Webcomic / Cursed Princess Club

"Welcome to the club, princess..."

I want this to be a place where we can support one another and remind ourselves that we are still beautiful and worthy of happiness, no matter what any person or prince thinks!

— Princess Calpernia, President of the Cursed Princess Club

A magical, royal, slice-of-life webcomic by LambCat currently serialized in its entirety on Webtoons (can be read here), Cursed Princess Club follows the adventures of an unorthodox princess trying to navigate young love, political alliances, and some very inconvenient magic.

Princess Gwendolyn of the Pastel Kingdom is living proof that princesses don’t always have it all. Although she's lived a charmed life in a castle with her loving siblings and adoring father, Gwendolyn is a little... different. While her sisters Princess Maria and and Princess Lorena are beautiful (and her brother Prince Jamie is so handsome he literally sparkles), Gwen's features are decidedly more witch-y. With sallow skin, sharp teeth, and stringy green hair, her spooky appearance makes her stand out in a family of perfect, portrait-ready royals.

Gwen's scary looks never bothered her until the day her father announces that his daughters are to be engaged to the Princes Blaine, Lance, and Frederick of the Plaid Kingdom. When she overhears Prince Frederick disparaging her appearances and threatening to call off the engagement, Gwen's confidence is shattered. She dashes out of the castle in a grief-stricken haze and literally runs into the members of the Cursed Princess Club.

Residing deep in the Pastel Kingdom's "Haunted Forest," the Cursed Princess Club is the hangout of misfit princesses who suffer from unfortunate and unbreakable enchantments that render them "unfit" to represent their kingdoms. The Cursed Princesses welcome Gwen with open arms, even though Gwen can't lay claim to a curse of her own. With wisdom, wit, and a healthy dose of girl-power, they're determined to help Gwen realize that she doesn't need a prince or a pretty face to be the best princess she can be. These hexed ladies might be just the support system Gwen needs to rebuild her confidence and navigate the diplomatic and interpersonal challenges of her engagement.

But trouble is brewing in the both the Pastel and Plaid Kingdoms — with magic, politics, and romance involved, Princess Gwendolyn has her work cut out for her if she wants to get her happily ever after!

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Tropes Present in "Cursed Princess Club":

