I know the Monthly Musings is more to do with video games than the website or anything in particular but I promise this will have a point to drive home.

I have been playing video games since far before I can remember. My household had an NES in it by the time I was born thanks to my half-siblings, but the first system I owned myself was a SNES.


(Yes, that is me at six months old and yes, that is the final screen from Super Mario Bros.)

My parents were divorced around the time of me turning 3 or 4 and I remember not wanting to spend the night at my dad's very often as I didn't like to be away from home. Well, one night I decided to pick the right night to throw a fit and want to come home, as when I did I walked into the living room only to find my mom sitting in the living room playing Super Mario Kart on my brand new SNES that I was to get for Christmas that year. Needless to say we stayed up for quite a while playing what was soon to become my obsession for life.



Fast forward to the present, and here's where a giant love-fest will ensue. I first started reading Destructoid around a year and a half or so ago and was only lurking at first. Only 8 short months ago is when I made my first blog post (and yes what a horrible one it was.) I swear I have never felt more at home in my entire life. All through school I was constantly struggling with getting picked on and/or beat up for playing video games and hanging out with boys because at the time the only people who played video games near me were guys. Being the only girl in the entire school who obsessively played games and was extremely into it pretty much sucked and got me ostracized from a lot.



Even through all that I still continued to play games constantly but began to kind of grow jaded as the next-gen era started to come in. That's when RetroforceGO! came in. I had never been much of a Podcast person before I ran across them, and now if I go a week without hearing their charming voices talk about the things nearest to my heart I feel like I'm missing a part of myself. I personally thank them for getting me out of my jaded state of video games and letting me hear people with my same views speak about retro games that are so near and dear to my heart. To be able to hear people speak on games such as Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Castlevania and many others just makes me smile knowing that there are so many people like me that still enjoy these games no matter how old they get.



This past weekend I got to attend my very first Destructoid meet up at the Cincinnati NARP and boy was it eye opening. I have never met so many cool and chill people in one place in my life. Everyone there practically accepted me as family immediately and I had never felt that in person from a group of friends before. It was amazing to have five people in a car practically five minutes after meeting them in person and having one of the most amazing 15 hour drives a person could ever experience. Watching people arrive at the hotel that I had merely only talked in text to or possibly Stickam and attacking them in hugs and receiving them just as quickly back was one of the most epic feelings a person could have.



Thanks to this trip I had the most awesome Rock Band experience I could ever imagine and apparently now am being told I should be the singer for an Iron Maiden cover band. :P Getting to just hang out, chill, play and talk about video games with everyone was an amazing experience in its own right. Also, bar doodles with GuitarAtomik made my entire year. It makes me that much more excited for PAX now.



So Destructoid, I want to personally thank you for giving me my affair with the internet before you I never participated in a website before and I will never regret taking part here. All of you are absolutely amazing and help me feel like an amazing person just by taking part. Thank you for taking me out of my jaded state of video gaming and helping me get to my happiest time in my entire life.

I <3 you all and I apologize for being so terribly long-winded.

-Rio