Tag: b

How different do you think Berserk’s story would have been if Miura wrote Griffith as a girl instead of a boy? And made Casca a boy instead of a girl? Do you think we would have gotten some typical love triangle crap, or do you think Miura would have done something original?

Well Griffith trying to ascend to the throne thru military feats and heroism would ruin Miura’s ye olde sexism vibe, so he’d either have to boil Griffith’s whole narrative down to just seducing a prince thereby changing the entire plot, or go full (less campy) xena-esque historical fantasy where misogyny just isn’t really a problem. Which would actually be awesome, and if Guts was a woman too that would be the ideal story lol.

Also obviously Guts/Griffith would be considered canon. Like even if it was the exact same level of subtext as the actual story, Berserk would be known first and foremost as a tragic dark romance, and the fact that it’s full of blood and action would be considered secondary. No one in the world would read it and think Guts and Griffith were just platonic friends. I mean, I guess if I were reading it I’d deliberately choose to see them as platonic friends lol, but even I’d know they’re supposed to be in love.

I mean like, if this scene was hetero it would instantly seal the deal on their inevitable romance lbr, you’d be called delusional if you didn’t acknowledge it:

image
image

And it’s just one moment out of so many lol.

Bringing Casca into the picture, Miura would go just as hard or harder on the Guts vs Casca as romantic rivals vibe. They probably wouldn’t have a bonding moment followed by burgeoning friendship tho, and obviously they wouldn’t hook up. I figure they’d remain standoffish and surly until the Eclipse, at which point something else would drive Casca insane and Guts could still eventually grow as a person by choosing to take him to Elfhelm bc he’s all that remains of the Hawks or w/e. Or more likely he’d die and something else would drive Guts’ Millenium Falcon narrative.

I don’t think there’d be much subtext between Guts and Casca in this theoretical version of Berserk, bc if Casca can’t be Guts’ actual love interest and no homo bridge between Guts and Griffith, what would his role in the story even be, other than the dude who brings Guts’ insecurities out (ie Casca’s pre-romance role). The story’s all about Guts and Griffith, making it het just cuts out the middle man.

On the other hand, if Guts and Casca did still eventually become friends and eventually Casca became the symbol of Guts’ humanity and way of distracting himself from Griffith, I might ship it lol. I can’t lie, I’d actually hate griffguts if it was het, especially if Griffith was a woman, and I’d be searching for an alternative. The narrative about destroying yourself and your ambition because you fell in love would be extremely not my thing if it was a woman falling for a dude, Griffith sacrificing Guts for her dream in this case would probably make me cheer lol, and I’d be first in line to suggest that NeoGriffith’s feelings aren’t real.

So idk I guess my answer to your question is that it would probably still be love triangle-y, but instead of Guts and Casca getting together the focus would stay on Guts and Griffith, probably with Casca as a more minor character. And the plot wouldn’t necessarily have to change, but the setting would to an extent, if we accept that a woman could become a war hero as part of a rise to power.

Also a lot of details would almost certainly change, like Casca’s backstory of being rescued by Griffith and hero worshipping her. I imagine Miura would be more likely to emphasize the protective aspect, and have Casca fall in love after seeing Griffith vulnerable, after joining the Hawks just because. Griffith saving Guts and Guts feeling like he’s found his home could be the same, but if Griffith is a woman I wonder if Guts’ backstory would change a bit to emphasize his mother – maybe instead of dying she’d take off. Yk, that kind of change.

My preference would be to change very little just on principle tbh, but I’m trying to think of what Miura would do lol. Anyway idk, this is getting long so I’ll end my answer here.

