"A Short Discussion about `The Universe'"
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 5: Christmas Spirits Are Not What You Drink.
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Colonel. What can I do for you?"
"I'm no longer a Colonel. You see, the people have risen, and demanded
democracy and freedom from The Free People's Republic Of The Corner Of
Mori Street And Ume Avenue. Revolution was in the air, so I opened the
government to the vote."
"Revolution?"
"Yes, this morning Wuffles jumped onto my bed, and nearly scared me to
death. I was dreaming about Ingred Bergman, and when I opened my eyes,
there was Wuffles' face, instead."
"I guess you were shocked."
"I'll say. I just kissed her goodbye, and she was going to leave me
for Victor Lazlo! Anyway I decided that it was time for
democracy. `One man, one vote,' which does sort of leave Wuffles out
in the cold. Women can't vote, but that's only because I'm hoping some
suffrogets will show up soon."
"One should never abandon their dreams of glory."
"Oh no. My dream of glory involves Lauren Bacal and a defeated Sydney
Greenstreet."
"Ok, why'd you call today?"
"Can you come over Tuesday? I'm having a civil war then. It'll be
brother against brother to decide the future of the
republic. Unfortunately my brother's in Oshika, and can't make it that
day."
"I'll have to get back to you on that."
* * *
Cologne begins another lesson for Nabiki. "Well, there are several
branches you can take to find allies in the spirit realm. The most
important thing to remember is that you cannot count on the
forgetfulness of people. If you do something wrong there, you might
find absolution, but never forgetfulness. For this reason, it is
common to meditate for weeks before doing something that involves the
spirit realm.
"But you aren't likely to spend a month contemplating an idea until
the extent of the idea becomes clear in your mind. You're more of an
intellectual bent. Keep in mind that you're going to have screwed up
in some way by this time next year, and try to make it a minor one."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence"
"Don't misunderstand me, you'll do better than most. But if you ever
get into the habit of thinking you're on top of the world, and doing
the absolute right thing, then you're doomed. Unlike Ranma going into
battle sure that he'll win, you have to enter dealings with the spirit
world knowing you'll eventually say "It seemed like a good idea at the
time" and having to pay the unforeseen consequences."
"A situation where if it goes right, nobody notices, and when you
screw up everyone knows?"
"More or less. When dealing with the spirit world, think twice, plan
for if it goes wrong, and leave something in reserve for when your
plans fall through. If at all possible, be honest about the faults
inherent in you, and you'll be seen as someone trying to improve,
rather than a flawed piece of refuse. There are relatively few beings
who will be able to spot what you're thinking just from looking at
your soul, but there'll be alot of beings who can spot what type of
person you are. They might not know how you sinned, but they can tell
if you sinned."
"Is there such a thing as sins?"
"We'll discuss the nature of metaphysical judgment some other
time. Like all the things we talked about, the truth is more
complicated than a yes or no answer. Suffice it to say that if you met
CAT, it could tell how you treated cats without having to look it up,
so try to avoid meeting the spirit of influenza and things like that.
"There are many ties you could make with the spirit world. Ranma's
co-habitation with Ran'neko is merely one of the odder ones. The
simplest is to form some bond with a more powerful entity, and swear
allegiance as if to a feudal lord. But you are not the kind of person
who'd go for that without a very good reason or purpose.
"There are also weaker bonds, similar to the teacher student bond we
share. But like our bond, there has to be a reason why the teacher
would waste its time with you. The teacher-student bond relies on the
idea that the student will eventually repay the teacher's actions in
the future, whether it is through carrying on knowledge, using it, or
teaching it to others. It relies on the student convincing the teacher
that it's worth the teacher's investment. For this reason it is
incumbent upon you to suggest what future value you may be.
"There is also a long tradition of acquiring a spirit guide or totem
of some sort. Almost always this is actually a three-entity
arrangement. One very powerful individual binds a mortal and a spirit
together. in this case there can be nearly an infinite variety of
reasons and motivations for all three. The most common arrangement is
a shaman asks his god to supply a spirit to aid him, or if he's really
on the ball, to teach him.
"However the reasons that the god has for making a given match might
range from trying to entice you, to altruism, to getting an annoying
spirit out of the bigger entity's metaphorical hair. Someone could
give you a guide because you are just what the guide needs, rather
than the other way around.
"Invariably you'll be more or less stuck with what you get. It's in
the preparation where you've a chance to decide what you're looking
for. The spirit guide will in some measure also be reliant on your
expectations, just as the form of Ran'neko's spirit was reliant before
you wrote the contract between it and Ranma."
"Do you recommend getting a spirit guide?"
"If done carefully, I definitely recommend it. It's major drawback is
that some of your options become harder after you've made a
choice. It's benefits vary. But it's a good place to get your feet
wet. you've got to interact with the spirit world to make the most of
your talents at negotiation, and this is certainly far safer than
summoning unnameable horrors from the Stygian depths. It's the
preparation that's key. What do you want and expect from a spirit
guide, and what type of being would be likely to agree to giving you
what you want. I guess that'll be your homework for now. Do you have
any other questions?"
"Are there other types of relationships I could petition for?"
"Millions. Practically any relationship you can form on the mortal
world has an equivalent. The problem from your standpoint is that most
of these involve meeting spirits one by one. You don't meet many on a
daily basis, and you aren't equipped to risk entering the spiritual
equivalent of a singles bar.
Cologne sums up "You can offer something; beg for something; about the
only thing you can't do is demand anything."
* * *
Nabiki starts the conversation "I thought about your suggestion of a
guide that I could learn from. It does make sense to me, but the more
I thought about it, the less important it seemed to me."
"How so?" Cologne asks.
"Well, I've you to teach me, and for those things you can't teach, I
can select other teachers. I don't like the idea of having teachers
forced upon me. Look at Happosai, he obviously has something to teach,
but I wouldn't choose to learn from him."
Nabiki continues, "Besides it's in the nature of students to grow to
need different kinds of teachers at different levels. Being stuck with
one spirit, whose teaching I outgrow seems wasteful. Sure it'll have
other features, but one of the ones I could pick has become useless to
me.
"What I really want is a spirit that's willing and able to grow with
me. I thought about some kind of animal spirit or an animalistic
representation like Ran'neko, but I really want one that can speak
Japanese. I think I also need my relationship with my guide to be more
symbiotic than a teacher-student relationship. If the guide is clearly
my superior, I'll always feel like I'm in it's debt. I want to feel
that we're both benefiting. That it's somehow getting payment for
services rendered, and not sticking with me just because it has to.
Nabiki summarizes "Ideally it has to have about my intelligence so
that I could treat it as an equal, and to keep my intellect sharp."
"Well that's both vague and specific enough to allow leeway in finding
a match for you. Who are you going to ask to find it for you?"
"My goals in life are a bit vague at the moment. The possibility of
power through non-financial means has thrown my future as an
investment specialist into doubt. I want a benefactor who more or less
agrees with my desires for my future, whatever I eventually
choose. Ideally I want one that values my drive for success and
improvement, without forcing it to follow a specific path."
Cologne advises, "That rules out alot of kami. Unfortunately it
doesn't really suggest any. It rules out all, or most, of the big
players that the tribe has had contact with, they usually have an
overriding interest in one area."
"Is it necessary to explicitly state the benefactor?"
"No, It's merely convenient. Think of it like trying to arrange any
other deal. Knowing who to call up is a good idea. Otherwise you might
call some people who can not help you, and are inconvenienced
slightly. A mass mailing would just be rude, and a notice on a
bulletin board may or may not be seen, and anyone could answer. You
could put up a note like "to whomever meets these criteria ..." but
you might have to try several times before you succeed."
"Well then," Nabiki decides, "I'm looking for a benefactor that values
striving for success, regardless of which path I eventually take. It
must also not require subservience, and it must have a moral system. I
do have a moral code, even if it differs from most people. I've
learned to deal with people with different codes from mine, but I
can't deal with people without them. I also want a benefactor that
feels that my efforts to succeed benefit it, so that I'm not under a
huge debt to the kami for arranging this. I can't imagine that there
are alot of Kami like this, but there should be several powerful ones
that fit this criteria."
"All right. As befits my teachings earlier, we won't do anything right
away. We'll give ourselves time to think of anything we might have
missed. Any restrictions we might like to add before we actually do
it. For now let us discuss the method of actually casting the
spell. The first thing that comes to mind is that you'll probably have
to cast it a few times before an appropriate kami notices. This is a
problem because your reserves of magic are so low. Therefor we should
do everything we can to minimize the amount of energy needed for each
casting. Surely you've noticed I tend to combine stage magic, real
magic and martial arts when I'm fighting Ranma? Tell me why I do
that."
"It's obvious that you use it to keep Ranma from finding out your true
limits, and to keep him guessing how you do it, so that he can't
counter it as easily."
Cologne chuckles, "I do exploit those benefits, but there is a more
fundamental one. We've discussed how faith and perception on behalf of
the magician affect the outcome of a spell. The same is true for the
target of a spell, and the observers. Most people don't believe in
magic, but they do believe in human cunning and trickery. Even though
they might never guess how it would be done.
"If I wanted to teleport something in front of people, I'd have to
fight their belief that it can't be done. But if I bring out two gaudy
boxes, and put something in one. Then wave my hands and say things
like 'Nothing up my sleeves', then everyone will expect the first box
to be empty, and the second one to mysteriously have the item. And
here's the important part, they'll believe it even if there were no
way to do it without magic. It turns the liability of the observer's
disbelief into the asset of their confidence that it can be done, even
if they think it's done with mirrors."
Nabiki objects "But you do it even around people who believe in
magic. Ranma certainly does."
"Yes and no. He believes implicitly in magic whenever it's from
ancient China. You wouldn't believe what he'll swallow if I say it's
from the Han dynasty. He wont believe that what you do is magic,
unless you convince him you learned it from me. To his mint, you're
engaging in the role of channeler, spiritualist, or priest. To his way
of thinking, what you're doing is without any magic at all, you're
just manipulating spirits the same way you do people. You'd find it
quite difficult with your level of power to cast a spell in front of
him if you didn't say anything.
But if you tell him that something odd is about to happen, then his
will, which is formidable, would not be a problem. Then if you tell
him you did it with magic, he'd just assume you tricked him and want
to keep the method secret. Follow me into the restaurant, and I'll
show you pure magic, without the use of those potions."
As they walk into the restaurant, Cologne comments "Doing the same
thing without anyone knowing about it would be much more difficult."
Cologne approaches a group of Salarimen. "Pardon the interruption, but
I was discussing sleight of hand and stage magic with this young
lady. I used to be quite good at it when I was younger. Would you be
willing to help me demonstrate?"
The men readily agree. Cologne produces two opaque jars with
screw-tops, and hands one each to two different men. She turns to one
of them. "Please make sure that it is completely empty, and screw the
lid on tight. and put it in your pocket."
He complies, and she turns to the other man. "Please write or draw
something on this piece of paper, and seal it in your jar and put it
in your pocket." He does so, and then she addresses the two men. "Now,
each of you put one hand over your pocket, and touch your other hands
together."
After they do this, she instructs the men to look in their jars, and
sure enough, the paper had gone from one jar to the other. After the
salarimen congratulate her, Cologne and Nabiki go back into the back
room to finish todays lessons. "There was no way to have done that
without having an accomplice or two, or the ability to see the future
to copy what he wrote. I was nowhere near the men, so I couldn't have
used sleight of hand. The paper hadn't been marked until after the
first jar had been sealed, so I couldn't have somehow planted a
duplicate before it was sealed. If those salarimen were truly logical,
they'd now believe in real magic."
Nabiki comments "But they don't. they knew the paper would have moved
even though there was no way to do it in a non-magical world."
Cologne comments "Well, actually, there was an easier way to do it. A
mild form of mind control could have made him write or draw something
identical to a previously prepared sheet. and then perhaps it could be
achieved using sleight of hand, but he was simultaneously convinced
that it would work, when there was no way for anyone restricted to
mundane abilities to have done it.
"Luckily for you, the magic you will specialize in, which involves
communing with spirits meshes well with the beliefs in Shinto. Most
people believe on some level that spirits exist, even if it's merely
an atavistic desire to exist forever, even after the body dies. But it
is something you'll have to consider if you wish to do something
outside of your area of expertise. Casting a spell on someone where
you have to touch the person, becomes much easier if they think it's a
form of shiatsu. Flying around town would be much easier wearing some
junk that looked like a rocket-pack, or if you were seated on a broom
or carpet."
So how does this apply to making petitions to the spirit world?
