#buffy anon

[explosionshark]

Oh yeah and sorry for the spam but I was looking through my notes and I think I forgot to mention it but in Who Am I, the contrast between the Faith/Riley intimacy scene and how freaked out Faith was by it and the much more wholesome and good for each other intimacy of the Willow/Tara magic scene that was in between them that was real good.

okay yeah i think this was a brilliant choice the show made.

i also think the depiction of faith's sexuality on the show is deeply and obviously troubled but kind of incidentally a little bit genius?

under the cut to discuss issues of sexual assault and some of the darker things the show has implied about faith

like to be clear i think that the way the show often equates faith's desire for sex with her evilness sucks and is bad.

but i also think the kind of hyper-sexuality we see from her fits in very well with all of the very strong implications that she's a victim of CSA.

i've talked about this before, but i can't find any of the posts on my blog so forgive me for repeating any points

but there's a lot of alarming details that point to faith being a CSA survivor. she makes a lot of comments about her mom's predatory boyfriends, there's the "let me stay the night, promise i won't try anything" line she mocks, there's hitting on giles, in later seasons she makes reference to events that could have only happened pre-sunnydale involving a man who asked her to dress like a school girl. all of it paints a pretty horrible picture, especially compounded with all of the implied details of the physical abuse faith suffered at her mother's hands.

so you have a young girl with a horrific background of abuse and victimization and then you give her powers but no stability, no support - is it any wonder she went dark? when faith's relationship to power has always been the ones who have it make the rules and everyone else just deals with it?

because i think this is something you see explicitly in the way faith transgresses against xander and riley.

with xander in particular, it's like. the scene where she assaults him begins with him asking to come in "just to talk, i swear" to which she replies "think you could make something happen if i didn't want it to?" which is just. a horrible bit of foreshadowing, and very telling as a first reaction. it's actually a great precursor to the riley stuff, because xander shows up and tries to connect with her emotionally. he tries to imply that he knows her, that he cares, and her immediate reaction is to dissect that genuine offer of support for the ways that it must be an attempt to manipulate her. he wants to brag that he had sex with her, or else he's trying to trick her into sleeping with him again. she denies that they have a connection because "it's just skin" which is fundamental to the way she thinks about sex. it's a tool - it offers relief or power, but not anything else.

"what do you want to do with this body?" is what faith asks riley. "am i a bad girl? do you wanna hurt me?" i mean it's not hard to read into this. fucking riley isn't about riley, it's another one of faith's weird sexual proxy deals with buffy and it's about being buffy and it's about dicking buffy over. when riley is kind and genuine in bed, when he tells 'buffy' that he loves her is when faith starts to flip out because the script she keeps trying to lay over buffy's life keeps breaking. she flips out, gets panicky, tells him "this is meaningless" in an effort to reassert something she believes to be true about sex -- that it's a tool of power with, at best, an inauthentic veneer of intimacy.

if there's one specific turning point in faith's post-graduation day redemption arc it's here. THIS is when she starts to realize she's fucked up, that her entire worldview was wrong.

to accept that she was wrong about about sex is to accept that she was wrong about power. it means the narrative of her life is all wrong. that she was hurt by her mother and by men who preyed on her was not, in fact, the uncaring laws of power in action but deliberate acts of cruelty that needlessly victimized her. it also means that every fucked up thing she's done to buffy, and xander, and angel, and riley, and everyone else is, in fact, her fault. she loses the ability to hide behind a law of the universe - we're not at full accountability yet, but this is where it starts.

right here:

when Faith stumbles out of bed, trembling and panicking, and Riley asks "what happened?"

"nothing," faith says, stricken. she says it twice, actually. the second time sounds like more of a lie.

[obligatory disclaimer here wrt the fact that consent here is. a messy thing to talk about. given that this whole post is in regards to fictional characters and that the sex between riley and faith is 1) not framed as rape 2) utterly and completely fantastical given that it's facilitated by the use of a magic artifact i've avoided using the language of irl sexual assault to discuss it. ymmv]

[theyarebothgunshot]

Just curious, if I were to rewatch Angel, would you want to know my thoughts like I did with the buffy rewatch? - buffy anon

tbh i really am not well versed in angel so i wouldnt be able to really get it all

[frenchublog]

Your art style has such a special place in my heart, genuinely. Was wondering if you would be putting any more of your btvs art in your shop? Your spuffy pieces give me serotonin & the piece you did from Chosen especially lives rent free in my head

Thank you for your kind words ! To be honest I think I'll order a last batch with Spuffy or Detroit become human art and let it rest for a while :) I'm taking your suggestion at heart because if you're talking of this one :

I think it's an old piece that needs to be revamped a bit (just a tiny bit) but for the rest I think I'd be cool to print these favourites of mine

let me know what you think and what you'd enjoy to have first !

[ahappydnp]

I noticed the American-targeted vocab choices in the latest video - social security number, 5 dollars for the juice. I think there was something else, any guesses why?

post tour real housewives catch up binge

[lesbianmarrow]

i might not be able to relive watching s6 spuffy for the first time, but watching you get more and more emphatic with your “they put this on television” tags every episode is a close second

it’s just what else is there to say when spike is rubbing buffy thru her jeans at 8 am on a wednesday in the kitchen while all her friends and her little sister are very much in the house. everybody who said s6 is bad is a fucking liar this is amazing

[st-just]

the asshole nerd trio are by far one of the weirdest and weakest parts of Buffy’s writing.

the narrative largely treats them like comic relief antagonists, and [redacted because idk if you’ve watched the whole show already and are re-watching, or simply watching it for the first time]. The problem is, however, that they’re actually scary. Sure, all the plotting villains scheming to destroy the entire dimension are “scary” in a fictional sense, and our heroes are often in peril, but “nominally physically non-threatening but predatory wolf in sheep’s clothing” is just a real threat that exists in real life. It’s a weirdly dark subject to be treated so flippantly. Like if there was just a random multi-episode subplot about one of the teachers Sunnyvale High being a pedophile.

