The dogged determination and patience of one person to do what is Right and Necessary may not always win the day or even be noticed, but it will tip the balance just a little in the direction of good.
“[T]he innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.”
Help when you can, lift when you can, work as you can, but never be afraid to ask ‘will I get paid for this?’
Everyone’s got hidden depths. Some people have beautiful hidden mountain glades filled with adorable doe-eyed bunnies. Some people have black oubliettes filled with nightmares and worse. Endeavor to be the sort of person that has both sorts of depths as neighbors. Plumb them with caution.
Find a place to call home, and know it so well you can tell what street you’re on by the feel of cobblestones through your boots.
You can always come home again, but that doesn’t mean you’re moving backwards.
There is never a bad time for a pun.
There’s also never really a good time for a pun.
You might as well just stay braced for a pun at all times, and ride them when they come with as much grace as you can manage.
The fact that you can replace ‘pun’ with ‘disaster’ in the last three rules says a lot about the human race.
Many people can survive absolutely anything as long as they know where their next meal is coming from. Others can not survive much, no matter how many meals they know about, and there’s no shame in that, nor admitting that, nor leaning on others to get there.
You can protect children and you can teach children, but never perfectly in either case.
You may not be able to change the world, but that doesn’t mean you have to stand for any sort of nonsense in your personal life.
Everybody has somebody. It could be a friend, a lover, a spouse, a writing partner, or even That One Person You See At The Coffee Shop each day. Sometimes they exist to comfort you. Sometimes they exist to drive you absolutely mad. Be open to either as a form of self-improvement.
Death comes to us all, but memory is long and time is tricky. The end for you is, most likely, not really the end for everyone else.
If you know the end, if you can see the end, there’s no need to be resigned. Keep walking on cheerfully, whistling right up to the precipice, and let people remember you by the beautiful song you leave in the air.
He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew … then it was too high. It wasn’t a decision that he was making, he knew. It was happening far below the areas of the brain that made decisions. It was something built in. There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn’t be Sam Vimes any more.
God, but the entire “Watch House Riots” sequence in Night Watch is such an excellent lesson in not just how to de-escalate but the importance of de-escalation. The way Vimes insists upon members of the “mob” coming in and watching the surgeon care for the injured man, the insistence on two copies of Lawn’s statement about what happened, the way he made sure to humanize the officers and made good and damn sure that none of them had a weapon – that he did not have a weapon, nobody could say he had a weapon.
Because this was a delicate situation, and it was up to him – the present person of authority – to ensure that the situation did not turn into a riot. It wasn’t up to the untrained civilians, it wasn’t up to the green newbies who didn’t know what they were doing, it wasn’t up to anyone above him. It was on him, to look at the crowd and prevent a riot from breaking out.
Everywhere else, you got people reacting, people panicking, people acting in fear and making things worse and getting people killed – but at Treacle Mine Road, the doors were open and the lights were on and nobody was armed and everything was above-board and the only person who got hurt was a self-inflicted injury he made a full recovery from.
I just… I think that’s such an important sequence, and it – almost more than any of Vimes’s other Moments of Awesome – really shows just why Sam Vimes is such a good policeman, even more than just a good man.
absentmindedly strikes matches using sgt. detrius, who is made of rock, on multiple occasions
murmurs sarcastic clapbacks under his breath during official city council meetings, while vetinari glares at him. the saltiest bitch in the game
allergic to paperwork, apparently solely because he can’t stand his coworkers spelling and/or punctuation from hell
thinks “so are we gonna have a war or what” is appropriate diplomatic dialogue
literally so noir that he takes extra unofficial patrols to stand in the rain at 3 in the morning and brood
and fucking loves it
honestly doing his best to work against a lifetime of ingrained prejudices. not perfect but t r y i n g
fluent in ephebian (discworld latin) or fucking close enough for a guy with presumably no secondary education
doesn’t give a shit about the laws of space and time, just the good old laws of ankh morpork. get that supernatural shit outta here
can toss his sword high enough to spin three times and still catch it by the handle
“a watchman is a civilian you inbred streak of piss”
will only eat food which Sybil has burnt beyond recognition cooked over the flame of a live swamp dragon
so in love with his wife, gets really flustered every time she speaks
a knight, but incredibly embarrassed about it
by the end of this book pretty much the second most powerful man in the city, being a duke in a kingdom with no king, and still really embarrassed about it
ghost rides the whip piloting a boat through a deadly thunderstorm on not one but TWO separate occasions (here and in snuff), still doesn’t know how the fuck boats work
calls the prow of a ship ‘the sharp part’
i can’t let this go by without mentioning this sonofabitch also ARRESTED TWO OPPOSING ARMIES and then his OWN TYRANT in order to stop a war like how incredibly Extra–
fuckin made me cry again guys ive read this book like ten times
if i could summon one Legendary Hero Of Legend to save us from this fascist coup bullshit, it would be Samuel Motherfucking Vimes.
