Tag: b

Guts and Griffith at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal lol

lol i know nothing about this but looking it up and there seem to be a lot of themed mazes full of actors in makeup and prosthetics. so now i’m imagining guts and griffith both badly trying to pretend to be scared so they can cling to their strong brave bf when someone leaps out at them with a chainsaw.

or griffith immediately getting into role playing in a zombie apocalypse and guts reluctantly starting to have fun with it too

elaborate tho if you want bc idk enough about this event to say anything particularly good lol. like which attractions do you think they’d like best?

oo any thoughts to what the characters (just anyone you’d like) would be doing on halloween, like in a modern au?

Guts, either pre-Hawks or post-Eclipse: sitting alone in his house with the lights off so no one comes to the door

Current Guts: moping but his outdoor lights are on and he has a bowl of candy by the door.

Golden Age Guts: at Griffith’s house party wearing a costume that
matches Griffith’s, spending most of the night denying that they’re a
couple whenever anyone gushes over their cute couples costume. but those
denials get more tentative and uncertain as the night goes on and he starts to wish he wasn’t denying it. (I couldn’t think of a good matching costume idea but after seeing that last ask i want to go with angel and demon costumes tbh.)
Also Guts has been there all day helping Griffith decorate. 

Golden Age Griffith: throwing a house party, taking great care in dressing himself and Guts up right before everyone starts showing up so they look perfect together, not exactly spending the whole night at Guts’ side but they keep ending up together, side by side on the couch or leaning against the wall observing people, or heading out for fresh air together.

The party goes til 3 am, and Guts and Griffith are the last ones up, drunk and cuddling on the couch together watching some horror movie on tv. Griffith rests his head against Guts’ shoulder and Guts is like, fuck it and impulsively leans down to kiss him. They end up making out for a while before passing out on top of each other.

Meanwhile Casca has met… let’s stick with Golden Age characters and go with Charlotte this time. Casca’s dressed as a pirate and Charlotte is a princess and Casca ends up say… rescuing Charlotte from a boring conversation. They end up in the kitchen getting drinks together and talking. Charlotte only just met Griffith recently and doesn’t really know anyone and is shy and awkward, Casca takes it upon herself to keep her company because Griffith and Guts are wrapped up in each other and she’s not in the mood to hang out with Corkus or Judeau all night. Eventually they ditch the party early to go walking around the neighbourhood, and find themselves sitting on swings at a playground together at 11pm, just talking about whatever. Maybe they go to Casca’s place and hook up or maybe they start a slower thing, either way.

NeoGriffith: throwing a joint house party with his platonic bff + roommate Charlotte, but Charlotte seems to be the main host and people only see Griffith around for the first hour or two. Locus and Grunbeld showed up early with extra booze in case they needed help setting up (they didn’t), and have a good time just chilling. Raksas is dressed as the scream ghostface, Irvine doesn’t show, and Zodd’s just there for the beer. Owen and Laban put in an appearance towards the end of the night, showing up between parties. Everyone leaves at a reasonable time, either to go home or to go to a wilder party. Anna and Charlotte are gfs and they stay up together to finish off the food and a few more drinks, then have great sex.

Griffith has spent the night watching the movie from that first golden age party, crying, and telling himself not to call Guts while scrolling through his facebook page hoping he doesn’t see pictures of him having fun at another party.

These scenarios can’t really be in continuity with each other bc Casca and Charlotte (or idk maybe there’s a convoluted modern au scenario that makes it work) but Griffith and Guts still first hooked up on halloween, just bc.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “do you have any horror-ish…”

it’s hard to think of horror movie aus where there’s a good partnership which is why the conjuring is fun. if you’re devout enough i think someone could have fun with like an IT au. given how full of childhood trauma and repression berserk actually is.

oh man IT would work way too well. but yeah horror movies w/ fun partnerships aren’t common, i’ll keep the conjuring in mind next time i’m feeling like a horror movie tbh, it looks p fun.

hellraiser might be a good fit, tho honestly i’ve never actually seen it lol, i just know the aesthetic suits the godhand and you open portals to other dimensions through puzzle boxes and turn into bdsmy demons or smthn. but yeah i can’t think of any with good character dynamics for griffguts, just like aesthetics and tones to steal lol.

do you have any horror-ish berserk/griffguts scenarios that you like? (watching netflix castlevania has got me thinking about a berserk au, but i also like the idea of au with vampire hunter guts and vampire griffith in general. or an au of the tale of bisclavret where griffith is the king and guts the werewolf. also for some twisted reason i’m obsessed with this fanart you rb’ed time ago and the potential scenario behind it lol: bthump(.)tumblr(.)com/post/160121437199/coolfreeringtones)

i love that art lol, there’s something so much fun in the idea of Griffith killing Guts and then just losing it and keeping his corpse around and surrounding himself with images of him.

also damn i love that gay werewolf story, and it seems v fitting. you don’t even necessarily have to go au to get something griffgutsy that’s inspired by it, if you don’t mind going like extra dark lol – say guts going full beast of darkness for a while, having killed his rpg group, and in a confrontation with neogriffith ngriff keeps him instead of killing him and the beast of darkness is yk, torn enough between love and hate that for a while longing and that sense of connection are enough to keep him ‘tame.’ And maybe eventually return his fully human consciousness.

i haven’t watched season 2 yet so idk about Castlevania specifically, but vampire aus are always solid. band of the hawk au idea? Griffith as a vampire who turns volunteers, until he meets vampire hunter Guts who’s trying to kill him, and can’t resist turning him instead of killing him when they fight.

hmm and right now i’m thinking about ways to make the canon fit a more traditionally halloween-y horror vibe. Like a sad ghost story – say, Guts keeps seeing images of human Griffith during his 2-3 years blackswordsmaning before NGriff’s resurrection, and he can’t tell whether he’s losing his mind or whether it’s some residual spiritual aspect of whatever human part of him got destroyed when he became Femto, or the ghosts that haunt him fucking with him.

or i know in one of the video games there’s an apostle that creates illusions. considering all the weird and varied magic powers apostles have there’s a lot of potential there in general. an apostle that can mess with people’s minds would make a good haunted… area story, wherever it happens to live. there was kind of a haunted house vibe in the video game i think. But yk like, sending people creepy visions, or visions of their personal worst fears, either to drive them away or just to fuck with them before they get eaten. Guts could get illusions of himself turning on his friends, or corpses of the old Band haunting him, and ofc Griffith maybe being alternately threatening and vulnerable and seductive, embodying Guts’ mixed feelings.

