One Year Later

[BBOvenGuy]

It's hard to believe, but a full year has now passed since the first Kittens got the first word that Tara was going to be killed and Willow was going to be turned evil. The Kitten Board as a whole found out a few days later, and the rest is history.



I remember when Xita gave me the news. It was the very same day that I finished the first draft of my second book - the book that's now being published. The spoilers sounded so ridiculous - and so much like what Herc had been saying for months - that I was convinced the news was a fake. How could Mutant Enemy be so blazingly predictable and do exactly what everyone had been saying they were going to do? How could Joss do the exact opposite of what he'd been promising in his interviews?



Well, you know the rest of the story. With the moderators' permission, I thought I'd start this thread for people to share their memories, comments and reflections.



One year ago, I certainly didn't expect that we'd be where we are today. I never could have imagined the ride we've been on.



Never in my life did I believe a little internet community could take on a Hollywood golden boy like Joss Whedon.



Never in my life did I believe a little internet community could make Joss Whedon blink, let alone run scared.



Never in my life did I think we'd ever be the ones standing at the end.



And while I can't exactly call what we've accomplished a "victory" (Tara is still dead, after all), I never thought we'd get anywhere near this close to one.



What a year it's been...

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

Edited by: BBOvenGuy  at: 3/6/03 10:22:35 pm

[Bagheera]

Bob, thank you for starting this thread.



A year ago I was an avid BtVS Spoiler addict, with a need for a daily SpoilerSlayer fix. I was an avid collector of "Buffy" transcripts, and Monday nights at 10:30 (Australia) were a weekly ritual. I was also a regular visitor to the "Essence of Amber" message board. Then the story popped up: "Tara dies". I was, to put it mildly, shocked. My uppermost thought was: "This is wrong," but to be honest, I couldn't clearly articulate why.



Over the following days, postings at the "Essence" Board ran the full gamut: denial, anger, sadness, "But she'll come back, right?"; but after a while, a lot of the postings took on a tone that said, more or less: oh well, Tara's gone, but hey, "Buffy"'s just a TV show (which I see now is true, by the way), Amber's still around, we'll catch her in whatever she does next. As if Tara did not matter. Posts like that tended to make me furious.



At both the Web sites I frequented, there were references to a strange place called "The Kitten". After a brief search, I found it. And the rest is history.Thank you to all the Kittens who dissected events on the show, both onscreen and behind the scenes, and explained so eloquently why Tara's death was wrong in so many ways. You have given me much over the last year, and it's a debt I can never repay.



Bagheera

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[UnrealisticExpectations]

I remember when I read the spoilers and found out all that was to transpire. I know people say this all the time, but I honestly don't think I'll ever forget this. It may get a tad fuzzy as years pass but I doubt I'll forget.



I was sitting at my computer waiting for "Hell's Bells" to air. Since Buffy was pre-empted that Tuesday I was made to wait until Saturday or Sunday. My mom was making me a nacho

and I was at the kitten board. The night before I had just read the spoilers for the make up scene in "Entropy". I instantly noticed that the spoiler thread had grown by, like, seven pages. Me being the naive person I am, I just assumed people were posting happy comments. So I clicked. I caught up on the posts that were made after I left the night before, and when I reached the first message on the second page.... there it was.



There was no refuting it. It was there and I had to find a way to deal with it. I didn't want the nacho that my mom had fixed for me. I just sat there with tears streaming down my face. I'm lucky because I never really experienced loss until that moment. I felt like I was losing a friend. Willow and Tara gave me hope, refuted all the negative, made me believe I could have with someone what they shared with each other. I honestly fell in love with them being in love and I lost it. The hole from the bullet has healed but in its place a scar remains. I still miss them.



Gosh, this is more than I usually post in a month. But I just want to say, thank God for the Kitten. I don't post much but just knowing that you guys were there, feeling the same things I was, made things easier. And Pens, where Willow and Tara live on together... as it should be.



For every battle that took place from the day we found out until now has made me proud to be an invisible part of this community.



... always.

Edited by: UnrealisticExpectations at: 3/7/03 12:44:37 am

[fontaine13]

I was only just thinking it was coming up to a year since I woke up on that faithful Sunday morning to read the horrible news. It was just another part of what was a very bad time for me. My dad's heart condition had deteriorated and he was in the middle of what was to be a 6 week stay in hospital. It was the first time in the 10 years that he had suffered cardio myopathy that we were confronted with the possibility that we could lose him .



As I have told many people before, Willow and Tara had become my form of escapism during my grandmother's sadly losing battle with cancer just over a year prior. While I am well aware that W/T are not real and it's only a TV show, if anyone had told me that I would have been affected the way I was when I found out that news, I would have laughed in their face. And who could forget the efforts of Ed The Spoiler and his somewhat, to put it midly, "misguided" efforts to tell us it would all be reversed. Not to mention ME and their continous "Amber will be back but Tara won't" blather.



So here we are a year later, unfortunately in October of last year I lost my Dad and as it happens the day before his funeral we learned that Amber was not coming back because they wanted Tara to be bad and she had refused to do it. For saving us from that, to Amber Benson I offer my enternal gratitude. For making me feel like I did when this happened, to Joss Whedon I offer my pity, because if this is how you view life, then you are a much sadder bastard that I ever thought possible. However I have to add from recent news it seems that karma is indeed a kitten

" This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little and broken but still good, yeah, still good."

Edited by: fontaine13 at: 3/7/03 1:33:38 am

[Dave V]

Thanks, Bob.



The Kitten spoiler hounds are the best on the Internet. W/T mean a lot to me, so I was an avid whore. Look what that got me.



We learned that March 10 was Amber's last day of filming. She spent the day lying around, playing a slowly rotting corpse. I wished then, just a little bit, that I had been unspoiled.



Then it came time for the debacle that was SR to finally air, and all the unspoiled Kittens were hurt so much. I haven't watched another ep of Buffy.



