If you don’t think Michiru is the most badass, you’re wrong, she gets torn to shreds protecting Haruka and then still immediately throws an attack to kill the monster with a single blow.
Tag: sam liveblogs sm106
I want to compare these moments, because they’re so similar and their
differences are SO INTERESTING.
The first cap, from this episode, Haruka is shocked a relative stranger
would save her. She has a connection to Michiru, and she might have an inkling
Michiru likes her, but Michiru has done what she can to convince her that those
things don’t matter, she’s ruthless in pursuit of her goal (and “stopping the
oncoming silence” is nebulous enough that Haruka may not know how anything fits
into that). While Haruka doesn’t feel like she’s worth saving, she’s having a
million thoughts and has no particular reason to think this is about her. This
is her seeing Michiru’s humanity, rather than all the fronts Michiru has put
on.
But with the second cap, in 110, Haruka can’t feel it’s not about her. She
and Michiru have spent all this time—years, if we accept the timeline presented
at face value—dancing around their feelings. Michiru confesses her feelings in
this episode, but then all she can to downplay them, to make sure they don’t
influence Haruka’s resolve, to make sure under no circumstances does Haruka get
hurt because of her feelings. And Haruka, Haruka hates herself enough to
believe that Michiru liking her was a mistake, that every moment where those
feelings came through again was a fluke, that she’s doing right by Michiru to
squash down all she feels. (There are moments she can’t, moments where they’re
all each other have and the tenderness sneaks out, quiet nights spent collapsed
into one another, simple car rides where their hands touch on the console and they
don’t pull away, stormy afternoons when under the cover of dark clouds they let
themselves fumble towards ordinary teenage expressions of love, but each and
every one is followed by coldness, a reassertion of what they must do for the
mission.)
And in the moment Michiru saves her, Haruka knows she has failed, knows that
from that first day in the garage she should have been honest, should have made
sure Michiru was never in danger for her sake again, should have looked outward
instead of inward for the truth.
In this episode, Haruka’s been stubborn, and perhaps a bit stupid, but shock
outweighs guilt. In 110, she knows she’s done everything wrong.
AND THEN THE WHOLE “I AM COLD AND HEARTLESS” SCHTICK FALLS APART BECAUSE EVERYTHING
MICHIRU DOES IN THE GARAGE IS TO SAVE HARUKA.
Michiru will risk everything for her. Everything. By trying to keep her from
transforming, she’s risking the world, and she knows it (she’s willing to bet
on herself, but she knows it’s a gamble nonetheless). She’ll risk her own life,
gladly. And at the end of the day, she’ll even risk Haruka’s own soul, because
the line between for Haruka’s own good and for her own desires is very blurry
indeed.
MICHIRU 100% BEING READY FOR HARUKA TO HATE HER, IF ONLY SO THAT SHE MIGHT SEE WHAT TAKING UP THE TRANSFORMATION ROD WILL MEAN IS MY SHIT
ALSO HARUKA TALKING A BIG GAME BUT WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE SHE MAKES THE SAME CHOICE
It’s interesting to me that after this, Haruka never blames Michiru. She never puts the guilt on Michiru the way she does herself. Michiru must be endlessly guilty and that special mix of sad-frustrated that Haruka can never extend the same understanding and compassion she has for Michiru to herself. She’d take all the hatred on herself if she could. She was ready to.
To Have Never Lain Beside At All
Fandom: Sailor Moon
Rating: K
Prompt: Love is about…
Summary: She wonders, in a fit of whimsy, if she’ll ever end up turning into sea foam. Or, love is about giving even when you expect little in return. Haruka/Michiru. ~2100 words.
Promptfic for docholligay’s ~Tumblr HaruMichi Circle~ February Same Prompt Fic Party. Everyone was writing fluff, so I wrote… this, instead.
——
To Have Never Lain Beside At All
She wakes up in a cold sweat every night, a name on her lips. But she bites it back, clamps down on it, and holds her breath, because if she lets it escape, if she cries it out, something will be
made real – something she can’t allow.She knows who the other senshi is, now.
She knows who it is she’s been dreaming of for years, and she regrets ever
having asked.Not her, please, not her. Anyone but her.
