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[Babelas]

@ Sable: I'm interspersing writing with my third playthrough (Cadash/Blackwall).  I did play the new DLC with my canon character (Elinan Lavellan) using a save from before Solas left and I loved it.  So much juicy lore.  I'm at the point with the game that all the lovely lore tidbits and questions that arose over several playthroughs have percolated through my brain enough to generate a giant morass of fic ideas.  I'm caught up on most of my favorite authors and I don't watch TV so writing is a fun way to relax after chores are done and the kids are in bed (and occasionally on a day off when I feel like being a slacker).  I should be working on my own stories instead of writing fanfic but I use the excuse that fanfic is good practice . 

 

I think hellspirals are a common reaction to Bioware characters, I know Zev kept me going for years.  I haven't quite hit that level with DA:I yet, I was close pre-release and during my first playthrough with my Solasmance but there are just too many unknowns with Fen'Harel at this point.  Abelas is fun but he is more of a character sketch at this point- fun to play with but you never know how far off the mark you might be

I know those feelings. I have a rambunctious 9 year-old who demands most of my attention when not writing, doing housework, gardening or grocery shopping on top of working at home. I love her to death but I dread summer break which is rapidly approaching. Maker help me. 

 

One name I had considered for Abelas was Athim which means humility. This was on the assumption he was a slave. I still can't decide if he was a slave prior to service to Mythal or not. It sounds like he chose, as in a noble had not already told him he was going to serve their chosen god. But without knowing the specifics of ancient Elvhenan it's hard to say. The other was Linmi = blood blade (because I'm odd)

 

It's good to know writing helped you deal with your hellspiral SableR It can very therapeutic when the muse cooperates. 

 

I write an outline and then a biography for each character before I start writing. Then I hope I finish. I have a story I had written for two years that I have yet to finish. I don't know if I will go back to it. Time is so precious.

 

Do you think we will see Abelas again? I mean I want to tell myself yes, but I have this feeling we won't because of the large companion numbers. Okay that depresses me mostly because I don't like the companions as much as the DA:O companions. I'd love a whole new set except for Solas. He can stay. Zevran must be added though to counter Abelas. It has to be done.

[BoscoBread]

I know those feelings. I have a rambunctious 9 year-old who demands most of my attention when not writing, doing housework, gardening or grocery shopping on top of working at home. I love her to death but I dread summer break which is rapidly approaching. Maker help me. 

 

One name I had considered for Abelas was Athim which means humility. This was on the assumption he was a slave. I still can't decide if he was a slave prior to service to Mythal or not. It sounds like he chose, as in a noble had not already told him he was going to serve their chosen god. But without knowing the specifics of ancient Elvhenan it's hard to say. The other was Linmi = blood blade (because I'm odd)

 

It's good to know writing helped you deal with your hellspiral SableR It can very therapeutic when the muse cooperates. 

 

I write an outline and then a biography for each character before I start writing. Then I hope I finish. I have a story I had written for two years that I have yet to finish. I don't know if I will go back to it. Time is so precious.

 

Do you think we will see Abelas again? I mean I want to tell myself yes, but I have this feeling we won't because of the large companion numbers. Okay that depresses me mostly because I don't like the companions as much as the DA:O companions. I'd love a whole new set except for Solas. He can stay. Zevran must be added though to counter Abelas. It has to be done.

BW is getting more concerned about retconning and backing themselves into a wall with their writing regarding characters.  I've noticed in this game that a lot of stuff is way more open ended OR we got a full/final decision that the person is gone gone. They are also sort of doing soft reboots of some of the backstory, just so they can untangle some of the lore mess they made with DA:O(this was inadvertant). 

 

I worry, because of this, and the fact that he dies in some people's play throughs, he may not be back as a full companion in a later game. If we see him in the DAI universe at all - it may just be "the Inquisitor left him alive and he pops up on a later mission".   If he does come back in a big way, I don't think it would be until the next full game.  This way he gets his own story and the character can be fully explored. 

 

They can do a lot with him, but I fear that he may come off TOO much like Solas and the writers may want to do something different. So if we see him back, I think the likeliest thing is that he's a temporary mission companion or just a major player in some DLC or something. 

[Babelas]

I think I prefer the interpretations of him that I read. I would love to see him again and learn more about him but it's also fun to read what people are doing with the character.

 

If you do write fanfiction you might want to check this out: http://www.isfanficl...date-below-weve

[Babelas]

I'm taking this advice for ao3:

 

To keep your fanfic locked away from anyone or anything that isn’t a logged-in AO3 user, edit your work and tick the “Only show your work to registered users” option, in the Privacy box. (However, very dedicated PDF thieves could theoretically circumvent this by creating an account for their bots.)

