Niko Ford
I began writing fanfiction in 1996, posting my stories to AOL message boards for other fans to read. I'd always been a writer, writing about my own wolds and characters as soon as I'd learned how to write. The message boards gave me something I'd never had before, though--an audience. With my first reviews, I was hooked. I loved the praise I got for doing something I loved and the sense of validation both in my craft and in my ideas. Thus every time a show inspired in me a desire to write in their borrowed world, I sought it out again.
When the internet grew beyond AOL and its hosted amenities, I found websites called shrines, archives, webrings, and mailing lists to distribute my works through. Angelfire was my hosting of choice, my html skills fledgling but enough to publish a story with. Fanfiction.net saw an eventual end to those venues though, private hosting fading out of existence more and more as the public archive was adopted by us internet originals and newcomers alike.
Everything I wrote and posted to those AOL message boards is long gone. I mourned their loss long ago when my parent's upgrade in internet connectivity removed my access to the boards I'd posted to. Having grown up in the age of personal websites, it's now somewhat unthinkable for me to leave my work on anyone else's infrastructure least I suffer that same loss again. So while in many ways this website is redundant and my work can be found on different, more current platforms such as AO3, it exists as part of my internet heritage.
- I've written under the following names:
- The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest - TFord73152
- Digimon - Yakume
- For all others: Niko or Nikoshinigami
In 2015 I finished my first novel, The Unlikely Death, which I published via Amazon. You can learn more about it here or purchase the paperback or kindle ebook at Amazon.com.