In the gangster AU I always imagined Judeau being the team medic, but whenever Guts is the one to get his shit kicked in Griffith is first to volunteer medical aid. He’s a terrible doctor
guts sleeps with his sword clutched against him to feel safe and secure, but also as a substitute for human contact and reassurance to act like a salve for his loneliness
the symbiotic relationship of being mutually protected/comforted is put into sad use when the other half is a sword.
what im saying is, guts is definitely a cuddler, and he wants to hold someone and be held.
for ref the pics are guts fantasizing about neogriffith’s ass during the “he looked so human” panel, and gennon being creepy while imagining nearly the same image
i mean it’s not really to compare guts and gennon lol, more that yk miura knows how to visually illustrate the concept of someone’s physical attraction to griffith and that’s what he’s doing on both those pages l b r here
straight up, he would’ve murdered casca. like no doubt in my mind, basically the whole point of the chapters between the hill of swords and the rpg group catching up to him is to tell the reader that without the rpg group casca would not have lasted much longer w/ guts.
after he killed casca?
boring default answer: revenge rampage part 2 to distract himself from this new giant heap of guilt, now with more passive suicidal tendencies
better answer: behelit opens, he sacrifices griffith, everything comes full circle
best answer: revenge rampage part 2 to distract himself from this new giant heap of guilt, but he feels like he’s just as bad as griffith/femto now and ends up joining him after a confrontation (and probably sex as a substitute for uh “giving him a heap of raw iron” lbr). all the thematic stuff about inner monsters becoming literal outer monsters is a build up to guts as an example of a human just succumbing to his dark side without the help of a magic transformation
caveat to best answer: with griffith he may actually recover some of his “good” self, as he’s still an echo of that last glimmer of the whole campfire in his chest metaphor, and depending on what’s going on with neogriffith internally they could end up both sort of balancing light and dark. would also fit neatly with the way the apostles do under ngriff’s influence, but this would be the emotional version rather than the metaphysical one lol.
Whether by accident or design (since yk from the sounds of it Miura wrote the first chapter or two before really figuring out where he wanted to go with the story) I actually consider the opening few pages to be very in character lol, which might be an unpopular opinion, idk.
Consider: it fits perfectly into Guts pattern of self-destructively doing whatever it takes to get close enough to his enemy to blow their head off. He’s deliberately let monsters throw him around, break bones, shove him through walls, eat him, and stab him just so he can maneuver himself into position to take them out. This is an apostle that likes to fuck her victims, ergo.
It also like… actually I’d never thought about this before so bear with me bc this is going to get rambly, but damn it’s actually perfect, because it also makes the connection between Guts’ sex related issues and his stupid monster fighting rampage very direct on page one.
Like if that’s not purposeful then Miura accidentally hit it out of the park with our intro to Guts. But actually it’s gotta be purposeful. Even if it’s just to equate Guts’ particularly phallic violence (big sword, shoving his fist into the monster’s mouth mid-sex and blowing her head off) to sex right off the bat because Miura wants to like… well I think it’s part of what Miura wanted to kind of examine. Swords are dicks in Berserk, just like they’re dicks in a lot of action stories. But what does that mean – why? What’s the connection between violence and sex that makes that imagery fit?
And the answer here is Guts’ rape trauma. Liiiiike ok I completely think that Guts lashes out at enemies, particularly enemies that are bigger and stronger than him, particularly monsters once he learns they exist, because of that trauma. He is very driven to destroy anything that scares him, and that’s the root of it. Monsters scare Guts, we see this very viscerally during the first Zodd encounter and the Wyald encounter, and (particularly after he abandons his emotional support in the snow) Guts is driven to destroy them.
