Tillow - Blog Posts

my two favourite witches ✨💜

‘Tis the season for gifs from the one Buffy Christmas episode :) I think I’ve already reblogged these like 5 times on blagueofchaos but I ought to put them on my proper blog. It’s always nice to have festive fandom gifsets :) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays all! 

Merry Christmas!

I Want You

pairing(s): willow x tara

summary: willow finally gets to visit tara's grave after being in England for the past few months

warnings: angst with a slight happy ending, mentions of tara's death, blood, and suicidal tendencies/thoughts, derealization, willows dark era is a metaphor for substance abuse so that may be triggering for some folks, its just really sad

an: i don't usually do ship fics, i just so happened to be in a mood. its also pride month and there is like 0 tillow content on this app *i still wouldn't recommend requesting ship fics tho*

Back in England, there was a tree. A willow tree. Unlike Xander, who was very quick to let everyone know never to call him anything other than Xander, she never had an issue with her name. It fit her. She was spindly and growing up she had knobby knees that caused her to move a bit awkwardly. Her hair blew around her face, and, just like the rest of her body, looked like if the wind were to pick up, she would be blown away. A dandelion seed in the wind that would maybe make someone's day brighter at the hope of a wish, instead of a willow tree that may actually prove useful.

She wanted to believe that she was like a willow tree, that she was stronger than she looked. That she had dug her clumsy feet into the ground and planted her roots and she would stay, unmovable and tall, until some monumental hurricane or imposing tornado came through and uprooted her. Even in that case, her seeds would be sewn into all the land she touched, and she would live forever, replanted and replenished by those who knew her, and fed her, and grew with her, and loved her. She wanted to believe that she could plant roots, that she had control over where she stayed and who she was with and if she liked her situation enough, she wouldn't to leave. Permanence. Consistency. Control. That's what she wanted.

As a kid, she wrote her name in lowercase letters; it wasn't til high school her willows became Willow. In that ranch farm in middle of fucking nowhere England, she became willow once again. She thought she was sent there to be put down. Like a rabid dog that was too pitiful to die on its own but too dangerous for its survival to be left to chance.

It was such an odd feeling; that derealization. Stepping back and watching people talk to you, touch you, extend their sympathies. Hearing yourself talk and sounding like how adults do in Charlie Brown. Feeling your mouth flap but not choosing what comes out. Just knowing that you had a body, and that you had a mind, but you knew it because someone told you that you did. That's how it felt when she thought she was going to die. Her soul had already began to check out and distance itself from the body that was going to run cold within the next couple days. She didn't even try and protest, she was that eager to let go. Even worse than simply killing a man, she didn't do it for Tara. Killing Warren didn't feel like catharsis, it felt like pleasure.

Nothing was relieved. She didn't feel lighter. She didn't feel better. An anvil sat on her chest, squeezing every ounce of life from her until she was acting on instinct and impulse. Killing Warren was a dopamine shot straight to her brain, it didn't remove the anvil or ease the ache, and she didn't do it for that purpose. She did it to do it. She went on auto pilot after the fact, watching her life pass by her and watch her kill her friends while wanting to stop but she couldn't. It felt too good in the moment. It felt like fire. She was on fire.

It was all consuming, the smoke she left behind accumulating and growing with everything she did until she didn't know where she ended or when the smoke began. It hurt what she was doing, being a woman on fire you felt the flames but were also spurred on by hysteria. She had been so cold before, and the fire was a bit much, but that's where the pleasure was derived. The cold depravity was killing her, at least in the flames she would go out in a blaze. Yet, dying then and dying in that ranch felt so different.

She felt like she deserved it both times. Willow knew that she had been losing control of her magics. Floating on ceilings and hallucinating, seeking out someone on Amy's recommendation for fucks sake, these weren't things she would normally do. She had lost control of herself a while ago, but when she went dark, it was the first time she lost sight of the reins. She deserved to die during her rampage because she was going to gut the world, turn it inside out until the oceans tipped into the sea and every piece of earth was reduced to ash, and she couldn't stop herself. Her death would've been damage control.

The second time she felt it would've been redemption. That she had gone too far and there was no saving her. Her punishment came in her separation alone.

She wasn't there when Tara was buried.

She was told when they thought it was safe enough that she was buried on a hill. They told her the gravestone was decorated in reeds, flowers, and crystals and they cleaned the white marble stone every time they came to visit her. That they took care of it, and they told her this, but they meant to say they took care of it for her. It felt heavy weighing in on the back of their tongues, that they couldn't care for her like Willow could but since she was away, maybe even dead, they would have to be enough. They were all Tara had.

She didn't know how to dress. Buffy told her to go as she is, that if anything is the same from when she was dead that she can't see her anyways. She wanted to ask if Buffy could tell who was visiting her and if she was ever disappointed, but the words got stuck in her throat.

