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red_satin_dollSo here's the sequence of events (and there will be a pop quiz later, so pay attention please):
1)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clockwork_hart1 asked for fic requests in order to occupy herself whilst in the hospital. I asked for a Buffy & Tara friendship fic. She responded with "Talk to Me (That's What Friends Are For)" . In case you missed my pimpage the other day it's a "missing scene" that takes the dross of one of the mind-bogglingly worst episodes in the series, "As You Were" and spins pure gold from it. Buffy goes to Tara after the credits roll and offer each other compassion, kindness, and gentle understanding, punctuated by tears and laughter. The story also makes explicit a point that, like every other connection between them, is underplayed and overlooked: Both Tara and Buffy have, at some point in the series, believed themselves to literally be "demons", to be "wrong" at their very being and been scarred by that belief. (And clockwork_hart1 wrote this while recovering in the hospital, people. R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)
2)comlodge read the story and created a gorgeous Buffy and Tara friendship banner for it. There's something in the delicate coloring that emphasizes the emotional fragility of the characters, even as the text from the Burt Bacharach/Carol Sager song assures us of the strength of their bond. She used one of the screencaps from that last scene in Dead Things of Buffy and Tara in Buffy's living room. (You know that scene, right? The one that smashes my heart into tiny pieces no matter how many times I watch it, and is one of the reasons Dead Things was the very first ep I had to watch when I finally got internet in my new apartment?) comlodge is known and loved mostly for her Spike fanart but every time she turns her attention to other characters in the 'verse she knocks it out of the park.
ETA: And she did another Buffy & Tara banner just before that I only just now saw - same scene, but the moment where Buffy's head is in Tara's lap, sobbing "Please don't forgive me." Very different tonal feel from one banner to the other; both of them equally gorgeous. It's not who she's sleeping with that is, at heart, the issue here IMO; it's her shame and guilt regarding her own behavior. (And has anyone else noticed that Joyce's photograph is next to Tara in that scene btw?) Imagine that she's sleeping with Xander; or random strangers off the street and the scene plays exactly the same way.
MORE, PLEASE. I have to say that all these "presents" and creativity, one idea leading to another, a work in one medium inspiring another and who knows what either one will inspire in turn? This is one of the finest aspects of fandom - of this fandom in particular. Also of interest to me if nobody else: Thanks toclockwork_hart1 I have been a beta for the first time ever in Buffyverse fandom. That's a present (to me) in and of itself.
SO NOW I'M GOING TO MAKE ANOTHER REQUEST: A BUFFY and TARA FANVID. Something that emphasizes the parallels between them. Or one that focuses on Tara's role in the Buffyverse outside of W/T: sister, friend, mother-figure; the stranger who truly "sees" (Who are You); the bridge between Buffy's symbolic sisters (Willow and Tara) and her literal sister (Dawn), who replaces Faith as the "harbinger of Dawn" (Restless); the girls marked out as "different, demonic" and carry that shame within themselves; and so forth. I can provide the meta ideas, if need be.
Anyone want to take me up on it?
1)
clockwork_hart1 asked for fic requests in order to occupy herself whilst in the hospital. I asked for a Buffy & Tara friendship fic. She responded with "Talk to Me (That's What Friends Are For)" . In case you missed my pimpage the other day it's a "missing scene" that takes the dross of one of the mind-bogglingly worst episodes in the series, "As You Were" and spins pure gold from it. Buffy goes to Tara after the credits roll and offer each other compassion, kindness, and gentle understanding, punctuated by tears and laughter. The story also makes explicit a point that, like every other connection between them, is underplayed and overlooked: Both Tara and Buffy have, at some point in the series, believed themselves to literally be "demons", to be "wrong" at their very being and been scarred by that belief. (And clockwork_hart1 wrote this while recovering in the hospital, people. R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)2)
comlodge read the story and created a gorgeous Buffy and Tara friendship banner for it. There's something in the delicate coloring that emphasizes the emotional fragility of the characters, even as the text from the Burt Bacharach/Carol Sager song assures us of the strength of their bond. She used one of the screencaps from that last scene in Dead Things of Buffy and Tara in Buffy's living room. (You know that scene, right? The one that smashes my heart into tiny pieces no matter how many times I watch it, and is one of the reasons Dead Things was the very first ep I had to watch when I finally got internet in my new apartment?) comlodge is known and loved mostly for her Spike fanart but every time she turns her attention to other characters in the 'verse she knocks it out of the park.ETA: And she did another Buffy & Tara banner just before that I only just now saw - same scene, but the moment where Buffy's head is in Tara's lap, sobbing "Please don't forgive me." Very different tonal feel from one banner to the other; both of them equally gorgeous. It's not who she's sleeping with that is, at heart, the issue here IMO; it's her shame and guilt regarding her own behavior. (And has anyone else noticed that Joyce's photograph is next to Tara in that scene btw?) Imagine that she's sleeping with Xander; or random strangers off the street and the scene plays exactly the same way.
