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justminawrites · 10 months

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The Portrait

AO3

Summary: Syrah holds an impromptu group therapy session to take everyone's minds off the curse-curing crystal. Somehow the topic drifts to First Loves i.e. first portraits, and Whitney is peer pressured into revealing the truth of the first colourful picture he'd ever laid eyes on.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“All right, that’s enough– get in the therapy bubble, all of you!”

Whitney languidly opened one eye to witness the debacle unfolding before him.

It was a perfectly normal day for the Cursed Princess Club, the birds were twittering and the weather in the Haunted Forest behind the Pastel Kingdom was uncharacteristically pleasant, enough so that Syrah had scheduled an impromptu tea party (much to poor Curtis’ chagrin) complete with picnic blankets, freshly baked goods, and the most motherly attitude she could muster up in the wake of Prez’s absence.

Whitney wasn’t sure where exactly Calpernia had gone but had taken one look at the withering glare Curtis’ shot Syrah behind a tray of slightly steaming muffins and realised he’d probably be safer not knowing.

It must be something to do with the gala anyway, everything did these days.

Syrah had intended on lightening the mood after the disaster that was Gwen’s Dinner Party, but the impending introduction of a curse-breaking crystal had soured everyone’s appetites for the usual fluffy gossip that doubled as a means of relieving tension in the club. Dragging a begrudging Saffron along, the Pinocchio-fied princess held a mandatory sit down to discuss the pros and cons of portraits being used to arrange marriages (a topic she’d found in one of Prez’s abandoned lecture portfolios).

Whitney happened to be meditating nearby when the first sign of disagreement began.

Thermidora knocked over a cup of tea onto Abbi’s new dress, but instead of getting angry, the 80-year-old teenager tutted, shook her head and said something along the lines of ‘-see, this is why you need the crystal more than I do.’

This simple, offhand comment set off a chain reaction across the entire tea party and within a matter of minutes everyone was at each other’s throats about why a curse-breaking crystal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to them.

Pillows were thrown, names were called and it looked like it was going to turn into a real brawl until Syrah picked up a metal tray and banged on it loudly with a pair of dessert tongs.

“That’s enough!” She repeated, setting down the tray, “Bubble. Now. You too, Whitney!”

Whitney started as she stabbed the dessert tongs in his direction accusatorially, but obliged. Everyone at the CPC was a force to be reckoned with, in their own way, and he had no intention of having more than one member be angry at him.

Once they were all sitting in a circle, Whitney sandwiched between Saffron and Monika, Syrah (on the other side of Saffron) released a breath.

“Now we all agreed that we’d wait till Prez got back to talk about the crystal didn’t we?”

“Yes Syrah,” a chorus of girls, and Saffron, echoed obediently. Whitney pretended to be deeply interested in the red-and-white fibres of the picnic blanket to avoid meeting her eyes.

Nobody had asked him what he thought about the whole curse-breaking crystal situation, but of course, why would they? Whatever claim he had on the item was likely lower than even Frederick; not that he coveted it of course. As far as he was concerned his curse wasn’t a curse at all but the consequences of his behaviour. A punishment that had slowly begun to flare up more and more since he’d gotten here.

“Great! Then let’s forget about all this woe-is-she business and get back to talking about what really matters!”

“But the history of portraiture is so bo-Oring,” Abbi whined, draping herself across a tired looking Renée, who sighed in agreement. A murmur of assent seemed to ripple through the Bubble as the princesses looked at one another and winced.

“You know Prez’s lectures never fail to put me to sleep, Syrah.”

“Yes, that’s why we won’t be doing history but your-story instead!” Syrah replied, eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Forget about the ‘Olden Days’– this group discussion is going to be all about your very first portrait-crush!”

A chorus of oohs and aahs filled the glade, as the prospect of a fun, shared experience, temporarily overshadowed the gloom of a cure. Whitney must have looked confused, because both Saffron and Monika simultaneously leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“Its like your first crush-“ Monika began.

“-but only from seeing their portrait.” Saffron finished.

“I had mine when I was only twelve,” Syrah grinned, eyes sparkling, “What can I say, I was a pretty popular child.”

“Yeah,” Saffron scoffed, “Or your parents just wanted to get rid of you as soon as possible.”

She smacked his uncursed arm and he yelped.

“Wait, aren’t portrait crushes usually the result of a marriage proposal.. or an impending one?” Monika asked, anxiously twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

“Don’t tell me you got proposed to when you were–”

“Mm, yeah,” Syrah’s momentary preening turned tart, her lips curling into something like disgust, “–and he was well into his twenties too. Luckily my father saw right through his charade.”

“He hired a man to paint him ten years younger, but the artist did his job too well and my parents insisted on meeting him in person. Long story short, there’s a reason I don’t wear chevron.”

Saffron fell strangely silent and Monika turned a greenish purple colour, looking like she was either about to choke or vomit or both. Even Whitney felt a twinge of pity stirring in his chest for the once tween-aged girl; therapy bubble indeed.

“Anyway,” Syrah continued, completely oblivious to her friends discomfort, “Who’s next?”

“I haven’t had mine yet,” Abbi sighed, catching only the tail-end of the mildly horrifying conversation, “Though I don’t think it’ll ever happen.”

