🌌Rhaelyn🌌 @forevers-world - Tumblr Blog

more monstrous regiment doodles

*Spoilers for Monstrous Regiment*

Terry Pratchett really is something else when it comes to writing. I just finished Monstrous Regiment and it's an absolute blast to read. I'm amazed he could make the victory and ending so profoundly sad.

Yes Polly finds her brother, Shufti finds her man (and rightly tells him to get fucked) and the squad bring victory and a change to an ass backwards country.

But, the squad becomes idols and not soldiers that they want to be. Woman can be in the army but the ones at the top are no better than the men at starting wars.

And at the end, war still happens. The squad won a 6 month break from another bullshit conflict. This is a realistic conflict, this is realistic fantasy. It's not 100 hours of sex and everyone only wearing black and grey all the time. It's people being stubborn, funny, loving, looking for betterment and ending slightly sad.

krowbby

polly:

sarge telling people every day:

bonus from tonker:

dog-botherer

There is something so heartwarming about Sam Vimes introducing himself to Polly and Maladict as just Sam Vimes. He may not like being called your grace, but hes not shy about correcting over familiarity in those he thinks haven't earnt it. So to invite that familiarity to them is such a big thing to me

discworldquotes

“And what authority has this meeting got?” said Polly coldly. “Thousands of men under arms,” said Clogston. “Sorry. The trouble is, when you say to a general ‘you and whose army?’ he just has to point out of the window.”

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

pratchettquotes

The Duchess was smaller than she'd thought. But if you had to protect it by standing in the doorway with a sword, you were too late. Caring for small things had to start with caring for big things, and maybe the world wasn't big enough.

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

mr-sardelli

Monstrous Regiment - The Duchess is Watching You

It was a poor woodcut, hand-coloured mostly in blue and red. It was of a plain, middle-aged woman whose sagging chin and slightly bulging eyes gave the cynical the feeling that someone had put a large fish in a dress, but the artist had managed to capture something extra in that strange, blank expression. Some pictures had eyes that followed you around the room; this one looked right through you. It was a face you found in every home.

An irrelevant background side note: I did these illustrations in one of these wooden houses in an isolated village deep in the Carpatian Mountains (Slovakia). It's quite a retrograde and religious place, and you can find these..woodworks, icons and eerily looking paintings of saints in every house in every room...so you can imagine it did have quite the vibe for illustrating some parts from the book in this place as I brought the book with me.

unhappytogekiss

Polly Perks is very asexual coded

So I was reading my fave discworld book once again (monstrous regiment, it is good) and caught this passage

“So The Duchess would go to Paul if he was alive, or if he was dead it was allowable for it to go to Polly’s husband if she was married. And since Polly saw no prospect of that, she needed a brother.”

A lot of the book is an exploration of feminity and masculinity in a highly patriarchal society and as such, Polly also muses about sexuality. But she does so in a very detached way. She knows about all the sex and that, but she doesn't want to partcipate in it. It's just sort of over there and there's a disbelief that it could drive someone to act.

As a woman, Polly is flirted with by men and rejects them. As a man, Polly is flirted with by women and equally rejects them. (much of this is played for laughs in a very pantomime way)

She's got more important things to worry about, and just like her gender was back at the Duchess, the comp het nature of society is Getting in her Way. If sexuality is important at all, it's used as a tool to trick people.

I don't think Polly actually understands why someone's sexual attraction would be important to them. It's just something people do, that she does not do.

Growing up asexual, and not realising it until my 20s, felt so similar. When I was a teenager everyone was obsessed with sex and not destroying capitalism and I Could Not Work Out Why.

sunnydnipplebottle

“Towering went on. He gave Polly the steady, honest gaze of the born bastard. Polly held it, lie for lie.”

plakychayaivva

- For someone who ranted about women not being banquet decorations, you look like you're having too much fun, Perks.

- Hey, I'm already here. I might as well enjoy it - out of pure spite for those morons.

____________

ISWEAR I was going for the vamp het but these women do not give a damn-

Not sure about this one but here we go I guess

onetobeamupart

sergeant jackrum ur lads r being suspiciously gay come get them

pratchettquotes

At which point, Polly decided that she knew enough of the truth to be going on with. The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

mr-sardelli

Monstrous Regiment: Lieutenant Blouse - Old Pencil Thumbnails

Now Towering was laughing. He was far too relaxed for a bound man, and Blouse sounded far too much like a nice but worried man trying to appear firm and determined. To Polly, it was like watching a child bluffing in poker against a man called Doc.

‘A word in private, Perks?’ snapped Blouse. He drew her closer, but Polly kept her eye on Sergeant Towering. He might be bound hand and foot, but she wouldn’t have trusted a man who grinned like that if he’d been nailed to the ceiling.

‘Perks, you are making a great contribution but I really will not have my orders continually questioned,’ said Blouse.

‘You are my batman, after all. I think I run a “happy ship” here, but I will be obeyed. Please?’

It was like being savaged by a goldfish, but she had to admit he had a point.