Tag: b

kissing-monsters
replied to your post “the berserk episode synopses on wikipedia are killing me cut for petty…”

It’s… so confusing though, a close friend of mine watched the series based partially on my rec and him wanting to see it for ages and he misunderstood… basically… everything??? HOW DOES BERSERK FANDOM OUTSIDE TUMBLR FUNCTION???

honestly same, I really don’t get it. Like I can see general homophobia making ppl desperately want to downplay the gay vibes leading to as little emphasis on Guts and Griffith’s relationship, and especially Guts’ (extremely and wholly positive) feelings for Griffith as possible. Like describing Guts’ decision to leave the Hawks as “he does not want to be caught up in Griffith’s dream anymore” is technically accurate, and yet completely downplays the fact that the reason he doesn’t want to be caught up in Griffith’s dream is because Griffith is “dazzling” and he wants Griffith to “look at [him]” and he wants to feel like his equal and be regarded as a True Friend. In the terrible episode description it’s instead framed like Guts is pissed off about having to assassinate people lol.

And idk I think it might also be partially this weird desperate need to have a Hero and a Villain and have Guts prevail over the villain and ride off into the sunset with the Rescued Love Interest, because a lot of people are frankly boring and like boring stories and can’t conceive of good stories outside those basic parameters. So they twist the narrative in their head until it fits that shape, despite Guts and Casca not having anything like a traditional true love romance and Miura saying he only had Casca survive the Eclipse to keep Guts focused on revenge, despite Griffith not being a pure evil villain even after the Eclipse and certainly not before (like Miura’s directly talked about NGriff’s moral ambiguity and the way he’s not a traditional evil antagonist), despite the clearly complicated emotions that still exist between Guts and Griffith/Femto/NGriff, etc.

At my most generous I think part of the reason people choose to believe Griffith was evil all along is because Femto’s defining act is rape and people are uncomfortable seeing any good in a character who eventually becomes a rapist, tho personally the fact that he magically transforms into a demon first kind of mitigates that for me lol. (And, and I’ve ranted about this before but still, it’s also a double standard when so many of the same people go out of their way to excuse Guts when he sexually assaults Casca.)

But still idk it’s weird. Like, eg there’s so much you have to ignore to believe that Guts leaving the Hawks was fine and dandy and a good choice and Griffith was just a dick who overreacted. Pages and pages of Guts fretting about it, Casca yelling it at him, Guts regretting leaving, Guts realizing he was wrong in thinking Griffith looked down on him, Guts comparing abandoning Casca to abandoning Griffith multiple times, Guts determined not to make the same mistake again, etc etc. You can support Guts’ choice and blame Griffith all you want, but the narrative clearly does not, and it’s honestly baffling how ppl can ignore that when it’s not only discussed many times in direct words, but the whole story revolves around the fact that Guts made a mistake when he left.

Like what do you think the Golden Age is about if it’s not about a stupid misunderstanding between 2 dudes who both rly like each other and fail to realize their feelings are reciprocated and overreact and make dumb decisions because of that misunderstanding? I don’t understand what most Berserk fans see, it genuinely feels like we’re reading 2 different stories lol.

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post

It’s from the physical effort of repression.

lmao i mean there are some panels where that’s the only plausible
explanation. just look at guts in the one where griff has his arm around
him

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post

“the berserk episode synopses on wikipedia are killing me cut for petty…”

“Everything Griffith does is Evil Plotting because his hair is too shinny uwu.”

assassinating people who tried to assassinate him first? evil

saving lives at great personal risk or sacrifice? evil

catching a girl who almost fell down some stairs? evil

killing a pedophile who’d just spent 90% of his screen time cackling about his nefarious plan to capture him as a sex slave? you better believe that’s evil

the berserk episode synopses on wikipedia are killing me

cut for petty complaining and v basic preaching to the choir


Though he and Guts are still injured from their encounter with Nosferatu
Zodd, Griffith uses it to get closer to the King and his daughter
Charlotte.

like dude griffith is manipulative and good at climbing the ladder but even he didn’t somehow connivingly arrange for charlotte to trip on the stairs or for the king to come by and say kudos. you don’t have to make shit up. also no mention of griffith and guts’ pivotal conversation ofc


Guts uses the sword to kill Boscogn while Griffith kills a wounded Gennon to assure the Hawks’ victory.

written like griffith killing gennon (who wasn’t in fact injured) is a morally ambiguous moment somehow?


