Usagi is a great character. We watch her grow from a clumsy, lazy, self-centered teenager into a fearless goddess of justice who takes down the force of chaos itself. But the great thing is? She doesn’t stop being the girl we met back in chapter one. Sure, she’s indomitably powerful and her teardrops turn into the universe’s most potent energy source, but she also likes video games and donuts and napping and she gets crappy grades on tests because instead of studying, she was playing video games and eating donuts and napping. She whines about having to study for high school entrance exams, then stops a Texas-sized asteroid from slamming into Tokyo. Also, she was totally having sex with her star-crossed-reincarnated-prince of a boyfriend.
J.K. Rowling once made a really interesting point about the Narnia books (which I have not read): “There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.” Takeuchi avoided this in Sailor Moon with such deftness and grace that I’m only fully realizing it now, at 22. Usagi and Mamoru were totally boning—there are all kinds of dreamy, gauzy artbook pictures of them together in bed or discreetly covered in feathers, not to mention the penultimate scene of the manga, where they wake up in a (seriously awesome) bed together all naked and cuddly. Moreover, check out the illustrations of Usagi in lingerie and just straight up topless that Takeuchi busted out for her self-published artbook. Usagi is pure-hearted, but she isn’t “pure” in the archaic sense. She’s sexual. And I love that she can be both. She’s the amaranthine avatar of goodness and love and serenity in the universe—she is every cherished ideal we hold of what it means to be a “magical girl.” She stands for truth and freedom and hope. She wears floaty pastel clothes and enormous pigtails and her weapons are covered in hearts and stylized angel wings. She’s often drawn with angel wings herself! And she has sex. It doesn’t make her dirty, or suddenly inappropriate as entertainment for young girls. She doesn’t lose her power or her magic. She is a multifaceted young woman who loves sweets and comics and vanquishes the forces of evil and also has sex.
And the thing is, this kind of attitude in entertainment helps everyone. It’s not just very sexually active girls who need characters like Usagi, or even just girls in general. I was a prudish kid who didn’t have her first kiss until the age of 18 and this particular aspect of the manga has always stuck with me and informed my attitudes about sex. Whoever you are, however you handle your sexuality—it never makes you dirty. You can be queen of the mahou shoujo and have sex and wake up the next day to slaughter the wicked hordes with your bunny-bedecked Magic Rainbow Sparkle Sword. You can do both. You can be both. One does not invalidate the other.
There are many, many things I love about media aimed at girls and there are many, many series I enjoy the “girly” trappings of and many, many series that make my life better for having them.
But there are far too few that show sex as being a positive thing, that show sex does not mean a loss of purity, that growing up does not mean corruption. Too often, the idea of a woman growing up seems to mean she loses whatever it is that makes her good and pure, that being an adult means she’s corrupted, even just a little bit now.
So, when we see Neo-Queen Serenity in the future, still ruling and still being powerful and still being pure, despite that she’s fully grown and married and has a child now and has clearly had a whole bunch of sex, that’s a really an amazing thing to see.
This post is absolutely beautiful to see and I love the response it’s getting. Liking frilly things and wearing lipstick and having sex with your boyfriend doesn’t mean the end of being powerful and fighting the bad guys and being pure-hearted enough to do it. A+++ for this post and for Naoko.
SUP. Here’s a moose. In exchange, I was hoping I could get some suggestions or references for guilds on Tarnished Coast.
Y’see, I’d really love to start doing dungeon runs, but almost every pick up group I’ve gotten with has been a total mess. So dungeon runs are the big thing I’m looking for. I’m also interested in WvW, dragon runs, those new guild mission things and am totally cool with RPers. I tend to prefer to PvE solo, but enjoy doing story missions with people.
I’ve got 2 level 80s (Sylvari Ele and Human Thief), several characters in the 35 - 55 range, and otherwise one character for each class. I’ve got capped Chef, Jeweler, Leatherworker, Tailor and I’m close to capping Artificer (I’m at 393 e_e) and Weaponsmith. I’m a jump puzzle master. I’ve got a full time job, so I’ll only play evenings and weekends and I’m not really available for raid content-style playing (where you get on at 6PM and play until 1AM). I also make gifs and am very well dressed. Those are benefits, right?
