Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. BlueSky: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
so there’s this story that my grandmother loves telling (well, in recent years. for the first seventy years of her life she did not talk about her childhood at all.)
the story is that a family friend of theirs was Austria’s finance minister*, and Jewish, and after the anschluss he realized he was in trouble, but like many of Austria’s Jews he seriously underestimated how much trouble. by the time he realized it was too late to get out safely. He was also old and in failing health, so dramatics weren’t ideal.
so he asked a family member to drive him to the mountains on the Italian-Austrian border, and he’d cross there. It was easy enough to avoid the Austrian authorities going out, but you didn’t have a chance of avoiding the Italian ones, and they stopped him.
“Oh,” he said to them, “Benito knows me. Tell him I’m here and he’ll call me a car.” And indeed, they called Mussolini and he called him a car.
My reaction the first time I heard this story - and the reaction of everyone I’ve told it to - has been “so Mussolini opposed the Holocaust? He was helping smuggle Jews out of Austria?” And, no, he didn’t and wasn’t. But he knew this guy, they were old friends, the guy was in town, so Benito called him a car. Which is more characteristic of humans than the version where Mussolini was secretly a decent person, really. A million is a statistic, but this guy? I know this guy. He’s a great guy.
There’s the phrase ‘the banality of evil’, and I think it applies, but the word that’s always come to my mind is the myopia of evil, the tendency to treat People well but just not look out at the world and see billions of People, not believe that the principles you apply to the ones you know apply to all of them everywhere.
No no, you don’t understand, moose really do get that big. Take it from a Canadian. I’ve seen that bullshit in person. Scary as all heck.
And that’s how people can die if they hit a moose. Seriously, one of our fears when driving in the country is having to deal with this scenario of a moose jumping out in front of the car.
moose are actual legit ice age megafauna; theyve been here since the ice age, they are old as fuck. they also are pretty terrifying and ive echoed this before but i went to wiki and “In terms of raw numbers, they attack more people than bears and wolves combined” and “ In the Americas, moose injure more people than any other wild mammal and, worldwide, only hippopotamuses injure more.”
like, fuck off with that
I was dog sitting a dog once who insisted she had to go out in the middle of the night it was an emergency, so I took her out. Suddenly she starts pointing and barking and I look up and can just make out the outline of a HUGE moose. I’ve been accidentally face to face with a black bear and that scared me less than being up close with a moose. I’m 5 foot so imagine staring up at an animal several feet taller than you that is debating charging the dog who’s leash you are holding. I was terrified as I grabbed the dog by her collar to get better control over her and backed up slowly til I was out of line of sight and bolted for the house at a dead run. Did you know most Canadian lake monster stories come from people seeing moose swimming? They are massive animals.
They are massive and they charge. I get so scared when tourists are all “oh yeah, we got out of the car to get a closer look and, ya’ll have some mighty impressive animals around here.”
Yes, yes we do, and they have mighty tired guardian angels because moose can, and do, charge at people.
Someone my mom worked with died hitting a moose on the highway. Their eyes don’t reflect light. In the dark they are literally nothing but a big slightly darker shape in the night.
Roughly every year in the town I grew up in, a cow (moose) and her calf will wander through downtown. Maybe once or twice. If she’s aggressive enough, the local Mounties will escort her through to keep idiots away.
I’ve definitely talked with people who thought moose were deer-sized or maybe horse-sized and I was like NO YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND MOOSE ARE TERRIFYING
Moose are terrifying, you guys.
I finally live on a province where moose and deer exist.
I do not drive at night in fear of meeting one. If you hit a moose going 90 on a highway, not only is your car trashed, you are probably trashed. I’ve seen cars that got wrecked and there seems to be a consensus that at least half the time, the giant fucking beastie just shakes itself off and continues gallumphing along the countryside.
If you fucking hit a moose with your car and their legs go through your windshield, congratulations, you are dead. Massive hooves kicking you to death? Yeah.
Moose are fucking terrifying. Bull moose won’t fuck with you too much unless you fuck with them, but the time a bull moose casually swaggered his way past 7 year old me when I was sledding literally put me off winter sports for a solid month.
Momma moose and their babies, though? I legitimately had to call in to work to be like “ey yo there is a moose in my driveway and I can’t get out” AND MY MANAGERS UNDERSTOOD.
Moose. MOOSE.
I have to admit I thought they were like a Canadian deer before this.
The commenter above who claims that moose’s eyes don’t reflect light is only partially correct; if you shine a flashlight in a moose’s eyes it will glow like a cat (and then you will probably get killed to death by an annoyed moose) but the reason they are so dangerous to cars at nights is that they are too tall for the headlights to reach. Think about that.
Moose confirmed for actual kaiju.