“Oh don’t say that, Abbi,” Syrah frowned, pulling the girl in for a hug, “It just means that when it finally happens, it’ll be all the more special won’t it?”

“I guess so,” Abbi huffed, turning to the lobster princess on her right, “What about you, Thermidora?”

“Lobsters are excellent portrait-connoisseurs,” Thermidora replied easily, waving her large, clawed arms inches away from Monika’s face, “I had many a suitor in my day, but none ever caught my eye quite like Benedict did.”

“Was there something different about his portrait?” Syrah prompted as Monika burst into a puff of feathers and landed in Whitney’s claws. He steadied the quaking magpie on his other shoulder to keep her out of harms way.

“Oh yes,” Thermidora resumed, unbothered, “He had the most well-kept moustache I’d ever seen, on a man or a lobster. It was quite the fad at the time!”

“Hear that Saffron,” Syrah snickered, elbowing her friend, “Lobster or man..”

“Oh, lay off would ya.”

“I- I haven't had mine yet either-” Monika twittered once she’d recovered her breath.

“But I can’t really sit still long enough to get one. Sitting still means I have to keep quiet, keeping quiet means all I can listen to are the thoughts in my head, and one thing leads to another and I get so anxious about it all that I just–“

The magpie squeaked as if to make her point and slumped unto herself.

“You could try listening to some relaxing music while they paint,” Jolie chimed in from across the circle.

“Or Read A Book.” Renée scribbled on her pad of paper.

“It shows that you have hobbies and interests!”

“Sorry.. um.. am I interrupting?”

The CPC looked up to see a familiar golden head hover at the edge of the glade, his bright green getup easily marking him out from the trees and foliage.

“Frederick!” Syrah exclaimed, waving over the young prince, “Not at all! Are you looking for Gwen?”

Whitney held up a hand in greeting which he mimicked, albeit hesitantly, once he caught his eye. Though the dinner was almost a catastrophe, Whitney remembered feeling relief burst in his chest when Frederick had called him his friend and saved their cover.

“Uhm.. yes. Is she- is Gwen- uh- around?”

“No, she’s probably busy getting ready for the gala,” Syrah huffed, “-but you’re welcome to join us.”

“Yes! Come, come!” Thermidora echoed.

Frederick looked like he’d rather pull a llama uphill in a makeshift cart again but swallowed his disappointment like a champ and reluctantly walked over to take Monika’s place.

“We’re talking about first portrait-crushes,” Syrah explained quickly and watched as the young boy brightened but then immediately turned pale.

“O- oh, I see.”

“So,” Abbi nudged after an uncomfortable pause, “Was Gwen your first?”

“My family doesn’t have the best reputation with portraits,” Frederick admitted, beads of sweat forming on both sides of his temple as the rest of the club members fell silent to hear his story.

“Our castle was haunted for years, and Father didn’t see the value in paying for an exorcism so all the pictures we commissioned were.. interesting, to say the least.”

“Oh! A friend of mine had the same problem!” Jolie interrupted, popping open her eye sockets to dig around for a picture. Whitney watched Frederick’s face turn two shades lighter; some curses would definitely take a while to get used to.

“Here!”

Everyone leaned in to see the palm-sized sketch the princess had dug out from her eyeless void; though barely qualifying as a portrait, the distinct silhouettes of a king, a queen and a young princess with green hair was overshadowed by a looming maw of darkness punctuated by two sharp jewels of red light, burning like coals.

“No matter where they went, the shadow seemed to follow them!” Jolie explained cheerily. Now it was Saffron’s turn to look perturbed.

“In the end, they gave in and had the exorcism. Good thing they did too, apparently the medium had foreseen that my friend only had three days left to live..”

“Did they... ahem.. ever find out what it was that was haunting them?” Saffron asked gruffly, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice by coughing.

Jolie turned her sightless eyes on him then, a wicked grin spreading over her features as she leaned in to finish her tale.

“No,” She didn't budge an inch, “But the king and queen had it released into a haunted forest right behind their castle.. a forest just... like... this.. one..”

“BOO!”

Saffron screeched as two glowing red orbs lit up inside her eye sockets, and toppled backwards into Syrah taking the both of them down in panic. Frederick clung to Whitney in fear, temporarily displacing Monika from his shoulder, the latter squawking and spluttering as she launched herself onto Renée’s head and hid in her soft blonde hair.

Jolie giggled amidst all the hysteria and knocked on her temples with the flat of her palm a few times until the small, unmistakable form of a mouse popped out into her palm, blinked in surprise, then took one look at Whitney and scurried away for its life.

“Everyone’s a critic.” She shrugged noncommittally. He almost snorted.

“Get. Off.” Syrah huffed, extricating herself from Saffron as she tried to maintain a semblance of dignity but it proved to be a struggle since he’d already passed out cold from all the excitement. Frederick sheepishly dusted off his friend’s shoulder and scooted away, embarrassed.

The sun had begun to inch towards the horizon, smearing the sky in yolky oranges and browns, studded with milky white stars.

“Alright,” Syrah began once everyone’s heart rates had returned to normal, “Where were we?”

