Wishing You Were Here and A Photo Prevents A Thousand Words.
These are combined and centre on the themes for the Villains - Him portion of justice for Tara Maclay series. It was something I wrote in the 100 days talkthrough that made me think up these. How do they communicate when they only have words? Naturally you can omit words and just not say anything but because it's about learning to support each other too, I liked the presumptuousness of them believing they were doing the right thing for the other by hiding their pain. They need to learn not to do that.
I also wanted to write an English beach.

Period Power
In the BtVS film Buffy can tell if a vampire is around by having period cramps. Other than Buffy being a woman, I couldn't think of a single reason why that's even a thing and glad it was dropped but then I started to see parallels.

A Splash into Slayers
I’ll keep it brief because urgh. I still want an all out brawl against Dark Willow and the Queen of Black Magic. The chemistry between them would be immense. However the irony isn't lost on me that it's someone i don't accept to be considered Tara and my favourite version of Willow. It's like everything is flipped, it feels weird but at the same time I'm really into it.
If anyone comes across a fic of these two in a full on magical brawl please message me the link. I don’t want to write it but reading this drabble alone tells me it might be worth it. The inuendos and sexual tension alone, plastered with the inner turmoil of a softer soul inside and no fucks given. Yes please.

Tarot Tara
If you read 5moai or those three little words you might get the gist of me taking the piss out of Tara’s palm reading abilities. It's done with affection. I just thought what if Tara did see everything but seeing the lethe’s bramble caused her to forget what she saw. What if everything she used to tell her future actually worked but because of what Willow does in the future she thinks it doesn't work because she forgets. I think it adds more devastation to the lethe’s bramble and highlights how invasive the spell was.

Sunnydale Noir
I really want to write a Noir detective story. Sunnydale is perfect for it. Plus in ‘Go Fish’ Willow plays detective, not a convincing one. If Willow is a detective then Tara would have to be the femme fatale and Tara obviously isn't going to be comfortable in her own skin playing that part. So you have (play pretend) an out of her depth detective and a self conscious femme fatale set in 90s/00s Sunnydale. Why are they doing this? I don't know but for some reason they're in the position where they have to or in Willow’s mind she's seeing it as a Noir.
I did try a bit of Noir with the starting paragraph of Basement Grotto, And i adore the Family Guy episode, ‘The Fatman Always Knocks Twice’ . It's a brilliant parody/love note to the genre and a gag at every opportunity. If I could capture that, wowza.
Slight issue, never read or watched an actual detective Noir only the odes and parodies of them.

Sheesh Shopkeep
I think this is the closest I’ve got to being ambiguous.
1 - Weird old man.
2 - Homophobe.
3 - The person on the mugshot.
4 - All the above.
I never decided. It's up to reader interpretation.

Wilting Willow
Sometimes the interpretation of the prompt isn't for the drabble itself but for me. With this drabble I wanted to show a scene but explain nothing. So you have the chaos and knowing that someone is badly injured but we don't know what happened. In the end it's revealed to be Willow and by using Anya i hoped on a reread it would highlight how serious it is. Anya is showing sympathy but also the way she can cut off her needs to help Tara’s. I also used Anya as the audience in a way, the reader will just see people rushing through the shop and that's what Anya sees too although it's like she's seeing the other side of the scene whereas the audience is being shown Buffy's back.
I’m pleased with how this one came out.

Laundry Lovers
You’ll notice I pair Willow and Tara, and Anya and Xander a lot. And I think this one highlights why the best. Their relationships mirror each other. I'm not going into a ‘the Whedon repeats himself and only has one story in him’ tirade, it's true but he found a winning formula that pays, why not. Their love blossomed around laundry. But like a mirror your left is right and right is left. So while Xander and Anya's relationship is based on sex you have Willow and Tara where the sex couldn't be overt. 'Family' and 'Into The Woods' both find a joining of them solidifying their relationship (depending on how you read Family’s conclusion). In 'The Gift', Willow is unsure about Tara's future while Xander tries to reassure Anya with a proposal. Early Series 6 you see Anya and Xander bickering a lot while you see things fester between Willow and Tara. Mid series six Anya and Xander are the only thing solid. Then 'Hell’s Bells', they fall apart while Willow and Tara get closer. In 'Entropy' it seems things are irreversibly severed between Anya and Xander while Tara heads back to Willow.
Not only do I like their character dynamics, but that deeper dynamic that's there. They are very similar but there seems to be a pattern of one has quieter moments while the other has louder. Which could just be episode focus but at the same time it happens too much for it not to be something.

