Well well well, it’s been quite a while! 3 whole years in fact. And what years they’ve been.

Let’s see…what did you guys miss? Not a whole lot, actually. In 2018, Mikey and I saw Taylor Swift live (twice!), took a trip to Disney World, and he finally proposed to me just before the holidays.

We announced the engagement via a variety of channels but apparently I missed announcing it here. So there you go! We’re engaged.

Yes, despite the fact that it’s been 2.5 years, we are still engaged. Our wedding was originally scheduled for July 18th 2020, and then May 2021, and then June 2021, and now (and hopefully finally) June 2022. So yeah, that’s what you missed on League of Love. I spent the majority of 2019 doing various wedding-related things, and basically nothing since.

So why am I here, now of all times? Well, I logged in to renew our domain and realized that the site still receives a minimal amount of traffic. And I started going through old posts and I was having a good time.

And I thought to myself, I should update these nice people. It’s been 4 years since we blew up on reddit. It would probably be more satisfying to wait until 5 years, but I want to do this now. Plus, with any luck, this time next year I’ll be busy with wedding stuff. Listen, life is too short to wait for the perfect moment.

I think I have too much to say for just one post, so I thought I’d do a series of posts. This first one will be a reflection on my initial thoughts about League, now that I’m a grizzled veteran (who barely even plays anymore but shhhh we’ll get to that later). I hope you find looking back on all this as entertaining as I did.

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Day 1

I was really thrown off by how many things are controlled by right clicking. Like, you move by right clicking and then you use the left click to use your special attacks? How does that make any sense? I struggled when it came to fighting because I kept trying to do the reverse.

In case you were wondering, I now get thrown off by left clicking. At least in League.

I think I would be a lot better at the game if movement were controlled by some kind of joystick. Also I would be a lot less frustrated. But maybe I just feel that way because prior to this I’ve almost exclusively just played console games (mostly Mario Kart).

So like, I used to think I was pretty all right at Mario Kart. I only ever really played against my little brother as a kid, so I’m not sure why I didn’t realize that perhaps that ridiculously small sample size might be clouding my judgment. But needless to say, I recently started playing Mario Kart again (albeit a much more complicated version) and I think the best I’ve ever done is come, like, 4th.

I learned that I do better with champions that can fight from a distance (I’m sure there’s a name for that but I don’t know what it is)

Girl. I thought you were an English major. Not playing video games is no excuse for this.

I spent 75% of the game just walking (very, very slowly) from the starting platform back to wherever I was before.

TBH the slow walking in League still frustrates me. Even in ARAMs. I get why it’s necessary, but just….ugh.

after you die,  you go back to the starting platform, and you’re there for a certain amount of time (let’s say 30 seconds), BUT THEN you automatically teleport back to (or close to) where you were before. That would sure save a lot of time and keep things interesting……So basically, I’m a genius.

And thus, the Nexus Blitz cannon (or whatever it’s called) was born. I AM a genius, okay.

I was also really confused about this glowing blue sword thing that appeared one time. I ended up guessing that it marked a spot where someone died. Because LOL seems sentimental like that, you know.

LMAO. I later established that this was Shen’s sword, but this is basically baubles in Wild Rift. Except instead of marking the ground out of respect for the deceased player, it’s for stunting on your enemies. Because LOL is just sentimental like that.

In the end, I waited for everyone else to start moving around on the map and decided to go wherever no one else went

I still do this in bot games, only now it’s partially out of respect for other players’ stated preferences that I may have missed, and partially out of a willingness to fill. I know that I can take any position, playing any champion in a bot game. That’s nothing impressive; most players could say the same. But you never know who might be trying something new and really wants to do one particular thing.

This was when I learned that you can actually move by just HOLDING DOWN the right mouse button. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS BEFORE, AND WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE DO THIS?!

I tried doing this a couple weeks ago because I was forced to use a magic mouse to play, which is both A) not silent and B) doesn’t have a dedicated right-click button. Or any buttons except the one, actually. It sucked. Would not recommend.

Day 2

Still no idea what the glowing blue sword thing on the battlefield was. Could not find an answer. Maybe it means nothing?? Will try to ignore it going forward.

What a perfect representation of how I go through life. “Will try to ignore it going forward.”

You should be keeping an eye on the mini map at all times (how one is actually able to see what is happening on said map without placing one’s face an inch away from the screen remains to be seen)

I still think this is a problem. Mainly only when 2 champions are near each other though. Unfortunately, many times when there’s something you need to know, it’s because 2 or more champions are near each other.

The word “gank” is used far too often and I am really not a fan. It just sounds gross. I will never use it if I can help it. However, I do know what it means.

Okay, here’s something where my opinion has drastically changed. I still think that gank is a gross word (I think because, as some commenters pointed out, it sounds like “wank”), but it didn’t take me too long to start using it myself. Initially, I said that an existing word like “ambush” would suffice. And that does apply sometimes, but in other scenarios gank is really the only term that works. For one thing, if your jungler is the one doing the ganking, from your perspective it’s not an ambush. Presumably, you’re in on the plan, unless your jungler is just doing whatever they want. And even from the enemy’s perspective, they might know that your jungler is coming, but decide to fight anyway because they think they can win or for some other reason, in which case it’s also not an ambush. So if we could get a less disgusting-sounding word for this, that would be great, but until then I will resign myself to saying “gank”.

