One slipup was me pulling a pseudo-all-nighter combining tft with watching MSI live--I hadn't finished my League Client's quest, so I figured that while I was trying to make back some losses, might as well knock that quest out at the same time, watching live rather than a twitch vod at 1.5x speed.
After MSI finished, I did get close to a full night's sleep, mind you! I couldn't get to a full six, because I couldn't stay asleep in spite of my plan being to sleep that long. (That, or my sister began to eat popcorn which thanks to my misophonia will instantly wake me up, I forget which.)
The next night the lapse was I believe just a crash? Like, due to having not actually gotten a full night's sleep, just desperately needing it and my mind shutting off to the extent that I forgot to do things that I should do. I don't actually remember why I missed, so this is my best guess, of sheer exhaustion meaning that night was lost.
Last night however was a deliberate choice to invest my time elsewhere. Not on tft, mind you!
For the second time ever, I did a solo stream.
My first stream was done in a random spur of the moment whim when I was in a very bad headspace and needed something to chill out to.
While this one was also slightly spur of the moment, I actually planned it out. As in, I planned it out but actually executed it in a spur of the moment choice rather than electing to not do so.
There are very specific conditions for me to get a stream off and that night had the perfect combination of them all:
-It must be late enough that everyone in my house is asleep.
-It must be during a time that my father is not sleeping on the couch in the living room, which for some random-ass reason he's doing almost every night now these days.
-It must either be a short stream to accommodate for my mom getting up, or be during a night where my mom will not get up.
-I must not have a stream that I really want to be watching (since I can't stream while also watching a stream, meaning for me to stream there can't be a stream I want to watch).
-I must have a game that I want to stream.
In this case, I managed to meet all of the criteria at once, because I had the idea of streaming Chrono Trigger. I've been floating around the idea of streaming that childhood game of mine. (I played on an emulator, mind you, as the SNES was before my time, but it was still one of the largest game influences on me. It, along with SaGa III/Final Fantasy Legends III was what got me writing my very first story and was up there with Final Fantasy VII for leaving a lasting impact on me.)
I wanted to stream for multiple reasons.
I wanted to practice speaking again. With my voice. That's not something that I get to do very often. Even if nobody showed up (nobody did) and even if nobody watches the vod, streaming to help practice my speaking was worth it.
I wanted to play the game but to do it in a way where I felt like I was sharing it with others.
I wanted to dip my toes into the realm of streaming as something that could potentially connect me to others.
I wanted the experience, just of the experience.
It seemed like it'd both be fun, and be constructive.
It was tremendously successful on both accounts, because even though I am very lousy at streaming, I got the learning experience of having done it the way I did.
So I wanted to maximize the stream time, which came at the cost of blogging and tiktok that night.
Since my mom is presumably getting up today, didn't stream tonight, thus, blog + tiktok today, butyeah, will be doing more of this in the future I hope.
All in all, pretty successful, that night.
As for more recent things.
I did, indeed, prove to myself that I am, in fact, competent enough in tft to not be hardstuck gold. I actually got the promotion to Platinum!
...Admittedly. Plat IV with 3 LP. I am guaranteed to derank the next time I play tft. (I need to get into the mindset that it'll be okay to derank before I play again because no way do I keep that rank when playing.)
I had a lot of League games today, albeit most going rather poorly for a variety of different reasons. Autofilled to top where in spite of crushing the early game a gank+rift herald completely eradicated and reversed my lead because I couldn't prevent the tower from falling with all five plates taken in less than 20 seconds and the chain-cc wasn't counterplayable in a 1v2.
Autofilled to jungle and in spite of me emphasizing how bad I am at the role, nobody dodging or offering to swap with me.
A game with an enemy Veigar Support.
I believe there was also a game where my toplaner DC'd separate from these (tho that might've been the same game as the above, not sure).
Eventually, I did get a win tho, and it was actually a game where I got to actually test out my new build to its fullest, getting to full items on it! I was a bit hard-carried, admittedly, but my lack of agency that game wasn't my fault as a fed AD-Shaco is designed to one-tap an adc even when the adc has a Frozen Heart (I think that's the highest armor item in the game?) and more health than a normal adc would have, so obviously thanks to his invisibility and oneshot potential I died a lot to him but was when Shaco was absent mostly fine.
The new build I am testing, by the way, is basically a hybrid build. It's not the best in any field except for waveclear, but it's reasonably balanced. The build is my Grasp build (altho I am testing running Demolish on it rather than Font of Life), but instead of BoRK+Stridebreaker, it's Ravenous Hydra into Stridebreaker.
No health shred, no attack speed (until later), no stealing movespeed, but higher attack damage, better lifesteal thanks to the omnivamp, and much better waveclear.
I then built Essence Reaver third, for the mana to sustain. (Again, normally, this would work, but against a fed Shaco who oneshots you, can't sustain back up. It worked against 3-4 of the other enemy champions tho!) Which with a sheen proc also helps to boost waveclear a bit.
And then Runaan's Hurricane fourth.
I finished it with Phantom Dancer fifth, for the as+ad, but it could've been anything.
I took Beserker's Greaves, altho I did sell them for the sixth item Frozen Heart.
The build is designed to maximize my economy: as I suck at last hitting, the idea is to make it much easier to get the minion kills, with insane waveclear, and also if I get the opportunity to safely do so, take tower plates. And to have good mobility and incredible sustain, so that I will, if not oneshot (again, to reiterate, AD Shaco wrecked this aspect of the build as wherever Shaco was, if I was near I was dead), stay up high in both health and mana, with the ability to take objectives fast, push waves fast, waveclear on the defensive to an obnoxious degree, good attack damage, a little attack speed, basically give me everything I personally need.
I don't think it's a good build in general--but I think it's a good build for me given my playstyle and my weaknesses. A build that has good poke but good dps as well. I can't run it every game, obviously, but this was a great test run of what the build can in theory offer so I hope to continue to use it in the future.
With that, I'm going to go get some sleep.
There's probably more that I am forgetting--both to blog about and to do.
But it'll have to wait until tomorrow.