Pretty Cure Heart Cross

Pretty Cure Heart Cross is a fanseries by cyanfox27. It features a chess, royalty, and heart motif.

The peaceful lives of Princess Cornelia of Solbrooke and her loyal bodyguard, Auma are disrupted when three figures, calling themselves Eclipse unleash a curse on the kingdom, turning almost everyone into stone before attempting to seize the kingdom's greatest treasure: the Cross Heart, a powerful source of magic and apparently, one of the many cans their leader, Auro, was sealed into. Auma and Nele, who were unaffected by the curse, intervene at the last minute, causing the Heart to split into pieces, all of which are soon revealed to have landed on the "parallel world" -- Earth.

Auma and Nele, who believe that the Cross Heart's power might remove their kingdom's curse, receive Heart Pendants from Nele's tutor Helios before traveling to Kawaguchi City. The two attempt to pass themselves off as normal girls, all while searching for the Heart Spirits and fighting against Eclipse's agents as Pretty Cure, an endeavor they're soon joined in by two more Cures: Rowan and Nina, the twin princesses of Moonvale, Solbrooke's sister kingdom, which was hit was a similar curse. By uniting their hearts, the four can increase their Cure powers, allowing them to stand up against both the members of Eclipse, and the Heart Spirits, which have a habit of transforming into monsters.

Pretty Cure:

 * Auma Vieth (Cure Knight): The de facto main character and Nele's personal bodyguard. Serious, tomboyish, and a skilled fighter, she's nicer than she first appears.
 * Cornelia "Nele" Goebel (Cure Royale): The crown princess of Solbrooke who serves as the brains of the team. She's cheerful and friendly but has a hidden harsh side.
 * Rowan Corcoran (Cure Rook): One of the princesses of Moonvale and Auma's foil. She's a complete and utter space case ... but that doesn't make her ineffectual.
 * Nina Corcoran (Cure Bishop): The other, "more princess-like" princess of Moonvale and the compassionate, feminine member of the group. Unlike her twin, she's very demure and ladylike.

Eclipse:

 * Auro: The Big Bad, a pure evil abomination that wishes to assimilate everything.
 * Cromo: A Dark Action Girl and Ninja who serves as Auro's lieutenant.
 * Peltro: The group enforcer who's comprised entirely of insects.
 * Ferro: A sword-wielding Dark Magical Girl who loves fighting and is more broken than she lets on.
 * Titanio: A later addition to the group, a bandit who has the ability to enhance others' powers.

