I don't know if anyone takes a look at (or even cares about those) facebook roleplay groups, but there's one for Higurashi that's called something like "Rorupurei-hen" ... roleplay chapter. such witty wording there, yep. Not like any person who isn't familiar with japanese phonetics would get it, though.
Being the obnoxious and clearly obsessed Irie fan that I am, I decided to check out their Irie roleplayer.
If you are on the wiki, I am ashamed of you. Not only for your poor grasp of grammar and spelling, but because of the fact that you took up Irie without even knowing who he was. Because you did not make a single effort to understand just WHO that character was, besides a maid pedo doctor who takes care of old people. I am very, very ashamed, and actually partially humiliated because I was once an Irie roleplayer and I made every effort to understand that man as a person that I possibly could.
Even by glancing at a TIP or one of the things from "picking up the pieces" (WHICH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND EACH AND EVERY PERSON WHO IS REMOTELY INTERESTED IN HIGURASHI TO READ) you could get a better idea of Irie as a human being. But ... But this person...
I am sorry. I simply cannot contain my rage. I was nearly driven to an aneurysm as I watched a group of people speculate on whether or not Irie was related to Rena due to their /personality traits that are arguably shared by quite a few characters/. They... they actually BELIEVED he committed suicide, they actually THOUGHT he was IN CAHOOTS WITH TAKANO!? Further more one of the KEY CHARACTERS admitted that they DIDN'T ACTUALLY WATCH THE ENTIRE HIGURASHI SERIES, and yet they decide to jump into a rather lengthy roleplay community!?
It might be me being a veteran roleplayer. It might be me being the rabid #1 Irie fangirl. But good god, I have never been more pissed off at any disgrace to a character's roleplaying than this. I was okay when I saw a Batou that was into anime (especially yuri... what). I was okay when I saw the other Irie, before he was taken over by someone who wanted to roleplay in the group but didn't get the character they wanted.
Here's where the rant gets a little off track, because this is where I lament about how I've always been particularly ticked off at the roleplayers who want to roleplay their FAAAVRITE CHAR but have the role already taken by someone else and then they go and take a lesser known character and proceed to be a terrible OOC roleplayer.
I remember. I used to be the Irie in the deviantart roleplay groups. HigurashiRP-dA and then once the split happened I was in HigumiII. And there were quite a few people who were in that situation. I think Maria,... Asmodeus, and a few others. They didn't get the characters they wanted, but they still made a great effort to research their characters and then roleplay them efficiently. They actually went through to understand their characters and roleplay them accordingly.
I saw the posts. This person is a prime example of those people who don't take the time out to research their character. And it drove me absolutely batshit to see them turn a well-characterized (minus the fetish bullshit) fictional character like Irie into a brainless pedophile doctor. I was fuming. I.. actually got a little out of hand and left a rather condescending comment on the matter, but considering my own psychology, it was rather predictable.
But good god. This is why I'm editing the wiki. Because I'm so tired of the people who don't take the time out to research their characters. This is why I spend an hour wording things correctly, editing grammar, editing spelling, making things flow, researching the psychological relations between characters... so that anyone who is going to do their research can have their facts straight. That's why I'm here. Because even if you didn't bother to finish all the goddamn episodes of Higurashi kai (which still has quite a few important points left out) , I want you to have the information at your disposal. So that when I see something like that, I can understand that it is purely the reader's fault for failing to do the research, and not our editor's fault for not providing the information.
Furthermore, this practically gave me a gallon of fuel for my rage of people who don't understand Irie properly. I'm probably going to end up including a section in the Irie article on his silly little inexplainable fetish, just BECAUSE I am so tired of people thinking he's a pedo.
Hahaha. Once I saw a particularly nasty example of something like this on youtube. You know that video where it's got Onision's song "I'm a Pedophile" song with clips of Satoko and Irie? There were quite a few comments explaining that Irie wasn't exactly a lolicon.
I checked back to see that the person had actually gone through the MyAnimeList and the Wikipedia description of him and added that he had a lolicon fetish, then edited the video description to say that she got her information from "MLA" which states TRUE FACTS. I was having a fit. Obviously since I've done more than enough research to prove it otherwise I took it upon myself to edit the descriptions back to the way they were. But good god. Do you people stop at nothing to continue your stupid anime cliche characterizations onto every goddamn character you see?! Does everyone have to have some stupid cliche attached to them, like how Keiichi is GAR, Mion is tsundere, Rena is yandere, and etc. etc. etc. ?? Do you know how irritated it makes the people who ACTUALLY GO THROUGH THE SHOW AND THEN GO FURTHER TO SEE THE VISUAL NOVELS THAT HAVE THE CORE PART OF THE PLOT to see it be brushed off as killer lolis and gore????
Okay. I suppose I should wrap up this rant because it's getting a little out of hand again (as do most of my rants).
But for whoever reads this, take me seriously here. Will you do a little research on your character before you jump in to roleplay them? Especially if they're not your OMG TOTALLY FAVORITE CHARACTER I EAT UP ALL MERCHANDISE AND INFORMATION ON THEM FOREVER ? And ESPECIALLY if you haven't even finished the series!? At least check out the wikia. That is all I ask. Glance through an article or two. We spend time making the wiki better and better EVERY DAY, and it would do you and my frontal lobe good to spend time looking at the article of the character you're about to roleplay before jumping in. Please.
I beg of you, and all roleplayers out there, do your research.