Anything you can do to improve the effacency of the spell, without
adding a greater magical charge, must be done. Especially if the
improvement can be achieved using a few yen in getting the best
ingredients. Adding people who can add their belief will help, as well
as using power readily available in places like Shinto shrines. Often
a polite donation will give you a little allowance for eccentricities
in a ceremony, as long as it in no way contradicts their
beliefs. Let's concentrate on your beliefs first. Say you needed a
craftsman. Assume you couldn't find it by word of mouth, and your
phone book was gone. What would you do?
Notices on bulletin boards, and in all pre-existing newspapers that
didn't charge for announcements. If that failed, I'd shell out money
for a real advert, or I'd spend my energy tracking down someone who
would know the right person.
So you'll want a brief, polite description, with information about the
job, and contact information. For now we'll say that the paper has to
be of good quality, and the message handwritten clearly in ink. You
don't want to give the impression that you've mimeographed thousands
of these things. I can't think of any reason why the type of paper
would matter, as long as it's good quality. We're not trying to
enchant the paper itself, so we can ignore the making of it as long as
the delivery method doesn't pose a requirement. For some entities, I'd
insist on handmade paper as being more effacious, but you're looking
for a more forward thinking kami, rather than a traditionalist.
"Likewise I can't see any reason that the ink be anything special,
provided that it doesn't come from a cheap pen, and looks crisp and
readable."
Nabiki interrupts, "I'm a little unsure about burning messages. That's
largely a Chinese ritual, I don't think a Shintoist would agree to
help. I don't know what I'd replace it with."
Cologne answers "You're probably right. I'm just showing my cultural
bias, I think in terms of what I grew up with. Take a lesson from an
old traveler, even the smartest and best prepared minds suffer culture
shock. If you ever have to deal with a foreigner for business, you'll
experience the same thing. Hmm, Shinto tradition relies on prayer and
dreams for communication with the world beyond."
Nabiki adds "If I'm going to perform it several times, a written form
of the prayer is still a good idea. I don't want to misspeak the
contract the one time someone's listening. A formal scroll to read
from would fit. One scroll to use over several castings, instead of
leaflets that get burned to be given to the beyond.
Cologne comments "After more consideration, It's probably a bad idea
to add a priest to the mix, as they have strong expectations about the
spirit realm which would likely skew your own efforts. I should have
though of this before. If you're going to be dealing with the spirit
world on a regular basis, you're going to have to acquire the
implements of formal worship and build your own shrine.
"Do you mean a shrine as in a family shrine, or a small building for
worship?"
"The smaller one, don't worry. It doesn't need to be as big as even a
family shrine, as you aren't going to use it to store family mementos,
or pictures of the departed. What you need is a formal altar, you'll
probably want to keep it in your room. You need to make a corner of
your room into a sacred place which differentiates the mundane world
from the larger universe."
Nabiki looks warily, "Am I going to have to rope off one part of my
room with shimenawa to keep the sacred from the profane?"
Cologne chuckles. "You could, but you don't have to. The most
important part is to always maintain a different attitude towards that
part of the room. A temple is just a building reserved for a
particular purpose. It is the setting aside of an area for a single
purpose that empowers an area. The true importance of the rituals lie
in the fact that we intentionally act in a way different from our
normal behavior. We consciously make an effort of will to go from one
mode of thought to another."
"It sounds to me like you're describing a tea ceremony instead of an
act of worship."
"It is exactly the same thing! In order to survive in our day to day
lives it is necessary to be thinking a thousand ways at once, trying
to judge your courses of action based on morals, ethics, aesthetics,
popular opinion, comfort, ease, risk. You can't afford to ignore any
of these, however this is a hindrance to clarity of thought."
"In order to keep from losing ourselves, we must have a way to keep
what we consider important clear in our minds. Whether it's our
principles, morals, craft, or beliefs. We set aside a time and place
where we dismiss the thousand clamoring voices, and concentrate on
what we feel is truly important.
"For religious beliefs, you typically go to a temple. You wash your
hands to discard the cares of the outside world. You clap your hands
twice, not only to attract the attention of kami, but also as a formal
notice 'From this point on, what I say or pray is really important. I
daren't be distracted by petty things.
"The tea ceremony is a form of worship towards beauty, or human
interaction or understanding. All daily cares are discarded, only the
ceremony is to be thought of. The host has removed all distractions
from the area. The past and future fall away to reveal the
present. You share that moment with other people, joined with you in
this action. You don't talk about the game last Saturday, or the
latest gossip, you can't hide behind the inane chatter with which we
shield ourselves from other's scrutiny. Since no one is allowed to
talk, you are forced to listen to each other. There might be a scroll
hanging depicting an idea that the host thought appropriate, and the
participants redefine their relationship through mutual contemplation
of that idea.
"A craftsman may have a workbench, or a computer set aside in an area
where it is understood that only the craft matters. When an expert
walks up to their own work area they stop thinking about what's for
dinner that night, and just concentrate on making something
wonderful. Hours fly by not due to pleasure, but due to a
concentration that ignores the flow of time in exchange for a
concentration on what is truly important.
"The bowing when entering a dojo, the hush of a rock garden. These are
all ways of focusing the mind on what you've determined is truly vital
to yourself for a short time before going back into the confusing
world. For this to work for you, it is necessary to maintain the rules
of the place. A rock garden would be pointless with skate-boarders. A
TV set would ruin a tea ceremony. A place can be a sacred prayer area,
even if it's merely the idea that when standing before the altar
nothing else matters."
As Cologne slows down, Nabiki smirks "That was a kind of excessive
answer, wasn't it?"
"I guess so. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The biggest danger
from the abandoning of traditions in this modern world, is the
discarding of traditions designed to keep us calm, rational, and
grounded. And maybe they deserve to be discarded as outmoded or
anachronistic. But people aren't replacing them with new rituals.
"If human beings don't have some method of re-grounding themselves to
what is really important to them, and if they don't do it regularly,
they find themselves always running towards the future out of control
and off balance. They feel like they're constantly running to keep
up. That they work-to-live-to-work. And then wonder why they have a
mental breakdown.
"The point isn't that you have to stop and smell the flowers, the
point is that you must have some time where all you are doing is
smelling the flowers. some time for yourself. Both Shampoo and Ranma
are separately heading for a breakdown. If I tell her to take some
time off, she thinks if she does, she'll fall behind."
Nabiki smirks "I see there's a sub-text in this lesson, that this is
something I should watch out for. You think I need to reaffirm my
principles?"
"I think everyone needs to. However if I ordered you to do so, it'd
have done no good. Nobody actually wants to follow good
advice. Hopefully now, if you do get in over your head, you might
remember a possible course of treatment.
Staying up late cleaning, getting up early to start making the
noodles, balancing food supplies versus demand while trying to direct
the battles and love-fights that go on around here. Even I sometimes
feel like I need a year's vacation."
"Why didn't you mention this when we were talking about Kasumi's
calmness?"
"Re-centering yourself does not necessarily lead to calmness. Ranma
finds his center before his toughest battles, ignoring everything
else. This is about maintaining your balance, not your calm."
"OK. So about building my altar ..."
"Find a priest you like, and get his advice for a small personal
shrine, and make sure that everything about it is done carefully and
deliberately."
* * *
Nabiki goes over her preparations "OK, I'm probably ready to
start. Better review my preparations to make sure everything is set up
right."
"I've got the small shelf for the kamidana, and a mat in front of
it. The two Sakake Tate holding evergreen branches, 2 Heiji bottles
containing Omiki, The Mizutama has water in it, the dish has Okome,
the plate has salt, I've got the Ozen, and the lamps. The whole
arrangement has been blessed, the lamps have oil, no one's drank the
ritually purified sake."
"I should never have asked the priest where to install on the shrine a redial button for repeat calls."
"The scroll looks impressive even to me. Hopefully the back of the
paper being red will bring me luck. Time for the first of my thrice
daily prayers to the unknown. Here Goes."
* * *
There was no physical change in the bathroom. The water in the furo
didn't even ripple, although by all rights of poetic license it should
have glowed at the very least. None of the Tendo's were equipped to
detect any change at all. Yet something left the furo and then the
room, which had not entered by any normal means.
Shortly thereafter, Ran'neko wanted control of the body in order to go
out on the lawn and play. Ran'neko bounded all over the place, chasing
and running from something only it could see. It was less like the
predator-prey playing Ran'neko indulged in when it faced Genma, but
the antics of a kitten chasing another siblings tail, to be chased in
turn a moment later. That this kitten had the form of a teenage boy
only added to the surreal display.
When the game seemed to wind down to a pause, Ranma resumed control of
his body, and walked into the house. Akane looked at him, and asked
"What was that all about?"
"Beats me. I couldn't see a thing, but Ran'neko believes he was
playing with a friend out there." Ranma walked towards his room, with
an unusually pensive look on his face.
About an hour later, Nabiki stormed into Ranma's room. "Why didn't you
tell me that there was some kind of spirit near the dojo? This is
important, damn it!"
Ranma's expression grows a little sheepish, but not as much as Nabiki
expected it would. Ranma was still primarily distracted by whatever he
was thinking about. "Sorry. I was just thinking about something else."
"I need to know everything I can about it. What did Ran'neko sense?"
"All I know so far is that Ran'neko thought it was a friend."
"Haven't you asked it for more information yet? What have you been
doing for the last hour?"
"I've got a life of my own, you know. I'm not just some medium for you
to get information out of!"
Nabiki realized that this conversation was veering off in a direction
she wasn't expecting, and calmed herself down. "Sorry, I just assumed
that since weirdness always seems to drag your life into a mess, that
you'd have found out everything you could. I've been expecting a
spirit to show up around here, only I expected it to have come to me,
rather than you."
Ranma pauses a minute, and said "Ran'neko said that it's a young
spirit, and its human-like, but not a human."
"Is it a cross between a human and an animal?"
"No. Looks mostly human. It's trying to get something across to me,
but the images are rather disturbing. Ran'neko treats it as perfectly
ordinary. Does really tiny kittens covered in blood and muck being
licked by a cat mean anything to you?"
"No. Wait. I've got an idea." Nabiki leaves, and returns with a
book. "I got this from Kasumi's room. I think I remember a picture."
as she flips through it. She finds the right page, and shows Ranma the
picture of a red-faced baby smeared with blood.
Ranma flinches, "That's disgusting! It seems to be the idea that he's
looking for, though. What happened to that baby, though?"
"It just finished being born."
"That's what he's saying! The spirit had never been physically
born. Another thing, it's healthy, but has no chi. Apparently none at
all. That would explain why no one here could sense it at all. I
thought it might be hiding it's presence like with the umisenken, but
that's not it at all. Invisible and without chi leaves me nothing to
sense it, except through how it affects it's environment, and I think
it was intangible as well."
"You're the chi-throwing martial artist. How would you go about
passing chi from one person to another?"
"You don't do that. Even healers use their own chi to encourage the
patient's chi to flow."
"Couldn't you just blast it?"
"Not with the mouko takabisha or the shi shi hokudan. It might work
with some other emotion, I dunno."
"Cologne said that the wrong type of chi attack could power up a
spirit, right? Therefor there has to be a way for a spirit to make use
of someone else's chi. Unless she was referring to only vampiric ones,
but it didn't sound like that to me. How does Hinako-sensei drain chi
anyway? What's a battle aura composed of?"
"It's chi, alright. It gets it's colors by burning off emotions, but
that should only cause light inside the body, unless somehow the
emotions are pushed out. I looked into it as it's an involuntary
method of using chi, and I hoped it might give me a clue to using
emotion-less chi."
"Why can't the mouko takabisha be reabsorbed? Is it because blue chi
can't meld with green chi?"
"No, it's more than that. Until I launch it, I can pull it back into
me, but once I launch it, it could hurt me as much as anyone else. The
only reason that Ryouga's perfect shishi hokudan doesn't smash him
when it falls back to earth, is because part of the maneuver involves
a second small burst just before it hits him redirecting the larger
burst to splash around him."
"Let's try something. Make a mouko takabisha, but don't release
it. Lets see if the spirit can drain it if you give it a chance."
Ranma forms the sphere, and feels Ran'neko get excited. Ranma lets it
dissipate, and tells Nabiki "Right idea, wrong place. Ran'neko thinks
it could work, but only under alot of water for some reason. Go
figure. Is the furo free?"
Nabiki frowns slightly. It should be free, but lets slow down. "We
have no idea what will happen, so lets do it safely."
* * *
Nabiki calls a meeting "We've got another weird event about to
happen. Before everything dissolves into chaos, I'm taking charge, as
I know the most about it. There's a spirit floating around here that
Ran'neko thinks of as a harmless playmate. We're going to try
something, and to lessen the risk, you'll be helping."
Genma bitches "Akane isn't going to hit me with her mallet again?"
Ranma answers "Aww, you poor widdle panda. A martial artist's life is
fraught with peril, remember?"
