Hey all!

I got this amazing commission done by tato a few weeks to highlight a central theme of Clowning Around, which is the internal struggle between Mason on the left and Junior on the right, who are two different aspects of the same person. While Junior starts off as a role Mason has to play as a part of Clown College, it soon becomes apparent that Mason is slowly starting to enjoy being Junior, as being a big baby clown actually helps Mason deal with some deeply rooted childhood trauma.

This got me thinking if Clowning Around was like a videogame, how would the player’s choices affect the outcome, and what endings would occur as a result. I was able to come up with three separate endings, as listed below:

Ending #1: The Mason Ending

The Mason Ending is achieved if Mason goes through Pop-Pop and Mamie’s Clown College program without embracing how to have fun and be silly. Mason excels at the physical side of performing due to his previous football training, but he remains closed off emotionally, never bonding with Mamie or Pop-Pop despite their best efforts. At the end of the semester, Mason gives a stunning acrobatic performance, but he doesn’t end up making anyone laugh. While this makes Dean Mayweather question whether the performance should qualify as a pass, Pop-Pop pushes the Dean to pass Mason.

Pop-Pop laments that he was disappointed he couldn’t get through to Mason, and that he at least hopes that a career as a football player will make the troubled young man happy. Mason goes on to finish his time at Coastline College and is immediately drafted by a top tier football team. He goes on to have an illustrious career until one day he suffers a major injury out on the field. While Mason survives the whole ordeal, he is rendered incontinent, and thus must be diaper dependent for the rest of his life.

While the team pays him off and he is able to retire quietly with a sizable fortune, he bitterly mourns having lost the ability to play football, which is the only thing he ever truly cared about. Strangely though, having become diaper dependent leads to him often thinking about the time he had to live as a big baby clown, and in the deepest recesses of his minds, he wonders what type of life he might have had if maybe he had opened his heart to those two little clowns.

Ending #2: The Junior Ending

The Junior Ending is achieved if Mason wholeheartedly embraces Pop-Pop and Mamie’s teachings within the Clown College program. This includes completely lowering his defenses by allowing Mamie to coddle him and having Pop-Pop teach him how to have fun and be silly. As Mason embraces these lessons, he finds himself gradually slipping deeper and deeper into his identity of Junior.

Unbeknownst to Mason, being Junior allows him to deal with many issues from his traumatic childhood, such as the severe neglect he suffered under his adoptive guardian. Once the end of the semester comes along, Junior puts on a hilarious skit that has the audience roaring with laughter. Dean Mayweather deems the program a success and informs Mason that he can return to the football team once the season starts.

However, to both the Dean and Mason’s own shock, he finds that he doesn’t want to play football anymore. That night Mason returns to the nursery he has been sleeping in as Junior and falls asleep. He has a dream where Mason and Junior struggle against each other (as shown in the picture above), with Mason seemingly fading away at the end of the dream.

The next morning, Mamie finds Junior dozing in the nursery and kindly asks him if he wanted to spend one more night for old time’s sake. However, to her surprise, all Junior does is coo and babble after he opens his eyes.

Pop-Pop does a quick diagnosis and even calls in the Dean to examine the situation. Pop-Pop soon determines that the act of rejecting football led to Junior mentally ‘rejecting’ the very identity of Mason, along with all of the pain and trauma associated with that identity.

The Dean decides to shut down the Clown College program, as it would be disastrous if this incident ever became public. Pop-Pop and Mamie agree to take custody of Junior and are pleasantly surprised to find him behaving as the sweetest baby ever, as he never throws tantrums and is completely agreeable and loving.

In the span of a year, Junior mentally ‘regrows’ from the mind of a baby to regain all of the knowledge he had before the loss of his Mason persona. However, his ‘new’ personality as Junior is that of a complete adult baby, as he prefers using diapers, wearing infantile clothes, drinking from a bottle, and playing with toys.

