"Cheated? Professor I'd never! I studied for this test! That's why I did so well this time compared to the rest of the semester! Everything on that test came from my own brain!"
you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!
Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.
He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.
The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”
It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.
He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died. He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.
Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough.
I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line. I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern. “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.
“Yes,” I said. “But I like seeing how authors grow.”
He brightened and reached for his pen. “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.
Normality is the name of the game as Til, Noan, Feter, and Anna go forth on the incredibly slow ride to the city. They cannot, under any circumstances, reveal themselves too soon. Noan didn’t think there were any of the Kingsguard left in the capital, something that made Til feel vaguely queasy as he thought back to their fight so, so recently, but they couldn’t afford to be found by them, or really, found out by anyone, before they found the king.
Getting into the citadel is almost laughably easy, though two guards stand, they’re arguing with someone else who would enter, and wave the small group through.
Til’s heartbeat hammers in his ears, anticipation warring with fear, and both quickening his blood.
The slow ride is a must, as much as Til wishes he could kick Stoney faster, faster, get them through the city and up to those massive, overgrown gates so that he could get this all over with. Now isn’t the time for faster, though; it’s the time for a relaxed, sedate pace. They belong there; they should be there. Don’t look at them too long or think too long about why they’re there.
They did belong, of course. Til was a knight, one of the king’s Honored. A step above for his ability, willingness to keep his helmet on, to truly uphold the mighty heavy rules that came with his role. Noan, as the king’s right hand, also very certainly belonged there. Those they traveled with were also supposed to be there; those in the castle just didn’t know them yet.
But Til also wished they’d hurry so he could take his helmet off once more.
It no longer felt right; instead, it seemed smaller and heavier than it had before. Weighing heavily on his shoulders, seeming to press in from every angle. It’d never felt like this before, never felt like an actual physical weight forcing him down, pressing against his head more and more.
Til couldn’t remember a time anyone he’d spoken to had mentioned experiencing anything like this when they’d taken off their own helmets. This was outside anything he’d felt wearing the helmet once more, outside anything he’d ever experienced before. The closest he’d ever come was the first night he’d taken off his helmet, and even then, that was nothing compared to this.
The more he thought about it, the worse the sensation seemed to be. Wondering if it was a punishment for the honored, or if it might have been the work of something else seemed only to add pounding like metal fists against his head.
A single knight stands guard at the great gates, stiffly bored at the day's long task ahead of him. But if he notices anything odd, he doesn’t say, simply waving them through without a word.
Crossing the threshold of the castle increased the pounding pressure a dozenfold.
If Til had been on foot, it would have brought him to his knees.
Somehow, no one else notices the utter agony Til’s found himself in, found himself experiencing for the sake of them all.
Beyond the gate, the castle is already alive, maids and the like already scurrying around, while a few of the knights patrol the space.
There are jubilant calls, recognizing the returning knight and wizard and celebrating their return.
Til waves, smiles, though the action is unseen and the movement seems to take more strength than he feels he can muster.
They are welcome. They are expected. A sight for sore eyes.
How long had they been gone now?
The knights approach from the front; a stable boy appears from one side, and a maid from the other.
Til stumbles getting off his horse, patting Stoney’s neck, he hands her off to the stable boy, aware on some level of the others doing the same, though he’s entirely focused on just staying on his feet.
A wave and some words send the knights away, not that Til knows what he’s told them.
His heartbeat pounds in his ears, his head, everywhere his armor’s touching him.
Feter touches his elbow, so soft he barely feels it. They need to keep moving.
A few more knights call out, welcoming and cheering their return. As long as they keep moving, just wave and don’t stop; they can get this done. Get it all over with.
As Noan leads them further and further into the castle, to where Til knows the secret door to the tower is, deep within the walls of the castle. A place few know how to get to, and fewer are allowed into.
Til feels the pounding in his head getting stronger and stronger, each step closer bringing a new wave of pain over his body, each step making it harder to take the next.
Passing once more through the hidden door, Til nearly collapses, the pain worsening to the point he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t tell which way was up. He was going to die here, succumbing to the suffocating magic that Anna had thought she was protecting him from.
The pressure releases him for just a moment, long enough for him to realize Noan has removed his helmet and thrown it to the side while Anna props him up.
Anna’s trying to ask him something, and he knows it. Her lips are moving and her eyes are darting over his face, but all he can hear is the pounding, pounding, pounding inside his head. He should be able to hear her, but realizes that the longer they spend trying to deal with whatever’s wrong with him, the less time they have.
