[fic] her bark is worse than her bite

[kwritten]

fic: her bark is worse than her bite (lightning always flashes brighter than the sun)
fandom: btvs
pairing: buffy/tara; dawn
recipient: : red_satin_doll for the October meme
word count: 1860
prompt: thunder/courage; tara being as flawed and human, not a golden goddess of perfect wisdom and forgiveness; keyverse okay
setting: : sometime in the s6/7 range;

Comments

[kwritten]

SO TICKLED THAT YOU ENJOYED IT!

I was so WORRIED that I had unintentionally made Tara too perfect still! But there's this sense that I get (and I think this explains fandom/canon) that Tara really, really WANTS to be perfect. Perfect in domesticity and the 'angel in the house' way that her abusive dick of a father pressured her to be her whole life. Probably the type of woman that her mother was. Someone who is told so often that she doesn't matter, that the idea of putting herself first just seems like the worst possible thing that you can do. And even after a day when she feels awful and wants to wallow, the one thing she can think about is: I messed up. I hurt someone. I didn't keep it together.

And I think for some people, that kind of determined selflessness looks like wisdom.

It's not.

It's toxic and hurtful.

So I tried to balance that as best as I could in this fic - the idea that Tara is still struggling to know how to identify her own needs, while in this impossible situation where her girlfriend has acquired a teenager that she's now helping to raise, and that desperate, ingrained, intuition to care about other people and neglect her own needs still rears it's ugly head and she ends up crying on the kitchen floor.

And of course Dawn would feel responsible because she's a little girl who just lost her mom and doesn't have a dad and only understands loss.

I think for fanon there's this fine line of misunderstanding - Tara is fragile and hurt and programmed to be a Perfect Pure Woman - and people that haven't experienced this kind of ~abuse don't know how to juggle Tara's seeming wisdom with the ONE EPISODE that acknowledges her lifetime of domestic abuse (that is shrugged under the carpet by too many people imo). It's something really hard to deal with, both on a basic writing level and also on a larger scale of understanding. Which is why I think Tara is so often shunted into 'Angel of Wisdom' caricature.

How do you deal with a character who shows that they were abused by caring about other people?

You ignore that it's a sign of abuse and lack of self-esteem and make it an attribute.

We're supposed to be selfless, right?
We're supposed to care about others before ourselves, right?
These are good things, right?

In Tara, there could have been a wonderful exploration of how this isn't true. How sometimes (women especially) are told that all they are is a beacon of purity and they are not allowed by their families/culture to be anything other than a guiding Angel ... and how stifling and harmful those expectations can be.

Only canon didn't do this.

And fanon can't deal with it.

So all we get is Angel-Tara.

And so very few interrogations into that.

This is really personal to me.

repeat ad nauseum ad infinitum.
"Women's work" is so undervalued and underappreciated.

((Sorry about the Tara rant. I have a lot of ~feels about the 'angel of the house' mythos and how pervasive it STILL IS in our culture.))

[red_satin_doll]

But there's this sense that I get (and I think this explains fandom/canon) that Tara really, really WANTS to be perfect. Perfect in domesticity and the 'angel in the house' way that her abusive dick of a father pressured her to be her whole life.

which means denying anything that interferes with that image, including the right to be angry. ("the demon") the way fandom labels Buffy demonstrates that Tara's anxieties are not unfounded. it's a fucked up standard that fandom (mostly female) holds women to because we feel that pressure ourselves.

it doesn't recognize that they are more alike than that; it doesn't recognize the high costs of trying to be the wife. I've talked to people who praise Tara for being gentle, submissive and passive because it's what they want to be or it's what they want in a partner; they have no idea the costs of that whatsoever to the person in that position.

You end up being devoured, with no sense of self.

Probably the type of woman that her mother was.

TRIED to be. Tara's mom died (breast cancer?) and I'm NOT one of those who says "think positive and you'll never get cancer lalala!" but it's not hard for me to imagine that the stress, the weight of trying to be that person helped send her mother to an early grave or rather that was the only way to escape- devoured by the cancer or devoured by her family/husband. Leaving, divorcing in that family was proably not an option, socio-economically. Did her father go to the ends of the earth to get his wife the best treatment, make her life easier? Most likely not.

It's toxic and hurtful.

the only way around it is to see through it and past it for the antiquated but astonishingly pervasive bullshit it is. "I am you know - yours" is creepy, not romantic.

people that haven't experienced this kind of ~abuse don't know how to juggle Tara's seeming wisdom with the ONE EPISODE that acknowledges her lifetime of domestic abuse

The show encourages that - its just one episode. The fact that Xander has a similar upbringing in many ways and this might be a point of common ground is an astonishing omission on a show about a group of teenagers who all come from broken or dysfunctional families.

I don't know where people think Tara got all this wisdom from that is ascribed to her without benefit of therapy or anger management or anything. I read these fics & want to spit nails.She was abused her entire life, of course she's going to reflect those patterns; of course she's going to be like her dad at times.

So I tried to balance that as best as I could

You succeeded. I KNOW what it's like to lash out, then in tears five minutes later in horror because you love that other person but you don't know how to process your anger and neither does the other person in the room. the metaphor of the burnt curtains is very apt; two people in the heat of emotions they can't process are only going to fuel the flames. Tara sending Dawn to her room is actually the best thing she could have done in the situation before things really got out of hand. curtains can be replaced.

there could have been a wonderful exploration of how this isn't true.

another thing that has a chance to deal with but doesn't. another area Tara and Buffy intersect, & canon/fanon fail. Because they're not opposites; they react differently to similar pressures. To be THE HERO/THE ANGEL at all times. Buffy tries to express her anger and does so mostly impotently, when she's not swallowing it; Tara rarely expresses her anger and nearly always swallows it down; anger is necessary but it doesn't change anything on it's own when a person doesn't know how to use it constructively and have the support to do so.

"Women's work" is so undervalued

Women do 90% of the world's labor and own 10% of the world's wealth. The other day my partner told me that she didn't think of cooking (generally my job) as "work" on par with her easel painting, it was "just" getting food into the body. WHAT. THE. FUCK? Because it's only valued when it's attached to a paycheck.

[kwritten]

You end up being devoured, with no sense of self.
*nods*

And that kind of harmful-selflessness is taught. It isn't something that just comes in our genes like blue eyes and ovaries. And that's just as hard for people to come to terms with as the fact that selflessness is harmful.

Yes. Agreed. Tara has a resilience, and was able to get away to go to college, so surely there was something in her relationship with her mother that helped her get away even a little bit, to show gumption enough to go to school.

It's always bothered me that Buffy is the ONE series about teens that doesn't actually discuss or deal with familial life and the very real problems of growing up. It side-steps all the hard questions and turns them into "monsters" for Buffy to slay, without acknowledging that even in this world, Willow's mom still doesn't know how long her hair is and Xander's dad is an alcoholic and Joyce works so much she doesn't notice Buffy is a Slayer. These are serious problems and the characters are supposed to only be affected by the demony stuff of the world.

You can't have it both ways, Joss. You can't give characters backstories only to neglect them.

another area Tara and Buffy intersect, & canon/fanon fail. Because they're not opposites; they react differently to similar pressures. To be THE HERO/THE ANGEL at all times.
I have nothing to add to this. This is everything.

COOKING IS SO HARD YOU ARE A SUPERHERO! (I did all the cooking every night for my ex - and for a time was feeding his father as well - and it was always unacknowledged or dismissed. THE STORIES I COULD TELL YOU.) Now, I like cooking and have a huge kink about feeding people, but it shouldn't ever be a task that is ~presumed upon one person as if it doesn't matter.