Fan Fiction
Winter Series 2025 - The Longest Night We Shared (Part I)
Winter does not arrive loudly. It enters quietly, slipping between conversations, dimming the edges of the world, asking us to slow down even when we resist. The longest night of the year - Solstice - is not only an astronomical event - it is an emotional threshold. A moment when darkness lingers long enough to make us listen.
By José Juan Gutierrez 9 months ago in Fiction
New Moon - New Hope
The New Moon arrived without ceremony. No flares. No warnings. No headlines announcing catastrophe. It simply happened - the Moon aligned perfectly between Earth and the Sun, and for the first time in recorded history, the darkness felt intentional.
By José Juan Gutierrez 9 months ago in Fiction
The Upside Down of Snacking: Chocolate Treats That Belong in Every Stranger Things Fan’s Basket
Maybe it’s the 80s nostalgia. Maybe it’s the late-night binge-watching energy. Or maybe it’s because every episode feels like a roller coaster and your taste buds need emotional support.
By Emily Maren9 months ago in Fiction
The Gospel of Gumption
The assignment from her editor was a footnote, a punishment for having annoyed a major advertiser. “Go to Gumption, Vermont,” the email read. “Cover their ‘Fall Furnival.’ Yes, with a ‘U.’ File 500 words on the quirky local color. Try not to poison the well.”
By Habibullah9 months ago in Fiction
Roots and branches
My roots formed in uncelebrated places — In kitchens heavy with silence, In prayers said without witnesses, In hands that learned endurance Before they ever learned rest. They grew quietly, gripping soil That knew both hunger and hope, Teaching me early that survival Is a kind of wisdom. My roots remember names I never met, Lives that bent so mine could stand. They carry stories braided with sacrifice, With laughter softened by struggle, With courage disguised as routine. These roots do not shout. They hold. They steady me when the world Mistakes noise for progress And speed for purpose. When I forget myself, My roots pull me back — To values shaped by necessity, To faith learned through waiting, To the understanding that growth Must honor what sustains it. They remind me that I come from depth, Not convenience. Yet roots alone cannot fulfill a life. From that depth, my branches rise. They reach beyond familiarity, Stretching toward questions My beginnings never had the luxury to ask. They test the air for possibility, Learning the courage of exposure, The risk of being seen, The art of bending without breaking. Each branch is an act of trust — That light exists beyond the known. My branches carry ambition, Not as rebellion, but as continuation. They seek expansion, not escape. They grow toward a future Where survival evolves into choice, Where endurance gives way to intention. I stand in the space between — Anchored by roots that refuse to let me forget, Lifted by branches that refuse to let me stay. Grounded in legacy, Guided by vision, I grow not in opposition to where
By Awa Nyassi9 months ago in Fiction
SHADOWS IN THE LANTERN FOG
The City That Smelled Like Regret Ravenbridge never smelled like rain. Not really. The city smelled like wet concrete, burnt oil, and the kind of smoke that curls out of closed bars at three in the morning when no one remembers what burned. Neon signs flickered in puddles of black water, distorted into eyes that watched you as you walked. The fog settled in the alleys like a warning, thick enough to make even the bravest think twice before stepping too far. I had lived here my entire life—or at least, enough of it to know that nothing in Ravenbridge existed for the good of its citizens. Everything existed for its own amusement. You could call the city alive, if you didn’t mind that it was the sort of life that gnawed at your insides and whispered when you were alone. It was the city that chewed dreams and spat out regrets, and I was one of the few who had made peace with it—or at least tried.
By Alisher Jumayev9 months ago in Fiction
WHEN THE TIDES LEARNED OUR NAMES
By the time the ocean reached the fifth step of the old courthouse, no one bothered arguing whether the flooding was temporary anymore. Harborreach had become a city that survived not through denial, but through adaptation so gradual it felt like habit. Streets were re-mapped according to tidal charts. Homes wore stilts like sensible shoes. Boats replaced buses, and children learned to swim before they learned to read. The water didn’t arrive violently—it came patiently, season by season, salt creeping into foundations and memories alike. People still argued about the weather out of reflex, but they planned their lives around it now, checking sea forecasts the way their grandparents once checked calendars.
By Alisher Jumayev9 months ago in Fiction
THE TEAPOT THAT KNEW MY NAME
Willowfen was the kind of village that forgot the meaning of hurry long before I was born. It sat between a river that sang softly to itself and a meadow that smelled of honey even in winter, stitched together by cobblestone lanes worn smooth by centuries of unimportant footsteps. Nothing legendary had ever happened there—no dragons, no chosen heroes, no prophecies scribbled in fading ink. Instead, Willowfen specialized in the ordinary miracles: bread that rose perfectly every morning, lamplight that glowed a little warmer when someone walked home alone, and gossip that traveled faster than the wind but never meant any harm. It was the sort of place where people waved even if they didn’t know your name, and somehow, by the end of the week, they did.
By Alisher Jumayev9 months ago in Fiction
THE SILENCE BETWEEN LATIN VERSES
Blackthorn University did not rise from the earth so much as loom over it. Its spires pierced the fog like accusations, its stone corridors soaked in centuries of whispered ambition. Founded in 1649, Blackthorn prided itself on tradition, rigor, and an unspoken belief that mediocrity was a moral failure. The walls were lined with oil portraits of scholars whose eyes followed you as you passed, their painted gazes heavy with judgment. Students learned quickly that this was not a place to find yourself—it was a place to be reshaped. Knowledge here was not neutral; it was sharp, elitist, and alive. And like anything alive, it demanded something in return.
By Alisher Jumayev9 months ago in Fiction
