Tag: Childhood Creative Projects

One weekend morning in the early 2000s, RuneScape.com was down. That’s right—the free-to-play fantasy MMORPG that had entranced millions of middle schoolers around the world, including me, with its charming graphics and goofy quests and people constantly shouting and scamming outside the bank in Varrock, was mysteriously offline.

I was devastated. Would it be back up in a few minutes? A few hours? This week? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t just put down my craving for some fantasy RPG action.

So I decided to create my own entire fantasy world with its own RPG instead.

Have you ever gone through your oldest papers, all the mediocre drawings and the dumb Pokémon fanfiction you made when you were 10-12 years old (which you still have, of course, because deep down you knew you’d never want to get rid of them)—all the assorted monster drawings you doodled in school, and been surprised to find a collection you barely even remembered? A literal collection—titled, themed, stacked and stapled together, featuring a wholly original cast of characters with names and artwork and biographies?

A world you almost completely forgot you had ever created… but clearly, it must have mattered to you a lot, once upon a time—after all, why else would you have written so much cringe-worthy backstory for this “epic” monster war saga?

That, roughly, is my modern day experience with rediscovering my file folder for Master Men.

(AKA, my unintentional first business venture.)

When I was in 5th grade, I liked to draw. Not with any seriousness of an aspiring artist, of course—my creative endeavors went in other well known directions over the years. But at the time, I enjoyed doodling fantasy creatures of my own design. Quetzalcoatl-esque dragons, weird monsters, and for one brief but important period of my life, a species I dubbed “Chinkin warriors.”

(Before I go on, I need to be clear: it’s pronounced CHIN-kin. The “k” is on the second syllable. The “n” is not the same “n” sound as in the word “ink.” Any resemblance to any terrible slurs is an unfortunate coincidence. I didn’t know about that word when I was a sheltered ten year old.)