drlloyd11 wrote:
The group banner said
This is an adults-only list for those who believe that something is starting to happen between Willow and Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fanfic, subtext discussions, and other craziness dedicated to *the* new couple of the season. You must be a legal adult to join.
This was the original Kitten board.
Its still there on yahoo groups. There is no mod anymore, the last one's email is bouncing, and there is no way to promote from within.
The board is overrun like a vacant lot with thousands of messages serving as spam, there has not been a "real" post since 2007.
But it started there.
The first post was on January 31, 2000 by "Mister D" who said
Quote:
As for any subtext. I feel there is some there. We saw willow cast spells with
giles and her little coven of Amy and Michael. And there was no connection like
Willow had with Tara with the few spells they worked together.
the next poster was a bit more daring
Quote:
I thought the Tara/Willow interaction in this episode was amazing! There is
no doubt in my mind now that Tara has a crush on Willow. It was so cute when
she was trying to give Willow the crystal. Then, when Willow showed up at her
door, the look on her face was so cute! What can I say? I really like Tara
and I think she's perfect for Willow.
The first fan-fic was called "A New Love" and it was made after "The I in team" and it
was quite chaste and they literally only held hands and were "friends".
When Hush aired I came home late and my better half told me she had taped Buffy and said
there was something I might find interesting. I was already a huge fan of the show, but I was never a shipper
and was not invested in any character. I loved the characters, it felt like people who you wish you knew in High School.
The reminder of a small group of friends trying to stick together in a hostile world, but that was all. Your friends.
I watched the episode and saw them hold hands for the spell. I rewound and checked again. Maybe it was
something? But TV shows did this all the time. Stunt casting. I was not convinced she would even appear again.
Amber Benson was so mysterious to us at the time. There was no streaming video or anything so unless you caught
"bye bye love" or "the crush" on cable you didn't know her at all.
But we were all so fascinated. I remember us all speculating and asking questions and gossiping.
A video clip of a short interview she did for "Hollywood,PA" showed up and because of bad editing it left the impression she might even be gay. But not much else.
In retrospect, this was like the start of love. When you deny anything is going on and it's all casual, but you find your self fascinated with every thing
she did and her every quirk catches your breath, She was not in the next episode "Doomed" , and I assumed that was it. That it was just a fluke.
But she showed up again in "The I in team", and while she had so little air time it made the tiny bit so fascinating. The mystery of it all.
I would guess maybe 10% of the people expected her to stay, and even less stay with Willow. But everyone hoped it.
It was like a stream that started into a river,
I don't remember using yahoo groups for anything more than chat, if you linked me, I could even tell you if that is actually our board. I know the group I later made for chat is still there and I still have ownership. So most of that early history is lost because it was in chat. It was where the board was born. I did lose my old yahoo account and that's probably the group that you are talking about, now that I think about it.
The kitten FAQ actually gives you a pretty accurate early account:
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Kitten FAQ[/center]
1. Why is it called The Kitten The Witches and The Bad Wardrobe?
A bit of history: The Kitten, as we affectionately call it, is a board dedicated to Willow and Tara from the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It has its beginning in the willtara mailing list. When Tara first showed up on Buffy some of us saw the chemistry right away. Shortly a mailing list was created. The more dedicated (read obsessed) began chatting regularly. A dissatisfaction with the chat software at egroups (then onelist) led a few to flee to Yahoo. Many a night were spent on Yahoo chat groups discussing the minutiae of the show. Zelda and xita grew tired of not having all the wonderful thoughts saved. We were also frustrated with the lack of leadership on willtara. A quick decision led to the creation of the board at inside the web in the summer of 2000 (problems there led us to Novogate in September 2000, thank you ITW). We would like to thank everyone on chat that night when we all voted on the name. You will never know how many names we came up with before settling on The Kitten (Miss Kitty Fantastico), the Witches (Willow and Tara, surprise!) and the Bad Wardrobe (just look at basically everything Willow and Tara have ever worn). The name is of course inspired by the book report about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that Willow was going to do during her dream sequence in the episode “Restless”. Anyway, mainly we created the board to continue building the bonds of the community we have found through Willow and Tara. Your moderators would like to say that in the years we have spent online we have never found a better community. Willow and Tara bring out the best in us. After a couple of changes in moderators, the Kitten is now in the hands of DrG, bytrsuite, maudmac and xita. The community grew and became 2 forums, the Kitten and Different Colored Pens. The growth spurt was not done and eventually we were kicked off Novogate because they couldn't handle our traffic. We went to ezboard in a quick haste in March of 2002 and kept on growing; in April 2005 we finally grew tired of the ezboard gremlins and moved onto our own space.
I think it was Shay in specific who came up with the name and we all agreed it rocked. Also there are a few of us, Bob included, who also spotted each other in the Buffy Cross and Stake board and gravitated towards each other.
I'd like the good times remembered, we all know how it went after that. I was so involved then. There were days when I barely slept. I thought I was going to pass out at work. That made the crash soo much more worse. I vowed never to get so involved in a fandom again. My wife let me now any way but lol, it's been a fairly easy promise to keep. Once in a lifetime. Kittens were always around to chat, we were up at 5 AM on Sundays to catch the earliest spoilers. And the day Kajun made those kiss caps for us, is a day I will never forget. The joy of a Sunday morning with beautiful w/t kissing pictures to stare at. We thought it would never happen but there it was, proof!
I also remember crying at work because drlloyd confirmed the Tara dies spoiler. Ugh. I have never cried at work for any reason, my friend asked me what was wrong, I had to admit that I was crying over a fictional character's death. But it was sooo much more than that. I knew it would change the community forever. I can't even say that I am not over that. It's hard to not remember it. It's hard to think of Willow and Tara without thinking of that.