Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

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.

flvffs asked: anyway i saw your tag on marathoning mad max and wonder woman and pacific rim all in one day and honestly y e s

I’m fucking serious as fuck about this.  @lathori when you come up to visit me, we should do this, yes or yes?

THE TRINITY TBH.  MOTHER, DAUGHTER, AND HOLY GODDESS.

bakasara:

kaylapocalypse:

kaylapocalypse:

cailleachan:

has anyone else noticed there’s a very specific way women interrupt each other in conversation that’s quite distinct from the way men interrupt women in conversation? like, women seem to interject a lot more– not as a silencing tactic, but to show their enthusiasm or agreement, cause they perceive a conversation as kind of collaborative, organic exercise. but i feel like men get really annoyed if you excitedly interject when they’re saying something (most specifically in a debate/discussion context) because they perceive conversation as something combative or competitive and see an interjection as a threat or a challenge. i’ve also noticed men dismiss women’s way of talking as being sort of incomprehensible and nonsensical because of this habit we have of seeming to butt in or finish each others sentences excitably. 

This was actually very interestingly used in Mad Max and was a stylistic choice in the way the wives spoke to each other, or at other people as a collective.

They finished each others sentences, interjected constantly, echoed important points in reverence/understanding/agreement and relied on each other to complete the communication of a thought or a concept to someone outside their circle.  

So like, instead of one of them explaining something, they would all add fragments to form a complete thought.
____

The Vuvalini: What’s there to find at the Citadel?

Max: Green.

Toast: And water. There’s a ridiculous amount of clear water. And a lot of crops.

The Dag: It’s got everything you need, as long as you’re not afraid of heights.

Keeper of the Seeds: Where does the water come from?

Toast: [regarding Immortan Joe] He pumps it up from deep within the earth. He calls it “Aqua Cola” and claims it all for himself.

The Dag: And because he owns it, he owns all of us.
_____
Capable: We are not things!

Cheedo: No!

The Dag: Cheedo, we are not things!

Capable: We are not things.

Cheedo: I don’t want to hear that again!

Capable: They were her words.

Cheedo: And now she’s dead!

The Dag: Wring your hands and tear your hair, but you’re not going back. You’re not going back to him.
___

Interestingly, the Vuvalini do this as well. 

Everyone else in the movie (including furiosa!) speaks in short definitive statements or exclamations that cannot be piled upon or interrupted. So this was definitely done on purpose. 

its very cool.

 I wonder if this is just a thing in english/western culture or if other groups of women speak to each other like this?

also theirs a bunch of people in the notes fighting about “I HATE GETTING INTERRUPTED”

This isn’t so much a classic “interruption”.  like when someone talks over you to change the subject or say something unrelated or better than what you’re saying and stealing the attention from you,etc.

Its more like the person doing the interruption is expecting you not to really stop talking, or expects you to finish your thought, and is only interrupting to agree/ interject a footnote that is contributory, but not distracting.

So it would look like.

Woman 1 and 2 telling a story to woman 3:

Woman 1 “We sat down and he brought out this really good green tea-
Woman 2: –but it was the powder kind of green tea not the bag kind–
Woman1: –yeah and he brought out these really cool whisks and let us do it ourselves–
Woman 2: and Woman 1 frothed hers so much she had nothing left!
Woman 3: omg did you like it? was it good?
Woman 1 and 2 in unison: Yes! 
Woman 1: We should go again together sometime.
Woman 2- yeah I think you’d really like it too!

 See how Woman 1 is the alpha speaker (the person telling the story) and Woman 2 is the…. hype man? for lack of a better word. Every sentence that Woman 1 says is the story, and woman 2 is adding smaller clarification related details. And when she adds a dynamic detail  “had nothing left!” it is an excited interjection that continues the story, without taking ownership of the topic. 

Woman 3 will walk away from this conversation feeling that Woman 1 was the expert on this situation, but that Woman 2 had a particularly exciting time.

there was a study on this precisely that I read about, though I’ll need my pc to retrieve it. It was about how women tendentially see conversation as collaborative while men tendentially treat it as competitive, thus women usually interrupt to agree/interject to encourage, while men more often interrupt to talk over and/or demonstrate superior knowledge on a topic.

(Source: yellowtheatricalsilk, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Polecats: Fucking Nightmares

once-a-polecat:

icarus-suraki:

The Polecats are fucking nightmares. 

They are fucking nightmares.

They will fuck you up.

Don’t argue with me, just drive faster.

Headcanon and Thoughts:

• My speculation is that the Polecats are a Gas Town specialty. You just don’t see them in the Citadel or the Bullet Farm. 
• The idea and method came out of climbing up and down the refinery towers and riding on oil derricks, among other oil-and-gas work that goes on in Gas Town.
  
