Very Messy Blog

i post/reblog about books, tv shows, movies, music i like at the moment so topics may vary, + random shitposting and rants about my life

[tisorridalamor]

Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action. 

 I don’t think they believed me.

[poorlydescribedpterrybooks]

welcome to the club

[amatalefay]

It is so, so difficult to explain to people that your favorite book is about transgender feminist dwarves, Nazi werewolves, and the mystery of a missing piece of really old ritual bread. And Opera saves the day.

[poorlydescribedpterrybooks]

yes, give us those sweet, sweet, terrible descriptions

[rhys1812]

A tortoise who’s really a god, finds an allegory for Jesus and they go on adventures in an ancient greece like place and then a desert 

[thesummoningdark]

The chief of police averts a rerun of an ancient war, partially despite and partially because of being possessed by a dying dwarf’s graffiti

[nightfoot]

It’s like Les Miserables but Javert is the good guy and also there’s time travel.  

[aethersea]

Macbeth but it’s about the witches

[zephyrantha]

Chapter one, the protagonist is hanged. Then he’s put in charge of the post office. Yes, in that order.

[roachpatrol]

it’s like mulan if there were way more mulans in mulan and also pratchett is extra irritated that too many people missed the point of jingo

[hypotheticalwoman]

The bureaucrats of the universe get annoyed at the paperwork humanity causes so they decide to steal Christmas.  Replacement Christmas is done by Death and replacement Death is done by goth Mary Poppins, who is also in charge of the investigation.

[katedrawscomics]

these are all nice and accurate reasons to read discworld if you haven’t yet

[uovoc]

Romeo and Juliet football AU but the other team is wizards

[animate-mush]

Hollywood????

[garrettauthor]

An entire clan of tattooed, hairy, kleptomaniac, alcoholic Scotsmen decide a little girl is their new best friend whether she wants to be or not and she rescues her absolutely worthless brother by discovering the power of selfishness.

[darkravn]

@cosmictwobyfour

[nudityandnerdery]

Someone is dying, journalism is being invented, and part of Pulp Fiction is going on in the background.

[pimpmizziriam]

The universes burocrats want to measure everything so they pay a man to imprison time so everything will stop and they can measure things in peace. Goth mary Poppins saves the day, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is the best Milkman in the world, and chocolate saves the day. Also someone was born twice.

[tanoraqui]

Classic dynastic machinations are happening in fantasy China, to be completely overturned by a gang of elderly barbarian heroes and the world’s worst wizard and best sprinter

[bailesu]

Death incarnate battles a shopping cart for the fate of the world.  

[sashathephoenix]

@grifalinas

[grifalinas]

Phantom of the Opera au, except there’s witches, a cookbook that is thinly-veiled pornography, and Christine is played by a fledgeling witch with multiple personalities who can’t stop being sensible long enough to enjoy herself

[letslipthehounds]

Hidden heir to the throne decides an cynical, alcoholic cop is the best role model in the world.

[brawltogethernow]

Atlantis provides an excuse for a xenophobia-inspired war between Britain and the Middle East but it’s fine because the armies are arrested for conspiracy to cause public nuisance.

[numberlover1729]

the jfk assassination is parodied in the above.

Rain is brought to australia by a lousy wizzard who runs from dropbears, steals a sheep, and invents vegamite

[dduane]

(sigh)(smile) All of the above.

[scribefindegil]

You can defeat Vampire Fascism with the powers of violence, your debilitating anxiety disorder, and a nice cup of tea

[boogerwookiesugarcookie]

the pied piper is a racket being run by some talking mice and a cat but they accidentally invent socialism. then of course there are also the rat horrors

[stargazing-bookwyrm]

A trio of witches (two of them uninvited) go on a journey to find out how the third one should be a fairy godmother. They run into and out of half-finished stories and manage to encounter a large amount of classic literature unscathed.

