I thought--and you realize I'm speaking from your story and not from having ever watched the show--that the point was [story spoiler]

there *wasn't* anything wrong with Nikita. Or at least, this was base-level Nikita, who'd rebelled against Section enough to try to humanize it and get rid of some of its more obviously awful practices, but who'd internalized its dictates enough that doing anything to make Section work right--including killing children--seemed an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good.

[edited because I clearly can't deal with singular collective nouns]

Oh, my god, I'm totally hiring Micole to follow me around and explain my stuff.

Dana, I totally believe Nikita doing what she did though, it made sense to me. She tried to change Section into a 'nice' place, recruiting without taking kids like her and taking their lives away, but that was the method that worked. So she got desparate, afraid for her life.

Hey, if you pay her more money, maybe she'll proceed you into places, explain what you're going to say. Sort of like a herald.

The problem -- well, part of the problem, because I'm not going to dismiss everyone who had a problem with the story -- is the rather HR bent of the fandom as a whole.

I probably have to explain HR. "Hopeless Romantic" or "Hopeful Romantic". And there's certainly a place for that. God knows, I am a card-carrying member of Team Schmoop. But the show could be freaking dark, and the people were really messed up, and I laughed an evil laugh every time I thought about the premise of this story.

there's a substantial amount of "Nikita would NEVER do that" comments, which have all been very polite and usually praise the writing.

She so could have. You're right about the darkness in the show. That's not all I ever saw, but it was the most prevalent characteristic.

Dana, could you link it (if you have already, I missed it)? I'd like to read it too.

I didn't link to it here, actually.

Bereft

Oh, Fay, my darling peddler of HP fic, thank you, thank you. I put ajhall on my LJ friends list just so I can track her progress on the sequel to LoP.

My new Xander story's been garnering some "helpful" reviews on fanfiction.net, like it would probably be an even better story if I'd just kept typing. Oh, and one person thanked my for editing and proofreading the story. I just smile mentally and send brief notes back thanking them for their interest.

But, still, when someone asks about what they perceive as a plot hole or characterization fault after the story's been "published" to the lists and everything, that's pretty much academic, isn't it? I know I think it's pretty well finished the way I want it once a story's out in the cold, cruel world.

Holy cow, Dana. that's just amazing.