𝓺uinn.

now i know he was caught off guard by pierrot’s voice, but, in my opinion, that should’ve been even MORE of a reason for him to fight back or struggle or something!

something!! but he doesn’t. and honestly i feel like i’ve only seen ONE comic or drawing by neko unless i’ve missed anything and that was:

but also yk i don’t know all that i have and haven’t seen… but awwww “me and my toxic boyfriend stabbing each other ✌️” /silly

the tent scene also stands out to me. like i think in 90% of situations where he’d be at actual risk (if that makes sense,) i think he is honestly agile/aware/witty enough to somehow get himself out of it or at least dodge/avoid. he doesn’t though. pierrot may be the physically strongest but i feel as though harlequin would be more strategic in a fight, like his brain would work faster and aid him

maybe yeah it’d be harder to dodge or avoid after being stabbed once already but he seems to walk off 5 knife injuries pretty easily! and he’s capable of fighting back as we can see in the drawing above!

He just… decides not to? i think both in the classic outfit comic and the tent scene he had time to do something other than… stand there. fighting may have not been the smartest option when pierrot was in feral mode, i think, but he still had the opportunity to do something. anything. instead he lets pierrot grab him and do who knows what to him until jester, doctor, and TT grabbed him. the danger of pierrot then was even more than just getting stabbed a few times and he still did nothing…

so is it self punishment? I’ve been thinking about a post i saw last night about him being a sort of classic case of survivor’s guilt and, yeah, that put a lot of stuff i had been thinking into words! he leaned fully into the evil, irredeemable thing and makes sure pierrot hates him because he needs pierrot’s hate to validate his refusal or inability to accept/forgive himself for what he did. he could easily avoid pierrot hurting him, he’s smart enough to, instead he throws himself into the danger and is self destructive because he thinks he deserves it for having to kill columbina.

and i think that’s why he’s so surprised when receiving actual affection or reciprocation from MC, he’s supposed to be the one chasing after and trying to steal them. he’s supposed to be a villain, not a serious second option or love interest, what he did was unforgivable and what he is under all that is, obviously, monstrous. he needs to be flirty, pushy, manipulative, and bad enough to make them hate him because being hated is what he feels like he deserves and being hated is so much easier than being loved. he’s supposed to be something to come between MC and pierrot instead of someone they’d actually want to seriously choose.

the beginning of day two, if you say yes to enjoying what happened in harlequin’s tent after his show, TT says something along the lines of “i didn’t expect that. maybe not even him.” he acts cocky but his self esteem? i think it’s actually allllll the way down there! and he doesn’t want to get attached either. he doesn’t want to crave love from the short lived human because that would actually ruin his “i need to be the villain so i get hated and ‘punished’” thing since MC can actually reciprocate!!!! the further he goes from that mindset or wanting more beyond it that he can’t shove it down, the closer he’ll have to get to forgiving himself!

Back to the original topic a little though… ^^;

TT is right, he wouldn’t be able to stop him, and harlequin knows that… I think honestly, what he was planning to do was take pierrot’s focus away from the crowd and centralize the rage onto himself. so, he’s kind of right (with how i’m thinking)

he can stop pierrot >>from killing all those people.<< he can’t stop his anger or stabilize him, he can put his rage somewhere else. he didn’t really exactly say WHAT he could stop. he’d just get pierrot to take it out on him instead of the humans, which, might’ve been pointless but i think harlequin knew he couldn’t actually calm him down… so i don’t think that’s what he was thinking of doing :P