Medea42

## Biographical Information

Medea42 is a freelance as a perfume designer and writer. She graduated *cum laude* with a BS in mass communications from Minnesota State University, Mankato and later abandoned attempts at pursuing an MFA at the same school. She lives in Minneapolis, mainly for its arts scene. She has scads of interests, including bellydance, yoga, herbalism, and classic literature.

Neither well-known nor unknown in Daria fandom, every so often someone points to her as an underrated Daria fanfic writer. She is best known for her Trent vignette series, where she writes Daria episodes from character Trent Lane's point of view.

Her professional specialty is in occult writing, particularly focused on Wicca, and frequently subvert elements of the way she experiences or sees alternate realities work their way into her fiction. She has published several articles on occult topics since 2000.

## Early Fandom History

M42, or Medea as others persistently refer to her, first appeared in fandom after the airing of *Is It Fall Yet?*She had been a fan of the series from its inception and was amused by her college friends' comparisons of her to the sarcastic but usually insightful heroine. Disrupted cash flow led to disrupted cable and so she wound up missing large chunks of the show, only to become rather obsessive with it upon renewing cable. Her first encounters with fan fiction as a genre, and with fandom of any kind, came when she went on the Internet in an attempt to extend her Daria "high." As events in her personal life took a winding road, she spent time in Daria fandom, committed to trying something fun on the Internet after several years where her computer was a constant tool to research and work hunting. She began writing fan fiction in general because it gave her a break from the constant demands and pressures of writing in graduate school, and because she thought that the views of Trent in particular as "love interest" left a lot unexplored, not just in terms of Trent, but in terms of the Daria universe.

M42 was a regular poster to Paperpusher's Message Board and contributed fanfics to various Daria fan fiction sites, including Fanfiction.net, Outpost Daria and Crazy Nutso's Rubber Room. Currently she only posts fanfics to Fanfiction.net.

## Later in Fandom

M42 has collaborated with divergent fanfic writers Ruthless Bunny and with Thomas on separate projects. While she was invited to partake in the Lawndale\_After\_Dark project, she was unable at the time to overcome her personal hangups in writing erotica. She has never actually left Daria fandom, but disappears for extended periods of time as her real life writing projects and business endeavors sometimes consume her.

## Essays

To date M42 has written one essay, for a short-run Daria zine. The language of the essay compared fan fiction's literary status to the status of pornography. M42 had been publicly conflicted about her own writing of fan fiction for some time, because she writes professionally and felt she might be violating some boundaries given her personal feelings about seeing her own work posted all over the Internet without her permission. While she has since resolved this issue within herself, she acknowledges the iffy legality but recognizes that there is no harm done so long as no one mistakes their personal interpretation for the show itself.

## Other Projects

M42 has stated on Paperpusher's Message Board that she intends to write around 50 Daria fanfics. She first make this commitment in 2000, and in 2008 she has posted around 27. She has also written for Witchblade: the TV Series and one very adult Dexter fiction. She drifts away and towards this long-term fan fiction writing project, based on her involvement in other projects in her life. Along with running her own business, she writes for multiple blogs and engages in local community projects.

## Fanfiction CV

#### General Fanfiction

**The "L" Word**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385536/1/The\_L\_Word
Written prior to the famed HBO series, this fic explores Daria's limited emotional vocabulary and projects an ability to handle romantic or other emotionally complex feelings for two or more people at a time.

**Sew What**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385520/1/Sew\_What
Based upon her own experience in high school, where handmaking anything was viewed as a sign of poverty.

**Bait and Switch**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385497/1/Bait\_and\_Switch
Plotted after the style of canonical Daria episodes, this is a what-if scenario if Daria and Kevin were forcibly set up on a date. Inspired by the pilot released on the first official Daria DVD.

**Underrated**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385612/1/Underrated
One of the few attempts to make Jake and Trent look competent. The execution is not entirely successful.

**Giving a Damn**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/386335/1/Giving\_a\_Damn
A Daria/Quinn pairing post Is It Fall Yet, where Quinn attempts to branch out in her relationship with Daria on an intellectual but still depth-limited manner.

**The Slacker Within**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385556/1/The\_Slacker\_Within
A crossover with the classic myth Pygmalion[1] and a blatant self-insertion/Mary Sue, this brings Trent into the world of non-cartoon with an alternate universe Medea42 in the character of Di.
A companion fic was written to fit with the Trent vignette series by Ruthless Bunny, called The Slacker Without[2].

