“I’m alright, Guts.” said Griffith. His voice was
completely even.
“Bullshit.” said Guts.
“I am. ” Griffith said reaching out to clutch at
Guts’ hand. The grip was bruising.
“I just need a second to breathe.” he said. Guts
sat utterly still and watched his chest rise and fall for a few moments before
Griffith’s eyes opened like a wind up doll’s. Griffith bit his lip before
pulling Guts into a biting kiss.
Guts regarded him for a moment, noting the touch of wildness
still in the blown open pupils of his friend. Griffith slid off the couch. He
took Guts by the shirt and led him into the bedroom not blinking. He began to
undress.
The moonlight was bright that night, so neither of them
reached for the light. Guts’ eyes widened a little and he froze to the spot in
the doorway. He flicked his eyes away Griffith’s partial erection and swell of
his ass as he crawled on all fours on the bed.
Griffith turned onto
his back and arranged himself against the pillows. His eyes softened a bit.
“Come here. I want to show you something.” he
patted the bed next to him.
Guts walked over to him carefully like he was approaching a
wild animal that might be easily spooked. He sat down on the edge of the bed
and took Griffith’s hand. He placed a light kiss on his fingers.
Griffith closed his eyes and took a few slow deep breaths
before opening his eyes.
“Hi.” said Griffith in a small voice.
“Hi.” Guts said. His eyes wandered to Griffith’s
shoulder.
Griffith took
Guts’ hand and placed it over the scars.
“These I didn’t notice until I was bleeding. Casca had
to stop me. I was fourteen years old. ”
He waited for Guts to ask more and was relieved when he
asked for nothing. Guts’ expression was unreadable as he took his hand again
and placed them over his thighs. Guts gently traced the neat little scars with
his fingertips.
“That tickles.” Griffith said. He smiled a little.
“Sorry.” said Guts. Griffith stretched the scar
tissue for a second before letting snap back into place.
“And this is high school. I had a lot of
feelings.” he said in a mocking voice. He laughed.
Guts frowned at that. Griffith’s breath hitched a little at
the seriousness of his expression.
He placed Gut’s hand on his hip.
“I made these six months ago.”
Guts looked at the large, jagged scars
“You picked at them.” said Guts.
“Yeah. “Griffith mouthed with no voice.
Guts nodded. He seemed to be thinking.
Guts stoked the area with his thumb and leaned in and left a
kiss there. Griffith cupped the back of his head. Guts leaned down and left
another kiss on his thigh.
"Guts.” he said, his voice full. He covered his
face with his hands.
“I’ve got you.” he said as he leaned over him. Griffith
moved his hands away to look at this feral boy that was looking at him like he
was something fragile. He wasn’t sure that he liked it.
“Okay.” said Griffith with a nod.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” said Griffith. He felt the beginnings of a
smile tug at his lips.
“I said I wanted you, didn’t I?” He cupped Guts’
face in his hands. Guts smiled a little and pressed his lips almost chastely to
Griffith’s mouth. Griffith sighed as Guts made his way down to his neck, his
chest. He swirled his tongue around his navel. Griffith shuddered at the puff
of breath against the head of his cock. He looked down at Guts and blushed at
the little smile on Guts’ face. Guts looked back up at him.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the other night.” he
said. He beamed before taking Griffith in hand and opening his mouth.
“Fuck!” Griffith called out, digging his nails
into Guts’ shoulders. He felt large hands grip his hips. Guts seemed to go at
this task with the same enthusiasm as he did everything else and the frenetic
pace of his mouth (as well as the occasional scrape of teeth) left Griffith squirming.
“Guts! Guts slow down a little!” he said. He heard
a little noise that sounded like “sorry” from between his legs. Guts
took a second to gather himself before starting again. In short order, he found
a rhythm that alternated between bobbing his head and swirling his tongue.
Griffith threw his head back and made no sound, his mouth hanging open. Guts
let out a groan at the sight. Griffith let out a whimper and tugged at his
hair.
“Do you need to stop?” said Guts.
