#forrest gates

[agentblizz]

it's a travesty that forrest never got far enough in his tense homoerotic bestfriendship to be interesting instead of just kind of sucking

[victorfreakenste1n]

Riley vs. The Initiative

Riley Finn | 4x21 Primeval

[sunnydaleslayer]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 4x10

[girl4music]

FORREST:

“Yeah, you’re a killer.”

FAITH:

“I am not a killer! I am the Slayer. And you don’t know the first thing about me!”

FORREST:

“You really care what I think?”

FAITH:

*Pauses*

“No. I don’t care.

*Thinks. Tries to process her thoughts. Gets distressed. Finally turns around and walks away*

God, I don’t care!”

That’s SO Faith. That’s what her reaction would be entirely!

All I see is Faith here. I see no Buffy even though it’s Buffy’s body. That’s how good of an actress Gellar is. The way Gellar played that. Reacted to him in a way she knows Buffy never would have reacted to him. The way the eyebrows move and the creases in the forehead show up. He clearly hit a nerve in her and rather than spend the time to figure out why that is, she just shuts out her emotions. Even in somebody else’s body she’s still uncomfortable and unsatisfied with who she is.

Buffy wouldn’t talk like that. Wouldn’t move her body or face like that. Likely wouldn’t even answer to Forrest’s comment at all. In fact Buffy wouldn’t have given a shit what Forrest thought. The most she would have done in reaction to his comment would be to scoff then turn around and walk away.

But that just shows how well Gellar has got Faith’s mannerisms down. Facial expressions and everything. Tone, vibe. Her entire energy. It’s just spot on Faith’s reaction every bit of this performance. She’s fucking incredible in this episode as Faith. She’s so damn convincing portraying Faith that she makes Faith’s portrayal of Buffy seem so damn unconvincing. And therefore shows just how much Faith doesn’t know herself and doesn’t understand her own feelings. Has 0 self-awareness and self-security. It’s bloody brilliant. Figures Faith would only come to terms with just how much she hates herself while she’s escaping from it. And as soon as she’s back in her own body, she doesn’t know what to do with herself but just rinse and repeat. If she can’t face the trauma and the pain what else can she do but purposefully self-destruct? That’s what she’s always done.

It takes a lot of self-reflection to truly know one’s self and become at peace with being it. Faith never gives herself the time, patience or opportunity to truly learn who she is. She’s always too busy crawling into someone else’s skin in effort to distract herself from it. And as disturbing as it is, I really do think it’s genius writing how Faith takes advantage of Riley while in Buffy’s body. Therefore taking advantage of the BOTH of Riley and Buffy. Because it doesn’t matter whether she’s wearing somebody else’s body or thrusting herself on top of it or even all at the same time, the whole point is that she doesn’t have to see herself. Doesn’t have to face herself. Because then that means self-reflection. And she wants to avoid doing that at all costs because she’s afraid of what she will reveal.

And Gellar 100% knows how to portray that complex in her. Knows that that’s what the character Faith would do. Instead of self-reflect, deflect and then self-destruct.

Faith’s the kinda girl to wear 25 different faces all at once and not a single one of them is her own. Yet because of that, you can see right through her. Then you look at somebody like Tara,… and while she also harbour insecurities about herself… every single time, the face that reacts when they’re brought to the surface is always her own because she’s always self-reflecting. Faith is more like Willow. Shows you who she wants you to see rather than who she actually is. It’s always a performance. It’s always a way to escape from or avoid self-reflection, and therefore self-growth. The only real difference is Faith chooses offence instead of defence. She prefers to act out rather than cover up. To attack rather than hide away. But it’s all the same to someone like me who has played both sides of the chessboard of identity and came up the loser no matter what strategy I tried to win the game with. Whether it be internalizing or externalizing, it doesn’t matter. Neither works. Neither are a solution or fix. Reflection is the way to go. It’s hard and it’s gruelling but it’s fucking necessary. It has to be done. It is much more worth it to do the hard work required and to meet the pain and the trauma head on rather than waste time and energy trying to escape from or avoid it because all that tends to do is just make it so much worse.

People try relentlessly to either be somebody that they’re not or distract themselves from themselves. But you can’t escape from or avoid being yourself. It is relatively impossible. And lying does you no good either. Better to be honest. With yourself as well as everybody else because it’s you that has to face yourself no matter what in the end. Delaying the process only ensures one thing. That it’s much more difficult to do everything else. Faith believes letting loose and going wild is the easy way out of her pain and trauma. But it only makes it harder to handle the next time something bad happens. She’s making things much more difficult to deal with in the long run by escaping and avoiding dealing with it now.

And the fact that that’s only realized while in somebody else’s body is storytelling poetry.

[sunnydale-summers]

Forrest Gates is the only character on the show who's allowed to hate Buffy simply because he's funny about it

[sunnydale-summers]

Forrest is actually the funniest bitch on this show

He's like that Buffy chick's hot you like her don't you Riley 😉

Riley gets with Buffy and then Forrest is like uhhhhh fuck outta here with that break up 😒

[starryeyesxx]

season four ↦ riley, forrest & graham

[starryeyesxx]

season four ↦ riley & forrest