#watch books

[anonomouslyabanana]

I honestly feel so conflicted about Sybil Ramkin because on one hand she's obviously a fascinating character who is shown to be kind and capable and willful but on the other she's very much shunted off to the side after Guards! Guards! in a way that doesn't feel fully dealt with (caveat that I haven't read Snuff yet) -- like it honestly almost feels like Pratchett fell into the whole "oh you're sidelining a female character to make way for a m/m ship" but like. Vetvimes is not actually canon in that particular way. She is absolutely not a poorly written character and the development of her and Vimes' relationship doesn't feel illogical per se but it does feel a bit like it's missing something?

[banrionceallach]

Tomorrow is new Discworld Watch Audiobooks day and I am excite!

[starridge]

puppet hour was brutal

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[s0up1ta]

toxic yaoi or something idk i haven't watched gravity falls

[heyybeach]

Growing up is actually just enjoying the exact same things you enjoyed at 14 years old, but in a more gay way

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

imagination (1963) - harold ordway rugg

"chekhovs cat / schrödingers razor / occams gun"

[honourablejester]

I honestly think the Agony Aunts may well be my favourite pair of background characters in the books. I'm not even sure why, they just grabbed me, to the point that in a post of unlabeled fanart they were the ones that made me twig 'Discworld!'. They're just ... so cool. I love the punny name (agony aunts give advice for 'personal problems', in this case by the application of literal agony as required), I love the shades of the aunts from Arsenic & Old Lace, I love the semi-implied society they add to the Seamstress Guild, the protectiveness. They're a whole yarn ball of worldbuilding tied up in a pair of names and implied agonies. We only see them onscreen like, twice? I think? But the sheer fact of their existence just makes me so happy.

And yeah, Night Watch, as a book, is so good for the Seamstresses Guild in general, but in general throughout the Watch books, the Seamstresses and the Assassins are the two guilds who are consistently an active part of the political landscape of the city. Like most of Discworld, they started out as a punny joke (the head of the guild is named Rosie Palm, as in a date with), but even as far back as Guards Guards they're actually a huge power in the city. And Night Watch gives the context as to why.

Definitely, the Seamstresses in general and the Agony Aunts in particular are some of my favourite characters and bits of worldbuilding from the Watch books. And, indeed, Discworld and fantasy in general.

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.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[kidovna]

no mourners, no funerals

[qifreyplushie]

can i see your necklace for a second, your highness? ^__^

[littlefankingdom]

Bruce died(?) again

Jason: Well, it's my turn.

Dick: What are you talking about?

Jason: Everytime Bruce is gone, one of you starts to act just like him, pushing everyone away, acting as only you can be right, and fighting anyone that gets in your way. Dick did it, Tim did it, even Cass kind of did it. So, this time, I will do it.

Tim: Isn't that how you act all the time?

Jason: Whoa, fuck you. You are so banned from historical drama movie nights.

[egophiliac]

you know, I've been thinking about it, and there is actually one single scenario in which I would be okay with not getting a big ol' "Silver Vanrouge" out of Lilia.

(just kidding, I still need some "call me Silver, Mr. Vanrouge is my father" in my life, please don't let me down on this one Twst)

[doctormori]

I love this book to death, so here's some things I noticed <3

[insxmniaxx]

WARNING ⚠️: Spoilers for TWST Chapter 7!!

Scarabia duo rn:

GET HIS WIG KALIM!! 🗣️