I Just Realized Bert Would Ace The Umbrella Dalgona From Squid Games. Dunno About Being Under Pressure

"bertholdt, that thing does NOT look like me"

Reiner being normal

dear bertholdt.

Summary: Reiner left his overcoat in preparation for a meeting and asked Annie to get it from his room. Begrudgingly, she agreed. Though she immediately regrets it when a box of letters falls from the top shelf. Maybe regret isn’t all there is. She found something more.

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CW: angst, canon compliant (so major characters death,, Bertholdt is dead<3), rba centric, can be read as romantic or platonic reibert but reibert nonetheless

Takes place post-timeskip (the second one, post-war), a few years into settling into ambassador life.

Apologies for any ooc, I don’t think I’ve ever written a fic in Annie’s perspective/focus,, I also haven’t written on her before and also haven’t written and posted in general for forever

(This was meant to be a comic and is so clear in my mind but I don’t have the time nor talent to execute it 😔)

Happy Birthday Bertholdt can’t believe ur dead ♥️

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Reiner told her to get his coat. What that asshole didn’t tell her was how ridiculously high his coat hangers were. It shouldn’t have loomed over her the way it did. It was almost taunting, mocking her with its impossible height. They had probably raised Reiner’s closet bar for his big, hulking self and possibly lowered hers as some sort of unspoken courtesy. Annie sighed deeply, already regretting being here. Sure, tell the short girl to get your big ass coat from your tall ass closet. Embarrassingly, she jumped; she jumped a few times. If a glare could kill, there'd be holes burnt into the pockets.

Fuck off.

The stupid coat was simply out of reach. She could usually manage by grabbing the shoulder and lifting it from there but even then she couldn’t manage. She kicked the closet door in frustration, hard enough to make it rattle, and looked around for reinforcements. Somewhere nearby had to be a stool or something, anything, to make this easier. 

She found a tall chair and dragged it over with a bit more force than necessary. The legs scraped against the floor and that sound annoyed her even more. 

Finally, she lined it up, climbed up with a huff, and snatched the coat off the hanger in one triumphant, final fuck you. But as she jumped off the chair with her prize, she heard something else fall. A clatter, a shuffle, the distinct sound of things spilling. She grumbled and turned around.

If I have to do one more thing, I’m killing someone.

She cringed when her eyes fell onto the mess. Her jumping and kicking and overall exasperation now had a bunch of shit spilled on the floor from the top shelf of the tall closet. An old box, the size and look of a shoe box, had lost its lid and scattered papers everywhere. She at first started to snatch them up without discretion, just trying to stuff them back in. But a name caught her eyes.

Bertholdt.

Her fingers froze. She didn’t want to snoop. She would have killed anyone who went through her stuff like this. She tried to cast out the memory of seeing the name. She quickly tried to collect them all and put the box, along with this moment, far back into the closet. But there it was again, unmistakable.

Bertholdt.

Something came over her. An overwhelming wave, pulling her under before she could even name it. It felt so sudden, so heavy, all-consuming. She held the pages in her hands, her grip tightening unconsciously. 

The small, trembling pool she had collected seemed insignificant against the sheer ocean of papers spilled out before her. They spread across the floor like a map of emotions she wasn’t sure she wanted to navigate. And each one… each one bore the same familiar name.

Dear Bertholdt,

Her chest tightened, an ache spreading in places she thought she’d long since numbed. With a breath, she carefully placed them in the box one by one. It blurred past her, the same line repeated over and over. Her eyes couldn’t help but snag on the same arrangement of letters, the same handwriting. There were a hundred, maybe even more, all addressed… and dated. She paused.  

They had an order. 

Written at the top of each of them was a date. Everything was spilled all over the floor and each one was supposed to be neatly tucked away in order. She bit the insides of her cheeks.

Forgive me.

Dates flashed by. She tried to put them in order without reading any of its contents. It felt impossible, especially when there were letters that seemed to be multiple pages long. She tried to group them to the best of her abilities, organizing them by date and putting them in piles face down when she found the correct order. But words blurred past, recognizable phrases, handwriting that got shakier, years and years and years, consistent dating on every one.

“I miss you.” “I’m sorry.” “If I could go back…” “I wish you were here.” “I can’t forgive myself.” “You deserved better.”

