As Luke stepped toward the intimidating oppo in front of him, thoughts of the past tio circute in the back of his mind.

  Holy, I doubt Kai alone could've reied the club. It’s all thanks to Yuel and Lars. They gave Stratus sed wind. Like, we're getting carried HARD by these pros.

  With Yuel and Lars oeam, Stratus had a real ake it big on the petitive stage! But, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, at least not for Luke. On the trary, this development put him on the spot.

  Suddenly, I became the “vilin” of the club. Luke shook his head. I became that guy who is "too zy" because I don’t train 24/7, and somehow I’m the one whs the team down" because I meme. Like bruh, I literally used to be one of the most serious pyers in the old Stratus, what gives?

  In a blink of an eye, everything about the club ged. Now, Luke's dedication to the game suddenly didn't live up to the andard.

  I mean, I knew I wasn't tryharding, but that was the whole point. I was memeing because I didn’t wanna be a sweaty tryhard, but I did put some det effort into my memes.

  That was the haven Luke created for himself. It was supposed to be his personal resort, where he’ll heal all the wounds from all that tryharding he did in the soccer club.

  But then, Yuel busted into this fy spad set it on fire. It was real hard for Luke to acclimate to that sudden ge.

  For a while, Luke insisted on cutting club practice short so he could tinue living his daily routine as before. In response, Yuel and Kai called him all sorts of names and subjected him to a lot of criticism. It was such a pain in the ass.

  Heh, little did these fuckos know that I actually tinued practig at home on my own! Haha, goteem!

  Luke was merely trying to maintain the routihat he started the year before. After club time, he was studying and practig spicy memes. Step by step, he was getting closer to being the Meme God!

  Well, I admit there were some days on which I skipped practid then just scced. Luke only admitted that to himself. Heck, at first, I was so spent every day that I didn’t have the energy to do anything else at home. Yuel’s training regime be brutal.

  It was real hard to suddenly adjust to that extreme menu Yuel whipped out. Dude was treating the club like they were on par with the Leopards or something. It was hel rough.

  I remember I didn’t have any motivation to practiythira at home during the first few months. That menu was killing me.

  Even after Luke somewhat acclimated to that intense regime, his meme practice at home became a sedary priority. He did that whenever he felt like it, but he didn’t maintain a regur schedule.

  Well, that one was oBH. Luke admitted. I should’ve forced myself to do it regurly, then it would’ve been easier to stick with it. But, I didn’t.

  As a result, Luke reached the first scrimmage of the year in a half-cooked state. He didn’t train as hard as his peers at the club, aher did he really practice his memes much at home.

  I’m not a , I’m the entire circus. Luke shook his head. I was making excuses upon excuses.

  He left club practice early because he was gonna “practice memes at home”, but theen zed around at home because he was “too tired from club practice”. Ironic.

  Yep, I totally became a zy ass. My body wasn’t ready for any of this.

  That’s why, during the Taurus scrimmage, Luke’s tribution was on the meh side.

  I mean, personally, I felt like I was doing a great job. But, Yuel chewed me out to no end and the others seemed to agree with his hot takes. Holy, I still think he exaggerated, but I did uand some of his points better after watg the repys.

  On paper, Luke did totally fine. In fact, he and the team did way better than expected, and that brought a smile to his face.

  Finally, Stratus weren’t the biggest losers of the regioually put on a fight, and we even mopped these Taurus bois!

  This was a huge step up pared to the previous year. But, Yuel being Yuel, of course that dude wasn’t satisfied with the team’s performahat tryhard nerd was aiming all the way to the nationals.

  Holy, Luke thought the guy was mad at first. There was no way ihat a team like Stratus could possibly ever get that far. A, Yuel and Lars definitely brought in the results. They were clearly cut above the rest of the petition. Even a team like Taurus was no match to their skill level.

  Seriously, these guys should be pying on the Leopards or StormBlitz. Like, I still don’t uand why they ditched Storm for a sorry-ass team like ours, but whatever.

  The bottom line was that Stratus did hel fine in that scrum. And, Luke also did hel fi least in his head. But then BOOM, that long-ass match review sermon happened.

  My guy destroyed everybody with FACTS and LOGIC. It was hard tet that one, especially for Luke. After all, Yuel pretty much accused Luke’s memeing ing the eeam down. The nerve of some people smh.

  But, as much as I always defend my memes, I had to admit dude had a point. There was no denying that Luke's css picks made the team’s lineup a little sus. I've never really thought that much about team positions, to be ho. I was always like "Well, I'mma pick a janky css for the lulz and it gonna work out as long as I know how to py it.”

  But, that was such a naive way of thinking. The team's lineup was like a monolith. If there ing hole anywhere on it, then the rest of the lineup had to pensate for it in order to keep the monolith glued together.

  Yuel lectured about that stuff every now and then, but we usually had no problem in Ranked on that front so I kinda waved him off. Luke shrugged. But, the st scrim made me realize that my picks actually caused more problems than I expected.

  And so, once again, Luke found himself in an awkward spot as a dedicated memer. He brought his memes all the way to the petitive stage and even performed adequately, but none of that mattered because his css picks were disastrous for his teammates on a fual level.

  In other words, Luke could literally be the best pyer in the world with his csses, yet Yuel would still find faults with his performance.

  The match review lecture also made me realize I was taking the easy way out all this time. Kek.

