#stainedglassthreads

[alovelyburn]

There are Thoughts that I don't have the language to vocalize about how Guts and Griffith have very clear animal imagery. But I feel like said imagery is also often used to highlight moments when they're losing their humanity. It's not just 'Guts is loyal, and that's why he's associated with dogs!' It's 'whenever Guts is losing himself to battle and dark emotions, the helmet of his Berserker armor is hiding his face'.

And like. That's not the only thing. There's also stuff like, the entire time Griffith is at his lowest, between his imprisonment and the Eclipse, his face is never shown. Then he becomes Femto and his mask kind of, becomes part of his face. And then I saw a post about how when Guts thinks about Griffith, there are times when he remembers Griffith's face, and other situations where he only visualizes the mask with nothing beneath it. Only when Griffith is 'reborn as a human' again do we start seeing his face again, and it's largely been with no mask to cover it.

I remember you've done a lot of analysis about Berserk analyzing the positives and negatives of 'humanity'. Humanity is not portrayed as an inherently good thing, it's tied up with a lot of negativity and messiness. But shedding your humanity is kind of. Cowardly? Or not cowardly but. It's not better? It's something the Godhand do because their negative emotions are so overpowering that they freeze their emotions rather than deal with it. And even reborn as a human, Griffith claims his heart is still frozen (even if it's implied he's not being entirely truthful or accurate.)

But? Just? Humanity themes. And animal symbolism. And animal symbolism being also strongly associated with Griffith and Guts' flaws. Griffith is a falcon because of his soaring ambition, but his ambition created troublesome situations. Guts is a dog but this is first introduced with parallels between him and the dog that followed Gambino around, and later the Beast of Darkness takes the form of a dog.

And! I feel like there is a thing! There is more stuff to analyze here! But I cannot summarize it in a pithy thesis. And also have not read/studied Berserk enough times to. Crystallize. It. I think it's maybe cool though.

Okay there's a lot to unpack here, so bear with me. Also... I'm never going to use Falcon, I'm sorry, I just can't, lmao.

First! Berserk absolutely goes all in on animal themes, particularly for Guts and Griffith but some of the side characters get these references as well, e.g. Charlotte is a duck, Isidro is a monkey, and Casca I think was recently referred to as a red raven. In most cases it seems to primarily just be a comment on the character's personality (remains to be seen with Casca). But in Guts and Griffith's case I think it's often used to demarcate the place where their full self is vs. their... primal pieces? For lack of a better term.

What I mean is, Griffith himself is a complex human being full of virtues and flaws and loves and hates and self-doubts and confidence and fear, etc. His ambition, his ruthlessness, his general loftiness are parts of him, but only parts. The Hawk, even when he's still human, is more of an embodiment of his high vision, his ambitions and his ruthlessness - he sees everything from above, he aims for the sky, and he is a bird of prey.

When he becomes Femto part of what's happening is that the parts of him that soft and messy and human become buried (or removed, or frozen) and what's left is The Hawk - in both its most malevolent and most aspirational forms. When he's at his absolute worst, his face is obscured by shadow and all you see is the Hawk as represented by his helmet (or "helmet" in Femto's case).

The thing about his low point (post torture-pre eclipse) that's interesting to me is that, yes his face is largely obscured, but the parts you do see are the most expressive parts - his eyes, his mouth - and what's obscuring his face is no longer the helmet that represents the Hawk, but a mockery of that helmet. If you want to really read into it, you could say that his being literally locked into a cruel imitation of his iconic helmet represents where his head is at and, unfortunately, his ultimate fate. Because while he is trying (with some success tbh) to adjust to his new situation, he's still unable to fully release the image of what he was (as shown by his wanting to be dressed in his old armor, and his repeated attempts to step back into that role by grabbing a sword, or by comforting/coming on to Casca depending on how you read that scene).

And ultimately he never does let it go - instead, he just gets rid of all the things that aren't that image,

The Dog imagery with Guts is very similar although obviously it's been more explicit during his human periods and hasn't gone as far/eaten him. Guts is like a feral animal in some ways but also like a domesticated dog in other ways - he has unconditional love and loyalty to those who give him the affection and attention he craves. I'll also point out that mistreated dogs are also infamously loyal to the abusers, I'm looking at you Gambino. Even with Griffith he's unable to let go of the love and loyalty, it just changes form.

So, like Griffith, Guts himself is a complicated person, but there's also the Dog in him - currently manifested as the Beast of Darkness. More than any other part of Guts, it's the Beast that urges him to forget all the other things that he cares about and throw himself wholly into the obsessive pursuit of Griffith - a demonstration of the same love and loyalty he always had in its most extreme/twisted form. And like Griffith, the implied threat is that if his spirit breaks, the beast inside him will eat him alive, devour everything that isn't Itself, and leave him inhuman. Honestly the Beast's thing about Griffith isn't much different than say, post-Eclipse Griffith's focus on his vision and ambition - they're both pumped up to extremes, the biggest difference is that Guts is still fighting it and Griffith is long gone (unless something changes).

And, of course, as you pointed out, when Guts is at his most feral, his face just disappears into his animal-motif helmet which, you know. Griffith echoes.

Which brings me to the thing about whether giving up one's humanity is portrayed as a bad thing. I think...

Okay, I'm sure 90% of people will disagree with me, but my main impression is that giving up one's humanity is portrayed as neither a good or bad, right or wrong decision but rather a very human decision.

Because it happens when a person has reached the point of no return - the abyss of true despair from which there is no return. It's the part in a survival story where people kill and eat the weak to survive. Not to be gross about it, but when you put a person into a situation where their only choice is to do something that would, in most circumstances, be absolutely reprehensible... they will usually choose to do the thing. And while a lot of people deny it, studies suggest that most of them are wrong, because most of them would.

Even so, when the survivors of a shipwreck come back into human civilization but they're the survivors because they ate their cabinboy, what does society think of those people?

It's not that dissimilar from the way people react to Sacrifices honestly - there is a recognition that the choice was understandable, but also a repulsion that the choice was made.

I chose those circumstances specifically because it really happened - in 1884, Edwin Stephens and Tom Dudley, who had survived a shipwreck, killed and ate their cabinboy to survive... and they did survive. But while the courts recognized the necessity, the attitude was basically, regardless of that you should've just died because some things are unforgivable regardless of the circumstances.

Anyway that's a bit of a ramble to get around to this: the sacrifice of one's own humanity in that moment is a result of that humanity, and the way they're viewed thereafter is analogous to the way actual people who do extreme things in extreme circumstances tend to be viewed. The fact that they often don't actually lose all of their humanity sort of bears this out: going all the way back to the Slug Count, Puck calls him out on being, rather than free of his humanity, just incredibly human - which he proves by being unable to kill Theresia. I'll never forget the Egg of the Perfect world and how he sorted through all the disposed corpses and laid them out one at a time or the way Rosine tried to save her best friend from her painful life. Even the way Ganishka is still driven by his bone-deep terror even when he's one of the most powerful beings in the world. They are, as Daiba says, hated and hating, but in the end they still act to protect humanity and the world they inhabit.

Godhand are a little different - just based on what we know about Griffith and Void's motivations it seems as though their stories are far more extreme in every way - their suffering is more prolonged and profound, their sacrifices are bigger and more destructive, their impact is incalculable. But like apostles, they try to escape their humanity, but they still carry its scars.

Hopefully that was coherent.

It's funny because, to me at least, Griffith's choice comes after such an extreme battery of suffering that I frankly find it more understandable than someone sacrificing their wife because she's an orgy-having heretic.

#ask #stainedglassthreads #ariel talks about berserk

[canonical-transformation]

Suggestions for other inhuman characters hyv should let us play as:

-While Ella Musk was trying to figure out how to speak Hillichurlian, an especially especially and friendly Hillichurl Archer was learning Teyvatian Sign Language. -Enjou. Finally. -Durin or Elynas' blatantly reincarnation, and they are Absolute Sweeties. -Karkata. -Xiangling challenged Cloud Retainer to a cooking duel by accident and now Cloud Retainer is hellbent on traveling across Teyvat with your party to find The best ingredients. Nothing will stop her. -The singular person foolhardy or compassionate enough to befriend and ride into battle a Rifthound.

- Top three candidates for the Rifthound:

Canotilla

yang!Chongyun

Guoba

- Durin and Elynas take Genshin's punny, weirdly polite combat lines to the next level by being completely unrelated to conflict.

- Hilichurl Archer would be pretty great, especially with arrow switching, but if we're trying to move away from the base models, a Lawachurl would be amazing.

- Silly hc: Sandrone's true form looks like Karkata

- You know that meme about Lisa's climbing noises in JP? She has nothing on Enjou getting hit.

- Changsheng. The controls are like Snake Pass, and nobody is having a good time.

- Insert plug for Guoba Impact AU here.

#asks #stainedglassthreads #genshin impact #silly headcanons #undertagged #guoba impact #sandrone #hilichurls #karkata #the thing calling itself enjou

[odessa-castle]

'bad end bonanza' and 'all this has happened before' are both calling my name...

all of this has happened before is...I think the only one of my BG3 WIPs that isn't Wyll- or wyllstarion-focused. what can I say, I have my biases. I doubt I'm going to finish it. I wrote/outlined it as more of a character study thing for my durge; the idea was that they'd briefly encountered (most of) the companions at some point before BG3 proper, and you could kind of glimpse the story of their struggle with, and ultimate embrace of, the Urge through those encounters. This is from one of the sections I wrote from their PoV:

In the wracked wreckage of their mind, a scrap of memory: Their hands, lithe and nimble, chaining together a crown of daisies. They set it atop the tousled curls of one of their companions, a human boy with warm amber skin.

bad end bonanza is, uh. It's basically a branching point from the scene in Chapter 12 of NLTS where Ulder goes to see Astarion at the Jasmine Garden, and by "branching point" I mean "if NLTS were a visual novel this would be an early Bad End." Because in this timeline, Astarion doesn't tell Ulder to back off, and well...

“You still think to lecture me about my son?” Ravengard asks. His grip doesn’t tighten, doesn’t shift. “Presumptuous.” Ravengard’s hardly the first person to tell Astarion as much. “Is it more presumptuous than bedding your son’s favorite courtesan in a fit of pique or less, do you think?”

"Odessa," you might say, "how is this the bad end after what happens to Astarion in the main story?" Well, imagine what happens when seventeen-year-old Wyll finds out what his father did, particularly when Astarion tells Wyll that he had no choice in the matter (which, you know, true). On one hand, this would finally get Wyll to cuss out his dad for real. On the other hand, oh boy is Wyll going to get himself killed, and if he doesn't get himself killed, it's probably because he's managed to team up with Gortash, which carries its own set of consequences.

#the ask and the answer #stainedglassthreads #nothing like the sun

[has-gilgamesh-doneanythingwrong]

My theory is that Gilgamesh has a fourth-wall awareness exclusively used for detecting when there's a Fate game, and entering said Fate game, because he desires The Attention. He let Fate/Apocrypha slip past... Never again...

Hello!!! And lmao that is hilarious XD Gilgamesh using his special abilities to insert himself into as many fate titles as possible is a great concept. He really knows how to get the attention at all and any costs.

#gilgamesh #asks #stainedglassthreads #thank you! #gilgapinions

[ariapmdeol]

Reading the ORV epilogue for the first time. At the same time I am finishing my reread if Chris d’Lacey’s Last Dragon Chronicles, which I read and reread so often as a kid that the spine of the first volume is coming apart. I’m cackling because David Rain, the protagonist of LDC, seems to have a similar backstory to YJH. Right down to their parents’ address being an address no one has ever lived at. (Tho due to David being more of an author, things are either ‘better explained’ or ‘even more confusing’ in his case.)