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “How bout a college AU between Guts and…”

I also think homeboy would get reeeeaallllyyyy salty about people not taking social science or history seriously? Like some asshole would say something disparaging about qualitative methods and he would go off.
#projection station

lol i think his intensity about what he does combined with his general ability to take almost everything in stride would equal simple but effective (and maybe passive aggressive) retorts to stuff like that lol. wittier comments than i could come up with.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “How bout a college AU between Guts and…”

i just like to think of him as being really into analyzing literature and philosophy is all but also i might be projecting 😦

i mean to be fair one of the few things we know about griffith that doesn’t seem intrinsically connected to his dream is that he likes to read

image

so I don’t think it’s a stretch

ETA: 

@madchen said: and yeaaaa i think he’s potentially a
perfectionist with goals but otherwise interprets his love for guts as
want/need bc that’s the lens he viewed the other big thing in his life
for so long

also yeah def, and I really love that moment actually where griff is like “i must obtain the things i desire” bc griffith spends 10 minutes with guts and guts is already up there with his dream on griffith’s list of important life goals.

madchen
replied to your post “How bout a college AU between Guts and Griffith? I’m thinking they end…”

i have more thoughts but yea i think griffiths possessiveness is a childish interpretation of love on his part… i think he could also be possessive and obsessive to a extent bc he has that kind of personality but only over serious situations like u said. i also totally hc griffith as borderline so yea.
i actually think
griffith would enjoy english and sociology and literature.. like i read
him as a humanities person over a stem person as far as modern liberal
education (in the us tbh) goes! he’s still smart so he could def go into
a science but i don’t think it would be his true passion or interest!

yeah that’s a good way of putting it. that ‘i must obtain the things i desire’ where he like, sees guts and decides he needs him in his life the same way he saw a castle and decided he wanted it when he was a kid. He doesn’t like jump from obsession to obsession or anything, he has a grand total of two things he’s ever wanted in 20 or w/e years of life, but man does he want them lol.

also yeah I kind of like the idea of Griffith being into science bc it’s not something I usually think of and it’s cute to think of him geeking out over biology or something lol, but yeah I think of him as more into humanities by default. or politics/law if we’re going for more of a still-obsessed-with-an-ambition angle.

I’m curious. Does not Tumblr also allow you to post with images? since 4 weeks ago my Tumblr does not allow me to do that and just when the review of Farnese and Casca ends … it’s a pity that you can not make good reviews for people to enjoy and give you their opinion … by the way I send my support to your blog for that problem

Yeah it’s been glitching a lot more recently. And it used to be easily fixable by just refreshing the page and starting over, but now that doesn’t help, I need to close my whole browser before it’ll let me upload images again lol, it’s awful. Maybe that’s a firefox thing rather than a tumblr thing to be fair though.

If it hasn’t been working at all for you, have you tried restarting your browser? (I know I leave mine open for weeks at a time lol so you never know)

also if you’re writing a post with lots of images, i’ve found that it’s a good precaution to save as a draft every time you upload a new image, just in case it glitches. that way at least you don’t lose everything if it refuses to save lol.

anyway I hope the problem gets solved so you can make your post 🙂

image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image

This parallel/contrast is a great little illustration of the significance of the Zodd encounter.

Cuddling with his sword the way he did as a child when faced with mistrust and derision vs dedicating his sword to Griffith – in the first his sword is a comfort object, an escape, a distraction. In the second his sword is a tool – he’s not wielding it as a distraction from his own pain, he’s wielding it for someone else, as a symbol of a meaningful connection with another person.

It’s also worth noting that right before the conversation with Griffith, Guts was angrily swinging his sword as a distraction while remembering Casca making him feel like an outsider (”you’re just a mad dog!” “it’s your fault!”), essentially underlining this contrast between the way Guts regards his sword before and after Griffith says he saved his life for his sake.

And check out these matching visuals of Guts looking at his blistered hands, just to drive the point home:

image
image

How bout a college AU between Guts and Griffith? I’m thinking they end up being dorm mates and that’s how they first meet. Griffith possibly majoring in Biology or Chemistry. While Guts is undeclared and doesn’t quite know why he’s even there. Griffith being intrigued by Guts because he’s not like usual students on the campus and c’mon he finds Guts attractive. They maybe go on a few study dates and a few romantic ones around the campus.

