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by Kiogeki

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What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?

the first thing that sprang to mind was religion . there are several occasions in which guts expresses irritation and at times outright rage for mentions of religion, religious figures, and religion when used as justification. it’s not difficult to understand why piety was never in the cards for guts. he led a cruel and godless childhood with no sense of divine path / direction (a sentiment he continues to struggle with the entirety of the story). i won’t get into religion as a philosophical tool in the overarching story, simply because i am still not yet confident in my full understanding of its symbolic meaning to berserk and am sure to do it injustice at the moment, however on a characterization front, his disdain toward religion is clear throughout. these feelings strengthen, of course, as the course of his dynamic with griffith plays out re: the godhand. i think it’s safe to assume that witnessing griffiths transformation to femto, and rightly a “god”, lends his perhaps former minor irritation an entirely new meaning given the atrocious acts to follow. he witnessed the horrifying sacrifice of his comrades (and, in all regards, family) that was made for the transformation of a god to take place, and he finds it morally and viscerally repugnant.

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2. & 6.

2 . what is / was your characters relationship with their mother like?

his biological mother was hanged at the time of his ‘birth’ (if you can call it that), so their dynamic was clearly non - existent. the woman who found him, however, and whom he called his mother prior to her succumbing to the plague, had a familial bond with him to an extent. there isn’t a lot of indication that her death had a major significant impact on guts in later years; we mostly find him reflecting on the traumatic and complex relationship he had with his father. overall she proves to be more of an afterthought when the memory of her does surface, which leads me to believe that there was nothing particularly exceptional about their relationship. it crushed him to see her pass the same way it would crush any young child with a hint of affection toward a relative or motherly figure to witness their demise, but it did not seem to leave a major empty space in his life into his adolescence and adulthood. we know very little about her character, however she is the woman who named him ‘guts’ after finding him lying as an infant in a pile of them beneath his slain mother, which is unnerving at best, and leaves me wondering whether she is either a) with questionable sanity or b) not much less cruel or indifferent than his father. my assumption is that she took him on under the influence of boredom or some unstable whim for motherhood, and maybe the pity one might find in an emaciated dog. i don’t imagine they were particularly close, but overall their relationship strikes me as mediocre.

6 . does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

fear and anxiety are certainly reoccurring emotions within his dreams. i imagine guts experiences nightmares consisting of semi warped realities that relay events of past traumatic experiences (ie, nightmares regarding the eclipse, his father, etc). i can see him dreaming of battle scenes quite often, as battle / war has encompassed his life from childhood. like anyone else, people that he encounters in his life day to day are also likely common subjects of his dreams. casca, griffith, farnese, serpico, etc. this isn’t something ive put a lot of thought into, but overall i figure he either has dreamless nights, or dreams consumed by fear / sorrow / anxiety that vary in intensity. given his history i can’t imagine guts sleeping particularly well at night.

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like this if it’s okay for me to leave you a starter at any point in time

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i don’t have a modern verse (or otherwise) nor do i necessarily plan to create one anytime soon. i am still grasping guts’ character / voice, and rather than try to put energy into expanding his character in directions irrelevant to canon, i’d rather focus on understanding & crafting him as he is given. that’s not to say you have to write within a berserk specific canon; the lore is vast and i don’t expect anyone unfamiliar with the source material to try to blindly cooperate with it - i am perfectly happy to write in a timeline which is vague in its time period, or utilize a standard middle aged / fantasy verse to compromise a setting (as a setting, berserk is quite flexible!)

if you can’t see your character functioning in a like - world, it’s unlikely we will be able to interact for the time being. if you’d like to plot and establish a fantasy verse for your character set within the dark age or otherwise, id love to plot or help rattle off some ideas!

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Hellish visions by our special Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516).

