#but man i kept hoping Anne would learn she's kind of a dick in the rich regard. but i dont think thats a lesson arc the show plans to tell.

[mejomonster]

my desire for historical ACTION romance competing with: my need for pacing to be FAST, my hope for queer leads (which i frankly am not getting as much as i want), my hope for mostly optimism and happy endings (haha haha ha), a lot of the historicals providing Action are either spy stuff (which im not quite craving right now) or rich people (maybe i want people from different backgrounds! not all royals! maybe please?) or political but like only one of the romantic partners is involved (currently my Biggest issue with The Crowned Clown is how the Queen is not involved in the big political workings going on - whereas Secret of The Three Kingdoms AND Jade Palace Lock Heart keep my attention SO much better because every major character is generally doing major stuff in the action part of the plot). 

Kei x Yaku is appealing so much lately because it PROMISES me some queer action murder thriller, if not the historical element

The Secret of The Three Kingdoms and Jade Palace Lock Heart are tempting me to rewatch so bad just because i KNOW all the lovers in those get up to fun action in the plot, not just the romance element

Goodbye My Princess and Rattan are also tempting me, again cause I know I’ll get some romance AND action

#rant #so controversial opinion.... #i did watch half of Gentleman Jack #and i DO overall love theres a gay romance historical! #but um. i love Anne's sister a fuckton more than Anne. Anne is a landowner. i do not fucking like landlords #and shes against just land owners being taxed. as a real person? yes this tracks and makes sense for the time period #but personally? damn i would punch her in real life. id date her gfs. id date her sister and LOVE her sister #her sister is pro workers rights and level headed and kind and not greedy and practical! #but man i kept hoping Anne would learn she's kind of a dick in the rich regard. but i dont think thats a lesson arc the show plans to tell. #a big reason im big on 'person faking being a royal' and historicals with NON royal/rich parties at least in part #is usually theres less focus on rich people being right about shit they're really Not right about #like. my only exception is if Emperor etc is a DICK and the point is he needs to learn to be less dickish. Jade Palace Lock Heart goes this #route. i kinda wish Gentleman Jack was going this route. but it doesnt feel like it is. #so i dont think im gonna continue it. #that said it was Lovely as a fairly realistic historical! i appreciated the storylines it went with

[cynicalrainbows]

Six Fic Prompt Chpt 3

I feel like canonically, Cleves would be the nicest and most emotionally healthy of the queens because unlike the others, she had time and space to work through her trauma. The others... I sort of feel they’d be just about keeping things together.

Also thank you for the lovely, lovely messages about this fic! It’s so nice to hear that people are enjoying it!

She does enjoy the trout (although she also notices that Cleves, for once, does not finish her own food) but it’s still hard to sleep later that night, and so she’s still awake when there’s a knock.

‘Yes?’

‘I saw your light on…’ Anna pushes the door open but hovers on the threshold. ‘Can I come in?’

Jane nods, even though is all new territory, uncertain territory. They live together but socialising still mostly takes place in the communal kitchen, the shared living room- they’re all slightly wary of one another, the ghosts of old scars and old resentments lingering and unacknowledged. 

She hasn’t sought out any of the queens in their own rooms yet, other than to call them for dinner, (it feels too intimate) and they haven’t really come to hers either.

 For the most part.

 The exception is Kitty, who has several times turned up at her door after everyone has gone to bed to ask if she’s left something or other in Jane’s room since she can’t find it anywhere.

If the voice of the youngest queen is a trifle shaky when she makes her request, Jane does not bring it up, and she doesn’t question Kitty’s need for her hair straighteners, her body glitter, her running shoes, at gone 11pm either, nor mention that since Kitty only ever comes to her room to look for things, it’s unlikely she’ll find anything of her own there.

 She does however make sure to offer to help Kitty search her own room again ‘in case she’s missed it’. 

(Walking down the landing with the girl trailing at her side, she sometimes has to fight a bit against the urge to do more- to take her hand, to wrap an arm around her thin shoulders. She never does, of course.)