Her breath hitched, the edges of the pages almost cutting into her fingers as she clutched them tighter. She tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat, but it only grew heavier with every second she spent kneeling there, surrounded by years of unspoken… emotions; emotions she never knew she had.

When did I start crying?

A tear fell from her cheek and nearly hit the precious paper. An aching feeling had creeped into her body. Emotions she never really thought were there seemed to spill. She couldn’t name it. It felt like a sudden burn in her nose, the need to swallow a bitter taste, eyes blurring. She was drowning. 

30.12.854

The letter she held was dated shakily at the top. She’d seen that same date come up again and again. For a moment, she tried to remember if maybe New Years or any holiday around that time meant something to them; as warriors, they didn’t really celebrate holidays, let alone religion. 

She took a breath and put it in the 854 pile. She looked at the stack. 854. That would have been… that would have been the year of the rumbling. It would have been the year everything changed. 

And he never got to see it.

She looked at all of the piles she’d now made, how each represented a year. She tried to push any judgements or perceptions away from her mind. But some years piled higher than others. Three piles in particular. She gathered the final loose letters. 

Her mind drifted to her time in the crystal. The silence had been maddening, a suffocating void she couldn’t escape. She had been awake in that void, terrifyingly, agonizingly awake. The only light that had ever pierced through the endless dark had been Armin’s voice, Hitch’s chatter. Their persistence had saved her, kept her tethered to something beyond the emptiness. But it always puzzled her why they did it in the first place.

I know.

She placed the final letter. The paper felt different; crinkled and messy, rough and smeared. 30.12.850; old, the oldest one. She finally gathered all of them, stacking them neatly away in the box.  She stared at the box in front of her, now neatly packed, the letters arranged in quiet, solemn order. The shoebox felt heavier than it had any right to be. There was only paper within it. Something else weighed it down. 

I know.

She exited the room quietly, holding the coat tenderly in her hands. She gave it to him when they met in town without a single complaint. She never spoke about what she had found to Reiner or anyone else for that matter. 

Their now shared secret lay in a small box that once held shoes for a warrior.

people are literally so boring a male character will kill 10000 people and steal candy from babies and theyll be like omg thats my king! but a female character is rude once and theyre like i hope she dies violently

random pictures i have of bert

I wonder what they meant by that

that's what fanfic is about I'm pretty sure?

I swear that ppl complaining bout Bertholdts name have never been in other fandoms. Like legit this is one of the normal names you can find in anime&manga. Really you have seen NOTHING

random aot headcanons that are far from canon

- yelena has an accent, i can definitely see her with a russian accent

- bertholdt loves funnel cakes, he tried learning how to make them himself but it didn't really work out

- jean struggles a lot with his handwriting but is too embarrassed to ask anyone for help

- levi loves knitting, he even taught gabi how to knit

- annie also has an accent, though i can't pinpoint what accent would be best on her

- zeke coughs a lot to the point where it's painful for him, it's due to his smoking

- mikasa is afraid of vampires, eren told her and armin a scary story try while they were on a camping trip and the story has haunted her ever since

- porco hates the summer, he hates sweating and he hates the burning hot sun, marcel is the opposite

- eren & armin like holding hands, mostly due to the fact that arming gets really nervous sometimes, everyone (connie and jean) think it's weird but eren could care less

- erwin loves planting flowers, especially with his dad, ot's how they bond

I’ll say it with my full chest: Bertholdt is equally as complex—if not more—as any other character in AoT and people only see him as ‘boring’ or ‘just there’ because he is quiet.

In a show full of natural born leaders, those who act without hesitation, who speak their minds loudly and impassioned, it’s easy for a quiet character to be seen as unimportant. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Bertholdt’s quiet demeanor is not to be mistaken with simplicity—to me, he is a textbook overthinker, riddled with conflicting thoughts, growing fears, and guilt that remains firmly planted in his mind, taking root there and growing out of control.

As someone who is quiet and meek by nature, it’s not surprising that Bertholdt grows into this nervous, indecisive person—he’s been a warrior since he was a child, an immense weight placed on his shoulders, the burden of being someone able to cause mass destruction with ease.

He’s been used as a weapon, constantly told what to do by others; he can master any skill better than most others, but lacks the power to do anything with those skills until he’s told.

