[ INFORMATION ]
b>character name: Faith Lehane
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Timeline: Volume 7 of the Buffy Comics.
character's age: 25
powers, skills, pets and equipment:
powers
Slayer, comma, the. Actually, not even as singular as that makes it sound. But let's talk about what it means.
- SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, SPEED, AGILITY, STAMINA. Faith has been rebuilt, they have made her faster... stronger... But for serious, a Slayer punches through walls and catches knives in the air. She is bone-crackingly strong and whip-crackingly fast, all on her lonesome. She min/maxed her stats and now it takes a hell of a lot to bring her down.
- BOOSTED HEALING. She's no Defensive Type, but if you do happen to bring your good game to the ballpark, there's no guarantee that given time Faith won't get right back up again. She's come back from the brink of death more than once.
- VISIONS OF THE BIG BAD. Less than Buffy, Goddess of Wisdom and Truthiness, but occasionally Faith's screaming nightmares are actually predicty.
skills
- SLAYER SKILLS. Faith didn't have the Watcher support Buffy had, but she still picked up a few things, and she still trained like a mofo. Martial arts, wrestling, swords, bow, crossbow, axes, throwing knives, staves, stakes, even guns... for some reason she's not big on the ornate daggers anymore.
- PRISON SKILLS. Three years in the ladies penitentiary means Faith knows how to roll a smoke, pick a lock, and hide shit around her person. Actually, she kinda knew all that before she went to jail.
- WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS SKILLS. Want, take, have. Faith's lead an exciting life to say the least, and she can arm-wrestle a crocodile naked, hustle a drug deal, hold her liquor, rob a store and play a mean game of pool.
- BEDROOM SKILLS. She's rock 'em sock 'em.
- IMPERSONATING A BRIT SKILLS. Her most recent mission she picked up a toffy British accent and learnt all about how to rub shoulders with the royals: posture, etiquette, all that jazz. Mostly a crash course but she can fake it 'til she makes it.
equipment
Faith arrives in an emerald green off the shoulder evening gown, with knives that are hair combs.
canon history:
Faith Annette Lehane was born in Boston, 1980, to an alcoholic father and an absent mother. She grew up half on the streets and then eventually in foster homes, always a rebellious child and never one for school or socializing. She killed her first vampire when she was thirteen, on her own power, and her Watcher appeared soon after; it wasn't until she was almost eighteen that she was activated as a Slayer. Her entire life had been a series of bad choices, and she used her power to get what she wanted rather than to fight the good fight; though her Watcher tried to set her on the straight and narrow.
She arrives in Sunnydale on the run from Kakistos, an ancient vampire who had killed her watcher gruesomely in front of her. Though Buffy helps her defeat him, she is envious of the other Slayer and all the good things she has in her life - and how she seems to take them all for granted. At first Faith is a hit amongst Buffy's friends and family, but she becomes more bitter and withdrawn as her attempts to fit her rebellious nature into the Scoobie lifestyle continue to produce no results.
Only a few weeks after joining the good fight, Faith's new Watcher, Ms Gwendolyn Post, turns up. Though she is strict and uptight, Faith forms a close bond with her very quickly, and views her as a potential mother figure, in the same way that Giles had taken the place of Buffy's missing father. Unfortunately, Ms Post is not all she seems, and is using her knowledge as an ex-Watcher to manipulate them all and get her hands on the Glove of Myhnegon (an object of great power.) Faith takes her side and fights to stop Buffy from attacking her, but Post betrays her and uses the glove - unfortunately, her demise is swift.
Faith begins to spend more time alone, kicking vampire ass and picking up boys at the local nightclub, the Bronze, and she stops going to school or helping out with the research quite as much. At one point after Slaying - which always makes her 'hungry and horny' - she grabs Xander and he loses his virginity to her in her seedy motel bedroom. Faith places no importance on the event; Xander is just another guy.
She continues to try and get close to Buffy however, trying to get her to loosen up a little. She loves the idea of corrupting the light to her dark, until one night when she takes Buffy on a minor crime spree, breaking into a weapons store with the motto "Want, Take, Have," and they are caught. Riding in the back of the police car, Faith asks Buffy if she wants to escape, reasoning that they "can't save the world in jail." Though they escape, the next night Faith plunges further into her darker side when she mistakes Deputy Mayor Allen Finch for a vampire and stakes him, accidentally killing him.
Unable to come to terms with what she's done, Faith refuses to go to the police and instead dumps the body in the river. She tells Giles Buffy killed the man, however he deduces the truth and the Scoobies meet. Xander, thinking he and Faith have a connection, goes to Faith to help her out and she tries to rape and kill him. Angel intervenes, and begins to help Faith come to terms with her darkness.
