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

Early modern European fantasy

[telophase]

Hello! Here from the thread over at rachelmanija. The context is that mildred_of_midgard mentioned Victor Amadeus II consolidating several provinces into a centralized state, which made me perk up and go "Hey! There's a character in the background of the Novel I Am Currently Editing whose ultimate plan is to basically do exactly that and who is starting to lay the groundwork at the end of this story, and that looks like something I should maybe read about because I really have very little idea where to go from here."

The book--really a novella and a direct sequel novel, which is, you know, terribly marketable--is secondary world fantasy in which the worldbuilding is somewhat based on roughly the era of the Thirty Years' War, with inspiration from earlier and later as plot/world/characters accrete in my head. For example, I swiped the major/minor guild political setup from Renaissance Florence, and took inspiration for political unrest from the Ciompi Revolt. As I'm also writing extruded fantasy product, I have a guild of mercenaries angling for political power and a vote on that being a driving force.

My background is in anthropology, and I'm on more solid ground with social history than political or military history, so naturally my male main character is a mercenary and my female main character is the daughter of a major political power. Oops. (I also hate Magic Systems and prefer magic numinous so of course the FMC is a scholar of "esoteric sciences," because I planned that out really well. Sigh.) The Victor Amadeus II (or other) thing would come in as a bit of background for the sequel, and as something for me to use to work out motivations for the FMC's father and brother as I'm editing this one. Obviously, knowing more would help y'all recommend sources for me, but I'm sort of loath to hang all my worldbuilding out in public, for no specific reason. mildred_of_midgard suggested I ask for a locked, tagged post. (I'm kind of intimidated to stroll in and immediately ask people to accommodate me, but, uh. Well.)

A couple of interesting things I've found while reading around--my writing process appears to be coming up with a vague sketchy outline of characters, then reading random history and social history that piques my interest until I've stolen enough random bits that cohere into a Thing.

I'm a systems librarian at a university by day, found the ebook of this in our collection, and bought the print copy as a reward to myself for finishing the draft: Warriors for a Living: The Experience of the Spanish Infantry during the Italian Wars, 1494-1559. From which I was very interested to discover that mutiny was treated more as a labor dispute action and not the desperate last resort it's viewed as today. It also has a chapter on how to sack a city!

I also recently found the book Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia, which has given me Ideas for my MMC's background and family.

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hi and welcome and this is all awesome! I have emailed cahn requesting a locked post when she has time. No need to feel intimidated--it was my idea! Like I said: we plot fiction in salon, and sometimes we (or the two of us who are collaborating on exchange fic for the third member of our trio) have to do it locked.

I'm going to hold off on replying until we have the locked post, so we can keep discussion in one place, but I'm super looking forward to it!

Full disclosure: the Thirty Years' War is a little before my period, but I can talk somewhat about 17th and 18th century centralization, and selenak will know way more whenever she gets back from her travels. And hey, you picked Florence and the Ciompi Revolt, about which I know some things!

This should be educational and I predict cahn will be delighted as I am.

Also, I envy you your library access: I do not see why Brill's books have to be so goddamn expensive (salon has seen me complain about Brill specifically).

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[cahn]

I am also delighted! :D

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[cahn]

Lovely! Nice to see you! I've made a post for you here. (And sorry if you got a bunch of notifications about access -- I was playing with DW settings.)

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Aaaaand, the very fast cahn has produced the locked post! Come tell us of your worldbuilding, telophase!

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[telophase]

I will, thank you! It’ll be a bit as I just got home from work and we’re working out dinner plans
. :)

Re: Early modern European fantasy

[mildred_of_midgard]

We're all in different time zones and respond when we can--it's a very asynchronous salon. Enjoy your dinner!