Punishments
One of my RPG characters had another one of those mental breakdowns ...sort of. Afterwards I decided to play it in a way that it wasn't that big a deal and blame the sudden fleeing on another character's (misinterpretable) actions.
I talked with the other players about it a bit, and since this isn't exactly a very new issue with the character, it got me thinking about how differently people react to things. Now, there are some things that can almost to be said universal, like the disliking of pain, but even that's not always the case. So, I started thinking about punishments. Granted, I've also been watching Oz (first season, apparently) and I symphatize with Beecher.
I'm one of those people for whom the knowledge of having done something wrong is an incredibly harsh punishment by itself. It does depend a bit on the situation, issue and how other people react to it, but essentially, that's the case. I'll regret my mistakes forever. However, since I know I work like that, I also actively try to forget the unfortunalities, and I'm fairly okay at manipulating myself. There's still a limit somewhere, and the worst cases are most of the stuff that happened in the past when I didn't understand how my mind works.
When I do something wrong, I'll regret it, dwell on it and avoid ever coming into contact with such a thing again. It makes me miserable to know that I failed - of course there needs to be the condition that I was absolutely expecting success or failing made things hideously miserable or complicated or something. I can recalculate results and retake exams, so while failing a university course sucks big time and makes me somewhat depressed because it screws my schedule, it's something that no one else but me really cares about, and it's all about mechanical reorganizing. However, if I did something wrong to someone without really knowing it, it's really bad, because I have no clue how to handle a situation like that. The best solution I've come up with this far is to be oblivious and not care, but that makes it worse for the hurt person, right? It's not a wanted outcome.
Then there's the factor of people scorning my mistakes or punishing me for doing something wrong. That's one of the unthinkable things for me: I can't really handle to hear other people say how wrong I was. They have no reason for it unless they were the target of my wrong-doing and I didn't realize it - all they need to do after that is just inform me that they would have like for things to be done differently. I usually realize that I've done something wrong and have a clue of how wrong it was and I'll dwell on it, regret it and feel miserable. If they come at me accusing and punishing, well, I'll be close to one of these breakdowns.
Therefore, when I know I've done something wrong, that knowledge is by far more than enough punishment for me, and what I want other people to say is instructions on how to not do "wrong", in case I don't already know.
Nothing like that has actually happened to me in a while, but I unknowingly passed this trait onto my character because I didn't know of another way - and my character is the one suffering now. X)
Related to that, I absolutely hate it when people say "you can get over it or you can go cry in a corner" or something equally dumbassed. That's one of the most annoying unfair things I've ever come across. Now, remembering the piece of text I wrote before this one, I'm the kind of person who dwells on things and has a hard time "getting over" things. Well, some things. But usually when this stupid phrase is used, it includes mistakes, misunderstandings and stuff like that.
Now, here comes into play the same phrase as above: people react differently to different things. I try to do my best not insulting other people and I expect them to do the same, or at least learn when I inform them of my being displeased. I most often even try to not insult religious people, no matter how illogical I think blind faith (or pretty much faith of any kind) and anything that might fall under "religion" is.
So yeah, I might get a bit overboard defending transgenderism and yeah, some people might think that no, gender-neutral pronouns just aren't that important. So I say: if they aren't really that important, why are those people refusing to respect me even that little bit to call my character "it"? It shouldn't be that big a deal to them, right? Consequently, if they do think it's a big deal and think I should just use a gendered pronoun, there's the conflict of equality. If their genders have to have their own pronoun, why can't mine?
There are still some issues with the above that are unclear and somewhat illogical unless you happened to be reading my mind there, but I'm too ill to try to put it straight. I require leading questions.
Nevertheless, gender neutrality is a big thing to me and I do not appreciate it if people mock or belittle it. I expect the people I consider some sort of friends to respect it and not consciously make me feel miserable by disrespecting something that's important to me. (Yeah, transgenderism is just one example, I could say approximately the same about my drawings or my spellchecking trait. >_>)
I talked with the other players about it a bit, and since this isn't exactly a very new issue with the character, it got me thinking about how differently people react to things. Now, there are some things that can almost to be said universal, like the disliking of pain, but even that's not always the case. So, I started thinking about punishments. Granted, I've also been watching Oz (first season, apparently) and I symphatize with Beecher.
I'm one of those people for whom the knowledge of having done something wrong is an incredibly harsh punishment by itself. It does depend a bit on the situation, issue and how other people react to it, but essentially, that's the case. I'll regret my mistakes forever. However, since I know I work like that, I also actively try to forget the unfortunalities, and I'm fairly okay at manipulating myself. There's still a limit somewhere, and the worst cases are most of the stuff that happened in the past when I didn't understand how my mind works.
When I do something wrong, I'll regret it, dwell on it and avoid ever coming into contact with such a thing again. It makes me miserable to know that I failed - of course there needs to be the condition that I was absolutely expecting success or failing made things hideously miserable or complicated or something. I can recalculate results and retake exams, so while failing a university course sucks big time and makes me somewhat depressed because it screws my schedule, it's something that no one else but me really cares about, and it's all about mechanical reorganizing. However, if I did something wrong to someone without really knowing it, it's really bad, because I have no clue how to handle a situation like that. The best solution I've come up with this far is to be oblivious and not care, but that makes it worse for the hurt person, right? It's not a wanted outcome.
Then there's the factor of people scorning my mistakes or punishing me for doing something wrong. That's one of the unthinkable things for me: I can't really handle to hear other people say how wrong I was. They have no reason for it unless they were the target of my wrong-doing and I didn't realize it - all they need to do after that is just inform me that they would have like for things to be done differently. I usually realize that I've done something wrong and have a clue of how wrong it was and I'll dwell on it, regret it and feel miserable. If they come at me accusing and punishing, well, I'll be close to one of these breakdowns.
Therefore, when I know I've done something wrong, that knowledge is by far more than enough punishment for me, and what I want other people to say is instructions on how to not do "wrong", in case I don't already know.
Nothing like that has actually happened to me in a while, but I unknowingly passed this trait onto my character because I didn't know of another way - and my character is the one suffering now. X)
Related to that, I absolutely hate it when people say "you can get over it or you can go cry in a corner" or something equally dumbassed. That's one of the most annoying unfair things I've ever come across. Now, remembering the piece of text I wrote before this one, I'm the kind of person who dwells on things and has a hard time "getting over" things. Well, some things. But usually when this stupid phrase is used, it includes mistakes, misunderstandings and stuff like that.
Now, here comes into play the same phrase as above: people react differently to different things. I try to do my best not insulting other people and I expect them to do the same, or at least learn when I inform them of my being displeased. I most often even try to not insult religious people, no matter how illogical I think blind faith (or pretty much faith of any kind) and anything that might fall under "religion" is.
So yeah, I might get a bit overboard defending transgenderism and yeah, some people might think that no, gender-neutral pronouns just aren't that important. So I say: if they aren't really that important, why are those people refusing to respect me even that little bit to call my character "it"? It shouldn't be that big a deal to them, right? Consequently, if they do think it's a big deal and think I should just use a gendered pronoun, there's the conflict of equality. If their genders have to have their own pronoun, why can't mine?
There are still some issues with the above that are unclear and somewhat illogical unless you happened to be reading my mind there, but I'm too ill to try to put it straight. I require leading questions.
Nevertheless, gender neutrality is a big thing to me and I do not appreciate it if people mock or belittle it. I expect the people I consider some sort of friends to respect it and not consciously make me feel miserable by disrespecting something that's important to me. (Yeah, transgenderism is just one example, I could say approximately the same about my drawings or my spellchecking trait. >_>)