We have new Scoobies of the Month Interviews! :o) Hope you enjoy them! 

Commenter of the Month for August 2023, American Aurora

How did you come to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I have to admit that I never watched BtVS when it originally ran. I had several friends who were fans and they were always trying to get me to watch it, but I was always flooded with work and theater projects.

The only episode I ever saw was the musical episode Once More With Feeling because that's my field. Of course, all of the Broadway musical theatre community at the time could talk of nothing else, but I freely admit that it didn't really appeal to me at the time because I had no idea where it was coming from. I only continued to hear about Buffy sporadically until the end of Season Seven, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I actually sat down to watch it.  And I was hooked! 

When and why did you decide to read fanfiction for the show?

When I was a little kid, I was a voracious reader - gorging on Shakespeare and Dickens and other lit like candy – but I was also obsessed (like most kids) with movies and television shows. And fanfiction became a particular passion of mine. 

I was always drawn to art that reacted to previous works in a perpetual ripple of influence like Dante’s Divine Comedy that took so much from Virgil. I also loved fan-created stories that transformed an already existing work into something intensely communal and dynamic. So, like any typical Gen X-er, I started to read fan fiction and became familiar with the art form.

In sixth grade, we were assigned to write an essay comparing categories (breeds of cats, for example) and I thought it would be clever to do an essay on fan fiction. So, I turned in a long twelve-page paper detailing the various fanfic genres of Star Trek – Gen, Mary Sue, Hurt/Comfort, Alt Universe, K/S, Crossover – and my very conservative older teacher wigged out and accused me of making it all up.

You should have seen his face when I showed him various fan fictions. Slash, in particular, was not as familiar to the general public as it is now and it shocked him that this kind of thing existed. He kept shaking his head as he looked at fan art of Kirk and Spock kissing, muttering, "My GOD! What has this world come to?" 

I graduated with a film degree (and ended up working in theater as a script editor/writer) but I’ve fought ever since against academic and critical disapproval of fan fiction throughout my entire life. It comes down to an inability to see beyond the highbrow/lowbrow dynamic.  Sadly, there’s also a tendency to disparage art forms like fan fiction that are associated with women creators.

Fanfic fascinates me - because I like to see the mirror reflecting back on the original work. It works on so many levels because fan writers and readers aren’t just passive consumers, but creators that engage with the original and often act as a second layer of cultural meaning.  I believe fan fiction has had a major effect on the way in which audiences perceive the original creators/copyright holders – often creating a communal wave of transformative texts that find their way into new reiterations of that world.

So, once I watched Buffy, I immediately searched for fan fiction and was really taken by the sophistication and incredible creativity of the authors in expanding the scope of the show while still staying true to its essential meaning.  I think it’s one of the strongest fandoms out there and I‘ve enjoyed reading both modern fics and exploring the Internet Archive for older fics from the late 90s when the show first ran. 

And I’m very grateful to posters from several wonderful sites like Buffy Tube and Buffy Forums who made numerous suggestions of fics to read and fan fic sites to explore – Sunnydale After Dark becoming my absolute favorite place for Spuffy!

Why do you love Spike and Buffy?

Outside of the fact that both are fantastic original characters who bring a tremendous amount of charm and pathos to the show and are played by two dazzlingly brilliant actors, I love the two of them together because I adore what their relationship says about identity and the sense of self. 

We watch bit by bit as William Pratt makes his journey from timid momma’s boy to heartless monster to chipped menace who sometimes aids Buffy and her friends – and sometimes undermines them. And as the various outward layers are added to Spike – his accent, his name, his scar, his coat, his hair, his chip – he tries out different identities to figure out what he should be – each identity is continuously built from the ground up.

But Spike, Slayer of Slayers, begins to fragment as long-repressed emotions of his former identities as William Pratt and William the Bloody began to emerge when he falls in love with Buffy. The drama of the choice that Spike has to make – to remain Spike, Big Bad and killer of two Slayers – or become someone else entirely underlies so much of the complex meaning of their relationship.

And Buffy faces many of the same issues. She’s unwillingly called as a Slayer to fight the forces of darkness, moving from sheltered valley girl to heroic fighter who never quite fits in anywhere and struggles to maintain some sense of normalcy.  She suffers the fragmentation of her family, the sense of dislocation in moving to Sunnydale and falls in love with a vampire – albeit, with a soul.

But due to her training, Buffy psychologically separates his vampire side utterly from the Angel she grows to love, treating it almost like an affliction or a disease that Angel has to bear. There is a clear line made between Angel and the vampires she dusts – for he has a soul and they have no soul. And a Buffy who longs for normal – who doesn’t want to even think that she can be attracted to the freakish, the bizarre, the monsters – clings to this difference as justification for why she can love Angel.

