Lol

Lol

Downloading my shit off D&D Beyond and cancelling my subscription. Time to go back to my fucking roots.

If you haven't been following the OGL 1.1 debacle - it's gotten worse! They want to lock D&D Beyond behind a 30$ month subscription, with different tiers, with the lowest not allowing you to use homebrew - as if their shitty ass books offer you anything substantial to run a campaign from. They've been putting everything on the DM's for a long time. They'll also be offering what is essentially a 'game pass', and wanting to offer stripped down AI-DMs. If AI art pisses you off, then so should this.

If you have one, cancel your sub and download the PDF's of anything you've bought/made on D&D Beyond. Don't go see the movie. They need to get a good slap around the head for this.

Kiss scene in warrior nun

no background music 😍

“Besides, your still a nun. Aren’t you?”

This line comes when Father Vincent attempts to join Beatrice and Ava in the van and Beatrice says no. Ava says she doesn’t trust him either but it’s better for their mission that he comes. Then she drops this line before reminding Beatrice that forgive is kind of her job. 

Proof that Ava’s salty over Beatrice turning down her ‘let’s run away’ plan. 

This season starts with Ava rearing to fight Adriel. She wants to get (back) into it. When one of Adriel’s cultists says she can’t run away from his light she shoves the guy so hard he goes flying. In public. That scene’s set up to show that Ava has changed. She’s no longer the irreverent civilian she was. She’s the Warrior Nun. In action not just in halo. So much so that she almost blows herself up when their initial plan to put the crown on Adriel fails. 

It’s not just Beatrice’s faith that was shaken by that fight. It was also Ava’s. She fell back into the old pattern of survival that she knew. Slightly different, though, because she wanted Bea to run with her. Which brings us to Beatrice’s faith (which is her business, as a nun). This whole season Beatrice’s character arc is figuring out how to be herself (how to live) without relying on the expectations of perfection in a role. Beatrice knows how to be perfect in a role. She’s way less certain how to be herself (and have that be enough for others and herself).

Except when they finally did return to the role that Beatrice can excel at, she fails. Epically. She (thinks she) gets her friend killed by her actions. Worse, the friend who was a trainee under her (Camila), who she was supposed to be looking out for. Along with Yasmine, who was not a Sister Warrior and Beatrice would assume she was also supposed to look out for. And she actively stopped the action that (might) have stopped Adriel. She failed so hard at being a Sister Warrior it was practically treason (in her mind). 

It wasn’t until that moment where her mission as a Sister Warrior was exactly opposite her feelings for Ava. With no time to think, Beatrice chose Ava. When she does have time to think, she regrets it. Not because she regrets saving Ava. Ava brings this up. Ava very pointedly says if Beatrice did what she ‘should’ have done to rescue Camila and Yasmine and the world, Ava would be dead. Beatrice ignores this. Doesn’t even go there. What Beatrice regrets is not being good enough to both do what she should have done (save everyone) and what she wanted to do (save Ava). This calls back to Bea’s first scene this season  and Ava saying “you know, you don’t have to be so perfect all the time”. In this moment, Beatrice’s greatest crisis of faith is between that part of her that hoped Ava was right and that part of her that feared Ava was wrong. Beatrice has no idea how to reconcile those parts. Other than doing what she’s always done, throw herself harder into the role given to her. No matter what it costs her. 

After the whole mind bending Crown of Thorns experience Ava appears a whole lot calmer about what she decided (did she though??). She approaches Beatrice in the van and makes a (kinda awkward) joke. “You look like you could Aikido someone into submission”. Only to get shot down with Beatrice’s “don’t test me then.”

Of course, Ava then proceeds to test Beatrice by saying Father Vincent (y’know, the guy who betrayed her and who directly killed one of Beatrice’s best friends and was tangentially responsible for the death of two others as well as releasing Adriel, that guy) was coming with them on their last ditch effort to save the world. NBD I guess. Beatrice immediately says no. Says she doesn’t trust him. Offers all the logical, mission centric reasons why this should not be allowed. Ava out logics her mission centric reasoning. Then proves she’s still salty (as much as she loves her nun wife) by practically saying “you want to be a nun? Then be a nun.” Very ‘you made your bed, now sleep in it.’ 

Ava very much wants to help Beatrice’s journey to loving herself, to being herself. And not just for the potential sexy times rewards. She thinks Beatrice is awesome and beautiful and wants Beatrice to think that too. She sometimes also gets very frustrated at how Beatrice hides behind duty to such a hypocritical degree (eg: becoming the boss after a month but Ava’s not allowed to blow their cover, being jealous of guys Ava talks to and calling it protection, pretending like she wouldn’t make the same call to save Ava). 

Which I think is why the scene where Ava’s dying after defeating Adriel is so important. Ava tells Beatrice to take the halo. Beatrice says no. Lilith offers a way to save Ava that means Earth looses the halo. Beatrice says yes. Beatrice has time to think (at least more than a split second reaction). She still chooses Ava. Living isn’t about Beatrice not fighting, it’s about Beatrice being true to herself. And the first step Beatrice took to that was choosing Ava.

And trusting Bea to answer her. How many times did she wonder “why are you upset with me?” About Francis, Superion, Lilith. About people who were ‘supporting’ her but failed to do so because they were upset with her. For reasons they lied about, or blamed on her, or just hid. Ava treats everything in the first couple of episodes with humour as her defence mechanism, her only way to get perceived control. She stops using humour to seriously ask Bea “why are you upset with me?” And Bea does. Reigns in her upset and bares her heart just to show Ava why she’d been acting that way and that she truly is sorry. 

I love how Ava immediately says “okay but why are you so mad at me?” when Beatrice lashes out the first time. It’s not just that she understands that there’s more going on here than her being a little slow on the uptake sometimes because Beatrice has been training her for the past few hours and she’s been incredibly patient with her, and Ava knows how kind and understanding Beatrice is from basically all of their prior interactions. It’s also that she genuinely wants to know, there’s a deep desire to understand what made Beatrice lash out, a “there’s more to it than you’re telling” type of curiosity to find out who Beatrice is which drives her to ask that question. It’s Ava probing just a little deeper to find out why this, of all things, was triggering to Beatrice, not even so much so she can avoid it in the future but simply to put together the intricate puzzle that is Beatrice.