Sunnydale After Dark
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What’s that you say? Things have been a little calm and orderly around here? Well, we know just how to fix that. It’s time for the madness of March’s annual Short & Spuffy drabble event! 

If you’ve never participated before, we encourage you to give it a whirl this year! So many members point to this event as their Sunnydale After Dark gateway event— and for good reason. Drabbles are an excellent way to flex a new muscle as a longtime writer or to dip your toe in as a new one. They’re short and sweet and easy to comment on for readers who maybe haven’t wandered out of lurkdom before.

What exactly is a drabble? Definitions vary, but for the purpose of this event, it is a 100 word chapter. Not 101 words, not 98 words, 100. If you’d like to see some examples of how this is done, refer back to last year’s Short and Spuffy fics.

Keep in mind, various word counters might count your words differently, but our site has calibrated our word counter to match Google Doc’s interpretation. You can use the word count preview in our text editor before posting to make sure you’ve hit that 100! 

Every day for thirty days in March, a new prompt (submitted by January’s Top Commenters) will be chosen at random and revealed first on Discord and then in the Scooby Chat here on the site. We highly encourage you to join us on Discord for the prompt reveal if you’re able to, as it is a lot of fun for all the event participants to discuss the day’s prompt together!

Drabbles do not have to be posted on the day that prompt is revealed. Prompts do not need to be used in the order in which they are revealed. Your only goal is by the end of March to have 30 drabbles, 100 words each. There will be no prompt on March 31. Consider it catch up day!

Your story should be a new story (it’s fine if it is a sequel to something else, or if your story is more of a collection of drabbles than one connected narrative). And it should finish by the end of the event. If you find you aren’t able to write all 30 drabbles in March, that’s okay! You will still receive an award for participating and you can finish your 30 drabbles after the event. But please do not extend a story beyond the 30 drabbles with prompts. Feel free, of course, to write a sequel story if you wish to continue your storyline.

Speaking of awards, let’s discuss those! We’ve altered our award tiers from past years just a bit. There are now seven awards up for grabs and you can earn them in the following ways:

15-49 Comments = Comment Champion
50-99 Comments = Comment Slayer
100+ Comments = Naked Buffy 

1-15 Drabbles = Drabble Champion
16-29 Drabbles = Drabble Slayer
30 Drabbles = Naked Spike

You might be wondering about these Naked awards, and the explanation is simple. We like them. They’re funny, they’re pretty, and nobody wants to miss out on a Naked Spike for their award collection. Duh.

Artists will also receive awards for any banner contributions! Please don’t forget to credit your banner artist.

As always, awards accumulate. As you climb in comments and drabbles, you will add to your total award count. And you want to add to your award count because our beloved and talented scratchmeout has designed some ultra sexy good awards for this event that we know you are all gonna LOVE. Trust us on this. Just look at the banner she made!

And that’s it! As always, remember to check the event box when you post! And reach out if you're unsure about anything. Happy drabbling!



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 02/08/25 10:58 am 11 Comments



Hello hello! We are super happy to bring you the new interviews! Settle in and enjoy! 

First up is our Author of the Month: acekoomboom

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

Reruns! I was born in ‘99, so I didn't see any of the show while it was airing. But I was a tv kid for sure, and I strongly remember season two always being on one of the rerun channels I liked when I was in elementary school.

Get ready to throw tomatoes, okay? I started reading Spuffy fic in middle school, and I started on Nauti Bitz’s website. Yes! The hardcore smut. I look back sometimes and I'm like… I can't believe 13/14 year old me was watching BtVS season six and reading Don't Stop. But I was also watching, like, The Tutors and Sex In The City, so I was seeing things I should not have been from all sides.

After that I found the Bloodshedverse, then Elysian Fields, then eventually AO3. I don't read Spike and Buffy on archive of our own anymore because I enjoy the community aspect of Spuffy so much, how this fandom has endured and revitalized itself, how alive it truly is so long after the show came out. Then I found SAD and started posting here too :) Which, side note, I really enjoy how unique this website feels in how image-centric it is. When you post a fic, it's the banner that pops up on the homepage. There are so many image and animation options when you're writing something in the shoutbox, chapter notes, comments. The banners that go along with the transcript library, the Scoobies of the month, the event announcements, all so freaking gorgeous. I have been loving that about interacting with this website. That part of it feels so very its own.

I haven't transferred all of my back catalog to SAD yet, mostly because I was writing as a cringy teenager and don't want to have to look at those stories. But cringe is dead and every stone placed is a piece of the journey, so I think I'll get around to it eventually. If you're curious to see any of it in advance I thinnnk it's all on Archive already.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Mostly other art. Watching a movie that the Buffy characters would work well in or in an interesting way if they were in that setting, watching a show that's plot would be cool to plug into Sunnydale, hearing a song that strikes a chord with how the characters did/would feel. I have been writing a Spuffy time travel fic that uses Doctors Who (Matt Smith era) plots for over five years. It's my baby and I love it and it takes me sooooo long to add to it because I lose motivation and switch hyperfixations so often. It's only at about 60k words after all these years, but I'm going to finish it one day and it's going to be cool! You'll see XD

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

I think Spike, because oh how deeply and obviously he feels emotions, and how those emotions are wrapped up in over a century of conflicting emotions and traumas and defense mechanics. He such a strange dude, and it's really fun to get in his head.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

As this answer section might show, I'm very verbose. Ya girl can talk and talk and talk. For some reason, though, that does not translate very well to fanfiction. I have a really hard time making anything more than a couple thousand words. I'm a one shot author most naturally, that's just what I am likely to actually finish. I'm trying to commit to and actually cross the finish line on more long-form Spuffy, so we'll see what the future holds.

That being said, I feel like I need to break my answer for this up into categories. Multi-chapter, I’d say Pillar of Strength. I wrote the prequel and first chapter for it in 2016 and posted them, then lost the rest of the story when I lost my old ipod (I just so happened to lose it at the same convention where I saw James Masters live in concert with Ghost of the Robot when I was a preteen! It was such a small and intimate set, they did so good, it was amazing. Good Night Sweet Girl is still my favorite song by them) and abandoned the fic because it was so upsetting to have chapters of work disappear before I could post them. But I reworked and changed what that story ended up being altogether in 2023, and didn't finish the very last chapter until this year which should be up on here soon <3 

For drabbles I am feeling Holy Ground, because it shows so much of their history and their dynamic and puts a few fun headcanons in there that my mind can't stop thinking about.

For one-shots, my answer is Five Times Buffy Fell Asleep on Spike's Watch, Plus One Time They Look Forward To It. A classic 5+1 story that is actually an inverse of that trope, where the original five are short glimpses and the main chunk of word count is spent on the +1. Also, it was a Secret Santa gift for violettathepiratequeen and started an entire friendship between us, so it will have bonus points forever in my eyes :P 

As for the hardest fic I have written, it's absolutely the Doctor Who one I talked about in my first question. It has been five years, and the plot is all sorts of crazy complicated, and it's a very big bite to chew that I have created for myself. But I genuinely love it and am really hoping I'm able to make it into the fic I know it can be. I've had it titled as A Song From The River the whole time, so I think that's the name it will still have when it does get shared with the world 🫣

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

So, I feel like there were a bunch of different things I could have said for this answer, but I decided to go for one of the more silly ones to which turned out to be something I actually feel serious about now that I'm writing it out haha. I vaguely remember the writers talking about how they had planned from the beginning to make one of Buffy's friends gay and so they were planting seeds in both Willow and Xander in the early seasons before they decided which one to have that storyline with. I one-thousand-million percent think it should have been Xander.

Of all of the side ships on the show, Willow and Oz are my favorite. I don't wish he stayed around, I like that he left in the fourth season and the things that breakup did to Willow's character, but with the show coming out when it did the bi erasure is so real. Willow truly loved Oz and enjoyed her physical relationship with him, and so I always headcanon her as bi and not lesbian. Irl queer people sometimes take a while to find their true orientations too, so it isn't odd to think that Willow was still discovering herself and hadn't found the right label yet or even known that she needed to.

You know who would have fit much better in the gay not bi category? Xander! The insecurities his character has, which has been attributed in most of the show to him not having any powers unlike nearly everybody else? Yeah it's that, but also his internalized homophobia. Xander cheats on the most popular girl in school? He's not actually attracted to her. With his childhood best friend that he could have had this whole time because she's always had a crush on him? He's not actually attracted to her either. The way he trips over himself to have a crush on the superhero new student, bubbly blond valley girl? Nope, not a real attraction there. It's always the girl he's “supposed,” to like that he does. It's performative masculinity and gender conditioning, and him realizing that he's not actually into women and having to deconstruct that—get a little bit more into his childhood drama and broken home then we did in canon—I'm telling you I have thought about it so many times lol. Maybe I'll make it a B plot in a fic one day. But considering my track record with being able to commit to long form… I highly doubt it haha.

It feels almost painful to think of depriving the world of the wlw representation of Willow and Tara, the first lesbian couple to ever kiss on tv. And the so-clear answer of which one of Buffy's show besties should be gay is Xander. So I propose bi Willow and gay Xander both existing. It's not all that odd to have a disproportionately ratio-d friend group when it comes to any kind of minority, considering people with similar life experiences or values tend to find each other. So yeah. That's my official answer.

Thanks you guys :)

Thank you, acekoomboom! We're so happy to have you here!

______________

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: harmony99


Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.
I’m thinking I watched the movie in the theater because, hello, vampires and Rob Halford from Judas Priest had a song on the soundtrack 😂 I enjoyed the movie, so when the show came out I watched seasons one through six as they were broadcast (with periodic re-watches of the season one DVD that I was gifted by my sisters for a birthday). A cross-country job move and the bad taste of season six meant I didn’t watch season seven until I did a re-watch in 2012. 

I was feeling sentimental late 2022, did another rewatch and somehow stumbled on Passion4Spike’s author site that December and found more fanfic sites through her links. I discovered SAD when Dusty posted that her new works would be found here. 

I love how fanfic fixes some things and in other instances creates completely divergent worlds with the characters we know and love (and sometimes we also are treated to OCs).

What motivates you to leave comments?
I have such respect for our authors and the gifts they give us. These fabulous, amazing people give us such wonderful stories and I get so much enjoyment from this community. Also, when I see a new writer posts something or an author asks for comments, I want to let them know how their work touched me or made me laugh (or cry, as the case may be). Through chatting with people on Discord and reading authors’ notes, I have come to understand how nervous some people are about putting themselves out there and I try to honor and support them by taking the time to let them know they’re appreciated with a comment.

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?
I have some “artwork” stories but I am primarily a reader.

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?
I typically read while I walk on the treadmill and I have a bad habit of intending to leave a comment or thinking I’ve left one and I never get around to actually doing it, which I feel terrible about (Bruskiboo, I know you are one of the SADvent participants that I highlighted different parts of your “Santa Con Comes to Town” while I was on the treadmill and I don’t think I ever managed to comment--SORRY!).

So, to answer that question, I left comments right away but sometimes I am so engrossed that I don’t stop to comment on a chapter that I am really enjoying, resulting in commenting gaps. If I’m on the computer instead of my e-reader I am much more likely to comment.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?
I know how crazy it can get to reply to comments, so I don’t mind if I don’t get a reply, but I do enjoy the dialogue that sometimes results.

Thank you, Harmony99. You are so amazing! You rock!

___

And that's a wrap! Thanks for being here, everyone!
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 02/06/25 05:57 pm 6 Comments



Happy New Year! 

I really feel like I just posted the December interviews! Did December fly by for y'all, too? 

We are so so so happy to kick off January honoring these two! 

First up, we have our Author of the Month: Claire

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic

I watched Buffy when it first aired, but only up to season 5. I think I would have been around 18 then and trying (and failing) to be cool and watching Buffy apparently didn't make the cut. I know, I was an idiot. Anyway, cut to 2020 and I wanted a comfort show to watch during lockdown and remembered Buffy being an 'easy' watch. I'd always liked Spike as a character, but hadn't been actively rooting for them to get together. I also hadn't watched season 6 or 7, so my easy watch became an insatiable binge, culminatating in an are-you-freaking-kidding-me-she-said-she-loves-him-he-said-no-you-don't-and-he-DIED?!!!!! I sat with that hovering in the back of my mind for a few months before I decided enough was enough and someone somewhere must have written an alternative and more desirable ending right? And the rest, as they say, is history.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Geliot99. At this point we are in a codependent relationship and are both big time enablers. If I can bribe her to write something with the promise of a manip or banner then I'm gonna.

Em-Kayelle. Snapshots From My Idiot is based on her stories that I am going to bully/gently nudge her to post soon.

SAD events. They've really encouraged and inspired me to create things I want to see that we never got in the show. You know, like mermaid Buffy and Spike...

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

This is a tricky one to answer! So I'll say the obvious, that I love putting Spike and Buffy into new situations. A lot of time is spent searching for the right expression and angle but they're such pretty people, it's hardly a hardship.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

The first one that comes to mind that I'm proud of is Ever After. One of the things I love most about Spuffy is how damn funny they are. I had this idea of throwing them in to a fairytale and how unbelievably pissed off they'd both be. It's the first time I'd tried creating more of a story and wasn't sure what people would make of it. When people stared writing hilarious dialogue in the comments I was thrilled, and it inspired 3 incredible new stories too.

Hardest is definitely Through the Keyhole, which is a collection of manips based on Geliot99's stories. She already paints such an incredible picture with her words that I really want to do it justice. On top of that, I'm working from a precise description. It's not whatever I can imagine/find as a base to alter. It often means frankensteining many many parts together to hopefully make it look like just one specific scene.

