I just like saying the word "manifesto"

My shipper manifesto for La Femme Nikita's Michael and Nikita is up now over at ship_manifesto, http://www.livejournal.com/community/ship_manifesto/32180.html . I don't really think it's any good, and certainly not something that would draw anyone into the fandom, but I think the fact that I don't get that kind of thing -- luring others into you fandom -- has a lot to do with it. I just did the best I could within my limitations.

I know that sounds weird -- why write a manifesto to pimp a fandom if you don't pimp? Well, generally I don't, but lately I've had unexpected luck with it in The Fast and the Furious, so I figured, since I was asked, why not? A couple people asked me why I was doing it if I didn't believe I could lure people in. The truth is, it's really simple -- I was asked to write something, and I almost never get asked to contribute to anything fannish, so I said yes. I'm a whore, basically. The weird thing is, I never get into fandoms because of something another fan wrote or vidded. If I don't find it on my own, in my own time, I will never get into it. Which is something I'm starting to understand is quite unusual -- almost everyone I know says they love things like the ship-manifesto site to help them find new things to watch and enjoy. And I would just never click on those cut tags to investigate a piece someone wrote about a show or movie I'm not into, so this is all very peculiar to me!

The request was pretty generic, and it looked like any pairings I wanted to say something about were already taken -- Chris and Vin in Mag 7, Bodie and Doyle in Professionals, Buffy and Spike had been done already, and someone far more qualified than I to talk about Dom and Brian in F&F had signed on for that. I thought about going back to X-Files, but I didn't, at the time, really still feel the burning passion for Mulder and Skinner and Scully I used to, so I settled on Nikita and Michael, because dude, no one pays any attention to LFN at all. And then I struggled with what to write, because I knew I'd have to intro the show to people since so few have seen it. Apparently I'm missing the pimp gene.

Also, I am so rarely (well, once, actually) ever asked to contribute to anything that when someone asks me, I say yes. I'm never going to be one of those popular fan writers everyone nominates for all the awards and Better Buffy fic weekends and blah blah blah, so if someone thinks I can contribute to their benefit zine or write a manifesto about a relationship, I'll probably say yes because I'm all Sally Field and going "someone likes me! someone thinks I have something to say!" There you have it -- big ol' ho. Now I'm actually thinking about signing up for something XFian or maybe even Miami Vice, except that I could not remember to post this LFN thing, so I have no faith I'll be able to remember to do it on a real timeline. I'm hopeless about remembering what I wrote even a few days ago.

So anyway, if you want to see what it is about poor old LFN that I love, there you are.

What a difference a day makes!

I wish I'd never gotten involved with the ship manifesto thing. I wish I could take the whole thing down. The bitchery of people who don't know the difference between "I find everything painfully bad" & "I'm insanely nitpicky", and "everything is bad!" & "I'm smarter than you!" just astounds me, and the way people twist your words to suit their argument just so they can win a last word contest (go ahead! if it's that important to you, have the last freaking word, my god) just... gah. Really regretting having done this. I do find the fic painfully bad. I tried to explain why -- I make my living fixing bad writing. I don't find it fun to come home and read more bad writing for "fun" or easy to forgive bad mechanics when I have to spend my whole day looking for those things and fixing them. But apparently if you try to explain that you're an editor, so bad writing is a tougher sell for you, you're undignified and arrogant. Go, me.

I went to so much trouble to find some links to help people get started, but I wanted to warn them that they shouldn't necessarily start out with high hopes. Now I'm a screaming bitch who's managed to slam and diss all of Nikita fandom. I guess that's a pretty good indicator that by staying away from the fandom all this time, I was doing the right thing. And I thought X-Files fans were lunatics. This has just been so discouraging. I hate that you can't be honest in this world. I hate that people who have a personal agenda look for ways to attack you or to take offense, especially if you're not worshipping the correct people they think you should. I just hate the whole fannish political world. I'm no good at it, and I despise the hidden agendas.

Thank god for the Fast and the Furious, where I have a nice little cadre of cool people to depend on, and Buffy, where even though there are lunatics, I keep my pillow fort up, and everything's just fine with me and the people inside the pillow fort. Now I'm going to go watch Angelus laugh sinisterly and Wes cut off Lilah's head. Always cheering.

ETA: I also want to say that this is in no way mod_journal's fault and that I don't blame the site at all. I'm just having a snit. If I did learn anything today, it's that my old ultra-opinionated and grating self still has the capacity to overtake the kinder, gentler opinionated self, and that has nothing to do with the site. Spren is lovely, and this snit is totally focused on my little corner.