Feb 16, 1998

Hail,

Welcome to the new, hopefully improved Sick, Sad World. Since the new episode, "Arts & Crass," is on tonight, I"ll probably be replacing this rambling soon. In the meantimes, I'm going to explain what's what here.

Wraith's Ramblings: Jus' lil ole me. I've still got all the old ones archived, and now that we're in a season I'll probably be updating more than once a week.

The Daria Annotation File - This is where all the episode summaries, quotes, and annotations go. If I get the time I may go through 1st season and re-write the summaries, but I doubt I'll have time. I'm going to be including everything I possibly can in the annotations, no matter how trivial: mistakes, loose threads, double meanings and such are still there, but I hope to expand.

The Cast - This is where I put everything there is to know about the characters and the people behind them. Since "Susie Lewis Lynn and Glenn Eichler--Beavis vets both-- vow that Daria will not remain forever trapped in the body of a snarky 16-year-old, but will, as time goes by, bloom into a bilious coed" I've gone ahead and set it up so I will have character bios as of the end of every season, just to keep track of how they develop. The bios will certainly be getting longer and more involved as we find out more about them.
I've also set up the alter-egos for different seasons. I don't know if those will be different for every season, but I'll be surprised if they don't change them sooner or later.
I've also set up separate pages for the voice actors and anyone of importance in the credits that I can find information about. It is amazingly hard to find anything on these people - most of what's here is from the Internet Movie Database. The ones with more info generally have appeared in a movie or live-action show. If you have more information about anyone, let me know, please. I have discovered that some of the voices have already had more than one actor, but I don't know who did which episodes.

The D-Files - Everything Fandom. This is where I'm sticking the fanfics, of course, as well as the future plots, anything downloadable I have, merchandise info, and {insert introduction to "Southbound Pachyderm"} the results to the First Annual Sick, Sad World Fanfic Contest. I don't know what the winner is getting yet, I'll be talking to him to find out what he doesn't have. But yes, this is the First Annual... between second and third season I'll run another one, hopefully with a better prize (if MTV ever puts out this merchandise they've been hinting at). Don't ask me what the topic will be; I won't tell anyone until I announce the contest, and I haven't decided yet anyway.
Why am I only running them between seasons? From my conversations, I doubt much fanfic at all will be written during the season...
On a related note, the fanfics will be getting ratings by myself. From now on, if you send one it, it's going to get a rating. It may take me a little while to catch up, of course :) Also, I'm accepting reviews by fans. The reviews can cover anything; fanfic, episodes, sites, whatever. If I think they're well written, I'll post them. Check the Fanfic Guidelines and Review Guidelines pages for more info.
The images are mostly from MTV Online right now, but I have a few more to add when I get the time.  This area will probably undergo extensive revision.

Links - This is where I've got, you guessed it, links to other pages, reviews and articles. I've reviewed the ratings of everyone single one, and have mini-reviews for each. The mini-reviews are listings of what's there, and a short form of my impression of the site. As always, feel free to argue, but it's far better if you tell me why you think the site deserves a different rating, rather than just saying you think it deserves one. They are now organized first by rating, then by alphabetical order. I've also removed links to the distressingly huge number of sites that have remained idle for months. The few under construction sites still listed are ones that have shown some amount of work. On a related note, I will no longer solicit links to this site. If you don't care enough about the subject to look for other sites (I'm listed with Yahoo and others, after all), then I don't really care if you link to me or not. I'll maintain my process of looking for new sites, but if you've just started one or know of one I don't have listed (that's been updated in the last six months) let me know.
I'm also introducing The Sick, Sad World Wide Web Board in this section. "Yet another message board" you moan, but this one is a bit different. It's hosted on my site (almost the same script Katherine is planning on using at alt.lawndale.com, but I've been fiddling with it), and will probably have the IP stamp on each message before long (when I get a chance to test the changed code). It's totaly text-based (except for the form) so anyone should be able to read it. Read the Board Rules (not a pun referring to Road Rules in any way, shape, or form) before you go posting. For those of you adding another message board to your list, remember: That was before. Now you're dealing with Me.

Search - Yes there will be a search function. I've just got to get the site indexed and the form up.

Site Map - For those of you who are stuck with text-only or some non-tables browers, this can eliminate most of the intermediate hierarchy.

Contact - Why Marvin? Why not? I'll be setting up a form for the simple site comments, but you'll still have to e-mail me (at my new wraith@ssw.net address) with attachments for the fanfic and so on.

Future Plans - I've got several things to add, once I a) get the time, and b) figure out if they're feasible or not. For the nonce, this site will stay more-or-less as-is, but I do have plans.

Wraith