A History of Violence, Part 2

Several characters in Daria display an aggressive streak. Janet Barch beats the tar out of Mr. DeMartino about three or four times ("The New Kid," "The Daria Hunter," Is It College Yet?, and in The Daria Database), plus whales on an unfortunate disk jockey in a roller-hockey game ("The Big House"), but even she runs a distant second to Brittany Taylor.

Brit's mean streak surfaces with little warning and sometimes with little provocation. Childish teasing, a tasteless come-on, or a similar poor choice of words is usually all it takes. The most startling display of hair-trigger violence on her part did not appear in the first or second seasons of the show. It came during the interval between the fourth and fifth seasons, in Is It Fall Yet?

When the Dopey Duo are working as lifeguards over the summer before their senior year, Kevin unwisely pokes fun at Brittany's green-tinted (chlorine-dyed) hair. She boils over in seconds, stomps Kevin's foot, then chases him around the swimming pool in full view of adults and children, murder in her eyes. When she catches up to him, she re-stomps his injured foot much harder than the first time, shoves him into the pool, dives in after him, and then hammers him with her fists from behind, focusing on the back of his head. It's brutal. Once again, visual evidence of the event helps one to appreciate its full flavor, so I took the liberty of stitching the scene together in one large image for educational viewing.

Does it end there? It seems unlikely. In "Fat Like Me," mistakenly believing Kevin is unfaithful, Brittany shrilly snarls: "Ooh, I can't believe Kevvy cheated on me with Angie! Wait till I get my hands on him!" (See her expression in the image above left.) Yikes! You can feel Kevin's pain, and she hasn't even hit him yet.

At least Brittany doesn't beat up women, though she has no compunctions about face-offs with them if she suspects they are trying to steal her boyfriend ("This Year's Model," "The Lab Brat," etc.). It makes one wonder how Upchuck survived being her lab partner in "The Lab Brat." By rights, he should be in a shallow grave. Maybe she feared he had other copies of that incriminating photo. Who knows. (He does get popped by Brittany in The Daria Database, as seen at lower left.)

Other writers have taken the bad-ass Brittany concept and run with it. We have Crazy Nutso's "True Blue," an eye-popper that now (like Nemo Blank's version of Brittany in "Ring Toss") doesn't seem so far-fetched. Read the notes at the bottom of "True Blue," by the way. I've played with the idea, too, in a comedy/fantasy fic and a post-canon tale. I recall there are other violent Brittany stories, but can't pinpoint them. Maybe someone else can refresh our collective memory. Wasn't there an Iron Chef, too, about Brittany beating people up in bar fights?

Kinda wonder how the bad-ass Brittany thing got started. I bet it had something to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then took on a life of its own. She is a ferocious wild child, even if she does have a pink bunny backpack and smells like baby powder. (Thanks again to UU and Pinhead for the image at upper right. You r0OoL!!!!!)

Comments? Corrections? Arguments? Thoughts or rants? Let's see 'em. And more fanfiction, too.

Starry Night Ball, Anyone?

This is the anniversary of the Starry Night Ball that the Sloanes attended, as mentioned in Is It Fall Yet?, and also the anniversary of the office retreat held by Vitale, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter. Richard Lobinske points out that September 8th was on a Friday in 2000, and a Saturday in 2001, so take your pick. Wonder what Elsie Sloane looked like in her ball gown.

And there's more. The letter from Bones Medical Teaching supplies, in The Daria Database, is dated September 8, 1998. (Would someone please update that DariaWiki page?)

In the backstory for the fanfic "Gone," September 8, 1954, was assumed to be the birthday of Amy Barksdale. This date would have to be tossed out given the guesstimates about the Barksdale sisters' ages from Glenn Eichler, revealed in one of Kara Wild's interviews with him, but it was a nice thought while it lasted.

Finally, this is the 15th anniversary of the day Daria Morgendorffer appeared in the (controversial) Beavis and Butt-head episode "Incognito." It is assumed she was in 9th grade at Highland High at the time. The episode synopsis is startling and brings to mind "Daria 2007: The Girl from Hope."

Anyway, enjoy your Daria Day!

Today Is Also . . .

. . . you guessed it! Willem de Kooning's birthday! He would have been 104. You probably remember his photo under Jane's bed. That Jane even knows who this guy is was one of the reasons I believe her IQ was in the same ballpark as Daria's, even if she wasn't any good at math. (See here for details.)

I reread the above and it kinda makes me sound like a dweeb geekfan, but I'll let it pass. FIAWOL.

PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 16): That's funny. As I read this installment, I remembered those X-Men comics from 1980 just before Jean Grey turned into Dark Phoenix.
  
• Legion of Lawndale Heroes Mini – The Devil Deals the Cards, by Gouka Ryuu and Brother Grimace (Part 1): He was called Veggie because that was how he left his victims. At the moment he's looking for a redhead named Quinn.
• Lawndale’s Finest: Detective Stories 1, The End of an Era, by LSauchelli (COMPLETE!): All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Sometimes, though, it happens even when good men do everything.
  
• Man Behind the Curtain, by thatLONERchick (COMPLETE!): The fans weren't the only ones unhappy about That Episode. (FF.net version)
  
• The Misery Chicks, by NightGoblyn (COMPLETE!): This story doesn't go out with a bang, it goes out with a freakin' supernova. Whoa, mama. *
• My Sons, by legendeld (COMPLETE!): Time passes, and the new couple looks back. (“Only your sister would hand out weapons as 'I miss you' presents.”)
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): ". . . And you will become RanStace and your profound knowledge of Michael Bolton's music will be put to its highest possible use." [Gut instinct response from TAG: Be afraid. Be very afraid.]
  
