Injudicious

Finished reading: AD20

Martin's father, John Peters, thanks Daria for removing her shirt to serve as a bandage, or something, to help out Martin Peters. Daria gets on the Peters's prayer list as a result, and gets to hear Jane Lane's comedy rantings for five minutes. ("Thank you, ladies and gents, I'll be here all week!")

Three of the attackers have been captured. The toll -- four church members are dead and many are injured. Everyone gets a Geiger counter sweep. One of the dead assailants is so radioactive that they need a lead-lined container to dispose of him. And coincidentally...guess what? Glen happens to know someone who has a lead-lined coffin! There's a long story that's probably not helpful to recount, so we'll just let this go and say that the lead coffin solves a lot of problems.

As it turns out, one of the attackers has a very high level of radioactivity, so whether he faces justice by bullet or not, he's dead anyway. Doctor Kathy asks that the man not be shot...because you'd have to clean up his blood. (Well, as the joke goes, "...and that's why they call me the hanging judge!")

The lead coffin isn't big enough to bury the men or their equipment. One member of the church donates her lead-lined hope chest to the cause of deposing of radioactive items.

Jane finds an AK-47 which doesn't seem to be too radioactively "dirty". Coincidentally, it happens to be a rifle that the old hippy taught her to fire at the commune, so Jane adds it to her growing arsenal. One of the men at church whose daughter's arm was broken by the assailants threatens to shoot one of the captured men. The man is defiant to the last. Jane takes over the responsibility of shooting the man by blasting him with the AK-47.

The church is very surprised. Even Daria is surprised, but Jane is just as defiant. There's some argument about turning the other cheek among the parishoners.

Reverend Harris states that the men have to have one last chance to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The man who isn't radioactive prays with the reverend briefly, and then Glen kills him. As for the man who has radiation sickness, he is offered the same opportunity. Bawling, he takes it before the parishoners kill him by rope.

(* * *)

Daria is thinking about Martin Peters. As it turns out, Martin shoved Daria out of the way and coincidentally took a bullet meant for her. Daria assumes this was a massive act of altruism. Jane states that Martin will always have her thanks for doing that.

Martin survives his surgery. Daria comes to see him and gives him a kiss. Martin thanks Daria for saving his life, and they kiss again. They are still friends...and perhaps, something more.

(* * *)

Well, I guess there's no nice way to say it, so you know me, the kind of guy who just thoughtlessly blurts it out in the open.

I remember a music critic saying, "how do you tell Paul McCartney that he has produced a lousy album?" Likewise, "how do you tell someone who worked hard (presumably) on a piece of fan fiction that they just wrote something with very little merit?"

One of the keys to melodrama -- good and bad -- is coincidence. Coincidence, used judiciously, can make a work of good melodrama. Coincidence ,used injudiciously, makes an awful one. In this chapter, Lady Coincidence has staggered into the room, smelling of run, bedecked with beads, showing her jooblies to anyone who will look. Then, she throws up all over the carpet.

We have not one, not two, but a whole lot of authorial applications of coincidence. Someone just happens to have a lead-lined coffin floating around. And a lead-lined hope chest. (I can imagine some young lady saying, "I need a hope chest that can both prepare me for marraige and the cruel, post-apocalypse reality I'll have to live with when the Russkies let fly the nukes.")

And, Jane just happens to recover an AK-47, which happens to be one of the very weapons that this hippie (whom I suspect was John Rambo with a beard) trained her how to use. I was trying to suspend disbelief, but my arms gave out at this point and like Martin Peters, I barely survived the rest of the story.

As for the scene with the captured radicals, it sounded like the parishoners were trying very hard to have their cakes and eat them, too. There has to be some hand-wringing about turning the other cheek, and giving the chance for the executed to join the Methodist church. After these sad preliminaries are out of the way, the reader gets what he wanted (*) -- an execution scene, with the bonus that one of the captured men possesses a cartoon bad guy's levels of defiance. (He would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those crazy kids.)

Hanging or a bullet to the head isn't suitably dramatic, though. Nor can the executions take place offscreen. Jane has to blow someone away to edge up the drama a few notches. I'm surprised she didn't prop a foot on his chest and say, "yippie-ki-AY, muthafucka".

As for our Martin...well, does anything not go well for this boy? He's got it all, because the author it giving it all to him.

One of the problems of setting up a relationship for Daria...or Jane...is the fact that we've idolized Daria and Jane so much that frankly, nobody is good enough for either of them. Why do you think fans hated Tom Sloane? He wasn't good enough for Daria. Part of the reason Trent was good enough for Daria was that he was offscreen so much you could make him out into whatever you wanted him to be, whereas we were presented with all of Sloane's faults at once.

So what does Martin have going for him?

1. He's a Christian, which seems important to the author.
2. He takes a bullet for Daria. Hey, Trent may have been a nice guy, but he never took a bullet for anyone.
3. He manages to valiantly struggle during surgery, but survives. Now, he's cool instead of just dead. (Which would have been an interesting way to take the story.)

So he's good with weapons (like Ted), reflective (like Trent) and lucky and blessed (like Tom). The major obstacle to any Daria romance is going to be Jane, but Jane approves of this wonderful young lad.

Just a warning: if you read that last Daria/Martin scene, make sure you've eaten no sugar at least three hours before.

(* * *)

Am I scared off? Nah, my blood is up. I'll be reviewing AD21 tomorrow. And like Brother Grimace's beloved Ben Raines, I swear that through hell or high water, I'll make it through AD22 which is the 1/2 way point. Frankly, though, in ordinary circumstances I would have bailed out of "Apocalyptic Daria" with this chapter. Martin, Daria, and Jane would have had to have made their own way without me.

EDIT: I think it's just time for me to climb off "Apocalyptic Daria". I just read the next two chapters. Rather that retread old ground, I think it's time to give some other Daria fanfic a chance. So next time...who knows what I'll review?






(*)- One of the points of melodrama, good or bad, is that all of the reader's deepest beliefs, spoken or unspoken, must be confirmed. Namely, that not only should the bad people die, but you should get a chance to see it in all its bloody glory.

The Darwin Awards

Finished reading: AD19

Today is my Mom's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Mom! As for me, work has gotten busy near "month-end". I'm just glad enough there was enough of a lull to post.

(* * *)

As our story begins, the Reverend Harris is having a nice, long chat with Mrs. Johnson. It turns out our friendly church gossip has issues with...well, everything, seeing sex behind every bush. (We later learn from Martin Peters that Johnson is rather delusional.)

Glen Bates, Jane's new friend, comes back through the door, all smelly and dirty, claiming that while outside he was face to face with a dead raccoon. Actually, her friend took care of the molestor problem with a burial, which explains why he returned to the church so dirty.

Daria is assigned to watch the spring house with Martin Peters, one of the teens at the church. He can't keep his eyes off her and she ask him what the hell is up. Daria founds out that Martin asked for this watch, and he asks if Daria has a boyfriend. Daria tells him that she's not interested, then has to reassure him that it's not about him. The two agree to be friends.

Back at the church, as Jane is entertaining kids with puppets, she hears a gunshot. As it turns out, a man named Bill Foster has been shot. (Most likely, guarding the church.) The kids are corraled by Jane and taken someplace to hide.

At the spring house, there are intruders nearby. Martin Peters is shot in the shoulder. It appears that unknown assailants plan on capturing the spring house, and Daria to boot. Daria manages to shoot one in the neck with a rifle.

The bad news -- the men have grenades, or at least, a grenade. The good news -- the man with the grenade has no common sense. He throws the grenade at the house so hard it bounces off like a rock, right back towards the hurler. One BOOM! later, and the assault on the spring house comes to a halt.

After the kids are squared away, Jane breaks loose. A battle appears to be in progress, and Jane shoots two raiders (and a third, later, for good measure). Jane is determined to get to Daria. A detail is sent to the spring house, and Daria and Martin are rescued.

(* * *)

At last! Some hot action that doesn't involve lesbianism!

It was rather nice of Glen Bates to go out of his way to bury the dead body, although that might have been done more likely for the assailant's family's sake that for Jane's.

I found the Martin blurting out that he was hot for Mrs. Cooper a little foolish -- the only time I've ever seen people blurt things out like that has been in sitcoms. (Or, well, with Brittany or Kevin, and I don't think Martin's that stupid.) However, Martin's awkwardness was portrayed in a charming way, aside from the lapse just mentioned.

I also found the incident with the grenade both amusing and satisfying. After learning of Jane's sudden marksmanship, and with too many people exhibiting Annie Oakley levels of familiarity with firearms, it's good to see some old-fashioned ineptitude. Stephen King pointed out (not explicitly) in The Stand that it won't be radiation, or rapists, or rampaging dogs that will kill a lot of people in the apocalypse. It will be Charles Darwin, as several wanna-be Rambos off themselves due to their own ignorance. Hopefully, Darwin's magic will work itself through the community in a few months and most of the dumber malefactors will be dead.

Martin Peters getting shot and the raid on the church with Foster's death point out one danger that doesn't seem to be pointed out in apocalyptic fiction -- snipers, or at least people with long-range weapons. Furthermore, people who have gathered together to form supply depots are going to be targets for people looking for supplies, flesh, and power in the post-apocalypse, or at least before the army shows up. Just a handful of assailants can make life at the church miserable, and it was good to see that the church was not the Impregnable Fortress of God.

Of course, we had to see Daria in a gratuitous bra shot. But then again, this is an HBO miniseries. At least, the lesbian angle seems to have been dropped temporarily, which means that all in all, this was a pretty good chapter.




(Alternate plot: My theory that Glen Bates was working hand in hand with Jane's assailant has only been strengthened. He didn't go out to bury that body! He went out to go call his friends from the VFW to attack the church! Buster's been talking about that damn live hand grenade of his for years...at least Glen will never have to hear that drunken rant again!)

