Party Like It's 1984!

Young Daria is ready for both camp and the anniversary of George Orwell's birth in this day in 1903, but I think she's about to find out that some campers are more equal than others. Orwell's influence on the show was also seen in "Psycho Therapy," when Daria commented, "Gee, look at the time. 1984 already" in reference to Helen's law firm evaluating the family's mental health.

While we're on the subject of Daria's less-fond childhood memories, the episode "Boxing Daria" first aired on this day in 2001. It's one of the most popular episodes, and for good reason--great jokes combined with bittersweet insights into Daria's history made for an excellent series near-finale (aside from the final movie).

Someone should smuggle Ted another cassette in honor of Global Beatles Day, but make sure his parents don't find out. Listening to decades-old pop music is just a slippery slope to chewing gum and playing anachronistic video games!

Fanfic Update!

• Avatar: The Drama Of Daria, by psychotol (part 14): "Barch entered the principals office to see police chief Mako and another cop there, she asked 'I thought Daria had dropped the matter?'"


• I (Don't) Want to Be a Part of It, by ladyevil (part 8): "'Simmah down now!' Alfred was doing a Cheri Oteri impression as he got off the elevator with Daria, Jane and Tony. 'Just simmer down!'"


• Spider Quinn 17 Tempestuous Origin of Mysterio, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 5): "'Daria Morgendorffer, please report to the principal’s office,' Ms. Li announced straight after Homeroom."


• The Youngest Barksdale, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 9): "It was disappointing that there wasn’t anything she could use against Ms. Li in what Quinn had told her, Daria considered as she entered her room. But she was sure that there was something else she could use."

Some Boxes Are More Equal Than Others

Daria's wishing George Orwell a happy birthday, as the author of one of her favorite books, Animal Farm, was born on this day in 1903. Orwell also wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, which Daria references in "Psycho Therapy."

And speaking of Young Daria, today is also the anniversary of "Boxing Daria," which aired on this day in 2001. It's thanks to that episode that I can never look at a refrigerator box the same way again.

Fandom News!

• Share all of your random non-Daria thoughts and questions in a new thread.


• HuffPost recently published an article about Daria. Discuss it here.

Children and Dystopia--What a Great Combination!

Happy birthday to the late author George Orwell, born on this day in 1903! Among his better-known works are Animal Farm and 1984, both of which were referenced in different episodes of Daria. Daria was seen reading Animal Farm on her way to Camp Grizzly in the episode "Camp Fear," and she commented, "Gee, look at the time. 1984 already," in "Psycho Therapy."

Speaking of Young Daria, today is also the 11th anniversary of the original airing of "Boxing Daria," in which we get an enlightening view of Daria's childhood. I, for one, will never see a refrigerator box in quite the same way again.

Fanfic Update!

• Armored Cynic Daria, Episode 2: The 8th Circuit, by RX-87 (part 4): "NICK: Is there a point to all this or did you just come to chew us out? TRENT: Yeah. We don't need to get bitched at just 'cause something didn't go our way. The important thing is what we're gonna do next. Where do we stand with our orders? WIND: Fine. You're to stay in the colony until further notice."


• Blessings of the Moon -- Chapter 8, by Fhujeth_x (part 1): "Looking away the older Rowe grimaced, 'Right... and I know that's what my parents are thinking, so we have to save her before they decide to do what their instincts tell them... come on, we'll head over to my mom's friend's house and see if she has any information about how to help Stacy!'"


• Compagnons (Scenes no Daria Fanfic should ever have-Now Springtime Fresh), by Shiva (COMPLETE!): "'So what are you going to do with all that bribe money Compagnon?' Jodie asked while she walked the halls of Lawndale with her best friend, Quinn Morgendorffer. Quinn glanced at Jodie in her usual attire of a green coat, an orange top underneath, black jeans and leggings, boots, and her three silver earrings in each ear, and replied in her usual monotone, 'Well I was planning on buying a couple new guitars.'"


