#the seamstresses' guild

[solomonara]

Mrs. Sandwich, a seamstress (Good Omens Season 2)

and

The Seamstresses' Guild (Discworld)

(Men at Arms)

(Men at Arms)

(The Fifth Elephant)

[good-omens-heritage-posts]

good omens heritage post

Can you imagine being the gentlemen of the discreet gentlemen’s club who are trying so hard to flirt with this very odd man who couldn’t be more enthusiastic about dance lessons and always brings the best wine, and you get nowhere, absolutely nowhere with him to the point where you’re all wondering if he’s one of Those Men who are so absolutely dense to subtext that he believes this really is just a discreet gentlemen’s club for gentlemen to be discreet about nothing more than billiards and drinking*, and then one day the very odd man comes in with another very odd man in all black and sunglasses, who walks so much from the hips that he looks like he’s about to tip over and moves his arms like he isn’t fully certain what they’re supposed to be doing but he’s having a good time with them, and then all the discreet gentlemen look at each other with sudden realization, because ah. Yes. The very odd man is already taken. By this other very odd man. Alright everyone, let’s line up for the gavotte.

*to reference a different Terry Pratchett work, the gay club equivalent of the men who turn up to the Seamstresses Guild in hopes of getting their socks darned, and for whom that is absolutely not innuendo for anything

[twostepsfromtemerant]

I’m still quite young, but a few years older and more knowledgeable than when I first started reading Discworld. I know more about the world, and public discussion about sex workers has changed in the US in the past 5 years.

And Mrs. Palm and the Seamstress Guild is still hands down the best and most respectful depiction of sex workers that I have ever come across.

Everybody in Ankh-Morpork knows them. When new arrivals come to the city they stay with Mrs. Palm. The closest they come to being the butt of a joke is Sandra th Actual Seamstress. They’re unionized! They have power and are respected!

[twasjane]

So I was looking at my bookshelf and forgot I have the Ankh Morpork City Watch diary from 1999.

It's unused from 1999. I bought it in 2002ish because I was and still am an avid collector of Discworld stuff. I've kept it in good condition! But on a whim I decided to read it because it has some incredibly cool companion stuff written by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs.

First off, the profile at the front looks like THIS

You can enter the option "Gender (if known)".

This was released in *1999*.

Second of all, there's an entire section explaining to prospective recruits why the City Watch doesn't have a Vice squad.

Because not only is sex work legal, the Seamstress' Guild is a powerful political force in the city. They have collective bargaining, their own enforcers who protect guild staff and... well Sam Vimes himself is inclined to believe that if you piss off the Agony Aunts, to harm the women (and men but I'll get to that) of the Guild you probably did something worthy of a kicking.

I dunno, kind of a refreshing view on sex work? That it's a legit way to earn a living and should be protected? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Finally, I also noticed this passage-

Molly houses.

One of these clubs is called The Blue Cat club and it's mentioned/alluded to in a couple of the books and its owner Mr Harris (no doubt, as the L Space wiki notes, named after Frank Harris) has a seat on the board of the Guild. Rosemary Palm, the head of the Guild, insisted.

We learn in Night Watch (released three years later) that this is because Havelock Vetinari and Rosie Palm go way back.

Like, this isn't terribly impressive now- but for the 90s this was about as good a representation as you were gonna get. Whilst most of this is part of the books themselves, it's nice to see it explicitly spelled out in the companion material.

I just appreciate that Terry Pratchett knew that these sides of society existed and didn't think of them as "wrong" or signs of societal decay. He saw them as normal parts of the human condition especially in urban settings. They might as well be regulated and legitimate and the workers protected by a pair of sadistic women with umbrellas.

[kuratamashi]

Mavis Vermilion!

I absolutely love this dress she wears in Fairy tail zero! I also can’t help but laugh at the fact that Zeref was just sitting somewhere in the woods sewing it during the time that he was teaching them all magic 🤣

[krowbby]

the next discworld industrial revolution novel should’ve been about the invention of the diva cup. could be the same manufacturers as the sonky too. perhaps we could scale it back to tampons if needed. the angua menstruation time of the month / wolfy time of the month jokes write themselves

[gleefully-macabre]

I finally finished Equal Rites (restarted really), and my Watsonian theory for why there weren’t any female wizards after Esk is as follows:

Some girl applicants decided that working as a maid and doing group- and self-study in the library during off-hours was preferable to interacting with wizards. All housework was done by enchanted household items until an unfortunate situation with the washroom and some minor flooding. Temporary enchantments are still used when they think they can get away with it.

A good portion of the student body is incognito. This is fairly easy to do, as wizards tend to be weedy and unathletic until reaching a certain age when they become fat and sedentary. Spells and potions for growing lush beards are traded among this group and improved upon every semester. Part of the Wizards’ Council might or might not be part of this group.

A few enterprising girls recognized the lack of a witch in Ankh-Morpork (at least one selling useful potions to the discrete customer) and jumped on filling the gap in the market. They’re officially part of the Seamstresses Guild, for legitimacy, because the client base has a lot of crossover, and to lock in a discount for fellow guild members.

[thisautistic]

i almost screeeeeamed. love all the little pratchett and discworld easter eggs!

[nemo-me-impune]

Former sex worker Vetinari truther

[mywingsareonwheels]

You know collectively we really aren't saying enough about Ms Cheng's obvious admiration of/attraction to Mrs Sandwich. :D

[foolishlyzephyrus-too]

oh the pure joy i received from the seamstress scene in good omens s2. terry pratchett, you will always be famous

[dimity-lawn]

[chaoticpanmage]

One thing I love in discworld is the humanization of sex workers. So many stories where they're reduced to only their job and ridiculed, but Pterry does such an refreshing job writing them to be human, compelling and powerful, to the point of being the leading faces of a public uprising

[2readiscworld]

Discworld is always on unexpected women isn't it

[honourablejester]

To be fair, that's at least partly because calling them seamstresses is a running joke, gently poking fun at the confusion between 'seamstresses' and seamstresses (see Sandra Battye), but yeah. Pterry generally didn't use demeaning language for much of anyone.

Also of note, the Seamstresses Guild is one of the most politically powerful and respected guilds in the city, and has been since Guards Guards. This isn't something developed later, it was there all the way back at the start of the Watch books.

Anyway, shout out to Terry Pratchett to not only have legalized, completely safe sex work in his books, but also have one of the prominent figures of the Seamstresses’ Guild be a major positive supporting character in Night Watch, as well as general helpfulness of the guild to board single, vulnerable women in their establishments without expecting almost anything in exchange from them.

Like, is used mostly as a joke some times, yes, like changing Free Love with Reasonably Priced Love, but is never a joke directed at the sex workers themselves. It could be more, but is honestly more than you would expect from a fanstasy series nowadays really.

[kuratamashi]

Pt 2! Seamstress Zeref! 🧵🪡

I genuinely couldn’t get the idea of Zeref sitting and sewing Mavis’ dress! 🤣

It’s such a silly thing, not to mention it’s happened twice, like this isn’t some one off random thing he chose to do, this is a genuine hobby I’m guessing, if you don’t remember, during the Tartaros ark, he left Natsu an outfit too. This dork passes the time by sewing! 🤣