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cahnIn the previous post Charles II found AITA:
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-24 05:50 pm (UTC)...This is putting Tiny Terror FW throwing a chamberlain out the window into the shade!
Tiny Terror FW was a hands-on guy who didn't need no stinking weapons! What's up with all the guns, bow and arrow and knife stuff, Karl Emil? And if Fritz ever did hear about the family legend, it might indeed have induced him to see Ferdinand in that vein if my head canon is true. However, given Karl Emil died so young, I doubt it. I mean, FW himself was born years later, he never knew any of his uncles except for the Schwedt half uncles, who were more his own generation, and I doubt F1 when talking about his beloved dead brother mentioned he used to be a Tiny Terror as a kid.
Dorothea being married for twelve years without a child in her first marriage, then producing lots of kids iwth the Elector:
Huh! Do we know if her husband had fathered any other children, legitimate or illegitimate?
He did not, and if he had, history might have gone very different, for her first husband was, drumroll, Christian Ludwig, whose younger brothers included Georg Wilhelm (of Celle) and Ernst August (of Hannover, husband of Sophie).
Émilie did not cross dress (except in my Rossini opera fiction), as far as I know.
Bedfellows: In fairness, sharing a bed with someone of the same sex in the 17th century for royals really wasn't, by itself, erotically connotated. Remember, these people never slept alone. Especially when young. In addition to the valet (or maid) in the same room or just behind the door, you also had governors/ governesses or stewards sharing the beds of young royals. Sharing a bed with a lady-in-waiting - especially in a country where it's cold - does not have necessarily to signify anything beyond that lady being a trusted and favored member of the royal household. HOWEVER, in the specific case of Christina and Ebba Sparre, you have this and the emo letters and her (Ebba) being married by her family and then later, the one time where Christina comes back to Sweden, not allowed to meet her, and it definitely looks like people in insisting they were just gal pals and couldn't have been anything else are stretching things.
Christina and the hot Cardinal Azzolino:
<3 I... kind of like the idea of them being platonic life partners, although I suppose that's less likely than not.
For what it's worth: In a letter on 26 January 1676 to Azzolino Christina writes (in French) that she would never offend God or give Azzolino reason to take offense, but this "does not prevent me from loving you until death, and since piety relieves you from being my lover, then I relieve you from being my servant, for I shall live and die as your slave."
Christina's mother:
Wow, this was amazingly close to the way Juana was accused of being mad.
What I thought. So the question is, did Maria Eleonora take Juana as her role model, or did Oxtierna take Juana's father Ferdinand as his role model in how to freeze out a Queen you don't want anywhere near power, or was it sheer coincidence?
All the executing and none of the governing responsibilities, I see! Someone wants to have her throne and abdicate it too.
No kiddng. (In addition to Poland, she also at one point offered herself as a candidate for the throne of Naples.) And the execution episode really had everyone going WTF? To quote wiki:
On 15 October 1657 apartments were assigned to her at the Palace of Fontainebleau, where she committed an action that stained her memory: the execution of marchese Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi, her master of the horse and formerly leader of the French party in Rome. For two months she had suspected Monaldeschi of disloyalty; she secretly seized his correspondence, which revealed that he had betrayed her interests. Christina gave three packages of letters to Le Bel, a priest, to keep them for her in custody. Three days later, at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, she summoned Monaldeschi into the Galerie des Cerfs, discussing the matter and letters with him. He insisted that betrayal should be punished with death. She was convinced that he had pronounced his own death sentence. After an hour or so Le Bel was to receive his confession. Both Le Bel and Monaldeschi entreated for mercy, but he was stabbed by her domestics – notably Ludovico Santinelli – in his stomach and in his neck. Wearing his coat of mail, which protected him, he was chased around in an adjacent room before they finally succeeded in dealing him a fatal wound in his throat. "In the end, he died, confessing his infamy and admitting [Santinelli's] innocence, protesting that he had invented the whole fantastic story in order to ruin [him]." Father Le Bel was told to have him buried inside the church, and Christina, seemingly unfazed, paid an abbey to say a number of Masses for his soul. She "was sorry that she had been forced to undertake this execution, but claimed that justice had been carried out for his crime and betrayal.
Mazarin, who had sent her old friend Chanut, advised Christina to place the blame due to a brawl among courtiers, but she insisted that she alone was responsible for the act.
The other two women buried in the Grotte Vaticane are Matilda of Tuscany, one of the most remarkable and powerful ladies of the Middle Ages who certainly saved Pope Gregory's butt more than once in his clashes with Emperor Henry IV (she also was the one who brokered the Canossa meeting), and, wait for it... Maria Clementina Sobieska, mother of Bonnie Prince Charlie. What she did to deserve the honor is somewhat beyond me, though.
