Tag: replies

madchen
replied to your post “I’m currently sick so I had a lot of time to read your berserk…”

i love qmisato truly a light of reason in tumblrs evangelion fan base
which you are in berserk fandom so it fits

tysm ❤ also nice, w/ 2 ppl vouching for them i’ll have to check their blog first whenever i finally get around to watching evangelion

houseofmars
replied to your post “houseofmars
replied to your post “houseofmars
replied to your post …”

You haven’t been fair because you’ve made straw-man versions of my positions, and also put words into my side of the argument. I am new to tumblr, I didn’t consider what your fan-group was before commenting.

If you followed me without reading my blog description or anything w/e, I guess now you know lol. I am very griffguts focused and I’m not going to change my mind on that, and I don’t really care to debate it for the most part, which is why I only responded to one part of your comment:

“Intimacy between men is scorned by society if they’re not lovers.”

I don’t think I made a straw-man version of this or put words into your mouth since it’s a very unambiguous, extremely untrue statement. If you misspoke (though I doubt it considering your “homophobia is quite rare” followup) then feel free to correct yourself, otherwise I stand by my response.

houseofmars
replied to your post “people on reddit saying that griffith being gay would make the story…”

The bond between Griffith and Guts doesn’t seem sexual at all. Intimacy between men is scorned by society if they’re not lovers. Our society is hypercritical and suspicious of love, admiration, and appreciation between men.

wow i wish i lived in your universe where intimacy between men is celebrated when they’re lovers and scorned when it’s platonic lmao, rather than, yk, my universe where intimacy between men is scorned (to put it incredibly mildly) when it’s sexual, or scorned by derisively suggesting it’s sexual, and platonic bonds between bros are near-universally celebrated as long as they’re appropriately no homoed.

i mean damn are there gay protagonists in blockbuster films in your universe? is the buddy cop genre the gay cop genre there? did kirk and spock make out after the “this simple feeling” monologue? are there more gay romcoms there than say, action movies featuring odd-couple platonic partnerships? hell, were there any mainstream gay romcoms there released in the 20+ years between in and out and love simon? sounds like a paradise.

like please, if society has a problem with depicting intimacy between men it’s because they’re scared it’s too gay, not because it’s not gay enough.

i promise you that mainstream society saying “lol they’re so gay” wrt a close friendship is not a compliment or wishful thinking, and they wouldn’t be more appreciative of that relationship if it was explicitly gay. it’s intended as an insult towards perceived homoeroticism because mainstream society is still very homophobic. The solution to this isn’t “omg men can be friends without being gay!” it’s “gay sexuality is something positive and there’s nothing wrong or shameful with interpreting something as gay, or mistaking someone for gay.”

like you are welcome to your opinion that guts and griffith share a purely platonic non-sexual intimacy. this isn’t in response to your opinion on griffguts – i disagree but yk, you do you, it’s all just personal interpretation. but don’t try to tell me society values gay men more than straight dudes who have friends.

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “I’ve just been having feelings about Casca lately that are probs 90%…”

You’re good! ❤️ And like it’s so hard to talk about because it pisses me off when this kind of personal/cultural wearing down of women’s self esteems happens to other women. And like as much as you would like to think that you somehow avoided all that you really don’t. Anyway sometimes how you get woke is you get tossed around by life a lot. I hope Casca gives them hell.

yeah it’s so all-encompassing and like, exhausting to think about sometimes lol. not to mention, yk, living it. And yeah here’s hoping.

seisans
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “@madchen said:
whenever i see people…”

oh i do actually think casca’s not gonna forgive guts though! say what you will about miura but at the end of the day he’s a brilliant writer, and i feel like whether or not he understands women and casca as a character, he knows what would make for a really bad story. guts and casca having a happily ever after would be the most boring shit ever, i don’t think he would do that
but i DO think that all the little
nuances of casca that make her so relatable to women and maybe
especially wlw were just kind of accidental. no man understands women
like that

ohh yeah i see what you mean then by Miura only ever accidentally writing women well. bc like I do think he sometimes does pretty good with writing women as interesting well rounded characters, but boy when he gets into gendered stuff specifically, yk that kind of men are like this and women are like this shit, or the experience of being a woman in a misogynistic world stuff, etc, it’s absolutely super basic at best and usually just Bad as we see over and over with Casca, among other examples.

