Geek Love

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of incest, body horror, abuse, ableism, suicide, and assault. 

The Fabulon represents the fantastic, the weird, and the otherworldly to the norms who patronize it. The freaks they see and excitement they experience on the midway are a welcome distraction from the monotony of their daily lives. Arty says that the carnival is based on hope. Norms flock to the carnival hoping to win a prize, to see something extraordinary, to meet someone new. Arty says that people call that luck or chance, but at its base it is hope. Hope needs risk in order to work and its power is proportional to how big the risk is if what you hope for doesn’t come to pass. Arty taps into that desperate need for hope by promoting Arturism and offering hope for fulfillment and meaning in life, with great risk attached. The Fabulon, then, is the representation of risk, danger, and hope.

For Oly and her family, the Fabulon symbolizes safety, security, and their place in the world. The carnival is their home and they exist in constant motion, never rooted to one place. Often, the family members can’t even remember what town they are parked near, because they all look the same to them, as do the norms that populate these towns.