Wow Rose, so you have been around longer than me. You are an oldie! lol
The first thing I ever wrote on was a red robin story on ffnet. I added a chapter to it and I might have begun to post Mizpah when they stopped taking RP stories.
The very first fanfic I ever 'read' was a visual that was attached to one of those BSB fansites. I had NO idea what I was about to get myself into with that one and had never even heard of fanfiction up until that point.
ffnet was linked to that site (I think it was called BSB blvd or something like that?) so I went there and was hooked.
At that time I found "Ground Zero" and "Swollen Issues," but not complete. Shortly after, I found the Angelfire site Pammy was talking about and was just like "OMG these stories are the best!!!"
Then I stumbled on "Can You Keep a Secret" by Kat and Amy and "Seven Days" by Refuse. And then of course Eboni's "Boys in the Basement", and Cecilia and Izzy's "Come Together" as well.
I think that's why my standards are so high, these are the first stories I ever read! Everything else I tried seemed to pale in comparison. I knew even back then that romance wasn't for me so I tended to shy away from those although I did try a few at the beginning and quickly realized I was smart to skip them (for me anyway)
An oldie who started at 13 and is VERY grateful her old stories no longer exist on the internet lmao. They were so bad. My standards started off decently high. Especially since like you, I couldn't get into the romance stories. So I scoured the internet for the sci-fi, action fics, etc. I discovered Whitney because of Where Do We Go From Here? and The Legend, Bria had this sci-fi story, and Eboni I loved her stories about Everybody, LTL, and The Call, plus The Answer Is Yes, and Boys In The Basement. Refuse and Chaos were also others between Ground Zero and Seven Days. I was addicted.
Oh! And those Survivor fics where it was BSB vs NSYNC? I forget who wrote it but that was one of my faves.
I was friends with bluecloud Steph back in the day when I sent her feedback for Sammy, and Time's Enemy. We chatted and had just started writing together when ffnet closed down. She offered to host all my stories at her site and we posted our collaboration there as well. When I discovered AC (from my cowriter at the time, Jamelet who said most ffnet writers were going there), I started posting it there too. Along with a sci-fi I was writing with Jamelet and Anastacia back in the day LOL.
I met Julie actually not from feedback though I did give it lol, but through the offer to join in Code Blue. She needed people to help her write it and I figured...why not? Cause my collab whore days were in full swing and I thought it'd help me improve. Julie and I clicked and then that grew when this forum was born
. Like you with Chaos, I fangirled mentally when I first started chatting/writing with her. Because by that point I'd read Broken, loved it, and was just like ommmmg haha.
So I'm an oldie but an oldie lost within the shuffle mainly because I was so freaking young and inexperienced writing wise LOL.