#when the mooniverse

[sinical-c0ffee-7]

At this point, I’m just so fucking fed up. The Kirby oc tournament is actually terrible. There’s so much that’s just not right. We have….

-ageism

-advertising at 13+ server while having a large chunk of rps being 16+ not to mention how the serious talk channel became 16+ when mooniverse took over

-mods and cohosts lying

-people not doing anything abt shit that’s been going on

-gossiping abt minors some of which aren’t even 16

-and so much more 😀 (emoji is /sarcasm)

Anyway, I don’t care if anyone is sending hate at this point. Anon asks are off and I will be deleting all negative replies (also possibly blocking ppl who rb this in a negative manner). The mods and cohosts need to take off their rose tinted glasses and actually look at what’s going on. The last two years of the tourney have been hell for some people. I genuinely think that currently, they should have a lot more new mods and hosts, if not an entirely new team. I have some screenshots of some shit that’s been going down.

[sailormoonandme]

Had a fic idea last night. So, Planet Mau is not in the Solar System, it is not strictly part of the Silver Millennium. But clearly they are connected to it in some way. An alliance would make the most sense. Same with Koronis, where Phobos and Deimos are from. So, what if there was a new villain who was pissed off because the their planet was reliant upon the SilMil for protection, supplies, etc. So when it fell their planet and people got royally screwed over. Broadly, the story could then go one of two ways, but both are connected to Serenity and Endymion's romance. From the villain's POV, and maybe this is because they are so angry and twisted they are desperate for someone to blame, they want revenge upon Serenity and Endymion, rationalising that if they hadn't fallen in love the Silver Millennium would never have fallen.

Alternatively, and this is my personal preference, the villain in question could be somehow trying to destroy the very concept of love itself. Love in the Sailor Moon universe (and many other Magical Girl franchises obviously) is a prevalent theme, and in the Mooniverse it is a literaly power source. You can literally kill someone, resurrect someone or rearrange molecules and atoms through the power of love. From the villain's POV love in many different forms is what ultimately destroyed the Silver Millennium. Love between an Earthling and Lunarian was forbidden and yet Serenity and Endymion were romantically in love with one another. The Inner Senshi and the Shitennou's love for their charges resulted in them not putting a stop to their relationship. Beryl's 'love' for Endymion led to her selling her soul to Metalia, most directly destroying the Moon Kingdom and murdering Endymion. Serenity's love for Endymion led to her killing herself. And QS's love for her daughter led to her heartbreak over her death, which in turn meant that she died but didn't seal Metalia way properly. Perhaps, by extension, QS's spell meant to protect the villain's homeworld as well, but her heartbreak compromised the spell the same way it improperly sealed away Metalia. The villain could even target Chibi-Usa specifically, as she is physical embodiment of Usagi and Mamoru's love.

[monkeymanproductions]

MTO Post-Finale Stuff

Just to keep you all in the loop ... and the dates are on our website now as well for most of this stuff ... remember there's still a bit more to say from our Moon show!

First off, we've got the Epilogue coming on October 1st! Even though this is set three months further along the ol' timeline, it's not really going to take big steps in the story beyond the Finale - we ended where we wanted to end. But it does give us a chance to see what more people are doing, and to say a few farewells in a way we couldn't when we were hitting the climax and resolution. (Of a sort.) And we're going to have special guests - Lisette Alvarez and Emma Sherr-Ziarko!

After that, we take another little break, and then we come back on October 29th and in four weeks we'll release the four post-season bonus episodes, focused on Ashwini, Jaxon, Ahnung, and the Enclave Officer! These were chosen during our crowdfunding, and they're going to go deeper into some character background - the last two should be particularly interesting, since we don't know as much about where they came from!

Then, finally, we're going to do a big Q&A special - we'll probably open up to questions after the Epilogue comes out, just so you don't ask us stuff that gets answered in there! But after all is said and done, Deej, Cass and Tina will sit down and go through every question you want to ask about the Mooniverse and its denizens. I'd expect that out sometime mid-December.

For now, we're all still sitting with our feelings from the Finale. Thank you over and over again for your support, your friendship, and your collaboration over the past five years!

