I am totally 10000% texting Alicia to tell her you are citing The Shi'ar Coffee Story as a Lasting Memory. :)

Gosh, yeah. There was no such creature as 'the pairing that ate the fandom' until, like, my fourth fandom. There was so much genfic. There was so much het because 85% of it was canon.

I had to wait until 10pm for unfettered dialup access, too. Which wasn't so bad because I grew up waiting until 9pm for cheaper long-distance calls to all the family.