#but at least he has Wuffles

[kateksmallcuteowl]

So, I’ve been looking for a real 18th century gowns these days and… it’s a total spice-killer. Awful, but, you know, Havelock never had a reason to search for some sassy-hot-stylish gown before relationships with Vimes. I bet he just chose the most simple one and used to wear it until the Feet of Clay times. And then there was an unexpected amount of people who saw his “no one is going to see me sleeping in this thing” gown in just three days. So he found it rational to buy a new one.

A new model that was kindly provided by the seamstress-guild shop🌚🌝

Oh and look at the young baby here. He NEEDS a long good nap

He won’t think it was a good idea if he had enough sleep! But you know, all that paperwork and ruling Ank-Morpork after Snapcase must be exhausting.

Quick reminder: Wuffles is the best boy!

And the last pic in a good quality, because it took me so long to render it, that it would be a shame to not post it separately. Look at the gown!✨✨✨✨ /I just sit here with the same expression as Vimes/

P.S. I may be a bit dumb when it comes to Tumbler and I still didn’t figure out how to answer the reposts😅 But I see them all and I’m always open to new ideas what else to draw or criticism🌚🌝

P.P.S. Tw: HORRIBLE FASHION DECISIONS OF THE PAST

(These were the references. Thanks gods we invented Pyjamas)

[grison-in-space]

Oh, absolutely. And I mean, Vimes asks him how he gets up in the morning if he really believes that and he sputters and tells Vimes to go away. There's a certain brittle, defensive cynicism here.

And then Vetinari asks what the Watch want as a reward, clearly fully expecting a demand for something that will cost him meaningfully, and is asked for... A quite minor wage increase, probably about enough to bring the position up to the cost of inflation given that Vetinari has been deliberately trying to squash the city watch for some time; a new kettle, and perhaps a dartboard.

The thing is, most of Vetinari's allies at this point are canny, suspicious, ambitious people who have worked their way up from rather dubious beginnings. They are not fools. And they almost certainly trust him even less than he trusts them: he trusts in his own ability to direct them where he wants them, and he knows he doesn't truly mean harm. But the heads of Thieves and Beggars and Seamstresses are not used to this sort of alliance with power and they don't, actually, have the same assurance of his intentions. (This is particularly true of Thieves who, lest you forget, had recently been tempted into the light and then threatened with having their families and children murdered if they got too big for their britches.)

There is basically zero chance at this point that he is spending much time interacting with Dragonbreeding Society branch of the local aristocracy at this point and a much, much bigger chance that he is currently out there grappling with the likes of Lord de Worde and Lord Rust.

The only person we know he trusts and probably has regular contact with at this point is his aunt, who lives in Pseudopolis where she's not too close to him to be endangered. Maybe occasionally Margolotta, by mail or pigeon or whatever dubious routes of correspondence to Uberwald exist at this point. As you point out so astutely, he doesn't even have Drumknott here. Basically his only day to day interaction with a living being that he can relax around is Wuffles, who is at least present at this point in his life. Of course he's painfully lonely! It's fairly clear from Night Watch that he's never been good at making friends, and at this point he seems to basically have built the loneliness into a shield, but--well, no wonder he hits Skirp's people and immediately starts making friends, you know?

Wrapping up the Guards! Guards! reread, I hit this passage from Vetinari to Vimes and have to pause to snicker because Vetinari is just so damn young here:

“A great rolling sea of evil,” he said, almost proprietorially. “Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!” He slapped Vimes good-naturedly on the back. “Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no. I’m sorry if this offends you,” he added, patting the captain’s shoulder, “but you fellows really need us.” “Yes, sir?” said Vimes quietly. “Oh, yes. We’re the only ones who know how to make things work. You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.”

Ah, yes, sir: because you are very evil, what with the assuming power largely, as far as I can tell, because you're offended by how poorly the system works; you whose first career move was to work to create stability in the city in a bid to minimize blowback, you who are above everything else practical and focused on utilitarianism. Uhhuh.

He's so young. Almost everyone in Guards! Guards! is, of course--Carrot with his law book most obviously--but with Vimes the alcoholic depression and the despairing cynicism has its hooks in so deeply that the overall impact is to see that. By contrast, moving from Making Money to Guards! Guards! reveals a Vetinari who is almost embarrassingly green relative to the Ventinari who trains Moist: he is constantly making arrogant mistakes (ie "there's no dragons, that's nonsense") that his older self would be mortified to see, and then there's little pronouncements like this.

And for that matter, Vetinari himself should know full well that his "bad people" don't necessarily bother with much planning, either; just look at Mad Lord Snapcase. It's possible to view this through a Doylist lens--we just know a lot more about the history of Ankh Morpork by later books than Pterry did when he was writing this one. But I like to integrate Watsonian interpretations into my readings of the text, and so I enjoy thinking about this as partly a bid to undermine any support Vimes might be lending to any bids for power Carrot might make. After all, Carrot hasn't made any commentary about his sword one way or another; it's unclear to both Vetinari and the reader whether Carrot knows about the long lost heir of the city thing, and even more unclear what Carrot might choose to do in the absence of a giant flaming dragon having declared itself king.

Vetinari is in a fairly precarious place in this book, having been Patrician for only a relatively short time as far as I can tell, and after all there has just been an extraordinarily popular movement to replace the entire office of the Patrician with a hereditary king. If Carrot chose to, he could make life quite difficult for Vetinari: he might not win a theoretical power struggle, but he could certainly cost quite a bit of political capital and considerable public belief in Vetinari's ability to create stability. And Vimes, as Carrot's immediate supervisor and erstwhile human mentor, is the single person most likely to be able to influence Carrot away from that leg of the Trousers of Time.

It's an interesting way to plea for the support of a man like Vimes, I'll put it that way. It's wholly truthful and quite earnest, and it's not particularly manipulative: if anything, it paints Vetinari in quite a lot worse light than he could make a reasonable claim to being. It also avoids tugging on at least one equally truthful argument that could be expected to tug on Vimes' own sentiments: Vetinari is, for all his flaws and autocratic opinions, at the very least not a king. While he holds power, there will be no monarchs, no Lorenzo the Kinds to claim divine right to rule. I suppose it's also possible that Ventinari simply didn't know, of course, but--it's such an interesting little speech from a character perspective.

[gods-no-longer-tread-here]

I was thinking about an amazing fic wherein Geralt locks himself away in his own mind, leaving nothing but the wolf, and also one of my old friend’s fluffy h/c fics where a heat-crazed omega and an alpha who refuses to have sex with heat-crazed omegas cuddle for like 2.5 days straight, and also ace week. So. Here is this.

words: 1,737 characters: Geralt, Jaskier, Lambert, Roach, Eskel and Vesemir mentioned summary: Geralt forgets to take his meds (inspired by my own personal experiences with forgetting meds for longer than a week), and gets cuddly. Jaskier’s fine with it because it amuses him.

~

Geralt was acting strange.

Then again, he wasn’t a human, so his actions weren’t really supposed to be familiar. That made Jaskier happy, to be honest. He’d had enough of trying to puzzle out other humans; Geralt was just as complex, but far more straightforward.

But still, this fussing was out of character. He was so particular about hunting and buying food, and insisted on getting Jaskier a thick wool cape, and seemed hyper-aware of the changing seasons. Finally, Jaskier decided he wasn’t naïve enough for this.

“Geralt, why are you doing this?”

Geralt, half asleep and curled around Jaskier protectively, mumbled, “Winter soon. Gotta keep you healthy.”

Jaskier grinned, and squirmed over onto his back. “My dear, not that I’m complaining about your care, but why now?” he asked, booping Geralt’s nose.

The Witcher scowled and said, “You’re my mate. Have to take care of my mate.”

Jaskier’s heart tripped.

Geralt must have heard, because he suddenly became very awake, staring at Jaskier with wide eyes and a set mouth. Jaskier breathed in and out slowly; there was no point hiding his immediate reaction, but he should at least try to stay calm.

“Do Witchers see mates the same way as us humans?” he asked.

Geralt didn’t move for an agonizingly long moment. Then he said softly, “No. Mates are… they’re people we… you won’t betray us.”

Jaskier stared back. And then he grinned, and snuggled against Geralt, rubbing his nose on his Witcher’s collarbone. Said Witcher relaxed, wuffled in contentment much like a big, lazy dog, and wrapped Jaskier up tight in his arms.

“Mates are people you trust not to hurt you?” the bard hazarded, unable to stop grinning.

“Yes. Go to sleep, now.”

“Oh, alright.”

~

A month later, as they were beginning their ascent of the mountains, Jaskier decided that Geralt had been lying.

As soon as they had left the last human village, Geralt’s human habits began to fade into more animalistic ones: instead of cooking the few plump rabbits he was able to hunt, he portioned them out and ate the organs while Jaskier cooked the meat. He insisted on finger-combing Jaskier’s hair every night (which the bard quite liked). His movements became smooth in the way of a predatory animal, not a man with predatory mutations. Roach began to snort and sidle at times, trying to keep her distance.

And Geralt didn’t even pretend he wasn’t coddling Jaskier like a delicate maiden.

It was very odd. And yet, Jaskier didn’t really mind. Geralt wasn’t smothering him; he was simply far more attentive than ever before. More attentive than he was with Yennefer, even.

Jaskier’s breath catched, and he cleared his throat to hide the noise, trudging up the narrow path behind Geralt and in front of Roach. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about her--not when he was going to spend the winter with his dearest friend.

Geralt suddenly turned, stared at Jaskier, and then whined as his face melted into a look of worry. If he’d had wolf ears, Jaskier thought, apropos of nothing, they would be upright and shivering.

Jaskier smiled. “I’m alright, my dear,” he said. No matter how softly he spoke, the cold stone of the mountain caught the sounds and threw them into an echo as if he had shouted. “I was thinking of something, that’s all.”

Geralt closed the distance between them in three fluid steps and wrapped his arms around Jaskier, whining and sniffing the bard as if his scent would give away his thoughts.

Jaskier felt his heart grow warm again. “I’m alright,” he repeated, leaning into Geralt’s embrace. “I’m with you, aren’t I? I’m always alright with you.”

Geralt made a wolf-like noise of happiness, and then kissed Jaskier. When his mouth opened in surprise, the Witcher’s tongue slid in and licked the inside--and not in a sexy way.

“Ew!” he shrieked, wrenching back. “Geralt, you brute, what are you doing?”

“My mate,” Geralt rumbled. It was the first time he’d used recognizable words in nearly a week. He was also smiling, so fondly and sweetly. “My pretty mate.”

Jaskier’s cheeks heated immediately, and he pressed his face into Geralt’s neck. “Alright, you win. My… my mate.”

Geralt hummed in deep contentment. After several moments, they untangled from each other, Geralt licked Jaskier’s lips, and they continued their journey.

The cold of winter was setting in painfully fast. While much of the coast was quite pleasant, Jaskier had spent many years in Lettenhove shivering through storms and snow that killed at least three people every winter--but usually more. He knew what to expect from sharp cold; he’d just never been in a place this dry and cold.

They were only a few days away from Kaer Morhen when the air pressure changed so quickly that Jaskier’s ears popped twice. The dry feeling that had seeped into his every orifice vanished as the first snowstorm began to brew; he breathed in deeply and grinned at the moisture that sank into his mouth, nose, throat, and lungs. Now this was the kind of winter weather he was used to.

Geralt growled and hustled his mate and horse along as fast as was safe.

Jaskier barely had time to feel relief at the sight of the trail leveling out before the snowstorm opened and everything became a white-and-grey blur. He and Roach both stopped in their tracks, and he called out, “Geralt?! Geralt, where are you?!”

A dark form hulked into his personal space and embraced him. It smelled and felt like his witcher. Jaskier clung to him, and tried not to think about the day he had joined a rescue attempt to find the last fishing vessel in the middle of a wild storm. There had been sirens. The sailors used a horn to drive them away; Jaskier had panicked and started singing, and the sirens had fallen silent.

He wasn’t allowed on the ocean after that, and he was very glad.

But this wasn’t the ocean. He had never realized how much he trusted solid boats and salty water before he became so acutely aware that one misstep would send him tumbling through nothing.

Geralt hoisted Jaskier up in one arm, took hold of Roach’s reins, and continued on the path.

It seemed like a thousand years before hands tugged at his cloak, and Geralt snarled viciously. Jaskier clung tighter, and did not raise his head until they passed into a space that wasn’t windy.

“Ger’l?” he whispered.

Geralt rumbled reassuringly and nuzzled under Jaskier’s hood to lick his ear; the warmth of his tongue shocked the bard’s cold skin. “Safe,” Geralt said, and set him down on his feet.

Jaskier smiled, and promptly collapsed.

~

“He won’t take his medicine, not until his mate is awake.”

“That’s so stupid! Doesn’t he want to be able to think?”

“Yes, but he’s not Geralt right now. He doesn’t have a human mind. I told him he needed to get better at making it himself…”

Jaskier opened his eyes the barest crack, and tried to make a noise. He couldn’t. He was so tired and foggy.

Almost immediately, someone was kissing his face, and licking it, and giving tiny puppy noises of joy and worry. He smiled, and opened his eyes wider.

It was Geralt, of course, looking absolutely delighted. Jaskier reached up one shaky hand and booped his nose.

“Hello, darling,” he said.

“Hello,” Geralt replied.

~

There were three other Witchers in the keep: a tired father, a calm and kind elder brother, and a pissy baby who was only a few years older than Jaskier. They stayed far away from him, although they were courteous, and provided him with food since he couldn’t leave his nest by the fire due to Geralt constantly lying on top of him and acting like a love-sick puppy. Jaskier began to worry about that merely an hour after he woke.