Ideally, I’d like something with a small to medium-sized community that doesn’t require 100% repping. RP is a plus.
I am on TARNISHED COAST and my username is keytar.3490. If your guild is looking for someone like me, drop me a line via tumblr or in game. Thanks!
Doin the skyrim shake.
I’ve been having a seriously hard time making any decent gold on GW2. The economy seems pretty messed up? I’m endlessly floating in the range of having like 5g total across my characters and there doesn’t seem to be any sensible way of earning more. Crafting materials don’t really sell fo’ shit…
How to got gold:
- Doing the dragons - here’s a dragon timer: http://guildwarstemple.com/dragontimer/ I always have a lot of fun running around to the different dragons. Tequatl in particular is great because he’s surrounded by other live events that reward nice karma and money for a level 80. I keep one character parked nearer to Jormag, usually, so I’m not blowing 4 silver just to port to him.
- Going to WvW during peak hours for your server, hopping on a zerg rush and staying with that shit. You get gold every time an event is completed. I recc doing this as a mesmer, necromancer or elementalist - something with range that can get away quickly so you minimize death.
- Repeatedly doing live events in zones that are at least level 70. Orr is a great place to make cash if you are good at surviving.
- Farming and selling chili peppers (harvested from herbs low level Charr areas) or unid’d dyes (go for 12 - 15 silver a pop on Tarnished Coast) on the TP. Any cooking mat that is super rare (sesame seeds, pine nuts, coriander, chili peppers) will almost certainly net you a good amount of dough.
- FUK DA MYSTIC FORGE. Sell all whites and blues to vendors. Only salvage salvage items, unless you’re going for a daily/monthly.
- As a cook, there’s a chance you can make a decent profit by making the lowish-level ingredients (baker’s wet/dry ingredients, poultry soup base, etc) and selling those on the TP. Actually leveling cook is just going to be a fucking gold sink, though.
- Probably the slowest, but take your highest level character and go to a place that has LOTS of live events (like the Nord starting zone) and do those on your level 80. Level 80s make more money and karma than people at level doing live events.
- (aka The Undesirable Option) Dungeon runs will net you a ton of cash, but pick up groups are resoundingly awful because you will inevitably get into a group with someone who is either passive aggressive, outright nasty or absolutely incompetent. I have only ever had fun on TWO dungeon runs in my entire time playing the damn game and only one of those was a pick up group.
- I’ve maxed chef (twice), jeweler, tailor, leatherworker and artificer. I’d say the worst tradeskill for making money is chef, if you plan on capping it, because it is a MASSIVE gold sink until you’ve capped and are making the top tier food. Tailor and jeweler have paid nicely as I leveled them. Weaponsmith probably nets you a good bit, too, but jesus I find it so freaking tedious.
I play on Tarnished Coast (Unofficial RP Server wut wut) and it has a pretty stable economy, a consistently high population (the only zone that ever feels dead is Metrica Province) and friendly, helpful people. Also RPers, roleplaying terrible eRP where people can see them. IT IS A WONDER TO BEHOLD. I’m not sure how the economies are on other servers.
Let’s take a moment to admire Marcurio, shall we?
My Marcurio makeover in Geonox, MacKom and Urshi. Looking at the three of them side by side I can’t help but ROFL at how uguu sugoku kakoii the Urshi skin makes him. You definitely get three very different Marcurios with these. SkyRealism ENB, Xenius’s High Resolution Scars & Natural Eyes.
I would like to eventually redo more followers but I am still hung up on getting Erik the Slayer to look how I want him to, and I like to run around with followers for a while to get a feel for their personality before I go fussing with their faces.
Oh jesus I am so dead ugh. Cake exhaustion. Brock really liked the cake. It turned out very faintly bready and the edges are crust-y, but I think that is more the fault of our shitty mid-80s oven. Apartment living.