Pop-Pop and Mamie were initially quite worried that their training had such a profound effect on Junior, with them worrying if they had inadvertently caused him great mental harm. Despite this, after Junior regained his knowledge within the following year, they both saw how much happier he was as his new persona. Plus, re-raising him from mental infanthood allowed them to finally have the baby they never were able to have biologically.

Mamie and Pop-Pop absolutely adore having Junior as their big baby clown, and together they now tour around the country as one big, happy family.

Ending #3: The Beau Ending

Everyone usually assumes that Mason is the protagonist’s first name, but Mason is actually his last name. His first name is supposed to remain unknown throughout the story to show that he only has one name, symbolizing that he is incomplete in a sense. Thus the Beau Ending acts as a reveal to Mason’s first name and its’ role in uniting the two warring personalities inside of him.

The Beau Ending is achieved if Mason does embrace the teachings of Pop-Pop and Mamie, but uses the awakening emotions he experiences from his lessons as a way to confront his past.

This would mean that Mason would allow himself to be babied as Junior, but during nighttime, he would find himself leaving his nursery at the Clown College. He would travel to places such as the trailer park where his uncle left him for days on end without food. Another night he would travel to the docks where he found work by faking his age and endured grueling labor that built up his body. Then he would travel to the high school where he got the first positive attention he had ever received in his life when he was discovered as a football prodigy.

While traveling to these places brings him great pain, the love and joyfulness he has learned from Pop-Pop and Mamie allow him to come to peace with his past as Mason, rather than completely rejecting it. Mason is also surprised to learn that every night he snuck out, Pop-Pop had secretly been following him and watching over him, causing him to cry when he realizes he has someone who cares about what happens to him.

The end of the semester eventually comes, and as Mason does a performance as Junior the Big Baby Clown with tons of comedy and acrobatic stunts. The show is a complete success and the Dean cheerfully offers Mason his spot back on the football team. Mason is surprised by the fact that he actually finds himself hesitant to accept the offer and informs the confused Dean that he will need a night to think it over.

Mason, still dressed as Junior, returns to the nursery he has stayed in all semester and falls asleep in his crib. While asleep, he dreams of Mason and Junior struggling against each other, like in the image above. However, rather than either one winning, the two personas seemingly merge into each other.

The next morning Mamie wakes Mason up from his crib and tells him that the Dean is in the other room, waiting for his response. Mason enters the next room and tells the Dean that while he’s glad he put on a good performance, he has decided that he doesn’t want to return to playing football, as he doesn’t feel as though that is who he is anymore. The Dean is shocked by his reply and asks if this is who is, referring his babyish attire as Junior the Big Baby Clown.

Mason smiles and says that it is a part of him now, and he has decided to stay with Pop-Pop and Mamie, if they would have him. Pop-Pop and Mamie wholeheartedly agree and embrace him as their new son. While the Dean is surprised, he can clearly see that Mason is happy as he is and accepts his decision. The Dean moves to leave and says goodbye to Mason, to which the young man replies, “Please, call me Beau.”

Beau is not only Mason’s true first name, but it also represents a new persona formed by the merging of Mason and Junior, which acknowledges his past pain but also has learned to begin the process of healing from it. As a result, Beau is an adult baby who enjoys being coddled by Mamie and playing around with Pop-Pop, but he also embraces his adult side as well.

Pop-Pop and Mamie continue the Clown College program for a while longer, with Beau acting as a teaching assistant, but eventually they decided to leave the college and head across the country to do some work at an animal shelter that houses former circus animals run by a former protégé of Pop-Pop.

This ending is alluded to in the Chapter 11/Finale picture for Clowning Around and would be considered the ‘best’ ending for Beau. It also acts as a prelude to a sequel to Clowning Around that I eventually decided to discontinue, but I will be more than glad to talk about if you message/send me a note on here or on Twitter.

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Well, that just about covers everything I had in mind for the three endings of Clowning Around. If you can believe, I STILL have more content featuring these characters, but that stuff mostly consists of stuff non-canon to the main story. Anywho, I am so happy I could share these endings with all of you, and I hope you enjoyed them. 😊


Art by  tato


Clowning Around by  SkunkTales1