#i know the fandom is not lacking for solavellan content but there is a fic brewing in the back of my mind ahh

[ell-vellan]

Sleep Token song lyrics that make me want to write a Solavellan fic

"Why are you never real? / Whenever you appear you leave me with that grace / I am trembling with fear / But I know that you will disappear / Just as I awake / Whisper in my ear"

"Well, I believe / Somewhere in the past / Something was between / You and I, my dear / And it remains / With me to this day / No matter what I do / This scar will never fade"

"So let's make trouble in the dream world / Hijack heaven with another memory now"

"Why are you never real? / The shifting states you follow me through / Unrevealed / Just let me go or take me with you"

"Who made you like this? / Who encrypted your dark gospel in body language? / Synapses snap back in blissful anguish / Tell me you met me in past lives, past life / Past what might be eating me from the inside, darling"

"Half algorithm, half deity / Glitches in the code or gaps in a strange dream / Tell me you guessed my future and it mapped onto your fantasy"

"Won't you come and dance in the dark with me? / Show me what you are, I am desperate to know / Nobody better than the perfect enemy"

"You cannot watch me ascend / And I know what you want from me / You want the same as me / My redemption, eternal ascension / Setting me free / So I'll take what I want, then leave"

"And just like the rain / You cast the dust into nothing / And wash out the salt from my hands / So touch me again / I feel my shadow dissolving"

"I know, I know, the way that it goes / You get what you give, you reap what you sow / And I can see you in my fate / And I know, I know, I am what I am / The mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb"

"In turning divine / And we tangle endlessly / Like lovers entwined / I know for the last time / You will not be mine / So give me the night, the night, the night"

[blarfkey]

Fic Writer Interview

Thanks for the tag, @wizardofozymandias! Sorry it took so long to get to it!

Name: Blarfkey, here and on AO3

Where you post: mostly AO3, though sometimes I will post snippets and things here.

Fandoms: I’ve written for Dragon Age, X-Men, Star Wars, Assassins Creed Odyssey, and Pokemon

Most Popular One Shot: The one shot with the most Kudos is Woodstock 83, a post X-Men Apocalypse where Peter finally tells Magneto that they are father and son. The one shot with the most hits is Clowns to the Left of Me Jokers to the Right, a one shot post DOFP about Peter figuring out what kind of relationship he wants with his father, knowing that his father is the most wanted criminal in the world.

Most popular multichap: Dear Fen’harel -- my massive Solavellan Modern AU that’s based on the children’s book Dear Daddy Long Legs. Ellana moved from the Dales to pursue college and finds herself broke and working three jobs in Val Royeaux just to survive. A mysterious benefactor offers to pay for her ride to Skyhold University and all he wants in return is a pen pal.

Favorite Story I’ve Written So Far: Ok so this one is hard. I loved writing The Sun Will Shine When Morning Comes, the sequel to Woodstock 83, because it was from Erik’s POV, which I hadn’t done before. But I also really love Thick as Thieves for being to canon Solas romance I wish I had gotten. There is a serious lack of Solas/Cadash content. And I both love and Hate Dear Fen’harel in equal measure, haha. It’s the fic that will not end. And I love Trick of the Light because I fell in love with Alcibiades in Assassin’s Creed and I also love Greek Mythology.

Fic You were Nervous To Post: Let Me Give You Some Light. I know Colemance is not everyone’s cup of tea and has some strong opinions on it either way, and this was dark, fucked up Colemance to boot. but I’ve been surprised at the amount of love it’s received!

How Do You Choose Titles? I mostly crib them fron song lyrics! Occasionally I get inspired by a phrase or a theme in the fic but it doesn’t happen often, so I cheat. Insidiously.

Do You Outline: if it’s longer than a oneshot, I will list the events and scenes I want to include and put them in order. but I always leave space for my brain to be inspired at the last minute.

Complete: I have 23 completed fics! But most of those are oneshots

In Progress: The main fics I’m still working on are Dear Fen’harel, Thick As Thieves, Code Ren (Reylo The Force Awakens AU) and Too Wise to Woo Peaceably (Kate/Marak fic from the book The Hollow Kingdom). A few fics are waiting for an extra update or coda, but can be read as finished.

Prompts: I have way too many ideas and not enough time to write them on my own. So even though I love prompts, I can’t keep up with them.

