Happy New Year Everyone!!! I Hope This Year Will Bring Some Positive Changes Into Your Lives And I Also

G-d, I hate how thr anime change people perceptive that Ymir's letter to Historia was short. It wasn't short in the manga.

This is Ymir actually letter.

"My dearest Historia,

Reiner is standing to my side. He is catching glimpses as I write this letter of my love for you. What a creep, he is never getting a girlfriend. But he did promise me that he would deliver this letter to you. He says he wants to repay me for saving them that day.

I’m sorry for what happened then. I never imagined I would choose them over you. I’ll be dead not long after these words. But I don’t regret anything.

I didn’t have a name. I didn’t know who my parents were, or where they were from. My earliest memory is of being one beggar among many. But one day, a man showed up and gave me a name.

Ever since then, people called me Ymir.

You may not think it’s much of an unusual name, but all I had to do was take it, and then I was given a fine bed and fed meals. That wasn’t all. Those adults who, until then, acted like I was invisible all got on their knees and revered me. As for the man who named me, he began ti dress more and more extravagantly, and as he did, he grew happier.

I felt good, too. All I had to do to make everyone delighted and happy was play the role that I had been given. That’s what I believed. And that’s why I kept playing the part of Ymir.

People had started to call me devil before I knew it; but I still kept playing the part of Ymir.

The man who had given me a name claimed that I had “tricked him.”

Still, I kept playing the part of Ymir.

I thought if that’s what would save them, it would be fine. But…

There are some people in this world who have rocks thrown at them for nothing more than existing. As their symbol, I was stoned from head to toe.

It seems that in this world, it doesn’t mean anything in particular that a simple chunk of flesh can scream and flail.

No.

It doesn’t mean a thing.

That’s why I think the world is so incredible.

I opened my eyes again, and spread before me was freedom.

From there, I began to walk and I lived the way I wanted. I have no regrets.

Or so I’d like to say. But to be honest, I do have one.

You and I still aren’t married.

–Ymir"

Tis the season to go all out

Somehow I imagine what if Felix experienced the state violence as he have done to countless people, just as a punishment, however, I don't think this won't be a proper punishment for him.

Because it is just a cycle of state violence, not breaking it.

I think it'd be proper to him to be stoned by people who were victims, or just a randos passing by. He should be punished by people and democracy, not the state violence nor it's absurdity.

"The people" should punish him.

furthermore, the worst punishment he've got is the sin itself.

Even though he ran away from it, even though he regret it, the fact that he committed state violence won't change forever. It polluted his soul, and let his heart bleed forever

I'm so in love with Netflix's Castlevania 😔🤍

thinking about love as the ultimate transformative power in castlevania... richter's love giving strength to annette when she's practically dying from sekhmet's possession, juste and tera's care bringing maria back from the darkness, lisa showing dracula that he can be loved and good, alucard's love for each generation of belmont making him come back not to fight evil but simply to teach them how to fish despite knowing that he'll have to watch them die, olrox coming back to fight erzsebet out of love for mizrak, alucard saying that dracula still had goodness in him at the end precisely because his last action on earth was loving lisa's last gift to him, their son,... the only characters that are truly evil being the ones like Carmilla, the Abbott in nocturne or drolta who turn acts of devotion, love and trust into destruction and violence.... going to kill myself

I'm sorry. I'll think about what I did 😔 (I'll think about how more angsty my interpretation of Bell could become)

I know that bell was pretty much destined to an early death but that won't stop me from talking about them like a wife who just lost her husband in the war

Listen, I know why people like to have Adler and Bell get their own happily ever after where they can be domestic and in love or whatever. I understand the appeal. But man I NEED more of adbell being fucking weird and violent. The line between hate and love is incredibly thin further blurred by all the shit they did to bell's brain. They're enemies but also allies, then enemies again and allies once more. They're old friends, they've only known each other for a few months, they went through hell in Da Nang together, Bell has literally never been to Vietnam, Bell's a highly skilled professional Adler trusts the skills of, Adler literally does not think of bell as a person. And all of these are all mixing and overlapping. Give me the dubiousness of how much of Bell's attraction to Adler is genuinely his own versus how much of it was either accidentally or deliberately imprinted into his brain! If Bell has Adler's memories of Vietnam then part of Bell's personality and psyche is actually Adler's. And if Adler is attracted to Bell then this begs the question of whether or not Adler is actually attracted to Bell or rather to the reflection of himself within Bell?

it's just... hesh and logan being brought up in religion and hesh relying heavily on it while logan is *very* disconnected from it and hesh praying whenever situations are dire and logan not understanding but tries anyway to be there for hesh and elias gifting the boys rosaries and hesh clinging onto his faith each hour of each day as his family tree crumbles apart and the final straw is when logan gets torn away from him that hesh's faith dwindles until it's nothing but flickering embers because why would a god rip his little brother away from him like that and why must he suffer when he's been good his entire life while logan's faith returns and grows and strengthens because its his only connection to hesh now and hes praying until his knees are raw and hes holding his head in his hands begging god for his big brother again because hes the only man whose ever saved him and it can't end like this

what’s in a name?

alluded to it in my last adlerbell rot post but i have such a complex over adler naming bell and i find it difficult to put into words. so here’s a very lengthy attempt:

most of the symbolism behind bell’s name is obvious and doesn’t need much stating: it’s indicative of adler’s ownership of bell, literally naming them like a pet, his property. obvious also that a bell was used in their conditioning; as well as a reference to the study of classical conditioning itself by pavlov, who similarly used a bell to condition behavioural responses in the test subject: a dog (hence the myriad dog imagery/symbolism in adlerbell fics… it’s like crack to me)

but the obvious aside it always hits me deepest as part of the “it wasn’t personal” narrative. it’s insanely personal- it’s intimate. i think i put adlerbell on a little bit of a pedestal to view everything about them through a vaguely romanticised lens, but to me it really is- in the most horrifically tragic and sickening way- romantic.