Once they’ve both given up- which never takes long, she’s taken to waiting until Kitty is safely under the covers before she leaves. 

That she always leaves the door ajar, the landing light turned on, is coincidence and no one can prove otherwise.

(She sometimes wonders if they’ll ever get to the point where she’ll be able to offer the girl a hug, if Kitty will ever feel confident to come to her for comfort without the need for fabrication: will she ever be bold enough just to ask if Kitty is alright, rather than enquiring about whether she thought to check under her bed?)

(She hopes they will. One day)

Other than Kitty’s visits though, her room has been pretty much sacrosanct. She’s privately curious about the rooms of the other queens (god knows what Boleyn has done to hers) and she can see Anna eyeing her things, her clothes, the cushions on the chair, the framed pictures on the walls, with interest. Clearly, the feeling is shared.

‘It’s nice-’ She moves closer to the nearest frame, squinting at the birds of paradise fanning their tails in intricate patterns. ‘This is lovely’

‘Thank you- it took me such a long time.’

‘You...made this?’

‘Yes’

‘You sewed this?’

Anna’s wide eyed approbation is a little embarrassing.

‘I like embroidery. Always-’ she flushes slightly: referring to her past life sometimes feels almost shameful, like she’s showing off how easy things were for her by making reference to the fact that she spent her time as queen pursuing quiet hobbies and accepting congratulations on her pregnancy, rather than in frantic prayer or enforced seclusion.

 (She wonders if it’s divine justice that the tables are being turned on her now, if her struggles are something she has inadvertently stored up for herself via an unwitting life of leisure.)

‘They said you were good but never-’ Anna tips her head. ‘That you were… you know. That good.’

Jane smiles. ‘That’s kind of you. I’m so glad it’s something I can still do here.’

‘Yeah. Harder to go hawking in Ealing. Unfortunately.’ Anna grins ruefully. ‘I like that we all got to come back with our same tastes and skills and stuff though. Even if it’s sometimes a bit inconvenient.’ She pauses. ‘I always liked riding, myself- especially at court. Felt such a relief it was something I could do that didn’t require language.’

She’s wondered to herself sometimes if it was difficult for Cleves, coming all the way from Germany, mostly alone, in much the same way that she’s wondered how Aragon coped without Mary or if Cathy was afraid to marry a man who’d already killed two of his wives…. but she’s never thought of actually asking any of them. It feels far too personal, too intimate.

Anna though doesn’t appear to be remotely self conscious as she talks: ‘I couldn’t speak more than a few words of English when I arrived, you know. I felt like such an idiot half the time. Most of the time. I could never tell what people were saying, what they wanted; I felt like everyone was irritated with me because they had to keep repeating themselves and rewording things so I could understand. I mean obviously they couldn’t say much- not that I’d have understood if they did!- but you know how it is.’

She does- she might not be the most literate of women but she’s fluent in the wordless, secret language of resentment, of irritation.

‘It sounds like things were very hard for you.’

‘Yeah, it was a fun few months..’ Anna pulls a face. ‘It was mostly just exhausting.’

She nods- she knows how that feels. (She’s tired all the time now, and she knows it’s nothing to do with the show.)

‘Also-’ Anna looks thoughtful for a moment. ‘I think I made it a bit worse….just by being very hard on myself.’

‘What do you mean?’ She’d expected Anna to say it was because she’d been lazy- because she hadn’t tried hard enough to learn English as a child, because she hadn’t tried hard enough to learn on her own while at court.

(If only she’d tried harder at her lessons. If only she hadn’t be so stupidly, idiotically happy when she was allowed to stop practising her writing. If only she wasn’t so stupid now that no matter how much she tried to practise in private, her progress was stuck at zero. If only, if only, if only-)

‘Because on top of having to deal with other people being annoyed with me, I kept blaming myself. Rather than just accepting that they were being dicks and that it’s really hard to learn a whole new language from scratch, I kept thinking that there must be something wrong with me for not picking everything up more quickly.’

