League of Legends, Zoosexuality, and the Value of Teamwork
Is there any feeling better than being a part of a great team? If you've gotten the chance to experience this in your life, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. When you have a group of people, say 5 for instance, who all want the same thing, who want to get there in the same way, and who all enjoy each other's company on the journey. Maybe it's your team at work, as you do labor in exchange for money but in a way where you all feel good about it. Maybe it's your editing team where you all review articles and run the number one zoosexual lifestyle and advocacy magazine. Maybe it's your League of Legends team, all trying to hit Platinum by the end of the season.
Here's the thing about League. If you know anything about the game, it's probably that it makes people angry and toxic. And honestly, that does happen a fair amount. Games of League can take anywhere from 15 minutes up to an hour. If you had a tough day at work, and decide to play one ranked game in the time you have before bed, just for your jungler to feed kills to the enemy team over and over again essentially ruining the game, it's easy to feel like they've essentially stolen 40ish minutes of time from you based off their actions. More than that even, since the loss means that you've lost your precious ranked score, so you now need to play another full game to (hopefully) get it back.
This is why many people (myself included) prefer to play League with a premade group of 5. When everyone you're playing with is someone that you already like, that you know is also out there doing their best, it can be so much easier to give them the benefit of the doubt. They aren't actually trying to ruin your night, they're just having an off day. It happens. Still, even playing with a group of 5 doesn't mean that you're going to always love each other. I have a group of friends that I play with weekly, and while for the most part it's a lot of fun, sometimes I'm hopping in one team member's DMs after our games to bitch about another. Sometimes we finish playing and all stick around and chat for another half hour, sometimes the game ends and we all just awkwardly leave call at once. It's a competitive game. Struggle is at the heart of it. And you can't have struggle without sometimes experiencing some negative feelings, even towards people you otherwise like. In a competition, there's a winner and a loser, and nobody wants to be the loser.
You know what else is a competitive game? Zoosexuality. Don't get me wrong, just like with League, it's possible to play just for fun. But the core experience is a player vs player battle for supremacy. And of course, by supremacy I mean achieving our goals and attaining zoo rights and also animal rights and making the world a better place. We aren't going to get there without engaging in some team fights. And, there's no world where we manage to win the war without losing a couple battles here and there.
Sometimes in League, your jungler misses smite and the enemy mid steals baron. It's 100% an unforced error, and something they shouldn't have happen. It would be so easy to call them out for that thing, and make it a big deal. ot only is that a shit thing to do to a friend, but if your goal is to try and win the game at the end, starting to be an asshole to someone on your side isn't helping you achieve that either. Instead, you can choose to be a good teammate. You can say "Hey don't worry buddy it happens" and refocus on the objective at large. Isn't that better for everyone?
That's not to say that you need to be complacent. Say that they're missing that smite every single game. Or, for a more direct example, say that they're hopping in all chat every game as soon as you boot up, and they just start calling the enemy team every slur under the book. That's not really behavior I want to cosign with my name on the same side as them, nor is it something I even really want to see, even if it is towards the enemy team. At that point, you have a bad teammate, and it might be worth letting them go.
Nobody is perfect. It's just a fact of life. Not in League of Legends, and not outside of it either. Sometimes other zoos are going to do stupid things. I'm sure you've seen it happen. I've certainly made my own share of mistakes as well. I just don't think if you believe that you're both operating in good faith that the right way to approach that situation is by trying to harass them over it. Chances are, they already know they did something dumb, and they're trying to live and learn. That's not to say that every crime should be easily excused. There are some stupid things people can do that they shouldn't be forgiven for. Or, even if they do something smaller that's stupid, but they do it over and over and over again and never learn. At some point it's better to draw the line and cut them off, but I don't think that should be the first step. Especially if you're aligned with most of your goals.
One of the people on my League team voted for Trump. I don't think he's full on MAGA or anything like that, but he does definitely have more conservative views than I have. I bet if we got into a conversation about politics, immigration, abortion, or a few other things, we'd probably have a pretty big disagreement on the topic. But, does that really matter? Don't get me wrong, I think voting for Trump is really stupid, but 50% of the population clearly disagreed. I don't think that it's possible to just say "Trump Bad" as a condemnation of that whole side of the United States and move on. There's a lot more nuance there than that. And, I don't think that getting into big vocal fights about it actually does all that much to change anyone's minds about things. The thing that caused me to write this article in the first place is that he DM'd me a week or so ago to tell me something. He told me that before we got to know each other, he had concerns about joining the team at first because he wasn't sure about playing with someone that uses they/them pronouns.
