Our annual Twisted Shorts August Fic-A-Day challenge has now started!

Guests can now view and comment on daily entries.


Like the last few years, we (the Mods) are hosting the challenge on the forums.

We are once again allowing participants to post stories in the forums and here on the main-site. We are also experimenting with allowing stories posted to AO3 to be included if appropriately tagged (See Announcement in the Forums for details).

Please come join in the discussion in the forums! Click on the "Comments" button below to be directed to the forums post.

Official Site Challenge: 2026 TtH August Fic-a-Day Challenge

With the recent passing of Anthony Stewart Head (Giles!) (and Nicholas Brendon (Xander!) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn))) a site challenge has been added so that those who wish to read or write stories in honor of these characters can more easily find them.

These would be memorial stories (written In memory of) specifically.

See: Scooby Memorial Challenge

The Mods

Just a quick note.

Our server does not currently support saving text (reviews, comments, and story chapters) containing emojis (either single characters or html unicode versions). So don't use them. (Or use the old-style ascii versions) (Technically, it's for the same reason we only support certain languages.)

But if you do... you may get an error or your review / chapter / comment will silently disappear.

Not very many people are putting emojis in reviews or stories (seems to be a recent thing around here). Yet.

But we will fix this, in some to-be-determined way, when we are able. It's not something we can just "turn on" (Emojis as characters weren't really a thing when our site code was written.) and will require some coding changes.

We'll let you know when it's okay to start using emojis. But for now, don't.

Note: Technically, you could copy the emoji images from the forums like so: but that's a lot more work and not quite the same thing.

The Management

FYI

The main site and forums may be unavailable Sunday morning, between 6AM and Noon EST for a short period of time while several maintenance activities are carried out.

The site will be in "Maintenance Mode" during this time period.

It'll be fairly obvious what is happening. All you will see is a simple screen saying "Maintenance".

If you have any questions before then (other than "How long will it be?" which currently doesn't have an answer.) you can ask over in the forums or send a message to the Mods using the Site Contact page.

Thanks

-acs-
A TtH Mod/Admin

The Mods wish everyone a Happy 2026!

May your fic reading and writing (Buffy and otherwise) be fruitful and multiply!

Just an EOY reminder...

When someone posts a review to a story or a comment on a review, the system may send an e-mail notification (It's a default setting in your profile!) to the email address the system has for the story author/reviewer.

But!!!

Those are just notifications! Not the review itself. If you want to respond to a review or comment, and you want the reviewer/commentor to see it, you MUST do it on the site in the review.

(** Yes, you CAN edit reviews/comments **)

Do not reply to the email notification.

Contrary to the belief of some members (no matter how often we've tried to tell them otherwise), replying by email to a review/comment notification does NOT send that reply to the author who wrote the review or the comment.

The system doesn't know what to do with it and it goes into a junk mail folder in the Mod email which does not get forwarded and is eventually deleted. Will that ever be added as a feature? (Because it's NOT a bug! It's how it is designed.) Maybe if the site software ever gets rewritten in some distant alternate timeline.

HTH

The Mods

Just a reminder!

Twisting the Hellmouth is a fan fiction archive focusing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers.

We are an archive (with a small amount of moderation (Rules! We have posting rules!)).

We are not "social media"!

Okay, The Mods would like to believe we all are a friendly, social bunch. But that isn't the same thing. Really.

There is no "algorithm" that determines what shows up on our Latest page or in any way determines what people read or what stories are recommend. None!

And story/chapter reviews? No likes or other 'algorithmic' entities involved.

Our forums, if you should wander by, also have no "algorithm" guiding conversations.

So, if you go looking for an algorithm? Wondering how to increase "engagement" for a story?

There is no algorithm here to game. Follow the rules, and write good stories!

Hope all that was clear.

The Mods