Hey everyone,
I wrote another one of these, but have not heard back on if it's okay to post it. So, this isn't that!
However, I
do want to share my feedback responses. Interestingly, "Trade Off" is 1591 words and took less than two hours to write. The entirety of the feedback response I have here, including quotes, is over 8000 words and probably took at least ten hours to create including the time I spent emailing back and forth with wayland. So, for people who like to read me explaining shit: it's your lucky day.
BIG DISCLAIMER!
This is
not me being passive-aggressive at Sass. I'm thrilled she's let me post any of these. So please don't pester her. I'm just super-excited to share my thoughts on the feedback I've received.
*small voice* Plus, I'm vain, and was sad to see this knocked off the first page.
Shut up.
--Kate
General responseThere were two recurring themes in the feedback to “Trade Off.” First, reaction to Willow's choice in title, and second to the ideas of addiction and consequences brushed on by both Willow watching Tara and Joshua in the yard and by Willow's explanation to Joshua of why she didn't do magic with them. Wayland and I ended up having a very long discussion about these, primarily about the issue of Willow's addiction and how it shapes this family's current life. I've posted this discussion, slightly edited, at the end of this post for those interested in the details. (There's also a brief discussion of my understanding of Willow's story throughout the entire show, for those who are interested.)
Here's a summary for each issue.
Willow as “Daddy”My use of this title got a lot of attention, but I really threw it in very casually because it amused me in the moment. I was surprised by how many people commented on it.
While I'd love to say that I'd thought of this at the time, it wasn't until after I was done and posted that a particularly interesting reasoning behind Willow's choice came to mind. My interpretation of the exactly one episode where we meet Sheila is that she's in sociology, social psychology or cultural anthropology. Whichever of these it is, a discussion of social scripts is something Willow should reasonably have grown up around. Given that Willow and Tara are raising a male son, and their social circle is rather small and insular, I think it's reasonable that Willow could be concerned about providing her son with male social scripts. She would feel motivated to provide her son with some sense of normalcy in the face of their extremely crazy existence (this takes for granted the idea that Willow and Tara are still active in Scooby-centric activities, which never came up in the actual text, though the fact that the universe itself is the Buffyverse was certainly addressed). Since Willow was socialized with male friends from a young age (certainly Xander, and plausibly Jesse), Willow has a good sense of what boys his age do, and by involving him in these types of activities at home, she enables him to better interact with boys his own age once he gets to school.
Let me emphasize here that I'm not saying that same-sex couples do any damage to children they raise of the sex the parents are not. Children raised by same-sex couples do just fine, and in fact by some measures are more successful than their peers. Though social scripts are certainly influenced by parents' behavior, parents are not the sole source: it takes a village and all that. What I am saying is that
Willow, who is both in a very small social circle and has the capacity to be somewhat narrow-minded when looking at social factors (e.g. not considering the influence of television, movies, and other media), could come to the conclusion that this would be beneficial for her son given their situation.
Here are some factors that influenced the choice at the time of writing:
- My parents had very different roles in my life and in raising me, but I never associated my dad's role in my life with him being male or my mom's role with her being female. They were different because they were different people, not because they were different sexes. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a lot of ways, I don't see what you call your parent important. They're just words. Very "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I bring this up because it makes the idea of assigning a male title to a female parent something that feels comfortable to me just because I feel like it.
- I don't plan on kids, and am currently engaged to a guy. However, I think if I did want kids and I was with a woman, I'd totally want the male titles. It'd be neat. And before I get jumped on for not knowing what the fuck I'm talking about, I did spend a large chunk of my dating life seeing women, and spent time considering children, even if I didn't think specifically about who would get called what. So, this comment isn't totally off the cuff and baseless.
- Despite how Willow is actually portrayed on the show, particularly in the later seasons, I tend to think of Willow as a tom boy. Maybe it's how damn hot she looks in overalls. Maybe it's me projecting, because we have a lot of other things in common. But it's there.
Willow and AddictionThis story came off as very sad and/or bittersweet to people. I wrote it as an overall happy one, though certainly containing bittersweet moments. Discussing the details with others, I think that there are several underlying assumptions that I have about the world in which this vignette takes place, but were not explicitly stated. What was depicted instead was Willow trying to put a very complicated situation into terms that would make sense to a four-year-old child.
These factors have really changed the reading of the story for people, so let me lay them out.
