Twisting the Hellmouth

Twisting the Hellmouth is a fanfiction archive for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series crossover fanfiction.Twisting the Hellmouth Site Rules accessed 5/12/09 It also hosts non-crossover fanfiction and fanart. It was originally the Crossover Zone of The BtVS Writer's Guild. As of 2nd December 2020, the site holds 25,663 stories, of which 20,963 are crossovers between BtVS and/or AtS and another fandom.Twisting the Hellmouth homepage, accessed 2/12/20
Twisting the Hellmouth has been praised by many for its well-organized archive and its functionality.Amusewithaview's profile states The site is the best-organized and maintained fanfic site I have come across in all my years of reading. Yes, it's better than ff dot net. No, really. Check it out." Last updated 2010. Accessed 28/11/2020. As a fanfic archive that allowed filtering by crossover fandom, pairing or character, it often compared favorably to much larger archives like FFN and later Ao3.My New Fanfiction.net-Filtering Userscript states "After spending so much time on fandom-specific sites with much better search systems (like Twisting the Hellmouth), Fanfiction.net’s search system feels really constricting." 2015-10-30What are some good fanfiction sites? answered by Paul Johnson, October 2018.
TtH organized the Crossing Over Awards, where registered users of the site could nominate and vote for the best crossover fanfiction in various categories. It was also home to a huge number of challenges and created several LJ challenge communities, including twistedshorts. Many who contribute to TtH also frequent the TTH Forums, a discussion board where users discuss topics related to various fandoms, crossovers and writing fanfiction. Twisting the Hellmouth Lite (twsthellmouth) is the archive's associated LiveJournal community (last active in 2017), and uses the tagline We never met a crossover we didn't like! 
Users can make donations to help pay for the site's dedicated server. Donors receive some perks.
==Posting Rules==
The site rules state that at least 50% of the stories posted by individual users must be crossovers between BtVS and/or AtS and another fandom. This is to preserve the theme of the site as a Buffy crossover archive . The rules also state that at least 50% of the total wordcount of stories posted by individual authors must be crossovers. However, these ratio restrictions are waived for site donors. For 'ratio' purposes, crossover stories between BtVS and AtS with no other fandom involved, or between other fandoms (for example, between Harry Potter and Stargate SG1) are not counted as crossovers. A user's first story must be a crossover. 
RPF was formerly banned completely, and a WWE story category was deleted in November 2005 after it was pointed out that all of the stories violated this rule. After rules changes in 2010, real people were allowed "if using that specific person is required to portray a scene realistically," with various guidelines on suitable and unsuitable portrayal. The effect was to ban RPF pairings, both het and slash, while allowing in-character portrayals of e.g. the Top Gear team as seen on TV.
In 2004, stories based on the published works of Anne Rice and Anne McCaffrey were banned on the site.Site rules ammendment, July 2004, details the decision to ban stories based on Anne McCaffreys' works. Anne Rice related fanfiction was already banned. The list grew to also include stories based on the published works of Anne Bishop, Diana Gabaldon, George R.R. Martin, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, all of whom are authors who have taken a stance against fanfiction of their works.
==Ratings==
Prior to 2005, TtH used the MPAA ratings system, requiring all stories to be rated on a G to NC-17 scale. However, following concerns over cease and desist letters sent to fanfiction writers over the use of MPAA ratings in stories See Heidi8's post regarding a cease-and-desist letter sent to Jori over the use of MPAA ratings in fanfiction: MPAA, 14 February 2005. (Accessed 5/12/09) a new ratings system was developed by the user Houses Discussion over new ratings system on TtH forum, 12/02/05, accessed 5/12/09.:
*FR7 - Suitable for your seven year old cousin. No nightmare inducing material of a sexual or violent nature. No naughty language. As fluffy a fluffy bunny as you can get. 
*FR13 - Behold the wonders of dirty words. But only saying them. Not doing them.
*FR15 - The sexual exploration begins! But nothing explicit, and the violence is kept to Super Mario levels.
*FR18 - Violence ho! But nothing extreme. Be reasonable. If it'd give an 18 yr old nightmares, move it on up a level. Nookie, but not porn.
*FR21 - No holds barred, Skinamax experience. Should that be no clothes barred? Or maybe just a round of particularly descriptive violence. Regardless, not for the faint of heart. Place stories with explicit warning labels here. Those under the age of 18 may not read or post stories of this rating.
==Challenges==
Twisting the Hellmouth is home to almost 9000 Challenges. It also hosts Fic For All, an ongoing crossover pairing focused challenge. 
As well as hosting challenges on their own site, Twisting the Hellmouth started multiple challenge communities on Livejournal. 
* 50-Smutlets was originally intended as a kink community for TtH, before rapidly growing to include other fandoms. 
* The TtH_100 was the drabble community for Twisting the Hellmouth. 
* TtH Drabbles posted a weekly prompt and writers were encouraged to write as many drabbles from it as they could think up.
*Twisting the Hellmouth Short Fic Challenges or twistedshorts, focuses on fics longer than drabbles. This LJ comm is still active, and continues to host the annual August Fic-A-Day Challenge.
==Example Works==
* A Brane of Extraordinary Women by Diane Castle, a muti-fandom crossover.
* I Am What I Am by M. McGregor, a non-crossover.
* Jedi Harris, a BtVS/Star Wars crossover focused on Xander Harris
* Stupid Portal by elementalv, a BtVS/Star Trek: TNG crossover.
* John Hart, Not a Vampire by DWduck, a BtVS/Torchwood crossover.
==Fan Comments==
==References==
Category:Buffyverse Archives
Category:Crossover Archives
Category:2003 Archives
Category:2000s Archives
Category:2010s Archives
[[Category:2020s Archives
Category:2020 Featured Articles