GO vote at Slayerstillness and VELVETWHIP WROTE ME A BUFFY & TARA GEN FIC, COME SEE!

[red_satin_doll]

PLEASE VOTE NOW in three tiebreaker votes for slayerstillness challenge 30! Don't forget to vote and press the button for each tiebreaker individually. Unlike Sister Red here. I make the mistakes so you don't have to. You're welcome. (Most creative is an interesting, um, conundrum for me. I'll explain all when the votin's over.)

LOOK AT THE PREZZIE I GOT!! "The Things You Find in Vending Machines" a season 4 ficlet with my beloved Buffy Summers and Tara Maclay (gen, set immediately post New Moon Rising) from the superb velvetwhip as, of all things, a surprise thank you for the banner I made her for her wonderous "Soft and Pink and Very Sad"!  THANK YOU so much. dear!  This one is on the humous side of Gabrielle's palette - Buffy and Tara have a brief, awkward conversation in the dorm hallway - but there's a wonderful complexity to it, as is true of Gabrielle's work.

As I've noted elsewhere on my journal and hereabouts in fandom, Tara's store of courage, strength and even self-confidence is overlooked and underplayed not just in fandom but on the series itself.  She pursued Willow in Hush, not the other way around, after all. I don't need the metaphor of monsters and Little Bads to recognize the courage that takes, and that it took for a young lesbian in the 1990's. (I know from experience.)  Of course, Buffy would recognize and respect that in Tara. And of course she would want the best for her beloved best friend Willow. Gabrielle NAILS all that right here in a very short scene. (And the last line, as you'd expect, is ACES.)

It also hints at something else as well: the stereotype cherished by some straight women and lesbians, that a lesbian relationship is inherently nicer than a hetereosexual one; that women together are kinder, sweeter, more understanding, etc. It's a pretty fantasy, and terribly untrue. But completely understandable that Buffy would view W/T through that lens. And Gabrielle doesn't make a deal of it, in fact you mightn't notice, but it's there, lying beneath the humor and that's the important thing.

THANK YOU so much Gabrielle, I'm truly honored!  (If I'd known the gift of a banner would lead to the gift of a fic I would have worked harder to learn how to make banners sooner!)

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Oh sweetie. I am incredibly flattered by all the lovely things you have to say about the story you inspired. Thank you, both for the prompt and for making me dig deep and get it right. You're a treasure!


Gabrielle

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Voted in the tiebreaker and super excited to read the story. :)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You're in for a treat, hon!

[debris4spike]

Just opened up LJ ... and, Well Done at SlayerStillness.

I have been so bad at entering recently - I must get organised. I am trying to do 4 sets of 20's a month .... so that tends to drown out the creative juices!

Off to read the Buffy/Tara fic in a moment.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thank you hon! I see you entered btvs_hush (as well as recent icons for star trek and blakes 7 on your LJ) so you hardly seem slacking to me! (the little bad icon you did with the colored ray effect was one of your most delightful ever btw.)

And I think you'll quite enjoy the story, Gabrielle did a wonderful job of capturing so much in a "little moment" of time.

[debris4spike]

Will get there to see the story soon. btw, did you see the link I gave you in the last Buffy/Tara post you made ... I think they were such an unused friendship.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I did see your link thank you! I absolutely agree Buffy and Tara were an un(der)used friendship.

I do beg to agree to disagree on the notion of Tara as a spuffy shipper in an S6 setting (which is so problematic eight ways to Sunday and back.) S7 on the other hand? Oh yes, I could go for Tara in S7 friends with Buffy and Spike, and she and Spike having Buffy's back in Empty Places. Oh my yes...

but variety is the spice of life, yes? If we insisted our friends thought exactly the same as us, none of would have any friends!

[debris4spike]

Oh I know what you mean about season 6 Spuffy .... I very rarely read fics from that year, which is why I surprised myself with the fic idea!

I think that if Tara had been allowed to develop she would have been a real calming influence, but would have also taught the others to be more accepting of those around her .... maybe BtVS would have finished at the end of season 5, but the Scoobies would be more at peace with themselves, even while mourning their loss.

Oh I so, so agree. I once had someone tell me I had been brainwashed as I believed in the Bible ... I asked her why she wanted me to believe in her faith, and she said because it was correct ... to my way, if I had changed I would have been brain-washed. I love all the jobs I have had as they have been working with the general public, and that is one of the things I love, the variety ... you learn so much more that way.