lianabrooks:

mickmercury:

• cheery accidentally called him ‘dad’ once and he replied without thinking about it and then both of them silently came to the understanding that this incident would never be mentioned again
• he has at least one stupid tattoo he got as a stupid teenager. you know that one bit in Thud! about his hatred of Clues where he gives the example of a drunk 17-year-old getting a tattoo that makes people think he’s a sailor even though he can get seasick on pavement? there’s nothing hypothetical about that example
• sergeant colon is the only member of the watch who knows about it because the guy practically raised him starting in his late teens
• sybil thinks it’s cute
• he is short. childhood malnutrition will do that to a guy. but like, REALLY short.
• omnian vimes
• this isn’t even a headcanon but my favorite canon detail about him is that he lines his razor up with the Hub because he believes in folk superstition that doing that keeps it sharp? I love that so much. I love him so much
• he’s one of those people who pretty much never knows what the date is so he’s garbage at holidays and anniversaries. Sybil had to ask Sgt. Colon when his birthday was.
• total tangent but do you ever just wonder how the FUCK Nobby ended up as the quartermaster for the army of Pseudopolis????? I can’t stop thinking about this
• sometimes he goes to parties with Sybil and she manages to coax him out of whatever shadow he’s found to lurk in and dance with her. they’re both terrible at it and they have a great time, especially when people give them rude looks.
• he takes advantage of the ability to see/Know Things in the dark to creep up on people and deliver one-liners at them. what’s the point of being a boogeyman to half the world if you don’t get to be Dramatique about it
• also to sneak downstairs at night without a light and make himself the kind of sandwich that Sybil disapproves of
• but also, Young Sam is NEVER going to be able to get away with sneaking around at night? or actually anything? can you imagine having an incredibly suspicious dad who can literally always know what you’ve done in a dark room
• theres a 100% chance that Sam Vimes Arresting Anything is a meme on the Disc
• so is his list of titles

Okay, but Nobby… the thing is he never *meant* to be the quartermaster. In fact, he never meant to joining the Duke’s army. It just happened. 

He was out with Leggy and Leggy’s cousin Denephew (his sister is Denise), and they got drunk. Nobby went home with his friends but instead of Leggy ande Denephew he wound up with Marco and Phillip from

Pseudopolis

. Next thing he knows there’s a weird song playing, someone’s handing him clothes and they’re telling him to line up for chow. Mid-breakfast Nobby gets enough coffee to sober up and he realizes three things very fast 1) he’s in uniform, 2) there’s a battle about to start (someone has already chalked off the battle field and people with plumes are looking snooty), and 3) there is no good way out of this situation.

But Nobby wouldn’t be Maisie Nobbs son if he could out think someone with plumes. So, he’s standing there, with his little toast rack body and an extra biscuit from breakfast stuffed in his pocket waiting to be handed armor, and he knows this is never going to work. But the red-faced man in plumes doing all the yelling looks flustered. And Nobby thinks, “If I’m handing out the armor I can make sure there’s none for me. Which is important.” Also, those swords looks like they could make a pretty penny on the black market back in Anhk-Morpork and he knows a guy who knows a guy… 

It’s against Nobby’s nature, but just this once he sees the advantage of volunteering.

He does the Nobb’s sidle, sneaks up, and says, “’ere, I’ll handle this. You go find some tea, sir.”

And the red-faced man with plumes doesn’t even think about it. He hands over the paperwork (which Nobby might use for a roll-up later) and Nobby takes over.

By lunchtime he’s got most the armor on a cart to Anhk-Morpork for “polishing” and after the first battle he’s got a sale on boots, lightly used, you can hardly see the blood on ‘em.

Three weeks later the Duke is out of troops, boots, supplies, and armor and Nobby goes back to Anhk-Morpork where he promptly loses everything playing One Up with the Librarian in the Mended Drum. No worries though, the Duke gets into another fight with his brother-in-law and Nobby is back at his job again.

It takes several years, and a case of gout for the Duke, before Nobby’s lucrative job as Quartermaster dries up. He falls on hard times but manages to wrangle his military experience into a job with the Watch during the era of Lord Snapcase. It’s not the best job ever, but if you don’t run to fast you might not die.