"Masaaki: Really, I thought you, of all people, would be more convincing than this! A bodybuilder wannabe would be more convincing than you, Fujiwara!
 * Attractive Bent Gender: Tsubasa makes a prettier girl than many actual girls do, and Masaaki (of all people) actually manages to look like an attractive, if dour girl with the help of a wig and a dress. Rowan inverts this by making a very convincing Bishonen.
 * Bi the Way: Rowan, and maybe Nele.
 * Breather Episode: Also a Musical Episode; episode 18 has the Cures and their classmates perform in an impromptu concert staged by the Drama Club. One of the numbers involves Auma, Rowan, Eiji, Nele, and Nina take turns singing verses during back-to-back performances of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" by Gilbert and Sullivan and "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer with only piano accompaniment.
 * Celebrity Voice Actor: Rowan gets one in the English dub (and no points for guessing who it is!). Titanio also gets one on a lesser scale.
 * Class Trip: In episode 12. It also doubles as a Beach Episode and Titanio's debut.
 * Cosplay: Episode 20 involves Daimon and Megumi (who are dressed as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen, respectively) taking the Cures to a cosplay convention. Naturally, they end up participating as well. A full list of who they go as:
 * Auma as Naruto Uzumaki
 * Nele as Eucliwood Hellscythe
 * Rowan as Inspector Gadget
 * Nina as Princess Peach
 * Crossdresser: Masaaki pulls this off while he's showing Rowan how the "fine art of female impersonation" is done, and Umeko states that it's not unusual for him to cast a girl or two in a male role for drama productions, since there's a shortage of guys in the club.
 * Recursive Crossdressing: Briefly; when Umeko is trying to sell Masaaki on the idea of an original play where all the men and women of the world switch places for a day, she brings out Rowan (dressed in a frilly blue dress, complete with a hair ribbon and high heels) and Tsubasa (dressed in a pink tuxedo) to demonstrate. Masaaki immediately shoots the idea down since A) she hasn't written the script and B) that "boy" and that "girl" are not very convincing crossdressers.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Rowan, who is also a Bifauxnen, and Tsubasa.
 * Cult: The villain organization, Eclipse. A cult with a grand total of three (later four) members, not counting its "deity", but still.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses: Three out of four Cures are princesses (and Auma at least came from a high-ranking family), which also makes them Royals Who Actually Do Something.
 * Even the Girls Want Her: Rowan has a small "harem" of fangirls, and her being outed as female mid-season doesn't really deter most of them. Auma also draws this kind of attention when she and Nele first transfer in, and Diana mentions meeting a female admirer or two during her delivery jobs.
 * Even the Guys Want Him: Eiji has a number of swooning fanboys in the Fencing Club. Played around with a bit with Rowan, who a few boys admit to finding attractive, long before learning that he's a her. Tsubasa, who's nominally straight, also admits to falling for Rowan as a boy first and later admits to having difficulty thinking of her as a girl, even if she's dressed as one. It's okay if it's her.
 * Fish Out of Water: All of the Cures, technically, although they acclimate to their new surroundings relatively quickly.
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Heroine/The Big Girl: Auma
 * The Smart Girl: Nele
 * The Lancer: Rowan
 * The Chick: Nina
 * Mentor Mascots: Helios and Diana. The former doubles as a secondary Smart Guy.
 * Foil:
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Inverted-- many of Auma's outfits incorporate red, but she's a cool-headed and serious Blue Oni, while Rowan favors cool colors (mainly purple, but some blue) despite being a hammy, somewhat hyperactive Red Oni.
 * Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Rowan and Tsubasa subvert this a little. The former is basically a female Camp Bi, while the latter is aggressive and only acts particularly girly when he "has" to-- in other words, they're a Masculine Girl and Feminine Boy who are easily mistaken for a Feminine Boy and Masculine Girl. There's also a milder, straighter example in the bookish "house husband" Helios and the tomboyish, housework-challenged Diana.
 * Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Koji and Yoichi.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Auma and Nele, Rowan and Nina, and sometimes, Nele and Nina. Rowan and Auma are more like the gender-bent Sensitive Guy and Manly Man.
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble: Auma is melancholic, Nele is choleric, Rowan is sanguine, and Nina is phlegmatic.
 * Generation Xerox: Rowan and her father are both Cloudcuckoolanders who don't care what gender they're dressed (or perceived) as; they also have their own "thinking pose". Auma sometimes worries that she's going to become this for her father, who she doesn't have the best relationship with.
 * Gratuitous Foreign Language: The Cures' primary attacks and some of their items' names include French, while the villains' names are all Italian.
 * Heel Face Turn: In a sense; Mizushima Tsubasa debuts as a (sort of) Villainous Crossdresser, but he eventually mellows out and proves to be much nicer than he initially let on. Additionally,.
 * Hidden Depths: The premise of episode 7, where a "power-up potion" Helios creates goes wrong, causing a hidden aspect of the the Cures' personalities to become their dominant one every time they hiccup: Auma becomes oversensitive, Nele becomes haughty and possessive, Rowan becomes a melancholic pessimist, and Nina becomes reckless and overly-driven. Thankfully, it wears off shortly into the battle with the Monster of the Week.
 * Insult Backfire: Masaaki is frequently abrasive towards Rowan, but her tendency to own her insults and/or completely miss the point of what he's saying mean that many of his harsher remarks end up as this. For example, when he tears into Rowan for "his" complete and utter inability to make a convincing woman:

Rowan: Well, nobody can do everything right. Thanks for the kind words, though!

Masaaki: Right... Now you two, change out of those ridiculous outfits! And you, Umeko, once Fujiwara is done changing clothes, put me in his dress so I can show those lousy crossdressers how it's done."


