if he was still alive I know in my heart that Terry Pratchett would have done a bit about Igors and Igorinas doing gender confirmation surgery by now. going into a lab full of bubbling vials and picking out a penis from a tank the way you pick a lobster. that one, please. you gotta be careful though because they'll really try to upsell you into getting two or three installed. people going to the clinic as pairs and just having parts swapped out for a discounted rate. maybe you actually just trade brains, that's even easier. Igorth have already been doing that thurgery for thenturieth.
#one day an igor forgets the lock the cage and a pack of penises escapes into ankh-morpork#the watch spends the next three weeks rounding them up
how DARE you leave this in the tags (affectionate)
Everyone knew it was best not to look too closely at Igor's jars.
Vimes was beginning to wish he had looked more closely at the most recent additions before Igor came lurching up the stairs to inform him:
"They have ethcaped, thir."
"Escaped. What has escaped, Igor."
"Thome of my.. appendageth, thir."
"Appendages."
"Yeth, thir. Of the... intimate variety."
"Of the intimate..." Vimes trailed off as the dawning horror overwhelmed his vocal cords.
He rallied. "Igor. HOW have they escaped? They are not known for their... perambulatory abilities."
"Really, thir? I've alwayth found them to have a mind of their own at timeth."
Vimes was staying calm. Yes. That was it. He was staying very calm. Definitely NOT thinking AT ALL about how Vetinari and... Good lord, The Times, would react to marauding pack of penises. Would it be a pack? Or would they go off on their own?
"I wath exthperimenting with cuthtom grown oneth, you know. For thothe who cannot grow their own."
"Err... what? Of course you were. I mean. Very good."
Pictured: An Igor harvesting appendages
#[a loud crash is heard from the lab] #[another igor runs past with a giant butterfly net. stopping briefly at the door to shriek 'THE VULVATHS''] (via @the-wave-finally-broke)
It turns out to be a brilliant feat of advertisement, as the people too shy or uncertain to go visit Igor rightaway effectively get a chance to discretely window-shop in public.
An unfortunate side effect being that a small girl, denied of her rightful need to be a Horse Girl by the limitations of being a native Ankh-Morpork child[1], would have adopted one of the larger Appendages of the pack and named it Free Willy. Her insistence that she could understand her pet through a bond of mutual sympathy was both touching and troubling, as was her announcement that Free Willy did not want to be attached to a governing body and forced into service, saddled with clothing, or made to perform tricks for audiences. With no Igor having the heart [2] to take it from her, the child was allowed to keep Free Willy, who lived for five healthy years in her family’s pigeon loft and eventually passed away from natural causes after a battle with another fighting cock. The child went on to write a well-acclaimed children’s book, The Willy that Would Be Free, which was, necessarily, a pop-up book.
[1] where an ordinary working class child CAN form a magical bond with a horse, in the form of a pie, labeled as beef.
[2] ha