#so many meese

[daily-mees]

Hello! It's me(es) again! Here's a small selection of some of the mees I've doodled at work, I've used your art as a reference since i like the way you draw mice! (My favorite is the mee at the bottom with her computer friend)

[ID: four pencil drawings of a mouse, with triangle feet, big ears, a pointy nose and little whiskers. in the first she is standing and smiling. in the second she is sitting and looking up with interest, her tail shaped like a question mark. in the third she sits happily before a small piece of cheese. in the fourth she sits before an early computer on a desk with one paw on a mouse. the computer has a chunky monitor with a pixilated “:3” emoticon on it. end ID.]

is so cute!!! i love she!! computer fren is so cool i am love! so glad u hav fun drawing meeses!!

[ID: simple pen doodle of a mouse with triangle feet, big ears, a pointy nose and little whiskers, sitting up on its haunches with its paws to its mouth and a surprised and delighted expression on its face. a couple of sparkles drawn next to it emphasise its emotion. end ID.]

[blossoms-phan]

tit summary/thoughts/spoilers under the cut!! <3

hiii wanted to make one of these just so I can ramble about everything bc what a crazy night LMAOO gonna make another post about the day so this is just about the show

my soul left my body when the lights went dark omfg, that is literally one of my favourite parts about concerts/live shows. the smoke and lights was a lot but the second they came out it’s like everything cleared up, i loveee how they come out with their backs to us and then the happy silly music when they’re running around saying hi hehehehe

the whole intro/beginning part was so fun i just loved the bits when they were just talking to us, canada love, the history of dnp/why we're all here etc etc. the dolls/diorama is such a fun little phistory recap, though i will say it was not as wild as i was maybe expecting or what they've done on other nights lol. they "wrestled" in the first one, nothing in the manchester apartment, "kissed" (69-ed lol) in the london one and that was it but they were all SO well made (shoutout pj and sophie), i loved phil's hoodie for the 2 apartment era hehe

role model or no-le model: very fun section, i wish i could tell you all the fill in the blanks we did but i can't remember for the life of me lol i shouted yaoi so loud for all of the lawyer dan ones but alas :( but i do remember lawyer dan writes erotica about timbits, then when the side by sides came up on the screens after it had been changed to "Phim Phbits" which made them both genuinely laugh it was so sweetie. we killed regular dan and doctor phil

phanspiracies were: toilet, clothes, tour bus and wedding. honestly very solid picks, it was so surreal seeing those "phan proof" comps of them wearing the same clothes on the screen down to the zoomed in picture of the underwear from the christmas cookies video 😭 the tour bus clip will never not be crazy but it was SO funny bc we cheered so loudly after phil said it was true that they shared the bed and dan was judging us but all i could think about is the stunned silence from phantwerp day one, i will never forget listening to that live and it's probably been so entertaining for them to see the shift from that lmao. the wedding edits were so funny dan was like "i know you had that as your desktop background for 6 years" and someone behind me was like "YES I DID", dan's little kick and cheeky smile at "i'm just opposed to anything traditional" ok sure

i can't remember which section this was during it was something to do with discussing a past era but phil said "maybe I was just horny" and i screamed lmao

the boxing segment ajdjkskjsf i have been waiting for it my entire goddamn life tbh and it was so fun. no one told me about the visuals on the screen ok why do they look so GOOD in them?? i wasn't actually expecting them to knock each other out or anything but it did seem a tinyy bit tamed down from what i've seen before, like they were being very gentle with each other lol but it was cute, the bite was still bite-y and the run around the theatre was craaaazy, the camera following them is so good lol

they yapped for moose. meese. meeses for a minute straight and i forgot it was supposed to be a bit it was so natural they're good at it whether they like it or not

oh yeah that's the other thing. they are fucking INCREDIBLE performers. like, they are so good at what they do and it was one of the highlights of my life getting to experience it irl. the show is incredibly well paced, the script is funny, the audience participation makes it but it's so insane to see how well they work together. the comfort and familiarity after so many years plays a huge part (there was a solid like 7 shoulder touches btw) but their dynamic is soooo good, they play off of each other so well. literally everything @cheekyvank described to me about dan as a performer is true. he was ALWAYS moving, he moves his mouth and bends and grooves and does the absolute most but it's soooo natural, like he has so much fun doing it. that man is a theatre kid all grown up and it's incredibly endearing but he's also a master, like he was MADE to be on a stage, he's so fucking good at balancing between roasting and teasing us and pointing out at people and winking and he called out someone filming without actually saying anything and it was so smooth and lowkey hot but also like jesus i didn't even risk TRYING to take a picture i am sooooooo scared of him. also thanks to you @jonsaremembers i was looking forward to the 4 g's all night, i am their geeky girlie forever and ever 🫶

and phil. oh my sweet precious baby angel. my heart was burstingggg with phil love all night. he is so, so so so good literally everything right with this world tbh. you can tell he has SO much fun on the stage as well, there's moments where his smile softens or he just looks out onto the audience and i want to shower him with love and affection (and we did! i honestly think one of the loudest screams was for "normal phil" during role model hehe). he is so effortlessly funny, the silly little run over to the microphone every time for the "hiatus" was one of my favourite bits of the show. i absolutely loved his getting real with us bit, it reminded me so much of his youtube videos- and i hope he knows how powerful and meaningful that "light entertainment" is for us. his voice was soooo soft and gentle it was like we were his children he was talking to which i guess we kind of are in this context. i love him forever and ever

sister daniel. INCREDIBLE follow up. i knew it was coming and nothing prepared me for Her. another part of the set design/production that is so well done, the visuals and the bass dropping when she comes out is SOOO fucking good. i have never screamed so loudly in my life. i would do anything she asked me to. the underwear were so fucking short i could not see a THINGGG like. fucking hell. lots of pulling the dress down and legs crossed/staying sat the whole time though lol which fair but the confessions and water spraying was fun, it will never not be funny when dan shames people for opening their mouths after they say it's sister daniel's bath water lmfaooo

the SONG!!!!!!!! the most fun. in the entire world. it's so good it's so fun. the lyrics, them going FULL boy band mode, the hands folding over and doob grab was infinitely more devastating irl. dan is so fucking good at the dance i love you forever terminal theatre kid and i think phil has reached the peak of how well he can do it and i want to give him his flowers for trying his damn best every time you keep doing you baby. the part where it kinda slows down and they're just doing the geekiest moves ever like those are my BABIESSS dfjksajdks standing up to rave with dnp in a room full of phannies was the highlight of my entire fucking life.