Nabiki interrupts. "Enough! Ranma and I will be doing the
experiment. Genma and Akane are going to be our backup and daddy will
be ready to get Dr. Tofu if something goes wrong. Kasumi will run to
the Nekohanten if she sees daddy running. Any questions?"
Akane complains. "Why do I have to be backup? I'm a martial artist
too!"
"Ranma has to be with me, unless anybody else has mastered the mouko
takabisha. Kasumi has to be outside to avoid a fight. If this goes
right, nobody will need to attack anybody, OK? The rest of you are
there because we aren't sure what will happen. If Ranma gets possessed
by the Ghost of Christmas Past, and an easter bunny starts lobbing
exploding eggs, then you and Genma help me beat a retreat, until we
know how to undo it. OK?"
Ranma looks at Nabiki like she's finally cracked "Martial Arts Easter
Egg Hiding?"
Nabiki agrees. "You're right. That'd only happen to us in April. Look,
there's a good chance nothing will happen at all, but Ran'neko thinks
it's both likely to work, and to be a good thing, so there's no reason
to become paranoid. I just want a backup plan in case everyone IS out
to get us. got it?"
* * *
A few minutes later finds five people around the wash-room. Soun was
watching from the corridor, and had a straight sprint to the stairs if
he needed it. Genma and Akane stood inside the bathing area, blocking
the door out. Nabiki off to the side, and Ranma kneeling before the
furo. Ranma powers up a weak mouko takabisha.
Genma objects. "Boy, don't fire that off in here!"
"Of course I'm not gonna!" Ranma suddenly realizes that he has no idea
what will happen, but that it just might be spectacular "Hey,
everybody, watch this." And with that he plunged both hands
underwater.
No one was expecting a naked eight year old to leap out from between
his hands, jump off his head, steal Genma's glasses, put them on
Akane, and leap into Nabiki's arms, all the while screaming "Wheeee!"
Ran'neko might have suspected some of that, but it didn't prepare
anyone else.
"Yippie. This is so much fun!"
Nabiki tried to maintain her poise as the child ran its fingers
through her hair, and said "I think the emergency is over. Someone
tell Kasumi what's going on. We're going to my room. Ranma, you're
coming with me.
* * *
Akane follows the trio of Ranma, Nabiki, and child into Nabiki's
room. "Where the hell did that child come from?"
Nabiki, who managed to gather some of her wits during the walk over,
said "A mommy bird and a poppy bird who love each other very much, get
certain urges and"
"You know what I mean! Was she in the furo all along? Is this some
kind of a joke?"
Nabiki ignored her and asked "Ranma, is this the one Ran'neko was
playing with earlier?" as she lays the child on her bed.
"Yep..." Ranma stops as he and the Tendo's realize that unlike a
normal eight year old, this child is completely lacking in any
characteristics that'd determine what gender it was. even though it
was completely naked. It also lacked a belly-button, and nipples.
It started bouncing up and down on the bed. "This place is fun!" It
turned to Nabiki, "You're Nabiki Tendo, the person I was supposed to
report to, right? Can I call you Aunti?"
"You do, and I'll refer to you as the baby."
"How about 'Older sister'?" Nabiki nods. It turned to Ranma. "Who are
you, and what's your kitty's name?"
"Ranma, and he's Ran'neko. Who are you?"
Akane murmurs under her breath. "What are you?"
"I'm " it then began to whistle, like a drunk robin. "But it's
traditional to take a new name, humans never get the trill just
right." It looked at Akane and started to laugh. "Why is she looking
like she's about to tear her hair out?"
Nabiki answers "That's Akane, she has no idea what's going on, and
it's starting to get her mad."
"I AM getting mad. What happened in the bathroom?"
"He let me take a bit of his chi, so I could make this body."
"You mean that's not what you normally look like?"
"No, this is my body. I just needed a boost to make it."
Akane's voice starts to rise "But where did you come from?"
"The water in the furo! Your not asking about my parents, are you? I
thought Nabiki was joking when she started the 'birds and the bees'
speech."
"Where were you before the furo!"
"Playing with Ran'neko on the grass."
Akane responds "AAAAh!"
Nabiki interjects "She's a spirit!" Nabiki turns to the child. "Are
you a he or a she?"
"Neither yet. You do know what boys and girls look like, don't you?"
Ranma answers "I think she means do you want to be called he or she? I
call Ran'neko he, but Nabiki refers to him as it, because he's not
really a he or a she."
"How many people live here? How many males and females?"
"Three males and three females."
"How many of them are young?"
"Three females and Ranma."
"Then use 'she' so I can join you in picking on Ranma. No sense
joining the loosing side." she stuck her tongue out at Ranma.
Ranma smiles in spite of himself. So what type of spirit are you?
"I like long walks in the park, and romantic evenings by the
fireplace." she turns to Nabiki and answers "That was the right kind
of answer for a girl, right?"
"More or less. I think he wanted to know what species you were."
She looks at Ranma shocked "You're not a racist, are you?" she can't
help grinning by the end of her sentence.
Ranma decides to answer in the same spirit. "No. Akane is the one who
likes to jog. I do kata, and jump from roof to roof."
"Meanwhile, Nabiki flies. Right?"
"Not yet."
Akane seems to be cheering up, but she still wants to know where the
child came from. "So what are you doing here, so far from home?"
"I live here, now." She turns to Nabiki "unless you've made special
arrangements."
Akane looks at Nabiki "So where's she going to sleep?"
"I never sleep! Besides, I can always get rid of this body, and build
another."
"Are you going to need Ranma to provide the energy?"
"Oh no. It doesn't use up energy. I just can't do it if I'm out of
energy."
"Why are you so secretive about what you are?"
"I wasn't before I realized how fun it was to keep you asking."
"So what are you!"
"I'm a naiad."
"What's that?"
"Why'd you bother to ask what I was if you couldn't understand the
answer?"
"I thought the answer would be useful!"
Nabiki interrupts "I've thought of a name for you. How about
Kyakuzumi?"
Ranma asks "Water guest?"
Nabiki answers "No, I was thinking of the characters for prank
fountain."
Akane turns to Ranma and shouts "Get out of here, we've got a naked
girl in here!"
Kyakuzumi looks at her as if she lost her head. "I've got a feminine
name, and use a feminine pronoun, but that doesn't make me
female. Besides, we almost never wear clothes.
Nabiki asks "I thought all naiads were female, like driads."
"Driads aren't female. Who ever heard of a female oak tree? Most of
the stories are written my men, and since we don't wear clothes, most
authors give us breasts out to here. We're not mammals anyway."
Nabiki adds for her slower house-mates "Which is why you have no
nipples or belly-button."
Akane asks "Well then, how do you have children?"
Kyakuzumi responds "I'll describe our process, if you describe yours."
She winks at Akane, who blushes, looks at Ranma, and turns beet red."
Kyakuzumi squints at Ranma. "Why do you have a web of water magic
running through your body? Ran'neko isn't a water spirit, is he?"
Nabiki answers "Ranma is one of a growing collection of people in the
area who have curses from Jusenkyou."
Kyakuzumi looks shocked "There are more of them? Jusenkyou is hundreds
of miles away, isn't it?"
Nabiki answers "True, but you have to remember 'More and more people
are turning to Jusenkyou for their source of magical curses.'"
Akane complains "If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to
wear clothes."
Kyakuzumi is baffled. "Why?"
Akane answers "Don't you have any modesty?"
"Not about my body. What's wrong with it?"
Nabiki interrupts "There are two reasons besides Akane's prudity to
wear clothes around here. One, people will assume that you're
human. Two, people wont think we're pedophiles."
Kyakuzumi frowns. "So what do you want me to wear?"
Nabiki turns to Akane. "See if Kasumi has kept any of your
hand-me-downs stored away. Jeans and a T-shirt. That kind of thing."
She turns to Kyakuzumi "unless you're fond of dresses?"
Kyakuzumi answers "It doesn't matter to me. I'll wear it, but I wont
wear underwear! You don't need that to fool anyone!"
Akane walks out, muttering about perverts.
Kyakuzumi asks Nabiki "What's wrong with her? If I wore clothes around
other naiads for no reason at all, they'd think I had a
clothes-fetish."
Ranma goggles "You mean, among naiads, Akane would be considered the
pervert?"
"Of course. You can't swim in clothes."
"Akane can't swim anyway."
Kyakuzumi's eyes start to tear up "Really? That's horrible!"
Akane enters with some clothes, and is nearly bowled over when a
wailing Kyakuzumi tackles her with a hug. Akane asks "What's going on
now?"
Nabiki answers "We mentioned that you couldn't swim." At this,
Kyakuzumi's crying increased.
Akane is torn between anger at her weakness being revealed, and total
perplexity over what to do with the crying child. Eventually she
tosses the clothes she was carrying onto the bed, and hugs Kyakuzumi
back. "It's alright. It's alright."
"But. But. To never be able to swim!"
Ranma answers "Well, I wouldn't say never. She just hasn't been able
to learn it. She might be able to, someday."
Kyakuzumi looks at Akane's face. "Really?"after a few seconds "Then
I've got a new hobby. I'll teach you to swim!"
Akane now looks at her with a confusing mixture of hope, dread, and
worry, as she resigns herself to a new round of swimming lessons. "Put
on those clothes, and we'll introduce you to the other people living
here."
The four of them walk downstairs and enter the common area. Kyakuzumi
squints at Genma, and a wicked smile crosses her face. She runs
towards him with her arms open wide, screaming "Daddy!" She leaps at
him, and Genma turns into a panda with Kyakuzumi's sopping wet clothes
plastered to her body. Kyakuzumi is nowhere in sight, and there are
gallons of water everywhere.
Genma raises a sign "What just happened?"
A naked Kyakuzumi leaps from the koi pond, giggling. "Did you see his
face?"
Soun asks "What just happened?"
While Kyakuzumi put back on the wet clothes, she explained. "I saw he
had a Jusenkyou curse too, so I discarded this body, and made a new
one from the pool!" For some reason, her clothes were now dry, and the
huge puddle was gone.
Ranma stalks up to his father while asking "Is he really your father?"
While Genma holds up a sign saying "No I'm Not!" Kyakuzumi just says
"Of course not! I just said that to see the look on his face, and to
keep him from moving away."
Soun smiles "You're awfully clever to figure that all out."
Kyakuzumi answers "Don't worry, someday you might be too."
There's a shocked silence around the room, before Kyakuzumi adds
"Sorry, I have a low tolerance for patronization. I'm called
Kyakuzumi. What's your name?"
Soun attempts to regain his dignity. "I'm Soun Tendo. Where are your
parents?"
"Why would I know that? I don't know who they are."
Soun starts to break down and cry "Now they'll all think I was
unfaithful to my wife again!"
"Why doesn't anything around here make sense? I think I'm going to
like it here."
Kasumi adds "I'd better prepare a bit more for dinner then."
Kyakuzumi comments "Don't worry. I don't eat. Well at least not
food. The fish are hungry though."
Akane backs up "You're here to drink our blood! I knew there was
something fishy about this!"
Kyakuzumi looks at Akane as if she were mad, and asks Nabiki "Who
dropped a salmon down her pants? Do I look like a kappa?"
Kasumi announces "Of course! I forgot to add cucumber to the salad!"
and leaves.
From outside, Mousse cries out "Prepare to Die, Ranma!"
Kyakuzumi looks at Nabiki. "Another one? What does he turn into?"
"A knife wielding duck with glasses."
Akane asks "So if you don't drink blood, what do you eat?"
"Some of the things I can do use up chi, and I can't generate any
myself."
Ranma drops down to stand on both his hands and feet, and with a yowl,
bounds outside. Kyakuzumi shouts "Go get him, Ran'neko!"
Genma thinks to himself "Well if she never met her parents, I probably
never engaged her to Ranma."
Thunder didn't roll obligingly in the background because, amazingly
enough, Genma was right.
* * *
Cologne begins another of her lectures "So much of your magic is
likely to deal with spirits, and interactions between vastly different
beings, that I'd better discuss myths. It wont be at all helpful in
casting spells, but it can be instrumental in your dealings, and your
perception of the world around you.
"Myths are anecdotes that bridge the gap between gossip and
parable. Because of this, they are immensely useful for anyone who is
willing to understand all of it's levels. To dismiss them as just
stories, is to ignore a fundamental process in the way people think
and behave.
"Normally when we think of myths, we think of stories of gods and
kings from long ago. In reality the age of the myth is irrelevant,
It's just that all of the useless myths are quickly forgotten, and
only those that have been useful stand the test of time. For example,
I could tell you the story of the first time Ran'neko sneezed. It'd
take me about 15 seconds, and no one would ever remember it. For a
myth to be remembered, it must have some value beyond historical
anecdote.
