lol the problem here is that idk a thing about psychology in general or bpd specifically. I feel like answering this question/trying to diagnose him based on the wiki article and what may or may not be the current diagnostic criteria I found on google would be doing a disservice to actual ppl with bpd.
So I’ll just say from my media-focused perspective that imo Griffith’s behaviour, emotions, reactions, etc, all make perfect sense to me based on what we’re told and shown about the setting, about his past, about how he deals with his emotions (ie he doesn’t), etc. I don’t feel like further explanation is required, and his more “extreme” behaviour/emotional responses seem to be a result of either his feelings for Guts or specific extreme situations (eg feeling responsible for a kid’s death, torture), and discussed as anomalies rather than patterns (but Griffith, so calm and composed, always gets impulsive when it comes to you!), so I personally don’t headcanon him with any personality or mental disorders. Well, give or take ptsd lol.
But at the same time there are people who have bpd or are otherwise personally familiar with it who see Griffith as borderline, so I’m sure it’s a v legit and reasonable reading/extrapolation of his character.
lol so tl;dr, idk enough about mental health so i don’t incorporate it into my own reading of his character, basically, and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything, but i def think there’s room to incorporate it into your interpretation of him.
I think that if he did it, he retaliated a direct attack on God (more or less) because of his knightly code, not despite.
yeah i could see it tbh. His loyalty to Griffith def seems like his highest priority and if he did it it comes across as a demanding satisfaction kind of thing lol. Also kinda mirrors Guts being all too happy to assassinate Julius after he slapped Griffith (not that guts has a knightly code, but yk)
@seisans said: i honestly love how many references berserk has it’s like a treasure hunt
ikr, from things like star wars to ridiculously obscure stuff like random pulp fantasy novels. idk if this is an intentional ref but knowing some other weird things miura references it wouldn’t even surprise me that much lol.
Though you should definitely request an invite asap bc they have a waiting list to make an account. For me it took about a month.
(also if anyone has any other suggestions about where to post fic plz jump in, but I don’t think there are any like, hopping berserk fic archives out there or anything lol)
Yeah I srsly feel you, as much as I love some of Berserk’s female characters they all have that layer of disappointment bc they all have to be motivated by their feelings for men. Recently it struck me that even the Queen of Midland was motivated by being in love with Julius rather than just being a conservative asshole ffs lmao.
I’d absolutely LOVE to see everyone’s issues come back to haunt them if Casca’s restoration turns out to be disastrous – I feel like that could have a sort of regression-style effect on both Guts and Farnese at least – but I’m not holding my breath for Farnese lol, it feels like a pipe dream now.
also yk I think Griffith would be a little overwhelmed @ guts going out of his way just to do something nice for him too, at least if this is early on in their relationship. I see Griffith as v like… he feels like all affection/respect/love/whatever he gets has to be won or earned, is given as a response to what he can do for them. so Guts just doing something nice for him bc he’s thinking about him would rly surprise him.
There’s always a chance. I mean I don’t think he’s going to go yes homo, but I definitely think there’s a strong possibility that Guts is gonna die single and thinking about Griffith.
I am trying to brace myself for disappointment ofc. I mean you’re right, the rpg group constantly succeeding in all they do and never having actual problems narrative has been going on for 150 chapters now so banking on the results of their quest being tragedy (ie Casca gets her mind back, proceeds to fuck shit completely up) is, yk, not a sure thing. the power of friendship could come through again and Guts and Casca could reunite happily, and if that happens I’ll finally give up on my optimism lol.
But til then I think there’s a good chance that all this awful harem vibe shit is a prelude to tragedy and disillusionment (not that that makes it better, but yk at least it would mean it ends), and the narrative is going to refocus back onto Guts and Griffith’s unconcluded story. That’s p much what I mean by suggestive climax – Guts and Griffith confronting each other at the climax of the story, emotions running high, allusions to their emotionally intimate history and the way they’re each still “the only one,” “the true light” for the other despite both trying so so hard to cut the other out lol.