No Objections

Finished reading: AD18

(The first thing I have to say is -- goddamn, that a long comments thread. Finding Apocalyptic Daria 18 took almost as long as Daria and Jane's unexpected Road Trip.)

Jane is told that Daria has to be watched over the next four days. Daria is also told that she has to stay, because of her previous anaphylaxis. Karen tells Daria that she has been praying for her, both for her healing and her salvation.

We learn the name of the old man who talked to Jane in AD17 -- Glen Bates. A former Marine, he tells Jane that killing is sometimes justified and points out where in the Bible that can be found. One of the church members comments on Glen "fondling" Jane and Glen argues briefly with the busybody.

Exposition Radio clicks on and we learn that martial law has been declared in Maryland and Virginia. Areas are being decontaminated with "volunteers" from nursing homes, jails, and prisons. A few people have been executed by the military for crimes.

The narrative is interrupted by radio pirate Dr. Neon braking in on the frequency. He states that the US Army is acting forecfully against secessionist movements and home-grown militias.

As Daria is chatting outside the church, the power goes out. Daria's medications and the church's food have to be refrigerated and there might not be enough gasoline to keep a generator running. The pastor talks about a "spring house", a structure built above an above-ground spring where items can be kept cold. Jane departs with several others to provide armed security on the trip.

(* * *)

There really isn't much to Chapter 18. It's not so much a self-contained story as providing some justifications for the things that have happened before. Jane is given bibilical justification that she was okay to kill her assailant. Her friend has a name. Daria has to stay a few days longer.

The plot point of the spring house is introduced, and one suspects that finding the spring house will not be without incident, as more or less nothing has been without incident. (Jane and Daria have been singularly unlucky.) Furthermore, we learn that gossip has not been stamped out even in Methodist churches.

I can say that I read it, and that I had no objections reading it. On to AD19.

I Like to Watch

Finished reading: AD17

Well, I'm two days away from the sleep apnea study. On Thursday night, I'll be strapped into a harness and be allowed to snooze away while a lab tech watches me snore. The tech will be reading a monitor that will be able to determine if I'm waking up in the middle of the night, then falling asleep. (Most people don't remember these mini-spells of awareness.)

If it's determined that I'm not getting enough restful sleep, there are options. One of them is a CPAP machine, meaning "continuous positive airway pressure". Sleep apnea sufferers wake up sometimes because they're not getting oxygen for one reason or another. A CPAP basically shoves oxygen down your throat every so often. Some people, however, have trouble sleeping with one of these things on.

We'll see how Thursday turns out.

(* * *)

And now onto the wonderful world of "Apocalyptic Daria".

Daria and Jane have made it to a refugee center at a church in Carthage. As they walk about, they find a few people giving them the stink eye. Daria notes that it's just like high school.

Jane lets Daria know that one of the men at the church propositioned her. Daria is surprised, as the man has a wife and children...which of course, never stopped anyone from propositioning anyone for sex.

The two find ways to keep themselves entertained. Jane puts on a puppet show for the kids, but Daria is asked by a young teen what is it exactly that Daria and Jane do...in bed?

(Sidenote: Remember the game when you open a fortune cookie and you have to read the fortune to everyone at the table and add the words "in bed"? Try it sometime.)

Apparently, one of the Head Witches at the church has decided that Daria and Jane are giving each other secret lesbian signs. Daria asks the girl if she has a best friend, and if she does, does that make the two of them lesbians? Obviously not.

Later, Daria gets her wound checked out. It turns out that the wound is infected and Daria is put on antibiotics -- but her skin breaks out that night. She clearly has had a reaction and is given epinephrine.

At the community room, the preacher calls for some volunteers to go mushroom hunting. Jane volunteers, her six-gun strapped at her side. As it turns out, the man who propositioned Jane has more sinister intent and follows Jane. His goal -- sexual assault.

He manages to disarm Jane, but is unaware that Jane carries a second gun. This proves out to be a fatal miscalculation for our rapist, whose body is left abandoned somewhere to grow mushrooms.

Jane returns, clearly shaken by the experience. However, an older parishoner tells Jane that he saw what happened out there and that the man had put the moves on several teen girls at the church. He consoles the two girls. The chapter ends with the dead man's wife asking someone at the church if anyone has seen her husband.

(* * *)

Gratuitous Lesbian References: 4 (*) -- might actually be five. There's the outside possibility that the 13-or-14 year old girl was not so much curious about Daria and Jane as she was angling for an invitation to join the Lesbian Club. ("Dear Penthouse...I never believed I'd be writing you, but I met these two girls at this refugee shelter....") Let's make it 4 1/2.

Meaningless exposition: 1, the scene where Daria's wound is inflamed. My rule is if it doesn't move the plot forward and if it won't be referenced again, why include it? This could have been disposed of by one long sentence stating that Daria had had a reaction. We don't need to know the ins and outs.

...

Hoo boy. Not the best chapter of "Apocalyptic Daria".

First, the lesbian references have gotten beyond annoying and are now reaching aggravating. I don't know if I can take much more of this joking. I might have to write my own chapter of "Apocalyptic Daria" where Daria and Jane find an old T-shirt making shop and create new shirts.

WE ARE NOT LESBIANS.
STOP ASKING.
THAT MEANS YOU, JANE.

By now, if I was Daria, I might start to seriously look for other friends. No wonder she wants to hook up with Martin Peters; at least he's not making lesbian jokes every five minutes. "Martin, promise me that when we're married, we'll move faaaaaaar away from Jane Lane." Nothing wrong with being gay, but I suppose there's nothing more aggravating than being around a closeted gay.

Second...the whole sexual assault thing. Let's post-mortem Round #2 of The Perils of Jane/Daria.

Oddly enough, the second assault parallels the first one. Married man with wife and kids wants unwilling teen action. I thought that thematically it was pretty bold, sort of like ending a car chase in a movie...and then another car chase takes place. Never be afraid to repeat yourself.

However, the entire things smacks of heavy melodrama. Let's review the rules of melodrama:

1. Sensational "movie of the week" topic
2. Building of suspense
3. Use of coincidence to move the plot
4. Moral which reaffirms the beliefs of the audience, which might be opposed to the audience's own stated beliefs.

Well, the entire rape thing already checks off #1 and #2. Attempted sexual assaults are pretty sensational, and the suspense is virtually built-in.

Now let's take a look at #3. Jane, coincidentally, heads off apart from the others. Our assailant, coincidentally, follows her and gets her alone. Coincidentally, Jane is carrying a second handgun. That's the big coincidence right there, the whole megillah. Without that final part of the coincidence, the assault might have been successful...which would have made it a different story altogether.

I'll get back to #3 later, but let's look at #4. The moral pretty much confirms the beliefs of the audience. "Rapists are evil and deserve to get shot." There are quite a few people that would be quite glad to affirm that statement in public.

From "The Simpsons":

Barlow: Mayor Quimby, you're well-known, sir, for your lenient stance on crime. But suppose for a second that your house was ransacked by thugs, your family tied up in the basement with socks in their mouths, you try to open the door but there's too much blood on the knob --
Quimby: What is your question?
Barlow: My question is about the budget, sir.

Anyway, subverting #4 could have made for a much more interesting chapter. Suppose Jane was able to talk her rapist out of it. Suppose she was actually able to subdue him somehow and turn him over for a trial. I think either one of those outcomes -- and looking at whatever consequences followed -- would have taken the tale in a much more interesting direction than standard post-apocalypse fare. Yes, I'm sure we can all enjoy the thrill of shooting rapists dead, dead, dead -- but don't we get enough of that standard fare in TV and movies, already? Let's see a different spin!

Now, our old man. There was one part of the story which was rather disturbing and not followed up in the comments.

Quoting:

"Excuse me, miss," he said. Jane turned around and her face turned red as the man reached her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Jane kept her voice steady. "Why wouldn't I be all right?" she asked back.

"I saw what happened out there. (Emphasis mine -- CG.) Are you all right?"

I love how nonchalant this is. "Oh, I just happened to be wandering about gathering my mushrooms and I happened to notice that you were having a bit of a problem with a sexual assault. I decided to wait until we both got back to the church. So...how you doing?"

There's about a thousand unanswered questions there. I can just hear Jane think. Gee asshole, thanks for the help out there. Of course, Mr. Exposition tells Jane that this guy is a horndog but -- get this -- out of concern for his family they've decided not to do a damn thing about it. Until, of course, Jane solved the problem for them. "Thanks for that assist, stranger." What is this, the Catholic Church? (*)

I don't even bring up the possibility that the Old Man might have had a prior arrangement with Mr. Malefactor.

"Hey, I'll rape this girl!"
"Cool! I'll watch!" Who says community spirit disappears in the post-apocalyptic world?

Anyway, bad chapter. No biscuit. I'm going to have to walk away from the post-apocalyptic world for a bit until I can get my bearing back.



Next time: Quinn and Daria play dress-up -- with no real consequences, obviously -- in Dennis's "Turnabout Confusion"!



(*) (Editor's note. CINCGREEN has been suitably chastised for that anti-Catholic remark. He is referring to several high-profile cases where the officials of the Catholic Church looked the other way in isolated instances of child abuse. In no way is he implying that either the clergy of the Catholic Church or its parishoners are sexually-repressed pedophiles. )

Slans

Finished reading: AD16

Speaking of apocalyptic literature, I've just finished reading a "apocalypse" story called World War Z by Max Brooks. The premise of the novel is a "Zombie Holocaust" -- Zombies overwhelm the world and humanity struggles against them. The book is written in the form of individual accounts. The fun part is that if you look carefully, you can see George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Paris Hilton, Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, Colin Powell, Howard Dean and others and find out how -- and if -- they survived "World War Z".

(* * *)

We're back in the proverbial saddle for about five more parts of "Apocalyptic Daria".

