(((nataluna)))

This is part of my ongoing Discworld jacket embroidery project. Of course Great A'Tuin has to be on there. And of course it has to be the biggest one of them all.

I'm going to put the finished product in my masterpost, but I'm so proud of the thing that I have to put it in an extra post beforehand. Enjoy!

Update!!!

Behold: the elephants! 😁

The turtle moves! Now it's just the "cargo" left. And the universe. Well.

Update 3: Why did I have to try single thread for the disc. Why. How did I ever think that was a good idea. This is taking aaaages.

I'd say never again, but I know myself too well...

Still trying to decide whether to outline the landmass with darker thread or not. It would make the lands more distinct - but it might also make it look more like a comic. If you have any thoughts on it, let me know. I'll only decide once I've finished the rest of the disc and that'll be at least a week, if I had to guess.

I finally had some time to continue and the disc is done! Now just some stars, planets, etc...

My estimate is that this took about 150 hours. About half of that went into the disc because I discovered single thread embroidery.

And because I always think it's really interesting to see the back of the embroidery - bonus:

On to the next one! Maybe I'll do the luggage now.

Wow..!

Fuckin HELL, bud. You're an embroidery 🪡 HERO. SPECTACULAR!!!

I got to see this - all too briefly - at the recent 2024 Discworld Convention in Birmingham, and it's even more spectacular IRL.

The needlework is frankly jaw-dropping.

This is amazing and I need to reblig it every time I see it

now, guys, i like daenerys and all … i’m just saying that Lady Sybil Vimes is my real queen and mother of dragons.

like if she were in danny’s place, she’d not only abolish slavery for real, but the former slavemasters would definitely be more polite, they’d sit up straighter and they’d eat all their vegetables. and her dragons would be much tamer.

she’d do it in record time too

lady sybil vimes sitting on the iron throne. someone write this!!

“It’s a little…sharp, don’t you think, dear?” Vimes tried, voice echoing around the deserted throne room.

He disliked King’s Landing out of principle, it was all right there in the very name. Sybil was in her element however, although it was hard to think of a time when Lady Sybil wasn’t in her element. The world morphed to her, fitting snugly around her form until it settled around her as though she’d always belonged. He’d watched many a time as she’d made rich lords and ladies feel like strangers in their own grand homes and now—

“I mean who on earth builds a throne out of thousands of swords. I know Vetinari is a bastard for symbols and metaphorical meaning, but this really takes the pis—I mean tart.”

“Yes, the whole place could do with a bit of a spruce up, don’t you think?”

Oh yes dear, thought Vimes, the manic edge to his thoughts threatening to well up and bubble over into hysterical laughter. I dare say if you got some curtains measured up you could hide the view of half a burning kingdom, no problem…

He didn’t belong here. Neither of them did. But who could have ever predicted that that bloody dragon would return? I could, said a little voice in the back of his head. It had been waiting for all of this to end. Not necessarily the dragon of course, but for the careful world he and Sybil had built to shatter in a shower of fire and smoke and then the ice would pour back into his veins and Sam Vimes would cease to exist, because whatever man had existed before had died somewhere in an Ankh-Morpork gutter a million miles away…

What was it the old wizard had said? Something to do with stories and narrative need? About fitting into the holes of the pantaloons of the multiverse?

It didn’t matter now…all that mattered was that they were here now, summoned by whatever need had pulled them here and—oh yes—he looked up at the open hole where the palace roof ought to be. Three dragons looked down, as attentive as kittens with a ball of string. He tried not to think about the sound of their claws scraping over the stone or the way their eyes moved to follow him if he strayed too far from Sybil.

Mother of Dragons…

They’d shouted it through the streets, even as they burned. Mother of Dragons…breaker of chains, first of her name Her Grace, Lady Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin-Vimes, The Duchess of Ankh …and Queen of the Iron Throne…

“I know what you’re thinking, Sam.”

“Do you, dear?” Same asked, letting his eyes drift from the dragons to her reassuring form, her blue evening gown streaked with soot, wig only just slightly askew.

“You’re thinking you want to go home…and I can’t say I blame you, but until the wizard chaps figure this out, I say we make the most of this… there’s a whole city out there Sam Vimes. You saw the mess of it when they opened the gates, you saw what those awful people did to their people…”

Vimes was vaguely aware of an audience gathering at the giant doors that hung on their hinges. Fine looking people, or at least people who thought they were very fine, rich robes singed and ruined in only the way a dragon burning your city can do. And all of them cautiously livid. There was something reassuringly familiar about that.

