It was a scene in Necessary Evils - I had Tara talking to Buffy and mentioning something about the attitude her family/home town had towards "uppity dykes." My beta (the later-notorious CousinJean, as a matter of fact) threw a fit and said Tara would never, EVER use the word "dyke," and no decent writer should be using it either, etc.
I had to explain the whole idea of reclaiming language to her, and how Tara calling herself a dyke is completely different than, say, Warren calling her a dyke. And then pull out the deleted bits of dialogue from the Buffy/Tara conversation in the shooting script Dead Things, when Buffy's bemoaning that no one understands what it's like to have a relationship you have to hide from the world, and Tara replies, "Sweetie, I'm a fag." (I give Stephen DeKnight points for effort, and take them away again for incorrect terminology.) Even if the bit got cut, I felt that it provided a certain amount of evidence that Tara is perfectly capable of being blunt when the situation calls for it.
She still didn't like it, but I felt it was really important not to soften Tara's language in this scene, stood my ground, and left it in. I very rarely completely chuck out my betas' advice, but in this case, I really felt I would weaken the scene if I changed things.
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Date: 2013-06-19 03:01 am (UTC)I had to explain the whole idea of reclaiming language to her, and how Tara calling herself a dyke is completely different than, say, Warren calling her a dyke. And then pull out the deleted bits of dialogue from the Buffy/Tara conversation in the shooting script Dead Things, when Buffy's bemoaning that no one understands what it's like to have a relationship you have to hide from the world, and Tara replies, "Sweetie, I'm a fag." (I give Stephen DeKnight points for effort, and take them away again for incorrect terminology.) Even if the bit got cut, I felt that it provided a certain amount of evidence that Tara is perfectly capable of being blunt when the situation calls for it.
She still didn't like it, but I felt it was really important not to soften Tara's language in this scene, stood my ground, and left it in. I very rarely completely chuck out my betas' advice, but in this case, I really felt I would weaken the scene if I changed things.