In the beginning of 2011, I moved back to Hawaii from teaching English in Korea to set my roots at home again. That's a big thing for people from Hawaii. It's similar to the feeling that I think many people have for their hometown, except many people have hometowns the size of the island I was born on. A friend of mine and I were both really big into League at the time, and I was recently efamous from a controversial post I made on Riot forums called "[Learn ****] Why I'm 1800+ and how to get here".
Ah, back when you didn't have to be good to be high Elo. I miss season 1.
My friend from high school, who goes by the name of rewt on the internet, called me up and said that A) there was going to be a Hawaii state tournament for LoL and B) we should get a team together with this guy called Dyrus. I didn't really know who Dyrus was at the time, I just saw his name on Solomid, a site that we both streamed for. I didn't know he was from Hawaii. We got in touch, and we got some friends together, and the first time I met Dyrus was picking him up at his house in Kaimuki, a city on a big hill near Waikiki. He was this super tall half-asian guy with glasses and wild hair who sounded like Eeyore and mained Singed at high Elo with locked camera in windowed mode. We were all kind of nervous because even though we were three players in the top 1000--I think Dyrus might have been like rank 10 in the world at the time--it was our first live tournament for League, and we didn't know what to expect. We spent the car ride to the event talking strategy and reassuring ourselves that, hey, we were fucking good at the game, and nobody else in Hawaii was going to be able to even play close to our level. Right?
Front to back: Rewt, Dyrus, Me, Gerbz, Kkangpae. Behind us: Newly minted fans.
Anyway, we fucking crushed everyone. I think the highest Elo we played against was 14xx and a few of the teams had accounts that weren't level 30.
After that, we started hanging out a bit more. The crew we played League with went to a couple of raves in Hawaii, which were just getting big again at the time, and on one of the rides back, Marcus told me that he was getting an offer from Epik Gaming to move to the mainland and play professionally. This was like 7am in the morning after we had been up all night at a rave that he thought was the next day until an hour before the event on the drive across the island to drop him off back at his house. He had never lived off the island before, and the mainland is this gigantic unknown place that we hear horror stories of, and he was what, 18 or 19 at the time, fresh out of high school--
Fast forward a bit and a group of mutual friends and I are watching Phreak talk about Dyrus spamming laugh on Singed at Dreamhack in front of 120k viewers. We made so much noise at 3am watching him carry EG that the neighbors next door yelled at us.
EG when they were the dark horses. (Pic credit to Dyrus' tumblr)
This month, Dyrus came back to Hawaii for the first time in a year. I was wondering if he'd have changed or what kind of stories he'd have to tell or if he'd even have time to hang out with all the fame and popularity and his family to see. The day after he flew in we met up at Ala Moana to have lunch with some of his high school friends, who were friends of friends of mine in a weird Hawaii-is-a-small-island kind of way. I walked in half expecting him to be surrounded by fans and signing autographs and there he is, standing by himself against a railing in the middle of Ala Moana's food court, taller than ever, with his hair covering his eyes, some facial hair, and a black and green Razer jacket. I wove my way over and greeted him, and we decided to get smoothies. Out of nowhere, a group of fans ambushes him to ask for autographs and pictures. One of them asks if he can give Marcus a piggyback so he can say that he "carried Dyrus", which Marcus agrees to. While he's taking pictures, his friends show up and we manage to sneak him away from the gathering crowd wondering who this tall guy is that everyone wants their pillows signed by.
I kid you not, in the less than 2 hours we spent at the mall eating food from the Japanese food court on the top floor, over 50 people came by and asked for autographs and pictures. This one guy didn't even come by, he just galloped by the window we were sitting next to with a Singed shirt on, cackling and doing a slow finger-wave and never breaking eye contact. What the fuck.
So yeah, later that night, after stopping by a local PC Bang to stream some pub games, we go to his friends' place and more RL friends show up. It's so interesting to see someone go from being the most famous person in a 50 mile radius to being a regular 20 year old dude reunited with his high school friends.
In Hawaii, the average height for females is 5'4" or something. Marcus is like six foot something.
Last night, we went to dinner with him, because we probably weren't going to be able to see him again before he left. He wasn't picking up his phone because reception in Hawaii is terrible so we just went to his dad's house and walked up the steps. Dadyrus, who I can only describe as an epic, bearded lumberjack of a giant who plays videogames and owns a plumbing business in Hawaii, is stepping out onto the porch to light an American Spirit and feed his macaw french fries.
I can't make this shit up.
Anyway, he yells at Marcus, who's setting up his dad's computer so that he can stream to Solomid, that we're here, and Marcus is like "oh shit I didn't know you guys were coming already" then "k let's go" immediately after. We pick up some friends and meet up with more at a Chinese restaurant for dinner before going to a local ice cream parlor that makes the most bomb-ass ice cream cakes and mochi ice cream for dessert. We wind up back at someone's house with a cake that's frozen totally solid and after about 20 minutes of attempting to cut it with a knife, we decide fuck it, we're just going to eat it whole.
He posted something on facebook asking how to cut this cake and within 5 minutes there were like 100 likes and 50 comments. Best answers were "ignite", "darius ult", and "black cleaver".
He filmed about 10 minutes of us eating this cake. (Not included in pic: the pretty girl taking the photo sitting next to me.)
Don't lie. We have more fun that you do eating ice cream cake.