Daria and Jane prepare to leave the swinging bachelor bad and get on the road, with clean clothes (from a working washer and drier) and hit the road listening to the sounds of Ray Stevens and Weird Al Yankovich.

While on the road, the two find a pack of dogs eating some large animal. They don't know what it is, but first Jane and then Dari begin firing on the dogs. Some dogs are killed, and some are wounded, and Jane determines that the animal might be a horse or a cow. Daria wants to try to kill as many dogs as possible, but Jane convinces Daria to let it go.

The two drive to a refugee center at a Methodist church in a town called Carthage, looking for a doctor for Daria's wounds. They meet Dr. Kathy Wilson, who as it turns out is a fan of survivalist novels and happens to be stocked up with rabies vaccine. (Daria is concerned that she might have contracted rabies from the scratch.)

Unfortunately for Daria and Jane, Dr. Wilson insists that Daria take the full course of the rabies treatment, which is five shots over twenty-eight days. Daria and Jane resign themselves to remaining in Carthage over the course of the next month.

(* * *)

We've already categorized some of the sins of "Apocalyptic Daria" and I'll simply mark a tally and go on:

Lesbian fanservice: 1
Daria crying: 1
Needless exposition: 1

However, none of those sins are egregious enough to spoil the series for me. Besides, this segment of AD is a little bit of filler designed to move the plot forward and get the Dynamic Duo to the next stop on the Apocalypse Train. We'll take a look at Carthage next time when we review AD17.

"Ben Raines" is mentioned in this story -- he was also mentioned in one of the earlier comments threads -- and I looked into the writings of William W. Johnstone, the man who wrote a series called the "Ashes" series with the title of every book "X in/from/of the Ashes". Johnstone must have written two hundred books of various genres in the period slightly over twenty years, which makes me wonder how good any of those books could be. (I remember reading a few books of "The Executioner" series by Don Pendleton, a series which would partially inspire Marvel Comics to create "The Punisher", so I'm not immune to the charms of a well-crafted pulp.)

There are a couple of theories as to why apocalypseliterature is so mesmerizing, and neither of them are flattering. The first sort of comes from the "fans are slans" attitude of science fiction from the 1950s. A "Slan" was a sort of superbeing invented by science fiction author A. E. van Vogt, and fans of the time invented the slogan "fans aer slans" -- namely, that science fiction fans are, well, smarter and better than the "mundane" non-fans out there. The theory is that many of these apocalypse fans see themselves in the "smarter and better" group, namely, "when the world falls apart, I will survive, because I've seen 'A Boy and His Dog'."

The other theory comes from Kurt Vonnegut. In "Hocus Pocus", part of the plot deals with the escape of several black prison inmates into a college town. The racial element is important, because Vonnegut writes that the hunkered-down inhabitants of the rural college town finally had what they had secretly wanted -- to turn the entire area into a "free-fire zone" where killing the kinds of people you had never liked was legal and justified.

In the same sense, one could hypothesize that apocalyptic literature appeals to the same wish-fulfillment -- that now that society has collapse, I can get my boomstick and "the world will be cleansed", becoming a place where I can be James Bond 2007 with a "license to kill".

I suppose my big problem with apocalypse lit is that I never experience the sheer terror of what a post-apocalyptic setting would be like. Johnstone's hero in "Ashes" is a mercenary, f'r pete's sake, undoubtedly skilled with all kinds of firearms. I can load a gun and fire one, but I'd no sooner call myself a gunfighter than put on a cowboy hat and strap a six-shooter to my side.

The closest anyone ever got to describing post-apocalyptic terror was Stephen King in the first half of "The Stand" -- the half I could read before the religious/metaphysical part of the book kicks in and it becomes standard horror-book tripe. Max Brook's "World War Z" comes close to what King accomplished.

What did they do that other apocalypse writers fail to do? They convey the fact that you can do everything right and still die, that life in the post-apocalypse is grossly unfair, that the strongest men perish and the weakest somehow surive, and that without society, like is nasty, brutish and short and we are all playthings of chance.

Yenta

Finished reading: AD15

Still hard at work, looking over a spreadsheet with 10,000 lines it in that I have to fill with data. Most of this data is redundant, so that saves some of the work, but that makes it no less monotonous.

Which actually means work is a good time for blogging -- I can at least gain respite from this part of the drudgework through some creative activity. Now, I just need to stop feeling so creaky....

(* * *)

Daria and Jane plan to leave their pleasant encampment and head back on the road -- stocking up on supplies. Daria asks the important question of what if they are stopped as looters. Jane answers that as long as they don't have a ridiculous or suspicious amount of supplies -- say, six television sets -- everything should be okay.

Upon leaving the garage, the two find fresh animal stool. They quickly learn what kind of stool it is...dog stool, as Daria is set upon by a pack of wild dogs. Daria manages to shoot one of them; Jane the rest.

However, Daria doesn't emerge unscathed. There is a scratch on her back about three inches long. It doesn't need sutures, but Daria needs to be cleaned up at the minimum. Jane washes Daria's back and puts alcohol over the open area. We leave with Jane planning to get Daria some replacement clothes.

(* * *)

Statistics:

Uncomfortable lesbian references by Jane: 1
Gratuituous skin: a lot

Oddly enough, Jane has reverted into one of her older incarnations -- "Yenta Jane". Yenta Jane was a creature found in early fan fiction who was committed to and obsessed with Daria hooking up with Trent. Instead of Jane implying that she and Daria should be rolling in the sack, she has now taken up the cudgel of making Daria/Trent jokes. After all the Jane/lesbian commentary, it's a welcome change...although, unfortunately, no less annoying.

As for the dog attack, two comments:

1) Yes, it will happen when the apocalypse comes -- bands of feral dogs, from that group of people who failed to control the pet population and have their dogs spayed or neutered. With dogs either abandoned or their owners dead, dogs will team up as dogs do and get into a lot of trouble. Dogs, like many pack animals, prefer to attack targets larger than they are. It means that the fallen target provides enough beef to feed the pack. (Whereas a mouse will only feed one housecat.)

However, the life of a dog in the wild is nasty, brutish, and short. Dogs survive from a lot of loving care from humans; without humans in the population the life of a feral dogs is about one to two years. Dogs will plague stragglers for about one to two years and then their numbers will dwindle to that of existing feral dogs, a rare sight these days.

2) How come the dogs only attacked Daria? Heh. Maybe no one likes Daria, not even dogs. If the dogs had attacked both Daria and Jane, this would have been the final chapter of "Apocalyptic Daria". The only assumption we can make is that Jane is some distance away from Daria; the story does not make this clear.

Other than that, it's a "Daria gets attacked by dogs" tale. Not much going on here as the author prepares for AD16.

(* * *)

Tomorrow: We take a week-long break from "Apocalyptic Daria" and read another on-going fan fiction tale instead...the amazing tale of Quinngali! See you there!

In Dreams

Finished reading: AD14

Work remains busy. There's really not much more to say about that. However, I'm beginning a new baseball story on another messageboard, a story which is taking up much of my present-moment thinking and has required a bit of research into baseball, 1983 style. I'll read the next two segments of "Apocalyptic Daria", and then I'll take a break for about a week for something new before I return to this tale.

(* * *)

Now, back to Daria and Jane on the lam.

The story starts with Daria and Jane trying to get some sleep, sharing a bed. (More on this later.) Jane wakes up and has some pizza, while Daria is dreaming that she is walking through a school gym converted to a hospital.

In Daria's dream, she sees people she knows either dead or suffering from radiation sickness. One moment her parents are in their normal work clothes, then she turns back towards them and they are either suffering from radiation sickness or are dead. Finally, Daria discovers Jane -- and herself -- as dead bodies punctured with bullet holes.

Daria screams and wakes up. Jane comes to confort her. They both share the fact that they miss their loved ones, and they thank each other for keeping each other alive.

(* * *)

Despite the compliments, I really didn't think AD14 was that great for a number of reasons:

First, a very minor complaint. Jane's banter with Daria -- these lesbian jokes -- were first amusing -- then intriguing -- and then started to get annoying with AD14. If I were Daria, I would really be starting to wonder about Jane's sexuality. "Jane, you're starting to creep me out here. You really need to find another theme, or seriously...you need to come out of the closet, because I can't tell if you're joking anymore, because you talk about this ALL the time."

The second complaint is the major one. It's hard to put one's foot down and say "this is the major problem", but I've seen it elsewhere and in AD14, we see it yet again. We see it in the dream sequence, and in Daria's reactions to it.

There's the old maxim of showing, not telling that most writers know. One doesn't simply tell the reader "Daria felt this way and Jane felt this way and Quinn felt this different way", but instead gives examples of how Daria and Jane and Quinn are reacting.

However, one can take this rule to the opposite extreme, the extreme where the author shows absolutely everything. In the omnipotent third person, this can be a bit dangerous. We not only get a physical accounting of events (this person went here, this person went there, that person did this, etc.) but also an emotional recounting of events (this person cried, this person raised their voices, this person was sullen). It reads as if a checklist is being checked off.

Sometimes, you have to decide to not show. Or better, to hint. The problem with showing and telling everything is that there's nothing left for the reader to do. Back before the year 2000, when Daria fandom fought on the ancient battleground of "is prose form or script form better?" one of the complaints about prose form was that it told everything. With the scripted form -- and no access into the characters' thoughts -- writers had to be much more subtle about conveying emotion.

The characters don't seem to have any subtlety or secrets. Rather, they just pour their emotions out. Seeing Daria, the calm one, act this way is particulary disturbing and probably not in the way the author intended. I suspect that if Daria ever truly got emotional, it would be a loud screaming jag the equivalent of a nervous breakdown, the result of emotions held back for so long finally leaking out. So much more could have been done with Daria not screaming, just waking up and saying, "can't sleep", the haunted look in her expression telling Jane everything she needed to know.