A-D

• Abusive Parents:
  • The Plaid King is not a nice father. He is very determined to toughen up his sons, and likes to inflict severe exercise routines on them as punishments. And he can be very capricious.
    Plaid King: Ah— not so fast, Lance. You know the rules. Last person seated at the table has to do 30 push-ups.
    Lance: What?! But that's because when I came here earlier, you told me to go upstairs and get Frederick!
    Plaid King: Shouldn't have let your guard down, son. That's what fools do.
    • And episode 136 reveals that as punishment for his plans to ruin the Pastel King's life through the engagement being ruined, he's locked all the princes up in a hidden dungeon. It should be noted that the debacle wasn't even their fault. He also wouldn't even let his wife show them affection or hold them much as far back as when they were infants.
  • The Pastel King's excessively protective nature is also seen as a form of abuse by some readers, and even the CPC starts to get weirded out when they see it for themselves.
  • Many of the cursed princesses' families do not treat them well:
    • Renee's curse causes frogs to spill out of her mouth whenever she opens it, so the best her family could do was cast a spell that allows her to zip it shut. They also nakedly play favorites with her sister, who is also cursed but spits out gold coins whenever she talks to the point where her sister is the center of attention and doesn't feel the need to join the club.
    • Princess Calpernia's parents were very strict and stifling in her upbringing. The high expectations placed on her built up to the point where she experienced depressive episodes bad enough to make her bedridden. They also agreed without argument to the terms of the banishment after her newly-inflicted curse caused her to transform into a giant spider and (seemingly) eat her fiance. She mentions that her father made arrangements for her to live in one of the family's abandoned vacation homes with a butler, but it's explicitly called out as a "moment of compassion". Later on they make it clear they want her back, and have come up with a workaround for her curse: She should constantly have babies so she never gets her period, which activates the curse.
    • Nell's parents locked her in a dungeon and treated her as a tool for making money because her curse lets her predict future misfortunes.
  • Family life for the children of the Monochrome Kingdom rulers was a literal cut-throat contest for the affection of their parents. The children were taught to "defeat anyone who stands in their way" and to "take what they want, especially from each other." That upbringing led Prince Whitney to become an entitled, emotionally stunted tyrant who didn't care if he had to ruin other people's lives to achieve his goals. As he recounts in Episode 69:
    Prince Whitney: The endless competitions and comparisons... The violent, gladiator-style fights to win Father's affection each week...
    Prince Frederick: ...Th- the what...?
    Prince Whitney: The contests to see which son could most effectively torture political prisoners...
    Prince Frederick: ...Oh... oh god...
    Prince Whitney: Oh! Did you have to recite those daily Machiavellian chants too?
• Acronym Confusion: Miss Agatha, the Pastel Royal's tutor, mistakes Gwen's invitation to the Cursed Princess Club as one from the Cosmopolitan Princess Conservatory, and gladly gives permission for Gwen to make the C.P.C. part of her extracurricular studies.
  Miss Agatha: You BRILLIANT girl!! You were accepted into the C.P.C.?!! The Cosmopolitan Princess Conservatory??! That's THE utmost renowned institution, open to only the most refined and elite princesses.
• Alone in a Crowd: During Lance's birthday party, Frederick leaves Gwen to talk to some other girls. Gwen, who is already having a crisis of confidence, is stuck like this.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Or my sons in this case. After the Plaid Princes get rejected at the gala, Leland decides to do things the hard way and kidnap the Pastel Princesses to force them to marry his sons.
• Altar Diplomacy:
  • King Jack of the Pastel Kingdom has arranged to marry his daughters (Princesses Maria, Lorena, and Gwendolyn) to the sons of his good friend, the King Leland of the Plaid Kingdom (Princes Blaine, Lance, and Frederick). This will unite the Pastel and Plaid Kingdoms politically and bolster their economic power.
  • Princess Calpernia's parents, the King and Queen of the Polygon Kingdom, arranged for her to marry Prince Whitney of the Monochrome Kingdom in order to boost the Polygon Kingdom's standing. The engagement fell through when Whitney cursed Calpernia to turn into a bloodthirsty Giant Spider and Calpernia (as a bloodthirsty giant spider) appeared to eat Whitney.
• Ambiguously Bi: Abbi certainly admires Club President Princess Calpernia, and was implied to have a crush on her after Princess Calpernia went out of her way to give Abbi a wonderful Prom Night when Abbi's attempt at a temporary Curse Reversal potion failed. In Episode 68, Abbi declares that Prez is her "backup crush", but it's unclear how serious she is about her romantic intentions.
  Princess Abbi: Also, whatever. If Bobby turns me down, I always have Prez as my back up crush.
  President Calpernia:- -Your huh...?!
• Animals Hate Him: A byproduct of Prince Whitney's curse is terrifying all animals in the vicinity.
• Armor-Piercing Response: During the castle siege, Lance admits he doesn't want to marry Lorena now, but he knows his dad always gets his way whenever he sets his mind on something. Lorena promptly snaps, calling him a coward for not standing up to his dad.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Deployed when Princess Calpernia asks the members of the Cursed Princess Club for examples of the expectations society places on princesses:
  Princess Calpernia: And ladies? What unattainably high expectations does society have for princesses?
  Princess Abbi: That we always look young and beautiful!
  Unnamed Princess: That we live perfect, inspirational lives!
  Princess Thermidora: That we have fingers!
• As You Know:
  • Princess Calpernia's spiel to Gwen on the origins of the Cursed Princess Club start off with "Well then as you know..."
  • When Prince Jamie talks to Gwen at the amusement park, he gives her an "As you know..." when he brings up his super-tasting powers that allowed him to detect her emotional state when she prepared waffles for him the night of the Wake. (He also mentions one of his weaknesses, that "Devastation" tasted exactly like food that's been spilled on a carpet. Gwen guiltily hides the fact that she used a marshmallow bunny that had dropped to the floor.)
  • Prince Whitney's explanation for how he survived Princess Calpernia's first were-spider transformation begins with "Well... as you know..."
• The Atoner: Prince Whitney in the present day is introduced when he helps Frederick out of a jam. He explains that he realizes how toxic he used to be after being banished, and wants to make it up to all the people he hurt before.
• Bad Date: The Plaid Princes take the Pastel Princesses (and Prince Jamie) to an amusement park for their first official "date." Blaine, Lance, Maria, Lorena, and Gwen go into a haunted house, while Frederick and Jamie ride the Tunnel of Love boats for some future-brother-in-law bonding. By the end of the night (7:45 pm, to be exact), they return to the Pastel Castle looking like hell: Lorena is covered in fake blood (with a sprained ankle and a busted hand from fighting the murder-clowns in the haunted house), Maria has fear-vomited a rainbow of sparkles all over her dress, while Frederick and Jamie fell out of their boat and into the gross, stale water in the love boat ride and are soaking wet. Despite the disastrous turn of events, all the royals had a good time and seem to be getting much closer to each other, driving the King of the Pastel Kingdom into a panic over seeing his "babies" growing up and showing an interest in the opposite sex.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • After hearing Whitney's story about his Heel–Face Turn, Prez refuses to forgive him and states ominously that it is time for his story to "come to an end", while brandishing her weaponized tiara. The other members of the CPC immediately get nervous and implore Prez not to get violent. Prez then raises her weapon — and uses it to point towards the woods while telling Whitney to Get Out!.
  • Gwen's dinner party seems to take a concerning turn when Blaine announces he would like to speak about curses. The CPC is on high alert — only for the next episode to reveal he was talking about the theme for the upcoming gala.
• Battle Butler:
  • Princess Calpernia's butler, Curtis. He's able to use his martial arts skills to fight off Calpernia's attacks when she turns into a giant, mindless spider (and rescue Gwen in the process). He was also the one who trained Calpernia after her banishment.
    Princess Calpernia: For the next few months, all I did was train under Curtis's... unique tutelage. As much as I was hesitant to trust in his odd methods... It seems like butlers really knew how to fight.
  • Lampshaded in Episode 159 when the house maids of the Pastel Palace turn out to be an elite fighting force.
    King Leland: ...Hm. The old trope of fighting servants... You got me. I guess I didn't expect that applied here because you're all, um...
    Molly: ...not butlers?
    King Leland: ...No. I was gonna say old.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Flashbacks reveal that the Plaid Queen used to be a commoner who had a crush on the heir to the throne, and it's implied that she caught him on the rebound after he realized that the object of his affections was both a man and in love with someone else. In the present their marriage isn't a very happy one. The comic implies that he abuses her and confirms that he wouldn't even allow her to show affection to her children when they were babies. She also realizes that her husband is a revenge obsessed, power hungry sociopath and secretly works to ruin his plans.
• Behind the Black: In Episode 108, Princess Thermidora demands that Prez let her accompany the contingent of CPC members infiltrating the Bippity Bop Gala, even though her massive pincers make it difficult to hide the fact that she's a lobster princess. Prez reveals that the Gala is a curse-themed costume party, so Thermidora will blend right in without a disguise. Thermidora laments staying up all night to sew an oversized pair of skin-tone gloves in the shape of human hands designed to hide her claws. Cut to the first full body shot of Thermidora since the scene began, wearing her disguise — and then to the shocked faces of the other CPC members.
• Beta Couple:
  • Of the three arranged marriages, Lorena and Lance have by far the least amount of drama and receive less relationship focus than Maria and Blaine or Gwen and Frederick.
  • That said, another always-in-the-background, low-drama couple beats all three of them to be the first to get engaged — Jolie and Nell.
• Big Damn Heroes: Lance awakens from being knocked out by the guards just in time for him to save Lorena from being crushed by a pillar.
• Bishie Sparkle: Prince Jamie is so attractive, he's drawn with a constant cloud of little stars and sparkles around him. The ability is something he has a degree of control over, able to dim or brighten the sparkles in accordance with his mood. In Episode 46, when he makes his grand entrance at Prince Lance's birthday celebration, Jamie's confidence and pride make the radiance bright enough to blind the party crowd for several minutes.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Princess Aurelia is quite jealous of Gwen's joining the club when she has no visible curse, but hides it very well.
• Bland-Name Product: Monika’s favorite book series is Turtles of the Round Table. The plushies she buys shows turtles as knights, a wizard and a jester, implying that it’s King Arthur with turtles.