Like I’m kind of into the idea of Guts stepping into an apostle’s territory, seeing a vision of Griffith who appears and disappears, whispers in his ear and makes him jump and futilely swing at him, taunts him, brushes an insubstantial finger over his brand. maybe sometimes appears as a savaged corpse like how he’d look if the beast of darkness tore him apart, or femto, or post-torture Griffith, etc. That would be a lot of fun to play around with tbh.

and to go more actual like, monster au, i’m kind of partial to griffith as a siren. maybe with glamour, so he looks beautiful but underneath he’s got more of a monstrous bird thing going on. i mean that’s neogriffith and femto right there. and i can’t not associate guts with werewolves, that’s just obvious. So either of those would make a decent monster AU (both might be overkill lol). Siren Griffith who entrances people into following him, whether purposefully or not, and finds himself enthralled in turn by Guts. Or werewolf Guts who joins Griffith and fights for him, loyal and devoted and violent and bloodthirsty, and strikes fear into his enemies lol.

idk that’s about all i got for now. but if anyone else has any good horror ideas plz add to this. it’s halloween after all.

what are the things you like and dislike about the ’97 anime and the films?

freewilllife:

bthump:

ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol

Keep reading

It´s interesting that you liked the movies…I prefer the anime every time. There is more flesh to the bone, while Griffith seems to be a cold-hearted guy in the movies…Also their relationship ( between Guts and Griffith) isn´t explored so nicely.

That is why I disliked the movies immensely.

i prefer the anime overall too for sure, but i can still enjoy the movies despite their massive failings lol. my expectations are already p low for any berserk adaptation i guess, especially a film adaptation which by necessity is always going to have to cut stuff, which makes it easier to enjoy the positive aspects.

Do you ever think about how miura pulled the magic healing cock trope but with pussy lol? Like guts had sex with casca once and his csa trauma disappeared just like that

yeah that is such a huge issue i have with like, everything post eclipse.

i mean i feel like, idk there are a few moments that suggest that rather than just fixing guts’ trauma and then immediately replacing it with eclipse trauma, it’s more that the eclipse echoed his childhood trauma and compounded it. i feel like that might’ve been miura’s intent even. eg:

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And it absolutely was his clear intent during the Black Swordsman arc. But I feel like Miura let this just kind of, like, fall to the wayside, and totally failed to follow through on this idea through actual characterization, instead deciding to completely downplay Guts’ actual personal trauma.

Like there are so many moments that by rights should’ve referenced Guts’ csa trauma that glaringly ignored it. A big one I’m thinking of is when Guts assaults Casca. Like come on, he had a violent flashback during consensual sex with her and you’re telling me it’s not even on his mind after nearly raping her? Or maybe yk at some point during that arc right after the Eclipse that was all about child abuse and Guts becoming a monster. Or maybe during the actual Eclipse itself. At least show us that paralyzing fear that was strongly implied during the Black Swordsman arc instead of boring one dimensional outrage.

So yeah basically idk, I p much agree. It sucks.

morgiah:

I’ve been wanting to write my own analysis of Locus for a
while, but I figured I’d wait for the guidebook to come out and potentially
give me interesting new info on him. Now, since one of those has happened, I
might as well make the post!

My goal is to highlight a great character that gets
overlooked and misinterpreted a lot, understandably since Berserk has so many characters, but also because people tend to be biased against the ones on Griffith’s side and simplify them.

This will touch on guidebook content only

for

a bit, specifically
my problems with it, then go right back to the manga for an overview of Locus’
scenes and context for my interpretation of him. Since it’s very text and image
heavy, it’s going under a cut. Enjoy, and feel free to add stuff, as I’m always open to discussion!

Keep reading

like i said b4 i love all of this, but in particular the way you talked about the apostles and their relationship to griffith was super like, intriguing and sad. it makes me wish we saw other apostles join ganeshka in rebelling.

and like describing locus as kind of rationalizing that demon instinct to himself. like he’s maybe one of the lucky ones because due to his ideals he would’ve joined griffith anyway, but it’s still kind of quietly messed up that he doesn’t really get a choice.

and even ganeshka at the end got that pre-death moment of fulfillment when griffith came to kill him.

and also while it is a literal like instinctive, irresistable attraction that affects the apostles deeply, it’s also a symbol of human connection in general, i’d say. well, love. It’s an echo of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, a lot of that torch in the darkness stuff in the conviction arc leads into it. it’s another example of yk that whole true light, people shining in other people’s eyes stuff we get a lot of. and now you’ve got me thinking about possible implications and stuff lol. people embracing that feeling, rebelling against it, changing their lives because of it, destroying their lives, wanting to better themselves and live up to that feeling or wanting to escape it entirely, etc, and how that could be echoed in the apostles.

Idk like now I really want to see more apostle variety in how they respond to griffith in particular.

also from this angle it’s extra fitting that the new band of the hawk is made up of apostles.

what are the things you like and dislike about the ’97 anime and the films?

ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol

97 anime likes:

  • the animation, including the like, yk the more detailed stills they pan over in place of action or to punctuate important moments, i love it
  • the gorgeous backgrounds
  • most of the colour choices. red eclipse, femto’s blue eyes, casca’s skintone, griffith’s mauve clothes, etc.
  • how close it is to the manga. like, it’s a solid adaption just by virtue of making very few changes.
  • so like, most of it really, because i like the manga
  • special mention to the entire lead up to the eclipse from griffith’s reality break to the sacrifice tho, because i think that was all pretty damn perfect. it’s the most important scene and they did it right.
  • actually also shout out to casca’s flashback to griffith and the dead kid, gennon, the river scene, all that. another difficult v emotional sequence that they nailed imo.
  • griffith thinking about how he “loves” guts during the monologue
  • skipped most of the griffith/charlotte sex scene iirc which i approve of
  • the glimpse of black swordsman guts in ep 1. it’s not perfect but it’s way better than the ovas starting w/ 15 yr old guts
  • the opening and closing themes. fucking love both songs ngl
  • also the opening monologue. never get tired of hearing it
  • the score
  • the portrayal of griffith was honestly pretty solid imo. i have very few issues there. and lbr that’s important lol

97 anime dislikes:

  • not a big fan of griffith or guts’ character designs.
  • just about everything that isn’t identical to the manga is a change for the worse
  • turned griffith’s scratch marks into that giant unexplained scar
  • adding extra scenes where casca is secretly impressed with guts’ skills in battle in an attempt to build up their relationship better, which instead just made casca look unfair for still being a dick to him for 3 years and made guts stupidly gary stu-ish
  • obviously the straightforwardly romantic portrayal of guts and casca’s relationship
  • through several seemingly minor changes (eg, skipping guts’ night of self-doubt after he leaves, giving guts’ stay with godo its own half-episode, making guts inviting casca along super romantic rather than the incredibly casual and assholish way he does it in the manga, etc) it makes Guts’ dream seem legitimately noble and worthwhile, with none of the like… implicit critique the manga has. like honestly it completely fucks up what i consider one of the central themes of the story lol
  • the pre eclipse stuff also fails to sell guts’ sense of regret – through things like playing guts’ theme while judeau is telling guts to leave, not repeating guts’ statement of regret after casca tells him to leave again, the tone remains consistently in favour of guts’ dream. wrong and bad.
  • like it really reads like the suggested tragedy is that guts doesn’t get the chance to ditch griffith with judeau and take off with casca and the raiders lol
  • also fucks it up by never directly mentioning guts’ csa trauma
  • also fucks it up by losing guts’ self-destructive single-minded urge to fight monsters that we saw thru the wyald stuff. i’m not gonna say that losing wyald was a bad decision, but they should’ve at least moved erika suggesting that guts just wants to fight zodd again to the fucking waterfall scene in question, which they portrayed completely sans zodd discussion, completely sans implication of the self-destructiveness of guts’ dream
  • like in the manga he nearly gets killed by the falling logs and just laughs it off like a dumbass while erika is concerned and suggests that guts is driven by something irrational and not actually a ~noble~ dream, ie, wanting to fight zodd again (ie, going deeper, his csa trauma), while in the anime we get a 2nd scene where he successfully slices through the logs as a super basic symbol of growth and a narrative pat on guts’ back that shouldn’t be there!
  • honestly just fucking everything about the portrayal of guts’ dream lol it just takes it at face value in a way the manga consistently never did and always undermined and critiqued, and it bugs the hell out of me.
  • guts is just drawn in a way that makes him look angry way too often and he often feels ooc to me bc of it. like he lacks a lot of the warmth he has in the manga imo
  • showing that griffith is awake when guts says “i’ll stay too” even tho in the manga those words are placed over a panel of him asleep for a reason like, ffs
  • lots of other random nitpicky details that only i give a fuck about because my opinions and feelings about the story are too strong lol. like not showing griffith’s face when he asks if guts thinks he’s cruel
  • oh huge one: moving the scene where the torturer rips off griffith’s behelit from about a day after he was imprisoned to right before his rescue. completely trivializes griffith’s torture because it still looks like he’s been in there for a day at most
  • why on earth did it end where it ended????????????? who’s bright idea was that? the perfect ending is skull knight riding tf out with guts and casca and femto not killing them, but then they also cut out skull knight’s first appearance so idfk man.
  • oh some downplaying of griffguts, like i can’t complain too much about this because it was still p homoerotic, but things like omitting guts assuming griffith wants to fuck him right before their first duel. boo.

ultimately at the end of the day as much as i do genuinely like the anime, it’s not telling quite the same story the manga was – the story it’s telling is more boring and basic. but because it sticks so close to the manga the good story still shines through? it just means there’s inconsistent tone choices and stuff, like the aforementioned grievances.

it’s like, they kept casca’s diatribe at guts line for line while she’s screaming that griffith needed him and a man can’t live on dreams alone, but they don’t extend that train of thought to guts going off to pursue his dream, while the manga does.

anyway despite that giant list of dislikes i still think the anime is pretty fantastic overall. i just also like, blame it for a lot of wrong fandom takes lol.

movie likes:

