Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related What was your first fanfic?

We've had some neat discussion questions lately, and I hope this one will inspire some fun answers. (And everyone has time to answer since you only need to give one story, not a list. <g>)

What was the very first fanfic you ever read?

Mine was Zoomway's "Counter-Clark-Wise".

Kathy

Mine was "A Shot in the Dark" and then "Meet me in Kansas City" -- two of my favorite stories to this day .

- Alicia

Pam Jernigan's Quiet Night.

Mine was "Back to the Future" of S5. I first read it last June, and after five years of being stuck with the baby cliffhanger, I was *ecstatic* to have a resolution to it. And a great one at that!

~Anna

Well, I read it two weeks ago, and had about the same reaction.

Mine was "The Cure for What Ails You" first ep in TUFS...Oh wow. I wasn't even looking for fanfic when I came across TUFS. I didn't even know such a thing called fanfic EXISTED and this was like 4 years after the show ended that I just happened to be going through withdrawl, so I started surfing the web and I got sucked in. And I darn near fell off my chair when I found the Archive. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven...

Frankly, I can't remember. What I do remember is that I read about the Archive in the LA Times. My only connection was at work, so I had to file the bookmark among the work sites on the computer .
Anyway, I went to the Theme page, picked Revelations 1 and read a bunch of them. I had to copy them to floppy to take home and read, since I couldn't read at work.

Artemis

I honestly don't remember my first Fanfic, but I remember that I started reading FanFics from the One stop Reading Page Kerth Website. Obviously my first story was a Kerth winner and I kept coming back for more.

I soaked up a lot of stories in the last two years, so now I have to beg for new installments here on the message boards

The first fanfic I ever read was a Forever Knight story, but I don't remember which one. It got me curious enough about fanfiction to read more, and eventually get up the courage to post my stories on the internet, though.

The very first fic I read was Strange Vistior From the Congo by Wendy Richards. Needless to say, it got me completely hooked on fanfic.

Saskia

Great topic, Kathy.

As I alluded to on the other thread, I really couldn't say what my very first fanfic was. Well...actually come to think of it, just as I typed that I realised that it's not strictly speaking true.

The very first LNC fanfic I ever read was a pen and paper zine that I bought from the author for a whole £3.00. When I saw an ad for this zine (it contained a whole one story btw - all of 42 pages) I snapped it up out of sheer despair.

But I don't really count that. And, no, it wasn't worth the £3.00. Which is why I'm always especially keen to contribute as much as I can afford to the Annesplace and Fanfic Archive fundraising drives when they come up. All those stories and all for a lot less than that £3.00 it cost me for one medicore fanfic. Where else can you get value like that? <g>

The second LNC fanfic I read was within half an hour of finally getting hooked up to the net. It wasn't from FoLCdom. It was on a private website and was the most horrendous and appalling fanfic I've had the misfortune to read. Mercifully, I've tried to block it from memory, but I recall it was wildly OOC and wallowed in gore, death and destruction. I was desperately disappointed and threw it in the bin - was this what online LNC fanfic was going to be like? Where was the compassioniate Superman I knew? The waffs? The romance? The humour of the show?

Fortunately - ten minutes later I hit the Archive.

LabRat

Oh, crimeny, Kathy, I read my first L&C fic in 1995!! You don't expect me to remember that, do you? (I've been reading fanfic in general since the late eighties)

I *think* the first place I encountered FOLCfic was when one of the guys on CServe introduced me to one of Leigh Raglan's fanfic compendiums -- Leigh would gather up 8-10 stories and put them together into one file. I have vague memories of Lois and Clark on a beach... that doesn't seem to narrow it down much, though <g>

And then I got on the fanfic majordomo list -- wow, they had *four* whole pages of stories to choose from! Plus new ones delivered directly to my mailbox! Bliss.

One of the first stories I got through the list was Debby's Dawning, part 3. Since I hadn't yet read parts 1 or 2, I was very very confused

I remember Leigh Raglan's Reminiscing. It was about that time that I found Chris Mulder's Love Beyond All Measure (the sequel wasn't out yet). And, well... I plunged in headfirst and haven't ever come back out, all the way

PJ
p.s., Rivka, I'm so touched to think one of my stories was the first one you read... and amazed that you came back for more, afterwards! <g>

Finally a topic I can post on.

I honestly don't remember if it was the first L&C fanfic because I'm pretty sure I was getting fanfic emails way back then and so there were actually a lot more stories that could be the first one. (Of course I could be wrong about this but I'm not thinking of the collections but the individual stories in emails? Who did that?)

Anyway, while I don't remember the first I read, I do remember the first one that made an lasting impression on me, so much so that if it wasn't the first, it might as well have been. That was DIRTY BUBBLES by Zoomway.

I couldn't believe how great a punch that one packed in such a small package. I think that's when I fell in love with the vignette with a punchline/payoff format and it was probably the story that inspired me to finally put that strange scene I kept seeing in my head of Lois in a Superman teddy down into words . . . even though I probably still had absolutely no plans at that time to ever let anyone else see it.