I’m not sure if Whedon was going somewhere with this as a concept and it simply didn’t land right for me, or if he just wildly misread how upsetting people would find the concept “nerdy predators” compared to “zillion year old scenery-chewing demon who wants to open a portal to hell”

it’s also possible that I just found the trio uniquely upsetting thanks to my own past. In college, several female friends of mine were beset with nerdy horny predatory men, and one of them was actually assaulted. That part of the season hit really close to home and was deeply distressing.

(Watching for the first time, yes - last episode I watched was the one where one of them tried to use the magic mind control device to make his ex-girlfriend a sex slave)

Oh yeah it's the Dolores Umbridge problem, right? The show's audience is several orders of magnitude more likely to have actually met someone like the three stooges than they are a blood-drinking cult leader or murderous wannabe-goddess or whatever, so the narrative treating them so flippantly and bathetically just feels very off.

But it's also the narrative seems a bit confused about how many layers of narrative abstraction and subtext it wants to go for? Like, Buffy and Spike's relationship is clearly supposed to be toxic and unhealthy, but we're also not supposed to take Buffy beating Spike into the pavement until his face is one bloody mess during an argument that literally when judging her as a person? Whereas with the stooges Buffy basically stops to look at the camera and clearly announces 'this would have been rape. You're all rapists'.

Which like, makes it come off as weird how much they're framed as pathetic comic relief before and after.

[batsplat]

hi bat! haven’t talked about vale & casey with you in a while. do you think every time casey brings up 2015 or the whole vale vs marc thing, he’s really just talking about the events themselves with no personal agenda? or is there a bit of projection going on, like maybe he’s actually talking about how he was treated by vale, or maybe he just wants to call vale out…

this popped back into my head cuz i saw last year’s ducati diaries on my dash today: https://www.tumblr.com/kingofthering/781610034120491008/casey-stoner-and-neil-hodgson-talking-about-how

ducati diaries episode!! icl did have my first proper #moment with this website when the only thing i saw shared from that podcast was the ninety seconds he talks about sepang 2015 and not him low-key gunning for his parents for twenty minutes in a pretty marked change to his past rhetoric, but nevertheless. we persevere. go listen to the whole thing

anyway yeah lol obviously idt his motivations are pure here, people treat him like a sort of neutral arbiter for agenda purposes and because he gives them nice valentino-bashing quotes. also because they don't care enough about casey or his career to really assess what he's saying on merit. i find his actual opinions on sep '15 not all that interesting but i DO find the REASONING behind them compelling. i'm not going to rehash my 'casey is a competent media operator who is pushing his own narrative' schtick here, but as ever i just find it really strange when people treat him as a reliable narrator. 'blunt' does not equal 'truthful', a veneer of authenticity does not equal openness

so. here's what i think is going on when casey talks about that rivalry. first off, yes, he does dislike what valentino did at sepang, both in the press conference and on the track. i feel like this bit should be obvious but just so we're all on the same page here: this stance was definitely born out of enmity towards valentino more than it was from any real affection for marc - after all, this takes place during the exact period of time in which casey is also (according to him) being pushed out of honda by marc's team. in early 2016, casey quite directly accuses marc of feeling intimidated by him - which given the media climate of early 2016, to me would suggest he wasn't feeling too concerned with marc's personal well being. but casey didn't like what valentino did, he doesn't like that kind of aggressive riding anyway, i can't imagine he likes how either party conducted themselves in that race (cf casey in 2013 saying he felt marc was trying to 'humiliate' his rivals, to me humiliation is one of like. the key emotions to understanding casey so u gotta pay attention when it comes up) but he especially didn't like it from valentino

then, there's the fact that at this stage he just generically dislikes valentino. sepang 2015 is basically a free hit because. you know. valentino loses that championship. not a fun time for him. it's like casey is being presented with a knife on a table in front of a chained up valentino wearing a sign that says 'stab me', like man he's only human what's he going to do. not stab him???? i feel this one's straightforward enough, casey is right up there with valentino as 'aliens most prone to gross displays of schadenfreude' and it was basically casey's whole thing in 2011-12, to the point where it did get a wee bit obsessive. i think casey in retrospect tries to frame this period as a lighter 'whoo boy did i have fun laughing at that idiot!!' vibe, but u probably shouldn't downplay how bitter and dark it became... casey talking in 2012 how he'd stopped enjoying winning in 2008-09 and basically the only way he could still motivate himself was the idea that winning pissed people off, casey talking WAY more about valentino than any of his actual title rivals, casey finding himself so thoroughly disillusioned with the sport and using valentino as a lightning rod for all that resentment... sure, most of it's funny, but when valentino said in 2012 casey was winning and doing great and needed to Get Over It... i mean, yes, look who's talking, but was he WRONG? eh! idk! with a little distance + no longer being able to talk to the press about valentino every week, casey had cooled down a bit by 2015, but i reckon sepang did bring some things back for him. especially how he feels valentino should have been black-flagged and the suggestion of inconsistent stewarding - casey's all about unfairness, including in officiating, so it's another broad theme he's linked to valentino in his mind. so then, that incident becomes another expression of a more general grievance