The slow implosion of ME over the last year has been fun to see.

[themagicpixie]

I can remember reading the old "Spoiler Board" on this webpage and seeing that Tara was to die, and just not believing it. I thought it had to be a fake spoiler that would detract from some genuinely great storyline the producers had planned for the end of Season 6. I said to myself: Willow and Tara are amazing, why would they want to destroy it? But as time went on, there seemed to be more and more sources that confirmed Tara would die horribly and Willow would go bad. It was awful to feel essentially powerless - Joss & co. wanted Tara's blood on Willow's shirt, and they were going to get it. I think they thought in their arrogance that such sickening images, something so upsetting as watching a beautiful relationship being torn apart, would be good TV. It was horrible. It was the worst thing I have ever seen on television, and I have no intention of ever watching it again. So callous, so cold... and for Willow to go into a homicidal rage? I couldn't believe what I was watching.



I too have enjoyed watching ME's decline. All I can hope is that no spin-off appears, or if one does, that it is shot down in flames pretty quickly. I am reduced to ignoring ME's shows and not buying any "Buffy" merchandise along with feeling bitterness towards TV producers I will never know and hoping that their series fail, as this is the only kind of power I, as a humble TV viewer, have. Thankfully it looks as though the power the viewers have will be enough to bring ME down. They deserve it for "Seeing Red". Never has a TV show hurt me so much. Never have I so wanted to see an event on TV reversed. ME could have capitalised on all of that by doing something amazingly clever at the end of the season; though it saddens me to say it, had they reversed Tara's death I would have been so grateful and relieved I would probably have continued to support the show and say how great it was, no matter the horror I had to sit through. But ME are not clever enough to do that; and they have made it clear I think that they are not interested in the W/T fans any more. Bye bye, "Buffy", and I hope the world begins to take note of why exactly you failed.

[gspiggott]

A year ago I decided I couldn't ignore the rumors anymore and became spoiler ho. Sadly I took to it quite easily. Another board that doesn't need to be named was quoting this one on a daily basis so I came here. Lo and behold it was the best discussion of the show around since it was based around the heart of the show. My thought was that ME couldn't shouldn't wouldn't do this awful thing of killing Tara because it would be career suicide for them and Buffy as a series.Shows you what I know.After SR and the writers comments I was absloutely enraged.I'd never written a letter to a network to complain about a program before but I thought ME had gone beyond the pale.I still think that ,and I'm glad to see everything that's happened to them since.I'm firmly convinced that the story is far from over but I don't think ME will figure it out in this lifetime.

[MaClayMagic]

I remember reading the spoilers here on the board but still hoping that those who had seen the horror unfold on wildfeed maybe had been shown a lie. Sadly, that wasn't to be. I don't think I have ever felt so sick as I did when I read that Tara was going to die and NOT be brought back. I had vested so much interest in this specific character, she was and always will be the hero for the ones so often ignored. The champion to the shy ones, the ones that don't quite fit in, the abused, the gay. She was the one who took all the battering and still stood up firm in Willow's love. The heart of the Scoobies. I will always remember my mom and dad watching the videos we'd taped of it and hearing my dad say "Now we know why she is so upset" after he watched Tara being shot. He couldn't see the sense in it. I soon learnt that grief is nothing but a constant, because still in mourning for a fictional character, I then was plunged head long into watching my dad die day by day with brain cancer that came from nowhere and took him so fast. The only things I had to take my mind off what I was witnessing were the stories written by the Kittens who have carried on the Willow and Tara mantle with more grace and integrity than any ME writer. I buried myself in my own writing, finished my third novel after dad died and started a fourth so I wouldn't have to just stop and think. I didn't need to have a fictional character taken away from me to prove that life is harsh, I was living it day by day. I prefer my tv escapism to show you a world you don't know personally and to leave you uplifted by the experience.

When I look back now, I am amazed by how affected I still am by Tara's departure. But that says more for Ms Benson's portrayal than any writer. I can't watch Buffy now, haven't since I watched the last episode of season 6 in the vain hope maybe someone got it wrong. I watched it, dry eyed and angry at what had been wasted. I won't go near season 7, and am hoping now that Joss Whedon learnt as much as I did last year. That loss hurts, be it a real or fictional person that you love. But what makes me sadder, Joss could have done something we could never have done with dad. Joss could have brought Tara back.

[xita]

I found out at work, through and IM from drlloyd. I had been waiting for it. I know the rumors were around for months, every IM from brad alarmed me because I feared it would be the one. And then it was, luckily I was out of the classroom at that time and I was able to take a break, brad called me on the phone and devestation does not do justice to what I felt. Integrity is hard sometimes and this information had been given in private and was confidential. While I had told people close to me that I knew I could trust, I could not reveal it to the community at large. Angel X was very cool though and used the weight of her reputation to come announce the spoilers and we were there afterwards hoping to set the tone. It was the toughest 2 days because I would see the board and know that people were not expecting this and that we would have to give the news. We were lucky in that we broke it and Angel X gave us that because it would have sucked to have heard it elsewhere where they might have mocked Tara.



When the wildfeed aired, reyna was on IM with me giving me the play by play and it hurt more than I would have imagined that they had actually done it, that it had come to pass. I never had had so much faith in creators and on a show and I never will again. This really taught me a big lesson.



It was real tough then because of the different sources, I was 99.9% sure that it was a death that would stick through the end of the season and there are a lot of people who were hopeful. I know a lot of people perceived it as me trying to squish down optimism, but it was really to protect from further pain. This year people still had hope that Tara would come back but having info from Amber herself that we could not share was also hard. Some of us knew what they had offered her and that Amber was going to protect Tara. So we had to keep things rather hope-free.



I didn't know that the board would even survive those few months. In a way, I expected it to self destruct because we took a really hard line about what happened. People I cared about disagreed and left and many times I questioned our approach.