He knows that if he is obedient, if he does what he is told is right, that he will be able to save his sick father, become an honorary Marleyan, and have some semblance of peace and safety. To him, at this point, he can be someone who defeats evil if he stays on the right path.

But, this becomes less simple as Bertholdt becomes wracked with guilt as he grows more and more aware of the truths of the world and the war he’s been forced to fight in; one that is not against evil, but driven by fear and hate.

We see it from one of his first ever interactions—when he uses the hanged man’s story as his own cover story when he speaks to Eren and Armin for the first time. Sure, he was trying to blend in, but he could’ve just as easily made something up.

That story had actually been weighing heavily on him, when he reveals that he’d been having recurring nightmares about it and asks Reiner in private why that man would bother telling that story just to later hang himself.

The thought is brushed aside rather quickly, but this gives us a look into Bertholdt’s mind and personality; someone battling inner turmoil, someone who contemplates what it means to have agency over life and death, someone who grapples with guilt.

He likely believed that the man wanted to be judged for his actions, to feel the weight of his guilt, before taking his own life; just as Bertholdt already felt the guilt of his actions in destroying Shiganshina and subconsciously was likely seeking out judgment and consequence. His sleeping position even matches The Hanged Man tarot card.

Later, we see Bertholdt’s guilt, emotions, and inactions reach a boiling point that compromises the warriors’ mission. He lets Armin use his feelings toward Annie as leverage to distract him, and he has a breakdown as he confesses to his friends in the Scouts that he hates what he’s done, that he genuinely does consider them friends, and that he wants to pay for what he’s done.

He knows that it was because of him that Eren ended up getting away, that he’d be the reason that Reiner and Annie would continue being in danger in Paradis, their mission now prolonged—his guilt only continues to build.

Moments before the return to Shiganshina, Zeke and Reiner had both told him that he needs to begin acting on his own, Reiner even going so far as to call him unreliable.

As someone who relies on the people he cares about and seeks direction from them, hearing that his own friends and comrades actually doubt his abilities and reliability would shake him to his core.

This interaction surely made him steel himself, made him push down his emotions, made him act. It made him put on a mask of apathy toward the Scouts, his friends, and nihilism toward the world around him, and play a role.

(Not to mention, Bertholdt has now seen Reiner—this person who was seen as weak, who was never even meant to be a warrior in the first place—grow into an actionable leader, and I can only imagine that would make his own self-doubts grow.)

I think when he transformed into the Colossal, part of him also genuinely did want it all to end, there, no matter the consequences. Reiner was too injured at that point to be the leader; it was his one, final chance to prove himself, to show that he is capable of doing something.

And I believe, too, that he was a terrified kid who just wanted the fighting to end—knowing that if it didn’t happen there, it would happen eventually, after more and more death and destruction.

He knows these people, his so-called enemies aren’t devils, aren’t evil, and don’t deserve death simply for being born on the opposite side of a war, but they have to die to prevent further bloodshed and catastrophe.

He knows the world is a cruel place, and there’s no changing it. He’s one of the first people to acknowledge that both sides are just doing what they think is the right thing, and if that’s the case, then the “right thing” ceases to exist. There are no devils; there are simply two sides and the hatred that fuels them.

There was no other way out this time—he couldn’t crumble under the weight of his guilt and risk compromising their mission again, for the sake of Reiner, for the sake of Annie, for the sake of his father, for the sake of everyone. He’d already done that before, and he couldn’t do it again—his true nature, to him, was nothing but a weakness.

He’d been fighting for his whole life, had seen and done unimaginable things that tormented him, had learned truths about the world that shattered what he’d been taught since childhood, and he knew that one way or another, things were going to play out in a horrific, gruesome way.

And at that moment, he accepted it because he had no other choice.

You could see his behavior in his last moments as true apathy—but I don’t. I see it as a terrified, exhausted, guilt-riddled kid living in a painfully cruel world, wanting to make it all stop and knowing that a peaceful outcome was never going to happen, that the cycles of hatred never cease.

I see it as him putting on a metaphorical armor to push past his own fears, guilts, and powerlessness.

And in his death, you see him return to his true self, his true nature—a timid, scared, lost and lonely boy, reaching out for the help of his friends…