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