Oh, how my opinions have changed!
On my Skill Level
Well, it’s safe to say that I am much better than I thought I would be. However, I still have many, many weaknesses – still far more weaknesses than strengths.
My strength, of course, is support. Especially with Soraka. Which I did not expect, but in hindsight makes total sense.
My biggest weakness is that I’m not aggressive enough. Part of that comes from wanting to play nice (see below), but part of it comes from not wanting to take risks that could lead to me ‘feeding’ the enemy and hurting the whole team.
In some ways, this is good. This is part of what makes me a really good support player. But for every other role, this is mostly bad. I generally know when NOT to do something (ex. don’t solo epic monsters unless you’re the jungler and a high enough level, don’t go wandering through un-warded jungles unless you have to, don’t turret dive if you have low health, don’t leave your lane at critical moments or when it’s pushed towards you unless you have to) but not when TO do something, if that makes sense. Some risks are good to take, and I don’t know how to identify those moments and how to maximize their potential.
The exception to this is warding, which I got really good at from playing support so much. (One player on the enemy team even complimented me on it once!) I know when we need wards and when we are relatively safe and I can save them. I still don’t know what enemy raptors are, but I know where we need wards in relation to where we are at that moment. When I started playing, the idea of wards confused me so much and I had no idea how you were supposed to keep track of where you had wards/where you needed them, never mind run around the whole map placing them. (That said though, I still don’t know the difference between the different kinds of wards.)
My second biggest weakness is my lack of range as a player. I’m real good at support and I’m decent at mid-lane with like two champions. When it comes to PvP games, I haven’t played top in months, probably, and have only played ADC once (and I did well, but still). I don’t know how to jungle at all because I never got over my fear of screwing things up for the rest of my team – knowing my tendency to not take risks, I feel like I wouldn’t know when to go help other lanes and what to do when I got there.
Also, I’m the actual worst at melee champions.
But all of these weaknesses just mean that there is still so much for my boyfriend to teach me, lest he feel left out.
On the Support Role
Support is now my favourite position – partially because I’m best at it, and partially because my favourite champion happens to be a support champion, but also because I’ve started to appreciate the things that my boyfriend noted about the position way back when.
I like the feeling of doing a lot with a little. I love how it feels when I’m Soraka and I land a kill – I’m like, “That’s right, I killed you. You got killed by a unicorn. SUCK ON THAT!”
And much like in real life, I like helping people, especially people who likely care much more about the game than I do. I could make somebody’s day by helping them land a tough kill by healing them. I’ve also realized how much power a support can have when played well – as Soraka, I can severely prolong a team fight and prevent someone from getting one-shot if I just keep healing people over and over and over again.
Yes, some people are dicks to support players and treat them as scapegoats, but most people aren’t, and people are dicks to every position in different ways. I find that junglers actually get treated in a similar way – ex. “This is all your fault because you didn’t show up to help!” (The way I see it, your jungler showing up is a bonus, not something to rely on. I mean, unless they said they were coming and then just didn’t, in which case dick move, bro.)
Playing support also means that I get to play nice. One of the reasons I am not great at other roles is because I am too sportsmanlike for this game. I don’t sneak up on people, I don’t teleport to their base and kill them at the start of the game (this happened to me once), I don’t aggressively go after someone until we’ve both had a chance to farm a little, I very rarely turret dive, and if someone is trying to escape/recall with very low health I usually just let them if pursuing them would be too much effort. I believe that all of those things are unsportsmanlike, but that’s what literally everyone does in LOL – unless you’re a support!! Then, your teammates can just do that shit and you can sit back and watch. (I mean, you can only be responsible for your own actions.)
On Sexism
In case the American election didn’t let you know, sexism is alive and well in 2017! I’ve definitely gotten my share of sexist comments and had people assume I’m a dude for some reason (even though my username has my name in it…) pretty frequently. And LOL has its fair share of sexy ladies wearing totally impractical outfits.
But do you know what it also has? A lady with no legs (Lissandra). A purple unicorn (Soraka). An angel whose gender is ambiguous until you look into it (Kayle). Little girls who are not sexualized in any way (Annie). A girl wearing a bikini even though she’s got A cups (Jinx). A woman who will be shooting for her own hand (Merida I mean Fiora). A robot, who is also not sexualized (Orianna). A warrior riding a pig (Sejuani). A chick with giant fists (Vi). Girl Batman (Vayne). An ADC/support couple where the ADC is the female (Xayah & Rakan).