Yk, finally dealing with the shit they’re avoiding by focusing on a kingdom/forcing Casca’s mind back, and cathartically reconciling the fact that they’re simultaneously fated enemies and true lights. Probably right before one or the other dies.
he can wear suits and slacks and stuff i just think it’s criminal that theres next to no griffith in dresses/skirt content bc hed look incredible wtf…
guts likes it be Thighs
she would look so good in the uniform so i’m ok with this. also i think there’d be good potenital there for her to get disillusioned. corruption, maintaining of the status quo, etc.
2/2 I just feel like any kind of character development she could have
had was just quickly glazed over like she went from someone who got off
on watching people get burnt to death and wanting to torture serpico for
‘fun’ or whatever to this simpering woman who’s working on bettering
herself way too fast I wish her journey was explored more and not just
kind of put as if she met guts and suddenly all her problems were solved
and she’s just perfectly good other than a little weak and scared now
Idk I agree with most of this but I think you’re being a little harsh.
Like it’s been a while since I re-read any of the later chapters but I never really got the impression that Schierke was keeping her ability to help Guts to herself, more that she’s just… the only person in the RPG group proficient enough w/ magic to help keep the armour at bay. Like Farnese is still a beginner and no one else knows any magic, so there’s nothing they can really do. (Also I’m kind of loling at calling Schierke childish, like, she is a child.)
But otherwise I pretty much agree, there’s nothing I particularly like about Schierke and her crush is annoying and offputting.
Also wrt Farnese, describing her as “simpering” makes no sense at all. The word means coquettish in an affected, ingratiating way, and that is basically the opposite of Farnese’s character lol, both as an enemy and as an ally.
But other than that I mean yeah I do agree that her character development was not well written. I like both antagonist Farnese and ally Farnese but it’s hard to see them as the same character, because Miura really like, did not show how one became the other lol.
It might be believable that after having her religious faith shattered she’d latch onto Guts as something new to believe in, as an emotional crutch, but it’s never depicted that way really – deciding to follow Guts has been 100% positive for her, while religion was 100% negative and evil, even though they’re both presumably filling the same emotional niche for her. (And if they’re not basically the same drive pointed at different objects of belief, God vs Guts, then Farnese’s sudden switch from religion to Guts is actually super weird and nonsensical, so either way it’s not well done.)
Like, her black and white, us vs them, pure vs impure, etc, thinking should still have been an issue, at least at the start of her time with the rpg group, even if the subjects of that thinking have changed. Or if Miura wanted that type of thinking shattered with her religious faith, she should have had difficulty adjusting to seeing the world in shades of grey. Her related buried guilt and self-doubt should also not have just conveniently disappeared, aside from one vague attempt at an apology for burning witches alive to Flora lol.
(Man now that I mention it it would’ve been fantastic to see Farnese struggling with letting go of her pure vs impure thinking and more slowly accepting that everyone is greyscale, and finding self-acceptance in that too. What a missed opportunity.)
Something else that would’ve been good is showing that Farnese dedicating herself to taking care of Casca, learning magic, etc, is a continuation of her tendency to like, violently throw herself into things. “become the storm yourself,” that life philosophy. Like if she was overeager to an off-putting, borderline unhealthy extent. Or if she wholeheartedly devoted herself to taking care of Casca because of her guilt issues, but again in a not-wholly-positive, overcompensating way.
I think this is a basic problem with Guts’ entire side of the narrative actually lol. It’s too damn good. Everyone is bettered by hanging out with him, plain and simple. Not even two steps forward, one step back – everyone just happily grows as a person on his stupid journey. Farnese replacing God with Guts causes no problems for her or anyone else, because Guts is just a good person to build your entire life around, when imo there should be some critique there wrt the concept of building your life around anything or anyone. The problem isn’t what you’re worshipping, it’s that you’re worshipping, but idk if Miura sees it that way.