• Daria is Raven's Apprentice, by project pegasus: "Hieronymus Q. Cashman: I would be remiss should I not know the activities of my own employees. Raven: Then you should have known that a good many of them would be murdered. Hieronymus Q. Cashman: Your belief in my omniscience is flattering. Raven: God damn it, this is life and death!"


• Daria's Stash, by Smijey (COMPLETE!): "'Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town...' Jake looked in the rear-view mirror at his eldest daughter sitting in the backseat, and winced. 'Especially for you, Daria, right?' 'Hah,' Daria scoffed. 'I find it easy to make friends. I can't help it if they don't make friends with...all of me.'"


• Ethan Yeager in Lawndale: Ch 8 Negotiable Education, by Shiva (part 6): "'I’m going to do it tonight,' Rex said very flatly, 'I’m going to tell them and then... I’ll probably need a place to crash.' 'Ok, I think Rex just used up the bombshell quota for the day.' was Josh’s first rational thought on the matter. Out loud however he managed to say something more relevant. 'Wow... You sure man?'"


• God Save the Esteem 42: Combat Rock, by Charles RB (part 4): "Tom had been in the garage when he got the text, but he didn’t understand why. Not until a minute later, when he walked out and saw the police breaking into his house. Very quietly, Tom went back into the garage and into his Bentley, and drove out very fast. They’re really hardline about torrenting, he thought, scared."


• The Hearts Within, by neonhomer (parts 1 - 3): "'When will she be back?' asked Stacy. 'Don’t know. She went to the mall with her mother.' I said. 'Oh. Okay.' Said Stacy. She hung her head down, and turned away. 'I guess I will find someone else to talk to.' I was just about to shut the door when I heard what she said, and saw the tear hit the concrete. Damn it. 'Stacy? Are you okay?'" (Part 2) (Part 3)


• Little Green Cap, by peetz5050 (part 3): "'And why did you kind of get sent home, may I ask?' 'Well I...please stay calm Dad she totally deserved it after what she said.' 'Who and what?' Jane asked, curious. 'Sandi.' Quinn shrugged. 'Aaannd?' 'Well I may have broken her nose... a bit.'"


• Mirror, Mirror (Iron Chef: Funhouse Mirror Time (AU Crossovers with Canon)), by peetz5050 (COMPLETE!): "She started to push back from the table and was on the point of running out of the room when the... the... the... vortex expanded impossibly out of the mirror and filled the whole wall of her room. Daria stared at it wild-eyed for a second before gravity flipped through ninety degrees and she fell into what was now a gaping abyss."


• Operation Glitterberries, by BF110C4 (part 18): "The only things that she found other than clothes, fashion magazines and a couple of agendas so full that each one only had half of the alphabet, was a laptop computer and this time she didn’t even checked it, she just took it and its carrycase, this was a both a source of information and a tool, and right now both were equally important to her. The only other thing she found was an old photo hidden in the bottom of the drawer where the girl was nine or ten years old and she was hugging a slightly older and clearly annoyed girl with glasses. "


• Quinn's Code Story 6: The Lab Mouse, The Geek and the Convention, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 9): "'Now. I'll give you a deal...' Daria began. Brittany interupted. 'What sort of deal?' Daria shot back. '...You give me the mouse back, and you can have Kevin back.' She paused. 'If we go to your house now.' 'Upchuck might be there!' 'That would be the least of your worries,' Daria said as she gave a disconcerting smile."


• Revenge Fantasies, by Charles RB (COMPLETE!): "Fear shot through Daria and she tried to hide her papers, but too late – Sandy had grabbed them away. Her friends tittered at it, all bar Kimberly, who gently said 'now come on, Sans, leave her alone' but nothing beyond that. She never did anything beyond that."


• A Talk with Myself (Iron Chef: Funhouse Mirror Time (AU Crossovers with Canon)), by DeacBlue (COMPLETE!): "She looked up, then stopped in her tracks. 'No way,' she said in a voice just above a whisper. 'Yes, way,' her own voice, coming from her own face, replied. 'If you want to hear the story, let's start running.' Jane shrugged her shoulders and followed herself."