Second part of college AU  I don’t think they’d actually get deeply
romantically and sexually interested (at least Guts) until their junior
or senior year. Griffith is shameless often showing Guts off to family
and friends and just everybody in 5 mike radius. I still think they’re
relationship would be complicated and maybe even toxic. I feel like
Griffith would still be really fearful of Guts leaving him and always
needs confirmation. While also being jealous and obsessive a lot of the
time.

lol I’d have to imagine this set this in a country with free higher education bc I can’t see Guts either going on scholarships or digging himself into debt just for the hell of it. But yk what they’re in medieval Europe in canon, so why not put them in modern day idk, denmark or whatever?

That aside, they’d both totally be into each other at first sight. w/ modern aus I feel like there’s a lot more freedom to have them actually recognize and act on their attraction a lot quicker than in canon, but they could both still have trauma complicating things.

Though without an all-consuming dream I think Griffith would be a lot more forthcoming about his own feelings. The dream is the source of like 90% of his canon stupidity lol, his inability to understand his feelings because he refuses to acknowledge he has any because he has to be the perfect leader because of the dream, eg. Though I think he’d still have elements of self-loathing without the dream, esp if he still has csa trauma in his past, so there’s a basis for a fear of rejection.

Also I could see Griffith being obsessive/possessive – that just seems like a part of Griffith’s childishness and something inherently him – but I don’t think he’d demonstrate it day-to-day. In canon he’s very chill 99% of the time, so in a modern au I think you’d only be able to tell how intense his feelings actually are in really significant moments. Otherwise it would manifest in just like, wanting to drag Guts out on pseudo coffee dates all the time or something lol. Little things that Guts would respond really well to because he rly wants that feeling of being wanted.

And they both have serious issues with perceived rejection which could fuck things up for them in a modern AU too. But again, I don’t think it’s constant, I think it’s something that comes out in bigger moments. Guts, say, telling Griffith he’s too busy to hang out today wouldn’t bother Griffith, but eg Guts deciding to get his own apartment would freak Griffith tf out. And likewise, Griffith having a social life that doesn’t involve Guts wouldn’t bother Guts, but Griffith eg ditching Guts bc he has to network would make him extremely broody and insecure.

Also I think either of them dating someone else before they’re officially together would send the other into a tailspin of seething jealousy. imo moreso in a modern AU than in canon because the two of them getting together is a more easily recognized possibility than in canon. Also if Griffith knows he’s gay in a modern AU and dates another dude before Guts, that might be a good catalyst for Guts realizing he’s super jealous bc he’s in love with Griffith.

Idk I just wanted to like muse aloud based on your asks lol, ty for sharing your ideas!

madchen
replied to your post “sophelia-moon
replied to your post “Arranged marriage AU between…”

tbh any sort of converse au where social norms regarding being gay are more a la… idk captive prince? is good for berserk like ill take it man

tbh yeah this would simplify so much lol, and they need all the help they can get

@ your tags same there’s just so much
physical chemistry on top of the issues they got to make it real good 😦

griffith withdrawing
after getting freaked out by how comfortable he is being vulnerable +
intimate w guts and guts eventually trying to reconnect after giving
griff space he thinks he needs

au where they can say “i love you” during sex 😦

yeah exactly it’s like the perfect combination of being an emotional and psychological minefield while there’s still just such a strong pull between them that you know they’d be able to persist and work through it regardless because they just would not be able to go their separate ways (guts leaving in canon doesn’t count bc he specifically did it to get closer to griffith in a roundabout way).

also physically, lbr they need to fuck. it’s the physical chemistry like you said, once they open that door there’s no closing it.

and agh i can see the 2nd point so easily lol. and guts giving griffith space would just freak griffith out more 😦

sophelia-moon
replied to your post “Arranged marriage AU between Griffith and Guts”

My brain saw this and became twisted in knots…like…some sort of alternate universe where Griffith is trying to gain a kingdom, but to do so it would be best to marry into a powerful noble family (closely related to the royal bloodline + with a vested interest to overthrow the current royals) and gain their support? And the best candidate happens to be…Guts? (Guts as a noble is hard for me to imagine but regardless…wait, now I’m picturing peasant (mercenary?) Charlotte to complete the…
sort-of roleswap.) That’s the best I can do for now…

omgggg i kind of love this take on it. charlotte vs guts roleswap is a galaxy level concept.

