God Save the Esteem

"Gahdamnit Daria, your mother just suggested you get a piercing – suggested!"

—Jake "The Snake" Morgendorffer.

A wildly popular Daria fanfic series by Charles RB that grew out of a joke post in a discussion thread about what the show would be like if it were set in the present day instead of The Nineties.

For all her vaunted unconventionality, one thing about Daria that was very typical of teenagers in the 1990s was her parents: a pair of over-stressed working professionals who had, of course, been hippies in their youth before inevitably selling out.

What happens if you move the setting about a decade and a half forward, into The New Tens? New Age Retro Hippies aside, Jake and Helen are going to need a new counterculture phenomenon to dive headfirst into. That phenomenon: Hardcore Punk.

Now what happens if you subtract the whole selling out thing?

God Save The Esteem happens, that's what.

This isn't the only thing that's changed, of course. Quinn is still just as cliquey and attention-whoring as ever, only now that she's been molded in "Jake The Snake" & "Hellion Wheels"' graven image she leads Lawndale High's resident gang of Delinquents and makes it her mission in life to stick it to The Man wherever he's found (as long as she can look cool doing it). Tom Sloane and his sister Elsie are attending Lawndale High as well, the family fortune not quite up to the task of paying for a fancy prep school amid the ongoing collapse of Western Civilization. Aunt Amy is a tabloid TV reporter and object of a much more visibly bi-curious Jane Lane's nervous affections. Principal Li is even more insane and fascistic than before thanks to post-9/11 paranoia.

And Daria? She's still the same Deadpan Snarker we all know and love.

Between dating Tom Sloane, putting up with her family, and navigating the unholy new social order at Lawndale High, Daria's life is... interesting, in the "may you live" sense.

Has a prequel, Moving Pictures, revolving around Helen and Amy's childhood.

Tropes used in God Save the Esteem include:

Artifact Title: The title is a pun on the first episode of the TV series, Esteemsters, but in this version Daria is never sent to the self-esteem class.
The Atoner: Granny Barksdale. Maybe.
- Daria herself after she realizes the full consequences of all the trouble she's caused for the school.
Beware the Nice Ones: The normally demure Stacy has one alter who's a violence-loving punk and another who's a crazed vigilante based on the Slasher villain of a different, horror-themed fanfic.
- Brittany, of all people, who the other school athletics types had to keep distracted to prevent her from blowing the whistle on their first attempt on Daria's life is actually leading them in the second after the school gets closed down.
Big Bad Wannabe: While this Sandi Griffin is considerably more vicious, bullying and even violent than her original series version, she's still just as incompetent as she ever was.
Bi the Way: Aunt Amy.
Blood Knight: All the Morgendorffers, bar Daria love getting into violent drunken brawls, but Killer Quinn is particularly enthusiastic when it comes to fighting.
Broken Pedestal: You think Amy got it bad in Aunt Nauseum you aint seen nothing yet.
Cerebus Syndrome: Kicks in around episode 13 or thereabouts.
- Seen in particular with Stacy in "Epic F Word." After so long of her multiple personalities being played purely for laughs, it's quite jarring to see her reach the breaking point and suffer a nervous breakdown which is treated with dead seriousness.
Character Development: Daria's character arc gets some interesting tweaks from the original. While Canon!Daria gradually learns to let her hard-edged, cynical mask down a bit, many people complained it made her seem too vulnerable compared to the more unflappable persona from earlier episodes (though we do get plenty of hints she's hiding some pretty serious insecurities early on). Mr. RB takes full advantage of hindsight with this and makes Daria's issues a bit more explicit from the get-go so he can spend the rest of the series building her up into the kind of woman Season 1!Daria pretended to be.
Character Exaggeration: While Canon!Jane was only energetic and silly in comparison to Daria (and really, who isn't?), GStE!Jane is considerably more manic, often to the point of Cloudcuckoolander-dom.
Crossover Ship: Aunt Amy and Dallas from Beavis and Butthead DoAmerica.
The Cutie: This role is given to Cindy Brolsma, a backgrounder from the show who looks somewhat like a slightly chubby, more serene-looking version of Daria. She eventually rises to become the most popular girl in school after the cheerleaders and girls sports' teams are laid low by the grade-fixing scandal and the Fashion and Glee clubs mutually destroy each other by spreading rumors about the other side having STDs.
Darker and Edgier: Not to excess but the lack of network censors certainly ups the amount of transgressive subject matter that can be explored and the physical and emotional stakes are often higher than the original. One notable thing is that while the school jocks were merely unpleasant in canon, after Daria exposes the grade fixing scheme she becomes a target of actual violence and it's entirely possible they might have killed her and Jane on the rooftop if Quinn and the Maleficent Eleven hadn't intervened.
- Don't forget the sex. Unlike in the canon series, Daria and Tom actually do the deed... and on a regular basis too.
Dark and Troubled Past: Oh, Amy...
Death by Adaptation: Ms. Li, who may or may not have met her end at the hands of Metalmouth...
- Todd Ianuzzi also gets run over by a train while running from Jake and Helen when they try to collect the $300 he owes them.
Despair Event Horizon: Daria in Episode 40.
Driven to Suicide: Daria decides to end it all by walking right into the Local Hangout full of students who hated her for getting the school closed and for all the other shit-stirring she'd done and letting events unfold as they may. Fortunately(?), Steve the security guard happened to walk by before they could finish her off.
Drowning My Sorrows: Erin becomes a raging alky following the events of Wedding Hell.
Evil Counterpart: Jodie to Daria.
Genius Bruiser: Bob, the thinking man's punk/rival to Killer Quinn.
Genre Savvy: Jane in Dance Noon.