"A barely more useful myth would be the story of a spirit who stubbed
her toe on a valuable vase while going to the bathroom one night, and
blasted it into bits in her anger. The moral being don't put valuable
things where people might trip over them. The better the myth, the
more it has to teach us. Even myths that we believe as gospel still
had to have some additional lesson to teach, or no one would have
bothered remembering it.
"Take, for example, one of the two conflicting myths surrounding the
Norse Wotan, and Mimir. In the earlier myth, Wotan was seeking wisdom
and understanding, possibly to better deal with the risk of Ragnarok,
the death of the gods. At the base of the great world tree Yggdrasil
were three springs or pools. One was known as Urded's after the oldest
of the Norns, the second I've long since forgotten, and the third was
the pool of Mimir. Mimir was the name of both the pool and the
guardian of the pool, a giant. Drinking from the pool was said to
grant wisdom, so Wotan sought it out.
"The Giant Mimir told Wotan that in order to drink from the pool, a
sacrifice must be made. Wotan balked at this, and fought Mimir,
thinking that by defeating the giant he'd be able to drink for
nothing. But, after winning, when Wotan drank it did nothing for
him. The giant explained that the sacrifice wasn't something he
demanded, but was the nature of the pool. In order to drink a single
horn-full of water, Wotan had to sacrifice one of his eyes. This, and
other adventures made Wotan the wisest of the Norse gods, and was the
reason Wotan reigned supreme while his children and grandchildren grew
in power surpassing him.
"If this story were only a recounting of events, only his family would
have cared. It has remained a myth, because of it's allegorical
nature, which is still useful today, even though we come from a vastly
different culture.
"Say, for example, Ranma decided he needed to become wiser.
Nabiki snorts derisively
Cologne continues "Just assuming, without prejudice, even though the
event is extremely unlikely. It is pretty obvious that all his
strength and skill wouldn't help him, it would require a willing
sacrifice. In Ranma's case, he'd lose time from practicing, and the
pain which an increased empathic understanding of other people brings.
"Furthermore the fact that Wotan sacrificed an eye is significant
too. An increased wisdom operates by seeing patterns in events, but by
looking for these patterns, you distract yourself from the relatively
unimportant details. Looking at the waving branches of a tree, you
think of the wind blowing up there, ignoring the fact that the third
leaf from the left has a bite taken out of it. Wotan can still see,
but not quite as well, as his effort of thinking distracts from his
perception of the details of the world. Wisdom is also sometimes
gained with age, as eyesight is lost with age.
"Even the giant is a metaphor. Wotan thought it was an adversary
standing in his way, an adversary that could potentially have killed
him, since Norse giants could kill gods, and would eventually do so
during Ragnarok. In reality, the giant was a guide, the only one who
really understood the pool. Without the giant, Wotan wouldn't have
known how to use the pool. The giant paid for Wotan's misunderstanding
by being beaten up, but still helped him gain wisdom. It is the nature
of teachers to be discommoded by their pupils, but if they are to
teach, they must put up with it.
"It is this information, this understanding of the nature of learning,
teaching, and understanding that transforms the story from a
recollection of how Wotan lost an eye, into a myth worth
remembering. We can further deduce that this myth started, and was
perpetuated by people who understood the nature of teaching and
learning. The myth would have been lost if it fell into the hands of
people who did not see the advantages of a wise ruler. A tribe of
Genmas would have forgotten it, for example.
"It is precisely because the things important to people change over
time that myths are born, grow, and die. A hunter-gatherer tribe has a
different set of myths than an agrarian society. For this reason, for
a religion to survive the changes of a tribe, it's myths must change
also. Christianity didn't adopt pagan myths merely to trick the
peasants into joining, they accepted the myths in order for it to
survive from a desert/warlike beginning to an agrarian feudal system,
to a semi-modern one.
"One of the reasons that churches are loosing their parishioners is
the fact that the religion hasn't found any new myths to explain how
life has changed during the industrial revolution, much less the
information age. Christianity is an adequate religion for those people
involved closely with the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth that
plants go through, and still contains many of the earlier hunter
myths, like the ritualistic cannibalism of the celebration of mass,
believing in the transubstantiation of bread to flesh, and eating it
to achieve some of Jesus's grace. And if you doubt the warlike nature
of the earliest myths, go reread the first few books of the old
testament, and see how God instructs his followers to behave with
other tribes.
"None of these myths deal with the nature of a sixty hour workweek in
a factory, working in a service industry, or sitting in front of a
computer all day. None of these myths deal with a child's life in the
classroom. The monotony and the hypocritical decisions of their elders
over what is worth learning, and what isn't. The constant harassment
of other children to advance their place on the social ladder at the
expense of anyone who is a little different.
"These myths exist, but are constantly in a state of flux, as no one
set has been selected as important. They're the stories that ring
true; that offer insight. Stories like Ernie going to borrow a vacuum
cleaner from Grover, contemplating during the trip over what if Grover
refused to loan it, and finally greeting a confused Grover with 'Well,
if that's the way you feel, you can keep your stupid vacuum cleaner!'
These stories are remembered not because you might someday want to
borrow a vacuum cleaner, but because it is in the nature of people to
jump to conclusions that leave others mystified, and because people
can get mad at you even if you haven't done anything wrong.
"A foreign group's religion must be understood in order to understand
the people. Whether you believe their myths or not, the myths give
insight into how they think and behave. As we all have our humanity in
common, there'll be things in their myths that will provide insight
into yourself, that you overlooked because it comes from a different
perspective.
"Some myths are truly ludicrous, but the fact that they've survived
and flourished means that it's foolish to dismiss them out of
hand. One of the aspects of Feng Shui is the idea of looking at an
area with the idea 'What would a dragon think of this place?' I'm sure
that in most cases a dragon would never see the place, so why should
anyone care? Well, we've learned that humans can survive in the
harshest places, and that all building and design consists of
trade-offs. So how do you determine what the minimum requirements are
for harmonious living?
"Well, if a dragon can't get through a door, you'll have trouble
walking in with the groceries, and your taller friends will have to
stoop. If a dragon can't walk without tripping, you'll invariably stub
your toe late one night while you're half asleep. It a dragon's tail
could break something, someone will eventually knock it over. If a
dragon can't turn around, you wont be able to pass each other in the
hall. It turns out that a harmonious house would invariably be more
comfortable for a dragon than an inharmonious house. We can think of
the minimum requirements for a bigger intelligent animal, and that'd
be a comfortable place for us. If something would annoy a dragon, it
would invariably sometimes be annoying to a human family.
"The idea that gremlins were responsible for airplane accidents during
World War II seems ludicrous. But realize that these people were
dealing with complicated machines, designed to be as light as
possible, and therefor every part had to be designed to be just sturdy
enough for it's job, and then it was going to be shot at. Overlooking
any one of a thousand problems, and there'd be a disaster. With that
in mind, the only sensible mindset is one of paranoia. Double-check
everything, assume nothing, and you prevent a horrific
accident. Suddenly a belief in gremlins starts saving lives. They
don't necessarily believe in them, but they better act like they're
there if the plane's going to survive.
:Any myth that a significant group believes in for an extended time
has something to teach. It might be something you already know, but it
might not. A Christian can learn from Mohamed even if he cannot accept
Allah. Jesus has lessons to teach atheists, and the holy books are
vital to understand a people."
"So what can a Japanese learn from Amazon culture?"
"Think about our marriage laws! What better way to survive than to
adopt neighboring dissenting ideas into the tribe, but through people
with an inferior status? Bringing an enemy male into a marriage
relationship brings foreign thoughts into the minds of the next
generation, and keeps us from becoming too isolationist. It also turns
enemies into allies, and allows us to understand our neighbors by
studying the adopted individual. Important new ideas eventually
replace poorer traditional methods, while unimportant differences are
at least better understood. The trial by combat is merely a filter to
select the better outsiders.
"It's not just a eugenics program, it's a method for maintaining
social balance and lessen the chances for war. It forces the strongest
and most headstrong of us to learn to love an enemy, and accepts that
outsiders have something to teach us. We cannot afford to demonize our
outside opponents, like the Japanese did to the Koreans earlier this
century, because we might have to clasp them to our bosom. Shampoo's
kiss of marriage affects Shampoo much more than Ranma, because the law
was intended to prevent warriors like Shampoo from walking down a
prideful path that would eventually doom the tribe through outside
conflict. If Ranma weren't so bizarrely raised, and if he didn't
accept your sisters strange definition of proper behavior, the law
would be much less onerous for him. And the elders are an escapement
mechanism for when the law really screws things up."
Nabiki asks "So it's not just 3000 years of tradition?"
"It's an entire outlook for dealing with outsiders. Bring them into
the tribe to change the tribe gradually, instead of letting our
culture be wiped out by intra-marrying, or isolationism. The existence
of the law is implicit proof that there are outsiders and outsider's
ways worthy of adapting, not that amazon's are superior to all
others. You'll note that the punishment for returning empty handed
fell only on Shampoo. Everything we've done to Ranma has been intended
to get him to go along with us, not to punish him for breaking our
law."
"So the lesson for me is I must maintain a method allowing adopting
enemies as allies, and keeping open the possibility of changing and
adopting my enemies beliefs." Nabiki sumarizes.
"Simple to state, but hard to do, isn't it? That's why the law has
such fangs for failure; It goes against human nature to behave that
way, and the law would be ignored unless it was rigorously
enforced. You have the right to consider the law an absurd
anachronism; call it stupid, if you like. But you'd be a fool to
ignore the lesson it has to teach, or to ignore what it means about
amazon society."
"So what should we do for myths pertaining to the information age?"
"A first attempt might be 'Star Trek.' Science fiction has always been
an excellent tool to show what might happen if a trend, or a feature
of modern life were exaggerated. If you ignore the fight scenes, and
Captain Kirk's efforts to get into alien's panties, you have a whole
collection of stories that deal with an exaggerated present. The
effort to strive for a utopia combining vastly different
cultures. Spock as someone who suppresses strong emotions, and the
problems and benefits that causes. Powerful beings with glaring faults
apparent to us, highlighting the ideas that there are faults in
ourselves that we can't see, that we have to deal with flawed people
of differing powers and abilities.
"Another example is Orwell's 1984, describing a loving dictator, the
flimsy nature of our understanding of the past, the way that those in
power would like us to think, and the idea of the cost of shaping such
a utopia.
"Another book I'd dearly love to see made mandatory high school
reading is John Brunner's "Stand Upon Zanzibar", which primarily
discusses the problems of people living in close proximity to each
other, but which covers a huge breadth of human behavior, from
genetics to terrorism. It's discussions on human eugenics in the
beginning of the book were applicable even to our tiny village, as
well as their examples of self-growth versus parenting. On top of
that, it was a great read. Much less depressing than his "The Sheep
Look Up" and much more useful than his book dealing with the nature of
human thought and belief "The Stone That Never Came Down," which
probably was his only important book with a happily ever after
ending. I say important book, because he wrote scores of books,
apparently just to put food on the table. These three he obviously
crafted.
"For a discussion of the effects and causes of world war II, I'd
recommend Orwell's "Animal Farm" and the graphic novel "Maus", both of
which cast the extremes of human behavior onto the animal kingdom to
increase the contrasts, and to force us to evaluate ourselves from
their perspective.
"High-school reading, television and movies are the largest methods of
creating myths that are uniform to a group. But that's just due to the
coverage they get. Smaller groups have cherished stories that explain
or show how that group behaves. Read a computer's fortune file, and
see what that teaches about the computer geeks that wrote it, and
their myths surrounding the craft of programming deterministic systems
of nearly unimaginable complexity.
"Why, even Ranma's life could be viewed as a conflict between
physical, cultural, and natural differences between men and women, and
how they interact.
Nabiki comments "I'd probably focus on the way traditional beliefs in
honor and the family structure try to mesh with a modern world, and
different cultures."
"If you wrote about it, though, I fear you'd have great difficulty
fairly displaying the importance of tradition. For it to become a
useful myth, you'd have to stress both sides fairly, as well as
showing the conflict. With age, conservatism, and the passing of fad
after silly fad, I suspect you could write a well balanced myth about
Ranma's fiancees that could benefit others. Unfortunately it is the
tendency of youth to discard tradition for 'the better way' just as
it's the tendency of age to ignore the new way until long after it
withstood the test of time. Wisdom is being able to thread between
those two extremes, but that never comes easily, and no two people
will exactly agree."
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Mrs. Asoko, What can I do for
you?"
"It's about Dr. Tashikaha. He's flying an offensive flag over his
house. I'm pretty sure it's against council regulations."
"How do you find it offensive?"
"I can't bring myself to describe it except in the most clinical
terms!"
"That would be sufficient, please go ahead."
"Well, it's a nude woman rampant, over a background containing a white
stallion, engorged, and the motto `In Godiva Memoria'"
"I see."
"It's most offensive. it should be `In Godiva Memoriam!' And the
proportions are all wrong!"
