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I’m so out of the loop that I just found out that Taylor Swift got engaged.

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*sheepishly slinks away to bed in the early hours*

no one i know has healthy sleeping habits

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In “Family Business”, the 111th episode of The Magnus Archives, Gerry tells Jon that “there aren’t any god-like powers of hope, or love, or indigestion”, as you can see in the transcript below.

It is possible that he picked indigestion as an example out of a hat, but that seems like an odd example, especially when the other two examples were hope and love. As a Discworld fan, however, it sounds familiar. It sounds like a strange Hogswatchnight at Unseen University, when displaced belief created all sorts of peculiar beings, such as the Eater of Socks, and indeed, the God of Indigestion.

But that could be a coincidence, right? It’s possible. But consider this: even if Mary was a rare book seller that didn’t care about popular modern books, she must’ve been acquainted with other booksellers, if only because they were in the same branch of business, so young Gerry probably spent time around other bookshops. Also, not only was Terry Pratchett a bestselling author, but Hogfather was #1 on the UK Top Ten charts in both October 1996 and November 1997.* It’s likely that young Gerry Keay would have come across it.

So imagine a bored young Gerry being dragged along from bookshop to bookshop by Mary, and in one of the bookshops he sees a book that looks like a Christmas story, except instead of 8 reindeer (or 9 with Rudolph) pulling Father Christmas in a sleigh, there are 4 pigs pulling a skeleton dressed up like Father Christmas in a sleigh. And that skeleton has a scythe. And there’s a guy wearing a knife and holding another.

It’s not like he’d find the sight of a knife wielding assassin or a skeletal grim reaper unfamiliar, but unlike Mary’s precious Leitners, this book wouldn’t feel evil. It wouldn’t try to kill him.

Imagine this poor little goth boy raised to be obsessed with fear and powerful evil beings beyond anyone’s comprehension getting his hands on his first non-evil book, and it’s one of the Death books. Imagine little Gerry reading Hogfather.

The End was something he’d been raised to despise and fear, and now here’s a silly book where Death is friendly and trying to save the world with the help of his (mostly) human granddaughter, a super cool fantasy Victorian/Edwardian sort-of-goth governess trying to live a normal human life in spite of all the shenanigans going on around her. Who hates a previous governess for teaching children to be afraid, tells children “Don’t get afraid, get angry”, and beats up monsters with a fire-poker. Young Gerry probably wished that Susan would show up and be his governess; and given what we know about his time with Mary (a few examples from episode 111 are shown below), he would’ve been much better off with Susan.

Also, I think he would’ve appreciated parts of the series pertaining to this, especially Guards!Guards!

Poor Gerry. He didn’t even last as long as the publication span of Discworld (1983-2015). GNU Gerry Keay.

*According to The Guardian, Hogfather was #1 on the UK Top Ten charts in both October 1996, as a hardcover, and as a paperback in November 1997, though it may be worth noting that topping the charts does not necessarily mean that it was the best selling book, as it managed to top the charts on October 31st, 1996, before its publication date, November 7th, 1996.

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happy ides of March

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"I asked chat gpt–"

Well I asked HEX and the response was "+++?????+++ +++Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.+++". Worth considering.

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Ohio is a domain of The Vast.

Hell is Real and it’s Endless Eternal Corn.

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This morning I had a dream where I was in bed and Squirt was looking for a blanket cave. She took the longest possible route by walking the perimeter of the bed as she so often did, started pawing at my face, and getting her face so close to mine that her whiskers were bent back (her sneezes go without saying), which is what she generally did when I tried to ignore her because I knew I’d need to get up soon. When I finally gave in and held up the blankets for her, she went in, pawed at the end of the cave for a little bit, turned around, and settled down alongside me with a slight purr, just as she’d done countless times before.

There wasn’t anything that would’ve been out of the ordinary when she was around, it was just a regular day. The strange part is how disorienting it was to wake up from that.

I’ve been out of sorts all day.

Grief is weird.

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@just-a-gender-fluid-puddle That’s a good point, I think you may be onto something…

Just realised that not only would I not survive the events of The Magnus Archives, but that even if I worked in the archives I wouldn’t be protected by The Eye like the other archival staff because Elias Bouchard would get tired of watching me draw the Guarding Dark on everything related to The Dark and a) feed me to one of the other Entities, b) kill me with multiple gunshots like Gertrude, or c) [extended sounds of brutal pipe murder].

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Just realised that not only would I not survive the events of The Magnus Archives, but that even if I worked in the archives I wouldn’t be protected by The Eye like the other archival staff because Elias Bouchard would get tired of watching me draw the Guarding Dark on everything related to The Dark and a) feed me to one of the other Entities, b) kill me with multiple gunshots like Gertrude, or c) [extended sounds of brutal pipe murder].

