#discworld clickbait

[higgsbison]

I have finished 10k+ words of a dramatic tale about Tyrants, Guards, Diplomacy, Stories, Shellfish*, and some Truly Terrifying Creatures that haunt it all

*the Damn Shrimp Conference may contain less on-screen seafood than pictured in this promotional material

[purlturtle]

I just read this line in a post, and I can't stop staring at it:

"I lost my faith in humanity at that point and I don't think I'll ever be able to get it back."

(Ruminations about my own faith in humanity, and what happened to it in 2016 and onwards, below the cut. CW/TW (will also tag) for Brexit, Trump, Covid. Also descriptions of feelings of fatalism, helplessness, generalized uncertainty. Please only read if you're in the right mindspace; I do NOT want to drag you down with me.)

I've always had faith in humanity. I think being a Star Trek fan and also a Discworld fan kinda inoculates you with that. But those are both stories, visions that one person thought up - even though both of them acknowledge how cruel and vicious humans can be, they still very much work on the premise that humanity as a whole, and even most individual humans, are Better Than That.

And then 2016 happened. Yes, this isn't about Covid, at least not yet. No, this is about Brexit first, and then the election of Trump. Both of those threw me for a massive loop - truly a crisis of faith for me, of my faith in humanity. Not so much in the way of "how can people be so stupid", as in "how can people actively pursue and push these kinds of agendas; how can they lie and twist facts to their purposes, why is their purpose (power. it's always about power. and I don't understand that particular desire - why do they want that kind of power? what's in it for them that they couldn't get any other way that wasn't so cruel?) so important for them that they'll *knowingly* be so cruel and heartless?"

I don't blame the people who were misled by constant fake or clickbait-y news so much as I blame the people who *make* those news, who set out to mislead, y'know?

But one way or another, the Brexit vote got a yes, and Trump was elected, and I was left staring, at those two train wrecks and at the shambles of what I had always thought about humanity.

And THEN Covid happened.

And beyond anything personal (what with me having asthma and thus being at risk from Covid), because personal isn't the same as important as Sir Pterry has taught me - beyond that, just the way it played out publically, in ways even my most cynical thoughts couldn't believe...

Yeah. Big crisis of the faith that has guided me all my life (and I know I'm employing a Christian phrasing here - it rings true to me to use it, probably because I was raised culturally Christian).

I still have faith in the people I know personally - including my mutuals here (although to be honest? If I see people posting about going to conventions or concerts or sports events? It's hard. I don't know what to think or how to feel about it. On the one hand, I know how amazing such events can be, how happy, even elated they can make a person. On the other, multi-spreader events, one and all. I have no solution for this for anyone else than me: I'm not going, both because of Covid and because of my newly acquired sensory issues. But every time I read a post about it, it reawakens that feeling that I don't know how to feel about it, don't know what to think.) But that faith that I have in my friends is a personalized, small, individual faith, not the sweeping generalized feeling it was before, and so it cannot carry me the same way anymore. And the hope that I choose, that I find - that's also more often than not small hope, localized, individualized. Not even the Labour sweep of this week could really buoy me - not after the European elections in June. *big sigh*

I haven't seen anyone talk about this part of - not just the pandemic! but world politics in general, so far. I still choose to choose hope, because what else is there, but it's hard to look at politics, at the reach that evangelical/reactionary/hard right forces are getting, at their concerted efforts on all levels of government and business to gain power - and again: for what? For their petty shit ideas? Why? What the fuck?! - it's hard to look at all that and not despair. It's hard to look at government leaders *choosing war*, pushing for war, closing borders, refusing to help those in need, actively making their situations worse - why? Why? Again I ask, what the fuck?!

I don't talk about this stuff often. Not on here and not off here. There is no... solution, really. It is how these people in these positions are, and there is nothing I can do to remove them from these positions, and the things I do, *can* do, to keep people in my own country from reaching positions like that, I already do. And that helplessness doesn't help matters, at all. All these three things I've mentioned: Brexit, Trump election, Covid, were things I had no hand in and cannot really influence.

I dread the results of the French election (today). I dread the results of the November election in the US. I dread how the world will look in five, ten, thirty years' time. I still have a lot of decades to live, hopefully, and I used to be excited for the future. It is hard to scrounge up that excitement, these days.

I still choose hope. I refuse fatalism. But it's a choice, a chore, and it's hard. It doesn't come easy anymore, it's not the normal anymore. Imagine having to choose to breathe - that's how it feels, some days.

[colifower]

Day 4 5

Prompts: I'm not dead you are

warnings: is it really a bottomthoruary if i dont write thor dying bc of a wacky sex thing?

author's note: Death is Discworld!Death. In my brain he is on vacation on Asgard when he gets unexpected work to do there lol

His forehead was still banging against the headboard as he stretched out of his body.

