Cassandra
“I've been listening to goth music all my life... It never said anything about apples!”
― Cassandra, Pico's School
Cassandra is an upcoming character for Friday Night Funkin'.
Origin
Cassandra originates from Pico's School, a point-and-click Flash game created by Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp in 1999. It is the third installment in the Pico series. In Pico's School, Cassandra is the primary antagonist and final boss. She leads a small group called the Goth Punks, who try to take over their school as Cassandra perpetrates a school shooting. With Pico as the sole survivor in his class, it's up to him to stop the Goth Punks, save the school, and defeat Cassandra, who is revealed to be a shape-shifting alien known as a Penilian disguised as a human and sent to take over the world.
Relationships
Pico
Pico is Cassandra's enemy. In Pico's School, their interactions are generally antagonistic, though Pico is curiously the only one left alive during Cassandra's massacre of their classroom for unspecified reasons. Cyclops speculates, in a sarcastic tone, that she has a crush on him. In Pico's School: Love Conquers All, it is further implied that Cyclops was joking, as Cassandra has no reaction when the claim is made in front of her. However, since Cassandra neither explicitly confirms nor denies it, it remains slightly ambiguous. Although she is seemingly killed by Pico at the end of Pico's School, Cassandra is set to appear in Friday Night Funkin' in the future. How this will be explained remains to be seen. Additionally, an official Newgrounds site skin made by PhantomArcade depicts Pico with a box of apples from Cassandra, with the tag attached having a heart on it.
In Pico's School: Love Conquers All, Pico bonds with Cassandra, successfully talking her down from the planned shooting as he demonstrates some of the more positive sides of people on Earth. Cassandra reflects on her original plans of taking over the world, feeling genuinely remorseful for her manipulation, leading to her and Pico becoming friends as she is reformed.
Nene
Nene and Cassandra were never shown interacting directly in the Pico series. In Pico's School, the school shooting perpetrated by Cassandra puts Nene through a great deal of distress, triggering anxiety and suicidal ideation. Despite this, according to a drawing uploaded to PhantomArcade's Twitter, Cassandra has supposedly formed an intimate relationship with Nene since then.[1]
In Pico's School: Love Conquers All, Nene and Cassandra have a much nicer interaction, with Nene greeting Cassandra and Pico in the hallway on her way to the bathroom.
Trivia
General
- Cassandra was confirmed to be an upcoming character for Friday Night Funkin' by PhantomArcade during one of his live streams with JohnnyUtah. He explained that her inclusion may take a while, but her part in the story was mostly figured out.[2]
- Cassandra is the only upcoming character who does not have a revealed Friday Night Funkin'-specific design. While PhantomArcade has drawn Cassandra alongside Nene's Friday Night Funkin' design, the doodle uses AfroNinja360's design of Cassandra,[3][4] which is not official; however, this design could possibly influence her official design for the game.
- Cassandra's hairstyle resembles the shape of an upside-down Penilian's head.
- Cassandra's name was accidentally written as "Casandra" in Pico's School.
- Cassandra's name was corrected in Pico Roulette. However, in a dialogue section with Cyclops in Pico's School: Love Conquers All, there is an instance where it is misspelled as "Casandra".
Lore
- It was revealed in Pico's School: Love Conquers All that Cassandra is a furry. According to a Tweet by Tom Fulp, she has a fennec fox fursona.[5]
- Cassandra was confirmed to be gay in Pico's School: Love Conquers All, where she states that all Penilians are gay.
- Cassandra's gender was originally left unclear in official Pico material, with fans interpreting it differently in early fan works. In 2022, Tom Fulp stated that all Penilians are the same gender, but it may not fit Earth categorization.[6]
- In Love Conquers All, Cassandra is referred to with she/her pronouns.
- Cassandra is sometimes assumed to present as female in her human disguise, but this is unconfirmed. In terms of gender presentation, she may be gender non-conforming and/or androgynous.
- Cassandra may have a vagina in her human form, as her death animation in Pico Roulette has her inserting the gun into her crotch.
- Cassandra's weapon of choice seems to be an Intratec TEC-9, which is the same brand of gun that was used by Dylan Klebold in the Columbine High School massacre.
- Tom Fulp confirmed that some of Cassandra's favorite music artists are My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and KMFDM.[7]
Inspirations
- It was confirmed that the style of Cassandra's white eyes is heavily inspired by Little Orphan Annie comics.[8]
- As Pico was originally inspired by 1990s Children's Tylenol Cold illustrations, Cassandra's original design in the Pico series was an extension of said illustrations' style.[9][10]
- Cassandra's character was likely inspired by Aaron Cole, a fan of Tom Fulp who vented to him in an email about the treatment of social outcasts and goths during the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre.[11] This may be reflected in her speaking German and partaking in the goth subculture. The Columbine massacre also served as one of the inspirations for Pico's School, with the game being released 3 months and 5 days after the shooting occurred.
- Cassandra's design in the Pico series appears to incorporate Satanic motifs, including the two points in her hair resembling demon horns, upside-down crosses on her boots, and a spellbook with a pentagram on it. These are likely a reference to the Satanic panic of the 1990s, where goths were demonized and depicted in the media as Satanists who abducted and ritually abused children.
Gallery
Cassandra's redesign by MindChamber for a proposed Pico's School remake.
New version of redesigned Cassandra by MindChamber.
Cassandra's Penilian form redesign by MindChamber.
Art of Cassandra cheering on Pico by AfroNinja360, the basis of her design in PhantomArcade's drawing of her with Nene.
A doodle of Cassandra by PhantomArcade.
Girlfriend dislikes Cassandra, and Pico is horny.
Cassandra's Penilian form.
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References
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