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.

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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!

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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