“Why is it so cold…” said Thor, but he frowned as he noticed the lack of coldness in the room.

Then, over the moans of his partner he saw the hooded man.

“Erm…”

THOR ODINSON.

“Guards!” he shouted. “Guards! There is one… two strangers in here.”

I’M AFRAID THEY WON’T HEAR YOU, MR. ODINSON.

Thor looked at the concave hollows on the skeletal man. “Creeping in the privacy of the king’s bedroom, avoiding all the guards…” he frowned. The stranger was obviously an actor paid by his parents to make a fool out of himself. He wouldn’t get cought again in this farce. Fool me once… shame on me, fool me eleven times…. ”And that disguise… who are you supposed to be then? The grim reaper?”

The hooded figured pointed at what used to be Thor. YES, he said.

Thor crossed his arms. “I’m not dead, you… oh.”

Amora was still pounding on him as his late limp body was held in place by the handcuffs.

“I see,” he said. “And you must be… aren’t you too skinny for a Valkyrie?”

Death shrugged. I AM EXACTLY AS I AM SUPPOSED TO BE.

*Valkyries are not real????? Not clickbait

“Oh, ok,” said Thor. “What comes next then?”

ITS NOT UP TO ME.

And with that, Thor’s soul dissolved with a pop.

It took several minutes for Amora to notice.

Also on AO3

[july-19th-club]

This Woman’s Sons Were Separated at Birth - You Won’t Believe Their Heartwarming Reunion!

- Thief of Time 

[xraygoose]

Discworld social media au

Discworld stories obviously wouldn’t work if modern technology existed there but please temporarily suspend your disbelief and consider...

The chaos that is the Rats Chamber WhatsApp group

Vetinari leaving people on read as an act of intimidation

Vimes getting angry at Siri

Vimes being awful with social media and technology in general

Meanwhile Sibyl runs five different social media pages for her dragon sanctuary

Vimes having a Twitter because Vetinari made him make one (it’s good for PR but more importantly Vetinari knew Vimes would hate it)

Vimes tweets his boots theory and it goes viral, which he hates as well

Vetinari creating group chats for his “committees” and then muting them all

Carrot's letters home are sent as very very very long text messages

Cheery putting her pronouns in her bio!

Moist von Lipwig writing scam emails

The Ankh-Morpork Times vs Buzzfeed

CMOT Dibbler as a clickbait youtuber

[regicidal-defenestration]

A 2020 Mechs Fic For Very Nearly Every Month

So for 11/12 months this year, I’ve posted at least one Mechs fic! Below the cut is a selection of them, plus a quick description for each

January

Death to the Mechanisms! 

615 words, written before the Sunday DTTM stream

My interpretation of how they might have died

*

February

lost in the cosmos lonely 

663 words and based on this art

The Mechanisms as we know them don’t actually exist, they’re just stories Brian tells himself as he floats through space

*

March

And there will be singing 

1,425 words, Welcome To Night Vale crossover

The crew show up in Night Vale, chaos ensues!

*

April

I Want My Octokitten Back

883 words,  a Mechs version of I Want My Hat Back, by Jon Klassen

Gunpowder Tim has lost his octokitten. What if he never sees it again??

*

May

5 Times Death Had A Near-Mechs Experience And 1 Time The Toy Soldier Was Present And It All Got A Bit Weird

7,306 words, Discworld crossover

Death has to deal with a bunch of immortal space pirates who don’t have the manners to stay dead, and really wishes he could get a raise

*

June

Sweet Music

1,515 words, I Am In Eskew crossover

Featuring the Mechs as creations of Eskew itself, and all that would entail

*

July

the person 15 year old me would be proud to have known

 5,600 words

Jonny d’Ville, nearing the end of his life, finds himself back on an old familiar planet, talking to a young Jonathan Vangelis

*

August

Hatter and Hare Top 5 Gay Moments!! [NOT CLICKBAIT!!!] 

