*flails*

[twist_shimmy]

We've been open for a week, and I thought I'd post and share some stats that are just making me-- okay, I'll be honest. They're making me gape. Every time I have noticed one of these I have gone :o because you all are turning this into so much more than I'd even wanted to hope for!

Stats!

• 50 subscribers, most of whom appear to have been directed here by scarylady, our one-woman People of Thedas Auxiliary Club.
• 17 intro posts. Thanks to lenna_nightrunner and elysium_fic for starting this trend.
  
• 85 journal entries in one week. They've covered art, fic, gameplay, modding ideas, you name it.
• 1590 comments and counting.
• The most commentary received was 148 comments on a single post.
• The Alistair tag has been used 27 times.
• The Zevran tag has been used 16 times.
• Our most popular PC, according to tags, is the f!Tabris.

Conclusion!

So I'm sitting here, sipping my coffee, analyzing this data, and coming to a conclusion:

WE ARE RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.

And because we are ridiculously awesome, I declare the next few days to be Zevran Love Days! There's already a lot of Zev-love here, but if you've been meaning to post art, prompts, or fic that is Zev-related, let this be your cue to do so.

Caveat: We're the People of Thedas. You can post stuff even if it's NOT Zev-related, but if you want to participate in the Antivan Love-In, have at it. :D

TL:DR!

Keep doing what you're doing, darlings. Comment, post, have fun. We're so awesome because YOU are, omg. If you haven't pimped the comm and want to, banners are here. If you're pimping to an LJ comm, please warn me beforehand so Lenna and I can be prepared for sudden influxes. If you're scarylady, you are amazing. That is all.

Questions, comments, ideas for comm things you'd like to see implemented this week? Comment here and let me know. I'm working out the details for a kink thread, so let me know if you've got thoughts on that score, too.

Just here to flail/dance/congratulate each other? Comment. We can have a sexy, sexy party. Zev would be so proud.

::EDIT::  Okay, you guys, the sexy, sexy party has been had and my inbox is weeping. Why you do this? Why you so awesome?


Don't you deserve a rest? Wouldn't it be nice to just... nap for a while?  The comm will go on without you....

Shimmy: "Hey, thanks Sloth."
Sloth: "Can I eat them?"
Shimmy: "Didn't you just have Niall?"
Sloth: "...I'd hate you, but too much effort involved."


*goes back to working on this oneshot before elysium_fic  kills her. :D*

Comments

[amhran_comhrac]

I am, apparently, not allowed to have cliffhanger endings to a chapter. But the emails are more along the "you'd better not do 'bad thing x, y, and z' to them in the next chapter!"
Most of the suggestions are things I wouldn't have even come up with, much less implemented. But... a few people will just be more pissed at me.

[twist_shimmy]

*snickers* Oh man, I have a story for you. You wanna hear about broken-up readers, I should tell you about the PMs I got over the end of Two Pups and a Bastard. They boiled down to "rewrite the entire thing to my specifications or I'll call you a bitch who can't take concrit and spam your personal journal with horrendous cursing."

I figure anger means you're doing something right. Right?

And it's worth it, right?

[amhran_comhrac]

Shit, I hope so. It's like 'come on, you people have stuck with me through 75 chapters, don't leave now!'
But I suspect some will be seriously mad.

And it is kind of understandable, as my fic is normally lacking in a lot of the heavy angst and drama stuff. But sometimes you just have to make your characters suffer, you know?

[twist_shimmy]

I make my characters suffer so often that my betas are now partially immune to the sight of puppies being kicked.

[amhran_comhrac]

I've had more than one person tell me after reading a fic where everyone suffers, they head over to mine to feel better about the world.
Mostly because I can't go three or four chapters without including smut.

[elysium_fic]

Ahh, WordSmith. What would we ever do without you to give us step-by-step instructions on how to write your our stories?

[scarylady]

Cor, that one's sat in my inbox, waiting to be read. I may have to go do that now. I promise there shall be no anger.

[amhran_comhrac]

All right, if I could send you cookies via the internet I totally would.
Since you are completely right and very few people got that they were behaving like ABSOLUTE IDIOTS.

[scarylady]

Yup, they were being cocky idiots; too used to the idea that they are invulnerable. The Divine ain't the GC, and Orlais ain't Ferelden. They'll hopefully come out of this sadder, wiser Wardens.

[amhran_comhrac]

Exactly!!
It was getting to be a bit to much like "The Amazingly Awesome Adventures of Maggie and Anders Who Win at Everything All The Time." (shit, I totally want to write a parody of them and use that as the title now.)

So... they must SUFFER. And they would totally just bum around in armor and somehow not remember that they're excessively famous in their home country and templars in Orlais have probably seen pictures of them more than once. Since they're both space cadets like that.

