Just a heads-up, temporal estimates are not particularly helpful when you’re in a space that exists outside of time

Can we just talk about how many times Usagi mustve threatened ChibiUsa with birth control like when she takes the last slice of cake”Oh come on Usagi do you really need another slice” “I dont know ChibiUsa do I really need to not go on birth control”

this happens on an hourly (and occasionally minutely) basis

most of the time when usagi says this, she’s joking

but sometimes

in a rare moment of genuine intention, chibiusa just starts

flickering

her limbs feel like they’re falling asleep, or like they never have

and usagi watches as her own willpower plucks the strings in the fabric of the timeline like a concert violinist

If Chibiusa starts disappearing from existence, I will wave my white flag of surrender and sink to my knees in defeat because I can’t

nanenna
replied to your photo

I heard once that Naoko regretted doing the future arc because she thought Mamoru was boring and if she hadn’t done it Usagi would end up with Seiya but I can’t remember when or where I heard that. Or maybe it wasn’t Naoko, one of the anime peeps?

This is really interesting! Regardless of who said it: I totally agree that having an arc that takes place in the future, especially so early in the series, severely limits the options for how events can proceed. 

If it was a matter of staying true to the soulmate of a past life, I don’t think Usagi would have too much of a problem with that. She can forge her own path and fate shall have no sway over her. It would actually be a really cool denial of the notion of “destiny.” However, now that she has the duty to protect the timeline that she has already worked so hard to preserve, her every move puts the future in jeopardy. She has a duty to give Chibiusa existence, and to give the citizens of Earth Crystal Tokyo. And all I had to worry about in high school was missing the bus.

prismatic-bell:

sailormoonsub:

I have yet to decide if this is an intentional continuity flaw, or if Usagi just has several incredibly similar photos stashed in various locations around her room.

HEY GUESS WHO FUCKING ADORES ANALYZING THIS STUFF

I’m going to go with deliberate.

The frame in the first and fourth pictures are the same, as are their outfits (Usagi’s uniform is very slightly different, but that can probably be put down to an actual error–her back bow is missing and her sleeves aren’t puffed.) In fact, in only one of these photos are the outfits different, and that’s the third one–which is also the only one with a different background. Likewise, it’s the only one with an “odd” frame–Mamoru and a wood frame would seem to go together (his fashion sense is terrible but his vehicles are on point, and in the first season when we see his apartment it’s pretty plain but in a “simple” way, not a “hideous” one), as though perhaps he gave this to her; Usagi and her rabbit frame, of course; but that purple frame? Totally not Mamoru, way too plain for Usagi.

I haven’t seen Stars and I don’t remember the episode numbers you gave, but were I to guess, I would say that the third picture is the moment Usagi is farthest away from being able to save her family; the fourth is the closest to that original picture, and needs only Chibs to complete it. This is when Usagi is most convinced she will reach her goal.

Great ideas! I also like to think that the future is always changing in subliminal yet overarchingly connected ways, whether choosing an outfit or having a daughter. At first I wondered why Usagi wouldn’t notice if Chibiusa was suddenly missing from the picture, but then I realized… if her past changed, then her memory of the past probably did too. And somehow that makes everything even more sad; not only can she not remember her daughter, she never knew her at all.

I always assumed it was because the timeline was wonky too. IIRC Pluto couldn’t be certain that Chibi-Chibi isn’t Usagi’s daughter for the same reason. I mean if your boyfriend got blown up on a plane, you probably don’t have a photo with your daughter from the future.

It seems like every single infinitesimal occurrence, decided or otherwise, changes the future timeline. But if the events between now and then are yet to occur, wouldn’t changes during that time also affect the future? If you go back and change the past, wouldn’t that already have happened in your present? And if Chibiusa came back and changed the past which indirectly caused her to cease to exist, would those changes still have been made?

Looks like it’s time to break this out again

See in the manga, Pluto’s future self committed the ultimate crime by stopping time and therefore her future self died. But her present self never commits this and therefore she remained throughout the series. But in the 90s version, Pluto in the future goes to the present time to watch after Chibiusa. But at the end of S she stops time, which kills her. So you’re right how it doesn’t make sense how she suddenly came back to life. Technically she’s suppose to be dead. Toei why you do this to us?

nikkiscarlet:

sailormoonsub:

I love Pluto so very much, but she makes no sense. Even if she died and a past (or alternate future) version of herself is traveling through time… wasn’t she supposed to be guarding the gates of space-time for all eternity? Fate of endless solitude and all that jazz?

[EDIT: a better and more concise version of what I theorize below actually turns out to have already been written here: http://guardress.tumblr.com/post/113799671016, but I’ll leave this here anyway because it was fun to write. :P]

My theory is that we’re seeing two Plutos in both versions. The first Pluto in both the manga and the anime was the one recruited/assigned in the Silver Millennium by Queen Serenity to guard the Door of Time, and she did this faithfully: she didn’t die with everyone else in the Silver Millennium, so she’s still the exact same person born during Queen Serenity’s reign. For all we know she actually pretty much did spend an eternity at the Door of Time right up until the Death Phantom and the Black Moon Family started futzing around with the time stream. 

