An Xin and Su Xue were chatting together, deciding what roles they were going to play in their game of League of Legends. This was their first time duo queueing together, so they didn’t know what to expect or how they would play together. Su Xue had been trained to play ad-carry by Lin Feng and that was the role she’d spent the most time practicing and playing. She didn’t really know how to play anything else. An Xin, on the other hand, was primarily a Jungler, but she could also play other roles. She looked at Su Xue sitting next to her and said, “I’ll go Support. It’ll be more fun playing together, rather than doing our own thing on different ends of the map.” The thousands of viewers watching the two girls were quick to agree with this decision.
「yes!!! go support!」
「Two pretty girls playing bot is like peanut butter on chocolate! A perfect match!」
「i bet bunbun is an uber good support! SHOW EM BUNBUN!!」
「this gunna be soooo goodddd」
「BunBun for best Support in the world!!!」
「NO ONE is better than OUR BUNBUN!!!1!」
An Xin and Su Xue had only just entered the queue. The viewers had met An Xin barely a minute ago. They’d never seen her play a game of League. Yet they were already proclaiming her to be the best Support player in League of Legends. They wouldn’t hear any arguments saying otherwise. ‘Their’ BunBun was the best, end of discussion.
Lin Feng sat on Su Xue’s bed and grumbled, “Hey, I’m really good at Support too… Why can’t I play…?”
“Because you’re the maid! Now stop complaining and pour us some drinks, Maid Feng!” Su Xue laughed, relishing the opportunity to get back at Lin Feng. She was already planning how to best make use of this newfound power. Maybe I can demand some sparkling water from the store downstairs, hehe. But her viewers had something else entirely in mind.
「SHUT IT< MAID! no one said you could call lil bro that!」
「right! Only we can call him maid feng!」
「watch your tone, xue xue! we all know who the real maid is here!」
「Keep that up and we’ll have lil bro duo with bunbun instead!」
「TTSKKKKKKK maids really don’t know their place these days.」
“Hey hey! Don’t be like that, please! It was just a joke! A joke! Please give me another chance!” Su Xue begged, changing her tune to the whims of the chat. The idea of Lin Feng taking her place sounded terrible. She wanted to play a game of League, and she wanted her viewers to watch her play. This was her stream! And she would do anything she could to make sure her viewers wouldn’t turn this into Lin Feng’s stream again, like they did on the regular.
The game found a match, and both of them accepted. An Xin and Su Xue entered Champion Select and locked in their Champion choices. Su Xue went with her best Champion, her main, her spirit totem in League–Jinx! An Xin decided to go with Thresh. This choice evoked another grumble from Lin Feng, “I’m really good at Thresh too…”
✹
《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》
Su Xue and An Xin were on the Blue team. They went to the bot lane and started last hitting minions as soon as the first minion waves reached the middle of the lane. During the first wave they kept the same pace as the Red team’s Botlaners. But they got more aggressive when the second minion wave arrived, which helped them hit Level 2 first. An Xin directly used this level advantage to force a fight. She pressed the D key–Flash! Her Thresh appeared with a mottled flash of light on top of Red team’s Tristana. He Flayed her backwards, slowing her, and then threw his sickle at her–Death Sentence! His chain wrapped around the Tristana and he pulled her backwards, allowing the Jinx to freely auto attack. Then he hit the Tristana with Ignite, setting her ablaze. In the fiery inferno of exploding rockets and an unquenchable fire, the Tristana died.
《First Blood!》
“Wow! BunBun! You’re an amazing Support!” Su Xue exclaimed, beaming at An Xin. “The laning phase will be so easy with you supporting me!”
An Xin smiled and said, “It’s nothing. That Tristana is just bad.”
“Yeah, that Support too. They’re both terrible!” Lin Feng chimed in. But no one paid any attention to him.
This was the very first time and game that An Xin and Su Xue were playing together, but their synergy and cohesion made it seem like they’d known each other for years. That cohesion was primarily due to An Xin and her exceptional Thresh. She knew how to adapt to Su Xue’s playstyle.
Whenever Su Xue wanted to engage or make a play, An Xin was a step ahead with a hook in the enemy champion. And when Jinx’s health started to run a little low but Su Xue wanted to stay and fight, An Xin would make sure her Thresh was positioned right in front of Jinx to protect her.
