Brother Grimace

Biographical Information
Brother Grimace attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where he was enrolled in the English and Cinema & Photography programs. While at SIU-Carbondale, Brother Grimace was a writing consultant with SPC-TV, one of the two student-run campus television stations on the SIU-C campus.

He also was involved with the SIU-C Strategic Games Society in the early 1990's, where he was known for his Marvel Super Heroes role playing game campaign 'The Marvel Wars' - a popular, high-powered, roleplaying-intensive campaign that ran for two years (1992-1994). Due to the intense nature of 'The Marvel Wars', Brother Grimace gained a reputation in the gaming community as 'the most dangerous GM at SIU-C'.

After leaving SIU-C, Brother Grimace began work in the Media Services Department of PCCEO, Inc., a non-profit, community action agency located in Peoria, Illinois. During his time at PCCEO, Brother Grimace was responsible for day-to-day studio operations and a slate of original community-oriented programming; for producing a multi-part series on community-based health issues, he received an award from the American Red Cross and was nominated for another from the City of Peoria.

Brother Grimace is a fan of barbecue, science fiction (particularly the works of J. Michael Straczynski), soap operas (daytime and prime time), cats, and just being an agent provocateur in general. He also likes peanut butter sandwiches, sweet potato pies, seven-layer salads and very cold water.

He also has a weakness for French fries (particularly 'steak fries', and can't wait to travel to Great Britain for an order of fish and chips), cheap beer, and is teased by his friends about his seeming predilection towards smart blondes, which he seems to usually end up around. ("It's just a series of coincidences - really!" -BG)

Fanon and Fan Culture Contributions
Brother Grimace has won three Daria Fan Fiction Awards - two for The Trouble With Veronica, and one for Crusts Of Pizza. He is also arguably one of the more visible members of the group of Dariafic writers known as the Angst Lords, and also enjoys beta reading the works of other authors.

He is known for using Gou'ald technology (particularly transport rings) on the boards, and for his over-use of adjectives for descriptions in his work (most notably parodied in one of The Angst Guy's works). He also spent a decent amount of time annoying and being annoyed by the raptor, and hopes to see him get better soon.

Brother Grimace ia also a huge fan of the Falling Into College post-canon series, and has said on several occasions that Bump is his favorite character. He is also a fan of Invisigoth Gypsy's shipper fics, Doggieboy's "Apocalyptic Daria," and NightGoblyn's round-robin 'Evil Daria Viginettes'.

In September 2007, Brother Grimace began work on Legion of Lawndale Heroes, after recieving permission to do so. At present, he has completed Episode 1.1 of what he terms 'Volume Two', and is up to Part Two of the second episode. He has plans to complete at least eight episodes of the series.

"Daria Mental-Torture Fics"
The first Daria author to fully visualize the fanfic characterization known as Bitch Daria in his works, Brother Grimace began his fan fiction with the first of his 'Visitations' fics, The Sun Will Come Out, Tomorrow. His writing efforts have been noted by Daria fan TerraEsperZ as actually being in a separate sub-section of angst-driven works in the Daria fan fiction universe, which he has dubbed "Daria mental-torture fics." In these fics, Daria is featured as not only being responsible for her own problems, but seemingly deserving of the negative effects brought forth because of her attitude and unwillingness to change or even compromise - even when it is obviously in her best interests. In these fics, Daria also seems to go through a great deal of inner turmoil and torment, leading her to act out in graphically non-canon fashion on occasion at others around her; another mark of these fics is the interior examination of other characters (primarily Sandi Griffin), which leads to betterment of the character. (This character trait has come to be known as Redeemed Sandi.) There was some belief at one time that this tendency towards a negative depiction of the character may have been among the reasons that Brother Grimace has never been selected for a spot on the "Recommended Authors" list at Outpost Daria.

(TSWCOT was, as mentioned in a CINCGREEN review, the first attempt to view Daria in such a manner, and at the time "The Sun Will Come Out, Tomorrow" first appeared on Daria web sites, shippers were the current popular trend. To be fair, it should be noted that half of the authors listed as Angst Lords have NOT been selected to the RA - formerly the 'Featured Authors' - list.)

