Could totally see Marwitz as a bratty bottom, though. Hmm, Heinrich might like that when he was topping. It might be very satisfying to have to work to dominate someone who was mouthing off, and then to succeed at it. Not to say he's working out any fraternal issues here... ;)
Oh, I'm pretty sure working out fraternal issues is what Fritz is doing post big clash 1746 after Marwitz gets fired/rehired as a guard, considering Lehndorff reports ten years later that in the intervening years, sometimes Fritz was favouring Marwitz and sometimes treating him like a criminal. Also my headcanon is that in 1756 when he resurfaces in Heinrich's social circle again - which Lehndorff reports as something new, and thankfully, data wise, adds he himself hasn't seen Marwitz since 1749 - Heinrich and Marwitz have sex one more time and also an honest wrap-up conversation about what the hell happened in 1746. (Pre war 1756 is a mild time for fraternal relations; Heinrich has arranged himself with his marriage, AW is alive and happy (and happily flirting with Mina), and Fritz doesn't demand any new submissions since he's busy concluding treaties with England and hasn't invaded Saxony yet.) Marwitz says something along the lines of "for what it's worth, I never did actually do it with your brother, he's not into that, it's all talk and intense stares with him while he makes you sweat in other ways". That sets Heinrich's mind at rest. It also kills any remaining sexual interest in Marwitz on his part, because Hohenzollerns are fucked up like that. (Also, of course, the outbreak of the war means everyone gets their priorities rearranged anyway. If "beautiful" Marwitz isn't identitical with Marwitz the dead Quartermaster from the Rheinsberg obelisk who died in 1759, that means he passes out of both brothers' lives for good then and maybe post war meets up with cousin female Marwitz the salon hostess and former lady-in-waiting to Wilhelmine in Vienna.
As to Heinrich working out fraternal issues with Marwitz as mouthy bottom pre and during big clash with Fritz of February and March 1746: am currently tempted to go with this scenario: 19 years old Heinrich, like Fritz, is freshly returned from the Second Silesian War and on a victory high. (Also on a survival high, I mean, he'd made it through his first few actual battles and done well, not yet on a general level, that's a decade in the future, but he's proved that he can't just personally survive but can be given some men and successfully lead them, too. Big Bro isn't the only one with military talent. Yay!) Up to this point, relations with Fritz aren't actually dysfunctional. I mean, Fritz has bossed him around re: not being a slacker and applying himself to reading, but that worked out, like young Fritz before him, Heinrich discovered he loves reading and doesn't mind hard work at all, he thrives on it. All the same, 19th years old Heinrich is in a heady mood, plus Fritz - who is busy firing off angry letters at Wihelmine and also had Trenck imprisoned for the first time - is probably in a bad mood and snappish. So when during one of those times he's in Potsdam with Fritz he spots Marwitz the hot page he falls for him, it's 80% young love/lust, but it' also 20 % because that's one page Big Bro shows an interest in and 19 years old Heinrich fresh from Silesia is in a "yes I can" mood. And wants to demonstrate that he may not be King, but he's got no problem pulling, even someone who's supposed to only care about the King's favour.
To make it crystal clear, I don't think he fell for Marwitz because of that, that he just went and looked for a page his brother was showing favour to, just that 19 years old Heinrich went "wow, that guy is hot! I'm in love!" and then "so what if Big Bro also fancies him? Look out, Fritz, I'm a grown up now! I'm feeling pretty invincible right now! En garde!"
We've been wondering whether Heinrich or Fritz showed interest in Marwitz first, but if my order of events is right, it would additionally account for Fritz going from being pretty well disposed towards younger brother in 1745 to extraordinarily bitchy in those letters in February/March 1746. And of course Heinrich's timing couldn't have been worse, since Fritz has just had the experience of favoured batman Trenck not just possibly spying for the Austrians but carrying on with sister Amalie behind Fritz' back. So events spiral out of control and Heinrich ends up with the first incident in the list of "how I hate you, let me count the ways" in his life.
I'm sure the banter gets them both turned on like whoa.
Definitely. Doesn't Voltaire even in the anti Fritz satiric pamphlet/memoirs state Fritz was witty? My current headcanon for Voltaire's feelings re: Fritz is that at first when Crown Prince Fritz writes, it's a mixture of calculation (this is a future King we're talking about, and a state pension is always really useful to have, especially if in your own country you could land in prison very easily), idealism (this is a future King we're talking about, and Voltaire now imagines he could change the world, or a part of it, for the better in ways other than through writings; cue him reading up Plato again), head turned by flattery (fan letters by now are nothing new, but coming from royalty they are) and some human interest (hang on, I've heard those stories about his ghastly father, I know all about ghastly fathers, and here's this young man writing in quite impressive French, having evidently succeeded in making something of himself despite the ogre on the throne - I see something of myself here!). The interest intensifies through the correspondance, but he's not actually in love in the Crown Prince years, flirtatious phrases like "I dream of my prince like I would of a mistress" when he hears FW is on his death bed not withstanding. No, he falls for King Fritz when he meets him, actually not so much because of the change in station but because King Fritz suddenly displays way more snark than Crown Prince Fritz did, turns out to be wily on a level Voltaire clearly hadn't anticipated and thus is a constant challenge of wits, and also, there's suddenly competition by none other than Émilie's recurring rebound Maupertuis. And that's when the French Homer truly falls in love.
