cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

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From:

cahn

ahhhhhh yeah I don't think I can do ToT this year. But I really want to! Hmm. Definitely going to do Yuletide, though, because Yuletide, so we should Discuss nominations :) (As usual, as long as my faves Emilie, Voltaire, and Heinrich are nominated, I'm good!)

On a less morbid note: MT and FS reacting to Fritz' original invasion of Silesia, and MT listening in to that hilarious ambassadorial conversation while increasingly getting more bloody minded when thinking of Fritz!

I feel like this needs to be an opera! I'm thinking of something like the second act of Figaro...

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Every year, Yuletide nominations give me the problem of only being able to nominate 3 fandoms but having to offer 4, and I have veeery limited fandoms I can write in. Meaning someone would have to nominate at least one of my fandoms if I were going to participate, which I'm still undecided about.

That could be either the 3rd century CE Roman emperors again, or alternately, either of my dysfunctional faves, the crazy Medici or alcoholic Frederik and his long-suffering Moltke. :P I thiiink Karl XII and Görtz would require too much research, and I'm not even fresh on them, whereas I am fresh on Moltke. (I do have some more Karl XII books picked out for someday, though, and who knows--if I brush up on Danish, I might even be able to tackle the extremely similar Swedish and maybe finding interesting gossip for salon. Staying focused for now on German and French for my essays, though. ~~No Polish. No, self.~~)

From:

selenak

I would nominate the 3rd century Roman Emperors for you if push came to shove and

cahn won't do it. :)

Re: the crazy Medici, on the one hand, I would, but otoh, the ones I'm interested are probably not the ones you're interested in. I mean, I'm just guessing here, but I suspect it's Gian Gastone and Giuliano Dami, and GG's uncle the Cardinal, whereas me: MARGUERITE LOUISE ALL THE WAY! She's whom I'd request and write in that fandom. And then the Electress and GG's maligned-by-Harold-Acton wife who was smart enough not to move to Italy, but gimme that crazy French lady and her single mindedness to return by which she defeats Cosimo and everyone else. Oh, and her befriending Liselotte, of all the people, in her old age.

Meaning: I could nominate your faves but would not request them, and then you couldn't write them.

From:

cahn

haha I could conceivably be talked into nominating them :) (But I have another idea in the other comment, of course!)

Meaning: I could nominate your faves but would not request them, and then you couldn't write them.

IDK about the crazy Medici, but I could totally imagine other people requesting 3rd century Roman emperors!

Edited Date: 2023-09-11 06:05 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Meaning: I could nominate your faves but would not request them, and then you couldn't write them.

IDK about the crazy Medici, but I could totally imagine other people requesting 3rd century Roman emperors!

I mean, my ideal outcome is that there are 4 fandoms I could hypothetically write, but no one requests anything except Fritz, and then I get assigned to either of you two. :D

But if someone requests 3rd century Roman emperors and I get assigned to write them, I should be able to produce something (again, assuming I decide I can produce anything at all), and then hopefully treat at least one of you.

*ponders*

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Ah, yes, your fave Marguerite Louise. :D Yeah, the ones I would be up for writing would be GG and GD, the Cardinal uncle, Ferdinando, Violante Beatrice, and maaaybe Anna Maria Luisa. The others would require more research for me. (I do own a bio on the much-maligned wife of GG, but I haven't put it through my translation algorithms yet, because the author's other works that I read, on GD and GG, were...not inspiring.)

3rd century Roman emperors it shall be! (Assuming I sign up, still debating.)

From:

selenak

Ha, I could see it as a Da Ponte written opera scenario, ;)

ToT: I nominated 16th century Habsburgs as well because of your old request of dying Charles V. regretting not having killed Luther because of youthful sense of morals and my own wish to write Charles in his last years of life together (when he has abdicated) with his sisters Mary and Eleanor, who followed him to Spain to that retirement and all died within a year of each other, all with this rich history, and the ties between them as the siblings who grew up in Burgundy together parentless.

On the B5 side, someone really ought to tell us what Vir was doing in those Road Home AUs, don't you think! :) And Timov. And what happened to Anna Sheridan?

ETA: Yuletide - if you nominate Émilie, Voltaire and Heinrich, I would add Wilhelmine and MT, because I have a renewed urge to write that lunch if no one will write it for me, and FS if no one writes him at ToT. Then I would plead for Mildred or Felis to nominate Fredersdorf, Lehndorff and Fritz himself.

Edited Date: 2023-09-11 05:02 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

because of your old request of dying Charles V. regretting not having killed Luther because of youthful sense of morals and my own wish to write Charles in his last years of life together (when he has abdicated) with his sisters Mary and Eleanor, who followed him to Spain to that retirement and all died within a year of each other, all with this rich history, and the ties between them as the siblings who grew up in Burgundy together parentless.