Wait so if Trump wins, can we get Justin Trudeau to invite him to Canada and then throw him to the moose?
The year after I graduated from college apparently a moose wandered into town and down the main street on Homecoming (Homecoming! HOMECOMING! Drunken college students everywhere!) My friend @mrsknightleysdays was still at school and she told me about it. People were less scared then the time a bear rambled around campus freshman year, probably because everyone was too drunk to know any better.
(Our school was very rural, in the mountains. The main street was the only street, pretty much, for context)
Please, tell us more tales of the moose, for I am an american, and thought them deer-sized.
Yeah, moose is the most dangerous animal in Finland as well. When you have a country which is mostly nothing but forest, you bet your ass there’s quite a few of them.
I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen one. There was this one time I was hiking and gotten so far that I was waiting my friends on the meeting point, and because I was early, I decided to have a nap. Some time later I woke up this loud WHOOSH WHOOSH SPLASH sound. Sounded like someone had decided to do butterfly strokes in the pond near me. But no. There was a moose and her two calves six meters from me trotting along the swampy shoreline. And I was like WHOA and sat up. And they freaked out, so I freaked out. Luckily I was on area where moose are hunted so the moose’s first reaction was to run. ‘Cause the cows can get aggressive when they have a calf.
And there are “moose warning” signs everywhere. Moose fences are built around roads, so that the animals can’t get on them on certain points. Except moose migrate. So if the fence is inconvenient for them, they might just jump over it. So now there are also tunnels and bridges built for the animals.
I distinctly remember as a child having to watch low-budget safety videos specifically FOR MOOSE in school. Anytime one showed up on the playground we had to haul butt back inside and wait for it to leave. They may look large and awkward but those guys can easily jump over a tall playground fence with ease
True story: I have elk in the second Devil’s West novel, and I was describing them to someone in the war room (our online writer’s room). They, in their British innocence, asked if elk were the largest mammal we had in north America.
Once I finished laughing, I sent them comp photos of a full-grown bull elk, and a full-grown Vermont bull moose.
just wanna let u guys kno that like if u ever dont understand a joke or meme or something ill explain it to u in an instant. if u ever want clarification on something ive said or aren’t capable of detecting sarcasm or whatever i will tell you if u ask. like no exceptions u can come to me for help.
so i get a lot of asks about lipstick, because i wear it a lot and talk about it a lot and tend to speak in declarative sentences. but since i usually end up saying basically the same thing, i figured i’d just put it all in one place.
first of all let me say: i fucking love lipstick. if i had been consulted at the beginning of the world, my top contribution would have been, “make sure society is real chill about everyone wearing lipstick who wants to, regardless of gender. make that a priority. right after that we can address why you felt the need to create cockroaches.”
here are just a few reasons why lipstick is the bomb-dot-com:
you can just change!!!! the whole color palette!!! of your face!!!
the second you put lipstick on, you are instantly the star of a music video. what’s your jam right now? turn that shit on. look at yourself in the mirror. you’re now in a hella artsy one-shot music video where it’s just you in the mirror looking FRESH. TO. DEATH.
remember when you were four-ish and your school or your parents or your one friend with all the nice shit brought out that 64-shade box of crayola crayons and your WHOLE BODY started vibrating because you were SO PUMPED about crayons?
lipstick is like that, except you get to put those crayons on your face.
don’t act like you didn’t want to rub those crayons all over your face when you were four.
don’t you lie to me. i’m your FIBS. we’re family.
anyway, the point is, wearing lipstick is the best. you should wear whatever color you want, whenever you want, but if you’re feeling ambivalent about it, here’s how i, personally, decide when to wear what.
TWO NOTES:
NOTE 1: just because this is how i do it does not mean it is the right or only way to do it. i’ll bet this is not how rosario dawson does it, and lbr, if we could all be more like rosario dawson and less like me, we would be.
NOTE 2: if you are of a gender that society likes 2 be a dickbag to about wearing lipstick, and someone is a dickbag to you about wearing lipstick, listen. i will spit in their mouths. okay? you look amazing. you look way better than those dickbags.
LIPSTICK: YOUR GUIDE TO PUTTING CRAYONS ALL OVER YOUR FACE.
REDS
there are two reasons to wear red lipstick. the first is that you want to be and feel so smokin hot that there is not a single person in the world who doesn’t look at you and go, “WHO THE FUCK IS THAT?”
the second is if you wake up and think to yourself, “i would like today to be that gif of obama kicking open a door. just the whole day. fuck you, doors.”