Four hours after he was awake, the pissy baby brother approached with a tray holding two pottery cups. He set it down near Jaskier and ordered, “Give him the blue cup, it has his medicine in it.”

Jaskier looked at the cups. One was green and the other was a soft purple. “Ah… those are green and purple.”

The Witcher stared at him, then at the cups, then back at him. “What?” he said blankly.

“This one is green,” Jaskier pointed to said cup, “And this one is purple. Which one is blue to you?”

The Witcher pointed silently, and Jaskier nodded, picking up the cups carefully and handing the “blue” one to Geralt, who cocked his head curiously.

“It’s just a drink,” Jaskier told him soothingly. “It will help us both feel better.” He sipped his own and tasted spiced cider, which made him hum in appreciation. Geralt downed his drink in three quick gulps, set his cup back on the tray… and then yelped and rolled off of Jaskier, thrashing and howling.

“Geralt!” Jaskier tried to lunge for him, but the other Witcher held him back. “Geralt! What did you do to him?!”

“Gave him his medicine that he hasn’t been taking for probably three fucking months,” the Witcher said tersely. “Watch him.”

Jaskier never took his eyes off Geralt, heart pounding with fear. After a few minutes of thrashing, his wolfish sounds melted into human curses, and when he laid still, panting harshly, Jaskier strained towards him again. “Geralt!” he cried, reaching for him.

Geralt looked at Jaskier, frowned, then looked absolutely terrified. Before Jaskier could ask, he was up and out of the room.

“Geralt?” Jaskier repeated softly.

“He’s just embarrassed,” the youngest Witcher grunted, letting go of Jaskier. “Drink your cider. He’ll come back when I leave.”

So Jaskier drank, and the Witcher left, and after a whole three minutes, Geralt slunk back in and sat beside Jaskier. After a moment, the bard lunged and squirmed into Geralt’s lap, hugging him tightly.

“Welcome back,” he said.

“I licked you,” Geralt said.

Jaskier laughed merrily and kissed him. “Yes, you did. You also played with my hair.”

“And called you my mate.”

Jaskier paused. “Well… yes. Was that a mistake?”

Geralt shrugged and wrapped his arms around Jaskier. “Dunno. Do… would you mind if… are you alright with that?”

“Yes, my dear, I am very alright with it.”

“Oh. Good.”

And then Geralt snogged him senseless.

[skyriderwednesday]

Untitled Penguin Fic - Chapter One

“Well the good news is it appears that in his mind he is still Lord Vetinari,” Ponder said. “Unfortunately, however, he is of course Lord Vetinari.” -- It’s a lovely day in Ankh-Morpork, and Lord Vetinari has been turned into a penguin. Fortunately for the wizards, he still believes himself to be Lord Vetinari. Unfortunately for everybody else, and Drumknott in particular, he still believes himself to be Lord Vetinari. It’s going to be a difficult few days...

(G Rated, 4436 words)

Chapter Two - Chapter Three & Epilogue

It was at this point tradition that at least once a month, a card with the university’s seal on it would find its way to Vetinari’s desk inviting him to the demonstration of some development or innovation. Typically this would be politely declined with a correspondence card of his own, delicately noting that he had never known magic to advance so fast and he would of course be interested to hear of the results but unfortunately the invitation overlapped with a very important meeting that couldn't possibly be cancelled or postponed - then inevitably shortly after the stated time the next day, there would be a bright flash of light and all of the city’s trees would be transformed into cactuses, and the pigeons were suddenly purple, and several hours later Vetinari’s desk would be piled high with reports of student wizards running about performing counterspells, and the requested follow-up on the demonstration's result would mysteriously fail to appear. This occasion would have been no different, had there not been an additional note from the Archchancellor pinned to the type-set card, and had Drumknott not been able to find anything for it to conflict with. ‘Look, old chap,’ the note had said in so many words, ‘you only have to show up once, and they won’t ask you again. Besides, this one has been going very well, and it’s something like the sixth iteration of the same idea -- they’re sure to have ironed the kinks out by now.’ As such, Drumknott was hovering anxiously as Vetinari buttoned his coat. “I do not understand your insistence at dwelling upon worst-case scenarios,” he said to him. “It is simply unrealistic for catastrophic failure to occur every time.” “But, my lord, the wizards--” “Mr Drumknott,” Vetinari said sternly, “for as often as their insufferable bravado outweighs the evidence of their effectiveness, the wizards do in fact know what it is that they are doing. They very well understand the dangers of magic and the steps necessary to contain it. No one, to pluck a wildly improbable scenario out of the ether, is going to be transfigured into a penguin, and if they are it will be quite swiftly put to rights. Now, do I have to order you to put on your coat?” “No, sir…” Drumknott replied quietly. “Good,” Vetinari said, emptying his pockets of the various debris and detritus from previous outings. “We should not be at the university too long. If you require genuine incentive, I suppose that we could visit the tearooms afterwards?” Drumknott paused in trying to convince the lining of his coat sleeve to behave itself and nodded. “I would like that, sir.” “Splendid, we shall add that to our agenda then.” As Vetinari waited for Rufus to finish putting on his coat, Wuffles waddled up to him and dropped a toy on his foot. “Oh I am sorry,” he said, picking Wuffles up, “we’re going out.” Wuffles’s ears drooped and he whined plaintively. “I promise you we shan’t be long, and I will play when we return. Is that all right with you?” “Wuff,” he licked Vetinari’s chin. “Good dog. I will give you a biscuit and then you will go back to your basket, yes?” “Wuff!” “Very good dog, excellent dog in fact. I assume you would like a red one?” “Wuff!” Drumknott cleared his throat, “Sir…” Vetinari’s eyes appeared over the desk. “Mr Drumknott, you will have your biscuit at the tearooms.” Drumknott sighed patiently. “Sir, I mean to say that the carriage is waiting.” “Of course you do,” Vetinari said, slipping Wuffles a second biscuit as he stood up.

They did not speak much on the way. In fact, other than confirming details of upcoming engagements, Drumknott hardly spoke ten words. As the carriage came to a stop outside the university, there was a small congregation of wizards awaiting them. “Havelock!” Ridcully boomed joyfully as Vetinari stepped down from the carriage, “Great to see you, man!” “Good morning Archchancellor,” Vetinari replied with a calm smile, “likewise. Is that a new robe you’re wearing?” “Oh, this old thing? No, found it in the wardrobe. That is a new coat you’ve got on though.” Vetinari tilted his head, conceding. “Since we saw each other last, yes.” Beside the Archchancellor, buried in a scarf to the point of overdoing it in the current weather, Ponder cleared his throat. Ridcully remembered he was there. “Of course, you’ve met Stibbons, haven’t you?” “I have,” Vetinari said, nodding in place of the handshake neither of them was offering. “I’m looking forward to this demonstration. I understand the development to this point has been going well.” Ponder stuttered nervously, “Yes, my lord. Touch wood, sir.” Ridcully glanced at him, pulling a face at the superstition. His gaze turned to Drumknott, who had been silently tracing the flagstones at Vetinari’s side. “And how are you, lad?” Rufus caught his breath, “Uh... well, Archchancellor.” “Good, good,” Ridcully drew himself up. “We’ll go inside then, shall we?”

There was a colossal elaborate casting circle drawn on the floor of the Great Hall, and chairs arranged around it. The biggest chairs were placed in a position Rufus privately regarded as precarious.  “Of course, you’ll want the best view, old chap!” Ridcully said, and received a look reminding him that the last person to touch Vetinari without permission had ended up on the floor. “You are quite certain this poses no danger, aren’t you Mustrum?” “Obviously!” Ridcully said, sitting in his own chair, “Stibbons has it all figured out -- don’t you boy?” He barked the last part loudly at Ponder. Ponder, providing last minute instruction and adjustment to the students positioned around the circle, laughed a little nervously. “Of course, sir!” Vetinari’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he sat beside the Archchancellor, gesturing subtly to Drumknott to pull his chair back a little. Rufus swallowed anxiously and twisted his fingers in his lap as Ponder tidied himself a little, straightened his hat and stepped forward to speak to the assembled crowd. “Hello everyone,” he started, “Archchancellor, my lord,” he nodded to Ridcully and Vetinari. “I’m sure you all know why you’re here and what we’re doing, but I’ll give a short explanation to be sure…” Drumknott mostly stopped listening, transfixed by the careful way Ponder was positioning his feet to avoid stepping on or smudging the lines of the circle as he slowly orbited during his explanation. He caught the words quantum, positioning, thaumic, visualisation… but he couldn’t make out what was going to happen when Ponder gave the go ahead to begin. Across the circle, the Librarian was picking his nose. There was a brief round of applause, which Rufus joined a second late. “Thank you,” Ponder said, bowing shortly and pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Alright,” he turned to address the students, still not disturbing the circle. “You know what to do, lads, we’ve done it enough at this point!” A few of the wizards further from the circle laughed, but Drumknott wasn’t sure why. With that, the incantations began. The atmosphere changed, there was a hum building in the air. Particles and flashes of light started to come into view, shapes formed. Rufus watched, there were impressed murmurs behind and around him. “Holding steady! Onto phase two!” He heard Ponder call. The tension in the Archchancellor’s shoulders was starting to relax, and then--

The smoke cleared, leaving all observers plastered in a layer of blue glitter. Peeling his encrusted glasses from his face and spitting out glitter, Ponder stumbled out of what remained of the casting circle. A few of the graduates involved were groaning and cursing, likely more of them no longer had eyebrows… of all the times for it to go wrong, after it hadn’t failed once in testing. He should have known it was too good to be true. Ponder squinted around the hall at the observers. Some had scattered backwards and avoided the worst of it. Others were sitting stunned, caked in a layer of glitter at least half an inch thick. The Librarian was descending from the rafters, his orange fur sparkling. He couldn’t tell which point in the circle had been breached first, where the concentration had been highest. He had a horrible feeling it was right in front of the Archchancellor. He was, what was the expression the alchemists used? Oh right, so godsdamn fired. Ponder found the only part of his robe that wasn't covered in glitter (ugh, it had made it into his pockets…) and delicately scraped the glitter off his glasses. He peered gingerly through them. To his relief, the Archchancellor seemed entirely unharmed, and he was laughing -- coated thickly in glitter, which had settled in great drifts over his knees and hat, but laughing. “Well that was a bloody great bang, Stibbons,” Ridcully said, cheerfully shaking glitter from his beard, “but no real harm d-- oh. Are you alright, old chap?” “Whek,” said the penguin in the next chair.  The penguin. In the next chair. Beside the Archchancellor. It had extremely pale blue eyes. Oh no. The patrician had been turned into a penguin. “Whek,” the penguin-- Vetinari said again. “Oh yes, glitter’s beastly stuff,” Ridcully said, “it’ll take weeks to clean up properly.” “Whek,” Vetinari said more pressingly, the noise translating to furious threats of taxation. “Ook…” said the Librarian, wading elbow deep through the glitter. He peered at Vetinari, a curious orangutan examining an outraged emperor penguin. “Whek!” The patrician shouted, flapping his wings. The Librarian backed off sharply, not wishing to receive a beak to the eye or an uncoordinated flipper in his ear. “Ook…” he said up to Ponder. “Yes!” He exclaimed, breaking out of his shock, “Terribly sorry, my lord, I have no idea what happened there! Uh…” Ponder looked frantically at Ridcully for what to say or do next. He stood up in an avalanche of glitter which buried Ponder’s shoes. “Just a small magical surge! Must have overloaded the circle,” Ridcully chuckled. “Happens all the time, almost entirely unpredictable--” he shot a look at Ponder, who did his best not to whimper, “but it’s a quick fix, I’m sure!” The Librarian looked at him skeptically and sneezed glitter. “Er, aha…” Ridcully looked around, glitter cascading from his eyebrows. “Where is it your young man’s got to?” Ponder squinted, the chair next to the patrician’s had been toppled over and buried in glitter. The Librarian shuffled into the surrounding drift and, after poking for a moment, excavated Drumknott. “Ah, there he is,” Ridcully said. “I can’t find my glasses?” Rufus said blearily, choking on glitter as he was pulled into a sitting position. The Librarian patted his back with one leathery hand and fished with the other. Ponder winced as he bent a twisted hinge back into place and used his knuckle to scrape glitter from the lenses. The glasses were lopsided as the Librarian pushed them back onto Drumknott’s nose. He looked about himself, at the glitter, the toppled chairs and ruptured circle… the archchancellor, the Librarian, Ponder… the visual lack of his lordship… his eyes widened in panic. He started to stand up. “My… lord…?” “It’s alright!” Ponder said quickly, trying to block Vetinari from view. “Don’t-- Don’t panic!” Predictably, this had the opposite effect. “Why?” Drumknott asked with a frantic stare, “W-what’s happened?” “Nothing!” Ponder felt Ridcully frown behind him, “...well, no, actually-- but it’s fine! Not a problem, just--” “Whek!” Vetinari

said. Drumknott saw him. The blood drained from his face. “Sir?!” Oh, please don’t faint… To Ponder's half-selfish relief, Drumknott remained standing. Even so, he seemed to shut down, his eyes glazing over, staring blankly at the penguin that was now Vetinari. That couldn’t be said to be any better. After a thought process that dislodged several more pounds of glitter, Ridcully spoke up. “Well Havelock, if we get you over to… er, Stibbons’s building we should be able to get you fixed…” Ridcully said. “Do you need help getting--” “Whek!” “No, quite right,” Ridcully shook his fingers, having just added ‘bitten by the patrician’ to his long list of accolades, “you’re a grown bir-- man, you can get down fr-- out of a chair yourself. Mr Stibbons!” “Yes, Archchancellor!” Ponder ran off ahead, tracking glitter as he went. Ridcully gestured vaguely at Drumknott, “Librarian, you get him tidied up a bit then bring him along.” “Ook,” the Librarian said, and pulled on Rufus’s sleeve.

