Similarities between Belladonna of Sadness (1973) and Berserk

Belladonna of Sadness (哀しみのベラドンナ, Kanashimi no Beradonna) is a 1973 Japanese adultanimatedart film produced by the animation studioMushi Production and distributed by Nippon Herald Films.

Jeanne makes a pact with the a spirit, who soon reveals himself to be the Devil. She submits her body in exchange for more riches and she is granted magical powers. The baron offers to make Jeanne the second-highest noble in the land, but she refuses, saying she wishes to take over the entire world. These events were only foreshadowing her tragic fate.

original reddit post by morbidcorbin

Surely, Miura found this inspiring to write Griffith's story.

“My pussy.”

Eddie Munson x female reader

warnings: language, smut, fingering, rough smut, dom!eddie, use of a vibrator, spanking.

summary: eddie finds your vibrator in the bathroom.

to the anonymous user, thank you for requesting!

You were sitting in front of the tv, crisscross on the floor as the Andy Griffith show played in front of you. You were clad in your socked feet and matching pajamas, putting polaroids in your album. It was a calm night, a sweet, romantic one you and Eddie were spending together, just a relaxing night in.

“Hey, babe!” Eddie called from the bathroom. “Come take a look at this! You’ll never believe what I found!”

You grimaced. “In the bathroom? Gross, Eddie! I’ll wait out here, thanks so much.” You chuckled, shaking your head at him.

The sound of a high pitched whirring flooded your ears, and immediately, heat went to your face. You pounced up. “No, no, no, no, no!” You screeched and screamed, running to the bathroom.

You found Eddie, leaned up against the sink and smirking, looking proud and cocky as ever. His hand propped him up against the sink, the other swung your pink vibrator side to side like he was trying to hypnotize someone.

You screamed. “Eddie!” You quickly leapt for it, but he stood tall and held it above your head.

“I don’t think so!” He tsked. “Didn’t know you had one of these laying around. Am I not satisfying you?” His eyes darkened playfully, making you roll your eyes.

“Oh, please, Eddie, drop it.” You jumped to reach it. “Please, forget you- Jesus, you’re tall!”

He scoffed and handed it to you, buzzing still loud and when you got it, you quickly switched it off, face burning and hands shaking from embarrassment. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He bounced off the sink to follow you into your bedroom. “We could have had some fun!”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged your shoulders. “I guess it’s just private, I suppose.”

Eddie smirked, taking a long stride over to you. He put his hands on your shoulders. “Well, my dear, I think I’ve been missing out. What do you say we add a little something new to the mix?” He kept his eyes on you, slowly walking you backwards to your shared bed.

You wiggled your brows and hummed, matching his lips in a hot kiss. You both fell to the bed in a heap, clothes flinging off to the floor one by one. You squeaked when he gripped your hips and spun you around, putting you face first into the mattress. He grabbed you and lifted your hips up to meet his face. She smirked, spitting in his fingers and rubbing them up your slick cunt. You gasped, reaching out to grab a pillow.

“Uh, uh.” He smacked your ass, making you squeal. “Keep your hands still.”

He pushed into your pussy, standing behind you at the foot of the bed. You moaned pathetically, drooling into the pillow so quickly it barely had even started. That’s the way sex was with Eddie. He knew you so well, knew all the right buttons to push.

You couldn’t help but blush when the sound of your vibrator turned on, and when it pushed at your clit, body bent over and ass up, you sobbed, a tear pushing past your lids. Eddie knew how stimulated you got and how quickly you did so. “Fuck,” You cried. “Oh, let me me feel you, please!”

“No.” He turned up the speed of the toy, smacking your ass with his free hand. “You wanna play with yourself without me? Then you’ll take your punishment and enjoy it.”

He spanked you again and again from cheek to cheek, making you jump out of your place and yelp from the sting of his hand.

“It’s mine.” He sneered. “My pussy.”

“I’m sorry!” You sobbed. “Just fuck me please!”

He slipped the vibrator into your cunt, the pink tip disappearing inside of you. He thrusted it in and out of you quickly, smacking your ass here and there until you were near purple with bruises. You saw stars as you came, panting heavily and shakily.

When you collapsed. He stood there with a dumb, goofy grin on his face. “See? Fun, right?”

Propaganda

Alice Roberts (Pandora's Box)—I dunno if she was a star per se but she did this groundbreaking lesbian role in a very groundbreaking 1920 movie and she won my heart while doing so. And his 1920's butch style is on pointtt

Lillian Gish (The Wind, Broken Blossoms)—Known as "The First Lady of American Cinema," Lillian Gish was an Academy Award nominated actress that actually began her career as a child actor onstage in theater plays. She was a prominent actress during the silent film era and her ethereal beauty made her one of the most popular actresses of the time/ She was a favorite leading lady of famous director D.W. Griffith, starring in several of his films, including the controversial Birth of a Nation. She was known to go to extremes in preparing for roles, such as sustaining permanent nerve damage in her fingers on one hand after filming a scene in Way Down East where she fainted on an ice floe and kept her hand partially submerged in the frigid water. Her screams during the famous closet scene of Broken Blossoms were supposedly so realistic and horrific that tale has it that bystanders outside the studio had to be stopped from rushing in to help. She is listed on AFI's list of the greatest female stars of classic American Cinema and was awarded several honors during her career.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

3/3/2024 EDIT: there has been a lot of discussion on this poll that I'm currently examining. Please read the propaganda carefully and weigh your options before voting.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Lillian Gish propaganda:

"I love her just. So so much."

"Was in (arguably) the first movie ever and yeah it was a crap movie but still. Also watch her in Broken Blossoms, man can she ACT (and if an actress is good at her craft it does in fact make me more horny for her)"

"she's literally everything to me i'm not even kidding. quite LITERALLY called the First Lady of American Cinema, she was a damn pioneer of silent movies and acting. she wrote! she directed! she is exactly what i think a fairy would look like actually. she slayed in The Wind. i mean. look at Her"

what if in order to "defeat" griffith, guts will have to lure him into gay sex, similar to what he did with that female apostle? except this time guts completely forgets his urge to kill.

