Cyberbeast

Cyberbeast

• Real Name: Rob Willits
• D.O.B.: June 7, 1979
• Occupation: Computer Programmer
• Marital Status: Married (to wife Helen, fellow Capper HelenServo, July 27, 2002)
• Children: 3 daughters (Jordan and Jessica, born premature on January 5, 2002, sadly passed away the next day, and Nicolette, born May 26, 2004, who is a happy and healthy little girl)
• Handle Origin: Cyberbeast was the name of a fictional character created by Rob for an X-Men type story called The Gruesomes. The character resembled the character Coldstone on Gargoyles, with a face like a Jem’Hadar.
• Alternate Handle(s): Paradox761, Bloodsucking_Beast (Halloween), Roast_Beast (Christmas)

Early Capping History

Cyberbeast started capping in 1998, on the original Caption This. He was part of the regular crowd that capped SeaQuest, where he made his bones making jokes about Jonathan Brandis and dolphin porn. Inspired by his fellow Cappers, he soon created a website dedicated to capping, The Belly of the Beast. (note: site no longer updated)

Cap Trek

Cyberbeast didn’t have much content on his website when it started. He tried running trivia contests, creating pages dedicated to his favorite sci-fi babes, even writing reviews on television shows. But nothing seemed to attract any attention. Until one day, he decided to write a parody story, loosely based on Star Trek and including his fellow Cappers as characters. He called the series Cap Trek, and it was a hit. He wrote nine Cap Trek stories, and two MSTings with the same characters before stopping. It’s even said that Cap Trek was an inspiration to the creation of The Capper Chronicles, a series of stories featuring the Cappers started by TheGrayZombie.

These early stories also motivated Cyberbeast to continue writing as a hobby, and eventually lead to his interest in fan fiction. (see Fan Fiction, below)

Cappers@Yahoogroups.com

In March of 1999, the Sci-Fi Channel announced that it was canceling Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show that has been largely credited with the creation of the Capper community in the first place. Among the mass e-mailings of the Save Our Satellite campaign, Cyberbeast decided to create a single e-mail list for all Cappers to simplify things, and the Cappers eGroup (later to be bought out by Yahoo and changed to YahooGroup) was formed.

For many Cappers, the Group was the first place outside of Caption This where they could interact with their fellow Cappers on a more personal level. Online relationships became real friendships, and a few even formed romantic relationships. Cyberbeast himself met his wife, HelenServo, through the Cappers Group.

Cyberbeast employs a very hands off style of moderation. He tries not to micromanage the Group, leaving it a very loosely structured community with immense freedom. Officially there is an ‘anything goes’ policy with regards to content in the group, but generally the Cappers try to keep it light and stay away from certain topics that have been know to cause problems in the past (politics, religion, etc.). The downside of the freedom alloted in the group is that no one is specifically restricted from discussing any topic they wish in any manner they wish, and many Cappers have left the group in frustration over the rude, or sometimes just annoying, behavior of some members of the Group.

But the group soldiers on, with new people discovering capping all the time thanks to sites like GlitterRock’s Cap-Page Board and GersonK’s Inventing Situations. New Cappers join the Group all the time, making it an ever changing community with a will and being unto itself.

Fan Fiction

Fan fiction (also spelled fanfiction and commonly abbreviated to fanfic or fic when used in a singular sense) is fiction written by people who enjoy a film, novel, television show or other media work, using the characters and situations developed in it and developing new plots in which to use these characters. (Definition courtesy of Wikipedia.com)

Cyberbeast discovered fan fiction in the late 90’s, and started writing under the name Paradox761. He started with Star Trek and then moved into Buffy, which is mostly what he writes today. He has a particular affinity toward crossovers, and the characters Xander Harris from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Kim from Star Trek: Voyager. He maintains three websites dedicated to fan fiction, a personal website, and two archives (see Links, below). Next to capping, fan fiction is Cyberbeast’s biggest online hobby.

Links

• Cyberbeast's Cap Gallery
• Paradox761's Fic Vortex: Personal fanfic site
• The Paradoxical F/F Archive: Multi-fandom femslash archive
• Unseen: Xander fic archive