**The Story of My Muse**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/225464/1/Story\_of\_My\_Muse
Intended as a meta-magical exploration of the creative process, particularly the reality of illusion, as M42 experienced them in her creative processes writing about Trent Lane.

**DeMartino's Decision**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1622478/1/DeMartinos\_Decision
Possibly the most interesting and most ignored character of the Daria cast, M42 writes a possible background for Tony DeMartino in light of his gambling addiction, his veteran status and why he chose to teach.

**Trent's Lyrics Notebook**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/154981/1/Trents\_lyrics\_notebook
Co-written with Ruthless Bunny, this is one possibility about the lyrics of Mystik Spiral's songs, based on a channeled collaboration between Trent and Jesse. Common critiques of this work were that it was entirely too good to have been written by Trent and Jesse.

**Hidden Values**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385524/1/Hidden\_Values
A flash fiction[3], or ficlet as is the parlance among fanfic writers, with an exchange between Jodi and Andrea.

#### Trent Vignette Series

**In the Trent-ches**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385583/1/In\_the\_Trent-ches
Drawn from the Daria Diaries, this goes to the first look at Trent within the Daria universe.

**Beyond Between**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385529/1/Beyond\_Between
Extended from Trent's first appearance in the television series, at the time of *The Invitation*.

**Shut, Shut, Shut It All Out**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1617288/1/Shut\_Shut\_Shut\_It\_All\_Out
Circa *Last Year's Model* a theoretical explanation of Jane referring to Trent as "a schizophrenic shut in."

**Slow to Town**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1626662/1/Slow\_to\_Town
The Trent perspective from Daria episode *The Road Worrior*, suggesting more about Trent's internal career crisis.

**Snow White Gone Bad**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1610184/1/Snow\_White\_Gone\_Bad
An extremely abbreviated perspective from the episode *The Pinch Sitter*.

**Requiem to a Theme**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1884745/1/Requiem\_to\_a\_Theme
Set during and after *The Misery Chick*, this explores Trent and Mystik Spiral's views on death.

**In a Nutshell**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385540/1/In\_a\_Nutshell
Actually the second Trent vignette written, it extrapolates Trent's perspective on the whole nutty situation at Daria's job in *It Happened One Nut*.

**Trent Miserable**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385589/1/Trent\_Miserables
A Trent vignette about Trent's stay at the Morgendorffers during *Lane Miserables*, with more significance weighted on Trent's relationship with Helen.

**Trent's Equation**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385585/1/Trents\_Equation
Arguably the first time Daria genuinely has Trent's full attention is in *Jane's Addition*. It is the first and only time in the series where there's any suggestion that anything Trent does is all about Daria.

**Tilting at Windmills**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1632149/1/Tilting\_at\_Windmills
From the *Teachings of Don Jake*, this explores more insight into the extended Lane family, and how Trent may be a slacker in part because he is cast as a slacker.

**The Van Ride**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/385587/1/The\_Van\_Ride
The first of the Trent vignette series set during the van scene in *Is it Fall Yet?* based on a theory that Trent may be attracted to Daria but is unaware of it himself.

**Monique, Monique**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/418878/1/Monique\_Monique
Perhaps more of a Monique perspective than a Trent perspective, there is clearly a long history between the two characters hinted at throughout the series but only explored from the Monique=villain perspective. This attempts to fill in some of the details of the untold story that is likely more relevant to what goes on in Trent's life throughout the *Daria* series.

**Life of a Criminale**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2003167/1/Life\_of\_a\_Criminale
Set around the time of *Arts'n'Crass,*explains where Trent got his badass delusions, or at least, where Max did.

**Voluntary Simplicity**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4169744/1/Voluntary\_Simplicity
Set during *That Was Then, This Is Dumb*, it opens the door on Trent's awareness of Daria's crush while putting it in context with financial and creative issues Trent expressed during *Road Worrier*.

**Meet the Monster**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4190646/1/Meet\_the\_Monster
Set at the time of *Monster* this puts Trent's perspective of Quinn in long-term context since we do not see them interact in the series before *Gifted*.

**The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants**
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4497145/1/The\_Brotherhood\_of\_the\_Traveling\_Pants
A small gag fic set during *The Invitation* that provides insight into why the three J's are so loyal to Quinn.

## External Links

**Websites**
http://www.dianarajchel.com
http://www.etsy.com/shop/magickalrealism

**Blogs**
http://fatchic.net
http://magickalrealism.com