Note: Sometimes -especially when writing a story this big- one has to step away and come back to it afresh. It took me this long to realize why I was still unsatisfied with it. I was unsatisfied with it because it was not finished - at least not in terms of what it was all about in the first place. I now realize what I was writing about all along. I am now in the process of "adjusting the story" to include that central, missing piece (which will amount to a brief history of The Origin of the Moon Kingdom. It will be told by addition to extant dialogue - especially when Hotaru is talking with Setsuna after their falling out, and here and there in that part of the story that represents this particular trajectory in it.) I do not know when I will get it done. I'm not even sure I'll be able to do it. If I can, the overall sequence of events will remain unchanged, but that one crucial element must be blended in. A few things might be cut to make the fit correct. I will work on it when I have time, and then, perhaps by the new year (2011), I will have it in rough form. Then I will continue editing it, for I think, that it is a story with at least a little merit. I will leave an update when I post an edited chapter.

Update 11-30-10 Work continues. I've gone through a few of the chapters making small, necessary additions regarding the above, and corrections along the way. The big additions will take longer. I do think I have in hand what I am going do and it may not be necessary to do it as a separate story, if I keep it to the basic points of how this "origins of the Moon Kingdom" idea relates to this story and specifically to Hotaru. It is now clear to me that she - that is, Sailor Saturn- would have figured in a very prominent way, given what she represents. However, at this point, I am still not clear when or even if I will finish this. At this point, it's about 60-40 in favor.

Update 10-23-10 The story passed 30,000 hits today. That may not be as significant as it seems, especially considering it has 44 chapters. For all I know about this kind of website, it may be nothing at all, except that I did not expect this story to garner more than a few readers. So if you've read it, or come back and read it again, many sincere thanks!

Work continues on the thing mentioned in the note above. It has been a long, hot and busy summer, but I may have some time and energy to put into finishing off and adding that final idea in the months to come. I hope.

Update 03-18-10 I have edited Chapter Five Part 3 and added a bit to it. I may edit it a bit further, but not tonight.

Update 03-09-10 Having realized that Chapter Four Part 4 is almost 11k words long, I have split it into two parts. The second part is now the first part of Chapter Five. This accounts for the "New Chapter Email" that will have gone to a few of you. There are no new chapters, just a reconfiguring of the current story divisions.

Update: 03-07-10 Chapter 5 Part 1 edited. May clean it up a little more tomorrow.

Update: 03-02-10 I have edited parts 3 and 4 of Chapter 4. Moving on: Chapter 5 has a few things I really want to rework. It'll take some time.

Update: 02-19-10 I've added a bit of new stuff to Chapter 4 Part 1, and edited it and Chapter 4 Part 2. Also, this story is getting close to 25,000 hits. Bumping it to the front pages again helped of course, but thanks for reading, whoever you are. It is very much appreciated.

Thanks to all who have read or perhaps revisited this story.

Greetings!

I am going to use this profile page to say a few things about my first (and only) Sailor Moon story. First of all, I am not an anime fan. I am a fan of a few specific anime, for reasons other than the fact they are anime.

Second, this story has a non-canonical, original character who serves as the foil for the 'literary diagnosis' I am attempting. As such, it is necessary to spend a lot of words developing the character, much in the same way that the Sailor Stars series spent a great deal of time developing Seiya and his (her?) burgeoning relationship to Usagi, (as well as Taiki and Yaten, and their relationship to the Inner Planet Senshi.) Really, you can think of this non-canonical protagoinist as a Seiya for the Outers. In fact, as a suitor, he's even going up against the same guy, though in a different way, with a different Senshi, and with a better chance than Seiya had. It is a romance, and so the love interest must, regrettably, be invented, explained, and the relationship to the known characters developed properly, before getting to the fun stuff. If he seems too good to be true, well so was Idol Seiya in a lot of ways. Also, remember, as Maj. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington said, show me a hero and I'll prove he's a bum. The character has a history that will explain why he seems so polished.

