Stay Out of the Splash Zone!

Jesse is doing his best Gallagher impression and taking an unusual route to celebrating National Watermelon Day. Weird as it might be, it's still less weird than greasing it up and wrestling it out of the water. For those of you who want to celebrate this holiday, I suggest simply...eating it.

You could even gather around a fire to eat for Campfire Day, which comes with a bonus of being able to roast s'mores and tell scary stories. Maybe don't tell the kind of stories the Morgendorffers told around their campfire, though. Seductive vampires and clunky gold sequins are not especially frightening.

Still, we know Daria can tell a good story (scary or not) because she managed to write some very entertaining tales in the episode "Write Where It Hurts," which aired on this day in 1998. I will never look at card games the same way again.

Fandom News!

• Discuss disabilities in a new thread.


• Sheila Wisz Ellayn shares The Complete Guide to Blue Shirt and Checkers.


• Check out a Daria clip from WatchMOJO.


• cortez wonders if the Daria fandom is dead.

Two Wildly Different Humor Styles

Jesse's going to need yet another new shirt pretty soon as he impersonates Gallagher on the prop comic's birthday. I don't know if that's a greased-up Camp Grizzly watermelon or not, but either way things are about to get messy.

Speaking of comedy, today is also the fifth anniversary of the "Daria: High School Reunion" trailer from College Humor. The trailer was sadly fake, but now that there's a Daria revival in the works, maybe we'll finally get to see more of our favorite snarky teenager soon.

Fanfic Update!

• Changing Lanes, by midnightabyss86 (part 14): "Quinn tapped her foot, as she sat at the breakfast table, and clicked the pen she was using on and off with angry impatience."


• A colossal jerk (Iron Chef: Daria the Unreliable Narrator), by Rémi (COMPLETE!): "Daria : Excuse me. Tommy : You're kidding, right ? You think I'm going to talk to you ? (looks at Jane) You, maybe. Like, four hours into a kegger."


• Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years, by Meester_Lee (part 44): "Lillian Barksdale sorted through her mail, setting the personal letters aside from bills, advertisements, and the usual assortment of charities pleasing for money."


• Erin Chambers, by OzFerret (part 3): "Erin drifted awake. She allowed sounds to wash over her. The soft and rhythmic click that her fridge produced. The muted hum of the traffic outside. The muffled conversations below as the purchase of flowers took place."


• I would put roses round our door (Iron Chef: Daria the Unreliable Narrator), by LongSnakeMoan (COMPLETE!): "'So, I met someone today. A guy.' 'Oh, that's good.' Her sardonic voice bounced around the pizza place, hollower than usual."


• Old Friends/Bookends (Iron Chef: Daria the Unreliable Narrator), by Two-Eyed Charlie (COMPLETE!): "Jane never could get the hang of empathy, not until she met Daria. Then it was as easy as staring in the mirror, because to Jane, Daria was pretty much her worst fears brought to life."


• Rise of Weirdness, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 3): "It was early in the morning, but the Winchester Library of Magic was already busy, with more than a dozen people browsing the shelves."


• Silent treatment, by Rémi (COMPLETE!): "Jake is driving his daughters to school; Quinn is riding shotgun, Daria is in the back seat. Jake : Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town -- especially for you, Daria, right?" (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)


• Unnamed story (Iron Chef: Daria the Unreliable Narrator), by OzFerret (COMPLETE!): "Please understand that I do not break student confidentiality lightly. I am driven to do so by the need to protect students everywhere."


• Unnamed story (Iron Chef: Daria the Unreliable Narrator), by Roentgen (COMPLETE!): "'So, welcome to Self-Esteem,' Timothy O'Neill said. 'This is sort of a group format. I know that all of you have been mandated to come and I know you don't want to be here. I suspect that there's a lot of anger.'"


• Unnamed story (LLH Short Entries #2), by Roentgen (part 139): "An ambulance pulled up to the front of Cedars of Lawndale. A young woman, known for her celebrity and her side ponytails, watched as the back of the ambulance was unloaded."

Jesse Smash!

Jesse's got a big birthday surprise for Gallagher's 70th birthday, so you might want to keep a safe distance unless you like getting splattered with watermelon. I don't think I've ever seen Jesse look quite that enthusiastic about anything.

Three years ago today, the "Daria: High School Reunion" mock trailer was released to fans' delight. Sadly, no live-action film ever emerged, but we can still dream, right?

Fanfic Update!

• The Bench, by dmsfanman (part 4): "Daria paused for what seemed to Tom like forever still looking at him. It was all he could do to let the silence happen."


• A Boring Summer, by ST91 (COMPLETE!): "To say that at first things between Dario and Brittany were strange would be an understatement. However slowly, something was born between the two teens."


• Cynic and a Six-String, by fringeperson (part 23): "'I wish to specify that Mr O'Neill is my English teacher, not my writing mentor, and he sent you my essay without my knowledge or permission,' Daria said when the man passed her the phone. 'An act for which I may yet sue him.'"


• Dystopia, by mailorderannie (part 11): "Jane turned to Daria as they got settled in the stolen car that would, along with two others, take them away from the station. 'I know I'm not the brain here, amiga, but that seemed to be an amazingly stupid thing for us to do.'"


• A Time for Us, by aeverett (part 10): "12-year-old Daria Morgendorffer carefully nudged open the door to her older counterpart's room and crept inside. While she knew what she was doing was a serious violation of privacy, she just couldn't understand her older self now that she'd accepted her family's story."

Smash? Yeah.

Jesse's got a big surprise ready for the comedian Gallagher, who was born on this day in 1946. Daria probably wouldn't be amused, but I bet it would still beat greasing it and playing that stupid game at Camp Grizzly.

This is also Cousins Day, so Quinn should probably send Daria a card or something. Unless it's post-"Lucky Strike," in which case she can send one to Erin, who could probably use some cheering up after being married to Brian for this long.

Finally, it was two years ago today that CollegeHumor aired the video "Daria: High School Reunion." It was fun to watch, but a real live-action Daria movie will most likely never see the light of day.

Fandom News!

• Talk about the music from the original TV run of the Daria series.


• Share your favorite moments of humor in action movies.


• The first Write-Off Challenge has been posted!

More Smash Hits Coming Up!

Jesse Moreno will do the Gallagher thing to lead us into another update of fanfic on the 'net.


Legendeld's website (which I've missed before now)

• Fashion Support: You would never believe the trouble Stacy caused when she wore that flannel top. Tsk.
• Prologue to Earthfall: What came before the story started.

FF.Net (skipping the NC-17 stuff)

• Generation Gap, by Richard Lobinske: Complete version in one chapter.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy80 (a.k.a. Doggieboy): Partying with the living dead.
• Time Lapse, by Kevin R (Chapter 1): A flash of light, and everything in Lawndale is changed.

SFMB (ditto)

• Darkly Daria, by ISauchelli (Parts 4 to 7): Well, I never liked O'Neill that much anyway. *
  
• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Parts 7 and 8): Oh, the horror! The humanity! Alas, alackaday, my gosh!

* Contains mature content. Brace yourself.


More after I get through the mass of PPMB stuff. (LATE ADD: Didn't get through the fanfic as I had hoped. Rats. Later.)