Re: OT: "Blood Ties"

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Danica,

First of all, always good to see you de-lurking again. ^_^

Second, I don't mean that Tara was consciously trying to steer Buffy
away from lesbianism because she was worried about Buffy taking Willow
from her--I'm sure all three girls' subtext in the scene was
subconscious. I just found it interesting that Will's reaction seems to
be "hell, yeah, gay is great, come on in" and Tara is (probably more
logically) assuming that Buffy is just looking to be relationship-free
for a while.  

While I'm sure Tara has enjoyed companionship as opposed to solitude,
she may just be trying to reassure Buffy that whatever choice she makes,
she can still be happy, much like she does in this year's ep 13, "Dead
Things" ("It's okay if you love him?and it's okay if you
don't"--which I object to strongly since IMO both loving and using
Spike are quite wrong). Tara is by nature soothing and conciliatory
(probably because if things got out of hand back home, Dad would "beat
her down", but let's not go there?).

It's not that surprising that Willow sees Buffy's solitude as an excuse
to start talking up her new life choice (with ulterior motives firmly
buried in denial, no doubt), but Tara makes the more common assumption
that Buffy is just talking about being post-Riley. After all, of the
two witches, it isn't TARA who's had five years of secret Buffy-shaped
fantasies, so naturally Will's going to be "yeah, baby!" to Tara's
"you'll be okay, no matter what."

Lastly, while the gang does try and shelter Dawn from sex (all
sex--remember, she didn't know that Buffy and Riley were doing it in
"Real Me", although she quite rationally suspected so), Tara's breaking
off the conversation had nothing to do with that. Rather it was that
Dawn had entered the room with rivulets of blood running down her arms
from her self-inflicted "I'm not just a stupid Key!" wounds. Sorry, I
should have clarified that about the ep.

Again, nice hearing from you.

Dan