Is it bad that I have intense feeling of love and hatred for a certain cartoon character? One minute I love it, to the point where I want to spend the rest of my life with said being. The next, I want to kill it, burn it, and said rude things to it. How does one handle that?
Are you otherwise mentally healthy? I mean, this seems to be a pretty weird set of emotions you've got, but if the volatility is limited to this specific character (rather than you being similarly mercurial with other beings) and if you've got a firm grip on reality (rather than somehow believing that you actually have a relationship of any sort with a fictional being) then I'd say this qualifies as a strange quirk. But if there are other elements of mental illness, I'd say you should add this to your list of concerns when you go to seek help.
I think BayView has it spot on, @The Question Asker . So long as you've got a good grasp on the difference between reality and fiction; you know this cartoon character is just that -- a cartoon character and not actually a real being, that you're not going to go out and proclaim love for this character, or start setting fire to picture/effigies of this character out in public, you should be fine.
One needs to be cognizant of the manner in which the thing is engaged. Clearly a cartoon character is not a real thing. It doesn't matter that the hands of real men and women went into creating it, the thing itself is not real. It's certainly possible to experience "F8 Safe Mode" emotions through it, tho. A long time ago I ran a fanpage for a character from a very popular animated series. The character was my favorite and he served as a safe outlet for some "oh, if only we could be together" fantasies. Bus they were just fantasies. He's not a real person. He's not a paradigm that I can engage in any sort of real way. I view real-life celebs and film and TV stars the same way. Even knowing that they are actual people somewhere in the world, they are not people I will ever engage in a real way; thus, the difference between them and a character is negligible enough for me to write off. Both Angelina Jolie and Lara Croft go in the exact same bucket.
I'm not sure how to answer that...are you saying that you believe you have an actual relationship with a cartoon character? ... strange I'm going to have to agree with BayView with this one... ... what?!
