Guess who just got the fifth season of 'Buffy' on dvd?

I love having enough money to buy presents for me. Of course, being terribly lazy, I've yet to buy any Christmas gifts for family and friends. I'll get around to it.

I'm going to meet a friend for dinner tonight, which should be all kinds of fun. But first, I'm going to go watch a fifth-season episode of Buffy. I just need to decide which one. Do I want humor, drama, to break my heart into bitty-bits? Hmm.

The Gift

This episode always makes me cry. It starts when the look in Buffy's eyes changes, that gorgeous theme starts up, and the sun begins to rise.

There are so many parallels to Prophecy Girl - not in the least because they're both episodes where Buffy dies.
( Things that I noticed this time around )

Something that I've been thinking about recently is velvet over iron. Buffy starts out as the iron fist in the velvet glove, but time slowly strips away the velvet, until all that's left is the iron underneath - which isn't soft and isn't pretty, but it's still the same fist as it always was - still the Hand. The core of Buffy doesn't change, but the softness gets stripped away by the battles she faces and the losses she suffers.

On a slightly different note, some quotes from Nietzsche that seem relevant to the Buffyverse.

"The mother of dissipation is not joy but joylessness." - This one makes me think of S5 Angel, actually.

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."

"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."

"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."

I think that my pairing tastes just hate me.

I keep falling in love with pairings that have, like, no stories out there. I mean, why couldn't I fall for the mentor/teacher relationship in Buffy, where there's a big 'ol B/G archive, instead of in The Highlander, where I'm longing for mostly non-existent Richie/Duncan stories?

Well, of course, I'm exaggerating. I love the most popular pairing in Smallville (Clark/Lex) and one of the most popular slash pairings in Harry Potter (Harry/Draco). And Kowalski has been more popular Ray for all the time I've been in the due South fandom (I'm so glad that I missed the Ray Wars). But Buffy/Xander isn't terribly popular and neither is John/Chiana. And now I have this real yen to read R/D. And there's, like, five. It's frustrating.