‘Well, I Have Rather A Rascally Look, Have I Not?’

I didn’t vote in the poll, but… A Study in Scarlet! When it all started! Right on the same day! It’s probably a weird reason to be excited, but I am!

My favourite thing about Éowyn and Faramir is that when Éowyn tells Faramir she’s in love with Aragorn, his response is basically “well duh, who isn’t.” He truly gets Éowyn, not only because he has similar experiences with despair and grief, but also because the two of them feel the exact same way about Aragorn.

Strictly, canonically speaking, Faramir isn’t in love with Aragorn, but his old-school Medieval fealty has the level of passion and intensity that a modern reader tends to associate with romantic love. (Though of course he isn’t an outlier in a series about passionate friendship and fealty.) The first time Faramir ever saw Aragorn, in the Houses of Healing, “a light of knowledge and love was kindled in his eyes” and he immediately volunteered to do anything his king asked of him, even though he had just woken up from life-threatening illness and probably didn’t have the strength to get out of bed under his own power. And what he offers to Éowyn, among other things, is this: you can continue to love Aragorn as your king and captain, we can both love him that way, and love each other with a quieter peacetime love.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. And it is not even a little close.

What other Witch could so shrewdly bend the very story she was in to her will? To take the tropes and clichés and to weaponize them against those who were wrong in defense of those who could not defend themselves?

What other Witch, when faced with the Good Fairy Godmother, would rip the story from her very fingers and set things to right?

What other Witch, under vampiric assault, could turn the famous bite around and, instead of becoming a vampire herself, through force of sheer will Weatherwax the vampire? What does that even mean?

What other Witch could give a child a gift so powerful it would override narrative convention and let the long lost prince refuse to take his rightful crown in favor of pursuing his dreams?

Indeed, what other Witch would resist the crown when it fell into her lap?

There have been untold millions of Witches in literature, but not a one of them could sit demurely at a social gathering, doing absolutely nothing, and drive everyone around her to near insanity through sheer nervousness?

No one else could be so proficient at both Magic and People that she would barely need or want to use the former because of how effective and predictable the latter could be.

And all of this, ALL of this, while going against her own narrative nature as 'The Bad Witch'. To resist your own role in the story so completely that you transcend expectations and settle into legend as one of the ultimate forces of righteousness on the Disc? That requires more power, more cunning, and more skill than any, every other Witch. Combined.

And she did it by knowing people. By watching them and knowing things and by understanding, better than their own mothers, how to talk to everyone and precisely pass along knowledge. How to command respect, even if they don't like you very much. How to be indispensable, while dispensing with the pleasantries.

She didn't do it alone, but she wouldn't admit that within earshot of Gytha or any of her numerous brood (So, she would never admit it). She benefitted by her associations with Nanny Ogg, with Magrat, with Agnes, with Tiffany, with Ridcully (allegedly), and even with Death.

Who else would earn time for her candle to flicker in the wind, and a warning by the Grim Reaper himself, for the right she had done in the world.

Right. Not good. Not nice. Right.

She was the vessel Pratchett poured his every indignant thought at the inherent injustice in the world into, and she brandished those white hot notions against every part of the stories that tried to make her into something she did not want to be.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. What more could possibly be said?

PSA: Writing a book can take a looooong time. If you've been working on your project for a year, two years, five years... you're not doing anything wrong. If you've written three drafts and thrown them all away, if you can only write a hundred words a day, if you put your book down for six months and pick it up again only to be baffled by what you've written... Congratulations. You're not inefficient or slow. You're just a writer. Welcome to the writing life.

I’d divorce him too lmao

Happy New Year, everyone!

May the Force be with you, always

Live long and prosper

May the odds be ever in your favour

Aim to misbehave

May there be good in this world that’s worth fighting

Don’t. Be. Dead

May you not live in interesting times

Don’t get in legal trouble, but if you do, better call Saul

…and so on and so forth, feel free to add :)

And from me personally: love yourself, love life, love people, and then you’ll be loved too, because I said so

You deserve happiness, don’t be afraid to pursue it, but if you are, try and "do it scared"

May 2025 be your year. Our year.

Your Jane of almost all trades

This has definitely happened somewhere in Discworld.

"it's all in your head" correct! unfortunately I am also in there

I was told she pets other dogs but I wasn’t ready for how funny it is

Behind the scenes pics are the cinema equivalent of final bows in theatre as both say "hey, it’s okay, all of this was made up, we all are actually alive, healthy, happy, we all are friends & had a lot of fun, it’s so cool that you like us"