Apr. 28th, 2004 09:00 am
A rant on fandoms
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savvyliterateI really don't like to post - okay take sides - on the whole who likes who in what fandom thing, but sometimes I come across some stuff that really irks me to no end.
For a certain percentage of this fandom, you are either of a fan of Kagome or a fan of Kikyo. You want Kagome to be with Inuyasha or Kikyo to be with Inuyasha. I've seen this before in Kenshin fandom with Tomoe and Kaoru, so I'm no stranger to this type of favortism.
At first, I didn't care for Kikyo. The anime did not paint her in a very favorable light and I really never got my hands on the manga until it was republished in its second edition (aka smaller) format. But, as I saw more of the anime and read the manga, I grew to like her. Not only did I like her, I respected her for the place she had in Inuyasha's life. She taught him that it was okay to love, and I believe that broke open the path for his current relationship (as slow as it's going) with Kagome.
Kikyo is also a pretty cool character on her own, once she shed the initial shock of being brought back to life. Once she realized that Naraku was the cause of their problems, she started pursuing him and became pretty kick ass. At the end of manga ch. 355, I cheered when she showed up and found Kanna and the baby on the cliff. I really enjoyed her in the Shichinin-tai Arc with Suikotsu and one of my favorite moments in the anime is the conversation she has with Bankotsu over being, literally, "dead people walking."
Now, I really really like Kagome. It's because I see a lot of myself in her. Our personalities are similiar and we share the same general outlook on life. She's also one of the few characters I've seen that is able to recognize her own flaws and try to get past them when she can. That's something that I have and I've seen very few characters with that ability.
My preferred couple choice is Inuyasha and Kagome for multiple reasons. However, I can not begrudge Kikyo's place as Inuyasha's first love or deny the relationship existed. I respect the fans who like Kikyo and understand why they are rooting for her, because I've seen the same with Rurouni Kenshin.
However, for the most part, I don't like public character bashing in general. This is why, when I see posts like this, it really makes me angry.
The person,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kikyounosorrow is a very good icon maker and a very big Kikyo fan. That's cool with me. She's also dislikes Kagome. That's fine by me too. Not everyone is going to like Kagome, just like not everyone likes Kikyo. Everyone's tastes are different.
However, the bottom icon on that list, that has Kagome as a baby, really really bothers me.
It's okay that she made the icon. However, I don't appreciate the forum that she chose to publicize it in. There is a specific forum for Kagome haters and another for Kikyo lovers. That icon might be appropriate for those. However, in a community such as Inuicons, where there are fans of Kagome, I think it's in poor taste.
I also know too that a double standard exists. If I happened to make an icon bashing Kikyo, I would be flogged. I would get so much hate mail that it would make the spam mail I get currently seem non-existant.
But I won't make any icon bashing Kikyo because I respect the character and her fans. Personally, I don't care for character bashing at all. But, if you want to bash a character in that manner, I would appreciate it being posted in a forum where fans of that particular character aren't likely to see it. The key word here is respect. You may like Kagome, you may hate her. You may like Kikyo or you may hate her. But, the least thing that people can do is have respect for the fans that do like them.
Let's see, in other stuff, I managed to complete a manga review for Inuyasha vol. 17 over the weekend. Viz has gone back to using the Japanese names for the attacks, all except for Miroku's. His "kazaana" is still "wind tunnel." But Inuyasha has his Sanko Tessou (or Tesso as it is in the volume) and Sango her Hirakotsu. Inuyasha doesn't use his Kaze no Kizu in the volume, so I'm not sure if that is retained or not.
Steve asked me to talk to a recruit from a Minnesota university who might be moving down here to Bristol. He said that since I recently made such a huge move that I would be good in letting him know about the area, etc. I'm looking forward to doing this. I still love the Bristol area, so I feel like I'd make a good ambassador for it.
I think Joe's coming in soon to film his TV spot. My next spot will be in two weeks. I do have a tape of my first three spots. Other than that, I have the normal layout and story filing to do today. I designed a rail announcing new DVD releases and Jan really liked it, so that will now be integrated into the elecTriCity section. Wai!
