Archive of Our Own

Welcome to the fourth round of a fic exchange dedicated to all things Jane Austen! Fanfiction of any of Jane Austen's works, as well as adaptations and retellings is welcome. For updates, please see the Dreamwidth community.

2026 Schedule
Nominations and sign-ups may open early; this will not affect their end dates. The collection will not open before the listed time, even if all assignments are in. In the case of outstanding pinch hits, the collection will be delayed until all participants due gifts have received them.

Nominations: 14 July to 21 July, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Sign-Ups: 24 July to 2 August, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Assignments Out: on or before 5 August
Posting Deadline: 18 September, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Collection Opens: 26 September, 00:00 UTC → countdown
Author Reveals: 3 October, 00:00 UTC → countdown

Basics

By signing up for this exchange, you are agreeing to write one complete, standalone fic of at least 1000 words that fulfils a request by your assigned recipient. This means that your fic must be within a requested fandom and focus on a character or relationship your recipient has requested for that fandom. It may not feature anything your recipient has listed as a ‘do not want’ (DNW). In return, all participants who complete their assignments by the deadline will receive a fic that fulfils one of their requests. 

If you have any questions about the exchange, you are welcome to leave a comment on this post or to contact the mods privately at [email protected].

Schedule

Nominations and sign-ups may open early; this will not affect their end dates. The collection will not open before the listed time, even if all assignments are in. In the case of outstanding pinch hits, the collection will be delayed until all participants due gifts have received them.

Nominations: 14 July to 21 July, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Sign-Ups: 24 July to 2 August, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Assignments Out: on or before 5 August
Posting Deadline: 18 September, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Collection Opens: 26 September, 00:00 UTC → countdown
Author Reveals: 3 October, 00:00 UTC → countdown

Nominations

Each participant may nominate up to 10 fandoms, with 15 characters or relationships in each fandom. Nominate romantic and/or sexual relationships as ‘Character A/Character B (Fandom)’ and platonic relationships as ‘Character A & Character B (Fandom)’. Relationship tags may involve larger groups following the same format. Individual characters may be nominated as ‘1: Character A (Fandom)’.

You can submit nominations to the 2026 tagset here from 14 July until 22:00 UTC on 21 July (countdown).

What are nominations? Do I need to nominate anything in order to participate?
Nominations determine what fandoms, characters, and relationships can be requested and offered during the sign-up period. The nominations process helps us make sure that participants are asking for and offering exactly what they want to read and write.

You don’t have to submit any nominations in order to participate in Austen Exchange, but nominations can be important if there are specific characters or relationships you want to sign up with. Although popular tags tend to pop up year after year, the only way to guarantee that what you want is in the tagset is by nominating it yourself.

What is a disambiguation?
A disambiguation is a parenthetical addition at the end of a tag that identifies the appropriate fandom. For example, if you wanted to nominate Harriet Smith/Emma Woodhouse as portrayed in the Autumn de Wilde movie, the complete, disambiguated tag would look like this: ‘Harriet Smith/Emma Woodhouse (Emma. 2020)’. This parenthetical keeps the tag distinct from the original novel and other adaptations.

What canons are allowed?
All of Jane Austen’s works, including completed novels, juvenilia, and unfinished works, are eligible, as well as adaptations and retellings of any of those works. Media about Austen fandom, like Austenland (2013), is also welcome. In edge cases, the mods will generally assume nominations to be made in good faith. Nominations for All Media Types or Related Fandoms will not be accepted.

Are crossovers allowed?
Yes, but all fandoms involved must be eligible in their own right (i.e., Austen-related). For example, ‘Jane Fairfax (Emma - Austen) & Fanny Price (MP - Austen)’ would be accepted, but ‘Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre - Brontë) & Fanny Price (MP - Austen)’ would not. Crossovers should be nominated under the ‘Crossover Fandom’ umbrella tag.

Are original characters allowed?
Yes, but they may only be requested within relationships. All nominations must include at least one canon character. If you have a preference for the OC’s gender, you may indicate so within the tag [e.g., ‘Margaret Dashwood/Original Female Character (S&S - Austen)’].

Are genderbent characters allowed?
Yes, you may nominate, offer, and request characters as a different gender than they appear in canon using the relationship tags. When nominating, indicate the change like so: ‘Anne Elliot/F!Frederick Wentworth’ or ‘1: M!Lydia Bennet,’ with the corresponding disambiguations. Tags that make no gender designation are assumed to refer to canon gender.

Can I request relationships involving both platonic and romantic dynamics?
Yes—just keep an eye out for the distinction between & (platonic) and / (romantic or sexual). For instance, if you want to explore the canon relationship between the elder Dashwood sisters and their husbands at the end of Sense and Sensibility, you might nominate ‘Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood & Elinor Dashwood/Edward Ferrars (S&S - Austen)’.

Sign-Ups

Your sign-up consists of two parts: requests and offers. Requests indicate the kind of gift you would like to receive, while offers indicate the kind of gift you are able to create for someone else. In order to sign up, you must make a minimum of two distinct requests and two distinct offers, but you are allowed to make up to ten of each. 