- When Willow sees Tara and Joshua in the yard doing magic, what makes her sad and what makes her not interfere are different. She's sad because they're sharing magic, which is something she cannot, for both their safety and hers. The deciding factor in her not joining them is that Tara-Joshua time is reserved for Tara and Joshua alone. So, if Willow had not become addicted to magic, and both Willow and Tara gave Joshua magic lessons on, say, Tuesday nights, Sunday mornings would still be Tara-Joshua time, just like Wednesdays would still be Willow-Joshua time. Willow would not interfere either way. Willow is happy that Tara and Joshua have private time, because she knows how valuable her own private time with her son is.
- Willow has sought appropriate treatment for her addiction above and beyond her going cold-turkey as portrayed in season six, either through the council or the coven in England. Neither of them would have been willing to bring either magic or a child into their home otherwise.
- The divergence between this world and the canon world is rather late in Tara's storyline; basically the difference is that, for whatever reason, Tara isn't shot. This means both that Willow is an extremely skilled witch (though she has given the practice itself up) and that when enraged, she has the capacity to be extremely dangerous should she resort to magic; that is to say, should the events of “Seeing Red” have occurred in this world, Willow's response would have been the one depicted on the show. Whatever treatment Willow received has made both Willow and Tara very aware that Willow needs to stay away from magic for good to protect everyone's safety.
- Should Willow relapse, she would not be permanently excluded from Joshua and Tara's lives. She would go to “witchy-rehab,” to borrow a phrase from Wayland, for the safety of all those involved. As she recovered, Tara and Joshua would be part of her life again to the extent that it was safe for them to do so until it was okay for her to go home with them. While there are technically situations where Tara and Joshua would need to permanently be cut off from Willow, they are extreme and unlikely. Like, Tara wouldn't keep Joshua around Willow if Willow decided to become an axe-murder. But guess what! That's not gonna happen.
- This I think was understood, but bears emphasizing: unlike addictions to drugs, it's actually safe and reasonable for Willow to be in the same household as magic. She's been clean long enough to have recovered from the addiction enough for her to be around it. So, while it's a bad idea to keep a shelf of vodka in the home of a recovering alcoholic no matter how long the individual was sober, it's actually okay for Willow to get this level of exposure to magic.
So what I see at the end of the story is Willow looking back at a point in her past where she had two choices. They both had pros and cons. Magic came with the power to manipulate the world at the price of the powerlessness of addiction and no Tara. Coming clean came with Tara and the joy of love and eventual family at the price of that power. When she looks at what the "come clean" path has gained her, it's obvious that the one she chose was better. It brought her to a place that's amazing and beautiful.
Additionally, she sees this moment as a chance to tell her son a story that will make him listen carefully when Tara teaches him about balance, because Willow knows that wonder he's feeling when he floats the apple. Willow has provided an environment where he can learn magic, and wants him to have the chance to experience it. But like all parents, she wants to warn him away from the dangerous parts of it so he doesn't repeat her mistakes.
Individual ResponsesLaraghThe image of Willow choking on her own hair was too much for my facial muscles, and they lost control, spewing Coke all over my keyboard. I'll send you the repair bill
Hee hee. Poor keyboard.
I loved that the creak of the stair reminded Willow of Tara's laugh.
I’m glad. I was a little worried with that paragraph that was going to be too much, so I’m glad it came off as sweet rather than overly-detailed.
Huh, interesting to see a kid included in this one.
Though it wasn't a conscious decision on my part, I blame part of my decision on "Family Confidential;" I’d been reading, and so part of my brain was busy thinking about them having a kid. It was a lot of fun to do.
You know, I was just thinking the whole Willow watching Tara and Joshua do magic was bittersweet and then she thought it herself. But I'm glad she could still take pleasure from watching them.
This was exactly the note I was looking for, so this is extremely gratifying.
Joshua calling Willow 'Daddy' is pretty funny. I don't know how I'd feel about it in a real-life situation, but all's fair in love and fanfic.
See above general response to this issue.
Sweet explanation about Willow's past use of magic.
I’m glad. It’s such a complex thing, and while I had a lot in mind for the adult version of the explanation, the point here was an explanation that would make sense to a small child. So, the comparison to an experience with taste aversion seemed like something a kid would be able to understand.
(PS Sorry this took so long, I had it all ready to go and the site wouldn't load for me!)
Hell, you added within a relatively short amount of time. Like, I seem to remember it being less than an hour. I leave dibs hanging for weeks sometimes . . . which may make me a bad person, but hey.
For example, getting totally pwned for not filling in my dibs for "The Three of Us." /shame
LonelyTaraAw, thanks! See the general response above for the Willow as Daddy issues.
