yllyana | Reading

While I'm waiting for my manuscript to cool, I'm doing a short book marketing course that I bought to see if I can get my head around where the heck to find readers. I know I'm not doing a lot of marketing and I'm okay with that because my strategy right now is in the one hour of useful creative energy I have a day I want to get the writing done. The next book sells the previous one and all that. So the goal is to get this trilogy done, then lean into marketing hard for a while.

I've set up a foundation - I have a brand style, I'm on Instagram and have indie author friends. I have an email list. I have not... done much else. I don't even have freebies to get people to sign up for my newsletter (see above one (1) hour of functional creative energy per day.)

Hence this little course. It's basically all stuff I know from my day job. But it does have worksheets, and I'm a sucker for worksheets.

So, since my target audience is exhausted, demoralized older millennials/borderline gen X whose hips and knees hurt, who are tired of their favorite characters dying and into competence porn, who like sci-fi and fantasy in the Gen and Bob flavors (me. it's me.), where do they hang out online?

I'm on Instagram and that's about it, because I can only handle one social channel at the moment. Is Bluesky the new Twitter? If I'm going to put energy into marketing, I want to be in the right place, because I sure as hell am not going to be able to do more than one or two channels.

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Gen. Teyla Emmagan & Sam Carter, Evan Lorne
Rating: Teen
Length: 8824
Content Notes: canon-typical violence, minor character death
Creator Links: Rachel500 on AO3, ArwenLune on AO3, ArwenLune on Audiofic Archive
Themes: Female relationships, Action/adventure, Friendship, Women being awesome

Summary: When a diplomatic mission is interrupted by the Wraith, Sam and Teyla wrestle their personal demons to work together and find a way back to Atlantis.

Reccer's Notes:
This is set soon after Sam Carter comes to Atlantis to replace Elizabeth, and both she and Teyla initially grapple with her new role. Teyla, unlike John and Rodney, had no prior knowledge of Sam Carter and can't help missing Elizabeth and not fully trusting Carter. Then a mission goes badly wrong and they're thrown together, and have to find a way through their feelings as they deal with the dangerous situation. It's a gripping read with interesting character explorations and a satisfying ending. There's also a podfic version, excellently read by ArwenLune.

Fanwork Links: Walk Beside Me on AO3
And the Podfic, read by ArwenLune

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Fixing a Flat (Norman Rockwell illustration)
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Hilda; three Norman Rockwell characters, two female and one male.
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 2,356
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, women solving their own problems
Creator Tags: magazine illustrations, Norman Rockwell - Freeform, Fluff, Plot
Creator Links: (AO3)

moon_custafer; (DeviantArt)

mooncustafer; (Dreamwidth)

moon_custafer; (Instagram)

mooncustafer; (LiveJournal)

moon_custafer; (Tumblr)

mooncustafer
Theme: Female Relationships, Crossovers/Fusions, Female Friendship, Gen, Heists & Capers, Old Fandoms, Small Fandoms, Stranded

Summary: Hilda’s fishing trip is struck by rain and then by two new acquaintances in need of assistance.

Author’s Notes: For moonlight69.

I needed to introduce a few additional characters to Hilda’s mainly single-panel world, so I did a mash-up with Norman Rockwell’s “Fixing a Flat.” Think of it as the Illustrationverse.

Reccer's Notes: A rec posted in honor of the U.S. Full Strawberry Moon, for reasons that will be apparent in the fic.

Moon Custafer constructs a story from several Hilda panels (plus a special guest Norman Rockwell work), in which Duane Bryers’ zaftig hillbilly wood nymph comes to the aid of two travelers stranded in the boondocks—a predicament complicated by a less friendly local. (A temporary problem-solving alliance (particularly against a common enemy) can count as a relationship, right?)

Hilda as portrayed in Bryers’ artworks seems to embrace solitude, and the scant fanfic I’ve seen doesn’t tend to show her interacting face-to-face with much of anyone but her animal friends and the odd Authorial Proxy; it’s fun to watch her socializing, and to see her given family, friends, enemies, and a history. (As well as actual clothing that she presumably wears now and then to pick up her crackers, trashy novels, and repurposable-as-clothing floursacks.)

Fanwork Links: Fixing a Flat by

moon_custafer for

moonlight69, for Yuletide 2018.

tassosss

Draft 1 of book 2 is finished.

It's a messy draft and I'm not looking forward to editing it.

But it's done and done.

Final wordcount: 107,659

I wrote ~7k in the last two days.

eratoschild posting in

fancake

Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.

Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...

Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.

The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.

This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.

There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)

This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169

tassosss

Today: 4,222 words

Total: 104,505.

