Tfw when you try to verbally tell someone irl about your fanfic and after a great deal of disjointed rambling finally have to settle for “I promise it’s really good on paper.”
I just saw somebody express disappointment that the new Watch show is intended to be “modern and inclusive”
buddy. friend. pal. half the goddamn series is about Vimes unlearning his prejudices and the other half is about Vimes’s extreme dislike of people who abuse their power. if anything I’m willing to bet they’ll tone it down outof cowardice
Samuel Vimes is the embodiment of “always punch up, never down” and if you missed that I’m not even sure we read the same books
I reserve the right to bludgeon anyone who complains about this with hardcover copies of MonstrousRegiment and Snuff.
Anyone who complains about the show being inclusive is going to get a visit from the ghost of Terry Pratchett, who is going to beat the stuffing out of them
With his meteor sword.
Over the course of the books, the Watch has acquired:
a six-foot-tall cultural dwarf
a werewolf
an ex-‘splatter’ troll (like a bouncer, but hits harder)
a openly female dwarf from a culture that severely frowns on that
an ex-slave golem who set up an organisation to slowly buy the freedom of his people
a friendly-but-determined religious missionary from a desert country named Visit-the-Infidel-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets
a zombified revolutionary a-la Enjolras
a forensic accountant poached from the Patrician
a made-from-spare-parts mad scientist coroner
Nobby Nobbs
Over the course of the same books, it has developed from your standard medieval fantasy gang-of-thugs city guards to an extremely modern police force containing:
an alchemy-based forensics department
an aeriel traffic corps
a coroners office
a forensic accountants department
drug outreach programmes run by the ex-bouncer troll
a general community policing model
It has gone from a three man graveyard of a force to a political powerhouse capable of taking on basically any real or political power on the Disc, and it has done so in large part because of the reputation of its commander as a man who will tackle any crime, at any level, against any opponent, up to and including ancient demons and the gods themselves, or even the commander himself, to protect the rights of any Joe Soap on the street to be an idiot without getting shafted for it.
I mean. ‘Modern and inclusive’ don’t even cover it, you know?
in Men at Arms, Vimes takes a moment to wonder how many watchmen have had his badge before him, and who will have it after, and the idea of Sam Vimes dying hit me like a sledgehammer (again) and god I bet they retire the badge number after he finally dies. no one else can be #177. fucking hell.
Imagine Carrot slipping the badge into Vimes’ coffin. It’s not technically a dwarf burial, because badge 177 isn’t technically a weapon.
But it should be plenty for Commander Sam Vimes, in case he encounters…anything.
It’s a tool.
It’s not technically a dwarf burial. But Carrot’s probably been quietly retiring badges belonging to active Watch when they go because they’re tools. To use someone else’s tool after death is, as we see in I believe it’s Feet of Clay, Terrible.
Of course Carrot would retire it. The man has the Summoning Dark on his wrist. He needs all the tools he’s got.
no of course I’m not crying, this place is just infested with chopped onions
if youve never physically been in the presence of like, a real live wolf, and you probably wont get the chance to, heres some stuff about them you should know
a wolf’s fur is so unbelievably thick that you can get like, your whole hand into it while petting. and then you can keep going
wolves are a lot bigger than you think they are. think about how big you think a wolf is then just like double that
they dont really smell like dog but they DO smell and youre not going to be able to figure out if its a good smell or not
a wolf really wants to lick the inside of your mouth. he will not stop trying to lick the inside of your mouth at any cost, and generally speaking you need to press your lips together kind of tightly when he approaches your face so that he doesnt worm his damn tongue in there to give you what he thinks is an appropriate greeting
a wolf doesnt really want to look at you while you pet him but he wants you to pet him. hes embarrassed
if a grown ass wolf decides to lay down on you, you just have to deal with it and thats your life now
young wolves, much like young dogs, are overwhelmingly goofy and stupid. a teenage wolf will see your very fragile, very human shoulder and go “i can probably step on that with my full weight” and then he will do it
letting a wolf eat out of your hand is actually not remotely frightening, and youll want to do it all day
i know ive talked about this before but we literally have no reason not to bring the original gay flag made in the 70s by gilbert baker back to regular use!
the pink originally symbolized sex and the turquoise was for magic/art and it would just be really cool if we could bring both the stripes back into regular use again since there wasn’t any significance behind the removal of the stripes and we’re perfectly capable of mass producing flags with all the stripes again!
if anyone is interested, in 2017, shortly before he died, gilbert baker added a 9th stripe in lavender to represent diversity, partly in response to trump’s election. while i dont expect it to gain any kind of widespread usage, it is an interesting fact!
konekorambles 