She is still in this mindset (as is the audience) when she meets Spike, the unsouled monster of her nightmares. She clings to the belief in a soul as the decisive factor in determining worth – and this is why she sees him through that distorted lens. But when Angel turns into Angelus, Buffy realizes what a knife edge her trust of Angel’s souled state rests upon. Ironically, it’s soulless Spike’s love for Drusilla that creates the alliance that finally defeats Angelus.  And his growing love for her that changes their dynamic from enemy to ally to friend to lover.

And we slowly learn that Spike’s transformation is driven by his past self – his former memories as a human with all the psychological pathos that entails. And this really throws a monkey wrench into the Buffyverse – because the insistence that a soul is needed for moral compass has now been superseded by the idea that a continuous identity can override monstrous instincts. That the memories of who a vampire was can actually have an effect on the actions of a soulless vampire.

And whether Spike stays soulless or gets a soul in fanfiction, his character is driven by this apparent contradiction.  And that forces Buffy to make a decision of her own – instead of Spike dragging Buffy into the darkness as he had hoped, Buffy begins to pull Spike into the effulgent light instead through their mutual love.

I absolutely adore this dynamic – the complexity of their relationship is in so many ways at the heart of the show because it reaches to the core of our own sense of self.  The possibilities for real change – for a fundamental growth in personal identity – are glimpsed through an awakening of love.  And that love – as personified by mortal Buffy – connects immortal Spike to human time and therefore allows for the possibility of change and escaping the unchanging life of a vampire. His awareness and concern for her mortality – her burden of a short life, her courage against an impending death and her human ties to others around her – links Spike to find his own identity in a changing world. 

What words of advice would you give other fans who comment or are considering maybe commenting on fanfiction?

To avoid a neat correlation between artwork and artist where you fit the right shaped block into the right shaped hole. For some people, analyzing art works are akin to solving little ity-bity Fisher-Price wooden puzzles. Real life doesn’t work that way, of course – and I think the arts are the same.

In fan fiction, an author starts with a loosely bound series of plots and characterizations that vaguely shape their way.  But when they find the real truth and purpose driving their story – the character, the theme, the plot, the essence, whatever it may be – the author deviates from the original intent of the work to follow that discovery wherever it may lead them.

A fanfic writer has to rely on their instincts - not concentrating on mundanities like grammar or word choices or characterizations that necessarily hew closely to the original work, but slowly developing a certain flair, an original style, a unique way of expressing new ideas in the verse that are shaped into something really fine.

So many times, I’ve seen a playwright’s work coalesce around a theme that they were completely unaware of while writing their play – yet embrace it when they see it played out on a stage. Writing is a way of cutting away the marble – of shaping the clay – without necessarily knowing the ultimate form. This is why they call writing “the process.” Whether novel, play, screenplay, or fanfic, what comes out is never what the artist originally intended.

And it’s the same for commentary. Art reaches us on an instinctive level. It works beneath the surface so that we use our own experiences to “read” what is happening.  In that sense, commentary becomes a symbiosis between the author and the commentator with multiple streams of meaning enhancing the enjoyment and analysis of the work. 

Any given artist has umpteen impulses that lie dormant in their work – the job of the commentator is to tease out the unconscious and conscious themes and make meaningful connections.  So, a commentator should be open to being engaged on several different levels – some intentional by the author and some unintentional – as they read a transformative work that engages with the original in such an intense way.

There’s an old saying – strong artists don’t put others down – they lift them up. I think it’s an intensely humbling and thrilling experience to engage deeply with a writer’s work and offer one’s own unique perspective.

From womanaction:

You write such gorgeous, detailed comments - can you walk us through your process?

It’s the same process that I use when reading a new work – carefully examining the work while teasing out themes and trying to divine the author’s intention. I try to become emotionally and intellectually involved with the work to the best of my ability to understand on an instinctive level the process which led the writer to make certain decisions.

There’s nothing more exciting than experiencing a writer consciously or unconsciously expressing themselves through plot and characters. I love how it slowly reveals their viewpoint and beliefs regarding all aspects of the original work.  The time, the place, the situation, the point of view, the character reactions, the plot points all expressing a unique take on BtVS and the Spuffy relationship.

It may be that I’m too influenced by the theater, but I try to imagine the surroundings, the expression of character and the dialogue as if it were on a screen or on stage and try to viscerally react to that immediacy by marking out acting beats and subtle shifts in attitude. But I’m also often taken with the descriptive prose which creates a kind of symbiotic bond between reader and author.