I am just. Deeply amused. I loved LDC so much, perhaps liking ORV a lot too was kind of inevitable with them both going so meta and paradoxical? I forgot how the final volumes of LDC get so confusing that a hundred or so pages of the finale have to be spent making sure all the characters, and the reader, are all on the same page…

the overlap is real! metafiction enjoyers when there is metafiction at the function,, I cried at the ORV epilogues they GOT TO ME

it's always funny when the lore gets so off the rails that they need to take the time to make sure no one is lost SADKADJSKL

#aria rambles #aria answers #stainedglassthreads #i miss orv i should reread it #ouuuuuu kim dokja

[miundy-again]

I am aware of a very specific song for when your crush is a ghost. You should look up the song Ghost Story by Charming Disaster.

Oh! Thank you for the recommandation, it's a sweet song, with a very simple melody. <3

#ask #stainedglassthreads

[namethefallen]

*audience cheering and woo-ing sounds*

Thank you! Thank you! I will be riding this hype train of my own design however far it takes me.

#stainedglassthreads #aj answers

[thisisadecisionimayregret]

Mako was apparently there because his clones referred to him as 'Dad' in the last Counter/WEIGHT episode. This was because Keith owned 'fuckdads.com'. The goal was, thus, less to make a touching scene and more to make Keith mad.

The scene itself, taken straight from Transcripts at the table:

AUSTIN: The last one, before he leaves, says, AUSTIN (as Mako Clone): You’ve been a real good dad! AUSTIN: And punches you in the arm. 

[groaning]

ALI: God! Oh my god? AUSTIN: And he sticks his tongue out at you, because he knows it’s gonna make you the most mad motherfucker.

[more groans]

ALI: You’ve met Keith, right? DRE: [laughter] Oh goddamnit. ALI: I just wanna…I just wanna... AUSTIN: Mhm. ALI: You can cut that out - AUSTIN: Keith owns fuckdads.com.  KEITH: Yeah, you can go buy some of my music. Fuckdads.com. AUSTIN: You should do that, make him feel better. Make Keith feel better, he makes good music, it’s good. KEITH: Thank you.

Oh my god I totally forgot that his clones called him dad in that scene lmfaoo, thanks for the reminder, I can now support Mako in the fatt dilf race

#i last listened to c/w in like. late 2018/early 2019 so its been a minute lol #samantha answers #stainedglassthreads

[genderbinaryisforlosers]

!!! Congrats on seeing Night Vale live! They've meant a lot to me for about seven years, and seeing them live would be a dream come true! Enjoy it!

thanks!! i got to go back in 2016 and it was so much fun, and i was supposed to be going in 2020 but ofc the europe tour was cancelled. i'm so happy i've got the chance to go again!! night vale means so much to me too, and i hope you get to see them live someday!!

#riley replies #stainedglassthreads

[pensivespacepirate]

You would have no idea what my username references because it references nothing. I just strung together words I felt made a cool mental image. XD

ahhh!

#asks #stainedglassthreads #it is very cool!

[alovelyburn]

Because your recent two posts made me think about it: the webtoon I'm The Grim Reaper by Graveweaver is a comic I know where the entirety of the fanbase is in agreement that the angry and selfish dark-haired lead was in romantic love with the self-deprecating and idealistic blond lead and committed atrocities in the name of said romantic love.

This is possibly made easier to recognize by said angry and selfish dark-haired lead being a woman. (Admittedly I also love her very much. She falls into one of my favorite character archetypes of 'biting you' and 'just generally a mess'.)

That said. I'm sure there are 50,000,000 comics and novels and shows where there's an angry and selfish dark-haired male lead in love with an idealistic and self-deprecating blonde woman.

This has been. Various rambling thoughts. Enjoy?

This reminds me of the Berserk-like recs trend my asks had for a time. Love that.

I do absolutely think that if you make one of the characters a woman people stop arguing about the romantic connotations. It's heterocentrism... but if I'm going to be blunt and honest for a moment here, it's also because if the characters are of opposite sex, the relationship is more likely to have intended it to be seen that way and thus more likely to be actively written into the story.

