Tag: b

adelth
replied to your post “sobadpink
replied to your post “When do you think berserk will end?…”

I guess I’ve always assumed the Eclipse rape was there to give us a reason to hate Griffith. Like, in another setting committing murder would be “crossing the line” into villainy. In a story where all the dewy-eyed still-innocent major characters are also hired killers, escalation is bound to get awkward. Given how sympathetic Griffith’s storyline otherwise is, it feels like a effort to say “no really, this is supposed to be morally complicated, stop rooting for him.”

Yeah I don’t think you’re wrong about that. Though more than anything I think it’s meant to give Guts specifically a reason to hate him lol, because the way Miura wrote the sacrifice and Guts’ reaction to it

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sacrificing him wasn’t nearly enough.

I mean personally I think the sacrifice could’ve still worked fine on its own if Guts had actually like, demonstrated some extreme feelings of betrayal, which I feel like he should’ve, because the sacrifice is meant to be an echo of his childhood trauma of being sold imo, and I feel like Miura kind of dropped that in favour of the more immediate shock value.

Like it wouldn’t’ve been enough to get me to hate him, but I’m kind of an exception lol, I feel like Guts expressing heartbreak and betrayal that echoes like, the scene where Gambino told him he sold him to Donovan, probably would’ve worked okay for most fans to make them at least very angry at Griffith/Femto.

Buuuuut you’re right that like, he is really sympathetic otherwise and Guts wanting to chase him down and kill him while he’s orchestrating world peace and ruling a utopia might make Guts seem less sympathetic without that visceral show of evil during the Eclipse to “justify” it. But then the Eclipse rape goes so far in the other direction that it completely fucks up the balance too. So idk.

I guess if I was writing it and I felt like the Eclipse needed something extra to prove that Femto is evil, which is fair since he’s supposed to be Griffith’s inner darkness with an additional boost of humanity’s evil in general, and you probably do want to demonstrate some of that, I’d opt for like, torture + maybe some magical mind torture or something if Casca needs to be driven insane, because that’s the kind of ott fantasy evil that none of the Berserk readership will have personally experienced. Rape as a gratuitous demonstration of evil has a whoooole lot of baggage that makes writing that character as a morally ambiguous antagonist later on extremely terrible imo.

Like idk I feel like rape as an establishing villain moment + future moral ambiguity is just wholly incompatible. And this isn’t even getting into the actual depiction of the rape scene which I consider to be just about as bad and offensive as possible.

tl;dr basically ia, I think the purpose was to immediately show how evil Femto is and make the readers and Guts hate him, and I mean it worked I guess lol, but I still think it was a bad decision and Miura should’ve done something else.

datonecutekid
replied to your post “Consider: vs It’s like the Conviction arc takes these super cynical…”

I think the point of gut’s changing his ideals and stating them against Mozgus is to show that he is on the path of becoming a less damaged human being. Even comparing his goals in the conviction arc to the blackswordsman arc, he started changing especially when he realized he wanted to regain casca as opposed to him wanting to hunt down neo griffith. I don’t think it’s inconsistent writing on mirua’s behalf but i think its supposed to show the beginning of gut’s growth.

Sorry, I think I wasn’t super clear because that post was kind of rambly and off-the-cuff lol, but my point is actually that it isn’t a change for Guts at all, it’s the exact same attitude – it’s just the narrative framing of that attitude has changed.

Guts saying the dude and his daughter were too weak to survive so they don’t matter is no different than Guts saying that the ten thousand refugees about to die deserve it because they’d rather bow down to a god than fight to survive or w/e

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It’s just that now that’s shown to be badass rather than a fairly pathetic denial of guilt.

Consider:

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vs

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It’s like the Conviction arc takes these super cynical lines from Guts which, in the Black Swordsman arc, are clearly meant to show how fucked up he is and not something we’re meant to agree with, and pretties them up or makes them sound badass and legitimizes them.

I mean it’s even the same essential circumstances: Guts’ brand calls up spirits that kill innocent people. In the Black Swordsman arc Guts feels immense guilt and covers it up with cynical bravado. In the Conviction arc, Guts and Luca both blame the dead for failing to survive.