this was SO much longer than i anticipated and i'm probably still gonna go on about things as i remember it but it was genuinely the most fun and memorable night of my life. i love these two silly little guys so much, it was so surreal seeing them in person after over a decade and i would do anything to experience it again but i'm so, so grateful i got to do it once and i will cherish the memories forever. and this has only made me more insane about them and cemented the fact that i wholeheartedly believe they love us, this new era, and that they're not going away anytime soon so i WILL see you guys back on the internet and hopefully outside of it one day again too <3

(i lied here’s the one picture I took aka far from dan’s prying eyes during the part where they’re not there being gay getting out of their clothes)

[darks-lair]

Quick headcanon about the cybertronian language

So, in season 4 ep 11 Blades keeps insisting that the plural of the word "moose" should be "meese" or "meeses", even though he's proven wrong by Francene's Alexa-type thing she has on her phone.

This made me think. What if almost every word in modern cybertronian has a plural form?

So I came up with this symbol (why in hell is the image file so large???)

This symbol roughly signifies "many" or "lots of" and is added at the end of the word if you desire to make a plural form of it, also changing the pronunciation.

This is what made blades so confused. All words in cybertronian have a different sounding plural form.

All except for one word

The word for "transformer"

A description for their kind

Because all are one

[we-are-inevitable]

Give me something from the restaurant au, any scene you really want to write <33

this is a little cheating because i’ve had this written for a while, but: here’s a little snip!

———

“Alright, great! So, that’s a number four, medium well, no mayo. For your side, do you want fries or a side salad, Sir?”

“What kind of fuckin’ question is that? It’s a burger. What kind of hippy-ass place serves a side salad with a burger?”

David Jacobs loves his job.

He does. This job, waiting tables at an expensive burger joint in the heart of Manhattan, is admittedly one of the better ones he’s had. Sure, he gets his fair share of shitty customers- like this rough and tumble wannabe cowboy, who no doubt got roped into his wife’s vacation to the Big Apple- but you get shitty customers everywhere. At every single restaurant he’s worked at, of which there are many, he’s had bad tables. Eight tops that only give him a meesely five dollars for a tip, macho guys who like pointing out that David’s ears are pierced and therefore he must be one of those queers, moms that bitch about how long food takes to get to the table even though he’s just sent the order in five minutes ago… Shitty customers are everywhere.

And David loves his job.

So, he nods, and smiles, and lets out his practiced-to-perfection laugh. “I know, right?” He says, looking the man in the eye. “Side salads at a burger restaurant? It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s policy to ask anyway. I’ll get that order in for you guys here in just a second, and it’ll be out shortly.”

The man with the bushy mustache and beer gut seems satisfied now that David has proven he’s not a hippy-ass who likes side salads, and he gives him a grunt of acknowledgement. David takes the menus, smiles at the table, and walks straight to the iPad in the corner next to the bar to send the order to the kitchen.

He’s just about to press the send button when he hears a voice to his side, high pitched and squeaky, say, “What kind of hippy-ass, liberal-ass, blue state, gay-ass restaurant serves a side salad with a burger? Do I look like one of them queers? Yeehaw, America, I wanna fuck my gun.”

David rolls his eyes as a laugh rips from his chest. He glances to the side and sees Albert there behind the bar, slinging a towel over his shoulder; Al has this cocky little smirk on his face, matching the awful southern accent he had just tried to do. So far, Albert is the first friend David has made here— he just started at this restaurant about two weeks ago, and Al latched onto him by his second day— and David is always thankful that the hostesses put him in the section closest to the bar. Albert makes the lunch rush bearable.

It takes David a second to stop giggling, but as his laughter dies down, he reaches over the bar and slaps Albert’s shoulder. “Fucking hell, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who had to hear that. If I survive this table without shooting myself, you owe me a beer.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?” Albert asks, leaning with his palms against the cool mahogany of the bar. “Stick up his ass?”

“Wife dragged him to New York,” David responds, placing the menus from the table underneath the iPad stand, and he makes a note to let Smalls and Spot know that the menus in the back are ready to be brought up to the hostess stand. “The entire time I’m trying to take his fucking order, he’s all like, ugh, I hate this, these burgers better not be for pansies, this better be good like Texas burgers, and I’m just waiting there, like, okay, just give me your goddamn order already. I wanted to die, Albert.”

Albert snickers, then glances to the side and straightens up. “Well, don’t go dyin’ yet, Jacobs. You just got here, and I like you, so if you leave, I’ll have to kill you.” He grins again, then nods his head to the left. “Your four top on twelve looks like they’re ready for the check.”

David nods and taps the bar twice. “Thank fuck,” He says under his breath, and shoots Albert a tight, closed mouth grin. “I’ll be back to ruin your shift later.”

“Can’t wait.”

From then on, the rush takes over. Closing checks, pre-bussing tables, running food— it’s a madhouse in the restaurant for about two hours. David knew it would be. Pulitzer’s is conveniently located just a few blocks from Times Square, so the weekend rush is always awfully full of tourists, and it may suck in the moment, but David really likes it. It’s kind of fun, actually; in the few minutes of downtime he has on this job, he makes conversations with his tables, hears their stories. He gets to know them, even if he’s just a fleeting little nobody in the grand scheme of their trips.