I'm so close to the end. 1.5 chapters to go.

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Taskmaster (series 16)
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor

Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.

Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.

Fanwork Links: Team of Sue

mhalachai

I have had a very interesting few days, writing-wise. I had been noodling on an idea for a while when, maybe three days ago, I started wondering if I might be able to do use the premise of the Hour of the Wolf (my Teen Wolf/MCU timetravel long-lost family story feat. Allison Argent) on something related to Anita Blake.

Note: It took me a whole day to remember had already done that in 2005 with Switchback, a story I didn't import over to AO3 as it's incomplete. (You can find it here; cw: rape)

Sometimes people say they only tell one story… and I just re-read Switchback and realized that I didn't create something new with Hour of the Wolf; I'd taken my one story and applied it to Teen Wolf.

Anyway.

A few days ago, when the idea occurred to me to apply the HotW premise to Anita Blake, I went all in, I was writing, I was plotting, and I had over 6,000 words together by the time I managed to think my way through to the end of the story…. And then I stopped. I realized that I absolutely do not want to write this story as it's set because there's no chance of a hopeful ending. The story starts with irreparable loss, and there's no way to fix that.

So I stopped.

In the interests of transparency (and because I like throwing dark-haired girls and their preternatural sidekicks back in time), I've posted what I have written below the cut:

( Read more... )

nuh_s posting in

fancake

Fandom: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Pairings/Characters: Lily Wright & Pippa James, Jack Wright & Lily Wright
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 8,492
Content Notes: Alcoholism, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning
Creator Links: ryyves' Ao3
Theme: Female Relationships, Character Study, Angst

Summary:

Spoilers for King Falls AM episode 68, set before the first King Falls Chronicles (ep 56-57).

It’s far from the last email Lily gets about King Falls. Sometimes the name is hidden in postscripts, sometimes bright as highways at midnight, and every time it catches in Lily’s heart like a frightened canary, yellow and waning.

Lily doesn’t delete them, not one. She files them away in a quiet folder of her work email, so she doesn’t have to see them in her inbox. There are things that can be said with distance, and this is one of them: that if she deleted every mention of King Falls, she would delete every rope thrown to Jack. Every hope, or something that runs even deeper.

Some fear, perhaps, that she is not where she is supposed to be.

Or: Pippa puts up with way more of Lily's shit than she should have to.

Reccer's Notes: This is such a wonderful character study that explores Lily's character and gives her and Pippa's friendship a spotlight. The writing style is beautiful as well.

Fanwork Links: the gallery of our bones

kingstoken posting in

fancake

Fandom: Ghosts (US)
Pairings/Characters: Hetty & Flower
Rating: G
Length: 708 words
Creator Links: OpalEssence
Theme: female relationships

Summary: Following Season 2, Episode 5, when Hetty meets Molly the maid, she must attempt to come to terms with the fact that Elias' betrayal was entirely of his own will and desire. Luckily, Flower is there to help her move forward.

Reccer's Notes: The author of this fic does a great job capturing how these characters speak, especially Flower. It is a reflective, but wholesome scene, one that I could have very much seen playing out in the show.

Fanwork Links: AO3

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: “Dark Lady” (Cher song), Barbie
Pairings/Characters: F/M; F vs. F; Narrator/Narrator’s Partner, Narrator & Madame Fifi (with Madame Fifi/Narrator UST?), Madame Fifi/Narrator’s Partner
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 3:24
Content Notes: Major Character Death, anti-Romani stereotyping (including the bad word), arson, (toy) Clothing Porn, corny boomer music, dominance-jockeying, infidelity, hootchy-kootch dancing, love triangle, murder, occultism, psychic malpractice, (toy) Scenery Porn, please tell us the cat survived?
Creator Tags: cher, darklady, barbiestopmotion, stopmotion, animation, megotoys, barbie

Creator Links: (YouTube):

74renren; (Instagram):

Warrencito

Theme: Female Relationships, Fanvid, Old Fandoms, Non-AO3 Works, Unconventional Format & Style

Summary: A stop motion tribute to the Cher hit “Dark Lady” done with vintage Barbie and Cher dolls with other special guests.

Reccer's Notes: The list of Content Notes should suffice to explain why this song was embraced by a particular sort of overwrought 70’s kid (1); Wright reimagines the cartoon music video that aired on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

(1) Me, for example. Disclaimer: the song has become a guilty pleasure in retrospect not because of its melodramatic nature, but because of the realization that Romani probably caught a lot of grief over it.)