Griffith has again used Guts to remove his competition. Guts decides to
leave and tells a pleading Casca that he does not want to be caught up
in Griffith’s dream anymore.

lol i’m honestly amazed at this misrepresentation of guts’ decision. idk i guess i don’t remember the second half of the anime that well, maybe it changed guts’ entire character motivation and i just forgot.


Casca blames Guts for Griffith’s problems, but realizes it is not his fault.

sometimes i forget that the understanding that guts shouldn’t’ve left the hawks in the first place isn’t taken as read by most berserk fans. but lbr ‘a dude made a mistake based on a misunderstanding and ruined everything and casca isn’t entirely right but she ain’t entirely wrong either’ isn’t black and white enough for berserk fans.

like ik ik this is just how berserk fandom is outside this one chunk of tumblr but man, i forget and lull myself into a sense of security and then i stumble across stuff like this and it completely throws me for a loop and i need to whine about it.

kissing-monsters:

bthump:

bthump:

Browsing through the rebirth chapters and it just leaps out at me how utterly sexualized Griffith is, especially in comparison to Casca, who is (at least by Miura’s standards) totally desexualized.

Guts’ internal conflict is essentially desire vs responsibility, ie revenge vs escorting Casca to Elfhelm, ie Griffith vs Casca, and the visual depiction of that conflict is straight up, extremely loud and clear, naked sexy Griffith vs Casca all childlike in a shapeless cloak

Keep reading

yk what I was partly wrong here and over simplifying things

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it’s not that Guts’ desire for revenge is sexualized through Griffith, it’s that Griffith’s sexualization is actually at odds with Guts’ desire to kill him. You can’t rly ignore “the instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.”

Revenge and sexual desire aren’t rly equated yet. Guts wants to kill faceless masked bird boy with great prejudice

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he does not want to kill sexy naked Griffith.

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Now that he’s actually reachable I’m having second thoughts oh no what the fuck.

So when the hound says he’s longing for Griffith and tells him to give him a heap of raw iron, what’s actually going on is less sexualization of revenge, and more… revengalization of sex, yk?

Sexual desire and violent stabby revenge are being equated by the hound to encourage Guts to pursue Griffith. Guts wants to stick something in him all right, and he should still want revenge, so it’s best if that something is a literal sword. As opposed to his desire for revenge becoming sexualized, the inherent sexualization of Guts’ desire for Griffith is what the hound seizes on and twists to lead Guts back to revenge.

Anyway basically Griffith’s desirability is still hardcore contrasted to Casca’s lack thereof, but honestly I think it’s less a metaphor for wanting revenge vs being stuck babysitting and more plain old straightforward gay subtext which is then utilized to give an added layer of complexity to Guts’ desire for revenge (and desire to desire revenge.)

ik this comes across as fake jokey analysis and/or giving the subtext too much weight so I can reach super hard, but tbh idk how to read this part without it. i mean you could just say that Guts fantasizing about Griffith’s pretty hair and ass and forgetting his urge to kill and whining about being stuck with Casca and Griffith abandoning him and the hound’s many innuendos are all unrelated or accidental but

l
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I’d actually love to see a dead serious analysis of this like you’ve done but deliberately disregarding any gay subtext just to see if it could make anywhere near as much compelling sense? I don’t think there’s a way this makes sense without at least some gay subtext– nor does basically the majority of berserk in general, which makes me curious but also scared to branch outside of tumblr for people’s meta on it.

tbh i’m kind of curious too lol. i’ve seen bits and pieces of non gay meta/opinions/etc on brief forays onto reddit and skull knight etc but nothing involving Guts and Griffith’s characters/relationship that I didn’t immediately think of counterpoints to.

and like for a thought experiment i tried wracking my brain to come up with a heterosexual explanation for one of the most homoerotic moments

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and the best I got is that Guts is picturing NeoGriffith like that to serve as a strong contrast to Femto, yk all naked with flowing hair as opposed to the exoskeleton + helmet look.

