2020 Yuletide Fandom Promo Post

[crantz]

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

Suggested form to use:

<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:


For reference, last year's promo post!


This post on LJ

Comments

18th Century CE Frederician RPF

[raspberryhunter]

FANDOM NAME: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Content notes: Really abusive and dysfunctional family
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Would you like a fandom with all kinds of canon slash tropes (mean abusive dad who might have been suppressing his own slashy tendencies, tragic love story with loyal best friend)? Would you like a fandom about a magnificent bastard royal figure who is a modernist and reformer (and very much into freedom of speech and religion) for his time but also likes to invade various territories for fun and profit? Would you like a fandom with interesting, layered female characters, including a woman who becomes Empress despite all of Europe thinking this is hilarious being that she's a WOMAN?

Let me introduce you to Frederick the Great / Friedrich II / "Fritz" fandom. Boy/adolescent Fritz is beaten and publicly humiliated by his father (Friedrich Wilhelm), and his boyfriend (Peter Keith) is deported when his father catches them. He falls in love again, and he and his new boyfriend (Hans Hermann von Katte) try to escape, but dad catches them and executes Katte -- and orders Fritz to watch (though evidence seems to show that Fritz was not in fact made to watch). Katte's last words are some variation on, "I die for you with joy in my heart!"

Fritz earns his freedom by marrying a woman (Elisabeth Christine), whom he sees... approximately once a year, for dinner. He eventually becomes king when his father dies, at which point he turns out to be pretty much a spectacularly magnificent bastard. On one hand, Voltaire reports on Fritz' liberal tendencies that he said, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis." On the other hand, Fritz also goes around breaking treaties and invading people on paper-thin and/or really zero justification. Hilariously, he first writes the Anti-Machiavel, basically saying "You should definitely positively not break treaties and invade other people just because you can," and then a whole three months later invades Maria Theresia's province of Silesia, just because he can. (Later he tells his people to go look for a historical claim to Silesia, which they find.) Maria Theresia, meanwhile, fights three wars with Fritz, after which he gets to keep Silesia.

On the family front, Fritz goes on to treat his brothers... in a way rather reminiscent of the way his father treated him. He doesn't execute anyone's lover, but after a bunch of emotional beating up of his brother August Wilhelm, August Wilhelm dies of what everyone else in the family -- except Fritz -- thinks is a broken heart. (It may have been porphyria.) Yeah, lots of dysfunctional family in this fandom.

And I haven't even gotten into the snarky Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship, culminating in Voltaire trolling the world by fabricating mean stories about his ex which weren't realized to be fabrications for two hundred years! Or his brother Heinrich who had a love/hate relationship with Fritz and was BFF's with Catherine the Great!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT? (optional):
The best primer for this for a total beginner is probably selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses. selenak and mildred_of_midgard have been gracious enough to welcome me to their fandom by telling me all kinds of wacky stories about it. Much of these collected stories, synopses of various interesting bits about these characters, and various research can be found at rheinsberg (which I've linked to copiously in this post).

Re: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF

[alley_skywalker]

Ok, literally no one asked my opinion but, if we're talking fandom-style shipping, I would like to submit an addition: manipulative long-distance "relationship" with boy who is way too in love with him, aka Fritz/Peter III of Russia :)

Re: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF

[raspberryhunter]

I somehow didn't see this comment! OMG this is AMAZING and I am totally adding it to my letter :DDDD (That is, if it is OK with you! If not, just let me know :) )

Re: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hi! cahn pointed me to this idea, which is fantastic. I'm a fan of dysfunctional Fritz/Peter III, and I would love to read that fic or anything like it.

I've seen you around, and I'm always delighted by your Peter III fics and Yuletide gifts and hope for your requests to be filled.

Thus, in the spirit of the fandom promo post, I would like to say: you're more than welcome to come chat with us about 18th century history. We'd love to have someone who's more knowledgeable about Russia than we are! I've read some of your blog posts with great interest, and I think you'd fit right in in our fannish + scholarly space.

In other words, we are literally asking your opinion. :)