keyofnik: So I love this. I love that the girls run in from fucking NOWHERE to get between Nephrite and Mako. That Mako is so protective of everyone is a given really. Not in this universe yet so much (though even then a little bit with directing Usagi-themed traffic when she ran out earlier), but I’ll keep applying my view of the characters to this universe until shown otherwise. But the girls are EVERY BIT as protective of Mako back. She’s got such an open heart, and particularly when it comes to love, she can be so easily hurt. So they hear Nephrite saying “Oh, you’re big and tough and strong”, and they are INSTANTLY on the defensive for her. And let’s love for a second in their body language. Rei comes in and she’s instantly ready to throw down ove this. How DARE you think that’s all there is to Mako! SHE COOKS LIKE A GODDESS YOU ASSHOLE, I WILL FIGHT YOU. Minako just gliiiides in, so smooth. She looks like she’s walking a runway. Hand up. Excuse you, my friend Mako-chan is an excellent seamstress and you are an ignorant fuck. Then Ami too, AMI. Who is nervous and reserved in her body language, but doesn’t hesitate for a SECOND to point out that Mako is feminine. So feminine. A BUNDLE OF FEMININITY. I love how all of that comes together. The Shitennou don’t actually know the Senshi at all, so the only thing they can focus on is how they look. The most striking thing about Mako is her size and physicality, and so Nephrite picks on that. He’s actually doing it in an admiring way, but the other girls are SO protective of Mako, that’s not what they hear. All they hear is someone, yet again, judging Mako purely on how she LOOKS, and so they leap in immediately to defend her. That isn’t all she is, that isn’t even CLOSE to all she is, and how DARE you? But they’re a little too zealous in it. They’re all saying these things as “but” statements. She doesn’t look like it BUT. And that’s kind of not coming out like everyone intends, and so Mako’s like, “Guys? Not actually helping.” That’s a small and imperfect thing and I kind of love it. That’s not what THEY see, but they’re so used to — and SICK of — people never looking past the surface of their beloved Mako-chan. They’re responding from the heart, and the heart’s kinda stupid sometimes and doesn’t consider how things sound. That they’re being inadvertently insulting, that they’re reacting instantly and not thinking through how it sounds, is incredibly adorable and so real. These girls aren’t always perfect with each other. Sometimes they say shit that doesn’t come out quite right. But the love is there, the desire to protect each other is there, to the point where they are literally forming a barrier between Mako and anyone who doesn’t see her as wonderful and amazing as she is.
