This week I acquired a whole bunch of champions: Leona and Taric with IP, Diana with RP, and Twitch from a chest. I haven’t really played any of them yet except Leona though.

I played lots more ARAMs, many of which were games where the entire opposing team were bots (or almost all of them). So now I have and S+ on Miss Fortune, Taliyah (that was the first time I ever played her, too) and Taric, an S on Sivir, and an S- on Lee Sin (also first time). After each game, I felt guilty.

In one game, I almost got to try out Pentakill Sona, which is a skin I’ve been curious about for some time, because a teammate bought a skin boost. But then somebody dodged! That sucked for me, because that game was going to be awesome, but that poor person who bought the boost! I wonder what happened to it? Does anyone know?

I also played a lot of Ascension games. Ascension is my new favourite game mode because it gives you the opportunity to practice with champions you’re not great at in a PvP environment, without all the pressure. You can also do this in ARAMs, but it’s random; in Ascension you get to pick your champion. The same is true for Poro King, but I feel like Ascension better prepares you for certain elements of Normal games. So I played with some champions that I have difficulty with like Lissandra and Ahri, and I got at least C-s in most of them, which is at least better than D (lol). There was also one with Zyra where I got a B, which is a huge relief after my 0/11/0 game.

I played some of the free champions (but not all yet) – Graves, Taliyah, Lee Sin and Twisted Fate were all new for me. Graves is just weird and not worth it in my opinion, though he does have a certain charm and for some reason some of his skins remind me of my dad. Or maybe my uncle. I liked Taliyah as well but I’m not entirely sure what to do with her, if that makes sense. Is she supposed to be a jungler? That’s the only circumstance in which I can see her ultimate being useful. I only played Lee Sin once in an ARAM and quite frankly I don’t understand him at all. I liked Twisted Fate a lot but he probably isn’t for me because I can’t see myself using his ultimate. I wouldn’t be confident enough to put myself into a fight on purpose (same reason why I don’t want to jungle).

Tect and I both reached Honor Level 3 this week, one day apart. Has everyone who doesn’t get reported on a regular basis reached Level 3 now? It seems like it. Which makes it feel meaningless, but my boyfriend said that when people start getting higher levels, it will begin to mean more. He’s probably right.

So far I am a fan of the new system, and I’ve already received one honor capsule, even though I’ve only been level 3 for a few days. I hope that they continue to be frequent!

In the capsule was a champion shard and 5 key fragments. The shard was for Soraka, so I took that and my two Morgana shard and re-rolled them into Twitch. I have zero inclination to play Twitch, but hey, any addition is a good addition in the long run.

The highlight of my League week was when I got Braum in an ARAM and got an S-. And

no, it was not against bots. I’ve only played Braum twice ever (both in bot games), so when someone asked me to trade for him, I figured I was going to feed hard, but I accepted anyway because I wasn’t much better at the champion I had originally. But then…I got an S-? The third time I ever played him? The first time I played him in PvP? I’m just…not sure if I was extremely lucky, or if Braum is secretly my dude. I do think that our team composition was better, and our Syndra was very good, but still, an S-? I played like three ARAMs as Soraka this week where I got Cs. The other team had a bot, but so did we, so it evened out. That or they were just quite bad in which case, my bad, I apologize. BEEN THERE. (I wonder how many times people have thought I was a bot just because of how bad my scores were?)

The second highlight of my week was the discovery of the item Warmog’s Armor. In one of the aforementioned ARAMs as Soraka, I noticed that it was recommended, so I decided to give it a shot even though I’d never seen it before. And…it basically made me unkillable? I mean, not actually, but provided that I didn’t get chain CC’ed, pretty much. Tect says that it’s not as good in Normal games because the health regeneration it provides is less valuable – you could just recall. But in ARAMs, oh man, it is the best.

Finally, in the last game I played before I started to write this post, I decided to speak up about something because I had the time (I was dead) and it wasn’t too ridiculous/one person was very clearly in the wrong. Vayne and Nasus were arguing because the Vayne was telling Nasus that games are meant to be won, and if they didn’t agree (AKA play to their liking), they could suck their dick.

I said, “It’s not that we don’t want to win, everyone’s doing their best I’m sure. It’s just that it’s not worth being mean over.”

And Vayne said, “I’m not being mean. Just facts,” and then restated their original comment.

I said, “….I’m pretty sure that part isn’t a fact.”

They said, “That was [Nasus’s] comment first dipshit.”

The next time I died, I decided to scroll up in chat and check, and I said, “Just scrolled up to check. It was you. Nasus just told you to suck it up, not their dick.”

And Vayne said, “Get a life. After you get a brain.”

I said, “Well, I was dead, so why not,” because really, why not. Mostly, I just wanted to embarrass them and hopefully teach them the lesson that lying when there’s direct evidence to contradict your lie is not smart. And also, that you shouldn’t lie, but I think we all know that already. (I was lied to a fucking lot as a teenager and now I’m pretty much on a crusade against it. Nothing gets past me. Nothing. Even if I pretend I don’t notice something, I probably did and will tell you about it 3 months later. Ask my boyfriend.)  Nothing like being caught out on the Internet, no matter how small the lie.

They continued to argue amongst themselves for a little bit, but not for long because we lost shortly afterwards. Honestly, I am proud of myself for this interaction. I said a little while back that I wanted to be more active in chat, mostly in the sense that I wanted to be able to stand up for myself and others when called for. But I was never sure how to do it without being just as mean back, or being too nice, and I was also afraid of starting some kind of flame war. And of course a lot of the time the opportunity just passes me by because if I joined the conversation I would die in the game.

This, friends, is how you assert yourself on the internet WITHOUT insulting anyone. Be smart. Not mean. And I don’t mean be a smart-ass, I mean be actually smart. Which sometimes involves being a smart-ass, but not always.

What do you guys think of that? Is that how you try to approach these situations? Do you think that most people try to approach things this way but just fall short?

Death snack of the week: Marbled Brownie Cookies from Domino’s 

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P.S. And also – what do you think Tect’s real name is (not that I will tell you if you’re right)? I’m just really curious. It’s not an uncommon name at all so it’s not like it’s a trick question.