docholligay:

For the screen cap prompts, if it strikes your fancy

Anyone in her art classes who had heard her speak of a fondness for Monet’s Water Lilies would have laughed. How expected, they would think, how pedestrian to lavish affection on something so simple and common even a housewife might know it. 

But sometimes, that which was simple was loveliest of all, and she saw that in Monet, when she was eight years old at an exhibit. She stared at the painting that made her mother scoff, and she felt the calm of the blue and the violet washing over her, something centering and peaceful, a quiet relaxation she rarely knew, the buttresses and stone walls of her training and trimming gone, just for a moment. 

She had never known that feeling again, until she stood watching Haruka in the aquarium, a smile playing softly upon her face as she watched the fish dart in and out of the reef, her body not held at attention, but gently slumped, her shoulders down and her hands in her pockets, at perfect ease. 

There was no wall between them now, they no longer flew banners to amaze and impress the other, and so Haruka was not Proud Warrior Uranus, but simply a lanky young woman, straightforward and honest, a bit bashful at times, aching to be tender and slowly dismantling everything that would not allow it, brick by brick, in hand with Michiru. 

She was dazzlingly beautiful, in a way even Monet knew not of. 

“Oh,” she shrugged, “I feel most relaxed behind a steering wheel.” 

Simple and lovely. 

Michiru smiled teasingly, “How bold of you to assume I was speaking of the fish, you silly girl,” she turned, her hair flowing in the wind, giggling in true release, as if the bubbles of her own joy could not be contained. 

Haruka turned, and the the oils of true masterpiece painted a blush on her face.

BUT LOOK AT HARUKA ON THE PRALINE PLANET BOX WITH HER ROLLED UP SUIT SLEEVES CAN YOU IMAGINE MICHIRU’S EXASPERATED EXPRESSION, “‘Ruka, that’s not how you wear a suit..” “It’s hot, Michi. I don’t want to have to wear this suit, why can’t I wear my usual yellow suit? Most of this thing is black, in the summer time. I’m dying.” “It’s not that hot, dear. I’m not sweating.” Minako snorts in the background. “You never sweat, Michiru-san. You glow.”

docholligay:

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Okay but YES PLEASE LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS ANGELIC TRASHBAG. You
know she showed up the day before the shoot and they gave everyone their outfits
for the “Can Usagi Be Saved From herself? Sweet Sailor Senshi Chocolate Praline
Teatime Extravaganza!” photoshoot and was handed a dress just like the other
girls, with a wide, fluffy skirt, and a huge bow.

“ahaha” she laughs, “No, see I’m HARUKA, I’m the tall butch
one not the tall femmey one.”

The guy looks down at his chart. “Yeah, Haruka Tenoh.”

She’s clutching the dress like it has personally wronged
her. “I don’t wear stuff like this.”

The guy says nothing, but looks over at a poster of the
Senshi in costume.

Haruka blushes so hard she practically glows. “That is
DIFFERENT, it is a MILITARY UNIFORM, and MICHIRU TOLD ME IT’S JUST LIKE ANCIENT
SPARTANS, SO SUPER MANLY AND SHOWS I HAVE NO FEAR.”

The guy clips his pen back to his board “ooookay.” And wanders
off.

Haruka frowns at the dress.

She goes home that night, Michiru trying to soothe her soul
but unable to figure out how to turn a Victorianate tea dress into something Haruka
can live with. “It’s to serve our princess, really, you know how Usagi cares
for these things, to say nothing of the free chocolate she’ll be getting.”

It’s the best she can come up with, as Haruka fiddles with
the dress on the couch.

It is not until much later in the evening, when Haruka is
flipping through one of Michiru’s Oscar Wilde plays—people think she’s too much
of a stupid jock to appreciate these things, but she is always reminded of Mina
whenever she reads about Algernon—and her face lights upon an illustration, and
she is seized with a sudden plan. Michiru can barely say so much as goodnight
as Haruka dashes up the stairs to her little hobby room, pulling the sewing
machine onto the desk and grabbing some drafting paper.

She’s not a magnificent sewer, but simple garment
construction and mending, a little light tailoring
—having been thin, poor, and wanting
to wear ‘boys’ clothes’, though she no longer really thought of them that way,
as a teenager had supplied her with a basic skill. She gently seam rips the dress
apart, not wanting to ruin any of the fabric, or the large satin ribbon she
intends to use for an accent. She won’t disappoint anyone, she’ll match in her
own non-matching way, like she always does. The girls won’t care anyway. The
photographer might, but Haruka doesn’t care about that.

And, god love her, in the space of one night she finishes…whatever
this is. She puts on her tux pants and shirt, thinking it goes, kind of, and in
any case she doesn’t have time to make something that matches better. She puts
spats on her shoes. At least that matches the style, kind of.

She shows up and it’s horrifying, but, at least, Michiru
thinks, its Haruka brand horrifying.

“My love, why not wear your sleeve down, I think that might
look a bit more appropriate.”

Haruka look at her forearms. “I didn’t have enough fabric to
make the sleeves fit.”