Open Thread

Place for suggestions, comments, snark. If you're driving by, this is the place to post a comment, and escape.

Sheep's Fluff Update

Kemical Reaxion continues to have problems sending and receiving e-mails. If you were expecting an e-mail from Kem, or had sent her an e-mail and got no response, try to reach her through PPMB.

Happy Birthday wishes to RabidCureFan!

Richard Lobinske completed Part 4 of "Falling Into College 27 - Lost Eagles Found".

The Sheep's Fluff has updated. Among the parts updated are:
--Richard Lobinske's page
--The "Pause in the Air" page ("Pause in the Air" written by The Angst Guy)
--The newest chapter of "All My Children" added, with music.

Roentgen completed Part 3 of "Legion of Lawndale Heroes".

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"One Night in Bangkok" by drmike
"I Remember Halloween" by Brandon League
"Dreams of the Past" by Brandon League

Added to Fanfiction.net:

"Estrangesters -- Chapter 3" by ostragoth
"What Happens Next?" by Kaimelar Feylove

A picture of "Super-Quinn" by mman:

Fan Fiction, Fan Art Updates

Angelinhel posted a picture of herself in college from 2001. The link can be found here .

Richard Lobinske finished Part 3 of "Falling Into College 27 - Lost Eagles Found".

Gregor Samsa wrote "Daria Babies", a story of Daria and the gang as babies (think of "Rugrats").

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"An Ode to Tiffany Blum-Deckler" by Brandon League
"Cool" by Brandon League
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #13" by Kara Wild

Added to Fanfiction.net:

Chapter 4 of "Stirrings" by DariaM
"Hidden Pain" by batteredchild

nmorgendorffer completed a fantastic work of fan art from the All My Children series. This one is called, "Just Add Water":

New Outpost Daria Update

Roentgen completed a new chapter of "Legion of Lawndale Heroes".

Outpost Daria has updated again. (Two updates in one month!) The focus of the present update is artwork, and the update list can be found here .

To preserve Mr. Pollard's proprietary rights, I'm not going to link art through his site. One of the new pieces at Outpost Daria that I like is one by Kemical Reaxion: Jane as a pixie --

Photographs

Lots of photos here. We'll just link to them. These links were posted on the PPMB.

Here's one of Renfield and Deref .

Here's one of Kristen Bealer, Brian, Greystar and his wife .

A picture of nonamejane .

There is also a photo of Guy "Deceleraptor" Payne at PPMB, but Angelfire.com refuses to allow one to link images.

A female Daria fan from Tasmania, uvarov, was welcomed to the PPMB.

Richard Lobinske finished part 2 of "Falling Into College 27 - Lost Eagles Found".

Deref posted his Dariacon agenda at this link .

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Contemplation (Jeffy's Journey)" by Brandon League
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter 12" by Kara Wild
"A Night of Zen" by Brandon League

A picture of "Super-Daria" from mman:

Downtime

Roentgen completed Part 1 of "Legion of Lawndale Heroes".

By semi-request: a picture of Jane Lane from SRA's illustration of "April is the Cruelest Month".

New Work by Lobinske, Stalker

Richard Lobinske finished "Falling Into College 27 - Lost Eagles Found".

Lawndale Stalker completed Chapter 12 of "Once Upon a Time in College".

Ray wrote three parts of a sequel to "Illusions" by Charlie-Girl called "Death's Lightning Flashing in Her Mind".

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy won a first place award for web site design for the year 2004 from Katstorm and Company.

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Just Another Day in Paradise - Chapter 2" by Brandon League
"Easter Eggs Need Color" by Brandon League

Posted at Fanfiction.net:

"Estrangesters - Chapter 2" by ostragoth

TDJC Wins Website Award

DVDaria has just hit 14,200 signatures. If you haven't signed the petition, go to the DVDaria blog at the left side of the screen and encourage MTV to put Daria on DVD.

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy has won a website design award. More information later.

Part 13 of "All My Children" has been completed by Deref and thea-zara.

The Angst Guy has completed, in rough draft form, "When The Torrent of That Time Comes Pouring Back". This is the sequel to "Nine Point Oh". If you are interested in beta-reading, send a request by e-mail to theangstguy [at] yahoo (dot) com.

Posted at Fanfiction.net:

"Love's Labours Renewed" by E. A. Smith
"Graduation" by Angelinhel

Ostragoth Roams the Plains

PPMB was a bit wonky this AM, so the PPMB update will come later.

y2zipper wrote his (her?) own sequel to Charlie-Girl's "Illusions" at SFMB.

Ray finished Part 13 of "Tyrant's Coronation".

ostragoth wrote a new chapter of "Estrangesters" and also started Part 1 of "I Go Walkin' After Midnight".

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Just Another Day in Paradise - Chapter 1" by Brandon League
"The Scorpion Quinn" by Brandon League
"The Replacements" by Nemo Blank
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #11" by Kara Wild

Posted at Fanfiction.net:

"Estrangesters - Chapter 1" by ostragoth
"The New Addition - Chapters 8 and 9" by batteredchild (Note: FF.net has not caught up and only Chapters 1 through 7 are available.)

"Crappie" Awards Info

Kara Wild would like our readers to know that you can send your choices in two ways. If you don't care too much about privacy, send the choices as an e-mail with choices in the body of the index. If privacy is an issue, send the choices as an attachment.

E-mails should be sent to ccfanfics at dslextreme dot com.

An art pick from the latest update of Glitterberries: SRA's picture of Daria from "April is the Cruelest Month".

Nominations for "Crappies" Announced

Greystar added a Part 2 to "Daria 3059".

The works of fan fiction nominated for the "Crappies", the "worst" in fan fiction (gentle humor here) can be found at http://www.the-wildone.com/CRAPPIES.html . You have two weeks to vote, so get your votes in.

The Angst Guy completed Part 5 of "Illusions".

Up at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Falling Into College 23 - Through Lenses Most Bright" by Richard Lobinske
"Darius - Chapter 2" by The Angst Guy
"Unexpected" by Nemo Blank
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #10" by Kara Wild

Up at Fanfiction.net:

"Love's Labours in Ruins" by E. A. Smith
"Once Upon a Time in College - Chapter 11" by Lawndale Stalker
"All My Children - Chapter 13" by Deref and thea-zara.

"The-N" to Change Daria Messageboard Policy

Ranger Thorne is 39 today. Happy Birthday!

WacoKid completed the third (and possibly final) part of his alternate universe story (Jane has a different best friend).

The Sheep’s Fluff has been added to the links at the left.

There is a change in policy coming up at The-N Daria message board. "The-N" is a preteen version of the children's cable channel Noggin in America, and edited episodes of Daria are shown late at night.

Many people are probably unaware of The-N's Daria message board. Most likely, for two reasons:

a) A very heavy moderation policy. Since most of the board members are in the pre-teen age range, EVERY post has to be approved by a moderator before going on the board. If it is even suspected that an adult is posting there, the post never shows up on the board.

b) Most of the questions asked on the board aren’t that involved. A possible sample topic would be "Brittany is my favorite! How about you?" or "How cool is Trent?"

Believe it or not, there is also a message board at The-N devoted to fan fiction. However, the board is not separated by show, and a work of Daria fiction might be buried under several Degrassi fan fiction works.

Recently, the following message appeared on the board. You can find the link here . The post follows:


Hey alls,

So, if you hang out on the boards you've heard The-Val and I talking about the fact that they're about to get way faster. Well, I'm about to fill in the deets for you, because this isn't the kind of thing we'd want to spring on you out of nowhere.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?
The deal is, starting one day in February, YOU GUYS will basically start moderating the boards yourselves. You heard right. Posts will go up immediately, without being approved by our moderators first. In other words, posting will be instantaneous. YAY!

So what about the rules? Well, if YOU see something on the boards that you know goes against our editorial policy [see the "message board rules" button above], you'll use that "Report This Post" link at the bottom of the post to alert a mod. A mod will then check the post, and if it's true that it violates a rule, the mod will delete the post.

If you correctly report a post that gets taken down, you'll earn creds.

But, if someone abuses that button and just reports a post because they don't like someone, they might actually lose a cred or two. If people get carried away with grudges, or try to report posts just because they disagree with them and not because they break the rules, the mods will know and will suspend or deactivate their accounts.

WHY ARE YOU GUYS DOING THIS?
Besides being sick of the boards being slow, we really want to put YOU GUYS in charge of making this place a cool place to be, because it's YOURS.

We know you guys don't need babysitters, and we think you're ready for the responsibility. And with the number of you that ask to be mods and want new ways to earn creds anyway, we think you're up for the challenge.

Which means that sometime in February, new board members can post directly to the board.

However, if one looks at the message board rules, one sees the following:

7) This isn’t the place to put advertisements, even if it's for cool stuff you made like homepages,'zines, user groups or any other websites.

Which probably means that not only are links to other Daria message boards likely a violation of policy, but that users are given “creds” (whatever they are) for reporting such posts.

This leads to two questions:

a) Who will be the first person to advertise a non-Noggin Daria web site on Noggin’s board? (Note that the moderators disappear "some time in February", but no exact date is given.)

b) Will boards such as the PPMB and SFMB be able to accommodate Noggin viewers and the needs of Daria fans who are much younger than the average fan?

Sheep's Fluff Is Back Up

Sheep's Fluff Message Board seems to be back up this afternoon, after some general wonkiness.

Ray has posted Part 12 of "Tyrant's Coronation" on SFMB.

