Tropical Gothic

Austen Exchange is a fanfiction exchange dedicated to all things Jane Austen—from Austen’s original works to any and all adaptations of them—hosted annually on AO3. If you sign up, you’ll be assigned to write a fic of at least 1000 words for another participant, and you’ll receive the same in return.

If that sounds up your street, you can read more about Austen Exchange here. Our 2026 schedule is below:

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

I'm a realist, and so was Jane Austen; no one romantic will like this answer:

The couples, who are in love, lack birth control, and believe children are a gift from God, will have as many children as their fertility allows. The average in the era for a gentry family was 6.7 children. Anne Elliot, who may not always be able to travel with her husband, may have bigger gaps as a navy wife (I always have speculated that Mrs. Croft's one time away from her husband was because she was pregnant and maybe miscarried.)

As for names, Jane Austen adheres pretty closely to naming children after their parents, in almost every case where we know the parents' names and then using other very common names for the era. So it's going to be a whole crowd of Elizabeths, Annes, and Marys, Charleses, Johns, and Williams. The most exciting you'll get is a mother's maiden name being used as a boy's first name (like Fitzwilliam Darcy) and maybe Marianne Brandon using names from poetry.

Catherine Morland is the eldest daughter of ten (NA)

The Musgroves (P) and Lucases (P&P) seem to have very large families, but not all children are named. We know Charlotte Lucas has multiple brothers and sisters from the text, including Lucas Wine Boy. The Middletons in S&S I think have quite a few children already and they wouldn't be done.

The Bennet girls are so close I don't think it's possible to have deceased siblings between them. It's possible there were miscarriages or otherwise after Lydia. We do know of one stillborn, Sir Walter's son from Persuasion and we know of a single deceased sibling, Mary from Mansfield Park.

Secondary infertility would have been more common without medical intervention. We also know that couples who didn't marry for love did stick to that addage of "a heir and a spare" which may explain some of the smaller families.

Some historic pharmacopeias mention plants which are believed to cause miscarriage and/or are used to bring on menstruation; while several mention these as warnings in more or less clear language, none that I read provided the sort of dosage or preparation information that would allow a contemporary reader to intentionally use the plants as contraceptives. They did, however, provide evidence that some people were reputed to have and use that information (and that this could be very dangerous depending on the plant in question).

Secondary source provided two other historic methods, which show by the very end of the 19th century: douching with various substances (from clean water to soap suds to various astringents) as well as a rhythm method/fertility tracking. While these are at the opposite end of the century from Jane Austen's novels [the women in the study had all married for the first time between the 1860s and 1890s, as I recall, and were being interviewed by a female doctor c.1910], I think they might be the more useful ones to consider for JA characters because they're actual married women's methods used within the context of limiting fertility within a marriage.

From the time period of Jane Austen, which I realize the heroines are having babies later but I only really research the Regency, the main solution seems to be sending the husband for sex elsewhere. This is possible for say, the Bertrams, as we know Lady B. started sending Sir Thomas to London alone after Julia was born, or the Tilneys, as it seems Mrs. Tilney had been ill for years so pregnancy might have been advised against.

As far as I've researched, humanity didn't know about ovulation until 1905, and many cultures thought the most fertile period was right after menstruation or right before it (that is wrong). So what we now call the rhythm method wouldn't work if you didn't have the dates right:

In the 1840s it was discovered that many animals ovulate during estrus. Because some animals (such as dogs) have a bloody discharge during estrus, it was assumed that menstruation was the corresponding most fertile time for women. This inaccurate theory was popularized by physicians Bischoff, Félix Archimède Pouchet, and Adam Raciborski.[9][10] In 1854, an English physician named George Drysdale correctly taught his patients that the days near menstruation are the least fertile, but this remained the minority view for the remainder of the 19th century.[9] (source)

Even Jane Austen suggests that couples with too many babies should just sleep apart. I've already read contemporary accounts to this effect as well. Also, the Austen brothers had a lot of children, as far as I remember. Other than abstaining, the methods used wouldn't be as reliable as modern birth control and might not have been used out of religious feelings as well.

Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception

Now, of course by 1930, Anglicans (and others) were widely using artificial conception; that argument was brought up at the conference. The Anglican Communion were the first major Christian churches that acknowledged any possible moral use for contraception.

Despite the possibility of their poorer fellow Britons trying to limit births while still having "marital relations," I agree with the previous post - I can't see any of the lead couples in the Jane Austen novels resorting to what was then seen as something men used in order to avoid "social diseases" when visiting sex workers: even the relatively poor Prices didn't seem to have.

they were handsy 

HANDSY I SAY

they STARTED handsy 

they moved in together in like. ep one. 

