Princess Elena and King Grizzlebeard (or King Thrushbeard if you like) from the episode King Grizzlebeard, known as Tsugumi no hi ge no ousama in Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, aka Grimm Masterpiece Theater, or グリム名作劇場 Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō in Japan. You want the prompts, just skip to the bottom.
(NOTE, there was a very unfortunate spelling error in Peasant Elena's prompts, I meant to type brown shirt, so yeah, you'll get flagged for that if you leave that in. Break out the smelling salts and fainting couch for civitai! Also, you should specify Elena's eyes are blue. Sorry, I'm getting worse when it comes to proofreading, and the more prompts, the more likely I am to muck it up. Course, if they just let me go back and edit these I could fix it, but what do I know!)
As always, it'll take me a bit to learn the loras limits and get a decent gallery, I'll update/post when I can.
So, I long knew I was going to do this one, but I put it off because I knew it would be a bit more work. I've been practicing with multiple looks/characters on the last couple Grimm's Loras, so I'm reasonably sure this one will work, but we never know till we get there. Elena and Grizzlebeard both have two very distinctive looks, peasant and royal, but its the same two characters and I think the sample count isn't bad, I put in the work in tagging (which doesn't always help), so we'll see. We ought to get at least a decent Elena out of this.
So's, as always, plot breakdown, I always have fun writing these. Three interesting twists with this one:
Most Grimm's are fantastical, elves and imps and witches and such, this is just a neat character study/parable that happens to be medieval and have a few tropes. Don't let that get you down, its still one of the best episodes.
When you think about it, both your main characters are the protagonists AND the antagonists! I favor the villains in this collection, but Elena (and really Thrushbeard too depending on your view) occupy a weird moral borderlands.
Maybe I'm too hard on GFTT princesses because I feel like alot of them come out of a mold, but Elena is such a break. She's like a half and half design between the spoiled sister/stepsister design and your typical GFTT, and her characterization is sort of that way too. Oh, fun fact, her English voice actor did Benisato in Ninja Scroll. We don't get THAT voice here, but fun to keep in mind.
Ok, so, Princess Elena shows up at court to see the suitors her dad has lined up. She mocks each one's appearance loudly, publicly and laughs, causing the court to double over and embarrassing the hell out of her father. Understand, these are kings she's blowing off and roasting. I don't blame her for not marrying the bulldog looking one, but you let somebody down by telling them you're washing your hair, you don't Don Rickles them.
If you get the chance, I also recommend watching in the original Japanese, she's even more vicious, and you get the ojousama oh-ho-ho-ho laugh out of her. The English cast are all strong standbys, but I just feel like the J voices have more feeling.
Finally she comes to Grizzlebeard, who's only thing you can really rag on is his hipster goatee. She nicknames him Grizzlebeard, and one gets the sense she's reaching and she knows she's reaching. Grizzlebeard doesn't look especially offended, but Elena's dad has had it (and really if you look at this story from his POV, it justifies the next 16 minutes, I'll come back to that). He declares that the next suitor he finds of the LOWEST status, he's going to marry Elena off to. Grizzlebeard looks thoughtful at this, hint, hint.
Soon after, a poor minstrel shows up playing outside Elena's window, and gets summoned by the king. Elena hears this and panics and arrives just in time to hear her dad marrying her off to the minstrel. Elena tries to argue this but dads had enough of her always judging people on their looks and her superior attitude, he tells her she's married now so pack up her crap and hit the bricks, cuz she is going out.
Oh, and if you haven't twigged on what kind of story this is yet, think Taming of the Shrew, or even Overboard (the original with Goldie Hawn). I'll come back to that. Anyways.
Elena and hubby are hoofing it on foot to his, well, hovel, Elena griping all the way like the prissy princess she is. Why no carriage? They've sold her dress, and Elena will stay in this peasantly ensemble she finds herself in for the rest of the episode. The upshot to all this is they really get to focus on her eyes, she has I think the most detailed eyes we get to see out of a GFTT princess. We get some moments on the road, and its clear this is going to be a struggle for Elena. They pass through an impressive forest and fields and castle, Elena asking who they belong to, and hubby says they belong to King Grizzlebeard. Oops.
Note, even at this point, Elena's ragging on how Grizzlebeard was dressed.
Well, home sweet home, and I'm no snob, but garbage and rats, big ones. I don't blame Elena for her reaction here. Then again, it WAS a bachelor pad before. Hubby informs her that while they are exquisitely poor, she's going to have to work. He shows her how to light a fire and the rudiments of cooking, then basket weaving to sell later, and leaves. Elena screws it all up, particularly the basket weaving, hubby comes over, and she goes on a crying jag. Hubby berates her but lightens up and tells her instead she can sell the pottery he's bought with her dress proceeds at market. Elena pulls the entitled card, but then remembers the alternative is basket weaving.
Elena shows up to market, the elderly merchants try to help set her up but she pulls the arrogant princess routine and blows them off and sets up elsewhere. She actually does quite well, turns out everybody wants to buy from her because she's still beautiful even under the grubby clothes, and this reinflates the princess's ego nicely.
