Terry Pratchett Appreciation

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.

...

‘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)

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.

'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.'