Lets continue with the prequel.
The on screen impact of the girls was immediate, even watching
There were a lot of spoilers around even then, but their quality was just dreadful.
Quote:
Where The Wild Things Are
-A party is held at the Holt house (where Riley stays), its old
and so is the caretaker, Mrs. Genevive Holt. She would punish
her kids for the "sins" she thought they had resulting in their
deaths. The house is haunted and things start to go wrong when
the spirits of the dead kids start haunting the partygoers.
- At one point Xander kisses a girl named Jana at a party and
she runs away screaming. All while Anya is in the other room.
- At one point Willow is attacked and Buffy hears her scream
yet, she is too in a moment of "passion" with Riley to care.
- All of the Initiatives men are unreachable when the house
makes them horny.
-This episode deals with those two controversial subjects:
magic and sexual desire.
-This episode features the possible return of the estranged Oz
(Seth Green in a reoccurring guest-starring role). He might make
an appearance at the end of the episode.
-Willow and Tara will kiss in the episode "Where The Wild Things
Are".
and the more stupid sounding the spoiler the more people were ready to believe it.
http://goo.gl/HzK97and even correct reports, often missed the sub-text. One of the great things about the early W/T was the subtext
and how most reports just missed it.
Quote:
Willow's wicca group turns out to be a bust, as most of them are just
wannabes, and one even thinks Willow is weird. One girl, Tara is actually
trying to be a real witch, and she teams up with Willow.
I wish I could convey how exciting that was, how piece by piece and bit by bit it grew. How
we were genuinely amazed how far it was going.
Quote:
I remember what a relief it was that Tara was back. After she wasn't in Doomed,
I had begun to wonder if she would be back.
I wasn't into spoilers then so I didn't know anything until the episode aired.
Though I think that was the last episode I remained unspoiled for.
-Xita
We would hope for small signs and tiny bits of proof, and we were rewarded.
It was a tremendously exciting time, and made a lot of people who were meerly fans of the fanatics..
I have interviewed over 20 people for this project to date and every *single* that was a
Kitte says it a one time experience for them. They never felt that way before or since.
but there were still so many doubters
Quote:
--I don't think Willow will go gay and neither do I think Tara is gay. I just
think that they finally found someone who understands about the magic and
their powers. At the Wicca group it sounded like Tara got picked on WHOLE
lot!! So she is grateful to have someone to share with who will not
ridicule her. Also she sort of talked about her mother in the past tense so
maybe she is trying to connect with another witch to fill her loss. Just my
opinion.
http://goo.gl/g8dUQand some were just blind
Quote:
--Willow's 'sleep-over': Not every 'sleep-over' with women results in
lesbianism. You know that and so do I. (And no one is ever neatly dressed
after any sleep-over, so it's not sex.) --
and
Quote:
--What if that will spell.had made Tara? --
For those of y'all who have seen the little demo Willow and Tara did just to
heighten the now-senseless and asinining rumor about their possible
homosexuality, let me deflate your Happy Balloons in the name of sanity.
THEY'RE NOT HAVING THE 'OTHER' RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE!The core of Wicca's
beliefs is to be tuned to the universe and nature. To experience the rapture
of creation and work with it, not against it--
Quote:
Willow and Oz had and possibly still does a click to one
another. You just can't seem to separate one from the other since they seem
to be destined to run into each other, if not to spend the rest of the lives
together. I honestly don't feel that with Willow and Tara. As friends, they
have something.but it's like what Willow and Buffy have. They are sisters,
they are friends, and they are comrades, but sex will never be part of the
equation.
and my favorite titled
Quote:
Just so we're clear on this, Willow and Tara are not gay!
But make no mistake! They're not
doing the Bed Bounce and they're not gonna do it! Tara and Willow are just
more sensitive to the moods and whims of the universe than normal folks or
even Giles and Buffy. Get it straight! Unless they start kissing and lay
under the covers with no nightshirt to call their own, it's still only a
working relationship and a deep friendship.
http://goo.gl/PdVXCEmphasis added by me
but some of the future Kittens had the faith
Quote:
.. that you should make sure you have plenty of your favorite condiment
on-hand .... because you're going to have to eat all these
obviously well-thought-out words.
--BBovenGuy
[url]goo.gl/NNQAF[/url]
Often people would create deliberately fake spoilers just to antagonize various ships.
A typical one of this time was that Oz was going to "rescue" Willow from Tara, or that Tara would be a plotter with Adam, or had cursed Willow to fall in love with her. When the episode title "The Yoko Factor" appeared online *everyone* every one claimed that
the "Yoko" was Tara. The more stupid sounding the spoiler, the more people would get furious about it and complain online. There was also the by now annual "big scooby death" rumour.
