History Creator / AAPessimal

* AllThereInTheManual: Mainly. The author prides himself on sticking as closely to canon as possible and incorporates a lot of stuff from the wider ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' franchise which is not to be found in the novels but which is regarded as canonical. This includes information from the yearbooks, the city map and guidebook, the Discworld Atlas, and other Pratchett writings outside the canonical novels. Readers are usually informed about completely new OCs (surprisingly few) and many of the characters he has expanded are actually there in canon, albeit as placeholders, one-line cameos and names/job descriptions. Leaps of imagination such as Discworld's "[[UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica South Africa]]" and "[[CanadaEh North]] [[{{Eagleland}} America]]" are presented with an advisory that these are -- perhaps -- South Africa and [[CanadaEh Quebec]] as Pratchett may have eventually envisaged them.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Pessimal is good at this. As parts of the Discworld already have an, er, Australian and a New Zealand-like ambiance, he added a "South Africa"-like country based on several sly hints Pratchett dropped in canon. CanadaEh has been added, in the form of "Aceria". The country of Hergen, which exists in name only, has been made into a Discworld referent to UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}, with [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles all this implies]] mainly due to its geographical proximity to Llamedos. [[note]]Wales.[[/note]]

The [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1895209/A-A-Pessimal works of Pessimal]] may be found on Website/FanfictionDotNet.

* AccentInterest: UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica appears in its ''Discworld'' alternate of "Rimwards Howondaland". Sam Vimes accepts that a people living so close to the Rimfall at the edge of the world are going to be a little bit ''strange'', and notes they succeeded in winning a bitter and protracted [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar War of Independence]] against Ankh-Morpork, so they're entitled to be a bit bloody-minded. Even so, he is fascinated by [[BlackSpeech the way they talk]]. [[TranslationConvention Vowel shifts]] occur a lot in their language and he wonders why they seem so keen to eliminate the perfectly inoffensive vowel "a" from their spoken Morporkian. As well as the guttural "g's" and "k's" that make their native language -- and spoken Morporkian -- sound like the product of a bad throat. Not to mention [[TrrrillingRrrs rhoticity]]. Elsewhere, wizard Ponder Stibbons is fascinated by his Rimwards Howondalandian girlfriend's spoken Morporkian, which makes her sound as if she's chewing bricks and spitting gravel. He does note that she's also very attractive. And interested in him.

* BadassFamily: Johanna Smith-Rhodes began as a standalone character, an attitudinal and pugnacious "[[AmoralAfrikaner South African]]", or nearest thing to, who has to find her feet in a perilous new place ''very quickly''. As the stories progress, other family members are introduced. Her cousin Julian Smith-Rhodes is well-educated, urbane and witty, from the upmarket end of the family. And a veteran of, at the last count, ''three'' desperate firefights. Her younger sister Mariella is a student at the Assassins' School, who thought she would be a good investment. After she nearly kills an adult man trying to kill ''her'', the Guild was not wrong. Johanna's parents are introduced in ''Hyperemesis Gravidarum''. They are a marriage of MamaBear (or perhaps Mama Rattel) and PapaWolf. When johanna becomes a mother of daughters, the Guild takes a interest.[[note]]It eventually gets the {{Tykebomb}}, the LittleMissBadass, who presents management and disciplinary issues.[[/note]] A niece, also almost called Johanna Smith-Rhodes[[note]]Actually Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaiandje. By family tradition, the first girl in every generation of the Smith-Rhodes family is named Johanna.[[/note]], has been offered an Assassin scholarship. Unseen. The name is enough. And behind everything is Uncle Charles Smith-Rhodes, the undisputed and respected head of the Family.

