This is Terence's little game here, so you might want to read these rules
here first.  
Well, I'm game, so lets get this show on the road.  Read below until you
come to my next written section

Here's a little experiment.  And a little bit of insanity to boot.  Those of 
you who are familiar with Infocom, or are in on the little adventure game I'm 
programming will recognise what I'm doing here.

Basically, the premise is this:  The fic is written as if it was an Infocom 
adventure game, and it follows....  well, it doesn't follow anything yet.  At 
the moment, there *is* no plot.  Basically, the plot will be down to whoever's 
writing the next section.  What am I talking about?  I'll tell you.

Every few moves, we change authors.  Someone else takes the mantle.  And then, 
the story is under their control.  Everything that has gone before sticks, and 
it has to make at least a little sense as an adventure game (in other words, 
there's a map, etc.)  I'm welcome to all suggestions at the moment for this.

To start with, I suggest that only those with experience with Infocom Text 
Adventure games should continue this.  But after a while, everyone else should 
be able to pick up how it works.

As for what's happening, okay, there is a slight bit of a plot.  Basically,

the 

person lands in a fanfic or an anime.  Any fanfic, any anime.  And the current 
author can do anything they like if they need to get the unnamed character 
(gender as yet unspecified) to another fanfic.  Oh, but try to include

puzzles, 

and the score system.  It doesn't really matter since we're making this up as 
we go, but it might help.

(Example: whoever carries on this story next has to add five points to the

score 

due to the player successfully reading the new mail)

Okay, lets put this in a different light.  I don't know why anyone else
would so this, but I'm both a glutton for punishement and I figure It'd be
fun.  I hope you don't mind Terence, but I'm probably gonna write how I
like.  So if anyone is reading this, I would suggest doing this, just for
fun.  Let's see what happens shall we.

The problem with this 'fic is that I don't know if it'll work as a story.  
There's lots of potential for humour with obscure commands, obscure error 
messages, misunderstandings, the parser understanding weird and wonderful 
things, etc., but it'll be difficult to draw that out.

As I said, this is just a little bit of insanity, so if no-one wants to 
participate, I won't blame you.  I'll be keeping an eye on this to see how it 
goes.

Hope you enjoy it, and ciao,
                                     Terence Fergusson

I Took out that last part, 'cause it's not really necessary.  I'm adding
this section for the purpose of convinience.

Current Author: <place your name Here> Joshua Stevens

If you've read this so far, just skip to the parts without ">" angle brackets.

SELF-INSERTION
An Interactive Whistle Stop Tour of the World of Anime Fanfics
Copyright (c) 1997 by Terence Fergusson.

Your Bedroom
It's a typical otaku's bedroom.  That is, maybe if you hired a forklift,
scrummaged around for about half an hour, and flooded your room with bleach,
you might just find the floor.  As it is, every available space is covered
with anime tapes, posters, dolls, pin-ups, mangas, and other otaku fanstuff.
If you clambered over the large replica "Nuclear Tokyo with Real Explosions",
you can reach the landing to the east, while if you climbed onto your bed,
you can just reach your closet to the north.

Your computer is set up in a spare corner of the room, currently turned off.

TURN ON COMPUTER

Hitting the switch on the side of the 486, you watch in consternation as it
runs through the boot-up sequence.  Within a few moments, Microsoft's
personal torturing device - Windows 95 - has booted up.  Miracles will never
cease.

EXAMINE COMPUTER

It's your 486, complete with 3 1/2" disk drive, a rather modest hard drive,
connected to a small black-and-white TV.  The keyboard is battered from
continual use, and the hard drive is the type that sounds like a slipping
gear, chuntering away every time it's accessed.

On the screen, you can see a graphical interface environment, complete with
icons and a mouse pointer.  Fortunately, you've already customised the
GUI so that there are no more windows to worry about, just the icons.  One
of the icons in particular, "Pegasus Mail", leads to your gateway to the
FFML.

CLICK ON PEGASUS MAIL

Moving the mouse over the icon, you activate it.  After a few seconds of
chuntering from the hard-drive, a helpful message appears, "The installed
version of Pegasus Mail has become corrupt.  Do you wish to reinstall?"
BLAST!  You knew the computer crash had done something this time.  You resist
the urge to locate Bill Gates and carbomb him.

