"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am: Just one bad day.

You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am ... I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed—why else would you dress up like a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else ... only you won't admit it!

You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling!

God, you make me want to puke ... It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for ... it's all a monstrous, demented gag!

So why can't you just see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?"

The Joker—Batman: The Killing Joke

That's one outlook on Insanity. Obviously, it's pretty close to true. My name is Dr. Anthony Canabas, of the Clan Malkavian. I am also known as the Killer Klown. No relation to that ... inkblot. I'll be helping you understand exactly what we are, and why we are so reviled.

The Malkavians, along with the Nosferatu and the Lasombra are the most feared vampires out there. Each of us represents a Primal Fear of Mankind (and, by extension, Vampirekind): The Nosferatu seem diseased, while the Lasombra epitomize the night. Malkavians are mad. Each of these (Plague, Darkness, and Insanity) strikes a primal chord in the souls of men. Each of them is something to be feared. Disease, because it can strike anyone, anywhere, through contact with one diseased (Witness the many plagues that ran rampant throughout Europe for want of proper hygene); The Night, because monsters can see through it, while men can't, which led to walled cities more directlty than the threat of warfare did; and Madness, also possibly spread through touch. Each of these Primal Fears represents the unknown, uncertainty, unholiness (to the midieval mind), and the uncontrollable. There is no wealth you can hold that will save you from them, no strength that can defeat them. Only fear will keep you safe. So we keep the diseased in hospitals, the night at bay with bright lights, and the insane get medicated and put in asylums. Even the "safe" medicated lunatics are feared and reviled.

Insanity comes in many flavors and forms—from the drooling catatonic to the monomaniacal to the man with the minor tremula in his extremities—and Malkavians exhibit them all. One thing that strikes me as odd is the fact that so many vampires have no fear of us, and so many others fear us outrageously. "Free" ghouls, I am led to understand, pity my minions, comparing me to Hannibal Lecter. To the Green River Killer, and the plethora of "merely human" monsters. And yet, to the Ventrue and the Toreador of the Camarilla, I am a pet, to be watched to ensure it doesn't piddle on the carpet, or a raging beast to be kept out and chained in the back yard.

There's the usual rumors about us, of course—that we've a hive mind, that we're all one, that somehow Malkav him/her self connects us all through the blood ... the usual lies. That's all they are. Of course, I'm a Paranoid. Even if we had that power, would I tell you? I think not.

What's the difference between Camarilla and Sabbat Lunatics? One bad turn. They let their insanities run rampant and roughshod over their morality, ethics, personal code, what have you. But at the end of the night, we really are all kissing cousins. We Camarilla nutjobs have a lower body-count, is all ... or at least, we try to hide the bodies better than they do ...