Cirque des Rêves
is an art and roleplay group primarily on DeviantArt. Taking place in a travelling circus in the late 1890s, many supernatural creatures are members of this wondrous circus. It travels from place to place and only performs at night. With howreal the feats of magic seem, many pass off the visit as nothing more than the dream the name promises itself to be.
No relation to The Night Circus.
The Circus is divided into four main factions: Black, White, Red, and Diamond factions, with a fifth, Dream, filled with the Leaders. The factions compete against each other with good works and amazing shows (art and roleplay submissions) to earn points. Whichever faction has the most points picks the next location based on various cities that represent various symbols of each faction. Even the staff take up a favored faction for any points they earn to go to.
At then end of May 2014, the founder announced that they were revamping the system, though save for a shorter mod list, being hard on Halfbloods, a new skin, and moving one job to a different faction, it has remained the same. It will also end up much smaller, with a maximum group size of about 60 people. It opened for members again on 15 August 2014.
The mods are MellosKitten, Shintari, QueenTrash, Nessceary, and Mizury. Each of them will handled at least two characters for the Dream Faction, although who's who is mostly unknown.
Also has an askblog tumblr run by the mods here. It deals with questions sent in by members or other fans, and can be answered both in and out of character.
Cirque des Rêves provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Inverted. Many who go to the cirque believe it to have just been a very good, fantastical dream. It isn't.
- Circus of Fear: Aversion. Not all the people are nice, but the Cirque is one of the few safe places for many of its inhabitants, and it is quite the wonder to crowds worldwide.
- Dye Hard: Robin is so in-love with her faction, she's bleached her hair. She wears a black wig when she leaves the Cirque.
- Elemental Powers: Sorcerers and Witches are generally Elementalists in one of the classical elements.
- Fantastic Racism: Most supernatural have to hide these days from humanity, as humanity fears and hates them. With humanity growing in power with technology, it might just have a chance. The Cirque is a place where all can feel safe.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Where else can you find kitsune, The Fair Folk, vampires, werewolves, angels, succubi, elves and humans all in one place?
- Fluffy Tamer: Not as extreme as some versions, but Arisa's very close to her tiger Cyclone.
- I Was Quite a Looker: The Broken Divas of Diamond. They were once amazing people in some field such as acting, singing, or dancing, but horrible tragedies prevented them from continuing such a lifestyle.
- Little Bit Beastly: If one has animal traits over a very low threshhold, one goes into the Red Factin. They are free to have any job except shapeshifter in exchange for this trade.
- Muggles: While not every character in White is human, the acts are far more within the realm of reality compared to the other three factions.
- Our Sirens Are Different: Sirens. Often Succubi or actual sirens, they sing, wear burlesque clothes, and make the men go wild. It would be a good time to take your kids to get some crepes when one shows up.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Somewhere in the middle, though the fear and suspicion that the supernatural get in the outside world causes it to lean slightly cynical. Those in the Cirque only appear the way they do because they are free to be themselves and not hide their presence, whether with illusion, makeup and hairstyling, or otherwise minimizing use of magic.
