Oh Yeah, Crowley Was Very Proud Of This One. Probably Would Get Him Some Commendation Downstairs. 🎄🎉🎊🩷

scurvy has got to have one of the biggest disease/treatment coolness gaps of all time. like yeah too much time at sea will afflict you with a curse where your body starts unraveling and old wounds come back to haunt you like vengeful ghosts. unless☝️you eat a lemon

Book #179 - Thud! by Terry Pratchett

(I'm dizzy. If I think too long about it I start bawling.)

This is one of the best takedowns of war, millenia-spanning cross-cultural conflicts, the weaponization of religion for authoritarian or jingoistic purposes, historical revisionism, cultural isolation, the entire concept of intercultural historical grudge-keeping, war.... that I think I've ever seen.

"... and fools made fools of us all as we fought to stop a war, until the disgusted sky washed us away. And yet we say this. Here in this cave at the end of the world peace is made between dwarf and troll and we will march beyond the hand of Death together. For the enemy is not Troll, nor is it Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good."

The enemy is not people. The enemy is in the heads, it is the thing feared yet venerated as it worms its way into minds, seeths and spits and whispers evil into the hearts of men, snarls its hatred until people become things, and things become violent. It warps the light around reality until all that is left is a funhouse mirror filled with monsters, and its symbols, glowing red with wrath and blood- The enemy is the Summoning Dark, and it is always near, just one speech of hate, one call to arms away.

And because that is very heavy, here some sweet little things from this book that I absolutely adored:

- Colon's and Nobby's conversation about Tawnee and her profession. It is both hilarious, and unironically the most wholesome and least offensive conversation about sex work I have read maybe ever.

- Vimes, just, as a whole. Because I love how Vimes, with his unhealthy, workaholic, probably insomniac life, is so dogged about being a good dad. We all have seen the "And if you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one" quote, and it's very good, but I feel that I have to remind you that in the original context, the "it" he is referring to is missing bedtime storytime with his son. 'nuff said.

- Speaking of bedtime storytime, I adored the scene where they're on an evening walk to the inn at Koom Valley and it's storytime and the entire Watch squad joins in on the animal noises. I am legit tearing up thinking about it, it is so adorable.

- Everything about the girls' night out. Hilarity of the century.

- The fact that "casual DID rep" is an accurate description of one scene in this book.

- Brick, somehow? Like, I did not expect to get the not-very-bright-kid-becomes-incompetent-goon pipeline presented to me with actual heart and a heartfelt acknowledgement and effort to get him clean from his drug use, and give him a future? Like, Brick's subplot is so touching?? And how dare it?? I wasn't ready for this, what the hell!

It's such a shame too, the original version was a human-like group who had to change themselves into these cybernetic monsters just to survive. They wanted to convert humans as a mercy.

I feel like there's something valuable in the Moffat era in how often they independently crop up, and in the classic era for being able to see just a little bit of the actor.

Maybe there could be some kind of transhumanist story, where people actively become cybermen in an experiment to circumvent the need to terraform a planet so they can go out and collect resources on a struggling colony. It could have been going well for a while. These cybermen could have names, like the original, and eventually people decide to undergo conversion to reduce the resources needed to get by. Or the cybermen, seeing their people continuing to suffer, decide to remove that suffering by force.

IDK, just thought it'd be an interesting story idea.

the concept of the cybermen is magnificent. it's creepy. it's disturbing. it's the terror of undeath and the horror of coming back wrong. it's the endless march of capitalism, it's the commodification of disability aids, it's the ceaseless machinations of time. it's monopolisation. it's euthanasia as a substitute for healthcare. it's a lot of things. unfortunately many cyberman appearances can be boiled down to "scary army of robots invades" and frankly if i wanted to watch fiction about a robot and not the cybermen i'd just put on, well, robot.

It's beautiful.

Work in progress

Havelock Vetinari is literature's most dangerous tyrant.

Astute, learned, and wickedly clever, there are no ends the man will not go to in achieving his goals. There is no one he will not manipulate, no one too important to remove by a variety of means, and no one so powerful as to threaten his position.

And this applies, most importantly of all, to himself. Who watches the Watch, after all?

But Vetinari is literature's most dangerous tyrant because he is at once, yes, a tyrant, but ALSO literature's most dedicated civil servant.

He cares for the city. And ONLY for the city. It is from this position of being the man who truly only cares for Ahnk Morpork that he derives his authority. After all, who cares as much as he does?

Vimes? Perhaps, but he's a married man and a father with private concerns that should take his attention as well (even if Vetinari has to constantly remind him of that fact). He has other things to worry about, but good job that man for sticking to his lane: a sledgehammer sized scalpel for repelling threats and keeping the peace.

Carrot? Certainly, but Carrot cares more for the PEOPLE than the CITY. His mind is on the present, keeping the ones who are alive upright and breathing and getting justice for those tragically cut short. He is not concerned with the welfare of the CITY, as such. Not with the future the next generation shall inherit.

The guilds? Self-interested fools who were happy to take what Havelock gave them: stability and a piece of the pie no sane person would eat. They are content to squabble over portions of nebulous power, and all of them recognize that if Vetinari were gone... well, it doesn't much bear thinking about, really.

The nobles? Self-interested fools who are UNhappy with what Vetinari has given them: a slow walk to total obscurity and an eternal life in the back catalogues of Twerp's Peerage. Besides, they tend to only be effective when they can convince others to foolishly do their bidding, and the market for such men has seen a suspicious dearth in supply as late.

The wizards? Certainly not. Tried that before, thank you, and everyone seems much happier when gravity remains consistent and no one randomly becomes newts. Let them remain in their university, fat, happy, and most definitely NOT doing any bloody magic.

Lipwig? Maybe. In time. If he is convinced that it is in his own self-interest and things remain... interesting. But he also has Spike and the Bank and the Post Office, and a man can only juggle so much before suddenly there's a chainsaw in the front row and an awful lot of screaming. Best to keep him in practice of course, but... no. Not yet.

Vetinari uses all of them. They are tools in his box as he tunes and fixes and cares for the Disc's greatest city. The Turtle moves, but so does the Patrician, and it is a close contest on who shifts greater mountains. It is easy to imagine more than a few of the gods on Cori Celeste are keeping an eye on him and wondering what he's up to.

Except for the smart ones. They are doubtlessly taking notes.

Trust me, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it would be easy

Ha! I knew it! Your words are no match for the pure strength of our hearts, bound together as one.

found this crusty old comic does anyone know who this guy is

(been wanting to try cmyk dot styled colouring for a while now. it's pretty fun.)

den going through the horrors of computer science and infotech