Beverly

There is one story I read early on I *do* remember the name and author of -
LabRat's Burnout. I read all of LabRat's stuff I could get my eyes on. And Pam Jernigan's. Also Chris Mulder's series.

Artemis

Rhen Brink handled the fanfic list as I recall -- there was no discussion, but new stories were sent out to everyone automatically. Sometimes in many parts, 'cause none of the parts could be more than 20k I remember working with Chris Mulder to break "Meet Me in Kansas City" down into ~20k chunks. There were more than 30 of them, as I recall. Chris was convinced that Rhen would kill her <g>

Then the stories were archived by the list majordomo server (I do not know what that means but I remember the term, and more or less how it worked), and you could get index files to list the stories already available. You'd e-mail the majordomo server with specific commands, and it would automatically send you the files you'd requested. I still remember being giddy with delight when I'd get the files back almost instantly

It was our theory that the flunky in Tempus, Anyone? who was called "Major Domo" was an homage of sorts to our fanfic list

ah, good times...

PJ
p.s., thanks, Artemis!

I remember one of the first if not the first was Chris Mulder's Meet Me in Kansas City.
I came upon the archives and started downloading all the stories to disk and then printed some.

I was really hooked, and then I found zoom's boards and got introduced to Joyce and Debbie Stark.
the rest is history.
merry

Mine was TUFS. <G> Next, I found S5 and S6, then the RR S5. After I got through all of those, I found the archives and read The Circle Game. <G> Then I discovered the Kerth pages and started reading all of those, which led me back to the archive where I started reading everything in sight, starting with Jenni Debbage's Universal Union series.

Laura

I actually don't remember what the first fanfic I read was called, though I do vaguely remember what it was about. After the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2 (on first-run in the UK), my husband suggested I do a search for L&C stuff on the internet, and after a while I came upon a site which had links to four or five stories - I'd never encountered fanfic before that. I guess that would have been the summer of 1995 or somewhere around then.

Anyway, the first story I read had a scenario in which Lois was arrested for something. There was also a scene involving Clark missing his trousers... It was mildly interesting, though nothing like as well-written as stories by our best writers. I don't think it's on the archive either. So that was the first; and there was also a link to part 1 of Dawning, by Debby Stark. The site told me that there was more to Dawning, so I searched, and found Debby's old FTP site, and read the rest of what was available.

Then, somehow, I found the old Compendiums available for download somewhere, and I also found Sarah and Pam's Shrine o' Fanfic - so, yes, Pam, yours was among the earliest fanfic I read.

And then - oh, happy day!!

Preface: I don't know how this turned into a novel when all I really wanted to say was, "I don't remember." I guess that comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me and knows that short, straight and to the point has never been my style.


In the summer of 2001 I was working as a live-in nanny for three small children whose single mother often traveled for weeks on end. I had moved to the Durham-Chapel Hill area from DC to take the job and I knew no one in the area and was dying of boredom and lonliness. (I loved my kids, but a five year old and twin two year olds aren't exactly great company.) They went to nursery school for a couple hours every morning, and it just so happened that I usually got home from dropping them off a few minutes after 8 am, which happens to be when LnC is on here. I immediately got hooked on the show again. I'd loved it when it was originally aired, and had been hooked on the reruns once before already.

Anyway, I was always wandering around with these LnC stories in my head. I had all these plots and episode rewrites. But I'd never heard of fanfic and thought I was just crazy. I never told anyone about these stories in my head. One day I actually started writing one down, but then I felt REALLY crazy, so I put it aside and tried to forget about it.

Then one day I was trying out my new laptop and decided to google "Lois and Clark" - I was *shocked* by all the hits I got. I was amazed. I surfed around looking at episode summaries, pics, quotes, music videos (which thrilled me because I also had those running around in my head).

Finally, I stumbled across Annesplace. I was stunned. What was this? You mean other people have these stories in their heads and not only write them down but publish them? I was stunned -and thrilled. I started reading everying - in alphabetical order, if I remember correctly. I read and read and read and read. Anytime I had a free second, I was reading. But at that pace I exhaused all the stories on Annesplace pretty quickly. I was so sad because I thought that was all there was. Toward the end of the summer my nanny job ended and I was without computer access for a couple of weeks. But when I started school again and was hooked up the school network, you can guess what was the first thing I googled. This time I found the Archive and was in heaven. Shortly thereafter, I found the mbs and started writing Anybody's Baby. And eventually I even went back and finished that first story I had started back before I knew about fanfic.

So, long story short, I don't remember the first story I ever read, but it was probably the first story under the first author on Annesplace.