arrested two armies. arrested his own boss. arrested a dragon. he doesn’t care how big or powerful or traditional or weird you are, if you break the law, he’s gonna read your rights and slap the cuffs on.
in washington right now, we’ve got everyone going “yes the president broke laws buuuuuut….” and we need commander vimes to educate them about NO BUTS. DO CRIMES GET ARREST. NOT SLIGHTLY KIDDING. HANDS BEHIND BACK PAL.
(And added dragons cuz i forgot to the first time)
Male Scifi and Fantasy writers: Look at this !Strong! female character! She can fight and solve puzzles, and ends up with the sidekick not the hero! Isn’t she a great character?
Everyone: No, she’s one-dimensional and still only exists to please the hero’s ego
Male scifi and fantasy writers: You’re never happy! This is how characters are written! Besides, it’s much harder for us to write women because we are men!
Terry Pratchett: *creates a female character who is literally the embodyment of a dog, sets her up to be the love interest of Protagonist Hero Man.* *writes her as clever, emotionally tortured, lonely and powerful* *uses her to explore difficulties of bisexuality and masculine dominated workforces*
Terry Pratchett: *Creates a pair of old witches, one of whom is a virgin and the other who has slept with lots of men.* *makes them best friends, never dismisses one lifestyle of the other, explains lifestyle choices based on characters history and personality, uses this to develop each character as the books progress*
Terry Pratchett: *Writes Sybil Rankin* *makes the powerful rich lady heavy set but beautiful, never plays her by her looks, develops her as she ages, acknowledges the way society views such people and then spits on their attitudes* *does it again with Agnes*
Terry Pratchett: *Writes a book about an entire army secretly being women, creates complex female relationships, introduces same sex relationships completely naturally*
Terry Pratchett: *takes old joke about female dwarves and uses it to explore gender identity without making it seem forced or unnatural, carefully discusses some of the issues and complextities whilst still making funny and witty observasions and maintaining genuine fantasy tropes*
Terry Pratchett: *DOES THIS ALL OVER AND OVER AGAIN, DEVELOPING CHARACTERS AS HIS VEIW OF THE WORLD DEVELOPS AND CAREFULLY APOLOGIZES FOR EARLY MISTAKES*
so. they made a new german discowrld essentials edition, with a new covers (which is good because the old ones are real bad)
and they are these manga-like ‘build a picture’ style, which i like
but. oh my god. look at that vimes
this isn’t samuel ‘worked the night-shift for 30 years, runs on coffee and spit, has probably not slept more than 3hours any given day’ vimes
this is the guy who played vimes in murder-mystery play, ‘inspired by real events’. hammy acting, horrible script, ‘Clues’ everywhere, heroic fightscenes, big speaches. Vimes threadened to shut the whole thing down for slander. Sybil probably got an autograph
I’ve been staring at this post for 15 minutes and I can’t stop laughing omg omg I’m seeing stars oh no.
Sybil invited the damn company to the house for their afterparty and you know it.
the actor earnestly explains at one point the fitness routine he undertook to ‘get in character’ for the part of the ‘heroic commander’ while pointing at various melon-sized muscle groups. vimes himself is sitting there shoveling something that’s 98% grease by volume into his face and also staring balefully. he’s never done a pushup in his life. he wouldn’t know a fucking pushup if it spat on him in the street. sybil is doing her absolute best not to laugh and her best is nowhere good enough. the actor, encouraged by the (presumably) admiring male stares and flirtatious female giggles, goes on to describe his hair-care regimen.
Nooooooo oooooonnnnne stops coups like Sam Vimes
Distrusts clues like Sam Vimes
No one lives off of Klatchian brews like Sam Vimes
He’s especially good at in-VEST-igating
My what a guy, that Sam Vimes
This post got better since I saw it last night oh my gods.
Thank you @roachpatrol I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing now.
Sorry @roachpatrol for hijacking your post but that was just hilarious and i had to draw it….
(It’s hard to draw Vimes out of uniform! But I guess even he doesn’t wear armour 24/7…)
(Young Sam is like ‘daddy, I want an armour like that!’)
I’m sure Angua loved it too
And then she run
OH WOW I love your Vimes! And Angua messin’ with him is beautiful. 😀
why didn’t i see any of these illustrations earlier THEY’RE GREAT
If the theater company ever ran into financial problems, Sybil would be the first one to offer assistance..
Avelera 