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

So many things, but also, nothing at all. It is so perfectly flawed which is why it inspires so many fix-it stories. Still, I think most people could live without SR ever happening. I'd have Buffy stand up to her friends more. She let them get away with so much toxic shit. I'd have let Buffy grow and move on from Angel rather than her constant regression or the blatant fan servicing that was that moment in Season 7. Season 4 was such a wasted opportunity to look at 'what is evil? What defines a monster?' rather than the two dimensional big bad we actually got. And of course, I'd give Spuffy a happy ending. Ok, so maybe quite a lot actually!

Just to finish, I want to thank you for the nomination and award which was, as an artist, wholly unexpected but I'm thrilled and honoured.

We are beyond blessed to have you here, Claire! You make SAD a better place. And your art is gasp-inducing. I may need the SAD fainting couch a few times with every new piece that drops.

__________

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: GirlyTek

I hope this suffices. Thank you so much for this honor <3

I’m really bad about following rules, and I wish I could say it occurred to me to nominate an artist for Author of the Month—Claire obviously deserves this accolade (her art has launched a thousand of my own word-ships (or something)), and I’m delighted to be Scoobying along with her this month, because not only is Claire awesome, but it also means that a comment I left made someone happy enough to bother to nominate me, so yay! But also, I’m terrible at comments? I feel like I am, anyway—I tend to use too many exclamation points!!! What am I, thirteen?!!! I promise I’m not (and haven’t been for some decades now), just genuinely in love with so much of what everyone else here writes or otherwise creates. I wish I left more comments! I tend to read on my ipad, which is not conducive to doing anything that involves its keyboard, and then I end up lurking by default.

I lurked entirely when I first started reading Spuffy—in part because I was late to the game (sooo many props to the authors who were writing while the series was still airing) and in part because who cares what some random person on the internet thinks? I wasn’t until this fandom settled into and around me that I realized I needed to start thanking the people who had created the stories that ended up meaning so much to me. Lately I’ve been trying to leave comments during the site events, because we’re all in the trenches together, as it were. Do I expect a reply when I leave a comment? Absolutely not, although of course I’m delighted if I get one.

Thank you so much to the person who nominated me—I don’t manage to do a lot of things right, but this feels like I did something good. Thanks for setting my 2025 off on a great foot <3<3<3

GirlyTek, your comments are incredible and we're beyond stoked to have you here and to honor you as our SOTM! Thank you!

____

And that's a wrap! Thank you all again for making our SADvent such a great moment! Reminder, you can see all of our past events and jump to them with the Events button up top, and then you just click a banner to see all the submissions for that event. :)

Take care!
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 01/05/25 06:17 pm 7 Comments

Warmest wishes for a very happy new year, everyone!

Though our SADvent Calendar event has come to a close, the story and art gifts that were exchanged shall remain evermore! If in your busy holiday season you didn’t get a chance to enjoy them all, we highly recommend checking them out here.

Participants, all awards have been distributed at this time. Please contact one of your friendly neighborhood SADmins if you haven’t received an award you feel you should have received.

And now that it is January 1, 2025, we just want to pause and acknowledge the joy of this past year. This community is always evolving. No two years feel the same. As admins we’re always trying to facilitate the fun but then step back and let everyone else take over. We can step back and let you peeps lead and share because everyone is so kind and generous and supportive to one another. So thank you for making 2024 so fantastic, and here is to another year of creating, reading, and general Spuffying with all our fic friends!

PS, definitely check out D'Hoffryn's new custom Recommendation Generator if you haven't already! The Bookshelf menu got a revamp so that you can easily find it and all your favorites. The generator is also located in your Account Info menu.

PPS, January Top's Commenters will again get to submit prompts for our annual Short and Spuffy event in March. It's a good month to show our creators some love and get rewarded for it.



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 01/01/25 03:56 pm 6 Comments

Greetings to my favorite collection of vampire sex nerds...

I was chit chatting with my cousin Krampus, who happened to swing by my little corner of hell to visit for the holiday, and he told me that you all have been asking that overly jovial fat man for new toys. While I do not much enjoy the act of giving outside the occasional case of boils, I have had an influx of vengeance energy brought on by all the delightfully contentious holiday dinners across your mortal plane. As such, I come bearing a gift for you readers of SAD:

The SAD FanFic Recommendation Generator!

This lovely little snippet of code will look into your soul (or you know, stories you've marked as favorites) and will summon forth tales that you probably haven't read but are likely to enjoy. The more stories you add to your favorites, the more accurate it shall become!

I hope this gift finds you well. As always, if you need me just give me a chant on discord in #dhoffryn-support

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12/31/24 Update:

      This feature has been added under the bookshelf entry in all menus for your future use.

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Merry Christmas,
-[D]



--Dhoffryn on 12/05/24 08:50 am 10 Comments



Happy December, everyone! We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! And we can't wait to see all your SADvent contributions! We're off to a great start already!

Our December SOTM interviews are great! Enjoy.

First up, we have our Author of the Month: Maxine Eden

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

Well, you might’ve heard me talking about it on discord, but to keep things light, Buffy as a show was there for me at a very hard time in my life. The show really became an escape for me but also showed me how much of a strong person I could be and how I really had to go on through all of it. I had to keep showing up every day for myself. I had originally watched the show in entirety (along with Angel) probably 3-4 times at other periods in my life so I feel like it definitely came back around when I needed it the most. As for fanfic, well, I knew as I was watching early on reruns of Buffy how much I loved her and Spike. And while I searched other sites, I couldn’t quite find the niche I was wanting until I posted on Reddit and got directed to the Spuffy sites and here I am with no sign of leaving ever. 

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Everywhere? My gatekeeper Sammi listens to me talk about how this inspired me or that inspired me and how I could turn this idea into Spuffy. Most of my fics are inspired by music though. I love to hear a great song and attribute it to Spike and Buffy in whatever scenario the idea fountain in my brain seems to want to churn out. 

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

I would have to say Buffy. I really feel a lot of similar parallels to how the character was written within my own life and I’ve always loved a badass female lead with a girly side.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

I think the fic I am most proud of is Cherry On Top which is my first piece of Spuffy fanfic that I wrote. If I hadn’t written that one, I never would’ve written all the other fics I’ve published. The hardest one would probably be a tie between The Boyfriend Swap and Unravelling. One features Buffy/Other which was hard to write even with Spuffy being endgame and Unravelling was hard to write too because of how the characters progressed and what happens to Buffy in that fic. I really had to get into a certain mindset to be able to convey the emotions I wanted to in the latter. 

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

More Spuffy time? A happy ending for them? No Spike dying on the Hellmouth? They are all great for rewrites but my biggest issue is Buffy always listening to her friends and being scared of their judgement towards her especially when she saves their butts all the time!

We are right there with you on the happy ending for Spuffy, Maxine Eden! Thank goodness we have fanfic! Thank you for your answers! You are outstanding! We are so happy to have you here with us.

________

Next up, we have Passion4Spike as our Commenter of the Month: 

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I came to be a BtVS fan after the series had ended in a kind of backwards way: I enjoyed DB in Bones and Christian Kane in Leverage, found them both on ANGEL and I actually watched the entire Angel series before I ever watched any BtVS.  Needless to say, I was on team Angel when I did finally watch Buffy, but that all changed when Spike showed up; he's clearly the OTP for Buffy!

What motivates you to leave comments?

As a writer, I appreciate comments soooo much, so I always try to leave comments for other writers to let them know all the blood, sweat, and tears they put into their writing is worth it!


Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I also write. After reading for a long time, I tried my hand at it and fell in love with creating worlds for Spuffy to be happy (and sad and then happy again) in.

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I started leaving comments pretty early on because I was so thrilled with the happy endings I was finding, which was clearly missing from the show! It touched my soul so hard, I had to let the writers know that they healed my broken Spuffy heart.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I really like having interaction with the writers, but I also understand that writers can get overwhelmed with comments and can't always reply. I do like getting replies, though, because I've made some incredibly great friends that started from comments/replies and evolved into chats and in person meetings. I treasure these life-long connections! 

Personal note:

Thank you so much for the Commentor of the Month honor! I can't tell you how much it means to me. I also want to say, if anyone doesn't know, the reason my story 'Love Lives Here' has stalled is that I lost my home to flooding from Hurricane Helene and have been in survival/recovery mode the last couple of months. I do plan to get back to it and finish it as soon as I have some brain space and emotional bandwidth to spare. 

Passion4Spike, I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say that we absolutely miss your updates, but completely understand. And we all wish you the very best as you rebuild your life. We're here if you need us. We adore you! You're incredible. <3

And that's a wrap, SAD. Have a wonderful December! Stay safe, stay hydrated, and make good choices. ;) 

Happiest of Holidays to you all,
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and Grief Counseling




 



--Chelle on 12/04/24 08:01 am 6 Comments




Thank you all so much for all the signups for our SADvent! It's gonna be fun!

But before we get to that, we're stoked to bring you our interviews with the November Scoobies!

First up, we have our Author of the Month: Harlow Turner

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I started watching Buffy in... 2022 maybe? That sounds about right. It took me a bit to warm up to it, but even from the first episode, I found the characters compelling. I started reading Buffy fanfic after finishing S4 of BtVS. I stumbled across a rec list and started reading. I posted my first BtVS fanfiction in April of 2023. 

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Here, there, and everywhere! Re-watching episodes often gives me inspiration, along with asking "what if" questions about canon. Conversations with friends on Discord. Fanart, fanvids. Occasionally dreams. 

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Honestly, I don't think I can pick just one, because I love most of the characters and they're what compel me to write fanfiction most of the time. However! I really love writing Dawn, she's one of my favorite characters. She's so fun and sassy! I also enjoy writing (hear me out) Riley a lot. He deserved a lot better than what he got on the show, and I think he can really shine as a character when given the opportunity. Also, (really hear me out) I'm very fond of writing Maggie Walsh. I really enjoy her character, and I don't think she gets as much attention in the fandom as she deserves. She's got this sort of dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and while we don't get to see it too much in canon, it's definitely there! I could go on but I think I've rambled about my favorites long enough; really, I enjoy writing most of the characters. 

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Going just off the stories I have posted to SAD (I also post to my AO3 quite a bit), I think I'm most proud of anything in my Night Shift 'verse, specifically the second story, "Turning the Tables." Despite the dark subject matter, I really am proud of the exploration of grey-and-grey morality, twisting more positive traits into something darker, and generally playing with concepts of "right and wrong" in that fic. Because none of the characters in that 'verse are perfect or without flaw; most of them have done some bad stuff, for various reasons.
 
The hardest to write might be...hmm. "Binding" or "When the World Went Cold, You Were Brighter Than Gold," which is probably why both of those remain works in progress. For the former, I have the rest of it plotted out and I just need to write it, but keeping the pacing feeling right in a relatively short fanfic that only covers a couple days has been difficult, to say the least. For the latter, I've changed my mind on so much that I think I want to change a lot of it, and I just might start over at this point. 

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

Overall I'm pretty happy with how the show went, I love the characters and I'm just so happy that it's a part of my life. However. In my self-indulgent fantasies there's a lot that I would have changed. Here's a couple of the bigger ones:

Season four, aka my favorite season. I love season four. But I do not love everything about the second half of season four. I won't say too much about what I'd change, because I'm actively working on a "fix-it" fic for most of the things I want to change. 

This one might be a bit of a hot take for this site, but I would have axed the Spike's Buffy obsession plotline entirely. I'd have gotten rid of most of Crush and Intervention. I would have had Spuffy get together in season six with a "slap-slap-kiss" dynamic; I wanted to see the enemies to loves develop more mutually and have the "ohhhh we're attracted to each other" realization come at about the same time for both of them. I wanted to see a scene where they're fighting and arguing and then bam! they grab each other and kiss. But I think that really boils down to personal preference and what kind of relationship dynamics one prefers. 

Thank you so much for having me as your author of the month! It's really an honor. 

No, thank YOU for sharing your gift with us! You rock!

______

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: Lilacsandorangeblossoms

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and buffy fan fic:

I had first watched Buffy in 2013 before I found out about fandoms, I liked the show but I didn’t have anyone to talk about it with I had drifted away from it, then in 2023 I was flipping through the channels looking for something to try to get my dog Hazel to stop barking, I click on Buffy, Hazel was fascinated and stopped barking. Now we watch it every day.

How I got into writing Buffy was I was falling asleep one night and an idea for a Dawn and Connor fic as I thought about it more I came up with multiple Buffy and Spike fics.

What motivates you to leave comments:

The happiness, the smile that it brings someone. You work so hard on a fic, hoping that at least one person will read it and when you get a comment it brings a smile to your face and all the work and the stress was worth it. 

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader:

I also write a ton.

Were you a lurker before you started comments or did you comment right away:

I commented right away, I have a short attention span Spuffy fics hold my attention when I leave a comment I am enthused about it and want to know what happens next.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment.

Very, commenting makes people happy and showing love to people for their fabulous work. And then to get a reply is everything. Whether the reply is thank you or answering a question in your comment it means a lot. The back and forth a relationship builds. 

Thank you, Lilacsandorangeblossoms! We love having you here! <3

___________

And that's a wrap! You guys have a great one!
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling












--Chelle on 11/05/24 07:38 am 3 Comments

ETA: We have a banner! Huge thanks to VeroNyxK84 for her work on this! SAD is so lucky to have you!!

It’s never too early to start thinking about the holidays… 

Have you ever wished upon a star for the Spuffy fic of your dreams? (Have any of us not done that?) Do you have an idea banging around in your head that you would love to see but have no idea how to do it yourself? Would you just like to enjoy more of the thing you adore because you adore it forever and you just need more more more?

