Thread by @MarkSeifter

@leoglasswrites has inspired me to share my own story about today's panel (go read his first, it's emotional and powerful; I retweeted it just before this post). So last night, I could not get to sleep over fear and anxiety about today.

We were the first live panel. What was that even going to mean? When I am stressed or anxious, my brain won't stop running full speed. I started thinking, analyzing, predicting, worrying, wondering. Eventually I realized, I needed to make a statement.

That wasn't the end of the stress chain. It was more like the beginning of the coherent part of it. Fortunately, even my stress brain couldn't try to convince me there was any chance that @leoglasswrites or @MichaelJSayre1 would want me not to.

I knew they had my back implicitly whatever I wanted to do, even the part of my brain that always doubts everything couldn't doubt that. The three of us went through a lot together on the book in general.

Whatever came, we could do this. We could give a panel. We could share our love for this book and for all the freelancers and coworkers who made it happen, across all the teams and departments at Paizo. But stiill my mind raced. What could happen?

3AM passed and sleep wasn't in sight. Somehow I managed to get a full itinerary in order for today that felt ready enough to quiet the thoughts and let me sleep, or perhaps I was just tired enough they were finally coming more slowly.

I managed solid sleep and woke up, came over to our work chat just before 10, and saw that, indeed, just as I had known last night in even the part of my thoughts that always doubts, Leo and Mike were on board.

And not only on board. They had woken up before me and already decided to do the same thing in our shared chat about the panel. Each of us coming to the same idea like that. It's really unsurprising.

There's a bit of an almost psychic style thing at Paizo among the on the ground editorial team members that editors like to call "bee brain" (named for the emojis of bee and brain meant to indicate a hivemind) where we just intuit along the same paths.

After our work together on G&G and over the years before that, the three of us had earned that bee brain many times over. So then I asked what people felt comfortable wearing to the panel.

I wanted to wear my GenCon Paizo volunteer shirt from my time working the show at GenCon. I waited to let Leo and Mike say what they wanted first, Paizo polos or something else. Of course they also picked Pathfinder branded shirts too. More bee brain.

The reason I wanted to wear the shirt is...it speaks deeply to me about my identity at Paizo. As a random non-industry fan attending GenCon, GenCon itself had occasionally let me down. Two years in a row in fact. At that time, Pathfinder events were just one type of event for me.

Paizo's customer service team, Organized Play team, and volunteers, literally with no incentive or onus to do so but their own goodwill and kindness, as they had done nothing wrong, bent over backwards to make things work. Things they weren't even responsible for.

And so I promised at that point I was going to pass that kindness on. I became active in my local Organized Play community and volunteered at the next GenCon so I could do that to help others. And that's where I got my GenCon volunteer shirt.

From there I became a 5-Star GM, Venture Lieutenant, hired by Paizo as a virtual unknown in an open call... and I made my way here. But it started with that GenCon when Paizo Customer Service and volunteers made things right for me, and the next GenCon when I became a volunteer.

So that was the shirt I chose. We started the panel and I was ready for anything. I had no idea what to expect. Were folks going to be angry? They didn't have live panelists to talk to until now. What would I see? And it wasn't anger. It was passion and compassion. Genuine care.

For what we do and what we work tirelessly to do. And I know Leo said we can't see the chat, but having done enough Twitch streams, I was savvy to the trick of opening another browser tab and popping the chat out onto my screen so it was scrolling past me as we started and...

By the time it made it to my statement (I had asked to go last) I was choking up. The support from our fans, from our freelancers, from our media friends (media partners is probably technically correct but sounds too business-y to me).

This is what I hoped. This is what most of my mind acknowledged as possible last night when I couldn't get to sleep. But it was so much more than I expected. And it was so meaningful to me.

So to those of you in the panel, thank you for your kindness. To those of you who have reached out, here, on discord, or anywhere else, thank you. This is a chaotic and incredibly stressful time in every imaginable way.

And you help us make it through this. You help us stand up to those anxieties. You help us as we struggle through it to create something that can make the world just a little bit better, and touch people's lives through stories that speak to their experiences.

Sorry for the long tweet string. I usually try to stick to thoughts I can get out in just one tweet. This felt too important, and @leoglasswrites inspired me to speak out. Thanks for reading, I wish you well, and I'll see you tomorrow, this time less anxious!