cahn | 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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Preuss actually quotes a couple of lines from her unpublished letters in the footnotes to explain what Fritz is talking about, instead of just including the letters themselves. Sigh.

Lehndorff also mentions her greeted and hugged by Fritz upon his return post 7 Years War

Yeah, I definitely had to think of this Lehndorff entry when Fritz repeatedly told her in his letters that he would do that, so she could "prepare for it". :D

Speaking of Lehndorff, I checked what he had to say on the occasion of her death in 1766 and it's very complimentary:

Countess Camas, the Queen's Oberhofmeisterin, died at the age of 80. This venerable woman should have lived centuries. I have never known a woman of such perfection; a dignified, cheerful, kind, and magnificent character; everything about her was perfect and remained so despite her age. Until the last moments of her life, she retained her freshness of mind. I will mourn her all my life and forever miss what I lost in her. The queen's court ought to mourn her forever, for all its splendor has died out with her. The king loved and respected her. She was the only lady His Majesty distinguished and yet she never got above herself, on the contrary, she knew how to assess everything according to its correct value.

And then there was the whole EC hits Wartensleben with a fan incident, where his and Countess Camas' reaction was to find a quiet spot for themselves and talk about Candide.

Will be back with some letter excerpts!

Will be back with some letter excerpts!

Yay! It's awesome that we have different people in the salon reading and reporting on different selections of the correspondence, so that no one person has to read all those volumes. :)

Preuss actually quotes a couple of lines from her unpublished letters in the footnotes to explain what Fritz is talking about, instead of just including the letters themselves. Sigh.

Sigh indeed. Because of course Preuss thinks readers would only care about the Fritz part of the correspondence. :(

I definitely had to think of this Lehndorff entry when Fritz repeatedly told her in his letters that he would do that, so she could "prepare for it". :D

On the one hand, aw. On the other, if he could plan his gestures at the post war big welcoming reception in such detail, you'd think he'd been able to come up with a bland nice remark for EC as well since it was inevitable he'd see her there with all ears and eyes on them. I mean, I have a headcanon as to what went on inside him on that occasion, but that's mere speculation.

And yes, Lehndorff was definitely a fan, and I haven't found a biographer who had to say anything negative about her, either, both of the hero worshipping and the deconstructing type. Incidentally, does Fritz write "Maman" from the start, or does this come after SD's death? I've always wondered.

I'd be interested in that headcanon! And I'll include the whole quote in context later, but I just wanted to clarify that the "plan" is from early 1762 and more teasing and wanting to see her again, not related to any official end of war receptions at that point.

re: "maman" - he uses that from the start! There's even one where he's talking about both of them - maman vs. mère - which was a tad confusing for a moment. My subjective impression was that he got even more affectionate and clingy after SD's death, but there's of course no way to tell if that wasn't just due to his general state of mind during the war, particularly because there aren't any letters between 1745 and november 1760.

Headcanon: It has to do with PTSD, seven years of war, this being the first public occasion where he has to represent again not in front of the soldiers but in front of civilians and the alas tried and true kicking down mechanism of stress relief.

re: "maman" - he uses that from the start!

That is fascinating. Especially since SD was so much on the lookout for possible rivals in her son's affections otherwise - I mean, the entire early reaction to EC was based on that as much as snobbery (hence it settling down once Fritz had made it clear that SD would come first in Prussia nad with him). You'd think she'd resent Fritz calling someone else Mom?

You'd think she'd resent Fritz calling someone else Mom?

If this was more about status than emotional connection, she probably wouldn't have seen Countess Camas as a rival, unlike the actual (future) Queen? I don't know enough about SD to judge the difference.

My understanding is that it was normal for nobles/royals to call their governesses "Mama," *and*, as we know, it's normal for the Queen to outrank the Queen Mother, so I think it's entirely likely EC was a potential threat and Countess Camas wasn't.

Sigh indeed. Because of course Preuss thinks readers would only care about the Fritz part of the correspondence. :(

PREUSS!! I still haven't forgiven him for not including the letter from Suhm's brother to Fritz reporting Suhm's death in detail, but rather starting the published exchange with Fritz's response. I HOPE that letter is still out there in some archive.

This is like Richter going, "No one cares about Fredersdorf. These letters are just to highlight how great Fritz is!"

Grrr.

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

Re: Addendum Camas Letters