okay so everything up until now in this post i think is pretty straightforward, hard to argue with. the other reasons i will provide are a little more conjecture, though i still very much believe i am correct here. first off, i think there's another slightly more complicated source of schadenfreude here: seeing valentino and marc's relationship fall apart. this is mostly based on a holistic assessment of casey's character and being so familiar with casey's output i trust myself to read his tone quite well, but i'll try to explain my reasoning here

casey obviously has a Massive Persecution Complex, which may very well be justified but nevertheless manifests itself in quite striking and/or ugly ways. pay attention to how he stresses in his autobiography that he had a worse bike than dani in 2005 - and the suggestion that this hardship taught him about riding shitty bikes (something that dani didn't learn). how he'd have a tantrum when losing to dani in 2006, how the internal hierarchy within honda really bothered him, how he never forgot being used as a guinea pig by michelin while the factory riders got the very best. how post-2006 he'd slip in all these patronising comments about dani ...

... how he consistently talked down jorge in early 2008 and then had a bit of a case of headloss over jorge engaging in fairly mild trash talk, the way his autobiography descriptions of jorge's rookie season kinda make it sound like he thinks all the injuries were karmic punishment ?? and (allegedly) accused jorge of faking his need for a wheelchair. we could go on here but..... the point is, casey has a bit of a golden child problem. dani and jorge both entered motogp with considerably more hype than casey did, and it bothered casey, and he didn't always handle himself with huge amounts of grace

hey, you know who else was hyped coming into motogp? that's right, marc! now, look, to the extent that casey is aware of this trait within himself, i don't think he likes it because it kinda jars with his self-perception in a quite unflattering way. he wants to be gracious, he really prides himself on the idea that he can recognise his rivals' good performance and can be happy for them in a way those filthy europeans can't. sometimes it just... slips out of him, sometimes his compliments have a few too many caveats attached, but he wants to believe he is a person who doesn't resent the good fortune of others. but...

well, idk man! casey watching 2013 motogp - you really think he never not ONCE thought 'well i would've beaten him if i were there' or 'well that sure is a bike i developed very well' or 'well dani and jorge had championship winning machinery in their first seasons (literally, since their teammates won the title in both cases) but EYE didn't so maybe i could have done what marc did'? casey thinking about how marc is being celebrated for his brilliance when 'everyone' was deeply unenthusiastic about his own dominance in 2007 (mainly because it coincided with the racing becoming worse for non-casey-related reasons but that doesn't make it better !!) and it's just... marc winning the first ten races in 2014 and shouldn't people constantly be talking about how boring it is, after all the things they said about casey ?? again, i freely admit there's some conjecture going on here - post-2012, casey hasn't had a microphone stuck in front of him often enough for him to really let these thoughts slip but. idk. it's kinda there in how he says at the end of 2012 he won't be paying attention to what marc does in the test because he Did Not Care. i think some part of him would have found it frustrating

and then!! of course, there's valentino. now, look, i think casey's recollections of 2007 valentino are a bit... idk. not quite correct. but the truth doesn't matter so much here - as far as casey's concerned, he became valentino's rival and valentino immediately switched up towards him. and we know from that ducati diaries podcast that casey was very much aware of valentino and marc being friendly with each other pre sepang 2015. and now, again, i do think casey is maybe exaggerating the difference to valentino's treatment of him in his head, but i also reckon a part of him looked at 2013-14 marc and valentino and went ...? casey's Valentino Thing as ever acts as an extension of his Thing With The Whole Sport, so valentino being nice to marc IN MY OPINION kinda maybe acts as symbol for how the sport as a whole was way nicer to marc than it had been to CASEY. and obviously casey in general very adept at projection,,,,, but imo he did also provide some circumstantial evidence that this might be the TYPE of projection he engages in with his post-ranch visit interview, where he was talking about how he would have liked to ride with valentino like that when he was young in the same breath as talking about what a great job valentino had done teaching all his little brats... idk i do think there's some part of his heart going.... why couldn't it have been like that for me... bittersweet yearning. what if CASEY wanted valentino to be super nice to him and give him head pats whenever he needed them, has anyone ever thought about that ??

plus you've got like. the laguna situation. idk man call me #crazy but i don't think casey vibed with that... really doesn't like feeling like he's being made fun of... and the distinction between that vibe in 2013 and how he felt like his hero worship of valentino had been the butt of the joke (cf the 2007 championship shirt with valentino's name on it that valentino made a gag about). now again none of this is 100% rational from casey, obviously the main reason why the marc rivalry was initially nicer was because it wasn't really a rivalry at all, everyone thought valentino was washed, valentino had just gone through a hellish stretch and needed to get his head back in the game. completely different vibe from 2007 valentino wounded but not out of it having to *for the first time* deal with a young super talented rival snatching his chain. like in 2013 valentino is asked about marc dethroning him and valentino kinda goes ?? what throne ?? idk if u've noticed but it's not been going great !!