The Librarian’s office smelled of book-binding glue and banana skins. He was a surprisingly dab hand with a clothes brush, and by the time a sugar-saturated cup of tea had been pushed into Rufus’s hands there was barely a speck of glitter to be seen. “Ook?” “What? Oh, no... I’m alright, thank you.” The Librarian sniffed and gathered the pile of glitter into a dustpan. He threw it out of the window and shook off his hands for good measure. “So…” Drumknott's voice wavered, “L-Lord Vetinari has been turned into a penguin?” “Ook,” the Librarian said, turning the clothes brush on himself.  “It w-won’t be permanent, will it?” The ape shook his head and shuffled over to a cupboard. Rufus felt strangely comforted. The Librarian offered him a banana. “Ook?” “Oh, no thank you... the tea is working wonders.” He shrugged and started to eat it himself. “You like being an orangutan, don’t you?” “Ook,” the Librarian said through a mouthful of banana. “I suppose it makes your job easier... longer arms to reach the shelves…” The Librarian nodded. “...penguins don’t have fingers though…” He sat back, waiting for Drumknott to come to conclusions. “...I'm sure it will be all right, though... you all know what you’re doing, don’t you?” The Librarian made a gesture that indicated that he might not necessarily say ‘all’ was accurate, but as far as he was concerned Vetinari was in solid enough hands. Rufus nodded. “Ook?” “Hmm? Yes, I’ve finished my tea. Thank you.” The Librarian piled the cup into a small sink on top of some brushes and offered Drumknott his hand.

They walked out of the library and over to the High Energy Magic building. As they passed the Great Hall, Rufus caught sight of a pack of students with dustpans, orders being yelled at them by an irate woman in a housekeeper's apron. “Oook,” said the Librarian as they entered a room with multiple warnings pinned to the door. “Ah, there you are,” Ponder said. “Good timing actually, we’ve nearly finished.” There was much whirring and spinning going on as multiple components of HEX worked at once. Semi-regularly, though only by a liberal definition of ‘regularly’, there was a ting! followed by frantic scribbling as operations completed and were written out in a form intelligible to humans. There was an apparatus similar to a single-person elevator carriage beside the machine, connected via tubes and cabling at the top. Behind a gate that looked like it was more suited to serve a vegetable patch than a piece of wizarding equipment was Vetinari, still very much a penguin. Currently, he was attempting to lift the latch with his beak. He did not appear to be having much success. “Ook?” the Librarian asked. Ponder laughed nervously. “Well, in terms of examination, done…it turns out this whole, uh…” he gestured vaguely towards Vetinari, “...situation is likely to be just a bit more complicated than we’d assumed.” The Librarian gave Drumknott’s hand a reassuring shake and knuckled out of the room. Ponder gestured to a chair, and turned around to face HEX. After a few minutes of silence only broken by noises of operation and the latch rattling, there was a loud TING! A long stream of scribbling ensued, and HEX lifted its writing arm out of the way with a hiss of pneumatics.  “Thank you,” Ponder said to it, tearing off the sheet of paper and turning back to Rufus. “Well the good news is it appears that in his mind he is still Lord Vetinari,” he said, scanning through the write-out. “That makes it much easier to turn him back. Unfortunately, however, he is of course Lord Vetinari. That’s a lot of mind to fit into the brain of a penguin. We might not have much time to turn him back before, well…” “Before what?” Drumknott asked. “The problem with the human mind being put into animals is that it’s too big. Like cramming anything into a space too small for it, one of two things is going to happen. Either the thing you’re trying to cram in there is going to break, or the space is.” “What does that mean for his lordship?” “There's a few ways it could go. His shape could take over, in which case he’ll become a penguin that’s a bit like Lord Vetinari - and that’s almost the best case scenario. Otherwise his mind wins out, and... well... it won’t be very pretty.” “Why, what would happen?” “Uh,” Ponder shuddered. “If his mind wins, his shape will try to change to match it. It’s very rare, and the pictures are terrible. There’s a few frogs in jars downstairs, and I don’t recommend looking at them.” Rufus tried hard to infer his meaning. “...you mean, the penguin would change to be like his lordship?” “Yes... and it would be a horrible mix of human and penguin, and mercifully the attempt would destroy itself.” Drumknott’s face turned a strange shade of grey. “But it’s alright!” Ponder said quickly, “That won’t happen. We’ll turn him back before it gets to that-- I mean, either of those points. He might... er... waddle for a bit once he’s back to his right shape, and he might like fish a bit more than he used to, but he’ll be fine.” Drumknott nodded reluctantly. “Right, I know neither of you like being here much, and it’ll take us a little while to figure things out to turn him back, so you can go home if you want.” Ponder looked around them. Drumknott followed his gaze. The apparatus set up next to HEX was empty. The gate was open. There was no sign of his lordship. “...you didn’t notice where he’s got to, did you?” “Um... no.”

The typical height of an adult male emperor penguin is somewhere around three feet nine inches. As such, the difference between penguin height and Vetinari height had been rather disorientating. However, it is surprising how fast a penguin can move when it puts its mind to it, and even more surprising when the mind behind its motion does not realise that it is inside of a penguin. Fortunately however, even the most determined human-unknowingly-turned-penguin cannot defeat the fact that on the whole a creature whose knees are to be found somewhere near its ribcage is not very good at using stairs. As such, it did not take Ponder and Drumknott very long at all to locate Vetinari. The students passing him did not seem to think it was strange at all that an emperor penguin was teetering uncertainly atop a staircase. The moment he caught sight of them, Vetinari made a highly disgruntled sounding penguin noise at Drumknott. “There you are my lord,” Ponder said as if he was not speaking to a penguin at all. “It would seem the effects are quite minor, if a tad… complicated. It’ll take us a little while to work out how to reverse them, but you can go home while we figure that out.” “Whek!” Vetinari said. “Yes, sir... your height is quite a change, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to work around I’m sure.” “Whek…” he said darkly. “No, my lord, not ridiculous at all!” Ponder said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “It won’t take us long, I promise.” Drumknott tapped Ponder's shoulder and whispered. “How is it you understand him?” “Oh, I... I don’t,” Ponder replied, “but when you’ve got a colleague who communicates only with ‘ook’, you get very good at understanding what you don’t.”

There was a larger congregation of wizards peering from the door as Ponder walked them out to meet their carriage. Before they left, Ridcully clapped Drumknott on the shoulder, rattling his knees. “Wouldn’t tell his lord about… the beak and tail feathers if I were you, lad,” the Archchancellor said, deliberately muffled by his beard. “It might make him forget his right shape.” Rufus stared at him in alarm. “Might it?” Ridcully shrugged, “Better safe than sorry.” “Alright…” Drumknott said shakily. He looked over his shoulder and cringed as Vetinari attempted to bite the footman. “Ah, my lord--” he said, running over to defuse the situation. “Are you sure you can turn him back?” Ridcully asked Ponder out of the side of his mouth. “Uh… things look good, sir,” Ponder replied, "but it’ll take some work…” “Then get working on it, boy.” “I am, sir.” “Good!”

The carriage ride back to the palace was awkward to say the least. Rufus mostly tried not to look at his lordship. “Whek?” Vetinari said as they passed through the gate. “I’m fine, sir.” “Whek.” It was extremely difficult to figure out just what out of the multitude of things Vetinari could have just said this particular ‘whek’ was supposed to mean. It wasn’t a question, that was clear, but it still required him to say something in return. “Certainly, sir,” Drumknott hazarded. Vetinari gave him a strange look. Before Rufus could attempt to correct himself however, the footman warily opened the door. “Please refrain from biting him this time, my lord…” Vetinari made a kind of disgruntled grumbling sound, but did not try to bite the man as he was assisted from the carriage. He managed fairly well up the outside steps, but it was clear that he wouldn’t fair nearly as well up the grand staircase. The guards peered curiously from their posts as Vetinari attempted a complicated maneuver to get onto the first step.  “Sir,” Drumknott said quietly, “might we use the elevator?” “Whek,” Vetinari said dismissively, trying again to lift his foot to the required height. He toppled over backwards. “Whek...” he said in resignation.

Rufus held his tongue as he helped him up and he waddled towards the lift. Neither of them much liked the elevator. On the whole Vetinari far preferred to be assisted on the stairs than acknowledge it to exist, even as a penguin apparently. He shot the servant attending a silencing look as the man went to question and tried not to spend too much time looking at his lordship as the rising motion of the elevator took the reassurance of gravity out from the bottom of his stomach. He would have to brief the staff, he realised, assure their discretion before rumours of the patrician’s being a penguin could spread. What an effort that would take, and that was without considering delays in correspondence, meetings and appointments… Vetinari could not possibly meet with anyone important in this state. Drumknott offered a silent prayer of thanks that this predicament had occurred the day after the weekly guild meeting. “Whek?” Vetinari asked, noticing his subtle gesture. “I’m fine, sir,” Drumknott said, taking hold of the rail as the porter applied the brake and the elevator came to a stop. “Whek,” Vetinari said in distaste as they exited. Drumknott tuned out the stream of penguin noises that would likely translate to complaints about physics and the mistreatment there of, and a general tirade about how no matter the number of tests and demonstrations carried out, safety devices only needed to fail once, etcetera, etcetera. He made no effort to pay attention when it was spoken in Morporkian, there was no reason to be attentive to it in penguin. Instead he turned his mind to how exactly he was supposed to excuse the sudden clearing of all appointments. Might he say his lordship was ill? That would make sense, and of course people fell ill all the time, but could he say that without affecting Vetinari’s reputation or starting rumours that were more harmful? And if this transformation lasted, if the wizards couldn’t turn him back, if gods forbid Ponder’s worst case scenario came to pass… how would he explain-- “Whek,” Vetinari said, halting his train of thought. They had come to the office door, and he couldn’t operate the handle. “Of course, sir,” Drumknott stepped forward to open it. Vetinari made a small noise he presumed was an expression of gratitude and waddled into the office. Drumknott followed behind him. He would only be called for in moments if he didn’t, even if the circumstance was normal. What was not normal (aside from, of course, that he was following after a penguin) was his instinctual reaction to the raising of a little brown head as they came in. Standing less than a foot at the shoulder, there was no denying that Wuffles was a small dog. Still, that did not change Drumknott’s concern as he approached suspiciously, his hackles raised. “No,” Rufus said sternly. “Wuffles, sit.” Wuffles continued to stalk forward, growling. “Wuffles, basket. Go in your basket.” Wuffles ignored him, snarling, his teeth bared viciously. Vetinari drew himself straight, which didn't change much that he was half his usual height. “Whek,” he said firmly. Wuffles stopped dead in his tracks and sat. He tilted his head in confusion. “Whek,” Vetinari said. Slowly, Wuffles stood again and crept forward cautiously. He sniffed at Vetinari, then drew back. Wuffles yapped in excitement, his tail wagging.  “Whek!” Vetinari flapped his wings in a forward motion. Wuffles bounded around him, herding him towards the desk and nipping at Drumknott’s heels in his fervour. The body language of a penguin could not manage subtlety in the usual manner of Vetinari, and every step he took across the office was distinctly amused. This air of amusement lasted until he rounded the desk. His beak appeared over the top of it. “Whek,” he said, displeased. Ah. He couldn’t get into the chair. “If you will allow me to lift you, sir…” Vetinari made an unimpressed noise but, this time, allowed himself to be lifted without attempting to bite the person doing the lifting. Drumknott put him onto his chair and they stared at each other, neither sure how to

proceed. “Whek?” “I suppose that we should continue as usual until the wizards call for us, sir.” Vetinari gave him a look that indicated what he had just said was complete nonsense again. Drumknott shifted uncomfortably. Outside, the city began to chime the hour. Drumknott's heart dropped. Oh dear. Eleven o’clock. Vimes would arrive at any minute.

[robotslenderman]

Headcanon for my Vetinari/OC ship, my autistic character Eliza who's got a version of her in a few universes.

Later on in the post it starts covering Vimes and Sybil's relationship with Eliza, as well. (Vimes absolutely hates her because Eliza is a micromanager with a short temper when Vetinari's in trouble.)

First headcanon: Vetinari is aroace, and sex-indifferent. He will never be in love with Eliza, but he loves her dearly all the same. Eliza sometimes feels a bit insecure about this, but for the most part, she understands and accepts it.

The early years are difficult and Eliza is quite insecure because Vetinari is very emotionally unavailable. It doesn't help that Eliza, despite being brilliant compared to the average person, is nowhere near on his level and feels like she'll never be good enough. But, over time, they get a lot better at it.

(His struggle to give her attention and affection in the beginning is not because he's aroace, but because he's been on his own, emotionally speaking, for so long that he doesn't really know how to be warm and fuzzy. Actually being emotionally vulnerable is much more difficult than he expected, as he's used to projecting an aura of stonelike impenetrability out of sheer habit and also so used to being amazing at everything he does he is, deep down, quite scared to try something he might fail at. Once they're both willing to admit to themselves and each other that they aren't actually happy keeping each other at a distance, despite liking each other quite a lot, it gets a lot better.)

Eliza's got enough anxiety for at least two people. Vetinari finds it cathartic because this way, whenever something bad happens, she can panic on his behalf. No, seriously.

