Tag: replies

seisans
replied to your post “i was thinking about how much I don’t want the plot to be advanced by…”

hhhhhhhhhh god i need more of shit like this i’m starved. characters caring but not realising they care and accidentally making it obvious to everyone but themselves is one of my fav tropes

saaaaame like, that’s easily one of my favourite things about the golden age, i’m desperate for a reprise.

my ideal ending definitely involves griffith doing something stupid and irrational again bc of guts. like i can’t think of anything more perfectly fitting.

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

dhksdhsk imagine poor old lady flora having to explain to both of these losers that the other guy likes them and that they should just go for it

lmao i feel like she’d start out amused and get very exasperated very quickly. this would not be a fun job.

and YEAH god that
stuck with me forever, little baby rickert knowing what’s up better than
guts who was closest to griffith. i mean it wasn’t surprising at all
but. next time someone tries to deny griffguts is a thing i’m gonna be
like, this 13 year old child gets it and you don’t
and np! the offer
stands if anyone ever finds themselves needing something translated (i’m
still far from fluent but it shouldn’t be too hard)

honestly it’s like this fandom is full of corkuses who think griffith is above emotion lol, like corkus’ denial is not meant to be agreed with, he’s meant to be kind of an idiot and Rickert Was Right. and ty that’s rly generous, I’ll keep your offer in mind!

like bl has pointed out i hate
how casca passively internalising pain is accidentally relatable to
women when i’m pretty sure miura was just being a misogynist like always

yeaaaaah like it can be such a mess to try to sort out what miura intended as a commentary on sexism and what miura wrote because he’s a huge fucking misogynist lol, but i def think casca’s narrative from the eclipse on falls mostly into the latter category. i mean her narrative in general falls mostly into the latter category lbr, but especially the eclipse and mental regression bs. also agreed on his art from about 05 on lol.

seisans
replied to your post “why is every sufjan stevens song so griffguts”

ok wow i just listened to the song you reblogged (i never listened to his songs bc i suck at keeping up with musicians) and holy shit ……. holy fucj

ikr! i haven’t listened to a whole lot of his music but also check out john my beloved, drawn to the blood, to be alone with you, and fourth of july for those griffguts feels imo. tbh it’s probably bc so many of his songs are gay with religious vibes.

this is unrelated but i’ll use this post as an excuse to bring up the fact that modern au griffith loves lady gaga 

yesss

seisans
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “Casca:…”

whenever i let myself be emo about berserk i have to face the realisation that no matter what they’d done differently this would have happened ‘cause fate and shit but actually you’re right. you’re right. a single kiss would have flipped everything

i guess fate probably knew/made sure that wouldn’t happen, but if it did somehow, yeah. wait isn’t it like a thing that witches and stuff are kind of outside of fate? flora should’ve showed up and played matchmaker to fuck with the ioe lol

also i wouldn’t call
rickert a dumb kid, idk if it makes sense for him to be smarter than the
hawks and the nobles but he’s kind of a genius and he’s known griffith
longer than any of them. he’s also seen how he plans and make things
work in his favour, not to the extent guts has seen it, for example, but
he knows griffith is not the most innocent person on the planet, you
know 

yeah v true, calling him a ‘dumb kid’ is a little mean and v unreflective of how i think of him bc i like him a lot, i just… talk like that sometimes lol. he is actually rly insightful w/ both ppl and machines. he was also the one who pointed out that griffith went to pieces bc Guts left when he was like 13 or whatever.

Also ty for the offer wrt the raws! i’m kind of terrible at finding stuff like that and it looks like dark horse is on it now anyway but i appreciate it!