WaylandSince our discussion was so long, you've been bumped down the end.
ArielI always look forward to your writing and it’s always thought-provoking.
Aw, shucks.
So much rich and lovely detail
This was definitely made possible by the original piece. I’m not a visual thinker at all, and so what a scene looks like isn’t something it occurs to me to write about most of the time. But when I’m modeling off something that’s about atmosphere and detail, it forces me to think about it.
I actually remember teaching our son to talk, so that rang true for me.
WARNING: SCIENCE CONTENT
This is a phenomenon described in psychology, and it’s called “overregularization.” See, when kids are first learning English (and many other languages), the first words they learn are irregular, but they learn the conjugations by memorization, rather than pattern matching, so they get them right at first. Then, as they start to learn more regular verbs, the human tendency to pattern-match kicks in, and they start treating the irregular verbs that they used to get right like regular verbs. As they get older still, they learn which ones are which. It’s cool, because you can model this with a computer program. If you feed it verbs in the same order that kids learn them, it will go through the exact same U-shaped dip in correct conjugation that real kids do.
Very effective child-sized definition of addiction and yes, I felt the sadness and the joy there. Willow’s memories, past closeness, present loss, and the final balance in being happy with what they have.
I’m glad that this balance worked for you. I went into writing this bit trying to avoid being mean to Tara in QoH (though, since that update was from Willow’s POV, I’m not sure anyone else saw what happened as being mean to Tara). But I know it came off as sad to at least some readers, which really threw me at first.
KnightlyLoveOkay, love your style. Smart but fluid and well-paced. I kind of feel like your writing is a compliment to my intelligence, since you're trusting me to figure out what the hell you're talking about.
Thank you very much. In my household, we yell at movies and TV shows for insulting our intelligence as viewers, so I’m glad that my writing comes off this way.
Also, Willow's perspective + vocab and complicated phrases = yes.
I’m an academic, so I really love doing this with Willow. It feels very natural to me, because this is how I my fiancé and I talk.
I'm gonna be honest, the first one didn't really grab my attention.
Thanks muchly. A lot of feedback on the board is strictly positive, and that’s not what I’m after here. I want to know what works, but it’s also good to hear what doesn’t. I can see how, particularly if you don't know the original vignette, the first rewrite is, well, kinda dull. Mostly I was after some meta-humor.
I also totally couldn't tell that this was season 4 filler, and I'm tempted to say that it in fact CAN'T be because of that line in Goodbye Iowa, "I hope you don't think that I just come over for the spells and everything. I mean, I really like just talking and hanging out with you and stuff."
This is true. I don’t know if you’ve read through all of Sass’s original vignettes, but she typically takes canon up until “Hush” and then goes whatever damn way she pleases with it. So yes, the “Totally a Date” doesn’t fit in a canon season 4, but then again, neither did the original.
That last one was super bittersweet, heartbreaking almost.
You dont' say what about "Trade Off" made you feel this way, but I recommend the general response at the top of this post, and if you're still interested, in my response to Wayland at the end of my specific responses. If the things addressed aren't what you found so bittersweet/almost heartbreaking, I'd love to hear what it was.
And the "Daddy" just totally surprised me every time.
Again, this is something I talk about in the general feedback.
SadieI've just read "Queen of Hearts" in its entirety and couldn't stop reading your writing - so I ended up here...
Aw, shucks. I’m super glad that you enjoyed Queen of Hearts enough to seek this out. I’m flattered.
I just wanted to say it's been extremely awesome reading both your writing as well as the feedback explaining choices, questioning styles etc. It feels it's writing at a bit of a higher level than usual (absolutely no offence to other stories!!) and it just makes me think more about what goes into a story, really, from a writer's point of view. I am a (non-English) language graduate so I find words and styles extremely interesting but actual writing is a whole other piece of work!
This is really where my academic training comes into play. Even though I'm a biologist, I had an amazing education in English, including a lot of analysis of style. I have a hard time coming up with my own plots (you may notice that so far, everything I write piggybacks on someone else's plot), but I automatically spend a lot of time thinking about the interaction of style and storytelling. While that is reflected in my writing itself, responding to feedback gives me a space to talk about everything that goes on in my head when I'm writing something.
Also, I am new to writing fiction; Queen of Hearts is my first piece of fiction since . . . um, I think possibly seventh grade. I'm currently 28. So, a long time. I'm learning along the way what all goes into making a story, and my native response to a new experience like this is to talk about it. At length. I'm always glad to hear that there are people besides me who find it interesting.