and also i think casey misinterprets some stuff about 2007, like he's sort of simplified that time period in his memory, his emotions towards valentino at the time were super all over the place, at a certain point valentino maybe was just kinda in a bad mood about losing all the time and worried about not going to prison and not trying to DESTROY casey or be actively cruel but whatever!! the point is, in my opinion casey did not vibe with valentino being nice to marc. and then in 2015, he got his most significant post-retirement jitters, really really REALLY wanted to replace dani at cota and got mad he couldn't do it to the extent that he shadily tweeted about it aND cut off contact FOREVER with one of the most significant allies he'd had in his career aka livio suppo. and casey blamed marc for that, and then he watched valentino revert to type and torch that particular relationship and prove definitively that marc was in no way different, that valentino was always going to do the same thing to him when marc presented an active threat. and i think !! casey found that extremely fucking satisfying

the last motivation underlying casey's sepang 2015 rhetoric is what it helps him do with his own career narrative. this one's actually quite fun for fans of propaganda, i think casey genuinely has done a superb job with this and it's the sort of sleight of hand i'm very much into. but if you properly go through his oeuvre, close read it like a freak, you notice something kinda interesting about how his rhetoric regarding valentino changes post 2015. in his autobiography, casey expresses frustration that people thought valentino had 'broken' him at laguna 2008, this persistent perception that a) valentino was capable of using mind games to break rivals, and b) casey was particularly susceptible and 'mentally weak'. casey argues, obviously, that this isn't true - and goes one step further by saying he didn't pay attention to what his rivals were doing at all. which is a dubious claim if you're being generous, pretty hilarious if you aren't, but nvm that...

what's interesting is that post 2015, he's made a small but significant alteration: not only did valentino's mind games not work on casey, but they backfired. the DD podcast is quite a good succinct summation of the case he makes: valentino might have had rivals early in his career he could intimidate, but then dani jorge and casey showed up and were tougher and better and didn't fall for that. and if you look at sepang 2015, you can see how that cost valentino a championship. so, as casey says in the slur name podcast, valentino's worst ever mistake was making enemies of marc and casey. in a separate interview, casey says after laguna he wasn't going to be valentino's friend or help him out when he was trying to fight for championships (yeah, no shit) - in another, he doesn't name valentino but talks more generally about how mind games can backfire because they expose the rivals' weaknesses. so then: not only were valentino's mind games morally wrong, not only did they not work on casey, but they actually backfired. valentino hurt himself by making an enemy out of casey

now, you can critique this argument on several grounds. you can query whether valentino really lost himself the 2015 title through his mind games - especially since casey has directly contradicted himself on this and said elsewhere valentino would have lost anyway. you can poke holes in the idea that valentino set out to make an enemy out of casey... when by all accounts the most significant turning point according to casey himself was laguna 2008. a race from valentino that you can disagree with on moral grounds, say didn't decide that year's title..... but would struggle to argue was driven by a pathological need on valentino's part to chat shit about casey for no good reason, given that it was an on-track escalation of the rivalry. you can start getting into arguments about what a 'mind game' even constitutes and whether it makes sense to treat this as a part of valentino's game he could have simply done away with. but there's another more fundamental problem with casey's argument here: it's bullshit. even if valentino deliberately antagonised casey, it did not competitively cost him. look, for the sake of the argument, for this post alone, let's concede the point that all of this behaviour didn't help valentino. but at worst, it was a complete net neutral. maybe it cost valentino in that casey was extra rude to him 2011-12, maybe it just damaged his soul or something, but that's not what casey is asserting. the assertion is that it competitively cost him. which. again. hm

what would it have cost him?? valentino WON the 2008 and 2009 titles, fucked up various body parts in 2010, then moved to a bike he was never going to win on in 2011 and 2012. it sure didn't cost him a title!! even if you want to say that the decision to switch to ducati was in some way prompted by underrating casey (not really and also you're stretching the definition of a 'mind game' here), then that's not even the most important rivalry in motivating that switch - that honour goes to jorge/valentino. so, no championships lost. let's try something else: casey mentions in the slur name podcast he'd always push valentino wide when overtaking because that's all that valentino ever did to him. so did valentino lose any RACES because he'd antagonised casey? well, hm, idk man! his brushes with casey at indy 2008 and motegi 2008 and jerez 2009 and sachsenring 2009 went pretty well!! maybe casey was more motivated to beat valentino at mugello 2009 or estoril 2009, but he finished two positions ahead of valentino in both races during weekends valentino was lacking a lot of confidence for non-casey-related reasons so.... a phillip island duel in 2009 could've gotten dicey - but valentino had a championship to secure and didn't take too many risks, casey had him covered, so that duel didn't even really happen. of the two actual duels valentino and casey had in 2011-12, valentino won le mans 2012 and jerez 2011 just kinda didn't go great for either of them

the only - the only time i feel confident that casey's personal feelings towards valentino deprived valentino of a better result is sachsenring 2010, valentino's comeback race post-leg break where casey after an extended and quite vicious duel denied valentino a podium at the final corner. valentino himself seemed to think this was the result of casey's feelings towards him, ~joking~ after the race that maybe he should wear another rider's colours next time because casey only races him like that. and then of course post motegi 2010 casey inserted himself in the valentino/jorge situation by saying if valentino tried to laguna him again, he'd get it back tenfold. which, speak your truth king, your revenge fantasies are VALID - but it's worth noting that (unfortunately for everyone), valentino nuking his competitiveness for two years meant that casey never really got the chance to try and murder valentino. it didn't happen!! it would've been fun if it had happened, but it didn't!!