“Maybe we should call it a day, Syrah,” Monika quipped, peeking out from under Renée’s hair.

“Nonsense,” She frowned, gesturing for Curtis to pass her a butter-knife, “We haven’t heard Whitney’s story yet!”

Whitney blanched as all eyes now turned to him curiously. Even Curtis, who’d been appearing and disappearing from this conversation at whim paused to flick the cutlery right at Whitney’s face.

“I’m sure you must’ve received tons!” Syrah said, snatching it out out of the air, a hair’s width away from his eyeball.

“I don’t-“ Whitney gulped, pretending to remain unaffected by the attempted assassination that no one else had noticed.

“Don’t be shy,” Renée held up her sketchpad comfortingly.

“Yeahmmff, we’re all ears, cat-man,” Abbi mumbled sarcastically, mouth filled with macarons. It seemed that she wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about Whitney’s status as a club member, though she commended his effort to help out.

He looked around helplessly but even Frederick had perked up now, intrigued by the idea of discovering more about his strange friend and his foreign mannerisms.

“Portraiture was difficult for my family as well,” Whitney caved in and began when he realised there was no getting out of this one, “-but our reasons were not supernatural, at least, not as far as was told.”

“The Monochrome Kingdom has a very particular relationship with colour; it was both a treasure and a taboo. Nothing in the kingdom naturally produces colour on its own, from the grass to the cloud cover, everything came in shades of either grey, white or black - so any products that did require other hues had to be imported. Raw dyes and paints were especially reserved for the nobility and only brought out during the most important occasions, and even then what was left was quite muted and dull.”

A blanket of silence descended over the CPC as they watched the former prince recall his home with a mixture of guilt and pity.

“I myself hadn’t seen a single bright colour till I turned 17,” Whitney continued in his usual flat manner, but Frederick thought he could hear something like wistfulness in his friend’s tone.

“And much like everything else - it came from outside the kingdom.”

“But the Monochrome Kingdom is very well-renowned,” Thermidora mused, claw on chin, “Even under the sea, it was quite the popular subject of debate– surely you must have gotten far more alliance-based proposals.”

“One would assume as much,” Whitney agreed, “-but if there’s anything the King and Queen loved more than their wealth, it was their privacy. Before Blacquelyn was born, they didn’t even bother attending galas or parties.”

“I’m embarrassed to admit, I was ignorant to the outside world for much of my youth. Perhaps that was why I was so hasty to get married.”

“Oh right! I was wondering that too!” Monika chirped, fluttering back to his shoulder, “You got engaged to Prez awfully quick!”

“R-right.”

Frederick raised an eyebrow as Whitney’s demeanour shifted minutely; if he didn’t know better, his friend almost seemed.. flustered?

“As I was saying,” Whitney cleared his throat, “My parents valued their privacy and our obedience, so any portraits that were sent in were burned before either Greyden or I laid eyes on them.”

“It was the eve of my seventeenth birthday when everything changed.”

“Well don’t keep us on edge! Get on with it!” Abbi huffed; despite herself, she was starting to enjoy the story.

“Very well,” He acquiesced, “We had just finished one of our violent gladiator-style fights to win Father’s approval that week when a courtier came in to announce an invitation to a ball–“

“Woah woah woah– a WHAT?!” Syrah gasped.

He trailed away in bemusement as the CPC exchanged horrified looks between themselves.

“Wait, like actual fights, with real weapons?” Monika ruffled her feathers in alarm.

“Yes? But it was strictly torso and below the belt,” He added quickly, as though that made it any less appalling, “I nicked Greyden’s face once and my Father had me thrown in the Tiger Pit for three days.”

“Three.. days..” Saffron, rising from his fainting spell, looked at Whitney as though he’d just confessed to murder.

“You must have a lot of scars!” Jolie gasped; he nodded.

“Are you.. okay?” Renée volunteered, making way for Saffron to return to the circle, and Whitney shrugged.

“It was a long time ago,” He said, “And I learned to make peace with my experiences, different though they may be.”

“We’re always here if you wanna talk, ‘bout it, bud’,” Saffron sighed, passing him a pillow, which Whitney took bewildered.

“I- uh- Thank you, Saffron.”

“The courtier came in..” Frederick prompted finally, as a mixed silence descended on the group.

“Right- my parents had been invited to a ball being held the next day,” Whitney began again, stumbling over the newfound support he was unused to receiving, “It was a debutante ball.”

“A princess from a neighbouring kingdom had reached a marriageable age and they were holding a party to introduce her into society. Since it was such short notice, my father declined, but it was too late. I had already caught sight of him by then, and hunted the courtier down after supper.”

“I’m ashamed to say my methods weren’t the friendliest,” He admitted, knuckles tightening as he recalled an undoubtably violent memory, “-but after a lot of.. persuading.. I managed to convince him to tell me the whereabouts of the portrait that came with the invitation.”

“The stars must have aligned for me that day, because they hadn’t defaced it yet. The courtier led me straight it, and that’s when I saw her.”

The CPC was once again at the edge of their seat, now because Whitney’s tone had taken on a kind of softness, his claw-like nails relaxing for the first time since he sat in the circle.