• Unexpected Hookup: First Taste, by Shiva (part 7): "Ronnie grumbled while getting up to get the door while Daria tried to crawl into herself to hide from the embarrassment. Once he opened it, Pia couldn’t resist teasing them a bit before adding, 'Oh Mom and Dad want you down for dinner in five, and since I accidently told them Daria was here, she’s invited too.' Then with an even bigger grin at her brother’s impotent anger at the situation, Pia strolled away."


• Unnamed story (Scenes That Could Be - The Non-Daria Edition), by Greystar (COMPLETE!): "There were the usual checks in place to keep the human race from overrunning the solar system like a hoard of ants. Disease was obviously one of them, the more that science seemed to defeat, the more new strains seemed to pop up. War and violence were present as well. Humanity just couldn’t seem to outgrow them. But, finally two things happened that changed the prospects of the human race."


• Vivian, by ST91 (part 5): "'Your father will fix everything.' Ashley said with a smile. Brittany smiled too. 'You're right. He said he would sent her away ... and he always keeps his promises.' 'That's right sweetie, so what do you want to do? A little shopping?' 'No. I don't want to buy anything. I want to shoot.'"

"Gee, look at the time. 1984 already."

It was on this day in 1949 that George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. In addition to the above quote from "Psycho Therapy," the book is also referenced in "Write Where It Hurts" as one of the reading choices in Mr. O'Neill's class.

In fan-fiction, Thomas Mikkelsen's A Stacy Orange, Brother Grimace's Victory Lane, and The Angst Guy's Daria 2007: The Girl from Hope all refer to the novel to varying degrees.

And now over to Big Brother with the latest fandom news!

• Is Jane the easiest to use character in Dariarotica? Post your thoughts in the thread.


• Doggieboy has a question for the Spanish speakers.


• Derek posted some night photos and pictures of Niagara Falls.


• A new discussion in the Deep Thoughts forum: the search for the historical Adam.


• Roentgen has found some fun with Wikipedia.


• Two new Iron Chefs in the Creative Writing forum: LadieT's If I Forget You: Daria's Turn and Temppeli's Dream Story.

Can We Party Like It's 1984?

Today marks the 61st anniversary of the first publication of George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the most famous books ever written. A previous blog post discusses the novel and how often it is mentioned in the Daria series and fanfiction (a lot). In fact, one newly written fanfic chapter has something about 1984 (look here).

A well-known character from one Dariaverse disappeared sixteen years ago today. See if you can guess who it was before you check the answer.

Is Trent Lane one of the Ten Sexiest Cartoon Musicians? An alert blog reader sent us the answer. Thank you!

PPMB

• The Hallowed Halls of Fielding, by Roentgen (Part 33): "Since I have all of your class schedules, I'm sure you'll have no problem with the times I've assigned. The oral will take place over finals week, in this classroom. A simple one-on-one to avoid any embarrassment." Goodlett passed a paper around. Quinn noticed her time. It was the very last of Goodlett's interrogations. Enough to make her sweat. Enough to give her false hope that she could ask any of the students in class about previous questioning.
• Raft College: The First Year, by rglovejoy (Part 5): Daria walked out of her first calculus class a little shell-shocked. She sure wasn't in Lawndale anymore. Back in high school, they wasted a lot of time on nonsense, such as dealing with disruptive students. There were two in particular that came to mind...they were most likely in jail now, for vandalism or running a meth lab or something. Sometimes the teachers would show movies in class and other times they would go over material that had been covered many times before. None of this was so here.
  

Boxing Day for Daria

It pains me to inform you that today is National Catfish Day, for no reason whatsoever, but it is also a special day for Daria fans.

Nine years ago this evening, "Boxing Daria" premiered on MTV. That was a good episode. Lots of fanfic sprang from this one evocative tale. Commentary on the story may be found here and here. The biggest complaint about it was the lack of humor; Daria had turned into a coming-of-age drama though it started out as a pointed comedy. People loved it or didn't. I guess it depends on what you see in the inkblot. (I see a Balrog who has dropped two valentines and is very sad about that.)

