tfw you finally finish this thing you’ve been working on for ages, feeling like it’s been a long haul but ultimately fun, a good time waster, and relatively worthwhile, and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself, so you take a deep breath and click “save draft” one last time, and tumblr glitches out and refuses to save it

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this is the day after he tried to visit Griffith and he’s still fuming about Casca yelling at him and logically Griffith doesn’t know why he’s so clearly pissed off right now, but he sees that he is and just says, “don’t get angry,” and for some reason this is the cutest thing to me right now

You wrote how NGriff “became the mask” and I noticed he’s always wearing armor. I don’t think he was ever drawn without it, I finally realized how weird it was during the tea scene, he just removes his gloves. At first I thought it was normal cause he was seen on a battlefield until then, but this was the very safe Falconia, no need to wear an armor.

omg right??? ty for pointing this out, like, what the hell is he doing having tea in full armour lol

but yk symbolically it does make perfect sense. the armour is such a strong metaphor for like, repression/denial/etc. like there’s even a chapter named after that metaphor (armor to the heart). it’s to the point where i feel seeing neogriffith wearing anything else would be a big indication that shit’s getting real for him.

interestingly the only time we see him without the armour as far as i remember is when he’s naked. or idk maybe it’s not interesting, maybe that was just a plot necessity since he’d just hatched out of an egg apostle lol, but it is kind of a strong contrast.

Regarding your previous asks I also think Griffith retains his emotions! And there’s even that scene that implies his emptiness and loneliness in the Falconia of the Millennium. So I’ve started thinking if he has maintained his emotions only towards Guts because of their terrifying intensity. This made me wonder something, whether he feels any sort of remorse for what he did to Casca. Do you think that’s possible?

Yeah I think it’s possible, but it would depend on like… what NGriff’s emotions even are I guess. If like you suggest he has residual feelings for Guts because they were so life-alteringly strong when he was a human and Guts survived the sacrifice, then his capacity to care enough about anyone else to feel remorse is probably long gone. similarly if it’s just the fetus fucking with him then guilt and remorse is probably totally out of the picture.

I’m really into the idea of NGriff having a full range of unfrozen emotions and just completely repressing them tho. like, if human griffith justified his dirty/cruel actions to himself by telling himself that it would be worth it and he’ll be validated by fate when he achieves his goal (which i think he did but i’m not going to get into it rn bc that’s an upcoming post), then neogriffith can double down on that because he has achieved his goal now and has basically had his entire life and all his actions validated directly by god lol

so even if part of himself has woken up or w/e and is there with his beating heart feeling actual emotions and being horrified at what he’s become, it’d be really easy for him to deny/ignore those feelings because he has divine right, his life was/is dictated by fate and god itself told him everything he does is exactly what’s meant to happen, and therefore he has no reason to feel guilty for anything ever

which has the potential to be a really interesting internal struggle in theory. in practice the fact that the guilt-worthy subject is rape really like, sours it for me lbr, i can only cringe at the prospect of Miura addressing it in the future, but welcome to berserk i guess.

Also if I was going to make a guess about what’s most likely to happen in actual canon, I’d say that NGriff is probably never going to express actual remorse for anything though there may be subtle hints of inner conflict. give or take how much or how little of his feelings end up genuinely being attributed to the patron saint of lazy writing, the fetus.

I always questioned the belief that (apostle = no emotion) cause of the numerous instances with the slug baron, Zodd etc. hell even slan right after griffith is told he’ll never cry again we see her crying. I think its just as you said how he’s become his mask, he’s the ideal version of himself with no struggles but it was when he was struggling that the victories meant something

Yeah totally, even all the way back in the Black Swordsman arc Puck gets his great moment where he calls the Count out on still having human feelings. And oh shit lol you’re right, that never occured to me but Slan wiping away tears like a couple chapters after Griffith is told “this is the crystalization of your last tear shed,” is more than a little suspect. I guess God telling Griffith he’ll never cry again could be less literal and more, you’ll never feel that despair that brought you to this point again, but still, like, the Godhand def have feelings, they’re just very dark/negative ones from what we see.

So idk, maybe we’re supposed to think that by incarnating himself as a flesh and blood person Femto/NeoGriff should’ve lost even those negative emotions for some magical reason, but something went wrong?

Or maybe Femto just believed he was emotionless despite that clearly not being the case, hoped he’d remain “emotionless” even after incarnating himself as a flesh and blood person, predictably turned out to be wrong, and decided to lay all the blame on the fetus so he could ignore his feelings.

tbh I could go for either explanation.

AND YEAH there seemed to be a lot of focus on how easy everything was for NeoGriffith – he barely had to lift a finger to defeat Ganeshka, transform the world, and become an emperor lol, it’s such a strong contrast to human Griffith having to work for his victories and face the possibility of defeat in tense moments, like the Battle of Doldrey was very suspenseful because of that, whereas the war with Ganeshka never had a single moment of suspense, NGriff was never not in control. I def wonder if that theme is going to go somewhere, especially with Guts, whose nickname is “struggler,” in contrast.

you can’t really read anything into it, esp since it’s not even official, but i like how this is phrased lol

not ‘obsession with griffith’ or ‘obsession with revenge’ just ‘obsession’ and then ‘here i am being questioned about him.’ like, his obsession isn’t a what, it’s a who.

i know this will sound weird and i am by no means diminishing guts’ anger, i just wanted to ask, do you think that griffith still harbors resentment towards guts? i was re-reading the hill of the swords and i got depressed bc that’s their last zctual interaction. we don’t fuckin know anything about griffith and how he feels. we just know his heart was beating when he saw guts fighting. is he angry? does he remember the past bitterly? what is your take?

my take is yes, but neogriffith wouldn’t think so.