  • character designs! honestly imo everyone looked pretty great.
  • they played up the homoeroticism and i appreciate that
  • illustrating griffith being torn between guts and his dream through that lovely moment when he catches guts when he nearly falls off the stairs right before he catches charlotte, and in a more romantically suggestive way
  • the whole scene where griffith shows up at charlotte’s window thoroughly improved on the manga, so hats off there. loved how completely out of it he was to the point where he barely realized where he was and immediately turned to leave when charlotte was like ‘woah dude wtf,’ love that charlotte was the one to ask him to stay and then physically move his hand back to her tit, love how emphatically griffith was thinking about guts during that sex scene, etc. like it’s still not perfect, but it is a vast improvement.
  • griffith showing up in person after the hundred man fight was a nice touch
  • it was cool that they got a lot of the same english vas from the anime dub back, and they all did a gr8 job. like it’s a pretty good dub imo.
  • i liked that they moved ‘the crystalization of your last tear shed’ to after guts’ post-eclipse breakdown
  • compared to the anime at least gtsca was more low-key and chill rather than dramatically romantic. still don’t want it there, and still not as… unromantic as the manga, but i’ll take what i can get
  • the animation during griffith’s transformation into femto, yk that whole sequence, was cool
  • slan’s english voice was super sexy
  • ummmmm i feel like they conveyed the whole dreams are stupid theme, and guts’ decision to leave being a mistake, better than the anime? like i got the sense that the ova ppl recognized that was a theme, at least. i’d have to watch them again to really be sure of that tho

movie dislikes:

  • GRIFFITH’S. NARRATIVE.
  • like holy fuck they completely destroyed his character lmao
  • i cannot believe
  • no backstory! no tombstone of flame! no ‘do you think i’m cruel?’ THAT WAS THE REASON HE MADE THE SACRIFICE FFS HOW DO YOU SKIP IT????
  • no dead kid angst, gennon only in vague implication, no self harm – oh no wait we saw self inflicted scratches, they were just completely contextless and meaningless to the point where we could assume charlotte’s nails made them
  • no torture chamber monologue
  • no guts monologue in the tavern either for that matter
  • no rooftop scene
  • again barely the implication of guts’ childhood trauma, both the sexual abuse and the general parental abuse. one vague flashbacky nightmare doesn’t cut it, it’s the cornerstone of the story
  • like i get it, it’s a movie trilogy, you have to cut some things, but goddamn, cut out gtsca. trim the hundred man fight. add 20 minutes to the first ova and take the insanely long rape scene out of the third. trim down the whole eclipse sequence. don’t cut out like… the story. like they cut out SO MANY emotionally relevant scenes and kept so many much less relevant scenes, idek.
  • and like let’s be real here, they turned griffith from an immensely interesting and complex character into a 1 dimensional dude who is torn between a vaguely evil ambition and being in vaguely evil love with guts, just for the sake of streamlining the least interesting aspects of the story
  • they don’t even try to pretend otherwise lol, look at his fucking hilarious evil smile here
image
  • also while i’m looking at it, in general i think they failed at the whole eclipse sequence. looks, lighting, colour, build up of tension… there are a few minor improvements here and there (eg casca’s point of view shot of femto, femto telekinesising guts back a la the black swordsman arc which emphasizes his failure to act when he escapes), but overall it doesn’t work for me at all. like imo the anime has the exact same highs and lows as the manga, but while the ova avoids some lows it never reaches those highs.
  • they also had griffith overhear guts saying he wants to stay. i really don’t get why this happened twice lol, like… ok his face is kind of shadowed here but he’s still very clearly asleep? this is an important detail, guts’ interrupted words are even on that very panel, so why would you go out of your way to show that he’s awake and listening at that point.
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  • the pacing sucked. 3rd movie was too long, 1st was too short, and they skipped waaaaaay too many significant scenes that should’ve been there as emotional beats
  • honestly the movies are pretty, they’re nicely fanservicey in ways, they capture some good subtleties and nuances at times, but they’re a husk of the story
  • oh did i mention the music during the eclipse rape? incredible.

also i am actually generally positive about the movies too despite what it seems like here lmao. i’ve watched them all like, 3 or more times and i find them v enjoyable.

i just have a way easier time listing nitpicky flaws than positives honestly. the flaws stand out to me, the virtues pass me by because i’m just enjoying them and not dwelling on them

and lbr here at the end of the day no adaption will ever really satisfy me unless i somehow find several million dollars lying around and make my own lol. and that would probably be a flop anyway.

I remember when Casca told Guts to go without her and to abandon her and Griffith. Do you think it is foreshadowing anything?

hmmmmm yeah in a way I’d say so.

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cut to

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It is kind of an additional little suggestion that Black Swordsman Guts is in fact pursuing his dream, and is still motivated by his desire to be Griffith’s friend and equal, and have his attention on him (in yk kind of a fucked up way Guts doesn’t really acknowledge to himself). He does go off alone to fight stronger and stronger enemies, leaving Casca behind, and in the Lost Children arc especially the risk of Guts becoming a monster himself and joining Griffith again that way comes to the forefront.

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And in general it fits nicely with the sense that Guts leaving people and doing his own thing is bad shit, and Guts staying with people who need him is positive and good. Casca’s encouragement is misguided, leads to the Eclipse, and ironically fits Guts’ dumb actions post-Eclipse.

So yeah I’d call it forshadowing for Guts leaving Casca behind in the cave to pursue a version of his dream.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “Who’s the bigger drama queen, Guts…”

no omg i agree like he is never full drama queen but i feel like the stress has to come out in some ways lmao… he never throws a fit he’s just like hand twitching at his side while chews out the florist for getting the arrangement wrong and then maybe runs to his car afterwards and silent cries.

a+ content tbh, i love this. also i imagine these are the situations when modern au griffith’s like, death stare comes out lol

madchen

replied to your post

“Who’s the bigger drama queen, Guts or Griffith?”

true… i feel like modern au griffith would be more of a drama queen or like, channel it through. healthier? outlets like social media. or being a groomzilla.

yeah i think depending on the au i could see a way more emotionally open griffith. like one thing about his general… mr calm and composed attitude to everything is that it’s not intrinsic and it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to him, he’s just forced himself to be very self-controlled throughout his life.

tbh I don’t think I should’ve said i can’t imagine griffith completely losing self-control, because i can imagine it under some circumstances, and i mean we’ve seen him attempt suicide (and he’s not in full control over himself when he’s self harming, eg, like he didn’t even seem aware he was doing it in Casca’s flashback, etc).

