#should we be a little concerned that ava's favorite book is 1984?

[infinityinakiss]

i see all of your "beatrice reading in bed with ava tucked in her arms, ava staring at bea like she hung the stars in the sky" headcannons and i raise you:

bea never had the choice to discover a love for learning, it was always something she was expected to do. she reads all those thick books because she thought that it was the only way to earn her parent's love. once she came to the ocs, she threw herself into research because beatrice has always known that reading was a means to an end. she doesn't read to calm her mind, she reads so that she is seen as better, as worthy.

ava, on the other hand, made a hamlet reference and has a poster of george orwell's 1984 hanging in her bedroom. she loves to read, and she grew up with people reading books to her. she fell in love with these stories that rewrote the world. they were a place of refuge, where ava's life could be something it wasn't.

(the thing about the hamlet reference is that it was directed to the other girl, even if she was looking at bea. she wanted to look at bea, so she did. bea knows ava loves to read.)

ava was the one that dragged bea to the library the first week there, even when bea said "there won't be anything of use there, ava. there's no point in looking."

bea is perusing the religious section of the library, looking for something to help them in the fight, when she feels a book drop into her hands and then another. the stack of books in her hands grows, ranging from a tale of two cities and one of the magic tree house books. by the time ava stops adding to the pile, the stack threatens to cut off beatrice's eyesight.

"This everything?"

"Yup."

"Alright, then."

when ava starts reading aloud in their apartment, her sweet honey voice filling the cracks in the walls, bea decides that lugging 17 books home was worth it. there was a lightness in her eyes that bea hadn't seen since the vatican and her energy seemed to settle, blanketing everything in a warm comfort. it was beautiful, angelic even. maybe she could give books another chance, if they made ava smile like that.

this was a long winded way of saying ava definitely read books aloud while bea cooked in the kitchen.