*sigh*
I suppose this had to come out sooner or later, but I have been
reluctant to post this to the list until now. For a while there has been no
word from Hitomi Ichinohei on the FF mailing list, for good reason. So,
people inquiring about Hitomi harken to my words, and be afraid, be very afraid.
From all the evidence gathered--there IS no Hitomi Ichinohei.
Shocked? Disappointed? So was I.
Here, let me start at the beginning.
**********************
A while ago, when I discovered 'Hitomi' was located in Winnipeg,
Canada like me, I was quite happy to be so close to another fanfic writer. I
was impressed by her discriptions of her 'job' and workplace. Not being the
suspicious sort and having no reason to investigate I accepted her word.
Bert(SkyKnight) was also quite involved in e-mail with Hitomi and accepted
her at face value as well. After all, she wrote great stories: why should we
be suspicious?
In hindsight, perhaps a mistake.
Especially when she first suggested we(Bert, Hitomi, and I) try to
create a book(not a story) to sell for money. That attempt died rather
quickly as Bert and I lost interest in the idea. There was silence on that
topic until the author wars started and she claimed to have 'contacts' with
ani-mayhem to write a book that we could write. Again, it sounded plausible,
even though we(Bert and I) never got e-mail or a phone call from anyone but
Hitomi. However, that died too. (I wonder if our subconscious minds
suspected something here)
Until this point, I had never seen physical evidence of Hitomi.
Enter Chris Hill.
How to describe Chris... Well, though it was fairly obvious, and was
confirmed later, she was once male but had a sex-change operation.
(Considering everyone who met she/he at first thought 'man', including me, a
rather poor one.) Dressed somewhat poorly, she/he has a slight lisp and must
weigh somewhere around 180 pounds at 5' 7".
Not that I cared as she/he claimed to be a good friend of Hitomi's.
I mean, hey, an actual person who KNEW Hitomi! To make a very long story
short here is a brief summary of what Chris told me. (And I'm quite
embarassed to say I bought into this... Hm, maybe just 'accepted it' and
didn't give it much thought is more accurate )
Chris was Oneeko's lesbian wife.
Oneeko and Hitomi were super-geniuses and had gotten many degrees on
merit alone from the University of Manitoba.
Dynanex was some big-time corporation in Japan and the two sisters
were major partners.
Chris had been in the Army(trust me, this should have been the first
clue)
The three lived in a penthouse in the downtown region.
Oneeko died in some military exerise in Japan and Hitomi was not
given details about it. (Huh?????)
Oneeko left Chris her shares but Chris was still essentially broke.
Chris and Hitomi came to a meeting that no one showed up for because
it was cancelled.
Hitomi was sent to Japan because of a stunt she pulled.
Etc, etc, etc... I'm guessing some readers(or most) will have had
warning lights flashing in their heads at these facts listed like this.
Trust me, Chris is a very smooth talker in person.
It was when Chris came to me with yet another money-making idea that
Hitomi 'helped' with that things began to come to a head. This was because
my friends got involved, and one of them had gotten burned with business
dealings before.
The idea seemed sound, and I won't bother you with the details, but
there was one freaking large hole in it that someone like Hitomi should NOT
have missed. To me, that clinched things as it was totally out of character,
but the facts my friends and I found out cemented it rather firmly.
--Dave and I went to the place with the penthouse--no one by any
name we gave them lived there.
--Chris at this point was phoning me from a hotel a friend described
as 'a dive' and 'a dump'
--a friend, who loves to investigate things, found no trace of a
'Hitomi Ichinohei' in Winnipeg, or by phoning to Tokyo(he's of Japanese
descent and speaks Japanese)
--Dynalex was created by Chris Hill and a Tony Chan in 1994(Chris
said it was seven years old) and strangely enough the licence would expire
about the time this was coming to light)
--Chris is on welfare.
--The number on a business card for Dynalex once belonged to a Mai
Chan, student, now disconnected.(204-235-0049)
--Real name John Chris Hill
--place of business on Dynelex sheet(207-377 Henderson Hwy) has
correct address, but the apartment number does not exist.
--for a person who claimed to know a lot about Linux, Chris had a
lousy time in a simple Linux installation setup on Dave's computer.
The funny thing was, she openly invited us to investigate him/her.
Then she/he got ticked when we did. *snort*
During this time, Chris once tried to turn the distrust on her/him
on ME! This episode did Not. Make. Me. Happy.
In the end, my friend and I met Chris and discussed some of these
things, though I was resigned to the fact that Hitomi existed only in Chris'
mind. She/he was quite upset, and threated my friend(and myself I think)
with "you don't know the power of the Ichinohei and <name> families" in a
low growl. Ack! Boy, I was shaking. Not. Needless to say, that was the last
time I saw Chris Hill except once when I peeked into the U of M Mac lab.
(You can telnet to her ISP from there with no charge for dialup.)
Strangely enough, (yaright) from that point no one I know of has
heard a peep from Hitomi Ichinohei. Ichinohei, by the way, is a name from a
manga, and can be interpreted as 'one's wall' or 'one's barrier' I suppose.
I could be wrong, but it sure sounds like a handle.
Also--Hitomi Hi-tomi. HIll-TONY? Odd coincidence that.
I haven't told all of what happened because there was a heck of a
lot of stuff Chris told us that is hard to devide truth from fiction.
However, I hope you can understand my reasoning, and if doubtful INVESTIGATE
YOURSELF. If I am wrong, (uh huh, right), then I will be very happy to hear so.
Still, I am a little bitter about this, as are the people who
devulged personal stuff to 'Hitomi'. A handle is fine, but to not admit
it--is not a very nice thing to do. ESPECIALLY considering what happened a
year or so ago with the April Fool's Joke Hitomi Incident!! That makes me
smolder a little.
I once asked Grimreaper(another friend) what he thought I was like,
and one of those characteristics was 'innocent'. I was skeptical about that,
but Chris Hill certainly makes me think about the truth of that claim. I
certainly got royally suckered by someone who wrote good stories, but
perhaps lives in them as well.
And, I am sorry to say, so did a lot of others.
Twister.