[url]goo.gl/I9IIb[/url]
but mostly everyone was just way off base.
http://goo.gl/YJJBqThen we had
I think that this of the first signs of a shipper is when you begin to practically count air time for your couple, and begin to resent air time "wasted" on plot or action sequences.
I remember having mixed feelings about the Faith two parter, thinking it would be Tara-lite.
I couldn't imagine that a big faith arc would have much time for our girls, and I wondered
why I cared so much for a short term player in a long arc.
I found that I would be waiting for any appearance of Tara, and every little bit was like a treasure. It occurs to me now how almost every single line between Tara and Willow is like poetry.
like
Tara: I am, you know.
Willow: What?
Tara: Yours. Every interaction between them stayed with me.
Tara: You said "recon." You're, like, Cool Monster Fighter. I doubt I can remember verbatim five setences from that episode that did not
have a W/T in..but I can quote every one that did.
Based on this criteria I assumed "this years girl" and "who are you" would be very light in this department, but it was actually fantastic .
Tara: You said "recon." You're, like, Cool Monster Fighter. 
When Faith spotted the attraction between the two it was treated as the first "scientific proof" that we were not imaging it.
This was like fuel for imagination, and around then the first pages for W/ T appeared. The very first was "roses and syncronicity"
http://http://web.archive.org/web/20010803111840/http://www.redrival.com/spike/tw/which billed itself as
Quote:
" Welcome to the first (and only, at the moment) Willow/Tara relationship site."
and I remember this post
Quote:
>My Willow Tara site is up...
>
>http://go.to/WillowTara
I love it!!!! The title is great. Reminds me of a post I read a while back
that challenged that we
would never see Willow & Tara forever sites, as opposed to Willow & Oz
forever sites. YEAH! Great work so far. The little cartoon link at the
bottom is the most adorable thing I have ever seen.
-Xita
After this there followed the longest mid season episode drought the show ever would have, where we were left hanging and waiting for the rumoured episode where Oz would return.
I remember that time as agonizing, because so much was waiting to be resolved. I never had butterflys in my stomach over a TV show before or since, but I was on pins and needles.
The writers began to speak a out a bit ..
This was an interview in Universe of Doug Pertie
Quote:
Willow and Tara are going to have a good, happy, satisfying
relationship," Petrie says. "That's something that we're more acutely
aware of and we definitely don't want to touch on 'being a lesbian is
bad.' We've all seen shows where if you have any kind of gay tendencies,
you must be killed or made to suffer for no other reason other than
you're gay. We're hyper aware of that, so we're more predisposed to have
things work out for Willow and Tara. In fact, if Tara were a guy, I
would predict a near 100 per cent chance of a breakup for Willow. The
fact that Tara is not a guy may make things work out better, because we
can avoid what we feel is this old cliché."
and the famous Joss quote
Quote:
Joss Whedon at the Bronze
January 29, 2000
Well, we meant it to be SUBTEXT, but you guys have obviously worked it out.
Yes, Willow is becoming a Monkey-owner. I just hope we don't get a lot of protest
from Christian Right Groups over this.
Marginally more seriously, Willow and Tara's relationship is definitely romantic.
.....
I just know there's a sweet story there, that would become very complicated if Oz were to
show up again. Which he will.
the first mention of this promised new episode was in march
[url]http://goo.gl/rp7tR[/ur]
Quote:
WHERE THE HEART IS
-Episode 19
-Airs in May
-Written by Marti Noxon
-Riley's moment of truth comes when Oz is captured by the Intiative and is
given an ultimatum: torture Oz or be court-marshalled.
-Willow and Tara finally kiss in this episode. (XG Note: I'm not entirely sure
how the network will censor it. I know in the past there have been f/f kisses
in "Ally Mcbeal" and "Party of Five". Joss says he doesn't want to do it that
way, so it may be just sweet and innocent, instead of hot and passionate.)
-This episode will answer all of the questions concerning the Willow/Tara
relationship.
-Oz is in this episode, in which he must come to terms with Willow, her new
life, and the broken remains of their relationship.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[/quote]
and this was a breakthrough
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But I think I landed at the kitten sometimes around 2001. I think I was just going by 'Ginner' then, but then there was that great big crash and I lost my original username (and my posts damn it! I was a Big Pineapple!). 
) . And when I found this place, it was like hitting the freaking jackpot. There were so many kind people here, no one was ever mean or pointlessly nasty (actually, I did encounter someone antagonizing me once, but Xita promptly banned them from the board).
