@Ghost said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
On a long enough timeline, if the expectation is that we are pre-approving already pre-approved roleplay behavior with the OOC personalities who control the characters, then aren't we technically creating an environment where extreme levels of OOC emotional attachment can fester?
For a very simple reason.
When someone hits a trigger in the course of RP, it isn't that they suddenly think they are their character, and what is happening to the character is happening to them as a player. That would, yes, indicate an attachment problem.
The reality is almost entirely the opposite. Events in a scene hit a real life traumatic memory, and forcibly jar the player completely out of the character and the scene, and in the case of flashbacks, entirely out of the actual reality they are experiencing at that moment, and into the traumatic memory.
At that point, the person really could not give a damn about the game, the character, other characters, etc. and will probably become completely incommunicative at least for a time until they can withdraw (sometimes with an explanation, though some people I've seen just log out and explain at a later time) to deal with the RL issue. Some folks in the midst of a panic attack may wig out on game, but I haven't seen a lot of that; usually typing is a bit beyond the capabilities at that point. Folks having a flashback? Generally speaking, they're really just not there right now, leave a message at the beep, so it's unlikely they're going to communicate much if at all.
There's nothing about attachment -- inappropriate or otherwise -- going on here, and it's not about being too emotionally invested in a character at all, or even necessarily in what is happening to the character you're playing. Look back at @Ganymede's RL example for a good reference point on this.
These people are really not the melodramatic, entitled drama queens that throw around 'triggerzzzzz!' every five seconds when they don't get everything they want while stomping their feet like petty tyrants. Those people? Have hijacked a real issue to use as a manipulative tool and sacred absolution from any consequence for their behavior, have muddied the waters considerably, and to say my opinion of them is unkind would be an understatement.
What you have been consistently describing, I would agree, absolutely applies to these people. I can't say it applies to the people described above who are actually experiencing a panic attack or a flashback, because odds are pretty high they're not going to be communicating with you very much -- to yell, explain anything, stomp their feet, apologize, or anything else, because at that point, reality has taken precedence to the game to such an extent that the game is just not all that important, and that's pretty much the polar opposite of attachment.