Writer: Well, my fanfic's finally finished. What'd you think?
Lina Inverse: What do I think? Well, I was never in character, I was hardly even in the story, I should have Dragon Slaved Jason when I first saw him, I -
Writer: I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the readers.
Lina Inverse: And when are you going to write that other fanfic all about me? You promised, remember?
Writer: Lina, I'm not Gourry.
Lina gets so annoyed she fireballs the writer, who ignores her. The fireball bounces right off. Lina facefaults.
Lina: How did you ... that's not a spell!
Writer: Call it poetic liscence.
Lina glares at her, then sits down.
Lina: All right, then...well, how come Catsai went under water and pulled Amelia under? I thought she hated water and couldn't swim!
Writer: Well, yes, she does hate water, she's a cat. But I never said she couldn't swim. When she was human, she loved swimming. Besides, even though she hates water, she couldn't resist annoying Amelia.
Lina: Catsai's too perfect.
Writer: Perfect? Oh, Catsai is definitly not perfect. She's a cat, she's a thief, she doesn't use magic, she hates water, she has almost no patience with people like Anna and Amelia, she gets very jealous -
Lina: I take it back! Catsai's not perfect! Okay ... well, what about the way Catsai was acting when Atreana and Griff showed up? She didn't play a trick on them the entire time, and she obviously hated Atreana.
Writer: She doesn't trick strangers, just friends. And she didn't really hate Atreana. She's just suspicious of strangers; it's part of being a thief. Being half-cat doesn't help.
Lina: But she didn't seem that suspicious when she first met us, and she was teasing the guards.
Writer: Well ... okay, I screwed up there. But Catsai was curious about Zel, and her curiousity overcame her suspiciousness.
Lina: Curiousity killed the cat.
Writer: Exactly.
Lina: Well, she got to know Atreana, but was still suspicous of her. How do you explain that?
Writer: She doesn't like Atreana. She hates Atreana. She'll never like Atreana.
Lina: Why?
Writer: Well, first of all, Atreana's a priestess. Catsai's a thief; she doesn't like holy people. And Atreana was competition for her. She was obviously interested in Zel.
Lina: She didn't seem that interested to me. She just said she thought he was cute.
Writer: There was a lot of scenes that I didn't put in - romantic dinners, Atreana trying to get Zelgadis to teach her magic, that sort of thing.
Lina: Romantic dinners? With Zel? (She tries to picture it, then gives it up as a lost cause.)
Writer: Well, Catsai would get Zel into a romantic restaurant, they sit down at a table for two, with a candelabra and a vase full of roses - and then Atreana shows up.
Lina: Okay, that I can picture. Well, how come there wasn't more of me in it? I am the main character of the Slayers, after all.
Writer: Because you were constantly leaning over my shoulder. It got annoying. I don't put annoying people in my stories.
Lina: You put Amelia and Gourry in there.
Writer: They had even smaller parts than you did. I don't think Amelia even had any lines.
Lina: She said 'Hey!' when she found out Catsai and Zelgadis would be sharing a room.
Writer: All right, she had one line. The point is, it wasn't supposed to be focusing on you. It was supposed to be focusing on Catsai.
Lina: Speaking of Catsai, what did she mean? You know, in Jason's tower, when she thought, 'I was stupid back then.' Back when?
Writer: Oh, Catsai used to be a spoiled little brat. That was before the Transformation. Her parents were a couple of rich merchants, and she had everything she wanted. She thought Jason was cute, she wanted him, she got him. Then he turned her into a cat. She blames it on herself.
Lina: Why did he turn her into a cat, anyway? Atreana said that he wasn't insane when he did that.
Writer: He was, they just didn't know it yet. Shabranigdo possessed him, and he started to go insane. Then, after he transformed Catsai, she attacked him. When he saw those scars on his perfect face, he went completely insane.
Lina: Shabranigdo possessed him? Wasn't he possessed from birth, like Rezo?
Writer: No. In this world, Shabranigdo was imprisoned in the Philosopher's Stone. When Jason used the Stone to create his tower, Shabranigdo possessed him.
Lina: Oh yeah, the Stone. How come the Stone was in two pieces?
Writer: Marcia broke it. She wasn't too happy being turned into a werewolf.
Lina: Well, what about the moods of the story? In one part, Catsai and Zel complain about having to repeat a scene, and Catsai says they should get a better writer. Then, later on, you've got this big serious death scene.
Writer: Well, it depended on my mood when I wrote that part. And I usually write serious stories; it was hard to add comedy.
Lina: Whatever. And what about that sequel?
Writer: What sequel?
Lina: You know, the one where I meet a prince and he falls instantly in love with me and carries me off to live -
Writer: Lina, give it up.