It was also a bad choice to put the dream in italics. This was a message to the reader: "what is happening is outside the scripted reality and is therefore not to be taken seriously". It might have been a homage to the M*A*S*H episode "Dreams". When I saw "Dreams" in its original airing, I didn't care much for it. The only parts of "Dreams" that worked were the parts that were truly surreal and there is nothing surreal in this dream; it's your standard near-linear post-apocalytic dream (if such dreams could be considered "standard").

The best prose writers have problems with such passages. It's a difficult thing to execute, and I was just waiting until Daria woke up because I knew nothing I was reading was "real". Yes, it's a lot to demand of fan fiction but it could have been handled better.

I'm probably the only person that didn't have praise for AD14, upon looking at the comments threads. It makes me wonder how useful message boards are and brings me back to the idea of fan fiction criticism. Fan fiction should probably not receive the same scathing treatment that a regular fiction writer might receive -- most of these writers write for pleasure or to improve their craft -- but where does one find a happy medium? Before you begin to suggest improvement, you have to point out where a work fails, and the only way that can be made painless is in dreams.

Constant Craving

Finished reading: AD13

Ah, the joys of working for a living. When I get home, I don't have much time to write, but this weekend will be the first in a long time where either:

a) Ruth and I aren't scheduled to visit family, and
b) Ruth and I don't expect visitors.

Our first weekend with no social obligations in a long time. Which gives me the chance to hide at Fortress CINCGREEN and work on the final of my incomplete fanfics. Then I can say, "all of my obligations are complete" and maybe, think about something new.

(* * *)

We dive into "Apocalyptic Daria 13". Daria and Jane have returned to tenative safety on the open road. With a rain storm falling -- and with Daria and Jane concluding that the raindrops might be radioactive -- they seek shelter for their car.

Finding a farmhouse with all the doors opened (looted? -- we don't know), they bring the car into the barn. However, they find out that the barn is more of a remodeled garage. The barn not only boasts a concrete floor and a working bathroom, but there is also a "man-room" hidden inside with entertainment center, Playboy posters, DVDs and booze.

As the two decide to spend the night, Jane shares a story with Daria. When she was a little girl, she was at a commune and one of the older hippies took some of the residents of the commune into the woods to explore. They ran into a bunch of guys who had abducted a girl. The men were drunk and making plans, until the hippie pulled out a combat rifle and began firing in their direction.

He would teach Jane how to shoot guns -- which would explain Jane's mad l33t skills and cool determination under fire.

(* * *)

This part of "Apocalyptic Daria" doesn't go anywhere. We get to watch the joy of Daria and Jane having a place to rest, but the plot doesn't move forward in any way, except to provide an explanation of why Jane is such a straight-shooter.

And speaking of "straight shooting", one of the commenters noted that Jane no longer teases Daria about a romance with Trent, but instead discomforts Daria by pretending to come on to her. If it's pretending. Most likely, Doggieboy didn't intend for there to be any lesbian subtext -- Jane's joshing is theoretically good clean fun -- but Jane's been going on about it for quite some time and in just about every chapter.

As they say in some quarters, "it's a hook to hang your hat on." Makes me wonder if Jane's original plans for that initial road trip were about more than picking up Cheetos....

Car Wars

Finished reading: AD12

Ah yes. Didn't write anything yesterday because I didn't have much time. Most of the time was spent cleaning the house in preparation for a three-hour RPG (role playing game) session. Having the session at my house provides some brief socialization and keeps me from being a complete hermit.

One of the other RPGers wrote me by e-mail and asked if I'd care to do extra RPGing. Once every two weeks is enough for me, but at least I'm interested. As it turns out, he runs a game over Internet phone. Something not quite like skype, but close to it, one of those phone systems that World of Warcraft players use. He also sent me a long .pdf file detailing his campaign universe. It's actually pretty well done. I'm not committing to anything, but he shouldn't be surprised if I appropriate his ideas, and shamelessly.

(* * *)

Now: On to "Apocalyptic Daria 12". I don't know if I'll be reviewing all forty-some segments of Apocalyptic Daria. What I like about Apocalyptic Daria is that the stories provide ample platforms for discussion. However, after reading AD15 I plan on reviewing a four-or-five part work in progress now at the PPMB.

Daria and Jane have left Linda Griffin and the shelter behind to set out to find some trace of their families. As they depart, they discover that Linda has added a gift beyond the supply of ready-to-eat surplus civil defense meals -- a geiger counter.

As they leave Frostburg, the two get instructions from one of the soldiers to go through Cumberland and avoid certain roads along the way. They reach cumberland, but find that not only is traffic at a near-standstill, but that the roads are flooded with refugees. Some of the refugees look at the girls and the SUV with unpleasant interest, but Jane has her gun for show and the refugees keep on moving when they see it.

The trip has further unpleasant incidents. One exit is blocked with a sign claiming that "GOD WILL PROVIDE FOR US". The two are forced to head back into West Virginia, but find the interstate blocked by a collision. As a result, the two are forced to take a county road.

Houses begin to disappear and the forest becomes more all-encompassing. What few houses they see don't look friendly. Daria is forced to drive slowly, but comes to the remnants of a bridge. They can not drive further.

Just as the two conclude that the bridge was destroyed (and wasn't destroyed by flash flooding), several armed men and women leave their hiding places in the forest and approach the SUV.

Daria is forced to peel out in reverse. Jane notes that one woman in the group points her assault rifle at the SUV, and Jane is forced to shoot her in the chest. Daria and Jane are headed back to the road, towards an uncertain destination.

(* * *)

There are two matters I'll touch upon, and get back to work.

The first is the "Linda Griffin" option, and Daria and Jane are tempted by it. Think about it. Even though Lawndale hasn't been hit, the prospects that Lawndale's citizens weren't adversely affected are slim. There's also a better-than-even chance that Daria's sister Quinn didn't survive The Uh-Oh.

They've fended off both a rape attempt and a home invasion. They've had to drive and drive and drive with not a friendly face in sight. And frankly, I think anyone in Daria and Jane's situation -- myself included -- would be tempted to give up and put down roots elsewhere. Because what would your loved ones think of you from beyond the grave if you got yourself killed trying to find them?

However, Jane has never been one to accept limits on her freedom. Even though she could settle in Frostburg with Linda Griffin, she knows that sooner or later, they'd clash. And Lanes don't believe in sticking out crappy situations. They just move on, and Jane is going to move on no matter what the consequences until she finds peace.

The second matter is "the car as mobile fort". I have no idea as to how much protection a car can provide against bullets -- but I don't think it can be much. A good, high-caliber round should be able to pierce a car door.

Furthermore, the tires of a car are particularly vulnerable. My only conclusion is that Daria's and Jane's assailants at the bridge hoped that Daria and Jane would recognize that they were outgunned, and would abandon the SUV. That's a pretty crappy plan when it comes to two girls who want to find their families more than anything else and I'm surprised these hillbillies didn't have a plan "B".

If Daria and Jane were to lose their tires, they wouldn't get far. I doubt there are tire repair shops. A spare tire is probably worth thousands of dollars right now. I'm not dumping on Doggieboy's story; I'm just thankful he didn't resort to the trope where the back window gets shot out but the rest of the vehicle remains suspicously pristine.

God Save the King

Finished reading: AD11

Well, I finally managed to get "Reclamation" out to the boards. And to Scissors MacGillicutty, wherever he happens to be riding the night, who drew the work of fan art to accompany it? It's always great to receive fan art for a work, even if that work is "Girls' Night Out". Thank the artist for me.

I now only have one more work of fan fiction to finish, the work "Same Drum, New Tune". (Switch the nouns, and it describes all of fan fiction.) This work won't need any beta-readers. I feel that I need to remain within the bounds of how I started the stories. "Reclamation" started with beta-readers and ended with beta-readers, "Same Drum" started with me pulling it out of my holly, jolly butt and it will end in the same manner.

As for myself, nothing going on here. Tomorrow, I participate in a role-playing session, one that involves dice and paper and not large amounts of kink. I will become "The Colonel", a jolly Foghorn-Leghornesque Son of the South complete with string tie and dueling pistols. Why at my house? Because it keeps me from having to travel anywhere.

(* * *)

We finally make it to "Apocalyptic Daria 11" and the story is one-quarter on the way to being done.

Linda gives Daria and Jane more information about the Nuclear Holocaust (it should be given a name, like "The Uh-Oh", in honor of presidential canddiate Ralph Wiggum). "The Uh-Oh" took out several mid-sized American cities as well as New York and Washington.

Linda talks about her current life. She's decided to make the best of things she can, moving in with a man ten years her junior. She states that if Tom Griffin is found alive, she will return to him and her current boyfriend understands that. "I don't know him well enough to love him," she says, but "I can grow to love him." (That, and Linda is terrified of being killed or raped if she ventures outside of Frostburg.)

Jane gets her wound looked after by a doctor, and Daria is looked after by a man who manages to ignore the firearm she's carrying. Daria and Sam discuss the pernicious half-live of radioactive elements -- cities directly hit will not be habitable for thousands of years. Daria has an advantage -- it appears that Highland was near a uranium source, and she has studied up on the pernicious effects of radioactivity (Beavis and Butt-head undoubtedly provided ample reason to study).

As Daria and Jane prepare to journey further, they have a tender moment with Linda. She's grown to care about them, and wishes them well.

(* * *)

A few comments: Linda's acclimation to her present circumstances was interesting. Some people are simply natural adapters. With American society on the ropes and her family possibly dead, Linda has reluctantly moved on. What kind of life she'll have in Frostburg is uncertain, but it will be a life. Across the country, thousands of people trapped in unfamiliar places with no way to get back home are making similar decisions.

Daria's knowledge of radiation -- and how to survive it -- finally comes from a plausible source. Her line about "uranium in the drinking water" to explain Highland (and its prized mutant dumbass) has given her some basic information about half-lives and isotopes. Undoubtedly, she has read a few things from civil Defense about "What to do after 'The Uh-Oh'" and she has learned her lessons well. (I wonder if the author gave a back-explanation after some complaints.)

