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Thirty Days of Medici: Shipping
Aug. 19th, 2019 10:11 amDay 06 ~ Who do you ship?
I Medici actually does a good job of making most, though not all of its canon ships interesting and/or appealing enough for me to get on board with them, in varying degrees of investment. (The exceptions are Giuliano/Simonetta, because poor Simonetta is possibly the least fleshed out female character in two seasons, and Guglielmo/Bianca, because they only have one (to me) interesting scene as a couple (in the s2 finale), and otherwise are stuck on „naive young lovers from feuding families“ without getting developed beyond that. (As said in an earlier post: whereas the s1 „naive young lovers“ couple, Piero and Lucrezia, does get developed both as individuals and as a couple, with each of them getting interesting relationships besides the one they have with each other which serves to flesh them out as people.)
So, basically: Cosimo/Contessina: comes complete with several angry sex scenes, the „arranged marriage turns real“ trope and contains my favourite female character. Mind you, the only Cosimo ship where you don’t feel he doesn’t deserve the other party is Cosimo/Dome (specifically, the cupola). But yeah, still ship it.
Piero/Lucrezia: see above, and also my post about Piero. Definitely ship it.
Lorenzo/Clarice: the other take on the „arranged marriage turns real“ trope. Lorenzo isn’t an ass to Clarice the way Cosimo was to Contessina at the start; he finds a different way to be an ass! Not really kidding – he’s nice to her but blithely oblivious to the fact that arranged marriage or not, it’s still hurtful if your husband carries on with his mistress. Thankfully, the way this turns around isn’t achieved by demonizing Lucrezia (the mistressin question) but by Lorenzo realising that „I am privileged to call you my wife“ and starting to see (and treat) Clarice as a trusted partner. (He also stops having a mistress.) As a take on two very different people realising they can ground each other emotionally and become each other’s home, this works for me.
Francesco/Novella: works for the one and a half episodes it lasts before poor Novella becomes Desdemona-ized by Jacopo de‘ Pazzi (thankfully without the lethal ending for her). Seriously though, for having not much screentime, the actors manage to convey instant attraction, great chemistry and just hitting it off very well.
Marco Bello/Maddalena: is just there in the later half of s1 and is also when Marco Bello starts to finally aquire some fleshing out beyond „Cosimo’s loyal enforcer“. You – well, I – rout for them to make it out of the show alive and away from the Medici. Also, their tender moments provide Maddalena with a fantastic put down line when she answers the question as to how she can be sure the kid she’s expecting is Cosimo’s and not Marco’s. (She knows because she and Marco never had sex, as „he is the only one in this house who ever treated me with respect“.)
So much for on screen canon. On to the fun of subtext: none for me in s1. (Marco Bello evidently starts out meant as the show’s Micheletto, but as we lack any type of backstory as to why he’s that loyal to Cosimo, it just doesn’t work for me, shipping wise. Meanwhile, the only woman Contessina has an intense (mentor/protegé) relationship with is her daughter-in-law, and just, no.) S2, otoh, is the gift which keeps on giving in this regard. Enemies to lovers (and back to enemies)? There’s Francesco/Lorenzo. Also, Clarice and Lucrezia (Donati) have a rivals to mutually respectful frenemies thing going which can easily be expanded into slash. Are you into sibling incest (fanfictionally speaking) and have missed Italian brothers since the Petrellis left the screen? Look no further, there’s Giuliano and Lorenzo.
Now, I’m in that state where I can go with the subtext or read these relationships as gen, so I’m not sure „I ship them“ is really the correct term here for what I do, but then again, I do think all of these relationships are interesting to me even without any subtext whatsoever, so I do ship them? I don’t know.
Lastly: the true pairings of the show everyone can root for, though: Cosimo/The Duomo, Contessina/Awesomeness and Lorenzo/Florence (I see Savonarola has been cast for s3; good lord, the ANGST awaiting in that department).
( The other days )
I Medici actually does a good job of making most, though not all of its canon ships interesting and/or appealing enough for me to get on board with them, in varying degrees of investment. (The exceptions are Giuliano/Simonetta, because poor Simonetta is possibly the least fleshed out female character in two seasons, and Guglielmo/Bianca, because they only have one (to me) interesting scene as a couple (in the s2 finale), and otherwise are stuck on „naive young lovers from feuding families“ without getting developed beyond that. (As said in an earlier post: whereas the s1 „naive young lovers“ couple, Piero and Lucrezia, does get developed both as individuals and as a couple, with each of them getting interesting relationships besides the one they have with each other which serves to flesh them out as people.)
So, basically: Cosimo/Contessina: comes complete with several angry sex scenes, the „arranged marriage turns real“ trope and contains my favourite female character. Mind you, the only Cosimo ship where you don’t feel he doesn’t deserve the other party is Cosimo/Dome (specifically, the cupola). But yeah, still ship it.
Piero/Lucrezia: see above, and also my post about Piero. Definitely ship it.
Lorenzo/Clarice: the other take on the „arranged marriage turns real“ trope. Lorenzo isn’t an ass to Clarice the way Cosimo was to Contessina at the start; he finds a different way to be an ass! Not really kidding – he’s nice to her but blithely oblivious to the fact that arranged marriage or not, it’s still hurtful if your husband carries on with his mistress. Thankfully, the way this turns around isn’t achieved by demonizing Lucrezia (the mistressin question) but by Lorenzo realising that „I am privileged to call you my wife“ and starting to see (and treat) Clarice as a trusted partner. (He also stops having a mistress.) As a take on two very different people realising they can ground each other emotionally and become each other’s home, this works for me.
Francesco/Novella: works for the one and a half episodes it lasts before poor Novella becomes Desdemona-ized by Jacopo de‘ Pazzi (thankfully without the lethal ending for her). Seriously though, for having not much screentime, the actors manage to convey instant attraction, great chemistry and just hitting it off very well.
Marco Bello/Maddalena: is just there in the later half of s1 and is also when Marco Bello starts to finally aquire some fleshing out beyond „Cosimo’s loyal enforcer“. You – well, I – rout for them to make it out of the show alive and away from the Medici. Also, their tender moments provide Maddalena with a fantastic put down line when she answers the question as to how she can be sure the kid she’s expecting is Cosimo’s and not Marco’s. (She knows because she and Marco never had sex, as „he is the only one in this house who ever treated me with respect“.)
So much for on screen canon. On to the fun of subtext: none for me in s1. (Marco Bello evidently starts out meant as the show’s Micheletto, but as we lack any type of backstory as to why he’s that loyal to Cosimo, it just doesn’t work for me, shipping wise. Meanwhile, the only woman Contessina has an intense (mentor/protegé) relationship with is her daughter-in-law, and just, no.) S2, otoh, is the gift which keeps on giving in this regard. Enemies to lovers (and back to enemies)? There’s Francesco/Lorenzo. Also, Clarice and Lucrezia (Donati) have a rivals to mutually respectful frenemies thing going which can easily be expanded into slash. Are you into sibling incest (fanfictionally speaking) and have missed Italian brothers since the Petrellis left the screen? Look no further, there’s Giuliano and Lorenzo.
Now, I’m in that state where I can go with the subtext or read these relationships as gen, so I’m not sure „I ship them“ is really the correct term here for what I do, but then again, I do think all of these relationships are interesting to me even without any subtext whatsoever, so I do ship them? I don’t know.
Lastly: the true pairings of the show everyone can root for, though: Cosimo/The Duomo, Contessina/Awesomeness and Lorenzo/Florence (I see Savonarola has been cast for s3; good lord, the ANGST awaiting in that department).
( The other days )
