What in LFN would breed HR? I mean, Nikita's messed up, Michael is messed up, innocents die, bad people live.

No, no, no.

Nikita's an innocent victim of Operations and Madeline's manipulations. Michael is a dark brooding tortured hero type. And what we all want is to see those two crazy kids live happily ever after, in a house with a white picket fence, with Adam and whatever other children the two of them churn out.

Guh.

Those people are crazy. Not that the con didn't convince me but .. I just can't wrap myself around that disconnect.

I wonder if it was over-familiarity with the fandom? I didn't have any trouble getting your point, but I'm working off of a knowledge of the basic plot of the show and a viewing of about one-and-a-half episodes. So I saw the end coming in the first couple of paragraphs. (Not a criticism, by the way.) But if you're wired to expect something happier, or not wired to look at a piece of fanfic of that length with that tone in the writing and look for the twist...

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.

Okay, here's a question, then, as a fanfic reader who's working on buildilng better habits about sending feedback. What kind of feedback do you like to get? (I'll open that question to the floor, actually.) I mean, I want to feel like I'm being constructive, and I mostly focus on "well, I thought this worked and I thought this was why," but then I feel like I ought to talk about the things that didn't work for me and why too.

Mind you, I wouldn't ever frame that as "you should have done this," but as a personal reaction on my part.

And what we all want is to see those two crazy kids live happily ever after, in a house with a white picket fence, with Adam and whatever other children the two of them churn out.

What is it that compels this kind of things in the darker fandoms? (LFN, XF, etc.) When I read about a domestically blissful Spuffy, I can't really connect the story to the show I know and love. While I get the same kind of disconnect when i read about Psychopath!Fraser or Suicidal!Ray on dS fandom, I don't think it comes from the same sort of impulse.

My guess: That kind of fluff comes from "I really like these characters and I want them to be happy, so I'm going to write a happy ending for them, which they'll never get on the show."

I actually have sympathy for that, most of the time, though I don't generally read it. Bad fluff I can just avoid. Bad darkfic makes me feel like the characters are being vandalized, so I have to avoid it. (Good darkfic is a thing of beauty.)

Admittedly, I've know how that story was going to end for a couple years now, but from a show perspective it might just be a result of changes that ARE canon, but the fans don't like. Nikita went from painfully idealistic (still shown in the story), to terribly (and implausibly) hard as a result of one of the world's most bruising retcons.

I resist the canon of it, true, but I appreciate stories (like Dana's) which use it, and BETTER than the show did, really.

Preferred feedback? Honestly and embarassingly, I like hte feedback that weeps incoherently about how glorious it all is and how it's helped them heal from the wounds inflicted on their psyche by Joss' cruel heartlessness.

Hey, we're all on the road to proper self-actualization, aren't we? At least I admit it.

I don't mind people saying, "Nope, I don't buy it" if it's well-explained and not couched in terms of "that bleep-bleep stalker/rapist/serial killer bleep Spike" or "gosh, you might be pretty good at this if you do this writing thing a bit longer". All right, dammit, I'm shallow. But if someone's got a difference of opinion, I'll be happy to talk about it, but odds are I'm not going to change the story.

Once again, may I make the argument that "happy ending" does not necessarily equal "white picket fences, 2.5 kids, life in the suburbs." Happy ending can equal "on the run for the rest of our lives, but at least we know we love each other and have some sort of contentment." Yep, Scully and Mulder.

Oh, I wouldn't expect anyone to change the story. The idea honestly wouldn't occur to me. (Well, maybe if it were a matter of undoubted canon or something - Buffy's father's name, etc.)

Dumb question. La Femme Nikita fandom always means the TV series, not the movie, right? Because, knowing the movie rather well, and never having much liked or watched the TV series, I suspect my vision is a tiny bit skewed.

You know, in a nice, angsty-Tchecky-Karyo way, but probably not in a way that would be relevant to the ongoing commentary.

Katie, I like to think that good feedback indicates understanding of the chief point of the story. There are some who can't bear to receive constructive criticism; there are some who, lacking understanding what the story in question is actually about, will give constructive criticism that's not constructive at all; but I think a happy medium exists somewhere.