• Book Ends: The first and last chapter before the epilogue is titled “The King Returns”.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Prez modeled her post-banishment self after a woman in a pantsuit whom she, as a child, witnessed protect an innocent man by knocking his attacker out cold. Years later, she finds out that the woman she saw wasn’t a woman at all — it was a young man, Gwen’s dad as a matter of fact, and he didn’t mean to knock out the attacker, it was completely accidental, and he’s never even aware of what he did or even that that man was attacking someone in the first place.
  • Maria and Lorena furiously break up with Blaine and Lance when they find out that they covered for Frederick when he first thought Gwen was ugly, especially after Blaine’s Freudian Slip declaring that Maria and Lorena are "actually" beautiful.
• Brick Joke: When Jack asks what the CPC Gwen joins in is, the others claim it's stands for Cosmopolitan Princess Conservatory. He later commissions a painting of Gwen for her new club, and the real Conservatory gets it, who just put it in storage.
• Bubblegum Popping: In the flashback to King Leland and Queen Isolde's first meeting in Episode 126, the young "Izzy" ends up with her gum all over her face when she first sees Leland. It adds to her Lower-Class Lout demeanor, as she was a poor girl employed in a pet shop on the "far south side" of the Plaid Kingdom, with grungy clothes and more "working class" accent.
• The Bus Came Back: In Episode 95, Aurelia is invited back to the club after having previously been banned at the end of Season 2.
• Candy Striper: The Cursed Princesses do community service at a local hospital at Princess Jolie's insistence. Though no one outright calls them "candy stripers", their volunteer uniform borrows heavily from the Candy Striper look book: a pink-on-pink striped jumper skirt over a white blouse (or pink-on-pink striped trousers and vest over a white shirt for Prince Saffron), with a neat red bow at the collar and a white nurse's cap.
  Princess Jolie: Like Princess Panda says, "A charitable princess is a sexy princess!" And I guarantee that after you read to children today, you'll be glowing!
  Princess Syrah: I don't really care what you want me to do as long as I get to wear this cute little outfit!
• Chased Off into the Sunset: The penultimate chapter has the entirety of the Pastel Castle chasing after an enraged Pastel King after he learned what Leland did while he was gone.
• Chekhov's Skill: When Frederick is about to be attacked by his father, he remembers the self defense Calpernia used on him and uses it on the King.
• Color Failure:
  • A notable example occurs in Episode 14, when Prince Saffron, Princess Abbi, and Princess Monika have all tried to guess what Gwen's curse is that causes her to look the way she does. Gwen stops them, on the verge of tears, and tells them that she doesn't have a curse. The members of the CPC temporarily turn monochrome with shock and embarrassment.
    Princess Abbi: Oh I got this! Did you switch bodies with a witch?
    Princess Gwen: No! I... is that what I look like...?
    Prince Saffron: Oh I know. Were you an old mop that got brought to life? I got a buddy that used to be BBQ tongs...
    Princess Gwen: ...What?! No!!! I...
    Princess Monika: Hmm, were you--
    Princess Gwen: --I don't have a curse, okay?! This is just how I've always looked...
  • Another example occurs in Episode 46, when the members of the Prince Blaine fan club get their first glance of Princess Maria, or as they call her, "this dog who's delusional enough to think she deserves Blaine all to herself." When Maria make her grand entrance to the ballroom she summons so much princess-ly pride and confidence that a flock of wild birds crashes through the windows to surround her, an "irrefutable sign of tremendous beauty." The Prince Blaine fan club members are left monochrome with shock. The same thing happens when Princess Lorena enters and flowers immediately bloom around her. Suzanna Winchester, who declares herself Lorena's rival for Prince Lance, also goes monochrome with surprise.
  • In Episode 59, when Saffron and Gwen hear the story of how President Calpernia ate the Prince of the Monochrome Kingdom the first time she transformed into a werespider, they white-out in shock.
• Comically Missing the Point: Played for drama in episode 101. Aurelia, after witnessing first-hand how smotheringly protective the Pastel King is towards his daughters, gives him a scathing speech about how, in her experience, "some of the most despicable villains are the ones who roam inside the tower and hold the key". Surprisingly, the Pastel King agrees. But then he re-interprets Aurelia's words to mean that there is danger everywhere, which makes his overbearing nature justified. Maria and Lorena immediately call him out on it.
• Crossover: A Dualvertisement at the end of Episode 146 sees Gwen getting wardrobe help and a confidence boost from stylist supreme Nikki of Shining Nikki.
• Curse: All the members of the Cursed Princess Club are afflicted with an incurable or difficult-to-manage curse:
  • Princess Monika of the Quilt Kingdom was kidnapped by an evil wizard and turned into his pet crow. Though the wizard was defeated, she still transforms into a crow whenever she gets nervous. She also has a tendency to steal and hoard "shiny" objects.
  • Princess Abbi of the Neon Kingdom was given a box and told not to open it. Obviously she opened it, and was cursed to look like an old woman, even though she's 15.
  • Prince Saffron of the Foliage Kingdom suffers from an Evil Hand that he can't control cast on him by a goblin. The evil hand mostly sabotages him and makes rude gestures.
  • Princess Jolie of the Lace Kingdom is missing her eyes — and her eye sockets appear to be a portal to a pocket dimension where she can store things like bobby pins, pencils, and something that bites. A mysterious man (implied to be a devil or other supernaturally empowered figure) offered her parents a deal that would save their starving kingdom in exchange for their most valuable treasure, returning years later to claim Jolie's eyes.
  • Princess Syrah of the Metallic Kingdom was cursed by an ex-boyfriend who suspected her of cheating. He gave her chocolates dosed with a "Pinocchio" curse, causing her nose to grow whenever she lies.
  • Princess Thermidora used to be a lobster. A magical sea cucumber cursed her into a human form (except for her "immaculate pincers," which have remained unchanged) in order to steal Thermidora's beloved Duke Benedict (also a lobster).
  • Princess Aurelia of the Gilded Kingdom was cursed by her "lovingly overprotective" step-father to have a mouth that disintegrates anything it touches — no "true love's kiss" for her.
  • Princess Renee of the Velvet Kingdom and her sister were both cursed by a banshee who overheard them gossiping about her. Frogs fall out of Renee's mouth whenever she speaks, while her sister spills gold coins when the talks.
  • President Calpernia of the Polygon Kingdom was cursed by her jealous fiancé to transform into a giant mindless spider whenever she has her period, and she can't control it. She has to lock herself in the barn when she changes and makes sneaking into the barn strictly forbidden in order to keep everyone else safe.
  • Princess Nell of the Stripe Kingdom is cursed to experience uncontrollable premonitions of disaster. Her family locked her away in the dungeons beneath the Stripe Kingdom Castle in order to profit off her visions before Prez rescued her.
  • Gwen interviews two recurring extras in the CPC in Episode 111, learning that one has got a curse that causes men to be filled with anguish when she speaks, while the other has a tail. In Episode 150 they're revealed to be named Deianeira and Bernadette.
  • Princess Sally (also named in Episode 150) is cursed to always feel a pebble in her shoe.
  • Prince Whitney of the (incredibly cutthroat) Monochrome Kingdom was a survivor of an attempt by his brother to turn him into a white tiger, following Whitney's own failed attempt to turn what he thought was Princess Calpernia's lover into a harmless spider. Since he spit most of the potion out, he only received tiger stripes on his face and pale skin, along with a few other minor side effects—from what we've seen, he smells like a cat, causes animals to fear him instinctively, and has certain (harmless) cat and tiger instincts. He's since begun to seek atonement for his actions to others, which eventually brings him to the club.
  • Zigzagged with Gwen herself: while her most visible affliction to the reader turns out to be purely psychological in nature, her different appearance compared to her sisters and occasional tendency to appear something closer to a gremlin has led the rest of the club to speculate. Fully averted: she just bares strong resemblance to her mother, who descended from a race people that looks drastically different from others.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Many members of the club suffers from this:
  • Princess Nell was cursed with the ability to foresee misfortune and disaster, and was locked away and used as a tool for profit by her family.
  • President Calpernia suffered from what is implied to be severe depression due to her stifled upbringing as the heir to the throne of a powerful kingdom, but was able to improve after her nurse Asa showed her how to have fun outside of the palace. She fell in love with Asa and tried to break off her engagement with Prince Whitney of the Monochrome kingdom, only to have Whitney try to kill Asa in front of her. Princess Calpernia jumped in front of the curse Whitney meant to inflict on Asa and was transformed into a werespider — a werespider that then (seemingly) ate Whitney. In order to cover up the scandal, Calpernia was banished from her family's kingdom (and it's mentioned that only a moment of compassion on the part of her father saved her from homelessness, when he arranged for her to live in one of the family's disused vacation homes with a single servant).
• Devilish Hair Horns: "The Dealer" is mysterious man who offers to restore the health and prosperity of the Lace Kingdom after a devastating fire in exchange for first selection of "their finest treasures." When he first appears before the King and Queen of the Lace Kingdom to offer them a bargain it's with his white hair slicked back, save for two unruly, red-tinged forelocks that curl away from his head like horns. He does turn out to be a demon or other supernatural entity, who takes Princess Jolie's eyes as his payment for saving the kingdom.
• Domestic Abuse: We never see the plaid king physically hurting his wife, but her fearful reaction after she confronts him about the whereabouts of the Plaid Princes certainly carries that implication.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Explicitly averted with the Cursed Princess Club. When looking for new members, Prez always makes sure to keep the safety of both the female and the male members in mind. Shown when she immediately rescinds her invitation to another cursed princess in a flashback after said princess turns out to be a raging misandrist and demands Curtis to grovel before her to "apologize" for being a man.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Prince Jamie of the Pastel Kingdom is so beautiful that on first meeting him (or seeing his royal portrait), people assume he's another Princess. To be fair, he does have gorgeous hot-pink hair, wide magenta eyes, long lashes, flawless skin, a willowy frame, and he does exude literal sparkles wherever he goes. He gets it from his father.
• Dude Magnet: All of the Pastel Princesses, including Gwen. Her sisters tend to attract men with their good looks, and while they're all kind Gwen is especially selfless and empathetic. Multiple men who have taken the time to learn about this side of her have developed feelings for her. She also has one male suitor who fell for her at first sight.

