This is to the narrowminded person (possibly people) who decided to stop reading this story simply because Tara is a half demon. I know he/she will probably not read this, but it's been bugging me, so this mini-tirade is necessary for my own well-being, but probably not anyone else's.
1) At the time the review was posted, I hadn't even gotten to the bulk of the Tara-demon stuff (still haven't). How in the world could you have ANY idea what I was/am going to do with that development?
2) As some of you may remember, at the end of fourth season there was still a loose end dealing with Tara and her sabotage of the demon-locating spell. I DID write the beginning of this story way back then (this is taking a looooong time to finish, unfortunately), so I had to deal with the issue, otherwise I'd feel like I was leaving this gaping hole in the plot. Maybe if I had seen what Joss and Co. did with it later on, I would have done something different, but I hadn't.
3) Yes, I'll admit it. A small part of me was using this as a means to get Tara out of the way so that Oz could move back into the picture. At the end of fourth season I had no reason to prefer Tara, Oz still being fresh on my mind (and also a longtime favorite). That was then, this is now. I'm not saying that I necessarily prefer Tara over Oz, but she's a much better developed and well-loved (I'm a huge fan) character as of sixth season (before her death, of course).
4) Someone had to open the portal to the realm of the dead. It's essential to the plot of the story (you'll see). At the time, Tara being a demon was the perfect way to accomplish this -- give Tara background, a problem to solve and voila, perfect plot device AND a way to wrap up those loose ends. Again, had this story been set a couple of seasons later, that might not have been the case.
5) On the show, Tara died. I hated to see her go, but I also think it worked very well as far as the plot went. I'm not going to get into a long debate over the whole evil lesbian death theory -- that's not what this is about. I just wish that whole issue would stop influencing the way people look at stories and Buffy in general. Sometimes the characters you love are going to have things happen with them that you don't like. Stories mimic real life in that way. I'm sorry if you don't like Tara being half-demon and getting sucked into the portal, but that's just the way it goes.
6) I started writing this before fourth season had even finished (after this, I'm going to stop pointing that out). This story is not finished. I am still working (very hard) on it. The ending is set in stone (it was the first part completed), but there are thousands of things that could happen between now and then. So....
IN CONCLUSION,
IN THIS TYPE OF STORY, THINGS ARE RARELY WHAT THEY SEEM. ANYTHING GOES. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT. SO STAY TUNED -- WHAT'S TO COME MIGHT SURPRISE YOU.
And sucks to be you if you don't stick around long enough to see it.
(BTW, thank you to everyone who's been reading this all along -- I really appreciate you making an effort to review. And to answer a few questions that have been posed by Queen Boadicea [thank you for faithfully reviewing!]...."Moose Tracks" is a flavor of Mayfield brand ice cream. I guess maybe it's only available in the South or something, oops (I'm in TN). Regardless, it's really good. =) That particular poem is not mine (the one in Doyle's book) -- I found it when I went searching for the quotes to put at the beginning of each section and it happened to exactly fit what I wanted to do. Any other poems you might see (hint, hint) are my own concoctions.