You Go, Girls!

Jane is certainly having a successful National Girls and Women in Sports Day, because "women can excel at any sport they put their minds to." This quote would be more inspirational if it hadn't been jerkass Evan who said it, but it's still true.

Let's hope she runs like the wind instead of breaking wind, even if it is National Fart Day. I guess that would be one way to keep the other runners from catching up, because you can't run if you're trying to hold your breath.

Still, while farting in public would be a social disaster, it would be appropriate for Disaster Day! With the Super Bowl coming up, be careful not to wear cream to any parties because "Dip is short for dipsaster!"

Fanfic Update!

• A Moment in the Post Fashion Club Life of Tiffany Blum-Deckler, by Chaoslordsquidward (COMPLETE!): "Tiffany sat down in silence in history class. This isn’t how things used to be."

"What Does Science Know?"

Seems the local news is helping us celebrate National Weatherman’s Day, and I hope they have good things to say about the weather forecast. If they try to warn Lawndale about an approaching hurricane, no one is likely to believe them.

Then again, if they do predict a hurricane it would be appropriate for Disaster Day, but not nearly as disastrous as wearing a cream-colored top to a Super Bowl party. Wait, that's not a disaster...it's a dip-saster!

On the subject of clothing faux pas, someone needs to tell the Fashion Club that it's International Clash Day, but don't mention that it refers to the band. I want to see them all show up in full fashion don't glory!

Fandom News!

• The winners have been announced for the Daria Fanworks Awards: Written Works and Visual Works.


• R.I.P., Carl Weathers.


• Do you think space aliens are out there? Vote in the poll!

Can They Do Anything About 2020 in General?

Daria and Jane are so happy that today is International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, because Kevin's mighty helmet of a head ended the big, wet rainstorm before it killed everyone in Lawndale! Yay! Although I'm not sure that's the approach the UN typically recommends.

Today is also potentially the anniversary of the earliest post on the Paperpusher's Message Board in 1999. Apparently the exact earliest date is not known, but I'm sure archaeologists are working nonstop to crack the mystery of that ancient time.

Fanfic Update!

• Bearing the Summer, by Lady Evil (part 9): "'Ow!' Link flinched as Helen tried to comb his hair in the hallway of the Lawndale courthouse. 'Helen, you need to get my hair wet before you comb it. And I already combed it this morning!'"

BANG!

Today is the 206th anniversary of the last second-to-the-last time that a Vice President of the United States got away with shooting someone while still in office. VP Aaron Burr plugged former cabinet member Alexander Hamilton in the most famous duel in USA history (not counting wild gunfights like at the OK Corral). Hamilton died but got his face on the $10 bill as a consolation prize. Burr's feat remained unchallenged until February 2006. No Vice President of the Fashion Club has ever shot anyone, so far as can be proven.

Also on this date, 31 years ago, Australia was destroyed when the American space station Skylab landed on it after reentry. NASA was fined $400 for littering as a result, but NASA refused to pay because, hey, it was Australia.

And this is the 10th anniversary of the day that Outpost Daria was foxed. Oh, boy. Moar shortly.

PPMB

• Daria/Dorian 4—Partner's Compromise, by LadieT (continued): The conversation between the three was broken by Quinn's whistle. Dorian and Jane looked up and saw the off-white bridal gown and smoky light gray tuxedo in Quinn's hands. Jane jumped up and walked around the dress. Quinn stopped her and held the dress up in front of her. The effect on Dorian was instantaneous. She would look beautiful in that dress. I don't believe I just thought that. Yet, I can't take my eyes off of her. (FF.net)
  
