New Vocabulary

Simone read the facebook thread again and again, puzzled by words she had never seen before.

Fortunately, one of the words was explained, "Fandom". This she understood as fans of a particular topic, author, superhero, whatever. For instance, fans of Harry Potter form a "fandom", in line with kingdom.

"But larping?" She wondered aloud. "Cosplay?"

One writer mentioned a discussion with his mother that involved a disagreement because she failed to understand what he meant when he said he had to get home for a "raid". Simone had to concede that, as a parent, she found the idea of her children needing to go home for a raid to be somewhat menacing.

However, after professing her profound ignorance, she learned that larping involved Live Action Role Playing. In public, no less! Kind of like improv but with more rules. Simone was very, very excited. And cosplay involves wearing costumes of well or lesser known characters and then speaking and behaving in character. Woo hoo!

"There's a whole world to be unleashed on society, Simone," one young friend told her. "The nerd world. It's a good world. You should rejoin us someday."

Indeed. Perhaps after Diego Saves the Muskrat and before an impossibly early bedtime to cope with the needs of the alarm clock, Simone can don a costume and go play in the park...