#People of pigheart

[talesfromthegraavim]

Perfection Moore, Wife of Rictus Erectus, Daughter -later Wife- of The Immortan Joe. Mother of Equitus Aurelius, Filius Superbus, and Bellator Stellarus

[fionnaskyborn]

this is about how merrily people toss around the term online in certain fandom spaces and for some reason it just. hurts now. likely because of how much people around me have become desensitized to the term and how much everyone’s begun to lean into the jokes without knowing the history behind them. just saying the words “war criminal” with such glee and carelessness and of course maybe i’m being a hypocrite here because a) i am not exempt from making mistakes so there is a reasonable chance i too have done this at some point (in order to? fit in?) and b) especially in military-oriented media war criminals are in fact a thing but i feel like the way it’s being tossed around in fandom spaces means it’s lost all meaning. people just bring it up as if it’s nothing. “my favorite war criminal <3” and such. i feel like fandom in general and not just certain military media fandoms have contributed to the pair of words losing its weight in online spaces. do you realize the horror that pair of words entails. also for people who preach about the horrors of war being the key point and the most important thing in military media (which is true!) some of you sure are ignorant about the actual horrors of war being taken place but are only willing to bring this up for the purpose of making incredibly complex and realistic portrayals of someone losing their morality as a consequence of having been thrust into the war machine more shallow and pighearted, transforming them into entirely different people representing entirely different concepts in order to be able to fit them into pre-made boxes which are more easy to digest (which. hm. in this one particular case i can’t help but wonder how much the fun little word that starts with r and ends with ism has to do with it. but that’s just a theory, a game theory)

also i need to elaborate. this shit only applies to metal gear solid. i’m in a lot of military sci-fi spaces and this is quite literally the only place i’ve seen this to this great of an extent. it’s the blatant lack of media literacy and genuine disinterest with the source material that makes things as horrible as they are because, fuck, the titanfall fans i’m around have “earned their right”, so to speak, to joke around like this by analyzing the source material so thoroughly one can get the feeling that they’re treating the source material more seriously than the source material is treating itself (which is something i adore). same goes for halo, same goes for red versus blue, same goes for half life, i’ve even seen some very good horrors-of-war analysis among people who like ultrakill! i’ve seen this in guilty gear spaces also! it’s not an uncommon phenomenon at all, being acquainted with the themes of your work and seeing them for what they are and analyzing them in a way that does them justice! but some people! are incredibly fucking stupid, i’ve learned!

guys. i think we should shelf the term war criminal just. just for a little bit. just for a little bit guys. have we considered shelving the term for a little bit. guys

[captainignatiuspigheart]

Under the Crossbones podcast ep 110 Nick Tyler aka Captain Pigheart

Under the Crossbones #podcast 'Nick Tyler aka Captain Pigheart' OMG that's me! On @undercrossbones w @roadsidephil

A couple of weeks ago I received a lovely email, quite out of the blue, from one Phil Johnson, comedian and pirate-lover (no, not like that, well – not with me. Maybe next time.) inviting me to be interviewed for his podcast, Under the Crossbones.

It’s a very cool podcast, covering an astonishing range of people interested in pirates, from historians and underwater archaeologists to, well, me. It…

[talesfromthegraavim]

THE FIRST OF FOBBER, HE WHO STOLE THE LEMONTREE

War pups, fresh-weaned off Touching Soft and Mother’s Milk, were tossed from the Whelping Bay and into the Pupyard by one thousand days, if they lived that long. Fobber shouldn’t have.

His Whelper was young and Senty-Mental like all first-time Whelpers were, and while she didn’t make enough to be a Milk Mother, she had managed two healthy pups even if one was small and the other was a girl. The other Whelpers and the Milk Mothers encouraged her to do the kind thing and give them to the sands so that they didn’t struggle and hurt her worse for their failings. But his Whelper fought for him, nursed him on Touching Soft and what little milk she made. She didn’t give him to the sands and hid him from Culler. The girl survived because The Immortan himself was brought down to inspect her, and he declared her Perfection, to be taken and raised in The Vault as a future Wife for his young son Rictus. His Whelper cried when The Immortan took Perfection away, seventy-seven days old and her future decided.

While his sister easily grew fat and strong on the thick of plentiful Mother’s Milk, wrapped in white and comfort, the tiny boypup struggled and fought for every breath, every inch, every pound. But he too grew strong off of stolen sips and smearings of gruel, indulged by the Milk Mothers only when he beat other Pups to the tit. When he was coming to his nine hundred and fifty-sixth day his Whelper, carrying heavy another pup - her third since his own whelping- cried out and collapsed, soaked in red, clutching her belly. Bad luck, the Milk Mothers and other Whelpers whispered. She shouldn't have been back in the rotation so soon after her last whelping- another boy, born perfect but still as stone- and such a hard one at that. She died, but managed to whelp a living boy before she did. Another strong back for The Immortan, if he should survive.

