#to mirror/emphasize the vampire and victim dynamic

[terribletrollstbh]

MAN SO THE BALL SNUCK UP ON ME OOPSIES

luckily i had Chiloa and Pietri finished early! Combining several motifs, these two Venetian inspired costumes draw upon these themes:

Comedy and Tragedy masks

Dark Chocolate and White Chocolate

Vampire and Victim

Nobility and Servitude

Please open in a new tab to view all the details!

Chiloa belongs to @cloudbattrolls

[fairylandblog]

Faeries and Vampires

Two classic characters from folklore and mythology, fairies and vampires, have startling parallels in their traits and the part they perform in human imagination. Though they come from separate cultural traditions—fairies from Celtic and European folklore and vampires from Slavic and Balkan mythology—both are otherworldly entities living in the transitional area between the normal and supernatural. Often representing themes of seduction, danger, and the fallout from breaching boundaries, these creatures reflect human fears, wants, and concerns.

Faeries and vampires have one most obvious resemblance: their connection with attraction and seduction. Often portrayed as enchanted and lovely creatures that utilize their appeal to draw people into their domains—sometimes with sinister intent—fairies are too often shown as absolutely beautiful; vampires use their appeal to entice their victims and sap their life. In all situations, the beauty of the creatures hides their predatory character, therefore generating an exciting but terrible sensation of danger. Their mystique depends much on this duality of appeal and danger, which emphasizes the dangers of giving in to temptation. Additionally well-known for their predatory and manipulative actions are fairies and vampires. Particularly in earlier legend, faeries are well-known for fooling people and either guiding them astray or imprisoning them in their magical worlds. Likewise, vampires feed on people by means of cunning and dishonesty, usually focusing on the weaker or latching their victims into a false feeling of security. In both faiths, these entities control people, taking advantage of their shortcomings in ways that emphasize the fragility of human action confronted with supernatural forces. This dynamic encapsulates deeply rooted fears of losing control or succumbing to a more powerful force. Their relationship to life and death reveals still another resemblance. Vampires, originally undead creatures that survive by consuming the blood of the living, have an inherent connection to death and immortality. Though not always directly connected with death, faeries are commonly connected to the otherworld, a region where time and mortality are warped, and it is often shown as both a place of magic and danger. Further underscoring their connection with the line separating life and death, some folklore holds fairies to be even able to steal human souls or trade them for changelings. Both beings blur the boundaries between these states since they reflect humanity's obsession with death and the future. Furthermore, shared between fairies and vampires is their need for specific guidelines or ceremonies controlling their actions. In legend, faeries are sometimes limited by particular customs, such as not being able to lie straight forward or being obliged to keep deals they negotiate with people. Likewise, vampires have supernatural constraints, such as their dislike of sunlight, their incapacity to enter a house without invitation, and their sensitivity to religious symbols like crosses. These limitations humanize these entities to some extent, which helps them to be more approachable and controllable inside the narratives in which they show themselves. Simultaneously, these guidelines accentuate their alien character by stressing their departure from human expectations.

At last, both fairies and vampires become cultural emblems for aspirations and anxieties that cut across their particular mythological beginnings. Fairies may reflect the wild and untamed sides of nature as well as the results of exploring too far into the future. Conversely, vampires typically represent society's worries about sexuality and power by embodying concerns of death, sickness, and forbidden desire—that is, by way of metaphor. Notwithstanding these variations, both species appeal to fundamental human issues and serve as mirrors for the complexity of human feeling and experience. They remain in popular culture, art, and literature since they still speak to those ageless topics.

[impalementation]

Not sure if you’ve talked about it before because I couldn’t find anything from tags but, what’s your opinion on Faith in each season and her dynamic with Buffy?

I’ve gotten a couple different asks in this vein! Sorry for taking so long to answer them, this response got out of hand. Consider this my official thoughts on Faith. Putting it under a cut because it got long.

I think Faith is a crucial addition to the show. Admittedly, she isn’t someone I spend a ton of time thinking about, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t interesting or important. I like Faith for two reasons: first, for how she affects Buffy, and second, for how she ends up transcending the role of “someone who affects Buffy.”  

Regarding the first, a lot’s been said about what a classic foil she is, as well as how she’s an example of doppelgänger-type anxiety. Faith is someone that, simply by existing, makes Buffy conscious (even possessive) about her identity, in ways she’s never been before.

