SCP Foundation

First image is a sketch I commissioned, based off of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs. I would have liked to use that image directly, but it's not public domain and it wouldn't count as fair use. The second is from wikimedia commons.

So this has existed in some form for over two years now. It was originally going to be an SCP, but I just could not get it to work. I finally realized it could make some kind of sense as a Serpent's Hand entry, so let's see how it does.

My first reaction to this was "What the fuck, clown lore??????" And then I read it, and my reaction still stands: This is so out there and whimsical, and also a bit terrifying, and I love it. I don't know what it is about clowns on this site but people have taken the concept, cranked it up to 11, and made something that little else matches on the wacky scale. Which, like, makes sense — it's fucking clowns.

I have read very little of the attached canon here, though I will say that this works well as a standalone piece.

I wish more people would adapt their concepts for the Serpent's Hand Format. It's one of the most versatile formats out there, I think, and doesn't get the love it deserves because so few people read GOI formats. In a way, I'm happy this is a SH format and not an SCP. You would not have been able to adequately convey the LSD trip that is Clown Town in any other way. (As an aside: I think there is something about your writing that is always able to evoke a mystical atmosphere in things. And here, it shows.)

+1

I see the appeal of clowns abstracted to an even greater level of absurdity than they already exhibit in life, but I think this carries it on too far to be effective. Once it goes past that into extensive clown worldbuilding, it stops being a question of how strange clown existence can be made (very, apparently), and more a question of whether the reader cares about this very specific brand of clown hell. My personal answer to the second question is not much, so I'm left at a downvote. I think it would be more effective if the more extraneous details were pared away, as an abundance of those hampers the dreamlike atmosphere you seem to be trying to establish.

Downvoting due to plagarism.

Clown lore! I love this!

What the fuck this is amazing.

I can't +1 hard enough

The whole "I am Pagliachi" bit is what made this for me. +1

This doesn't quite match with what I thought I knew about Clowns. I thought it was stated on a different page that Clowns are creatures that simply look like clowns while in our dimension but in their own dimension they are eldritch horrors not resembling humans at all. I will have to do some rereading to see if I am remembering wrong.