• Finn Morgendorffer 52: With Extra Bitters, by HolyGrail2007 (COMPLETE!): “We’ll get along just fine,” Henry remarked. “Ooh, you wanna know what this dinner party needs, Daria? Civilians. I mean, if they’re trying to have an assassination, what really brings it home for the viewers is the chaos and screaming and trampling. So you gotta have people screaming and diving for cover and praying to Jesus and all that. Two competent people to stop the assassination, one person who knows about it, everyone else needs to be screaming and scared and crapping themselves.” Henry delivered this information with a lot of cheerfulness.
• Raft College: The First Year, by rglovejoy (Part 15): Daria bounced over the lunar surface, following Sam towards what he described as a large depression. Sam had told her that there was something really cool inside; she could not begin to guess what it might be. Everything she'd seen so far was exquisitely cool. Her spacesuit, for example, was not a bulky Apollo-era apparatus; instead, it was a skin-tight one-piece garment with a clear plastic bubble over her head. The outfit reminded her of the covers of pulp science-fiction magazines, with attractive blonde space girls being threatened by all manner of unspeakable alien monsters. Despite feeling a little self-conscious about the suit, Daria was having a good time, leaping far higher than she possibly could on Earth.
• True Blood, by Project Pegasus (COMPLETE!): "Have you been doing heroin... without me?" "Leave me alone." "Answer me! What have you been doing?" "Selling my body." "You're selling your body for drugs?!" "No, don't be ridiculous. I'm selling my blood plasma at the local blood bank. I get sixty bucks a visit." (Daria/Teen Titans)
• Unnamed story (Iron Chef: Crossover the Pond), by Greystar (COMPLETE!): A serene lake, no ripples. No wind. Only the occasional sound of a seabird. All is calm. All is bliss. All is peace. Suddenly, Sandi Griffin bursts out of the water, coughing and gasping for breath as she crawls up onto the beach, sea weed and plants hanging from her clothes and hair. She staggers to her feet and walks unsteadily towards the camera. "Make me wait under the freakin' water for two freakin' minutes," she mutters. "Can't be any ripples, she says... Seven freakin' takes in a row... Pants and shoes are wrecked... I swear I'm gonna—" (Daria/Monty Python's Flying Circus)
• NEW! The White Fox, by Lord Akiyama (Part 1): "I dunno about you, but I'm finding this whole thing really creepy," Jane said. "Tell me about it," Daria said. "The likelihood of you and I having the exact same dream are slim to none." "I refuse to believe what apparently happened yesterday was real," Jane stated firmly. "I refuse to believe any thing that has happened in life is real," Daria stated herself. "Doesn't make them any less true." "Good point," Jane noted after a moment's though. "But generally speaking, there's no way that Holiday Island actually exists and that we encountered the living embodiments of St. Patrick's Day, Cupid, Halloween, Christmas, Guy Fawkes Day, and the like."
  

ka-BOOOM!

It would be criminal to leave this day without mentioning that today marks the

102nd!

anniversary of the Tunguska Event, a titanic explosion whose origin is fiercely debated and whose existence has become a geek touchstone. (It was mentioned without explanation in Ghostbusters, and everyone who was a geek got it.) Some fascinating websites covering the Tunguska event include this one, this one, and this one. (Click on "tunguska event" under Labels to read previous blog posts about this burning issue.)

It was a good thing the event didn't occur over a major city—or, as Daria would put it...

Do you realize that only one Daria fanfic even mentions the Tunguska Event? ONLY ONE??? The shame of it. Okay, I lied: two others (here and here) also mentioned it. BUT ONLY THREE?

MoaR N00Z!

• ImYourOpheliac has created a new Iron Chef: Tom and Jeffy become friends? "I was watching 'One J at a Time' and wondered, how would it affect the show if Tom and Jeffy became friends?"
• Roxanne M created Iron Chef: Daria and Jane pregnant at the same time (and what a response!)
• Charles RB has unleashed Iron Chef: Barch VS DeMartino. "Professionally, in sport, in post-apocalypse car-on-car warfare... whatever the situation or genre, DeMartino and Barch must battle in an all-out struggle."
  

NOTE: I am still adding fanfics to the previous post. There are so many lately I can barely keep up, but I will continue to try.

BOOM! Good morning, Earth! This is your wake-up call!

Was there ever a story about Lawndale getting hit by a giant asteroid or meteor? I keep thinking there was, but most of the fandom talk about it was from the early 2000's, kind of a joke meme. But did someone ever write something like that? Maybe an old timer can clue me in.

Today is the 7th anniversary of the Eastern Mediterranean Event, which is why I was wondering. It appears to have been an impact event, one of those little reminders that the cosmos is very big and we are very small and easily stepped on. Still pretty cool, though.

