You’re walking through the woods in a fantasy novel when you are suddenly confronted by a Count, a Baron, a Marquis, and a Chancellor. They demand that you choose which of them is most likely to be the Evilest One of All.
To whom do you offer the Golden Apple of Villainy?
Funny, isn’t it? All you need to reliably bait the most qualified and evil people in the land is a shining, golden prize and a title of the ‘very best’. All you have to do is wait a couple of decades, enough for the tale to fade into obscurity for a while and then start up the towns rumor mill again and hope that no Aspiring Heroes try to apply.
The Baron blusters with ruddy cheeks about how he executes townsfolk for his own entertainment, the Marquis counters with the heinous taxes he imposes on his lands and laughs as the poor get poorer and his coffers grow. The Count argues that his research into the Dark Arts and his sacrifices to further his endeavours speak for themselves. The chancellor laughs at all of them, for he doesn’t have the time nor the care to list his crimes. Its far too easy to rack them up in government, after all.
The smile you grant them perhaps has too many teeth, too sharp to belong to one of the peasants they work to the bone on their lands for pittance, eyes too cunning and sly. They do not notice, fixated only on the golden apple you have taken out of your humble satchel their attention arrested on the one rumored objects of their desires.
There is stillness in the forest for only a second before each of them tumble forward, pushing each each other aside in their frenzy to claim the Apple.
The Marquis pulls out a dagger and thrusts it into the heart of the Baron. The Chancellor’s sword finds the calves of the Count, though not before he looses a bolt of necrotic energy at the Marquis.
All the whole you stand there, apple in hand, smiling.
Bloody minutes pass, and the Chancellor approaches. His robes are tattered, one eye closed from the blood that flows from a head wound and a limp from a freshly broken leg. His ability to mislead and wait things out was his winning strategy, the other three taking care of themselves with a little help from his spelled sword.
He looks at his prize still held in your cold, cold hand, and he laughs. Slowly at first, then maniacally as he continues.
“I knew it would be me!” He cackles gleefully, “I know the rest of those buggers didn’t hold a candle against me,” he reaches for the Apple, avarice gleaming in his eyes as he seems to forget there’s a whole ‘nother being holding it.
His fingertips only have to brush across the surface of the fruit when a shudder wracks the very earth beneath them, jogging trees out of place and shifting their roots.
A splitting screech rends the air around you, though you are unburdened by this sound. You’ve learned to acclimated to it, when the sounds of the souls of the damned are the music to which you work most days. The Chancellor stands stock still, his long face drawn out into an agonising scream that simply blends in with the chorus. It is mere seconds before his lifeless body slumps to the quiet forest ground and you sigh, hefting the apple, slightly heavier now with another soul, back into your bag.
“Perhaps the next generation will yield someone truly terrible,” you muse to yourself, leathery wings unfurling as you open the portal back home. “I really do need to fill the Deputy General Manager position sometime this century, but applications these days are all so lack-lustre.” After all, Hell is getting very oversubscribed these days.
ok, child drawings in the attic and unmarked gravestone berried grave shed thats locked for no reason, and can’t be opened (i’ve tried) uhhh footsteps when i’m home alone stuff falling down from the fireplace innards turning up on doorsteps cellar flooding for no dam reason lights flickering i’ll think i hear a parent callin my name when they don’t cat just starin at shi t my old cat just disappeared one day. cemitary over the road, and a old kennel surrounded by woods but some got cut down recently don’t know why a safe turned up in our driveway? like a month ago, the day after the trees got cut down as in a big metal one oh, also screams at night, 90% sure they are foxes tho 95% house is where a angalo saxon monastery use to be like 600 or so years ago at 2? houses ago, so not the house i use to live in, but the house before that there was a ruined house in the woods and one night, all the windows were smashed we don’t know why there was a house there In my last house, i always felt like something was watching me in the anex, it creeped me the fuck out, i always had to run after i turned of the lights and i went upstairs twice to find a bat in my room just chillin
ok everyone share their creepy house stories, go
Before I became a witch and told things to be polite or gtfo:
I’d see shadowy people in the bathroom mirror as I turned away, and siting by my sewing machine as I left the room.
