We talked for about 3 months, and had only met in person twice before things ended. I graduated college, finally dyed my

The short version is that a lot of details about Seraphine line up very closely with facts about myself: her name, her drawings, her cat, a lot of her pictures, her hair color, her eye color, her face shape, and even where she’s from.,While I knew him, John discussed his job quite a bit, and many of our conversations were entirely about the game, its development, etc. My favorite champion is Ahri, and the first thing that was a little strange was that he would bring up skin ideas that sounded, well, a lot like me.,[And before someone mentions it, while I don’t know exactly what happened with her development, I didn’t make this up — I’ve hired a lawyer, and I’m seriously considering legal action. My statements are to the best of my knowledge/memory, and I’ve edited carefully to be as clear and fair as I can.],I also played League with John regularly. I’d make jokes and such while we played, and I remember John saying something like ‘we have to put that in’ while we played. I remember asking him not to, even at the time — some jokes an acquaintance of mine had made up, and honestly, I felt weird about stealing it from that friend if it could actually go in the game (which is ironic, I guess.),In March of 2019, I matched with a Riot employee (I’ll call him John. I’d prefer not to post his identity publicly for reasons I’ll explain further down) on Tinder during a visit to Los Angeles and San Francisco for some final job interviews while I was still in college. He seemed nice, we talked a bit, exchanged contact information, and then he pursued me romantically for the next few months. We talked until May/June (when things ended for other reasons) but we frequently played League together and exchanged messages for ~3 months.,I looked into her Twitter account more, and found Seraphine’s art, sketches, and journals. I’m a hobby illustrator and artist, and I remembered I had actually sent John some art. My art is strikingly similar to art that Seraphine ‘makes’ of herself and is posted to her social media. Like, really similar.,Animals are unable to acquire language even when presented with the same data as humans. There was a famous experiment in the 1960s where linguists attempted to teach a chimpanzee (named “Nim Chimpsky”) to learn sign language, but after 10 years he was still unable to communicate beyond a few rudimentary tasks.,John also told me he was partially involved with K/DA’s first skins, informally, because he knew a lot of the people on the team. I’m not sure how much of that was self-inflation or truth, but John definitely implied that he could influence the project, and had successfully suggested things in the past. (I want to be clear: he was not a character or skin designer. I really don’t want to unfairly implicate anyone, especially people who might not have known anything.),I had no idea how she was made or how this even could’ve happened, but scrolling through this Twitter and remembering things John said or did, I started to realize that this character — whose very name, Seraphine, is so similar to Stephanie — could seriously be based off me.,[Since people will wonder about it anyway, the relationship’s end wasn’t particularly juicy: I had just ended a long relationship and was antsy about commitment, I cancelled plans to see him because I thought he was moving too fast and expressed that, then he ended things and blocked me. I don’t really have hard feelings about that part. I hope this explanation is enough to satisfy curiosity, but beyond these basics, I’d like to keep some things personal.],Near the tail end of my brief friendship/relationship with John, I wrote an academic essay for a class about Piltover and Zaun that I shared with John and discussed with him extensively. He invited me to Los Angeles again and I accepted, touring Riot’s headquarters in May. When I arrived, he had printed out and framed that piece of writing inside Riot’s HQ. He even told me he had shared it internally. I was flattered, but a little self conscious that others had read my writing. I don’t even think he asked my permission. Another strange circumstance was when he gave me some gifts of posters and custom art of me as K/DA Ahri, which he told me Riot illustrators drew based on what he told/showed them about me. While I don’t blame the artists at all — I’m sure their intentions were pure — it was strange for how short of a time I’d known him. I flew home, and we stopped speaking entirely shortly after.,That’s Stephanie’s art on the left, (I was deciding to dye my hair pink and drew the options) but I frequently draw myself in this style. Seraphine’s, of course, is on the right.,Over a whole year passed, the pandemic took over headlines, and then sometime this year, Seraphine was released. I honestly hadn’t thought about John very much at all since then — I have a completely different life in the Bay Area now — but as soon as I saw what she looked like and realized she was going to be a League champion, I started scrolling through her accounts, completely freaked out. My worries only grew and my heart sank more and more with every post. While John never explicitly discussed anything concrete, he did mention a K/DA related ‘surprise’ of something that would release around my birthday, which is on September 19th.,Honestly, I know all of that (and more!) because I’ve been worried sick about what people will say about this if I talk about it publicly for the better part of two months. I’ve tried to think of every criticism or reason someone could call me crazy, but my reasons for believing this all add up to the point that I don’t really mind if a few people are awful to me online (although, please try to be nice?) If you keep reading, I’ll provide the evidence I have as best as I can.,That’s insane! There are thousands of girls with pink hair! How could a random girl think she’s the inspiration for a videogame character in a $6 billion dollar game? She’s clearly based on someone else.