[Open on the two armchairs.  SEAN and HOTARU are already sitting
in them, ready to begin.]

SEAN:  Greetings gate!  We're here to give opinion and comments
       on Part 5 and the epilogue of Chris Davies' epic - well,
       *one* of his epics - Together Again 1996.

HOTARU:  Which is finally completed, leaving one major epic to
         go.

SEAN:  Along with about 2000 minor epics, most of which he's 
       already begun.

HOTARU:  This is going to be less of a review and more random
         comments.  First of all, I suppose we should talk about
         our 'death watch'.

SEAN:  Right.  Some of you who have gotten C&C from me about a
       long-term, still-being-written series know that I have a
       tendency to predict who is going to die.  I do this with
       a certain depressed abandon, saying that *naturally* the
       author is going to kill my *favorite* characters just to
       spite me -- 

HOTARU:  And generally really pissing off the authors, as indeed
         Davies-san was.  What Sean wants to confess is that 
         this habit of his is...how should we describe it?

SEAN:  A device to ward off evil?

HOTARU:  An attempt to tempt fate in the opposite direction.  
         Sean does predict deaths, yes, but his track record in
         this regard is ABYSMAL.

SEAN:  Yup.  Predicted K1 would die - didn't happen.  Predicted
       Kasumi or Nabiki would die - nope (though Nabiki may as 
       well have considering his treatment of her) -- 

HOTARU:  <stomping on Sean's foot> Ahem.  And Michael doesn't
         count, since we were told about it in advance.  In any
         case, we'd like to thank Chris for playing along with
         this, and apologise if we irritated him too much.

SEAN:  What's next?

HOTARU:  Character portrayals.  Chris has a habit of writing
         people very realistically, if not always nicely.  
         Sometimes he succeeds in doing this so that even though
         she behaves nastily we sympathise...

SEAN:  Raye.

HOTARU:  And sometimes he doesn't succeed in making us care, or
         deliberately writes it so we'll dislike her, even when 
         we don't.

SEAN:  Nabiki.

HOTARU:  However, for the most part we felt for each of these
         characters, even the original creations, which is quite
         an achievement for a fanfic author.

SEAN:  I'm beginning to think Davies-san plans to write fanfics 
       until he's 80, judging from the number of subplots he's
       leaving open.

HOTARU:  There are a number of potential stories left to be told, 
         aren't there?  Of course, half of them you've mixed up
         in your head.

SEAN:  Oh yes, folks, recommendation:  DON'T read Davies' epic
       and Biles' epic at the same time, or they will meld 
       together in your head and you will be hopelessly confused.

HOTARU:  I was trying to understand why Asuma was alive in the
         30th century until I remembered it was BILES who made
         him a ghost.

SEAN:  Doesn't help that both series are so good, and that The
       Adventures of Athena and Sheila is combining them anyway.

HOTARU:  Anything else?

SEAN:  Not really.  As usual, this was incredibly harrowing - it
       took me a while to get through it - and extremely well
       written.  Sadly, quoting Lionel Richie at the end makes it
       one of the worst fanfics I've ever read -- 

{WHAM!!!}

HOTARU:  <lowering her glaive>  Sorry about that, Sean has a 
         virulent dislike for early 80s MOR.  What he MEANT to
         say was that this was another excellent job, and despite
         some carps over treatment of characters we really enjoyed
         it.  Now:  write Part 3 of BOATY2.

[SEAN moans from the floor.  HOTARU whacks him again.]

--Sean Gaffney and Hotaru Tomoe
--critics-at-large