PINKS
pink is to red what a TV episode is to a whole season. pink is mr. darcy saying, “i love you, most ardently,” where red is that scene in brokeback mountain where they do it for the first time.
red hits you over the noggin. pink probably winks at you across the room from the party. you’re like, “WHAT DOES THAT WINK MEAN?”
pink shrugs. “idk,” says pink. “figure it out.”
pink probably runs an Aesthetic Blog.
you probably follow it, even though as a general rule you hate Aesthetic Blogs.
my point here is that pink can have a hundred thousand different uses and applications, dependent on the shade. nicki minaj wears lots of different pinks. do you feel like you want to be gently pushed on a swing in a meadow by your doting lover, who calls you my sweet? that’s a desperately light pink. do you want to make a point about femininity not being a synonym for weakness? that’s a probably magenta. maybe pastel, but aggressive neon. probably, but not necessarily, matte.
pink is complicated. so are you. embrace pink.
PURPLES
wear purple when you want someone riding a bicycle to crash into a flower stand because they are distracted by your striking beauty while you walk down the street. for this particular feeling, the darker the purple, the better. like the dark purple skin of a perfect plum. nothing says “bored luxury” like plum lipstick.
lighter purples are trickier. lighter purples are great for Nighttime Parties, particularly Nighttime Parties Where You’re Going Out To A Space Designed For Copious Public Drinking. i personally only wear neon purples in clubs–which is to say, i never wear neon purples–but i have a friend who wears them to brunch, and to be honest she brings the hotness of the whole group up an entire level. if you’re wearing neon purple, you are immediately the most important person at the table, so wear it on days when you want to wield that power for good, not evil.
MAROONS
maroon is a Business Lipstick. a Workplace Lipstick. maroon says, “i’m hot as shit, but i’m also incredibly competent.” maroon lipstick says, “i’m not here to talk shit about nancy at the water cooler, todd. i’m here to do my job, and do it better than both of you.”
maroon lipstick says, “yes, you should promote me.”
maroon lipstick says, “I’M AN ADULT. I MIGHT OWN A TOASTER THAT BURNS THE PITTSBURGH PENGUINS LOGO INTO MY BREAD, BUT I SWEAR TO GOD I AM AN ADULT.”
or, you know. whatever.
that’s just an example.
maroon lipstick also goes with pretty much everything. i always keep a tube of maroon lipstick in my purse in case of emergency.
NUDES
“nude” is a complicated question, because it covers such a wide range of skin tones. like, lupita nyong’o and i have wildly different ideas of what color makes our lips “nude.” so this section isn’t really about a color, but more of whatever-color-nude-is-YOUR-color-nude. it’s a category, not a shade.
nudes are good for a lot of occasions. nudes are good for looking like a Hot Young Parent Whose Partner Took The Kids For The Day. nudes are good for “I Just Woke Up Like This.” nudes are good for Sunday Meal With Your Parents. nudes are good for that scene at climax of a romance movie where for some reason you, as the protagonist, are standing in the rain, and you are crying because you’re in love with somebody but something with a capital S has come between you. they’re also good for a montage about you getting shit done in your life, like cleaning your apartment or studying for an exam or packing to leave for a long trip abroad.
i recommend gentle music when you’re wearing nudes. really poetic, emotional shit. joni mitchell. the avett brothers. tracy chapman.
you know what? scratch that. just put on “fast car.” listen to “fast car” on repeat the whole time you’re wearing nudes.
ORANGES
look, i’ll be honest. i don’t know. i don’t trust orange. i’ve seen people look beautiful in orange lipstick but it makes me think they’re hiding something.
are you hiding something? wear orange.
BLUES/GREENS/ANYTHING “WILDLY OUTSIDE THE REALM OF HUMAN FACE COLORS”
there is no right time to wear these colors. there is also no wrong time.* a few examples:
it’s the weekend.
you just got back from “woofstock,” a dog festival.
you genuinely love dubstep (for some reason).
you genuinely love the new ryn weaver album (for obvious reasons).
fucking todd at work brought in VEGETABLES WITH HUMMUS instead of a cake for his birthday. i mean, it’s your birthday, todd, but like, VEGETABLES WITH HUMMUS???? for your BIRTHDAY??? god, who even raised you.
*a small correction: maybe don’t wear these at funerals. i’d stick with neutrals or maroons at funerals.
A BRIEF ADDITIONAL NOTE
when it comes to applying lipstick in public (rather than, idk, excusing yourself to the bathroom or whatever), i’m of two minds. on the one hand, it pleases me to imagine that people just think that my mouth is always this color, even when there is no conceivable blend of genetics that could render me with a sparkly purple mouth.
on the other hand, like, fuck it, you know? whenever i catch someone watching me apply lipstick in public i kind of feel like that part in the “feeling myself” music video where beyoncé is wearing a chicago bulls one-piece and goes, “i stop the world! world, stop.”