MORE, PLEASE. I have to say that all these "presents" and creativity, one idea leading to another, a work in one medium inspiring another and who knows what either one will inspire in turn? This is one of the finest aspects of fandom - of this fandom in particular. Also of interest to me if nobody else: Thanks to
clockwork_hart1 I have been a beta for the first time ever in Buffyverse fandom. That's a present (to me) in and of itself.SO NOW I'M GOING TO MAKE ANOTHER REQUEST: A BUFFY and TARA FANVID. Something that emphasizes the parallels between them. Or one that focuses on Tara's role in the Buffyverse outside of W/T: sister, friend, mother-figure; the stranger who truly "sees" (Who are You); the bridge between Buffy's symbolic sisters (Willow and Tara) and her literal sister (Dawn), who replaces Faith as the "harbinger of Dawn" (Restless); the girls marked out as "different, demonic" and carry that shame within themselves; and so forth. I can provide the meta ideas, if need be.
Anyone want to take me up on it?
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Date: 2013-10-18 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 08:38 pm (UTC)Very much so. And there's enough suggestion if you read between the lines that they interacted far more than we saw. (Willow's jealousy or feeling of "outsiderness" re: Buffy and Tara and the argument in Tough Love suggests as much.)
It's good to step outside one's own little obsessions from time to time. :D
I still need to work on that one. (Every time I tell myself I will not mention Spuffy in this convo thread, nope I - go and do it anyway. Oy vey.)
Your banner really is lovely and, like Winged!Buffy, all the more a treat for being unexpected. (Buffy may not like surprises but I do! If they like this, anyway.)
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Date: 2013-10-18 08:45 pm (UTC)Buffy can be a bit boring like that. I sometimes think she is too linear and therefor leans to the masculine, in her thought patterns. I wonder if that is because they were writing her like a man trying to make her the hero. Hmmm.
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Date: 2013-10-18 09:20 pm (UTC)I really do encourage it. you understand Buffy so much better I think that way. (Remember that in Joss' canon in the movie and in a flashback in Becoming, Buffy had another Watcher, Merrick. He died fighting a vampire, right in front of her; she had to burn down the school gym at Hemery High to defeat him. So there was already a downward social trajectory for her from Cordelia-esque cheerleader to outcast when she walks into Sunnydale HS.) You can really see in the long term how Spuffy and Bangel are opposites of one another, how the relationships play out; her earlier traumas, etc: being killed by the Master the first time and dealing with the PTSD - a thing to remember really, Buffy has untreated PTSD all the way through the series. She has to lie to her mother and everyone else except Giles and the SG about her identity, per Giles' instructions. Her relationship with her father is tenuous. etc
Buffy can be a bit boring
Boring? I don't find her that at all; she's not as flamboyant as Willow or Spike; but also seeing the early seasons will give you some perspective on that. the events of the show alter her drastically. A lot of that, honestly is due to her friends, and Xander, well-meaning as he is, plays a key role in the mixed message of "I admire you and love you but I'll judge you harshly if you don't meet my expectations." I'm not saying she's not at fault either; they are both kids from broken homes with little guidance.
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Date: 2013-10-18 09:20 pm (UTC)That sounds like a description of Willow, the "computer programmer" who approaches magic as if it were an IT program she can manipulate; and who is more "intellectual", and in some ways aligned with Giles as "research girl." Buffy esp early seasons is very creative, intuitive and feminine. She saves the world - a lot - in part because of her ability to put clues together, listen to her intuition and come up with novel solutions. That's part of what makes her different than most Slayers up to that point; Kendra represents the WC approved model trained to be nothing but a killing machine, an automaton (like the Buffybot.)
