Secret Discworld sideblog

Shufti and Wazzer on cooking duty

Good Borogravian girls...

You think I am an it? Vell, let me act like an it.

*

Somewhere in the Ramtops

I finished Pentiment the other day, and felt an insane urge to draw the Lancre Witches in that style

Vetinari's Terrier: out

Dearheart's Unusually Large and Completely Blonde German Shepard: in

Firstly, it is incredibly disconcerting to pick up your knitting project and find it several rows ahead of where you left off. It doesn't matter that you knit the repeat exactly to where it was when Rufus put it down, it's weird, stop.

Secondly, he knits in (the Disc's equivalent to) English style, which is entirely compatible with Rufus's [for lack of coming up with an appropriate term] Continental, but mixing the two at random starts twisting the yarn and messing up the tension, so stop.

Most pressingly, he's left-handed and Rufus is not, so sections end up knitted backwards in comparison to others, which hasn't resulted in disaster yet, but will surely go wrong eventually-- the thought of which gives Rufus terrible anxiety, sir, please stop.

*Being the kind of child that bothered adults by insisting on being part of their conversations, handing a young Havelock a ball of yarn and a pair of needles was a good way to shut him up**.

Oh my god, he would absolutely figure out how to encode his knitting.

Taking the minutes of the Guild Council meeting? Amateur.

Rufus is knitting the minutes.

Aaah, I love that! He is totally pressganged into knitting with Sybil when he comes over for tea, and she marvels at his skill (and he points out that he has been doing it since he was three, Sybil, so it isn't too surprising).

He can absolutely knit a sock in an hour or two, which does sometimes result in a pair in an afternoon, but more often I'm sure Sam is subtly wound up by finding a single brand new sock in his drawer.

This paragraph killed me, and this is full of spoilers. I could write tomes of literature about this paragraph. This is from 'Monstrous Regiment' by Sir Terry Pratchett. Polly is a soldier pretending to be a man. Their god declares things sinful as abominations. The abominations were reasonable, then tolerable, and then wholly insane and even life-threatening. The country's citizens do what they can and guiltily ignore what they can't. Polly's mother was highly religious and found solace in their fading god.

Polly's brother is only described as having learning difficulties, but his hyperfixation is birds. He can name them, recognize their sounds, and mimic them. If he is not told what to do, he will stand outside and observe for hours. Polly, who was responsible for Paul, saved and worked to buy a paint set for him. Paul excitedly paints a bird that could fly off the page. Polly's mother is enraged by this, as painting living things is an abomination, and throws the paint and picture into the fire. Even though almost every room has a drawn picture of the Duchess, whom everyone prays to to talk to their god!

Her mother burned the picture. Her mother who Polly speaks about in only certain terms follows like a ghost in the story. She is another deity that has let Polly down. Something else she can't believe in.

I AM FERAL!

She lost everything she ever believed in that moment. Her mother, her country's god and the Duchess.

We all have that moment in childhood where we realize our parents aren't perfect, they aren't invincable. Polly's mom first did this by burning the picture then sealed it when she got sick and died. Which parelles how the country's god has died and all that is left is echoes. Echoes like that we see of Polly's relationship with her mother. Like how the Duches echoes the voice of another character when possessing her.