[Kestrel]

The problem with keeping it locked away to only AO3 users is that, well, I have a fair amount of readers who aren't actually members on AO3. I haven't found any of my work on that site, so I suppose I shouldn't worry unduly, but I also don't want people to be unable to read something or comment because they're not members. 

[Siha]

You cannot legally lose your copyright. As far as I know you cannot even give it up yourself, you can only issue a right of use/exploitation/utilization to others. So whoever copies your own works without your consent, especially if distributing it subsequently, is acting illegally and you could sue him.

Next is that publishing online can never be save from abuse unless published with read protection, in which case you cannot find/address readers (like Kestrel said). It really does not matter what site you publish on, and AO3 is no worse than others.

 

In the end, you must decide if you'd rather not publish publicly or run the risk of theft (and try to find such cases and threaten the respective people with a law suit, which is usually enough to make them take it down). I personally hope you don't stop publishing, because what good is your work if nobody can read it? That's would be such a loss.

[Sable Rhapsody]

The problem with keeping it locked away to only AO3 users is that, well, I have a fair amount of readers who aren't actually members on AO3. I haven't found any of my work on that site, so I suppose I shouldn't worry unduly, but I also don't want people to be unable to read something or comment because they're not members. 

 

I'm doing this as a temporary measure until they figure out what's going on.  I'm also not planning on updating any fanfiction in the near future, so it should be ok as a stopgap.  I will say that for all its problems, I never ran into this problem on FF.net, probably because it's so flooded, and it's less convenient to use.

[Kestrel]

Annndddd here's the next chapter. Dude can't catch a break. 

 

http://archiveofouro...hapters/8160543

[legbamel]

I'd love to see him again but I do worry that, after the bitching that people did about Leliana's miraculous resurrection (though she was a whole lot more dead than Abelas) BioWare won't be willing to handwave a presumed death again.  I agree that it seems like he'd be a better fit for a full game...unless they do some sort of "Find All the Ancient Temples" expansion that gives us piles of lore and makes the glitterotica pantheon canon forever and sets up a move to Tevinter for the next game.  Then I demand Abelas as a guide, whatever his new name may be.

 

When I'm writing an AU of the actual game events I use the game missions as an outline and fill in the fun stuff around the edges.  I've discovered in writing my Cullen backstory fic and my pre-Shepard ME universe fic that I really have to nail down characters and what I intend to happen or I never progress the story.  I've also discovered that I can't write torture for more than about half an hour at a time, which makes the entire second half of what I've written for Cullen very slow going, indeed, even without being too specific or gory.

[Babelas]

You cannot legally lose your copyright. As far as I know you cannot even give it up yourself, you can only issue a right of use/exploitation/utilization to others. So whoever copies your own works without your consent, especially if distributing it subsequently, is acting illegally and you could sue him.

Next is that publishing online can never be save from abuse unless published with read protection, in which case you cannot find/address readers (like Kestrel said). It really does not matter what site you publish on, and AO3 is no worse than others.

 

In the end, you must decide if you'd rather not publish publicly or run the risk of theft (and try to find such cases and threaten the respective people with a law suit, which is usually enough to make them take it down). I personally hope you don't stop publishing, because what good is your work if nobody can read it? That's would be such a loss.

You make excellent points as usual.

 

Normally I wouldn't care. I've always believed if you put something on the Internet you can't expect it to remain private or respected. It's public property at that point. I suppose it's just the principle of it all. That site also feels really sleazy. 

[TanithAeyrs]

@Sable Rhapsody: Garrus may be the reason I never wrote ME fanfic.  I just didn't need to.  He was perfect the way he was, as a friend or a LI. Even my Kaidan romancing Sheps are waiting at the bar in the afterlife for Garrus.

 

@Babelas: I know how it is with kids, I have two boys (8 and 13) and our whole family is active in Boy Scouts.  I work (rural veterinarian) and have a hobby farm on the side.  Writing is the one thing I have that I don't have to fix, medicate, chase around, plan for, pack for or otherwise try to arrange time, money or other resources for.  I also tend to cringe a bit at the thought of keeping the boys occupied all summer, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.  I love the names you have come up with for Abelas prior to Mythal's death.  Also the information about the reposting of material from AO3 was useful.  I have an account there, but so far I've only posted on fanfiction.net. 

 

I do hope we see Abelas again, I think he has a lot of potential.  If the writers find a place he would fit well in a future Dragon Age game he has a decent chance.  It seems much less of a hand wave to bring him back after being stabbed in a place filled with powerful ancient elves than it did to bring Leliana back for after her possible death.  Ultimately I wouldn't want to see him back unless it was something that one of the writers really wanted to do - a character has to inspire the writer to give them life.  I suspect we will see more of the ancient elves as there is a great deal of the future of Thedas that appears to be tangled up with the actions of their pantheon and Abelas would make a familiar cipher to help the player connect to some of the  plot complications that are bound to emerge.  Or maybe I'm just biased and want to see more of his thighs .

