Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 21

[cahn]

Much slower because of world-events/Life-in-general/Yuletide/holidays, but still going!

End of Yuletide signups:
4 requests for Frederician RPF :D :D 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 2 offers (I hope we did not scare you off, third offer!)

Comments

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[cahn]

Same here (as what mildred said)! I do want to reply to this and in general I'm sorry I haven't been around much (or really at all), but I should be around quite a bit more in salon in January <3

Oil Paint Attempt #1

[prinzsorgenfrei]

In a fit of procrastination-productivity I dug out my unopened oil paint and my free sample painting paper and tried some stuff. What happened was Katte because the piece of paper was rather small and there's this one closeup of his face that I could use as a reference.

Overall I liked it a lot better than the acrylic paint I used for poor Fredersdorf, so I might paint over that one at some point... Give him Face #4 :'D
The fact that oil paint takes ages to dry was a blessing and a curse and I definitely need to get used to working dark to light and not putting my hand onto the canvas (there's black paint all over everything I love). The result, like Fredersdorf, has its problems (we do not talk about the left side of his face) but I like it well enought so far ^^

Re: Oil Paint Attempt #1

[mildred_of_midgard]

KATTE! <333

I love your procrastination-productivity, it's the best! :D And I continue to be amazed at your ability to produce things like this. It continues to be sufficiently advanced art to be indistinguishable from magic to me!

there's black paint all over everything I love

Lol, I always appreciate getting insight into your artistic struggles, so different from the writerly struggles I'm used to.

Thank you for sharing, and looking forward to more, as always!

Re: Oil Paint Attempt #1

[selenak]

That is one gorgeous Katte, Maestra! I continue to appreciate how much we lucked out that you share your art with us. *cheers*

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[felis]

No worries, guys, good luck on everyone's Yuletide and other endeavours!

One question, though ... if I run across something in my readings that I'd like to talk about, should I collect it for later posting to prevent distraction? ;)

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ooh, good question. I'd like to *think* I could star it for later like I have with the unanswered comments so far, but depending on what you say, and if Selena joins in...it could get hard. ;)

But if Selena wants to chat this month, I don't want to rain on her party, so I will leave it up to you two. Only two and a half more weeks until I'm free, anyway! (At which point other people have family and holidays, but hey. That'll give me time to chip away at my backlog.) and German, oh, god, I haven't done German in weeks *low-key panic*

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[selenak]

Don't lead us into temptation, I say. ;) Also I'm dead exhausted from the combination of rl business and fannish engagement. I haven't resorted to Kaffee mit Senf yet, but I'm cautiously eying something...

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Heee. Okay, salon is officially on hiatus until January! (Our first real hiatus in almost 1.8 million words of discussion since August 2019.) If anyone has anything to say, we'll save it up and post it next month.

Exception: fanart, keep it coming. <33 (Since it doesn't promote lengthy discussion, and I want to encourage it with ongoing enthusiasm!)

Re: Back to decorating my apartment

[cahn]

Lol, this was totally me WHEN SEEING THIS ARTWORK :P

Re: Oil Paint Attempt #1

[cahn]

This is so great! I LOVE seeing your art :D I am looking forward to the time when you have produced enough artwork that your apartment is papered with Fritz boyfriends :D

Aw, I really like the way you've shadowed his face!

Re: More on von der Groeben...

[cahn]

Don't lead us into temptation, I say. ;)

I'd been about to say it's all the same to me either way as I have no time to reply either, but... heh, good point.

Opened up a new post

[cahn]

Sorry, I completely messed this up and it occurred to me that some people might still be tracking this post instead -- since we were already having Frederician fic discussion in the post I made a couple of days ago, I just turned that one into the new discussion post, so conversation is taking place there. :)

https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/181432.html

Re: Early Education

[mildred_of_midgard]

I think this is in a "best that could be done under the circumstances" manner, not in a "huh, we're similar after all" manner.

I agree, I don't think FW was ever able to see anything but superficialities in his children (in people in general, I suspect). I do wonder what he thought of Heinrich/how much he paid attention enough to perceive his personality and interests, given that Heinrich, who was only 14 when his father died and wasn't under the paternal microscope, was ready to die on the hill of "Dad was the WORST." I mean, part of that is Heinrich's inner terrier meeting Amalie's, but it is interesting.

Meanwhile, the "I have to be a mirror" quote felis gave us from the Duhan correspondance is incredibly self aware on Fritz' part.

While Fritz did have moments of incredible self-awareness, this particular observation strikes me as something that would have been impossible for him to miss. There are people who will instinctively mirror their surroundings, not be aware they're doing it, be really good at it, and be silently dying inside and wondering why. Then there are people who have to be beaten, locked up, and threatened with death to get them to mirror in the first place, they have to make heroic efforts to do it every single time, which lapse the moment they're alone, they're really bad at it, such that Dad knows damn well they're faking, and they're constantly hyper-aware that they're doing this thing that they not only hate, but that goes against the grain so much that they're barely capable of doing it at all.