Rotten Return
I used Entropy when trying to define Entropy. I still don’t know what it is exactly but have an idea. I'm still not convinced that Tara is completely behind her decision to be there until she steps into the room. It's the body language and performance. Scripts aren't helping clear it up either. Part of me thinks Amber Benson was tired. I’m not getting a clear answer from the performance.

Piano Panic
I wrote this because of Willow saying she plays piano in ‘The Puppet Show’ but not in front of people. It was never picked up on again.
However i don't think of The Puppet Show when reading this, I'm thinking of BellaLocke’s fic, How Love saved The World. And how their relationship develops through sharing music in it. It must’ve inspired me.

Amnesia Amusements
This is a drabble that I feel has potential for so much more. A-Z their relationship is understandable but what if Tara is remembering Y while Willow is remembering P and they have the blanks to fill in. Could they trust each other in an environment they don't know if Willow remembers the lies of Family while Tara is remembering lethe’s Bramble. And in a place where they joined without their memories, what conclusions will they make when they remember mindless Tara/ i think there's a lot of scope here.

Possible Position

This position. The whole drabble turned into how to describe this position. I think I was going with an idea of youth but who knows? All I think about is this position. Seems so uncomfortable but possible.

Heavens Hello
I think this is my favourite drabble written out of all of them. It shows their connection and the intimacy of pillow talks can be rather meaningful if not sounding silly at 3am. I think it speaks for itself. Beautifully morbid while being touching at the same time.

Timetraveller Twang
This is the closest I will ever come to being bilingual. I’m fully on Willow and Tara’s side even though I know what it means because I feel it would piss the speaker off so much. Then i’d start using that lingo to piss off Willow and Tara. Being bilingual must be amazing to confuse people when you just want to be a windup.
That aside it is another one in which I think has scope to be furthered. Imagine a watcher in training from 2024 going back twenty years. The amount that has changed in that time is blurring especially as there's so much social regression for them but they are jumping into a momentum of new millennium progression. It would be interesting to see how that would affect how he works with the problem he’s clearly come with. But he also has a completely different view of the council and slayers as it was destroyed while he was a baby. And as we look at the statues and street names around us I think for the 2024 watcher he’ll be learning first hand about what he's got himself into in the future. To condense all that into subtext, character development and potential side plot I think would add great depth to a time travel fic which on the surface is just a monster of the week romp with humorous misunderstandings and curiosities about their futures.
Rewatching Charmed at the moment and they can't stop messing with time. Whereas Willow and Tara don’t really have any time hijinks in BtVS. Dimensions in a way but not time so it would be interesting to see where they stand on time travel and the moral quandaries that come with it.




I could talk about every single one of these drabbles. If there's a particular one you’re interested in please feel free to ask either in this thread or in a message. I’m happy to talk about them.

I’d say my view point on drabbles hasn’t really changed. As a reader they don’t offer me what I look for when reading, the depth of character just isn’t there. As a writer they still pose an excellent exercise. There’s a real challenge there to get a thought to fit in 100 words.

I’ve tried shortening my thought process into making a drabble but it rarely works out as it either isn’t enough to carry a moment and needs a lot of padding which alters the thought or there’s just no attractive angle found. I am bound by the KB rules so it needs to be Willow and Tara focused and sometimes to make the thought Willow and Tara focused you have to use an outside viewer by way of a different character. But using a different character means their perceptions of this thought are different as to what you’re going for and sometimes it works in the story's favour and other times it loses the required focus as there’s not enough space in the word limit to frame character view while portraying that intended thought with Willow and Tara focus.

In this I think it’s fair to say I’ve progressed from getting 100 words in a page to really thinking about what I’m putting in those 100 words but that’s not to say I don’t have days where it’s just getting 100 words on the page.