What you need to know about The Sentinel is that the very first episode is about Jim Ellison acquiring mystical powers. YES I want to be clear, the way he acquires these powers is "problematical" and "not great, respecting indigenous cultures wise" but okay, so he's got these powers that make all of his senses amped up to dangeous levels. he can hear things no one else can hear, he can see things like he's fucking legolas, you get the deal.

so he goes to the doctor to be like "i feel weird" because of course, and Blair Sandberg, twink anthropologist to the stars, BREAKS SEVERAL LAWS to get in Jim's exam room and say—i know how to help you. i know what's wrong with you. i know how to make life better. and jim ellison looked at the little twink man and said yes....YES to love YES to life YES to living in a 1 bedroom LOFT apartment together. YES to being soulmates and life partners! YES I'LL MARRY YOU!!!!!!

This is the ORIGINAL big gruff german sheppard/lil yapping chihuahua pairing. And fandom looked at this show and said "this is good. i will build a kingdom upon this land. from now on, these are the two genders: big, angry, powerful, forced to their knees by circumstances beyond their control AND small, jokester, has skills INVALUABLE to Big, bad self worth. And then so the sentinel/guide aus RULED the pervert community, and everyone rejoiced.

But also, fannishly, so inventive! Some of the first vids I ever saw back before there were computers –VHS vids, wonderful ones. (Shout out to GloRo!) Great great fanfic and art. I still have gorgeous zines from this period. And the loft tape! Go to fanlore and look up the loft tape you guys!!

"I mean, what's with those helmets that batters wear? It's so unfashionable. Those have got to go. And those pants are so restrictive. I'm going to show that the protagonist is a rebel and an independent thinker by having them wear cut-off jeans and run to third base instead of going to first. They'll also have waist-length free-flowing hair that they never tie up when the run."

"What? No, of course I didn't read up anything about sports history or the rules of baseball."

I wrote a whole article about it!

The biggest problem with the trope is that authors rarely consider the power dynamics of the compromise, which is roughly equivalent to a shotgun marriage today. One of the most sensible compromises I've seen is in Bridgerton, surprisingly, because a male relative of about equal status used an actual gun to try and make the compromiser marry his sister. If the female doesn't have a powerful or willing male relation, who holds the shotgun?

Another big problem which comes up a lot in fan fiction is lowering the bar of physical contact. In Bridgerton, Daphne and Simon are fully making out, in a lot of Chinese dramas they lock drunk/drugged up, opposite sex people in a room for an entire night and then let servants "discover" them in the morning. That's very compromising! Yet, you'll read some historical fiction/a lot of fan fiction of a woman doing something as innocent as tripping into a man's arms or being alone in a room with them fully clothed and people scream, "Compromise!" It's just silly. Jane Austen has men and women accidentally alone frequently and no one ever gets married from it.

All 4.259 ALDI locations in Germany (Nord vs Süd split)

Ah well, have an Aldi Nord & Aldi Süd fanfic... which I wrote in German.

Die Brüderlichkeit fehlt... oder? (100 words) by la_cotorra_encantada

And here's the rest of the 30+ Fanfic Retailverse:

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.

So, a while ago, some of my friends and fellow cast members of the @sansukhpodfic​ asked about how to make and edit podfic on their own. I created this tutorial for them, as a supplement to the resources already posted  by the Sansukh mods. In the wake of the most recent @auralphonic​ episode asking for technical advice on podficcing in Audacity, I thought I would polish this up and post it. This tutorial explains how, once you have permission to record a story, you go about turning it into a podfic using Audacity. It focuses on technical and logistical details, rather than artistic advice, and is cobbled together from my own experience, my knowledge of the mathematics behind signal analysis, and other people’s tutorials. There’s lots of communities and resources out there that give advice on the artistic side (Auralphonic, for example, has an episode for newbies), which I recommend checking out.

Disclaimer: There is no one standard method of doing this! This is the method I have found gives me the best results, personally, but there may be better ways to do this. I strongly recommend checking out other resources for comparison.

Brain: I know what’s going to happen next!

Me: That’s fantastic, but for the sake of pacing can we work up to that point?

Brain: Yeah. We could. Or, hear me out, I can tell you every single detail of the next part and we won’t be able to focus on the current point of the story and we’ll get really frustrated because we know where we want to go but don’t know how to get to it.

Me: