The Other Halloween

Tonight is Walpurgis Night, long considered a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead weaken, and evil goes forth. Bonfires are built at night to drive away evil spirits.

Obviously there is a student named Walpurgis Night at Holiday Island High School, a teen much like a lesser Halloween I would imagine. It is more of a European "holiday" than an American one, it being almost unknown on this side of the Atlantic.

SFMB is back in action! Hooray!

More news soon. Had an idea for a story . . .

A Novel Idea

Recently I picked up a new book by an author whose work Daria Morgendorffer has also read: Cormac McCarthy. In "Camp Fear," Daria is shown reading Blood Meridian; the novel I have now is The Road. I haven't yet read the former, but I've read about it, and it must be admitted that the idea that she was working her way through such a book at her camp reunion is mind-boggling.

It is said sometimes that Daria is exactly as smart as you think she is. Whether you picture her as merely bright or as an incandescent genius, you will fit the pieces of her life together to support that outcome. Blood Meridian is not considered a light work by anyone who has ever reviewed it, and the levels of both symbolism and violence in the tale are said to be extreme. It crossed my mind that there might have been some subtle point being made by the cartooning staff in having her take that book along to Camp Grizzly, but in retrospect it is likely that the writers or artists only wanted to show that she had sophisticated and intellectual tastes in literature. The actual content of Blood Meridian was not the issue.

If anyone else has read Cormac McCarthy's work, you are invited to comment on the curiosity of having Daria be a possible fan of his novels, and what that says about her, if anything at all.

A new Iron Chef has risen on PPMB. "Continue this as an AU" is a challenge offered by Gouka Ryuu. Take one of Kristen Bealer's stories ("Squandered Potential") and develop it as an alternate universe.


PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 18): Time to go, Dorn thought, as the entire underground base began to shake.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Part 19): You are now in the outer limits of the twilight zone. Keep your hands and feet inside the narrative at all times. Brace yourself for sudden shocks.
• The Other Side of Time: And All That We've Won, by The Sidhe (COMPLETE!): “That was just a little too weird, even for my taste,” said Daria as they walked back down the street. (SFMB version)
  
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): "I'd like to buy a train ticket to Nowhere." "Yes, of course. Which Nowhere?"
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): Well, I'm already through the rabbit hole, thought Jane. May as well see where it leads. (FF.net version here).

More later.

But It Sounded Like Such a Fashionable Place!

Only 238 years ago today, Captain James Cook arrived at a pleasant spot on the coast of sunny Australia and named it Botany Bay, for the profusion of plant life there. In honor of this lovely name, England began shipping all of its hardened criminals and convicts to Botany Bay in hopes of giving them a chance at a better life as far as possible from their native shores. The involuntary colonists managed to turn Botany Bay into a bustling industrial town (now adjacent to Sydney), while Captain Cook had a diplomatic problem with some Hawaiians who hit him on the head and ate him. I guess we know who had the last laugh there.

SFMB appears to have had its account suspended; more later.

Though there are now 789 fans on the Daria Fan Club, very little real activity has been noted.

DariaWiki now has 1,832 articles! (Thank you, Quiverwing, for fixing things.)

21,203 views for the DFB2!

A PPMB fanfic update will follow in time.

Get Down and DANCE!

Today is . . .

World Dance Day!

Another of those UNESCO-type holidays when you do things for cultural diversity. Today you get to dance. Go for it.

Annnnnnd I'll add something later that's more exciting, if I can find it.

You know, I always thought that alter ego of Jane was kind of risqué. Someone should draw some underwear on her. Yeah, I know, it's Jane doing Isadora Duncan, but still... eh, whatever.

Oh, by the way, that illustration appears to be a reversal of this photo, with a scarf added. (Ms. Duncan loved scarves, perhaps a little too much.) I think she's supposed to be a wood nymph.

How would things have turned out between Daria and Jane if Jane had been into dance instead of painting? She knew how to dance, as "Life in the Fast Lane" proved. Huh.

Storms and Computer Issues

More soon, having to deal with multiple problems. Peace out.

LATER: Back again, all clear. Still need to reload Windows this week to fix stuff. Oh, well.

The next UK Dariacon, hosted by Deref the Barbarian and his prisoner cohort, Father Martin, is tentatively planned for May 3-4, once they finish looting Stonehenge and some Ice Age cave people. The gory details of Deref and Martin's cross-country rampage are here.

Eighty years ago today was born the only human to ever be buried on a world other than ours: Eugene M. Shoemaker, an American planetary scientist and geologist who hoped to make the journey to the Moon aboard an Apollo spacecraft. That honor went to another geologist/ astronaut, but Shoemake had done so much in the field of planetary science that, after his death in 1997, his ashes were placed aboard an American spacecraft that eventually crash-landed near the Moon's south pole in 1999. He was an awesome dude.

Today is also the birthday of Lee Falk, who created The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. I don't recall if there have been any Daria crossovers with those two ("The Cynic Who Walks!"). There are Phantom Menace and Danny Phantom and Phantom of the Opera crossovers, but not THE Phantom. Hmmm.

In his continuing Cast Portrait (WIP) series, the ever-amazing S.C. presents . . . EVIL THOM! He looks pretty good for being evil.

