Consequences

    Consequences. Life has them, yes? They word mostly has the connotation of being associated with bad happenings, but there can be good ones as well. Not the first thing to appear in most people's minds, perhaps, but they can be good at times. But I'm not so much wanting to write about the difference between the connotation and denotation of the word so much as various uses of this word.
    When it comes to the SL roleplay, dare I say, multiverse one of the main rules that's written basically everywhere is: IC actions, IC consequences. Or something similar to that if not that exactly. Now, of course OOC can get entangled at times, sometimes that can be good if it provides for a greater intensity, other times it leads to drama and people getting overly upset for your char insulting them or so. I'm talking about this because being someone who hates upsetting people I care about in RL, the possibility of ill consequences in roleplay leaves me at a sort of cliffhanger. At least it leaves me wondering and feeling kind of mopey for an hour or more, depending on the situation, afterward when it comes to roleplay with people who I connect with on an OOC level. If I don't know who you are, chances are I won't care that much and any of the IC feelings my character has will not translate to me for however temporary a time period. Usually, when something happens in RL/OOC with someone I care for, I can get rather stressed, probably the only thing that actually holds the potential to stress me out. So, as a result, i try to fix it however I can. i try to talk it out, try to get things smoothed enough that whatever guilt I have can be muffled, since it will never fully go away as I know I have upset someone I care for. I'm good with pretending things didn't happen, so that helps, too. And this one trait of mine, not the pretending things did not happen, seems to cross over to my main character; Armalla.
    The fact that follows her as well as myself, makes things...interesting and more like a book that just stops and you have to wait for some months for the next one to come out. (*waits impatiently for Silver Shadows to come out*) But, while I may only have to wait a day, it is different in the fact that there is a sort of connection there, to my character and the one who is usually involved in such situations. I am impatient and basically run thousands of scenarios through my head, wondering just which one will happen. I do that for a lot of things, but this is definitely one of those because it is a story, a cliffhanger, something that's just...having me bounce in place for the energy inside of me while I wait. And i know before anything even happens, Armalla will be thinking of hundreds upon hundreds of ways to fix whatever, even if not her fault directly.
     When it comes to consequences in roleplay, I don't like the bad ones. I don't like them because they make me feel bad for my character, the other character (which is really only ever the same one, he knows who he is,and I know he'll likely read this, too), and the other person. The other person because I know, at least when it comes to one person in particular, they have a certain connection to their character, too. So I just sit there like 'well, damn.' The current consequence that happened today has Malla stressing, and me wondering and feeling a bit bad. See, when it comes to these things, I know I'm like a little puppet master of sorts, but that I'm also only reacting, too. The current situation has to do with something that happened a while back and, while I didn't have to have any sort of consequence come from it, I did because it made sense. I didn't want to, because I knew that it could lead to two rather upset characters. And soon as I more or less made it official, sooner than I had originally planned to since I was still going back and forth on it, I felt bad. I wanted to hug Malla and, preemptively, hug Taeem, the other involved in this situation. I couldn't, but I wanted to. Of course I could have made it ten times worse, but I can't do that. Nope, I have to just do the bit that makes sense because of how long certain things went on and how often, too. I don't like it, but I had to go with what would probably happen if in RL. I feel awful for it, but it was a consequence that, to keep with sense and logic, more or less 'had' to happen.
    There are roleplayers who will not do anything whatsoever that could be thought of as 'bad'. They hate to 'lose'. They hate the possibility of their character not being all happy and peppy or however else they have planned. I'm not saying i try to play the victim, since people who want to always 'lose' are as bad as the ones who always want to 'win', but I don't care if Malla falls a few times. Okay, a lot if I'm honest with myself. A bunch of stuff has happened that has her so far from how she started that I sit and look back and am like 'well...that happened.' And it's not a bad thing, it's development. It seems to happen much quicker in roleplay than in RL, of course, but it still happens in RL none the less. I don't think it actually happens quicker in certain aspects, just it may be more noticeable. But if you look back tow or three years, are you truly the exact same person then as you are now? People seem to forget half the time that people change, and the things that make them fall can make them stronger in the long run. Maybe not always, but it holds potential.
    So I had to make a choice I did not like to make yesterday. I did it, because it was what I basically had 'planned' already. I knew there had to be some consequence because of something else that I didn't decide on so much as the roleplay decided for me, but I kept from the extreme because...well, because I couldn't do that. I couldn't do the extreme. While it isn't really known IC that the extreme didn't happen, I know and that assuages my guilt a little. I hate to do 'bad' things to my characters, whether in roleplay or my books, but sometimes the bad has to happen. It's like when people say 'it hurts me as much as you', the only difference being is that I mean it. I mean, it may not hurt to the same degree or for the same amount of time, but while I'm making whatever split second decision, it does. I'm strange like that, I guess, but I like to think it helps with my writing. I'm an emotional person, I'll admit that, so I think with them more than with logic.
    For any and all of the roleplayers who may read this, remember: always having things go how you plan, doesn't make for the better. Sometimes it's good to cry with your character as you breathe life into their words and actions. Sometimes the 'bad', can make the good seem so much better. I know that something else I have in mind will seem a whole lot brighter now that this 'bad' thing has happened. It would seem good enough without it, yes, but it'll mean more to the characters I do think.