• The swinging poles technique wound up being a great way to drop someone in on top of a target. Everything in this world is ground-based and on wheels or treads. Getting up above things is a challenge but an advantage. 
• It’s also an amazingly effective psychological attack: motherfuckers up on poles gonna swing down on top of you and you can’t do anything about it scream.
• They are fucking nightmares.
  
• It’s just such a crazy idea; I love it as a world-building thing
• The Polecats work in teams of two (or three): one to climb on top of the pole, the other(s) to swing it. 
• In regards to the teamwork and communication required, it’s not so unlike the Driver-Lancer teamwork among the Warboys. 
• They also work as sentries or lookouts by sitting on top of stationary poles and are sometimes loaned (with interest expected to be paid) to the other two settlements for that very purpose as well as for attacks. 
• They assemble their own masks and battle gear and weapons.
  
• The Polecats are regarded with something like respect in Gas Town. They’ve got a wild kind of skill. 
  
• They swing on the poles for fun and to show off for each other.
• They are also balls-to-the-wall out of their heads. Hence the respect, I guess. Balls-to-the-fucking-wall out of their heads. Do not mess with them.
  
• Swinging on a pole, armed with weaponized yard equipment, fully prepared to bring death from above–yeah, that’ll do it to you.
  
• Balls-to-the-wall out of their heads.
• BALLS-TO-THE-WALL OUT OF THEIR HEADS.
  
• Fucking nightmares, all of them. 
• Nightmares.
• Mutilated babydoll faces with nails hammered in them on the backs of their heads what the fuck???
• NIGHTMARES.
• So amazing. 
• But much more Generic Villain than the Warboys and their machinery death cult, despite the fact that their costuming is more overtly individualized than the Warboys gear. All their masks and gear are different; all the Warboys wear uniforms. Totally fascinating; well played, moviemakers. 
• Bonus: I hear some of the stunt performers played both Warboys and Polecats, and full-face masks would help hide that.
  
• The first time I saw a still photo of the Polecats up on their poles, my exact thought process was, “Whoa. That shit’s fucked up. … … … I gotta see this in action.”
  
• And they really did this shit. 
• That’s a real dude up on that swinging pole.
• A real dude
• On a swinging pole.
• Nightmare apocalypse Cirque du Soleil in the desert–why not???
• Shit’s fucked up.
• I have seen it in cinematic action >1x
• Rad as hell.

Just going tho throw this out there from one of the stuntmen who actually flew on the things: https://instagram.com/p/2vBanFSYvk/

(via fuckyeahisawthat)

Anonymous asked: BUT HOW DO YOU CATCH EVERYONES NAMES IN MAD MAX I JUST COULDNT NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRIED PLEASE SEND HELP

Wikipedia, Google, Tumblr, and this, my dude.  The end result is that I have a borderline encyclopedic knowledge of the characters in Fury Road.  Honestly I’m pretty sure like half of them don’t even get named in-movie, the script is probably like six pages.

Rewatching Fury Road while tipsy because houseguest, and SOME THOUGHTS: 

• The Doof Warrior is so fucking extra, I love him with my whole heart because.  What.

• Furiosa straight up tries to kill Max in that first fight.  Like, he KNOWS the shotgun isn’t loaded and furthermore he wastes THREE bullets on nonlethal warning shots.  SHE, on the other hand, does NOT know that, and tries to blow his head off with the shotgun, bash his skull in with the boltcutters, and shoot him in the temple with the handgun.

• There is nothing I love more than that scene where Immortan Joe is coming up on them and they’re Definitely Screwed and then the door opens to reveal Angharad clinging to the outside of the rig to shield them with her body.  So fucking good, God I love her so much.

• The Vuvalini make me so happy.  “I’m eighty years old heRE COMES THE HURRICANE.”

• This movie is a really good exercise in one of my favorite lines: There’s nothing more dangerous than a true believer.  And not just with the War Boys!  Joe has totally bought into his own propaganda, that’s WHY he’s so dangerous.

• This movie is also ALL about Actions Speak Louder Than Words.  It doesn’t matter what Nux or Max says, it matters that Max warns Furiosa about the oncoming war parties and is willing to drive the rig to save them all, it matters that Nux helps them escape the Bullet Farmer, it matters that Max lets Furiosa use him as a rifle rest.

• “Remember me?”  FURIOSA.  MY LOVE.  FUCK ME UP.  FUCKING ICONIC.

• The loop of “Witness me” from the kami-crazy War Boy death chant to Nux’s final whisper before he saves the Wives and Max and Furiosa always wrecks me, I almost bawled in the fucking theater the first time I saw this.

