omg Serpico taking care of infantile!Guts sounds interesting: he helps with his clothes, washes him, and helps him go to bed (Guts has nightmares and hates being alone when he sleeps) Guts has a decent relationship with the rest of Casca’s party but he really clings to serpico the most

oh god i’m thinking of when casca was forced to travel with guts when
she lost his trust: him screaming and crying no like some scared child,
casca having to bind his hands in rope to get him to move, guts trying
to escape and failing each time. when casca’s party is formed, he mostly
stayed by serpico side. anytime casca got near him, he would hide
behind serpico and say no or just flat out growl at her :/ 

i really really love the thought of Guts and Serpico being this version’s Casca and Farnese. but everything else u said gets a sad
awww 😦

(tho there’s a silver lining: if Casca can drag Guts along imagine how buff she got fighting monsters for 2 years.)

@madchen​ said: there are all good
please allow the farnese/casca to happen. also im choking at the rock
falling scene with guts instead of casca and guts reaching (down) to
gently put his fingers on griffiths lips????

god im shit at drawing
armor but i swear ill draw some berserkarmor casca with a lioness head
in the future…. lionesses do most of the work in the pride + hunt and
protect the weak yet still have to “submit” to lions so the pride stays
in order which is why i like it so much for her… also lionesses are bffs
with other lionesses (womenfolk)

omg please draw this I need to see it. And yessss as an animal motif that’s perfect for her. especially since the other 2 animals (hawk and dog) also encapsulate both positive and negative (soaring high vs cold predator, loyalty and need for affection vs like, wildness), so strength vs submissiveness and maybe an arc to overcome it makes so much sense to me. (also guts’ fingers on griffith’s lips omgggg)

@farnese-de-vandimion said:
((Can I just
add….Serpico helping to take care of Guts and getting some development
too by learning to actually take care of someone and not just stepping
back and enabling them.))

omfg yes you can, i love this.

@removing-the-part-that-continues said: I know
Miura has a bad history on the subject, but would even Miura have had Guts
sexually assault her if he meant for them to get back together?

I want to believe. I mean mostly I do believe – Skull Knight’s ominous warning plus Guts’ “even if you force back what was lost it still won’t be the way it was” are a pretty serious one-two punch of foreboding. But idk considering the antagonist’s first act was to rape a beloved character and Miura still writes him as morally ambiguous and not a true villain and has in fact directly said he thinks of him as such, I feel like if the romance doesn’t happen it’ll be because Miura is just not into happy romance lol, and goes a different direction, rather than it being a direct consequence of Guts’ actions.

On the other hand Casca is still scared of him so it’s not like Miura dropped it as a factor, so maybe I’m being too cynical. It’s hard to say when you’re dealing with an author who sometimes writes rape fairly sensitively and with a focus on the victim and how it affects them, and sometimes just goes all-out for nothing but pure shock factor :/

but if i was to do black swordsman casca, i would take out “that scene”(the one where she got bit on the tat) and just replace it with casca choking the living hell out of guts to the point where his eyes rolls to the back of head(damn i’m cruel) but she breaks out of it and sees the consequences of her actions. Guts runs away and casca has to detain him but it’s a bit difficult cus of his size. he tries biting kicking the works sometimes she has to knock him out sigh

Plus Blackswordsman! Casca can develop with the female cast (farnese and
schierke) since she really didn’t have any female friends (hell she
talked to princess Charlotte once during the golden age arc) and i would
like to see her interact with females tbh. Farnese seeing casca as a
guide of sorts and scheirke as a mother figure.

i kinda have several hc about infantile!Guts but i’ll keep it simple: he
can say a few words but they are pretty simple but he mostly just nods
or shakes his head. he’s very shy around people but if you are kind to
him, he’ll be near you. he likes to stare at things alot and can get
distracted pretty easily(god forbid you go to a field full of
butterflies or he sees a dog) but old guts is still in there somewhere  
but it’s really rare

God, yes, esp to the second part (tho anything that gets rid of the attempted rape is good in my book, and ngl it is really easy to see Casca lashing out violently while in a dark place. Which is one of the reasons I love her. More fucked up female characters for all). And god anything with Casca interacting with more women is Good Shit. She might be less inclined than Guts was to let Schierke take the reins during the troll fiasco, but I think she’d respect and appreciate her abilities, and when the Berserker armour started taking over she’d probably have a similar relationship to her as Guts did (though let’s say without the unnecessary crush)

Farnese on the other hand would totally still have a hero-worshippy crush on her.

