#be_2019

CLICK HERE TO READ AND/OR LOOK UPON THE WORKS, YE MIGHTIES, AND ENJOY!

Please remember that htese are rare pairs for Dragon Age, and as such, they need some love! Please take time to comment on your gifts, and others in the collection as well!

If you would like a commenting bingo card to help seek out treasure, please let us know by sending us a private message on tumblr! We’ve compiled a bunch of tags, characters, settings, and prompts to help you find fic in the exchange you might have missed otherwise! If you win, we’ll give you a silly picture, a write-up, and a little bit of promotion! If you don’t win, well, tis for fun anyway. :) 

If you have a gift and there’s an issue with it: Please message us privately or email us at  [email protected] so that we can take action on it decisively and with a minimum of fuss. 

Authors/Artists: Please remember to re-date your works so that they will not be revealed on page 6/7 of the Dragon Age tag. To do this, please edit your work and scroll down to “Set a different publication date” and set it for today. 

Congratulations, WolffyLuna! WolffyLuna is the second bingo in our cavalcade of commenting bingo winners, and as usual, WolffyLuna is hella impressive. Not only was WolffyLuna a Black Emporium all-star last year, with five different treats made, but this year they nearly matched their output (four treats!) while commenting up a storm. We're so happy WolffyLuna came back for a second year, and we're hoping next year, the third time will be the charm for all of Wolffy’s fans! 

 If you're a new or returning WolffyLuna fan - and we're sure you are, we know we are! - you can find their works on Ao3, where they have a wide variety of work, focusing not only on the complicated relationships between characters and language somehow artisanally flowing into delightful fluff (see Floriography [Josephine Montilyet/Cassandra Pentaghast]), or the deep comfort that comes with honest talks in an established relationship (see To Shine On All, [Leliana/Female Tabris]), or tracing the complications that bind characters when duty interferes with love (See Whiskey in a Jar, [Female Hawke/Aveline Vallen]).

Works that WolffyLuna produced this round are: 

Boop! [Male Adaar/Dorian Pavus, G]: Adaar leaned back in his chair, hands steepled, and smiled. “All’s fair in love and war, and chess is both.”

Bedtime[Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet, G - Fanart]: Adaar and Josephine getting ready for bed.

Pine Needles and Poetry [Female Adaar/Cassandra Pentaghast, T]: Adaar got her breath under control, and held out her staff at Cassandra’s foot. “This isn’t my strong suit, but I can try—” Warmth, like that from holding a candle next to skin, ran through her ankle. The heat faded, and with it, a portion of the pain. But only a portion. Adaar looked up at her. “Better?” “Somewhat.” Cassandra levered herself up, and tried to put weight on the ankle—and immediately collapsed. “It could be better.” She admitted.

Cassandra injures her ankle fighting the Carta. Adaar helps.

Sweet nuglets and nugerinos, the deadline is fast approaching! The sky here at Skyhold has taken on a green tint, and we’re all anxiously awaiting the

As a reminder, assignments are due in one week at 10:00PM Eastern Standard  Time (Click here for a countdown!). If this is sending panic bells off in your mind: remember, be cool be calm. If you need an extension or need to default, please reach out to us at our inbox here, on the post on DW (comments are screened so only mods and you can see any responses), or emailing us at [email protected] .

If you feel like you might need to make mroe edits after the 23rd, you can do so until fic goes live on  September 30, but remember that your fic must be roughly complete (defined as having a beginning, middle, and end) by the due date ( September 23).

If you’ve finished your fic or are just relishing the thought of writing some more rare pair works, then the following links might be of interest to you:

Write some Treats! - Thanks to discord member firebird, we have an amazing searchable request list! Please look up some requests, and remember to save a copy for yourself if you want to modify it!  Discord - Want to chat about Dragon Age with fellow shippers caught in rare pair hell? Need someone to beta or help finding that awesome gif set you saw on tumblr a day ago and can’t find now? The Black Emporium discord is here to help!

Yes sweet nuglets, it's that time of year again:Time to sign up for Black Emporium!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN-UP!

Helpful Links:

How to Guide ||  Requests on Ao3 ||   Tagset || Nominations Spreadsheet

Signups end: August 11, 2019 @ 10:00PM EDT ||  Countdown

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO SIGN-UPS

This is Artemis1000's first year coming to Black Emporium, but fans of Star Wars need no introduction to Artemis1000. This is Artemis1000's first year actually playing through the Dragon Age games, and the thoughtful approach she gives to her playthroughs are echoed through their carefully plotted and well-characterized fanfiction. Artemis1000 has a long tradition of commenting thoughtfully in exchanges and this BE was no exception. Congrats on the bingo, Artemis! 