And idk if that’s a sign if we’re maybe supposed to take the themes of the Conviction arc with a grain of salt, or if Miura’s opinions just 180ed somewhere along the way.

Like do
people deserve to die for not being strong or resourceful enough to survive
against a force stronger than them or not, Miura?

In fairness this could very well be purposeful – showing like, both the negative side and the more palatable side of Guts’ survival of the fittest thing. Similar to how we get the positive side of Griffith’s utopia where the weak are protected from harm and exploitation (which come to think of it is also partly shown to us by Luca, hmm) and the negative side (it may be great but it’s the only peaceful place to live).

But also incidentally, if you’re on Guts’ side of this whole thing, yk you gotta be strong to survive and if you’re not it’s your own problem – you can’t really have an issue with Griffith filling the world with monsters lol. The world outside of Falconia right now pretty much illustrates Guts’ philosophy to a tee.

I could see this coming up again along those lines actually. Doesn’t someone actually say that now everyone has to deal with what Guts deals with, directly comparing brand-life to Fantasia? So there you go, you got Griffith’s world (Falconia) and you got Guts’ world (Fantasia), pick one.

When do you think berserk will end? In 5 years? 10? 50? 100?

I anticipate a thousand years on the boat on the trip back from Eflhelm.

lol but honestly idk, I feel like w/ Casca waking up and Falconia’s existence we’re moving into endgame, but the question is whether endgame is gonna be 2 volumes long or like, a third of the story. I could at least see it being over in 5 years or less, depending on hiatuses, but if I was betting I’d probably say 10 to be on the safe side lol.

Do you agree more with griffith’s “the end justifies the means” philosophy or with guts’ individualistic philosophy?

Sorry this took a while, I was way overthinking it at first lol and then I was busy yesterday.

But like, I’m figuring you’re basically referring to like, Griffith’s narrative raising the “Is it worth sacrificing your friends/filling the world with monsters to create a just society” question vs Guts’ narrative, especially circa the conviction arc, being more like, fuck whether other people are able to live in peace, everyone should be strong enough to survive an unjust world and if they’re not that’s their problem.

And I mean if we’re just talking moral philosophies behind those narratives then yeah I’m with Griffith, often it is worth doing some bad things for a greater good, sometimes the end does justify the means, and I’d rather work to create a society where the strong don’t prey on the weak than just try to make myself strong enough to avoid being preyed on.

In the example given specifically idk that I’d agree with filling the world w/ fantasy nightmares to make a chunk of it utopian lmao, but yk, Berserk likes to go to extremes.

how do you imagine guts and griffith’s first kiss and first time in current canon?

So, current canon as in post-Eclipse, Guts and NeoGriffith?

Honestly it’s hard to imagine in a believable in-character way. I’d say the best bet here is Guts going Beast of Darkness and NeoGriffith confronting him alone and enticing him to fuck him instead of fight him. I don’t think it would take much convincing to get Guts’ Beast of Darkness brain to switch gears that way lol.

Tho first kiss feels way more difficult to make work. Maybe if Guts snaps out of it in the heat of the moment, and just ends up clinging to Griffith and maybe kissing him desperately before remembering everything?

Idk I can see Guts/NeoGriffith working as more than one fucked up desperate encounter before one kills the other only if like… Guts has also gone full monster for a while and murdered his rpg group or w/e, and no longer feels worthy of hatred/revenge/judgment of Griffith’s own inner darkness. And ofc this is assuming NGriff has come to accept that he is not, in fact, over Guts lol.

Maybe also with a side of differentiating NGriff from Femto, the same way Guts is differentiated from the beast of darkness, despite the beast being a part of him. Two dudes who have magical inner monsters as power up forms, like sure, that works for me.