Then you might like to participate in our upcoming SADvent Calendar event! (Forgive us. We live for wordplay.)

This event will be something new for SAD. In the past we’ve done prompt exchanges. We’ve done free for all gift exchanges. But this year we are doing a full on custom fic/art exchange.

Here’s how it works!

You will sign up here, describing the gift you’d like to receive. You’ll be able to share your maximum rating tolerance, genre preferences, and a custom prompt describing your ideal gift. You can be as vague or as specific as you like here. You’ll also describe any type of fic/art that you are unwilling to make for others in exchange for your gift (so that we don’t accidentally pair you with a prompt or rating you’re uncomfortable with!).

After everyone has signed up by October 31, the SADmins will go about pairing your prompt with the perfect creator for what you’ve requested.

By November 7, you will receive an email with the name of your giftee and their story requests and preferences. At this time, you’ll also sign up for the specific day you would like to post your story in December. Days will be reserved on a first come, first serve basis. 

Our goal is to have a daily posting throughout the entire month (you know, like the advent calendar). That way everyone reading along has something to look forward to every day.

Some rules and deets because sometimes you need them rules and deets:

  • Fics should be a one shot completed story with a minimum of 1000 words.
  • Posts should be made on the day you sign up for— no earlier, no later (please see the site time below the Scooby Chat if you’re unsure of timing). If a conflict arises where you know you’ll be unable to post on your day, please reach out to the SADmins ASAP so that we can work with you to rearrange the schedule.
  • Keep your giftee and the date of your posting SECRET. Why? Because it’s FUN. That’s why.
  • Please avoid particularly triggering topics in your fic request (i.e. character deaths, sexual assault, etc.)
  • Try to keep your prompt realistic for the length of the event and allow for your gifter to interpret the prompt as they will.
  • The prompt you receive should be followed as best as you can manage. Please do not willfully disregard the wishes of the person you’re gifting to. It’s Christmas for crying out loud. If there is an issue with the prompt you receive please inform the SADmins immediately so that we can help you find a solution.
  • If you have a question about the prompt you’ve received and would like to ask your giftee something, please reach out to the SADmins who will communicate with them on your behalf.
  • Please refrain from publicly complaining about your prompt or the stress of writing it. We don’t want anyone to feel discouraged or embarrassed.
  • When posting your gift, make sure you check the event box and also include your giftee’s name in the Gift To section of your story info so they receive an email alert that their gift has been posted!
  • Promptly thank your gifter! Even if you feel the prompt was interpreted "incorrectly" or you didn't receive what you expected, someone still worked hard to custom-create a story or piece of art just for you. They will be waiting on pins and needles to hear from you! So, like, don’t leave them hanging. It’s just not cool. 

We will be giving out standard writer, artist, beta, and commenter awards for this event. As always, to win an artist (for banners) or beta award the writer must credit you in their story info. To earn the commenting award, make 15 comments of 15 words or more!

If you have further questions, feel free to comment, reach out privately, or join the community conversation on our Discord server.



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 10/17/24 01:03 pm 3 Comments



Happy October, everyone! Are your Halloween decorations up? 

We are thrilled at the amazing job you all did with Legend Has It and we're just as delighted to bring you the October Scooby of the Month Interviews.

First up, we have our Author of the Month: Rea

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

How did I get into Buffy? Honestly, I don’t really remember. The show started airing in the UK when I was 10. I remember watching it on BBC2 on Thursday evenings after The Simpsons (I think). I was sold even then. Then I moved to France and my interest in Buffy hit a hiatus because 1) it was dubbed into French there (which, not a fan), and 2) it aired stupid late. Some years later I got the DVD boxset of S4 and that just kickstarted it all again. I had S1-4 on DVD, 5 and 6 on VHS, and I watched them all repeatedly. Then I left home, before S7 was available, and I never watched it. I started rewatches multiple times over the years, usually getting to S3 or S4. It wasn’t until late 2021 that I decided I was going to watch the whole series through. So I did. And I was left bereft at the end of S7. I mean, I already knew some stuff about the future of the characters as presented in Angel or the comics, but it was still my first experience living these moments with the characters. Afterwards, I didn’t just want more, I needed more. I tried to watch AtS. I couldn’t. It ended up feeling like a chore and each time I was more and more reluctant to turn on the TV. It didn’t take me long after that to find fanfic. I binged a whole lot of fanfic over a few months, and yet I know there are so many great stories I’ve not yet read.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Sometimes it’s an image, sometimes a song, sometimes it’s something someone said in passing. Occasionally, I read the challenges; I’ve found that I tend to vibe with the vague ones more than the ones that provide a lot of context. Sometimes the kernel of an idea will just come to me. Usually, I don’t know where the original idea is going to take me. Talking to someone (👀😘) about the kernel usually helps me to orient myself and get a clearer idea of the rest of the story.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Probably grouchy Spike cuz I can totally vibe with him and he’s a lot of fun! Also, perhaps surprisingly, depressed Buffy. I find her easier to connect with than young, peppy Buffy.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Most proud of? Whenever you ask me this, it’ll probably be the last one I worked on. So, currently, that would be Catch My Fall. It’s set in the Iron Age, and I had a lot of fun researching that period to try to keep things as close to accurate as I could. I also pushed my own boundaries with it and just generally had a blast writing it (once I’d figured out what, exactly, it was that I was writing).

Hardest to write? I’m gonna go with Come Hell or High Water. I’ve only posted two chapters so far, but I’m currently working on chapter 10. There’s this big melting pot of historical accuracy and cultural accuracy that I’m trying to deal with as delicately as I can. The story takes place during a historical event that most of us probably still remember well. And so there is a lot of research going into this: documentary after documentary; article after article. And then sometimes the characters go on strike and won’t help me figure out what they’re doing or how they’ll react to certain events, and I just feel like I’m pulling teeth. But I am steadily adding to my first draft, which I’m taking as a win.

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

I’m going to go with the overarching plot of S4. They had a really cool plot that they started with, and then they didn’t really look at any of the hard questions, changed the big bad (in a way that didn’t work, unlike in S2, mostly because Adam, while he had potential, just wasn’t fleshed out enough), and had too many filler episodes in the second half of the season that took attention away from the murderous human-demon-robot-hybrid thing that was loose in Sunnydale. There were so many opportunities to look at what the Initiative was doing and the moral greyness of how they were treating the demons, and I feel like the writers shied away from really addressing the parallels with certain historical events that they wrote into the story. Luckily for us, plenty of talented fanfic authors have addressed this in a variety of ways.

Thank you, Rea! We appreciate you! 

_____

Next up we have our Commenter of the Month: Alyot

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I remember watching Buffy as a kid. My brother had an afterschool club on Thursdays and I would be left home alone for that time, during which they showed Buffy on BBC. I absolutely loved it even then, although I think I stopped watching around Season 5 as I didn't remember any of the stuff about Dark Willow or the Potentials when I came back to rewatch as an adult. I rewatched in 2021 when the show was on a free UK streaming service and I was Spuffy from Becoming. I blazed through the show in record speed, in part due to my crazy obsessive pregnancy hormones which amplified my desperation to see more Spuffy on-screen, and when I finished I came straight to fanfic. I hadn't and still haven't engaged in any other fic from other fandoms, so I didn't realised just how spoilt you are as a Buffy –and especially Spuffy – fic reader until later.

What motivates you to leave comments?

I'm motivated by sharing joy and wanting to feel like I'm a part of group of people all united by something they love. I like the conversational and community aspect to SAD in particular. I love telling my internet pals when I've really enjoyed they've put effort into creating!

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I do write yes, but this definitely feels more experimental as I don't have a great deal of experience with creative writing! I'm probably a reader first and foremost and often get distracted from writing my own fics because I'm reading someone else's!

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I wasn't lurking, I was just standing about. It's a whole different vibe. Ahem, sorry that was obvious of me. 

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I love getting replies! I just really enjoy being able to geek out together about our shared love of these two soppy heart smashers. I love replies and authors notes that let me know a bit about what the author was thinking when they wrote a scene, what they enjoyed about it etc. But it's an added bonus for me, I understand everyone has busy lives with other stuff going on and so I don't expect it either. 

Thank you, Alyot! We are so grateful to have you both here! 

And that's a wrap! 
Happy Halloween in advance! 
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling 

 



--Chelle on 10/05/24 04:42 pm 4 Comments

Well, friends, you’ve done it again! It’s been, dare we say it— oh, of course we’re gonna say it!— a legendary event this September here at Sunnydale After Dark.

Thanks to you, our Spuffy fic world is all the richer with fairies, dragons, princesses, even a Bigfoot or two! You can enjoy all the event entries here. (Pssst! Don't forget that all our past event collections are always located in the Browse dropdown menu!)

34 new pieces of fic and art were added to the site for this event! Our Top Commenters left over 1000 comments throughout the month.  5 members received their very first event award. And 3 members earned every single event award! A big special shout out to the most legendary ClowniestLivEver, Rea, and Harlow Turner for this awesome achievement.

Our gorgeous awards were created by the incomparable Grief Counseling. Let's all pause to ooh and ahh over those: 

 

 

 

 

 

All the awards have been distributed. Please contact us if you feel you earned an award that isn't located in your profile!

You all rock and are the reason these events happen. Thank you as always for the positivity and support you spread every day. Much love!



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 10/02/24 03:41 pm 5 Comments




You guys are already killing this new event! LOVING all the fantastical places you guys are taking us! Wonderful, y'all! 

First up, our Author of the Month: NautiBitz

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I randomly caught the Season 1 finale when it first aired, and was immediately hooked—but I didn't go completely feral for it until Spike's dream about Buffy in S5. Something about a bad boy who falls for the good girl and hates her and himself for it? And she's like, Ew, I'd never, let's banter and grapple flirtatiously instead? Yes, please.

When the finale of S5 cut out my heart and tossed it into a dimensional portal, I thought, "Maybe there's fanfic where that doesn't happen, and instead they have crazy sex and fall in love." And yes, yes there was. 😁 When there was nothing left to read, I wrote my own. ("In Heat", which is still the most fun I've ever had writing anything.) After I posted that, the fandom welcomed me with open arms and I never looked back.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

I was mainly inspired by the show and how I wanted to fix it, or how much I wanted it to be NC17. In other words, I tried to shoehorn Spuffy smut into every timeline.

That, and dreams. I dreamt a lot about those two.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

I love writing almost all of them, but my favorite has always been Spike. I love the cadence of his speech; it feels like music on the page. Plus he's such a layered character, you can take him in just about any direction: Lovesick Fool, Cocksure Enemy, Hilarious Pot-stirrer… so many Spikes to choose from.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

I'm most proud of "Don't Stop", because it's just so goddamn GOOD. 😎🤠 It's vivid, true to voice and character, and every beat hits right. And, for the first time, I saw fight scenes like a choreographed dance and magically translated that to paper. I think it shows how much I learned after nearly a decade of consistent writing, but it also feels like a fluke. It all came too easily, so there must be a catch. 😅

"Heart Don't Lie" was a struggle. I'm not a big plot spinner, so it took me years to figure out where to go with it. I like how it turned out, but I also wish I'd gone in a more imaginative direction with the villain. Also I wish I'd called it Lust Bunnies, because how could I have missed that opportunity? (I called the overall series Love Bunnies, but for some reason never thought of Lust Bunnies, which is a far superior pun and I'm sad).

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

100% the AR scene in Seeing Red. I could go on about how much it didn't fit with ANYTHING we'd seen before it, and I've been apologizing about loving Spike ever since. DAMN YOU NOXONNN ::feeble fist shake::

As a whole, Season 6 broke my heart. I know a lot of fans loved the dark drama, and I get that, Spike and Buffy's story was moving and complex, but that wasn't *my* Buffy. For 5 years, she was a sunbeam in the shadows… and then she was a husk. The show I fell in love with was full of hope and joy and optimism. Yes, there was heartbreak, yes there was death and horror and major PTSD, but there was an innocence that was completely lost after S5, and most of my fic is an attempt at getting that back. And at getting Spike and Buffy naked and horny. These things are not mutually exclusive. 😇

______________



Our commenter of the month is Gia and she had this to say: 

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

When I got into the show it was when it came out back in the late 90s but then I stopped watching it after Angel left.  Then one day I got caught in watching it a couple years ago and instantly picked up where I left off.  After giving it whirl watching it, after 5th season I fell in love with Spike.  After the watching the painful ending to this show and the disappointment after watching the end of Angel I felt lost.  Then I found all the BtVS comics but was once again felt disappointed because of how things were left between these 2 characters.  I felt like I needed more.  Luckily one day I came across someone's page on IG and I was on cloud 9.  I go through stories so fast I can't stop.

What motivates you to leave comments?

If it makes an emotional impact, funny or profound, I let the author know about it.  Otherwise I'll just like on it because I just wanna continue reading.

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I'm more of a reader.  I used to write poems when I was a kid but stopped. 

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I commented on some but mostly like on fics now.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

It helps to know they received the compliment I give in the comments but I'm so wrapped up in moving on to other fics I don't go back to check on them. 

____

Thank you, Gia and Nautibitz for every wonderful thing you bring to the site. We appreciate you (and you and you and you) so much! Thanks for helping Sunnydale After Dark continue to be everything we hoped it would be.

All the best,
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling






--Chelle on 09/06/24 11:33 pm 3 Comments


It is crazy that it's already August but with the new month ... comes brand new Scoobies to celebrate. Who are we kidding? We celebrate all of you and thank you ALL for your contributions here. 

