#buffy anon

[housewarningparty]

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]

I feel like we never talk about how Sarah Michelle gellar and Misha Collins were cast together in the ringer and also what was Misha’s experience in Tay series? Did he enjoy working with SMG? Sadly we’ll never know 😣 - buffy anon

i mean someone could always ask him at a con :)

[ahappydnp]

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

2:31

[lesbianmarrow]

love your btvs discovery. spuffy does in fact infect the mind like a welcome and beautiful parasite

thanks so much. spike & buffy just destroyed a house by having sex and ive never felt more alive

[sspoike]

Are there any btvs lines you quote regularly

okay mine are insane but anytime someone or something makes a buffy reference I go ‘BOOFY’ and then that usually gets me an insane/confused look by the people around me so then I follow it up with a ‘BOOFY STRONG’ and bang my fist against my chest like Tarzan. does anyone else in the room get my bit? No. but does it endlessly entertain me? YES.

also I love asking people ‘how is your money’ like Buffybot to Anyanka. it might come across rude to some but the people I’m around always enthusiastically got something to say about the subject

[academic-vampire]

Have you ever worn eyeliner? You seem like someone who would wear eyeliner and look hella good wearing it… in the most platonic way possible lollll

Holy hell, I have thought about this so often. I have tried to do it to myself a few times before but I’m so bad at it. So if someone would like to help me, I would gladly appreciate that.

Thank you so much for your question anon xo

[liam-summers]

Ah lmao sorry I’m just sitting here and remembered this comment I saw on TikTok where this insane sp*ffy was having an absolute meltdown about Bangel and one of their reasons for despising the ship is that “The way he towers over her is OPPRESSIVE”

PLEASE, this is crazy work. I need y’all to get a lobotomy and touch some grass 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[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

[housewarningparty]

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

[theyarebothgunshot]

I need your opinion, what are your thoughts on once more with feeling? In one way there’s some catchy songs but in another it’s a bit cringe. Essentially my reaction a Dean to what he thought of the supernatural musical?? - buffy anon

personally i really really love it, and i do not think it's cringe at all. it's the best musical episode put there, imo

[thecrackshipdiaries]

Kristen Stewart and Michelle Trachtenberg

Requested: Anon

[lesbianmarrow]

Buffy's complete numbness and yet at the same time unfathomable sorrow in Afterlife is maybe my favourite single-episode performance by an actor in the whole show, it's hard to describe but the way she is struggling to even move like a normal human being, the way she forgets to interact with her environment, there's so many subtle little nuances to that performance that make her kinda unique situation very lived-in and vivid, I just adore it

it's so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ohhhhhh buffy 😢😢😢

[foxcare]

sayori + my melody header and icon!

requested by 💤 anon

f2u w/o credit, likes/reblogs not required but appreciated!

[academic-vampire]

Any time I see a vampire, I like to imagine what their bite feels like, what it does to someone, and I always picture that it depends on the particular person. Maybe it brings them pain, or perhaps bliss. Whether it makes one's head flush with fever or make their fingertips grow cold and numb for a while. I think of all these overwhelming sensations. You're dissimilar to those. I imagine your bite is calming. A feeling of gentle drowsiness as blood leaves my system, like I've just drank a calming tea and snuggled up in a blanket. A soothing embrace of serenity that almost makes be forget the punctures in my skin. Sorry for the ramble, but I felt like you'd enjoy hearing my thoughts on the matter.

Reading this actually made me blush quite a bit. Society’s modern perception of vampires is quite refreshing, ahahah! This is very sweet. I would like to think that this is the case. I try to be gentle. Some people like it more intense, and that is fine too. It really depends on what they want. I adapt. Although some people have told me that it does feel like how you described—warm and calm, somehow; like when you fall asleep as a child and someone carries you to your bed. It’s a surrender, but a trusting one. Vulnerability isn’t always a bad thing.

Thank you for sharing, this was very sweet. You made a vampire blush.

[wetcatspellcaster]

I know that evil!Rose and Ascendent would be the most toxic, in need of therapy, worst timeline couple…but my god the outfits would be so hot as would they.

(I know that completely defeats the entire point of Pieces and what it explores but sometimes the hot evil people do it for me 😭)

lmao pieces doesn't have a point beloved, so you're all good! hot evil people is also a valid theme to explore. so would a Rosalie with literally 0 anxiety x