I’d hear people walking around above me at night (I sleep on the top floor)
I’d hear my door slam while I was looking straight at it
My (very sweet) black dog would just randomly bark, something he never does elsewhere unless he has a reason
He also sometimes would sit and stare out the window, growling at nothing
My sister had a guitar teacher when she was little who would always arrive just as we were starting dinner , even though the tunes we started ranged from 5:30ish-8:00ish and we never told him when we were eating
There was a period of time when cats would just randomly show up in our yard and sit and stare at us
My mom has a metal fairy silhouette thing in the garden, it’s always getting bent or scratched
We have these little stone animals (a rabbit, a frog, and a family of owls) that are always falling, losing limbs, or getting buried for a series of days beforse being completely fine again
Not nearly as spooky or weird as the other persons, but I figured id share
Back at my parents house everyone always felt uneasy and like theyre being watched
There was a man/figure that i kept seeing (never saw him or anything else anywhere else), he used to watch me sleep so I would always hide in my mom’s room until i was ~12
When i stopped sleeping in her room i started waking up with burns and scratches (some scars). They seemed to say something cause there was repeating patterns that looked like letters but i never figured out what they said
My hair would keep moving, one day i heard someone yell in my ear and my hair (which was super long at the time) FLIPPED over my head to the other side
We moved to a new place and when we got there our dogs wouldnt stop barking at this one wall, and when they didnt bark they cried, so we got them out of there as soon as we could
#tbt that time two brothers bought their own planes, learnt to fly them and disguised them as soviet planes so they wouldn’t be questioned and then flew into east germany to rescue their third brother from a park and recorded the entire operation and got away with it
no but legit this is one of my favourite stories from the 20th century it just sums up human ingenuity and how walls just don’t fucking work when people will do anything to cross them
the first brother and a friend paddled over the Elbe on inflatable mattresses in the middle of the night to escape the east. they got picked up by a Wessi police officer, who said something like “bit cold for swimming, ey boys?” and the brother says “not when you’re trying to leave the East.” because all East Germans were automatically citizens of the West too, they were taken into town and established themselves there.
the second brother scoped out a particularly dark stretch of the wall. He escaped over it to the west by getting into a high building and shooting an arrow with a steel cable attached over to another building in the west. He then ziplined over. In response to his escape, the Stasi and the Wall designers built another guard tower in the middle of the stretch so no one else could pull the same stunt.
the two brothers met up and heard that their who was still in East Germany also wanted out. So, they learnt to fly planes and disguised them as soviet planes. This was so, if the border guards saw them, they wouldn’t fire on them – they’d have to ring up the Kremlin and ascertain whether they were actual soviet planes on an organised fly-by. they flew into East Germany at dawn (recording it all on camera because you’ve got to do it for the vine even before vine exists), landed in a park where their brother was hiding in the bushes, loaded him onto one of the planes and flew out of East Germany, laughing all the way.
other great moments include – the guy who broke out of the GDR by driving a very low-slung sportscar under a barrier, the family who built two hot air balloons with their bare hands, the guy who managed to windsurf out of East Germany, the man who stole a tank (my hero), the people who removed the petrol tanks from cars so people could squeeze into the gap where the tank should have been, and of course, one of the most famous photos of the 20th century, with Eastern border guard, conrad schumann noping the fuck out of there when he was meant to be on duty guarding the wall when it was under construction in 1961
ok but my favorite defector stories involve engineers, because engineers are insane
Eugeniusz Pieniazek, aircraft designer who decided to escape communist Poland by building an airplane in his living room, and lowering it out the window
Bernd Boettger, an engineer, escaped East Germany by riding a fucking torpedo across the sea
and even when these assholes screwed up they didn’t tend to stay in jail, cause communist regimes just couldn’t afford to keep locking up their engineers. engineers are special kinds of nutjobs
I buried an elk head up in Kremmling last fall with the intent of digging it up in spring after most of the flesh fell off and cleaning it before mailing it off to someone and now for the life of me I can’t remember who I promised it to.
It was either @systlin@pipcomix@vampireapologist or @a-fragile-sort-of-anarchy or maybe someone else but if one of y’all doesn’t claim it by May when I go back I’m going to draw an addess out of the addresses i have on file and mail it you without warning.
I believe I gave you my address for SOME purpose and it seems likely it was this
…I think we discussed this but you held off on the address becuase you were looking at places in Georgia and weren’t sure you were going to be at your current place by the time it was ready to ship.
This is assuming the coyotes didn’t dig it up in the meantime.
Babe, for the sake of clarity my mom has asked me to put it down in public record that we do NOT want an elk head in our mailbox this spring. <3 Thank you for your consideration, I hope it goes to someone who loves it. XD
I’ll take your name out of the hat. You may reccive other cervine-related consolation prizes.
Vanishingly Smaller Categories:
People with a spare elk head
People who would think of burying it until most of the flesh falls off
People who would actually do that
And then clean it off
For a friend
People who have a friend who might want that head
People who have multiple friends who might want that head
People who have so many friends who might want an elk head that has been buried and left until most of the flesh has rotted away and then cleaned up that they forget which friend wanted it
So What Happened was-
Last November (2018) my mom and I were having wretched anxiety over politics and decied that come election day we’d vanish into the mountains with the dogs and come back tomorrow to survey the damage (we ended up being pleasantly surprised instead)
But to change things up a little, we go out to Wolford State park, just a bit north of Kremmling becuase we hadn’t been there before and even though it was november it’s still lovely out there. Mostly sagebrugh scrubland and not-quite frozen resvior but also lovely mountain views and, apparently, poachers.