Semifinals

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in 

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

Casca

She is part of a weird fucked up love triangle with two dudes. All three of them are honestly kind of terrible for each other but she gets shoved aside in favor of the two dudes in most fics and is not allowed to grow past the toxic relationships of her past. Also she’s a cis woman who dresses pretty masculinely (because she’s in a mercenary band) so she gets type casted as the mean lesbian friend, when she’s straight in canon

I've seen more than one Yaoi Shipper say that Casca should have died during this one big canon event as opposed to being assaulted by one of the people in the Yaoi Ship, which of course conveniently would remove her from the narrative and as an obstacle to said Yaoi Ship. Aside from that specifically, though, I think it's particularly cruel to imply that being killed is a better outcome than being a victim of SA, and is an example of the contempt fandom on the whole has for female characters who act traumatized - particularly when both male characters in the ship have similar trauma and its never implied they should have died rather than be assaulted.

She's an incredibly interesting character in her own right with really good dynamics and parallels to Griffith and Guts, and the way those three play off of each other is integral to the story, but most of what I've seen completely ignores her in favor of focusing on only Griffith and Guts

Did Kentaro Miura Confirm Casca "Enjoyed It"?!?!?!

LOL another day another weird google translate from kojion causing a stir in the Berserk fandom. Explicit discussion of rape and feeling physical pleasure during rape to follow, be careful if that's not something you can read!

While at first everyone was furious and demanding a source, and rightly so, someone posted the magazine this interview came from:

I have absolutely no japanese language skills at all, so I have no idea how much this translation matches up with kojion's post. I did a bit more digging and found a second English translation, which I've helpfully flipped horizontal so you don't have to crane your necks like I did LOL:

To be clear, the specific phrasing of Casca experiencing pleasure, and reaching "ecstasy" (I'm assuming that means orgasm) are FROM THE FEMALE ARTICLE WRITER. She is saying that to HER it's clear that Casca is experiencing pleasure and reaching orgasm.

The response from Miura is a lot harder to parse, in my opinion. Per the writer, he responds, "Even without the God Hand, Casca thought she would feel pleasure if the person being raped was Griffith" (kojion, I think this is supposed to say something like "she would feel pleasure if the person she was being raped by was Griffith") or "Even if we didn't mention the God Hand, I thought Casca would feel that way (ie from the previous paragraph, that the rape would feel good) if the other person was Griffith."

I suppose I have two sets of thoughts about this, the first set being that I really don't think this is the smoking gun of "Miura says Casca liked being raped!" that people are interpreting it as. It's very possible that Miura is only referring to physical feelings of pleasure and orgasm during rape and not actually enjoying it in like... a NTR hentai kind of way LOL. The question really is whether Kentaro Miura in 1996 had the nuanced perspective on sexual violence to say that sometimes during rape the victim feels an unwanted pleasure response, but that doesn't negate the traumatic psychological effects of it, and in some ways that unwanted arousal can create its own host of traumatic psychological effects. It's possible imo, but I can't say for sure. Either way, simply having your main character experience orgasm during rape isn't in and of itself a bad thing to do (Diana Gabaldon did it too, in Outlander), it's more about the intention behind it.

What I CAN say for sure is that everything about Casca's character during and after the eclipse is meant to indicate that the rape was mind-breakingly traumatic for her. From how she tells Guts not to watch, to of course how she completely regresses into this infantile state, to her reaction to seeing Griffith on the Hill of Swords being panic and terror, I really don't see any argument within canon for the idea that she "enjoyed" the rape beyond possibly being physically aroused, which I've already discussed.

The second set of thoughts I have are basically: this article is from 1996. It was published twenty seven years ago. In a much more recent article from 2019, Miura had this to say on the topic of sexual assault in Berserk:

Though this again isn't the smoking gun of "Miura regrets the sexual violence in early Berserk" people make it out to be, it's very clear his perspective has grown and changed as he got older. I think, in order to understand Miura's thoughts about Casca's rape at the time of his death, it makes much more sense to look at his words about the corridor of dreams chapters, and the chapters themselves. At some point in between 1996 and 2019 he clearly came to the conclusion that specifically being raped by Griffith was what caused her to shatter mentally, so honestly... Even if you take the least charitable interpretation of the quote from 1996, I think you have to acknowledge that he clearly doesn't feel that way now. Or, didn't. Like, in ~2019, this is how wrote Casca having PTSD:

I also want to include this quote from kojion's account about how Miura reacted after the eclipse:

There are a bunch of other quotes of Miura feeling depressed after the eclipse, I was gonna find more but I forgot kojion has a habit of posting the most explicit eclipse panels uncensored on his twitter and I'm not gonna wade through those for them. Either way, I just don't think there's much to support the idea that the eclipse was supposed to be anything BUT horrible and traumatic.

Anyways, tl;dr, Miura doesn't ever say "Casca enjoyed being raped," that's from the interviewer. He could very well be referring to an unwanted arousal response. And even if he wasn't and did really mean she was kind of into it, though I don't think this is supported by canon, he clearly has grown a lot since this was published twenty seven years ago.