It took less than 10 minutes for Su Xue’s Jinx to get fed to the point of no return. The Red team didn’t know how to stop her, and eventually just gave up. They waited for the 20 minute mark to surrender, when it became available, and unanimously voted ‘Yes’. The victory crest appeared over the screen for the players on the Blue team.
An Xin played a phenomenal support game with her Thresh, so much so that she carried Su Xue to victory. And like a great support, she carried without making it apparent to anyone. To the untrained eye, it looked like Su Xue carried the game with her Jinx. But that was the furthest thing to the truth. Su Xue and her Jinx were only able to do as well as they had in this game because of An Xin and her Thresh.
The stream chat lit up with 666s! The viewers were in love with An Xin. They loved watching her as she played. How she would completely focus on the game right before a play was about to happen, and the slight smile after she helped Su Xue pick up the kill. No matter how the viewers looked at it, all they saw was perfection. An Xin was their dream girl and they hoped she’d be making more appearances on stream. Or maybe even start her own channel!
Su Xue agreed with her viewers, which was a truly rare occurrence. She turned to look at An Xin and exclaimed, “You’re the best Support I’ve ever played with! It’s like you could read my mind! You did everything I wanted before I even knew that I wanted it! Even Lin Feng couldn’t do that! You’re way better than Lin Feng’s Support!”
Lin Feng’s annoyed voice came from behind the two girls, “Hey! I’m the better Support! Let me play a game and I’ll show you!”
An Xin turned around and said, “Nice try, big idiot. But we’re not letting you play. Just keep whining… You seem to be pretty good at that too.”
「Hahahaha BURNED!!!!!」
「lil bro is really good at getting burned too, hahahhahahaha」
「XDDDD Someone call an ambulance for lil bro!!!!」
Lin Feng read the chat on his smartphone, annoyed and frustrated. He wanted to argue how he really was the better Support. That it was a fact and not up for debate! But the viewers were siding with An Xin. And every time he tried to say anything, they just made fun of him. So he sat back, continuing to grumble, and watched as An Xin and Su Xue started another game. And then one more after that. Then a fourth game. He just watched them play. He watched them forget that he was even there. He sat there wondering why he was even there. Did they forget about me completely? I’m really good at League! They’re not even asking me what I think…
✹
《Quadra Kill!》
“Oh my god! A quadra! I got a quadra! BunBun, I got a quadra!” Su Xue exclaimed, amazed. This was her fourth game together with BunBun, who’d already led her to a double kill in game two and a triple kill in game three. The two girls were getting better and better at playing together. Su Xue pressed down on the B key to recall her Tristana back to base. Then she looked over her shoulder at Lin Feng and said, “Did you see that? A quadra! I got a quadra kill! That’s my first quadra on Tristana!”
Lin Feng grumbled something under his breath, scrolling through the stream chat on his smartphone. That only made his mood worse, since the viewers were complimenting Su Xue on her quadra kill. I could’ve gotten her a penta… But the viewers didn’t care what he could’ve done. They were cheering for what Su Xue had done.
「You played that so well, xuexue!!!」
「OH M G! A QUADRA GIRLL!!!! that’s amazing!」
「so cool! an actual quadra… dang!」
「you’re sooooo good xue xue!!!1」
「A QU_QU_QU_QUAADDRRAAAA!!!!」
「Can you teach me how to play ad-carry?」
Su Xue read through the stream chat, thanking her viewers for their compliments. Then she thought of something and said, “Don’t forget BunBun! Her Leona was great! Her stuns were spot on and if she hadn’t Exhausted the Zed, I would’ve died before getting my first kill!”
An Xin chuckled and said, “Don’t downplay your quadra! This was all you. Your Tristana is really good!”
Lin Feng watched the two girls complimenting each other. He’d really had enough of it and grumbled louder than he intended to, “It’s just a stupid quadra… I’m really good at getting quadras too.” It was loud enough that the viewers heard him complain. They’d been listening to him complain for four games now and they were starting to feel sorry for him.
