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.

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. )