Also in the artistic realm, Lorenzo Sauchelli experiments with Flash to give us Tiffany Blum-Deckler as the Eradicator, in his Dark Cynic & Super Artist series. More later.

Somewhere, in an alternate universe very, very, very, very, very far away . . .

Image credit goes to Beavis and Butthead: Reading Sucks. I feel dirty now. The bad kind of dirty. It was worth it, though.

As ours is an animation fandom, it is worth a tip of the hat to a famous figure whose birthday was today: Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker and company. While acting as the live host for his cartoon TV show in the late 1950s and beyond, he demonstrated the techniques of how animation is done, which was an eye-opener for many young viewers of the time. I remember seeing these episodes myself. Though it is a source of frustration for Quinn Morgendorffer to know that she was not the first famous redhead in animation (Woody probably was), at least she's the cutest. Unless you count Kim Possible. Or Daphne Blake. Or Mary Jane Watson. Oh, Jean Grey, yeah, for sure. And there were some others. . . .

PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 17): Veronica is back, but not as you might imagine, and Quinn pays a visit to Mom.
• Iron Chef: Unusual Superpowers (continued): This just gets worse and worse (i.e., better and better).
  
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II) (continued): [groans] Okay, I was not expecting that.
  

"Hey, we're the Blue Man Group, but we're thinking of changing the name."

Interesting.

The 2008 Visual FanWork Listing was updated today by Richard Lobinske (thank you!), which reminds me that I haven't updated the fiction list in two months. Hmmm.

LATER: Okay, I've begun the fanfiction update for 2008. It might take a few days, but it's moving.

Saw a recent news article about the Google book project, which is meant to put every written thing on Earth online (and searchable), which will make looking for copied term papers very difficult, I'm sure.

Just a quick fanfic update. I'll add more to this as the day goes on and the stories appear.

PPMB

• EarthFall, by legendeld (Episode 4, Part 3: Invid): Daria uses a secret weapon she didn't even know she had. If it fails, everyone dies.
  
• Embers, by Angelboy (Part 17): Five seconds later Quinn’s voice was heard throughout the spa. “EWWW!"
  
• John Lane 34: Barbeques and Gridiron, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!): "I'm supposed to believe that?" Helen said. "It's in the police report," John replied.

LaneBAY (Page 1)

This turned out to be fairly difficult. Above is the first page of LaneBAY, Jane Lane's website where she tries to sell off her family's possessions (with their permission, though she keeps much of the sale money). The page is from the MTV Daria site from the fall of 2000 to summer 2001. I discovered my previous technique was founded on some mistakes; Internet archeology isn't as easy as I had thought. Click on the page to see it full size. I figure there are still some errors of presentation in it, but otherwise it's as it should be. I think.

Each of the five items under "CATEGORIES" leads to a new link, so there might be more pages to come. I hope seeing these are as much fun for you are they are for me.

"Here comes the bride(s) . . ."

Eight years ago today, Vermont Governor Howard Dean signed into law the first bill in the U.S. that allowed civil unions for same-sex couples. This eventually led to the wedding of Daria and Jane Morgendorffer-Lane in the story, "Pause in the Air," and the Pause in the Air (PitA) series that followed.

Looking back, it becomes apparent that there were two great influences on my writing PitA. I mentioned one of them in one of the PitA stories: Armistead Maupin's marvelous Tales of the City novels. I read in the 1980s on the advice of a friend, and great advice that was. I consumed the novels more than read them. These lively, flawed, lovable people and their adventures gave me many pleasant hours of page-turning.

The more powerful influence, however, is one I haven't mentioned before. I confess I am at a loss to say why, as it undoubtedly provided the groundwork for the whole PitA thing. Maybe it was embarrassment. Anyway, I used to subscribe to a comics newspaper, and one of the series it carried was Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For. I was not so much addicted to that comic as enslaved to it. It was sheer torture to wait an entire month for the next installment to come out. Those readers who are familiar with the series (still running!) will not be surprised to know that it was the civil union of Clarice Clifford and Toni Ortiz in Vermont upon which the union of Jane and Daria was founded, and Toni and Clarice's rambunctious son Raffi has been reborn as Quinton Trent Erin Morgendorffer-Lane.

The strangest thing to me is that I was not consciously thinking about Clarice, Toni, and Raffi as I was creating the series. What I was thinking most about was the dreadful quality of so much of lesbian-teen Dariarotica, and how funny it would be to write something about Daria and Jane as lesbians, but without the sex. I wondered if anyone would get the joke. "Pause in the Air" was written in January 2003, one of my entries to an Iron Chef I had started asking for stories about an unexpected guest who drops in for dinner with the Morgendorffers. (The baby was the "guest.") This was the same Iron Chef that also inspired "Nuthouse," "Thanks Giving," "Highland Fling," and Deref's classic Oz tale, "Antipodean Daria," so I guess those stories and "Pause in the Air" are siblings. Sort of.

So, there it is, the real story of where PitA came from. I have the feeling I should do more of them eventually. Time will tell.

What Else Today Is Also

Richard Lobinske, a.k.a. The Bug Guy, puts on his real-life hat to remind us that today is also World Malaria Day. Contribute your thoughts about the effort here. Stamp that sucker out.