so when casey says that valentino made a mistake of antagonising marc and him, it's quite a clever rhetorical trick he's playing. think of how that clip was circulated completely uncritically on this website - like, yeah, totally, valentino made a mistake pissing off marc so then surely he made a mistake pissing off casey too and that really did cost valentino!! idk i guess it's been just about long enough either people haven't watched those seasons or don't remember them? and it is quite a funny experience for me because, again, obviously i listen to that and immediately go 'lol nice try but that's bullshit' and then see it get parroted by pretty much everyone from fans to journalists for months. like, you can just say stuff! whatever man

obviously casey's done a good job by linking his own story to This Thing Nobody Can Shut Up About and nicely played into a few prevalent stereotypes that exist about valentino, making it easier for people to buy into this narrative... but if people thought about this for two seconds you should be able to tell he's not being entirely honest here. you should figure out he's talking more about what he would have LIKED to happen after the horror that was laguna than what actually happened. you should perhaps wonder whether he's not being a teensy bit cynical in his motivations. it's so obviously bullshit! like it genuinely does remind me of the stunt valentino has played with the sete rivalry, casey really did learn from the best here, you can simply make people believe in whatever if they'd already been inclined to believe something kinda similar anyway. you will just get away with it! nobody is ever going to call you up on your inconsistencies! nobody's going to fact check you! lying is fun and free and easy, go forth my friends

anyway. in conclusion. basically valentino gave casey a crash course in media studies. casey said once that valentino was more talented than him in dealing with the media as part of a more sophisticated insult he was cooking up - and yes, obviously he is, but casey's no slouch when he puts his mind to it. sepang 2015 is such a discourse black hole that you kinda know if you say something about it, you can guarantee crash dot net headlines for the next seven months minimum. it's opportunism, plain and simple, it's using this Big Talking Point as a way to conveniently twist the narrative of his own career into something a bit more palatable. kinda like u say in the ask, anon, it's also just a bit of an excuse... if sepang 2015 comes up, casey can talk about valentino hurting HIM and people will care about it !! but he doesn't actually have to say he was hurt because he can go 'well valentino and marc were friends !! so MARC was HURT' yes ofc whereas you mr stoner just thought of valentino as a guy who happened to be your rival oh i'm SURE. casey is obviously invested in the general perception of him, he really wants to be Understood, he wants to have the right narrative about him out there - cf him flirting with the idea of writing another autobiography (many Thoughts on that). so for all that casey genuinely doesn't like what valentino did at sepang 2015, that's obviously not the ONLY thing going on. he can get a free hit in of valentino, he can indulge in a sort of resentful schadenfreude, he can exploit it to edit the narrative of his own career in a more favourable direction. and it works

[explosionshark]

So firstly since it makes sense for to go in order This Year's Girl (which I also love). I will never not love a good Slayer Dream, I almost want to interpret that first one, with them making the bed together, Faith bleeding over it with the knife in her gut, as a shared dream like that one in the hospital and Buffy and Faith have just been sharing dreams off camera and Buffy steadfastly does not sell for any of them but with having the other one with the nice picnic with the Mayor being terminator pursued by Buffy and crawling out of that grave wet and sad with the biggest saddest eyes, that it is probably just Faith dreams. I also really liked the touch of the snake intruding on Faith and the Mayor's wholesome time together.

Oh yeah and I have written down here about how I love how the scene of Faith escaping the hospital blends into the next one with Buffy saying "You know I've never stopped thinking about you," while the camera is still on Faith in the previous scene. Also loved Faith going round all the important landmarks, including the Bad Girls sports shop. And the video tape left for Faith from the Mayor and he recorded it between Graduation Day part 1 and 2 I loved it.

"You tried to gut me blondie" "You'd have done the same to me" "Let's have another go and see who ends up on top" They're so normal, and then Faith initiating her dream scene with Buffy chasing her but her dream Buffy's so cold and the real Buffy is full of so much emotion, I love it.

That scene with Faith and Joyce with her trying to comiserate Buffy leaving them behind (and also something that I can only read as Faith flirting with her honestly, she's got them mother issue for sure) while simultaneously trying to dress up sulty for Buffy. I also the juxtoposition between this and Who Are You with Joyce being defiant when she's in front of Faith but when she thinks she's with Buffy and Faith's gone talking about how she hopes she gets the help she needs. And Faith putting on the same lipstick as Buffy as she did here and then telling Joyce to burn it which I can't decide if I should read it as just Faith trying to keep up the cover of being Buffy and hating anything Faith did or if she did legitimately forget and then said to burn it because she want to get rid of any trace of being Faith with how she oscilates between trying to be Buffy and trying to just use her life.

Okay so Who Are You. First up Sarah Michelle Gellar, so good at playing Faith playing her, that alone makes it a really good episode even setting aside everything else great body language as well, that scene with her in the bathroom practicing being Buffy, superb. Love all the little implied backstory in this episode for Faith, her tensing up being hugged by Joyce, she's perfectly fine pursuing Riley when she thinks its just a sex thing but she freaks out when it's clear that Riley and Buffy have a more genuine relationship than Faith's ever had (which we're sort of reminded of earlier with that jibe she has at Xander, not that Xander's on the level of her other hinted prior partners like her mom's new boyfriend at least once I'm sure its hinted at).

And the repeated use of "Because it's Wrong", Faith saving that girl in the Bronze and being surprised by the gratitude, that sequence leaving just after the night with Riley "I'm not a killer, I'm the Slayer" "You really care what I think" "I don't care" (she says as she cares deeply), her being on the cusp of getting away but she sees the news report and she can't because she does want to be Buffy, she hates who she is, she wants that praise and she gives up that chance to get away to go save the people at the church "Because it's Wrong". And that closing sequence where she's on top of Buffy punching her and insulting herself, they swap bodies back and Buffy's there stunned with Faith's tears on her cheeks (this is a shot of all time). And then for the closing scene "Guess she's had her fun" "Yeah ... fun" The teased face turn that could've been maybe if Faith didn't hate herself so much was so good.