So, she stood there, small and awkward by her girlfriends grave. She walked up slowly, like something was waiting to attack her when she made it to the peak. She expected more fanfare, more people, birds, noise, something. She had never felt so alone. She stood by that white headstone and felt the breath exit her lungs. She was back in that room again. Holding her dead body, cradling her head, the grass feeling like her soft hair in her hands. There was no ground as she fell to her knees, one of her hands covering her mouth and the other ghosting the headstone. Did she even have the right to touch her grave. It was her fault.

She had gotten overzealous bringing Buffy back and this was her retribution. While the universe demands balance, above all else it is petty and Willow knew it. She knew it didn't seek reparations, because there is nothing you can give the universe that it can just take. It demands pain. It doesn't concern itself with human emotion, it doesn't know, or need to know, sympathy or empathy. It seeks to cause pain because in a world when there is nothing you can gain, why not just take. It needed everyone to know how powerless they are, that no matter what you think you have, it's not yours. The universe was the all mother, she put you here and she will take you out. She'll take your little toys, she'll stop you from seeing your friends, she gave everything for you meaning she has every right to take it back.

But it was supposed to be okay.

Buffy had saved the universe more times than anyone could count, why does the billions of lives she saved not balance out her one life. Her one significant life. And even if the universe couldn't recognize her importance, wasn't it enough that she quit. She was clean. She did what she was supposed to, so why wasn't it okay. It was supposed to be okay, and it's her fault it isn't.

A part of her wanted to rip through the ground and prove that she was really under there. A part of her couldn't believe that she was really gone. Her spirit still lived that house for her.

Buffy was right, maybe she did need this, for closure at the very least. Maybe the room will warm up after this, maybe she'll stop seeing her in mirrors, maybe her blood will leave her hands and clothes. Her death felt so real, the blood ran thick and slick and it stained everything she touched. Her sheets had bloody handprints, her pillows smelled like copper, her skin and her nails were caked in oxidized blood and she wanted to pull it off herself. If she could trade places with Warren, slip out of her skin and set it on fire to begin again she would. Maybe then she'd feel lighter. But that's not what Tara would want.

Tara would want her to power through. She would want her to keep getting better. She would take her in her arms and brush her hair and tell her it was going to be okay. That she was going to be okay. She would tell her she deserved to be happy, and if letting her go was how she did it, then that's what needed to be done. That maybe she should let go. She would kiss her forehead and tell her she was too strong to give up. But Tara made her strong and she had never gone through anything like this and there was never going to be another Tara.

It hurt. Her head, her soul, her body it all ached and Tara's death ate away at her until she was nothing just like she was before. Lower than she was before. She was pathetic but at least her hands were clean. Now she was dirty and she should've been left to rot in the dirt.

In the ranch, she had thought she was going to be buried under than tree. Her willow tree. She had grown a patch of flowers underneath the trunk because she didn't think they would deem her worthy enough to do anything but to shovel the dirt over her corpse. It was her one selfish deed, to leave her resting sight something other than overturned dirt and dead grass. She had letters addressed to her friends in the hope that Giles would deliver them. She wonders if he ever found them. She still had them, hidden in place so that no one would find them. If Dawnie saw them, she wouldn't know what to do.

"I don't know what to say to you." She pushed out through tears. She had a lot to say to everyone else, but so much to say to Tara that her mind went blank. Tara got a letter, maybe if she had the courage, she would come back and read it to her. "I miss you. I miss you so much it hurts."

Wherever Tara was, she listened.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, and I know you're tired of me saying it, but it's true."

She was tired of hearing it. I forgive you. You were grieving. It is okay.

"I did - I did a lot of bad things, baby. It didn't make it easier and the pain it-it doesn't go away. It doesn't stop." I know, love. Life is hard. I forgive you.

But Willow couldn't hear. She hadn't heard her the whole time. She had said sorry in so many ways so many times and she was so tired. Tara wanted to tell her it was okay, that she couldn't grieve her forever and she needed to move on. Tara couldn't make it better now. Tara could barely make it better then. Willow needed to get better. She needed time. She needed grace. She was too hurt to see that everyone was giving it to her, but she wasn't accepting of it.

"I'm trying to be strong, I really am. A-And I haven't done any magics like I promised. It's been hard but-but it's been good for me. I don't know if I can do this, but I'm gonna try for you."

I'm so proud of you. You're doing so well. Try for you, not me.

"A-And everyone is doing well. They miss you, too. They probably tell you every time they visit." She sniffled a bit while wiping her tears.

They tell me all the time. They missed you too. I miss you too.

They sat in silence for a while, both leaning on the grave for different sides of life and death. Willow wept. Cried so hard her tears probably watered the flowers growing on her grave. They sat together and the quiet said more than enough, they conversed beyond words just as they were together beyond the grave.