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “Casca: tries to kill herself, Guts…”

yea the lack of emotional reassurance through like any sort of intimacy is it since it was the little moments alone with guts that really keep griff going i guess
on a tangent this is why modern au is good bc guts actually knows that
he should dick griffith down when he finds him in the midst of emotional
breakdowns bc romcoms
exist. technology is amazing. read my fanfiction.

yeah like imagine if the toucing + emotionally intimate armour scene wasn’t immediately followed by wyald showing up and ruining everyone’s morale. or if a kiss had taken place at any point, i mean it would’ve completely kicked fate’s ass i’m 100% confident in that.

griff should’ve handed him a romance novel instead of the kama sutra t b q h. he played himself he was too bold when he should’ve lead in with some romance tropes.

madchen
replied to your post “Casca: tries to kill herself, Guts catches her, proceeds to heal her…”

i wonder if this is an actually intentional parallel (the suicide and “saving” at least) meant to contrast guts relationship w the two orrrr if its just another coincidence im reading into too much

i’m ngl i was planning out a casca-as-a-narrative-and-emotional-replacement-for-griffith essay when i thought of this and was wondering that too. i mean it’s two suicide attempts by main characters in front of guts in really quick succession. whether it’s meant to mean that guts should’ve dicked him down to save his friends idk but it does fit in with griffith feeling like guts is slipping further away and not getting the reassurance he needed that he isn’t.

yk like if it’s not a literal parallel/contrast it could still work as an emotional one.

seisans
replied to your post “seisans
replied to your post “Unpopular opinion i guess but i really…”

yeah same basically, i’m constantly suffering from golden age nostalgia, and this is subjective but it doesn’t help that miura’s drawing style has also changed so drastically that it just … lacks personality. veering heavily into “it’s not perfectly suited to my tastes so i don’t like it” territory but i feel like there’s some objective truth in there. too much has changed and i’m being whiny about it

legit, like there’s no denying it has changed a lot since the golden age so it’s pretty inevitable that lots of people are going to prefer some part of Berserk over another. idt i’ve ever liked a thing without preferring some part of it over another lol, almost every show eg i’ve ever been into had some seasons i’ve hated, and while I’ve never hated any era of Berserk I’m definitely more lukewarm about some of it.

seisans
replied to your post “Unpopular opinion i guess but i really miss the grimdark tone of the…”

agreed & i just wanna add like not only did the golden age arc end with the Eclipse, which is just about the best way to wrap up an arc that i can personally imagine, but also, it really wasn’t that long, and it was incredibly well paced. now you’re right about things seeming way more off when you’re reading an ongoing manga that frequently goes on hiatus, but i remember during my last re-read everything felt too drawn-out and frankly i couldn’t give a shit about guts-
-and his new party, even though i liked farnese and serpico. my own
fault for liking griffith way too much but i’m bored! and this all had
better be heading somewhere or i swear to god

Yeeeaaah. Like honestly if Berserk ended with Guts’ war declaration, like, I’d desperately want more ofc but I feel like it would work as a self-contained story. The Black Swordsman arc has this v blatant subtext of Guts becoming similar to Griffith, including picking up the behelit, that gets clear after reading the Golden Age so it would feel like a depressing cycle. 

Tbh the first time I read the post-eclipse stuff it felt like a slog, but the second time it actually seemed better paced to me. Still long, but i enjoyed the fights more – maybe bc I was picking up on and thinking about a lot of details. Aside from the whole Sea God thing, that was just too much lol. But yeah the Golden Age was really tight – it was long for a flashback but as a story it does feel perfectly paced to me.

Idk I think part of my problem here is that the Golden Age is just so fantastic and so perfectly suited to my specific tastes in fiction that nothing could possibly compare lol. Again, not perfect, like I could write a long list of various ways it offends me lol, but despite that it’s like my ideal story.

I’m still enjoying Berserk after it, but not to the same extent, and a lot of my enjoyment does come from the foundation of the Golden Age informing the characters, and like, searching for hints about how Guts and Griffith’s story is going to be resolved (and whether or not Casca will finally become her own person).

madchen
replied to your post “berserkliker
replied to your post “porciavividreams
replied to your…”

he mentions it in like. some like “interview with a mangaka!!” piece. its on a manga viewing site somewhere and is like in comic form and written by someone who i guess does it as a series but he mightve mentioned it in that intervoew from 2004 that i think a lot of ppl have read by now (the one where he compares himself to the green ranger, etc)
http://www.mangahere.co/manga/challenging_the_manga_dojos/c001/
found it lol

tyvm! i’m terrible at tracking stuff down on my own lol this is gr8

the ROV thing was from afaik an interview w/ him in manga format by a younger mangaka?? im not sure if it was their conclusion or s/t miura explicitly said

