Whether you’re writing for a video game or a tabletop game, the secret to effective lore is cow tools.
Back in 1982, Gary Larson drew the following panel for the newspaper comic The Far Side:
According to Larson, it was simply meant to be a faintly surreal joke about how cows would be bad at making tools; it intends no deeper commentary. However, in the decades since, it’s become by far the comic’s most asked-about panel. People want to know why cows are making tools, what aspect of society it’s commenting on, and most critically, they want to know what the tools are for. The one on the right kind of resembles a carpenter’s saw, which leads folks to believe that the other three must have some obvious function too, if only they could puzzle it out.
But they don’t. They’re just random shapes, and the comic as a whole was never intended to actually mean anything.
I’ve become convinced that that’s the real secret to effective worldbuilding in gaming media. Certainly, the “core” of the setting should make sense, but all the peripheral stuff surrounding it? Just throw in a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit seasoned with the occasional bit that almost makes sense, and people will seize on those bits and ratonalise all the rest of it for you – and what they come up with is generally going to be way more interesting than whatever your original plan was, if indeed you had one at all.
Then, once they’ve figured it all out, just nod sagely, congratulate their cleverness, and keep your damn mouth shut.
But it’s so scary! I was in superwholock phase when I was sixteen. There are MOMS and people over 30 who are still in fandom spaces, who interact with people in THAT way and the older I get, less I understand. You’re a fucking grown ass person. If you still like the shows, nobody’s stopping you from reblogging stuff (of course, DEPENDS what kind of STUFF you’re reblogging but that’s another discussion) but when the adult is an active member of the fandom which is mainly populated by kids… It’s ugly and disgusting and I feel so bad even thinking about that.
I look at posts like this and wonder… when was I supposed to get out?
Was I supposed to get a mortgage and some sensible shoes and learn to play bridge? Shuffle off to the glue factory to die?
Do you know how much many fandoms would lose if you declared everyone over 21 (or whatever the cutoff is) “creepy” and cast them out? As bad as I feel for a 30+ year old mother who is deeply into Superwholock, why should she be unwelcome in the fandom? Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock are none of them Game of Thrones but they aren’t kids shows. Adults on the internet do not have a responsibility to keep everything they do sanitized for hypothetical minors who might see it. I AM over 30, and trust me when I say that this shit got hashed out in court back in the 90s when it was new.
Older fans saw hundreds of thousands of fanworks disappear in the early 21st century, sometimes due to technical and economic reasons (like the loss of mailing lists and the fall of Geocities) but we also saw how ugly things could get when puritanical think-of-the-children handwringing censorship turned into witch hunts and deletions on FF.net, LJ, and more. AO3 was a gift from older fans so new fans of all ages wouldn’t have to worry about that stuff.
I mean get off my lawn and etc, but everyone in fandom needs to understand that they are functionally in a public space that does not promise to be “safe” for them personally, no matter their age. You may end up interacting with adult content and like it or not it’s going to be up to you to control your experience- block people, blacklist tags, move to a more moderated community, whatever you have to do, but the whole fandom is not going to keep everything acceptable by any one person’s standards.
Fandom is a place where we all come together, and the only thing we need to have in common is a shared love of whatever Thing we came for.
Is OP saying that existing on the internet while over 21 is inherently abusive?
Also it cracks me up when people assume Tumblr is mostly kids.
A bare 12% of Tumblr’s users are under 18. The largest age group is 25-34. There are more people in their 40s on Tumblr than there are under 18.
Fandom is overwhelmingly made up of adults and always has been and if you are going to interact with adult spaces, which the internet is, you are responsible for policing your own viewing and interaction. Don’t want adults interacting with you? Block them. But the viewpoint that fandom is made up of children and is for children is a post ~2012 idea. It is new and while it is pervasive, it is utterly untrue.
OH NO, THERE ARE ADULT WOMEN ON THE INTERNET. Sorry, we don’t shrivel up into crones knitting socks when we pass the fuckable age of 25. You’re going to be in for a real treat of a wakeup when you pass the sell-by date and suddenly people are shouting at you that you’re not allowed to have hobbies.