"I love you."

I love you too. She screamed it, but she couldn't hear her. I love you still. Despite it all, I love you.

She leaned onto the grave. Tara knows because she felt it. Like the feeling of laying on warm sheets on cleaning day and finally get to rest. Like waking up to misshapen pancakes and apple juice. Like watching her take care of Dawnie and promise her that they would live together in a nice cottage in the countryside. Just the three of them. Happy. Content. At peace.

Intro Post!

Who am I?

I'm Trin (She/Her)! I'm a dyke who is obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Yellowjackets. I like to write, draw badly, LARP, sew, and take long walks on the beach.

Ships: Tillow Tillow Tillow, Mistynat, Jackieshauna

TWs: Blood mentions, d, t, and f slurs (I am collecting them. like pokemon)

DNI: TERFs, transphobes, homophobes, zionists, racists, generally bigots and assholes, pervy adults, sissy/trap/femboy kink blogs

Tag Directory

#mistynat - any mistynat content

#misty my beloved - Posts related to Misterious Quigley, objectively the best Yellowjacket

#yellowjackets - Anything related to Yellowjackets including my posts and reblogs

#yellowjacketsposting - MY posts related to Yellowjackets

#btvs - Anything related to BTVS including my posts and reblogs

#btvsposting - MY posts related to BTVS

#bread - self explanatory

#tara - Tara Maclay content

#willow - Willow Rosenberg content

#tillow - Tara x Willow content. I'm a huge fan

#fic - Fics including my fics and reblogs

#my fic - Fics that I wrote (None yet- stay tuned)

#vampposting - My posts about vampires

#Trin talks - Posts where I just chat

#Trin's fits - Pictures of my outfits

#Trin rants - Edited, nice rants

#gnome rants - Unedited rants that you shouldn't take seriously. Treat me like a little gnome rambling from on top of a tree stump

Those are all of my tags for now, but I love classifying things so there will be more. <3

💫 THEM 💫

tara just got shot ☹️

willow is very upset ☹️

also buffy got shot but she's died enough times it's whatever

So I saw someone on reddit asking why the First didn't take Tara's form to psych out Willow. And while I know the real answer (Amber Benson didn't want to portray her like that because she was such a cherished character) I think it makes perfect sense in-universe. I have two reasons. Keep in mind that this is going to be unedited like my Kennedy rant. Treat me as a gnome.

1. Willow would see right through it.

Willow and Tara spent every waking moment together for years (Two? I think) and Willow would know that it's not really her. I think she would get freaked out, but she wouldn't be fooled as long as the First would want her to be.

2. Seeing Tara would be too nice.

I'm not sure on this one, but it makes enough sense to me and I like it. The idea is that it would be more tortorous to Willow to convince her that because of the actions she took- because of the things she did that she can't take back- she will never be able to see or talk to Tara again, even in a beyond the grave situation. The choice she made made Tara truly lost to her. I think that's equally or more devastating than just making Tara tell Willow to kill herself.

okay. Finished Buffy. Moving on to the Willow comics and ao3.

Solid 9/10 show. Except for a good chunk of season 6. Seven was kind of shaky but I think that's just because I don't like kennedy as willow's girlfriend.

Okay, actually, let's talk about kennedy. Completely unedited, unserious rant incoming. Treat my ramblings like those of a small, maybe amusing gnome.

Kennedy was a bullshit character. She had really no reason to exist other than for them to be able to say "look, willow has a girlfriend, isn't that nifty?" She barely felt like a person, only a tool to move willow on from tara. She didn't have any chemistry with willow and we barely saw them on screen together unless they were kissing or in that one episode with the date.

Willow and kennedy's relationship seemed very rushed and out of place as opposed to willow and tara's. It felt natural and cute and they were both so enamored with each other. They fit together well and developed their relationship over multiple seasons. We see them working together, sharing interests, skills, and a cat. Willow and kennedy really have nothing in common besides being gay. I guess they might, but we never saw kennedy enough to know really anything about her.

Anyway, I think they introduced her way too soon. I feel like having willow move on so quickly kind of does a disservice to the deep relationship that willow and tara had. And for such a nothingburger of a person, too.

okay. Season seven. Not liking Kennedy x Willow. Bring back Tara.

Willow:

Tara:

They're so cute together, I want what they have

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) | Family 5x06

Crying. Screaming. Throwing up.

hell yeah, Willow

NOOOO NOT MY FICTIONAL LESBIANS!

OH MY GOD MY FICTIONAL LESBIANS

NOOOO NOT MY FICTIONAL LESBIANS!

oh hell yeah, my fictional lesbians

NOOOO NOT MY FICTIONAL LESBIANS!