[cimminspronuncedcircle]

a cop time travels and has a hard boiled egg

[ruinedchildhood]

[new-reading]

I hope Terry Pratchett knew about this

[hunter-rodrigez]

I love how Discworld uses the fact that the world is a disc for its world building in actually interesting ways.

Not just the obvious stuff like the danger of people falling off the edge, but how instead of the cardinal directions, they use "hubwards" and "rimwards" because the mountains in the center of the disc can be seen from pretty much anywhere.

Or how the speed of light is significantly slower, which makes earth-like sunrises and sunsets on a disk possible. But this also leads to lines like "On a clear day, you could see all the way to last Wednesday" and descriptions of sunlight literally flooding over mountains like glowing honey.

But one of my favorite bits of disc related lore are the clacks towers.

These towers use the six lights on the top to relay messages over huge distances. Much greater distances than would be possible on earth, since the horizon would get in the way after 10 kilometers or so.

It's basically Discworld's version of radio towers before the discovery of electricity, and it's something that would only work that well on a flat world.

Oh, and they're called clacks because the shutters make a clacking sound when in operation, which just feels so realistic as far as nicknames go, like, of course people would call them clacks or clackers or something like that.

[fiberartsam]

Every time I give in to despair I read a Pratchett book. Well, when one is available near me.

Because those books are full of anger at the world and the state it's in. Real, actual, barely-concealed beneath clever puns anger. It's a rage, not the pretty "i'm mad" calligraphied in the page in white ink. It's something like "I'm angry and you should be, too" scribbled in red ink over the pages.

But these books are so kind. So hopeful. And it's not mindless kindness, either. It's not "I'm kind until it's not easy or convenient to be anymore". It's actual kindness from people who are angry but turn that into fierce, deliberate, stubborn kindness. And of course you can despair but you can also turn it into anger and then the kind of fierce kindness that you can change the world with.

These books were so important for me growing up, still are. I literally wouldn't be the same person without them. And I reread Night Watch today, as one does, and the terrible fairness of Sam Vimes struck me. The world is a terrible, unfair place, he said, and I'm not participating in that. I'm not adding misery to it. I'm gonna be fair and I'm gonna be good if it kills me. (the same goes, of course, with Granny. It's about choosing to be good. It's about being good if it kills you. It's about desperately hoping and never letting go)

Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably-Priced Love and a Hard-Boiled Egg. And by gods if we aren't going to fight to get it.

[fiberartsam]

One year later, I still read Pratchett; I'm still angry. I still hope in a stubborn, spiteful way.

I saw a post yesterday about Discworld. The person said "and at the end of the day people are inherently good so that saves everything" and I know they meant it in jest but still, it got me thinking. Because Terry didn't write characters as inherently good. He didn't even write people as inherently good. Most times people will be annoying, whiny, entitled, selfish, cowardly. And even our protagonists—our dear, beloved protagonists—they are not inherently good.

You know what gets me every time in these books? Goodness as something learned. Goodness as something you keep working towards. Sam Vimes was an alcohol addict in the gutter, not even looking up to the stars, as Wilde would put it. Moist is a conman and a crook and he takes advantage of people because he's clever and they're gullible. Oh, sure, he justifies himself but I'm not sure even he believes it, when he sits down and really thinks about it. Granny is always this close to become a Bad Witch. Tiffany explicitly wins against the Fairy Queen because she's selfish.

Even as Good People, they have their flaws. They're authoritarian and annoying, they don't listen to people, they think they know best (they mostly do, but still), they have bias and prejudices and in-world racism.

And then they learn. Goodness is a choice. Every morning you have to choose not to be evil. Every morning of every day you have to decide to be good. And it's something they learn, too. These characters are not the same at the beginning and at the end of their arcs, or even over the course of a single book. They learn to be better.

That's what I like about Pratchett's characters. Their goodness is not inherent, it's acquired and learned. And even after they made the choice to be Good, with a gritty kindness that does the job to care, even then they still have their flaws.

