#subjectivemortality

merry valentines day!

Do not write me a starter or reply where your character does nothing. By that I mean, if your character is peacefully asleep, is walking down the street minding their own business, etc. I can technically work with those kinds of things, but it puts me in the role of setting the mood for the interaction without remotely knowing what the other person wants. I don't mind asking of course but every time this has happened, the other person has been like "Idk, anything's fine, do what you like".

It's old enough to not be equipped with Bluetooth, so Ava settles for blasting the local heavy metal station at max volume -- with the windows rolled down, naturally -- arm resting partially outside of the vehicle. Now that the day is here, stray doubts keep creeping in in spite of their best attempts to head them off. Would any of this be enough?

The drive passes by in a blur with nothing of consequence happening. It seems like someone's still maintaining the property they arrive at, but as far as Ava can tell, the lot has otherwise been abandoned for years. The towering smokestacks made it easy to scout from a distance -- the building itself is brick and concrete in construction, and Ava recognizes it as dated, though they have no background in architecture. A century or so of aging, maybe. They didn't bother to investigate what it had once been in the business of producing. The important thing was how well it would serve them now in the act of creation.

Ava turns the engine off, leaving them in sudden silence, and tosses the keys on the dash. As they push open the truck's door, they grab a couple of the backpacks that were resting in the passenger seat. Something rattles around inside with each step they take, approaching the derelict factory. An entirely absent window provides a suitable means of ingress -- their burden first tossed in ahead of them, with Ava climbing in afterwards.

The windows in this room allow enough light that even without electricity, Ava has a generous selection of well-lit surfaces. Ava lets out a breath that it feels like they've been holding for months, and allows themself to think of Belle. Not just as their girlfriend, but as a Goddess.

Ava has never had to consider -- at least not more than in passing -- what worship of a god other than His Majesty would look like. Different, to say the least. In this case, there is an unavoidable intimacy to it. Belle is not a distant or absent figure to them. Thinking of her is a far cry from making offerings to the maw of an ever-voracious and uncaring viral overlord. They know her tastes, her sense of humor, the micro-expressions that cross her face when she's engrossed in a painting.

They allow themself to focus on those thoughts and feelings as they unzip the first of the backpacks they brought in with them and retrieve a can of yellow spray paint. On the ground near their feet, they begin to shape a large circle, with lines that curve and separate out at various points emanating from it. Before long, it takes the form of a sun with rays resembling antlers, outlined in white.

The moment they've finished their first work here, they start on another, picking a wall with a fair amount of space. Of course, Ava isn't the first to have the idea of leaving graffiti in this structure. Rather than completely overwriting the existing tags, they keep the overall shape and color as intact as possible as they work out from them, even if it feels like an unusual inclusion in their overall compositions. While this wall acquires a depiction of a silhouette of Bayt from a distance, framed by a colorful sunset, Ava pictures Belle, her contagious laughter as she sits in the kitchen with them. They can't remember what it was that they said, but they do remember the way she lit up and the way that light played on her skin.

Belle herself becomes the subject of their next piece, crowned and surrounded by thorned vines weaving together and around her arms. Ava recalls Belle in a more serious moment, when she'd spoken of her fear of being infected -- and of everything she's worked for, everything she's building, everything that she can't lose. Ava feels an ache, knowing, in the end, how powerless they would truly be to prevent it, if His Majesty made up His mind that was what He wanted, and yet --

For as long as they can, for as long as they're able to, they will shield not only Belle but all of their loved ones from it. That is the burden that Ava bears in their place.

Ava continues for hours, coating every inch of their surroundings that they can reasonably reach -- not just walls and floor, but the support pillars too -- with spray paint, returning to the truck to obtain additional cans when they run out of a needed color. Inevitably, fallow deer, quail, and other depictions of Belle herself make showings while they think of the feeling of inspiration that visits them every time that comes to Bayt -- and everything they've seen Belle herself create.

Eventually, they run out of space that's lit well enough for them to continue -- though it takes longer for them than it would for a standard human, given the modifications to their eyes. At that point, they drag every backpack containing their remaining supply of spray paint cans into the dark room, and empty them all out onto the floor with an echoing clatter, before retrieving two more things from the backseat - protective goggles, and a sledgehammer.

The hammer makes short work of the remaining cans, crushing them with force that results in the paint contained within exploding out onto both Ava (goggles in place and a mask pulled up over their mouth and nose) and their surroundings. Within a handful of minutes, they've run through their entire supply of spray paint, and they can faintly make out the chaos of color now ornamenting the room.

Carelessly discarding the sledgehammer to the side, they take a moment with their phone to capture a picture of all the surfaces containing their art, and then pause for a moment to bask in the satisfaction of the work completed. The first phase was done with -- which meant it was time for their accomplice's work to shine.

Dot's cooperation was never very hard to secure as long as she could be reassured it wasn't just being used for 'evil'. Given her cautious, risk-averse personality, and that she wasn't any sort of a fighter, there was always some sort of material she could use Ava's assistance in procuring.

Ava returns to the truck for a final handful of trips, pulling off the tarp covering the truck bed, and grabbing the set of duffel bags stored there one by one. One is placed at the base of each of the support pillars, and in a few other strategic locations, and then partially unzipped, so Ava can pull out the lengths of fuse and stretch them out, ultimately connecting each of them in one place.