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 5: Christmas Spirits Are Not What You Drink.
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Colonel. What can I do for you?"
"I'm no longer a Colonel. You see, the people have risen, and demanded
democracy and freedom from The Free People's Republic Of The Corner Of
Mori Street And Ume Avenue. Revolution was in the air, so I opened the
government to the vote."
"Revolution?"
"Yes, this morning Wuffles jumped onto my bed, and nearly scared me to
death. I was dreaming about Ingred Bergman, and when I opened my eyes,
there was Wuffles' face, instead."
"I guess you were shocked."
"I'll say. I just kissed her goodbye, and she was going to leave me
for Victor Lazlo! Anyway I decided that it was time for
democracy. `One man, one vote,' which does sort of leave Wuffles out
in the cold. Women can't vote, but that's only because I'm hoping some
suffrogets will show up soon."
"One should never abandon their dreams of glory."
"Oh no. My dream of glory involves Lauren Bacal and a defeated Sydney
Greenstreet."
"Ok, why'd you call today?"
"Can you come over Tuesday? I'm having a civil war then. It'll be
brother against brother to decide the future of the
republic. Unfortunately my brother's in Oshika, and can't make it that
day."
"I'll have to get back to you on that."
* * *
Cologne begins another lesson for Nabiki. "Well, there are several
branches you can take to find allies in the spirit realm. The most
important thing to remember is that you cannot count on the
forgetfulness of people. If you do something wrong there, you might
find absolution, but never forgetfulness. For this reason, it is
common to meditate for weeks before doing something that involves the
spirit realm.
"But you aren't likely to spend a month contemplating an idea until
the extent of the idea becomes clear in your mind. You're more of an
intellectual bent. Keep in mind that you're going to have screwed up
in some way by this time next year, and try to make it a minor one."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence"
"Don't misunderstand me, you'll do better than most. But if you ever
get into the habit of thinking you're on top of the world, and doing
the absolute right thing, then you're doomed. Unlike Ranma going into
battle sure that he'll win, you have to enter dealings with the spirit
world knowing you'll eventually say "It seemed like a good idea at the
time" and having to pay the unforeseen consequences."
"A situation where if it goes right, nobody notices, and when you
screw up everyone knows?"
"More or less. When dealing with the spirit world, think twice, plan
for if it goes wrong, and leave something in reserve for when your
plans fall through. If at all possible, be honest about the faults
inherent in you, and you'll be seen as someone trying to improve,
rather than a flawed piece of refuse. There are relatively few beings
who will be able to spot what you're thinking just from looking at
your soul, but there'll be alot of beings who can spot what type of
person you are. They might not know how you sinned, but they can tell
if you sinned."
"Is there such a thing as sins?"
"We'll discuss the nature of metaphysical judgment some other
time. Like all the things we talked about, the truth is more
complicated than a yes or no answer. Suffice it to say that if you met
CAT, it could tell how you treated cats without having to look it up,
so try to avoid meeting the spirit of influenza and things like that.
"There are many ties you could make with the spirit world. Ranma's
co-habitation with Ran'neko is merely one of the odder ones. The
simplest is to form some bond with a more powerful entity, and swear
allegiance as if to a feudal lord. But you are not the kind of person
who'd go for that without a very good reason or purpose.
"There are also weaker bonds, similar to the teacher student bond we
share. But like our bond, there has to be a reason why the teacher
would waste its time with you. The teacher-student bond relies on the
idea that the student will eventually repay the teacher's actions in
the future, whether it is through carrying on knowledge, using it, or
teaching it to others. It relies on the student convincing the teacher
that it's worth the teacher's investment. For this reason it is
incumbent upon you to suggest what future value you may be.
"There is also a long tradition of acquiring a spirit guide or totem
of some sort. Almost always this is actually a three-entity
arrangement. One very powerful individual binds a mortal and a spirit
together. in this case there can be nearly an infinite variety of
reasons and motivations for all three. The most common arrangement is
a shaman asks his god to supply a spirit to aid him, or if he's really
on the ball, to teach him.
"However the reasons that the god has for making a given match might
range from trying to entice you, to altruism, to getting an annoying
spirit out of the bigger entity's metaphorical hair. Someone could
give you a guide because you are just what the guide needs, rather
than the other way around.
"Invariably you'll be more or less stuck with what you get. It's in
the preparation where you've a chance to decide what you're looking
for. The spirit guide will in some measure also be reliant on your
expectations, just as the form of Ran'neko's spirit was reliant before
you wrote the contract between it and Ranma."
"Do you recommend getting a spirit guide?"
"If done carefully, I definitely recommend it. It's major drawback is
that some of your options become harder after you've made a
choice. It's benefits vary. But it's a good place to get your feet
wet. you've got to interact with the spirit world to make the most of
your talents at negotiation, and this is certainly far safer than
summoning unnameable horrors from the Stygian depths. It's the
preparation that's key. What do you want and expect from a spirit
guide, and what type of being would be likely to agree to giving you
what you want. I guess that'll be your homework for now. Do you have
any other questions?"
"Are there other types of relationships I could petition for?"
"Millions. Practically any relationship you can form on the mortal
world has an equivalent. The problem from your standpoint is that most
of these involve meeting spirits one by one. You don't meet many on a
daily basis, and you aren't equipped to risk entering the spiritual
equivalent of a singles bar.
Cologne sums up "You can offer something; beg for something; about the
only thing you can't do is demand anything."
* * *
Nabiki starts the conversation "I thought about your suggestion of a
guide that I could learn from. It does make sense to me, but the more
I thought about it, the less important it seemed to me."
"How so?" Cologne asks.
"Well, I've you to teach me, and for those things you can't teach, I
can select other teachers. I don't like the idea of having teachers
forced upon me. Look at Happosai, he obviously has something to teach,
but I wouldn't choose to learn from him."
Nabiki continues, "Besides it's in the nature of students to grow to
need different kinds of teachers at different levels. Being stuck with
one spirit, whose teaching I outgrow seems wasteful. Sure it'll have
other features, but one of the ones I could pick has become useless to
me.
"What I really want is a spirit that's willing and able to grow with
me. I thought about some kind of animal spirit or an animalistic
representation like Ran'neko, but I really want one that can speak
Japanese. I think I also need my relationship with my guide to be more
symbiotic than a teacher-student relationship. If the guide is clearly
my superior, I'll always feel like I'm in it's debt. I want to feel
that we're both benefiting. That it's somehow getting payment for
services rendered, and not sticking with me just because it has to.
Nabiki summarizes "Ideally it has to have about my intelligence so
that I could treat it as an equal, and to keep my intellect sharp."
"Well that's both vague and specific enough to allow leeway in finding
a match for you. Who are you going to ask to find it for you?"
"My goals in life are a bit vague at the moment. The possibility of
power through non-financial means has thrown my future as an
investment specialist into doubt. I want a benefactor who more or less
agrees with my desires for my future, whatever I eventually
choose. Ideally I want one that values my drive for success and
improvement, without forcing it to follow a specific path."
Cologne advises, "That rules out alot of kami. Unfortunately it
doesn't really suggest any. It rules out all, or most, of the big
players that the tribe has had contact with, they usually have an
overriding interest in one area."
"Is it necessary to explicitly state the benefactor?"
"No, It's merely convenient. Think of it like trying to arrange any
other deal. Knowing who to call up is a good idea. Otherwise you might
call some people who can not help you, and are inconvenienced
slightly. A mass mailing would just be rude, and a notice on a
bulletin board may or may not be seen, and anyone could answer. You
could put up a note like "to whomever meets these criteria ..." but
you might have to try several times before you succeed."
"Well then," Nabiki decides, "I'm looking for a benefactor that values
striving for success, regardless of which path I eventually take. It
must also not require subservience, and it must have a moral system. I
do have a moral code, even if it differs from most people. I've
learned to deal with people with different codes from mine, but I
can't deal with people without them. I also want a benefactor that
feels that my efforts to succeed benefit it, so that I'm not under a
huge debt to the kami for arranging this. I can't imagine that there
are alot of Kami like this, but there should be several powerful ones
that fit this criteria."
"All right. As befits my teachings earlier, we won't do anything right
away. We'll give ourselves time to think of anything we might have
missed. Any restrictions we might like to add before we actually do
it. For now let us discuss the method of actually casting the
spell. The first thing that comes to mind is that you'll probably have
to cast it a few times before an appropriate kami notices. This is a
problem because your reserves of magic are so low. Therefor we should
do everything we can to minimize the amount of energy needed for each
casting. Surely you've noticed I tend to combine stage magic, real
magic and martial arts when I'm fighting Ranma? Tell me why I do
that."
"It's obvious that you use it to keep Ranma from finding out your true
limits, and to keep him guessing how you do it, so that he can't
counter it as easily."
Cologne chuckles, "I do exploit those benefits, but there is a more
fundamental one. We've discussed how faith and perception on behalf of
the magician affect the outcome of a spell. The same is true for the
target of a spell, and the observers. Most people don't believe in
magic, but they do believe in human cunning and trickery. Even though
they might never guess how it would be done.
"If I wanted to teleport something in front of people, I'd have to
fight their belief that it can't be done. But if I bring out two gaudy
boxes, and put something in one. Then wave my hands and say things
like 'Nothing up my sleeves', then everyone will expect the first box
to be empty, and the second one to mysteriously have the item. And
here's the important part, they'll believe it even if there were no
way to do it without magic. It turns the liability of the observer's
disbelief into the asset of their confidence that it can be done, even
if they think it's done with mirrors."
Nabiki objects "But you do it even around people who believe in
magic. Ranma certainly does."
"Yes and no. He believes implicitly in magic whenever it's from
ancient China. You wouldn't believe what he'll swallow if I say it's
from the Han dynasty. He wont believe that what you do is magic,
unless you convince him you learned it from me. To his mint, you're
engaging in the role of channeler, spiritualist, or priest. To his way
of thinking, what you're doing is without any magic at all, you're
just manipulating spirits the same way you do people. You'd find it
quite difficult with your level of power to cast a spell in front of
him if you didn't say anything.
But if you tell him that something odd is about to happen, then his
will, which is formidable, would not be a problem. Then if you tell
him you did it with magic, he'd just assume you tricked him and want
to keep the method secret. Follow me into the restaurant, and I'll
show you pure magic, without the use of those potions."
As they walk into the restaurant, Cologne comments "Doing the same
thing without anyone knowing about it would be much more difficult."
Cologne approaches a group of Salarimen. "Pardon the interruption, but
I was discussing sleight of hand and stage magic with this young
lady. I used to be quite good at it when I was younger. Would you be
willing to help me demonstrate?"
The men readily agree. Cologne produces two opaque jars with
screw-tops, and hands one each to two different men. She turns to one
of them. "Please make sure that it is completely empty, and screw the
lid on tight. and put it in your pocket."
He complies, and she turns to the other man. "Please write or draw
something on this piece of paper, and seal it in your jar and put it
in your pocket." He does so, and then she addresses the two men. "Now,
each of you put one hand over your pocket, and touch your other hands
together."
After they do this, she instructs the men to look in their jars, and
sure enough, the paper had gone from one jar to the other. After the
salarimen congratulate her, Cologne and Nabiki go back into the back
room to finish todays lessons. "There was no way to have done that
without having an accomplice or two, or the ability to see the future
to copy what he wrote. I was nowhere near the men, so I couldn't have
used sleight of hand. The paper hadn't been marked until after the
first jar had been sealed, so I couldn't have somehow planted a
duplicate before it was sealed. If those salarimen were truly logical,
they'd now believe in real magic."
Nabiki comments "But they don't. they knew the paper would have moved
even though there was no way to do it in a non-magical world."
Cologne comments "Well, actually, there was an easier way to do it. A
mild form of mind control could have made him write or draw something
identical to a previously prepared sheet. and then perhaps it could be
achieved using sleight of hand, but he was simultaneously convinced
that it would work, when there was no way for anyone restricted to
mundane abilities to have done it.
"Luckily for you, the magic you will specialize in, which involves
communing with spirits meshes well with the beliefs in Shinto. Most
people believe on some level that spirits exist, even if it's merely
an atavistic desire to exist forever, even after the body dies. But it
is something you'll have to consider if you wish to do something
outside of your area of expertise. Casting a spell on someone where
you have to touch the person, becomes much easier if they think it's a
form of shiatsu. Flying around town would be much easier wearing some
junk that looked like a rocket-pack, or if you were seated on a broom
or carpet."
So how does this apply to making petitions to the spirit world?
Anything you can do to improve the effacency of the spell, without
adding a greater magical charge, must be done. Especially if the
improvement can be achieved using a few yen in getting the best
ingredients. Adding people who can add their belief will help, as well
as using power readily available in places like Shinto shrines. Often
a polite donation will give you a little allowance for eccentricities
in a ceremony, as long as it in no way contradicts their
beliefs. Let's concentrate on your beliefs first. Say you needed a
craftsman. Assume you couldn't find it by word of mouth, and your
phone book was gone. What would you do?
