Oh - that explains 'of our own', which I know some people find weird. I didn't come across it until the first Yuletide stories went there, and by then it was already more or less what it is now.
There was a lot of high-sounding ideals about nobody having the right to tell women what they could or couldn't write at the time it was started.
Although the founding involved a lot of metaphorical jumping up and down about men trying to force women into their agenda, and freedom of expression, the actual flash point that started it was when a couple of the archives, and LJ where a lot of people posted their fic back then, removed a particular genre of stories in the Harry Potter fandom about Harry, or sometimes one of the other pupils, being 'seduced' into sexual relationships with various adult members of Hogwarts. So perhaps not quite such high ideals as the founders would have you believe!
I am a late-comer to AO3. In fact, I refused to post there for quite some time because they allow RPF and I loather RPF on principle. But with FF.Net becoming more and more unreliable I needed another archive where I could post all my stuff - I write in dozens of fandoms and lots of crossovers, too - so I bit the bullet and joined.
There's a great deal of badly written, mindless smut indeed, but the filters are quite good, so I can choose what I want to read and am content with that. Plus, you can delete mean-spirited comments (not just anonymous ones like on FF.Net), and since I seem to attract such people for some reason, that's a big advantage in my eyes.
I never posted at The Pit of Voles either (I wonder who first coined that name for FF.net?) - but because of the Buffy element I was able to post at TtH - and can also post my non-crossover things there, too. I usually get maybe 100-200 hits in the 1st 24 hours after I post there, which is nice, and people comment, too, which is also nice, so it has been my fic 'home' for a long time.
FF.Net was my first multifandom archive and - ironically enough - I found it while hunting for Buffy stories. I liked it because you can directly upload Word documents, with all the italics and bold fonts and stuff, without having to do any hand-coding, and for someone like me it was a great help. I don't really know any of the other archives, save for AO3 and SoA. I left HASA on my own volition when Anglachel kicked up all that stink, back in the early years.
I find it harder and harder to figure out exactly where I start having issues, because I do often enjoy the kind of historical fiction which brings in real characters, and possibly tries to join the dots of historical problems, and I've read odd bits of things which are called historical RPF which are written in the same spirit and are basically unpublished historical fiction - so where exactly is the boundary?
And a lot of the kind of stuff I can't be doing with I would also at least find very dull if it involved fictional characters. But there is definitely something I'm (more) uncomfortable with where real people - particularly living people - are concerned.
I think, for me, it is when it is living people - all too often the RPFs are just a sort of fantasy sex life between two actors, or two ice-hockey players, or whoever, that seems to me to be basically a lie about them.
But the historic version, yes - I enjoy those - like Derryn Lake's 'Death at...' series, or Peter Tonkin's Elizabethan mysteries.
I agree with curiouswombat. As long as it isn't about living people (unless those are mentioned only or have short cameos), I can enjoy histroic real life characters. Like the Cadfael Chronicles - the main hero is an original character, but all sorts of historic characters pop up in the novels, and the historic background is explored very well; but it doesn't insult or demolish any of the real people mentioned there.
no subject
on 2020-11-30 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2020-11-30 03:28 pm (UTC)Although the founding involved a lot of metaphorical jumping up and down about men trying to force women into their agenda, and freedom of expression, the actual flash point that started it was when a couple of the archives, and LJ where a lot of people posted their fic back then, removed a particular genre of stories in the Harry Potter fandom about Harry, or sometimes one of the other pupils, being 'seduced' into sexual relationships with various adult members of Hogwarts. So perhaps not quite such high ideals as the founders would have you believe!
no subject
on 2020-11-30 06:21 pm (UTC)There's a great deal of badly written, mindless smut indeed, but the filters are quite good, so I can choose what I want to read and am content with that. Plus, you can delete mean-spirited comments (not just anonymous ones like on FF.Net), and since I seem to attract such people for some reason, that's a big advantage in my eyes.
no subject
on 2020-11-30 06:43 pm (UTC)Me too.
I never posted at The Pit of Voles either (I wonder who first coined that name for FF.net?) - but because of the Buffy element I was able to post at TtH - and can also post my non-crossover things there, too. I usually get maybe 100-200 hits in the 1st 24 hours after I post there, which is nice, and people comment, too, which is also nice, so it has been my fic 'home' for a long time.
no subject
on 2020-11-30 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2020-11-30 10:43 pm (UTC)And a lot of the kind of stuff I can't be doing with I would also at least find very dull if it involved fictional characters. But there is definitely something I'm (more) uncomfortable with where real people - particularly living people - are concerned.
no subject
on 2020-12-01 09:48 am (UTC)But the historic version, yes - I enjoy those - like Derryn Lake's 'Death at...' series, or Peter Tonkin's Elizabethan mysteries.
no subject
on 2020-12-01 05:09 pm (UTC)