and it still doesn’t explain why an image meant to convey a sense of humanity is the most sensual image of a person we’ve seen in 176 chapters of Berserk give or take actual sex scenes, and that’s including Griffith’s resurrection (in which he’s described as “the desired”) a few chapters earlier.

like idk at the end of the day I think Berserk does mostly make sense if you assume Guts and Griffith’s feelings for each other are 110% platonic, at least the plot does, but i def think the homoeroticsm adds more depth and richness, plus it’s a simple cohesive explanation for a lot of stuff that is otherwise pointless or weird, from Casca’s jealousy to a bunch of images of Griffith to their intensity-at-first-sight vibe to why Griffith didn’t answer when Guts asked if he was gay, etc etc, and it’s disingenuous to ignore it imo.

bthump:

Browsing through the rebirth chapters and it just leaps out at me how utterly sexualized Griffith is, especially in comparison to Casca, who is (at least by Miura’s standards) totally desexualized.

Guts’ internal conflict is essentially desire vs responsibility, ie revenge vs escorting Casca to Elfhelm, ie Griffith vs Casca, and the visual depiction of that conflict is straight up, extremely loud and clear, naked sexy Griffith vs Casca all childlike in a shapeless cloak

Keep reading

yk what I was partly wrong here and over simplifying things

image

it’s not that Guts’ desire for revenge is sexualized through Griffith, it’s that Griffith’s sexualization is actually at odds with Guts’ desire to kill him. You can’t rly ignore “the instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.”

Revenge and sexual desire aren’t rly equated yet. Guts wants to kill faceless masked bird boy with great prejudice

image

he does not want to kill sexy naked Griffith.

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Now that he’s actually reachable I’m having second thoughts oh no what the fuck.

So when the hound says he’s longing for Griffith and tells him to give him a heap of raw iron, what’s actually going on is less sexualization of revenge, and more… revengalization of sex, yk?

Sexual desire and violent stabby revenge are being equated by the hound to encourage Guts to pursue Griffith. Guts wants to stick something in him all right, and he should still want revenge, so it’s best if that something is a literal sword. As opposed to his desire for revenge becoming sexualized, the inherent sexualization of Guts’ desire for Griffith is what the hound seizes on and twists to lead Guts back to revenge.

Anyway basically Griffith’s desirability is still hardcore contrasted to Casca’s lack thereof, but honestly I think it’s less a metaphor for wanting revenge vs being stuck babysitting and more plain old straightforward gay subtext which is then utilized to give an added layer of complexity to Guts’ desire for revenge (and desire to desire revenge.)

ik this comes across as fake jokey analysis and/or giving the subtext too much weight so I can reach super hard, but tbh idk how to read this part without it. i mean you could just say that Guts fantasizing about Griffith’s pretty hair and ass and forgetting his urge to kill and whining about being stuck with Casca and Griffith abandoning him and the hound’s many innuendos are all unrelated or accidental but

l
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consider: Berserk Armour vs Femto designs

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versus

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I just rly like how Femto’s exoskeleton can be drawn to either emphasize
Griffith’s face underneath the helmet or obscure it. It’s such a
good way to either depict Femto as a godlike otherworldly demon or a
petty asshole who can taunt Guts but can’t bring himself to kill him – or
like the bottom pic where after several epic godlike shots from
Ganeshka’s awed point of view, we see his face when he’s doing something
much more Griffith-esque: predicting what Skull Knight will do based on
logic and tactics rather than magic knowledge of fate.

Guts’
armour is more literal – when his face is hidden beneath the helmet,
he’s lost himself to his darkness. Femto’s is symbolic as his helmet
doesn’t change, only the angle we see him from changes, but imo it’s
really well-utilized to emphasize or de-emphasize whatever remains of
Griffith. And I think it’s definitely a trend – not 100% the case in
every panel, but overall when we see Femto’s whole face, it tends to be
in moments of weakness or pettiness, in moments where he’s demonstrating human feelings, however twisted they’ve become, and when either his eyes or his
mouth or both are obscured, it tends to emphasize his distance from
Guts, his godliness, his monstrosity.

