18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

[cahn]

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Comments

Re: Backstory!

[mildred_of_midgard]

And when it was perfect (I did good work!) you never admitted it. - Is this meant as selective memory on Heinrich's part, or is your premise that he never got to hear Fritz' praise?

She and I didn't discuss this, so I'll have to wait to see what cahn intended, but I read it as selective memory/hyperbole in the heat of anger, which is exactly how dysfunctional families fight, *cough*, not that I would know. ;)

Me and my sister: "You never let us go anywhere when we were growing up!"

My mother: *enumerates 5 times we were allowed to go somewhere without the school or immediate family supervising*

Me and my sister: "The fact that you can count 18 years' worth of examples on one hand is exactly making our point for us!"

IMO, Heinrich would be a model of self-restraint if he *didn't* say something like "You never!" to Fritz at some point.

ETA: I chatted with my wife about this over breakfast, because our respective dysfunctional familes are a frequent topic of discussion (as with Cahn and me, actually, lol), and we agreed that people say "You never" because it feels *emotionally* true, and then because it's not literally true it opens you up to counterattack. (Actually, if you read books on family therapy and couples therapy, therapists devote a certain amount of time to helping people find more constructive means of communicating their emotional truths to get them out of this unproductive "You never!" "Yes I did!" cycle.) The upshot is that Heinrich felt underappreciated even if there were literal examples of Fritz appreciating him.

I might have gone with the more rococo version myself, precisely because it's so typical for the time period, but I can see why you guys came down on the other choice. It's hard enough to judge tone in the originals.

Yeah, I was torn. Does one translate the words or the meaning? In our discussion, I ended up drawing a parallel between Heinrich's obligatory "my very dear brother" to a brother who was not at all dear to him, mixed feelings notwithstanding, and "Dear Hiring Manager," where the salutation is so obligatory that it loses all meaning. Part of me felt like "My very dear" in modern English would be misleading.

Re: Backstory!

[cahn]

(Actually, if you read books on family therapy and couples therapy, therapists devote a certain amount of time to helping people find more constructive means of communicating their emotional truths to get them out of this unproductive "You never!" "Yes I did!" cycle.)

Oh huhhhhh. I know a reasonable amount about more effective forms of communicating in relationships, but it never really clicked for me that this is how they work better. It's always very educational to talk to you! :)

Re: Backstory!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, I mean, there are lots of failure modes that are addressed by more effective means of communicating in relationships, but one of them is "You never!" "Yes I did!", or, more generally, "Attack!" "Defense and counterattack!"