“Yes, dear. They do what all ruling classes do.” He turned his attention to the gathering crowd. “They piss down and call it plumbing.”

An old man wearing chains opened his mouth to protest, “I beg your pardon—“

“Yes you bloody should!” snapped Vimes, reaching for the cigar behind his ear that wasn’t there and beginning to pat down his pockets. “Call yourselves a tyranny? My gods what a shambles. Vetinari would have a fit at the state of this place. An absolute fit.”

Another woman, slightly older than Sybil, and almost as regal, turned what could only be defined as a look toward him. “And you both are, sir?”

“Oh do forgive me,” he said, with manic faux politeness, his ducal façade slipping into place like an anvil on thin ice, “hadn’t you heard? I would have thought that mob was awfully clear. This is the Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, First of her name Her Grace, Lady Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin-Vimes, The Duchess of Ankh and Queen of the Iron Throne. And I’m her husband—“ Commander Vimes City Watch…the words died on his lips as new words funneled in through the back of his head, poured down by the cosmos in rich vibrant hues as the world finally knit together around him. He grinned and several people backed away.

“They call me, the Kingslayer. And I’m her Guard.”

Sybil smiled, that soft genteel smile that could light up rooms and made people feel warm inside. Overhead the dragons spat white hot plumes of flame, making everyone within a twenty foot radius feel very warm indeed.

“And you lot—” Vimes said, finally managing to pull a cigar from somewhere in his dented armor, holding it up to the still sizzling air and letting the tip self-combust into before taking a long heady drag—“have got some bloody explaining to do.”

MORE

(I’d love to, but you see, I’m already working on the Star Wars Discworld crossover Au for @leahelizabeth89, and I have about 50 WIPS in my darft folder and…and…shit *down the bunny hole we go*)

This is the best thing I have ever seen. Oh god Lady Sybil would just spend her days making sure the dragons were comfy and would go on and on about what a hardy breed they were. 

Can you imagine Vimes on the kings council?!Oh god what if the rest of the Watch got through as well.

WHAT IF VETINARI FOUND HIS WAY?!?!?!?!

 I just MUST know what Vetinari would do in Westoros !

 Oh god. I cannot breath I’m sitting here doing that scary laugh where there’s no sound because you can’t breath so you just flap your arms like a fucking seal. my face hurts from grinning. What have you done to me?

Probably the same thing @leahelizabeth89 did to me when she said “how do you think Star Wars would have turned out with Vetinari in it?” and I’m 3k down the plot tunnel, pickax in hand and flashlight strapped to my head.

As for more Westeros: Vetinari would walk in, picking his way through the crowd and great Sybil like the old friends that they are, and take his rightful place as the Queens Hand—after all he’s never wanted to be a King, so why should he start now? He’s invaluable of course, but it’s Sybil who guides the kingdom back to some semblance of sanity, through the kindness and patience wrought of years tending to creatures that tend to explode at random.

Little Finger would try to get the measure of Von Lipwig—newly instated to the Small Council as Vetinari’s spy—and come up short…of the hangman’s rope. As it turned out, he did not believe in angels. Neither did a lot of the small council, which was unfortunate, but not unforeseen. Spike takes over trade and the various different merchants guilds and foreign traders soon come to know the iron ring of her stiletto heels sparking over the exchange floor.

Arya Stark thought she wanted to join the Assassin Guild, until she sees the golden wolf following on the heels of the tall redheaded man who reminds her of someone she used to know…she makes captain within a year and walks the streets at night, taking light into dark places. The men and women she trains soon become known as Starkies—their motto Law Before Justice.

Hm.

Who else…Fred and Nobby never change. A city is a city and there’s still street theater to watch and  and cigarettes to smoke. But they both agree after the first week they’d do almost anything for a pint of Winkles, the beer here is piss.

This is amazing, and I can’t help but wonder what if Granny Weatherwax and the rest of the Lancre coven were there. I’m unfamiliar with Game of Thrones, but if there were magic users, none of them would probably survive UU in the good (bad) ol’ days. 

!! “For the night is dark and full of terrors!”

Abruptly the flames from the pyre went out, plunging the assembly in to shadows.

In the deafening silence, Granny cracked her knuckles, shoulders rolling like a prize fighter about to step into the ring and smiled at the priestess.

