I figure I'd clarify my point a little bit.
Bacon is not at pair with nigger or cunt, its a friendly nickname (its food based after all) not a taboo word.
What nickname do you think would upset a black burn victim most? Nigger or Bacon? I'm betting on the latter though that's merely an assumption on my part and I wouldn't suggest trying it out if you ever have the opportunity.
IMHO, food-based doesn't really mean much as far as difference goes. Unless you want to argue that calling someone with severe anorexia "string bean" is okay because food-based automatically negates the inherant nastiness of the remark. And I realize you were referring to your username, but I still think the point is invalid.
And it's actually quite different from doing it to someone real because one is real and the other is a fictional character. If you go call a real burn victim 'bacon', you're an asshole. If you call Hanako 'bacon', nobody cares because it's not affecting anything
The nickname isn't really aimed at Hanako personally because it's given for one reason and one reason only...to mock her injuries. I'd argue that it's the association (burn injuries = grilled food) that's made that's slightly less than tasteful. Going back to the n-word...a similar situation would be watching TV in a room with other people and referring to a black guy on the tv-show as "nigger". Then tell the black guy who was sitting next to you that you were merely calling the character on TV a nigger and not him, so there's no reason for him to be uncomfortable.
In order to test that theory in this case though, we'd need a traumatized burn victim on the forum who could judge whether calling burn victims bacon is really innocent poking or in poor taste. I doubt that's gonna happen, so all I can do is theorize.