Stuff & Nonsense

Odds & ends on a Friday night. . .

Brother Grimace has begun an interesting page on DariaWiki (which now has 1,935 interesting pages): the Dariacentric romance. This begs for elaboration.

Some fun competitions online: Iron Chef: Better Than Sex! is one, and Mirror, Mirror... is getting superb responses! Lots of wackiness in Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Nightmare and The 1,001 Deaths of Tom Sloane.

Checked in on Dariaverse.com to see what was new. Hmmm.

Psychotol is looking for a beta-reader.

Two very nice, very new fan artworks:

• DJPotatoe's Darius and Quinn (I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT! IT'S PERFECT!)
• Luizamoony's Quinn on Stage (wow! realism!)

FF.net

• Mart of the Dead, by Smileyfax (Part 5): Things go from bad to worse, but you won't hear me complaining. Who is that mysterious camouflaged man?
• The Young Switcheroo, by Smileyfax (Part 7): Daria and Jane . . . or Jane and Daria . . . oh, whatever, they reenact "College Bored" with a twist. Awesome serial.

PPMB

• Avenging, by Lorenzo Sauchelli (Part 17): "Ah, Leonardo, there you are. I've hardly seen you in the last few chapters."
• Calling Calliope, by Dennis (COMPLETE!): Tiffany, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I have some big news. Do you mind meeting me at Begin the Bean tomorrow at 12? If not, no worries. -Ken
• Evil Jane (unnamed story), by NightGoblyn (continued): A friendship born in Hell.
• John Lane 36: Promises, by Richard Lobinske (Part 1): The long-awaited Daria/John prom story (nice pun in the title) starts out with: "We've got to get rid of them! All of them!"
  
• A Monster in the Unmaking, by Kristen Bealer (Part 2): I knew the thing Ashley Amber loved most about me was my bank account, and she'd probably die before she gave up even one of her credit cards. But if that kept her happy, then so be it.
• The Other Side of Time: The Nightmare Never Really Leaves, by The Sidhe (continued): “You may have seen a portrayal of me in a film called Full Metal Jacket.”
• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 29): Under his breath Jamie uttered “Watch me!” then stood up and approached Quinn.
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): "Mr. Ruttheimer, I have a number of things to say to you before we can continue. And I don't think you'll like listening to them."

WHOA! I clicked on Lawndale Online and got a suspended account! What the heck happened???

It came from TEH INERNETZ!!!!

Want to hear the real Sick Sad World? It's a music show on WRUV, 90.1 FM, based at the University of Vermont, Burlington VT. The DJ's name is Erin, and the show (according to one source) was named for the TV show on Daria. It plays Wednesdays at 2 p.m. You can get it through the Internet*, of course. I haven't heard it; it showed up on a search engine and looked interesting, so . . .

The coolest Jane Lane fan art I have seen in ages: Jane Lane in Succubus Mode. Whoa.

Speaking of Our Heroine, Jane, remember that Jane Lane action doll that came out a few years ago? No? Here it is again. It was a one-of-a-kind, and all we losers can do is drool over the photo.

And a few more Daria-oriented webpages in dire need of adoption and expansion and elaboration and correction and completion (by any willing and determined superfan):

• SideReel
• Toonarific
• TV IV
• TV Rage
• TV Shows on DVD
• TV.com
• Wikia

Enjoy your adopted page and make us proud. Surprise us! Surprise everyone! Party on, it's Friday! More later if I wake up.

* With a capital I. Not to rub it in.

Daria's Magnum Look, Courtesy of Tom . . . Tom Selleck, That Is

The title sounds like a pun on something from Zoolander, but it's not quite that bad. One segment of Daria's dream in "Murder, She Snored" spoofed the 1980s TV series Magnum, P.I., which starred Tom Selleck as a Hawaiian private eye. (Tom is on the right.) Tom Selleck was famed for wearing brilliantly colored shirts on the show, and in the MPI segment Daria wears one, too.

What's funny, at least to me, is that Daria (in a cleaned-up screen-cap at left) looks pretty good in a bright Hawaiian shirt, with a white tee underneath, of course. Not the first thing I would have thought of for an alternative look on her.

Daria if living in Hawaii or the West Coast? Daria on spring break from college? You decide. And do some more fan art of Daria in some different clothing, we could use a break from that green jacket.

[Oops, I was going to post this yesterday but fell asleep instead. Here it is anyway, a day late. I'll add some more to it, then.]

In other news, Richard Lobinske, Brother Grimace, Roentgen, Ranchoth, and others continue to expand the ever-expanding expanse of the expansive envelope of DariaWiki. Richard added a new category that will be of good use: Canon Media. All the publications and mass media from the show can be listed here, though SSW is missing. Hmmm. Maybe "media" is print media only.

