perfect horizontal bird man

Talked a little bit about this one time (with input from @coraniaid)

It IS a really potentially interesting dynamic! There's so little of it on screen, which is a shame. What we do know:

-by s7 Dawn still (understandably!) resents Faith for trying to kill Buffy. She makes some protective comments about it. Actually I watched "Dirty Girls" last week and iirc she's the only one to call Faith out directly in that episode over that

-I think it's fair to extrapolate from what Dawn chooses to call out in that moment, that Faith's violence was never turned directly on her

-Despite this, Dawn does seem to warm up to Faith fairly quickly after she's back. They seem to be getting along in "Empty Spaces" and Dawn and the Potentials leap to Faith's defense when those crooked cops go after her at The Bronze. She essentially goes along with overthrowing Buffy and making Faith the leader in the confrontation that ensues (let's put aside the characterization choices for now and just focus on the fact that she is willing to allow Faith that level of authority)

-In early s3, all of Buffy's friends respond really positively to Faith showing up. I'm sure Dawn (young and impressionable) would be no exception. I talk a little about it in the post I link up there but it's really easy to imagine a situation where Dawn is really impressed by Faith in a way that her Baby Sisterness prevents her from manifesting towards Buffy. Especially since part of Faith's narrative role is to threaten Buffy's relationships in some way, I'm sure there was a bit of hero-worship to get Buffy feeling unexpectedly jealous.

So, there's tension between Buffy and Dawn in late season 7. Despite the initial shot Dawn takes at Faith over rejoining the team ("hotels that take Tried-to-kill-your-sister-types") she doesn't put up too much protest. Buffy at this point is being harsh and withdrawn from the team and her friends. Faith, meanwhile, is showing an interest in people, putting an effort into connecting to the girls, and generally being pretty mellow and non-judgemental. Aka, she's doing stuff that's pretty close to the classic big sister shit Dawn is no doubt missing.

Treating the girls (Dawn included) like people, learning things about them, crucially NOT being the woman cracking the whip that they're all pretty sick of, generally being more relaxed and less uptight, taking them to the Bronze and letting them underage drink instead of locking them in her busted ass living room and giving them speeches about how they're gonna die soon - yeah! Okay! You can really see how Faith becomes super popular just by being a little more chilled out and not being Buffy.

Given Dawn's comments earlier in the season (teasing but still) about feeling smothered by Buffy sometimes, I think there's something interesting in how Dawn seems to respond so much from being treated like someone mature, a little more hands off, but still with positive attention - it's easy to work back from there and imagine what kind of relationship she had with Faith in earlier seasons, why it worked, and why it hurt so bad when Faith betrayed them anyway.

Dawn and Faith have an interesting overlap in being used at various times to thematically represent different sides of Buffy. They're almost polar opposites that way - Dawn being Buffy's childhood, her innocence, Faith being her dark side - so to me there's always going to be something inherently interesting in the ways they relate to each other.

In conclusion: damn dude I really wish they had more scenes together idk

"Perfect horizontal bird man" was how Kalar Anakalar was described in a fight scene one time on Friends at the Table: Partizan.

Kalar Anakalar is a seven foot tall bird man who is a member of a violent revolutionary movement embroiled in a brutal civil war. He has a skill set that allows him to kill giant machine-gods without using a mech. He wears a coat that is either long or cool. He has a husband and three kids. He likes comic books.

Friends at the Table is a good podcast you should listen to.