Griffith looked down at him. He shook his head.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Fingers.” Griffith said after he had caught his
breath.
“You want them inside?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have ,uh, stuff for that?” said Guts. He
blushed.
Griffith scrambled for the bedside drawer and put the small
tube into his hand. Guts leaned over him and smiled. He brushed Griffith’s hair
back from his face.
“Let’s give this a shot.” he said with a shrug.
Griffith smiled at the way Guts’ hand trembled as he applied the lube.
Guts slowly slid a finger in. Griffith closed his eyes
against the inevitable burning sensation.
“Okay?”
Griffith nodded.
“It just takes some adjusting.”
“I can put more on if you need it!” Guts moved to pull
his hand away but Griffith reached down and patted his arm.
“Just relax.” he said. They both laughed a little
at that. Guts closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’m ready for the second one.”
“Okay.” Guts said with a little nod to himself as
he slid the second one in.
“Now I know what I’m looking for is around here
somewhere.” Guts’ strong fingers probed around and Griffith let out a hiss
of pain.
“Gentle.” he ground out.
“Holy shit I’m so sorry!” Guts moved to slip out
of him again.
“Guts.” Griffith said softly. Guts moved over him
again and kissed him on the mouth. He left a trail of kisses over his cheeks
before burying his face in Griffith’s neck. He groaned. Griffith stroked his
hair.
“Why don’t you start by just moving in and out?”
he said.
“mhm.” said Guts.
He left a tiny
kiss on his throat before making his way down to Griffith’s erection again. He
swirled his tongue around the head several times before Griffith felt the
slightest movement inside him. Guts became more sure of himself and thrust
upward with his fingers as he made his first bob down with his mouth.
Griffith felt his body light up from his core.
“Yes! Yes just like that!” said Griffith. (“Mmmhm?”
from between his legs)
Griffith moved his hips to meet Guts’ fingers in response.
Guts redoubled his efforts. Soon Griffith was audibly panting .
“Guts!” Griffith called out as he came. Guts
slipped his fingers out and leaned up to kiss Griffith.
“It was okay?” Guts said softly. Griffith deepened
the kiss, surprised by the taste of himself in Guts’ mouth. Guts rolled over
next to him and spread his arms out.
They lay in the dark for a moment, letting their breathing
even out.
“I’ve never done anything like that before.” said
Guts.
Griffith kissed him.
“It was perfect.” he said, stoking Guts’ cheek.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m not just saying that. I’m not saying you’re not
new.” Griffith said. He reached for Guts’ hand.
But, you paid attention to me.“ Griffith’s voice
wavered a bit but he caught himself. He heard Guts’ sharp intake of breath.
"Well yeah. I mean isn’t the point to make the other
person feel good?” Guts let out a little laugh. The words hung in the air
for a few seconds before he spoke again.
“Griffith.” Guts said.
“Yeah?”
Guts looked at him for a moment and fidgeted with the edge
of his t-shirt. Griffith saw the outline of Guts in his shorts.
“Oh! Of course.” he said. He moved over to
straddle his lap and kissed him.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” said
Guts. He reached up to rub Griffith’s hips.
“Would you rather not?”
“It’s not that I just didn’t want you to feel-”
“Guts.”
Griffith got up from his knees and put his hands on Guts’
shoulders.
“ No one touches me unless I want them to, you
understand? If I offer I mean it.”
Guts nodded and took his shirt off. Griffith could see a scattering
of little scars all over the broad chest. He ran his fingers over some of the
larger ones.
“You’ll have to tell me about these someday.” he
said against his lips. He rolled his hips in little circles. Guts groaned and
took hold of Griffith by the thighs. Guts smiled into the kiss.
“Yeah, um, sure.” said Guts. His breath turned
into a sigh as Griffith made his way down his chest.
…………..
The shower almost immediately began to fog up the small
bathroom.
In the harsh light, the hair on Griffith’s legs was so fair
that Guts could hardly see it if not for the shine.
They walked into the shower together without speaking and
Griffith wrapped his arms around Guts’ neck and pressed their cheeks together.
