Citizens Against Bad Slash

You may be looking for the Beauty and the Beast fan club: The Classic Alliance of Beauty and the Beast (CABB).
Influenced by the Slashfic Hall of Shame, and "review" sites, Citizens Against Bad Slash (or CABS) was founded by a small group of women to be a "constructive critique" website, under such pseudonyms as Jane Doe, Virginia, and June Cleaver.
They wrote (and hosted) rants about fanfic (such as "Pain and Suffering at the Hand of Slash Authors"), and fandom in general (such as "The List Owner God Complex").
==A Major Revision==
In August 1999, a fan wrote an essay for Fanfic Symposium criticizing some of the site's premise. An undated addendum to this essay reads: "Update: Well, whaddya know! Sometimes feedback really does work. "Jane" and "Virginia" have majorly revised their site, including taking down most of what I was reacting to here. Gotta love the Internet!"
For more, see the essay Shakespeare, Fanfic, and Creativity.
==The RPS Debate==
They were on both sides of the RPS debates of the time (late '90s, v. early 2000s), with essays like "To All the Other Guys: Stop Fucking with RPS" and "The RPS Debate," and their forum was an important place for the ongoing conversation about RPS at the time. For example, the RareSlash list in 2000 didn't allow any RPS, or any conversation about the fact they didn't allow RPS -- so some of the conversation about that ban happened on the CABS forum.
==Anonymity==
Why we're anonymous: "One thing people really seem to be reacting to at the site is that Jane and I have chosen to remain anonymous. They assume we do this without reason. I assure you, we are doing it with very good reason. Jane and I are both fairly well-known and outspoken on several mutual and respective fan fiction lists. As reaction to the site has already proven, it appears everyone has a guilty conscious and assumes we are talking about them and their stories. We may be speaking to what we view as the vast majority, but that doesn't include everyone.
We have just as much right to remain anonymous as we do to parade our true identities all over the place. We are not "hiding" behind the Jane and Virginia identities. Every opinion expressed by Jane and I are the opinions of our true selves. We have nothing to hide except our real names, for, as we say in the introduction, fear of retribution. You think either Jane or I want people who are pissed off by what we said here at CABS going to our other sites and ripping on us merely for expressing our opinions here? No thanks. If people are going to rip on our other, respective sites and what is written in them, let them do it objectively.
Is this really any different than anyone else on the Internet who chooses to go by a pseudonym?"
==Jane's Second Birthday Rant==
Read the first birthday rant.
==The Interviews==
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Bennie
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Bliss
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with BT
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Fluttergirl
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Gemma Files
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Jane St. Clair
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with kimberlite
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Maygra
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Pilar
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Te
* Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Wax Jism
==Columns and Editorials==
By CABS staff:
* Fear of "Said" (Don't worry. The word "said" isn't going to come after you with a shotgun. It's your friend. Embrace it.)
* Tell-All Opening Paragraphs (Leave a little to my imagination, will you?)
* Begging for Feedback (Give her feedback, everyone! We wouldn't want her to stop writing!)
* Being Wordy ("And on that dark, post-dusk night, it did so happen that it came to pass that Jim gazed longingly, in a loving way, at Blair." And other such nonesense.)
* Things That, People Who (It's fairly simple, really.)
* Fourteen Rules of Good Fanfic (...according to us and some people who are tired of reading bad stories.) 
* Critiquing vs. Flaming: Know the Difference (...so you won't flame the nice person who spent two hours finding your typos.)
* Writing Tips for the Masses (An all-encompassing sort of opinion piece.) 
* Before You Post: a Checklist (Things you should do before you unleash your brilliance to the world. (Opens a new window.) 
* Our General Fanfic Peeves (Written in our early days of PMS. It's worth noting that both of us have broken almost every single rule here, but it's still worth pondering.) 
* Striving for Greatness: Reasons Not to Say "Fuck Them Anyway" (I don't care if it's just for fun. There are still merits to trying to improve.) 
* Encouraging Feedback for Your Story (...in case they're all ignoring you.) 
* A Glossary of Slash Terms (TS? XF? PWP? WTF?) 
* The Art and Ethics of Boyband RPS (In defence of BBS, from a moral, creative and legal standpoint, with some writing beefs thrown in for good measure.) 
* The Second Semester (Find out the difference between plot and theme, and whether or not you should be using "who" or "whom," "like" or "as," etc.)
* Boy Band Slash (Boy band slash doesn't suck. Here's why.) 
* CABS Awards 2000 (The good, the bad and the ugly of the year in slash.) 
* Careless Underachievers ("This is my first attempt at slash. Hope you like it!") 
* Check Your Head (Indicators that you have a big slash ego.) 
* Days of Our Live(Journal)s (Posing for the sake of interactive slash fiction.) 
* Failed Overachievers (Overly serious slash writers.) 
* Girly Men (Men who call each other honey, sweetie and the ever famous "babe.") 
* How Do you Come? (Screaming your head off and yelling out hockey scores? I want realistic orgasms, dammit.) 
* The List Owner God Complex (So you moderate a mailing list. Get over it.)
* The Other Bad Fic Sites (Now it's their turn to get critiqued.) 
* Pain and Suffering at the Hand of Slash Authors (Who knew there were so many damaged characters?)
* The RPS Debate (Real person slash - we love it, we hate it, we can't agree on it.) 
* Sexy Pregnant Men? (Where did this pregnancy fic stuff come from?) 
* Six Degrees of Badfic (Six different ways a story can be bad. Pick one.) 
* Things You Should Never, Ever Do on a Mailing List (They sound like common sense, but they're so common that they're obviously not.) 
* To All the Other Guys: Stop Fucking with RPS (Nancy Spungeon is mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.) 
* Untapped Slash Sources (Stuff people should slash but don't.) 
* The X-Men (The older man, the younger man and all their friends.) 
* Why I Don't Read or Post at Nifty (Four reasons why you won't find C. Miller at the Nifty archive.)
Guest Editorials:
* Nicknames in 'N Sync Slash (Wonder Woman (an obvious pseudonym) is tired of the word "Lansten.") 
* Women in Slash (Mistress Valkyrie preaches for the sisterhood and the treatment of women in slash.) 
* The Never-Ending Story (The story that never ends, even when it should. By Mel Blue.) 
* Underage (A 13 year old talks about why she doesn't suck. By SKitzo Skizas.) 
* Boy Wonder's Rants and Musings: Gettin' Nekkid (A boy sounds off about his slash pet peeves.) 
* The Opposite of Slash (Why you shouldn't write gay characters as straight. By Little Alex.) 
* A Splash of Color (A rant on the 'monochromaticism' of 'N Sync slash and songfics. By Bohemia.) 
* Feedback Faux Pas (The one-liner, the teenie-back and other undesirable feedback. By Bohemia.)
==Fan Reaction==
===1999===
===2000===
===2013===
==References==
Category:Slash Websites
Category:1999Category:2000s
Category:Squidge.orgCategory:Angelfire