Notices on bulletin boards, and in all pre-existing newspapers that
didn't charge for announcements. If that failed, I'd shell out money
for a real advert, or I'd spend my energy tracking down someone who
would know the right person.
So you'll want a brief, polite description, with information about the
job, and contact information. For now we'll say that the paper has to
be of good quality, and the message handwritten clearly in ink. You
don't want to give the impression that you've mimeographed thousands
of these things. I can't think of any reason why the type of paper
would matter, as long as it's good quality. We're not trying to
enchant the paper itself, so we can ignore the making of it as long as
the delivery method doesn't pose a requirement. For some entities, I'd
insist on handmade paper as being more effacious, but you're looking
for a more forward thinking kami, rather than a traditionalist.
"Likewise I can't see any reason that the ink be anything special,
provided that it doesn't come from a cheap pen, and looks crisp and
readable."
Nabiki interrupts, "I'm a little unsure about burning messages. That's
largely a Chinese ritual, I don't think a Shintoist would agree to
help. I don't know what I'd replace it with."
Cologne answers "You're probably right. I'm just showing my cultural
bias, I think in terms of what I grew up with. Take a lesson from an
old traveler, even the smartest and best prepared minds suffer culture
shock. If you ever have to deal with a foreigner for business, you'll
experience the same thing. Hmm, Shinto tradition relies on prayer and
dreams for communication with the world beyond."
Nabiki adds "If I'm going to perform it several times, a written form
of the prayer is still a good idea. I don't want to misspeak the
contract the one time someone's listening. A formal scroll to read
from would fit. One scroll to use over several castings, instead of
leaflets that get burned to be given to the beyond.
Cologne comments "After more consideration, It's probably a bad idea
to add a priest to the mix, as they have strong expectations about the
spirit realm which would likely skew your own efforts. I should have
though of this before. If you're going to be dealing with the spirit
world on a regular basis, you're going to have to acquire the
implements of formal worship and build your own shrine.
"Do you mean a shrine as in a family shrine, or a small building for
worship?"
"The smaller one, don't worry. It doesn't need to be as big as even a
family shrine, as you aren't going to use it to store family mementos,
or pictures of the departed. What you need is a formal altar, you'll
probably want to keep it in your room. You need to make a corner of
your room into a sacred place which differentiates the mundane world
from the larger universe."
Nabiki looks warily, "Am I going to have to rope off one part of my
room with shimenawa to keep the sacred from the profane?"
Cologne chuckles. "You could, but you don't have to. The most
important part is to always maintain a different attitude towards that
part of the room. A temple is just a building reserved for a
particular purpose. It is the setting aside of an area for a single
purpose that empowers an area. The true importance of the rituals lie
in the fact that we intentionally act in a way different from our
normal behavior. We consciously make an effort of will to go from one
mode of thought to another."
"It sounds to me like you're describing a tea ceremony instead of an
act of worship."
"It is exactly the same thing! In order to survive in our day to day
lives it is necessary to be thinking a thousand ways at once, trying
to judge your courses of action based on morals, ethics, aesthetics,
popular opinion, comfort, ease, risk. You can't afford to ignore any
of these, however this is a hindrance to clarity of thought."
"In order to keep from losing ourselves, we must have a way to keep
what we consider important clear in our minds. Whether it's our
principles, morals, craft, or beliefs. We set aside a time and place
where we dismiss the thousand clamoring voices, and concentrate on
what we feel is truly important.
"For religious beliefs, you typically go to a temple. You wash your
hands to discard the cares of the outside world. You clap your hands
twice, not only to attract the attention of kami, but also as a formal
notice 'From this point on, what I say or pray is really important. I
daren't be distracted by petty things.
"The tea ceremony is a form of worship towards beauty, or human
interaction or understanding. All daily cares are discarded, only the
ceremony is to be thought of. The host has removed all distractions
from the area. The past and future fall away to reveal the
present. You share that moment with other people, joined with you in
this action. You don't talk about the game last Saturday, or the
latest gossip, you can't hide behind the inane chatter with which we
shield ourselves from other's scrutiny. Since no one is allowed to
talk, you are forced to listen to each other. There might be a scroll
hanging depicting an idea that the host thought appropriate, and the
participants redefine their relationship through mutual contemplation
of that idea.
"A craftsman may have a workbench, or a computer set aside in an area
where it is understood that only the craft matters. When an expert
walks up to their own work area they stop thinking about what's for
dinner that night, and just concentrate on making something
wonderful. Hours fly by not due to pleasure, but due to a
concentration that ignores the flow of time in exchange for a
concentration on what is truly important.
"The bowing when entering a dojo, the hush of a rock garden. These are
all ways of focusing the mind on what you've determined is truly vital
to yourself for a short time before going back into the confusing
world. For this to work for you, it is necessary to maintain the rules
of the place. A rock garden would be pointless with skate-boarders. A
TV set would ruin a tea ceremony. A place can be a sacred prayer area,
even if it's merely the idea that when standing before the altar
nothing else matters."
As Cologne slows down, Nabiki smirks "That was a kind of excessive
answer, wasn't it?"
"I guess so. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The biggest danger
from the abandoning of traditions in this modern world, is the
discarding of traditions designed to keep us calm, rational, and
grounded. And maybe they deserve to be discarded as outmoded or
anachronistic. But people aren't replacing them with new rituals.
"If human beings don't have some method of re-grounding themselves to
what is really important to them, and if they don't do it regularly,
they find themselves always running towards the future out of control
and off balance. They feel like they're constantly running to keep
up. That they work-to-live-to-work. And then wonder why they have a
mental breakdown.
"The point isn't that you have to stop and smell the flowers, the
point is that you must have some time where all you are doing is
smelling the flowers. some time for yourself. Both Shampoo and Ranma
are separately heading for a breakdown. If I tell her to take some
time off, she thinks if she does, she'll fall behind."
Nabiki smirks "I see there's a sub-text in this lesson, that this is
something I should watch out for. You think I need to reaffirm my
principles?"
"I think everyone needs to. However if I ordered you to do so, it'd
have done no good. Nobody actually wants to follow good
advice. Hopefully now, if you do get in over your head, you might
remember a possible course of treatment.
Staying up late cleaning, getting up early to start making the
noodles, balancing food supplies versus demand while trying to direct
the battles and love-fights that go on around here. Even I sometimes
feel like I need a year's vacation."
"Why didn't you mention this when we were talking about Kasumi's
calmness?"
"Re-centering yourself does not necessarily lead to calmness. Ranma
finds his center before his toughest battles, ignoring everything
else. This is about maintaining your balance, not your calm."
"OK. So about building my altar ..."
"Find a priest you like, and get his advice for a small personal
shrine, and make sure that everything about it is done carefully and
deliberately."
* * *
Nabiki goes over her preparations "OK, I'm probably ready to
start. Better review my preparations to make sure everything is set up
right."
"I've got the small shelf for the kamidana, and a mat in front of
it. The two Sakake Tate holding evergreen branches, 2 Heiji bottles
containing Omiki, The Mizutama has water in it, the dish has Okome,
the plate has salt, I've got the Ozen, and the lamps. The whole
arrangement has been blessed, the lamps have oil, no one's drank the
ritually purified sake."
"I should never have asked the priest where to install on the shrine a redial button for repeat calls."
"The scroll looks impressive even to me. Hopefully the back of the
paper being red will bring me luck. Time for the first of my thrice
daily prayers to the unknown. Here Goes."
* * *
There was no physical change in the bathroom. The water in the furo
didn't even ripple, although by all rights of poetic license it should
have glowed at the very least. None of the Tendo's were equipped to
detect any change at all. Yet something left the furo and then the
room, which had not entered by any normal means.
Shortly thereafter, Ran'neko wanted control of the body in order to go
out on the lawn and play. Ran'neko bounded all over the place, chasing
and running from something only it could see. It was less like the
predator-prey playing Ran'neko indulged in when it faced Genma, but
the antics of a kitten chasing another siblings tail, to be chased in
turn a moment later. That this kitten had the form of a teenage boy
only added to the surreal display.
When the game seemed to wind down to a pause, Ranma resumed control of
his body, and walked into the house. Akane looked at him, and asked
"What was that all about?"
"Beats me. I couldn't see a thing, but Ran'neko believes he was
playing with a friend out there." Ranma walked towards his room, with
an unusually pensive look on his face.
About an hour later, Nabiki stormed into Ranma's room. "Why didn't you
tell me that there was some kind of spirit near the dojo? This is
important, damn it!"
Ranma's expression grows a little sheepish, but not as much as Nabiki
expected it would. Ranma was still primarily distracted by whatever he
was thinking about. "Sorry. I was just thinking about something else."
"I need to know everything I can about it. What did Ran'neko sense?"
"All I know so far is that Ran'neko thought it was a friend."
"Haven't you asked it for more information yet? What have you been
doing for the last hour?"
"I've got a life of my own, you know. I'm not just some medium for you
to get information out of!"
Nabiki realized that this conversation was veering off in a direction
she wasn't expecting, and calmed herself down. "Sorry, I just assumed
that since weirdness always seems to drag your life into a mess, that
you'd have found out everything you could. I've been expecting a
spirit to show up around here, only I expected it to have come to me,
rather than you."
Ranma pauses a minute, and said "Ran'neko said that it's a young
spirit, and its human-like, but not a human."
"Is it a cross between a human and an animal?"
"No. Looks mostly human. It's trying to get something across to me,
but the images are rather disturbing. Ran'neko treats it as perfectly
ordinary. Does really tiny kittens covered in blood and muck being
licked by a cat mean anything to you?"
"No. Wait. I've got an idea." Nabiki leaves, and returns with a
book. "I got this from Kasumi's room. I think I remember a picture."
as she flips through it. She finds the right page, and shows Ranma the
picture of a red-faced baby smeared with blood.
Ranma flinches, "That's disgusting! It seems to be the idea that he's
looking for, though. What happened to that baby, though?"
"It just finished being born."
"That's what he's saying! The spirit had never been physically
born. Another thing, it's healthy, but has no chi. Apparently none at
all. That would explain why no one here could sense it at all. I
thought it might be hiding it's presence like with the umisenken, but
that's not it at all. Invisible and without chi leaves me nothing to
sense it, except through how it affects it's environment, and I think
it was intangible as well."
"You're the chi-throwing martial artist. How would you go about
passing chi from one person to another?"
"You don't do that. Even healers use their own chi to encourage the
patient's chi to flow."
"Couldn't you just blast it?"
"Not with the mouko takabisha or the shi shi hokudan. It might work
with some other emotion, I dunno."
"Cologne said that the wrong type of chi attack could power up a
spirit, right? Therefor there has to be a way for a spirit to make use
of someone else's chi. Unless she was referring to only vampiric ones,
but it didn't sound like that to me. How does Hinako-sensei drain chi
anyway? What's a battle aura composed of?"
"It's chi, alright. It gets it's colors by burning off emotions, but
that should only cause light inside the body, unless somehow the
emotions are pushed out. I looked into it as it's an involuntary
method of using chi, and I hoped it might give me a clue to using
emotion-less chi."
"Why can't the mouko takabisha be reabsorbed? Is it because blue chi
can't meld with green chi?"
"No, it's more than that. Until I launch it, I can pull it back into
me, but once I launch it, it could hurt me as much as anyone else. The
only reason that Ryouga's perfect shishi hokudan doesn't smash him
when it falls back to earth, is because part of the maneuver involves
a second small burst just before it hits him redirecting the larger
burst to splash around him."
"Let's try something. Make a mouko takabisha, but don't release
it. Lets see if the spirit can drain it if you give it a chance."
Ranma forms the sphere, and feels Ran'neko get excited. Ranma lets it
dissipate, and tells Nabiki "Right idea, wrong place. Ran'neko thinks
it could work, but only under alot of water for some reason. Go
figure. Is the furo free?"
Nabiki frowns slightly. It should be free, but lets slow down. "We
have no idea what will happen, so lets do it safely."
* * *
Nabiki calls a meeting "We've got another weird event about to
happen. Before everything dissolves into chaos, I'm taking charge, as
I know the most about it. There's a spirit floating around here that
Ran'neko thinks of as a harmless playmate. We're going to try
something, and to lessen the risk, you'll be helping."
Genma bitches "Akane isn't going to hit me with her mallet again?"
Ranma answers "Aww, you poor widdle panda. A martial artist's life is
fraught with peril, remember?"