So like on one level Guts fucking the apostle is like, a hook for the dudes and a surface image for Miura to unravel: cool manly action hero bangs chicks and kills monsters, sometimes at the same time! On a character level, it’s a self-destructive strategy to get close enough to kill her because Guts absolutely isn’t the kind of cool hero who regularly bangs chicks, he’s the kind of dumbass who would do anything to kill a monster. And potentially on a thematic level it’s a story opening that primes the audience to equate sex and sex related issues to Guts’ monster killing revenge rampage, ie set up for an undertone of Guts lashing out not because he’s righteously angry or a hero who protects the innocent and kills evildoers, but because he’s traumatized and killing monsters makes him feel better.
(god that panel is gr8 shorthand for everything i want to say lol)
Or idk maybe it’s not that deep. But damn it now I’m definitely going to include this scene in the next big meta post I write about Guts, his dream, trauma, and his relationship with Griffith.
Anyway I definitely 100% believe the first bit I said, about it being in character for Guts because it’s a self destructive ploy to kill her. The trauma theme stuff is more of a stretch but it’s worth thinking about.
(Also lol @ Guts being faithful to Casca when he left her to rot in a cave for two years. I mean they had sex once and the last significant interaction they had before the Eclipse was Casca essentially breaking off whatever form of relationship they’d begun.
I feel like people reach for that bc they need an explanation for why cool badass protagonist Guts is basically celibate and has never expressed attraction to a woman other than casca (and tbqh casca’s debatable), but honestly it’s cause he’s gay.)
“rugged handsomeness” is a good word that griffith would definitely use when describing guts… i think he also really likes guts legs and hands. he thinks his perpetual frown is endearing and also thinks he’s very clever and smart in his own way. guts obviously loves griffiths hair a
lot and he also loves his lips and hands. and broad greek athletic youth
shoulders and small waist + frame. he’s actually bonkers for griffiths
mix of soft/feminine features and masculine features. griffiths voice is
a soft tenor and guts thinks it’s like, masculine and sweet in an
elegant prince sort of way
i was gonna day guys loves griffiths
devotion tho i realize now that’s just “determination” flavored
differently-which makes it fitting from a certain perspective. like,
devotion to his dream sure but also the potential for devoted adoration
and sweetness + attention turned guts way. i like to think guts heart
would burst when he realizes how sweet on him griffith is
this is all extremely good i just wanna second everything
especially the detail of griffith being fond of guts’ default frowny face, and extra emphatic yes to guts liking griffith’s masc and fem traits in combination
and yeah to that last bit, I think they both love like, each others’ intensity and determination/devotion because they want it aimed at least partly at them. or like, they both know, whether consciously or not, from the start that that intensity is aimed at them and they crave it.
(honestly makes me want to frame the current state of their relationship as both deliberately witholding it from the other lmao. ngriff: fuck you i only care about my dream now. guts: well fuck you too i only care about uhhhh casca)
@madchen said:
first one is when all
the pta mom are asking him if he can really organize the fundraiser bake
sale in less than 24 hours after debbie tragically had a recreational
hiking accident
If I do write the fic I would also throw Charlotte. I feel like she would be a part of the group’s extended circle through Farnese. They prob grew up together in this au since they’re both from old money and she prob begged Farnese to let her tag along so she could see Griffith. Oh my god I wonder how she is like drunk. Since she’s so innocent I can imagine that she would be the complete opposite while intoxicated.
ngl drunk charlotte sounds like she would be fun to write lol.
Honestly, Black Swordsman Guts, especially in the Black Swordsman arc (tho he’s also p good in the Lost Children arc). The way he starts out as the epitome of the asshole antihero out for revenge and that image almost immediately starts crumbling until you’re shown that he’s terrified and pathetic and not a whole lot better than the monsters he’s fighting and really sad about a bad breakup.
The way he opens the story by banging an apostle on page one and eventually you realize that is one of a grand total of two occasions on which he’s had consensual sex. The way he ends the first arc crying after a kid swears vengeance against him. The end of the first chapter when he tortures the snake apostle and the art and tone shift to make Guts the villain and the monster the pitiable victim. Encouraging children to kill themselves because he’s upset. Refusing to admit how monstrous he’s getting when he gets temporarily possessed. Letting a zombie kid stab him.
