#discworld fiber arts

[knithacker]

The Luggage - from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Crocheted By MightyStarGazer, Get a Pattern By Silvia Usón: 👉 https://buff.ly/3qQFp1R

[crocwork-clockodile]

Hey, did I ever post about crocheting Planet June's amigurumi model of the Discworld? Maybe about 2-3 years ago? Well after losing steam and getting frustrated and a wee bedbug problem that cost me most of my fiber craft supplies and moving twice, I've finally tried again!

Here's what I've got of Great A'Tuin so far (I would've finished him but I ran out of the beige yarn :/)

Here's a better view of his shell! I'm quite pleased with it 🥰

And of course, I've been working on the elephants

Three done so far (my hand for scale)

Beginnings of the fourth elephant

A small pack of celestial elephants take down their prey

I'm very proud of my progress on this, and the colours I've picked out this time lol. The elephants being orange is a nod to Josh Kirby's cover art for The Fifth Elephant, and I always imagine them as orange at this point. Hopefully next week I can take a trip to Michael's for more turtle yarn and the yarn I need to make the most important bit, the Disc!

[amimere]

[ID in Alt]

i do not live near any lilacs, and exam season kept me from making anything bigger, but i did manage to crochet a small branch for this glorious 25th of may

[tea-earl-grey]

interests

Star Trek:

i've been a fan since 2021 but the obsession really took in 2023 when i made this blog

i've seen almost all of the shows (still finishing tos and haven't watched tas) and my favorites are tng, ds9, voyager, & picard but i truly do love all of the shows even with their flaws

favorite characters: Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway, Kira Nerys, Raffi Musiker, Data, B'Elanna Torres, and... well they're all great

Doctor Who:

been a fan since 2014

i have truly watched, listened to, read, and otherwise experienced an absurd amount of Doctor Who but my favorite eras/series include: 12s era, UNIT era, Gallifrey audios (and Gallifrey more broadly), Bernice Summerfield, Eighth Doctor audios, Sixth Doctor audios, & EDAs

favorite characters: Romana, Leela, Narvin, Irving Braxiatel, Bernice Summerfield, Bill Potts, Clara Oswald, Barbara Wright, Charley Pollard, Evelyn Smythe, Ace McShane, and... again there are so many good characters

Other Favorites: Steven Universe, LotR, AtLA/LoK, Ghibli films, Discworld, TAZ: Balance

General Fandom Opinions:

i love fandom history and archivism

i'm personally not as interested in shipping as a lot of others are. i casually ship a lot of things (Helen/Liv, Romana/Leela/Narvin, Spirk, Seven/Raffi, Jadzia/Worf, etc) but i don't take it that seriously and tend to like (queer)platonic dynamics more

i think a lot of ship discourse and arguments over the morality of media are kind of nonsense. do whatever you want and i'll moderate & curate my own online experience

that said, i encourage everyone to consume media critically, examine the biases of the work/creators & your own, and to recognize racism, misogyny, queerphobia, ableism, and other bigotries

Other Interests:

cooking & baking

fiber arts (whenever my joints return from the war)

speculative fiction writing

neuroscience & psychology

history

[vera-simik]

Hiiiii I come bearing queeestioooonssss :3

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

Thanks for asking!!

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

The Wolf bros, hands down. They always look off (except for Lambert, I didn't find the... lemme say... courage to draw him yet, because *wildly gesticulating in the general direction of his character design*)

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

Fiber crafts!

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

Hm... From the top of my head, I can think of the Discworld series. I love the books, but I don't remember ever having any need to create fanart for it.

.

.

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(from THIS ask game) (feel free to send more)

[dimity-lawn]

Imagine this:

Vetinari tells the wizards at UU that they have to produced something to the public, to show the citizens of Ankh-Morpork that their taxes are being used for a good purpose. (I don't know why, probably to keep Ponder Stibbons and Hex out of trouble)

The wizards would, of course, protest. They'd go on about research, keeping Ankh-Morpork safe, etc. and claim that it was obvious that UU benefited the city. Later, in private, Ridcully, who'd know that Vetinari wouldn't back down, would try to save face by telling him that they had, in fact, already been considering doing something for the public in order to attract new students.

Like everything else to be done by the faculty, this falls on Ponder. As the Head of Invisible Writings and also part of a department in need of funding, he eventually decides to introduce some songs (and perhaps other things) from the Roundworld to the Disc with the help of Hex and some students.

This is the introduction to a series of posts may be found under my tag #discworld and roundworld music series. I have a lot of material* for this from before I planned to post any of this, but I will try to stagger at least some of it and like the art history series, I promise that this will not become the main focus of my blog.

*Not that it is good material, but perhaps rather more like some really cheap and terrible polyester that frays as soon as you look at it and leaves wispy little fibers everywhere.