At the steakhouse he used to serve in, he got to be part of a few proposals, which were always stressful but incredibly rewarding at the same time. Unlike a lot of his coworkers, he actually loves having little kids sat in his section, and as a professional big brother he enjoys joking around and listening to them babble on about whatever their mind deems important at that age. He talks to tourists about their travels, gives recommendations for hidden gems around the city, and makes them feel at home for the thirty to forty-five minutes he’s taking care of them for. It’s the least he can do, honestly.

And, well. The tips are always better when you add a personal touch.

That’s what this is about, right? The tips. The money. Working for pennies is bad enough, but working for tips is a game. You have to choose the right action, say the right words. Morph yourself into someone you’re not. Pretend you don’t like side salads and form an alliance with the mustachioed cowboy from Texas. Play up how many times you go to synagogue to please the Jewish grandma who comes in with the grandkids. Talk politics with republicans and hide the rainbow pin on your shirt collar.

David has experience at this. It doesn’t make him any less bitter.

[goosterbold]

TONIGHT! We're back in the saddle again with our wonderful child Alonso, who's making so many friends!! They all seem to have. Very different goals. But that's probably okay. Meeses frolicking and playing, okay? Pokemon Scarlet, okay?

8:30pst, 10:30ct, 11:30est

P.S. Meeses. Mouses. Houses. Heeses. - Frankie @friendlyfrankenstein

catch us here

[theygender]

One thing I love about learning Spanish is that for the most part everything has very consistent rules and even when a word is irregular the irregularity is consistent. Like tener is an irregular verb with its own special conjugation rules, but any verb that ends with tener (obtener, retener, contener, etc) is conjugated the exact same way. Volver is irregular too but all verbs containing it (revolver, devolver, envolver, etc) will also be conjugated the same, and so on. And these are just verbs, I can't think of a single irregular noun in Spanish

English on the other hand, seems like it has absolutely no consistency. Some of our rules have so many exceptions that there are more words that break the rule than fit it ("i before e except after c" comes to mind) and our many irregularities almost never apply to other similar words

How is someone who's learning English as a second language supposed to remember that the past tense of rise is rose but the past tense of surprise is not surprose, or that the past tense of freeze is froze but the past tense of wheeze and breeze are not whoze and broze, or that the plural of goose is geese but the plural of moose is not meese, or that the plural of mouse is mice and the plural of louse is lice but the plural of house is not hice, or that for a few random words like deer and fish the plural is the exact same as the singular. What the fuck

[homemade-clones]

Kajdkajd I meant to send some earlier but got busy but 🖊️ 💤 💛 🤔 for Gaze and Talya(I really hope I remember that correctly sjhfksh)

Yay thanks for the ask <3 (First ask for Tayla, woot!! 🎉🎉)

🖊️ — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos?

GAZE He's got a tattoo on his left thigh! It's a sabercat holding a vibroknife between its jaws – designed by Spur, one of his batch mates. And while he likes tattoos, he would not get another. The one he has carries too much meaning for him to give it any other companions. It would feel wrong, somehow. TAYLA Noo she still a baby (actually a teen, but baby >:o), no tattoos for her yet!

💤 — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits?

GAZE Heavy, light? None of that. Gaze is simply a sleeper. He's constantly suffering from the eepy, can and will fall asleep if undisturbed for long enough (5 minutes). He can only fall asleep if he's around people he trusts, tho. If he's not sharing the room/barracks/general vicinity with his brothers, friends, or a lover, he will stay wide awake, no matter how tired he is. TAYLA She's a heavy sleeper. Like 'there's a bantha stampede happening right outside the window and won't wake up' kind of heavy sleeper. It comes from the way she was raised: growing up in a large merchant caravan, one has to learn to filter out noises when the neighbors are never quiet! And she's an early bird, the kind of person that wakes up and it's bouncing off the walls with energy! Goes to sleep half a second after the sun sets, don't try to keep her up she'll simply curl up in the spot and sleep.

💛 — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

GAZE He knows how to speak fluent Basic and trade tongue (Meese Caulf). Also knows bits and pieces of mando'a, huttese and kaminoan. TAYLA Ooo can this girl talk. She's fluent in durese and togruti (taught by mom and dad, respectively), basic, and the some of the common trade tongues (Sy Bisti, Huttese, Jawa trade). And she knows enough to get around in a bunch of other languages. Again, it comes in the package of growing up in a merchant caravan with people of the most diverse species :D

🤔 — what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms?

GAZE - Because of the way his eyes work, they don't get dry. And because of this, Gaze often. forgets. to blink. It often unnerves people at first, so he's a bit self-conscious about the fact and will sometimes overcompensate and blink nonstop. - He sighs a lot. For no apparent reason. Sits down? sigh. gets up? sigh. busy embroidering? siiiiighhh. It just happens. TAYLA - She purrs! It's a trait she got from her togruta dad, and it comes out when she's feeling really happy and relaxed. But because she's a hybrid, she can't sustain it unbroken like dad, and it's quite louder, too (see this video at 1:23 for an approximation of what she sounds like)!