But yk to me drama queen suggests like, ott and melodramatic/overexaggerated emotional responses. imo Griffith’s most extreme emotional responses are pretty justified as reactions to extreme circumstances. Even Guts leaving was imo demonstrated to be genuinely significant to him, so his reaction didn’t feel overly extreme to me, and because we got his internal monologue we saw how much of his feelings he still kept hidden.

So it’s less that I can’t imagine him losing self control, and more that I can’t imagine him throwing a hissy fit, or screaming at someone in outrage, and generally blowing things out of proportion. that kind of thing.

But yeah like modern au Griffith, in different circumstances without a dream his life revolves around that forces him into a perfect self-controlled leader image, I could see him, yk, expressing his feelings before they started seeping out in self-destructive ways like unconscious self harm. Engaging in arguments, crying a bit more easily, etc. idk if I could really imagine him as an actual drama queen even then, but he could definitely be less cool and calm and composed in general.

But also like… bear in mind that this is me in unfun, contemplating the nuances of Griffith’s characterization mode. I want to respond to this with like a fun modern au groomzilla griffith scenario, I’m just bad at having fun and thinking of stuff like that, and your response made me ponder more about how canon Griffith expresses emotions lol.

bedifear
replied to your post “top 10 things you want to see happen in the manga?”

Griffith and Guts having their dramatic angsty homoerotic battle that culminates in mutual defeat and becoming one in hell while Casca continues driving the story is the Absolute Best Ending I can think of thank you op

glad you agree! also i just love the image of casca like, walking away at the end of it all and being able to start over in any capacity, whether it’s as a human or a monster or whatever. bonus if she’s got farnese with her.

top 10 things you want to see happen in the manga?

ooh tough call. do they have to be plausible?

I’m gonna go in order from least to most likely I guess lol.

10. Guts has a sex dream about Griffith, fully canonizing his attraction.

9. Guts and Griffith admit they were and still are in love with each other, at least to themselves, and realize how hard they both fucked up their potential, and die together in mutual regret after a dramatic kiss and stab.

8. Guts kills Isidro in a berserk armour rage. Also like, Magnifico,
mermaid girl, Roderick, and also I’d add Schierke and her elf too. Maybe even Puck just to hammer home the point lol, just like, off half the
rpg group. Mini eclipse starring Guts going past his point of no return. And since this is already v implausible, it leads to an ending where Guts and Griffith do the not-so-different thing and get back together.

7. Guts doesn’t go Beast of Darkness due to Casca – not her dying (god forbid), not her going apostle, not her rejecting him, Casca just doesn’t figure into Guts losing himself to darkness regardless of what she does. Instead, Griffith comes to Elfhelm, and Guts goes Beast of Darkness during some kind of emotional confrontation with him.

6. Guts and Griffith drag each other to hell upon their deaths where they ~become one~ like lbr they’ve always wanted. also as an ironic call-back to their equality thing.

5. Schierke’s guardian spirit elemental beings and the Godhand are connected + aspects of the same shit, good and evil are two sides of the same human coin, and the Idea of Evil is not evil in and of itself, it’s simply fulfilling humanity’s wishes. Yk there’s no good spirit world vs evil spirit world, it’s all the same stuff it just looks good or evil depending on what you’re calling on them for and your perspective, because humanity contains multitudes.

4. The behelit opens, Casca makes a sacrifice, goes apostle, and gets to drive the narrative. Relatedly, there are griffguts parallels between apostle Casca and Farnese. Similarly to Rosine/Jill.

3. Danann, and Skull Knight, are using Guts and Casca in a plot against the Godhand, turn out to be giant dicks and Elfhelm in general becomes an antagonist. Also Moonlight Boy was a manipulation on Danann’s part. (And less plausible but along with that, when Griffith shows up at Elfhelm it’s right at the point where the audience, and Guts, wants to see someone fuck Elfhelm up, cleverly complicating the whole protagonist/antagonist scenario.)

2. Casca kills NGriff, probably while NGriff is having a breakdown after killing Guts.

1. Griffith does something stupid and irrational for Guts’ sake once again.

Bonus 0: the fetus is at least mostly a red herring and had nothing to do with Griffith’s heart beating when he watched Guts fight Zodd.

Quick question what are all the cited inspirations for Berserk?

From what I’ve seen myself in interviews I’ve read, Go Nagai (probably Devilman in particular wrt plot and characters, maybe Violence Jack too which I’ve seen other people cite specifically, and I’d suggest his art style in general), Rose of Versailles, Fist of the North Star, Guin Saga, Kaze to Ki no Uta, 80s Rutger Hauer films (lots of fans figure Ladyhawke in particular tho idk if he ever specified, there are a lot of similarities tho afaik), Disney movies (Puck = Jimminy Cricket lol).

Also I’ve seen ppl mention Pygmalio, Star Wars (which seems p obvious considering the Millenium Falcon shout out), Hellraiser, and Cho Aniki (referenced in the names Adon and Samson according to the dh translator lol. apparently there are a lot of little references like that even beyond like, puck’s obvious jokey refs, most of which i’m sure i’ll never know.)

There’s more on his tv tropes page and most seem legit, but ofc take it with a grain of salt bc it’s tv tropes.