[scarylady]

Anyway, it'll be fascinating to see Anders back in the hands of Templars so far down the line. It's been a while.

[cave_fatuam]

Pfft. People! Do this! Do that!
Some times I want to just say, "Hey, write/draw your own stuff then."

[amhran_comhrac]

You know? Especially the weirdly specific stuff. "You should make a love triangle between these characters," or "you should have a scene where this, this, and this all happen."

(but then, I am so not a fan of The Universally Adored Warden That Everyone in Thedas Wants to Fuck, so I suppose I'm AU in that regard.)

[cave_fatuam]

I was seriously once told that I made someone's dress the wrong color...ya know the picture...I made up in my head... from 'magination... of my characters... uh, whut?

(Does it count if you want to fuck him, then fuck up his life? 'Cause then I'm way for serious guilty.)

[cave_fatuam]

The little M!Cousland thing I have on the back burner with the revolting peasants and their murder the Warden attitude from the commonfolk perspective no less is fun... The wily sex-spy maid servant gathering intel to fuck him over is fun to write. I think I might just be an awful person though...

[scarylady]

I'm even worse. I'm not even a fan of the Living Warden who gets a place in the Fanfic.

NPC's are sooo much more fun.

[cave_fatuam]

But you've got your silly troupe of Orlesians at least.

[scarylady]

Yeah, but they are genuine made-up chars, created for the purpose of making the story interesting.

They are not my PC, my char who I played and invested in. I dunno, I find a few, a VERY few, of the Wardens in other people's fanfics interesting, but most of them are only of interest to the person who played them, imo. Which I why I almost never read re-tellings of the Blight.

[cave_fatuam]

I know, I know. And I adore them for it.
I can't hardly read anything that occurs during the Blight... it's like, I did that. I can only read those if I like the character starting off.
To be honest with you, since we're deep enough in comments that no one will read this, I hate doing Unhappy in Our Own Way now...like for serious. If people didn't keep bugging me about it I'd just let it drop. I've tried to make Maeve absolutely disgusting (which I hate, b/c I love Maeve at her base level) and every one is still like, oh yay!UPDATEPULEEZTHX! In the next three pages I have sketched out, she almost kills Anders, admits to fucking the queen, and breaks Alistair's arm. I'm just trying so hard to just be awful at this point... which I hate. [---end rant---]
-sticks thumb in mouth-
I just want to play Cowboys and Wardens and draw smut.

[elysium_fic]

Well, even those of us who write the Warden that Everyone Wants to Fuck (it was part of the prompt that she should be a "slut who loves it" so you can't blame me entirely) catch shit, most notably because Certain Readers can't handle sexually active female characters unless the male characters are either "getting even" by boffing someone else, or throwing tantrums and shit-fits.

[twist_shimmy]

I can't wait to see what people think of the Emotionally Disturbed Warden Who Wants to Fuck All of Thedas. *twitches*

[elysium_fic]

I'm sure Certain Readers will tell you exactly how you should have written the story.

[amhran_comhrac]

Yes, but that's the whole twist behind your story. So for you it works. (Very well!)

And my main character basically considers sex to be slightly more friendly than a handshake (especially at this point in the story). So I have zero qualms with sexually active female characters. I just break cannon by making it so not everyone has the hots for the warden.
I can't understand how "I loathe the chantry and circle and will fuck anything that isn't a templar. I suspect the only other surviving warden who is also a templar thinks I'm a maleficar and may kill me," and "I spent years training to be a templar and want my first time to be special. I suspect the only other surviving warden, who I know didn't spend a single night at Ostagar in her own tent, or the same tent twice, is a blood mage who may kill me" speak of massive unresolved sexual tension to a small segment of my readers.

I'm constantly amazed I've managed to even make them gradually become friends in a somewhat believable fashion without one slaughtering the other.

[elysium_fic]

I just break cannon by making it so not everyone has the hots for the warden.

I wouldn't call that canon. Fanon, definitely.

The remark about sexually active female characters was aimed at a specific reader who left me feedback over at AFF and left Shimmy feedback on 2P1B (we sussed it out that it was the same guy) who gave both of us shit for having our f!PC fuck someone who wasn't Alistair.

Your readers may be coming from the "opposites attract" angle, perhaps, but meh, that's been done plenty of times.

And sometimes readers just mistake your intent. I know for a while there, some readers were trying to make my PCs relationship with Zevran to be something it totally was never going to be. Which is flattering, in a way, because it means they're internalizing what's going on. But it can leave you scratching your head as a writer.

So I definitely know the feeling.

[elysium_fic]

May I contribute a pithy "fuck 'em"?

Seriously. I have no patience for backseat writers.

None.

If I'm not asking for prompts, you'll either read the fucking story I write the way I want to write it, or don't read it and STFU.