Responsibilities

Having responsibilities is fun, or at least... I think it is.

Kinda weird, right? I guess I need to clarify a bit on what kind of responsibilities I am talking about... And for that, I need to derail a bit.

First, I'm a busy person, I'm a very busy person... Like, if you try to schedule anything with me IRL without at least 1 week in advance, I'll go crazy, because you'll ruin my schedule... I can make room for it, but I hate it anyway.

When people ask me, what is it that you do that makes you so busy? The only way I can honestly answer it is... I browse the internet.
Yeah, I know, doesn't look busy at all, right? Let me try to list what I do a bit, it might clarify a bit.

1) I work at home-office.
2) I'm a translator.
3) I'm an editor.
4) I'm a mod of a RP.
5) I'm part of the group of non-mod people that regulate the tags of NU (Yes, it's an official group, we exist, though there are mods regulating our work)
6) I'm the only active host of KR, and I want to revive it.
7) I'm technically still an adm of a game chat, I have been inactive in it since forever though. But it's technically something I was supposed to be doing... In the end, I decided to kill that account around 2 months ago. So I guess this one isn't a worry anymore.
8) I was a game guide owner, I gave up on this guide around 2 months ago though.
9) I'm a NUF addict.
10) I like to read novels, mangas, play games and all those stuff that people like to do in their free time.

That's the resume of it more or less... Let me try breaking it down a bit.

1-5 are my responsibilities, they are things that I am supposed to do and that people expect me to work on, I have expectations (some are bigger than others of course) and I am supposed to work on those... I get it that RL should always take precedence, but it doesn't change the fact that those are things that I consider responsibilties that I should give priority to anyway.
6 is something that is a kind-of-hobby, a project maybe? It's something I want to dedicate myself to, but I am having a hard time finding the time for it.
7-8 are old responsibilities that I threw away because I couldn't keep up with them anymore, took me way longer than it should.
9-10 are my hobbies proper, the things that are my "time-wasters" one might say, but... It's not quite that, they are what make my daily life, and fill me with enjoyment. I feel like calling those things a waste of time is a terrible disservice to myself, because they matter a lot to me, especially 9.

Well, with this said, what is my point? Those things consume time, and not a small amount, it's not that uncommon for me to stay some 4h on NUF while thinking a single hour passed, and I suddenly realize I need to take care of all my other stuff and then I get a bit desperate, than I start procrastinating, then I get a wave of alerts and... And then suddenly it's 11pm and I start writing a blog post instead of editing a chapter, yep, that's right, that's me right now.


But... Here is the thing, save from the home-office part, all those responsibilities are non-profit, and I chose to take them on... And honestly, I want to take more of them. Even my home-office job is something I enjoy quite a bit and want to dedicate more time to it actually... But it's a bit different from the rest, because money is involved, and well... Money always changes the way you view things.

So... Why are responsibilities fun? I think there are 3 types of responsibilities we can have.

1) Responsibilites forced upon us.
2) Responsibilities we need to take on.
3) Responsibilites we want to take on.

The 1st type is obviously the worst one, the one that nobody wants, things like having your family trying to push you into an arranged marriage, needing to take care of your cousin's child because they are way too sick to take care of them and all of their direct relatives are dead...
This sort of thing, that... Even if you do like children, or if you do find your partner interesting, are just... Horrible, because you weren't ready for them, and you didn't choose to take them in, you just had to.
It's not what I think of when I say responsibilities are fun.

The second type is probably the type most people think of when they think of responsibilities, taking a job, visiting family, going to funerals... This sort of thing, nobody forces you to, but you are simply expected to. And you kinda need to (unless you do something really drastic to change that, like cutting ties with family, winning on lottery or this kind of stuff) do it as well.
At the same time, they aren't that bad usually, since you can choose your work to be something you love, you can have good relationships with your family... Sure, funerals are always horrible, but at least you're comforting one another... Personally speaking, I already told my family that I don't go to funerals anymore, they all look at me like I'm the worst person in the world, but I decided that for my own sake. But... Unless you kinda comfront them about it, you need to do those things.

