Breakdown 
Faith is from South Boston (Southie). Her mother was an alcoholic and it's more than possible that she physically and verbally abused her daughter. There's a hint of the former in Faith, Hope, and Trick ("My dead mother hits harder than that!") and Choices that hitting is, frankly, the 
only thing Faith knows how to do when she's been hurt. Despite the incredulous fact that Willow recovers from a hit from a Slayer, it's one of those annoying things that must be ignored from a story point of view. Willow has genuinely hurt Faith (verbally) and Faith's reply is to hit her saying: "You hurt me, I hurt you." This, obviously, indicates that Faith has a lack of verbal sparing - which makes sense if you grow up without an adult to help you with day-by-day conversation.
There's never any mention of her father and it's possible she never knew who he was. However, in Angel season one, Sanctuary, we get a glimpse into a Faith's life where a male figure was present. While Buffy and Angel fight, Faith freezes and is unsure of herself and what to do. I think it's safe to say that in this scene, Angel and Buffy represent her mom and a father-figure. Someone somewhere along the line, looked out for Faith while she was with her abusive mom. We just never know who and for how long she had him. We're also given a bittersweet snippet in This Year's Girl , of Faith looking longingly at a little girl who is not unlike herself, walking hand-in-hand with her father. Is it something she's always desired? Or is she remembering someone who was like that for her?
Faith grew up in a place where she was ignored and quite possibly abused in every sense. Her knowledge of bondage and 'safety words' are alarming for someone so young. Also, fourth season's Who Are You tells us a lot. Passing herself of as Buffy and about to be intimate with Riley, Faith is truly confused. She first asks Riley who he wants her to be. Slightly thrown, Riley tells her that he'll be 'Riley' and she can be herself i.e.: Buffy. Later, clearly never having been 'loved', Faith freaks a little and asks Riley what he wants: ". . .from me-her." Not being able to take, or more than likely, understand,'true' love, she leaves. It's very moving and makes Faith even more vulnerable.
Despite her background, Faith doesn't appear to be stereotypical (thankfully!) Although, originally, the writers were a little at sea with her. Despite being poor, and dressing as you imagine a street kid would, Faith did appear in some nice clothes in her debut, Faith, Hope, and Trick. She even had leather slacks! However, by the end of the episode, she was in a pink sweater covered by a black tank top. Before her crossover with the Mayor, Faith lived in tank tops (usually white) and denim jeans. The only episode that really broke the mould was Consequences (for obvious reasons). For a complete breakdown of the costumes that Faith wears and what they tell you,
check out the Costumes Section.
Getting back to stereotypes, you'd expect Faith to most likely drink, smoke and swear. She didn't do any of those things in the earlier seasons. In fact, she even told Buffy she dumped a boyfriend because he was a kleptomaniac! I always thought that was important, as it lets us know that she has values. Of course, in Buffy season 7, Faith does drink, smoke, and swear, but it is very probable that she picked those things up during her time in prison. Or, of course, she was like that in Season 3 - and we were never shown it. You can thank Joss & co. for the utter lack of continuity - and her newdialogue - yo.
Faith is amazingly loyal, too. First up, it seems she's genuinely upset about what happened to her first Watcher. I always get the impression that her initial Watcher was more along the lines of Giles. Perhaps even more caring than him, because she knew Faithpre-Slayer (I assume the way Donald Sutherland's character 'knew' Buffy (Kristy Swanson) pre -Slayer in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Movie).
Also, even though the reason given about Faith's loyalty to Gwendolyn Post is that she saw her as a'mot figure is true, it didn't mean that Faith would be 100% loyal to such a horrible woman. But where Post had Faith pegged, was (supposedly) telling her the'truth' : "I'm going to be very hard on you, Faith. There may even be times that you'll hate me..." Despite the literal giggle we all received from Faith's "Y'think?", Faith was loyal to her. Right up to where Post said: " A word of advice. Faith, you're an idiot."
Even before that, Faith was loyal to Buffy and Giles. Unfortunately they didn't return the favor. Buffy's 'watching out for her' never happened. Although, I will give her points for the lame attempt to 'save' her from The Council in Consequences.
Determined not to be used and/or hurt again, Faith switched teams. Completely fed up with Buffy comparisons (but in my book - being totally ignored) Faith became hurt and everything she was jealous of Buffy for, took over her life. Her only way out (at the time) was to go to the Mayor.
Her crossover to the Mayor's side sees Faith almost become a child again. In Doppelgangland she's dressed in baby blue and her hair is pulled back, making her look more innocent. Also, in Choices Faith's leather jacket never quite fits. The Mayor continually gives her gifts and sings her praises.
