#alice 'wazzer' goom

[chokopoppo]

So something I love about Wazzer Goom is the fact that, in media res, she's a full blown heretic. She's extremely religious, she's extremely pious, AND her belief system towards the end of the book is predicated on the fact that the church Is Wrong, and she Is Right.

The fact that she actually is right doesn't change the fact that this is the dictionary definition of heresy. And I love it. We Stan A Heretic

However, I think it's interesting! Polly's narration frames the end of Nugganatic Law as a sort of undisputed good within the culture, and the Zlobenian ambassador to Ankh Morpork says that the ban on Nugganatic Churches in Zlobenia was similarly well-received towards the beginning of the book, but I wonder how true that is, at least in the short term. We know there are people, and institutions, with power derived from Nugganatic Law. I find it hard to believe that those people are going to be as willing to let go of the control they have over their communities; and I suspect they would defend that power using the same communities they derive it from.

Who's to say Nugganatic preachers aren't warning their congregations post-book away from The Heretic, Wazzer Goom? She's dangerous. She's insane.

What I'm saying is that Borogravia is due for a schism, big time. And I personally can't wait to see it

[cirr0stratus]

You fear tomorrow, and you've made your fear your god.

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heavily inspired by THIS post

[asparklethatisblue]

Good Borogravian girls...

The backstories of the (human) members of the Monstrous Regiment squad, and what pushed them into joining up

[dimity-lawn]

[cirr0stratus]

YO THIS LOOK JUST LIKE MY DRAWING OF WAZ AND THE DUCHESS!!! THIS IS SO COOL!!!

Wazzer and The Duchess

I reread monstrous regiment and I’m in love with this book again

[gaybriar]

anyway in my feverish thinkings re monstrous regiment i feel we do not give enough time to mentally ill, sopping wet little freaks whose entire gender thing is just like. hey its RELIGION time. alice ‘wazzer’ goom i am looking at u under a microscope

[pdalicedraws]

Found this old drawing and added a little more light and dark to it... it’s definitely old but I still like it for what it is.

[iowiymiw]

"What if Joan of Arc was a weird girl" Uh, her NAME is Alice "Wazzer" Goom and she deserves THE WORLD. be nice

[chokopoppo]

Lying on the ground, sobbing, weeping, etc.

I think I was incoherent before but I LOVE the composition and the colors! I love this interpretation of the wayfinding scene, the way you visually portray the sounds and sensations of this sequence without having a visual to go on. The hands… look amazing… you get that sense of desperation, and a kind of creepy-crawly feeling of unseen hands grasping

Anyway if you’re following me for MR stuff but not Orthus what are you DOING, go look at all of their stuff at once

HELLO I don’t usually do art for other people’s fics but I had to. I HAD TO.

Anyways please read FEVER if you liked Monstrous Regiment and especially if you like Wazzer Goom. It's by @chokopoppo who is a brilliant writer and is so insane about this book in the best way possible. This fucking fic, man. God.

Link to the fic:

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Every Woman Writer

Hello, lovely writer!

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things).

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink, whether commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms, and the trust associated with it. Sometimes-but-not-always relatedly, idealism. I guess the two combined might be, in general, the idea of nobility of character and what that means.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff.

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

– Eucatastrophe.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex.

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Fandom: Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Characters/Groups: Bathsheba Everdene

One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in other characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. I’d also love to read something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual were more overtly magical.

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Fandom: Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

Characters/Groups: Polly "Ozzer" Perks & Jack Jackrum, Polly Perks & Maladict, Magda "Tonker" Halter & Tilda "Lofty" Tewt, Polly "Ozzer" Perks, Alice "Wazzer" Goom, Jack Jackrum, Mildred Froc

Give me all the loyalty kink for this fandom. Characters rescuing each other from peril, risking their reputation or position or ethics to defend each other, accomplishing the impossible or sacrificing things without even thinking twice because one trusts the other’s orders or judgment. Or A not going off the leash or into danger to defend B because B said not to, to protect A’s conscience or life or reputation. Can be romantic or platonic - I ship Polly/Mal and Tonker/Lofty, but I would also be delighted with Polly&Jackrum, Wazzer&Polly, or other non-romantic twosomes or moresomes in situations of loyalty and trust. Maybe Polly sends Mal on a dangerous mission, or Tonker is captured after she and Lofty burn down another place where women and girls are being abused, or Polly protects Jackrum’s secret/s from someone who could reveal them, or Wazzer ends up in the field again with the general’s retinue and Polly and Mal rescue her from danger (or vice versa!!). What strengths or sacrifices do they have at their disposal for each other?

