Q. What is fanfiction?

A. Stories written by fans of a piece of commercial fiction (film, book, TV series etc) involving the characters and situations of the commercial fiction, but using them to tell new tales

Q: What is slash?

A: Slash is fanfiction that focuses on a relationship, romantic and/or sexual, between two (or more) characters of the same sex. Please see TBQ's What is Slash? for further information. Please note that for the purposes of this list and archive, all relationships between characters of the same gender are considered to be slash, even if the characters were actually in a relationship with each other onscreen. Xander/Spike = Slash, and Willow/Tara = Slash.

Q: What is the Better Buffy Slash Archive?

A: The Better Buffy Slash Archive is a resource for people who are looking for high quality slash fanfiction from the shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the series. The archive has been created through a process of recommendation and pseudo-voting on the Better Buffy Slash mailing list.

Q: How do I join the Better Buffy Slash mailing list?

A: The BBS mailing list is a Yahoogroups list. If you are an adult where you live, you can join here.

Q: So what kind of stories are in the archive exactly?

A: Stories that feature both characters from BtVS and AtS *and* slash content. This means m/m, f/f, threesomes, and gen/het stories that also contain slash relationships are all included.

Q: Can I submit stories I've written to the archive?

A: No. Only stories that have been recommended and discussed on list, and received the required number of "Yea" votes, are archived. The archiving of stories is done by the list moderators. Writers are not permitted to recommend their own work, nor are they allowed to vote in favor of it being archived. Nor are beta readers allowed to recommend or vote for stories they have beta read. This is to insure that personal bias is kept to a minimum, and only the truly best slash stories are archived.

Q: What about RPS (Real Person Slash)?

A: The BBS archive is only for fanfiction written about fictional characters. RPS written about the actors who play those characters is not part of this archive's purview.

Q: My favorite WIP (Work in Progress) isn't in the archive, even though I know it's been discussed on list! Why isn't it there?

A: The BBS archive is for completed stories only. Once a WIP has been finished, it can be officially recommended and voted on. Until then, any recommendations and discussion about the fic, no matter how positive, are unofficial only.

Q: Are the story and author counts on the front page accurate?

A: Not precisely; that's why it has the title of "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics." The story count is not accurate because non-archived recommendations are listed by the system as "stories" when they are not archived here at all. The author count is not accurate for that same reason and also because the site admin accounts are listed as "authors."

Q: Then why the heck are you still displaying them?

A: Because the counts give a general idea of how many different stories are either archived or recommended here, and by how many different authors. Since the idea is to connect the reader with as much good BtVS/Angel slash as possible, we don't especially care whether we're hosting it or not -- we just want to get you to the fic.

Q: My name is listed as an author for this site, and I know I didn't give you permission to archive my fic! What gives?

A: If you see your own name in the author listing and know that you haven't given permission for your work to be archived, please check the "non-archived recommendations" section, as it is likely that you're a recommended author, not an archived author. Unfortunately the software doesn't give us an option to show the difference.

Q: What's this "non-archived recommendation" thing? Does that mean my story wasn't considered good enough to archive?

A: Not at all. It means that we asked permission to archive it and either we received no answer, or you told us you'd rather we just link to your website. So the "non-archived recommendations" contain a brief recommendation and a link to your website, or if you don't have a website, a link to a public archive where the story is posted. If you'd rather we use a different link or remove the recommendation entirely, just let us know. If for some reason you never received the request to archive and would rather we archive your story here than link to it, by all means let us know that as well!

Q. What's the difference between a "non-archived recommendation" and a "linked story" ?

A. A "linked story" is a story that we have been given permission to archive, but it is too long to feasibly archive here in its entirety. So only a small portion -- the first chapter of a long story, or the first story in a series -- is archived here, as a sort of teaser. A link to the author's website follows, where you can read the rest.

Q. Are there rules for how this list and archive are run?

A. Yes, you can find them here.

Thank you to Wesleysgirl for originally compiling this page.

The mailing list and archive are currently owned by Mad Poetess but an e-mail sent to bbslash@betterbuffyslash.slashcity.org will reach all administrators.