like, griffith starts trying to seduce guts thinking he’ll be typical snooty asshole nobility/royalty and then gets to know him, realizes he just comes across as haughty bc he’s anti-social but is actually down to earth and extremely skilled with a sword and informal and idk mb he’s so chill because he’s like the 3rd born and never thought he’d actually end up w/ real power but then half his family died of the plague or something, etc, and the point is griffith just totally falls for him

or maybe he’s a lost scion who grew up the way guts grew up b4 being identified and returned to his family. but lmfao that’s prob too much ridiculousness on top of this already ridic premise, that’s just a fish out of water comedy at that point.

or heeeeey judeau mentioned second sons of nobility joining the hawks, maybe guts spent some time mercenarying anyway just for the hell of it, before his brother(s) died and he had to give it up

(also this opens interesting doors for charlotte/casca… js js)

sub space griffith. just spreading good vibes.

this was a good thing to come home from work and see lol ty

(established relationship canon au where griffith and charlotte have arranged themselves a lavender marriage and the whole focus of an epic length story is guts and griffith slowly but surely working all the kinks out of and into their sex life. like i s2g every time i think about these 2 having sex there are fifty potential land mines and hazards and ways everything could go very wrong but also ways everything could go very right. there’s so much material there!

like just reading this ask made me think about how badly griffith could crash afterwards like the first few times. just from like, getting too into it to think and existing blissfully in the moment for an hour or two and therefore second guessing everything all at once when his brain comes back online after.

but then eventually he would just be able to enjoy losing himself during sex with no misgivings and that would be a genuinely significant bit of character development for him lol.)

Arranged marriage AU between Griffith and Guts

I gotta admit, I got nothin lol. This is like so different from canon my limited imagination can’t even begin to conceive of it. Like, in a world w/out heteronormativity where guts and griffith both have families w/ some amount of power (or idk have peasants ever done arranged marriages? i always think of it as an upper class thing), I’m already totally lost at sea.

If you want to throw some more ideas for this at me plz do tho, I’m intrigued, just not really capable of coming up wtih anything myself lol.

My Boy by Billie Eilish … I sort of get Guts or Casca feelings towards Griffith vibes. Also Ocean Eyes by the same artist. If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of music do you normally listen to???

yk I don’t rly know, I don’t have any genres I’m particularly into, I just tend to hear a song and look for more by the same person, and find music that way. And I don’t listen to the radio or use apps like idk spotify or w/e that rec u stuff so my method is just stumbling across it for the most part. I used to get most of my music from fanmixes lol.

And speaking of I’ve never heard of Billie Eillish either but I like these, ty! Especially My Boy tbh. And yeah I’m getting the same vibes.

Exist in me (scary all over flip) by Zaya Worldstar Money by Joji I definitely suggest watching the lyric video for the last song

ty! lol this kind of music is so different than what I usually listen to, it makes for a nice + interesting change. Also while they’re both rly abstract wrt lyrics, I’m feeling them for griffguts vibes. First feels like Guts pov post-Eclipse to me, and 2nd feels like Griffith pov from the duel to the Eclipse.

griff-guts
replied to your post “R u familiar with the Castlevania series by any chance? Sorry that…”

i think they might be referring to the video game series?? which is what the anime is based off of. the game series is like on par with dark souls almost in terms of levels of berserk vibes lol

oh if that’s the case then I’m only technically familiar with the series in that I know it exists and I vaguely recall watching my brother play one on nes when I was like 6 lol.

ihni what the later games are like tho now i’m kinda curious since I’ve heard a lot about how Dark Souls is extremely Berserk-y.

R u familiar with the Castlevania series by any chance? Sorry that this isn’t Berserk related, but wanted to hear your thoughts on this series if you know it.

The netflix one? Yeah I watched it, and it was good, but it didn’t really grab me tbh. The animation and voice acting were good, and it was engaging enough that I watched it in one sitting, and the characters were fun, but idk if I have much else to say about it other than that. I’ll probably watch season 2 when it comes out, and probably ship Trevor/Alucard until the inevitable het takes over lol.

