cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 14

cahn

Check out the opera clips at Rheinsberg!

(both the real-life place, which

selenak found out hosts a festival for young opera singers! and the community

rheinsberg)

Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well,

selenak has):

Sibling dysfunction: Promises to Keep and My Brother Narcissus

Sibling dysfunction PLUS sibling M/M love triangle: The moon flies face to face with me

VOLTAIRE! Between the hour and the age

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cahn

What?! I LOVE THIS FANDOM

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Is it not the best fandom? :DDD

Did you guess any, or did you see the answers first?

From:

cahn

I've now commented -- but I did terribly at the first batch and rather well (for me, I suck at these kinds of things) on the second :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hee! Good job. I only see a comment on the second batch--did you not get any from the first batch? I fully expected you to get Lehndorff in the second batch, though! And the abacus can only be one person. :D

For the first batch, I definitely made some progress by testing out the hypothesis that there were six Fritzian boyfriends and six pairings, and using the process of elimination to help me out. Would never have gotten Peter Keith otherwise, and indeed got him for the wrong reason even so! Even Katte took some time, and I eventually had to reason, "What is the most horrifying moment in our fandom--oh *that's* why he's waving, gotcha. OMG noooo."

Then I only switched away from 6 boyfriends to Wilhelmine, because I figured the banjo, as a stringed instrument, might be a stand-in for a lute.

It was fuuuun.

(Oh, I shamefacedly admit to having to google the Austrian flag to double check. I've been to Austria, I should know this! But three-stripe flags are the hardest.)

Edited Date: 2020-04-16 04:24 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

Algarotti was the only one I got for sure. I had seen someone guess Voltaire/Fritz already. I was not thinking along the lines of Fritz boyfriends at all! I did think it might be Suhm and Wilhelmine for the last two because I figured anything selenak gave you would have Suhm in it (why didn't I apply this to Katte? who knows) and because of the music connection (and also because we had just been talking about Fritz/Wilhelmine) but I really felt like I didn't know. I had no idea about Keith or Katte.

Haha, I totally googled the Austrian flag. I am terrible at flags, unsurprisingly, given my total lack of knowledge about history and geography ~~except for a narrow strip in the 18th Century now~~

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, you know about swans now, so that's one surprisingly specific strip of 18th century trivia you have at your disposal. ;) The only trouble I had was running through Algarotti's many potential partners before I decided it really was Fritz, and then it was obviously Fritz who has just become king and told Algarotti to come quickly!

Btw, he's not really the *only* swan--Keyserlingk is also a swan (the swan of Mittau, his hometown)--but just as Fritz is not literally the only king but is "der Einzige" nonetheless, Algarotti is der Einzige swan.

I figured anything selenak gave you would have Suhm in it

I saw money and suitcase and went "Sugar daddy!" and then decided that of AAALLL the many sugar daddies, it would be my favorite and the one I consider a proper ship. <3 :D

(why didn't I apply this to Katte? who knows)

Now, this is a serious failure on your part not of historical knowledge but of interpersonal knowledge of your friends. Tsk. ;)

Edited Date: 2020-04-16 04:46 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Since you two liked the emojis so much: which glorious event in Hohenzollern history do I depict here?

👸🏻: 👨‍👦‍👦👩‍👦💋
👩🏻‍🦱: 😏
👸🏻: 🏚🤩
🧝🏻🦸🏻‍♂️👩🏻‍🎓👩🏻‍🦱: 🙂
🤴🏻: 😒😥👎
🧝🏻: 🏚👻😘
🤴🏻: 🏚👎👎👎
👸🏻👩🏻‍🎓👩🏻‍🦱🧝🏻🦸🏻‍♂️👨🏻‍🦳: 🏚
🏚: 🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️👑
👩🏻‍🦱👸🏻👩🏻‍🎓: 🧟‍♂️👑 = 😡🧟‍♀️👑 = 🤬
🧝🏻🦸🏻‍♂️: 🤯? 🧟‍♀️👑 = 👍, 🧟‍♂️👑 = 😨
👩🏻‍🦱: 🧟‍♀️👑🤮!
🧝🏻: 😤🤬🖕🏻
🏚: 👣
🤴🏻: 😎
🧝🏻: 😒

Edited Date: 2020-04-17 07:14 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Wow. This one is hard!

I think I can detect the broad outlines of the Diplomatic Revolution, Seven Years' War, and the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg, but there's more politics going on here than I can sort out. :P

Crowned man is Fritz and crowned woman is MT, those are my most confident identifications.

Derelict house makes sense as the prospect of turning Fritz into a margrave again, which makes MT starry-eyed.

MT manages to get most of Europe on board with this program, while Fritz is thumbs-downing it like crazy.

Male and female zombie couple is Peter and Catherine, expected to be stooges of the soon-to-be-derelict House of Brandenburg?

Then it looks like Catherine has some support but Peter has none (except from Fritz). But Catherine remains controversial. This seems reasonable, but it doesn't help that I really have no idea what, say, Pompadour thought of Catherine, so that doesn't help me sort out the other players based on their support or lack thereof for her. I know Catherine preserved the Russian peace with Prussia, so MT can't have been too happy about that.

Anyway, after the whole Russian changing of the guard goes down, bye bye to the derelict House of Brandenburg. Fritz remains der einzige, and the elf is unhappy.

I'm then stumped on who the elf, superhero, curly-haired woman, student, and old man are. Necessary players include Elizaveta and Pompadour. Possible players I can think of include Louis, FS, Brühl, Choiseul, Ulrike, Adolf Fredrik of Sweden, and Bestushev. Mixed feelings about his brother and the justification of the war notwithstanding, I don't *think* you'd make Heinrich into a figure that's solely behind the overthrow of Prussia, though he does make sense as a superhero.