The driving mystery of why Guts is so obsessed with revenge followed by the reveal that it’s because he had a relationship comparable to marriage with the dude he wants to kill and Griffith didn’t just betray him, they betrayed each other and like half of Guts’ motivation is guilt/distracting himself from guilt.
The way his current situation, haunted by monsters claiming ownership of him after being given to them by someone he loves reflects his childhood so effectively.
I mean yeah part of what makes Black Swordsman Guts great is what the Golden Age reveals about him too, but I’ll still take Black Swordsman over the happy Golden Age version.
For one thing, when Black Swordsman Guts is a dick, the narrative is very clear on that being a negative thing. While when Golden Age Guts is a dick (eg most of his scenes with Casca) it feels like we’re supposed to find that at least somewhat endearing. And also like… I just really, really love the way Miura starts Guts out as strong badass archetype and then immediately sets about complicating it by answering the question of: what would make a real human person this fucking over the top and ridiculous? What’s actually underneath the cool image?
Like Guts goes from badass mccool 80s action hero send up to being directly compared to Vargas in terms of how sad and pathetic he is within a couple chapters, and it’s So. Good.
Answer to your second question under the cut
This question… is actually a very tough call lol. Like yeah okay the smart money’s on the character whose introduction didn’t include a gratuitious rape scene, but I genuinely love Femto regardless? Mostly because I disregard that choice of intro since it was um Badly Written lol, and Femto had me at
And I just love dark inner monsters as a concept in general despite the author’s reliance on rape as his primary illustration of evil.
On potential alone I’d go with NeoGriffith, because boy he is full of potential to be amazing depending on where those hints about his feelings, isolation of being a singular god, etc go. But what we actually see from him is like… so bland 99% of the time. Like yeah that’s purposeful, that’s a big part of the point, but still. He does feel like a shell of the old Griffith, literally – the outside with v little of the depth (so far).
I can headcanon and theorize a bunch to make him interesting to me, and I do, but idk if that counts lol.
So as for what we’ve got on the page and how seeing him makes me feel, I’m actually going to pick Femto. Like, the same way I inwardly cheered when we saw Guts’ slasher smile at Godo’s after he killed the pig apostle, because it was such a “he’s baaaaaack” moment, I cheered when we saw Femto confront Ganeshka. I love his stupid offensive camp villain makeup, I love his stupid exoskeleton, I love what a petty asshole he is, I love how silent and scary he was when he first appeared and I love how awkward and pathetic he was when he lowered his hand and let Guts escape, I love that he expresses emotions, I love that Void had to basically tell him to shut up during his petty back and forth with Guts in his first scene, and I love him partially out of spite because Miura tried to make me hate him in the shittiest way possible.
Like yeah okay put your super gay character in vampy makeup and make him a rapist to piss off the manly protag while writing out the woman you have no idea what to do with, fuck you I love him anyway.
I have a tendency to love the characters the narrative goes above and beyond to try to get me to hate, because I don’t like being told what to do lol, and if I feel like the narrative is pushing me to feel something without properly selling it/while poorly and/or offensively illustrating it I get contrary. Like basically the Eclipse rape only made me feel hate for Miura. If I hated Femto for it, then I feel like I’d be validating Miura’s bad and offensive writing.
Which is not to say I don’t fully understand and respect people who do respond to the Eclipse by hating Femto. This is just how I personally respond to fiction lol.
lol sorry anon i’ve gotta be honest, I didn’t watch this because the odds of my sense of humour meshing with a berserk parody are extremely low, especially going in completely blind.
not to discourage you or anyone from sending me links to stuff they think i’d enjoy, i appreciate it, but i rarely watch fandom related youtube videos in general and berserk fandom has me extra wary ngl
some pretty much failed Berserk doodles. Also i think Guts’ true power is no facial-/body hair whatsoever. Like dude wakes up perfectly shaved EVERYWHERE & ALL THE TIME. (I really like drawing men with messy hair and stubble though.)
you're the only one 