ART HISTORY ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY 15

 Week of Power

15th of December - Christina of Sweden

Crowned at the tender age of six

on too hard a throne

with too heavy a crown

for your little golden head full of restlessness,

passionate

about reading

about learning

about riding astride your horse

about swimming without any clothes on

about enjoying

your freedom,

heir apparent in spite of yourself...

you don't want to be chained to the throne,

you cast off your crown, and spread your wings,

and take flight without looking back!

A CRISTINA DE SUECIA

 A CRISTINA DE SUECIA

Por Sandra Dermark 

16 de agosto de 2016

"Tu señor padre quería un varoncito,

pero fue a ser que naciste tú...

en la cuna te puso un florete,

lady del lazo azul..."

Coronada a los seis años

en un trono demasiado duro

con una corona que pesaba demasiado

para tu cabecita rubia llena de inquietudes...

apasionada

de leer

de aprender

de montar a horcajadas

de nadar desnuda

de disfrutar

de tu libertad

heredera a tu pesar

no quieres estar encadenada al trono

arrojas la corona y despliegas las alas

y alzas el vuelo sin volver la vista atrás

RENÉ DESCARTES - KROPP OCH STJÄL

Kropp och Stjäl

(René Descartes, drottning Kristina och hovfröken Ebba Sparre)

Kan en av världens största tänkare

tänka sej att flytta hit?

Mais oui, vilken invit 

Drottning Kristinas favorit 

René Descartes filosofen

ser inte katastrofen

Landet är kallt 

Han får bronkit och mår skit

Trots att han får en svit 

vid Kornhamstorg

i von der Lindeska Huset

När han väcks mitt i natten 

är vattenkruset fruset

Han gnuggar gruset ur blicken 

Gryningsljuset är svart

och när Kristina vill ha svar

svarar Descartes:

Tvivla aldrig 

på ditt tvivel min Drottning 

Försök att söka efter sökandet

En kvinna kan hinna mera

än det regerande förökandet

Det cogito ergo summerar allt

Men merde vad det är kallt

och tyvärr smyger nån där

En tjuvlyssnande gestalt

Så René får sin supé 

med en douche av arsenik

För som lömsk katolik 

gör man sej bäst som kall och lik 

tycker Axel Oxenstierna 

som mer än gärna lägger filosofen i jord

Men Kristina minns hans odödliga ord:

Tvivla aldrig på ditt tvivel

Fortsätt söka efter sökandet

Under en mustig blå augustimåne 

16 år senare

När Kristina abdikonverterat 

och blivit italienare

Ska filosofens kropp grävas upp 

och skickas till sitt hemland

En mardröm för en Planström 

som får uppdraget med fem man

I skymundan på den rundan 

stuvar Planström girigt undan

filosofens skalle och medger

är det är värt viss begrundan

Att först se skäl att ha ihjäl 

en kropp och därmed dess själ

och sen stjäls huvudskälet av en själ 

som därmed stjäl ihjäl ett skäl

Men 160 år går och en vår i Paris

där kemisten Berzelius 

vankar med tankar av is

och har precis fått höra kacklet

om det Descarteska skalldebaclet

Han finner kraniet och återbördar

men tacket blir det franska nejtacket

En bortvänd blick 

De tycker skallen ser för slemmig ut

Men René Descartes 

Han ser nog att det är ett lämpligt slut

För han tänker inte längre sen länge 

ändå finns han

och är man skeptiskt till det 

desto bättre minns man:

Tvivla aldrig på ditt tvivel

Fortsätt söka efter sökandet

#renédescartes #renedescartes #1600-tal #1600tal #arsenik #stockholm #drottningkristina #axeloxenstierna 

ERMENGARDE ST. JOHN in AFTER LÜTZEN

 

Ermengarde St. John by Nathalie Novi, her face the full moon wreathed in flames. This edition from Lacombe's Classiques Illustrés has just released in both France and Spain.

She is one of my favourite characters from public domain youth literature because I could relate to her family issues as a teen (my dad and hers put pressure on us to study harder!). Therefore she frequently appears in my classic literature crossover fics.

Most recently in "After Lützen," my 30YW Les Mis AU-crossover, her surname changed to Johannitz and her hometown from Oxford to Leipzig! She will even get, by following the widowed Queen Eleanor and her freaks into Sweden, to meet a child Queen Christina and befriend her (just like she did with Sara in canon), becoming her handmaid... what better day than today, Gustavus Adolphus Day, to announce the news?

REVIEW of Skånland (counterpart culture!)