"Crappie" Nominations Out Soon

Quite a bit of Daria fan fiction completed recently:

Greystar wrote a short fic called "Daria 3059".

Sleepless completed "Lying Eyes", posting it to both PPMB and Fanfiction.net.

SteveBlumDeckler completed his Daria/"Kim Possible" crossover. The introductory essay can be found here and the actual story can be found here .

WacoKid finished a new alternate reality fan fiction about Jane having a new best friend. It is three parts long; parts 1 and 2 have been posted at PPMB.

The Angst Guy completed "Illusions, Part Four".

Richard Lobinske completed "John".

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy not only posted FIVE Daria fan fiction works to the archive, but a new poll has been added to the main page , and we encourage you to check it out. (I've voted!)

Kemical Reaxion has finished a new piece of Daria artwork. It can be found here .

Kara Wild’s "Crappie" Award Nominations will be completed in two or three days.

We regret that we are currently unable to update from the Sheep’s Fluff Message Board, and will do so as soon as possible – access problems at this end.

Links Update

The links list on the left side of the page has been reorganized and updated.

Please note that non-messageboard type sites with infrequent submissions/updates have the last update in parentheses next to the name. If a site is not updated on a quarterly basis, then more likely than not the site will be pulled to prevent link proliferation.

If there's a link you want to suggest, now's the time to do it.

Major Glitterberries Update

Happy Birthdays to Daria fans Natalie and Deref!

The site http://www.glitterberries.comhas updated. It would be simpler to point you to the take you to the update page, located here .

The winner of the Sick Sad World contest at Glitterberries is Danielle Horvath. A new Sick Sad World contest can be found here .

The Angst Guy and "et alia" have come up with different endings to the Charlie-Girl story "Illusions", which can be found at the PPMB and SFMB, respectively.

Richard Lobinske completed Part 11 of "John".

Updated at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"They Came from Planet Xulfanex – Chapter #07" by Kara Wild
"Falling Into College 21 – Keeping My Friends Close" by Richard Lobinske
"Gone to California" by Kristy
"Last Dance with Mary Jane" by Rey Fox

Father Martin Sylvester has added a commenting feature has been added to The Daria News Archive at The Irony Maiden. The new and improved archive can be found here .

Kemical Reaxion has posted some fan art at Glitterberries that currently resides at the Deviantart web site. One of my favorites is a picture by theartistformerlyknownas, a picture of Sandi Griffin.

Deref World Tour

Received new mail from Father Martin. He'll still be maintaining The Irony Maiden, can still be contacted on alt.tv.daria, and will be coming in every Sunday to the #daria+ channel at 8:30 PM his time, which is 3:30 PM EST. (Do your own conversions, and if you don't have IRC, there is a chat applet available from www.gamerspage.com/thea_zara.)

Australian fan Deref will be beginning his "World Tour" soon. Get in touch with him by private message on PPMB or SFMB if you want to meet him. His schedule:

April 7th -- Los Angeles
April 10th -- Stockton
April 14th-15th -- Portland (with family)
April 22nd -- Northern New Jersey
April 25th-26th -- Georgia
May 6th -- Ohio
May 13th -- Illinois

Still Waiting for "Daria at 1600"

Richard Lobinske has finished Part 9 of "John".

Lawndale Stalker (and others) wonder when Mike Yamiolkoski will complete "Daria at 1600".

Wouter Jaegers has completed a new piece of erotic Daria art -- obviously, I can't post it here. You'll just have to find it yourself using the links to the left.

mman posts this little photoshop of Daria and Brittany, as sisters:


Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #06" by Kara Wild
"Falling into College 20 - Shopping for Cars with Boys" by Richard Lobinske
"Mother's Milk" by Kara Wild
"Kitsune" by Rey Fox

Posted at Fanfiction.net

"Love's Labour's Lost" by E. A. Smith. My goal is not to review fan fiction through this blog, but since this is an author I've not heard of, I suggest that this story deserves a look.

An Update

I received word from Father Martin Sylvester. I will summarize the content of the letter:

a) He is okay, and
b) He won't be posting at PPMB for the present. The PPMB sort of served as a refuge, and right now, it's not serving that purpose.

I don't know what Father Martin's plans are vis-a-vis Daria fandom. I think that we should respect his wishes and not try to twist his arm to come back. (Although we'd certainly love to have him back.) As fans, we will remember the good times, and will always hope for the best.

An Editorial

I began writing The Daria Fandom Blog on December 26, 2004. My goal was to compile all that was interesting that was going on in Daria Fandom. This involved reading the major message boards again, PPMB and SFMB in addition to Scorched Remnants and catching up just about everywhere. (You never know what might be buried in what forum.)

This included "Nick's Corner" of PPMB. I read "Nick's Corner", not really expecting anything from it -- but you never really know. Rather than try to catch up with EVERYTHING, I figured I'd just read from December 26th and try to get the jist of what had been discussed before that date.

On December 27th, Father Martin Sylvester printed this statement at Nick's Corner:

Y'know, I used to enjoy PPMB.

But when the minority I belong to is targetted again and again here with this sort of ill-informed, bigoted crap, it gets tiresome.

Present the failings of a shameful few as the policy of a community. Attribute positions never held (the Vatican spoke out against anti-Harry-Potter hysteria). Make snide remarks about a deeply-held human rights issue without addressing the philosophy and ethics behind it.

Dervish's hate speech has been tolerated here sufficiently to make me doubt any prospect of improvement.

Bye.

Martin.

I figured this was just a flare-up of some type and that tempers would return to normal -- fans can find themselves launched in massive wars about nothing. Father Martin Sylvester, however, appears to be a man of his word -- he hasn't returned to PPMB since December 27, 2004 and no one has stated whether they've received e-mail from him or not.

Right now, there appear to be two schools of thought about Father Martin's disappearance. The first is that all involved are adults, that they should take the good with the bad, and that they really need to get over themselves or solve problems like this in private e-mail. ("If you can't take the heat, don't post.") The second is that it was a shame that Father Martin felt that he was being "dog-piled" on, to have to answer for all of the faults, real and imagined, of his church.

Most of fandom seems to take a third school of thought. Say nothing about it. "Ignore the problem long enough, and the problem will disappear."

I'm of many different minds about this.

I'm one of the few Daria fans who has actually met Father Martin personally. While my wife and I were living in Florida, we were fortunate enough to have Father Martin in our home for a few days.

Our goal, as a couple, was NOT to talk about Daria and Daria episodes. We wanted to get to know him as a person, and we felt that the poor man, on his first stop out of the country, should not be assaulted with show trivia and fan politics. As a result, during the entire four days, we saw a grand total of two Daria episodes (in silence) and the only political discussion we had was about the George W. Bush administration, with me being suitably apologetic about it.

Certainly, there are a lot of things Father Martin COULD have brought up. He could have brought up the entire CINCGREEN history, for example, and put me on the spot with much to answer for. We could have argued whether or not it was right to flame reviewers, he could have brought up Canadibrit (he HAS met her), he could have pointed to any instance of selected quotes from me he cared to and given me a stern upbringing.

Would I have taken it? Probably not well, but the history was there and he certainly had the right to talk about it, maybe not for himself, but for other people.

Instead, he chose not to do that. Perhaps he merely felt that as a guest in my home, that that wasn't his place. And frankly, I was glad that he didn't bring that up. It made our time together much less awkward and I was glad to share the pleasure of his company.

This brings me to the Scorched Remnants Message Board, and its history. Since I felt much more at home there than on PPMB, I posted there with one thought in mind -- to make it a board devoted to Daria discussion, and Daria discussion only. Not birthday greetings, not esoterica about United States policy in China, just Daria talk and ONLY Daria talk. When people (who I will not name) arrived there who I felt would serve as distractions, I did my best to drive them off the board as quickly as possible, wanting to preserve what I had there.

I remember telling off one fan by asking him what exactly had he contributed to Daria fandom in all of his years haunting the message boards? Had he run a website? Had he written fan fiction, or created fan art? What had he CONTRIBUTED? My answer was that he had contributed absolutely nothing, and his LACK of contribution was not needed on "my" message board.

After much reflection, I have come to realize that this policy was wrong. Father Martin is one of the people who unwittingly made me realize that.

You don't have to be a writer of fan fiction, you don't have to be a fan artist, you don't have to point to some imaginary benchmark to somehow earn entrance into the fandom. The only requirement should be that you love "Daria" as much as anyone who calls himself or herself a Daria fan loves Glenn Eichler's creation. That's your ticket in; everything else is just extra.

I don't think there's any doubt that Father Martin loved "Daria". True, he does have a concrete creation to point to, the "Irony Maiden" web site. However, his primary contribution to Daria fandom exceeds even that. Father Martin's contribution was being a friend -- even to those who had few friends or who didn't want any more.

He could have set aside the priestly role and limited himself to strict episode or political commentary. He could have not gotten involved in other people's problems. (Isn't that what Daria would have done? To not get involved?) However, from the few times I read Father Martin's comments (yes, I would sneak over to the PPMB every now and then), Father Martin really cared about the other fans. He was always there to lend a sympathetic ear, a word of advice, really, anything he could give, within reason.

When I did my "Ten Daria Fans" post, I was thinking not only of the contributors on the creative side, but also on the fan side as well. I wanted to award people who represented, in some way, the best of Daria fandom, regardless of accomplishment. And of each of the ten people represented there, I felt that Father Martin represented best what Daria fandom was all about. When I give my "Excellence in Fandom Award" (or whatever I end up calling it), Father Martin Sylvester will get my first vote.