And there is the 3rd type, that are the ones that are genuinely fun for me.
I think the easiest example are people like NUF mods. Being a mod is stressful, very stressful, I made a whole blog post on the problems of being a mod in the past actually, and I was never a mod of a community as big as NUF. And still... Why do people pick those jobs? They don't earn anything... And the answer, at least for me, is because they love it. They love what they do and love the place they're in, so they do their best to make this place the best place in the world... And the fulfillment you get from seeing these places growing, of more people joining and having fun together, of people thanking you for your hardwork... It's a blast. It's an amazing feeling, and an addcting one too.

For me, I can see that in AG easily, when people enjoy a raid, or when they make very big stories together... It's just... A really happy feeling, even if I didn't move an inch in a paritcular event, the happiness I get from seeing their happiness, is a lot bigger than the one I got from the times I was just a player.


Hmmmm... But what is my whole point with this you might ask... I guess... I want more responsibilties?

It's an annoyance, but there is a point that you need to say to yourself: "Stop!" and that is because, you know you can't handle more than that.

I already listed my responsibilities, right? Let me try listing other things I want to do.

1) I wanted to become a DM on the Dungeons, maybe even a GM.
2) I really really wanted to becomg a GM on the Magic Association, really really really wanted to.
3) I wanted to try hosting a Mafia game.
4) I wanted to try and host a discord Real-Time KR game.
5) I wanted to seriously pick up to study Japanese.
6) I wanted to scanlate a few mangas.
7) I want to pick more projects as an editor.

And if I think on it, I can probably list more... But then... I just look at all this and have to tell myself, "I can't do all this." I need to accept my own limits and give up on the things I can't do and simply leave them to other people, or leave them undone.

I keep thinking things like... Maybe if I tell them I won't dedicate myself seriously to it, maybe if I limit how much attention I give to that... But I know I won't follow those promises, I'm not someone to do a half-baked job for something I took upon myself, I put my best effort on the things I love, and this comes with a price... In time.

It's funny, because... If someone asks me "What is your dream?" I'll probably answer with "I want to retire." and the thing I want to do after getting retirement, is getting more responsibilties upon myself, more and more and more until my whole day everyday is full of things to do, things I enjoy doing and that always keep me super busy.

I really like thinking about retirement actually, I know some people that keep on working when they retire, but not because they need the money (sometimes they do though), but because they can't withstand staying home doing nothing. They need an occupation, and they can only find that in a job.

It's strange to me, because a job is actually what limits my capacity of getting more responsibilities upon myself, I won't do "nothing" when I retire, I'll be a super busy person that works hard everyday, no rest on weekends! Everyday is work day!

... And at the same time, nobody really sees you as a hardworking person. Which is... Kind of annoying. If I translate 3 chapters, edit 1 and read a 10k words report on AG on a day, I'd say it's a day I worked really hard on... And if I tell someone that, they'll say I lazed around all day... It's kind of annoying that what I see as a responsibility, is seen as... Nothing, to others.

The words is "Nothing", it's not even a hobby, it's just a plain time-waster, it really is a bother. I am a busy person, a very busy person... And if someone listens to why I'm busy, they'll think I have tons of free time, just because my time isn't spent taking care of job/kids/house (even if a part of it is on working).

Actually, working on this parenthesis, even working on home-office can be a bother, it's not a "serious" work... It's not a "real" work... Apparently, traveling 40 min (plus 40 to go back home) everyday to work in a store selling burgers (earning around 200$/month), is a better job than staying at home and earning some 300-400$ per month, maybe more. Simply because the other job is "real" it's "stable" you're interacting with "real" people... As if the people I interact online are fake, as if they are personas or something.

Responsibilities are fun, very fun, and I wish I could take a lot more of them than I can... But they are still responsibilities, they are still taxing, and they still take a toll on me. There are still times I want to run away from them, they are serious, they are not time-wasters.

Tbh, I'm still not very sure on what I wanted with this post... I guess I wanted to spread a bit of the word on how you can seriously get involved on something, how you can tackle it on with all your might because you want to see it happen, how you shouldn't be ashamed that you are getting delayed on your job because of RP you're modding...

Actually, on that matter, let me make a bit of a derailing and delay the closure of this blogpost.