A year later, I am very comfortable with the decisions we made. The board is still here, healthy and I have hope that we can continue with it in the future and have a necessary transformation as the buffyverse dies. We raised money for kids, I am proud of all of us.



As Bob said, I did not expect we'd get to Joss. I did not think we could do anything but so much has happened and we exposed them for who they are. I think many more people can see now that a beloved show was destroyed. Tara dying was the turning point because we experienced how little they cared for the fans, for the characters and for the show itself.



And yes it still hurts. I miss Tara and I miss w/t. We made the best of the crap that was given to us and a year ago this time I would not have believed that. Kittens are the best.

-----------------------------------

En un mundo de ilusión yo estaba desahuciado, yo estaba abandonado.

Vivía sin sentido, pero llegaste tú. -
Mana

[dekalog]

previous to a year ago I was a happy little lurker who read and scoured this site for news of two witches that changed me for the better. I know it sounds stupid but I never really got relationships until I saw their relationship on the tv - sex I got, love not so much, until I saw what they had, no matter how brief on screen, and saw it as something I wanted too.



then returning from out of town I read the spoiler from AngelX and felt like someone had put a knife through my heart. I really didn't want to believe that it was true, and so I desperately wanted to believe Ed the Spoiler - silly me.



In fact, I still think apart of me believes that somehow in the season finale that she will be back and Willow will start acting like Willow again - and they will be together - even if it is accomplished through Willow dying. I know it won't happen but there is this stubborn part of me. I guess I can't wrap my head around believeing that someone would actually purposely kill this relationship - I'll never figure that out, and I will never buy or support anything from that production company - EVER.



I did want to say thanks to this board and the wonderful people here - I've started posting a little and people are really nice. PLus I don't even turn on the tv anymore - if I want entertainment I come here and read a story on pens (thanks to everyone who writes them

[tommo]

Yeah, like Xita, I found out from Brad too. I have to say, I still remember the day he called me and told me. I remember the feeling of panic I got because it was what we'd been fearing for so long. And despite Tara having survived the "Tara dies" rumours going around at the end of Season 4 and Season 5, I knew that this was it. Indisputable and real; this was the end of it.



I think my reactions were the same as most people who cared about Tara. I was almost in tears on the phone to Brad, and I kept asking "why?". There were many times afterwards when I cried even just thinking about it. Willow and Tara had got me through some tough real life times; they were something that I had clung onto as a representation of how love should be, not necessarily how it is.



Anyway, it was a tough time before the spoilers were commonly known. I also remember a day when yahoo messenger chat was open all day. That was probably one of the fondest and worst memories I've got of the kitten board. There were so many people in there, just wanting to talk to one another and to share their grief, I suppose. It was weird in a way, because Tara's not real. And we all knew that. But to us, she and Willow were something special. I know that the success and fame of the Kitten Board rests on that belief too.



I was still in Chicago then; and that day was spent entirely on chat, with quick trips to the shops for cigarettes and apple juice, heh heh. It was a horribly windy and rainy day outside, which I suppose is pretty appropriate. Pathetic fallacy indeed, heh.



Everything that followed was what I suppose has ingrained the integrity of the Kitten Board into my experience of it. It's funny that Xita should mention the word "integrity" because it's the one deciding factor as to why this board is what it is. The spoiler threads that were huge and full of people jumping on every tiny bit of information they could; the false spoilers that, in retrospect, seem very cruel and almost twisted; the playing out, scene by scene of the episode where Tara died. And yet we came through it.



And here we are today. We're stronger than ever, believing in something that, although it's not on our tv screens anymore, is such a huge part of our lives. The amazing fic that has come out of the Willow and Tara relationship will always stand as a testament to what we perceived as "special". The wonderful and quite astonishing generosity of the kittens, and the contribution we've made to enhancing the lives of young gay people; of helping gay teenagers and standing by our principles and our beliefs. That's what is indicative of the majority of the people who frequent this board on a daily basis. I think, if anything, that's the good that has come from this whole sorry mess. If there truly is an upside to Tara's death, then it's been that the people who spew out entertainment, and change their morals to suit themselves have seen that loyalty to supporters counts for a great deal of their success.



I'm under no illusions that we have been responsible for anything that is happening now, or anything that might have happened in the months after the end of Season 6. But what I do know is that we took on ME and from a moral standpoint, at least, we emerged the victors. We never changed. They did. And they suffered.



One year on, I won't be dancing on anyone's grave. It's a sad indictment of the entertainment industry that last year's golden boy is this year's pariah. But you know, sometimes that's just the way that karma works. Sometimes, that's just the way that showbiz works. And sometimes, just sometimes, that's the way that life works.



It doesn't please me to see how far Joss has fallen. Nor does it please me to see how failure sits so uneasily on his shoulders. But I can't help feeling that perhaps things might have been different had he listened to a bunch of gay and not-so-gay supporters of a shy blonde that he made a part of our lives. Perhaps. I don't know. And I never will. I won't be sitting here in a year's time wondering the same thing. Things are what they are.



But I will echo what Xita and others have said. Kittens really are the best. They're the best because they've seen the worst. They're the best because, in a lot of cases, they've lived through the worst. And they're the best because they weather the worst and come out stronger on the other side.



So maybe I'm getting a little verklempt about my love of the board and most of the people on it. So what? I think I'm allowed to do that, heh heh. I think I'm allowed to be really bloody proud of the motivating forces behind the board and how they have helped me keep it together. Speaking from a purely personal point of view; when Tara died I wasn't sure how, if at all, the board would progress. Looking at it now, I'm proud of the way it has done. I'm proud to be a part of it, however small.



I miss Willow and Tara like you wouldn't believe. I miss them on a daily basis. I'll see a picture or read a fic or even just watch an old episode and the wonder of what I felt when I first saw them will return, just for a minute. And then I'll remember what Joss did and I can't help thinking, "you idiot".



I'm sure there will come a day when he will feel the same. It might not be for a long time, but you know, it will happen.



