Worse! It Ends Up Accidentally Gaining Meaning. Because Avas Low Key A Prophet.

Worse! It ends up accidentally gaining meaning. Because Ava’s low key a prophet. 

Mother S: Alright. Walk me through this once more. *rubs at her eyes tiredly*

Recruit 1: The mission was simple enough. The cult we were tracking had taken the relic to the construction site for their ritual. The Warrior Nun and her- uh, former Sister Beatrice told us the plan. Then the Warrior Nun, um, reassured us? She said everything would be okay and to just remember Luke 24:42. *blushing* I didn’t remember Luke 24:42.

Recruit 2: After the Warrior Nun and her, um, former Sister Beatrice left to enter from the other side of the site I reminded the other noviciates that Luke 24:42 was “they gave him a piece of broiled fish”. I admit that I was uncertain, uh, why exactly that quote was used. 

Recruit 1: Our job was to create a distraction. On the way to our position I saw the cab of some of the machinery was unlocked. I confess, I do not know what machine it was. There was a button in the shape and colour of a broiled fish. Thinking it was an odd coincidence, I pointed it out to my team. 

Recruit 3: *still in shock* *whispers* I pushed the button.

Recruit 2: We thought it best to do as the Warrior Nun had commanded. We remembered and obeyed. I am uncertain what exactly this caused. It was hard to see with all the lights and hear with all the explosions. 

Recruit 1: Our Warrior Nun is most fantastic! I was unaware the Halo had given her such clear instructions. Only two of the cult members survived!

Recruit 2: We shall be sure to follow what the Warrior Nun commands diligently in the future. 

Mother S: *glancing at Beatrice and Lilith with a ‘is this shit for real’ expression*

Lilith: *grimace* *nod*

Beatrice: *nod*

Mother S: *widening her eyes with a ‘on purpose’ expression*

Lilith: *grimacing harder and shaking head* 

Beatrice: *shaking her head in a emphatic ‘she has no fucking idea what she’s doing’ expression*

Mother S: *making a ‘well, shit’ face* Dismissed Ladies. We’ll do a through after action tomorrow. I’m glad your all ok.

Lilith, after the others have shuffled out: I came this close to dying in an explosion. *holds up touching thumb and forefinger* Again! Someone has to stop her.

Beatrice: *grimacing* This was the sixth time something like this has happened. I’m not sure we can stop it. Fate is clearly on her side and at least this way we are forewarned. 

Lilith: *deadpan* Oh yeah, cause I totally expected the building to explode around us before collapsing when she said Luke 24:42. It was my immediate thought. 

Beatrice: *grinning* Well, it will be now we almost got broiled.

Lilth: *grumbling* I’m the fish.

whenever things get rough, ava does her best to give everyone hope by quoting the bible, because she’s the warrior nun and that’s what she’s supposed to do in a church full of catholics, right?. the only problem is that she doesn’t know shit about the bible, so she’ll just be walking around saying things like “everything will be okay, just remember: Luke 24:42” and everyone else is like “tf does ‘they gave him a piece of broiled fish’ mean ava”

Lol

Beatrice dies first. Of old age, surrounded by friends and loved ones, with Ava holding her hand. (Well, technically Ava died first. And second. Maybe even third and fourth. But Beatrice wasn’t coming back from this one. There was only one halo and it had already given them seventy four years together.) Beatrice lives to ninety seven. Her hand trembles when she holds something too long or too high. She needs glasses to see half as well as she once could. She’s cold all the time. She’s lived a long life, full of service as she knew it would be when she was young. She’s lived a joyful life, full of love undreamt of when she was young. 

Funny how nearly eighty years after learning about the OCS she still doesn’t truly know what comes next. Ava’s certain there’s nothing. She tries to hide it anytime either one of them get close to death, but Beatrice has spent a lifetime learning everything she could about her wife. Ava may have hidden it when they were young and fresh in their love. There was no hope of hiding it now. Not after more hours spent learning the shape of the others soul than they had lived when they first met. “I don’t want to leave you,” Beatrice confesses. 