(She panics by pacing around thinking out loud and planning. So it's CONTROLLED panic, but she's speaking as quickly as a chipmunk on a cocaine high and her anxiety has hit the roof and gone into orbit, so it's clearly panic.)

Eliza' and Vetinari's arguments are usually near-silent. They usually consist of Vetinari staring at Eliza until she either gives in or comes up with a compromise he likes. Vetinari is quite pleased with this system. Eliza, who usually hates confrontation, actually agrees with him on this.

Vimes can't stand Vetinari, but likes Eliza even less.

Unfortunately for him, Sybil and Eliza are friends, which means a weekly dinner with both of them as guests. Eliza and Vimes are friendly enough to each other, but the dinners usually consist of Eliza and Sybil watching with popcorn as Vetinari tries to beat his record of winding up Vimes in the shortest amount of time possible.

Vimes HATES it whenever Vetinari winds up indisposed (whether arrested, poisoned, sleeping excessively due to being framed for murder, etc) because no matter how much Vimes hates his boss, his boss's wife is worse - she will actually show up at the Watch House and tell him how to do his job. Because unfortunately Eliza is the kind of anxious wreck who has to do SOMETHING when she's anxious, and her neuroses go up to eleven if someone fucks with her husband, and it makes her think she's helping when she's bossing Vimes around.

She is not helping.

(Except when she actually does, which just pisses Vimes off even more. If she were in The Truth, for example, she'd have thought to track down Wuffles much sooner than either Vimes or William de Worde did, and it would've driven Vimes crazy for her to beat him to the punch because it'd just feed her "let's tell Vimes what to do" complex.)

The Watch have actual plans on how to distract the Patrician's wife whenever the Patrician is in danger because it's the only way they can do their fucking job without her getting in the way.

Vetinari is absolutely no help in this regard. He just cheerfully tells Vimes to consider it extra motivation to sort out the crisis. He firmly believes Vimes works best under pressure, and Eliza is happiest in a crisis when bothering him, so Vetinari sees it as win/win.

Vimes eventually figures out that whenever something happens to Vetinari, he should deploy Sybil. All Sybil has to do is be an audience while Eliza paces the floor panicking at her and Eliza won't get it into her head to tell him what to do. Sybil also is discovered to have a hidden talent at pointing Eliza in a constructive direction in a way that doesn't get her under Vimes' feet.

Vimes finds out one day that Eliza actually likes him. He is horrified.

[limerental]

Happy Wednesday, have a God!Yennefer & Jaskier ficlet, based on this post

She rides in on the updraft of a storm. Both armies have already limped from the scarred swathe of the field, what was once rows of cabbage and barley churned to wet muck by hoof and boot.

It is there that she finds him.

He is a little thing.

Not in the breadth of his shoulders or his height, both of which are quite average for a human male of this time period, but in his years and in his naivety and in his importance.

He is but eighteen and wears delicate silks in his lord’s colors. Decorative, extravagant, the trappings and embroidery custom ordered just for such an occasion. To follow some nothing lord of a piddling estate into battle, dancing at the heels of his mighty war steed, singing some drivel or another written in his honor. The snap of the lord’s banner in the breeze and the march of the army’s stride serving as perfect percussive accompaniment to the cool, clear voice of the bard and the fluttering notes of his instrument.

The silks are ruined now, of course. The once vibrant fabric has taken on the color of the field, the seams split and torn, as the flesh has been beneath. The bard’s instrument is in a similar state. A fine-boned lute, once polished smooth and painted in swirling florals. Now bowed and cracked, the strings frayed on its twisted neck.

The lord sprawls in the mud beneath his dappled horse, the beast still groaning in its fading agony, a guttural sound of lungs more blood than air.

The bard is a little thing. Curled dead at his lord’s side.

She feels the clap of thunder before it breaks over the battlefield, scents the wind and flicks her hand. Fat raindrops sluice away from her and the boy’s body, leaving the storm to stir his chestnut hair but not dampen it.

The horse groans again, eyes rolling, shivering in the mud, and she waits as it dies, thrashing with renewed vigor and wuffling toward the very end. A fine animal, but she has no need of a mount, and death throes make it ever so hard to concentrate.

She is here for a song.

The animal dies.

Yennefer reaches through the storm and grips her bone-white staff tight in both hands. She feels, for a moment, the curve of the earth slipping away in every direction, the pressure of the atmosphere above, the molten core beneath, and then, she allows the feeling to dissipate through her extremities, through the ones confined to her physical, womanly shape and to the ones that flicker beyond this plane. 

She holds her staff aloft and for a moment, it is a spear. It is a sword. It is a bolt of lightning.

And she thwacks the bard dead center in the forehead.

“Ouch,” he exclaims as he leaps right to his feet. “Fucking uncalled for. What kind of healer are you meant to be? Going about knocking the heads of upstanding young lads who’ve done nothing but have a bit of a nap during battle. I’m awake, I’m awake! Just got a smidge tired is all. Had a bit of a lie-down. Now where’s Lord Pendergast got off to? Now where’s-- oh.”

The bard stills, a seeming impossibility,  as he notices the carnage around him and the abrupt fall of his facial features could have been construed as comical if she did not already know what sort of man he is. Or was. She always manages to forget the subtle nuances of mortal life.

He too will forget in time.

Of course, for now, he does not know a thing about any of it and so begins to wail. A high, dramatic call of mourning that rings with perfect clarity across the stormswept field. Far too perfect not to be at least partially contrived. The bard is an actor, after all. She knows that all the best actors practice their mourning wails ahead of time.

He howls and beats his chest and sniffles better than the best of them.

She keeps him dry under the envelope of air that slicks with rivulets but ponders allowing the rain to touch him. He may delight in the ambience a wretched downpour would provide, she thinks. As it is, she waits with the same stillness and quiet as she waited on the stricken horse to die. He sounds nearly identical, frankly.

“Are you quite finished?” 

He looks at her then, all artfully snot-nosed and watery-eyed with mud smeared up to his collar and dried blood caked down to his heels.

She blinks and sees herself as he sees her. She is crooked, half-hunched against the carved staff she bears, and she appears as a woman, ambiguous in age, humming faintly in the way that all sorcerers do. Her tattered cloak trails at her ankles, the raised hood shadowing her half-paralyzed face, but her violet eyes are not obscured, her gaze revealing all that this body does not. 

For those who look closely enough, at least.

He looks closely.

She blinks and sees his throat bob as he swallows his fear, and he says, “suppose you aren’t a healer, then.”

“You suppose correctly,” she says.

“Suppose I am… uh… I’m…”

He picks at the front of his bloodied and tattered silks. 

“You were not napping,” she says, “if that’s what you are attempting to babble inanely about.”

“I babble inanely just fine,” he says and puffs up his chest. 

“I realize.” She laughs, and the clouds laugh along with her, flickering with lightning.

“Oi! I don’t find this all that humorous actually. This is not a giggle-worthy situation, just you know. I’ve apparently up and died. I’ve apparently snuffed it. I don’t know that there’s anything worth jesting about. Just think of all the wines I’ve never sampled, the maidens I’ll never deflower, the riches I’ll never--”

She sighs. Counts backwards from ten. How can a man so recently dead yet have the breath in his lungs for such irritating chatter?

“Enough,” she says, and the storm answers her in a deafening roll of thunder, a hum of static, a patter of rain against their envelope of dryness.

The bard shuts his mouth with a clack.

For a moment.

“Who are you?” he asks, and her mouth tightens into a smile because she likes answering this question most of all. She likes the way a new name tastes in her mouth. She likes to hear it tremble on the air.

“I am Yennefer,” she says, and her tongue curls nicely around the syllables.

“Right,” says the bard, “you can call me Jaskier.”

“Jaskier,” she repeats, the name sweet and floral on her lips. 

Yes, she likes how this one tastes. She likes how he looks at her, the thrill of awe held in his too-blue eyes. Too blue to still be wholly mortal. Never to wrinkle with crow’s feet. Never again to bug with split blood vessels in a last deadly convulsion on the muck of a field of battle.

“Come, poet,” she says and taps her staff against the earth, feels something ripple beneath her bare feet. He feels it too and yelps aloud at the vibration in his soles, and then, the storm has vanished and the battlefield fades and all that is left is a rush of stars and the sweeping arc of a portal. “You have stories yet to tell.”

[morporkian-cryptid]

I need to yell about the new Watch trailer

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY EVEN TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH

I wanted to add a cut, but Tumblr won’t let me. So... yeah. Expect a lot of capslock yelling.

That purple thing at the beginning is Ankh-Morpork? WHY ARE THERE SKYSCRAPERS AND NO TOWER OF ARTS?

“the sudden appearance of this creature” is timed with Vime’s disappearance with the magic lightning bolt. But it’s about the dragon. Way to confuse the viewer.

The dragon is visible during a fraction of a second. I had to pause the video to see it. What’s the fucking point of showing it, then??

Vetinari is blinking way too often. WHERE’S THE COLDNESS? WHERE’S THE CHARISMA?

...does Vimes have a MOHAWK?

Why is he wearing eye-liner?????

The dog is either Gaspode or Wuffles, probably Wuffles judging by the collar, and he looks like neither of them

...is that a SURVEILLANCE CAMERA behind Vimes???

Vime’s badge is more or less okay, at least it has Ankh-Morpork’s symbol on it

THE NEON SIGN. NO. JUST NO. And the Watch House looks like it’s made of concrete, which... No.

Are those bamboos???

Besides the fact that Cheery’s way too tall for a dwarf and DOESN’T HAVE A BEARD???????? DAMMIT????? , I really like her style

I am gay for Angua von Überwald

For a second I thought Angua had a gonne and I nearly burst a vessel, but thank the gods it’s only a crossbow

Carrot is visible for just a split second

SYBIL’S SWAMP DRAGON!! :D (one of the rare good points of this trailer)

Excuse me but SYBIL RAMKIN IS FAT. I refuse this caricature of a magazine model. I can accept that she isn’t white (even though that goes against her identity as a diverted symbol of the rich nobility) but FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS LET HER BE FAT! FUCKIT!

Vimes’ eyebrows are more expressive than Vetinari’s. I’m already angry that they made Vetinari into a woman for no fucking reason, but if this actress doesn’t know how to lift an eyebrow I swear to the gods I will sue BBC America. SHE SHOULD HAVE RAISED AN EYEBROW IN THIS SCENE

WHY ARE THERE ELECTRICAL WIRE EVERYWHERE?? THIS IS A MEDIEVAL CITY JUST BEFORE THE COAL INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WHY DO THEY HAVE ELECTRICITY

Oh hey Cheery has a beard now? ........fuck, please tell me she didn’t shave after coming out as a woman 0_0

Why show the very beginning of Angua’s transformation and not outright her wolf form? People who don’t know the books won’t understand anything and people who already know... already know, so it’s pointless :/

Sybil is cool and badass but she’s not Sybil

All the clips are way too short to introduce any of the characters, or even understand anything about what’s going on, if I hadn’t stopped the video every second I wouldn’t have seen Carrot, or the dragon

Showing the iconograph imp is completely useless if you don’t explain what it is :/

WHY DOES VIMES HAVE AN ELECTRIC GUITAR? WHY IS THERE A ROCK CONCERT? WHY IS THERE THE MUSICIANS’ GUILD’S LOGO BEHIND THEM WHEN THEY ARE EXPRESSLY AGAINST ROCK MUSIC? ROCK MUSIC DOESN’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE IT DISAPPEARED WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

VIMES HAS A MOHAWK

ANGUA HAS A MOHAWK

IS THAT CARROT PLAYING THE BATTERY??? CARROT WOULD NEVER PLAY ROCK MUSIC OR WEAR MAKEUP WHY THE FUCK

Vimes flipping Vetinari... just... no

“No Sir” is the only redeeming thing in this shit show

...There’s no number on Vimes’ badge. Okay that’s just a detail, but the number is kind of an important detail.

THE TAGLINE IN BRIGHT PINK FONT? WHY BRIGHT PINK? W H Y???

I really like Angua’s chara design (because... gay) but it’s got nothing to do with her descriptions in the books. AT ALL.

CHEERY IS ALMOST AS TALL AS CARROT which is ironic considering that Carrot is technically a dwarf, but... still

WHY DOESN’T CHEERY HAVE A BEARD SHE SHOULD HAVE A BEARD FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS PLEASE GIVE THIS DWARF HER BEARD BACK

Sybil... Where is the real Lady Sybil Ramkin... SHE IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A VALKYRIE AND INSPIRE WARRIOR CHANTS SHE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING TWIG!!!!! GIVE US OUR SYBIL BACK!!!

THERE IS NOTHING RIGHT IN THIS FUCKING SHIT SHOW WHAT THE FUCK

If it weren’t Discworld, it would be cool, but they can’t make this and try to sell it as Discworld. They’re trying to forcefully modernize this universe to appeal to a larger audience, and in the process trampling everything that made the book series actually modern and just... HAVE A PURPOSE. Cheery’s beard isn’t just a beard, it’s a defining elements of the whole debate around dwarves’ gender. Sybil’s fatness is necessary to showing that she can be badass AND fat. Carcer.......... the fandom has already delved into why making Carcer black goes directly AGAINST the message his character was originally supposed to convey. Also why do they show him for two seconds in the trailer with no context or explanation whatsoever? And I will not talk about Vetinari or I might start actually screaming.

The clips are way too fast to understand anything unless you pause the video every second. You can only understand/notice the characters’ introductions if you already know them and have followed the casting process. They didn’t introduce any plot line - the lightning and Carcer are shown for just two seconds without explanation, the dragon is in one clip not even lasting a full second, the word “dragon” is never even uttered, nor is it stated to be a threat at all... I showed it to a friend who has never read the Watch books, and they said they hadn’t even understood that Vimes was a cop and the Watch was the police. This trailer is trying to cram in all the characters, plot lines and mostly the universe’s frankly questionable redesign, without actually saying anything.