I could go on, probably, but…no. There was no shortage of female characters for me to fall in love with. And even the ones who kind of are just designed to be sexy for no reason make up for it in strength. There is no champion that is just eye candy (and if there was, no one would play them). Even Sona and Janna may be supports, but they’re two of the best supports there are.
Of course, some players will sexualize anybody, including Lissandra who HAS NO LEGS and Anivia, WHO IS A BIRD. But I don’t think creators can really be responsible for what their fans do.
I’ve also seen comments from Riot themselves saying that there is more than one way for a female character to be sexy (ex. Jinx vs. an Ahri) and that they want to create characters that reflect a wide variety of body types, races, personality types, and so on. They also said that motivation behind creating a “sexy” character for them nowadays has less to do with actual sex appeal and more about their backstory (for example, Miss Fortune’s backstory is that she uses her sex appeal to kill men & avenge her mother’s death), and also about the player experience.
They noted that a common “player fantasy” is the desire to feel attractive (for both men and women), and as soon as I read that I was like, “sooooo true.” And in addition, there are some actual attractive people playing the game who want to feel represented. I consider myself to be a strong, sexy lady (albeit one with a flat chest and too many feelings – hey, Jinx) and I was thrilled when I discovered that these exist in LOL, too. I felt like I could belong.
I also encountered way more female players than I thought I would.
That said, the community is still male-dominated, especially in terms of pro-level players and streamers. Granted, I don’t watch that many videos, but I’ve only come across 1 made by a woman, and many of the male streamers’ videos that I’ve seen use language that is offensive to women/people in general and generally act in a manner that would turn many women off (ex. aggressive behaviour, yelling, excessive cursing).
On the Community/Culture
I still dislike the majority of the community for reasons I’ve already stated and some I haven’t. Part of it is just a general eye-rolly feeling I get because I feel like people place way too much importance and emotional energy into this, which results in getting angry at others or yourself for genuine mistakes/things out of your control. It results in a culture that prizes talent, cunning, and ultimately winning above all else – above kindness.
I have news for you – SOMEBODY has to lose, guys. The other team is comprised of people just like you, trying just as hard, who want to win just as much. And they deserve to win some too. If you lose a game, it doesn’t always have to mean that your team played terribly or something went wrong or whatever. Maybe it just wasn’t your turn, or maybe the other team was genuinely more skilled – either way, it’s okay. If you don’t have fun unless you win, then you need to take a step back.
And maybe a player on your team really did mess up – so what? Is it worth making another person feel bad? Again, your teammates and opponents are real people with real feelings. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again – if you really want to say something, then say something kind and helpful. Give them a way to do better next time. Boost their confidence instead of lowering it (cause that’s not helping anyone).
I have encountered some really nice (and hilarious) people. I’ve sucked super hard and had people tell me it’s okay or give me helpful tips in a non-condescending way. I was invited to a group by someone I played a game with one time. I’ve encountered communities online where people help new players, and even a few girls just like me. And honestly, when I started I didn’t think I would find any people like that. I thought the best I would do is people just ignoring me (which for the record, I also appreciate. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Thumper’s Rule.).
So it’s not all bad…it’s just that it seems like people like that are the minority.
On Accessibility
Since I started playing, LOL has gotten much more new-player-friendly with the introduction of the new client, which includes a practice tool. And they are revamping the mastery/rune and honor systems to be much more streamlined and hopefully better explained. However, that’s still not enough.
Most of what I know, I had to learn the hard way or from googling it, not because the game actually taught me. The game should actually teach you those things!
Just like most console games do, the game should slowly introduce new features until you’ve got everything, and THEN release you into the world. A very lengthy, multi-stage tutorial would do wonders. I mean, it would be annoying, but I am willing to bet that a lot of people give up after doing the sad tutorials and then going into a real game all like WTF?!?! Especially if their teammates are mean to them. (In fact, about half of the people who added me as friends/who I added stopped playing at some point – I know this because I just went through them and deleted anyone who was still under level 25.)
