;ranma.challenge.recursed-pages-are-scary

Disclaimer: All Ranma-1/2 characters and plot elements used here
are in fact the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her assigns,
and are used without their knowledge or permission. This is
fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose.

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                     Recursed Pages Are Scary

                     (a challenge response)

                        --siaru 18aug02



The idea had been quite simple. Ranma had found out from a
wandering Chinese emperor that stories were being written about
him and his varied friends, adversaries, fiancees, and other
well- and ill-wishers. They were stories which probed timelines
that Ranma couldn't see, and so added to their complexity and
stability, to the point where Ranma was easily the most
important living person in those worlds, and the Rand McNally
Atlas in those worlds had only one graphic page, copyright
Shogakukan.

Ranma had wanted some way to see into those worlds, so he could
learn new techniques that weren't taught in this world, or just
to enjoy peering into worlds where his mother wouldn't _dare_ to
question his manliness... but the silver dragon who accompanied
the emperor had told him that he'd have to be a outer-world
fanfic writer himself to do that.

So Ranma, using the logic and innovation for which the Saotome
School was famed, figured out that, since the universe was
curved, all he had to do was write a sufficiently recursive
fanfic, one that recursed far enough to wrap around, and then he
could, as he read the innermost story, read about himself in
this world, or any other such him that he chose.

Unfortunately, Genma had never made a big deal about innovation
or creativity in his son's education anywhere but in martial
arts (by precept) and the realignment of other people's property
lines (by example), so Ranma, once again trying to pull a novel
technique out of pure smoke, ended up just starting to write
whatever bubbled up from his deep mind and hoping that it would
do what he wanted.

The result was "Ghoul Days", in which Ko Lon discovered a Spring
of 1596CE among the Jusenkyo pools and jumped in, reverting to
her original seventeen-year-old form, then successfully won
Ranma as her husband and cowife by writing a fanfic. That
embedded story, "Ko Lon Fourteen", used a Spring of 1593CE; the
story inside that one, "Eleven One-Half", had yuri molestation
and was just plain nasty, and the series stopped iterating with
"Eggs Hell", where she jumped into the Spring of 1578CE and
ended up served with strips of bacon on one of Ucchan's
okonomiyakis, joining him forever _that_ way.

When Ranma had stopped shuddering after reading over _that_
work, he'd tried again. Unfortunately, his deep mind was still
just as uncooperative, turning out "Genma's Doubter", where a
suspicious Ukyo had hidden in the yatai moments before it was
stolen, tagged along to Jusenkyo, then got Ranma to be his wife
by cooking okonomiyaki with eggs and bacon and by writing a
fanfic. That story, "Cloves Make The...", was about Kasumi and
her discovery that anyone who ate Jusenkyo livestock, in this
case a wandering pig, would pick up a random curse themselves,
usually gender-based, and like it. Kasumi had become Ranma's
husband after writing a fanfic, "Pool of Drowned Ramen", in
which Shampoo...

The story didn't stop iterating, it just had a wilder and wilder
choice of husband for Onna-Ranma with every iteration, and he put
the story away, unfinished, when he realized what the
special-order mineral water in "Azusa Can't Drink" was likely to
be.

He tried once more, this time using a "crossover" effect the two
travellers had mentioned. Kasumi had most of the Sailor Moon
manga and anime, and he'd watched it through once when he was
new in town and checking out everything that might offer
inspiration for new martial arts techniques (he was sure Ryoga
must've seen that tiara-throwing bit somewhere, his
multiple-bandanna attack was so obviously based on it). Now he
tried adding Sailor Moon characters into a new effort. 

"Hello, Sailor 1/2" was easily the worst of the lot. On every
iteration, the matchup got more yuri and more debauched,
iterating through DPR, DSR, DPSR, DFR, DBS, DBMS, NPR, NBC, CBS,
ABC, MSFT, SMI, RHAT, LNUX, ESR, RMS, AFL-CIO and LS-MFT, the
latter matching him up with a king-size youma who was _always_
ready.

That's when Ranma had enlisted the help of the fiancee brigade.
Unfortunately, the results for Akane, Ukyo and Kodachi had been,
well, unfortunate. Every time one of _their_ stories had
iterated more than a few times, the writing had faded and they
had been surrounded by the iterated characters, mostly
cutely-deformed variations of themselves. Tendo-ke had truly
become a place for compound life. Two of the derivative Akanes
startd working on their own story, a doomed effort about a Punda
on Pern who thought he could ban thread.
 
Eventually everyone gave up but Shampoo, who had a natural gift
for it thanks to her Jusenkyo recurse, though, as she put it,
"Second/third/fourth/fifth cousin better, betcha -- she fall in
Spring of Drowned Gnu!" All of her stories featured variations
on her declared goal, that of making Ranma hers, and most of
them even featured her female and Ranma male. Ranma could
appreciate that touch, even if the plots themselves were
annoyingly incremental.