I also should mention this is a crossover story. As those who have followed it now know, I am using an extrapolation from C.S. Lewis's "Cosmic Trilogy". I want to make it clear that I have understood Sailor Moon, and truly respect the its creator’s stated intention in creating it. I hope the preceding chapters show this. Setsuna and Hotaru and the relationship between them is really what this story is about. To tell it however, I have introduced what might be seen as a male Senshi. As Takeuchi-sama’s displeasure over the handling of the Anime Sailor Starlights will suggest, it is a bit of a crime to suggest “Male Senshi” of any more definite “Senshi-ness” than “Mamoru ‘Protector of Earth’ Chiba.” I understand why. Sailor Moon is a story that Takeuchi says “brings out myself and feelings of girls.” Well and good. Heaven knows there are more than enough stories for boys. I respect Takeuchi-sama’s expressed intention in the series. But more on this later.

It’s here that we get into some of those reasons why I wouldn’t have read this story if I hadn’t written it. I have seen a few other stories with male Senshi. Perhaps I am being unfair, and they were not representative, but the ones I read were thoughtless drivel with no justification other than to intrude upon the fun, a sort of barely literate, if at all, panty raid. If one thinks of the Sailor Moon story as one big womanly heart, there are ways to touch a woman’s heart, and ways to suffer “complete defeat” at the attempt. I might be subject to the same accusation, but I will justify my OC by saying, with the utmost respect, that Lewis, in his own inimitable way, beat Takeuchi to the original set up by about 60 years. Lewis’s characters were being instructed in and empowered for interplanetary warfare by planetary guardians long before Sailor Moon came along. If I did not have such a justification, I would have never introduced such a character, but it was the similarity between Lewis’s planetary eldila, and Takeuchi’s planetary guardians that first made me mildly curious about Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (BSSM). When I first saw it (DiC version, to boot!), I thought it was the silliest thing I’d ever seen. Then a friend, whose judgement I trust in such matters, said I ought to give the storyline and characterizations a chance, because there were some things of merit in it.

I did so, but only after getting the show in the original with fan subs. You have to see this thing in the original language to really get how endearing it is. I liked the Classic arc, but it was the Nemesis Arc, with its pagan eschaton – Takeuchi’s New Jerusalem, Crystal Tokyo - that made me take the story seriously, for a host of reasons I cannot go into without writing a theological dissertation. And it is there we first meet the sad-eyed, serious, and (whether in the manga or the anime) strikingly drawn Setsuna Meioh/ Sailor Pluto. I was hooked by the third series, because of the adorable and very tragic Hotaru Tomoe: the Little Firefly that Could. I don’t say my attempt to merge these two galaxies really works, but to show my appreciation for the enjoyment I have received from BSSM, I am attempting this story.

There were two things that got this story going in my head. Both are found in the Manga. The first is in the Snow Princess Kaguya story. All the major characters, save Hotaru, are sitting in a coffee shop as Christmas Eve nears. (Christmas Eve is more like Valentines Day in Japan.) It's starting to snow outside, and all the characters who don't "have someone" are lamenting their pathetic state. Even Setsuna joins in. "One does not wish to be lonely," she says, looking wistfully at the falling snow. She, better than anyone, should know. So okay then, apparently Setsuna / Sailor Pluto thinks about loneliness a little. So the question is just what kind of guy would it take for her to ... and how much of her own nature and character would have to be overcome to ... you will see what I think in this story.

The other much more important quote in question is found in the the Sailor Moon S Manga: what did Sailor Saturn, the Senshi of Ruin, mean when she said "Beautiful, this suffering in the moment of destruction," as she drove the Invader from the Tau Nebula back into his dimension? Trying to make sense of that is the driving force of this story.

Mind the epigraphs a bit. I make no pretense to originality. Except for a very precious few, originality is the art of concealing your sources. Some of the epigraphs are intended to be funny, some ironical and some revelatory. All of them hint, in some fashion, at what is to come. Also, there are at present over 32,000 Sailor Moon stories here. I imagine everything I do has been done, and done to death. I came in at the tail end of this fandom. Alas. For I am putting a lot into this story.

Finally, as I've mentioned, this is a fan story that breaks six or seven of the rules I have for fan stories I might possibly think about reading if I don't need to grout my bathtub or stack "BBs" in the corner. As such, I don't blame anyone for NOT reading it. If I hadn't written it, I wouldn't read it either. So, you've been warned.

If you do go ahead and read it, there's a lot to choose from here, so thank you very much. I enjoyed teasing out these characters, so I hope it satisfies on some level.