Another issue for new players is the way that other players treat them but I guess that is more of a community issue, as noted above. But LOL should do everything it can to prepare its players and prevent people from yelling at them because they just didn’t know something. This includes explaining common terms and acronyms used by players that are just made up or may have a different meaning than it does in the real world (op, leash, bot). Again, in an ideal world players wouldn’t use acronyms or words like that without defining them first, but the speed of the game makes that hard sometimes and also people are mean. And when you get to a certain level, you expect that everyone knows certain things. Most of the time this is not an issue, but every now and then, you’ll get matched with a new player (this is mostly an issue in bot games). Or a player who isn’t new but still doesn’t know what you’re talking about! Honestly, this still happens to me pretty often.
On…Well, Me
When I started, I felt like either I would give up partway through, or that it would at least stop being fun for me/I’d have to make myself do it, like an obligation.
But I am still having tons of fun, and I’m actually Pretty Okay. I feel just like I did the summer I dedicated myself to rock climbing, or the summer I dedicated myself to the ukulele – I’ve accomplished things that I did not think were possible for me and discovered a new interest along the way.
And honestly, the more interests the better. I’m still just as interested in the ukulele and reading and writing and YouTube and TV as I was, I’m just ALSO interested in this now. It has kind of taken over my life because I have needed every minute I could get in order to get this far by the deadline, but now I can return to a more balanced approach to my hobbies, hopefully.
I never thought that video games were evil or anything like that, but I never really ‘got’ the point of them or why people like them – but now I do. Just like I feel like I accomplished something and am learning a skill when I play my ukulele, people feel accomplished and skilled when they do well in a video game. And considering that A) e-sports are a viable career path now, B) most people don’t plan on making money off their hobbies anyway, C) most hobbies are also only relevant to niche communities, and D) many pastimes are also virtual, such as TV and movies, are video games really less legitimate or ‘real’?
People will say that video game skills aren’t useful in the real world, but you know what else isn’t useful in the real world? Me playing the ukulele. And nobody makes fun of that (at least, I think). Maybe something doesn’t have to be useful to be a worthwhile and fulfilling hobby. And if you do want to make it into a career? More power to you.
They’re certainly not for everyone, but I would say that looking down on them or people who play them would be a mistake. (True, gamer bros are very real and out there, but look down on them for their attitude and behaviour, not for the hobby itself.)
leagueoflove.ca 
Since has been posted on reddit, I assume you don’t mind if some weird anonymous from the interwebs will read it.
The last part here “On… well, me” was really insightful but I’d like to keep it relatively short, so here goes in regards to your role choice being support and troubles with other roles.
This reminded me of my own girlfriend, playing several years as support, eventually becoming unable to function in any other role and that, in turn, affecting her support play.
I don’t think I can explain my thoughts well enough without sounding offensive in a monologue, so instead I’d like to follow LS, coach of TempoStorm, as well as my own experience with my GF and recommend that you take Annie (or Kayle – if you prefer autoattackers to casters) both top and mid, solo – no duo queuing. In 10-20 games you’ll be proficient enough to achieve greater than 50% winrate and deal with those pesky Yasuo mains.
The idea is that in every role you need to have controlled aggression and Soraka, actually, is great at it able to 1v2 many lanes before transitioning into healbot. The easiest and the best way to learn that would be to learn solo lane as duo bot lane is far more volatile, confusing and chaotic: “made a single mistake, got hooked, instantly dead, Draven can now 1v3”.
Take Ignite, focus on cs, avoid roams unless 100% sure it’ll be successful (learn to ignore whining for help), check out Annie bot on op.gg for builds and on youtube for gameplay
Girlfriend was extremely reluctant to try that before conceding and after carrying a few games with killstreaks and solo outplays, found her overall play much more balanced and improved.
I am not trying to condescend, I am merely trying to head off the pattern that I’m familiar with, much fun can be had that way. Credit for idea goes to LS.
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Thanks so much! That is definitely something I will keep in mind. And I have missed playing Kayle (since I don’t play top anymore) so playing her again would be a welcome change, actually. Thank you for taking the time to help me out!