The kittens didn't stop Hollywood. The kittens didn't change Joss' mind. The kittens didn't really do anything other than step up to the plate and say what they felt. For that, I'm kind of in awe, I think. We're a known quantity now; never underestimate the power of the kitten!



So yeah, one year later (and god, it seems like so much longer) we're still here. And most of us are still queer.



Get used to it.

In you the song which rights my wrongs; In you the fullness of living;
The power to begin again; From right now, in you...

[AmbersSecretAdmirer]

I can't believe it's been a year. A year where true fans have shown their allegience as to whether they still believe in the show or not.



So I say this, we are TRUE Buffy fans. Why? Because we dont simply accept the offal that ME want us to swallow. We believed enough in the inegrity of the show and the actors involved to say "NO!" when we saw something go so wrong with the show. For that we have seemed to be extremists. Maybe we are, but no more than those who stand by Joss and ME like rats to a sinking ship. However where we differ from those people is that we have both the logical, emotional and moral high ground over the blindly loyal ME-philes.



We have seen a year where we have in our own small voice, added weight to the argument that ME made a right mess of season 6 and continue to do so in season 7.



So is it a victory? Kind of. We didn't win Tara back and we, as I have said, are seen as extremists, but thanks to our voice Amber felt fully justified to take the stance she did. If we and others like us had said nothing, if the pain and anger we felt hadn't been voiced, then perhaps Amber would have felt differently about the role of "Evil Tara". But she heard us, heard our pain and responded. She made a decision based on her heart and her integrity. Her head would have said take any job, her wallet would have said the money would be nice. These are perfectly sound reasons for any aspiring actor to take a job but Amber rose above it and stood by her fans and for that she will always have my respect, my admiration and my love.



A year where we have done what Joss and ME should have done and didn't. We kept Tara & Willow alive.



Do we celebrate? No. But we should take a moment of quiet reflection to remind ourselves that we may not have succeeded, but we were right to try and we did so much with so little. For that all here who posted, signed petitions, spread the word about their pain and anger, should feel a sense of pride in having stood by their beliefs and not been quiet about it.



I SALUTE ALL THE KITTENS!! I AM PROUD TO BE ONE!! ALWAYS!!

[jixer]

Hello Kittens-



A year? The earth has traveled around the sun since I found the news? It does not seem possible for the hurt is still there. Tara wasn't real except in our imaginations and hearts. Buffy is just a show on a box, but I miss both so much. It's only here that Tara lives and BtVS still has a heart.



My story is echoed above in the simple fan becoming a spoiler addict and discovering the worst. In my case the way I coped was writing fanfic and postcards. Given I stretch the upper end of the juicy demagraphic now and I'm a married male I at first doubted I'd fit in with Kittens. Now I relax at Pens, marvel here at the damage a man's ego has done to a his business, and get the latest gossip over the electronic back fence/water cooler in the Kitten.



In the last year I've seen an actor take on a responsibility she should never have had to and become a fan. I've found some of the most compelling writing in Pens while I've had to stop watching BtVS because of the lack of care and plot. I've learned a lot about ratings and how a TV series works from much more learned Kittens as we watch the ongoing disaster known as ME. It's been an education.



I too felt anger at the waste of so much potential, the pain inflicted on fragile youngsters looking for a single decent role model, and the roaring pride that left a shambles in it's wake. Now the anger has turned to frustration and a sense of loss. But here I know I'm not alone in my feelings.



It's been a year I would not have faced as well without this place and these people. Thank you Kittens.





Jixer

[kyraroc]

I was still pretty new to watching Buffy at the start of season six. I started watching because some friends were fans; I kept watching because of Willow and Tara. I think I don't have to explain why to all of you.



Right around the beginning of season 6, before I ever looked at any Buffy boards, I heard someone mention there was a rumor that Willow was going to go evil and be the big bad that year. I immediately thought, "Oh my god. They're going to kill Tara." After all, that's the cliche. The famous lesbian one, you know?



But, after watching the first few months of season 6, I started feeling better. Willow started using her magic in unethical ways, and Tara left her. Phew, I thought, they're not doing the cliche after all. They had them break up so that Tara wouldn't be there to be her moral center, and Willow's going to plummet to rock bottom without her. Probably Tara'll be the one to pull her back after she goes over the edge. Wow, I thought, that's kind of cool. Original, even. Kudos to them.



By this time, I'd found them Buffy boards and was using them to look at transcripts of past episodes so I could fill in the backstory I'd missed. All of them were full of rumors of a Big Scooby Death. I felt a sinking feeling. It sounded like the truth to me. I knew whoever it was wouldn't be brought back - they'd just brought Buffy back, and wouldn't want to seem repetitive. At the top of the list of likely suspects was Tara.



But maybe not. There were other possibilities. Anya, maybe, or Dawn. I liked Anya's character, but could think of a few plots where her death would be good TV. I'll miss her, I thought, but it'll probably be worth it - look how well they handled Joyce's death.



By this time, I was actively looking for spoilers. Who was going to die? Would Willow and Tara get back together? Not surprisingly, I soon found myself on the Spoiler Board at the Kitten.



My first day there, I read that Willow and Tara were getting back together. Yay!



My second day there, I read that Tara was going to die.



I started hanging out at the Kitten a lot. Lot of nice people there, who knew what the real good stuff in the show was. Lots of them thought maybe it was a deliberate fake spoiler leak, or that Tara would come back by the end of the season. There were elaborate, clever theories based on foreshadowing from earlier in the season, and some guy named Ed the Spoiler assuring us he had the inside information and it was all a bait-and-switch. I let myself be half-convinced.



But I knew better, really. Ed the Spoiler was spouting self-contradictory bullshit and leaving tell-tale signs he was a fake. The clever theories were brilliant, but they were houses of cards built on a rickety platform - that surely, it was as obvious to the writers as it was to us that Tara was critical to the show. And the rumors of faked spoilers and secret scripts were easy to latch on to, but rang false to my ears.