I’m not coming from a place of hate at all, I enjoy your takes on Berserk homoeroticism and appreciate your refreshing ability to make well informed, intellectual analysis so accessible for other fans. It is an important resource to have when dudebros try to make their homophobic bias sound like good arguments. However, when it comes to your analysis of Casca, I find myself disagreeing with almost everything you say. I’m usually only reading your blog quietly because I enjoy the discourse, but I feel like I need to add my two cents. I agree that Cascas writing falls flat to a degree, but I can’t help but think that you’re downplaying her character and arc because you don’t enjoy the parts of Berserk that aren’t about homoerotic tension between Guts and Griffith. Their homoerotic tension is also what is most interesting to me, but it’s not what Berserk is inherently about. We could dismiss Casca by saying ˋMiura can’t write women´, but then again characters like Farnese exist who have an entire complex thematic arc tied to religious extremism, authoritarian character and freeing herself from dogmatism and Berserk as a story is not punishing her or asking for redemption and is instead inherently ridding itself from moralizing judgements of characters. She’s allowed to evolve by herself. As a queer person, I see myself in her. Theres so much queerness and comphet in her story, I’m sad that there’s not many meta posts about her on here. Does Berserk have ideological streaks of conservatism and misunderstands women because Miura has a misogynistic bias? Yeah, unfortunately. But the story and many of the main characters are too complex and ambiguous for me to write them all off based on how some of their arcs are not feminist enough and could need improving. Imagine writing such a complicated and long story with so many characters as just one simple Japanese dude who never leaves his house and who was born in the 70s or whatever. Like, I get separating the story from the author and impact versus intent, but dismissing Casca because of her flaws in writing is dismissing all of Berserk because of some thematic flaws. It sounds like you’re expecting the perfect story for her to be a valid female character and that’s just not possible. I for once made peace with her flaws and am not rejecting her. I think Cascas story works for what it is and I empathize with her as someone who has experienced misogyny and SA. Farny and Schierke working through her trauma magically was a nice metaphor for solidarity between women and it’s rare to see that coming from a male author, I don’t think it’s less valid just because Miura has some gender bias. Casca still experiencing PTSD afterwards is also realistic and shows that Miura is willing to give Casca enough agency to work through that by herself without magic some time in the future of the story. Her story is uncomfortable and her character arc is long and flawed, but that’s what makes it impossible for me to dismiss her. I’m a bit disappointed that so many fans on the tumblr side are willing to basically rid Griffith from all his wrongdoings but then empathize the flaws in Casca and don’t understand that maybe they also have some internalized misogyny that doesn’t make them understand that bias. Especially with the argument that I often see with She Should Have Died. Why? Because she’s uncomfortable? Maybe explore that within yourself. Other than that I am happy to have this queer part of the fandom where we don’t judge each other for liking Griffith and enjoying GriffGuts as a ship. And I hope that you don’t think too harshly of my criticism, for it is only to improve our fandom discourse culture and not to throw stones. Thank you for existing!

Okay look, while I do appreciate the appreciation for my non-casca blog content, I can't look past this coming hand in hand with a lot of pretty insulting, and frankly baseless assumptions about my motives. I'm glad you're not coming from a place of hate, but from the sounds of it you're coming from a place of presumptive judgement, and I want to address that.

I've always been very direct and clear about how I don't think someone's tastes or opinions about a story reflect on them personally. I don't judge someone's character by their fictional interests, I judge it by their words and actions.

If you're going to be interacting with my blog, I'd appreciate being extended the same benefit of the doubt.

You seem to see someone who doesn't enjoy Casca's storyline and make assumptions about why, rather than taking the reasons I provide at face value. I have explained why, very thoroughly, quite often, and quite recently, while constantly referring back to the text and to Miura's comments to justify my conclusions. I literally don't know how I can possibly be more direct about how I am discussing the narrative of a story on its own terms without going full dry academic language lol, come on.

I like to think I'm also very clear about when I'm expressing my subjective opinion (eg i dislike het romance; I'm super into romantic betrayal as a trope, etc) vs when I'm analysing the story based on direct textual evidence (eg casca has no active involvement in the narrative post-eclipse; casca's sexual abuse is eroticized; etc). I certainly try to be. And frankly it is genuinely pretty insulting that you think I'm incapable of judging Casca's story on its own merits or lackthereof, and must be over-emphasizing the flaws of her narrative because I only care about griffguts.

The truth is I genuinely believe that Griffith and Guts' relationship is the thematic core of Berserk, based on the text of the story, and I also genuinely believe Casca's storyline sucks ass in most ways. And it's okay to disagree with one or both of those takes, but yeah I'm gonna take a little bit of offense at the insinuation that I'm too biased by shipping or misogyny or both to analyse the story.

If you love Casca's story despite its flaws, good for you. I'm happy for you. I have no desire to argue with you to make you change your mind. And I don't think it makes you misogynist or ableist or racist, even though I think Casca's storyline contains all of the above to some degree - but if I was going to respond to you in the same vein that you've responded to me, that would be fair game as an assumption. It would also be fair game to assume that you only like Casca and are dismissive of or blind to many of the story's faults because you're projecting or you ship gtsca or you think good feminism is all about stanning certain designated fictional characters regardless of their actual depiction. And I think that is something wrong with fandom culture. I think those are all shitty assumptions to make about someone based on which fictional characters they enjoy reading about most. So like, straight up, you're the only one throwing stones here.

So I want to ask you: why is it that someone discussing offensive fictional tropes makes you assume they are the real misogynist? Why are you equating criticism of writing with criticism of real women, as though media trends and narrative framing don't exist? Why do you think it even matters if I "reject" a fictional character because I don't like how she's written lol?

This strikes me as the same line of thinking that leads to shutting down all criticism of misogyny in media - how dare you say this outfit is unrealistic for a martial artist, some women like to wear high heels! How dare you criticize the average husband/model-esque wife trope, some beautiful women love their average husbands! How dare you criticize comics for fridging the girlfriends of superheroes, women sometimes suffer horrible fates in real life! How dare you criticize the born sexy yesterday trope, some women are naive! etc etc etc.

And this is why it's important to have at least some understanding of narrative framing and greater media trends when discussing media on any level beyond headcanon and projection. Casca isn't real, and as a construct she is not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a traumatized woman, regardless of whether someone identifies with her. She's not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a disabled women either. There are literally "funny" cartoonish background gags involving her shoving random things into her mouth. She gets sexy fanservice while regressed to the mentality of a toddler. She is sexually assaulted by and then shipteased with the protagonist. I could go on all day lol, lbr here. I should not be obligated to brush all that aside and pretend it doesn't irritate me and sometimes offend me in order to valorize a woman who doesn't like, yk, exist.