We get a ways out on one of the trails with the dogs when Charlie picks up a scent and starts Very Pointedly Investigating, and Arwen’s following him because it’s easier to let the other dog do the work. Arwen ends up spotting the head first and body-checks Charlie out of the way to get it and I have to physically pry Awen’s mouth open to get the VERY fresh head out of her mouth.
Ended up being the severed head of an Elk Cow which I had to examine from arm’s length over my head becuase Arwen was EXTREMELY determined to have more fresh elk face.
“Good Grief did the coyotes do that?” Mom asks, attempting to restrain Arwen. It’s not working.
“Nah. This is tool marks on the bone here, see? Katy says people sometimes cut the heads off deer and elk if they shot a cow when they had bull tags.”
“Oh yeah people used to do that with whitetail back in Ohio. Never worked, the ranger would just check the other end.” Mom nodded. I am a weird-ass adult form of an even weirder kid so she’s gotten used to the carrion by now. “Looks like she has all her teeth. She’d make a lovely skull mount.”
“Shame we don’t have a cooler with us, we could take her back to Joanne for her beetles. Then we could do Art Things with her.”
“What kind of art things?”
“Dunno. Something in the vein of glorification though. Kind of an undignified way to go, you know?”
“Our ” Mom mused for a moment. “You’ve got a shovel in the back of your van, right? You could bury her until spring then take her to Joanne.”
“Yeah that sounds good. I’ll take the head and Charlie- where is h- CHARLESTON CHEW [SURNAME REDACTED]!”
He’d found the rest of the remains of the field-dressing and had been horking down elk viscra in the confusion. Eventually both dogs were persuaded to come back down the hill via me holding the head aloft like the final scene in Princess Mononoke and the dogs leaping for it form either side until they could be forcibly tossed into the back of the van.
It’s probably fortunate that there was nobody else in the lot to see that.
So She’s buried by a distinctive rock near one of the lots in Wolford, and I’ll go back in April or May depending on the weather to see if she’s still there. Even if I can’t find her again she at least got a proper burial.
Charlie had a vet exam and TERRIBLE farts but seemed otherwise unaffected by his surpise elk pre-sausage. Arwen gets real excited now every time she sees someone pick up a shovel.
if u ever feel bad about urself just remember that i almost burned my school down u’ll do great things don’t worry
Now wait just a minute you did what?
I’VE MENTIONED THIS BEFORE WHY ARE PEOPLE JUST NOTICING ME NOW
G u y s
It was an accident, I swear
I’m very curious as to what happened. I read something where you mentioned it, but you never explained. I’m kind of worried. XD
Nononono guys o k a y
Buckle your seat belts, let me tell you a lil story about how I accidentally almost half-way sort of maybe kind of committed arson
The story takes place when I was a senior in high school (which was, uh, maybe a couple months ago but you know what, time flies when you’re the school’s appointed pyromaniac)
Now as you kids know, school is a stressful time. Especially when you’re a senior. They make you do all that senior stuff. “You’re the leaders of the place” they say as I can’t even microwave burritos without them being frozen in the middle but that’s a story for another time
It was awards day.
My last awards day.
(If your school doesn’t/didn’t have awards day it’s this thing where teachers hand out certificates for being smart or athletic or the most impressive feat of all: perfect attendance)
It was also, coincedentally, the day the NHS induction ceremony was supposed to take place. NHS stands for National Honor Society and is basically a cult for smart people. Believe it or not I was a part of this fancy smart people cult. Not sure how, but I weaseled my way in and held on to that title with my cold, clammy hands for all of high school. Wallpatterns is a nerd and that’s all you need to know
Also at this time I had a pinched nerve or something idk in my leg and I had a really bad limp. Picture a zombie shuffling and that’s how I was walking buT I STILL SHOWED UP BECAUSE EVEN THO I WAS IN PAIN YA GIRL IS DEPENDABLE (until I almost burned my school down but we’re getting there)
NOW since I was a senior that meant I had to be a part of the induction ceremony, which alright, okay, sure, make the crippled kid do it, what could possibly go wrong, am I right?
There was a couple of us seniors in NHS and the ceremony was supposed to go like this:
NHS president: yoyoyo thnx for showing up lol now let me light this candle representing the fire of life and here’s my speech let me call my main homie up next to talk
NHS senior: let me light the candle of knowledge using the flame from the candle of life and then say another speech
And so forth and so forth. There was idk I think 5 candles all representing different things to dedicate our lives to (knowledge, service, scholarship, leadership, character) because this is a cult for smart people and we do that
After all the candles are lit the inductees are each given a candle that they then light using one of the earlier mentioned candles (knowledge, service, leadership, character) and then they chant some stuff (because again, cult)
It’s a little fuzzy because your girl fucked up.
