I turned 30 the year Buffy premiered so I was one of those adult fans of the show who would try to convince others that ‘it wasn’t just for kids’. What I didn’t realize at the time - and only recently concluded within the context of our current ‘peak television’ age - is just how good it was considering it was produced in a TV landscape that more closely resembled the one I Love Lucy was produced in than the one that exists today. They had to fill a 22-episode order per season on a production schedule set by the network and deal with censors, which we all know they did better than just about anyone by outsmarting them. I often wonder what they might have done if they could have produced in a streaming environment, free of those constraints. Was the almost-excruciating hotness of Buffy and Spike the product of how creative they needed to be to get around the network BS, or would a Buffy and Spike unshackled by censors have melted our TV sets and driven us all insane? Alas, we will never know. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What I did know almost immediately once they started sharing screen time was that Buffy and Spike - thanks to the talent, professionalism, and genetic gifts of the actors who portrayed them, as well as that intangible natural chemistry thing - were the most compelling version of my favorite Shakespearean couple (Beatrice and Benedick) I had ever seen. That remains true today.

Which is why after lurking a bit in the fandom back in the day then drifting away when the last Buffyverse episode ran, I returned a decade and a half later to do something I once swore that I’d never do: write Buffyverse fan fiction. Because, it turns out, they had never really left me. Those two were always there, tickling the edge of my psyche.

I’m all about post-series, canon-compliant fic, which means that everything we see onscreen through NFA has happened in my stories. Partly, I like the challenge of making plot points that I thought were stupid, lazy, contradictory or unjustifiable work in retrospect. Also, whatever the missteps, and in spite of the fact that Joss Whedon should have gotten years of therapy to get over his own adolescence, the bastard (in collaboration with a LOT of talented people) did leave behind a damn masterpiece even if I personally think he should never be allowed to work again unless he demonstrates that he’s finally picked up those years of therapy and REALLY GETS WHAT HE DID. In short, as a writer I feel no personal compulsion to try to improve upon a canon I love and respect so much.

Finally, maybe because for as long as Buffy’s been in my life I’ve always been older than she is, I adore taking her into adulthood in the wide world we see spread out before her right before the screen fades to black in Chosen. Similarly, when we last see Spike, he’s in the terrible twos of his ensoulment, still figuring out how to be good for his own sake not for Buffy, which is something I believe essential to any potential future they have together. It’s within the context of that head canon that I write Buffy, Spike, and the constellation of people in their lives, some of whom we met in canon and others of my creation.