Ferdinand was raised by a father who scarcely knew he existed and spends most his time making the Marienfield family more powerful. His mother died when he was young. She's the one who got him interested in Greek mythology, by reading to him when he was young
He's actually been aware that he's gay ever since he first encountered the concept sometime around puberty.
Ferdinand can read and speak a little ancient Greek. Not, you note, anything practical in 1970s Germany.
He is a distant cousin of Louise. They're heirs to powerful old German families, and I can't imagine their families not marrying each other at some point.
He reads a lot. In order from most frequent to least: Poetry, romance novels, original Greek poetry, various mythologies. He's probably never read the newspaper in his life. On the other hand, since doujin circles apparently exist in 1970 Germany in AO-land, he's probably read a lot of BL manga.
The maids leave the manga for him to read. He does and fantasized a lot about being swept off his feet by a dark brooding hero before he met Louise.
He doesn't actually know Louise doesn't like his purple prose. Denial is a wonderful thing.
Louise gags him during the early part of sex fairly often, after the first time spontaneous purple prose killed Louise's erection, and never, ever tells him to beg for it.
...No, he still hasn't figured it out.
He has no clue the maids are making doujin of his sex life with Louise. Although knowing fangirls, I'd be surprised if none of them ever gave him a copy and asked him to autograph, so this is certainly up for debate.
Ferdinand has had a book of poetry published. Not because his poetry's any good, but because his family's rich enough to buy out a publisher, and they did. Like, ten copies sold.
When he flirts with women, it would actually surprise him tremendously if someone pointed out that to most people, saying a woman's beauty surpasses the sun in its brightness is considered flirting. He just..doesn't think.
He really likes sex with Louise, but he wishes sometimes that he were a little gentler.
Except he'd explain it like "gently but thoroughly ravaging me, as I rose to meet him with my heart aflame with joy"
...He'd actually make a decent romance novelist if you like the overdramatic type.
He'd scarcely even brushed his own hair before camp. The maids and the butlers were always there to.
Roses are forever intertwined with him having sex in his mind now. ...In a lot of ways, that really just improves them for him.
...Yes, his anus really is self-lubricating. And can apparently withstand rose thorns. I don't even know, dude. I'd probably play it out if I ever did an AU with him just for the wtf value.
He's faintly aware that things like sports exist, but the closest he came was a few fencing lessons, where he spent more time composing odes to his sword than fencing.
His father would despair at his son's capability to keep the Marienfield family in power after him, but honestly doesn't care that much. He's the type who doesn't care much about happens after his death isn't all that important to him, since he'll still be dead. This is largely because I can't see any father who gave a shit about what happened after his death not making a strong effort to educate Ferdinand in something besides poetry and horses. Ferdinand sees his father maybe once every 3 or 4 years.
He has his own rose garden at home. His gardeners do a lot of the work, but he does more than you'd probably expect. On the other hand, he wears very protective gloves whenever working and gets a manicure immediately thereafter to make sure the work doesn't damage his hands
Same with his horses.
He was mostly raised by private tutors, and scarcely socialized with other people his age. One of them made an attempt to have him play with his similarly aged sons after seeing how poorly socialized Ferdinand was, but he was also the tutor who was really into medieval love poetry when Ferdinand's dad was trying to get him to, you know, actually be educated in something useful, and so he got fired pretty quickly.
When he was in his teens, he made an effort to integrate himself into rich society. Unfortunately for him, he drove everyone away with his bad purple prose pretty quickly and retreated back into his estates, where no one would mock him for his horrible taste. About the only outside socialization he really got before camp is when he buys new horses and attends rose shows. Camp comes as a shock to him like that.
...Actually, I really like him because he's 60% crack, 30% adorable fail, and 10% lonely boy who just wants to be loved. It's a fun mixture