 If you're a fan of Artemis' works, we advise you to keep a close watch on their profile as we're sure she'll be bringing up quality fiction. Those eager to sample some of Artemis' works should consider trying What We Are (Nathaniel Howe/Velanna, G), where UST becomes an art form, or perhaps Second Love (Leliana/Morrigan, T), which examines the conflict Leliana's prior relationship with Marjoline brings to her newest relationship. 

Works Artemis1000 produced this year for BE are:

against all evidence to the contrary, not an essay on the care and feeding of templars [Lysette/Minaeve, T]: Knowing what she knew about her love for all creatures dangerous and widely feared, hindsight told Minaeve she really should have seen it coming. If she was going to fall in love at all, it figured she would fall for the people counterpart of a poisonous giant spider. Knowing what she knew about herself, Minaeve still couldn’t explain how or when exactly she had fallen for Ser Lysette. Nor did she know what to do about Ser Lysette or her feelings for her, which was just her luck, really. She would have been better off sticking to giant spiders.

not far from you [Female Couslan/Anora Mac Tir, M]: Far less is known about our queen’s mysterious disappearance. For two years, Elissa Cousland vanished from Ferelden. There was many a lurid rumor about the circumstances of her death or betrayal, yet Queen Anora insisted that she was away on Warden business and would speak no more on the matter.

** **

But wait -- there’s a lot there! There are pairings that you didn’t offer! There are details about plots and ideas that aren’t what you usually work with! What are you going to do?!

First, remember the first page of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:** Don’t Panic.** Your recipient has different tastes and preferences from you, and that’s to be expected. You are not obligated to incorporate everything your recipient asked for -- in fact, given the length of many letters out there, it would be impossible to do everything.

Second, remember that you were matched to this person. That means there was at least one pairing they wanted to see that _you _put in your offers. Maybe it’s not your OTP. Maybe it’s something you’ve never done before. The mods don’t know any of that. The mods were just trying to give everyone a good match.

The pairing is the ninth or tenth instead of the first? **Don’t read anything into that. **It’s a pairing that they took the time to confirm they wanted to see brought to life. Let’s shorten that: it’s a pairing they wanted.

Third, remember that you are only obligated to respect their DNWs. This is the only thing that the mods will enforce when reviewing assignments. Likes, preferences, story ideas? Well, they’re really more of … guidelines. You are, of course, encouraged to give them consideration, but in the end, this is your story.

You might be thinking -- wait, isn’t it the other way around? Isn’t it supposed to be theirs? The answer is no. If they create it, it’s theirs. You are creating it, therefore it is yours. Everyone who signed up for this exchange knew they were going to be getting something different from what they would create themselves. Maybe it’s in style. Maybe it’s in focus, or details, or any number of things. That’s the point of a fanwork exchange.

Fourth, remember that you only have to create one fic of 1000 words or one complete piece of fanart, featuring one of the pairings requested by your recipient. You have until September 23rd to do this. That’s six weeks (42 days) from today, August 11, 2019. That’s it. Anything more that is a bonus, not a requirement. The rest, as they say, is gravy.

In the first two days of nominations, there have been nearly 300 tagset nominations, our sweet nuglets!  Would you like to nominate? The Nominations platform is HERE! Any rarepair is eligible, provided they have less than 300 completed works on Ao3! 

We have some tagset nominations we would love to see in the tagset, but we need more information. If this is one of your nominations, please send us a message on Tumblr or comment on the Dreamwidth post (anon is on!) or send us an email at [email protected]. 

Needs Further Clarification:

Isabela/Leliana/Female Warden: Which Background for Warden is preferred?

Female Inquisitor/Bram Kenric: What Background for Inquisitor is preferred? 

Female Inquisitor/Threnn (Dragon Age): What Background for Inquisitor is preferred?

Corypheus & Inquisitor (Dragon Age):  What Background for Inquisitor is preferred?

Inquisitor/Vivienne:  What Background and Gender for Inquisitor is preferred?

Anders/Female Warden (Dragon Age): Which Background for Warden is preferred?

Loghain Mac Tir/Female Warden:  Which Background for Warden is preferred?

Ser Cauthrien/Original Character:  What kind of Original Character does the Requester wish? (ex: Original Female Knight, Original Male Qunari, Original Female Assassins)

Sergeant Kylon (Dragon Age) Original Character(s):  What kind of Original Character does the Requester wish? (ex: Original Female Knight, Original Male Qunari, Original Female Assassins)