Gouka Ryuu
Gouka Ryuu is a rather young Daria fan from southern New Jersey.
Biographical Information[edit]
Gouka was born December 8, 1986. Daria as a show was a little before his time, Gouka was only ten years old and in the fourth grade when the first episode of the first season premiered. However, somewhere between fourth and sixth grade he found and became a fan of the show, perhaps because at that age MTV was forbidden by his parents. Whatever the case he has clear memories of running home from school in sixth grade at 2:55 in the afternoon so that he could watch as much of the Daria reruns as possible that were on at 3:00. It was also around this time that he bought The Daria Database at a Scholastic Book Fair held at his middle school. He entered ninth grade and high school in September 2001 and it was during this year that Is It College Yet? first aired, ending the Daria series. It remains the only episode/movie of Daria that Gouka saw on its first run. At this point Daria left the airwaves and Gouka slowly forgot about the show.
Finding Daria Again and Joining the Fandom[edit]
While at college, during the Spring 2007 semester a conversation with a group of friends turned on to the subject of Daria. Remembering the show and how he enjoyed it in middle school, even though many jokes went over his head, Gouka went to YouTube to watch it. Unfortunately, a few days later YouTube took all the episodes off at the request of the company that owned Daria. Doing further searches on the Internet, Gouka found Outpost Daria. He read and enjoyed a lot of the fanfiction available there instead of doing his school work. The first piece of fanfiction he ever read was TAG's "It Slipped Through My Hands, Like a Shadow, Like a Dream," which he still remembers having an effect on him and first introducing him to angst writings. He noticed many fanfic made reference to Iron Chef challenges that were given on Paperpusher's Message Board. He later found the board and lurked for a time. Feeling that he may be welcomed if he did actually comment and participate, Gouka registered on Saturday April 7, 2007, at 6:40 pm, first commenting on one of RLobinske's John Lane stories.
Interactions and Contributions to Fandom[edit]
Gouka continues to be a commenter on various fanfiction and fanart that is posted at PPMB as well as articles on the wiki. Sometimes his comments have annoyed others but he is a good natured person that has never intended to be malicious to anyone in fandom. He has made some forays over to the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board but this is mostly for things not posted on PPMB. He posts frequently in threads outside of fanfiction and fanart that discuss topics that are of interest to him, usually anything that is geek related. His first foray into fanfiction was with Brother Grimace's assistance writing a mini set in the Legion of Lawndale Heroes universe titled The Devil Deals The Cards. Recently, outside of continuing to write minis for LLH and its Daylight AU, he has begun writing a piece of fanfiction entitled The Fall of the Angst Lords.
Trivia[edit]
- Gouka Ryuu the person appeared in a cameo in Legion of Lawndale Heroes under the name Dayton. This is referenced as the person because a character in Gouka Ryuu's recent mini uses the title Gouka Ryuu as an alias.
- Gouka has traveled to Europe a total of five times. He has mostly visited England, along with Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Mann, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and has studied abroad in Poland during the summer of 2008.
- Gouka Ryuu is Japanese for Hellfire Dragon.
- Gouka worked for a collection agency for a few weeks in the summer of 2008. The false name he used while on the phone was that of fanon character Martin Peters.