Since today is also the national day of Sweden, when Gustavus Vasa declared independence from the Danes, I have decided to review the live action princess film remakes' newest counterpart culture, which is this time definitely counterpart Sweden - and fangirl a tad about it.
To sum up the real-life equivalences of other adjacent counterpart cultures in the Period Pieces of the Animated Canon (ps. IRL means In Real Life):

• Arendelle - (mid-nineteenth-century) Norway (IRL unified with Sweden)
• Southern Isles - (mid-nineteenth-century) Denmark
• Tirulia (Eric's kingdom) - (mid-nineteenth-century) unified Italy (having a Nordic prince and a multicultural royal castle staff -British butler and head maid, French chef- may have been the result of an adoption of a foreigner by a childless couple, Bernadotte style)
• Corona (Rapunzel's kingdom) - (eighteenth-century) Prussia and Northern Poland (IRL claimed by Prussia during the tripartition - "Frederick" is the standard name for Prussian male royals, the court dresses are Rococo-style...)
• Berk - (Viking-era/Medieval) Iceland (IRL Viking-era free republic, then claimed by Denmark from the late Middle Ages until the twentieth century)
• Skånland - Though Aladdin is set centuries before the Andersen-era (or Biedermeier-era) of the Andersen adaptations, we could try making a crossover timeline that also encompasses Eric's, Rapunzel's, and the Frozen sisters' origins as well as some more events. Adding Skånland to the table definitely leads to a lot of possibilities... <3 

Upon watching the film and reading its novelisation, I have realised that this counterpart culture has far more of counterpart Sweden than Ondalina and Galagard put together. To be more precise, Skånland is Golden-Age Sweden by another name... For starters, there's the name of this nation-state: Skåne (ie Scania) + land. Now Scania belonged to Denmark until the Treaty of Roskilde and some wars at the height of the Golden Age (halfway between Lützen and Poltava).

The friendly and handsome, though eccentric and arrogant Prince Anders of Skånland; though "Anders" was a peasant name in that era (stormaktstid-Golden Age), and his attire looks pretty Slavic (suggesting more a counterpart culture like Kievan Rus), the novelisation in particular gives me all the stormaktstid vibes...

So all we know from this counterpart culture in the film is gleaned from books as well as this prince and his boat and cannon in a foreign context. Oui, you heard it right, cannon. Skånland has firepower, for starters. And what would the Swedish Baltic Empire be without any cannons?
The first things we get to know about Skånland is that the word for yes is "ja" and of their shipbuilding technology: according to Anders himself, who sails himself in his own luxurious flagship made in that way ("luxurious?" like with an overly ornate transom astern?), their boats have such a good design that one nearly does not notice the waves. "It's like walking on a cloud or something like that..." Now I have been to the Vasa Museum (which I warmly recommend - Gustavus Adolphus' flagship perfectly preserved as the largest museum object at least in Europe - I don't recall if on Earth as a whole - and all the historical context you need!) and seen how large royal and military shipyards were (basically, complexes or compounds on the shores of Lake Mälaren that enclosed, within the palisade, villages of shipwrights and artists as well as all the vital space needed for making their crafts), as well as the fact that oakwood was reserved for shipbuilding and protected by the Crown for that use (no peasant woodsman was allowed to fell an oak and get away with murdering the navy - the punishment being 40 crowns for first time, 80 for the second, and execution for the third time one had at least hurt an oak!; the same interdiction also encompassed the Church and bourgeoisie - but in time the restrictions loosened only to allow felling oaks only for the Crown and for the nobility, for furniture I presume!). So shipbuilding was obviously key to cross the Baltic and North Seas and thus being able to both wage war and carry out trade abroad. Ditto for Skånland, in fact! (Actually, the three-master that the Genie-Simbad, Dahlia, and family see, at the start of the film, from their modest yawl reminded me a lot of the Vasa herself; though we never got to see the flag of Skånland on any masts, it's an impressive craft with an overly ornate baroque transom as gilt and colourful and as a peacock's tail -brightly-coloured sails, sides glistening in the sun as if newly-painted, a crew wearing unsullied uniforms, and elaborate ornate carvings covering all the masts and balustrades, but the transom is what catches most eyes!- while, in real life, though all the paint and gold leaf have fallen off the Vasa while she was underwater for centuries, artists have reconstructed what she, and especially her jewel of a transom, was like! See the picture of the Vasa above!)

