daria

in

Community Disservice

 

end notes

 

As always, I’ll keep ‘em brief.

This story turned out to be very, very long, long enough so that I came very close to losing interest completely.  In the end I posted the first chapter alone, hoping that it would give me incentive to finish it.  It ticked a few people off doing it that way, but the job got done.

After having planned and started this story, I discovered a disturbing similarity between its premise and that of “The Old and the Beautiful” – an episode I hadn’t actually seen, but once I discovered this plot had been done before, I decided to refer to it.  I think the stories ended up dissimilar enough to prevent accusations of plagiarism.

Holding a School Review Meeting on Sunday is, of course, a take from the Fizz Ed episode (which happens after this story) in which Ms. Li pulled the same stunt.  I assumed she’d probably done it before.

The Shawshank Redemption, based on a work by Stephen King.  It’s about a guy in prison, and that’s all I’ll say about it because those who haven’t seen it shouldn’t know the plot in advance.  I highly recommend the film.  I haven’t read the book.

I realize I’m guilty of a little Sandi-bashing here, but I tried to at least make her a sympathetic character.

Trent’s description of how he got back into the house after six months in a tent is borrowed from Ruthless Bunny’s short story “Intense”.  I recommend that story as well as everything else R.B. has written.

Daria owes Quinn a favor after my previous story, "Is Summer Over Already?".  While I generally try to make each of my stories stand alone, this was a case where a plot point was most easily resolved by referring to an earlier incident.

Of course, season five shows no indication that Trent and Link are hanging out together.  But, it doesn’t show that they’re not either.  I think Trent and Link would get along very well, mostly because Trent won’t pass judgement and Link needs someone who’s an adult but also totally non-threatening.  His crush on Quinn was purely for comic value, but hey, wouldn’t any eleven-year-old boy be smitten with her?

Thanks to everyone for their encouragement toward the final stages of this story, thanks to Glenn Eichler and the rest of the Daria crew over at MTV, thanks to the webmasters who posted this story.

And most of all, thanks to my wife Rachel who is nothing short of the finest beta-reader any writer could ask for.  She’s cute, too.

Daria and crew are not my creation.  They are owned by MTV, I think.

This story, with the specific words placed in the proper order as shown, is my creation, Copyright 2001 by Mike Yamiolkoski, and may only be reproduced in its entirety with this notice intact.

Questions, comments, scathing reviews, FAN ART?  E-mail me at MikeYamiolkoski@cs.com.