I learned that I like mid-lane more at least for now because it’s shorter, so therefore I have a shorter distance to walk back to my spot whenever I die.

No comment.

During my 3rd and 4th games, I destroyed at least 1 turret or inhibitor, improved my minion kills and got better at last-hitting, killed more champions and was actually present when we won the game (although I still didn’t really help much). Part of this was because I started using health potions and as a result died way less.

So like, when I started this project, I blamed part of my struggle on the fact that many video games just assume you know a lot of things, due to the fact that they share conventions with other games. And that’s still true, but now I’m thinking that maybe I’m just stupid.

So far I’m really enjoying Lissandra’s Q and E abilities (I forget their actual names). I like that they can be used from far away, especially the E ability which I feel like would be great for turrets

I think at this point, I thought that everything could be used on turrets. Admittedly, I still think the game does a poor job of communicating when something works on turrets and doesn’t. Generally, most abilities do not work on turrets. But a number of champions have auto-attack modifying abilities, and some of those work on turrets and some don’t. (Confusingly, Nami’s E works on turrets in Wild Rift but not in League. I know they’re separate games, but still).

Feelings

I know my boyfriend and I really don’t think he would enjoy teaching me from the ground up.

I still had a long way to go after the project was finished, and I & everyone else who watched our stream for the first year can confirm that neither of us enjoyed it. He does not understand the difficulty of some things, particularly mechanical challenges, because he grew up with a controller in his hand, quite literally mashing a coordinated symphony of buttons, and he couldn’t share my victories with me because he didn’t see them as true victories. And I similarly frustrated him because while I wanted to get better, I didn’t care THAT much. And though one of the only things I truly EXCEL at is laughing at myself (good luck making fun of me if I’m already making fun of myself, amIrite ladies?!), even I can only do that for so long. At some point, I just want someone to tell me I’m doing well, or at least acknowledge my effort.

We started getting along much better after I resigned myself to playing only ARAMs, but even now it can get a little tense sometimes when I feel unappreciated just because I’m not the carry. (The worst is when I completely set up a penta-kill or something for him but then don’t get any credit for it, in game or otherwise.)

I know it’s just a game, but all of this is feeding into all of my deepest insecurities: I have no talents, I’m not smart enough, or at least he’s smarter than me and he knows it, no matter how hard I try he will always be smarter than me and better than me at anything with little to no effort on his part, even things I’ve spent my whole life trying to be better at like reading and writing.

This feeling never went away.

Sometimes I think that the only reason he can’t remember anything is because all his memory capacity is taken up by LOL stuff.

This feeling never went away, either.

Days 3 & 4

I then came across this paragraph and appreciated it greatly: “Elevation changes to the new Summoner’s Rift made a few situations where Glacial Path’s indicator was hidden, turning obvious ganks into extreme ambushes, so we’re fixing it. Even Lissandra knows that’s not… cool.” *slow clap* #dadjokesftw

I still really appreciate the people who write patch notes, even if sometimes they are very out of touch with the state of the game (definitely not talking about any one game in particular nope nothing to see here)

Janna was just boring to me, and I also really don’t like the support role. I never thought that I would be like this considering how scared and anxious video games used to make me, but I really enjoy being up front and center killing things left and right. A lifetime of blending into the background has made me an attention whore, both in real life and in LOL, apparently.

Interestingly, later this year I did fall in love with support as everyone knows, AND I also became way less of an attention-whore in real life. I still like killing things, though. Wild Rift has been great for that.

Day 5

Turrets must be destroyed in order (I’ve wondered before if you could potentially just use a shielding ability, flash, etc. to run real fast to the next one without destroying the first)

I mean listen, it’s not a bad idea.

You have 1.7 seconds to teleport using Lissandra’s E ability after you cast it, which allows you to cast another spell before moving. This would be a great strategy IF I COULD FUCKING FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS.

I really don’t know why it took me so long to just…press E again. Like. It’s not rocket science. I think I was just so fixated on the idea of “press x -> ability is consumed”.

In the chat before the game began, everyone was calling roles and I called bottom lane. But when the game began, I got yelled at by a team member telling me to go top. I thought that they just wanted to be bottom real bad so I said, “ok, but I did call bottom earlier”. I proceeded to make my way to top lane via the river, but because I was flustered, when I got to mid-lane I thought I was already in top and started killing things there, until the person actually in mid said, “this isn’t top”. Embarrassed, I continued on my way as if that was the plan all along…..In other news, I will be thinking about that mid-lane moment until I die.

I have no comment on this, it’s just really funny.

Day 6

I’ll do my best to stick to the laners’ recommended roles, but I still really want to play with Kindred and Nocturne so maybe I’ll just do whatever I want until I’m ready to try jungling (lol). But maybe from now on I’ll only pick them if no one else does, so I don’t take away an opportunity from someone who actually wants to use them ‘properly’.

When the blog was popular on reddit, I got a lot of comments saying how wholesome I was. I didn’t really get it and still don’t. I think that I was just acting with basic human decency. But this is pretty wholesome. I no longer care about things like this. Roles are just made-up anyway

My first game with her was just okay and I was in the support role, which I don’t love, although I’m thinking that maybe I should take it on more at least for now to teach me how to play more defensively (which I’m terrible at).

This is really surprising to read, actually. I feel like I’ve always been a good defensive player (too good at times) but I guess that was something I had to learn.

[Regarding Akali] She’s sexy AND she kicks ass, just like me! (Not really. I mean, I may be sexy, but the only ass kicking I do is with my words.) 

LMAO. And now, only one of those things is true. You can guess which.

Day 7

I attempted to jungle, and…I have no idea how anyone possibly does that. There was nothing in there that I could kill at level 1, and as a result I only made it to level 2. (It probably didn’t help that I was playing Singed at the time, who seems useless af.)

…Dear god.

Day 8 & 9

I had a good game with Karma. I like that her Q isn’t too hard to control

I kind of suck at Karma now even though I still like her, specifically because I can’t hit her Qs.

I will say that I would like to play all of the above champions, except perhaps Leona considering how much I hate the support role…..Yet, I consistently find myself being pushed into the support role, and worse, I often do better in that role, which makes me feel like that’s all I’ll ever be good at,  and I’ll never be a good enough player to take on other roles.

My extreme vitriol against support is very funny to me in hindsight, but I also think it really shows how bad League is at actually explaining roles. While my hatred against support wasn’t fueled by misogyny like it is for many other players, I had the misconception that supports were never allowed to do anything proactive or kill anything. And while that is true sometimes, and League was in much more of a “passive” support state back then (remember this was prior to Pyke, who was largely intended to change up the support role to be more enticing to players like former me who wanted to kill stuff).

Days 10-12

(….for example, Lissandra doesn’t even have legs). That’s ok sometimes, and in Lissandra’s case it totally makes sense

…Does it? Does it really though?

On day 11, I tried my first PvP game, and wow, that was a mistake. I single-handedly caused my team to lose because I stupidly took mid-lane, not realizing how difficult it was going to be. No one said anything to me though, so I appreciated that (especially since I’ve been snapped at for less) and honoured them all. Part of the difficulty came from the fact that I was matched with high-level players, but I was also really surprised at the aggressiveness of the enemy champion in my lane. Pretty much the second I got up there he started attacking me, aiming to kill. Obviously, this was a very effective strategy, given the results, but I just felt like it was unsportsmanlike. I would never go after another player like that until we’d at least both had a chance to kill some minions and level up a couple times.

This was the moment that I remember pushing me toward support. I really did want to be a mid-laner, but I just couldn’t hack it. Somehow, despite not playing a lot of support in my bot games, it does seem that I quickly shifted from being a bad defensive player to being a good one. The support role was basically made for me and i just had to accept it. I still feel like that kind of behaviour is unsportsmanlike though. Like, what is this, an ARAM?

 In my next game, one of the other players saw my summoner name (chelsearrr) and started hitting on me. They said, “chelsea u cute girl?” and I ignored them. When the game ended, in the chat they said, “i like cute girls baby add me” or something like that. I didn’t. I reported them too.

I’ve had my current name (WishUponStarcall – side note, if League could just increase the summoner name character limit by 1 so I could be WishUponAStarcall that would be great) for so long that I totally forgot that things like this used to happen occasionally.

That was when I discovered Soraka. She’s a fucking UNICORN. WHY the FUCK did my boyfriend never tell me there is a fucking UNICORN in this game?! Like, if he wants me to be interested in it, why would he not tell me about the parts that he must know I would like…very frustrating. But anyway, obviously I was sold just based on that fact alone (and her low IP cost) so I bought her. (I do kind of wish she was in horse form rather than human, though. They should make a skin for that.)

I know this would be terrible for game clarity but I still want this. Maybe even as a homeguard animation or recall?? Please?? High Noon Ashe gets to RIDE a horse, surely Soraka could BE a horse? I really am still puzzled as to why Mikey never mentioned her to me though. Maybe he thought I was a lost cause??

Days 13 & 14

This weekend, I ended up visiting my parents because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a chance to play LOL. Which sounds really stupid, I know, but I’m so scared of losing all the progress I’ve made because I can’t find time to play for too long and then I just forget how or something. So I told my parents I was coming for a visit, and I told my boyfriend that it was because my mom said she wanted company. Which she did…but only after I told her I was coming anyway.

Oh my god. “I’m just doing this for my boyfriend!!!” Suuuuuuuure.

First I played a couple of games with Caitlyn. She felt like the basic bitch of LOL, but I kind of liked that about her. Caitlyn is also just such a basic bitch name. I seriously want to rip that stupid hat off her head though because she would be SO much more attractive without it…

I’ve come to appreciate characters with basic bitch names, but I still hate pretty much all hats in League. Miss Fortune and Caitlyn ESPECIALLY.

Next up was Nasus. I didn’t get off to a great start. My cat at my parents’ house, Lady, is a total lap cat and also a huge whiny baby, so at the beginning of the game, she jumped on my lap and started pawing at my face. This caused me to walk right under the enemy tower and die, all before minions had even spawned. 

This moment made it into my WIP novel, although it wasn’t caused by a cat in the story. Man, I miss when Lady loved me.

Then I tried Thresh. I had high hopes for him because he just looks so bad ass but then I realized he’s a support and I was like, what? How is this scary death monster a support?

I still feel this way about support champs. I approve of supports with more aggressive playstyles (yes even Pyke despite my hatred for him as a character), but I feel like their personalities and stories should lend themselves to the support mentality. Most of them do, but there are some clear outliers like Thresh and Pyke. That doesn’t mean I don’t still like playing Thresh though, because I do.

