Buffy Summers - Tumblr Posts

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I always want you.

5x14 Crush || 6x14 As You Were

Some 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' sketches

[graphite pencil on paper]

For all the Early Installment Weirdness in Season 1 of Buffy, the opening two-parter does a surprisingly good job establishing these who these characters are and what their arcs will be for the entire rest of the series.

Take Buffy’s ‘Seize the moment, because tomorrow you might be dead’ - it’s framed in an almost light-hearted way, but she is already, in the first episode, intensely aware of her own death. As much as she tries to deny her slayerhood, she knows she’s probably going to die young; she can’t picture a future for herself, and her just trying to enjoy the moment is covering for issues she’ll be dealing with for the rest of the series.

The first thing Willow does to help Buffy is hack the city council to access the plans for the city. Well, technically, what she does is reveal that she’d already hacked them, just for funsies. It’s slightly incongruous with Willow’s apparent innocence… but that completely fits her later arc. She sees herself as essentially innocent and harmless, so it’s fine when she does things that might seem bad if someone else did it, especially if it’s something that might make her feel cool and/or powerful.

Cordelia also shows her intelligence in Computer class (though the bad Deliver/Delete joke at the end of the scene undercuts it, I’m inclined to write that off as just a bad joke). She’s complaining about the task they’ve been assigned, but she’s complaining like someone who does know what she’s talking about, in comparison to Harmony who genuinely doesn’t get it; and there’s a strong sense that she’s trying to downplay her academic smarts to fit in. It’s surprising depth this early in the series, considering how Season 1 generally treats her.

And then Angel is a ridiculous dork with no idea how to be a person, desperately trying to look cool - an illusion that breaks under the slightest pressure. This displays not just his personality, but also foreshadows all of Buffy’s romantic interests for the rest of the series.

sorry but it's canon that buffy and faith are bad for each other. I still ship them tho

No it’s not, they’ve never been in a relationship or anything and haven’t been on good terms since they were 17. Most of the problems they had in their tragic relationship were caused by other people. I fully believe post chosen, once they mature and have time without an apocalypse happening they would move past the past and get along really well and fall in love and be in a happy healthy relationship. They already made huge strides in season 7. There are reasons I believe they are actually the only people who would make each other happy but I won’t get into that. The idea that faith and Buffy will always make each other unhappy and just can’t get along is a myth.

In Reptile Boy, once again the Angel relationship takes a step forward in an episode about older sexual predators preying on high-schoolers; like Teacher's Pet, the appeal of an older partner is recognized and questioned, and the dangers they represent are confronted. And Angel continues to stress the age difference between him and Buffy as a problem. I really didn't pay much attention to it when I was younger, but the show is way more aware of the issues here than I realised.

Also, yeah, the "When I kiss you I want to die," line is a complete non-sequiter - hell, they've barely even kissed. It might make some sense in Season 3, but it really doesn't fit where they are at this point in the series, and it really sounds way more like a reason to end a relationship than to begin one.

There is however a much more natural connection to her death drive when she expresses a desire to be swept up in an out-of-control romance - it's the "Seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead" thing again. She wants to embrace passion now without regard for any possible consequences, because on some level she's deeply aware that she might not live to see those consequences; and if she denies herself now, she might not live to see real passion. I'd argue that both her vampire romances are defined by her inability to imagine a future for herself, simply taking whatever love or pleasure she can get right now - because the present is all that she can really believe in.

favorite buffy + dawn moments: s7e04 | help

In general, I'm noticing a lot of Faith-in-Buffy on this rewatch that I missed on previous watches. 'Prophecy Girl' has a lot of it (after she dies, but also her smile while she's fighting vamps at the start of the episode), and obviously Buffy in 'When She Was Bad' is full of Faith.

And now, in 'What's My Line pt. 2', it's astonishing how much Buffy is Faith to Kendra. The way she provokes her, tries to bring out the passion in her - it's so Faith, so much a mirror of Buffy and Faith's relationship, with Buffy in the Faith roll. Just, you know, less homoerotic.

... I mean, it's still pretty homoerotic. Just... less so.

I'm sure the romantic music from Buffy and Angel's ice rink date playing as Buffy and Kendra say goodbye means nothing. You know, maybe the music is supposed to symbolise Buffy considering her path in life, which connects to ice skating and this last conversation. It just sounds romantic. It doesn't mean anything.

but what if they kissed, though?

In general, I'm noticing a lot of Faith-in-Buffy on this rewatch that I missed on previous watches. 'Prophecy Girl' has a lot of it (after she dies, but also her smile while she's fighting vamps at the start of the episode), and obviously Buffy in 'When She Was Bad' is full of Faith.