I’ve changed my mind, I’m going to watch the series when it comes out, so that I can see firsthand how bad it is. I don’t have any expectations so I can’t be disappointed.

[the-light-followed]

SOURCERY (1988) [DISC. #5; RINCEWIND #3]

“It’s vital to remember who you really are.  It’s very important.  It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see.  They always get it wrong.”

Rating: 7/10

Standalone Okay: Yes, but more fun with context.

Read First: Yeah.

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

Magic!  Sourcery! Death!  The apocryphal apocalypse, the Apocralypse!  Puns!  A cowardly wizard who can’t do magic and who takes it in turns to run away from, and then toward, and then away again from danger!

Over the course of the story, Sourcery literally and figuratively rewrites reality and magic across the Disc.

Sourcery feels a lot like a second start for the Discworld series.  Much like The Colour of Magic, it introduces many of Discworld’s major locations, characters, and themes.  It even stars Rincewind, in all his cowardly, unmagical glory.  But unlike The Colour of Magic, Pratchett has locked down not just the look of the place, but also the feel of it.  The Discworld, as a setting, balances on the knife’s edge between absurdist humor and poignant sincerity, and it makes sense that it took Pratchett a couple novels to get the blend just right.  I feel like the first five books in the series mark a slow path to the Discworld that the rest of the novels will occupy comfortably, starting with the purely satirical high fantasy nonsense of The Colour of Magic, shifting through the more original concepts of Equal Rites and Mort, and finally settling in place with Sourcery.

With the arrival of Coin, the powerful Sourcerer—who unlike a wizard is a source of magic, not just able to use the stuff—the balance of magic and nature shifts, wizards and towers rise and fall, and the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions briefly push very, very close to the Discworld before they’re driven back.  

By the time the story ends, magic is revitalized and permanently changed through the arrival (and then departure) of Sourcery, and the balance of power between city-states is permanently altered.  In fact, it is strongly implied that because of these magical battles, some of these places have entirely ceased to exist.

Whoops!

We get a solid cast of characters for this one, coming together and splitting apart again for some really well-paced storylines running alongside one another.  There’s Conina (daughter of Cohen the barbarian, hairdresser by profession and warrior by genetics) and Nijel the Destroyer (son of a grocer, but he read a book about how to be a barbarian once), the Unseen University wizards (who put all their skill points into magic powers and absolutely none into common sense), the Librarian and his flock of books (the books literally fly like birds to escape a fire in the Library), Coin the Sourcerer (parented badly by the ghost of his dead father which is possessing his magical staff (no, really)), Death and the other Horsemen of the Apocralypse, etc., etc.  Even the Archchancellor’s Hat has a pretty solid role to play.

And, of course, we’ve got our main protagonist, beloved run-away wizard Rincewind.

Western media trains audiences to see and expect cowardice as a negative trait, usually given to villains, traitors, and failures.  But although Rincewind’s cowardice is as much a defining characteristic as his lack of magical ability and his misspelled hat, I see him as one of the kindest and most genuinely likeable protagonists on the Disc.  (As opposed to my other faves: Vimes can be too intense, Vetinari too terrifying, and Granny is some unholy combination of both those things.  Moist is, quite frankly, a little shit.)  

Rincewind has ‘runs away a lot, usually from things that want him dead’ as his main character flaw, sure, but I can’t honestly fault him for that. Let’s be real—it’s just a logical continuation of the all-important survival trait, which Rincewind has in spades. And at the same time, he’s also knowledgeable, sarcastically funny, kind in his own way, and totally, completely harmless.  It’s almost sweet, even, how utterly nonthreatening this man is.  Like Coin the Sourcerer says: he’s like a funny little rabbit.  How can you not love that?

I also love that Rincewind’s cowardice doesn’t stop him from doing what has to be done, even when—maybe especially when—no one else seems to be answering the call.  Despite all the infinitely more powerful wizards up in the tower with the Sourcerer, it’s Rincewind who shows up with no magic at all, just a half-brick in a sock, ready to at least try to stop the inevitable unraveling of reality and destruction of the Disc.  (I’m standing by my claim that Rincewind might be a terrible wizard, but an excellent accidental witch.  See my post on Equal Rites for the distinction.)

Anyway, in the end, it turns out that it’s not Coin that’s the real problem, it’s his staff; Rincewind immediately turns to protecting Coin, a literal child.  When he and Coin are pulled through to the Dungeon Dimension, Rincewind uses himself as a distraction so Coin can escape, even though it means he’ll be trapped there with terrible things that want him dead.  The book ends with him still trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions.

That’s not great, obviously, but one thing I really appreciate about the Discworld series is that even though bad things happen or threaten to happen all the time, you can always trust Pratchett not to be cruel for cruelty’s sake or even just for shock and awe.  Things are scary and bad, but they will turn out okay in the end. Pratchett’s not about that grimdark bullshit, and that’s a promise you can take straight to the bank.  He understands people in such a real way—none of his characters are purely good or purely evil, but on the whole, when pushed, they tend toward good.  They think. They reconsider.  They try.  Even when it seems pointless, they fight back, and Pratchett always rewards his characters—and the readers—for that.

Sourcery, a prime example of this, ends on a pretty solid cliffhanger.  Knowing as we do now that there are four more books that star Rincewind in the Discworld lineup, we as a modern audience don’t need to worry.  But in the context of 1988, where there are two full years and three full novels before Rincewind is mentioned again, we have to take Pratchett at his word, and the man really does do everything in his power to reassure us that all will be well:

“Silence drifted around the remains of a hat, heavily battered and frayed and charred around the edges, that had been placed with some ceremony in a niche in the wall.  No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat.”

The Rincewind books were actually some of the last ones I read of the Discworld, my first time around, to the point where I already trusted Pratchett not to mess with my feelings for no reason.  It’s always nice to hit a cliffhanger and know the author will give a satisfying, well-written payoff—he wouldn’t have written it as he did if he didn’t intend to go somewhere with it later.

And now, having read all the books several times over, I have the satisfaction of being certain that even though it takes him a while, Rincewind will make it back to U.U. in the end.  Any time I read one of the Rincewind books and start to feel bad for the poor bastard, I can reassure myself that despite every time he’s forced to risk his life or dragged along against his will on a wild and crazy adventure, eventually he will be given tenure at the University, and he will have the most boring job imaginable, mostly involving sorting his predecessor’s rock collection.  It’s all the man has ever dreamed of getting out of life.

As a final note, I have to sidetrack into something that makes me very excited: in Sourcery, Vetinari is finally given a name!

[Paul Kidby’s version of Vetinari from The Pratchett Portfolio.]

Admittedly, this is not the first time the Patrician appears; he’s been around since The Colour of Magic.  It’s just that he’s now officially been named, and with that naming comes more and more elements of his personality.  Unfortunately, this does not mean he’s now fully, entirely, um…Vetinari-like.  (Is there a good word to describe what, exactly, Vetinari is?  Let me know; I sure as hell can’t think of one. Machiavellian, sure, but there’s a lot more going on in there on top of that.)  He looks like Vetinari.  He’s got some very Vetinari-sounding traits.  He’s even got Wuffles, and let’s be honest, ‘unreasoning love of dogs’ is one of Vetinari’s easiest-to-nail-down personality traits.

But he also dramatically misjudges a situation with the wizards and the newly-arrived Sourcerer, Coin, to the point where he is turned into a lizard for the rest of the book.

On the one hand, this is clearly an object lesson in human-slash-wizard nature that Vetinari takes firmly to heart, because I can’t think of any time in any other Discworld novel where the man fucks up quite that badly.  One of Vetinari’s strongest traits is that he gets people, he understands them and what they want, and the reason he stays in power despite all efforts to the contrary is that he knows how to work that to his advantage.  Future Vetinari is a lot more cautious and delicate with both his demands and his threats, he pretty much always gets what he wants, and he is never again forcibly transmogrified into a small, angry reptile.  That’s character development, folks.

On the other hand, I think I’m so used to Vetinari as the all-knowing, puppeteering chess-master that he seems wildly out of character for the relatively short amount of time he shows up in Sourcery.  I don’t even think I’m entirely wrong in that, because, again, Pratchett is still figuring out Vetinari as a character at this point. He’s been around since The Colour of Magic, yes, but this is the first time we see him as a real, concrete person and not a mere device to drive the plot.  

Somehow, he doesn’t yet feel like the politician slash assassin that we’ll come to know and love.  Sure, we all know he’s secretly got a hidden sense of humor and a live-and-let-die approach to the whimsical absurdity that pretty much runs the Disc, but he doesn’t make mistakes.

By the time we get to Guards! Guards!, though, Pratchett will pretty much have him on lock.  Maybe we really just need to hold his brand of cynicism up next to Vimes’s in order to put them both in the right light.

But we’ve still got a few more books between then and now.  Next up, we return to the witches: it’s the Shakespearean-inspired Wyrd Sisters!

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

Rincewind does exactly one (1) magic in this book, and I am very proud of him for it.

Something I missed on my last readthrough: the Luggage apparently coughed up the Ottavo after a couple days.  Last I remembered, in The Light Fantastic, it had swallowed this most powerful grimoire on the Disc and showed no signs of ever giving it up.  On the one hand, there’s nowhere safer on the Disc to store a reality-warping spellbook than inside a murderous suitcase, but on the other, Rincewind and his awful luck don’t really need that sort of risk following them around on hundreds of tiny legs.

This book has a really solid message: a person has to decide for themselves who and what they are.  It repeats throughout a lot of the character arcs: Rincewind, Conina, Nigel, even Coin the Sourcerer.

Rincewind might not be great at magic, but he’s got the most common sense.  For example: it’s not Rincewind’s magical powers that make him able to fly the magic carpet.  It’s just that he’s the only one to notice that they’ve set it on the ground upside-down. I think this serves him better than actual magic would in most of his escapades.

Favorite Quotes:

“‘I meant,’ said Ipslore bitterly, ‘what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?’  Death thought about it.  CATS, he said eventually.  CATS ARE NICE.”

“It was quite impossible to describe.  Here is what it looked like.  It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well.  It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley.  It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.”

“It’s vital to remember who you really are.  It’s very important.  It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.”

“They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done.  They seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it or die in the attempt, and the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt.”

“There are eight levels of wizardry on the Disc; after sixteen years Rincewind has failed to achieve even level one.  In fact it is considered opinion of some of his tutors that he is incapable even of achieving level zero, which most normal people are born at; to put it another way, it has been suggested that when Rincewind dies the average occult ability of the human race will actually go up by a fraction.”

“Rincewind rather enjoyed times like this.  They convinced him that he wasn’t mad because, if he was mad, that left no word at all to describe some of the people he met.”

“Despite rumor, Death isn’t cruel—merely terribly, terribly good at his job.”

“The truth isn’t easily pinned to a page.  In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find.”

“The day had, in fact, reached that gentle point when it was too late for housebreaking and too early for burglary.”

[talesofwight]

Character Info | Rufus Wightman

BASICS.

Full name: Rufus Wightman

Pronunciation:  Ru - fus | wyt - muhn

Nicknames: Ruff, Ruffles, Ruffy, Ruffie, Roof, Roofles, Roofie, Roofus, Raf, Raffle, Raffie, Raffus, Wuffles, Woofy, Wuff, Wuffus, Wuffie, and Garzolthar the Unmaker. (Okay maybe not that last one.)

Height: Comparatively tall for a midlander, standing at around 6″ 2′.

Age: We’re so close to his - and my - birthday (July 16th) that I may as well say 31. Or just ‘early thirties’.

Zodiac: Byregot - Lightning Aspect

Languages: Common Eorzean (Mawil tagged me and put the rest of her stuff under the read more so I will do that here too. Besides I don’t like to spam.)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Hair colour: Dark ash/grey.

Eye colour: Icy silver.

Skin tone: Warm ivory.

Body type: Athletic, broad-shouldered. 

Accent: Not sure about accent, but he definitely has the tone of a middle-class, educated person.

Dominant hand: Right

Posture: Casual, loose, slightly withdrawn

Scars: The most prominent scar on Rufus would be the extremely visible one marring his brow in a diagonal line. Beyond that, his body is covered in a myriad of scars of various origins. From slashing wounds, to claws, to bites, to bolts, to fire/magic, to sheer impalement. Refer to this post for a solid example.

Tattoos: None!

Most noticeable features: If he is seen without gloves, one would note that on the back of his right hand, the skin is mangled and deformed, and seems to resemble the rough shape of the three spears of Halone. In addition, his left hand isn’t even of flesh at all. Instead it is a facsimile of an arm crafted of black metal which seems to be perpetually chilled to the touch.

CHILDHOOD.

Place of birth: Ul’dah.

Hometown: Ul’dah, again. In the backstreets.

Birth weight/height: Average

Manner of birth: Natural

First words: “No!”

Siblings: None 

Parents: Drystan and Selene Mercer

Parental involvement: His mother passed away when he was born, so all Rufus knows of her is what he has been able to piece together. His father was not a good one. He didn’t do much to help Rufus grow up. At least, not in the traditional sense. Drystan’s involvement forced Rufus to mature at a far younger age than he should have.

ADULT LIFE

Occupation: Adventurer, Voidsent hunter

Current residence: He presently stays within his Company’s hold in the residential district of Limsa Lominsa.