At the bottom of the error message are two buttons: Reinstall and Cancel.

CLICK ON REINSTALL

The error message disappears to be replaced by another helpful message,
"Please insert the Pegasus Mail Program Disk."  Oh, great.  Now you're going
to have to go search for the disk.  Where could it be?

EXAMINE FLOOR

If you want to examine the junk, say so.  Otherwise: I cannot see any floor
here.

EXAMINE JUNK 

Well, it's not exactly junk, par se.  It's actually very useful and essential
stuff, which you couldn't bear to get rid of.  Like your Sailor Moon figure
collection.

SEARCH JUNK

Rummaging through the stuff on the floor, you fail to find anything to help
you in your current situation.

EXAMINE CLOSET

On the other side of the bed in a slightly clearer area of the room, is your
closet.  Even with the amount of stuff on the floor, you think you could get
it open.  You'd have to stand on your bed to get close enough.

OPEN CLOSET

You can't reach the closet from here.  

GET ON BED

You get on your bed.

OPEN CLOSET

You open the door and are instantly surprised as a ton of anime stuff topples
out on top of you.  You lay there on your bed, in amongst all the new junk
that the closet has spewed out.

SEARCH NEW JUNK

Sifting through all the stuff that fell out, removing things like your
Ranma 1/2 "Changes in water" T-shirt, your Urusei Yatsura "Lum Shocker Pak"
and your Bubblegum Crisis "Shedding Skin Boomer".  Finally, you hit paydirt.
In amongst a cache of disks, you finally retrieve the Pegasus Mail Program
Disk.

[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
                                      

GET OFF BED

You have to get out of the closet junk first.

GET OUT OF CLOSET JUNK

You remove yourself from the closet junk.

GET OFF BED

You get off the bed.

PUT DISK IN COMPUTER

The disk drive churns as the computer accepts it.  After a few minutes
waiting, Pegasus Mail finally reinstalls itself.  You're glad you automated
the process; but then, after about thirty-seven times of reinstalling Pegasus
after crashes, you do learn a few things.

The computer drops back into the familiar GUI.

CLICK ON PEGASUS MAIL

This time, Pegasus Mail boots up without a hitch.  Bringing up the New Mail
folder, you quickly check if anything has been sent while you were down.

Unfortunately, there's only one new mail, but it has no subject header.

CLICK ON NEW MAIL

You open up the mail message to find it's full of garbage, as if it was
compressed or something.  Not another one.

But hang on a sec.  You're pretty sure the hard drive shouldn't be flashing
like that.  And why is the TV flickering like that?

TURN OFF COMPUTER

Before you can do anything, the screen suddenly blanks out of its own accord.
You back away from the machine before it gets any ideas about electrocuting
you or something.  It appears, however, to have other ideas.

The screen begins to glow eerily.

PANIC

You scream and shout, generally running around like a chicken with it's head
cut off.

The glowing grows stronger, and you feel a strong gravitational attraction 
pulling you towards your TV.

EAST

You attempt to flee, but the pull from the screen is too strong.

With a cry, your feet lose their grip on the floor, skidding on your
scale-model Griffon.  You fly across the room, and completely defying any
law of physics, are sucked into your 12" TV.

And then, all is black.  Now it's Josh's turn.
Elsewhere, elsewhen, a shadowy figure gazes at their computer screen.  "It
begins."

You wake up with an unsettling feeling (as well as the indistinct
premonition of being an All-Powerful Otaku)

SHAKE OFF THE FEELING AND LOOK AROUND, STUPID!

        For some reason you don't feel like doing that.

ALRIGHT!  SHAKE OFF THE FEELING AND LOOK AROUND, PLEASE!

        Smiling, you push yourself up and get into a sitting position.  It's
a very nice quiet day outside, with those beautiful colors and wide eyed
children you love so much.  In fact, today is particularly beautiful with
clouds that area perfectly shaped to please the eyes and children with
extremely large eyes.  

        Wait a second, extremely large eyes, perfect clouds.  Arrgghh, your
in anime!
You do what comes most naturally to you, you panic.