Struensee: all the talk about Christina made me type "Sweden" when I meant "Denmark" - Struensee was reforming Denmark and executed for his trouble, not Sweden.
The Chevalier Balde is also interesting, thank you! Especially her treating him as a madman as an act of mercy, in a way.
If you recall how the guy who tried to knife Louis XV was executed just four years later (drawn and quartered, with additional torture like hot iron dropping into orifices), definitely an act of mercy.
thus explaining why I'm not really into Fritz/Suhm
Well, me neither, but then again there's also an age gap of a similar size between Fritz and Voltaire. :) (In fact, I haven't looked it up, so I'm just guessing, but from what I recall Voltaire was only four years younger or thereabouts than FW and thus definitely could have been Fritz' father, in terms of age gap.) I mean, aside from the very different emotions involved, there is of course the difference that Fritz and Voltaire did not meet until Fritz was very much an adult, and Suhm knew Fritz as a teen.
Joan dying on the battle field is a fix it when compared to burning alive, but NOT FOR LOVE!
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-25 01:43 am (UTC)HAHAHAHA. :D
However, given Karl Emil died so young, I doubt it.
Oh, I agree. I was saying it reminds *us* of your Ferdinand headcanon. What I think is that maybe Fritz heard all the stories about how Karl Emil was the greatest, and that that influenced him to suggest it as a name. I don't think he heard anything about bows and arrows. :P
He did not
Okay, so probably sterile, which is why she was able to be more prolific in her next marriage.
for her first husband was, drumroll, Christian Ludwig, whose younger brothers included Georg Wilhelm (of Celle) and Ernst August (of Hannover, husband of Sophie).
Aaahh!
Émilie did not cross dress (except in my Rossini opera fiction), as far as I know.
Same, but given her alleged dueling with a sword, it's a possibility!
If so, we know she *also* liked dressing up in fancy feminine clothes, so she can join that club.
Bedfellows: In fairness, sharing a bed with someone of the same sex in the 17th century for royals really wasn't, by itself, erotically connotated.
Or even apparently in the American South for aristocratic ladies, in the 1860s or 1930s or both, judging by Gone with the Wind, where all the young ladies pile up on the beds for a midday nap, and nobody suggests it's a lesbian orgy. :P
Sharing a bed with a lady-in-waiting - especially in a country where it's cold
Which is exactly why I had female Marwitz warming Wilhelmine's bed in the non-sexy sense in one of my fics!
So the question is, did Maria Eleonora take Juana as her role model, or did Oxtierna take Juana's father Ferdinand as his role model in how to freeze out a Queen you don't want anywhere near power, or was it sheer coincidence?
I have no idea, but it's a really fascinating question! Considering what happened to Juana, I have to assume door number 2 is more likely than door number 1, but could be a coincidence too.
wait for it... Maria Clementina Sobieska, mother of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Ah, I should have remembered that! But she never invaded anywhere, so I know less about her than about her husband and older son. (I wasn't in a fandom with you to flesh out my battle maps with family dynamics. :) )
Struensee: all the talk about Christina made me type "Sweden" when I meant "Denmark" - Struensee was reforming Denmark and executed for his trouble, not Sweden.
I had Charles XII conquering Sweden instead of Saxony in one of my posts (that reminds me, I need to find that in Rheinsberg and fix it), as noted in a recent email to you and Cahn. :D
If you recall how the guy who tried to knife Louis XV was executed just four years later (drawn and quartered, with additional torture like hot iron dropping into orifices), definitely an act of mercy.
I was thinking of Damiens when you said that FW's Berlin wouldn't have been as forgiving of an assassination attempt as MT's Vienna! Not Louis XV's Paris, either!
The prisoner was placed, around five o’clock, on a scaffold eight and a half feet square. They tied him with heavy cords held by iron rings which immobilised his arms and his thighs. They started by burning his hand in a brazier filled with burning sulphur. Then they took red-hot pincers and tore at his flesh on his arms, his thighs and his chest. They poured molten lead and pitch and boiling oil on all his wounds. These tortures dragged from him the most frightful screams.
Four vigorous horses, whipped on by four executioners’ assistants, pulled with cords on the bleeding and flaming wounds of the patient; these pullings lasted an hour. His limbs stretched but did not part. The executioners finally cut some muscles. His limbs parted one after the other. Damiens, having lost two legs and an arm, was still breathing, and did not expire until his other arm was separated from his bleeding trunk. The limbs and the trunk were thrown on a pyre ten feet from the scaffold.