Cleves is looking at her intently. ‘I wish I could go back and tell my old self that I was doing the best I could. Also I wasn’t really honest, even with my German ladies, about how hard I was finding it all. I’d like to go back and tell myself that they would have been on my side.’

‘It-’ Her throat is thick. ‘It would have been hard to do though. To admit to being stupid-’ Suddenly she realises what she’s said- that it’s Cleves they’re talking about, not her- and claps a hand over her mouth guiltily. ‘Oh- goodness- I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-’

(Now Cleves will hate her for sure, and she’ll have ruined everything, all beause she’s stupid, she’s stupid, she-)

‘It’s ok.’ Cleves smile is very gentle; she doesn’t look upset in the least. ‘I mean, it’s what I thought too at the time. It wasn’t true though, obviously. Hardly my fault if no one had bothered to teach me English.’ She looks at Jane, waiting for her response. ‘Right?’

‘I- I suppose.’

‘It sucks that we don’t always know exactly what we need to know before we need it….but it’s how things are. I got through it.’

‘How?’

‘Practise, mostly. I eventually had to swallow my pride and ask one of my laides to actually properly teach me too- you can pick up a lot through just being around a language but sometimes you need actual help as well. And I stopped caring so much about what people thought- or at least I tried to. I kept reminding myself they could wait a minute for me to finish what I was trying to say, it wouldn’t kill them-’

‘And….it helped?’

‘Well sometimes. It was definitely healthier than me telling myself I was a total idiot every time I had to ask someone to speak more slowly. I mean, I also fantasized about setting my dogs on them if they kept rolling their eyes and huffing at me… but mostly the first thing. Definitely.’ Anna’s expression is so funny Jane can’t help but laugh and Anna laughs with her.

‘Most importantly, I just tried to be more patient with myself. It’s a lesson I’m trying to teach Kitty, actually. She’s hard on herself. We all are, really.’

Jane nods.  She’s seen how Kitty looks whenever she makes a mistake in rehearsal- as if she wants to punish herself, and she’s seen Aragon pushing herself past the point of exhaustion so that the same thing never happens to her. 

She’s seen Parr’s light on well past midnight as the girl denies herself food and sleep in favour of work, she’s seen Anne forcing herself to remain perfectly still as the makeup artist brushes her scar by mistake and then quietly excuse herself, her face white and drawn. She’s even seen Anna suppress a flinch when they passed a child whinney-ing like a horse  as they played in the street.

 (She wonders what they see in her?)

‘She’s a sweet girl. She...deserved better.’ Making a reference to something so raw feels almost indecent, but Anna doesn’t look shocked.

‘I think we all did.’

When Jane swallows a yawn, they both reflexively glance at the clock and Anna gives a little start. ‘Oh my god, I’m sorry, I only meant to come in for a moment-’

‘No, it was...nice-’ She’s telling the truth. She feels surprisingly better. Lighter. 

Stop being so hard on yourself.

‘Thanks for….telling me about your time at court. It was interesting.’

‘You’re welcome. Thanks for listening- I’d like to hear more about you too one day. If you’d like.’

‘That would be nice.’ Surprisingly, she means it.

Anna stands up to go and then pauses.

‘I just wanted to say… I know we’re all sort of getting used to things and getting used to each other and it’s all kind of uncomfortable still…. But you know we’re all….supporting each other right? Even if we’re still really awkward with each other….you know we’d all have your back?’

Jane manages a nod and Anna smiles. ‘That’s all I wanted to say. And if you ever….want to do this again? The talking, I mean? My….um, my door is always open.’ She pulls a face, ‘That sounded way less cheesy in my head….’

It breaks a moment of tension and Jane is able to relax enough to laugh.

‘Thanks. I would.’

Anna grins. ‘Thank god. It would have been super awkward if you’d said no.’

And with that, she shuts the door behind her.

(It’s unexpectedly easier to fall asleep after Anna leaves.)