CALM DOWN, WHAT'S YOU EXPECT FROM A GLOWING COMPUTER?

        You begin to regain your composure, sure there's a logical
explaination for this.  You search for the explaination for quite some time,
and finally come up with one answer:   the glowing computer screen.  

STUDY THE ARTWORK, IT'LL GIVE YOU A CLUE AS TO WHAT ANIME SERIES YOUR IN.

        You decide  to study the artwork, looking for clues as to where you
are.  It's fairly nice as far as general drawings.  All the woman are
utterly beautiful, and all of the men are in perfect shape.  Then you notice
something that catches your eye.  Everytime someone gets shocked, they make
an odd gesture with their hand; and every once in a while, the drawings
would revert into something reminisent of a second grader's work.
        Seeing somebody fly into the air and keep sailing for a few minutes,
you peice together where you are.  This is Nermia, and the series is Ranma 1/2.

QUICK, LOOK DOWN!

        Looking down, you see that not only has your scenery changed, but
you have as well.  Below you can see an extremely muscular body, clothed in
what seems to be self made stuff.  You can see a large parasol on the floor,
and straps over your shoulders leading to your back.

TOUCH YOUR FOREHEAD.

        Reaching up, you casually touch your forehead, only to be stopped by
a peice of cloth.  You remove the clothe, and try again, only to be stopped
at another.  Time after time, you remove one and have another underneath.
After only a few moments, you have a small pile of yellow bandanas at you feet.
        You look at the bandanas for a while without noting the
significance.  It is only when you see the parasol again that you figure out
who you are.  Oh no, your Ryoga Hibiki!  And in the Ranma universe, that's a
bad thing.

GET YOU BEARINGS, WHERE ARE YOU IN NERMIA.

        Looking aroung, you see that this place looks oodly familiar.  You
recognize this as the Nermia park, so you try and recall which way
everything is.  The damndest thing happens, you can't.  For some reason,
even though you know where you are, you can't tell where anything else is.
Ah, the Ryoga direction curse strikes again!

GO EAST.

        You head west, walking briskly throught the park to avoid running
into somebody.

GO EAST, I SAID.  EAST.

        You continue to head west, certain this is the way out.

FINE, GO WEST.

        You turn around, realizing you were going the wrong way.   Heading
east you walk through the park and begin heading to ... Ranma's house?  You
really don't want to go there.

YOUR GOING THERE, PIGBOY.  NOW KEEP GOING WEST.

        Even with the intense fear you have of entering Ranma's house, you
find yourself still heading east towards it.  In a matter of minutes, you
are at the door of the house, not sure what to do next.

OKAY, KNOCK AT THE DOOR.  WE'VE GOT SOMETHING TO DO.

        Realizing that you have a purpose for going here gives you new
strength.  You confidently rap on the door, putting your best smile on.  In
a few moments, you are greeted at the door by ... an ... utter vision of
beauty.  She is a goddess among the lowest regions.  Her short cut hair
bobbs slightly and a sunlit smile spreads across her wonderous face.  For a
moment you cannot move in the presence of this lovely being, so entraced
with her radiance are you. 
        The lovely girl talks, saying to you, "Oh, hi Ryoga!  How have you
been, haven't seen you in a while."  She stares at you for a while, and you
realize she's waiting for you to say something.

TELL HER YOUR FINE, AND YOU HAVE TO SPEAK WITH HER AND RANMA.

        You finally sputter out the words, "I-I'm fine.  I, um, have to
speak with you and Ranma.  It's kind of important.  She nods her head, and
turns to fetch Ranma.  You just stand at the front door, not really sure
what you need to do.

YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW THAT, JUST GO INSIDE AND INTO AKANE'S ROOM.  DON'T

WORRY, THAT'S THE ONE ROOM YOU HAVE NO PROBLEM GETTING TO.
        Entering the house, you find that you do know the way to Akane's
room.  Assuming that Akane will meet you there, you go upstairs and head
towards her room.  As you climb the last step, you see Nabiki on her bed,
her head inside her earphones.  Turning away....