[shatteredsoul1998]

A smidge of chaos

放浪者 (Hōrō-sha)-

A being of pure chaos who exists only to wander and destroy. Hōrō-sha means wanderer in Japanese. He appears like Mario, with only one main difference. He wears a royal blue hood over his hat, casting his face in complete shadow, the only things showing being a 2-D texture of wide eyes and a large grinning smile over where his face should be. Hōrō-sha goes from place to place with one objective; annoy the everliving shit out of anyone he comes across. When his hood is on, he speaks only Japanese, but for ease of reading, it will be translated. "Did you know that walking on gators are the prime public transportation in Florida?" "Did you know if you chug maple syrup and use Meese (plural for Moose) as shoes you are legally Canadian?" As well as many other completely untrue factoids. It has been observed that he does not care about humans, rather, only caring about the beasts and spirits. When visiting B00TL3G, he ignored all the soul to just annoy B00TL3G, who tried to then kill Hōrō-sha to no avail. Despite being chaotic and messy, he is not dangerous unless you get on his nerves. When Ultra M was still learning to control his power, Hōrō-sha kicked him in the ribs so hard that Ultra M needed weeks to fix them. It is unknown where he came from, but nobody wants to be responsible for him, so nobody has claimed him to their domain. His game, though long past completely broken, seems to be his safe place, as he grows more stable and less annoying. He uses it as a playground, and occasionally brings people to hang out with. His favorite is someone he calls 'B3', though more often he brings other creatures from inside the games.

(DOMAIN: ???)

[crown-of-roses-thsc]

Your fun Crown of Roses facts for the day:

-The AU was created while I was trying to come up with the funniest possible Henry Stickmin ship between major characters (I.e. Ellie x Reginald), and while I was blasting “Satisfied” from Hamilton at top volume

-Crown of Roses originally had one ending planned, then later had around 5-7. Currently I aim to do at least 2, being the endings that follow Toppat Civil Warfare and. Toppat King.

-Suave actually has a fleshed out backstory I’d love to make a prequel comic for! We’ll see if I get around to it though. Someone from his past will appear in chapter 7….Also, my voice claim for this character is Alex Brightman (aka Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice: The Musical), Adam (Hazbin Hotel), Fizzarolli (Helluva Boss)…)

-Burt is autistic in this AU. I don’t state it outright in the text, it would be kind of shoehorned in if I did, but he definitely is. His special interest is comics (specifically a fictional comic called Wonderworld), which I took from the fact that he has so many hanging on his wall in the original games.

-Lefty is the oldest of the main cast (discounting Suave), with Carol, Sven, or Ellie likely being the youngest. Reginald is probably only a year or two older than Ellie.

-Lefty does have a canon name in this AU. Chapter 5 hints at it 👀

-Lefty was originally not going to be in this AU as much as he is now, as at the time of creating the story I didn’t know where he fit in and didn’t have any real affinity for him. I’m glad I did though, as he now may be my favorite CoR character ❤️

-When I originally came up with this story, I was unaware of the cut backstory for Ellie (as stated by PuffballsUnited). However, I changed a few things around to fit the original backstory, as it was an improvement on my thing.

-In chapter 1, I drew their eyes differently than I do now, with them all having a weird sort of iris-thing. This was a mistake and it makes the whole chapter look really uncanny and I repent of that sin

-This is the Crown of Roses trio’s dynamic in a nutshell. Canonically. I’ve decided it. https://youtu.be/rZLrodBb2l0?si=ZBNdNOOneDQTvxl2 and Matt Meese is my voice claim for Reginald ❤️

[mdpikachu]

I’d love to hear more about Mephistopheles’s friendship with Sakata Kintoki. I’ve never considered that dynamic before.

borrowing daku's art bc i dont think i've drawn them together but. also i write mephi, daku writes taro.

Friendship summary: Local area man meets a clown and immediately gets the clown's name wrong (and calls him Moose for short). Said clown decides this is hilarious and sticks around to see what other dumb things happen. here's a readmore

Mephi's plan failed within ten minutes. Oops! Shared interests! (golden bear, dozing bombs. machinery. also, safety but that came later) That, and while Mephi intended to just lie to Kintaro constantly about mundane goofy things, this also failed. Mephi has the majority of the brain cells between them (usually), which is funny because you'd think the clown would be the idiot.

Taro's the doof supreme (affectionate) brawn, Moose is the nerd (affectionate) brain. Together they make an actual team bc Mephi's good at strategic planning/traps (witchcraft/bombs) and Kintoki hits like a truck and has an easy escape option (golden bear).

I'll make it a decent format instead of name: dialogue bc that's a slog. Kintaro was initially based on just info from the JP server and tl'd dialogue so he's a lil dumber than canon sorry about that. mephi is never wrong bc im never wrong (<- was violently wrong about a bit of faust lore thats critically important to mephistos character. oopsy. tfw u suggest mephi lying about killing faust and then reread the interlude after introducing ghost faust DERAILED, MOVING ON)

----

(Scene opens with Kintaro's Master with his head in the sofa, avoiding human contact. Overstimulated. too many guests. Mephi's Master isn't present at the moment.)

Pointing at this was Mephisto, who had returned to be unnecessarily difficult.

"Wow, it's a wild sofa ostrich! I've never seen one in the wild before!"

"Hey, hey! He's no stupid ostrich, youuuu…. er….." Kintaro trailed off, staring at Mephisto. He wasn't actually sure what he was looking at.

"I'll wait!" Mephisto announced, pulling his legs off the ground to sit cross-legged in midair. His tails wagged slowly as he watched Kintato go through a variety of facial expressions while thinking.

"You trapeze artist!" Kintaro shot back well over a minute later, "That's what that get-up is supposed to be, ain't it?!"

Mephi grins and holds up two fingers. "Nope! Two tries!"

Kintaro "Ehhh"d for a moment, before announcing that he needed a hint. Lancer Elizabeth was standing nearby, rolling her eyes in disbelief. Even she wasn't this stupid! She had no right to judge, though, having attempted to sing on the roof to the new neighbors.

Mephisto gave Kintaro a big grin before tapping one of the horns on his hat as his hint. This man could probably guess a demon, or an oni, or--

"Oh, a deer!" Kintaro guessed confidently, and completely incorrectly.

