As always, I'll keep 'em brief.
This
story turned out to be very, very long, long enough so that I came very close to
losing interest completely.
After having planned
and started this story, I discovered a disturbing similarity between its premise
and that of "The Old and the Beautiful" – an episode I hadn't actually
seen, but once I discovered this plot had been done before, I decided to refer
to it.
Holding
a School Review Meeting on Sunday is, of course, a take from the Fizz Ed episode
(which happens after this story) in which Ms. Li pulled the same stunt.
The
Shawshank Redemption, based on a work by Stephen King.
I realize I'm guilty of a little Sandi-bashing here, but I tried to at least make her a sympathetic character.
Trent's
description of how he got back into the house after six months in a tent is
borrowed from Ruthless Bunny's short story "Intense".
Daria owes Quinn a favor after my previous story, "Is Summer Over Already?". While I generally try to make each of my stories stand alone, this was a case where a plot point was most easily resolved by referring to an earlier incident.
Of course, season five shows no
indication that Trent and Link are hanging out together.
Thanks to everyone for their encouragement toward the final stages of this story, thanks to Glenn Eichler and the rest of the Daria crew over at MTV, thanks to the webmasters who posted this story.
And most of all, thanks to my
wife Rachel who is nothing short of the finest beta-reader any writer could ask
for.
