Becky Bain

Fan
Name:	Becky Bain
Alias(es):	Anna Gerard Lee Kirkland (which is the pseud of Sue Hernandez and Becky Bain writing together)
Type:	Fan Writer
Fandoms:	Beauty and the Beast (TV), Quantum Leap, Lois and Clark
Communities:
Other:
URL:
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Becky Bain is a Beauty and the Beast (TV), Quantum Leap, and Lois and Clark fan.

Becky was a mailing list mod, author, and zine editor.

Interviews

• Lois & Clark Nfic Archive Interview with Becky Bain (2001)
• Winterfest Interview with Becky Bain (2005)

Mailing List Mod and Fan Club President

• Alt.tv.beauty+beast
• Tunnel Dreams
• Supporters of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast Zines

Best Mirrors | Counterparts | Different Seasons | Eternity | Great Expectations | The Hat on the Bench in Central Park | Pipedreams | Reflections | Remember the Magic | Something That Has Never Been | Quantum Beast | Tunnelcon | Where the Rainbow Ends | Within the Crystal Rose

Becky's Comments

2001

I've always liked writing, but creating characters is hard for me, so a ready-made cast and setting is perfect for me! Also, there's something about watching the characters on screen that sparks my imagination. I'm not sure I can put a finger on what I like about it - it's a creative outlet for me, for one thing. I've always been fascinated with words and the pictures you can make with them, so that's an appeal. Making up stories (although mine always seem to come to me full-fledged, and I just have to flesh them out!) is fun.

2005

Some of that was just sheer perverseness, because when I wrote it (1997), some of the "season wars" were still going on, and doggone it, nobody's going to tell me I can or can't write something! Even though I'm Classic at heart, I always liked the character of Diana Bennett. And as I've said, I like angst. And I'm not sure, but there may have been a "well, Vincent might be able to love Diana, but not if Catherine were alive!" thing going on somewhere online, and did I mention I can be perverse? So I decided I wanted to write a "SND but Diana gets the beast anyway" story. And in order to make that happen, I had to try to level the playing field, so Diana had to have Vincent's baby. And then I found out I couldn't make the playing field completely level, because Diana's been with Catherine's son all this time and Catherine hasn't. I am pleased with the way that story turned out (and expected to get hate mail for it, and never did!) even though my personal preference is for a Classic resolution. And I did feel sorry for Vincent, because I think he was terribly torn between the two women he loved, the two mothers of his children!

I didn't really find any difference between writing one season versus another. It's the same world, and the same characters, and I love angst, which 3S has built in.

I decided to post my B&B stories online because the fanzines in which they appeared were out of print, so new fans couldn't get them. I chose the Beauty and the Beast Reading Chamber (aka BBRC ) partly because it is an all-season site, and that's important to me, and partly because I was one of the people urging Jackie Newman, who runs it, to set it up! After all that, I felt morally obliged to submit my stories there. <g> I also act as a general editor for the BBRC, which is sort of loosely based on the Lois & Clark Fanfic Archive, which is truly wonderful because virtually every L&C story ever written can be found there.

2006

Once upon a time, there was a TV show called ' Beauty and the Beast ”. Which I didn’t watch, because the season before, there’d been a really silly sitcom called "The Charmings." It annoyed me that they were doing bad takeoffs on good fairy tales.

Then one day my boss mentioned this show he and his wife liked to watch on Friday nights. It was completely unlike him to say something like that, so I decided it wouldn't hurt to give the show a try.

I have no memory whatsoever of which episode it was, I just know it was February 1988, and I liked it. Didn't love it, but liked it enough to be sure and tape it when softball started later that spring. Because I'd missed so many of the first run episodes, I was happily watching the reruns through late spring and into summer. They were new to me, and I was enjoying them! And then, over Fourth of July weekend, they showed the pilot. (I learned later that this was the second rerun of the pilot, how often does that happen?) And I fell, head-first.

We had company that weekend, and I couldn't wait for all those people to go to bed so I could curl up in the corner of the couch and watch it again! And again.

And...well, you know how that goes.

Of course. I thought I was the only one. Fall came. The writers' strike that year delayed the second season, and I was in agony. One day [while waiting for my daughter], I was leafing through a magazine [which] slipped off my lap, and when it hit the floor, a loose page slipped out. And who did I see looking up at me from the page but Vincent and Catherine! There was a short piece on the show, and it mentioned the International Fan Club and gave the address.

Now, I am not a joiner. I never join things never but I had some birthday money left, so I sent my $10 off to Iowa.

Next thing I know, I am getting newsletters, and in them is information about other publications and other groups! I subscribed to the letterzine “Once Upon a Time...Is Now," and in the back of one, I saw a listing for "JND. Ltd., aka Supporters of Beauty and the Beast." More amazingly, they were based in [...]! I was living in the [...] metro area at the time, and I couldn't believe it!

Have I mentioned I am not a joiner? Nevertheless. I sent off my dues. I didn't plan to attend any meetings, but I was ravenous for any information about the show.

A few weeks later, I got a phone call. "Hi, you joined our group, recently. We're having a meeting and you should come!" I never join things. I never go to meetings. I am painfully shy when meeting people I don't know (I get over this quickly, as my friends will attest!). I wasn't going to go to any of these meetings. But this person seemed so very nice...so I let her give me directions to her house, and I went, and had a fabulous time!

Beauty and the Beast changed my life. I’ve been to most of the conventions; I run an Email list and I’ve written fanfic. I've met some of the best friends I have ever had. And somehow it all seems it was meant to be...after a chance comment from my boss — a pilot episode aired not twice, but three times in a season! — a magazine page that I never would have seen if it hadn't been loose — a phone call inviting me to a meeting, when usually they notified people by mail.

Fate, luck, chance—or maybe it was just happy destiny.