So maybe they get back together after all, both having been saints and demons, and then they can make out properly.

bedifear
replied to your post “Have you checked out G/oblin S/layer? I’ve seen it in the berserk tag…”

Female characters being infantilised (in terms of That Art Style) and sexualised simultaneously is literally so disturbing and I acc went ahead and read the first chapter of this bc I kept seeing posts that claimed that “you shouldn’t hate it if you haven’t read it :(” (even though that’s false too lmao you should be able to tell it’s Bad regardless) and it’s Bad ��
Berserk is problematic too but this feels worse
Also just a personal
take but the protagonist’s armour is too generic to be cool so…there
really aren’t any redeeming qualities huh

yeah ikwym. Like if people get something out of it beyond male power fantasy then w/e I’m not judging people who like it, but it really doesn’t seem to have anything to offer me. Berserk is extremely bad in some ways, but it’s also extremely good in some ways that rly appeal to me. If the same is tru for some fans of GS then good for them, but as for myself, meh. Also agreed wrt the armour lol. And yeah like I am viscerally pretty disturbed by that like… blobby moe art style, yk what I mean. Like if people can easily ignore it and enjoy the story regardless, again w/e, but it’s one of my biggest roadblocks into getting into a lot of manga/anime lol. Even w/ current Berserk, like if I’d read the most recent chapter first… I probably would not have continued w/ the story lol.

@morgiah said:


in april! i’ve read
everything i could find incl. some detailed summaries but not the full
novel yet.. i already love my four children from not-iceland

also wrt the second thing ohh very likely. that’d be, well.. significant. both good and bad 

ty for the specific month! and yeah lol. at any rate it could be interesting to consider.

@madchen said:


one griffith slowly rides guts while guts gets to suck the other off/eat him out 

Nice.

Have you checked out G/oblin S/layer? I’ve seen it in the berserk tag so I checked some pics online and imo it seems to me like gratuitous violence and the male power fantasy. Frankly, I’m hesitant to watch it

i’ve vaguely heard about it but only in that it’s about a dude who kills goblins which are basically rape monsters.

and now i’ve read the wikipedia entry and nothing i’ve seen makes it sound any better than that so i’ve got no plans to read or watch it lol. def agree that it just sounds like a male power fantasy

i can see how it might be similar to like, the worst aspects of berserk tho

Now you’ve made me want to read The Flame Dragon Knight novel, I need to know how much Grunbeld and this Edward guy are similar to Guts and Griffith

This is how I feel. It’s getting released in English like… eventually at least. Next spring iirc?

Idk I’ve heard lots of bits and pieces about it (largely from @morgiah who has read many excerpts I think, correct me if I’m wrong) and it sounds like it contains a lot of what I enjoyed about Golden Age Berserk ngl.

also relatedly

@morgiah said:

their family situations are also similar in many ways.. oof

edward is a pastiche of many ppl ok. even canonically locus is his hero and inspiration so he’d want to be like him, at least

iiinteresting tbh. I wonder if Locus at first reminds Grunbeld of Edward then, if he’d known about him previously just in the context of Edward admiring him.

bedifear
replied to your post “You claim to have completed the threesome series but I’m afraid you…”

Griffith getting all excited because oh boy now there are TWO (2) whole Guts to attentively bang him

this has suddenly reminded me about one of @madchen (i think)’s comments that i think I completely forgot to respond to a little while ago. something about how Griffith would p much only actually be into being spitroasted if it was Guts and also Guts. which is true and this is therefore the perfect scenario.

But then the question is, would he get jealous of himself if there are also 2 of him?

(Guts would also completely bask in the attention of 2 Griffiths lbr. they would both love having 2 of the other.)

You claim to have completed the threesome series but I’m afraid you missed the most important concept. That is the HC of Guts/Griffith/Apostle threesome and the Griffith/Guts/Serpico threesome existing AT THE SAME TIME. Applying the 1st Law of Threesomes of running into your ex, who would be the one to walk in on who? After applying the 2nd Law of Threesomes that GG will end exclusive will Serpico and the Apostles be friends(those kind of friends). Or will Berserk end with the world ending

As the paradox developing from applying the 1st Law of Threesomes would cause a tear in space and time, creating a blackhole?

lmao

yk I could tilt my head and see Serpico/Irvine (tho there might be too much apathy there, neither would call the other and they’d just bone on occasion after running into each other), Serpico/Grunbeld (Serpico seems kind of into fairly honourable knight types and I bet Serpico looks kind of like Edward, Grunebeld’s Berserk-esque ex. Doubt they have similar personalities tho), and Serpico/Locus (that knight archetype, tho idk there might be too much weird loyalty to others there lol).

Not Serpico/Raksas or Serpico/Zodd tho.

