Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

[cahn]

All Yuletide requests are out!

Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!

-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)

Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!

-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French

-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...

Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links

Comments

Re: Emotional isolation

[cahn]

Hm. I don't know? I feel like everything I know about childhood development seems to indicate that it's in the very early years that kids learn how to bond, and you seem to have had fairly decent early years. From what I know about you I'm willign to believe that this is actually a difference in personality/genetics/epigenetics.

My daughter is probably going to end up similarly to you in terms of something of indifference to people bonding, and as far as I know she's had loving relationships, and this is something she was born with. (I like to think it wasn't my parenting!) My son seems to have much more people bonding needs and skills.

Re: Emotional isolation

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ah, but I think the decent early years are a necessary but not sufficient component of why I'm capable of being casually indifferent to bonding. The personality/genetics/epigenetics are why I ended up casually indifferent given the decent early years (whereas most people with decent early years don't), but in an AU without the decent early years, I don't at all have the confidence I end up like this.

What I got out my early childhood was the idea that I don't need to please other people (and that saved me when I got a bit older and my parents started signalling that they weren't pleased with me). Fritz did not get that message in his early childhood, not from either of his parents.

I have a more well-thought-out rationale, but it's late and I have a long backlog of comments to work through. ;)

Re: Emotional isolation

[cahn]

Hmm, interesting! I'm of course projecting my own experience as well, with one parent who veeeeeery much gave my sister and me the idea we needed to please other people (especially her). A lot. (Our other parent did not do it to as great an extent, but he certainly did not promulgate the idea that we didn't need to please them.)

Me: *learns how to slither out of situations, and worries some about pleasing people until I turn 30 or so (at which point I get too busy to care) but other than that doesn't really get all that good at pleasing people or at bonding*
Sister: *worries about pleasing people to an almost pathological degree and is only starting to hesitantly get over it with years of therapy*

I mean, there is definitely a case to be made that my sister and I had different early childhood experiences; I had a personality that was really unlike Fritz very conflict-adverse and also I was very good at many things my parents valued (academics, music, competitions), which meant I had less conflict with them. And also I'm certain our mom was less stressed out with one child than with two (now having lived that). But on the other hand I think a large part of what seems to have happened with the two of us is that I didn't need parental validation the same way that she did/does.