Tho I still have hope that this apparent sense that Guts is just the fucking bees knees who changes everyone around him for the better could be subverted. I mean we’re about to get the payoff of his whole quest, and he’s just been compared to Griffith again specifically wrt how Farnese feels about him vs how Casca felt about Griffith, which is promising. Like, Golden Age Griffith was the same wrt everyone around him growing and being happy bc of his ~conviction~ and the feeling that they’re all going places, it’s something Guts comments on when he first meets the Hawks lol, and we all know how that turned out.
But even if that is the case it doesn’t really fix the 150ish chapters of Farnese’s super quick, super positive character growth lol. Idk it’s a disappointment to me too. I still like “both” Farneses, but I really feel like Miura half-assed the hell out of her development.
anyway ty for the asks and sorry for being a bit nitpicky, i mostly agree with you, just my contrary streak kicks in if i think some crit is unfair lol.
Yeah like I think the scenes are framed to make the reader wonder whether Locus or Griffith sent Raksas after Rickert. SInce it’s supposed to be ambiguous it could be either.
Idk if I think it would be out of character for Locus tbh. Grunbeld is the apostle we saw with a distinct honourable streak, while Locus’ thing seems to be more like, hardcore loyalty lol, so I could potentially see him doing something underhanded if it was for Griffith.
But yeah he does still have that knight in shining armour image that assassinations don’t quite fit. Then again so did Griffith lol. So idk I could see it either way.
yes actually, I saw it like a million years ago, and lmao as soon as I saw the movie title in my notes I was like “Femto!”
I don’t remember much about the plot though other than it being like a mashup of phantom of the opera, faust, with maybe a little dorian grey mixed in iirc? Idk it seems like a fitting comparison, even tho the femto mask dude and the dude who sold his soul are 2 different guys.
I allude to how the monsters Guts fights are reminiscent of his childhood trauma a lot, so I decided to finally illustrate it.
under a cut for length and for images implying sexual assault/csa
glowing/monstrous eye(s) in a dark background, reaching hands:
and Gambino gets similar visual treatment after telling Guts he sold him, neatly showing how Gambino’s betrayal compounds Guts’ trauma:
glowing/monstrous eyes and reaching hands in nightmare form:
in flashback form:
and in monster form:
this could be an interesting early version from his nightmare in chapter 2:
Skull Knight also gets this imagery:
and i’m ngl his consistently glowing eyes as a design choice make me highly suspicious lol:
here’s Guts’ vision in the sewer before promrose, the imagery depressingly contextualizing the self-loathing he feels:
more giant hands emphasizing helplessness:
And Guts himself gets a lot of this imagery ofc:
plus you can argue the design of the beast of darkness incorporates the bright eyes on a dark background motif:
Also it’s worth noting that while this imagery comes from Guts’ trauma, Miura uses it to illustrate fear in general from other characters’ points of view too:
and I’d argue this is the point of the stylization of Ganeshka’s backstory of extreme paranoia:
Berserk is Guts’ story after all and it makes sense to expand his own motifs to illustrate fear as a concept in general imo.
oddly Femto does not get this imagery very often at all. In fact this is the only instance I can think of that comes close:
Usually he’s stylized as monstrous by totally removing his face and just portraying the mask, or his face is shown in full. Now I could see an argument that his design automatically incorporates bright eyes in a dark background due to the black helmet:
But it’s really not emphasized, like even when we get five thousand closeups of his staring eyes during the rape scene, they don’t pop against a dark background, they’re not the brightest things in the panel like other monsters’ eyes:
So idk. Maybe the stylization of the mask, the way his face can disappear within it like so
is meant to be reminiscent of the more mundane and natural way Miura has of making someone/thing look intimidating, ie shadowing their eyes. Or maybe it was more important to him to be able to draw Femto as either monstrous (no face) or unnervingly human (fully visible human face) with little in between.
Anyway that’s just an aside, the only point of this post is to illustrate some recurring concepts and show how the imagery ties Guts’ urge to fight monsters back to his childhood trauma.