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): Lisa smirked and rubbed her chin. "I think I know just the candidate for Outcast Queen."

* Contains mature content. Brace yourself.

Cashing in that old Montana cabin fund?

Despite the fact that it got a teeny-tiny mention in The Daria Database, the Montana cabin fund has become the stuff of Dariaverse legend. The idea doubtless came from the fact that the antisocial Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, was captured in a remote cabin near Lincoln, Montana. The possibility that she might get her own such cabin has doubtless crossed Daria's mind.

Even a cursory search with Google shows a large number of fanfics making mention of Daria's Montana cabin fund. In The Daria Database, Daria is shown with a whole pillowcase full of money (her fund), and noted that she stuffed it with $45 in just one day's haul from her parents. How much do you imagine a clever high schooler could sock away before graduation? What do you think she might do with so much money? If her financial note in TDD reflects her habits, she puts away two-thirds of her income from all sources in the so-called fund.

A fun thing to speculate about. What would she do with all that cash?

Random Fanfic Idea #15

The Daria Database shows that Daria sends e-mail to acquaintances all over the world, probably people she met online but has never seen in person. She knows a Nicole in Canberra, Australia, who has "criminal ancestry"; a Boris in Minsk, Belarus, who seems to be a university student with a penchant for making potentially dangerous homemade vodka (and is planning to visit the U.S. in the fall); a Cecil who lives on his father's tobacco farm in Zimbabwe; and of course Rhonda the tomahawk murderer, awaiting her appeal in Kinsington Prison. (It's amusing that the first pen pal encountered in the book is from Australia and the last is from Zimbabwe, the literal A-to-Z of world nations.)

Rhonda has appeared in several fanfics in different forms, but to my knowledge none of Daria's other e-mail pals has ever shown so much as the end of his/her nose in any story. (If I am wrong, please set me straight.) That's sort of weird, since here you have several thumbnail character descriptions all ready to go, with names, ripe for development in nearly any direction the author wishes to take, and they're just sitting there. Such a shame. So much story, nothing happening. [sigh] You get the message.

Speaking of Australia, Deref has sent in some interesting photos of a local museum that have begun to acquire rude captions from PPMB readers. You may wish to check that out to liven up your day, and feel free to contribute your own captions. The worst possible one has surely not yet been written. It's all up to you.

Meet (the absent) Vivian Taylor

We know very little about Brittany Taylor's birth mother, and all of that comes from The Daria Database, to wit: "Vivian, 44, actress/ model/ restaurant hostess/ former Mrs. Taylor: Shortly after Brian's birth, deserted family to move to Hollywood where people are relatively sane."

It is interesting that Brittany holds her mother's picture in the Taylor family portrait, and she doesn't seem at all upset that Mom's gone. Vivian has been gone about 9-10 years, so Brittany was 6-7 years old when she took off. You think that would be traumatic, but Brittany is having fun with her stepmom, and maybe Vivian keeps in touch with Brittany (if no one else).

Vivian doesn't show up in many fanfics (most notably Crusading Saint's "Shadows and Secrets," M Man's "Anywhere But Here," and Peter Guerin's "Strange Reunions"), but there's potential for more. I do recall a Mother's Day fanfic about her, but cannot now find it.

The Vanishing Photographer

In the Beavis and Butt-head episode, "Sporting Goods," fifteen-year-old Daria complains, "My parents made me join the school paper. The paper made me fashion reporter because I'm a girl. I hate fashion! There's no fashion in this town! I want to be an inquiring photographer." She then proceeds to use her skills to put an embarrassing photo of B&B, with accompanying article, in the school newspaper.

One year later, in "The New Kid," she briefly joins the yearbook staff of another high school and again becomes a photographer, but only to get a first-person shooter game for her computer by trading in the software her parents will get for her. Her interest in becoming an inquiring photographer is gone, despite the high praise lavished on her photography work by Ted Dewitt-Clinton. Daria's interest in photography reappears only rarely in the series. She creates a photographic essay for Mr. O'Neill (in The Daria Database) and makes a video of her sister in "Monster," but that's about it.

Whatever happened to the budding "inquiring photographer"? Why did Daria stop using her considerable talent at camerawork? Could this interest return later in her life, perhaps in college? Not many fanfics have looked at Daria's photography skills (except in AU stories), and it would be nice to see that inquiring photographer resurrected, with a very Daria-ish twist.

Jane was not the only artist in the show

Andrea (an-DRAY-ah, I think it's pronounced) is shown here sketching a nice coffin in class in "The F Word." In The Daria Database we were also treated to "Gothic Nights," a four-panel comic strip she apparently drew under the nickname Andrea666. She calls herself Queen Hecuba in the comic, Hecuba being the queen of Troy at the time of the Trojan War. Andrea knows her Greek mythology. If the comic in TDD is any indication of her work, she's pretty darn good at drawing and scripting.

Andrea's goth appearance seems to overshadow her artistic and poetic talents in most fanfic, but clearly Jane has a competitor in the fine arts field. Wonder how she put it to use after high school. Graphic novels? Advertising? Political cartoons? Internet comics?