(Ok, let's try again, and hope that it doesn't time-out on me again, it doesn't appear
that this will become a double-post, but forgive me you read it as such before I remove/edit-down this duplicate...)Anyway, I don't mean to disparage Pratchett by calling him a comedy writer.
I didn't actually think you were, it was just a different kind of description to any that would have been meaningful to me.
And he can be dark. I mean Dark like in Thud, of course (various
kinds of Dark also, but I'm not even referencing them), but then you have Dark like right near the beginning of I Shall Wear Midnight... And that's for
kids young adults...
Ok, how about I drag us back on topic while indulging myself with more Pratchett-wise information...
There's the nature of the River Ankh, in the middle of A-M. Too extreme? (Also, comes from early in the series, so may fail the rationality test... The Ankh is proper liquid both above and below the blockage, and flowing, yet not
always flooding, so can it actually be permeable/have hidden stream-channels beneath the ooze/crust?) There's the largely forgotten (but apparently viable) Via Cloaca sewer and its tributaries, as well, although I think the likes of the privvy that some of the Guards (in G!G!) fall into is probably not connected, and the various night-soil men (aided and abetted by the dunnikin-divers, as necessary) probably service
that convenience, for your convenience. (Granny just digs another hole and moves the hut along, however, having the luxury of having a low-occupancy household with spare ground. This wouldn't really work in the City,
however much loam it is built upon.)
Animal wastes also abound, especially around the slaughterhouse districts. And then there's the use of ginger, to prove that animal anatomy (at the
very least, but likely also humans if the Ginger Beer trick is meant to have a similar operational effect, when not merely a placebo being falsely advertised) is indeed much the same as with their Roundworld brethren. (There are other occasions where the mechanics of 'waste management' are briefly described, such as in the beast-powered riverboats in Snuff...)
Of course (also in, and from, Snuff), there's the World Of Poo book , made to fascinate young minds/the young-at-heart (both in-universe and out).
All the above make the world involved fun, of course. It colours it (albeit not with a rosy tint). It's obvious that it happens in the world. But do you actually get to see (with a precious few exceptions) the... shall we say...
personal application of this need? Bathrooms are mostly used as locales for... well, shaving, I think, even more than baths, and less than that even for any on-topic purposes, even assuming that the home involved has a posh
internal facility. Oh yeah, how could I forget young Jocasta Wiggs? ("It
is fatal... eventually...")
I've already mentioned The Sims, previously in the thread... Certainly in the versions I've played (and without patching them with 3rd-party "de-pixelation" utilities) it's a fact of life (an annoying one, really, but they were aiming for reality, ...FCVO) but is a somewhat discreetly hidden action. (And even when 'accidents happen', it appears to be only a matter of passing water from the state of the floor afterwards.)
I'd really intended to let the fantasies (if that's the right word, which it isn't) of such mechanics continue without my further objection, but I want to lay my argument on the table that I don't see us adding much to the story of a fort/adventurer by requiring "comfort breaks" be taken by the respective participants. I'm not particularly squeamish about the waste element (although I don't think it's considered good form to directly fertilise crops intended for human consumption with human waste, with all kind of pathogen-concentrating reasons to avoid this, as well as creating a cycle of
growth for certain harmful micro-organisms), but I don't see it as having added value right now or in the near future.
Of course, t'aint me that controls what happens (and I didn't like the idea of vampires coming into the game, either... I still don't particularly[1], but I'm living with their existence, or potential existence), and so my feelings are probably of near-zero value (if not zero itself) when it comes to weighting the possibilities of future development.
But having spent far too long, tonight (now this morning) on this and other online matters, it's about time I leave the forums alone for those few hours of sleep. Shift-Z, d, <enter>.
[1] For Adventure Mode I tolerate them, because (most of the time, except (ironically!) when they're hiding in the flooded sewers and I can't safely get at them) they kill as easily as any untransformed were-beast, in my Adventurer's experience. I've also managed to generally avoid them in Fortress Mode (so far!)... whether or not this is because of my recently developed Panopticon design of fortress, that discourages their activities, or because I've never actually had one, I've no idea. Every immigrant appears to so far be who they say they are, etc...