Please continue. I love this from both the psychological side and the emotional one.

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Atlantic Antics Meeting Expectations
Learning to Laugh What I Discovered at Band Camp

You updated on my birthday! Yay!

I loved the first installment, and I like the tone of the second, getting more inside Tara's head about why she even thought it might work, and how it works for her too.

More please!

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Heather aka vampyregurl73 aka Riverwillows73

My stories:
"Dry Heat – In Progress (still)" "Penny Arcade - Completed"

My Fic Challenge entries:
"Fireworks" "Promise" "I Did What Last Night?"

absolutely delicious story, glad you went further in depth with it.

i love that you're exploring the psychological and emotional aspects of Tara's actions, and doing a wonderful job of it as well.

this is going to be a great fic!

tina

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if it's not real, you can't hold it your hands; you can't feel it with your heart, then i won't believe it. but if it's true you can see it with your eyes, even in the dark; and that's where i want to be. 'brick by boring brick' -paramore

Morrigan,

It's really quite lovely to see you writing, proving once again that you are much more than just a cleverly snarky MST3K commentator.

Having said that, let me expand on just what kind of writing you do so well. Not all writers have the same strengths or the same capacity to write certain types of material; you wouldn't ask Shakespeare to write a treatise in defense of Methodological Solipsism, nor would you ask Descartes to write a bawdry poem about a man getting caught with his mistress. Some writers do well to focus in on and rhetorically swoon at length over one particular, strikingly vivid moment in space and time, unique from all the rest of the cosmos and forever lost after that one fleeting moment; other writers do well to create intricate contraptions of characters and settings and events both gross and subtle, propelled by the writer's love for their own magical universe and driven by the utterly unstoppable inertia of plot to destinations unknown.

I believe that your strength -as exemplified by this fic- lies in neither extreme, but rather in a combination of the two. I say this primarily because the format you have chosen, the Vignette, by its very nature lends itself to short -yet intense- scrutiny of a brief time period while at the same time requiring the presence of identifiable characters and a coherent plot. The Vignette is far too short a platform to allow for any kind of grand Machiavellian scheme to unfold, yet it's successful implementation requires far more discipline and foresight than the Drabble or the Poem, and so represents a balance between the two forces of the Now and the Future. I will admit that my adoration of this particular Vignette series speaks as much to my own preferences in reading as it does to your capacity in writing, but to that I argue: All these other kittens thinking that your story is teh fancy cat nip must mean something, ne?

I will admit though that this story's greatest strength is its capacity to evoke raw emotion. Other stories are refined, cultured, methodical; this story is raw, passionate, chaotic. It is Melange in its purest form.

The discussion between Willow and Tara the morning after, used very smartly as a framing device for Tara's perspective, is so wonderfully new, like the first time a child is let loose upon a fresh blanket of snow, or when Carter discovered Tutankamun's Tomb. The very atmosphere between the two girls is charged, sparkling with excitement, yet fragile; entire worlds await their giddy exploration, but one wrong word could bring it all crashing down in a hail of shattered dreams and perforated trust.

I'm a little surprised at how much Tara's denial of Willow's pleasure as a result of her violation of the terms represents a lesson in control as well as resistance against instant gratification, not just for Willow but for Tara too. For me, this speaks volumes as to how equally impressive the need for the dominant one to provide firm guidance and deliciously delayed pleasure to her partner is to the need for the submissive one to accept them from her Mistress. I'm also surprised at how differently each of the girls regard both the necessity for and effectiveness of their respective emergency relief efforts. For Willow, it is a desperate attempt to scratch a burning itch, one that she cannot possibly hope to scratch by herself; for Tara, it is strictly a means to reinforce her resolve, maintain her control, and it works just enough to keep her mind clear and focused on the long-term goal. Again, I see this disparity as representative of their very different roles in this wonderfully new arrangement: Willow surrendering herself to the utter lack of fulfillment without Tara's guiding touch; Tara pragmatically doing what is necessary to assert control over her wayward lover while also clamping down with an iron fist on any aspect of herself unworthy of Willow's pure trust.

The section of this story that I found to carry the gravest import though (while afforded so little dialogue) has to be Tara's feelings towards her own mother: "I had seen my mother twist herself to avoid the 'demon' my father feared, until she became someone I didn't recognize" (Pt 2, ¶ 19). Half a sentence carries some of the most intriguing and possibly disturbing implications of any other line of similar length in recent memory.

