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[android_raptor]

So is it normal to sometimes get resentful of a certain character and/or their fans because they tend to fuel a lot of the bashing your favorite character gets (and in general get the love and sympathy of the fandom at large while you/your character is left out in the cold)? I'm not saying it's healthy or justified, I'm just wondering if anyone

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[kankurette]

I've had that with Hinata Hyuuga. I like her a hell of a lot more when Naruto Forums and TV Tropes aren't ramming down my throat how she's so perfect and better than all the other female characters, especially Ino and Sakura (those WHORES). The fandom seems hellbent on making them into sworn enemies and rivals for Naruto, just like with Karin and Sasuke, when no such rivalry exists, although Kishimoto isn't helping at the moment. Same with Rukia and Orihime, and this is coming from someone who prefers Rukia.

Also, although Hidan's my favourite Akatsuki next to Kisame, it took forever for me to start liking Hidan because I got so sick of a certain vocal minority of Hidan fans woobifying him while insisting Shikamaru and Asuma are evil monsters, that Kishimoto is a bastard and a hypocrite because it's OK for Shikamarysue to get revenge but not Sasuke (even though Shikamaru and Sasuke's circumstances and backgrounds are completely different, and if Shikamaru hadn't got Hidan, someone else would have - he was a threat to Konoha, after all), and that Shikamaru will be haunted forever by his crimes. While I'm not entirely happy with how Shikamaru was handled that arc, to say nothing of Ino and Chouji (hi, Kishi, Asuma was their sensei too), I HATE him being compared to Sasuke, and as much as I like Hidan, what he and Kakuzu did to Asuma and the monks was disgusting and he had it coming, frankly. My dad died when I was a kid and seeing fathers / father figures who had a good relationship with their kids be killed off makes me teary, and thanks to Hidan, Asuma and Kurenai's kid was going to grow up without ever meeting its dad. Also, no, he is not a fucking woobie, he has no tragic past, he is a mad bastard who kills people for the lulz. Making Hidan into a woobie totally goes against who he is, and anyway Akatsuki has enough bloody woobies as it is.

tl;dr Hidan is cool, but it took a while for me to warm to him because of his fans. Especially the ones who insist that anyone who might like BOTH characters is a 'fucking liar'.

[android_raptor]

Thing is with me though, Ghinius does commit some nasty crimes due the to going batshit insane over the course of the series. Aina (his sister) doesn't. However, what annoys me is when fans insist Ghinius is and always was a completely terrible person (despite evidence to the contrary) and that Aina is a completely wonderful and pure heroine, whom he had to have mistreated and abused her entire life and she's oh-so-sad because of it (while their relationship was close to unhealthy levels, there's no evidence he was actually abusive towards her in any way. If anything, the series shows he's generally kind if not overprotective of her until he starts loosing it, and his behavior to her towards the end of the series is NOT normal for him).

Never mind that she might've been the straw that broke the camel's back with his breakdown, by "abandoning" him in favor of some guy she'd known maybe 12 hours (Ghinius has major abandonment issues. As in, even the slightest threat of it sets him off). I thinks she's actually a pretty alright character when that little fact isn't glossed over and she's presented as more naive and impulsive than 100% pure and innocent. Definitely a lot more interesting to me because let's face it, real people have flaws and situations like that are generally clusterfucks of misbehavior rather than it being 100% one person's fault with the other an entirely innocent victim.

But if I dare point out Aina might not be as pure and just as she appears to be at first glance (and that she might have some fault in what happened to her brother) I'm just bashing her and being a stupid fangirl because GHINIUS IS SO TERRIBLE HOW DARE HE BE SEEN AS SYMPATHETIC AT ALL!11! Never mind that pure!martyr!Aina is the one I have the problem with, not flawed!made her brother snap!Aina. I've actually grown quite fond of the latter.

But since I'm about the only one who feels this way, my opinion doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the prevailing view.

[android_raptor]

Except I've said multiple times his crimes are not to be excused.

And no, I'm not saying his crimes are her fault. I hate when people automatically assume that's what I'm trying to do when I point out look, what she did might not have been 100% right. I like to call their situation a clusterfuck for a reason, because it's a clusterfuck of unhealthy behavior from everyone involved.

No, she didn't deliberately provoke or know that would happen. I don't completely blame her for what she did TBH considering they were in a codependent relationship where he kind of lived vicariously through her at the expense of her getting to have her own life. However she did give him the cold shoulder when it did start happening and do nothing to try and bring him back. She shouldn't be blamed for what he did, but I don't think what she did was 100% justified or the wisest thing to do either.

And of course what the fandom does is make Aina into this poor, pitiful little victim who was raped/beaten/etc by Ghinius on a daily basis who's completely justified in everything she did. Ghinius is allowed to have no good traits either, and deserves everything that happened to him and was never nice to her and is 100% at fault for everything ever. Even though you pretty much have to ignore how he treated her for the entire first half of the series to get that image, we just can't have any gray area now can we? Aina being anything less than the 100% Perfect, Righteous, and Holy Martyr of Peace and True Love (TM) and Ghinius anything less than Lucifer incarnate would just make the universe explode.

I just want to see it acknowledged as a giant gray mass of dysfunction instead of trying to shove either of them into a black vs. white blame game. Why can't we have them BOTH as victims of their circumstances, fandom? Is that too much to ask? Why can't we say they both fucked up in different ways? :/

I can see why you might be excited at the thought of a fandom that exults female characters like that, I think it's worth mentioning that some of these guys still get pretty nasty to female characters who aren't traditionally attractive or nice. Not to mention I kind of think some of the bashing Ghinius gets, ESPECIALLY in the form of a certain double standard he gets from fans of a certain other male character has possible homophobic/ableist/effeminate male hating undertones to it. Whether they realize it consciously or not. I think the way they put Aina on a pedestal as a perfect waifu/goddess also reeks of benign sexism. Which is, of course, still sexism and still wrong.

Just because it's the opposite extreme of other fandoms doesn't make it any less obnoxious IMHO.

[android_raptor]

I think I should also mention I get bothered immensely seeing a suffering, mentally ill character ignored and left to their own devices by the other characters (especially when the story and/or fans treat it as the right thing to do). It really, REALLY makes my sympathize with said character even if they've pulled some nasty shit. Personal reasons, etc.

I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it is what it is.

[android_raptor]

Ghinius is also physically ill and had a tendency to neglect his meds/etc unless reminded. Not to mention no matter what he still had no concept of how to function on his own. Maybe it wasn't Aina's responsibility, but he needed *someone*. Just leaving him to his own devices to destroy himself as punishment for putting his poor sister through a codependency isn't something he deserved like fandom likes to think. Being in a position like Ghinius is a hell I wouldn't wish on my enemies.

The situation isn't in black and white. And I don't think it's fair for the the fandom to insist it is and denounce my attempts to explain it as more complex than that and mock me for finding Ghinius to be a sympathetic character.