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cahnGonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...
But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!
Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:
Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:
But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!
Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:
Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.
Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:
Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.
Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-25 09:09 pm (UTC)Lol, I don't remember saying that to you, but it's exactly what I think of him and exactly what I think that story illustrates. So if I did say that, I agree with my past self! :D
Yuletide: Omg, I did not have time to reply to that thread, but it is really interesting to see how we're perceived from the outside!
- Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that we're kind of intimidating (prinzsorgenfrei already said that wrt the Discord crowd).
- No, we do not have a single source like the letters that we're relying on, and to me, that's the point: I consider this historical research first, fandom second. In fact, the best part of salon is that we mostly don't even read the same sources or even in the same language!
- I do think Blanning is a good start for an Anglophone wanting a quick introduction to Fritz. I wouldn't want to confine Yuletide fic to Blanning's interpretation, either, though. Then Katte would always have to be executed by axe! :P
- Lol at
Unrelated to anything: How come Victor Amadeus gets the bad rap for changing sides? The Great Elector changed sides more than anyone! At least according to Luh's revisionist take. :P
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-26 02:00 pm (UTC)Us? The most harmless bunch of people this side of Fritz, Voltaire and Hervey? :) More seriously, I'm always happy to see our occasional guests, without whom, for example, we'd never have discovered where "she cried but she took" originated. And I only want to kill the one who never provided any feedback for my Yuletide story I'd written for them, but that grudge is unending, like Heinrich's against Fritz.
I wouldn't want to confine Yuletide fic to Blanning's interpretation, either, though. Then Katte would always have to be executed by axe! :
I have to confess I still haven't read Banning's Fritz bio- too much other things to read for this Royal Reader! - but I'm taking your word for his readability. Didn't he also use the "MT wrote a Dear Sister letter to Pompadour" Prussian propaganda, though?
I could get behind that, I think, except for the part where we don't always go back and revise posts in the light of new knowledge
Well, us and George Lucas. Also G'Kar. (
How come Victor Amadeus gets the bad rap for changing sides? The Great Elector changed sides more than anyone! At least according to Luh's revisionist take. :P
Savoy didn't continue to develop a European superpower with centuries of propaganda supporting it, m'dear. Also Victor Amadeus didn't save any Huguenots (or did he?).
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-26 06:22 pm (UTC)Hee! I'm happy to see guests too! But one thing I've discovered in my life is that aggression isn't the only thing people are intimidated by; just doing things at an advanced enough level is enough. And we're doing relatively high quality original research, and I can see why the "humble shitposters" of Discord and the fanfic writers of Yuletide don't always feel at home here. I wish it weren't so! Because we have our fannish side too in salon, and I told
(Gambitten never replied to my email, alas. I fear we have lost them for good.)
Savoy didn't continue to develop a European superpower with centuries of propaganda supporting it, m'dear.
Couldn't his line have done a better job when they went from being kings of Sardinia became kings of Italy? But okay, point taken. Ain't no propaganda like Prussian propaganda.
Also Victor Amadeus didn't save any Huguenots (or did he?).
Ahahahaaaa, yes, well, he alternately saved them and persecuted them depending on who he was allied with. I imagine the pendulum swings must have been very whiplash like for the Huguenots. "Leave the country upon pain of death! No, wait, come back, I'll pay you specially to be in my army! Oh, no, now I'm wiping out your villages again." :P (Comedy is tragedy plus time.)
More seriously, he wanted to leave them alone paying taxes and living peacefully in his domains, and he defended his right to do so vigorously to the Pope--which, considering he was a devout Catholic, unlike the Calvinist Elector, is saying something. But then when he ended up allied to Louis XIV (reluctantly, but France was the superpower next door that he was either going to be allied to or occupied by until he could find some other superpowers to protect him), he had to wage a war against the Huguenots. He tried to fight it, but he gave in.
Then he switched to being allied with the Maritime Powers, and William III was all, "So WHEN are you going to start protecting Protestants?"
VA: "I'd love to, but I sort of can't--"
William: "When I said 'when', I meant 'now'."
VA: "Calling all Protestants who've fled my country, please come back! I'll be extra nice to you as long as this alliance lasts!"