So. Awards day happens. The auditorium is packed. Everyone in the school is there. Kids are joking. Someone screams. It’s public school. Maybe someone’s being murdered. Maybe they wanna go home. No one really knows.
But it’s all going great. All the candles are lit except for me and one other girl’s. I’m on the edge of my seat. I prepared what I’m going to say and I’m r e a d y
Mr. NHS president calls me up and I walk hobble to the table. I light my candle with the holy flame of life. I insert it into the candle holder.
It doesn’t fit.
Alright, wallpatterns, don’t sweat it. Firmly grasp the candle. Twist it into that candle holder. Show it who’s boss
It fits. Snug, but it’s in there.
I slowly back away.
I put my hands up, as one does, to command inanimate objects to stay inanimate
All is good in the world
My grades are great, my skin is clear, just one more speech and I’m done
I hobble across the stage to the podium. I begin my speech. It was a paragraph full of fancy words and some really nice quotes but it can be summarised as:
“You should volunteer and uh, do volunteer stuff maybe idk you do you”
My speech is halfway done.
I was nervous. I was sweating. I was almost in the clear. You know, I thought, maybe speeches aren’t that ba-
THUD.
There’s a collective gasp. Like one that only happens in movies. Everyone’s eyes go wide. Everything is silent. I’m afraid to look but I turn my head anyway.
My candle
My lit
Flaming
On fire
Candle
Fell onto the table.
Smoke rose from the candle like little tiny smoke waves
“Hello,” my candle seemed to say. “You thought you were doing good but lmao you thought wRONG”
A small little circle of tablecloth is singed.
No one moves.
I look at fellow senior and NHS president in panic.
“Do something” my eyes plead. “You’re president”
“It’s your candle” his eyes say back
I do math calculations in my head like that one meme
“But I have a limp”
Somewhere during this I realize if the school burns down I’m the slowest one here and I’m probably going to die
10 seconds of silence has passed
Like in any other tragedy, people are snapchatting
My principal looks like she wants to kill someone
It occurs to me that as the slowest and the lighter of the candle that would probably mean I’m going to die again
“PICK IT UP” Someone from the audience screams in terror
My good friend Mr. NHS president finally bolts into action
Have you even seen a man run towards a burning candle
I have
Let me tell you
It was surprisingly anticlimatic
Anyway after that I couldn’t stop laughing (while still oN STAGE) and I’m pretty sure my school banned candles and uh also everyone in the school kept snapping me about how I “almost burned the school down” and that’s literally the only thing I’m known for thanks for coming to my ted talk join me next time when I tell you about the Literal Shit Storm of Second Grade
😂😂😂😂😂 I am concerned about 2nd grade.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Story?
It was second grade. Otherwise known as one of the only grades I have the misfortune of remembering. The sky was clear and so was my skin. Puberty had yet to do me dirty. The birds sang. All was good in the world.
And best of all? We had monthly (maybe biweekly?) walks to the public library.
Don’t get me wrong- the school library was fine and dandy, but there’s only so many times a kid can read Angelina Ballerina before her eyes start to bleed and her skin turns grey. I had reread that series so many times I was beginning to question if I, myself, was turning into a mouse because of it (The answer is yes, I loved cheese so I totally was).
The deal was made even sweeter because you know what a walk across town entails? Chaperones. And who was chaperoning these walks?
That’s right. My mother. Otherwise known as the original g. Capital “H” Homie. My main. The reason I’m alive. The only person who enjoys my bs. Mrs. “Did you eat anything today, Wallpatterns?”
If you can’t tell, I love my mom, but alas, this story is not about her. It’s about pure unadulterated fear. The kind that can’t be described (but I’m going to describe it anyway so buckle in.)
These walks took place in the morning and consisted of us walking single file there and back (remember this formation because it’s important.)
I had a small class. At this time it was somewhere between 16-18 kids. We all knew each other, some more than others. And likewise, by the time we graduated to third grade, we all knew how to duck.
And why, you ask, were we all so good at ducking?
Because, my dear friend, of shit wars.
It all started with two boys in my class. We’ll call them Nik and Nick in this story because they actually had the same name (that’s how you know it was fate) but with alternative spelling and also I don’t want to use their real names because reasons.
Shit wars was the kind of thing nightmares are born from. The predecessor of all things that go bump in the night. You think the kids of Derry had issues having to deal with Stephen King’s It? They never had to be battle ready. They never had to go to war. Not with this. No, never with this.
So. Library time. Off we go to the races. Lalala sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies. My mom is by my side. We’re gonna get books.
I am t h r i v i n g.
Or at least, I was, before Nik or Nick picked up a dog turd off the sidewalk.
Until I witnessed the graceful arc of a flying poop pellet unfold itself mid-air, small gray pieces flying from it in layers like a sad football.
Until the screams started.
Until war began.