Ava looks the way she did when they first met. Like a handful. Beatrice squeeze’s her hand and Ava squeezes back. The unconscious habit of decades a subtle signalling that they are both here. Together. Ava lifts her unbound hand and caresses Beatrice’s cheek. “Bold of you to assume I’d let you,” Ava teases with the same gamine smile she’d given when they were just best friends hiding out in Switzerland and she’d kissed Beatrice’s cheek and called Beatrice boss and mother with equal affection. The same gamine smile she’d given when she returned to the other side with nightmares hidden in her eyes. The same gamine smile she’d given when she’d knelt on one knee with the divinium laced ring secure around Beatrice’s ring finger in her hand and a question on her lips. The same gamine smile she’d given when they danced together at their son’s (Digeo’s) wedding, and years later their granddaughter’s.

Beatrice has had a lifetime of this smile. It’s still not enough. Beatrice can feel herself smiling back, gentle adoration filling her just as it always has around Ava. “I made a promise to always be by your side.” Beatrice whispers. 

Ava’s smile turns soft. “Funny, I remember making the same promise just a little while after that. This life, Bea, this love, it’s a two way street. This time, you go first. I won’t be far behind.”

Beatrice frowns, brushing a tired thumb over the smooth supple skin of Ava’s hand. “You don’t have to.” She says. “You could stay. Live.” Ava could live. Supernatural healing had kept her in the prime of her youth for seventy four years. It could keep her there an unknown amount of time longer. Ava never had to face that blank emptiness of death ever again. Not with the halo glowing in her back. Beatrice wouldn’t begrudge her that choice. Ever. “You deserve life.”

Ava smiles, half heart broken with sadness and half heart full of joy. “This life we had, it’s been more than anyone could deserve. This journey’s been a gift.” Ava says. “I’m sorry.” At Beatrice’s questioning eyebrow she explains. “I’m only now realizing how cruel it was to ask you to live. How could I have life without you?”

Beatrice blinks, slower, more lethargic. The beeping of her heart monitor seems to slow with her thoughts. “I understand,” Beatrice says. Ava was her everything and she may have survived losing her after just a few months of knowing her, just a few minutes of having her, but the idea of doing so now is preposterous. “Take your time,” the words come out softer and softer, slower and slower. “I’ll wait for you.” Beatrice doesn’t say goodbye. Not to Ava.

She passes away five hours later, still asleep. Ava keeps hold of her wife’s hand, feels the moment the soul she’s so in love with slips free of it. Then, the longest surviving Halo Bearer, the warrior who fought an Angel and won a holy war, the woman who loved Beatrice, throws back her hand and screams. Divinity burns it’s way free of her back. The halo glows bright and brighter still as it follows one last command. Ava’s body collapses across Beatrice’s as her soul follows her love’s into the dark.

I think Avatrice would be like, that elderly couple who die within days of each other, not because they can’t live without each other, but they’re at the end of their lives anyway and they just don’t want to. They were each other’s best friend, each other’s person. Their life was always a joint project, and it seems like a good end, to not be apart for too long.

So I'm reading for an art history class, and Baudrillard is talking about the trends in colour usage from generation to generation (mostly in interior design, but there's definite spillover into fashion, architecture, etc.), and how every new colour movement is a direct rebellion against the previous one, like how the bright colours of the 60s/70s were a direct response to the austerity and seriousness of the WWII/postwar era, and how a shift back to organized, moralistic neutrals were a direct rejection of 60s/70s gaudiness, etc., and that all makes sense, people find their parent's style tacky, sure

But he goes on to observe how we've now been stuck in a lull of pasty tones and naturalistic finishes for some time, and I'm thinking yes, he's so right, but that's weird, because its been hanging around for so long, like what is it rebelling against anymore? What is it answering to? Well all I had to do was be patient because lo and behold, Baudrillard provides the following sentence, which caused me to completely wig out:

"...except of course, for the spheres of advertising and commerce, where colour's power to corrupt enjoys full rein"

And I'm like ooohhhhHHHHHH, so this colourless minimalist wasteland of a design principle:

Is maybe hanging on so stubbornly because this corporate hellscape:

is assaulting all of our eyes, inside and outside of our homes, every waking second, and is tainting the very concept of colour into something we can't relax around in our living spaces.

So fun to chart the footprints of a stranger’s heart by the graffiti they leave on art you built for them

Lilith: *quietly to herself while staring at Camila* but why does her face look so soft?

Ava: O.O

Beatrice: No.

Ava: But I haven’t done anything!

Beatrice: You are my best friend and I cannot watch you to die. 

Ava: Aww 🥰 I love you too. Too bad you’re a morosexual. *Slapping Lilith’s ass hard enough to draw everyone’s attention* Hey Cam! Lilith just said she wants to sit on your face!