Upcoming Work You’re Excited About: There are two one shots I’ve been keeping in the back of my head for a while, waiting for a spare minute. I’ve got a Toph/Zuko fic from ATLA and a Draco & Luna fic for Harry Potter. Also a fun/dark gothic Dragon Age AU fic I want to write with @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold but IDK if I’m allowed to spill any details. >.>

Worlds I Would Love To Write For In The Future: There’s a lot of fandoms I would want to dip my toe in if I got the right idea. The Queen’s Thief series, for one. Harry Potter, which I’ve read since I was a kid and never wrote for. Final Fantasy 12. I’m dying for a Nutcracker AU. So many things, haha. So little time.

This was fun so consider anyone who wants to do this tagged!

[pikapeppa]

Oh Mighty Word Wrangler, bestow upon me your wisdom!! ♥ What do you think makes your amazing fics so popular? Apart from your OBVIOUS talent and writing ability, of course ;) Is it frequency of posting? The pairings? Amount of smut? I'm curious :D

HAHAHAH THANK YOU FOR THAT COMPLIMENT YOU SNUCK IN THERE but also I’M PANIC at the thought of trying to answer this question lol?? I mean, this is the question for the ages, right? What makes a fic popular, and how do we boost the engagement with our own work?

Let me preface this reply by saying it is based just on my experiences and hypothesizing, and NOT on anything systematic. Trust me, I’d study this like a science if I could, but then I wouldn’t be writing. HAHA. Also, I’ll mostly focus on popularity on AO3 and not on Tumblr, since I would argue that I’m only “known as a writer” on Tumblr because people followed me here from AO3. 

First of all, I want to highlight the fact that popularity does not equal quality, and vice versa. I’ve read some fics that are AMAZING but have little engagement. Some examples are Last Call by @galadrieljones (Ameridan/Lavellan) and this very short Fenris fic that I just read recently. On the other hand, I’ve tried to read some fics that are extremely popular with tons of hits/kudos/comments, but my judgmental ass thinks they’re poorly written and/or poorly characterized. There really is not a clear linear relationship between the quality of a fic and its popularity. (Anyone who is discouraged by the lack of engagement with their work: please keep this in mind.)

Another thing to consider: what do we even mean by popularity? On AO3, is the most popular fic the one with the most hits? The most comments? The most kudos? Even then, a longfic that’s been updated weekly for a year is going to have more hits than a completed oneshot, just by virtue of its length. Frequently updated fics will show up week after week in search results, since AO3’s search results show the most recently updated fics by default. So when I think about popularity… ehhh, I guess I’m thinking about a vague combination of all three of these things – hits, kudos, and comments – while keeping the length of the fic in mind. Given all of this, in the grand scheme of things, my DA fics really aren’t that popular. I didn’t actually do a search because I didn’t want to make myself sad, but if you search my DA pairings (e.g. Fenris/female Hawke) on AO3 by number of hits/comments/kudos, I won’t come up on the first few pages of search results. We’ll come back to the topic of search results later.

ANYWAY. Let’s pretend I’m relatively popular, leaving out the Big Names™ in DA fanfic (whom I won’t tag here because I don’t want to annoy them with a random tag lol). What do I think make my fics somewhat popular? I can think of four things:

Frequency of posting

The combination of fandom and pairing: filling a gap

Varying lengths of fics for a single pairing: something for everyone

I have no idea

Frequency of posting

The most obvious factor that jumps out to me is that I post regularly and frequently. Currently, I update my two ongoing longfics weekly or every other week. When I first got really heavily into Fenris/Rynne Hawke, I was updating almost every day. As I mentioned before, AO3’s search results are shown by the most recently updated fics by default. So if I’m posting regularly, that means my fic is regularly appearing at the top of the list of search results when people search my tags or pairings, which means a higher chance of new readers seeing it and deciding to dive in week after week. 

Fandom and pairing: filling a gap

For this point, I’m going to call back to the fandom where I first became “well-known”, which is Horizon Zero Dawn. I’ve written a number of ships for that game, but my OTP is Aloy/Nil. My fic Stormbirds and Stalkers is the second most kudos’ed fic if you search for that pairing on AO3, and the #1 most kudos’ed fic if you exclude fics that are multi-ship (i.e. shipping Aloy with multiple people in a single fic, which is common in the HZD fandom). Importantly, this was a popular pairing in a very small fandom. There weren’t many fics for this pairing at the time, and there weren’t any fics that did what I was doing: a monogamous love story, with explicit smut, that was actually being updated. 