“She had hair the colour of a sky I wasn’t born under, and eyes like a sun I’d never seen. It was the first time I’d ever seen someone so.. full of life. At that moment, I knew I had to have her.”

Whitney winced as he realised what he’d said.

“In hindsight, I realise that those were the whims of a spoiled, selfish prince who had never understood how to correctly treat another human being, but at the time, all I could think of was that if I met her, somehow my life would get better, even marginally.”

Frederick listened to all this, wide-eyed; why did Whitney’s story sound so familiar? Could it be that both of them shared a need for escape from their respective toxic family dramas– perhaps the former prince was a lot more like him than he’d assumed.

“So, what happened?” Syrah demanded, restless for the reveal, “Who was the princess?”

“I took the portrait to my father and insisted on getting married,” Whitney replied.

“AND?” Renée held up the pad of paper.

“He said no and had it burned.” He finished, “So I never found out who the princess was.”

The CPC groaned collectively, completely unsatisfied with the ending of the story but Frederick knew better than to give up hope. He’d noticed that his friend’s shoulders were tense– a tell.

Whitney was lying.. but why?

“Well,” Frederick rose, dusting off his trousers, “This has been really fun but I’ve got to get back before my Father notices I’m missing. Coming Whit?”

Whitney looked up puzzled, but then noticed Frederick subtle attempt at winking and hurried to his feet as well.

“Oh- yes- I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

Syrah narrowed her eyes at the two newest members of the club and crossed her arms, but before she could point out how suspicious they were being, Curtis appeared once more, now looking a little more mellow than before.

“If you’ll excuse me princess, it’s well after twilight and I need these dishes to entertain the rest of the club members tomorrow. I trust you’re finished with your therapy group?”

“Oh, Curtis–”

Whitney didn’t end up hearing the rest of her sentence, since Frederick hastily bowed a goodbye and yanked him out of the glade, much to the disappointment of the other princesses, who were only starting to get used to the strange striped, tiger-man.

Once they were far enough that he was sure they couldn’t be overheard, Frederick turned to his friend and gave him an awkward, one-armed hug.

“What–“ Whitney seemed to freeze at the touch until Frederick pulled back (it was like hugging a rock anyway), and shook his head knowingly.

“I don’t know why you lied about the portrait,” Frederick began, watching as Whitney’s claws involuntarily curled into fists, “-but you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I just want you to know, I consider you one of my closest friends.”

“Thank you,” Whitney’s shoulders slumped, and Frederick nodded, turning back to the path at hand.

After a few moments of reflective silence, only punctuated by the occasional cicada chirping, the former prince released a long, drawn out breath.

“I lied so they wouldn’t discover the truth,” Whitney said finally, “I didn’t want Calpernia to pity me– she was the princess in the story.”

Frederick had guessed as much. He offered him an encouraging look, prompting him to continue.

“My father burned the portrait, yes, but only after I had found out who the princess was. The courtier informed me that it was a neighbouring princess, from the polygon kingdom. So I hid it in my room and approached my father with a marriage proposal the very next day.”

“He laughed in my face first,” Whitney said ruefully, “But I kept asking, the next day and the next and the next, until he couldn’t take it anymore. He had the guards search my room and found Calpernia’s portrait and burned it right in front of me.”

“That’s awful,” Frederick couldn’t help himself. He was usually good at keeping his emotions well hidden but the monochrome prince’s tales always had a way of eliciting a reaction from him.

“I still refused to give up,” Whitney nodded, “My obsession with marriage, and Calpernia, heightened tenfold. I became convinced that she was the only way out of the hell that had become my home.”

“I studied and fought relentlessly, and met every morsel of praise my father offered me with ‘let me marry her.’ This displeased him to no end. He had me take ten lashes for each time I mentioned her name. Still, I kept at it. Eventually my mother caved and began accepting portraits from influential families both within and outside the kingdom in an attempt to placate the monster I was becoming.”

“But even then I didn’t budge,” He shook his head, “My fixation with Calpernia’s burnt picture had grown so intense that the rest of the women looked paltry and lacklustre in comparison. It would be three years of constant quarrelling with my parents before an artist was brought in to paint my portrait, for the sake of a proposal.”

“They gave in?” Frederick asked, surprised.

“Not exactly,” Whitney frowned, “My parents didn’t care what I wanted, they’d sooner have me wed to a daughter of monochrome nobility, so they could still have control over their oldest son.”

“But every time they invited one over, I’d find a way to miss the event. Pleasing them no longer mattered, nothing mattered, except getting what I’d been denied for so long. I’d lock myself in and when my father had the doors removed, sneak myself out. I’d send Greyden in my place, cause a scene, sabotage the food, even hide out in the Tiger Pit to avoid these events.”

“I got punished, of course, but it all seemed worth it when my parents finally, finally yielded, realising they couldn’t stamp the insubordination out of me no matter how hard they tried. So they sent my portrait to the Polygon Kingdom, along with a proposal to marry their oldest daughter.”

“Nearly four years later, on my twenty-first birthday,” He stopped suddenly, forcing Frederick to turn around, “-I saw her again.”