E-M

• Enhance Button: Discussed/ Played for Laughs in Episode 68, after Princess Nell has had a prophetic vision of doom. Boy-crazy Princess Syrah asks for details about the vision, and tells Nell to "zoom and enhance" to get some details.
  Princess Syrah: Heyyy, Nell... Um, who did you see in your premonition? ...Was it a man? Did you see a big, hot man Nell?
  Princess Nell: I don't know. It's blurry...
  Princess Syrah: Well ZOOM AND ENHANCE, NELL!
• Even the Girls Want Her: Club President Princess Calpernia of the Polygon Kingdom is cool, composed, and very beautiful. Princess Abbi is implied to have a bit of a crush on her (particularly after Princess Calpernia went out of her way to give Abbi a wonderful Prom Night when Abbi's attempt at a temporary Curse Reversal potion failed):
  Princess Abbi: You don't need to be rescued by Prince Charming, guys! I'm throwing this book in the garbage!
  Children: Why?!! That's our favorite story!!
  Princess Abbi: Because I'm gonna tell you an even better story about being rescued by a very tall, cool lady in a pantsuit...
• Evil Hand: Prince Saffron's hand was cursed by a goblin to be "evil" and out of his control. It occasionally makes rude gestures or sabotages Prince Saffron when he plays ping pong.
• Evil Prince:
  • Averted by most of the royalty in the cast—while some characters are certainly worse people than others, none of them are truly malicious or seek to gain power through underhanded means.
  • Played Straight in the Monochrome Kingdom, which encourages this trait in their royal family (as Prince Whitney can attest). Prince Whitney used to be one himself, even going so far as to try to poison/ kill a man he saw as a rival for his fiancé's affection prior to a near-death epiphany at the meaninglessness of what he'd done for power. His brother, Greyden, is still a straight example — Greyden's reaction to seeing his injured, near-delirious older brother (who was ahead of him in line for the throne) returning after an unexplained disappearance was to attempt to curse Whitney into a white tiger form, skin him, and use his hide to make a coronation robe.
  • The season four finale then shows us that almost all of the Plaid Princess sans Frederick are this. They've been working with their father for the express purpose of making the pastel princesses hate their father so they can take over their kingdom. This is all part of a twisted revenge plot by the Plaid King, who at one point was in love with the Pastel King.