The next facts, when we get to see his face in the novel, are from a non-fiction book of statescraft describing Skånland as a country simple and small, that has the colours of the earth/soil/land, and with evergreen forests and snow to abound. Its hard-working people content themselves with small pleasures and equally small homes without luxuries, and they prefer to live off the land and enjoy its natural beauty, drinking it all in. But the formal attire of the appreciative-looking Prince Anders (of whom a national saying says "Why has no one spoken to me about his beauty?"), made of evidently sumptuous fabrics (various brightly coloured fabrics and otterskin), call to mind that the royal family does not lead precisely an austere life. In fact, the word about is that the King of Skånland lets his people suffer hardships in order to earn their daily bread, while the court enjoys a decadent life of excesses. Opulent palaces, enormous banquets to celebrate any special day, no matter how paltry the occasion, and a queen who enjoys jewels no matter their shape, size, or colour.
This was basically what life was like for the peasant majority and the courtly minority during the stormaktstid (especially after the Peace of Westphalia, decades post-Lützen, when the return of peace to Europe and the military victories of the 30YW led to a courtly decadence -by coming into contact with French-style Versaillesque culture- that had never been seen before in Northern latitudes).
Seen from up close, Anders himself is described as having ghostly pale skin, lifeless matted straw-blond hair, and a sense of entitlement that makes him believe he has the right to everything (see the photo on top!).

The vibes he gives me are those of either young Gustavus Adolphus (not only is he blond and blue-eyed and extroverted; his formal attire looks even eerily similar to the wedding suit, above, which the Hero of Lützen wore as a bridegroom! Isn't there a similarity in both blond and blue-eyed Nordic royals in violet satin brocade, though Gustavus Adolphus wore, of course, a Shakespearean-looking doublet with puffy breeches to match!) or a blond, more slender Charles X. Of course the latter was dark-haired and already plump in his adolescence, but a lifetime of excesses in warfare and strong drink led to the pneumonia that took his life at the Province Governor's in Gothenburg (and oui, I've been there, and seen the tomb-plaque on the corner of that half-townhouse half-palace where he breathed his last). Moreover, of course Charles X came of age and was crowned three or four decades post-Lützen, when the return of peace to Europe and the military victories of the 30YW led to a courtly decadence -by coming into contact with French-style Versaillesque culture- that had never been seen before in Northern latitudes.

A final piece of Skånland we get is the cannon that the prince offers himself as a diplomatic gift. The story describes it as an enormous cannon whose black surface shimmers in the (Mediterranean) sun, accompanied by Anders' comment as he proudly points at the piece: "In Skånland, everything we do is like this, very elegant and... (then he was interrupted)" Looks exactly like black iron to me - one of those Swedish twelve-pounders, made by Protestant Wallonian steelworkers in steel mills (the size of that era's shipyards) whose masters would rise to nobility - that blew more than just enemy eardrums up throughout that near-century that lasted from Breitenfeld to Poltava. Seen them on warships, fortresses, and even palaces (for instance Läckö slott, of the de la Gardies, where the pic above was taken!). Firepower was, along with shipbuilding, one of the two pillars of Swedish technology that allowed for the rise of a great Baltic power - Mother Nature, or Mother Svea (Sweden personified) had given them (and still gives them) the wood and the ore; putting those resources to good use, and even harbouring persecuted strangers who supplied more advanced technologies, yielded fruit thousandfold (until a stripling leader decided to venture into the den of the Russian bear and wake it up -you know the rest: Полтава, down with the Vasas, up with the Romanovs!- A petty fortress, a dubious hand, and the crisis of defeat). When said cannon is fired, it sends the Skånlandish gunners who began to move the cannon and loaded it and lit the match (all the while Anders sat on a chair and shouted the corresponding commands)... it sends the gunners flying backwards, and fills the air with thick bluish smoke. When at last it has cleared, and the show is praised as impressive, the northern prince replies, nodding with pride: "Ja, this is a very good design."
The cannon shot, however, strikes the main mast of Anders' own warship; a flag with the symbol of Skånland (described only as such in the novels: no details describing the flag itself) is waving from the side of the flagship that is not burning.

One last remark may be made considering the Skånlanders as warmongers who prefer to fight on foreign shores (and, since the sultanate of Agrabah is counterpart Ottoman with all these Istanbul vibes, maybe Anders is also making a nod to Charles XII sans post-defeat crisis?).
When Jasmine, his intended fiancée, tells him that the gift impresses her not as much as the feeling behind it, Anders, his ego slightly deflated by this riposte, stutters and turns red as a beetroot: "W-well... this is... is... is... a sy-symbol of our..." his voice losing intensity as he keeps on looking for the right words.
"Desire for war?" she finishes his sentence.
"N-no... no..." the prince protests; his face turning a surprising shade of red, hard to say if due to awkwardness or indignation.
When he also hears that his fiancée loves to read and is well-schooled in statescraft, literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences... Anders nods and replies "A charming pastime" with a tone of paternalism. Surely there is some innuendo, if Skånland has had a counterpart Christina Vasa!