3,773 words

Hatter and Hare’s relationship, from first meeting to realising they love each other, and beyond. (I will build this ship with my own two hands if I have to jhfdghj)

*

September

I didn’t post a single fic in September apparently, so I’m going to cheat and link We've had some bad ideas but this was probably the worst, a groupchat fic that every so often I update because I think of another stupid joke

*

October

A Right Mixture of Mechanisms 

6,260 words, a collection of independent fics all written for Mechtober

Featuring Hatter and Hare getting married, Jonny “fixes clothes as an act of caring” d’Ville, and Ivy investigating what the crew would say to their pre-mechanised selves

*

November

mile after mile (mile after mile) 

10,043 words, Discworld crossover

The Bifrost Incident but Discworld flavoured, featuring Vimes having to deal with Ivy, Marius and Raph in jail, the Librarian trying to figure out what’s going on with Loki, and Odin being a godawful uni professor

*

December

In Which Everyone Agrees That Death Should Stop Deciding To Do Things Just, Y’Know, In General, Maybe

959 words, Discworld crossover

In which Death decides the person Susan Sto Helit really needs to meet, is Jonny d’Ville

[sarahthecoat]

the fault lies with the newsletter, not with neil. despite being centered on terry pratchett and discworld, it's probably not directly involved with good omens 2 (i could be wrong, it could be rob wilkins' personal project for all i know) and someone didn't write clearly. i hate to warn for clickbait on something so close to our ineffable writers, but...

Hi Neil! I hope you’re safe and well.

I have a few questions regarding the filming schedule for Good Omens 2.

What is the truth? What did you mean by “it doesn’t shoot until April”? Is there going to be a break and filming will start again in April?

Thank you in advance and sorry for bothering you with that.

A very confused fan

The article linked to said Good Omens 2 would shoot until April. I said it doesn't shoot until April. I probably should have said It doesn't "shoot until April".

Does that help?

[30-days-of-exciting-stuff-blog]

Day 4 - Litbaits

Since I started out last autumn, I sometimes freak out when I think about the number of working hours I have lost to silly, mostly avoidable things such as freaking interesting Youtube channels, less interesting Youtube material, intense texting, late electricians who have been 20 minutes away from my flat for 2 hours, feelings, hangovers, disturbing hair, ankle sprains (unless there are world-saving issues involved, don’t run with high heels), uncooked lunches (I’m definitely not paying four euros for disgusting sandwiches), buying toothpaste, French politics (presidential campaigns, especially presidential campaigns gone wild, are a bad time to start a PhD), late-night internet digging, and the list goes on and on. Nevertheless, it’s the first time I lose three fucking working hours in a row to a social media campaign.

If a few months for now these few hours turn out to be just the extra time I needed to submit a paper (or, Flying Spaghetti Monster forbids, it, my PhD) on time, blame it on a Dallas bookstore called The Wild Detectives and their genius campaign idea. On National Read a Book day (September 6th, for the record), the library used clickbaits to trick people into reading classic novels. With the slogan “you fell for the bait, now fall for the book”.

I usually hate clickbait. I entirely loathe it. In case you are not familiar with the term, it refers to sensationalist headlines that withhold just enough information for you to desperately want to click on the link; at the expense of the accuracy of the information, or the quality or the content. Clickbait doesn’t care about deceiving you, as long as a page view was generated (yay money). Clickbait doesn’t care about reducing journalism to noisily demanding attention. Clickbait kills kitten. Clickbait definitely isn’t something I expected to make my day at some point in my life.

Clickbait, in a nutshell. Except clickbait doesn’t even want you to keep paying attention. A fraction of a second is enough, as long as you click.

But in The Wild Detectives’ campaign, called Litbait, you don’t get “8 reasons why your relationship may be doomed, the 6th will surprise you” or “This 10-year-old boy made a discovery that will change his life”. You get “Teenage girl tricked boyfriend into killing himself” (Romeo and Juliet), “You’ll never guess what happened to this Kansas teen after this tornado destroys her home” (The Wizard of Oz), “This Italian politician makes Trump look like a saint” (The Prince), “Romanian discovers shocking fact about garlic” (Dracula), and my personal favourite “British guy dies after selfie gone wrong” (The Picture of Dorian Gray). And when you click, you are redirected to the whole. Freaking. Book.

Too bad he died, his mastery of Instagram filters looked impressive as well.

Of course when the campaigned gained slight media attention again, a few days ago, someone posted about it on a beloved forum thread and it rapidly turned into the most amazing game between fellow bookworms: Turn favourite reads into litbaits, and guess the book behind other people’s creations. And just like that, my afternoon was gone. Here are a few of them:

“What this ex-jailbird does when he meets a little girl will make you cry” “She enters a forbidden room. What she finds inside is terrifying” “This man travels to deliver a message of peace, things don’t go as expected” “You’ll never open your cupboard the same way again” “He buys a tablet of chocolate and his life changes forever, find out how !” “This librarian only eats bananas, find out why !” (I love this one) “Her method to get great legs will leave you voiceless”

Legs that make you feel like you’re constantly walking on knives, but still.

Did you get them ? Les Misérables, Bluebeard, the Bible, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlie and the chocolate factory, Discworld, The Little Mermaid (the pun was totally intended for this one).

