[ID: digital painting in a loose style reminiscent of impressionism depicting Princess Tutu dancing on the surface of a pond. She reaches for the sky. Behind her a large round moon frames her reaching arms.
The other main characters are on the ground around her feet. Rue is dressed as Kraehe and bent forward in the dying swan ballet pose. Mytho lies on his side, apparently sleeping, wearing only a white button up shirt. Fakir is hunched over towards the ground in a defeated position. He is wearing his knight outfit.
In the foreground, Duck in her duck form dozes, illuminated by the light of her pendant.
End ID]
[ID: comparison of the new and old versions of this piece. The original is in a more semi-realistic style while the new one has more abstract brush strokes and dramatic lighting. End ID]
Princes Tutu is a beautiful anime with incredible story and visuals and even though I’m barely halfway through it’s making its way to becoming one of my top favourites, but every time Mytho is on screen I have to stifle a laugh because he has the saddest, most pathetic faces known to man. Like Ahiru will notice his presence and immediately go >v< oh it’s mytho-senpai!!! O.O wait no I can’t let him see me!!! and dash away at mach 20 speeds. and he’ll just. look back with that wet kitten left out in the street expression. Every day is El Muchacho Monday with Mytho around.
Hakuri Sazanami (Kagurabachi) vs. Mytho (Princess Tutu)
Hakuri Sazanami
Mytho
Voting ended onMar 24
remember, voting is based on swag, trauma, and favoritism!!
trauma and propaganda under the cut!
Trauma!
Hakuri: “hakuri was brought up in an extremely toxic meritocratic household. after struggling to come into his own as a sorcerer, he was deemed worthless by his family and became subject to severe mental and physical abuse. as part of this, he was forced to look after a victim of the family's human trafficking business, whom he eventually resolved to help escape—only for her to kill herself in front of him. this left him with immense guilt and a self-destructive desire to prove himself useful to others.”
---Several people reblogged Hakuri’s Round 2 post with a lot more messed up stuff that has happened to him, backed up by lots of manga pages. So I’m going to link those reblogs here.
By lgbtiba (TW for self harm and general injury)
By kattitude130 and more from lgtiba (TWs for blood and suicidal ideation on these ones)
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Mytho: “lost his heart and loses the capacity for emotions; because of this he is manipulated by various other characters including his adoptive brother and his girlfriend. he suffers greatly as he regains the pieces of his heart that cause negative emotions. also he gets poisoned and morphs into a bird man in the final few episodes”
From @ballet-birds-and-books “mytho is unironically a decent allegory for dissociation and later unchecked hypersexual tendancies after assault. he was my projection victim of choice throughout my entire childhood at least. that's gotta count for something
i feel like just explaining what happens with him in the series doesnt do the presentation justice. a lot of small details and interactions build up over the series and the weight of the situation gradually looms over you. as he regains his ability to think for himself you start to understand the things that impact his behavior more yk? which makes it hit harder when that agency is violated and he has a million different breakdowns
it's been a while though im not 100% sure that's where everyone else's mind when prompted to think about mytho's trauma”
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Propaganda!
Hakuri: “he wants to help. he wants to help so bad he will fry his own brain in an attempt to stop someone else from getting hurt—and when they get hurt anyway, he will inevitably push 100% of the blame onto himself. I want to burrito him in bubble wrap”
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Mytho: “what if the damsel in distress was a pretty boy with big wet eyes who loved to dance :]”
From @fate-defiant “Additional Mytho explanation/propaganda because I need the world to Understand:
(i'll keep some things vague in order to avoid too many spoilers for those uninitiated)
So! Do you like to see characters grapple with hope and despair? Struggle and squirm against the constraints of a role that was imposed on them? Grasp blindly in the dark searching for some kind of agency, a path, an identity? Do you like birds?
Then Mytho Princesstutu is for you!
My boy is, in-universe, a fictional character: the literal archetypical Fairytale Prince. The story he was in was left unfinished due to its authors death, leaving him stuck in an endless battle against the monster he was trying to slay...
... eeeeeexcept the monster flies OUT of the story and into the real world, so Mytho follows after him. This is how he loses his heart: in order to defeat the monster, he uses his magical sword to break his own heart into pieces and then uses those pieces to seal away the monster. The anime's entire plot revolves around him getting his heart back in order to defeat the monster once and for all.
As for the above-mentioned "adoptive brother": oooooh besties there's something much more sinister going on there!
The boy in question, Fakir, is his knight, actually - a role that is both kinda self-imposed and kinda forced on them for complex and spooky plot reasons. At the start of the story Fakir is obsessed with keeping Mytho Safe-And-Sound™, and so acts in horribly abusive and controlling way towards Mytho, who literally cannot resist him because he has 1) no heart! thus, 2) no feelings! thus, 3) no free will! Fuck!!!
This also makes the relationship with his girlfriend really fucked up: he at the start feels nothing for this girl, Rue, who uses the fact that he will just do anything he's told with no resistance to play boyfriend-girlfriend with him. Which by the way is against Fakir's orders to him so Mytho ends up in the middle of this spiteful, messy tug-of-war where he is the rope(well, more like a coveted toy, really).
As the story progresses and Mytho regains some of his heart, he gets to feel more pain and show more agency, but is also met by constant, at times violent, resistance by two people who have convinced themselves its all because they care for him and want him to be well!
In fact, at some point Rue literally has a crashout about Mytho potentially leaving her now that he has free will and becomes a villainess(well, that and complex and spooky plot reasons. free my girl she did all of that shit and served her own brand of traumatized cunt the entire time). AND drags Mytho into his own corruption arc, kicking and screaming(and serving traumatized, identity-criris'd cunt)! He's basically Going Through It throughout the entire series with no breaks and it's both agonizing and amazing to watch!
Oh and have I mentioned that the author of his story meant for it to be a tragedy? ;) And that the old motherfucker is actually still around as a ghost? ;))) And that he would very much like to finish his tale? ;))))))
Ok so basically:
- my boy's whole existence is defined by a lack of agency! born as a doomed figment of imagination! lived as a doomed, stagnant puppet! came back as a doomed-er, angrier sacrifice!!!
- that and his programmed-in selflessness, oh my god. spolers ig, but the one trait he retained even with no heart and emotions, was the impulse to protect and help the weak, which got him into all sorts of dangerous, life threatening situations! because he is The Hero, The Prince! it is in his nature to run into danger, even at the cost of his safety! he has no choice!!!!!!! FUCK
- later in the anime he's fighting against corruption and he's sooooo anguished and conflicted and spooky. it's some jekyll and hyde shit it's fantastic he's being rude he's sniling menacingly he's having mood swings he's begging to be free!!!
- btw, have you enjoyed the recent wave of knightposting? have you perhaps sighed wistfully as you reblogged yet another snippet about a knight falling to their knees ready to follow their monarchs every order? Ok well hear me out what if the prince was the one afflicted with undying loyalty and love for every living being on earth? what if tis was the prince falling helplessly into self-destruction in order to protect, to save? to be the perfect hero everyone expects him to be? to embody the myth of his own existence??? YOU KNOW WHEN THE STORIES EAT PEOPLE?????
- Yes you heard that right folks a vote for Mytho is a vote for the people :))))))))
- yes there hints of toxic doomed yaoi too don't worry
- He is so greebled bouba but if said bouba was kiki. greebled, kiki bouba.
- also also also during the finale he gets his ass kicked sooooo much like he gets up eventually and wins but those last couple episodes are just him being Trapped and then Trapped some more either literally or by his circumstances or a lack of good choices he is Trapped As Fuck and then birds peck the shit out of him its fantastic