There’s a sort of haze that settles in moments like these. A fuzzy little filter that falls over everyone like rain. The same dream-like trance that makes it impossible to look away from tragedy.
The same thing that made it impossible for Nik or Nick to move away.
When the flying poop pellet hit Nik or Nick’s back, that moment was broken. Screams rang out.
“My hair!” Someone yelled.
“It touched me!” Another joined in.
My peers, witnessing what would happen if you remained inactive, jolted to action. We zigzagged, running into each other haphazardly. We pushed and pulled and fought our way through valiantly.
But not Nik or Nick.
No, he threw one back.
Once again we stood silent and captivated by the soaring dung bomb. This time it spun through the air majestically. Sunlight glinted off it like a sign from God. A curve ball.
There’s something impressive and yet oddly motivational about a piece of dog shit reaching for the stars.
It hit, with a harsh thud, the other Nik or Nick and left a dull brown smear on his shirt.
Thus was the start of Holy Shit Wars.
“Children!” Mrs. Second Grade Teacher screamed. “Stay in formation!”
“No thanks,” we all collectively thought. “Standing targets are just asking to be hit with stinky shrapnel.”
Once again, someone screamed. Mrs. Second Grade Teacher lunged for Nik or Nick, but he darted onto the road.
“NO” A chaperone yelled despite the fact that there weren’t any cars. “NOT TRAFFIC”
Nik or Nick didn’t care. He darted along the road before he spotted another gem along the sidewalk. Armed with another dog turd, he pulled his arm back.
“Aw, man,” He relished in his newfound hobby. “This one is fresh.”
The other Nik or Nick stood at the other end of the line and laughed. The formation we were once again forced to be a part of tittered nervously.
With a grunt and a lunge, the poop pellet flew over our (admittedly very short) heads. It occurred to me almost too late that I was at the end of the line. Directly in front of the other Nik or Nick.
Fear crawled up my throat and kissed my back teeth. This was it. I looked at my mom for what may in fact be the last time.
“Goodbye,” I thought. “Remember to turn in my books so my ghost won’t have a fine.”
And with that, I clenched by eyes closed and I ducked.
Have you ever felt the breeze caused by a soaring dog turd tickle your hair
Have you ever been witness to the nose hair searing scent of whatever it is random dog’s eat
Have you ever had a life defining moment
For a split second I ascend mortality and bear witness to the meaning of life
As quick as it happens it is over
Nik or Nick sidesteps the bullet
They are separated and each marched beside a guard (ha my mom had to walk with one speaking of my mom 2nd grade was the last year she chaperoned) (probably because of shit wars come to think of it)
The day’s battle is over, but the war is not
Every library walk
A new battle begins
Shit wars was fought by Nik and Nick every walk
Many innocent bystanders lost their lives in the process
We were never the same again
The End
Stay tuned for the next episode: that time I accidentally stole a finalist ribbon in front of at least 100 people and got away with it
wait how were you able to get away with stealing a finalist ribbon???? I can barely take my phone to my room when no one is even home cause I just get hit with guilt and ‘hnn you shouldn’t be doing this’
Listen…I didn’t ask to be a criminal. I was just born a particular skill set.
teach me your ways please
Tell us the ribbon story you coward
This is an old post how did u find this are you a hufflepuff
Look statute of limitations has expired tell us the ribbon story
The day I’m a published author will be the day I tell the ribbon story maybe at a lit con maybe in hell
‘All that you need to know about boars can be summed up in the fact that if you wish to hunt them, you must have a specially made boar spear. This spear has a crosspiece on it to prevent the boar from charging the length of the spear, driving it all the way through his own body, to savage the human holding the other end.’
–Boar and Apples, T. Kingfisher
fuck OFF
Note that pigs are also HUGE. So, yes, they ARE slightly larger pigs.
So I grew up in the city and have never seen a pig in real life and I just googled it and WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS
I thought they were like labrador sized, like, fat labradors, not mini-cows.
every time I see this post there are more people discovering how fuck off huge pigs actually are and I love it I thought this was a thing everyone knew but clearly not and I’m laughing
This is me with our Tamworth boar, a heritage breed closer to their wild cousins than the Yorkshire above. I am a fully grown, average sized human. He was a gentle sweetie who, sadly, is no longer with us. His name was Mr. Big.
FUCK OFF
Forever laffin’ at people who don’t understand how enormous, terrifying, and tenacious wild boar are.
They’re like if bears had knives protruding from their closed mouths and Didn’t Know When To Quit. Their survival instincts when they’re wounded aren’t “run away and minimize injury” it’s “take the thing that hurt you down with you” They also make sounds like someone crossed a pig with an alligator.
Their head and neck alone can be like the size of an entire human torso.
Also forever laffin’ at people who think pigs are tiny, ‘cause we designed those things can get in the neighbourhood of a thousand pounds in ideal circumstances.
