Kathryn Nächtlich

I mean, both of this sides ARE him. He is freak who will drug MC if they don't want to see him and breaks into their house and clearly not really respecting boundaries, but at the same time him being cute and gullible is also him. He is naive a bit and easily falls for Harlequin's stories for example. That's why I like him, because he combines both of those sides.

I also think he isn't some kind of master manipulator. Yeah, he tries to hide the more weird and scaries parts of himself, but for me it seems like a natural behavior. Like, anyone wants to be seen in better light, especially in front of their crush. It's not like even humans irl shows instantly all of their sides. I don't mean that he isn't manipulative at all, I just think it's at least partially not intentional.

I always afraid that I mischaracterise Pierrot a lot but at the same time I get pissed off when people focus only on his cute side and thinking that he wouldn't hurt a fly (tho he killed a person in game in front of our eyes. not to mention all other shit) or see him only as scary fucking motherfucker (which is again ALSO TRUE TO SOME DEGREE. He stalks MC, isn't against drugging them AND KEEP THEM DRUGGED IF THIS IS NEEDED) but both of this are him. Just different sides of his personality.

I probably also need to clarify myself a bit, he is certainly manipulative in a way and I'm pretty sure that he can be intentionally manipulative if this needed to make MC stay by his side. But as for now, I see his behavior more like unintentional manipulation stemming from his fears of being rejected and shit. Not excusing him obviously, but for me personally unintentional shit is more forgivable. Pierrot isn't well mentally and this clearly affects his actions.

A lot of people make Pierrot the most #vanilla of the clowns because he's the face of the game, and people think that he therefore has to be the most approachable and "safe." Which IMO: Boring.

I think that's especially true with all the fandom newbies who clearly don't enjoy the heavier and darker themes of the game, so they kinda have to "distance" him from the "dark" themes of the game. So he ends up being framed as this puppydog guy, who doesn't know about sex, and definitely could not be kinky or creepy, or genuinely dangerous at all! Even when he clearly is. (Also the weird idea that virgins can't be kinky or have fetishes. You don't need to swing your thing in a circle to be the nastiest kinkiest mofo out there.)

I mean look at the game, even if not yet shown super explicitly, there's a lot of dark stuff that's just part of the lore. This isn't a game for people who cannot handle dark themes. Yet there are a lot of people who've joined who seem to have incredibly low tolerances for dark themes, and even hold ideological views against dark stories like TFC existing, yet they're still here.

So a friend and I were talking about the characterization of Pierrot and how, well, the general fandom seems to be looking at him.

I've had a feeling that a good chunk of people only have surface level knowledge of Pierrot, or even just get most of their "content" from fanon, rather than looking at the actual source material.

Pierrot himself during his nighttime rambles shows us, the reader, so much more. Yes, he shows MC his sweet side, smiling and showing affection. And when we make all the choices he agrees with, he plays nice.

But I stated it this way "He is playing nice because it is working. If it wasn't working, he wouldn't BE nice."

MC doesn't get to see Pierrot being scary because he's trying to do things the easy way. However, he makes it abundantly clear that he's not taking no for an answer, and that you belong to him, period.

So yes, Pierrot comes off as a cute innocent precious bean who could do no wrong, but if that's all you see, you've fallen for his little act.

He can be. And will be. Very scary. Even in front of MC. He's just usually been good at holding back. He does his best to hide his fangs, but sometimes he slips when things aren't going his way.

One more perhaps? I don’t have anything conclusive to say like I did with Pierrot. This one was definitely more let’s cosplay as researchers rather than me actually trying to guess what’s going on - a yap session if you will- even still I hope you enjoy my thoughts.

Another peak at a freak

Please, I'll take whatever lore crumbs about this bird man you've got

Let's see what I can share about him...

He's one of the ones who sleeps the least

When he's really excited or daydreaming, he usually talks to that... doll in his tent; Harlequin always finds it fun to watch

Whenever he notices one of his companions looking tired or a little under the weather, he’s the first to step in and encourage them to rest.

He’s very skilled and precise at cutting meat, since he practically knows by heart where every bone is so he can avoid them or cut them properly The first circus performer he came across wasn't in very good condition, which made him move closer

Just a silly little thing I did for Mother's Day after seeing Destiny working on her comic, haha

Let’s talk about the divorce okay

So here’s how I imagined it all. Ticket Taker (“the kind stranger”) and Columbina met with the rest of the members.

He saw Doctor and they became close. They’re both the eldest members and introverts. Quite unlike the other three. I headcanon that Doctor is in his mid thirties so he’d be pretty close to TT in age (even though they were younger at that point, you get the point). Maybe their subspecies are similar or have a special connection? Or at least their subspecies are close in a way that they can understand each other better? (Take that with a grain of salt, like all my theories lol).

Doctor seems calm and cool (which TT appreciates). Doctor is logical, thoughtful, even though he’s a little dense. Ticket Taker is organized, also highly intelligent, and sharp. They complement each other well.

But after the cannibalism, Doctor changed. His eyes changed.

And he became more unstable. Ticket Taker, already grieving the loss of his surrogate daughter, sees his closest friend devouring the most of her. Taking too much. At first he doesn’t think much of it. “We all ate a part of her” but slowly and slowly he became more distant. With each time Doctor would become unstable, he drifted away more.

He’s chaotic. He became what Ticket Taker dislikes.

In the comic, I like to think that they tried to make it work, or Jester at least thought things were okay with them or wanted them to get close again (hence the Pantalone and Dottore shtick they had). But once they developed their own shows, they didn’t need to be around each other as much.

Doctor is messy. His gloves are bloody. He likes gore and vivisections. Messy kills. Ticket Taker is psychological. His gloves are white. Pristine. Clean. He dislikes mess.