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“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (via poetrist)

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HE FELT CONFRONTED BY THE PRESENCE OF HIM , accosted especially by his gaze ( which remained , as it did , interminably tranquil ) . he had the feeling it was driving him insane —- that glassy , unperturbed gaze . in perhaps some throbbing vein of guilt , he felt a headrush of sudden irrationality . the urge to shout overcame him ; to burst into maddened tears , to pound against the iron armoring griffith’s chest or grip his neck between tightly wound fists . any violent act that might work to disturb the searing , unbearable stillness that plagued his face . the moment his eyes locked with griffith’s , guts felt once again nauseated with it . a feverish , hypnagogic sense that everything in their tightly bound world would — without any manner of doubt — turn out utterly okay . more painfully , he thought , was that horrible feeling of longing , clinging to him like a pneumonic ache . ( i just can’t stand him looking down on me like that . ) he averts his eyes at once , finding himself unable to stop his heart from thrashing against the bones in his chest .

“ —- y’know , ” he takes his time with his words , gazing out beyond the stone balcony of their sleeping quarters , sweeping his eyes vacantly over a night whose snowfall changed and softened all of the earths shapes . he surprises himself by the dispassion of his own voice , relieved that it did not seem interested in betraying him . “ not used to all this luxury . aristocrats make me itch . . . it’s almost more than my head can take . ” @grififth

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WHAT   SHADE   IS   VIRTUE   IN   BLOODSHED ?   do   men   who   choose   to   participate   in   the   ritual   of   murdering   other   men   have   ground   to   cry   out   for   morality   in   battle ?   there   are   two   men   whom   exist   in   my   world :   THOSE   STANDING ,   &   THOSE   DEAD .   the   rest   are   frivolous   details ;   land   and   law .   obsequious   devotion   to   another’s   dream .   guts   stares   down   upon   his   mottled   hands ,   desaturated   by   dusk ,   coming   to   life   only   occasionally   on   the   lash   light   of   a   rare   flame   from   the   firepit   that   illuminates   the   faces   of   his   distant   comrades   in   hues   of   schadenfreude   glee .   those   men   still   standing .      ❝  yeah . . .  ❞   his   gaze   ascends ,   his   dirtied   fists   clenching ,   his   weight   shifting   to   tip   himself   back   and   stare   above   them   at   the   empty   black   sea .   at   once   he   feels   lightheaded ,   overwhelmed   by   its   vastness ,   by   the   mead   live   in   his   chest ,   by   the   way   his   soul   recedes   to   some   cold   and   starving   place .   lying   with   half   a   life   in   the   enemy’s   hands .   ❝  he   was   just   a   kid ,   s’all .  ❞

night stagnates not in the rollick & rouse         of beards stained at feast, breaths gone stale with ale.     firelight spangles a wall of deadwood.     it jutted from the shadows like a dragon’s boneyard.      he, the white hawk,     an understated presence among his festal men.     they discuss the tactics of the defeated :   decoys & deceptions.     his chin inclines when heed bestirs from the behelit, & is afforded to  @𝖇𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖟𝖊𝖗, who gruffly remarks :    i would rather look on my foes with my true face.     his true face :   fleshed scrawls of fervor & furor in the midst of battle.      true as the devastating blow of his blade.     truths that marred the moors.     a smile betides him   ;   a smile one bestows their brother.     it doesn’t elude corkus, who scoffs disparagingly at guts.     the hawks have flown the nest of spent goblets, & gristles of game, at their leisure.     fire softly smoulders to embers, & softer still, his voice of praise that placates the night.            ❝  i admire your honesty, guts.  ❞          cruel & cruentus as it were.

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PANEL COLORING :     GRIFFITH  &  GUTS     /     feat. @𝖇𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖟𝖊𝖗

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Andrei Rublev (1966) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

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“And so the history of metaphysical rebellion cannot be confused with atheism. From a certain point of view it is even confused with the contemporary history of religious sentiment. The rebel defies more than he denies. Originally, at least, he does not suppress God; he merely talks to him as an equal. But it is not a polite dialogue. It is a polemic animated by the desire to conquer.” [ Albert Camus, The Rebel ]

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I’m just getting into the manga but I’ve watched the series and it seems like there’s a lot of philosophy in berserk and I was wondering your thoughts on that?

hey! thanks for asking; berserk plays around various philosophical themes & ideaologies, many of which im still working to break down. among them ive found some of the most predominant to guts’ character are absurdism, nihilism, existentialism, machiavellianism, & of course fatalism / causality.

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Relativity lattice, 1953, M.C. Escher