[mellythedork]

How in the ever-loving gourd has it been ten years? Time is an illusion that I stopped seeing ages ago.

10 years ago, at the tail end of 2013, I had a huge, friendship-ending fight that shattered me. In an attempt to keep myself together, I hid behind a character and wrote the most self-indulgent crossover fic I'd ever concocted. After 5 years, 2 rewrites, too many OCs to count, magic mechanics I didn't think through, and conversations with my former best friend about what had happened, I finally let that fic rest. I knew that if I tried to continue it, I'd never move on, as the very basis of it was focused on that fight.

But it was still such a colossal part of my life. 5 years to spend on a project is no laughing matter, and it felt like it was the only trustworthy constant as I struggled to make my way through everything going on around me. It invaded RPs with friends and basically everything I did...and that wasn't always a good thing. It was a coping mechanism that went too far, but I still cherished it so much.

Things never got anywhere near back to how they had been before that fight. But I learned a lot about myself and how to better handle problems I hadn't realized I was creating. I feel like being forced to think about it while writing the original Mooniverse helped me come to terms with it and move on--which was, of course, the intention all along! But it came to a point where I knew it had to end.

There was never any rhyme or reason to that fic, in any version of it. I wrote it purely to have fun and go wild. It's so odd looking back at the chapters now; I keep laughing at how things went without direction. But it was pure and adorable and I'll always look back at it fondly...beyond the cringing at how much I shoved it in my friends' faces.

For…I was going to say over a year, but I feel like 2 would be more accurate. For about 2 years now, I've struggled to create anything. Both art and writing have felt impossible. I burned out on most of my personal projects without realizing it until last month, but that realization took a weight off of me. And without that weight, as I realized the anniversary that was coming up, I was able to create something on nothing but a whim and enjoy it again.

My art block certainly isn't gone, and nothing about this is what I'd consider perfect. It's not even finished. But I set the sketch as my goal, trying to keep the pressure low, in hopes that I'd be able to post it at all. I do want to touch it up and finish it one day, but I'm not going to worry about that now.

I have been a bit inspired, though! I want to do more things like this. Like the original Mooniverse Melodia and the final one standing side by side here, I want to pull together more OCs with such connections and growth and see how far they've come. I don't know how much of that I'll accomplish, but it's been fun to think about for sure.

I hope everyone's holidays have gone well and that your plans for the new year are fulfilling. I think this year is going to go a lot better for me than the last.

--

From left to right we have: The original Annie along with the final Annie (Of course they'd be friends!)

The final Melodia (with slight modifications to her outfit in order to make a bit more sense; ditto to her bangs. Seriously, what was I thinking when I made that mess?? lol)

The middle-ground Moon (as I no longer have the design for the original, but wanted to include her)

The final Hope (in one of her alternate outfits)

The original Melodia (I didn't think I had any references left of her, but after about 2 hours of searching, I gave up only to stumble upon one by chance the next day. Sure was a surprise!)

And finally the middle-ground Myasu (just think of her & Moon as representing the first rewrite!)

-- I knew most of my art problems were from my difficulty and dislike of drawing bodies, so to make this possible at all, I used a base.

I also very much referenced the original image, the hair of Love Live and Idolmaster characters, and self-made bases from Shugo Chara, both due to time constraints and to keep my sanity. I'm very out of practice and didn't want to get so frustrated I abandoned the drawing altogether.

[whatisonthemoon]

FROM MOONOLATRY TO HANOLATRY

It seems that Korean messiahs have sadly forgotten the most essential Divine requirement to worship God “in spirit and truth”.  Instead they consistently promote the idolatry of themselves whom their misled followers should unconditionally worship and serve to possibly reach God.

In subtle disguise, Unificationism solely aims at setting up an idolatry to “save humankind”. Its countless seductive and ambiguous organizations supposedly promoting peace and religious unity might fool people for a while, but sooner or later the unconfessed central excessive hubris of its leaders can’t but surface.

So even though fascinated people can unknowingly make a few steps in guru land, they will ultimately run away. For each step within the Mooniverse is also a huge regressive step toward obscurantism, infantilization and spiritual enslavement.