Pratchett-esque voices would be great. He’s really, really good at sucker-punching the reader with sincerity in an overall satiric mode, and I think that style lends itself well to this sort of thing.

I’m not going to lie, Polly is my fave. I like that this could have been a generic coming-of-age or women-in-war story, where the protagonist learns that she’s brave or worthwhile and then the crisis is past, but instead Polly learns that she’s a cunning bastard and a hell of a sergeant, and being a one-off hero in a country that’s at peace and making slow social progress isn’t good enough for her. That said, just because I’m better able to articulate what I like about Polly doesn’t mean I’d be less excited for fic about anyone else! And I know that we might have matched on single characters, rather than groups, and that’s just fine. I think that’s something I’d want to explore for any of the characters who enlist in the course of the story - what are these women good at? What lets them fulfill their potential? What do they want when their hand isn’t being forced? I guess that for most of the regiment this would be post-canon and for Jackrum or Froc it’d be backstory. How’d Jackrum go from enlisting for Reasons to being the career sergeant of canon? What’s Froc’s relationship to the Duchess been like over the years, as someone who met her in person?

If you’re going the Polly/Mal route, I also love ludicrous levels of sexual tension in a military context (I think it’s the unavoidable proximity + the presence of others making it hard to act on it).

Fandom-specific DNW: vampire romance tropes (such as turning and/or immortality) as focus; non-female pronouns/headcanons.

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Fandom: Original Work

Characters: Commissioned Officer & Non-Commissioned Officer, Female Re-Enactor Playing Male Soldier & Female Re-Enactor Playing Woman, Chaotic good Berserker & Officer she's absolutely loyal to, Crossdressing Fugitive Princess

Um, so, I’ve never requested original work before, but these are...certainly some options that play well with my general likes. Something that I also notice across these requests, other than the fact that most of them are military-related or otherwise have to do with clothing and/or women doing “man” stuff, is that there are a lot of options for exploring how characters with different skillsets and/or values play together. When there’s a problem to solve, especially in a high-risk and high-emotion situation, what happens when they don’t agree on what to do?

As far as setting goes, I think I’d been envisioning the CO & NCO and Berserker & Officer as taking place in a setting that’s removed from us in some way - whether that’s a fictionalized version of a historic military where women can be soldiers, actual historic settings where both are cross-dressing as men, total fantasy settings or future space settings. Likewise I imagine the Fugitive Princess might work better in a fictional or historical setting. The re-enactor pairing could be in our real present day in a way that might not work for the others, but it could equally well be future people or fantasy people!

Romance between any of these pairs, or between the Crossdressing Fugitive Princess and a female character - whether a rival or tyrant she’s a fugitive from, an old ally, someone new she meets while in disguise - is lovely :D (I neglected to officially DNW this so I suppose I could be screwed, but I don’t want het for these. I’m also less interested in, like, orc or goblin characters if you write a fantasy setting, but I didn’t think to DNW that either. :|)

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Fandom: Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Neviril, Aaeru & Neviril, Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Mamiina

Simoun somehow ended up being a really weirdly meaningful show to me. I loved how all these women got to be flawed and fucked-up, noble and loyal. How, in the mold of all my favorite epic shoujo anime, it starts off beautiful and fine and then Shit Gets Very Real and that’s actually one of the themes of the show - we had a little debate on FFA as to whether or not Simoun was a military canon, and the fact that circumstances have remade a team of priestesses in fancy quarters and magic flying machines who are there to pray to God, put off their choice of sex, use their talents, maintain or claw their way into a social position, into a military force involved in a war - that’s an idea that the characters themselves struggle with in the show. (Neviril’s scene in the hearing is one of my favorites.) How everyone gets character development, in the sense of learning and changing, and even what seem like annoying mandatory straight subplots actually end up serving that thematic or character development, to say nothing of the more focal relationships between the leads (not just Neviril and Aeru, but also Mamiina and Rodoreamon, Neviril and Paraietta…)

I’d really like to read a fic where an individual character’s development or two characters’ relationship is similarly tied in to plot developments; it doesn’t have to be a plotty fic as such, but I was very interested in the way the developments of the war and the pilots/priestesses’ actions in it precipitated changes in their relationships. So how might Neviril and Aeru’s relationship develop in the other world (what are they doing?), or Mamiina and Rodoreamon’s on the Messis when they’re not the narrative focus before Mamiina’s last mission and the braid thing? (Or if this is more your speed, dig into that and see how a character grows or the relationship between characters develops when that’s not being moved along by outside events in the same way, especially if they’re aware of that being an issue. When Neviril and Aeru are outside the normal flow of time, or Paraietta ends up a civilian, for example.) I’m also interested in all the permutations of loyalty we see in the show - like loyalty to a position over loyalty to a side (as with the Plumbish priestesses’ siding with our Sibyllae), loyalty that develops before liking or friendship, the devoted loyalty to Neviril. I like the show’s military themes despite its magical-girl visuals. I think this is also a canon where it would make sense for sexual first times to be part of a fic - what does that mean for the characters you choose?