I think the odds are better that the world will end tho. I mean it’s Berserk, if anything’s going to destroy that world it’s going to be a time paradox caused by a weird convoluted sexual scenario.

Also if one threesome somehow walked in on another, that would mean there are doubles involved. Which I’m pretty sure would just end with Griffith/Guts/Griffith/Guts and Serpico and the apostles watching the show.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “do you have any griffguts hcs to share…”

he likes his slim hips and wide shoulders and thinks secretly to himself that griffith looks like one of those fancy greek young athlete statues he’s seen around the castle or whatever and is a little too intensely interested in said statues for reasons he doesn’t want to think about
also im obviously in
the fun club of guts is really into griffiths dick. no real clue why but
it’s so real he’s just really into it, wants to get his hand on it.
probably also greek athlete statue visuals here.

@chaoticgaygriffith said:

i wanna say griffith’s masculine
feminine beauty too, like he has a feminine face but he’s still a man ..
there’s still a bit of that masculine bone structure there, with
beautiful blue eyes and plump lips and soft skin and guts could stare at
him until he went blind

extremely legit contributions to this topic tbh and ia w/ both of you

madchen
replied to your post “do you have any griffguts hcs to share (both sfw and nsfw)? pls and…”

omg i e talked about this before but do you have any specifics in mind as far as guts favorite masculine griff qualities are ��

lol yeah some of that was def inspired by conversations w/ you

shoulder and back muscles, i wanna say. what even are other typically “masculine” physical qualities griff has lol? maybe his narrow hips too, yk the upside down triangle body shape in general. the muscle definition in general. his dick. Like from the get go Guts would be into grinding against him and jerking him off tbh.

idk what else, what do you think?

by popular demand (ie 2 ppl asked for more lol), I’m doing the rest of the griff+guts+apostle threesomes.

Griffith/Guts/Grunbeld

The three Gs. Grunbeld and Guts might have some respect for each other, especially if they’ve interacted at all since fighting on Flora’s lawn. Grunbeld seems a little Guts-like himself based on my knowledge of his book, and I think they’d get along in a kind of low-key, nodding at each other as they pass kind of way. So they’d be like, fine, interaction-wise.

I feel like the interesting part is actually from Grunbeld’s point of view lol, bc he might see some parallels between Griffith and Guts and him and his ex bf from the novel, because again, based on my limited second hand knowledge, it sounds like Miura basically remixed griffguts for Grunbeld’s backstory lol. Unforch I can’t get specific until I read it, but still.

The fact that he’s like, stupidly huge even in human form might make things a little awkward but I could see Guts getting some visceral satisfaction out of watching a dude twice his size manhandling Griffith and making him look small in comparison. Or maybe some visceral possessiveness, but I’m trying not to be too repetitive lol. either way yk, there might be some potential for shallowly visual power dynamic-y stuff.

Griffith/Guts/Irvine

This combo would be the most chill. I can’t rly imagine Griffith and Guts being together and deciding to invite someone over to have a threesome with to spice up their sex life, but if they did, Irvine would be who they’d call. Irvine does not give a fuck, he’s here, he’s happy to have some sex with the dude he’s instinctively attracted to and afterwards he’d be happy to leave and do his own thing, he’s not gonna get emotionally invested or weird about it. He’d be distantly polite to Guts and Guts would respond in kind. Even if his hackles rose at first I don’t think he’d maintain too much outrage over Irvine’s chill presence. They’d get down to business fairly utilitarian-ly, have some p good sex, then Irvine would peace out and leave Guts and Griff to get emotionally wrapped up in each other.

Griffith/Guts/Raksas

This is obviously the go-to combo for getting dark and kinda fucked up + sadistic.

Guts would get beast of darkness-y in Raksas’ presence. What would happen is that Raksas would touch Griffith – with some violence, like a cut from a claw – and Guts would like, throw him across the room in a weird mix of practically instinctive protectiveness but also possessiveness in an “I’m the only one who can hurt him” kind of way. And Raksas would retreat a little but watch eagerly, and maybe if Guts lost control and stopped being all that aware of his surroundings, he’d eventually join in again.

Also I’m gonna say being hurt reminds NGriff of being human. This may or may not be a good thing, but it’s got potential for good emotional content either way, especially when it’s Guts doing it. Like that whole torture fallout thing I was going on about.

