I got Evelynn for my birthday! Or at least, Riot released Evelynn’s update on my birthday, and I already owned her, so basically I got her for my birthday.

Evelynn was an early favourite of mine and I purchased her before I knew that she was only played in the jungle. And I remember thinking that she probably needed to be updated, but I didn’t really think it would actually happen. But now it has!

Let me start by saying that overall I am very pleased. My interest in her has been reignited. That said, though, she’s far from perfect.

I love her new Q animation – it’s so satisfying – and the concept of her lashers, her ultimate, the fact that she has a charm and many aspects of her appearance. I also love that she doesn’t sound like a chain smoker anymore.

There are two things about her kit that straight up just don’t make sense to me, though. I’ll precede this by saying that I didn’t have time to watch any videos so perhaps the answers to these questions are very simple, but for now these are my thoughts.

For one thing – what’s the point of adding a skillshot aspect to her Q if you don’t even have to hit it in order to be able to re-cast the auto-targeted spikes? tect suggested that they added the skillshot in order to limit her to 3 spikes, but they could still enact a limit without that initial skillshot.

The second thing is that the waiting time for the charm to activate on her W seems incredibly impractical. I like the idea, but they need to give her something to do in those 2 seconds. Because realistically, what is she doing? Walking around? She can’t do anything to continue the fight, because any basic attack or ability immediately expunges the W curse, and then what’s the point of even casting it in the first place? She either has to just let her enemy attack her or run away. Perhaps the idea is that she’s supposed to ‘lure’ her enemy into following her, thereby charming her, which makes sense in a way, but that’s a very specific way of fighting that doesn’t always work. In addition, it’s likely that she would just be caught given how many champions have abilities and/or items that give them movement speed.

And finally, how is that helpful against jungle monsters? One of my lessons in jungling was ‘never stop attacking’, because they’re not going to stop attacking you, and you’re just going to take a bunch of damage for no reason. (Also, is anyone else sad that at some point they changed the name from Lust Dust to Allure?)

Like I said, I love her lashers, so naturally I love her E and ultimate, where she gets to use them the most. However, I feel like the range on her E should be increased, partially because I feel like she needs it, and partially because it would just fit her character and her assassin nature. I just feel like she needs some kind of dash with a range long enough that she could use it over walls (maybe that part could just be when it’s empowered by Demon Shade, because otherwise that would probably just be overpowered).

Her R is indeed awesome but the blink animation is kind of disorienting, although maybe I just feel that way because I play with a locked camera. I’m also not sure if she needs to go quite that far, although I just read that she can actually blink backwards over walls with her R so perhaps that is the reason for that. That said, it makes it kind of impractical to use unless you’re sure you want it to be the end of the fight. Xayah’s ultimate has a similar mechanism, but she can choose to move back or not. It’s used as an escape tool a lot, but it doesn’t have to be.

I love her new passive. She can still be invisible, but I like that it’s delayed until level 6 – it gives other players time to gain strength (and access to their ultimates) so that they can fight back if she sneaks up on them. Most of all, though, I love her healing mechanism.

They could have gone further with her design in terms of bringing her story to life – the idea is that she looks like a sexy human woman to draw in her prey, but if that is her goal, then why leave so many demonic elements in place even in her human form (lashers, arm spikes, long creepy fingers)? I realize that the lashers are the foundation of her new design and how she deals damage, but maybe they could be ‘invisible’ unless she’s using them. They also could have made her face, hair, and outfit look more like a normal human woman, albeit a very attractive one. I’m not saying she looks bad – she looks awesome. I’m merely saying that perhaps it doesn’t fit her new story as well as it could.

It seems like her demon shade form is supposed to be closer to her ‘true’ form so maybe those demonic elements could come out then, like her horns do.

Shadow Evelynn is the only Evelynn skin I have currently and for the most part I’m pleased with what they’ve done with it. I miss the dominatrix aspect of it, but she still looks nice. I think the idea of it is that it’s supposed to be a closer representation of what she looks like in Demon Shade, but still made to look human – her horns are a headpiece (initially I thought it was a stupid Irelia hat, but now that I get it, I’m not mad anymore), her clothes and hair are black, and she has blue incorporated in her hair and fingernails, which honestly seems kind of random but it looks cool.

I think it’s funny that Evelynn is wearing MORE clothes in all of her skins than she is in her original form – usually I feel like it’s the other way around.

I don’t think she even IS wearing clothes in her original form – at first I thought it was some kind of body paint or just the colour of her skin in those places, but her ‘outfit’ is actually animated and you can see the edges of it move around in the game. I think that she’s actually just ‘covering’ herself with demon shade. Which would mean she’s literally naked. This would also explain why she’s just a walking butt in her demon shade form.

Seriously, zoom in on that. She’s basically just a big walking butt.

