gwyn | 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.

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ooooh! ::clicks::

I totally understand how you feel, I think, because

ship_manifesto seems like it ought to be designed to draw new participants into a fandom/ship. I, however, rarely read through an essay from a fandom I don't know, though I'll read about pairings I don't necessarily see.

The beauty of

ship_manifesto (and

idol_reflection), in my eyes, is that it reminds jaded fans of why they enjoy a fandom/ship in the first place, and it gives newer fans a different point of view, and links to a few resources they might not have found.

Anyway, I'm off to read the essay. Thanks!

I think that's what's wrong with my worldview -- I 'm just baffled by why anyone would click and read about something they're not already invested in. So it's totally weird to me, but all my friends do it! Nevertheless, I'm a ho, and if anyone asks me to write it, I will. ;-) I guess I'll have to check out idol reflection. I assume that's for single characters?

Yup. It's actually a spinoff of

ship_manifesto.

And again, I don't think anyone does read essays for fandoms they don't know, but I, personally, have read essays on ships I don't really grok, and they've been quite interesting. I don't necessarily buy into them, but it's nice to see why people ship the characters they do.

You just perfectly summarized my feelings on

ship_manifesto. I've read exactly one thing there because it was about the first 'ship I 'shipped, was said to be excellently written (it was), and was written by a fan I've known for a while.

Gwyn, who's got F&F? Khal?

see, i actually don't think it's as much about pimping as it is about reminding people of what they kind of knew all along :-) i only read essays in fandoms i at least vaguely know, and your essay did exactly what i'd want these essays to do...you set up the background, the timeline, remind us of the central scenes, of why at some point we *cared* deeply...you clearly showed your love for the couple and made us share it!!!

in short, i loved your essay!!! thanks!!!

[re fic...LFN actually seems a good Xover fandom, b/c they can become anyone and are all over the world...when i was a little less picky i read quite a few though i couldn't recall a single one...except maybe the one where buffy gets drafted into section *g*...runs off in embarrassment]

Doesn't that mean, then, that you're just preaching to the converted? That seems so pointless to me, becuase we already know why we like something or are into it... see, this is why I can't do stuff like this. I just don't get it. ;-)

And, um... for years, I've thought of doing a Buffy/LFN xover, even though I DESPISE crossovers. I thought it could be funny if they decided, sort of like The Initiative, to employ vampire slayers or vampires to get rid of supernatural terrorists... but I could never quite figure out how it would work. Because seriously, Spike would make Ops and Madeline INSANE. And that would just be funny.

that you're just preaching to the converted? but aren't we usually??? i mean, it's like showing a vid to pimp someone into the fandom vs showing one to share your fannish squee...i think, avctually, ship_manifesto does a little bit of both...

LOL about the BtVS/LFN Xover...it is rather tempting, isn't it?

i'm actually a big fan of xovers if they're done well...but yes, thoise tend to be rare :-)

IIRC,

malisita actually wrote that crossover, though I haven't yet read it.

I should go read it.

Hm.

I loved you LFN Nikita/Michael essay – I cannot count myself as a fan, but I loved the show – at least those episodes I watched (I think first two seasons, maybe more.) Your essay reminded me of that couple and why I loved watching them and the show. Plus I never really knew what happened after I turned to different interests. I guess this is why I read those manifestoes – I love to share the love for the characters/relationships, and to be reminded why I love them, to find different angles of looking at them. I read also the manifestoes of the pairing I am mildly interested – to see what is there to love, though I wouldn’t be converted by any of them.

I really enjoyed your *manifesto* (I like saying it too!)
In particular, I liked the framework you used - how you divided the series into the particular parts and also the moments you spotlighted as critical turning points - very clear, very moving, right on. I think you have a great perspective on LFN, and it shows. Thanks for writing it.

I would just like to say that your Michael/Nikita manifesto was absolutely epic.

When you spoke of Michael's "ragged sigh" after telling Nikita that he couldn't live without her, it hit me right in the feels. That sigh was such a culmination of so many emotions and fears. It was as much a release as their lovemaking was. And, 20 years after you posted it, I'm glad that it's still available for new fans to discover. It still resonates, as does the very informative discussion that occurred regarding the quality of fan fiction. Sadly, a lot of the resources that were mentioned are now gone. When I finished watching the series a few years ago, I desperately wanted more of these characters, but the resources were almost non-existent. Thankfully, I was able to access stories via the Wayback Machine and work my way through them. Every time I stumbled upon a quality writer it was such a joy. The LFN fandom isn't really "active" but there are people who still pop up at the mention of it.

Your manifesto was a huge inspiration to me. I did a small fandom pimp for the series on a dreamwidth community and I wanted to shoot for a standard as high as yours. It got a nice response from people who had once enjoyed the show. If you're interested in taking a gander, I'll provide the link: https://smallfandomfest.dreamwidth.org/869425.html

I hope you don't mind my popping in on some of your old LFN posts. Right now, it's mostly just me playing the fandom sandbox (I've been posting fic at AO3) and I had the sudden urge to reach out and say hello.

It's really lovely to find out there are still some folks finding the series and loving it the way we had. I know most of everything is gone now, sadly--the main space I used to participate in, a bulletin board started by one of the PAs, was really great, and it's sad that much of it was lost to time. And I wish so much some of it could have migrated to AO3, but it was SUCH a feral fandom, which is what we used to call fandoms that were really outside the mainstream and where the participants were only in that one thing, and didn't know any of the regular fannish conventions or practices. I once asked for suggestions of fan made vids, because it felt like I was the only making them (this was still in the primarily videotape days with computers using VCR tapes as source) and when I mentioned "fandom" a person actually asked me "what is fandom?"

I was so thrown that all I could say was "you're in it." But they literally didn't understand or know about fandom at large and what it could do for you. It was wild. So when it got cancelled at the end of S4, huge numbers of people disappeared, and they didn't even know about the S5 add on, because those bulletin boards were all they'd had and once they were gone, people had no way of connecting with them. Live Journal was the only real fan game in town then, but they didn't know about it.

I did buy Christopher Heyn's enormous compendium Inside Section One, which is a comprehensive guide to the show. Do you know about that? I wonder if there might be copies floating around on like ebay or something. I'm looking forward to reading your pimp post--as soon as my terrible deadline is over, I will check it out.

I just like saying the word "manifesto"

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