Today is also Red Hat Society Day, but I am darned if I can find a picture anywhere in my Daria files of someone wearing a red hat. I would have thought Helen would have one to match her usual business outfit. What else, hmmm. Hubble was deployed in 1990 . . . oh.

Five hundred and one years ago today, a German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller was publishing a thousand copies of a new world map and had to pick a name for the recently discovered lands of the Western Hemisphere. He chose to name those lands for an Italian navigator and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. To say that the naming of the Americas was controversial is an understatement, as the argument over whether Amerigo deserved the honor continues to this day. In The Oxford History of the American People, American admiral and historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote: "America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy." The whole situation is one that Daria and Jane would surely appreciate.

THE TREES HAVE EYES.

This is how trees see us.

This is also how squirrels see us.

Coincidence? Or a terrifying threat we cannot afford to ignore?

Write to your congressman this Arbor Day and demand action—before it's too late!

This Arbor Day message was brought to you by Jake Morgendorffer Consulting, Lawndale. Mention this ad and receive a 10% discount on your next consult, with a free doughnut. Run over a squirrel on your way over, and the consult is free. Remember: they know where you live.

Arbor Day, Always Left Out on a Limb

Our year-long tour of Holiday Island continues with Arbor Day, one of those liberal hippie sandal-wearing back-to-nature treehuggers always telling people to put out their campfires and plant seedlings. One of the most peaceable and polite young men you could ever hope to meet, and what does he get for his trouble? Picked on, that's what. He doesn't get any respect from any of the other holidays. But that's not our problem, we're just on tour. Good luck, Greenie. Don't take any wooden . . . ah, forget it.

On PPMB, Wouter shares with us sketches of Jane Lane in her role from "Write Where It Hurts," in the scene taken from The Graduate. Rrrowrrr, feisty! Thanks!

Heh, I was just thinking, what if Arbor Day came to Lawndale, hooked up with someone equally into the back-to-nature thing, and nine months later she gave birth to a Northern Spruce? I'm thinking Amanda Lane would do it. Then Jane would have a little . . . er, sapling-sibling to water. I could totally see this. What do you think?

New Daria Fansite Coming?

Lorenzo Sauchelli, prolific fanfic author and true-blue fan, has announced on PPMB that he's considering the start of a new Daria fan website called Dariaverse. Actually, he's already got the website started but needs advice on content and features. Any ideas? Click here to get to the thread, and add all the advice you can muster.

The content issue came to my mind several times in the past, wondering what a new Daria website might offer, but I never successfully resolved it. This blog is really just a bunch of mental misfirings, whatever happens to go through my head on a certain day. There are very few other Daria blogs that I know of, but their content is quite different from this one (discussing the show in other countries and languages, in-depth insightful essays, etc.). Attitude always helps. Someone with strong opinions about the show could surely create a popular (or infamous, or both) site. It's happened before.

A new fansite could specialize in its direction, too, such as collecting only fanfic that is post-IICY?, or fanfic and art about the Fashion Club. I don't know if a new art website would go over, as deviantART seems to have gobbled up the market for fan artists, but who knows.

What do you think a new Daria site could offer?

Today Is Also . . .

. . . you guessed it! Willem de Kooning's birthday! He would have been 104. You probably remember his photo under Jane's bed. That Jane even knows who this guy is was one of the reasons I believe her IQ was in the same ballpark as Daria's, even if she wasn't any good at math. (See here for details.)

I reread the above and it kinda makes me sound like a dweeb geekfan, but I'll let it pass. FIAWOL.

PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 16): That's funny. As I read this installment, I remembered those X-Men comics from 1980 just before Jean Grey turned into Dark Phoenix.
  
• Legion of Lawndale Heroes Mini – The Devil Deals the Cards, by Gouka Ryuu and Brother Grimace (Part 1): He was called Veggie because that was how he left his victims. At the moment he's looking for a redhead named Quinn.
• Lawndale’s Finest: Detective Stories 1, The End of an Era, by LSauchelli (COMPLETE!): All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Sometimes, though, it happens even when good men do everything.
  
• Man Behind the Curtain, by thatLONERchick (COMPLETE!): The fans weren't the only ones unhappy about That Episode. (FF.net version)
  
• The Misery Chicks, by NightGoblyn (COMPLETE!): This story doesn't go out with a bang, it goes out with a freakin' supernova. Whoa, mama. *
• My Sons, by legendeld (COMPLETE!): Time passes, and the new couple looks back. (“Only your sister would hand out weapons as 'I miss you' presents.”)
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): ". . . And you will become RanStace and your profound knowledge of Michael Bolton's music will be put to its highest possible use." [Gut instinct response from TAG: Be afraid. Be very afraid.]
  
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): Lisa smirked and rubbed her chin. "I think I know just the candidate for Outcast Queen."

* Contains mature content. Brace yourself.

Happy Birthday, Library of Congress

Two hundred eight years ago today, the Library of Congress was established by President Adams. The original library was destroyed during the War of 1812, but it was restored when President Jefferson sold his enormous personal library to the government as a replacement. This is probably where Amy Barksdale does her research for the CIA, though she would have better spent her time researching the drawbacks of boob reduction. Too late now.