Annie

I found fanfic when I was in despair at the cancellation, I was looking on the net for anything to tell me why the show had not started up again and I stumbled across The Circle Game by Crys, and wow, that was one fantastic fic...I was kinda silly and thought that it was the script redone into story form for the whole fifth season...<g> but then I found Tufs
and S5 and from there S6 and then the archive...S6 was not done when I found it either so I was there and waiting every night that it was to come out.. like so many others.. I was in awe of all the writers and I didn't start to write until after I had found #loiscla... and the rest is not near as interesting <g>

I have no idea what the first L&C fic I read was. I'm certain it was from the Archive and I'm almost certain that it was a 2002 Kerth Nominee, though possibly not. I discovered Folcdom, the ficlist and the Archive about a week before the voting closed for the 2002 Kerths. As a result I think I read about 95% of the nominated stories in that one week so that I could vote!

Loriel

I don't remember what my 1st fanfic was, that time was so confusing. I had just watched some old taped episodes my mom had of Lois and Clark and she only taped three of them, including And The Answer Is but she didn't tape We Have A Lot To Talk About. After finding out the show had ended years ago I went online, trying to find scripts of the episodes but couldn't find a good site. Then I searched the tv guide, and found out they were replaying the episodes. A few weeks later the show ended and I wanted more. My brother told to search for fanfiction ( ) and, after he explained what that was, I searched. I found a page with,like, 75 links. I looked under fanfic and went to a few sites, skimming some stories, I almost gave up right there, some of those were in desperate need of editing and in the others, the story made no sense. Luckily, I found the archive and now I'm hooked

Artemis, thank you for making my evening.

LabRat

I know I started reading fanfic somwhere between 95-97. I remember sitting in my dad's house reading Dawning before either making dinner or eating dinner. At the time, I'd gotten hooked into both L&C fanfic and Sliders fanfic. One of the sites hosting fic(I'm thinking it might have been our own archive, but it might have been Sliders) was on the verge of shutting down and was looking for someone to take over, so I started downloading lots of stories. I've got a couple of disks full of fanfic still. But I can't remember what the first one was that I had read. It's been too long.

The first time I found fanfics (i.e. the second day I went online

Elena

Like some others, my first experience with fanfic was TUFS. I wasn't actually looking for fanfic -- I was searching for information on a fifth season. I had watched the show while it was on and loved it (this was before I knew what fanfic was, and we didn't use internet much then), and when it was cancelled I was never sure if *it* was cancelled, or our stupid tv service in Laredo just went berserk on us (it wouldn't have been the first time...).

I found a link to TUFS and thought it was scripts/storylines actually written to be aired, then realized it was fanfic. I had found Star Trek fanfic online, and the Strange New Worlds ST fanfic contest was recent (they have a contest, winners get published -- but there's a word limit and some other rules and some of the stuff they've published is stupid. Anyway, tangent...) so I knew what fanfic was, but I was naive and thought it was only a Star Trek thing.

It took a while, but I went from TUFS to the archive (read S5 and S6 in spurts there) to the Ficlist to the boards to writing my own stuff. And what a wonderful journey it's been.

Bethy

You are welcome, LabRat.
In fact, , I think I even heard a rumor there was a squeal - er, sorry, sequel - in the works.

And do people know your website is still up?
http://www.chantico.com/labrat/

Artemis

My answer's gonna be short, since like others here, I don't remember <g>.

I do remember the story that got me hooked, though: MMIKC. It was the beginning of a long love affair with fanfiction.

Shadowfax

I'm going to keep telling you til you believe me, I LOVED that page full of fics. And it wasn't just because I was in LC withdrawal -- they're fun!

('And short,' she added, looking at the piles of printouts on the floor.)

Prior to getting hooked on the L&C reruns on TNT, I was heavily involved in the Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Babylon 5 fandoms, both of which also have a lot of fanfic. So I had read many wonderful stories, and also some ones that I didn't enjoy at all.

At one point on one of the SMK lists, there was discussion of setting up some kind of author awards, and a list member mentioned the L&C Kerth Awards. So once I'd seen enough L&C episodes to know that I definitely needed to read some stories, I did a search for the Kerth Awards, and for my first story picked the Best Overall Story of the most recent awards:

Wendy's For the Greater Good

Nothing like starting at the top! And, two years later, it is still one of my very favorite stories. And then I kept reading, and reading, and reading...

Kathy

This is a neat topic, Kathy

Okay, so the first fanfic that I ever read ... you know, I don't remember it being a specific fic. I read a group of them, but I don't recall which one came first. One of my friends (who had the internet at a time when I didn't) printed out a few stories that she'd found on the internet about "my Superman show" (as she liked to call it [g]). One of them was Zoomway's and one was Demi's Heaven's Prisoners (the PG version). Well, I devoured them in no time at all, and I wanted more [g].

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to read anymore until I graduated high school and got my new computer (complete with the internet! yay!). I remember the next fic I read being "What It Means To Love You" by Erin Klingler. Wow, was that an awesome fic, and I was blown away by her talent (and hey, I still am!).