First of all, by assigning such a sarcastic tone to the demon story perpetuated by her father, Tara clearly recognizes it for the patriarchal bullcrap that it is (which in and of itself represents a marked departure from the currently prevailing interpretation of cannon, but you described this from the onset as mildly AU, so what the hey), and while this presence and clarity of mind in regards to paternal manipulation is obviously a step up for Tara, it simultaneously points to a step down for her mother. That Tara's mom "twist[ed] herself to avoid the 'demon' " implies that she did not have the capacity for wisdom to see the 'demon' within as false; that she did see the forest for the trees, yet willingly submitted to her husband's manipulations; or that a harmful accident of some kind caused to some degree by her resulted in both she and her husband heaping guilt upon herself in the form of 'demonic' rhetoric.

I'm personally inclined to believe the third theory, since Tara is far too wise and smart to have only inherited those traits from her father (or if she did... *shudder*), and the concept of a person willingly demonizing oneself as a result of proof known to be fraudulent speaks to a psychotically masochistic personality (I do not discount either possibility entirely out of hand, I know that stranger things have happened to/by nicer people, however, I'm liberally applying Occam's Razor here). Also, a clue exists in the short snippet that lends itself somewhat to the idea of a tragic accident: "until she became someone I didn't recognize". This portion indicates that Tara at one point knew what her mother was really like, and that the change in her mother as a result of the 'demon' rhetoric took place relatively late in Tara's life, after Tara had had the time both get to know her mother and to accumulate sufficient intellectual wherewithal to recognize a sea-change in her mother's personality (Again, both of the theories I dislike could be tenuously supported by this evidence as well, but again, OR).

Now to the portion of the fic that really robbed me of rational thought: "I did not want to see Willow broken for fear of the unlovable geek she saw inside. Especially since it was exactly that geek that I loved so very much" (Pt 2, ¶ 19, emph. added). Though everyone has a portion of themselves of which they're not proud, I personally entertain a very large geek-filled portion inside of me which I have come to associate with the unfortunate stereotypes surrounding the geek/otaku personality: Fat, unhygienic, rude, shiftless, patently offensive, making hurtful and incendiary remarks at every opportunity, leeching off the hard work of family and whatever few friends they may have. So I understand with painful clarity the incredulity that Willow would have at hearing this statement, the knowledge of the absolute impossibility that any part of herself so worthless, so tainted, so dripping with putrid offensiveness, would be considered desirable and lovable. Especially not by this woman whom she loves and adores so dearly, whom she needs like breath in the lungs, like ground beneath the feet.

I will admit, having not been in any kind of real relationship, I cannot see the raw animalistic passion that Willow and Tara have for each other and say "been there, done that" (especially not when you consider the unfortunate gender differences). However, that both girls hunger for the taste of one another on their lips and their fingers and their skin comes across more than well enough, so Kudos!

It's been a while since I watched Buffy S3, but I'm not entirely certain that I see the connection between Willow as she continues down the path that leads her to magic abuse and Gwendolyn Post (Pt 2, ¶ 36). I'd like to hear how you think Willow came to that comparison.

And the relationship negotiation at the end of part 2, when Willow tries to put their new situation into words, "just a different division of labor?" (Pt 2, ¶ 36), is both cute and yet refreshingly healthy and open.

Thank you for bringing this wonderful story to us, and thank you for exploring this exciting facet of Willow and Tara. (And I'm sure the Kittens would be more than happy to have a new smutty addition to Mistress Kitten Fantastico ^_^ )

Love and respect,
-Ryan

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"As Willow placed a kiss on her hair, Tara tucked her head underneath Willow's chin and breathed in the scent of Willow's skin. She fell back into her dreams while silently telling Willow the words of her heart, her lips brushing against the soft skin of Willow's neck."

-- "Doppelganger Redux"

Thank you, Kittens! Feedback to feedback time -

Ariel:



Thank you so much! Riveting is quite the compliment indeed. Hello, there, Fan! *grins* Thanks for your feedback - and also kinda flattered by the desire for dibs on something of mine.


The Best Name On The Site:



Thank you! I was a little taken aback by the description of this as smut, at first. Looking now, okay, I can see it, but when I was writing it I was pretty deep in the psych aspect of it, and the description of the physical was almost tangential to that in this second vignette. Regardless of my intent on writing - I am really glad you enjoyed!


