One Word Prompt: Falling

Susan Sontag, from “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963″

BEATRICE + loose strands of hair

KRISTINA TONTERI-YOUNG as SISTER BEATRICE  WARRIOR NUN | season two

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“Because with the right person, sometimes kissing feels like healing.”

— Lisa McMann

“I don’t regret us but I wouldn’t do it again.”

— Unknown

We love you Kevin

Hey! You have a lot of big brain theories about Warrior Nun and Alchemy. Do you have any theories / ideas / thoughts about the Halo specifically?

wow, thanks anon! you're my first ask, this is cool. i have one pretty expansive and bonkers theory about it but i don't know enough to really back it up with anything solid. short alchemy-related answer is i think it may be this, imprisoned:

the symbolism of warrior nun and its metaphysical themes are stacked like a layer cake with 10 flavors and i have trouble keeping it coherent outside my head so i apologize for the ridiculous length of the rest of this answer

i have a lot of thoughts and reasoning, but nothing confirmed. i have shapes. there are so many repeating shapes in the symbolism of warrior nun (and anywhere else it's found too i guess). but one big thing i think i've learned about how the delivery of symbolism works on this show is that when something is repeated it's a big freaking deal and we need to pay! attention! i mean look how broken we all were by the repetition of the motto of the ocs when ava tried to force beatrice to take a different path in adriel's cathedral. these creators use repetition of symbols to say when something is important, even crucial to the story they're telling. which. i guess is what symbolism. even is lol

so a little bit about alchemy and how the way it works is woven into the theme of the show. journeys are imo THE most important and enduring repeating theme of the show. we see it with dialogue, with locations splashed across the screen, with characters traveling through scenery, with changing motivations and alliances of the characters, and with subtler things like the use of labyrinths and spiritual paths, the internal search for individual truth and freedom, with the appearance of the widening gyre from Yeats' Second Coming (an alchemist himself btw), and with the liberal use of alchemical symbolism and the concept of alchemical journeys

i've posted about the rosarium philosophorum before, and it is incredibly significant imo to what is going on in warrior nun, both symbolically and literally plot-wise. it's a story, it's a riddle, it's a weird ass sequence of pictures, it's a guide on how to achieve the highest self no matter who or what you are, and i suspect that it is a writer's resource for one of the many ways they want to tell the story about journeys. it follows a 1-20 path and some of the iconography of these images appear as early as the literal opening scene of the show. ava is the primary figure we see on this journey, but so is everything else

i'll say here real talk that i am always in the process of learning more about this stuff, and as beatrice said, there's always more. there are other models and concepts and principles of alchemy like the azoth ritual and all of the stuff in latin that i can't read for shit which is also important but i simply haven't had time to research and apply directly to the show, even though it's definitely significant. there's just. too much here to go through it all. it will literally take months. it's a constant chase of information and it seems endless. so i assume there is always more context than what i am seeing with this stuff

i am no authority on it in any way, shape or form. also if anyone else wants to look into this stuff with me i am incredibly open to input and thoughts about these bizarre and individualized by design concepts and please feel free to use the "it's labyrinths and it's alchemy" tag and i will find it. or just make your own tag and tell me, i'll for sure happily check out any other thoughts on all of this. i use the labyrinths and alchemy tag because that's me screaming "look at it! looooook! are you seeing what i'm seeing?!" it's about sharing and i appreciate any collaboration on this stuff (to feel less insane when i keep seeing it mostly ahshdbc)

okay, so anyway back to the rosarium philosophorum (it means "rosary of the philosophers" in english which might be a more helpful reminder of how the philosopher's stone pops up on warrior nun, but. latin is cool, camila's right okay. also vincent's rose tattoos are a screeching hint that he's still important to the plot even if that man should ** ****). at the end of the sequence (which is at *one of* its base levels a recipe for the philosopher's stone. alchemy itself is a layer cake of many flavors of symbolism which i'm suuuure only adds to how coherent i sound talking about it. layer cakes in layer cakes, labyrinths in labyrinths lol) AT THE END of the sequence of 20, the figure represents higher self, perfect synthesis, some religious iconography that warrior nun fans are very familiar with by now, and many other things pertaining to a final flawless whole. another way of illustrating this is with the use of the picture i posted in the beginning of this reply, which is called the "anima mundi" by robert fludd

