I hate roads

I’m on my computer for this as I know it might be long, but bear with me (insert Emmett pun here) 🐻

So wait - the Volturi are the good guys? But didn’t SM write them as the bad guys? 

Well, yes, SM did write Aro and co in as the antagonists of the series, but bear in mind that originally she didn’t write most of New Moon to happen, or the entirety of Eclipse. There was Twilight and Forever Dawn, which we’ll sadly never read. Her vision of the Volturi and their role as the evil villains who wanted to separate Edward and Bella became distorted as she had to flesh them out more and show their role as the governing body.

Then she wrote the Illustrated Guide and revealed their history and the horrors of the world without their authority; with the Romanians being as brutal as they were, the constant terror humans lived with and the fracturing of the world into many unstable and violent vampire-ruled empires (plus with way more children of the moon running about, probably as far west as - at least - central Europe). 

When the Volturi were coming to power they were laughed at with the idea of their law, a significant reason the Romanians didn’t take them seriously. But now they are extremely popular.

This isn’t just because Aro created vampires to go out and sing his praises. Volturi rule has been a blessing for both humans and vampires.

—

Terry Pratchett, describing Sam Vimes in a Usenet post back in 2004.

Also, accidentally, describing me. Shit.

(via benpaddon)

Okay, so this is what I love about Samuel Vimes as a Heroic figure. 

Sometimes you get Heroes who are paragons of virtue. Even if you see their internal monologues, their mindset is pure and virtuous. Sometimes, they’re tested and you get a Big Moment where they have to choose whether or not to stick to their principles or give in to temptation and expediency.  

And then you’ve got the more “Pragmatic” anti-hero types, who do some nasty things in pursuit of the greater good, and who might struggle with the things they’re doing, but they do it anyway because the world is not black and white.  And then you’ve got Sam Vimes, who is dragging himself kicking and screaming into being Lawful Good. Sam Vimes would not beat a suspect into confessing, but NOT because Sam Vimes is an innocent soul who finds the idea abhorrent. Not because he dosn’t think there are some scumbags who deserve to be separated from their teeth. Sam Vimes won’t beat a suspect because that’s not what a good man would do. Sam Vimes is understanding with others, but totally uncompromising when it comes to his own behavior.

Vimes isn’t a “Good Person” by nature, but by choice. By constant, uncompromising choice. 

I think this is the only way to be a decent person.

We know that Han Yoohyun doesn't care for social cues, laws and regulations, all mannerisms and behaviour towards people are done simply to please his brother. And so- he doesn't realise that by denouncing Yoojin, as a highly praised and popular S-class, he has condemned him in society. Yoohyun leaves as soon as he can, publicly announces that he's a burden, and the media is having a field day where Yoojin is made a villain.

Unfortunately, it's only made worse by Yoojin's lost desperation to find out why his brother, his child, who he has raised all his life has left him behind. Has spit in his face and is so cold, and that maybe Yoojin has failed him all this time. His desperation in trying to get to talk to Yoohyun at least once, to give him a birthday cake, to awaken so that maybe he can reach him. It only ends up adding to this manic, ungrateful and spiteful image that the world views him as.

Yoojin is condemned by society. Yoohyun gets mad that he's a hunter but Yoojin has no other option. He can't get a regular job because his reputation has been dragged through the mud and because the constant public attention is too burdensome for any employers. Seok Simyeong has constantly berated Yoojin, fucking up his mental state and as the 'spokesperson' of Yoohyun, Yoojin must think its true.

Yoohyun tries to protect him from hunters through this instinctual thought of predators and prey, but society is far too nuanced and he doesn't understand. By trying to leave him out of the dungeons, he left him to the world.

What makes them doomed is how the two view protection. For Yoohyun, it's locking Yoojin away from anything that Yoohyun can't control, like keeping a fragile animal on a cage. For Yoojin, it is using any means (including his own health) to maintain what he believes is best for Yoohyun (dating, making friends, getting into a good college). The two are not speaking the same language, but the love is still there. That's what makes their separation sting so much.

The Han brothers give up everything for the sake of the other, not knowing it hurts the other by doing so. And society takes full advantage of that.

Which is why, emotionally, Yoohyun always feels so young. And how in many ways post-regression 20 year old Yoohyun tends to handle things better than pre-regression 25 year old Yoohyun: because he's had those arguments with Yoojin, because they are going through the events that help him understand and learn to compromise.

[Someone has made a 'Yoo Joonghyuk Declaration'!]

No... wait.

Only took months and nearly failing midterms to complete. 😭😭

The first 350 chapters have already been more accurately translated online.

Do note this was mainly just meant for me and my friends so it's not completely consistent esp with the honorifics appearing and disappearing.

(There were previously some loading errors for some chapters. Both links have now been updated.)

Literally the first page, literally the first line, and we've got a footnote longer than the text, with its own footnote¹.

"Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari" awards the book its First Laugh however.

god. GOD.

i had to put it down when i got to the scene where carrot kills cruces because it says:

"But Cruces had been standing with his back to—

Vimes looked at the pillar. It was granite, and a foot thick. There was no cracking. There was just a blade-shaped hole, front to back."

throughout the whole book, the idea of a king has revolved around the sword in the stone. colon says, earlier on, that he'd rather have the man who put the sword in the stone in the first place.

carrot does both. he puts it in and pulls it out, right as he's been accused of being the rightful king and he does both in his job as a watchman delivering justice.

not as an empty gesture.

not in front of a crowd.

in front of one man who doesn't believe in kings. in front of the descendant of stoneface vimes. in front of the man who faced down the last king (admittedly a dragon).

vimes notices. vimes tries to say something and carrot shuts him down.

because the thing is is that vimes sees the world like vetinari, as much as he doesn't want to admit it. perhaps not everyone is wholly evil, but everyone has a little bit of terrible somewhere inside them, only for some people it's a very big bit.

carrot thinks everyone is good. everyone, including the people he arrests or kills. there's some good in them, and he believes it, and–usually–so it exists.

which is why vimes, on a fundamental level, can't understand how carrot works; how carrot can see a difference between personal and important z why he doesn't flip out when angua leaves in the fifth elephant.

but he taught carrot how to be a watchman.

taught him that people deserve a right to think for themselves and make stupid choices and hurt each other because that's what makes them able to choose to be good. taught him that justice doesn't come from kings and leaders but from the law, and they are servants of the law, not some overlord.

and so carrot is not the rightful heir to the throne, because the city doesn't need a king. it needs captain carrot, out on the streets talking to people, sitting in the watch house doing paperwork, running across the rooftops.

carrot is simple. he doesn't care what the narrative wants him to be. he doesn't care about the sword in the stone or the proof. he knows how he's going to make the world a better place and what he's going to do with his life.

he's never dreamt of doing anything else.

and this is why the gonne can't touch him. carrot doesn't see all the ways the world can be better. he operates as if it already is, and the discrepancy closes up behind him, or he closes it himself.