This isn’t to say, as a reader, drabbles have no validity as looking from a writer's perspective there’s potential for them to have in depth meaning. So now my view when reading and writing them is how much depth is there and can it be pushed further. Can you step into 100 words and enter an entire world detached from the one you stepped in from. To me that gives them a lot of intrigue and appeal.

There are two drabbles i want to talk through as they completely don't work for what I was going for and I think the words I use may evoke some defence in other writers or drabble enjoyers and I'm not going out there to insult others. Everyone looks at things differently and I think explaining how I see things might help with the thinking I don't house my opinions on drabbles in malice. I’m learning and with that comes confrontations and compromises of thought. That’s never met with clarity.

Splashing Smiles
This is the only one where I didn’t choose the prompts. That wasn’t an issue, if anything I thought they were kind going for only three. They could have really screwed me over and picked them all
This one falls to the fault of me. My push to say something but I think I'm the only one seeing it. I don't see what I'm trying to say in this drabble so my thoughts are no one does.

The idea behind this one was to show how opposing people in tastes, morals, and views can still work to have the same end goal and have complete respect.

So we have Spike looking on coming off as judgemental its made known his stance is to ‘protect’

We have Willow and Tara probably in swimwear, splashing about and their goal is to have ‘fun’

There's a pun and a canon reference to sniff out.

Spike looking on may not like what he sees but respects that Dawn is happy and ultimately that's their goal. They want Dawn safe and happy.

Character selection I think works. Very opposing sides in the case of what and who they are but through working together they do have a mutual respect there of sorts. I'm not convinced that translates here though due to the disconnect of their sections in the drabble.

Talking through, it sounds like it works better than i initially thought but reading it through i don't get that message or that feeling. It reads disjointed and flat like if you take out the Spike parts you could have more fun at the beach. But we don't get those choices and so Spike stayed. Together it might not be the best read but i think I've convinced myself it works now for the message it's going for. Its just a flat, messy read I'm not fond of.
Talking through helps.


The second one I’m copy and pasting and we will go through it because I tried to add balance through the first and second half while showing how much has changed and flipped. But it's another one where I don't feel it.

Homeroom

Seven years ago she sat in this room worried about the sneer from classmates as she was handed another A+ on a surprise pop quiz no one was expecting. It wasn’t exactly this room though. Graduation really blew up. Technically the pop quiz wasn’t a surprise either.

She rested her hands on the scythe.

Seven years later sitting in this room it was a surprise. No one has saviour of the world in their year book most likelys. Let alone unlock a whole generation of girl’s potential through mystical means.

Most surprising were the hands anchoring on her own.

“Tara?”

I'm colour coding what I've set as matching halves.

Seven years is to frame the transition and indicate the then and now. the first half is the anxiety she holds while the second half isn't anxiety but the bit after, when you just go with what's happened even if its not what you expected.
First half is to indicate her confidence in her knowledge. She is aware its not the same room, she had the awareness that a pop quiz was going to happen where as the second half has this but more in a jokey way. She has a humour about it rather than a seriousness but herknowitallness is still present.
This is the contrast of how people perceive her. in school she wasn't popular and often thought she'd receive unpleasantness from her peers for her talents. she knew she'd get an A, she knew there was a pop quiz. The second half however its on her shoulders to bring out the best in people. And that's new to Willow in this setting as she tended to experience peoples worst. But seven years on her peer are saviours of the world and they're all relying on her. The jokey nature offering a disbelief on her part, indicating a loss of that belief in herself that is in the first half.

Its also noticeable how the first half is based on structured intellect where as the second half is unexpected impossibility she's making possible.
And that impossibility is touched on with Tara's arrival but that's purposefully unexplained/ambiguous. Could be canon compliant or due to rules its to match up with the first half of the isolation she has. Alone in her intellect but seven years on she's found someone who truly loves her for her and the feeling is mutual. The anchoring hands to match with the sneer of peers. The change in how she's supported. While seven years ago her talents are repelled in a way, now she has someone would wants to hold her back but not out of jealousy or crab in a bucket mentality but knowing no matter how far she excels, she isn't alone and has someone to ground her. She has unwavering support and the surprise is rooted in her disbelieve of it and that person (either being there or loving her).

