Blackberry Smoke, "Run Away From It All" (YouTube link and lyrics sheet)

Gatesong, but the repeated "we can run away from it all" means Doug has to take a passenger.

This story is now available on AO3.

Meh. It's short, so have a copy. Explanatory note, if you need it, is also on AO3.

Writers, please check the Drafts list on AO3 before end of day August 31. I came up with something that might fill a gap in the posting schedule... if you'll let me post it. (I can't be the first person to think of the plot gimmick, but it is a bit silly...)

Bob, I'm having trouble with the PM system. If I specify more than one person to receive the PM, it claims that none of the recipients are registered. Even if I pull them off my Buddies list.

"Immortals", by Fall Out Boy

Official music video

Lyrics


So, Eimi, what do you think this might do?

"Well, Rob, I expect that this one only works if somebody who Doug wants to spend the rest of his life with is in the area of effect. ('I try to picture me without you, but I can't.' So, Maggie. Or Makoto.) While the song is playing, that person and Doug are... say it with me... immortal. Maybe Doug could push the effect to include teammates or close friends as well, the first time he plays the song... but I wouldn't count on it, and he'd still need to include that special person who he'd rather not live without."

Any drawbacks?

"Yes. It's only three minutes and nine seconds long, but three minutes of immortality might be enough depending on what sort of emergency they need to live through. And there's nothing in the song that says they'll survive in one piece, just that they'll survive. Doug had better have a healing song queued, just in case."

Note: please use the commentary thread for all discussion.  This will keep the story thread uncluttered and easier to peruse.

1

Boondocking is where someone literally camps out with their RV, relying only on it's own facilities without any shore power, water, or sewage connections.

2

Surge Brakes are mechanically operated automatic brakes for trailers that are heavy enough to mandate having a braking system.  Though transportation codes in the USA technically specify electric brakes, surge brakes are generally accepted as well due to having a certain advantage.  That being that they automatically apply themselves in power that is proportionate to the towing vehicle's deceleration, granting smooth, gradual braking without sacrificing the ability to make an emergency stop.  For electric trailer brakes to have this?  They require more sophisticated electronics than what standard electric brake controllers possess, and they usually need to be recalibrated if and when switching from one trailer to another.

Yeesh.  I really oughta clean up in here.

Speaking of cleaning up, I've still been working on this ghastly thing.  And this is, in part, thanks to my gaining an even better understanding of Tenchi Muyo.

Now, the most important thing to understand about TM is that it has a number of different continuities for you to choose from.

The most controversial being the original OVA series, guided primarily by Masaki Kajishima.  Why?  Because this show - this specific continuity, even - was the trope-namer for the ultimate solution of who to marry: The Tenchi Solution (aka Marry Them All).

Once this tidbit came out, there were a lot of Ryoko-fanboys here in the USA (the largest faction by far in this theater of the Waifu Wars) that had autistic meltdowns over this because, in their head-canons, Ryoko should be Tenchi's one and only, and all the others are trash.  And from that point on, all of them just kept looking for ways to hate on the OVA series, including spreading the rumor that Masaki Kajishima drove all the other creative minds away.

(BTW: This rumor is utterly false, and the people he supposedly "drove away" would dearly wish for you to stop spreading that rumor.  This rumor came by way of Masaki Kajishima and Hayashi Hiroki talking things out after the production of OVA 1, and coming to the realization that their creative visions differed quite wildly.  So, rather than be at loggerheads over it, they agreed amicably to part ways.  Kajishima has otherwise been kind, generous, and supportive of everyone else's endeavors, going as far as to even share his own story notes and character designs with others like Naoko Hasegawa.)

And despite some of the hate this continuity gets, it's the one that's most popular with fans back in Japan.  Probably because Kajishima-sensei's vision for this has always been something like the old Japanese TV-serial period dramas about feudal samurai lords and their intrigues, served up with a scoop of romantic comedy, and garnished with science-fiction.

And then there's the sheer scope of this story.

It literally spans eons, outdoing other more well known franchises like Star Wars or Frank Herbert's Dune saga.  

And this isn't just something that's buried in apocrypha.  Both animes, Proton: The Idiot Adventures and Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure are part of this continuity, and occur millions of years before the events of the OVA series.

In essence?  Maskai Kajishima is telling a never-ending story.

But even here on The Forums, the show has it's detractors.

I know Bob doesn't like it because of something that Washu did to Ryoko.  To which I contest that the other incarnations of Washu are even more screwball - one continuity even has her as an outright criminal and Ryoko was an actual space pirate and her partner in crime.  As for what happened in Kajishima's rendition that Bob didn't like?  It was the whole thing at the end of OVA 2 where Washu had locked up Ryoko in her lab in what was pretty much a sensory deprivation chamber.  (Which is actually a thing some psychologists may prescribe, though this is usually with the patient's consent or that of the patient's parent/guardian.  It is considered to be especially therapeutic for people with severe Autism as it grants a momentary respite from the outside world that overwhelms their senses.)