Oh: what language? I've taken Spanish, French, and Japanese, my ex-girlfriend was trying to teach me German, and my baby sister has her BA in English and Japanese and is getting her MFA in translation. Suffice it to say, even though I'm in science, I have a lot of interest and contact with the study of languages.
While I do tend to notice other aspects of a story, aside from the obvious, grammar, spelling etc., I'm never quite able to explain these things in proper feedback like you do here. This feedback is actually a really good example of that, hehe.
I've been having a conversation with Wayland and Ariel about the different types of feedback, and eventually want to sum it all up somewhere like the “art of leaving feedback” thread. If you're interested,
my most recent comment on Wayland's “Donegal Street” (a story I really recommend, particularly if you were interested by the discussion of addiction in and surrounding “Trade Off”) goes into it a bit. If you’re interested in different types of feedback, I also recommend reading the feedback on JustSkipIt's “
Waiting for Dani.” Not only is the story one of my favorites on the board (to the point where I've begged Deb to publish it as a book. Seriously Deb, I don't know if you read this, but on the off chance you do: pretty please?), but the discussion in the feedback is really great. It's a lovely example of how something as simple as a a tight-POV with a flawed narrator can influence how a story feels. I'm hoping that despite the whole “married with a job and children and you know, a life” thing that she manages to scrape the time together to do the sequel, which is planned to be from Willow's POV; I want to see not only what happens next, but to see where it is that Willow's experience was different enough from Tara's to merit discussion in flashbacks/memories.
So anyway what I wanted to say is that it's just really refreshing to read your stories and feedback so I'll definitely be keeping an eye on your stories Thanks for sharing!
This is a very repeated theme for me today here, but it fits: aw, shucks.
Zooeys_BridgeHow on earth have I missed this series! This series is exactly why the KB is such a marvelous place. The interaction between writers, readers, and authors breeds such a creative and warm atmosphere, its really astounding. I love us!
We are pretty fucking awesome. What I love about this series in particular is that we're starting to open up into a more critical discussion, talking about what works and what doesn't, which is extremely valuable feedback. They're small enough chunks that that sort of analysis isn't overwhelming, and since they're self-contained, there aren't concerns with how the plot flows from a previous update or where it's headed in the next chapter. They're complete, so you can see the whole.
Brilliant beyond brilliant, BMD, I absolutely love everything about your rewrites, including the idea to do them in the first place.
I'd like to credit my fiance's college roommate (and our high school friend) Joe with introducing me to the idea of rewrites, Sass for having so many wonderful short pieces to work with, dlline for beta-ing Queen of Hearts for me and in the process making my writing so very much better, and everyone who's ever encouraged me for keeping my interest in writing up. Also, if you want, feel free to call me Kate.
And they're so good which makes 'em even better.
I feel like a broken record, but here we go again: aw, shucks.
"Not a Date" is one of my favorite Sassette vignettes, its so honest and sweet and feels completely natural and you nailed Willow's perspective on the whole scene.
I'm particularly fond of “Not a Date” as well, and it lent itself very well to a rewrite. There are plenty of vignettes, as well as short fic by other authors, that I really love, but I don't see a good angle for rewriting. Like, the Rose/Tara vignettes are great, but since they play a role in a larger story, they aren't something I want to touch. The POV switch was a lot of fun, but also very natural to me, because of the way I write Queen of Hearts: I have to have both POVs in my head, but only put one of them on the page. I have plans for posting a POV-swapped rewrite of one of my QoH chapters here in the future. I know not everyone who reads these reads Queen of Hearts, so it may be kinda boring to some people, but that's okay, because later rewrites don't depend on people reading the entire series.
Of course Willow wouldn't want to pressure Tara and so she allows Tara to set the pace. But as Sass pointed out, if Tara doesn't even know a=a, nothing can happen!
Not only am I a biologist, but my mom was before me. So growing up, I got a good background on how critical the underlying assumptions of any logical argument are. If not everyone discussing the argument have the same assumptions, it's natural that different conclusions will be reached. I really loved putting Willow in this box, where she was waiting for Tara to make the next move, while forgetting that Tara didn't know it was her turn.
I love that its stressing Will out to the point where the only thing in the world she wants to do is hold Tara's hand.
Also, I love The Beatles, so a chance to mention a song of theirs was awesome.
"She's with me," Willow informed the interloper, as she glared at him with a venom usually reserved for academic dishonesty.