Today is also supposed to be the 3,193rd anniversary of the day the Trojan horse entered Troy (heh heh heh I said entered heh heh heh), and it is also Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which I am sure Daria and Quinn worked very hard every year to avoid unless the alternative (school) was too dreadful. Did any of the students in Daria want to be with their parents at work? Well, Kevin, maybe. ("I'll be out back practicing football throws!")

Actually, a fanfic about Helen and Jake taking the girls (one each) to their jobs for a day would be pretty damn funny. Anyone want to try this?

Virtual Lawndale 2000

And there it is, the MTV Virtual Lawndale webpage from October 19, 2000. Notice that a couple of spots haven't let been finished by MTV and are noted as such. I have a few niggles, such as the shade of gray around the block at far right, but that's what came out of the WayBack Machine. A piece of the current VL map was substituted for the missing one. Using 24-bit color BMP on Paint for the background and adding parts in GIF from Irfanview seemed to do the trick. The text under the title "Virtual Lawndale" had to be reconstructed in Word, matched for type and background color, then cut-and-pasted to the whole, as the original text looked bad no matter what I did to it.

A piece of history for you to enjoy. Now you know what everyone was looking at seven and a half years ago.

I still have Jane's LaneBay pages to work on, but those are worse than this one. If anyone else wants to try reconstructing old Daria webpages, be my guest. Make sure you have a lot of free time first. Just don't get sick in order to do it, it's not worth it.

A Work in Progress

Above is a rough idea of how the 2000-2001 Virtual Lawndale page looked. (Click on it for the full-size version.) Color is off in spots (what's with the green faces?), one piece is missing, but I think all can be repaired. More later.

LATE ADD: I figured it out. The background has to be saved as a 24-bit BMP file and the images slapped over it have to be GIFs for best color. More soon.

This is what people do when they are home sick and very bored

So, here I am at home without nothing to do except use up boxes of tissues on my runny nose and drink fluids and take medicine and complain about my head cold (only a little), so what else is there to do to occupy myself?

Play Internet archaeologist, that's what.

I'm in the process of recreating an entire webpage from the old MTV Daria site, the Virtual Lawndale page that operated between October 19, 2000 and June 21, 2001, when the WayBack Machine took snapshots of it. Why do this? 'Cause I can. It's kind of fun, like putting a puzzle together. The webpage redirects very quickly to a 404 error message on the current MTV site, so you have to catch it just before anything loads on it and stop everything, then slowly pick out each missing piece, use the WayBack Machine to retrieve it, and put the big puzzle together. Being a latecomer to this bunch, I want to see what everyone else saw all those years ago when the fandom was young and in flower.

So far things are going well, though some color information is being lost in putting the page together with copy and paste. I plan to take some time to straighten that out if possible before showing the final result, within a week. Then everyone will see a static copy of the Virtual Lawndale page from seven years ago, just for the heck of it. Plus, I get to make up some new logos and icons, like the title bar with this posting. Everyone needs a hobby, and I suppose there are worse things. Peace out.

When MTV Poked Fun at the Fans

Does the image at right look familiar? It's found in one of the little side corners of the current MTV Daria website: "Guy vs. Guy: The Trent/Tom Debate." This is the opening page to two others in sequence, in which two imaginary Daria fans debate which was Daria's true soulmate, Trent or Tom. It is reminiscent of the infamous rant by William Shatner on Saturday Night Live in which he said Star Trek fans should get a life. I think that's what MTV was doing here, too, giving us an unsubtle hint to get over it. In a funny way, I could see Daria doing that. It would be like her.

The two pages of "debate" do indeed skewer some of the long-ago screaming and shouting that went on in the fandom over T 'n T. Given some of the discussion that went on between fans on this issue (based on what I've seen of the rubble left over), perhaps this tongue-in-cheek debate is closer to the mark than some of us would like to recall. But hey, it was fun, wasn't it? It meant we really liked the show. It hit a chord with us, and it hit it hard enough that years after the show is over and gone, we're still hanging around waiting for it to come back. That's not especially pathetic, since that very tactic worked to bring back some shows like Family Guy. And Star Trek. We can always hope.

Ah, what the hell. If Daria doesn't come back, it doesn't come back. It was a hell of a show, though, wasn't it? A show about smart people who don't fit in, who don't go along with the rest of the herd. That couldn't possibly be the situation with any of the fans, now, could it? If MTV wants to make fun of us, it can do its worst. It had its bright and shining moment, and we saw it, recognized it for what it was, and cherished it when it was gone. We weren't the ones who let it die.

And, I have to say, Tom and Trent both completely sucked as soulmates to Daria. She should forget about getting married and just get some cats. It's a better move for her in the long run. 'Nuff said.

JANE r00Lz!!!!!

There you go! A little fiddling around with Paint and IrfanView, and Our Heroine has a new logo! Hooray! I so totally rule.

You may freely use this for your own websites, of course.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

SFMB and PPMB are down. Crap. More later.

Tell you what, talk amongst yourselves. Here's a topic: Charles Ruttheimer III's nickname means vomit, yet on the show he never does. Explain.

LATE ADD: Now the MBs are fine again. Huh. Never mind!

