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This is so hard to write, but I really want to join the 10th anniversary hype, I'll try to keep it short.
Sorry in advance for any English mistakes- not a native speaker.
Like so many, I was a nerdy kid, elementary school was rough for me, kids were super mean and I was basically friendless.
Then junior high started, finally I met a friend, might even say best friend, but he moved to another city and slowly ghosted me. In addition to the physical and emotional abuse from home and the self hatred for being gay, the next couple of years were the loneliest of my life.
I had so many dark thoughts, to this day it scares me to remember how close I was to just end it all, on multiple occasions. Meanwhile I was spending most of my days (and nights) playing video games - that did not help.
And then one random day, I think it was my neighbor who told me about this "kinda new game" he found- aka League of Legends. I won't lie, the name sounded stupid, and I didn't touch it at first, but when you are depressed everything you do start to be boring so fast, eventually I gave it a go, and hated it, a lot, I sucked hard. What I did like (and to this day it's my favorite part of this game) was the lore, I was obsessed with it for some reason. Played pretty casually, mostly read the "Journal of Justice".
The turning event of my life happened on a high school field trip. Some guys from my class started talking and suddenly I figured it was about league's lore, and they had it wayyyy off, and I told it to them.
"You play League?!" (gee, the nerdy quiet kid with no social life plays a video game, WHAT A SURPRISE) .
We started playing together, A LOT. In no time we became kind of a group, we would hang out in school and they invited me to go out with them on weekends. All of a sudden I got a chance to develop proper social skills and life didn't seem so bad.
And with the social skills came confidence, and with confidence came self esteem, I finally had the courage to accept myself and come out, and they were super cool about it.
Since then this game had a special place in my heart, I introduced the game to so many friends, had the chance to meet amazing new people from all over the world (one of them is actually an ex of mine), and most importantly- got to gold for the first time just in time for victorious Morgana, which is, like, the only worthy victorious skin (sadly never got higher -.-).
Now I'm actually about to finish med school, and I want to thank every one of you at riot, who took a part of making this amazing game, wouldn't be possible without you.
tl;dr- This game changed my life (and probably also saved it)
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