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stupidphototricks · 3 months ago

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Nobody's doing it like Otto Chriek. He's a vampire who has sworn off drinking b-word. He likes hanging out in cellars and hanging from chandeliers. Photography is his passion, and his passion is painful and comes with a high risk of discorporation. He experiments with dark light and philosophizes about the nature of time. He figures out how to create photo plates with hardly any effort. He invents the three-color printing process. He designs a method to auto-reanimate himself. He lays down his life for the team (but then picks it up again*).

*(yes this is a joke from the book, all credit to Sir Terry)

William caught Sacharissa's gaze. Her look said it all: We've hired him. Have we got the heart to fire him now? And don't make fun of his accent unless your Uberwaldean is really good, okay? -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"Vell?" he said sternly. "Vot you all looking at? It is just a normal reaction, zat is all. I am vorking on it. Light in all itz forms is mine passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush." "But strong light hurts you!" said Sacharissa. "It hurts vampires!" "Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

William vaguely remembered something someone had once said: the only thing more dangerous than a vampire crazed with blood lust was a vampire crazed with anything else. All the meticulous single-mindedness that went into finding young women who slept with their bedroom door open got channeled into some other interest, with merciless and painstaking efficiency. -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"Good mornink," said Otto. "Do not movink, please, you are making a good pattern of light and shade." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"I cannot promise an absolutely vunderful job first cat out of zer bag, off course." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"Bodrozvachski zhaltziet! …oh, sorry, Miss Sacharissa! Zere has been a minor pothole on zer road to progress…" -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"Zer philosopher Heidehollen tells us zat the universe is just a cold soup of time, all time mixed up together, and vot we call zer passage of time is merely qvantum fluctuations in zer fabric of space-time." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

(Sounds kind of like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff...)

"It [dark light] is a light without time. Vot it illuminates, you see . . . is not necessarily now." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

"You vanted color, I gif you color," said Otto sulkily. "You never said qvick." -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

A couple of bits that are more spoilerish under the cut:

That thing where Otto screams and (sometimes) turns to ash when he takes a picture is particularly funny if you imagine it from the point of view of the unwitting photographic subject, in this case Cheery Littlebottom:

"Ah, a vonderful framing effect!" said Otto, who'd been on the other side of the door. Click! William shut his eyes. WHOOMPH. "Ohhbuggerrrrr . . ." This time William caught the little piece of paper before it hit the ground. The dwarf stood open-mouthed. Then she closed her mouth. Then she opened it again to say: "What the hell just happened?" "I suppose you could call it a sort of industrial injury," said William. -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

And the scene where Otto goes up against William's father is just a thing of beauty.

"Ve have people like you back home," he said. "Zey are the ones that tell the mob vot to do. I come here to Ankh-Morpork, zey tell me things are different, but really it is alvays the same. Always zere are damn people like you! And now, vot shall I do with you?" [...] "You think I bite him? Shall I bite you, Mister Lordship? Vell, maybe not, because Villiam here thinks I am a good person." He pulled Lord de Worde close, so their faces were a few inches apart. "Now, maybe I have to ask myself, how good am I? Or maybe I just have to ask myself… am I better zan you?" He hesitated for a second or two, and then in a sudden movement jerked the man towards him. With great delicacy, he planted a kiss on Lord de Worde's forehead. Then he put the trembling man back down on the floor and patted him on the head. -- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

#terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #discworld #discworld quotes #otto chriek #the truth

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nevertheless-moving · 9 months ago

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unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self.

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and—

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic, being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life.

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal.

