Berserk Valentine's Day Gift Exchange - signups open!

This is a gift exchange in which participants create and receive fanfic or fanart for the Berserk fandom. Work reveals are on Valentine's Day!

Signups are open now until Sunday, 18 January.

Sign up for the exchange here (you need an AO3 account!).

Tag nominations are open concurrently: nominate your favorite ships/tags here.

The creation period is 19 January - 8 February.

Check out the FAQ for more details. You can follow this blog for updates and pinch hits. Feel free to ask questions or contact this account via DM (also if you need an AO3 invite).

And on that note...

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SMOKE SOME POT! BERSERKER!

(Art by gyodragon, banner by quietface)

Berserk Wuthering Heights 2/? - insp. @tortured-griffith | Part 1

Berserk doodles

the leader of the white hawks

From my Berserk tarot cards. Isidro and Puck as "The Fool" and Schierke as "The Magician".

old memorial i drew for berserk

Casca is an emotional being (and that’s a good thing)

When I was a little girl, I was labeled difficult because of my emotions. One of my earliest memories was laying on the floor in my room, sobbing for reasons that I can’t remember. And the words ‘big girls don’t cry’ was drilled into me. The premise of a hysterical woman haunted me.

In feminist spaces there’s talks of what makes a strong female character. It varies from person to person on what that means, what’s empowering and what’s not. For a long while the only women that were seen as valid were those who turned off those emotions and were stoic beings like their male counterparts. It’s valid if you find yourself drawn to those characters, but the world of womanhood is vast and not everyone fits into that box nor do they want to.

There is a lot to be discussed about Berserk and its female characters, whether they’re treated fairly in the narrative or not. But, for now, I would like to focus on an aspect that speaks to me as someone who’s been labeled as someone who’s too emotional. And that’s in the way that Casca experiences hers.

From the beginning of the story, we are shown point blank how Casca feels. She goes through pain, anger, jealousy, and a deep sadness for all that she wishes to gain but never will. Many upon starting the series see Casca as nothing but annoying; she was labeled as too emotional. Doesn’t she know that big girls don’t cry? But from the beginning, I wanted to know more because I simply saw a complex woman going through complex emotions. Just like I was going through complex emotions when I was first getting into Berserk, so I gave Casca the patience and care that I wish I was receiving. And I came to understand her and I came to love her and I came to find her empowering in all of the mess that she goes through.

Casca is not just a strong female character due to her being a warrior. She’s a strong female character because she’s a black woman who’s allowed a wide arrange of emotions. She’s strong because we see her get hurt, fall in love, be broken, trying to put herself back together. She’s strong because she is emotional and emotions can be a beautiful thing.

(This is a bit messy, I apologize).

Puck doodles in my sketchbook

Put your glasses on

my attempts at watercolor drawings

Guts and Griffith have never had normal penetrative sex.

Think about it. Penetration to them is something violent, just like a sword. The Beast of Darkness suggests as much, shoving Guts’ raw iron up Griffith’s ass. And if he can’t have that, he can always have Griffith’s sex scraps in the form of an incapacitated, disabled woman - their mutual former best friend, confidante, situationship and mother of their child.

Penetration to Griffguts is something not to be enjoyed by two people - by true equals - but something to be done to somebody else. The active partner, the passive partner. The masculine partner, the feminized partner. The older partner, the younger partner. The master, the slave. The debauched and the one doing the debauching. The penetrated being irreversibly changed and damaged, and the penetrator being able to walk away from that without a care in the world, not worried about how anyone would think of them or how they think of themselves. It’s a very Greco Roman view of sexual penetration. They both share this viewpoint.

Neither of them have penetration with a woman that is actually enjoyable. They aren’t present in the moment, they are completely dissociated, it was like a job to do. When they have sex with a woman, they either hurt themselves, hurt that woman, hurt the other guy watching, or did it as a means to an end (like in the beginning few panels). When they were penetrated by a man, it was because of sexual violence or also a means to an end that deeply traumatized them. They were also minors at the time.

They will Never be Normal about penetration. And I will never be normal about this either.

-Franny Choi, I Guess By Now I Thought I’d Be Done With Shame

-Twitter user kreophagos

-Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

-Miranda July, The First Bad Man

-Natalie Wee, Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines

-Author not found-

-Louise Glück, Unpainted Door

-Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women

-Anne Sexton, The Double Image

-Gregory Orr, Origin of the Marble Forest

-Margaret Atwood, You are Happy

-Jeanette Winterson's,Gut Symmetries

-Comments on a video discussing victims of abuse in Berserk

-Franny Choi, I Guess By Now I Thought I’d Be Done With Shame -Twitter user kreophagos -Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena -Miranda July, The First Bad Man -Natalie Wee, Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines -Author not found- -Louise Glück, Unpainted Door -Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women -Anne Sexton, The Double Image -Gregory Orr, Origin of the Marble Forest -Margaret Atwood, You are Happy -Jeanette Winterson's,Gut Symmetries -Comments on a video discussing victims of abuse in Berserk