First up, we have our Author of the Month: myrabeth

*~*~*

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I'll begin with a hearty thank you for the nomination and award. It was very kind of you to think of me. 

Like many fans of an age with Buffy, I missed the show when it would have been most timely for me, because my teens and early 20s years were busy and chaotic. A few years down the line, a musical-loving friend watched the show, became obsessed with OMwF, and started showing me clips from that episode. She eventually talked me into watching the whole series.

That must have been around early 2008, as my first bit of toe-dipping into fanfic was that year. I didn't stay long. Another short visit into this world happened in 2010. I read a lot. Wrote a little. Never finished a story.

In the fall of 2014, I started digging through some of my digital clutter and found my collection of fanfic drafts. One of them caught my attention. It was novel length by spring, fully posted to an archive by summer and my belief that I would "get this out of my system and move on" was quickly shattered.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Sometimes what kicks off a project is a conversation with my beta/brainstorming partner about a canon arc or characterization choice that veers into "What if" territory. Sometimes, it's a scene that appears in my head I have to study and contemplate to figure out the story around it. And sometimes, I'm staring at a blank doc, feeling like I have something to type, but not knowing what, until a story starts appearing on the page.

But I wouldn't use the word inspiration. That sounds like I'm looking for story ideas. I'm not. I've spent my entire time in fanfic wishing I had fewer of them, actually. I'm constantly overwhelmed.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Most of my stories center heavily on Buffy. Specifically, what happens if she's given the breathing room (or impetus) to mature in varying circumstances. When I started writing, I thought my goal was to give Spike what he wanted, but I quickly came to understand that a maturing Buffy was the best vector for doing so, so she became my star.

But I still don't know that I'd call her my favorite. When Dru pops in for a cameo or a post-season 3 Faith rolls into town, I always have a good time. They're fun and interesting, and pairing them with my altered-by-the-circumstances Buffy is guaranteed to be a great scene.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Of my completed multi-chapter stories, A Touch of Her Style may be my best writing, as far as quality and consistency. Pieces is by far my best completed drabble story, and among my best one shots. Both were projects where once I got rolling with them, they snapped together like puzzle pieces, with very little effort. My best work is always the stories that tell themselves, the ones where I get out of the muse's way and let it flow.

"Hardest to write" is a toss up among a few long standing WIPs. One because Spike's logical, in-character reaction to the scenario I built wrecked my vision of the story, and I've never figured out how to reconcile the situation. Another is a highly technical, tightly formatted piece (season long drabble story) that is difficult to write for those reasons, but at least the characters are behaving as expected, so it's not a miserable experience. Another is a rich, complex story with a big cast (12 narrators, 5 of them OCs) that I absolutely love, but it's an emotional, often depressing journey that thus lends itself to being put on the shelf for long mental health breaks.

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

So, so much. But that's what makes BtVS so fic-able. It's full of interesting characters and great stories, but it left mountains of potential on the table, in very easy reach. It's just as full of "what ifs," gaps, inconsistencies, and loopholes. BtVS really is a fanfic writer's candy land.

My top three changes would be:

1. To not ruin Buffy's growth and maturation arc just to keep Angel on screen in season 3. The production team sacrificed the characterization of their star for the sake of prepping a spin off and Buffy as a character never fully recovered. Faith got short-changed as a side effect, never getting enough screen time for us to truly understand her. Lose, lose.

2. To not let Anya and Tara slip into the roles of "Scooby arm candy" and leave them there. Tara got it worse, but Anya's a victim, too. They were both loaded with potential that went untapped. Anya was given throwaway comedy lines that made her look dumb when her knowledge and experience should have a powerful tool in the Scooby arsenal on a regular basis. Tara's gentle, accepting personality would have made her the perfect confidant for Buffy, easily her best friendship match in the later seasons, but we only got a glimpse of than in canon, no on-going development for that relationship. Or for Tara herself. She deserved better.

3. (Here's where I get booted from the fandom for heresy.) To have never produced OMwF. Season six is packed full of half-baked ideas, irregular and ill-logical characterization, and story arcs that were badly paced, leaving a lot of debris on the ground for season 7 to pick up (or fail to), when season 7 did not have that kind of time. If the hiatus between seasons 5 and 6 wasn't spent putting endless hours into producing a musical, that time could have -and probably would have- been spent getting plans for the entire season ironed out and locked down. We got one episode that contributes nothing to the larger story that couldn't have easily gone into the surrounding episodes, in exchange for the quality of the entire season. Again: lose, lose. So yes, I think the first bit of BtVS I ever saw is among the show's worst missteps.

And this is why fanfic exists.

Thank you, myrabeth! We love having you here and can't wait to see what you'll write next. <3

___

Our Commenter of the Month is the lovely Grief Couseling.

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

A guy wearing a trench coat in a dark alley accosted me one night, opened his coat all sneaky-dickens-like (Not Charles Dickens-like), and had all these DVDs attached to the inside panel. He was like, "Hey, man, you wanna take a wild trip?! Watch this show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer." And I was like, "Joke's on you, I've already seen it!" Because I had, because my sister who used to write fanfic for the show forced me to watch it in the early 2000s alongside Angel in episode succession just as it aired on TV and I was immediately hooked. By the way, that man in the trench coat? He now owns Amazon.

What motivates you to leave comments?

I'm not an avid reader, I have to be honest. Getting this award was shocking (but thank you so much!!) because I feel like I fail fandom by not gobbling up as much as I could - but I've been in this fandom since 2006 so it's not as typical for me to go on those days-long reading binges like I used to. BUT! When a man in a trench coat says, "Hey, pretty lady, you wanna take a wild trip? Read this story!" And then sneaks me a NC-17 tale? You bet your butts I'm commenting. There's not much motivation involved. If I read it? I comment on it. I might not hit up every single chapter if the story is complete, but I absolutely give it some love. It's impossible NOT to. By the way, that man in the trench coat? He used to be Steve Jobs.

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

Well, I like to think I'm a writer, but that's up for debate. When a man in a trench--okay, joke landed. The point is, I see a lot of dudes in trench coats and they're always famous in a few years. What gives, science? Yeah, I write. Like, a lot. And I used to write under another name to hide from the FBI. It's been a decades-long hunt to catch me for thousands of cereal killings (I love me some Cheerios) and they'll NEVER CATCH ME.

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I lurked for about three to four months on livejournal. I didn't really know about all the archives (there were so many more back then) but I'm not a very shy person so if I liked something, I tackled the author with praise. Maybe a little TOO much praise back then, because I was in my 20s and hadn't yet learned about being in your 40s.

I think I instinctively knew how important it was to give others feedback when an author responded to one of my comments, who apparently had received none and was so touched to have literally anyone say something. If I could brighten someone's day by thanking them for sharing their art with the world? Man, that's pretty easy! It literally takes no effort on our parts to give even a simple thank you, or an "I loved it or liked it", or send a man in a trench coat to their comments box to give them bootleg copies of Chance on DVD.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I actually never think about the author's response when I leave a comment. It's not about that for me. Like, when you give something to someone (For instance, bootleg copies of Chance) it shouldn't be about the thank you you get in return, it should be about the gift. I also know how stressful it can be as a writer to have a lot of comments to reply to, and sometimes you're stuck thinking "I sound robotic, or repetitive, or maybe not as grateful as I actually am" so I never expect the author to take that step to say thanks. I know they appreciate it, because of all the spyware I've installed in everyone's houses to keep track of how many times a day they smile from comments. Is that weird? ;)

Thank you, Grief Counseling, and yes ... it's a little weird but we love you so we'll welcome it. But if you see anyone in hair rollers ... it's on you. :) 
___

And that's a wrap on interviews. Now stop reading this and go go go create for our new event. Take us on epic adventures and introduce us to the monsters from your nightmares! :) 

Take care,
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and Grief Counseling


 



--Chelle on 08/05/24 02:26 pm 6 Comments

Legend Has It… that there’s another event coming on September 1!

Get ready for stories and artwork pulled from the scrolls of ancient tribes, legends told around a campfire, superstitions, and myths galore! Dragons? Why not?! Fairy godmothers? Heck yeah! What about crossing your fingers for luck, or holding your breath as you pass a graveyard? What about a mysterious ghost who haunts that old country road? 

The possibilities are endless, and we cannot wait to see what this event will inspire!

The rules are simple. Stories must be at least 1000 words to qualify, but there is no maximum word count if you want to write multiple chapters. And artists? Boy, are we excited to see what your talented hands create! Banners, manips, paintings, drawings, all are welcome. 

Everyone can submit an unlimited number of works, just make sure to select the event box to earn your participant award!

“But SADmins, I don’t know what in the frilly heck to create!” said no one, but hypothetically it could have been you.

SAD’s gotcha covered! For inspiration, we’ve compiled a list of prompts to kickstart your creative flow. You do not have to use any of these, or maybe you’d like to use all of them! It’s up to you!

Legend Has It… Prompts:

  • Kiss the Stone
  • Put A Spell On You 
  • The Lady in White
  • Sleeping Beauty
  • Knock on Wood
  • Don’t Turn Around
  • Medusa’s Eyes
  • Witch in the Woods
  • Wishing Well
  • Trapped in A Mirror
  • Beauty & the Beast 
  • Midnight Hour
  • Rule of Three
  • Signed in Blood
  • Friday the 13th
  • Swashbuckled
  • Kiss Me To Death
  • Princess and the Frog
  • Evil Queens Rule the World
  • Fairy Godmother

Now, on to the awards! You could earn:

  • The Comment Fairy Award
  • The Scrying Beta Award
  • The Artist Beast Award
  • The Writing Dragon Award 

Special note: To receive The Comment Fairy Award, you must leave at least 15 comments with a minimum of 15 words per comment.

Are you excited? Because we’re excited! Cast some spells, burn some sage, and pet your baby ogres. It’s time to tell some tall tales!

 

-XO SADmin Team



--Grief Counseling, Dusty, Chelle, GetItDone on 07/20/24 09:39 am 15 Comments




So excited to bring you our July SOTM interviews! Hope you guys are staying nice and cool wherever you are. :)

First up, our Author of the Month: hulettwyo

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

First, I want to say a million-billion thank yous to the person who nominated me!  Oh, the scream I scrumpt when I got that email!

I was aware of the show and vaguely aware of the characters, but I didn’t properly watch the show until 2010 when I was 38 years old.  It was on the TV in the living room, and I wasn’t really paying attention because I was dinking around on my laptop.  I asked, “Why’s that guy in a wheelchair if he’s a vampire?”  Back to season one, episode one we went, and I watched it all the way through two or three times.  I wanted more of that world and those characters, so I started reading fanfic, then I started writing it, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

For my first story (trying desperately not to cringe – I’m reworking it and will eventually post the new version), the question, “What could’ve happened if Spike hadn’t burned up in the Hellmouth?” popped into my head and wouldn’t go away.  I typed out a rough first chapter and thought it would, but it didn’t, so I kept typing.

My ideas for my other stories came from random places.  Songs, bits of TV shows, movies, or books, one idea came from a meme I saw on Facebook, and one was a Spuffyfied rework of a funny post I saw somewhere about waxing your hoo-ha.  I’ve written one story from a prompt about mind-reading, another story came from a discussion in a chat room when Ghost of the Robot was doing Stage-It shows, one came from a Spike statue I used to have, and one came from walking around the carnival that comes to town each June.  Most times, I’ll see, read, or hear something and think, “I can totally make that Spuffy,” and off I go.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Spike is my favorite character of all time.  There’s just so much you can do with him.  In my stories, he’s an abused teen, the Master of the Hellmouth, a wealthy businessman, a vampire prostitute, a recovering addict, a drummer, a sex slave, a time-traveler, an agoraphobe, a boyfriend for rent, a carny, and a celebrity bodyguard, among others. 

My muse does love to torture the poor guy – he’s so damn pretty when he’s hurting – but I do try to make my muse give him some happiness and comfort.

 

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Trying to pick a favorite story is like trying to pick a favorite child.  Probably ‘Service Unit’ or ‘Coming Through’ for my Spike is a vampire stories.  I’m rather partial to ‘Not Long to Wait’ as well, although that’s Spike/Dawn and not Spuffy.  For my Spike is a human stories, probably ‘Oblivious’ or ‘Clean Slate’ or ‘It’s Easy Time, Until It’s Not.’  It’s really hard to choose.

The hardest to write, as far as researching and hoping I’m not completely screwing everything up, is probably ‘Bruises.’  It’s been a minute since I was a teenager, so trying to write how teens would act or react is a bit difficult.

 

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

I’d have yeeted Angel out of Sunnydale long before the end of season three.  Not that I don’t like Angel, I just really really don’t like him with Buffy.  And bringing his brooding butt back in season seven to basically undo all the Spuffy would not have happened.  I also wouldn’t have killed Tara because she's fricking awesome and I love her.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! We are so glad to have you at SAD! You are amazing and we appreciate you!! 

____

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: VioletMoon

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

Getting into the show was such a journey, so forgive me if I get long-winded.  BtVS premiered when I was in high school, but I couldn't get into it even though I had loved the movie. I gave up after the first episode, but I vaguely knew of Buffy and Angel's romance, and thought it made for an interesting story.

Fast forward to 2006 - I had just finished binging the amazing Farscape, and was looking for a new fantasy show to love.  Bones was on the air at the time, and I was enjoying David Boreanaz’s role so much, that it made me curious to see him portray a vampire. I went on YouTube to watch some clips, but I kept seeing scenes of Buffy and Spike (and obviously, we know how amazing they are, so I was very intrigued). 