So yeah when it comes to like, eg expectations of a nuanced and thoughtful portrayal of Casca’s reaction to her extremely gendered trauma I have basement level expectations, and it wouldn’t exactly surprise me if Miura thought Casca being in love with Guts and/or forgiving him was a reasonable emotional response as a woman-driven-by-her-emotions-for-men.

But yeah, characterization aside, narratively it would just not be good writing, and lbr we’ve had a ton of foreshadowing and it’s not pointing towards Guts and Casca getting a happily ever after. At least not any time soon. And I’m just gonna keep my fingers crossed that whatever actually happens effectively nips the romantic potential in the bud.

madchen
replied to your post “@madchen said:
whenever i see people
gush about casca as like a…”

tbh luca might be one of the better written female characters too never mind that shes a sex worker. she gets a few monologues of her own which is more than i can say for casca.
anyway yea i dont
think its intentional and even if it is its full of many of the mistakes
that men make when depicting violence against women that idc

i always forget about luca lol but yeah she is actually a pretty well-rounded character considering her comparatively small amount of screentime and she gets to fill the role of smart philosophical character explaining the arc’s themes lol, which is kind of refreshing. ofc we still see her tiddies and get ridiculous campy fanservice from her, but i mean, that’s a woman in berserk for you. like jeez we even saw flora’s aged-down tits lmao.

@seisans said: i honestly feel like all the good
writing involving the female characters of berserk was like. purely
accidental. not that miura didn’t try to portray gutsca as a stupid
decision, he really did imo, but he also has no idea what women are like
and is just writing out of his ass. i firmly believe that

I know in my soul you and maddie are right but I’m trying to cling to every scrap of hope I can now that Casca’s mind is back and she could potentially like, do literally anything that isn’t either ‘get back together with guts’ or ‘maintain a tense relationship that could return to romance at some point in the future for the sake of a happy ending, thus filling me with dread for the remainder of berserk.’

@madchen said:
whenever i see people
gush about casca as like a strong female character its like… what the
fuck are yall talking about she literally is there to throw hysterical
fits and then gets fridged 😦

also you put into
words what is eternally frustrating to me abt casca ie miura is a pretty
decent writer when it comes to portraying human fault in his characters
so cascas writing comes off almost like a deliberate comment on her
places as a woman constantly bound to two men and being miserable and
directionless bc of it.
i mean miuras female characters in
general like dude… please i know its “””dark fantasy”” but not every
woman has to be under constant threat of depowering and rape or be frail
and helpless before she meets guts or w/e

and then our
“”powerful women”” are bland and matronly or sexualized femme fatales
snooze. this turned into a rant  basically cascas writing is my kill
switch 

yeeeep.

and yeah like agh that’s basically what i mean when i say her lack of independence is interesting to me in theory, like… i genuinely believe it could be intended as an actual flaw and commentary on misogyny, like I’m torn on that. bc Miura does use Casca to give us his hot takes on misogyny a lot, and it really, really feels to me like he wrote g*tsca as a highly flawed relationship on purpose, and ffs she’s compared to his sword right after they fuck, that cannot be intended as a good thing, right?

but his writing of Casca is just so genuinely bad and misogynist so often that it’s just as likely that he just plain sucks at writing a hetero romance that isn’t super sexist.

honestly it almost feels ridiculous to complain about the misogyny in berserk, because duh lmao, but sometimes I just get caught up in how frustrating it is, esp bc Miura is such a good writer in other ways. Like I’d say Farnese is the best written woman in Berserk and even she goes from sexy sadomasochist to caretaker with almost nothing in between, with a side of being into Guts the same way Casca was into Griffith.

freewilllife
replied to your post “ugggggh tumblr still refusing to show me like half my notifications so…”

In a way it shows that the mangaka is not able to imagine that there are women who don t consider it a true sacrifice if there aren t “feminine” and soft. Like I have barely seen a woman who is able to perform that “trick” 100 % of her time anyway.

yeah pretty much. it wouldn’t even bother me much if Miura didn’t keep framing Casca’s more feminine traits as a prelude to romance/establishing her as an acceptable love interest, while also having her ask for reassurance that she’s feminine enough for Guts multiple times. Like, there’s nothing inherently wrong with writing a woman who has a combination of masculine and feminine traits, or even writing a woman who’s insecure about not being as feminine as other women, but lol I hate how Miura went about it.

also hey if femininity is a prerequisite for being guts’ love interest there’s no need to awkwardly feminize casca when griffith is right there being described as “prettier than me, and I’m a woman”/”so pretty i could hardly tell he was a man”/etc js lol

ugggggh tumblr still refusing to show me like half my notifications so i missed these til now, sry.