And now, in 'What's My Line pt. 2', it's astonishing how much Buffy is Faith to Kendra. The way she provokes her, tries to bring out the passion in her - it's so Faith, so much a mirror of Buffy and Faith's relationship, with Buffy in the Faith roll. Just, you know, less homoerotic.

... I mean, it's still pretty homoerotic. Just... less so.

I posted my first ever fanfic!

Title: Haircut, Home & Heaven

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers)

Summary: Truthfully, it’s impossible to know. Buffy can’t remember if they had felt like this before they jumped from Glory’s tower. Maybe that’s when it started. Or maybe their body hadn’t felt like it was truly Buffy’s since they were fifteen years old on the steps of Hemery High, getting called as a slayer. Being told that you’re being imbued with supernatural abilities is bound to irrevocably change your relationship with your own body.   - - -

In which Buffy explores their relationship to their own identity, gives themself a haircut, and then comes out to Faith.

You can read it on AO3!

I have a redemptive reading of S7, which is that it's all about Buffy backsliding in what she's learned over the years, and repeating the mistakes of her failed mentors. Buffy is in the wrong for most of S7, and I think that's the point.

In Selfless, she parrot's Faith's words in Consequences about how they, as Slayers, are the law. Faith isn't entirely wrong in what she's saying, but she's also saying it from the midst of a suicidal spiral and desperately trying to find reasons to repress her own grief - it's not meant to be good advice. And the events of Selfless show that Buffy's solution is objectively less useful than the third option that Willow finds (the one that saves the dead boys). Buffy is falling into the blind spots of her failed mentor and therefore losing her ability to find alternative solutions like she used to.

In Potential, she recreates the Cruciatmentum that she suffered in Helpless, this time by locking the un-powered potentials in with a dangerous vampire, buying into the Watchers Council propaganda about it making them stronger. Throughout the season, she repeats the mistakes of early-S1 Giles - refusing to connect emotionally to her mentees and not allowing them to have fun and a life outside of the war against darkness. She falls into the hyper-militarised mindset of the Initiative, and the disaster of Empty Places occurs at least in part because Buffy, just like the Initiative, insists that the people around her should just follow orders and not ask questions, because she knows best.

It is entirely understandable that Buffy falls into these mindsets. She has gone through so much and made so many tough decisions that it's no surprise that she feels she knows best. The whole first third of S7 is all about Buffy being haunted by the people she couldn't save, and so it makes sense that she goes back on her previously learned lessons.

And the tragic thing is, this is inevitable. She is forced into this role of hard general, forced to make these life-and-death decisions, forced to depersonalise everyone around her, because the role of the Slayer demands it. The structure of the Chosen One demands loneliness, and demands these misguided mindsets that Faith, the Watchers, and the Initiative already showed to be flawed. She doesn't really have a choice but to repeat them. This is why Faith immediately falls into similar mistakes when she takes on the mantle. They are trapped by the system.

That's why the structure needs to be from destroyed. That's why she needs to rip up the rules and empower all the Potentials. It's the only way to break this cycle, to not repeat these mistakes again.

I'm not 100% sure this is the intended story, and to be honest I'd like another watch of S7 before I totally nail myself to this pole. The execution is muddled enough that it does become unclear, and that's why opinions tend to be very polarised on Buffy in S7. On balance though I do think this is the intended takeaway.. I think there are so many moments where Buffy repeats the words of a failed mentor, and where that leads to an objectively worse outcome, that I think this is meant to be the takeaway. I think that the most interesting read - and the only read that isn't thematically incongruent with the rest of the show - is that Buffy is consistently in the wrong in S7, and that she's meant to be, and that that is was allows her to break out of the system in the end.

[guy who likes to help everyone always but is also suicidal and some sort of pervert voice] no yeah you can drink my blood. It’s fine

I’m way behind on posting about my rewatch - there’s plenty I do want to say about S2, and there’s a whole essay about gender and Phases that I’m probably never going to write - but I’m into Season 3 and I really want to note how much early S3 establishes the issues that are going to drive Buffy’s long breakdown in seasons 6 and 7.

Firstly, Buffy's tendency to pull away from her friends, feeling she has to take care of everything for herself and protect them from her problems and her feelings rather than sharing them. It’s a consistent pattern, and we see it in her running away at the end of Season 2, and continually refusing to talk about what happened with Angel with both the Scoobies and Faith. When she eventually does try to talk to her assigned school counsellor about Angel, she explicitly says she can’t talk to anyone else about what’s happening (only to find him dead, which I’m sure didn’t help).