A shame, they whispered. She was good for boys, and they stuck well in her belly. There were rumors that -had she lived- The Immortan himself was going to raise her from the Whelping Bay and into the world of Wives. Such a shame, though, and her first son so near Weaning couldn’t be kept in the Whelping Bay.

So the unlikely tiny boypup was tossed unceremoniously into the Pupyard. He didn’t earn his name for four hundred days, after he had learned to scrap for his scraps, knocking teeth and taking bruises, tasting blood and breaking bones to earn his place. He was called Fobber, and he never forgot his Whelper; the smell of her hair, the kindness in her eyes -blue and shining like Aqua-Cola-, the warmth of her pressed against him as they slept.

On the day that Rictus was announced to have a Wife, Fobber looked up and nearly cried for seeing the ghost of his Whelper on the platform. Perfection was plump and healthier than most, smiling on the arm of Joe’s son who bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. Fobber felt sorry for her then, even though she would be cared for and unwanting for all her days, she was too young. He knew he wasn’t older, he’d been told about his Whelping by the Milk Mothers when he did a Milkrun, but she seemed so frail next to the hulking Rictus Erectus. So frail and so young.

Time passed. Fobber blackthumbed, he stared out at the vast yellow expanse of the Fury Road eagerly waiting for the day he could ride Lancer and be Witnessed to Valhalla. Days and days uncounted were a whirl of black and grey and red and white.

Perfection, he heard in passing, had their Whelper’s gift for sticky boys and bore two for Rictus, though they died a-cradle. It wasn’t until The Immortan took her for himself that their Whelper’s curse of thin blood came through. Perfection was lost, and Fobber quietly prayed to the V-8 that she had been Witnessed into Valhalla. He’d heard the Milk Mothers saying that a woman who died Whelping should be Witnessed to Valhalla, that Whelping was a woman’s Fury Road, and -having heard the screams and seen the blood when he did his Milkruns- Fobber was inclined to agree.

[talesfromthegraavim]

Max Rockatansky, The Zebra, The Road Warrior, The Lost

[talesfromthegraavim]

The Revved Gra, She Who Knows, Called Grace. (Yes. I know, she should be missing an eye, but here we are)

[talesfromthegraavim]

Lemontree and Fobber

[talesfromthegraavim]

Max Rockatansky and Kayra Orchieborn

[talesfromthegraavim]

K-Rat and his Lemling

[talesfromthegraavim]

Jive The Medic

[talesfromthegraavim]

Fuzz, The First Searcher and Orig Gardener

[talesfromthegraavim]

Horsehead, the Music-Keeper and Mechanic

[talesfromthegraavim]

THE TWELVE COLORS OF GRAAVIM

The Revved Gra stands before her newest crowd of Undercolytes, their shining eyes and smooth faces gazing up at her with a reverence that she will never -for all her long years- accept as her due. There are six this year, so very few places and peoples have children to spare, and she hopes in her heart that they all live to be her age. Six more that carry the hope of a generation of Healers and Teachers and Feeders, she sighs and begins her Tell. It is the First Tell all Undercolytes learn.

There are Twelve Colors, which are Learned into the bones of every Undercolyte and Acolyte that has followed the path of the Sun since the Beforetimes. From The Five come all other colors, each with their meaning. 

Red for Blood, given and taken.

Blue for Water, which is freedom and life.

Yellow for Sunlight, control and survival.

White for Birth, newness, untouched by the Wastes.

Black for Death, which is final and shared by  all.

The Three, Blood, Water and Sun, begat the Second Five, and those Five sit encircled by the Three, headed and tailed by Life and Death. 

Brown for Shelter and Home, for between Life and Death there is always Home.

Orange for Soil, and the opportunities that rise from it.

Green for Growth, the plea for nourishment and change made by all things.

Purple for Luck, that which is rare and precious.

Pink for prosperity, the delicate and inconstant feasts and joys of life.

The Revved Gra sees furrowed brows and eyes scrunched in confusion on at least two faces who had come to PigHeart with some base knowing of Numbers. “Just be patient, Little Ones, and Gra will Tell.”

There are indeed Twelve Colors, not only Ten as some of you have counted. The Second Two- for the First Two are Black and White- are Chrome and Gold. 

Chrome for History, the glory of our past and all that has been lost to Immortan Greed.

Gold for Future, all that we may hope to become.

