(Also, on a related (unrelated to the topic at hand) note, I personally seek to restore "decimation" to its originally intended meaning (at least in quantity, if not to full-on purpose). I believe that what I need to do is 'memetically engineer' the term so that it out-competes its inferior modern usurper-strain... But something tells me that I should not be satisfied with merely decimating the latter's proportion of infiltration, for I need much more than a 10% eradication of the Young Pretender meaning to the term!!!)
I'd say try a couple of decimations, but that wouldn't work either, would it?
Now, on to the Clowny Circus.
I think I'm on record of saying it was stupid. Both from the practically-new players that were using it at the time and from the really new players who took it up. My opposition was because it did not hide anything while sounding stupid.
HFS is perfectly adequate, and still is. You all think digging too deep is the only "HFS"?
Demons (paticularly leading civilizations).
Forgotten Beasts
Syndrome Blood
Boogie Men(until that version was released.)
The "fun" cave people.
Another secret fun thing known only in adventure mode(adventure mode people are better at keeping silent.)
"Easter Eggs"
Deities
Other stuff I haven't found yet.
Clowns and other statements like that remain stupid, but are probably here to stay because people who break through that layer think it's a "Grand Challenge", most likely because they didn't discover it naturally and don't know how to deal with worse threats.
What worse threats? The Anti-HFS. The real #1 killer for forts. Once you can deal with that, HFS is a weak challenge. Just ask Ironblood.
What was the defining moment of Boatmurdered? Ask that next time you are about to call demons clowns meaning anything except disrespect.
(Edit: when you discount my first encounters with the new fluid HFS, Raccoons still remain the #1 killer in my fort. #2 is Rhesus Macaque. If you don't know why instantly, you need to stop digging so deep for a few fortresses.)