fandom5k

Welcome to Fandom 5K! 2026 will be our tenth and final year.

This is a multi-fandom gift exchange for fic with a 5,000-word minimum and comics with a 5-page minimum. Last year's challenge can be found here on AO3 - 2026 link TBA.

Before signing up, please read the rules! You can also see the 2025 FAQ for some common questions. 2026 versions of these pages will be linked soon, but most of the rules will be consistent with the exception of the default amnesty (see below).

Other questions to the mods can be posted to the community or emailed to fandom5kmod@gmail.com. Please contact us privately for any concerns about your assignment or your gift.

Quick links for 2026 TBA:

• Challenge profile
• Rules
• FAQ
• Tag set
• Requests on the app
• Mod email: fandom5kmod@gmail.com

Planned 2026 schedule (may be tweaked slightly, especially if other longform exchanges announce conflicting schedules; will be finalized by nominations):

• Nominations: 22 March - 1 April
• Signups: 3 April - 11 April
• Assignments out by: 14 April
• Mandatory check-in: 8-15 May
• Default deadline: 15 May
• Works due: 5 June
• Works revealed: 26 June
• Creators revealed: 11 July

Announcing another one-week delay to allow for final pinch hits! If all goes well, works will be revealed on 2 August.

All pinch hits are now claimed! Thank you, pinch hitters!

One new post-deadline pinch hit available, and one from earlier posts! Ideally these are due 1 August at 23:59 US Eastern so we can plan to reveal on the 2nd. However, if you could take one of these but would need more time than that, please let me know, and we can discuss.

If you can take a pinch hit, please leave a comment with your AO3 name and the number you're interested in. All comments are screened.

( PDPH 14 - Code Vein (Video Game), 神さまのいない日曜日 | Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi | Sunday Without God (Anime & Manga), Octopath Traveler II (Video Game), 刀使ノ巫女 | Toji no Miko | Katana Maidens (Anime), よるのないくに | Yoru no Nai Kuni | Nights of Azure (Video Games), Xenoblade Chronicles (Video Game) )

( PDPH 16 - 琅琊榜之风起长林 | Nirvana in Fire 2: The Wind Blows in Changlin (TV), Original Work, 永夜星河 | Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (TV) )

Hello! I have continued the annual tradition of dragging my feet on posting a schedule and, as a result, pushing everything just a little bit later than last year. But 2025 is here! Some dates may be tweaked slightly before signups begin:


I'm also announcing a few rule changes.

First, standalone comics of 5 pages or more will be allowed this year!

Second, partly to support the ability to request/offer comics for different character combinations, I will be allowing participants to request and offer the same fandom multiple times. You must still request 3 unique fandoms and offer 4 unique fandoms.

Third and finally, the use of AI to generate text or images is not allowed in Fandom5K.

Rules are still being finalized, but you can read the draft here. Not much else has changed since last year.

All of our pinch hits are claimed! Thank you very much to everyone helping us get over the finish line.

Pinch hitters, please feel free to leave prompts here. Anyone with a little extra time to write, please consider treating one of these requests!

To accommodate a few of our pinch hitters, I'm announcing one (hopefully final) delay of 24 hours.

Story reveals are currently planned for 23:59 EDT on Saturday, 20 July. As always, I'll announce here if anything changes, but we're very close to reveals now!

Thank you again to our stellar pinch hitters, and good luck in the home stretch!

Hello, 5K-ers! We currently have two pinch hits, one new. I've also had some requests for later due dates with some recent pinch hit claims. Therefore, I'm pushing reveals out by a week to accommodate those pinch hitters and to find coverage for our current pinch hits.

Reveals will now occur on Friday, 19 July.

We're close to having all stories in, so I'm optimistic about this date!

If you're eager for something to fill that time, why not write a treat for a pinch hitter? Reminder that anyone pinch hitting who isn't signed up for this exchange is welcome to leave prompts.

To everyone still writing and editing, good luck!

***

These pinch hits are due on 17 July. To claim one, please comment with your AO3 name and the number of pinch hits. More pinch hits may occur as extensions come due or if I find issues checking over completed assignments.

( PH 9 - Hill Street Blues, Breaking Bad, Vulgar (2000), The Beatles (Band) )

 

CLAIMED - PH 11 - 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game), あかね噺 | Akane-banashi (Manga), 七つの魔剣が支配する | Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru | Reign of the Seven Spellblades (Anime & Manga), Crossover Fandom Relationships, 異世界美少女受肉おじさんと | Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to | Total Fantasy Knockout (Manga), World Trigger (Anime & Manga)

Thank you, thank you to our last, hard-working pinch hitter and everyone else who has pitched in this round! We had multiple, very generous offers for that final emergency pinch hit.

We're getting our ducks in a row and will open the collection within the hour.

It looks as though AO3 is up and stable! Fingers crossed. If that state of affairs doesn't change, we will be opening the collection at 11:59 PM US Eastern time today, 11 July, which is in about 8 hours (countdown).

In the meantime, please save copies of your work if you haven't already, and complete any final edits you may have!

Please contact us ASAP if you have any problems. For issues specific to your assignment, please email us. To let us know if there are more general problems with the archive, you can comment here.

As many of you have may have noticed, AO3 has been experiencing a DDOS attack that has been taking the site down sporadically for the last nine hours or more.

While things seem more stable at the moment, we know access to the site has been difficult, and there hasn't yet been an official all-clear. We want to give it a little more time to let things settle.

We're delaying our opening 12 more hours, to Tuesday, 11 July at 11:59 AM US Eastern (countdown).

In the meantime, please remember to save a copy of your work somewhere other than AO3! This is especially important if you're making final tweaks to your stories, but it's always good practice in any situation.

Also, please make sure that if you edit the story, every version you save can go live as a complete gift, just in case you don't make it back to add any additional changes.

If you run into urgent technical problems, please email us at fandom5kmod@gmail.com.

Our final pinch hit is claimed!

Currently, we plan to open the archive on Saturday, 8 July at 11:59 PM US Eastern (countdown). This is just over a week from now. It's possible there will be a slight delay for the final pinch hits, in which case we'll make an announcement as soon as we know. We'll check in here either way.

Thank you to all our pinch hitters! If you didn't sign up for the exchange but are pinch hitting this round, you're invited to leave prompts for treats here. If you're looking to spend the last week working on a treat, you can check out that post or look at the requests for this year.

Good luck writing, editing, beta reading, and treating, and we hope to see you all for reveals very soon.