I've lost a number of pseudo-friends who took my loathing of CS, Hook's transformation from intriguing villain into stalker/admitted date rapist/insipid love interest with no other story purpose, and the accelerated dumbing-down of Emma so personally that they no longer wish to associate with me. They also, incidentally, speak of Emma and Hook as though they were real people and not artificial constructs created by A&E, now being used to prop up a rape culture wish fulfillment narrative.
It happens in a lot of fandoms. People completely lose perspective and that line between reality and fantasy begins to blur way too much for them.
There's nothing wrong with being emotionally attached to a character. I am very attached to several characters. But when you start to forget that they're not real people, then there's a problem and you should probably step away from the show and the fandom for awhile.
It leads to people treating these characters as more important than real people. It leads to completely disregarding the feelings of real people. It's even led to dismissing the trauma of real people. The feelings of a fictional character are more important to some people than the feelings of a living, breathing person who actually exists.
It is disturbingly widespread in the CS fandom though. I'm sure at least some of it has to do with the self-insertion issues that some people clearly have where they view Emma as merely a stand in for them. That always leads to a serious blurring of reality and fantasy for people.
