Peter Guerin

Peter Guerin is a former fanfic author.

Biographical Information
Born in Bay Shore, New York on September 18, 1968, Peter William Guerin is the youngest son of a concrete worker and a housewife. Early on in his life, there was suspicions that Guerin was not a normal child, which was confirmed when he was expelled from kindergarten just two weeks into the 1973-74 academic year. Diagnosed with an unspecified behavior problem (which is now suspected to be ADD), Guerin spent the next two years at a specialized school for children with developmental disabilities before he was returned to public schools and placed in Special Education. Admittedly Guerin did not adjust well to the experience, where he was beaten up almost daily by the other students. Matters were compounded by the horrific abuse he suffered at the hands of his father.

In 1981, Guerin's parents divorced and a year after that his mother was seriously injured in a car crash. Both incidents adversely affected Guerin, who nearly committed suicide by trying to fling himself down the stairs at junior high, hoping he'd break his neck in the ensuing fall. In 1985, his mother married a co-worker she met at the stock research firm she was working for at the time. Graduating from Connetquot High School of Bohemia, New York in 1987, Guerin spent one year at SUNY Stony Brook before he dropped out because he was unhappy with college life. The next three years he drifted among odd jobs, including working for his father's concrete company and his mother's stock research company. In 1990, Guerin's mother and stepfather bought a house in Hudson Falls in Upstate New York. Despite his efforts to resist moving, Guerin was forced to move after a deal he had struck with his father to live with him fell through because he demanded that he work for his concrete company again.

Shortly after moving, Guerin enrolled at Adirondack Community College in nearby Queensbury, where he graduated with an associate's degree in business administration in 1994. During the summers Guerin worked at the Great Escape/Splashwater Kingdom (also in Queensbury). Shortly after graduating from ACC, Guerin's mother and stepfather purchaed a print shop in Hadley, where he has worked ever since.

About late 1997, Guerin first heard of Daria when he saw the Season 1 finale "The Misery Chick". Seeing something of himself and the struggles he had to endure when he was in high school, Guerin became a fan of the show and caught up on the entire first season. He soon stumbled onto the #Daria+ IRC chat room, the old Planet Daria, alt.lawndale.com and Lanwdale Commons sites and other Daria-related chat rooms and sites.

In 1998, Guerin decided to take a stab at writing Daria fan fiction. Drawing upon his years of doing comedy skits he'd record on audio cassettes, Guerin wrote The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle, which was a crossover with the anime series Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. Serialized on alt.lawndale.com, the fic proved to be a cult hit. Guerin next wrote Triumph of the "Retart", which was inspired by Guerin's unsuccessful campaign for Student Government President in his junior year at high school. Over the next two years or so, Guerin wrote a substantial body of Daria fan fic which he ultimately put under the umbrella title of Daria: The OAV's Series. Guerin's fan fiction contained references to other anime shows like Gunsmith Cats and Here is Greenwood as well as classic American TV shows as Sanford and Son and Adam-12. However, a combination of burnout from keeping up a steady pace of writing as well as flaming criticism from such people as Hellcop led Guerin to stop writing Daria fan fiction in 2000, though he did write fan fiction for other shows like Ed, Edd n Eddy and Cow and Chicken for a few more years afterwards.

From Sick, Sad Burbank onwards, Guerin's fan fiction was marketed under the name of his fan fiction "studio" Mark Zero Fan Fiction, Unlimited, which he named after Mark Seven Limited, the production company founded by Dragnet creator Jack Webb. Guerin even went as far as satirizing the company logo, where he hit his thumb with the hammer trying to chisel a "computer zero" into a piece of metal.

One hallmark of Guerin's fan fiction has been his references to the Adirondack North Country of Upstate New York where he currently lives, Long Island (where he formerly lived) and certain political figures he's held in disgust, most notably Robert L. Schulz, the head of the All-County Taxpayers Association as well as fellow ACTA member Antonio Cerro. Another hallmark has been the inclusion of "commercial breaks" in his later stories.

In 2003, Guerin's stepfather took in a six-month old cat that had leapt into his car in order to avoid being attacked by a bigger cat that was chasing him. Guerin's stepfather decided to keep the cat and named him Laptop, after the fact that he sat on his lap when he got into the car. Guerin has made references to Laptop at the message boards and chat rooms.

Although he no longer writes Daria fan fiction, Guerin continues to be a regular at PPMB and #Daria+, and occasionally pops in at SFMB and the SFMB2 AIM chat room.

Fanon and Fan Culture Contributions
Guerin coined the middle name "Louise" for Quinn for the story Italic textThe Dinner Date from HellItalic text; this was later widely adopted by other fan fiction writers. Guerin was inspired by how C. E. Forman coined the middle name "Marie" for Daria in his story Italic textTo Helen BackItalic text.