@madchen said:
whenever casca starts
acting out i think of that ten year study that concluded women only
express rage at the incompetence of others and at injustice

not that its That Deep
like u said… alovelyburn said that miura starts “chickifying cascas
character” once he decides to make her a love interest and it shows.
suddenly she starts crying more often, is passing out from endometriosis
and her anger is explicitly regarded as womanly as opposed to just

at some point I want to write out a full “it could be that deep” style analysis of Casca’s role in the story wrt the intersection of misogyny and heteronormativity. Like, I swear to god there’s a bizarrely coherent reading there even though there’s no possible way it was intentional on Miura’s part lmao.

But yeah as far as reasonable interpretations go it’s just sad facts that Miura uses Casca as like, a shallow way to examine misogyny, in how yk her whole life revolves around sexual violence, while simultaneously writing her romance v misogynistically as well, and it’s awkward af.

Like yeah Casca definitely got more feminine when she became Guts’ love interest, like to the point where Guts reassuring her that she’s “womanly” enough is a prelude to sex (jfc) and every one of their positive encounters before up to then shows her being nuturing/”soft”: bandaging his wound at Promrose, needing to be rescued bc of her period, tending to Guts’ wounds with the elf dust (w/ Judeau commentating that she’s softer now), wearing a dress while Guts reassures her that she looks good in it, being rescued by Guts again, etc.

But also ngl I get the sense that she was kind of doomed from the start with Judeau’s “our Casca gave up being a woman” line while talking about how she’s the 2nd best swordsman in the Hawks.

Like Casca was sadly never going to be a good portrayal of gender non-conformity because her lack of femininity was framed as an unfortunate sacrifice and something that should be rectified as soon as we met her.

yesgabsstuff replied to your post “griff-guts replied to your post “huh, i just noticed that the…”

Also the placement of the panels where Guts is angrily swinging his sword around at the same time Griffith is being given peerage has a lot of fodder for that as well. Griffith is kissing a noble’s sword when the one he really wants to be kissing is being kept on the outside of his dream by design…..

YES lmao, this reminds me of this half joke half serious post i wrote a while ago

https://bthump.tumblr.com/post/172009797586/chapter-one-serves-to-re-establish-the-characters

but yeah there’s no way that imagery is accidental. i mean ignore the phallic symbolism if u want, but those swords are deliberately being contrasted, + it foreshadows guts and griffith’s mutual self-imposed isolation from each other thru their dreams as symbolized by those swords right there

griff-guts
replied to your post “huh, i just noticed that the post-zodd chapters w/ guts and griffith’s…”

griffith is the master of guts sword 😉 😉 😉

yk what this works as a d/s joke, a masturbation pun, and as serious analysis

like the chapter title actually does seem like a potential reference to guts dedicating his sword to him now that you mention it. and lol i saw this reply right after posting a long thing about how that moment basically is what motivates guts for the rest of the story

hmmm

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

bad way for guts to figure out he really wants griffith to suck him off
i dont think its out
of the park to say griffith would assume his feminine looks make it
easier for guts to pretend hes a woman or something equally as crude,
like its self depreciating in the internalized homophobia way enough to
meet his standards. or just like any other slew of possibilities that
use his beauty as an excuse for gayness

hhhgh tine to be sad
about griffith online lads. i want a situation where guts freaks out and
says refuses and theres a whole hysterical conversation ending in guts
saying hell stay. cue introspective few day gap and griffith visits guts
in his quarters/tent or whatever at night and they have jilted awkward
conversation until griffith says “… would you /want/ me to suck you
off?” and guts doesnt stop him when he slowly kneels down between his
open legs etc etc

i want an excuse to write/talk about
porn with some angst and mixed feelings ig lmao. throw some alcohol in
there idgaf

oh man i’d read tf out of this

there’s like something weirdly compelling about a scenario where they upgrade their relationship to sexual but like, in a terrible way with both of them hating themselves, but then eventually gets better

idk like their lives revolve around each other, i could also see an ill advised sexual encounter not so much driving them apart bc nothing really can drive them apart – even when guts left it was all for the sake of his relationship w/ griffith, and even after the eclipse they’re both still obsessed with each other – as just being kind of toxic and miserable until they manage to work their issues out.

idk if what you’re describing would be that angsty, but either way the situation u describe, where guts decides to stay after griffith probably like reveals how vulnerable he is and how emotionally dependant on guts he is – more clearly than just falling into the snow in a daze, in a way guts can’t deny – and then they’re still drawn back to each other a few days later despite guts refusing the first sexual encounter, idk it yk just feels like a good illustration of the pull between them.