CHAPTER VI (IN MEMORIAM GUSTAVI ADOLPHI MMXVII)

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II (1594-1632)

ELECTED KING OF SWEDEN, OF THE GOTHS AND VANDALS

Gustavus Adolphus II. Elected King of Sweden, of the Goths and Vandals

---

"Even such is Time, which takes in Trust,
Our Youth, our Joy, our All we Have,
And pays us but with Earth and Dust,
Who in the Dark and Silent Grave,
Where we have wandered all our Ways,
Shuts up the story of our Days
But from this Earth, this Grave, this Dust,
My God will raise me up, I trust."
—Walter Raleigh.

*

"Ille faciet..."
—King Charles IX, of Gustavus Adolphus II.

*

"Virtue alone outlasts the Pyramids
Her monuments remain, when Egypt's fall."
—Edward Young.

CHAPTER VI

THE COSTLIEST OF CROWNS

It was late October now, and cold. Wallenstein did not believe that Gustavus would fight that winter.

But the King had decided to do so; he felt that his only security lay in the possibility of another victory like Breitenfeld; he was filled, too, with a strong presentiment that his work was over, his life done; it would be a miracle indeed if he could continue to fight as he had fought, expose himself as he had exposed himself, and live.

With Oxenstierna, as they had marched through the autumn forests of Thuringia, he had spoken of his beloved kingdom and his little child, drawing up a plan of regency for Christina if he should fall; at Saale, where the marketplace was packed with people praising him, he had said:

"Think not of me, I am a weak and dying man. Think of the Cause."

He took a kind farewell of his Queen, who had come to Erfurt, of his Chancellor, charged the garrison to have a good care of them, and rode after his troops, on the 31st of October 1632.

Wallenstein took Leipzig, but Gustavus saved Naumburg; the inhabitants went on their knees to him in their gratitude and the King was troubled.

"God will surely punish me for receiving such adoration—yet I hope He will not suffer my work to fail whatever becomes of me."

On the 4th of November Gustavus heard that Pappenheim had left Wallenstein to go to save Cologne; Gustavus resolved to attack the weakened Imperial army without waiting for the dubious Saxon reinforcements, and advanced towards Weissenfels where Wallenstein had left Colloredo to watch the enemy.

At ten o'clock that morning Wallenstein, secure and haughty in his pavilion, was amazed to hear three shots from Colloredo, the signal to be given if the enemy should advance.

At once he wrote to Pappenheim:

"The enemy is advancing. Sir, let everything else be, and hurry with all your forces and artillery back to me."

All that day the Swedes advanced, skirmishing with the Croats in the Rippach pass, while Wallenstein made ready for battle with fierce haste, frantically flinging his battalions into position.

The November night was dark and cold; the two armies, with their arms beside them, lay down to sleep on the bare ground of the flat Saxon plain. Gustavus with the brilliant Bernhard and the tough old von Kniphausen, took some rest in his field coach, but only for a few hours.

The dawn was obscured by a thick, stinging, chilly, white mist through which the Swedish drums beat and the voices of the chaplains rose reciting prayers before each regiment as it fell into line.

Gustavus, on his nutbrown horse Streiff, rode among the men as they stood to their arms; he had not tasted food and thought of nothing but the coming battle; he wore his elk-skin coat, stained and dusty.

As the mist lifted a little Luther's psalm, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), and then the battle song of the King's own composition, penetrated the early vapours, Verzage nicht du Haüflein klein (Do Not Despair, My Little Band).

Gustavus then made a short speech to his men. "If you flinch from this fight you know that not a man of you will see Sweden again," he reminded his countrymen. He then waved his mighty sword over his bared head with the peak of golden hair, crying: "Forward in God's name! Gott mit uns!"

The mist had now partially cleared and a pallid sunshine fell across the plain, to mingle with a ruddier light given by the flames of Lützen, fired by Wallenstein. At eleven o'clock, general charges began, horse and foot at once, all along the line.

The nine hours' fight that followed is little known, but has been much written of; all accounts differ and all are in some degree untrustworthy; the generally accepted version may or may not be the truth of that desperate and hideous struggle, so frantic that even an eye-witness could not keep a chronicle of it.

The slaughter was at once terrific, the odds even for hours; backward and forward over the hillocks and ditches fought the Swedes, the Finns, the Croats and Piccolomini's Black Cuirassiers; the Austrian artillery was wrenched from them, then wrenched back; Wallenstein, crippled with gout, carried in a litter, encouraged his men with implacable resolve, with cold decision.

