Daria in College

As hard as it might be to believe for anyone still in the thick of it, there *is* life after high school. Indeed, for a fair number, that may be the hope that gets them through the day.

Given that the series ends with most of the named seniors graduating and heading off to one college or another (sorry Kevin), it's not surprising that Daria's time in higher education is a common subject for fan fiction. Daria in College is a sub-category of post-canon fan fiction, dealing more specifically with the challenges and opportunities found in the university environment. Despite the name, these stories can focus on any of the canon characters.

The chance to explore familiar characters in a different environment has proven irresistible to many fans over the years. How Daria (and her peers) would fare in college is also a popular and recurring subject of conversation on the PPMB. Broadly speaking, there are three schools of thought on the matter.

## The Best Days of Our Lives

One thing that *Daria* made clear was that Lawndale High simply didn't appreciate the eponymous heroine's gifts and talents. After all, school's a place where free thought is squelched and football held above everything else. Hardly a place for a bookish and introverted young person.

Considering that college emphasizes learning and typically encourages individualism, it seems like the perfect place for someone like Daria. Unlike in high school, her peers would *want* to be there, and likely share her interest in learning. This isn't to say that Daria would just coast through higher ed without any problems. She could very well end up in some very difficult, awkward, or even tragic situations. However, she'll grow from these experiences, becoming a better person in the process.

The show offers plenty of support for this stance. *Daria* is ultimately about a person who undergoes significant growth during her time in high school. At the start, Daria's misanthropic, narrow-minded, and sometimes hypocritical. While she hasn't totally shed these traits by the end, she's also become more accepting and aware of her own flaws. The environment found in university could well give her ample opportunities to further engage with a world unencumbered by the nonsense of high school.

One of the defining works in this category is Richard Lobinske's Falling into College series, which shows how Daria and many other characters grow and mature - this was partly based on the writer's own college experiences and partly a deliberate counter to the contemporary angst trend. Another early example is Ruthless Bunny's Bed and Breakfast Man, where Daria is studying at Raft while dating Trent.

## The Raft of the Medusa

On the other hand, maybe college isn't such a great place, and maybe Daria still isn't such a great person. The opposite tack of the above is that Raft College will fall well below Daria's expectations (which may not be reasonable).

These stories can emphasize the alienation that comes from being in an unfamiliar environment. They may explore corruption in the system (if you thought high school football was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet!). Alternately, the problem might have less to do with the university environment and more to do with Daria herself (or it could be both).

The show offers plenty of support for this stance. Though Daria does make progress throughout the series, by the end, she's still judgmental, diffident, and hard to approach. Her difficulty in making friends could well be worsened by a strange and more crowded environment. As one of the smartest students in Lawndale High, Daria might find her identity uncomfortably challenged by university peers of equivalent intellectual acumen. Then again, maybe she'll *still* be a lot smarter than most of her classmates, leading back to the isolation she faced in Highland High.

An example of this is WellTemperedClavier's High School Never Ends, which has Daria hating Raft College *so much* that she ends up nostalgic for Lawndale High... which she also still hates. HolyGrail2007's last third of the Finn Morgendorffer series would have Daria go to college and, due to being far more set in her ways and generally aggravating in this story, finds her fellow students disappointingly 'shallow'.

Angst fanfics will use this trope as background material for how Daria has ended up badly as an adult.

## Wherever You Go, There You Are

This takes a middle approach to the college issue. Life is life, wherever you are, with the same mix of the good and the bad, the dreary and the exciting, the sense and nonsense. It's probably the most realistic of the three.

Into this category also falls stories that take place in college, but emphasize elements outside of the collegiate environment. Here, university is little more than a backdrop.

The show offers plenty of support for this stance. Daria's gotten a lot better by the end of the series, but that doesn't mean life is easy or simple. As you get tougher, so does the world. And at times, all you can do is try your best, and then get together with good company to snark about the whole situation, preferably with pizza and soda (or maybe beer, given that this is college).

Stories where college is just where life happens would include Galen Hardesty's unfinished "Once Upon a Time at College", where Daria's college experience disrupted by outside circumstances and she's forced her to tutor Upchuck; The Angst Guy's "April Is the Cruelest Month", where Daria and Jane are students on break and while they're underdoing angst from a bad car accident, this is unrelated to Daria's college experience; and Dennis's "A New Set of Rules" (requires the Rosetta Stone, where Daria and Kevin are both at Notre Dame and end up slowly becoming friends and a *couple*, even.

Several takes on this trope assume that Daria will still be the same asocial figure as in school and will be forced to adjust in college. Examples include "Love's labours Lost" by E.A. Smith, where Daria has a disastrous attempt at dating.

## Other Characters

As mentioned before, Daria in College doesn't have to be about Daria. Jane's time in BFAC is another popular subject, as is her relationship with Daria during their time in Boston. Are they still frickin' friends at the end? Do they drift apart? Do they realize they can't stand each other?

Jodie going to Turner (or Crestmore, conceivably both) has also gotten some attention, as has Brittany's matriculation into Great Prairie State. Quinn hopes to go to Pepperhill University when she graduates, and she might be the most dynamic character in the series.

The adventures of Daria's parents at Middleton are chronicled in, among others, the All My Children series by Deref and Thea Zara, and C.E. Forman's "The Lost Seasons" story "Fireworks".

Somewhere, someone is presumably curious about Tom's life in Bromwell. The closest we've got to it in fanfic form yet is HolyGrail's "Bromwell Bound: That One Fateful Summer", where Tom gets his affairs in order before he ships out.