Top Five Best New! Spuffy Authors of 2012

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

I apologize for another Spuffy post... (but it's pretty much the only fanfiction I tend to read).

You ever feel like you don't want to invest your time in any new authors, because you don't want to be disappointed?  Here are five authors new to Spuffy and the Buffyverse within the last year.  All are talented writers who know what grammar is and how to use it, are quite adept at a clever turn of phrase, can plot with the best of them, and keep our heroes and sidekicks the characters we know and love without any blatant character-bashing (not even Angel!).   These authors get bonus points for avoiding OverlyBitchy!Buffy/Saintly!Spike.



Bojangles can be found at Elysian Fields or Fanfiction.net (although only a few of her stories are located on ff.net).  I'm not sure if she posts elsewhere.  'Never Stay With Spuffy' and its companion pieces may be amongst the funniest things you've ever read.  I actually hurt myself from laughing too hard.  She's also written an angsty type AH romance and a short AH high school romance. 

PeaceHeather is on Elysian Fields and Fanfiction.net.  (I also recommend her 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' story on ff.net if you're into that cartoon).  Peaceheather's favorite genre is hurt/comfort.  Her completed story, 'Distress Signals', features a wonderful Buffy and Xander friendship.  I will warn that Giles is the 'villain' of the piece, but only inasmuch as Buffy needed a reason to do what she does, and to provide some emotional turmoil.  It is very minor to the story, and will only bother the most devoted of Giles fans.  She has another long WIP and two lovely oneshots.

The Foxinator is at Fanfiction.net.  They have but one short Spuffy story, 'Heartless', and an incredible one it is.  Whether or not you're a fan of Spuffy, this canon-compliant ficlet is worth a few minutes of your time.  (There is no Spuffy romance).  The Foxinator's also written other non-Spuffy oneshots set in the Buffyverse (but I have to admit I haven't read them).

Drizzlydaze writes for the fagends community, and the ashtray community (both Spuffy prompt sites).  Sadly, she's sticking to short pieces for now, but they're wonderful little ficlets, filled with humor, angst, romance and insight.  Her most recent piece is 'Five Times They Don't Make It (And One Time They Do)', located at the ashtray.  This is a direct link to her fagends pieces, some of which string together to form a longer WIP story.

Hour of the Wolf is the collaborative effort of Wolffan200 and 3Hours, and they post pretty much everywhere Spuffy fans congregate. Here are links to Fanfiction.net and ElysianFields, (since those are the sites I patronize most).  Just completed 'Spirits in the Woods' is a fun and gripping canon-compliant tale set in the summer between S3 and S4.

I hope you enjoy these new authors as much as I have.  They prove that the pull of the Buffyverse is still strong after all these years!

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Good to see authors that aren't just on LJ, thanks for this.

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

It's a function of where I tend to look first for new stories ! :)

[shapinglight]

Thanks for the recs. I never tend to look outside LJ for fics so would have missed many of these.

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Rec lists are the best ways to find new stories! I hope you enjoy.

[peaceheather.livejournal.com]

Wow, Spuffy luvr, thanks! Personally, I have a LJ that I haven't updated since 2010 and that was only intended for personal-life stuff. Which is probably why I abandoned it. My Buffy work is also mirrored on Bloodshedverse and The Spuffy Realm, but they get nowhere near as much traffic as FFnet and Elysian Fields.

And I'm cheerfully hopping off to check out drizzlydaze's stuff now. Cheers!

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Oh, good! I'm glad you have an LJ, even if it's not your first stop. It's been lovely discovering your fic this year!

[peaceheather.livejournal.com]

Fanfiction dot net, /~peaceheather if you want to see more. I'm kinda proud of my Sherlock Holmes stuff, tbh.

And now I'm reading *your* LJ stuff... I will get nothing done today.

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Woo, I just love connecting great authors! I didn't realize you were on the other sites too, Heather, so thanks for pointing it out.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! I'd put you on this list, too, but I suspect your first efforts predate 2012. Is that right?

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Nah, I didn't even discover fanfiction until Dec 2011. Thanks for saying I you'd include me, I don't have enough braggadocio to put myself on a list like that. I don't like to brag. Oh, who am I kidding, I love to brag! ;) Zanthinegirl was kind enough to put me on another list, so that was honor enough.

[3hours.livejournal.com]

*mwah* thank you for the rec, Spuffy ♥ And I'm really happy you included the Foxinator, that short story is absolutely wonderful and I wish she'd write more Spike/Buffy fics!

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Well, you're both *highly* deserving!

[yourlibrarian]

We can only rec what we read/see so the topic is never a problem :) Thanks for a great post idea!

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Well, I know there's plenty of other good stories out there, but I'm still working my way through Spuffy!

[foxstarreh.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for including me on here. That's so flattering! =D



There is one small thing, however; I'm not so much of a "she."

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

EEK! I apologize for my sexist assumption. And welcome to the minority of awesome male Spuffy authors!

[foxstarreh.livejournal.com]

No worries. I know it's probably unclear what the hell I am.

I'm really agendered, and I will respond to anything, but I do prefer avoiding gendered pronouns when being introduced. In conversation, I don't mind, honestly, and I don't mind people stumbling upon the label by themselves, either, actually. But if it's the first time someone's hearing about me, it makes me feel weird that they're going to be sitting there, going into reading what I've written while thinking I am/identify definitively as a woman/man.

Don't feel bad for not knowing. You probably won't see this anywhere, since it wasn't all that relevant up until now.
=)

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

Okay, there, I fixed it to be more neutral. Since 99% of Spuffy authors are female, it was an automatic assumption.

Hopefully we can encourage you to write more Spike and/or Buffy stories for the Buffyverse!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

On the pronoun thing, I try to follow Casey Miller and Kate Smith's classic "The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Handbook-Nonsexist-Writing-speakers/dp/0595159214

If the gender is unknown, they advocate the use of "they/their" as a neutral choice (and explain why.) I own an old copy and it's a bit outdated on some things (we no longer use the term "airline stewardess") but a lot of it is still completely relevant. I'm surprised by some of the gendered language I still see in Time, Newsweek, the NY Times etc that could be rectified very easily by Miller and Smith's suggestions.

OTOH - I assumed norwie2010 was female because of his very strong feminism in his posts and comments. He was very gracious about it - and as it turned out, people in the fandom for much longer than I had been making the same assumption.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Excellent choices - I'm familiar with all but one of them, but it's good to know where to find people. I get so wrapped up in staying current on LJ/DW and the BSV, that I tend to forget there are things I might like being posted other places.

[spuffy-luvr.livejournal.com]

This is why rec lists rule! So you can find the things you might miss otherwise. I tend to stick with the archives I found first because my brain can only handle so much information at once (stupid brain).

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

ROFL - I know the feeling... Alas, most of the archives I haunted when I first started reading are long gone (or no longer being updated). I never could figure out how to get around ff.net, so I've just closed my eyes and pretended it doesn't exist. :)