Anyway saying half his inspirations were gay was a humorous exaggeration but there is a p significant chunk of gay and/or griffguts-y material there.

have you ever read kaze to ki no uta? it’s a shounen ai/shoujo manga that miura cited as an inspiration for berserk and the two protags and their relationship are reminescent of griffith and guts (also how hilarious it is that people keep denying the homosexual tones in griffith and guts’ relationship when this is a thing)

I read like the first few chapters before the site i was using fucked up and i didn’t go back to it, but mb i should. i’ve heard it’s only partially translated or smthn, which is why i just gave up, tho i could be wrong about that or it could be outdated info.

anyway yeah i can definitely see how it may have partly inspired berserk. i didn’t see enough of the protags’ relationship to really judge similarities there (though wouldn’t surprise me at all if there are some), but the whole concept of csa trauma influencing your life and fucking up your relationships is a p big thing in Berserk, and it seems like the main point of ktknu.

and lol i swear like half the stuff miura cites as an influence is textually gay. just one more reason i can’t believe the homoerotic overtones aren’t deliberate.

About the first deul between Guts and Griffith; I think it’s kind of funny how whatever cool moves they did during that fight we never really see again (eg. Guts biting the sword, Griffith standing on top of the sword, the wrestling). In other words, that deul couldn’t have been just a demonstration of the two’s swordsman skills so the innuendos behind the fight were totally relevant.

legit. even innuendos aside, the uniqueness of the fight is a good reflection of the uniqueness of yk the circumstances, the relationship, it’s such a gr8 scene in general. and i do love those innuendos.

I’ve heard there are some similarities between Berserk and Captive prince. Can you tell me the similarities-you see in the book

bthump:

I only just started reading it so not yet, but sure when I finish the first one I’ll make a post and tag it anonymous for you. might not be for a while, I don’t read every day lol.

Tho I can say that so far the only similarity seems to be blond/brunet gay + political scheming in a made up historical kingdom lol, but again, I’m only a couple chapters in.

ok i finished captive prince so now I can answer this. sorry it took a while lol, I read v intermittently

(fairly unspoilery) verdict:

I
feel like Captive Prince is what you get if you read the manga or watch
the anime, completely adore Griffith, but wish that instead of being a
dark tragic horror story Berserk was all about gay fantasy-historical
politics.

And as someone who has absolutely read the manga, adored
Griffith, and wished that Berserk was all about gay fantasy-historical
politics, I really enjoyed Captive Prince lol.

Laurent is… pretty
close to Griffith imo. To the point where I predicted a few plot
points by thinking What Would Griffith Do. He’s Griffith in a very
different setting under very different circumstances, but like, if you
told me Captive Prince was a story about AU Griffith who grew up in a
much different environment, I’d be like, yeah the author gets him. Same sort of image that hides his actual feelings, denying his weaknesses, eventually only dropping the mask around his love interest, v manipulative + clever, cute childlike moments, multi-talented, that kinda thing lol.

Ofc the
author was inspired by multiple characters, and I’m sure a lot of
similarities I saw are just like, inevitable when you want to make an
ambitious dude who wants to run a kingdom sympathetic, but yk. It’s not exactly serial numbers filed off Berserk fanfic but it was
fun to read and compare them and catch a lot of similarities.

Damen
is, however, absolutely not Guts. They got a similar berserker fighting
style, and maybe a similarly simplistic + straightforward way of viewing the world, but otherwise, nah. Very different characters imo.

And
Damen/Laurent is not griffguts at all. There’s virtually nothing
griffguts-y about them imo. Part of the point of the story is to examine
Laurent as a character thru the eyes of someone who hates him, ie Damen
the pov character, so there’s a lot of really fun (and sad) dramatic
irony and I always love the unreliable narrator/close third person pov,
so it was gr8 and worked very well, but yk. No love at first sight. No
mutual pining, except maybe v subtly between the lines. It’s extreme
slow burn. Very much a solid two people slooooowly falling in love
story, enemies to lovers kind of thing. More realistic and down to earth
where griffguts is very larger than life and wildly intense.

The
funny thing is that while reading Captive Prince and comparing it to
Berserk, bc I was kind of primed to do so by conversations w/ you guys
lol, one difference kind of popped out at me: despite Captive Prince
being the textual gay love story, Berserk is… I don’t want to say
gayer, bc it’s obviously not, but it’s more focused on a relationship
between two dudes lol.

Like Captive Prince isn’t really about the
love story. It’s about Laurent vs The Villain. The love story
complements the plot very nicely and at the climax it plays an important
role, but the real plot of the story is a fucked up political chess
match between Laurent and the Regent as they vy for the throne. The love
story is complementary, it’s not incidental or minor, but it’s also not
the A plot. It’s a very solid B plot.

Whereas in Berserk,
Griffith and Guts’ relationship is the A plot. Captive Prince is a story
about political scheming featuring a great romance. Berserk is a story
about two dudes and their trainwreck of a relationship.

And
idk it was just kind of funny that while reading Captive Prince and
comparing it to Berserk that was my main takeaway. It kind of put into
sharp relief how thoroughly Berserk revolves around Griffith and Guts’
relationship, by demonstrating a very solid very good gay love story
that didn’t revolve around Damen and Laurent’s relationship lol.

Which
is not to downplay the romance, it’s a huge focus and extremely
satisfying imo. I’m just commenting on how like, Laurent and Damen are
largely motivated and driven by other things in their lives lol, the
things that drive the plot, rather than each other.

