paladin-panoply-of-pax

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

I really should use this more.

I'm giving lectures and demos, and getting more material together, at least in part to trick my absolutely SHIT self-esteem into letting me do things more.

#norse runes #elder futhark #HEMA #deconstruction #agnostic theist #TTRPG #D&D #Paladin #Social Justice Paladin

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

“Use your gifts and your talents to greatest possible effect while you can. Spread joy wherever possible. Laugh at jokes. Tell jokes. Make puns and bugger the embuggerances. Read books. Read my books. You might like them. You might find something else you like even more than them. Look for these things in life.

Question authority. Champion good causes. Speak out against injustice. Do not tolerate bullies or bigots or racists or anti-intellectuals or the narrow-minded. Use your education to challenge them. Broaden their perspectives. Make the world you interface with a happier place.

These are your choices. Choices you have been fortunate to have been given, so don’t waste them while you have them. Don’t look back in years to come and wish you had grasped a fleeting opportunity. Grasp it now with both hands, Live. Strive. Love.”

from A Little Advice for Life taken from ‘Terry Pratchett: from birth to death, a writer.’

—Sir Terry Pratchett; April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015

One of the greatest compliments I've ever received is that I resemble Sam Vimes.

Mind how you go.

#sir terry pratchett #terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #discworld #mind how you go #how do they rise up

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Much dig.

Have I told y’all about my husband’s Fork Theory?  If I did already, pretend I didn’t, I’m an old.

So the Spoon Theory is a fundamental metaphor used often in the chronic pain/chronic illness communities to explain to non-spoonies why life is harder for them. It’s super useful and we use that all the time. But it has a corollary.  You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right? Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.  A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.

This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Doctor Sir Terry Pratchett, Creator of the Disc

I move to grant Sir Terry Pratchett honorary doctorates in the Humanities, to include psychology, parapsychology, anthropology, gender studies, feminist studies, theology, philosophy and probably a host of others I'm not remembering.

He never said "those don't exist in my world", instead asking "how do those fit in my world?" I'm not talking about his writing. That's just where it showed up.

#gnu terry pratchett #sir terry pratchett #discworld #good omens #man in a hat #wizard #legends never die #a man still lives as long as people speak his name #lawful good

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Being an ally.

Posting this along with a big version of my avatar, for emphasis. As a member of a demographic included in Pride only as an ally, I feel it incumbent upon me to explain a thing: inclusivity has to do with how we bring members of vulnerable populations into the protection and equity of society, not whether or not you're criticized for supporting a particular fun thing. If a vulnerable population says "supporting this thing hurts us", listen, and avoid supporting that thing. It's actually easier and cheaper than supporting the thing, generally.

If you feel like you can't live without the thing, look at why that might be, and make sure that's a hill you're willing to fall on. Standing for what you believe is respectable in most cases, but if you're just going to clutch it like a security blanket against your unexamined trauma, we gon' have words.

#queer politics #allyship #ally writes #trans ally #lawful good #rainbow paladin #paladin

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

It would be easy to see this and laugh at a corporation's foible, but I'm not laughing.

The global gaming community rose up with one voice and said "No." WOTC was FORCED to listen. We need to do the same for everything right and just.

Equality.

Education.

Pay.

Human Rights.

Human Dignity.

Alone we are a drop of water.

Together we are a flood.

#wotc #dnd ogl #ogl 1.0a #d&d #big damn heroes #human rights #justice #equality #social justice #social justice paladin

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Boundaries and empathy

I posted this comment on a thread about healing generational trauma on Instagram, and it was popular enough there that I want to share the sentiment:

To be fair to previous generations, we're the first generation with real data on how to take care of ourselves. The best our parents had was misogynistic and racist studies, which we still suffer from, but much less so with the advent of greater scientific ethics and oversight.

And as a clarification to the above: this doesn't mean we don't hold them accountable, or set healthy boundaries against bad behavior or abuse. Only that we protect ourselves while holding empathy for why they are the way they are.

#generational trauma #healing #generational healing #breaking curses

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Poster by Women's Graphics Collective, 1975.

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Language matters. No person is illegal. Stop the dehumanization.

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Luke Skywalker is still my hero

No matter what, Luke's arc, all the way through the latter six movies, is wonderful. I don't know that it's objectively the best. Star Wars is kinda clumsy in general, but I know I relate to his story.

I know we're all destined to confront the demons of our past, and the secrets we've hidden from ourselves if we want to become our best selves. The more we deny it, the more pain comes from it.

I know we all fail and need to get away sometimes. Our loved ones still need us, and we still need them. Even if it's only at a distance, we need to keep in touch with the world, and even at that distance we can still do good.

I know that I really like that color green. Even if it's only because the blue wouldn't show up against the Tunisian sky, it marked Luke as different from his father. As having become himself, and giving up the past and the pain that came with it to pursue something more.

