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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)
ETA: Whoops, I missed my cue -- this might as well be the next discussion post, I guess! :)
This is about the fic I didn't author (I have another reveals post for the fics I did author).
So my goal this Yuletide was NOT to write any historical fandom (because hard!) and just enjoy the excellent stuff that other people wrote. And... that sort of happened? I didn't end up authoring anything history-intensive? Buuuuut I ended up spending a lot more time than I did on any of my own fics working with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mildred_of_midgard on her fic, which she was worried about being able to pull off because she had had this completely insane idea to write a long casefic about Frederick the Great that every time I turned around had another twist put in :P :) She supplied me with what we called a "rough opal in matrix" bus pass casefic, and I cut away the matrix that remained and in some cases carved the opal -- that is to say, writing additional text for some of the scenes, what we liked to call "putting in feels," and in at least two cases entirely rewriting and/or restructuring the scene she'd written. She didn't always keep what I wrote (which we'd agreed upon in the beginning), but when she did (which was most of the time :) ) she then went in and rewrote/restructured what I put in to wordsmith (some of the words I gave her were really rough) and match her style, adding even more scenes -- that is, polishing it up and adding some gold and diamonds -- and voila, a beautiful pendant, I mean, story :)
I'm really proud of it and also it was really fun and also what I could handle this year, especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard and also wrote all the parts involving actual history or subtle AU before I was brought in so I didn't actually have to know historical stuff (though I guess I will never forget the battle of Leuthen now), and took full responsibility for how the whole thing turned out, so all I had to do was be like "Here, I'll write some rough feels for you for this scene!" The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) ) She started jokingly calling me her "other self," to which I replied that it was with 1000% less angst and frustration -- as Frederick the Great's brother was his "other self" (which actually comes up in the fic) that he could trust to do all kinds of competent things, but they had a relationship that was, um, fraught? radioactive? Whereas this was just fun :)
Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author, but hey, ~3000 words is a respectable Yuletide fic length :)
Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small (30384 words) by mildred_of_midgard
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Anna Amalie von Preußen & Wilhelmine von Preußen, Anna Amalie von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen, Wilhelmine von Preußen & Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia
Characters: Anna Amalie von Preußen (1723-1787), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758), Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1732-1780), Wilhelmine von Hesse-Kassel (1726-1808), August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Alcmene 1 | Frederick the Great's Italian Greyhound, Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Suicide, Alternate Universe - Dark, Siblings, Canon-Typical Violence, Mystery, Tide of History Challenge
Summary:
This is about the fic I didn't author (I have another reveals post for the fics I did author).
So my goal this Yuletide was NOT to write any historical fandom (because hard!) and just enjoy the excellent stuff that other people wrote. And... that sort of happened? I didn't end up authoring anything history-intensive? Buuuuut I ended up spending a lot more time than I did on any of my own fics working with
mildred_of_midgard on her fic, which she was worried about being able to pull off because she had had this completely insane idea to write a long casefic about Frederick the Great that every time I turned around had another twist put in :P :) She supplied me with what we called a "rough opal in matrix" bus pass casefic, and I cut away the matrix that remained and in some cases carved the opal -- that is to say, writing additional text for some of the scenes, what we liked to call "putting in feels," and in at least two cases entirely rewriting and/or restructuring the scene she'd written. She didn't always keep what I wrote (which we'd agreed upon in the beginning), but when she did (which was most of the time :) ) she then went in and rewrote/restructured what I put in to wordsmith (some of the words I gave her were really rough) and match her style, adding even more scenes -- that is, polishing it up and adding some gold and diamonds -- and voila, a beautiful pendant, I mean, story :)I'm really proud of it and also it was really fun and also what I could handle this year, especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard and also wrote all the parts involving actual history or subtle AU before I was brought in so I didn't actually have to know historical stuff (though I guess I will never forget the battle of Leuthen now), and took full responsibility for how the whole thing turned out, so all I had to do was be like "Here, I'll write some rough feels for you for this scene!" The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) ) She started jokingly calling me her "other self," to which I replied that it was with 1000% less angst and frustration -- as Frederick the Great's brother was his "other self" (which actually comes up in the fic) that he could trust to do all kinds of competent things, but they had a relationship that was, um, fraught? radioactive? Whereas this was just fun :)
Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author, but hey, ~3000 words is a respectable Yuletide fic length :)
Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small (30384 words) by mildred_of_midgard
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Anna Amalie von Preußen & Wilhelmine von Preußen, Anna Amalie von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen, Wilhelmine von Preußen & Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia
Characters: Anna Amalie von Preußen (1723-1787), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758), Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1732-1780), Wilhelmine von Hesse-Kassel (1726-1808), August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Alcmene 1 | Frederick the Great's Italian Greyhound, Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Suicide, Alternate Universe - Dark, Siblings, Canon-Typical Violence, Mystery, Tide of History Challenge
Summary:
January 1758. Prince William is dead, some say of a broken heart. Frederick wants to absolve himself of blame for William's death. Henry schemes to end the Third Silesian War on his terms. Amalie and Wilhelmine team up to find out what really happened to their brother. Alcmene just wants to be told she's a good dog.