• Toast is a stone-cold Slytherin and I will not hear debate.  “Don’t damage the goods.”  Come on, y’all.  Which is not to say I have strict headcanons for the others.

• HA I lied, I totally do.  Furiosa is a Slytherin/Gryffindor split who by nature of her situation chose Slytherin and falls back on that Gryffindor self over the course of the movie, Max is a Hufflepuff (a deeply traumatized Hufflepuff, but still).  Angharad is a Gryffindor to the core, using her own body to save the others because she believes in the cause.  The Dag is a Ravenclaw, exactly the kind of lunatic brilliance that Ravenclaw adores, and Capable is a Hufflepuff who throws herself into the cause for love of Angharad and for love of her people and for love of herself.  And here’s the controversial one: Cheedo is a Slytherin.  Her ambition is to survive, and she does whatever she believes must be done for that–flee the Citadel, return to Joe, lie to Rictus, all of it to achieve her goal.  Nux earns a Gryffindor for turning his back on Joe, but the War Boys are mostly not…person enough to be sorted, just puppets, an old man’s battle fodder.  Incidentally the Vuvalini are a general mix, most of them with Slytherin as an option if not a primary house, much like Furiosa.  Valkyrie is the only straight-up Gryffindor, and Keeper of the Seeds is a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff split, a rarity in the Vuvalini.

• Immortan Joe is a Slytherin/Ravenclaw split, which makes him very dangerous.

Anonymous asked: TALK TO ME ABOUT FURIOSA I LOVE HER SO MUCH

So I’ve been planning a fic for a while and I was gonna just write it here but then I realized that HA this is an ask and you seem too nice for me to dump a few (like maybe ten) thousand words in here.  So instead here are some headcanons for the fic I am writing where Max is the immortal unaging fey avatar of the desert who fetches up at people’s doorsteps and loses himself in months and lonely years without water or company, and is delighted to find Furiosa, who is growing into the immortal unaging fey avatar of green places and oases.

• Max doesn’t stay places, he leaves places, and Furiosa knows someone who leaves when she sees them.  So it shocks the hell out of her when she gets a Fury Boy (the name wasn’t her idea, it was the Dag and, well, they had to call them something other than War Boys) rushing up to her and insisting that there’s a bike coming toward them, and it’s the road warrior who fought on their side.  And she meets Max when he pulls up through the Wretched—not Wretched anymore, just people, people who look better than ever with Capable and Cheedo piecing together a cistern for the water—and he offers her the faint shadow-smile she remembers as he brings his (wrecked) bike to a halt.  He’s loaded down with a small bag of seeds, an assortment of weapons, and a sheepish expression.

• She takes herself by surprise as much as him, when she strides forward without a pause and presses their foreheads together.  His eyes are as blue and burnished as the scorched sky overhead.

• He comes back…not often, but not rarely, never gone for more than a year or so. Furiosa flatters herself that he’s glad to see her, when he returns, and her heart tightens when he begins to initiate the gentle forehead-touch of the Vuvalini.  (The third time he comes back, they have found another underground current, and they have enough water for a public bath.  She worries that Max might have drowned himself, after the third hour of him sitting in the water, but he’s still breathing.  He tells her, in his quiet, stilted way, that it’s the first time he hasn’t been thirsty in he doesn’t know how long, and she wonders about that. She wonders how he’d known that, a hundred and sixty days out, there was nothing but salt.)  

• People start to trickle in, drawn by the siren-call of water and food, because with the Wives—the Sisters, now—in charge, there is more than enough.  And Furiosa begins to hear stories, about how the Road Warrior saved people or killed tyrants or, more often than not, was dragged into a fight not his, quite against his will, and did the right thing anyway.  Here’s the thing, though.  Some of the stories are recent, just months or years past.  Others…well.  She talks to a child, who claims that her grandfather was a child when he knew Max. But Max can’t possibly be much older than she is, and she’s…Furiosa doesn’t really know.  She tries to count back in her head, but…  The Dag’s daughter Angharad is walking well, talking well, maybe seven years old.  When did that happen?  Shouldn’t Furiosa be greying, shouldn’t there be lines at her eyes and aches in her joints?

• The next time Max comes to the Citadel, she asks him how old he is.  He tells her, in his quiet way, less stilted now than when they met because he’s more at ease with her, that he doesn’t know.  But he tells her that he had a child, once, and they played in grass, and he and his wife had all the sweet clear water anyone could want.

• Furiosa goes out on a mission.  She runs out of water in a sandstorm, and she waits to die.