• Exact Words: Subverted. Jamie hears through his food powers that someone intends to "crush the Pastel Princesses". Naturally, he thinks this means physically harm them, and spends most of season 3 trying to track them down. In Ep. 131, he finally finds the culprit—Queen Isolde, who, in a last resort to stop her husband’s evil schemes, has set up a reveal that will emotionally "crush" the Princesses.
• Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: A Central Theme of the story is psychological problems and the importance of mental health. Rather than the big problems coming from curses like the name suggests, most characters actually suffer due to mundane circumstances regarding their mental health.
  • Princess Monika suffers from extreme social anxiety and arrested development that stunts he ability to interact with others, which just so happens to activate her curse.
  • Gwen, and possibly the princels, aren't cursed as far as we know, but can't find happiness due to low self-esteem due to their appearance.
  • Aurelia ruined her relationships due to envy of Gwen.
  • As an exception that proves the rule, Jolie has no eyes but still finds happiness in the club and her relationship with Nell.
  • A great deal of characters suffer under parents who are either genuinely abusive or misguided. The standout example, in the Ordinary Problems sense, is Prez whose curse has caused her grief, but her biggest source of angst is how her parents chose to deal with it.
• Fantastic Racism: Jack's wife Leelathae was a member of an isolated island community where everyone looked like her and Gwen — with green hair, sallow skin, and sharp teeth. This means that once she left her community where nobody derided her looks and where she was the most eligible bachelorette due to her great kindness, she found out just how nasty people could be.
• Florence Nightingale Effect:
  • Princess Calpernia fell in love with the nurse who treated her when she suffered from depressive symptoms. When she realized that her feelings were reciprocated, she tried to break off her engagement with Prince Whitney of the Monochrome Kingdom. Ultimately averted, however, as she explains to a reformed Whitney that she didn't actually have romantic feelings for her nurse, but his friendship made her realize that she didn't want to enter into a loveless marriage, even if it was her duty.
  • Played straight with Gwen’s parents, Jack and Lilyth, whose real name was Leelathae. A young adult Jack was exploring her home island when he had an accident and sprained his ankle. Leelathae found him and took care of him while he healed, and they ended up falling in love, so much so that Leelathae left her island forever, against the wishes of her family and friends, and went with him to his kingdom to marry him.
• Forced Transformation:
  • Princess Thermidora's curse: she was a lobster princess transformed into a human to remove her as competition for a lobster Baron's heart. The enchantment was shoddy enough to not affect her claws, though.
  • Princess Monika was transformed into a crow after being kidnapped by and evil wizard. Though her curse was technically "undone," she still unwittingly turns into a crow whenever she feels embarrassed or scared.
  • Attempted on Prince Whitney after returning to the Monochrome palace while presumed dead by his own failed curse attempt. Mostly averted, however: because he spat the potion out aside from a bit that got into his sinuses, the white tiger potion only went visibly as far as to give his face tiger stripes, with a few other minor side effects.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Many things said by Princess Calpernia aka Prez are foreshadowing for her curse and associated backstory as revealed near the end of season two. Her response when asked what she'd do if she didn't have her curse for a day was particularly noteworthy.
  • An example so blatant as to be borderline Lampshade Hanging is the costume gala where Blaine has himself and Maria dress as the fantasy equivalents of The Phantom of the Opera and Christine. As Maria herself points out, despite being leading roles, they actually don't end up with each other. Though it's not stated in the comic, the real Christine ends up with her understated, faithful childhood friend Raoul. Naturally, at the end of the party Maria breaks up with Blaine, and all of the Crazy Jealous Guy actions he takes afterwards push her more and more towards the Dogged Nice Guy minor character who has loved her for years, the guard Beckett.
    • However, this ended up being Subverted, as while they did become friends, Maria does not end up with Beckett either.
• Freudian Slip:
  • When Isolde first met Leland, she dropped several embarrassing comments about how handsome he was while trying to address him by "Your Highness" (see Episode 126 on the "Funny" page for the transcript).
  • After finding out that Frederick at first found Gwen ugly, and that Blaine knew, a protective and disillusioned big sis Maria confronts Blaine, asking if anything he said was the truth, and if he and Lance find her and Lorena ugly, too. Blaine says something stupid that is the last straw for Maria, who breaks up with him right then and there.
    Blaine: Oh, stop being absurd, Maria! You two are actually beautiful!
• Friend to All Living Things: Parodied, Discussed, Lampshaded, and Invoked. Princess Maria attracts the presence of cute, innocent forest creatures wherever she goes, to the point that deer, squirrels, birds, and cats show up at the castle every morning in order to braid her hair.
  • When she unintentionally summons a flock of birds while making an entrance at Lance's birthday ball, the other partygoers point out that having wild animals chasing after you is an uncontestable indicator of beauty.
    Partygoer 1: H-how can someone be so pretty?!! And where did all those birds come from?! Is she a sorceress or something??!
    Partygoer 2: No, you doofus! Haven't you ever read a fairytale? Having birds and other adorable animals from nature appear by your side is one of the irrefutable signs of tremendous beauty!
    Partygoer 3: It's true! I was chased by a wild boar once and I'll never stop bragging to my friends about it!
  • It's later revealed that The Pastel Kingdom's royal family has been running a generation-spanning campaign to increase the family's beauty. For decades they only courted the most beautiful spouses, hoping to producing heirs whose fairy-tale beauty could summon adorable creatures (like Maria) or cause flowers to bloom where they walked (like Lorena) or literally sparkle (like Jamie).
• Friendless Background: Although it's not apparent at first, the Episodes that follow Prince Frederick reveal that he was a sickly child who was homeschooled until his father shipped him off to a military academy like his brothers. The other students at the academy picked on Frederick relentlessly for his "dorky" interests (reading and model ships) and his shy personality. Now a teenager with no social contacts outside his immediate family, Frederick is lonely, withdrawn, and considers himself to be the least accomplished of his brothers.
• Gambit Pileup: Hilariously parodied when a witch breaks into the castle grounds in an early episode and targets Prince Jamie with a poisoned candy apple. Gwen confronts her and the witch immediately apologizes, thinking that Gwen is a fellow witch who is angry because the castle is her mark that the other witch is honing in on.
• Giant Spider: President Calpernia is under a were-spider curse that turns her into a spider large enough to bite a man's head off once a month. Her spider form is hungry and uncontrollable, so she has to be locked in the barn to control the arachnid damage.
• Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: When Gwen and Frederick spend time together in Leopold's "Sugar Crystal Room" installation at the 124th Annual Artgyle Festival in Episode 106, Gwen admires the exhibit while Frederick admires Gwen.
  Gwen: "The glass crystals in this room are a visual representation of the harrowing amounts of sugar Prince Jamie consumes in a year." Wow... I don't know about harrowing... I think it's really pretty.
  Frederick: Y-yeah... I think so too...
• Go Through Me:
  • When Prince Whitney follows Prince Frederick's screams to the Cursed Princess Club in Episode 86, the members of the Club think he's there to hurt President Calpernia. They throw themselves in front of the Prez to protect her.
    Prince Saffron: I don't care that you're some zombie back from the dead for revenge! You're not getting anywhere near Prez!!
    Prince Whitney: Zombie?! I didn't die--
    Princess Thermidora: She saved us all and created the Cursed Princess Club to protect us! And now it's our turn!! So if you want to kill our president...
    Prince Whitney: N-no, I--
    Curtis: ...You'll have to get past all of us first. Starting with me.
  • Occurs again in Episode 163 when Princess Calpernia has inadvertently transformed into a giant spider during the battle against the Plaid Kingdom's forces. Dazzled by Jamie's sparkles and restrained by Lorena's vines, Calpernia is a sitting duck for the soldiers who are trying to crush her with a falling pillar. Saffron, Syrah, and Whitney throw themselves in front of her prone, giant-spider form to deter the Plaid forces from hitting her.
• Gone Horribly Right: King Jack’s overprotective tendencies are revealed to be him trying to honor his late wife’s Last Request, which was to "hide [their] daughters’ beauty from the outside world." Unfortunately, Jack goes too far, as he forbids men from even looking at the girls, restricts their freedom, and denies them chances to follow their dreams if it means leaving the castle.
• Gratuitous Princess: A webcomic with a Princess Protagonist, who belongs to a club for (cursed) princesses? There's plenty of royalty to go around!
• Green-Eyed Monster: Aurelia is not fond of how a princess like Gwen (who isn't cursed and has a loving family) is allowed into the club, so she plots to trick Gwen into breaking club rules and getting expelled.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Princess Maria, the eldest daughter of the Pastel Kingdom. Averted with Frederick, though he might be growing into the trope over time.
• Heel–Face Turn: Prince Whitney seems to have undergone one. After receiving a curse of his own and barely escaping his own brother's attempts to assassinate him, he was rescued by an order of male nurses and managed to turn his life around. He has been travelling to make amends with people he's hurt and his latest target is Princess Calpernia.
• Heel Realization: Zig-zagged in Ep. 109, when King Jack overhears his children admitting to each other that they have secrets that they cannot divulge. He feels ashamed that his overprotective tendencies and refusal to talk about his reasons for it, or about their late mother, has taught them to lock things away from each other instead of being open and honest with one another like family should. However, his keeping secrets and overprotecting the girls is him trying to fulfill his wife’s three Last Requests, and he feels he cannot stop now because of what she asked.
• Helicopter Parents:
  • Played for laughs at first, but deconstructed later on. Pastel King Jack has kept his daughters sheltered from the outside world for their entire lives, refusing to allow them to interact with boys their own age up until their recent engagements. He cares deeply for all his children, and though he was the driving force behind his daughters' arranged engagements to the Plaid Princes he seems to be having second thoughts about giving up his "baby girls." When the Pastel Royals visit the Plaid Kingdom to attend a ball, the Pastel King balks at the idea of "presenting" his girls to a room full of strangers. His efforts to "protect" his children get more and more controlling and stifling over the course of the story, to the point he starts sitting in on their lessons and interfering in their plans for the future. He forbids Maria from singing at a concert she's been planning for weeks because he doesn't want her to sing in front of strangers and forbids Lorena to continue her defense and military studies, stating that duty would go to Jamie once he's gone. Despite it being fairly obvious that neither of his children are in any way happy about him imposing on their lives like this.
    Attendant: ...one cannot simply walk into this event. It's customary for each guest to be announced into the room.
    Pastel King: What?!! Announce each of my daughters into that giant room of people? I've never heard of anything so insane!
    Attendant: Why, haven't they participated in a debutante ball where they were presented into society? It's no different than that--
    Pastel King: Present them to society?!! Who would do something so psychotic?! That's like pointing a giant arrow at my girls and saying, "come and get 'em!"
  • Aurelia's stepfather gave her a cursed necklace that made anything that touched her lips to start disintegrating to keep boys away, though the effect staying even after the necklace came off wasn't something that he was expecting.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The Plaid Queen is secretly trying to upend her husband's evil plans.
• "Home Alone" Antics: Lorena's final project winds up being a home defense system for the Pastel Castle. Aside from retractable portcullises and bars on the windows (and some cartoonish Pit Traps, a giant ball that rolls towards attacking forces, and non-lethal Spikes of Doom), the defenses include spring-mounted boxing gloves, pies-to-the-face, and windup chattering teeth that descend on intruders in droves.
• Hot Guy, Ugly Wife: This is how the previous generation of Pastel royals viewed Jack's marriage.
• How We Got Here: The final season opens up with a shot of a crying Gwen collapsing onto her bed, noting how she "just wanted to skip forward to her happily ever after". It then switches back to four weeks to earlier to explain what happened.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: In episode 103, Leland the Plaid King, of all people, lectures Jack the Pastel King about parenthood. While Leland's own parenting methods are draconian and not to be emulated, he is absolutely right to call Jack out on his overbearing protectiveness of his daughters.
• Imagine Spot: When the Princes of the Plaid Kingdom take the Pastel Princesses (and Prince Jamie) to an amusement park for a triple-date, Blaine and Lance go into a shared imagine spot thinking about how taking Maria and Lorena into the Haunted House will result in the sheltered princesses falling into their arms with fright. Lance even has a second, shoujou-esque imagine spot as they enter the "Disgusting Bloody Clown Murderhouse," complete with narration.
  Prince Lance: Ah, haunted houses are such a blessing to gentlemen suitors. Why? Because of their sure-fire ability to make a girl become putty in one's hands. It's a romantic and timeless recipe as simple as 1-2-3. First, allow the nice clown to terrify your date. Then as she turns around in fear, stand behind her with open and inviting arms. Watch as she melts into your strong embrace, and falls deeper in love with you with each room. By the end of the haunted house, these girls will be weak in the knees.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Prince Jamie of the Pastel Kingdom is so pretty that he's often mistaken for a princess; a fact that's compounded by some of his more "girly" interests and habits. He enjoys board games for little girls (where the goal is to collect plastic jewelry tokens and date the most handsome boy) and wears a "long kilt" to an official function with his sisters. Aside from those outward traits, Jamie is also a kind and caring brother who talks openly with his sisters about their feelings.
• Insatiable Newlyweds: Lorena and Maria are very eager to get to this part. It rattles their dad to the point that he ends up postponing the weddings.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting:
  • Princess Monika of the Quilt Kingdom transforms into a crow whenever she gets nervous.
  • The President's curse transforms her into a giant carnivorous spider about once a month due to her period.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: When Beckett finds out that Princess Maria is engaged to one of the Plaid Princes, he tells the older guard that he plans to stop her marriage by going to her dad and demanding he call it off. The older guard responds with this.
  Older Guard: Ok, hold up…you think the King would cancel his daughter’s engagement to an incredibly rich, hot, and powerful prince…and hand her over to a shabby foot guard that he personally underpays?
  Beckett: Well you don’t know they’re hot.
  Older Guard: Bruh.
• Love Epiphany: Frederick realizes that he has romantic feelings for Gwen, after trying to sort out his feelings with meditation.
• Menstrual Menace: Princess Calpernia's curse transforms her into a giant were-spider once a month... during her "time of the month."
  Princess Calpernia: The were-spider curse works by latching on to some monthly phase at the time it was activated. But... instead of a phase of the moon, it latched onto a different 'time of the month' that I was on that night... if you get what I mean. I-in other words... I turn into a giant, ravenous, deadly spider once a month during my period.
• Missing Mom: There doesn't seem to be a mother in the picture for Maria, Lorena, Jamie, and Gwen. Episode 2 has a passing mention of her having died, and episode 76 confirms that she passed away when Gwen was three. Gwen’s only memory of her was being held by her, feeling “glowy and warm”. The CPC, who at this point wonder if Gwen is cursed, decide to try to find out more about her mom to solve the mystery. As the comic progresses from that point, readers learn more about the deceased Pastel Queen.
• Mistaken for Gay: Nell, the red-eyed princess always glares at Gwen because she's especially close to Jolie, and Nell and Jolie are dating.
• Mistaken for Undead: Frederick mistakes Princess Monika for Princess Gwen from behind (due to Monika having stolen Gwen's distinctive green dress) and accidentally frightens her off a cliff. Monika survives because she can turn into a bird, but Frederick panics at the thought that he's accidentally killed his fiancé. When he sees Gwen at the palace later, he immediately jumps to the conclusion that she's undead, or otherwise immortal.
• Mistaken from Behind: Princess Monika's magpie-like tendencies cause her to steal Gwen's handmade green dress after Gwen's first visit to the Cursed Princess Club. Later, when Prince Frederick catches a glimpse of Monika wearing the green dress, he assumes Monika is Gwen.
• Morphic Resonance: Prez's spider form includes a pattern of pentagons on her back, which match her hairpiece and the other ways the shape has been worked into her design to represent the Polygon Kingdom.
• Mundane Solution:
  • Maria’s Unknown Rivalry with Blaine’s Loony Fan-Club fizzles out before she even realizes that they've been trying to sabotage her after a significant number of members leave to form a new club centering around Jamie. Guy is so cute and lovable, all but one member of the Blaine Fan Club attending the Gala convert to fans of Jaime.
  • Instead of following her parents' plan of her having endless babies, Whitney presents Prez with a better solution for her curse: medicine to delay her period indefinitely so she'd never turn into a spider again.
• My Fist Forgives You: Invoked in Episode 91 as part of his journey to earn forgiveness, Prince Whitney encourages Princess Calpernia to do whatever it takes for her to process her grief and anger — as long as it's through "an action she won't regret." She responds that she won't lose any sleep over punching him in the face, and he agrees that he deserves it after all he's done. Subverted moments later — Calpernia is all set to give him a black eye when she realizes she's more upset with her curse than she is with Whitney, and proceeds to destroy the spider-shaped cake Curtis had baked. Fortunately, destroying a delicious, chocolatey effigy of her curse turns out to be more cathartic than punching the guy who was trying to help her process her grief (even if he caused it in the first place).
  Prince Whitney: I'm ready, Calpernia. Hit me as hard as you like.
  Princess Calpernia: Deal. And I promise we'll call it even after that. But just to let you know, I feel like hitting really hard...!
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Aurelia, in Episode 56, tries to justify sabotaging Gwen to get her kicked out of the club by declaring "she doesn’t belong here. She’s not cursed! She’s just ugly!". She begins to regret what she did little by little, until the full force hits her in Episode 117, when she reads the diary of Gwen’s mother, Lilyth. Lilyth was once dissuaded from marrying Jack when his mother told her that she would be hurting any children she had with him because they would be ugly like her, and therefore shunned and hated. Lilyth wrote on the first pages of her diary that she would never forgive herself if she ever had a child who would be called ugly to their face… which is exactly what happened to Gwen, making what Aurelia did all the more awful, and prompting her to cry herself to sleep.
  • Frederick finds out that Gwen heard him saying she was "really ugly" back in Ep. 10. Gwen says she needs him because she feels she is "shattered". Frederick is horrified, flashing back to the shattered glass among his tattered books at the military school, and comes to believe that he is the serpent from his dreams, the monster that is hurting her, the cause of all her hurt.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: In Episode 87, Prince Whitney tells Calpernia that his life flashed before his eyes when he thought her were-spider form was about to eat him.
  Prince Whitney: After this terrifying transformation, your newly cursed form immediately descended upon me in a bloodthirsty rage. And though I was no stranger to gruesome sights, I froze in absolute terror and saw my life flash before my eyes... The life I saw was awful. It was lonely and bitter, consumed by a never-ending, unfulfilling thirst to compete, to win, and to dominate. And what did it all amount to? Nothing. I lost.