“No longer a portrait in my mind, but a person of flesh and blood; Calpernia was beau- um.. she exceeded my expectations.”

Whitney was now completely flustered, and Frederick realised he’d never seen his friend blush before, even the edges of his tiger stripes seemed to glow with a reddish hue.

“I was drunk with power, dizzy with winning for the first time in my life,” Whitney said sheepishly, almost like he’d forgotten anyone else was there, “-that when Calpernia confessed to me that she might be in love with a male nurse.. I reacted rather poorly.”

“The rest is history.”

“Why didn’t you tell her any of this when you apologised?” Frederick asked, leaning against a nearby tree.

“Because it wouldn’t have made a difference,” He replied matter-of-factly, “None of it could erase all the hurt and suffering I’d caused Calpernia.”

“But don’t you think it’s unfair–“

“It was unfair to make her the object of my salvation, when she isn’t an object at all,” Whitney interrupted without malice, “She wasn't and will never be responsible for my unwarranted affection. It isn’t her obligation to care about me.”

“I- I see,” Frederick’s mind was so abuzz he wondered if he imagined his hair twitching with all the thoughts inside it.

“If I was worth forgiving-“ Whitney continued, “-it should be based purely on my actions alone. Not on any excuses regarding my upbringing.”

“Do you still love her?” Frederick blurted out, expecting his friend to revert to mortification but the former prince’s face remained indifferent, perhaps even a little sad.

“I don’t think what I felt was love as much as it was desperation,” Whitney admitted.

“I don’t think I could ever love Calpernia as much as she– oh. Spider.”

Frederick jolted back as Whitney reached over and easily plucked a small, black arachnid from what was indisputably his blonde hair, and tried to stay calm as his friend released it back onto the tree.

He immediately put several steps between him and the bark of the old oak, watching it crawl onto the lowest branch before disappearing into its leafy folds– Frederick could’ve sworn the little insect winked at him as it vanished.

“D-Do you think it was there the whole time,” Frederick stuttered, forgetting their conversation as he now imagined the spider crawling around in his hair for hours without him knowing.

Whitney did snort then, and clapped the young prince’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Let’s get you back home.” He said, with a small smile.

As the two of them made their way back to the plaid kingdom, deep in the Haunted Forest, miles away, a tiny spider crawled onto the palm of a certain blue-haired, gold-eyed club president returning from her journey, to tell her something she would certainly be very interested in knowing.

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justminawrites · 2 years

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Why GwenDerick is the key to solving the Prez/Whitney Problem:

[This was partially inspired by @the-queen-of-ships post on how Whitney and Gwen are surprisingly similar, here. It really got my brain cogs turning.

Oh and lots of spoilers (up until ep.129). READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]

Okay, buckle up folks, this is going to be a long one.

There are a lot, and I mean a lot of parallels between these two pairings, enough so that it’s almost impossible to just write them off as narrative accidents. And I’m not talking about the really superficial ones, like the one sided arranged marriage thing or how Frederick and Whitney come from really competitive families, as opposed to the largely supportive ones of Gwen and Calpernia— no.

I’m talking about shattering Perceptions.

Throughout the series we see multiple examples of how people’s perceptions of themselves change after being exposed to certain situations, none more obvious than Gwendolyn, of course, whose whole world turns upside down when she accidentally overhears her fiancé calling her ugly.

This one comment knots itself into a ball of unresolved feelings which eventually spirals down, down, down and manifests into a vision of a broken reflection that Gwen sees every time she looks in the mirror.

While Gwen’s is the most direct translation of the metaphor, i.e. Frederick Literally Shattered The Version of Herself She’d Known Until Now, it’s not the only time we can see it happening in the series.

Far from it, in fact— it’s a frequent theme for almost every main character.

Frederick’s Perception of himself changes when he actively tries to win over Gwen after witnessing her Kindness; not only rebelling against his overbearing father, but also relying on his brothers’ help for the first time in his life.

Blaine’s Perception of himself changes when his Father compares him to Frederick, to the point where the man almost had a villain arc (damn).

Aurelia’s Perception of herself changes when Gwen returns her necklace, that she went out of her way to mend, even though Aurelia almost got her banished from the club.

And it’s not just them either. All three of Gwen’s siblings, Maria, Lorena and Jamie all have their individual perceptions shattered, wether it be through loss of Ego, Ideals, or gain of an Expectation placed on them.

For example, Maria gets knocked down a significant amount of pegs when she confesses her troubles to Lieutenant Dandridge, who subsequently calls her a pig for her (admittedly) selfish behaviour.

Lorena’s Perception of herself changes when she asks Suzanna for advice and feels hopelessly underprepared for the very real consequences that come with sticking to her ideals of Offense before Defense.

Even Jamie panics when he realises that his Father expects him to run their military one day, when he doesn’t have a fighting bone in his body!

Sometimes the shattering of perceptions can be positive as well as negative; temporary as well as long-lasting. The point is that it changes the way that character thinks about themselves or the world around them, up until that point.

Now applying that same logic in Prez’s and Whitney’s story, it’s pretty easy to see how all the pieces start coming together. But for these two it’s a tiny bit different from the others because it happens not just once, but twice, in the course of this comic.

