Well, Darci, you should really have been able to tell from Karl’s deranged monobrow that he wasn’t quite right in the head. I don’t even know whether it’s a monobrow or whether he’s just been carving random shapes in his forehead with the sharp object he is now pointing at his crotch. (Do it, Karl! your severed penis in a box is going to be so much more impressive a love token than that lame red rose!)

This is another of those creepy stories where I appear to believe that ‘leading boys on and breaking their hearts’ inevitably results in getting raped/stalked/murdered. I really don’t know whether my mind was warped by reading YA novels, or women’s magazines, or some unholy combination of the two.

and he’ll kill to get her… When this doesn’t work, he kidnaps her

This segue cracks me up, it’s so casual. I really want to know who Karl killed and why he thought this would persuade Darci to give him another chance. Or possibly it was his attempt at killing that didn’t work, so he thinks kidnapping will be easier. I don’t know why Darci’s hair is longer post-kidnapping, either she has been in captivity for a while or he has given her forcible hair extensions.

I’m not that worried about Darci, to be honest. Her chin looks like a deadly weapon. Evidently my thirteen-year-old self thought plectrum-shaped skulls were beautiful and ankle socks were cool. Note also the shoulder pads. (It was 1990-ish. I feel that shoulder pads should have gone by this stage, but then I did grow up in a cultural backwater where people wore shellsuits well into the 21st century.)