The Tyranny of Socks

I survived Scotswap 2025! Just kidding -- but it's been a long time since I have done a single fandom exchange and it is really nice to be able to read everything in the tagset. This exchange didn't have an anon period, so I can post about my gift and my story today!

I received this great AU in which Marthe does her best to extricate herself from the Dame de Doubtance's plans for her. It's beautifully written and there are some killer lines about how Marthe sees herself in relation to her brother:

Vagabond (3264 words) by morethanfantasy
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny & Marthe
Characters: Marthe (Lymond Chronicles), Jerott Blyth, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Character Study, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: But it had always been about him the same way it had never been about Marthe, his shadow-self, his equal and opposite. exploring one way Marthe might have walked out on Francis Crawford and fate

And I wrote a story about Richard, reflecting on his relationship with Francis after the shipwreck in Ringed Castle:

the ancient customs of our ancestors (1965 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny & Richard Crawford, Mariotta Crawford/Richard Crawford, Richard Crawford & Sybilla Crawford
Characters: Richard Crawford, Mariotta Crawford
Additional Tags: missing scene - Ringed Castle, Introspection, Gavin and Sybilla Crawford were not the greatest parents, Sibling Rivalry, letter-writing, Unsent letters
Summary: After meeting Francis at Philorth, Richard Crawford returns to Midculter, wondering whether the brother he thought he knew had ever existed at all.

Now I am off to sign up for austenexchange -- I seem to write so much Austen fic for other exchanges, I don't know why I have never signed up for this one before.

I wrote two stories this year, both for canons that are near and dear to my heart.

First was a Lymond Chronicles story set post series:

Turn of Winter (4197 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Francis Crawford, Jerott Blyth, Philippa Somerville
Summary:

After the 1565 siege of Malta, Jerott Blyth returns to Scotland.

This story was so hard to write, because I find the canon really intimidating, and the request set me pretty squarely into the middle of it. I'm not sure that I really managed to avoid "optional details are optional" here, but I did try to give a glimpse of Francis, Philippa and Jerott after the events of the series.

Also, the 1560s were not a great decade for Scotland, you know?

Then I wrote a treat for selenak. I knew as soon as I saw the prompt that I wanted to write this story, but I had to get my assignment written first, and that went slowly, so I basically wrote this in about 24 hours, and played incredibly fast and loose with the first five months of 49 BCE. Not that anyone but me cares about that, I suspect. It probably should have historical notes, but when I started to write them it became clear that they would end up longer than the story itself, so if you have any questions, just ask them.

Scenes from something which is certainly not a friendship (3192 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lesbia | Clodia, Terentia Ciceronis, Livia Drusilla
Summary:

Clodia and Terentia, through the 40s.

At first I assumed that anyone who knows me would know that I'd written this, and then I realized that the only people who I talk to about this sort of thing are my students, and if any of them are doing Yuletide I really don't want to know about it.

Of course, the whole idea of a friendship between Terentia and Clodia is so unlikely -- Clodia did something to attack Terentia during Cicero's exile, and then there's the Pro Caelio, and the story in Plutarch that Terentia goaded Cicero to attack Clodius because she was jealous of Clodia (I think? It's been so long since I read the Plutarch), and Clodia's daughter with Metella had an affair with Dolabella while he was still married to Tullia... But hey, that's part of the fun of writing! I couldn't quite manage to get Julia in, although if the story had continued we would have had Terentia seeing Clodia in Julia, just as Clodia sees Terentia in Livia. Actually, the story might have expanded to include young Marcus, and the younger Clodia (Clodia's niece, the one who was briefly married to Octavian), and Scribonia. And Attica and Agrippa, and Vipsania... and if I ever do write a novel, selenak, it will be all your fault.