Day 16 & 17

I really don’t understand the point of surrendering. You never know when one of those insane comebacks is going to happen, and I live for those.

My opinion on surrendering has somewhat changed. I would still never surrender a ranked game of any kind, but I will surrender normals and ARAMs now. I still live for comebacks, but if it seems extremely unlikely and I’m not having a good time, I surrender if the majority of my team wants to. I never start a surrender vote though, even if I’m not having fun. I don’t want to ruin everyone else’s good time.

What can I say…I’m just not cut out for support. I’m a showoff, and I get too excited. I feel confined and like my shine is being purposely dimmed in support. 

??????? Who are you?

The thing about me playing Soraka constantly is that I’m getting really good at her, which means that situations where I’m a better player than our ADC are getting more frequent. So maybe I should purchase another support champion to make things harder for me.

WHO ARE YOU. I don’t think I’ve ever been as confident in my life as I was when I wrote this post, apparently.

can players transfer IP to other players? I know you can send RP. I’m wondering because my boyfriend is drowning in IP because he literally owns everything you can spend it on (as of now). He has like 70k; I checked his screen last time it was up on his laptop. I’m sure he would love to transfer them to his beautiful, adoring girlfriend…if that’s a thing.

I still think that players should be able to send gifts to other players with IP (now called BE or blue essence). The idea that people would try to sell IP for real money doesn’t make any sense, because if someone wanted to buy something with real money, they would just buy RP. If I can’t be a gold digger in real life, at least let me be one in League.

Day 18

Ekko is like…damn, boy. If I could be attracted to an animated character, I would be attracted to him

I am no longer attracted to Ekko, and I’m very confused as to how I ever was. He looks like a baby. Now my favourite piece of male eye-candy is Viego. But also, LOL at me pretending I’ve never been attracted to an animated character when I wrote self-insert fanfics of me marrying Tyson from Beyblade when I was 12. For a while on stream, we had a stream currency reward for me to read my old fics out loud. That was a good time.

Fiddlesticks is hella weird and creepy. I also feel like he should have a flamingo skin. That’s just what he reminds me of? A really gross flamingo?

LMAO. I can’t say that I’ve had that thought since then (although I still think he’s creepy, especially since his rework) but now that I’m reading it, I can see it.

Why are so many LOL champions discombobulated in some way? (See: Xerath, Bard, Thresh, I feel like there are more but those are the only ones I remember right now)

To add on to this question – why are so many champions missing eyes and just have glowing voids instead?

Day 19

I didn’t get to finish the game because my boyfriend came home early without letting me know, when the game was only about 60% done, so I had to slam my laptop shut and quit the game, again…I figured that my computer wouldn’t make any game noises because surely the game was over by now. Except, my computer hadn’t figured that out yet, so it went, “Your team has destroyed a turret!”

And instead of just pretending like it didn’t happen like I should have, I went, “Aaaahh shut up!! Shut up!!” and slammed it shut again.

WHY?!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?

I used to be the QUEEN of stealth and surprises, what the hell has happened to me?!

Okay, I don’t know about THAT, but I really can’t believe he didn’t catch on here.

On the bright side, when I opened it again later while he was out walking the dog, I discovered that I still got the IP and XP from the game, and had levelled up.

And that’s what matters.

Days 20-22

I also tried Sivir, who I purchased a while ago. I liked her a lot as well (although can we talk about her splash art? Like, what kind of position is that?

At this point, I think that putting Sivir in weird positions has to be a Riot meme and they do it on purpose (see: Legends of Runeterra).

Days 23 & 24

Tahm Kench – I was disappointed that you can’t just eat enemies whenever you feel like it. You have to hit them 3 times first. WHERE’S THE FUN IN THAT

Just wait until he gets reworked!!!

Amumu was, I think, the first champion I ever learned about, because a long time ago my boyfriend made me watch the music video for the song Riot made for him. I think he was showing me because he knew I could relate.

Okay, ouch.

Days 25 to 27

On day 25 I got another A+ with Kayle, but then I also got some Cs…it’s all or nothing with her, apparently.

Yup, that’s Kayle. (This was old Kayle, by the way.)

I also played Zyra, who I thought was just okay. I was initially really excited because her passive says that if an enemy steps on one of her seeds, they die. But I swear that happened a couple of times and nobody died.

Once I learned to use Zyra’s seeds I got much better at her, and now I love her despite her story just being, “She’s a plant-girl? I guess?” You’ve heard of cat-girls, now get ready for….PLANT-GIRLS!!

WHY IS SHE FRENCH?! LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE IN THIS GAME IS FRENCH

It also bothers me that Kai’Sa is Australian and Lillia is….Scottish? Irish? And others but I think those are the worst offenders lately. I’ve gotten really into the lore so I wish that most of the champions from the same area spoke with similar accents (unless they’re immigrants, like Samira going from Shurima to Noxus).

Days 28 & 29

I think his orbit of stars is really cool – at first I thought they were just for show but all the kills I got in that game were from the stars, so I’m glad they’re not. Since his W is my favourite and it requires so much mana I think in the future I would buy more mana-related items for him

I really miss the toggle on A-Sol’s W. I’m definitely worse at him without it. One of the reasons they said they wanted to change it is because the toggle made him more difficult to play/harder for new players and I disagree. I’m not saying I excelled at A-Sol at any point, but I picked that part of his kit up just fine. I’m not every new player, of course, but still.