So, yeah, I suppose the Great Elector wins the point there. :P
ETA: I forgot to mention, when VA was persecuting Protestants against his will, he tried to at least get money from the Pope (the one he had previously been arguing with) on the grounds that he was being such a good Catholic monarch! This kind of relentless opportunism is the stuff of which my problematic faves are made. :'D
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 05:08 am (UTC)I mean... it wasn't because they were getting a degree in neuroscience at Oxford, though! It was because they were also operating at that level in this particular field :) (Also, aww man, I'm sad they aren't coming back and hope they are okay!)
I'll be extra nice to you as long as this alliance lasts!"
Heeeeee!
when VA was persecuting Protestants against his will, he tried to at least get money from the Pope (the one he had previously been arguing with) on the grounds that he was being such a good Catholic monarch!
I am not as much of a fan of the relentless opportunism as you are, but that is pretty amazing.
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 12:25 pm (UTC)Well, no, I don't think it was either necessary or sufficient, but I also suspect it might not have been totally irrelevant, either.
I am not as much of a fan of the relentless opportunism as you are
Few people are. ;)
but that is pretty amazing.
It takes some chutzpah to try that with a straight face! (If I'm remembering correctly, the pope didn't buy it, understandably so.)
ETA: When we do our classics salon someday, I'll tell you all about chutzpah, relentless opportunism, and this guy named Alcibiades. ;)
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-10-01 12:04 pm (UTC)Also, speaking of extremely competent opportunists, I can reccommend Robert Caro's biographies of Lyndon Johnson, reviewed by yours truly here and here. To quote myself: in between being appalled at LBJ, horrible human being, it's impossible not to be awfully impressed by LBJ, Ultimate Answer To Political Competence Kink, especially when it just so happens his interests and the public interests coincide. Mind you, Caro's multivolume series has not reached Vietnam yet!
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-10-01 12:52 pm (UTC)We have agreed that if she and I are in LA at the same time, we would like to visit the Getty Villa (I've been, she hasn't), and if you can come too, that would be amazingly educational all around.
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-29 05:51 pm (UTC)I think you guys are very welcoming! : ) I mean, given the fact that I'm not properly in Frederick the Great fandom (although I do enjoy reading the occasional tidbits there too), but in Jacobite fandom, and you don't mind me hanging around--more than that, you're all very conscientious about replying to my comments too!
Re: Replies from the last post
Date: 2022-09-29 08:42 pm (UTC)Jacobite fandom: We've been delighted to have you! I mean, Selena's told us about everything from 12th-century Empress Maud to post-WWII events, and I might drop some 10th century Otto the Great soon, so your mid-18th century fandom fits squarely into salon. :D
I really want more people to join and tell us about more related subjects!
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 05:04 am (UTC)Lololololol!
Also G'Kar. ([personal profile] cahn will understand the last one.)
Ha!
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 12:30 pm (UTC)Well, you are in good company! I still check occasionally, indignant on your behalf.
I have to confess I still haven't read Banning's Fritz bio- too much other things to read for this Royal Reader! -
I didn't think you had, and I don't think there's any reason for you to! It's a good intro to Fritz for English-speakers, but you already know about Fritz, you have German resources at your disposal, and it's not *that* good.
Speaking of which, if you were going to recommend a German-language source to someone who wanted to learn about Fritz, what would it be?
Didn't he also use the "MT wrote a Dear Sister letter to Pompadour" Prussian propaganda, though?
Probably, but then so did almost everyone else. The axe, though! :P
More seriously, yes, this is why I wouldn't want to *limit* a fanfic to Blanning's "canon", although I'm happy to rec it as a source to people looking for one.
(Omg, I'm reading Fahlenkamp these days, though, and his "canon" is...idiosyncratic, to say the least. You and felis did warn me about this, but wow.)
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-29 09:43 am (UTC)As with any reading tip, it depends on the person, but for beginners or semi-beginners, I feel these are good:
1) Christian Graf von Krockow: Die preußischen Brüder. Has the advantage of being short, and while centred on the Fritz/Heinrich relationship, does provide, I feel, a balanced portrait of Fritz, and even includes Fredersdorf.