Now, an aside, what comes next seems pretty cruel, but considering how dialed in our man Grizzlebeard is, how she treated the merchants and how the princess is already loudly thinking to herself how she's too cool for school and her hubby because she's a beautiful princess and that's her only criteria, you can see it as a needed attitude adjustment.
A soldier rides down the street at full speed, right through her layout, and smashes Elena's pottery to bits!
Elena comes home and hubby berates her (and again this seems cruel, but pay attention to what comes after), and gets her to admit the reason she wouldn't setup near the other merchants is because they were dirty. Well, its off to work at the castle to mop for kitchen scraps for Elena. The attitude maintains.
Well, in short order, Elena is not built for this and collapses during her duties hauling water. The other kitchen staff all pitch in to help her and take the strain off, and tell her they're all in this together. Well this finally gets through to Elena, and she finally loses the attitude. That night she's a different person with hubby, which he comments on, and Elena is upbeat and isn't so imperious and seems committed to her new life. The next day is King Grizzlebeards wedding. I wish we'd got more build up of this, we're almost out of time on this episode but another minute would have fleshed it out. It follows the original fairy tale, but I thought showing a couple more days of humble Elena domesticating in the hovel with hubby would have been good.
Back at the castle, Elena's scrubbing the floors, she sees nobles dancing in a ballroom and reflects that, whelp, that's not for her anymore. She sees hubby and seems genuinely happy to see him, and asks him what he's doing at the castle.
Well, reveal, he's King Grizzlebeard! He reveals he's the king and hubby and the soldier who broke her pottery (which I already covered) professes his love (which is maybe not smart to begin with, but its GFTT, people fall in love at first sight and are more than happy to marry a stranger than be lost in some woods), we get the hap-happy-wedding, the end.
Ok, brief aside and we'll get to this lora here. I think they kinda cheat a bit with Grizzlebeard, he's a bit baby faced with just his goatee, but when he's dressed as his minstrel alter ego, he's all butch and broad. Then again, I'll give him credit, the guy can sing, play the lyre, basket weave, cook, king fairly well, and apparently loves a challenge. He can be a master of disguise too (or have somebody on the payroll).
I kinda had mixed feelings about the whole setup, but the good thing about these loras is I come back and rewatch the episode frame by frame, and you home in on subtext. Everybody just wants Elena to stop being so superficial and treat others decently, and when she does, happy ending. She can peasant for a week, I gotta do it every day!
So's, lora, 58 samples, 21 samples of Elena in peasant garb, 17 in princess garb, 7 of Grizzlebeard as a peasant, 7 of them as a couple in peasant garb, 2 of Grizzlebeard in his prince garb, 2 of them both in their royal garb, an 1 of Grizzlebeard in his peasant garb where he's taken off the fake beard that was doing an awful lot of the heavy lifting.
This is an Elena-centric lora, because its an Elena-centric episode, I learn a bit more each one of these, so's odds are if I wanted a 1 to 1 I should have an equal number of samples of each character, but I'd rather do one character (with two looks I might add), correct and maybe you never know on the other characters than fudge up the lora. We'll see.
Ok, so, two characters, two looks, that's 4, you can probably do combos too:
P3asant3L3na, female, Brown hat, lavender cloak, brown shirt, blue skirt with patch, sleepy or heavy lidded blue eyes (you may not have to specify the lids), brown hair tucked under hat. (NOTE I MESSED UP TRIGGER WORDS HERE, IF YOU USE THIS ONE IT NEEDS MANUAL FIXING, I MEANT TO TYPE SHIRT, SHIRT!!!)
Princ3ss3L3na, female long Twin braids (or side locks) with a single bun in back, brown hair, crown, green dress with yellow sleeves and orange collar, blue eyes (note she's often smug or bored looking)
(NOTE, SEEMS TO WORK PRETTY WELL OUT OF THE GATE)
P3asantThrush, male, blue eyes, full dark brown mustache and beard, tall peaked peasants hat (neg out witch hat), simple blue tunic, wooden lyre
(NOTE, TENDS TO MAKE HIM LOOK MORE MATURE, WHICH IS FAIR BECAUSE THE DISGUISE LENDS ITSELF TO THAT, SO YOU MAY WANT TO NEG MATURE OR WRINKLES)
Pr1nceThrush, male, blue eyes, lighter colored brown hair, goatee, subdued long sleeve red shirt with white collar, and a blue nobles cap, or blue headwear (note, he's noticeably more baby faced than his disguise)
(NOTE, PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH SAMPLES. MAY WANT TO SPECIFY MEDIUM LENGTH HAIR AND POINTY GOATEE, I'M NOT GETTING HIS LITTLE CAP BUT ANY TIME YOU HAVE MULTIPLE HATS IN A LORA ALSO SEEMS TO WANT TO DEFAULT TO ELENA FOR THIS LOOK, ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU'VE GOT TWO VAGUELY SIMILAR CHARACTERS. I THINK IT IS POSSIBLE TO GET THIS LOOK FOR HIM WITH ELENA, BUT YOU GOTTA BE PATIENT)