#i def repressed my emotions too much to recognize it was a crush but i watched blackpink mvs in middle school and was like 👁👁 i am looking

[thruthisnight]

1, 9, 38, 79 💕💫

1. What is your middle name?

i have the basic white girl middle name. its elizabeth

9. How tall are you?

i am 5’11 or 180 cm

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

at one point in quarantine i stayed up 24+ hours?? i remember went to sleep at 9 am i do not recommend

79. Who was your first real crush?

p sure it was miss jennie blackpink i mean look at her i 🧍🏻‍♀️

[bthump]

frame-to-frame replied to your post “frame-to-frame replied to your post “chaoticunneutral replied to...”

That’s fair, this prob does partly come down to semantics – i.e. his being purposefully v. unconsciously unaware. B/c I agree in those terms that Griffith is purposefully unaware of his guilt, but I’m resistant to Griffith being unconsciously unaware generally, which this can easily be conflated with – that he’s so emotionally stunted he can’t recognize his feelings for what they are. A valid take ofc, just I think not my cup of tea? Though I’m open to being convinced lol. This is such a subtle point to debate lol, but I still think both can be at play wrt his feelings for Guts – purposeful unawareness alongside an acknowledgement (on some level) of his attraction to him. Griffith is all about emotional repression, we know that, he needs it to keep his dream alive. I just don’t think this is incompatible with him also pining for Guts I think it comes down to how in control of his feelings he thinks he is. What sells me on this reading is “How long ago did someone I was supposed to have in hand instead gain such a strong hold on me?” b/c that brings control right into the way he thinks about his attraction to Guts. He can still acknowledge his attraction & even try to seduce Guts while also writing those feelings off as a crush/lust (which he can tell himself he’s in control of) Where the purposeful unawareness comes into play is wrt the true significance of these feelings: that they pose a threat to his dream. B/c however you read Griffith’s awareness, the “do I need a reason” scene is significant in that he has no coping mechanism to explain his actions. He clearly goes the route of purposeful unawareness afterward, but ofc it didn’t have to go that way if they hadn’t been interrupted  I’m not sure I understand why the ch12 friend speech interferes w this, I think your meta still works with this reading, so you’ll have to elaborate pls! B/c to me it seems that either way he’s trying to diminish the depth of his feelings for Guts in response to a perceived rejection from him – and he can still know that what he’s saying is BS in his heart of hearts. Sry for length

Yeah I’d say it’s definitely more of a purposeful unawareness. While I think he is emotionally stunted in some ways, he’s not at all ignorant or lacking in emotional intelligence. LIke he’s actually really (uncannily at times, eg Foss) good at picking up on other people’s feelings, he’s empathetic (eg his interactions with Casca after saving her from the nobleman), he’s very socially aware and competent, etc.

But imo where his own feelings are concerned he has a giant blind spot. And tbh I do think that he is kind of incapable of recognizing a lot of his own feelings, not so much because of naivety but because he’s too used to avoidance and not used to confronting them directly. Like, it’s a willful blind spot, like we’re saying, it’s an ingrained negative coping mechanism. Maybe it started when people started dying at his orders, or maybe earlier, but yk, imo he deals with negative or inconvenient feelings by not dealing with them, by denying them entirely, and because of that he just has very little experience actually trying to understand his own feelings. But yeah like, I don’t think that’s exactly undeniable canon or anything lol, it’s more of a headcanon, and fair enough if it’s not your thing.

Hmm and while I definitely lean heavily on his emotional repression to be fair I def don’t think he’s incapable of examining his own feelings without lying to himself. We’ve seen moments of vulnerable emotional sincerity, eg “maybe it was my dream that killed this boy,” “am I dirty?” “do you think I’m cruel?”