Close friends: Rufus hasn’t been fortunate to be blessed with a variety of close friends. Many who he had been close with have either since gone far afield, or passed away. This hasn’t left him with mild abandonment issues at all, no.

Relationship status: Single as a pringle and ready to mingle. 

Financial status: Rufus enjoys a life of relative comfort. Obviously he has to spend a fair portion of his wages on weapon/armour repair and maintenance, but what he does have left over goes into the indulgence of his hobbies. Or mass quantities of fancy soap for his bath.

Vices: Prone to wanderlust every few years, excessive exercise sometimes to personal detriment

SEX & ROMANCE.

Sexual orientation:  Straight

Romantic orientation: Heteroromantic

Preferred emotional role: submissive | dominant | switch |  unsure

Preferred sexual role:  submissive  |  dominant  |  switch |  sex repulsed

Libido: Very active. Though he has precious few chances to make use of it.

Turn on’s: Physical strength, ability to use a sword, interest in exercise, can kick his ass, confidence (but not smugness), kindness, honesty, soft touches, neck kisses, and whispers of the salacious kind.

Turn off’s:  Extreme arrogance/narcissism/laziness, lack of respect, being used, being expected to do all the work all the goddamned time, inability to commit

Love language: Despite his usually closed-off demeanour, it doesn’t take an awful lot of tenderness to open the man up. And when he does, he becomes a pure cuddlebug. There will be a lot of gentle touches. Clasping hands, squeezing arms, or leaning his head against the other’s. Soft kisses on the cheek/head/hands also apply.

Relationship tendencies: Often things start out fairly strong physically for Rufus. Expect a lot of time spent being physically intimate. This quickly moves into emotional intimacy wherein the aforementioned behaviours crop up very frequently. Once things have had time to settle, and he has become comfortable in the relationship, then he’s pretty much got. Might as well marry him now.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Hobbies to pass the time: Cooking, fishing, exercising, reading, swordsmanship practice, or simply wandering. Mostly as long as it involves the outdoors, he is up for it.

Mental illnesses: If stress and mild PTSD count? Then those.

Physical illnesses: Well... he is missing his whole left arm. Does that count?

Left or right brained: Probably right-brained. Rufus loves to create, at least when he cooks. He views it as a method of artistic expression.

Fears: Being weak, being abandoned, and of loss.

Self confidence level: Fairly high. The man knows what he can do, and he plays to his strengths.

Vulnerabilities: Prone to bouts of extreme emotion -- at least so far as combat is concerned. Becomes quite shy and reserved around those partaking in alcohol, even if not to excess. His childhood still holds a painful sting to him.

Just an extra bit here, if you perchance wanted to read more I’ll leave a link to my recent LFRP post for Rufus here. Okay thanks bye Felicia.

Tagged by: @meandering-mind, @thegildenheart, and @thorcatte. A rate triple-tag! :o Tagging: @eggplant-xaela @ylaziel @alun-ura @kyrie-silverwings @passage-of-arms @locke-rinannis @a-shadows-kiss @balance-maintained @vysaldhe @caewen-ffxiv aaaaaaand uh... anyone else! Do the thing. Apologies if you were already tagged/have done this ;w;

[forlornhorizon]

A Manager with the Survival Instinct of a Lemming

Summary: A collection of snippets. There’s a reason why Lobotomy Corp managers should be off-site. This has no canonical way of happening, this was mostly based on a dream. Warnings: Reference to some body horror but no actual body horror or explicit descriptions

I was going to die.

There was no bones about it--it was only a matter of time before the Abnormality half-draped over one of my legs decided it knew enough about me and... ate me? Christ, what DID Nothing There do to its victims? I'd lived in a bubble of happy, deliberate ignorance and now it was coming back to bite me.

O-06-20 continued to be oblivious to my swallowed panic and let out a pleased wuffle.

It was just me, the mountain of mismatched flesh called Nothing There, and my tablet in the hallway.

For now, anyways. It was only a matter of time before some Abnormality grew irate with the lack of attention and breached into the hallway to take its ire out on passerby.

I needed to contact someone, anyone.

A notification popped up on the sidebar, saving me the trouble of choosing. It was Hod, attempting a video call.

I accepted it and put on my best cheery face. "Heeey, Hod! So it turns out wanting to be on the ground level of my workplace is a REALLY bad idea."

"Manager!" The sephira said, her orange eye wide with panic. "You're alright! ...maybe?"

I winced and quickly dialed the volume down. Nothing There perked up a little at the familiar word. "'Maybe' is right. No idea how long I've got." I angled the camera so Hod could see the Abnormality next to me. "It hasn't tried to kill me, but I don't know how long that will last." Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. "I don't know what to do. Could you please tell Angela she was right about everything and that I'm sorry I couldn't help her with the 'A' stuff? Oh, and could you tell everyone that I'm sorry that I'm abandoning my obligations to them? I honestly didn't mean to."

"Oh, manager," Hod said. Her own robotic voice seemed to be on the edge of tears as well. "I'm sure it's all going to be alright! We'll... we'll just have to send in the team? Yeah that’s it, we're going to get everyone and we'll make sure it's fine and-and it's going to be fine, manager!"

Calling in a team? I thought about the Disciplinary Team, swooping in, guns blazing and swords raised... and thought about myself in the crossfire. "No, no," I said. "That wouldn't... I don't think that would help."

"Then-then calling in the Rabbits?" Hod's voice was getting higher in pitch.

"Hod, you're not helping matters." A new video popped in, this one of a black-and purple machine.

"Hey Yesod," I said weakly.

"Manager," he said firmly. "What's your status?"

"I'm currently in hallway 2-EM with O-06-20," I said. I tilted the camera so he could see either direction. "No other abnormalities have breached this location at this time." I brought the camera back to myself and Nothing There. "I am not hurt and O-06-20 has not shown any signs of aggression. …However, I cannot guarantee this will continue."

"I see." Yesod went silent and his eye shuttered in thought.

I leaned back against the cool metal wall. If I died, at least they'd miss me. As morbid as that was, it helped loosen the knot of panic in my chest. Absentmindedly, I patted Nothing there between its bulbous eyes. The Abnormality gurgled in response.

"...Manager, we will not be able to send anyone after you," Yesod said at last. "Are you able to continue with your duties?"

"Mm-hmm," I said, flipping to the facility map to watch my employees mill about in obvious unrest. "As long as I don't panic, anyway."

"Good. Our options at this point are to utilize the Backwards Clock--"

"Absolutely not." Any option that involved feeding my employees to the proverbial woodchipper was Right Out.

"—or to finish our collection for the day." Yesod's voice was grimmer than usual. Finishing the day's collection would allow me to trigger the failsafe--a facility-wide PE drain that left most Abnormalities in stasis until the next day's work.

Getting there would mean having to survive at least two Ordeals and any number of meltdowns, all of which would put potentially deadly Abnormalities in my hallway.

Still...

"Let's do that."

"We will check in on you in 15 minute increments. I expect you to answer our messages promptly... and if not, we will use the Clock."

"Alright." I checked the hallway again. Still clear. "...I'm going to see if I can't bait O-06-20 back to its containment cell. Can everyone make sure the way is clear? I don't wanna test my luck." More than I already have, went unsaid.

My request was met with a "Very well" from Yesod and a nervous "Good luck!" from Hod.

I took a deep breath in, then released it.

I moved slowly, as to not jar Nothing There. I shifted forward and pulled my free foot under me. Nothing There watched me, but neither lashed out nor dug its skeletal arm in as I gently tugged my leg free. "We're just gonna go back downstairs," I said in as soothing a voice as possible. "And we're gonna go back to your room so we can get out of everyone's way, alright?"

Nothing There exhaled in response, and I tried not to gag at the smell of rotten meat.

Standing up was a herculean effort. Right then and there I was glad I had my panic under control, because I had the sudden feeling if I bolted I wouldn't like the end result. Nothing There stared quizzically at me, and stood on its three-and-a-half legs to match me.

"C'mon," I coaxed it, patted my legs encouraging. "This way..." I took one step, than another. "C'mon, it's all going to be fine..." I couldn't tell if this was for its benefit or my own. Slowly, it followed my steps and stared expectantly at me. "That's a good monster. C'mon, follow the manager..."

Ever so slowly, we toddled to the far elevator. I babbled encouraging nonsense the whole way, completely aware that I was expanding its vocabulary.

The elevator came immediately when called, a testament to the Sephirot clearing the area of employees. I offered a silent prayer of thanks.

I couldn't relax just yet, of course, because I had to hold the door open AND coax Nothing There into the elevator. My panic was dying and it was being replaced with anxiety. Once we were both in and the elevator directed below, I distracted myself with management, careful to direct my agents away from this chunk of the building. Nothing There sat and panted like an enormous, nightmarish dog. I tried very hard not to think about whether or not it had lungs.

-

The last door between us and Nothing There's containment room opened with a hiss. I walked in and held my breath as Nothing There followed after.

"That's a good monster!" I sing-songed, and ever so carefully stepped around it to hit the lock-panel.

So.

Now I was trapped in a box with a monster, safe from all the OTHER monsters that would inevitable escape into the halls as the day wore on.

Nothing There at least seemed pleased with this outcome and lurched over to the folded blanket that served as its bed and settled down.

If I tried to run, could I make it?

I'd seen Nothing There slaughter an employee in one discarded timeline. Everything looked like it had been going well for poor Rho, until Rho was ready to leave the containment cell. And then Nothing There lunged for him in a flash. I never saw specifically what happened, since the perception filter was overloaded and covered the feed in static.

I wasn't fast enough.

My only hope was getting to today's quota as fast (and carefully) as I could.

-

"This is Malkuth, checking in!"

"Hey Malkuth," I said, balancing the tablet on my knees.

"It's good to see you're still alive!" Malkuth's camera was held close to her face, so only her yellow eye was visible.

"For now," I said.

"For now," she echoed. Then, "Oh, right. Yesod gave us all security questions. ...In case O-06-20 took your skin."

"Ask away."

The edge of a clipboard entered the view. "'Whaaaaaaat issss... four times four?'"

"Sixteen," I said. "Are we sure it doesn't know basic math?"

As if it could tell I was talking about it, Nothing There walked over to where I sat and and stared at the screen intently.

"Eeeeeh... not really?" There was a shifting of metal as Malkuth approximated a shrug on the other side. "Honestly there's a lot we don't know about the Abnormalities. It usually doesn't matter."

-

The next one was Hod. "Manager, are you alright?"

"Somehow," I said. Outside, the sounds of battle were dying down. Amber Dawn was the easiest of the Ordeals, though, had I been in the hallways, still would have made literal mincemeat of me. "What the security question?"

"O-oh, right!" Hod cleared her throat, which struck always struck me as a weird mannerism for a brain in a machine. "'What is the best work for O-03-03?'"

"Attachment."

"Oh, good." Hod fell silent. If I had to guess why, she was searching for something positive to say.

"You don't have to force it," I said.

"This is all my fault," she said.

"It was literally mine." I stretched my back. The metal floor was really uncomfortable. "I wanted to get my feet wet, wanted to get into the team building thing... but all I want right now is a hug. Do you think I could con Chesed into a hug?" He was part of the Welfare Team. "...probably not. We're not that well acquainted. Oh well."

"I... could give you a hug. If you need one."

"Only if you're comfortable with it, but yeah, I'd really appreciate it."

-

I hesitated at the door. Of all the Abnormalities in this facility, I'd expected this one to hurt me the most. I tiptoed over to its collapsed bulk and gingerly gave it another pat. It didn't react, of course. I sighed. I would probably regret it later, but I unwound my scarf and stuffed it between its head and bedding.

"I hope I never run into you again," I said sincerely.

-

(It's all right. You don't need to be afraid anymore.) I stumbled over my feet in a daze. My tablet slipped from numb fingertips. Someone was... calling me?

My feet took me down the hallway, slowly. (You will never be afraid again. We shall make you whole and perfect, free from disease.)

No more anxiety, no more fear.

Was it possible, to live without the expectation of another person's life?

Could I--?

I was reaching for the door panel when something knocked me aside.

All the air was driven out of me and I collapsed to the floor, wheezing. Awareness came back to me in that sudden instant, and with it, the fear. What had happened? Why? Was I going to die?

Nothing There stood over me.

It had tackled me, and, judging by how it hurt to breathe, probably broken several ribs in the process.

Oh, I thought, so it's finally going to kill me.

Nothing There lunged forward and snagged me by the collar of my coat. My fight-or-flight reflex determined that freezing was the best choice, so despite my mind screaming at me to fight it off, I froze and let myself be dragged away.

It dragged me past my dropped tablet (an errant thought popped into my head--Angela would be so disappointed if I broke the screen) and all the way to the door to the main hall.

The door opened obligingly and Nothing There dragged me into a regenerator filled with startled employees. It dropped me and sat down next to me, still panting.

My employees, bless their hearts, didn't immediately panic (the clerks immediately fled out the other door and honestly? Same). "...Manager? Are you... alright?" the nearest one asked. He had his sword in a white-knuckled grasp. The others were similarly on edge.

"H-hey," I croaked, raising an arm. "I think my ribs are broken, so gimme a minute."

"a minute," Nothing There repeated.

It was so wrong hearing my voice coming from the monster, but Nothing There wasn't doing anything else.

My chest tingled as the regenerator worked its magic. Slowly, I rolled myself into a sitting position. "Okay," I said. "Okay. I'm... okay? Yeah." My employees relaxed slightly. Their hands were on their weapons but no one looked like they were going to leap into action on my behalf. "I'm alive but I dropped my tablet," I said. "I think... I think something got in my head, and then O-06-20 tackled me, and dragged me here?" I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my palm. "So I've lost track of where I am. Anyone know what we're supposed to have locked up around here?"