“Yea. Me.”

“Hey pal, ye think it’s funny like teh pick on wee lassies?”

Ramsey Bolton looked down, and then down again. “Who the fu—”

“THE BIG WEE HAG SENDS HER REGARDS!”

The Paris Olympics insisting that athletes compete in the Seine is so absurd it feels like something Terry Pratchett would want to make fun of. Like can you imagine him writing a Discworld story about a mad Ankh-Moorpark city official deciding to put on some ancient extravagant game, creating havoc in the city by bringing in all these foreigners to compete, and insisting the Ankh river, which is so filthy it's basically solid, is perfectly fine to swim in, because that's what they did in ancient times so that's how they're going to do it now. I feel like it would be a Night's Watch story about the people hired to clean the river and all the friends and horrors they discover along the way.

Good luck to all the athletes swimming in the poop water.

as a compromise, they eventually agree to host the 100-metre dash on the river Ankh

ok so hear me out

what I really like about Pratchett's work among all the other things, is that he basically opens all his books with exposure and "here is an immuable, very eternal law upon which the world is built" and then he spends the rest of the book trampling on that law

"it is impossible for a woman to be a wizard, so we're going to follow this wizard girl's journey"

"dragons are gone forever and dormant, here be no dragons. say hi to this one lady dragon tho"

"nobody can resist elves. that's why Magrat is going to deck their queen in the face"

"everyone knows women can't fight"

"everyone knows golems don't have souls. they all have names and personalities and-"

"all dwarves are men. then they were introduced to gender"

"Death is eternal and unchanging. Let's see what happens when he goes through all major human development stages in reverse starting with his retirement"

All in all "here's this thing everyone knows is true, here's why it's bullshit, here's how untrue it is, and here's how nobody is going to learn a lesson from being shown that this law of nature is bullshit. We all know people never learn right. or do they"

Hear me out: Untitled Goose Game in Ankh-Morpork…

Think of all the mayhem you could create.

(I really really want so bad this game/DLC to exist. So much potential. @house_house_ call me (or, better, call the Pratchetts)) Next drawing: the Post!

Last weekend, some Discworld fans were having a meeting over Discord to replace the usual Gathering of the Loonies in Wincanton that couldn’t take place for obvious reasons. At some point I offered to draw whatever characters people would request. Here’s the result: Binky (with Mort), Maladict & Igorina from Monstrous Regiment, and William de Worde with Otto.

Continuing my endeavour to post more, have a Magrat!

Hey Tumblr, long time no post :) *blows dust off blog*

I have to admit, it’s been really hard lately to find the motivation to create properly… I have decided to try and be a bit more present from now on. Maybe post once a week, see if I can keep the rhythm.

And for a start, since I’ve been rereading the Witches novels out of order and I’m currently at Wyrd Systers, here are Granny and the Fool (he of the famous ‘jingled miserably across the floor’ quote)

THERE’S NO JUSTICE

JUST US.

We all know that Death Discworld likes cats. So may I propose: Death with a cat ears headband?

“What,” Susan said, observing her grandfather with the universal look of a grandchild about to die of embarrassment*, “is that.”

“Tʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴄᴀᴛ ᴇᴀʀs. I ʜᴇᴀʀ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴀɢᴇ ᴀᴍᴏɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ Cᴀᴛʙᴏʏs ɪɴ Aɴᴋʜ-Mᴏʀᴘᴏʀᴋ.”

Curiosity wrestled with apprehension for a moment, and won by a slim margin. “…Catboys?” Susan asked carefully**

“Lɪᴋᴇ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɴᴏᴡ,” Death said, lifting an arm and bending the wrist, “ɴʏᴀʜ”

*Typically diagnosed with such phrases as “gag me with a spoon”

**Once spoon-gagged, twice spoon-shy

@thebibliosphere

This is awful (complimentary). I love it, thank you.

What do you mean "guidelines" and "recommendations", the only Right and Correct way to start reading Discworld is to choose a random book from the library shelf, start there, try to figure out what the hell is going on, embrace the weird and cool concepts and the fact that this setting is just Like That, fall in love with characters, have the best time of your life and repeat (the next book you choose may seem totally unrelated, but it'll all start coming together after a while)

i kinda like choosing which title's pun makes me maddest and reading that one next

And on that thought, I have a lot to say about the theme of identity throughout the Discworld in general. In every book, even the earlier, less dark ones, there’s a constant theme of being true to yourself and doing what you think is right, no matter what other people tell you, no matter what the world throws at you, no matter how life tries to wear you down.