I mean it’s not exactly a hard sell lol, but I’m just like a big fan of
the recurring stylized imagery and I think it’s a great touch.
nice! also sorry i keep adding this stuff to your comments lol but i’m getting all invested in this nonexistent character arc of modern au griffith making peace w/ himself and dropping the conformity act and going full somewhat fem house husband
also speaking of hair now i’m thinking modern griffith w/ his long perfect hair as like, the one thing he just can’t bring himself to change to be more conventional and masc in whatever career path he’s taking.
Part two) I think you’re right aboutGuts being casual as fuck,
but I feel like he does have a few nice outfits stored in the back of
his closet. For Casca, I think it’d depend on the day and situation.
But it’d be kind of androgynous, but still kind of feminine. For
Griffith, I’m seeing a lot of grey, white, and black clothes. I think
he’d wear a lot of things like turtlenecks, slacks, sweaters, button
ups, and plain t shirts. Maybe a few that have a cause he supports. Idk
how’d they’d meet
Hi again! Ooh yeah these thoughts are all gr8. I’ve never thought of Griffith in
sciences/medicine before but that’s a really interesting
concept. I could see him obsessing over research now that you bring up that whole area of things? And yeah agree for Casca and Guts, both of those job ideas seem
like they’d be good fits. I like the idea of Casca as a blue collar
worker but you’re right I could see her aiming for something that gives her more power and respect.
And yeah all those style concepts work for me. I don’t have much to add bc honestly I know 0 about fashion/style lol, but it makes sense, and like yeah I could see Guts with a few suits and collared shirts for special occasions. Especially after he meets Griffith he might try a bit harder on dates eg lol.
No, I’m really not interested or invested in her at all tbh. The most interesting thing about her to me was her brief friendship w/ Sonia, and only because it’s one of like a million berserk relationships that kind of parallels griffguts.
I’m with you, Farnese and Serpico are the only newer characters I really like on Guts’ side of the narrative. But like, they’re the only characters with layers and dark backstories and moral greys, which is what I’m here for, so.
Well that would be one way to make Isidro interesting to me lol. bc same, I really don’t care about him at all. I’m mostly just kind of annoyed whenever he’s on the page lol, I’ve never been much of a fan of kid characters in general and Isidro really has nothing going for him imo.
I think like… idk my prediction is that his mermaid crush is going to die and he’s going to grow up a little because of it, but it’s not a concept I’m all that into lol, it just seems like a logical direction for the story to go. It would be a lot more fun to see Isidro go villainous lol, and he does have that whole “ambition” thing going on. I think the natural end to his storyline would actually be giving up adventuring and settling down though, after his whole conversation with that old dude during the troll fight.
Miura did (sigh) mention Isidro/Schierke as an obvious potential relationship, which is super uninteresting to me but also I don’t really care about either of them so yk, whatever. My biggest hope is just that Isidro doesn’t suck up too much screen time lol, and there’s no focus on any potential romance there – if it happens let it be a random aside in the epilogue or smthn.
honestly tho. griffith’s narrative is 110% about the dream vs guts and if that’s not still the case i’ll eat my hat. it’s what it’s all building towards.
@yesgabsstuff said:
Omg Guts is so a stunt
driver or some other bullshit job where he could actually hurt himself.
His whole arc is realizing that while he’s not getting drunk and
getting into fights with strangers at bars he’s still self destructive
with ~love~ in his life.
yeah i feel like any job guts has in a modern au should be something physical that also takes skill, something he can do as a mental distraction, and something that can potentially be self destructive lol.
@jaeger-der-nacht said:
May I add that I can imagine Guts very well as a kendo teacher in modern au?
Ooh yeah I like this idea. Something physical and skilled, that preserves his fighting ability, plus I think he would be a good teacher. (we see him w/ isidro i guess, and that seems to be going well).
This is a little hard to answer lol because my first experience w/ Berserk was watching the anime while v stoned like 8 years ago and then reading a confusing scanlation up to a little after the hill of swords i think, so I don’t remember much, but by the time I re-read it and got super into it 2 years ago I already knew the plot and characters etc.