When we first started playing together, he pretty much exclusively referred to me with gendered ones. I don't think he was trying to do it spitefully, it was more just that it was something that he wasn't used to. It was funny. First he called me She/Her for a while, and then at some point started using He/Him sometimes, and now just hits me with whatever he feels like in the moment, with they/them becoming more and more common. For me, I don't super care about pronouns at the worst of times, but watching him slowly learn was something really cool, and it's that he's putting in the effort that matters to me more than whether or not he gets it right.
In this DM he sent me, he followed up by saying that he was sorry for all the times he got it wrong, and that he thought I was great to play with, and was glad that he joined. It really meant a lot to me. We 'd already grown fairly close, but to know that I had an impact on his personal beliefs felt very validating. We became a team, and we learned from one another and grew. Truth be told, I almost quit the team when I found out he voted for Trump, but I stuck around because another friend said to just give it a shot. In the same way that he judged me, I judged him, and he was the one that was finally brave enough to apologize for it. But we only got to that point because we would get together, hop on call, and play some god damn League of Legends. I still think it's stupid that he voted for orange man, and maybe one day I'll ask if he regrets it with how things are gone. But when it comes to League, it wasn't about the politics, it was just about the game. And we work REALLY well as a team.
I think competitive zoosexuality is the same way. There are plenty of people in the zoo community that I have strong fundamental disagreements with. There's a horse guy on Twitter who struggles putting together his attraction to animals with his faith in od. There are times I want to just shake him and yell in his face about how religion is bullshit and he's just hurting himself trying to force himself to fit in that box, but that's not really my place, and I know that that's not going to help. There are people that operate in ways that I think are really reductive to our goals, that do nothing but make people afraid, but I don't think making call out posts every day really helps to solve that problem. It just causes more infighting. There are people who do things that I think are pretty stupid, and who put themselves in bad situations over and over again just out of pure ignorance, rather than any harm, and I wish I could just direct them like a video game character to stop them from walking into any more pits, but I can't. And that's okay.
At the end of the day, we're a team. Sometimes we need to look past the small stuff and recognize that. In league, the goal of a team is to climb. To ascen the ranks and become the best you can be. In your way is the whole of the playerbase who are also trying to climb just like you are. The only way to advance is by just being better. But it's impossible to do alon. You need to be better as a team. As zoos, the odds are even more stacked against us. We're fighting against society itself. The social structures that restrict animals to be property. The bigotry against our sexuality. There are so many battles to fight. And I just don't think it's possible without being part of a team.
I want to make something super clear here. I'm not saying that every Zoo is a great person who should be exempt from their crimes, just in the same way that I'm not saying that every League of Legends player (or Trump voter) is a great guy that just needs to be understood better. There are bad League players, bad zoosexuals, bad people. Bad teammates. It's important to recognize when people are irredeemable. But I think it's just as important to recognize when someone is on your team, and just trying their best too. Maybe you disagree on some things, but at the end of the day, you're both just trying to win the game. And it'll be a whole heck of a lot easier if you're working together instead of shooting shots at each other.
Being a good teammate isn't just about the plays that you make in game. It's not just about whether or not you're sending the right tweets or following the right people. It's a state of mind. It's about being someone people want to play with. It's not always easy to hop on and grind games out, but if you can make that a little bit more pleasant, that's a huge win. It's about giving people the grace to know they can ask dumb questions and get supportive answers. It's about letting people know when they make little mistakes, they're okay to laugh about it rather than brace for the ire of those around them. It's about working together, not working apart.
There's something so amazing about being part of a team. I love hopping on the rift with those four other players and pulling out huge victories, operating like a well oiled machine. I also love being a part of the zoo community, a part of a community of people who all love animals so much, and who want to be able to express their attraction just like everyone else.
Whether it's League of Legends or zoosexuality, teamwork makes all the difference.
Article written by Tarro (July 2025)
Find them at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo
