Yuletide 2020
Jan. 3rd, 2021 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedI was matched with mildred_of_midgard on Cryptonomicon, a book I haven't read in 15 years, and I definitely paid the price for my hubris ahaha.
Through this extremely lucky match (Mildred is awesome :D) I found![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg, a community for the small but extremely active Frederick the Great fandom on DW, so rather than re-read Cryptonomicon... I decided to learn some history instead. :P I read this book and also parts of this one, as well as some of the summarized primary sources research on rheinsberg to write my Yuletide fic:
Frederician Space AU
It's Frederick II of Prussia and "three of his more serious boyfriends" in a character study told backwards from the perspective of the boyfriends:
Katte - Hans Hermann von Katte - the Kircheis to Frederick's Reinhard; the one who's supposed to have said death, for such a charming prince, is indeed sweet while being paraded past Frederick's prison window at the fortress where they were both imprisoned for plotting to flee the country together. Crown Prince Frederick was 18 and Katte was 26 at the time of the execution.
^^Katte in real life was supposed to have been tall (like Kircheis), but not that handsome, because his face was scarred from childhood smallpox. Frederick was also, supposedly, not that handsome; but he was blonde and blue-eyed, and won (or at least didn't lose) a bunch of military battles, which is why the Nazis liked him (obviously they just ignored all the gay parts).
Fredersdorf - Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf - Frederick's longtime valet, spymaster, probable lover, "first prime minister of Prussia" (unofficially), in charge of programming for the opera, etc. Wikipedia says "The two young men met when the future Frederick II was still in prison for having attempted to run off with his former companion, Hans Hermann von Katte. At the time, Fredersdorf was four years older than the heir to the throne and served in the army, being the son of a peasant." There's a romantic story that Frederick hated and avoided speaking German, which he associated with his abusive father, the king Frederick Wilheim, preferring to speak French and also signing his letters with the French spelling of his name as Federic; but Fredersdorf only spoke German, so just for Fredersdorf he'd speak the hated language <3 <3 <3 (onreinsberg they researched this, the truth is more complicated but still a nice story).
Keith - Peter Karl Christoph von Keith - the other lover in the escape attempt, who had previously been banished to Wesel (a border fortress) for an earlier plot to escape the country. He doesn't even have an entry on English wikipedia, so I have linked to the entry on German wikipedia instead. Unlike Katte and Frederick who were caught, he actually got away to England and from there, Dublin and Portugal, where he lived an apparently highly eventful but sparsely documented life, eventually finding his way back to Prussia to serve as the head of the Academy of Sciences under Frederick II (now King). I personally think he was a spy! XD But he's only one year older than Frederick, they hooked up when he was 17 and Frederick, 16.
My space AU is more or less just a character study that retells the historical events but uhhhhhh In Space. XD. I had a lot of fun doing the worldbuilding on this one, and trying to find science fictional reasons for why The Future might still resemble The Age of Letters (spoilers: it's an AI-enabled and post-encryption future, where no electronic transmissions can be trusted... so it requires people to meet in person again).
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I've been writing about yuletide on my tumblr under the "yuletide" tag, so here's a few quick crossposts:
*18th Century CE Frederician RPF recs - which yeah, it's pretty much every single story submitted this year. They are all great.
*Knives Out recs - Knives Out fic on ao3 was uhhhh not what I expected it to be, but I enjoyed these two.
*Machineries of Empire (Yoon Ha Lee) recs -yhlee himself was my match for yuletide and wrote a story for me :D :D :D I'm still reading through the other stories in the tag.
*Palm Springs (2020)and Booksmart (2019) recs - convinced to watch Palm Springs (2020) after reading this brilliant fic.
Back to work tomorrow. Boooo.
mildred_of_midgard on Cryptonomicon, a book I haven't read in 15 years, and I definitely paid the price for my hubris ahaha. Through this extremely lucky match (Mildred is awesome :D) I found
rheinsberg, a community for the small but extremely active Frederick the Great fandom on DW, so rather than re-read Cryptonomicon... I decided to learn some history instead. :P I read this book and also parts of this one, as well as some of the summarized primary sources research on rheinsberg to write my Yuletide fic: Frederician Space AU
It's Frederick II of Prussia and "three of his more serious boyfriends" in a character study told backwards from the perspective of the boyfriends:
Katte - Hans Hermann von Katte - the Kircheis to Frederick's Reinhard; the one who's supposed to have said death, for such a charming prince, is indeed sweet while being paraded past Frederick's prison window at the fortress where they were both imprisoned for plotting to flee the country together. Crown Prince Frederick was 18 and Katte was 26 at the time of the execution.
^^Katte in real life was supposed to have been tall (like Kircheis), but not that handsome, because his face was scarred from childhood smallpox. Frederick was also, supposedly, not that handsome; but he was blonde and blue-eyed, and won (or at least didn't lose) a bunch of military battles, which is why the Nazis liked him (obviously they just ignored all the gay parts).
Fredersdorf - Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf - Frederick's longtime valet, spymaster, probable lover, "first prime minister of Prussia" (unofficially), in charge of programming for the opera, etc. Wikipedia says "The two young men met when the future Frederick II was still in prison for having attempted to run off with his former companion, Hans Hermann von Katte. At the time, Fredersdorf was four years older than the heir to the throne and served in the army, being the son of a peasant." There's a romantic story that Frederick hated and avoided speaking German, which he associated with his abusive father, the king Frederick Wilheim, preferring to speak French and also signing his letters with the French spelling of his name as Federic; but Fredersdorf only spoke German, so just for Fredersdorf he'd speak the hated language <3 <3 <3 (on
reinsberg they researched this, the truth is more complicated but still a nice story). Keith - Peter Karl Christoph von Keith - the other lover in the escape attempt, who had previously been banished to Wesel (a border fortress) for an earlier plot to escape the country. He doesn't even have an entry on English wikipedia, so I have linked to the entry on German wikipedia instead. Unlike Katte and Frederick who were caught, he actually got away to England and from there, Dublin and Portugal, where he lived an apparently highly eventful but sparsely documented life, eventually finding his way back to Prussia to serve as the head of the Academy of Sciences under Frederick II (now King). I personally think he was a spy! XD But he's only one year older than Frederick, they hooked up when he was 17 and Frederick, 16.
My space AU is more or less just a character study that retells the historical events but uhhhhhh In Space. XD. I had a lot of fun doing the worldbuilding on this one, and trying to find science fictional reasons for why The Future might still resemble The Age of Letters (spoilers: it's an AI-enabled and post-encryption future, where no electronic transmissions can be trusted... so it requires people to meet in person again).
***
***
***
I've been writing about yuletide on my tumblr under the "yuletide" tag, so here's a few quick crossposts:
*18th Century CE Frederician RPF recs - which yeah, it's pretty much every single story submitted this year. They are all great.
*Knives Out recs - Knives Out fic on ao3 was uhhhh not what I expected it to be, but I enjoyed these two.
*Machineries of Empire (Yoon Ha Lee) recs -
yhlee himself was my match for yuletide and wrote a story for me :D :D :D I'm still reading through the other stories in the tag. *Palm Springs (2020)and Booksmart (2019) recs - convinced to watch Palm Springs (2020) after reading this brilliant fic.
Back to work tomorrow. Boooo.