Paul Jaquays produced a bunch of great gaming content, even two of the pre-eminent dungeon crawls of all time - Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia. He also cowrote a great product in the 2E Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. His Central Casting modules were very interesting if not overly useful. He was one of the luminaries of the TSR years.
Decades after his relevancy, he cut his dick off and changed his name. From there on apparently he proved the hypothesis that the intelligence and productivity of useful game designers is stored in their dick, because without his dick his credits include an illustration on Petty Gods (that he may have drawn when his name was Paul) and... that's literally fucking it.
Then Current Day decided we should erase Paul and pretend his fake name did everything. Early this year, his body died, but honestly when his name was changed is when he really died, or rather killed the man his parents sired. When he cut his dick off. He lost his wife, because of course he would. The internet says there was some medical reason requiring his transmogrification, if that is the case it didn't require him actually changing his name or assumed gender. If my dick got cancer and I had to have it cut off to continue living, you better believe I wouldn't want to be called the Queen of the OSR from here on out. That's some braindead modern day danger hair'd terminally-on-twitter shit.
So I gave a little time for his current supporters to mourn their lost fake person who did nothing at all for the gaming industry, and now I want to mourn Paul. While he was a "woman" for 12 years and change, he was born and mostly productive and influential as a man to the RPG sphere for over 50 years. I'm honestly glad he waited that late to lose his fucking mind, because his parents were far less likely to be alive to see it. Because that is every real man's fear nowadays, that his children reject not only the gender that they were born as but their own name, as if it was theirs to change.
Let's get this straight - your parents own you. The least they get to do is name you. You owe them to keep and maintain that name. It is the ultimate disrespect to your parents to change it, even if you don't like it. The truth is, most people don't like their name. You keep it anyway to honor your parents. At most you ask people to call you by your middle name or a nickname. But out of respect for the people who gave you life, you don't change your fucking name. That's truly uncivilized and probably the most brash and crass act of stupidity I can think of.
Rest in peace, Mr. Paul Jaquays
