Hi! I had a question that has been eating me up for the past few weeks and so I had to ask it. As Neko said before that every circus member is a yandere in some sense, I was curious if we would see any yandere tendencies from Harlequin in later days of the game. I was also curious to what everyone's secondary "dere" type would be if not yandere. (If that's hard to answer for Pierrot you don't have to.) But that's all from me! Take your time with the game and please take care of yourselves!
(Note from Neko: I don't understand to much about this deres, so I need to believe in Darth haha)
For those curious, here’s what we used for options and their descriptions!
Pierrot - Deredere
An overly affectionate character who is lovestruck and does not hide their romantic feelings towards their love interest. They experience intense feelings of romantic love for their love interest to the point that it is difficult for them to think of anything else except the person they love.
Harlequin - Kuudere Sadodere
A character who gains pleasure by toying with and teasing their love interest, but over time starts to show a cuter and more overly affectionate deredere side. They will lovingly talk down to their love interest or force them to do humiliating intimate acts because they enjoy the pleasure they get from having control over them and enjoy seeing their reactions.
Doctor - Dandere Kuudere
A character who initially acts cold, expressionless, and indifferent to hide their loving feelings, but becomes cute, lovey-dovey, and deredere around their love interest after getting closer to them. Although it might not appear like it at first, they are hiding a deep inner love that will come out after becoming close to their love interest.
Ticket Taker - Kurodere
A character who is deredere to their love interest but schemes and sets clever traps, within the bounds of common sense, in the background to get their love with them to develop faster. They are deredere towards their love interest but things aren't going the way they want so they think they would rather create schemes to make their love interest fall for them faster, without making their intentions known.
Jester - Kiridere… ish?
A term for a character who usually has a dignified, crisp, composed, and serious hardworking side in public, but suddenly becomes deredere and shows a more cute and overly affectionate side when they are alone with their love interest. They are serious and enthusiastic about their work and studies so they walk around with a strict composed and dignified posture and a sharp expression on their face which gives them an unapproachable atmosphere.
Fun fact: while Neko did originally intend for The Freak Circus to be a yandere game to some extent, he assumed people wouldn’t see it or enjoy it as one due to how different it is compared to others in the genre. He was very surprised to get the kind of positive feedback that people shared as it got popular in the community— it IS a yandere game and, like many pieces of media, they all explore their genre and tropes differently!
Because of this of course, neither he nor the mods are incredibly familiar with the ‘dere’ types beyond the most popular ones— and these are what we felt were the closest or most accurate! They are just for fun, they aren’t meant to be concrete designations— so yes, you guys can absolutely call Harlequin a tsundere if you like! XD
Take Ticket Taker and Jester with a grain of salt though, since they are very nuanced characters when it comes to affection, and therefore were extremely hard to categorize in a way that felt accurate for their personalities!