Wallpaper Tiles: When You Want Something a Little Weird

While exploring the forgotten reaches of the Internet through the WayBack Machine at www.archive.org, I discovered some background tiles used in MTV's old Daria site from the late 1990s. These were found on character description pages. Each background image was stacked across the screen with the character's name written in calligraphy almost like the Daria logo. A sample one for Our Heroine is at left.

If by any chance you have an interest in using tiles like these for your own website and webpage creation, by all means, use these. I've loaded them into the image section of my home site as GIFs. All you have to do is click on the name(s) you want most, and the tile will appear so you can save it to your computer. Quick 'n easy. Though the names on the tiles are off-center, this effect disappears when the images are tiled as backgrounds. You can play with the images any way you like, even changing their sizes and colors to suit your needs. And they're official, from MTV! Well, MTV from a long time ago, but still cool.

Brittany
Daria
Helen & Jake
Jane
Jodie & Mack
Kevin
Quinn
Trent
Upchuck

Have fun with it!

Great Stories That I Never Finished (Part 513)

DARIA MORGENDORFFER:
CARTOON PROCTOLOGIST

A few years ago, I had this wonderful idea to do an illustrated comic (graphic, you might say) showing Daria's adult life as a proctologist to the animated world. Mostly it would be a retrospective of her most famous clients with little stories about them, starting with (of course) Beavis and Butt-head. In order to pull such a comic off, a lot of pictures of cartoon butts were needed, and therein lay the problem. It was relatively easy to find certain characters (like B&B) mooning the audience, which was exactly what I wanted. (You saw them from Daria's perspective, you see.) In addition to B&B I had Bart Simpson (so easy to find), Eric Cartmann (ditto), and several nameless mooners like Christmas elves and little yellow smilies.

However, some of the most famous cartoon mooners could not be found—that scene when Hank Hill accidentally mooned former Texas governor Ann Richards on King of the Hill, for instance, or that TV character named Anus from Family Guy. I think Fritz the Cat mooned someone once, too, but including him would make Daria a veterinarian. So near, and yet so far! I was forced to admit defeat.

All those cartoon butts still reside somewhere on my computer's hard drive, collecting electronic dust and mourning their cruel fate. If anyone else wants to take this great idea and run with it, be my guest. Perhaps these colorful moons will rise on another computer's horizon and shine down upon the Internet in all their glory. We can only hope it will be so.

And the Day Keeps Dragon On

Today is the Feast Day of St. George, famed dragonslayer and patron saint of much of Europe, particularly England, which is a cool place in my book. Some fun things to do today in Britain are listed here, and assorted other news about this almost semi-holiday is here. I wanted to write about dragons in Lawndale once and even had part of a story involving Joanna the python and Trisha Gupty, but that one petered out, too. Dang.

It so happens that this is also World Book and Copyright Day, per UNESCO, which means it is a legitimate holiday but only for those of us who still like reading books. The day was created in honor of Shakespeare and Cervantes, both of whom either died or were born around this day, depending on which calendar system you use. That's right, tell whomever you are working for today that this is a legal holiday for readers, and if you are found reading a book and not doing any real work, UNESCO says that is all right with them. Daria would totally do it, you know she would.

SFMB

• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Part 18): I haven't a clue where this is going given the last major twist, but thanks again to the author for leaving us hanging there, beating our computers in sheer frustration. (Part 17 uploaded to FF.net)
  

Moar . . . um, more soon.

It's Secretaries Administrative Professionals Day!

Administrative Professionals Day is the last Wednesday in April, when we honor the Mariannes of the world, cruelly oppressed by their crazed evil overlords and forced to beg for time off from work during natural disasters to save their families. Give an AP a hug today, unless that would be inappropriate and get you sent to Human Resources for a good talking-to.

The unquenchable fuel tank of DariaWiki continues to fill with high-octane information poured from the able gas pumps of Quiverwing, Scissors MacGillicutty, Brother Grimace, Richard Lobinske, Roentgen, Nighthawk, Dennis, Taryn, Tosy, Cyde, Dr. Mike, and others, keeping our fandom speeding down the virtual highways of the Interblogcybernet and into tomorrow. I never metaphor I didn't like.

Let's see what's going on with some of the smaller message boards. Two important news notes first.

• The Fandom MB has been taken offline. Little content was present.
• The Illusion TV MB might have virus-infected webpages, so use caution. One of my antivirus systems (Avira) alerted me to this.

As for the other MBs:

• Daria and Jane 4ever (MySpace): Quality issues reported with bootleg Daria DVDs.
• Daria Fan Club: How did the show end?
• Daria Lovers unite! (MySpace): Will Daria appear on either DVD, TV, or online again?
• Daria Shrine's MB: SSW patches for sale, Daria on YouTube, Bing & Spatula Man info needed.
• Fan Forum - Daria: Daria on The-N.
• IUF MB "Tanadaria": Taryn is back! Where is everyone else?
• Television Without Pity: Daria on DVD, when?

Nothing new on SFMB for days. Oh, well. More news later.

Breaking News

A new fandom holiday has been declared: Bowman Day, July 8th, celebrated in honor of metahuman friend Senator James Bowman. Check it out on DariaWiki. (You learn the strangest things there.)

MMan discovered a very useful website for writers, called "How to Write Almost Readable Fan Fiction." Besides being funny, it's also good for experienced writers to go over, lots of advice. Thanks, MMan!

