What's Happenin'

For some months now, I've had a pet project categorizing the whole spectrum of Daria fanfiction to see what kind of stories Daria fans like to write. (I'm nowhere near done.) The current results, per the above link, show that fanfic writers here have a very wide range of interests. I am fond of saying that writing Daria fanfic is like writing haiku, in that both types of writing have limitations put upon them, but the writer still has great freedom within those boundaries to create an infinite number of unique works.

There is a broader purpose to all of this fiddling around, which is to bring attention to fanfics that might not otherwise be widely read. With every category of fanfiction added to the "Fanwork Conventions" listing on DariaWiki, I've made an effort to list good examples. To do that, one has to go through loads of stories first and see which examples are "good."

If you happen to be a DariaWiki surfer and know a lot of good stories, you are welcome to contribute examples to the various Fanwork Conventions (Dramatic Comedy, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Scriptfic, Reinvention, Crossover, Crackfic, Melodrama, etc.). In addition to better known stories, try to find some early Daria fanfics that are worth resurrecting. The more good stuff, the merrier for us all. [NOTE: Please do not add good examples of Squickfic! Please! Eww!]

And if you can think of new Fanwork Conventions, new ways to think about fanfics that will increase our appreciation for what we are doing, go for it. I plan to add a page for Horror soon, with a subcategory for Zombiefics, which I think is long overdue now.

Party on, people.

Terms of Endearment

Like a kid in a big sandbox, I have been playing in DariaWiki and have created some new pages, but it would help if someone else looked them over and corrected or added to the material there. Of late I have developed an interest in discussing the larger scope of fandom and fanfiction writing, particularly Fanwork Conventions. The following pages could use some extra sets of eyes, especially in adding more examples and maybe more pictures, something that best illustrates the issue under discussion.

• Angst
• Dramatic Comedy
• Mary Sue
• Melodrama

See if you can make these clearer and more interesting. Thanks for the help!

This Is Only a Test

To the right is the crowd scene in the Lawndale High gymnasium in "Daria!" Name as many students as you can.

When you get done with that, you might take a look at this blog entry and see what you think of it. It's in a blog called Networked Public Culture: Art and Life in the Age of Social Networking (ahem!) and discusses Fan & Slash Fiction. Daria is not mentioned, but a wide range of other fandoms is noted. Any thoughts on this? Kinda interesting.

(Frodo/Sam slash fic, eww.)

LATE ADD: Alert fan NomadX has pointed out on SFMB that e-Bay has an interesting new t-shirt for sale. See this link right here for more.

Addendum to "A Matter of Terminology"

Actually, something else that would be a lot of fun would be to add some of these other fanfiction terms to the DariaWiki in the sections about fan fiction and fanwork conventions. If anyone decides to create a new wiki page describing such terms (and offering a few examples of the same from Daria ficfic archives), that would be great. Just add the tag for "Fanwork Conventions" to the bottom of the page so it gets properly shelved.

Even better would be to identify some of the oddball tropes, memes, or whateverthehecktheyare that are unique to Daria fanfiction, like squirrel stories. Highlighting the different nature of our fandom is always good.

Note: I was going to say that we are unique in having Alice stories, but now I recall that even Star Trek had Alice stories, so it's not so unique. Still, it's worth pointing out.