This really gives you the biggest clues to Faith and how to get to her. Simply put, Faith is forever looking for love and will do anything to get it. It's documented that the writer's deliberately'dangled carrots' in front of Faith, blinding her to seeing what others saw. She was blindsided by Gwendolyn Post, because she thought she finally had a mother figure, she was blinded by the Mayor because he was her father figure. Also, she was so consumed with hatred, she didn't care much about his'ascension' plans. What brought Faith to the Mayor was firstly, sanctuary, then a mutual hatred of Buffy and company. He treated her like his daughter and she reveled in it.
Faith's 'crossover' could be seen coming long before Bad Girls. And for every reason she listed in Enemies. Frankly, Buffy's labeling of 'sick' never washed for me. Amazingly, even the writers went down Faith's road in the BtVS 4th season finale Restless. It turns out, Faith wasn't 'sick' - she was merely in touch with the 'primitive' Slayer. Ironically, she did become more distanced from reality, to a point of legal insanity by Graduation Day 1. By being Buffy's opposite number and only encouraged by her father figure (the Mayor) Faith loses herself in the'bad girl' role.
Realizing what she's become, is her road to redemption. Ironically, the most likely reason Faith realizes she's 'bad' is courtesy of a gift left by the now-dead Mayor. Being able to swap bodies with Buffy, Faith realizes what it's like to be able to help people rather than hurt them. In a truly heartbreaking scene, the episode Who Are You has Faith bashing the crap out of Buffy in Faith's body. She loathes her own image and who she's become. When Buffy is able to swap herself back, Faith flees and is in an abyss of self loathing by the time she gets to L.A. While in Los Angeles, she believes herself worthless and "bad". Numb, Faith revels in her'bad girl' reckless abandon for a while. But by the time 'Wolfram and Hart' get to her, she's almost realized that she has nothing to live for. She plans on dying by Angel's hand. The 'Russian roulette' scene between herself and Angel positively screams that at us. She knows she can't hurt Angel with bullets. But he can kill her. Indeed, she taunts him into taking a shot at her, which he does! It turns out to be a blank, but still, it could've easily been a real bullet. He would have killed her if he had pulled the trigger more than once, and Faith knew that. She wanted it. Angel wasn't willing to kill Faith though, hence her going after Wes and Cordy. She figured that if she hurt his friends, he would kill her. By the end of the episode, she begs Angel to kill her. Thankfully, having been through the torment of realizing all the pain he himself has caused, he knows Faith's pain and is only too willing to help her on her road to redemption.
How Alison discovered Faith
I was lucky I had SUCH a persistent best friend. You know how when you love something—you want to share it with your friends so not only can you go on about it—but your friends can too and you're all really happy at 'thrashing out' episodes and characters? Simply put—'Water-cooler' shows. Well, I wasn't in to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS)—but my best friend was in a major way. She tried so hard to get me into it—But I refused and all because of
Revelations"> loyalty and a huge amount of ignorance.
In 1992, when JossWhedon despaired over his feature 'Buffy:The Vampire Slayer', I was living in Australia. For anyone who doesn't know--Australia is nick-named 'the 51st state' for the simple reason that if something's American, Australians will love it. So, while Joss was more than distressed over Kristy Swanson's 'Buffy ', my friends and I just loved it. After the feature, we heard that the wheels were in motion for a TV series--and had mixed emotions. After all, you can count how many feature films successfully made it to the small screen on one hand. Anyway— it was forgotten about by my friends and myself and in 1995, I finally made it back to Ireland (yipee!) Fast Forward to 1997 and—not 'new best friends—but the 'Irish' ones were constantly asking about 'Buffy'. Clearly, Kristy Swanson wasn't reprising the role (Strike One) and my brother and I are fans of Kristy's. We think she's under-rated--but I digress.
For 'Strike two' my aforementioned brother and I loved Irish director Neil Jordan's adaptation of Anne Rice's 'Interview With A Vampire'. To us, a vampire was a beautiful creature and absolutely not some 'obvious prosthetic-laden actors' who made vampires ugly! Strike three was the fact that just how was anyone expected to believe that so much bizarre stuff went on week after week? To us, and myself specifically, BtVS was non-sensical and stupid. Plus—just who was the upstart that thought she could fill Kristy's shoes anyway? So, when my best friend asked me had I seen Buffy--I piffled the idea that I ever would. Not only that, I took delight in finding out things that may spell the demise of Buffy—I just couldn't escape the show! Everyone was talking about Buffy—"Isn't the whole Buffy and Angel thing romantic?" ICK! NO! I need out of this sea of everything Buffy!