Father Martin and I never discussed anything after he left Florida. We never traded mail, we never talked on the phone, he disappeared from the world of my wife and I, and vice versa. Yet I feel that if I had a problem, and needed to send him e-mail, he would give what advice he could, and listen otherwise.

It's odd that there are three messageboards in Daria fandom (four if you count The Rubber Room, and maybe I should). There's Scorched Remnants, a stripped-down, Daria-only messageboard which is not moderated at all. There's Sheep's Fluff, which is a more "adult" message board with moderation only when certain lines are crossed.
And finally, there's Paperpusher's Board, supposedly the most "family friendly" of the message boards (save possibly Noggin's) with the most active and most vigilant moderators of the three message boards.

It is my PERSONAL opinion that if Father Martin couldn't feel welcome on PPMB, that's a very damning statement on the state of Daria fandom. Maybe it's not YOUR fault, personally, dear reader. Maybe someone out there in the know can tell me who SHOULD be placed at fault.

More From The Daria-Jane Conspiracy

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Drive" by Rey Fox
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #05" by Kara Wild
"You Oughta Be in Pictures" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Keeping Up With The Benjamins" by Rey Fox

Fanfiction.net is down.

Since yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the last episode of "Daria", we present the last IMAGE from "Daria", from the credits. Taken from the French Triste Monde Tragique ("Sick Sad World") site:

Daria Animator Wins Awards

Animator and director Pat Smith has won several international awards based on a new music video (animated and directed by himself) for the UK hip-hop group "The Planets".

The video is called "Moving Along" and can be found here . (RAM format only -- you will need RealPlayer.)

Pat Smith directed at least six episodes of "Daria", including "Dye! Dye! My Darling!"

Departure Day

Today is the third anniversary of "Departure Day", the day when the last original Daria episode was aired. "Is It College Yet?" aired on January 21, 2002.

Lawndale Stalker has reported to PPMB, letting people know that he is okay. He had not posted at PPMB for a while, causing some fans to worry.

The DVDaria website has its own blog! Right here, at http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria . Any "pure Daria" blogs will get their own links, so we welcome Ms. Wild to the world of blogging.

Mr. Orange and Yerno (two French Daria fans) will be translating stories from the "Et Jane?" website from French into English.

Charlie-Girl wrote a short story called "Illusions" which can be found in the Creative Writing section of PPMB.

Richard Lobinske completed Part 7 of "John".

DJW created a cast picture for his "Oxidizer X" series. The picture is too large to shrink down to blog size, but the link can be found here .

The Angst Guy is looking for beta readers for the sequel to "Nine Point Oh". Send requests to theangstguy (at) yahoo (dot) com.

If you're an Australian Daria fan looking for a fan meetup, contact theartistformerlyknownas by private message on the Sheep's Fluff board (go left for the link).

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Curse of the Misery Chick" by Rey Fox
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #04" by Kara Wild
"Rain Falls Mainly on Jane Lane, The" by Invisigoth Gypsy

All Points Bulletin

Happy 27th Birthday to "Dirty Old Fan" Mike Quinn! From The Daria Fandom Blog, we hope to be wishing you many more happy birthdays to come!

If anyone has seen Father Martin Sylvester, please let him know that his presence is missed on PPMB. Dervish is worried that Father Martin might have disappeared after some unpleasantness at "Nick's Corner".

Fan Fiction Roadmap?

Richard Lobinske has finished up to Part 6 of "John".

A discussion is taking place on SFMB on replacing the "Hall of Fame" of best fanworks with a "Fan Fiction Roadmap". The concept is that instead of there being a selection of "best" works, new fans would be pointed to works by theme. ("Jane stories", "Trent stories", "Quinn stories", "Science-Fiction", "Horror" et. al.)

Some old fan art from the CyberDaria site, a French fan site. Art is by "Noemie":


I'm sure there's a story here....

Daria en Francais, Part II

Mr. Orange points out a link to a French Daria site called "Et Jane?" ("And Jane?") The site hosts an imaginary spinoff of "Daria" centered around Daria's best friend, Jane.

Here's a picture of Jane as a pom-pom girl, lifted from the site:

Name Change

The name of the blog has now been changed to "The Daria Fandom Blog". If you use "Scorched Remnants" as a search tool to find the blog, note that when Google catches up with the indexing, that term might no longer be valid in the future.

Daria en Francais

Charlie-Girl finished Part 2 of "Indulgence".

The Angst Guy points out another French Daria site located here .

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Choice of a Skewed Generation" by Rey Fox
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter #03" by Kara Wild
"Art and Entertainment" by Invisigoth Gypsy

Fanfiction.net is overloaded this AM. Furthermore, hentaisha.net is "unresolved", meaning Wouter Jaegers's art will be posted at some other time.

New art by Richard Lobinske from his story, "Band of Bothers"

Are Daria DVD Sales For Real?

Sleepless completed Chapter 18 of "Yuki-Onna".

Charlie-Girl (Kendra Steiner) completed Chapter 1 of "Indulgence".

Richard Lobinske completed Part 4 of "John".

Ray posted Part 11 of his Daria/Resident Evil crossover, "Tyrant's Coronation". He states that "This part is not ready for any readers yet."

Napalm Kracken asked about boomsales.com on the Scorched Remnants Message Board. He asked if they were a legit company, as they claim to be selling Daria DVDs through Amazon. Dr. Mike answered (and I concur) that as of January 18th, 2005, there are no LEGITIMATE sellers of Daria DVDs. Of course, there is fan networking, but I visited the www.boomsales.com website and the fact that they give a yahoo.com e-mail address for contact doesn't fill me with confidence.

If you buy Daria DVDs, you're taking your chances.

Posted on The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"#10 Dream" by Rey Fox
"They Came from Planet Xulfanex - Chapter 02" by Kara Wild
"Appearances Can Be Deceiving" by Invisigoth Gypsy

PPMB has posted some new art by Wouter Jaegers. I'll post it here, but I can't do it from work, so, later.

Waiting for Godot

It will be a little while before any updates occur.

In the meantime, I figured I'd post the brackets for the (in)famous Daria Tournament of Champions that took place on the Scorched Remnants Message Board between 2002 and 2003. All 67 episodes were "seeded" in an NCAA tournament, and episodes were paired against each other, the fans determining which episodes were advanced.

Here is the tournament , for your amusement. The "play in" bracket consists of the worst four episodes. The "tournament" is the 63 top episodes plus the play-in going at it for #1 episode.

Booties, Crappies, and Halls of Fame (oh my!)

I've been reading the awards, and it is nice that Dr. Mike's idea is going to be carried on in terms of a more or less perpetual Daria Fanworks Awards, every year. Myself, I would avoid any pressure to do it any more frequently that that. There is just as much a danger in too MANY awards being given as too few, and I commend Mr. Lobinske for taking up the idea that if a category does not receive any nominations, the award should just simply be skipped that year.

There has been recent discussion about making the DFA voting a board-operated poll (say, on Paperpusher or Sheep's Fluff). The only objection I would have to that is: how do you hide a poll's results? One of the reasons I think Dr. Mike did such a good job is that the voting, for the first time, was anonymous. A poll makes anonymity a problem if people can see vote totals change day by day, and as far as I know, there is no way to keep poll results hidden, neither during voting, nor at the time it comes to count ballots at the end.

I think it might be very discouraging for someone to be nominated and find out, on review of the poll results, that they've been outvoted 23-1. I am very strongly in favor of simply naming the winner -- whether she won by two votes or twenty is not important.

thea_zara, on a PPMB post, thought about doing something to tell new fans what was worthy of a first read and what was not. She noted Mr. Pollard's Recommended Authors list (a subject, it appears, that Mr. Pollard is still quite sensitive about) as a start.

Making an "objective" list of the Best Daria Fan Fiction of All Time, however, is an exercise frought with peril, because you're looking at all of the fan fiction written in the last EIGHT YEARS. Do you include writers whose impressions of Daria were built on 12 episodes, and whose work is now hopelessly outdated? Should erotica be excluded? How many pieces of fiction are you talking about? Ten? Thirty? A hundred?

How are you going to whittle down all of those works without a fairly complex nomination process? Here's an example:

Let's suppose you get 20 nominations for "Best Erotic Daria Fic". You get a grand total of FOURTEEN WORKS NOMINATED -- one story gets five nominations, one three, and twelve other works get one nomination each. Do you put up only the top two winners as final nominees, and let them slug it out? Do you include both of them as "great stories"?

It gets very dicey. Do you do a "first past the post" kind of thing, or does everyone get three votes, or five votes, or ten votes in a particular category? I can think of about three different ways of doing this -- right now -- and I'm not sure I couldn't think of more.

Perhaps the best way to create a "Hall of Fame" of great works is to just nominate a Veteran's Committeee, like they do in baseball. Choose twelve people who've been around for a long time, or who have read a lot of fanfic. They don't even have to be active in the fandom anymore. Every year, they get together, and decide as a group which works written before January 1st, 2004 are good and which ones are not.

The committee nominates ten works every year for five years. After that, two works a year. Certainly, that ought to get all the good works on the page. Yes, the question of bias is still there, but at least, the bias is now spread across several people, and not just one. And it will spring debate, and fans love debate.

I may do the "Excellence in Fandom" award myself, in June. (See the "Ten Fans" award, below.) HOW I do it I have no f**king idea.

Outpost Daria Updated

Many stories and series have been added to Outpost Daria during its 01/16/2005 update. It would be easier to just send you to the link .

