Not That Tatiana

World-famous Daria screenwriter W. Somerset Maugham was born 136 years ago today. "W" (as his most intimate friends called him) is best remembered today for his script for "Of Human Bonding." Kudos to you, W.

Today's other famous literary-related events vaguely related to Daria in some obscure or ridiculous manner include:

• Virginia Woolf's 128th birthday ("A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction").
• Tatiana Day, a.k.a. Russian Students Day, celebrating student life. St. Tatiana, no relation to the girl in "Camp Fear," is the Russian Orthodox patron saint of students, so of course this holiday is highly relevant.
• Robert Burns Day, celebrated by people of the Scottish persuasion who like both the works of Robert Burns and (eww!) haggis, which somehow go together. It is remotely possible that the Daria character Robert was named for him, but I doubt it.
  
• The 120th anniversary of Nellie Bly's wild circumnavigation of the globe, done in less time than Jules Verne's characters in Around the World in Eighty Days. Nellie Bly (not her real name, but it will do) was a city reporter, foreign correspondent, war correspondent, author, industrialist, inventor (she invented those 55-gallon steel drums that everyone on the planet uses, srsly, this is not a joke), humanitarian, civil rights supporter, and defender of women, children, orphans, the poor, the insane, and everyone being stepped on at the time. She became Lois Lane's idol, too. Yes, that Lois Lane, who of course is one of Jane Lane's relatives. Could Nellie Bly have been an inspiration to Daria, who wanted to be an "inquiring reporter" in Highland? Or was Brenda Starr more to Daria's liking? What was the original topic? Oh, right, Nellie Bly. She was hawt.

Want to get political with Our Heroine? Check out this bumper sticker.

You may go about your regularly scheduled Internet business. That is all.

FF.net

• NEW! Windy Monday Afternoon in Boston, by RangerWill (COMPLETE!): Daria sat down and pulled her jacket tighter around her body. She was supposed to meet Jane at the local Tarbucks to share some exciting news. [based on this picture]

PPMB

• NEW! Daria: Hunter 5—Strictly Business, by Jim North (continued): "Dammit!" Jane suddenly swore. "I'm the sidekick again, aren't I? Why am I always the sidekick?" she asked Daria, who simply shrugged in return.
  
• Daria Is Raven's Apprentice, by Project Pegasus (continued): "All right. So how do we open the Mouth of Hell?" "All we have to do is push this dumpster aside and..." "Wait, please don’t tell me we’re..." "That’s right. The Mouth of Hell is located behind the dumpster of the Good Time Chinese Restaurant."
• NEW! Do I Have to Paint You a Picture? by Kristen Bealer (Part 2): "Kevin!" 99 cried, catching him as he dropped to the ground. "I'm hit," he gasped. "KAOS finally got me." (Daria/Get Smart)
• NEW! Falling into College 72: Valley of Love and Delight, by RLobinske (Part 4): Others from the party that had stayed overnight were scattered around the apartment on chairs, sleeping bags or, in the case of Karen and Derek, on an inflatable mattress. Michael stood and wove between the bodies on his way to the bathroom. He felt like King Harry walking through the aftermath of Agincourt.
  
• Finn Morgendorffer 29: Burn Out, by HolyGrail2007 (Part 1): Finn pushed himself out of bed, only for his mother to burst into the door, still wearing her pajamas. “Finn! The house is on fire!”
• NEWEST! Trapped, by Jim North (continued): Ms. DeFoe's art classroom was exactly as Daria remembered it, save for the darkness and the swirling mass of filthy, debris-choked water passing over the room's skylights. Daria shone her light into it but quickly turned away a second later, stomach churning at the sight of what was floating by the windows.
  
• Unnamed story (Finn Morgendorffer: Chapter 28 - About My Mother), by NightGoblyn (COMPLETE!): "Finn, can I ask you something?" The redhead glanced up at the tone of his older brother's voice. Darius always sounded flat and depressed, but his voice usually wasn't so... hopeless. "Ask away, Brainiac." "If you... have you ever kissed one of your friends' girlfriends?"

The Camp Clone Club

"Camp Fear" continues a series of running jokes in Daria showing clones of established figures in the series. It seems that everywhere Quinn goes, she runs into copies of either Jeffy, Joey, and Jamie (remember the dream guys in "College Bored", or the little boys in the library in "See Jane Run"?), or Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany.

At left are Tracy, Cindy, and Tatiana, assuming I've spelled their names correctly and that Quinn called out their names in left-to-right order. The clone aspect is obvious because Tracy talks and acts like Sandi, Cindy like Stacy, and Tatiana like Tiffany. (The T-name girls are both Asian, too! Or maybe Tatiana is Polynesian or whatever, who cares, I can't tell.) The clone thing is taken even further when you realize that Cindy sounds like Sandi and Tracy like Stacy, though the names and girls seem to have been switched just to confuse things. Of course, the middle girl called to Quinn first at the reunion, just as Stacy spoke to Quinn first in "Esteemsters," so maybe Quinn called her name first and the order shown above is Cindy, Tracy, and Tatiana. Beats me. We'll go with the TCT order here.

So, there they are. What good are they, for fanfic purposes? It would be a tragedy to assume the clone thing is carried too far; there have to be differences, and Tracy and Cindy don't sound exactly like their counterparts, despite Tracy/Sandi's Valley Girl drawl. (Tatiana, though, sounds just like Tiffany. Maybe they're cousins.) They can't have the same last names as the Fashion Clubbers, or be too much alike, or else Quinn would notice. Maybe all three girls live in the same town and came to Camp Grizzly together. Maybe they went to Camp Grizzly regularly as kids but came from different towns.

Maybe in Quinn's senior year at Lawndale, one of the trio's family moves to Lawndale and meets Quinn. If it's Tracy (Traci?), there'll be trouble: she's ticked off at Quinn over the Alex Kroger thing, and she'll lock horns with her counterpart Sandi for control of high-school fashion (and boys). Tracy might even start her own Fashion Club to replace the one that disbanded. (Brooke finally makes it in! Or not.) A Tracy-Sandi showdown would be entertaining. If it's Cindy (Cindi?), she'll probably go along with whatever everyone else is doing, though suspicious of Quinn because she's still loyal to her friend Tracy. If Tatiana (Tatyana, Tatianna, Tatijana, Tateyanna, whatever), it's anyone's guess. The name is Slavic, but Wikipedia shows famous people from Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and France have that name, too. Tiffany Blum-Deckler is a wild card, full of unexpected twists, so Tatiana might be equally weird. Maybe she's a genius engineering student from the Philippines who writes Buffy fanfic. She did tell Quinn she was sorry to leave her at the reunion. Possible future friend?

The trio are pretty much blank slates except for what little we are given in "Camp Fear," so they're ripe for character development. I wonder if their last names rhyme with their counterparts, or are otherwise similar. They exist, clones or not, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste. Maybe we'll see them again. Good luck.