So, while I am laughing my head off at Joseph's latest cracky plot twist, I'm going to have to defer to you two on this portion of the crackfic, 1) because I don't feel equal to contributing to a discussion involving music, and 2) because for the last several days, my concentration has been *shot* due to health problems. While I can mechanically pass on facts, creativity is proving beyond me. (*stern look at self* This had better clear up in time for the YT treat deadline!)
Atm, the only thing I have to say is a tangent inspired by the following:
in which case Fritz is sung by a castrato
This one would be deliciously ironic, given all the rumors about Fritz's apparent lack of interest in the female sex being due to castration and other forms of impotence. cahn, here's how you no-homo like a pro(fessional historian):
Historian 1: Look, Old Fritz can't be gay. There's NO WAY. He was so manly! He invaded provinces and partitioned Poland! He won a three-front war! He spent years on campaign enduring all sorts of hardships. Could he have done that if he was gay? NO HOMO.
Historian 2: I'm with you so far, but what's with the lack of sex? He was king, he could have had *anyone*. Explain, plz.
Historian 1: Okay, so remember the ladies Orzelska and Ritter and Wreech and Formera and so on and so forth? What do they all have in common? He was young! Clearly, something happened in his twenties that made him impotent.
Historian 2: Like what?
Historian 1: Like his dad kept a close eye on him, so he couldn't have normal affairs like a young prince, so he had to resort to prostitutes. Naturally, he caught a venereal disease.
Historian 2: Oooh, so that operation on his penis he was supposed to have had in 1733?
Historian 1: Yeah, except the operation went wrong and he was castrated.
Historian 2: Right, right, gotcha. And then he *pretended* to be into "Socratic" love so people wouldn't guess anything was wrong. But really it was just homoerotic poetry in the classical Greek style, no action or anything.
Historian 3: No, no, you're both wrong! If he was impotent, how could he have been manly enough to invade and hold Silesia? Eunuchs are weak and effeminate. Clearly the botched operation caused a *cosmetic* disfigurement that made him *self-conscious* about his penis, hence the no sex. Obviously he was actually perfectly virile the whole time!
Historian 3: But I'm with you on the faking homoerotic interest via poetry.
Historian 4: Idk about any operation, but I promise you, dear readers, there was nothing "unnatural" about Fritz's sex drive, it was just "underdeveloped." It's MANLY to not be into women and only like waging war, k? If he wrote poetry at all, much less erotic poetry, you will not find any mention of it in my incredibly manly book.
Historian 5: No, no, you're all wrong! He was sekritly in love with EC but forced to pretend he wasn't, because he had trash-talked the marriage to defy his father before he'd met her, and Fritz was constitutionally incapable of backing down. He would totally cut off his nose to spite his face for 46 years.
Allow me to convince you with all the evidence. Remember how they lived together while his father was alive, and he claimed to be having sex with her? He was perfectly happy at Rheinsberg. Lonely and sad afterward. QED. HUGE TRAGEDY for our totally heterosexual hero. Everybody shed a tear for the tragic love of Friedrich II and Elisabeth Christine.
Historian 6: Okay, but you guys realize there is no evidence that there was any operation at all? And his naked body was examined by many people after his death, and *nobody* commented on any supposed disfigurement? The doctor who treated Fritz during his life and claimed to have seen this "disfigurement" is a totally unreliable source, who would claim anything to salvage his hero's reputation. YES HOMO. EXTREMELY HOMO. MAXIMUM HOMO. [ETA: okay, not *Philippe d'Orleans* maximum, but he may have been throwing some transgender in there too, hard to say. Anyway. Lots of homo. :P]
Margaret Goldsmith (writing in 1929): Nice job catching up, 2015 guy. I said all this a hundred years ago. Fritz/Katte 4ever. <333
(NB: I have placed all these accounts in dialogue form in the mouths of historians for the sake of entertainment. The actual details of the historiography, what was said by Fritz's doctor and what was said later and by who, are more complicated and irrelevant. Suffice it to say that these stories have all been bruited about by people EXTREMELY concerned to save Heroic Old Fritz's reputation from the awful and unsubstantiated gay rumors.)