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I want to second Denis’s suggestion on branching back out and playing your fave mid or top champs again! I also became a soraka and janna main while I was learning the game and leveling to 30, partly because almost no one else wanted to play support, (4 years ago when supports were dirt poor and were warding bots) and I enjoyed helping team mates. But somewhere along the way I played less and less of mid and adc because I didn’t have as much experience on those roles and played bad, and felt a lot of pressure from both teammates (flaming) and myself to do well. So, I ended up becoming a really good defensive player and like you, I knew what NOT to do, but also forgot how to play aggressive
I started playing supports like karma and lulu really aggro and made my first priority pissing off the enemy adc and second protecting my own. Started playing adc and mid again which reignited my thirst for action and killing haha. To this day I still play support the best, but I’ve defs evolved from being a passive support to a lane partner that’s more well rounded. Plus, I have so much more fun now that I’m not afraid to start a fight, even if it ends badly XD
It was so much fun reading some of your posts from a new players perspective and it made me laugh heaps remembering all the struggles everyone faced at some point. I still can’t jungle for my life after 3-4 years so don’t feel bad 🙂
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I’m thinking I might buy Karma next so that’s cool to hear, thanks! Glad that you can relate and that you found a solution 🙂 thank you for reading
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too much text, i wish I could read all of it but I cant, Im sorry you had to meet with toxicity in league its more then cancer, and for that you can mute people, so use the feature wisely.
I also got here from the reddit post, what you’re doing is adorably and lovely as hell.
wish you a good life with all of my heart ❤
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yeah it’s crazy to me that people are reading the whole thing because it is so long! thank you very much
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Reksai is also a girl!!!
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I heard that!! I wonder how they determine the genders of void creatures haha
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Another random guy who came from reddit here. You talked about the game itself a lot (of course), but what are your thoughts on professional matches and league esports in general? Side question: Do you know about the european pro team “Unicorns of Love”? Because having just binged this blog, that seems like something you would want to be aware of.
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Good question! My boyfriend is a huge fan of the pro scene (so yeah I did know about UoL and thought it was amazing XD) so I’ve actually watched pro games before, even before I started playing. I never enjoyed it then because I didn’t understand it (obviously), but even now that I do understand it, it’s still not really my thing. Sometimes it can be really entertaining, but it can also sometimes be really boring, and ultimately I think I’d rather just spend that time playing myself. also something that really turns me off is how scream-y the commentators are…I appreciate their enthusiasm but I’m always like “could you be excited a little quieter pls, my ears”
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Personally I enjoy watching pro matches so maybe this won’t apply to you very well, but something I find very helpful about watching those is that it kind of trains your eyes to navigate teamfights. Maybe if your boyfriend is already watching them you can take advantage of it.
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That’s a good point! I certainly do find myself being kind of like OMG WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING RN sometimes haha maybe that would help 🙂
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This was adorably sweet.
I really hope you’ll continue to play past this point, and don’t let your worries about different things discourage you. With more people who are considerate and caring, the community can only get better.
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I definitely will! I had a lot of fun despite the difficult moments and I’m having even more fun now that I have someone to play with. Thank you!
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Enemy raptors are the razorbeak jungle camp with all the weird handless birds. Now you know!
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You are the first person to answer this question XD thank you so much. “weird handless birds” lmfao
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They’re also referred to as “chickens” sometimes. Back before the redesign of the jungle (I think that occurred in season 6?), there were “raptors” (1 large, 3 small) in that location. Then they redid the jungle, called them razorbeaks, and are as you see them now.
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Holy crap. I have work in six hours but I stayed up all night to read this because it was just too good to set aside.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences in this blog. Hopefully this doesn’t sound condescending or anything, but the word that kept going through my mind as I read this was “adorable.” I’ve been playing games for as long as I can remember (literally – my first memory was of me playing games), and I’ve been immersed in them so long that I’ve forgotten what it was like to be new to gaming. Getting to read about someone else’s fresh experiences with it was, what, I don’t even know the right word. Refreshing? Hilarious? Awesome? Magical? Nostalgic? Cozy? Heartwarming? It’s somewhere in there.
Still, it looks like you found out firsthand that League is one of the more… un-magical places in gaming. I’ve been playing the game for years, and I gotta say, reading the entry about the bad Tristana game where you got chewed out really hit home. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say through the screen as I was reading: both about how you felt with the experiment itself, and also as an anonymous dickhead know-it-all who needs to explain everything about the game.
