#ardatli writes

I Kissed a Girl ebooks are on sale for $1.99, just in time for the month of love! From February 1 - 28, pick up a copy for yourself and someone you would like to charm!

💙 Bisexual lead

💜 Jewish leads

💗 B-movie set romance

Kindle: https://amzn.to/30hnJV6

Nook: https://bit.ly/3FdXzlE

iBooks: https://apple.co/3nhhIBb

Google Books: https://bit.ly/31Q49QF

Just a snippet that amused me from a new scene I’m adding to chapter four. Roberta and Daniel’s father lost their family’s estate to Frederick Reeve, a new-money arriviste who took possession -- and expelled them -- the moment of the old Earl’s death. Roberta, who has gained herself a foothold on the estate by posing as a man, is determined to get everything back. 

--

Daniel paused with his bread, halfway through spreading on a thick layer of the godawful pork crètons that he loved so much. “What’s this about?” he asked, his good mood settling into something quieter. “Something to do with the Briary?”

Roberta nodded without sitting up. “I still haven’t made it inside; they’ve blocked off the old back way with all of the leavings from Reeve’s hideous marble monstrosities. I think I know another way, but it will require some help from inside.”

“Who do you know on the inside of the house who’ll help you break and enter?” Daniel asked, looking baffled.

“There’s a girl visiting,” Roberta sighed, straightening properly on the chair and busying herself with her own breakfast, so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. “She’s a cousin, companion to the wife? One of that dreadful flock of vultures. In any case she’s young and gullible, and I thought perhaps could be persuaded, through some gentle flirtation-”

“To throw wide the gates of Troy?”

“That’s not how I would have put it, but essentially… yes. Though I’ll settle for a window.” She bit into the still-warm bread and the butter melting across the top and took a moment to quietly appreciate the simple luxury. “Only I’ve no idea how to go about it,” she confessed. “Friendship is something entirely different from flirtation. How do you talk to girls? What do you say to them that makes them fall for you so quickly?”

Daniel’s lips twitched as though he were suppressing a laugh, but he had the courtesy not to actually give in. “There are the classics, of course. Tell her the sun rises and sets in her eyes, pick a feature and tell her that it is the most glorious example of the same that you’ve ever seen, pledge eternal devotion to the starlight in her hair, that sort of thing.”

Roberta arched an eyebrow. “And that actually works?” It certainly wouldn’t on her, but then men weren’t precisely appealing.

Simply curious, as you always come up with the best ideas

Fic-related, you mean? I am not at the moment. Sort of. I have a WIP underway that I've been co-writing with a good friend but I fell off the able-to-write fiction wagon somewhere in the past couple of years. A combination of pandemic and parenting and work garbage and getting my dissertation book into print (coming this fall!) and general burnout, I think. Also an ADHD diagnosis and new meds which make it much easier to get actual work and academic writing done, but much harder to write fiction at anything like the rate I used to.

tbh, while it hit me later than it did most of the old guard writers in Young Avengers fandom, I think a big piece of what finally did me in was the total apathy of the fandom towards commenting or reblogging anything.

(I had a magnum opus, and one reader who was replying in-depth comments to everything and it was the dream. Not many other people really seemed to get it, but they got me and everything I was trying to do. And then I wrote the denouement, the last chapter with them specifically in mind, and I posted it with trembling hands and held breath, and waited on tenterhooks to see if they liked the gift, what they would say, how they would react...

And they never even kudoed the damned thing. Never spoke to me directly again. I have no idea if they even read it. To be SUPER over-dramatic about it... something in me died after that. It felt like a contract of some kind had been broken, and then I felt ridiculous for being so worked up about something that was only ever in my head... but it's hard to get motivation back after that.)

Additionally, so many of my big fic ideas were generated through conversations with other fans, giggling about silly ideas and "I bet you can't write that' and 'wouldn't it be amazing if...'s. And without that community having fun together, the catalysts are gone.

The Series on AO3

The Playlist on YouTube

Wherein Teddy is riding on the Fourth Crusade, Billy and Tommy are in disguise as pilgrims on the road to Santiago, Eli rules across the mighty Bosporus river, and Kate is a hawk in a golden cage.

Written in the style of the medieval cycle plays, inspired by the folk songs of singer-songwriter Heather Dale. http://heatherdale.com/

⚔️ The Road to Santiago / Come and Be Welcome

A pair of Jewish twins take the Appian Way on a quest for answers. They find a Crusade instead.