Also, and tbf this I’m
less sure about bc I can’t remember every moment where Guts thinks about
Femto, but in general I think it holds true: Guts tends to picture
Femto with face partially or entirely obscured when he’s feeling the distance/difference between them and/or murderous rage

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and face very visible in moments that emphasize Guts’ similarity to him, and danger of becoming him

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idk i just think it’s neat

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lol i didn’t notice before how griffith immediately leaves to check “losses” (ie did guts survive) surprising casca and the dude he’s talking to with his abruptness. i love the little details that really show how unprecedented guts is and how quickly he effects griffith.

help im trying to convince a friend that serpico is gay and he wont believe me

jillresia:

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this look when guts tries to gaybait him

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and this look when he is gay baited

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and these panels, are pretty good,

unfortunately i dont have a serp is gay masterpost or anything :”)  this is what i pulled together in literally 5 mins tho so like.  it MUST be out there if i could skip to two chapters and grab hot panels.  this chapter  ( 275) is the one i grabbed the last two from and all the framing of serpico os Really.  Questionable.  i mean yeah hes off standing by himself so he cant get a group reaction shot, but.  it just feels.  More Significant.

plus he’s clearly gay even before he starts crushing on guts

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

sorry i keep going on about this but, although i’m not sure, i think there’s kind of a difference between just ‘sonna’ and ‘sonna koto nai’. ‘sonna’ leaves the main objection unsaid, and is often used as a reaction to hearing something upsetting. i’ve seen it translated as “why would you/don’t say (something like) that!” i’ve also seen it translated as just “that…!” or “that’s…!” and so on, it’s really hard to translate accurately
 now, in the 1997 anime she says
“sonna…!!” in that ‘reaction to upsetting thing’ tone, but in the
original manga it’s just “so–!!” and that, i feel, could be pretty much
anything starting with ‘sonna’ or ‘sore’ or w/e. one thing is for sure,
it’s not full on denial, since she cuts herself off. but yeah

i love your translation explanations and stuff, it’s rly interesting to me. I guess translations are never that straightforward, there’s so much to consider, but I love having all the additional info I can lol, so ty for going on about it!

also i love how in the arrangement of this page femto is to griffith what griffith/femto is to guts

it’s not like it’s news that guts’ dark side is made up of rage and revenge and feelings of betrayal with a solid dose of longing but it’s a nice illustration of it

i love these moments because they all seem inspiring and badass but they all have those ominous undertones – guts’ rage stemming from fear that he is just like the ghosts who want revenge, the shot of the behelit, guts’ inability to let go of the prospect of revenge, and the way his “war declaration” puts him a step closer to being griffith’s equal.

it’s guts repeatedly refusing to acknowledge how very thin the line that divides him from ghosts and monsters and evil gods is imo

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so this is p much guts being terrified that he’s going to die because his ambition of getting revenge is too great, but i kind of also want to choose to read it as a behelit/griffith reference, calling the sacrifice a form of self destruction too. he did pick up the behelit before this and knowing his other major frame of reference for great ambition I feel like it works as at least an accidental reference to the Eclipse.

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yk, seeing puck’s ass on every other page rly adds a certain je ne sais quois to the black swordsman stuff

i feel like having guts hang out with a tiny naked twink for 8 chapters before the golden age is a good way of acclimating the str8 dude audience to the incoming homoeroticism

seisans
replied to your post “seisans
replied to your post “tragedyiskink
replied to your photo …”

i mean really bad translators can fuck anything up but cutting dialogue off when it’s not cut off in the original doesn’t … really … i can’t say that it happens often lol. a misinterpretation of what she was trying to say IS possible, but having looked at the original now, there’s really nothing else that comes to mind other than “sonna (koto nai)” when a person stops after “so–” and also that scan is dark horse right? they’re pretty good at their job

yep it’s dark horse.

i’ve seen some scanlations where they’ll leave stuff out if they can’t translate it but deliberately cutting off a word would seem really weird lol.

and yeah i’ll take your word for it about the whole phrase being intended to be assumed to be “sonna koto nai.” It makes perfect sense in context and seems pretty straightforward.

tragedyiskink
replied to your photo “I spend months talking about this damn manga and Griffith and his need…”

I think the dialogue was lost in translation. This may have been the translator’s mistake.