the anima mundi means "world soul." it represents the connection to all things that all things have. the overarching network we all belong to because we're alive. if we have souls as individuals, the anima mundi is the soul of the universe itself. the world soul is one interpretation of a repeating theme through philosophy, science, alchemy, occultism, religion, astronomy, astrology, even technology, ect. so many connections between a concept *about* connection. it's kinda beautiful. macrocosm in microcosms

when you search for spheres recurring in alchemy, you are going to find a ton of stuff. a LOT of circles. one of the most famous and readily available images of an alchemical circle is "the flammarion engraving" from a book by french astrologer (and many other things) nicolas camille flammarion called "l'atmosphère: météorologie populaire" or atmosphere: popular meteorology" in english. look at the stars. LOOK at the stars

another way to say layer cakes in layer cakes and labyrinths in labyrinths is "wheel within a wheel." the biblical prophet ezekiel said it in the old testament. he had a vision of god that revealed to him the structure of the universe and all its connections. some wild shit happened to him after that and "ezekial's wheel" is a source that is used for some of the descriptions of angels, which is always interesting. wheels and circles and spheres occur in countless iterations of metaphysical thought and are repeating patterns in warrior nun, too, so that means we gotta pay attention to it

this image of the stars here may be the clearest of the celestial sphere depicted in alchemical art. it also calls to mind the story of the labyrinth of chartres, with the alchemist on his knees. i've posted a little about that story before, and one interesting detail about christian pilgrims traversing spiritual labyrinths is that they often did so while walking on their knees

remember ava fighting adriel in the s2 finale and how she fell and stayed on her knees for a while after michael was killed. ava was making her journey to the heart of the labyrinth, the arq, the end of her current trajectory, the center of regeneration, the threshold of hell, her highest expression of love, just as the dancers depicting jesus on his knees harrowing hell did in the story of the labyrinth of chartres. just as the alchemist depicted here is doing. repetition of patterns is everything

speaking of ava and speaking of stars, here is ava in s1e1. my favorite scene of the show and what hooked me in the first place. this is a meaningful scene for many reasons

here is ava again in s2e1. notice the patterns on the lamps hanging above her, the celestial heavens yet again appearing in her story as if the stars are following behind her on her journey

look again at the first picture of the anima mundi. it's the same image as what's depicted in flammarion's engraving of the alchemist. only in flammarion's version, the figure more explicitly carries the soul of the cosmos... on their back

if you made it through all that, you're a saint, sorry anon

WHY SUPERCORP ALREADY WON

I know there are people out there who are not getting tired of telling us "supercorp isn't going to happen because the sc fans are bullies/are toxic/the worst, blah blah blah, and need to be punished".

The truth is, they don't know what will happen, no one does (except the people who actually work on the show).

And yet they keep yelling it into the void of the internet with a conviction like it's already set in stone.

But why? They probably think they say it in order to disillusion us, but that just shows they don't know us. They don't know what it's like to be queer and to find yourself in a fictional ship. They don't know what we've already been through.

The truth is they can't disillusion us because we have no illusions. We know what can happen, we've seen it before. No one is more prepared for supercorp not happening than us. Queer fans have been disappointed by tv shows/movies for decades, we barely know anything else.

So what if supercorp isn't going to happen? We'll do what we have always done and will continue to do. We'll take the loss, dust ourselves off and go back to creating fanart and fanworks. We'll keep our fandom alive. Like the sq fandom, the clexa fandom and so many others have done before, the sc fandom will do it too.

There's nothing for us to be afraid of. We don't actually expect this time to be different. We prepare for the worst (and hope for the best), like we always do.

The anti-sc people however, their hate is all they got. No fanworks, no community, no hope.

So what if sc actually becomes canon? They'll be the ones who don't know how to handle the disappointment. They rarely had to before. Not in the same capacity as we queer fans anyway. They'll have nothing left, because they don't have much to begin with. They'll lose.

That's why they are afraid. That's why they yell "supercorp is not going to happen" over and over again. They are desperate, they need their own words to become true. They yell it to comfort themselves. They yell it to drown out their fear, like warriors storming into a battle.

They can't see they've already lost. The war is already over and they've chosen the losing side.

Because the truth is, no matter if supercorp happens or not, we have already won. We are and forever will be the biggest fandom of the show. Our fanworks will outlast the show. Our community will be here long after all the haters have moved on (probably to another fandom they can harass). Our ship will be remembered by generations of queer women, even after pop culture has long forgotten about the cishet ships and the show itself. Canon supercorp or not, we'll be the last ones standing.