Day 30

Based on their backstories, it basically sounds like Kha’Zix and Rengar are in love with each other…they’ve got that whole “love/hate” dynamic going on. I wonder if they came out at about the same time. (I know I could look this up, but that sounds too much like effort.) I am all for this alien-lion romance.

Man, I used to be so funny. I said that out loud and Mikey said, “You’re still funny!” And I said, “Yeah, but now I’m funny accidentally.” And he said, “That still counts!”

When the game ended, a pop up appeared saying, “Congratulations! You’ve reached level 25!” and I burst into tears because there was nothing that merited congratulations in that game, not at all. Somehow I’ve managed to level up all the way to 25 without actually becoming as skilled as other level 25 players. I just play and play and gain XP but all that playing isn’t helping me to improve. I thought it was, but obviously I was wrong.

I know how stupid and small it sounds written down. In the grand scheme of life, it is stupid and small. But at the time, it felt like someone was just constantly telling me I was stupid and not good enough for 20 minutes straight, and I was upset. I’ve worked really hard at this. I do not have a natural inclination for this kind of thing; I’ve been aware of that from the start. But I thought I had progressed far enough that I could do an intermediate bot game without incident.

I remember this feeling very clearly. I misremembered a lot of this situation itself but I remember this day and how terrible I felt after, probably because I’ve felt this feeling my whole life. I’ve always had to try harder than other people just to be passable at literally anything and I’ve never understood why. No clear-cut explanation ever presented itself to me. I learned that I had a hard time with my friendships and relationships partly because of my social anxiety, but nothing has ever explained why I struggle with everything else. Granted, many times I find it easier to become average at something than others. It’s like I learn fast but only up to a certain point. I am average through and through. All this is to say that being mean to someone online, even if it’s about a game, really does have real-world impact. In this case, the only impact was that I was sad for a day but some people suffer much worse. For me, this kind of behaviour toward me wasn’t just about League, or even that game in particular, it was about me as a person.

 I found something new that I like, something I never thought I could ever like, and I feel like it’s being taken away from me because I’m not good enough to participate. This is exactly why I never liked video games in the first place (in addition to being anxious and scared), because I feel like the gaming community prizes skill above all else. This is why I wasn’t allowed to play video games with my friends as a teenager.

I bounced back from this particular incident pretty quickly, but by 2018/2019 I had fallen victim to this. First I stopped playing ranked. Then I stopped playing normals with strangers. Then I stopped playing normals with friends, because I felt that even they would get too frustrated. They wouldn’t blame me directly most of the time but I could tell that their frustration was at least partially because of me. I don’t even play ranked of PvP in Legends of Runeterra and Wild Rift for the most part. In TFT, I only play ranked until I reach gold to get the reward. I still play ARAMs though. I don’t play much anymore because I just don’t like being on the computer all day now that I work from home. But I do love a good ARAM.

Days 31 & 32

Also in one of my games someone was playing Lucian with his Heartseeker skin and every time the jazz music started playing I laughed. What a nice touch. Now I kind of want Lucian just so I can get that skin.

You’ll be pleased to know that I now have a shard for this skin. I still don’t own Lucian though, because once they introduced essence emporiums, I started saving all my BE for chromas. So now I only buy champions if I really, really love them (I think the only ones in the past 2 years are Yuumi, Lillia and Seraphine).

I’ve started to pay attention to the sales and Janna’s Star Guardian (AKA Sailor Scout) skin was on sale, so I bought it. My first skin! It was basically $10…which is far more expensive than I thought these things would be, but I guess if you only buy one every once in a while it’s not a big deal. 

Ah yes. If you only buy one once in a while. …Wouldn’t know what that’s like. This is the moment when I became addicted to skins. I’m not a whale or anything but I do probably buy more than the average player. I collect every skin for champions I play often (or would if I still played frequently haha – definitely not in denial or anything nope no sir) and buy ones I really like for champions I play sometimes. But I always wait for skins to go on sale unless it falls into the first category. I definitely buy fewer skins than I used to though, not just because I play less but because I already have most of the older skins I want, and the ones I don’t have yet don’t go on sale for as much anymore (usually). Every sale used to be 50% off and now it varies. Most of the skins I want are new ones, which still go on sale for 27% off after about 6 months, but these are more expensive so I can’t buy literally every skin I like, the way I used to.

Day 33

Braum – I only decided to try out Braum because he’s the one who is friends with poros on that wintery map, whatever that’s called. I think, anyway. He’s okay.

I still feel this way about Braum and it makes me sad. I WANT to love Braum because he’s a great tank support and really funny and wholesome. But his gameplay just doesn’t do it for me.

I did hilariously badly with Jayce (0-8-0), partially because for the first 10 minutes of the game I had no idea what was going on. 

I’m not sure I’ve ever played Jayce since this day, and for the record, I still have no idea what’s going on whenever I encounter him. The only thing I understand is “gate goes whee” and “ball is scary” and “gate + ball = death”.

Days 34 – 37

Zilean was cooler than I thought as well, and he actually has a pretty cool backstory. I just wish that his sticky bomb was more powerful.

I do not wish that anymore. I also can’t remember for the life of me what his lore is.