(also ok pardon my gayness but now i’m thinking of that scene where farnese was possessed and getting intimate with guts’ sword, but with casca instead, and whoa. And also that whole thing with Slan. Oh man so many opportunities for fucked up f/f scenes.)

And yeah, solid, kinda depressing (but that’s the point) Guts headcanons, especially since now I’m just imagining good old fashioned fantasy mental torture as the source. Also consider: Griffith saving him from falling rocks, and repressing some subtle disturbed feelings at what he’s reduced him to.

@madchen said:
casca shouldve gotten
an animal motif and it shouldve been lioness. i like this
idea too, it keeps with casca obsessiveness over griffith and guts (and
that she bases her entire identity around being a “sword” to griffith)
and im a big fan of women who violently externalize their trauma as
oppose to quietly internalize it

get rid of the r*pe
all together make it like mind torture or something idk. be more
creative and get rid of the demon child all together and find some
metaphorical replacement

god yes, all of this. vengeful lioness casca holy shit <33

honestly who even says griffith needs a demon fetus to grow out of anyway, it’s all made up fantasy bs. just have him hatch from the apostle egg and ignore his feelings as usual instead of blaming them on a fetus.

What do you think of the fact guts and casca originally weren’t supposed to be together (and as such casca wasn’t supposed to be important to the story) and miura only did it to make the eclipse more dramatic for guts? Imo it really speaks of the sexist nature of miura’s writing (i know he got better recently but still) and g*tsca.

Strong agree. Like I’ve said a few times that if Casca wakes up and does something really important plot-wise in reaction to her trauma that has to happen at this point in the story it would at least help a little to justify Casca’s 20 year long non-existence, but Miura’s comments make it so clear to me that he had no real long game for her in mind, and it wouldn’t change that fact. Like, like Guts, he shoved her into a cave for two years to keep her out of the way until he needed a damsel in distress and then a handy reason for Guts to try conquering his rage.

She really is like a walking plot device and it seems so obvious that it’s entirely because he didn’t know how to include her as a character in the plot so he just got rid of her character for a while in a really shitty way.

When it comes to G*tsca like… I mean technically I guess I prefer the tentative, two people giving something a shot vibe to say, a planned out epic romance, but the fact that it was just to give Guts more manpain is so, so gross. On the one hand at least there’s a silver lining there in the fact that Miura did not plan G*tsca as a true love happy ending thing from the start, which hopefully makes it less likely to happen, but on the other hand if it does turn into a romance again, then extra ew.

Especially since like, if he’s making it up as he goes along, the idea of Miura writing their “relationship” the way he did throughout the last 3 arcs and then deciding romance is the way to go from there is… horrifying lmao.

But whatever I’m clinging to “your wishes may not be her wishes” like a life raft rn.

whenever i think of berserk au of casca being the blackswordsman, it goes into really deep sad territory :( Guts being like how casca is now is really a sad thought buuut also casca in berserker armor tho sooo it’s sad but it has so many possibilities

yk I’ve never really thought about this but goddamn I love the concept of Black Swordsman Casca. All that worship and love and admiration turned into rage and bitterness. Plus Casca with an eyepatch and canon arm would be fucking amazing. Though unlike Guts whose dog motif worked well with the Berserker armour idk if Casca’s sword thing would translate as well. Though you could go the route of the armour turning her into a walking weapon… plz share your ideas here if you have more, I have no creativity lol.

(I’m less into the concept of infantile Guts but hey like… maybe Femto killed him. Or he reacts in a less godawfully stupid way to trauma. I’ll gladly take the opportunity to undo some of Miura’s bad decisions here. Although the thought of Casca abandoning him in a cave for two years while she rampages around is kind of great.)

It’s been ages since I’ve read anything with more literary merit than Sarah Waters or PG Wodehouse lol but next time I’m in the mood for solid classic literature I’ll keep this in mind. And I’m intrigued by your reasoning for giving Cathy the behelit. If I do re-read it eventually that’s all I’m going to be thinking about lol.

