In Just Wizards, there is and always has been a gallery containing 11 images. I’ll be digging into each image and what they truly all mean. Screenshots of each one are of course included within, and in some cases also links to screenshots of earlier versions.
And they really are screenshots, because in Just Wizards each image is compromised of a background with the wizard laid on top by the browser. I thought this approach would be more flexible, such as for if I wanted the wizards within the pictures to be animated, but ultimately never took advantage of that way of doing things.
This page is rather long, so you can use these anchor links to jump to each section you might be interested in:
- Thingummywut
- Cemetery
- Bus
- Boat
- Top 10 facts about wizards
- Presidential assassination
- River
- Grill
- Swanky place
- Press F to pay respects
- Hospital
- Teacup
- Road
1) Thingummywut
This picture is based on a screenshot of the popular MMORPG Old School RuneScape. It’s been edited to remove Wizard Trailborn using the Heal Selection GIMP plugin and expand the chatbox whatsit.
For those familiar with the game, it’s quite interesting to look at the original, uncropped screenshot and compare it with how the game is today.
Changes include:
- The renaming of “Clan” to “Channel” and the addition of “Clan”, since clans as we know them today launched in 2021.
- The addition of the special attack orb. This was added in 2018.
- I have the Store and Activity Adviser buttons disabled in the settings — they’re just clutter.
- World Map orb has also been moved to overlap the minimap a little, like the other orbs do.
- The grouping of the Friends and Ignore List buttons into one to make way for the Account Management button.
- RuneLite has replaced OSBuddy as the third-party client of choice for most players for reasons I won’t get into.
- For sake of comparison, I disabled the “Report Button”, “Wiki”, “FPS Control” and “Daily Task Indicator” plugins to take this screenshot. “GPU” was already disabled because it helps with the Prifddinas lag.
- Which reminds me, I had the third-party (to RuneLite, so sixth-party to Jagex?) “Prifddinas” plugin enabled, which hides some scenery. But my character wouldn’t even be visible without it, so too bad.
- For sake of comparison, I disabled the “Report Button”, “Wiki”, “FPS Control” and “Daily Task Indicator” plugins to take this screenshot. “GPU” was already disabled because it helps with the Prifddinas lag.
- I remembered to hide my mouse cursor. This wasn’t an issue for Just Wizards since OSRS’ colour banding makes it trivial to erase the cursor in this case.
2) Cemetery
This is a photo from Pixabay. I darkened the wizard a little so that he better matches the lighting of the scene.
3) Bus
I took this photo on a Stagecoach bus. This will have been at the back of the bus on the top deck. Notice how those seats have a plastic sheen about them while the others don’t — that’ll be because people keep putting their feet up on the seats at the back of the bus, so those seats need more protection!
Back then, there were conductors on the bus who would take your money after you had a seat. It was good — there was time to chat with them, some dressed up at Christmas time, and there was always the chance of going unnoticed (or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered) and not having to pay.
When the pandemic hit, the conductors got the cut, so now everyone has to queue up to pay the driver instead. Not ideal. The Wi-Fi also got the axe and the buses are less frequent.
This photo hasn’t aged a day, really. The buses in this area still look like that, with their blue and orange. And they probably still will for a long time — don’t expect Stagecoach to start spending money on upgrading or replacing their fleet anytime soon.
4) Boat
This is a photo from Pixabay. I thought it might be funny to see the wizard standing up in a boat, especially a little one like that. He doesn’t even have any oars!
5) Top 10 facts about wizards
This one seems almost archaic. So we have Windows 7, first and foremost. Internet Explorer, which isn’t even user-accessible in Windows anymore, and an ad for the Google Pixel 2. Plus a share button for Google+, which is sadly no longer with us.
The article wasn’t new to begin with — it’s just what I found from searching for something along the lines of the headline. It mentioning J.K. Rowling isn’t of any particular relevance — she only became a controversial figure in June 2020, as far as I can gather.
And yes, there’s RuneScape on the taskbar. RuneScape 3, that’ll be! Which is still the main version I play, as much as I dislike the money-driven direction they’ve taken it in — I may give more thoughts on this in a later post. Ideally I’d progress in both, but I just don’t have time to do so.
6) Presidential assassination
The original rendition of this had the caption “The wizard has assassinated Trump”. I changed this to “The wizard has assassinated the President” and replaced the podium text to remove reference to Donald Trump.
I’m hoping that if he isn’t portrayed in anything, he’ll just seep into irrelevance and not become president again. And if it’s just “the President”, it’ll always be relevant and doesn’t pick any particular political side.
I don’t think a president in office would even have that sort of podium. It’s from this March 2016 Daily Mail article, if you’re interested.
7) River
This is a photo from Pixabay. I added an orange tint to the wizard to match the surrounding colours somewhat. This photo in particular would be better if the wizard had a shadow, but he lacks one.
8) Grill
It was a thing that internet people would jokingly write “grill” instead of “girl”, presumably originating from a typo. I haven’t seen this used in recent times. I think the meme must be dead.
It’s based on this Pixabay photo, where a man is looking into the lady’s eyes. As with the RuneScape photo, he was edited out using Heal Selection.
9) Swanky place
This is a photo from Pixabay. I very much like the little wizard on the table, about the size as that bottle of mystery purple liquid.
10) F to pay respects
This is a bit of an old meme, from the 2014 video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Lord Farquaad is of course from the 2001 animated film Shrek.
The original version of this wizard picture wasn’t very good quality, just using the picture I was able to find on Know Your Meme. I couldn’t find a good replacement image online, so I what I ended up doing was using a still from this YouTube video, which turned out very well.
11) Hospital
This is a photo from Pixabay. I don’t know what sort of hospital this is, but it doesn’t look like a very pleasant one. Though if you ask me, no hospital is pleasant, given the very nature of the need for them to exist.
If someone comes up with a better caption, I may replace this one, as joking about real illnesses can be a sensitive subject for some.
12) Teacup
This is a photo from Flickr and a new addition for the year 2023. This idea came to me, somehow, and eventually I found a suitable photo. The foremost teacup being empty is really useful for this purpose.
Most of the wizard pictures have a lack of any real people, so this one makes for a nice change. I was sure to avoid obscuring camcorder guy in the background — he really helps tie together the era this photo was taken (2007).
?) Road
I remember I was going to have a picture where the wizard was standing on a road, with a vehicle barrelling towards him from behind. I think I even took some photos for it while waiting at the bus stop, but ultimately wasn’t very satisfied with them.
If I happen to come across a good photo for this, it can become the twelfth photo. I like the idea of the gallery ending with the wizard’s untimely demise.
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