Days 38 & 39

And if I jungle in a bot game, that means that someone is going to be dealing with a 1v2 situation, and I hate when that happens to me.

I really appreciate that the bots in Wild Rift have junglers. That way, if someone on your team wants to jungle, no one else has to get punished. And if you don’t have a jungler, then someone can just go wherever they’re most needed and everyone will have an easier time. I don’t think many people play bot games for the challenge so I see nothing wrong with that.

Days 40 & 41

At the very least, there was a ‘double IP’ weekend

I wish that they still did things like this (and also that you got BE from games instead of by levelling up, and also that the amount wasn’t dependent on what you get in a capsule).

Before I get into those – I wrote a more specific set of goals for this project, rather than just “be good enough to get through a game only dying a couple of times”, because having played LOL for a while now, what does that even mean:

-Reach Level 30 (the highest level)

-Be good enough to get through the majority of PvP games dying no more than 5 times and with a ratio of higher kills/assists than deaths

-Become highly competent in the support role

-Be able to play every role if needed

I wasn’t really sure if this was actually a good measurement, but it seems to have held up. This further enforced my highly defensive playstyle though and mentality of “do not die at any cost” which is usually good, but sometimes not.

Day 42

Everyone is an FMA character now. I am FMA trash. This is all my boyfriend’s fault.

We should rewatch FMA. I still haven’t seen the live action or the original anime series.

And then I proceeded to not play ANY of them after all because I went on vacation. I fully intended to play while I was away (I brought my mouse!), but I never really felt well enough or focused enough to play.

That trip low-key sucked. First I was too sad because I missed Mikey to enjoy anything. Then I was starting to have fun but Disneyland didn’t live up to my expectations. And then to top it all off, on the last day of our trip I got a terrible cold. Stupid children at Disneyland.

Patch Thoughts

The only other change I actually noticed was that status effects on a champion are now indicated above their health bar (instead of their name), which…that’s cool. I don’t really care about it (at least for now) but that is fine.

This actually ended up helping me so much.

I have literally never seen anyone kill the Rift Herald and it always seemed like a waste of time to me as well considering that it only appears in the first 20 minutes of the game and you would likely need multiple team members to kill it. However, now, if you kill it, you get to summon it to go kill stuff for you

Hands down one of the best changes they’ve ever made.

Days 44 & 45

as indicated by the title, I hit level 30, which I knew was going to happen but is still a nice feeling nonetheless.

It took me 44 or 45 days to hit level 30, and you have to be level 30 to play ranked. I personally feel that 44-45 days to be allowed to play ranked is too long, although I don’t know how many hours I had put in up to that point. I believe that they have made it faster to level now though.

I had actually completely forgotten what her E ability even did because I literally never use it. Its effect is not always clear and it is very easy to just walk out of so it felt pointless to me. However, I watched a video that showed me circumstances in which it is actually very helpful, such as in a team fight where everyone is clustered and there’s nowhere to run. It can also be easier to take advantage of when used in combination with the Q ability, which has a slow (didn’t even know that). I also never used E because I thought that it dealt no damage. Not true! It does! It’s just that it only deals its full amount if champions stay in it long enough.

I earned my first S with Soraka when I finally figured out how to use her E. Now I love her E so much that whenever there’s a conflict, my first instinct is always to silence first, heal later. That’s often bad if my teammates are low so I should really try to break that habit.

(Sidenote: why S??? why doesn’t it just stop at A and add an F (or an E) before D instead??)

Truly, I still don’t understand this grading system, but I’ve come to realize now that it’s very common in the world of video games.

Days 46 & 47

Then I played a game with Janna, because I had just bought a skin for her and I wanted to try it out. (It was her Fnatic skin – it showed up in the new “your shop” feature and I bought it solely because I know it’s retired. I didn’t like it all that much.) 

That skin is the only one I’ve ever refunded.

Days 48 – 50

Now, you would think that over the course of three days I could fit in a lot of games. And technically, I could have, but unfortunately I got sick again

I remember ‘getting sick’. Barely. For real though, how did I manage to get sick twice in one month?

LOL was probably the only good thing about my week at all! And that is a strange feeling.

I have news for you!!! In 2020, the only good thing about your entire year will be LOL! Or at least, Riot games. (They weren’t really the only good thing in the year, but they definitely got me through day-to-day and still are.)

And of course I had to squeeze in a game with Soraka, and I hit mastery level 5! Yay! (I highly doubt I’ll ever achieve higher than that, seeing as levels 6 and 7 are dependent upon the terrible loot system.)

I still really don’t like that simply because you can only earn mastery tokens on the Rift. I think that you should be able to earn tokens from ARAMs but with higher requirements (maybe 3 Ss for a token, to filter out people who just had one crazy game). I somehow did eventually get level 7 on her though. But only her.

[About Sona] I just feel bored when I’m playing her. It basically just seems like I follow the ADC/team around and press W constantly.

She certainly does allow me to pay attention to the game a little less than other champions, but I don’t feel bored playing her anymore, mainly because I have learned more about the intricacies of her abilities and her power chords. I’m really looking forward to Sona’s upcoming changes though. No idea how extensive they’ll be but I feel like they can’t be bad.

Also, she says some really weird shit. The weirdest, in my opinion, and the first one I noticed: “Accelerated movement, I concur!”

Truly, I am SO grateful for her updated voiceover. She actually has a personality now.