oh awesome, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. i might have to try to track it down

seisans
replied to your post “@chaoticgaygriffith said:
Actually, now that you mention it, I never…”

i feel like there’s something to be said about guts seeing her as small and vulnerable considering the fact that, i like breezed through the awful sex scene each time i read this manga but, im pretty sure he kept flashing back to his rape which. makes me so sad. under normal circumstances i’d be annoyed about a man seeing a woman as something small and weak but with guts it just makes me feel like he feels bad sexualising her? and that makes me happy
though disclaimer again i never paid attention to their thing so im mostly talking out of my ass here

yeah yk i feel like the way he sees her as smaller and vulnerable, plus the virgin-y awkwardness, does tonally lead directly to his flashback so I could def see Guts feeling that tbh. it’s a shame that Guts’ flashback is bookended by an awkward het sex scene bc imo it was mostly handled rly well and Guts’ breakdown is super touching and painful. But then they pick up where they left off and suddenly the sex is less awkward and it has this “Guts’ emotional scars are fixed bc he finally talked about his issues, yay” vibe that I sideeye.

@chaoticgaygriffith said:
Actually, now that you mention it, I never really paid close attention
to how Casca and Guts acted around each other bc I didn’t care for it,
but if Casca really did get Griffith’s eroticised panels once she and
Guts started being a thing, then I have to laugh because that’s just
further proof (as if further proof was necessary) that she was Guts’
replacement for Griffith. As he was hers, although I don’t see her crush
on Griffith as genuine but more of a misidentified emotion of
admiration and gratitude. 

I’m just replying to this instead of reblogging bc that thread is long and full of pictures. feel free to skip this if you don’t feel like reading My Thoughts on Guts’ Attraction to Casca lol, tho it’s v negative.

ngl… after a brief check of some key scenes, ie the ball, the sex scene, guts feeling kind of jealous during the rescue mission, and the huddling in the cave scene, I can say that we got Guts leering at her once when he first sees her in the dress with a cutesy blushy pov shot of her from his perspective, and one (1) panel of her looking sexy from guts’ pov at the very end of the sex scene.

So she doesn’t get nearly the bombshell treatment Griffith does. When Guts looks at her when she’s naked she almost always looks small and vulnerable, rather than erotic. (And I mean unfortunately small and vulnerable can = eroticized, but these shots are mostly Guts empathizing with her so I don’t feel that’s the case). In normal circumstances I’d be like, ok fine gj Miura that’s not a bad thing, but unforch what Guts lacks in finding her a sexy object the “camera” more than makes up for, compartmentalizing her into tits and ass and thighs etc, objectifying her, etc, for the audience’s sake.

I mean I think the most eroticized moment of Guts looking at her, other than the one shot I mentioned from the sex scene, is when he’s picturing her with the hound biting her neck. Which is fucked up but tbh it fits right in with Casca’s narrative treatment. Like she’s more likely to be objectified and made “sexy” for the audience during a rape scene than any other time.

So I mean, I can’t say kudos to miura for not having Guts get a long lingering look at her being sexy, because the audience does all the damn time in absolutely awful circumstances. But I am gonna say that signs point to Guts being gay.

(I know there’s one scene much later where Guts remembers having sex with her and might picture her splayed out on display, but I didn’t have any pics from that saved bc why would I so I have no idea when it was to find it and check.)

(also totally agree about Casca’s crush on Griff not being genuine.)

the hypocrisy thing is especially rich considering they think liking griffith is irl condoning killing all ur friends and worse and yet not a peep abt how that some logic means they think women should get over being abused if the dude is hunky enough and feels kind of bad after

lmao this really sums it up

& then they try to talk about how well written and deep berserk is and how it’s Not Like Other Mangas or w/e bc guts is complex– like u said wrt ppl seeing it as ‘dude w sword has slightly more feelings than other dudes w/ swords’ essentially. but ur going off about how

incredible the plot is while bending over backwards to deny about 90% of it like!!!! HOW

Right like Guts’ complexity is about Griffith. Like.. almost all of it, give or take his shitty childhood. It’s like, the fans who admire that aspect of Guts, yk he has feelings and he’s complicated and sad but soldiers on, still want him to be 2 dimensional by the end when he overcomes all that complexity so he can happily kill Griffith without feelings getting in the way.

Plus that house metaphor u used is perfect. Bc boy they love this story. Sure they have to pretend most of it doesn’t exist, but goddamn do they think this story is amazing.

@wind-prince​ said:
Some people are just
way too invested in making Guts “not-gay” and outright try to deny
anything that might have even the slightest homoerotic tone or subtext 

yeeep p much what it boils down to lbr. I’ve seen redditbro types who will admit that Griffith was probably in love with Guts, but even they bury their heads in the sand when Guts’ feelings come up.

(I gotta say tho, Berserk is so equal opportunity shitty in some ways that it handily makes a lot of fan hypocracy really really obvious. Like, Guts can’t possibly be attracted to dudes because he was raped as a child how dare you suggest such a thing! Casca? Oh Casca can hop right back on Guts’ dick tho. Or, I just care so much about condemning fictional rapists, obviously Griffith is pure evil from start to finish how can you even consider shipping him with Guts that’s so awful! Oh Casca? Yeah her attempted rapist needs a reward so she’s gotta wake up and fuck him.)

its like.. you dont have to approve of it, if someone’s grossed out or upset by it that’s their business but its also the foundation for the entire plot so idg why ppl seem 2 universally express disapproval by pretending its literally not there (&/or all of guts’s interactions w/ griffith are solely due to Manipulation by Eeeeeevil Schemer Griffith)… if it upsets u to that degree u can read s/t else that will be less upsetting?

yeah, exactly. when it comes to people actively denying that griffith and guts’ relationship is the basic premise of berserk and getting mad at people who enjoy that fact, it just gets weird to me. I fully understand not enjoying Guts and Griffith’s thing, or enjoying it until the Eclipse happens, or not caring for any of many valid reasons (tho why you’d continue reading in that case I understand less, but w/e that’s just bc I’ll quit anything at the drop of a hat lol, and there’s other good stuff in Berserk so each to their own), but surely you can see that Guts and Griffith’s complicated friends to enemies with plentiful gay subtext dynamic is the axis on which the plot turns and therefore understand that a lot of Berserk fans are gonna be into it.

And yet.

madchen
replied to your post “feel free to ignore this or take ur time or w/e but im suddenly filled…”

god i always forget about the sword in mouth thing?? like miura is obviously pushing phallic imagery and traditional allegories/metaphors with manhood and swords, and its pretty directly foreshadowed that griff getting his sword broken –> figurative and probably literal castration; broken swords obviously symbol loss of power but its a p common art motif to symbolize impotency too lol
what im saying is that guts put griffs dick in his mouth and theres no way around it

/files away more evidence for my “griffith is a power bottom” analysis post/

cosigning all of this.

also negl i would read an entire analysis that concludes with “therefore griffith is a power bottom” lol. and, like, genuinely a freudian analysis of berserk could totally exist bc miura is obviously purposefully throwing at least some freudian symbolism in there (aforementioned 2nd duel being one of the more clear examples).

warbiitch
replied to your post

“yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “gatsca
replied to your post…”

Was the last picture necessary though?

enh it’s a fucked up offensive scene so I avoided panels that mention or show sexual assault bc it’s a joke post, but i mean unfortunately it is one of the most homoerotic scenes since the golden age so it’s pretty relevant.

i get if you have a problem with anything from that scene being mentioned light-heartedly at all but tbh i tend to get a little irreverent when it comes to miura’s misogyny (among other issues) bc lbr you can’t throw a stone in berserk without hitting someone treating casca like shit, and if i took it completely seriously i wouldn’t be able to enjoy or even get through the story. so I mean I don’t make rape jokes or post pics of sexual assault without cuts and warnings, but I can’t promise I won’t mention fucked up scenes in a light hearted jokey way.

eta: tho actually after casually scrolling past that post it is a pretty jarring change in tone lol, so fair enough. I should probably try to be more mindful of that kind of thing. i’m so used to rolling my eyes at the constant rape that i can forget that those scenes are pretty disturbing even out of context.

