MURMUR: Hello, and welcome to the first BABYLON REVIEW, wherein we review 
various fanfics that catch our fancy.  With me today are CLAUS BARCA and LAVI 
HEAD.  Welcome.

CLAUS: Hi.

LAVI: Hey.  So, which fic are we starting with?

MURMUR: Good question, Lavi-chan!

LAVI: Hey!

MURMUR: Well, the first fic up for review is Robert M. Shroeck's DRUNKARD'S 
WALK II: ROBOT'S RULES OF ORDER, chapter 13.  And, Claus, why don't you give us 
the heads up on this series?

CLAUS: Oh!  Um, okay.  Well, uh.  Hmm.  Oh, okay!  Our protagonist, Doug 
Sangnoir, is a "metahuman operative" from a world filled with super-people, who 
all act like comicbook heroes and villains but don't really call themselves 
that.  Think about the WILD CARD series and you're halfway there.  Anyway, Doug, 
also known as Loony Toons, is travelling through world after world, trying to 
get home.  This is his second Walk, which takes place in the BGC world.

MURMUR: Some of the more salient points in this fic is that the author makes 
a conscious effort to stay away from the cliches of SI fics.  So there's no 
hope of our hero getting into a romantic relationship with any of the Knight 
Sabers.  Frankly, there's little chance of them actually liking him.

LAVI: I really like how he's really built up the secondary, and even tertiary 
characters from the series and made them more three-dimensional.  Lisa 
Vanette and Katherine Madigan are two very good examples, really.

MURMUR: Good point.  Of course, the wacky scientists that Doug has found 
himself working with are all orignal characters, but they fit pretty well with the 
rest of the cast.  Anyway, this chapter, we have the aftermath of the 
lopsided battle between the Knight Sabers and reasonable simulacra of the Warriors 
(Doug's superhero team).  Nene struggles with the moral questions that Doug 
brought up, as do most of the rest of the Sabers to greater or lesser degrees.  
And the question comes up: who exactly is Quincy, anyway?

LAVI: Doug realizes that he's been acting like a complete shmuck for the last 
few chapters, and resolves to make amends as soon as it is convient.

CLAUS: And Priss and Leon's relationship take leap forward.

MURMUR: So, thoughts, comments?

LAVI: Well, like I said, I really like how he's built up Lisa and Katherine, 
especially their strange relationship with each other.  I particularly liked 
Lisa's thoughts on Katherine.  She knows that Katherine does evil things, and 
she's not blind to it, but she also appreciates that Katherine has more facets 
to her.  It's that kind of sophisticated characterization that makes this such 
a good series.

CLAUS: On the other hand, Doug is getting to be more and more of a guest-star 
in his own series.  I think the majority of the chapter was devoted to the 
Knight Sabers and other characters rather than Doug.

LAVI: Which isn't a bad thing, you know.  I mean, he hasn't been exactly 
sympathetic for a while now.  He's never once come up against a physical threat 
that he hasn't rather handily beaten with one mega-powerful super power after 
the other.  The worst thing that's ever happened to him is that he's been 
scolded!  I think that it would be better, dramatically speaking, if the Knight 
Sabers become the protagonists and Doug becomes the antagonist.  Not that that's 
likely to happen.

MURMUR: Interesting point, Lavi-chan.  While Doug may be grating at times, 
and certainly you're right that within the context of this "Walk" he has yet to 
face any real difficulties, he is, as is the case of most successful SI fics, 
a compelling character with a unique voice.

LAVI: Sorry.  I'm just finding less and less interest in Doug's "plight."  
There's just not enough dramatic tension for me there.

MURMUR: Well, that might change as soon as we find out more about Quincy.  It 
was hinted at that . . . whoops, sorry.  No spoilers here.  So, overall, I 
thought that it was a good episode.  The compelling characters made up for the 
fact that not much happened.

LAVI: Doug's still a shmuck, but he's getting a bit better.  So it was all 
right.

CLAUS: Um.  Yeah.  I agree, see.


MURMUR: Okay, up next is the Sailor Moon Z 23.  This episode focuses on the 
Sailor Auxilieries and the continuing evil plots of the Dark Kingdom and the 
Zodiac.  Think of it as the "Dragon Reborn" or "Crossroads of Twilight" of SMZ.  
It continues subplots while not really progressing all that much on the main 
plot.

LAVI: Which isn't a bad thing, really.  I liked the additional insights we 
get.

