[ OT ] I 'd like to take a moment to appreciate Sir Terry Pratchett .

I'd like to take a minute to talk about Terry. 
 
 In real life, I'm an author with a small following. I've been published ( and paid! in actual dollars that can be spent on things! ), I've recieved awards, and I even recieved a small creative writing scholarship. 
 
 But there has been no compliment, no comment on anything that I've written that has *tickled* me *pink* quite like [ this one, ] ( http: //www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2o1ulj/wp_the_antichrist_finds_himself_in_the_wrong/codzn80 ) that I got from a stranger online. *That's* how much this man meant to me. He was a hero, that looked unflinchingly into the eyes of Death, and grinned. 
 
 And Death grinned back because, as the man himself observed, `` he did n't have any other choice.'' 
 
 My childhood involved a lot of trips to hospitals and doctor's offices, and parents not having enough time to look after two other children. They were also anti-electronic entertainment, which meant a lot of books. I read Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and R.A. Salvatore and Tolkien, and I loved these worlds, but they were also *alien* to me in a very real sense. I was n't very serious, I was a *goof*. I was a neurotic, unfocused goof, who loved puns, and non-sequitors, and quips. And then I discovered Discworld. 
 
 I was in love. 
 
 Oh God, I *was in love. * 
 
 And as every child does, eventually, I put the books back on the bookshelf, and forgot about them. 
 
 Until, in High School, feeling alone and depressed, I opened up a familiar book for comfort, and found him all over again. And I realized, he was n't just wry, he was *wise*. He laughed the laugh that comes before the crying, and after it too. He embroidered his world with ours, ( like faded gold stars on a hat ), and in it's own weird way, with it's homicidal steamer trunk and Ourangutan librarian, with Moist and Rincewind and the Bursar, and who could forget that grim spectre Himself ( and Susan, too ) he'd somehow made a world more *real* than any of the other fantasy daydreams I'd visited. And he helped me feel like I was n't alone. 
 
 He saved me. He might have saved you. 
 
 I'll miss you, Mr. Pratchett.