(Also tbf it’s slightly Berserk related since I remember reading that Berserk was an inspiration for elements of the show, tho I forget what. But either way I don’t mind getting non Berserk-related asks lol)

What’s your opinion on the Berserk movie trilogy? I just finished watching them today and I have mixed feelings on them. They weren’t terrible, but they weren’t great either lol. I gotta admit tho they really did a good job with Griffith’s character design. They captured the whole ethereal beauty thing really well imo.

Yeah I kinda feel the same. I love the character designs to pieces tbh, I feel like they totally nailed everyone’s look, evoking Miura’s late Golden Age art, aka his best art imo, without copying it completely.

And I really liked some of the adaptation choices, like obviously the deliberate emphasis on the griffguts subtext was a lot of fun. Loved every change they made to the scene where Griffith shows up at Charlotte’s window – the way he’s completely out of it and nearly collapses on her, going ‘wait what the hell am I doing I should leave’ and having Charlotte ask him to stay, etc. Liked how they streamlined it to Griffith showing up personally after the 100 man fight. I really liked how they moved “the crystalization of your last tear shed” to after Guts’ post-Eclipse breakdown, and the whole violent history of humanity sequence during Griffith’s transformation was p great too. And in general I liked how they depicted everything they didn’t change from the manga, at least in the first two movies. There were a lot of good subtleties, it looked good aesthetically give or take some cgi, etc.

But I will never not be salty about losing Griffith’s backstory + Tombstone of Flame, and therefore like his entire motivation and character in general. I mean come on, Griffith’s self-harmy rant to Casca and “do you think that I’m cruel?” are absolutely necessary.

Instead they went for more of a Griffith is a shallow ambitious asshole who happened to fall in love with his bff, ruined his life because of it, and then decided not to make the same mistake twice angle. Like, the appearance of the pile of corpses in Griffith’s mind when Ubik’s convincing him to make the sacrifice doesn’t even work in the movies, it’s too little too late to show us his guilt issues now, especially without an actual focal point like the dead kid, or any visceral demonstration of how he feels, like the prostitution or the self harm. It all just comes across as shallow. They might as well have cut it out and had Griffith agree to make the sacrifice as soon as Void mentioned giving him wings and his dream back lol.

In general I actually feel like they did a fairly good job keeping the basic themes of Berserk intact while cutting out a ton of it lol. eg they lost 90% of Guts decision to leave, but Casca got a line towards the end about how people are weak so they cling to dreams and other people. So like, despite the fact that they cut out a huge amount of important stuff about Guts and Griffith’s dreams, I know they got the basic point and managed to convey it.

Tho ofc a lot of those scenes they lost are necessary not just bc of the information they convey but because of the emotional impact, so eg cutting Guts’ post-Zodd rooftop scene was still a terrible decision even if technically it doesn’t tell us anything absolutely necessary that we couldn’t’ve figured out from Guts angrily thinking about Casca calling him a mad dog followed by Griffith saying he had no reason to risk his life for him. It’s still a ~moment~ and it’s important to the impact of the Promrose Hall speech.

Also the third movie especially is kind of a mess imo. The rape scene was practically comedic w/ the music they added and way too long, the pacing was overall awful, they had Griffith overhear Guts wanting to stay for some reason which really muddies his whole subsequent breakdown, and they completely butchered the best and most important moment in the story:

image
image
image
image

Like, this is coming from someone who thinks that like, half of Griffith’s motivation for making the sacrifice was just to get rid of Guts lol, I have no problem with him feeling spiteful here, but my god, this is cartoonish. Look at the original:

image
image
image

Even the anime caught more nuance of feeling and it was never that great at conveying subtle emotions thru expression:

image
image

Idk this is long and disorganized lol.

tl;dr I also have mixed feelings. I enjoy the experience of watching the movies, and I feel like the people who made them probably have a lot of the same takes on Berserk that I do, which can make a lot of details they included fairly rewarding (eg one I often cite is showing how Griffith lies about not feeling emotion by having him back his horse away from Gennon after claiming he doesn’t gaf), but overall I disagree with a lot of their adaptational decisions and it’s fairly frustrating lol.

sobadpink
replied to your photo

I hope she comes back as a kickass villain friend

lol i’m never sure if replies to things i’ve reblogged are meant for me or the op but either way, super agree, theresia showing back up to get revenge would be amazing

image

lol this just sums up the guts-griffith-casca love triangle so perfectly.

