[RFC] Being You is Deculture

[Black Aeronaut]

Thanks for all the technical fixes, everyone. They're all in the fix-list now.

I am Funaho Masaki-Jyurai, your prospective mother-in-law, but it is my most
(...)
Oh, the stories I can tell!  Those were such heady days leading up to my husband’s ascension to the Throne.  But that will have to wait for another time.  I’ll save them

Have we actually been told the story of Azusa's marriages and ascension to the throne? It's mentioned a few times in fics and the small bits of canon I've seen, but while it sounds like it would make for a pretty nifty prequel series I don't know if it's ever been explored in detail.

That tale is yet to be told, I think.  There's some details revealed in the Shin Tenchi Muyo light novels, but they're kinda scant as they're told mostly in flashback mode.  (I wasn't sure.  The translated version I saw wasn't very well localized.)

I gave him a wan smile of my own.  “It’s okay, Uncle Lynn.  After all, how much would I really love her if I tried to keep her to myself like that?  She is her own person, so she has this right.”

As they say, "If you love somebody, set them free. (o/~ Free free, Set them free o/~ ) If they don't come back to you, their heart wasn't yours in the first place."

Hey, Garrick figures that if it worked with Minagi, then maybe lightning will strike twice.  Besides, the portents look good to him so far, but Minmei could still go either way with this.

“Saints and heavens preserve us,” moaned Maistroff.  “We’ve been reduced to playing at matchmaking!”

Isn't Maistroff the intel guy? He of all of them should be used to the idea of a honey-trap, even it's basically the reverse of the usual situation here. If anyone, I'd expect Misa to be raising objections here, at least as a first reaction of an officer protecting her subordinates. Then she remembers the bit about the Bunnies making bunny-eyes at their spy trio, and realizes that it wouldn't take any more of a push than a typical "being a good freind and breaking the ice" situation to give it a fair shot. I would expect her to give the group a very stern eye while insisting that they're not going to get any kind of official word to that effect, though, and that there's not going to be even a hint of recrimination if the scheme doesn't take off.

Oh no.  Maistroff is the commander of the destroid battalions.  He is very much the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of the bunch - the no nonsense five rounds rapid approach.  Not to say he won't use more underhanded tactics, but you know how that goes.

As for Misa...  I'll see about tweaking the scene a bit.

Really, I need to know how well you guys think I nailed Minmei's reaction

Overall, it looks pretty good to me - she's gotten a big shock here, and it's clearly had an effect, but she's just as clearly working through it like the terrifyingly sharp little blade she's consistently been depicted as here rather than getting in a tizzy, and that's the important bit. She should probably be a little clingy with the Kyles while thinking about it, as her closest family present, since the prospect of leaving that behind is the most immediate effect of the new revelation. However big the idea of being part of a royal dynasty with real temporal power and the requirement of multiple other sister-wives may be as a concept, it's still just an abstract at this point, letters or no.

Pretty much what I was thinking.  And like I said before, the really big schism is going to be where he tells Minmei what sort of person Kaifun has become.  Which won't help the whole clinginess thing.

Though it's going to be fucking hilarious once he makes his intentions to marry Minmei public while on the Macross - the public backlash is going to be something else!  And people who were up in arms about Garrick being nearly old enough to be her father, they're gonna be caught between "Marry the girl to the old man" and "Marry the girl to her own cousin".

While it is technically legal in Japan, it's not exactly encouraged, either.  Though in some families they'll mercilessly tease a pair of cousins over how well they get along by asking them when the wedding is going to be or the father of the girl will jokingly say that the boy has the father's blessing.  But I don't think that will be happening here, especially after Garrick outs Kaifun's delinquency to Minmei's father.

But it would explain so clearly where Kaifun got the idea in the first place.

Thanks for putting this up, BA.  I know I've been waiting eagerly, but oh!  The lack of a decision from Minmei is an agonizing cliffhanger.  

I'm glad you enjoyed that, Bob.  And I'm glad that the cliff hanger, such as it is, is doing its job.  It can be pretty hard, sometimes, to pull this off in character-driven fiction.  But to me, this is so much better than resorting to character-breaking tropes like The Idiot Ball.  (God, I hate it when someone uses the Idiot Ball.  Having Ninja kick down the door is one thing - that can be legitimate as long as the motivations are there - but the Idiot Ball is such a cheap cop out.)

What they said. Oh, and somewhere in there, I believe you misspelled "polygamy" (as "polygymy").

I think he actually spelled "polygyny" (the specific form of polygamy that involves one husband having multiple wives and/or concubines) correctly, but that's just an educated guess.

Yeah, that's what it looked like to me.

Bingo.  I guess you don't see this usage very often because the spelling is so similar to 'Polygamy', which doesn't make the distinction - only that a person is married to multiple persons.

So, in the next few chapters we're not exactly gonnabe taking it easy - there's a lot that goes down. In fact, I'm surprised that no one noticed that the SDF-1 hasn't touched down on Earth yet - in canon, that happened almost the day after Our Heroes came back from their imprisonment. Here, they were just waiting a moment until Garrick finished his extended liberty because they now knew he had essential information for them. And Gloval was not about to risk the ship and the lives of the civilians when information like that was on the table.

And from there a lot of things are going to be happening at a rapid pace: Garrick and Minmei's visit to her parents, Gloval and Misa's concurrent visit to Anchorage... One thing that's already been butterflied is where Hikaru gets injured in a slightly botched Daedalus Maneuver, mainly because Hikaru doesn't come down on her quite as hard. (This because he remember's Garrick admonishing him for being too hard on her when she's already beating herself up for her shortcomings.)

Roy, on the other hand... Garrick is gonna make good on his promise to drag him back to the ship in Batroid mode. Roy will live, but his flying days are probably gonna be over. He'll hate being behind a desk, but he'll take a lot of comfort from Hikaru being placed in command of Skull Squadron, with Garrick there to help him along.

Though once it's clear Hikaru's got this, Garrick is going to be given his own squadron, but that comes a bit later - probably after Max and Mirya get married.

We'll then have our whirlwind tour of the world while the world itself has hit the "DO NOT PUSH UNLESS YOU REALLY FUCKING MEAN IT!!!" Button - replacing the leadership of the the military forces and scrambling to get shelters built by any means possible. And they'll also have their run-in with the Zentreadi, which will be FUN because this being over Canadian air-space, they're gonna also respond with their SV-52's.

And the point of the tour this time around, instead of Gloval trying to show the world that they are indeed alive and kicking, will be to pick up various supplies, repair crews, reinforcements, and also...

"Why are you sending us all these civilians!?"

"They're family of everyone on the SDF-1 - civilian and otherwise! They're all aware of the situation as well as the fact that, to be quite honest, they're probably safer with you than here on Earth. Besides, there's also this. These orders are for your eyes only, Commodore. Do not open them until you're in your office."

Gloval is in for a nasty surprise when he sees those orders: The Mayflower Contingency.