Jane Lane

Jane Lane is a fictional character created for the MTV animated series Daria. In the show, Jane was Daria's best (and only) friend and as of the show's final season was aged 18 years. She lived at 111 Howard Drive in Lawndale, and graduated from the local high school, Lawndale High. She is an aspiring artist and has created many unusual paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

Like Daria, Jane too is cynical with biting wit, but is better adjusted. Her longest relationship so far has been with Tom Sloane; after they broke up, he started dating Daria, a situation that temporarily caused tension between the girls. Jane planned to lose her virginity at 11 a.m. on her first day of college, which is currently Boston Fine Arts College.

In the novel The Daria Diaries, Jane's motto is quoted as being "every cloud has a smoky gray lining".

Personal History
Early history about Jane's life that was revealed during the show is scarce, but there are a few facts that were confirmed by the character herself. She was, in her prepubescent years, a member of the Girl Scouts, during which time she was forced to attend a nature camping event, a memory she detests. This was revealed in "Antisocial Climbers."

Other camping events Jane has partaken in include Mr O'Neill's overnight field trip to local woodlands (as depicted in "Antisocial Climbers") and a summer vacation to the Ashfield Artists' Colony (as depicted in the Daria telemovie, Is It Fall Yet?). Despite these infrequent occasions, Jane remains adamant that she does not enjoy camping in any sense of the word.

Jane had her first serious romantic relationship at the age of 17 with Tom Sloane, the only son of a wealthy local family and then a student of Fielding Preparatory Academy. The relationship ended less than a year later when they both realized, amid the controversy over Tom kissing Daria, that it had run its course. Jane and Tom remain casual friends but are rarely shown talking in fifth-season episodes or the final movie, Is It College Yet?.

At the age of 18, Jane graduated from Lawndale High and was accepted by Boston Fine Arts College into the midterm freshman class. Because the show ended before Jane actually began attending the college, her current status is ultimately unknown, but it is assumed that she still attends the college, socializing with Daria, who attends a college in the same city, on her free weekends. Whether she achieved her goal of losing her virginity the day she entered college is unknown.

Note: Information on characters' current ages and birth dates are highly speculative.

Family
Jane's parents are Vincent and Amanda Lane, two artistic personalities with a very relaxed, uninvolved approach to parenting. She is the youngest of the Lane family, her older siblings being, in presumed ascending order, Trent, Penny, Wind and Summer Lane. Trent is a perpetually lazy grunge rock musician who performs in the garage band Mystik Spiral; Penny, a disillusioned backpacker with a fondness for animals; Wind, an emotionally damaged three-time divorcee and Summer, a worn-out mother of four, including Jane's niece Courtney and nephew Adrian. Jane and Trent were the only two Lanes residing in the Lane household for the duration of the series. With Jane at college, it is presumed that Trent is now living alone in the house, but still with a firm loving relationship with his sister Jane.

Likes and Dislikes
Jane's primary interest is art; she enjoys creating, painting, sculpting, drawing and sketching. She also has a vague interest and substantial talent for running, in which she usually participates when emotionally overwhelmed. Her favorite food is pizza and her favorite television show is fictional oddity news program Sick, Sad World.

Jane's only real dislikes are materialism, conventionalism and commercialism, all of which her personality overtly disowns as components of a society and as social expectations. Jane also has a dislike for math.

Grandmaster Jane
Jane is often portrayed in Daria fanfic as an unrecognized artistic genius, a theme she herself feeds into (e.g., her daydream in the episode, "College Bored"). It is not uncommon to read stories in which Jane manages to sell her artwork for large sums of money and gain considerable media attraction as well.

Lesbian Jane
Thanks to Jane's close friendship with Daria—which, curiously, was not destroyed by the "Tom Triangle"—and her interaction with Alison in Is It Fall Yet?, Jane is sometimes developed as a bisexual or lesbian character, with interests in either Daria, Quinn, or Alison as female partners. The TV show's creators even play into this idea, with Glenn Eichler speculating in an interview that Jane might be "straight and curious."

Yenta Jane
This stereotype was much more common in fan fiction written before "Jane's Addition." This interpretation of Jane was derived from the fact that in the first three seasons Jane would tease Daria about her obvious crush on Trent. 'Shipper fan fiction writers took the next step in having Jane be an active participant in bringing Daria and Trent together, with Jane sometimes going to extremes. This stereotype was called "Yenta Jane" after the matchmaker character from Fiddler on the Roof.