Halloween Special Presentation - Excerpt From a PTT Tale By Drosselmeyer

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I wanted to do a short comic illustrating a scene of a darker take on Princess Tutu. Darker, as in Drosselmeyer gets the tragedy he so loves. The first page was my entry to the Club-Tutu October contest on DA that just ended, so I'm only now posting the rest of the pages publicly.

I hope you enjoy.

Preview:



The set-up for this short...

We all know, based on series canon that...

• Raven's blood can taint a person's emotions to the darkest and most twisted incarnations of their true feelings.
• This is done by either getting the person to ingest the blood of the Monster Raven or infecting one of the Prince's heart shards.
• The Princess Tutu pendant is one of the Prince's heart shards.
• Fakir and Ahiru being on good terms started to begin at the very end of the first arc, and we're all pretty sure had evolved to "love" that one or both of them either never quite recognized or couldn't openly admit to.
• Ahiru's insecurities were based on a fear of disappearing, of not being loved, of not being able to help/protect her friends/love-interests, and of not being able to be human anymore.
• Drosselmeyer LOVES tragedy. The jerk.

Okay, so going off those known facts... I'm playing with the idea that sometime in the second arc of Princess Tutu, either the Monster Raven, Princess Kraehe, or raven!Mytho learned that the Tutu pendant was a heart shard. They did something to get the shard infected with Raven's blood. Yes, I agree that Kraehe would not really like this idea, but she's not really all that great at refusing her Father or Mytho (especially raven!Mytho).

So over the weeks/months of Fakir and Ahiru trying to fight/save raven!Mytho, the Raven's Blood is slowly infecting Ahiru. Her doubts about being unloved or unable to accomplish anything become more pronounced. And the prospect of returning to be a duck inspires both anger and fear in her. As her negative emotions gain more and more power over her, the Tutu costume shifts into something more raven-inspired. Fakir sees her slow descent into "evil", but can't figure out how to stop it. And her anger, frustration, and -as she changes- her tendency to be more aware and accepting of and more forceful with her growing attraction to Fakir complicates matters.

With this shift occurring, Ahiru never pushes Fakir into the Writer role, so he continues along the path as a Knight, and doesn't get in his head to see solutions outside of fighting to protect and rescue.

Eventually, Ahiru goes all bad, and Fakir must continue the fight on his own. He faces off against raven!Ahiru, Kraehe, and raven!Mytho under the manipulations of the Monster Raven and Drosselmeyer himself. Weeks pass where he is always fighting, barely sleeping, and the Monster Raven has gained nearly enough power via the hearts taken to escape his prison. The big showdown is not long off, and it looks like the Prince will be fighting alongside the Monster Raven instead of against him. The only luck is that, having turned evil, "Princess Tutu" has not been able to complete collecting the Prince's heart shards. She seems more interested in taking hearts for the Monster Raven and harassing Fakir, whom the Monster Raven and Drosselmeyer have pushed her emotions towards him into something far more open and possessive than they were in canon.

I leave it somewhat up to imagination where Kraehe is at this point, but I would suspect she is either dead, or disheartened into inaction by her relationships with raven!Mytho, the Monster Raven, and raven!Ahiru. Fakir in this incarnation certainly would not have hesitated to kill the "Raven's Daughter" if the opportunity arose, without Ahiru around insisting that Rue was her own person.

Under all these circumstances, Fakir is fighting a band of the Monster Raven's servants after interrupting raven!Princess Tutu's attempt to get a heart for the Monster Raven. As he finishes the fighting...


Just Love Only Me by *elfgrove on deviantART


Dark PTT pg2 - Forgive Me by *elfgrove on deviantART


Dark PTT pg3 - I Failed You by *elfgrove on deviantART

Now, I kind of wanted to continue this one more page, either with Fakir flashing back through Ahiru's slow descent into raven!Princess Tutu, or Fakir mentally steeling himself for final battle against raven!Mytho and the Monster Raven.
I don't think I will do that though, although I may do some pre-quel se-quel shorts or single illustrations along this concept-vein at a later time.

I hope everyone enjoyed this Halloween Special Presentation.

Sooooo... Ummm, yeah. Tragic story. Ummm... Blame Drosselmeyer. Yup. His fault.