The Swedes appeared to have the advantage when at midday Pappenheim came up at a gallop, shouting for the King, with the hope of a hand-to-hand conflict with his rival.

Gustavus had heard that his centre had been pressed back, and rushed to the aid of his infantry, heading the Småland cavalry; heavy as he was, he overrode all his companions and disappeared into a wreath of mist and on to the causeway of the Austrian line that the Swedes had just been forced to abandon; a little page, a stripling surnamed Leubelfing, galloped after him.

As the first of the Smâlanders came up they were met by the royal horse Streiff galloping through the fog, his flanks bright with blood, his pistol holsters empty, his pace frenzied as he thundered down the line.

It was thus the Northerners learnt that the King had fallen, that he was lost, if not slain.

A fury consumed the Swedes, they clamoured to be led into action; the news spread to the valorous Bernhard, and with it the suggestion of retreat.

"Not retreat but vengeance!" shouted the young Duke.

A ferocious death struggle took place all along the line; Pappenheim was shot, soaking with his death blood the letter Wallenstein had just sent him; it is said he learnt of the fall of Gustavus before he expired; Nils Brahe was slain amid piles of his countrymen.

The awful news of the death of Gustavus spread, bringing fury with it; the heroic Bernhard declared his intention to fight to the last man and all the Swedes were frantic to avenge the King; Bernhard cut down an officer who hesitated to lead his men.

Nothing could resist the mighty onset of his torn and devastated ranks; before nightfall Bernhard had destroyed the last army of the Emperor and whipped Wallenstein back to Leipzig with twelve thousand men, all his artillery, and standards left behind on the ravaged plain which groaned with the agony of the dying.

The Bohemian had been utterly defeated, his army torn to tatters and the end of the Thirty Years' War, however long that futile horror might drag on, decided. Gustavus had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish; the power of the Habsburgs was broken and the ultimate safety of Protestantism secured.

Under a heap of slain the bitter Finns found the grand body of the King, close by that of the loyal page, Leubelfing; Gustavus had been shot through the bridle arm, the back, and pierced with swords, stripped, trampled on by horse and man, but the noble, gentle presence was unmistakable, even in such a death, to the Smâlanders.

It is doubtful if those who slew him knew who he was; he had fallen, as he was bound to fall, through his own rash courage.

"God Almighty lives if I die," he had answered Oxenstierna when he had begged him to wear armour, to don a breastplate for that dreadful time, at least.

The body was put in an ammunition waggon and taken to the little village of Meuchen; it had been recovered by the bravest of the brave, the flower of the Swedish army, Stâlhandske's Finlanders, in leading whom the King had fallen, and such of them as survived took their King to the humble Lutheran church and laid him, wrapped in cloaks stiff with blood, before the altar.

While the village schoolteacher read by candlelight the Service for the Dead over the solitary corpse, the sullen Finlanders, in complete, bloody, dinted armour, mounted guard outside in the winter dark.

Then, by torchlight, they carried Gustavus to the schoolteacher's house; he was so mangled that his entrails had to be removed and buried in the church; it was not possible to count the wounds he had received. In this simple place the schoolmaster was also the carpenter; he fashioned, during that night after the battle, a rude coffin for Gustavus Adolphus.

In the morning the Finns laid the King in this and bore him to Weissenfels where the body was embalmed, and then to Wittenberg, and then to Wolgast, and so slowly back to Sweden at last.

He had been from home two and a half years; in that time he had changed the face of Europe without tarnishing one of the purest reputations ever possessed by the noblest of men, and he had sealed with his blood his honourable endeavour and his high design.

To the memory of Gustavus Adolphus Karlsson of Vasa

*Nyköping, Sweden, 9th of December 1594 
 + Lützen, Saxony, 6th of November 1632

Beloved ruler of nations and leader of armies,

consort, father, friend, and lover

His spouse Mary Eleanor (next to the throne), their daughter Christina Augusta 
(in his arms), his right-hand man Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (next to the throne),
 his courtiers and his people, his officers and soldiers, will always keep his memory alive, as long as Sweden and freedom exist.

Inspired by thirst

for glory, on the field of battle quaffed

instead death's bitter draught.

The last word was missing in his epic song:

the word that crowns every achievement.

The mourners have done their duty, right or wrong:

they wrote it in blood and bereavement.

He left us when we (and he) expected it the least, 

in the prime of his life and at the climax of his career,

before he could be tarnished by the failing vigour of an older age

or by the corruption brought upon him by success. 

