Has anyone noticed the trend toward addressing major social issues?  
"Happi's Delight," "Never Too Old," and now "Bitter End" all address 
major social problems which face society.  I'm very interested in hearing 
from the authors regarding whether the drew inspiration from each other 
or not.  I am currently writing an issue into a fic of mine, but I had 
the idea planted into my head previously.  Is anyone else?  
								-M

This makes me sad.  (not this post, but the replies I've read)  First, I
didn't try to write a social issue story.  I couldn't treat it with the
proper hmm.. what am I looking for?  I just couldn't do it justice.  And
I would NEVER want to invalidate anyone who has had any sort of experience
with these things.

So I give a big yoie yahoo to Zen for putting in a lot of time and effort
into his story (had me in tears at the end).  Time and effort that I don't
think I could...  And I give a big Prozac to Shadow Dancer for having the
guts to send out his (and big old 'eww' for good measure).

Then I want to say.. [thinks briefly]  What difference does it make that
these stories came out at a similar time?  Does it invalidate them?  Or
is it just one of those 'I did mine first so it's not a copy!' things?
If so, I'll just say I had mine done 2 months ago.. =)

And oh yeah, to actually answer the message..  I don't actually remember
what got me started with it.  I just remember the phrase 'you look just
like your father' playing a big part.  And then I started thinking 'what
happens to someone who gets almost anything they want when something
completely out of their control happens?'  (What does a world-weary
Nabiki do when no amount of money will bring back her husband?  What
does she do when the bitterness and anger and loneliness are too much for
her to handle?  Why, she makes her own rules and retreats into her own
little world where it's just her and her son, of course.)

You can say it's sick and the characters would never do that and hem and
haw and get all bothered, but hey..  it's only a story.  I like to think
if people can get past the sex, it's a very sad and tragic picture of
an abused child.

I'll avoid posting the rest of the parts to the list since people seem
to be getting so distraught over it, but I will freely mail out copies
on request, or they're on my anime web page (which actually seems to be
my fanfic page).

And a HUGE note here: I only write about characters I like, no matter
what I do to them in a story.  So I don't find flames too offensive
since I'm not trashing a character, only trying something different.

-- 
Lara
  - has finished speaking her peace and is glad to get it out.
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