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

[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.