Perhaps that was the key, though: to come up with plot
variations which were based on a strongly-visualized storyline,
and which changed very little in each iteration. Once the
technique was worked out, he could write his own stories using
it, with whatever matchup he liked, so he used uncommon patience
in reviewing Shampoo's tales. This was just one more time where
he'd play along long enough to learn an Amazon technique.

The story Shampoo had just finished, "Amazon
Heart-To-Heart-To-Heart", iterated several hundred times, and
introduced a novel barrier-breaking twist where, as soon as the
fanfic in the story was done, the Mousse in the surrounding
story would renounce his quest to win that Shampoo, and jump
into the fanfic to begin wooing the Shampoo within it. 

As soon as Shampoo had written the final words of the story
("--and, pacified, Mousse jumped into the page and vanished
forever.") and stacked the pages together, she had noticed that
the wall behind Ranma had a different texture now, and was
obviously no longer a barrier between the tearoom and Happosai's
bedroom. Instead, it was an off-white, with thick stripes of
dense black.

Shampoo stood up hurriedly and went over to it, commenting
almost reverently to Ranma, "Aiya... The Fourth Wall..."

Five of the Nabikis looked up at that, assessed things through
narrowed eyes, and, in an eerie unison chorus, pronounced, "If
it'll keep Happosai out of here, let's keep it," before breaking
into a gabble of debate about the market value of such a wall
for soundproofing and security. 

After that, Shampoo made use of the Mercury Computer of one of
the more extrapolated Akanes, spending a lot of time staring at
fractal images, trying to intuit story-lines that would wrap
around at the _far_ end, before settling back down and starting
her next attempt.

When she started writing again, "Cat's Credulity", about a world
where Ranma's Cat-Fist changed his body as well as his mind and
Neko-Shampoo first encountered him that way, the outermost story
was quite short, and written in large letters, with footnoting
for the story within. Each iteration was written in a smaller
hand, and Shampoo frequently looked up at the Fourth Wall,
trying to gauge the impact of her efforts on it.

Kasumi -- the Kasumi who probably belonged here, though no one
could say for certain, they were all so self-effacing -- leaned
over the table, squinting.  "How can you write that small?"

Shampoo looked up and shrugged. "Ancient Amazon technique:
Shampoo pretend she staring at Amazon man's--"

Three Akanes, two with excess sloppily-applied lipstick and the
third with eyes twice as large as the others, chorused, "I DON'T
WANT TO HEAR THAT!" They brandished mallets threateningly, but
the gesture lost its impact as two of the mallets immediately
fused together, followed by their wielders, and the third
turned into a cat-balloon which Ranma carefully ignored.
 
Shampoo smiled saucily. "Is why Outsider Laws. Why Violent Girls
think Shampoo not interested in Mousse, anyway? He not named
after friend of flying squirrel!"

Since her writing rhythm was broken, she got up, stretched, and
ambled over to the fourth wall, gripping the bar-like inked
lines of the frame, which trembled in her hands. "Airen! It
working! Need just little more..."

She went back to the table and sat down, staring at the page,
considering her next iteration. Behind her, the manga frame
began to rattle as breezes leaked through the fourth wall.

"Oops."

The page on which Shampoo had been laboring now opened in the
center, showing a swirling vortex of multicolor energies amid
stark darkness. Shampoo only had time to yelp. "Aiya! Shampoo
wrote wrong thing, make it all collapse! Try to have Mercenary
Girl say, 'Live on interest', but write 'Live in interest--'"

And then she was gone, sucked into her own recursive creation.

The fourth wall rang under the impact of an ferocious blow as if
its lines were metal bars... and then it faded back, once more
unreachable. All the Akanes, Ukyos, Kodachis, Kasumis and
Nabikis gathered around the table, staring at the page Shampoo
had been working on when she vanished. They reluctantly made
room for Ranma to step up to the table and look down. He took
one look -- and froze -- but then, for some reason, he was no
longer affected by the sight. The fear had left him; perhaps, he
felt, for good. He calmly huddled with the others to watch.

The hole in the page was still turbulent, but it already showed
by way of outline a circular stone wall, and what was at the far
end of that channel was clearly visible.

They were looking down into a pit... or was it up from the
bottom of a well? It was hard to tell, and perhaps that was the
reality of the view. Gathered around, looking down or up at
them, depending on how you chose to see things, were a restless
group of cats. At their feet were the gnawed remains of fish
sausage. Occasionally one of them would idly bat at one of the
bits of sausage, and then there would be ripples spreading in
the center of the opening, reflecting against the stone walls as
they dissipated.

Daintily standing proud in the center of the group was a cat
with pink and purple fur, who occasionally rubbed her muzzle
against a small cat whose coat was so black as to admit no
reflection whatsoever... perhaps there were even stars to be
seen within its outline.

The small cat stopped purring and deigned to open its eyes and
look straight at the people who gathered round to see it. It
blinked lazily.

"Interesting," it said.

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C&C welcome: ffml@anifics.com, siaru@stormbringer.org (yes, our
domain is back up)


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