Nominations for the Black Emporium are live until July 3rd! Reach out and tell someone (namely: us) about your favorite rare-pairs (namely: any pairing under 300 complete fics on Ao3). You have twenty nominations to use. Pairings can be twosomes / threesomes / moresomes / etc. We believe in sharing the love.

How do you, in fact, become a true Fereldan buckaroo by nominating a rare pair or 20?

Go to the Dragon Age Rare Pair Tag Set and click Nominate (you have to be signed into Ao3 for the button to appear). For inspiration or to check if someone had the same idea as you, we have a Searchable Nominations Spreadsheet that we manually update.

For more information on this stage of the exchange and how best to format your nominations, please see below the cut:

Nominations for the Black Emporium are live until July 3rd! Reach out and tell someone (namely: us) about your favorite rare-pairs (namely: any pairing under 300 complete fics on Ao3). You have twenty nominations to use. Pairings can be twosomes / threesomes / moresomes / etc. We believe in sharing the love.

How do you, in fact, become a true Fereldan buckaroo by nominating a rare pair or 20?

Go to the Dragon Age Rare Pair Tag Set and click Nominate (you have to be signed into Ao3 for the button to appear). For inspiration or to check if someone had the same idea as you, we have a Searchable Nominations Spreadsheet.

For more information on this stage of the exchange and how best to format your nominations, please see below the cut:

Nominations for the Black Emporium are now live! Reach out and tell someone (namely: us) about your favorite rare-pairs (namely: any pairing under 300 complete fics on Ao3). You have twenty nominations to use. Pairings can be twosomes/threesomes/moresomes//etc. We believe in sharing the love.

How do you, in fact, become a true Fereldan buckaroo by nominating a rare pair or 20?

Go to the Dragon Age Rare Pair Tag Set and click Nominate (you have to be signed into Ao3 for the button to appear)

Nominate your favorite pairings! Some pairings may autofill, some may not; if your pairing is so rare that it doesn’t exist yet, just type it in anyway and we’ll take care of the rest.

When you’re done, hit Submit at the bottom of the page. Your pairings will be reviewed and accepted/rejected as soon as possible. After you’ve hit Submit you will not be able to go back and edit your nominations after we’ve reviewed them, though you will be able to go back and fill up your form until you’ve hit 20 pairings.

For the purposes of this challenge, the Dragon Age protagonists will be considered different characters based on their gender and surname. This means that there are twenty-one Wardens, three Hawkes and twelve Inquisitors to choose from. Please nominate your protagonist of preference with these two criteria in mind. So: Female Trevelyan/Male Cousland will be accepted as a nomination; Inquisitor/Warden will not. Likewise, Female Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford would not be accepted, because it has more than 300 complete fics, but both Male Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford and Nonbinary Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford would be.

If you have any specific class, appearance or personality preferences you are free to request them in your prompt during sign-ups.

We will also allow original characters, provided they obey the following rules:

a) The OC is listed in the relationship in such a way as to give someone freedom in how to write them (e.g. “Tentacle Monster” or “Original Templar Character” NOT: “my OC Gerald D'Vivir”) - a good rule of thumb here is whether the character can be summed up in 3 or fewer words; if it can, it is probably a good option. If it cannot, the OC is probably is too complex for this kind of exchange.

b) The OC is not listed in such a way that would, essentially, reflect the spirit of a canon character that is otherwise not permitted in a relationship. See again: “Modern Human Female Inquisitor/Cullen” is still ineligible, even if there are only 5 fics with that tag, because it is a variant of Female Trevelyan/Cullen.

We will also allow crossovers with other canons, provided there are less than 300 completed works with the pairing on Ao3.

What are you waiting for? GET YE TO THE NOMINATING!

We’ve got a couple nominated pairings that need a little bit of clarification before we can approve them. Please contact the mods so we can make sure your chosen ship gets added in properly!

Alistair / Zevran Arainai / FEMALE WARDEN

We require the gender and background of the Warden as each is evaluated differently as far as its rarey-pairy ness. Please edit to specify the gender (i.e. Female, Male, Nonbinary) and background of the Warden (i.e. Aeducan, Amell, Brosca, Cousland, Mahariel, Surana, Tabris).

Bethany Hawke & Carver Hawke & HAWKE

Please specify Hawke’s gender. 

FADE SPIRIT(S) & FADE SPIRIT(S) (Dragon Age)

Please specify what type of Fade Spirits (i.e. Desire, Wisdom, Faith, etc.), as right now the classification is too broad.

Male Hawke / MALE INQUISITOR (Dragon Age)

Please specify the background of the Inquisitor (i.e. Adaar, Cadash, Lavellan*, Trevelyan). 

*Note that “Male Hawke/Male Lavellan” has already been nominated & approved.

Varel / ORLESIAN WARDEN (Dragon Age)

Please specify gender of “Orlesian Warden” and clarify the character’s background. Do you want an OC Grey Warden? If so, please change to “[Gender] Original Orlesian Grey Warden.” If you mean the Orlesian Warden player character you can play in Dragon Age: Awakening, please specify their background (i.e. Caron*, Andras*, Kader.)

*Note that “Male Andras/Varel” and “Male Caron/Varel” have already been nominated & approved.

Blackwall / FEMALE INQUISITOR / The Iron Bull / Cullen Rutherford / Solas

Nominations for the Black Emporium are now live! Reach out and tell someone (namely: us) about your favorite rare-pairs (namely: any pairing under 300 complete fics on Ao3). You have twenty nominations to use. Pairings can be twosomes/threesomes/moresomes//etc. We believe in sharing the love.

How do you, in fact, become a true Fereldan buckaroo by nominating a rare pair or 20?

