"Huh?" Jane asked. Daria never sounded defeated, or, well, like anything.
"Outpost Mr. T is closing," Daria explained. "It was the go-to site for all things Mr. T for well over a decade. Descriptions of all the characters he played, synopses and transcripts of everything he ever acted in, even the biggest repository of Mr. T fanart and fanfic outside of general repositories like Fanfiction dot net and Deviantart. And it'll all be gone in just two short months."
Jane, who recalled the more revolting aspects of Daria's fascination with the T, scrunched her face up, but patted Daria on the arm anyway. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said lamely.
"Yeah," Daria said, nodding her head in thanks at Jane's pathetic attempt at comfort. "It's not just the site going down that bugs me. Outpost Mr. T was almost the very first time I put my work in a public space for anyone to read, except for some shitty Fallout fanfic that only ever saw the light of day on a messageboard that no longer exists. When I saw that the webmaster had actually uploaded "Mr. T's Insanity" for all to see, it made me so happy, I almost smiled." Jane looked at Daria with an eyebrow cocked, realizing her friend was deliberately understating herself. "I used to enjoy writing as an occasional hobby before that, but once I had that first taste of adrenaline from seeing my story exposed to the world at large, I never looked back."
Daria turned her eyes away from the announcement on the screen declaring the site's end in June. "I didn't spend all those years writing Mr. T fanfiction. I'd dabble elsewhere, other fandoms, or, more recently, I'd spend more time on original writing projects. But I always knew my mistress...mister?...would be there waiting for me."
"Well, like you said, Daria, you'll still have Fanfiction dot net to upload your stories to," Jane pointed out.
"You're right," Daria replied, not sounding convinced. "It's not really the same, though." Was her voice husky? Was her best friend really near tears over this? Jane shook her head dismissively; no way Daria could be that broken up about anything. Nuh uh.
In the grand scheme of things, it was just a somewhat popular website for a figure who'd only ever really achieved a cult following. But for Daria, it had been someplace special and important. And in the years to come, when she wanted to check on a detail about Clubber Lang, or the exact wording of a scene from The A-Team, she would go to type in the site's URL, only to be stopped by a pang in her heart.
XXXXXXXXXX
Daria fansite 'Outpost Daria' recently announced it would be closing its doors in June. This story is mostly autobiographical, with obvious exceptions like the Mr. T stuff substituting for Daria herself. I felt the "Daria creepily obsessed with Mr. T" that I came up with some time ago was a good venue for relating my feelings on the pending closure of OD. (I myself am not creepily obsessed with Daria, though. Just wanted to put that out there. Hahahaha).
I wrote Trent's Insanity, my very first Daria fanfic, sometime during the winter break of my 2000-01 school year (I would have been a junior in high school). I sent it in to OD and it was uploaded January 7th, 2001. It sounds corny as hell, but when I saw my fic live on the site, "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi was playing, and I felt really triumphant. And I never did stop writing, either. I switched over to Perfect Dark fanfic for a while, dabbled in a few Nintendo properties, did a deadlog for a while (don't ask, hahaha), but for the past few years I've mostly written Daria fanfic, because it's genuinely been a fun playground to write around in.
I have drifted away from doing Daria fanfic somewhat in the past few months, as I've been focusing mostly on original works (and a few Harry Potter fanfics, haha). I really like this original stuff, and I think it could be something quite great, once I invest enough time into ironing out all the kinks. With a tire iron. I absolutely look forward to putting it online (i.e. selling it as an ebook), but somehow, I don't think that I'll get the same sense of joy and elation that I felt when I first saw my silly little fanfic up on OD.
I just want to extend my most sincerest of thanks to Martin J. Pollard, the webmaster of Outpost Daria, for all the years you've put into the site, and I hope that all of your future endeavours are just as successful and inspirational as this one was. :)