A single bullet, just like any other, 

suddenly struck his back and entered his noble chest, 

to quench a flame that never could or should have burned brighter.

These are the cakes of 2017 - we also drank elderflower cordial (flädersaft) to the health of Gustavus Adolphus

These are the hilt and pommel of Gustavus's sword at Lützen. I have seen it live at the winter palace in Stockholm... coincidentally, it's a Pappenheimer Rapier!

The Count of Pappenheim popularised this style of officer's sword; Gustavus's was kept as a treasure in the Hofburg for as long as the Habsburgs ruled Austria (ditto for the pistols, doublet...), not returning to Sweden until the Republic of Austria, in the 1920s, gave all the spoils of Lützen as a gift to Sweden for the many lives saved by the Swedish Red Cross in the Great War.

WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

Kirakira Precure à la Mode- episode 5
Yukari Kotozume debut episode - kimagure oneesama (wistful/moody older sister figure)

DEBUT OF THE ICE QUEEN... or, "Are You Aaron Purr, Miss?"

This episode begins with a three-starred stray tomcat known for being wild, aggressive... and bringing good luck to whoever manages to tame him swooning before Yukari Kotozume, who then pets his belly, making the core trio of five-years-younger secondary-schoolers stand by in awe. Right before that, Yukari ambling down the street had everyone watching her in astonishment.

Yes, that cat swooning before her with hearts in his eyes is her establishing character moment!

Upon being told that she looks good, she takes it as an overrated left-handed compliment.

YUKARI (serene): Thank you. People say that a lot.

When asked if she likes cats, she replies: I do not like or dislike them.

When asked how she tamed this cat, she says: I guess I just know people's sweet spots.

"How do I even begin to explain Yukari Kotozume?"

If she's on the local press and has a whole page dedicated to her achievements... well, as an Ace, she's got the renown of being able to do practically anything.

LOCAL BEAUTY SPECIAL REPORT -

Yukari Kotozume, 2nd year high-school student.

It's that she is INCREDIBLY FAMOUS! Does well in school...

She is an ace when it comes to foreign languages. 

Here, moreover, the book she is reading (in English in the original Japanese version) happens to mirror her own predicament:

YUKARI (reading out loud):

Maggie dit: "Rien n'est pas impossible pour moi... Je me suis très ennuyée chaque jour!"

TEACHER (impressed): Parfait!!

(Of course it was "Perfect!" in the original version).

She is furthermore an Academic Athlete, skilled the most in rhythmics with clubs...

Does well in sports!

PE TEACHER (impressed): PERFECT SCOOORE!

...and of course she's the high-school queen bee, with an equal-opportunity fanclub in uniform squeeing and swooning as long as she is within their sight!

She even has a secret fanclub!

HIGH-SCHOOLERS (squeeing): She's sooo perfect!!

HIMARI (excited): She's beautiful and can do anything well!

AOI (cynical): Sounds like some fictional character to me...

Her classmates, furthermore, look up to her and ask her for advice.

High School that very afternoon...

BOB STUDENT: Miss Kotozume, you can do everything, or can't you?

PIGTAILED STUDENT: Uh... uh... would you like a cuppa tea after school today?

BOB STUDENT: A macaronerie with scrumptious macarons just opened!

"No, thanks," she says, proving that there is at least a shred of humility under her ice-cold façade.

YUKARI: I do not hate macarons... but I am afraid I have to decline.

PIGTAILED STUDENT: All right, no worries...

BOB STUDENT: Sorry to ask you so suddenly... see you, then...

So she gets carried away and drags Usami away on a spree... and we see her smiling for the first time.

YUKARI: Call me Yukari... I was just so bored up until now.

Everything suits her so well... yet deep inside she is still weary at the heart of it all...

The fashionista of this series, like her predecessor Kirara Amanogawa, shows off her keen fashion sense and makes us all get the flutters. Something tells me that, like Kirara, Yukari will do a lot of eye-candy during this year!

She is also a wiz at the crane game-- gods, isn't there anything Yukari Kotozume cannot do?

Mind that this is her first time playing a crane game... beginner's luck or her rhythmic skills applied to other fields? Or both?

YUKARI (weary): So I can do a-ny-thing, right...?

Upon finding the local macaronerie Mon Meringue closed down (courtesy of the macaron-addicted froglike monster of the week), she decides to accompany those three secondary-schoolers into their little bakery in the woods.

YUKARI: If I like macarons? Well, I do not dislike such pretty things...

SHOPKEEPER: I apologize deeply for the fact that our macarons have sold out...

YUKARI: Thank you. Today has been quite fun... If I'd like to make macarons with you...? Sounds interesting.

