Tag: docholligay

I’M ALWAYS A SLUT FOR THESE AND I’M SICK TODAY SO ENJOY ME ASKING FOR LIKE FIVE OF THEM. firstly, “things you said too quietly”

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

“Haruka.”

It’s like you can’t find the breath for more words. That’s kind of funny in a way that you wouldn’t find funny at all if I could point it out. And the look on you face isn’t funny. I can’t reach out to comfort you. But someone who wasn’t us would smile at the irony of you being unable to breathe while I’m here with my chest ripped open. I wish I could make you smile again, Michi, just one more time. I can’t find the way to make words either. It’s like I’m drowning; I feel water in my mouth, and though I know I’m not moving, something is dragging me down.

“Please no.”

I almost don’t hear you. I think the water’s in my ears, starting up into my eyes. Everything is muffled. I want to say something to you, but if I open my mouth now I’m sure I’ll go under. I always joked about drowning in you. Now that’s another thing we can’t laugh at.

You grab my hand. Your skin is warm and dry, like we’re not in water at all. I can feel your pulse at your wrist. It’s nice, Michi, but it’s too fast. It makes me feel like I should be scared. Maybe I should be, but I can’t focus on anything but you. But even you’re starting to blur.

You’re very close now. I feel you more than I see you. Your lips on my forehead, hair all around me. Your breath is warm, even underwater. Maybe you really are a mermaid.

“Haruka…” you whisper. I can’t hear the rest of what you say. Speak louder, Michi. The water is taking your words. Are you swimming me up to the surface, or is this goodbye?

Things you said that I wish you hadn’t

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Okay I lied I’m posting this now since I can’t sleep.

—

As soon as Mina drags us into their game of truth or dare, I know there’s going to be trouble. If it had been just the inners, maybe it would have been fine. Fun, even. But they are here. I try to make an excuse. You wave it off. I know they’d never break you, but I’m not that strong.

It’s alright for a few rounds, until Yaten gets that look in their eye. “Michiru. Truth or dare?”

You flip your hair, ready for the challenge. “Dare.”

I really wish you hadn’t said that.

Yaten smiles. “I dare you to kiss the most attractive person in the room who isn’t Haruka.”

“Will you be providing the mirror, or should I summon mine?”

I bite into my hand to keep from screaming. This isn’t going to end well. Seiya shifts forward in her seat. If you choose her, I swear I’ll break something.

“While your narcissism is certainly entertaining, I hardly think that would count.” Yaten puts their hand in their chin. “We’re waiting, Ms. Kaioh.”

“And I suppose I’m right to assume this is to be a full mouth kiss?”

Why did you ask? You could have gotten away with a peck on the cheek if you hadn’t.

“Yes.”

My heart pounds in my chest. Mako would be an alright choice, if it came down to it. Thought maybe I only think so because I trust her; she’s too genuine to take anything from it. Even if you really were attracted to her. Are you?

“Well, there’s one objectively right choice, isn’t there?” You stand up. Choose Mako, I plead in my head. Or Usagi, she’s innocent enough.

But you don’t walk to either of them.

Or Seiya.

Before anyone can process your choice, you’ve dipped Mina from her seat on the couch arm and kissed her. Mina’s eyes are wide even as you walk away.

“Goddess of love and beauty, you know,” you say as you sit down next to me. “The obvious choice.”

“Well,” Mina says, “that’s hard logic to argue with.”

Your eyes harden. I can see revenge forming in your mind. “So, Seiya, truth or dare?”

I groan and bury my face in a couch cushion.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay replied to your post: docholligay asked:I’m a complete …

For whatever weirdness my mother in law has about my wife’s butchness, I have to give her credit for letting Jill cut her hair short even as a kid, even though she didn’t have a proper men’s cut for years

Aw, that’s good! 🙂 I’m always really happy to hear about parents that let their kids do what they want with their hair.

My family is great about a lot of things, and they’ve been very accepting, but hair is still a point of contention  between me and my mother. If it were up to her I’d still have it down to my butt like I did when I was nine (she let me cut it up to almost my shoulders after that because I wanted to donate it for a wig, and you can’t say no to a fourth grader who wants to help people with cancer).