Funnily enough, though, my second most popular fic in the HZD fandom is my fic for Aloy/Ikrie. This is an extreme rarepair even within a small fandom, with only 19 Aloy/Ikrie fics on AO3, but my fic for this pairing is the one with the most hits/kudos/comment and is also my one fic with the most subscribers on AO3. Clearly people were excited about this fic and wanted to see more of this pairing. 

So what’s the logic here? A rarepair in a small fandom, a popular pairing in a small fandom… what’s the pattern? From what I can tell, a fic will be more popular if people are starved for that content. If a fic falls into that gap where people clearly want MOAR, but MOAR doesn’t yet exist, it’s going to get more engagement. Popular pairings in a small fandom fall perfectly into that gap, as do highly-coveted rarepairs with little existing content. A Dragon Age example of this is my little Cole/Lavellan romance fic. Colemances are quite rare, sexual ones even more so, and I think the reason for my Colemance fic’s popularity is because it fills that gap. 

If we return to the rest of my Dragon Age fic, however… [nervous laugh] the logic I just outlined above doesn’t really apply. That takes me to the third factor.

Varying fic lengths for a single pairing: a little something for everyone

Most of my Dragon Age work is for the most popular pairings for the games I’ve played: FenHawke for DA2, and Solavellan for DA:I. (Yes, yes, Cullen is even more popular, but I’ll leave my Cullen/Inquisitor work out of this analysis because I think it’s a special case.) I’ve heard that it’s notoriously difficult to get engagement when you’re writing a popular ship for a bigger fandom, since readers get inundated with choice and your fic can get lost in the shuffle. I would in no way say I’m “popular” for the pairings I write, considering that the most popular Solavellan fics have like… tens of thousands of hits and thousands of comments. Still, I have been surprised and thrilled by the engagement I have gotten in this fandom, especially since I’m kind of a noob to the DA world. 

One of the reasons my DA work might be relatively popular is that I write fics of varying lengths and types for my pairings. For Fen and Rynne in particular, I’ve got everything from non-smut oneshots to smutty oneshots to smutty longfics to AUs. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone, and I suspect that someone who was like “I just want a oneshot” might get interested enough by the one thing they read to check out my other work, even if they didn’t start out looking for more than a oneshot. Similarly for Solavellan, and also for Abelas/Lavellan, I’ve got oneshots and a multichapter drabble collection, so there’s something both for the people who are searching for a quick oneshot and for those who are searching for multichapter fics. In short: more variety means more potential to show up in AO3 search results. 

Don’t get me wrong; some of my Dragon Age stuff has fallen flat, namely my Blackwall/Lavellan work. That was actually the first DA ship I ever wrote for. The smutty oneshot collection has been relatively popular in terms of hits and kudos, but the two little multichapter mini-fics I wrote for Baewall have had very little attention, and I don’t really know why. Baewall isn’t the most popular ship in the fandom, I know, but it still doesn’t really explain the popularity of the smutty oneshots versus the mini-fics, which are also smutty. 

Which brings me to my final point…

I have no idea.

LOL. Seriously though. I’m sure there are other things at play that I’m not aware of, so maybe this can open a little discussion! What do you guys think? Any other theories on why some fics get more popular than others? 

Thanks for the interesting ask, Elvenybae! I definitely spent too much time thinking about this today, LOL!! 😂 😘

- Love from your friendly neighbourhood Pikapeppa xoxo

[ladylike-foxes]

Dragon Age Question Meme

Tagged by @galadrieljones ❤️😘 Thank you, Sweets!

Tagging: @wrenbee @joufancyhuh @kvpowers @nerkierants @solverne-02 @ellstersmash @swimming-squids @roguelioness And anyone else who'd like to!

01) favorite game of the series?

Inquisition. I hadn't played Origins or DA2 in so long, I had practically forgotten they existed. I had gotten out of gaming for a long time, until I finally caved when I moved away, and got into Skyrim. I played so much I literally maxed out my levelling, and was starting to get bored...which made me sad. Inquisition not only rekindled my love for Dragon Age, it brought out more fresh inspiration to my creativity overall, and that in turn has improved my life,

02) how did you discover Dragon Age?