Even in later seasons she's still very nurturing, if not in "obvious" ways all the time; she's not as "soft" like tara is. But tara doesn't have the burden of the entire world on her shoulders either. (And how "soft" does Buffy have to be? How many tears does she have to cry, to be accepted by her friends, by fandom?) Buffy takes care of Dawn, protects her friends, sacrifices her life twice for friends and family as well as the world; that's a VERY stereotypical "female" trait in our culture. I would have hated the show to end with the Gift: another female martyr.
I wonder if that is because they were writing her like a man trying to make her the hero
Again - see the early seasons. In S1 they emphasized her girlyness in part for the novelty of it - "the blond girl in the alley who is the one killed first in the horror movie turns and is the hero instead". I don't think "hero" is masculine or feminine. I don't think "hardness" or closed-offness is inherently masculine either.
Joss is not as much a feminist as he likes to think. The big arc is: Buffy has to become closed-off and lose (or think she's lost) her ability to love ONLY to open her heart again right at the end. THAT'S her "hero's journey". The shipper in me delights in that, the feminist wonders WHY is "learning how to love" the most heroic thing Joss can come up with for a female hero? That's not the arc for male heros in general; achievement in the world is the masculine arc most times. buffy has to confirm her ability to relate (esp to a man) and connect/share power (the Potentials), men are expected to confirm their individuality as heros.
I do recall from past conversations that women who are 'too masculine' is an issue for you. I'm not sure where that line is drawn, though or how you define that?
As a lesbian, I'm aware of the history of lesbian women in this society who are considered "mannish" or "masculine" even if they aren't "butch"; or are "usurping masculine priviledges." So I'm somewhat sensitive to the implications of that. (People will assume that I haven't wanted to have children because I'm a lesbian, for instance, which assumes that I am not a "normal woman" and that "normal women" of course want children. Rather than, I just happen to be someone who doesn't want kids, doesn't believe I can raise them and doesn't want to be an abusive mother and bring more hurt into the world.)
But I digress....
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Date: 2013-10-18 11:00 pm (UTC)Right? A lot of people say the gift would have been a great finale, given that it brings Buffy's journey - as a hero and a slayer - comes to it's logical (see: fatal) conclusion. I call bullshit.
Yes, The Gift is a rather magnificent episode, one that I do really like, but it shouldn't be the end.
The whole point of Buffy and her legacy was to make girls feel strong, let them be their own heroes (well, I think that's what Joss was aiming for, anyway), and so to just let her die, the sacrificial lamb, as it were, is complete nonsense, particularly as the outside world - within the verse - would still have no idea of the impact she's had. She'd fade into obscurity as being, just like what you said, "another female martyr".
Okay, now I'm breathing.
WHY is "learning how to love" the most heroic thing Joss can come up with for a female hero?
Again, THIS. That is awful, right? While, as a character, it can be argued Buffy's power stems from love, there are also consistent points that suggest not loving is a slayer's downfall. Look at the autonomous Kendra - it's made clear throughout that she's been all but starved of affection, and Buffy's caring perplexes her; guess who dies less than a year into her Slayerhood, appearing in only four episodes? Then Spike's comment in School Hard is just as telling, "A Slayer with family and friends. That sure as hell wasn't in the brochure." This coming from a guy whose studied Slayers, killed two.
Sorry, is my feminism showing?
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Date: 2013-10-19 12:18 am (UTC)Sorry, is my feminism showing?
Hell yes AND I LOVE IT Agree with EVERY SINGLE WORD. PREACH ON!
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Date: 2013-10-19 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-21 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-21 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-22 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-19 09:20 pm (UTC)I didn't really mean Buffy is boring. I'm not sure what word I wanted - just that she doesn't like surprises and it takes a long time for her to 'see' someone.
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Date: 2013-10-19 11:05 pm (UTC)And the parallels are amazing - Restless refers back to Puppet show in it's imagery twice. The entire show is so dense in it's imagery and each season builds on the others, it's more like a novel than most tv shows I've seen.
Giles is a bit different in S1 at first - tweedy, incompetent; he says in the Witch "That was my first spell" etc. I don't think they had come up with the Ripper backstory yet, based on what I see onscreen.
Re: Buffy "takes a long time to 'see' someone" - are you referring just to Spike and the later seasons? I can see what you mean in the early seasons with Angel, not realizing who he is at first (but then he keeps information from her); but in many instances she's astonishingly compassionate AND intuitive. In episodes like The Hyena, Ted, Living Conditions, she knows intuits that something is off, that Xander is bespelled or she's dealing with demons or bad forces when everyone else (Giles and the SG) dismiss her suspicions. Conceptualizing her entirely through the lens of Spuffy misses huge chunks of her story.