I don’t understand why there’s this implication that older women in fandom interacting with teens is inherently creepy or predatory? Like, not that they don’t exist but that if you’re an adult making friends with younger people obviously it can only be b/c you’re a creep?
The best way to make friends and enjoy fandom plus learn about various life experiences is by interacting with a wide variety of age groups, nationalities, etc.
And ultimately, if you’re a young person who wants to avoid interacting with adults in fandom, then I would say it’s up to you to block people and avoid following/interacting with content, than expecting every adult you encounter to automatically walk on eggshells or treat you special just for being younger than them.
why do you hate kids so much? even if the kid follows you and you know you make content not for kids……. you have to block them. you’re the adult. why is it so hard to understand
What planet do you live on that you think people who often have thousands of followers need to check every one of them and decide if they’re being age appropriate? What if – big shocker – they don’t put their age out or lie about it?
And more importantly, how incredibly tunnelled vision do you have that you don’t realize that if these “kids” browse tumblr unsupervised by the actual adults IN THEIR LIFE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM they also have literally thousands of porn sites at their disposal, just one click away, many of them actually right here in tumblr? And it doesn’t have to be porn even. Extremism? Violence? All right there on the internet and the people putting it there won’t be having a discussion like this with you like many on this post are civilly doing.
What you are focusing on here, where you are laying the blame and responsibility is really appalling.
yeah, i’m laying responsibility on ADULTS. why do you hate kids so much?
Are you playing dumb at this point?
The adults responsible for children are the adults who chose to acquire them.
Please explain to me in full sentences how I’m supposed raise some hypothetical 15 year old who just followed my blog. Tell me how it works.
simple. you block them. that is all. i don’t understand how it is so hard for YOU to understand.
So you ARE playing dumb.
Which part of the “thousands of followers” and “lying about age” and “children have parents and guardians who are not me” are you not getting?
that you are a fucking adult and you still have to protect kids in the fandom! if you produce content that is not suitable for them, you HAVE to go through your hundreds of followers and block them. you don’t get to act like a child even if you are among them!
I don’t have to do shit, you entitled little muppet. Other people’s spawn are not my problem. They have parents who produced them. It’s those adults’ responsibility to keep them off the fucking internet.
Oh, and everybody, note this in Lesbo’s BYF:
please do not follow if you’re younger than 18! i can’t always check the followers because a lot of people follow me!
Fucking hypocrite.
At this point, I have a following of a few thousand people on my art blog. I am already providing a service for free – mind you, a service that eats up a vast amount of my time. I am decidedly not going through my followers and blocking each minor. I am responsible for what I create, I am not responsible for your consumption of what I create. That is entirely on you. If you have a nut allergy, and you eat a snack with nuts in it while being fully aware that it has nuts in it (because it’s right there on the package, it’s right there), and suffer damages to your health because of that, then I don’t thinkthe snack is to blame, and neither is the company that produced it. My art has nuts in it. If you can’t handle nuts, don’t consume my art. I’m not about to go around and smack the nuts out of my followers’ hands.
^
Is anybody else amused that she’s up in arms over superwholock not being for kids only? Like, sure, do pick Doctor Who and Sherlock as those very special young people fandoms. That’s logical and reasonable. It’s not like those have been around for a really fucking long time.
Not that Supernatural is much better but at least it’s only been around for twelve years. And it’s totes child friendly anyway.:D
I am just forever baffled by this pearl-clutching attitude that seems to project this idea that internet fandom spaces are like creepy adults invading a middle school science fair, when if any such ridiculous analogy needs to be made, it’s more like a nightclub that has a regularly posted schedule of youth/wristband nights or is at times invaded by three stacked children in a trenchcoat purporting to be adults.
Double-thick wigs are useful for all sorts of situations – they’re especially great for spiking because extra fiber creates an extra-thick spike, but they are also useful for characters who simply have a ton of wild hair, such as Jasper or Jiraiya. Even wig brands renown for their thick hair can’t hold a candle to a double-thick wig, especially when you double up on a wig style that was thick to start with.
Supply List
Two wigs
A wighead and stand
Pins
A seam-ripper or small pair of scissors
Duckbill or alligator clips
Tacky glue or a needle & thread
Keep reading below to learn how to make your own super thick wig!
Panpacificpines 