( @chaoticgaygriffith and @bedifear )

bthump:

suddenly had the realization that we didn’t really get to see much of Griffith post-torture. Like yeah, he was there, we saw him, we got a great monologue about how in love with Guts he is, but what I mean is that like, all his trauma and all the pre-eclipse emotional devastation revolves around his permanent injuries rather than, yk like, ptsd.

We aren’t shown at all how the fact of being tortured constantly for a year might have traumatized him. Like everyone’s fucked up by the fact that he’s no longer physically capable of leading the Hawks, but like, even if he was, would he have been emotionally capable?

I mean a year of torture is huge, for any other character that would be the defining event of a narrative, whether he could physically recover or not. But Miura just kind of bypasses it entirely to focus on his physical dependency and his feelings for Guts. And I mean I love those feelings, I’m not complaining about the focus on that, but the lack of trauma wrt a year of experiencing extreme pain is kind of conspicuous.

Idk it feels like the torture was just kind of Miura’s convenient lead-in to the Eclipse and way to destroy Griffith’s dream, and it feels a little unfortunately shallow overall. Like he could’ve even just had a reference or two to how being tortured for a year might have affected him – like say Ubik using it to help convince him to make the sacrifice: doesn’t being an incorporeal being who can’t feel pain sound p tempting right now?

Also relatedly, consider this:

NeoGriffith isn’t just Golden Age Griffith transformed into a demon transformed into a mysterious wildcard. NeoGriffith is Golden Age Griffith + a year of torture transformed into a demon transformed into a wildcard. Like his “base” isn’t the Griffith we came to know and love over however many chapters of the Golden Age we got before Guts left, his base is, theoretically, an incredibly traumatized version of that Griffith we know.

Idk I just suddenly found myself wishing for more emotional/psychological exploration of the effects of that year of torture, and it made me wonder about NeoGriffith’s memories of being human. I feel like there’s potential there. I feel like there’s some thematic follow-through, along the lines of him being “beyond the reach of man” and Ganeshka’s empty threats, but some hints of emotional follow through would be v interesting.

#i’m torn on this bc you’re right but also#griffith’s like ONLY concern ever being guts is. my everything fsdjkfjkfjkhsdf#like the implications of this are so wild homeboy was being tortured for a year and ALL he thought about constantly. was guts#how much he loved and hated him#and THAT was what kept him like mostly sane and just. pulled out of the experience enough to not get scarred mentally#i GUESS?????????????#like ITS WILD 

you’re so right.

honestly this is actually like a best of both words kind of thing because the canon switching focus to ptsd would have diminished some of the focus on his feelings for Guts, and I absolutely don’t want that lol, because that is seriously just, everything. “now he’s the sole sustenance keeping me alive” like holy fuck I wouldn’t trade a thing for that.

like keeping the narrative on his feelings for Guts vs the dream by focusing on how Griffith only thinks about Guts after losing both was the right choice for the story even if it might not be the most realistic possible reaction lol.

but it’s definitely something I kind of want to keep in mind when it comes to like, fic/headcanons/just thinking about characterization etc, bc the more realistic aspects of being tortured for a year are still worth exploring imo.

(griffith hate anon) yeah the post said griffith is a misogynist bc his promrose hall speech is masculine in language, eg “a man must come upon another precious thing (…) to accomplish it for him, for himself”, “to me a friend (…) would determine and pursue his own reason to live” etc. which apparently means he thinks women can’t have dreams just duties and they can’t be his friend/equal lmfao (this is dumb as it is to me but also iirc in the jap/og version he uses gender neutral terms??)

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

Ohhh right.

Huh now I’m actually curious if that speech is gender neutral in Japanese, because honestly the focus on men in that speech did seem like… pretty typical of Berserk in general lol. Like Miura really elevates same-gender relationships over opposite-sex relationships which are almost always romantic by default, and generally treated as lesser, or as stepping stones to that most important relationship (eg nina leaving with a dude so she can one day feel worthy of being luca’s friend) and the speech fits that pattern perfectly, so I always assumed it was deliberately gendered – not so much as a reflection on Griffith (tho again in the context of being repressed but desiring that all-important relationship with a man specifically… I’m still okay with it) but bc of Miura’s own biases.