What is a distinct request/offer?
A distinct request/offer is one made in a different fandom than your other requests/offers. Requests and offers for the same relationship are still considered distinct if they are within different fandoms (e.g., the original novel and a film adaptation). As a requester, your expectations should be aligned with the specific version(s) you are asking for; what someone writes for Persuasion (2022) may be very different from what the same person would write for Persuasion (1995), or Persuasion – Jane Austen, even if all requests are for Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth. Likewise, as a writer, you should be prepared to write for the specific version(s) of the canon(s) you have offered.

How does matching work?
Matching is OR matching using the relationships field on AO3. This means that in order to be matched, a recipient and an author must share at least one fandom between their respective requests and offers, and they must also share at least one tag (i.e., a relationship or character) within that same fandom.

What should I include in my request details?
You are free to include as much or as little information as you wish. The idea of this section is simply to give your writer an idea of the kind of story you might enjoy. For example, you might provide prompts, list tropes you like to read, or talk about why you like a certain relationship. If there is any content that would prevent you from enjoying your gift, you should list it as a Do Not Want (DNW) in your request details.

DNWs can be anything—for example, you might want to DNW noncanon background pairings, space AUs, or death. You are welcome to clarify the boundaries of your DNWs (e.g., “no carrots, but other root vegetables are fine”), but there’s no need to explain why you don’t want them—no matter how serious or trivial the reason, your DNWs are binding. While all other request details are optional, writers must avoid requesters’ DNWs.

I really want to write [a modern AU, an epistolary narrative, etc.]. Can you match me with someone who wants that?
Maybe! If you leave a note in the ‘Offer Details’ box, we will do our best to consider your matching preferences. However, it is not possible to guarantee a match according to any preference other than fandom and relationship tag.

What if no one offers anything I request?
Your request will be sent out as a pinch hit. Pinch hits may be claimed by anyone willing to write for one of their requests. Participants on the pinch hit list are welcome to email the mods to add requests if desired, but there is no obligation or expectation that they do so.

What if no one requests anything I offer?
To participate in Austen Exchange, you must be able to write something being requested by another participant. Unmatchable participants must either add offers until they are matchable or withdraw their sign-ups. Any unmatchable participants who do not respond within 24 hours of being contacted to add offers will have their sign-ups deleted.

Assignments & Posting

After sign-ups are complete, you can expect to receive your assignment on or before 5 August. You will then have a period of approximately six weeks to write a gift for your recipient. Assignments may be posted to the collection at any point before the 2026 deadline of 22:00 UTC on 18 September (countdown), but they won’t be visible to anyone but the author and the mods until the reveals date of 26 September. There is no deadline for treats.

Do I have to write the request I matched on?
No, but you must write one of your recipient’s requests. As long as your fic fits the completion requirements and exactly matches a fandom and a character or relationship requested by your recipient within that fandom, your assignment has been fulfilled.

Can I write something I wasn’t assigned?
Yes, treats to participants and to the collection are both welcome. Treats to participants must be in a requested fandom and include a requested character or relationship. Treats to the collection must be within an eligible (i.e., Austen-related) fandom. There is no minimum word count for treats. Writing a treat does not count as fulfilling your assignment.

Are there any restrictions on the content of fic written for this exchange?
All works must be allowed under AO3’s Terms of Service and must not include any of the recipient’s DNWs. Works may not be written, in part or in whole, by generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude). If the mods find proof that a LLM has written or cowritten a participant’s assignment, the user will be subject to a ban.

How do I post my assignment?
The easiest way is to navigate to the ‘My Assignments’ page from your AO3 profile, then click the button that says ‘Fulfill’. The names of the challenge and your recipient should be automatically filled in. From there, you can fill in the rest of the form and post as usual.

If you’ve written a treat, the process is a little different. Since you won’t have an assignment to fulfil, you should select ‘Post To Collection’ on the current challenge page on AO3. From there, you must manually enter the recipient’s name in the ‘Gift this work to’ field before posting as usual.

What happens if I default?
You are no longer expected to write your assignment, and it will be posted to the community as a pinch hit. If your writer defaults after you have defaulted, your request will not be sent out as a pinch hit.

How do I claim a pinch hit?
Leave a comment on the screened post with the number of the pinch hit and your AO3 username. The mods will let you know if you have been assigned the pinch hit.

Am I guaranteed a gift?
Gifts are guaranteed for all participants who complete their assignments by the deadline. The collection will not open until all participants guaranteed gifts have received them.

By signing up for this exchange, you are agreeing to write one complete, standalone fic of at least 1000 words that fulfils a request by your assigned recipient. This means that your fic must be within a requested fandom and focus on a character or relationship your recipient has requested for that fandom. It may not feature anything your recipient has listed as a ‘do not want’ (DNW). In return, all participants who complete their assignments by the deadline will receive a fic that fulfils one of their requests.

No part of works posted for the exchange may be created by generative AI.