Tag: docholligay

happy outers family sucks

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Less “sucks” and more puts an okay idea ahead of actual
characterization and ignores even typical family dynamics and problems that would
be present.

Also. Canon tells us that Usagi and Mamoru, who have a kid
as adults and have extra practice from Chibs time-traveling, are such
monumentally bad parents that their kid feels unloved and lonely 24/7 and is
easy to turn against them, BUT TWO TEENS AND SOMEONE EITHER NEWLY HUMAN OR
POSSIBLY COLLEGE/GRAD SCHOOL AGE (I never figured out if the manga meant to say
Setsuna had been a person the whole time or if she’s a persona Pluto created or
what, and the anime is kind of just entirely “whatever idk she’s here now”) CAN
RAISE A CHILD WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS AT ALL.

And I know it gets held up as representation, but… it’s
really flat to me? I’m at a place in life now where the possibility of having a
kid is no longer abstract, and my wife and I have to wrestle with questions of
what being a parent would mean, what types of parents we might be, and all
that.  And while it’s great that HOF
gives some people hope, to me it’s empty. There’s nothing specific to Haruka
and Michiru in that circumstance that gives me the sense of yes, people like me
can have happy families.

(Also I don’t gel with Haruka/Michiru/Setsuna poly
relationship. Generally rubs me the wrong way.)

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay replied to your post “I’m seeing a lot of posts about book piracy and authors begging people…”

it’s an extension of the fandom world- artist commissions are a given, fic commissions are poorly received, I see loads of stuff on reblogging and complimenting artists but mostly complaints about writers portrayals of characters

THIS IS TRUE.

I was about to say there’s a frustrating cognitive dissonance, because everyone always asks authors for writing advice, but I realize that’s because they think they can do it, if they just have whatever secret code/inspiration the author they ask has. It’s always very general. Just a call for advice. (And while the general answers, read a lot and START WRITING, are true and there’s not really another answer to give, they probably don’t help that perception.) I see artists get asked more specific questions– how did you get that effect, what brush did you use,etc. Or, for a non-fandom non-tumblr example, when we do events for photography books, the photographer gets asked about equipment or how they captured something specific. It’s really rare to see an author get asked about a specific skill, because I think in general they’re not seen to have specific skills.

I think a lot of people see the only difference between themselves and a writer they like is the fact that the writer has already written something. And I think things like celebrity books and Nanowrimo (which I love but takes the line that everyone can write a novel) contribute to that idea, too.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay replied to your post “I feel like, realistically, Setsuna, Haruka, and Michiru (the later of…”

These are some of MULTIPLE problems I have with HOF

THIS BECAME A LONG RANT WHOOPS

If I think about it too long I come to the conclusion that
it would WRECK Haruka in particular (Setsuna is Setsuna, I think she’d quietly
internalize it and it would be hard to see any difference, and Michiru can
compartmentalize, distance herself, and also I think she’d be the one who ends
up doing best by Hotaru, in that she asks for the least FROM Hotaru).

But like, let’s be generous and say Haruka is about 18 when
they get Hotaru. She’s still SO YOUNG, and while that works for some people, it
does not work for Haruka. We’re shown so much self-loathing on Haruka’s part,
and she hasn’t grown enough to be able to set it aside. She needs validation,
constantly. THIS IS THE WOMAN WHO HATES SEIYA (who comes in after Hotaru)
LARGELY BECAUSE SHE IS INSECURE AND AFRAID THAT SEIYA COULD TAKE EVERYTHING
(mostly Michiru, but also her place with all the other girls, because if you
don’t think Haruka feels she’s only interesting and attractive because she’s
butch and maybe the only butch the girls know you are w r o n g).

So you have Haruka NEEDING Hotaru to love her, because a
baby’s love is pure and good and if a baby loves her, she maybe has a chance at
being pure and good or at least WORTH something (even with Michiru, she has a
hard time feeling worth anything, because Michiru is rich and because Haruka
sees herself as replaceable, Michiru could love anyone who’d been in the same
circumstances). And I think while Hotaru is a real baby, it seems to be working
out great. Hotaru smiles at Haruka’s fun faces, she likes to be held to Haruka’s
chest, she falls asleep holding Haruka’s finger. But Hotaru isn’t a baby for
long, and Haruka can’t adjust, as much as she tries. The older Hotaru gets, the
harder time Haruka has. She tries desperately to connect with activities she
sees as wholesome—playing catch, cooking together, piggyback rides—but Hotaru
is perceptive, and as she sees it’s not for her benefit, she turns it down
every time.  