• She strides back into the Citadel two weeks later, and her throat is not even dry. She drinks, and it’s good, but not necessary.  Max is there, and while everyone else marvels over the fact that she’s alive, little Radi—Angharad who is not so little, who is thirteen now and as mad and gifted as her mother—touching her unlined face in wonder, Max watches her and nods.  He doesn’t need to marvel, doesn’t need to question, because he has stood in her place and felt time trickle by like water, like sand in a clenched fist.

• Furiosa remembers being a little girl, screaming for the loss of her mother and her arm and her innocence, and wishing that, if nothing else, she might live to see victory.  She has. And it seems she will live to see a good deal more.  She leaves the Citadel more and more, and she never grows thirsty, never grows tired. She has an impossible talent for finding water, for finding places where seeds will take root, and Max trails after her like a desert wraith.  (She’s not sure how long it’s been since they met, when she kisses him.  But his breath is as hot and dry as the wind under the sun, and she is growth and water and life to his desert, and he melts under her touch.)

• She leaves for good, when Radi is old enough to take her place as Fury, the Citadel’s Road Warrior, and she and Max wander.  They will not die.  The desert has been fed for too long to be taken by the green places, but life is tenacious and neither will Max’s desert swallow Furiosa’s green places whole.  It’s an uneasy truce, between his and hers, but it stands.

editingatwork:

You know what line gets me every time I watch MAD MAX FURY ROAD? 

“Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.”

Think about that. “Addicted to water.” It makes it sound like water is an extra luxury that people don’t need but are greedy for, something they should be able to go without, and if they are desperate for it, it’s their own fault, and not the fault of the man who has all of it, and withholds it.

Think about how the people in power tell us not to be greedy for the things we need, like healthcare, like a living wage, like the right to be free of fear and violence in our own communities. The people in power tell us not to be greedy for these things, when they themselves already enjoy them freely, and withhold them from us.

Don’t trust the narrative that tells us we’re being greedy by asking for things that we need.

Don’t trust the asshole sitting on a grassy hilltop with his hand on the spigot telling us not to be greedy for water.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

flvffs asked: top six female characters (if this is still running??)

Oooo-hooo-hooo, it’s been a goddamn WHILE since I went into my inbox, yeah, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.  But yes!  This is still going!  This is the top six meme, for those of you who (justifiably) have forgotten since a month ago.

Also, this ask if just goddamn MEAN.  How???  Am I supposed to pick????

By cheating ruthlessly, that’s how.

Books

• Jamethiel Priest’s-bane, of the Kencyrath Chronicles, because she’s fierce as fuck and rides a rathorn into battle and is probably going to end the world.  Literally what else could you WANT in a character.

• Harimad-sol AKA Harry Crewe and Lady Aerin Dragon-killer, and I’m cheating MORE by putting them in the same category because they’re from the same series.  They are my beloved childhood friends and heroes, okay, the Blue Sword and the Hero and the Crown are goddamn glorious.

• RACHEL.  Because GODDAMN ANIMORPHS.  I’m not going to say more because I’m writing an epic rant about every book as I reread it.  Also Cassie gets honorary mention because GODDAMN CASSIE.

• Hermione Granger.  C’mon, y’all, I’m part of the Harry Potter generation and I’m a Gryffindor, Hermione is basically mandatory for this list.

• Kitsune Yukiko from Stormdancer, my L O V E.  Someone come cry with me.

• Um!  Um!  I only have one more, um!  THERE ARE TOO MANY.  Fuck it, Galadriel.  And Arwen.  They’re tied for LOTR lady-love.  With Eowyn as a close second.

Movies/TV

• IMPERATOR FURIOSA, ‘nuff said.

• The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, because I’m literally watching Miss Fisher right now and remembering that I adore this show and have the worst crush on Phryne.  Also her lesbian doctor friend is awesome.

• Buffy Goddamn Summers.  

• Echo from Dollhouse.  “I’m not broken.”  And honorary mention to Dolores from Westworld.  “I imagined a narrative where I wasn’t the victim.”  God, stories about empty bodies being filled up with souls are my SHIT.

• Rey.  And General Leia Organa.

• MAKO MOTHERFUCKIN’ JAEGER-DRIVIN’ KAIJU-STOMPIN’ MORI

Comics

• Rogue.  I like shitkicker comics Rogue a lot more than movie Rogue, not gonna lie to you.

• Natasha Goddamn Romanoff.  

• Wonder Woman.  Because she’s fucking Wonder Woman.

• Kitty Pryde.  I feel that she has been grievously wronged by the movies and I’ve taken it very personally.

• Ororo fucking Monroe, god, Storm is everything to me, she’s a goddess.

• Jean Grey.  I know a lot of people think Jean is…I don’t know, boring or something?  But I just.  I love her a lot, I got started on the comics rather than the original movies, and Sophie Turner CRUSHED IT in Apocalypse.