Now, I have no issues with sexualization as long as it’s for a good reason and presented as an autonomous choice that the character has made for themselves. In Evelynn’s case, I think it is for a very good reason, explained wonderfully in her updated bio and short story. But I’m surprised just how far they went. They didn’t just give her a slinky outfit and a nice body like they did with Ahri (and honestly, Ahri’s outfit isn’t even that cute). They made her…well, THIS.

It’s like they all sat around in a board room discussing how far they could possibly go, writing things like “nipple pasties?” on a whiteboard.

That makes me feel a bit icky, but it’s also hilarious.

I guess that is where my conflicted feelings come from. For the most part, Riot employees probably view her as a piece of art, the way that I do. But what if they don’t? What were their intentions? Were their intentions to create this three-dimensional character, or were their intentions to pander to a certain demographic?

And let’s say that their intentions were mostly the former – surely they still know how that certain demographic will react to her. Not everyone will see her as a character first. Some will see her as masturbation fodder first, as evidenced by the numerous comments about her body that have already appeared in the few games I’ve played as her. It’s the video game equivalent of cat-calling.

I don’t believe that creators are responsible for the actions of their audience, but it would be nice if Riot was a little bit more explicit about what their true message is.

There is some pretty explicit shade thrown towards the portion of League’s audience that will only see her for her body in her new bio:

To the demon, these liaisons are innocent flings. To the rest of Runeterra, they are ghoulish tales of lust gone awry and horrific reminders of the cost of wanton desire.

In other words, if you look at her and see a body before you consider her story and character, you are exactly like all the people she violently murders, and while most people in the real world probably won’t murder you, there is still a ‘cost’ for behaving that way, even if that cost is only driving people around you away.

What is interesting to me about this is that it is not specified what that ‘wanton desire’ has to be. Because truthfully, there are many reasons why people objectify other people, and it’s not always for their bodies. Maybe you like the idea of dating someone with a high salary, or a certain profession, or certain interests. Maybe you want something out of a relationship so badly, like marriage or children, that it becomes more about that thing than the person you’re with.

As for her character and story itself, I was pleasantly surprised by how complex she was. Despite literally calling her a demon several times, they humanized her motivations through her short story, particularly in the way that she described her perception of the humans around her.

My favourite part was this line:

Perhaps, at any moment, the thrill from her last victim might wear off, leaving only the nothingness—that utterly empty space inside her where feelings should be.

She’s a demon, but even she is afraid of the metaphorical void. How many times have you done something stupid just because you want to feel something, just because you want to fill some kind of hole that you feel has been created in you? Or conversely, how many times have you felt like you’re going to burst with feelings and would do anything to not be left alone with them?

So overall, I’m very happy. I’m especially happy that I feel like she can be played in lane. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of her abilities, but I think it’s definitely possible in a way that it wasn’t before. She feels a little weak, especially in the early game, but that might just be me, and I trust that if she needs to be balanced out, Riot will make sure that happens before long. Playing as her feels badass, and that is exactly what I was looking for when I purchased her so many months ago.

By the way, thank you to everyone who came to our special Tuesday stream to celebrate my birthday with me! I had a great time. Tuesday was a sad and hard day, which is why we were late (again, I apologize) but you guys made me feel better.

What also made me feel better was the fact that I finished my placements and was placed in Silver 5! That is 5 whole divisions higher than I thought I would be placed! I ended my placements with 3 wins and 7 losses, which doesn’t exactly scream Silver 5 to me, but people are saying that because I was mostly matched with players Silver and Gold players, the system was like, “Wow, you didn’t literally lose all of them? Great job!” and placed me at Silver 5. I guess. I don’t really understand it. But I’m not complaining.

I’m just excited that I get a border and a ward skin next year! (Side note – I also love the honor ward skins.) People have suggested that I try to climb into Gold to get the Victorious Graves skin, but I don’t really want it. I’ll still play some more ranked games over the next 3 weeks just to see what it’s like now that my placements are over, but I have no real goal.

If you missed my placements, there will be a highlight video of them coming out in a couple of weeks on our Youtube. Although honestly, they were pretty boring and depressing for the most part.

Anyway, next week I promise I will do a recap on new champions I’ve tried (I made a list, I swear). In the meantime, let me know what your thoughts on Evelynn are, and if you did something nice for International Day of the Girl (which was yesterday, on my birthday) let me know! I asked for you guys to do something to support women as a birthday gift, and I meant to talk about it on Tuesday’s stream, but I was so sad and distracted that I forgot. So if you did please leave a comment and let me know, that would make me really happy 🙂

Death snack of the week: Birthday cake FOR DAYZZZZ

P.S. Should I buy the bundle of Evelynn skins? I want them all anyway, and I have enough RP…

P.P.S. tect read the following line out loud to me: “There was something deep inside her, a melancholy that would taint the experience. Evelynn preferred inflicting the pain herself.” And then said something like, “Damn, I mean we can all relate to that right?” and I was like, um…no??? And then he said that he meant that we can all relate to having a deep melancholy inside of us that taints our experiences. And I was like, why didn’t you just stop there then????