At the time of TSWCOT's initial release, in June 2000, such a view of Daria and her world was considered almost heretical, and many fans maintained a slight resentment towards the author because of these works that is still slightly present in the fandom. This could be considered ironic, as Brother Grimace's works almost always contain sequences where characters within, including Daria, undergo near-religious moments that allow them to experience relevant and positive insights and changes, as well as surprisingly positive themes and upbeat endings. Examples include the NC-17 rated "The Winters of Those Gone Before," where Daria and Jane experience a very deep examination of their relationship and emotions for one another without experiencing or desiring physical intimacy with one another, and in "Victory Lane," where Jane fully embraces her sense of freedom after meeting a Daria seemingly entombed within her own enforced desire to be perceived as "one of the crowd."

Brother Grimace's fics tend towards prose, and are considerably longer than the average Daria fanfic. At present, two of his works - the unfinished "It's All About Respect" and the Dariarotic work "The Winters Of Those Gone Before" - are among the largest stand-alone works in Daria fan fiction history. (Steven Galloway's epics, "Revelations" and "Visitation," are the largest stand-alone works.) He also tends to use very descriptive prose (most famously parodied by TAG in "The Original Underground Government-Suppressed Version of Brother Grimace’s Classic ‘Daria’ Fanfic, 'The Sun Will Come Out, Tomorrow'"), and uses a great deal of background information on his characters, as well as much internal dialogue.

'Over-The-Top?'
There are some Daria fans that see Brother Grimace's writing style as 'over-the-top' - that is, primarily skewed towards melodrama, generally unrealistic premises and story lines, and that most of his fics are written that way. (In one notable instance, Kara Wild held an Iron Chef challenge in which she challenged him to write a 'down-to-earth' fic while she wrote an 'over-the-top' fic. The fics written were A Slice Of Pizza and They Came from Planet Xulfanex.) While a number of his fics do fit in that mold (most famously Another Stupid Daria Internship Fic and The Winters of Those Gone Before), the majority do not.

A New Take on Veronica?
In "The Trouble With Veronica," Brother Grimace developed Robert Nowall's original character of Veronica into a character beyond a mixing of Quinn and Daria's physical, mental and social traits. This character later morphed into her own independant character, Evelyn Veronica Morgendorffer.

In this fic, 'Evie' is an incoming senior at Grove Hills, and one of the most intelligent students ever to study there. (Daria mentions that Veronica's IQ is rated somewhere in the 190's.) Evie has several traits that are unique to her but not unknown in her family: she has a highly-ranked talent for music (like Jake, but Evie is actually a VERY good singer), is a voracious reader (unlike Daria, her tastes are more broad-spectrum), and shows a talent for fashion (like Quinn). She also has the same eye problems as Daria and wears similar glasses, but prefers contact lenses (which she has no problems with) or prescription sunglasses. Unlike her sisters, Evie hasn't shown any interest in dating - yet - and it was the fear of her awakening sexuality that had prompted Helen to try to remove her from Grove Hills and enroll her at Lawndale High. An upcoming fic shows that Evie was allowed to stay at Grove Hills, where she was awarded a full scholarship and serves as a School Ambassador.

Kyle Armalin
See full article on Kyle Armalin.

Bibliography of Major Works

 * The Devil in Miss Morgendorffer
 * It's All About Respect
 * A Path of Roses and Thorns
 * Victory Lane
 * The Winters of Those Gone Before
 * A Slice Of Pizza
 * Crusts Of Pizza
 * Lunch Hour In Lawndale
 * The Trouble With Veronica
 * The One Day We Forget
 * Helen, In The Depths Of Her Own Mind
 * Lunchtime, Doubly So...
 * Air Bed
 * Pet Food
 * Another Stupid Daria Internship Fic
 * The Bear And The Unicorn
 * The Garbagemen And Their Muse
 * The Almond Ninjas!
 * The Thieving Pizza Fairies
 * Unca Trent's Advice
 * Word Of The Week
 * Getting On With Living
 * A Chunk Of A Conversation
 * 3-D Chess
 * The Big Wedding (as 'Lyman Moneychanger')
 * Forever Sleeping Beauty
 * Good Deed For The Day
 * Word of the Week
 * Behind Enemy Lines
 * Moonflower
 * Clearing The Air
 * After Work
 * Daria's Blue Lagoon
 * Her Little Secret
 * We Regret To Inform You...
 * Bump, The System Lord
 * Back in Fifteen Minutes
 * Piano Practice

Visitations Series

 * The Sun Will Come Out, Tomorrow
 * Shipping Overnight
 * Like Sandi, In The Hourglass
 * Helen, In The Depths Of Her Own Mind
 * He's The QB