I should also say that due to all the magic and timespace warping in the show, I am more than okay with post-canon fic that gets characters back together who were separated by canon, if that’s what you want. You can resurrect Mamiina, or have Neviril and Aeru visit the main reality/timeline again. Or play with timespace even more - time loop fic?

[chokopoppo]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Maladict/Polly "Ozzer" Perks/Alice "Wazzer" Goom Characters: Polly "Ozzer" Perks, Maladict (Discworld), Blouse (Discworld), Original Characters Additional Tags: Non-Graphic Violence, Military, Intrigue, Minor Character Death Series: Part 7 of Six Months Passed. Summary:

“You understand, of course, Perks,” Blouse says, “this could be quite difficult for your career.”

“Yes, sir,” Polly says. “But this isn’t about my career. It’s about my country.”

“Yes,” Blouse says. “Yes, I thought you might say something like that.”

[chokopoppo]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alice “Wazzer” Goom & Mildred Froc Characters: Alice "Wazzer" Goom, Mildred Froc, Sacharissa Cripslock, Otto von Chriek, Original Characters Additional Tags: Politics, Plot, Religious Discussion, Visions Series: Part 6 of Six Months Passed. Summary:

Alice Goom makes her choice.

[chokopoppo]

Chapters: 3/4 Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alice “Wazzer” Goom & Mildred Froc Characters: Alice “Wazzer” Goom, Mildred Froc, Igorina (Discworld), Original Characters Additional Tags: Politics, Plot, Religious Discussion, Visions Series: Part 6 of Six Months Passed.

Alice finds herself at the bottom of a well, sitting in water up to her chest. It soaks through her shift, cold and shockingly real. She gasps in relief. The water is cool and dark as the shade on a hot day. She glances up to see a distant, perfect circle of blue. It must be August, sticky and staggering somewhere just out of reach. “Why am I here?” She asks aloud. “You are here to ask the question,” says the water. It has a deep, feminine voice, caressing her skin as it laps at the stone walls. “What is the question?” “That is up to you.”

[chokopoppo]

Chapters: 4/4 (COMPLETE) Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alice “Wazzer” Goom & Mildred Froc Characters: Alice “Wazzer” Goom, Mildred Froc, Original Characters Additional Tags: Politics, Plot, Religious Discussion, Visions Series: Part 6 of Six Months Passed.

The courtyard is dimly lit, and the stables are very dark. The spring night is cold, and Alice puts her coat on. Over it, she buckles one of the baldrics from the light hunting armory and a leather belt for security, and pauses with her hand over a sword in its scabbard. Alice has never been particularly at home with weapons, even after her time in the army. She grabs it with one hand, surprised (as always) by its substantial weight, and squints at it. After a moment, she lifts it with the blade pointed up, gripping the hilt tightly with both hands as her arms tremble with the effort of holding it still. “You will be mine, and you will obey me,” she tells it sternly. “We will go together, and I will be a kind of master to you. You will not leap free, or disobey, or succumb to your lust for blood. When I call, you will heel.” The sword does not answer, because it is a sword, but she feels better for saying it. She sheathes it, and delicately buckles it into her baldric near the hip. The white horse, who she had ridden in the famous march on the palace, has been kept in the stables. He’s an athletic stallion, well-cleaned and good tempered, and she feels a fleeting, silly sort of kinship with him. He had just been a cheap thing to train, acquired for her because white had somehow seemed the right color for the moment, and now he’s been trained into a sort of celebrity. They had trotted him out at some point in the proceedings of the presentation, let the soldiers look on at his coat, and he had probably spent the whole time wondering when dinner was. She strokes his nose until he pulls his head away, snorting, then opens his pen, brushes him, blankets and saddles him. He takes his bridle obediently, and she strokes his neck, reveling in his strength, his coat, his warmth. As with weapons, she is not at home around horses, and does not know if he is ten or twelve or fourteen hands. But she knows that he is powerful, that he is alive. She mounts him. She rides. 

[dimity-lawn]

If Monstrous Regiment ever gets made into a movie, David Tennant could play Lieutenant Blouse.

Me to myself as I type: hehe… LieuTennant.

[dimity-lawn]

Yesterday evening I found out what Carborundum looks like and had a sort of Pratchett induced I can't believe I missed that moment: Carborundum is rainbow.