The show was getting worse, and it seemed ever more likely that they weren't up to writing the story I was hoping for. I started getting pissed. I contributed a song to "Once More With Bitterness". I stopped reading the "there's always hope" thread - hoping for the best seemed less and less plausible the more I saw, and the thread just made me sad.



Still, I kept watching, just in case. I saw the show where Tara died, and it was worse than I could have imagined. Such a pointless, stupid, poorly written death. Still, I thought, I'll forgive everything if they bring her back. The show was built on the subversion of cliches, right? Joss is a feminist, right? The writers must know that this relationship is unique in the TV landscape now, right? Right right right?



As each subsequent episode passed, it became more and more obvious that she wasn't coming back.



I got mad. I started an "angry rant thread" so that I could vent about how horrible the show I loved had become. The season ended with Tara dead and the character of Willow destroyed beyond repair - or at least, beyond repair by these writers. There were a few rumors that Tara would be back in the first episode of season seven, but I gave them as much credence as they deserved.



We wrote e-mails and letter. We ranted here and on other boards. A conversation Willowlicious, Xita, myself, and a number of other kittens had in a thread became the Lesbian Cliche FAQ, in an attempt to explain why we weren't just disappointed but offended, why we weren't just angry but pissed as all hell.



Time passed. The anger didn't go away. I wasn't going to watch Buffy anymore, but I broke my leg and figured, why not see just how bad its become? The show had turned into a joke - an unfunny parody of its worst features. I tried to keep track of the cliche, but the show was flailing around so much in every direction it was impossible to figure out *what* they were trying to say. Something had died on the show. It started dying when they hooked Willow on drugs and finally kicked the bucket right along with Tara.



Kittens kept acting. A bunch of them organized a charity drive to help gay teens. Others wrote essays and posted them on the web. And Buffy, all on its own and with no help from us, began a slow and agonising rigor mortis. Finally, it's been decided to bury its corpse.



My leg got better. I stopped watching. It was getting a little embarrassing to watch, since my gf stopped watching after season 6 and wondered why on earth I still bothered. Gradually I started to move on, although the bitterness still flairs up every now and then.



Did we win? I don't know. Win what? Tara's not back, but given what the show has become, that's probably for the best anyway. Gay representation on TV still sucks. Maybe we changed some people's minds, or made some people think. Maybe some of them will write some scripts. Although probably we alienated a bunch of people, too. Hopefully we helped some people who needed it with the charity drive. The show's ending, but that hardly seems like a victory.



Anyway, at least we made our thoughts and feelings known. That's a good start.



One step back, two steps forward.



--- KR

Lost in Ecstacy

[VampNo12]

I've been a spoiler ho from way back, so I knew the rumors, but considering this "news" (Tara dies) has been going on since season 4 I didn't believe it. Then on the day "all hell broke loose" I was away from the computer until 3:00 am, and when I finally logged on I was in utter shock. At first my frame of mind was denial (a sense of disbelief), but that lasted only an hour, then I felt like a was punched in the gut.



Although, I still had hope, (I had such a trust in Joss/ME) that even if Tara was killed... well in the end all would be made right (ie W&T "always find each other"... they'll be together again). So I too found myself spending a great deal of time in the "hope thread" looking for anything positive to hang onto, and who could forget Ed the spoiler (however, in hindsight I knew what he was saying didn't really add up).



And when the cliche was brought to my very eyes (with no subversion of said cliche, just continued "darkness") I felt overwhelming grief... followed by bitterness. I never in my life "shipped" a couple, let alone finding myself so invested (to the point of obsession) in a tv program before, that to see W/T destroyed (in such a manner) with everything positive their relationship represented to gay youth/etc hit me quite hard.



Now one year later... this board will outlast this farce ME likes to call entertainment. And who knows how much influence we had in the destruction of ME's "empire", but what I do know is we have made a difference... refused to be silenced. Thus, whether by writing to convey our displeasure/hurt, or banding together to raise money for such a worthy cause (the Trevor Project)... we have shown what hearty stock we are made of, which makes me so proud to be a member of this board... community.



Lastly, I think ME's legacy will be remembered more for the negative than the positive (ie for everything wonderful ME takes credit for, they must also take the blame for what went wrong). With this in mind, I think the "darkness" (how ME utterly destroyed the show... characterization, consistency, and common sense thrown out the window for this drivel/caricatures) will overshadow the positive of the first 5 seasons. I guess what I'm saying in rambling fashion is collectively we have risen above Joss/ME, where we have "reclaimed" W/T, while ME is "tainted"... left in a continued "free-fall" (a dark void).

Edited by: VampNo12  at: 3/7/03 6:39:26 pm

[drlloyd11]

I remember Angelx sought me out to tell me she had the scriopt for 20. She opened it while I was waiting and started with "I'm sorry". I Imed ruth, and I called xita. I went down to lunch and was simply blasted. I never knew I could be so angry, so miserable, and so sad over a characters death.

And you know, that was just the begining of months of ME lies and betrayals. And we are still around..

Is there anything else to say?

In the end Joss lost more than he took from us.

And hes not done losing..

trust me on this one..

[Caoilin]

You know, you all are such an amazing group of people. Thanks, Bob, for this thread. For reminding me why I love it here.



Like you, I remember the spoilers and the denial that they could be true. I remember after, watching in vain, hoping it was all a mistake. Praying that the blood stained lens of some vicious man's "vision" would somehow, by some miracle, be washed clean. Wishing for that bright sunny morning when Tara walked out of the shower to a sleepy Willow, calming her after a nightmare to end all nightmares. I mean, they succumbed to a cliche before, right?



Through it all, there were the Kittens. Their bitterness, their anguish, their grief helping me with my own. Showing me that I wasn't a freak for being so affected by this character's death. Giving me a home and a refuge from everyone who didn't understand.



So, in my head, I've won. I've got new friends and a new admiration for a beautiful and talented actor who truly appears to "get it". I'm grateful to all of you - I can't begin to tell you how much.