This quote's been on my radar since before salon, from MacDonogh and at least one of the Fritzian documentaries I watched/skimmed, and has long formed part of my understanding of Fritzian psychology (and fortunately didn't have to be thrown away like most of the Catt material!).

Note also this part of the quote: unfortunately subjected to the sad need to conform to the bizarreness of the objects that present themselves. I read that as him saying that his playacting goes incredibly against the grain.

*hug for Fritz*

Re: Fritz-Duhan Follow-Up

[mildred_of_midgard]

...is this the diss to FW that I think it is?

Like felis, that's how I take it! Go Fritz.

Re: Fritz-Duhan Follow-Up

[mildred_of_midgard]

Also: in fairness, as Mildred has often said, it's FW who is the unorthodox person here.

I'm just going to say it again: FW is a fish out of water in his place and time!

the Old Dessauer, who supposedly had his sons raised with minimum to no education at all to see what would happen. (Says Lehndorff when writing about one of the sons: the result was such that we should hope no prince will ever try such foolery again.)

Hahaha, well, Lehndorff is not wrong, because Horowski tells me that this is exactly what happened with Ferdinand III/IV of Sicily/Naples, who was married to Maria Carolina of Austria, one of MT's daughters. His tutors were instructed by his father (the king of Spain) to teach him hunting, but not overstrain his mind. So he ended up with the impulse control and interests of your average 4 year old: playing chase, putting marmalade in people's hats, tickling the ambassadors, etc.

When Joseph II, while madly touring Europe, came to visit, Horowski reports this amazing anecdote (courtesy I *think* of British envoy William Hamilton, though I would need to check and I don't have time):

They're at a ball. Ferdinand isn't into dancing, because it exceeds his impulse control abilities. He's running around, romping, playing chase, racing up and down the hall, like a toddler. He's all sweaty when he runs into Joseph. As a gesture of affection toward his brother-in-law, he puts his hand on Joseph butt.

Joseph, who's been tolerantly putting up with the antics during his stay, freezes, gives Ferdinand A Look, and removes the hand. A diplomatic incident nearly ensues, because Ferdinand's never been told no before, and he's staring in horror at Joseph like the ground has fallen down from beneath his feet. If you're not allowed to put your sweaty hand on the Holy Roman Emperor's butt, what *are* you allowed to do?

Diplomatic crisis is averted by Ferdinand the easily distracted spotting the delightfully ticklish ambassador and running off to give chase.

MT, by all accounts, was horrified by Joseph's account of the man her daughter was married to, and *she* nearly incited an international incident.

Daughter Maria Carolina: If you upset him, it might result in him not getting me pregnant, and then where will the succession be? I got this, Mom, chill.
MC: *has seventeen children*
MC: *runs the country*

Re: Fritz-Duhan Follow-Up

[mildred_of_midgard]

I feel like Fritz is extremely sensitive to perceived criticism (part of having anxiety disorders) and likely to perceive things as criticism even if they're not meant that way. I also suspect that this would be exacerbated when he's under stress, So I could easily see a double whammy of "You haven't written your wife" and "It's your fault her brother's dead" putting him on the defensive, all the more so when his emotional support dogs, books, and flutes are gone. (Not saying AW said it was Fritz's fault, but if he's in a hypersensitive mood, that's exactly how "died in your service" is going to come across to our guy with PTSD.)

I remember your conclusion at the time ws that Fritz decided to write a letter to ensure now one else ever pesters him into writing a condolence letter again

Lol, I'd forgotten about that, but yes, I did make that joke. Alas! I fear his self-awareness was not that good.

Re: Fritz-Duhan Follow-Up

[mildred_of_midgard]

That "asteure" is weird to me! I mean, not just because it stumped me (which it did until reading your french text) but because I would have figured it would have been rendered as three separate words, even if the spelling of them was garbled. But maybe Fritz looked at it like a contraction or something.

I don't know if 18th century French had the sheer amount of elision that modern French does, but I would absolutely not expect someone spelling French phonetically to consistently separate the words. It's been argued by phonologists that modern French doesn't have word-level stress but only phrase-level stress, meaning that phonologically the phrase is more of a conceptual unit than the words. Fritz's spelling here might actually be evidence that the phenomenon had already begun 300 years ago, but with only a single data point, I can't say.

(added to his natural capacity to be extremely awfully bad at picking kidstaff...)

You mean accidentally extremely good. :D But, yeah, as Selena says, FW being a fish out of water means that it would be very hard for him to find anyone who was a hundred percent on board with his educational program.