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Being a Dota 2 professional comes with its perks: you play video games, you have fans, sometimes those fans make incredibly adorable fanart.
Such was the case when Reddit user Fluffies decided to depict some well-known Dota pros as Pusheen, the popular, adorable, goofy and confident but extremely lazy kitty (like a Hello Kitty, but for millennials). Changing up various celebrities and characters is a popular hobby of the Internet, and while Dota has been done before, Dota’s competitive scene finally got the treatment.
First came Alexei “Solo” Berezin, who sits pretty after his win at ESL One Katowice:
Fluffles adds a cute touch by letting Pusheen-Solo ride in a car from Mercedes-Benz, which he won his own ride from by being the MVP of ESL One Hamburg. Of course, Virtus Pro was excited to see the art! (Can you figure out what they changed in their version?)
The artist followed up with the PusheenRage king, Artour “Arteezy” Babaev — followed by the North American solo mid prince himself, Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan:
Push-teezy rages with all of his Battle Fury glory, and Push-a1l baits out his “bitter” haters with a sly grin on his face. And Suma1l spats banter atop a pretty excited goat — because the player wants to be the G.O.A.T., obviously.
Evil Geniuses even shared their love on Twitter! (Though we’re not sure Arteezy’s in on the whole Pusheen thing. Yet.)
Fluffies tells The Flying Courier that it takes them several hours to make each of these, and as a visual designer hoping to improve their illustration skills, they’re proud about the reception. Their love for Dota and its community was their inspiration — and maybe some “sweet, sweet Reddit karma. Obviously.”
“In all seriousness,” they explained, “Dota has been one of my favorite things for a long time now, and I wanted to contribute something fun and light-hearted to the community that has given me so many laughs and memes over the years.”
Fluffies is excited to start pursuing more art for other pop culture content as well. They’ve already done some Pusheens for mobile fashion game Love Nikki, and they’re hoping to do some for Game of Thrones as well.
For now, we get treated to these excellent fan Pusheens by a dedicated esports fan. So with two Evil Geniuses Pusheens and one Virtus Pro under their belt so far, in which region does Fluffies’s heart lie?
“In stereotypical patriotic American fashion, I’m a proud supporter of the NA region (aka the best region. Just kidding. Sort of.). My favorite team is EG, though I also really like many other teams (e.g. Virtus Pro, Team Liquid).”