ChibiUsa/Tomoe Hotaru

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Pairing
Pairing: ChibiUsa/Hotaru
Alternative name(s):
Gender category: yuri
Fandom: Sailor Moon
Canonical?: no
Prevalence: common
Archives:
Other:
Forever Friends by riccardobacci
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ChibiUsa/Tomoe Hotaru is a yuri pairing in the Sailor Moon fandom.

Canon

Hotaru Tomoe was a lonely sixth grader who was bullied for her sickly nature and unusual abilities. In the anime, she first met ChibiUsa when ChibiUsa is chasing after her missing hat. In the manga, they meet when Hotaru saves her from a damion and heals her wounds with her aforementioned abilities. The two quickly become best friends, but Hotaru's illness and strange behavior worries ChibiUsa. During the Infinity arc, Hotaru swallows ChibiUsa's heart crystal and becomes the wicked Mistress 9, but eventually overcomes the evil to transform into Sailor Saturn. She returns the heart crystal in spirit, thanking ChibiUsa for being her friend. In the manga, ChibiUsa says it was like fate that they met.

The two don't see each other for a while afterwards, as Hotaru is turned back into a baby following the final battle with the Death Busters. She and ChibiUsa are finally reunited in Stars.

Sailor Moon Crystal brought the subtext back to the forefront, with every scene from the manga intact and Hotaru outright telling ChibiUsa she loved her at one point. [1]

Fandom

The pairing has a small but extremely devoted following that started around the tail end of the 90s and truly blossomed in the early 2000s. Fans took notice of how close ChibiUsa and Hotaru were and reasoned that they'd make a good couple, especially since ChibiUsa was Hotaru's first friend and Hotaru could be a bit jealous of ChibiUsa's other friends. Certain fans especially took note of the "it was fate that we met" comment in the manga, as well as a scene where the two were holding hands and ChibiUsa compared it to how Usagi and Mamoru always held hands. Usagi's breaking them apart could be seen as her noticing the budding romance, and thinking her future daughter was too young to date.

A pair of authors named Amazoness Duo were seen as the forerunners of the ship's fandom,[2] having written a substantial amount of fanfic for the pairing and even developing a timeline of events chronicling the girls falling in love, their courtship, and eventual marriage. They even gave the pair twin daughters from the future.

It was also common to pair the girls' evil counterparts, Black Lady and Mistress 9, despite the former being from a season ago and never resurfacing. At least one AU scenario has been formed from the possibility of the two meeting, however.

The pairing attracted some hate and controversy from both haters of ChibiUsa[3] as well as canon purists who believed she was straight and meant to be with Helios, whom she shared a deep connection with during the Dead Moon Circus arc. This led to some fans becoming defensive and lashing out at ChibiUsa/Helios shippers and Helios himself.

Fan Works

Fanfiction

Fanart

Fanvids

Archives & Fannish Links

References