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Tired Daria Fandom Tropes: Difference between revisions
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''This page could benefit from an old-timer's input. Please see the discussion on the [[talk:{{PAGENAME}}|talk page]].''
The '''Tired Daria Fandom Tropes''' are those identifiable and worn plots, character types, argumentative moves, and figures of speech in ''Daria''
==Origin of the term==
A trope is a term from literary criticism derived from the Greek noun '''τρο´πος''' meaning variously ''turn, way, direction, manner'', so "trope" in writing on literature designates the category of identifiable turns or types of plot, character, argument (figure of thought), or figure of speech.
==General considerations==
Just because a trope has become tired over time doesn't mean that it was always tired; for example, there may have been striking examples of stories where [[{{PAGENAME}}#Daria_is_Omnicompetent_and_Damn_Near_Omnipotent|Daria is all powerful]], but that sort of story became tired through repetition. ''Vice versa,'' some tropes may have seemed ill-conceived from their first appearance, but after a while one shining example emerged; however, the ubiquity of the inferior samples made the trope tired before its time.
==Tired plots in ''Daria''
===The Daria & Trent
With Season One of Daria, it was clear that [[Daria Morgendorffer|Daria]] had a crush on [[Trent Lane|Trent]] that was more or less fully realized by "[[Road Worrier]]." Since late Season One, Daria fans have tried to match Daria and Trent romantically, even after it was made clear by Glenn Eichler in "[[Jane's Addition]]" that Daria and Trent would have been incompatible.
From [[Invisigoth Gypsy]] to [[Diane Long]] to [[Michelle Klein-Hass]], many of the earlier Daria writers could be considered "'shippers", or "relationshippers"—writers interested in seeing this "obvious" relationship reach its conclusion. Even after "[[Jane's Addition]]," fanfiction writers like [[Ruthless Bunny]] wrote of Daria/Trent relationships, basically as "what might have been" exercises, taking incompatibility issues into account. The "'shipper" contingent remained active until the earlier writers dropped out of the fandom and newer writers who entered the fandom later and had foreknowledge that Daria and Trent were doomed as a couple decided to explore Daria in other relationships.
As with anything taken to extremes, early relationship writing ranged from the lachrymose to the [[melodrama]]tic to the inept to the (occasionally) thoughtful. Most of the early Daria/Trent writing was quite poor and is frankly best forgotten, or was written in the middle of the series when the full scope of the mutual incompatibility of Daria and Trent was neither recognized nor made explicit.
===The Daria / Jane
One of the long-debated questions in Daria fandom is [[Homosexuality in Daria|"Are Daria and Jane homosexual?"]] Any strong friendship between two same-sex members in the media will lead to speculation that the friendship is more than just a friendship. Even though writer [[Glenn Eichler]] and longtime fans like [[Martin J. Pollard|Martin Pollard]] have given well-reasoned arguments as to the contrary, those fans who either disagree with those conclusions, or simply want to see a same-sex romantic relationship explored in the Daria setting have taken this friendship to what they see as the "ultimate" conclusion. (See: Gabrielle/Xena, whose every-third-story-a-slash has made Gabrielle/Xena fan fiction a bad joke.)
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==="It was all downhill after The Kiss"===
Curiously, there is evidence that some fans thought the show went downhill when Ted DeWitt-Clinton appeared in "[[The New Kid]]" (see [[Planet_Daria#Ted|this reference]]). Situations in which Daria is depicted as less than competent in the romance sphere are not well received at first. More to the point, the fandom survived Daria's mortifying behavior during [[The Kiss]] quite well, and thanks to [[alternate universe]] stories and a sense of humor, has prospered despite it.
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It has been argued that ''Daria'' fan fiction must contain a persistent undercurrent of satire, and fan fiction that doesn't isn't any good. The same argument has been advanced in favor of eschewing science-fiction or fantasy themes, using scripts, and so on. Perhaps in-canon fanfics have the widest approval, but the show itself pushed the envelope for what could be presented.
==="Script-
For much of the history of the fandom, advocates of the two basic writing formats have debated the relative pros and cons of prose and script. At times, these debates have become heated and personal.
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Some writers have made the argument that they prefer this style to prose writing for several reasons:
* ''Daria'' is a dialogue-heavy show.
* The <i>Daria</i> characters are most "in character" in scripted format. Writing a script facilitates keeping Daria's lines sarcastic and sharp, as well as keeping Daria and Jane's back-and-forth dialogue true to the show. Otherwise, readers would not accept the story as believable.
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One could argue that the reason was, with the lack of new episodes, there was no reason to keep writing stories in episodic form, whereas when the show was still airing, an episodic script could be <i>somewhat</i> accepted as part of the show's canon. However, the biggest reason might simply be that [http://www.fanfiction.net Fanfiction.net], one of the largest fan fiction depositories on the Internet, started prohibiting scripted stories from being posted, its owners threatening to delete any that slipped through its doors. With only a few active <i>Daria</i> fan fiction sites besides Fanfiction.net, fans who wanted to try scripted format might have decided it wasn't worth the reduced exposure.
All in all, the argument is largely moot, as fine stories have been written in both script and prose; neither format needs to be excluded.
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Some authors, such as [[Richard Lobinske]], have combined elements of both script format into prose writing in an attempt to capture the dialog facet of script within the prose structure.
==="Angst
One argument is that the downside of the growth of prose fan fiction is that a lot of the show's trademark humor and low-key realism has become superseded by story lines that deal heavily with [[angst]].
==="Dariarotica
In compliance with the famous Rule 34 - "if it exists, there is porn of it" - ''Daria'' fans who had naughty thoughts about the characters in question moved quickly to fill the vacuum, and sooner or later, ''Daria'' fandom would have its own set of erotic/pornographic ''Daria'' stories.
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A variant of this claim is: "All the good people are leaving, so fandom must be going downhill!"
Since <i>Daria</i> fandom's early days, well-known fans have come and gone, often to be mourned by the remaining fans.
Another panic broke out in winter of 1999/early 2000 when [[Michelle Klein-Hass]] pulled down [[Lawndale Commons]], right around the time [[C.E. Forman]], fandom's (then) most celebrated fanfic author, announced that he would not finish Lost Season Two of [[The Lost Seasons]] series. Fans were truly convinced then that <i>Daria</i> fandom would never recover, until Pollard and the [[Paperpusher]] established their own message boards.
The conventional wisdom that everyone was "jumping ship" really took hold after <i>Daria</i> finished its run on MTV in 2001-2002. Some fans announced that they had nothing to stick around for, while several noted fanfic authors, like [[Nemo Blank]], announced that they were writing their last fanfics ever.
==="The fandom went downhill after this person arrived"===
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