My Generally Insane Dedication Part 1: Origins

Image by CJ from Pixabay

Disclaimer: I am not always dedicated. For example, I often feel reluctant to do family duties like manning our family store these days...but I do it anyway. This goes double for most schoolwork.

One defining trait of Asperger's syndrome is sheer dedication, both to their interests and to specific people. Most people roughly my age and younger have given up on Minecraft and Pokémon these days in favor of the currently popular games (plus Among Us, battle royales, and VALORANT), but I still remain a Minecrafter and Pokémon Trainer. I'm still friends with my high school science teacher--I still share science-related stuff with her.

(Down a glass of water in one go when you read this part.) I got the idea to write this blog post thanks to Genshin Impact...again. I'm probably one of the few players who actively watches both theorycrafting videos (boyish, meta) and comic dubs (girly, waifu)--most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "IWinToLose Gaming" (theorycrafting) or "Sylleblossom" (comic dubs).

Lately, I've been furious about me frequently encountering unusually quiet, slow-witted, and sometimes unruly students who I call "Nobushi". As such, in Genshin Impact, I follow a Nobushi farm route, KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM, and show off the hundreds of Old Handguards I loot from them to friends. (I don't actually need the handguards--I collect them as Battle Trophies.) I TERRIFIED EVERY SINGLE ONE AS I LAUGHED LIKE A SERIAL KILLER.

I replied to her with some possible origins of my sheer dedication besides simply having Asperger's syndrome (which I didn't mention since I don't know her well enough).

I didn't give her an essay--just some bullet points. However, since this is my blog, bullet points aren't really a good idea, are they? It's essay time.

To a lesser extent, I also got this idea from--I'm not sure what to call her--my Bible study teacher? (I keep using the word "sensei" in my head.) She observed that I'm currently the only...errr, student she's ever had who takes these Bible studies seriously week after week.

Gaming

I think I was addicted to video games ever since I laid my hands on a Game Boy Color back when I was 4 years old. I don't remember much about that one specifically, but I know I spent hours on my Game Boy Advance. Gotta clear that last dungeon floor in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, dang it!

I greatly enjoyed the gift-giving mechanic in the now-shut-down Facebook game Pet Society where players can gift each other most items. (I know you can gift furniture and mystery boxes but can you gift clothes? I can't remember.) As such, 9 years old is when I first started strategizing like crazy in video games--I devised gift plans, plans for the Stadium minigame so I could hoard more prize money, and...plans to steal my parents' and my big brother's PCs just to play.

Back in 2011 (or was it 2010?), Dad got me a Pokémon magazine which taught me some complicated terms like effort values (EVs). I had very little idea of what I was basically reading since I didn't even understand how the stats (Attack, Defense, etc.) work, but as I read about the stats, as well as re-reading the article in the magazine, I eventually understood, thus beginning my dedication to playing competitively in general.

In 2015, Pokémon X and Y was where I actually put this knowledge to good use thanks to the Super Training feature which allows the player to quickly increase a Pokémon's EVs of the player's choice, as well as the Nintendo 3DS being able to connect to the more secure WPA and WPA2 Wi-Fi security protocols (our Wi-Fi uses WPA2), unlike the Nintendo DS which connects to the less secure WEP only. I often challenged random players around the world to battles...and I think I won about 30% of them since I mostly used my favorite Pokémon with well-chosen moves and well-optimized stats rather than the "meta" choices.

Friends

I had a Friendless Background until I was 14 years old...when I "hijacked" my younger brother's friend, YoSquid, based on a common interest in Minecraft.

Before 14 years old, my way of getting friends was through Receiving Gifts in terms of Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages, hence my obsession with giving gifts in Pet Society. I was intensely afraid of rejection in purely verbal social interactions which I did not know how to do with strangers and acquaintances but still wanted to show I care about someone so I figured I'd follow the Latin saying "Verba volant, scripta manent" (Spoken words fly away, written words remain)...except I'd give gifts in addition to letters. (Yeah, handwritten friendly letters were drilled into my head in school even though I knew how to use Facebook and send e-mails.)

I started playing The Sims when I was 8 years old and, in that series, becoming best friends with someone is as simple as spamming friendly social interactions by just clicking buttons. I think it really manifested as the Quality Time and, to a lesser extent, Acts of Service love languages when I turned 14 and had a crush on a 7th-grader who I'll call "Keqing" (a.k.a. Mareeta in my older blog posts but you probably don't know who that Fire Emblem character is). I would call "Keqing" every night and talk about what was on my mind at the time, including psychology and wrestling.

In March 2018, "Keqing" and her mom invited me and my mom to a sports center. "Keqing's" laptop needed a Windows reinstallation, I think, so I created a USB installation drive at home just for her. Although I failed (the darn thing was too slow), I still got to eat chicken flambé and play tennis with her...and I got rekt by her superior movement. Regardless, for me, that was one of the best hangouts I ever had with her...mainly because it's rare for us to have a chance to physically hang out together with no one but our parents. (I didn't say "we" because I don't know how she feels about it.)