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell) Scene from the Uberwald Grand Sneer

#discworld #sam vimes #discworld au #nightwatch au #i literally drafted this post in December 2021 #and i know it was living in my head for years already at that point #i have more somewhere aging like cheese in the back of my mind #discworld fanfic #night watch #Let this be free from my mind #Perhaps someone else will write it #BE FREE ANCIENT AU OF MY SOUL #For all my obsession with discworld I have but this one (1) AU though it tears at me like the seam of a pair of pants #The songs I have permanently associated with this au are slightly bonkers by the way #My au #Seriously there's like two full novels worth of content up here. Sybyll running away from home and living as a commoner #To mirror Sam joining upper class in original timeline you see?#Some early discworld murder Wizard nonsense when they try to poke at the temporal anomaly and the universe goes brrrr #Eventually catching up with color of Magic city burning bs and vimes is mad as fuck #Weird year that never was protecting people during sourcery #And when we start catching up with where he left #Oh ho ho you can't to forward to something that doesn't exist but maybe you can go sideways to a place that's got a tear in it #A sam vimes shaped tear #And his pregnant wife from 30 years ago in the other trouser leg #AND that's not even mentioning how carcers trial got taken to a...higher court

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briarberrythornedhart · 5 months ago

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Pinned down

Wayne Munson didn’t like cooking or baking or putting much effort into eating at all. Wayne would eat a bowl of cereal for every meal if he could.

Except - if the cookery involved open flames. Then, suddenly he transformed from the kinda guy who would push through a Hungryman tv dinner that was cold in the center to a gourmet foodie snob.

“Don’t turn that chicken yet, Sonny-jim, let it get the good grill marks.”

“I thought I was grilling tonight?” Eddie complained. “Go relax in a lawn chair, old man.”

“I thought you were grilling tonight too, but if you don’t focus and stop checking out your friend in the short shorts over there, you’re gonna undercook the sausage and burn the chicken.” Wayne Munson was at ease from two PBR’s on an empty ‘don’t want to ruin my appetite’ stomach and the sass that came standard with the Munson Make/Models was out on display.

“We are more than Friends. And I’m very focused.” Eddie said through gritted teeth.

“Gimme that...” Wayne held out his hand for the tongs and gave them a satisfying click click when Eddie passed them over. “...lemme take over so you can go spend time with your ‘more than friend’ and stop ruining the food. Maybe go lock that down? Hmmm? Before Gentleman Jeff get’s here with his nice new post-braces smile and his excellent table manners?? Or Harrington get’s here with his gravity defying hair and his trust fund?”

Eddie was making an annoyed face when he sidled up to you under the shitty gazebo where you were laying out the deviled eggs, the potato salad and the very special homemade cookies you’d baked because Eddie said he loved peanut butter cookies ONE time and you listened.

“Everything okay?” You asked. “You look kinda put out.”

“Nooo... My Uncle seems to think I don’t have you ‘locked down.”

That made you laugh. But Eddie’s face was stone serious

“I guess we’ve been quieter at night than I thought?” You said all arch and flirty.

“I’ve been quiet.” Eddie asserted, tried to look innocent.

“No you haven't, babe.” You shook your head, offered him a cookie, he declined. Clearly worried about something. Too worried for pre-dinner cookies??

“I think Wayne thinks I should ‘pin’ you.”

“Oh - you do that all the time.” You grinned, lasciviously.

“No, you know what I mean. Make it official. Or give you a.... ring?” Eddie toyed with his warthog ring - looking at you very seriously. “Is it too soon? Are you not sure about me yet?”

“Want me to get ‘Eddie’ tattooed on me - someplace strategically visible?” You were not kidding.

“You’d do that for me?”

You leaned towards Eddie and whispered, like this was secret knowledge. “I’m pretty locked down.”

“You tell me you’re mine at night, but I want everyone to know it.” Eddie licked his upper lip and took off his WASP pin - and when you nodded - he gently pinned it on your t-shirt near the collar. He kissed your cheek and said “Now, you’re mine.”

You took out one of your new dangly Ankh earrings and swapped it with Eddie’s ear stud. You kissed his neck below his earlobe. “Now, you’re mine.” You said.

Eddie undid his chain bracelet and tried to put it on you, but it was a hair too big, he ended up loosening it and putting it on your ankle.

You took off your adjustable silver snake ring and widened it up to fit on his left pinky.

Your friends started to show up to the party. Eddie whispered in your ear “I’ll pin you more later.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #jewelry #possesive love #my fanfiction #good uncle wayne

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