Richard Lobinske has gone up with a new nominations list for the DFAs, along with some new guidelines. Those will be added to the left-hand column of the Scorched Remnants Blog.

The Angst Guy is looking for "gamma readers" for the sequel of "Nine Point Oh". Contact him by e-mail if you're interested.

Richard Lobinske has completed Part 3 of "John".

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Without a Shower" by mman
"They Came From Planet Xulfanex - Chapter 01" by Kara Wild
"Silver Goddess" by Invisigoth Gypsy

Fan art: more "Oxidiser X" fan art, this one of Amelia:

"Crappie" Awards Officially Under Way

Kara Wild has announced the categories for the Crappies, which can be found at http://www.the-wildone.com/CRAPPIES.html . The awards poke (gentle) fun at Daria fan fiction written in 2004.

If you don't wish to see your fiction earn a Crappie, Ms. Wild requests that you e-mail her before the awards are given.

By the way, Isabelle Young-Johnson has donated a gif for the cause:


Deceleraptor has come down with a touch of something flu-like. Send him all your prayers, or good thoughts.

mman pointed out a French Daria site called "On My Neck" at onmyneck.free.fr . Take a peek around the site, and sign the guestbook here .

Richard Lobinske finished Part 2 of "John".

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"A. Martino, Please" by Beck
"Falling Into College 19 - Seeking Hearts" by Richard Lobinske
"Wannabes" by Invisigoth Gypsy

Fan art: "Agent Mask" from DJW's "Oxidizer X" series:

New Chapters Galore

Richard Lobinske completed "Falling Into College 26 - Boston Baked Band".

DJW completed a new chapter of "The Spiked 6-Pack".

Richard Lobinske completed the first chapter of "John", a tale which does to Jane Lane what "Darius" (by The Angst Guy) did for Daria Morgendorffer.

"All My Children" Chapter 13 is ready for beta-reading.

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Guard Duty" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The Disney World Story - Chapter 07" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Comformity for Hire" by Invisigoth Gypsy

A "Morgenstones" pic created by mman:

Ten Old Fans

Continuing on the thread a bit downstream, we ask the hypothetical question, "If we had to give an award for contributions to Daria fandom, to whom would we give it?"

That's a toughie. So I decided to come up with my own list of nominees.

I had a few things in mind -- I wanted to go back in time as far as possible, to 1997-1998 if necessary. This is going to eliminate quite a few people that would be nominated by most Daria fans -- Kara Wild, Kemical Reaxion, Canadibrit, thea_zara, The Angst Guy, Deref -- not because they're not deserving, but because my goal was to go back as far as I possibly could.

My major resource was USEnet, reading the old message traffic on alt.tv.daria between 1997 and 1999. There were a few people I considered like "Kyle" and "endless, nameless", but I doubt that those pseudonyms would ring any bells among Second Fandom (or even First Fandom) at all.

So we're going for strict notoriety here. I'll list the names. See if they ring a bell.

CINCGREEN's nominations for a Special Award for Contributions to Daria fandom are....

1. Katherine Goodman

Katherine Goodman was the operator of the alt.lawndale.com website, a writer of fan fiction and designer of icons. The site was probably up between 1997 and 1998, when Ms. Goodman removed it.

The scorched remnants of the alt.lawndale.com web site can be found here . (The name was snapped up by a porn site in 2003 and is now owned by one of those "we sponsor this domain" sites; I would go to the link above rather than typing it in.) It was considered at the time one of the best Daria sites on the net, receiving a "Top Ten Toon Site Award" from TotalTV, which has now been bought out by TV Guide.

Going through what's left of the site is quite interesting, and I recommend the link above heartily. I take from reading the site that Katherine had contacts at MTV at one time.

(Legends: a) Peter Guerin also claims in an essay that Katherine Goodman was a co-writer of the infamous "Ragged Denim", the first male/male Daria slash ever written and worth a post here in its own right. If that's TRUE, then more power to Ms. Goodman. b) Supposedly, Glenn Eichler himself was a fan of the site.)

Katherine was a high school student at the time, and she has now GAFIAted -- "Gotten Away From It All". As Martin J. Pollard said on August 4, 2000, "I
say, let them have their well-earned privacy and just remember them
fondly."

2. Rowena Stubbs

Roweena ran another large Daria site at the beginning of First Fandom, called Planet Daria. The scorched remnants of the site can unfortunately, not be found -- that site is gone, and not even Web Archive can rescue it. The site had a web-based chat page, and was one of the earlier Daria messageboards.

In addition to creating the "Planet Daria" websites, Ms. Stubbs tirelessly archived episodes, creating the first of the Daria episode transcripts you see on Outpost Daria. That alone ought to give anyone honorable mention.

3. Michelle Klein-Hass

Where do you start? We'll start with the fact that she was the moderator of another large Daria site called Lawndale Commons. The site operated between 1998 and late 1999.

The scorched remnants of the Lawndale Commons (old) website can be found here .

In addition to being the creator of Lawndale Commons, she is an editor at Toon Magazine, a quarterly publication and has spoken often with Glenn Eichler himself in the aspects of both reporter and Daria fan. She is also an essayist and a fan fiction writer.

She has had a long-standing presence on the IRC chatroom #daria+ and on USENET's alt.tv.daria. She might not be found on any of the message boards, but she still remains interested in Daria fandom after several years.

4. "Wraith"

"Wraith" is the creator of the Sick Sad World website, which can be found at ssw.ssw.net . In addition to the usual fan activity, there is a set of archived comments by Wraith dating all the way from 1997 -- he was there from the very beginning. The archives were almost a must-read in the early days of Daria fandom.

Wraith is not very active in Daria fandom anymore, but after suspending the site after Daria's second season (by 1999, four major Daria fan sites had came and gone), he later restored the site to the glory that you can see in the above link. He hasn't gotten away from it ALL yet, but he has gotten away from MOST of it. He might be found if you post at the Scorched Remnants Message Boards and ask for him.


5. Mike Quinn

Mike Quinn is a member of First Fandom of long standing. For five years, Mr. Quinn wrote the famous "Mike's Delayed Reaction Reviews", where he reviews and comments on each of the 67 Daria episodes -- it's a lot of text and a lot of work, and the complete archive can be found on Outpost Daria. The reviews stirred up a lot of debate in Daria fandom, but most fans eagerly awaited the publishing of a review after an episode.

6. Martin J. Pollard

When Planet Daria and alt.lawndale.com went down, there was a outcry among the fandom. Where would the fan fiction and transcripts of Daria episodes be stored? As it turned out, they would end up on Outpost Daria, the fifth major Daria fan site which is still more or less the first stop where you go to find Daria information.

Most of the fan fiction on Outpost Daria is quite literally irreplacable. Many of these fan works are from 1997 and 1998, from the older Daria fan sites. The fans have stopped writing; their fiction lives on at Outpost Daria. All the transcripts from the Planet Daria site can be found there, a large collection of essays and archived news.

In addition, Mr. Pollard used to run a message board (The Outpost Daria Message Board). The board no longer exists (it did run before 2000), but Mr. Pollard directed the former message traffic to the Paperpusher Message Board, which is now the primary Daria message board. He also posted/posts on USENEt and frequented the #daria+ channel.

7. "The Paperpusher"

"The Paperpusher" (first name Rich) has been a Daria fan since at least 1998. And, like many Daria fans, created his own site with fan fiction, news, and a message board.

The scorched remnants of the first Paperpusher Site can be found here . As the message boards in Daria fan history went up, and then went down, they were first directed to the Outpost Daria Message Board, and finally, the message board at Paperpusher's site, which would later be referred to as the PPMB.

Rich still pays for the message board, which is a great service to Daria fandom. However, he has turned the actual operation of the board to other Daria fans. Rich is involved in academic studies now and does not have much time for fandom these days, but is still interested in the show.

8. (Father) Martin Sylvester

Since there are two well-known "Martin"s in Daria fandom, the other Martin of the two is sometimes called "Father Martin" or "the Padre". He's called "Father Martin" as he is a Catholic priest in England.

A Daria fan since at least 1998, the "Irony Maiden" website has been up since at least 1999. The site has a different purpose than most Daria fan based sites -- the purpose is to keep up with the show outside the United States, to follow on which channels in which nations one can find "Daria".

In addition, one can find information about some of the earliest "Dariacons", which are "mini-collections", gatherings of a few fans here and there around the world to meet and discuss Daria. Father Martin has himself travelled to the United States and met many Daria fans in person, and has been nothing less than a gracious spirit.

9. C. E. Forman

C(hristopher) E. Forman came over to Daria fandom from the "Beavis and Butt-Head" days. (He is the creator of the "Beavis and Butt-head FAQ" on alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead). C. E. was primarily known for the creation of fan fiction and his "The Lost Seasons" series, 16 Daria stories diverging from Daria's second and third seasons. At one time, many Daria fans considered him the best writer of Daria fan fiction -- his works are still being discussed today on the PPMB, as I write this.

He exchanged mail with many fans in First Fandom, contributed to Kara Wild's "Abruptly Amy" series, and outbid every other Daria fan for two rare Daria collectibles -- an original telephone answering machine message done by Tracy Grandstaff and an in-house "Daria" themed Christmas card by MTV Animation. Unfortunately, he is no longer active in Daria fandom.

10. "Crazy Nutso"

"Crazy Nutso" first appeared on USEnet in 1999, and created his own Daria website shortly thereafter called "Daria's Rubber Room".

The scorched remnants of the site can be found here . (Warning: web archive did not save the original background, so you will have to highlight the whole page to get an idea of what it looked like).