Mephisto put a finger down. One guess remaining!

"Wait, wait, wait! Wait! I know! I know!"

Mephisto sat back in the air and waited for Kintaro to excitedly make his hypothesis known.

"You're a moose!" Kintaro announced, throwing his hands up, "I love meeses!" ---- (Mephisto broke out laughing before correcting Kintaro with more info than anyone else got. The trust was Instant. kintaro also wants to get piledriven by a moose, takes 10 dmg from mephi giving it an actual shot in the backyard, and then proceeds to get evaded by mephi like 4 times. eventually a bomb blew up, ash-facing both of them. scene ends with this. skipped him giving mephi a helmet and mephi accepting it. we also joked that this was a ship but its a friendship. mephis master does nothing to stop any of this, and neither does taro's.) Kintaro: [he picks up Mephisto] We're going to go on a drive! A drive into your heart! If no one else is going to befriend you, I am, Moose! Our friendship will be golden!! (other dumb shit they did together: clothes shopping (safety on bikes!), use an ouija board (mephi hated every second of it), i know theyve fought together at least twice, i dont remember what else. theres like 25 documents of this nonsense i dont remember shite. im not putting this in the tag i say putting it in the t)

[autistic-ace-bee]

So many computer meese in the world. Can you believe it.

there should be MORE q

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

A very incomplete list of animals I find more terrifying than anything from Australia (except crocodiles because fuck crocodiles):

Bears. Every single species of bear. Yes even that one. 'But they're actually pretty shy and -- " it's a FUCKING BEAR.

Moose. Moosen. Mooses. Meese? Those things.

Oxen.

Alligators. I don't care how many videos you have of people keeping them as pets. That thing is basically a small crocodile, and fuck crocodiles.

Any animal from Africa larger than a human baby. Presumably I don't need to explain this.

Any spider or scorpion from Brazil. They are all so fucked up. "Oh but this one is harmless -- " no, that one is the Most Venomous Of All, the species has been hiding this from scientists so that it can run into your house specifically, run up the handle of the broom you're trying to shoo it out with, and bite you. It wants to do this so it can watch you succumb to the poison. It's a sex thing for the spider.

All nonhuman apes. I know I already said Africa but you definitely thought I meant lions and elephants and hippos and shit, which I totally did, but also apes. All of them are so very, very strong. A chimpanzee can and will eat a human baby. A chimpanzee can and will bite your fingers off for no reason that makes sense to a human. It's like eating a stick of cheese to them. The larger apes I presumably don't need to explain.

Hey on the topic of Africa, did you know that one theory about why horses were domesticated but not zebras is that zebras are just dicks? Did you know that a zebra can bite you and lock its jaw and just not let go? Yeah like the myth about pit bulls. It's actually about the Silly Stripe Horse.

Rabies. I know rabies isn't an animal. But we don't have rabies in Australia, meaning that any mammal in a rabies-containing country is by definition scarier than any animal in Australia, because it might have rabies. Sure we have venomous snakes here but they're easily identifiable and prefer to leave you alone. Some countries out there have a Potion of Make This Animal Venomous And Also Make It Likely To Want To Just Bite You, and dole it out to animals at random. "You can get a vaccine in those countries" I can get snake antivenom too. i simply do not want to be bitten in the face by a diseased wild animal that is currently dying painfully.

That water parasite that grows big long worms under your skin and they have to pull them out and they get so long that they pull it out bit by bit while wrapping the pulled worm around a stick to keep it out of the way like me detangling yarn.

Snapping turtle.

As an Australian I love the whole "Australia is a death trap full of vicious deadly animals" cultural myth. Every place has some deadly animals in it who will fuck you over if you don't understand them; we're not more dangerous than anywhere else. BUT we get to look badarse by existing when people pretend we are. No downsides.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Unholy Alliance

▲ Strange bedfellows: Christian Right leader Tim LaHaye and Moonie official Bo Hi Pak (inset).

________________________________

Mother Jones magazine, January 1986 pages 14, 16-17 44, 46

by Carolyn Weaver

A bizarre marriage is now under way in the shadows of American politics. The coy but ambitious bride is the Christian Right. The mysterious bridegroom is the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, an international cult with apparently unlimited means and a well-developed taste for power. This peculiar alliance is blessed with Moonie money and fired by anticommunist zeal. Witnesses to the wedding may well wonder, however, what this unholy union holds for American politics.

I stumbled upon this secret liaison through an eye-opening letter that fell into my hands last summer. While interviewing a woman named Beverly LaHaye, head of a conservative women’s organization, I ran out of tape. LaHaye’s public relations director helpfully provided me with another cassette.

Searching for the end of my interview that evening (which I never found—the batteries had failed), I came upon some highly revealing correspondence that had been dictated by LaHaye’s husband, the Reverend Tim LaHaye[1], head of the largest network of Christian Right leaders. The Lord works in mysterious ways. With appalled delight I listened to the Reverend LaHaye’s chummy note to Colonel Bo Hi Pak, the number two man in the Unification Church.

The Reverend LaHaye, a former television evangelist, had dictated the letter in early 1985, a time when he was riding high on the success of his new American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV). ACTV, whose executives include television evangelists Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggart, claimed to have registered 2 million new Christian voters for the 1984 elections. Born-again Christians gave Ronald Reagan nearly one out of every five votes he received that year, or half his margin of victory.

The friend to whom LaHaye wrote is also a religious believer and political enthusiast, although his theological doctrines would make most fundamentalist Christians shudder. Bo Hi Pak has spent most of his life in the service of “Master,” South Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon, who teaches that Jesus Christ failed in his mission and that God is now “throwing away” Christianity.