In all seriousness though (and again, I hope this doesn’t sound condescending), the fact that you figured out so much of the game by yourself makes this even more powerful, because it shows that gaming doesn’t have to be the “boy’s club” you described it as in the introduction. And judging by your final thoughts here, it sounds like you’re already learning all the right lessons about self-confidence and not letting people on the internet get to you. I forgot the technical term for it, but the whole phenomenon of “it’s harder to treat people on the internet as actual people” is very real, and online games like League are one of the worst places where it shows up. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have that problem, but in the meantime, I hope you don’t let them get to you if you do keep playing League. Thanks again for sharing!
PS: Now that you’re done, make sure you do other things with your free time too, or at least other games. No-life-ing this shit will kill you inside.
PPS: If you ever decide to try bot again, I may or may not play a lot of a certain ADC who may or may not have made your top 10. Not sayin’, just sayin’.
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Not condescending at all! Thank you, that is wonderful. I’ll take ‘magical’ 😛 Thanks for that perspective on the whole ‘boys’ club’ thing as well, that is really nice. Yeah I’ll be picking up some other hobbies of mine again but I still plan on playing and probably even continuing the blog now that it has an audience 🙂
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Hello Chelsea,
I just read through quite a lot of your posts and I absolutely loved it. Your writing style is mesmerizing somehow, very entertaining!
You actually made me wish I had been there to support you along the way and give you advice. I’m not the best player out there (I was mid-diamond level before I moved to China a few years ago, but I still follow the scene a lot and stay updated, don’t really have time to play anymore), but I would have been able to teach you a lot of the basics and follow your progression along the way!
I can relate to your story to a certain extent because my girlfriend has been trying to do the same for me with another one of my passions – motorcycles. She is much less committed though but I still love the fact that she would try something she isn’t naturally attracted to, just because it is what I live and breathe.
I would like to add something from the point of view of the guy who was always good at video games and beating all his friends: I’ve been that annoying prick whining and bitching at others in games. Heck, to this day, it still comes back every time I play a game for a while – if I get a bit too involved, I start blaming others for the mistakes they do.
However, what I also found is that through LOL, I learned a very valuable life lesson, and it has made me a better person overall. That lesson being that no matter what happens, blaming others while thinking you did the right thing is simply wrong and ridiculous most of the time, and even when it is true, it does not mean it’s the right thing to do. I have to give huge props to streamers like Bjergsen for that who, even when their team actually does something stupid, mostly just mention that they disagree and that it’s stupid but in a very calm way (most of the time), don’t get all upset and childish about it, and actually go out of their way to say “That was stupid of me, I should’ve paid more attention instead of expecting my teammate to do this”. I now try to make a point of blaming myself whenever I die, no matter how hard it is (my first instinct is to yell “WTF ARE THESE GUYS DOING” in my head, still).
This has actually reflected on my real life, too. I am more accepting at work, I accept mistakes from others much more – although I’ve never really been any other way in real life. Like many others, I’m a sweet and funny person, but when playing games I turn very competitive and whiny. Somehow. Much less now, I often start just laughing and taking it easy when losing.
Sorry – I digressed a lot, but I have had this in mind for quite some time, and I just wanted to get it out, it ended up here. 🙂
I will finish on a little piece of advice for item builds in general, because it affects your results a lot.
If you want to optimize your items in a game, there are two things you must do, besides learning and understanding every item in the game (it’s actually not that hard, once you get the gist of it it gets very simple).
1) For each champion that you want to play, check what items would be appropriate. It will be more than the limit you can buy in 1 game, of course, and that’s the point: based on how you are doing in your current game and what the enemy team has, you will adapt your build.
2) Once the game starts, every time you go back to purchase, first have a look at the stats window. Check what the enemies are buying, who is the strongest champion on their team and seems like is gonna carry the game. If none of them is building magic resist, then maybe skip the void staff for another, more appropriate item (debatable, but it’s just an example). If their team somehow has 2 ADCs and a melee assassin, maybe don’t buy your sorc boots but ninja tabis instead. Things like that.
3) During the loading screen of each game, you already need to be thinking about your items (among other things). For instance, if you are playing Ahri, as you mentioned she is squishy. If you’re facing a Leblanc, a lot of players rush Abyssal Scepter so as to have a fair bit of magic resist and not die to her constant jump/harass. It also gives you a decent amount of damage so hey, why not. I will add that you should also be thinking in advance of how you can play this matchup (for instance, try to analyze the moments where she’s most likely to jump into the minion wave because it’s nicely stacked, and be ready to throw a charm+W+Q right there). Be sure to Q the minion waves as they come in lined up, hitting many minions will help you get your passive up for the spell vamp on your next spell. Also make sure you use that as much as possible – a Q on a bunch of minions (and if possibly the enemy champion) will heal you a lot, while damaging him/her, which is what you want obviously.