* CourtJester: Alison Grose is one of the first women to graduate from the Fools' Guild. Forced by the machinations of Lord Vetinari to take a complement of female students, the Guild is at a loss as to what to do with them after they graduate. It is at pains to point out that while they have been forced by circumstances to ''liberalise'', they are not ''that'' liberal. Alison, aware she is not especially wanted in Ankh-Morpork, gladly accepts an offer from King Verence of Lancre to become his Court Jester. Verence, a much-respected Guild graduate and a King, believes a female jester can't be any worse and may indeed be refreshingly different. The Fools' Guild, therefore, has to accept that like it or not, there is now a fully accredited Lady Jester out there. Alison [[ReassignmentBackfire takes full advantage of exile to a remote backwater Kingdom]] to begin to develop the skills of Clown, Jester and Troubador in excitingly new and novel ways - knowing the only other Guild member for several hundred miles around to notice this is Verence, and he is not likely to complain.

* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: Madame Deux-Epées.
* {{Expy}}: After several years of nagging from colleague, friend, and avowed Marvel geek Creator/NimbusLlewelyn, on the basis that since a) the Assassins Guild canonically has a Black Widow house, b) the Watch canonically has a witch/air policewoman of aristocratic pseudo-Russian extraction called Olga Romanoff, c) and Pessimal has a well-known taste for stroppy redheads, there is a very clear opening, the inevitable happened, and the Pessimal Assassins Guild now has a [[ComicBook/BlackWidow Natasha Romanoff]] a.k.a. 'Natasha the Terrible' on its books.
* FairyTale: as with Terry Pratchett, the universal notion of the fairy story comes up for re-evaluation. The Literature/BabaYaga exists as part of "Russian" witchcraft, and this is not so much a specific person as a job description. Her flying mortar and pestle eventually ends up in one of the hangars of the Ankh-Morporkian Air Watch, as yet another flying vehicle to add to the squadron strength. Meanwhile, some fables such as that of the Three Little Piggies and the Big Bad Wolf are hazy folk-memories of a long-ago war between werewolves and were-boars.

The author has recently spent time in a typical British hospital, albeit one which has been at the centre of several major investigations concerning the possibility that patients were being murdered by staff. He now believes no actual murders ever happened and the deaths were the result of good old fashioned British management practices combined with administrative screw-ups. He got out alive, anyway, and may incorporate his experiences into future stories.

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* Fanfic/NatureStudies
* Fanfic/TheBlackSheep
* Fanfic/GapYearAdventures
* Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation
* Fanfic/SlippingBetweenWorlds
* Fanfic/TheNewGuild
* Fanfic/ThePriceOfFlight
* Fanfic/WhyAndWere

The [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1895209/A-A-Pessimal works of Pessimal]] may be found on Website/FanfictionDotNet.
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* SlashFic: Averted, even despite the prominent lesbian characters. This author has ''tried'', but finds he can't write sex without bursting out laughing. For all the wrong reasons. There's a good reason why the bedroom door closes when it does...

* TheWarOnStraw: Averted during ''The Civil Assistant''. Although there are some rather expected forces opposed to the Vimes-Ramkins family's plan to drastically alter their responsibilities as landlords and provide healthy, sanitary housing for their tenants (the greedy aristocrats who hate the thought of lost revenue, the Guilds of Morticians and Barber-Surgeons who recoil at the loss of income from a decreased death rate), other Guilds who reject the offer do so for well-thought out and meaningful reasons. Most prominently, the Guilds of Domestic Servants and Chefs, who have traditionally relied upon the "perks" of reliable food, fresh clothing, warm beds to sleep in, etc to entice prospective members, and with an increase in general living standards can only offer "long hours of hard work for little thanks or reward".

** The author betrays his passion for the Music/BlueOysterCult with ''many'' allusions to their lyrics, [[GeniusBonus mainly so obscure only another BOC fan would spot them]]. Although [[DontFearTheReaper one BOC song in particular]] does not need a great deal of special knowledge to spot in his works or indeed those of Terry Pratchett, and it crops up quite a bit...

* LiberatedButLoyal: In the Literature/{{Discworld}} of Creator/AAPessimal, Johanna Smith-Rhodes has been living in Ankh-Morpork for long enough to question the mores and attitudes of her native [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra Rimwards Howondaland]] and has married a local man. Her snobbish aunt, wife of the Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, is appalled she has no domestic servants and uses her influence to get her a complement of servants from Howondaland. Johanna realises she has to shake off some more [[AmoralAfrikaner unhelpful attitudes]], and informs the servants they are living in Ankh-Morpork and as far as she is concerned, apartheid law will not apply and she will treat them with the same degree of courtesy and respect she would show to white people. She would also pay them exactly the same rate a white servant in a comparable position would get. She ends up with absolutely loyal servants who love having been stepped up to Ankh-Morporkians, in a country that has no apartheid laws.

