October 2023

We are so happy to share the interviews with our Scoobies of the Month! You’ll notice that there’s a bit of a change. We’re trying out new questions, five each. Let us know what you guys think and please feel free to comment if there are questions you feel we didn’t cover.

Author of the Month for October 2023: Ginger

1) Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.
Oh dear, what a question to ask the elderly! ;-)

I was an adult when Buffy premiered, living that gig-economy life back before all the cool kids were doing it while attending grad school, so my schedule was so erratic that I barely watched episodic TV. Just happened to be home one night and caught The Puppet Show. Yeah, I know, Season 1, but I laughed SO HARD because it evoked tragicomic moments from my years as a theater kid. Caught up with the rest, or most of it anyway, in summer reruns. Anyone remember those? The moment I became enthralled, however, was in late September when a certain bottle blond strutted onto the screen and into my heart, forever apparently. A decade and a half earlier I had battled my way to the front row at a Billy Idol concert - oh, general admission, those were the days - to get a close-up look at his loveliness and can confirm all these years later that it was totally worth it. I was really into music growing up, did the college DJ thing, went to a ton of shows, including at CBGB (and used their infamous bathrooms so I’m pretty sure that I’m now immune to everything and possibly also immortal). In other words, Spike was all but laboratory-grown to appeal to me, and if such a creature existed IRL I’d have never survived past college. Then there was the SMG/JM chemistry and, well, anyone reading this understands that.

By 2000, my life had changed due to a high-pressure job and a lot of work travel. To avoid becoming a very dull girl, I actively joined a much smaller fandom for a more conventional, less impactful, now largely forgotten show that had a compelling ship - my first fandom rodeo. While active elsewhere, I was lurking in the Buffyverse, convinced that I would never write Buffy fic because I didn't presume to have anything to offer, but I read and enjoyed my fair share of Spuffy works and would occasionally be a fly on the wall on the boards. Then Buffy ended. And Angel ended. I was bereft at the idea of never seeing Buffy and/or Spike onscreen again so I just stopped engaging with the fandom. Life intervened and I dropped out of my active, though increasingly moribund, fandom a couple years after that. 

Every so often, I’d think about the Buffyverse in general, and Buffy and Spike in particular, and hunt for an old favorite fic to reread - something from one of the old-school greats like Nautibitz or Herself. I guess Buffy and Spike as an idea never really left me. Fast forward a decade and a half to early 2019; I was homebound over a winter holiday weekend with a raging sinus infection and sprained MCL. Something, I have no idea what, compelled me to Google Spuffy fan fiction to see what if anything was new and, well, there were definitely things! I dove in headfirst and when I finally came up for air, God help me, I had story ideas and commenced doing what I’d sworn I never would. What can I say, Spike tends to have that effect on women.

2) Where do you find inspiration for your stories?
All kinds of things. Sometimes it starts with hearing a character speak a line of dialogue in my head - and yes, I am aware that there is medication for that. It can start with a single image coming to mind. I’ve used fic to explore philosophical quandaries raised by the canon or even issues from the wider world that are on my mind. Sometimes a piece of music or art, or a place I’ve been to, can get the old synapses firing. My current fic is basically a way to relive a wonderful trip my partner and I took at the end of last year. Another passion of mine is travel, so I enjoy putting Buffy in places I’ve visited and loved. After years on the Hellmouth, I think she’s earned it. My favorite, most treasured inspirations come from my fandom buds, growing out of passionate, often hilarious conversations.

3) Who is your favorite character to write and why?
While I obviously adore Spike, I’ve never lost sight of whose show it was. I’m ride or die for a Buffy who survived the Hellmouth to grow and thrive in the adulthood she never thought she'd have, despite the trauma of having been for all practical purposes a child soldier. I also find other relationships (besides the obvious one) satisfying to explore like, for example, how Buffy and Dawn’s sibling relationship might grow and deepen outside of a daily life marred by near-constant crisis and turmoil.

4) Which story of yours are you most proud of and which was the hardest to write?
A couple years ago, I wrote a short character study of William/Spike across time. It was a challenge writing pre-soul, unrepentantly evil Spike because I mostly write post-canon, but it was more fun than I thought it would be once I got going. Even back in his Big Bad days he was multidimensional, which is a big reason I fell so hard, so fast. (His eyes and cheekbones vie for a close second… and this was all before we saw him in any state of undress.) Proudest? Hard to say. I’m always gratified when I manage to crack myself up. In the first Spuffy fic I ever wrote, Buffy has a harrowing experience at her 20th HS reunion. I channeled into it all my feelings about having to spend one more minute of my life with most of the people with whom I went to HS. Rereading it recently, it rings true to me. If HS was hell for most of us, aren’t we likely to bring a little hell with us to a reunion?

5) As a writer, what would you have changed on the show and why?
I’m driven crazy by the usual offenses - we all know what they are - but instead of pondering rewrites or fix-its, which I don’t think I’d be very good at, my approach to those derptacular fails is for the characters to reflect on and deal with them in retrospect. That being said, I’m good to never have to sit through Where the Wild Things Are again. Seriously, for life. I will also always regret that there was no Buffy and Spike scene in Hush, even if I believe it was a sound tactical move on the part of the showrunners. If SMG/JM had to communicate nonverbally on the heels of Something Blue, the resulting blue-flame hotness would have made their job of trying to force feed us the sh*t sandwich of Buffy and Riley even harder.

Commenter of the Month for October 2023: All4Spike

Oh wow! Thank you for the honour!

1) Tell us how you got into Buffy the show and Buffy fanfic.
I found Buffy at the beginning of S2 during the first showing in the UK. Every time my daughter phoned me, she could speak of little else, so I decided I had to watch it so I could understand what and who she was raving about. I was a bit doubtful at first, (that weird title, you know?) but was well and truly hooked from the moment Spike ran down the Sunnydale sign.

I didn't know fanfic even existed until after both Buffy and Angel had finished. I then came across All About Spike by a sheer fluke typo in a search engine and dived down the rabbit hole. Finally, I decided I needed to 'fix things' for Spike in my own way, and the seemingly interminable Coincidences series was born.

2) What motivates you to leave comments?
I comment, because I appreciated so much the readers' feedback as I wrote Coincidences. Every word meant the world to me, and let me know that a) I wasn't crazy, and b) that despite my initial writing inexperience, and inevitable whoopsies, people were willing to give up their time to follow my meandering storylines. I'm trying to pay forward that encouragement, and sense of accomplishment.

 
3) Do you also write or are you strictly a reader?
I write when I have a story to tell. Sadly, the muse went into hiding recently, leaving me with the first draft of three and a half chapters of a potential story, before she/he absconded. Wish me luck! 

4) Were you a lurker before you started leaving comments or did you comment right away?
I lurked before I started writing. After I posted my first chapter, it hit me how much the readers' comments meant to me, and after that, I've always tried to find something positive to say, so that more chapters would appear more quickly!

5) How important is it to receive a reply from the writer when you leave a comment?
I never expect it, I'd rather an author focused their time on writing more stories, but I love it when I do receive a reply.

A hearty round of applause for these two amazing members! Thank you both for taking the time to participate in the interview and for giving us such awesome answers. As always, we appreciate everything you (yes you!)  bring to this community. You guys give us daily reminders of why we’re here.

Until next time!
-- Chelle, Dusty, and GetItDone