red_satin_doll

ETA: Additional screencaps added below cut - which has also been added. (Post in haste, repent at leisure.)

Take a Moment: by

lanoyee. Gen, Buffy, Tara, Dawn. A "deleted scene" , post-"Grave"; Buffy bids a friend good-bye. Spare, elegant and melancholy, it's a scene I wish had been in the show. One of the things I love best about BtVS is how unsentimental it is generally, but sometimes, what I want and what I need are one and the same; no one else can determine that for me. This story gives me both, and it honors one of the most overlooked friendships in the Buffyerse: Buffy and Tara.

lanoyee recently began transferring some of her female-centric & Buffy-centric meta from her tumblr to her LJ ~~because I begged~~ at my request. In our conversations about one of our favorite shared subjects, the interrelationships of the women on BtVS, the same words kept coming up over and over: overlooked, underestimated, underappreciated, etc. When it comes to Buffy especially, her relationships with other women generate a lot less ink, as far as I can tell, than her relationships with the men in her life; it's easy to forget how central Joyce, Dawn, Willow, Faith etc are to Buffy's story, to her heart. Spike and Angel may be in her heart; Joyce and Dawn are her heart, they are her blood. And yet at the same time the show demonstrates that importance of "not in blood but in bond" relationships, to quote Kikimay's recent comment.

"Take a Moment" was written shortly after a conversation

lanoyee & I had about Buffy & Tara in particular, i.e. Why doesn't anyone talk about their relationship? About Tara's role in Buffy's story? Because it's not something I need to fanwank out of thin air, or squint to see: It's right there onscreen; they have a connection to one another that Buffy never shares with Anya, or at least until "Selfless" brings the "Xander's Lie" arc full circle.

pocochina thankfully mentions their connection in her 2011 meta character study of Tara, summing it up in quick, vivid strokes in just two paragraphs.

I'd call Buffy & Tara my OTF (one true friendship) except that's bullshit: aside from Buffy being my favorite character in the 'verse (and possibly in fiction, period) when it comes to this show, I may prefer certain things but I don't "OT_" anything. But FUFAW (Favorite Underappreciated Friendship Among Women) is pretty unwieldy, and sound like either a disease or something two cats would do in an alley.

Tara may not get a lot of time on the show, and she and Buffy rarely interact directly but she plays a key or essential role in some of the best episodes of the series, and when she does, she not only sings, she soars: "Hush", which both mirrors and flips Buffy and Willow's first encounters in "WTTH"; "Who are You", in which she is the only character to realize that Faith isn't really Buffy, and she's never even met Buffy before; "Restless", as a dream guide to Buffy her connection to Dawn, as a sister, becomes explicit; "Family" begins with Buffy verbally committing to protect Dawn from Glory after learning that Dawn isn't "real", and ends with Buffy and Dawn protecting Tara from the Maclays and naming her as one of their own: "Who do you think you are?" / "We're family." (I recently rewatched that episode waiting for a conversation between Buffy and Tara at the end at Tara's birthday party, and was shocked to realize it wasn't in the episode at all, but rather from

snowpuppies's fic "Here Comes the Sun" )
Speaking the words: "family" "sisters" "Summers blood" makes the commitment as physical and as real as mixing her own blood with Dawn's in BT.

Not in blood alone, but in bond.

The relationships between the women of the Buffyverse aren't an afterthought, something set to the side, they are absolutely central to it; and unlike most tv and movies shows I grew up with, the women of the Buffyverse don't relate only to the men, who in contrast enjoy rich friendships with one another. (Remember the popularity of the "buddy movie" esp in the 1980's?) That, for me, is one of the strengths of the Buffyverse. The women matter, and they matter to one another, as literal and metaphorical mothers, sisters, daughters, rivals, friends, and allies. They love, and choose to love, even when it's painful and difficult to do so.

And this may be behind my frustration or impatience with Angel, Riley and Giles. Yes, they have to leave, yes I get it, blah blah bitty blah. They can't stand the "fire" of love, so they get out of the kitchen, out of "women's space" literally and figuratively. I could devote an entire meta just to "Joyce's kitchen" as symbol of the Mother Principal, of Mater. The room where Buffy fights to protect Joyce in "Angel" and "Ted", where they have their worst fight in "Becoming Pt 2", where Joyce reaffirms her admiration and pride in Buffy in "Helpless", is also the room we associate with Tara's pancakes, and Spike fights for Buffy in "Touched". (The Mother Principle is not about literal gender.) It means something. They "chose" Mater and reaffirm the importance of love - raw, real, and messy love in all it's aspects, not the illusion of "romance". They bear witness to one another: you're important. You matter. I love you. I believe in you. Yes you fucked up, but you can do better next time. I understand you - or maybe I don't, but I can offer you comfort.

It's why we don't see Angel and Riley in the final battle in "Chosen" nor should we. It's why Giles absolutely has to "bend his knee" to the Warrior of the People, the Queen - and thank the stars that she is a benevolent one - if he expects to stand next to Buffy at the end. Or rather, behind her, in the final scene.