Already when she entered the bakery... the following reaction ensued:

AOI (surprised): Wait a-- wait a-- what on Earth is Yukari Kotozume doing here!?

AOI: Are you sure? That's a three-star difficult recipe!

(Three stars on the cookbook [maximum difficulty]... just like on that feral cat she tamed!)

YUKARI: I would like to give it a try.

POWER TRIO: EH!?

AOI: We were saying it's quite hard-- and... are you even listening?

WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT... (or, Macarons and Expectations Issues)

Aoi's hot blood makes it too hard for her to make macarons. She just beats the egg whites a bit too effusively...

So all three secondary-schoolers stand by as she demonstrates that mixing the macarons gently and quickly is doing it right.

YUKARI: Leave it to me! (She whisks the egg whites quickly but not with all her strength) And you three are dessert specialists? I would never have guessed it... Why are you going through all of these troubles?

Flashback to a child Yukari whisking tea in a cup...

MR. KOTOZUME: Aha, she has such good strong arms...

MRS. KOTOZUME (his mother or mother-in-law?): Indeed. Though she is such an independent little girl, Yukari never gives us any trouble.

My grandmother is a stern tradition preacher...

but there are things that tea ceremonies never would teach you...

my mother was a genius... my father commands real respect...

they have never left me instructions; just a legacy to protect...

We keep on living, anyway;

we rise, and we fall, and we break, and we make our mistakes...

If there's a reason I'm still alive,

I'm willing to wait for it...

WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT!

I am the one thing in life I can control...

WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT!

I am inimitable, I am an original...

WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT!

I am not falling behind or running late...

WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT!

I'm not standing still; I am lying in WAIT...

End of flashback and the younger girls impressed upon Yukari's perfect beating egg white into peaks.

Yukari's macarons are purrrfectly shaped -- 

leaving our queued rockstar with a face of shock.

Like... SHE GOT IT FRICKING RIGHT!!

Pekorin is just laughing.

Out on the bakery porch, while waiting for the macarons to cool:

AOI (sarcastic): You really can do anything, eh?

Now it's on to taste these macarons... And Yukari is not amused.

AOI: Hmpf! They just don't taste good...

That's what you got for stirring too hard! Should have done it gently... gently...

(Yukari raises an eyebrow upon looking at their reactions)

Still, Yukari goes balls to the wall and concentratedly makes another batch all by herself while the others stand back amazed.

AOI: I guess she's gotten serious now...

This second batch winds up cracked... and Yukari is still concentrated, her fringe concealing her eyes... but the three secondary-schoolers quickly fix it by decorating her faulty creations as adorable blueberry meowcarons! Just look at those ears and whiskers!

The sight of these decorated treats makes Yukari laugh, a sincere, childlike laugh instead of her usual noblewoman's snickering.

YUKARI (to the macaron frog monster of the week): I beg your pardon...

Right then, the MotW basically devours all happiness energy within the unfinished macarons... except for the meowcaron Yukari herself is holding.

LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR WOULD BE SO PROUD... (or, my weapon of choice prediction comes true)

Before transforming for the first time, Yukari steps in between the macaron frog and some sorely beaten Precures.

So she dead-pannedly, coldly (once more that eye-concealing fringe!) tells the pistachio-macaron-faced monster of the week...

IF. YOU. THINK. YOU. CAN. LAY. A. HAND. ON. THIS...

NOT WITHIN ONE HUNDRED... OR ONE THOUSAND YEARS...

NOT. EVEN. WITHIN. 10000. YEARS.

YOU ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE.

When the Cures tell her that it's dangerous and ask her why...

I DON'T KNOW WHY. YOU'RE BUGGING ME... IT THROWS ME OFF, BUT... I LIKE THE WAY YOU ARE.

Instantly, her only meowcaron left turns into a transformation trinket and Yukari gets her very own little mixing bowl!

Upon receiving her transformation sweet in the right hand and her mixing bowl in the left...

YUKARI (chuckles): Hehe... Now that's interesting!

Beauty and emotion/excitement (tokimeki)! Mix up!

As she transforms into a Precure, Yukari becomes this elegant catgirl with a puffy macaron skirt and a matching beret.

The other Precures are impressed by her transformed form.

CURE MACARON (beckoning with her left index finger to a very angry frog monster): Allons-y, let's play!

CURE MACARON: You're a strong one... (jumping on the MotW's beret) I'm up here! (She subsequently somersaults out of harm's way, surprising the MotW)

The similarities between Cure Macaron and the monster of the week (also macaron-themed, wearing a beret, and female) are really interesting.