In the manga, when she stops time to stop Black Lady, this first Pluto dies, and her starseed/Sailor Crystal/soul is reincarnated on Earth in the 20th century a little before the inner senshi are born: she’s shown as a college student at KO University who has to have her powers reawakened. This is Pluto #2: an actual contemporary of Usagi (AKA Princess Serenity #2) and her friends. This Pluto is no longer bound by her oath to Queen Serenity, having already dedicated her previous life to that assignment. In this new life, her (likely self-determined) task is to protect the timeline by taking a more active part in it — she knows/remembers how it’s supposed to turn out and she sees it as her mission to make sure it ends up as close to perfect as possible. Due to the fact that the Black Moon Clan did make some pretty definite changes to the timeline, there will be some things that are unavoidably different, and she’ll probably have to stop in at the Doors of Time to check in every now and again because there will be places in this new, branch-off timeline where her previous incarnation isn’t still standing guard, but for the most part she has a lot more freedom and can forge a new future for herself. Frankly I doubt Usagi/Neo-Queen Serenity would hold her to the same oath that Queen Serenity did anyway, unless it was determined to be absolutely necessary: in which case, I see Pluto as being the type to take up the duty again on her own, without Neo-Queen Serenity even having to ask her in the first place (perhaps even with NQS insisting she doesn’t have to).

So, basically, even though she dies “in the future” in the manga, it’s her past (Silver Millennium) self who died after a really, really long life: NewFuture!Pluto is Meiou Setsuna, who was born in Tokyo with the rest of the senshi in 20th Century Earth and is still a relatively young woman. She may well even get to hang out with everybody in Crystal Tokyo in the future.

It’s even possible that all of what happened with the Black Moon Clan was actually destined/predetermined, and her past self secretly knew that she would die and get to be reincarnated and, thus, be freed (she may have seen herself through the doors at one point or another, for example). In this case, it’s likely that there are points in time in which Sailor Pluto is literally in two different places at once. Handy!

In the anime it’s a little more dicey, but still kind of works. Pluto leaves her post against the rules in this version without much of an explanation (if I recall correctly) and without even apparently leaving someone else in charge: I mean, at least in the manga Diana volunteered to hold her spot for what she thought would be a quick rescue mission! But I guess we can assume that the damage caused by the Black Moon Clan has already caused ripples throughout time by this point and this, compounded by the threat of Pharaoh 90/Mistress 9/Sailor Saturn, causes her to say, “Oh, screw everything, I’m going down there before this mess gets any worse and there’s no longer any timeline left worth protecting.” In any case, when she stops time to save Haruka and Michiru, it is again her Silver Millennium self who dies, which allows for her Sailor Crystal to again re-emerge as Meiou Setsuna, born in the 20th century a few years before Usagi and co. Seeing as Sailor Pluto is the Guardian of Time, I don’t see it being all that complicated for her Sailor Crystal to reincarnate itself a couple of decades before her past-self’s death. Once Setsuna reawakens as Sailor Pluto and regains her memories (it’s possible that her previous incarnation already knew she would be reborn/knew her future incarnation was already walking around Tokyo, given that both of these incarnations share the same civilian name), she pops right back into the lives of the other senshi somewhere a little after the events of Sailor Moon S. Without offering any solid explanation whatsoever. Because ain’t nobody got time for that. And everyone just kind of rolls with it, because it’s not like they haven’t all had their fair share of seemingly impossible resurrections, so … meh.

And, again, it’s likely that this newly reborn Pluto will get to live a full, active life with the other girls, straight through to Crystal Tokyo and whatever lies beyond, and we can assume that there’s likely some overlap in which some version of her past self is still minding the door of time outside the time stream while her present self kicks all the butts on Earth. One could make the argument that the very fact that she leaves the doors of time at all means that there’s a gap in time somewhere where the door is left unattended, but we can handwave that by, again, assuming that either her present self checks in and stands guard for a bit … or we can just say “Wibbly wobbly timey wimey mumble mumble … .” and call it a day. Time may well operate differently in her realm.

I like this headcanon because it’s optimistic: she’s this kind of tragically lonely figure who, through death and rebirth, finally gets the same chance at freedom and living her dreams that all the other girls got, while still staying true to her profound sense of duty. :3

(Pluto is my favourite: I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff!)

—-

As a completely unnecessary, purely speculative addendum (just for fun): Maybe Queen Serenity never even really intended Pluto to spend all of eternity at the Door anyway, but rather just wanted to keep a player off the board and observing the events of the timestream long enough to step in
and offer up the right Deus Ex Machina at the right time. Maybe
Queen Serenity herself had spent some time at the Door of Time, or perhaps
she simply had prophetic powers — meaning she would have some idea of how things might play out in the distant future (maybe not all of the specifics leading up to that point: she certainly didn’t seem to have seen the destruction of her own kingdom coming, or at least not the method of its destruction), and planned around it by telling the very dutiful Pluto that she needed her to stay there for all eternity, while knowing that she would eventually break that rule only because she felt she had a higher duty to the world and the Royal Family. From a fanfic-y perspective, I kind of like the idea of Mama
Serenity as chessmaster. :3

Happy Time Travel Tuesday, everyone!

What a perfect day to consider Baby Pluto at the gate of time, unaware that she is ultimately doomed to one day forsake her duty, only to be granted a second chance in the form of a human life. 

What a perfect day to cry softly to myself.

I think she can be away and at the gate of time at the same time. Since she can guard the gate of time, go to present time and do stuff, then go back to the gate of time at the same time she previously left it at, so technically she never left it. Or another thing that could’ve happened is that after she broke the taboo of stopping time, her punishment was to stay at the time gate for a while, so after she finished her punishment, she went to the Stars timeline. Or just say tht time is confusin.

I do not pretend to understand that which is not my domain. 

I have no knowledge of paradoxes or alternate selves.

I am but a humble farmer tending to her blossoming crops of Comic Sans captions.

Chibiusa is erased from time > Hotaru never learned friendship > Mistress 9 won > The world was swallowed by nothingness

NEHELENIA HOW DOES THIS HELP YOU

If Chibiusa is erased from existence in the future, then would everything she did in the past also disappear? For instance… all of SuperS?