If I had a dime every time I latch on to a female character we never officially meet in the canon content but greatly affect the story I would have 2-
This is just a word vomit of my brain rot with Columbina and Freak circus as a whole without holding my buddies hostage
The idea of the Encore AU is that it does follow the events of TFC with the aspect of Columbina is “debatably” alive in the form of Arlecchina
Arlecchina- at times can be a interchangeable name for the lover character, Columbina, however in some versions can be entirely her own character being portrayed as either a companion or rival to Harlequin/Arlecchino
(I can be wrong I’m not a scholar of all the comedian characters I just went into a rabbit whole or two 🗿)
For clarity I prefer to refer the cast of TFC as fae since fae can quite literally be anything and their existence as a whole been compared to myths and legends so tomato toMato in my book.
Which also gives me much more wiggle room in the world building and cultural aspects that loops back around the questioning of how and if Arlecchina is truly Columbina or completely her own person now due to the differences there is between them.
What inspired this train of thinking was the route where you follow Harlequin into the tent and he later gets stabbed (5 times according to him later when he’s in our room) and comes back with no visible signs of healing. To me that conveyed that the fae have incredibly fast regenerative abilities so one thing led to another to where I questioned
“What if Columbina had regenerated from all of that?”
However due to the significant damage done not everything both physically and mentally came back the same.
I would go into more detail of the relationship dynamics with the cast but I feel this post is long enough 😅