Old man shows up once, briefly, to be thrilled about the prospect of making Fritz a Margrave, so could be Brühl?

Curly-haired woman shows up first (after MT), which makes me want to make her Pompadour, but then I have trouble assigning the others.

Superhero appears only alongside the elf, but the elf appears on her own.

Elf is still alive at the end (unless emojis can have opinions after they're dead), which means she shouldn't be Elizaveta. She could be Pompadour, in which case I would want the superhero to be a Frenchman, so either Louis (but why a superhero?) or Choiseul (who's obscure enough that I'm only considering him because I have such trouble seeing Louis as a superhero).

Also, with the elf at the end, I would expect an MT reaction here, but that would mean MT was the last to get on board with the "Fritz as Margrave" program, which doesn't seem right. Superhero would then be FS or Kaunitz, but still. Seems wrong. I want MT to have the crown and Pompadour to be the curly-haired woman.

That's the best I can do for now. Stumped on specific identifications.

Edited Date: 2020-04-17 05:42 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

LOL, no. How quickly we forget...

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well! You officially got me. Well done.

Let's see if

cahn manages it. :D (If so, we should give her some kind of prize.)

Edited Date: 2020-04-17 05:59 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

I think this is a case where it actually helped me that I don't know as much as you do! If it had been the Seven Years War with lots of politics there's no way I would have gotten it. But gossipy sensationalism about my fave dysfunctional family, and indeed My Absolute Favorite Insane Story about them -- well :)

From:

selenak

Your consolation prize is the actual Diplomatic Revolution:

Status Quo Ante:
🇦🇹.😤 🇫🇷
🦅🤝🇫🇷
🇦🇹🤝🇬🇧
🦅👊🇦🇹
🇬🇧👊🇫🇷

The cast and their countries
🤴🏻=🦅
👸=🇦🇹; 👨🏻‍💼 (Kaunitz)
💃🏻 +⚜️ =🇫🇷
🤶=🇷🇺

🤴🏻: 📜♥️🇬🇧✔️; 🇦🇹🖕🏻😎
⚜️: 🤯
🤴🏻: 👸💃🏻🤶💬👅
👨🏻‍💼: ...❗️🇦🇹 😘🇫🇷❓
👸: 🤔…👍
💃🏻:🇫🇷📜🇦🇹🙂
🤶:😒🤴🏻
👸: 🇦🇹🇫🇷 🇷🇺📜
🤴🏻 :⁉️
👸👨🏻‍💼 :😎
🤴🏻:👊 🇩🇪
🇦🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇸🇪⚔️🦅

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Thank you for the unexpected consolation prize! I couldn't be in a fandom with nicer and more fun fans.

Frederick the Great: A Life in Emojis

Now that would make an amazing ~~fic~~ biography!

From:

cahn

I am SO pleased, I got this one! :D

Well, honestly, I had no idea for quite a while. One thing that helped is looking at it on my apple device, which renders the emoticons a little differently from my laptop (I couldn't identify the broken-down house on my laptop, but it was clear what it was on the ipad). But then I saw the 7th one down,
king: house (thumbs-down) * 3, and knowing already that this icon had been used for Fritz before, and I was like, OH I KNOW WHAT THIS IS THIS IS MY FAVORITE STORY :D

OMG that is the MOST HILARIOUS story in emoticons! (...it is the most hilarious story not in emoticons, but the emoticons just lend it a certain something.)

Prince in green: Heinrich
Smiling woman with crown: Ulrike
Other woman face: Amalie
Superman: AW (omg, that is adorable, I will always see him like that now)
White-haired guy: Ferdinand?? I mean, it must be Fredinand, just not sure why
Girl with mortarboard: Charlotte? Also forgetting why that would be -- oh, wasn't she the one who liked literature?
House: Dear Old Wusterhausen :D

This was awesome, thanks!

(I haven't read the nested comments yet -- off to look :D )

From:

selenak

AND WE HAVE A WINNER! Hooray! *celebretory emoticon, except I'm now on computer and don't know how to evoke them there*

One thing, though: AW was already dead when Ulrike's visit with trip to dear old Wusterhausen happened. The old guy is Pölnitz, Ferdinand is the one in superhero costume, for no better reason that Fritz suspected him of being the future menace and just biding his time. (I could use the man-with-crown icon only for Fritz, but there was an elven royal icon I could use for Heinrich, which left me with needing a third option for Ferdinand.)

Yes, Charlotte got the motarboard for liking literature (and translating Wolff into French on her lonesome, no Suhm needed, ahem).

From:

mildred_of_midgard

All hail emoji queen

cahn! I'm very excited at how much you know as a result of this impromptu crash course. :D

Does D know we're still going? We're not doing 10,000 words a day any more, but we're still here, and that's pretty amazing.

From:

cahn

Hee! I think he knows vaguely that we are still going, and every so often something reminds me of something, like he said sometihng about "the best of all possible worlds" and I was like "Did you know that Frederick the Great and Voltaire had this THING going?!" (Then I had to explain how Fritz was totally gay gay gay but Voltaire was pretty much het so the Thing was a little more complicated and... at that point I decided that was more than anyone not in the fandom probably wanted to hear :) )

I have to say I'm glad that we're not doing 10,000 words/day! I can barely keep up with this :) (I did a lot of fandom activity in the early mornings and lunchtime at work, which I don't have free any more...)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hahaha. What I tell people is:

- The Voltaire same-sex marriage quote.
- The explosive divorce complete with arrest less than 3 years later.
- The love-hate "can't live with you or without you" pen pal addiction until their deaths.

People are usually pretty impressed by that even if they're not interested in the topic. I may add a note about how we don't think they had sex, but they definitely had a romantic relationship in every other way, but I leave sexuality details to more thorough accounts. ;)