Unfortunately Faith's new and seemingly incompetent Watcher, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, handcuffs Faith and informs her that she's being taken to England to face a 'disciplinary board'. Faith escapes him, fights Buffy and turns to the Mayor for help. The evil Mayor, innocuous Big Bad of S3 Buffy, takes Faith under his wing and provides her with presents and affection in return for her services. Faith pretends she is still on the 'good' side but uses their closeness to attempt to remove Angel's soul.
Buffy and Angel pull a trick on Faith to get to know her and the Mayor's plans, pretending Angel's soul has been removed and he is Angelus. Faith is understandably furious when she discovers she has been played; this is the final betrayal, the moment where even Buffy, who she hates and wants to be, and Angel, who is the man she wants to have, are both against her. She escapes to continue evildoings with the Mayor, preparing him to ascend to true demon come Graduation Day and thwarting the interventions of the Scoobies. Though she is sometimes uncertain about what she is doing, the Mayor bolsters her with an affection Faith hasn't ever experienced from the authority figures in her life. She shoots Angel with an arrow tipped with poison curable only by drinking the blood of a Slayer. This, of course, results in a final showdown between Buffy and Faith, where Buffy stabs her but Faith manages to remove her body from the picture. Buffy lets Angel drink her blood instead, and Faith ends up in hospital in a coma.
It's nearly eight months before she wakes up. The Mayor is dead, Angel left town, and Buffy and the Scoobies seem to have forgotten her. Faith has experienced a lot of trippy, semi-prophetic coma dreams, and she's a little demented. The mayor has left her a gift, and she manages to switch bodies with Buffy even as the Scoobies, the police and the Watcher's Council all come after her. Buffy finds herself arrested in Faith's body, while Faith goes out to see what a day in the life of the Buffster is like.
She finds being Buffy is both harder and easier than she expected. She is surprised at people being nice to her, particularly the loving, tender sex she has with Riley. A lot of Faith's self-loathing is revealed as she pounds her own face into the floor when Buffy finally catches up with her: you're disgusting, you're nothing. They switch back to their own bodies, and Faith heads out of town, going to LA.
She causes a bunch of trouble in LA and is hired by Wolfram and Hart to kill Angel. After toying with him for a while, she tortures Wesley, growing more and more evil and psychotic throughout her time in LA. However Angel doesn't fight back, and in the end Faith pleads with him to kill her, because she's "bad". Angel instead - much to the displeasure of Wesley - takes her in, refusing to give up on her. Faith eventually turns herself in to the cops and goes to jail.
It's three years later when Wesley turns up and tells her they need her help. She breaks out of jail, put Angel's errant son Connor in his place, and kills the minion of the season's big bad. Angel is Angelus, and though she lets him kick her ass and drink from her, she has injected herself with a substance called Orpheus, a powerful drug which puts both her, Angel, and Angelus into a shared coma, where Angel encourages her to live. Willow returns Angel's soul, and takes Faith back to Sunnydale, where an Apocalypse is, as always, brewing.
The now numerous Scoobies in Sunnydale are wary of Faith, but quickly become affectionate when she turns out to be the cool aunt to Buffy's hard-ass mom. When one of Buffy's decisions goes haywire, the group votes in Faith as their new leader and she accepts the role with her usual cocky exterior. She has changed a lot since her evil days, and while she's still careless of others she has a determined desire to do better, trying to ignore the manipulations of the all-powerful First.
Faith has a brief fling with principal Robin Wood, before kicking ass and taking names in the big final battle. Now that Slayers all around the world have been activated and she and Buffy are no longer the Chosen Ones, Faith ditches the Scoobies to a degree and takes on command central at the Cleveland Hellmouth. The harsh atmosphere is reminiscent of her days in Boston, and despite their potential she quickly loses Wood. Faith takes the hard jobs, which is why Giles comes to her when he needs someone killed; a human girl, a Slayer who has been trained to take down Buffy.
Giles and Faith form a strange bond as he teaches her how to act British for the infiltration she will need to get close to this Slayer; she sees beyond his Watcher exterior and down to the Rupert - and Ripper - below. She learns her British accent and polite society mannerisms well, but ditches the comlink when she gets to the party where she will interact with the rogue Slayer, Gigi - Faith wants to fight this battle on her own terms. Though she's faking every inch of her bored rich girl exterior, the rebellious Gigi sees a kindred spirit and Slayer soul in Faith, and invites her to stay and keep her company. Just as Faith discovers it is Buffy which Gigi is planning to kill (of course; everything is about Buffy, all of Giles' faith in her is about Buffy) she is wrenched into this new and exciting panfandom world.