[talesfromthegraavim]

THE FIRST GRA, AND THE BIRTH OF THE GRAAVIM

When the Old world was just barely molding in its grave, and the New World was not yet walking on steady feet, there was a man named Deepdog. Deepdog was a strategist to Colonel Joe Moore, a veteran of the Oil Wars, and a hero of the Water War. Deepdog was Joe’s Right Hand, and did many evil deeds in his name, and always when Deepdog looked back he saw his footprints in blood. One day, after the Conquering of The Citadel, when Joe had earned the name Immortan, Deepdog was sent out to scout the surrounding area for other clans, villages, and resources. Deepdog traveled for many days and nights alone, until he happened upon a Green Place, which were not so rare then as they are now. Deepdog liked to ask questions of the Universe using a deck of cards that he had once used to teach his son who was lost to the First Ravagers, and in the dead of the night, under the Full Moon, he asked the Universe to give him a taste of the future of these lands. The Pink Pig, the Pink Heart, and the Orange Rectangle were his answer. Bounty and Fullness, Surprise Gift, and Opportune Task. A further three cards fluttered to the ground as Deepdog shuffled the Cards to say goodnight: The Jar, the Rectangle Clock, and The Snake. Keep it secret, Move fast, and Betrayal/Danger.

Deepdog did not understand the full weight of the last three cards, but he believed their warning and hurried back to the Citadel to give The Immortan his joyous news. As he raced the sun he dreamt of a satellite town where he might grow plants and people and all the gifts of The Beforetimes. He dreamed of a safe place, which he would call PigHeart, and defend to his dying day. A Green Place, where all would be welcome and she could live as herself. He could live as himself. He did not dare acknowledge his true nature even in his own head until PigHeart was safely delivered and settled as the Triumvirate now was. 

But when he returned, it was not to cheers and applause. The blood in the sands and the screams of the tortured future-dead echoed in his ears, forever would the stench of burning bodies and books be etched into his nose. He did not have time to find The Immortan and tell him of PigHeart, for when he arrived he saw The Immortan Joe wrench a babe from the breast of its mother and empty its innards onto her upturned face. The Woman’s screams were choked off by her infant’s blood, silenced by the crushing hands of Immortan Joe around her throat, and Deepdog knew that if The Immortan were to hear of PigHeart he would rape it for its riches and leave the bones to rot. There would be no raising of crops, or happy children, no songs, no teachings, no history. 

And so Deepdog made a choice. He would spirit away a handful of slaves, steal a vehicle in the chaos, and make his pilgrimage to PigHeart. But Joe’s Warboys, in the rapture of pillaging and conquering, did not recognize Deepdog. They thought he was a deserter, traitor to The Immortan, and they shot him. The bullet did not pierce his skull, but merely grazed his eye, and so Deepdog could pretend to be dead and escape The Immortan.  The slaves he had tried to save were slaughtered, and the warmth of their blood was terrible on his skin, but their lifeless bodies covered his breathing and the shivers of shock until he was himself again. He nearly lost his nerve, nearly gave himself away, when the Warboys displayed him before The Immortan and he heard his former friend’s howling grief. It was all that Deepdog could manage not to flinch at the snapping gunshots that ended their lives, but he managed it, and he managed it still when The Immortan lowered him into a shallow grave and bid the Warboys to stand in ceremony of his passing, orating from the aquifer what a great man Deepdog had been, a great strategist and a great friend to the Immortan Cause. Deepdog was awarded entrance into Valhalla, as all dead warriors were, and gifted in death, all of his worldly possessions. His Sandwalking Gear, his weapons, even the Bike he had only just ridden back to the Citadel were staked and chained above his grave as a marker, that no man but he should possess them. 

When the moon was high, still full and white, and the sands that trapped her had chilled, a nameless woman crawled from Deepdog’s grave, wearing the clothes that Deepdog had been buried in, and still bleeding Deepdog’s blood. But this woman was free. Immortan Joe had decreed to one and all that no living man would disturb Deepdog’s grave, but she was a man no more, and took with her all the things that had decorated his grave. The bike was full with guzzoline- the better to speed her on her way to Valhalla- and the pack was full with water- that she may never thirst on Valhalla’s Fury Road. Only bare, unfavorable rations lay inside, for while The Immortan would stand on certain ceremony for his dead friend, they did not have food to waste on the dead as they had water and guzzoline. But the woman was grateful, and she crept on silent feet, pushing the bike away from the Citadel and The Immortan’s bloody clutches. 