"The two containment units in this hallway are for O-01-67 and... O-01-45."

"So that's... Laetitia and Plague Doctor?" I mumbled to myself. Wait, Plague Doctor. The clock. "Oh god!" Icy realization swept through me. I'd been so close to receiving his 'blessing.' I swallowed my bile back. "Well that was a close call," I said in a pleasant tone of voice. "I... don't suppose anyone would be willing to grab my tablet? I don't feel like heading back out to grab it."

[komatsunana]

10. Playing with puppies. caleb and nott

This one was hard because it is CANON that Nott has eaten puppies.

“I think Jester would be very upset if she came back and any of these puppies where gone,” Caleb comments when Nott’s stomach grumbles.

“I know, I won’t let either you or Jester down!” Nott promises, fishing some of the pocket bacon Beau gave her last week.  It’s aged pretty well, perfectly rotten the way she likes it and Nott shovels a piece into her mouth. One of the pups sniff her hand interest but the puppies are still too young for anything but milk so Nott jerks the bacon away.  Jester and the rest are looking if they can find their mom or at least someone who can care for them while Caleb and Nott watch them in the meantime.

Caleb frowns and shrinks in one himself when one of the puppies approaches him cautiously.  Frumpkin is wrapped around his neck and his tail twitches in annoyance, thumping Caleb’s back, and he hisses when the puppy gets too close.  The puppy scuttles away back to Nott who grins widely, all her jagged teeth bared in job.

“They are pretty cute,” she decides as they cry and wuffle against her hand.  One day these puppies will be bigger than her, but for now she could carry one, or maybe even two, all by herself.  She snuggles one of them as she crawls into Nott’s lap.  She presses a kiss against the pup’s fur and takes a sniff. It smells soft and milky and Nott tries not to think how delicious the smell is. The puppy licks her hand and Nott smiles and looks at Caleb. “Don’t you think, Caleb? They’re just babies.”

He shrugs, rubbing an idle hand on Frumpkin.  He’s a cat person through and through but then he looks at Nott and nods.  Nott looks absolutely happy as all three pups beg for her attention, unafraid of her.  “Pretty cute,” he agrees.

“I hope Jester and the rest find their momma,” Nott says. “These babies should be with their parents.”

[naruto-ninja-imagines-blog]

Kiba has been dating reader for a lil bit and they introduce him to their ooooold crusty dog. Like. 15 yrs medium sized dog. And all they really do is wuffle him, wag their tail lightly, and expose the belleh. The dog is happy and loving but so v old

I got you my dude, I can deliver on this request 110%. Love me some old dogs!

Decided to make it a Jackshund because thats what my old doggy was and I loved her so much and she was so cute :’)))) Anyway hope you enjoy!

*note, hope y’all like watching me struggle to get that name extension working correctly

~Mod Whipski

Your name: submit What is this?document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); });function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; }}function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v;}

Kiba, for the 3rd time in the past two minutes, nervously rubs his sweaty palms across his pant legs. Currently, he finds himself hovering outside y/n’s families residence, Akamaru seeming content to sniff around their front gate and ignore his masters obvious distress. The normally confident young man reduced to a pile of self-doubting goo right there on the sidewalk. Not that anyone could really blame him. The first visit to the new partners home was always nerve wracking. Especially if their family was involved. How does he make a good first impression? What if he said something stupid in front of y/n’s mother? Did he smell? Oh god what if he smelt bad? What if they were allergic to dogs!?

On the verge of a complete mental shutdown, Kiba couldn’t even find the strength to tell Akamaru off for scrabbling at the front gate and making a general racket. The large white dog quite fed up with Kiba’s stalling only stopped once he’d heard the front door slide open, grinning knowingly up at his master. Devil dog. 

With a subtle groan from the heavy gates before him, one which Kiba copied out of sympathy, y/n stuck their head out and smiled at the familiar pair. “Oh hey you two. I told you you could walk right in didn’t I? Haven’t been waiting too long I hope?“ 

The young man could only chuckle nervously. That hot flush warming his neck which always accompanied y/n’s arrival. Oh damn they looked super adorable today…His staring interrupted as Akamaru softly chuffed, pushing past y/n in favour of sniffing around their front garden. 

"H-Hey, bud! Least wait to be invited in.” he’d call out, but Akamaru was his own man…dog and once more payed little mind. “Ah he’s being a real pain today. Sorry bout that. Oh and n-no not too long, seemed rude to just…walk in ya know.”

They shake their head and motion him inside, shutting the gate behind both man and beast. While Kiba had walked y/n home on various occasion this was his first time seeing their home proper. Neat, yet spacious. Plenty of room for Akamaru to roll around in with small flowerbeds to root through. The house itself was typical for the area and fairly unremarkable save for a small board placed to the left side of the front steps to from a makeshift ramp. 

“Eh it’s fine, I invited you over anyway. Next time just let Akamaru and yourself right in. Save me the trouble of getting up.” They’d laugh and elbow him in the ribs. Already Kiba could feel his nerves beginning to fade. “Oh yeah, I wanted to introduce you two to someone.”

This caught the young man by surprise, his slowly developing lax posture stiffening immediately and he stared down at the girl wide eyed. Even Akamaru, who had occupied himself with burying his head in a small gap between the fence, pulled back to look at them.

“Come on, you two are way to suspicious. Don’t you trust me?”

Kiba had half a mind to tell them no but bit his tongue. 

Seeing the two boys lack of response y/n rolled their eyes and signed before whistling. It took a long moment, enough time for Akamaru to abandon his quest to discover what lay in their neighbors yard and join the two, before the sound of nails scrabbling against hardwood floors and snuffled breathing to reach their ears. Plodding around a corner and out the front door came an old jackshund. Its tricoloured coat streaked with grey hairs and its sight obviously going, stopped at the top of the stairs and sat before offering a happy bark in greeting.

And just like that, he was smitten.

Kiba, with no form of self restraint, flew to the dogs side and lavished all of his attention on the creature. Which, and he noted, was not at all rejected by his new found friend. Hell even Akamaru flopped down next to the old timer in greeting. 

“Hey, hey don’t get too attached. You did come here to see me after all.”

“What was that babe? I’m bonding with my new son.”

“H-He’s not your son he’s my child.”

“Our son then.”

[cakesandfail]

everyone's fav anime protag Vetinari for 15, 18, 22, 31, 33 also 28 but instead can it be “what do they do when they see their best friend” because that’s how I read it and now I wanna know

This got long, but please enjoy it anyway

Biggest and smallest short term goal?

Biggest: I guess the Undertaking is relatively short-term? I mean, this is a guy whose long-term goal for most of his adult life has been to fix an entire city and he’s been doing it for like 20 years at least. So in relative terms, that’s a big goal but pretty short-term. Smallest: daily and increasingly petty victories over the crossword lady for the Times.

Favorite beverage?

I honestly cannot imagine how he functions at all without huge quantities of caffeine so presumably he must like coffee a lot. I can only assume he turns up to everything not 15 minutes late with Starbucks, but inconveniently early, and probably at the worst possible time for him to do so.

Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

First of all: please do not ever do this. But to answer your question, I think any piece of paper that’s in Vetinari’s presence for too long will end up covered in ideas for a) how to improve Ankh-Morpork b) bothering Vimes c) really horrible stealth puns. Not necessarily in that order.

Most prized possession?

WUFFLES. And then Mr Fusspot, though technically he doesn’t really own Mr Fusspot as such I suppose.

and also some ancient dusty dried up lilac flowers tucked away somewhere because he’s secretly a tiny bit sentimental no shut up I’m not crying you’re crying

Concept of home and family?

Home is the city. All of the city, but especially the bits that are high up, because those are the bits he knows best. Family is something that if you don’t have it already, you build it yourself- you surround yourself with people who you can trust, or who you at least like enough not to dump them in a scorpion pit. And since this is about headcanons and I can do what I want: family is also Sam and Sybil and Young Sam, because clearly Vetinari is Uncle Havelock who comes round to have tea and gleefully annoy Sam.

And bonus “what do they do when they see their best friend” question:

Sybil and Vetinari are best friends forever and nobody will ever convince me otherwise. If he sees her in public he is always very polite and formal but invariably ends up doing that look you give your friend when some hugely offensive idiot won’t shut the fuck up. Personal calls have more cake and less effort to hide the sarcasm.

[readbookywooks]

He sighed again, and picked up the transcript of what the president of the Thieves’ Guild had said to his deputy at midnight in the soundproof room hidden behind the office in the Guild headquarters, and …

Was in the Great Ha …

Was not in the Great Hall of Unseen University, where he had spent some interminable dinners, but there were a lot of wizards around him and they were …

… different.

Like Death, which some of the city’s less fortunate citizens considered he intimately resembled, the Patrician never got angry until he had time to think about it. But sometimes he thought very quickly.

He stared around at the assembled wizards, but there was something about them that choked the words of outrage in his throat. They looked like sheep who had suddenly found a trapped wolf at exactly the same time as they heard about the idea of unity being strength.

There was something about their eyes.

‘What is the meaning of this outr-’ he hesitated, and concluded, ‘this? A merry Small Gods’ Day prank, is it?’

His eyes swivelled to meet those of a small boy holding a long metal staff. The child was smiling the oldest smile the Patrician had ever seen.

Carding coughed.

‘My lord,’ he began.

‘Out with it, man,’ snapped Lord Vetinari.

Carding had been diffident, but the Patrician’s tone was just that tiny bit too peremptory. The wizard’s knuckles went white.

‘I am a wizard of the eighth level,’ he said quietly, ‘and you will not use that tone to me.’

‘Well said,’ said Coin.

`Take him to the dungeons,’ said Carding.

‘We haven’t got any dungeons,’ said Spelter. ‘This is a university.’

‘Then take him to the wine cellars,’ snapped Carding. ‘And while you’re down there, build some dungeons.’

‘Have you the faintest inkling of what you are doing?’ said the-Patrician. ‘I demand to know the meaning of this-’

‘You demand nothing at all,’ said Carding. ‘And the meaning is that from now on the wizards will rule, as it was ordained. Now take-’

‘You? Rule Ankh-Morpork? Wizards who can barely govern themselves?’

‘Yes!’ Carding was aware that this wasn’t the last word in repartee, and was even more alive to the fact that the dog Wuffles, who had been teleported along with his master, had waddled painfully across the floor and was peering short-sightedly at the wizard’s boots.

‘Then all truly wise men would prefer the safety of a nice deep dungeon,’ said the Patrician. ‘And now you will cease this foolery and replace me in my palace, and it is just possible that we will say no more about this. Or at least that you won’t have the chance to.’

Wuffles gave up investigating Carding’s boots and trotted towards Coin, shedding a few hairs on the way.

‘This pantomime has gone on long enough,’ said the Patrician. ‘Now I am getting-’

Wuffles growled. It was a deep, primeval noise, which struck a chord in the racial memory of all those present and filled them with an urgent desire to climb a tree. It suggested long grey shapes hunting in the dawn of time. It was astonishing that such a small animal could contain so much menace, and all of it was aimed at the staff in Coin’s hand.

The Patrician strode forward to snatch the animal, and Carding raised his hand and sent a blaze of orange and blue fire searing across the room.

The Patrician vanished. On the spot where he had been standing a small yellow lizard blinked and glared with malevolent reptilian stupidity.

Carding looked in astonishment at his fingers, as if for the first time.

‘All right,’ he whispered hoarsely.

The wizards stared down at the panting lizard, and then out at the city sparkling in the early morning light. Out there was the council of aldermen, the city watch, the Guild of Thieves, the Guild of Merchants, the priesthoods …and none of them knew what was about to hit them.

It has begun, said the hat, from its box on the deck.

‘What has?’ said Rincewind.

The rule of sourcery.

Rincewind looked blank. ‘Is that good?’

Do you ever understand anything anyone says to you?

Rincewind felt on firmer ground here. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not always. Not lately. Not often.’

‘Are you sure you are a wizard?’ said Conina.

‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure of,’ he said, with conviction.

‘How strange.’

Rincewind sat on the Luggage in the sun on the foredeck of the Ocean Waltzer as it lurched peacefully across the green waters of the Circle Sea. Around them men did what he was sure were important nautical things, and he hoped they were doing them correctly, because next to heights he hated depths most of all.

‘You look worried,’ said Conina, who was cutting his hair. Rincewind tried to make his head as small as possible as the blades flashed by.

‘That’s because I am.’

What exactly is the Apocralypse?’

Rincewind hesitated. ‘Well’, he said, ‘it’s the end of the world. Sort of.’

`Sort of? Sort of the end of the world? You mean we won’t be certain? We’ll look around and say “Pardon me, did you hear something?”?’

‘It’s just that no two seers have ever agreed about it. There have been all kinds of vague predictions. Quite mad, some of them. So it was called the Apocralypse.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘It’s a sort of apocryphal Apocalypse. A kind of pun, you see.’

‘Not very good.’

‘No. I suppose not.’[11]

Conina’s scissors snipped busily.

‘I must say the captain seemed quite happy to have us aboard,’ she observed.

`That’s because they think it’s lucky to have a wizard on the boat,’ said Rincewind. ‘It isn’t, of course.’

‘Lots of people believe it,’ she said.

‘Oh, it’s lucky for other people, just not for me. I can’t swim.’

‘What, not a stroke?’

Rincewind hesitated, and twiddled the star on his hat cautiously.

About how deep is the sea here, would you say? Approximately?’ he said.

‘About a dozen fathoms, I believe.’

‘Then I could probably swim about a dozen fathoms, whatever they are.’