4) Always keep checking the scores window. You can see if the enemy is out of potions, if they had a pink ward but now it’s gone (so you know roughly where they placed it based on where they just came back from). If they build a fight-changing item such as Hourglass, it’s a good thing to know before they actually use it, too.
I could go on and on.. but I think at this point you’re already learning a lot from your boyfriend and he’s loving every minute of it. I hope you guys enjoy a lot of games together!
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Wow, thank you SO much for all of the helpful tips! And it is really nice to hear that from your perspective re: in-game attitudes. Maybe I am more like this Bjergsen than I thought… (if you somehow missed it, the entire planet apparently thinks we’re twins)
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Haha, no I did read that thing in the original reddit post. It was funny, not completely untrue but still a bit far-fetched.
I would add that you should simply ignore the trolls/flamers and everything. This can (and should) be the opportunity for you to get stronger emotionally, because it’s the perfect environment to do so. Some people WILL be mean to you for absolutely no reason which is something I never understood, even as a whiny bitch myself – I will whine and bitch about someone’s play, but taking it further is something I don’t understand. The more it happens, the less it will affect you, and you just need to keep in mind that this is in the context of a game and that that person is just too involved emotionally (clearly). Easier said than done and I’m not finding the right words to express what I really want to say, English is also not my first language actually (I am le French).
Regarding tips, I would say your progress can be divided into 2 categories:
1. “General” game knowledge. This is basically just pure objective knowledge about champions, items, the map, etc. This is what beginners typically lack and take a few months to learn.
2. “Situational” game knowledge. This is how you react and adapt to specific situations, because it’s just needed. This includes item builds as discussed above, but also positioning while playing/fighting. You already do this for some of your gameplay, and I know it because I read what you said about wards. You got the idea: you just always need to keep vision around where your team (and early on ADC particularly) is. It’s difficult to find the right balance and find the best times/places to ward, but that will come with experience.
Now there are many issues with this and that’s where the game gets really interesting. The enemy team is generally weak, except for their assassin who’s carrying the game for them? Adapt your playstyle (and items). If the assassin can’t get you, or takes too long to get you, your team can easily get him or his team, his window to do anything else is done, and it’s an easy win for your team.
One important point is to always play on your team’s strengths, while exploiting the enemy team’s weaknesses. Your ADC is really fed and carrying? Make sure you peel (= use your CC [crowd control] spells to keep melees away) for him, allow him to dish out his damage instead of just running away. Your ADC is basically useless and not playing well? Help out the team members who are likely to do something with your help. This is where game knowledge is very important, because it’s what you will base your decisions on.
For instance, a Garen who goes 0/4 in 12 minutes is pretty much not worth investing your time and energy into. He’s a very strong early game champion that falls off quite hard as the game goes. However, a Caitlyn or Kassadin who starts off well is something to protect and support, because those are very strong late game champions, so it means they’re already off to getting to there strongest point faster than they should.
I should also say that KDA doesn’t mean everything, but I won’t go into too many details on that. The game is not won by killing players, but by killing objectives (turrets/nexus). Killing players is just a mean to get to that goal. Keep an eye out for CS (Creep Score, you mentioned you already know what this is though I believe), as it is typically a very good indicator of a person’s skill. A “perfect” CS score is 10/minute, although it is possible to get higher than that. Typically, high level players will get around 8/minute in an average game. If your ADC has 23 creeps at 10 minutes, chances are he’s not highly skilled. If your ADC is 0/3 but has 150 cs at 20 minutes, that’s actually not so bad (to a certain extent, this isn’t 100% true, sometimes some people just ignore teamfights/skirmishes altogether and that’s not necessarily good either).
Anyway, as you can see I love talking about this stuff. Would be happy to answer a lot of questions if needed, but that is a privilege that should be kept for your boyfriend. If you guys do play games together.. please consider streaming them or putting a few up on YouTube, I’d love to watch that. Watching live would be hard for me as I live in Beijing, so time difference and all that. 🙂
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I would absolutely love to stream! our laptops kind of suck though but we do intend to try at some point 🙂 thanks again!