The tension left his body completely
“Can I get your back?” said Griffith.
Gut’s stiffened for a moment before nodding.
Griffith rubbed his hand over the well muscled back, tracing
every muscle. He stopped at his waist. Guts took his hand and wrapped his
around him and pulled him forward.
“Are you sure?”
“Sort of?” Guts said with a harsh laugh.
“It bothers me but sometimes it doesn’t?” he
added.
Griffith nodded and pressed his chest against Guts’ back. He
nuzzled between his shoulder blades. He kissed him softly before gently
pressing his hips to the Guts’ ass. He felt his face get hot.
Guts sighed. Griffith
opened his mouth and lightly ran his teeth over a scar there. Guts snorted.
“You chewin’ on me?”
“Yes.” said Griffith around the his skin.
Guts squeezed his hand and brought it up to his lips. He
turned around.
“Let me get your hair.”
Griffith hummed at the pressure on his scalp. He shut his
eyes as the soapy water ran down his face.
“You’re going t get it all tangled.”
Guts twirled the hair even more tightly together after that.
They both laughed as they closed the space between them for a kiss. Guts
pressed himself too quickly against Griffith and his back made a loud squeak
against the tile. They both suppressed a smile. Guts rubbed them against the
wall again causing an even more spectacular squeak.
“Hmmm. So sexy.” Guts said against Griffith’s
lips. Griffith squirmed against him all while laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe; squeak, squeak, squeak.
“We can’t in here, Guts.” he said finally.
“Alright.” said Guts. He took Griffith’s hand as
they made their way to Griffith’s room without discussion.
They crawled into bed. Griffith nestled himself into Guts’ chest.
After a few moments of quiet, Guts spoke.
“Griffith?”
“Yes, love?”
“I have some… stuff.” Guts’ voice trailed off at
the end.
“Stuff?”
“Baggage. I have some really bad baggage.”
Griffith looked up at Guts, and he could see his jaw
clenching. Griffith reached to stroke his neck.
“So do I.” he said.
Guts nodded.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you I just-” Guts
said.
“It feels like if you say it you’ll fall apart?”
Griffith locked eyes with Guts. Guts’ eyes widened as he caught Griffith’s look. Violence, fire, the void itself in those eyes.
“Yeah, actually.” he said. Griffith seemed to come
back to himself a little bit.
“I just didn’t want to make whatever we are doing about,
I don’t know, something sad?” he added.
Griffith smiled against his chest.
“I know. We’ll figure it out.” Griffith squeezed his hand.
“Yeah.” said Guts with a frown. He pressed his
face into Griffith’s hair and took a breath.
Tiny paws tapped on
Griffith’s shoulder.
“Come here, baby.” he said. He patted the space above their heads.
Medusa curled into a ball and her tail brushed against
Griffith’s nose as she settled down. stretched out her paws before settling
into sleep.
This is extremely incomplete bc I’m only including stuff that is self-explanatory. No commentary from me. It’s still long as fuck tho so be aware that this is really image heavy when you click.
fellas is it gay to go on a “revenge journey” to distract urself from the fact that ure still in love w the man of ur life ?
anyway berserk is legit the gayest story i’ve ever seen that doesn’t technically confirm its canonicity, give or take guy ritchie’s sherlock holmes movies.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate bc he’s such an interesting complex character and I wish more people appreciated that. Tho I have a few ideas on why so many Berserk fans ignore most of the text and write Griffith off as evil from the start.
I mean obviously the biggest one is that Femto’s defining act of evil is rape. And tbh I put the blame pretty squrely on Miura for that one lol, like, I can’t actually blame anyone for being unable to feel sympathy for or enjoy the complexities of a character who later turns into a monster and rapes another major character.
Like the problem with using sexual assault as your major illustrative example of the ~darkness in the hearts of men~ or whatever is that it’s pretty damn common for people to have experienced it themselves, or know someone who has, and therefore reactions to a depiction of rape are inevitably a lot more visceral than reactions to say, murder or torture. Even if Griffith is depicted as a sympathetic, three dimensional, very interesting character throughout the Golden Age, I can’t blame anyone for not giving a fuck and just hating him anyway because his evil alter ego’s first act was rape. People ignoring your good writing is a price you pay as a creator for using rape as shock value and cheap drama.