  The vast majority of Luke’s memes were Setup Junglers. But, why was that the case? Did he like setting up kills more than he liked sg kills directly?

  Hell naw. I prefer to screw my oppos with my own two hands! That’s always cooler!

  A, he used Setup Junglers. Why? Because that was the most ve way to utilize memes.

  I mean, all I o make a Setup Jungler viable is det CC. Luke thought. I just get to the se, set up a nice opportunity, and hope that one of my buddies hahe rest from there. Ez life.

  This pystyle allowed Luke to sweep many of the memes' fws uhe rug. Basically, he ying like a pseudo-Support.

  Even when he fell behind in terms of exp and gold, he had an excuse: “Hey, I’m just a Setup Jungler, dawg! My level doesn’t matter as long as I do setups.”

  If I picked a Juhat was focused on killing, then falling behind on farm would've been the end of me.

  This was basically the biggest hurdle of memeing as a Jungler. Any css that could farm jungle camps fast enough and score kills would’ve been a viable pick, even if it wasn’t ht meta. But, memes were memes because they were terrible at these things.

  To make things worse, the issue always escated throughout the game. The memer fell behind on farm, which made it even weaker than it already was. So, that made it EVEN HARDER to farm effitly or score kills.

  It's like reverse snowballing. Luke shook his head. You have a shitty start and it only gets worse from there.

  Before long, the poor memer finds himself uo do anything in the game. Camps take too long to clear and ganks bee impossible because everybody and their moms overpower the Jungler.

  That's why I stopped b with that kind of memeing. Luke thought. I tried to make it work before, I really did. But, it’s way too disastrous, not worth it. I do a much better job as a setup boi.

  But, Yuel just had to e along and grill Luke for this pystyle. Which made sense, since assassins and aggressive bruisers kinda domihe current junglia. Being able to gank nes alone ractically a requirement for a Juhese days.

  At first, I tried to deny everything Yuel lectured me about, but deep down I knew he had a point. Luke admitted. He evehrough all these mental gymnastics to prove to me that he was right. Holy, I kinda feel like an ass for f him to work that hard for it, but I guess I needed somebody to apply that much pressure on me.

  Just because Luke khat pig an aggressive Jungler was "right", it didn't mean he registered it as "correct". The rebellious memer in him insisted oing the idea. Every time he thought about this topic, a voice whispered to him: "You tried memeing aggressively like this but you failed, didn't you? So, stick to Setup Junglers, nub."

  In the end, I guess I was just being a mer. Luke realized. I was scared of memeing aggressively because it didn't work before. But, then I remembered one important thing: I wasn't the same memer I was before!

  Luke accumuted plenty of experience ever since he joiratus, and even more after Yuel transformed their training regime into Spartan training. So, with his current skill level and knowledge, Luke might have what it takes to py memes aggressively!

  But, I didn't have that much time to prepare for this scrim. Luke thought. I had to pick a css ahat bad boi up to speed ASAP. So, it had to be something spicy with all the right tools for being an aggressive Jungler.

  And so, that's how Luke arrived at Dark Knight. The css was already a borderline meme as Top despite boasting unparalleled early-game strength. It was the ultimate do-or-die css!

  It’s the perfect aggressive meme! Nothing symbolizes memeier than going all in. You either die a scrub or live long enough to see yourself bee a legend!

  The more Luke read about Jungler DK, the more vinced he became that this shit was legit. He even saw videos of high-ranked pyers making it work in Challenger, and even in Master rank! Shit was tight!

  Well, to be fair, for every video in which this meme worked, I'm sure there were at least 10 others in which it flopped hard. There’s no way it work sistently at these levels. But, we ain't really at that level, so it's all good.

  A meme that at least had a ce of w at the highest levels was bound to be viable at the middle school level.

  In the first pce, I dunno if people realize it, but meta only matters at the highest levels. Luke reasoned. So, unless some css or strat is totally broken like Shadow used to be, then anything is viable, really. It's all down to the pyer’s mastery.

  Therefore, as long as Luke put in the effort and polished this juicy Dark Knight meme, it was going to perform strongly even on the petitive se for sure! And, it really did! Luke mopped the floor with these scrubs!

  But, they were quick to adapt. In this game, they weren't uimating Luke anymore, so they took all the necessary precautions against him. Winner didn't eve him ter-jungle much, that bastard.

  This is the real test. Luke thought as he advaoward his foe. I went from tryharding in soccer to memeing hard in Mancers, and now I’m somewhere in the middle.

  He was too much of a memer to be a tryhard, but also too tryhard to be a pure memer. Basically, he was brandishing an off-meta css while still trying to follow the overall rules of the metagame. He was a living, breathing paradox.

  But, I gonna make this work! I have to! After all, that's all I have right now.

  Luke didn’t have any fallbacks in case his memeing fails. For him, memeing was everything, and he was nothing without it.

  "If you're nothing without the memeing, then shouldn’t have it." Luke chuckled to himself. This is your brain on memes, kek.

  He shook his head to clear out all these idle thoughts. The time for reminisg was over. Now, it was time to fight.

  Against an oppo of this caliber, Luke didn’t have the luxury to doubt himself or the path that led him here. Ultimately, he was right here, right now, on this stage. And, he was about to challenge a borderline pro-level oppo from the Leopards.

  I just gotta win, it's as simple as that. I worry about everything else ter.

  And so, he charged forth at AbsoluteWinner!

  DarkestCymore