I think we all collectively blinked, and two years passed without us even realizing it.
That’s right, it’s been two years since Sunnydale After Dark first launched, and we have all of YOU to thank for its success! We cannot thank all of you enough for the time and energy you’ve devoted to the 1,646 works currently housed on the site made up of more than 24 million words!
We are blown away every day by the talent and dedication of our authors and artists. But we can’t forget all of our faithful readers and commenters who have contributed more than 39,000 comments in that time - without them, we’d be an archive but not a community, and over and over again we’ve heard from you that our community is what sets us apart. We appreciate all of the positive energy you pour into this place and we are honored that you’ve chosen to spend any portion of your busy lives with us.
Just a quick year-in-review… We kicked off our second year with our Spiral Spuffy team challenge, followed by Spooky September. D’Hoffryn fixed us up with the ability to ‘gift’ fics and artworks to each other just in time for the ‘Tis the Season!’ gift event coupled with a commenting challenge. Of course, we cannot forget about the much anticipated return of the Short & Spuffy Drabble Event (with prompts submitted by our Top Commenters) in March where you all outdid yourselves as usual, and then we spent a month in recovery from the hectic drabble season before launching our current Pen & Paint event! (No big deal or anything, but P&P has already generated 112 brand new works and we’re still going strong!)
Meanwhile, D’Hoffryn’s been hard at work behind the scenes helping improve our user experience at every turn. Along with gifting, he gave us the (long overdue) ability to credit our valued betas and banner artists. He’s created visual carousels on our homepage to show off all your pretty banners and he’s updated our epub functionality to support images and incorporate banner art into the covers for each downloaded fic. He’s probably also tackled hundreds of bugs troubleshooting requests that get fixed so quickly we barely notice they were issues in the first place. All hail D’Hoffryn!
No matter how you fit in this community - and there is a place for ALL of you here - we genuinely appreciate that you’ve chosen to be part of Sunnydale After Dark. This place would not exist if it weren’t for all of you, and on behalf of your SADmin team, we are endlessly grateful to get to escape real life with you each and every day.
--GetItDone, Dusty, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 06/24/24 09:35 am 21 Comments
I am so thankful for the joy and fun this community brings me every day. Keep being cool and squishing our favorite vamp and slayer together in new and not new exciting ways! Happy anniversary, friends!!! 
Happy birthday SAD!
Without you I never would have started writing. Thanks for being such an awesome, welcoming space. Huge thanks to all you SADmins and special shout out to D’hoffy for catching all those pesky bugs before I even notice them!
I love this site, I love this community, I love being a part of it all!! Happy 2 Years, Sunnydale After Dark!
Happy birthday SAD! This is such an awesome site, and it wouldn't be possible without the amazing admin team, so thank you SADmins for all your hard work! <3 <3 <3
Happiest of birthdays, SAD! I love the fresh new challenges and lovely interactions I find here! And gorgeous banner artwork!
Happy Birthday SAD!!! This community rocks♥οΈ
You guys ROCK, all of you! From the SADmins to our favourite and most powerful techromances to all the artists, readers, writers and commenters!! Seriously, what an amazing place to be in. Thank you so so much for giving me and us all a Spuffy home.
This place is my anchor, my haven, my beacon and my true north. Thank you for making my life brighter for two years (already!) and for continuing to do so for at least 200 years!
Happy Birthday SAD! Whoooop whoooop! Thanks for everything. It’s been such a two year long blast in this happy place.
Many hearty congrats on the two years, SAD! Google tells me that the traditional theme for second year anniversary gifts is cotton while the modern theme is china, so take your pick.
Shoutout #1 goes to the SADmin team (including and especially the mighty D'Hoffryn!) who built this awesome community in the first place. Y'all are tremendous humans.
Shoutout #2 goes to the writers, artists, readers, and commenters who continue to build this awesome community. Y'll are also tremendous humans.
Here's to many more anniversaries! (The third year traditional gift theme is leather, FYI, which feels appropriate 
)
P.S. Fabulous job on the collage! Kudos to whoever put that together!
Time has flown by! I can't believe it's been two years already! This is such a wonderful place to be part of a fabulous and welcoming community. <3 <3
Happy 2 years and here’s to many more! So thankful to be a part of this wonderful, welcoming community! β€οΈ
Thanks for being this place, SAD <3
I am blown away by all the shout outs. Thank you all, here's to many more years!
Happy Anniversary and thank you to all the Mods, Writers, and Artists who contribute so much! Pen and Paint is an amazing event to celebrate the amazing creativity, collaboration, and community here!
You are there for 2 years? Wow, I didn't know that! I am with you for around 1.5 year, so almost since you were an infant!π Congratulations on the anniversary!πππ₯°
JustMe, you're an OG and you didn't even know it!
How lucky was I to chance upon Sunnydale After Dark just when I discovered that there was such a thing as fanfiction? Spuffy fanfiction, at that!
SAD has done so much for me! A permanent buffet for a hungry reader, it is. A place for me to do what I like so much, i.e. work with words (words matter). A place for my eyes to soak in the diverse, outstanding artwork, and bask in it!
And above all, a true community, one that welcomes each and everyone in their individuality. My occasional forays into other archives has made it clear to me that none other even hints at the exceptional power of SAD.
And we have mostly to thank the amazing SADmins for their kindness, their competence, their warmth, their unique creativity, which brings us all together.
Thank you.
There's so much joy here and as a SADmin ... I know we consider all of you first. We want you to have the most user-friendly and community-driven experience we can foster. We don't just hear you ... we listen. We listen and consider what you want and make changes where we can to better your experience. Because we value you beyond the telling of it and we would NOT be here without you guys! We adore you all! Thank you for trusting us and allowing us to create a home for you all. This is YOUR place and we're so glad you've moved in and made it a home.
Happy 2nd Anniversary!
To my virtual home and happy place.