For days and nights she wandered, not daring to ride on the Sands with only one eye, an eye which throbbed and burned under the light of the sun. After some time her knees buckled and she sprawled in the Sands, content to die for she had named herself. She would live for this moment, and die by her true name, which represented all she wished she had in her first life. The woman was called Grace. 

As Grace lay in the sand, wearing a dead man’s clothes and bleeding sluggishly a dead man’s blood, she heard the roar of an engine and thought it would be the last sound she would ever hear, but it was her salvation. A young woman, named KT Concannon rode a red bike and offered her healing, despite Grace’s clear markings as one of the Immortan’s creatures. In these times all were wary, none more than KT herself, but she had listened to the whispers on the wind and watched this strange woman who cried “Grace! I am  Grace!” until her voice was hoarse and labored. KT brought Grace home to her people, The Vuvalini of Many Mothers, who nursed Grace back to health and taught her all they knew of medicine and planting and womanliness. 

In time Grace grew her hair, and adjusted to being a single-eyed Road Warrior, she crafted herself into a Healer and an Oracle - her cards ever by her side, for they had not steered her wrong yet. For a while was content among the Vuvalini who knew her only as Grace, called Gra by the Mites. She was content, but in all the many hundred days she spent among the Vuvalini she never forgot about PigHeart. And so, one day, she ventured out with a small group to confirm its location and existence once and for all. The Vuvalini she took with her gaped in wonder at the flowing water in its caves, the Green Things that grew beside them, and when they returned to The Green Place Grace begged the Vuvalini Elders for seeds and chickens to make PigHeart true Oassi. Grace was granted a handful of Young Mothers and their husbands, precious seeds, chickens and two pigs with which to make a new start, and Grace sent them off to begin the planting with a song in her heart. 

She sent them in her place because Grace had once been Deepdog, right hand and strategist to The Immortan, and no place would be safe unless she could spirit away his best commanders and see what he saw from his High Castle. And so she slipped fully into the skin of Grace, prayed that her Cards had not steered her wrong and set off into the Citadel. After many days and nights, she arrived and breathed a sigh of relief when every familiar set of eyes slid over her face. In the Citadel she was just another woman, poorly aged by the sun and the radiation, and even the Immortan himself did not See her when he stood above them, scanning the Wretched for girls beautiful enough to bear his sons. He had pointed her out to one of his generals and laughingly said, “Send that one to Horsehead and Fuzz, she’s mannish enough for them to enjoy. All my generals should have sons, even if they have to get them on pig-ugly women.”

The general, whose name and face she did not know, did as he was bid. He wrenched her from the crowds by her arm, and steered her roughly to the door of two men she had hoped to see. Horsehead and Fuzz were the only two people in her Before life to whom she had ever suggested an inkling of her true nature. They had never known Grace, only the whisper of her fetal ghost, and they had accepted her as openly as they were able. Horsehead was Joe’s head Mechanic, a gifted man that had saved Rigs that should have been beyond saving, and had a particular love for musical theater. He’d often been derided by Joe for carrying an ancient, heavy record player and six surviving records, but Horsehead fought off anyone who attempted to challenge him for going soft and keeping them. Fuzz was slightly more pragmatic, but dutifully indulged his secret lover, because that music was some of the last surviving, and it brought him fond memories of the Beforetime. Fuzz was Joe’s new Chief Strategist, a brilliant engineer, and most shockingly a gardener. When Grace was brought before them, handed off by the new general with a sneer and a snide remark, they barely contained their gasps, but were hushed by a single finger pressed subtly against Grace’s lips. 

After they had wrapped her in hugs and praised the beauty of her true self they asked her name and how she had survived. Grace told them her tale and her plan and they agreed, after some discussion, to steal away with her that very night. Fuzz suggested that they might even be able to bring a young woman named Jive with them, who was an unwilling wife and assistant to the Organic Mechanic. Grace promised that one day they would come back for Jive, but they had to leave immediately in order to escape the notice of The Immortan. Horsehead and Fuzz packed quickly and sparely, Horsehead stubbornly clinging to his player and records despite the impracticality. The three stole for their Rig an unattended truck, loaded Grace’s bike and the Gear beside unlabeled crates and disappeared into the night like so much smoke.

For many days and nights they rode to PigHeart, whispering winds blessedly covering their tracks, and when they finally stopped  they opened the crates and discovered greater boons than they had thought to hope for. A young breeding pair of goats, seeds that would become rice and wheat and beans, beets and sweet potatoes, even sprouted herbs! They joyfully watered the goats and the plants and continued in haste toward PigHeart, driving in shifts through the night. When they reached the site they were greeted by guns, but Grace revved the truck’s engine and called up to the spotters “I am your Grace, come home at last and with boons!”