But Washu had a purpose in mind when she did that - that being breaking Ryoko's psyche so that she could be rehabilitated.  The whole thing with her making Ryoko "cry for mommy" was supposed to get her back in touch with her own humanity, which had been buried under hundreds of years of heinous acts when she was under the control of Kagato.

But even so, it rubbed Bob wrong to have it done that way.  It probably isn't helped by the fact that Washu was actually enjoying hearing Ryoko cry for mommy.  But this is one of those things you have to take with a grain of salt.  Washu literally has 20,000+ years of contiguous life-experience, and with all the highs and lows that such a long life implies.  She's gonna have a bit of Blue-and-Orange morality going on, and thus come off as being at least somewhat unhinged.  (Also, keep in mind that Washu's feelings towards Ryoko are similar to that of Hild towards Urd in Oh! My Goddess - she wants Ryoko to acknowledge her as her mother without any reservation.)

And I know Brent doesn't like it because they took his favorite dojiko from the series, Mihoshi, and gave her background a story that has actual substance to it.  He didn't seem to like the idea that Mihoshi inherited an ability to passively warp causality to her favor from her several-greats grandmother, Washu, and that she often does so unwittingly as she bumbles around.  Or that she was once-upon-a-time a very competent (if still kinda clumsy) police detective and the reason she seems so airheaded now is because of an accident she suffered while in the pursuit of her duties as a detective.

But this all makes sense if you think of the Galaxy Police in Tenchi Muyo as an actual organization committed to upholding the law in the greater galaxy, and not just a collection of straight-men who only seem to exist so that a punchline can be pinned on them.  Otherwise, if Mihoshi had always been like that?  Then she would never have made the cut to become a detective.

Instead, Brent much prefers the idea that Mihoshi is just an adorable airhead who is incredibly clumsy and somehow has the luck of the heavens on her side.  It's a much more simple, cut-and-dry archetype that is an easy source of comedy.

In fact, from what I've pieced together, he seems to like most of his characters to be simple as he grew up on Carl Barks's Disney comics.  With certain exceptions, of course - those being the Hero-That-Saves-The-Universe archetypes like Utena Tenjou and Tsukino Usagi.

But that's not to take anything away from Brent.  I myself grew up on Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and it shows whenever my Sneaky-Playful Trickster side comes to the fore.  But some part of me, even back then, knew and understood that these were simply caricatures.

To me, real "characters" were the ones who had incredible and utterly life-altering adventures - like Atreyu and Sebastian in The NeverEnding Story, and Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in Star Wars.  And characters like Bugs Bunny and Jerry Mouse simply existed to show you how to pull the rug out from under someone.

Thus, unlike Bob and Brent, this is why I like Kajishima's Tenchi Muyo.  I deeply appreciate stories where, even if they are following the basic archetypes, each character is their own person with their own story, and it just happens to tie into this greater story like threads in a tapestry.  Everyone has a motive.  Everyone's actions have repercussions.  From the drollest of side-characters to the most heinous of villains.  There is no true status quo as everything is in motion and ever changing.  And even though it may often rhyme, history is not repeating itself over and over again.

That said, I'm still going to be borrowing a bit from the mangas drawn by Hitoshi Okuda in order to inject a little more space opera into the overall plot.  It's not too hard to transplant the characters and events since the Okuda manga diverge from the OVA timeline after OVA 2.  However, there are still changes that I need to make to make them all compliant with Masaki Kajishima's cosmology.

As for Garrick here?  He's still based on me, but with a few caveats.

Here's something to wrap your heads around: what would a Mary Sue in real life be like?  What drives a person to be that kind of "perfect"?  What happens when you deconstruct the trope and build up a living, breathing person around that framework?

I can assure you from my past experiences: What causes someone to become Mary Sue is nothing good.  Nothing good at all.

You see, this is one of my biggest personality flaws - that I have the in-born autistic trait of wanting to get everything right.  And my stepfather made it even worse by demanding utter perfection in everything I did, and punishing me every time I failed to meet his expectations... which were so extreme that even a competent adult would have difficulty doing.

And as if that wasn't enough, that led to me pretty much being brainwashed to think that I am nothing special.  After all, how could I be anything but pond scum if I can't even accomplish "simple tasks"?

And, unfortunately, this is something that Real Life has done a very, very good job of reinforcing with this world becoming ever more demanding that people do everything perfectly and the slightest fuck-up is severely punished by sheer dint of "consequences" no matter what the boss might say otherwise.

(BTW, if you think using the term "brainwashing" is a bit strong here, then you obviously have no idea what child abuse is like.  See here: https://recovery.com/resources/mind-cont...ex-trauma/)

Naturally, this means that I'd constantly bend over backwards, trying to please everyone, unknowingly seeking validation for my very right to even *exist*, until my anxieties cause me to implode on myself.  So it's easy to imagine that even if I'm able to charm someone at first, they eventually leave me because my need to be perfect and validated is just too much to handle.