N-Z

• Navel-Deep Neckline: A Rare Male Example of the trope: Prince Saffron's default outfit is a sleeveless tunic/vest held closed by a sash tied around his waist. (The top is alternately drawn with and without buttons, but either way Prince Saffron wears the shirt like an incredibly deep v-neck that goes down to his navel.)
• Nice Girl: All of the princesses of the Pastel Kingdom are sweet and kind, but Gwen takes the cake.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Princess Gwendolyn is drawn differently from all of her siblings, who all resemble pretty anime girls (even her brother Jamie). By contrast, Gwen's eyes are much smaller and her face is drawn with more lines, which reflects the fact that her appearance is often described as that of a witch. She looks like she's from a different genre of story than her family members. This gets lampshaded in-story when the club members wonder why she looks nothing like the rest of her family.
• Offhand Backhand: While Saffron's cursed hand normally makes life difficult for him, it will protect him from attacks he doesn't see coming.
• Oh, Crap!: Prez has one during the castle siege when she realizes she forgot to take her medicine before the attack. Cue her spider transformation.
• On the Rebound: Prince Jack and Prince Leland were inseparable best friends as teens, but Jack was injured and delayed at sea when Leland's parents died, leaving the young prince to grieve their passing and assume the mantle of Plaid King without the support of his friend. When Jack returned home from his voyage he spent most of his time with his fiancée Lilith (given how she had been forbidden from appearing in public by his parents), remaining in the Pastel Kingdom. Leland saw this as a betrayal of their friendship, even leaving a "breakup" letter for Jack before storming away in a huff. Leland immediately latched onto Laverne as a Replacement Goldfish for Jack (because the baby llama was as "fluffy, lustrous, and sparkly" as his best friend), and started dating Isolde immediately afterwards as a way to get back at Jack for "replacing" him with Lilith.
  Prince Leland: He thinks he can replace me with his new stolen girlfriend...?! He's easily replaceable too!! I just need to find someone as dimwitted and hypocritical and...
• The One Guy:
  • Prince Saffron, a prince who is in the club because he has a mostly malevolent cursed hand that sometimes lashes out violently and sometimes just likes to mess with him. He desperately wishes that more men would join the club, or at least that President Calpernia would change the club name.
  • Averted when a truly reformed Prince Whitney joins after saving Renee's life.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Princess Calpernia is referred to almost exclusively as "Prez".
• Outcast Refuge: The eponymous club is a refuge for fairy tale princesses (or anyone, really) who had suffered any kind of supernatural storybook misfortune (such as a Curse). It was founded by Princess Calpernia of the Polygon Kingdom as a coping strategy for her own curse (she is a were-spider), but also to provide a safe haven for people like herself who have been ostracized because of their curses.
• Parental Favoritism: Downplayed example in the Pastel Kingdom, where the Pastel King seems to prefer his daughters to his son, and spends more time gushing over them than he does Prince Jamie. It's to the point that he flat-out tells Lorena, who's been studying fighting and the military, that she will never be allowed to face the dangers of battle, and that nonviolent Jamie will have to take over the troops instead.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Zigzagged —
  • When the Pastel King Jack goes to tell his daughters of their arranged marriages, he's worried they'll be upset. His musings are interrupted by them squeeing over their handsome husbands-to-be (and anticipating the wedding night a little too eagerly for his comfort.) While her sisters pair up just fine, poor Gwendolyn's introduction to her prospective groom does not go off rosily.
  • As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that whilst Princes Lance and Blaine might be well suited for Maria and Lorena they are still practically strangers to each other. Interestingly, it is Prince Frederick — despite claiming disinterest in Gwen — who gets to know her a lot more personally by focusing on her personality rather than being satisfied with looks alone.
• Pet the Dog: A blink and you'll miss it moment in an otherwise mostly comical scene. While far from malicious, much less evil, the Pastel Princesses' tutor, Agatha, is a very strict stickler for proper rules, etiquette and proper behavior. Yet, during the dinner party with the CPC (which she thinks is an upscale princess conservatory), when she notices Aurelia discretely trying to get rid of her food rather than eating it (actually to hide her curse), not only does she not comment about it or scold her for her poor manners - she very quietly and gently tells her that she can talk to her and she's "better than any number". Fitting with the comic's theme of learning to deal with psychological issues and mental illness, it is very likely that she assumed Aurelia has an eating disorder, and rather than acting in any way judgmental about it dealt with it in just about the healthiest, kindest way possible.
• Pixellation: In Episode 134, a flashback reveals that King Leland overheard Lilyth's dying wishes — the third of which was that Jack give their daughters a certain item when the Pastel Princesses were "ready to become women." Lilyth's words are pixelated, preventing readers from discovering what she asked of Jack. In the very next panel Leland picks up a heavily-pixelated object and steals it away from the Pastel Kingdom's palace. He still has it in the present, and it's still just as heavily pixelated.
• Plot Armor: Deliberately and hilariously invoked when the Blaine fan club tries to torment Maria and drive Blaine away from her. She pretty much literally has fairy-tale magic protecting her — birds swoop in to snatch stuff the club throws at her, among other things. They do successfully dump a bucket of water on her head, but that only succeeds in bringing her and Blaine closer emotionally.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Gwen received some solid advice from the Cursed Princesses on how to deal with Prince Frederick and diplomatically break off their engagement, but her delivery ends up a little muddled. When she actually finds Frederick and has her conversation with him, she's struggling to hold back tears and has a terrifying grimace/ forced smile on. The situation not helped by Prince Frederick's mistaken assumption that he had accidentally frightened Gwen off a cliff that morning (it was actually Princess Monika, wearing Gwen's dress, and she turned into a crow before she hit the ground so no harm done). Gwen walks away thinking she's given Frederick a tactful way to escape their unwanted engagement, while Frederick gets the impression that Gwen is an undead witch who's just promised to haunt him for the rest of his life.
    Syrah's Advice: Frederick. I want you to know that I overheard what you said about me the other night.
    Gwen: *trying to remember the exact words* Hey Frederick... I know what you did to me...
    Syrah's Advice: It hurt my feelings, but I understand.
    Gwen: It hurt. But I want you to know I'm okay.
    Syrah's Advice: I'm fine not being your fiancé. I'll be watching from the sidelines as your friend and sister-in-law from here on. I just want you and everyone in our families to be happy.
    Gwen: Let's be friends, Frederick. From now on, I'll be watching you from the shadows. I hope you're happy...
  • The Bippity Bop Gala arc reveals that Prez's family had been trying to contact her for some time, but her spiders scared off all the mailmen. Calpernia's parents are genuinely sorry for how rashly they acted in the wake of Prince Whitney cursing her (and everyone believing she ate her fiancé while transformed into a werespider) and have been trying to make amends. Prez spent years thinking that her family didn't want anything to do with her — that a single diplomatic misstep was all it took for them to drop her like a hot potato — and while she claims to have gotten over it, her reaction to seeing them at the ball proves that she's still angry and hurt.
• Princess Classic: At first glance, Maria and Lorena appear to be beautiful, elegant, charming princesses straight out of a classic fairy tale. Maria has her hair styled by cute forest critters every morning, and flowers spring up wherever Lorena sleeps. This underscores how much Gwen's appearance stands out in her family full of gorgeous royals.
• Princess Protagonist: Main character Gwendolyn is the youngest Princess of the Pastel Kingdom.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Discussed — when Princess Nell has prophetic visions of doom, she may or may not recite her premonitions in rhyming couplets. This is mentioned by Princess Monica, right before Nell's first on-screen vision in Episode 67:
  Princess Monica: Don't worry, Nell's premonitions aren't so bad! Sometimes she even says them in a cute little rhyme! I think the worst one was when she said that an earring stud fell somewhere on the carpet, and one of us was gonna step on it.
  Princess Nell: ''SOMETIME BEFORE THE NEW MOON WILL PASS, A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB SHALL DIE IN A FLASH'.'
• Punny Name: In Episode 93, the names of the Denim Kingdom's king and heir to the throne are first mentioned.
  Prince Jamie: King Eugene II of the Denim Kingdom. At the tender age of 17, he single-handedly fended off a siege by slicing off the legs of 85 men, which earned him the formidable nickname "Bootcut Gene."
  The Princels: King Eugene II will be succeeded by his eldest son, Prince "Skinny" Gene III, who is beloved amongst the population for his trim figure and handsome face.
• Pushed at the Monster: Occurs a flashback shown in Episode 87 — right after Nurse Asa saved Prince Whitney from getting his head bitten off by the Calpernia's newly cursed were-spider form, Whitney repaid him by pushing Asa into Calpernia's path as a distraction.
• Rainbow Puke: Princess Maria, who is a fear vomiter, ends up puking a sparkly rainbow when Blain and Lance bring the Pastel Princesses to a "Disgusting Bloody Clown Murderhouse" at the amusement park.
• Really Gets Around: Syrah really likes men and, well, variety, and is not at all shy or evasive about it. She's also open about the fact that a previous boyfriend was the one to put her under a curse for cheating on him.
  Aurelia: We're all a bunch of rejected, virgin princesses!!
  Syrah: Pfft, speak for yourself, sister.
• Red Herring: Throughout the final season, we are constantly given hints that the mysterious character wishing to hurt the Pastel Princesses is the Monochrome King. Beyond the fact that he's already proven to be an utterly vile human being and the villain of the reformed Whitney's personal character arc, the notes, gifts, and decorations associated with this mystery villain are all in the Monochrome Kingdom's signature, black and white patterns. Greyden even shows up to the gala in a serpent costume, fitting into Frederick's dream of having to protect Gwen from one. With so many signs pointing toward him, it's easy to miss the fact that all of those black and white patterns on the villain's clues happen to be black and white plaid patterns... Like the ones associated with Leland and Mary.
• Returning the Wedding Ring: Maria and Lorena cancel their engagements to Blaine and Lance when they found out they covered up Frederick finding Gwen ugly and him being forced to go through with the engagement. As they verbally break up with their fiancées, they both take off their engagement rings and throw them aside.
• Ripping Off the String of Pearls:
  • An interesting execution of the trope happens in Episode 57. Princess Aurelia, who wears a doubled string of gold beads/ pearls, has gotten herself in deep trouble with Club President Calpernia for tricking Gwen into visiting the forbidden barn. Calpernia pins Aurelia against the wall of the barn by her necklace while she berates Aurelia for putting another club member in danger, then terrifies Aurelia by summoning her arachnid spies from the eaves. Aurelia shrinks back in horror, tearing the necklace in her haste to escape the army of spiders dangling just above her face, and the pearls go flying dramatically.
  • Inverted by Gwen, who feels terribly when Aurelia is banished from the club, even though banishment is Aurelia's punishment for putting Gwen's life in danger. Episode 60 ends with Gwen collecting up the scattered beads from Aurelia's necklace, while Episode 61 opens with Gwen repairing the necklace and returning it to Aurelia.
• Royalty Superpower: Invoked — For generations, the Pastel Kingdom's royal family lived by a mandate that ensured they would only marry beautiful individuals and give birth to beautiful children. This was part of an overarching plan to create a lineage of royalty that would inherit "mythological" levels of beauty, as indicated by powers like summoning birds, causing flowers to bloom, or glowing, with the hope that they would eventually have an heir who displayed "eternal beauty." As a teenager, Prince Jack was so beautiful that he sparkled and could dazzle the unwary with his good looks, and thusly considered a shining example of his family's genetic beauty program. Prince Jack's parents were horrified when he proposed to Lilyth, believing that Jack's choice of bride would prove detrimental to the royal family's magical good looks. Three of King Jack's four children have inherited those powers his ancestors were working towards. But if Jack losing his "sparkle" due to the stress of Lilyth's death is any indication, their beauty-based powers may not be permanent.
• Running Gag: Gwen's appearance causing people to mistake her for a witch. There's even a haunted house in one chapter with a "possum witch" character based on her. This also applies to her mother, as we see in a flashback.