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Date: 2013-10-20 07:34 am (UTC)I suppose I was not blown away by the whole 'blonde teenager' is the hero and saves people rather than the victim because by the time I watched Buffy other heroine's have stepped up in fiction and film, I'm past identifying with teenage angst overly much, I probably don't like to be reminded that I still haven't grown up (though I have decided that I'm not) and because I thought that the show went too far the other way and portrays all the male charachters as almost needing rescue themselves.
Society is so very good at righting wrongs by going overboard and reducing someone or something else's power. It's my problem with feminism. Don't get me wrong, I know that women are the most discriminated against because every race and religion is into it. But women are not empowered by decreasing the power of men. We will only ever be empowered when we stand side by side. Course that is way easier said then done but I guess it is happening slowly, except when we look at history the progress of women in the last decades of last century into this century has been quite enormous.
I'm kinda hoping that the internet is going to take us forward in all manner of discrimination so that we don't need laws to stop discrimination - they really don't work in the long term - we just expect to treat everyone the same.
I'm glad you love Buffy. I like her. I like her with Spike. I like them as partners. I like them as equals though I kinda think she will always run the show. Experience has taught me it is so. I've never found my equal - is that a bit of a big head? Hubby and I confer but for some reason he almost always defers. I'm the handy one. I'm the planner. I'm the one who is supposed to do it all. God now I'm off rack and whinging.
Anyway, Buffy had heaps of shit to deal with that her friends simply were to busy with their own shit to deal with. I've read fic that rewrote such things but I kinda like the arcs that played through the show because I kinda like that Spike eventually got a soul for a very right reason. I don't think he could be redeemed until he got back that little shit that sits on your shoulder and says 'it's wrong'. He really was, in the Jossverse, a leashed bad demon. Now I'm quite happy to go off canon for a vampire story but I like the story arc that Spike went through. It's what brought me to the show and kept me there.
Buffy got to grow as well. They all did though story space restricted the telling of a lot of that which is why it is great to have fanfic to fill it in. I do a lot of angsty stuff with Spike because there is a ton of angst there. I always wonder what he is doing when he is not on screen. Buffy has a hard enough time dealing in S6 and she has friends who do offer some distraction and a tad of support.
Apart from Clem, who we see from time to time, Spike really is on his own. Rather like we often are while we are trying to get by.
Anyway, I gotta go feed the horses. :D
Ok, now I think I get what you mean by surprises
Date: 2013-10-18 09:28 pm (UTC)But the kicker here is the events of Surprise/Innocence: her friends has a surprise party planned but I don't think she got to attend it; but the real surprise was making love to Angel on her 17th birthday and waking up to him having lost his soul. (And her friends, including Xander, slut-shaming her about "giving him a happy." Not cool.)
On her 18th birthday (Helpless) the surprise was finding out about the Cruci...whatever test that was traditionally given to Slayers when they turned 18, facing a demon while powerless. Finding out that Giles has stuck a needle in her. "You poisoned me?" And she has to save her mother from the monster. If you haven't seen that ep - it's one of the scariest and most powerful of S3 and maybe the series. This is the episode where Buffy says the line about her birthday tradition of "pain and misery".
Remember the look on her face when she first wakes up next to Riley and discovers he's still in bed with her? that goes right back to Angel in S2. (By contrast she's delighted by the birthday party at her house in Blood Ties and takes girlish delight in the gifts - and then Dawn comes out with her arm slashed; and she has to save her from Glory's clutches.)
So it's not just personality - Buffy has REASONS for not liking surprises!
Re: Ok, now I think I get what you mean by surprises
Date: 2013-10-19 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: Ok, now I think I get what you mean by surprises
Date: 2013-10-19 10:56 pm (UTC)I don't think I have ever had a surprise party, so I don't have any experience in that regard.
Re: Buffy, I can imagine that after the events of Empty Places, that it would take a while before she didn't feel slightly nervous when walking into a room full of people. On the show she goes right back in and gets down to business, as always (world-saveage and all that); so I would think that only afterwards would she have time to really experience and process the trauma/grief of those entire last days. (But then isn't that true for most of us - take care of the immediate situation and THEN realize how it's affected us?)