 * Interspecies Romance: Nele has an obvious crush on Helios (a weasel who can turn into a human), who seems more interested in Diana (a raven who can also turn into a human). A later episode deals with Diana developing a short-lived crush on Umeko's older brother.
 * Lady and Knight: With Auma as the White Knight and Nele as the Bright Lady. Ferro, on the other hand, plays the Black Knight, with Megumi-- or rather, Ferro's idealized memories of her-- as her Dark Lady.
 * Large Ham: Rowan is pretty bad about this when acting, but Masaaki is even worse. Lampshaded by Umeko, who makes a point of reminding the two that they're entertaining the audience, not competing to see who can chew the most scenery.
 * Major-General Song: Two of them, actually: "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" (the original, by Gilbert and Sullivan) and "The Elements" (the most well-known parody, by Tom Lehrer), both performed back-to-back in episode 18.
 * Meaningful Rename: All of Eclipse's agents were given a new name, based off the Italian word for a metal, upon joining. The only exception is Titanio, who renames himself before joining. Of the group, only Ferro's original name is ever revealed.
 * Mid-Season Upgrade: The Lovely Ruota, which allows one member of the team to transform into a Super Cure for a time.
 * Monster of the Week: The Heart Spirits serve as these; after they build in power enough, Eclipse activates their inner darkness, causing them to "hatch" into giant monsters.
 * Mooks: Corroders, foot soldiers who are made of liquid metal.
 * Nonuniform Uniform: Auma opts to wear Tights Under Shorts with her uniform in lieu of a skirt, keeping with her aversion to feminine attire. On the other hand, Rowan flat-out wears the male uniform.
 * Precursor Heroes: The four sages who sealed Auro away, none of whom actually appear-- although one of their descendants does. There's also Ai and Kokoro, aka Cure Heart and Cure Soul, who are some of the first Cures in history and distant ancestors of the main four. While their history is briefly touched on in the series, they have a much larger part in the movie.
 * School Play: Inevitable since three-fourths of the team belongs to the Drama Club, and Auma does get roped in once in a while.
 * Start of Darkness: Episode 10 is all about Ferro's turn to the dark side.
 * Supervillain Lair: The Eclipse Citadel.
 * Take That: Masaaki takes a potshot at Kamen no Maid Guy in response to Rowan and Tsubasa's failed attempt at Recursive Crossdressing.
 * Those Two Guys: Yoichi and Koji.
 * 3D Movie: It starts with a scene where Rowan and Tsubasa play Count Albrecht and Giselle, respectively, in a dramatization of one scene from Adoplhe Adam's Giselle, then the two actors talk a little about 3D. The film proper is mostly 3D, starting during the time disruption that's wiping out an entire village.
 * True Companions: Pretty Cure, obviously, but the Drama Club members are also portrayed this way.
 * Twin Tropes: Rowan and Nina fit a few of them:
 * Different As Night and Day: They try justifying this by explaining that they're fraternal twins, not identical.
 * Sibling Seniority Squabble: Nina is older than Rowan by five minutes. Of course she's tried using this as an excuse to order her twin around.
 * Theme Twin Naming: Not their given names, but the aliases Rowan picked out for the two of them, Fujiwara Ryuu and Fujiwara Rio, are a deliberate invocation of this.
 * Twin Switch: They attempt one once, during a pajama party. Nina actually manages to maintain the charade a bit longer than Rowan, who almost immediately blows her cover by using the wrong pronouns.
 * Twin Telepathy: Which sometimes leads to Finishing Each Other's Sentences.
 * Victim of the Week: Mostly, since the Monster of the Week always "hatches" from a person or an object owned by that person.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: A type 1 example with Rowan and Masaaki, with the latter (seemingly) deluding herself into thinking that the former is one of her best buddies, despite the harsh way he treats her. Rowan and Auma's relationship also has elements of type 1, while Yoichi and Koji are a type 2.
 * Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Rowan and Tsubasa's relationship is one part this and one part Belligerent Sexual Tension. Notably, Tsubasa plays the "princess" role despite A) being male and B) Rowan being the actual princess.
 * Witch Species: The way magic works in the Cures' homeworld: either you're born knowing how to use it or you aren't. There are also anomalies like Nina, who have magic potential but can't actually cast any, although they make up for it with other abilities. Apparently, there are humans on Earth with magic potential, since the Cures' world and Earth were in close contact long ago.
 * Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Auma's father clearly wanted a boy and tried raising her like one. It takes her several episodes before she stops resenting herself for being born a girl.
 * Wonder Twin Powers: In a sense. The Transformation Trinkets won't even work if the user is separated from their teammates (physically or emotionally), and the Cures' powers are much more potent if they "cross hearts" with one another, combining their abilities.
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One: Eclipse will always get to the Heart Spirit of the day and turn it into a monster before it can be caught. No exceptions ... except in episode 18, which Helios goes out of his way to lampshade.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Present as usual for both main and side characters. Notably, this is in effect for every resident of Moonvale, while Solbrooke's residents all have plausible hair colors.