Tag: league of legends

Writing when I’m not feeling writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then, I’ll hit a point where I look at my docket of written things, and feel as if I haven’t written anything in a while, and then I feel anxious because I’m OCD like that and feel like I should be writing at the very least, once a week.

However, admittedly a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ve been feeling like the world around me is in this stagnant state where on any given point, it feels like the world’s primary topics of discussion are encapsulated in these really small capsules as of late, and it’s like the same things are discussed and rehashed 50,000 times before the next thing that should probably be taking a back seat to larger things emerges and the cycle repeats itself.

Like, for example, it seems like the only things being talked about in the world are:

  • Sexual harassment that stemmed from Harvey Weinstein
  • Gun control that stemmed from the Las Vegas shootings
  • Kneeling during the National Anthem that stemmed from Colin Kaepernick
  • Football

Despite the fact that there are vastly bigger issues in the world currently such as:

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note]: Among many of the things random visitors might be remotely interested in seeing, would be convention pictures from years past.  And of the several cons where I took my camera with me to take photos, Dragon*Con 2017 would be one of them.

I’ll be honest, this was a particularly trying D*C for me, and there was a lot going on in my personal life that was justifiably distracting me from having any semblance of genuine enjoyment during the weekend, and it was pretty evident as far as I was concerned.  But it wasn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the company of many friends that I did get to see.

However, the fact that there’s literally only a singular gallery from the convention itself should say enough about where my head really was, but there’s still some good stuff amongst the photo dump.

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kT LOLster

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is not a rebroadcast from last year: Samsung Galaxy defeats kT Rolster, advances to Worlds

Honestly, despite knowing that this was always a possibility, I would have put my money on kT to win the regional qualifier, and make it to Worlds as the #3 seed for Korea.  I don’t think it’s at all that often that a team of talented players doesn’t figure out how to rectify their shortcomings and overcome obstacles in their path; however, on that same token, it’s never out of the realm of possibility that a competitive team also has their kryptonite, and that for whatever reasons, falls short to the exact same circumstances repeatedly.

Regardless, despite being the vaunted meticulously constructed super team, kT Rolster for the second year in a row, will not be going to the League of Legends World Championships, falling short at the hands of Samsung Galaxy, again.

If it sucked being kT Rolster because they couldn’t ever beat SK Telecom at all throughout the year, it really sucks to be kT Rolster when they didn’t just fall short of winning Worlds, but didn’t even make it into the tournament at all.  This would be like if the Miami Heat didn’t even make it into the NBA Playoffs in the years that they had LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

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It must suck to be kT Rolster

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In Spider-Man comics, Doctor Octopus brought together Kraven the Hunter, Electro, the Vulture, Mysterio and The Sandman, to form the Sinister Six; a group formed with the intention of destroying Spider-Man.  Numerous times, they failed, and everyone’s favorite web-slinger always stood triumphant at the end of every conflict.

That’s pretty much kT Rolster’s League of Legends team, whom made big waves this season, when they dumped four-fifths of their previous year’s roster, and replaced them entirely with all-star caliber free agent individuals, most of whom were returning to Korea after unsuccessful stints in China.  Mata, Pawn and Deft, three former Samsung players with the first two being members of the S4 Worlds champion Samsung White squad and the reigning LCK MVP Smeb joined Score, the lone kT holdover, to form a team that on paper looked unbeatable.

The goal of this League superteam was obviously to win Worlds, but there was no secret about how the organization specifically wanted to dethrone the 90’s Bulls of League of Legends, SK Telecom T1, aka SKT.  Organizationally, kT and SKT are basically the AT&T and Verizon of Korea, two giants of the telecommunications industry, who are in endless competition with one another.  And the players themselves, many of the newly signed guys were players that either had long-standing grudges with their SKT counterparts, were simply tired of their one squad always winning, or both.  Both Pawn and Smeb have something of vendettas against SKT’s Faker, the oft-proclaimed best player in the world, easily stemming from resentment of said title.

Needless to say, prior to the start of Season 7, there was much ballyhooed about the construction of the new kT Rolster and how they’d fare against SKT throughout the year.

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Why is Ahri x D.Va a thing?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If I can sound like a bitter old man for a minute (again) here, naturally it was through social media in which I first saw fan art, then obnoxious cosplayers of this bastardization/hybridization between League of Legends’ Ahri and Overwatch’s D.Va.  Taking Ahri’s tails and slapping them onto D.Va’s body, taking the D.Va facial makeup markings and putting them onto Ahri, and all sorts of other combinations that blended the two characters together, and I’m sitting here thinking: whyyyy????

My knee-jerk cynical reaction is that it’s a bunch of nerds who want to really hammer home the notion that they are versed in both League and Overwatch, and they need to let people know that they’re so hip to both that they can acknowledge such strange abominable mash-ups.  And then cosplayers who are so attention-starved see something that’s trending and immediately start a rat race of who can do the first make-up test, who can finish the costume and wear it to a convention nobody knows of, and then who can do the first sexy-boudoir-lingerie photoshoot of it before jaded curmudgeons like me get wind of the whole thing.

My curiosity wishes to know why such a combination exists at all?  Both are undoubtedly popular and relevant characters in their respective properties, but why are they being shoe-horned together?  Naturally, my assumptions go towards one of the worst possible reasons: MICROAGGRESSIVE RACISMMMMM

Ahri is a character borne from Korean fairytale.  D.Va is a Korean.  THEY’RE KOREANS SO LETS MASH THEM TOGETHER ARR ROOK SAME PLS LIKE

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Photos: Momo-con 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note] This is more or less lost content that I never made a post about from 2017.  But it’s basically the photo dump of all the photos I took at Momo-con that year, and because I imagine photo galleries are the one thing that never gets old from the rando-internet traveller, they’ll always have some relevance on the web.

I vaguely remember this was the first time I was getting to use my new L-series lens at a convention, and thinking how heavy it was, but the photo quality that came from it was worth it, as I had some photoshoots of mythical then-gf in her Sweetheart Annie costume, as well as my famiry friends rocking Bioshock cosplay.

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lol Rito, let’s try this again

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The actual reason that the public won’t see: after SK Telecom trampled the competition, Riot Games is kind of tired of Korea owning the League scene, so they come up with alternate international events that mitigate the amount of domination that can be exhibited.

Introducing Rift Rivals: A League of Legends international event where Korea only gets to dominate (collectively) one other region, instead of all of them.

If anyone remembers, Riot tried a No Homers Club before in 2013, when the did the Battle of the Atlantic,* which pitted solely teams from North America versus teams from Europe.  Obviously, this was arranged in a manner in which the two regions could compete against each other, without getting shit on by the superior level of competition from Korea, Taiwan and China but mostly Korea, and ultimately it was a fairly lackluster event, with a convoluted and lazy format that Europe ultimately won because their 3-4-5th place teams defeated NA’s 3-4-5, despite the fact that NA’s 1-2 defeated their 1-2.

*a stupid fucking name if I might add, because despite the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is indeed what separates North America from Europe, games would be held in Los Angeles . . . y’know, along the Pacific Ocean.

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