All this is highly emotional stuff fully of reflection yet there's no emotion. There's a bit of unease coming through in the blasé way she talks about the serious things but how is the reflection making her feel? Does she see it as progression or does she still see the same high school Willow?
I think I could have added this by possibly give a tremble to her scythe touching maybe adding how the though gave her a funny tummy which in turn when Tara joins her could switch that funny tummy into a feeling of determination in her.

it comes across as me looking at her changes rather than willow looking at her own. I couldn't use Tara to change character angle because she doesn't know high school Willow. it needed to be Willow and I think for what she's about to do the reflection has to work as a motivator but as to what emotion is motivating her has to come from Willow and That connection between writer and character isn't thereto find that answer and put it across to the reader.

it feels very much tell not show. I don't have an issue with telling and not showing, as i think 'show don't tell' an inflated phrase and there are times telling is needed over showing however for the deepness in feeling this piece requires the telling is surface level and prevents that depth from reaching its potential. Which is ironic considering its about Willow unlocking other's potential.
Fell into the trap of her peers and potentials of looking at her for this instead of feeling her.

Hi Dub, thank you for sitting with me today and answering some questions for us.


Thank you, I like to talk about these things. It's strange for me to have a creative endeavour in front of me and a discussion not to happen before and after it. Funnily I think people get a sense I like the type of my own writing so it's a good opportunity for me too. Not to mention you don’t leave me alone.


Ha, that’s true. First off congrats on reaching 200. You have consistently posted a drabble for 200 days straight but have you actually written them each day? Not a slight, I understand you’re a pre-writer so this is new territory for you to post the same day?


Yeah that’s the dream isn't it, write 100 drabbles in one day then sorted till the next milestone. But no, I've made a point to write at least one drabble a day each day.
There has been a shift in this 100 though. I do have a day buffer. The reason for that is I wrote my drabble for the day and then I was singing a little made up song to myself. As you do. And I wrote it down as it sounded daft but amusing, something i could sing to annoy others and saw the word count and thought, that's not far off 100. So I added Willow and Tara bits, turned it into a story and voila there's a drabble.
If I was being strict I should have posted that but with the way life is and the momentum I had, I kept it back for the next day. If anything happens the people get a post.
I have rules to this though. I can not post the buffer drabble until I've written that day's drabble. And no messing with the drabble either, minus a typo. Because for me this is my get up and go. My I've done something towards writing today feeling of achievement. Because as I mentioned with the 100 days talkthrough, My main story is all but scrapped and I'm hoping this will jump start me into working on it again because I love it, it's a story worth telling and as far as I’ve seen it's an exploration of Tara I’ve not read. I really do want it out there some day. Back to the drabbles through, as it stands it's only a day buffer and I have no intention to extend on that.


Well we’ll push that plug there to the side for now. A drabble a day must be difficult not only writing wise but you have to come up with an idea a day. How do you cope with that? Because not many of your drabbles follow on from one another so it's a fresh idea needed