Thank you, Kittens. Thank you, Xita.

[The Rose24]

Even though I was completely prepared for this, I cried like a baby at the end of SR. I was one of the people who still had some hope Tara would return alive and well. What a fool I was.



Now, it looks like Joss finally getting everything back. His precious FireFly is gone, and Buffy will be canceled soon. I expect Angel to be close behind. 80% of fans dislike JFK and the ratings are in the toilet. It won't be long before victory is ours.

Tara: My heart doesn't stutter.


Tara: Willow, I got so lost.

Willow: I found you. I will always find you.

[WebWarlock]

Wow.



One year ago I was busy running all over town looking rice paper. Natalie and I were making a nice Vietnamese dinner for some friends (oddly enough it was for a guy named Al. Oh and his wife's name is Tara.)



I had stopped in I checked the board, I read that they were getting back together! Then a few hours later I read the horrible news.



It hit me really hard. I had (I thought) just gotten over the death of my daughter, but this made me realize that I had a lot of anger still about that.



The next few months were awful. To this day I have no memories of this last June or the one before that.



I wanted to fight from right then and there.

No. I wanted blood.



But we waited. And struck when the issue was hot and we kept it hot.



Like Bob said, this is a hollow victory, if it is a victory at all.

"I lost faith in the people on TV" as Sting said. But I gained so much more by working with everyone here. I found a lot of good out there in the people on this board.



One year after all of that I have a new son.

I have renewed faith in people because I have seen what a small group of people can do. Working with everyone on the Trevor Project is going to be one of the things I am always going to proud of. Working with so many of you is something that will always be important to me.



Plus I have a belief in a living Tara with a living Willow. Yes, not watching the show, but working on the RPG games.



If I can put in a shameless plug, I read Sass' latest adventure she did for me some time ago and I stopped cold. For the first time I had something back that I thought was gone forever. I wish others could get just a tenth of what I got out of it. So much in fact that sometimes I read this side of the board about Tara being dead that I find it jarring. To me she is not. To the 2,000+ people that downloaded the adventures she is not.



I may have lost a very dear friend who was a fictional character.

But I gained so much from all of you. Really.



Tim

-----

Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks

"It was so dumb." - Amber Benson on the death of Tara.

[sam7777]

Thanks Bob for this thread! I joined the kitten Board when it was still on the other server. I loved Willow/Tara but couldn't find like minded individuals in the newsgroup or on other boards. This board was a god send. It's sad that fans of a gay relationship need to form their own board to talk about it but that's the way things are and why we need more positive gay portrayals on TV to build acceptance.



I was unhappy with the split the scoobies plot of 4th season and I didn't care for the Joyce's illness arc during 5th season. Both my parents were sick at the same time but their version of it didn't resonate with me as they thought about it and then forgot about it all season (IMHO one episode would have had greater impact ala "The Body"). By that point Willow/Tara were the reason that I was mainly watching. The fic on the pens board enhanced my enjoyment and relieved my frustration at the WB's unwillingness to let them show physical affection.



I had high hopes for season 6. Finally, we could see some physical affection and a real role for Tara. Little did we know that it was all a ploy by ME to build up affection for Tara prior to her dumb death. When Tara was confirmed as the BSD, I was more saddened than mad. What a waste! I was glad to be part of a group that protested the waste and pointed out the lesbian cliche. Thank god for the kittens for giving an outlet for my need to do somthing. I have never written letters to a studio or about a TV show as much as I have since Tara's death.



A year later, ME is floundering with Buffy and Firefly cancelled, Angel on the fence and no compelling idea for a spin off since ED said no. They have refused to listen to arguments from the critics, the fans and even their own star about the flaws in 6th season. Our victory is getting the information about the lesbian cliche out and the charity drive for the Trevor project. Even today, people still talk about the cliche with reference to Tara's death even if only to disagree. I'm especially proud of the Kitten's who ran the charity drive (Xita, Tim). The need for a suicide line like the Trevor Project's was underscored for me by what I saw as ME's trivialization of gay suicide in "Conversations with Dead people. I have had suicide in my family and consider it to be a serious issue that should not be a one off remark with and Indigo Girl's CD.



Kitten Board memebers are gay/straight/bi/transexual male/female and all united in the love of one lesbian relationship on TV. The Kittens show us what the world could and should be: without intolerance.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

[mariacomet]

I think I went through a lot of what others on the board did.



When the the 'Tara dies' rumor became real, I watched the spoiler thread explode. Like many, I struggled for a way to both believe it, and yet believe she would be back.



Because surely it couldn't end like that. Surely Joss, who I had trusted, wouldn't just kill Tara. I had believed him when he'd said Tara wasn't going anywhere. I had trusted Joss and Buffy as I hadn't trusted a television show in a very long time. I trusted them not to take the cheap way out.



They did.



When I realized that Tara wasn't coming back, no reset...etc... I just wanted to know why. I figured there had to be some better explanation then DMW. So I was very eager when I learned Steve Deknight would be on an internet radio talk show.



I figured at the very least Steve would understand my grief and offer some sort of understandable, coherent arguement.



He didn't and it literally left me in tears.



It was the kittens I turned to during all of this.



Because of the Kitten, I knew that Entrophy was not the happy ending I had been waiting for most of the season. It was a trick. Because of the kitten, I did not have to see Tara die on screen. Because of the kitten, I met my girl. Because of the kitten...



Willow and Tara live.



We celebrate the idea of love here. All of us. Unapologetic love between two graceful souls. It is a fantasy, yes. But in order for dreams to come true, there must first be the dream. Here....because of the kitten...the dream lives.

