For Evidence That Terry Pratchett Understood Humanity On A Deep And Fundamental Level, Look No Further

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

Iconic cop duos from my fandoms, from okay to best Anderson & Donovan (BBC Sherlock): 🤨❔👌

Hank & Gomie (Breaking Bad): 🤷🏻‍♀️🆒👍

Fred & Nobby (Discworld): 👏🤪😂

Ryan & Esposito (ABC Castle): ☺️💕🤗🫂✨👑

Yes! I’m also tired of these jokes. Stop mocking Éowyn, she was just trying to make a nice gesture. It’s not even like she was responsible for feeding everyone and failed, it wasn’t her task or job.

I think my least favorite overused joke in the lotr fandom is the fact that Éowyn can’t cook well. And I don’t even it in the fashion of perpetuating the idea that women should cook, but just like thinking about it logically…. She really never had a need to cook herself before making their way to Helm’s Deep. I mean think about it, she’s royalty, so she hasn’t ever had to cook herself. And say even despite the royal blood that her mom cooked, she died when Éowyn was young so there wasn’t much time for her to learn from her mom. Let my girl live🙏🙏

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?

I love this, I want this to be true

I like to imagine that Sam Vimes, instead of dying properly, instead got minor godhood. All watchmen at some point thank him for his actions, his actions a ripple across the Disc. There's precedent in the Duchess of Borogravia, and in his arc. He keeps getting promotions, and hates each one. What higher status could he be unwillingly raised to than divinity, eternally watching the watchman?

Anyways, that's just a headcanon i've got

"just turn on the computer" "just create a file" bold of you to assume I won’t turn on the computer, open PowerPoint, create a file, type in the title and then procrastinate on actually making the presentation by choosing the background color and the fonts for half an hour

do y'all ever think about what sherlock holmes would deduce about you or are you normal

— Slytherin’s reputation as the evil house is being fixed in-universe

— There are Discworld references

— Harry is a Star Wars fan

— Various aspects of magic & magical society that seem weird, illogical and/or unreasonably underused in canon are treated reasonably (though in some cases by Harry only)

— Voldemort’s plotline will make you sad while still despising him

— Harry is constantly comparing his story to LotR

— everything and everyone is crazy but will make sense in the end (probably)

— the author is so smart but sometimes shows his Crazy Fan side

Recently I got recommended a lot of videos criticizing Harry Potter and no videos talking about how great Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is instead. Like, if you want a better version of the story, just read this fanfiction by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

In his AU:

-Harry gets adopted by Petunia and an Oxford professor and is homeschooled in science

-When he gets into the wizarding world he is irritated by the society’s bigotry and backwardness and wants to change the world by fusing magic and science

-He is accepted into Ravenclaw and so is Hermione

-He befriends Draco instead of Ron and slowly makes him question his beliefs and actually become a better person

-Hermione has a lot of screen time and her own arcs including the one where she fights against misogyny in heroism

-there’s a homestuck reference

-there’s a death note reference

-at some point Harry bullies the sorting hat

-Voldemort (or rather his actual identity) is a well-written character with interesting backstory and goals

- the plot point where Harry is Voldemort’s horcrux plays a big role in this

-at some point Voldemort uses a gun

-there’s a scientific explanation to how spirits and patronus work

-there’s an mlp reference

-one of the hocruxes is in space

-the Philosopher’s stone is canonically created by two lesbians and one of them is baba yaga

If Hercule Poirot got transferred to our time, he’d gasp in pleasant surprise when he’d see that eggs in our stores are sorted by size and I think it’s wonderful