And when certain passages stand out as particularly dramatic or humorous or suspenseful, I love to quote them back to the writer and spin them around and contextualize them within the whole piece to let the author know how much I enjoyed them.

What are your top 3 Spuffy genres or tropes?

Oh, I love all Spuffy genres from Fluff to Hurt/Comfort to All Human.  But I’m especially taken with post-series fics which feature a complex reunion, slow burns in which it takes FOREVER to develop their relationship and psychological studies of a dark nature that explore real-life issues such as Depressed Buffy/Depressed Spike.

Author of the Month for August 2023, womanaction

How did you come to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I had caught a few episodes when it was originally on, but I didn’t really watch it through until 2012. I had a suspicion it would be right up my alley – I even had an OC at one point I named after Willow, who had always been my favorite character as a casual viewer. I also spent a lot of time in the 2000s on TVTropes, which began its life as a Buffy-specific site, and I had absorbed a lot about the show from there. Plus, I was already a Firefly fan! But I knew it was a big commitment, and that I would probably be obnoxious about it forever once I got into it (which turned out to be 100% correct), so I was saving it for the perfect moment, and that happened to be it for me. I had a couple of free hours to kill before I needed to be somewhere, and after I watched the first two episodes I was forever changed.

When and why did you decide to write fanfiction for the show?

At the time I started seriously watching, I had been writing fanfiction and publishing it to fanfiction.net for around 8 years, so it wasn’t surprising to me when I wanted to start exploring the world of Buffy fanfiction. I wrote some Angel/Cordelia and some gen before finally tumbling headfirst into the Spuffy writing world, although I do sometimes write other ships (and gen, still – see my AO3, same username, if you’re interested).

I was really resistant to shipping Spike and Buffy at first, which is why my username on Elysian Fields is kind of embarrassingly 2000s (though it may be changed by the time this is published – thanks, Dusty, for letting me know that was possible!) – I never really expected to do anything but lurk and maybe write a few comments, so I just used my old fanfiction.net username as something I’d remember!

Why do you love Spike and Buffy?

Okay, like I said above, I definitely never intended to ship them. I was aware they were a big ship in the fandom, but I was firmly set against it. My impression of the ship was that it was all about the sexiness of mortal enemies getting it on, and I had always been someone that was more into “Friends-To-Lovers” (or, okay, “Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers”, but the friends part was important!).

And then I got to Becoming Part 2, and they were working together like they’d known each other all their lives, making little side comments and shooting each other looks and generally living in their own little world and I was like well, okay, I kind of get it. I don’t ship it, but you know, I get it.

I was mostly able to put it out of my mind over the next couple of seasons even as I enjoyed Spike’s character and then, well. Out of My Mind happened. And even though I knew it had to be a dream sequence, I felt my heart leap. Against my better judgment, I was all on board, even in parts of season six when I really wished I could take it back.

I say this to emphasize what first drew me to Spuffy: the way they work together, even as professed mortal enemies. The way they get each other, from day one – undeniable weirdos, “embarrassing freak couple” that they are, they get each other down to each last poetry-reading, thrill-seeking, never-have-a-normal-life inch. And what kept me away from them, the fact that they are supposed to be mortal enemies. Even when they get past actively trying to kill each other, they’re still resisting any identification or partnership with the other. The push and pull of these dynamics are infinitely fascinating.

Even more, what keeps me coming back is the sheer number of “eras” we could say they go through. From mortal enemies to reluctant allies, from unrequited obsession to confidantes, from the hottest hookup on the show to two people who are indescribably tender after hurting the other one so much…each of these phases is just one side of the complex dynamic that is Spuffy, and there are always more depths to plumb.

Plus, you know, they’re both utterly gorgeous, hilarious, and two of my favorite characters on the show. That helps.

Which three fanfics that you’ve written are your favorite? Why are they your favorite?

This is hard, because I think I’m immediately drawn to the multi-chapter fics, and I only have a few of those that are Spuffy (two of which I’ve written in the past year, which I never expected to happen!).

But I am going to pick those two anyway. For “ever waiting airports,” I’m really happy with the characterization and the pacing. This one was not especially easy for me to write – I probably did the most rewriting of any fic I have ever written, and I constantly felt like I was threading the needle in terms of this theme of semi-infidelity. I really wanted to tell this story in a way that honored all the characters and left them all in a good place, but also wasn’t afraid to look at the ugly parts. I also expected it to only be a few chapters – oops! But I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Second, I’ll go with “If Only” (which is not on SAD yet at the time of writing this – sorry, I’m working my way back through and editing in reverse alphabetical order!). I’m pleased with where that one landed tonally, and it’s literally my only Season 4 fic. I can’t say the idea is especially original, as a Something Blue canon divergence, but I found it outrageously easy and fun to write. I really like when I get to write Spuffy sort of silly and stream-of-consciousness.

