Burn the Rain

"Burn The Rain" is an upcoming fan-made video game by ThePatchedVest. The game uses a traditional text and sprite-based kinetic novel model with mixed NVL/ADV-style text running on the Ren'Py visual novel engine.

The story follows a meticulously canon-compliant original narrative that runs parallel to that of the Daria television series. The player takes the role of Burnout Girl, who moves to Lawndale with her father from Texas after the passing of her mother. The work is among the more mature and tonally serious works of fanon, dealing extensively with themes of grief, trauma, abuse, mental health, addiction and suicide.

Synopsis

When the quiet and stoic Kristi Burns moves from her childhood home to the new town of Lawndale, where she struggles to start a new life and fit-in with the eccentric crowd of characters she finds herself surrounded by. Not long after, Kristi becomes enveloped in the highs and lows of first love, one that finds Kristi forced to overcome her own insecurities and come to her own terms with her trauma, in order to secure her happily ever after.

Characters

Jennifer 'Kristi' Burns

Main Characters

• Jennifer 'Kristi' Burns: The infamous 'Burnout Girl', Kristi is a rather reticent and cynical young girl, she can often be found drifting in thought, listening to music or nose-deep in a book. Despite her wit and insightfulness, Kristi struggles to openly express herself as a result of severe anxiety and depression, she also has a bad tendency to see the worst in things and (albeit unintentionally) is bitingly judgmental of both herself and others. Unfortunately, she often finds her ailment in impulsive decisions and substance abuse. As an only child, Kristi lives with her begrudgingly absent father, who she has had a strained relationship with since her mother’s death. After several years, the pair made the decision to move out-of-state from her childhood home in Arlen, to the Appalachian town of Lawndale in hopes of a fresh start for each other.
• Wade Kirkland: Wade is a former Lawndale High student who dropped out in his junior year to pursue his own artistic ambitions and help support his family financially. The lead singer and guitarist of a grunge band, The Harpies, he still swings by the school occasionally, hanging out at the smoker pit with his friends and helping out at community events that support the underprivileged in Lawndale. His dry, off-kilter sense of humor is balanced with an unusually altruistic nature that immediately draws Burnout’s attention upon their first meeting. However, for all his charm and good will, Wade has a notable reputation for being something of a delinquent and is prone to bursts of anger and being inconsiderate of others emotions. Wade’s rather neglectful father, Axl, runs a piercing parlor, while his older sister currently lives in Ashfield. He understandably has a resentful and complicated relationship with both of them.
• Kelly 'Red' MacIntosh: Kelly, also known by her nickname ‘Red’, is a hyper-energetic, optimistically quirky young girl who somehow manages to see the best in everyone at Lawndale and goes out of her way rather early on to befriend the unusually quiet Burnout. True to her involved nature, Kelly is school's assistant librarian and the president of Student Council, responsible for organizing school events alongside Jodie Landon. Kelly is one of the few students who is openly gay, although her history in romantic endeavors has been complicated to say the least.
• Bob Rollins: Bob is a close friend of Wade's and the school’s resident punk rocker. Although largely a soft-hearted and well-intentioned goofball, he is a bit of a meathead and has unresolved anger management issues as a result of a turbulent home life.
• Devan 'Shaggy' Rogers: Perhaps best known as Lawndale’s top stoner, a slacker in every sense of the word, he gets his nickname from both his rugged unkempt appearance and uncanny resemblance to the Scooby-Doo character of the same name. Shaggy is one of the first friends that Burnout makes in O’Neill’s self-esteem class. He consistently has to retake the school tour at the start of every year due to his poor long-term memory and due to his academic failures has been stuck in tenth grade for roughly three years. In spite of his absent-mindedness and other pot-associated challenges, he’s nonetheless an eternally friendly, open-minded and positively encouraging ally to Burnout and the others.
• Angelica 'Angel' Robinson: Angel is known for her shy, doe-like attitude. She's Shaggy’s girlfriend and much like her better(?) half, is something of an airhead; often forgetting things important and trivial, and unintentionally bumping into her surroundings. Nevertheless, she remains one of the more innocently jovial figures in Burnout's immediate friend circle, she has rare but moments of wisdom and deeply cares for and nurtures the interests, needs and desires of those closest to her, often being the anchor that holds the entire group together.
• Arnold Burns: Arnold is Burnout's father, hard-working and soft-spoken. He cares deeply for his daughter, but despite his best efforts, seldom has the time for her, leaving a rift in communication to open up between the two and widen throughout the years, especially after the passing of his wife.