Anyway yeah
Captive Prince was p good, + if you like Berserk for the same reasons I like
it there are elements that will probably appeal (political scheming, sad backstory stuff, a lot of Laurent’s existence in general, dude who cares about people a lot more than he lets on, clever battle tactics, big buff brunet/thin nerdy but surprisingly skilled blond, etc) but it’s ultimately a v different story.

sobadpink

replied to your post

“seisans
replied to your post “adelth
replied to your post …”

Honestly I think Casca is going to be the only one of the three who will ultimately survive in the end. Griffith’s pure and wonderful kingdom is just /too good/ to last, and I think it will be Guts (our apparent “hero”) who will actually destroy that – and make the world a worse place for it, all in the name of revenge, which is always seen as cool and good in most other He-Man Manly fiction. In a way, it’ll be like both Guts and Griffith are destined to fail through “winning” what they’ve got
and I’ve seen too many
people say they want to see Guts and Casca kill Griffith and go off to
live happily ever after.. LOL. as if Guts’ entire history of not knowing
anything but fighting and killing is suddenly going to be “cured.”  The
guy is the literal embodiment of live-by-sword, die-by-sword, and he
will never stop. Griffith’s death will be tragic not so much for losing
him, but the world he has created for others.  Casca deserves to be
without their drama anyway lol

…totally agree that
the rape was cheap and a crappy stark way to make readers hate Griffith.
Like I understand why it’s there, but it was a very poor choice. I
preferred the ambiguity of grey morality with the entire sacrifice on
its own.  A more direct and personal “fuck you Guts” via Griffith
without raping Casca could’ve easily been switched with any number of
non-sexual acts

honestly this ending would be fantastic imo. i mean i fell in love with berserk when it was a tragedy about 2 dudes whose understandable and empathetic yet still fatal flaws ruined everything, and i want it to return to a tragedy about 2 dudes who continue to ruin everything bc they can’t overcome those flaws.

painting the destruction of falconia as a bad outcome because guts failed to find a better way to deal with his issues than sword swinging would work v well for me.

if miura needs a hopeful note he can have it with the children and maybe some of the other side characters, but i want guts and griffith to destroy themselves and each other again so bad and for that to be shown as a another tragedy.

thekeenbouquetcrown
replied to your post “I must say that 70% of the fandom of Nana and Beserk in terms of…”

Have not you read Nana manga? of what you miss my friend, I must say that I agree with the anon … it is one of the best drama Josei and especially the relationship between both Nana is fascinating and I think that in the end (if it comes back from the Hiatus) both stay together because they are soulmates after all and it is obvious that the story is exactly that, hell I would like many yuri couples to have that detail in their narrative

ty for the rec

i don’t usually get into slice of life stuff which is why i never checked it out after seeing the movie, but i do love strong intense relationships filled with gay subtext, and good character writing in general which it sounds like this is, so i’ll keep it in mind

seisans
replied to your post “adelth
replied to your post “sobadpink
replied to your post “When…”

i think it was probably meant as a shock value thing more than anything, like yes the idea was to feel the anger and betrayal guts was feeling, but imo it wasn’t meant to make us hate griffith the character as a whole from that point onward. because the way miura presents his story after the eclipse is very generous
like it was a shoking turning point that
was supposed to 1) give guts revenge motivation but also 2) really
drive home the ~morally ambiguous~ thing he’s trying to go with, which
might have been the worst fail ever because not only is rape generally
tied to pure evil villainy but also miura /kinda/ made that connection
too. i mean he was actually trying to make that “there’s evil in the
world bc everyone has a dark core” point

and also maybe
something about ultimate freedom (which is why it’s the apostles that
rape like almost every time) but he just failed so hard on that front bc
everyone saw the eclipse rape scene and was like, oh ok so we’re
supposed to hate griffith then. and instead of making their view of the
story more ambiguous and open, it made it completely black and white.
the literal opposite of what miura was imo going for

one thing that i think
the eclipse rape does do is drive home the hatred griffith felt for
guts when he was at his lowest, because those are the feelings that come
to surface when he’s stripped down to only his “evil core.” however the
counter-argument there is that it absolutely didn’t have to be rape,
like you mentioned in another post. it could have been torture or
whatever else. and i’m so pissed off that he went with rape in the end
bc it just cheapened everything

Hm yeah it’s meant to illustrate Femto as an entity made out of evil and Griffith’s inner darkness, make us hate him specifically and empathize with Guts’ desire for revenge. I def agree that it’s not meant to make us retroactively hate Griffith, it’s pretty clear that human Griffith is still meant to be very sympathetic and not Femto-lite or anything like that lmao, I mean look at how Guts remembers him.

NeoGriffith, idfk. It seems clear that we’re not meant to hate him, considering how he’s framed as the hero of his own story with his own loathsome antagonists and a cause we’re meant to generally consider good, and allies we’re meant to like, etc. But we’re probably still supposed to be wary of him, and uncertain about him? His whole thing is ambiguity. So idk, maybe Miura intended for it to be obvious that NGriff isn’t the exact same as Femto just like regular Griffith isn’t, so distancing the Eclipse rape from his narrative doesn’t feel awkward as fuck to him lol.

And yeah in addition to illustrating his evil it does illustrate his negative feelings towards Guts, also necessary, but yeah, choosing rape as that illustration was bad, and the particular way Miura went about it was even worse.

so ……… berserk is red pill vs blue pill 

not sure if this is a matrix ref or a reddit ref lol. both kinda make sense…

i’m hoping miura
doesn’t rush this. bc it’s still not entirely clear what he’s really
going for, and i’d kind of like it to be, by the end 

depends, if it’s gonna suck i just want the band aid ripped off, but if he’s going to surprise me and it’s gonna be good i want to savour it. and also yeah, understanding it would be nice too lmao, but I feel like that’ll be more clear after whatever happens w/ casca happens. that’s the make or break for me.

honestly the concept
of falconia is so sexy, starting with the ripped statues outside and
ending with its literally lusted after angelic beautiful leader like
come on. props to him, griffith haters need to give credit where credit
is due 

when one of your literal superpowers is magic sex appeal you don’t have to go the extra mile, but he did. what an icon

The duel between Guts and Griffith before Griffith slept with Charlotte made me think that if Griffith succeeded killing him that it would trigger the behelit at the spot.