I did write down in my notes more Spike Faith solidarity after that bit in the last episode where Xander and Giles went to Spike to see if he knew where Faith was and he said he'd be cheering her on if he saw her but then Faith went fully into that long umprompted monologue about what it'd be like to have sex with Buffy ("Because it's wrong") and yeah that was a wilder direction than I expected that scene to go. She's SO normal.

Oh and Faith instantly clocking Tara and Willow's relationship at a simple glance I now understand why Faith consistently and instantly clocks whoever has a crush on Willow in those fics. Oh yeah one last note I got down Faith checklist Fight Buffy (Check), Become Buffy (Check), sleep with her via proxy by sleeping with her boyfriend (Check) now all she needs to do is be killed by her, forever changing the course of her life and she can finish up that checklist. How would she feel if Buffy killed her while she was in her body and she had to go through the rest of her life in Faith's body, would she love it that someone else has to be her and it'd be someone she knew would be able to pilot her life turn it around, would she hate it that between the two of them its her body that's the one that's still around. She hates herself so much.

There's just so much in this episode. Adam was also there I guess. Oh and I didn't mention it but I did also like Eliza Dushku playing Buffy playing Faith but she obviously wasn't the main focus of the episode.

Also I was wondering if just every episode that had the word girl in the title was a top tier episode what with Prophecy Girl, Bad Girls and This Year's Girl but alas I had forgotten Inca Mummy Girl which breaks this rule.

Also also this is a tangent but another thing Who Are You really crystalised for me that I've been thinking about for a while but I do gotta feel bad for the state of vampires right now, not in a I think it's necessarily a bad direction just that I feel sorry for them. Like at best they can get a job being a goon but they can't even be a goon for another vampire anymore they're all dead they have to settle for demons or Adam. Master, Kakistos, Trick dead, Spike brain chipped, Angel has a soul. At least Drusilla's still out there living her best life, they should just leave Sunnydale start working for her instead of waiting around to be flipped to the latest demon who needs some cold bodies.

Oh yeah The Prodigal and The Ring on Angel were pretty good but they had no chance couldn't invade my brain like whenever Faith watch does. It's nice to see Darla again and Lilah's first appearance. Lemme tell you back in the day when I'd just seen the end of Angel s3, all of s4 and some of s5 Wesley/Lilah was the OTP, could not get enough of them.

yeah one thing i like about the dreams (and this is purely hc BUT) is that i think for faith it leaves some ambiguity, right? she's like. not in a good headspace. pretty clearly traumatized and spiraling but she HAS had these shared dreams with buffy so there's precedence - does part of her think that being pursued by buffy IS, in some way, still a slayer dream? does she think it represents some fundamental truth about her relationship with buffy - that she's already failed so all there is left to do is be killed by buffy? idk i like to think it contributes to her overall experience of being deeply shaken up and death-driven - at the very least it does paint a pretty stark picture of her own varyingly subconscious fears.

(putting the rest of this behind a cut bc we both went off lmao)

"I love how the scene of Faith escaping the hospital blends into the next one with Buffy saying "You know I've never stopped thinking about you," while the camera is still on Faith in the previous scene. Also loved Faith going round all the important landmarks, including the Bad Girls sports shop." <- this always does make me crazy, i love how much of the faith/buffy scene is presented using typical like breakup cliches. it's so good. i never get tired of it.

and yeah okay GOD there's a lot to unpack re: the faith/joyce scene. personally my read on the lipstick thing is kind of tied into my read on the dream. i think it's faith kind of acting out the worst version of buffy that lives in her head. joyce pointing out that 'buffy' has chosen the same thing faith chose has faith recoiling. it's a reminder, to her, of how she's been rejected by buffy. that the things she once needed to believe they had in common were fantasies she made up, because that's the only explanation for buffy rejecting her so hard. 'burn it' is less about the lipstick than it is about how faith thinks buffy feels about her. in her mind she's playing the part - how else would buffy feel if someone suggested she had something in common with faith?

it's funny (not ha ha) that i think this episode, showing faith in buffy's body, living the life she thought she wanted, demonstrates most powerfully how completely and utterly alone she is. it's such a good bodyswap because it accomplishes the 'what if the shoe was on the other foot' thing in a really interesting way. buffy's life IS better than faith's, it always has been, the lesson here isn't that faith was ever wrong about that. the salient thing is just how utterly unprepared to actually live it faith is.

she plays at it, is whacked in the face with reminders of how genuine buffy is, how much of the parts faith resented of her weren't an act for the sake of claiming superiority (the riley stuff being fundamental here) and faith's reaction is... bail. oh fuck, she isn't cut out for this. she doesn't know how to deal with the loving mom and the loving boyfriend. she wants to run. but like you said, by the time she sees the news broadcast, something has happened that keeps her from being able to leave.

i think it's two-fold. one, there's a part of faith that she hates and pretty much refuses to acknowledge because it's so painful, that desperately, desperately wants to reset the board and do better. she just doesn't know how to pull herself out of that spiral when she's already made such a mess of things (see: five by five/sanctuary in ATS) and i think the other part of the equation is the fact that she cares about buffy still. there's a certain amount of rationalization she can claim for hurting buffy, and badly. but one of her deeply ingrained beliefs at this point in her conflict with buffy is that, since buffy has rejected her and they can't be the same, they must be opposites. she is 'bad' buffy is 'good.' to leave, to stop being buffy, would be a kind of trespass against this fundamental law. there are ways she's okay with betraying buffy (though clearly increasingly troubled by) and there are ways she can't deal with.