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Another random checking in. Just finished reading all your posts, what a journey! I really hope you consider keeping on posting your experiences as you continue to play the game, this was a really fun and interesting read.
Good luck and congrats on your achievement and tenacity!
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Thanks so much! I think I will continue to post if people are interested. If you want to get updates, WordPress has a follow button on the right but besides that I might try to find somewhere else to notify people. Maybe a subreddit or something
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Hi, as the other random guy I hope it’s fine for a stranger to just post a comment here. I’m first of all sorry for any language mistake that I make, English is not my native language; I’m German.
In all honesty I’m simply amazed by all the effort you put in learning Leagueof Legends, I mean it really isn’t a game that’s easy to learn, especially if you never really played anything else before. (At least not to this extend)
Earlier today in the morning (at least it was morning over here, I’m just going to assume you’re living in America, I don’t know) I saw the post of your boyfriend on Reddit regarding your present to him. As I started to read your blog I mainly did so to giggle a little bit, I mean from your point of view nowadays as well you’ve got to admit some issues of you were rather funny, for example what the “blue sword” symbolised. As I read on though (I read the entire blog during a—way to long—Train ride) the Intention of reading on shifted from mainly laughing about your ignorance of the game (forgive me) to admiring what you did. During the read of your last chapters I was just hooked to see how everything would turn out and how far or rather how good you would become in the game. Even though you surerly experienced a lot of unpleasent aspects of the game (the community, or rather large parts of it and it’s attitude towards other Players) I’m still happy that you didn’t give up or became discouraged.
Obviously there are still various aspects of the game that you could improve but I mean your boyfriend is probably suited much better to talk about them with you then some random guy from the other end of the world.
I usually rarely write comments of any kind on online sides but I really wanted you to know how much respect I have for your and what you’ve done. It really was a gesture of deep love and I really wish you and your boyfriend all the best. 🙂
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Wow, what a thoughtful comment! Thank you for taking the time to write all that. And no, laughing is totally okay (as long as it’s with me not at me…)! I re-read most of it along with my boyfriend and thought it was pretty funny too. That was the whole idea 🙂 I’m glad that you can also appreciate the difficulty of the situation though.
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Hey, this was an amazing read (yes i came from reddit too)! It’s like vicariously reading about my first time playing league. I found a lot of the things you said quite hilarious as I had never thought about them that way. You seem like a pretty awesome person ^^ Also, I really wish you’d tried Thresh, he is by far the best support in terms to design, character and playmaking potential (imo). I love him (although I dont own him either because hes so damn expensive).
Ps. I’m an Akali main and I too am disappointed by her shallow backstory -.- riot please.
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I did try Thresh! Only once though. I certainly don’t like him as much as other supports but I agree that he has a lot of potential 🙂
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Hello Chelsea!
Today I saw the post on reddit about your blog and I just finished reading it in one sitting. I am amazed! This is such a lovely idea, dedicating yourself to learn about the hobby of your boyfriend even though you could’nt imagine why he liked it so much.
Your blog reminded me, how it was for me to learn the basics about the game two years ago. The first PvP games, the first harsh words from my teammates, my first good games, … ah the memories.
I like how you wrote why or why you not like certain champions, how you discovered different abilites, etc.
You wrote this blog for your boyfriend, and now that you revealed it to him it is finished. I feel kinda sad 😦 Just like when I finished FMAB, because it meant I wouldn’t get more episodes.
Nevertheless, I hope you have many fun games with your boyfriend!
Greatings from Austria, YatoKing (my summonername)
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Thank you so much! I always felt like the parts where I talked about champions and stuff would be super boring to people. And I actually will probably continue to update it now that it has found an audience so feel free to follow if you’d like 🙂
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Another Reddit weirdo here.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop enjoying the game, don’t stop talking about it, and don’t stop learning.
You did something amazing for the guy you love. No one will ever take that from you.
Btw., There’s a subreddit, r/summonerschool , look it up on Google I may have butchered that name, that will still help you and also, where you can help others.
GG.
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Nope that’s the one! A couple other people have directed me there as well 🙂 I actually knew it existed the whole time but was too scared to go on reddit because my boyfriend binge reads anything LOL related on there haha. Thank you very much!
