Link to Revue LISA  

Presented at the Slayage Conference 2004 Personal relationships carry great importance to the Scoobies for their very survival in the chaotic world of the Buffyverse. The Scoobies essentially exist in a psychotic realm where they must survive in an unstable, ever-shifting reality. In this realm, they rely primarily on each other for self-verification. In “Once More, With Feeling,” we witness the breaking down of these essential relationships between characters. Love fails to support and sustain identity on every level. We see the failure of the parental relationship, the failure of friendship, and the failure of erotic love in Tara and Willow, Xander and Anya, and Buffy and Spike. Here, for practical purposes, I will focus on the erotic relationships and the conflicting operations of eros and thanatos within them, particularly in terms of identity. Love is essential to the Scoobies, but the love that maintains them also threatens their identities. They deal with this painful paradox th...

Dec. 3, 2001 Dear Father,  I’m writing to tell you that I am dropping out of BYU. I know it is only the first semester of my freshman year, and I’m sure you think that I haven’t given it much of a chance, but things are not going well for me here. I guess I’m partially to blame. Since my arrival here, I’ve done nothing but try to stir up trouble. First it was that whole thing where I was trying to get the Mormon community to gather an army for a modern day crusade of the holy land—I mean, shouldn’t Christians value that land more than the Jews or Muslims. I thought so, but the bishops here kept saying that America was God’s chosen land. Anyway, as bad as things were, they have become unbearable for me these past few weeks ever since I started openly sympathizing with Osama Bin Laden and his al Queda terrorist network. Well, there you have it; I didn’t know how to break that to you but I’ll try to explain. I know it was just this past October that I was writing to tell you about how...