Princess Tutu Rue - Tumblr Posts

1 year ago

dumb question: could you elaborate on what you meant when you mentioned the character relationships regressing in princess tutu?

honestly, maybe "regressed" wasn't exactly the right word. the progression gained in s1 still exists - ahiru has gotten to know a bit more about rue and believes that rue is still somewhere in the kraehe persona, fakir no longer wishes to deny mytho his heart, and most critically, fakir and ahiru are now allies. none of those major developments have been set back.

however, literally all these relationships have flattened by virtue of the show simply not choosing to focus on them. rue appears to no longer feel ambivalent about princess tutu (which is sort of gestured at as being part of her retreat into the kraehe role/the raven's daughter, but there's no actual attention drawn to it.) we get next to nothing about how fakir feels about mytho other than "well we gotta get his heart to him and solve the raven's blood problem." I DO think fakir and ahiru have gotten closer, but their relationship is a rather straightforward friendship. it's still a little complex, but it lacks the drive and relative complexity of s1.

this would not be a problem if fakir/ahiru was a background dynamic to all the other ongoing dynamics, btw. they don't need to always be in a fraught ideological struggle. I think their dynamic is cute! but given that there's just very little complexity in any relationship in the show at this point, it does feel like a regression. ptutu has always been a kid's show, and so I never expected a crazy level of complex characterization, but there was a sense of forward momentum and struggle between clashing personalities and motives in s1 😭 compared to that, s2 has felt so empty.

well, except for one dynamic. and that's between rue and raven's blood mytho.

i will say straight up that this dynamic is WEIRD. not for any actual reason of the dynamic itself (in a vacuum it's a fascinating dynamic) but for the writing surrounding it. ive talked EXTENSIVELY about how much I hate the choice to make mytho be possessed by an Evil Self, and this is another extension of that. we know raven's blood mytho is just meant to disappear like a puff of smoke by the end of the plot. in essence, this undercuts literally any and all screentime he gets. we know that, because he is a plot obstacle, he is just not supposed to be taken seriously. his scenes with rue are meant to establish HER as a poor little meow meow, and not to establish him as a genuine character with motivations and feelings of his own.

and of course rue, come season 2, has been established as being pretty much entirely princess kraehe. her motive to possess mytho has been further fleshed out as being part of her backstory as an emotionally abused girl who wishes to free her father and gain a happy ending with mytho.

I do feel this comes out of nowhere and undercuts some earlier stuff with her character. however, it's not a horrible change. even if it's not what I wanted or liked about her, it DOES say stuff about her and lend texture to how she views mytho. however, some of this was unintentional by the writers. rather than being only tragic, she just seems pathetic and sad. I'm wishing for her to both break free of her father AND break free of her idealization of mytho. both her father and raven's blood mytho treat her like shit, and she doesn't care if regular mytho loves her so long as she can possess him. i want so badly for that mindset to go away for her, but from what I know, it doesn't.

all that aside, that brings us to the one dynamic relationship in s2 so far, and that's between rue and raven's blood mytho. as discussed, he is basically a new character. he doesn't feel like he is at all related to regular mytho, even inversely. the only other character he Could be related to is the raven, but given that he's not literally the raven possessing mytho's body, his characterization tells us very little about either character. so... not great for the idea of Existing dynamics progressing. they had to invent a new guy for rue to have character development with!

I do like it. they're mutually using each other, which is interesting. I like their little plotting sessions, and I like rue's continual wish that he will at least love her a little, even though she's mostly concerned with actual mytho rather than him. they feel like fun, toxic allies, and you get a great sense of how they view each other. they're both characterized quite interestingly in their moments together. their mutual ruthlessness is put on great display.

but well... we get a good sense of how rue feels about regular mytho. we know exactly what she sees in him. mytho himself? we don't get his viewpoint on hardly anything.

now, this is justifiable from a watsonian standpoint because of his heart situation. he isn't himself, and is spending most of his time fighting against his evil alter ego. but s1 mytho also had an incomplete heart, and we got a good sense of how he viewed other people! he went from unquestionably allowing fakir and rue to overrule him to asserting his own emotions against them. we see that he was drawn by princess tutu. it seemed like he liked fakir and ahiru at least somewhat. and even before he had his heart back, he still pretty obviously had interests and had his own viewpoint on fakir and rue.

now? nothing. we know he wishes to see tutu, isn't interested in rue's attempts to control him, and that he dislikes his raven's blood persona. that's it. we don't know how his views on anyone else have shifted. a lot has happened - it would be really natural for his perspectives on everyone to change! but we don't see evidence of it. the only time we see the Real Mytho is when he is desperately struggling against the raven's blood.

so yeah. theres just less dynamism between any of the four main characters. it's really not great.