I’m a complete sucker for Haruka cutting her own hair as a start to her tiny butch life, and I love that here, it’s something they do together. And that Michiru finds it so handsome even though it probably looks like the poor kid got into a fight with a weedeater. And i love the beginnings of Michiru’s rich-kid snobbery, already knowing she has the world at her beck and call.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, I imagine it doesn’t matter much to either of them what Haruka’s hair actually looks like (because yeah, it’s absolutely a horrible patchy cut), just that there’s something right about it being short. Though I have to admit I just pin a lot of my hair feelings on Haruka since I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair short until I was 17, and even then it was less that I was allowed and more that I could drive to get it done alone.

And haha, it was fun to write little Michiru because she lacks the self-awareness about her snobbery I see her having later. She’s at the age where what she’s able to do matters more than why she can do it.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Lengthy replies to This is How a Kingdom Falls P.1 under the cut! 

docholligay replied to your post “This is How a Kingdom Falls”

OH MY LORD GOD WHAT AN OPENER

rosepetalrevolution replied

Wow, you are pulling absolutely zero punches here from the very beginning, and I love it.

I initially toyed with opening at the battle itself and showing Minako make her choice, but decided against it and I’m really glad you like it! 

rosepetalrevolution said: Just getting straight to the feels, and this conversation between Rei and Minako is spot on. The observation about Rei’s temper and the question about Usagi/Serenity are especially on point.

Ahh thank you. That fight was one of my favorite parts to write.

docholligay said: I never play with Chibs and co so I love this idea of Ceres taking over for Venus but making mistakes, it’s so interesting.
rosepetalrevolution said: I also never think much about the Quartet + Usagi’s senshi, but that is such a nice move to make. The variables give us something fresher than a team that’s fought together for so long, there’s no surprising each other or the reader.
rosepetalrevolution said: Oooh, the Quartet are fleeing? This is intriguing, I’m wondering if this’ll be the last we see of them.

The Quartet are some of my stealth favs, so it’s really tempting to have them play a bigger part than I originally planned. I periodically get really invested in how they work as senshi in Crystal Tokyo, and the differences between them and the senshi we know. I see them having the problem of thinking they can’t live up to their predecessors (a theme of Chib’s generation) and that being precisely why they won’t (or at least, why they didn’t save Chibs here).

rosepetalrevolution said: AND AMI. I wouldn’t have called that, but it makes a lot of sense here. Really excited to see where that goes.

I’m so so glad it seems to make sense, I had such trouble trying to keep Ami at least sort of in character (and I’ve had the same problem with Mako in part two, which I don’t understand since Mako is my ultimate fav). But I think Ami more than anyone would see it as a truly impossible choice, since Chibiusa is a child she loves, and I think she’d feel a moral obligation to save a child, but Usagi is so important to her, Usagi was her first real friend and the reason she has everything, and how do you let someone who means that much to you die?

docholligay said: ahhaahah Haruka in deep self loathing and emotional pain is my DRUG also bitter hotaru yes yes yes give me all of it

>:) 

docholligay said: USAGI NO

said everyone, but especially Setsuna

rosepetalrevolution said: UGH SETSUNA WATCHING THE QUEEN MOURNING, THE SAME EVEN WHEN IT’S A DIFFERENT SERENITY. She’s always too much for me, it’s so great.

I was nervous about writing her since I haven’t before and I wondered how to keep such a wise, complicated person in character, but really it’s just like, what hurts me the most? oh okay. 
on a related note, “Not Lonliness” popped into my head just as I wrote the line about Chibiusa’s still tiny hands and I about started crying.

rosepetalrevolution said: “It had never been Metalia’s doing” YES I LOVE THIS

THIS FIC IS JUST A SECRET WAY OF ME WORKING IN MY SILMIL HEADCANONS WITHOUT WRITING ABOUT SILMIL. Metalia’s why the princess died, arguably, but the queen wrecked the real destruction.

rosepetalrevolution said: “She bit down on her tongue to keep from crying. She didn’t deserve to grieve.” THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE KINDS OF MINAKO, GIVING HARUKA A RUN FOR HER MONEY IN THE BEST DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE CATEGORY.