Ha! Thats got to be one of my favorite Willow-plated comparisons that snuck in under the radar. Academic dishonesty! Oh man, it killed me, good job.
This was my favorite line of the whole thing, so I'm glad someone liked it. It just seemed so apropos, you know? Huh, that rhymed. Plus lots of assonance.
That’s why nothing has happened. Oops
Aaah, the eureka moment. Way to nail it, Will. I was really proud of Willow for reigning in the spastic and keeping calm when she recounted the date-like qualities of their past Friday nights.
Since I was keeping the dialogue and action from the original completely intact, credit for Willow's calmness goes to Sass. It was interesting to bring her through that conversation and to come up with how it was that those words and actions came to pass. I know this is like the gazillionth time I've pimped my own shit in my feedback to you, BUT: if you read QoH, you'll have seen me do this before when I write up scenes that actually happened on screen. If you don't, but are interested by this sort of thing anyway,
chapter 4 part 2 has two scenes out of the show that feel different in writing than they did on the screen, and that I'm particularly proud of. And since it's a filler fic, the overall sense of what the fuck is going on shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
Anyway, this series is truly inspired and I'm so excited to see discussion (from Sassette, too! ) and replies. When I get home later, I can't wait to sit down and read the next one!!
I was pleased to see Sass jump in to the discussion, particularly when we got into the nuances of “x worked/didn't work for me.” I get her feedback via PM when I send the stories to her when I ask permission to post, but people seemed interested in what she had to say. Especially since there was controversy. Yay controversy!
Detailed "Daddy" and Addiction Discussion
This has been put together from a series of emails Wayland and I exchanged. Much of my general response at the top of this post was taken from this discussion.
WaylandThe writing is lovely, the exchanges between Tara and Willow hit the perfect note of long-term intimacy, and I particularly liked the creaky stair. It’s a great image.
Thanks for this. While my life *involves* a long-term relationship (Adam and I have been together on and off for 10.5 years now), I haven't had the chance to write about one outside of the rewrites. "Rewrites" was my first shot at writing about a long-term couple, and "Trade Off" was my second. So I'm very pleased that it worked. I was a little worried about the stair, because it felt like it was at the line of "enough information to be charming" and "too much detail just move the fuck on." People seemed to like it, though.
I had the same ‘huh’ reaction as Laragh to ‘Daddy’.
So, I really didn't put much thought into Willow's title. Mostly I did it because I thought it was different. Also, despite how she's portrayed throughout the later seasons, I still can't shake a slight tomboy feeling from Willow. Maybe it's how damn hot she looks in overalls. Maybe it's me projecting. But it's there.
So, much as I'd love to, I can't really say that I was doing anything interesting here with Willow's choice, because I wasn't. I was, I'm pretty sure, mostly just projecting. I don't want kids, and am currently engaged to a guy, BUT I think if I did want kids and I WAS with a woman, I'd totally want the male titles Cuz it'd be neat. (I did spend enough years believing I’d marry a woman that this isn’t totally off the cuff). Now, reality would probably not let me get away with that (my grandmother is wonderfully progressive--a male cousin and I can discuss the relative hotness of actresses in front of her--but I think that'd be a bit over the line for her, and my family's a bit of a matriarchy). Still, it'd be what I'd want.
The mother/child bond is so mythologised in our society, that for a woman to choose another role felt unsettling. I realize that this is my conditioning showing through, and it surprised me. I do know that the roles of a mother and a father can be different, but they are not unequal.
While I agree that that bond is very much mythologised in our society, I think it would be a little less odd for Willow in particular to abandon it. I think a good dose of our societal impressions of the mother/child relationship come from Christianity, and the veneration of/respect for Mary. Though Willow grew up in a culture very much influenced by Christianity, she still grew up in a Jewish household. This is not to say, of course, that there is no appreciation of the mother/child relationship in Judaism; rather, that it hasn't been elevated to the same pedestal that it has been by Christians.
I'm also influenced, like everyone, by my own experiences. My parents had very different roles in my life and in raising me, but I never associated my dad's role in my life with him being male or my mom's role with her being female. They were different because they were different people, not because they were different sexes. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a lot of ways, I don't see what you call your parent important. Very "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Now, something I thought of SINCE I wrote this is that I see Willow's parents, particularly Shelia, as academic sociologists. Given that, I can see that Willow would be concerned that if she were to raise a son, that he would need someone to provide a social script for male behavior. Since (again, in my head) Willow grew up being friends with boys, she has a good sense of how little boys act, and can give him some guidance. Now, I know perfectly well that sons raised by lesbian parents do great (some studies show better than their peers), and I doubt that many choose the "father" nomenclature. But I do see it as something that would concern Willow. They have so much about their lives that isn't normal (I did slip in there that bit about apocalypses, so between that and the magic I hoped people got that this is still set in the Buffyverse) that she wants to give Joshua some semblance of normalcy, from teaching him to play baseball to learning about bugs. Again, something I sort of wish I'd thought of before I wrote this, so I could claim that there's actual meaning behind it . . . but I didn't. It's part of the story that happens between the text and me as a reader, not me as a writer.
