Sorry, I didn't mean to sound bossy about it. Just mindful of protecting her rear. I'm sure you're right.

No problem, we're all quite fond of Shrift's rear.

I always thought Willow was, if not explicitly, tacitly encouraging Dawn to investigate means of bringing Joyce back when she pulled out that book. It seemed an act of gross irresponsibility--and being of an age that tends to acts of gross irrepsonsibility isn't enough of an out for "let's show a grief-stricken teenager who's already dealing with the fact she was artificially created how to bring back the source of safe, unconditional love." And her dismay seemed more for her own sake than for the idea of Zombie!Joyce.

The look on Willow's face after she sacrificed the fawn also spoke more of "Boy, I hope I don't get caught." Guilt just oozed off of her. She may not have used the word "wrong" while thinking about the whole sacrifice, plus the resurrection, but she was sure heavily on the "People whose good opinions I have often courted might not think this is a good idea, best not tell them."

The two current interweaving conversations are making me picture Rack running a package store. Which, you know, would've easily been more entertaining.

(taste like a strawberry daiquiri)

Yeah, we know about package stores in the southeast, but the ones around here usually put higher emphasis on sales of cigarettes than of alcohol. A store that mainly sells alcohol will often just be called a liquor store 'round these parts.

Christmastime
Up on the sidewalk
*thump* *thump* *thump*

Mmm, Riunite Lambrusco, shades of my youth everytime I taste it.

Heh. Connie is my twin in underage drinking.

she did have good reason to assume Buffy was in hell since Buffy died jumping into the gateway to a demon dimension.

I still don't get this ... no one that's been to a hell dimension went there because they died. What's the good reason, again?

I bought into the assumption (once they suggested it), so it feels like there's some inductive reason to assume it. As logic goes, that's pretty peccable. I'll do better, Hec.

Part of the problem with this logic is that Buffy didn't jump into a gateway to a demon dimension. She jumped into the gateway to all dimensions, not to mention, she didn't get sucked in. (I know you mention this in your post, later, it's just that people keep saying it was the gateway to a demon dimension and so I keep saying it wasn't.)

(Aside on my research: as far as I can tell, Christian heaven and hell are places for both your body and soul. So "he's going straight to hell" and "your grandma is in Heaven now" aren't strictly accurate, because they both have to wait on their physical resurrection. And assuming Buffy went to either place makes even less sense.)

I'm still not convinced she was in Heaven either. I'm convinced that *she* thought it was heaven, which is good enough. But still, it was a place that basically lied to her so that she'd believe everyone she loved was safe.

Well this is completely out of the realm of Buffyverse canon now, but we have to remember that time is a human construct. And if there is a God (in the real world), and if that God is (as many think) eternal, and if that God created the world, day, night, etc., there's little-to-no reason to believe that God and his paradise are subject to human and earthy reckonings of time.

I'm not so sure that Nou's earlier point that:

'he's going straight to hell' and 'your grandma is in Heaven now' aren't strictly accurate, because they both have to wait on their physical resurrection,

looks at life, death and resurrection with an eternal eye. It's looking at it from the perspective of human/earthly time. I don't think there's any way for finite human minds to fully conceive the eternal, and this finite human mind is having trouble explaining what it means. But it seems possible to me that if everything else is true (i.e. God is eternal, there's a resurrection reuniting body and soul to live in the face of that eternal being - become eternal itself, etc.) it's fully possible that it's already taken place on (let's call it) the God!plane of existence, even though it hasn't taken place as far as we can tell here and now (in that you can go to the graveyard and exhume a corpse).

So to bring this back to the Buffyverse, in Buffy's case, where everyone was safe, etc., if she were in a heaven, in the presence of a beneficient Buffyverse God, she's been removed from Sunnydale!Earth!Human time, and what she felt wasn't necessarily a lie to her - as she was on an eternal plane. The Scoobies weren't yet there by their reckoning, but in an eternal place, a place where there is no time, where time has no meaning or power, it could already be true.

Does this make any sense, or do I need more coffee?

Makes sense to me Cindy, even without my coffee.

I watched "Love Walks" last night ... where Spike comes back after being dumped and kidnaps Willow and Xander. Great to see them all together again. Was that the first time Spkie called himself 'Love's Bitch'?

Makes sense to me Cindy, even without my coffee.

(I wonder what the caffeinated people will think of us.)

I watched "Love Walks" last night ... where Spike comes back after being dumped and kidnaps Willow and Xander. Great to see them all together again. Was that the first time Spkie called himself 'Love's Bitch'?

I'm pretty sure it is. It might be the only, unless he referred to it in Crush.

Makes sense to me, too.

Though I'm so tired, I thought it was Cash posting, and found myself going "man, Cash is sounding just like Cindy this morning."

Makes sense to me, too.

It's kind of like what we talked about in LJ once, when I had that (orig) fic plot bunny, and you mentioned what time (or lack thereof) must be like for God.

Though I'm so tired, I thought it was Cash posting, and found myself going "man, Cash is sounding just like Cindy this morning."

I do that all the time. I misread someone's name, and think they sound so much like someone else, go back and check, and it was the someone else, the whole time. It's funny how you know someone's voice after a while.

Note that Shrift is away this weekend, so she may be slow about answering her mail with passwords, et cetera.