And then a friend of mine had sent me her old BtVS videotapes to watch, and this time I got hooked immediately. I ordered all the DVDs right after. 
I became obsessed. I knew all the lyrics to the OMWF soundtrack, before I even got to the third season, kind of obsessed. The love for that show, and Spuffy, hit me really hard. 

As for fanfiction - I was already reading and writing fic for another show (Third Watch). Members from that community were actually the ones who had recommended Farscape and Bones, and had also sent me the Buffy VHS tapes. So I feel like this all paved the way to the BtVS fandom.  

I mainly read Spuffy fics now...and the reason I started reading them is because I wanted more :) I still do. I want to see them have the happy ending they deserve, but also see explorations of them in other universes, angsty scenarios, comedies, etc. I  just want it all!

What motivates you to leave comments?

  • I want the author to know that someone is reading and enjoying their hard work. 
  • I’m being provided with free entertainment about two of my favorite characters of all time. You bet I’m going to appreciate that and leave you some love. 
  • If I feel any sort of emotion - sadness, happiness, comfort, etc. 
  • Even if one line sticks out for me - something romantic, a joke, a haunting description, etc. I want to make sure I highlight that line and comment about it. 

This also goes for artists and their art work! I've definitely squeed over art that has been posted here. 

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I also write! Which is another reason why I love commenting - I want to give an author/artist the same giddiness and motivation that I get each time I receive a new comment. 

This also ties in to what motivates me to leave comments  - for me, writing is very personal, and putting myself out there could be scary. So when I receive kind words on something I bared a piece of my soul on, it makes me really happy. And I want to be able to give that back. 

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I can't really remember, but I think I started leaving comments pretty early on. I definitely remember being so excited when I first discovered fanfic, it just felt like a whole different world. 

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

Not very, because I totally understand that life gets busy (I even have a bunch of comments that I haven’t replied to yet).  But I do love the interactions and reading the author's responses, especially when they give an insight into what they wrote. 

Thank you thank you thank you, VioletMoon! We love having you here and you bring so much to the community! 

____

And that's a wrap! Hope you're all having a great summer! Hydrate! :) 

Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling

 





--Chelle on 07/05/24 09:55 pm 5 Comments

Greetings, Sunnydale After Darkers!

Congratulations to this fabulous community for another successful event! We are so thrilled by the response to the Pen & Paint event this year! It was an absolute blast seeing so much new and incredible artwork and all the varied stories they inspired. 

Every summer, since it is SAD-iversary time, we get retrospective and think about why we started this archive in the first place. Community, collaboration, fun! And we try to highlight those themes with the summer event. This felt like a wonderful way to bring artists and writers (and betas and commenters!) together in a fresh way. We hope you had a great time doing it and that artists had fun being in the driver’s seat for a change! Please let us know if you’d like to see this event repeated in the future.

There were 125 submissions to this event which earned a combined total of 1,962 comments, which is just amazing. There were 61 pieces of art and 64 fics! Seriously incredible. 

A super special shout out to Lilacsandorangeblossoms for their 12 submissions! And also to Claire, Desicat, and Harmony99 for submitting 11 pieces each. Way to go, guys!

Please know that even though the event may be finished, so long as an artist leaves their series open, everyone is still free to continue writing fic to art or creating art based on art! The open series concept is one that can be used at any time for anyone looking to collaborate with others. If you’re a writer looking for an idea in the future, there are still 18 pieces of art from the event that have no fics attached… yet. And artists, feel free to post your art in the Challenges section if you'd like a better shot at seeing a story for your art. 

As for awards, we’d like to reveal the absolute gems created for us by the incomparable JSBirsa. These hand-drawn awards feel aptly creative and special for this art-centric event. Huge thank you to her for working on these for us!

Here they are again in full size so you can appreciate them in all their beautiful glory:

All awards have been distributed. If you feel like you deserve an award that you did not receive, please make sure to let an admin know so we can help you out!

Thank you again to the artists, authors, betas, commenters, and readers for participating in this event! You all make every day here at SAD such a joy.

We love ya.



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 07/02/24 07:46 pm 7 Comments

I think we all collectively blinked, and two years passed without us even realizing it.

That’s right, it’s been two years since Sunnydale After Dark first launched, and we have all of YOU to thank for its success! We cannot thank all of you enough for the time and energy you’ve devoted to the 1,646 works currently housed on the site made up of more than 24 million words! 

We are blown away every day by the talent and dedication of our authors and artists. But we can’t forget all of our faithful readers and commenters who have contributed more than 39,000 comments in that time - without them, we’d be an archive but not a community, and over and over again we’ve heard from you that our community is what sets us apart. We appreciate all of the positive energy you pour into this place and we are honored that you’ve chosen to spend any portion of your busy lives with us. 

Just a quick year-in-review… We kicked off our second year with our Spiral Spuffy team challenge, followed by Spooky September. D’Hoffryn fixed us up with the ability to ‘gift’ fics and artworks to each other just in time for the ‘Tis the Season!’ gift event coupled with a commenting challenge. Of course, we cannot forget about the much anticipated return of the Short & Spuffy Drabble Event (with prompts submitted by our Top Commenters) in March where you all outdid yourselves as usual, and then we spent a month in recovery from the hectic drabble season before launching our current Pen & Paint event! (No big deal or anything, but P&P has already generated 112 brand new works and we’re still going strong!)

Meanwhile, D’Hoffryn’s been hard at work behind the scenes helping improve our user experience at every turn. Along with gifting, he gave us the (long overdue) ability to credit our valued betas and banner artists. He’s created visual carousels on our homepage to show off all your pretty banners and he’s updated our epub functionality to support images and incorporate banner art into the covers for each downloaded fic. He’s probably also tackled hundreds of bugs troubleshooting requests that get fixed so quickly we barely notice they were issues in the first place. All hail D’Hoffryn!

No matter how you fit in this community - and there is a place for ALL of you here - we genuinely appreciate that you’ve chosen to be part of Sunnydale After Dark. This place would not exist if it weren’t for all of you, and on behalf of your SADmin team, we are endlessly grateful to get to escape real life with you each and every day.



--GetItDone, Dusty, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 06/24/24 09:35 am 21 Comments



It's officially summer! I always hated this time of year when Buffy was airing because it meant the season was over and I'd be waiting way too long for new episodes. I miss looking forward to weekly television like Buffy! Streaming is great, but I do miss it. :)

Anyway! We're so stoked to bring you our June Scooby Interviews! First up we have our Author of the Month: Geliot99

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I watched it when it first aired on the BBC when I was 8, so I'm one of the old school fans who couldn’t take a toilet break without missing something. I only got into fanfic a couple of years ago, and weirdly (no one judge) started off with Frasier fanfiction, of all things??? And at the time, I was mid re-watch of Buffy, so that just sealed my fate. 

First author I read was Sweetprincipale on FF.net and I was hooked. Started writing shortly after (about a year and a half ago). 

 Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

I usually start with slight episode tweaking and see what spirals, but I’m currently Claire’s pet writer on a leash. I’ll write whatever she wants if there's a promise of a manip or a banner. 

I also take on requests frequently which is really rewarding, especially if I can create something that will fill a void for the reader.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Being a Brit I find Spike and Giles the easiest to write. I feel like I can achieve fairly canon dialogue for them effortlessly whereas others I have to work for. 

However, I finished a drabble-fic centered around Halfrek last year and that was *so* fun. I’d say she might be my favourite side character I’ve taken on. I’ve also dabbled with Dru, and she is so chaotic and weird, I do love her. 

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

I’m really proud of Under The Rubble. It was my first ever fic, and I only intended it to be a one shot scene rewrite but it spiraled into a whole massive epic and is my highest rated on Ef and Ff. 

I’m super proud of In The Dark With You, it’s been really rewarding to write.

Hardest to write was You Drive Me Out Of My Mind. I very nearly abandoned it and got a major case of writer’s block five chapters from the end, but I’m so glad I finished it. 

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why? 

Ugh, season 7. The whole of it from start to finish. I won’t rant. 

I think they should have given Dawn her own scoobies in high-school; mystery teens solving paranormal crimes. It seemed like they wanted to, before veering hard in the other direction. 

 I would’ve had more of a found family focus on Tara/Dawn/Spike, and a Tara/Willow wedding. Tara’s exit was a needless shock factor and I still loathe it, especially the “whoops we killed our gay couple” backtrack they took into Kennedy. Forever mad. (Okay so *mini* rant).

Thank you so much, Geliot99! I could get behind a Dawn led Scooby Gang! :)

________

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: Desicat

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I was way too young of a child when the premiere happened, but my father and his best friend were into it so I ended up watching with them. I got into fanfiction because child me thought romance was icky and I wanted everyone to be friends. 

What motivates you to leave comments?

I think art is made to be commented on. There are book, ballet, gallery reviews. So yeah gonna comment on work that has taken a lot of effort. 

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I both write and read. My father encouraged both because it got me to practice my English (not a native speaker)

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I commented immediately. No lurking for me ;). One of the best parts about SAD is that it is easy to sort comment count on the most recent page so I can give a little looksie on some less commented gems. 

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I do enjoy getting a thanks or getting some extra behind the scenes. We all love this fandom so it's always nice to interact little. But I don't expect it. 

___________

Thank you BOTH so much for being a part of SAD! We appreciate you all more than you know! Wear sublock and stay hydrated. ;)

Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 06/02/24 04:48 pm 7 Comments



You guys! How is it already May!? We are so excited to share the Scoobies of the Month Interviews with you but we can't even believe it's already MAY! Anyone looking forward to summer?

By the way, you guys are already killing Pen & Paint! Way to go! 

And here we go! 

First up, our Author of the Month: Gabby

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I was lucky enough to be a Scooby of the Month in June of last year so I don't want to bore you all with the details again, haha! To make a long story short: I started watching the show when I was about 12 or 13. Reruns would be on in the mornings so I'd catch an episode or two before school. I re-watched it a few times in high school and college with a particular focus on the Spuffy Era, then promptly forgot that the show even existed until I picked it up again in 2021, which was also when I got into fanfic because I just needed more Buffy and Spike content. I still do!     

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Here's where I start to feel like an imposter because I'm so new to the writing game. I only have two stories posted on the site, so it's not like I have a ton of examples to draw from for this answer! But I've got a few ideas floating around in my brain that I hope to get to eventually. 

Mostly–like I assume is the case for a lot of authors–those ideas were inspired by concepts that I personally like to see in Spike/Buffy fanfic. What better way to make sure there are stories covering plots, genres, dynamics, etc. that you like to read than to just write them yourself?! 

But I recently came up with a premise based on a Taylor Swift song, so music has been a source of ficspiration, too. To be honest, thinking of ideas is hard for me. I'm envious of people for whom this comes so easily! So if I end up writing something then that just means the story really excited me and got my creative juices flowing.     

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Hmm… Well, even though she's the hardest for me to write, I'd have to say Buffy! And that's because she's so challenging for me. It takes me an embarrassingly long time to write her dialogue and POV, thinking of exactly the right words and phrases to use. Spike's voice is so clear in my head and his lines just flow from my fingertips to the keyboard. Buffy is more difficult, and I'm not really sure why!

But it's just so satisfying when I sit back and read something I've written and think, "Ah ha! Nailed it!" Those moments are few and far between, but the rush I get when they happen makes her my favorite character to write.   

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Definitely the story I wrote for this year's Short & Spuffy! I'm enamored with the S7 Spike and Buffy relationship and how they become mutually supportive friends with just a hint of something more in that season. I love a slow burn that builds a solid foundation for the grand romance that follows, and it was a lot of fun to try to develop Spuffy gradually and organically 100 words at a time. 

It was also the hardest fic to write. I felt so creatively dry about halfway through and started hating everything I wrote. Nothing new for experienced writers, I'm sure, but this newbie was like, "What's happening?! Why is this so difficult?!" Luckily some friends talked me off a ledge and I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. I ended up loving that story and I'm really proud of pulling off a cohesive narrative while at the mercy of the wheel (whom I love).     

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

Lemme preface this by saying: I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer warts and all. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. However, I would've liked to see more diversity (in race, ability, gender identity, etc.) for sure. To get on my soapbox for a second, representation in fiction matters. It also just isn't realistic that we only see one Latino student (I think) across all 7 seasons when Sunnydale is only a couple hours away from Los Angeles. So definitely more of that!  

And I feel pretty strongly that there needed to be a more serious discussion between Spike and Buffy about what happened in Seeing Red. It was a very big deal! And even if she has an apparently easy time separating the Spike who did that from the newly souled version, I still think it's healthy for them to explicitly hash that out (along with all the other toxicity, maybe) so they can move past it once and for all. 

All that said, I love the show so much, and am happy it exists even with those shortcomings. I also love the SAD community. Y'all are the best. Thanks for making me a Scooby of the Month, and mega congrats to all choseny, too!

Gabby, you're amazing and we are so grateful to have you here with us! Thank you!

_______________

Next up we have our Commenter of the Month: all choseny

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I shared a bit about my "Come to Buffy" moment when I was awarded Writer of the Month (Thank you all again for nominating me!). So, I'll keep my short story even shorter. I was a fan of the movie before it ever became a television show. I recall BtVS was a mid season replacement (for a show I don't remember), and at first I wasn't into it. I think the WB aired it again the Saturday after the premier, and because it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, I watched it and was immediately hooked. 

I came to fanfic through Roleplaying on Myspace many moons ago. When Myspace imploded, I went on LJ and discovered the wonderful world of fanfiction. If you're curious about Myspace RP, a few months ago I was feeling nostalgic, and I tried to recreate my old RP page as best as my memory would allow me. I was in my 20s when I rp'd. I'll be 42 on May 30th.  You do the math LOL. (Being nominated was a wonderful Bday present, btw). Anyway, if you're curious, go here: 

https://spacehey.com/peachy_keen

 I am not actively roleplaying. I was bored and some guy made a myspace dupe. 

