So I still really want to write that paladin/witch wlw adventure romance, but I keep getting hung up in my planning about how much historical realism to include. My heart says “NONE,” but my head says “but now that you’re thinking about it, how DID medival singlewomen support themselves with spinning work?” and I know the answer is “probably not in a way that makes my other plans work” so I should just drop it.

But I do want my world to make, like, some economic sense??? I D E K I’m just super tired of getting hung up on this instead of planning, like, literally anything else

roxilalonde:

like! people always reference pride & prejudice as the archetypal “normal girl falls for mysterious brooding antihero” story but they overlook the part where lizzy drags darcy so fucking hard he leaves town and then apologizes for talking to her the next time they meet even though they’re at his literal house

rsfcommonplace:

thebaconsandwichofregret:

disgruntledinametallicatshirt:

you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!

Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.

He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.

The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”

It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.

He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died.  He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.

Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough. 

You’re not Terry Pratchett. 

You are you.

And Terry would love that. 

I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line.  I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern.  “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.

“Yes,” I said.  “But I like seeing how authors grow.”

He brightened and reached for his pen.  “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.

jumpingjacktrash:

apathetic-revenant:

The Patrician leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair.

“I want to be clear about this,” he said coldly. “Are we to believe that you are asking for a petty wage increase and a domestic utensil?”

Carrot whispered in Colon’s other ear.

Colon turned two bulging, watery-rimmed eyes to the dignitaries. The rim of his helmet was passing through his fingers like a millwheel. 

“Well,” he began, “sometimes, we thought, you know, when we has our dinner break, or when it’s quite, like, at the end of a watch as it may be, and we want to relax a bit, you know, wind down…” His voice trailed away.

“Yes?”

Colon took a deep breath. 

“I suppose a dartboard would be out of the question–?”

hey I just want to talk about this bit for a sec cause it’s a favorite of mine

I wouldn’t say Guards! Guards! is the darkest Discworld book, but it’s up there. it’s a book about corruption and the abuse of power and the willingness of people to blindly follow any higher authority no matter how terrible. it’s a book that begins with its protagonists at their lowest: the last three remaining Watchmen, having just buried a comrade, who have seen their institution crumble into nothingness, who have no power left, who have nothing left, who are so beaten down by life they have given up everything but wandering drunkenly through the gutters, with no hope of affecting any change in their rotten city. it’s a book where the–largely accidental–saving of the day is capped off by Vetinari’s blisteringly cynical speech about how there are no good people, only bad people on different sides, which leaves even Vimes utterly speechless and unable to argue. 

and then. and then this happens. the Watch are told that they can ask for any reward for saving the city. any reward. Vetinari and the assembled nobles clearly expect them to ask for something pretty big. this has, after all, been a story about how awful people will be if you give them any leeway.

…and the extravagant reward the Watchmen ask for is… for a five dollar raise, a new kettle, and a dartboard. 

and Vetinari, the chessmaster, the manipulator, the man who always seems to be ten steps ahead, who seems to know everything and predict everything, who a few pages before outlined a world view so dark that “the only thing to hope for is that there is no life after death”–Vetinari is surprised. the man who anticipates everything did not anticipate this. 

it’s this glorious little gleam of light, after a book full of associating mundane humanity with the awful, the humdrum evil and petty bigotry, that suddenly turns around and says sometimes mundane humanity is tea kettles and dartboards and silliness. sometimes people will do terrible things because it’s easy, but sometimes people will do great things because what the hell, someone had to. 

this is what makes pratchett such a genius.

any sophomore can write a story about how everything is terrible and nothing matters. it takes wisdom and skill to take that story and then convince us that, actually, there IS light, and it’s in ordinary people and ordinary things.

i never met the man but i miss him as if he was a personal friend.

penny-anna:

Listen. I have 2 degrees and a while ago I put a Tupperware in the microwave without opening the lid first and it came out sealed shut and I did NOT know what to do. I had to go and get my flatmate, who has actual life skills, to come fix the problem for me.

Anyway. That is the vibe I imagine Frodo & Bilbo having and when they run into Problems they get Sam to come help. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

lostmyflamingsword:

shinelikethunder:

priorwaltering:

a lot of my issues with kink discourse (both pro and anti) come from its assumption that “kink” is a unique phenomenon, as opposed to like, one of the many ways humans explore power play, risk and danger in controlled environments

And this is why I will never get tired of fencing analogies. It’s a quintessential controlled, lower-risk way to engage in age-old violence and domination behaviors. And it’s infinitely adaptible to different discussions, since it comes in flavors like:

  • Fictional, romanticized swashbuckling in books/movies/plays

  • Kids whacking each other with sticks in the backyard and pretending they’re swashbuckling

  • Adults whacking each other with DIY padded sticks in the backyard, pretending they’re swashbuckling, and calling it “boffing” or “LARPing” or "screw you, adults still get to have fun”

  • Idiots whacking each other with real swords for fun and ending up in the hospital

  • Stage combat techniques used to act out fictional swordfights more-or-less safely for an audience
  • A codified sport with specialized equipment, vocabulary, rituals, a well-established enthusiast community, and a lot of rules about Taking Safety Very Seriously
  • A historical martial art that also had rules/traditions, but whose end goal was still Stabbing Motherfuckers For Real (and/or Theoretically Nonlethal Dominance Pissing Contests Where You Might Still Get Stabbed For Real)
  • That aggro asshole who challenges you to a duel with a GoT replica he’s had hanging around since last year’s Renn faire and will absolutely put out your eye if you go along with his dumb shit
  • That aggro asshole who’s got a long history in for-real street fights and starts threatening you with a knife he actually knows how to use

Other excellent analogies when metaphorical sword-whacking doesn’t fit the discussion: D&D, horror movies, and haunted-house attractions for heavily narrative/psychological kinks based on things “no one should want.” Grueling feats of endurance, groups that enforce a “no pain no gain” ethos on their members, and

hazing (in benign, malignant, and outright dangerous forms) for voluntarily participating in physical/mental sadism and masochism. Military service, colleges with highly structured residential life, and personal trainers for voluntarily signing up to have someone else impose control on your life. Roller coasters, extreme sports, and various thrillseeking activities for flirting with the experience of danger at varying levels of actual risk. Hockey, American football, and many other sports for violence/dominance games that can be made low-risk, but whose established communities are rife with abysmal, institutional, deeply-rooted indifference for safety.

Honestly, human societies have all kinds of structures set up to engage with danger, power, control, pain, fear, and horror in voluntary, partly-neutralized ways. For all kinds of reasons. With all different kinds and levels of risk-reduction–attempted, achieved, and (truly or falsely) claimed. We have ways to talk about and judge them. It’s just that, well, human societies are also really fucking neurotic as soon as you toss sexual anything into the mix, and we either forget all our ways to talk about play or we pretend they don’t apply. Because Sex Is Uniquely Dangerous And All The Pretend Dragons Are Real And Going To Eat You. Or, on the flip side, Sex Is A Uniquely Liberating Magical Playground Where Fire Will Never Burn You If You Perform The Right Rituals And Say The Magic (Safe)words To Turn It Into Pretend Fire. Both are nonsense, but as long as there are camps who circle wagons and treat every argument like a cannon blast aimed at one or the other extreme, it fucks up everyone’s ability to use the structures, contexts, practices, and judgments we already have. And, yes, to bring them to bear on the actual, specific, concrete ways that power/danger play can raise different considerations when it involves erotic desire and intimate partners. Because every kind of power/danger play raises a different set of considerations, and Sex. Is. Not. Exceptional.

I hadn’t thought about it like that. Great points