That gives me hope.

[theduckopera]

Me, new to Tumblr: Ohhhhhhhhhhh

So the tags are basically the footnotes in Terry Pratchett books

[offonaherosjourney]

What no one warned me about when I got into Discworld is that Terry Pratchett would completely ruin all my future footnote experiences. Now, whenever I read a book (even if it is an academic text!!) and see a superscripted number, my monkey brain makes my eyes drop to the bottom of the page asap, expecting a funny, poignant, memorable, and potentially life-altering little treat, and instead I get hit every time with the soul-crushing disappointment of McFarthy, G. et al. (1997)

[gcballet]

Discworld Textposts III

[<-] Discworld [->]

[witch-in-pointy-hat]

Angel and devil on your shoulder except it’s Terry Pratchett saying writer’s block is fake and Douglas Adams being locked in a hotel room by his publisher so he’d actually work on his manuscript.

[thestuffedalligator]

Night Watch is a masterpiece and Hogfather will always be a personal favourite, but to me, to me, Going Postal will always be as close to perfect as a Discworld book can be. It introduces a new protagonist who immediately knocks it out of the park and establishes himself as one of the most iconic and fantastic Discworld protagonists in a pantheon of heavy hitters. He's a weasel. He's touched by divinity. He keeps getting himself into trouble because he has an unshakeable need to escalate. He's killed 2.338 people. He's apparently very attracted to women who smoke.

He's paired off against the perfect villain, his equal and opposite who has learned to cheat and swindle and con behind the language of corporate speak, "we hope and trust that our valued and loyal customers will bear with us over the coming months as we interact synergistically with changed management and our striving for excellence." It's a story about the capital-fuelled enshittification of a technology that can be good and improve the lives of thousands and how monopolies will literally strangle innovation.

It's a story about delivering a message from the dead.

[i-am-the-guarding-dark]

i just think it really says something about Sir Terry's view of the world etc. that every time he puts a character in front of you and posits them as The Good One, it's never the character who always thinks good things. it's the one who has grit in their soul and thinks bad things but never lets the inner bastard win.

Carrot is a force for good without a doubt, but he is not the Good Man in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes is. Vimes who is deeply suspicious of just about every group in the city, Vimes who constantly has to reexamine his beliefs and prejudices, Vimes who really really wants to kick the shit out of the bad guys but never lets it happen. If you'd do it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one.

And it happens again with Granny Weatherwax - the one who wanted to be evil, who can feel the evil nagging at her every day, who nevertheless holds the line.

idk something about how being a good person doesn't mean being perfect or idealistic or even particularly nice. it's just about doing The Right Thing, over and over again. it's about who watches the watchmen? that would be me. ah, but who watches you? I do that, too.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

She is an avatar of Great A'Tuin

[currentlyinflames]

when josh was looking for crowley

8 whickber street residents: oh that dude? hes our resident heartbroken cryptid. just follow the rats to get to him, he's been in a ditch since his boyfriend broke up with him

[feathersoverberkeley]

“I was a terrible angel”

“you weren’t. You were the best of us”

BUT HE WASN’T THOUGH. BY HEAVENS STANDARDS HE WAS A TERRIBLE ANGEL. THATS THE PROBLEMM OMG…….. Crowley was a terrible angel!!!! Because the system that shaped his circumstances made it so he couldn’t have been any other way in the eyes of Heaven !!!! But you know what he was?? A good person. Focusing on what he was like as an angel is a slap in the face to the life he carved out for himself and the person he became without Heaven. Or Hell. Imagine if Crowley had told Aziraphale that he was the best angel instead. IT WOULDN’T BE TRUE!! THATS THE POINT!! Neither of them are good at their jobs, neither of them fit the rigid black and white morality of Heaven and Hell and neither of them are good in the eyes of Heaven or Hell. They’re good and they are their own people because they chose to be, outside of those fixed identities. They were supposed to be an us

[currentlyinflames]

"road to hell needs repaving" -A J Crowley, 2026

[thebasementgirl]

Did I like Season 3? Not exactly. Did I hate it? Not exactly. There were things I liked and things I didn't like. And that's fine I guess.