After that, I remember speed reading my way through the archive. I would come home from class (I was in my first year of college) and read for hours. Then I stumbled upon the message boards in the fall of that year. I definitely remember the first fic that I read on the MBs -- Wendy's The Penfriend. Seriously, it was like *Christmas* when I came home from class to find that she had posted a new part of that wonderful story [g]. There were times when I would try to wait and not read the new part right away, because I knew that after I was finished, I would only start wanting the next part immediately! Never did succeed there, though -- I'm weak when it comes to Wendy's writing [g].

Actually, I owe a lot to Wendy's posting of The Penfriend. I was loving the story so much that I always felt a little guilty about not telling her so (ah, the days of lurkdom). So in the spring of that year, I decided to jump right into FoLCdom. I posted my first fanfic, started commenting, made some friends, and ... well, long story short, here I am, getting ready to graduate from college in May, and I'm still around

Hmm, probably could have said all that in less space, but I get wordy when it gets late [g].

Tracey

well, i don't remember my first fic, either. i'd kept from posting for exactly that reason, but it looks like i'm not alone in that. thanks, guys.

i do know how i got into fic, tho, and i guess i'll tell that one. it's short and sweet. or something.

basically, when i was in high school, my life was on compuserve, due to health problems. i'd hang out in the various forums and chat rooms that i liked. joined up with a philosophical discussion group that called itself "the church of the bunnies" (i took the name "rabid rabbit rabbi of the non-existant hareline," and got in a flame war with a guy who went by RabbiT and claimed i'd stolen his nick). joined up with the comic book forum, too. i spent quite a lot of time, though, in the sci-fi media forum (which got so big that it split into sci-fi media and sci-fi media2... i was active in both places).

well, a large part of getting caught up with the sci-fi media forum was the lois and clark section. i enjoyed chatting with folcs, talking about the series, whatever. then, one day, one of them (pretty sure it was pam, the section asysop) pointed me to rhen's ficlist. that was december 95. i got sucked right into it. i read everything that hit my mailbox as soon as i could, and, although there were no comments on the ficlist, i had fun talking about them on compuserve.

it was only a few months after that when i started writing. felt really good to have an outlet for the creative energy that had been buzzing around my head.

of course, getting feedback on those stories (by private email and sometimes on the forum) only encouraged matters..

so, that's my story. hope you didn't find it too boring.

Paul

ROTFL! Artemis, I think Second Degree Burns is one of the few stories in this fandom that's infamous before it's even been posted! It was begun right after Burnout (you work out the math - it scares the heck out of me, so I'm not going to ), is half-finished now and has been for something like five years (a few months ago I was looking through an ancient floppy disk before discarding it and was dismayed to find an early draft of the darn thing on there! ) and recently I came to the conclusion that what's there already is so boring and predictable I really should just dump it and start from scratch....

Translation? Don't hold your breath. <g> It is, technically, scheduled to be worked on and finished next. Right after...erm...um...what I'm working on today. I reckon if I don't get it finished and out this year I probably never will. But I suspect it's going to take a lot of hard work from my poor betas - who will probably cringe when they see me coming with it - to whip it into shape.

LabRat

Wow, the memories this thread evokes!

My VERY first fan-anything was a fan-written Star Trek script that someone in my university dormitory wrote and let me have a look at. We're talking type-written, back in 1992 or 1993 or maybe earlier. I'd just started reading the Trek novels at the public library, even before I started collecting the books. I didn't even have a TV at the time - we didn't have one when I was a kid, either. I'd seen an ep or two of the original Trek when I'd been at people's houses, that was it, so the novels were how I got started with Trek for the most part. Anyway, it was my friend's roommate or suitemate, or something like that, who wrote this script, and I remember thinking, "Wow, I'm not the only person who likes this show here at this school" - this was a very conservative religiously affiliated university, and I'd figured everyone would be anti-scifi there.

To make a long story short, a year or so later I bought my own TV (a VERY BIG DEAL <VBVEG>) and discovered that I could get The Next Generation on it, so I started watching the show. Of course I was hooked already, thanks to the novels. Then I moved out of the dorm and into my own little efficiency apartment, so efficient that someone had made it by building a wall across the back of their garage, with the main entrance through the garage. (It was long and narrow, perhaps three mattresses wide?, with the bed space in a loft above the garage storage space on the other side, that you had to crawl up a ladder to get into bed. I had a little short love seat sofa that I preferred to sleep on, even though my feet stuck up in the air and the arm of the sofa was my pillow and I often woke up with a crick in my neck. There was a closet on one end of the room whose door often came off the track and I had to get my landlord, who lived in the house whose garage I was living in, to fix it every time. At the other end was a miniscule kitchen sink behind what used to be the back garage door, but was now my back door out into the back yard - there was practically no elbow room, let alone dish-draining space, because he had put a tiny little bathroom in the rest of that space. But you had to go out into the garage and open the bathroom door from out there with a separate key - I hated having to go to the toilet in the middle of the night that winter; this was Michigan, btw! The bathroom was so narrow that if you were sitting on the toilet and you tried to lean over to look between your feet, your head bumped the wall. You had to turn sideways to get past the toilet to get into the shower, which you could barely turn around in...)