I wondered if there was any Star Guardian ‘lore’ out there because if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that LOL needs to have a story for everything for some reason. And there is! There’s a whole website and my god is it ever beautiful.

Skin lines and events with lore have only grown since then and I have to say this is probably my favourite part of League and its related games. The Spirit Blossom event last year and K/DA are my favourite things they’ve ever done, in addition to the Star Guardian line.

Days 51 & 52

On Saturday, I thought that I could get in one game with Soraka in before my barre class. And I was very nearly right, but I wasn’t. As the game progressed I thought I’d be fine because it looked like we were going to lose any minute now (not that I wanted to lose), but we ended up making a comeback. And I am so glad I stayed because it was a really fun game and I got another unexpected S! Unfortunately all this meant was that I got a token towards Mastery Level 6.

Ah yes, the time I skipped a barre class so that I could play League. Solid choice.

Perhaps more interesting though was that the game proclaimed “Defeat” when we destroyed the Nexus, and the game was recorded as a loss on the post-game screen and in my match-history as well. Not sure if it was the case for everyone, but there were a lot of “wtf”s in the chat, so probably.

I’ve never seen this since, but I’m wondering if maybe we actually got back-doored or something and I didn’t notice. The camera pans to whichever nexus is being destroyed automatically, but I really wouldn’t put it past myself at this stage to not register that.

Personally, I kind of think that the concept of “stealing” things from other players on your team (unless it was previously agreed upon that they would receive that thing, such as in the case of a leash) is bs, but I can concede that I really did not need to be there. I showed up and I was like “HELPING!!!!! *ults*”, not realizing how much damage I would do/how low the enemy’s health bar was already.

I have a very clear memory of this moment and I feel bad about it all the time, because I play a lot of bot games and in those, it always feels like people are randomly showing up to my lane and stealing my kills when I was doing just fine without them. So. I feel this person’s frustration.

Googled “yasuo fuck this guy” and (not sure what I was expecting)

This is still my favourite piece of League fanart of all time. There’s just….so much going on.

At first, I thought that Lux was a good counter to Yasuo because she can stop him from dashing all over the place with her Q. But then, they got their wind wall ability (I keep wanting to call it windwaker SMH), and everything changed because they just kept blocking my Q. And I was like man, that is so unfair! Now I see why people hate you so much! …(By the way, my notes for this just said, “Yasuo – fuck that guy”.)

Ok, ok, here’s the paragraph that spawned a thousand comments. Listen. Yasuo’s windwall is still frustrating. And sometimes I do still whiff skillshots into it. Particularly Sona’s ult for some reason which is REALLY frustrating. But I have no hatred for this man. He’s just an edgy, windy boi. If you want to talk about frustrating champions….let’s talk about Yone. (Or Smeara Samira, actually.)

Soraka, whose heals are insane and unparalleled by any other champion (every time I play Sona and use her W, I’m just like what the fuck is this because I’m so used to Soraka).

I’ve gotten over this feeling by thinking of Sona’s W as more of a self heal + shield, with a small amount of healing as a bonus.

I’m starting to realize that literally everyone has to deal with bad games and other players blaming them for stuff. Even my boyfriend. Although his complaints are apparently just that he’s TOO good and it’s impossible. That…sounds like a good problem to have.

To this day I think I’ve only heard him admit he misplayed like….a handful of times.

% of games that meet goal: 69%

nice

Death snack of the day: Double stuf Oreos

Fuck, now I want Oreos.

(the next day – I actually had a dream last night that I had a pack of Double Stuf Oreos. That’s how bad I want them.)

Days 53 – 55

 I thought they were just having connectivity problems or had to go suddenly – it sucks, but it happens to the best of us. So I just did my best alone, but this was my game with Azir, who as I’ve already established, is the fucking worst. So I was having some struggles. But what can you do right?

Except then, some other teammates were discussing banning this player for being afk, and they decided to chime in, all, “Why would you ban me? I’m not afk”. No, they weren’t afk, just SITTING RIGHT FUCKING THERE WATCHING US. I mean WHY?!?!? If you’re going to sit there and be present, why not actually play? What is the point? I could understand getting into a bot game and then walking away to do something else while your team (ideally) wins the game and some IP/XP for you – it’s shitty, but it makes sense. I just…why. Whyyyy.

I’ve never seen this since then and the only reason I can think of for this is that they just thought it was fun to troll us.

I also reported one player for using the n-word (they also had it in their username), albeit misspelled. And I wonder – what is the etiquette around this word and words like it within largely anonymous online communities? From what I’ve observed, it seems acceptable for black people to use the word and reclaim it for themselves, and for all I know, this player was black. But also, for all I know, they were a racist douchebag, and for all they know, I or any of our other teammates could have been a black person taking offence. WHAT ARE THE RULES?! I should ask reddit.

Yes, ask reddit. That’s the perfect place to go for a question like this. For real though I still struggle with this all the time. I want so badly to be an advocate for equity in whatever small ways I can be, so sometimes when it comes down to reporting people I’m like

There was ALSO one game where our jungler was being kind of unhelpful – I didn’t think much of it; I just thought that they were busy with other things every time I pinged for help. I mean, they can’t be everywhere. But other players were getting really mad at them, and towards the end of the game, they said they were just trolling for their YouTube channel (or ‘channal’, as they kept saying) and that we should subscribe. Like…what?? That’s not even good trolling?? Honey, if you ever start streaming, please do not do this. DON’T BE THAT GUY.

