anything just send a message to DrChandra. Fanart is also welcomed.

For a more general sense of how to write for Dread and Circuses, I would like to quote the GoI page on tv tropes:

"Circus of Fear: Zig-Zagged. When the sadistic Fuller was in charge, the circus fully embraced this trope to the point of Card-Carrying Villain. In the post-Fuller era, while the circus's ethics are grey at best and it still lives up to the disquieting part of its name, it seems to have shifted significantly toward a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits just trying to make a living and show people a Creepy Awesome time."

Remember that. The Circus may be morally ambiguous and creepy as hell, but at its core it's a community of anomalies just trying to survive and find solidarity with each other. The Circus is Family, and Family stays together.

You should definitely read SCP-2094 since that's more or less the 'zig-zag' point. Motormouth provided a positive perspective on the Circus that is very different from PeppersGhost's four previous Circus scips.

Ideally, you should also read this entire series if you're going to write for it, but at the very least make sure you've read a tale that features the characters you're writing about. As with other Canons, everything should be relatively consistent.

Though my depiction of MC&D in this Canon is heavily inspired by Wills and Ways as well as Bloodbaths, Dread & Circuses does not share a continuity with Randomini's Acidverse. It does, however, dip into the S&C Plastics Canon as well as the War On All Fronts Canon.

As for adding entries to this hub, keep in mind that tales are ordered chronologically, not by posting, and that any tale set before Former Assets should go under Opening Acts, with tales set after that going under Headlining. Stand-alone tales should work fine on either of these, however, if you're planning on a series that doesn't neatly fit into either Opening Acts or Headlining, put them under Special Attractions. SCPs are arranged numerically under Sideshows. Anything else can be by posting order for now, but I may change that at some point.

Nouns (People, Places and Things)

Main Characters:

• Icky - The Current Ringmaster of the Circus. Like most Clowns, she's energetic to the point of hypomania. Normally extremely happy, but can become psychotically enraged if anyone she cares about is put in danger.
• Manny - Also known as the Man with the Upside-Down Face. Originally Herman's thug, but slowly accrued power over decades until they were de facto partners, a role now shared with Icky. He mostly handles things behind the scenes. He's also responsible for the Circus's pretermemetic defences (see below).
• Lolly - Her full stage name is Li'l Lollipop. She's Icky's lover, assistant, and de facto second in command. Even for a Clown, she's excessively energetic, friendly and happy. Loves Icky and the Circus more than anyone, and is fiercely loyal to both (I'd also like to make it clear that despite her childish persona she is physically and chronologically an adult, as some readers were uncertain about this).
• Victor Chan - A young MC&D rep from the Hong Kong office, and was assigned the Circus as a client. Relatively inexperienced and still uncomfortable with the anomalous, he functions as a 'straight-man' and audience surrogate.

Also, here they are as buns

by SunnyClockwork

The Attractions of the Circus include, but are not limited to:

• The Big Top (Currently run by Icky, puts on feature-length performances of the Circus's best acts each afternoon and evening)
• The Den of Freaks (Self-explanatory)
• The Menagerie of Mayhem (Displays and houses fantastic anomalous beasts, like Bubblegum the Alcoholic Elephant)
• The Hall of Humans Extraordinaire (Gary and Zoltan work here, as did Icky prior to becoming a Clown)
• The Petting Zoo (small, for kids, home of the Obama Llama)
• The Fun-lover's Funhouse (Fun-lovers are kept in here when not needed. Going in unescorted or wandering off from the tour group is ill-advised)
• A midway featuring rides, games, and concession stands.
• Numerous tents for individual acts, like Virtuoso.

Ancillary sites within the Circus include:

• The Ringmaster's Tent (Icky, Manny and sometimes others will use this as an office)
• The Kaleidoscope (The Circus's method of anomalous transport, capable of creating Ways on demand into nearly any door in the Multiverse)
• Clown Alley (a single trailer modified into a hyperdimensional orthotope, capable of comfortably housing the Circus's entire Clown population)
• Dormitory Trailers (train-car sized trailers divided into either eight single sized or four double sized sleeping compartments with a shared washroom. Top talent receives private trailers, while non-performers often have to double up inside single compartments)
• The Cookhouse (prepares and serves meals buffet-style to Circus staff)
• Trailers for storage, transport, and support (laundry, infirmary, etc.)

Clowns are funny...:

• Original Clowns: Lovecraftian reality-benders from another plane of existence that took near-human form to join Herman Fuller's Circus(they were bored). Eugene and Pius are the foremost examples.
• Converted/Turned Clowns: Humans converted into Clowns. They're a little more normal looking and a little less temperamental but otherwise the same as the Originals. Icky and Lolly are both examples of Turned Clowns.
• Bred Clowns: Created by Dick C. Normus using biological material from both Originals and Turned Clowns. These Clowns have very specific and very extreme traits, and are typically less intelligent than other Clowns. Mr. Noodles is a Bred Clown. As a side-effect of being gestated in Fun-lovers, they produce their own Milk, and therefore require milking or they'll literally explode. Orignal and Turned Clowns must drink Clown's Milk to survive, and only require milking if they overindulge.
• Not Clowns: Professional clowns, some anomalous and some not, who have nothing to do with True Clowns. Motormouth and Jester the Goblin were both professional clowns who were Not Clowns.

Other Nouns:

• Pretermemetics - Information which is selectively memetic or anti-memetic depending on the nature of the recipients or circumstances. The Circus itself is pretermemetic, being nigh imperceptible to its enemies while simultaneously drawing in customers from miles around. Most customers typically only remember what they experienced as dreams or illusions.
• The Utterly Bazaar - An inter-dimensional marketplace, first appearing in the Acidverse tale Jam Jars. Circus members visit it regularly.
• The Library and the Serpent's Hand - If you've been on the site for any length of time you know about these two. Circus members visit the Library often, both for books and to meet with contacts in the Serpent's Hand.
• Iris Dark - I poached her from the Acidverse as well. Dread Iris is Percival Darke's heir, proxy, and apprentice. She's a tech genius who's also dabbling in ancient black magic. Due to the Circus's recent agreement to allow MC&D to use the Kaleidoscope on a limited basis, Percy sends her through it on assignments now and then.

Offsite

If you're aware of any adaptations, fanworks, what-have-you that aren't on this list, feel free to edit them in.

• TheeSherm has done a reading of Your Call Is Important To Us. I'm quite impressed that he was able to do so many voices and keep them all straight.
• SCP-3440 has an entry on tv tropes, and the events of Dread & Circuses appear to be referenced under the GoI page as well.
• And, as previously mentioned, them as buns by SunnyClockwork.

Q&A

Got questions? Ask them here or in the comments section, and I'll do my best to answer.