* CastFullOfGay: It only appears this way. Two Assassins, a female circus performer and a Thief are out-lesbian. And André, the undercover policeman who excitedly gets involved with musical theatre at the end of ''Literature/{{Maskerade}}''... well, [[AllGaysLoveTheater what do you expect?]] While André is StraightGay, other one-off characters take the stereotypes UpToEleven, if only to rehash Julian and Sandy jokes from ''Radio/RoundTheHorne''.

* {{Spexico}}: The in-canon reference to a strange region where people speak a language full of ''¡Ole!''[[note]]with milk[[/note]] and run with the bulls is expanded into an UpToEleven Spain-like country called Toleda. The Tezuman country is of course Mexico. An invented state called Paraquat blends Toleda/Spain and an UpToEleven [[LatinLand South America]] into, er, ''Spexico''.

* FlashForwardFic: His Literature/{{Discworld}} fics are now routinely taking place up to twenty years after the end-point in the canonical timeline.[[note]]Children born to characters who were originally marginally there in canon are now approaching seventeen and eighteen.[[/note]] Things have begun to change in Ankh-Morpork; a seemngly ageless Vetinari still runs the City and Sam Vimes is older and determined not to retire as Watch commander. Housemistresses at the Assassins' Guild School are now younger than the canonical characters Pessimal began with, and the guild itself is poised to change its Master, as Lord Downey contemplates retirement. Social change has happened in Ankh-Morpork with its equivalent of "housing projects/council estates" appearing to replace slum landlordship. The city has a Standing Army, a well-resourced Navy, and the beginnings of an Air Force. Pessimal's second-generation OC's are coming of age into a changed world.

* BadassFamily: Johanna Smith-Rhodes began as a standalone character, an attitudinal and pugnacious "[[AmoralAfrikaner South African]]", or nearest thing to, who has to find her feet in a perilous new place ''very quickly''. As the stories progress, other family members are introduced. Her cousin Julian Smith-Rhodes is well-educated, urbane and witty, from the upmarket end of the family. And a veteran of, at the last count, ''three'' desperate firefights. Her younger sister Mariella is a student at the Assassins' School, who thought she would be a good investment. After she nearly kills an adult man trying to kill ''her'', the Guild was not wrong. Johanna's parents are introduced in ''Hyperemesis Gravidarum''. They are a marriage of MamaBear (or perhaps Mama Rattel) and PapaWolf. At the current point in the timeline, Johanna has a newborn daughter. The Guild is watching with interest. A niece, also almost called Johanna Smith-Rhodes[[note]]Actually Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaiandje. By family tradition, the first girl in every generation of the Smith-Rhodes family is named Johanna.[[/note]], has been offered an Assassin scholarship. Unseen. The name is enough. And behind everything is Uncle Charles Smith-Rhodes, the undisputed and respected head of the Family.

* FlashForwardFic: His Literature/{{Discworld}} fics are now routinely taking place up to twenty years after the end-point in the canonical timeline caused by AuthorExistenceFailure. [[note]]Children born to characters who were originally marginally there in canon are now approaching seventeen and eighteen[[/note]]. Things have begun to change in Ankh-Morpork; a seemngly ageless Vetinari still runs the City and Sam Vimes is older and determined not to retire as Watch commander. Housemistresses at the Assassins' Guild School are now younger than the canonical characters Pessimal began with, and the guild itself is poised to change its Master, as Lord Downey contemplates retirement. Social change has happened in Ankh-Morpork with its equivalent of "housing projects/council estates" appearing to replace slum landlordship. The city has a Standing Army, a well-resourced Navy, and the beginnings of an Air Force. Pessimal's second-generation OC's are coming of age into a changed world.