I think my reaction was magnified because in the story this is juxtaposed with the exclusion of Willow from a mother/child activity - not from choice, but as a consequence of addiction. Maybe if there was some detail of the Willow/Joshua bonding time it might have felt different to me?
I guess that here what came across was not what was intended. I meant it to be clear that Willow didn't want to intrude on Tara/Joshua time. What they do together is something that Willow can't do anymore, but the time itself being private is different. So, if Willow still did magic, and they had Willow/Tara/Joshua magic time on say, Tuesday nights, then Sunday mornings would STILL be Tara/Joshua time, just like Wednesdays would STILL be Willow/Joshua time. So, what makes Willow not interfere is different from what makes her sad. What I was thinking about when I wrote it was the feeling I had when I watch my ex with her husband. She's happy with him, and that makes me happy; it's also hard, because she was the first person I ever loved, and I think some part of me will always be in love with her, so to see her with someone else, even when I'm with someone else, kinda hurts.
I was already really diverging from the original vignette when I wrote this, so I really wanted to stay in this moment, rather than drift to my concept of Willow/Joshua time. But for reference, Wednesday nights Willow is currently teaching Joshua to play catch, after which they curl up on the couch and watch Ghostbusters cartoons. Tara brings them popcorn and hot chocolate. I did actually know this at the time; my writing is very motivated by the
iceberg theory; I hated reading Hemingway, but I like this idea. I'm certainly not as extreme as Hemingway in how much I omit, but I do have a detailed world that exists behind all of my writing above and beyond what BtVS shows us, both for QoH and for these vignettes. Obviously for the vignettes it's a much less detailed concept, but it's more than I show on the page.
So now I can’t do magic any more, or I’d get so sick I wouldn’t be able to be around you and Mommy any more.
As I said, this made me sad, . . .
Let me begin by saying that to me, that wasn't the important line. It was written as a build up to
“I’d rather have you and Mommy than be sick and have magic.”
The exchange for me was about the choice between power and happiness. Willow had a choice to make in season six, to pursue her magic and become more powerful or to give it up and to be with Tara. What forced her hand and made this into choice is a sad thing, but that's not what I wanted to write about. She chose Tara, and it brought her to this place in her life where she's happy. She can look back at that choice and believe she made the right one. For me, it's all about that moment where she looks at Joshua and Tara and smiles. As much as that moment seeing Joshua and Tara was a bittersweet one, when she looks at what she has, it resonates that it's the better thing. I feel like we can't usually see, when we make choices, about which one will be the best for us, but hindsight is 20/20. Willow's far enough away that she can see the road she's taken, and knows it's the right one for her.
. . . as if Willow’s place in the family was tenuous and conditional.
While that wasn't the point I was trying to make, the conditional-ness of relationships was an assumption I was making as I wrote. But I assume that about all relationships, not just theirs. All relationships, even when you're old and married, have deal-breakers. They’re usually extreme, and what those deal-breakers happen to be are very personal and totally depend on the individual; my father is a smoker and an alcoholic, and my mother stays with him, despite the fact she hates it and fears for his health, though if Adam took up either of these and I could not dissuade him, it would end our relationship.
I think that this situation includes Joshua means that the relation has extra conditions on it, because if Willow behaves in a way that would endanger him, Tara would have to take him away. None of this is something that either Tara or Willow fear; Willow has truly changed, and they wouldn't have adopted him if they weren't certain that she was stable. And they aren't worried about Willow being around Tara and Joshua doing magic; I was careful to include that it was Willow's idea that they do magic when Willow already wasn't around, because I wanted to give the sense that even though it's a bittersweet thing for her, that it's something she endorses. Kind of like, I want my ex to be happily married, even though she can't be married to me (because she's straight, not a because of legal things).