And once she remembers her original life, her original
family (regardless of if this is anime canon where she’s stolen or not) she
outright hates Haruka in particular. She hates all of them, but Setsuna has a
weird relationship with humanity and so Hotaru hates her the same way she hates
the situation as a whole, as something awful but not quite unnecessary, and
Michiru is harder for Hotaru to deal with because it’s both that she’s part of
this messed up situation and shouldn’t be in Hotaru’s life at all, and that she
doesn’t love Hotaru enough (Hotaru would never want to admit it, but I imagine
she craves Michiru’s affection and approval). Haruka is uncomplicated to her.
Hotaru knows exactly what Haruka wanted from her, and has no problem telling
her so. She has no problem being angry, asking why Haruka couldn’t be less
self-absorbed, be more attentive to who Hotaru really is, why she had to be in
Hotaru’s life at all.

And that destroys Haruka. Not necessarily beyond recovery,
but the cycle of hating herself would go on much longer than it otherwise
would. (And this is Haruka, she might do really stupid shit as a result, I don’t
know if I have the guts to write it, but her breaking things off with Michiru
because of the spirals this would cause would be like, a good fic and something
I see as likely.)

mina, one last little light

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Mina held the candle between her palms. She’d tried to coax
it to be a roaring fire again, to keep it burning big and bright. But the flame
was small now, dwindling more and more, and she feared all the wood and
kindling would just choke it out sooner. She set it in a little holder on the
windowsill and pulled up a chair.

“It’s just you and me, hot stuff.” She rested her head on
her hand and winked and the candle flame. “Anything you want to do, now that we’re
alone?”

The offer did nothing to get a rise out of the flame. It
flickered on, ever smaller.

Mina pulled it closer. “A blaze of glory is enough on its
own, you know. It doesn’t have to be final.” She cupped her hand to the side of
the burning wick to protect it from any drafts. “You saved her. And me. Isn’t
that enough?”

The candle did not respond.

“No, you’re right, it’s not enough, she’s gonna need saving
again, and if you don’t come back now, you’re not gonna be here to do it. Who’re
you gonna trust to take care of her like you do? You always say I’m not enough
alone.”

The flame seemed a little brighter, maybe. Mina kept
talking.

“You know how I get. Too flighty or too hard, I’m not balanced
without you, and Usagi needs that balance. Can’t you do it for her?”

Dimmer, again. And then dimmer than before.

Mina put her head down. “I need you,” she whispered. “Can’t
you do it for me?”

For a moment, the flame grew large and bright, bigger than
the candle should be able to support. The room grew hot. Mina swore she felt a warm
hand squeeze hers. She closed her eyes and squeezed back, willing Rei to hold
on. They’d find a way to bring her back if she just held on.

But then the light went out entirely; the room went dark and
cold all at once. One single burning ember remained smoking on the candlewick.

Mina pulled it in and watched it pulse with her breath. “This
is it then.” She fought back her tears lest they fall on the candle. “I love
you, Rei. I hope you knew I always did.”

The last red spark faded to black. Mina sat alone in the
smell of smoke and felt the night stretch on forever.

rei, children’s footprints

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

The landscape had changed so much, it was only muscle memory
and the fine remnants of the psychic channel that led her to the spot. Trees
had sprung up where fire once ruled, creating a shadowy park in the midst of
the crystal city. The citizens avoided it. Rei had a wry appreciation that
their wariness remained hundreds of years after the shrine had been destroyed.

“It’s haunted ground,” she’d heard women say on streets
nearby. “So many people died there.”

There wasn’t a place in this city where people hadn’t died,
Rei knew. The price of this peace had been war, long, destructive, horrible
war. The shrine had been targeted, but so had hospitals, homes, schools.
Anywhere the senshi had connections. They were the world’s curse and its
saviors, though people only chose to think of the latter.

The shrine, though… Rei could understand why it loomed in
the citizens’ mythology. The spirit of her grandpa’s fires remained, the smell
of smoke lingered when nothing had burned since the day it all burned. She
placed her palm against one of the trees. She couldn’t feel their spirit the
way Makoto could, but she could feel the memory of fire inside them. They’d
claimed the land, but did not belong.

