Independent and selective ART THE CLOWN from Damien Leone's TERRIFIER! (creative liberties very much taken for the sake of lore)
Highly selective, moderate activity with high content warnings in: mutilation, body horror, demonology, death, and dismemberment.
Religious themes and concepts dealing with satanic practice will be present. Art is a servant of the devil, a forager of souls. Pain is our purest form of being; torture is expression!
out of derry ; I have been super busy with work + my build for my new springtrap cosplay. However, I plan to be here again. Also, really trying not to get super hyperfixated with Vaas again. But I am working on things here.
when he was in high school , almost solely molded by his parents' continued disinterest && maureen's abuse , stu found that billy had convinced him to do a great deal of things . he'd liked being led , to a certain extent . it satisfied something in his brain , although it wouldn't be until later that he had a diagnosis . still , if he tried , he could have rationalized the killing . he could have put that blame on billy , laying into his peer pressure excuse . in some frame of mind , it was peer pressure . he wanted to make billy happy , but he also wanted to do it for himself . he had fully settled into the role of richard castle , then richard rodgers , before he started killing agian . he had almost used the ghostface killings as a spring board for derrick storm's first case , but paula had questions that he didn't quite want to answer .
he used modified versions of the kills in their place , but he really wanted something fresh . so , roughly five years back , he'd started killing again . the gritty realism in details helped his sales , especially in that sticky period after he killed derrick storm . working with beckett , however , added another layer of complexity . stu adapted , shifting methods && becoming more careful .
blue eyes narrow as he comes back to the present , cleaver in a gloved had as he looks at his nearly - dead victim . he can't have the kills looking too similar , but why the fuck did he choose two victims ? if he thought about it , the answer was simple : he wanted to see if he could . “ don't scream , okay ? ” he asks , looking at his bound && gagged victim . he gestures with the cleaver , indicating the blood pooling beneath the other victim . “ i could always break your neck like i did hers . ”
it happens so quickly after that , but he loves the result . his bound victim turns his head && screams through the gag as best as possible , which gives stu just the slightest moment of pause . then , he drops to his knee && brings the cleaver down . it cuts through flesh && bone , separating head from neck with a near surgical precision . he picks up his victims head && throws it to the opposite end of the decrepit area . he doesn't pay attention to where it lands , back only turned for a moment as he makes his way back to the bag he'd put a safe distance from the murder scene . the cleaver gets wrapped in a cloth && deposited in a plastic bag , with gets put into his black bag . he throws the leather gloves in his bag , fingers flexing in the thin cotton gloves he still wore . stu grabs his leather - bound journal , the one he uses for story notes , && turns it to a blank page before he hears an unmistakable sound .
“ fuck , ” he hisses , dropping the journal before raising his hands .
he looks over his shoulder , brow furrowing at the monochromatic figure in front of him as he fully turns around . his hunting knife was strapped to his thigh , just as it always was , but he didn't want to reach for it . he couldn't get a read on the other , && he was really keen on making it home for dinner that night . “ put it down , && i'll leave . ”
' --put it down and I'll leave." If lies had a taste, they would be sweet! They would make the mouth pucker like a sour grape, a slimming, slithering sweetness all the way down to the throat! Many times Art has been in this man's position. Caught in the act of a fresh kill with an unhappy visitor. And each time that happens, he feigns ignorance right before he can make a proper move. As fun as this little show is, there is no room for pleasantries, no room for jokes. No, Art has no intention of letting this man have any leverage. Not when he so easily butchered Jack and Jill here. The clown laughs, or rather, his rendition of it.
He's a clown, not a fool.
When he laughs, his shoulders bounce up and down, causing the wound across his neck to open anew. Black pearls seep from the cut fabric of his hood, sprouting forth like a fine lace of diamonds across the ruined carnage of his neck. He pauses, mouth agape as it fills with blood anew, and Art cocks the second chamber of the gun for good measure.
Why is this happening? What is the point in being so durable, so seemingly unkillable, if he can still be so mortally wounded? So fucking inconvenienced.
