More of That Fan Fiction Stuff

For the last few weeks, my fan fiction kick has been the Daria stuff. (I'm not brave/stupid enough to log onto the adult fan fiction sites at work, so it's all safe, and so far nothing is too risqué, since I know y'all are so sensitive about that sort of thing.) (PENIS! VAGINA! VULGAR TERMS FOR BODY PARTS!)

So far, the thing that's surprised me most is how the Trent 'shippers treat their love for putting Daria and Trent together. They seem unwilling to make it simple. There's been a surprising number that don't hook them up until she's out of college and not all of them work out in a "happily ever after" way. Most of the ones who do put them together while she's in school make it fairly clear that it won't be like that forever, that eventually they'll grow apart.

It's like these people actually paid attention to the show and the characters!

Of course, then you occasionally get bits like this:

She thought about it. "Yes. Sleep is good." She stretched, and suddenly remembered that she was naked under her robe, she looked down and realized that she had just flashed Trent. He looked completely discommoded, she didn't really care, she had pretty breasts.

I never thought of Daria as one who really thought about whether or not her breasts were pretty. (Click for the story.) Still, a little of this isn't a horrible thing.

One thing, though, that sort of bothers me is how some of the 'shippers try to make Trent better, or flesh him out. (This author does it a lot.) I never thought Trent was dumb, but I still don't think he's a deep thinker. He's just a guy who wants to do what he enjoys.

Some more at 9:40 AM the next day:
Okay, here's an example of what I was writing about above, but didn't finish because I was eager to leave work. The author above wrote a story from Trent's point of view for the episode "Jane's Addition." For those who don't remember, or know, "Jane's Addition" is the episode where Daria pretty much gets over her crush on Trent. (A much more thorough summary. Transcript.) He's just too --I want to say lazy, but I don't think the guy's lazy, just not overly motivated?-- relaxed (still not the right word, but it's the best I can come up with) for Daria. She makes sure she keeps any commitments she makes. Trent isn't so worried about that.

Anyway, in "Jane's Addition" the crush ends because Daria really gets to know who Trent is. (And the end was coming, as they showed in the episode "Lane Miserables.") They'll stay friends, but that's it.

In the story mentioned above, "Trent's Equation," the author makes it clear that Trent disappointed Daria and ended her crush on him on purpose. Trent thought that the crush was having a bad effect on Daria and decided that it was better for her to be heartbroken for a while than to be entangled with him. The author, in a note at the end of the story, writes, "I believe Trent is actually a more mature character than we actually see on the show, I think his method of expressing his feelings will come across subtlety and peripherally, since he is at an age where he is much more cognizant of relationship consequences than Jane or Daria." But the author also saw Trent developing a crush on Daria when he told her that it's "[t]oo bad [she's] not a few years older [because he] could take [her] out" at the end of "Lane Miserables." Reading it that way changes a lot.