Reblog And Put In The Tags How You Would Die If Your URL Predicted Your Death

reg shoe, rising

up against oppressors

from the dead

People are so stupid about snakes. If there's a little black racer chilling outside just leave it alone, you don't have to kill it, it's probably dealing with all your pests for you, jesus christ

people will be like “don’t worry it’s all in your head!” like babe… yes… that’s the problem… how do i get it out of there…

I seem to have gotten the same curse

Apparently I am cursed to get the best ideas for writing in only 3 places:

1. While I'm in the shower, getting ready in the morning

2. While I'm in bed, trying to fall asleep

3. While I'm sitting in class, and listening to the most boring explanations I have ever heard

Discworld is an interesting beast in the age of ACAB. Like, the city watch books are a story about police and the way in which a good police force can help and protect people. Which would make it copoganda. And I'm not going to say that the City Watch books are completely free of copoganda, but they also do something interesting that fairly few stories about heroic police officers do, and I think it has a lot to do with Samuel Vimes. A lot of copoganda stories like, say, Brooklyn 99, are perfectly capable of portraying cops as cruel, bigoted, and greedy, but our central cast of characters are portrayed as good people who want to help their communities. The result is that the bad cops are portrayed as an aberration, while most cops can be assumed to be good people doing a tough job because they want to help protect people from the nebulous evil forces of "Crime". The police are considered to be naturally heroic. Pratchett does something very interesting, which is provide us with Vimes' perspective, and present us with an Unnaturally heroic police force. In Ahnk-Morpork, the natural state of the watch is a gang with extra paperwork. It's the place for people who, at best, just want a steady paycheck and at worst want an excuse to hit people with a truncheon. Rather than be an army defending people from the forces of Crime, the Watch is described as a sort of sleight-of-hand, big burly watchmen in shiny uniforms don't stand around in-case a Crime happens in their vicinity, they stand around to remind people that The Law exists and has teeth. The Watchmen are people, when danger rears it's head, their instinct is to hide and get out of the way. When faced with authority, their instinct is to bow to it out of fear of what it might do to them if they don't. Carrot is a genuine Hero, but his natural heroism is presented as an aberration. Normal Cops don't act like Carrot does. The fact that the Watch ends up acting like a Heroic Police Force is largely due to the leadership of Sam Vimes, but Vimes himself is a microcosm of the Watch. The base state of Sam Vimes would be an alchoholic bully of an officer, one who beats people until they confess to anything because that makes his job easier. Vimes The Hero is a homunculous, an artificial being created by Sam Vimes fighting back all those instincts and FORCING himself to behave as his conscience dictates. Vimes doesn't take bribes or let his officers do the same because, damnit, that sort of thing shouldn't happen, even if doing so would make things a lot easier. Vimes doesn't run towards sounds of screaming because he WANTS to, he forces himself to do so because somebody needs to. It's best summed up in Thud “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.” “I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.” “Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief little smile. “I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.”

In the hands of another writer, or another series, this exchange would be weirdly dismissive. To whom should the police be accountable to? Themselves, shut up and trust us. But from Vimes, it's a different story. Vimes DOES constantly watch himself, and he doesn't trust that bastard, he's known him his entire life. The Heroic Police are not a natural state, they're an ideal, and ahnk-morpork only gets anywhere close. Vimes is constantly struggling against his own instincts to take shortcuts, to let things slide, but he forces himself to live up to that ideal and the Watch follows his example. Discworld doesn't propose any solutions to the problems with policing in the real world. We don't have a Sam Vimes to run the NYPD and force them to behave. We don't have a Carrot Ironfounderson. But it's at least a story about detectives and police that I can read without feeling like I'm being sold propaganda about the Thin Blue Line.

los pollos hermanos christmas party

I outgrew Harry & Ron & Hermione… And Alisa Seleznyova… And the Pevensies… And Kalle Blomkvist…

*sheds a tear*

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. And it is not even a little close.

What other Witch could so shrewdly bend the very story she was in to her will? To take the tropes and clichés and to weaponize them against those who were wrong in defense of those who could not defend themselves?

What other Witch, when faced with the Good Fairy Godmother, would rip the story from her very fingers and set things to right?

What other Witch, under vampiric assault, could turn the famous bite around and, instead of becoming a vampire herself, through force of sheer will Weatherwax the vampire? What does that even mean?

What other Witch could give a child a gift so powerful it would override narrative convention and let the long lost prince refuse to take his rightful crown in favor of pursuing his dreams?

Indeed, what other Witch would resist the crown when it fell into her lap?

There have been untold millions of Witches in literature, but not a one of them could sit demurely at a social gathering, doing absolutely nothing, and drive everyone around her to near insanity through sheer nervousness?

No one else could be so proficient at both Magic and People that she would barely need or want to use the former because of how effective and predictable the latter could be.

And all of this, ALL of this, while going against her own narrative nature as 'The Bad Witch'. To resist your own role in the story so completely that you transcend expectations and settle into legend as one of the ultimate forces of righteousness on the Disc? That requires more power, more cunning, and more skill than any, every other Witch. Combined.

And she did it by knowing people. By watching them and knowing things and by understanding, better than their own mothers, how to talk to everyone and precisely pass along knowledge. How to command respect, even if they don't like you very much. How to be indispensable, while dispensing with the pleasantries.

She didn't do it alone, but she wouldn't admit that within earshot of Gytha or any of her numerous brood (So, she would never admit it). She benefitted by her associations with Nanny Ogg, with Magrat, with Agnes, with Tiffany, with Ridcully (allegedly), and even with Death.

Who else would earn time for her candle to flicker in the wind, and a warning by the Grim Reaper himself, for the right she had done in the world.

Right. Not good. Not nice. Right.

She was the vessel Pratchett poured his every indignant thought at the inherent injustice in the world into, and she brandished those white hot notions against every part of the stories that tried to make her into something she did not want to be.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. What more could possibly be said?

A cheese sandwich

If I ask nicely will people reblog this and tell me what their most common breakfast is? Not your favorite necessarily, just what you have for breakfast most frequently? 🙏🏽

The way most autism literature describes "literal interpretation" is often not at all similar to how I experience it. Teenage me even thought I couldn't be autistic because I've always been able to learn metaphors easily.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?

It's not common figures of speech that confound me. It's ambiguity, in situations that aren't supposed to be ambiguous.