But it’d be nice if it was actually gender neutral bc the focus on men men men, especially that first “but for a man he must first come upon one other precious thing” or w/e the line was, was pretty annoying.

sorry to bring bad news but that convo was anything but gender neutral. like, griffith started it by mentioning that charlotte asked him why /men/ love spilling blood so much so the men vs women divide was there from start to finish

actually the official translation was completely consistent with the original in terms of levels of gendering:

(男, otoko, officially translated as “man/men”)

(者, mono, officially translated as “one”)

(人, hito, officially translated as “people” and then 男, otoko, “man/men” again)

and then griffith ends the conversation like “sorry that must have been a boring topic for a lady (女性, josei)”

so like yeah japanese is a mostly gender neutral language in that its verbs and adjectives are not inflected by gender etc. but that doesn’t mean that all japanese conversations are completely gender neutral. far from it actually

Thank you! Yeah like I said, the way this convo is gendered fits the story to me and imo still reflects more on Miura than Griffith, but like, it doesn’t not fit Griffith imo. It still serves my interpretation of him so I’m cool w/ this.

Also yeah very good point about the abbreviation, ty for mentioning it. JP is definitely preferable if you’re going to shorten the word “japanese,” even if it’s just intended as shorthand and not a slur.

do you have any griffguts hcs to share (both sfw and nsfw)? pls and thx

Sure! I mean, when it comes to headcanons none of these are hard and fast, I’m pretty changeable depending on circumstances and can roll with a lot of stuff in fic, eg. But here’s some ideas I tend to default to. Mild warning for one hc involving rape fantasies btw.

If Guts hadn’t overheard the Promrose Hall speech, they would’ve gotten together in Tombstone of Flame Part 2. Griffith being vulnerable and worried about Guts’ opinion of him as filthy and/or cruel = Guts kissing him. Dreams got in the way and ruined it.

Guts and Griffith would be extremely touchy feely in a relationship. Super cuddly, it would take constant effort to keep their hands off each other in public. They practically crave physical contact with each other, they’re magnetized.

Griffith is very into Guts’ physical strength and loves being manhandled by him. He’d be super into Guts holding him and fucking him against a wall, eg.

Guts has got a serious Thing for Griffith’s hair. He has a tendency to bury his face in it if he’s holding Griffith from behind, or smell it if he happens to be leaning in, or tuck it behind his ear for him on a windy day, etc.

They both have strong feelings about being protected by the other. Griffith saving Guts from Zodd, Guts planting himself between the bulk of Gennon’s army and Griffith (or later on, Guts killing the torturer and rampaging thru Midland), that kind of thing. Being able to trust the other to defend him is huge for them, and fulfills an emotional need neither really knew existed until it was filled.

Guts’ favourite part of having sex with Griffith would be making him lose his control over himself, knowing he’s the only one who can do that to Griffith, and the only one Griffith will allow to see him lose control.

Griffith has occasional rape/ravishment/kidnapping fantasies in which Guts is an enemy who defeats him in a fight and basically keeps him as a sex slave. The elements that appeal to him on a deep emotional level that he’s not entirely aware of is having his dream being forcibly taken away, having no power to attain it anymore and therefore no more responsibility to the dead. Like, being forced to live a simple, goal-less life where all that matters is Guts, without the self-betrayal of choosing it. He doesn’t think about these b8 fantasies on any deeper level than cliche sex scenario tho lol.

Relatedly, deep deep down I think Griffith hates his dream. It’s a trap of guilt and responsibility and power, and Guts was a potential escape from it/could still be at least emotionally in an AU where they’re together.  Like Eggman’s speech about torches illuminating your disgustingly cruel self and hating those torches even while you can’t bring yourself to let go of them. Egg was talking about relationships, but in Griffith’s case it describes his relationship to his dream to a tee regardless of whatever Miura’s intent might’ve been. Basically Guts is a healthier alternative to the dream emotionally. Sorry I’m kinda digressing into meta here lmao. Back to headcanons.

Guts might initially frame his attraction to Griffith as an attraction to his androgyny, and he’d have to more slowly come to terms with accepting that he likes Griffith’s masculinity too.