Rage seeps into Art's black little heart like an encroaching wave. It is the kind of angry confusion a stuck swine gets when the butcher leaves it over the meat hook to bleed out. Why now? Why me? What did I do wrong? For a moment, he is shaking with fury, so much so that he has to snap his attention back to the present day and step further inward. The gun rests squarely in the center of the man's spine. Art thinks of shooting him just to see him paralyzed, helpless in lieu of what the clown has planned next.
Art leans forward, hooked nose just inches away, with a sharp whistling intake from a broken windpipe. Wrong. This won't do. The flesh is too marred, too seasoned with its years. Nevermind that men are simply less substantial, too tough, gamey, and leathery. He snaps back, seemingly disgusted when he catches sight of the woman still sprawled on the floor like a heap of discarded newspaper. There is no rigor mortis, no telltale signs of the body even pooling blood. Better, but not by much.
Art retracts the gun, using it instead as a manner of communication. He taps the edge on the man's head, forcing him to look backward and at his first completed masterpiece. For the briefest moment, there is peace, but it is predicated by tension. He has a decision to make here, and honestly, the night has already kicked his ass and back. The last thing he needs is another main character deciding it's time to fight evil. No, he won't have that problem here. Twice the gun goes upward, indicating that the clown wants him over there. He moves the gun up and down, a makeshift cross over the broken back of the victim. Think cadaver, autopsy scars. He wants to see her insides. 'Open her up.' His instructions say, and the gun is back in the author's back.
Despite his blood-stained reputation, there are no disingenuous actions in the way Art presents himself as a clown. In fact, there is nothing in this universe he would rather be! He is not putting on act when he jests or loses himself in what looks like childish excitement.
He is genuinely elated to see you !
Contrary to his actions, Art adores people. He loves being seen by them, hated by them, loathed by them. Half the fun in doing what he does best is having a captive audience. Whether they are bound or simply taking their last breath, Art loves to be beholden to someone's undivided attention. He longs to be acknowledged, longs to have that crescendo fall between terror and pure unbridled disgust.
That being said, he is hardly antisocial! He will play a harmless trick or two, maybe even offer a friendly gift or a magic trick! These are all proceeding actions though, the opening for the much grander act! Think of them as little tests, small little nudges in the right direction to see what makes a person tick.
A proper clown needs time to get together an act, of course. Given his new lot in life, or lack thereof, he's got nothing but time!
Art has been practicing his magic! Not that he has to really try. Most things, he finds, happen unnaturally. Like waking up in a mourge with a blasting headache from where he last shot himself. That was last week's trick. This week he is focused on something more becoming of his profession. Something more clownish, less devilish!
Though the two go hand in hand so often, Art has trouble remembering which is which.
He stands at a garish little stand that promises cotton candy but all the machines are spinning and overflowing. The seller is somewhere behind the clown discarded, lying with his brain matter oozing into the wooden cracks of the impromptu booth. Art pays him no mind, of course. He is too busy fiddling with something in his hands.
At first it looks like something made of twine. Something spindly and finely made. He ties it around his palm, twirls it around bloodied fingers until ha-za! It is gone. Not in his sleeve! Not even under his little hat! It is instead right behind the woman's ear! A little flower, a daisy. Grinning, he presents it to her.
The carnival at the edge of town is abandoned for a reason. If the murders committed here a few years back isn't enough to deter you, the state of the place should at least give you a reason to rethink your decision to come. The ferris wheel outside is still stained with the blood of Emily Crane, the cotton candy stand is still browned with a failed attempt to score off the brain matter left by a gunshot. There is a quiet here that is quite unbecoming, an unnatural stillness that makes one feel like they've stepped through an old forgotten photograph.
For Art, it's home!
At least the closest thing to it. He comes here to simply wait. Wait for instruction, wait for a whisper or a new direction from his ever elusive overlord. Most of the time he shuts himself off, standing or sitting as still as the dust that coats the entryway of the old TERRIFIER attraction. This is how this newest intruder finds him. Art is one of many mannequins. The only one to have any kind of variation from the standard nude, uncanny design.