Later in the night, I dropped him off at his house. It was like 4am in the morning and we had just finished playing a random teammate tournament at the local PC Bang. That motherfucker FIRST BANS CHOGATH against me and tells me later when I give him shit about it "if I only played one champ, wouldn't you ban him if you had no one else to?"
Whatever, fair enough.
We did the handshake ritual and gave a see ya when I see ya and he walked off as I drove back home to get ready to wake up in 3 hours to go to 6 hours of grad school.
Please support Dyrus through S3 and in all his endeavors. We really need more people like him in esports and in the world in general. I'm not sure exactly what my intent was when I started to write this, but as a fan and foremost a friend, I want everyone to know how much effort and passion he puts into what he does. Anyone who meets him in real life and has more than a "Can I have a photo with you?" conversation with him knows that he's one of the nicest, most unique, and down-to-earth people you're ever going to meet, and nobody deserves to be a professional video game player and live the life he lives more than he does.
My ONE picture I'm going to post of Dyrus and me. Hey, the fame gets to even me sometimes.
Nice post with random stories are always good to see. Thanks for taking the time to do so.
As far as hate is concerned, no one is really safe from it. Most people are basing their opinions off of online personas and offline live events where they are on camera acting it up. It happens to all players in all types of games.
On January 12 2013 15:40 Louuster wrote: So Dyrus is also the huge white guy thats a foot taller than all his asian friends back in Hawaii too, cool lol
Cool story bro. But no, seriously, great write-up, you do Dyrus a fantastic tribute and I really loved it. Dyrus has always been fantastic, and it's nice to have you confirm that he truly is a great guy. I hope he does well in season 3 and that you continue to have a good relationship with him (even if it's just so I can get more cool inside stories ). 5 stars, even though you can't actually have any because you didn't actually post in blogs
On January 12 2013 23:44 MoonBear wrote: Was a good read. Nice to see the more personal side of progamers.
A good reminder for people that, regardless of your passion for their team, ideas about "high level play" and eSports, or thoughts on recent results, the players they root for are still people (and, even though mos can say this about me, young people). I think we forget that from time to time when we look at statistics, gameplay, and tournament standings. =/
Well, Hawaii is expensive, but if you want to live in relative comfort and have some kind of career path or money that will allow you to spend about 1k-2k on rent a month (depending on where you want to live and how much space/parking/view/etc you want) then it's not bad. You can probably find something for $650~ if you look really hard but it'll either be a one room in a house of other people situation or a very tiny box of a studio.
If you have a career or work for the military it's a lot easier. Hawaii's a great place if you have relatives here to live with or a shit ton of money or both.
On January 13 2013 05:40 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Well, Hawaii is expensive, but if you want to live in relative comfort and have some kind of career path or money that will allow you to spend about 1k-2k on rent a month (depending on where you want to live and how much space/parking/view/etc you want) then it's not bad. You can probably find something for $650~ if you look really hard but it'll either be a one room in a house of other people situation or a very tiny box of a studio.
If you have a career or work for the military it's a lot easier. Hawaii's a great place if you have relatives here to live with or a shit ton of money or both.
my sis and her husband looking to move there so i might follow if its possible at all (:
I always love hearing about people from Hawaii doing stuff in the world, makes me unreasonably happy. I didn't know Dyrus was born in the islands till just now, I'm 99% sure I drive by his house like everyday. Also, we have PC Bangs? Since when...
On January 13 2013 16:42 1godless wrote: I always love hearing about people from Hawaii doing stuff in the world, makes me unreasonably happy. I didn't know Dyrus was born in the islands till just now, I'm 99% sure I drive by his house like everyday. Also, we have PC Bangs? Since when...
PCG is one of a couple on the island. The owner is kind of a douchebag but the people who play there are cool. PC Bangs have been around since about 2002 in different places, Mililani Town Center actually had a full Korean one for a while.
[edit] If you didn't know, "Bang" (pronounced "bahng" like "song") means room in Korean so PC Bang is just PC room. [/edit]
On January 13 2013 22:09 clickrush wrote: This nice display of friendship really cheers me up. Thx for writing it!
Seriously. Reminds me of when my friends and I all are back in my hometown. Really cool to see pro players like that since all too often it feels like players become pro and are just another face at a keyboard after.
Dyrus is the best, first time I watched his stream was almost two years ago when that earthquake that devastated Japan hit - he was playing singed with the camera locked in windowed mode. "How do people watch this shit?" I thought to myself. Then Dyrus's Eeyore voice suddenly said "yeah... I should probably be evacuating right now but I'm just playing league... *sigh*... I'm going to make pancakes."
On January 12 2013 15:04 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: This one guy didn't even come by, he just galloped by the window we were sitting next to with a Singed shirt on, cackling and doing a slow finger-wave and never breaking eye contact. What the fuck.
o my god that is so creepy lmao. xDDD;
really nice blog~ :D i like dyrus for being really friendly, as well as being one of the better NA tops (imo) ~ i've learned lots about top from watching his stream and i find it nice how he takes the time to interact with his fans ^_^ hope to see him and tsm do well in the future!
edit: and i'm also super regretful that he was in my city for a week and me (being ignorant as always) didn't know until he left and i was like whaat i should've stalked a bit. hahaha :p
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Really cool seeing these dudes away from their natural habitat. Thanks for sharing