So, one day I was flicking through an edition of a Sci-Fi magazine and I read that there would be trouble in the Buffy camp come third season! There was to be a 'new slayer' and she'd kick butt! Armed with this knowledge, my now long suffering friend (who had tried valiantly to explain why the vampires looked like they did and that in point of fact--SMG was actually quite brilliant etc.) prepared for a defense. And she prepared well. She already knew what the 'new slayer was called "Faith and she'd be no match for Buffy!" 'Ha!' I thought and listened carefully for the first time—because—cleverly sensing that I seemed to have at least a speck of interest, my best friend brought in the season two finale and patiently explained the characters and just why'Sunnydale' was riddled with bizarre happenstances. I listened patiently and conceded that the idea of a 'hellmouth' was actually quite clever (in a 'something bizarre happens every week' way). I even conceded the idea that the vampire's 'true' self revealed was also not as corny as a 'glimpse' of them had me thinking. ('Gee-they must be evil because look at their forehead and teeth—how condescending!')My 
friend had successfully explained away two out of three strikes. And—dag-nab it! I was curious about the show now! However—strike one was the hardest for my friend to get me to overcome. Sarah—to me—was just plain annoying! So, we agreed that we'd watch (yes--she taped ALL BtVS eps) the first two seasons in preparation for third. However—no matter what—I'd be waving a 'Faith' flag while my best friend would side with 'B'. (All tongue firmly in cheek of course!)
It turns out, that this wasn't as corny or as 'tongue in cheek' it sounded and we planned! Although, I'll concede that SMG won me over. Also, I could see the brilliance of Alyson Hannigan emerging with each episode I saw. Charisma was a delight because she was the 'valley girl speak' element we loved and like it or not--comedy is hard! And yes—David is cute but more importantly for me was the fact that he could actually act! As a matter of fact—the whole cast was impressive! And, sure, David's cute—but I really liked Seth! Anyway, my best friend reveled in the fact she could now watch Buffy with me and we dissected every episode. Summer fun over, and armed with Buffy knowledge, thepremiere of third season was a gift! Indeed, 'Anne' is one of my favorite non-Faith episodes. However, what my best friend and I were really waiting for was 'Faith'. Amazingly, I needn't have joked about 'siding' with Faith. Eliza did such an amazing job—that I never once didn't side with her! I 'got' Faith. I understood her background, her torturous desire for love and acknowledgment. Why she was riddled with jealousy and why she sided with the Mayor. I could see what she was going through. Ditto my best friend! And that's really something for a'Buffy' fan!—So-if a Buffy fan likes Faith-would you?
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How Sasha discovered Faith
I watched Buffy right from the beginning. After the first 2 episodes I was hooked, and the following episodes only confirmed that for me. This was an amazing show, and I didn't get why it didn't get more publicity. At that time, I watched it on the BBC, because it wasn't even being broadcast on Dutch television. When they finally started with season 1, BBC was already airing season 2. Needless to say, Irewatched season 1 anyways. Around that time I also got my internet connection at home. I started to search the web for Buffy sites, bookmarking many of them. And it was on those sites that I read spoilers for season 3, about a new slayer named Faith. I thought that story arc sounded fairly cool and I couldn't wait till I got to see thoseeps too. And when I did, I wasn't disappointed. I soo sympathized with Faith and how she was treated by the Scoobies. And with every episode, she just turned out to be more interesting and deeper. So far, Five By Five is my favorite Faith episode. It's such a powerful emotional rollercoaster ride, and I just completely love the ending where she finally breaks down and cries and lets us viewers know what it is she really wants, what Angel knew from the beginning. The fact that it rained, which symbolizes rebirth, just made it complete. Oh yes, I cried while watching that episode.
As soon as I saw FHT, I loved Faith. She was just a tragic character, deep and lonely and sad and interesting. I loved every episode she was in, and I actually loved a whole lot of episodes that she wasn't in as well. Season 3 is, in my opinion, still the best season Buffy has had so far. After having seenFHT I got curious about Eliza and started to look for sites on her on the internet. One of the sites I came across was Eternal Eliza (now http://edushku .com), and when I saw it had a message board, I thought it might be fun to meet some fans of this (back then unknown) actress. That's where I met Ali, she posted there too. And ever since I first saw season 3, I have been wanting to make afansite on Faith. I never actually made one untill now because I never really had a good idea for one. I wanted to make one that didn't look like all the other sites that were already out there, I wanted something a little more original. And when Ali showed me what she had written, I knew that that would make a really good website. So, I finally got my Faith site. :)