Judaism strikes me as very matriarchal, but I do like your idea of Willow being influenced by her academic parents. (I can also imagine the children of such parents suffering in the school playground as a result.) The ‘daddy’ thing had a lot more impact for me in this story because, in my mind, it was tied to the addiction issue. As I said, my conditioning regards ‘daddy’ as a lesser role than ‘mummy’ so it emphasised my take on Willow’s role in the family being tenuous. My father was mostly absent, but my niece and nephew have my brother-in-law as their stay-at-home parent, so I expect their views will turn out to be very different.
I'm not Jewish. So, while my parents lived in New York for many years before I was born, and I've learned and read a lot about Jewish culture, I haven't lived it. That said, while I think that there is a lot of matriarchal power in Jewish culture, I think that Mary really gives Christian culture a particular view of the sanctity of the mother/child relationship. Now, I'm not Christian, either, and have spent much less time studying Christian culture, so I could be totally making that up.
In popular culture, I see a lot of talk about the idea of motherhood, and the bond that comes from having a child grow inside you, and how you fall in love with that little bundle of joy the instant you see it, yada yada yada, and I honestly never got that. I just don't. If I were to have kids, I'd be just as happy to adopt them. So that reverence that you mentioned in your original feedback is just something that, while I observe as happening in my culture, I don't understand. It's something I haven't internalized, so it's something that I can throw away on a whim because I think it's kinda cool.
The more and more I think about the idea of Willow's concerns being driven by an academic concern for wanting to provide her son with a male social script, the more I think it really fits her, and the more I wish I could say I had done it on purpose. I could make some argument that I've been writing this Willow since last August, and have really internalized who she is and how she thinks, and therefore it was natural write her based on that, but I think that's kind of a stretch.
‘So now I can’t do magic any more, or I’d get so sick I wouldn’t be able to be around you and Mommy any more.’
For you that wasn’t the important line, but for me, it was heartbreaking.
When I say it isn't the important line, I don't mean that the sentiment isn't sad. And she could have stopped her story there, and the whole piece would have become a very sad story. But a lot of what I write is about putting happy things next to sad things and sexy things next to angsty things. I like the contrast. I also think that what Willow says here is very true. I think that you can stick any drug in for magic in that line and you get a true statement about addiction. Just pulling a random scary drug out of thin air, say, crack, I feel that it stays the same. Willow shouldn't do magic and be around Joshua and Tara any more than a crack addict should be doing crack and be around them. And when I say that it's not because I blame Willow for relapsing, or that I think it should mean that any separation should be permanent. It's that Willow+magic or human+crack is a dangerous combination, and that she shows her love for her family by keeping them away from that danger.
‘The exchange for me was about the choice between power and happiness.’
But it isn’t for me. Addiction is powerlessness. Someone on crack, alcohol, magic, whatever, may feel bullet-proof but the truth is, they have no power at all. The drug is in control. Accepting that powerlessness is the key to recovery. The ‘power’ that Willow had was an illusion. It took away everything that mattered to her. Our readings of Willow’s relationship with magic are almost completely opposite.
When I said that Willow made a choice between power and happiness, I didn't mean that addiction is, or things your addicted to give you, power. Because yes, to be addicted is to be powerless. BUT we're talking about a very special case here: in the Buffyverse, magic literally lets you manipulate the world around you. That's the power I was talking about, not the control over the self.
A quick caveat: I think this is where our different readings of Willow's story come into play. I think that BtVS is good art in that it holds up a mirror to reality, and what we see in that mirror depends on who's looking in it, à la The Mirror of Erised (why yes that was a Harry Potter reference. Dork points for me!)
I think Willow's journey is a story that encapsulates the adage "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." From the way Giles talks about his past as Ripper, to how he warns Willow when she first dabbles in magic, to the way Tara reacts to Dawn's idea to bring back Joyce . . . it all falls together for me more as a discussion of how power transforms you rather than addiction to a drug. I'm not saying that the addiction storyline isn't there (it very much is, particularly throughout season six), but you can be addicted to power. She ends up powerless in her addiction to power. It feels a lot like the line in "Conversations with Dead People" about Buffy having a superiority complex, and then an inferiority complex about the superiority complex. When I started to look at magic like that, the storyline fell together as a more cohesive thing to me, instead of just a series of metaphors for different things. Yes, those metaphors are still there, but that's in addition to the overarching story about Willow and how she deals with power. It reminds me more of how Stalin learned from Lenin, only to overthrow him.
So, stripped of specifics, for me, in your story Willow is a woman who knows that she will lose her partner and child if her illness recurrs. Hence the sadness I felt. For Willow but also for Tara. Relapse is a process, not an event. It isn’t as simple as a choice. It can be well in progress before the signs are evident. So effectively both of them live on a precipice.
