It's official. Another year has come and gone. Sunnydale After Dark has been Spuffying for 3 whole years now! The archive continues to fill up with Spuffy goodness every day and our community continues to be the kindest, most wonderful group of ficcers in all the land. We are seriously so thankful to all of you who have taken part.
So what have we been up to this past year? Well last year at this time we were wrapping up the incredibly popular Pen and Paint event in which artists inspired fic which inspired artists and more fic. It was a whole beautiful thing. In September things got mythical with the Legend Has It event. Then we introduced our first fic/art exchange event for the holiday season with the festive SADvent Calendar event. A new Spuffy gift every day of the holiday season? Yes please. And then of course there was our traditional Short & Spuffy drabble event in March, which is always absolute madness and mayhem in the very best of ways!
D’Hoffryn introduced the Fic Rec Generator, an awesome new tool that gathers your liking and favoriting data to give you personalized story recommendations.
SAD now hosts 1,943 works with a total word count of 29,531,738. Readers have left 51, 305 comments totaling 3,678,050 words! And our total membership has grown to 2,713.
For a show that ended over 20 years ago, this fandom is STILL red hot, growing and changing all the time. Before SAD started, three years ago, we wondered if we should bother with a new archive. After all, there used to be a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic archives, but as the years went on they slowly seemed to dwindle. Starting a new one after so long, we really weren’t sure if anyone would want to bother joining. But people did join then and they’re still here now and it’s so gratifying to know that there are 2,713 of us who care about Spuffy and this little corner of the internet.
We hear time and time again that people love the vibe of Sunnydale After Dark. And that means the people. The commenters feel like good friends here, and the authors, artists, and betas are always helping each other out in our thriving Discord community. We’re so proud of the amazing diversity of fans here and the community’s support for all our creators.
So thank you, guys! For the vibes and for three years time 
Please leave a comment with something you love about SAD or a favorite memory of yours from your time here! We’d love a little three year time capsule of fun moments in the comment section of this post.
--Dusty, GetItDone, Chelle, and Grief Counseling on 06/23/25 07:43 pm 17 Comments
Happy three years, SAD! How could I not love a place that introduced me to the chaos of the wheel? And taught me the true madness of drabbling?
My favorite memory has to be the Christmas party I was SO not drunk at. That wasn't me. Nope. There are zero witnesses to that madness, either.
I have also enjoyed every single wheel spin and prompt release for Short & Spuffy waaaay more than I should. Even if no one loved my "angst is my oxygen" moment. All of our events have been so wonderful, and I'm proud of that.
I've loved every second of SAD and meeting so many new friends who not only volunteer to beta, brainstorm, and make art ... but they also cheerlead in the comments. But most of all, everyone stepped up with kindness and compassion when I lost my dog Jasper. I've never felt so loved and supported as I went through that, and I didn't suffer alone. People reached out to ask me to tell them about him and share pics of him. It felt like therapy in a way, and the love radiating back at me healed up my little blackened heart.
I'm just so proud that SAD has exceeded every single dream we talked about as we were creating it. Three years have flown by, but they've been wonderful years. I'm so lucky to be here and to still be writing in this fandom. YOU GUYS are everything we could have hoped for when we made this archive. Thank you ALL for that. <3
The rhyme for orange. π§‘
My favorite thing about Sunnydale After Dark is how absolutely not SAD it is. ;) We have so much fun, whether it's engaging in comments on our stories, talking for ages on Discord, or participating in events, we always have a blast!
A personal highlight was seeing multiple fan favorite stories printed and treated with such love by two wonderful members who know how to bind books. That's such a special thing, because not only do those stories now live forever on shelves, but it exemplifies the artform and puts it alongside "the normals", while simultaneously proving that this fandom isn't dying anytime soon.
I also loved spinning the wheel! I didn't participate in any events this year, which was incredibly difficult and actually SAD, but getting to participate in them as an admin is always awesome. We've had a plethora of artists throughout these past three years contribute their talents to our awards, and I love that inclusiveness. <3
You all make me so proud to have been added to the admins. I couldn't ask for a better team of leaders who have so much compassion and love for this site. I can't wait to see where we go from here with the reboot dangling in the future, and hope it helps to expand our family every year.
To those friendships I've made along the way, I love you all! And to the friends I haven't made yet, I can't wait to get to know you!
Congrats, SAD for three years around the sun!! π I can’t wait to build memories to share for the future, but for now I just want to say thanks. I’ve felt really welcomed here by the community since joining the Drabble event, and it’s all thanks to the amazing people who help make this site the best place it can be. Cheers to all you beautiful souls - thanks for having me here!! π₯°
My favorite thing about SAD is the friendships and fun!