She thinks of long sleepless nights spent
confronting horrors beyond even what her painfully creative mind conjures up to
throw at her, and of equally long and equally sleepless nights spent in the
dubious comfort of her luxurious bed and soft, down-filled pillows, dreaming of
the silence and the end of everything. She tries to decide which is worse,
whether it is harder to conceal scrapes and bruises under the scratchy material
of her school uniform, or the exhaustion that has settled so deep into her
bones that she feels she might never be rid of it. She thinks of getting hurt,
and she thinks of hurting, and of the three people she will have to kill, or –
at best – let die, and of the blood that will stain the pristine white gloves
of her magical uniform.She knows with the certainty of the tides
rolling in that this is not a fate she will ever allow her to have.
At this point in the liveblog, I have nothing to say about MIchiru stopping Haruka from taking the transformation rod except READ THIS FIC. It’s beautiful and brilliant and anything I could say about this scene would be influenced by it anyway
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.
I love the idea that this isn’t only Uranus’s power awakening
in a moment of danger, but also a choice, or an illusion of it. Haruka doesn’t
know what taking the rod will do, but she is taking it of her own accord. She’s
drawn to it immediately. Likely, it calls to her—she may not know what it is,
but she knows it’s a part of her.
I would pay money to have all the senshi awaken like this
instead of Luna pooping out wands, because I love all the implications. It’s
less pre-determined, they aren’t stepping into a role someone’s telling them
they belong in, they’re choosing to answer the call, even if it’s not an
informed choice.
And I think, for each and every one of them, doing it on
their own instead of being told to opens the question “Would you have taken it,
if you knew what it was?” and they all know the answer is yes, as much as some might
wish it wasn’t. We get to see it play out here with Haruka—she’s ready to take
it without knowing why, and then when she knows she still takes it.
As much resentment of their positions as I think certain
senshi have at times (I think Haruka and Mina are the biggest examples), if
they truly didn’t want to fight, they wouldn’t be senshi. If they wouldn’t
chose it, the souls of the past wouldn’t exist in them. (Michiru is almost an
exception, I think at first it’s less that she’d say yes and more that she sees
no reason to say no, and as much as she doesn’t care to save the world she’s
not quite ready to damn it either. And once Haruka comes in, she’ll fight for
her. I HAVE NOT YET FIGURED OUT QUITE HOW I SEE NEPTUNE’S EARLY DAYS)
I just want to point out the thing Haruka grabbed instinctively to fight with?
A FUCKING CROWBAR
For all I think Haruka isn’t the best soldier, she’s a street-smart fighter and she’s not messing around
A thing I’d have loved to see explored more is the contrast between how Haruka deals with this stuff vs. Usagi. AT THEIR CORE THEIR FEELINGS ARE THE SAME. Haruka knows nothing about the situation OR THIS KID, but she can’t attack the monster because it was a person. If there’s any chance it’s still a person, she can’t hurt it.
EXCEPT SHE CAN AND WILL IF IT ENDANGERS OTHER PEOPLE.
I think there’s ground in someone who has to make that choice vs. someone who doesn’t. Usagi gets to save everyone (and that may be bullshit, but let’s say we accept it for now). Haruka has to choose. This guy, or herself and Michiru. Hotaru, or the world. I think she’s helped by her low self-esteem, she WOULD be a believer in saving everyone if she wasn’t chasing goodness. She’s willing to damn herself for the good.
Her post-S guilt must be ASTOUNDING, having seen Usagi pull off what she wished she could do but couldn’t, having seen Usagi avoid the choices she hated herself for making.
TWO POINTS
One, in a horror movie, Haruka dies first
Two, there are a lot of people around this garage, and
Haruka is the only one who’s like “Gee that sounds like a hurt person I should
check and see.” AND THEN SHE RUSHES TO HELP THIS GUY. I feel strongly about Big
Hearted Haruka, especially it being so natural to her and her never seeing it
in herself (in this case, she’d absolutely say anyone would do what she’s
doing, even though there are at least a dozen other people just outside not
giving a shit about whoever’s groaning in pain just out of sight).
SittingOverHereDreaming 