Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Fifth Age Taric summary

More than a few times, I ran into a few League of Legends costumers the following day, and picked up conversations with them, before I came to the realization that they had no idea who I was, and that I was probably some weirdo.  Well, they’re correct in the weirdo assessment, but more than once I pretty much realized that they didn’t recognize me, and I had to remind them that I was the “Pink Taric from earlier.”

Overall, I was very pleased at how well received Armor of the Fifth Age Taric was from people, especially League fans, and it was admittedly nice to be in a costume that could legitimately rival the vastly more aesthetically pleasing looking women that I was privileged to be grouped up with in terms of popularity and cult following.  It’s like for every rando dude who just wanted a picture of hot chicks in tight costumes, there would be like two legit Taric fans to sing my praises about how truly truly outrageous my costume was.  No disrespect to the ladies, but this is somewhat of a new sensation for me.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Saturday

Saturday’s gallery is vastly smaller than what a normal Saturday gallery should be, but that’s entirely due to the fact that I myself was in costume for a good part of the late-afternoon into the evening hours.  Now as much fun as I had being Fifth Age Taric, I’d be the first to admit that I spotted a lot of things that I’d really liked to have taken pictures of, had I not been in costume.  And Taric’s not exactly the kind of costume where I could sneak a point-and-shoot with me to take some B-roll shots, since both my hands are occupied in costume.

Regardless, most of Saturday’s highlights are lots of League of Legends costumes; I wandered around the gigantic group shot area outside of the Hilton, and waited out the group pictures, since to be perfectly honest, I hate taking pictures of monstrously sized groups, preferring more to take pictures of individuals or in small pairs or troikas.

Not saying there’s no pictures of things not LoL-related, but it’s pretty obvious to what has and is my preferred subject to take pictures of.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Friday

Admittedly, and embarrassingly, I admit that I spent the vast majority of Friday morning/afternoon dealing with a rager of a hangover from the previous night’s shenanigans.  That being said, I kind of felt like I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I normally do at a D*C, but at the same time, I was wondering if there were many things that me personally, wanted to take pictures of.

I’m not saying that what was out there was utter garbage, but it’s no secret that the unofficial rule of costuming is that the big guns come out on Saturday; Fridays are like for the secondary tier of costumes, or something along those lines.  After all, I can attest to having more than one conversation with friends and acquaintances that echo such a sentiment.

Regardless, there was still plenty of things to take pictures of, and again I’ll have to remark about how I’m disappointed in myself for being so negligent and unpracticed to have gone the entire weekend with my new camera and new lens operating without the image stabilization that an amateur like me probably really needs.

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The first of likely several post-Dragon*Con posts

I realize that after giving out plug cards to my site throughout a weekend, it would be fortuitous if I actually had something about Dragon*Con on the front page, so that any new viewers aren’t hit in the face with social commentary or my more minutae ramblings, when ultimately they’re looking for pictures of themselves from the convention.  This is coming a little later than I had hoped, because upon coming home from D*C, it turns out that my furnace shit the bed, and I’ve been without air conditioning in a stifling home for the last 24 hours, until an HVAC guy could come fix it.

Anyway, it’s going to be a little while for me to process through the 300+ photographs taken at the convention, so if you’re just here for pictures, I’d recommend tracking me down on Facebook, where I occasionally inform folks when I upload my galleries.  Or, I certainly won’t mind having another reader, if you’re into verbose wordy opinions on a daily basis.

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League of Lobby, volume 5

Every now and then while playing League of Legends, you’ll have the unfortunate circumstance of getting paired up with a player or players, that simply don’t show up to play, in spite of the fact that they took the time to queue up and give the impression that they were going to play the game. Just about every LoL player on the planet has dealt with this unfortunate situation, and despite the fact that on occasion, a gallant undermanned victory does occur, most of the time, the team with the missing player(s) usually end up on the side of defeat.

In the latest volume of the League of Lobby, my friends and I were in a game in which the opposing team was missing a player; notably, the person they probably believed was going to be their tank, whose job would have been to be a walking wall of health, meant to distract, interfere, obstruct, agitate, and be a general pain in the ass. They never showed up, whether it was due to shitty internet service, or my favorite belief, that their mom had kicked in their bedroom door, and forcibly removed the player from the keyboard.

Usually, in these types of games, there’s kind of this unwritten/unspoken etiquette from the fully-staffed team, that you try and end the game as quickly and mercifully as possible; after all, it’s never fun being on the side with the AFK’er. If you’re the full team, you don’t goof off too much, you don’t spam all chat with taunts or any cocky speak, and in the likelihood you win, usually a cursory “sorry for the AFK’er” remark of some sort. The short-staffed team will make as much effort as they feel they can win, but in most cases, being a man/woman down is usually a bad obstacle that ultimately snuffs out most rallies and attempts.

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League of Lobby, volume 4

No, I did not neglect to change out the character silhouette. It just so happened that another Lux player who went off the handle.

I knew this was eventually going to happen, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon, honestly. But in this edition of League of Lobby, the rager just so happened to be on the winning team, that I was thankful to be a part of, because I like to win, and it’s a safe bet that many of these won’t frequently come out of losing efforts, because regardless of the gg’s I may type, I’m usually disappointed after a loss, and wish not to engage people in the post-lobby.

Regardless, contextually, our team won on the strength of two AD carries, and TANKLU played by yours truly. We also had a Lux, who is about one of the easiest characters to use in an ARAM game, and a Zac player who was a little too timid to do his job and absorb punishment, in spite of his 4,000+ hit points. Regardless, we won the match, but our Lux didn’t take so kindly to some criticism in her direction in the midst of the game, like imploring her to not stand in Karthus’s defiled earth, or follow directly in the poison smoke of Singed.

Instead of trying to logically argue, or admit their shortcomings, they did the next most natural response: fight back with vitriol. And might I once again state, that we’re all on the winning team.

Welcome to the League of Lobby!

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League of Lobby, volume 3

This one’s a pretty short transcript, because everyone was so ragey, but I still figured it could be salvaged into the third edition of the League of Lobby; where only the toughest of the tough emerge from the muck of the exalted classy Riot community, to talk all the smack they’d be afraid to say in-game, where the watchful eyes of Riot and their peers in the tribunal could actually see them. So they take their frustrations to the blind safety of the post-match lobby, where the stars (asterisks) really begin to fly.

Context: It’s One For All: Mirror Mode at this point (AKA every single player plays the same character) and in this particular game, everyone got Lux (a froo-froo girly weezard), which was actually what most of my friends and I had voted for. She’s typically of the mage ranks, so her basic strategy is to increase the strength of her magic spells, and nuke enemies into oblivion.

When the opposing team noticed that one of us was immediately foregoing offensive items, and going defensive, they decided to throw down the gauntlet, and declare that person (jen) a “try hard” for daring to use her brain to attempting to get the upper hand against five of the exact same opponent. Naturally, this puzzled us, as typically the point of a match is to utilize the concept of “strategy” and try and best your opponents. Regardless, we immediately questioned their illogical frustration at us attempting to strategize a winning tactic.

And figure that, our strategy worked, and we won the match. Naturally, they were exemplary sports, and wished us good game.

Just kidding, they, rather one of them, was pissed off. Welcome to the League of Lobby!

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