Finally, Ava positions one of Dot's other touches, a 'device' -- really a pretty rudimentary Rube Goldberg machine -- and positions it, with its unlit matches, near the fuses.

Stepping outside once more, Ava doesn't have to search the immediate area long to find what they're looking for -- a spare cinder block laying nearby that they carry with them. Ava starts the truck's engine and backs it up to the edge of the lot, leaving it running as they pull open the driver side door and step out.

Leaning a bit inside of the truck, Ava sets the block on the seat and then shoves it in a way that causes it to fall onto the accelerator as they pull back.

The truck shoots off in seconds as it accelerates as rapidly as its aged engine is capable of, crashing into the factory building with its hood crumpling from the collision. The force is enough to set off the contraption inside -- a marble rolling down an incline that hits a switch that moves the plastic arm that was holding down a weighted plank, which swings the other way, with the matches attached to it striking the matchbox and lighting as it moves.

The fuses lit, Ava waits the scant seconds until it begins, and pictures Belle. Belle smiling, Belle laughing, Belle taking a break from appearing not-quite-human and spreading out, glimmering and bright and beautiful and captivating. Their heart flutters with the warmth of thinking of her as the first explosion sounds, followed near instantaneously by several others in succession, forcing the roof to crumble in a cacophony of ruin. Large sections of the walls go with it, debris and clouds of dust scattering with each impact as the factory collapses in on itself. Ava doesn't flinch as a stray piece of something catches them, leaving a shallow gash across their cheek that bleeds blue.

By the time the clouds of detritus are clearing, Ava can hear sirens in the distance starting to close on their location, but they take a moment, first, to climb into the wreckage, giving themself the opportunity to observe the flashes of bright color distributed amongst sober brick and concrete. As a souvenir, Ava collects one of the more visually pleasing fragments of one wall, still coated in multiple colors. While the authorities catching up to them would be an annoyance at best, they don't linger for too long, boots scraping over stray rubble that clatters away as they start to work their way off of the property.

If the person we refer to as God was a real, tangible person, we would consider him evil. God's evil would need a much longer post to describe the full extent of, but I'll be focusing on the following:

Worship - The need for constant praise

Sin - Subjective Vs. Objective Morality

Accreditation - Discrepancies in what God is credited with

Worship

It seems as Abrahamic religions toy with the idea of worship being the embodiment of a give and take relationship with God. The idea that if you praise God enough, or ask nicely enough, you'll receive what you desire. However, every religious scholar denies the way worship is treated like a give and take relationship, likely because they are aware of God's duality and inconsistency. Despite pushing prayer in times of tragedy, they acknowledge there's no guarantee that God will fulfill your desires by prayer alone. By saying things like "The Lord works in mysterious ways" we can negate God's obvious inconsistencies in ability. This inconsistency turns your give and take relationship with God into simply a giving relationship with a taker; a one sided relationship feeding a man's narcissism. One in which nothing you do is enough for him in, one in which he simultaneously loves you unconditionally but would throw you in Hell for all of eternity if you cross his invisible threshold.

Sin

The invisible threshold is sin. By definition, sin is simply an action that is (morally) wrong. Finding and defining the discrepancy between right and wrong is where the debate between theists and atheists about objective vs subjective morality begins. Essentially, believers of objective morality believe that what God has defined as sin and virtue is the end all of debates about morality. Believers of subjective morality believe that humans are intelligent enough to inherently separate right from wrong. For believers of objective morality, the definition of a moral person is much narrower. This is because God's definition of wrong (sin) is much more extensive. This begs the question of whether or not a person ceases to be a moral person if they commit a sin, or which sins make someone immoral. God acknowledges there are varying degrees of sin, varying in consequence. This is where the idea that sinners are punished by God originates from. If this notion that God punishes sinners is true, then the most innocent among us (children) are some of the worst sinners. God subjects them to starvation, disease, and painful death. Again, theists use the phrase "The Lord works in mysterious ways" to negate holding God to any higher standard. "Mysterious ways" simply refers to God's inconsistency and immoral actions.

Accreditation

There are obvious discrepancies in what theists credit God for. When you simply cannot blame mans free will for tragedies (e.g natural disasters, disease, famines) again the phrase "The Lord works in mysterious ways" is used to negate any criticism of God. There are usually two routes theists take when faced with accrediting God with some tragedy:

1. Claiming that the tragedy is a punishment for some sin (either of the person or of man entirely) and they should ask God for forgiveness. This assumes that God will grant them forgiveness by freeing them of their ailment. As we discussed in the first section is simply not how God works.

2. Claiming that (tragedy) is the fault of man, even if not the direct consequence of his free will, and man shall fix his own problems. Conversely, some theists acknowledge that not all tragedies are the fault of man, but it is still man's responsibility to either reap the consequences, fix (the tragedy), or both.

In both instances, we refuse to credit God with tragedies that happen when there is an absence of a clear excuse (such as sin). In contrast, when something positive happens, we are quick to thank God for it, and even accredit it to past prayers. Even if the positive happening was the direct result of man's free will and his actions, we still credit God for its happening. This is a direct dichotomy with the way theists accredit (or refuse to accredit) God with any tragedy.