Through a Lens Darkly: Difference between revisions

[[Daria Morgendorffer|Daria]] almost hits a dog when practicing her driving, revealing to [[Helen Morgendorffer|Helen]] that she can’t see too well on the side, as her heavy glass frames block the vision. This prompts Helen to insist she try contact lenses, an idea Daria first scorns at, because past chats have taught her her mother thinks "if I get contacts I'll suddenly turn into the homecoming queen". Her mother, however, is able to turn Daria's argument back on her, agreeing people should accept Daria as she is "instead of seeing your glasses and jumping to some moronic conclusion based on ridiculous stereotypes and their own ignorance." ("Good one.")

Daria starts to think about trying contacts, but is worried when an unwitting [[Jane Lane|Jane]] casually remarks how the glasses are part of Daria’s "persona": someone who doesn't care about their looks. That causes Daria to turn to ''[[Quinn Morgendorffer|Quinn]]'' (who has been ''waiting'' for this day): if she does start to show she cares about her looks a little bit, does this make her a hypocrite and invalidate many of her previous stances? This philosophical question causes physical pain for Quinn, so Daria translates it - but her sister, misunderstandinhmisunderstanding her sister’s problem launches in a long and useless speech describing everything Daria should change on her appearance, prompting the later to flee.

After Jane is "more or less awake", Daria is relieved to find Jane doesn't think she's 'sold out'. She starts to get reactions from colleagues and teachers: Jane thinks she looks cool (but "either [way] works for me"). [[Timothy O'Neill|O’Neill]] and [[Angela Li| MrMs. Li]], after first failing to recognize her, are delighted and make enthusiastic comments, because they think she's trying to become more sociable, creating a new identity for herself, and "dropping that standoffish persona". An annoyed Daria protests that she only got them for driving, and is more annoyed when asked "so why are you wearing them now?". Later, [[Kevin Thompson|Kevin]] and [[Brittany Taylor|Brittany]] also compliment Daria’s new look - "you're, like, practically ''normal!''". Daria snarks that she got them because "I wanted to fit in better" and is annoyed when Kevin believes her, so she snarks the glasses were making her too smart.

The contact lenses are irritating her eyes, so Daria takes them just as the school day ends, needing help from Jane to walk home as she didn't bring her glasses. On the way home, they run into [[Trent Lane|Trent]], who tells Daria "looks good" - causing her to blush. That night, Daria has a nightmare in which her reflections are warped as long as she wears glasses - when she wears contacts, she looks normal, but then suddenly turns monstrous and distorted.