WAIT!  GO GET NABIKI, ASK HER TO GO TO AKANE'S ROOM, TOO!  THERE SHOULD BE

SOME YEN IN YOUR POCKET, LAY THAT ON AKANE'S BED.
        Quickly you take out the yen and drop in on Akanes bed.  Hurrying to
Nabiki's room, you manage to catch her attention by picking her up and
bringing her to Akane's room.  Before she has a chance to say anything (it
takes a few seconds to count and pocket the yen), Akane and Ranma burst in
and look at you expectantly. But you still don't know what to say.

OKAY, SAY THIS, "GUYS, I HAVE THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEMS.  JUST

GIVE ME A FEW MINUTES TO EXPLAIN."
        "Guys, I have the perfect solution to our problems.  Just give me a
few moments...." Splash, everything in the room is soaked in a giant turrent
of water.  Happosai burst in the room from the outside, throwing at least
five more water balloons.  You noticed that everything seems bigger, and
luckily they are all turned towards Happosai.

RUN, RUN LIKE THE DICKENS.  IF AKANE SEES YOU'VE CHANGE....

        You begin running out, ducking into the hallway and down the stairs.
At the end of the stairs you come to ... a locker.  Wait, this isn't the
Tendo home.  

LOOK AROUND

        Looking around you see girls.  Girls, in several stages of dressed
and undressed.   For a moment you simply enjoy the sight, then your nose
explodes ... and blackness again.

        When you come to, your looking directly in the face of a
raven-haired beauty.  She is holding you up so that you can only see her
face, but in her eyes you see a touch of madness.

LOOK FOR A BLACK ROSE.

        Instinctually, you know to look for a black rose.  Faking a sneeze,
you get her to push you far enough back to see her whole head.  You spot it,
right in her hair.  It's Kodachi alright.
        
        For a moment, neither of you say anything (or should I say, she
doesn't say anything.  you're a pig).  Finally, a flash of recognition
crosses her face, and she speaks to you.  "AH-ha, I thought I recognized
you.  Your the little piggie that tried to help me agaist the horrid Ranma
girl.  I think I will give you your reward now.  You'd like to be part of my
family, right?  Well you will be.  You're going to be dinner."
        
        Laughing along the way, she starts to make her way home.  In fact,
as she takes you down the hall, you know that once she reaches her limosine,
it's all over.
There is only a few more seconds before you get there, and yourmind is
blank. Out of the corner of your eye you look for anything that might help.
If only you could reach that ice rink there, you'd probablybe able ot outrun
her there!

DOPE!  SQUEAL AS LOUD AS YOU CAN!  THAT ICE RINK IS THE KEY!

        Sensing the impending doom, you begin to squeal your piggy brains
out.  A moment passes and nobody seems to notice you.  Then suddenly a
sinister form bolts off the ice rink colliding with Kodachi.  
        "Give back my Charlotte!"  Screams a young looking girl you
recognize as Azusa.  Parrying Azusa's blows with a gymnastic club, Kodachi
mearly laughs at the girl.  For a few moments the two pound at each other,
neither one giving way, when suddenly Kodachi drops you.

RUN WHOLE THEY ARE BUSY.

        Running as fast as you legs will carry you, you run away from the
two girls and into ... an okonomiyaki shop?  Suddenly you see a pot of hot
water dropping onto you, and the thought of you being naked in front of a
full shop flashes in your head.  Too bad it's too late.
        Suddenly, you're naked in front of everybody.  Ukyo's eyes are wide,
and all the customers run out.  You still don't know what you're doing.

TELL HER ABOUT THE CURSE AND WHAT HAPPENED TO DAY.

        "... and so I turned into a pig right when I was about to say the
solution.  I got away from Kodachi later, and ended up here."
        She turns to you with her eyebrows furrowed.  She looks like she
wants to say something, then changes her mind, then wants to say somehing
again.  Finally she asks, "So who would get Ranchan?"

AKANE, OF COURSE.

        "Akane, of course.  Nobody else would be right for him."
        She's got a strange expression on her face.  You only see a twitch
before another object comes to veiw.  For some reason you get a clear veiw
of a giant spatula, that is before you pass out.  You know your body is
sailing across the sky, but you really don't care anymore.  Landing
somewhere very far away, you note that the scenery is a bit differnent
****END FOR JOSH*****
NEXT.....