It’s only a matter of time until someone tries to tell the king they’ve arrived, and they’re too close now.
Til insists they continue; he tries to tell them they have to get to the king’s chamber, that there’s no time for worrying about him, that he’ll be fine soon enough, one way or another. To Til, though, his words don’t have any meaning, any noise to himself, the hum of them vibrating through his jaws, but he is unable to overpower the pounding within his head.
He has to hope they understand him, but the slight lapse in the pain gives him just a moment of strength. Pushing himself off the steps, Til’s thankful he can stand under his own power.
He knows with a fierce certainty that the others wouldn’t leave him behind.
Each step is a struggle, but the others are there with him, their arms supporting him, helping him push himself up the flights of stairs.
At the top of the stairs is a single, heavy-looking door; the hinges and bands holding the wood together are the glittering multicolored of the king, of magic.
Til pushes himself to the front; he can’t let them stand in front of him here, and at the very least, as long as he wears his armor, he’d be slightly more protected from anything the king might throw at them.
At least, he hoped he would be.
Pushing open the door is no easy feat, but it only shows that it’s not barred or locked.
There’s no time for speculation, for thought.
Inside is a chamber nearly as grand as the throne room downstairs, though this one is empty of people and decorations. At the center of the room, at the topmost point of the tower, sits the king on a throne much simpler than the one downstairs, though no less ornate.
The king is still decorated, his jeweled crown heavy on his brow as jeweled rings rest on his fingers. The chair itself is as well, every conceivable inch of it covered in the glittering crystal Neryen.
Til strains to pull his sword from its sheath, and when he does, the tip of it immediately drops to the floor, the weight of it impossible for the size, for the number of times he’s fought with this very blade before.
Humming comes from the king, though it’s distant, just enough that Til is aware the king is speaking.
For the first time in far too long, Til looks upon the king with his face uncovered, unhidden from the world. King Donner’s mouth is moving, but Til can’t make any sense of the words he might be saying. They’re not real, they have no substance, they only add to the racket within his head.
With all his focus, Til lifts his sword, lifting it up, up, up until it’s at a height he can actually do something with it.
Til throws himself at the king, sword high, face uncovered.
After all this time, he will finally face the king and get revenge for all those the king has harmed and killed.
But colorful light bursts from the king and his throne, a shot of it striking him as surely as an archer’s arrow.
It’s not a simple arrow that hits him, with all the force of being kicked in the chest by a horse, the blast lands, but somehow, there’s no pain, pressure. Still, Til is unmoved as a wall of light gleams from his own chest, bleeds from the amulet, and bleeds from his very body, blocking the light of the king, though not the way it steals his breath.
The warm light spreads across him—the sensation not dissimilar to the way water flows with a body, or with blood dripping from his throat—settling, visibly, in the cracks between his armor, and following the blood groove of his sword until all of him is gleaming with the inky whiteness of the light.
He should be afraid; a part of him is aware of that, but instead of fear, he feels anger, relief, happiness, vindication, sadness, a thousand other things.
The pain in his head is gone, the pounding of a thousand people who’d sought the death of the king gone from his mind.
Finally, where he’s always been prepared to go, where every one of his people has been prepared to go. Til stands tall, aware now of the figures standing around him, with him, in a glittering array of light, short and tall, old and young.
For the first time that he can remember—that they can remember—the king looks scared.
He doesn’t look powerful on his throne—he never did—he looks small, weak, in the face of all those who’ve been hurt by him before.
Til raises his sword, hands and weapon lifted by the hands of all the knights—those who’d be trained to protect the king only to be killed by his magic—all the children—who’s lives had barely just begun before being ripped cruelly from them—all the should-be allies—people who’d once worked with Donner all those years ago—and everyone else who’d been hurt, betrayed by the king.
He doesn’t strike, instead, with a breath, releasing all of it from within him.
A glorious—frightful—blinding—retributive—shower of light bursts from the tip of it, all of it, all of those who’d come before him, all of those who’d suffered at the hands of the dictator, gave everything they were to him, to ending it all.
Til’s eyes blink open, blink away the artifacts of the lights.
Before him, the king is dead, fear frozen on his face, and with him, the end of an empire.
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Having a crush on someone when you have fucked up kinks is so embarrassing bc you’re just like “wow they’re so cute I want them to get off on the way I cry while they fuck me”
Also highly recommend looking thru the reblogs on this one cause so many people add their own versions, and the dom / sadist versions especially just fuckin tickle me. I love y’all bunch of perverts
Having experienced a lot of it in my 20s, I think some of the worst, pettiest, most straight up this-is-just-bullying-you're-passing-off-as-praxis incidences of Queer Infighting endemic to young people can be best understood as attempts to exercise power by people with very little power.
