Please let me know what you think.

Ouch.  I guess the best way to start is to say I most often watch anime
not to be reminded of the reality of life but to escape from it.  Of
course, anything with an end can never truly make one happy, and stories
have that problem, endings.  So an open ending allows me to dream, but a
finality, an ending returns me here, to my own life.  Of course, the most
powerful stories I have watched and read have had a great impact on me and
my life, whether I felt happy or sad after watching or reading them.  Life
seems to be full of these problems. ^ ^

As I read through this story, I kept wondering when the real story would
start. Getting married and all was nice, but I kept wondering when the bad
thing was going to happen - stories often involve conflict and resolution,
and every fic of yours I have read has done so.  When I was over half way
through and nothing had happened my anxiety began to grow.  Then it moved
on towards the wedding, and I thought that you were just writing a happy
ending to your series of Nuku Nuku fanfics, and decided nothing bad would
happen, and I felt much relieved.  Then the screen got broken.  It's a
very good fanfic, an excellent story, well told and written, but something
inside of me wishes I hadn't read it.  Nuku Nuku is like Belldandy, an
immortal individual, unique and wonderful, and her death dimishes my world
to some extent, even if in a fanfic. 

Should you leave the last parts out?  If you intended truly to let her
die, no coming back, no last minute options, then the ending is a must,
the threads must be cut (to borrow a bit of Nordic mythology).  To kill
her and leave the last questions (does she see the baby, does she really
die) unanswered is, well, cruel to the reader. 

Should you leave it open for a last minute save?  Well, then you'd have to
write another story, wouldn't you? <G> Not a bad thing in my book.  And
about this "always doing happy endings" - people who complain about that,
well, let's just say I've never met a darkfic I NEEDED to read, so call it
a difference of opinion and just do what makes you happy. 

I would agree to some extent, forced happy endings that are clunked onto
the end of a fanfic and not well integrated into the story are a major
letdown.  But I think stories at their best allow us to hope, and hope
against all odds, and at the darkest moment, surprise us with a
fulfillment of that hope.  Don't let anyone tell you that you need to
write more stories with depressing endings, there are enough people out
there doing darkfics that we need all the writers we can get to do the
other kind. 

I think the HARDEST stories to write well are the ones that have happy
endings - how do you seriously threaten someone's hope in a happy ending
without not having a happy ending?  In the midst of The Trilogy of The
Ring, how does Tolkien remove all hope, to the point that as a reader we
think it is all over, and then, there is a glimmmer, a rush of light, and
our faith in love and life is restored - and do this in a way that isn't
stereotyped, that doesn't leave the reader feeling cheated because he saw
the ending coming a million miles away - now this is a challenge. 

Ack!  I'm ranting at length, but you asked for discussion, so here it is. :)

Hope this helped!

Charles Hurst
charlesh@teleport.com