He also similarly might hold Griffith separate from men in general because he thinks of him as just on another level. In a way this is handy bc it means Guts might find it easier to accept the idea of sex with Griffith without relating it to his csa trauma, at least not immediately drawing the association, bc Griffith is just in a special category of his own to him. Yk, it’s not ~sex with a man~, it’s sex with Griffith. But it’s also kind of pedestalizing him, and it’s something Guts will eventually have to overcome. Seeing Griffith as vulnerable and human would help that along.

Some of their best sex would actually be quick rough encounters, a while into their relationship when they’re pretty comfortable, when Guts allows himself to lose control a bit and express his desire through sort of base and needy fucking. No foreplay or build up, just a sense of desperate need between them. Appeals to both Griffith wanting Guts to want him and Guts wanting Griffith’s focus on him.

Guts has probably had some wet dreams in which sparring/wrestling with Griffith turns into grinding lol.

post-Eclipse, Guts absolutely has semi-regular sex dreams about Griffith. I’m pretty sure that’s legit implied by the text. Some are dark and involve Femto or NeoGriffith, some are wistful and take place in the past in a what-could-have-been kinda way, and Guts has crysturbated while remembering some of the latter.

Ok I’ll just stop there, this ended up getting longer than I thought it would lol. Guess I’ve gotten more used to talking about headcanons, which is kind of nice, I used to have a really hard time thinking of stuff like this. Then again a lot of this is cribbed from other conversations and some things I’ve maybe mentioned before lol so that helps too.

Anyway jsyk I also have a tag here for headcanons which is getting pretty long and has some good discussions w/ other people that you might enjoy. ty for the ask!

suddenly had the realization that we didn’t really get to see much of Griffith post-torture. Like yeah, he was there, we saw him, we got a great monologue about how in love with Guts he is, but what I mean is that like, all his trauma and all the pre-eclipse emotional devastation revolves around his permanent injuries rather than, yk like, ptsd.

We aren’t shown at all how the fact of being tortured constantly for a year might have traumatized him. Like everyone’s fucked up by the fact that he’s no longer physically capable of leading the Hawks, but like, even if he was, would he have been emotionally capable?

I mean a year of torture is huge, for any other character that would be the defining event of a narrative, whether he could physically recover or not. But Miura just kind of bypasses it entirely to focus on his physical dependency and his feelings for Guts. And I mean I love those feelings, I’m not complaining about the focus on that, but the lack of trauma wrt a year of experiencing extreme pain is kind of conspicuous.

Idk it feels like the torture was just kind of Miura’s convenient lead-in to the Eclipse and way to destroy Griffith’s dream, and it feels a little unfortunately shallow overall. Like he could’ve even just had a reference or two to how being tortured for a year might have affected him – like say Ubik using it to help convince him to make the sacrifice: doesn’t being an incorporeal being who can’t feel pain sound p tempting right now?

Also relatedly, consider this:

NeoGriffith isn’t just Golden Age Griffith transformed into a demon transformed into a mysterious wildcard. NeoGriffith is Golden Age Griffith + a year of torture transformed into a demon transformed into a wildcard. Like his “base” isn’t the Griffith we came to know and love over however many chapters of the Golden Age we got before Guts left, his base is, theoretically, an incredibly traumatized version of that Griffith we know.

Idk I just suddenly found myself wishing for more emotional/psychological exploration of the effects of that year of torture, and it made me wonder about NeoGriffith’s memories of being human. I feel like there’s potential there. I feel like there’s some thematic follow-through, along the lines of him being “beyond the reach of man” and Ganeshka’s empty threats, but some hints of emotional follow through would be v interesting.

(griffith hate anon) yeah the post said griffith is a misogynist bc his promrose hall speech is masculine in language, eg “a man must come upon another precious thing (…) to accomplish it for him, for himself”, “to me a friend (…) would determine and pursue his own reason to live” etc. which apparently means he thinks women can’t have dreams just duties and they can’t be his friend/equal lmfao (this is dumb as it is to me but also iirc in the jap/og version he uses gender neutral terms??)

Ohhh right.