When I watched the anime I remember being v surprised at Griffith’s backstory, and appreciative that at least it wasn’t only women dealing with sexual violence. I wasn’t surprised by g*tsca, but I was disappointed. I definitely shipped griffguts from the start, and at times I was like “holy shit is it canon?” like during Casca and Guts’ conversation in the cave. And the Eclipse took me completely by surprise lol, I was like “…huh. ok, that seems like a pointlessly grimdark way to end this show.” Then I read the manga and it made more sense there.
Griffith was always my fave lol. I also liked Casca but was deeply suspicious of her role the whole time which prevented me from enjoying her as much as I could’ve, since every time she was on screen I was waiting for no homo romance or a rape attempt, and lbr I got a lot of both. I remember the 2 episodes around the 100 man fight and Casca running away from rapists were what prevented me from rewatching the show ever again lol, both bc of the sexual violence and bc they were so fucking slow paced. Every time I was like, hmm I should watch Berserk again I’d remember those eps and be like, enh.
It was definitely more character and relationship driven than I
expected, and way gayer. I thought I was getting into nothing more
interesting than big sword swoosh swoosh but then it turned out to be
all about complex characters and stuff. I was really surprised by how engaged I was and how willing I was to watch like 6 episodes a night.
As for when I re-read it more recently, after not thinking much about the canon for nearly a decade:
I’d forgotten how much of a dick Guts was during the Black Swordsman arc and I rolled my eyes at him a lot, but he grew on me super quick and by the end of the BS arc I was like “oh yeah now I remember why I love him so much.” I was really really fond of Guts throughout the whole manga, way more than I expected to be.
I was constantly taken aback by how blatant and direct the story was about Griffith prioritizing Guts over his dream, Griffith’s feelings for Guts, Guts being entirely motivated by wanting to be closer to Griffith, Griffith throwing his life away because Guts left, Griffith being broken by Guts leaving not once but twice, Guts regretting leaving the Hawks because by leaving he threw away what he left to get, Guts being torn between Griffith and Casca post-Eclipse, etc etc etc.
Like somehow I had the impression that Berserk was subtle about all of this and you had to read between the lines to pick it up but lol no, characters often just state all this directly, over and over.
Hmm what else. I was pleasantly surprised by how downplayed g*tsca felt. I think this is from reading a scanlation before, which translates all their shit as romantically as humanly possible, while the official translation never even uses the word “love.”
The “the instant I saw him I’d forgotten my urge to kill” page absolutely killed me lol. I was writing occasional notes as I read it bc sometimes I like to type out my reactions/thoughts etc while I’m getting into something for the first time, and this is what I wrote there:
little blacksmith girl: let’s all live together here! guts: remembers griffith and his pretty hair interesting to think of guts as a parallel to pre-eclipse griffith when griffith IS his ambition. i hope that doesn’t make casca his weakness. i feel like she’s a wild card that could make shit interesting and different when she gets her mind back or could ruin any potential fun guts/griffith emotional shit. i want his hate for griffith to be his ambition and his love/hope for him/his former self to be his weakness. that’s how i’d do it anyway
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT THE NEXT FUCKING PAGE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA “just as I got her back… no in the middle of swinging my sword to get her back… I… saw him… The way he appeared before me… he wasn’t a demon. He looked so human. As if he’d been stolen from the past, the way he used to be. The instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ch177 page 20 like holy fuck i see god
And in general I was surprised by how much I got into it. Like I read the manga and then re-read it to liveblog it here a couple months later lmao, and now I can’t shut up about it. I was definitely not expecting it to become a major fandom for me. I only read it again because I heard they finally got off the boat, but then it kind of hit me upside the head with thoughts and emotional investment lol.
listen its the best option. he can work from home or whatever but let him soak up the feeling of being loved and needed and doing whatever just for himself bc he feels like it with no obligation to anyone else
like griffith would love being domestic r u kidding me
lol i feel like this is griffith’s idealized state of being but also the struggle it would take to reach it would be wild
there is something really satisfying about imagining constantly working career driven Griffith getting together with Guts and (probably after a lot of conflict and breakup makeup drama and soul searching) dropping it all ngl.
tbh it doesn’t seem likely to me. Farnese’s “crush” on Guts is compared to Casca’s on Griffith, which isn’t a promising prelude to romance lol, and to me it seems like Farnese herself doesn’t really consider it a genuine romantic thing so much as admiration bc he shattered her worldview and changed her life.