It’s like when people assume Tuna must be small because they’ve only ever experienced them in hockey puck form.
Like seriously why the fuck y’all think everyone FREAKED THE HELL OUT when Dorothy fell into the pig pen in Wizard of Oz? It’s because pigs are HUGE and weigh a shitton and would crush her in an instant.
also dont they eat like, basically anything?
YUP. Pigs will eat people, if given the chance. They dgaf.
That’s why boar hunters use a team of very tenacious dogs to hold the boar so they can be speared without fucking you up. The dogs wear body armour.
I’ve heard stories of people shooting boars, and if it didn’t kill them, it just pissed them off.
how the hell did we ever domesticate these things?
…“how the hell did we ever domesticate these things?”
Very carefully, I would imagine.
WIld boar babies are rather cute, like living humbugs…
…but the adults and their ferocity have been associated with warriors for thousands of years, from Mycenaean Greece (a helmet made from sections of boar tusk)…
…through Celtic Europe (reconstructed carnyx war-horns and standards)…
…Ancient Rome (the crest of Legion 20 “Valeria Victrix”). A couple more legions also used a boar as their crest – I wonder did they squabble over which was the “right” one the way a couple of Swiss cantons had a little war over whose bear was best…?
…then Anglo-Saxon and pre-Viking helmet crests…
…right up to the late Middle Ages (here the white boar badge of Richard Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III of England)…
…and the blue boar badge of the Earl of Oxford,
more usually represented by the De Vere arms, quarterly gules and or, in
the first a molet argent.
After Richard was defeated at Bosworth in 1485, there was a run on blue
paint as inn-signs were changed to reflect new loyalties since Oxford
was on the winning side…
It gets mentioned in the movie “Snatch”, the book/movie “Hannibal” and the webcomic “Lackadaisy Cats”, among numerous other fictional sources, and IRL it’s suspected to be the reason why numerous missing persons have stayed missing.
More here (another comment to this same OP) and here (slightly different).
Here’s some boar-hunting armour for dogs, ancient…
…and modern…
…and the modern one looks very like a simple style of ancient…
So when Odysseus’s old nurse recognizes him by the scar he got from the boar-tusk slash that almost killed him… now you get the resonance.
This post…it just really went places on me.
I hope you read this entire post, and that it made your entire day so much better, even if just for a few moments, like it did mine.
giant fuckoff alligator wolves
While in Sweden I was warned by the family I stayed with to be careful about not touching any fences, because apparently they’re all electrified to TRY keeping boars off properties. I was also walking the family dog each morning through the forest and was warned to turn the fuck around and walk back speedily if the dog ever stopped and just… wouldn’t budge. At all. Unless it was in the opposite direction.
Fastforward a few months to when I’m back home and hearing about the boar problem a family friend is having. I recommend electric fences, since that obviously works for Swedes. The guy tells me that won’t work for him since it’s a herd of boars, so the boars will just charge the fence enmasse, sacrifice the first few, trample over them and enter orchard to feast.
Welp.
Regarding how humans tamed wild pigs, I have a hypothesis that it’s not unlike how humans tamed dogs. Human garbage dumps are a reliable source of food, which encouraged pigs to interact with humans. The wolves that evolved into dogs did the same thing.
Another factor that pigs have in common with those wolves is that they’re very social animals. While older wild boar tend to be more solitary and territorial, wild boar sows and piglets are more social, organizing themselves into groups called sounders. These groups can include several generations of sows and their piglets, and even sows from outside the sounder’s original family group, provided they find a place within the sounder’s pecking order through duels with the other pigs.
Members of a sounder cooperate with each other to survive. Other sows can help watch over the babies, and they can defend themselves and their herdmates from predators. Male boar are also still pretty social, even though fully-matured intact boar tend to be more aggressive due to hormones. Young males live in the sounder as piglets, then split off into their own social groups of males before they’re old enough to strike out on their own and establish their territory. And even though boars don’t like other males in their territory, they don’t stray too far from where sounders are, sometimes going miles to find eligible bachelorettes. Neutered pigs, or barrows, being less hormonal, act more like young males in that they integrate into a sounder and socialize with other pigs without being overly territorial and aggressive.
Being social animals means that pigs are very quick on the uptake in order to figure out how to communicate with their herdmates and other animals. Pigs have passed the “mirror test” and can recognize themselves in reflections (at least, in experiments where knowing what a reflection is allows them to access food), although the merits of the mirror test as a measure of consciousness have been debated by scientists. They have complex social structures within their herds where hierarchy is determined by “duels” where they test each other to see who backs down first.
Pigs have a scent-based language that helps them track down food and know what their herdmates are feeling, and they also have a spoken language of grunts, squeals, huffs, and other noises that they use to signal their herdmates. What’s really remarkable about them is that they can develop an ear for human language, too. There are many examples of pigs raised by and socialized to be around humans learning simple vocal commands to do tricks and recognizing the names humans give them.
