Having Shakespeare Thoughts (as one does)

[jennaria]

Wife and I went to a local college production of The Tempest, which was quite decent - original music; Ariel played by two actors/dancers splitting the part, and frequently individual lines; a solid Prospero played by a woman (although the production didn't do anything with that fact). But the thing is -

So I've been on a kick of reading/listening to a specific sub-genre of Chinese web-novels that you can find all over YouTube, most of them with the general prompt of 'my life sucked, but I got to go back to a critical save point and try again.' Specifically, there's a popular sub-sub-genre of 'Reborn, I realized that marrying the crown prince had been a terrible idea, and not just because he was in love with someone else and tortured me to death over it.' Basically, being a princess is hard work, and you need training or else things might end badly. ...which is usually what happens to the crown prince, after our female lead has prudently exited stage left for a marriage to Anyone Else, and let his untrained First Love take over as crown princess.

Enter Miranda. Miranda, who is 15 years old, and has spent most of her life growing up on an island with two and a half other people - depending on how you count Ariel, and given that we see Prospero put her to sleep so he can talk with Ariel, I'm not holding my breath on how much she gets to talk with the spirit(s). Miranda, who is now not only marrying the first dude she's ever seen who isn't her father or Caliban, but doing so after knowing him for less than a day. Miranda, who's about to step into the mother of all pressure cookers as the princess of Naples, and who absolutely has no training whatsoever - because you cannot tell me that Duke 'let his brother do all the actual ruling until whoopsie' Prospero taught her anything about how to be princess, let alone queen.

Am I throwing Ferdinand under the bus, and stereotyping him as the same kind of frequently asshole crown prince from the web-novels? Yup! Do I have any evidence it's wrong? Nope! Do I really kind of want someone else to have written, if not a full on 'Reborn, Miranda faked her own death and went back to the island because fuck this shit,' at least something where Miranda learns magic, or politics, or both? Yes, there's A Woman Scorned on AO3, wherein Miranda learned magic and kicks her dad to the curb with prejudice, but I want two cakes, dammit. Also sprinkles, in the form of Caliban and Miranda's uncle being 75% less of an asshole.

So in conclusion: any recs for stories about Miranda, please. Because she deserves to be better than That Girl Nobody Actually Cares About.

Comments

[rymenhild]

I didn't like Miranda in Milan, but it meets your request.