HopeHavoc:



There is certainly a strong element of this, though in my head, much more so on Willow's side than on Tara's. Tara as I am writing her was certainly shy and retiring when she and Willow met, but she has blossomed since then, and gained, with her acceptance into the Scoobies (which in canon would have taken place during the summer between seasons four and five) a sense of her value to people aside from just her lover.

Willow, on the other hand, went from the shy, nerdy girl in high school who never expected to have control over anything to the other extreme after the debacle with Oz. From the "my will be done" spell onward, there was a slow escalation of her quest for power, given a huge kick in the ass by Tara's brainsucking, and culminating in the badness that was season 6.

The original one-shot actually grew from a mixture of a contemplation of that escalation, and my own personal fascination with power dynamics in any relationship, be it an intimate partnership, or any other social bond.

Thanks for the kind words, and I am glad you enjoyed it!


Leonhart17:

I am deeply flattered that you think so highly of this series. I shall do my best to live up to that in future installments. Thanks, as ever, for your comments!


sapphoselene:



You do? Wow, what a compliment! Thank you!



To my mind, one of the best things about D/s is that when it is done openly, healthily, it can actually foster a more open and honest communication within a relationship. The process of mapping desire and boundaries, and communicating those discoveries to one another can boost intimacy to a different level for many couples, opening up many other areas of the relationship to honest, loving exchange of ideas.

Most people who love anyone else know things about their loved ones that the object of their affections may not - The parent who sees signs of an impending meltdown in a child, the friend who knows when simple support is appropriate as opposed to advice, etc. D/s can create a space for an intimate couple in which to explore those knowings, and that is part of what I hope to show bits and pieces of here.

I am glad some of this has come through for you - and very much appreciate your feedback.


taranwillow4ever:



I am so glad. I had worried that I was being rather presumptuous in trying to explicate some of the psychological underpinnings of a power exchange relationship between these particular two characters. Thanks for commenting!


vampyregurl73:



Well Happy Belated-though-I-Had-No-Clue Birthday!
Thanks for reading!


indigokane:



Delicious is another deeply complimentary word - thank you! As far as going further into it - I am rarely one to live the unexamined life, and as we tend to write what we know, my characters don't get to either. My first thought was to write a completely unrelated one-shot from the dominant perspective, but after the positive response the original piece in this series got, I then got fascinated with the idea of using the first person for vignettes from Tara's perspective, and keeping the second person for Willow's POV. Kind of a challenge to myself, as a writer, to learn to play with perspective and tense, and use them to effect in a limited frame. So between this twist on the W/T relationship, which I find fairly compelling, and the artistic challenge, I could not leave it alone entirely.

I am so glad, and grateful, that there has bee a positive reception, again.


Ryan:

Your reviews are a gift to any writer who gets them - and I am no exception. The sheer time and thought you put into this is humbling, and deeply appreciated.



So long as I don't have to relinquish the title of Snarkosaurus Rex!



I have to say I agree. As much as I admire those who can sustain the long arc of story, as well as those who capture breathtaking snapshots of time, I am finding that I am not one of them. I am proud of the quality of the original in this series as contrasted to my other attempts at writing fic - thus my determination to explore this particular form to see if that was an aberration or a true expression of my literary voice.


High praise indeed. Thank you.



I am so glad this came through! As much of a blessing that the open communication necessary for healthy D/s is, the steps toward that communication feel very fragile, very vulnerable, on both sides of the power equation.



'Emergency relief efforts' made me laugh - what a delightfully tactful phrase!

And again, I am very glad that distinction translated to the page. When Willow touches herself, she is reacting to the desire that Tara had awakened and that she doesn't really understand yet, and to the, at that point, confusing shift in the dynamic between them. The failure of her own hands to satisfy what she does not yet understand is not a purely physical need is an important component of her later acquiescence.

Tara, on the other hand, does know exactly what is going on, but that knowledge does absolutely nothing to ameliorate her basic physical desire for Will. She must impose control on herself, first and foremost, and the way that she does that is to recognize the physical need for what it is, and satisfy it as she must, so that she can focus on Willow rather than battling her own arousal.



Originally, that half-sentence was about a paragraph. I realized when I read through after writing that the backstory of Tara's parents' relationship broke the flow, and so I carved what I had written down to only its essential component - that Tara had experienced close-up the disastrous effects of one person attempting to be what she was not, long term.

