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

[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.

Comments

[the-royal-anna.livejournal.com]

Reading this, I had a sudden awful vision of BtVS without its female friendships. There are many things that set the show apart, but without that, I don't know that anything else can redeem it. And the nature of those relationships, too: not a glib, Buffybot "You're my best friend", but the complicated reality of what it means to connect with and care for someone.

They love, and choose to love, even when it's painful and difficult to do so.

Yes, this. So much.

I'm so glad you've highlighted the Buffy/Tara friendship. It sits quietly at the foundation of so much else, and it's only when other layers topple down around it that it becomes particularly visible. I love Tara in Who Are You - without ever having met Buffy, she knows her better than her friends do. And she knows her better than she knows herself sometimes - when she tells Buffy in Dead Things that's it OK to love Spike, or OK to be with him even if she doesn't, she's found the little crack of light at a point of darkness. Buffy is so determined to just be wrong at that point, but when Tara allows her logic and (even) feeling, it's a challenge as well as a comfort.

Also, I have a great love of story told through place, so I am now happily contemplating all the important kitchen-based events that take place over the course of the show.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thank you for stopping by to read this! *Does happy dance*

Reading this, I had a sudden awful vision of BtVS without its female friendships. There are many things that set the show apart, but without that, I don't know that anything else can redeem it.

Indeed! One of the things I loved about early seasons Buffy & Willow was how genuine their friendship seemed onscreen, even with all it's problems; I loved the way they were intimate with each other, and even physical (linking arms, hugging etc), which is something I had rarely seen onscreen growing up but I know is part of intimate friendships with other women. When that's missing - when connections between women are missing on a tv show, I notice it immediately and watching btvs makes it that much sharper. I'm watching Crossing Jordan right now, which has a female protagonist, and it's an entertaining show, but that aspect of it is missing. When that happens it feels like a hole, like an ache when I watch it.

not a glib, Buffybot "You're my best friend"

Oh, poor Buffybot; just mentioning her makes me want to cry now. lanoyee reminded me that she's a metaphor for Buffy in more ways than one - chosen or manufactured at the whim of a man, subservient to a predetermined duty, built to serve, then be discarded at will. outer-directed towards the needs of others rather than inner-directed like Ted or Adam. And just as she begins to touch for a moment something close to self-awareness, like a child does - differentiating between the Self and Others (parents) - she dies. Have you ever read mabus101 's "(metem)psychosis", btw? http://mabus101.livejournal.com/125867.html

the complicated reality of what it means to connect with and care for someone.

I'm trying to remember now who said recently that Buffy doesn't much distinguish between "types of loves" - her friends, her family etc. I think that goes back to your own observation "I don't know that we love in amounts. We love in ways." But it's very true generally - we think of lovers/partner relationships as being in their own little catagory, but the fundamentals of relationship dynamics, of being with someone in any sense, are very much the same. I've had relationships as intense as affairs, including the "come down" from the honeymoon phase, the disillusionment. Adding sex/marriage/living together simply adds another layer and deeper complications; difference in degree, not kind.

It sits quietly at the foundation of so much else, and it's only when other layers topple down around it that it becomes particularly visible.

YES, so so much so. This gets at what is central to Tara, her quiet strength. Sometimes she needs to be able to call up the power of the demon she was so afraid of being (Bargaining: "No one messes with my girlfriend"), but quiet doesn't have to mean weak or submissive. There's a lot of ink spilled re: "Willow's growing confidence" but it's Tara's growth I find extraordinary, especially given her family background, where quiet and submissive was a survival strategy.

I love Tara in Who Are You - without ever having met Buffy, she knows her better than her friends do. And she knows her better than she knows herself sometimes

THIS. I could write an entire book about that episode, it's superb and densely-layered. And that aspect of it is one of the best. Tara is already in a sense "a sister" to Buffy, connected in a way that her friends are not; the comments about "Buffy's soul" "jammed in where it doesn't belong" foreshadows Bargaining, and I suspect that it's actually a very accurate description of Faith's soul even in her own body. Buffy and Faith will "meet in the middle" by the end of S7 rather than being on opposite sides of the mirror and WAY is a key episode in their journeys, and Tara holds "the key" to unlocking the mystery in the present.

Pt 2 - long comment is really long

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

when she tells Buffy in Dead Things that's it OK to love Spike, or OK to be with him even if she doesn't, she's found the little crack of light at a point of darkness.

And that's coming from someone who had an abusive family and has physically left an abusive relationship with Willow. So Tara's lack of judgement is all the more extraordinary but she knows. She may be out of the house but leaving a relationship mentally and emotionally? that's a different thing altogether. And you can do wrong things for the right reasons, you can be a loving person, love someone deeply and still hurt them. Tara knows all of this; and this again is one of the keys to the series. It started out in black and white, as Giles and the WC tried to instill in Buffy, while along the shades of grey keep multiplying. Puzzling out the difference between the "lies our parents told us" and what we actually believe for ourselves, what our truth is, as we enter adulthood.

Buffy is so determined to just be wrong at that point, but when Tara allows her logic and (even) feeling, it's a challenge as well as a comfort.

So much so. I've read fan opinions that Tara says the worst thing she possibly could in that ep, but she's not a trained therapist. She's a young woman doing the best she can to be there for a friend. And this scene reminds me so much of a time I was in "my" therapist's office (a very wise and mature woman who was a lifeline to me for a time), and she said "you really enjoy punishing yourself, don't you?" it sounds harsh when I type it but it was anything but. I was self-flagellating and she wouldn't join in the game, wouldn't judge me because, as angearia observed once of Buffy, I felt like that's what I deserved.

I have a great love of story told through place, so I am now happily contemplating all the important kitchen-based events that take place over the course of the show.

So do I. Where we come from and the memories we gather from that is part of who we are. But it's not all of who we are, either. Dawn's memories aren't real, so she has to make herself real. Buffy can let go of the physical place and know that she carries them within herself and that's enough. Wherever you go, there you are. The memories provide the foundation for whatever she builds anew - home, relationships, sense of identity.

I'm thinking of your story "the back porch steps, revisited" - One of the few fanfics I've printed and reread. What I loved best was the scene in the dining room; which isn't written about as much. Buffy with the household expenses reminds me of Joyce with the bills in Helpless. Spike standing in the doorway. I actually have meta/picspam planned around bedrooms in the show; and plan to write more about that kitchen space.