Uh Oh Nurse He's Escaped Again

Uh oh nurse he's escaped again

bell stuff

"Is it better to grieve what you lost or to not know you had anything to lose" - this is something my friend said when I was brain rotting about Bell one night and I genuinely don't think I will ever get over it.

Something that I'm going to try and talk about on here are my head canons and just general thoughts for different characters so it's only natural to talk about Bell. something that I think about a lot when it comes to Bell is the one sided/unrequited love trope between Bell and Adler. They have such an interesting dynamic and the fact that to Bell, Adler is their EVERYTHING is something I always get really hung up on. To me Bell and Adler's relationship is VERY "Somethin' Stupid" by Frank Sinatra. Bell spends their days following Adler around like a lost puppy. They are simply nothing without Adler's commands and unknowingly cannot help but *love* Adler because of this fabricated bond. I don't think that Bell would ever notice how easily Adler gets snappy with them, or how just generally hostile he is. I believe that every time Bell had a nightmare or couldn't sleep they immediately went to Adler opposed to Sims or Park. Every time Bell needed something they went to Adler no matter the time of day, or how big or small the ask was. Because of Bell's false friendship with Adler (Bell LITERALLY being made to believe that Adler was their best friend) I think that bothers Adler to an unreasonable extent; in the terms of Somethin' Stupid because I really love toxic yaoi, I just need Bell misinterpreting Adler's unusually kind acts as acts of love opposed to things hes doing to "get the job done," and in return Adler just genuinely hating Bell.

Anyway, due to the brain washing and conditioning Bell getting fed false memories of doing things with Alder to "strengthen their bond," to Bell Adler is genuinely their best friend - and it doesn't matter if this is platonic or stems into something more because I genuinely believe that Adler would despise Bell for it either way.

I believe that Adler is a generally spiteful man, no matter the scenario. So when you place him into the position where he has to "befriend" and "work with" a known communist terrorist?? Who was VERY high up in Perseus' ranks?? Naturally Adler is going to see Bell as scum and that fact is so important to me. I think that this would prevent Adler from forming any actual bond with Bell which is why he didn't hesitate after the Cuba mission to potentially make Bell overdose (just generally having zero regard for their safety), and why he so easily killed Bell during the Solovetsky ending. (If we take the Duga endings into account, Adler kills Bell and feels nothing but anger knowing that he was right in believing they were scum, and he tries to do the same in the Revenge ending but doesn't succeed.) This dynamic of Bell being dependent on Adler, and Adler hating Bell for existing is something that drives me insane.

It is the fact that at the end of the day, Bell is a fundamentally good person. That upon erasing everything they were, in the canon ending, Bell chose to tell the truth. And I think that is something Adler can't handle. Despite it all, Bell was a good person. Which is why a "happy" Solovetsky ending is something that actually ruined my life LMAO. No matter what, at least one of their guns went off and lets just say hypothetically neither of them got fatally wounded. You now have Adler, a man who despises Bell and failed to 'take out the trash,' and Bell, who can't even fathom why Adler would pull a gun on them in the first place. But with that, you also have a Bell who would be incapable of integrating back into society. Bell is someone who doesn't even know their own name, let alone their mother's face, the town they grew up in, how old they are, their favorite food, and anything else the CIA thought was unimportant when they erased Bell's identity. Realistically how could Bell ever recover from that? Bell has legitimate PTSD, not only from MKUltura, but from Vietnam; a country they never stepped foot in. Bell would still have that dependency on Adler to tell them what the next step is; "We have a job to do," is such a daunting phrase for a post-Solovetsky era Bell. A Bell where they lack all senses of individuality, and are absolutely terrified to do and decide things for themselves is so unbelievably real to me.

I know this has gotten a lot less well worded and more ramble-ish BUT the quote from the beginning of this post: "Is it better to grieve what you lost or to not know you had anything to lose?" Is it better for Bell to have died on the cliff in Solovetsky, not having the time to fully realize the extent of the gaps in their memory. Or for Bell to live and try to recover? Just. The idea that Adler did Bell a favor in killing them, that it was his one act of remorse rather than revenge fills my stomach with dread.

Okay that's all thank you.