#'don't infodump don't talk about yourself don't double text'

[gideonisms]

I simply think that for every characteristic someone perceives as unwantable and universally displeasing, there is another person out there who is into it. The human experience is varied

[sailoragere]

In terror but bold

(I wrote this approximately year ago but I'm reposting it here)

I re-emerge a little braver as the, (presumable), pioneer of this headcanon. As a life-long age regressor myself from trauma, I’ve held onto this interpretation of Minako being an age regressor for similar reasons for many years, fearful and possessive of others (notably “those communities”), stealing and tainting an idea so precious to me.

This can apply to canon AND/or within AU (the latter IS where this began, after all), but let’s try to narrow the scope to canon for just this once. Keep in mind this is 90s anime focused. Also, although I don’t closely follow the manga or Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos, I’m open to hearing how Minako being an age regressor could work into other iterations!)

You may leave comments and reach out to me, but reblogging will be disabled. Just like last time, not brave enough. Yet? Maybe someday…

EDIT: I will allow reblogs after all. But be warned

I honestly would cry and thr*w up whether I attract positive OR negative attention with this ridiculous balls-deep epic of mine. Just please I'm begging of you, don't even interact if you're nasty. I am very against those labels and what they encompass and will not hesitate to block you.

Inevitably, this will reach essay length and be comprised of infodumping to an extent. I’m autistic, I headcanon Minako and Usagi being AUDHD, and Sailor Moon is my SI,so yeah—I’ll try my best to highlight the key points and not make it too TL;DR. Prepare yourself, because this will be a lot. Both literally and emotionally a lot.

Contains spoilers; for those who wish to avoid those!

TW (Trigger Warning): for mentions, descriptions of self harm, talk about agere negativity, people/communities who fetishize regression, considerably heavy topics, harsh realities/canon (for real, coming back to this, I realized it's kinda brutal oops), some swearing.

Yeah uh. I wouldn't read this at all while regressed.

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Consider, Minako who learns she experiences age regression.

She gets to the point of playing the body double part of the princess so flawlessly, she can’t so easily find in herself where “the princess” ends and where “Minako” comes back in anymore.

Does this whole thing start during Classic? Oh, I’m thinking it could very well have. While Minako stayed often guarded around the others, and in a leadership mindset throughout, there were little moments between she and Usagi wherein they felt on the same level. That could be attributed to Mina already trusting and openly loving her long lost princess, not really caring how she’s perceived by Usagi as much as Rei, Ami, and Mako. She wants to make a lasting impressive, well, impression.

Regarding mimicking Usagi and playing into regressing, it couldn’t have been strong, frequent or apparent enough yet in Classic for anyone of them to notice. Not even Minako.

Ever so slowly fitting her piece into the friendship puzzle. Spending much more time together in a group, attending the hanami picnic, joining in the Snow White play, eventual integration into their strategy meetings at the Shrine… until about halfway through R that Minako opens up even more to the rest of the girls. Including giving it her all to step up and help them while they were sick, despite mostly failing and inadvertently torturing her friends…

But, S season and beyond is where she seems to shine and embrace her true self without much inhibition. The third season was also the point in the show when Mina’s onscreen “twinning” with Usagi noticeably increased.

I mean, Minako literally disguised herself as part of a plan. And it worked. She almost blew it by running her mouth, (in an Usagi-like fashion to boot), but it worked.

Therefore, I’d most likely place the scenario of her regression and increased “twinning” occurring anywhere between S and the end of Sailor Stars.

Suppose the real deal begins as an in-group joke that keeps going on right after she disguised herself. It’s funny at first. Mina puts her hair again in that wonky version of Usagi’s odango to humor everyone and herself.

“Oh, we do look so similar!”

“Could they actually be twins?”

The other three all pretend to mistake one blonde for the other, at times, poking fun at both Usagi and her. Minako could’ve been the princess, see? She can play the part AND protect Usagi!