[grumpyfaceurn]

actually having a bit of disposable income is weird. Like, before I would think “I want these five things” and the answer was “well you can’t have any of them”

now suddenly I may want five things, and I can afford one. Or two. But I have to make that decision and accept that it means not getting the other thing, at least not for a while. And consciously not buying three things is a lot harder than dreaming about maybe buying five things except you won’t

[cakesandfail]

I associate u with: bats, skeletons, general spooky/goth stuff, discworld dads, lady Margo, vampires, the Addams family, crafts/fiber arts, and billiam shakpeas

So what you’re saying is, I’m president of the Uberwald branch of the Women’s Institute? Rad. I’m extremely here for that tbh

[qualitystart]

tagged!

8 people i’d like to get to know better

Tagged by @invisiblesocks and @debrusks tysm!!!

Name/alias: Luna to pretty much everyone (srry great-grandmothers I’m named after, story’s cute but u had old lady names)

Birthday: September 15

Zodiac sign: Virgo but I don’t really care a ton (two other Virgos in my immediate family made it all seem a lot less plausible to me)

Hobbies: reading, writing, buying too many used books, screaming at hockey, fiber crafts, nail art, visual art, tabletop gaming

Favorite colors: purple and teal

Favorite books: Good Omens, most of the Discworld series, Vassa in the Night

Last song i listened to: For Flotsam - Los Campesinos!

Last film i watched: Spider-Man: Far From Home 

Love: my family, my friends, the Bruins, cooking good food for people I love

Something that helps people: gonna give you one of my fave Bill Nye quotes: “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” 

Meaning behind url: Sean. also, pun. two of my favorite things.

i tag: @defenserights @murdereyesnicky @saint-patrice @mizzsaz @thegrumpygoalie @princepatrice @rowdyrask @whatsafutbol (or whichever blog you want to do it on)

[godsquito]

Ok so i love your rinceflower art with every fiber of my being, but what is your all time favorite discworld book? Also sorry for liking so many of your posts its borderline stalking=p

my all-time fav is def the last continent! It’s got the best ponder content AND rincewind has already gone through most of his character arc so he’s really just tired and having an adventure on accident.

[badwasabi]

Writing Advice: Shut out shout-outs

Due to the subject matter, I included a larger-than-usual number of references in this one, just for fun. You probably won't find all eight, unless you happen to watch a certain podcast about a certain red-masked superhero and his nubile ginger sidekick partner.

Okay, so you're watching the latest Game of Thrones episode. There's tension, there's shouting, it's very dramatic, you're on the edge of your seat. What next? you think, shoveling popcorn into your mouth.

And suddenly the characters start acting out the "What?" scene from Pulp Fiction.

Your hand stops. Your brow furrows. You mouth hangs open.

This doesn't make sense. The writers just...gave up. They made no real effort to integrate the reference into Westeros. Where'd that paper bag come from? Why is the Mother of Dragons is pulling a Big Belly Burger out of it? What is this? 

I'll tell you what this is. Your hypothetical self has just encountered a bad Shout Out. 

Fanfics, especially by newbie writers, often have this classic blunder. You like Thing, you like Other Thing, you want to put them together like it's peanut butter/jelly time. Let me ask you a question; you might like a nice warm fire. You might like libraries. Would you start a nice, warm fire in the middle of a library? If I needed the insurance money. A public library. Oh. Then no. So you've added the gratuitous reference, you post the chapter, and go on your merry way. Some time later, your reader encounters the reference, and it stops them cold, completely breaking immersion. You were so worried about whether you could that you didn't ask yourself whether you should. One Mass Effect fanfic I read had the bad guys capture Garrus, hang him from a hook, and torture him. Normal enough, right? Well, it was a direct ripoff of the torture scenes from Firefly. Y'know, that "War Stories" episode. Was someone wearing Jayne's hat? Someone was, in fact, wearing Jayne's hat. In a certain Halo fanfic, one of the characters make a crack about how they hadn't seen incompetence like that since the Bush Administration of 21st century Earth. For those of you not familar with the setting, that's be like a  2016 character making a joke about some politican from 1466. Seriously, name someone from the 15th century. Christopher Columbus? Anyone else? Besides Queen Isabella? ...No. You see my point. I bought a cheap watch a year ago. Before the ants ate it*, it looked like a G-Shock. Except that it didn't have the logo, the backlight was more of a frontlight - a bad one - and none of the buttons did what the labels said they were supposed to. Shoehorning in a reference can be like that. It looks good, but the charade falls apart the second you take a closer look. A lot of shoehorned references come without the context that would make them "work" properly. It's not a big problem with individual lines, but when you have to bend the story's universe into a pretzel just to make the reference "fit", you should probably reconsider. And even individual lines can get tiresome if they're intrusive enough. Remember that ME fic I mentioned? The characters often reference popular Firefly lines. It wasn't just the one scene. Which brings me to my next point. References are a crutch, if you rely on them. And in case you're wondering, there's a difference between a pastiche or parody or satire...and an outright ripoff. Also, some works are light-hearted enough to have shedloads of references. Take Deadpool (any medium), Friendship is Magic, or Discworld. And they usually cut back on it when things get heavy, doc. Except Discord, of course, by definition. 

