Okay so Dear My Followers Who Arenât Discworld People,
I bet you get so FUCKING confused when I and dozens of others are putting all this âGlorious 25th of Mayâ stuff on your dash and Iâm sorry about that so let me TELL YOU what itâs ALL ABOUT okay but I had a couple shots too fast so bear with my lightweight ass.
Itâs a thing from a book called Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. On May 25 in-universe, a thing happened called the âGlorious Revolutionâ where in this city called Ankh-Morpork the leader (Patrician) died (was sort of assassinated sort of induced into having a heart attack) and a new leader came to power. There was a lot of unrest in the city because the regular people were like Life Sucks We Want Things To Not Suck In These Particular Ways. So the Bad side of the police got dispatched to quell the rebellion and also the damn army got made involved, while there was a group of ragtag Good police who ended up just trying to actually keep the peace and protect the rebels so things would calm down, but a bunch of them got killed and the revolution ended with the new leader sucking almost as bad as the old leader and yeah everything still kinda sucked.
Fast forward a bunch of years to our hero Sam Vimes the commander of the Watch cops chasing a criminal and getting zapped back into the past by magical lightning no thatâs not a joke. Vimes was a teenage new police recruit the first time the Glorious 25th happened and now heâs in the past having to pretend to be the guy who trained him the first time. As the same things happen as happened before in this pivotal moment in his life/the cityâs history.
And like!! Vimes knows whatâs going to happen! He knows people are going to die!! And he knows that if anything about the past changes too much, he wonât be able to go home to his proper present. But the criminal he was chasing got zapped back to the past too and could be fucking things up even worse due to being an asshole! So Vimes has to catch that guy so he can go back to the present and have justice be served.
BUT!!!! Even though he KNOWS he probably canât save anyone whoâs âsupposed to dieâ and even though he KNOWS heâs doomed to lose everything he has in his present if things change too much (his wife! is about to have their child!)!!! HE TRIES TO SAVE PEOPLE. Because theyâre good men!! And if the price of going home is NOT TRYING! and selling those good men to the night! He doesnât want to pay it!!
So he TRIES. So fucking hard. Because if he didnât, he wouldnât be Sam Vimes.
And okay anyway letâs not spoil the whole book KidK but anyway! When the good cops are out doing their duty trying to just help things be peaceful in the city, one of them is like âwe should have some kind of banner or plume to show weâre in this togetherâ and one of them is like âhow about sprigs of lilac I mean theyâre all over the place.â So thatâs why lilac.
And thatâs why Glorious 25th.
And the fandom decided to celebrate it as a remembrance of Terry Pratchett and as a Thing to raise awareness for Alzheimerâs because thatâs what PTerry died of.
So thatâs what this is all about. A really good book about time travel and found family and comradeship and trying your best against the worst kind of odds. And a really good author who shouldnât be dead and trying to help others with his same illness.
Thatâs why lilac, thatâs why 25th of May. Okay? Okay.