It’s fairly easy to pinpoint the moment in the backstory where both of their Perceptions of themselves shatter for the first time: the night of the Were-Spider Incident.

A brief summary for all of you who’ve forgotten Prez’s backstory: She was engaged to the Monochrome Prince, Whitney, but fell sick and began to lose the ability to see colour because she couldn’t express her true feelings about the marriage.

She met a nurse soon after, Asa, who helped her feel like herself again, but fell in love with her on the way. Whitney found out, tried to kill Asa, but ended up cursing Calpernia into a Were-Spider instead.

[If you thought Gwen and Fredrick’s story was all about not judging a book by its cover, this one takes that and amplifies it times 100 by having Whitney, “The Monster”, actually break away from being a byproduct of his extremely toxic environment and Calpernia, “The Good Girl”, literally lose her purpose in life, only to find it again in helping others.]

Whitney has a very on-the-nose Perception Shift, like Gwen, as his life literally flashes before his eyes when the Were-Spider nearly kills him, and there’s not one part of it that’s even the slightest bit happy.

Exhibit A:

(Honestly, with the way this is framed, I think he’d’ve been glad if Calpernia actually killed him at that point.)

This eventually spurs Whitney into reconsidering his life, nearly dying again by his brother’s hand, being saved by a monastery of male nurses; before finally embarking on the path to change and mend his very terrible and traumatised person.

Prez’s is a little more subtle though.

While the obvious answer would be to conclude that Prez’s Perceptions of herself shattered once she was banished from the polygon kingdom for her actions, I actually think that there is a more apt time, prior to this, where we really see that metaphorical glass break.

Exhibit B:

This. This is the moment.

It’s the first action that Prez takes after admitting to herself that she doesn’t want to continue living like this. This calls back heavily, and I mean heavily, to Frederick’s ENTIRE character arc. (His whole deal was breaking out of bad habits and old patterns that he’d shut himself into so he wouldn’t be hurt anymore.)

The first thing she does is sacrifice herself to protect someone she thinks is worth saving. The old Calpernia wouldn’t have done this. The old Calpernia would’ve just shut up and stood to the side like the obedient, diligent girl that she was so proud to be– but Prez was already tired of being her by then.

We can notice a few parallels here already:

For both Gwen and Calpernia, the immediate backlash is largely negative. Gwen has a violent, visceral reaction to Frederick’s comment, runs out of her palace, and passes out in the woods; while Prez, of course, turns into a Were-Spider and tries to kill everything within a five-mile radius. And then gets banished on top of all that.

But there’s still the promise of a hopeful future for these two. Gwen wakes up, is met with kindness and friendship and belonging, and Prez wakes up, finally free from the shackles of expectation that had been slowly killing her, now armed with the new dream to help others and create the CPC.

For Whitney and Frederick, it’s the opposite. While the immediate reaction is more positive; Frederick is (temporarily) braver and more open to noticing Gwen’s beauty, and Whitney seems like he’s on the right track to redemption— their futures look bleak in comparison.

Not only do we know that Whitney has no home and no one to return to, we similarly know that Frederick’s going to find out all the pain and trauma he caused Gwen at some point.

This is where things get interesting and before I start to point out more narrative coincidences, I’d like to stop and really examine what happens to certain characters when the way they view and value themselves shifts.

{Fast forward five years after the events of the backstory.}

Prez goes from being flawless, pampered and adored to forging her own path, no matter how messy, difficult and stressful it is– almost dying multiple times as she begins to recruit members into the newly formed CPC.

She deals with her new circumstances by throwing herself into every bit of ambition she can muster, and forgets to properly grieve what she lost, (as Curtis clearly points out during her confrontation with Whitney).

Meanwhile Whitney goes from behind an obnoxious, chauvinistic ass to a thoughtful, protective man-tiger-guy, clearly suffering from many, many forms of PTSD, and looking to make amends to everyone he’s hurt.

He deals with his circumstances through reflecting on his past and coming to terms with all of it; to the point where he no longer has any ambition at all and just seems to wander aimlessly from kingdom to kingdom in search of Calpernia.

As fate would have it, both Prez and Whitney separately end up becoming the First Friends and Mentors to the young and impressionable kids, Gwendolyn and Frederick respectively.

What’s intriguing here is that these two find themselves armed with the exact expertise to help one another, but this advice is passed onto Gwen and Freddie instead.

Let me explain.

Gwen is deeply unselfish, there’s a kindness in her unmatched by any, and as a consequence of this, forgets to care for herself. Prez has the perfect solution for this: Lean on those around you instead.

This advice would work wonders for Whitney too, who also forgets to care for himself, not out of immense care for others, but because he thinks he doesn't deserve to.

He refuses to integrate himself into society, preferring to eat basically raw meat, drink rain water, and sleep on the grass, because it’s not like anything is going to attack him anyway? He won��t even sleep in the tent he carries???

[If you think about it, the man had more privileges resting in the monastery with the male nurses— at the very least, he had a roof over his head and a blanket to sleep in.]

It’s clear that Whitney is deeply uncomfortable allowing basic comforts for himself; he undoubtedly carries a lot of guilt and shame regarding everything he’s done, at least to Calpernia and Asa, and can’t really bring himself to rely on others at all.