Hinting broadly that he himself is the second Messiah, the Reverend Moon has boasted that he will “conquer and subjugate the world,” establish an “automatic theocracy,” and make fornication a capital offense. “Many people will die —those who go against our movement,” Moon has predicted. But when it prevails, he says, God himself will acknowledge, “‘Reverend Moon is far better than me, the Heavenly Father.’”

To the average fundamentalist, Pak would fit the profile of altar boy to the Antichrist. Yet the Moon empire, which he administers, is a generous supporter of many conservative crusades, and it was this generosity that apparently prompted the Reverend LaHaye’s warm, confiding letter. “Dear Bo Hi,” began the Reverend LaHaye:

This letter is being written at 37,000 feet out of Chicago en route to San Francisco. Although I don’t like to face this fact, I will not be home for one month. Sometimes I think I must be mad to keep up this pace. In fact, God has convicted me about abusing my body even in a good cause like this. So I plan to turn down more speaking engagements that do not contribute to ACTV objectives and my FLS [Family Life Seminars] ministry of radio-TV specials and writing.

Bev and I are beginning to enjoy living in Washington, D.C., more every day, and to my amazement it is beginning to seem like home. As soon as we can get our radio time changed from 7:00 to 8:00 each night to 1:00 to 2:00p.m. daily, we want to have you and your wife over for dinner.

Bo Hi, I am encouraged! Amid the bad signs I see today, I also detect a lot of good signs. The secretary of education, Don Regan, Ed Meese, Pat Buchanan, and many others. Even physical ailments to three of our 76 [year-old] flaming liberal Supreme Court justices. Bev was invited to the White House yesterday and introduced to over 300 conservative leaders as “the president of the largest women’s organization in America—over twice as large as NOW”… and was extended thunderous applause. She is rather retiring by nature and was modestly embarrassed. I believe she is going to be given some unique opportunities in the future because of the growth of her organization. In fact, the conservatives at the White House are trying to get her appointed as a delegate along with Marcella [sic] Meese to the International Women’s Year Conference to be held in June in Africa. That would be a golden opportunity for Bev to get better acquainted with the new attorney general’s wife and also to learn what the radical Left out of Moscow is planning for the women of the world in the 1990s.

On this trip, I will be going to the Holy Land with Jerry Falwell and speaking for his three-day conference on prophecy. Confidentially, during that time I am going to talk to him about 1988 and my strategy for his winning the [Republican presidential] primary. I’m convinced he can beat Teddy in the general election if we could just get him through the primary. I hope Pat Robertson doesn’t make a play for the same thing and divide the Christian vote. I think Jerry will like my plan to recruit 435 activists, one in each congressional district, to work under our ACTV city chairman. I’ll let you know what he says.

Once again, my friend, I am in your debt for your generous help to our work. You don’t know how timely it was! This move and reorganization of the whole ministry to free me for more time in Washington and ACTV activities has been extremely expensive, much more so than I originally thought. But I see daylight down the road and feel it is all part of the Master’s plan. As soon as I can afford it, I plan to hire a PR firm to give more coverage for ACTV, get our message to the people.

God Bless you! Let’s plan to sit together at the first CBS shareholders’ meeting when Jesse Helms makes his move to take it over.

Your friend, Tim.

LaHaye’s letter is a striking example of the growing bond between Moon’s well-heeled cult and fundamentalists and other elements of the New Right. It is still a love that dare not speak its name, because New Right leaders realize this affair would dismay many of their followers. Recently, however, as the Far Right has grown increasingly indebted to Moon, the relationship has begun to emerge from the closet.

Some aspects of this affair are right out in the open. The Washington Times, headed by Pak, loses millions of dollars a year, but it has bought Moon gratitude and influence among the capital’s ruling rightists. Pak legally contributed $10,000 to the Republican National Committee last year and has been photographed in friendly meetings with the president.

But much of Moon and Pak’s work is covert, accomplished through a bewildering array of Unification Church entities and front groups. In 1984 Causa[2], Moon’s anticommunist organization, contributed $500,000 to a political action group headed by New Right leader Terry Dolan. Causa has also sponsored all-expenses paid trips to educational conferences for thousands of journalists, clergy, academics, political leaders, and anyone else who appears useful. One minister who attended a five-day Causa conference reported that he had been offered the staggering sum of $150,000 for his church. Causa is also spending millions of dollars to establish a political base for Moon in Latin America.

Money seems to be no object, as far as Moon is concerned. Between 1975 and 1984, he brought $800 million into the United States from Japan alone, two former high officials in the Japanese branch of the church told the Washington Post.[3] The full story behind Moon’s wealth remains unknown. But much of it is said to come from the sale of religious icons in Japan[4] and a worldwide network of holdings that include a South Korean weapons manufacturing company, fishing fleets[5], real estate, a titanium firm, and a string of newspapers in Uruguay[6], Cyprus, and Japan.

Moon has been blunt about the purpose of his spending spree. His mission is to “unify” the world under a theocracy headquartered in Korea, and the weak-willed, democratic United States is to be only a stepping-stone. According to the congressional testimony of Alan Tate Wood[7], a former high-ranking official in the Unification Church, Moon told followers in 1970: “Part of our strategy must be to make friends in the FBI, the CIA, and the police forces, the military and business community … as a means of entering the political arena, influencing foreign policy, and ultimately of establishing absolute dominion over the American people.” In the mid-1970s, Moon and Pak were implicated in the Koreagate bribery scandal as accomplices in the Korean government’s campaign to win influence over U.S. officials.[8]

The beaming, round-faced Moon still has exuberant political visions, but nowadays he tones down his rhetoric. In less grandiose moments, he merely talks of using the electoral process to gain control of the U.S. government. The Reverend Tim LaHaye and his clerical brothers on the Christian right are also filled with visions of political glory. And they have few qualms about embracing Moon, if that’s what it takes to create their holy state.