like, you’re bell, right? you trust this man, bell. he is your friend. you witnessed some of the worst atrocities of mankind and survived hell with him and he is your friend. he calls your name through the smoke and gunfire, as a bullet zips past your ear you hear it amidst the splitting of shrapnel, the tearing of screams silenced for but a moment. each time he extends his arm to pick you up, he calls you, bell. every time he directs you to a point of interest, he beckons you, bell. when he nudges you out of your cot in camp haskins, it’s your name he laughs, bell. when he praises you, and smiles at you in that wry, almost boyish way, and tells you how good of a job you’ve done, how we couldn’t have done it without you, how they should be thanking you- it’s your name, bookended, every time, a fondness notched into the welding that stamps you both together inseparably. bell. every single association you have to your name is whenever he pulls you close, helps you, praises you, saves you. your name alone a positive association- to the respect and affection he has for you. bell.

and it’s to the point. adler says their name at any given moment he can. he says it so often it’s infuriating. like deadass take a shot every time. it’s practically a trope in any fic featuring the two, that he utters their name every other line of dialogue. it’s the first thing he says to them at the start of the game- walking into the safehouse at west berlin- not a word, but their name. sure, obviously isn’t the first time he’s spoken to bell, knowing what came before- but it’s presumably bell’s first time walking around freely since mk ultra. that coupled with the trigger phrase must make for a very pliant response- when he says their name, it’s the same man, as far as bell knows, who fought with them back to back in vietnam. something thicker even than blood.

and i reckon adler likes it. mk ultra was a joint effort but bell’s past is based on his choosing, his memories. by no means did he have to pick their name, but he did. he chose to name the thing he’s helped create. it’s almost sick that the ‘closeness’ bell feels towards adler is really only partially synthetic- over a span of months adler really was there, every day, talking for hours and conditioning them over and over and over again. of course he’d name them. something something don’t name an animal you don’t want to get attached to. but it’s his animal. it’s his dog. they’re his bell.

and there’s something just so sickening and so adler that he could have named them anything else in the world- maybe something inconspicuous and plain, like john or jane; something sweet, something that reminds him of someone else, a song he likes, a nickname, an insult, or even something downright cruel. but i don’t think anything could be more cruel and tragically appropriate than calling them by the name of the instrument you used to condition them. to call them by the tool you used to enslave their mind. the very thing that reset their entire being to zero. a bell. not just their name- but the sound, ever ringing, in the back of their mind. the thing that echoes in the empty inside them, to remind them why it’s empty in the first place, its sole purpose to keep them chained in their loyalty to adler. bell.

like i said, i do really think adler likes it. for whatever reason. ownership, spite, just a way to rub salt in the wound any chance he gets, a small victory only he gets to revel in, right in their face. but bell is his. bell belongs to him. when he says their name, it’s the one he chose. time and patience came alongside that bell that rang perpetual in that lab. he’s said that name as many times as he rang it. maybe a part of adler’s as attached to that instrument as much as he is the person he named after it. i’m sure adler hears it chiming in the recesses of his own mind more than he’d care to admit. he’d been around to hear it as long as bell has, hadn’t he? maybe part of him has grown conditioned in his attachment to that instrument too.

but there must be a semblance of pride when he says it. really, to be able to beckon your dog by the name you chose for it. i wonder if a swell of maddened joy tugs at his blackened heart whenever he sees bell’s head perk up at the sound of their name, the one he chose, as implicit and unthinking, automatic, as though it truly were their own. since birth.

and like it couldn’t be enough that he took everything from them. and most importantly that he took them away from perseus- that he stole perseus’ most precious comrade right out from under him, and turned them to an unflinching loyal pup for himself. this isn’t about you, this isn’t about me, this is about millions of other fucking people. is it? when you croon and tut their name between every sentence, are you sure you don’t just like the satisfaction of saying it, knowing how deeply it disarms them? knowing how they are wholly yours, to their very core? to the name they introduce themselves as? to the one they flinch and come running whenever you say it?

ugh. it’s just- a name is so integral to one’s identity. it shapes their life. their personhood. and he didn’t just erase theirs, but he gave them a new one and made sure they’d like it. a conditioned response of pleasure whenever he’d say it. isn’t that intimate?

he took everything. every single shred of who they were. that not even their name is their own. that even their name, their name, belongs entirely to him.

this didn’t make sense, i wrote this mostly for myself, congrats if u read this far. i just wanted to have every single thought and feeling i had about it jotted in one place and file it away ajshsjksjsjsjs

I'm having so many brainworms right now so i'm forcing y'all to listen teehee

anyway, headcanon that Bell had the most gorgeous big brown eyes.

It was the first thing anyone ever noticed about them. Brown eyes are the most common color, but Bell wore them like they were a sacred gem. Deep, haunted, and achingly soulful. In the sterile glow of a safehouse in Berlin, the fluorescent lights bled across their eyes like distant dying stars, flickering in the hollow space of their gaze. Their eyes could be called fawn-like, or maybe a lamb. You’d never guess that they belonged to someone so horrifically scarred by the ugliness of the world.

How ironic that also like a lamb, tethered by a leash they couldn’t see, they trailed along so willingly to their slaughter--by the one man they trusted more than their own mind, no less. A beautifully blind devotion, don't you think? Right up to the barrel of the gun.