Where did my line breaks and indents go? Ah well.

This Spartan Life may have started in 2005, but for me, it started a year later. I came into the TSL story a bit late, April of that year, shortly after a segment known in the TSL community as “Meet T3h 1337” was filmed – one that focused on the members. I had been following the show for a while, but the idea of being part of a community like that – one that wasn’t just relying on the members for support or money, but cherishing them as part of the experience – appealed to me. And let me tell you – my time with This Spartan Life has been nothing short of life-changing. Since 2006, TSL has given me the best friends I’ve ever made, a girlfriend worthy of song and legend, endless hours of laughter and enjoyment, and quite a few stories that I’ll be dining out on for years. I’ve traveled with them to the depths of the scariest labyrinths, climbed on top of ancient monuments, slaughtered untold hordes of opponents. To my best estimation, about 3,000 hours of my life since that fateful April day have been spent in TSL-related activities – filming, forum moderating, playing with other members, recording the community podcast, and now writing to help them out.
None of this has been in the least bit usual. For one thing, I’ve hardly met any of the people I’ve come to know and love. I’ve seen some pictures, talked for hundreds of hours, gotten to know their lives and desires, I’ve sacrificed and been sacrificed for. These people are, by any conventional definition, strangers to me. I’ve never shaken Jigsaw’s hand, never sat around and yelled at movies with Quagga – and yes, I call them their gamertags. What else would I use? Their names? Hah. Yes, I’ve done nothing normal with these people – but I’ve shot them all plenty of times, and how can you say you know someone unless you’ve splattered their brains all across Construct?
Despite all of that, these friendships persist, and the underlying structure of it all is just one of the many things TSL has done. They aren’t so much just another machinima, putting videos on Youtube and cultivating a community that only serves the purpose of donating. TSL, since the beginning, has been about their community. TSL’s main message – that we can be brought together by this wonderful medium of the internet, socialize in a way no one had previously considered possible, and think of that as unexceptional – as, dare I say, normal – is lived out, every day, by hundreds of people. That’s something worthy of thought.
I’ve personally given $200 to this cause – all I can afford. I’m scraping together pennies to try to add to that, but what I ask is that everyone who wants to see something like this survive – a project dedicated to celebrating friendship and community in the digital age – give what you can. It doesn’t have to be much. Every dollar and dime pushes us closer to that goal.
So lend us a helping hand. Meanwhile, I’ll be trying to get on top of the ONI building in ODST. And hey – don’t be afraid to join in! Just visit the TSL forums, join up, and introduce yourself. Everyone’s welcome.

Lovely shirts.. UPDATED MY PLEDGE.