And it's one reason - of many - why Tara's absence in "Chosen" hurts so deeply; she earned the right to be there. Not as Willow's lover, not as a "perfect, faultless human being" (which she isn't, despite the tendency to canonize her as saint), and not even as Buffy's friend but as a powerful woman in her own right.

If I don't go into the politics overmuch here it's because I have a LOT more to say on the subject and am saving it for the moment; but also because it's dominated the discussion re: Tara for over ten years. Rage or silence and little in between the two. If I focus on her death, then I fail to celebrate her life, and it's worth celebrating. Her very existence as the first three-dimensional lesbian character in a realistic lesbian relationship is worth celebrating. And deserves a much better legacy than shameful silence and lack of any such characters that still exists - or rather, doesn't exist - in US television ten years later.

As long as we share her story she'll never lack for mourners and lovers, but if we fail to do so then she "dies", utterly and completely.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rahirah

(sorry, wrong account!)

I was always a little sad Buffy and Tara never got more screen time together. As someone who also lost her mother young and pretty much had to take care of herself, Tara was someone Buffy had a lot in common with. But I think there were multiple strikes against them developing a really close friendship - on the one hand, Willow kind of wanted to keep Tara to herself, and not let her get absorbed by the Scooby force field. And on the other, once Willow loosened up a little, we started to get into S5 and the beginning of Buffy closing herself off. And then in S6, although desperation drove Buffy to confide in Tara, the situation with Willow again made things awkward, and Buffy doesn't seem to have continued to seek her out post OAFA.

Oddly, I once had one of the biggest arguments I ever had with a beta over some lines of Buffy and Tara dialogue...

From:

red-satin-doll.livejournal.com

(sorry, wrong account!)

You had us both confused for a moment. *lol* No worries, I deleted the other post. I've been meaning to ask you how the hell you all manage to do what you do with the herald ever since

spuffy_luvr told me she thought you actually screen everything you link to? It makes me headachy just to think of it.

I was always a little sad Buffy and Tara never got more screen time together. As someone who also lost her mother young and pretty much had to take care of herself, Tara was someone Buffy had a lot in common with.

I was beginning to think I was crazy for thinking that, so yay! When I started writing meta notes about them I noticed how they both are deeply bonded with loving but imperfect mothers who are the centers of their emotional worlds, and both have issues with fathers who are either absent (Hank) or abusive/overcontrolling (Mr Maclay). And so forth. They are both very loyal and loving but also stubborn at times, but express it in very different ways. Has anyone ever written a Tara the Vampire Slayer fic? Or Tara being the one called after Kendra (or Faith's) death? That could be nifty.

And they both have a strain of dogmatism in their thinking that's been handed down from their "fathers" - lies their parents told them, indeed. ("the Chosen One" "demons bad, Humans Good" "all the women in our family are demons, you're just like them" etc)

I love how they protect each other and Tara offers Buffy comfort but I'm also really interested in Tara's symbolic or metaphorical role in Buffy's story as well as her literal one, and I haven't see a lot written about that or the two of them in fic or meta. I have a series in mind but rather than the whiny "Why doesn't fandom write about these two, WHY?" I was trying for the "ac-cen-tu-ate the positive/be the change I wanted to see" approach.

But that is a curious thing to me: fanfic/ fandom is the place where we can fantasize or fill in the gaps and I guess that's a gap that people haven't been interested in filling? Maybe because I didn't really get interested in Tara as a person in her own right until S6 (OMWF/TR).

But I think there were multiple strikes against them developing a really close friendship

Very much so, yes. I understand Willow's stance of "wanting to keep Tara for herself"; I remember those days of early relationship with my sweetie and how we just FUSED into each other (every lesbian couple I knew in those days did the same - is that a lesbian thing or a universal thing?) but at the same time I know now how unhealthy it is to cut yourself or others off from the outside world, your friends and resources, etc. esp once the "honeymoon phase" is over.

the situation with Willow again made things awkward, and Buffy doesn't seem to have continued to seek her out post OAFA.

The writers did use Tara as a plot device, sadly, most of the time - hell, her entire initial purpose was a plot device and she was supposed to die so Joss could have his "Dark Willow" storyline after Seth Green left. They really could have done so much more with her, and Amber Benson seemed game for it once they gave her the chance in S6.

I do recall Willow being jealous about Tara and Buffy connecting because they both lost their mothers in TL. NOT one of Willow's finer moments but it got pushed aside after Tara was tortured by Glory. The dialogue does seem to imply that Buffy and Tara had connected with each other more than that one time in The Body, which Willow wasn't privvy to? Otherwise, Willow's jealousy doesn't quite make sense. I need to rewatch the ep, though.

I once had one of the biggest arguments I ever had with a beta over some lines of Buffy and Tara dialogue...

About what exactly? Care to share? *perks up* Was this in one of the POM/Barbsverse stories?

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The Earth Her Body - Fic by La Noyee, (and random thoughts about the women of the 'verse) (1/?)

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