Of course, this isn’t just a flaw of Buffy’s - her friends have a pretty big role to play, especially Xander. His sanctimonious, judgemental whining about Buffy leaving, as well as anything to do with Angel, does a lot to push Buffy away. (Not to mention the first thing he does when he finds out Angel is back is try to manipulate Faith into murdering him.) It’s also hard not to suspect that Xander’s lie back in Becoming did a lot of damage - because of that, Buffy thinks even Willow hates Angel and wouldn’t understand her continued feelings for him. ‘Kick his ass’ made Buffy feel like literally no-one is on her side.

Regardless of the reason, here we see the beginning of the split that will make Buffy feel increasingly isolated and unable to trust or rely on anyone as the series continues into the depression years, especially Season 6. But we also see the start of a pattern that will become a central flaw in Season 7 - her inability to express empathy or care for anyone who she sees as a reflection of herself.

I’m actually not talking about Faith here - that’s related, but it’s also a whole can of lesbian worms I don’t want to get into right now. But aside from Faith, in the first few episodes of Season 3 there are two girls who mirror Buffy, specifically in her relationship with Angel. In Anne, we have Lily/Anne, who’s wants to spend the rest of her life with her older boyfriend, who has a criminal past and seems a little crappy but also genuinely loves her and is trying to be good to her, and who ends up being sent to hell. Then in Beauty and the Beasts, we see Abby, who started dating a guy who seemed nice at first, but who turned out to be an abusive monster. Both are very obvious parallels to Buffy in her relationship with Angel (in soul-having and soulless forms), and serve as ways for her reflect on that relationship.

But what I want to focus on is the fact that, while Buffy does try to help both girls, she’s also unusually harsh and unempathetic towards them. Her attitude is ‘This is how things are, and you need to set aside your emotions and just deal with it immediately and without emotional support’; it reflects how she treats herself, but it’s also a pattern in how she treats people whose challenges reflect hers. Which will come to a head in how she treats the Potential slayers in season 7, and the way she alienates everyone around her in part through her treatment of them (and therefore also her treatment of herself).

It’s just interesting to see these issues that will dominate the last couple of seasons come across so strongly in this early part of Season 3.

Also, Buffy and Faith are absolutely girlfriends in early Season 3, but are also completely unaware of that fact.

"She didn't even kill me! [...] She didn't even care enough to cut off my head, or set me on fire. Is that too much to ask? Y'know, some little sign that she cared?" - Spike about Drusilla, definitely not Faith about Buffy

Lovers Walk is about Faith.

One of the reasons I don't mind that Faith is physically missing for so much of S3 is that she is such a strong thematic presence that episodes where she doesn't even appear are still very much About her and what she represents in the narrative. Like Band Candy showing us the events of Bad Girls eight episodes in advance, The Wish showing us how easily Buffy could end up a more jaded, bitter, friendless slayer, Earshot being centred around characters whose jealousy and insecurities can turn suicidal as easily as homoicidal. But Lovers Walk might be my favourite of these.

If you read the events of Revelations as Faith feeling cheated on and dumped (which you should, because that's how the narrative describes it. It's not literally what happens but it is explicitly how Faith feels about it), then that makes Spike in Lovers Walk very clearly a proxy Faith. Like, we leave off Revelations with Faith alone in her motel, feeling sad and heartbroken and cut off from Buffy, and then we roll into Lovers Walk and Buffy's other dark shadow self turns up a heartbroken mess, having just been cheated on and dumped, and spends the whole episode being very sad and bitter about it, and I think it's a good reference point for what Faith is also feeling at that point.

Faith is already linked to the events of this episode through the "we're just good friends" axis that connects Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Angel and Willow/Xander that I've talked about before. She's also linked through the dog/love theme that is woven throughout S3 and pops up here with the "love's bitch" reference. And Spike's speech puts a bow on this, by being, to be honest, a better desriptor of Buffy/Faith than it is of Buffy/Angel. Everything that Spike says in this episode Faith could say herself, and most likely wants to say herself.

"You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends."

Big fan of sun motifs in characters not necessarily being about positivity and happiness and how they're so " bright and warm" but instead being about fucking brutal they are.

Radiant. A FORCE of nature that will turn you to ash. That warmth that burns so hot it feels like ice. Piercing yellow and red and white. A character being a Sun because you cannot challenge a Sun without burning alive or taking everything down with them if victorious.

Buffy Summers + cross necklaces ♰♰♰

I have never hit reblog so fast in my unworthy existence

Women with swords. You agree. Reblog.