Until 2012 the UC highly speculative doctrine was rooted in the DP belief that Sun Myung Moon was the Lord of the Second Advent, born in 1920 and sent to play the pivotal role of the returned Jesus in the flesh. He was then supposed to be successful in his mission through educating and restoring a fallen Eve with whom he would establish the first ideal human family on earth.

Unificationists were then worshipping and submitting to idealized “True Parents” and idealized “True Children” even though reality didn’t match at all their beliefs and expectations. Actually this religious schizophrenia became the 52 years period of blind Moonolatry when Sun Myung Moon was the absolute Divine leader and sole decisional center.

However, right after Sun Myung Moon’s passing, the Unificationist core doctrine was radically changed. From then on, the meaning of the Second Coming became totally different. God’s central providence and prime concern was indeed to send Hak Ja Han as His sinless “Only Begotten Daughter” in 1943. Through this Cultural Revolution, the Divine principle official teaching and previous messianic speeches had to be “providentially edited” and “imperiously up dated”���

That new revised theology implied that Sun Myung Moon should never have married nor had any concubine, nor fathered children with other women before 1960. Clearly, God’s will was for Sun Myung Moon to remain a pure virgin for a 40 years period before luckily for him marrying Hak ja Han, his 23 years younger God appointed bride!

Accepting this essential doctrinal switch has been a huge challenge for long indoctrinated Unificationists. Many couldn’t accept it and drifted away. Meanwhile the long hidden cracks within the “True Family” appeared to the open and the Moon family split into rival Unificationist factions, while the larger group remained under Hak Ja Han’s unshared authoritarian leadership.

Without batting an eyelid, somehow puzzled obedient followers had then to steadily switch from Moonolatry to Hanolatry of which the purest expression is undeniably Hak Ja Han’s 4.3m high statue in Cheong Pyeong.

The appearance of this “providential” backward Korean idolatry is ideologically taught as being the culminating point of human history and the beginning of a glorious era of peace. It therefore justifies that the costly pharaonic white marble complex of “Cheon Won Gung” will be inaugurated in Cheong Pyeong in May 2023.

According to Hak Ja Han’s wild dream of cosmic grandeur this “Cheon Won Gung” will be “a place from where True Parents will preside over all nations and over all humankind”.

Unless, of course, the Northern lunatic Kim Jong Un - the other weird Korean trump card- sends a missile over Cheong Pyeong to preserve his own megalomaniac ambition to remain forever the one and only worthy master of the Korean peninsula…

                              mercilavix@gmail.com

[porchwood]

Six Months to Strawberry Time - Hob scene teaser (Ch 6)

Because we’ve been talking about the Hob in the #ToastedTHG reread and this has been sitting on my hard drive (unfinished and untouched :/) for some months now...

(Madge POV, in case that’s not clear)

*************

However impulsive – not to mention, an utter failure at bargain practice – the stop at Swannee’s provided me with a boost of both confidence and comfort in these new surroundings. I take my time browsing the other stalls and find myself drawn in by a bench of ragged baby clothes in baskets – always a sad sight, if a common one. It’s the sort of purchase you can’t avoid when young ones come along – though I suspect most Seamwives are enterprising enough to sew their own from whatever scraps can be spared – but when your youngest is a baby no longer, you’re left with handfuls of tiny precious garments with little market value, too small to make over into clothing for an older child and of next to no use as fuel for the fire.

The vendor, a hollow-cheeked woman with heavily silvered hair who might be a grandmother or simply old before her time, steps forward as I approach with a quick, meaningful glance at my belly. I wonder how she came to run such a heartbreaking business. Whether she had many children – and if so, how many survived beyond the age of baby clothes – or none at all, and simply to touch baby things is a balm.

I pick up a little brown sweater that might fit a doll, my mind full of a wrinkled red newborn with a thatch of sticky black hair and lavender buds sticking to its damp petal-soft skin, and ask the price with burning eyes.

