mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

yk i think about this scene when i think about why griffith would’ve fallen for guts, bc i tend to think that at least part of the reason is that guts treats him like a person, rather than as a beacon of hope or portent of doom lol. which is exemplified when he dumps a bucket of water on his head.

but man how about why guts fell for griffith? guts, who never got to be a kid, who was trained as a mercenary since like age 4, never had any friends growing up, no one around his own age. he’s never played with friends before. like this is probably the first time he’s ever had fun with someone his own age.

If Griffith wanted someone to treat him as a person(/equal), well, that’s also what Guts wants, just from the opposite side. Griffith gets too much regard, positive and negative, and Guts doesn’t get enough, positive or negative.

Like sure this scene ends with Griffith talking about becoming a king and Guts looking up at him, blinded by the sun, but the potential is right here.

Yes.
This is great actually.
In the beginning I kinda thought that they were going with the broody young man meets manic pixie girl tropey route with this, like a little bit.

But it ended up having so many more layers and mutual motivations I was really pleased.

Like when you bring up Griffith’s attraction, I also remembered that for a moment in this scene, after Guts dumps the bucket on Griffith, he actually gets a little pissed for a moment and opens his mouth to shout at him, then looks surprised at himself, breaths out and starts laughing.

I think in a way Guts is also about spontaneity to Griffith. He’s been emotionally repressing and distancing himself so long, that finding himself feeling annoyance or surprise despite himself is maybe even a little liberating.

On a side note those reoccurring small sequences of panels in the manga are imo what make it so great. Like the nuance. Nngh.

And I absolutely agree with what you said about Guts.

gyodragon:

This one was my favorite from a small batch of ‘guts and griffith friendly competition’ sketches

Going up against Guts in a contest of pure strength is hardly fair, is it? haha! But I think Guts would have a really noncommettal, non-alpha dog expression while easily besting his opponent. And Griffith would probably be pretty disgruntled in defeat at first, before declaring how much fun contests like these were.

i usually think abt guts love for griffith bc its so ignored, but ngl griffiths love for guts is super interesting too, bc its often reduced down to possessiveness/him being evil?idk love them

Man ia Guts’ love for Griffith is ignored way too much, but also yeah reducing Griffith’s love for Guts down to ~evil possessiveness~ is one of my pet peeves.

imo he’s possessive because he’s stunted emotionally (like most of Berserk’s cast lol), but that doesn’t mean he only loves Guts as an asset, it means he has v little ability to recognize and compartmentalize his emotions so he responds to extreme feelings generally pretty badly.

Like Guts is compared to Griffith’s dream a lot which to me is saying that when Griffith fell in love with Guts he’d never felt so strongly about anything else, other than his dream. (”I want you, Guts.” “Griffith’s never said a thing like that… not to anybody!”) And because his whole raison d’etre is seizing his dream, now that something else makes him feel the same amount of need and desire, he “must obtain” him. He has no other frame of reference for what he’s feeling lol.

But in actual action he’s not controlling. Guts does whatever the fuck he wants in battle and Griffith plans around it, eg. Griffith asks Guts to help him out with his assassinations, which the narrative specifically draws attention to, and Guts is the one who wants it to be an order. Griffith risks his life and dream for Guts multiple times and can never explain why. Griffith, according to Casca, doesn’t control Guts enough as a leader. Griffith self-consciously asks Guts if he thinks he’s cruel for asking him (or maybe ordering him after Guts’ response to Griffith phrasing it as a question for the first assassination) to help him with the bonfire assassinations. Griffith’s whole speech about friendship is about desiring an equal who he doesn’t own, and can’t control, and his monologue in the torture chamber is about realizing that Guts was that person.

I really love Griffith’s inner monologue during the second duel because it’s such a powerful emotional breakdown imo, and it feels so childish to me. It seems like he’s falling back on “you can’t leave, I own you” because he has nothing else, no other way to respond to the thought of being abandoned, no other way to contextualize what he’s feeling. He’s clinging to a sense of ownership bc it’s the only part of his relationship to/feelings for Guts he really understands, and it’s a defense against the uncontrollable messiness of his feelings – a way to repress his love and need and feelings of rejection and loss and self-loathing, and a way to repress his realization of “when did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold over me?” – that ultimately fails.

It just feels so consistent with the childish aspects of Griffith’s character, and the part of him that represses his emotions until they seep out in horrifying ways (eg self harm, risky sex, thinking it’s better to risk killing Guts than to let him “reject” him, etc).

Idk basically I like Griffith’s possessiveness because it’s a flaw that rears its ugly head to fuck up his relationship with Guts, and is actually entirely counter-productive to the relationship he genuinely wants with Guts (equality). But it’s nowhere close to the be-all end-all of his feelings for him.

yk i think about this scene when i think about why griffith would’ve fallen for guts, bc i tend to think that at least part of the reason is that guts treats him like a person, rather than as a beacon of hope or portent of doom lol. which is exemplified when he dumps a bucket of water on his head.

but man how about why guts fell for griffith? guts, who never got to be a kid, who was trained as a mercenary since like age 4, never had any friends growing up, no one around his own age. he’s never played with friends before. like this is probably the first time he’s ever had fun with someone his own age.

If Griffith wanted someone to treat him as a person(/equal), well, that’s also what Guts wants, just from the opposite side. Griffith gets too much regard, positive and negative, and Guts doesn’t get enough, positive or negative.