CINCGREEN has begun a new series on his blog, examining the "storytelling engine" of Daria. Excellent reading of the cerebral kind, what this fandom needs. (I'm not particularly good at doing this myself, so I love seeing it.)

Got a bunch of useless Daria screen captures and other images laying around on your hard drive, doing nothing? Upload them to the Images section of the Daria Fan Club.

Reese Kaine reminds us that the Daria Sounds Archive is still alive and well, with some of the funniest things NOT heard on TV. Check it out. The question-and-answer stuff is hysterical.

On PPMB, Wouter has posted a picture showing Daria as normally seen and Daria in his manga style. Nice work.

More "Computer Freebies" added at left, near the bottom: wallpaper, icons, etc.

Last, but hardly least, a new T-shirt that has appeared on the market . . . oh, my.

Updating the Updates Project

Updating the weekly list of new fanfics is a chore, and there apparently isn't time to do it more than once a week, so it isn't very timely for the most part. Still, for now it will be continued here with links, as it does seem to be of help to readers.

Recently I discovered that some of the stories on ff.net were getting missed in my big lists of Daria tales told, so I am at work fixing that. I've updated the 2008 fanfic list for PPMB and SFMB, but not yet for ff.net.

The issue of NC-17 Dariarotica is also on my mind, as far as how to sort it out from other fanfic. My mental rule of thumb at present is that explicit stories will be excluded from my fanfic lists, just because, but they can be picked up for the annual NC-17 list by someone else. It also occurs to me that the annual NC-17 list can include highly suggestive stories as well as explicit ones. If pressed for examples, I would point to "Everybody Loves Jane," "The Misery Chicks," "Fashion Support," and "Touched by Angela Li" as being highly suggestive but not obscene, if that makes any sense. They could go up for the annual Dariarotica award as well as anything else. Lots of stories do the same kind of category crossover. I do recall that "Stacy Rowe, Seeker" contained one or two vignettes that were borderline NC-17, but I let it pass as I am so completely addicted to the series.

So there it is. Feedback on this topic would be welcome. Meanwhile, I'll keep going with the 2008 fanfic update. Cheers!

News You Can Use

Being a fandom reporter is fun, but Real Life has a way of getting in the way of being timely. With that in mind, here is the first of a series of updates on Your Favorite Fandom, with profuse apologies for being a wee bit late. To lead off, here's Mrs. Bennett with a slightly late tribute to Mardi Gras or bellydancing, whichever.


Back from the Dead!

• I clicked on an old link and discovered that the Dariacon Wiki at ElWiki.com is back online. The website includes a link explaining why the site went down earlier. More chances to meet other fans, hooray! If you're into that kind of thing, I mean.
• Oh, and all the convention information there needs to be updated. If you are running a Dariacon, go thou there and see what needs to be fixed.
• Oh, and the wiki lets you add your own Dariacon stories to the "Current Events" section. Hmm, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. You can upload pictures, too. Definitely a bad thing in the wrong hands. Uh-oh.

Submit to the Lawndale Online SMOFs!

• The secret masters of fandom at LO! have revised their submission guidelines. If you have stories and artwork to send in (and don't we all), check out the new information and start sending it in.

Dariacon 2008 Wants YOU!

• Get the latest information on who's coming to Orlando the weekend of March 1-2.

More Cool Artwork!

• Daria and Jane at the Altar, a nice clean recreation of a famous segue spot from a Daria marathon on MTV, re-done by Christ Oliver (who also very nicely re-drew Ranchoth's alternate kiss scene from "Dye! Dye! My Darling!"). Direct links to these scenes are offered here for the wedding art and here for the smooching.
• Whoa! Just added: Gothic Daria and Jane in a graveyard! Thanks, Christ Oliver!
  
• Iron Chef: Calling All Artists (Part 2): This challenge drew an amusing response from JennaUsername, who presents "the new girls in town" (direct link here).
• Andrea, in the sharp, angular style of Ranger Thorne. Looks like she could punch someone out at any moment. Very nice.

Weird PPMB Threads!

• I believe Daria was deliberately anti-fashion
• I believe Daria was deliberately non-conformist
• Remembering that it's NOT 'Serious Business'... (WRONG!)
• New Emoticons Thread: This one is quite fun to watch. No penguins, though, dammit.
• The Completely Random Post Thread, Part IV - Sorry, Nat! The insanity continues. Random post threads fill a special need in our community. Please contribute.
• LATE ADD: Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Horror: In a constant search for new depths of bad taste.
  
  

DariaWiki Runs Wild!

• Lots of fresh activity on our fandom wiki of late, including new pictures. Check it out, and please join in the fun by adding your own entries and information.

More news and updates soon. I would promise to be more timely in the future, but I'm trying to cut back on my lying.

LATE NOTE: Was just informed that the original Daria Fandom Blog has been un-updated. It's still a great reference and would be great to see active again, but it just won't happen now.