A sidebar. There was a book called "Warday" -- here is the Wikipedia link . I don't have a copy of the book that I read twenty years ago, but the authors left some powerful impressions.

The first being that the economy would be virtually wrecked. The authors contention when the book was written in 1984 that it would only take two nuclear bombs to destroy the United States -- one dropped on New York and the other on Washington. Washington would take out the government and New York would take out the financial command center of the American economy, and the electromagnetic pulses would wreak havoc on computers. Of course, America might be more resilient in 2007 than it was in 1984; I have no such optimism.

The second impression was that the United States would instantly stop being the most powerful country in the world. Other first world powers that were not hit would step into the vacuum. I remember reading a passage regarding "British Relief", a relief organization that helps the United States by providing food, supplies -- and military assistance from an untouched Britain. (In some communities, the British Army keeps scavengers and do-badders away.) There is a scene where the Duke of York -- Prince Andrew -- comes to visit an American city after "The Uh-Oh". He gets a cheering reception, with the streets lined with British flags -- the impression that the local people have pretty much given up on the US government and if they had the chance, they'd raise a pint and pledge allegiance to Old Blighty in a fortnight.

Who knows? Maybe Daria and Jane will run into the British constabulary on their way? Or, failing that, the Chinese People's Army. I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords.

96 Tears

Finished reading: AD10

Currently, I'm at work, having prepared for a hard day's labor, only to find that the labor is stalled. I require a database that exists only on my boss's computer -- and he hasn't thought to send it to me. However, this is the time of day he is usually ready to talk to me; I can hopefully await a phonecall or follow-up e-mail. Until then, I'm at wit's end.

I had hoped to work on "Reclamation" with this unexpected bounty of semi-free time: I am on my employer's clock, you know. However, even though all of the beta reads have now been returned, I mailed myself a copy of "Reclamation" without the mark-up comments I needed. The second draft will have to wait until I return home.

(* * *)

Now, back to "Apocalyptic Daria".

When we last left the Culhane family (obscure joke), Daria and Jane were on their way out of the Cord residence and to somewhere closer to home. Their SUV is loaded up for bear and they have a load of supplies and barterables.

However, one thing they don't have is feminine hygiene products, and I'm sure that is one of their highest priorities. They find a store that's open but the manager has no intention of selling. With some gold coinage -- which just happened to be coincidentally at the Cord residence -- they manage to barter for their needs.

While inside, Daria engages in some bartering of her own with the young teenaged son of the store manager. For a gold coin, she obtains some boxes of pizza mix of the kind currently made by the late Chef Boyardee. Daria rewards the young man with a "quick kiss".

(It was interested to see some discussion in the comments thread as to whether Daria would do such a thing. Doggieboy thought about it, then kept it in for the final edit. Very admirable. "You might have a different opinion; I'll take the risk and keep what I have.")

Daria and Jane make it to the refugee center in Frostburg. The town is under martial law (but no one's been drafted yet) and the two stand in line for rations.

At the head of the line, they meet someone unexpected. Linda Griffin, Sandi's mother. It appears that Linda was traveling to Frostburg on work-related matters and when one of the nukes went off, the driver of her van was blinded and the van full of television executives plowed into a post. Linda was the only survivor. Rescued by firemen, Linda was brought to the refugee center where she found employment.

When Linda last heard from her family, her husband Tom was driving Sam and Chris to the Mall of the Millenium. Accompanying them were the entire Fashion Club -- including Quinn. As the Mall of the Millenium was between Baltimore and Washington, it is unknown how far Tom Griffin got, or if Quinn was killed with the others in the firestorm of the Washington bomb, or if they got out...or what happened.

Linda bemoans that her last words to her husband were hardly complementary. Daria remembers that her final comment to Quinn before accompanying Jane on the road trip was an insult, and Daria cries too.

(* * *)

All in all, not a bad section. For the first time since Larry Carter's death, Doggieboy has actually left questions unanswered. Fanfiction authors are obsessed in answering every question; Doggieboy rightfully leaves those questions for the reader.

However, Daria's crying is a bit disturbing. Not that Daria would not be disturbed over the fact that Quinn is dead. Even if these are good-old-fashioned honest tears of regret and shame, this moment allows me to springboard to the whole "Daria cried" subgenre of fanfiction.

My impression of Daria is that she's very uncomfortable with any displays of emotion. Her affect is generally flat. She doesn't like being embraced. She never went on dates until Tom, and found the very concept ludicrous. I don't think that Daria cried at any time during the five-year run. Hell, Daria's embrace of Jane in "Boxing Daria" was a very rare display of emotion from Daria, one so rare that it apparently made Jane uncomfortable.

I just don't see Daria as a crier. Before objections are raised, I am not saying that Daria can't feel great sadness or remorse; rather, I'm saying that she simply isn't very expressive. My personal feeling -- and one I feel is backed by the "canon" -- is that Daria sublimates her emotions or bottles them up. Her flat affect is her chosen way of dealing with the world and I assume that the flatness varies slightly, in the way that techtonic plates shift, depending on the circumstances.

In a lot of fanfiction -- particularly with jak's Daria/911 story -- it seems that the way to "prove" that an event is traumatic enough, that an event is the worst event ever and ever, is to have Daria cry about it. (I suspect that part of that is because of the unexpressed maxim of society that females are "supposed" to cry when they express strong emotion and that crying is an "appropriate" way for a female to behave. My response would be that females have a freedom in expressing emotion that males should take advantage of, rather than males acting as stoic wooden Indians.)

It might be a convenient shorthand, but it's a poor shortcut. It's very hard to draw tears from the printed page. Reading is a second-hand activity -- we are reading about someone else's experiences and experiencing emotion vicariously -- and it isn't just the fact that fanfiction writers are not good at making the reader so sad that they understand why Daria would cry, because *anyone* would cry. Rather, it's the fact that very few writers of any stripe, even the best of them, can move the reader with mere prose. You have to have the sensibility of a poet to write scenes like that. I find such scenes almost impossible to write, and almost impossible to read.

Let's save Daria's tears in the future. Let our little cynic be stoical, because it highlights how much she doesn't fit in with all of those around her. And besides, there's a drought on, and tears are a waste. And sometimes, grief is too deep to be expressed by mere tears.

(* * *)

Up next: A break from Apocalyptic Daria. I'm going to read a story from one of my beta-readers as payback (sorry, Scissors, it's not you) for services rendered. Take care.

Radio Free Europe

Finished reading: AD9

Agh. I don't want to do a blog entry this morning. It's not that I went out and got drunk during the first minutes of 2008, but I just didn't sleep well.

"Reclamation" is 2/3s beta-read. There's one more person out there who hasn't turned in the beta read, and if I don't get something by this evening, I'll send a mail and give a gentle tug.

(* * *)

Ah, now on to Apocalyptic Daria, Part 9. The plot moves forward -- a bit -- in AD9 as Daria and Jane are interrupted by the radio firing back to life -- apparently, the former owner, The Dirty Little Coward Who Shot Mister Howard, had the radio on but there was nothing broadcasting until a pirate radio station flares to life and interrupts Daria and Jane.

We have a 97.1 in Atlanta: This is some of the stuff that it has played in the last hour according to the web site of 97.1, "The River"

"Hold the Line" by Toto
"Baby I Love Your Way" by Peter Frampton
"Jungle Love" by Steve Miller
"Summer of '69" by Brian Adams
"Feel Like Makin' Love' by Bad Company
"Lights" by Journey

Almost makes you wish for some nukes to fall, doesn't it?

Anyway, the two wait for Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" to stop playing to hear the tones of "Dr. Neon" ring through the house. Dr. Neon is a radio pirate who has multiple transmitters and has temporarily occupied the 97.1 FM band. Washington D. C, Philadelphia, Norfolk and several other cities are history, and the good Doctor is providing some needed exposition.

(I kid Doggieboy on this. Most writers -- particularly, television and movie writers -- have the character tune in the radio/flip on the TV just as the important news is breaking. Daria and Jane will be forced to wait for "Kashmir" to stop playing, a kick-ass song by Led Zeppelin that makes me like Dr. Neon already.)

With the "FCC Nazis" on his tail, Dr. Neon is forced to break off his broadcast.

A nitpick is that Daria goes into expository mode herself when Dr. Neon is not on the air. Daria seems to know a lot about post-apocalyptic survival. Exposition is good, but a writer should show and not tell. It might have been more interesting -- and illuminating -- for Daria and Jane to show up at a hospital with Jane's wound, only to find the place with lines all the way around the block -- if they could find a hospital.

Also, Jane is starting to make distinctions between .22 caliber weapons -- for example, the Rossi .22. Instead of Jane saying "that .30-06 and the Rossi .22", it might have been better to have her say, "the rifle and that new handgun". The distinction wouldn't be important unless you had more than one .22 handgun. If there's a problem with differentiating the .357 from the .22, just write "the .22".

However, Doggieboy addresses something I was worried about in AD8: the three dead bodies in the yard. Most likely, snowfall has covered the bodies but they still have to be buried. Daria and Jane managed to provide burials for all four dead bodies -- the one of the original owner and the three intruders. The original owner gets a perfunctory eulogy; as for the three bad guys, it's "see you in hell."

(* * *)

You know, one might wonder whether or not the FCC might spend the effort to chase down Dr. Neon. Apparently, with the United States in chaos, FCC agents have nothing better to do than to spend valuable gasoline chasing down some radio prankster.

Unfortunately, that might indeed be high-priority for the FCC. Post-war, communications will be important. It appears that terrestrial radio has stopped broadcasting, with Daria and Jane unable to find any other operating stations. Perhaps the radio bands have been cleared for emergency announcements and instructions. You don't need the sounds of Led Zeppelin mucking up the instructions to where you're to find clean water.