#sixfic #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction

[iainwrites]

Alright.  I finished Iron Fist.  And lo and behold, I didn’t enjoy it one bit.  Okay, maybe that’s a stretch and there were some aspects that I did like, but they were incredibly few and far between.  Why, and how, could I possibly feel this way?  Up to this point, Netflix was batting 100 when it came to its Marvel properties.  Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage all came in, and stared knocking it out of the park, each with their own unique aspects: Luke Cage for its “street-ness,” (”black-ness” coming from me just sounds wrong and racist, and besides, it was a very “on the street” series)  Jessica Jones for its paranoia levels and how dark it went, Daredevil for introducing us to this new iteration and of the world and yes, damn it, court room drama.  So how could I possibly feel anything but good when it comes to Iron Fist?  Well, there’s no pretty way to do this, but there is a logical one: step by step while being blunt.  Here we go, gloves off, no punches pulled and spoilers aplenty.

-Danny: Danny is a man who speaks in maxims and fortune cookie notions, but is incapable of following through and acts like a rash youth.  Danny is a man who has been trained by monks for over a decade, day in and day out, which he never fails to mention was incredibly strict, and yet acts like a spoiled child (His first meeting with Jeri had him call her “J-Money,” something his 10 year old self did, despite the fact that both of them grew up).  Danny is the Iron Fist, a Living Weapon, trained in countless martial art disciplines, and still manages to look like he’s in the early stages of practising and has the body of someone who keeps themselves in relatively good shape (do an image search of Danny in the comics  Guy is built. Finn Jones?  Not close to it.) Not only that, but he miraculously changes his face whenever a complex fight breaks out (Yes, Daredevil and Jessica Jones weren’t perfect when it came to fights, but Christ, at least they were engaging). Oh yeah, and you know those opening credits, where the artist is going through all the motions and stages and such? Not even Finn Jones, because boy, were they ever insistent that this Danny has curly hair and buddy in the credits has flat hair.  Add this to the mood whiplash that comes from nowhere, the general sense of blah that he exudes in most of his scenes or the over expression he does when it’s called for something emotional and you just get a poor outing.  And when your lead is painful to watch, then the rest of the show follows.  And the ending.  (Harold impaled, Danny walking away, etc etc.)  Know what would have worked?  Danny using the Iron Fist… to cleanse the elixir or whatever the hell we want to call it out of Harold (like they showed him doing in the convenient flashback for Colleen) and showing mercy.  You could have had Ward cap him at the end, but for Danny to show that he has learned that the fist isn’t just a weapon for destruction but to help would have went a long way.  But no. Danny didn’t learn anything that the monks hadn’t already drilled into his head.

-Ward: I hated him.  I rarely use the word “hate” because it hates requires energy that could be put into better things, but boy, did I hate him. And not just the character: I despised the actor (Tom Pelphrey) when he started showing up.  In the first half (and then some) of the series, he was just so bland and grating.  And I know: maybe that was the whole point to him.  But buggering hell, he sucked.  And the characterization!  He’s dismissing that Danny is alive, and he dismisses his sister, and he’s under his father’s thumb, and he’s selfish and wants out and is willing to walk away from the company and all the money but will fight so that he gets money from his severance and will screw his father and Danny over and will work with Danny anyways and try to make nice with a guy he’s been an asshole to his entire life! And he gets away with it all!  Our main character suffers through the show and the guy who spent most of the time kicking him while he was down becomes the head of his company.

-Joy: And Joy on the other hand!  … Well, I didn’t mind Joy.  Until the end.  Because even though Danny did nothing to her (or the stuff he did do would make sense to anyone able to put 2 and 2 together after everything is revealed to them) she’s talking with Davos at the end of the series about how they’ll work together to destroy Danny because it’s all his fault.  Seriously?  She was the smartest and most together character on the whole damn show and we’re left with her ready to dispose of the guy who was the most straightforward of her entire “family.”

-Colleen: Again, I didn’t mind her.  Sure, I’m a little annoyed that the co-protagonist who happens to be a woman ended up being in a relationship with the protagonist who happened to be male. And that she was completely willing to go along with Danny, even after being so broken up about going against the tenants of bushido and probably breaking a few more while she’s at it.  And no doubt a list of other things I’m forgetting at the moment because next to nothing about the character stuck in my mind. That’s its own shortcoming, I think: being forgettable.