(Plus when you add his badly written night with Charlotte to the mix, like, again, I can’t blame anyone for going “fuck this guy” and not caring about his depth of character. Like I don’t think the night with Charlotte is meant to be read as rape because there are zero indications that we’re supposed to think it’s skeevy or even potentially morally dubious once Charlotte gets into it – to me it reads like a badly written bodice-ripper type scene where the woman just has to get turned on and then she forgets propriety and enjoys herself – but again, that’s on Miura and his sometimes shitty writing.)
However, that said, from what I’ve seen the vast majority of Griffith haters still love Guts, who also sexually assaults the very same character (except Guts hadn’t even just been magically transformed first, and the first time he sexually assaulted her was long before the hound ever made an appearance), so like, when so many people condemn one character and excuse another for the same thing, there’s obviously something else at work.
So putting aside the rape, I think there are a lot of other factors as to why Griffith is so hated while very few of his haters extend that ire to Guts as well.
Like, for starters, Griffith is gay, or at the very least, gay coded and feminine in appearance and clearly in love with the protagonist, which definitely makes a lot of straight cis dude fans uncomfortable and a lot less likely to be able to empathize with him, judging by the offensive nicknames they tend to use for him.
But then there’s also just the way Griffith lies to himself, which, if you tend to take things at face value in a story, is going to give you a serious misunderstanding of his character. Eg, a lot of fans think that when he tells Casca he doesn’t feel guilty for the deaths of the people who follow him he’s being genuinely truthful and sociopathic lol, ignoring the fact that he’s self-harming grotesquely during that conversation, among other hints that he’s deluding himself. Lots of people take character dialogue as ultimate truth, missing other context clues that are often more revealing.
And then there’s the fact that he ends up betraying the protagonist and becoming an antagonist, and a lot of people just aren’t interested in moral grey stories so they project black and white values onto it. So since Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is the antagonist, everything he’s done must have been evil and he must’ve been solely motivated by selfish desire for power, and they’ll twist the story to find support for that. Like I’ve seen people who take Griffith’s “I will choose the place that you die” as evidence that he’s been planning to sacrifice everyone for power from the very start lol, even though that makes zero sense, just because they need Griffith to have been villainous all along or the story doesn’t fit their moral framework.
Like, while Berserk takes a general moral stance that a person’s actions shape them, a lot of people believe that a person’s actions reveal their true, innate nature deep down. So, to them, Griffith sacrificing the Band isn’t an act that turns him into a monster, it’s an act that reveals he’s always been a monster and now the veneer of humanity has been removed. Yk, the kind of fans who say that if Griffith was a good person he wouldn’t’ve sacrificed his friends, because no good person would ever do that, as though Good and Evil are qualities a person is born with. Which I consider to be an extremely boring way of looking at fiction, and a troubling way of viewing morality, and totally at odds with what Miura’s attempting to say, but people will always bring their own philosophy to the table.
Similarly I think that, at least for some people, this is why Guts’ frankly evil actions get totally downplayed or written off – because he’s the protagonist so he has to be A Good Person. Therefore he had to have been possessed by an evil spirit when he assaulted Casca (despite the fact that the first time was in Godo’s spirit-repelling cave and most people forget that even happened, and the second time was in broad daylight without a ghost in sight or any visual indication that Guts was anything other than himself.) Or they say it’s okay because Guts stopped before actually penetrating her, and he’s had a hard life, and cut him a little slack and let him get back together with Casca bc he’s a good person and he deserves to be happy blah blah horrifying blah.
idk I’m definitely not accusing everyone who hates Griffith and flattens his character of being a hypocrite lol, like I said, there are plenty of possible reasons to view him as evil, and some are totally reasonable. But yk there is kind of a double standard at work when people love Guts and hate Griffith and I think it’s worth looking at why that might be.
guts and griff tiny on the side pursuing their dreams while dwarfed by their other half and their feelings for him. and these monologues in general are pretty comparable so i feel like this is purposeful.
also like – while griffith has come to the realization that his dream is nothing compared to guts, guts gets it into his head to pursue a dream because of his feelings for griffith (not just love but respect and admiration etc), and wanting griffith to return them. they’re kind of evolving in opposite directions here, but both motivated by the other.