Then all of a sudden, Ami is helping Minako more with studying and generally communicating more. Calling and checking up on her unprompted, comforting her. Those two are said to have the weakest friendship in the group, so it’s surprising and unsettling at first coming from Ami.

Makoto is more lenient and gives in to Minako’s abnormally childish chaos. She stops inviting her out to shop and spar together, instead waking first thing to walk with her to school, much to Mina's confusion. Making and bringing her her favorite food and sweets. Mako makes a beeline to protect and stand over her shoulder just a little more.

Rei on the other hand, is beginning to talk down to, criticize and spark silly arguments with Minako, just like she does with Usagi. She is now finding herself attached to Minako and Usagi’s shenanigans to an almost equal degree.

If it takes place after SuperS, the outers could very well be doing similar things. Would they be patronizing about it though? I haven’t watched up to that point in the anime yet, and don’t have as good understanding of their characters as the inners. So I’ll leave that part up to outside interpretation for right now.

Mars and Jupiter are alike in battle, rather than meeting Venus on the same playing field or following her leader command, they’re calling the shots. Tuxedo Mask shields her in his cape, treating her like a sister. (Earth and Venus joke lol we'll get to that in length another time), Chibi-Usa scrutinizes, plays, and fights with her, but is right by Venus’s side during an enemy fight. Just like a miniature Rei.

Initially, Usagi super minds all this, gets defensive and prickly as usual when being teased in that manner by her friends and also feeling kinda ignored, replaced even. So can Minako please not dress or act like her anymore? Please take out the buns, Minako. But knowing Usagi, at the same time, she’s probably the very first one to find Mina’s act concerning and worry about her.

To Minako, it feels all part of the ongoing joke at first. From just laughing it off, to the hand waving, weak protesting insisting they give it up.

The more she puts on the “Princess” act, play-squabbling with Rei over the littlest things (can’t really tell whether Rei’s serious or playing too), merciless begging for tutoring from Ami, climbing all over Mako, making her be her chariot when she’s the slightest bit tired, fake pouting and crying at the drop of a hat, feigning further clumsiness, snacking and lazing about, skipping school and training. Minako being content with Usagi peddling the bike every next time.

It becomes harder for her to abstain from body doubling. That almost familiar naivety becomes some sort of a comfort and a habit, like breaking something and always having someone bigger and stronger sweep the glass away. Out of sight, out of mind. Playing ‘the delicate flower’, the most precious lovable fabled savior of the universe, being treated and seen as a twin, she falls head over heels for this extra attention and later takes full advantage of it.

After a few weeks, this “joke” Minako created still hasn’t fizzled out for anyone. It seems to get dig deeper and deeper in her head, and their continued treatment of her isn't making anything easier. The longer this act goes on, the more it grates down on her deep seeded insecurities. She grows anxious and desperate.

Could it be that everyone caught on as well and has been acting out of concern the entire time?

If Usagi figures her out, however soon she does, does she alert the others?

Or are they all in on some indirect intervention to get Minako to realize what she’s been doing is foolish and she should just be herself again?

Would the others adore a Venusian princess just as much as one of the moon?

Would everyone love and protect her just the same?

But if they knew the truth, would they turn on her? A traitor to the end?

Now she's kinda spiraling out of control. Minako playing it up even harder in order to figure out the answers. Her original intent for disguising herself in the first place completely out the window. Out of mind, out of sight. She forfeits her volleyball and other athletic skills in favor of incompetent clumsiness. Continues to unintentionally demean Usagi’s feelings instead of encourage them, through her exaggerated immature behavior.

Mina is such a bad girl, she big time fucked up. And now she's shitting all over herself, in addition. Gets in the way and jumps in front of enemy attacks towards her comrades. Venus meets commands rather than giving them, getting bloodied and bruised without a care. Beaming around broken teeth like an ignorant. Committing to this terrible habit of escapism and self harm as a punishment for stepping out of line of duty.

No longer good enough to be the leader. She must be.