「hey let lil bro play a game, he’s been sitting there watching the whole time…」
「Look at those puppy eyes! You GOTTA let him play a game!!」
「step aside maid, youve had your fun! ITS LIL BRO TIME NOW!!!!1」
「show us a penta lillll brroooo!!!!!!!!」
“Huh? W-what? Maid?” Su Xue stuttered, falling flat on her face after riding the high of picking up a quadra kill. She stared at the chat, wide-eyed, and pointed at herself. “Me? What the hell! I just got a quadra and now you want me gone? Maybe I can get a penta next game!”
The viewers wouldn’t hear any excuse that she gave. And she gave more than a few. They’d made up their minds. They wanted to see An Xin and Lin Feng play a game together. So they kept pushing until Su Xue gave up. She went to grab a chair from the dining room and sat down behind the two who’d taken over her stream.
Lin Feng grabbed the mouse with his right hand, moving it around. It felt right in his hand. Then he placed his left hand over the keyboard and brushed his fingers across the keys. He grinned and said, “I’ll go mid!”
An Xin shook her head a little and then replied, “I’ll play Jungle then. We might as well get some practice in for tomorrow.”
Lin Feng and An Xin queued up for a game. They got into Champion Select and locked in LeBlanc in the mid lane and Rek’Sai in the Jungle.
At 3 minutes: Lin Feng’s LeBlanc solo killed Ziggs, who was the Red team’s Midlaner.
At 4 minutes: An Xin’s Rek’Sai ganked the mid lane, helping Lin Feng’s LeBlanc pick up her second kill of the game.
At 6 minutes: Lin Feng’s LeBlanc solo killed Ziggs. Then she was chased by Red team’s Jungler, Jarvan IV. But An Xin’s Rek’Sai appeared just at the right time to rescue the LeBlanc and kill the Jarvan IV.
At 7 minutes: Lin Feng’s LeBlanc and An Xin’s Rek’Sai roamed to the bot lane. They killed the Red team’s Botlaners. Then they destroyed the outer tower. And finally they secured the Dragon.
At 9 minutes: Lin Feng’s LeBlanc solo killed Ziggs. Then she roamed top with An Xin’s Rek’Sai and killed the Irelia before destroying the outer tower.
At 12 minutes: The Red team gave up. It was too early in the game to surrender, so they typed ‘open mid’ in all chat. The Red team didn’t leave their fountain again and the Blue team, led by Lin Feng and An Xin, started destroying the towers in the mid lane, all the way to the Nexus.
At 15 minutes: Lin Feng’s LeBlanc destroyed the Red team’s Nexus. Victory!
The game started. And it ended 15 minutes later. It was the most one sided stomp many of the viewers had ever seen. The viewers didn’t quite know what to say. There wasn’t a single teamfight in this game. There was no mid or late game. There was only the early game, in which Lin Feng and An Xin won all three lanes for their team. Messages started flooding the chat.
「holy shit… talk about a stomp!」
「what a game……. that was something… DANG」
「……… wow…… just wow」
「did we just see them 2v5 a whole game!?!??!!??!」
Su Xue stared at An Xin and Lin Feng, amazed, and said, “The heck, you two? My account is at high Platinum! Why did it look like you two were stomping on Bronzes and Silvers?”
Lin Feng grinned and said, “Didn’t I tell you? Me and BunBun make a great team!”
An Xin raised her eyebrows and asked, “Great team? All you did was killsteal… I did all the actual work.”
“I’m the Midlaner! That’s my job!” Lin Feng countered. Then he rubbed his stomach. He looked over his shoulder at Su Xue and said, “I’m hungry. Can we order some take-out?”
“Didn’t we just have a late night snack?” Su Xue asked. She was still annoyed at being benched by her viewers and was in no mood to entertain Lin Feng’s perpetual hunger.
“I know, I know. But I’m hungry again!” Lin Feng replied.
An Xin looked at her friend. She shook her head and blurted out, “You pig!”
Subreddit Stupidity, Feelings, Chinese Memes & Ellie Goulding
Dev Thought: Okay. So we needed a thought for today, and Shanks put up this… unwholesome video that his roommates told him about. His rationale was that it was a popular meme in China. I don’t understand it. I have no thoughts about it. At all. So instead, I’m going to talk about something that annoyed me yesterday. Stupid people on the internet.
