grettir-dun:

eggcup:

God looking down upon his creations from his Kingdom of Heaven

The pictures I see of orangutans, the more I understand EVERYTHING about the Librarian at Unseen University. Oook. 

pencilhyphenmonkey:

Terry Pratchett’s books usually include a cornucopia* of puns, which is part of the attraction of reading them. However, these puns often depend on the intricacies of the English language, making them damn near impossible to translate into other languages.

This makes it all the more surprising (and gratifying) to discover that the French translation of the Discworld novel Hogfather includes a delightful additional linguistic pun, involving Mr. Teatime’s name – one that only works in French, no less.

*Given that they’re both corny and copious.

pasiphile: “You’re staring at Mister Vimes, Reg.” “Am I?” Reg asks, eyes fixed on Vimes’ back as he speaks to some new recruits. “Yes Reg,” Nobby says. “You’re staring, Reg. Why’re you staring?” “He… just reminds me of someone, sometimes. The Commander.” *** He’s twenty-five and he’s standing on top of the barricades, flag in…

Any thoughts on Discworld daemons, if you don’t mind me asking?

petermorwood: elodieunderglass: elodieunderglass: hvkryter: nestofstraightlines: roachpatrol: notbecauseofvictories: Vimes has a mutt. There’s really not a nicer way to describe her, a bow-legged cross between a terrier and a feral sewer rat, mostly the color of dishwater. And she doesn’t really clean up—it becomes more embarrassing after he’s married Sybil, whose pygmy hippo daemon can go from…

bramblepatch: downtroddendeity: aenramsden: noirandchocolateeggs: The thing that gets me the most about critics of Terry Pratchett’s novels who say they’re not important or “literature” because they’re “not realistic” is this:   By what yardstick are we supposed to be measuring “realism”? See, I’m willing to bet that the yardstick these critics use is that oh so popular…

Men at Arms is a direct attack on the idea of monarchy and aristocracy that so much “high fantasy” is based on; Jingo is a fantasy war story that denies the reader the “fun” of seeing a war break out and ends up attacking the concept of war; the character of Rincewind is a subversion of the whole idea of heroism. Monstrous Regiment is a meditation on feminism, Cherry Littlebottom and other female dwarfs a commentary on gender identity and trans people, Thud! a statement against ethnic hatred.

But all this deconstruction and subversion didn’t come across as having to eat your vegetables, the way literary fiction often does. And it didn’t come across as a bitter, guilty pleasure either, the way people geek out about the horrifying viciousness of “low fantasy” worlds like A Song of Ice and Fire’s Westeros.

Pratchett somehow made his progressive, subversive work as tasty a snack as any of the high fantasy he was subverting. Much of that candy coating was humor–the ability to laugh, as he once argued, being our brain’s way of extracting pleasure from the otherwise painful process of recognizing uncomfortable truths.

Arthur Chu breaks down the importance of Discworld in his farewell tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett, A Guide to Escape from Escapism (via landunderwave)

Part of why it worked was because Pratchett didn’t sneer at heroism or idealism, he showed how good intentions go bad and over the course of centuries things fossilise and need to be replaced, and most importantly, he showed the heroism of the small.  Yes, he showed the other side of the coin, the darker side of the heroic and epic, but he didn’t use that as an excuse to go Martin’s way of “this is what it’s really like: murder, rape and treachery under all the fine words”.

People like Vimes who stuck to duty even in his worst hours, when he was sunk in self-loathing and alcoholism, a dangerous man who sabotaged himself half-intentionally, because it was in his bones and because (as we got to know in “Night Watch”) he also had his own ideals and idealism that he doggedly held on to, even when half-ashamed of that.

He permits honour to exist in his world, even if it’s not kings and knights in shining armour.

It may be low fantasy, but it’s never vile.  Even when he’s showing us what real evil looks like.

(via tartapplesauce)

roachpatrol: autrelivre: carry-on-my-wayward-artblog: alda-rana: out-there-on-the-maroon: muffinworry: roachpatrol: out-there-on-the-maroon: babtest: so. they made a new german discowrld essentials edition, with a new covers (which is good because the old ones are real bad) and they are these manga-like ‘build a picture’ style, which i like but. oh my god. look at that vimes this isn’t samuel…

jumpingjacktrash: thebibliosphere: teapotdragon: zephyrantha: juliaanoia: wellplayed-tp: eustace-h-plimsoll: eustace-h-plimsoll: thepressureabove: juliaanoia: fanficisalegitimatefieldofstudy: cakesandfail: Discworld x Tolkien crossover where Vimes arrests the One Ring for being an accessory to murder Sam Vimes does simply walk into Mordor. He holds the One Ring and it can do nothing to him, because its tempting whispers are nothing compared to the…

fernacular:

I colored it!

(And added dragons cuz i forgot to the first time)

soyonscruels: It wasn’t a decision that he was making, he knew. It was happening far below the areas of the brain that made decisions. It was something built in. There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn’t be Sam Vimes any more.…