![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 20th, 2012 02:57 pmSo since the comment system BORKED ITSELF IN THE FACE FOREVER I'm going to post my reply to this awesomesauce on LJ and crosspost it here to DW because hey I'm actually proud of exprrssing myself coherently today. lawl
Anyhow, my reply:
I will admit that I do use games as catharsis. IRL, the change I can affect is somewhat limited and I can face gigantic backlash. I feel very powerless sometimes and it's depressing, so it's really nice to be able to fire up Secret of Mana and set random little layzor eyeballs on fire with my mad mage skillz, or log onto WoW and hit a lich with a really really big sword.Heck--If I didn't fail so very much at platforming I'd play Castlevania and have myself a grand old time making things explode with a holy whip. I get to be imaginary-badass and that helps. It makes me feel like hey, maybe I can accomplish something IRL too, why not, it can't hurt to try. The RNG is as full of WTF as real life often, hahaha. And sometimes I do not play games. Sometimes I write creepy shit, sometimes I draw freaky monsters or dragons with way too many really big pointy teeth. Depends how I feel. Anyway, I do this because it is a safe and relatively constructive way to handle my emotions, which are sometimes overwhelming (go go ADHD). Bad day? Go beat up on some megalomaniacal undead asshats in Scholomance. I will farm herbs for HOURS if I've gotten overstimulated throughout the day, because it's repetitive and it calms me down. I can get mindful. It helps.
I have an outlet in gaming, and it's a relatively constructive one. I can channel aggression into getting shiny shiny pixel swords (like the Illidari-bane purple popsicle of death yay transmog). I can sell my fawktillion herbs and make phat goldz. Because I do this, because I have a safe outlet, I am far, far less inclined to scream like an asshole at people in my life who don't deserve it. I used to have a horrible temper; now it's not so bad. Some of that is Adderall and counseling, some of that is gaming as an outlet atop my art and writing. I have another pressure valve now! This is GOOD. :D I am also not very likely to be a dick to people in-game--why do that when I can go stomp the hell out of an NPC? I'm not hurting an actual person by doing that.
tl;dr I know the difference between games and reality; IRL I am a complete carebear (if a bit of a sarcastic one). Games are an outlet like my writing and my art. And yeah, I consider them constructive. I can get stuff for working for it yay. :) Like, I maybe can't nerfbat sense into jerks IRL even though I really really wanna, but I can write about people doing heroic things, or be heroic myself via an avatar and make friends with dragons and all the Argent Hippiedins and have tea with Tirion Fordring or something. IRL is good too--I love visiting my girlfriend in New York, I like jogging, I go out for lunch with friends on weekends, I paint, I try to make alfredo sauce and fail. I can totally understand people who prefer gaming to life, because sometimes life's unfair and painful and crap. But even then--the VAST majority of these people are not like Breivik. Power-raiders who go and go and go for hours are not like him. Marathon DnD players are not like him, and neither are hardcore LARPers, or people who have gigantic massive killer monster Starcraft LAN party sessions that go for days. Why not? Marathon gamers still know it's a game. Games are here, reality is over here. Even with my vivid as fuck imagination and 'instability' (thank you dad for that lovely baggage XP), I know this. A game is a game. IRL is IRL. I can't get papercuts from the books in WoW, for example. The ones I help restore at work? ANOTHER STORY ENTIRELY (screw you horrible bloodthirsty vellum I haaaate youuuuu.)
Also? If there was something very wrong with me, my counselor would have intervened. If what I do was unhealthy, he would have found a way to help me stop. This is not what he did; rather he told me that my relatives getting up in my face when I was about twelve, for drawing creepy monsters and Perils of Pauline malarkey and freaky alien sharks from hell? Was totally out of line. What I do is fine. If it was not, intervention would have happened.
Anyhow, my reply:
I will admit that I do use games as catharsis. IRL, the change I can affect is somewhat limited and I can face gigantic backlash. I feel very powerless sometimes and it's depressing, so it's really nice to be able to fire up Secret of Mana and set random little layzor eyeballs on fire with my mad mage skillz, or log onto WoW and hit a lich with a really really big sword.Heck--If I didn't fail so very much at platforming I'd play Castlevania and have myself a grand old time making things explode with a holy whip. I get to be imaginary-badass and that helps. It makes me feel like hey, maybe I can accomplish something IRL too, why not, it can't hurt to try. The RNG is as full of WTF as real life often, hahaha. And sometimes I do not play games. Sometimes I write creepy shit, sometimes I draw freaky monsters or dragons with way too many really big pointy teeth. Depends how I feel. Anyway, I do this because it is a safe and relatively constructive way to handle my emotions, which are sometimes overwhelming (go go ADHD). Bad day? Go beat up on some megalomaniacal undead asshats in Scholomance. I will farm herbs for HOURS if I've gotten overstimulated throughout the day, because it's repetitive and it calms me down. I can get mindful. It helps.
I have an outlet in gaming, and it's a relatively constructive one. I can channel aggression into getting shiny shiny pixel swords (like the Illidari-bane purple popsicle of death yay transmog). I can sell my fawktillion herbs and make phat goldz. Because I do this, because I have a safe outlet, I am far, far less inclined to scream like an asshole at people in my life who don't deserve it. I used to have a horrible temper; now it's not so bad. Some of that is Adderall and counseling, some of that is gaming as an outlet atop my art and writing. I have another pressure valve now! This is GOOD. :D I am also not very likely to be a dick to people in-game--why do that when I can go stomp the hell out of an NPC? I'm not hurting an actual person by doing that.
tl;dr I know the difference between games and reality; IRL I am a complete carebear (if a bit of a sarcastic one). Games are an outlet like my writing and my art. And yeah, I consider them constructive. I can get stuff for working for it yay. :) Like, I maybe can't nerfbat sense into jerks IRL even though I really really wanna, but I can write about people doing heroic things, or be heroic myself via an avatar and make friends with dragons and all the Argent Hippiedins and have tea with Tirion Fordring or something. IRL is good too--I love visiting my girlfriend in New York, I like jogging, I go out for lunch with friends on weekends, I paint, I try to make alfredo sauce and fail. I can totally understand people who prefer gaming to life, because sometimes life's unfair and painful and crap. But even then--the VAST majority of these people are not like Breivik. Power-raiders who go and go and go for hours are not like him. Marathon DnD players are not like him, and neither are hardcore LARPers, or people who have gigantic massive killer monster Starcraft LAN party sessions that go for days. Why not? Marathon gamers still know it's a game. Games are here, reality is over here. Even with my vivid as fuck imagination and 'instability' (thank you dad for that lovely baggage XP), I know this. A game is a game. IRL is IRL. I can't get papercuts from the books in WoW, for example. The ones I help restore at work? ANOTHER STORY ENTIRELY (screw you horrible bloodthirsty vellum I haaaate youuuuu.)
Also? If there was something very wrong with me, my counselor would have intervened. If what I do was unhealthy, he would have found a way to help me stop. This is not what he did; rather he told me that my relatives getting up in my face when I was about twelve, for drawing creepy monsters and Perils of Pauline malarkey and freaky alien sharks from hell? Was totally out of line. What I do is fine. If it was not, intervention would have happened.