Exhibit C:

Remember Leopold’s famous line in Episode #74?: One can only accept love from others, to the degree that they allow it in themselves. (Another parallel between Gwen and Whitney).

Gwen just genuinely couldn’t accept anything from Frederick or from anyone really, until she actively let herself do so, once she felt safe enough.

Similarly Whitney physically won’t even allow himself to develop any feelings for Calpernia, and these repressed feelings exhibit themselves in the form of his curse flaring up every time he experiences a normal or healthy emotion, like affection, gratitude, or jealousy.

While he does seem to have accepted the acts he’s committed in the past and is willing to atone for them in whatever way possible– allowing someone else to take care of him (as he would’ve been accustomed to as a prince), is out of the question.

On the other hand, Frederick and especially Calpernia have a hard time dealing with their emotions— any emotions.

Frederick prefers to shut the feelings out by hiding from them and looking down on everyone and everything first. It takes Whitney oversharing his own experiences, gruesome as they may be, for him to understand the privileges he’s been afforded as a Plaid Prince, and that by shutting out the bad aspects of life, he’s shutting out the good ones too– like how much his family cares about him.

Whitney’s advice consists of the following: Pain is not a competition. The painful emotions you feel are valid, but you get to choose when you’re ready to heal from them.

This advice would definitely help Prez too, since she has a bad habit of undervaluing her more basic feelings if she feels like someone else is suffering more than she is.

This is clearly depicted during her confrontation with Whitney, where she’s about to hit him, but breaks down and ends up punching a cake before she can admit that life sucks and she hates her curse.

And this isn’t the first time she does this either. During her initial months of illness when she first meets Asa, she says this:

Calpernia is explicitly aware of the privilege provided to her, so much so that she doesn’t see value in complaining about issues that are otherwise minor in the grand scheme of things.

Though Prez has grown from this mentality by establishing the Cursed Princess Club (which encourages its members to express their emotions), she’s just internalised the concept instead, believing that she, specifically, does not have the time to deal with minor emotions when there’s princesses out there that she could be saving.

For the most part, the advice works. Gwen relies on her friends and family for self-worth and the cracks slowly begin to reduce; and Fredrick stops feeling sorry for himself and starts actually changing his circumstances.

Here’s where the second part of the theory comes into play. The perceptions of Prez and Whitney are shattered yet again, but not the ones they have of themselves— this time, it’s the ones Gwen and Frederick have of them.

Frederick goes from thinking Whitney is this weird but Mysterious monk with a magical cure for negative thinking, to finding out that the man’s an attempted murderer and understanding that he really shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

And though Gwen doesn’t say it about Prez, in so many words, it’s clear that she feels a similar way.

In the beginning of the story, Prez was depicted as this all-knowing Wise One™️, a person Gwen assumed had all the answers because she was an Adult and also because she never talked about her own problems.

Later on, during Nell’s Premonition arc, we come to realise that she’s about as informed as everyone else, but prefers to blindly act on things, because, in her opinion, doing something is better than waiting for something to happen to them. This eventually has her focus on all the wrong things and nearly gets Renée killed in the process.

When Prez reunites with Whitney, it is the very first time Gwen has seen her vulnerable.

i.e. Like This:

All the trauma she didn’t have time for suddenly resurfaces, and not only do we see her finally feel her feelings, we see how those feelings don’t suddenly disappear into the calm persona she’s maintained for so long, but instead breaks that facade to show the scared, angry girl she’s been pretending not to be.

And though we never see Gwen acknowledge it in words, it’s clear that this behaviour changes the way she sees Prez, because the next time these two have a talk, Gwen doesn’t really take her advice, or even want to.

The Second Shattering of Perceptions has once again resulted in two, extremely different reactions.

This time Fredrick is immediately wary when he learns of his Mentor's past, but changes his tune when he calls Whitney his friend during Gwen’s dinner to keep the CPC’s secret. And Whitney backs him up in front of his family, too. So we can infer that their relationship is going to be okay.

But it’s not the same for Prez and Gwen. Not only is Gwen not taking her advice; she’s actively not facing the truth because she believes Frederick loves her for who she is. Gwen is betraying her sense of self worth by not speaking to him about something that has plagued her since their very first meeting.

To top it all off, we don’t know whether or not Frederick thinks Gwen is cursed. Sure, he knows she’s part of the CPC and that the club is important to her, but we don’t know what he makes of her being there in the first place.

Now, onto the more predictive parts of the theory.

If Gwen finds out that Frederick thinks she’s cursed, it could shock and confuse her enough to tell him that she knows about what he said that fateful day they met. And this, in turn, will have a drastic impact on their relationship.

Although I do have few more predictions for where the story might go after this, I think it’s safe to assume that once Gwen and Frederick deal with their unresolved family drama in their own separate ways (from Lilyth’s diary to Leland’s blatant affection for Jack), they’re going to come back to one another, a little older, a little wiser, and give it another try.

This is where Whitney and Calpernia’s story comes into play for the last time.

The Advisors will now become the advisees, and instead of Frederick and Gwen asking for guidance, it’s likely that they’re going to be the ones giving it this time around.

