Frederick the Great, discussion post 16
Jul. 14th, 2020 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnWe have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
"How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-09 04:04 am (UTC)So I won't be saying too much, at least not right now, but I just wanted to say that as I'm sure you knew,
I am totally blaming your (Selena's and Mildred's) discussion of Fritz/Heinrich a couple of months ago for "Affair," though :PP I swear I had not given it all that much thought beforehand (okay, maybe a little when reading selena's Marwitz fic) but that remark about how Heinrich thought it was hatesex and Fritz thought it was comfortsex -- like mildred says, I COULDN'T UNSEE IT.
The last section and first section of "Survived" were actually written at the same time I wrote Fredersdorf's Very Secret Diary, when you asked for it with that title, Selena. I had always wanted to write the less crack-filled, more servant-centric version for you, but lost my nerve and went for crack instead. Anyhow, I had always meant to write it, but I guess needed that extra push from mildred :P
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-09 08:48 am (UTC)at one point I had Fritz's breeches off of him and Mildred informed me that this would have been hard to do (in the rapid timescale of the fic
Undressing as well as dressing: required serious job skills, hence valets and chamber women. :) Your story took Mildred's "hatesex vs comfortsex perception" and ran with it, and a great time was had by all. Also, you're an incest pairing pioneer now! Truly, you rock.
And "Survived" was just lovely, with the original diary entries'hilarity enriched by lots of adorable detail. (Including people called Karl and Emil.)
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-11 05:09 am (UTC)Undressing as well as dressing: required serious job skills, hence valets and chamber women. :)
Ha, yes, as you have seen, mildred had detailed thoughts about this :D
Hee, mildred in beta wanted to know whether Karl and Emil were on purpose or whether it was a coincidence! It is a fair question, as I do forget at least half of what you guys tell me (there's so much, sorry!) but that one was emphatically deliberate :D (My headcanon is that Fredersdorf told Fritz all of it at some point and it stuck in his head, thus his letter to EC. :) )
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-12 05:34 am (UTC)Also, you're an incest pairing pioneer now! Truly, you rock.
Hear, hear!
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-09 05:51 pm (UTC)Oh no! I hope PT works asap!
at one point I had Fritz's breeches off of him and Mildred informed me that this would have been hard to do (in the rapid timescale of the fic). Historically accurate clothing mechanics in porn for the win!
I love that you're still laughing about this. So am I. :D
My rationale: I'm assuming they're both in full uniform, including boots, for this lunch. It's the middle of the day, and they've both got to get back to work as soon as they're done. This was impromptu sex. To get Fritz's breeches flung into the far corner of the room, they would have to take off his boots first, breeches in the period are fairly tight and non-trivial to remove, and I'm not sure but Fritz might have been wearing gaiters. Are they going to do all that for a quickie blow job/hand job? My verdict as beta was no! (Honestly, they might have just undone the flaps in front of their breeches, especially since underwear wasn't a thing yet, but pulling down the breeches once the flap was unfastened seemed reasonable enough. ;)
Which leads me to my own historical beta question: did Fritz wear gaiters? I would assume so as part of the uniform, but I can't make them out in his paintings, but then I trust neither my eyesight nor the painter, so...this has been bugging me ever since last year, when I wrote the post-Soor fic. I went with the more conservative approach on that occasion, as I always try to do, which was: if he sometimes didn't wear gaiters, then this might be one of those occasions when he didn't bother putting them on. If he never wore gaiters, then having him wear them is an inaccuracy. So no gaiters on that occasion. But it still bugs me.
like mildred says, I COULDN'T UNSEE IT.
Like I said in email, it took a magical alchemy to make this fic happen:
Selena to request the fic.
Me to come up with the idea of hate sex/comfort sex.
Cahn to write it!
And then cahn replied, "Lol, and also you to get rid of weird porn inconsistencies! ALSO HISTORICAL PORN CLOTHING INCONSISTENCIES, which I'm still laughing about!"
Me: "LOOK I DIDN'T RESEARCH PRUSSIAN ARMY UNIFORMS TWICE IN MY LIFE FOR THIS INFO NOT TO GET USED DURING PORN (my 15-yo self is horrified, btw :P My 36-yo self is cackling gleefully)"
Anyhow, I had always meant to write it, but I guess needed that extra push from mildred :P
Haha. Which, as I outlined above, might not have happened to the same extent if not for the misunderstanding over Fritz/Peter Keith (appropriate for a misunderstanding fic, I suppose!) and my desperation to make sure you got a treat from one of us, Selena. :)
So thank you for letting me borrow all your great ideas, cahn!