If it wasn’t for SAD, scratchmeout and I wouldn’t have known each other and flying out to the USA to meet her and her family last year was one of my highlights of being a part of this community.
Another great memory is the Euromeet in Amsterdam last year. So many great people I got to hang out with that day. It was a blast!
The events have been crazy and full of mayhem haha. They even got me into writing, who would have thought.
Thanks for everything you guys do for this great community. I’m happy to be a part of it.
Happy 3 years, SAD! π₯° π₯³
It's incredible to think I've been here from those early days. Tomorrow marks my 3-year membership. I still remember clicking that link in a story on IG and landing here! I had fallen in a Spuffy nostalgia hole and this soon became a happy place where I could disconnect from the daily struggles.
And then I saw a challenge that made me want to try my hand at writing. My first and longest story (2 and a half years, +200k words) was born but it was just the beginning. πΈ
The events are always my favorite part. It’s engaging to challenge myself with the new themes chosen by our SADmin team and I love collecting the stunning awards that come with every event. Short & Spuffy is always a huge favorite because of its chaotic fun and it's the event that introduced me to drabbles. Condensing something in exactly 100 words sounded nearly impossible because of my pathological wordiness, and I confess that I was seconds away from opting out of S&S 2023 until I read that by writing all 30 drabbles we could earn the Naked Spike Award. Say what??? π€© I couldn’t not get that! So I challenged myself and now S&S is my favorite recurring event. It's not just because there’s a new Naked Spike every year (although that’s always the best motivation). I love to join the fun madness of the spinning wheel and to let the mystery prompts decide the direction of what I'm writing. I ended up with an evil frog invasion this year, and the idea that I wrote that is still cracking me up! π€£
And I love the family vibe of SAD. My severe social anxiety makes it very difficult for me to interact outside of the comment sections of the stories, so I'm not very active on Discord and the only real connection I managed to form is with my beta and good friend Marina. But even locked in my little bubble I feel that vibe every time I open SAD.
And that’s probably the main reason why I’m about to celebrate my own 3-year anniversary with SAD. π
Well, that and all the Naked Spikes, of course! π
Happy birthday, SAD! π
Ahhh my favorite thing this year was probably meeting in person a lot of my closest SAD pals in Washington DC. That meetup was so special. I had so much fun. I also LOVED writing my Short and Spuffy fic this year. It's always my favorite event and I've been thinking about that story and writing it for years and I finally got to! What a feeling. But my favorite thing at SAD every year is truly the people and the closeness. I just feel like all the best people on the internet are HERE and I can chat with them on Discord any time I want to and no one will be a jerk. It's just love and support and fun all day every day and that's what I'm here for.
Happy 3 years!!! 
Happy three years SAD! I love this friendly and inspiring community! I haven’t been as active this past year because life has been…well, life! But, I have loved seeing all the creative events and really enjoyed the Pen & Paint event so much. 
I feel like I’m still “new” in the world of Spuffy but I also know that SAD makes me feel like I’ve been a part of the community for years. Everyone is so kind and welcoming and I’ve made such lovely online and IRL friendships that give me the opportunity to gush over my favorite fandom couple and have a built in support system when it comes to real life problems. It’s the best of both worlds and I truly am so happy to be part of this community. π
Happy 3 years to SAD! πͺ Thank you for being my creative getaway space. β€οΈ
I love this warm community that is my absolute favorite place on the internet! I enjoy late-night Discord chats I share with my SAD family (and some all-day ones, too) and am so happy to have met two SAD friends at HellmouthCon this month and hope to meet more at future meet-ups β€οΈ Thank you to everyone for making this wonderful space so full of talent and heart!
This is a good place. My favourite memory is of course the "merry month of Magnus " event during December 2023. It was a total surprise when I saw the first story on the 1st, but it was of course great to see 31 stories written specifically for meπ
I do remember that black screen with a mysterious countdown as if it was yesterday! Happy, happy, SAD my favourite place on the internet!
Happy Third Anniversary (birthday?) SAD. And congratulations on the success of the archive. It is a warm, friendly place to be.
Happy 3 Years!!!ππ
Thanks for all of your hard work, and bringing us more Beautiful Spuffy happiness!!!ππ₯°
Congrats to 3 Years, SAD! I’m so happy this site was created! I’ve read such lovely stories and met wonderful people here, and I’m sending all the good vibes for many more years to come.
My favorite memories - posting a finished fic, posting my darker fics I had no intention of ever posting, being inspired by Pen and Paint, the bunnies taking over on April Fool’s, holiday gift fics, etc.
Overall, just being inspired! I wrote a lot of stuff here that I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the support and the creative events ♥οΈ Thank you mods and members for all you do.