Maybe not directly, not with those specific intentions in mind– but maybe they’ll end up reminding their mentors what they learned from them and each other, which will eventually spur the two into making their own decisions.

Currently, in the story, we have both Prez and Whitney facing problems they can’t immediately solve without making extreme changes to the way they’re currently living.

Calpernia is faced with a choice (multiple actually) of wether she should continue running the CPC in secret, or take Tori’s suggestion and start publicly advocating for their rights and making quantifiable changes. This requires her to choose between the comfortable life she’s lead for the past five years (the woods, CPC headquarters) and the busy, confusing life she might lead in the future (possibly travelling between Kingdoms as an official ambassador?).

Whitney’s problem is that he doesn’t trust himself not to hurt anyone anymore, like members of the CPC, especially Calpernia. He doesn’t understand that his curse flaring up is a result of repressed emotions and not some kind of omen that he needs to continue punishing himself and sleeping on grass for the rest of his life.

With the way things are going for them it almost feels like if Gwen and Frederick don’t interfere, Prez is going to put too much pressure on herself to do it all and Whitney is going to isolate himself from everyone and everything–– just like our main couple at the beginning of the comic.

Personally, I think it would bring the narrative arc to a satisfying conclusion if this indeed happens, and if it’s Frederick helping out Calpernia and Gwen saving Whitney from himself, instead of vice versa.

When Whitney first meets Frederick, the Plaid Prince had just spent half a day hauling a giant llama across state borders, on foot, to ask out a girl he was pretty sure was a witch, but was kind to him. Needless to say, Frederick’s mind is about as cluttered as Monica’s room, but luckily Whitney has the perfect solution for this.

It was Whitney’s Meditation that helped him separate his thoughts from his feelings, and ultimately helped him realise what he really wanted to do at that moment (i.e. to find Gwen).

Prez is struggling to separate her worries for Gwen and her struggles, from her own mixed feelings about Asa, and thoughts of wether or not she’s potentially coddling the CPC under the pretense of helping them, like Tori accused her of doing.

Frederick can share how, when he was just about to give up from the stress of it all, this simple trick, from Whitney, helped him prioritise what was most important to him at that moment. Meditation can keep her from pushing aside her emotions for later by laying them all out, and help Prez assign degrees of importance to her various problems, so she can figure out what she actually wants to do.

Similarly, I think it’s only fitting if Gwen is the one who finds Whitney and stops him from his self-imposed, chronic isolation.

When Gwen first confesses to Prez about her broken reflection, Prez explicitly tells her not to fixate on the shattered self-perception, because that would only lead her down a path of self-destruction.

Now, as in tune with his emotions as he is, it’s clear that Whitney is definitely headed down this particular rabbit hole.

Whitney believes he can’t help anyone after everything he’s done- especially not Prez, who, he’s spent the last five(ish?) years trying to find and apologise to.

The only healthy way he has of working through his problems is sitting down and thinking about them, but it’s hard to notice the positive aspects of yourself if you're the only one contributing to the discussion.

Whitney thinks he’s realised what’s wrong with his curse: obviously he’s someone who doesn’t deserve any form of love or comfort whatsoever or he’s at risk at turning back into an irredeemable monster– but he's wrong. Pulling away from Prez and the CPC is only going to hurt him more because it reinforces the idea that no matter how much he tries to change, he’s unfixable.

The poor guy hasn’t experienced a single positive emotion in his life, of course he’s not going to understand that leaning on others for emotional support when he doesn’t feel like himself, is a Good Thing.

[He probably only realised a major part of his old life stressful and toxic because the male nurses validated it, and since there wasn’t a single female nurse at the monastery, it’s understandable that healthy signs of affection was a topic that was never brought up.]

Gwen can help him by sharing how there were so many instances in her life where other people saw the beauty in her that she couldn't see in herself, from her family to Prez and the other members of CPC, to even a complete stranger like Leopold, and that just because it's hard for Whitney to see the goodness in himself, it doesn't mean that it's not there. It definitely doesn't mean that he's regressing back into the terrible person he used to be.

This would tie back in with the overarching themes of Self-Love in the story; not only is it in taking time to realise what is most important you, it's also relying on others when you feel at your lowest.

And it would finally make it clear why Whitney and Calpernia had to go through their individual struggles, making effort to change themselves and the people around them only to wind up helping each other, at the end of the day.

Cursed Princess Club is their tale just as much as it is Gwen's and Frederick's, and it's written so brilliantly that the characters go from archetypes to fully fleshed out people with their own personal victories, problems, and senses of self-worth.

The only problem I see with this theory, however, is that while it is heavily implied that Gwen and Frederick were always going to be endgame, that’s not really the case for Calpernia and Whitney.

While they were destined to reunite (by that one fortune cookie, we stan), their story was never really about romance, but a darker spin on the main themes of the story, and to highlight the morally grey aspects of the world it takes place in.

However, just because these ex-fiancés aren't really cut out for love, it doesn't mean they can't end up together.

But that's a theory for another day.

TLDR: GwenDerick is a Narrative Mirror to Prez/Whitney and therefore will help the latter Grow as people.

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