Which is one of the big themes of season three: Buffy’s relationship to identity, especially slaying as an identity, and slaying as a symbol of identity. In Anne Buffy abandons her slayerness, abandons her life and name, and fights a villain that literally takes away its victims’ personhood (“Who are you?” “No one.”). She loses her powers in Helpless. Her slayerness makes her an object of social retribution in Gingerbread, and a hunted animal in Homecoming. In Lovers Walk she toys with the idea that she could leave Sunnydale and have an identity that doesn’t have to do with killing demons.

And then you have Faith, a slayer who is presented as an alternate version of/path for Buffy. When Kendra was introduced, the show didn’t do much to emphasize what she and Buffy had in common; if anything, the show emphasized the ways they were different. Kendra was more rulebound, less social, and had accepted the idea of being a slayer a long time ago. Whereas Faith regularly plays up her and Buffy’s similarities: “We’re slayers, girlfriend. The chosen two.”, “You know it could be you.” Buffy herself admits that “it could be me.” I think it’s pretty deliberate that Buffy in The Wish has a jaded, Faith-like swagger. Or that the season features the concept of alternate-universe selves in general.

(That said. Despite the fact that I don’t see Buffy and Kendra as foils to the degree that Buffy and Faith are, I do think season three features Faith for much the same reason that What’s My Line introduced Kendra: both are about being at a crossroads of identity. Buffy in The Wish is a bit like Kendra too.)

I posted before about how seasons three and four introduce the idea of Buffy making choices about who she wants to be, rather than choices about who lives and dies. And how Faith is central to that. Faith makes Buffy aware of choice by (a) being a slayer, meaning that unlike any other character, she’s under the same constraints that Buffy is, (b) openly having desire for things (food, sex, slaying), © making different choices than Buffy, and (d) tempting Buffy to use her powers non-heroically, whether in the Bad Girls sense, or by forcing Buffy to potentially kill her in Graduation Day. Also, by encroaching upon things that Buffy considers “hers”, like her friends, lovers, or family, Faith clarifies for Buffy that she even considers anything “hers” at all. In other words, she makes Buffy notice both her identity as it is, and her identity as it could be.

But for all that Faith has nice symbolic and dramatic reasons to exist, what I actually really like about the way the show uses Faith is that she becomes a character in her own right. It ties into the show’s existentialist themes in a really effective way. I know, I get tired of myself as soon as I bring up the existentialist stuff, but I don’t think it can be understated how existentialist Buffy is. It’s why Buffy is a vampire slayer specifically, even though most of the time she isn’t even fighting vampires. She’s a vampire slayer because vampires are the opposite of existentialism. They’re nihilism. They’re thieves of agency, identity, and life. By virtue of lacking souls, they are incapable of moral choice. They don’t age, they don’t mature. They’re the opposite of “growing up.” They fill the open-ended eternity of their existence with destruction and death.

(You might point to Spike and Darla as exceptions to this vampire symbolism, but I genuinely don’t think they are. Both characters realize that their vampiric nature causes harm to those they love, and this realization leads both characters to self-destruct. Darla by staking herself, and Spike by getting a soul…which also results in his death a season later. Them achieving the ability to make a true moral choice leads directly to them ceasing to exist as soulless vampires.)

To bring this back to Faith, I see something vampiric in the concept of a doppelgänger or foil, the idea of this empty vessel that takes your identity because they have none of their own. Someone whose identity exists only as a reflection of someone else’s. A grasping, black hole of self.

The problem is, a real person can’t be a foil. That’s a literary construct. In real life, seeing yourself as a reflection or extension of someone else just means that you’re afraid of creating your own identity. Maybe for good, understandable reasons, and maybe not. Who Are You? is one of my favorite episodes because it makes this problem explicit. It turns Faith from an abstract foil figure into someone who literally steals Buffy’s identity, and is shown to not have a solid sense of self. I posted earlier about the similarities between Anne and Who Are You?, but I like those similarities not just because they create thematic continuity around identity-related ideas. I like them because there’s this kind of awful, tragic irony to the fact that even Faith’s identity crisis episode uses pieces from Buffy’s arc.