When I reached 17 years old and played the Minecraft competitive team-based game mode Annihilation, I needed friends, or more accurately, teammates, for practical reasons. I was fairly bad at PvP so I figured I'd make up for it with teamwork and strategy while I do a significantly easier support role where I just mine and enchant equipment for the team.

Using a Dynasty Warriors analogy, I was basically a combination of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang for my Annihilation team--I treated my teammates like brothers in arms and I was the strategist who wrote a lot of articles. I regularly chatted with my team about things other than Minecraft--we often dove deep into our personal lives. I even collaborated with my Minecraft and now Genshin Impact friend NachoPizza to write two Annihilation guides. (Thanks again for helping me way back then, man! May Shenhe come home at low pity!)

Combining the two dedication origins together, you can see the results: I have over 30 blog posts all about Hytale, many of which focus on co-op strategy. My 6-part series about gang wars in Hytale has a combined total of over 10,000 words: something that's difficult for me to achieve while doing schoolwork. In comparison, my 18-page thesis is 5,000 words long.

Writing

Although I wrote short stories as a 6-year-old, I got serious about writing when I was 17 years old when I wrote Minecraft Annihilation strategies. I also kept a journal to keep track of what I did right in my games, what went wrong, and things I should remember about my teammates and enemies.

In 2018, when Mom raged at me again for doing poorly in college and not having a job, I started this blog in a fit of rage since writing was the only money-making skill I had at the time and I knew some blogs run Google ads.

I'm not quite sure how I got this dedicated, though, despite not having run Google ads for 4 years in a row. Perhaps it was the hope that someday, Google will let me run ads. Perhaps it's because I drilled the every Sunday schedule into my brain. Maybe it's simply a force of habit.

But now, I have a bunch of essays on my PC that are either for my eyes only or for friends, some of which are 1,000+ words written almost effortlessly.

What Sets Your Dedication Apart from Others?

My dedication is actually no different from that of most adults and some kids and teens--the kinds of people you see in the news and such.

Many are actually more dedicated than me, even kids and teens who gain the intelligence and skillsets of adults. While I look for work-life balance and fun at the kind of work I'm good at, others literally live for their work and studies, fun or not, and practice it religiously. I cannot relate well with this kind of person since almost all they care about are work, studying, and if applicable, their families.

In general, though, I know a lot more about my main fields of interest than others. In video games, I sound like a combination of a coach and a military commander. When I brag about or explain martial arts, one of my Japanese students thinks I'm a ninja while, when it comes to friends, I terrify them when I explain how to score critical hits in real life.

With friends specifically, my intense loyalty shows through staggering feats.

In addition to my attempt to fix her PC, I also taught "Keqing" math at Starbucks when she was in 8th grade.

Although I run the official D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak with my Hytale teammates Aby and YoSquid, I wrote several pages of homebrew content containing Hytale characters and mobs, rules for Genshin Impact elemental reactions, and preparations for the weird and wacky stuff Aby and YoSquid would pull off like maybe treating the issue of the mimic eating gnomes as a game of Among Us--I'd allow the mimic to disguise as a gnome.

Speaking of writing, I often have a lot of things to say in my mind that I may forget later on so instead of presenting things one at a time like in a normal conversation, I have a habit of writing to people in essays. I gave a fellow English tutor a 10-page document full of tips for improvement. I gave a Genshin Impact friend (or not anymore?) a 5-page strategy guide. About 30% of the time after a lesson, I present my thoughts to my Bible study teacher in essays that are about 3 pages long.

And I don't just follow a Nobushi farm route in my own account. I have permission to borrow another friend's account and, in exchange for a Blessing of the Welkin Moon, I do her Daily Commissions, spend her Resin, do the Spiral Abyss (and get better results than her), and...HOARD HUNDREDS OF HANDGUARDS FOR HER IN A FIT OF WORKPLACE RAGE. (And they say I should leave work at work.) SHE NOW HAS MORE HANDGUARDS THAN EVEN HILICHURL MASKS (hilichurls are the most common enemies in the game).

As for YouTube, okay, I'm still lazy to edit and commit to a consistent schedule.

But I like to think I'm unique in the comments section.

It's fairly rare for many YouTubers to heart comments, let alone personally reply to them. When they do reply, they're usually simple one-liners like "Thank you!" or a quick joke.

On the other hand, I reply to a lot of comments in paragraphs and with follow-up questions. (Why have I never seen a single YouTuber ask follow-up questions in the comments?) I feel like, if I put a lot of my thoughts, the reply feels more personal and the commenter feels a greater sense of appreciation from me rather than a cliché "I know, right?"

TL;DR summary: My dedication to gaming and friends comes from me being so addicted that I would make strategies to win in games and win friends through acts of service. Today, I show people I care by writing insanely long essays and KILLING NOBUSHI IN GENSHIN IMPACT TO RELEASE MY WORKPLACE RAGE.