rawrgoyle

Lol congrats on the 99. Magic is my fave skill, first 99 and probs will be my first 120...... Welcome to Magic as a former Melee acolyte myself ;)))) Thanks for the update,.

<3 Thanks Sobend, wouldn't dream of being anywhere else. And yes...... yes......................... that.

Note: This blog was written by a hater. GAMERS RISE UP Close to a decade working in esports, tech, and gaming has poisoned my sense of humor. I mean it. I am gamerpilled. I am based and epic. I tips m'fedora to the unsung gentleman gamer upon whom society has thoughtlessly lashed that yoke of wokeism. If you were to firmly tap my head with a hammer, you could pull my skull apart to find a jumble of Gamers Rise Up / We Live in a Society / Gamer Joker memes. Not familiar? Scroll for a quick lobotomy <3 Frequent Sal's Realm Discord enjoyers may have seen me post the following clip, which I view to be a hyperconcentrated example of the properties that make these memes so fudgeing funny to me. It's no question that gamers are treated as second-class citizens in society. After what some might consider to be a career catering to gamers as my primary customer, I have come to recognize the bitterness I feel towards examples of extreme fandom. Put another way, the older I get, the more I struggle to let people enjoy things.. when "enjoying" things looks more and more like a mental breakdown. Now that I am over 30, I have come to embrace being a hater. I've seen how the sausage is made. In my younger years, I made the mistake of tying my self-worth to external projects that ran away with gamer backlash. When gamers "take to Twitter" and "make their voice heard" it activates a cold, dead little nugget inside my soul: I am just too old for this shizzle. In recent years, I have whittled down my gaming habits from that of your typical enlightened PC gamer, to predominantly playing mobile games. I used to have a MEGA SUPER COOL GAMING PC!!!!!! with BIG GRAPHICS!!!!!!! and FOUR MONITORS!!!!!!!!! and (most importantly) GAMER LIGHTS / RGB!!!!!!!!!! The quality of my PC parts, the definition of my monitors, the gamery-ness of my gamer lights was all important to me. It's the same kind of status symbol sporting that comes with being a "car guy" or "sports guy." Over time, I realized the way I was playing games was not healthy for me. The habits, reactions, and brain .... loop I was in was not who I wanted to be in this life. I made the choice to break down that PC in the last 1-2 years. That was huge for me. I still have the parts but I don't miss the games. JK, that's a lie. Diablo 4 came out recently. I wish I could play. Boy oh boy did D3 take over my life in the summer of 2012. I sat bare-legged in my empty Chicago apartment, legs sticking to hardwood due to sweat from the blistering heat -- mowing down demons till my eyes burned. I had missed the boat on that 2011 phenomenon Skyrim, and so I was keep to throw myself into a game I knew my friends were playing. D3 was the first "major" game release I could play on Mac with my fellow gamerkin. So, here in 2023, with the release of D4, I sigh heavily and ask myself... who is this game for? The answer... not me. Not anymore. And that's great news! The game is for the people who are playing it and enjoying it. My gaming habits have changed, and so have I. I'm no longer a cultured PC gamer. I love to write about mobile games, and I even like to play some of them. In fact, I've started to embrace the "stigma" around mobile games. On stream (twitch.tv/darlene), my usual refrain is that RuneScape is my favorite mobile game. You may be unsurprised to learn that this is an intentionally provocative statement. If you're wondering who on earth that statement could be provocative to, it's aimed at m'fedora wearing giganerds. Anyways, I would wish all the gamers out there well, but I know they don't want to be well. After all, they want to play video games. -rawrgoyle

Finally, some recognition.

Congrats!

Just wrapped up a wonderful week with @Twist of Fate (Taker25700). We visited the Great Lakes area together. Among usual tourist activities, we found some time to relax and play RS. I'll spare the mushy details, but did want to share some reflections on the power of online communities, and the bonds they create. I've been part of online communities my whole life. In the years that most of you were making content for Sal's, I was pouring my heart and soul into another forum site called RolePlayGateway.com. The community members there have continued to mean a lot to me, and a few have gotten married, become roommates, or otherwise continued creating together on or off the original website. After that period waned, I found it refreshing to come to Sal's and watch somewhat from the periphery. Sal's Realm of RuneScape brought Taker and I together the way it has brought RuneScape enjoyers (and lapsed players) together for years. As some folks may be aware, Taker was a fixture long before I joined. I joined the Friend's Chat sometime 2008-2010, and the forums in 2011-2012. I wrote unique blog content here, which I did not remember until recently! Sal's Realm was the only clan and community I ever identified with in RuneScape, and it remains that way to this day. RuneScape and Sal's have been around for so long, some of us have known each other for 10-15 years, if not more. Taker and I have been talking this year, and we were both aware of each other's existence in 2008-2011ish, but nothing too concrete. My memories of that time can be summarized as such: 1. Taker used to go by Takertree. In fact, lots of you used to have "tree" at the end of your name. Explain yourselves. 2. We talked about music - he was really into Angels & Airwaves. He also mentioned playing in bands! 3. He introduced me to the song "Fall For You" by Secondhand Serenade, a deeply sad song lol Say, did you know that Sal's Realm is home to some talented mofos? Early in January 2023, Taker was promoting the single "Unrelated Popcorn Fire" from his latest project in the Sal's Realm Discord. The music is catchy, polished, and infinitely listenable. I interviewed him about the project here: 10 Questions with the winter without. Not only was I blown away that someone from Sal's was putting out music, but it was actually good. (PS, Taker isn't the only talented Salmon promoting tunes in the Discord. Check out Army of One's The Bridge EP here: https://army-of-one.bandcamp.com/album/the-bridge-ep) One of my goals for 2023 was to commit to rediscovering my creative side through music and writing. I ended up hitting up Taker and basically asking him questions about his creative process and music journey uninterrupted for a period of several weeks. Somehow, someway, Taker was receptive to this deluge of interest, and.... here we are. :) It's been a good year for all polled Tasogaryns in the chat: I've started performing at open mics around the SF Bay Area, I'm blogging again, my novels are getting new drafts, I'm sketching, I'm writing music, I'm even getting back into mixed media art and poetry. I can attribute that in part to finding a creative partner and friend to share that process with. I'm still getting my writing chops back after a period I like to call "my orphan speedrun." Still, I hope to be writing a lot more here about RuneScape and online communities in general. You can find my personal blog at oddsoul.blog, my newsletter at chanimaya.substack.com, and on Medium at https://oddsoul.medium.com/. PSS, Taker and I have started streaming RS3 content on Twitch. You can find him at twitch.tv/taker25700, and I stream over at twitch.tv/darlene. We'll be streaming a run for Necromancy soon. It's my birthday pretty soon, and I'm getting too old to be a gamer. Still, it's nice to play RuneScape with a community of folks who are also setting goals within the game and exploring what there is to offer. Don't know what exactly the future holds, but so far I'm happy to be sharing it with someone special. Tas

"Hey. See that thing over there?" "Yeah." "Would you like ... not to?" Ohhhhhh we back, boys. We back......................................

What's up nerds. It's Ole Woman Taso. Bonus pic of me this Halloween. Can you guess who I was?