I am still interested in this! And in AUs of same!

On the B5 side, someone really ought to tell us what Vir was doing in those Road Home AUs, don't you think! :) And Timov. And what happened to Anna Sheridan?

YES. I am super happy to request these, though as a Yuletide nomination I think it would fall under "Worldbuilding" rather than under characters, as none of these are actual characters in Road Home (I think? right? none of them makes even a token appearance? and I don't think that the mods will let it go through as a character nom).
How about this, if you nominate Mildred's emperors, I will nominate B5:tRH (let me know what characters you want) and file a brief in the "justification" post for why it's eligible. (Or vice versa is fine too!)

because I have a renewed urge to write that lunch if no one will write it for me, and FS if no one writes him at ToT.

YES.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Then I would plead for Mildred or Felis to nominate Fredersdorf, Lehndorff and Fritz himself.

I think we can nominate 4 characters each? The one I'd particularly like to nominate is Suhm (a tale of two envoys!), so I can nominate those 3 in addition. I've gotten good fics about Katte and Peter in the past :D <33, so I'm willing to do without them this year if that's how it shakes out.

From:

selenak

If it's still four for everyone, I would suggest:

Cahn: Émilie, Voltaire, Heinrich, MT.

Self: Wilhelmine, FS, Lehndorff, Fredersdorf.

You: Suhm, Manteuffel, Peter, Fritz.

(Or you could leave out Le Diable, since if I do the tale of two envoys he'll be there anywhwere, and if I don't, no one else will write him) and instead nominate Algarotti or Katte.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I think I should leave out Manteuffel, for the reasons you mention, and do Katte in case someone not in salon wants to request him.

ETA: Also, I'm hoping they keep it at 4 characters and allowing subsets, with ticky boxes, which seems to be the way the comments are leaning, at least last I checked. If they do reduce it to 3, I can give up Peter, since I already got the lovely "The Boy Who Lived" gift.

Edited Date: 2023-09-13 02:59 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Participants may now nominate up to 4 fandoms with 4 characters each! Well, there's our problems solved!

From:

cahn

AHHHHHH what?? Oh, I see it now -- wow! Very nice!

From:

selenak

Excellent. Might I ask that if you nominate 3rd Century Roman Emperors, you in addition to Diocletian and Maximinian also nominate Fausta and Helena? When you request the fandom, you can leave them out, I just want them to be there as an option in general, pretty please?

From:

cahn

And in this case I'll leave you to nominate B5:tRH,

selenak? I will still volunteer to put in an evidence post if you want.

(NB: The current evidence post makes it look like they will prioritize people being able to write without referencing B5, so I think it might be good to make at least an effort to have at least one prompt that doesn't on the surface require knowing about original B5 canon -- easy to do if the character is "Worldbuilding," I think, and honestly I don't think that many people watched it who didn't know something about the original :) )

From:

selenak

An evidence post on your part would be much appreciated.

Also, I see they put up an RPF coordination post. Now on the Frederician front, between us we covered all the characters, but I'm wondering about my 16th century Habsburgs, and also, I'd love to do something Byzantine, just not sure which era.

Back to B5:trH: - which characters to nominate? I mean, Londo and Ivanova for sure, as I want more from their snarky and alcoholic team up in the face of the apocalypse, and then I would say Vir (what's HE doing in any of the verses?) and G'Kar. Since Vir is not actually in the movie, are you saying I should nominate "worldbuilding" instead of "Vir: tRH"?

From:

cahn

Right, I will get on it!

You should totally post about 16thC Habsburgs and Byzantines on the RPF post! And also the Frederician nominations (unless you want me to do that). Which Byzantines were you thinking of? I'm not sure I even know enough to request, but I would read the heck out of any Byzantine fic :D

Yes, DoomedEarth!Londo and Ivanova sounds great, and which AU for G'Kar were you thinking? (I am planning to make the case that the characters are different, so that would naturally lead to specifying the AU in question.) And yes, worldbuilding instead of Vir:tRH... I am reasonably sure that Vir wouldn't go through since he's not in it.

ETA:
Here: https://yuletide-admin.dreamwidth.org/102990.html?thread=2321742#cmt2321742

Also see: https://yuletide-admin.dreamwidth.org/102990.html?thread=2317902#cmt2317902
which is a good point; I'm glad you thought of it,

mildred_of_midgard!

Edited Date: 2023-09-15 05:51 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yes, certainly I will! Happy to have a chance to repay the nominating favor.

From:

felis

I'm very unlikely to sign up, but let me know if there's anything you need me to nominate if you can't get it covered between all of you!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Would you be willing to nominate 18th Century CE Medici RPF for us? Specifically, the unfortunate wives:

- Marguerite Louise d'Orleans
- Violante Beatrice of Bavaria
- Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg (the least unfortunate of the three)

Much appreciated!