I played Origins and DA2 at friends' houses when I was in school, but while I enjoyed them, I wasn't in a place in my life where I could appreciate them. Then I was telling my amazing baby-brother-in-law about how sad I was that Skyrim was feeling stale to me, and he told me to play Inquisition. I was speculative at first, because I was so in love with Skyrim's open-world format and lack of any real Good +/- Evil alignment...but once I got past the Intro, I felt so immersed and so connected to the characters, that now Skyrim feels a little empty in comparison (though I do still love it)

03) how many times you’ve played the games?

Origins and DA2, only once each. Inquisition & its DLCs, 6 times all the way through.

04) favorite race to play as?

Elves. It's a bit embarrassing, but I'm an Elf Person. Though I'm sure it hasn't been obvious at all.

05) favorite class?

ROGUE!!! Especially dual-weild 😍 Mage is super fun too, though, ngl

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time.

NGL It depends on which character I'm playing as, mostly. I also base new decisions based on the effects of decisions in past play thrus and how they played out. If I'm contented with the results in respect to the character, I'll make the same decisions 😂

07) go-to adventuring group?

Solas, Iron Bull, and Dorian, though I rotate Varric and Cassandra in and out a lot, too.

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

😂😂😂 Halesta

09) favorite romance?

Solas, because I enjoy torturing myself. Sera was cute, too. Cullen was fluffy and sweet, and was good for me after my first play thru with Solas. I was in a bad place after the first Solavellan go 'round, cried for weeks. It was not pretty 😂

10) have you read any of the comics/books?

First Flight and Masked Empire

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book?

Masked Empire, hands down. I don't know why, but I couldn't really get into First Flight? But Felassan in Masked Empire, are you kidding?! SWOON.

12) favorite DLCs?

Trespasser. I also love the Descent, especially for the lore! But the Deep Roads scare the ever-loving shit out of me, so I have to psych myself up before I can play it 😅 While I am hot for Ameridan, Jaws of Hakkon didn't really grab me.

13) things that annoy you?

To steal Gala's answer: "Not much. Mostly I get annoyed when parts of the fandom fixate on things that annoy them. That annoys me, because I’m here for the positive vibes, not the negative."

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Ferelden for the people and culture, Orlais for the varying environments and the history.

15) Templars or Mages?

Mage Rights

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Halesta + Laleal Verse is technically the same Verse as Camber + Somber, since their stories converge, but their timelines are a little different. Ghani is Omniversal. She's in any and every Verse. She's in your Verse right now, and you don't even know it 🤫

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

The dogs in Origins and DA2 were Bryna and Nilo, respectively. Halesta's horse is Da'assan and her little fox is Ghestlin ("lil monster")

18) have you installed any mods?

No...PS4 😟

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

Noooooo.

20) Hawke’s personality?

She's a spiteful, sarcastic bitch and I love her so much I can't even.

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

Ahahaha, God no. I made armor for each companion that I thought fit their personalities.

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Oh God, uhh, I have no idea.

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

SO MANY. Felassan doesn't die, Halies's father is an Ancient Elvhen Sentinel, she is sent by Fel to kill Solas before he can get the Orb to Corypheus (she doesn't), she knows Solas is Fen'Harel, she saves the Orb from breaking but won't give it to Solas, is able to master the Orb and use the power of the Anchor without losing her arm (though it is severely scarred), etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Also, @galadrieljones , about the barefoot elves: I kinda like that they're barefooted! Though probably because I'm always barefooted 😅

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone?

Halesta's personality is based loosely on my mother combined with certain self-insert aspects of my bipolar disorder. Laleal is pretty much based on a combo of my best friend and my husband. Camber's personality is based a little more accurately on my Momma, and her relationship with Somber is based on mine with my own brother (though we're not twins) when we were younger (we're still close, but you know how things change sometimes with age and distance). And Ghani is just a straight-up personification of my depression and anxiety 😂

25) who did you leave in the Fade?

Stroud. I couldn't live with an alternative.

26) favorite mount?

While Halie has a horse she's very attached to in my fic/hc, I don't use mounts in-game. To quote Gala: "My party and I run around on foot like children and get eaten by bears like men."