It's been more than a year since I got into fan fiction, and it still hasn't gotten old. I do admit that I only read the ones that interest me, the ones that show a lot of promise, and/or the ones that feature pairings I won't scoff at. Grammar and spelling are factors however minor I think they should be; I get my share of fussy moments even if I'm not fluent in spoken and written English.

Lately, a lot of things trouble me, and one of them is the seemingly strong antagonistic feeling I have for people who write some so-called parodies, mocking the fans and the pairings they ship and/or the non-canon details they provide.

An example would be an unnamed writer who despises KuramaxBotan, and bashes the ones who love the coupling in a "parody" posted at FF.net. She goes on and on and on about the futility of the relationship of the two characters, her main reason being that the characters hardly had any interaction in the animé, or something equally pointless like that. I say pointless because in the first place, we're dealing with fan works here, and we, as mere creative fans, twist/butcher/disregard the canon world any way we can/like so we will be able to seamlessly integrate the idea/plot we have in mind to produce -- tadah! -- fan works. (insert eye rolling here)

Naturally, as a KuramaxBotan fan (who is well aware of the ridiculousness of the pairing), I would be curious to know what type/s of stories this certain KB-hater author writes. As I was reading her profile, I didn't know whether to slap her silly or laugh at her.

Her fan fictions are a mix of canonxOC, OCxOC, and a bunch of self-insertions.

And she thinks that Botan and Kurama should not be together because they hardly had any interaction in the series?

She and her character don't even exist in the frigging animé canon, dammit!

So I can't, for the life of me, understand why she should bitch about something that she does herself, and even on the next level, at that! People like her make me a little more than annoyed. She's a living, breathing contradiction, and I want[ed] so much to hunt her down and strangle her for being self-righteous.

But then, I realize that I am the same as her. In fact, everyone who gives his all in coming up with good fan works and become defensive is also the same. It all comes down to this: the mere activity of producing something that's not an original part of the canon is veering away from reality of the series, and that's the point we all miss.

After all, that's just what fan fictions and fan arts are all about, right? We're here not only to express our love for the subject, but also to showcase our talent/s, not mindlessly opine senseless things.

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ON KURAMAxBOTAN....

I admit my fascination for the pairing is fueled by the fan fictions I read, from the badly-written romance to the over-the-top dramas.

I love the crack pairing to death, but I'm one of the many fans who actually realize/admit that there are neither hints nor evidences whatsoever to support our fanaticism. To echo what I once wrote on a mailing list:

Botan is a very compassionate person. She and Kurama value their friends. Both are willing to sacrifice their lives for others. Anything and everything they do, their motivation is the same: friendship [...]

I'd love to have every Kurama and Botan interaction be a hint/evidence that there's something going on between the two, but I guess I'm much too 'logical' for that. But not logical enough to dispel the pairing altogether, apparently. After all, my reasons for loving the pair are purely shallow, bloody fanatical, and extremely illogical.

(In retrospect, I should probably blame FUNimation for inserting the two lines with Botan's famous phrase, "person I love," while Kurama was fighting Karasu. I also often joke, Kurama may very well have Oedipus complex. ^_^ And Botan? Well, she seems generally disinterested in romantic love in both the manga (to which I am more faithful) and the animé.)

So you don't have to tell me the reasons why the pairing doesn't make any sense; I know that. But that's no excuse to attack me or the others for liking it. Pairings are not about possibilities; they're about preferences.

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My favorite female character is obviously Botan. What's not so obvious is how I just adore Kuwabara. C'mon, surely you don't get any reward of sorts for bashing a loyal, honorable character like him?

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