Hey, thanks for taking the effort to reply! I'm so chuffed to hear you mention the eye rolling (: It was what inspired the whole thing because I thought Vel's eye looked like a purple cat's. And also because I usually do horror/violence/~~everything that's R-rated~~. As for what you've raised: I think you're very right with the 'cat looking sad' scene. It seems out of character. I wanted it to be a blatant manipulative move — the cat appears to make mistakes so it seems human and is endearing to MC —, which is why the 'manipulation' line is right after it, but I don't think I made it obvious enough. League is mentioned because I needed a reason for Vel to kill MC, although this is mostly in inference too. Vel would normally wait for him to grow old and keep milking him for all human interactions' worth, but he's being summoned to go fight in the League (of Legends) and is unsure if he'll return, so wants to cash in his human crop beforehand. But you're definitely right. That's too far of an inference, and so it stands out as a weird line. Vel reveals his cards to MC because he's interested in destroying him. (I would love to have added monologue, but the word count literally, physically, beats me up.) Vel didn't even need to show MC he was the cat. He could've just zapped him out of existence, but chose to reveal the facade so he could take everything, mostly hopes and dreams and all that tasty stuff, from MC. I fumbled the execution in the story on explaining that, too, but at least the intent is there >//< Again, thank you so much for reading <3 This is my first time writing anything for League. I'm glad I was given reason to write and share it, and that I know it _was_ shared, in being read.

Hey! Thank you for getting down the bottom here. If you're thinking of posting feedback, I'm going to put my worries for my story forwards first. They might help you put a finger on your thoughts. My major qualms with the story as it stands are these: * With the propensity to skim, it’s easy to miss that the cat is Vel’koz/a void construct at the start. I tried to put in as many signposts as I could, with the first sentence, its fur being the same colour as the ‘gift’ (though that’s an obscure one, and only for hindsight), purple eye mentioned twice, purple described with ‘void’, another out-of-thought-stream reminder that the cat is manipulating MC, but I think it’s still very possible it slides entirely under the radar. * A more severe version of this would be not realising that the cat is vel’koz even at the end. Its purple eye rolls away, it's stated that the eye ‘used to be in the cat [he] adores’, and everything else refers to it by the end — but if that fact slipped a reader, all the references about ‘this was my friend, sad sad’ and vel’s dialogue just become confusing. Everything becomes confusing. * If cat=vel at the start has been missed, the entire first half of the story where two seemingly absolute OCs interact just become boring. It’s just two OCs talking. It loses any manipulative sub-text, and the reader doesn’t care about any of MC’s later ironic introspection/description about the cat. The cat just seems like a Mary Sue. One purple eye/heterochromia? A talking black cat? Smug? Portrayed in an adoring light? Those are all Mary Sue flags, and if it isn’t clear that the cat is actually Vel, it just becomes an dislikable OC that the author is projecting on. * Reader may be too distracted trying to find out who MC is, thinking MC is a league champion, and miss what the cat is. So some pretty major things are contingent on an awareness that I can’t gauge all by myself. Feedback with respect to these problems would be really appreciated. I don’t know what to do ;;;;; tl;dr: worried people won’t realise the cat is some Void construct/Vel.

So much cheek. Very clever. I really liked this! though I'm not a poet at all, so I can't give very remarkable feedback. One thing I can offer: dialogue grammar, please <3 Things like > "Yes and no", I reply, should be > "Yes and no," I reply, Likewise, >like "Welp." can be one of the two, depending on what your sentence wants to be >like, "Welp." like "welp." That said, people will rarely realise these even are mistakes, much less have objections towards them (especially considering your reader base), but they might be handy for any writing in the future! Dialogue tags & their punctuation are very commonly wrong and can instantly put off more picky readers because they work as very reliable red flags. Reading up on them will always be helpful. Glad to hear you had fun writing it, though. Good luck! (:

second this. I feel like you'll run into issues with the word count without making the ending seem rushed.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. Those are respectable choices! I've always interpreted him a lot differently, though you've probably gleaned that from the initial comment anyway. It's good to hear what others think. (Especially since the contest is based on popular vote, haha.) I can't really vouch for any either being more 'true' or not. Say, I think that Vel would be highly sophisticated and that his thought process would reflect this, but this is practically impossible to prove, considering a/ lore doesn't have to be followed to a tee (and his original piece itself doesn't even seem to be edited ): b/ his lore isn't very comprehensive anyway. It's all about the interpretation, and so I'll take yours, here. It's always strange reading something that subverts tropes to fall into another, or maybe that's just me — to have seen too many iterations of tropes that everything has become familiar. 'The mindlessly hungry darkness creature' is one, and 'unexpected empathy from killer/antagonist/dark creature' is another, and 'motherless child spurring empathy' is yet another. It's not really a crime considering how unavoidable it is, or when you want to consider your demographic and how many tropes it's likely that they've seen to grown weary of. Also, if I were to answer that last question, I would say that he wouldn't hesitate. I'd say he lacks many of the biological instincts and/or responses that would spur 'feelings' simply because his brain is not a human one. If something that could inherently, biologically, and structurally not 'feel' were to be presented with the synapses, neurons, and mappings for feeling — because that's what they are, at least to my understanding — he would objectively understand it but never _experience_ it. Maybe that would drive him to continual destruction, pursuing something he physically cannot comprehend. That, or he understands it so fully: the emotional manipulation regarding it as well as the objective understanding of where, why, and for what benefit that feeling has occurred, that he is simply beyond reacting to it. That could make for an interesting story. But that's not what this is about, and it's also another 'twist' in a well-creased fabric. So I'd say good work on your story and the consideration behind it~

Don't apologise :)

I'm a fan of Vel'koz, forever and ever <3 so very very pleasantly surprised to see it was him If I would say something, though, it's that you might go a tad overboard on the "I"s, especially near the beginning. You choose a very simple sentence structure for a highly intelligent being, (which I'd love to hear your choice for, actually!) and with that active sentence type it's easy to repeat pronouns a lot. Also interested to know why you chose to pull on a 'hunger' aspect, too, considering in his canonical lore (though you may have purposely choose a different path from this, which I'd be interested to hear why) he is portrayed to be above base instincts. Also, why choose a child and her mother when Vel likely has had no mother & so direct sense of empathy for motherhood? If he is developing empathy from those he's deconstructed, do you think there would be a less cliché but equally effective means of portraying this? Moreover: why now? Please don't take this as a slight against your work. I've liked yours quite a bit, so far, out of the other posts on the board, and that's why I want to hear your take on your choices (: Edit: I've liked yours the most. Please take this as high praise.