Today is also the 70th anniversary of the declared death of Judge Crater, a well-known New York City judge who vanished without a trace in 1930. There is considerable controversy over his disappearance, and at one time it was considered a sensational mystery story. His name, along with those of writer Ambrose Bierce and pilot Amelia Earhart, has become synonymous with missing persons in general. Were Eric Schrecter to vanish in a similar way, would anyone care?

What if it was Helen Morgendorffer?

PPMB

• Expecting Trouble, by Legendeld (Part 9): Helen Morgendorffer didn’t hear her youngest daughter enter the kitchen but when she finally noticed Quinn standing at the age of the nook bar looking at her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the redhead had been standing there for a long time. She pushed the paperwork away from her and tried to give a smile that she hoped wouldn’t be more of a grimace.
• Falling Into College 68: Judging January, by Richard Lobinske (Part 2): "At least I stopped sleeping with the knife under my pillow." "That's because I kept bumping it in the middle of the night and you moved it to your nightstand." "It's progress." [Plus, Michael screws the pooch and brings out Daria's inner b-word. Stay tuned.]
  
• Lawndale's Finest: The Dark Knight, by NightGoblyn (Chapter 4, Part 5): The rough surface of the rooftop crunched as Robin settled herself down to peer over the low safety wall at the edge. She tapped the side of her goggles the way she’d been shown to activate the zoom function, and then carefully scanned the shipping yard across the street. The stench of the industrial park was stupendous, but she wasn’t going to let that dim her high spirits.
  
  

Musing at the Museum

It's International Museum Day! Hooray! Not sure where I got the image at right, but it's great. How many places in official Daria lore has this museum appeared? I can recall two, myself.

It is also Victoria Day in the distant northern reaches of the Earth, and a mere 99 years ago today the Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet. Because of poisonous gas in the tail, everyone died. Or they would have if the poisonous gas had not been so diffuse. Rats. There should be a Daria alternate universe about this event. It would be cool.

QUERY: Which writers do you miss the most from the Good Old Days of this fandom? Click the link and add your thoughts.

More soon.

PPMB

• Rings and Things That Cannot Go Together, by Ranger Thorne (continued): The robotic legions marched over the rise toward the city in the distance. Behind them, the landing craft lifted off to make room for more ships with troops. That more had not, in fact, arrived would have made any truly sentient being worried. But the mechanical troops merely obeyed the orders given: destroy the city of Bleth.
  

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.

Maybe Ms. Li Was Right After All

Is Principal Angela Li paranoid, or is the universe really out to get her and her school? Let's review the evidence. In the space of Daria's three years at Lawndale High School, the facility undergoes numerous scandals and traumas, to include (among other things):

• Roller hockey game between faculty and DJs turns violent ("The Big House")
• Death of a locally famous alumni in a freak accident on the football field ("The Misery Chick")
• Sabotage at a student art show ("Arts 'N Crass")
• Collapse of the library roof ("Fair Enough")
• Food poisoning in the student cafeteria ("Groped by an Angel")
• Near disaster from hurricane ("Daria!")
• Brief invasion by extradimensional beings ("Depth Takes a Holiday")
• Quarterback injured, rumors of school haunting, disastrous football season ("A Tree Grows in Lawndale")
• Teacher arrested under false pretenses during a secret government investigation ("The Lawndale File")
• Near disaster on nighttime school outing: passenger ship collides with a barge and sinks ("Just Add Water")
• Near disaster on daytime school outing: lost in mountains during a blizzard ("Antisocial Climbers")
• County-wide budget shortfall crisis leads to an unwise endorsement contract that causes the football team to sicken and Ms. Li to go temporarily insane and attack soda machines with a fire axe ("Fizz Ed")
• Teachers' strike leads to incompetent teachers, pedophiles, and high-school students being used as substitutes ("Lucky Strike")

To the above, let's add:

• DeMartino's previous heart attack during roller-hockey game ("The Big House")
• Football coach convicted of kickback scheme (The Daria Diaries)
• Grade-fixing scandal that resulted in graduating seniors being removed from college and sent back to LHS for remedial classes (The Daria Diaries)

Doesn't this compendium of angst seem a little excessive? (Not by my standards, of course. I meant by your standards.) Maybe LHS was built over an ancient Indian burial ground or something, who knows. Ms. Li's precautions don't look so crazy in this light, do they? She never knew what was coming next and tried to prepare for anything. Sounds smart to me.