CN was primarily known as a parody writer, and his most famous fan work is called "'Shipper Wars". A link can be found here , at GlitterBerries. Some of the references might be dated, but the fic does give you insight into who the major personalities were on the old Outpost Daria Message Board.

CN still runs a chat room called "The Rubber Room". Many of the older Daria fans can be found there, some fans that you'll not be able to find on other message boards.

"Crappie Awards" Promised/Threatened

Kara Wild states that the "Crappie Awards" will be posted on PPMB over the weekend. The "Crappies" are a set of sarcastic awards that (gently) poke fun at fan fiction in 2004. (Some think that some of the recent "Bootie" award winners will be "doubly honored".)

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"We Are Not Amused" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The Disney World Story -- Chapter 06" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The IUF Tale, or Total Disaster in a Nutshell" by The Angst Guy

On Halls of Fame

Since nothing new has happened since I last posted, I wanted to post a few thoughts on the whole "Hall of Fame" issue and about the Daria Fanworks Awards in general.

Before I get started, Dr. Mike deserves hearty congratulations for the great job he did. How he put up with the continual repetitive dumb questions he was asked is beyond me. He found something he wanted to do, he took the trouble to do it, and he did it, and I feel that he did it very well.

It seems the idea to do this every year is catching steam. From my understanding, Dr. Mike doesn't want to do this anymore and Richard Lobinske is taking it upon himself to regularize the process. With that, there is a discussion regarding whether new categories should be added. And one idea that has popped up more than once is a "Hall of Fame".

The problem with a "Hall of Fame" is that it has the danger for becoming something like Martin Pollard's Recommended Authors list. Before the name change (I believe it used to be called the "Featured Authors" list), it was something like a bold statement that the one's listed on MJP's list were the best fan fiction writers out there, and there was no appeal, since the list belonged to the Outpost Daria website. Which begs the question, "Why does MJP get to choose who the 'best' writers are?" Some fans (myself included) felt that Mr. Pollard sometimes lacked good judgment in deciding who was a Featured/Recommended Author, and that his choices were based more on fan popularity rather than talent.

Unfortunately, every contest is, in one way or another, a popularity contest -- even the most recent one. One hopes that the DFA would be an objective judgment of the best fan work in Daria fandom, but not everyone leaves their objectivity at the voting booth -- I wonder how many fans had even read ALL of the nominees for a particular award. The best part of the idea was having the ballots computerized, so that persons voting against 'popular' works of fiction couldn't be taken to task if an well-known fan organizer read their ballots. The DFA might not be PERFECT, but they were "more perfect" than what had been done before.

As of now, the HoF is being looked at as a way to 'grandfather' in works that were published before the first DFAs were delivered on January 9th/10th. This proposes an huge number of candidates -- all of Daria fanfiction ever written, to be precise -- and how would one select who got nominated? Most likely, fan popularity. "I've never read Kara Wild's 'Abruptly Amy', but it must be important, so I'll nominate it." (No offense is implied; the work is simply given as an example.) The result is the same thing as before -- works nominated on a name basis instead of being actually read by someone. (At least, it's a general fan indication of popularity, instead of being one fan's list by fiat.)

Furthermore, I remember tafka's original complaint that fan art had been ignored (it seems that some extra art categories were added to the DFAs -- am I wrong?) during the DFA creation process, and that fan art suffered the burden of being ignored in general. I mean, why are we just looking at fan fiction for the Hall of Fame? Aren't we slighting artists? And what about web designers, or fans who are fans but don't create anything?

Will there be a grandfathering in of fan art? Will each DFA category have to have something grandfathered in to make up for all the people "unfortunate" enough to have created their work -- whatever it is -- before January 1, 2004?

Here is what *I* would do (note: I'm simply doing what many fans do, griping about a process and not offering to lend a helping hand -- this is me just living in my fantasy world):

* DFAs to be given out in February.
* Only FIVE works of fiction/art to be listed in any category. These would be the five stories/works getting the most submissions for consideration, since who wants to read fifteen different works of fan fiction to determine the Best Helen Story? Nominations in January. Ballot and voting in February. If a category fails to get THREE nominations submitted to it, no award is awarded in that category for the year. This helps pare the awards down somewhat.
* A new Special Merit award to be added to the list of nominees. One for lit, one for art. Great fan works of the past can be nominated. This will take up the grandfather clause.
* Special award to be given in July. (The Glenn Eichler? The Janet Neilson? The Mike Wendell?) This award is to be given to a Daria fan. It can be a writer. It can be an artist. It can be a webmaster. It can be a non-contributor. It is given to someone, past or present, active or non-active, who will be honored for their contributions to Daria fandom. And that contribution requires nothing more than being...a Daria fan.

More Up on TDJC

Richard Lobinske finished Part 5 of "Falling Into College 26 - Boston Baked Band".

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"My Best Friend's Brother's Best Friend's Wedding" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The Disney World Story -- Chapter 05" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Like Angels' Visits, Short and Bright" by The Angst Guy

Updates and Glitches

Gregor Samsa posted Part 4 of "The Bands of Summer" on PPMB.

SFMB is temporarily down.

The "Foxing" of Daria Fandom

In 1999, the Fox Network began taking action against fan websites of various types. The reason these fansites were targeted was that Fox considered the use of photographs, scripts, and especially sound and video files the theft of its creative property.

The first site that we know to have been targeted was a "Millenium" fan site, but the crackdown later spread to sites of the Fox show with the most devoted fan following, "The Simpsons". The process worked thusly: whenever Fox's legal department found a target, the webmaster would be sent a "cease and desist" letter, stating that the use of its icons, symbols and whatever were in violation of copyright law, and that the person had to take immediate actions explicitly spelled out in Fox's threatening-looking boilerplate letter.

Either a) the fan would comply, or b) the fan would hold fast. If b) were the case, Fox's next letter would go to the internet service provider. The service provider would close the site at its end, figuring it was better to pull one customer's lone website than to face a possible legal battle with Fox.

The first of these Simpsons battles took place before Daria even hit the airwaves. However, not even Daria fandom would be unaffected.

On May 11, 2000, Damon Domjan's "Sounds of Cynicism" website – a website that contained Daria sound files, at the very least – was "Foxed" by the legal staff at Viacom, owner of MTV and holder of the "Daria" copyrights. Undoubtedly, many fans thought that SOC was already on shaky ground with its sound files, but that fan fiction sites would not be affected.

On June 11, 2000, Martin Pollard, webmaster of the "Outpost Daria" fan site, received a letter from his internet service provider, stating that his web privileges were suspended and that he had 72 hours to bring his account into compliance. The reason? Pollard had supposedly violated the provider's "Terms of Service".

How so? Violation of MTV’s intellectual property. He was "helpfully" given the name of MTV's legal counsel.

This was clearly a more aggressive form of "Foxing", and the dominoes rapidly fell across fandom.
a) Outpost Daria was "off the air". Suspended.
b) Fan sites went black/off the Internet in protest.
c) Other sites quickly removed all Daria graphics, sound files, and whatever, and
d) Talk of some sort of boycott/action began, but cooler heads prevailed.

However, Pollard quickly got in touch with someone at MTV Legal. It turns out that the "Foxing" of Outpost Daria had been done in error. An overzealous unnamed person at MTV Legal had jumped to the (false) conclusion that "Outpost Daria" had video files, and sent the letter to the internet service provider "by mistake" before someone could look at it.

The site was soon back on the Internet, and Martin Pollard decided to change webservers. It was a scary moment, however, as fans realized that someone at MTV was indeed watching them, if only the legal department.

As a result of the "Foxing", many of the older sites (Outpost Daria, The Irony Maiden) have a stripped-down look (no Daria features) and legal boilerplate at the own at the bottom of their pages stating that no legal copyright infringement is intended. What isn't told to the fans in Second Fandom is that MTV almost -- but not quite -- wounded Daria fandom in a major way.

A Morgendorffer Scorned

Reviews of stories posted on the Creative Writing thread of PPMB:

Kara Wild's review of "A Morgendorffer Scorned" by C. E. Forman, and
Richard Lobinske's review of "Unseen Phenomenon" (the series) by Wildgoose

The Angst Guy is planning a sequel to "9.0" which deals with Sandi's arrival back in the states. He is wondering if the story should be released in serial form or as a complete work.

Richard Lobinske completed Part 4 of "Falling Into College 26 -- Boston Baked Band".

The Morgendorffer Sims house can be found at http://www.meowskis.com/collections/collections2.htm.

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Cheaters Never Prosper" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The Disney World Story - Chapter 04" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Dear Whoever" by The Angst Guy

A picture from the "Pause in the Air" series, drawn by the author himself, The Angst Guy:

Fan Trivia

Three of the major Daria fan message boards that have closed down, and the webmasters of each of the sites. (Some of this information is from USENET and the essay "An Appeal for Sanity" by Rey Fox.

Katherine Goodman -- former operator of the Planet Daria message board. (Rumor has it that you should not mention Daria fandom to her at all, unless you want your head chewed off.)

Roweena Stubbs -- former operator of the alt.lawndale.com message board. College more or less forced her into retirement, but she complained of attacks by insensitive fans.

Michelle Klein-Hass -- former operator of the Lawndale Commons Message Board. She gives her reasons for retirement in the post below.

I don't think there were any other major sites that have shut down. Martin Pollard had a message board, but since no other fans speak of it with fondness, it probably didn't have as much traffic as the other three.