Fanwork Links: Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation, by Warren Wright.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: A Dark and Stormy Night.
Current Music: Implicit in the subject.

garryowen posting in

fancake

Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Gaila & Christine Chapel
Rating: Teen
Length: 4,185 words
Creator Links:

igrockspock
Theme: Female relationships

Summary: Privacy and fairy tales are two concepts that don't translate well into Orion.

Content notes: This is about Gaila, so there are mentions of enslavement and prostitution.

Reccer's Notes: I am fascinated by stories of how people come to Starfleet and what it must be like to meet people from such disparate backgrounds. This story approaches this subject with grace as Gaila and Christine Chapel become roommates at Starfleet Academy and must figure out each other's very different values and expectations. By opening up to each other, they forge a friendship. I like how creative the author is in describing Gaila's background and culture. The cultural exchange never feels heavy-handed. It's conveyed with tiny, realistic details like borrowing things from someone else's desk.

In addition to the cultural exchange element, the story weaves in ideas of resilience and having the power to change your life.

Fanwork Links: Once Upon a Time. And the WONDERFUL podfic by nickelmountain.

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: F/F; Madam Jin/Yu Ziyuan; Madam Jin, Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Cheng
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 600
Content Notes: adultery (mentioned), angst, arranged marriage, bereavement, generational trauma, heteronormativity, marriage politics, possible (unexpressed) adult-> minor pining
Creator Tags: 5+1 Things, Drabble Sequence, Zǐdiàn (Módào Zǔshī) - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, Socially Imposed Heterosexual Marriage, Background Relationships
Creator Links: (AO3):

Zdenka
Theme: Female Relationships, Arranged Marriage, 5+1, Mutual Pining, Pining

Summary:

Five times Madam Jin saw Zidian on Yu Ziyuan's hand, and one time she saw it on her son's.

Notes:

Written for femslashfete for the prompt "artifact."

Reccer's Notes: Zdenka manages to cram so much into 600 words: an exquisitely painful soromance fulfillable only through generational proxy, imposed in turn—and the reader has the added pang of knowing what’s going to become of that couple.

Fanwork Links: Advance and Retreat, by

Zdenka.

Current Music: An early summer rain, long overdue.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Our theme for June is female relationships!

That's any kind of relationship—platonic, romantic, professional, familial, adversarial—between characters who identify as female.

The tag for this round is: theme: female relationships

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

( Rules! )

( Posting Template! )

( Promote this round! )

Reblog on Tumblr | Reskeet on Bluesky | Retoot on Mastodon

askerian

TOTAL: 5 697
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

POSTED: nothin'!

IN PROGRESS
-In This Economy - bleach suburban ot4 (1 173 words)
-SVSSS Cosplay fic (4 149 words!! imma post chapter 2 soonish.)
-bleach: bloodsport (4 words) ( ;_; )
-Cherry Wine - MadaTobiIzu ABO (369 words)

this month has been good! finally managed to fix a scene i hated in the suburban ot4 chapter 10, AND managed to fix all the problems i had with the cosplay fic so i could finish chapter 2 and even start chapter 3, AND cherry wine!!! le gasp.

bloodsport lied to me about having inspiration and then promptly dying again. hrmghg. one day i will finish you, you jerk. one day...

--
teasers!

( Read more... )

mhalachai

For reasons that I'll explain in a month or two, I went to a local used bookstore (Pulpfiction on Main is my saviour) to see if they had copies of the earlier Anita Blake books. Subway construction on Broadway was so bad that it took longer to get there on the bus than it took me to walk home; c'est la vie.

Anyway, my route home took me past my old apartment. I haven't been that way much since I moved out in 2009. The old neighbourhood was pretty much the same - taller trees, although there are a number of rezoning proposal signs up; we'll see what goes through the city planning office and what can actually get built, with the cost of construction sky-high. I wondered if I would feel any nostalgia when I walked past the old place, but there was none. It was a crappy place and I was in a not-so-great mental space when I lived there. Pretty happy I left when I did.

K that's enough navel gazing. I have old books to look at :)

unfitforsociety

Vids

Avengers

My Metrocard by

seekingferret
Fun Avengers + NYC vid!

✭

Star Wars

What Was I Thinkin'? by

Tafadhali
Fun, fantastic Han/Leia vid!

✭

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: We Both Go Down Together - Decemberists

$unfitforsociety: (fractal swirls)$

unfitforsociety

Star Wars

Sparks by

SpellCleaver
AU where Luke is raised by Vader, but is working as a Rebel agent and complications ensue. A good, long read.

✭

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: until you hit the ground

unfitforsociety

Batfamily

Bury Me Face Down by

historical_allusions
After his confrontation with Batman leaves Red Hood bleeding out on a warehouse floor, Jason Todd wakes up back in his teenage body and still trapped in his casket.