The first thing Yukari Kotozume does as Cure Macaron? Right? Pet the monster into cuteness, fluff, and submission by blowing soothing soap bubbles.

CURE MACARON (tickling the frog's chin): Awww aww aw... good girl, good girl.

So she's soothing the monster of the week like she did with that three-star cat at the start of the episode...

CURE MACARON (before mixing up her yoyos in her bowl): Ready, Freddie?

And remember that I foretold she would use macaron yoyos in battle?

So she uses these two macaron yoyos indeed to terminate the monster of the week; which reminded me of both Ladybug (yoyo as a weapon of choice, macarons being round) and Chat Noir (a cat-eared and tailed hero/ine). Furthermore, she practices dual wielding, which, like her skill with rhythmics clubs, confirms my headcanon that she is ambidextrous. 

So the yoyos basically wrap around the MotW and shrink her down. This hissatsu, or finishing move, is the most badass one I have seen since Cure Gelato's iceboxing. Now all that remains is seeing whether Cure Chocolat's swordsmanship (if my prediction on her comes true) can hold a candle to it as well!

CURE MACARON (as the defeated frog monster is blown away into the sky): Au revoir. We had so much fun...

THE OTHER CURES: Gaaaaasp!

CURE MACARON (wistfully): Hehe!

YUKARI (sincerely): It's all right. But to get mixed against one's will into something that is not fun... that's just unfair. Next time, I want to make perfect, scrumptious macarons. Whether I will visit you three someday... that's what I wonder.

However, being older than the core trio and in a higher school, she just warmly and sincerely says no thanks to their proposition to join them...

AND THEN... A DASHING PRINCE COMES AMBLING BY...

We first see her mouth wide open and hear her hearty laugh.

AKIRA (laughing heartily): Ah hahahahaha!

Her establishing character moment has her being kind/friendly and laughing. That speaks volumes just like Yukari's ECM before.

AKIRA: I have just moved in here today. My name is Akira Kenjó. Nice to meet you (Yoroshiku ne).

Her establishing character moment: laughing heartily, carrying a heavy box... and acting gentlemanly, suavely, towards a new acquaintance.

Kareinaru Cure Chocolat... literally Magnificent Cure Chocolat!

What's more, our otokoyaku has already become a Precure (or not? Had she already acquired the power of strength and love when she came to this place, or is her debut episode the one where she transforms for the first time?)

Her courtesy, contralto voice, and earnest kind-heartedness already keep me hooked up for next week...

AFTERTHOUGHTS
Well, this is Yukari's debut episode and I am totally flabberghasted because Mlle. Kotozume and I have something in common... the same thing that links both of us to Aaron Burr: expectations issues. It's also the central theme in Christina Vasa and what makes this Ringstetten spinoff so lifelike. This is what makes and/or breaks an Ace and goes beyond bland perfection to create a realistic human personality. Seriously, I couldn't but resist a little WAIT FOR IT filk in here... currently up in hot water for doing an academic project for acing the subject that will ACTUALLY make me or break me, and nigh collapsing under the pressure!
So Yukari is a gorgeous ambidextrous academic athlete and seasoned fashionista. And being so popular has caused her to detach herself from her peers... to have little to no real friends until she joins the Five-Girl Band. We've already seen her defrost a little during today's macaron-making spree. I already ship her with our kind-hearted, earnest Akira and I'm eager for next week in which we'll meet our otokoyaku/bifauxnen!!!
So back to Yukari: Family structure? Mum and siblings not even mentioned... is she really motherless or will this be a red herring as when we met Masumi Kaido? The same goes for potential siblings: we know Akira's got a terminally ill li'l sis, but is our Rarity an only child? (Speaking of which... the Kotozumes dress in a more conservative, typically Asian fashion than the heavily Westernized Kaidos; the same applies to the interiors of their respective estates.)

A refined, perfectionistic, gorgeous fashionista 
with Rapunzel hair and porcelain skin whose theme colour is violet?
Rarity, are we looking at you or at Yukari/Macaron?


So, next week we'll get to know Akira and see her transform, and surely also learn about her pastimes, strengths, and weaknesses (all we know, from the opening, is that she showers her Ill Girl of a younger sister with gifts and affection). Really, like the B&tB live action musical and the local fête here in Castellón with so many 80s tributes... this March is getting more exciting for each day!
So far, Yukari Kotozume just knocked the breath out of my lungs... just hoping that Akira Kenjó can be on par with, if not outright out-badass, her!

Screengrab from Akira's intro in the opening. Which, together with her ECM today, shows us she's so kind-hearted and gentlemanly...