But yeah I feel you about wanting Farnese to be happy. I want her to become like a full-fledged witch – she genuinely loves helping people, and we know she’s never been happier than when protecting Casca and feeling like she can contribute something unique, and imo it’d be great to see that aspect of her character growth focused on, whether she ends up in a relationship or not.
As for Guts + romance I think it’s either Casca or bust (wherein bust = an emotional and somewhat suggestive climax w/ Griffith lbr), and I’ve got my fingers crossed hard for the latter.
not a stupid question at all, I’ve seen a lot of gr8 modern au concepts and idk it’s fun to think about
Personally tho I am super not creative lol so I kind of really suck at this kind of thing. I want to like, think of stuff that’s exactly the same as canon but modern, but when there are no modern equivalents (like swinging a sword? wtf can guts do today that fills the same niche?) i’m at a loss lol, and then it all falls apart.
I can throw out some ideas though. Like I think Guts will always be casual as fuck, t-shirt and jeans style. Casca would appear well put together but only bc she’s got a good grasp of basics and classics, idt she’d follow fashion. Griffith would be meticulously dressed to fit whatever niche he’s trying to rise up into.
Though in a modern au Griffith presumably wouldn’t’ve been getting people killed since he was a kid and therefore he might not be nearly as driven to succeed at something as he is in canon, and therefore he might channel his urge to change the world into something a little more chill, like volunteering.
But then again maybe he still feels the need to push himself bc it’s ultimately a way for him to justify his existence bc he hates himself, and he can still hate himself without blood on his hands, so he could end up like, working his whole life to succeed, going to a top university on a scholarship, studying law or something.
Either way he’d follow fashion and look the part.
Also like, would Casca still be doing something “masculine”? I mean ngl I like to picture her as a carpenter or something, v blue collar, biceps, jeans and a tool belt. that might be a little self indulgent of me tho lol, but yk what, idc, it’s good. Would she still idolize Griffith? Did Griffith still help her in some way when they were kids?
Guts… lol idk, mma fighting? personal trainer? trucker? maybe driving is his zen. stunt driver? some kind of sport?
Also it’s hard to figure out how they’d know each other lol since they’re all such different people. I remember thinking of au ideas once with @yesgabsstuff and @mastermistressofdesire where the concept was that they all met in group therapy lol, which lbr is probably the most fitting way to update berserk’s setting bc god knows they all need it, and it’s an idea I’m still p fond of. Like it’s nice to imagine them in a world where they can actually constructively deal with their many many issues lol.
Though I mentioned volunteer work, so maybe Griffith runs a non-profit w/ Casca as his right hand woman, and he gets Guts to volunteer his time or skills for a money raising campaign or smthn thru a bet.
Or hey they’re all gay, maybe in a modern au they’re less repressed and they meet at pride or the local gay bar.
Or maybe the Hawks are a softball team. or it’s a college au and they’re a dnd group lol. (the idea of evil as the gm. a terrible gm that completely railroads the plot and creeps everyone out.) (tho i really can’t imagine any of them getting into dnd lol)
Anyway yeah I can’t rly come up with anything more coherent than this lol, there are too many possibilities.
thank you! and yeah that’s totally fair! We might have slightly different interpretations of Griffith, but that’s just cause he’s a really complex interesting character and there’s a ton of room for emphasizing different aspects of his personality and stuff.
also just as an aside, for like, non-bdsm sexual scenarios I can really easily see Griffith taking the lead, especially at first, because he’s so used to being in control etc. so for me a lot of it depends on like, the scenario, how established their relationship is, etc.
oh man. ok i’m sorry this is honestly a terrible answer, i got really carried away when it came to griffith lol.
i have a more thoughtful, meta-y answer to a similar question here and i’m linking it to sort of compensate for just answering this with a picspam lol.
under a cut bc it’s long.