As some of you know, Shanks and I have been trying to get reddit.com/r/noveltranslations going again. Actively moderating the subreddit and making changes so the community over there becomes alive. So I check the mod queue and reports to see what’s going on. Yesterday, a thread got reported because some guy wanted to find a novel called “The Founder of Diabolism”. That was literally all he posted. No actual explanation, no words in the thread. He literally just posted “Where do I read the Founder of Diabolism?” as the title for the thread and nothing else. This got reported because someone felt it was stupid that the poster couldn’t Google something for himself. But I decided to take a different approach. Instead of locking or removing the useless thread, I replied and gave the guy a tutorial on how to use Google and where to find this webnovel that he was reading. Turns out ‘The Founder of Diabolism’ is on NovelUpdates, and it’s been translated by 4 different people on a bunch of sites. The novel is completed too.
The guy that started the thread replied and whined about how I was rude. It turns out that this particularly special individual knew how to Google and also found the NovelUpdates page for the novel he wanted. He was just confused as to why this specific novel only had 113 chapters instead of the usual 1000+ that xianxia novels have. But instead of asking this question, he decided to ask “where do I find this novel” and expected other people to FIGURE OUT THE REAL QUESTION IN HIS HEAD AND ANSWER IT INSTEAD! And then he had the balls to tell me how I should be nice to him and understand that he’s not the brightest bulb in the pack. What in the actual fuck? When did humanity decline to the point where we’re supposed to pat people on the head for being fuckwits on the internet?
I realize that I am an abrasive human being on the best of days. But come on? If you’re too stupid to ask the question you want the answer to on a reddit thread, you deserve to be called an idiot. And I’m not saying that I’m a perfect human being who has never done anything stupid. I’ve fucked up more times than I can count, and I’ve been called an idiot when I fucked up. You know what I did? I TOOK THE HIT, ACCEPTED THAT I WAS AN IDIOT IN THAT MOMENT, AND THEN LEARNED NOT TO FUCK UP IN THAT WAY!
I did not whine on the internet to a stranger about how they made me feel bad, expecting them to magically make me feel good about how stupid I was. Why is this even a thing? When did it become a thing? In response to this, I have a new stance on all things related to human interaction. Your feelings are your fucking problem, not mine. If you feel bad, that is your feelings. You figure out how to deal with them. If something I say makes you feel sad/offended/angry/down, those are your feelings, and once again your problem. I deal with my feelings, you deal with your feelings, and we all live our lives.
TL;DR – Don’t say something stupid on the internet and then whine when someone calls you out on being stupid. Grow the fuck up. Learn to process your emotions like an adult and move on. Don’t just throw them out on the internet in an effort to “vent” or make your feelings someone else’s problem. And especially don’t make your feelings my problem. Because I will reach in and pull your head out of your asshole in the most brutal way possible.
Shanks Thought: Alright. Brace yourselves. This is going to be even more degenerate than usual, so much so that I think I broke Devshard. We were in a voice call and he just went dead silent moments after I posted this video: https://youtu.be/P9sQZLtsfp8. It was like his mind completely shut down. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the video and kept mumbling, “What does this have to do with communism?”, “Why is this man flashing his penis at me and the sickle and hammer at me?”.
I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about the video. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with Devs and Sietse. What made my day was Devshard’s reaction. Anyway, as you guys know, there’s a lot of working being put into Rise behind the scenes. Part of that is me researching Chinese internet meme culture, so I can understand half the references that are made in the raw. Because if I don’t understand the memes, I can’t properly localize it into English.
So I was with my roommate the other day, and I brought the question up. Tell me about some of the popular Chinese memes you know. I showed him the Ricardo memes, and my roommate showed me Hop…
Sietse Thought: Shanks has this strange hatred for Ellie Goulding. Specifically, he despises her for her song “Lights”. He hates her so much that even though all he talks about is how he likes blonde girls, he thinks she’s ugly. Hideous. The most ugly person in all of existence, probably. But he did like that weird ass video he just talked about. I just needed to get that off my chest. You guys have probably had enough after everything that the other two talked about. So, goodnight everyone! And goodnight Ellie! Devs and I still love you very much!