Yuletide Reveal: Comedy Tonight! (If you ignore the emotional bloodletting)

[selenak]

If this year's Yuletide stories written by yours truly had a theme, it was "comedy with dark undertones". I had originally planned something else as my main gift to write, but then firstly a lot of real life stuff happened, and secondly I wanted to cheer myself up while writing, so I continued my quest to throw the most unlikely outrageous tropes at Frederick the Great. This time, it was babysitting comedy. Not involving an actual baby, but his ten years old brother, whom no one tries to eata, but it was still an eerie feeling to watch this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special and see that RTD had gone for babysitting comedy tropes as well. With my thing for messy family relationships in general and siblings relationships in particular, I always enjoy writing Frederick and the brother who was way too much like him for them to get on, and Frederick with my favourite of his long term boyfriends, Fredersdorf.


The Sitter (5885 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
Additional Tags: Siblings, Dysfunctional Family, Slice of Life, Queering The Tide, Family, Humor, Established Relationship, Yuletide 2023, Yuletide
Summary:

Tragedy is behind him, glory ahead: Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia is about to enjoy the best years of his life. At least that's what he thinks when fate inflicts what might be his harshest trial: having to take care of his brat of a younger brother...

Otoh, this story is another example of my tendency to get drawn into a fandom and emerge being primarily interest in not the juggernaut pairing and/or the characters the friend who tried to get me interested in. Not that the Third Century Crisis followed by the Tetrarchy in the late Roman Empire is a megafandom, and thus does not have a juggernaut pairing. But if there was one, it surely would have been the Emperors Diocletian/Maximian, who are the guys mildred_of_midgard wants to hear/read about. But while I do find them interesting, I am even more interested in the women around them - and one woman who started out really low on the social scale but ended up not just on top but surviving the various changes in power which had much of the remaining cast drop off like flies was Helena. Yes, the mother of Constatine (the Great). No, she wasn't a British princess. Why not more people fictionalizing her used her actual origins as a barmaid which are way more interesting at least from the 20th century onwards is a mystery to me, but hey: all the more fun to write about her for me, and to provide her perspective on the late Roman Game of Thrones:



Invicta (4566 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 3rd Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Helena (Mother of Constantine)/Constantius, Helena (Mother of Constantine) & Diocletian, Emperor Diocletian/Emperor Maximian, Diocletian & Maximian & Constantius
Characters: Helena (Mother of Constantine), Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus | Emperor Diocletian, Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus" | Emperor Constantius I., Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus | Emperor Maximian, Constantine the Great (d. 337 CE), Aurelia Prisca (d. 315 CE)
Additional Tags: POV Female Character, Game of Thrones-esque, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide, Yuletide 2023, Origin Story
Summary:

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: three future Emperors walk into a bar. The one who’s going to end up with the Empire is the barmaid.

 

Or: Helena, history has its eyes on you....