Good Intentions

Fanfic by E. A. Smith.

Summary
While attending a young writer's conference with Mr. O'Neill and Stacy Rowe, Daria discovers that Stacy has a promising though undeveloped talent for writing. When Stacy asks her for help with improving her writing, Daria accedes, with the additional hope of weaning Stacy away from the Fashion Club and helping her become her own person. However, Daria finds that Stacy's writing habits differ greatly from her own, and convinced that her own way is the correct one, Daria rather harshly attempts to force Stacy to conform to her own methods of writing, leading Stacy to abandon more and more of her own ideas along the way. When confronted by Jane with the hypocrisy of Daria's intending to help Stacy develop her own individuality but forcing her to conform to Daria's, Daria assures her that she has only Stacy's best interest at heart, and that Stacy will have the confidence to develop as an individual once she has become a great writer. After some debate, Jane manages to get Daria to agree to be more lenient with Stacy, but after making an effort to be more tolerant, Daria eventually reduces Stacy to tears through biting sarcasm about her work. As Stacy runs out crying, Daria is confronted by Quinn, who tells her that she had hoped that this project with Daria would be a good thing for Stacy by getting her away from Sandi for a while, but that Daria is in fact no different than Sandi. After a night of nightmares and soul-searching, Daria repents of her behavior and gives Stacy all of her story notes, telling Stacy that she trusts her to write a great story without Daria's guidance. A few weeks later, Stacy's story is a hit with her classmates, and Daria and Jane take one final look back at the intended mission of mercy that became a debacle.

This fic can be seen as part of the "Bitch Daria" genre, as Daria is portrayed as intolerant and narrow-minded, though unwittingly so. It is also E. A. Smith's only fully canon work, as it occurs late in the third season of the series and contains no out-of-canon elements.