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*sigh* Today has met with less progress than I had hoped.

Fie on broken phones and fie on power outages!

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Fie on broken phones and fie on power outages!

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On this day in 1057, the Battle of Lumphanan was fought.

This battle marked the end of the reign of Macbethad mac Findláech, now better known simply as Macbeth.

Though he was made famous by a fictionalised version of himself in William Shakespeare’s early 17th century play of the same name, the real person was not the same as the character Macbeth.

If you intend to read on, consider this your warning that when you go this far back in history, names and lineages get weird. Unsurprisingly, nicknames, various spellings of the same name, different generations, and imperfect records are not a good combination for clarity. In addition, everything is further obfuscated by an overabundance of propaganda (whether positive or negative) from various parties, both contemporary and subsequent.

Spelled variously as Mac Bethad or Macbethad mac Findláech (or Mac Fhindlaích or Findlaích), or any number of other spellings, the “Red King” was born around 1005 to, unsurprisingly, Findláech mac Ruaidrí. It is not certain who is mother was, but it is presumed that she was Donada, daughter of Malcom II.

In 1020, Macbethad succeeded his father, Findláech mac Ruaidrí, as the next mormaer (essentially a minor or sub-king) of Moray, and, in 1032, he married Gruoch, daughter of Boite mac Cináeda and granddaughter of either Kenneth II or Kenneth III. In 1040, probably on August 14th, Duncan I, himself a grandson of Malcolm II and father of Malcolm III, lead an army on a punitive expedition into Moray, resulting in a battle in which Macbethad killed Duncan I and claimed the throne for himself.*

But as the song goes, “nothing ever lasts forever; everybody wants to rule the world”, and indeed, Macbethad’s rule over Scotland came to an end on August 15th, 1057.

Precisely how and when Macbethad died is unknown, as there are a few ways it could have happened. Some people say that Malcolm III killed Macbethad in the Battle of Lumphanan, 17 years and one day after Macbethad had killed his father, Duncan I, and taken the throne. Another possibility is that Macbethad died from his wounds soon after the battle. I’m by no means an expert, but the latter seems more likely in my mind, as the former sounds too neat and story-like.

Macbethad was succeeded by his stepson, Lulach, whose reign ended less than a year later when he was killed by Malcolm III. Upon Lulach’s death, Malcolm III claimed the throne, starting a new dynasty that would eventually move beyond the borders of the Scotland he ruled.

*Family gatherings must have been rather tense.

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The Magnus Archives but Jane Prentiss is always on one of those 1970s inchworm toys:

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378 years free!

🎵Ding-dong the witch finder is dead!🎵

On this day in 1647, Witch Finder General Matthew Hopkins died after ending many lives and ruining many others. Stories that say he was accused of being a witch and drowned in his “trial”, but he actually died of illness, most likely tuberculosis.

~All that aside, a moment of silence for all of the people whose lives he ruined and ended.~

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Apparently “Hallelujah” was written and recorded by Leonard Cohen??? The same guy who wrote and sang “Avelanche”, the song that plays during Our Flag Means Death’s “I am the Kraken” scene?

I never would have guessed.

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@violet-yimlat are you familiar with those 70s inchworm toys? Because this is how I’m imagining your return from Slovenia:

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Olm my, this is so cool!!!

In case you weren't there at the beginning of this, for years I've wondered at the lack of and thought that there should be more olm merfolk because of their nickname, “the human fish”, and because olms are super cool.

I was reminded of this a while ago when @vi-rimanez-arts was talking about olms and mentioned that they are sometimes referred to as "human fish". I mentioned my thoughts on olmfolk, and as the conversation moved on I didn’t really expect it to lead to anything.

She’s awesome though, thanks to you!

OLM MAID OLM MAID

This character was inspired by @dimity-lawn wondering why there weren't more olm mermaids. Now there is one! She might even be the olmly one lol.

Olms are a kind of blind salamander that live exclusively in caves. They can live up to a hundred years, survive out of water (but still in a damp cave olmviously) for several months, and go without food for over a decade!

That last one is kinda funny to me tho because the number is variously given as eight, ten, and twelve years and I'm wondering if they were just watching the same olm for all that time.

Tbh, this character was mostly just an exercise in design, but I like to think that she is an enigmatic prophetess. I could see her being the mystical guardian to a tribe of axolotal people who go deep into the dark caves to bring her offerings and seek out wisdom.

I gave her an accurate number of toes for an olm (three on the front legs, two on the back) but I think I could’ve made her longer. The veil is just there because it looks cool, while the brown cloak resembles the ones that you can rent in Postojnska cave where I saw some olms irl!

Here’s one now!

@shitswithoutgiggles 44 olm puns