Anyway, I put my TV up on the loft shelf, and I started taping the show in earnest, and buying novels and reading them at an alarming rate. (Alarming because first, I didn't have the money to spend on them, and second, I didn't have the time to read them - I spent time reading that I should have spent studying or practicing...) About that time, I started discovering the internet - I had been on various forerunners briefly the year before, doing research for my music courses, but about that time the internet started getting interesting. I'd found some Trek sites before, and some fic too, but it was just a novelty, since the type of 'net we had before that was really awkward to navigate. (I don't know if the older members will remember it - it was about 1990 or 1991 if memory serves. I don't really remember the details myself, but do remember that at that time it was a lot easier to just look up the books and the microfiche and other stuff, than to try to navigate that old 'net) About this time, too, the university computer lab, which before had been mostly a glorified typewriter room and other computer applications centre, got the internet, and we students were allowed to access it! So I started spending time searching for the titles of all the Star Trek episodes that I had missed so far. That's about all I did with Trek on the internet for a couple of years...

One day a girl looked over my shoulder and commented that I must be a Star Trek fan, too. We struck up a conversation, and lo and behold, she was a scriptwriter-wannabe (now that I think about it, might she have been the one who wrote that first script I saw? dunno), and we became good friends. I taught her to play chess, and she took me to my first Trek convention, and when I had my first Trek dream (I don't have to ask if you've ever had a dream about your fandoms - I suppose most of us have had them ) I told her about it. She suggested I write it down, and so I started to play around with the idea. I'd read a lot of Trek books by now, and I fancied that I could write a story like that - there were a lot of bad Trek novels in the beginning, if those of you who are also Trek fans will remember, and I thought I could do at least as well as those bad ones, maybe better.

Meantime, in 1994 I had to quit grad school due to lack of financing, and I returned home to look for work. I kept buying books - the older ones from a used book shop near my new place, the newer ones from the bookstore in the mall across the road. I made friends with both the used book seller and one of the clerks in the bookstore, and spent a lot of time chatting with them while I was in their places browsing their shelves - they both knew of my obsession with Trek, and they were very kind to listen to my rambling about this story I wanted to write. Finally one day the clerk said, "I want you to go home and write the first paragraph, and then come back here and show it to me." I think she got sick of me talking and talking and never doing! So I did - I went home and scratched out the first sentence: "Annie McGregor could have sworn she'd seen the young man someplace before." Yup, you guessed it - my first fanfic ever was my own Trek fic, Through a Glass Darkly! I managed to write that first paragraph out, and I took it back to that clerk, who gave me some point of view pointers and encouraged me to continue. So continue I did, teaching myself to write fiction as I went - over about five years or so until I finally feel like it's done now. And now I'm continuing with a sequel, Face to Face, but that's another story.

That same year I remember hearing about this new show, Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman. I thought, "Well, that sounds interesting. I think I'll check it out." The first part of the first season I switched the channel back and forth between LnC and Seaquest DSV, which also premiered that year in the same time slot, so I missed parts of various LnC eps - but I caught them again in reruns, and taped them when I started taping the show several years later. About halfway through the first season I realized that I was well and truly hooked on LnC, and stopped watching Seaquest because it conflicted. (I suppose if I ever get into DVDs I'll get Seaquest, because I did enjoy it - but I liked LnC better...) Then I got a position teaching English in Africa at my mom's friend's ESL institute for about six months of 1996, and my flight left just before the wedding episode aired - I was so mad, because I had been looking forward to it for months... But of course, it turned out to be the beginning of the Argh - I came back to Canada just in time for the beginning of fourth season, and I couldn't figure out why they weren't married. And of course, that was the middle of the NK arc, so no wonder I was confused. And then they started missing shows and repeating old shows, and then they just stopped showing it, and I couldn't figure out why; I didn't have access to the net then, so I never heard about the show being cancelled - I think it took me about a year before I realized that it wasn't just that my station had dumped the show.

In 1997 I got a job teaching at a school in central British Columbia that had internet access in the seventh grade homeroom, and I got permission from the seventh grade homeroom teacher to use it after school - later they set up an internet/computer lab over in the high school building, so sometimes I would go over there after school, too. (But it was a Mac lab, and I was/am more comfortable with PCs.) At first I just did general surfing, but I quickly stumbled on TV show sites, including fanfic sites. I had watched the odd MASH ep at other people's homes and on my own TV, although at that time I really didn't consider myself a diehard fan. And I have always been fascinated by time travel - eps that deal with it are some of my favourites in Trek and other shows - so when I saw the Quantum Leap novels in the library, I got hooked on that show, too. (Never saw an actual ep, tho, until our Canadian station Space: the Imagination Station started airing it a few years back.) So the first online fanfic that I can remember reading was a MASH/Quantum Leap cross called (of course) Q*U*A*N*T*U*M L*E*A*P - I was a little lost about some of the QL mythology, but I enjoyed it. The second and third online fanfics that I can remember reading were a TNG/QL cross pair called (of course) L*E*A*P T*R*E*K I and II.