The woman grunts what might be ten or bread or salt, and I hand her enough for all three, then place the garment at the bottom of my market bag with as much care as if it were made of porcelain or spun sugar. “I’ll be back,” I promise. “When I have – w-when the babies come, I’ll buy more; much more.”

As I walk away, I belatedly wonder if the whole district will think I’m pregnant by nightfall – after all, buying baby clothes at the Hob rather than the mercantile would be one way to delay Merchant parents from discovering the inevitable – but at this point such rumors, while mortifying, would be largely harmless and quickly disproven.

Just the same, I carefully avoid the eyes of passing shoppers for the next few moments and nearly collide with the woman who runs the canteen of sorts – Greasy Sae, I believe she’s called – whose eyes grow bright and downright greedy as she curls one bony hand around my wrist and draws me into her stall.

“I’m tired of skinning mice,” she says baldly. “Your lover sells the good meat to the high rollers – no fault there, of course, but even my regulars are starting to turn up their noses at the stew. It’s little more than broth these days,” she grumbles, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “Good for warming the bones, but you’d do just as well to soak in it as eat it.”

I stare at her for a long moment as I process all of this, then ask what seems to be the last question she expected: “What do you do with the skins?”

She chokes on something halfway between a snort and a guffaw. “Mouse skins, miss?” she sputters. “They’re too small to warm your baby toe.”

“Nevertheless,” I persist pleasantly, and she shakes her head in what almost might be admiration.

“If you’re wanting mouse skins for something finer than a kitty-cat’s play-toy, there’s exactly one person you talk to, and I daresay you know who that is already,” she says dryly. “T’won’t hurt that her son is enamored of you, but can’t say it’ll make her any more amenable to the trade.”

She’s right – I should have known. Gale’s mother used to tan deerskins for Jack Everdeen, according to Prim, and there can’t be that many people in Twelve who know that art.

“And what does Hazelle Hawthorne do with all those mouse skins she refuses to sell?” I wonder, firmly ignoring the ridiculous reference to Gale having any sort of affection for me.

“She has very small young ‘uns,” the woman replies sagely. “I shouldn’t wonder.”

I chuckle and begin to turn away, but the woman’s hand is still firmly encircling my wrist, checking my progress. “Rabbits,” she grunts. “Squirrels. Weasels. I’ll even take a bat if you catch one. Anything with more meat on it than my thumb, and the furs are all yours.”

[lovely-tothe-bone]

@porchwood

I’ll always be drawing trees, trees, trees

[usamamoweek2022]

Featured author:

@sailormoonandme

Today's featured author is @sailormoonandme also known as AlEvans26 (on Ao3) or Al Evans (on FFN)!

Al Evans became a Sailor Moon fan at age 19 in college and feels like that's why he has a little different perspective on the series compared to most people. Besides Sailor Moon, Al Evans likes Dragon Ball, Doctor Who and Greek mythology.

What Al Evans says about his fanfictions:

"My OTP (for Sailor Moon) is Usagi and Mamoru, but I actually tend to write one-shots about miscellaneous characters in the Sailor Mooniverse. I tend to like connecting bits and pieces of canon. I wanna continue and hopefully finish writing an anthology I have been working on to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sailor Moon."

Featured Work: “thirty”

Throughout the millennia two souls have forever moved in time with the music of the universe…And one another. Mixed Manga/Anime canon. Written for the 30th Anniversary of Sailor Moon.

Rating: Teens and up

"Thirty" is part of Al Evans' "Sailor Moon Anniversary Anthology" and you should definitely check it out!

Things people have said about his work:

"And here we go again: I'm in tears.😭😭😭 This was so beautiful, painfully beautiful. 💗 " (On Thirty)

"This was beautiful and emotional. You know I love it when you write impressionistically. And thank you for giving so many words to my favorite boy. You captured the deepest essence of Mamoru in this piece and it was very touching. Well done!" (On Incomplete)

"Aww this was so cute!! I don’t think I’ve ever actually read anything with this premise, which is impressive for the amount of first season fics out there." (On Friendly Relations?)

Links to socials:

Find Al Evans on AO3, FF.NET

💕To see the prompts for this year's UsaMamoWeek click here💕

[sloaners]

Gotta ask: does Zetsu have a role in Mooniversity?

