#the peculiar afterlife of Gilbert Beilschmidt

[historia-vitae-magistras]

semi-related to prussia's -justified- hate, do you think gilbert is happy he finally doesn't to be a soldier? (or knight. oh i'd be funny if gil its like "i wasn't always prussia" *the teutonic knights are also often hated*)

Weirdly, one of the first fics I ever wrote for this fandom was Gilbert in the early 90s, trying to adjust not only to his civilian afterlife and Ludwig being in charge but also to the speed of change the world saw. Especially in the west, tech was advancing so rapidly, and society was changing so much he had a hard time grappling with it all come the fall of the wall. As East Germany, I think he kind of clung to even the shitty communist uniform he didn't like at all. It was a sense of order, a routine he could adhere to so he didn't lose his fucking mind.

Britain and, to a slightly lesser extent, France had some concerns over the 2 + 4 treaty, and a slightly shitposty old headcanon of mine is that for Gilbert's rehabilitation, he had to wear an ankle tracker for a while when he was living in Ludwig's basement in those early years. So between that somewhat humiliating start, Ludwig's authority over him, and his getting booted out of the army when a unified Germany took over and dismantled the Volksarmee and didn't incorporate any of them into the Bundeswehr, he's pretty depressed. But he adjusted and came to enjoy his afterlife. It was sort of the first time in his life he didn't represent something blatantly militant, and it did wonders for his personality. He spent the years after the end of the Cold War making friends again, figuring out a thousand years of trauma, etc. It was a rough start, but he turned out all right.