Speaking of using pieces from Buffy’s arc, I also love the way that Buffy’s role in Who Are You? mirrors Faith’s role in season three. Just as Faith threw Buffy’s identity into relief, Buffy now throws Faith’s identity into relief. Being Buffy frees Faith to act in ways she wouldn’t ordinarily let herself, and being treated as Buffy forces Faith to confront whether she actually does or doesn’t want to be treated in those ways. You might say that by fully confronting the ways that she sees herself in terms of Buffy, Faith is able to start moving beyond it. The episode is basically an exorcism of Faith’s foil-ness.

Unfortunately I can’t speak very well to Faith’s arc on Angel since I haven’t seen most of it. Just Five By Five and parts of Sanctuary. But there are a lot of things I like about Faith’s return in season seven. I love that in her introduction she asks whether she’s “the good slayer now”, and when she and Buffy talk in End of Days she tries to pull a “maybe we couldn’t exist at the same time” thing. Because she’s literally talking about herself like she’s a literary device. But by this point she’s also developed enough that it’s only semi-serious; she’s quick to accept Buffy’s point that no, her choices were her own.

I think it’s perfect that season seven includes Faith, because season seven involves Buffy once again grappling with choice, and what it means for her to be the slayer. I think it’s perfect that Faith gets the opportunity to finally understand Buffy’s loneliness, and that the two of them are able to commiserate about being “hot chicks with superpowers.” Because it’s them finally getting to have their slayerness just be something that they have in common. Instead of this big complicated identity thing. It foreshadows Chosen, and the way that being a slayer goes from being something that isolates Buffy, to something that Buffy can share with people. I also really like the reversal of the fact that in Empty Places Faith isn’t the one who wants to take Buffy’s leadership away from her. She no longer wants to take Buffy’s role or Buffy’s friends. Instead it’s everyone else that is determined to perpetuate the idea that only one of them can be in charge, or that Buffy can be replaced. It fits with the way that the season frames isolation as not just a personal problem, but also a social and systemic problem. Even though Faith has grown past many of her issues, that doesn’t mean that the people around her have, or that the fundamentally, systemically solitary nature of being a slayer has changed. See also: Andrew mythologizing Faith’s background, and Caleb calling her the “Cain to [Buffy’s] Abel.” Of course it would be an avatar of the First that tries to get Faith to see herself as an archetype again.

Other things I like: The fact that Faith reveals to Spike that she was in Buffy’s body, because it’s yet another case of her finally owning up to being herself, instead of a reflection of Buffy. The fact that when the night out goes badly in Empty Places, it’s not because of anything that Faith did (that night), the way it was in Bad Girls. The fact that Buffy hands Faith a blade as an expression of trust in Chosen, a reversal of gutting her with a blade in Graduation Day.

Overall I just think it’s a really cool statement on identity that the character who was introduced to give Buffy identity issues, then has to go on her own search for identity. No one in Buffy is exempt from the project of self-creation, least of all the vampires and the doppelgängers. But it’s especially appropriate that Faith go on that journey because she’s a slayer, and slaying is arguably a metaphor for existential striving. It would be weird if she didn’t grow, really. She’s the rare case of the female redemption arc, especially a redemption arc that doesn’t involve her becoming less violent or sexual (or dead) afterwards. Just less unethical about it. She gets to play that role in a more-or-less gender-neutral way, the same way Buffy gets to be a hero in a more-or-less gender-neutral way. Buffy and Faith both start out as archetypes, and both end up humanized in a way that transcends and complicates those archetypes. 

[Your ask didn’t mention Buffy/Faith, but a couple others did, so: as far as Buffy/Faith goes, my feelings are the same as most Buffy pairings, which is that I don’t personally have any investment in it, but I can certainly see the appeal. It sounds like a fun thing to ship. I would’ve been totally on board from a story/character perspective if the show had ever tried to make them non-subtextual. Partly because I’d be on board with anything, as long as it was interesting. But also because I can see it making a lot of storytelling sense, given that Faith’s whole job is to shake up Buffy’s sense of identity.]

[zalrb]

TVD 1x04 Review

Hi all! Welcome to the fourth review of TVD season 1. Considering that I haven’t like sat down to watch a full episode of the past seasons of TVD in a few years and my memory might not be the greatest I think I will start with my usual disclaimer: I write my thoughts in real time so if I make a mistake at the beginning of this post, it will be corrected by the end. There will be anti-Damon and anti-Delena sentiments (I’m only mentioning these two because it’s the beginning of the series), and in light of recent events I feel the need to say that there may be some anti-Jenna sentiments too. I will probably bring up other shows and call attention to misogynoir, racism, anti-blackness etc. Ready? Let’s go.