I’m doing some light re-reading today in search of panels to edit and, well… this exchange really got me. “If you were able to find a place for yourself somewhere…” Farnese’s meeting with her mother comes only two chapters after Farnese remarks that it’s been a long time since she’s taken a bath alone. She thinks about Casca and wonders if she’s being properly cared for…
I wonder where that place is? The place that Farnese belongs? 🤔
I forgot to add that this is right after she “nah”d Guts~
maybe i’m looking to deep in this but farnese dialogue on the top remind me of a certain someone…idk if im trippin but..when i read her dialogue it reminded me of Guts little talk about the campfire of dreams
i’ve totally thought this too actually! idk i think it fits in with the vibe of guts’ new rpg group being a chance to not repeat the mistakes of the past maybe?
like guts didn’t get a second chance until it was too late, but farnese did. it’s kinda heartwarming.
Guts thinking about the Band, remembering them and recognizing that their memories are part of what drives and inspires him and keeps him going now. His bros and comrades get one page, and Casca and Griffith get the next two and like, goddamn that image. (And this isn’t even about how his platonic Hawk bros get their moment and then his objects of sexual affection get theirs js.)
Like yeah I wrote a long post about how Guts and Casca’s relationship is all about Griffith from start to end but yk I could’ve just posted this page because it says the exact same thing in a lot fewer words.
I mean look at it. Guts and Casca having sex. Casca is facing towards us/Guts, Griffith is, once again, facing away. But they’re wrapped in his cape. They are connecting to each other in Griffith’s absence – Griffith is unavailable, emotionally and literally, but Casca is there and ready to be connected to. And his presence literally surrounds them as they fuck out their feelings about him thru each other.
And it’s two pages before Guts’ revelation that leaving her behind was just like abandoning Griffith which makes him vow to find her and make up for it. Liiiiiiike these parallels aren’t subtle.
more on this page bc i’m not over it yet
speaking of comparing griffith watching guts fight zodd with his heart beating to the moment griffith first sees guts facing off against bazuso
(incidentally the same page guts asks whether griffith is gay)
more half faces, sultry eyes, talk of risking death, and guts’ lookin sweaty
like I don’t rly think this is a purposeful callback to these moments lol, but i sure have fun drawing the comparison, and that sexy half face is pretty consistent.
then from griffith’s perspective you have guts looking, imho, hotter than he usually looks. the half-face cuts off his missing eye, he’s sweaty and panting with exertion, the lighting highlights the planes of his face very well, hair catching the light, intense expression but not heightened or exaggerated – just makes him look angry in a manly way lbr.
like ok i’m not going thru 250 chapters looking for images of guts from the perspectives of other ppl with crushes on him like farnese, bc i didn’t keep track of that on my readthru so i have no idea where they might be, so i have no comparisons here when it comes to guts’ image. but yk, basically i just think this page feels charged af and i love it.
IN HEAVEN, EVERYTHING IS FINE
( @josuckemydick wanted Griffith in 5A!)
woah woah woah i just realized that if we get a time skip after skellig then there’s a chance we’ll get to see master swordsman theresia, adult and badass and ready to kick guts’ ass
and the matching clouds of breath on that page as a subtle reminder that griffith may be a god now but he’s got human characteristics now that he’s flesh and blood
and a subtle illustration of his turbulent emotions despite the serene image he portrays – we see guts panting heavily after exerting himself, while griffith looks calm, yet he has the same breath, and his heart is pounding
idk if i know enough about how like, muscles work lol. he’d probably lose most of it at least if he’s not fighting or working out for 2 years. in canon i think current casca is drawn quite a bit less muscled now the few times you see her naked.
you're the only one 