Rating: T

⚔️ The Rose and Lion

He set his jaw and closed his hand on William’s shoulder, and Will leaned into him for support. Thomas kept his voice low and measured. “Think about what they would do to us, your golden Hercules included, if they ever learned the truth. The noose, the pike, the pyre. Or if they’re feeling especially creative, all three in order.”

Rating: M (violence)

⚔️ As I Am

In which Teddy is a crusader, Billy isn't technically a pilgrim, and some sins get enthusiastically committed.

Rating: E (sex, Billy/Teddy)

⚔️ Stars

A stolen night of privacy allows for some experimentation of the sexy kind.

Rating: E (sex, Billy/Teddy)

⚔️ Each Step

The sack of Zara. Or, the one where Teddy is a Crusader, Billy and Tommy are pretending to be pilgrims, and everything is going to hell in a handbasket.

Rating: M (violence)

⚔️ The Greyhound

Forced to sail with the Venetian fleet, Will and Tom are at Gregory's mercy on a rough and stormy sea.

Rating: M (some consensual sex, but also violence)

⚔️ Lady of the Lake

Thomas the Pilgrim meets the Lady of Scutari, and they steal a moment in the grass.

Rating: E (sex, Tommy/Kate)

⚔️ The Old Duke

Elijah, Strategus of Scutari, third of his family to bear the title, governor in the name of Alexios Angelos the Emperor of the Romans, the hand of justice, was a man undone by love.

Rating: G

⚔️ Hunter

Slip the jesses, my love. This hunter you own, from the hood to the glove.

When the circling and striking are done and I land, let me come back to your hand.

Rating: E (sex, Tommy/Kate)

⚔️ Measure of a Man

The one wherein the tower of Galata falls, the crusaders tee up for the Siege of Constantinople, and I quote Geoffrey de Villehardouin a few times.

Main character deaths start here.

Rating: T

⚔️ For Guinevere

Even in the middle of the apocalypse, there's time for pillow talk.

Rating: T

⚔️ Crashing Down / Exile

It's the Siege of Constantinople. It's the end of everything.

Rating: M (violence). Major character death.

⚔️ Fortune (an alternate ending)

Or maybe it happened like this. Major character death averted, and a fairy tale ending of the usual sort.

Chapters: 9/15 Fandom: Young Avengers (Comics) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan, Kate Bishop/Tommy Shepherd

All art by @cris-art​

Summary:

It's the 1920s in New York, and anything is possible. Prohibition is underway but the gin-joints are hopping, and in some of the more underground clubs it's safe to be yourself.

Billy Lehnsherr, one of the heirs apparent to the Lehnsherr fortune, steps out to find some fun... and finds a lot more than he ever expected. For Teddy Altman, orphan, life has been one kick in the teeth after another. And when something good finally walks into his life, he knows it's only a matter of time before it's taken away again...

Based on an image pack prompt from CrisArt. Updates Sundays.

Chapter 9

Chapters: 1/15 Fandom: Young Avengers (Comics) Rating: Explicit Relationships: Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan, Kate Bishop/Tommy Shepherd

Summary:

It's the 1920s in New York, and anything is possible. Prohibition is underway but the gin-joints are hopping, and in some of the more underground clubs it's safe to be yourself.

Billy Lehnsherr, one of the heirs apparent to the Lehnsherr fortune, steps out to find some fun... and finds a lot more than he ever expected. For Teddy Altman, orphan, life has been one kick in the teeth after another. And when something good finally walks into his life, he knows it's only a matter of time before it's taken away again...

I wasn't at all happy with the way that book worked out (publisher was shutting down - unbeknownst to most of us - there were a lot of rush issues, etc.) so when the rights reverted back to me, I took it all down. It's on my list of 'things to rewrite' and rerelease, but I got caught up on other projects and then last year I burned out HARD.

Chapters: 15/15 Fandom: Young Avengers (Comics) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan, Kate Bishop/Tommy Shepherd

Summary:

It's the 1920s in New York, and anything is possible. Prohibition is underway but the gin-joints are hopping, and in some of the more underground clubs it's safe to be yourself.

Billy Lehnsherr, one of the heirs apparent to the Lehnsherr fortune, steps out to find some fun... and finds a lot more than he ever expected. For Teddy Altman, orphan, life has been one kick in the teeth after another. And when something good finally walks into his life, he knows it's only a matter of time before it's taken away again...