There's another matter remaining unaddressed: the war. After all, when the nukes fall, it's probably a sign that some other country doesn't like you a lot (either that, or they're an irresponsible menace). I remember when I was -- briefly -- a DJ that I was allowed to listen to a special audiotape, by the Governor, instructing all listeners to report to the local National Guard Armory for further instructions regarding military service.

In short, Daria and Jane's biggest problem might not be rapists. It might be the draft board. Hey, two young girls, probably over sixteen, and they seem to be good with a gun. Stay tuned for the sequel to Apocalyptic Daria called "Buck Privates"!

I Prefer the Reid's "My Friend" Knuckle-Duster Myself

Finished reading: AD8

We have now come to the end of 2007 and are at the precipice of 2008. Very strange that the show celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and that the character celebrated her 14th -- remember, she was initially a character on "Beavis and Butt-Head" which debuted in 1993.

Therefore, it's time for some brief New Year's Resolutions:

1. To not say a damned thing about the United States 2008 presidential elections.
2. To stay off the message boards as much as possible.
3. Lose some weight, dammit.
4. Continue to reduce debt. I just keep telling myself, "Canada, July 2012."
5. Pass my professional exams.
6. Continue to read fanfiction, good and bad.
7. Writing about something other than "Daria" for God's sake.
8. Seek out new experiences -- and possibly, new life and new civilizations.
9. Try to avoid seeing movies that have a number at the end.
10. Go Braves.

(* * *)

Unfortunately, for those looking for powerful, trenchant commentary ("CINCGREEN, why start now?"), you won't find it today. It appears that AD8 is simply a wrapping up of threads and a post-mortem.

There's not much to say about AD8 -- which could have frankly been skipped as the plot isn't moved forward. I only have three comments on AD8.

1. I found it rather interesting that the shooting of two people hasn't bothered Daria much, but her near-rape continues to affect her. I wonder if Doggieboy tossed a bone to those complaining about Daria's lack of self-reflection; in any case I enjoyed the fact that some things bothered Daria but not others.

2. How does Jane even know that a rifle is a .30-06? By sight? By trying to match the shell casings? What I'm hoping is that there's a big book somewhere in Robert Ford's office (I know that's not his name, but I like singing "that dirty little coward/who shot Mr. Howard/has laid poor Jesse in his grave") that provides some guidance to Daria and Jane. When you pick up a weapon that you've never fired, loading it can be cryptic, until you figure out where the secret latches/levers/whatever are. Then it's rather simple. Look at all the low IQ "gun nuts" who can shoot. If they can, you can too.

(BTW: Does anyone out there really hate parts of fanfic where they begin to explain the minutiae and obscuria of the latest weapons/jimcrack? It really slows the story to a dead crawl. "No, I don't give a damn that the weapon was manufactured in Bulgaria. Get to the story!")

3. Okay. You have three dead bodies in the yard. It's true that they might not deserve a burial, but you'd better get them out of there before the feral wolves come -- or someone comes along and decides to fight it out with Daria and Jane. After all, the house might have a lot of goodies in it if three guys died trying to get in!

Showdown at the Dumbass Corral

Finished reading: AD7

(Editor's note: I probably won't be needing any more beta readers. I have three, and one has already returned the MS. However, if came to visit for that purpose, I appreciate your help. Maybe next time. -- JB)

It's taken a little while for me to get to my computer, but I can proudly say that the computer has been reassembled at Fortress CINCGREEN and I am retyping from the comfortable basement.

My sister-in-law did yeoman's work in getting the place in tip-top shape. Among her various home improvement items were:

1) repainting the walls in forest gold and brown. My sister and law calls these colors "Reese's colors".
2) constructing a whiteboard for me and hanging it on the wall.
3) repainting this old 1950s-era desk, including drilling some holes in the side. The wood is 1/4 inch thick, and it was a chore to work with
4) cleaning out the old desk to make it possible for me to find a place to set the hard drive.
5) constructing a bookshelf (Target brand put-it-together)
6) putting molding along various doors, and
7) hanging a device that will store an ironing-board -- my office must double as the washer-dryer nook

In addition, Ruth and I have also

1) purchased a flat-screen monitor to replace the old "TV set" monitor, and
2) purchased a hacksaw.

The reason being that the old desk apparently had some sort of function wherein a typing table was concealed on the left side. You swung open the facade on the left side of the desk, and lifted the typing table out.

The problem was that the typing table stopped working long ago, and all that was within was the skeletal remains. As long as that old machinery was inside, putting a hard drive nook would have been impossible. Three metal bars -- two 1/4 inch diameter, one 1/2 inch diameter -- traversed the space and with the bars in place, the assembly was impossible to get out.

I was able to hack through the two 1/4 inch bars and bend the mechanism so that the assembly could come out, thanking goodness that I didn't have to hack through that final 1/2 inch of 40-year old metal. Everything is copacetic, Ruth and I have cleaned the floor, and the place probably looks better than it has in years.

(* * *)

Now, on to AD7. Hoo-boy. This section of "Apocalyptic Daria" I'm going to have to give a "thumbs-down" to. (More on the perils of serial-writing later.)

The story leaves off from AD6. When we last left Daria and Jane, they were blissfully unaware that three enemies of the former owner of the house were heading for a Straw Dogs type showdown.

Such an inept groups of assailants couldn't be imagined outside of a "Daria Triumphant" fic. Only one of these guys have managed to bring a firearm. The other, God help us, has actually brought an ax. The third has brought...nothing, save his fists. (Perhaps he's a descendant of the Boxers of the Opium wars.) One of them -- it's not worth while remembering who -- hopes that if the old man is not there, his daughter is. (So you're guaranteed to hate him already.)

I won't detail the showdown. Jane has a 10-gauge shotgun that she's found. Daria is carrying a concealed .357 Magnum -- forgive me if I get the numerical designations wrong. Jane manages to kill the only armed one of the group, I believe, with the 10-gauge -- but not before Jane takes a bullet in the arm. The other two, believing that Jane is now helpless (we're assuming that this breach-loading shotgun is not double-barreled), move in for the kill.

Unwise move. Daria manages to kill both of them with the .357 magnum. I'm surprised the extras were even given names. (Bill, John, and Harry for those keeping score.)

There follows a long scene with Daria and Jane trying to heal Jane's wound. With nothing sterile, Daria is forced to do the best she can with needle and thread. They manage to get the bleeding under control, and Daria allows Jane to sleep.

(* * *)

Immediately after the story was posted, the commentary broke down into two oppositely opposed camps, raising their voices at each other at least until AD8.

Camp A believed that Daria and Jane should be a bit distressed at the fact that they have killed three human beings -- rotten examples of human beings, but humans nonetheless. Camp B, on the other hand, believed that the survival instinct should trump and that Daria and Jane should have gone Clint Eastwood on them and not given the incident a second thought. (I'll assume that Doggieboy is in Camp B.) Both camps...are wrong. To claim that "all characters should respond like X" is a bit foolish, given the spectrum of human reactions.

Soldiers of all types, ages, and countries have been interviewed regarding their emotional experiences after killing people. There were many soldiers who said, "well, killing never bothered me, actually", and most of these "mass murderers" (after all, they did shoot dozens of people) went on to successful lives as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers without a shred of remorse, with no nightmares and no psychopathy. To these people, killing was simply a task much like any other.

On the other hand, psychological trauma has appeared to increase over the years from veterans. One interesting theory is that with the movement away from mass warfare, it is much harder to get away with deliberately missing. If you were truly terrified, or gripped with anxiety at the thought of taking life, you could fire your World War I Springfield in the general direction of the enemy without actually worrying about hitting anybody. In the chaos, it wouldn't be noticed. (Estimates were that only one out of ten soldiers in that era was actually trying to hit anyone.) However, with "fourth-generation warfare" -- small unit combat where you can actually see your enemy before you kill him -- you can't escape the necessity of taking life.

My conclusion? "One from Column A and one from Column B" -- with the caveat that personality tells you nothing about who will be an efficient killer and who will not. Drill Instructors can tell you dozens of stories about the tough guys who broke down during Basic Training, and they were the guys everyone thought would pass with ease. Then there were the soldiers with pencil-thin legs who wore glasses who calmly and resolutely stuck it out and made more-than-capable soldiers, men whom no one would bet on.

Daria and Jane's personalities will tell us nothing about how they react to trauma. For all we know, if you put a jammy in Mr. O'Neill's hands, he might be the most efficient killer of them all!

That wasn't the part I objected to, feeling that the commentators missed the point. My complaints are of two varieties:

a) the setup. I can't imagine where you could come up with more inept opposition. When I discovered how they were armed, they might as well have been wearing giant tags that read, "I will be dead soon." This is the time during the movie where you get up and get some popcorn while everyone else watches the killing.

Furthermore, Daria letting Jane rest and the "all is well" atmosphere at the end is difficult to understand. Once you shoot down three guys at your doorstep -- even a borrowed doorstep -- does it ever occur to you that someone might wander where they've gone? Maybe they have families too, like the rapist encountered in an earlier part of the story. Maybe they have dangerous...armed...smarter brethren who might be looking for their missing cuzzins.

Another complaint deals with gun mechanics. As it turns out, Daria fandom is blessed (?) with a herd of gun enthusiasts who can recommend what kind of ordinance Daria and Jane should be carrying down to the grains of the shells. Myself, I never wanted to become Tom Clancy and resigned myself to learning "just enough" to make a story involving guns remotely plausible...sometimes, with no success.

However, I have actually *fired* both of the weapons in question. I have fired a breech-loading shotgun as well as an automatic shotgun, small-caliber rifles and large caliber handguns. My father was a gun enthusiast and he wanted me to take up his enthusiasms -- I wouldn't have minded save for my mother, who was terrified with guns and I just opted out, not needing to be in a tug of war between the two.

