I'm So In Love With Netflix's Castlevania 😔🤍

Duga ending Bell with Stockholm syndrome? Of course!

man rewatching any episodes of attack on titan can be so like, weirdly nostalgic for me. i know i haven’t known it as long as other people have but it truly had the biggest place in my heart and such a profound impact on me. i think it’s one of the greatest stories ever told tbh. like fuck, i’m just reminded of how amazing this story really is. the magnitude of detail that Isayama put into his world building and story telling is truly nothing short of fantastic honestly. the characters are so well-developed, each with their own motivations and flaws and personalities that make them seem so human. i am not surprised so many anime lovers call it the greatest story ever told. to me, it is exactly that.

After finishing bo1, bo2 and bocw i have turned into the biggest Hudson apologist ever

This is the woods and mason dynamic right??? Feels like it

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

Recently I watched the gameplay of BO6 and I find the (campaign) story to be very interesting. And I genuinely became fond of Felix's character (I have a tendency to basically fall in love with pacifists, I guess I just love this character trope that much). So, I got this idea that has been in my mind for few days now about Felix being a parent.

‼️Warnings: none I guess, just grammar mistakes (probably).

As we all know, Felix is shown as very peaceful character in the game. He's technical genius, very smart, very knowledgable. He's also friendly and mild-mannered, totally standing out from the rest of the "The Rook" group. Though his deeds aren't all that nice, since he himself admitted that he's done things he's not proud of (aka being associated with Stasi). And throughout the campaign he expressed his regret for the killings and murders he commited. But I still dare to say that the idea of him being fairly good father is self-explanatory.

I have this idea that he would be such a good girl dad. Just imagine, after moving to West Germany and living there for a while and working for some good cash, eventually he starts wondering what else he could do. Don't get it wrong, he likes the way of his new life - having a passion for innovations and doing what he likes (programming, cracking codes, etc). Though, he still feels as if his life is lacking something. And that 'something' turns out to be random orphan girl running around the streets without any care in the world.

I'm not exactly sure how these two individuals would've meet nor how these orphanage-systems had been working at the time (I need time to brew something up and also do a research) but I just know that eventually Felix would take this kid in. And I know that he wouldn't really regret that. He's living his new, peaceful life with a purpose of not spreading any more violence and naturally, he can teach another young lost soul this way of living.

The girl herself doesn't really feel lost, at least at first. Though, only later she realises that her life has been lacking a lot. Mouth-watering food, warm tidy bed, a room just for her. Her life lacked safe space to return to after wandering the streets for hours with people she used to call her brothers and sisters (though these peer groups were such a terrible influence on her), a place that she could call home. And in so-called home someone is always waiting for her to return. The someone who eventually starts calling her 'daughter' and the someone she grows to call her 'papa'.

So yeah, I believe that after such interesting experience of adoption, both of them would add more meaning to their lifes. Felix would have someone to tale care of, to teach and generally just be a good person to them, this way lifting up some guilt off his shoulders. And the said girl would find home and eventually would learn that the world isn't only poor streets, dark alleys and bad companies.

I guess in the future I'll write more to this idea (because I'm obsessed, at least right now). Though, someone else's writing on this would be very much appreciated as well <33

Okay so my earlier stated thoughts on Hudson and him absolutely hating MKUltra, but still following orders because ya know he has to at the end of the day, were confirmed at least to me. I'm replaying it on Realism and I just processed a quote.

"Once President Reagan greenlit Adler's Operations- he fell in line like a good little American Patriot" - Park (talking about Hudson)

If that doesn't tell us that Hudson tried to fight MKUltra, I don't know what would. Like c'mon. Its like very subtly referencing that because come on all the other missions and shit, Hudson would not have fought. He would've just gone with it, but MKUltra he definitely would've had problems with because what he saw Mason go through.

I will defend Hudson to my grave fr fr. Like I used to hate him but I found out about his family and found out what happened in bo1 and bo2 (I haven't played them but I have a pretty good understanding of them) and I'm a Hudson defender now. Also I call him Mr. Worldwide cause he looks like a white Pitbull.

Edit: So this quote is actually in reference to comingling with other agencies, but there could be reason to believe that he knew before hand and didn't want to comingle with MI6 for this mission because of MKUltra. Like he would have to know beforehand. Also he doesn't seem like the type to cause any resistance that could lead to hindrances to the mission itself. He's very professional and doesn't seem like the type to complain about other agencies. He might not like it, but I don't think he'd be the type to make it widely known. Like obviously his close friends would know but not people for said other agencies. It could be a bit of both, but he definitely knew what bringing in Park meant in regards to this specific mission.

BELL + ADLER

these violent delights - micah nemerever / franz kafka’s letters to milena jesenska / frida kahlo / all i need - radiohead / the mark of athena - rick riordan / the lover as a cult - olivia gatwood

tv tropes + attack on titan ↳ character tropes: armin

Yeah sure gender swapped milf Adler is hot but let's not pretend that svelte English twink Park wouldn't do numbers on this site