“You realise when this has a violent, chaos-filled resolution, we’ll be involved whether we want to or not,”

Girl Posse: The Fashion Club, of course, this time with Tom's sister Elsie taking Quinn's place as Vice President and The Starscream to Sandi's Megatron.
Hope Spot: Pryzbylewski's intervention against Superintendent Pascal would have been enough to save LHS had it not been for Brittany taking a minor throwaway gag from Daria and running with it...
Intrepid Reporter: Aunt Amy often finds herself in perilous, though mostly just disgusting, situations in her work for Sick, Sad World.
Impoverished Patrician: The Sloane family, though their fortunes begin to recover as time goes on.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all his boorishness, Tommy Sherman becomes surprisingly sympathetic here with his desire to help the kids of Lawndale high have a better future than he did.
Kavorka Man: Cindy could be seen as a rare female example. Short, plump, slightly nerdy-looking (though intensely cute if you're into that sorta thing) and somehow nearly every boy in school is crazy about her. Cindy, for her part, is rather bemused by the whole thing.
Lolicon: Creepy one-shot substitute English teacher Ken Edwards is upgraded to a major character after he takes over Mr. O'Neill's class when the latter is promoted to principal.
Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Played with. While investigating the savage beating of Kevin Thompson, Daria and Cindy uncover a ring of students stealing test answers from the teachers and selling them on the black market. However it turns out Kevin had nothing to do with it at all and some jock from a rival team just jumped him for fooling around with his girlfriend.
Mood Whiplash: The tone of the series can go from broad comedy to heart-wrenching angst so fast it'll make your head spin.
Moral Guardians: To reflect the changes in the evil forces preying on modern teens, Val is updated from a vapid plastic surgery addict pretending to be a child to a cloying, hypocritical, pseudo-religious abstinence freak.
My God, What Have I Done?: Daria's reaction to her shit-stirring getting the school closed down.
Mythology Gag: A particularly creepy one appears in Daria's High Score where we learn that Daria's terrifying Slasher Smile in the black and white pilot episode Sealed With A Kick is also her O-face.
OC Stand-In: As is de rigeur for Dariafic, numerous unnamed background characters gain names, personalities and some even become fairly major characters, most notably the members of Quinn's gang.
OOC Is Serious Business: While Canon!Daria had this to some degree, the severity of the meltdowns she starts having during the Grandma Barksdale arc is a pretty shocking indicator of shit getting real.
The Quincy Punk: Killer Quinn and the rest of The Maleficent Eleven actually seem to strive to be this.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Erin in Wedding Hell... BY GOD, she dishes it out with both barrels.
Recursive Fanfiction: The aforementioned Moving Pictures is a semi-example, as while it is written by a different author, it's accepted as part of the canon. There are several more straight examples, though.
Ripped from the Headlines: Occupational Hazard is the most obvious example. The B-plot of Dance Noon was also inspired by an article about misogyny in the punk community.
Setting Update
She's Back: The triumphant conclusion to Bearing Gifts.
Ship Tease: One of the aforementioned recursive fanfics was a Slash Fic that began with Jane subbing for Amy's cameraman. Guess what happens in the B-plot of Highland Lassie?
Shout-Out: Crawling with nods to other Daria fanworks. For instance, Jake's older sister (who never appears in the show at all but was mentioned by Word of God) has two sons named John and Finn, based on Gender Flipped version of Jane & Quinn from two other popular fanfic serials.
- Erin experiences a "dark night of the soul" after her coworkers at Buzzdome discover she doesn't know about My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.
- "Is It Fun Yet?" features a cameo by Superintendent Rawls of the Maryland State Police.
Slap Slap Kiss: Instead of that wimp O'Neill, Janet Barch teams up with Mr. D for some good ol' fashioned angrysex.
Slash Fic: The Holiday Island episode has Bonfire Night/St. Patrick's Day.
Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Plays it like that notorious loop de loop waterslide at Action Park.
Spared by the Adaptation: Tommy Sherman not only survives his encounter with Daria but later becomes the school's new gym teacher. Can't win 'em all, eh, Daria?
Split Personality: Stacy of the Fashion Club has about five or six of them in this series, to cope with all social situations. And counting.
The Stoner: Shaggy and Burnout from the Maleficent Eleven.
Strawman Political: Played for laughs, natch, with both the Morgendorffer's ludicrously over the top anti-establishment bent and Evil!Jodie's Teabaggery.
Streisand Effect: Ms. Li's attempts to take down Daria's website about all the corruption at Lawndale High only serve to alert more students to its existence.
Sure Why Not: Charles is not averse to including fan suggestions in his work.
The Un-Reveal: Did Daria get accepted to Fielding?
Wham! Episode: Several, most recently Epic F Word, featuring Principal O'Neil attempting suicide and being replaced by De Martino, Stacy suffering a complete nervous breakdown and Lawndale High finally being shut down for good by the state.
Where Da White Women At?: Instead of Jodie, Mack starts off in a relationship with Brittany's friend and fellow blond cheerleader Angie, though he eventually dumps her when he learns of her involvement in Sandi's plans to bully Daria.
- And then there's Andrew Landon's affair with Erin.
Yandere: Killer Quinn, in regards to Trent.