Though this is starting to change. Still a long way to go.

#ask #stainedglassthreads

[canonical-transformation]

I don't think Makoto was invented at the last second, largely because I'm seeing a growing pattern of all Archons(except Zhongli) having a doppelganger--Venti has the Nameless Bard, Nahida has Rukkhadevata, if this holds for Fontaine then I'm willing to believe that Makoto was always planned. (And will grow yet more deeply suspicious of if Zhongli's doppelganger has some plot twist tied to it)

Personally my theory is that the marketing team were terrified that if they made a (gasp) antagonistic and somewhat morally complex Archon, no one would want to role her. The Tsaritsa and Fatui have about 6 chapters to slowly establish that their situation is more complex than it was initially presented as being in the Prologue, but due to them wanting Inazuma to be closed-off, they effectively had to speedrun 'Ei is the villain! But actually she wasn't so bad after all! She knew what the Fatui were doing but it wasn't THAT bad!!', and in way fewer chapters than Sumeru was given and it...just wasn't great...

I continue to mourn that there was no grand reveal that Ei knew Celestia was spying on her people through Visions and used the worst method possible to protect her people from Celestia's wrath. Or something like that. Like I guess she was doing that in the vaguest and most nebulous way but it was more 'grief and trauma made me fear this COULD happen, but ultimately it's kinda unfounded so far as the players know' rather than 'I have definitive knowledge of the world that you don't and trust me. This is the right idea'.

That AQ needed one more Act of breathing room so much :(

#inazuma #genshin meta #asks #stainedglassthreads #genshin impact

[odessa-castle]

I have to ask what Cazador was actually intending to use the surcoat for. Was this just an ego thing seeing the Grand Duke's son in 'his colors' or was there a specific plan and goal, or?

Just an ego thing, really! And -- also importantly -- a way to make himself feel less threatened by Wyll's attachment to Astarion (and vice versa) because now he's made this present all about himself. He's reframed it as a power play instead of evidence of a genuine emotional connection on Wyll and Astarion's part. Everything Cazador does in NLTS is about his response to ego threat, and his need to maintain control -- specifically, his control over Astarion, because he always, always prioritizes that over any other goals he claims to have.

#the ask and the answer #stainedglassthreads #nothing like the sun #cazador and astarion's dynamic in nlts is very deliberately built on the dynamics and emotional language of intimate partner violence #i have a lot to say about that choice and why i made it but what i have to say is admittedly pretty heavy

[has-gilgamesh-doneanythingwrong]

My boy! my beautiful boy! Bedivere may not be a five-star or four-star, but he’s carried me through so much in the game, he’s the first servant I did Palingenesis on, and I’ve crafted a team that can get his noble phantasm to regularly do around 300,000 damage— I love my boy so much and now he’s finally my first servant with a maxed out bond! so happy it’s him :D

Oooh!!! Congratulations on Bond 10 with Bedivere!!! That is some pretty awesome news. Thank you for sharing your journey with Bedivere too, it is really special hearing about your experience with him.

3* servants like Bedi are awesome af!!! He is definitely slept on despite being such a compelling guy.

#asks #stainedglassthreads #gilgapinions #congratulations!!!

[ariapmdeol]

*cough* Dokja and Joonghyuk--

I CAN BE PICKY ABT CHARACTERIZATION WHEN THEYRE SHIPPED BUT i really do like them-- the duo of all time they are obsessed with each other and its so funny kdj and yjh sweep!

#aria answers #aria rambles #dokhyuk #joongdok #ask game #stainedglassthreads

[tenderwulf]

I'm fairly certain you have a Yami Bakura playlist, so may I recommend Dr Sunshine is Dead by Will Wood and the Tapeworms for it.

Heh no actually, I don't have a Yami Bakura playlist... I just have a generic ygo playlist and throw everything in there.

I listened to the song! It's very funky and fun, and the lyrics are interesting. I personally don't see this as a Yami Bakura song though...

Thank you for the suggestion, I really like expanding my music horizons <3

#ask #@stainedglassthreads