The first thing that you'll note about shotguns and handguns is how loud they are. If you're not wearing ear protection, it's almost like a small firecracker going off next to your ear. (I hated shotguns precisely for that reason, prefering to stick to small-caliber rifles.)

Guns make noise that will have your ears ringing if you're not aware of what's coming. (I have no hints by the author that Daria and Jane have fired any sort of firearm.) I'm surprised Jane didn't hear from one of the malcreants. "You just shot our buddy and now (high pitched death of ear cells causing a whine in Jane's ears)"

The second part is that if you're not familiar with guns, they can be puzzling. "What do you do to open the breach?" "Where's the safety?" "How hard do you have to pull the trigger?" "How do you reload the chambers in a non-automatic handgun?" This isn't the kind of stuff you want to learn ad-hoc, although since Daria and Jane are smart kids, they might have doped it out on their own.

Finally, one matter has been forgotten -- recoil. Firearms are loud devices that tend to *kick*. Jane's shot knocked the assailant right to the ground -- a 10 gauge can be pretty powerful close up. However, Jane might have found the barrel rising, under its own power, into the air with the recoil. Recoil can sneak up even on experienced shooters. There are five-foot, one-hundred pound women who can handle the larger types of shotguns quite well, but even experienced marksmen can have trouble with the kick.

And Jane is no experienced marksman, and neither is Daria.

(* * *)

So do the criticisms above carry weight? Perhaps, they don't. There are always people out there that are going to nitpick over minutiae. I thought the unfamiliarity with firearms should have been a burden to the protagonists. Other people might claim, "The Belgian 10-Gauge Frammistat Shotgun is not a breech-loader, but an automatic, you clod." (In any role playing game, you always get one of those.)

Was the above enough to spoil my enjoyment of AD7? Neither was singularly, but combined with the ignorant protagonists it was enough to give this chapter of "Apocalyptic Daria" a failing grade.

And now, the important question: was AD7 so bad that it derailed your will to read the series? The answer is "no, it was not."

There's always a danger with writing serials -- every chapter is a chance for someone to climb off the bandwagon. People will find egregious fault with Chapter 1, or Chapter 2, or Chapter 22, or so on. A serial can never build readership, only lose it. It seems that enough people liked the story to read forty-two chapters of it; the first six chapters should make up for the bad seventh. In short, expect me to be here to read AD8 and comment on it.

(Note: Work might get a little more hectic at work, and further reviews might be less frequent. Can't be helped.)

Into the Woods with Gun and Camera

Finished reading: AD6

All right. I can happily say that due to the fact that absolutely nothing was going on at work yesterday, that I have finally finished "Reclamation, Part III".

However, there are two more things that need to be done before the public can see it (and point, mockingly). The first thing is that I have to re-read it and make corrections. I've always found this part of "fic writing" the very hardest part of all.

Hard parts of fic writing, in order

1. Rereading the first draft.
2. Waiting for the first draft to come back.
3. Preparing the final copy from the first draft.
4. Writing the first draft.

Notice that "writing the first draft" is fourth on the list, the very bottom. Anyone can write a first draft and just throw it up on the Internet. Which is why I've often called fan fiction "an amusing collection of first drafts". To become a polished writer, one has to revise and revise and revise and I've always found this revision painful.

I already know the first draft is weak. Parts of the dialogue are clunky. Parts of the plot are propelled by coincidences. Sometimes, you just don't have any idea as to how you're going to fix those parts. So you do the best you can -- put bandaids on it despite the fact that blood is pouring out of the copy -- then send it back. And wait.

Hopefully, the beta readers will have good ideas as to how to fix things. (Bad ideas are a dime a dozen.) At least, they can confirm your initial diagnoses ("yep. I knew that didn't work") or even find new ones.

Then, they send it back, you stitch it up, and mail it to messageboards and get it out of your life.

(* * *)

I'm presently making excuses for not rereading my original copy. My computer, my gateway to the world, is currently in pieces in the basement. Why? My sister-in-law is here painting and redecorating the place and we're hoping to turn the basement into a true Fortress CINCGREEN and not "the place where you put all the spare crap that doesn't belong elsewhere in the house". I'll actually have my own home office.

So where am I typing this? From the living room. My wife is otherwise distracted, but I hate the thought that someone could look over my shoulder at any moment and say "whatcha doin'"? Not that I have anything to be ashamed of, but I find my return to fan fiction writing a bit embarrassing. My wife would say, "oh, not this again" and I'd have to say "yeah, this again."

However, I have access to the first draft from this computer. I'll make the effort to read it. I pinky-swear.

(* * *)

By the way -- I miss my computer baseball game, the only copy of which is on that computer mentioned above, in pieces. The plan is to replace my monitor with a flat-screen monitor. I want a big one.

(* * *)

Anyway, on to AD6. Part of reading a story is that you get to follow its thread, and I'm very surprised that commentary didn't so much center on the strengths (or weaknesses -- you'll never get honest commentary on a message board ) as on what kinds of supplies the commenters would be storing if society went ass-up. It reminds me of the earliest games of Dungeons and Dragons where you'd roll up a character and proceed to load down the character for supplies as if he were going on an arctic expedition.

Daria and Jane certainly can't carry this crap around with them. They can, however, put it in their car but if they lose the car...they lose everything. This shouldn't be as much of a prolbem as some people think. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "put all your eggs in one basket -- and watch that basket!"

They're probably better off in a car than in a house (more later). However, Daria and Jane are trying to find out what happened to Lawndale, and when a winter storm approaches, they decide to seek shelter in a house. The problem is that the houses nearby appear to be crudely barricaded. If I recall correctly, one house has parked its car right in front of the door, a sort of futile attempt at a barrier.

The two find the only house that isn't barricaded, and make their way in. However, they find the previous inhabitant...dead. Apparently, he died of a heart attack and there was no one to check on him. Daria and Jane dispose of the body, and gather more supplies from inside the house, including more firearms.

Unfortunately, Daria and Jane might not remain disturbed long. A group of men watches the house from a distance. They have it in for the previous owner -- they're not aware that the man died of natural causes -- and might plan a confrontation....

...can you feel the suspense out there? Time to head on to AD7....





My list of things for the apocalypse:

a) A backpack. Don't overload it.
b) A good knife with a sharp blade, preferably a long-bladed hunting knife -- not so much for defense as for its use as a tool
c) A whetstone, to keep such a knife sharpened.
d) A compass, so that you know where you're going. If walking, people tend to favor one leg or another, which means that after many, many days, you might end up walking in a circle when you think you're going "true north".
e) A pistol. Which you keep holstered, and at your side. "God did not make men equal. Sam Colt did." Ammo for same. Avoid rifles unless you plan to eat what you shoot.
f) Potassium iodide.
g) Flint, along with the knowledge to use it to start fires.
h) The knowledge of how to make your own sandals from tire rubber at http://www.hollowtop.com/sandals.htm. Save your shoes for winter.
i) Possibly, a Ph. D. in herbology. That might be hard to find during the apocalypse.
j) A friend, possibly the most valuable thing of all. Daria and Jane are already one-up on that....

Message From Beyond

Finished reading: AD5

One of the many problems of blogging is the need to find material, and I'm loathe to fill the blog with stuff regarding my personal life. I don't think my life is interesting enough to maintain a blog at that level.

However, I'm hoping to work on "Reclamation" a bit today. As it turned out, I had written 1/2 of Part III and then came to a stop -- before I walked out of fandom in a fury. So it was good to see that my work was theoretically half-over.

Work is slow. Until I have projects to work on, there's not much for me to do except continue my education, and I'm waiting for the results of an exam I took in November to come out in early January. So do I study something new, or study something old if I failed the exam? Decisions, decisions.

It turns out that I "think" in scenes. I've talked to other writers and have learned that some writers actually take notes. Taking notes, however, doesn't work for me. I generally have some ideas for scenes, and I work those scenes out in my mind. Then, I fill in the gaps with other scenes and the entire story snaps together like a puzzle. By the time I commit finger to keyboard, I've usually already "written" about eighty percent of what I'm going to type -- it's merely a matter of description.

unfortunately, I'm treating "Reclamation" a bit differently. This is going to be a pseudo-canon fanfic -- no science-fiction-y stuff. Furthermore, it will have an end. And it will need beta-reading, a process I hate because it keeps me from simply shoving the first draft onto the Internet and forgetting about it. I assume that I can beat Scissors MacGillicutty into providing a beta-read, at least.

(* * *)

As it turns out, "Apocalyptic Daria" has something in common with the way I'm formatting blog entries. I've decided that I'll read a little bit of someone's fan fiction and comment on it each time I make a post.

I borrowed that idea from Slacktivist, and his "Left Behind Fridays". Slacktivist is reading the "World's Worst Books" -- Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and the other guy -- and commenting on what execrable tripe they are, both in the literary and the theological sense. (And guess what? Today is Left Behind Friday!)

Now I am not claiming that "Apocalyptic Daria" is in any way comparable to LaHaye's excrement. In terms of writing skill, LaHaye should be licking Doggieboy's shoes. However, there are a few amusing/interesting parallels:

1) We are in the Apocalypse in both stories. In Doggieboy's world, the nukes have flown; in LaHaye's, we are dealing with the post-Rapture. The difference being that Doggieboy's universe has consequences and chaos while life goes on seemingly as normal in Left Behind despite the absense of about a billion people.
2) In the church where Daria and Jane are staying, there is a copy of Left Behind among the other books, and a Boy Scout manual, which has a better plot than LaHaye's book.
3) The tape.

Undoubtedly, one of the questions is "where are the parishoners?" As it turns out, Sunday morning is approaching and Daria and Jane should be face to face with the "owners" of the church, but no one shows up. However, as it turns out -- coincidentally -- there is a video tape which has been made the Sunday before which answers the question of why no one will be showing up at this church again for a long time.

