Fan zines were around before fan fiction started online. People have been rewriting TV shows, movies, books and video games for a long time. Who could possible know where it really started. Likely soon after one person wrote the first story someone else thought they could do it better. But, there were fanzines. Desktop published zines and before that likely hand written and quietly copied on the photocopier at work and school. Distributed to anyone who would take one and other fans who wanted new plots twists for the same old characters.
Of course now we have the world wide web. You can share your twisted plots with a much wider audience with hardly any cost or sneaky photo copying at all. There is still the issue of copyrights of course. You should be aware of those. You are using someone's idea as your base. Give credit where credit is due. Add a link to the website and even list the writer's names if you can find them. I doubt everyone does this but it seems reasonable to me.
Ever heard of Mary Sue? Isn't she that character on that show... The one that was a lot like yourself stepping into the story? A lot of fan fiction writers tend to step into the story. This character is called Mary Sue. Sometimes it's not a whole character just too much of the writer's personality slipping in. Mary Sue tends to be perfect, too perfect. It's fine to act out your fantasy by putting yourself in the story, being the hero, romancing the hero or being better than the hero. But, fan fiction readers don't always want to read about how great Mary Sue is. They don't know her as well as you do.
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