Magic, Friends & Everything Else

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Three

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Nine

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Vimes, a day later and thirty years earlier: immediately institutes a prisoner tracking system with associated signed paperwork, assesses promotion potential for every employee, determines which underperformers get put on a PIP and which get shown the door immediately, provides one-on-one mentoring with his younger self and particularly focuses on communication coaching, slots himself into the chain of authority to protect employees and higher leadership from each other, and institutes accountability policies with documented checks

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)

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.

For those of my followers who are confused, here’s a brief explanation.

In the Discworld book Night Watch, the 25th of May is the anniversary of the Revolution of Treacle Mine Road, otherwise known as the Glorious 25th of May. This was a relatively minor skirmish in the city’s great history, a struggle for power, a liberation that removed a madman from the throne to replace him with a different madman. But it was the city fighting back against oppression and cruelty and torture.

And in the fighting seven men died. Seven graves in the cemetery. And those who were there wear the lilac to remember them.

Discworld fans use this date as a convenient date to honour Sir Terry Pratchett and to remember his work.

Because there truly are no books like them. They are so amazing, with Pratchett having an amazing insight into fantasy, as well as the depths of the human condition.

Night Watch especially shows this. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s grim, it’s silly. It’s a book about inevitably, it’s a book about change. It’s terrifying, it’s bleak, it’s hopeful, it’s warm! It’s about a man reliving the worst days of his past, but he still strives to protect those he knows are lost. Because they’re not lost yet. They’re in front of him and he does the job in front of him.

Where, as civilians riot against the cruelty of the law, a man defends his watch house by sitting out front with a cup of lukewarm cocoa in one hand and a cigar in the other, telling the rioters he’s on break.

A book where a man must mentor his own child self. A book where he must walk his own past through the horrors he witnessed.

Where he gets so close to changing fate, before fate spins round with a haymaker.

And it’s also a book where the chant of the revolution is “Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hardboiled Egg.”

Where there is an old soldiers song about angels sticking their arses in the air, that just might make you weep.

We love you, Sir Terry Pratchett.

How do they rise up?

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

i think this is…actually the most extreme stupid dove nest I’ve seen.

Imagine you're coming home after a long day of hunting, and the first thing you hear is your seven shitty kids screeching at you for no reason, how pissed off would you be, I'd immediately fly away too

Imagine you're the oldest of seven and a fucking HOA member broke into your HOUSE and SHIT AN EGG and is BITING at your siblings, but your dad shows so you try to tell him the problem but you're very little and you don't speak English and he doesn't speak English either so you can't communicate that a fucking GOBLIN is in your HOUSE and the only reason he doesn't know is cause his ASS was on that bitch's HEAD and he must've assumed it was one of your brothers and sisters but it was actually that FREAK WOMAN who got in, and now your dad is flying away 'cause he has no idea what's going on

Imagine you're a parent and you've calmed down and gone to get McDonald's for your seven kids, and you come home expecting to get cheers because you know the D's are always a winner, but when you fly back in through the door the kids are all still screaming, and it's not even excited screams but you don't know what's wrong so you just look into the camera like you're Jim from the Office

Imagine you're one of the small middle children and probably the one that this HOA WITCH was BITING after she broke into YOUR HOUSE and SHIT an EGG and you tried to be a good host by cuddling with her to congratulate her on her egg but then she started BITING and taking over your ROOM and threw out all your GOOSEBUMPS books and your eldest sibling couldn't call dad so you all just had to wait, and then dad comes home but your STUPID FAMILY won't stop SCREECHING to explain what's going on so your dad leaves but then comes back and he's brought McDonald's which is like yay but there is an INTRUDER, and finally your dad looks around the house and notices BITCH BIRD KAREN IN YOUR BEAN BAG CHAIR, and you're like ok dad can handle this but then you learn he's more scared than you?????

Imagine you're a dad and you just got home with McDonald's and WHO THE FUCK IS THAT IN MY HOUSE but luckily you have seven children and the mean one is willing to fight this bitch and you're just gonna chill in this corner until this problem is resolved even if your other kids are straight-up judging you

Imagine you're Kevin McCallister and you're doing Home Alone except you're not home alone 'cause your dad is home too but he's not helping, he's just holding a bag of McDonald's, so you have to be the head of this house at eight years old 'cause you're home alone emotionally but this FREAK ON AN EGG isn't leaving so you decide to screech at your dad and he's more scared of you than she is

Imagine you're a dad and your child has publicly shamed you in front of your other kids and this ASSHOLE KAREN and you decide you're not gonna take this shit anymore so you tell your kids that you paid for this McDonald's with your hard-earned bird money and they're gonna damn well eat this, so everybody stop looking at that side of the house and just eat your fucking french fries but then that fucking MONSTER starts BITING your only child willing to go into battle so you recognize this is a lost cause and throw the burgers on the counter and you remember you're an ADULT so you grab your car keys and fly the fuck away

This is for every fat person who has worn jackets like unbearable armor during the summer heat

nature is healing