Alternate Civil War fic idea: Haruka and Mina face off on who can dramatic monologue about their inner darkness better. It’s truly the battle of the ages.

docholligay said: Oh Haruka silently reassuring Mina, oh god, my heart, my soul

This is where I thank you for bringing the brotp into our lives.

rosepetalrevolution said: Oh Mina. That is such a bad idea… But totally something she’d do if she wasn’t thinking straight. She knows what’ll buy her the most amount of time, give her some kind of advantage, even if the plan’s a fool’s errand to begin with

What got to me when writing that bit was that no one actually wants to fight her, but her feelings about what she did make her see it that way

docholligay said: Man, I feel so bad for Minako, everything she does is well and truly fucked I agree with her, she’s doomed either way

Yeah, and I think she’d be fucked over even if she had chosen Chibiusa, tbh, just in a different way. The inners would outwardly be glad she saved Chibs, but there’d be that insidious blame that she let Usagi die that would eventually erupt, and Mina would have the hardest time living with herself.

rosepetalrevolution said: Aww yess, Setsuna worried about volatile, over-powerful NQS. This is what I’m here for this month.

I love how many of us have this take on NQS. There are PROBLEMS with your ruler having the strongest power in the universe.

rosepetalrevolution said: God, they’re all doomed no matter what they do, and Setsuna knows it. There’s no right answer for them, it’s all only a matter of time. It’s so beautiful and tragic.

Pluto really just wants one lifetime that doesn’t end this way. She thought it would be this one. 

docholligay said: God, i love that whole passage between Hotaru and Michiru
rosepetalrevolution said: HOTARU PLAYING MICHIRU’S OWN CARD, YES YES YES LIKE MOTHER LIKE DAUGHTER

This was one of my other favorite parts to write, I’m glad you enjoyed it. 

rosepetalrevolution said: oh shit parent Mako bringing out the gigantic emotional guns, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me interested in her place in these sorts of fic

that whole bit was born out of a what was originally throw away background info for Haruka and Michiru, but then if they had kids, Mako sure as hell had kids, and there’s no way Mako doesn’t come away from that with a ton of fucked up emotional baggage, since none of her family relationships have ended the “right way.” Her parents died young, she watches her children and grandchildren and so on grow old and sick. She needed Chibs, she really really did.

docholligay said: Haruka knowing that Hotaru will call her a bad parent, oh, what a beautiful touch

There are times when Hotaru would be gracious and call Haruka and Michiru alright parents (sometimes even good parents, she loves them in spite of herself) because there is part of her that understands why they did what they did, but Haruka would always know it’s not the full answer, and she knows in that moment it’s not the answer at all. 😦

rosepetalrevolution said: NOT SETSUNA D: but that’s such a smart move, and a great place to break.

I’d say at least she’s reunited with Small Lady now, but who knows how long either of them is staying dead. (I do. I know.)

farronheit said: holy hell all those civil war fanfics are so AWESOME and jesus christ I LOVE THE CONFLICT HERE where Minako had to choose either Chibs or her Queen and now with Minako and Setsuna being like that…

I am loving everyone’s fics too, and I’m so glad you enjoy mine! Somehow the conflict is the first thing I thought of when I saw the prompt. 

rosepetalrevolution said: This is so fast-paced and spot on, and it changes up its punches in really smart & effective ways. A great balance of tight characterization & action!!! I love it and can’t wait to see where you go with the rest of it!

Ahh thank you!

docholligay said: APPROVE. CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NEXT BIT

THANK YOU. THE NEXT BIT SHOULD BE UP LATER TODAY OR EARLY TOMORROW.

Minako!