The worst thing we ever did to “promote” our channel was that we played one bot game where one of us controlled the mouse and one of us controlled the keyboard, playing Yasuo. Initially we just did it for fun but then Mikey decided to explain what we were doing in the post-game lobby and pasted our channel link. I rolled my eyes and laughed but that was how one of our regular viewers ended up finding our channel.

They also played Garen – why, I don’t know, since he is not a mid-lane champion 

Riste begs to differ.

Honestly from the way I go on about it on here you’d think that [my boyfriend is] a scary dude; he’s really not, I’m probably scarier than he is,

I am definitely, 100% at least 10x scarier than he is. You know, female rage and all that.

Days 62 – 64

First up is Ahri. Still not getting any better with her, like at all. And it’s just so discouraging and has made playing her not fun.

You guys will be pleased to know that I got much better at Ahri once I learned to use her ult defensively, but I have to admit that I am not as good on her since her play pattern changes from a couple of years ago. I don’t remember when, but they changed her so that she does more damage AFTER charming someone. It’s ideal to charm someone first a lot of the time anyway, but sometimes it’s not and it just makes her feel so rigid in my opinion. I’ve come to feel the same way about Anivia. I still like them both but not as much as I did.

All of this frustration came to a head when I decided to play a bot game on the other map that is offered, Twisted Treeline. I had never played it before, but I thought that it was basically the exact same just laid out differently and with 3 players instead of 5. And I mean, yeah, but also, no…I did look it up afterwards and I know a bit more about it now, but still not enough, and also I’m slightly traumatized so yeah, it’s going to be a while before I do that again.

I never played Twisted Treeline again, and now it’s gone. (Or, now it’s a bad landmark in LOR as I saw someone say the other day.)

He has a thick skin but I also sometimes think that it’s not as thick as I think it is and he just puts on that front because he feels like he has to in order to balance me, an Emotional Wreck, out. But maybe that’s just me trying to feel better about myself.

Or maybe its ~*~*toxic masculinity*~*~

And then they decided that they didn’t want to be the jungler! Instead, they decided to play mid. AKA my role….They also went out of their way to get all of the last hits on minions.

I’m pretty sure I’m just bad at last-hitting. But that person was still being an asshole. I’ve rarely run into situations like this in League since then, even in bot games, but this is a huge problem in Wild Rift (getting better with time though).

Days 66 & 67

I swear, I’m more talented than I look. (Only just, though.)

Story of my life.

Days 68 & 69

And then I did the dumbest thing imaginable, which was that I took pictures of our pets, because they were being adorable, and sent them to my boyfriend, without checking to see what was in the background. Which was my computer, with the LOL client open.

So I did what anyone would do in that situation and I tried to draw all over the pictures, hoping that the version I already sent him would somehow change its appearance. It did not; it just sent again, making things even weirder.

So I did what anyone would do in that situation and I sent him 30 GIFs of random things and then told him not to scroll up under any circumstances.

HONESTLY, I make it this far, THIS FAR, to the very last day, and then I do THAT.

LMAO. See, if I was on the receiving end of multiple pictures and 30 GIFs, the first thing I would do is scroll up and closely examine everything I could. But he apparently was just like “typical Chelsea” and thought nothing of it.

Sometimes being a crazy bitch has its perks.

Top 10

[About Soraka] but seriously, her backstory is also really nice and sad. And of course it reminds me of myself

I was very disappointed with her reworked backstory. Of course Soraka’s connection with Warwick made absolutely no sense, so I don’t blame them for removing him. But it frustrated me that they changed her from someone who initially believe what she had been taught but then fell in love with a human and was punished as a result, to just a martyr who wants to save all the people just because. But I still love her.

[About Lissandra] But she’s also evil (like really, truly evil, not complicated evil), so that sucks. My boyfriend called her a cunt and I had to tell him that is not appropriate language. This is not Game of Thrones.

Speaking of changing backstories, I really LOVED Lissandra’s new story. She’s a much more interesting character now. Also it’s so shocking to read that Mikey used to use that kind of offensive language but I’ve said things I’m not proud of too (when I was much younger, but still).

Final Thoughts

If you don’t have fun unless you win, then you need to take a step back.

My thoughts on this have changed, actually. Video games are not like physical sports, where even if you’re losing you still get to chase the ball or whatever. Losing in League means you spend a lot of time NOT playing and that just straight up isn’t fun. So yeah, now that the game is no longer novel to me, I can’t say I have tons of fun when I lose.

—————————-

So that’s that….there are many more posts on the blog but they’re all post-reveal so I thought I would keep my refection to the original project.

I do plan on making another post reflecting on comments/feedback I’ve received over the years, and maybe one on my thoughts regarding Riot’s other games. I had planned on putting them out shortly after this one, but they aren’t ready yet so I don’t know when that will be. If you’re interested in that kind of thing though, stay tuned.

In the meantime, Mikey still streams 3 days a week (on average) on our League of Love TV Twitch channel, and I join him occasionally. I also check our discord on a regular basis and of course you can leave me comments here. If you would like it if I updated this blog more, please let me know because that will give me more motivation to work on these upcoming posts.

I hope all of you are doing fantastic and thank you so much for all your support.