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

[cahn]

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.

Comments

Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[mildred_of_midgard]

As felis pointed out in the comments, and as I was laughing about with cahn in email (and mob boss AU author on Facebook) even before story reveals, this is definitely the "Let's murder Fritz!" Yuletide. But as I pointed out, it's not the first time. We have:

Yuletide 2019, "Fiat Justitia": Fritz killed in a fit of anger by a close family member, Wilhelmine has to go on a quest for revenge.

Yuletide 2020, "Grind": Fredersdorf tries to convince Fritz that his taste in short-term boyfriends is F-, Fritz doesn't listen, Fritz is murdered by a boyfriend plus a close family member, Wilhelmine has put on her detective hat and also go on a quest for posthumous revenge.

Yuletide 2020, "Valet": Fredersdorf tries to convince Fritz that his taste in short-term boyfriends is F-, Fritz doesn't listen, Fritz is murdered by a boyfriend, Fredersdorf has to put on his detective hat and also go on a quest for rescuing Fritz.

Honorable mention to Ferdinand the unimportant, who showed up in two fics.

Someday it would be great if we had Voltaire crusading for Fritz twice, once when he's dead and once when he's in prison. (Oh, the humiliation.) :D

Re: Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[selenak]

I feel proud to have started the "Let's kill Fritz!" trend. :) And would like to point out we haven't yet exhausted the possibilities. After all, I recall that back whwen I first read Fritz' letter to EC about her brother's death at Soor, I said there should be an Agatha Christie style murder mystery where everyone has a motive, Heinrich is the obvious red herring for who actually did it, but it was really EC the overlooked. Though more seriously, that would mean writing her as essentially an OC, because given all the data we have on her, I just can't see her do it, no matter how provoked. Unless in a mercy killing kind of way, and here's a scenario: as it turns out, there was a second time EC visited Sanssouci, in the weeks before Fritz' death. She saw in how much pain he was, and and remembers how basically FW lived like this for a decade (which she saw a lot of, given she lived with the in-laws mostly for the first few years of her marriage when Fritz was still stationed at Ruppin), and when he's all "I just want to die", for the first time opening up emotionally to her, she's resolved to help him. That's the only way I can see it happening and still be in character for EC.

Re: Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[cahn]

AHAHAHAHA yes EC should totally be the Agatha Christie killer. Since we're super branching into AU now, I would be up for that in an AU! (If all of them lived in the twentieth century, perhaps EC wouldn't be so... EC?)

Awwww, though, I like your mercy killing idea. <3 :(

Re: Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[selenak]

In the 20th century, probably not, but then again, in the later 20th Century, Western World, you'd have to find a reason why Fritz would marry EC to begin with. The mobster AU author did it by making the Hohenzollern a mobster family, but if Fritz is simply the son of a rich workoholic CEO, his father doesn't have the same kind of life and death power over him, and he could just leave and start his own firm somewhere else once life with Dad became unbearable.

Re: Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[mildred_of_midgard]

Fritz dies shortly after becoming king. Grief-stricken EC devotes her life to alchemy. Half mad alchemist EC travels back in time to save his life. He treats her like shit. She strangles him on the spot. Frames Georgii.

The time wars with Fredersdorf begin. :D