2) The Katte trial chapter in Fontane's "Wanderungen". Contains a succinct account of Katte's life and death ably narrated by Fontane, is online for free. Not for nothing was this sold as an extra audio book as well. Note: the other Katte/Wust chapter, the one of Wust with the novelesque episode of Hans Heinrich returning from the wars to meet toddler!Hans Herrmann is not as self contained or dramatic and thus isn't suitable for beginners, but may be read once the potential reader has gotten into the subject. Same with the chapter on Rheinsberg, which contains lots of Heinrich stuff and thus can be only read after "Die preußischen Brüder" in order to be comprehensible, and the chapter on Zernikow (poignant only if you know who Fredersdorf was).
Wilhelmine's memoirs, whether complete or abridged, is not something I'd give to a first timer, but later on of course (especially if said person knows already a bit about the who is who) at least the first half is good. Voltaire>'s Fritz-centric memoirs, otoh, are hilarious to read at any point, but you get more out of them if you know more about the Voltaire/Fritz relationship. Instead, I would reccommend this Radio Brandenburg feature on Fritz and Voltaire: "Dass ein Mann, der so viel Geist hat, so voller Bosheit sein kann" - Geschichte der Freundschaft zwischen Voltaire und Friedrich II." which is available both as a CD and on Audible. (Gotta love the title, because really, both of them could have said it about the other). It manages to provide a good overview of the relationship within one hour, and has lots of the best quotes from letters and memoirs alike.
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 05:03 am (UTC)Yeah, I must admit that if I'd stumbled upon something like this in someone else's DW, I would have been intimidated! I do hope that my ability to forget everything and constantly ask elementary questions helps, but I think even I have managed to pick up enough that I might be intimidating to 2019!me :P
No, we do not have a single source like the letters that we're relying on, and to me, that's the point: I consider this historical research first, fandom second.
Yeah, I thought that in particular was a weird take. I do appreciate the idea that one might want to know a single primary or secondary document one could read and write a fic about (you know that I am most successful in writing historical fic when I can do that!), but (I say, after the last several years) it seems that specifically restricting to a particular one document is more of a literary way of looking at the world, not a historical way. (Also, if one doesn't specify a document, it means I can choose what single document to use, lol! Ahem Ziebura :D )
(I do have reason to believe that the take in that thread is not necessarily the take of broader fandom, or even broader fandom-wanking.)
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-09-27 12:57 pm (UTC)I've seen you go "even I know why that's wrong" at things historians have written! :D You've come a long way, definitely.
But I remember you and I talking a while back about how surprised we've been in our lives to discover that being quiet and intense is intimidating to people we don't even interact with!
it seems that specifically restricting to a particular one document is more of a literary way of looking at the world
Back in my days as an active Tolkien scholar, I encountered the idea of restricting your analysis of a text to the text itself, and it just reinforces the idea that I must not be a literary person, because that seems so incredibly perverse. Like, if you know something, why would you pretend you didn't know it? And with Tolkien specifically, where would you even draw the line? If I'm writing literary criticism of LOTR, do I have to pretend I haven't read The Hobbit? Or the Silmarillion? Or the History of Middle-earth? Or his letters? Or his nonfiction publications? Or biographies of him? Or other Tolkien scholarship?
I wrote many rants (unpublished, although some of those thoughts ended up in a polemic I did publish), and it never made any sense to me. Doing historical research that way makes even less sense.
I do appreciate the idea that one might want to know a single primary or secondary document one could read and write a fic about
Right, yes, I think that's perfectly fine! I would be willing to entertain that for a Yuletide nomination (although it wouldn't be my favorite). The idea that that's how we're proceeding in *salon*, though, is weird, and especially after you had actually specifically written, "And also most history I know of is trying to take multiple documents and synthesize them into something we call 'what we think happened'."
(I do have reason to believe that the take in that thread is not necessarily the take of broader fandom, or even broader fandom-wanking.)
Interesting. You mean the take on tying RPF nominations to a single source? Or on doing historical research that way, or what?
Re: Replies From the last post
Date: 2022-10-01 05:01 am (UTC)Both!