Like you're 22, you're queer, you've just become a Marxist, the scope of World Suck is overwhelming and you have $30 in your bank account. What can you do to feel like you have any power? Well, you can try to get your frenemy cancelled for cosplaying a character from a problematic show. You can write a public callout post over someone's obviously friendly use of a slur you don't think they technically have the right to reclaim. Doing this stuff can make you feel like you have power and your actions have an impact. Unfortunately the impact in question is a negative impact on other marginalized people. But that often takes some maturity and self-reflection to notice.
I'm reminded of this post from 2017. To paraphrase, OP took part in community service via their university and part of that was cleaning the bathrooms at the local homeless community centre, which would frequently get trashed, not because the homeless people using them disrespected the work of the people cleaning them but because they had so little control over other things that happened in their lives, and the bathroom was something they could affect.
This, too, is a trashed bathroom; young queer people living through hell and having precious little control over their circumstances or the world in which they exist can affect something by using the language of social justice as a cudgel on their would-be allies, as well as getting a brief feeling of power over someone else by doing it.
It's not worth it. Don't trash your community bathrooms.
The 'cartoon wardrobe' thing where a character in an animated thing only ever wears one outfit doesn't bother me. That's just their design. 'But what about laundry' just isn't a particularly interesting detail to care about.
But if you have a character with one of those Always Outfits, and then there's a timeskip and they show up again a bit older than before, you have to give them something new to wear. I'm willing to ignore laundry, but I've never met a 15-year-old who wants to wear the same thing she wore when she was 12. Laundry isn't an interesting detail. How the character has changed over the timeskip, and how that can be represented in their design, absolutely is.
Hell, it can't even be the same outfit, becuase there's simply no chance it would still fit. The only way to explain the continued use of the costume is if this character intentionally chose to buy a larger version of exactly the same thing they were already wearing every day three years ago to wear every day now. That's an incredibly specific character beat. And it's not one that makes sense for most of the characters who do this. You're already making new art! Just toss two hours of wage at a designer to give them a character-appropriate new fit as well! You can keep the theme colour!
my favorite thing about crocodiles is yeah they're fantastic swimmers and yeah they can run pretty fast and yeah the smaller ones can even climb trees but also. they don't wanna do any of that shit. they just go no, no thanks. that's not for me. i think i'll just wait for someone to mistake me for a log and get too close. and then i'll eat them. many reptiles love this strategy but none pull it off like the humble croc
To be fair to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if I wrote some pulp short stories for a quick buck and an obsessive fandom sprung up around it at a time when fandom culture as we now know it didn't really exist yet, and I had to witness people being insane about my characters while having very little precedent for what the fuck was going on, I would also be confused and frightened and desperately trying to escape from the situation I'd ended up in.
Consider: An anthro opossum, koala, capuchin monkey, or anteater, who is wearing a t-shirt with a text on the back that says "if you can read this, I have no idea where that little fucker is".
the thing about Tangled is that this is a story geared towards little girls (even if it's "fun for the whole family," it's a disney princess movie, it's geared towards little girls), and it says, "here is a girl who is naive and doesn't know anything about the 'Real World' or how to navigate it safely and correctly. now pay close attention: the good guys are the ones who help her grow and explore new things while still respecting her own perspective and feelings, not making her feel stupid. the bad guys are the ones who tell her that she is too weak/immature/naive to do the things she wants to do, because she is fragile and needs protecting." and I watched this when I was nine years old and it resonated deep in a part of me that I couldn't articulate with words yet.
rewatched project hail mary a few days ago and a small thing that stuck out to me was grace jokingly saying something to the effect of "you know, it's been a long time since i took a random pill from a stranger" when offered the anti-nausea (?) pills for the helicopter ride. anyway i want the tea on what that man was up to in university because i refuse to believe mr. ryland "i called the lead scholar in my field a staggering waste of carbon" grace was a perfectly straight-laced science nerd in his twenties.
re my "read books that make you feel stupid" post: reading books you don't fully understand is probably the safest way to push yourself outside your comfort zone. you don't have to embarrass yourself in front of anyone. you can do it from your cozy bed. you can easily get help from book clubs or literary analysis online. you can go as slowly as you want. there's literally no risk.
Another great reason I love both experimental lit and translated lit. Whether it’s complex sentence structure or morals/ethics I’m not familiar with, it’s a delight to be lost and find my way.