Re: Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)
We’ve got a very eloquent Crown Prince, haven’t we?
LOL
They use “Du” for each other btw. Not that that will be important for too long.
Lolsob.
I love your brother; that I am his friend is my greatest reason for happiness on this earth, the meaning of my existence even. In a very heterosexual way.
*dies*
I was a law student, which is somehow relevant
LOLOLOL
Wilhelmine has never considered that before.
And will never, I suspect.
Katte: “Alright, but please don’t leave before you reach Wesel, it won’t be safe.”
Wilhelmine: “Listen to the nice man, Fritz, wait until Wesel.”
This is exactly what I was going to bring up during the "What would Fritz do with time travel?" discussion: Selena proposed leaving earlier on the south Germany trip, and I've been meaning to ask why? Given the geography, everyone (at least Katte that I know of) was trying to get Fritz to wait until Wesel. Fritz's great besetting sin in life was not putting things off, it was jumping the gun. (I totally understand why he did on this occasion, but.)
That said, it so happens that in thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that Wesel specifically might have been too late: it was when FW got to Gueldern that he discovered Peter Keith had deserted. Given that he'd sent Peter to Wesel earlier that year specifically because he knew Peter was helping Fritz with his escape plans, this discover might have been enough to make FW tighten the guard on Fritz before he had a chance to sneak out of Wesel. (Again, I understand why Fritz feared putting it off until it was too late and would rather give himself multiple opportunities, and of course I understand his inability to wait one more day, even beside his normal "I'd rather be a hammer than an anvil" personality, as one biographer put it.)
See the chronology map I put together.
Keith is an unreliable Scotsman
Hello, 1914 Germany!
Wilhelmine: “That owls scream when they see light.”
Ha! This is so Wilhelmine; her memoirs are full of things like this.
Because literally everyone in this play is super into Katte. Wilhelmine is the least into Katte and she’s supposedly in love with him.
LOL FOREVER
Katte is also not done by simply saying “The Crown Prince allowed me to copy it, I made it, it’s mine”, no-o, this Katte apparently said that he “would rather die than give up Wilhelmine’s image”. Wilhelmine swoons a little at that and I believe I saw a glimpse of my own brain while rolling my eyes.
LOL FOREVER SQUARED
Katte: “Funny is a word that is hard to define, but apparently the rest of the court had a blast listening to me talking about figuring out my horse’s dietary restrictions after it almost died. I don’t get it either, maybe I’m just that charming.”
Okay, so...are the horse's dietary restrictions your own invention or is this in the play? I must know!
Because fuck what happens to Fritz, I guess. Having feelings that are consistent for more than two lines is hard for me."
LOLOLOL I AM DEAD FROM LOLZ
Katte says that he doesn’t need it anymore because he will get arrested.
Wow. That's...something.
Thank you for this, this is so great!
Re: Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)
I don't disagree with you on geography, and that Wesel would have been the perfect transition point on that count because he can go to the Netherlands from there right away. But time travelling Fritz would know that the game was essentially up by then already, not just for him but also Katte and Keith, whereas no one expects him to make a run for it earlier. And the Rhineland principalities and free cities are full of anti-Prussian feeling, while Ansbach, where they wanted to visit his sister, after all, is like neighboring Bayreuth surrounded by Catholic Church territory where FW has pissed off the Prince Bishops by kidnapping some of their taller subjects. Meaning: they might not be so eager to help FW pursue and arrest his fleeing son.
Re: Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)
Indeed! :D I've got to admit, as dumb as this play is: Wilhelmine is done rather well overall (apart from the whole Katte part). She gets some great lines and is generally entertaining. The memoirs appear to be Burte's main primary source and are quoted verbatim at times, but for reasons unknown he does not mention the "Katte, that absolute dumbass, gave me a letter in plain view of Fr. v. Ramen"-scene :P
are the horse's dietary restrictions your own invention or is this in the play? I must know!
I wish I had made this up, but they really are in the play! Katte told people "My horse got terribly sick when we fed it scraps of the bread the army gets, now that we eat all the bread ourselves it's doing great" and people in Monbijou thought it was hilarious. Not even just a small chuckle like "Lol, the army bread sucks", no, he appears to be the star of the party with this story. Katte is also very confused as to why people reacted like that. It's almost as if the "we all think Katte is a swell guy"-algorhythm malfunctioned :'D