fardell24

Esteem of the Transfer Student
Brittany Taylor is assigned by Ms. Li as part of a Peer Support Program to help a new student adjust to life at Lawndale High. The new student's name: Daria Morgendorffer.

fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14471868/1/

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65663434

Daria – Trouble in Lawndale
“Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town -- especially for you, Daria, right?” Jake Morgendorffer said, as he and his daughters approached Lawndale High.

“Did we move?” Daria asked, as she looked around, annoyed that her father had spoken after remaining silent since they left their new home half an hour before.

“Stop following me, Daria!” her sister, Quinn, said.

“Excuse me, we’re walking along to the same school!”

“You don’t have be right behind!” Quinn said.

“It’s not my fault Lawndale has such narrow sidewalks.”


Jake, annoyed with his daughters’ arguing, put his headphones back on. “I've been working on the railroad... come on, guys, we know this one.”


Meanwhile at Lawndale High, two students were already there. (Although calling one of them a student might have been stretching the definition a bit…) “Come on, Mack Daddy! I'll get the coach to write us a note. I'll say we need extra time on the free weights.”

“I told you not to call me that!” Mack said, exasperated. “And they're not going to excuse you from English for weight training.”

“I can't take any more of this Shakespeare dude, bro. He's, like, a total chick writer!”

Mack sighed.


“Maybe we could go to that Mall of the Millennium this weekend, Daddy?” Quinn asked as they approached the school.

“A hundred miles? To go to a Mall? There’s a Mall less than five minutes from home. In a car!”

“I’m sure there are some fascinating Malls in Southeast Asia.” Daria snarked.

“Southeast Asia! To go to a mall!” Jake exclaimed.

“She’s joking!” Quinn said.

“Oh!”


Jane Lane arrived at Lawndale High. She switched off the audio recording of the last night’s Sick Sad World episode. The concept of a model creating an encyclopedia was appropriately inane. “Drawing pictures in margins…” she mused. That was something she did often.

Having been enrolled at the School, Daria found that she had Science for first period. In class she quickly found that the teacher had issues… “…and like a husband going home to his noble and self-sacrificing wife, the rat keeps returning to the food box. That is, the positive reinforcement. Huh, if only men could be more like rats. Oh, sure, they come home at first. You feed them, you wait on them, and then, after twenty-two thankless years, they just up and leave. No note, no phone call, no nothing!” She slammed her ruler on her desk for emphasis. “Just... like... that!”

“I wonder why he left,” Daria murmured to her new acquaintance, Jodie Landon.

“Now, before I divide the class into teams of two, who can give me another example of reinforcement?”

The class didn’t give an answer.

“Fine, class. Ignore me... just like he did!”

“Just as well he wasn’t Jones,” Daria commented.

“I heard that!” Barch said. “But we’re not talking about cults. You can ask DeMartino about that! But you have stumbled upon an interesting answer. A charismatic man re-enforcing herd-like behaviour in his followers, leading to tragic results!”

“Excellent example Daria,” Jodie said.

Daria shrugged.


Between classes, Sandi Griffin was talking with Joey Green, Jamie White and Jeffy Brown, ‘So I said, "Sure, it's a nice car. Do you have enough gas to get to Loserville?’”

“That’s funny, Sandi,” Joey said.

“You really know how to tell a story,” Jeffy said.

“Thanks,” Sandi said.

“Tell us the part with Stacy again,” Jamie said.

“Stacy wasn’t in that story. It was just Tiffany and I,” Sandi said.

“Well then, take Tiffany out and put Stacy in,” Joey suggested.

Stacy then came along. “Hi guys!” she said. “Sandi, Joey, Jeffy, Jerome.”

“Hi, Stacy,” Joey said.

“Hi, Stacy,” Jeffy added.

“Hi, Stacy. It’s Jamie!”

“Oh, sorry!”

“Have you seen that new girl?” Jamie asked.

“The redhead?” Stacy asked.

“She could be new member for the Fashion Club,” Sandi answered.

“There she is!” Jamie said.

Sandi sighed as Jamie and Jeffy ran off.


Daria listened as Jodie told her how busy she was. “…And that is why I can only go to study sessions in the early evenings,” Jodie said.

“I bet you don’t have to deal with Family Court,” Daria said.