I guess that to me those moments feel fleeting and quickly replaced by the denial and the mask, while I could see others reading those moments and seeing them as glimpses of Griffith’s more typical inner thoughts, which he just hides from others, rather than from himself. But yeah to me it always comes back to that monologue in the river - I just can’t read it as Griffith knowingly lying to Casca, imo it feels like pure bullshitting himself through a near breakdown, and it feels like a very powerful encapsulation of Griffith’s character as a whole. His moments of emotional self awareness don’t last because they’re painful, so they get buried.

But when it comes to Griffith’s feelings for Guts, ia that his denial method of dealing with his feelings isn’t necessarily incompatible with him still pining for Guts. Like guilt is a very different feeling from love, so it makes sense that he’d bury guilt but yk maybe not love. And I agree that self control is a big factor for Griffith, so yeah I could definitely see that if he feels like he’s got a handle on his feelings he wouldn’t need to avoid them/deny them.

And also because thematically Griffith’s feelings for Guts do lead to greater emotional self awareness in contrast to how he buries most of his feelings in pursuit of his dream, it makes sense on that level too that he’d be more aware of his feelings for Guts.

But I like Griffith being an unselfaware idiot who doesn’t even know he’s in love until he’s in a torture chamber lol. I love pining, but I also love the idea of Griffith lying to himself about Guts too, telling himself Guts is just a tool to help him win a war, that Guts will in all likelihood die for him so he has to does see him as just a soldier, etc. And steadfastly refusing to think about his feelings when he can’t cover them with a lie.

Idk I get that it could seem like, awkwardly naive and weird, but the way I imagine it is more like... bear with me because I’m about to get self indulgent and just talk about my Griffith headcanons lol, but basically I don’t picture Griffith sitting down and dwelling on his feelings if he can help it. It’s not like he saved Guts’ life the first or second time and thought “oh why did I do that? weird, idk, he’s a good soldier I guess, that must be it.” The way I see it it’s more like he just puts it out of his mind and doesn’t think about it. He socializes, he reads every book in his study, he learns to be the best at the sword as a teenager, he leads and fights and thinks of tactics, etc etc. Guts spends a lot of his time navelgazing about his feelings, but I don’t think Griffith does

He can think about intellectual things, like his goals and fate and his life philosophy but to me those all feel like smokescreens obscuring the emotional truths behind them. And when he gets too close to thinking about those emotional truths, he would have a million ways to distract himself, like by now I figure he’s just pretty pro at derailing his train of thought onto safer territory.

But yeah like the “do I need a reason” scene could’ve easily lead to a moment of emotional honesty and awareness if they hadn’t been interrupted imo. I mean it already was, it just didn’t get a chance to get very far. And afterwards I could definitely see Griffith contemplating his feelings for Guts honestly, giving thought to the way he cares about him and what it means, because he doesn’t automatically avoid those particular emotions. Maybe he already knows he’s attracted to him, or maybe he doesn’t bc of internalized homophobia, but the realization of love is burgeoning. Or I could see him already knowing and accepting how he feels and wishing Guts would catch up and finally understand that he’s not just another soldier to him. Or I could see him turning his thoughts towards seducing Charlotte, buying more books, investigating the attempted assassination, and deciding to ask Guts for help because he trusts him innately, without ever stopping to properly think about what saving Guts from Zodd meant. (And I default to the last one but I like all three.)

Lastly wrt the Promrose speech I just meant more generally that it’s a direct contradiction in the story that requires the reader to put some thought into Griffith’s character to reconcile it. Griffith prioritizes Guts above his dream, 5 chapters later Griffith says he has no friends. (It also contradicts the river monologue nicely, “for no other’s sake, for him, himself alone... a dream” vs “but if for their sakes, for the sake of the dead, if there’s something I can do, that thing is to win.)

And imo that basically just means that the Promrose speech has to be bullshit because it’s contradicted by actions and words in a much more emotionally revealing moment, but it’s up to the reader to decide if it’s bullshit Griffith has convinced himself is true, or if he’s just lying to Charlotte. Not that it contradicts anything we’re discussing.