Terry Pratchett Appreciation

What does Terry Pratchett mean to you?

[hometoursandotherstuff]

She is an avatar of Great A'Tuin

[slightlyweemary]

Twoflower was a tourist, the first of the species to evolve on the Disc, and fundamental to his very existence was the rock-hard belief that nothing bad could really happen to him because he was not involved; he also believed that anyone could understand anything he said provided he spoke loudly and slowly, that people were basically trustworthy, and that anything could be sorted out among men of goodwill if they just acted sensibly.

On the face of it this gave him a survival value marginally less than, say, a soap herring, but to Rincewind's amazement it all seemed to work and the little man's total obliviousness to all forms of danger somehow made danger so discouraged that it gave up and went away.

[aeshnacyanea2000]

It wasn’t that he’d liked being shot at by hooded figures in the temporary employ of his many and varied enemies, but he’d always looked at it as some kind of vote of confidence. It showed that he was annoying the rich and arrogant people who ought to be annoyed.

-- Terry Pratchett - Night Watch

[twostepsfromtemerant]

'I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit's deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public truƒt comma and defend the ƒubjects of His ƒtroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majeƒty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of perƒonal ƒafety semi-colon to purƒue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if neceƒsary in the cauƒe of said duty comma so help me bracket aforeƒaid deity bracket full stop Gods Save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop.

[slightlyweemary]

Which is a good time to get back to the rambling buildings of Unseen University and in particular the apartments of Greyhald Spold, currently the oldest wizard on the Disc and determined to keep it that way.

He has just been extremely surprised and upset.

For the last few hours he has been very busy. He may be deaf and a little hard of thinking, but elderly wizards have very well-trained survival instincts, and they know that when a tall figure in a black robe and the latest in agricultural handtools starts looking thoughtfully at you it is time to act fast. The servants have been dismissed. The doorways have been sealed with a paste made from powdered mayflies, and protective octograms have been drawn on the windows. Rare and rather smelly oils have been poured in complex patterns on the floor, in designs which hurt the eyes and suggest the designer was drunk or from some other dimension or, possibly, both; in the very centre of the room is the eightfold octogram of Witholding, surrounded by red and green candles. And in the centre of that is a box made from wood of the curly-fern pine, which grows to a great age, and it is lined with red silk and yet more protective amulets. Because Greyhald Spold knows that Death is looking for him, and has spent many years designing an impregnable hiding place.

He has just set the complicated clockwork of the lock and shut the lid, lying back in the knowledge that here at last is the perfect defence against the most ultimate of all his enemies, although as yet he has not considered the important part that airholes must play in an enterprise of this kind.

And right beside him, very close to his ear, a voice has just said: DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?

[keystonewarrior]

I still need a few more than I thought I need.

[mariana-oconnor]

[niuserre]

Brutha thought: the worst thing about Vorbis isn’t that he’s evil, but that he makes good people do evil. He turns people into things like himself. You can’t help it. You catch it off him.

...

‘You know,’ [Urn] said, turning to Simony. ‘Now I know Vorbis is evil. He burned my city. Well, the Tsorteans do it sometimes, and we burn theirs. It’s just war. It’s all part of history. And he lies and cheats and claws power for himself, and lots of people do that, too. But do you know what’s special? Do you know what it is?’

‘Of course,’ said Simony. ‘It’s what he’s doing to—’

‘It’s what he’s done to you.’

‘What?’

‘He turns other people into copies of himself.’

...

The black-on-black eyes stared imploringly at Brutha, who reached out automatically, without thinking … and then hesitated.

HE WAS A MURDERER, said Death. AND A CREATOR OF MURDERERS. A TORTURER. WITHOUT PASSION. CRUEL. CALLOUS. COMPASSIONLESS.

‘Yes. I know. He’s Vorbis,’ said Brutha. Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph.

He sighed.

‘But I’m me,’ he said.

Terry Pratchett Small Gods (1992)

Bonus: Urn selected a short crowbar from his belt and inserted it between the grille and the stonework. Give me a foot of good steel and a wall to brace … my … foot … against – the grille ground forward and then popped out with a leaden sound – and I can change the world …

[evidently-endless]

discworld is so soothing after reading literally anything else

[proceduralbob]

Other people are people; while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.

Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

[ireallyamabear]

back when i was an eleven year old OBSESSED with lord of the rings my mom didnt understand any of it, but she did tell a coworker about my weird interests and that coworker recommended TPratchett's witches books to her! my mom got me Wyrd Sisters and I (and my sense of humor) was never the same again. Recently, I was blessed with finding a TPerry paperback i had never read before at a second hand store in great condition (Wintersmith!) - and if that's not a blessing from the universe idk what is. i try to go back to especially Night Watch every year and there's always always always something new and great in it. Thank you Terry!

[beardedmrbean]

Art by David Wyatt

[sweetly-impious]

i read my first discworld novel around 25 years ago. i was 10 or 11 maybe. and when i say that discworld raised me.

it snuck in through the cracks and seeded better philosophies into a young mind that was being brought up in a cult, and as i grew, those things took root in me, crumbled the cult rhetoric like so much shitty concrete and let something a bit more alive have a chance to blossom.

discworld met me where i was at--in my youthful impotent rage, in my cleverness, in my fears.

discworld said that monsters were real but i was allowed to carry a frying pan and some string. discworld said it was okay to care an irrational amount about pedantic things but it wasn't okay to be an elitist asshole about it because everyone else is people, too, and if you're so clever maybe you have a duty to use it rather than a right to lord it over everyone. discworld made me think about my thoughts.

discworld gave me socks to shove down my pants when i was 14 and didn't know how to have words for not being a girl and it laid out a framework for understanding my autism almost 20 years before i knew what it was. it told me i was allowed to have agency and if i didn't then i was allowed to take it from whoever was trying to keep it from me.

discworld said there are words for that feeling of always watching myself, that it doesn't make me evil for needing to be my own built-in leash. and that it's okay to think the world is full of idiots and bastards as long as i understand at the end of the day they're just as human as everyone else and that has to matter or everything breaks down.

discworld, in particular, drove home just what that humanity meant. what it meant to be part of it, when i had grown up too isolated to understand in any organic way.

discworld was there for me as a kid and it was there for me as an adult revisiting my favourites with eyes ever made fresh by adult worry and grief and exhaustion and hope, understanding me every step of the way. it reminded me again and again through the difficult years that i had to care because caring is all we've got and if we don't care, what's the point?

and it did all of that while making me laugh so hard i couldn't breathe. helped me consistently value joy and humour against a painful world, even at my lowest.

i wouldn't be this me without discworld; i would be some much worse version of me, and that would really suck.

i don't have anything terribly poetic or moving to say today. i'm just full of gratitude and gladness and melancholy and assorted other soft feelings.

it's the 25th of may. i've been wearing lilac in my hair since before i was even old enough to know why.

i guess all that's left to do is track down a hard-boiled egg.

[slightlyweemary]

'What's a computer hardware?'

'Well, this is,' said the druid, tapping the rock with a sandalled foot.

'What use is it, exactly?' asked Rincewind.

'You can use it to – to tell you what time of year it is,' said Belafon.

'Ah. You mean if it's covered in snow then it must be winter?'

'Yes. I mean no. I mean, supposing you wanted to know when a particular star is going to rise —'

'Why?' said Twoflower, radiating polite interest.

'Well, maybe you want to know when to plant your crops,' said Belafon, sweating a little, 'or maybe—'

'I'll lend you my almanac, if you like,' said Twoflower.

'Almanac?'

'It's a book that tells you what day it is,' said Rincewind wearily. 'It'd be right up your leyline.'

Belafon stiffened. 'Book?' he said. 'Like, with paper?'

'Yes.'

That doesn't sound very reliable to me,' said the druid nastily. 'How can a book know what day it is? Paper can't count.'

The light fantastic ~ Terry Pratchett (1986)

[morille-the-swamp-dragon]

🪻🪻🪻🥚🥄

Do I need to say more?

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

"Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart."

GNU Sir Terry, I wouldn't be the man I am today without your influence; from you I learned that evil begins when you treat people like things; that sure it's important that you speak from them as have no voice but that there's also room in there for grasp for them as can't bend, reach for them as can't stretch, wipe for them as can't twist; that saying somone should do something isn't much good unless you follow it up with and that somone will be me; that there aren't really good guys and bad guys, that the enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid; that all things strive, and that every moment of every day we can choose to be the place where the falling angle meets the rising ape

[lamuradex]

Oh wait!

One last Discworld post. Because it wouldn't be the 25th of May without one little Discworld song.

Cover by DJ Boogie