Huh now I’m actually curious if that speech is gender neutral in Japanese, because honestly the focus on men in that speech did seem like… pretty typical of Berserk in general lol. Like Miura really elevates same-gender relationships over opposite-sex relationships which are almost always romantic by default, and generally treated as lesser, or as stepping stones to that most important relationship (eg nina leaving with a dude so she can one day feel worthy of being luca’s friend) and the speech fits that pattern perfectly, so I always assumed it was deliberately gendered – not so much as a reflection on Griffith (tho again in the context of being repressed but desiring that all-important relationship with a man specifically… I’m still okay with it) but bc of Miura’s own biases.

But it’d be nice if it was actually gender neutral bc the focus on men men men, especially that first “but for a man he must first come upon one other precious thing” or w/e the line was, was pretty annoying.

chaoticgaygriffith:

bthump:

Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.

But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.

Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.

not to mention how that particular statement coming from griffith smells suspiciously of like heteronormativity and intense repression moreso than i think it says anything about how griffith sees women

how griffith sees women is clear from the fact that he didn’t rescue casca, he gave her a sword to rescue herself, and then let her join his band of mercenaries. imo anyway

ia.

yk i was going to say something like, “in fairness I wouldn’t use it as an argument against ppl saying that line makes Griffith misogynist bc that’s giving Miura way too much credit” but lol I’m actually torn because it’s so easy to ascribe that line to repression, especially because, like you say, it contradicts what we’re later shown and told about what Griffith thinks women are capable of, and it’s at odds with his general existence in the GA narrative as the progressive dude who scares the conservatives lol.

So either it’s a deliberate contrast to show that Griffith has a particular blind spot when it comes to physical intimacy between people, which also fits in nicely with the fact that he has trauma related to same sex desire and Casca lays all that out at the same time she tells Guts that she admires Griffith because he threw her a sword and gave her a blanket and generally treated her with respect, and expresses her jealousy of Guts because of Griffith’s feelings for him. Like, basically Casca’s flashback ties everything together in a neat little repression bow.

OR it’s a mildly ooc moment because Miura needed some kind of plot contrivance to give Casca a reason to hate Guts and potentially to get her naked in bed with him for the sake of future sex, if he was thinking along those lines this early.

I still wouldn’t use it to try to shut someone down in an argument I guess lol, but I mean, I would say “okay fair enough but here’s how I take that line and why” and consider that a fairly strong interpretation.

madchen
replied to your post “do griffguts give each other like massages or back/shoulder rubs or…”

those memes about not being able to move out of fear of disturbing the cat are guts after griffith has been back rubbed into aforementioned puddle

griffith starting to doze off on guts’ lap while guts just spends 20 minutes staying v still while watching him and absently rubbing his back, w/ no idea how much time is passing

ugh this is such an adorable image lol

Anon who sent me the Griffith-hate ask, I accidentally deleted your second message while trying to delete a different one lol, sorry about that. Once again I hope you see this and sorry about the lack of notif again.

But basically what I wanted to say is that yeah sure that “warming a man is a woman’s duty” bit is misogynist (and I think you mentioned the Promrose Hall speech too? as another example the person you’re hatereading gave?), but yk, so is Judeau’s “she’s our woman and we want her back” statement while rescuing Casca, so is 90% of everything Guts says to her ever, and so is 90% of the narrative voice honestly.

Idk man this is another instance where I’d say if they’re going to judge other fans for liking something w/ offensive elements, they should probably just put down Berserk and find something else to enjoy.

One thing I noticed that highlights the difference between the two sides of the Berserk fandom: one side loves Judeau for pushing Guts and Casca together and hates Corkus for being “mean” to Guts; the other is more critical of Judeau’s manipulative ways and often bad advice (especially of him deciding what’s best for Casca on her behalf), and appreciates Corkus for being a pretty well-written secondary character who dished some hard truths. Just an observation.

I’m not really familiar enough w/ fandom in general to agree or disagree lol but I could believe this as a broad trend. I mean like tbf there are good reasons to dislike Corkus, he’s definitely a shithead and the jokey homophobia bugs me and is unnecessary. But Judeau is also a shithead in many ways like you describe, and imo overall they’re both good side characters who both make good and bad points at different times. And I’d say sometimes Corkus is absolutely right.

So I guess I kind of fit into this observation at least lol.