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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8684153" data-attributes="member: 6796468">I stepped away for a while, but I wanna come back for this exchange, 'cause it is... y'know... accurate enough?But also: Writers are part of society and absorb Pop Culture and shared cultural momentum of various concepts. We create new stuff, it is absolutely true and impossible to dispute unless you wanna break things down to quintessential elements and track them through all media.When I write stuff about Sins of the Scorpion Age it's all going to be based on my experiences and perspectives and the media I've been exposed to. Some of it because I'm shunning it, some of it because I'm embracing it, and some of it because I'm aping it with only fractional understanding but a deep enjoyment of that concept.And it's the same way with -every- writer.Some Rando on the street who thinks "Legolas" instead of "Santa's Helpers" is helping to shape the cultural momentum of Elfness. And as a part of culture I can swim against the current and make Elves something new, I can swim across the current and make elves but slightly different, or I can swim with the current and make Legolas. But I'm not going to -change- the current by myself. And no amount of willful ignorance on my part will allow me to reasonable claim that I "Invented" elves whole-cloth and everyone else is somehow doing it wrong 'cause I didn't grow up in a cultural vacuum.And for most people, this is a gnome:<img src="https://secure.img1-fg.wfcdn.com/im/77608762/compr-r85/1390/139041099/giacomo-bearded-garden-gnome-with-hat-statue.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />That -includes- Writers. Everything D&D does with gnomes is swimming against or across the current. But because every setting basically reinvents gnomes (or excises them as the case may be), TSR, WotC, Paizo, and EN Publishing aren't even working together to create a new cultural momentum to try and turn things in the same direction.We're all wandering off in our own, and gnomes remain where they are. With big beards, little red hats, and 3 times out of 100 their buttcheeks hanging out of their pants in a playfully tacky manner.</blockquote>

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