Here’s an example of a trained wild boar from a (now sadly closed) theme park in Izu, Japan:
Domesticated pigs, large and small, can also be trained to do tricks and follow commands.
So, what does this all mean? What pigs have in common with dogs is that they’re willing to accept humans as herdmates with a place within the sounder’s social hierarchy. If a human proves themself through accepting challenges and defeating the more aggressive pigs in the herd (usually by stonewalling them with a sorting board or other protective gear while the pig tries to charge and bite them), the other pigs become less aggressive towards them, at least when they aren’t provoked. Farm pigs that are spayed or neutered and used to humans also tend to be friendly and curious about people, often going up to the fence to investigate strangers, as long as they aren’t frightened or provoked. There’s even an exotic pet trade for the smaller breeds of pig, like the Vietnamese Potbellied pig and Kune Kune pigs, although they’re also one of the most likely pets to be given up by owners that don’t understand their pig’s needs.
There’s also a certain other thing that humans can give pigs that they can’t get anywhere else: belly rubs.
That’s not to say that pigs won’t hurt humans, or that pigs only
associate with humans out of the goodness of their hearts. Pigs are prey
animals of the variety that gets aggressive when scared. Wild boar that
aren’t used to humans tend to attack because they judge humans as
potential threats, and fighting off a threat can be the difference
between life and death. Pet pigs also tend to be abandoned or placed in
sanctuaries when they reach the age where they start challenging the
other members of their “herd.” If humans respond to their challenges by
running away, then the pig thinks they have to be aggressive to get what
they want and responds to any attempt to change this as a challenge to a duel.
Being clever, they’re also opportunistic little jerks who can be very
manipulative in order to sneak food regardless of where they stand in
the social hierarchy, much like human toddlers.
However, they deserve better than to be characterized as mindlessly aggressive. Every animal does what they do for a reason, and sometimes they can be negotiated with, as we did when we domesticated pigs.
Also, pigs are omnivorous, and tend to scavenge carcasses. They might go out of their way to kill and eat smaller mammals like ducks for their meat, but they only eat larger animals when they come across them after they’ve died. They only “eat people” in the same way that wild dogs do, by scavenging corpses. Cases of farm pigs actually eating a live human being are extremely rare.
“And remember: the sky is the limit! You can be anything you want to be!”
“Thank you. I want to be a secretary.”
That stopped them short. “What?”
“A secretary,” she repeated.
“But…” they trailed off, dumbfounded. “Why? You could be a CEO, a scientist, a law–”
“I don’t want to be a CEO,” she said. “I want to be a secretary.”
They scoffed. “You want to answer phones all day?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“Schedule appointments?”
“I like organizing.”
“Be a second banana?”
An affirmative nod. “I’m skilled at helping.”
“I just don’t understand,” they said. “HOW could you be okay with all of this?!”
“I enjoy the work.”
“BUT YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE!”
“I know.”
“Then WHY?!”
She shrugged.
“Because I want to be a secretary.”
Honestly though, this is very similar to my mom’s experience. She’s always been super bright, but has realized as she’s gotten older that intellectual pursuits just aren’t her jam. She dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and although she has her master’s and was a pretty good school psychologist, she hated having to make huge decisions. She’s a church secretary now and loves it, and she’s GOOD at it; she’s letting her school psych certification permanently expire this year with zero regrets. If you can be anything you want, that includes the things we don’t tend to value as highly as a society. Not everybody is built for or wants the “respectable” careers.
My grandma did this to me, saying that i didn’t want to get stuck on the outside, making coffee and filing papers. The thing is, that’s exactly what I’ve always enjoyed the most, making and organizing things. That would be enough for me.
Nobody seems to realize that if you tell people they can be anything they want to be they will. And not everyone WANTS to be doctors or lawyers or CEOs or scientists. Sometimes, they just want to be a secretary.
it took me a LOT of therapy before i was able to shrug off the effects of the Gifted Child Upbringing enough to realize that what i really wanted to be was a house husband and Local Queerdad who writes novels sometimes. god, i’m so much happier now.
ain’t nothing wrong with an ordinary life. don’t let anybody tell you you have to be the top dog to be worth anything.
There’s nothing wrong with a simple life. Be whatever you want to be,
If you’re happy, you’ve made it. That’s the real definition of success.
Honestly the positions on the top are being so idealized while people don’t tell you about long hours and kills-you-before-50 levels of stress. Some people just want a more comfortable job that leaves them time for family and actual LIFE.
sometimes, people don’t understand that we are hated for being autistic. “But I don’t hate autistic people!”.
That’s right! Because you don’t know how autistic people are.