gatsca
replied to your post “Anyway, on Griffith always facing away in Guts’ memories: Guts left…”

this is a beautiful post but i love how guts’ memory of neogriff remarks that “he looked so human…” but basically all of the body is obscured by birds. guts knows him anywhere by his hair and his ass

lmao right, and I’m p sure griffith is on the opposite end of like, a huge field too, but guts just instantly Knows.

honestly what a good page tho. notable heterosexual Guts, upon looking at NeoGriff’s divine ass surrounded by birds and flowing hair:

image

@mastermistressofdesire​ said:
oh I was going to say
something about how the convincing and cajoling about piling bodies was
seemed mostly intended towards convincing him to sacrifice the non-guts
parts of the band of the hawk. The seeds for wanting Guts gone had
already been planted during the year of torture. It’s just that actually
being surrounded by the real Guts after that kinda made it apparent
that his emotions hadn’t quite caught up to that line of thinking, he
can’t help that being

with Guts again is currently blocking all that out because of simply how amazing and comforting and warm and fluffy it feels
Also I was going to write about some
panels from the post-torture arc which I realised I should actually
complement with pictures so that post is kind of in the works. 

lol so i totally missed this response from however long ago. i wonder if it was when the tumblr activity page was buggy and refusing to load all the way.

but now that i’ve coincidentally happened to see it i just wanted to say yeah! i was actually thinking of adding another paragraph about how it would make sense symbolically that griffith has 2 separate motivations for the sacrifice, one for the band and one for guts, bc it underlines that guts (as several characters kept harping on about) wasn’t even part of the band at that point, and that he’d never actually been a volunteer to die for Griffith’s dream in the first place – his loyalty was won in a duel.

also if you’re still planning on making that post torture post i’d love to read it!

@yesgabsstuff said:
I actually was
thinking about something you said in passing a while ago. We were
talking about how he learned how to behave around nobles and you called
it the “miss manners stuff.” I realized that we don’t really have an
equivalent expression for men and that got me thinking about about how
being polite and showing the “correct” deference to your betters is kind
of inherently feminized labor in a way? I also was thinking about how
that instinct for self protection, which is really what

I think it is at this point for him
extended his polite behavior to his own rape. I don’t really know where
I’m going with this but I had thoughts.

That doesn’t really undo the effects of toxic masculinity but rather adds a different dimension of his character for me? 

Ooh yeah I see what you mean. lol it really is – I remember reading some studies about that in like a sociology class years ago or something, how a lot of behaviour coded as feminine is the same deferential behaviour eg men show to their bosses.

tbh idk I’d mostly separate the way Griffith behaves among nobility (deferential, always polite, always uses proper address/titles/etc, keenly aware of his place as an outsider and mitigating it with the shows of submission – smiling and apologizing when Julius slaps him is a gr8 example – etc) vs the way he behaves among the Hawks as their grand soaring leader.

BUT that said ia it is all tied to self-protection, and tbh you’re right – there isn’t a whole lot of difference between Griffith smiling when Julius slaps him, lip bleeding, and Griffith smiling when Casca hugs him, arms bleeding. I think he might tell himself that he’s trying to reverse the dynamic and comfort Casca instead of allowing her to comfort him because he has to be a strong leader and can’t show weakness, but I could definitely see a huge part of it being fear of his own vulnerability.

Idk I just really dig your point and tbh I think it would be really interesting to compare/contrast Griffith among the Hawks and Griffith among the nobles. Both masks stemming from the same place of vulnerability, yk?

@yesgabsstuff​ said:
Ditto for a conversation with Casca except that it ends with her taking the implement of self harm out of his hands and saying;
“You’re totally full of shit but I guess it’s time to put you to bed.”

awww. this is all
so perfect tbh. i’d seriously read 200k words of berserk as just a low key, realistic group of
traumatized and mentally ill people trying to support each other and get by and often failing and fucking up but
sometimes succeeding.

(i mean that’s basically what it is already but yk, take away the monsters and you’re still left with so much good character stuff and making it quietly realistic + modern adds a certain tone that agrees with me more than i would’ve expected. though i wouldn’t necessarily want to follow the plot of berserk to a tee lol. keep the themes, maybe explore different directions)