I know that being a dramatic bitch is sometimes necessary. We all have a Big Damn Hero in us somewhere. The one who comes in at the last minute. The one who shows up at the 11th hour for someone in need, even if it's for ourselves. Whether it's in fabulous drag, detailed cosplay, or just a magnificent laugh and a big smile and a hug, we all have the ability to inspire and save others.

Luke taught me anyone can be a hero. Anyone can do the work that brings down the system that's holding others down. Anyone can learn magic. Anyone can leave their life behind for something greater. Anyone can be redeemed.

Luke taught me that heroes have each other. We aren't heroes alone. We always have someone to turn to. We always have someone who's fighting alongside us.

Luke taught me that being a hero doesn't mean being a chosen one. Sometimes it's about getting the chosen one their shot. It's about reminding another person that they're a hero, too, in the darkest moment, when all seems lost.

And because Luke is my hero, I've found so many other heroes in my life. I've seen people defeat their demons, and I've fought beside them. I've survived my demons, and passed my tests. I've got literal and figurative scars to prove my victories. And I know you do, too.

So thank you for being a hero. Keep it up.

#star wars #luke skywalker #jedi #jedi knight #heroes #we could be heroes #big damn heroes #hero's journey #hero #mark hamill

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

AAAAAAAAH! This is AMAZING! We live in an age of wonders!

Tons more at the source!

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

I do HEMA, and I *will* fight to this music at some point.

Speechless

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

This goes very much into how I interpret Oath of Vengeance Paladins. There was a position stated a while back that Vengeance paladins might lose their powers if they enacted their vengeance. My counter is that for a paladin to even gain their powers, they need some sort of "supernatural" internal motivation, cultivated into what shows up in the system as powers. The Oath of Vengeance Paladin isn't motivated by some sense of personal emotional need, but a righteous anger at the injustice heaped upon them, and everyone like them. My favorite example is Inigo Montoya: despite being triggered into action by a very personal vendetta, he comes to embody all those Rugen has harmed. He embodies all those abused by a system that allows a person in the "right" place to enact those abuses. So when it comes time to slay Rugen, it is not merely a matter of his personal vengeance, though that's what we see. It is also the manifestation of incredible justice.

#the princess bride #inigo montoya #oath of vengeance #paladin #D&D #dungeons and dragons

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

Fuck. Now I'm crying.

I gotta ask: what does Gnu Terry Pratchett mean? I'm only two books into discworld; is it a reference to something there? some fandom in-joke? or was the late Sir Pratchett especially fond of the g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo?

It’s a bit of an in-joke, I guess. In-memoriam, maybe?

The long version is that it’s a reference to a bit in Going Postal, one of the later Discworld books. In Going Postal there’s a lot of focus on the Clacks system, a sort of pseudo-telegram system run by people up in boxes on the tops of towers who send messages from one corner of the Discworld to the other by flashing semaphore codes to the next tower in the line.

In Going Postal, a new company has bought out the Clacks and is running it at high-speed at all times, even as the operators are dying of the company’s negligence to make ends meet, and the plot of the book is basically about restarting the city’s old postal service to break the company’s monopoly on long-distance communication.

It’s a fantastic Discworld book, by the way. It was my sister’s first Discworld book and she quotes it at me constantly. If you aren’t doing a publishing order read, it’s a great book to check out.

The point is that halfway through the book, we see a scene set inside one of the Clacks towers, where one young Clacks operator sees a code go through the semaphore again. She recognizes it as a “GNU” code - a code that means that the message goes ahead to the next tower (G), is not logged (N), and is turned around at the end of the line to go through the entire semaphore system again (U), but the whole message is just GNU and a name, meaning that it’s a name that just goes up and down the line constantly.

The name is that of an inventor who tried to start a rival semaphore system and was murdered by the new Clacks company so they could keep their monopoly. And the oldest Clacks operator in the tower (he’s called Grandad — he’s twenty-six) says that so long as the name goes through the Clacks, he stays alive in the semaphore:

“His name is in the code, in the wind in the rigging and the shutters. Haven’t you ever heard the saying: ‘A man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’?”

#gnu terry pratchett

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

^This.

[paladin-panoply-of-pax]

From Hogfather

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

Terry Pratchett

Wanted to take the chance this year to counter Death of the Disc's point here. He's talking about justice and mercy as though they are matter. As though they are measurable as locations in space, but they are not. They are part of our relationships. We measure them by the effect they have on society. We see the scales of justice sway when it is served, and when it is betrayed. We see mercy measured in food given to those who need it most, and see its presence or lack in the decisions of our lawmakers.

These things are real, and are measurable, and they are what makes the world right. Every small act of compassion, and every grand act of wisdom.

A blessed Yule to all.

#hogfather #terry pratchett #susan sto helit #discworld #discworld death