He does!! He pops up as a little sentient potted plant that Kaguya leaves with Sakumo when she goes off on a “field expedition” for a “giant tree,” whatever that means. Zetsu then grows alarmingly big, alarmingly quickly, over the summer as Sakumo is finalizing his dissertation for submission and defense in September..... 🥚

[dorkcentric]

A Reminder

It can be so good to go back and read things you wrote years ago.

Today I’ve been reading an old comfort fic I wrote about 7? years ago, and it’s been....man it’s been wonderful. It doesn’t matter how out of character or overpowered people are, it doesn’t matter how awkward the wording is, it doesn’t matter how nothing really makes sense.

It’s so fun.

Rereading the original Mooniverse has just reminded me of all the things I love. I see everything that meant so much to me, as nonsensical as it is, and I just laugh - not because I think it’s stupid or ridiculous, but because it’s cute. It’s magical. It’s basically the embodiment of my creativity and all I want to do is go back in time and encourage my younger self, “Keep going! Keep writing! Keep having fun doing what you love!”

I started that fic when I was going through a very rough time. Years later I can still feel the love I poured into it, my heart and soul, no matter how goofy it is. It meant everything to me then, and it got me to where I am today.

Don’t forget your old writing. Don’t make fun of it, and don’t throw it away. Don’t say it’s worthless because you can do better now.

Everything you write holds a part of you. Everything you write will always be with you. And I love that so much.

So to 16 year old me: You keep on going with your anime crushes, your OP characters, and your plotlines that make no sense at all. As long as you have fun!

[lovely-tothe-bone]

If you haven't started this and When the Moon Fell in Love with the Sun, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND READ BOTH NOW

[HUNGER GAMES]

Six Months to Strawberry Time

The day after New Year’s, Madge Undersee goes to the Hawthornes’ to talk business.  

by mejhiren

Teen

Link

[whatisonthemoonarchive]

When I heard the DP message 5 decades ago, the center of the cosmos in the Individual Pledge was myself. By the time I graduated the Mooniverse, Moon was the center and now his wife and family are the center. Talk about mind manipulation and control!

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Personal Reflections – from Don, Domino and Frank

‘Often people make major decisions based upon dreams or visions that they later regret.'    WIOTM

Don Diligent: For a person to have to accept the cold fact, that the “Messiah” is no longer the “Messiah”, based upon new information that was not available at the time of one’s “conversion”, is truly a tragic moment in one’s life.

I too, like Doris Orme & Phillip Burley, had my own experience that I thought was coming directly from God which led me to accepting Sun Myung Moon as the Messiah. At the time of my conversion, I was actually looking for the Second Coming of Christ.

What I should have done at the time, which never occurred to me, was to employ the advice from the Bible that says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

This is a very important verse for many of us to digest. For once coming to the realization that Sun Myung Moon is not the Second Coming of Christ, we need a way to put things into proper perspective which this Bible verse helps us to do.

We all need to be patient with ourselves as we go through this awakening process of who Sun Myung Moon is in reality. As part of my own process, for the last four years plus, I have become dedicated to researching the history of the Moon organization...

Good luck to us all in our process towards fulfillment and happiness in our lives. Life after Mr. Moon has many things waiting for us if we just keep looking ahead with hope.

Sincerely,

Domino: I think that in my case, and I believe it is also the case for many others, I have allowed my own visions and core values to be linked with the Unification Church / Family Federation for World Peace and Unification as it presented itself initially, with seemingly tolerant and open views about the world and religions, as its name implies.

Though in reality I had to put aside all my beliefs, including doubts – they were considered Satanic and a hindrance to spiritual growth.

As John H. points out in his recent posts, a black and white view of the world followed, and we were made to either accept the whole package, or leave, with the undertones of an apocalyptic urgency and personal failure if one would dare to actually leave.

I don’t think like Robert Maynard (answering to Frank F.) that you can differentiate the movement, its views and Moon. I think it’s the same package all along, even if Moon may have borrowed other’s ideas to make them his own. But eventually Moon and the whole system of beliefs were intertwined, including the “Korean centered” view of history, status and Kingdom of God.