I could see it, or at least I could see him feeling behelit-worthy despair. logistically killing the best sacrifice and being far away from the rest of the hawks might stymie that but emotionally yk, it’s solid.

tho tbh I think that a Griffith who killed Guts during the duel would be a really interesting character if he just like, kept going afterwards. Like I could see that being an action that fundamentally changes him similarly to the Eclipse but yk, in a mundane, realistic way. He wouldn’t turn into a monster, but he would stop wondering if he’s cruel and start fully thinking of himself as a monster. He wouldn’t become malicious but he would become extremely ruthless, cold, and pragmatic. No more friendly socializing with the Hawks, unless he has to to maintain loyalty. And it would take his plans from kingdom to empire, like he’d start a new war at the first opportunity.

like basically neogriffith I guess lol. and this is ofc assuming he doesn’t immediately do something stupid and get himself killed. also he’d probably be adjacent to an epic emotional breakdown at all times, and when it finally happens he’ll take his whole kingdom down with him.

Like yk if the sacrifice represents an action with permanent consequences that fundamentally changes you, this could be the literal version of that fantasy metaphor.

sorry lol I p much just took this ask and ran with it.

I must say that 70% of the fandom of Nana and Beserk in terms of “relationships” are very similar, because they refuse to accept that the main relationship and the engine of the series has much subtext homo of both N and H as with G and Gu the irony is that possibly these two have the best subtext in terms of yaoi and yuri respectively is one of the few times that can be said that is soulmates connection works as friends,lovers or platonic relationship without mentioning the tragic of both cases

When it comes to Nana I’ve only seen the first live action movie iirc, but yeah I shipped tf out of them and was immensely disappointed when I learned it wasn’t canon and there’s a lot of het romance lol. So this seems legit.

modern au guts likes kissing griffiths hands and fingers but especially his wedding band… he admires how it looks on griffs hand from afar all the time lmao

yesss totally. modern au griffguts would be a ridiculous married couple. they’d look at their rings constantly and carry pictures of each other around and introduce each other to like strangers in the line at the grocery store as “my husband.” and not just during the honeymoon phase.

(also guts being into griffith’s hands in general is good. like speaking of masculine aspects of griffith he could be into in regular non au berserk, strong hands/callouses from sword fighting maybe? like yeah he has small hands but swinging a sword still takes a toll)

adelth
replied to your post “You mentioned something before about Muria’s “shit writing sometimes”…”

Hi, I ended up here because you linked the post recently. So, about Charlotte. It’s not a thing I like or totally understand the cultural reasons for, but you see a lot of women/bottoms saying “no/don’t” in Japanese porn that’s framed as consensual. I gather it’s a “good girls always say no” thing? It’s still really uncomfortable and problematic, but the scene with Charlotte reads like it’s complying to an established (although ugly and misogynist) standard to me.
I agree about all the ways the trio’s
characters were gutted by the eclipse though. I don’t even really
disagree about Charlotte, I just think Miura was riding the wheel, not
inventing it.

Yeah I have like, a vague awareness of that as a cliche in Japanese porn/erotica, tho it crops up in more than its fair share of english media too, and I feel like that no means yes trope is an unfortunately p universal form of misogyny/rape culture. And yeah def agree that it’s what’s informing that scene.


Yeah, the backstories
were what made me hopeful that there was a more cohesive idea being
explored. Now I mostly hope he just leaves it alone and doesn’t go
there.

The book was was Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover. It’s:
-the second book in a series
-a masterful culmination of themes explored in the first book
-maybe my favorite book ever?
-choke-full of things that should not work but do
-seriously dark and violent, but worth reading if you can stomach it

I looked it up and ngl the premise of that series sounds pretty intriguing. idk if I’ll check it out but it’s going on a list of books to maybe look into next time I’m bored, so ty.

And yeah ikwym, I feel like in a different story the Golden Age narrative culminating in Griffith transforming into a version of himself that embodies his inner darkness and that being shown through rape could’ve worked like, thematically. It just like, would’ve had to be different in almost every way lol. like about Casca’s trauma rather than Guts’, and half the narrative could not centre NGriff as a protagonist afterwards, and Casca should be a full character and have at least as much narrative significance as Guts, and the depiction would actually have to be tasteful and centred in Casca’s pov since the theme in question is trauma and the rapists throughout the Golden Age are all one dimensional caricatures – like they’re not the focus, the victims are.

But idk this is the mess we got, and I’m with you, at this point I’m just hoping Miura doesn’t make it worse.

adelth
replied to your post “adelth
replied to your post “sobadpink
replied to your post “When…”

Well, not like I can argue that sexual violence is handled well in Berserk. Tangential, but I once read a book where shit was a motif. Like, literally shit. And that sounds super gross but the author knew what he was doing and it served a very intentional literary purpose. I would have (quietly) been okay if Miura was doing something similar, but it really does seem like he just breaks out the rape card whenever he needs to up the stakes.

imo the really annoying thing about rape in berserk is that sometimes it actually is well done but most of the time it’s… just not lol. Like I think Guts and Griffith and Casca’s (with a few caveats) backstories all work really well, depicted in varying degrees of graphic but for the most part effectively so, they inform the characters and their current values and motivations, and thematically their backstories potentially inform like, the entire story.

Which imo just makes it worse that so much of the rape we see in Berserk is so badly done and gratuitous. Like as a theme I think it could’ve been strong and effective, and like, sometimes it is, but overall there’s way more bad than good. So yeah I p much completely agree with you.

and lol I’m kinda curious now, what book was that?