Like… it sets up both the way Guts and Griffith use Casca as an intermediary for physical (and emotional) intimacy with each other, making her life a living hell, and the way Casca’s whole existence revolves around her gender in contrast to the men surrounding her, and ties those two things together.

Plus, with Guts’ nightmare and subsequent relief that it’s a woman rather than a man with him, it adds trauma to the mix. It ties everything together.

And man it is thematically neat as fuck.

Like what I’m saying is that if you choose to believe this is purposeful, then what the Golden Age is about is two dudes who are both attracted to each other and can’t act on it thanks to internalized (trauma)*** and externalized (heteronormativity) homophobia, and this fucks up both the dudes in question, and the woman/en (? Charlotte isn’t shown to suffer from this, but I imagine being in a one-sided relationship will eventually take its toll on her) they end up turning to instead out of that internalized and externalized obligation.

Casca’s story is almost entirely about dealing with misogyny, and this makes heteronormativity a part of that. It’s not just a woman’s duty to warm a man – another man can’t. Men can’t be physically intimate with each other, only with women, and more, they have to be physically intimate with women to attain like, an artificial sense of self-actualization – in Berserk, their dreams. And this harms both the men in their enforced isolation from each other and the women in their enforced intimacy with men.

Like, Guts even references Casca warming him here after they have sex, again, tying physical intimacy with her to his trauma.

And while Charlotte is Griffith’s means to achieving his dream, Casca is Guts’ – because attaining Casca’s affection, being “good” for her, means he’s more like Griffith, and closer to his goal of being Griffith’s equal.

I mean Guts leaving Griffith because they couldn’t share their feelings with each other, and Griffith sleeping with Charlotte as a means of denial (“take all those sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire”) and then Guts sleeping with Casca as a means of denial (”don’t think about those things. Right now all you need is to feel alive”) both lead directly to Griffith choosing to destroy his feelings so he can live solely for his dream. Draw your own conclusions about how this culminates in the most destructive display of heterosexuality in the story.

Once the nature of Guts’ dream switches from abandoning Griffith to pursuing him in rage things get murkier on Guts’ side, but this reading still works if you consider that Guts’ problem isn’t exactly his lingering, twisted feelings for Griffith, but his refusal to actually examine and untangle them, with revenge as just another distraction.

And to be perfectly crystal clear I’m not saying this is purposeful, or that even if it somehow is purposeful Miura doesn’t still go about it as offensively as possible. Like, by this reading internalized homophobia is essentially positioned as a result of evil gay pedophiles, to a much greater extent than any vague reference to societal norms. Both these dudes succumb to inner darknesses and assault a woman explicitly because of their feelings for the other dude. I’m not giving him a round of applause here lmao. It’s probably actually less offensive if it’s all accidental.

And lbr it’s probably a side-effect of writing a) a female character whose life revolves around misogyny, b) a homoerotic relationship between 2 dudes and c) a half-assed het subplot between one of those dudes and the aforementioned woman

But like still, it just fits together so freaking well. It’s ridiculous how neat this reading is during the Golden Age.

***to be clear i’m not saying internalized homophobia is always a result of trauma lol, I’m saying that’s how the story does it.

madchen
replied to your post “I’ve heard there are some similarities between Berserk and Captive…”

tbh that’s it besides some quirks with laurent and his history him and griffith are pretty different imho. damien and guts are way different besides being big and more physical
like imho damen has his shit together way more than guts lol

ty, yeah I didn’t really see any personality similarities between damen and guts. i don’t know anything about laurent yet tho so i can’t judge there, but I’m not really expecting serial-numbers-filed-off-berserk-fanfiction I guess lol.

there’s a second opinion for you anon!