As we now face more and more evidence of the fallacies surrounding the beliefs and integrity of Moon himself, we (well, it’s my view) are left to review ourselves and recover, or restructure our sense of self and core values.

Some still believe in God or even another Moon’s sect (Sanctuary or one of the others) ; some have joined Christian faiths; some remained happily married, yet with lingering doubts about the origins and true purpose behind building the church (political agenda, CIA conspiracy, etc.).

And some, like me, are now agnostic with skeptical views about most organized religions. I still, however, hold a sense of hope and a desire to live a moral (ethical) and fullfilling life.

The ‘what if’ thought pattern of the Divine Principle, so often mentioned, such as ‘what if Jesus would have been accepted by the Jews?’ and later on, ‘what if Moon was accepted by the American congress?’ has now at last faded from my mind – to be replaced by ‘what would I have done during the main decades of my youth, my twenties and thirties and late forties?’

I am still working on my dreams and am happy for having regained my freedom of thought, even the freedom to learn from my mistakes.

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been”  George Elliott

Frank F.:

One of the things that repelled me about Moon very early on was his capacity to judge others harshly. Sometimes even in very personal terms. “You are a failure!!!!” When we become parents, we quickly learn that this type of language has the opposite effect that we desire for our beloved children. ...

Reform versus Retribution

To Robert Maynard,

Everybody who leaves the UC / FFWPU goes through a period of mourning because of the investment that we all made. Then comes the resentment as we become aware of the depth of the betrayal. Then comes the activist stage depending on who we are. I struggled so hard through my marriage that I don’t believe I fully processed all the stages of recovery. In the end, my wife decided on her own to reject the Mooniverse and it was mainly due to their own folly.

The point is that everybody goes through their own process of development and nobody is more aware of this particular process than the perpetrators of cults. If I was ever to advocate for a reform platform, I would suggest that local members demand control of local assets and formulate their own initiatives. Historically Moon was absolutely against any form of decentralized control and railed against “American individualism” at every opportunity. I believe that his wife and progeny harbor the same sentiments so it will probably get ugly. Judging from the way that they handled highly placed whistle blowers recently and the official response of the appointed American leadership, they appear to have anticipated such a scenario. I don’t mean to discourage you though. The public debate is very important and I wish there was a way to engage the remaining members. However, if Mark Bramwell’s post is any indication, they are not flexible enough even to consider the flaws of their leadership and the theology.

––––––––––––––––

http://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/180903064857/re-the-remnant

Thanks Robert, for the thoughtful post and I appreciate your choice of Prophet Isaiah in this case. Keep in mind that Isaiah was one of the righteous Prophets that was executed by the King of the Israelites. He did what he could to guide the “stiff necked Jews” to God and is respected by all for his wisdom. He is also reputed to have prophesied to Jesus Christ and Mohammed.

However, Rev. Moon wasn’t a prophet or even a reliable religious leader. He was a charlatan first and then a businessman. Cheon Il Guk isn’t a nation but is at best another Korean chaebol and a rather shabby one at that. 

One of Kook Jin Moon’s solutions to the liabilities of the Japanese church was to effectively bankrupt them by moving assets offshore and allow them to go into debt. 

There is zero accountability at the top of this organization and the members (the remnants), need to understand that. Thanks to people like you, they are starting to wake up. The next step is to motivate them to take initiative on the local level to organize and take control of local church assets. I think a good example exists in the Oakland area where they have cultivated a separate identity and a leadership council. What is the identity of your local church representatives? This is the problem. If they do not identify with FFWPU (Hak Ja Han) or Hyun Jin Preston Moon or Hyung Jin Sean Moon, they are effectively ex-members, which means they have rescinded any claim to the church “remnants”. I believe all three factions favor and even encourage that arrangement.

This is where it gets tricky because there are thousands of former moonies that invested their precious lives, then walked away, or graduated when they realized it was a fraud. Legally they have no claim to make because they no longer identify with the movement or its stated goals. 