Like sure this scene ends with Griffith talking about becoming a king and Guts looking up at him, blinded by the sun, but the potential is right here.

Will I ever be over Guts spending their last battle fondly thinking about how cool and in control Griffith is as he plans to leave, only to completely destroy him when he does? Signs point to no.

sorry if you’ve been asked this before but, if you like astrology, (COSMOLOGY OF THEIR UNIVERSE ASIDE) do you have any headcanon signs for the berserk characters? i always struggle with this bc they’re so complex that i feel like i’d have to come up with an entire chart, not just the sun sign, for each of them. so you can do sun signs or sun+ascendant+moon if you like, that might be a little more complex. bonus question: what’s your sign, if you don’t mind sharing?

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

tbh I barely know anything about astrology so I’d be pretty useless at sorting the characters, sorry.

I’m going to post this though bc I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts, for anyone who sees this and has more sign knowledge than me. Including you, i’d love you hear your headcanons if you have any!

I’m a libra, and I just used one of those online chart calculators so apparently I’m an aries moon and cancer ascendant too. How about you?

I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t really know a lot about astrology either. I only know what I’ve read for fun and while building OCs. That said, I have some intuitive opinions, which I’m now putting under a read-more because this is going to be looooooooong and rant-y. I’m not good at writing comprehensive essays.

@bthump Please don’t feel obligated to read all of this, but if you do, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Keep reading

mastermistressofdesire:

bthump:

so like, if you could pick any post-golden age scene/chapter (including the black swordsman arc) and replace guts with casca, which would u want to see most?

I’m sorry if I’m very late for this!
But

Tower of rebirth arc. Especially the part where she gets captured by still sadistic pyromaniac Farnese.

That’s a potentially interesting starting point for Farnesca for me.

sorry if you’ve been asked this before but, if you like astrology, (COSMOLOGY OF THEIR UNIVERSE ASIDE) do you have any headcanon signs for the berserk characters? i always struggle with this bc they’re so complex that i feel like i’d have to come up with an entire chart, not just the sun sign, for each of them. so you can do sun signs or sun+ascendant+moon if you like, that might be a little more complex. bonus question: what’s your sign, if you don’t mind sharing?

tbh I barely know anything about astrology so I’d be pretty useless at sorting the characters, sorry.

I’m going to post this though bc I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts, for anyone who sees this and has more sign knowledge than me. Including you, i’d love you hear your headcanons if you have any!

I’m a libra, and I just used one of those online chart calculators so apparently I’m an aries moon and cancer ascendant too. How about you?

bc you need better, more farnesca centric anon questions: do you see casca and farnese as slow burn, just two people coming together slowly but surely, after casca’s mind returns, or do you think there should be a catalyst that brings them together quickly and makes them realize a relationship is right for them?

farnesca:

Thank you anon!!  I really appreciate this 💖

In a canon scenario, I imagine Farnesca being kind of slow, but like, the feelings kind of exist off the bat.  It’s slow coming to terms burn.  I’d like to see a Casca that’s very solemn after being healed.  Farnese and Schierke worry that they screwed something up, but the Flowerstorm King tells them to give it a while.  Just give it a while.  They’ll spend a bit on the island so Casca can acclimate.  

After taking care of Casca for so long, it’s just Farnese’s instinct to tend to Casca- take her by the arm when it’s time to go to dinner or have a bath or something.  Farnese defaults to that post-Casca return, too.  She says to squad that she figures it’s time for a wash and reaches for Casca but stops halfway and everyone kinda looks between her and Casca.  A beat of tension passes.  Farnese is about to withdraw her hand when Casca takes it in her own.

Communication could be kind of hard for Casca.  She’s been basically incapacitated for literal years.  Maybe for a while she just doesn’t speak at all, but then one day in the middle of doing something Farnese hears her name in a voice that’s not entirely unfamiliar, and she turns to see Casca beckoning her.  

Being around Casca is suddenly just a little different – even though it’s so commonplace and familiar and Farnese finds she prefers Casca around rather than the contrary, she also is so much more flustered before.  This only increases when Casca opens up more to her and she learns more about the woman that’s been in her care all this time.  I mean, having been up in her mind and reliving her memories, Farnese has a Pretty Good Idea of who Casca was before, but to hear about it from the source????  How intimate.  

It’s little things like Casca taking her hand, Casca saying her name, whispering things into her ear, asking if she could get Serpico to train with her, SEEING HER TRAIN, her interactions with the kids (which I think are going to be a riot), doing day-to-day chores with her, her little mannerisms… Eventually, should a threat rear its head, how quick Casca is to take up arms and put herself between Farnese and whatever is looming.  It’s these little things that all build up to one big flustered upset Farnese and I think that’s beautiful.

Casca is feeling the affection the whole time.  It’d just take something pretty big and emotionally jarring to get her to do any confessing, probably.  💕

These are just my thoughts.  I’d LOVE to know what other people think about their relationship!  The ask box is always open~

jillresia:

bthump:

jillresia:

dragonslayer is like significantly larger than casca. poor casca stuck dragging thst shit

this keeps tripping me up when i think too hard about this au lol. like does casca just work out a lot more, does she graduate up to the dragonslayer when the brand imbues her with enough super-strength, does she have a different, just as awesome but less gigantic weapon instead ???

w/ guts he has his whole thing about using an overly large sword since he was like 4 yrs old. casca should get an equivalent cool weapon backstory.