Goodman and Stubbs have definitely GAFIAted. Ms. Klein-Hass still haunts alt.tv.daria, and I'm sure she can be reached there.

The Death of Lawndale Commons

From notorious moments in Daria fan history: this thread, located here , was found by a Google search. It deals with the implosion of the Lawndale Commons Message Board, and why it supposedly imploded. Definitely worth reading.

I will quote from Ms. Klein-Hass, however:

" I mean everything I said there. In the over a year period since I started
Lawndale Commons, I have made some lovely friends, but have also withstood
tons of abuse.

Now I understand why all of the great Daria mega-fansites have died. No
good deed goes unpunished. You'd better treat Martin Pollard well, because
when Outpost Daria dies, that's it.

I'll see you all in chat, and here on a.t.d."

My question: if Outpost Daria were to all of a sudden shutter its doors tomorrow, 1) would that be the end of Daria fandom, and 2) would that be the last of the great Daria fan sites? My answers: no, and no. Good thing Daria fandom limped along for another, oh, six years....

Daria Temporal Analysis Project Posted

Richard Lobinske's Daria Temporal Analysis Project is completed. The first version can be found at this link on SFMB.

Deref on American Tour

The Daria Fanworks Awards finally have a name: "The Booties"! Named after Our Heroine's footwear, Kristen Bealer has provided Daria fandom with a picture:


crossada75 celebrates his 48th birthday today, so if you bump into him, wish him a Happy Birthday.

Australian Daria fan "Deref" will be visiting the United States in April and May. If any American Daria fans are interested in hosting him on his visit for a little while, please let him know.

D. T. Day posted some information on Jessica Cyndee Jackson (the voice of Jodie) on PPMB.

DVDaria has just broke the 14,000 mark for signatures. The link for DVDaria can be located here if you have not signed the petition.

Richard Lobinske has completed Part 3 of "Falling Into College 26 – Boston Baked Band".

Somewhere on the web there is a download for the Morgendorffer house for "The Sims". If anyone can find the download, please post the info on the Paperpusher Message Board.

Newly added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Electricity", by Invisigoth Gypsy
"The Disney World Story -- Chapter 03" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Write Where It Hurts -- Alternate Story" by Angelinhel.

Dr. Mike, webmaster of The Daria-Jane Conspiracy, is asking for donations to keep the site going. There is a donation block on the front page of TDJC, for those fans who have PayPal.

Added to Fanfiction.com:

"Is My Sanity Gone Yet? -- Chapter 10" by RogueRed

Daria Fanworks Balloting Concludes

And the winners of the 1st Annual Daria Fanworks Awards (? right name ?) are:

Best Overall Fanfiction
"All My Children" by Deref and Thea Zara

Best Comedy Fanfiction
"The Idiocy' by Kristen Bealer

Best Drama Fanfiction
"Gone" by The Angst Guy

Best Shipper Story
"Falling into College" series (Daria and Michael), by Richard Lobinske

Best Melodrama Work
"Smoking Mirror" by The Angst Guy

Best Character Development/Redevelopment/Growth
Amanda and Vincent Lane, and Helen and Jake Morgendorffer, in the "All My Children" series by Thea Zara and Deref

Best Non Fiction Essay
"Beavis and Butt-head and Daria," by CF

Best Alternate History
"Twilights Own" by Renfield
"Estrangesters" by Ostragoth

Best Post-IICY Story
"Once Upon a Time in College" , by Galen "Lawndale Stalker" Hardesty

Best Pre-Series Story (takes place before "Esteemsters")
"All My Children" series by Thea Zara and Deref

Best Jane Story
"See Jane Spike" by The Angst Guy
"Run, Jane, Run" by Angelinhel

Best Helen Story
"All My Children" series by Thea Zara and Deref

Best Jake Story
"Falling into College #10: Chosin Fate," by Richard Lobinske

Best Crossover Stroy
"The Idiocy," by Krister Bealer (with Homer's "The Iliad")
"All My Children" series by Thea Zara and Deref

Best Science Fiction Story
"The House on Space-Time Lane" by Lawndale Stalker
"The Thirteenth Man" by The Angst Guy

Best Movie Rip Off Work
"The Lawndale Tango," by The New Kids on the Cell Block (Mahna Mahna, Betting on Delusions, Beth Ann, Guy "Deceleraptor" Payne, Scarlett), ripping off the movie/play "Chicago"
"Cynic Hood" by Dr. Mike, ripping off the movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"

Best Erotica Piece
"Experimentation OR: What Happened After Tom and Daria Went Upstairs" by GreyStar

Best New Author
Richard Lobinske

Best Use of a Background Character From the Show
"Scarlett" in "Scarlett" by The Angst Guy

Best FanArtwork Encouraged by a Written Work
Jane and Ted kissing by SRA

Best Weird Story Idea
"Smoking Mirror" by The Angst Guy

Best New Series
"Falling Into College" by Richard Lobinske

Best Slash
"How the Other Half Lives" by Willow and Coyote

Favorite Holiday Story
"9.0" by The Angst Guy
"The Fashion Club Massacre" by Roentgen
"Gifts" by Wyvern

Best Quinn Story
"Kadhimiya" by Guy "Decelerator" Payne, with help from Kara Wild

Best Supernatual, Horror, or Fantasy Work
"Twilight's Own" by Renfield

Best Original Fan Art
Jane as the Morton Salt Girl by Kemical Reaxion

Best Comic Fan Art
"A Daria Halloween Tale" by Wouter Jaegers

Best Erotic Art
"All Natural Behaviour" by Wouter Jaegers
"Nurse Janey" by Ken T

Fake Daria Movie Makes Real Newsblog

Daria fandom – and the “Unofficial Daria Movie Rumors Page” – was mentioned at the Metafilter site. The thread can be found here .

The Daria Fanworks Awards have been announced. Results will go on a separate thread.

Richard Lobinske has completed Part 2 of “Falling Into College 26 – Boston Baked Band”.

Renfield1969 has claimed partial credit for the creation of “Iron Chefs”, Daria fan fiction challenges where fans are challenged to write a short work of fan fiction based on a given theme.

Thea_zara colorized Angelinhel’s “Short Haired Quinn” picture seen below.

New art from Rick Hennigan and older art from SRA have been posted by thea_zara on PPMB. These fan artworks illustrate fan fiction from The Angst Guy.

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

“Virgin Sacrifice” by Jill Friedman
“The Disney World Story – Chapter 02” by Invisigoth Gypsy
“Unrequited Love” by Angelinhel

A Blog Too Far

Kara Wild wonders in the new Contrarian's Corner update how long it will be possible to maintain a blog devoted to Daria fandom.

My answer is: I don't know. My wife and I will be moving to Atlanta in the near future (think two months). I plan on changing careers and going back to school, so full-time classes will start either in the summer or fall of 2005.

After that, who knows? I'm completely amenable to the idea of a co-blogger, or Special Guest Blogger, or what have you.

MTV2 Maintains Grip on Daria

The Contrarian's Corner has updated . You can go to the "What's New" link on the front page to see what has been updated.

Richard Lobinske has stared Part 1 of "Falling Into College 26 - Boston Baked Band".

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy is now implementing an alphabetical fan fiction search. If you only know the title of the work, but not the name of the author, you have a greater chance at finding your work. However, the issue of works beginning with "a-an-the" has to be worked out.

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"The Disney World Story -- Chapter 01" by Invisigoth Gypsy
"Special Delivery" by The Angst Guy
"Structure" by Angelinhel

On alt.tv.daria, "Cynickill" asked why The Cartoon Network has never run Daria? Father Martin Sylvester replied that MTV2 recently ran "Is It College Yet?" (January 3 2005) in Europe, and it might be a case of MTV not wishing to release the series as long as it can run on other MTV networks.

Open Thread

Will be off to Atlanta for the weekend. Any questions, comments, or suggestions for the Dariafans blog should go here, as well as a question for the readers -- should the name of the blog be changed?

Newest Update

Ranger Thorne's phone had been out for a week, which explains why he was off the boards for so long.

TerraEsperZ suffered a burglary at his apartment. He didn't lose any of his really expensive stuff -- it appears to be a smash-and-grab burglary -- but he did lose quite a few DVDs.

ostragoth added another part to "Estrangesters" on SFMB.

Ray added part 10 to "Tyrant's Coronation" on SFMB. (A Daria/Resident Evil crossover.)

Added to The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Daria and Jane Go to the Moon - Chapter 01 - Ticket to Ride", by Stanley Hollinshead
"Second Place" by Angelinhel
"O Holy Nightmare" by Jill Friedman

Who Were the Nominees?

The list of nominees for the Daria Fanworks Awards can be found here . This list was up to date as of Wednesday, 6 January 2005.

What's great about the list is that the list is hyperlinked. You not only have a list of stories, but you can read most of them as well from the page. (Provided by "et alia".)

News and Art

Above: The picture by Angelinhel of "Short Haired Quinn" that I was unable to post yesterday.

Steve Blum-Deckler has suffered a computer crash and lost some of his work in progress. If he has ever sent you either a) his Kim Possible/Daria crossover for beta-reading, or b) his Daria/Stacy slash for beta-reading, please send these back to him at stevcrss@yahoo.com.

Long discussion on "A Star in the East Window" on PPMB.

Newly posted on The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:

"Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies" by Jill Friedman
"Misery - Chapter 03 - Trouble in Paradise" by Shawa
"Chelsea Hotel" by Jill Friedman

Fan art by theartistformerlyknownas:

The above is a photoshop -- tafka does several different types of art.

