#sourcery

One of the best things about discworld is that the whole thing is just a giant genre tug-of-war, and genre shifts are sometimes very dangerous. Get too much magic in a place? Well, then it shifts from funny ironic fantasy to full on major high fantasy, which sounds fun until you realize that high fantasy has dragons and otherworldly monsters. A fairy godmother makes everything fairytale, but the sheer force of cliches sort of eliminates free will. A pair of skilled killers come to the city hoping to take it by the shorthairs, but keep on getting traumatized by the various monsters that are just around. There's a politician very aware of how the story keeps dangerously veering into lovecraftian horror. The elves from fairyland actually turn the genre into alien horror, not whimsical fantasy. I know people say that "discworld is sci-fi in fantasy clothes" and that has a lot of truth to it, but that shortchanges the constantly shifting barroom brawl of genres that is the discworld.

Having mutuals who post full-tilt Excrucian talking-points about the universe being wrong and denouncing "humanity" as a concept, but also reblog cute animal photos, makes me think of the scene in that one Discworld book where a dying wizard is like "What is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile" and the Grim Reaper thinks about it for a moment and then goes CATS. CATS ARE NICE.