If you read some of my other blogs, you might know that I was (and am) a huge fan of AQ (Adventure Quest). AQ is a game from AE (Artix Entertainment), which is an indie industry that develops online games, mainly turn-based RPGs, which is a genre of game that I always loved.

So... While AQ is my favorite game from AE, it's definitely not the only one I played, rather, I played all games of the company... This is a story from a mod of DF (Dragonfable).

A bit of background you need to know, is that the CEO of AE is a terrible manager and that he moved the people that worked on his ongoing games to new projects all the time, leaving them severely understaffed... And in fact, most of the active staff of the old games (people that have access to almost all the sensible code of the game, peopel that produce around 95% of the content you see actually, both code-wise and art-wise) are volunteers.

Ash, was one of those volunteers. He worked on DF and on MQ (MechQuest, another AE game). He was the backup (not really, but that was his official position) coder of DF and the only coder of MQ... Ah, and he also helped out on AQ forums from time to time, and sometimes helped in coding for AQ too.

That guy had a job as a teacher. Did you ever talk to a teacher? Especially the most dedicated ones? They generally work a lot more than any sane person would... And that is only on the worktime in-school, don't forget that teachers need to prepare classes, prepare tests, correct tests and do analysis of students as well... It's one big work.

Well, does it look like he was overworked? Very, you have no idea how much. At one point he simply made an announcement that he would drastically reduce his work on DF, and almost completely stop on MQ... Why? Not because he was overworked... Because he was out of money on the bank, he had neglected too much of his work, so he was losing money by working at AE, and it reached a point that he needed to stop.

The CEO took that announcement in the wrong way and fired one of his best volunteers and killed MQ because it had no coders (technically the game is still up, but no content is developed), as well as killed all possibilities of big system changes on DF (which were much needed mind you), complex bug fixes, or... Interesting boss fights, which are desperately lacking.

And you know what were the 2 things that annoyed Ash the most?
1) He could no longer be developing content for the players, because that is what he would be doing if the CEO hadn't kicked him out. Though at a smaller pace than he was before.
2) He could not answer a player at the forums Q&A because the CEO banned his forum account. (I saw that on his twitter, since I basically got 0 news from him after he was banned from the forum because... Well, I lost my main communication channel with him)

... This was a responsibility. He had taken it upon him to give life to those dying games, because... They were dying, they really were, one had no coder, the other simply had no innovative content, no rebalancing on outdated stuff, no interesting bosses... Nothing, things were in desperate need of help and he took it all on him.

It is a pretty interesting thing to look at, because both of his bosses (the game leads for MQ and DF) did not know he was overworking himself to this extent. Of course they knew he was doing a lot, but they didn't notice how much it was until it was too late.


I think I can see him as a bad example, of someone that didn't know when to tell himself to "Stop!" until it was too late... At the same time, it's someone that I can very very easily relate to, because I feel the same, because I also want to keep on taking more and more responsibilities upon myself until I can't take it anymore.

And most likely, when he told his family and friends about this whole issue, they probably asked him things like... "Are you stupid?" Because that is what it looks like, a stupid person that ran out of money on their bank because they couldn't stop working as a volunteer on an online game.


It is bothersome to have the responsibilities we take upon us not taken seriously... I remember my father looking down on fantranslation (back in baka-tsuki days btw), thinking that it was something that people gathered money from behind the scenes somehow and what not... And at the same time... He helps out in the church he goes to, as charity work...

RL charity is okay, online charity is a moneymaking scam... It's a bother. It's a bother to have the responsibilties you take upon yourself looked down on, to see that the things you do for the sake of others are not taken seriously...

And yet, me, and many other people keep up on that... Because responsibilities are fun. Digging Holes is fun! No matter what anyone says, digging holes is very very fun, just like all other responsibilities we take upon ourselves, because it's something we do because we love, and I wouldn't love something that I didn't have fun doing.



This came out really big, and I had lots of derails, and I definitely forgot what was my point with the whole blog post... I do like responsibilities though, I have fun with them, and I wish to have more with them... And... I guess everyone should try to take some upon themselves some day, not something they need to do, or something they are forced to do, but something they want to do. I think it may be a very good experience.

Alice out! Thanks for keeping up with me until the end! ^^)/