It might be Rincewind just knowing he’s a wizard. It might be Granny Weatherwax standing in a world of mirrors and thinking it’s a trick question when she’s asked to identify which one is real, because obviously it’s her. It might be Vimes knowing he won’t let good men die even if history says that’s what happens, because it can never be what Sam Vimes says happens.

But the lesson is always the same: whoever you are inside, whatever you believe yourself to be, that is you, and nobody gets to steal that from you. Words in the heart cannot be taken.

"Clouds parted in front of her and there, spread below, was Ankh-Morpork [...] Susan could hear the sounds of the streets, even individual voices, but there was also the great roar of the city, like some kind of insect hive. Upper windows drifted by, each one a glow of candlelight".

I had this thought in mind when the cast photos for the Watch series were first making the rounds, but never got around to writing it up.  Now that it seems to be making the rounds again, here it is.

Thin!Sybil is Bad for reasons that have nothing to do with representation

The narrative heart of Guards! Guards! is built around the thematic parallels between Sybil, the Dragon and to a great extent Ankh-Morpork itself on the one hand, and Vimes and Errol on the other hand.  And Sybil being Large is a huge (no pun intended) part of that. Sybil is Large is, to a great extent, what the book is about.

Here is Vimes’ introduction on page 2 of the novel.  It’s not quite the beginning, but it’s the second thing introduced after the dragon(s) themselves:

And here is the end of Vimes’ part of the book, two scenes from the end, almost a perfect bookend:

Guards! Guards! is a love story.  It’s a love story between these too, but it’s also a love story between the dragons, and these are not different things:

I also want to point out Sybil’s introduction, just for funzies:

Hehehehe.  But also, note the emphasis on the size difference between them.  Again, here:

Sybil’s introduction is all about her size and nobility, by contrast to Vimes’ which is all about his wretchedness.  Draco nobilis vs Draco vulgaris;

Size.  And nobility. Let’s look at Errol, and his utter wretchedness:

Similarly, the dragon:

It’s also worth noting that, because of her size, it doesn’t really occur to anyone that Sybil might be in danger.  They’re imaging the sacrifice to be “some slip of a girl,” and even the arresting guards are hesitant about her because she doesn’t fit their image.  They’re just going of the letter of things:

Sybil’s non-traditional femininity is an ongoing theme across the book, and literally endangers her life because nobody expects her to be a target.  And it deliberately parallels the fact that nobody interprets the dragon as female except her love interest – even Sybil, who should have known better.  Because it’s Really Big.  That’s the Big Twist of the whole book – that the dragon is a lady to be wooed, not a monster to be slain.  Sybil is likewise consistently portrayed as almost monstrous – but that’s exactly what’s likeable about her.  Later books talk about how being the Big Girl among her peers is part of what drives her compassion, her care for small broken things, and her Great Personality (see also: Agnes Nitt).  Sybil is large and in charge and not used to performing femininity in the same way Vimes is not used to performing anything other than Lawman.  But this is why we like her.  The conclusion of their story specifically calls up her common sense and self-assurance – her presence and practicality. That’s why she and Vimes can be on the same side even though she’s fabulously wealthy.  

Sybil is big because Sybil is the dragon, because Guards! Guards! is a love story between a giant terrifying woman and a tiny and outwardly worthless man, played out in parallel between the human protagonists and the dragons.  If you make Sybil thin, you’ve gutted the whole literary structure of the work.  

(But again, Sybil is terrifying but also kind, and that’s also super important.  I don’t feel like looking for quotes in other books, but they’re there. She is not Strong Female Character ™ though – and that seems to be what they’re making her in the series.)

Disney: Real beauty is on the inside (of these pretty pretty pretty people. please ignore the suspiciously-caricatured villains and ‘evil’ animal sidekicks)

Sir Terry goddamn big-balls bigger-brain Pratchett: ‘sup, kids, here are some characters ranging from ‘hot to people with specific tastes’ to ‘so alarmingly hideous he has to carry paperwork proving he’s human’. Now strap in, I’m about to give you a walking tour of their souls so you can decide which of them you love. Pay attention, you’re going to have to do this all the time in real life with less information for much higher stakes.