I think we all agree that if this season had six episodes instead of just one 90-minute episode, it would have been possible to develop the whole plot better.

Here are some things I didn't like:

I felt that the second coming of Jesus was a useless plot because he only came to Earth and stayed here for like... idk one day? Played cards and offered pizza to people while saying comforting words to them

I wanted more flashbacks showing Crowley and Aziraphale's lives on Earth, just like in previous seasons, since the idea of ​​seeing their female versions was discarded in season 2, I wanted to see it in this season

Ben Cumberbatch and Glenn Close no longer play Satan and God 😢

How can an angel and a demon ask the highest authority in the universe to create another universe from scratch without her and SHE ACCEPTS??? That doesn't make sense even WITHIN the logic of the series. The basis of Good Omens' existence is the comical idea that heaven and hell are a bureaucracy, and there's an angel and a demon who don't fit into that bureaucracy. Them ceasing to be part of that system makes sense but the ENTIRE universe? It doesn't make sense. Are you telling me that GOD created a universe idealized by an ATHEIST just because an angel and a demon asked?

But the thing that disappointed me the most was the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale didn't have their happy ending at Southdown Cottage. They were DISINTEGRATED along with every remnant of existence from the universe they were a part of. The fact that in this new universe there are two human beings who are physically similar to Crowley and Aziraphale, and that these humans eventually met, got married, and went to live at Southdown Cottage, doesn't change the fact that these are NOT Crowley and Aziraphale. Even if somehow they have some of their disintegrated and then reincarnated essence, those are not them. They were never angels who battled each other in heaven, they were never an angel and a demon who lived 6000 years on Earth, they never saved the world more than once, they have no memory of what Crowley and Aziraphale lived through. Those two humans had their happy ending, but Crowley and Aziraphale ceased to exist. Those two are mortals. Crowley and Aziraphale didn't go through everything they went through just to live a few more years together on Earth, die, and go nowhere, since there is no longer an after life. The only thing that comforts me is knowing that these are not Crowley and Aziraphale.

P.S: I liked that they didn't kiss on the lips because, as I mentioned before, from my point of view, Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship is not romantic. And it's not just friendship either. It's a middle ground between the two (a queerplatonic relationship). A handshake would be a friendly gesture. A kiss on the lips would be a romantic gesture. An indirect kiss, the way Aziraphale did it by kissing his own hand and then touching Crowley's lips, seemed like the perfect middle ground to me, and that made me happy. That's something I believe would be part of the dynamic of Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship.

PPS: maybe it would have been better if the plot of season 3 was the same as the plot of the movie Santo Cielo (2023). Maybe I'll write a fix it fic with that plot 😅

[anonyymoose]

piece of media you feel crazy about at formative age is truly like the hotel california. you can check out but you can never leave

[a-fellow-animaniac]

I won't lie, as much as I wish someone like Annie or even Butcher to be the one to do Firecracker in, I think I like way the show handled it better. Mainly for the symbolic reasons.

We have the supposedly devout Christian literally and metaphorically throwing her faith away so that she can prop up Homelander as a false idol. Only for her to meet her end at the hands of the devil she sold her soul to.

Then there's the extra symbolism of having a character who is obsessed with all things America bleeding out on a symbol of America.

But it's also a great contrast with how A-Train died at the start of the season. One died bravely laughing at the face of death to sacrifice himself for the greater good. While the latter died pitifully and timidly, begging for her life while she stood for nothing but her own gain. One figuratively saw the light, the other embraced darkness and died alone. It's not at all subtle, but it is fitting.

Kudos to Valorie Curry for playing such a loathsome yet pitiful character. Her sendoff was beautiful and I hope she gets noticed more after this.