Finally, I think I’d pick “It’s Wrong!” I have written so many “season 6 but not depressing” Spuffy fics at this point that I’m worried it may just be my brand, but this one is probably my favorite. On a reread I’m always pleased at how packed and parsimonious it is in telling a little arc for Buffy, and while it’s entirely indulgent (of myself) that suits me just fine.

What words of advice would you give other fans who write or want to write fanfiction?

Write what you want to read! If you’re not enjoying writing something, there may be a reason for that. I saw a post the other day that said “fanfiction should be funfiction”, and I think that’s right on the money. There were a few years I hardly wrote anything because it wasn’t bringing me much joy (probably not a coincidence this was during the most intensive years of grad school), then one day I felt like writing again and so I did! If I stop enjoying it, I’ll stop. Similarly, never forget the Two Cakes Rule. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or write the best fic ever on your first try (or your hundredth try!) for people to be really excited to read your story.

That said, there are ways you can push yourself to make sure you stay in the habit if that’s something you value. For me, it’s writing a chapter ahead on a multi-chapter fic, so I can look forward to the fun of posting and potentially receiving some great comments. For others, it’s writing on a schedule (a total joy-suck for me). I like outlines; some people hate them. There are some challenges/events I really enjoy, like gift exchanges or the recent Spiral Spuffy event, and there are other ones I know will feel like more of a stressor to me so I sit them out and enjoy being a reader. Don’t be afraid to try new things, but you don’t have to do everything. 

From: American Aurora:

Reading all of your fics, they seem to be divided between one-shots and longer pieces. Which do you prefer to write and do you approach each type of fic differently?

This is a hard one! I really like the feeling of things being done. I have abandoned lots of fics in my time (mostly not Spuffy, although there is one over on EF that I won't be moving here since I abandoned it in 2015), and I hate doing that, so I tend to have a constant level of stress when writing something multi-chapter. So I probably enjoy writing one-shots more, but the ultimate sense of accomplishment is better when I do manage to finish a MC fic! Because of this, I do tend to plan out my longer fics more, but otherwise my process is really similar. Honestly, even for longer fics, I tend to get the first chapter or so on the page before I really decide what the rest will look like (because if I don't have fun writing that first chapter I probably won't write the rest - I have a lot of first chapters on my computer that will probably never see the light of day). Sometimes I have an idea for a longer fic and then it turns out I'm happy with it as a oneshot when it's done.

I was really taken with the level of understanding and empathy that you extend to almost every character in your work despite their flaws. How difficult was it to keep certain characters sympathetic despite some rather dubious actions (such as Riley or Angel)?

That means a lot to me, thank you. I'm very character-driven (in my writing and in what I like to read - and what I take from the things I read, watch, etc.) so I'm always trying to work through different characters' mindsets. Sometimes I will write at least an outline of a chapter/story from multiple character perspectives to make sure I'm not losing their story and POV. In fics like "airports" I have a clear place I want the characters to end up, and in some ways the plot is shaped mostly to allow them those chances (even if the development ends up "offscreen"). I enjoy this approach, but I don't think I could do this for characters I don't already have some level of empathy with. Warren stands out as a Buffyverse example of a character I would find it difficult to write as a character and not just a plot device with dialogue.

You do an incredible job of depicting both Buffy and Spike’s POV in so many fics so that the reader sides with both of them equally – how hard is it to keep that delicate balance?  

I feel like these questions illustrate what makes you such an effective and amazing reviewer, because you really get at the heart of what different authors' goals are and there is no better feeling as a writer. This is the thing that keeps me up at night sometimes. I'm currently working on a sequel to "Magic Fingers" in Spike's POV and the biggest roadblock has been trying to get a real sense of where Buffy's mindset should be and how much Spike (and readers) can pick up on it. Sometimes I find it much easier to write Buffy's POV because she often holds back on her thoughts and feelings much more than he does, and her actions can be opaque (or even seem irrational) if we don't get a good sense of what's going on internally. My biggest worry with writing Spike is more about making sure he doesn't come off too well, lol. I love a trying-to-be-good!Spike, but emphasis on trying, so my biggest struggle writing him is usually about striking that balance between his instincts and his better angels and figuring out when he's likely to listen to each. Luckily, they are my two favorite characters, so I don't mind spending some extra time with each of them to try and figure these things out!