Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: Hey everyone, I mostly need to vent, but please smite me with your judgement if you feel like it.

&amp;#x200B;

**Let's start with some background.**

I am a freelance game developer with multiple years of experience, and I work full-time on my own projects. I have a friend, who currently studies VR and UX design in uni, let's call him M. He has a girlfriend, who is a first-year gamedev student, let's call her L. L and M are also artists, kind of. We are all about the same age, around 20. I also want to emphasise that 'friend's GF' is not necessarily equal to 'my friend' in this case.

L has a task for this semester - to make a game trailer. She decided that she doesn't want to throw away (???) the idea and the art after she completes the task, and wants to make a game. Us three have agreed to team up and work together. Now, this is important: during the initial meetup, L said things like "this is **my** project" and "**I** have the rights for this idea". I explicitly said that since this is her project, she will be responsible for the workflow and design, and I will only code and build. This will be a good practice for her, and the game is very simple, so this shouldn't be a big problem. We all agreed on that.

I'm not going to go into the details, I'll just say that it's a simple mobile game. I also want to clarify that the basic workflow of making a game is as follows: take the idea you want to work on, make a game design document, make a prototype, refine, test, deploy (repeat 4 and 5 if necessary). It is generally considered a bad practice to freestyle things and work on later stages before the earlier stages. E.g. you make the music and high-quality models for the game, and then end up not using anything because the game gets reworked six times in prototyping.

So the next thing I talk about on this meeting is the GDD and the importance of making design choices in the beginning. I also mention multiple times that I, as a person who builds everything, need to know what needs to be done and how it should look/feel/work before I start working on the prototype. I ask her if she can compile everything into a single document as she did before, and advice her to use google and ask her teachers if she struggles with something.

This spring, L was making a project for her university entrance exam. The task was to basically design a game. This is important since she was capable of making a design document and other necessary things to show off and describe a game idea, therefore she knows what to do and how to do it. She periodically asked for help, and I helped where I could, without getting too involved, since this was her exam, not mine. Before that, I helped other people with their projects and ideas, all for free (there is a certain tendency here).

This time, I expected to be able to finally work as a part of the team. Not to do everything myself, not babysit everyone, just do my part and make a game. Oh boy. Was I ever as fucking wrong as this time. I mean, what can be easier than writing a few pages explaining the basic ideas? Core and meta, how to monetize, how should the menu look, what SFX and VFX we might need. The answer is, many things, but making a design document is not the most difficult part of making a game. Mind that is is also not final, you can and have to make changes to the GDD, but it's oh so difficult to work without it.

We "started" two months ago. L tried to make me write this thing a few times, and I kept sending her to google things and/or ask her teachers. She also kept feeding me with small, random, unstructured blobs of information, maybe hoping that I will compile them myself. I was close to doing this myself a few times but kept reminding myself that this time, I'm not the designer, she is the designer. Therefore, I was patiently waiting for her to write a three-page document. For two months. Last week I received two paragraphs with no useful info and replied that this isn't enough.

I might have skipped a few details, I hope that it's nothing important, if you need clarification - please comment.

&amp;#x200B;

**Now the real story finally begins.**

This part will be biased since I'm still rather angry. I'm honestly trying to be objective, but it's hard.

After our last dialogue, I was afk for a few days. I had stuff to do, personal stuff, and I honestly think I have a right to do my stuff whenever I want to. So, I return, power on the station, and get quite a shitpost from L *in our work chat,* that is supposed to be used for concept art, file sharing, and discussion. Anyways.

I come back, and send her one of my own old design documents *as an example*. Why should I even do this, literally google this, please, it takes 3 minutes, and you have a whole faculty full of gamedevs! L responds, saying that it's my fault that she couldn't use google for two months, because "if only I sent her the file a week ago she would've done everything earlier". And she just keeps on fucking going on about how "nobody is doing anything" and "you only do the code while I do everything else" and "it's such a shame that my amazing idea is getting lost because of you all", and the best one is "you are not helping me do my job". I get it, you're a student, but I'm not supposed to teach you how to make games. I agreed to work for free. I think this is kind of enough of an investment.

Regarding the code and stuff, it's a valid point, kind of. But we agreed on this initially, didn't we? Like, not taking into the account that code+build is 50% of the job, so it's a bit impolite to say this anyway.

And here comes the fun part. She says, "this is OUR game, it will only be MY game when I finish studying". I'm honestly kind of taken aback by this. So, like, it's your game while it's easy, and then suddenly it's our game? What is this, some sort of conditional communism? Flip the switch and you're the boss, flip again and it's our job? So I'm confused and I ask her to calm down and tell her that if this load is too difficult for her, it might be a bad idea to continue studying/working in this field since it's only downhill from here (speaking from personal experience).

Now, my opinion is that this is bullcrap. You can't call yourself the boss and then just shrug it off as soon as you have to do something. You also can't really say that you don't want to be the boss but keep talking shit. So I breathe in, breathe out, and logically explain to her that this is just workflow. You can't expect to get things done if you don't do them properly, and I have told her on multiple occasions what is the correct approach to this task. That I understand that this is difficult, that she also has to study, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to make a game at this point in time. If writing a small document is so difficult, maybe it's just not your thing, right? Fucken, wrong.

And the shitstorm begins. If previously, the shit was just dripping from the ceiling fan, now the pipes of shit have burst full and wide, and the pressure is beyond imaginable. It's like Nurgle himself has arrived in our chat. "You are lazy. You are a cunt. You don't do your job. You are not helping me. Oh, I'm just a beginner, and *this* is your motivational speech for me. Oh, I was hoping that you would do everything for me. You are acting so smug and grown up, why don't you guide me." You get the point.

Should I spend my own time teaching and guiding a (basically) random person, because I know how to? Should I do L's job for her? Should I maybe do everything for her? Should I wipe her ass every time she takes a shit? Greatest minds of millennia still don't have answers to these questions. Keep in mind, M isn't really saying anything in this situation, and I understand that he is kind of between a rock and a hard place, and I don't blame him. I also want to point out that I haven't dropped the project yet, and I'm still waiting for the bloody design document.

I personally feel like I should rush and help, as I always do, "Take the wheel, Kuro!" But I am so fucking tired. I help my friends and family because they are friends and family. I help my other half because she is my light and shadow. But I'm not there like a robot to complete requests from random people on a daily basis. I used to be stuck in this trap for a long time, doing things other people didn't want to do themselves, just because I can. Now I find it toxic, and I think it impairs personal growth and development in others. Am I the asshole?

I might have missed things, but the general story is here. The post turned out to be twice as long as I expected it to be. I also might be completely wrong in my opinion that you're not supposed to talk shit to your coworkers, especially if they are working for free. I raise my glass to all of you who have finished reading.

&amp;#x200B;

**tl;dr** A person decided to jump over their head, I refused to do their work, got shit-talked and advised them to change the field of study, while it's not too late.

essentially trying to make a person do their job without me doing it for them