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Say hello to my little friend!
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would like to begin with a little history here.
Last year, I wrote a rant about Stefan, the controversial webmaster of Cammyfan.com. Among other things, I talked about how tired I was of his constant jabs at Chun-Li. Fingers got pointed, names got named, and a good time was had by all. Then, last spring, Stefan read the rant and e-mailed me a response. We exchanged e-mails back and forth, and repeatedly he insisted he doesn't actually hate Chun-Li, and that I was most likely just taking his comments too personally.
In response, I challenged him to an open forum contest in which he and I would set up a dummy yahoo e-mail account, which we would both have access to. We would announce this contest on both of our pages and ask our readers to submit their own thoughts on this matter to this e-mail account. I asked him about this twice, and both times he ignored me. So I began toying with the idea of doing it on my own. I announced on my site that I was considering doing just that, and people flooded my inbox with voices of support for the idea, especially since Stefan leaves no way to contact him on his site and therefore strips his visitors of the ability to send him direct feedback.
A couple of times when I was about to go ahead with the open forum myself, something would come along bite me in the ass, preventing me from doing much work at all to Kikouken.com. Finally, when Udon's Street Fighter comic had a Chun-Li Vs Cammy fight in it, I knew that it was going to get ugly with Stefan, so I finally went ahead and set up the open forum. I wanted to prove that I was not simply taking his comments about Chun-Li personally. My goal was to show him that he should come down from his ivory tower and actually listen to what people have to say, and that he wasn't fooling anybody by pretending he simply "loved to hate" Chun-Li. That was on October 17th. On October 20th, Stefan put up his review of the comic.
For those of you who have not read the comic, the fight scene basically goes as follows: Chun-Li's father is being kidnapped by Shadaloo thugs and forced into a car. As Chun-Li rushes to rescue him, Cammy drops down begins fighting Chun-Li, hoping to buy the Shadaloo agents enough time to escape. As the two fight, most of the attacks get blocked. Cammy lands three hits and goes for a fourth by attempting a high kick, which Chun-Li dodges. Before Cammy can recover, Chun-Li grabs Cammy's outstretched leg, swings her overhead, and brings her crashing down into the pavement head-first. Cammy reels from the attack, decides that she's delayed Chun-Li enough, and flees.
In Stefan's review, he states the following:
"All bias aside, Cammy should have won. Cammy is the bodyguard & assassin for the world's #1 criminal (who can pretty much kick anybody's butt himself). You're damn right she's tough! What Chun Li is exactly, is ironically pretty much undefined... in this comic she starts as a young girl (agent?) with her dad, and ends a young agent without a dad (thanks to Cammy!)."
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I've decided to close the open forum, even though it's only been up for a few days. In all honestly, I no longer feel like I have to prove anything to Stefan, or anyone else. That Stefan would celebrate his favorite character being an accomplice to the murder of Chun-Li's father speaks volumes by itself. I consider our little contest won. Although I will continue to link to Cammyfan.com (which is more than Stefan can say about Kikouken.com), this will be my last dealings with the site itself.
As for you, Stefan...
Pardon my French, but you're a douche bag. Somebody had to say it. Even if you hate a character, it takes a special kind of hate to be proud of a character that acted as an accomplice to the murder of a beloved family member. The character I hate more than anybody else (including that dumbass from the Cheerios commercials who tells everybody how he lowered his cholesterol) is Rosemary from Metal Gear Solid 2. Common grievences with MGS2 included Raiden stealing the lead role and the insanely paranoid plot, but I could easily overlook both of those and enjoy the game for days on end if it wasn't for that whiny whore. And it doesn't help that a good friend of mine in high school dated a girl exactly like that for two years. I want to wrap my fingers around her neck and squeeze. Hard. If somebody made a comic where Chun-Li beat Rosemary to within an inch of her life, I'd stand up and cheer. But I wouldn't celebrate the murder of a member of her family, and I certainly wouldn't if Chun-Li had played a part in that. That completely crosses the line from harmless fandom and goes deep into the realm of unhealthy obsession.
Don't give me any bullshit about "just joking," either. You need to stop being such a Cammy fan and start being a Street Fighter fan. Somehow, you managed to enjoy Street Fighter even before there was a Cammy. Accept the fact that, for whatever conspiracy theory at Capcom you may think is behind it, Cammy is a supporting character. As such, she won't always be included in a game, and probably won't have big parts in any movies or comic books. Go cry on the shoulder of a Karin Kanzuki fan.
Chun-Li was left out of the first two SF3 games. Did I disapprove? Hell, yes. I think it was a huge mistake on their part. And is that opinion biased? Of course. I also think cutting other beloved characters from the game such as Guile, Guy, Dan, Vega, and yes, Cammy, was a huge mistake as well. In fact, this was all happening just as I was getting my big start in as a Chun-Li webmaster. I haven't to date started talking about what a piece of shit the first two SF3 games are, even though I haven't played them, just because it doesn't have Chun-Li and therefore can not be a good game. I sucked it up, and somehow, life went on.
These are fictional characters. Fictional. Characters. Cammy is not your wife, your baby, or you. She is a complete fabrication conjured up in the mind of some Japanese guy working for a company whose sole purpose is to make money by selling entertaining video games. These characters are here to entertain us. If you should happen to click with one of them, good for you. I have. But they aren't designed to be taken so seriously that fans snipe at each other, and other characters, for the petty envious reasons you've targeted Chun-Li.
Even after having the mind-numbing experience of actually speaking to you, I find myself feeling that nobody could honestly believe all the smack you talk. How you can go for more than a week at a time without someone punching you in the face will forever remain a mystery to me. My only hypothesis is that you save your criticisms until you're safely behind your computer. In the real world, that kind of attitude lands you in ugly situations, fast. For all the time and energy I spend complaining about the obsessed, closed-minded, short-sighted Ryu fans, without a doubt you, Stefan, are the biggest fanboy I've met in all my years on the net.
I'm sure you will have some thoughts of your own regarding this rant I've just written. Go ahead. E-mail me. You can find my e-mail address where it's always been, ready to listen to what my visitors have to tell me. And may God have mercy on whatever poor fool exposes themself to your ramblings for too long.
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