As it turns out, there is also a video tape scene in Left Behind (trust me, I haven't read it -- I'm going by Slacktivist's explanations). This tape was "left behind" by the former pastor of the New Hope Church, explaining what killed hi--uh, that is what raptured him and most of the congregation. Consider it evangelism beyond the grave. (There are websites now which will send post-Rapture messages to your unsaved loved ones, believe it or not.)

Doggieboy flips the coin on the readers, as this tape is more a dysangel. It's just bad news all around.

I wasn't moved by AD5, but I don't know if Doggieboy really wanted his readers to feel for the parishoners or if he just wanted to move the story forward. My problem is that these are pretty much tropes of "apocalypse" fiction. Namely, "the message from beyond", from people who for some reason aren't around anymore. It can be a diary, it can be a cassette tape, or in this case, it can be a VCR.

As for Daria and Jane being moved by what they saw, I'm simply remembered of this same scene in the hands of two other comedy writers:

a) Douglas Adams, whose Arthur Dent is not moved to tears over the destruction of his home planet...until he realizes that he will never have a McDonald's hamburger, ever again, and
b) Futurama, where Philip J. Fry is ecstatic over the realization that all of his family and friends are dead...his life sort of sucked, anyway.

(Boy, I've really become callous and cynical, haven't I? If it makes you feel any better, I probably would have felt sad if I had seen that tape, too.)

Daria and Jane were moved, at least. Moved to tears. Which might be the subject of a whole other essay.

The Number 22

Finished reading: AD4

Amazingly, one story from my "unfinished fic" list has been completed: "Canon Fodder" was posted for me by Scissors MacGillicutty.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I have to start work on "Reclamation", a much tougher fic to write and one whose ending will be disappointing. That's as may be -- the list needs to be cleared out. Oddly enough, I've been thinking about "Same Drum, New Tune" more than I've been thinking about "Reclamation".

I noticed that medea42 opened up an account on the other board. I hope she finds it interesting but that other board is pretty much dead. No real fic is being written there and all of the conversation -- so to speak -- takes place in hidden forums.

(* * *)

Now, on to "Apocalyptic Daria". I just noticed at PPMB that Doggieboy has actually finished the series. medea and Milderbeast returning, a serial actually being finished? What's next? A red moon? The birth of a centaur?

AD4 isn't much of a story, it's more of a "get the characters from one place to another" tale. However, there are hints of the future world that I wonder if the author intended.

It's clear that government at the state level has broken down, but not at the local level. Each town seems to be left to its own as to how to deal with the problem of refugees. D & J are met by gun-toting locals at the city limits in one town; in another they are pleasantly greeted but told sorry, there's no more room at the inn. At least, an ancient Geiger counter is brought out to indicate that no one is dying of radiation poisoning. With no where else to turn, Daria and Jane go to church...seriously, at least to find a place to spend the night. (Shades of Joseph and Mary looking for a stable.)

Surprisingly, they have no trouble gaining entrance. The doors aren't locked. When I grew up, every church I ever attended regularly was locked when services were not being held. Either Daria and Jane got lucky finding an unlocked church, but really -- we don't need to know the details as to how D & J got in.

Sidebar: There's a blog called Slacktivist that I sometimes read. No, it's not what you think it's about. It's a blog about Christianity. From one of the comments links, I was taken to an atheist blog that discussed the recent shootings at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. As it turned out, there was armed security at the church that shot the gunman. Good thing the gunman was there, but it raises the question of why Christians put their trust in Sam Colt more than they do in God, who is the ultimate provider. Likewise, I wonder why churches have their doors locked when no one is inside. You'd think that a church would want as many people coming in as possible. Then again, the pastor is a "Marion Summers", so maybe they're United Methodists or something.

Anyway, back to the tale. While Daria sleeps a fitful sleep, Jane rummages through the "black knight's" personal effects. She finds out that the assailant, a Larry Carter, has a wife, three kids, and a cat. A diary (!) also reveals that Daria and Jane were not his first victims.

Oddly enough, the concept of a serial rapist having his own family isn't out of the ordinary. You can type in "serial rapist married" into your search engine and find out about Nathan Antonio Washington, a married father of four, who committed two rapes and two sexual assaults in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The most interesting part of AD4 -- to me, anyway -- involved Mr. Carter's diary, where he wrote the details of his sexual assaults. Apparently, of his twenty victims (I'm assuming Daria and Jane aren't counted), he killed seventeen after his assaults and managed to track down and kill one of the three escapees. A nasty piece of work. Jane reads all of the details, including that he liked to hear the screams of his victims.

Serial criminals, oddly enough, tend to play into the stereotype of being meticulous. Frankly, you can't be successful as a serial whatever unless you are very organized. Can't leave evidence lying about. Can't leave people talking. And of course, sometimes you take a trophy -- in Carter's case, his detailed notekeeping.

But this is the odd fact: Carter must have written down the details before and after. Jane and Daria were listed as Numbers 21 and 22, but both escaped without molestation. Yet I suspect that many serial planners are a bit obsessive. I assume that Carter's handwriting is neat, the ledger is neat, and everything is properly squared away.

Therefore...I assume that Carter would not flub details and get the order wrong. Jane is listed as #21. Daria is listed as #22. Jane is knocked unconscious in AD3. When she wakes, Carter is ready to assault Daria. My question: what happened between the time Jane was knocked cold and the time she intervened on behalf of Daria?

If Carter is a serial obsessive, then the logical conclusion is: Jane was raped by Carter (#21). Then, Carter went on to rape Daria (#22), but was stopped. Meaning, that Daria saw Carter rape Jane...and didn't tell Jane. Jane, apparently, has no memory of what happened. Only Daria knows the awful secret.

(Of course, this theory falls apart: Carter liked to hear his victims scream. Unconscious victims don't scream. Carter was forced to skip #21 and proceed to #22, where he would have undoubtedly made the appropriate corrections in his logbook later. My first hypothesis, however, is more intriguing. And it has tigers.)

Rapefic Revisited

Finished reading: AD3

"No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
You're all the same"

--Joe Jackson

AD3 is not melodramatic, but it veers towards sensationalism. Perhaps what happens in AD3 is a trope of post-apocalyptic fic; I'm not familiar with the genre.

Daria and Jane, while attempting to drive back to civilization, run into a couple of good old boys who are determined to give Daria and Jane a good time...well, a good time for the good ol' boys anyway. Before very bad things can happen, a white knight in the form of a government agent manages to shoot the miscreants and come to the rescue of D & J.

However, Daria dopes out that this man is not what he claims to be and points it out. The white knight shows his true "black knight" colors and forces Daria and Jane to come with him. Without getting into details, Daria is about to become a non-virgin before Jane locates the man's gun, shoots him, and the two are on their way. (For actual details, you'll just have to read the story.)

I believe someone on the thread pointed out, "boy, civilization sure has gone under very quickly". How long has it been, a couple of days and already rape squads and perverts are roaming the land?

My hope is that society has temporarily reverted to anarchy -- not the anarchy of "do what you want", but the anarchy of "take what you please". This phase tends not to last very long, as superpredators arise to kill off the weaker of their fellow criminals. I hope Doggieboy's world-building exercise shows some thought.

What saved the above from leaning into melodrama -- the attempt at molestation is definitely sensational, there is a building of suspense, Jane's location of the gun moves the plot forward and almost depends on coincidence -- was that fact that after the black knight gets shot, we have no idea as to whether or not he is dead.

It doesn't really matter if he's dead or not. If he's not dead, and he shows up again, Daria and Jane can just take action when he arrives. A melodrama, however, would have Jane shoot him in the head to give the audience its satisfaction and confirm the melodramatic moral of "all rapists should die". AD3 at least confirms the uncertainty.

(* * *)

One of the problems of writing fan fiction with teenage girl protagonists is the lack of experience with being a teenage girl. To a good writer, this should not be an insurmountable obstacle. All sorts of fantasy fiction is written despite the fact the authors are not elves on the side.

However, one simply can't write teenage girls as teenage boys in drag. They have a different set of problems that aren't merely rooted in anatomy. One of those problems I suppose is the awareness that you're the "weaker sex" -- not weaker in the sense of being intellectually or spiritually inferior, but physically vulnerable. (I assume the writers of Kim Possible fanfic don't have this problem.)

Which leads to questions that many male writers can't answer from direct experience. They have to make hypotheses and pray that those hypotheses pass the acid test. Daria, for example, is about five-foot-one and has probably never exercised a day in her life. Furthermore, even though she might believe she's unattractive, she knows from hard experience that there's a subset of guys for whom that won't matter, and who furthermore would use violence to get what they wanted. That subset is kept at bay by law, and its true that rape is an act of violence and not of sex...but really, how much of the female consciousness is taken up by worries of rape?

My assumption -- and it might be a wrong one -- is that it's sort of like walking around as a target. In about 95 percent of cases, you can feel at ease but you know there are certain kinds of situations you don't want to get yourself into. You take precautions. Well-lit parking lots, etc. etc. with maybe some thought exercises such as "what do you do?" "Do you struggle to save your self-esteem or do you give in to save your life?"

How much do women think about this? How much of their present-moment consciousness is taken up by the fact? I would claim not much, but you do get daily reminders that bring you back to the topic momentarily.

There is a school of thought that says that men can't write about such matters -- not plausibly, anyway. My wife claims, for example, that men could never write what some fans would call a "rape fic", even if that work were to handle the topic with great seriousness and accuracy. Men are just not suited for such a subject. I refuse to argue about the matter, I just have a different opinion, that's all -- but I'm not about to write the next great rape fic in Daria fanfiction.

I was chatting with a friend about this the other night -- about physical vulnerability and the awareness it might play in the protagonists' minds. He concluded, "No wonder Jake is crazy. He has two teenage daughters to worry about."