#k0eter's thoughts

Abraham hadn't minded; the old man had never cared whether Alucard devoured the mice roaming the house or the stray cats outside – on the rare occasion the vampire was actually allowed to spend time outside. Cats had become a delicacy at some point, while mice and rats were a welcome diversion to the cold, stale blood in plastic bags.

But that one time he found a cat indoors – a young one at that, the taste was telling –, he terribly upset Abraham and young Arthur. Abraham had scolded the vampire; revoked his permission to roam the common rooms on the ground floor. And young Arthur had been crying for days, mourning the cat. At first, Alucard didn't quite understand why the boy was crying over a cat of all things. They had plenty of those in the neighbourhood, after all. The Hellsing estate wouldn't suffer any losses from a cat less, after all, wasn't Alucard their resident cat, albeit oversized and bipedal? He was much more efficient at keeping the household rat- and mice-free.

But then, after the distraught young Arthur had symbolically buried the cat - there was no body to be buried, after all, since Alucard had devoured it whole -, it dawned on the vampire. It wasn't just any cat. It was the young boy's pet companion, the one that kept the boy's bed warm at night and lulled him to sleep with its purr.

After that, Alucard decided that cats were no longer a delicacy. Abraham's wrath and young Arthur's grief had tarnished their taste; made it bitter with the taste of a grave mistake committed.

-- an excerpt from one of the dozen fic drafts on my GDrive

Edit: now available on AO3:

So a few days ago, I read a series of fan fictions by an incredible author over on AO3, and I took to the comments to express my appreciation for them. Lo and behold, we talked and rambled about the characters and the challenges they're facing, as well as the implications this all has for their mental health. I've already written a shitload of stuff on that in the comments, but now that I've revisited our comments, I've got even more thoughts on that. And since I don't wanna be overbearing or something like that in a fan fiction's comments, I'll just continue rambling here. I didn't title my blog "random reblogs and thoughts" for nothing lol

For context, one of the core topics of our discussion was immortality and the personality of Alucard from Hellsing.

The author quoted Doctor Who:

"that’s your punishment, you live”

And it's scary how true that statement is.

If you've committed a serious crime, your punishment usually is a jail sentence, or in severe cases, execution/death penalty (by more humane means nowadays). Your punishment, at its core, is that you have to live with the guilt for a few years, and if you're not too far gone, you can actually learn to forgive yourself for what you've done. Usually by, or rather during serving your jail sentence specifically. On one hand (and in a perfect world), it's meant to keep you away from society so you're not enticed to commit more crimes, and to keep society safe - from you. On the other hand, it takes you outta society and deprives you of most luxuries so you can't do much else but dwell on whatever you did or didn't do. It forces you to confront your past mistakes. Of course, it doesn't always works out that way, because most prisons nowadays still focus on punishment rather than rehabilitating and resocializing. We're not living in a perfect world after all.

In an immortal's case, however, it's not that simple, regardless of whether or not they've served a jail sentence. Their sentence is literally their neverending life. They can't look forward to growing old and dying and never having to bother with their mistakes again, which in my opinion definitely (albeit subconsciously for most) contributes to being able to forgive yourself in the first place.

As a mortal, your life is finite, so if you can't forgive yourself at some point, you're just gonna make yourself miserable over and over again. You're gonna make your own life worse.

To avoid that, your subconscious hopefully nudges you towards forgiving yourself, because there's so much to enjoy about life still, it'd be a waste to spend your days obsessing over your flaws and guilt. If you work towards redemption in whatever way, your reward - at some point - will be your death. Because death is inevitable for you. And if death comes for you, you've either forgiven yourself or you haven't. Once you're dead, it doesn't matter that much anymore, from a realistic point of view at least. In my humble opinion, it's the time leading up to your death that matters the most.

Immortals like e. g. Alucard from Hellsing don't get that kind of mercy. They know they can't die, so they don't get to look forward to the sunset of their life where they can just go "oh well, I did some seriously fucked up shit in life, but that's in the past. Best not dwell on it and enjoy my remaining days". They KNOW they'll have to carry their guilt and flaws forever. There's no "end of their days" they can look forward to even if they're unable to forgive themselves. Sure, eventually, their memories of the atrocities they've committed will fade and lose their meaning, but it won't erase the scars it's left on their psyche and soul. In a way, I think, death is the highest level of resolution and mercy you can be awarded. You spend your whole life working for or towards something, and whether or not you've achieved that specific, you will eventually always be rewarded with an end - death. It's up to you whether that end is good or bad to you.

Immortals have essentially robbed themselves of ever achieving that resolution, at least if they've chosen immortality (like Alucard from Hellsing did). Their unlife essentially equals a rat race. They keep going and going and going, always moving, but never reaching their final destination that absolves them of all their guilt - death.

It keeps surprising me that if I've got enough time and spare brain cells on my hand, I can actually create BEHEMOTHs of text within a couple of hours or days. Including research.

I mean, for that one text, I've been reading through 3 or 4 papers on myelin and nerves and nociceptors because I was wondering whether a thicker myelin layer impacts pain perception as well, and ... well, I haven't gotten to a solid conclusion yet, because that topic is a fucking rabbithole.

Mind you, all this stuff and ventures into research stem from one (1) exchange related to a fandom.