Today is also the 106th anniversary of the birth of English writer Eric Arthur Blair, better known to the world as George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Daria was highly familiar with both texts, as she references the former in "Psycho Therapy" and took a copy of the latter to Camp Grizzly when she was younger (but had it taken away by her mother).

Speaking of 1984, Mr. DeMartino has a special thought from the Sick, Sad Life Planner. What a guy.

If you for some reason are curious to see what was being blogged about here one year ago, click here and find out. I'm trying not to repeat too much of what I've done before, and I especially want to start adding new screen caps and images (and sound bites) when possible.

I DIDN'T DO IT DEPARTMENT: I just noticed that the "Radio by Daria" button at left, which opens a screen to Last.fm's alternative rock station for your late 1990s listening pleasure, is actually called "Alternative radio Tag Rock" at the website. I honest to gosh had nothing to do with that happening. It sure wasn't called that a few months ago. Weird.

I kind of wish I could set up a Mystik Spiral Radio button, but I want to get more viewers, not less of them.

SPECIAL EXTRA IMPORTANT NOTE: In case anyone would like to take and use any of the MTV derived images or sound bites found on this blog for nonprofit fannish purposes, be my guest. I would be nuts to make any sort of claim on them, since they ARE after all owned by MTV. You need a pic for a blog, or a sound bite for your website, go for it. Just take 'em, don't even ask. If MTV tells me to knock it off, I will, but until then have fun. This is a fandom, not a doctor! Uh, mmm, I don't think that McCoyism worked, sorry.

PPMB

• An Affair to Remember, Please God Let Me Forget, by Kangaballs (preview): "What did you just say?" Daria asked Jane to repeat what she had mumbled over morning coffee. She was never quite the morning person and Daria wanted to be absolutely sure she heard her right.
• Formula Savvy, by Ajar (COMPLETE!): This marks the one year anniversary of The Event, so I suppose I should take stock of what has happened in the past year. Mack, Kevin, Jane and I have managed to eke out enough food through farming to live on. I suppose we should be lucky that we still used the old lead-lined refrigerator from my Dad's army days and that they had just gone to the grocery store earlier that day so that we had lots of seeds that were viable for planting.
• Unnamed story (Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: TGIF), by Betting on Delusions (COMPLETE!): "My fear is that my son will never understand me!" "Jake! We don't have a son." "Oh. Heh, right."

And Everywhere There Was Song and Celebration

Perhaps I should have noticed this earlier, but I wonder if the reason why Alternapalooza was scheduled on August 15-17 (in The Daria Diaries) was because those were the original dates of the famous 1969 musical festival called Woodstock. (The festival actually ran over into Monday the 18th.) Funny. Here it was, a secret counterculture reference all this time buried in Daria lore, and only now do I figure it out. I must be reeeaaally slow.

The book that young Daria took to Camp Grizzly (at left), George Orwell's Animal Farm, was first published 63 years ago today.

Eleven years ago this weekend, the Chicago Tribune ran a story about Daria, seen here.

The most important anniversary, however, is last. One hundred years ago today, Frenchman Émile Cohl released the first-ever animated movie: Fantasmagorie. It was shown on-screen in Paris. To this little silent cartoon does Daria and all other animation owe their very existence. Merci!

Lots of terrific responses to two PPMB Iron Chefs: Sic transit gloria mundi and Mirror, Mirror... Read, enjoy, and add your own!


PPMB

• Legion of Lawndale Heroes Mini: How to Talk to Your Teen, by Roentgen (COMPLETE!): As Helen Morgendorffer watched her children grow, she wondered if she’d have a favorite child.
• New Life, by legendeld (COMPLETE!): “You just spent three hours with me standing here completely naked, rubbing me with makeup. Wasn’t that enough?” “No.”
• Starbright, by legendeld (Part 1): “What if you could have one more chance, just one?” “That would be great. One night to prove that we’re more than just fakes … but it would never happen.” “What if it could?”