One of the challenges that people in your position have is how to define the belief set of your group above and beyond rebels… or protestants. “We believe in the eloquence and vision of the false prophet but not what he does in reality.” That is a start but it needs more work...

Frank Frivilous

Korean Bone Rank System – Moon gave the church businesses to his blood relatives

Sun Myung Moon used dreams to manipulate those around him

The six ‘wives’ of Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon – Restoration through Incest

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

[everlarkficquestions]

Do you guys know if there are any other fics inspired by/in WTMverse by Mejhiren?

Here is a link to all parts of the the Universe from AO3:

When the Mooniverse by Mejhiren

[mellythedork]

When I need you, you're there When I don't, you still linger Always waiting, always smiling Ready to listen or give advice You've helped me through so much Been with me for so long I rarely see you these days, but I know you'll always come back Thank you for jumping headfirst into my life before I knew I needed you And staying put so that you would be there to help me grow when I did

I first "met" Cassandra (right) when I was 12/13 years old. She was one of my very first OCs and oh boy was she super OP haha. She fell out of use after a while, and now about about a decade later I really wouldn't be able to describe that version of her very well. But, in a way, she's kind of been reborn recently as my new mermaid Callandra...which was like a...second version of her name, or something...? I don't know, I really don't, I just remember that name was also somehow attached to that character lol. I "met" Megan (left) in very different circumstances, details of which I'd rather not get into as it's rather embarrassing. It was back in the beginning of 2013. It was a whim of the moment, and didn't go all that well in certain ways, but she just sort of...stuck on me. In the events that led to Mooniverse a little less than a year after Megan's arrival, I was...I really was not doing well for myself. I needed a way to cope with a very long-lasting RP I'd been in abruptly ending due to arguments. But god, I was scared. I felt very much alone. So Megan, who I'd already been sort of posing as real having given her a dA account, became my "Wizard of Oz curtain" I guess. I posed her as the author of Mooniverse. I don't fully remember my reasoning from that time, but I'd assume it was to escape any potential embarrassment or backlash. There were some people I confessed the truth to, feeling bad about lying to them. Thankfully all of that went fairly well. Cass joined the scene again at some later point, I don't remember when anymore. She'd been a twin when I'd first made her, Megan's OC was a twin, and so they just sort of...became each other's twins. Over time I added mention of other family, I staged interactions and art, and everything just sort of enveloped me as I got carried away. My goal was to be happy again and so it didn't matter how strange or over the top the story got. Eventually though, I did decide I wanted to rewrite it in a way that made more sense. I still have notes for the arcs of the original that I never got to...honestly, I still have all of those chapters! Aside from the very first, which I mistakenly saved over... During the rewrite, mostly near the end, it became clear to me that I was now clinging to something that was now holding me back. It was 2018 and I was still writing something that had been a coping mechanism for something I had steadily been learning more about and growing past. To be honest, there were still parts of the situation I wasn't really over by then. So I looked at the story, I looked at how far I'd climbed back up, and I made the decision to let it go before I ended up losing myself again. I've not seen much of the twins or their family since the end of Mooniverse. Not in any "real" capacity. But sometimes, when things feel really bad, when I need a smile or a phantom hug or just want someone to sit on my bed or in the car with me, they'll show up. Sometimes I'll vent a little to them, sometimes I'll just enjoy the company of people that, even if they aren't real, make me feel better just by existing. Even if they only exist in my head. March 19th is the birthday I gave them. They're "physically" 19 years old today. I just wanted to take a step back and remember how far I've been able to come thanks to them. Megan and Cassandra Grant are why I believe in the strength and power of OCs and imaginary friends. Even if someone isn't real, they can help you through so much. I am who I am now because of them.

[fictoryismine]

Oh hey, I actually posted chapter 19 on AO3!

So some hair concepts-- Ami's hair right now ranges from kind of

growing out like:

or usually like this when it's just been cut

But I'm really feeling something more like

Especially with the glasses though. I think basically, the top picture when it's what she'd consider long but leaving some of the length for the side bangs. It would've been chic af in the 90s. Also, I'm working from the assumption that she's a natural "bluenette" so no roots and that in the sailor mooniverse people can just be born with pink or turquoise hair.