About this time I found the old Loiscla (was that it?) listserv on Indiana.edu, which later became the Yahoogroups LnC Fanfic list. I was *so* excited to find out that I wasn't the only LnC fan out there - I had thought that I was the only one on Earth, for some reason - that I followed the link from the very next popup ad for free email service I saw (usa.com) and got my very first email address, and signed up for it. I honestly don't remember which was the first LnC fic I read there - I suspect it may have been something from Zoomway - but I do remember Irene's Firestorm and sequels were posted about that time, as well as some of Yvonne Connell's stories, and I was really impressed. (I also got into the XFiles this same year, and spent hours reading their stories - one of my favourite writers from that fandom, Sheryl Martin-Nantus, is also a prolific writer in my most newly discovered fandom, Stargate SG1, I was happy to find out recently... Her XF fics the Downtime Series and the Dragon Chronicles were some of the first I ever read in that genre.)

In 1998 I moved to Vancouver, and had to haunt the library, the employment agencies, and a multitude of internet cafes in order to keep up with my fandoms - at that time, just LnC and XF and Trek, although I soon added others. A new author had just started posting to the fic list and the boards, and had been nominated for the first Kerth awards I ever attended, and I was really impressed with her work. When I went to Anne Ciotola's IRC tutorial, there she was, and I was totally overwhelmed - my favourite new author, there in the same channel as me, and I could chat with her in person! Well, Wendy Richards won that New Author award, and I was just tickled for her (you remmeber that, don't you, Wendy? ) - and when later on we found ourselves on IRC again, I started asking her all sorts of questions about writing. It was she who suggested the topic for my first LnC fic, Moments of Illumination, btw. I wrote a couple others, and joined the round robin team for a while, and I still have one fic in the works that I've been stuck on for several years - and I have a series that I'm trying to plan, but now I'm in Korea without my tapes, so that has to stay on hold for a while. But I still have to thank Wendy for getting me writing again...

So, well, I guess that answers your question a LOT more than you ever thought you wanted to know about me, right? But you asked, so I babbled

I'll shut up now...

Melisma (retreating back under her Rock to gargle with salt-water after all of that!)

Wow, Melisma, someone who watches/reads as much different sci-fi as I do, *and* admitting it to the world at large! I'm impressed! I think the only thing I don't watch that you mentioned is M*A*S*H! And there's also a load of other stuff that I manage to keep up with as well! When I tried to type my 'interests' in that little box you get when you register, the form nearly had a fit! I gave up and eventually put 'almost anything sci-fi/fantasy!

Loriel

LOL, Loriel, so did my little box. The first time. This last time I generalized so much it hurt. Makes me wonder if we couldn't get Anne to make that little box a lot bigger, so I can list all my shows.

OH! I'm so excited, I've been checking the TV show listings at home, even though I won't be able to watch anything until the beginning of November - it's nice to see what the stations are showing... Anyway, I discovered today that one of them is airing 7 Days again! If you know anything about that show, it's about a guy who goes back seven days in time (the time travel thing is what hooked me, of course ) and prevents disasters or other stuff from happening. It ran for only three years, and I discovered it during season 3 - and the fall after, when I was looking forward to reruns on Space, 9/11 happened, and it got taken off air along with a whole host of other shows that even slightly made reference to terrorism. I hope this one station is still running it when I get back - I know they keep running TNG eps over and over, so maybe, and they have 7 Days on at like 3am, so maybe...

Melisma (crossing her fingers, here under her Rock)

Love 7 Days! You're lucky tho! Here in the UK, I think the BBC has killed it! which is quite surprising, cause BBC is actually quite nice about the sci-fi stuff. They started showing 7 Days, got us hooked, then quit, half way through season 1?! I'm desperately waiting for them to put it back on, but I think I may hope in vain.

And I have to agree with you about the Time Travel stuff. It appeal to me too. Did you ever read the TNG novels Federation and Imzadi. Ok, so Imzadi isn't so much time travel as a love story, but its so worthy of mention anyway. But Federation is fantastic, all time travel and stuff, one of the best ST novels (I actually wrote 'fic' before I realised what I was doing) that I've ever read. I actually go and read the end of it every so often, even if I don't have time to read the whole book!

Edit: Ok, just noticed your sig... There was a stupid question up there. Somewhere.

(If the mods are about to hit us over the head, we can take this to email. )

Loriel (who tried and failed to make this even remotely on topic. Oh! I have a thought! If I mention Tempus and HG Wells does that make it almost on topic? )

Teehee - we can make it on topic... Speaking of HG Wells, did you see the fic I just posted over in fanfic? It's from like 1999, but I know that a lot of newbies prolly haven't had a chance to go through the archives and the older boards yet, so I posted it here. If I don't get stomped on by our illustrious moderators, and if the rest of you want it, I'd be happy to repost the rest of my solo finished LnC fic on this board, too. The HG Wells connection isn't really in the fic I just posted, tho - it's in one other one and in another fic that I've left incomplete for years but that I just printed off Zoom's boards so that I can take another stab at and hopefully finish!