NEWS UPDATE: What Would Telepathy Be Like? a discussion thread begun by Scissors MacGillicutty, is still growing. Excellent resource material if you have telepathy in one of your fanfics.

Almost 20,000 hits on DFB2! Subtract out mine and we have . . . um . . . some hits! Wahoo!

If you are in the mood for some fun, try Create a Quinn! Use your computer graphics skills to modify a standard picture of Quinn and make her unique.

Now for a quick update that I might expand later, if anything's posted:


PPMB

• The Handmaidens of Narcissus, by TheSecretSharer (up to Act I, Scene IV): Shakespeare's long-lost classic of life in Lawndale! The title is perfect, too.
  
• Iron Chef: Personality Wipe, unnamed ficlet by Greystar (COMPLETE!): Poor Tom! This begs for more.
• Iron Chef: Unusual Superpowers, a challenge offered by Kalad1 to give a Lawndale character a weird superpower. Some very good ficlets are here. MOAR!!!
  

Back soon, runny nose and I'm out of tissues. And again.

Rowe Warrior

The "future alter ego" of Stacy Rowe at the end of Is It College Yet? never fails to inspire. The mousy yes-girl of yesterday has transformed herself into a winning stock-car driver, gaining endorsements from fashion-product companies. You can't say some sort of change wasn't coming, given her depiction in the fifth season of Daria, but a race-car driver?

It's appealing, though. Several fanfics have taken this idea and run with it, most famously in Richard Lobinske's Falling Into College series (see "A Daze at the Races" and "Four Friends, Four Winds") and Milderbeast's wonderful "Moon over Daytona." A similar theme appears in "Stacy and the Lamp." True, Stacy did get killed in a car wreck in Austin Covello's aptly titled "The Death of Stacy," but generally speaking, that alter ego has made her into a minor legend in fanfic.

A folder rests in my computer's hard drive with the provisional title "White Line Nightmare." ("Daylight" was the more likely title, however.) It contains notes for an unfinished Road Warrior-like story in which a future Stacy drives across a wasteland America after a nearby supernova blasts away Earth's ozone layer. (And all this time people thought I was kidding about that.) I had in mind giving her some kind of grossly souped-up stock car (I was leaning toward a rebuilt '71 Barracuda) with various armaments and armor, UV radiation protection, and so forth. She travels the country alone on the Interstates, ferrying news, medicine, and mail between colonies of survivors. Then one day in the wasteland she meets someone from her past . . . and that was as far as I got with it. The story was barely started before it ended.

Anyone else have some good "Racy Stacy" stories to tell? You can use anything I mentioned above, it's not like I'm going to start writing on that anytime soon. Party on.

Caption Contest Time!

(add your caption to the comments file)

An Easter Egg Gets Toasted

Here's a cute little urban legend from the Easter Egg Archive. A couple years ago, someone wrote in and said that the woman seen in the golf commercial at the hotel where the Morgendorffers stay during the episode "Fire!" was actually Peggy Hill, from King of the Hill. This was interesting, so I got a screen cap of the commercial (at right, click on it for larger image) and a pic of Peggy Hill, and compared them. The brunette hair and glasses are there, but nothing else. The hair and glasses aren't even an exact match. So much for that Easter Egg. (However, the episode was written by Peggy Nichol. Coincidence? I think not, though I am not sure what I mean by that.)

So . . . don't believe everything you read. Except here.

CORRECTION: Anonymous (thank you) sent the URL to a much clearer image in Comments, and the lady golfer does not wear glasses. She has a sun visor on. So much for that!

Earth Day Is Here!

This being Earth Day and all, I played around with the 1995 "Greenpeace" sketch of Daria from the MTV site and came up with the pic at right. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was close enough. Helpful things to do on Earth Day appear here. Daria and Jane of course would do none of them, as that would require effort. Strangely, though, I can see Brittany doing lots of things for Earth Day, but nothing icky like picking up trash. Jodie too, of course, and Mack if Jodie has anything to say about it.

This is the 481st post on this blog since last November. Kind of got away from me.

PPMB

• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): "Every hobby, no matter how outwardly mundane, has an underground component that borders on the bizarre and intrudes on the uncanny." This quote worries me when I think about Daria fandom.

"Oh, Daria, just wait until Tom's insane wife Jane is dead, and then you can marry him!"

The title is a Daria/Jane Eyre joke. Today is the 192nd birthday of celebrated English author Charlotte Brontë, as Quinn and Daria remind us in our Jane Eyre alter ego from "Write Where It Hurts" (though maybe it's a Sense and Sensibility alter ego for Jane Austin, I don't know, that crap all looks the same to me).

Today is also the 2,761st birthday of the city of Rome and the birthday of 19th century humorist Josh Billings, who said a lot of things you've probably said, only he invented them. Did you ever say you were just "joshing"? That was named for him.

MMan's wonderful Daria/Andy Griffith Show crossover on PPMB has been named: "Fife in the Fast Lane." DariaWiki has 1,829 articles. Now 780 fans in the Daria Fan Club, which badly needs new poll questions!

Brother Grimace has found a MySpace account allegedly operated by Daria Morgendorffer, but it has been inactive for about a year and is filling with spam. He also located Daria's page on the Internet Movie Database, but the page is in dire need of attention from willing and helpful fans, such as yourself. Someone fix it up, please!