Fan art by Kemical Reaxion:

Do You Speak Daria?

I was watching a four-part miniseries on PBS last night called "Do You Speak American?" The series focused on the various regional dialects of American English.

Among the dialects discussed were the particular varieties of "Texas English". The characteristics of Texas English were "laconic, and involving wordplay".

From a board somewhere on Texas English:

From my observation, vowel sounds are drawn out, and pronounced differently

-the "oo" sound is pronounced uh ie "roof" is pronounced "ruhf"
-the "eye" sound is pronounced "aa" ie: "pipe" is pronounced paap, right sounds like raat
-words beginning with the long O (owe sound) like orange sound more like arange
-sometimes words like "milk" or "pick" sound more like "melk" or "peck"

And from the bootlegbooks.com site on the definition of the word "laconic":

Very concise and pithy. A Spartan was called a Lacon from Laconia, the land inwhich he dwelt. The Spartans were noted for their brusque and sententious speech. When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan magistrates, "If I enter Laconia, I will level Lacedæmon to the ground," the ephors wrote word back the single word, "If." (See above Lacedæmonian Letter .) In 1490 O'Neil wrote to O'Donnel: "Send me the tribute, or else -- ." To which O'Donnel replied: "I owe none, or else --."

If there's anyone who's concise and pithy, it's Daria. ("I can't shoot my own mother. Not with paint anyway.") Which leads me to wonder if Daria has a bit of Texas accent in her, as well as some questions about the accents of the other characters? Is Tiffany betraying Californian ancestry when she speaks? And what about the other characters?

This conjecture could be put to rest if we knew where Tracy Grandstaff was born, or where she grew up. Oh well.

That's just a few of the differences though.

Damnation

Discussion about a Daria encyclopedia located at http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/daria can be found on PPMB.

A fan question: when did Iron Chefs begin? And who started them?

(Note: A Iron Chef is a fan challenge from one writer to other writers to write a short story based on a particular theme.)

Tried to post some art from Angelinhel and theartistformerlyknownas, but my post crashed, and work is blocking Deviantart. Damn deviants!

Segmentation

Very rushed this AM, so today's posts might come in bite-sized morsels:

The Sheep's Fluff now has new skins available for registered users, as well as a new logo and a reorganization of avatars.

Glitter Berries has now posted two new art pieces, "Tiger Lily" and "Battle Cry", plus one new poem.

"The Beginner's Guide to Daria Fandom" is now in progress.

Richard Lobinske's "Falling Into College 25 -- Freedom of Speech" is now complete.

The Angst Guy has posted "Darius" at Sheep's Fluff, and it should be coming to other Daria fan fiction sites very soon.

For those who have asked for ballots for the Daria Fanworks Awards, you may now begin voting.

An interesting poll was posted at Paperpusher Message Board: "When did Daria and Jane finish high school?" The results so far:

2000--six votes
2001--three votes
1999--two votes
don't know/doesn't matter--three votes

mman has finished his story about Quinn's unfortunate appearance change. It can be found at PPMB.

tafka posted several of her art links over at SFMB.

ostragoth posted other chapter of "Estrangesters" at SFMB.

Posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy :

"Smoking Mirror" by The Angst Guy
"Misery - Chapter 2 - Starting Over" by Showa
"Remember Me" by Angelinhel

Posted at Fanfiction.net :

"Bed And Breakfast Man - Chapter 29 -- Turkey Day" by Ruthless Bunny

Future Art

sleepless has just finished Chapter 12 of "Yuki-Onna".

Kemical Reaxion has started a thread detailing art works in progress. The thread can be assessed here .

Never Got a Dinner

When Red Buttons (a comedian) was still alive, he would often be invited to one of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts (DVDs available at $9.95, call the 800 number at the bottom of your screen). He would always do variations on a sketch called "Never Got a Dinner".

The theme of the sketch was that Red Buttons would rant about the great names of history, and how, unlike the clearly undeserving person being roasted, these legends "never got a dinner".

Father Martin Sylvester clearly never got a dinner. Mr. Galloway, how's about shining your spotlight in his direction. True, he doesn't write Daria fan fiction, but it's obvious...he never got a dinner!

Quinn's A Short-Cut Cutie!

Paperpusher Message Board

Kemical Reaxion is expecting a major ice storm in her area, so if you don't hear from her, expect that there is a power outage.

et alia wrote a humorous piece on a Mr. O'Neill-Mr. Van Driessen battle (Van Driessen was Daria's teacher from 'Beavis and Butthead').

Richard Lobinske has completed "Falling Into College 25 -- Freedom of Speech", Parts 5 and 6.

mman continues his story about Quinn's altered appearance, which has now expanded into four parts and may become a full-fledged work of Daria fiction.

A thread on the PPMB discusses works that writers have in progress. The thread can be found here .

Sheep's Fluff

thea_zara states that there may be future changes to the SFMB site.

The seemingly never-ending process for nominating art and fiction for the Daria Fanworks awards continues, due to fannish procrastination. ( Personal opinion: it's time to close the gate, and let the late entries eat sand. -- JB ).

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy

Newly posted:

"The Thirteenth Man" by The Angst Guy
"Misery - Chapter 01 - Stupid Things" by Shawa
"Reflections in the Hood of a Car" by Angelinhel

Fanfiction.net

Newly posted: "Shattered Heart" by NYDTQT

The More Things Change

Here's a review about a Daria episode...see if you can guess which one?

"I'm feeling a bit down at the moment, because this was the first episode
of Daria I've seen that I thought was almost unworthy of the series. I'll
try to write obliquely enough to avoid major spoilers for readers who
haven't seen this episode yet, but I must vent a little...


The premise was far removed from the realistic and moderately universal
themes that Daria usually deals with -- it was an obvious and contrived
setup that seemed much more like a network sitcom. And the dramatic
"twist" which called for Quinn to display a sudden outburst of sincerity
was entirely predictable...and entirely improbable under the
circumstances. I can well imagine Daria suffering an attack of
conscience, but setting it up that way didn't work -- we should have seen
it brought on by something else, something a bit less diagrammatic and
forced.


Don't even get me started on that dream sequence! Between this and the
similar event in "Quinn The Brain," is it possible that some story editing
signals got crossed somewhere along the way? Daria's dream would have
been a lot more shocking and disturbing if we hadn't seen something
similar just a few weeks before. (The image of Quinn in Daria's clothes
was also a wasted opportunity; that scene could have been played up a lot
more, and also could have made an interesting counterpoint.)


The episode wasn't a complete loss, of course: no 22 minutes (or whatever
the length of an episode is) spent listening to those wonderful voices
could ever be considered a waste of time. Daria's brilliant retort to
Kevin's line in front of the theatre about the vegetables was an utterly
classic line and will probably turn up on everyone's "most quotable"
lists. Mr. O'Neill was captured perfectly in all his patronizing creepy
sincerity. And Jake's response to his old home movies was very touching
-- that was the part of the episode which worked best for me.


Even Daria is entitled to a subpar episode every once in a while. They
can't all be "Cafe Disaffecto" or "The Misery Chick"...

Richard Bensam

Give up? This was posted on March 24, 1998 on alt.tv.daria. This was a review of "Monster", which first aired on March 23, 1998 (Episode 206). I wonder how RAB felt about Seasons 4 and 5.

On Fan Histories

With PPMB down and not much else going on, it's time to talk about the idea of a "Beginner's Guide to Daria Fandom". Among the items to be added is a list of links, some abbreviations, and...a history of Daria fandom, to the present date.

This is the part of the project about which I have the most concern. History, inevitably, is a story that's told about events. Supposedly, histories are based on facts, but facts get shaded according to a) how the historian decides to tell his story, and b) what source material is used.

Unfortunately, Daria fandom has taken sides on a lot of issues, and the question is "whose side is the historian taking?" There can be lots of issues that might call for one side or another. Michelle Klein-Hass and the end of Lawndale Commons. Did trolls infect the board, forcing Michelle's hand or was Michelle a comment Nazi? Most of us don't even remember Lawndale Commons, but we've heard about the proto message board. Inevitably, the only sources who remember LC are those who've been in fandom the longest. Would they be biased in the retelling toward Ms. Klein-Hass, since they know her and are probably on good terms with her? What happened to the anti-Michelle forces? Did they drop out of the fandom? Are they still around?

How about the forces who have GAFIAted, who have "Gotten Away from It All". Suni, Covello, Mikkelsen, et. al. Why did they get away from it all? And how much of their stories are you going to believe?

Who gets high notice and who doesn't? Are "Blue Balls" and "Lawndale After Dark" even worth mentioning? Is the old CINCGREEN/Canadibrit feud really worth retelling; did it have any significance other than two fans going at it? What about the Martin Pollard/SBBED.D feud? What about "Boner", a mysterious figure that even I'M unaware of, who haunted the Lawndale Commons boards? What about Sailor Danielle? Ronin? Robert Nowall, who has walked away from PPMB?

Who do you offend, who do you NOT offend, and who isn't worthy of consideration one way or the other? Telling modern history -- like this history of Daria fandom -- is going to become a political exercise very quickly. I'm probably sure it will either a) be so bland as to be meaningless, or b) have the potential to piss off a lot of people. Given the choice, I'd choose "b"; at least the story would be entertaining.

As for source material, a lot of it is unfortunately missing, stored on the most inpermanent source imaginable, the message board. Maybe some old copies could be found at web.archive.org; I wouldn't even know WHERE to begin looking for Lawndale Commons and I don't know what the old PPMB address was. Crazy Nutso has set fire to his own messageboard for so many times that he should be arrested for arson. Someone might keep their old mail...you never know...but figuring out what is important will be very difficult.