‘Stop trembling like that, I nearly had your ear off,’ Conina snapped. She glared at a passing seaman and waved her scissors. ‘What’s the matter, you never saw a man have a haircut before?’

Someone up in the rigging made a remark which caused a ripple of ribald laughter in the topgallants, unless they were forecastles.

‘I shall pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said Conina, and gave the comb a savage yank, dislodging numerous inoffensive small creatures.

‘Well, you should keep still!’

‘It’s a little difficult to keep still knowing who it is that’s waving a couple of steel blades around my head!’

And so the morning passed, with scudding wavelets, the creaking of the rigging, and a rather complex layer cut. Rincewind had to admit, looking at himself in a shard of mirror, that there was a definite improvement.

The captain had said that they were bound for the city of Al Khali, on the hubward coast of Klatch.

`Like Ankh, only with sand instead of mud,’ said Rincewind, leaning over the rail. ‘But quite a good slave market.’

‘Slavery is immoral,’ said Conina firmly.

`Is it? Gosh,’ said Rincewind.

‘Would you like me to trim your beard?’ said Conina, hopefully.

She stopped, scissors drawn, and stared out to sea.

‘Is there a kind of sailor that uses a canoe with sort of extra bits on the side and a sort of red eye painted on the front and a small sail?’ she said.

‘I’ve heard of Klatchian slave pirates,’ said Rincewind, ‘but this is a big boat. I shouldn’t think one of them would dare attack it.’

‘One of them wouldn’t,’ said Conina, still staring at the fuzzy area where the sea became the sky, ‘but these five might.’

Rincewind peered at the distant haze, and then looked up at the man on watch, who shook his head.

‘Come on,’ he chuckled, with all the humour of a blocked drain. ‘You can’t really see anything out there. Can you?’

‘Ten men in each canoe,’ said Conina grimly.

‘Look, a joke’s a joke-’

‘With long curvy swords.’

‘Well, I can’t see a-’

- their long and rather dirty hair blowing in the wind -

‘With split ends, I expect?’ said Rincewind sourly.

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Me?’

‘And here’s me without a weapon,’ said Conina, sweeping back across the deck. ‘I bet there isn’t a decent sword anywhere on this boat.’

‘Never mind. Perhaps they’ve just come for a quick shampoo.’

While Conina rummaged frantically in her pack Rincewind sidled over to the Archchancellor’s hatbox and cautiously raised the lid.

‘There’s nothing out there, is there?’ he asked.

How should I know? Put me on.

‘What? On my head?’

Good grief.

‘But I’m not an Archchancellor!’ said Rincewind. ‘I mean, I’ve heard of cool-headed, but-’

I need to use your eyes. Now put me on. On your head.

‘Um.’

Trust me.

Rincewind couldn’t disobey. He gingerly removed his battered grey hat, looked longingly at its dishevelled star, and lifted the Archchancellor’s hat out of its box. It felt rather heavier than he’d expected. The octarines around the crown were glowing faintly.

He lowered it carefully on to his new hairstyle, clutching the brim tightly in case he felt the first icy chill.

In fact he simply felt incredibly light. And there was a feeling of great knowledge and power - not actually present, but just, mentally speaking, on the tip of his metaphorical tongue.

Odd scraps of memory flickered across his mind, and they weren’t any memories he remembered remembering before. He probed gently, as one touches a hollow tooth with the tongue, and there they were -

Two hundred dead Archchancellors, dwindling into the leaden, freezing past, one behind the other, watched him with blank grey eyes.

That’s why it’s so cold, he told himself, the warmth seeps into the dead world. Oh, no …

When the hat spoke, he saw two hundred pairs of pale lips move.

Who are you?

Rincewind, thought Rincewind. And in the inner recesses of his head he tried to think privately to himself … help.

He felt his knees begin to buckle under the weight of centuries.

What’s it like, being dead? he thought.

Death is but a sleep, said the dead mages.

But what does it feel like? Rincewind thought.

You will have an unrivalled chance to find out when those war canoes get here, Rincewind.

With a yelp of terror he thrust upwards and forced the hat off his head. Real life and sound flooded back in, but since someone was frantically banging a gong very close to his ear this was not much of an improvement. The canoes were visible to everyone now, cutting through the water with an eerie silence. Those black-clad figures manning the paddles should have been whooping and screaming; it wouldn’t have made it any better, but it would have seemed more appropriate. The silence bespoke an unpleasant air of purpose.

[readbookywooks]

It took a great deal of courage to stand there in that dark. Rincewind didn’t have that much, but stood there anyway.

Something started to snuffle around his feet, and Rincewind stood very still. The only reason he didn’t move was for fear of treading on something worse.

Then a hand like an old leather glove touched his, very gently, and a voice said: ‘Oook.’

Rincewind looked up.

The dark yielded, just once, to a vivid flash of light. And Rincewind saw.

The whole tower was lined with books. They were squeezed on every step of the rotting spiral staircase that wound up inside. They were piled up on the floor, although something about the way in which they were piled suggested that the word ‘huddled’ would be more appropriate. They had lodged -all right, they had perched - on every crumbling ledge.

They were observing him, in some covert way that had nothing to do with the normal six senses. Books are pretty good at conveying meaning, not necessarily their own personal meanings of course, and Rincewind grasped the fact that they were trying to tell him something.

There was another flash. He realised that it was magic from the sourcerer’s tower, reflected down from the distant hole that led on to the roof.

At least it enabled him to identify Wuffles, who was wheezing at his right foot. That was a bit of a relief. Now if he could just put a name to the soft, repetitive slithering noise near his left ear …

There was a further obliging flash, which found him looking directly into the little yellow eyes of the Patrician, who was clawing patiently at the side of his glass jar. It was a gentle, mindless scrabbling, as if the little lizard wasn’t particularly trying to get out but was just vaguely interested in seeing how long it would take to wear the glass away.

Rincewind looked down at the pear-shaped bulk of the Librarian.

‘There’s thousands of them,’ he whispered, his voice being sucked away and silenced by the massed ranks of books. ‘How did you get them all in here?’

‘Oook oook.’

‘They what?’

‘Oook,’ repeated the Librarian, making vigorous flapping motions with his bald elbows.

‘Fly?’

‘Oook.’

‘Can they do that?’

‘Oook,’ nodded the Librarian.

‘That must have been pretty impressive. I’d like to see that one day.’

‘Oook.’

Not every book had made it. Most of the important grimoires had got out but a seven-volume herbal had lost its index to the flames and many a trilogy was mourning for its lost volume. Quite a few books had scorch marks on their bindings; some had lost their covers, and trailed their stitching unpleasantly on the floor.

A match flared, and pages rippled uneasily around the walls. But it was only the Librarian, who lit a candle and shambled across the floor at the base of a menacing shadow big enough to climb skyscrapers. He had set up a rough table against one wall and it was covered with arcane tools, pots of rare adhesives and a bookbinder’s vice which was already holding a stricken folio. A few weak lines of magic fire crawled across it.

The ape pushed the candlestick into Rincewind’s hand, picked up a scalpel and a pair of tweezers, and bent low over the trembling book. Rincewind went pale.

‘Um,’ he said, ‘er, do you mind if I go away? I faint at the sight of glue.’

The Librarian shook his head and jerked a preoccupied thumb towards a tray of tools.

‘Oook,’ he commanded. Rincewind nodded miserably, and obediently handed him a pair of long-nosed scissors. The wizard winced as a couple of damaged pages were snipped free and dropped to the floor.

‘What are you doing to it?’ he managed.

‘Oook.’

‘An appendectomy? Oh.’

The ape jerked his thumb again, without looking up. Rincewind fished a needle and thread out of the ranks on the tray and handed them over. There was silence broken only by the scritching sound of thread being pulled through paper until the Librarian straightened up and said:

‘Oook.’

Rincewind pulled out his handkerchief and mopped the ape’s brow.

‘Oook.’

‘Don’t mention it. Is it - going to be all right?’

The Librarian nodded. There was also a general,

almost inaudible sigh of relief from the tier of books above them.

Rincewind sat down. The books were frightened. In fact they were terrified. The presence of the sourcerer made their spines creep, and the pressure of their attention closed in around him like a vice.

‘All right,’ he mumbled, ‘but what can I do about it?’

‘Oook.’ The Librarian gave Rincewind a look that would have been exactly like a quizzical look over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles, if he had been wearing any, and reached for another broken book.

‘I mean, you know I’m no good at magic.’

‘Oook.’

‘The sourcery that’s about now, it’s terrible stuff. I mean, it’s the original stuff, from right back in the dawn of time. Or around breakfast, at any rate.’

‘Oook.’

‘It’ll destroy everything eventually, won’t it?’

‘Oook.’

‘It’s about time someone put a stop to this sourcery, right?’

‘Oook.’

‘Only it can’t be me, you see. When I came here I thought I could do something, but that tower! It’s so big! It must be proof against all magic! If really powerful wizards won’t do anything about it, how can I?’

‘Oook,’ agreed the Librarian, sewing a ruptured spine.

‘So, you see, I think someone else can save the world this time. I’m no good at it.’

The ape nodded, reached across and lifted Rincewind’s hat from his head.

‘Hey!’

The Librarian ignored him, picked up a pair of shears.

‘Look, that’s my hat, if you don’t mind don’t you dare do that to my-’

He leapt across the floor and was rewarded with a thump across the side of the head, which would have astonished him if he’d had time to think about it; the Librarian might shuffle around the place like a good-natured wobbly balloon, but underneath that oversized skin was a framework of superbly-cantilevered bone and muscle that could drive a fistful of calloused knuckles through a thick oak plank. Running into the Librarian’s arm was like hitting a hairy iron bar.

Wuffles started to bounce up and down, yelping with excitement.

Rincewind screamed a hoarse, untranslatable yell of fury, bounced off the wall, snatched up a fallen rock as a crude club, kicked forward and stopped dead.

The Librarian was crouched in the centre of the floor with the shears touching-but not yet cutting-the hat.

And he was grinning at Rincewind.

They stood like a frozen tableau for some seconds. Then the ape dropped the shears, flicked several imaginary flecks of dust off the hat, straightened the point, and placed it on Rincewind’s head.

A few shocked moments after this Rincewind realised that he was holding up, at arm’s length, a very large and extremely heavy rock. He managed to force it away on one side before it recovered from the shock and remembered to fall on him.

‘I see,’ he said, sinking back against the wall and rubbing his elbows. And all that’s supposed to tell me something, is it? A moral lesson, let Rincewind confront his true self, let him work out what he’s really prepared to fight for. Eh? Well, it was a very cheap trick. And I’ve news for you. If you think it worked-’ he snatched the hat brim - ‘if you think it worked. If you think I’ve. You’ve got another thought. Listen, it’s. If you think.’

His voice stuttered into silence. Then he shrugged.

‘All right. But when you get down to it, what can I actually do?’

The Librarian replied with an expansive gesture that indicated, as clearly as if he had said ‘oook’, that Rincewind was a wizard with a hat, a library of magical books and a tower. This could be regarded as everything a magical practitioner could need. An ape, a small terrier with halitosis and a lizard in a jar were optional extras.

Rincewind felt a slight pressure on his foot. Wuffles, who was extremely slow on the uptake, had fastened his toothless gums on the toe of Rincewind’s boot and was giving it a vicious suck.

He picked the little dog up by the scruff of its neck and the bristly stub that, for the want of a better word, it called its tail, and gently lifted it sideways.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’d better tell me what’s been happening here.’

From the Carrack Mountains, overlooking the vast cold Sto Plain in the middle of which Ankh-Morpork sprawled like a bag of dropped groceries, the view was particularly impressive. Mishits and ricochets from the magical battle were expanding outwards and upwards, in a bowl-shaped cloud of curdled air at the heart of which strange lights flashed and sparkled.

The roads leading away from it were packed with refugees, and every inn and wayside tavern was crowded out. Or nearly every one.

No-one seemed to want to stop at the rather pleasant little pub nestling among trees just off the road to Quirm. It wasn’t that they were frightened to go inside, it was just that, for the moment, they weren’t being allowed to notice it.

There was a disturbance in the air about half a mile away and three figures dropped out of nowhere into a thicket of lavender.

They lay supine in the sunshine among the broken, fragrant branches, until their sanity came back. Then Creosote said, ‘Where are we, do you suppose?’

‘It smells like someone’s underwear drawer,’ said Conina.

‘Not mine,’ said Nijel, firmly.

He eased himself up gently and added, ‘Has anyone seen the lamp?’

‘Forget it. It’s probably been sold to build a wine-bar,’ said Conina.

Nijel scrabbled around among the lavender stems until his hands found something small and metallic.

‘Got it!’ he declared.

‘Don’t rub it!’ said the other two, in harmony. They were too late anyway, but that didn’t much matter, because all that happened when Nijel gave it a cautious buff was the appearance of some small smoking red letters in mid-air.

‘ ‘Hi”,’ Nijel read aloud. ‘ “Do not put down the lamp, because your custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity.” ‘ He added, ‘You know, I think he’s a bit over-committed.’

Conina said nothing. She was staring out across the plains to the broiling storm of magic. Occasionally some of it would detach and soar away to some distant tower. She shivered, despite the growing heat of the day.

‘We ought to get down there as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘It’s very important.’

‘Why?’ said Creosote. One glass of wine hadn’t really restored him to his former easygoing nature.

Conina opened her mouth, and - quite unusually for her - shut it again. There was no way to explain that every gene in her body was dragging her onwards, telling her that she should get involved; visions of swords and spiky balls on chains kept invading the hairdressing salons of her consciousness.