@yesgabsstuff said: Yeah, so some context:
Heathcliff actually reminds me of Griffith in the way that I think he
sees his personal ambition as a way to help correct a corrupt social
order. He’s different in that he completely embraced being a terrible,
manipulative, sadist (it is strongly implied that he rapes his wife, who
he manipulated and married purely for her attachment to the other
nearby estate) before he loses Cathy for the last time. Cathy and
Heathcliff are both extremely emotionally volatile;

Cathy more so because
she is put in a physically impossible position of loving someone who is
not her social equal who is also toxic to her. And Heathcliff because he
wants to gain social legitimacy. It could be argued that he pursued
this so that he could win Cathy as a wife but if felt more to me like
she was the only person he was human for. His ambition while caught up
in his anger at her for choosing the only husband available to her is
not the the source of it for me. But yeah they go

Through these really
horrible cycles of obsession and loathing of each other several times in
the book and throwing something like the Behelit into that would be
fascinating to see.
Also, if anyone wants
to hear my theory that their relationship is actually incestuous because
Heathcliff if Mr. Earnshaw’s bastard. I’m always ready to discuss.

oh wow, i see what you mean. yeah all i remembered was what i know from the kate bush song, plus like, heathcliff hanging puppies lol. I knew their relationship was messed up and tragic, but remembered none of the details. I can see how they’re the ur-example for toxic, tragic relationships.

If you wanted to write a post about your theories, behelit-wise or incest-wise, I’d read it, though I might not be able to discuss in depth since my lit knowledge is weak lol.

@trulyhumblenarcissist yeah I’m thinking this is getting too long so I’m going to reply as a new post and just link the previous thread.

also maybe read mores this time just in case we keep going on at length back and forth like before

I pretty much agree with you about Farnese. I liked her even more my scond time through the manga too, she’s surprisingly complex and interesting and I’ve been really enjoying her growth as a character.

Yeah I don’t ship her with Roderick particularly. The idea of Farnese getting married and settling down doesn’t really work for me, I think she’s way more interesting adventuring and continuing to learn new skills and more confidence. I pretty much only ship her with Casca and that’s a pipe dream lol.

I do really enjoy her dynamic with Serpico, though only platonically because I can’t get past the secret incest thing. I don’t necessarily think it’s a super healthy dynamic, Serpico especially is a little too dependent on Farnese for like, his own sense of self, it seems. Yk, like he pretty much only exists in relation to her. But I like slightly fucked up relationships so I dig it. And as they continue on I could see them being happy with their dynamic as is, despite being a little messed up, or growing a little and becoming less emotionally reliant on each other but still remaining a close duo.

As far as recent Berserk goes, I really love Griffith’s side of things, the Ganeshka plot, Rickert, etc. But ngl I am a little bored by Guts’ side. Now that we’re digging into Casca’s psyche I’m intrigued (and nervous) but yeah, the Sea God stuff, Isma, Magnifico and Puck’s comedy sideplot, etc, aren’t super entertaining to me. I’m kind of just waiting for Something to Happen and drive the plot along as soon as Casca returns.

But I think that’s partly because we’re in the midst of it right now and waiting for every new chapter. In hindsight I bet it’ll flow better and maybe feel like a nice break in the drama before shit goes down. Like Berserk doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom all the time, but I do enjoy the doom and gloom a lot, yk? The tragedy, the harsh choices, the fucked up character backstories, the total lack of happy romance, etc, are all big positives to me.

Is there anything that you’re hoping will happen soon?

@madchen yk like half of my ships get compared to wuthering heights at some point and half my ships are about overdramatic idiots in stupid destructive love which can only be improved by adding behelits so there must be something to this

@jyuanka said: its such a narcissistic vision come to life. it’s neogriffith in architectural reincarnation

@madchen said:
hawk world 

i feel like these 2 comments encompass everything that needs to be said on the subject of falconia lmao

@yesgabsstuff said:
Okay, so Wuthering Heights

you mean like, as an example of a romance where a behelit should be thrown into the mix?
bc i actually haven’t read it since high school and i remember very little, so you should elaborate on this if you want.

fuckin love these dudes who just climbed onto the apostles’ backs and hitched a ride

tbh i really, really loved all the apostle/human teamwork during the battle tho i kinda forgot to say anything. it’s just cool, idk.

so i’ve seen a lot of people theorize that void sacrificed skull knight to become god hand which may explain why skull knight seem to have it with him in particular/why void appeared as a god hand right after gaiseric’s reign fell. well then since you can only sacrifice someone that you love so much they’re like half of your soul + considering there seem to be some parallels with guts and griffith here does this mean that void/skull knight is #real

if the theory is true then absolutely

look u can cut the ust with a knife. or reality-shattering sword, if u have one.

(which also means void’s giant external brain is a blatant diss and way of saying “i’m over u” since gaiseric’s thing was a skull js)