Website update:

Added Kaleidoscope to After the Fall on the Angel: the Series page. Added icons to Angel: the Series (16) icon page.

Today after work, I'm picking up the rest of the stuff from the house that I'm keeping. Mom's said that she'll store the rest. So that's good. Tomorrow, I'm seeing jic, which is always a lot of fun.

Season Six of Buffy (Some S5 Angel/S7 Buffy talk behind the cut-tag)

I mean, this should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but... man, I love me some Season Six Buffy.

Just rewatched Once More, With Feeling and it's reminding me of all of the things that I adore about Season Six. Buffy. And Xander. And did you see that adorable parental moment about Dawn? It should be noted that Giles is not part of the "No, it's not." directed at Dawn. It's just Buffy and Xander. They're both so effortlessly in sync when it comes to Dawn (excepting the Big Summers Exception that is Spike).

But yeah, Season Six is the season that made me go, "Oh, Buffy is me." Heh, which is probably why I took the hate personally at the time. People were dissing her and I was identifying more strongly than ever, so it totally felt like a personal diss.

And this is definitely the season of everyone's life going ka-boom. But it isn't relentlessly sad. There are some hilarious moments (and Doublemeat Palace is even more amusing to me now that I'm working fast food.). But yeah, the whole point of the season is that Buffy is depressed. There's going to be a theme of the not-cheerful because of this.

I mean, are there episodes that could have been better written? Well, yeah, but that's true in every season. And are there plotlines that make people go 'out of character'? Of course. This is an evolving show. People change. First Season Willow isn't going to act the same way as Fifth Season Willow.

Ah, but there's growing up and then there's growing up to be boring and/or unlikable people, which is the biggest complaint that I've heard about the latter season Scoobs.

What seems to make someone likable is if they're identifiable. Lots of people adored early seasons Willow because they 'got' her. If you understand where someone is coming from, then you're going to be willing to cut them a little more slack. In general.

I loved the early seasons of Buffy but I can't identify with them like I can the later ones. And that is, in part, because Buffy loses that carefree air. She gets jaded. She doesn't quip as much, and when she does, it has a different feel to it.

Now, if Buffy hadn't died, then I probably would have agreed with how the drabness of S6 was unfitting, but... she felt whole and then she had to go feel human again.

"What is Hell but the total absence of hope? The substance, the tactile proof of despair." (Ken, Anne, S3 Buffy)

Hell is the absence. We can create our own Hells on Earth, and we can create our own Heavens.

Hope - "To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment." (dictionary.com)

And with that, let's segue to Angel: ( spoilers up to 'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco' )

S2 Angel/S6 Buffy - The Cold

That's what Angel's trying to escape in Reprise. That's what Buffy thinks her friends can't handle in Once More, With Feeling. Both of them take comfort in sex with a vampire.

Angel gets his moment of clarity after sleeping with Darla, but it doesn't last. He starts hoping and then he pins his hopes on family - primarily Cordy and then Connor, secondly on Wes, and then also on Gunn, Fred, and Lorne.

One by one, he starts losing what he loves. He starts losing his hope and his heart is bleeding out because of the pain it feels. In the end, he feels like he has to cut out his heart to continue the fight.
( spoilers up to Hellbound )

What is right? What is good?

Are they always the same?

There's an essay about Terry Pratchett's books called In Defense of Niceness that mentions the differences between Right and Good and Nice.

Excerpts that apply:
"Of Carrot, for example, Terry has said that he is "Good, but not necessarily Right or Nice". An understanding of the semantic scope of these words, of where boundaries between Rightness, Goodness and Niceness lie, casts light on the function of the various characters within the moral scheme of the Discworld. It is a notable feature of Terry's strong "good" characters that they have the potential to be evil, whereas the evil characters have no such potential for good, and this to a large extent accounts for the much greater fascination that the good characters exert."

"The perfectly good character would be right and good and nice (Brutha springs to mind), but the majority of good central characters embody only two virtues."

"Right is thus clearly the category into which the Patrician falls. He is perfectly willing to sacrifice individuals for the good of the whole, but he does his best to ensure that the price is paid by the smallest number."

"And in this sense, as a fully-fledged member of a community, Sam Vimes is undoubtedly Nice. He deals with his fallible fellow creatures on a personal level: he acknowledges their limitations, indeed hates them at times, but he knows them. Not in the manipulative, impersonal manner of the Patrician, nor in the idealising, impersonal manner of Carrot, but as a fellow-member of that community."

Who in the BtVS/AtSverse is Right? Who is Good? Who is Nice?

Hmm.

( minor spoiler for The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco )