Anonymous asked: Do you mind doing Max from Mad Max Fury Road for the headcanon meme?
Hell yeah headcanon meme. Full disclosure: I have not seen the other
Mad Max movies, and I am Out Of It right now.
A: what I think realistically
It takes time for Max to return to the
Citadel for good—time to feel less like he’s breaking apart at the seams when
people speak to him—but that’s not to say he doesn’t return. He hasn’t had what
he might call Real Feelings in long time, longer than even he really knows, but
bending over Furiosa in the truck, cupping the nape of her neck in rough hands
made gentle through sheer desperation, feeling her flesh hand clutch at him as
she tries to say bring them home—he knows,
in this blinding stroke of insight, exactly how screwed he is. He let this woman touch him, let her help
him, let her rest a rifle on his shoulder and without thinking twice trusted
that she wouldn’t turn it on him.
He leaves the Citadel, with a bike
loaded with water and rations and ammo.
He comes back again with a kid on the
back of his bike and a grenade belt and a new set of points on his map, and
wordlessly turns the former over, keeps the second, and shows them the latter.
The next time he comes back, he has a
truck and no explanations and no kids, but he shows up two days ahead of a
small exodus of desperate people who need help—we were told that there was water—and who have this story about how
the man in the truck got sucked into their drama and then told them about the
Citadel and never gave his name. Max is
gone by the time Furiosa hears this story, and she sighs, and sets about
finding these people something to do.
This is how it will be, then, she
decides the third time the hail goes up from the watchtowers—incoming!
Incoming! It’s the Road
Warrior! Get the Imperator!
She sighs, and walks down to meet him.
B: what I think is fucking hilarious
Everyone expects Max, having returned properly
to the Citadel, to immediately take on a role of prestige and grandeur. He’s the Road Warrior, the man who helped
save the Sisters and Furiosa from Immortan Joe’s grip, the man who’s been
sending them survivors and bringing them supplies, the man who was a blood bag
and a hood piece and survived a great sandstorm. Obviously
he’s instantly going to be promoted to the highest role save for Furiosa and
the Sisters themselves. Alternatively,
they would also accept ‘concubine’ as a reasonable answer, but they understand
that the Sisters might not be comfortable with that.
Um…except he’s not. He runs supply missions still, sure—sometimes
he and Furiosa run them together and everyone knows that’s Serious Business—but
as far as the majority of the Citadel is concerned, Max’s main job is…furniture? It’s his honor, of course, they always rush
to add, his honor to be favored by the Imperator, but they have questions.
Furiosa can just reach out a hand, getting
ready to leave on a mission, and snap her fingers at him, and Max will appear
beside her as if by magic so that she can balance herself on his shoulder to
get her boots on as fast as possible.
When they’re out on the Wastes, Furiosa gestures behind her and Max
compliantly sits down on the ground so that their backs are pressed together as
a support. Trying to plot a map by
spreading it awkwardly out on her hand, Furiosa gruffly calls him over and he
lets her spread it out against his back, an impromptu table. At her absolute most relaxed among the
Sisters and no one else, Furiosa will sit on the floor in front of Max (in a
chair in deference to his leg) and use his thighs as a lounge
chair/throne. One time when she was
heavily concussed and a little blood-loss-y, she dropped onto a pallet with a
huff and wordlessly flapped her hand at Max until he came over and took a seat
where she could use him as a pillow.
Max jumped out of his skin the first
time she did this (he isn’t aware that Furiosa spent three days psyching
herself up to be able to lean against him and fix a boot), but like…he’s good
with it. This is a kind of physical
contact he is learning to be good with.
And of course, he tells Furiosa in his
slow, quiet way, it’s his honor to be favored by the Imperator.
Furiosa thumps him in the shin, but
doesn’t get up.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
It’s just so distressing to think about
how Furiosa is almost certainly unconscious by the time Max tells her his
name. His most precious secret, given to
this woman as a gift, and she…she
doesn’t hear him.
D: what would never work with canon but the canon is
shit so I believe it anyway
Max is an
immortal fey avatar of the desert and Furiosa is becoming an immortal fey
avatar of green places and they’re soulmates.
It is what it is.
Unrelatedly, I really like the idea that
Furiosa, Imperatrix of the Immortan Joe, is a ‘blackthumb’ of far greater skill
than Max, while Max is significantly better at sewing and clothing repair than
she is. Furiosa has to know every inch
of the War Rig and that means that she HAS to help maintain it, and the War Rig
is undoubtedly one of the most advanced pieces of machinery they’re working
with. Obviously when she’s driving it,
she can’t do repairs, but Furiosa is an A-grade mechanic. Max…just finds it kind of restful to do
minute peaceful repetitive tasks like sewing, and, having done them A Lot to
keep his clothes intact, he’s gotten pretty good. Furiosa, on the other hand, has assembled her
outfit in significant part out of the ruins of a wife’s outfit, all long strips
of fabric wound and pinned in place, and more than that she holds status and
doesn’t care for repetitive tasks. She’s
competent, but doesn’t care for it.