As to the other - yeah, let's email!

Melisma (grinning like a gremlin here under her Rock )

I hadn't seen it, so I've just wandered on over to read it! Loved it! Everyone else - go and read it!

And Melisma, you have to post the rest of your fic! (Says the girl who is panicing at the complete lack of any studying she's done! Spending all my time reading the mb!)

Loriel

Edit: And Melisma that was a lovely recovery to an On Topic discussion! Very nicely done!

Well, I'm glad you are so enthusiastic about me doing that - if other people weigh in as positively, I'll just do it. What do the rest of you say??

Melisma (holding her breath, here under her Rock)

I meant to ask earlier, did you put your finished fic on the Archive? And Moments... did it go too?

And WiP's should definately get posted. *Especially* if it means we can nag, er ask nicely, for you to finish them.

Loriel (who would have checked the archive but is afraid she'll get sucked in!!)

Yeah, it's up there - thought I mentioned that in the forward to MoI, but I've been out of it most of today, so I might have forgotten.

As to the other one - I got about 9 parts posted to Truth or Consequences and then hit a brick wall with it. Left it for so long that now I think I'm just going to have to rework the whole damned thing, or at least the last part or so. So once I have a working plan made up, at least, I'll start reposting it. I think that was part of my problem before - I was writing 30 minutes at a time, not really planning where the story was going, and then posting whatever I had written in that time. (It began life as a 30 minute challenge fic - those shorties were *fun*, and you should go read some of them...)

Anyway...

Melisma (crawling back under her Rock to do some more research, if she can )

And it's now 9 parts long?!! That's some 30 min challenge!

I read a whole stack of the 30 min challenges as they were posted to the list a while back. I was completely amazed at what people can do in 30 min, I mean it takes me that long to open Word and write the first sentance. And that's only after I've thought over my idea for the past 3 months. I was totally in awe when soemone posted a challenge and almost 30 min later there were stories coming in! (Well, maybe not 30 min, but I'm sure it was no more that 24 hrs! )

Loriel (in awe of all fanfic writers!)

Well in the case of Truth or Consequences, I'd had the first part of the story worked out, but I'd had no impetus to try to get it on paper (on the computer, whatever). So when the 30 minute challenges came along, I figured that I would write in 30 minute increments, but each one would be part of the story. And yes, it took me to 9 parts...

Melisma (grinning under her Rock)

It's been so long ago...

It would be a toss up between Debby Stark's and Margaret Brignell's Swap Meet(s) and Chief Pam's wonderful President Kent series.

I am a HUGE fan of Alt's, What If's, Time Travel, and the like, if you have any doubts, just read some of my stories....

James

Another fan of "alomst anything SF&F" here.

And (on topic), I realized something last night. I actually read one bit of what might loosely be called L&C fanfic way back in the 80s. It was the first thing I ever read re Superman that didn't make me cringe.

It was the infamous Niven essay.

You mean that's not fanfic?

/me ducks and runs

no, the niven essay isn't fic, but it has been the inspiration for a fic or two, including one of my own WIPs (which may well never see the light of the boards).

Paul

You know, I thought about this and realized I had absolutely no idea what the first fic I'd read was...I think I've read just about everything on the archive at some point in time. This stirred my curiosity, so I had to go try to figure it out...

I was pretty sure that I'd found the Archive during the first couple months that I was working in my research job back in college - so summer of 1999. That was the first time I really decided to start looking for Lois and Clark related stuff on the internet. For some reason it had never occured to me that there might more L&C nuts out there, and that I should go look for them...

So, summer of 1999...and I was pretty sure I would have just started checking with the new posts around that time, so I checked the date and looked at the stories that were uploaded around that time. And it hit me - Fear of Discovery - uploaded July 25, 1999!!! I'm pretty sure that was it! So I can blame Yvonne for the last 4 years of my life? <g> (Just kidding, Yvonne, you'll never know how glad I am that I found the Archives and everything else in FoLCdom - so THANK YOU!)

P.S. Totally cool topic, Kathy!!! I haven't even thought about this in years, now I need to go back and re-read FoD!!! Yay!!!

Hmm... in comparison to the most of you, I'm just a newbie here... I've been a member of the FoLCs community just for 4 months.
However, I've been a Fan of Lois & Clark for much longer.
The first fanfic I ever read was "Before and After Clark Kent" by Raquel Guimaraes. Raquel was the one who found me, became a friend of mine, told me everything about the fanfic stuff and, by the way, told me she had written something. So I went straight to read it.
And that made me love fanfics.
Thanks Raquel!