What motivates you to leave comments?

Just like writers get that shot of happy when they receive a comment (and a like), I feel that same excitement when leaving a comment. I also think it's nice to let the writer know that someone is reading and enjoying their work. My philosophy when leaving comments is to always be kind. Kindness is free, and it goes a long way. You never know what kind of day the author might have had, and seeing that comment from you might make a difference. So, I also like to leave a little kindness for someone who is taking the time to entertain all of us for free. 

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

Yep, I write, too. :) 

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

Goodness, that was so long ago. 2007-ish. I want to say that I might have lurked a little at first when I joined LJ. I recall quickly getting over that and leaving comments for writers. 

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

It's not very important. After Short and Spuffy, I realized that comments can pile up pretty quickly, so hats off to the writers who reply to every comment you receive. I salute you! But while it's not super important, it's appreciated when they do reply. :) 

Thank you, all choseny! You are magical and we appreciate you! 

Well, that's it, folks! We hope your seasonal allergies aren't killing you! Ahhh, springtime. :)

All the best,
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 05/06/24 03:05 am 7 Comments

Is it time to announce the next event already? Shockingly, the answer is YES!!

As we all know, the Spuffy community loves us some artists! Ever since Sunnydale After Dark began, we knew we wanted to lift up our artists and celebrate their hard work and creativity, too.

So what better way to do that than to put the artists in the driver’s seat for this summer’s Pen & Paint event? 

Often, our beloved artists are called upon to fulfill our writers’ story dreams. The artists graciously bring to life someone else’s vision. For this event, we want to reverse that and let the artists prompt the writers using their own creations. 

Artwork could include drawings, paintings, video edits, comics, movie posters, banners, manipulations, whatever else you can dream up! The artist will post their new art and the authors will write a corresponding scene or story inspired by the artwork. The length of the writing is up to each author. It could be as short as a drabble. It could be a poem. It could be a scene disconnected from a larger narrative. It could be an entire one-shot story. Just please keep it under 15,000 words as that is the maximum length of a chapter/one-shot.

How will all this work?

First, artists, post your artwork like normal, including a banner if you wish! Make sure you check the Pen & Paint event box! 

Then create an open series.

Title your series and your artwork however you wish. Once your series has been created you can add your artwork to the series. 

You are finished! Let the fic roll in and wash you in pretty words!

Now, writers, here is how you add your story to an artist’s open series. 

First, post your story like normal, making sure you check the Pen & Paint event box.

Go to the artwork you wish to add a story to. Click on the series link. In this example it is highlighted in orange:

Once on the series page, click Add to Series.

A list of your stories will appear, and you can add the correct one to the open series.

Trust us, it isn’t as complicated as it may initially sound!

Artists and authors, you are welcome to post as many submissions as you like. If an artist wants to respond to a different artist by adding more art to their series, that’s fine! Maybe a writer would like to continue a scene that another writer responded to the initial artwork with. That is also fine! We just ask that every series begins with artwork first. 

Warning: If you add a story to the wrong series, you will be unable to remove it yourself. An admin (or the author of the series) can remove it for you. Please get in touch! We would hate for you to accidentally delete your story in an effort to remove it from a series you didn’t mean to attach it to.

All submissions must be connected to a series in order to qualify for the event. The series format will make it clear which artwork inspired what creations. Our hope is that we’ll get to see a variety of interpretations of each piece of art, and it will be a fun experience for the reader to go to a series and enjoy all the different results.

Now, because this event requires some tag-teaming that might take a little extra time… we’re going to start the event May 1 and keep this event open for two months to give everyone as much time as possible to participate. When the event is over, you will still be welcome to continue, but at the end of June we will calculate awards for Artists, Authors, credited Betas, and Commenters who posted 15+ comments of 15 words or more for both May and for June (minimum 30 comments in total).

We hope this event will be a blast for everyone! Every year as we approach the anniversary of this site in June, we think about why we started this archive in the first place and how to best celebrate collaboration and fun and Spuffy in a fresh new way!

Please post your questions in the comments or get in touch with an admin here or on Discord

Happy penning and painting!



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 04/11/24 08:11 pm 19 Comments



We want to start by thanking you guys again for making Short & Spuffy such a success! Everyone who participated nailed it! And all the commenters were amazing, too! Thank you, everyone.

Our April Scoobies of the Month Interviews are ready! 

We are starting with our Author: SomeKindofDeviant


Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

Oh man, I started watching it shortly after it started airing on the BBC, I must've been 11 or so. I don't remember which episodes I started with, but School Hard is the one that got me hooked, I was obsessed the moment Spike and Drusilla appeared. Alongside rifling through the Young Adult section of the library and discovering Point Horror and Christopher Pike and the like, it kinda opened up this chasm of a supernatural/vampire hyperfixation that may have stuck around a lil while. 

My tween internet time was pretty much a mix of neopets, aol chat, and searching Buffy. Somewhere in between quizzes, windows themes/wallpapers, and wondering who on earth Buffy Sainte-Marie was, I discovered fanfiction and fell in love. Though it'd take me a couple decades or so to read Spuffy fic for the first time, after a rewatch where I finally came to see how much there is to love about the ship and to jump on board with it, and til last year for me to try my hand at writing fic myself for the first time. 


Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Chatting with friends about this, that, and everything and then noodling away on things. Poetry and music and fragments of dreams, too, often spark inspiration when it comes to vibes and themes, but all kinds of things can throw something up in the air to latch onto and chew on.


Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Drusilla. When I first started writing, I thought I'd find her hardest, but I think I've come to find her headspace the easiest to slide into. Which may say something worrying about me, but there we are. Writing her lets me have all the fun I want with imagery and the bits of my brain that fit together oddly, to let them run free and chase them down tunnels. It's oddly comforting. 

I will say I've enjoyed writing Buffy more than I expected and had a great deal of fun with her in my last story, which helped me work through a lot of the nerves I had about it. Her dialogue and thoughts are so bouncy!! 

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

I've only written a couple of Spuffy pieces, and I'll stick to those in this answer! I'm proud of both, for different reasons, but my chapter of The Mystery of the Disappearing Scoobies was the first time I tried my hand at the pair, and so there were all kinds of nerves there. I'm very proud about how it came out. I tried to bring a lil bit of something fairytale to it and I think I managed to achieve it.

I think The Dreaded Lurgi was the hardest of the two, for all that it's a bit of a crackfic, because it required actually considering an arc and plot resolution rather than just throwing things in the air and letting the next author handle the consequences of where those things landed. 


As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

I am torn because, flaws and all, the show was lightning in a bottle and has managed to keep such a place in my heart and the hearts of so many others for so many years in just the shape it is. Still, we do all have our pet peeves. I think I would change Lies My Parents Told Me. It was such a wonderful opportunity to show growth and painful confrontation of the past that I think was in some ways quite wasted, and I really wish Robin had been centred a bit more, framed more sympathetically, and that Spike had given him the coat. 

Thank you so much, SomeKindofDeviant! We appreciate you and your contributions here so much.

_____

Next up is our Commenter of the Month: bee_davie


Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

My older brother was always in charge of what we watched on television, so five-year-old me watched Buffy as it aired in 97. The episodes I specifically remember watching were Witch, Teacher's Pet, and What's My Line, parts 1 & 2. I wholeheartedly believed in magic, and that the evil creatures from the show really existed, so I was obsessed with fighting bad guys like Buffy. I even had a game plan for stomping out bugmen in my white Reeboks. 

I watched a lot of reruns and episodes here and there, but I didn't watch the show in order or anything post-season 5 until I was a teen. As a teen, I made mistakes and was initially into Angel. As soon as I saw him kissing Buffy through her bedroom window, I knew he was the one. Their story had all the elements I thought I wanted in a romance until, of course, our blonde baddy hit the scene. Spike has had a chokehold on me ever since.

I loved the show, but I always wanted more from the ending. I need my love interests to be together. FOREVER. This led to many late nights trying to fix the show in my head and create a happy ending for Spike and Buffy. My journals throughout the years are full of times when I am rewatching the show for comfort, questioning what Buffy would do in my shoes, and going through lots of Spuffy thoughts. I went through phases where they would walk around the house with me (in a totally normal, not at all obsessive way.) I was just not over them.

Fast forward to my first real job out of college. I sat beside a girl on the bus who told me she wrote Buffy fanfiction. She was the second person I ever met who loved Buffy. That conversation sent me on a hunt for fanfics and into a land where all my dreams came true. The first fic I ever read was The Butterfly Effect by cousinjean, followed by A Chance in Hell by SAD's very own Grief Counseling, who went by a different name back then. (When I discovered this connection, I was so chill. So. Chill!) 

What motivates you to leave comments?

Fics that cause:

  • Deep, intense emotions
  • Nonstop squealing 
  • Glances in the mirror that say, "Oh my god, did you just read what I just read?!"
  • Honest and true fangirling thoughts

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I am strictly a reader with ideas that I wish to write. I get preoccupied with a scenario or a witty/sexy sentence and then construct a story about it in my head. I have a dedicated Spuffy ideas notebook, but that is as far as it goes at this point.

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I used to hardcore lurk. Spuffy was my guilty pleasure, and I didn't feel the need to share it with anyone, until one day I did. I got into a fic bingeing cycle, and after reading banger after banger, I needed to talk about it. I joined Discord to discuss, but I still didn't leave comments until The Time We Had (as everyone probably knows). Props to Dusty, who made me cry for days with such a lovely fic that led me to leave my first comment. It is what brought me to SAD. The rest is history.

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I am not going to lie—the endorphins I receive when I see "New Reply" in my inbox are spectacular. I love and appreciate getting replies, but I understand that responding to every comment is impossible. I never wait for an answer or feel bad if someone doesn't respond. I comment because I want to. All the work writers put into stories is more than enough for me. 

Thank you SO much, bee_davie! You are incredible and we appreciate you! 

Happy April, everyone! Ready for the world-ending eclipse? ;) 

Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling




--Chelle on 04/06/24 01:47 am 5 Comments

Now that we've regained control of the site from that pesky trio, we can let you all know that awards for the Short & Spuffy 2024 event have been distributed to all authors, commenters, and artists! Please let us know if you think you earned an award that you did not receive! 

Now, let's all take a moment to thank and bask in the glory of these beauties from loveisntbrains:

Onward to the stats!

26 authors wrote a total of 35 Short and Spuffy stories. Those stories consisted of 938 drabbles.

3 authors submitted their very first story to Sunnydale After Dark for this event!

62 new members joined the archive during this event.

101 members left comments on the Short and Spuffy stories for a grand total of 14,486 comments and 12,643 likes

Bravo to everyone all around! Your enthusiasm and support are what made it such a fun event. Even the prompts came from our community, and it was a joy to unveil them every night together on Discord. We couldn't be more thrilled with how it all went. 

Big, mega, ginormous thank you to every single reader, commenter, writer, artist, and beta who joined in! We're thankful for you all!



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 04/02/24 03:10 pm 9 Comments



We're stoked to bring you the interviews with this month's Scoobies! So well deserved. 

First up, we have our Author of the Month: Girlytek

Girlytek politely declined our offer for an interview but she had this to say: Swonderful writes amazing comments and I’m super glad to see them here, and I’m honored to be SotM with them. <3

We agree, Girlytek, and you totally earned your spot as author this month! We're so happy to have you here posting your stories.

_______

Next up, we have our Commenter of the Month and as the name implies, they're wonderful: Swonderful

Thank you so much for naming me Commenter of the Month!  I'm honored to be recognized for what I consider a small repayment for the many, many hours of joy I get from the works of so many talented and generous authors, artists, betas, editors, admins, and mods. 

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I was channel-surfing and caught the very first minute of the very first episode when it first aired, and was instantly hooked.  I was soon online, reading everything I could about episode recaps and upcoming episodes, and from there, I found BTVS fanfiction.  It's such a pleasure to see the characters evolve, live on, and often improve. I particularly enjoy it when fanfiction rights the wrongs of the show but in realistic and logical ways.  

What motivates you to leave comments?

It's a combination of wanting to thank and encourage writers and becoming so invested in their stories that I feel compelled to react. I try to make it clear that when I'm annoyed or irritated by something a character does or says, I'm annoyed at the character, not the writer. It's much like Spike getting impatient with Pacey while watching Dawson's Creek. He was not upset by the writing, he was responding to the character as if he was a real person. When I get excited, or angry, it's not a criticism of the author, and it's almost always a compliment to their skill. I think that's true of many other reader comments, although sometimes authors seem to feel personally attacked, although that doesn't appear to be the commenter's intent.  BTVS characters are imperfect, as they should be. When readers are incensed, they don't always think to mention that they're upset at what Giles, Angel, Xander, or Buffy did, not at the writer who created that scenario.   

Having written for and edited national newspapers and magazines, I'm amazed at the caliber of writers here. The quality of their writing is better than some professional writers I worked with, who had to be heavily edited. These authors continue to write without financial compensation, which is remarkable, and very generous of them.  And for some writers here, English is a second or third language!  

I also appreciate the emotional maturity and psychological and political insights many authors bring to their stories, and, through their writing, to readers. BTVS, unfortunately, normalized a number of flawed perspectives, such as the TA/student personal relationship between Riley and Buffy, and I appreciate it when writers bring those issues to readers' attention so they can be better informed in their personal lives. 

  Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I was a non-fiction writer and editor for national news media (magazines and newspapers), as well as a university journalism instructor. For fanfiction, I am strictly a reader, although often I will privately message writers when I see errors. In rare cases, if it's a medical or similar error that could have RL repercussions, I will mention it in the comments. 

 Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

I was a lurker for decades before I started commenting. When I registered on sites, I didn't even use my real name; I combined the names of my friends Marilyn and James. Once I felt safe commenting, I  felt an obligation to support all the contributors who have created and sustain this community.   

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment? 

Unless it's a WIP, I often skip the other reader comments, thereby missing any replies to my own, and until recently, I didn't even know I could have replies sent to me. A moderator, either here or at another site, told me how to opt in for that, although it may be automatic here. 

It's amazing that authors take the time to respond because they're doing the heavy lifting of writing, as well as their Real Life responsibilities.  I think it's kind of them, but nonessential and unexpected.  It's been a pleasure to have discussions with several authors, both in the comments and private messages. Most recently I discovered  VeroNyxK84 here and have been reading and commenting on her old stories.  To my surprise, when she responds, it's clear she's not only read my comment, she's gone back to re-read what she wrote a year or more ago. Dusty also does that, even when I'm rereading and commenting on The Time We Had for the second and third time.  I appreciate that, but it's well above and beyond an author's role.  You're already giving so much! There are many, many other authors who have similarly responded. I'm not going to name them because I don't want to inadvertently leave someone out. 

The often unsung heroes who deserve a plethora of positive comments are the admins, mods, and other support who keep the site going and manage all the glitches, and also each person who supports it financially.  Where else can we go for excitement, distraction, support, and comfort 24/7 without leaving our homes? 

For a variety of reasons, some readers comment rarely or not at all.  Sunnydale After Dark is giving more pleasure, insight, hope and satisfaction than is evident from the comments. I'm so glad the site exists to support, disseminate and preserve these wonderful works.   Thank you, everyone!

_______

Thank you both so much for helping to make SAD such a wonderful, welcoming, and encouraging place to be. We wouldn't be here without every single one of you and we are so grateful every day that you choose to be here with us! 

Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 03/03/24 05:33 pm 6 Comments

Hello, SAD drabblers! Are you excited?! We certainly are! Because… 

It’s time to kick off March with our Short & Spuffy Drabble event!

We will be updating this list by 12 a.m. site-time with the wheel-selected prompts for the day.

If you would like to join the fun on Discord, you can click the right-most social media link on our home page, or simply go here: https://discord.gg/4XFPjXfMaR

MASTER PROMPT LIST:

 

1. Fortune Cookie Epiphany

2. Lights Out

3. Cooking Together

4. Horrible Day

5. Rock Concert Tickets

6. Orange

7. Spilling

8. Dirty Pretty Things

9. Midnight Revelations

10. Desperate for Attention

11. In Three Long Strides

12. Bright Red Confetti

13. Heavy Metal

14. Spike ignoring Buffy

15. Goes Right Through

16. Petty Disagreement/Fight

17. The Rhyme for Orange

18. Bad Weather

19. Weapon Tossing (as a love language)

20. I. Would. Not.

21. Buffy tells Spike

22. Ghost

23. You Do Something To Me

24. Not What It Looks Like

25. Remember Me

26. Math

27. Band-Aid

28. Storytelling

29. Costume Party

30. Fire

31. *FREE DAY* (This is an optional, promptless drabble day if you need a buffer to wrap up your story)

 

Happy Drabbling!



--Grief Counseling, Dusty, Chelle, GetItDone on 02/29/24 11:01 pm 1 Comments

Hello hello, everyone!

Hold onto your hats because starting in March, Short and Spuffy will be back!

This event is one that we knew we had to repeat, and based on our community survey last year, you all agree!

Here’s how it will work:

We’ve gathered up drabble prompts from January’s Top Commenters. For the first 30 days of March, a new prompt will be chosen daily and at random on Discord. Join us there for lots of fun discussing the day’s freshly revealed prompt! The prompt list will also be updated in a centralized Sunnydale Press news post for easy access. 

Just like last year, we’re embracing the challenge of writing exactly 100 words per drabble! Feel free to interpret the prompt in any way you want. You do not have to use the literal words from the prompt in the drabble.

Never heard of a drabble? Wondering what this funny word is? Want loads of inspiration? Check out last year’s event here.

You may post the drabble at any point during the month of March, so it does not have to be shared on the day the prompt is revealed. This also means that if you want to wait, you can post your drabbles in the order you see fit to use the prompts. March 31 will serve as a catch-up day with no new prompt. If you’d like to write a promptless bonus drabble on this day, you are welcome to!

Your drabbles do not need to connect narratively (unless you want them to!), but please organize your drabbles for the event into one story and post each drabble as a new chapter. This will make it easier for us to count at the end. You’re welcome to make your drabble story part of a series if you want to connect it to another work of yours, possibly even last year’s drabble story!

Now for the awards, which we know you’re going to want to collect as many of as possible since loveisntbrains has graciously agreed to design them for us! clap

You can earn awards in three ways this year: by writing, by commenting, or by designing a banner. 

For commenting and writing, you will accumulate more awards the more drabbles and comments you write.

For commenters:
15-39 Comments = The Comment Hero Award
40-69 Comments = The Comment Champion Award
70-99 Comments = The Comment Slayer Award

If you write 100+ comments, you earn the ultimate grand prize! The Naked Buffy Award.

For writers:
1-9 Drabbles = The Drabble Hero Award
10-19 Drabbles = The Drabble Champion Award
20-29 Drabbles = The Drabble Slayer Award

For completing all drabble prompts, you will earn the highly coveted Naked Spike Award!

Artists will earn an award for banner contributions. Writers, please be sure to credit your banner artist!

So, in total, there are 9 pretty awards up for grabs for this event! The more you do, the more you earn. 

As always, don’t forget to check the event box when you post! And reach out if you're unsure about anything.

We can’t wait for the March madness to begin! heart



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 02/12/24 07:07 pm 10 Comments

First things first, many thanks to Claire for our wonderful new Scoobies of the Month banner! We love it! Thank you so much!!

February! How is it already February? Did January go by in a blink for anyone else? Because it sure did for us! 

We are so proud to bring you our February SOTM interviews! First up we have our Author: Passion4Spike!!

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I came to be a BtVS fan via DVDs after the series ended in a kind of backward way and became a SPUFFY shipper unexpectedly. I enjoyed David Boreanaz in ‘Bones’ and Christian Kane in ‘Leverage’. I found them both on Angel—SCORE! I watched the entire Angel series before I ever watched BtVS, because, let’s face it, that name is just DUMB, am I right? But, I wanted more DB, so I sucked it up and dove in. And, OMG, it was nothing like I expected. I loved it from the first episode, and of course, was BANGEL all the way until…

Spike.

Spike turned everything on its head; he was CLEARLY the better man, SPUFFY is clearly the OTP. I sailed off on that ship wholeheartedly.

After I finished the series, I tried to read the comics, but I apparently have some sort of 'comic dyslexia' because they were confusing to me and, the parts that I did manage to suss out, I didn't like, so I stopped.

That left me in a black void of wanting more! I’d never read fanfic before; never even HEARD of it before Willow mentioned fanfic on the show one time. One Google search later and my world changed again. SPUFFY FANFIC was a thing! I read everything I could find, starting with Nautibitz’s site, and eventually finding other Spuffy sites and writers. I was hooked!

I don’t know what sparked me to start writing myself other than I wanted LONGER stories, I wanted them starting as early as possible and going for as long as possible. I wanted to give Spike everything he ever wanted… and, of course, put him and Buffy through the angst-wringer so they’d really appreciate the good times.


Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Sometimes it’s a life event, sometimes a posted challenge, but most of the time it’s just something that comes to me in a dream or just pops into my head. Sometimes it’s ONE LINE or one scene, and I write a WHOLE STORY just to get to that ONE VISION. Most of the time the characters dictate the story. The one I’m currently posting began as a 1-3 chapter introduction to A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY that I had in mind, and turned into a 500k word epic adventure.


Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Do you mean besides Buffy and Spike? I love writing them because I want them to be HAPPY… but I also love to make myself cry, so I have to put them through hell before making them happy. I love testing their mettle, which we know is beyond the pale, and testing their love, which is beyond reproach. They are the ones who I hear most often in my head (more Spike than Buffy), and who inspire me most.

Apart from them, I’d have to say Drusilla. You can just let your imagination run wild with her and string words together that don’t normally go together and have it feel perfectly natural. She can be so many different things: bat-shit crazy, completely lucid, dangerous, funny, weak, strong, and of course, a great way to drop in foreshadowing.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

Wow, that’s like trying to pick a favorite child. Probably everyone says that? I love different ones for different reasons… my top 3:

The Unexpected Series was my first; it got me started and it took me to places I never thought I could go. I still love that AU and hope to one day go back and ‘fix’ the first story and the plot problems it has. I feel like I got much better at writing and plots over the course of that series, which, I also hope to finish one day. I have the ending in my mind, I just got distracted.

Spirit Indestructible began as a way to write a threesome and keep it technically SPUFFY, but it turned into SO MUCH MORE. I cried SO MUCH writing it and everyone who reads it says the same. There is a HEA, so the tears turn happy, but there was a surprise character that just took over that story and I love it.

The Mortal Allies Series began as a challenge banner that had a puppy in it and it just kept going after that initial one-shot. Another opportunity to get Spuffy together so much sooner, but also SUCH A SLOW BURN. But I’m really happy with it so far and will come back to it and get more doggie adventures.

Probably the hardest of all stories for me to write are one-shots. Condensing a story into 15k words and getting in a HFN is sooo hard for me. All of my one-shots started off with at least 3 chapters and I had to rip them to the bare bones, slash my heart to shreds, and die a little with every cut, to get it down to a one-shot.


As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

There are so many things about the show that make us all crazy. Inconsistencies, characters that we hate, characters we love doing things we hate, characters NOT doing things they should clearly do… So what would I change?

NOTHING.

There is a reason this fandom is still so alive and active, why we are, after 20+ years, still FIXING things, expanding things, explaining things. Canon was frustrating and annoying and drove us MAD, but all that is the perfect storm to create the ongoing love for SPUFFY fanfic and for these flawed characters. All the things we pick apart in canon just open up so many different sandboxes for us to play in.

Woot! Thank you, Passion4Spike! So much!

__________---<---@_______

Next up we have our Commenter: MaggieLaFey!!

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I know I've told this story already, but here we go again  I remember knowing very very vaguely about BtVS, but I never liked vampires in general and used to be a bit of a misogynistic little ass, so the idea of a blond girl killing vampires did absolutely nothing for me. Then I discovered Firefly, also by Whedon, and fell in LOVE with it. So I had to give this weird vampire-whatever show a try, after that masterpiece... and the rest is history!

As for fanfics, I've been reading them since I discovered they existed, so I don't actually remember at all my beginnings as a BtVS/Spuffy reader, because it came completely naturally to me to read fics once I finished the show!

What motivates you to leave comments?

Several things, actually. There's the fact that I know first-hand how even a teeny tiny comment of a few words can make the author smile, if not make them really happy. There's also the fact that I like gushing, like, I really like gushing haha so sometimes I just love saying what I love about stuff! And also, and this is, I'll admit, quite selfish of me, sometimes I really just want to read/see more of a WIP/an author's work  and what better way to get more of my precious drug than pay it with compliments and gushing? It seems to work, and if it doesn't, I'll have given an author a smile, hopefully. Win win ;)

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

Against all my expectations from a few years ago, I also write, yes. Currently much less than I used to because I'm, shall we say, hiding from my real life much less than I used to haha. But I hope I'll still manage to find some writing time here and there for a long while!

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

My memory sucks and I don't honestly remember haha. I think for sure there must've been some lurking at the beginning. Probably. Yes? Maybe I didn't feel comfortable leaving comments before I felt I had a bit more of a grasp of the community behind this fandom. But I honestly wish I did remember!

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

What an interesting question, to me. It used to be very, very important to me; not necessarily to receive a thought-out, or even personal response, but to just know, even simply through ANs in the chapter, that my (and all commenters') words were appreciated. What I've realised in the meantime is that really, the thing I don't like is the feeling of being ignored/talking to a wall. That has more to do with me and my personal hangups than with fanfic writers themselves, though; and now I generally care less about not receiving responses, because it doesn't make me feel ignored as easily, and thus I dislike it less.

All of that said, I think we can't ignore the fact that engagement begets engagement. Yes, sometimes I am SO engaged with a story/artwork, it doesn't matter whether the author responds or not, I'll keep gushing. Other times though, especially with WIPs, if the author starts having conversations with me, engages with me, even just through catch-all ANs, I'll naturally feel more engaged, more willing to spend time and energy to find and write words to express that engagement. I hope that makes sense!

Thank you so so much, MaggieLaFey! We appreciate it! 

There you have it, guys! We hope you enjoyed the interviews this month as much as we did! 

Happy creating, y'all! 
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling



--Chelle on 02/04/24 06:04 pm 13 Comments

Hey, all!

Just a quick update to let you know that all Top Commenters for January (writing 15 comments containing 15 or more words) will be eligible to submit a prompt for the Short & Spuffy drabble event in March. Yes, drabbles are returning for our next event! And so is the infamous Wheel. So

And get commenting!

Much love!  