Like on one hand it’s very ambiguous and up in the air because we get absolutely nothing from his perspective after that one contemplative ‘why am i feeling things?’ moment, but on the other hand 99% of Femto’s screen time was dedicated to being resentfully petty and while NeoGriff might’ve hoped to genuinely have no feelings, that beating heart tells us otherwise, so I can only assume that some of those feelings are resentment.

Like I basically think his feelings now are probably a big unexamined tangle of

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that he is absolutely not going to acknowledge to himself until he’s forced to.

And possibly his emotions are dulled depending on whether NGriff only has some capacity for
emotion but not as much as he did as a human, but tbh I like to think he
feels just as much now and is just a lot better at ignoring/dismissing
it due to being a godly thing on another plane of awareness. And like, the wonderful symbolism of becoming the mask fits too – like his perfect leader image was partly how he buried and denied his emotions as a human (eg see his “it’s nothing,” to Casca in the river), so now that he’s an embodiment of that perfection it just works for me to think that he’s better at denying/repressing his feelings, but they’re still there.

Also I like to think that he got a petty kick out of being the one to leave Guts behind this time, after the Hill of Swords reunion.

a tonally inappropriate griffith playlist

everyone’s been sharing their griffith songs with me so I wanted to return the favour but like, ridiculously.

(note: tonally inappropriate doesn’t mean a song is bad just… out of place in my subjective opinion, and some of these aren’t that out of place so much as they’re just cliche or they remind me of middle school or w/e, but idc it’s not that serious)

Anything But Ordinary – Avril Lavigne

is it enough to love?

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I Won’t Say I’m In Love – Susan Egan

try to keep it hidden, honey we can see right through you

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I Have a Dream – ABBA

i have a dream, a song to sing
to help me cope with anything

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Open the Gate – No Doubt

hiding all your feelings
behind your barricade

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Sweet Dreams – Eurythmics

some of them want to abuse you
some of them want to be abused

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Lucky – Britney Spears 

lost in an image, in a dream
but there’s no one there to wake her up

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Can’t Make You Love Me – Britney Spears

is it my life or the things i do?

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Iris – Goo Goo Dolls

i just want you to know who i am

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Piece of Dirt – They Might Be Giants

i find myself haunted by a spooky man named me
i wish that i could jump out of my skin

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Put Your Dreams Away – Frank Sinatra

put your dreams away for another day
and i will take their place in your heart

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Could’ve Gone Mad – Poe

i’m so glad that you decided to come

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Mr. Brightside – The Killers

coming out of my cage and i’ve been doing just fine

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Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

i don’t know what to do and i’m always in the dark
we’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

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Gunning Down Romance – Savage Garden

i’m gonna take these broken wings
and learn to fly

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Orange Colored Sky – Natalie Cole

cause the ceiling fell in and the bottom fell out
i went into a spin and i started to shout

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Shadows of the Night – Pat Benatar

surrender all your dreams to me tonight
they’ll come true in the end

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Are You Satisfied? – Marina & the Diamonds

i was pulling out my hair
the day i cut the deal

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Adieu – Emily Bindiger

and i see in your eyes that you really weren’t suprised at me

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Under the Water – Jewel

under the water
i hear who we really are

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Stronger – Britney Spears

my loneliness ain’t killing me no more

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I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor

aren’t you the one who tried to break me with goodbye?

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Are You Happy Now – Michelle Branch

and i know it’s just no use
when all your lies become your truths

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Mamma Mia – ABBA

mamma mia, here i go again
my my, how can i resist you?

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You’re the Storm – The Cardigans

cross my borders and kill the calm
bear your fangs and burn my wings

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Delusions of Grandeur – Pet Shop Boys

because they said, “we don’t understand you,”
and i want revenge

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woah woah woah

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“They obtain the power of gods!”

that wasn’t in Griffith’s chapter 8 monologue.

like is this one of those things that Miura had changed between magazine publication and volume publication because it was too on the nose? and if so did he forget by this chapter? shit should i assume griffith said it or not?

if i assume he said it there are three possibilities:

1. griffith is speaking metaphorically, ie people who have the power to change the world may as well be gods.

2. griffith is speaking literally and somehow only he knows that sometimes people become gods. (the “fortune teller” that sold him the behelit maybe? does that make griffith the kind of weirdo who genuinely believes wild shit salesmen tell him?)

3. it’s generally accepted knowledge/myth/belief in berserk’s universe that sometimes people become gods and griffith is referencing that belief system.

like i’m obviously going for option #1 here since it’s the most reasonable, but still lol. and tbf griffith believes strongly in fate and clearly wants to believe in higher powers, so it’s not beyond the realm of plausibility that he’s speaking literally.

the story of a dude symbolically cutting out his own heart because the vulnerability of being in love with his bff is too painful, except it doesn’t quite work as perfectly as he’d hoped and now they’re mortal enemies, is the perfect narrative

like there is no story i want to immerse myself in more than that story

madchen
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i was thinking cry for judas by the mountain goats would also make just like a good general berserk amv

omg yeah what a perfect song choice. damn now i really want to see this, it’s like an overview of the golden age (and beyond tbh but we’re stuck with the golden age for amvs)

yea that was exactly what i was thinking too like. post eclipse guts is good but theres no good footage 

yeah it really sucks, i have so many good potential guts songs but they’d all require post eclipse footage. songs that just feel like golden age guts are hard to come by at least for me.