For a certain percentage of this fandom, you are either of a fan of Kagome or a fan of Kikyo. You want Kagome to be with Inuyasha or Kikyo to be with Inuyasha. I've seen this before in Kenshin fandom with Tomoe and Kaoru, so I'm no stranger to this type of favortism.
At first, I didn't care for Kikyo. The anime did not paint her in a very favorable light and I really never got my hands on the manga until it was republished in its second edition (aka smaller) format. But, as I saw more of the anime and read the manga, I grew to like her. Not only did I like her, I respected her for the place she had in Inuyasha's life. She taught him that it was okay to love, and I believe that broke open the path for his current relationship (as slow as it's going) with Kagome.
Kikyo is also a pretty cool character on her own, once she shed the initial shock of being brought back to life. Once she realized that Naraku was the cause of their problems, she started pursuing him and became pretty kick ass. At the end of manga ch. 355, I cheered when she showed up and found Kanna and the baby on the cliff. I really enjoyed her in the Shichinin-tai Arc with Suikotsu and one of my favorite moments in the anime is the conversation she has with Bankotsu over being, literally, "dead people walking."
Now, I really really like Kagome. It's because I see a lot of myself in her. Our personalities are similiar and we share the same general outlook on life. She's also one of the few characters I've seen that is able to recognize her own flaws and try to get past them when she can. That's something that I have and I've seen very few characters with that ability.
My preferred couple choice is Inuyasha and Kagome for multiple reasons. However, I can not begrudge Kikyo's place as Inuyasha's first love or deny the relationship existed. I respect the fans who like Kikyo and understand why they are rooting for her, because I've seen the same with Rurouni Kenshin.
However, for the most part, I don't like public character bashing in general. This is why, when I see posts like this, it really makes me angry.
The person,
kikyounosorrow is a very good icon maker and a very big Kikyo fan. That's cool with me. She's also dislikes Kagome. That's fine by me too. Not everyone is going to like Kagome, just like not everyone likes Kikyo. Everyone's tastes are different.However, the bottom icon on that list, that has Kagome as a baby, really really bothers me.
It's okay that she made the icon. However, I don't appreciate the forum that she chose to publicize it in. There is a specific forum for Kagome haters and another for Kikyo lovers. That icon might be appropriate for those. However, in a community such as Inuicons, where there are fans of Kagome, I think it's in poor taste.
I also know too that a double standard exists. If I happened to make an icon bashing Kikyo, I would be flogged. I would get so much hate mail that it would make the spam mail I get currently seem non-existant.
But I won't make any icon bashing Kikyo because I respect the character and her fans. Personally, I don't care for character bashing at all. But, if you want to bash a character in that manner, I would appreciate it being posted in a forum where fans of that particular character aren't likely to see it. The key word here is respect. You may like Kagome, you may hate her. You may like Kikyo or you may hate her. But, the least thing that people can do is have respect for the fans that do like them.
Let's see, in other stuff, I managed to complete a manga review for Inuyasha vol. 17 over the weekend. Viz has gone back to using the Japanese names for the attacks, all except for Miroku's. His "kazaana" is still "wind tunnel." But Inuyasha has his Sanko Tessou (or Tesso as it is in the volume) and Sango her Hirakotsu. Inuyasha doesn't use his Kaze no Kizu in the volume, so I'm not sure if that is retained or not.
Steve asked me to talk to a recruit from a Minnesota university who might be moving down here to Bristol. He said that since I recently made such a huge move that I would be good in letting him know about the area, etc. I'm looking forward to doing this. I still love the Bristol area, so I feel like I'd make a good ambassador for it.
I think Joe's coming in soon to film his TV spot. My next spot will be in two weeks. I do have a tape of my first three spots. Other than that, I have the normal layout and story filing to do today. I designed a rail announcing new DVD releases and Jan really liked it, so that will now be integrated into the elecTriCity section. Wai!
