Jane Brinker

Finished reading: Quinngali, Chapter 4

This morning, I decided to give back to the community by giving blood. However, I wonder if I'm getting a little too thick in the arms to give blood -- the blood technicians had a devil of a time getting a vein.

A friend of mine e-mailed me an interesting mathematics problem, which has me puzzled. It's a problem in probability, that most elusive of the mathematical sciences. Right now, I'm still thinking of a solution; I'll have to sneak study on the problem in between bouts of actual work. So thank Goodness it's Friday.

(* * *)

And now, back to the last completed chapter of "Quinngali".

When we last left Quinn, she had been woken from her dream by her mother, angrily calling for her from downstairs. It appears that Quinn has run up five thousand dollars worth of charges on Helen's gold credit card and Helen has just received the information.

Helen mentions some of the fashion companies that Quinn has charged. However, these companies are in a slightly higher league than those found a Cashman's. Regardless, Quinn knows that she did not run up a five thousand dollar bill.

Quinn then remembers that Helen gave Daria the gold card to go to Books-by-the-Ton. Quinn argues that Daria must have purchased the clothes, having a delayed "fashion conversion". Helen laughs at the very thought that Daria could run up a large bill on expensive clothes.

Until Quinn comes clean about the clothes, Helen devises a punishment of her own. Quinn will have to wear Daria's clothes -- green jacket, orange t-shirt and pleated skirt -- until Quinn can come up with the cash or the clothes. She will be dropped off at school and picked up to preclude the chance of her changing her wardrobe.

Quinn figures that the gold card must have been stolen or lost. After all, Daria couldn't be spending the money on clothes, could she?

In the meantime, Jane is trying to deal with Daria. Daria is already having her hair restyled and recolored, and yes, she was the one that spent all the money on clothes.

As it turned out, Jane showed Daria the video of Quinn hypnotising Daria the same day. However, it was a very bad idea according to the literature. It strengthened the hypnotic commands while degrading their meaning. Daria only "defiance" available -- subconsciously -- is to take the suggestion to an extreme, and ten years of surpressed fashion consciousness is now bursting like Mount Vesuvius.

Jane uses what she has learned to keep Daria from veering off too much into her new fashion consciousness. Jane is seriously worried -- from reading the literature -- that Daria is starting to go mad.

Meanwhile, Quinn shows up at school early, dressed in her Daria gear. Waiting on the stoop, she bumps into Ted Dewitt-Clinton, who momentarily takes her for Daria. He comments that Quinn is much like Daria. Quinn begins to worry about her own sense of identity.

(* * *)

Chapter Four is a bit more uneven than the previous two chapters. The Helen/Quinn conversation is a little too longwinded and could use some serious hacking.

The middle part -- Jane's following Daria about -- is stronger. We learn a little bit more about the rules of hypnosis, and after some slow-going prose at the Scissor Wizard, the flow of the story is reestablished. A new threat is introduced -- namely, that as a dam might crumble with just a few watery leaks, Daria's consciousness might crumble with this sudden release of repressed activity and Daria might go insane. (If I were Jane, I'd be wondering if I should get some help right now. Of course, the problem would be, "who would believe her?")

I believe Scissors was trying to draw some parallels between Daria and Quinn with the visit of Ted Dewitt-Clinton, but I believed that the parallels could have been drawn more vividly. This segment of the story is too short. Hopefully, this theme that "Quinn is something like Daria" will be reintroduced in future chapters, or expanded upon.

Still, there's nothing to keep me from reading Chapter Five when it comes out. If it comes out. Scissors is slow at these stories; he takes his time. We'll just simply have to wait for the Master Craftsman, fanfiction's Yen Lo, to finish his treatise. Until then, self-hypnosis will be our only recorse.


Next time: Sorry, no more Quinngali to read. We'll pick up the next five chapters of "Apocalyptic Daria".