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
Oh, I'm pretty sure working out fraternal issues is what Fritz is doing post big clash 1746 after Marwitz gets fired/rehired as a guard, considering Lehndorff reports ten years later that in the intervening years, sometimes Fritz was favouring Marwitz and sometimes treating him like a criminal. Also my headcanon is that in 1756 when he resurfaces in Heinrich's social circle again - which Lehndorff reports as something new, and thankfully, data wise, adds he himself hasn't seen Marwitz since 1749 - Heinrich and Marwitz have sex one more time and also an honest wrap-up conversation about what the hell happened in 1746. (Pre war 1756 is a mild time for fraternal relations; Heinrich has arranged himself with his marriage, AW is alive and happy (and happily flirting with Mina), and Fritz doesn't demand any new submissions since he's busy concluding treaties with England and hasn't invaded Saxony yet.) Marwitz says something along the lines of "for what it's worth, I never did actually do it with your brother, he's not into that, it's all talk and intense stares with him while he makes you sweat in other ways". That sets Heinrich's mind at rest. It also kills any remaining sexual interest in Marwitz on his part, because Hohenzollerns are fucked up like that. (Also, of course, the outbreak of the war means everyone gets their priorities rearranged anyway. If "beautiful" Marwitz isn't identitical with Marwitz the dead Quartermaster from the Rheinsberg obelisk who died in 1759, that means he passes out of both brothers' lives for good then and maybe post war meets up with cousin female Marwitz the salon hostess and former lady-in-waiting to Wilhelmine in Vienna.
As to Heinrich working out fraternal issues with Marwitz as mouthy bottom pre and during big clash with Fritz of February and March 1746: am currently tempted to go with this scenario: 19 years old Heinrich, like Fritz, is freshly returned from the Second Silesian War and on a victory high. (Also on a survival high, I mean, he'd made it through his first few actual battles and done well, not yet on a general level, that's a decade in the future, but he's proved that he can't just personally survive but can be given some men and successfully lead them, too. Big Bro isn't the only one with military talent. Yay!) Up to this point, relations with Fritz aren't actually dysfunctional. I mean, Fritz has bossed him around re: not being a slacker and applying himself to reading, but that worked out, like young Fritz before him, Heinrich discovered he loves reading and doesn't mind hard work at all, he thrives on it. All the same, 19th years old Heinrich is in a heady mood, plus Fritz - who is busy firing off angry letters at Wihelmine and also had Trenck imprisoned for the first time - is probably in a bad mood and snappish. So when during one of those times he's in Potsdam with Fritz he spots Marwitz the hot page he falls for him, it's 80% young love/lust, but it' also 20 % because that's one page Big Bro shows an interest in and 19 years old Heinrich fresh from Silesia is in a "yes I can" mood. And wants to demonstrate that he may not be King, but he's got no problem pulling, even someone who's supposed to only care about the King's favour.
To make it crystal clear, I don't think he fell for Marwitz because of that, that he just went and looked for a page his brother was showing favour to, just that 19 years old Heinrich went "wow, that guy is hot! I'm in love!" and then "so what if Big Bro also fancies him? Look out, Fritz, I'm a grown up now! I'm feeling pretty invincible right now! En garde!"
We've been wondering whether Heinrich or Fritz showed interest in Marwitz first, but if my order of events is right, it would additionally account for Fritz going from being pretty well disposed towards younger brother in 1745 to extraordinarily bitchy in those letters in February/March 1746. And of course Heinrich's timing couldn't have been worse, since Fritz has just had the experience of favoured batman Trenck not just possibly spying for the Austrians but carrying on with sister Amalie behind Fritz' back. So events spiral out of control and Heinrich ends up with the first incident in the list of "how I hate you, let me count the ways" in his life.
I'm sure the banter gets them both turned on like whoa.
Definitely. Doesn't Voltaire even in the anti Fritz satiric pamphlet/memoirs state Fritz was witty? My current headcanon for Voltaire's feelings re: Fritz is that at first when Crown Prince Fritz writes, it's a mixture of calculation (this is a future King we're talking about, and a state pension is always really useful to have, especially if in your own country you could land in prison very easily), idealism (this is a future King we're talking about, and Voltaire now imagines he could change the world, or a part of it, for the better in ways other than through writings; cue him reading up Plato again), head turned by flattery (fan letters by now are nothing new, but coming from royalty they are) and some human interest (hang on, I've heard those stories about his ghastly father, I know all about ghastly fathers, and here's this young man writing in quite impressive French, having evidently succeeded in making something of himself despite the ogre on the throne - I see something of myself here!). The interest intensifies through the correspondance, but he's not actually in love in the Crown Prince years, flirtatious phrases like "I dream of my prince like I would of a mistress" when he hears FW is on his death bed not withstanding. No, he falls for King Fritz when he meets him, actually not so much because of the change in station but because King Fritz suddenly displays way more snark than Crown Prince Fritz did, turns out to be wily on a level Voltaire clearly hadn't anticipated and thus is a constant challenge of wits, and also, there's suddenly competition by none other than Émilie's recurring rebound Maupertuis. And that's when the French Homer truly falls in love.