Are we there yet?

Fuck it. I don't know what to say, but there should be a birthday rant. The site's second anniversary was Sept. 2001. I'm a month late.

For a year now I've had the goodbye page for this site sitting on my hard drive. About 12 times in the last year, or roughly once a month, I've seriously debated putting it up, simply because I'm tired. I'm tired of doing this, tired of getting bitch at, tired of giving a shit, tired of being told that I'm an unqualified adolescent and not being able to properly defend myself without giving away my identity. I'm tired of having another web site to maintain when all I want to do is write about fictional boys having sex. I'm tired of seeing incidents like the Harry Potter thing where it's evident that no one outside of the slash circle understands and the people within the slash circle are always at each other's throats. I'm tired of some of the e-mail I get, tired of HTML code, tired of this hobby. While I have some wonderful people like Nancy Spungeon, Ian McDuff and June Cleaver who are knowledgeable and fun and write great stuff, this site is basically written and maintained by one person. One very tired person.

But I can't bring myself to put it up. It would be like throwing away two years of writing, coding, growing pains, interaction with wonderful people and working on something I believe in. I know this sounds like any minute someone is going to cue the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but who gives a shit? Two years is a long time to do this shit, especially since most bad fic sites last about six months. If you don't like it, you know where the back button is.

The same could be said for the CABS web site as a whole. If you don't like it, you know where the back button is. If you don't, it's up there in the top left hand corner of your browser. Use it and leave me the hell alone.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am, if only just a little. I know when this site started, we were bitches. We had no clue what we were doing or what we were trying to say. I admit that. Most of the material anyone ever had a problem with in the beginning has been removed and replaced with stuff that I truly think is helpful, if only to me. That being said, I hear the same shit over and over. I hear that this site "attacks" people. To be honest, I don't even think these people have read the site beyond the initial page that pissed them off. Show me. Show me where someone is attacked. If you think anything on this site is an attack, then you've never really been attacked by anything.

If I don't like your story, I'll tell you what I didn't like about it. Why is that so fucking hard to deal with? You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You could shrug me off and go about your merry way. I've received a lot of constructive criticism about my fic this year, some of which stung, but I'm glad I got it. It didn't end my life. It didn't ruin me. With the amount of slash out there, I'm still amazed that someone is reading what I write.

The last couple of months, I've been in a new position of more and more people finding out who I am. I can count on one hand the number of people I've told, and I know who the loose lips are, and lethargy is the only thing stopping me from hunting you down like the snivelling dogs you are. It's given me a lesson in who I can trust and who I can't, and I won't forget it. If it becomes common knowledge, I'll just close up shop. The entire purpose of this site is to be able to write about your opinion of what's going on in your fandom without fear of retribution, and I've already had actual friends e-mail me about things that have appeared on the site, presumably to make me feel guilty or to sway what was said. Fuck that. I've worked too hard at this to start bowing to people. These are my opinions. Deal with them.

What else? Hmm. I don't really have anything to say in this birthday rant. I know there should be more reviews and critiques here but I'm too tired lately to go out and do them. The tireless Nancy is my goddess. Also, a lot of the bad stories I read have the same shit wrong with them - spelling and grammatical errors, unbelievable dialogue, stupid sex scenes. You can only point out these things so many times before you sound like a broken record. I could write one blanket critique and put a list of about a dozen stories at the top of it with the words "this applies to you."

This sounds really self important, doesn't it? Oh, well. I guess my brain has fizzled.

- Jane

read the first birthday rant