Quote Originally Posted by Melichoir View Post
This whole ...whatever this is, is just strange to me.

How do I describe this.... It's a strange concept to assume that the characters we create or put out there are somehow direct analogues of us. That what this character interacts with is directly happening to us. This is not to conflate this with harassment, where people are talking to you specifically (I.E breaking the 4th wall to target the actual player and not the character). More to the point, if your character becomes grievously injured from a boss, are you injured the same? Do you become scarred when your character feints? Do you get PTSD? The point ends up being that for some reason, certain in game interactions are deemed as it "being a violation of the player" while other interactions are not. Where being hugged or doted by a stranger is violating, but getting obliterated by a boss, falling off a building, killed in PvP, or other interactions have 'no effect'. Why is the analogue subjective where it is you in certain situations but not you in others?

This is what I dont understand. I love my character. I have little head cannons about her. I live a bit vicariously through her. But I am not her, and no matter the suffering she goes through in game, or situations she encounters, I will never 'embody' those experiences. If she dies in a boss fight, I will not think I have died. If she is betrayed in the MSQ, I will not think I have been personally betrayed. If someone hugs her and that might be against her character, I wont personally see that as someone violating me. That inconsistency is just really strange to me.
In all seriousness, this is what I more or less understood from the other side ( the side that's not necessarily rping but mostly have their characters have extension of themselves):

-The line is afforded to msq, npcs and gameplay content. If the story and duties does things to their character, it doesn't count. Much.

-The line is drawn at greeting emotes. Hellos and Welcomes and Goodbyes and anything similar to those are okay.

-The line is crossed at emotes displaying physical contact or "affectionate" in nature. So the hugs and the pats are bad. Doting and Blow Kiss are also bad. Similar emotes to what I just listed are bad.

At least, that's the gist of what I think I got. The reason I underlined this is because it's clear that the arbitrary line when it comes to the last two lines is generally just about everywhere. It might have sounded at first like just not talking directly to the player was one way to avoid making people uncomfortable but now it seems like you might as well add emoting to it. Funnily enough, the latter wouldn't be so bad IF (and a big IF here) some people simply resorted to talking to the "culprit" about stopping their targeted actions instead of rushing headfirst into either reporting or venting to the forums about it. Especially when it comes to only suspecting someone of having committed a possible offense rather than fully confirming it.

But hey, let's torch the witch first, then check if she's one.