If my fellow people from the thread read this: I am amazed at your spirited litbaits and you give me hope for the future of humankind. As long as there will be books and fun people around, life will never get boring. Long live litbaits.

And also: No music (re)discovered today, so I’m kind of cheating here as I’ve been listening to this song quite often for a few months already. But I feel that my upcoming trip to Dublin is having a significant influence on me, because I find myself fangirling over Flogging Molly even more than usual. (Drunken Lullabies isn’t their only song) (Even though it’s eargasm material as well)

[avengemeeee]

omigosh a thing! I love things!

I was tagged by @jaybl0gs 🌸 (and I stole their flower)

Rules: Answer the 20 questions and tag 20 amazing followers you would like to get to know better.

Name: Cassandra

Nickname: Cas

Zodiac sign: Aries

Height: 5'8"

Orientation: That’s a good question. I’ve dated boys, but girls are pretty. And there’s the psychological mess of developing crushes on pretty much everyone who talks to me outside of a work context that almost always diminish after ten minutes of conversation because *reasons*. I mean...

Ethnicity: White with a dash of European other (Welsh on my dad’s side, Polish and like half of Europe including Romania and Czechoslovakia on my mom’s (apparently if you make a fist with your right hand and put your first knuckle on Germany, I’m from all of that))

Favourite fruit: Oranges, peaches, pineapple

Favourite season: FALL AND WINTER because it’s cold and I can wear sweaters! (same tbh)

Favourite book series: A Song of Ice and Fire, The Raven Cycle, Discworld (RIP Sir Pratchett), the Reacher series is alright, Redwall

Favourite flower: Aesthetically, I love lilies 💙, but almost all flower smell is toxic to me. My nose just isn’t designed for flowers (unless they smell like coffee)

Favourite scent: Vanilla mixed with pretty much anything (so basic). food cooking, campfires

Favourite colour: I mean...depends on the situation, really....Right now? Pink, the color of the bathrobe I’m wearing to keep warm because when I use the AC, my room always ends up ten degrees cooler than I want it

Coffee, tea or cocoa: Coffee. Cocoa is a close second.

Average sleep hours: 6-7 hours maximum (ugh, same)

Cat or dog person: why not both?

Favorite fictional characters: Listen, they’re all my children, and I love them all equally, okay? And Antiope is their aunt/general, and she’s training them all to do sick flips off horses (except those who physically can’t or have nervous disorders - she’s not an asshole)

Number of blankets you sleep with: probably too many to be psychologically healthy *nervous laughter*

Dream trip: An all expenses paid trip to San Diego Comicon would be nice. But honestly, if I could tour a couple of film and television studios, figure out how they work, and steal their secrets so I can start my own, that’d be super.

Blog created: February 2014? I think. I’d have to check. 

Number of followers: After clearing out the list of pornblogs and clickbait blogs (I think I got most of them), I’m at 292 followers. I’ll have to do a more thorough scrub later)

On to the tagging!

@officialcannoli @riedrux @star-punzel @stufftokeepmesane @chaosisamazing @florawrsaurus @little-ann-sophomore @hello-necromancer @rileysgotitgoingon @death-loves-donuts @toflirtwithlife @apollosjustice @tthewiccan @cuckoobirdy @octy-in-boots @yoursyn (hi!) @strandtasche @3fluffies @thedevilsyouknew @talyara

(pretty sure I’m following all of these now, lol)

[higgsbison]

So far the only discworld ive read is the truth (which i Loved) soooo: thoughts on the truth?

I really enjoyed it, love the introduction of press and all the rival newspapers and the themes of news vs clickbait and the new cast. It's got a solid mystery though a different POV than the usual Watch books-you don't have context for it yet, but seeing Vimes from any other angle than himself is so funny.

Something I generally love about the Ankh Morpork series above the rest is how every book in it tends to add a little (or a lot) of something to the city's structure and it's so satisfying to see it grow more and more complex through it. I feel like newspapers&journalism especially fit so well into the city books that come after it, it's such a great addition

[july-19th-club]

This Town Really Embraced the Vampire Trend - See What Happened Next

- Carpe Jugulum 

[july-19th-club]

If You’re Planning a Winter Vacation, Don’t Make This Hiker’s Mistakes!

- The Fifth Elephant 

[july-19th-club]

These Vegetables Grew Into Some VERY Interesting Shapes - Read Further to Learn More!

- The Truth

[july-19th-club]

This Popular Pet Has A Wild Cousin You’ll Probably Never See In Real Life...Until NOW

- Guards, Guards

[july-19th-club]

This Ten-Year-Old is the Most Powerful Professional in His Field: Here’s How He Did It

- Sourcery

[july-19th-club]

Remember These Simple Tips to Streamline Your Australian Vacation

- The Last Continent