• Sensory Overload: Jamie's Super-Senses allow him to taste the thoughts and feelings of the people who prepared his meals. When he eats a giant cookie that was created by hundreds of people as part of an "interactive art exhibit" in Episode 106, he starts reeling from the amount of information and gets a "flavor overload" that causes him to black out.
• Sexy Jester: The 32nd Pentennial Bippity Bop Gala features a host of "luxury clowns" — silent performers covered in body glitter, decked out in black-tie outfits, with matching blue wigs and clown noses — who spend the evening miming and making balloon animals. Musical guest star and event emcee Bozart calls dibs on "taking them home" at the end of the evening.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Much of the conflict of the last season is driven by the fact that one of the raffle prizes at the Bippity Bop is meant to be a magic crystal rumored to have the power to remove a single curse. It's the primary reason for the CPC to attend (besides Calpernia wanting some closure from her parents), and it leads to some club drama over who should get the curse-removal because every single member thinks somebody else is more deserving of it than themselves, with the decision ultimately falling to Gwen, giving her even more stress for the night. It turns out the crystal was a fake all along, planted there as part of an elaborate scheme to draw and trick King Jack. This is lampshaded when Gwen eventually comments, as an aside, that her choice would've been Nell, but it doesn't matter anymore as the subject is swept aside by the advancing plot.
• Shout-Out: See the shout outs page.
• Show Within a Show: Prince Frederick's favorite book of all time is "The Tiniest Prince." It also happens to be one of Gwen's favorite books, and she sends him a copy as part of a care package.
• Signed with a Kiss: When Abbi concocts a magic potion that will allegedly undo the Cursed Princess Club members' curses for one day, one of the potion's instructions is to write a wish on a piece of paper and then kiss the paper before drinking the potion. Naturally, most if not all the princesses write wishes concerning their romantic dreams on the papers. The potion itself ends up a dud because of a mix-up with the ingredients, but the notes become a Chekhov's Gun: Gwendolyn figures out that the one sending her messages goading her into entering the barn against the Club's rules was Aurelia because Aurelia's curse gave her acidic saliva, and Aurelia's otherwise unsigned wish note with handwriting identical to the mysterious messages has a corroded kiss mark from that acid.
• Social Darwinist: The superior beauty of the Pastel royal family (minus Gwen) is explained in Episode 117. As it turns out, the royal family has, for centuries, selected only the most physically attractive spouses to pass their genes onto their children, making each new generation more and more beautiful. Their ultimate goal was to one day produce heirs whose beauty were the stuff of fairytales. All you have to do is look at Maria, Lorena and Jamie, and you know: mission accomplished.
• Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying: President Calpernia's were-spider form differs from typical arachnid biology in several regards:
  • Firstly, it has a gaping mouth full of teeth like steak knives, and mandibles that appear fixed in place like forward-pointing horns. Arachnid mouths don't have teeth or mandibles — they have a pair of appendages called chelicerae tipped with fangs that are typically connected to a venom gland. The venom liquifies their prey's internal organs, allowing the spider's small "sucking mouth" to drink the slurry up like a smoothie.
  • Secondly, the legs appear to end in sharpened points optimal for stabbing. Real spiders have legs that end in tiny claws on the tarsus. These claws are what allow them to climb walls and navigate their webs. The sharpened limbs of this giant spider more closely resemble the dactyl at the end of a crab's "walking legs" than they do spider legs.
  • Thirdly, the Square-Cube Law is ignored. Or could just be handwaved away because its the magical effect of a curse and Giant Spiders are cool.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: As a side effect of her curse as a were-spider, Princess Calpernia can understand and communicate with spiders. She uses this ability to create a rudimentary security system for the club, having "eyes and ears" dispersed throughout the forest that can warn her of any intruders.
• Stay in the Kitchen:
  • Calpernia was stifled by her family's insistence that she be a perfect submissive bride before she left them, which was part of what spurred her to create the club. Naturally, learning to fight and defend other princesses was one of her first free actions.
  • Episode 79 reveals that the Pastel King holds this mindset towards his daughters. When he learns about Lorena's studies in military matters, he dismisses it as a silly hobby and then goes on to state that Jamie would lead the military after his passing. Nevermind that it's glaringly obvious that Jamie has no interest in such things whatsoever.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Gwen is the spitting image of her mother.
• Super Breeding Program: This is the reason Jamie is so exceptionally beautiful. Basically up until the current king, the Pastel Kingdom has deliberately only allowed their royals to marry beautiful people in order to breed an heir who is eternally beautiful. It's both Played for Laughs and Played for Drama, as it helps feed into the Pastel Princess's mother's insecurity.
• Super-Senses: Prince Jamie of the Pastel Kingdom is a super-taster. His refined palate can detect the emotional state of the chefs who prepare his food, giving him unique insight as a food critic.
  Prince Jamie: As you know, my tastebuds allow me to precisely discern not only many ingredients, but also many emotions within people's cooking. Each emotion exudes its own flavor to me, and it's allowed me to have a unique career as a food critic for many kingdoms. The problem is... there are only so many flavors in existence. And some flavors and emotions taste practically identical to my tongue, which can really confuse my palate.
  Jamie's Journal of Identical Tastes: Excitement for the weekend tastes just like fresh autumn leaves. Schadenfreude taste identical to tater tots. Devastation tastes a lot like carpet.
  Prince Jamie: And one of my crucial blind spots is that emotional devastation tastes identical to carpet. I once wrote a terrible review of a chef from the Paisley Kingdom because I thought he had served me bolognese that fell on the floor. But actually, his beloved parakeet had just passed away.
• Team Mom: President Calpernia, to all members of the Cursed Princess Club. Not only is she the founder and president of the institution, she's also the most mature, level-headed, and competent of all the members. She organizes group activities both inside (sleepovers, prom, daily affirmations) and outside (field trips, volunteering for charitable organizations) the club. She gives the best advice. And she makes it her #1 mission to keep club members happy, healthy, and safe.
  President Calpernia: Now everyone start heading for the hospital cafeteria! We're taking a snack break and it's MANDATORY! And you WILL eat tater tots if I order a plate of them... we'll ALL eat some tots...
• Theme Naming: Overlaps with Colorful Theme Naming — the countries and kingdoms of Cursed Princess Club are largely named after fabric colors, patterns, and decorative elements. Examples found in the comic include The Pastel Kingdom, Plaid Kingdom, Quilt Kingdom, Lace Kingdom, Metallic Kingdom, Neon Kingdom, Gilded Kingdom, Foliage Kingdom, Velvet Kingdom, Polygon Kingdom, Stripe Kingdom, Argyle Kingdom, Monochrome Kingdom, Oval Kingdom, Denim Kingdom, Seersucker Kingdom, Paisley Kingdom, Braid Island, Terrycloth Kingdom, Camouflage Kingdom, etc...
• Themed Party: The 32nd Pentennial Bippity Bop Gala is revealed in Episode 108 to be a costume party;
  President Calpernia: When I read the back of the gala ticket, I realized this gala is a mandatory costume party! "Bonus points for curse-themed costumes. And no, indecent exposure does not count as a 'curse'"...? Seems like this curse-themed gala with all of its contrived charity efforts is just an excuse for the rich and powerful to dress up like monsters and prance around. I'd be offended if it wasn't for the fact that it makes things extremely convenient for us...
• Through His Stomach: Gwen's cooking seems to be able to charm anyone, and Jamie claims it's because of all the love and care she puts into it.
  • The first time Frederick is offered Gwen's cooking occurs in Episode 28, when he's cold, tired, and terrified that Gwen is an unkillable witch who just promised to haunt him forever. But one bite of her soup and he's immediately filled with happy thoughts because it tastes like kindness — he even falls asleep on Gwen's shoulder.
  • The Princels are a bunch of bitter, self-absorbed Princes who are convinced that their "ugliness" prevents them from finding joy in the world (or girlfriends), and they call Gwen a house elf on first meeting her. But after a slice of her homemade pie in Episode 42 one of their number exclaims he's ready to "tear down my walls and open myself up to all the joys life has to offer!," and immediately proposes that Gwen marry into their household and live with them forever. (Of course, the Princels throw a fit the moment they hear Gwen doesn't want to date or marry any of them, but that's beside the point.)
  • Queen Isolde of the Plaid Kingdom acted coldly towards the Pastel Princesses because she doesn't approve of their marriage to her sons, but after trying Gwen's apple tarts in Episode 101 she begins to defrost a bit, at least towards Jamie and Miss Agatha.
• Toast of Tardiness: Parodied in Episode 97 when President Calpernia wakes up from her werespider transformation starving and having just missed the party of Cursed Princess Club members heading to Gwen's castle disguised as members of the Cosmopolitan Princess Conservatory. She hurriedly changes into the counterfeit school uniform Gwen provided and scarfs down a piece of toast while running to make it to the party on time. She even has to parkour her way around the castle's guards, all with toast in her mouth.
  Princess Jolie: Hey, look!! It's Prez!
  Prince Saffron: Yeah. Nice try. Last time I fell for that, you pulled a fifth ace out of your eye hole.
  Princess Jolie: No, look!! She's running out of the forest in her school uniform!!!
  President Calpernia: I'M SOOO LATE!! I'm gonna be in so much trouble!! Why didn't you wake me up earlier??!!
• Tonight, Someone Dies: Nell delivers a prophecy that SOMETIME BEFORE THE NEW MOON WILL PASS, A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB SHALL DIE IN A FLASH. Ultimately subverted: since Calpernia spared Prince Whitney's life when given the chance to kill him, merely telling him to leave and never see the club again, he ends up in exactly the right situation to bring Renee back from the pond during a thunderstorm and avert her prophesied death by lightning. The subversion is lampshaded by Nell, who notes that one crucial decision often ends up leading to the few cases where her omens don't come true.
• Transforming Conforming: Except for Gwendolyn, the only non-cursed one, all the other members of the club had their lives changed by their respective curses:
  • Monika was once kidnapped by an evil wizard who turned her into his crow pet. Although she was rescued and "healed", she still turns into a crow whenever she is stressed. If by one turn that gives her the ability to fly, she becomes very small and unable to communicate with anyone out of the club. Also, she gained the habit of stealing brilliant and pretty objects, refusing to give them back.
  • Thermidora was once a lobster princess who loved a lobster prince, but a jealous sea cucumber turned her into a human to separate her from her love. Unable to breathe underwater, she is now forced to stay on dry land, wear clothes, and live among other humans. Her lobster claws were the only portion of her that didn't transform, and while she's glad to retain any part of her original anatomy the claws aren't built to handle human objects. People outside of the club find them scary.
  • Calpernia, the founder of the club, was accidentally cursed by her abusive fiancée to transform into a giant, mindless spider once a month. That not only caused her to be pushed away by her own parents, but she also has to lock herself in a barn when she transforms to avoid eating someone. The only thing good is that she became able to understand spiders, who are very protective of the club and the forest; on other hand, they scare the postmen away, keeping Calpernia from receiving letter from her remorseful family.
• Tricked into Signing: This is how the Plaid Queen manages to stop the Plaid King's invasion of the Pastel Kingdom. While feigning tearful obeisance to the King in Episode 134, Isolde gets him to sign her usual catalog order for fancy desserts. In Episode 170 she reveals that she had doctored the order form by slicing out the signature portion and hiding an official decree of abdication on the page underneath, then counted on Leland bullying the Plaid Parliament into pushing through his own bills without reading the fine print. Leland rages at the Plaid Parliament that he would never sign away his powers, but Parliament sides with Queen Isolde (having been granted extra authority and a stipend for fancy desserts in Leland's forged abdication).
• True Love's Kiss: Being a parody of fairytales, this is considered the tried-and-true method of breaking curses in the setting. It does seem to have some merit to it: Jamie apparently has to be regularly woken from sleep curses by slathering his face with a waffle. The main (on the surface) reason for most of the Cursed Princess Club's members to be in their situation is precisely because, due to their circumstances, they couldn't or wouldn't get one:
  • Abbi can't get the boy she likes to kiss her because she looks like an old woman (and, realistically, even if she could it might not remove her curse, since she's implied to be too emotionally immature to have "true love" - what she has is a highschool crush).