anyway faith IMMEDIATELY clocking willow/tara and telling spike in detail how cool she thinks it would be to fuck buffy were all time faith lehane dyke moments. i love her so much, she sucks so bad.

okay finally just want you to know that this is gonna haunt me forever:

Faith checklist Fight Buffy (Check), Become Buffy (Check), sleep with her via proxy by sleeping with her boyfriend (Check) now all she needs to do is be killed by her, forever changing the course of her life and she can finish up that checklist. How would she feel if Buffy killed her while she was in her body and she had to go through the rest of her life in Faith's body, would she love it that someone else has to be her and it'd be someone she knew would be able to pilot her life turn it around, would she hate it that between the two of them its her body that's the one that's still around. She hates herself so much.

haha cool

[femsolid]

I've never watched Buffy the Vampire slayer, I'm curious what do you like about it?

Childhood sentimental attachment mostly. It's a classic and has influenced the vampire genre a lot, and it was super popular in Europe. I used to watch it every Saturday night with my mom and my sister when I was a kid. I was a huge fan. I would buy every magazine that talked about it and cover my bedroom's walls with posters of the show. And I feel like Buffy's character was a good role model for me back then. It was quite rare to see such a strong and independent female character on TV. And there were very clear feminist messages at times. I was taught by my father that girls only exist to serve men, but every Saturday I'd watch Buffy kick ass and make fun of men's authority. It helped.

Now, as an adult, I think it's well written and quite fun to watch. The show has a lot of qualities, but it's probably a bit outdated now, especially the first seasons that are mostly for teenagers of the 90s. We aged with the show. And it has its issues, of course, as it was made by a man. Still, with all its flaws, it remains my favourite. Where else can you watch a woman fight demons, vampires, gods, and werewolves, with her group of friends that include a lesbian couple that are also witches? There are funny episodes, dramatic episodes, scary episodes... And for seven seasons, Buffy never once talked about wanting to get married or to have kids. So yeah, I still love the show, but I'm also biased.

[pzyii]

Would like to hear more about the black Buffy au 👀

okay so like. There’s a lot to say about it , because it’s ultimately a part of my whole buffy rewrite/ redesign/(modern?) au (which is both fixing stuff I’m bothered with and a way to collect a bunch of head canons and just be more free with these characters). Tho I do also just see her as black at this point and draw her as it even if it’s not directly related to this au.

I got caught up in it and it’s all long so it’s all under the cut

it started with me drawing her as black once, I think it was prompted by a TikTok of someone who was giving heavy buffy vibes. But when I did, it really stuck with me. These are for various reason. One of the main ones, honestly? Racism in this show.

Like I get that it was the 90s but that doesn’t excuse it. There are obviously a lot of examples, the lack of characters of colour being a big one. But Buffys racism towards Kendra is another one, as well as the first slayer only communicating through Tara, a white woman in restless. The way they talk about Romani culture and people isnt good either (and something I’ve been working on how you can make the story work still), neither is ampata and def more examples I can’t think of now.

but it isn’t just about that, and it’s not just about representation. But rather the concept of buffy the vampire slayer itself. The idea of a woman who always is the one hunted and killed in horror movies turning around and just killing all the monsters. Yeah this fits a blonde woman but it sure also fits a black woman. (another part of this is people underestimating buffy, both her enemies but also the people around her. They think she’s stupid, that she’s not strong etc. When she very much isn’t. This is yet again something that while fitting the stereotypes of a blonde woman, but also fits, a lot better today too, with a black woman. Or any woman of colour. To point out an obvious of example of this, we for example have Annabeth Chase in Pjo. Who’s intelligence and capability was underestimated in the books because she was blonde, but makes even more sense with her being black)

but onto the fun stuff!!! Idk exactly whattt you wanted anon but I’m giving you some insights into what I’m working on on and off right now. So Buffys not the only one getting redesigned with this, obviously her family, Dawn and Joyce’s appearances are gonna change. But other characters too, this both being connected to what I said about head canons, but also Xander for examples prob gonna change a bit, he’ll still be a brunette, probably the same height and similar build but he won’t look a lot like Nicholas Brendon. This is because well. I want him to look like a kid!!! All of them, while they’re teens I want them to look like it, and hopefully if my art capabilities go that far, that they look visibly older by the end of it.

this au is my baby so I’m gonna share some random notes of like character design changes.

This is one of those very affected by hcs and personal preferences. A lot changes about willows appearance, she’s a bit taller(I want her to look too tall for herself, she’s all awkward, doesn’t look like she fits in her body), she has freckles (she’s ginger), there will be some changes on her body from magic (and other injuries but lots of magicks stuff, it’s reminders, SCARS) aND her hairs naturally curly but she straightens it, at least in early seasons (this is like 100% personal preference, but it’s also like…. I have things that fit and I wanna explore with it….) and so forth.

