mastermistressofdesire:

@yesgabsstuff @bthump

I found something for Corkus to do!

You know expanding on the psych, group therapy angle, I’d really
like for it to be like this unofficial support group Griffith put together
while still in school because a lot of kids in the neighbourhood could not
afford therapy, but is now working towards getting a degree and making it like
a professional deal, maybe even join a bigger set up or really expand upon the
project. And it’s sort of become a safe space for all these kids and over the years,
some of the older ones like Judeau, Pippin, Corkus have all stayed together and
become like this group of people who at this point just support each other as
friends and actually even help to guide the newer ones who join. (Corkus has
his own brand of tough love which surprisingly works on some of the most
withdrawn kids so they sort of let him be).

And everyone of course, completely loves Griffith because this
guy literally gave a lot of them life. 

Griffith however has in recent times started to develop a very
non-disclosure, sterile clinical style of counselling, where he’ll hear
everyone out, non-judgmentally, of course but not really give any personal
inputs. And he’s pretty good at this.( Psych students would be rolling their
eyes here- but there’s like these two schools of thought regarding counselling
among psychologists, one that the psychologist should not bring any personality
to the table, as the therapy isn’t about them, they should merely be a mirror
in which their clients can find themselves, an emotionless but rational and
non-maleficent screen and the other is that the psychologist should interact
with the client as their authentic selves, to be better able to build trust, a
sense of reality and connection and extend human support to the client.)

However, this wasn’t always the case and when he was younger,
and didn’t really know much about psychology or therapy. Griffith would reach
out pretty much how any concerned person would, he was just a lot better at it
intrinsically

Unfortunately, as with any group of people dealing with
participants from such sad and messed up personal situations, among the many
happy recoveries there are also some things which couldn’t be fixed. Over the
years there have been those who relapsed, ran away or most commonly committed
suicide, mostly during the early years of the Group when Griffith was still
doing the stuff pretty much solo and he has a huge case of unresolved guilt
associated with these cases. Because in retrospect sometimes he keeps wondering
if it was something he had unthinkingly or unknowingly said and simply the fact
that he had taken responsibility for these people and that  maybe what was his
amateurish incompetence and over involvement had ultimately failed them.

Casca however turns out to be one of his early
successful ‘cases’ and he helps her recover from and infact directly stops
her from being sexually assaulted. And he really helps her kind of regain her
sense of control over herself .Casca completely hero-worships him. This goes
on till final year of high school by when Casca has become somewhat of a support
counsellor herself but then things suddenly turn ugly when this kid who’d
recently joined them commits suicide, and this is the one of the youngest kids ever that Griffith had
taken in and he’s completely shaken by this incident.

This also starts his goal toward working his ass off and getting that actual degree and scholarship. So he applies to a lot of Universities, and gets accepted into a great one except Gennon is the Dean. Go figure. 

So Casca witnesses an incident and she’s pretty shaken about it but later when she asks Griffith why he wont just leave, he tells her it’s not important in the grand scheme of things and right now the degree is the most important thing for him because he refuses to take risks with the lives of people who trust him with their lives. Plus it’s kind of his dream to have his own sort of therepeutic set up .

and so it goes, and also like when Griffith first meets Guts, he asks him to join in on their meetings and Guts takes offense and says he doesn’t need it.

In the beginning Guts resents Griffith slightly because he looks like he’s so untouched by the things which everyone else is suffering from. He seems normal and happy and well-adjusted and Guts can’t relate to that and sometimes just wants to drag him down to his level.

But as the years go by it becomes what he loves the most about Griffith, that he can just waltz in and make Guts smile despite himself. And Guts becomes exceedingly protective of him because he feels like he wants to protect a little bit of that  ‘ innocence’. 

Later he  hears about Casca’s story and —

haha this is getting real long but yeah canon typical things. but they will talk because it’s what they do for a living in this au. and things will be better.

Ooh I love this idea too, long but worth reading. tbh I’ve heard a lot about those two schools of thought you mentioned from a friend who’s a therapist and that’s a really clever and in-character way of applying it imo.

also i’ll add this here bc it’s all related to the same au:

@yesgabsstuff said: I feel like you could even keep the
whole Gennon situation in if you wanted? Like you have a student that
was on the waiting list for the group and he didn’t get the treatment he
needed in time due to a lack of funding and he ends up killing himself?
Grad student Griffith would totally blame himself and give into the
advances of a spooky doner
Patron of the department for a grant to be sent their way.

If you wanted. I would because it was important character development.

Yeah I think it’s pretty necessary. both this and @mastermistressofdesire‘s idea up there totally work for me.

The only thing I want to suggest is an original motivation for Griffith to decide to start this whole helping other people cope with trauma thing. Bc I mean canon Griffith didn’t necessarily have much of an original pre-gennon motivation for the castle dream but that was a rly simple + childish dream whereas this is more complex and I think should be rooted in something. Building off of the whole apparently orphan kid in a back-alley thing maybe he grew up in orphanages/foster homes and witnessed and/or experienced abuse and couldn’t do anything about it, and this is his way of taking back that sense of control and “making up for it” as he might think to himself?

Which kind of maybe is moving the dead kid motivation ahead a little, but idk.