Title: Rabbit of the Moon
Author: The Butterfly Defect
Rating: M
Genre: Angst/Friendship
Status: In-Progress
Library Category:
Pairings:
Summary: I never asked for this to happen to me. Hell, I was probably the last person qualified for the job, but here I was, trapped in the body of Tsukino Usagi. I was't a hero, or some savior of the universe, and these people were about to get a rude awakening. Tokyo would have to find a new moon princess, because this one wasn't available. SI-OC (slight AU) (Darker themes)
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11978790/1/Rabbit-of-the-Moon

In short, an SI pops into Usagi's/Serena's body before the plot starts, and mucks everything up. She is desperate to stay out of the plot, and tries to use cunning and her own plotting, along with knowledge of the first season, to try to stay ahead of everyone. She evades the plot far better than she should have, and far less than she wants to. The story is complete through the first arc, and is progressing into the second. It blends sailor moon and sailor moon crystal for plot points.

Cons: The SI is stubborn to a fault, and it shows with her slow character progression. She makes bad choices, bad consequences happen, and she doesn't change. She gets stronger, she recruits allies, but everything seems superficial, that she very slowly progressing. This may be intentional, but it gets a little frustrating 200k words in.

4/5 as a story. 5/5 as a sailor moon story. Still updating as of December 2020.

 

So, this was a fun read. it diverges from cannon enough to be fresh while still not needing to have super in depth knowledge of the series. It's currently in the second half of Dark Moon Clan saga (according to the Author) Estimating on the update rate may finish this arc by the end of 2021.

3.5/5 rounded up to 4/5 cause it's a niche audience anyways.

 

as of this writing i’m about 20-something chapters in and while the framework of the plot and the SI’s motivations are understandable, if hair-pulling worthy, there are a few minor details that just throw off my SoD.

things like her friend being so utterly blase about avoiding her family: obviously to be the best friend ever he would be understanding about her desire to avoid them, but i’m surprised he never made at least a half-token attempt to convince her otherwise. i can accept him eventually taking her side anyhow, because plot. but i cant imagine there wasnt even a, “what about your family?” moment.

less plot-relevant and more of a nitpick, but the author has a running joke of mangling ‘Dark Kingdom’ in their narration. tge issue i have here is when they say one of their alternate names out loud and nobody bats an eye. similarly when chibi-usa arrives to kick off the Black Moon Clan plot, she casually calls her by her english dub name of Rini when everyone else has been calling her Usa and again, nobody finds it strange. she even calls the girl by that moniker several times before they actually sit down and she has the ‘usagi + usa’ is weird. imma call you Rini now,’ talk.

finally, although this could be explained away by the SI only having bare knowledge of the dubbed anime ported over to saturday morning cartoons, she apparently has zero knowledge of the Outers. even if just to bring it up as a red herring, but the moment time-travel shenanigans began and she started an entire subplot to find ‘the third party’ i just had to roll my eyes at Pluto not ever coming up. not even anyone questioning how chibi-usa even managed time travel.

so far 3/5. i’m still reading to the end but the fact that i’m getting kicked out of the flow of the story so often to notice these sorts of things is really killing my enjoyment of the fic.