1. I always wonder how these dreams work, like how much detail does Damon have to put into it? He has Elena wearing the necklace, Logan Fell is on the TV, he has the details of her room and her kitchen, like how does he create these dreams to terrorize Stefan with? Or does he go into Stefan’s head and Stefan has all these details already there so then Damon just manipulates his memory?

2. You know, sometimes I watch teen shows I watched when I was younger and I can go, yeah I can see why people went crazy for this guy even though he’s a dick. I don’t get that, I cannot see why with Damon.

3. His hair is back to be thoroughly offensive. When do they fix it for good?

4. Stefan throwing a knife at Damon’s chest is still, like, my favourite Defan moment.

5. Damon is so petty, like all he does is hangout in Stefan’s room and terrorize him!

6. “Believe it or not, Stefan, some girls don’t need my persuasion.” Damon, you compelled Caroline, you compelled Andie, and it took a sire bond for you to actually get Elena. Who are you fooling, fam?

7. Another Stefan shirtless shot! Seriously, they totally exploited his abs in season 1. Lmao.

8. OH MY GOD, STEFAN STOP WITH THE VOICEOVER.

9. Lol Jenna and Jeremy are in the other room and Elena just grabs Stefan and kisses him like ok my room upstairs RIGHT now.

10. And I didn’t realize Stefan’s reaction, he has a grin on his face but he’s lookng around like ... Really? Omg they’re adorable.

11. In every makeout/sex scene SE do there’s always a moment where Stefan or Elena pause to look at each other, even if it’s brief, just to have that eye contact.

12. Nina’s sighing pretty hard.

13. I also like how when Elena is like “Maybe we should press pause” and Stefan agrees, he has to go and sit on the other side of the room, like they cannot be on a bed together because it’ll just get that intense again.

14. Also an anon was talking about how they find it interesting the psychology behind a vampie who is in love with someone but still has the urge to feed on them and I responded that Paul was really interested in that dynamic with SE as well and you really do see it in this scene. They’re getting to a very visceral place with the physical contact so that viscera shifts into his vampirism and hunger so he has to press pause, it just adds to a whole other level of angst.

15. “I would be honoured to accompany you, Miss Gilbert.” 1864 Stefan making a comeback.

16. And Elena is fucking loving it.

17. “No yellow, jaundice go for the blue.” “I don’t like the blue.” “Well, I do.” The problem with Damon is that he doesn’t come across as a vampire, he comes across as an abusive boyfriend. With Stefan, he’s a vampire in the simplest things like the fact that he can become a fucking statue when he’s angry or the fact that he will speak a little old-fashioned and of course the fact that his veins appear when he gets too close to Elena, showing that he hasn’t mastered being in society that well. Damon just has the dialogue and the fog and the crow, he just seems like a guy who has a bunch of tricks and murders people because he feels like it so the Daroline dynamic doesn’t even feel like a predator playing with his prey, like it doesn’t feel non-human and human, he’s just abusive.

18. It’s also really sad watching Caroline look at Damon’s bite marks in the mirror. 

19.  “You can be very sweet when you want to be.” This is legit just an abusive dynamic, I don’t even want to say relationship anymore because Caroline has no free will.

20. “And Damon’s not dangerous, he just has a lot of issues with his brother, like major, deep-rooted drama” listening to Caroline speak is like listening to Delena stans.

21. “This country’s dumbed down in the last hundred years.” Oh yeah because enforcing enslavement was the pinnacle of American genius. Fucking writers.

22. Zach was unnecessary and the actor is AWFUL.

23. “I got your punk.” What does that mean exactly, Jeremy?

24. I like how everyone is blaming Stefan for Katherine when Damon is, like, 23 or 25.

25. Elena being like hmm, how do I know if Stefan is a calculating, manipulative lying and Damon is the victim, maybe Bonnie is right, is ridiculous considering that Damon tried to kiss her last episode and she experienced Damon being manipulative and called him out on it saying that it was his intention to make her feel uncomfortable. Like this is so fucking manufactured.

