The Angst Guy

The Angst Guy is a fanfiction author.

Biographical Information
Also known as TAG, The Angst Guy published his Daria stories under his real name from April 2002 until October 2004; he ceased doing so for personal reasons. He is one of the very few members of the Daria fan community who is a published author of fiction.

Declared by Brother Grimace to be pre-eminent among the Angst Lords.

Experimentation
Though known primarily as an angst writer, TAG's work runs the gamut of moods and styles, from broad comedy ("The Thong Remains the Same") to sci-fi adventure ("Drive") to songfic ("The Ballad of Stacy Rowe") to fantasy ("Scarlett") to almost everything in between. He has written stories in past tense and present tense, first person and third person, ficlets and novels, scripts and lyrics, and stories with pictures (HTML) and stories without (HTM). The HTM versions of his stories often have unusual type fonts embedded within the headers or used as decoration, though not all computers have such fonts downloaded to them. (He uses free fonts only, however, so these fonts can be picked out to view the stories to better effect.) Stories on his website are often updated, corrected, or modified to include new features or information.

513
The number 513 appears frequently in his stories, often as a harbinger of disaster. If you notice the time, a room number, an amount of money, or so forth is represented by this numeral, it is a good bet something bad is about to happen in the tale. Episode #513 of Daria was "Boxing Daria," the last regular episode of the series.

Penguins
There is a running joke at the forums that TAG regularly engages in sex acts with penguins. In a surprising display of good nature at such a crude insinuation, he plays along with these jokes. [''They're consenting adults! &mdash;TAG''] The joke apparently started in June 2003 when TAG was on an Alaskan cruise, getting e-mail through the ship's Internet system, and Kristen Bealer asked him to bring back a penguin. TAG offered to give her a used one. [Eww.]

Ann Coulter
TAG has a horror of the right-wing commentator Ann Coulter. Fellow author Dervish kids him about this on the Daria message boards regularly. Brother Grimace just thinks that he needs to spend time in a hot tub with her to get a true appreciation of her.

Angst Overdose
Even TAG will admit, sometimes, that he overdoes it with the angst writing, and he has received requests to drop the angst for a while and try comedies even from other Angst Lords. He is a little slow to get the message, but once in a while he makes the effort. TAG's focus on angst writing has created a degree of controversy in the fandom, coming from those who are getting rather tired of it.