You and anyone else are free to project on her and relate to her and sympathize with her and love her, and I think that's great and what fandom is all about, but that still doesn't make her writing strong. And I think it's worth discussing how and why her writing fails, the same way it's worth discussing any other flaw of Berserk, like Guts' character flattening with the Eclipse, or Farnese's sudden personality 180, or the awkward pacing, or the prominent scary black man trope, etc, all of which I've also discussed plenty. If you feel like I've disproportionately focused on Casca criticism, then there are 2 reasons for that: 1. I respond to asks 99% of the time, so it's what the people are asking about. 2. Casca's storyline is the most prominent bad and offensive writing in the story, like it's the number one thing that's likely to drive new potential fans away, so of course people are going to want to talk about it.

Also I've written like, a lot of meta and speculation and headcanons etc about Casca beyond criticism of her narrative lol, so if you're sad about the lack of discussion and meta about her it's ironic that you're coming to me with that complaint. Be the change you want to see in the world, start your own Casca centric blog if you want more meta about her to exist, or read more of what already exists. I'd say I'm doing my part as far as I'm concerned lol, but I don't like the way that phrasing implies that anyone has an obligation to focus their interest on any particular fictional character.

I'm glad you enjoy other aspects of my blog, and if you stick around after this admittedly irritable response I hope you continue enjoying them. But if you feel the need to engage with me to defend a fictional character from my criticism again in the future, I'd appreciate it if you engaged with that criticism directly and analytically, rather than speculating about my character and motives.

2023 Reading Wrap-up

I feel like this year was pretty average in terms of my reading. Some great books, some awful books, a lot of books in the middle. And while I feel as if I kept hitting slumps, I don’t think my stats really reflect that. I kept reading and even though I didn’t hit my goal of 140 books, that’s more because I read more thick and dense books, spent more time writing, and am one year further from the direness of 2020 and 2021.

This also seems to have been the year of T. Kingfisher for me (and also Ursula Vernon). I read several of her horror novels, as well as Digger and a bunch of the ebooks she makes free for patrons, which are really easy go-tos when you want something light and right now. I was kind of surprised when I realized she was my top author because usually that’s Seanan McGuire.

And I read more ebooks in general, because why should I wait for two months for the library to get a physical book in circulation when I can wait two weeks for it to come in on Libby? I’m still trying to reserve Libby use for lighter, faster, less involved books, because I tend to end up skimming a little more and there’s something about physical paper that helps me retain info better when the text is dense.

Now, stats! Yearly total: 128, excluding rereads and picture books Queer books: 44 (34%) Authors of colour: 15 (11.7%) Books by women: 74.5 (58%) Authors outside the binary: 7.5 (5.8%) Canadian authors: 14 (10.9%) Off the TBR shelves: 39 (30.4%) Books hauled: 41 ARCs acquired: 57 ARCs unhauled: 60 DNFs: 9 Rereads: 3 Picture Books: 6

If you look at last year’s stats and the year before’s, I’m pretty much holding steady in terms of my diverse reading—a little more than a third queer, about 60% female and 10% Canadian, around 6% gender-diverse authors. I’m way down on authors of colour though, and I didn’t hit my stretch goal of 20 Canadians, so those are things I’ll have to pay attention to in the year to come. It would be nice if I could manage more queer books too, but that’s not something I’m going to try for quite as much.

Two of my reading goals for the year were to read more books from my TBR than I acquired, and to keep my ARC levels about even. Seems like I pretty much hit them! I expect that 2024 will see fewer book acquisitions because a lot of my 2023 haul was bookstore visits with my dad and we’ve now hit pretty much every store in the city. I was honestly kind of surprised that my ARC problem stands where it does. I was so sure that I was going to have at least 10 more incoming books than outgoing. Go me! My spring ARC purge really, really helped.

I did all right on the rest of my reading goals. All but one book read (The Great Cat Massacre), which was the real point of the list! I only managed to finish one StoryGraph challenge, if you don’t count my pages goal, and as always I failed to read as many classics as I wanted. I’m starting to suspect I’m not a classics person, despite my interest in history and historical fiction. If anyone has classics recs for me, let me know?

To be completely honest, though, I'm not sure I'm going to continue posting to Tumblr. I pretty much stopped updating my feed in the summer and I've felt more relaxed, both in terms of Things To Do Each Day but also in terms of my reading. When I was more active on here, I felt pressured to read diversely at all times and though I try to have a healthy spread of perspectives, I know that I generally don't and am therefore a bad person by Tumblr standards. I am curious what my mutuals have been getting up to this year so please, sound off! And let me know if you do want to see reviews and wrap-ups continue here.

(Friendly reminder that I'm ninjamuse on Storygraph and LibraryThing, if you'd like to follow me there.)

And if anyone’s interested, here are the rest of my year’s highlights:

Top Five Fiction (not ranked)

The Hollow Places - T. Kingfisher

Menewood - Nicola Griffith

Bookshops and Bonedust - Travis Baldree

A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi - Shannon Chakraborty

Top Five Non-Fiction (not ranked)

Magisteria - Nicholas Spencer

Diary of a Misfit - Casey Parks

Evidence of Things Seen - Sarah Weinman, editor

Lay Them to Rest - Laurah Norton

Like Every Form of Love - Padma Viswanathan

Most Impressed By:

Shubeik Lubeik - Deena Mohamed

Diary of a Misfit - Casey Parks

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys

Most Disappointing:

Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

British Columbiana - Josie Teed

A Killing in Costumes - Zac Bissonette

Tauhou - Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall

Longest Book: The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard

Best queer book: Diary of a Misfit - Casey Parks

Did I beat 2022? No. Did I beat my Best Year Ever? No. That would be 2021. Did I read more classics? Not even close. Did I read more Canadians? No. I held about steady. Did I whittle my TBR shelves down any? No. Was it a good reading year? Probably about average?

Breakdowns by month:

January February March April May June July August September October November December

Oh, I so agree with you about the lack of Terry in promos being... unsatisfying. So many things they're playing with this season were set in motion by Terry. Terry mentioned Kim Sung Young first, who they now have cast. Terry wanted to go to the Sekai Taikai. Terry introduced Kim Da Eun. If they can get Kreese out of prison with a box of Jell-o, no way can they keep Terry in jail for more than three hours. If he can spin heading Dynatox into being a green philantropist, he can doctor this. If Kenny still has a major part to play, well who mentored him?