What starts out as her leaderly determination to divert the enemy’s attention towards her and protect the princess, ends selfishly on her part. Her resentment grows to cause her to be so fed up with playing the irrationally likable, childish and cute persona. Worrying everybody at this point, including Luna and Artemis, they finally corner her. Artemis will without a doubt be the one to push her over the edge with an insensitive comment that snubs. Being called out and yanked back to reality by your only caring guardian and cat has to sting.

Her mask crackling, she pops like those clay popping videos. She's beyond angry, she's cartoon-style steaming and red-faced while crying, shouting "No," and bellowing-just like when Spongebob got to the breaking point of his cousin Stanley getting throwing him under the bus and breaking his comfort object, his spatula. (I guess it's an off-topic note, but I love this scene in Spongebob, and I can compare his anger to how Minako might feel sometimes.)

They all had the audacity to compare the Goddess Venus to Serenity?! Is that how they actually see her? As a double of Usagi? Some carbon copycat?! Even if Minako portrays the princess without a beat, the actual princess will always come first in line. Why? Even though Sailor V started fighting first. As soon as Venus finally woke up, the whole world forgot all about every aspect of her. Sailor Moon will always be revered. Everybody loves her! It's not fair!! What about Sailor V? She was a hero even before her and did it better! What about Minako? Usagi hasn't been forced to fight all alone! She hasn't had to murder anybody! She didn't have to kill her first crush.

It's always all about Usagi, Sailor Moon, the princess, who gets all the leeway in the galaxy to cry, piss and moan! But whenever Minako reaches out for the love and care of her friends, duty and destiny call and take over the landline. Venus is indebted to her as her inferior for eternity after eternity. She feels she exists as nothing more than to be punished for her past self's failure to save the solar system that time, too. And so should they. Why?! So cruel...

She's feeling 13 again; a naive, selfish, gluttony mess of a teenage girl with the fate of the world suddenly dropped upon her shoulders. Hiding huddled in her bed. Reluctant to fight, thrusted into a nightmare. Normal girl Minako wants to forget. She has to. No one is more shocked than Artemis, of course. Usagi is obviously in tears and blaming herself. The rest are confused and upset, trying to console the pair of utterly frustrated and distressed blondes.

Are Minako and Usagi distanced by their first real argument as a result?

Or do they understand each other better and become closer than ever before?

How do each of the others personally feel about the situation?

It fully occurs to everyone, including Minako, that she has been progressing backward. Regressing.

But this longing for a sensible life was brewing inside her all along. I like to believe what happened is she lost touch with who she was before, after the initial awakening and memory regain, becoming stuck in a state of hyper-responsibility while searching for her fellow reborn comrades. Minako just didn't know how to regain her warrior-naive selfhood. Gaining back the rest of her past life’s memories near the end of Classic stuck the nail in the coffin against ever going back. That wasn't all, either, because she's still uncovering new forgotten memories from that time. Minako knows only how to guide her subordinates through, nothing of how to cope with her own feelings.

I imagine age regression, its reach and research would be especially unheard of prior to the 2000s. (2016 is the assumed year online agere communities first emerged). Daring to explore herself more by pursuing any kind of external help or items like pacifiers would more likely than not be met with misunderstanding, mockery, and ostracization. At least not by her friends, but everyone else. She would probably end up in the wrong spaces like I did back then, falling into a rabbit hole of people who fetishize childhood. Shit's traumatic.

This is something she can't live down. Minako is convinced something's fundamentally wrong with her, that she's weird. That she might even be a pervert of some kind. In conclusion, in canon, it would likely take many years into adulthood for Minako to come to terms with her age regression, if ever.. Okay, I'm f*****g depressed now.

I hope Usagi and her other friends understand. Show their friend more outward care and support, but maybe they don't. Personally I believe in my heart they would, not perfectly, but through trying their best to accomodate Mina when she needs a break from her responsibilities. Sadly, due to the canon being set in the time period of 90s Japan, the result of this tangent is largely unsatisfying, but realistic.

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SFW INTERACTION ONLY, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!