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1 year ago

Once upon a time, there was a crow.

As far as she was aware, she was always a crow.

She was quite sure of it because she clearly couldn’t recall being literally anything else other than a crow.

Sure, she was able to take the image of a human at times, but that didn’t change the fact that she was still just a crow, did it?

Okay she actually wasn’t always a crow but unfortunately she didn’t know that yet.

Anyway, there was this prince she met at some point.

He saved her life in fact.

Impossible.

Sure, it was common knowledge that many humans had a soft spot for animals. 

She knew because she sees humans fawn over the ducks in the pond all the time.

But they don’t behave like that around crows, do they?

Absolutely not.

They would shoo them away, some even going as far as to throw pebbles and stones whenever they see them.

Crows were hideous creatures. Symbols of bad luck and death. 

(Ducks meanwhile were cute and innocent.)

(She really hated ducks.)

No human is ever capable of loving or even caring for a crow.

After all, it’s what her father has been saying to her ever since she was a nestling.

And he wouldn’t lie to her, would he?

Yet, this prince... he was different.

He seemed willing to protect every creature he came across.

Even a crow.

Did he just feel sorry for her?

Or maybe…

Maybe he’s the only human capable of truly loving a crow.

TLDR; basic summary of an AU in which instead of a “crow born in a human body” Rue is… well, “a crow that can take the form of a human” similar to Ahiru/Duck. In fact it almost directly parallels Duck’s situation.

Here’s the thing though.

While Duck was always… well, a duck, Rue’s crow form is a result of a curse (or rather, if we want to abide by PT canon, an effect of the raven’s blood she was fed to as a baby) placed on her long ago (perhaps by the Raven himself).

And of course fairytale logic comes into play here; it can only be broken by true love. (And by the end, it does, thankfully.)

Actually, real question; in the second season, we see Mytho starting to physically transform into a crow after a certain period of time of exposure to the raven’s blood. Rue was apparently fed the raven’s blood when she was an infant. So why isn’t she a crow by now? Did the raven want her to maintain human form, or did it only affect her emotions and not her appearance? Who knows.

Anyway, that’s pretty much the basic gist of this AU so far. Might expand on it some more if people are interested.


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11 months ago

If you guys think Rue's still feeling guilty for her actions...

Then just think about how bad poor Mytho must be feeling after everything.

Imagine having to live with the fact that you (unwillingly) attempted (multiple times) to sacrifice an innocent girl's heart to ressurrect a monstrous entity which is actually your greatest foe. Imagine performing all of this when you were supposed to love and protect anyone around you.

Even if Mytho's reputation as a prince stays intact after everything, I personally wouldn't say the same for his self-esteem and dignity.


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10 months ago

Whenever I see a Princess Tutu Beauty and the Beast AU, it's usually Fakiru.

Which of course isn't a bad thing, buuuuuut-

Why hasn't anyone done a Ruetho Beauty and the Beast AU? Like, the parallels are right there.

Now usually people would (at least, theoretically) make Rue the beauty and Mytho the beast... because well, he kinda turned into a raven beast at some point? I guess?

But the way I see it? Yeah, no.

Mytho is Belle all the way.

Rue's the fucking raven beast.

Like, really think about it. Rue has been gaslit all her life and led to believe that she's ugly and unworthy of love, making her cold-hearted and selfish.

Mytho is always putting others before himself. Taking someone else's place (*ahem* Fakirissomeoneelse—) as a captive in return for them to go free? I can easily see him doing that.

Look, you can't convince me that Mytho is somehow not a reskinned Disney princess, okay?


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