Re: Ok, now I think I get what you mean by surprises
Date: 2013-10-20 02:12 am (UTC)You'd be surprised, perhaps, at the number of people who do not just get on with it and continue to save the 'world' in face of a personal horror/trauma. It's hard to be strong so a lot of people do not even try. And when one is the strong one, people just expect that person to carry on regardless and never have a down day and always live up to other people's ideas of how they should behave.
Buffy is a victim of being the strong one, the one that has to lead. She is not allowed mistakes. or to wallow or feel sorry for herself. She is supposed to get over it and help every one else with their problems. So I probably being mean when I call her selfish for breaking up with Spike 'because it's killing me' and not because she was using him, had been using him, had been leaving him to change on his own.
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Date: 2013-10-18 10:25 pm (UTC)It's good to step outside one's own little obsessions from time to time. :D
Right? That's exactly what I was doing with the fic - very first time writing Tara! - and it seems to have paid off really well. the same goes for your art, it's spectacular, even though it's a different flavour to what you're used to. x
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Date: 2013-10-19 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 09:36 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2013-10-18 10:41 pm (UTC)FYI: Eilowyn is considering it at some future point.
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Date: 2013-10-18 11:19 pm (UTC)Wow, I was stunned, and I'm over the moon she's let me use it as a banner for the fic.
Also, you've been a wonderful beta, particularly when my half my brain is closed for maintenance. Your help, critiques and support have been so helpful and I am very grateful for it. I'm glad you've taken pleasure in it for yourself, too! x
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Date: 2013-10-19 11:08 pm (UTC)And I'm blushing here - it really was my pleasure and an honor that you allowed me to beta the story! BTW - I just looked at it and the way you broke up those little sections of each girl's POV back and forth (rather like Sweetprincipal's "Scarred" did) and that is such a brilliantly simply fix! I'm kicking myself for not noticing how easy that would have been to do.
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Date: 2013-10-19 11:13 pm (UTC)I was surprised at how simple it was to fix the POV dilema in the end. Who knew it'd be that easy?
Oh, and before I forget, I've almost finished my Willow/Angel story but I'm afraid it's a little clunky. When it's done would you mind taking a quick look before I publish it - your help hasn't steered me wrong yet.
(It's totally okay for you to say no, by the way, it's quite long and does deal - though only slightly - with the Ats timeline, so no pressure! Just let me know, 'kay?)
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Date: 2013-10-21 12:01 am (UTC)http://red-satin-doll.livejournal.com/16934.html
That post is sort of "one-stop shopping" in that it has links to BMB's story, Comlodge's banner and link to original, the original Winged Buffy and my slightly (sharpened) version; plus - bonus! Why I hate smushnames and tons of feels for Buffy&Spike, (in other words lots o' giddy babbling.)
Who knew it'd be that easy?
Sometimes I've come across a fic where there's a sudden POV change (within a paragraph for instance) and I will go back and try to "map it out" to see if there's a pattern I missed. It NEVER occurred to me to sit back and map it out with your fic to see if there was a pattern. (And I don't have a feeding tube, I'm not sick and incapacitated - I have no excuses!) Thank goodness you did.
And yes, I'd be very happy to eyeball your Willow/Angel story! I actually haven't read much W/A FIC (I am WOEFULLY behind in reading
And you are really, really really too kind! *blushes* I can PM you my email addy? I think that might be best. And PDF's are probably the best way to send documents unless you have a google account and I think you can send a google doc?
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Date: 2013-10-21 08:43 pm (UTC)If it weren't for Gabrielle, I'd never have dreamed of writing W/A, it's all her fault with her stunning work. She asked me for Willow/Angel and for the same reasons as you (i.e. she's just the most supportive and lovely and wonderful person, and I'm honored to call her friend) I just HAD to try it.
I do have a google account, and i'm just trying to figure out how to use it, but if you could PM me your email, it should work out.
Thanks again!
(oh, and I saw the banner. Magnificent. I'm just gonna read Brutti's story now - again, she's an awesome writer)
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Date: 2013-10-21 08:53 pm (UTC)Brutti called her story "crackfic" but I think it's anything BUT. In someone else's hands? Sure. Not hers. And the main stories in the winged Slayer in Pylea stories are centered on her Rulesverse ship, Faith and Giles; and they are equally wonderful.
Sending my email addy right now!
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Date: 2013-10-21 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-21 09:03 pm (UTC)YES.
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Date: 2013-10-20 10:56 pm (UTC)Thanks for the recs though!
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Date: 2013-10-20 11:41 pm (UTC)