There is of course, USENET. alt.tv.daria had a strong presence until the rise of the messageboard; the archives are available there from Google. But then another question arises...how much of a history could Daria fandom really have, anyway?

The first appearance of Daria anywhere was March 19, 1993 -- we are closing in on ELEVEN years of Daria! She appeared in the Beavis and Butthead episode, "Sign Here", her first spoken line, "Anal electrocution. Fifty-thousand volts up the butt!" The show itself began March 3, 1997 with the airing of the episode "Esteemsters" on MTV.

Myself, I divide fandom into two groups:
1) First Fandom: Those who saw Beavis and Butthead/Daria on MTV, and
2) Second Fandom: Those who entered fandom AFTER the last original Daria episode on January 21, 2002.

In short, the problem with a Daria fan history is that a) there's too much to get right, and b) there's so much to get wrong.

PPMB Back Up

PPMB update:

jak981125 got fired from his job. He is asking for prayers.

DJW wrote some "outtakes" to his "Once Upon a Time in Lawndale, Vol1".

mman wrote a small untitled fic where "Quinn finds her appearance involuntarily altered".

PPMB Down

PPMB is down. An update when it's back up again.

Dervish has posted "Something to Shoot For", Chapter 12.

A decision has been made to hold off on the "Beginner's Guide to Daria Fandom", due to the fact that the authors are facing school-based time constraints.

Posted on TDJC:

"Falling Into College 18 -- Prom Quinn" by Richard Lobinske
"Nothing Happens for a Reason" by The Angst Guy
"Jane's Theme" by Angelinhel

I Am Amused

Names for the Ballot/Awards suggested by Dr. Mike (continued from a comments thread):

"The 1st Annual Daria Fanfiction Awards". I think that's all one needs to say. It doesn't suggest that the awards are authoritative, nor does it suggest they are exhaustive. If someone wants to do their own awards, that's fine, but "Daria Fanfiction Awards" becomes a registered trademark of tdjc.net, all rights reserved. (::joke::)

But what would we call the award itself? The actual statuette?

Suggestions:

1) The Irony Maiden: Small iron figurine of Daria, arms crossed.
2) The Gazebo: Small wooden gazebo.
3) The Spectacle: The glasses of OH.
4) The Sherman: A small tree.
5) The Ultra: A can of Ultra-Cola, our favorite drink.
6) The Toilet: To indicate that there's a limit to how seriously we can take all this. "Hey, guess what? I won a Toilet in 2004!"

(Yes, I know there are no statuettes being given. This is an exercise of the imagination, and is as fitting here as anywhere else.)

Ass-Kissing Fans, Part II

Recently, Kara Wild asked why I seemed to be tacitly approving a “Best Fanfic” contest when I’ve gone on the record as having disdain for such things. The answer is that too many times in the past, Daria fan fiction “best of” contests have been not much more than popularity contests that confirm the popularity of the person holding them.

Why? Three reasons: a) usually the person running the contest writes Daria fan fiction himself or herself, and b) people naturally want to make other people feel good, and c) people want to avoid the situation of saying one thing about a work of fiction in public, but believing something else about it.

The biggest thorn was “a”. “A” gives people a chance to send the contest runner nice mail, but it is no way to determine who is writing good fiction. Dr. Mike’s contest removes “a”. It’s been a long time since Dr. Mike wrote any fan fiction, and the idea that the process can be automated – people could vote by computer – gives a bit more credibility to the process. In any event, he could simply exempt his work from nomination if that’s a problem.

Will the “b” or “c” problems be solved? No, but they become different problems in an automated contest. True, there will be sycophants galore who will say, “I WUV YOU! YOU ARE THE BESTEST FAN FICTION WRITER EVER! I WILL NOMINATE YOU!!” The difference is that the process of ass kissing STOPS at nomination. It HAS to stop there. Yes, Popular Writer #8 might get lots of nominations – but in a computerized, supposedly objective process, there’s no guarantee that Popular Writer #8 will WIN anything given a secret ballot. “Behind the curtain”, as it were, people will vote for the works that best deserve the vote.

Yes, it still is a “popularity” contest. But it’s a different kind of popularity contest. Certainly, the most known, most talked-up works, written by the more popular people, will get the most nominations. Works that aren’t talked up or aren’t popular will suffer in the nomination process. However, it will still be an objective contest among these supposedly popular works – “yes, all the works are popular, and all nominated by ass-kissers – but which of those works is truly the best work?”

I’ve long been waiting for Daria fandom to get off its ass. To be something like more mainstream fandoms, but it always seems to lack the willpower – too much work. Other fandoms do have awards. Science fiction has the Hugos and the Nebulae. Hell, even alt.sex.stories has erotica awards!

Even if the effort turns out to be an absolute failure, a disgrace, a spectacle worthy of mockery – at least Dr. Mike made the effort to present something different, and that deserves some praise.

My last and final complaint will simply deal with what happens AFTER the nomination process. I’m not sending in a ballot this year. Why? Because frankly, I’ve not read a lot of fan fiction, or what I have read (with rare exceptions) was just skimming the surface. I hope that Dr. Mike will ask that no one VOTE for a category unless they’ve read all the works in questions – and that people will not just look at five names and pick the guy they think is SUPER KEWL. Let’s decide to give a damn, people.

Ass-Kissing Fans, Part I

Hiergargo posted "Wind and Katie's Nightmare" on the PPMB.

tafka's "Photoshop This!" contest (#4) closes tomorrow.

Ms. Kitty stated on SFMB that a "Beginner's Guide" to Daria fandom would require thought before being put together, lest it become another ass-kissing fest. (From "Flame Wars" on SFMB)

Beginners Guide to Fandom (?)

Richard Lobinske has completed "Falling Into College 25 -- Freedom of Speech", Part 4

On SFMB, a "Beginner's Guide to Daria Fandom" is being discussed.

Dervish has completed "Something to Shoot For", Chapters 8-11.

ostragoth has completed a further chapter of "Estrangesters".

tafka (theartistformerlyknownas) has announced the two winners of her Photoshop Contest #3:
-- "The Seasonal Fashions of Jane", by the_cheshire_cat
-- "Snowdome Romance" by tafka

New works posted at The Daria-Jane Conspiracy:
-- Richard Lobinske, "Falling Into College 17 -- May Day"
-- The Angst Guy, "DariaLance"
-- Invisgoth_Gypsy, "Party Girls"
-- Janelan386, "Twisted"

Happy 2005

Scorched Remnants

medea42 asked if there had been any Daria/"The Stepford Wives" crossovers written. John Takis mentioned "Daria vs. Stepford, CT" written by Michelle Klein-Hass, but therew was dissent as to whether or not this was a "true" crossover.

Kara Wild suggested a "Worst Fanfic" contest to go along with Dr. Mike's "Best Fanfic" contest. The "Worst Fanfic" contest would be more of a gentle roast than an attempt to humiliate Daria fan fiction writers.

Paperpusher

thsutton could not find "But Now Is Found" (written by The Angst Guy) on PPMB and stated that he found PPMB's text search function rather frustrating. The Angst Guy is about to re-edit this story and send it to the major Daria websites.

Don-O posted Parts 2 and 3 of his trip to New Orleans, telling the story of a "Vampire Tour" that wouldn't have frightened a celibate French scoutmaster.

Lawndale Stalker has a kidney stone which is causing him a lot of pain. He's hoping it can be passed without surgery, and is asking fans who pray to pray for him.

ahmygoddess and Dervish have fired what might be parting shots at each other at Nick's Corner on PPMB.

Hiergargo (Aaron Solomon Adelman) is looking for beta-readers for his Wind Lane/Katie story.

HeirofNorton is still looking for ideas for a Daria computer game, and it appears that some programmers in Daria fandom might be giving him an assist. Fan creations might be added to the game.

Among the New Year's Day posts, Decelraptor posted a long form post called "Gator Bowl".

Richard Lobinske posted "Falling Into College 25 -- Freedom of Speech" Parts 1, 2, and 3.

The Angst Guy put up a LONG list of nominations for Best Fanfiction of 2004 in the categories suggested by Dr. Mike. (The list can also be found at Sheep's Fluff.)

Gregor Samsa needs framegrabs for Mrs. Manson, Monique, and Penny Lane. He is working on a project to determine a list of suggested heights for Daria characters.

Sheep's Fluff

thea_zara has posted the New Year's Page at this link . She has also wanted to add new categories concerning fan art to Dr. Mike's "Best Fanfiction" contest.

TAFKA (theartistformerlyknownas) was particularly unhappy about the fact that fan artists were only given two categories in Dr. Mike's award. She feels that Daria fan artists are very rarely given recognition.

The long thread in "Flame Wars" about fanfiction and feedback has several new posts by well-establisted fan authors. If you can deal with the theme of "Flame Wars" -- a special forum where gratuitous insults are ENCOURAGED -- you will find some illuminating discussion.

The Daria-Jane Conspiracy

Fanfiction posted on TDJC:

"Crimson Sunset" by Angelinhel
"More Guilty Pleasures" by Angelinhel
"Daria/X-Men Evolution: Sealed With a Mutant" by Fernando_Santoianni
"Nine Point Oh" by The Angst Guy
"Falling Into College 16 -- A Day at the Races" by Richard Lobinske
"Party Girls" by Invisgoth Gypsy

Fanfiction.net

"Ever Really Love Me?" by atimnie