As you may have guessed, this means there is gonna be some serious deconstruction.  After all, this is a self-insert we're dealing with, and it's been long-established that the best way to do these kinds of stories is by deconstructing (and sometimes even reconstructing) the relevant tropes.

But this is gonna go a step further.  We're gonna be outright destroying a lot of the comedy tropes.  And you're gonna get to vicariously experience what it's like to be as uncertain, insecure, and isolated as I am.  And I don't mean that in the way most people typically are.  I'm talking about actual Anxiety Disorder and Pretender Syndrome - the seriously unhealthy shit that makes you scream, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?"

Guess what?  You're gonna find out exactly why.  And whether or not you've ever seen or heard of some of the things that makes a person like this?  It might even hurt to see it.  Because this shit is literally psychologically damaging to experience first-hand.

And in a setting like Tenchi Muyo where the most outrageously unlikely things can happen?  Where the unexpected can literally be lurking around the corner?  Where lives can be fundamentally altered like it's a "Tuesday" kinda thing?  You can crank that anxiety to the "11" that someone wrote in sharpie marker just past the spot on the dial that reads "10".

Why?  Because even if the end result is something someone might say is "a good thing", that doesn't always mean that the road there is a pleasant one.  Especially in deconstructions.

Also, going ahead, I've changed things a bit to having my SI yoinked at about 20 years in the future from the present me.  I passively hope that maybe things with my family will get straightened out and I'll finally be able to go to a university and get those engineering degrees I so dearly want to have.

Maybe when pigs fly.

One last thing, just so you know.  Most of this will be told in a Third-Person narrative style - this makes it easier to tell the story from multiple perspectives - but there will be introspectives that can only really be told as a First-Person narrative, so expect those sudden shifts accordingly.  And I'll try to find spots where I can inject some "Unreliable Narrator" into the narrative.  Just to keep you on your toes.  I know I may be preaching to the choir here, but you must always remember that it's all about the character's perspective, not yours.

Chapter One will be coming up next in it's own thread momentarily.

Both are giving Cloudflare 502 or 504 errpr pages zt the momwnt. Anuone have any ideas what's up?

"Lost Boys", by Phoebe Bridgers



Lyrics

The lyrics aren't a perfect match, but with a bit of nudging, this could be a simulacrum song. The thing is, why would Doug need a simulacrum of himself?

previous thread:
http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/s...?tid=14043

He's Always a Moron (Trump focused parody of Billy Joel's Always a Woman)

It''s been a while, hasn't it?  But, despite what some might wish for, I'm still around, clinging on for dear life.

And I know for sure they're thinking something along the line of "Here we go again, it's all about him all the time."

Well yeah, of course this is gonna be about me.  What the hell do you expect when someone decides to finally break the silence?

And really, as the thread's title implies, I have a good reason for that.

Earlier this year, in the month of January, my stepfather died.

It was not a clean passing.  He was riding his motorcycle, trailing behind my mother while she was driving the car when something happened.  We don't know what because it was night time out in the hinterlands on I-37, but it was horrible.  Shovels were involved, and that should tell you just how bad it was.

I know some of you might feel that I need to be comforted, but no, I don't.  This is mainly because I had the opposite sort of connection with him that everyone else did.  So instead, it's the rest of my family that are going through the grieving process, and there isn't much I can do about it.  All I can do are the more mundane things to make life easier on a person.

Some of you probably think ill of me after what happened a few years ago.  The same people who think ill of me probably know a bit about what I went through growing up.

But now that dad is gone, mom has come out with some... very alarming details that will take any pictures I've painted in the past from "bad feels" and outright into the territory of "fridge horror" - that belated realization that you don't quite get at first when you're watching/reading it... that is, up until you go to the fridge for some refreshments and it suddenly hits you.

How bad was it?  Buckle-up and hang on tight.  Rough doesn't even come close to describing it.

In essence?

I was raised to hate absolutely everything about myself.  Even though he would have insisted otherwise, my stepfather had no appreciation for me.  He wanted to change me into something I could not be.  And because I could not be that thing he wanted me to be?  He made me suffer by stripping me of everything.

You see, he didn't necessarily want me as a son.  He wanted me as something that he could be "proud of".  Something that made him look "good".

He wanted an appliance.  An automaton.  Something that he could program to function without faults, and carry out his directives.  Something that would not trouble him for anything at all, save for basic needs and necessities.  Something that appeared human by becoming an utter mockery of what a human is.

And it was pretty much just me he was focused on.

I bet you're thinking, "Oh god, it's a Cinderella story."

Folks?  Cinderella ain't got shit on me.  (Albeit the Disney version - the original Brother's Grimm version was a helluva lot darker.)

Let me demonstrate just how distorted things were in my family.

Quote:"Fishy needed a bath and a haircut."