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post

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

My dream would be a scenario where if Guts does have a flashback that could be Serious Bonding Moment of Healing for them. Obviously they both know that they have to work together to make everything as okay as it’s going to be, but yeah. I hope both of them have it together enough know that what they have together is a different dynamic entirely from their previous experiences.
Guts I think is used
to thinking of himself as an outsider on some level so I think he may be
more emotionally equipped to handle the Gay Experience. Griffith
though, has a lot of aspirations to respectability so that part may be
harder for him even though I don’t think his men would give a flying
fuck. (I honestly think that Judeau would just owe Corkus money.)

i feel like it’s not necessarily a given that guts would have flashbacks his first time having sex with griffith too, since in canon he’s triggered by penetration in specific positions, i mean, there’s a good chance they’d start with handjobs and blowjobs etc anyway. one of the handy things about gay sex is that it doesn’t necessarily revolve around penetration by default assumption unlike het sex. plus since guts would maybe be more likely to anticipate like, strong negative feelings resurging during sex with a man as opposed to sex with a woman he might also have the presence of mind to start with non penetrative stuff.

so that way they’d have a chance to yk like, get used to sex with each other and get more intimate physically and emotionally, and both able to internalize the fact that their desire is reciprocated, before hitting a scenario that leads to guts flashbacking.

also yeah good point that guts could be more okay with his attraction to men than griffith. i tend to see griffith as understanding that he’s attracted to men and completely ignoring that fact bc his aspirations include marrying a specific woman and also he has hangups, but ofc i could also see him basically unaware and in denial.

and maybe if he does come to terms w/ it he can switch strategies to matchmaking charlotte and anna while making himself charlotte’s bff and then proposing a lavender marriage. happily ever after berserk au.

the only thing i disagree with is that i think corkus would owe judeau money if they were betting on griffith lol. but then corkus would immediately get it back thanks to guts anyway.

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

Guts has zero social skills but I could see Griffith permitting a hug. Guts, understanding on some level where this is all coming from would be really sad and might say the right thing about not needing to do it this way? I don’t know. It may backfire spectacularly because Guts may go down the “Are my desires inherently predatory????!!!!” road and that helps no one. Poor things.

yeah mb if guts already knows he’s attracted to griffith and is coming to terms w/ that then he could salvage the situation and not get too freaked out and escalate it badly. though man it would be really really easy for him to fuck that up lol.

but i mean there are worst case scenarios but there are also best case scenarios. like eg i could see guts smoothly bypassing a sexuality crisis by going from ‘this is fine because griffith is so special he’s basically a category all on his own‘ to ‘ok yeah ik griffith is a dude but by now i’m p comfortable having sex w/ that dude so w/e’ and/or ‘ok now i’m having a flashback but we’re emotionally close and comfortable enough by now to turn it into a comforting bonding experience’

and i could see griffith having all these issues we’ve been discussing but not making it obvious for a while, so when he does slip up and reveal that he’s got some fucked up attitudes towards sex as transactional and/or something that makes him feel dirty/self loathing, their relationship is more solid and they’re more equipped to deal w/ it together.

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

the implications of this make me sad but like its good in the content way
theres the assumption
that griffith knows that guts finds him physically/sexually attractive
(which gets worse when you tie in his feminine features and the
internalized homophobia) but the jump from him wanting guts to stay
around and offering his body just ends in static…

griffith drops 2 his knees and offers to suck guts off if he promises he wont leave just yet

it’s like, the combination of most plausible and most depressing way for them to turn/try to turn their relationship sexual

and i feel like guts would have to be the one who recognizes that griffith has fucked up attitudes towards sex bc i rly don’t think griffith is self aware enough to recognize that this is terrible lol, at least not without a serious wake-up call. but idk if guts has enough like… social awareness. it’s like griffith has the social awareness and guts has the self awareness and while in some circumstances that could work out really well, in this circumstance it’s the opposite of what they need.