Billy Loomis is hardly the first to come here at the behest of his twisted interests. If he were to look, he would find some of his peers amongst the mannequins, fellow murder fanatics who just so happened to wander too close to the real thing. The clown remains still, unblinking with a wide and blackened grin. When the stranger comes closer, Art's eyes simply roll in their sunken sockets to look at him. The hands reach outward.
If there is one thing Art loves, it's a carnival! The sun hasn't quite set yet. It looms in the west like a waning guest, peeking its head over the yawning horizon as if it fears it will miss something. The autumn air is cool, liberally so this time of year, and already one can sense the changing tides of this new cycle. For Art, Derry is just another stop in the long and joyous event of servitude. The people here are poignant, their souls ripe with generations of misery and ill intent.
How easily they will fare to hell! They are like letters sent to a lover, packaged and purposefully dispatched. Not that it matters now.
Art has only managed one kill tonight, and it was anticlimactic. The result of a fine push of a stall worker into the broken remains of a bottle toss game, with not nearly enough suffering to make it worth the effort. His mood is soured by that, and he stalks past a group of giggling teenagers who want a picture without a second thought.
He is stopped by the intrusion of something red flickering in the corner of his vision. Only when he gets his bearings does he realize it is a balloon. One of many in what look like a bouquet. Away he goes! He is smiling and batting his eyes, deliberately pushing away the little girl who was just about to grab one from the other clown's hand. She whines when she lands on her ass, scurrying away.
Art, however, is enthralled. Gone is his bad mood, replaced by a bizarre elation at the prospect of getting a balloon. No, he won't pay for it. He puts on the charm then, placing his laced hands under his chin and grinning. He even jumps up and down twice, practically radiating energy. And isn't he charming?
Rebecca felt the intrusion the way the spider feels the disturbance of its web when the fly gets trapped upon it. So she followed the feeling all the way to the toy store – it used to be a place for joy; now? It’s desolate, with what toys remaining rotting, broken, long forgotten. Sometimes she plays with them; sometimes, they make noise on their own.
What she finds is an odd tableau: at first she isn’t sure what she’s looking at. A lot of white, a lot of red.... So much pure white it should belong to an angel – instead, it wraps up a strange man from head to toes, not an angel by far – Rebecca would know angels... But there is something off about the man – clown, mime... whatever he is. His heartbeat isn’t regular for one, too slow for such exhibited vibrant movements... Then, there’s the body next to him – in pieces... bloodied... and Rebecca’s stomach doesn’t churn, it growls with hunger. Cast between two empty rows, a horrifying question comes to mind: is the heart intact? What about the eyes? The tongue? That last may be answered when the clown picks up a piece of the dismembered woman’s throat and blows into it like a whistle. The sound that returns is wet sputters of gore... and Rebecca thinks that piece would be too tough to chew on.
Then the clown looks up – right at her. She is unmoved, not out of fear, but curiosity. The mall rattles in her bones with glee: a new sacrifice made to it. Not purposely, perhaps, but one regardless. When the clown stands and bows, Rebecca’s head tilts, mane of blonde curls following. She was never afraid of clowns, even as a small girl. Max Headroom was her monster – clowns, she thought as colorful and excitable. Well – this one is certainly colorful, though the red isn’t his.
She approaches, arms wrapping around herself, and looks down at the mess he made: the girl face down... A killer clown. Her stomach growls again, loud enough for the other to hear. The girl probably never had a chance – least Rebecca didn’t need to do the deed... She should probably be more frightened of a killer clown. After all, she might be next – assuming Whitefield Heights doesn’t claim him first. Well, no matter, she'll just bounce right back, as she always does. “Did you leave out the heart?”, she asks, her voice flat, tired... and oh, so hungry....
Very rarely is he stunned into silence. In fact, this would be the first time a new introduction of his didn't wind up with the secondary party running in the opposite direction. The absence of disgust is felt like a missing ingredient in a recipe. The salt of dismay, the pepper of a nice scream. Not necessary per se, but boy, doesn't it change the taste.