So how do I know when to use shout outs? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall; practice. Get constructive criticism from somewhere. Let readers tell you what works and what doesn't. Read it out loud. Ask yourself if the scene works for readers who don't get the reference. How would you fix the torture scene? Oh, that's easy. Dolores Umbridge. From Harry Potter? Yep. Wouldn't that just make the problem worse? Allow me to explain. Torture scenes are a dime a dozen. Torture scenes where the torturer has some sort of crazy philosophy are a dime a dozen. Religious conviction, punishment, intelligence gathering, Mengele knockoff, dime a dozen. You know what we don't see very often? What? Passive-aggressiveness. Think about it. Umbridge's core personality traits are cloying, syrupy sweetness over an absolute conviction that she's doing The Right Thing. This is a woman who created a brand-new way to torture people - her special quill - and used it on a child. The book said she looked like a toad, but in the films, Imelda Staunton's completely normal appearance is arguably worse. She looks like someone's mum or grandmum. And she's evil. Remember in the forest? The part where she may have been trying to kill Harry and Hermione, and she's still rationalizing? Imagine that with a torturer. She's levering your fingernails off with a scalpel, and still saying that it would really be so much easier if you would just cooperate. Do you think she enjoys hurting you? Why don't you just tell her what she needs to know? Brrr. But enough about my mother. So, in this case, remixing two references is better than using either of them alone. This has to be done well; if you had a generic torturer, but he's actually a woman wearing pink, that's not going to make much of a difference. In fact, it would be jarring for your readers, unless you're in a light-hearted work, or pink is an important color in your story. Maybe it's about "The Flamingo Killer", who always leaves their victims with a pink rose, or pink fibers have been found on the bodies, or something. Which brings me to the last piece of advice; good artists copy, great artists steal. Pretty sure I've heard that before. But what it doesn't say is that mediocre and bad artists also copy. So what's the difference between copying and stealing? Glad you asked, Timmy! Copying is imitating. Stealing is understanding, making it your own. It's the difference between tracing a piece of art and drawing it freehand. Wait. Isn't tracing really useful for learning how to draw? Yes, it is. To a certain point. Then it's better to strike out on your own. If you don't understand why something works, you can't really integrate it into your work. You won't be able to take the parts of it that work and leave the rest, you'll probably just keep ripping it off wholesale. If I may humblebrag; in my fic Ferris, the XCOM team decides that they're going to have to do something really dark. There's a regular soldier nearby, and he's horrified. He says he could never do that type of stuff. The XCOM trooper he's responding to says "That's the idea. We do it, so you don't have to." ...Is that...? Yep. The Nostalgia Critic's catchphrase. Altered and integrated. Now, if I had written "I fight aliens, so you don't have to," that would've been a lot more blatant. Did anyone notice? No one said anything, so...not as far as I know. Then what's the point? To increase the emotional impact of the scene. Instead of forcing a reference to a popular review show that would ruin the emotional impact of the scene. Executive summary: References and shout-outs can be fine, if used sparingly, or in a work where they fit the tone. If not, they'll cut the legs out from any drama you're trying to build. Try and understand why something you're trying to reference works, so you can alter it to fit the new context, instead of plopping it in your story like a scoop of chocolate ice cream on a cheesecake. What type of cheesecake? Boysenberry. Oooh! I love boysenberry pie! Good hunting, Jon PS: Let's talk about obtrusive fandom jokes. For example, take all the RWBY fics that substitute "Monty" for "God". If you don't know who Monty Oum was (creator of the series), it's just a weird joke or some kind of reference you don't get. If you do, then it's a fandom joke with worrying theological implications, since Ren was voiced by Monty. Does that make him Remnant's Jesus, or some kind of avatar of their Creator? Either road, it completely destroys the seriousness of a scene. Imagine if Frodo and Sam swore "by Tolkien", or Captain Picard by "Roddenberry", or Marvel characters by "Stan".

Actually, let's dig deep. You know all those Stan Lee cameos in the MCU? They all fit in even if you don't know who Lee is. You could replace Lee with a bunch of random actors, and with maybe one exception (Avengers), they all make sense. They're funny by necessity, because you can't do something like that without tongue in cheek. I can only remember one dramatic cameo, and that was in Incredible Hulk. The "Monty" joke doesn't have any of that. It can't be justified in the context of the series, unlike a bunch of random old guys throughout the universe who happen to look like Stan Lee. TL DR: If your fandom references don't fit unless your reader knows the context, change them or get rid of them. If you're trying to use an injoke in a serious scene, change it or get rid of it. * More precisely, the watchband. They'll eat anything rubber. 

[ My writing advice posts | Chronological order ]

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Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' as Amigurumi Crocheted by PlanetJune: 👉 https://buff.ly/3Ia9e6T