[Siha]

You make excellent points as usual.

 

Normally I wouldn't care. I've always believed if you put something on the Internet you can't expect it to remain private or respected. It's public property at that point. I suppose it's just the principle of it all. That site also feels really sleazy. 

 

Well, legally it's not actually "public property" and it's your right to sue them. Unfortunately, that's hardly feasible. And if we ignore your legal claims you can't do much about it. There's a few things that might improve the situation, but mostly at the expense of the benefits AO3 gives you. The same things that make AO3 so convenient for people, make them also a feast for bots (loads of tags to classify your texts, a reputation system to indicate quality etc.).

 

So, next what you could do, in theory. It's not convenient though. Spoilered because not really much use, but just for pedantry's sake.

Spoiler

(1) You could publish your texts as image files (gif, jpeg, png, whatever) only. That's basically bot-free, because they would need to parse over the image and do pattern-matching, which is probably too much effort considering their tactics. But it is also unusable as hell for your readers (and completely prevents access to blind fans). Also, I assume AO3 doesn't let you do that (and their export/download would not work anymore.)

 

(2) Only publish as PDF, which is less secure than (1). It is not too hard to parse PDF, but a copy protection might work (I never worked with that). And even if not, parsing PDF is still more work than parsing HTML.

 

(3) "Pseudo-tag" your work yourself. Begin with a little disclaimer as part of the first chapter ("Because of content theft... include my name and website in the text... kindly ask the readers to understand this necessity....") and then at two or three points in the middle, repeat your name so even if the text was (automatically) stolen, your name is still there for readers to find. (" 'blahblah', Abelas said. <// author: Babelas; title: "Vallaslin"; year: 2015 //> Then he took...") This is not pretty but it would work. A bot would not understand what it is and just not filter it out, copying it along with the rest of the text.

[Kestrel]

Relevant to many interests and/or thirsts: http://arybobary.tum.../solas-who-dies

[BoscoBread]

Well, legally it's not actually "public property" and it's your right to sue them. Unfortunately, that's hardly feasible. And if we ignore your legal claims you can't do much about it. There's a few things that might improve the situation, but mostly at the expense of the benefits AO3 gives you. The same things that make AO3 so convenient for people, make them also a feast for bots (loads of tags to classify your texts, a reputation system to indicate quality etc.).

 

So, next what you could do, in theory. It's not convenient though. Spoilered because not really much use, but just for pedantry's sake.

Spoiler

(1) You could publish your texts as image files (gif, jpeg, png, whatever) only. That's basically bot-free, because they would need to parse over the image and do pattern-matching, which is probably too much effort considering their tactics. But it is also unusable as hell for your readers (and completely prevents access to blind fans). Also, I assume AO3 doesn't let you do that (and their export/download would not work anymore.)

 

(2) Only publish as PDF, which is less secure than (1). It is not too hard to parse PDF, but a copy protection might work (I never worked with that). And even if not, parsing PDF is still more work than parsing HTML.

 

(3) "Pseudo-tag" your work yourself. Begin with a little disclaimer as part of the first chapter ("Because of content theft... include my name and website in the text... kindly ask the readers to understand this necessity....") and then at two or three points in the middle, repeat your name so even if the text was (automatically) stolen, your name is still there for readers to find. (" 'blahblah', Abelas said. <// author: Babelas; title: "Vallaslin"; year: 2015 //> Then he took...") This is not pretty but it would work. A bot would not understand what it is and just not filter it out, copying it along with the rest of the text.

Sorry - this is old - but the key with fanfiction is that none of you really own the rights.  It all belongs to the person that owns the intellectual property - which is BW/EA.  Fanfiction and fan works are sticky because yes you are creating something but you are doing so with somebody else's ideas. Your words are your own and it's your interpretation, but it becomes weird when you try to push that right.  It's like in this weird nebulous zone in law.  You aren't even fully protected from cease/desists from the creators - at least in the U.S.   Mods get shut down all the time because companies didn't like it.  Lucas Films was famous for doing **** like this. Same thing with Activision and when people were trying to remake a FREE King's Quest. Now, if they got a lawyer and fought back, they likely would prevail but like...who wants to pay a lawyer for a free mod.  Most companies don't since it doesn't exactly endear them to their fans and fanworks are free marketing and press.   

[Siha]

<legal notes>

 

How is the legal position if BW doesn't care about compensation, so if the issue is really only between the writers and those who steal the texts to sell them as PDF downloads? Would BW have to start a law suit, could the writer request his work not to be sold without his consent or does he lose all rights whatsoever?

[BoscoBread]

How is the legal position if BW doesn't care about compensation, so if the issue is really only between the writers and those who steal the texts to sell them as PDF downloads? Would BW have to start a law suit, could the writer request his work not to be sold without his consent or does he lose all rights whatsoever?