I would also like to congratulate Kathy, for reminding us such perfect times... the first time we met the other FoLCs, the first time we read a fanfic, the first time we decided to post a reply, the first time we deicded to write our own fanfiction... all these first times are closely connected one to another, and they guide us to many beautiful memories.
Thanks Kathy!

Anna_B.

Anna, what a sweet sentiment. And one I heartily agree with!

Nothing like a bout of nostalgia to increase the waff factor.

LabRat

What a fun topic!

Since it was some time in... oh, '98 or so, I don't remember my first fic. It was probably Dawning, stumbled on by accident, read on Debby's ftp site. Which directed me to Margaret's website. Which had a link the archive, which was an ftp site at the time too. And then the fic list, which I mistakenly assumed was for sneak peaks at upcoming archived fics. I joined just as a massive OT thread began about street names, and nearly unsubscribed. Good thing I stuck around, huh?

Sigh. Happy memories.

Hazel

Hummm, I think my first was Back to the Future, from S5. I was looking for any fic that followed Family Hour. And I stumbled with the Archive.

Jose

Interesting thread! My first fic...er...it was "Conscience Loops" and it rests in the archives. You can find it here , but I hardly suggest you forget about this URL, you'll be deceived, really!

The first thing I read was a story where Lois was pregnant but she was advised to stop tyhe pregnancy. She chose not to because she wanted to have CK's baby and at the end she has a baby (or was it two? I can't remember.) but dies. ANyone know the story I'm talking about? Because I can't remember...

Cris

The Unaired 5th Season was the very first fanfic that I discovered. I remember reading into the early morning hours eventually printing out every episode. I was hooked!

When I eventually discovered the archive a couple of months later I was ecstatic.

Tricia

Oops!

Now I realise my single neurone wasn't connectec when I posted my reply ...ok, the fist fic I discovered was "Star player, star reporter" by Stopquitdon't.

I haven't read it, but I think it was on the ballot in the very first Kerths... Try checking this one: Nine Months of Life or Death by Lily
or maybe it was When You Needed Me Most, by Erin Klingler...

PJ

Well, she didn't die in Erin's story, Pam. I'm wondering if it's a story I GEd, called I Will Always Love You, by Juliana Nozue (if I have the name correct).


Wendy

Hmm, maybe... I've not ever read any of them <g> so all I have to go on is hazy memories of *hearing* about the story... someone must have loved (or disliked) it, to talk so much that I'd remember it years later <g>

PJ

I'd decided to keep my post short, but since most people are giving detailed explanations, I thought I'd give mine.

Btw, thanks Pam and Wendy for trying to put a name to that first story. I really can't remember and the truth is I really didn't like it. Not because it wasn't well written, which I believe it was or I wouldn't have made it all the way through (I seem to recall it being long, but I hadn't read any, so long might not be that long after all...) but because it made me really sad...

Anyway, I'd never had access to the net until the summer before my last high school year. I expent a month in Charlotte (NC) on an exchange and the first thing I searched for when my American 'family' explained to me how internet worked was, oh surprise, L&C. A penfriend had given me a link to what she saiud was a fifth season written by fans, but I never found it and stumbled on the mentioned fic instead. Back home I didn't get access at home until a few months later (April 2001, I believe) and again searched for L&C. Finally, I found TUFS and became inmensely hooked! I read most of the eps but never finished (though I've finally gotten back to the three or four I had left) becuase I found the archive and later, as I decided to post my first fic, the MBs (Thanks Tricia, btw, for telling me about them)

I've read a lot ever since and hope to continue for as long as I can (which ahd better be very long, lol)

Cris

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.

The first fanfic I read (in L&C fandom) was Wendy's "The devil's bargain", on fanfiction.net. And since we all know the quality of her fics, I instantly read her other fics, then I discovered Archive, Zoomway's boards and other (equally good) authors and now I'm a full time addict.

Welcome to Blueyonder and Dana, who, it appears, used this thread to delurk. Don't lurk anymore, you guys, come out and let us get to know you! (We don't bite, you know...)

Melisma (who does lurk occasionally under her Rock, but if you check her post count, you will find that she's perhaps TOO vocal )

Oh, is that what the hiding gremlin is about? <g> C'mon, Mel, you've known us for years, don't you think it's safe to leave the rock behind? You're making the newbies worry!

And yes, welcome to the boards, Dana I hope you'll have a lot of fun here!

PJ

Oh, you mean this gremlin, Pam? Yeah, I use it to mean I poke my nose out from under my Rock to say something, then pull it back under once I've said my piece. Now, if I'm doing that all day, doesn't necessarily mean I'm scared of you, right? Except when certain moderators write me privately to chastise me for something I'm doing that I prolly shouldn't be. Then I get scared. Really scared. But other than that, you are all pussy cats.

The Rock, nah, I'm not giving it up. It's where I live - see my sig

Melisma (pulling her nose back under her Rock, having sent cyberhugs to all her FoLC buddies)