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First up I gotta say it was super entertaining to read the blog, it’s just so funny and it just reminds me a lot of the struggles that I have when I first started to play Lol.
I’m so impressed with the effort that you put in, not just spending time on playing the game but also out of the game doing research and other stuff to improve instead of just asking ‘why I suck so much’ all the time.
Also some of the community behavior that you mention in the blog is so true. I think most of the community (especially the more mature ones) do agree with you to an extent but we just don’t know how to put it in word like you did and also in general just focus a lot more the game/game results and hence ignore that. I think the community could really use your observation on the community. Maybe you should consider to post the reflection part on Reddit as well.
Hats off to you, Chelsea, great job!
P.s. You boyfriend is so fking lucky
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That’s a great idea, I might do that 🙂 Thank you very much!
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So, just wanted to say thank you for sharing this! My wife and I really enjoyed reading it together. You are really great at expressing yourself in your writing. I could almost hear your inflection while reading.
Anyway, I think this is actually going to help me as well. I’m usually pretty silent in games, because I mostly find people are jerks in game as well. haha I think I am going to be playing more normal games instead of ranked, and just trying to be positive/help people out. I did that yesterday, and it was so much fun. Grinding out ranked games can really turn the game into…well a grind. Going into normal games and just chatting with people while playing was so much more fun, and I kind of forgot how much fun it could be. So thank you! And best of luck in the game!
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Thank you so much, and I’m very happy that it had that effect on you! Cheers 🙂
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I agree with most of the things you said here. I think you have a good mentality for enjoying the game going forward. Many players stress out unreasonably and get miserable playing, yet their addiction keeps them from letting go.
However, the following paragraph I think is… misguided:
“Playing support also means that I get to play nice. One of the reasons I am not great at other roles is because I am too sportsmanlike for this game. I don’t sneak up on people, I don’t teleport to their base and kill them at the start of the game (this happened to me once), I don’t aggressively go after someone until we’ve both had a chance to farm a little, I very rarely turret dive, and if someone is trying to escape/recall with very low health I usually just let them if pursuing them would be too much effort. I believe that all of those things are unsportsmanlike, but that’s what literally everyone does in LOL – unless you’re a support!! Then, your teammates can just do that shit and you can sit back and watch. (I mean, you can only be responsible for your own actions.)”
There is really nothing sunportsmanlike about being aggressive. Trying to win is not unsportsmanlike. As long as you behave well in non-game terms, as in you use polite language and so on, there is no reason to keep back in-game actions. If you can chunk down the opposing laner imemdiately as the gme starts, go for it. It will set them back and they will probably be annoyed at themselves for letting it happen, but they will not think any less of you because of it. It is always the opponent’s responsibility to net let you bully them, not the other way around.
Another thing I noticed, especially in your early posts, was that you seemed to have quite a bit of insecurities about yourself as a person, as well as yourself as a woman. It was very interesting to read about these feelings of yours, because while I’m aware some people have them, I’ve never really experienced feelings quite like that and I never think about such things myself. I thought it was really astounding that your friends would not allow you to play games as a teenager, though. Like, what on earth? Why did they even care how well you’d do when it was obviously just some casual games in a group of friends? Nothing about the whole situation makes any sense to me and I thought it was really sad how it clearly has affected your psyche all the way to adulthood.
I wish you all the best and I hope you and your BF can have many fun moment with your now common hobby. 🙂
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Yeah they were…special people. A lot of things happened to me as a teenager that still affect me now lol (video game related and otherwise) but that is a story for a different blog. Thank you for all of your helpful advice and for spending so much time on the site!
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Just wanted to say that I enjoyed this a lot (I read the whole thing), your writing is awesome!
Personally I’ve been playing support since the beginning. My favorite champ is Bard, I could say tons of reason but just… Bard!. But I kind of disagree with your view of support being the nice one, personally I like it because my only job is to be annoying for the enemy team, and I enjoy being the annoying guy (Yes, I love teemo).
Anyway I love your attitude towards the game, and I think that your mindset will take you really far, because your always focus on how to improve instead of blaming others, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. LOL needs more players like you. Keep it up!
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Lmao! I guess it depends on how you play the role. I mean as Soraka I do very little damage to the enemy team so I consider myself “nice”, but it’s just as likely that they find me annoying af with the constant heals 😛 Thanks so much for reading everything!!
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