  • Monika is too neurotic to have ever gotten a boyfriend, much less found true love.
  • Thermidora's true love is a lobster who lives at the bottom of the ocean. She physically cannot get close enough to him to kiss without drowning.
  • Aurelia's curse was designed specifically to prevent this, destroying whatever touches her lips. The final chapter reveals that it should actually work, but since the consequences of the kisser's love not being true are so dire, one would have to be very brave and confident to attempt it.
  • Saffron seems to be too insecure about his masculinity to have ever been able to get a girlfriend.
  • Syrah is a Lovable Sex Maniac who Really Gets Around - she has no trouble getting lots of kisses, but none of them are true love's kisses.
  • Renee doesn't seem to have a boyfriend, and even if she did she'd have a hard time kissing because she's had her lips sewn shut to prevent frogs coming out.
  • Calpernia is somewhat implied to be asexual or aromantic, or at the very least has never been romantically interested enough in anyone to want to kiss them. Even if this wasn't the case, it's been stated that her curse having been purchased from a shady back-alley curse vendor means it's prone to not working properly and may be downright impossible to remove the "normal" way.
  • Whitney swore a vow of celibacy right after receiving his curse, so he's never kissing anyone.
  • Jolee and Nell seem to be each other's true loves and have a very healthy adult relationship, so they've almost definitely kissed each other. Why their curses haven't been removed could be up to any number of reasons: maybe the laws of curses are homophobic and only count heterosexual kisses (although the witch at the gala implies this isn't the case, as she suggests a kiss from Leopold might wake up Jamie the next time he's put to a magical sleep). Maybe getting a kiss from someone else with a curse somehow cancels out. Or maybe the individual nature of their curses prevents this (Nell seems to have been born with hers, and Jolee's came straight from the Devil). Finally, there's the simple fact that they both seem to be perfectly at peace with themselves, curses and all - even if they were removed, they'd still be the same people.
• Tunnel of Love: Prince Jamie corrals Prince Frederick onto the "Perfect Relation-Ship" love boat ride with him at the amusement park so they can have some time to get to know each other better. Jamie tells Frederick how special Gwen is to his family, and how he hopes Frederick can learn to see how wonderful Gwen is too. Unfortunately Frederick gets freaked out by Jamie's follow-up questions, leading to awkward flailing that accidentally tips their boat and dumps the two Princes into the filthy amusement park water.
• Two Men, One Dress: In Episode 150, member of the CPC disguise themselves as a terrifying, ten-foot-tall monster in order to scare off the invading Plaid Kingdom forces. Princess Bernadette and Princess Renee form the base (with Bernadette's terrifying tail sticking out and Renee's endless stream of mouth-frogs spilling out of the disguise). Princess Abby (with a megaphone to amplify her old-lady voice) sits on their back, and Princess Deianeira (whose voice brings anguish to any man who can hear it) sits on her shoulders. Princess Thermidora (with lobster claws poking out of their hasty disguise) is perched on Deianeira's shoulders, and Princess Jolie (holding up a oversized, spider-covered Princess Panda head lit up by something in Jolie's eye sockets) sits at the top of the human pyramid.
• Unnecessary Makeover: An in-universe example occurs in Episode 45 when the Pastel Princesses visit the Plaid Kingdom to attend the huge party thrown for Lance's birthday. Plaid King Leland sends the princesses off with his castle's staff to give them a Plaid Kingdom makeover. While Maria and Lorena are easy enough to dress up, the maids are at a loss on how to handle Gwen's unique looks — their curling iron fries her hair, the dress they pick swallows her up, and the makeup artist complains that Gwen's skin is "scaly and oil, like trying to paint a freshwater salmon." Poor Gwen ends up looking like a clown, and Maria and Lorena are horrified that the Plaid maids would try to cover up Gwen's "natural beauty." The sisters take over the makeover duties, making sure Gwen looks like the best version of herself.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: When Princess Jolie finds out her girlfriend Princess Nell snuck into the Bippity Bop Gala to track down Jolie's parents and ask their permission to propose to their daughter, Jolie is absolutely overjoyed and counter-proposes to Nell on the spot. Turns out Jolie was ready to propose months ago and was just waiting for just the right moment, so she already has a ring at the ready — in storage in her eye socket dimension. When she pulls the ring out of her eye socket it's attached to a string of letters that spells out "Marry Me Nell."
• Weaponized Headgear: Crowns from the Polygon Kingdom are decorated with three polygons and five long, thin spikes. Princess Calpernia turns her tiara into a functional self-defense weapon, which she uses to threaten Prince Whitney when he shows up unexpectedly at the Cursed Princess Club. Lampshaded by Prince Saffron, Justified by Curtis:
  Prince Saffron: ...So... Prez has just been wearing a weapon on her head this entire time...?
  Curtis: Ah, that was our first craft project upon starting this club. It's a carbon steel replica of her crown with detachable components for the ideal, discrete backup weapon.
• Wham Episode:
  • The last few comics of Season 2 is pretty much one huge Wham arc:
    • Aurelia sent the notes in an effort to trick Gwen into going to the barn so Gwen would be kicked out of the CPC, but she gets kicked out herself.
    • Calpernia's curse is that she can turn into a giant spider, and it resulted in a loss of a life.
    • The origin of the Cursed Princess Club is revealed.
    • Nell didn't send the notes, rather she saved Gwen's life. Her constant glares were because Gwen was getting close with her girlfriend, Jolie.
    • The Pastel Princesses (and Jamie) start protesting the king's security.
    • The CPC sees a picture of Gwen's family and starts wondering if she really does have a curse.
    • And Gwen runs into Lord Leopold again.
  • In Season 3, we see more:
    • Nell prophesies that someone in the club will die.
    • Prince Whitney is back.
    • And he's a truly changed man who's been seeking atonement from all he's wronged, while also having been cursed himself.
    • Whitney saves Renee from the aforementioned prophesied fate—specifically, death by lightning strike at a pond—and is ultimately accepted into the club.
    • The C.P.C. has to go undercover to the Pastel castle pretending to be the Cosmopolitan Princess Conservatory in order to keep up the impression that Gwen is part of the latter organization.
  • Season 4:
    • In part 3 of Lilyth’s backstory, her future mother-in-law tells her that she would be dooming Jack’s children to a life of rejection should she pass her "ugly" genes onto them. Aurelia reads her first journal entry that declares that she refuses to have children with Jack out of the fear that one of them will inherit her ugliness and be scorned for it, driving Aurelia into a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
    • The end has the Pastel royal family arrive at the Polygon Palace for the Gala, and gives us some Wham Shots of Maria and Lorena’s Unknown Rivals giving Death Glares towards their arriving carriage, setting the stage for conflict in the upcoming episodes.
  • Episode 131 is a triple whammy in a single episode.
    • Leland is revealed to be the Greater-Scope Villain. The triple Arranged Marriage between the kingdoms and the decoy crystal with the note instead, asking for the Omininiest Clam are both part of his revenge plan against Jack, to get him to commit a crime and turn his daughters against him.
    • Jamie finally finds the one who’s seeking to hurt his sisters—Queen Isolde, who has been onto her husband all along and who opposed the Arranged Marriage because she knew his plot had something to do with it. Her intentions to "crush the Pastel Princesses" refers to her last resort to stop Leland, as while it will foil him, it will also emotionally "crush" the girls.
    • The last resort is a box of papers, given to the last remaining Blaine Fan Club member, who showers them over the Plaid Princes and Pastel Princesses. On the papers is a poem—revealing that Frederick called Gwen "really ugly" at Jamie’s wake.
  • Episode 132:
    • The Pastel Princesses confront the Plaid Princes about Frederick’s comment about finding Gwen ugly. After a Freudian Slip from Blaine, Maria and Lorena call off their engagements to Blaine and Lance, and drag Gwen home.
    • Frederick has an Oh God What Have I Done moment when he finds out Gwen overheard him in Episode 10, and Gwen reveals that she felt shattered by his comment about her being ugly. She feels like she’s nothing without him. Frederick is horrified that he did that to Gwen.
    • The CPC members attending the Gala find out that the Polygon King has scheduled the forest with the clubhouse to be torn down that night. The last shot of Renee and Abbi is them right as construction workers, mistaking them for witches, lunge forward to attack.
    • Calpernia is conflicted, as her parents wish for her to return home, but she still has lingering loyalty to the CPC — which comes on top of the doubts planted in her head by Monika’s Childhood Friend about whether the CPC is even a good thing for its members, or only hinders their personal growth.
    • In the end, Leland says that now that the Arranged Marriage plan has failed, they don’t have to do things "the nice way anymore".
• Wham Line:
  • Nell's prophecy, which comes completely out of the blue: SOMETIME BEFORE THE NEW MOON WILL PASS, A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB SHALL DIE IN A FLASH.
  • Episode 68 has a big one when Frederick meets a mysterious traveler on the road.
    My name's Whitney of the Monochrome Kingdom.
• Wham Shot:
  • The end of season one, when Gwen looks into a mirror to find her face cracked, with a gaping hole where her eyes should be. Not the mirror, her actual reflection.
  • Throughout season 3, her reflection seems to heal and the hole becomes much smaller and the cracks fade away. But in the season finale, she chooses to repress her beef with Frederick over calling her ugly and pretend that she is none the wiser about what he said, so she can "skip right to her Happily Ever After". Then she looks into the crystals hanging in the room, and sees her reflection again—where the shattered hole has become just as big and cracked as it was before.
  • In Episode 118, Maria appears to desert Blaine when he starts losing in his piano competition to Prince Griffin. Then, when the part comes where the volume of applause decides the winner of the contest, no one applauded for Blaine… until someone shouts, and we see Maria standing in the doorway with the Prince Blaine Fan Club, all wearing cheerleader uniforms with Blaine’s name and color, declaring that they’re here to cheer Blaine on.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final chapter takes place six months later, and Gwen writes in her diary about what happened then:
  • Jack learned about Lilyth and her painting curse, then he cried for a whole week over her.
  • Lorena got an A+++++ for her final class project.
  • The kids are getting along with the family, and both Jamie and Leopold made more artwork for the walls so Lilyth could travel through them around the castle.
  • Jack held a celebration to acknowledge the people who helped defend the castle from the invasion. He hasn't visited Leland in prison since.
  • Jerry was promoted to Chief Warden, while Beckett got demoted and transferred far away from Maria.
  • Suzana officially joined the Pastel Troops.
  • The Club got Gwen's painting from the Conservatory back by distracting them with Laverne.
  • The forest of the Cursed Princess Club was declared a protected area by the king so it's never in danger of being invaded again.
  • Frederick has been hard at work studying to one day become king and receives support from his family.
  • Prez stopped taking her medication and resorted to her old way of dealing with her curse. With the growing acknowledgement and support for the Cursed Princess Club, she is looking to expand to help more people who are cursed.
  • Themidora reunited with lobster lover, Benedict, who tricked the wicked sea cucumber into cursing him so he could be with her.
  • Whitney returned home to his kingdom for Blacquelyn's coronation. She now wears a coat made from Greyden's fur.
  • Nell and Jolie officially got married.
  • Aurelia got together with Celso after their meeting at the castle.
  • Maria got to fulfill her dream of singing her recital for everyone, which caught the eye of her idol and they began collabing.
  • Blaine is now on a journey of self atonement, but has made sure to attend Maria's recital.
  • As for Gwen, she no longer sees cracks in her reflection. She is happy with Frederick.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: At one point the princesses ask Saffron to kill a spider. He's then gone for two episodes and comes back wearing a hazmat suit and carrying a torch.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Unnatural hair colors abound. Princess Gwen has green hair, Princess Lorena has purple hair, Prince Jamie has bright pink hair, President Calpernia has blue hair, Princess Abbi has teal hair, etc... King Jack even had opalescent/pastel hair when he was a young man, though by the time the story begins the stress of losing his wife and raising four kids has turned it all gray.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: During the Plaid King's invasion, Molly encourages the girls to fight back. They proceed to do so, with Lorena growing her own sword from plants and Maria summoning animals to attack the Plaid King.

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