Doctor’s habits are things Ticket Taker dislikes and he seems to hold his values quite firmly (Doctor doesn’t even seem to clean up his gloves and clothes from blood sometimes lol).

So, Ticket Taker (having developed newfound respect for Jester and since he also uses psychological methods and isn’t “messy” like the others) ‘divorced’ Doctor.

I think they’re both detached with each other (For example, TT doesn’t refer to Doctor as just Doctor but “THE Doctor.” That’s detachment. That’s deliberate). But there’s still either an underlying respect or maybe even a yearning for what they used to be. What they used to have.

Doctor, ready to handle the “dirty work” TT doesn’t wish to employ with “unruly guests,” is not only doing what TT says, but is trying to protect someone dear to him. Even if their relationship is complicated.

He’s technically a TFC OC but he’s also a part of my own project called “Magi’s Wonderful World.”

Lore below👇👇

I’ll make a full body design eventually and color but I’m going to draw BULLET next.

M. Minstrel’s Lore:

Minstrel is a performer in Magi’s theme park. He is a skilled musician who’s able to play any instrument! He was once the most popular performer but is now tied with Big Cat.

He has the voice of a woman, specifically similar to the singer Sade. His voice was originally masculine but Magi envied the attention he would receive during his acts. For this reason, he ‘stole’ his voice, replacing it with a feminine one because it was ‘funny.’

Magi also has a spell cast on Minstrel’s eyes so they are always half-lidded, not wanting others to see his gaze because he considers them too ‘beautiful.’

In Magi’s words:

“Their eyes should meet with mine, not yours.”

Minstrel is characterized by his optimism and naivety, and can even come off as a bit of an ‘air-head.’ He’s kind to humans and will often fast or starve himself so that he limits his kills. When he does eat, he usually resorts to eating livestock. Even if they don’t provide nutritional value to him!

He has sort of a ‘Princess’ aesthetic when it comes to his songs. When he sings and plays his music, animals will often come out and aid in his performances. Mainly birds, hogs, and deer.

One of Minstrel’s special abilities is called “Kiss of Life.” When he kisses someone (whether it be a human or another monster) it fills the person with euphoria and happiness. He greets with kisses and wishes to bring love to those around him, even if it’s to his own detriment. He always tries to look on the bright side and even tries to find positive qualities in Magi.

Minstrel admires Magi and sees him as an excellent leader. It is unknown if this is as a result of his naivety, genuine appreciation for Magi, or Magi’s ‘influence.’

Magi gives him the nickname Minnie, whilst other members of the troupe (mainly BULLET and Chemist [formerly known as ‘Alchemist’]) calls him Min.

I’m surprised how many of you liked my speculative anatomy post! So I decided to follow through and actually illustrate out my otter//leopard seal headcannon for pierrot. My only note is like, there’s no indication he has a tail at all -that part is just for me lol

finished speculating your freak’s biology >.> @nekoboydreams

Close ups….. work in social media friendly canvas ratios you say? …… N-no. This problem could be solved if I draw vertically you say? Shhh lol

Neko, do I need to read the comics and follow the asks? No, that’s just extra content for those who want to understand more about the lore behind this world. All important and relevant information will be in the game. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Why is MC being human important? Let me show you the meaning behind it. You’re in the middle of the jungle, and suddenly you’re surrounded by wolves. What would surprise you more being saved by another human, your own kind, or one of the wolves turning against the pack to protect you? That’s the context I want you to understand. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Did Harlequin and Pierrot propose marriage when they bit MC? No. Right now, they’re competing for you in a game of flirtation. Those bites are not proposals. I mentioned there’s context, and that the mark would leave a scar and MC has no scar!

It’s like when a friend gives you a ring that doesn’t mean you’re married, right?

Marriage and courtship among monsters are different, and MC should definitely be aware of what’s being proposed. So relax! For now, they’re just teasing each other and lightly trying to mark you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Black tent and pink tent I can’t answer anything about those topics! That’s something you need to explore in the game and interpret for yourselves. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What happens when the circus leaves? And Carol? And the fools? All of that will also be explored in the game, so there’s nothing I can answer about it right now. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Why does the game only have English voice acting? I don’t know any Brazilian or Chinese voice actors, and adding voice acting is new to me. I never planned for the game to have it, but @darthsuki’s performance really convinced me it would add more emotion! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

How many endings will the game have? I’m planning multiple endings, but I can’t give a number right now. I might change my mind, so I prefer not to set expectations yet. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What does the “poly route” mean? It means MC will fall in love with Pierrot and Harlequin at the same time. The rest is up to your interpretation. Just like Jester’s tent, I won’t say too much about certain parts of the game so you can form your own interpretations that’s all!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Will Pierrot abandon MC?

Where did that come from? A lot of people asked me this, so I’ll be very direct: NO. There is nothing that would make Pierrot abandon MC. Never. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Are MC and Columbina the same person/reincarnation/descendants?

No. MC has no connection to Columbina. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Does Pierrot still love Columbina?

No, Pierrot has grown up and matured a lot since then he no longer thinks of Columbina that way. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What do the circus members/monsters find attractive in humans?

You know when you come across a group of cats on the street, and you recognize that they’re all cats, but you’re unable to distinguish their gender or other traits that define them individually? That’s how they see humans. They learn to recognize patterns to tell them apart, like “most females have long hair, but not all,” or “most males have beards and more body hair, but not all.”

Appearance isn’t exactly what attracts them, but other factors… maybe I’ll talk about that soon. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What if I don't want anything romantic with the characters?

The protagonist's route won't involve romance, but you can still choose whether or not to form friendships with them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Why are some answers no longer canon? I’ve mentioned before that while I was still writing the full script, I might change my mind over time.