Roentgen found some sketches on a blog by an artist named R. T. Inoue. Go to this page and search down until you reach April 20-21, 2005. Interesting!

And Christ Oliver found some Daria illustrations that will make your eyes pop out. Take a deep breath and sit down before you click that link.

Some excellent fiction appears in today's update. Read on and enjoy.


FF.net

• Coming of Age, by Deep Metal (Parts 20 and 21): In this latest installment of a Beavis and Butt-head masterpiece, Daria looks closely at the former Burger World manager, now pro wrestler out to save B&B from certain doom, and asks, “Is that spandex you have in your suitcase?”
  

PPMB

• Iron Chef: Personality Wipe, unnamed ficlet by Angelinhel (COMPLETE!): She was done, finished, over it, and the rest was history.
• It's Like the Beginning of an Era, by Kristen Bealer (COMPLETE!): And now we know how the Leermeister got his name! Bravo!
• Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Horror, an unnamed scriptfic by TheSecretSharer (Parts 1 and 2): What if Shakespeare wrote "Esteemsters"? You've GOT to read this!
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): A dangerous trap is being laid, but for whom?

More soon, allergies are getting in the way of typing.

In the Realm of Improbable Politics

While surfing the 'net I found the poster at left, which was actually used in New Hampshire recently when a Republican named Jane Lane ran for office. Hmm, probably not the Jane Lane we know. Her being a Republican from New Hampshire would be a stretch, even for a cartoon.

Brother Grimace and Roentgen have sent some website addresses to me that might be of interest to Daria fans. More on those later. First, some updates.



PPMB

• Could Have Been, by legendeld (fragment): An accident in a science lab, and Quinn and her husband suddenly have two little daughters. Only they aren't their daughters.
  
• John Lane 34: Barbeques and Gridiron, by Richard Lobinske (Part 3): Nothing says togetherness like the ritual consumption of burnt animal flesh.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Part 19): Daria was a cartoon character in Robert's world, but in Daria's world, Robert is—
• My Sons, by legendeld (Part 16): When you care enough to send the very best, send fire.
• Untitled Fic, by MMan (COMPLETE!): Locked up in jail! Denied a phone call! Forced to eat meat loaf! And then . . . OTIS!

More tomorrow.

Mooning

Full moon tonight. I was going to post a Beavis and Butt-head picture to celebrate (heh heh heh heh), then thought better of it.

Plundering England like a Viking from Oz, Deref claims to have burnt down Nottingham Castle and taken pictures of the ruins on his rampage across the countryside. He also reports the weather is bad, but that's normal. Damn, I wish I was back in London again.

Richard Lobinske has updated the 2008 Daria Visual Fanworks list. Go to either PPMB or SFMB and marvel at the wonders therein!

Just a reminder to get your questions in for the first alt.lawndale.creators interviews. The two in the spotlight are:

Kristen Bealer (fanfic author): See PPMB or SFMB for details

and

Christ Oliver (fan artist): See PPMB or SFMB for details

One week left to send in questions for them to answer!

Spaced Out

Our alter ego for this post is the image from the TV show depicting Daria in a sci-fi outfit. Many readers might not recognize the suit Daria wears as Jane Fonda's costume for the 1968 movie, Barbarella. (Click on the movie name to see the poster for it, the inspiration for the pic.) This one's for you, Brother Grimace.

Speaking of BG, my Bro asks the musical question: Are women actually more like Daria than they think? When dating, specifically. See his reasoning and the responses here on PPMB.

Updates on the Great Traveling Dariacon, also known as Dariacon Deref 2008: the adventures of a rogue Aussie (aren't they all?) among the savage barbarians of Darkest Europe.

Those with a taste for superhero Daria-ism should immediately visit The Dark Cynic & The Super Artist, by LSauchelli, who has done Daria as Batgirl and Jane as Supergirl. It totally works.

And an oldie but goodie continues on PPMB: Things Students Are No Longer Allowed To Do At Lawndale High. Bless everyone's naughty little heart.

A new Iron Chef on PPMB: Personality Wipe. DigiSim suggests having one character suddenly act in a completely different way. Some real eye-openers are in this collection. Keep it goin'!

FF.net

• Can You Call Me Back? by Alpacca Jo, a.ka. thatLONERchick (COMPLETE!): Sorry, right number. A wicked little crossover that leaves Daria hanging on the line. (PPMB version)
  
• The Night Series: Waking Dreams, by Alpacca Jo (COMPLETE!): Their eyes met and Sandi's heart stopped. A new world then began. (PPMB version)
• Winter Hearts: She Tries to Breathe, by Alpacca Jo (COMPLETE!): The author's first fanfic, updated, with a solid punch to the gut.
  

PPMB

• The 1,001 Deaths of Tom Sloane (continued): Nothing here but heartwarming goodness.
• Avalon, by legendeld (Parts 12, 13, and 14): Things get ugly. 'Nuff said.
• The Cynic, The Fashionista and The Jackass, by Doggieboy (Part 13): The bridge scene is wonderful, right in character. (SFMB version)
• It's Like the Beginning of an Era, by Kristen Bealer (Parts 4 and 5): It all makes sense now, how they got where they are. Nice! Just waiting for the Upchuckster to "make the change."
  