I could have understood it if they wanted to shift away from the Terry storyline and focus on what the show started as, reclaiming your life through karate. But then, it would have made much more sense to keep Kreese in prison, send Chozen and Da Eun home, and not focus so much on Tang Soo Do. But if they're setting that legacy up as the überthreat, it makes no sense for Terry not to be involved. The Sekai Taikai was his baby, moreso than Cobra Kai, even. Maybe the CK brand has been compromised, but so what? Hearsay. Simply rebrand.

Terry completely revitalised a show that had milked everything out of Johnny-Kreese there was to milk, keeps shying away from consequences with Robby and Miguel and would never give Sam and Tory the gay awakening that drives them. To dump him and keep Chozen and Da Eun around makes no damn sense!

Exactly. Precisely.

Terry Silver is the lifeblood that keeps this show running.

Because what else is there to do with this plot?

A lot of storylines got tragically milked to completion seasons ago.

And I don't think for the life of me Da Eun, who quite literally got flown into the plot during the penultimate mid-season is a strong enough character to be the end all-be all final boss villain. She doesn't have the charisma to pull what Thomas Ian Griffith pulled in TKK3. She was just introduced pretty much last minute and our attachment to her is at best nonexistent to miniscule with her only connection to anything going on in the plot at all is through Kreese, Silver and their mutual history with the sport. In the plot itself, girl even seemed like she was begrudgingly in the States in the first place and had to be talked into staying by Terry. To carry the whole endgame conclusion of this show and well over forty years of lore between the characters as the ultimate bad guy? Yeah, nope. Don't see it. There's just no development there. No meat.

As you said. It makes no damn sense.

And I will be in the minority here, which is entirely alright for me, but I really have an abject allergy for fan concoctions like brining back Julie Pierce in Season 6 or having Chozen and Da Eun have a showdown to fill in plot gaps. Shoehorning in Julie Pierce for a random, out of nowhere cameo when the one attachment she had to the plot was vaguely through a character dead for well over forty years just so she could tutor female character x and y for a short period of time is unnecessary at this late stage and I don't think Chozen and Da Eun warrant enough stakes to suddenly become mortal foes that take up space like that in the last season, but hey, that's just me; like, where are these rivalries even coming from? They met like yesterday. Do you two even know each other's full names!? Like!?

Terry Silver, John Kreese and the Sekai Tekai are sole the points of interest left.

After all, show's called Cobra Kai and they are Cobra Kai.

female Griffith

Hello, I just wanted to say that I'm a leftist and even I think that

saying Berserk is misogynistic is stupid as hell. If

anything, it's the opposite. The easiest example

would have to be Caska. The story doesn't treat

her as incapable of taking care of herself or being

strong. It shows in great lengths how hard she has

worked to become a warrior, and how she tries

desperately to be respected in a male-dominated

field. Much like women in real-life who work in

male dominated fields. Considering that this story

came out in the late 80's and early 90's, it makes

sense to compare Caska to young women trying

to pursue a career at that time when women

(especially in Japan) had rigid expectations of

what they were expected to be. Then there's her

fight with Adon, and how she kicks his ass after he

poisoned her. He was a misogynistic character,

but he was portrayed as an idiot. The scene when

Griffith told her it was a woman's duty to lie with

men wasn't exactly portrayed in a positive light

either, and I'd argue that Judeau was annoyed by

it. She was clearly respected by the Hawks/

Falcons, with the exception of maybe Griffith. But

she's never portrayed as incapable. And when she

mentally regresses post-Eclipse, yes she loses her

agency, but I'd say it effectively portrays how the

trauma of the Eclipse effected her. A female

character can lose agency and be humiliated in a

story without it being misogynistic. The same way

the same can be done with a male character

without it being misandrist and emasculating.

I'm also a leftist and I don't care about your politics in the context of a media discussion.

I really don't even know what to say to this since it's once again responding to things I didn't say (that Berserk is misogynistic), while also making arguments that make me wince until my eyelids fuse.

Look, I don't think Miura or Berserk is particularly or notably misogynistic, particularly in the context of it being a 30+ year old Japanese story. The fact that you're lecturing me about this just proves you have no idea what you're talking about or what I think about anything because I'm always the one defending Berserk's rough edges because of cultural differences and time period differences.

That said, this doesn't mean it can't be criticized for, say, the way it overuses and eroticizes rape scenes, particularly from the mid-golden age through volumes in the early 20s. Even if I say I understand why it does that - namely that Young Animal is like a stroke book - I can still say it doesn't feel great. In a way the fact that Miura did want to do better than many mangaka in this area and strove to do so (and succeeded to some degree but not the degree to which I assume he wanted to) makes that kind of thing stand out more, at least to me. Because if I'm reading some hentai I expect to see that, but I don't necessarily expect to see it in a story that treats women and certain subjects with degree of gravitas.

The argument that people are saying women shouldn't suffer or fight is an egregious strawman because literally no one ever said that. What they are saying is that Casca's experiences, her abilities, her traumas, are as a generality, not treated with the same respect as the other characters' similar experiences, abilities or traumas are. I have no problem saying yes Casca is said to be extremely competent but that doesn't change the fact that one of her finest moments, defeating Adon, is portrayed as cute and funny instead of epic like Griffith or Guts's great moments are. It doesn't erase the difference between the way Guts' rape is portrayed and the way Casca's MANY SA experiences are portrayed. If you don't see that, that's you problem and there's not much I can do about it.

I wouldn't even be bothered that her mind collapsed if it were treated as tragic instead of kind of kooky and adorable. And before you say it is tragic, I'm not talking about Guts feeling upset about it, I'm talking about Casca herself being portrayed/depicted with gravitas instead of having her like trying to eat elves or follow butterflies around while making cute faces.

