The Worst Witchmas Exchange 2025!
Snow is falling heavily on Cackle's Academy, and the nights are drawing in earlier each day. Candles bob between windows even before the school day is over, and Yuletide decorations are bringing some much-needed merriment into the bitterly cold castle.
This December we've got another The Worst Witch fandom event coming up - another exchange! If you missed out on our Hallowe'en exchange, this is a great time to join in the fun! It's designed to be low-commitment as December is notoriously busy, and just as in our previous exchange, any fic under 2000 words is welcome! Dribbles, drabbles, ficlets - whatever suits your writing style or the story you want to tell. You can explore a tiny scene, random AU, headcanon, or whatever else you feel inspired to by your assignment's prompts!
Sign up with a list of your Likes, Prompts, and Do Not Wants so that an anonymous gifter can write you something! These don't have to be festive, so feel free to request whatever you'd like - but festive prompts are definitely welcome. Everyone signed up will give and receive at least one fic, but more are encouraged. You will be hand-matched to another participant based on your ships and requests, who will then write you a fic!
When the event starts on 27th November, you'll be emailed who you've been matched with and be able to read the list of prompts on the AO3 Collection. You'll be free to post from 27th November-31st January, but the deadline for your assignment with the person you've been matched with will be 22nd December.
Unlike the previous event, fics posted will be live for everyone to read on AO3 immediately (but anonymous!). Our discord has an RSS feed that will retrieve non-backdated fics, so they'll be visible there too for everyone to enjoy! All of these fics will be anonymous until 24th December - this is so everyone can read along as they're posted, enjoy the festive vibes, and try to guess who wrote them!
If you are not signed up, you likely won't receive any gifts as you won't have a list of prompts for gifters to draw inspiration from. However, you are very much encouraged to look through the requests when they are revealed and submit to the collection, gifting the fic to the person (or people) it's for. This is a great way of taking part without the obligation of having to write for a specific person - so if you're not sure you have time, you'll still be able to join in the fun.
A full explanation of how to fill out the sign-up will be on the AO3 collection. There will be an example sign-up as well when you start the process to help guide you.
Submit one short fic (100-2000 words), to fulfil your assignment.
You may optionally submit extra gift fics for any other participant in the exchange. There is no maximum number of gifts you may submit per person or total. 😏
You must submit these via AO3 (and have an account to both give and receive).
Ships must involve consenting adults only.
No Harry Potter crossover allowed.
Sign-up period: 22nd November-27th November
Prompts revealed/assignments given: 27th November
Assignment deadline: 22nd December
Authors revealed: 24th December
Collection closed: 31st January
andulkaphoto
blakekathryn
vaporwave
titsay
yousharknotpass