Remember: "The individual being tortured is Robert-François Damiens, an evidently mentally ill man who tried to assassinate Louis XV with a pocketknife, but only gave him a scratch."
thus explaining why I'm not really into Fritz/Suhm
Well, me neither, but then again there's also an age gap of a similar size between Fritz and Voltaire... and Suhm knew Fritz as a teen.
Ha. This is another example where a dynamic is enough for me to ship people even if I'm not particularly interested in Suhm as an individual. He scratches a very specific itch for me, which involves an age gap combined with a praise kink.
And while I certainly hope nothing inappropriate happened when Fritz was a child or teen, the earliest emo letters we have between them are when Fritz is 24, so plenty old enough to consent. And FWIW, my headcanon for them is the praise-kink and hand-kissing dynamic of the early Voltaire days, without the later saltiness. Not sexy times.
I realize it's not for everyone! But this has been an iddy thing for me for so long that the moment Suhm came along, he fell into that same pre-formed slot with others of his ilk and got insta-shipped. :DDD
Joan dying on the battle field is a fix it when compared to burning alive, but NOT FOR LOVE!
I think we can all agree on that!
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-28 05:31 am (UTC)I thought of the duel thing! I'm not convinced that the dueling is actually attested (do we have anything resembling proof?) but presumably if it did happen she would have been wearing some kind of men's clothing -- but there being a rumor about it maybe means that it's not totally unlikely?
(whoops, hit button too soon) and did not expire until his other arm was separated from his bleeding trunk.
AGH!
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-28 11:11 am (UTC)Meaning: of course it was way more comfortable to duel in male clothing, but it wasn't impossible to duel in female clothing in the 18th century!
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-28 02:14 pm (UTC)Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-28 05:27 am (UTC)Aww. I platonically-ship it! :D
Well, me neither, but then again there's also an age gap of a similar size between Fritz and Voltaire. :)
Heeeee, true! I feel like Fritz/Voltaire is a special case because I kiiiiind of don't take them seriously as a ship and that's actually what attracts me about it? Like, they are just so over-the-top and I think they're hilarious and cute but also not a real canon ship but also Voltaire wrote a whole fanfic epistolary novel with super gay tropes. Like. What do you even do with these guys?? Even though age gap is usually really not my thing, here I'm kind of like, wow, age gap is the least of their worries!
Joan dying on the battle field is a fix it when compared to burning alive, but NOT FOR LOVE!
PREACH IT.
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-02-28 11:24 am (UTC)Not to mention that we all agreed ages ago that since neither of them would ever shut up, the most sexual thing that could ever have happened even under the best of circumstances would have been a hand job. :) (More seriously, I'm with Mildred in that I think hand kissing and mutual praise-plus-insult was it for them.
I kiiiiind of don't take them seriously as a ship
Whereas the same editor Richter who insists that Fritz loved three-years-older Fredersdorf as a father loved his son grudgingly declares Fritz/Voltaire to have been "an intellectual love affair" ("eine intellektuelle Liebesbeziehung"), though with Fritz as the woobie who did all the suffering in said intellectual romance and Voltaire as the heartless slut breaking our hero's heart. ("Begleiten wir den König eine Weile auf seinem Leidensweg.")
I think one reason why the age gap basically isn't a factor for Fritz/Voltaire, in addition to them not meeting in person until Fritz is nearly 30, is what appeals to me about this craziest of Frederician ships in general - they come across as equals in all regards (despite Fritz having all the social power, but that's only a factor in the pamphlet burning and Frankfurt arrest, not for the rest of their lives). Voltaire isn't more mature emotionally (is he ever). And I think Fritz means it when in one of the post 7 Years letters he writers "you're younger than me", referring to Voltaire's energy and unbroken ability to tackle new things and be creative. Voltaire might have complained he was at death's door from childhood onwards, but he truly had a remarkable life force, and Fritz was emotionally and physically exhausted after the 7 Years War in a way that had rapidly aged him in his own perception and others. Also, while Voltaire didn't have armies at his disposal, he did have words, and did he ever how to use them damagingly if he wanted so. So: equals, years of birth not withstanding.
Re: collected replies from the last post
Date: 2022-03-04 06:36 am (UTC)HAHAHAHAHAHA
what appeals to me about this craziest of Frederician ships in general - they come across as equals in all regards
Yes! That's so true -- what squicks me out about age gaps is the power differential, and that just super isn't a factor in this ship. (I imagine this is also why I tend to very much prefer my loyalty relationships as platonic or UST rather than as a straight ship -- though in this case, loyalty relationships are so my jam that I'm willing to put up with the power differential in the ship if I have to. But they never really are my OTP, whereas the platonic or UST-y versions are often my favorites.)