The freshness has preservatives. I think many creative people can tell you that fully developed ideas rarely are thought of at that moment. It may come across instantaneously but really it's a thought you had years ago and forgot about it or you remember a line from something and then your mind follows on. Or you see one thing from a different angle and it looks new. I'm well versed with having to bounce off an idea and act straight away and you can be 15 minutes through a scene and only then the thoughts catch up with you.
I mean going back to the previous question a bit, I do quite a lot off the cuff. You’ve got the antonyms, synonyms, three words, poll and 5 minutes of artistic integrity. Each of those are done on the day. I might have a rough idea of what question I'm going to ask for the poll or what image I want for a gag in 5moai but that's not done until the day and posted once done. The three words, I watch the shuffle clip, come up with the three words and then write the answer because if i look next week, i'm not going to know what i was thinking back then. Example, horse Gogglebox. I imagine if you look at those and look at the drabbles around the same time you’ll see some adaptation or an idea which is unconsciously done on my part but it's just where my mind is at.
With the drabbles my ideas can come from various stimuli. It could be thoughts about a prompt, a character I want to write, an idea I want to explore, a genre I want to write. A response to something I've read or watched. Sometimes it's a response to something I’ve written. I'm more of an introspection fan, however in a drabble dialogue is a much more punchier way to get a story across and move things at the pace required. If I feel I'm using too much dialogue, you might see the next one has minimal or no dialogue. I do feel with dialogue heavy drabbles I neglect emotion, atmosphere and character and these are my three main incentives with anything creative. Pulling a 180 in tone and direction every now and then reminds me I haven't sold out just to post and I've still got some personal investment in this endeavour.
I will say I was kinder to myself this time as early on in this 100 I had serious writer's block. It was taking me all day just to think of an idea let alone write and post it before midnight. I'm often hard on myself to find some originality because I don't like repeating myself. I feel if I'm repeating myself, or if people are repeating themselves to me, that either I don't understand what i'm saying or i dont have the argument in me to back up my position. I don’t like looking at things black and white because that's boring to me. If I think of something I'm going to think about all the opposing angles, all the strengths and the alternatives and compromises and that can branch off a lot of ideas. I dont know if theres any Twin Peakers here but David Lynch, explained Twin Peaks in a way that really resonated with me since. To paraphrase and probably get entirely wrong he said ‘The murder is the focal point but it's not the story. The stories come out like branches and it's all the people around it and how they react or try to cover and the murder is just what shines a light on all that.’ For me that is how I see my ideas work now.



I just want to touch on something you said there if you don't mind. You said you were kinder to yourself, how so?


I don’t mind at all. A big thing with me is i don't like to write drawing on my own life and the people in it. I could, I absolutely could however it's about credit to the person and credibility over all. ‘Everyone has a story’ I don't see why I should tell their story over them telling their own story. If there’s all the permissions then fair enough but for me thinking five steps ahead it's the point of what if that fictionalised take becomes popular and there's a trait of that person that the fans love in the character. The character is going to be credited and adored for it and not the original holder of it. The chain only ever goes so far back and I feel inspiration deserves that shine and they can have that by being them. Not me showing what my caricature perception of them is.
Writing what you know is a big thing but I can count the times I’ve left the house in the past decade on my fingers and toes. So I’d be limiting myself. But I do experience a lot of other people's worlds through TV and books. This time I let myself draw from them. In particular from my favourite author who unfortunately rips off everything. Their main series is full of humour, fantasy, character, world building, action, mystery, murder, political intrigue, religious notes, grounded in the real world despite being totally out there. But they did a trilogy unrelated to their main series. At the time I had the gist of horror but wasn't massively in the know. In the third book the opening scene was unmistakable. It was 1:1 rip off of Gremlins. The series was meant to be a homage to horror but it literally had the Billy vs Stripe at the department store scene word for word just their characters inserted and I can't forgive that. You don't mess with Mogwai! As I learnt more about different horror franchises the coincidences kept coincidencing. It was to the point where it wasn't even morphed into their own style. I genuinely now think the main character is based on Tara and I didnt know Tara back then and not read it since but it fits far too well. So while reading their latest release(it was great, highly enjoyable) I took the opportunity to rip off their work but make it my own.


Rip off as in plagiarism?


No, not at all, wouldn't do that. It's much like the real life stuff. I want to be inspired by things but I don't want to create a whole thing that is it. Inspiration is a seasoning rather than an ingredient. For example in the book there was a stained glass window that depicted a woman being pecked to death but you were very aware the place was bad. So to make it my own I kept the idea of a gruesome stained glass window but wanted to misdirect. So possibly Willow and Tara are getting married but nope they're tied up in a room with a stained glass window of swan decapitation, to fit with a prompt. It's very much a case of you could tell the inspiration if you read both parts but they are each their own identity.
There were a couple from that book. Tara taking Willow’s laptop is another one of them and that's inspired by character dynamics. There's a tense interaction in the book where professionally they're at loggerheads but at the end just before storming out the characters make it known they are still friends and they're mad at the professional them but not the friend them. I really liked the layers of relationship shown there.
Looking through I think that whole week was inspired by that book and the following week by another book.