Also, I entitled this comment "Crackfic" in reference to our Fritz/Joseph crackfic, but honestly, the whole venereal disease/operation/castration/cosmetic disfigurement stories should count as crackfic too. :P
And yet those of us who think he might actually have been interested in men are the "gossipy sensationalists," omg, smh.
Crackfic
Atm, the only thing I have to say is a tangent inspired by the following:
in which case Fritz is sung by a castrato
This one would be deliciously ironic, given all the rumors about Fritz's apparent lack of interest in the female sex being due to castration and other forms of impotence.
Historian 1: Look, Old Fritz can't be gay. There's NO WAY. He was so manly! He invaded provinces and partitioned Poland! He won a three-front war! He spent years on campaign enduring all sorts of hardships. Could he have done that if he was gay? NO HOMO.
Historian 2: I'm with you so far, but what's with the lack of sex? He was king, he could have had *anyone*. Explain, plz.
Historian 1: Okay, so remember the ladies Orzelska and Ritter and Wreech and Formera and so on and so forth? What do they all have in common? He was young! Clearly, something happened in his twenties that made him impotent.
Historian 2: Like what?
Historian 1: Like his dad kept a close eye on him, so he couldn't have normal affairs like a young prince, so he had to resort to prostitutes. Naturally, he caught a venereal disease.
Historian 2: Oooh, so that operation on his penis he was supposed to have had in 1733?
Historian 1: Yeah, except the operation went wrong and he was castrated.
Historian 2: Right, right, gotcha. And then he *pretended* to be into "Socratic" love so people wouldn't guess anything was wrong. But really it was just homoerotic poetry in the classical Greek style, no action or anything.
Historian 3: No, no, you're both wrong! If he was impotent, how could he have been manly enough to invade and hold Silesia? Eunuchs are weak and effeminate. Clearly the botched operation caused a *cosmetic* disfigurement that made him *self-conscious* about his penis, hence the no sex. Obviously he was actually perfectly virile the whole time!
Historian 3: But I'm with you on the faking homoerotic interest via poetry.
Historian 4: Idk about any operation, but I promise you, dear readers, there was nothing "unnatural" about Fritz's sex drive, it was just "underdeveloped." It's MANLY to not be into women and only like waging war, k? If he wrote poetry at all, much less erotic poetry, you will not find any mention of it in my incredibly manly book.
Historian 5: No, no, you're all wrong! He was sekritly in love with EC but forced to pretend he wasn't, because he had trash-talked the marriage to defy his father before he'd met her, and Fritz was constitutionally incapable of backing down. He would totally cut off his nose to spite his face for 46 years.
Allow me to convince you with all the evidence. Remember how they lived together while his father was alive, and he claimed to be having sex with her? He was perfectly happy at Rheinsberg. Lonely and sad afterward. QED. HUGE TRAGEDY for our totally heterosexual hero. Everybody shed a tear for the tragic love of Friedrich II and Elisabeth Christine.
Historian 6: Okay, but you guys realize there is no evidence that there was any operation at all? And his naked body was examined by many people after his death, and *nobody* commented on any supposed disfigurement? The doctor who treated Fritz during his life and claimed to have seen this "disfigurement" is a totally unreliable source, who would claim anything to salvage his hero's reputation. YES HOMO. EXTREMELY HOMO. MAXIMUM HOMO. [ETA: okay, not *Philippe d'Orleans* maximum, but he may have been throwing some transgender in there too, hard to say. Anyway. Lots of homo. :P]
Margaret Goldsmith (writing in 1929): Nice job catching up, 2015 guy. I said all this a hundred years ago. Fritz/Katte 4ever. <333
(NB: I have placed all these accounts in dialogue form in the mouths of historians for the sake of entertainment. The actual details of the historiography, what was said by Fritz's doctor and what was said later and by who, are more complicated and irrelevant. Suffice it to say that these stories have all been bruited about by people EXTREMELY concerned to save Heroic Old Fritz's reputation from the awful and unsubstantiated gay rumors.)
Also, I entitled this comment "Crackfic" in reference to our Fritz/Joseph crackfic, but honestly, the whole venereal disease/operation/castration/cosmetic disfigurement stories should count as crackfic too. :P
And yet those of us who think he might actually have been interested in men are the "gossipy sensationalists," omg, smh.