Frankly, I'm not even sure how much of this is really misogyny as such, because he didn't really treat Farnese (or Schierke) this way. He is on record as saying that he wrote Casca "not as a woman" but as "a character made up of a collection of (Miura's) own complexes and weaknesses,"so maybe he was just kicking himself around, I have no idea. I personally tend to think he just got better at writing women, but what do I know. (note: that is a link to a translation of a Miura interview snippet. You can find sourcing and explanations and often the original Japanese if you poke around that twitter).

We can criticize the things we love. I am a full on Berserk stan - I think it's a masterpiece, I think Miura was a gd genius, it's literally my favorite story, nevermind my favorite manga, but I'm still aware that it has flaws. As do all things.

It just occurred to me:

People sometimes justify Carmilla’s character claiming that she’s just a victim of trauma by her abuser and the fact that it’s not shown to us nor are we shown Carmilla being vulnerable about it outside of her anger outbursts is supposed to be a good, tactful thing I suppose.

Well…

Remember how we used to joke about Carmilla wanting to be Female Griffith?

Because Griffith essentially has a pretty similar dynamic of suppressing his trauma and only generally mentioning it but does so infinitely better

Reply: wow it’s almost like Griffith is a well written character whose mentality is actually shown! :^)

As tasteless as this may sound... Griffith has probably the most “interesting” sexual trauma of all the characters. Rape in Berserk is usually a man forcing himself on another person, the classic stuff. Guts’ case is slightly different because what broke him wasn’t just being overpowered by a beast of a man: it was the knowledge that his own father sold him out for three silver coins. Betrayed, and lowkey told that he wasn’t even worth a thing. No wonder it shattered his childhood trust.

But Griffith? He gave himself to Lord Gennon. He prostituted himself for money, for what he believed to be a good cause: to use said money to offer better protection to those following him. He was left heartbroken by the death of a boy who just entered the band, and chose to sacrifice his own body and dignity to prevent further senseless losses. He probably deluded himself that he had agency and control all along, as he became a plaything for a perverted noble.

And he tried to rationalize it so hard! That it was nothing more than a transaction, that they both got what they wanted, nothing to worry about.

Yeah, right.

Griffith has always been more emotional than he would have liked :)

And this has impacted him. After this episode, he tried so, so hard to emotionally distance himself from his soldiers. He reasoned that they knew the risks of following him, so if they died, well it’s their fault. Griffith would just keep on following his dream.

... and then Guts eavesdrops on Griffith exposing this mentality to Charlotte. And we know how that ended.

(also, as a plus, he killed Lord Gennon, and not before he got to shatter his twisted love by telling him “no you never mattered to me”. Liar.)

Anyway, this episode matters to Griffith. It shows us more of his depths, show that he was not the perfect paragon his followers saw him as. It also puts Casca in a special position, as she witnessed this breakdown, furthering her character as well.

Carmilla’s “men bad” backstory is told through us by one flashback where she #girlbosses over her abuser and one line of dialogue where The Two Lesbians mention that she has nightmares. Other than that, she’s too shallow for her supposed depths to make me care about her, and she comes off as nothing more than a radfem parody.

Hi! character ask: could you do 2 and 8 for Casca from Berserk?

Hello, of course, I want to talk more about Casca!

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I think that my favorite one must be the fact that Casca is never quite satisfied or following blindly the orders she is given because she is also searching for her place in the world on her own terms, but it is all the more difficult because she considers others in doing so as well, and that is the human thing to do and not a sign of weakness. Out of everyone she understood first the importance of connections. I think it can get a little overlooked, because most of the focus is centered around Guts and Griffith, since their interactions are the source and the center of the main conflict and she gets tangled up in the middle of it. But on the occasions she talks alone and at length with Guts, before and after he leaves and comes back, when she leads the rescue mission and comes out with a better strategy and reasoning out of everyone, Judeau included, she demonstrates real intelligence and awareness of the multiple aspects of any situation, and she is the most suited in speaking and compromising with Charlotte.

Casca seems aware of what following Griffith means from the start, her worldview changes that day she kills the nobleman who had pretty much bought her as a thing. Taught to accept a grim reality about the circumstances of being poor and exploited, or never rising above the status quo, she takes the opportunity to change the course of her life instinctively and, even when she is seeing Griffith as a sort of angel and otherworldly guide and guardian, she remains aware of the things she left behind and the reasons why they are seeking for a change. But the fighting or winning aren’t the ends of her dreams. And she soon corrects her perception about Griffith’s exceptionality, coming to be the only one to care for him and see him as a person. She doesn’t lose herself in the mercenary life like Guts, she struggles with it, not because of physical weakness, she has plenty of skills, but because she is aware of her being another person as well, not a mere soldier, and of being a woman alone in a group of young men. And she doesn’t seek to lose herself in her love for Griffith or her deepened relationship with Guts. I think she is aware of the necessity for taking chances and shaping a better reality for herself and those she cares about without losing the emotional connections that she wants and needs with others. And that isn’t an easy balance to make. She dreamt as well, but maybe she wasn’t the one losing herself in self delusions and deceptions.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I must say I haven’t interacted a lot with the fandom, besides reading or listening to few well thought meta on topics related to Berserk’s sources in general, or some character analyses. I skipped over and easily discarded other interpretations that didn’t seem to have much pertinent information about the manga itself. I have noticed some differences in approach and mentality between the Italian speaking fandom and the English one - even considering fandom itself is far from being monolithic, but definitely some foreign to me takes at the beginning gave me whiplash. I haven’t personally seen any rude, misogynistic or predatory comments about Casca, only heard people complaining about them in some asks addressed to one of the blogs I follow here, and if it is true I think it’s awful. I would certainly despise that kind of talking. But I also don’t like to read excessively harsh criticism about the writing choices - sometimes gratuitous complains really - because they are often reducing Casca to the token “female character” that needs to follow some sort of special set of expectations and treatment and can’t take a secondary role because of that. I don’t necessarily agree with those opinions, I don’t despise them, but I feel like they aren’t always well meaning, justified or balanced. I can see the effort that Miura put into Berserk and how much he actually took inspiration and looked for guidance from shoujo manga and female mangaka and writers, looking up to them and citing them: especially Kaoru Kurimoto, author of the Guin Saga, or Chica Umino, author of March Comes In Like A Lion, Riyoko Ikeda, Keiko Takemiya or even Murasaki Shikibu, author of the influential classic Genji Monogatari. And honestly, if you have read a number of shoujo manga that aren’t bl or bl-adjacent, sometimes male characters aren’t evenly fleshed out or given important roles besides being love interests or functional in the female protagonist’s character development and they can endure a lot of pain or outright get killed off (it is still actually a running joke for Italian people of mine generation that grew up watching a lot of anime available freely on television the deaths of Anthony in Candy Candy or of Sutomo in Attack No. 1…). So whereas I think too that Casca’s voice is missing for too long, when she had so much potential already as a character, I also appreciate how we meet or interact with plenty of interesting characters like Luca, Farnese and Charlotte. But nevertheless important, they are secondary characters in a story that is Guts’s story and it is best to reconcile our expectations with this simple fact.

