#and now that i've said all that: fuffy canon when

[faith-thee-slayer]

What makes Buffy and Faith such an excellent pairing for me is the ambiguous, undefined nature of their dynamic. BTVS never explicitly states their relationship as romantic (and even with the piles of subtext, a lot of it is ambiguous enough for an unsuspecting audience to be none the wiser). And a lot of character dynamics in media tend to focus more on the romantic end. We all want to see an epic romance (I do too), and of course romance can be complicated and messy, but what fascinates me the most are the complicated dynamics that aren’t straightforwardly stated as “the characters have feelings for each other/are in love.” What has me captivated is when their dynamic is left up to interpretation, able to be explored on several different levels at once. I think Buffy and Faith have one of the best dynamics on the show because they are not explicitly romantic. I think a canon recognition of such feelings for each other would actually limit the reading of their dynamic (and I know this sounds strange coming from a Fuffy stan but hear me out).

Buffy and Faith’s dynamic has several facets to it, most notably:

1. The Slayer-bond — They are the only two people on the planet that know what it’s like to be the Slayer. They are sisters, in that regard. You could almost say they’re blood-related, united under a birthright and an ancient system which oppresses and controls them. Cut from the same cloth, whether they choose to accept it or not. Both envy the other, wanting to be the other girl. Both feel like they’re being replaced by the other. They are Cain and Abel. And after everything, when the Potentials take refuge in Buffy’s home, she and Faith have to step up and be the leaders the girls need.

2. Desire for the chosen family — Faith will never admit it but she wants the love of a family, what she never had in Boston. When she meets the Scoobies, she hopes they can be that for her. And Buffy, though she does have a family in Sunnydale, still feels like they can’t truly understand her. Once Buffy and Faith meet, the potential is there for them to both get exactly what they need. But failures on both sides prevent this from happening. And it doesn’t help that the Mayor is the thing that the Scoobies couldn’t be for Faith. She admits more than once how much she covets Buffy’s friends, family, and Watcher, and her exclusion from the “in-group” continues to be a point of contention throughout the series.

3. Antagonism — It hurts hard when Faith betrays Buffy. Even if they didn’t get off to a great start, their connection develops over the season, and you can tell they never wanted to be enemies. But due to their individual natures, as well as the building of emotions surrounding their slayer bond, the attempts (or lack thereof) at making Faith feel connected to the in-group, and the fallout after Allan Finch, their relationship fractures. Faith feels driven to evil and that’s what she becomes. And being someone who fights evil, Buffy has to go against her. And it hurts so much for both of them — because you think you know someone and can trust them. You feel like you’ve finally found the thing you’ve been looking for all this time. And then one day you wake up and all that’s gone. And you do horrible things to each other. And you know that it’ll never go back to the way things were before. And neither of you will be the same person again. Even years later, when they come together to stop the First, the history is still there between them. Will the elephant in the room ever go away? Or will it always be a trigger for the both of them to jump right back to old times?

4. "They were in love” — Of course we cannot forget the lovers lens when talking about these two. In a lot of ways, it’s the interpretation that makes the most sense for them. The levels of intense emotion that these two reach, especially on Faith’s end, can be hard to justify in a platonic light. And that was after Faith’s flirting, her dismissal of all men, disdain for Angel, and making everything in her life about Buffy. There’s also the deliberate parallels of Faith to Angel and Spike (main two explicit love interests) to the point where Riley (third explicit love interest) is often overlooked in favor of Faith. Buffy is ultimately her weakness. She wants Buffy to care about her, approve of her, be there for her, and to see that they are the same person. And when the shit hits the fan, Faith is absolutely devastated. Heartbroken to the point of aiding in the apocalypse, trying to kill the Scoobies, Angel, Joyce, doing the body swap, etc. Anything to hurt Buffy back. And Buffy is heartbroken because of Faith’s turn into evil. She begs Faith to let her in and help. She fights for Faith in the hopes of bringing her back to sanity, but once she realize Faith is helping the Mayor, she shuts her feelings off because it’s easier. And when she has to put a knife in Faith? When she kisses Faith’s forehead in the hospital (mirroring Faith’s first kiss to her)? When she dreams about Faith? When Faith wakes up months later and Buffy’s first thought is that she’s hiding somewhere, feeling sorry and wanting her help? Anyway...

All of these different aspects/lenses carry a unique weight in viewing Buffy and Faith’s connection to each other. But I think that by putting a significant amount of weight on the romantic lens via canon confirmation, the other lenses lose the ability to stand on their own outside of a romantic reading. Because then it becomes strictly “they went through all that they went through and did all those things to each other because they always had feelings for each other.” All moments of affection/obsession one of them has for the other are seen solely as romantic. Which, is a fine reading, but it overshadows other ways of viewing the dynamic, and becomes the most important/only way of looking at it. We then miss out on the sister dynamic, the “I want to be you” dynamic, the “you are the one who understands me the best but I actually want to be completely separate from you,” the estranged family members dynamic in S7. Ultimately, I think we rarely see two characters on the same side obsessed with each other in a non-romantic way. It’s so fascinating and occupies this unidentifiable space in human relationships. It becomes less easily explainable and understood.

And it does a justice to both Buffy and Faith’s characters if we see their actions as existing outside of their relationship. I love seeing Faith’s development as she becomes her own person separate from Buffy. She breaks out of prison to save her best friend and prove she can be a Slayer again. She chooses redemption for herself. She makes amends with who she can. She rejects the First when it comes to her in the form of the Mayor. She experiences what it is to be responsible for the lives of other. And after their last confrontation in ‘Sanctuary,’ Buffy gets to move on from Faith and heal/focus on other things in her life. And she goes through a-fucking-lot from S4 to S7. Before I want Buffy and Faith to get together, I want them to HEAL and to GROW. I want them to be the best versions of themselves and not so codependent (as much as it makes for good drama).

So that’s what I appreciate about Fuffy — the romantic reading isn’t the Official reading, it’s just one of several fascinating angles. It’s like the cherry on top. Some of the best dynamics in the Buffyverse are the ones that are friendships, or more familial (siblings, parent-child), or complexly antagonistic. Somehow Buffy and Faith are capable of doing nearly all of it at the same time without actually ascribing any one label to themselves. Amazing.

#i hope this makes sense to at least one other person besides me #and now that i've said all that: fuffy canon when #faith lehane #buffy summers #fuffy #buffy x faith #buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #buffy #what prompted me to write this was that i was thinking about how after all this time fuffy still wasn't officially recognized in canon or #represented in any way. and i think i like the freedom of their interpretation the best actually #i will die on the ship hill though #a similar concept that all this makes me think of is #how we retroactively view willow's relationship with men in the early seasons -- knowing that she will eventually come out in S4 #jd.text