Art doesn't let this show, of course. His expressions very rarely portray his real thoughts. He instead idles on his knees, sliding his blood-soaked hands over one another as if he gave a damn about being clean. There is a moment where his eyes are off of her, his attention diverted as if he is wondering if he is the one who should be running for the hills. A funny thought! One made out of an intuition he didn't know he had.
Then, of course, he hears the telltale sounds of hunger. His attention snaps back up to her in an instant.
Playfully, he crosses two index fingers over the other and pushes forward. Naughty, Naughty! Says his gesture, a joke that is equal parts in jest as it is in seriousness. Still, though, the clown has to second-guess his initial plan to go at her with a piece of broken tibia bone. He knows what kind of things lurk in the shadows, what forces come to play when the world's eye turns blind. He isn't keen to try his luck. Not with something driven by hunger, something that has no sense of fear.
The clown pauses again at her request, as if he has to stop to think. Raising a finger with a cartoonish a-ha! moment, he starts to rummage through the cadaver's open throat cavity. Effortlessly, he forces the flesh downward, exposing sternum and muscle like gifts out of their Christmas paper. Out comes the lungs. Not what he's looking for! Here comes the large intestine, then the small.
His actions are like the magicians of old when they found a long handkerchief in the breast pocket. He even stops to look up and shrugs as if locating the heart is just beside him! He stops, though, grin widening as he expertly reveals the heart inside the interior of one of his sleeves. It falls into his palms, gelatinous and weighted. Healthy and red. He offers it to her.
; ; activity is most likely going to be for the weekend when I put things in the queue. I recently got a promotion and the training for it has me running through hoops. I haven't forgotten anyone. Just super busy ! HAPPY NEW YEAR, though!
In Art's Dead by Daylight verse, he can not actively communicate with the entity, nor does he need much in the way of convincing to do its bidding. He is not particularly powerful or resilient. He just doesn't want to listen.
Even while concentrating on the generator in front of him he tries to stay on high alert. He knows this trial is to introduce a new killer to the realm. His aching head told him as much, as did the knowledge of who that killer was. It was someone he very briefly recognized. It was fuzzy but he vaguely remembered a movie coming out just a couple months before he was taken by the fog. He hadn't seen it but he barely remembered it existed.
That didn't bode too well for him. Knowledge was everything to a survivor and he was the one who knew the most about most of the killers. Maybe he should have let Aaron talk him into going to the movie with him...
Dwight jumped at the sound of the horn, crossing the wrong wires and nearly blowing the generator. His head whipped around, looking for the killer. Odd... He hadn't seen him yet. His attention tries to go back to the task at hand, reaching for the wires again. But he stops when he hears the horn honk closer this time.
And when he turned around again he could see the black and white clown approaching him. Startled he took a step back and tripped, landing on his ass. His eyes closed, thinking he was about to get stabbed. But instead he yelps at the loud horn in his ears, hands quickly moving to clasp over them.
To no one's surprise, the clown laughs. Of course, there is no sound coming from his throat, not even a breath to suggest he has to take one. Instead, he is standing there pointing, rocking himself back and forth as if the whole thing was just too rich!
He leans forward with his hands on his knees, wiping an imaginary tear and shaking his head to regain at least some composure. That one never gets old, no matter how long he drags it out for. Logic would dictate that he ought to gut this man like a fish. Maim him, string him up by his worthless hide, and make him into something more entertaining!
Of course, he wants to! And for a moment, he wonders if this were to be the case if she were present, her high and immoral highness. But for the first time in what feels like eons, Art doesn't have a mindful keeper. At least, not the one he started with. He knows he is being watched, though. This is a knowing that sits in the back of his skull like radio static. A consciousness that slips past him the moment he draws nearer.
The entity does not speak to Art the way it does to his contemporaries. Mostly because the clown refuses to listen. Fine, he'll get the hang of it eventually!
Turning his attention to the generator, Art makes a comically exaggerated surprised face. The sad machine is choking its way to life, barely functioning but trucking along in spite. Pointing back to it, Art makes a motion to Dwight as if to make the correlation. He stands before the generator, framing it between two forefingers and thumb like a fine painting. You? You did this? Art's gesture seems to ask, dripping with exaggerated awe. He claps, congratulating the man for a job well done.