I hope my answers make sense, this is just my opinion and I am not attacking anyone, just stating my preferences and what I look for, that is more constructive talking. Thank you so much for asking!

Girls' Night

Platonic!Peggy Carter x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: Marvel

Day 6 Prompt: "I can't wait for you."

Requested: Yes by @flowers-and-fichte! Hope you like it!

Summary: Summary: Peggy and her bestie are having a much-needed night out on the town.

Word Count: 1,520

Category: Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Peggy, come on!" I shouted, hammering on the door of her apartment at the Griffith. "I can't wait for you, let's go!"

"Don't you have to wait for me?" I heard her voice call from inside. A second later, the door opened, Peggy grinning at me with her hair, makeup, and outfit done to perfection. "Unless you intend to go dancing and drinking alone."

I crossed my arms and huffed. "I'll go get Angie. She'd be willing to come. And I get the feeling she wouldn't be intentionally slow in getting ready to avoid going out on the town."

Peggy sighed, stepping back from the door long enough to grab her purse before finally joining me completely in the hallway.

"We both know Angie's busy, otherwise she'd be coming with us right now."

"I probably could've gone to the Automat, gotten her out of her shift, and gotten to the club in the time it took you to get ready."

Peggy just shook her head with a small smile as she locked her door and the two of us finally headed out. After months of stress and work at the SSR, especially as the only two female agents, I'd decided Peggy and I needed a night out. Little miss workaholic hadn't been particularly on board, and she'd been dragging her feet the whole time, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Now, finally, I'd officially managed to get her out of the house.

"So, where to?" asked Peggy, tightening her coat a little as we stepped into the cool night air.

"Sousa told me about a place he likes last week," I said. "We're going to go see whether or not he's got good taste."

Peggy gave a noncommittal grunt as I stepped out into the street and hailed a taxi. We climbed in and I gave our driver the address, then settled into the back seat with Peggy.

A few minutes into the ride, I caught her eyes scanning our surroundings as we drove. I sighed loudly and rolled my eyes before fixing Peggy with a look.

"What?" she demanded.

"Seriously? You're canvassing and scanning for threats. You need to cut that out right now. We're supposed to be having a fun, relaxing night on the town, we can't do that if you're constantly looking for threats to take down and improvised weapons to take them down with."

She huffed a sigh, breaking her vigilant scan to meet my eyes.

"I'm sorry. I know. It's just... we've been on red alert for months. It's a little hard to turn it off, isn't it?"

"I know what you mean. But you've got to try, Peggy. We're both going to go completely crazy if we don't take a little break now and then."

She hummed her agreement as she turned back to looking out the window, this time with less of an agent's edge. I smiled to myself. At least it was progress.

A few minutes later, the cab pulled up outside of a swanky-looking club, people smiling and chatting in incredible outfits outside. Peggy and I stepped out, and I was happy to say, we fit right in.

We got a few appreciative looks as we headed into the club shoulder to shoulder, to find the place absolutely swinging. People swirled around the dancefloor, the music boomed from the live band across the room, and people were laughing and chatting at tables all across the bar. I smiled.

"Well, what should we do first?" I asked, leaning in towards Peggy and raising my voice a little to be heard over the noise. "Drinks, dancing, or finding a place to sit?"

"Drinks," Peggy called back. "And then dancing."

"Yes ma'am!"

I started off through the crowd in the direction of the bar, holding one hand behind my back for Peggy to take if she needed it to keep from getting separated. I couldn't help moving to the beat a little as we snaked through the crowd, bobbing my head and smiling at everyone else. When we made it to the bar and Peggy stepped up next to me, I was happy to find her with a smile on her face, too.

"First round's on me!" I said. "What're you drinking?"

"Jim Beam," she said. "On the rocks."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes, even as I flagged down the bartender. "You're very predictable, Peggy. Next time, I'm gonna get you to try one of the signature drinks with me."

Peggy snorted, but I ignored her as I placed our orders. A moment later, our drinks arrived, and I raised mine in toast as I turned more fully to face my friend.

"To us!" I said, yelling a bit to be heard over the noise. "The two best agents the SSR could've asked for, no matter what any of those idiots in the office might say, and to getting a well-deserved night to have fun!"

Peggy smiled, and we clinked our glasses together, locking eyes before taking a small sip. Peggy sighed and leaned back against the bar, surveying the crowd before us.

"Thank you for dragging me out tonight," she said. I grinned, leaning against the bar next to her. "I don't know how I managed to keep from going insane in that office before you came along, but I'm so happy we can face things together now."

"Me too, Peg. Me too."

We stood together in comfortable silence for a few moments, sipping our drinks and enjoying watching the crowds and taking in the music. Finally, I sighed and set my mostly-empty glass on the bar behind me, then turned to Peggy.

"Alright, Peg. I don't know about you, but I think it's time to dance."

The corner of her mouth quirked up, and she set her glass down next to mine.

"I'd say I agree."