That backstory boils down to this - that Tara's mom always saw the 'demon' story for what it was, but for a variety of reasons stayed in the marriage anyway, and tried to conform to her husband's expectations in order to keep domestic peace. Fear of being alone, an ethos of 'you made your bed when you married', terror of losing the children in a divorce, all these play into that choice, and then through the years, the effort to seem to be the perfect wife by his standards while never being able to measure up in his eyes - this can destroy a person, over time. Since we are told in canon that Tara's mother died when Tara was in her late teens, and that the death was not sudden - this brought to mind several people I have known who pretzeled themselves for decades in unhappy marriages, only to leave after a defining event, and made me wonder if Tara's mom would have left had she recovered from whatever killed her.

In any case, I did decide for the purposes of this story that she understood, prior to her death, how very poor a choice her decision to stay had been, and had communicated that understanding to Tara.



Oh, my very dear, so do I. I think that most people, especially those unable or unwilling to fit the mainstream template of "normal" for a wide variety of reasons, has felt this at one point or another. It is a truism, though, that the sources of our pain are often also the sources of our greatest beauty as human beings. We can easily see that in others - who among us did NOT agree with Willow that knowing Tara was raised with (at the least) emotional abuse and still turned out so gentle and loving only made her more loveable? And yet, the mirror we turn on ourselves distorts this emotional truth, and can make it incredibly hard to accept that anyone could love the parts of ourselves that we wish we could reject.



Here's where my thoughts went with that - Gwendolyn Post had been a member of the Watchers Council before she was ejected for misuse of dark magics. I saw a parallel there between Willow having begun her use of magic in the service of the Slayer and then gravitating over time to darker and darker spells ostensibly to help the cause - but eventually turning to her own benefit. Post's arrival was also the first time that it was clear to the audience, and perhaps the gang themselves, that Watchers could BE female - and with Willow's bent toward the scholastic and her obvious veneration in early days of Giles' breadth of knowledge, I could see Willow having admired her to some degree before it became clear she was evil.

Adding to that was the way that Post manipulated the Scoobies. She did very little outright commanding - rather she was such a force of personality that the others found themselves either not questioning her at all, or burying their objections in the face of her sarcastic condescension. This mirrors, albeit in a much more heavy-handed way, the manner in which Willow came to use magic more and more with little to no opposition, until she was finally too far gone to hide it anymore, and was willing to erase memories rather than change.

When Willow and Tara are having this conversation, it is the morning after Willow is brought face to face with the small, subtle ways in which she had already begun, at that point in time, to manipulate those she loved. And Willow, like many who are basically good people, when shown her mistakes, catastrophizes - she immediately begins to self-flagellate and see in herself the worst macroscopic example of her (at this point in time) relatively minor transgressions.


Many people see D/s, when it reaches anywhere outside the bedroom, as an abdication of self by one partner to the other. It may be that, in some cases, but in my not-so-humble opinion (as we know, few of my opinions are humble) such is not healthy at all. To me, for a D/s relationship to remain stable and healthy, is has to be simply that - a different division of the spheres of responsibility within the partnership. Neither person is subsumed - rather, it is a different model of how two people can help each other grow, both within the coupling, and in their wider lives.



Do you know, I hadn't even thought about that. Thanks for the suggestion - I may submit this over there, and see what happens.

Thank you again, Ryan, for taking such painstaking thought over these little pieces, and then taking the time to commit your analysis to the page. To know that I have made someone both feel and think is amazing praise in and of itself, and your investment here to tell me about it is deeply appreciated.





Thank you to all of you who responded, and to those who read without comment as well. I hope if anyone has criticism, they will feel free to voice it - I am learning as I go here, so far as writing process is concerned, and any tips on what did NOT work are as welcome as praise for what did.

Well, this feedback won't be nearly as articulate as my last, but it seems as though Ryan has said it all already!

So I'll just say that this was delightful. I loved the depths you went to with this. Willow does have, and always has had, a dark side. The problem was that she never acknowledged it. You seem to be using Tara as a bit of a foil for her, here, and it's working.

Wonderfully written.

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Don't you sit upon the shoreline and say you're satisfied, choose to chance the rapids, and dare to dance the tides - Garth Brooks, "the River"