-Claire: Why was she here? What did she do (besides treat people who had been wounded)?  Why did she not contact Matt when it came to going after Harold at the end, because Lord knows, that would have made sense, what with all the times she referenced her super friends (yes, I know, you have to keep the shows separate, which would make sense IF CLAIR WASN’T IN EACH OF THE SERIES AND YOU HAD NO PROBLEM BRING JERI IN FOR LEGAL HELP!)  If this is a shared universe and are calling it a shared universe, then make it work as a shared universe!  Not so much a Claire problem, but it ties into her.  It’s probably because we were coming off a Luke Cage high, where she was used pretty damn well compared to how they used her in Iron Fist, but damn it, they could have used her better or used her less.

-Harold: Norman Osborne. I wanted him to be Norman Osborne and he started going in that direction and I was so damn happy about it.  Manipulating a company behind the scenes.  Favoring the chosen son and being a dick to his biological one, with the reasoning being that “he needs to toughen up.”  Being obviously intelligent when it came to business matters. Doing anything to get ahead. Power/curse put on him that starts to damage his psyche.  Viciousness hidden behind civility.  Wenham could have gone there and done it well.  Hell, he did do it well!  And with the rights to Spider-man in Marvel’s hands, they could have gone there and encouraged the shared universe even further!  But no.  And for shit’s sake: he’s been dead for years.  I know he had “plans” but does he really expect that people would be perfectly fine with him coming back to Rand?

-Gao:  … I got nothing.  Anytime Gao was on screen, I was content.  I’m happy she got more screen time.  I’m happy she was fleshed out as being a manipulator of the highest level (she could manipulate with the truth AND lies in equal measure).  No complaints.  At all.

-Turk:  WHERE THE FUCK WAS TURK BARRET?  YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE BADDEST MAN TO SWAGGER THROUGH NEW YORK WOULDN’T WANT A PIECE OF THIS ACTION?  BULLSHIT!  IF CLAIRE WAS THERE, WE DESERVED HIM, TOO!  Ahem.

-Jeri: I’m going to start with this: “[Scott] Buck said, "She has an extremely important role in Danny’s life ... she’s very involved in our story and Danny’s journey." Loeb added, "Danny has very much a hopeful optimism about him, and Carrie-Anne obviously lives in a different kind of world, and so being able to see those two worlds collide is just the beginning of the many obstacles that he goes through."  She has an important role?  When did that happen, besides when she was plot device #3?  Sure, it was fun to see her be no bullshit and smack Danny’s childlike self down, but important?  Hardly.

Everyone else left such a faint impression on me that they’re barely worth mentioning.  Davos being Mordo-Lite was disappointing (and yes, I knew he was Davos as soon as he did the throwing star, because Danny kept on mentioning “his friend Davos” which is short hand for “Oh yeah, he’ll be on the show eventually.”)  Bokudo and his Hand (again, not surprised, when the group who wear read shirts end up being the Hand, who have been well known to favor the color red in their shirts) were just a bland point, and really, just seemed like a side mission instead of being integral to the overall plot.  And… that’s it.  Nobody else worth mentioning or remembering.

In the end (although I’m sure this won’t be the end of my Iron Fist annoyance), this show just wasn’t any good.  And this last part is directed to Finn Jones, even though I know he likely won’t read any of this:

I didn’t enjoy it as a fan.  Yeah, I watched it critically, too, but I watched it first and foremost because I enjoy my Marvel outings.  I think Marvel has DC beat 9/10 times in recent years.  I’ve never been this annoyed at a Marvel property before (and I watched F4tastic 4 AND Ghost Rider).  But this show was bad.  Because of the writing and because of the acting.  I hope to Zod you step it up in The Defenders, because if it sucks, you’re the first person who gets my blame.  Everyone else has proven their worth; YOU’RE the weak link.

Don’t fuck this up.

#iain reviews #Iron Fist #spoilers #long post