[DaNzS]

a year ago, that was the time i get so hooked up with willow and tara. and it's harder for me, because that was the time i was actually starting to enjoy the show. feeling the love willow and tara have for each other. and then, i have not even finished watching all the great willow and tara scenes from the show, and i found out tara was killed. i cried. sounds corny? but i really did. i was very sad. for over 2 weeks i think, i stopped watching any willow and tara clips because i was very upset. during those times i have not even watched a complete buffy episode, i was never a buffy fan. but because of willow and tara, i started watching the show i never thought i would watch. and they killed the only reason why i would want to watch their show.



i told myself i would never watch that part where tara was killed. i was still in denial, i still can't believe tara was dead. i love that character so much. when i finally decided to watch it, i was very scared, i dont want to watch it, but i have to be brave because i know that i should accept the fact that tara is dead. it was horrible, i can't stop myself from crying. she's just a tv character, i know, but she gave me something that i think joss whedon would never understand. and even "other" people would never understand. that's why i came here for support, to grieve with the others, to feel safe in a place where i know people understands what i was going thru and most esp. to continue loving willow and tara.



a year has passed, and here i am. still a willow and tara fan, and will always be a willow and tara fan. in the future there might be new lesbian couples on tv, even if there will be hundreds of them, they could never replace willow and tara.



willow and tara lived happily ever after in my heart.

[Gatito Grande]

What a year. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that, while I'd visited the Kitten pre-That Horrible Day, I didn't join until after . . . at which point I threw myself into spoilers and "There's always hope."



Y'know, w/o ever entering into the heart and soul of "Ed the Spoiler" (not that I want to), I still don't know what to make of him. Could he merely have been colossally wrong, or was he pathetically attention-seeking, or just One Sick F*ck? At any rate, I rode that train to nowhere, and occasionally stepped on toes here in the process (I'll trade you my mea culpas for your "told you so's").



As bad as the wildfeeds, and seeing SR were, what upset me far more were those end of the season comments by & Co. Those pathetic justifications of why this one belabored but beloved (by us) character had to stay dead or else the BTVS sky would fall. (Cuz nothing else could make that happen, right?!) . . . to say nothing of the insensitivity and the refusal to own up to the lies.



Having said all that, I can't regret having had hope, even if it was misplaced. Hoping in the wrong things keeps my hope muscle in shape (scary image, I know!) for hoping in the right things . . . like Willow&Tara Forever (even if its not on the "boob tube." Ah, that word takes me to a much happier place: Sassy Eggs!)



So, even if I haven't been the koolest Kitten, I'm grateful to this board---this community---for being here. I've learned alot (how distant I am from the biz compared to others, for one), and hopefully, have grown from it. Hey, a year later, I finished the Damned Dissertation I was complaining about when I first got here, so maybe Kitten Perserverance rubbed off on me in another way!



Thank you, all of you Kittens (especially you long-suffering mods) for being here, and guaranteeing that Our Willow and Our Tara are Livin' Large, Lovin' Long and Lustin' Lots!



GG And ME, bite me. Really. Out

[Firefoot]

I just remember reading the spoilers and being completely shocked. I couldn't believe that Whedon would kill off this character for whom he had publicly professed such love. I honestly thought there'd be a resurrection eventually, if not at the end of season six, then at the beginning of season seven. Part of me is still amazed we haven't seen it yet.



If you look back over Tara's time on the show, the most obviously romantic and sexual scenes between her and Willow were in episodes JW himself wrote and directed (maybe with the exception of the bedroom scenes in SR). He struck me as completely in love with this couple, and everything he said about them in interviews seemed to confirm this. Now I am wondering, cynically and horribly, if they really meant anything to him at all, or if they were just his little live-action girl-on-girl fantasy. And like the overgrown child that he is, he discarded this plaything once it was no longer of interest to him.



It still amazes me how blatantly he lied to W/T 'shippers, all while basking in the praise of critics and the gratitude of fans who thanked him for creating the couple. And then he turned around and killed this character he supposedly loved, without even giving her death some kind of dramatic meaning--all so that viewers could be treated to three episodes of hopelessly over-the-top "Dark Magic Willow" (yawn).



It's going to be a while before I really get into a TV show again the way I did with Buffy. It's going to be very tough for me to trust a television producer, if JW's behavior is any example of how TV producers feel they can treat their audience.



Firefoot

-----

"The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last for a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money."

--Mark Twain

[Garner]

A year ago I was still a relatively new kitten. I had been anticpating Season Six since the middle of the summer when I became a W/T fanatic despite having watched the series since its beginning. Hey, it takes some people longer than others to realize what they are watching. The single most exceptional love story on TV. I backdoored into the kitten because of fanfic and Rane telling me about a place where there were lots of W/T writers and people who were interested enough to give feedback. Obviously the place for me I thought.



I heard the rumors starting in January that Tara would die and since that was about the worst thing that could possible happen, I feared it had to be true. Sure enough that turned out to be the case. I was upset and angered, not just because of the loss of W/T, but because of the impact on so many people here that cared so deeply about W/T and who had been helped or given a moment's escape by them. When I watched SR itself I still couldn't believe how idiotic the story was, how manipulative the plot was and what a waste the entire thing was. Anger rather than sadness filled me. This wasn't a sad and tragic death, but a senseless one done for a cheap and unconvincing story.



Since that time I met several wonderful kittens in Chicago, worked with Tim on keeping Tara alive in the Buffy RPG world, and tried to continue to keep the spirit alive in fiction. That has proven very difficult for me. The pain and anger are still there beneath the surface, and each good story written is like a indictment of ME, of what they blew and could have been, but wasn't. I also feel the whole Trevor Project charity drive shows that kittens are the most wonderful and caring group online that I have seen. Something positive was done out of all the negativity that we were forced to endure from ME, and from all the bitterness that swept over many of us. I think that shows the true integrity of those on this board, and the organizers of that drive deserve a great deal of praise as does anyone who helped contribute. This is our true victory.



And yeah, it does assuage the anger a bit to see ME and Joss fail so badly this year. But it is hollow because it still means we won't see W/T together again. And in the end that's all we ever really wanted.