Of course that’s a huge simplification. There’s a massive grey area of personal responsibility. Not just in this scenario, but in any situation where an illness is triggered by behaviour. Do we refuse sympathy (and medical care) to anyone who’s a smoker, obese, sexually irresponsible, off their meds, etc?
I see this as a scenario with Willow knowing she will lose her partner and child if she FAILS TO ACT should her illness begin to recur. This feels just fine to me, because I will lose my partner if my illness recurs and I fail to act. Willow and Tara make a safety net, to make sure that she's still healthy, that she's still well. That net protects everyone, but its biggest role is to protect Joshua, who can't protect himself.
They deliberately bring magic into their home. This isn't something you would do if magic were exactly like alcohol or heroin; you wouldn't shove it in the addict's face, and you wouldn't teach your young child to do it. In addition to being something precious for Tara to share with Joshua, it exposes Willow on a regular basis, so they can actually know where she is in terms of relapse. The present-day choice is not about her choosing to use magic or not, it's about her choosing to deal with relapse appropriately. Do they live on a precipice? Absolutely. But the one I envision isn't as scary as the one that you seem to; maybe it's because I think it's the precipice anyone with this sort of illness lives on every day, and so I'm inured to it. (Also, inured is one of my favorite words I learned studying for the GRE.)
So what I see at the end of the story is Willow looking back at a point in her past where she had two choices. They both had pros and cons. Magic came with the power to manipulate the world at the price of the powerlessness of addiction and no Tara. Coming clean came with Tara and the joy of love and eventual family at the price of that power. When she looks at what the "come clean" path has gained her, it's obvious that the one she chose was better. It brought her to a place that's amazing and beautiful. Additionally, she sees a chance to tell her son a story that will make him listen carefully when Tara teaches him about balance, because Willow knows that wonder he's feeling when he floats the apple. Willow has provided an environment where he can learn magic, and wants him to have the chance to experience it. But like all parents, she wants to warn him away from the dangerous parts of it so he doesn't repeat her mistakes.
Because I live with a mental illness and grew up around it, the fact that Willow has that daily upkeep of making sure that she's well, the strain of being around magic and not participating in it, is just background noise. All that grey area and personal responsibility is a given for me, just as much as the disposable-ness of the title mother over father is. I also imagine that she's gotten professional help to get to this point, either with the coven in England or somewhere else, that was able to help her deal with her addiction; I doubt a normal therapist would be able to do that. I assume that because to me that's how one deals with mental illness: seeking the appropriate medical attention.
Of course there are times when it's painful, times when she's bitter and times when she's tempted. But those weren't the things I thought about when I wrote. I was writing about the ability to look past all that, past the pain and cost of making the right choice, the fear that it's temporary, and to revel in the splendor of what you have. She has Tara and Joshua, and that makes everything worth it.
I’m not writing this to try and persuade you to my view, but to explain why my reading of your story was so different from your own.
And I feel like you do: just because I feel one way about the story doesn't make the way you see it and feel about it any less valid or less interesting. I'm really excited, in fact, that someone can look at what I wrote and see something so different than what I felt when I wrote it. It makes me feel like I'm doing a good job as a writer that I can create something that does that.
If I picture Tara and Joshua visiting Willow while she was in witchy rehab, should that situation arise, then again, my reaction to the story changes.
This is totally what I picture. I mean, I was trying to give an explanation that would make sense to Joshua, and even though the rest was in my head, I didn't say it. So yes, if Willow relapsed, Tara and Joshua would still be a part of her life, as much as it was safe for them to do so. I just kind of take this for granted based on my personal experiences. I'm not saying there's no situation where Willow would get totally shut out of their lives, but it would be an extreme one, and that's not likely to happen. I was trying to show her temperament had changed to the point that even if she did relapse, the situation wouldn't be as grave as it was at the end of season six. (See how I got the word "grave" in there, and the title of the last episode of season six was . . . I think I'm very clever.)
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Actually start reading from the top. Don't just scan to your name.<<<<--------
I love the cute domestic interactions between Tara and Willow. And Xena pointy staff? That's hilarious.
Oh, and go read the original vignettes. They are way awesome. I've always loved cooking with my fiance, so I thought that Willow and Tara might like it, too. I could totally see Willow loving Gabrielle, and then thinking out the logical conclusion of modifying staff combat for fighting vampires.
So I wanted to do this as a chance to practice for that.