When every death leads back to the same starting point, Jason stumbles through attempt after attempt to get things right. But he's not giving up until he's fixed things. Interesting, slightly melancholy time loop AU where Jason keeps reviving in his grave until he gets things right. <3

door, opening by

cowboysorceror
Long, compelling casefile focusing on Dick and Jason's contentious relationship. I really enjoyed it.

Forget me, Forget me not by

Captain_Aurinko
Kon gets erased from reality, and Tim keeps trying to figure out why there are so many weird gaps in his life. Oh heart...

Head in the Clouds by

lurkinglurkerwholurks
Jason takes a week off to heal from injuries and enjoys it more than he expected.

Independent Variable by

potofsoup
Tim is doing great being an independent vigilante, he's fine! He doesn't need help, he's definitely not estranged from the family -- he's just being independent.

Good thing he's part of a family of detectives who have their own ways of reaching out.

Featuring two powerpoints, one casefile, half a contract, a roomba, and several hugs. Oh Tim... I enjoyed this! (Plus, there's art!)

Jason Todd: Regular College Student by

AddictedApple
AU where, at the end of his League of Assassins training, Jason decides to go to Metropolis for college instead of going back to Gotham for revenge. Things spiral from there. The title is so sarcastic by the way. There's nothing regular about Jason Todd. This is a lot of fun!

Join the Club by

Cephalogod
In which Jason Todd meets Tim Drake, who is inexplicably Dick Grayson's #1 Fan, and decides the only reasonable course of action is to plot to get the two of them to meet and see what happens. It definitely won't have a major impact on his life or anything. This is super cute!

Lois Lane's Number One Fan Tim Drake by

Chiyana
Bruce is missing - as Bruce Wayne - and somewhere in Metropolis. Tim knows Bruce said to tell Clark Kent in case something like this happens, but why would you go to Clark Kent for help when Lois Lane is right there? I mean, he's not wrong...This is fun!

No Need To Fake It by

LakeAwen
When Talia and Cheshire start a civil war against Ra's, they send Damian and Lian to safety with the one bodyguard they can trust: Jason Todd. Jason and his charges set up house in a small New Zealand town, and try to figure out civilian life together. They find more of a home -- and a family -- than they ever expected. Jason just can't let himself forget that this is temporary. This is really lovely. There's a sequel in progress, but I think this story can stand on its own.

Nobody by

goldenraeofsun
One week of feverish research. Two days of furious tracking. Thirty minutes of hopeless fighting.

It is all coming to this, a deal Tim has no choice but to accept.

"I'll release your family in exchange for all their memories of you," Klarion the Witch Boy says.

"I'll do it," Tim says loudly before he can second-guess himself. His fingers tighten around his last birdarang, but he does not throw it. Instead, he stands stock still, forcing himself to keep breathing, keep standing, despite the bone-deep exhaustion weighing his body down.

After all, Gotham needs Batman much more than it needs Robin. Oh Tim...

Of A Genius' Legacy by

sparkoflena
Tim takes a couple of months off in order to catch up on two and a half years of school all in one go - and graduates high school. He knows he deserves a celebration.

He just didn't expect his whole family to show. <333

you long for a feeling you'll never get back by

puddingcatbeans
In a family made of up people unused to having such a big family, sometimes you get lost in the noise. And Tim has always been taught to be the child that was seen, not heard. Oh Tim...

✭

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Level Up - Vienna Tent

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yllyana

June 2025

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Page Summary

tassosss - marketing blah
mific in fancake - SGA: Walk Beside Me by Rachel500
full_metal_ox in fancake - Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Norman Rockwell: Fixing a Flat, by moon_custafer.
tassosss - That's a wrap
eratoschild in fancake - Trails of Cold Steel: Moon Door IV: Beyond
tassosss - word count
mific in fancake - Taskmaster: Team of Sue by thingswithwings
mhalachai - Looking for hope (first two chapters of Carnelian Lace, an Anita Blake fic I won't finish)
nuh_s in fancake - King Falls AM: the gallery of our bones by ryyves
kingstoken in fancake - Ghosts (US): you drew stars around my scars by OpalEssence
full_metal_ox in fancake - “Dark Lady” (Cher song), Barbie: Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation, by Warren Wright (fanvid.)
garryowen in fancake - Star Trek AOS: Once Upon a Time by igrockspock
full_metal_ox in fancake - Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling: Advance and Retreat, by Zdenka.
runpunkrun in fancake - Round 175: Female Relationships
askerian - monthly word count - May
mhalachai - Saturdays in May
unfitforsociety - so high you can't see over
unfitforsociety - falling feels like flying
unfitforsociety - there will be no sign from above

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