You complicate things for yourself don't you?


Just a bit.


You say about the book but yet you have multiple drabbles of Angel the Series is that not taking inspiration as an ingredient, to use your own words?


No. And it's for two main reasons. First, it is the BuffyVerse, it's an extension of BtVS and therefore completely usable when playing with Willow and Tara’s world.

Second, fanfiction to me is being respectful and showing love for what someone else created and the characters and world that completely enamoured you. I strive to match their world, the characters as close as possible as to what's in the show. There is interpretation to be had but there is a humongous difference between reading a character to be calculated instead of vindictive and inserting an entirely new personality trait that alters who the character is completely. You’re not writing the character at that point and I still stand by finding it insulting. ‘I love you but only if you’re a completely different person.’ But each to their own, i mean inserting different interests can be done really well and can explore the character but if it is their character then its their character and not the character.


I’m going to stop you there because we both know what this will descend into. However talking of Fanfiction, in your 100 days talkthrough you were very negative towards the fandom of fanfic. Has your opinion changed?


[Dub gives a heavy sigh and contemplates their words before typing] Nothing said previously has been lifted. It still weighs heavily on my mind and is a huge sour point. I feel it has only festered but so many new examples and situations to add to the souring have continued to be added over the past 100 days. Is it festering if new fuel is added to the fire?


I don't think fires fester. Now you also talked about what you’ve got from doing a drabble a day but do you have goals you’d like to achieve going forward?


I still want that discussion about Tara. I think a lot of my funk about Justice for Tara Maclay is that I can't talk out my thoughts and ideas with anyone other than myself. No offence Dub you’re great but fresh eyes are needed and getting stuck in my own head ends up with me writing out an interview with myself and taking it seriously.

I really do want it to spur me on to write more. I get bogged down with only 700 words a week whereas others can pump out thousands like it's nothing. I think that insecurity is in everyone though and it's not always there. I have to remind myself that i don't only write 700 words a week, i write other stuff and here on the KB i have the poll and 5moai which is unique writing still with Willow and Tara focus. It’s just reminding myself that I do write, I ultimately want to direct it on one thing in particular and as a fall back, have that contentness that I'm not failing if it is not being focused in that one place.


You’ve spoken about other things you do on the KB, is there anything else coming up?


I was lucky enough to win a copy of Slayers thanks to a KB give away. I'm very thankful for that and was working on a review per episode, overall review, character analysis’, BuffyVerse cohesion but life happened and honestly I have absolutely no interest in how it ends. I'm on episode seven(?) and it ends on a major cliffhanger. Yeah 10 months on and I'm not thinking about it at all. Thinking about the review though. I do want to get that out as a thank you and obviously mod approved, Litterbox only. Maybe that will happen this year. I don't know.

I’ve also been pushing drabbles lately and feeling like they could and possibly should be extended or joined into something more. So perhaps something will go on there, some short stories or maybe a challenge to extend a selected drabble of the participants choosing into a short story but I'm pretty occupied with the drabble a day and everything else.


Am I to take that as the drabbles are going to continue? 100 days ago you weren’t sure you'd continue.


Absolutely, I already have tomorrow’s(possibly today depending what time I finish this - what is sleep?) buffer written. I want to get to the year mark. I think I'll be really chuffed with myself if I keep the determination going. I'm already impressed with how much I’ve managed and pushed myself to continue with this,
Like anything though, I have to take it a day at a time. There's still the 300 mark to reach but right now that has inferior significance to drabble 201 (202 with the buffer).


As always with you Dub, it’s been an experience. Thankyou for taking the time to chat with us. Thank You to the KB for hosting us. And now I hand the floor to you for anything else you'd like to say.


I won’t get my manifesto out but I do want to say thank you, I know people are reading and some commenting. It's nice to know this endeavour of mine built from spite does have a positive outcome.
And I want to share a little something with you.





Interview took place 02/08/2024, interviewer - Dub, interviewee - Dub. Hiring Agent - Dub. Editor - Dub, any other roles in fine print - Dub.