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grantaire when marius in love at last:

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abhsjdkkf i've been pestering my friend to listen to tma. honestly pretty accurate description of the first season

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“go to hell” is basic. “i hope your favorite media got appropriated by right-winged people to the point they think they’re the hero of the story. Even though you know it in your heart that the author will personally come back from the grave to roast them with a new book if they can” is smart. it’s possible. it’s terrifying.

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And a hard-boiled egg!🌟

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“He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart.” ― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

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The entire Discworld fandom on the 25th of May.

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Truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love, and a hardboiled egg. Did Ankh-Morpork get those things, in the end?

They got truth, there was a whole book about it. Vimes didn't want it when he got it, or at least he didn't want the political cartoon section of the newspaper, but Ankh-Morpork got the free press whether anyone liked it or not.

They got justice, thanks first to Carrot and then to Vimes, forcing the City Watch to reform into an organization that helped the citizenry and would arrest the patrician or a whole invading army if it had to. Vimes had to wage a constant war with himself not to turn into just another gang leader, but he waged it.

They did not get freedom. Pratchett was very clear on that. Things got comparatively better, and immigrants flocked to the city despite it being a hellhole, because the dictator didn't care about persecuting any minority groups or whether or not people made fun of him, but it was still a dictatorship. When Pratchett was alive, fans speculated that he was subtly training Moist von Lipwig to become the new government leader- the Lipwig books always had an emphasis on Vetinari getting older- and Lipwig would have had nothing to fear from an election by popular vote, but that's all fanwank and speculation.

They got reasonably priced love right away. That may have even been one of Vetinari's first acts as patrician, since Mrs. Palm is leader of the Seamstress's Guild at least as far back as the early Watch books.

John Keel's grave got a hardboiled egg every year.

Four out of five ain't bad.

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“You'd like Freedom, Truth and Justice, wouldn't you, comrade sergeant?” said Reg encouragingly.

“I'd like a hard-boiled egg,” said Vimes, shaking the match out.

There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended.

“In the circumstances, sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher—”

“Well, yes, we could,” said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of paper in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was.

“But…well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I'm pretty sure that whatever happens we won't have found Freedom, and there won't be a whole lot of Justice, and I'm damn sure we won't have found Truth. But it's just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg.

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I'm a little more than halfway through reading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch (yes I know, it's taken me a while, hush) and my dad, who introduced me to them when I was in high school, told me this was the first Discworld book he'd ever read. That made me feel all sentimental anyway, but this evening I realized this book has been part of my life far longer than I'd realized.

Young Havelock Vetinari, student at the Assassin's Guild school, has been researching different forms of camouflage found in the animal world, and thus is breaking Assassin tradition of wearing all black. It's stylish, but it's pointed out several times in this book that black silhouettes still stand out in the shadows. So he's taken to wearing grey and dark green, muddy colours. And reading that, I was overtaken by the memory of my dad, years ago, when I was just little, explaining to me that if you want to blend into the night, don't wear black, because the night isn't black, it's dark blues and greens and greys, and black will still stand out. I don't remember why he was giving me this Assassin instruction, but it stuck with me forever. And now, here I am, finding the man who taught my dad all those years ago. I love these books so much, they're such an intrinsic part of my heart, sometimes in ways I don't even realize yet!

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Forgive me for relating everything back to pratchett, but it feels very much like the system of belief and gods in discworld (a series alex at least has read at least some of as he references it in rqg, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if jonny has also read it). I wouldn’t be argue that I don’t think it’s belief that shapes them, it’s fear. Heinrich unheimlich is real, but he needs to be feared to be powerful, not just believed. It’s fear that gives him strength specifically.

As for the question of defeating them - it’s a matter of scope and a matter of approach. Heinrich is arguably easier as he’s already being feared less, so could perhaps be easier to defeat him in comparison to say bonzo or ink soul, who have tv and social media keeping them in current memory.

And I would argue that the best way to fight a rumour is with more rumour. I feel like some comedic “blooper” type video or image of a monster could sap its supply of fear. Image how damaging a meme could be to a fearsome reputation. If you can’t stop a story being told, change the narrative

actually i’m still talking about this. heinrich unheimlich presents fascinating implications. in protocol-verse, the fear feeds the monsters of course. it makes them real. but furthermore the belief does. the children telling his story quite literally bring him to life as a sort of terrifying frosty the snowman. which sort of begs the question. can they even be defeated? you might be able to conquer fear to an extent. but you can’t stop telling a story. you can’t put a rumor away. you can’t kill an idea. and the monster will always adapt.

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idk why people photoshopped the crying cat meme on this pic when the unedited version is so powerful

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the singular unfortunate effect of getting really into discworld at a young age is that i formed a Certain Impression about the purpose of footnotes, and now i am entering academia and it is still my true and firm belief that the footnotes are for being funny in and NOTHING else

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i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.

Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

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I’m relisten to tma at the moment, and I happen to have listened to 177 today, AND THEN listened to tmagp 37 shortly after. It was genuinely quite an upsetting experience (my own fault, both statements are excellently written, I’m just shit at checking for content warnings). Mag 177 was the only episode I ever had to stop and take a break from whilst listening the first time, and tmagp 37 has become the only tmagp episode I’ve had to stop and take a break from.

Goes to show how powerful Jonny and Alex’s writing is I suppose, though I will be better at checking for content warnings in future

37's statement was like a punch in the gut. like, not quite the stab 177 was. but like. ow. well that hurt. that was rude. the hell was that for. im gonna get you back. no im not. goddammit.