“Family Court?” Jodie asked incredulously.

“It was an attempt by my Mom to use Jurisprudence in family matters after my sister and I came home late one night.”

“That sounds crazy,” Jodie commented.

“It was,” Daria said. “But it didn’t last long, because they were too busy to enforce a month-long grounding.”

“That’s something I’d like to hear about at some point,” Jodie said as they came to the next class.


“Can monkeys surf the net, and corrupt our kids? Chimpanzee chat rooms, next on Sick Sad World.”

Claire Defoe switched off the TV after students started filing into the classroom. She saw the new student, Daria. “Ms. Morgendorffer!”

Daria came over. “Yes?”

“Your records from Highland are intriguing,” the teacher said.

“I experimented, that’s all.”

“Using a glue gun as an actual gun?” Claire asked with an eyebrow raised.

Daria raised her own eyebrows. “Oh, that. Those two deserved it, but I won’t do it here in Lawndale.”

“Good. I just wanted to hear it from you personally. I would like to talk about your previous art after class. There’s a student I’d like you to meet.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”


“Fifty dollars an hour!” Jane groused as she approached the art classroom. That was the amount Mr. Ewing had quoted for the average Math tutoring cost in Lawndale. She doubted it would be any cheaper in Oakwood. ‘Or Middlebury for that matter,’ she mused as she overheard other students complaining about exorbitant prices.

Quinn's cousin Erin Barksdale is getting married. Will the Barksdale clan manage to get along? And what is happening in Lawndale in their absence?


fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6963544/14/Quinn-s-Code

Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63161452

13 Aftermath and Investigations
At the Historia, various Lawndale High students were talking about what the previous night’s events meant.

Stacy Rowe was thankful that she was working, otherwise she would have been worrying about the possibility of another attack.

She came up to Jodie Landon and Mack Mackenzie, where they were conversing in a corner.

“…Like, it’s not likely to happen again, right?” Mack asked.

“The person wasn’t caught, so it is likely to happen again,” Jodie said. “I don’t like to admit this, but it seems that SpiderGirl did good. Her powers allowed her to evacuate a lot of people before she got distracted.”

“But how soon?” Stacy asked in her usual worried tone.

“That is the question,” Jodie said.

“And SpiderGirl is one person,” Stacy said.

“But Ninja Talon and the Shadow were there too,” Mack pointed out.

“True,” Stacy said. She took a deep breath. “May I take your order?”

“White tea,” Mack said.

“Black Coffee,” Jodie added.

“Sure. It will be a while.”

( Read More )

12 Rise of the Green Goblin
Norman Osborn threw aside the latest Sun-Herald in disgust. More reports of crime that hadn’t been foiled by SpiderGirl or those two new vigilantes. ‘Of course it hasn’t!’ He then went to his laptop and logged into a specific server on his company’s network. He looked at the progress in testing of the Glider design.

Prototype complete.

That was good news. He could take it and use it. He left the office and went to the workshop.


“Mr. Osborn!” one of the techs said.

“Mr. Cross. You report that the prototype is ready?”

“It is Mr. Osborn. Testing will start this afternoon.”

“Excellent! Keep me apprised.” He grabbed a document that lay on the table next to them. It was a manual for the prototype. He looked around. There was no one there. He took the manual and left.


He then took it to his office. ‘I’ll read it later,’ he decided. He had a grand opening to attend.

( Quinn and Daria arrived at the Historia )

“Yes, that’s me,” Brittany admitted. She waited to see what SpiderGirl would do next. Whether she would also reveal her secret identity or not.

“I guess I have no choice,” SpiderGirl said. She then pulled off her mask.

“Quinn?” Brittany asked. If she had thought that either of the Morgendorffer girls to be SpiderGirl, it would have been more likely to be Daria.

“So now you know. I’m SpiderGirl,” Quinn said. She produced a web and swung over Brittany. “See!”

“I see,” Brittany said.

“But why did you decide to become Ninja Talon?”

“It’s a long story. You became SpiderGirl after your father died, right?”

“That’s right.”

“As you know, I was already thinking about fighting crime, that night after the agents visited and DeMartino was arrested,” Brittany said as she started into her story.


Flashback – The Lawndale Files
It was our conversation after the rest of the group went home that made me decide that I would help you fight the increasing crime in Lawndale.