26. Paul’s arms though. And then Ian walks in topless like ... *rolls eyes* put your shirt on.

27. Damon, you would drive anyone to drink, you’re annoying and homicidal.

28. "If I go online will I find it [the pocketwatch] on ebay? Is that how you pay for your pot?” I know she was making a point but like how expensive does she think weed is?

29. “Yes, being a 150 year old teenager has been the height of my happiness” lol Stefan’s dry wit kills me each time.

30. “I’m not some drunk sorority chick, you can’t roofie me” that is a seriously disgusting line. And people want to argue that Damon isn’t a sexual predator?

31. Ian’s hair is OK again, I guess he, like, brushed it.

32. Tyler legitimately brought Vicki into his house through the back. Like that’s rude.

33. Caroline is rude to Liz for no reason, which is why in the later seasons, when they tried to act like she and Liz always had a wonderful relationship I side-eyed it.

34. Elena reading the registry makes me laugh because I remember the bloopers when Nina couldn’t get one name, like she just couldn’t move past it so Paul and the crew made a joke like, think of it as gonorrhea. And that name isn’t in the final cut.

35. “My therapist says I’m acting out... trying to punish Stefan” are you 16?

36. See Damon telling Elena how he and Stefan died without saying how they died and his clear pain over what they did to him and to Katherine would’ve been a storyline I would like to follow more. If he came back to MF to destroy it because of how much he hated it and he chose Caroline to get back at the Founding families, if he was still devastated by what they did but then throughout the season started realizing that Caroline and Tyler and Jeremy and Elena, essentially the descendants of these families, were actual people and developed from that, I think they could’ve had something interesting. And the show has like remnants of this idea throughout season 1 but it isn’t an actual arc for Damon because his arc is supposed to be Elena and he terrorizes the town because he feels like it, it isn’t a statement so he’s just a dick.

37. “Doesn’t it always come down to the love of a woman?” No. And this is Damon’s entire problem.

38. “That’s what you get when you bring the trash into the party” ... Carol, what? Vicki actually did nothing a “respectable” young woman wouldn’t do. Like it just doesn’t even go.

39. Yeah Bonnie is hardly in this episode. Shunted to the sidelnes for no reason. Caroline and Elena haven’t even gone over to her table to see what’s happening. Caroline I forgive because she’s Damon’s puppet right now but Elena, really?

40. I love the way Elena stares at Stefan when they’re dancing and then she giggles to herself because she’s just so happy being with him.

41. “I hope Damon didn’t drive you too crazy.” “No actually, he was on good behaviour” manipulation, Elena, that is what manipulation looks like.

42. Yes, Stefan, Damon is trying to get Elena to turn against you but you not saying anything about yourself isn’t helping matters either. I mean, it makes sense because you’re still fucked up about what Katherine did to you but you gotta budge a little, honey.

43. Oh hey Elena, talking to Bonnie who you left alone all night to bitch about your boy problems?

44. Carol didn’t even say hi to Bonnie.

45. There’s actually no reason why Damon had to bring Caroline to this.

46. I also don’t care at all about Jenna and Logan.

47. “I’m sorry, I take it all back, you are completely right about Damon”, but like Elena wasn’t even defending Damon in the previous scene, so ... what? 

48. “I’m handling it.” “Handling it? Stefan, you should be having him arrested.” Elena, why don’t YOU have him arrested? You saw the bite marks and you told Damon to stay away from her OR you’ll tell her mother, what is with the show and having characters threaten to do something they should just DO? Like, I would understand it if Elena doesn’t quite know what to do in the situation and thought she did a good job by telling Damon to stay away from Caroline because she IS 16 but her getting mad indignant at Stefan is like ... or you could do what you’re telling him to do?

49. Vicki and Jeremy, is just. Ugh.

50. Seriously this scene between Damon and Caroline is fucking terrified, rewatching it really just emphasizes just how awful the show is for the Daroline friendship.

51. And Damon being broken hearted over Katherine does not excuse this behaviour.

52. I just, how does Elena not remember hugging Caroline who was breaking down in her arms saying “I’m fine, I’m fine” every time she’s with Damon? Like how she does she just block that out?

53. Oh, ending it on the utterly useless council.

I don’t know, man, these early episodes just reaffirm my hatred for Damon.