Bleed is why I RP. Without it, I don't think I'd see much of a point in it. In fact, it's why I bother to experience narrative at all. I want to feel things but that doesn't mean that everything I feel will be pleasant or even what I was looking to feel at the time. And that's okay.
It's important to keep in mind that your lack of complete control over feelings is what gives those feelings meaning. If you always got exactly the response you wanted out of writing (internally and externally) there would be no challenge to it. It would rob others of any sense of agency. If the outside world cannot push back and change what you intended to happen then you're looking for a captive audience not participants in your collective fiction.
In my experience the biggest problems with bleed usually come about when someone knows what they want to happen and people defy their expectations. It takes maturity, skill, and personal fortitude to accept that you can't always get what you want out of RP.
Conflict in general is difficult to manage. Too many RPers choose characters with few faults (or faults that are hidden positives, job-interview syndrome) that they are far too attached to and then take their IC disagreements OOC because fundamentally they never intended their character to have a weakness where other people found it. I think every writer has to accept that their characters are limited by their own fallibility to some degree and we're all imperfect. It is a fact that your character will be even more imperfect than you intended.
Unfortunately it's very easy for critical and/or antagonistic characters to make themselves into pariahs OOC & IC when people can't exercise self-control. Those characters drive conflict which makes plot interesting, so we need them around. Therefore it's up to every individual RPer to be professional and minimize OOC/IC contamination when it's detrimental to the RPing experience.
Thankfully, FFXIV has been one of the better communities I've come across in this regard. It hasn't really been a problem for me yet here. I'm very heartened by that.
It's important to keep in mind that your lack of complete control over feelings is what gives those feelings meaning. If you always got exactly the response you wanted out of writing (internally and externally) there would be no challenge to it. It would rob others of any sense of agency. If the outside world cannot push back and change what you intended to happen then you're looking for a captive audience not participants in your collective fiction.
In my experience the biggest problems with bleed usually come about when someone knows what they want to happen and people defy their expectations. It takes maturity, skill, and personal fortitude to accept that you can't always get what you want out of RP.
Conflict in general is difficult to manage. Too many RPers choose characters with few faults (or faults that are hidden positives, job-interview syndrome) that they are far too attached to and then take their IC disagreements OOC because fundamentally they never intended their character to have a weakness where other people found it. I think every writer has to accept that their characters are limited by their own fallibility to some degree and we're all imperfect. It is a fact that your character will be even more imperfect than you intended.
Unfortunately it's very easy for critical and/or antagonistic characters to make themselves into pariahs OOC & IC when people can't exercise self-control. Those characters drive conflict which makes plot interesting, so we need them around. Therefore it's up to every individual RPer to be professional and minimize OOC/IC contamination when it's detrimental to the RPing experience.
Thankfully, FFXIV has been one of the better communities I've come across in this regard. It hasn't really been a problem for me yet here. I'm very heartened by that.