Go to the Dragon Age Rare Pair Tag Set and click Nominate (you have to be signed into Ao3 for the button to appear)

Nominate your favorite pairings! Some pairings may autofill, some may not; if your pairing is so rare that it doesn’t exist yet, just type it in anyway and we’ll take care of the rest.

When you’re done, hit Submit at the bottom of the page. Your pairings will be reviewed and accepted/rejected as soon as possible. After you’ve hit Submit you will not be able to go back and edit your nominations after we’ve reviewed them, though you will be able to go back and fill up your form until you’ve hit 20 pairings.

For the purposes of this challenge, the Dragon Age protagonists will be considered different characters based on their gender and surname. This means that there are twenty-one Wardens, three Hawkes and twelve Inquisitors to choose from. Please nominate your protagonist of preference with these two criteria in mind. So: Female Trevelyan/Male Cousland will be accepted as a nomination; Inquisitor/Warden will not. Likewise, Female Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford would not be accepted, because it has more than 300 complete fics, but both Male Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford and Nonbinary Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford would be.

If you have any specific class, appearance or personality preferences you are free to request them in your prompt during sign-ups.

We will also allow original characters, provided they obey the following rules:

a) The OC is listed in the relationship in such a way as to give someone freedom in how to write them (e.g. “Tentacle Monster” or “Original Templar Character” NOT: “my OC Gerald D'Vivir”) - a good rule of thumb here is whether the character can be summed up in 3 or fewer words; if it can, it is probably a good option. If it cannot, the OC is probably is too complex for this kind of exchange.

b) The OC is not listed in such a way that would, essentially, reflect the spirit of a canon character that is otherwise not permitted in a relationship. See again: “Modern Human Female Inquisitor/Cullen” is still ineligible, even if there are only 5 fics with that tag, because it is a variant of Female Trevelyan/Cullen.

We will also allow crossovers with other canons, provided there are less than 300 completed works with the pairing on Ao3.

What are you waiting for? GET YE TO THE NOMINATING!

It’s that time again, folks!

Nominations for the Black Emporium are now live! Reach out and tell someone (namely: us) about your favorite rare-pairs (namely: any pairing under 300 complete fics on Ao3). You have twenty nominations to use. Pairings can be twosomes/threesomes/moresomes//etc. We believe in sharing the love.

How do you, in fact, become a true Ferelden buckaroo by nominating a rare pair or 20?

Go to the Dragon Age Rare Pair Tag Set and click Nominate (you have to be signed into Ao3 for the button to appear)

Nominate your favorite pairings! Some pairings may autofill, some may not; if your pairing is so rare that it doesn’t exist yet, just type it in anyway and we’ll take care of the rest.

When you’re done, hit Submit at the bottom of the page. Your pairings will be reviewed and accepted/rejected as soon as possible. After you’ve hit Submit you will not be able to go back and edit your nominations after we’ve reviewed them, though you will be able to go back and fill up your form until you’ve hit 20 pairings.

For the purposes of this challenge, the Dragon Age protagonists will be considered different characters based on their gender and surname. This means that there are fourteen Wardens, two Hawkes and eight Inquisitors to choose from. Please nominate your protagonist of preference with these two criteria in mind. So: Female Trevelyan/Male Cousland will be accepted as a nomination; Inquisitor/Warden will not. If you have any specific class, appearance or personality preferences you are free to request them in your prompt during sign-ups.

We will also allow original characters, provided they obey the following rules:

a) The OC is listed in the relationship in such a way as to give someone freedom in how to write them (e.g. “Tentacle Monster” or “Original Templar Character” NOT: “my OC Gerald D'Vivir”) - a good rule of thumb here is whether the character can be summed up in 3 or fewer words; if it can, it is probably a good option. If it cannot, the OC is probably is too complex for this kind of exchange.

b) The OC is not listed in such a way that would, essentially, reflect the spirit of a canon character that is otherwise not permitted in a relationship. See again: “Modern Human Female Inquisitor/Cullen” is still ineligible, even if there are only 5 fics with that tag, because it is a variant of Female Trevelyan/Cullen.

We will also allow crossovers with other canons, provided there are less than 300 completed works with the pairing on Ao3.

What are you waiting for? GET YE TO THE NOMINATING!

Nuglets, we are truly impressed. In just over 24 hours your mods have approved 481 glorious rare pairs/relationships. Keep ‘em coming!

We regretfully must remind the community that Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras is no longer eligible for Black Emporium, as it has too many completed works on Ao3. Any relationship with over 300 completed works on Ao3 is no longer rare and thus ineligible.

We also have a list of nominations that need more detail before they can be approved and added to the list. If you see one of yours, send us an ask on Tumblr, a message on Dreamwidth, or an email to [email protected] and let us know your preferences.

For purposes of this exchange, we factor in background/gender in terms of determining for a pairing to be eligible as this is how Ao3 divides up pairings as tags. For example, Solas/Male Trevelyan is evaluated differently than Solas/Male Lavellan; and Solas/Male Trevelyan is evaluated differently than Solas/Female Trevelyan.

Gender Needed

Athenril/Cadash

Bianca Davri/Inquisitor Cadash

Cadash/Jarvia

Hawke/Jean-Marc Stroud

Isabela/Adaar

Leliana/Hawke

Mage Trevelyan/Dagna

Warden Brosca/Branka

Background Needed

Male Inquisitor/Dagna

Male Inquisitor/Leliana

Background & Gender Needed

Loghain Mac Tir/Warden

Shayle Cadash/Warden

Varel/Orlesian Warden

Additional Details Needed

Arishok/Male Hawke/Qunari

Arishok/Merrill/Qunari

Please indicate what gender/rank of Qunari you are thinking of. Example: Arishok/Male Hawke/Original Male Ashaad

Anders/Templar(s)