Btw, Selena, cahn was totally going to have Suhm be the one who gives Fritz the hug and inspires Fredersdorf to realize Fritz needs a hug and needs not to have to ask for it, but I nominated Fouqué, partly on the grounds of variety from mine and partly on other grounds. So we very nearly had 3 simultaneous fics where Suhm acts as a catalyst for Fritz/Fredersdorf action at the same period in Fritz's life!
I like that two of us went for Pannewitz as the White Knight, though. Cahn got the idea from me, and I got it from Selena, back when we were plotting my fix-it fic, and Selena suggested Pannewitz as the one who could trade clothes with Wilhelmine and pretend to be her while Wilhelmine sneaks off from Bayreuth to be with her
first lovebrother in France. So she immediately came to mind when I wanted an illicit flute (I have no idea whether she played, but many people played multiple instruments casually, so by authorial decree she owns a flute :P), and then when we wanted some secret candles.Fouqué, btw, is partly there as an allusion to the candles, which you, Selena, probably picked up on. For those not familiar, Fritz's candle use was strictly limited at Küstrin by FW's decree, but there's an anecdote that when Fouqué came to visit, the guy in charge of extinguishing Fritz's candle left Fouqué's lit, and Fouqué let Fritz use it.
There are also at least two more well-substantiated pieces of evidence for Fritz and illicit reading lights at Küstrin: Fritz himself writing to Wilhelmine that he was reading late at night with a lamp--and we're pretty sure this was during the worst of the imprisonment, pre-Katte's execution--and Lehndorff's report that one of the officers at Küstrin talked about how he extinguished Fritz's candle as ordered, and then immediately re-lit it. So it's not like Fouqué's visit was the only time Fritz got to read at night, which is good because he was only there for a short time, but the connection is there.
And I figure Fouqué, who, as one biographer points out, kind of looks like he was sharing a room with Fritz when he came to visit during the house arrest period, would totally give young Fritz a much-needed hug at a difficult time in his life. <3
Btw, I still looooove touch-starved Fritz getting two long hugs in this fic, that's one of my favorite tropes ever.
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-10 12:17 pm (UTC)Suhm vs Fouqué: I was surprised at the later showing up in a clearly written by Cahn story (along the lines of "but did we mention him to her?"), though I agree variety is good, and yes, Fritz needs all the hugs he can get. (At least neither of you let the hugger be Winterfeldt. ;) )
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-11 04:00 am (UTC)Hee! Ah, but you know who her beta is. ;)
I agree variety is good
I advocated for variety both in the sense of reducing repetition between our fics, and in the sense of showing that young Fritz had a lot of people who were kind to him, not just one or two. They were powerless to change the worst parts of his life, but they snuck music and books and affection into it when they could.
(At least neither of you let the hugger be Winterfeldt. ;) )
Ha! Nor shall we.
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-11 05:15 am (UTC)Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-11 04:24 pm (UTC)OH RIGHT! That was another instance of the magical alchemy. Selena, you came up with your wonderful and very convincing theory for the timing of his sexual harassment of Frau von Pannewitz. Cahn, way back in crackfic days, pointed out that Fredersdorf was tall and FW might be checking him out during the Christmas visit.
It dawned on me while she was writing this fic that these were happening at the same time! So she incorporated "FW not getting any" into her fic. :D
(And of course the servants all know. :P)
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-11 05:04 pm (UTC)Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-12 12:02 am (UTC)Blank book--right! One parallel I meant to point out in our fics is that all three of us had a gift of books.
But I was delighted that you had Fredersdorf getting bribes already and thus able to give *Fritz* books. I mean, we know Fritz was accepting money already, so Fredersdorf could have been too. And I think the idea that Fritz wants to know the going rate was something I came up with a while back, when we were debating about the sources for certain allegations about Fredersdorf and money. ;)
*Obviously* these two were gifting each other books from (nearly) the beginning. <3 Anybody who reads all three of our fics will conclude--correctly!--that it's canon.
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-31 02:31 am (UTC)OMG, I *completely* forgot about this--
Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-08-31 07:31 am (UTC)Re: "How I Survived..." and "A Family Affair"
Date: 2020-09-01 02:17 am (UTC)