Last October, LaHaye’s American Coalition for Traditional Values held a conference in Washington’s Shoreham Hotel on “How to Win an Election.” Several hundred “pastor-leaders” representing ACTV’s network of over 100,000 fundamentalist churches listened appreciatively to the leading lights of the New Right: Jack Kemp, Jesse Helms; Paul Weyrich, Newt Gingrich[9], Jerry Falwell[10]. One by one, they came forth, offering congratulations to ACTV for its 1984 success and encouragement and advice for 1986 and 1988. “By the grace of God, we will raise up an army,” an enthusiastic LaHaye told the gathering.

Later, LaHaye introduced an honored guest, a middle-aged man who sat quietly at a reserved table just below the dais. LaHaye referred to his South Korean friend as “a great American” and head of the most conservative paper in the United States. LaHaye neglected to tell his fellow believers in “traditional values” that this special guest, Colonel Bo Hi Pak[11], also presided over a cult[12] notorious for its anonymous mass marriages and encouragement of family breakups[13]. Nor did LaHaye cite the “generous help” Pak had given him, as he had in his appreciative letter.

Pak returned to the conference for a banquet that evening: After dinner, LaHaye revealed the coalition’s plans for the 1986 elections: a $3 million drive to recruit 50,000 volunteers[14] to work for the election of conservative Christian candidates to the House and the Senate.Then LaHaye made his pitch. ACTV needed the ongoing support of its members. He invited the ministers to make a gift that night and to commit themselves to monthly donations as well. There were envelopes on every table. But first, he said, they should search their souls to see if they could make that commitment. The banquet room fell silent as the assembled pastors bent their heads in prayer. From the concentration on their faces, there seemed to be much fervent ransacking of family budgets. When they looked up, nearly everyone reached for an envelope.

I buttonholed Pak as he concluded his warm embraces of ACTV staffers. Pak, who had shaken my hand genially, grew ominously still when I asked him if he had made a contribution. Regarding me with a cold smile, he said: “Yes, I made a contribution tonight … a personal contribution. What did you say your name was? May I have your card?”

page 44

An erect, balding man of 55, Pak has the knack of suggesting wordlessly that one has just committed an irrevocable offense, just stepped over some invisible but decisive line. I told him that I had it on good authority that he had made previous contributions to ACTV as well. “I have never made any other contribution to ACTV,” he said. He asked me to repeat my name again, as did his aide, and then bade me a polite farewell.

The Reverend Tim LaHaye is an itty-bitty man with wingy eyebrows and unnaturally brown hair, not the craggily virile pastor of his PR photographs. Communism, “secular humanism,” pornography, rape, and nuns dying of AIDS are all inseparably linked in his mind in a kind of moral domino theory. In conversation, however, LaHaye talks with most zeal about sex, or rather all the people he has helped to a fuller enjoyment of “the beautiful act of married love.” LaHaye co-wrote a Christian sex manual called The Act of Marriage with his wife, Beverly. Although the book offers some steamily detailed advice, the LaHayes don’t pretend to have all the answers. In response to a question on the permissibility of oral sex, for example, they report that the Bible is completely silent on the subject. The book also promotes a $29 mail-order device for strengthening vaginal muscles that its distributor cheerfully admits is medically useless.

Beverly LaHaye leads Concerned Women for America (CWA), a group dedicated to stamping out feminism. Even if her claim of over 500,000 “kitchen table lobbyists” is stretching it by half, CWA would still be the largest women’s political organization in the country by far. CWA members meet to pray for and against specific pieces of legislation. They also write letters—hundreds of thousands of letters, as the occasion demands. Concerned Women for America and its much smaller ally, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, take credit for defeating the Equal Rights Amendment.

Between them, Tim and Beverly LaHaye reach a good many of the fundamentalists in the country, with CWA functioning as the ladies’ auxiliary under ACTVs all-male cadre of pastor-leaders. It’s an army, as Christian Right leaders would put it, that meets every Sunday.

“Who?” LaHaye said. “Who did you say?” when I asked him about his friendship with Bo Hi Pak. “Oh sure, he’s a very strong conservative,” he said offhandedly. “I’ve had lunch with him a couple of times, that’s all.”

LaHaye denied that Pak ever gave him or ACTV money except for the contribution he made at the conference. As for that particular envelope, said LaHaye, he hadn’t even opened it yet. He couldn’t remember ever writing to Pak; perhaps it was one of thousands of direct-mail letters he sends out? I refreshed his memory, telling him the letter was a very personal one written months ago, but the evangelical leader was still unable to recall it. Then I told him about exhibit A. “You have a what? A tape?” he exclaimed. “You can’t, it’s impossible.”

Later, I mentioned the incredible wealth of the Unification Church and its prodigious gifts to even casual acquaintances. “Yeah, and do you know where all that money comes from?” LaHaye demanded. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said cryptically, “it doesn’t come from selling flowers.”

La Have says he was introduced to Pak by a man named Gary Jarmin[15], a former high-ranking Moonie who has long promoted the New Right’s friendship with the Unification Church. As consultant to Christian Voice, the religious Right’s political hit team, Jarmin is one of the most powerful strategists on the Christian right. He is best known for his authorship of Christian Voice’s report cards rating “Christian/moral” votes of political candidates.

Jarmin left the Unification Church in late 1973 to continue an affair started outside the sanctions of the church, and was denied Master’s blessing upon his subsequent marriage. The political strategist was nonetheless treated to a highly unusual dispensation, according to other ex-Moonies. Moon, who has a history of planting his followers among the powerful and a doctrine of “heavenly” deception, asked Jarmin to stay in touch.