CLAUS: Me too.  We learned a bit more about the origins of Steven, Ryo and 
Yumeni's powers.

MURMUR: But, see.  We're all basically treading water.  I mean, I agree that 
these are important things that needed to be addressed, but frankly I'm not 
sure that an entire chapter was neccesary.  It could have been cut in half and 
still done the same job.

LAVI: But we finally get hints of what it means that Yuuichiro would have 
been Jadeite if Jadeite had been reborn.  

MURMUR: But we didn't learn what that means, really, did we?

CLAUS: Um, has anyone else noticed how nearly every Biles fic features at 
least one character being brainwashed?  We have Rei here, Ranma in both Children 
of Fire and Parallel Lives, Rei --kind of-- in Children of an Elder God, and 
so on?

MURMUR:  I assumed it was because Mr. Biles really liked the dynamics that 
were introduced in the latter part of the first  season of Sailor Moon and 
wanted to reproduce it.

CLAUS: I guess.

MURMUR: So, finally, our thoughts.  While I agree that the characters are 
compelling, save for the Zodiac who are just ineffectual jerks, I think that 
we're just treading water here.

LAVI: I liked it.  I like character development and you just want action, 
action, action!

CLAUS: I'm just thrown by how much brainwashing there's been lately.

MURMUR: Well, speaking of Mr. Biles, we have Children of an Elder God 22.  
This episode has the Children slowly settling into life in Germany in the 
aftermath of the neo-nazi attack.  We see them hanging out, enjoying life, and 
generally being normal kids in love.   Which means, of course, that everything goes 
horribly, horribly wrong.

LAVI: Isn't that a spoiler?

MURMUR: No.  The reason being, in COAEG, whenever things seem to be going 
good, it all goes wrong.  It's a set pattern.  Nobody can be happy for long here. 
 Anyway, the one point I really want to make is this: the pacing for me was 
just off.

LAVI: What do you mean?

MURMUR: Okay, we have foreshadowing in the fic, which is a good thing.  But 
the climax of the story was paradoxically just too sudden a shift in tone and 
the surprise villain of the week was, despite the horrific nature of the 
villain, just too damn ineffectual to be of any threat.  There just wasn't enough 
payoff.

CLAUS: There were a lot of revelations here, though.  We finally learn what 
Seele's objective was, and what happened to Asuka's mother.

MURMUR: No, don't get me wrong.  I liked this episode.  It's just the ending 
was paced all wrong.  It was too sudden and too short.  It's as if the authors 
just ran out of energy as soon as they saw that they were going into the 
rant-into-villain scene and wanted it over with as soon as possible.

LAVI: I don't really have much to say, here.  I mean, I liked it, but what 
does that mean?  It was a Biles fic written with Rod M.  Of course I'll like it.

MURMUR: Well, moving on, we have the Eternal Lost Lurker's "Tsuki to Chikyuu 
to Ai no Senshi", which was the result of the author asking if Sailor Moon had 
been made today rather than ten years ago.  It's a decidedly darker alt. 
piece.

LAVI: You know, I really liked Minako.  She has much more tough-as-nails 
quality here, and her disdain for the culture of her parents that she's been 
forced into is both really clear and resonates well.

CLAUS: I liked how the relationship between Mamoru and Usagi starts this time 
around.  He has a driven quality that I liked.  He reminds me quite a bit of 
Arima from Karekano, which I assume was intentional.  Though I will miss the 
sort of sarcastic, caustic bite that Mamoru had in the first season.

MURMUR: The only character that's basically unchanged is Usagi.  Even Luna 
and Artemis are very much changed, the former taking on a wandering mystic role 
while Artemis is a dilletante pedophilic magician.

LAVI: I'm quite a bit sad at what the author did with Makoto.  It makes 
sense, but that doesn't mean I like it.  She had an innocence and belief in love 
that was missing here.

MURMUR: I'm just waiting for Rei's introduction.  If the author really 
channelled CLAMP's darker work, like Tokyo Babylon or X, then Rei should be showing 
up in crazy black and red outfits and have an insane amount of ravens flying 
around her, with her long hair flapping in the wind.

CLAUS: You've . . . given that a lot of thought, haven't you?

MURMUR: Kind of.

LAVI: So, generally, we all liked everything we read, right?

CLAUS: Yep.

LAVI: So, anything else?  Any other fics you want to do?

MURMUR: Not yet.  Maybe later.  Uh.  Bye.

CLAUS: Yeah, bye.

-MURMUR THE FALLEN



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