Nabiki interrupts. "Enough! Ranma and I will be doing the
experiment. Genma and Akane are going to be our backup and daddy will
be ready to get Dr. Tofu if something goes wrong. Kasumi will run to
the Nekohanten if she sees daddy running. Any questions?"
Akane complains. "Why do I have to be backup? I'm a martial artist
too!"
"Ranma has to be with me, unless anybody else has mastered the mouko
takabisha. Kasumi has to be outside to avoid a fight. If this goes
right, nobody will need to attack anybody, OK? The rest of you are
there because we aren't sure what will happen. If Ranma gets possessed
by the Ghost of Christmas Past, and an easter bunny starts lobbing
exploding eggs, then you and Genma help me beat a retreat, until we
know how to undo it. OK?"
Ranma looks at Nabiki like she's finally cracked "Martial Arts Easter
Egg Hiding?"
Nabiki agrees. "You're right. That'd only happen to us in April. Look,
there's a good chance nothing will happen at all, but Ran'neko thinks
it's both likely to work, and to be a good thing, so there's no reason
to become paranoid. I just want a backup plan in case everyone IS out
to get us. got it?"
* * *
A few minutes later finds five people around the wash-room. Soun was
watching from the corridor, and had a straight sprint to the stairs if
he needed it. Genma and Akane stood inside the bathing area, blocking
the door out. Nabiki off to the side, and Ranma kneeling before the
furo. Ranma powers up a weak mouko takabisha.
Genma objects. "Boy, don't fire that off in here!"
"Of course I'm not gonna!" Ranma suddenly realizes that he has no idea
what will happen, but that it just might be spectacular "Hey,
everybody, watch this." And with that he plunged both hands
underwater.
No one was expecting a naked eight year old to leap out from between
his hands, jump off his head, steal Genma's glasses, put them on
Akane, and leap into Nabiki's arms, all the while screaming "Wheeee!"
Ran'neko might have suspected some of that, but it didn't prepare
anyone else.
"Yippie. This is so much fun!"
Nabiki tried to maintain her poise as the child ran its fingers
through her hair, and said "I think the emergency is over. Someone
tell Kasumi what's going on. We're going to my room. Ranma, you're
coming with me.
* * *
Akane follows the trio of Ranma, Nabiki, and child into Nabiki's
room. "Where the hell did that child come from?"
Nabiki, who managed to gather some of her wits during the walk over,
said "A mommy bird and a poppy bird who love each other very much, get
certain urges and"
"You know what I mean! Was she in the furo all along? Is this some
kind of a joke?"
Nabiki ignored her and asked "Ranma, is this the one Ran'neko was
playing with earlier?" as she lays the child on her bed.
"Yep..." Ranma stops as he and the Tendo's realize that unlike a
normal eight year old, this child is completely lacking in any
characteristics that'd determine what gender it was. even though it
was completely naked. It also lacked a belly-button, and nipples.
It started bouncing up and down on the bed. "This place is fun!" It
turned to Nabiki, "You're Nabiki Tendo, the person I was supposed to
report to, right? Can I call you Aunti?"
"You do, and I'll refer to you as the baby."
"How about 'Older sister'?" Nabiki nods. It turned to Ranma. "Who are
you, and what's your kitty's name?"
"Ranma, and he's Ran'neko. Who are you?"
Akane murmurs under her breath. "What are you?"
"I'm " it then began to whistle, like a drunk robin. "But it's
traditional to take a new name, humans never get the trill just
right." It looked at Akane and started to laugh. "Why is she looking
like she's about to tear her hair out?"
Nabiki answers "That's Akane, she has no idea what's going on, and
it's starting to get her mad."
"I AM getting mad. What happened in the bathroom?"
"He let me take a bit of his chi, so I could make this body."
"You mean that's not what you normally look like?"
"No, this is my body. I just needed a boost to make it."
Akane's voice starts to rise "But where did you come from?"
"The water in the furo! Your not asking about my parents, are you? I
thought Nabiki was joking when she started the 'birds and the bees'
speech."
"Where were you before the furo!"
"Playing with Ran'neko on the grass."
Akane responds "AAAAh!"
Nabiki interjects "She's a spirit!" Nabiki turns to the child. "Are
you a he or a she?"
"Neither yet. You do know what boys and girls look like, don't you?"
Ranma answers "I think she means do you want to be called he or she? I
call Ran'neko he, but Nabiki refers to him as it, because he's not
really a he or a she."
"How many people live here? How many males and females?"
"Three males and three females."
"How many of them are young?"
"Three females and Ranma."
"Then use 'she' so I can join you in picking on Ranma. No sense
joining the loosing side." she stuck her tongue out at Ranma.
Ranma smiles in spite of himself. So what type of spirit are you?
"I like long walks in the park, and romantic evenings by the
fireplace." she turns to Nabiki and answers "That was the right kind
of answer for a girl, right?"
"More or less. I think he wanted to know what species you were."
She looks at Ranma shocked "You're not a racist, are you?" she can't
help grinning by the end of her sentence.
Ranma decides to answer in the same spirit. "No. Akane is the one who
likes to jog. I do kata, and jump from roof to roof."
"Meanwhile, Nabiki flies. Right?"
"Not yet."
Akane seems to be cheering up, but she still wants to know where the
child came from. "So what are you doing here, so far from home?"
"I live here, now." She turns to Nabiki "unless you've made special
arrangements."
Akane looks at Nabiki "So where's she going to sleep?"
"I never sleep! Besides, I can always get rid of this body, and build
another."
"Are you going to need Ranma to provide the energy?"
"Oh no. It doesn't use up energy. I just can't do it if I'm out of
energy."
"Why are you so secretive about what you are?"
"I wasn't before I realized how fun it was to keep you asking."
"So what are you!"
"I'm a naiad."
"What's that?"
"Why'd you bother to ask what I was if you couldn't understand the
answer?"
"I thought the answer would be useful!"
Nabiki interrupts "I've thought of a name for you. How about
Kyakuzumi?"
Ranma asks "Water guest?"
Nabiki answers "No, I was thinking of the characters for prank
fountain."
Akane turns to Ranma and shouts "Get out of here, we've got a naked
girl in here!"
Kyakuzumi looks at her as if she lost her head. "I've got a feminine
name, and use a feminine pronoun, but that doesn't make me
female. Besides, we almost never wear clothes.
Nabiki asks "I thought all naiads were female, like driads."
"Driads aren't female. Who ever heard of a female oak tree? Most of
the stories are written my men, and since we don't wear clothes, most
authors give us breasts out to here. We're not mammals anyway."
Nabiki adds for her slower house-mates "Which is why you have no
nipples or belly-button."
Akane asks "Well then, how do you have children?"
Kyakuzumi responds "I'll describe our process, if you describe yours."
She winks at Akane, who blushes, looks at Ranma, and turns beet red."
Kyakuzumi squints at Ranma. "Why do you have a web of water magic
running through your body? Ran'neko isn't a water spirit, is he?"
Nabiki answers "Ranma is one of a growing collection of people in the
area who have curses from Jusenkyou."
Kyakuzumi looks shocked "There are more of them? Jusenkyou is hundreds
of miles away, isn't it?"
Nabiki answers "True, but you have to remember 'More and more people
are turning to Jusenkyou for their source of magical curses.'"
Akane complains "If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to
wear clothes."
Kyakuzumi is baffled. "Why?"
Akane answers "Don't you have any modesty?"
"Not about my body. What's wrong with it?"
Nabiki interrupts "There are two reasons besides Akane's prudity to
wear clothes around here. One, people will assume that you're
human. Two, people wont think we're pedophiles."
Kyakuzumi frowns. "So what do you want me to wear?"
Nabiki turns to Akane. "See if Kasumi has kept any of your
hand-me-downs stored away. Jeans and a T-shirt. That kind of thing."
She turns to Kyakuzumi "unless you're fond of dresses?"
Kyakuzumi answers "It doesn't matter to me. I'll wear it, but I wont
wear underwear! You don't need that to fool anyone!"
Akane walks out, muttering about perverts.
Kyakuzumi asks Nabiki "What's wrong with her? If I wore clothes around
other naiads for no reason at all, they'd think I had a
clothes-fetish."
Ranma goggles "You mean, among naiads, Akane would be considered the
pervert?"
"Of course. You can't swim in clothes."
"Akane can't swim anyway."
Kyakuzumi's eyes start to tear up "Really? That's horrible!"
Akane enters with some clothes, and is nearly bowled over when a
wailing Kyakuzumi tackles her with a hug. Akane asks "What's going on
now?"
Nabiki answers "We mentioned that you couldn't swim." At this,
Kyakuzumi's crying increased.
Akane is torn between anger at her weakness being revealed, and total
perplexity over what to do with the crying child. Eventually she
tosses the clothes she was carrying onto the bed, and hugs Kyakuzumi
back. "It's alright. It's alright."
"But. But. To never be able to swim!"
Ranma answers "Well, I wouldn't say never. She just hasn't been able
to learn it. She might be able to, someday."
Kyakuzumi looks at Akane's face. "Really?"after a few seconds "Then
I've got a new hobby. I'll teach you to swim!"
Akane now looks at her with a confusing mixture of hope, dread, and
worry, as she resigns herself to a new round of swimming lessons. "Put
on those clothes, and we'll introduce you to the other people living
here."
The four of them walk downstairs and enter the common area. Kyakuzumi
squints at Genma, and a wicked smile crosses her face. She runs
towards him with her arms open wide, screaming "Daddy!" She leaps at
him, and Genma turns into a panda with Kyakuzumi's sopping wet clothes
plastered to her body. Kyakuzumi is nowhere in sight, and there are
gallons of water everywhere.
Genma raises a sign "What just happened?"
A naked Kyakuzumi leaps from the koi pond, giggling. "Did you see his
face?"
Soun asks "What just happened?"
While Kyakuzumi put back on the wet clothes, she explained. "I saw he
had a Jusenkyou curse too, so I discarded this body, and made a new
one from the pool!" For some reason, her clothes were now dry, and the
huge puddle was gone.
Ranma stalks up to his father while asking "Is he really your father?"
While Genma holds up a sign saying "No I'm Not!" Kyakuzumi just says
"Of course not! I just said that to see the look on his face, and to
keep him from moving away."
Soun smiles "You're awfully clever to figure that all out."
Kyakuzumi answers "Don't worry, someday you might be too."
There's a shocked silence around the room, before Kyakuzumi adds
"Sorry, I have a low tolerance for patronization. I'm called
Kyakuzumi. What's your name?"
Soun attempts to regain his dignity. "I'm Soun Tendo. Where are your
parents?"
"Why would I know that? I don't know who they are."
Soun starts to break down and cry "Now they'll all think I was
unfaithful to my wife again!"
"Why doesn't anything around here make sense? I think I'm going to
like it here."
Kasumi adds "I'd better prepare a bit more for dinner then."
Kyakuzumi comments "Don't worry. I don't eat. Well at least not
food. The fish are hungry though."
Akane backs up "You're here to drink our blood! I knew there was
something fishy about this!"
Kyakuzumi looks at Akane as if she were mad, and asks Nabiki "Who
dropped a salmon down her pants? Do I look like a kappa?"
Kasumi announces "Of course! I forgot to add cucumber to the salad!"
and leaves.
From outside, Mousse cries out "Prepare to Die, Ranma!"
Kyakuzumi looks at Nabiki. "Another one? What does he turn into?"
"A knife wielding duck with glasses."
Akane asks "So if you don't drink blood, what do you eat?"
"Some of the things I can do use up chi, and I can't generate any
myself."
Ranma drops down to stand on both his hands and feet, and with a yowl,
bounds outside. Kyakuzumi shouts "Go get him, Ran'neko!"
Genma thinks to himself "Well if she never met her parents, I probably
never engaged her to Ranma."
Thunder didn't roll obligingly in the background because, amazingly
enough, Genma was right.
* * *
Cologne begins another of her lectures "So much of your magic is
likely to deal with spirits, and interactions between vastly different
beings, that I'd better discuss myths. It wont be at all helpful in
casting spells, but it can be instrumental in your dealings, and your
perception of the world around you.
"Myths are anecdotes that bridge the gap between gossip and
parable. Because of this, they are immensely useful for anyone who is
willing to understand all of it's levels. To dismiss them as just
stories, is to ignore a fundamental process in the way people think
and behave.
"Normally when we think of myths, we think of stories of gods and
kings from long ago. In reality the age of the myth is irrelevant,
It's just that all of the useless myths are quickly forgotten, and
only those that have been useful stand the test of time. For example,
I could tell you the story of the first time Ran'neko sneezed. It'd
take me about 15 seconds, and no one would ever remember it. For a
myth to be remembered, it must have some value beyond historical
anecdote.