Anyas pretty similar because I just think Emma fits real well but she’s less.. human. I have a bunch and more to go in vengeance demon lore but I want her to be Different than human, having been a vengeance demon Changes You. Her ears are pointed (great for expressions, also applies to vampires), she has goat eyes (classic demon move, also fits the Almost Human thing.), her teeth are pointy (it’s fun, she’ll naw your arm off if you steal)

As a final example, that’s actually related to the black buffy aspect of the au. Drusilla. She’s also black. This design is pretty recent, and was created by me both because I wanted to explore the concept of different ways to convey her vibe, but also, and mainly, because she’s a buffy parallel. History wise there’s some things to work out with it but it’s def a design I’m stuck with at this point. (She is supposed to parallel buffy in every way, sharp edges against soft curves). Also she’s really fucking tall. (Taller than spike, which is the most important part of it)

also bonus, given about the whole modern? Au Aspect of it

[ahappydnp]

wait what picture of their bedroom with both their stuff visible??

2:31

[princesscharlesofmonaco]

if you have any time i would love a list of episodes to skip for buffy season 1!! I have literally been thinking about starting it and then the news of the reboot came out- but im so bad at watching shows when they have slow starts :)

Omg anon, I am delighted!!! Come join us in the buffyverse <333

First Time Season 1 Guide

- Welcome to the Hellmouth*

- The Harvest*

- Witch*

- Teacher’s Pet**

- Never Kill A Boy On The First Date***

- The Pack***

- Angel*

- I Robot, You Jane***

- The Puppet Show**

- Nightmares*

- Out of Mind, Out of Sight*

- Prophecy Girl*

*=essential

**=nonessential but fun, depending on your tolerance for camp

***=SKIP, read a summary

[lesbianmarrow]

Unfortunately the series never really deals with the attempted rape in SR with any of the weight it deserves, neither in the immediate aftermath nor in s7, which while not surprising (they've never been good at dealing with sexual violence) is still enraging to me cause they were very deliberate in making that scene as invasive/violent as possible, so the horrible follow through is almost worse than SR itself

yeah that's what i figured 😔 it's like.........i don't want to seem like i'm of the mind that sexual violence shouldn't be represented on television, or that depictions of it need to be "softened" and palatable, but the scene is so gruesome in a way that feels totally uncalled for. and having buffy be a victim of attempted rape by someone she cares for and was very intimate with for some time is really strange to me? and to do it so late in the season, when there's no time to explore how buffy is dealing with this trauma, is really odd when they made such a point to make that scene so graphic and traumatic. like what was the point......how is this serving buffy's character......like if we're doing a story about buffy experiencing this trauma and grappling with it then we need to really do it. and the show doesn't actually seem interested in doing that?

[everythingsbetterunderthestars]

hi :) you’re amazing<3

who is your favorite villain/a villain that you like? (from any movie/tv show/book/etc., can be for any reason, e.g. they had a point, interesting character arc, etc.)

Hi :) you’re amazing too <3 and thank you <3

OMG this is such an amazing question, and surprise surprise I can’t just pick one, so strap in because I’m giving you a full tour of my brain space called ‘My Favourite Villains <3’ (not in any specific order)

- Bellatrix (from HP), I’ve always had a crush on her

- Catra (from She-Ra), I also have a crush on her but she gets bonus points for having the absolute best character arc ever and being canonically gay (also her voice,,, omg her voice)

- Dark Willow (from Buffy), once again, HOT, 100% have a crush on her, and I adore Willow so Dark Willow is just… hmm yes delicious, she has the most devastating origin story + canonically gay yes yes yes

- Spike (from Buffy), because honestly whose favourite villain is he not?! Hot, funny, sassy, and I’m really soft for the human he used to be (such a loser <3)

- Drusilla (from Buffy), whom I also have a crush on because she’s stunning and fascinating and funny and her voice does things to me (and her origin story is really good too)

- Faith (from Buffy), because I’m gay and I have eyes. Idk female villains are just,, YES, plus her character development was pretty neat imo and she’s super smart and traumatised which makes her weirdly endearing to me. I could fix her

- The Mayor (from Buffy—yes I’m aware almost all of these come from Buffy, listen I’m just very obsessed with this series okay?? Not my fault its villains are superior), because he’s really funny and original and interesting

Well I can’t think of any more right now… there are probably more but these are the ones that come to mind right now :)

Also don’t think I forgot Snow from the Hunger Games, I do find him very interesting but he doesn’t reach the same level at the ones above in my mind

[sunnydale-high-school-rumors]

HELLO STUDENTS OF SUNNYDALE HIGH SCHOOL

Have you heard rumors flying around, or seen anything scandalous yourself? Maybe a student cheating on their partner, two teachers going at it, your chemistry teacher’s jaw unhinging like a snake and consuming your classmate whole, or a student getting away with BLATANT violation of academic integrity? Or, alternatively, have you done anything naughty yourself. Skipped class, ditched school to go to the mall, used dark magic to manipulate your teacher’s into giving you good grades, graffitied in the bathrooms?

Send any rumors or confessions to this account, to share them with other students (or really anyone with a tumblr.) Feel free to send in longer stories of weird shit you’ve heard about or seen as well! Cheers 🥂

//This is a side blog based on the idea of “damn regular high schools have wack rumors, I wonder what kind of rumors Sunnydale would have.” This is not a real blog/school, but based on the fictional school of Sunnydale from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Feel free to send in confessions/rumors nonetheless, although, due to blog being based on the high school (and me having not finished the show yet ;-;,) please try to keep your asks contained to the first three seasons. I also ask that you try to stay in character as a random student from California’s most fatal high school. Lastly, you can do rumors/confessions based on actual events from the show, or the way those events might be perceived, but don’t feel limited. Things that make sense in universe but are not canon (such as a random rumor that Harmony and Xander were a thing, which they weren’t) are also fun! My main blog is @tana-draws.

[daily-kagami]

Day #77: The Green Dragon