Supporting Characters

• Timothy O'Neill: Mr. O’Neill is Burnout's effeminately liberal second-period Language Arts teacher at Lawndale High, who also serves as her after-school ‘self-esteem’ counselor. In spite of his genuine goodwill, he is frequently overwhelmed by his job and is unable to effectively provide much guidance for Burnout beyond shallow aphorisms.
• Anthony DeMartino: Mr. DeMartino is the poorly-tempered history and civics teacher at Lawndale High. A former beatnik-turned-veteran who has become deeply disillusioned with both the youth and his underpaid job teaching them, he frequently derides Burnout for her lack of effort in class as well as her apathetic and lazy nature.
• Joshua Williams: Josh is Burnout’s paternal cousin and Lawndale native. In that respect, they share the same hair color, love for skateboarding and trademark cynical stoicism, however, their time together is greatly limited by his eccentric and overbearing parents, but he serves as a grounded and reliable confidant for Burnout.
• Andrea Talbot: Andrea is a goth classmate at Lawndale. She is an outcast, often mistreated by her peers for her weight, strange appearance and morbidly grim outlook, as such, she often makes rude comments towards her fellow classmates as a defense mechanism, likewise she is initially quite unwelcoming to Burnout, but as time goes on, the two inevitably become very close friends with Andrea serving as a confidant.
• Trent Lane: Trent is the lead singer and guitarist of Mystik Spiral. He’s a long time friend of Wade’s and the two share many of the same interests and mannerisms. Trent, however, is quite forgetful and passive to many of the goings-on in Lawndale that doesn't directly impact him or his band. Trent has a large extended family, the most notable of which is his younger sister, Jane Lane.
• Axel 'Axl' Kirkland: Axl is Wade’s father, a first-generation immigrant from the United Kingdom, Axl grew up in the working class punk scene of the '70s, where he played drums in a famous punk band. In the following years, Axl soon emigrated to the United States and met Wade’s mother. He’s the only member of Wade’s family who Wade himself respects and acknowledges, to the point of adopting his father's controversially anarchist politics and punk ethos. Yet, Wade rarely receives anywhere near the same affection from his father, who looks down on him rather neglectfully when compared to his sister.
• Monique Sylvia: Monique is the bassist and backing vocalist of The Harpies and Trent’s on-again-off-again girlfriend (and former bandmate). She frequently hangs around Axl’s body shop as his assistant. Wade had a crush on her when the two were kids and she often still teases him to this day, much to his dismay.
• Angela Li: Ms. Li is the Principal at Lawndale High. She is unflinchingly authoritarian, frequently reprimanding Burnout and her friends (aka, other “high risk students”) for their truancy and delinquent behavior. Nevertheless, Li remains obsessively focused on maintaining an almost nationalistic ‘school spirit’ and embezzling funds to supply the school’s absurd security systems in fear of the ‘criminal element’.
• Dale Winters: Dale is a close friend of Bob’s. Despite being well into his thirties, he frequently enjoys crashing high school parties and hanging around the alternative crowd at Lawndale High. Despite being rather obnoxious, Bob and the other’s keep him around in order to get smokes, alcohol and other illicit substances, though are quick to leave him to take the fall when the cops show up. He also claims to be Kurt Cobain’s long lost brother, despite his birth certificate stating he was born in Illinois.
• Celinda Nguyen: Celinda is a rather popular girl who is part of the school’s planning committee with Jodie and Kelly. As such, she is friendly towards Kelly’s friends and frequently attends their events, such as the opening night at Café Lawndale.
• Lorraine 'Lora' Parker: Lora is Josh's girlfriend and a computer geek, who hosts several tabletop RPG-centric IRC servers.
• Karen Burns: Burnout's mother and the wife of Arnold, she passed away roughly four years prior to the events of Burn The Rain.
• Alison Kirkland: Alison is Wade’s older sister, although she shares her brother’s general mischievousness, free-spirited rebellion and cynical outlook on the world (and others), she is strongly disliked by her younger brother for her oft-manipulative and promiscuous nature and lack of what he deems "consistent ethics or principles".

Development

The earliest seeds of what would become Burn The Rain began in 2017, where after a marathon of the series, author ThePatchedVest noted that the character of "Burnout Girl" hadn't yet received a defining depiction in fanon the same way other backgrounders (such as Andrea and Scarlett) had. Not long after, a conceptual poster for a fanfic entitled Burnout was uploaded to the "r/Daria" subreddit.

Vest admitted that the project was something of a that he would work on at his own pace, in-between writing his own trilogy of original novels, rather than being fully committed to the project. He also cited Roentgen's The Hallowed Halls of Fielding, TAG's Scarlett and Kara Wild's Driven Wild universe as being inspirations for the fic, as well as noting that the fic would take a notably different route than previous Burnout Girl fics, which often deviated from the show by introducing the character as a friend or romance to Daria, Jane or Quinn. Burnout, by contrast, would tell it's own, self-contained 'Daria-lite' story, occurring in the background of the show.

In March 2024, after repeated delays, ThePatchedVest announced that although he had a decent portion of the story plotted out, he was suffering burnout from writing (as a result of the time spent on his original works). Not wanting to shelf the project or release it in a subpar state, he decided to refocus his efforts in transforming the work into an interactive visual novel instead, a format he'd been experimenting with for several years and hoping to break into full time. As although this transition would require a much greater workload, it would aid in limiting burnout from writing, while allowing him to focus on other elements such as coding and creating art assets instead of being entirely unproductive during periods of writer's block.

Gallery

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  Teaser Art

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  Concept Art

Trivia

• Burn The Rain is the second fan-produced Daria game, following Daria: Poltergeist Weekend a short RPG released in 2023 by Ink Ribbon.
• With the reveal of the final poster, it was announced by the author that elements from Beavis and Butthead, Downtown, Office Space, Airheads and the first four seasons of King of the Hill would be incorporated and considered canon to the series, most notably the appearance of Downtown's Goat. Similarly, the fanfic was given the designation of D-11891 (D-ARIA) in the Daria Multiverse categorization system.

External Links

• Burn The Rain at Lawndale-High
• Burn The Rain at The PaperPusher Message Board