"A barely more useful myth would be the story of a spirit who stubbed
her toe on a valuable vase while going to the bathroom one night, and
blasted it into bits in her anger. The moral being don't put valuable
things where people might trip over them. The better the myth, the
more it has to teach us. Even myths that we believe as gospel still
had to have some additional lesson to teach, or no one would have
bothered remembering it.
"Take, for example, one of the two conflicting myths surrounding the
Norse Wotan, and Mimir. In the earlier myth, Wotan was seeking wisdom
and understanding, possibly to better deal with the risk of Ragnarok,
the death of the gods. At the base of the great world tree Yggdrasil
were three springs or pools. One was known as Urded's after the oldest
of the Norns, the second I've long since forgotten, and the third was
the pool of Mimir. Mimir was the name of both the pool and the
guardian of the pool, a giant. Drinking from the pool was said to
grant wisdom, so Wotan sought it out.
"The Giant Mimir told Wotan that in order to drink from the pool, a
sacrifice must be made. Wotan balked at this, and fought Mimir,
thinking that by defeating the giant he'd be able to drink for
nothing. But, after winning, when Wotan drank it did nothing for
him. The giant explained that the sacrifice wasn't something he
demanded, but was the nature of the pool. In order to drink a single
horn-full of water, Wotan had to sacrifice one of his eyes. This, and
other adventures made Wotan the wisest of the Norse gods, and was the
reason Wotan reigned supreme while his children and grandchildren grew
in power surpassing him.
"If this story were only a recounting of events, only his family would
have cared. It has remained a myth, because of it's allegorical
nature, which is still useful today, even though we come from a vastly
different culture.
"Say, for example, Ranma decided he needed to become wiser.
Nabiki snorts derisively
Cologne continues "Just assuming, without prejudice, even though the
event is extremely unlikely. It is pretty obvious that all his
strength and skill wouldn't help him, it would require a willing
sacrifice. In Ranma's case, he'd lose time from practicing, and the
pain which an increased empathic understanding of other people brings.
"Furthermore the fact that Wotan sacrificed an eye is significant
too. An increased wisdom operates by seeing patterns in events, but by
looking for these patterns, you distract yourself from the relatively
unimportant details. Looking at the waving branches of a tree, you
think of the wind blowing up there, ignoring the fact that the third
leaf from the left has a bite taken out of it. Wotan can still see,
but not quite as well, as his effort of thinking distracts from his
perception of the details of the world. Wisdom is also sometimes
gained with age, as eyesight is lost with age.
"Even the giant is a metaphor. Wotan thought it was an adversary
standing in his way, an adversary that could potentially have killed
him, since Norse giants could kill gods, and would eventually do so
during Ragnarok. In reality, the giant was a guide, the only one who
really understood the pool. Without the giant, Wotan wouldn't have
known how to use the pool. The giant paid for Wotan's misunderstanding
by being beaten up, but still helped him gain wisdom. It is the nature
of teachers to be discommoded by their pupils, but if they are to
teach, they must put up with it.
"It is this information, this understanding of the nature of learning,
teaching, and understanding that transforms the story from a
recollection of how Wotan lost an eye, into a myth worth
remembering. We can further deduce that this myth started, and was
perpetuated by people who understood the nature of teaching and
learning. The myth would have been lost if it fell into the hands of
people who did not see the advantages of a wise ruler. A tribe of
Genmas would have forgotten it, for example.
"It is precisely because the things important to people change over
time that myths are born, grow, and die. A hunter-gatherer tribe has a
different set of myths than an agrarian society. For this reason, for
a religion to survive the changes of a tribe, it's myths must change
also. Christianity didn't adopt pagan myths merely to trick the
peasants into joining, they accepted the myths in order for it to
survive from a desert/warlike beginning to an agrarian feudal system,
to a semi-modern one.
"One of the reasons that churches are loosing their parishioners is
the fact that the religion hasn't found any new myths to explain how
life has changed during the industrial revolution, much less the
information age. Christianity is an adequate religion for those people
involved closely with the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth that
plants go through, and still contains many of the earlier hunter
myths, like the ritualistic cannibalism of the celebration of mass,
believing in the transubstantiation of bread to flesh, and eating it
to achieve some of Jesus's grace. And if you doubt the warlike nature
of the earliest myths, go reread the first few books of the old
testament, and see how God instructs his followers to behave with
other tribes.
"None of these myths deal with the nature of a sixty hour workweek in
a factory, working in a service industry, or sitting in front of a
computer all day. None of these myths deal with a child's life in the
classroom. The monotony and the hypocritical decisions of their elders
over what is worth learning, and what isn't. The constant harassment
of other children to advance their place on the social ladder at the
expense of anyone who is a little different.
"These myths exist, but are constantly in a state of flux, as no one
set has been selected as important. They're the stories that ring
true; that offer insight. Stories like Ernie going to borrow a vacuum
cleaner from Grover, contemplating during the trip over what if Grover
refused to loan it, and finally greeting a confused Grover with 'Well,
if that's the way you feel, you can keep your stupid vacuum cleaner!'
These stories are remembered not because you might someday want to
borrow a vacuum cleaner, but because it is in the nature of people to
jump to conclusions that leave others mystified, and because people
can get mad at you even if you haven't done anything wrong.
"A foreign group's religion must be understood in order to understand
the people. Whether you believe their myths or not, the myths give
insight into how they think and behave. As we all have our humanity in
common, there'll be things in their myths that will provide insight
into yourself, that you overlooked because it comes from a different
perspective.
"Some myths are truly ludicrous, but the fact that they've survived
and flourished means that it's foolish to dismiss them out of
hand. One of the aspects of Feng Shui is the idea of looking at an
area with the idea 'What would a dragon think of this place?' I'm sure
that in most cases a dragon would never see the place, so why should
anyone care? Well, we've learned that humans can survive in the
harshest places, and that all building and design consists of
trade-offs. So how do you determine what the minimum requirements are
for harmonious living?
"Well, if a dragon can't get through a door, you'll have trouble
walking in with the groceries, and your taller friends will have to
stoop. If a dragon can't walk without tripping, you'll invariably stub
your toe late one night while you're half asleep. It a dragon's tail
could break something, someone will eventually knock it over. If a
dragon can't turn around, you wont be able to pass each other in the
hall. It turns out that a harmonious house would invariably be more
comfortable for a dragon than an inharmonious house. We can think of
the minimum requirements for a bigger intelligent animal, and that'd
be a comfortable place for us. If something would annoy a dragon, it
would invariably sometimes be annoying to a human family.
"The idea that gremlins were responsible for airplane accidents during
World War II seems ludicrous. But realize that these people were
dealing with complicated machines, designed to be as light as
possible, and therefor every part had to be designed to be just sturdy
enough for it's job, and then it was going to be shot at. Overlooking
any one of a thousand problems, and there'd be a disaster. With that
in mind, the only sensible mindset is one of paranoia. Double-check
everything, assume nothing, and you prevent a horrific
accident. Suddenly a belief in gremlins starts saving lives. They
don't necessarily believe in them, but they better act like they're
there if the plane's going to survive.
:Any myth that a significant group believes in for an extended time
has something to teach. It might be something you already know, but it
might not. A Christian can learn from Mohamed even if he cannot accept
Allah. Jesus has lessons to teach atheists, and the holy books are
vital to understand a people."
"So what can a Japanese learn from Amazon culture?"
"Think about our marriage laws! What better way to survive than to
adopt neighboring dissenting ideas into the tribe, but through people
with an inferior status? Bringing an enemy male into a marriage
relationship brings foreign thoughts into the minds of the next
generation, and keeps us from becoming too isolationist. It also turns
enemies into allies, and allows us to understand our neighbors by
studying the adopted individual. Important new ideas eventually
replace poorer traditional methods, while unimportant differences are
at least better understood. The trial by combat is merely a filter to
select the better outsiders.
"It's not just a eugenics program, it's a method for maintaining
social balance and lessen the chances for war. It forces the strongest
and most headstrong of us to learn to love an enemy, and accepts that
outsiders have something to teach us. We cannot afford to demonize our
outside opponents, like the Japanese did to the Koreans earlier this
century, because we might have to clasp them to our bosom. Shampoo's
kiss of marriage affects Shampoo much more than Ranma, because the law
was intended to prevent warriors like Shampoo from walking down a
prideful path that would eventually doom the tribe through outside
conflict. If Ranma weren't so bizarrely raised, and if he didn't
accept your sisters strange definition of proper behavior, the law
would be much less onerous for him. And the elders are an escapement
mechanism for when the law really screws things up."
Nabiki asks "So it's not just 3000 years of tradition?"
"It's an entire outlook for dealing with outsiders. Bring them into
the tribe to change the tribe gradually, instead of letting our
culture be wiped out by intra-marrying, or isolationism. The existence
of the law is implicit proof that there are outsiders and outsider's
ways worthy of adapting, not that amazon's are superior to all
others. You'll note that the punishment for returning empty handed
fell only on Shampoo. Everything we've done to Ranma has been intended
to get him to go along with us, not to punish him for breaking our
law."
"So the lesson for me is I must maintain a method allowing adopting
enemies as allies, and keeping open the possibility of changing and
adopting my enemies beliefs." Nabiki sumarizes.
"Simple to state, but hard to do, isn't it? That's why the law has
such fangs for failure; It goes against human nature to behave that
way, and the law would be ignored unless it was rigorously
enforced. You have the right to consider the law an absurd
anachronism; call it stupid, if you like. But you'd be a fool to
ignore the lesson it has to teach, or to ignore what it means about
amazon society."
"So what should we do for myths pertaining to the information age?"
"A first attempt might be 'Star Trek.' Science fiction has always been
an excellent tool to show what might happen if a trend, or a feature
of modern life were exaggerated. If you ignore the fight scenes, and
Captain Kirk's efforts to get into alien's panties, you have a whole
collection of stories that deal with an exaggerated present. The
effort to strive for a utopia combining vastly different
cultures. Spock as someone who suppresses strong emotions, and the
problems and benefits that causes. Powerful beings with glaring faults
apparent to us, highlighting the ideas that there are faults in
ourselves that we can't see, that we have to deal with flawed people
of differing powers and abilities.
"Another example is Orwell's 1984, describing a loving dictator, the
flimsy nature of our understanding of the past, the way that those in
power would like us to think, and the idea of the cost of shaping such
a utopia.
"Another book I'd dearly love to see made mandatory high school
reading is John Brunner's "Stand Upon Zanzibar", which primarily
discusses the problems of people living in close proximity to each
other, but which covers a huge breadth of human behavior, from
genetics to terrorism. It's discussions on human eugenics in the
beginning of the book were applicable even to our tiny village, as
well as their examples of self-growth versus parenting. On top of
that, it was a great read. Much less depressing than his "The Sheep
Look Up" and much more useful than his book dealing with the nature of
human thought and belief "The Stone That Never Came Down," which
probably was his only important book with a happily ever after
ending. I say important book, because he wrote scores of books,
apparently just to put food on the table. These three he obviously
crafted.
"For a discussion of the effects and causes of world war II, I'd
recommend Orwell's "Animal Farm" and the graphic novel "Maus", both of
which cast the extremes of human behavior onto the animal kingdom to
increase the contrasts, and to force us to evaluate ourselves from
their perspective.
"High-school reading, television and movies are the largest methods of
creating myths that are uniform to a group. But that's just due to the
coverage they get. Smaller groups have cherished stories that explain
or show how that group behaves. Read a computer's fortune file, and
see what that teaches about the computer geeks that wrote it, and
their myths surrounding the craft of programming deterministic systems
of nearly unimaginable complexity.
"Why, even Ranma's life could be viewed as a conflict between
physical, cultural, and natural differences between men and women, and
how they interact.
Nabiki comments "I'd probably focus on the way traditional beliefs in
honor and the family structure try to mesh with a modern world, and
different cultures."
"If you wrote about it, though, I fear you'd have great difficulty
fairly displaying the importance of tradition. For it to become a
useful myth, you'd have to stress both sides fairly, as well as
showing the conflict. With age, conservatism, and the passing of fad
after silly fad, I suspect you could write a well balanced myth about
Ranma's fiancees that could benefit others. Unfortunately it is the
tendency of youth to discard tradition for 'the better way' just as
it's the tendency of age to ignore the new way until long after it
withstood the test of time. Wisdom is being able to thread between
those two extremes, but that never comes easily, and no two people
will exactly agree."
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Mrs. Asoko, What can I do for
you?"
"It's about Dr. Tashikaha. He's flying an offensive flag over his
house. I'm pretty sure it's against council regulations."
"How do you find it offensive?"
"I can't bring myself to describe it except in the most clinical
terms!"
"That would be sufficient, please go ahead."
"Well, it's a nude woman rampant, over a background containing a white
stallion, engorged, and the motto `In Godiva Memoria'"
"I see."
"It's most offensive. it should be `In Godiva Memoriam!' And the
proportions are all wrong!"