--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 01/08/24 02:18 pm 13 Comments










 

January not only brings a brand new year of possibilities but also brand new Scoobies of the Month! We are so proud to bring you interviews with:

Our awesome January Author of the Month: ClowniestLivEver

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

One day, I decided I wanted to read Spuffy fanfic because some friends in a different server liked them. Then I started watching the show. Still haven't finished it after all this time, but I've gotten through quite a few episodes.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

I live my life and then bunnies pop into my head. Sometimes other people have bunnies that get me thinking. Sometimes I come up with a scene or scenario I want Spuffy in and then I write that. And of course, challenges. I love challenges. Long story short, I get inspired by so, so many things, and never have enough time in the day to write all the stories I want to.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Buffy. She's my favorite character in the entire Buffyverse. I love her personality, her way of speaking, her internal narration. I especially love writing her when she's more violent or darker. I love intense moments, and I love an intense Buffy, and most of all I love an intense villain death. But yeah, Buffy is my favorite and will probably always be my favorite to write.

Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?

I'm very proud of Twice Broken, Thrice Burnt. It ended up being 91k, and I was blown away by the fact I wrote that many words for one story. There aren't a lot of stories that were hard to write. There were some I needed breaks from writing due to overexposure, but there aren't any stories that have been particularly hard to do. The closest I can get is a story that I haven't crossposted on any archives yet, even though I would like to. It was my chapter for the EF Exquisite Corpse. I did have trouble writing that one due to some good old depression.

As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?

Oh, where do I start? Giles' character assassination for one. If you need to get him out of the story, there are better ways to do that than him abandoning his daughter figure while she's going through a deep depression. Xander and Willow facing consequences, and not just expecting Buffy to fix things. Buffy can't be expected to ignore her feelings because her friends want things to go back to "normal." Seeing Red definitely, both the infamous scene and Tara's death. Seriously, we already buried Larry, we can't bury another gay! Replacing Andrew in season 7 with Jonathan. Look, Jonathan being around in season 7 and then dying to protect Anya would've worked so much better in my opinion, especially with his character arc over the entire series being that he wants to be someone important. Have him learn from his terrible actions and sacrifice himself for someone else, letting everything culminate into one last selfless act. Am I allowed to get rid of Riley entirely? I'm just kidding, but I would've preferred him to be a lot more interesting and also face consequences instead of his bad actions being justified. Okay, sorry, got a little wordy there. For specifically Spuffy, I would give them more interactions during the season 4 era. And I'd include Spike in season 3 as the Scoobies' wet cat friend drunk out of his mind and heartbroken as he goes on a hunt for the Gem of Amara and tries to get his evil groove back. 

Thank you, Liv! 

And our wonderful Commenter of the Month is: Tessa

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

I was in high school when the show aired, I must have been around 14 years old and was a Bangel shipper through and through. When Angel left the show, poor teen-me felt devastated and I stopped watching mid-season 4 in the late 90’s and I sadly missed out on all the Spuffy. My siblings were gushing over Spike and I was NOT interested in him haha. So stubborn teen-me never gave him a chance. 

The show was a huge hit in my country and most kids my age watched it and we’d all talk about it in school. I’d print out images of Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz to decorate my school planner and I still have those old planners, it’s so much fun to see how much young me enjoyed the show. 

Late January 2022 I found out the show was available on Disney Plus and I persuaded my partner to watch it with me. He’d also seen the show when it aired and for both of us, it was nostalgia of our teenage years. This time, when Spike was introduced I immediately loved his character and his chemistry with Buffy. I love the bickering, the UST, and the complexity of the characters. 

After Chosen, I wanted and craved more and an offline friend told me she read fanfic when the show aired. I’d never heard of it before. One Google search later and I got very invested in my first long story I found over at AO3 which led me to EF and SAD. 

 What motivates you to leave comments? 

I started lurking over at EF without an account for a few months, devouring all the workplace-friendly stories and I finally decided to try NC-17. I seemed to be missing out on a LOT. I guess this is the sole reason why most of us end up with an account. 

I checked my EF profile for this interview and my first ever comment was to MaggieLaFey! With an awful misspelling of the word ‘sharing’. Joining this fandom has definitely improved my English vocabulary and grammar. 

I wanted to encourage writers and let them know how much I appreciate their love for Spuffy and how they give us the most amazing stories for free in their spare time. It’s even nostalgic to read my first comments and to find out I am now friends with those amazing authors! Yes, scratchmeout, you’re one of those first authors I left my first comments to, our friendship was meant to be. I could have never guessed these amazing friendships would happen when I first started leaving comments to anonymous people on the internet. 

So much has changed for me in the past year, I got to know the most awesome people and when I comment now, it feels like I’m hanging out with my friends cheering them on, on their Spuffy and writing journey. Of course, I still comment on stories of authors who are new or who I don’t know yet. Commenting is such an easy and fun way to connect to others in this fandom. 

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader? 

I also write! I did not plan this at all. I’d never written anything before the Sunnydale After Dark drabble event in March 2023. I remember freaking out over the pressure I put on myself of wanting to deliver something good and funny and sexy and getting so stressed. I almost gave up because of how much I was pressuring myself to write something perfect. When I let go of this, I felt free to just have fun and write what I wanted to read myself instead of trying to please others. That’s when the fun really started for me as a writer. 

Being an author myself now, I really value when people take time to leave me a comment or a like. It’s not my main motivation to write, I mostly write to make myself laugh. I fell in love with knitting Spike and his group of knitting poker demons and I can’t stop writing them. I find so much joy in writing all dialogue established post-series, bickering Spuffy. It's my happy place in this fandom. 

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

Yes, I definitely was a lurker for quite some time. I started lurking without an account in March 2022, subscribed in May 2022 and left my first comment in July that same year. 

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I always appreciate it when an author responds to my comment but I don’t get upset when they don’t. There are so many reasons for people not being able to do so, which I understand. I just hope my comments and likes will give them encouragement as I try to point out the part of the story that spoke to me or made me laugh or cry. 

Thank you so much, Tessa! 

We hope all of you are enjoying this brand new year. Let's make 2024 the biggest YEAR OF SPUFFY yet, y'all! <3

All the best,
Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling

 



--Chelle, Dusty, Get It Done, Grief Counseling on 01/02/24 10:01 pm 7 Comments

Happy New Year, Sunnydale After Dark!

We hope everyone had a blast with 2023’s ‘Tis The Season Event and had a chance to read some, if not all one hundred and one gift submissions! 

You read that right… 101 gifts!

We admins were so amazed by the love you all shared that GC created an additional award. We didn’t want it to be a competition, which is why we were secretive little elves about the Spuffy Santa Award, an award to the member who generously gave the most gifts for this event. Everyone who participated was generous, but we were a little floored by this particular member’s holiday spirit for giving out stories to sixteen lucky members! YOWZA-WOWZA!

Congratulations to honeygirl51885! You are one big-hearted Spuffy Santa!

And to everyone who participated, your artist, author, and beta awards are now posted! 

The comment scavenger hunt awards will be posted this week after the holiday winds down, so be on the lookout for the bronze, silver, and gold awards to grace your profiles if you submitted your forms in time. We’ll make an announcement in the Scooby Chat once they’re all posted.

It cannot go without mentioning another part of this event that members took into their own hands and created something magical. SAD Members all_choseny and Dynamite rallied together on Discord in secret to create The Merry Month of Magnus. Magnus374 has been such a huge supporter of Spuffy fanfic for years, and the thoughtfulness that went into giving him a gift every single day of the month was truly remarkable. Claire made a gorgeous banner for everyone to use, too, complete with author names and dates to keep everything organized! The talent, love, and holiday spirit you all shared was an event of its own. 

That’s what it’s all about, guys. This turned out to be one of the best events ever!

From the absolute bottom of our holiday hearts, thank you for making this community so special and full of joy. Let’s all say goodbye to a wonderful 2023, and look forward to an amazing 2024!



--Grief Counseling, Dusty, Chelle, GetItDone on 01/01/24 01:12 pm 9 Comments

We are so happy to bring you the December interviews with our Scoobies of the Month:

First up is Dynamite as our author: 

This interview has been withdrawn to protect Dynamite's privacy.

____

And now it's time for Pet35 to take the mic as our commenter: 

Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.

The first episode I watched was "smashed", so, obviously, I got hooked. I was 20 years old and going through my first breakup, and Buffy became a lifesaver to get my mind out of things. I didn't have internet or cable tv or anything like that back then, so I had to buy the DVDs to know what the story between Buffy and Spike came from. I remember having to ask my little sister for money and we still share the ownership of the DVDs because, of course, she loved them too. 

As for fanfic, it's a little shameful, but I didn't know what fanfic was until 2020, during lockdown. I started rewatching my favorite shows and when I finished Buffy I wanted to know if something else had happened. That's when I found out about Spike resurrecting in Angel (maybe that's why I love reunion fics so much, it took me years to find out Spike wasn't dead haha), the comics, and fanfiction. With everything that was going on around in the world, I found a huge comfort in fanfic, it helped me a lot to take my mind off things during my pregnancy. 

What motivates you to leave comments?

It's the best way I have to say 'thank you' to the authors for sharing their works and letting them know how much I'm liking their stories. Also (as many of the wonderful writers here already know...), sometimes when I read a story I just feel the need to talk to the characters and I do so through comments. Yep, sounds crazy, but writer's replies always made me feel safe to express myself however I needed.

Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?

I've written a few things, and I wish I had the time to write more and participate in events, hopefully, I will, but, for now, I'm mostly a reader. 

Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?

Oh yes, I was a lurker! I didn't believe people would care about what I had to say and, I have to admit, I was very shy too! But then, I realized how much comments and likes mean to the authors and I try to leave them every time, sometimes I think that I leave too many hahaha and, other times, I don't leave them because I'm so eager to click 'next' and continue reading that I forget!

How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?

I have left comments in very old stories that I know won't get an answer, but I do it anyway because you never know if maybe the author still gets them and likes to, or because I just can't help myself! But I do love to get a reply. I think it's awesome to have that opportunity to talk to the writers about their works, discuss their work, or just simply let them know what a great time you are having with their story. Also, getting replies has ended up in great conversations with the amazing members of this community.

I just have to thank you all for being part of such a creative, supportive and welcoming bunch of crazy spuffy lovers, and, of course, huge thanks to the Mods for making it possible. Oh! and congrats to my co-SotM Dynamite!   

____

Massive congrats to you both, Dynamite and Pet335! And a big ol' HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone at SAD! We're so happy to have you all here!!

Thanks for everything you all do to make this place so special!
--Chelle, Dusty, GetItDone, and GriefCounseling






--Chelle on 12/06/23 03:21 am 27 Comments

Good Tidings to ALL! ‘Tis The Season has finally arrived! 

This year our holiday event is centered on gift giving, and we know there’s no one we'd rather thank more than the authors and artists who have spent countless hours sharing their work with us. To show our appreciation, we’re issuing 12 Days of Commenting Challenges! Simply read and leave comments on fics (and art) as described below. You can use this form to track the comments you’ve left. (The link above will prompt you to make a copy of a Google Doc. If you don’t use Google Docs regularly, feel free to access it in PDF format here.) Submit it back to us by December 31st and earn one of three commenting awards! 

  • Bronze: At least four ‘days’ of challenges

  • Silver: At least eight ‘days’ of challenges

  • Gold: All twelve ‘days’ of challenges

(Note: Because some of the challenges incorporate multiple comments, there are actually 16 comments to leave over 12 days.)

Most of the logistical details are included in the first page of the comment tracking form linked above, so I won’t bore you with them here. You can send/share your form with sunnydaleafterdark98@gmail.com when it’s completed; if you’re having trouble with this process please reach out to GetItDone through the site admin email, site PM or Discord PM.

We strongly encourage you to discuss these challenges and use them as an opportunity to share recommendations with each other! We’ll be setting up Discord threads for each challenge, or you can use the Chat on the home page!

 

More good news! The incomparable Grief Counseling has gifted all of us with a brand new ’Tis the Season skin, now available! And the incredible Girlytek and bookishy have gifted the community with a new themed holiday drink menu as well! We are truly spoiled around here.

 

Finally, we’d also like to use this month to highlight a new feature at Sunnydale After Dark: The gift-giving feature! This feature is here to stay, but anyone who gifts a fic or art to another SAD member in the month of December will also earn an award! Be sure to check the event box when publishing. Credited artists and betas will receive an award, too! 

 

So now, without further adieu… I bring you the 12 Days of Commenting:

On the first day of commenting, my SADmins said to me… pick an All Human fic and leave some cheery words of glee.

On the second day of commenting, the SADmins encouraged us… to find a story with no comments and leave it lots of love (three if you please!).

On the third day of commenting, our SADmins told us to adore… a story by an author you’ve never read before.

On the fourth day of commenting, my SADmins said to go… read a Something Blue fic and let that author know.

On the fifth day of commenting, those SADmins said to find… a story where Spike and Buffy use some tech to share their minds (texting, the internet, etc).

On the sixth day of commenting, the SADmins said to try … finding a fic where lots of magic goes awry.

On the seventh day of commenting, SADmins said, “Don’t wait … rush on out and find a fic where Buffy and Spike go on a date!

On the eighth day of commenting, your SADmins want you to comply… go and find a fic that makes you laugh but also cry.

On the ninth day of commenting, your SADmins did pester… and send you off to find a fic with a big romantic gesture.

On the tenth day of commenting, your SADmins said, “Don’t dally! Go find a fic that happens at least ten years post finale!”

On the eleventh day of commenting your SADmins said to ye, find some art that when you see… one makes you feel nostalgic, another tugs your heart, the final one is scorching hot or maybe just flirty.

On the twelfth day of commenting, your SADmins want you to savor it. Go find a fic that’s on one of your favorite author’s favorites.

 

Happy Commenting!!



--GetItDone, Dusty, Chelle & Grief Counseling on 12/01/23 12:53 am 9 Comments