Let me preface this all by saying I am not a lawyer - just a legal nerd: Frankly I don't think the writers have any real leg to stand on in regards to the DMCA.  They don't own the copyright -- which is key with the DMCA.  So when people threw a fit I think the only reason Ebooks complied is because they are doing other illegal things - like providing PDFs of full books without compensation to the writer/publisher and generating profit from ad revenue.  Since BW would own the copyright, it is THEIR job to prove/defend it. They wold have to file suit.   The writer could request the site to stop but frankly...most wouldn't have to.  Again, I think most sites stop because they are doing other shady things so they don't want that much attention drawn to themselves.  I know this is wikipedia but here is the legality regarding fanfiction/fanworks and some thoughts on it. EDIT: Also realized that I sounded a bit insensitive - it's not that I think the law is RIGHT. IP laws in the U.S. SUCK.  I also think - that as long as FF is not making profit - the writers should be able to defend their work.  It's still creative expression and you put time/effort/blood/sweat/tears and all that into creating it. 

 

http://en.wikipedia....ht_of_publicity

[Babelas]

 

 

 I know how it is with kids, I have two boys (8 and 13) and our whole family is active in Boy Scouts.  I work (rural veterinarian) and have a hobby farm on the side.  Writing is the one thing I have that I don't have to fix, medicate, chase around, plan for, pack for or otherwise try to arrange time, money or other resources for.  I also tend to cringe a bit at the thought of keeping the boys occupied all summer, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.  I love the names you have come up with for Abelas prior to Mythal's death.  Also the information about the reposting of material from AO3 was useful.  I have an account there, but so far I've only posted on fanfiction.net. 

I so understand. Plus you can always take a pen and paper with you not matter where you go for when the plot bunnies hit I knew I recognized your name from Ao3

 

Kissiebear - I know I have no legal standing really because it is fancition. But I don't want to make it easy for them either All that being said my writing isn't great so maybe I should be flattered if they take it. 

 

Thank you Siha for the info and suggestion! I appreciate it  

 

So if everyone had to pick just one of their stories for me to read what would it be and why? I'm making a list of stories to catch up on for this weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kestrel]

It sort of depends what you like to read- stuff that's more fluffy, stuff that's more angsty, or things that are serious. 

[Giton]

 

I so understand. Plus you can always take a pen and paper with you not matter where you go for when the plot bunnies hit I knew I recognized your name from Ao3

 

 

 

So if everyone had to pick just one of their stories for me to read what would it be and why? I'm making a list of stories to catch up on for this weekend.

 

 

For Abelas, electrighoti has written some great stuff. With feels! here.

 

I wrote an Abelas story back in Feb.; it had Abelas wandering the Exalted Plains alone and meeting the Dalish.  Here. (Otherwise, I'm usually just sitting at my computer consumed with lust for magisters and twin souls.)

[Babelas]

Thank you! Magister? Which one?

 

Kestrel - I will read anything you wish to share

[BoscoBread]

Thank you! Magister? Which one?

 

Kestrel - I will read anything you wish to share

WHICH ONE!? Why not all 7!?

 

Giton beautifully writes about Corypheus and the Architect.  BEAUTIFULLY.   I recommend those as well. They will make you feel things that you didn't know you could feel. Like angst for a blighted 10 foot magister.

[Giton]

Thank you! Magister? Which one?

 

Kestrel - I will read anything you wish to share

Oh, let me tell you about Corypheus and the Architect:

 

[Kestrel]

I've written /a lot/ of Abelas stuff.

 

http://archiveofouro...hapters/8160543This is a longer series I've sort of just started that's more about Abelas and less about making sweet, sweet love in the grass. 

 

http://archiveofouro...g/works/3571637

 

This is just smut. I'll... just leave you with those. xD The other ones are okay too, but these two are my favorite. 

[Sable Rhapsody]

This is just smut. I'll... just leave you with those. xD 

 

No such thing as "just" hot ancient elvhen smut 

[TanithAeyrs]

@Babelas: there are a ton of really good writers out there (far better than I am) but if I was asked to pick my favorite of the works I've posted it would be "Seeker's End" even though it is not canon (I wrote it before we knew Seekers didn't use lyrium).  "Seekers End" is fairly short (less than 1,800 words) but pretty dark.  If you want fluff my "Stray Bits" collection of Zevran weekly prompts is a mix of fluff and darker stuff (Adventurers Again might cause cavities - you have been warned), of the "Stray bits" collection Birthday is one of my favorites. Links are in my sig if you are interested. 

 

But, back to the amazing thighs, UM, I mean Abelas.  For all his grumpiness at the temple I'm finding it surprisingly easy to write young Abelas with a sense of humor.