idk from what i’ve heard the official translation is pretty good overall and doesn’t seem like it would drop emotional dialogue in crucial scenes. And I’ve lurked around skullknight for translation info/mistakes specifically which never mentioned this scene

i mean you never know, there’s always room for error, but casca trailing off and failing to reassure griffith fits perfectly into the story

phydia63
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post “There are two important parallels…”

Miura was cockocking them with plot armour and miscommunication tropes. Let them fuck Miura you coward!

ikkkkkkkkr

the golden age is straight up a slow burn mutually requited pining story except instead of eventually figuring their shit out they ruin everything forever

like

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they love each other and they can’t see that they’re loved in return and if miura just let them fuck everyone would’ve lived happily ever after

There are two important parallels during the waterfall scene, when Guts and Casca fight, then fuck.

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The first is this parallel to Guts and Griffith’s second duel.

Casca is the new leader of the Hawks, taking over Griffith’s role. She
challenges and fights Guts when he returns, in a mirror of Griffith
challenging and fighting him before he leaves. Then she falls to her
knees and has a self-destructive
breakdown. The last time the leader of the Hawks had a breakdown after
fighting him, Guts walked away. The scenario has presented itself again,
and this time Guts makes a different choice, one that might have
changed everything a year ago: he comforts her.

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Sex with Casca is Guts subconsciously (from a character perspective) or symbolically (from a narrative perspective) trying to fix past mistakes, imo.

Throughout the fight by the waterfall, Casca is screaming at him that he broke Griffith by leaving, that it’s his fault. This scene is all about Griffith and their feelings towards him. For Guts, it’s the beginning of his eventual revelation that leaving was a mistake because Griffith didn’t look down on him after all – because Griffith’s “no good without” him.

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The fact that Guts lets Casca stab him as she screams this tells us that her words hit home and he feels guilty, even as he denies it. It’s a pattern of behaviour for Guts that we’ve seen before and will see again, eg, when he let the zombie child stab him in the second chapter because he blamed himself for her death, and then denied feeling responsible to Puck afterwards (”If you’re always worried about crushing the ants beneath you… you won’t be able to walk.”)

He represses that guilt and doesn’t manage to acknowledge his mistake until about five minutes before the Eclipse, unfortunately, but this is how we know he feels it regardless, and this is how we know it’s informing his choices now – specifically, his choice to comfort, kiss, and have sex with Casca.

Guts’ denial of guilt while clearly feeling it is reminiscent of another character too:

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This is the second parallel, to Casca finding Griffith in the river.

Casca eventually yanks her sword out of Guts, admits to him that she’s romantically in love with Griffith, proceeds to list all the ways Griffith is wholly unavailable (he needs to marry Charlotte, Guts took the place she wanted at Griffith’s side, and now he may not even be alive), bequeaths Griffith to Guts, and tries to kill herself. Griffith Griffith Griffith – the lead-in to sex revolves around him. Guts thinking about how he abandoned him in the snow, Casca thinking about how Griffith doesn’t need her, and Guts beginning to realize that Griffith needed him.

So Guts saves her from her suicide attempt, then comforts her through sex.

And Casca does the same in return:

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She couldn’t comfort Griffith, she couldn’t be Griffith’s “woman,” she couldn’t be be something indispensable to Griffith’s dream, but she can comfort Guts, she can have sex with Guts, she can help Guts achieve his dream.

The situations requiring her comfort are even v similar – Guts has just had a flashback to his rape, and Griffith was calling himself “unclean” after selling himself to a pedophilic rapist. Griffith buries his feelings and refuses to be comforted, but Guts pours his heart out to Casca and lets her hold him.

My point is that Guts and Casca having sex is not about the other for either of them – it’s about their respective relationships to Griffith. Guts is presented with a similar scenario to the morning he left the Hawks, and after being told by Casca that he fucked up then and broke Griffith, he chooses a different course of action this time, and comforts and has sex with Casca. Casca is presented with a similar scenario to finding Griffith in the river after Gennon, but instead of being shut out she’s able to comfort the man in emotional turmoil this time.

tl;dr they’re both on the rebound from Griffith here, giving to each other what they didn’t or couldn’t give to him, and there are deliberate visual and situational parallels to illustrate this.