Their branches rustled as if to apologize to her. Rei sighed
into the wind. There were no real shrines in Crystal Tokyo.  No one, especially not Rei, had wanted to
build another after the destruction, but oftentimes she missed it. Not the
ostensible purpose of the shrine—the flame reading, the meditating, that they’d
built places for—but the overall feel. Sweeping the leaves. Teaching children
in the afternoons. Climbing the steps after a long day away.

Another sound came on the wind, soft laughter like that of
the children she used to mentor. She looked around. It wouldn’t surprise her if
this place had become the focus of young dares. It had been so many years
before, when her peers were still scared of her. There were footprints, she saw
now. Small bare feet had crossed through the dirt, seemingly recently.

The laughter came again, close behind her. She turned, but
there was no one there. It sounded again, on all sides. Rei froze. The hair
stood up on the back of her neck and she tried to focus her energy, find the
source. She closed her eyes. There.
She felt the presence before she saw it.

A girl stood before her, too young to be there on a dare.

Without thinking, Rei knelt to be eye level. “Are you lost?”

The girl blinked. She looked around and nodded.

“Are your parents nearby?”

She shook her head. “They’re gone. They’ve been gone awhile.”

Rei knew she meant dead. “I can take you somewhere, if you
need.” She held out her hand. “I’m Rei.”

The girl shook her head again. “I’m s’posed to be here. It’s
safe.” She rocked back and forth on her heels. “It’s safe, right?”

Unease spread through Rei’s mind. She must not forget this
wasn’t an ordinary encounter. “Safe from what?”

The girl’s eyes went dark. The air around her bent as though
it rose from heat on hot asphalt. “That which rained death from the sky.”

Rei swallowed hard. She’d opened the shrine to orphans, when
things had gotten bad. Many of them had been there when it was hit.

“It wasn’t safe, was it?”

Rei hung her head. “It wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

The air twisted more around the girl and darkened. “I wanted
to go home. I wanted to leave, but only you could leave. Only you were safe.”

She wondered if the spirit knew she was Mars, that she’d
been fighting when the shrine was attacked, and if it would matter. “Nowhere
was safe. I’m so sorry.”

“Leave this place.” The girl’s body appeared cloaked in
purple flames. “You do not belong.”

“I—“ She felt emotions in quick succession: fear, sorrow,
anger. “It was my home. I’m sorry it happened like this, but–”

“Leave!” The spirit rushed her.

Rei dodged, readied an ofuda. “What do you want?”

“I want to go home!” The flames grew in size and intensity. “I
don’t want to be trapped here!” The girl rose off the ground and flew at her.

Rei swung the ofuda onto the girl’s forehead. The flames dissipated;
she fell into Rei’s arms, cold and quiet, before slowly adding away.

“Be at peace,” Rei whispered as she disappeared. “You’ll
find your way home now.”

She made her way out of the trees slowly, knowing she wouldn’t
return.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay replied to your post “If you ever want to get upset google “lesbian Halloween costumes” and…”

My favorite Jill and I have ever done are jack and rose

ICONIC

We’ve done haruka and Michiru, starlord and Gamora, jack and rose, and this year will be tracer and mccree
     

THOSE ARE ALL SO GOOD. Besides Ben and Leslie, we’ve floated a few combinations of SU characters, Ash and Misty from Pokemon, and my wife suggested “Usagi and Momo” (they try so hard, and also want me in a suit)

They tend to be overambitious in ideas, I tend to be “but that’ll be expensive or hard!” because I’ve never really done a costume, together maybe we’ll find a balance                                 

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay replied to your photoset “A thing I’d have loved to see explored more is the contrast between…”

Also i wonder if she ever feels like it’s terribly unfair that Usagi never has to make those choices. Haruka is never really given the option to save in that way, she is NOT Usagi. She can’t heal, she can’t cleanse, all she can do is destroy, and how does that work into her conception of herself

^^^^^ YES

COnsider Haruka and Mina getting drunk
together one night and just letting loose all their resentment of Usagi,
the fact that she gets to make all the easy choices they never can.
Usagi gets to save and heal and love without care for the consequences.

But
under that resentment is just guilt and self-loathing, especially for
Haruka. If only she was better, she could be like Usagi. If she’d been good and pure and bright, everyone could have been saved. Usagi’s heart is an all-powerful healing crystal. Haruka’s is a sword. The fault is inside her.