agh this is such a disaster scenario. and like if griffith did offer then and there during a fraught moment as he’s freaked out about guts leaving, guts would absolutely be like ‘no what the fuck’ and griffith would then ofc take it as a rejection/condemnation.

but at least it might be enough to convince guts that griffith needs him a lot more than he believes? it’s a starting point at least.

also yeah the point about griffith knowing guts finds him attractive is so 😦 like we were talking a bit before about guts’ internalized homophobia + griffith’s femininity vs masculinity, but yeah it would be sad and interesting to explore how griffith feels about that too.

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “beheliit
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post …”

The incubus thing has really weird
implications I don’t want to think about and it’s weird as shit.

Just to be clear, sucubus and incubus are the same demons. As in they spend different times in their life cycle as both and must collect idk material from men to impregnate women. Assuming we’re talking about non-literal semen it gets weird when Guts is considered in all this. He spends time as the passive Neo-Griffith or human Griffith who struggles with being objectified and time as Femto. We will Not be literal about this, kids.

huh, i’ve never heard of this particular variation of incubi/succubi folklore, wild.

guess you could apply that to ngriff vs femto if you ignore the weird gender shit or just turn it into the fantasy monster version of being a switch lol. still gonna ignore anything eclipse related tho, and idk about ngriff being passive, sexually or otherwise, tho if u mean more like seductive then ia, but idk that’s prob beside the point when we’re talking about a semen go-between fantasy creature lmao.

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “ok heres a question that could warrant…”

lmaoo im the same i like ships that are on “the friends to enemies to its complicated and cant be explained in a trope” sid so fluff is a relief. griffiths issues with sex and intimacy have me fucked beyond his rape i think crossing that line with guts would lead to a contradiction with his sex=transaction viewpoint
like i can see him
trying to seduce guts when they have a disagreement because some part of
him thinks that  trading his body/objectifying himself (?) is a viable
option to get what he wants or come to a compromise. as opposed to an
thing he does with a person he loves because he loves him and he wants
to do it. guts of course freaks out which only makes griffith more
hysterical etc

aaaaaaaaa yeah this is so real and now i’m depressed. i tried to add something but i just ended up re-stating what you said lol.

but also this has me immediately thinking of an au w/ griffith learning that guts intends to leave in a situation less immediate than the canon one but still incredibly emotionally intense for him, and leaping to offering sex. especially if he learns, unlike canon, that guts wants to leave to be his friend/equal, and therefore doesn’t necessarily see it as a rejection, but as a problem that could be fixed by offering himself.

and of course griffith does want sex for its own sake, as an expression of love and intimacy and pleasure etc, but it just isn’t how he thinks of it or frames it to himself. when it comes to sex w/ guts the transaction concept is more like an excuse to experience something he wants but can’t really admit he wants due to a) trauma and/or b) the way it runs counter to his dream.

ugh this is so angsty and good.

beheliit
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post …”

siren fits him Perfectly
maybe even a seraphim angel type?

like just looks more like an angel than a bird, or are angel sirens from something? either way sounds cool and fitting

@prettykitten123 said:
Ooh imagine him as an inccubus. 

well appearing in people’s dreams in a tempting manner does kinda fit what with ngriff’s whole ‘desired’ thing and everyone’s hawk dreams. tho incubi mythology also fits some of the least fun aspects of the story a little too well for me lol, so it wouldn’t be my first choice.

phydia63
replied to your post “phydia63
replied to your post “welcome to controversy country…”

That would make Guts a werewolf- beast of darkness is a dog lol And aside from the obvious messiah parallels, what fantasy creature would Griffith be?

yeah guts is definitely a werewolf. for griffith i want to say siren. the bird type, not the mermaid type. his thing is being pretty, having ridiculous amounts of charisma and enchanting everyone basically, i feel like it fits.

phydia63
replied to your post “welcome to controversy country Griffith’s decision to sacrifice the…”

I can’t believe I missed the fact that Griffith has sharp canines in that last panel. Suddenly I stan him even more, if that’s at all possible lol Also I agree with everything 😀

damn i never noticed that either lol

alongside the oddly pointy ears they both have little fangs

a matching set of intimidating, larger than life dark vs light figures