• John Lane 34: Barbeques and Gridiron, by Richard Lobinske (Part 2): "Oh, my cup runneth over," Daria said, feeling another layer of doom descend upon her. (Heh heh heh.)
• The Misery Chicks, by NightGoblyn (Part 19): It's the Faculty vs. DJs Roller Hockey Exhibition at Lawndale High, and only pure evil can save the game for Lawndale. Fortunately, pure evil happens to be playing on the faculty's side.
  
• My Sons, by legendeld (Parts 14 and 15): It's sex, sex, sex, and sex at the Morgendorffers, and Grandma Barksdale isn't having any of it. Figuratively and literally speaking.
• The Other Side Of Time: And All That We've Won, by The Sidhe (Parts 8 and 9): Richard pops the question to Daria, and she says— (SFMB version)
  
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): The plotting, backstabbing, and heartless treachery continue unabated. Lovin' it.
• Untitled Fic, by MMan (Part 1): A crossover that I certainly did not expect. OMG!
  
  

SFMB

• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 21): Maybe there’s a door up in the attic leading to parallel universes with another me, thought Daria. Hmm, maybe there’s a story in that thought. (PPMB)

Speed Demons in Space!

On this day only 36 years ago, two crewmen from Apollo 16 landed on the moon. The astronauts used a lunar rover during their exploration and achieved a land speed record (on the moon) of 11 mph (18 kph), which is still the fastest that any wheeled vehicle has gone on that body. It was a guy thing.

A pic of glasses-wearing Quinn from Kara Wild's Driven Wild Universe has been added to an earlier post. Kinda fun to modify that one basic picture of her.

Time for bed. Peace out, more after the sun comes up.

Today is . . . Dutch-American Friendship Day!

Dutch-American Friendship Day, yes! It gives me the excuse to use the alter ego at right, which would otherwise have been used on International Windmill Day or something. The Freudian overtones of this picture are rather striking.

Slowly getting back into blogging. Have a lot to catch up with. More shortly.

Now 777 fans at the Daria Fan Club. Almost 20,000 views here.

LATE ADD: Now 1,814 1,815 1,823 articles in DariaWiki! Awesome dedication and devotion made it possible, thanks to (in no particular order): Cyde, Quiverwing, Dr. Mike, Brother Grimace, Scissors MacGillicutty, Dennis, Taryn (welcome back, yay!), Nighthawk, Tosy, Roentgen/ CINCGREEN, João Paulo Costa, Doggieboy, Gouka Ryuu, Richard Lobinske, BlackHole, and legendeld. u r0k!

Computer is back, not in good shape

Well, I'm back online but will need all weekend to get things sorted out. The upgrade was good but the damage to Windows was not fixed, and the system is wonky in lots of little ways.

Anyway, before long I will be caught up with updates on the fandom and so forth. Sorry for the delays. Hope everyone is well, haven't read PPMB/SFMB yet. Peace out, yo.

Oh, and if I counted correctly, article #1,800 on DariaWiki was by Brother Grimace: Flush. A very, um, attractive name, that.

Let's Give a Warm Welcome to . . .

Only 99 years ago today, Joan of Arc was officially made a saint. I'm not sure I would want that honor, given what she had to go through to get it, not to mention the multi-century delay before sainthood was conferred, but that's how it goes sometimes, all that paperwork to go through first.

When I have time (and a computer), I will post more stuff to go with this message, but at the moment we will make do with our imaginations.

The World Through Rose-Colored Lenses

This is a special day in Daria fandom. Nine years ago today, Kara Wild completed the first story in her Driven Wild Universe: "Rose-Colored Lenses." Quinn Morgendorffer is forced to get glasses, and things are never the same again. Congratulations to Kara, and bless us all!

Speaking of DWU, Kara noticed a brief tip of the hat to a DWU fanfic she wrote, "Cheered Down," in this movie clip by famed fan artist S.C. See if you can find it.

I still do not have my computer back. @$%#@$%!!

More later, whenever.

LATE ADD: I made a new Quinn picture!

Mustang Fever

Forty-four years ago, at the 1964 New York World's Fair, Ford unveiled a new car model: the Mustang. Interestingly, Mustangs have appeared in several Daria fanfics, and I would have a lot more to say on this topic, but my computer is still in the shop and I am using a different one with none of my data. So it goes. You are spared the Mustang dissertation.

I've dropped out of fandom's view for a while but by this weekend hope to be back again in all my glory, or something. Wish me luck. While I'm out, talk amongst yourselves. Here's a topic: Helen Morgendorffer's bra size. Put your guesses in the comments, and the surprise answer will be revealed later.

The Tramp Lives On

Charlie Chaplin, famed English movie actor, director, musician, and political activist, was born today 119 years ago. Mr. O'Neill does a passable impersonation of "The Tramp" at right, especially in black and white, like most of Chaplin's early movies.

Today is also Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C., when all slaves in the District of Columbia were freed 146 years ago, even before the Emancipation Proclamation was put into effect. Yo!

Still not online, hope to be back shortly with a very nicely upgraded system. Never thought I'd see the day when having 1 GB RAM and a 1 GHz processor was passé.