Unlike most ex-Moonies, the born-again Jarmin has remained on excellent terms with the Unification Church. With LaHaye and other fundamentalist leaders, Jarmin has operated the Moon-financed Coalition for Religious Freedom. By claiming that Moon’s 1982 imprisonment for tax falsification and obstruction of justice amounted to religious persecution, this coalition has provided fundamentalist leaders with a handy explanation for their peculiar friendship with Moon. [The judge saw Moon’s document forgery as a serious crime, and jailed him.][16]

Yet there have been stresses and strains in this unusual marriage. Useful as they find the banner “religious freedom,” Christian rightists still tend to choke on Moon’s theology. Moon, for instance, clings to his own unique interpretation of the Fall: Eve, after consorting with Lucifer, so degraded the human lineage that all families except those ordained by Moon are wrong and false. Even Jesus, the resentful product of an adulterous liaison of Mary’s, failed in his one great mission, to marry and establish a “true” family. Enter the Reverend Moon, who has sired 13 children upon “Perfect Mother,” and his plan to regraft the human race. [He had 14 children with Hak Ja Han (Hae-jin died in infancy), three other known ones with other women, and there are credible rumors of others.][17]

Last year, Jerry Falwell pointedly disavowed any further connection with the Coalition for Religious Freedom. His top aide, Moral Majority vice president Ron Godwin, attacked another fundamentalist leader in the group, saying: “It strikes me as peculiar that [he] could accept financial support from a church whose founder believes he’s divine. They’re taking money from a cult whose doctrines are 180 degrees opposed. It’s a little like the Jewish National Fund accepting money from [Yasir] Arafat.”

But over the last year, a mysterious conversion appears to have taken place among Moral Majority leaders. Many of those who left the religious freedom coalition have again lined up in Moon’s defense. Falwell himself cut short his trip to South Africa last August to appear at a Washington press conference where he and Coalition for Religious Freedom leaders urged President Reagan to pardon Moon. Even Ron Godwin has apparently revised his opinions. He recently left the Moral Majority to take a job with Moon’s media company.

The Christian Right is laying big, expensive plans for 1988. The Christian Voice’s Texas chapter led a virtual takeover of the state’s Republican party in 1984. Now they want to do it to the country at large. “If we get organized,” Gary Jarmin recently told the Religious News Service, “we could very well determine the next presidential nominee. We certainly believe that.”

If they do, part of the reason will surely be the Reverend Moon’s inexplicably deep pockets. The Christian Right seems set on taking his money and deriding his religion, a profitable application of the principle of religious tolerance. “How can you be afraid of a dying church with fewer members now than it had ten years ago?” asks LaHaye. But it is not clear which of these strange bedfellows will have the last laugh.

Carolyn Weaver is a Washington-based freelance writer. Some research materials were provided by Fred Clarkson.

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Moon Speaks

My dream is to organize a Christian political party including the Protestant denominations, Catholics and all the religious sects. Then the communist power will be helpless before ours…. We have to purge the corrupted politicians, and the sons of God must rule the world. The separation between religion and politics is what Satan likes most…. Upon my command to the Europeans and others throughout the world to come live in the U.S., wouldn’t they obey me? Then what would happen? We can embrace the religious world in one arm and the political world in the other. With this great ideology, if you are not confident to do this, you had better die.

—from The Master Speaks, by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon

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[svcuriosities]

I have no idea why people so many people are complaining about Senator Cardin's staffer Aidan Meese-Czeropski having sex in the Senate Hearing room. Politicians screw us every day.

[surveysand]

twenty-one.

[Doughnuts]

Where do you prefer to get your doughnuts from? dunkin' donuts. i love the blueberry glazed donut from there.

Do you spell it doughnut or donut? donut.

How many can you eat in a sitting? it depends on a lot of things, but no more than two in a typical setting.

Do you like cream or jelly filled ones? If so, what flavor? not a big fan of either.

Have you ever had / seen the ones with gummy worms on them? no, i probably wouldn't enjoy them.

[Birds]

Has a bird ever pooped on you, or someone you know? i've been pooped on by one once. the only other person i know is my mom, who's had been pooped on by one twice, lmfao.

Would you ever want to have a bird for a pet? no, i get headaches a lot and don't think i could have an animal that makes a lot of noise.

Do birds scare you, or do you know anyone that is afraid of birds? i'm not scared of them, but one of my old friends used to be really scared of them.

What do you considered your favorite bird? swans.

Have you ever heard of a blue-footed booby? no.

[Swimming]

Do you prefer swimming during the daytime, afternoon, or evening? daytime.

What sort of a bathing suit do you prefer to wear? bikinis, but only if they're high-waisted bottoms.

Have you ever swam in the nude? no.

Do you have to plug your nose to swim under water? no.

Have you ever swam during a thunderstorm? no.

[Salad]

What is your preferred dressing? ranch.

Do you like croutons in your salad? yes.

What about dried fruits, like cranberries or raisins? no, only fresh fruit if i'm eating a salad that would call for it.

Have you ever tried salad with no dressing at all? yes.

What all do you like to have in a salad? i'm a chef's salad lover, but remove the tomatoes.

[Mice]

Have you ever had a pet mouse? no.

What about a mouse infestation in your home? no, i get one once or twice a year in my apartment, but have never had a full-on manifestation.

If a mouse crawled across your feet right now, how would you react? i would flip the fuck out.

What color computer mouse do you use? i don't use one with my macbook (what i'm using now), but for my old laptop that i use to play games, i use a black one.

Did you ever think that the plural of mouse was meese? no.

[Cheese]

What kind of cheese do you like on a deli sandwich? provolone or swiss.

Do you put parmesan cheese on your pasta? yes, all the time!

Do you like mozzarella sticks? of course, they're probably my favorite of the appetizers.

When eating string cheese, do you just bite into it or do you actually peel it & eat it like string? i peel it. i feel like it tastes better and is more enjoyable than just biting it.

How much cheese do you like on your pizza? a good amount. i prefer more cheese than sauce.