Garner

[Annecy]

I came here for the spoilers too, just before SR, and stayed because I hadn't found such an intelligent, thoughtful group of Buffy fans anywhere else. And since my reasons to watch BtVS were "my blonde chiquitas" (i.e., Buffy, Tara, and sometimes Anya, in that order), when I quit watching due to the destruction of all three (at least Tara was spared the character assassination part), at the Kitten I was among people who Got It.



And like Gatito Grande, I have one more completed dissertation than I did last year.



Annecy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If we want it to be exactly it'll never be exactly I know the only
really real Buffy is really Buffy and it's gone who?

[hush30]

I wasn't around at the kitten a year ago and I found out about Tara's death much later than Xita, Bob, Tommo etc. I remember I watched OMWF and thought there is no way that they would be stupid enough to break up W/T (little did I know at the time that what they had planned for W/T was infinitely worse than anything I could have imagined). I remember being at uni watching Tabula Rasa just laughing my head off and then crying at the end at W/T's break up. After that I became obsessed with finding out what was going to happen between W/T in the future of Buffy and I came across the Bronze. I remember reading about each episode over time until finally reading about Entropy. I was over the moon when I heard the girls would get back together but this only lasted until I read Seeing Red. It was incomprehensible to me that firstly Joss could do such an incredibly ignorant, cruel, and short sighted thing and secondly lie to everyone that it wouldn't happen (I heard about all the lies later on).



In my dispair I searched for a community on the internet who felt as devastated as me because the Bronze certainly wasn't a place I could share my pain. This is when I found the kitten board and was relieved that there were actually people out there who felt as heart broken as me and who were welcoming and nonjudgemental of its member's pain and grief. I lurked for a long time before finally getting the courage to delurk. I don't know how I would have gotten through that time without the kitten board. At the time I couldn't talk to my partner about it as she didn't want to be spoiled.....that changed later) and my friends and family thought I was overreacting to a silly TV show 'it isn't real you know' they'd say. They just couldn't understand how it could have affected me so deeply and turned their lack of understanding of my pain into a joke. The kitten was the only place I could come to and not be judged for firstly being upset about what we had lost and then later about not even being given the opportunity to grieve over the loss of someone who had become soooooooo precious.



I just feel so proud of this community and what Amber and Aly gave us both on and off the screen. I am also extremely grateful I went looking for you guys. I don't say this often but Xita you have done an incredible job with this community and whatever decisions you made early on the fact that we're still standing and have nearly 3,000 members is proof enough that you made the right calls. Thank-you!



Nan

"I think this line's mostly filler" - Willow in OMWF

"Not really much for the timber" - Tara

[dreadpirateemily]

I was sitting at my desk, reading the kitten board, getting my daily dose.... I had a weird weird feeling like something horrible was going to happen and was checking the boards, waiting to be proven wrong.



My partner, a fan, but not like us, was lying on the bed, chiding me for being obsessed. She had every right. Willow and Tara were all I talked about. So worried that they would destroy something so right. I was assured by friends and loved ones that it was fine. Joss was better than that. And stop obsessing!



So I went forward in good faith and checked the boards, looking for reassurance. I saw that the spoiler thread had grown by several hundred posts since the day before... I couldn't remember which page had been the last, so I just picked one close to the end. When I saw the subject line, I went pale. And then I was silent.



My partner noticed that I had shut up and asked me if I was okay. She saw my face and said, "read it to me."



I turned and read the post from AngelX and then read some posts from other kittens. Tears were running down my face and I kep tsearching for some sign in the spoilers that it might be a trick, a device, something impermanent. Nothing I'd seen in the Buffyverse prepared me for this type of cheap twist.



I turned around and my partner, my beloved, (the one who'd asked me to please can we talk about something else! and who implored me, get another hobby, and who would not let me put another W/T wallpaper on our shared computer).... she was crying.



She was crying for Tara. And for us. For the absolute loss of someone who was like us. Someone who expressed the love we felt for each other. She told me not to make fun of her. I didn't.



And so one of our first rituals, one of the traditions that was born early in our relationship and one in which we still found much joy - the watching of buffy on tuesday nights - was dead. We did not watch the rest of the season and continue to boycott it until this day.



So when Joss says that it's his character to do with what he sees fit, I would challenge him. I would say Joss, that which you create, others inhabit. And from that which you destroy, others may wander lost.



That's what I remember about this day.

[sprhrgrl]

I'm with DaNzS:

i was never a buffy fan. but because of willow and tara, i started watching the show i never thought i would watch. and they killed the only reason why i would want to watch their show.

I had friends singing the praises of the show since its inception. But I was never there. It was the lesbian rumours that brought me in, and the musical. Because I'm a musical freak. So I watched that and Tabula Rasa, and then stopped because they had broken up. I watched the back episodes that I had missed (and I'm almost glad that there were so many for me to watch) and I obsessed.



I don't even know where I heard. From one of my girlfriend's friends, I think. I wasn't watching the show at that point (which I now slightly regret), but I was just so. . . Angry.



Mine was a simple experience filled with hearsay, but it had such an emotional impact. For a relationship from a show that I saw broadcast episodes of only twice, it's become such an important facet of my life. . .

sprhrgrl.com

counting*stars

racism=sexism=homophobia

The truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you off. – Gloria Steinem

[Cicca]

A year ago, I was in great big denial about rumours I'd seen popping up around the board. I just refused to believe that they could be true! The spoiler-free island was such a wonderful haven all through that time. We could all be silly, leave any anxious thoughts "outside" and just get some comfort from each other. I think most of us had inklings of what was making the board explode, but we just kept focussing on all the yummy W/T love.

*big hugs for all the island kitties*



Kittens as a whole were such a help once Seeing Red had aired. It was so horrifying, and it was good to have a place that understood it and didn't try to sweep it under the carpet as "just a tv show".

Thank you Kittens.

invite someone dangerous to tea * look forward to dreams * imagine yourself magic