I grinned, then took her hand and dragged her out onto the dancefloor with me. She followed along, laughing, and we wove our way through the crowd until we found a good dance space. As soon as we found it, we faced each other and held hands, taking turns spinning each other around and dancing like maniacs to the beat.

I laughed as Peggy spun me, poorly, and I almost went knocking into a couple dancing next to us. They looked to be here on a date, and gave Peggy and I a dirty look, but we ignored them.

"Are you trying to go bowling for the people around us?" I called, laughing over the music as I came back towards Peggy and spun her out and away from me next. She laughed too, a carefree smile on her face that I hadn't seen in far too long.

"Maybe! Or maybe I'm trying to keep your reflexes sharp."

"Oh gee, thanks," I scoffed, rolling my eyes as we launched into the lindy hop. "Really Peg, I appreciate it."

"Good! You can repay me by doing my filing tomorrow."

I threw my head back and laughed, and after a minute, Peggy joined in. We lost track of time whirling across the floor together, both of us putting unique spins on the dances, since neither of us were very used to dancing the guy's part. We had more fun as a result, and while a few people shot us judgey looks as we flew across the floor, most people just smiled good-naturedly at the fun we were clearly having.

Once we both started sweating enough, we stumbled off the floor together, massive grins dominating both our faces. Peggy took a detour to the bar while I found us a table in the back to rest and catch our breath for a few moments, scanning the crowd again as I did. Sousa had absolutely hit it out of the park with this recommendation.

"Two waters, and two signature cocktails," Peggy announced, setting the drinks down before sliding into the booth with me. I smiled.

"Thanks, Peg. Cheers."

We toasted, then settled in together, laughing and talking the night away as we observed everyone around us. We made a few more trips to the dancefloor, spinning around with the same reckless abandon as when we'd started, and when we finally piled into a cab a little after one in the morning, we both knew the judgey looks from Ms. Fry would be worth it.

"We really need to do this more often," I mused, stumbling down the hallway with my shoes in one hand, my bed calling to me. Still, I paused with Peggy outside her door as she took out her keys.

"I actually think I agree with you," she said, shooting me a smile. "I haven't had fun like that since before the war. And maybe not even then."

"Likewise. We'll have to tell Sousa his recommendation was fantastic."

"That we will. But not until Monday. For once in my life, I'm going to do absolutely nothing tomorrow."

I grinned. "I support you in that, Peggy. In fact, I support you so much, I think I'll join you in solidarity."

We shared beaming smiles, then both disappeared into our own apartments. I immediately fell into bed, not bothering to change, a smile on my face. Sometimes, you just really needed a girls' night.

****************

Marvel Taglist: @valkyriepirate @luv-ghostie @songbirdcannabe

Somehow, "pathetic old man" doesn't sound annoying when it comes from Griffith :P

More seriously, I was thinking. You joked that Carmilla is basically a shitty Griffith, because she's also all about her dreams and schemes, right?

But the difference is that Griffith would genuinely do anything to achieve his dream. We see the lenghts he went through, the emotional toll it took, why he'd be inspiring to the Band of the Hawks and why Casca would worship the very ground he walks on. Even his background, while not fleshed out, feels like a hanging presence in his thoughts.

Carmilla? She achieves what she wants by either delegating the annoying details to the other sisters, or she just gets what she wants by using some pretty words to the designated dumbass. And, of course, her only motivation is her repeating ad nauseam "men bad, I deserve their stuff".

Just saying what a compelling character looks like :P

That's because Carmilla's not a character

She's a stereotypical men hating radfem designed for a double purpose:

1) Be loved as a #queen by other so called feminists on social media for being "great female representation" aka being a stronk woman by shitting on men all day

2) Serve as a good laugh to actual sexist hacks like Ellis, who probably felt like a genius for creating something that others considered deep and moving while he was just dicking around thinking "Oh you want a strong woman? Yeah I'll give you a strong woman"

Also the difference is that Griffith's plans were actually smart and his mental breakdown made sense

Round 3

Propaganda Under Cut

Casca

She is part of a weird fucked up love triangle with two dudes. All three of them are honestly kind of terrible for each other but she gets shoved aside in favor of the two dudes in most fics and is not allowed to grow past the toxic relationships of her past. Also she’s a cis woman who dresses pretty masculinely (because she’s in a mercenary band) so she gets type casted as the mean lesbian friend, when she’s straight in canon

I've seen more than one Yaoi Shipper say that Casca should have died during this one big canon event as opposed to being assaulted by one of the people in the Yaoi Ship, which of course conveniently would remove her from the narrative and as an obstacle to said Yaoi Ship. Aside from that specifically, though, I think it's particularly cruel to imply that being killed is a better outcome than being a victim of SA, and is an example of the contempt fandom on the whole has for female characters who act traumatized - particularly when both male characters in the ship have similar trauma and its never implied they should have died rather than be assaulted.

She's an incredibly interesting character in her own right with really good dynamics and parallels to Griffith and Guts, and the way those three play off of each other is integral to the story, but most of what I've seen completely ignores her in favor of focusing on only Griffith and Guts

Yennefer

Constantly villainized because one way or another she gets in the way of a MLM ship (though at least one of them would probably be fine with a poly relationship). In the show version of her, her love interest bound her to him via magic, never told her until someone else brought it up despite it the bond causing them to meet over and over, her love interest didn’t understand why this upset her and brushed it off and still has never apologized for it because apparently it was the only way to save her life, she had better chemistry with Jaskier (the other half of the MLM ship) and had a semi-decent rivals to frenemies thing going on, the show took away her powers (which never happened in the books) to have her go on a pointless quest to get them back that worsened her relationship with her love interest because they had her try to kill her love interest’s adopted child (which now justifies why he doesn’t need to apologize of course), and all of that was after she’d already had an arc regarding sacrifice and how power wasn’t really what she wanted.

she's an incredibly powerful mage and drop dead gorgeous and deserved so much better!!! justice for yen

God forbid women do anything. She either gets hate or is ignored, really classic stuff. And she's Geralt's gf but you know, *gestures at geraskier*