You know, people never bullied me for being autistic. Because neither me nor they had the terminology. Nah, they punished me for being weird. And what made me weird to their eyes? I spoke weird and often stumbled, and I spoke like a grownup anyway, and I wouldn’t shut up about Ancient Greece. I moved weird too, because I was (am) really clumsy, and I didn’t have any friends. I was boring and didn’t catch jokes (made at my expense) and I didn’t look them in the eye, and so on and on.
If you asked any of the people who bullied me for years whether they hate autistic people, they’d say “no!”. Because they don’t hate autistic people, but oh boy do they hate weird people. Perhaps they don’t hate autistic people, but surely they hated me for being obviously autistic.
I’ve been trying to explain this concept to a lot of people. You did a really good job summing it up.
Cultural difference I’m starting to get a handle on:
In smiley cultures (like the Bay Area culture I’m in, and maybe also things like Minnesota Nice or Southern Politeness), being smiley and positive means“I’m okay with interacting with you again, and potentially open to eventually having a relationship with you that involves meaningful mutual benefit.”
If someone’s being smiley/positive/effusive, it doesn’t mean they genuinely like you, it doesn’t mean they’re willing to offer you any concrete thing now, it just means they haven’t ruled out having a positive relationship with you, maybe sometime in the future. And they’re okay with you continuing to engage with them, meeting you again, talking to you again, etc.
By contrast, if they seem frowny or severe or reserved, they’re mad at you, you fucked up, you are expected to go away or demonstrate appeasement behavior NOW, or else.
In non-smiley cultures (Russians seem to be like this, sometimes also Israelis and American rednecks), people will often be incredibly generous and helpful with practical things, without giving any nonverbal/subliminal signals of warmth or liking.
From my perspective, people like that seem like “scowl scowl scowl I hate your guts…btw here’s a bar of solid gold. also you’re dead wrong about that thing. but i really liked your work on that other thing.”
wait what. you act incredibly cold to me, but you give me this unbelievably valuable gift, at nontrivial cost to yourself? what? why?
and you’re really critical of me, and of people in general, but you’re giving me really high praise in a specific instance? what gives? dude, do you like me or not?
The thing is, in non-smiley culture, as far as I can tell, “I like you enough to want to engage with you at all” isn’t…a thing you have to signal by smiling or acting friendly. It’s set to on by default if they are talking to you at all.
You don’t have to develop emotional rapport or “liking” as a prelude to entering a relationship where mutual benefit is potentially on the table – you’re already in that relationship, as soon as you’re talking to the scowly guy.
Non-smiley cultures use actions first as a gauge of how much someone is “on your side” – they’ll be like “wow, this guy did something really generous for me, therefore I feel more friendly towards him”. Affection and warmth and smiles are for close friends and loved ones – they’re an achievement you unlock through acts of generosity.
In smiley cultures it’s just the reverse – people will only exchange acts of generosity after they’ve exchanged social signals of friendliness, and not signaling friendliness means I will definitely never do anything generous for you.
(People from non-smiley cultures often say that smiley cultures are “fake nice” – “you’re acting like my close friend when you’re clearly not. you were incredibly unwilling to help me in any meaningful way.”)
Adapting to non-smiley norms is interesting to me – it’s like communicating between two submarines via sonar or something. “okayyy…I can intellectually tell from your words and actions that you want to cooperate…so i’ll just brute-force my way through the stress of feeling like you don’t like me, and…yikes…tell you with my words when I disagree with you or don’t like something you do? like we’re married or siblings or something? before we’ve built up any emotional intimacy?? okay then…”
but I actually suspect the non-smiley way is objectively better, because you can cooperate with people way sooner, and with a much wider range of backgrounds and personality types.
^^^^^^ back home, smiling and saying hello to a stranger on the street gets you suspicious side-eye. Like, what do you want? Are you going to give me a pamphlet and lecture for an hour? Ask for money? What? Let me get on with my day, thanks. But at the same time, if you need directions or help with something it’s no issue.
Oh my god, the non-smiley culture is dead-on me, living in Redneck Nowhere, Iowa.
Wait really? Wow that’s so weird. I live in iowa too and we’re a smiley town. It’s small too, like around 15k total. I’m uhh,, central northwest ish? Around Ames. And pretty much everywhere around here is like that. Where are you at?
It’s varied in Iowa, TBH. Some places are smiley and some aren’t. I’ve run into both.
I’m in eastern IA, on the tip of the nose.
I’m def from a rural non-smiley town. “I actually really hate your guts, but I also can’t in good conscious let you sit here on a three day walk to the City with a flat tire and no food or water in your car, why’d you even buy a car, you know only trucks can make it out here, we don’t even have all our roads paved, god I hate you but Jesus says…”
Yep that’s exactly it.
Like, I’ll help you call a tow truck and stick around until it shows up, but I’ll also tell you that you’re a damn fucking fool for trying to drive your rear-wheel drive death trap of a car through a cow pasture.