Brittany watched as SpiderGirl headed back in the direction they had come from Howard Drive, where the Lane’s lived. As she walked home through Crewe Neck she thought more on what she had asked the superheroine about. ‘What is it like being a hero, fighting crime?’ she had asked.

And the response; “Difficult. But the thanks I get from the people rescued from muggers make it more than worth it.”

That someone had died wasn’t good. Brittany looked around. She was sure she was alone. She then jogged home.


“Brittany? You’re home early,” Ashley-Amber Taylor noted as her stepdaughter entered the lounge room.

“I need to ask you something,” Britttany responded in a serious tone.

“What is it?”

“You know martial arts, right?”

“Yes,” Ashley-Amber answered. “But what brought this on.”

“Nothing in particular.”

“You just want to improve, is that it?”

“Yes,” Brittany answered.

“I’m sure there are Dojos in Lawndale.”

“If not, I could go to the one I went to before in Oakwood, or one in Middlebury.”

“Of course,” Ashley-Amber said. “They’re not too far away.”

( Read More )

( 16th )

Total: 789

First class was Language Arts

“And so, in The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner give us a veritable kaleidoscope of P.O.V.s -- points of view. Of course, the title itself is from Shakespeare. Can anyone tell me which of the Bard's tragedies?” Mr. O’Neill asked. “Jodie?”

“MacBeth.”

“That's right. The ‘Scottish play’! ‘Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then... is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’” He saw Val raise her hand.

Andrea sighed.

“Yes, Val?” the teacher asked.

“I'd be happy to take a few questions.”

“Oh. Okay, sure,” O’Neill said.

“Val, how'd you get started?” Brittany asked.

“Well, I was a bit like Andrea. I wrote all the time. I was smart, I was cool...”

Kevin interrupted. “But Andrea’s not cool.”

“Anyone who writes like that is cool in my book. And my book is called Val, on sale at your local newsstand. Next?”

Jodie raised her hand.

“Yes.”

“Don't you think Val could try harder to present a multicultural, multi-ethnic, less brain-dead point of view to enlighten girls instead of just marketing to them?” Jodie asked.

‘A very pertinent answer,’ Daria considered.

“Jodie, you've got great sassy energy! Now let me turn it back on you. Pea green nail polish: edgy or icky? What do you guys think?”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Jodie said after a few moments of silence.

“I’ll consider it,” Val said in a tone that implied that she wouldn’t.

Andrea looked like she wanted to disappear. “Any other questions?” she asked.

“Nobody?” Val asked. “Now, who has a dating problem they would like to discuss?”

O’Neill raised his hand and most of the class groaned.


( Andrea was even more annoyed... )

After Jane and her brother (as she had realised) had left looking for Daria, Brittany also left. It had been an exhausting night, but when she looked in her bedroom mirror before changing she found that she quite liked what she saw there. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.


The next morning Daria told Jane what happened as they walked to school. “Look, I’m sorry about last night,” she said after concluding.

“Aw, forget it. It was a rare opportunity, getting to hang out with Brittany in a grunge club. Although her hair did look good.”

“Really?” Daria asked.

“I thought it would make for a great portrait,” Jane said with a shrug. “Any idea what caused this so-called rash?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Anyway, the important thing is that instead of going to your friends for help, you ran screaming into the night.”

“Basically,” Daria said.

“Perfectly logical response.”

“I thought so.”


( For Brittany, not much happened. )

Lawndale High School; November 8th; 9:34 AM
“Is Mr. Thoreau really turning his back on the world by moving to Walden Pond, or is he, by his example, trying desperately to save the world after all?” He looked at one of his students. “Normandy?”

“Brittany,” the cheerleader corrected. “He wasn't on Walden Pond because he hated the world. He was just mad at Jane Fonda. You know, he was her father in real life, too.”

“Um…” the teacher said before being interrupted.

The Principal rushed into the room. “Good morning! I hope I'm not disrupting the learning process.”

“Oh, no…”

“I've got some exciting information for you all,” Ms. Li began. “A team of talent scouts from Amazon Models will be here this week as part of their national talent search, and the most promising Lawndale High student will receive a professional modelling contract.”

“They got my letter,” Brittany commented.

( Read More )