Coming down from my lurking place in the clouds to respond.
First, the deathfic mentioned in an earlier post may be "Angel of the Morning" by Jennifer Bullock, probably the only deathfic I've read - mostly because I didn't know it was a deathfic. Warnings weren't posted back then.
The first fanfic I read didn't actually have a title and might not even qualify as a fanfic, but it's what got me interested. It was way back when WB had a chatboard for L&C on AOL. Someone posted a brief vignette then others followed. Then someone else posted the address for Rhen Brink's FTP site. I started downloading those stories--there weren't very many then--and reading them in order. The first one may have been 12:01 by Zoomway (the only name I recognize that still seems to be around).
It has been interesting to see over the years how the writing has changed as old-timers disappeared and new writers took their place. Early stories were more often episode extensions, episode rewrites, or the author's ideas of what might happen based on teasers. They also tended to be shorter. Several people have mentioned MMIKC as their first, but Chris Mulder's earlier stories, "Dimensions of Loving" and "Love Beyond All Measure" I think were the first long fics I read and I much prefer the longer ones.
I've looked at fanfic from other shows, but I've never found one that I felt compared to LnC in quality. I think all the authors of LnC fanfic should be applauded for their creativity, obvious love for what they are doing, and the sheer guts it takes to put something you've created out for the world to see. Thanks to all of you for many hours of enjoyment.