Guts:
standing up w/ like 50 broken bones and marching up a staircase with his giant sword to try to kill his ex bc he said he’s beneath his notice:
this one might actually be my favourite guts character moment:
Guts finally getting close to moving on and recovering:
sums it tf up:
i wanted one moment that shows guts’ like, tender, caretaker side, and this is the most painful:
a purely self-indulgent choice bc i love that “he’s back” feeling so much lol:
and how could I not include this:
Casca
love the concept of casca being invested in the dream:
her proud smile here:
physically lashing out with her sword in a rage:
in a good au casca went on to lead the still-undefeated band of the hawks:
sure it’s ruined two pages later, but man i love her attempt at a last stand:
Farnese
i love her early black and white thinking tbh:
this is my favourite character establishing moment for farnese:
stabbing a demon tiger in the eye is probably my fave farnese moment overall:
Serpico
I love this early moment where he tells a dude he doesn’t even know his tragic life story while vaguely hitting on him and makes him uncomfortable:
like he’s a weird but enjoyable combination of diplomatic and offputting:
preventing guts from getting himself killed the same night he tried to kill him himself:
And finally a more dramatic, serious moment because the first three moments there rly don’t do him justice and I love his backstory:
Griffith (I will try to show restraint but I could spam almost every panel he’s in honestly)
I’m including Femto and NGriff:
what an introduction:
getting himself killed for guts:
somehow simultaneously maintaining denial while essentially confessing his feelings:
this:
but especially when paired with this:
there’s a lot to love about this scene but this is the best moment imo:
every single second of chapter 17 but let’s sum it up with this:
this whole exchange but especially this first panel here:
he just heard that he’s achieved one of the most important steps on the way to his dream and this is what he fucking does:
sorry but this is the coolest moment in anything ever:
again literally all of tombstone of flame really but let’s go with this moment in particular:
all of the second duel as well:
of course:
obviously the whole monologue but it always comes back to this:
fuckin ripping my heart out:
and again:
and again:
i’m gonna keep going like this:
The Moment Of Despair Is The Touch Of Guts’ Hand:
and then:
i’m sorry i really did mean to be more restrained than this lmao:
the entire moment of the sacrifice but i’m picking this panel to illustrate it:
can you believe:
OBVIOUSLY but this also includes Griffith blaming it on the fetus because that is so in character:
I actually have a giant headcanony post on it here if you’re interested in the long self-indulgent explanation focusing on how I feel like it fits with the characters yadda yadda yadda
but i mean lbr ultimately it really just boils down to personal preference and the fact that I like reversing the assumed/social/etc power dynamic when it comes to sex and romance, whether that’s bdsm-y or purely emotional or whatever, and since Griffith tends to have more power by default (hawk commander, promoted to nobility, guts looking up at him and striving to be his equal, eventual demigod) I like the idea of reversing that when it comes to emotional + sexual feelings for Guts.
Plus canon has this moment which is basically whatiloveinaship.jpg
Hard not to take that and run with it.
Also if you want to share your perspective I’m interested in what appeals to you about dom!Griff/sub!Guts!
@bthump its from the Rosine Butterfly apostle fight from volume 16
awesome, thank you very much!
me: tbh guts’ sad wistfulness and his inability to hate griffith for sacrificing him to the point where femto had to do something ridiculously ott just to piss him off was a terrible writing choice and completely flattens guts as a character post-eclipse while contradicting like half of the black swordsman arc
also me:
i
love
this
tragic
romance
As a sacrificial offering for the Invocation of Doom, not just any lump of flesh and blood will do. It must be someone important to you, part of your soul… someone so close to you that it’s almost like giving up a part of you.
you're the only one 