then that's life. Strange life, but life none-the-less. Does it really matter 
if she is a figment of her own imagination? Do you feel betrayed by her lie?

One of the problems with all of this, as I see it, is the fact that
'Hitomi' pretended to be Japanese, and pretended to know all about
everything Japanese, and hence I have seen people writing that her
works (especially the Ukyou one) was something to base Japanese knowledge
on. Everyone who thought something of the sort missed out, because they
were believing a lie. They believed that what Hitomi wrote about Japan
and Japanese customs was not to be questioned, and truly correct. Now,
one must go back to the works and check for accuracy if one has been
basing their beliefs of Japan on these.

If it was _just_ an alias for writing stories, it would have been fine.
If the person was just pretending to be someone _without_ a great
knowledge of Japan, then it would have been fine.

But to be so arrogant as to trick everyone (or almost everyone) into
believing that you are Japanese and hence are not to be questioned in
what you write, and to have people set their beliefs on a lie?

The first time I got a little bit iffy about all of this was when I
was searching through the RanmaML archives, and saw a reply that 'Hitomi'
had made to someone who wrote down "Hitomi-sama" as an example.

'Hitomi' went off 'her' rocker, and started yelling (caps lock-ing) a
reply ranting about how 'she' was not to be called that and how it
would disgrace 'her', etc, etc, etc.

I thought that was a tad strange at the time. If I called any of my
Japanese friends '-sama', _none_ of them would have reacted like that.
They may have politely requested me not to call them that, or something
similar ... but never would any of them have started yelling at me for
doing so.

To take an example from Ranma: Akari goes around calling Ranma and
Ryouga '-sama'. I didn't see either of them ranting at her to stop it
because they are not nobility, etc, etc, etc.

But some people would have taken the rant at face value - and believed
that it was a dire thing to call Japanese people '-sama'.

This is the disgrace of the 'Hitomi' thing. 'She' made people believe
in 'her' own fairy-tail views of Japan as "truth". Some astute people
noticed that 'she' did have a number of errors in 'her' version of
Japan and Japanese things. But not everyone would pick that up.

It's a terrible thing to lead people astray like that ... it may have
been malicious, it may have been for 'fun', it may have been because
'she' can't handle life, it may have been because 'she' wanted to pick
up "girls" online (like half the 'females' on MUCKs do), or it may
have been for any number of reasons, only known to Hitomi's user.

But none of them are anywhere near an explanation of why 'she' lied to
people to make them think that her fanfics and what she said about
Japan was based on undisputable fact.

I have met people who have a persona, and who would hate to unmask
themselves, but they do not hide this fact. Neither do they pretend
to be Japanese.

Ha, welcome to the real world. Open your eyes, smell the coffee, and pat your
pocket to make sure you've still got your wallet, because people lie about
themselves, even make up identities for themselves, all the time on the
internet.

The ones who do the above are counted as sad bastards without lives, who
need serious psychological help. Most of the ones that you mentioned just
do so to have online sex, too. And some of them do it just to have fun
hurting others, some even going so far as to get sisters or female
friends to phone a RL, unknowing guy at the other end to keep up the
image. It's just very sad, and especially so that this was through
_e-mail_ that this happened. I can understand it on a MUCK, because
everyone has a persona there. But in _e-mail_? And a whole life story
to go along with the persona?

I'm lucky that I got over trusting people online a year or so after I
started using the internet.

Back to 'Hitomi' - someone obviously doesn't get out much.

Kun-chan...
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* http://www.ecr.mu.oz.au/~caseawr *
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* High Priestess of Ryouga         *
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