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

sexuality headcanon: Bi with a preference for women that grows after high school


gender headcanon: I see her as a cis girl, although with or without the disguise pen, I think she’d enjoy rare occasions of cross dressing (especially to prove she’s hot whatever gender people think she is)


a ship I have with said character: Rei/Minako. Also Ami/Minako, if I’m being honest.


a BROTP I have with said character: Haruka&Minako, obviously, and Mako&MIna. I like to think they all hang out together sometimes and Mina jokes that you have to be this tall to be her friend. 


a NOTP I have with said character: Minako/Kunzite. I actually really like SilMil Venus/Kunzite as a tension that never gets acted on, since it makes a great divide between Venus and Serenity, but I don’t think it works in the present day


a random headcanon: Minako has about equal amounts of pride in and resentment of being a soldier, but sometimes the resentment wins out  And as much as she hates herself for it, a lot of that resentment focuses on Usagi/Serenity. She loves Usagi, more than anything else in some ways, but sometimes she looks at their lives and bitterness curls up next to that love. In a lot of ways, she sees Usagi as getting to have it all. As Sailor Moon, she is the “star,” so to speak, of the senshi. She gets the most media attention, she’s the hero people focus on, the rest of them are slated as her sidekicks. As Usagi, she has the balance Minako never feels. Usagi feels the pain of fighting, she has that sacrifice, but the next morning she’s always the same old Usagi (on the surface, at least). Minako hasn’t been the same old Minako since she first touched her transformation pen. And as Serenity, she is the reason Minako has Venus inside her in the first place. And as much as Venus blames herself for the fall of the Silver Millennium, as much as she blames Endymion and QUeen Serenity and Beryl, there’s a part of her that blames her Princess. She put her love above everything else. And now, in a second life, she gets that love exactly how she wanted it, she gets assurance that it will last a thousand years, she gets it all with almost no consequences. Venus is the goddamn soldier of love, but she can never choose love the way Usagi/Serenity does.

Minako is grateful that the Outers never fully gell with the inner senshi, even after they become friends, because on days when it’s bad she can drag Haruka to a bar and know she won’t have to hear about Usagi at all for a few hours. 


general opinion about said character:  I don’t always count her as one of my favorite characters, because my love for Mako and Haruka kind of steamrolls over everything else, but if I think about her for more than two seconds, I love her just as much as them.

Also reinako 3

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

3. Which one outlives the
other, and how they cope

NO. (By which I mean, yessss.)

PGSM sort of covers one way
this could go, and in general I think Rei would handle it in more healthy ways.
So I’m going to go with Minako living longer. It’s what I tend to imagine
happening anyway.

How Minako copes depends a
lot on how Rei dies. If it’s in battle, she’d blame herself 100%. But she’s
also already prepared and compartmentalized for that possibility. She’d have
bursts of self-destructive behavior when she can’t hold it in, she’d probably
have a hard time getting into any sort of relationship again, but on the
surface she’d appear fine and seem like the same old Minako.

Illness is probably the sort
of death she’d handle best, especially a more drawn out one, because she’d have
time to come to terms with it while Rei’s still there. And she’d know Rei
fought as hard as she could, and there was nothing anyone could do.

The worst is an accidental
death. A car crash, or something sudden like a heart attack, anything unforeseen
that blindsides Minako is going to be the hardest to take. Because that hits on
things that are so much bigger than just Rei. Minako has made a lot of
sacrifices in her life. She gave up her childhood to be a soldier, and I think
in any non—PGSM continuity, she gives up her chance at fame, too (or sees it
that way). And it was all supposed to be worth it. She did these things, and
got her people in return.

But then Rei dies in a
completely unrelated way. Rei who she’s come to love in so many ways. Rei, who
she built a real relationship with, who gave her things she thought she’d never
have. So her belief in the whole exchange shatters. Nothing she did matters,
because the things and people she loves can be taken away regardless. She does still have guilt over not being
there when it happened and not having done anything to stop it, and she tries
to throw herself into that because then at least it has meaning. She as a few
months of being over protective of everyone. Usagi is not getting in a car unless she’s driving (nevermind that Ami is
the technically better/safer driver, Minako needs to be there). She throws out
all of Haruka’s junk food. She hovers in Mako’s kitchen at her restaurant,
watching everyone handle knives and hot liquids (Mako bans her pretty quickly,
because she gets in the way).

It’s only the knowledge that
Rei believed in their fight and would want Minako to keep going that holds
Minako back from acting out and spiraling down to the point of no return. Rei
would never forgive her for giving up. Rei would never understand.

So Minako keeps going. She
fights and loves harder than ever, but she never really moves on and she never
stops being angry.

Years after, she can joke
that her rage is Rei living on inside her.