Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 14:22:17 -0500 From: Ginny Baker Subject: The Weasels FAQ: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Weasels! Weasels are your friends, though you might not think it to look at them in their expensive Armani suits. They help you in so many ways. Mortals have weasels to help them get rid of annoyances like estranged spouses and rich relatives, and immortals have weasels to help them dispose of headless bodies and access Swiss bank accounts of the oh-so-recently-deceased. To help you understand how weasels and their Art somehow are part of the larger discussion of Immortals and their Watchers, we have developed the following Frequently Asked Questions list. 1. Where do Weasels come from? Several times a year in the dark of the moon, Weasels emerge from under a tattered scrap of sheepskin called a "law degree" that has been mouldering for some three years in the darkest, dankest corners of law libraries all over this great nation and the world. They go into a frenzy until they have passed the "bar" and get their first job. Then it is survival of the fittest, with senior weasels feeding on less-skilled junior weasels, the strongest of which manage to struggle up over the bodies of their fallen comrades to nibble the heads off of one of the senior weasels, achieving partnerhood and a corner office by the age of 30. 2.Why are there Weasels? There just are. 3.But why are there Weasels on the Highlander list? Because we have a resident Weasel, Wendy. Wendy-the-Weasel is not to be confused with Satellite Wendy, otherwise known as dragon Wendy. Wendy-the-Weasel has sharp little bitey teeth and will nibble-nibble-nibble you to death. You won't die of blood loss, but you may die laughing. 4.But why is Wendy-the-Weasel a Weasel and not, say, a Badger? Badgers? We don' need no steenkin' Badgers on the Highlander mailing list. 5.Who said anything about Badgers? Maybe someone was Badgering someone else. Or perhaps someone was accused of Weaseling out. It doesn't really matter, now that we have a firmly established online Weasel, plus a fanclub of various pre-Weasels, ferrets, paraWeasels, and other mammals, reptiles, and birds. Oh, and dragons. Wendy declared herself a Weasel, not a Badger, and ever so she shall be. * 6.Fanclub? Ferrets? Paraweasels? Pre-Weasels?????? She has a world wide organization of minions. One of them actually licked me once (really). She also has a Pirate ally (female) who gets to do the fun swashbuckling stuff like kidnapping mild-mannered college students (logan) and training them in Navy SEAL techniques in order to defeat her good-natured rivals, the List Ravens (4).***** 7. Sorry. How do I join the fanclub? I have no idea, I just made it up. Psyche! But now someone will probably have already thought it into existence anyway. See the HL IV FAQ** for further insights into the interesting fan-based phenomenon of a movie or club's previous existence prior to creation. I suppose now someone will have been planning a Weasel Gathering in Washington for a long time now... 8. I don't get it. Swell. So what about all the other animals? Pre-Weasels haven't emerged from under the tattered scrap of parchment, and have yet to pass the bar... they go right in and have a beer or three. Ferrets are... lesser members of the legal staff, roughly equivalent to process servers, film-noir private eyes, or graduate teaching fellows. They do all the really icky dirty work of headless corpse disposal. ParaWeasels do all the boring fill-in work on the Weasel Rubbins, and all of the work on the ones with Big Sad-Eyed Kitties, Klowns, and Kids. This facility with Ks gets them a lot of pro bono work with indigent K-immies. Ravens (4) are the offficial caw-dre of Christophe Lambert fans on Highla-l: a group of writers, they most often appear in little trenchcoats and tennis shoes, and carry bird-size katana in mysterious, but tiny, K-space. There are, or have been in the past, members who were Wombats, Sharks, Tiggers (that's me), Dragons, and other diverting species. Those Newbies who appear may be affectionately described as damp, pink, and mewling. Their nurse is zK(lara) Barton. Sometimes they transform into ordinary humans once they come to terms with the massive amounts of Weasel lore, List lore, and just plain garden variety lore. Sometimes, they turn into some new type of list animal. It's not always a conscious or voluntary choice...;) Oh, and the herd of deathless ponies keeps going around and around and around and around our own mockup of the track where Kit and Double Eagle are in residence. They represent the Topics that Would Not Die. As in: Holy Ground Yes or No?, Care and Feeding of Swords, The Duality Duel Twixt Magic and Science, and many, many more. 9. Why? You ask a lot of questions, don't you? 10. What's this about Weasel Rubbins? It was discovered last year, by a source that must remain anonymous for now, that Weasels are actually quite creative. They have an instinct for rubbing themselves all over their victims, er, clients... also furniture, draperies, and carpets. This instinct, coupled with some prepared linen, or perhaps silk, and a small quantity of powdered oil or water based paints laid out on the floor, can result in quite astonishingly good Art called Weasel Rubbins. I can get it for you wholesale. Call now, operators are standing by...we promise to ship to you sometime this decade, but only if you pay by credit card. Cash takes forever, or even longer if you ordered from a booth at a convention. We'll periodically SPAM you with advertising email, too. Send a message to remove@cyberramp.com to be removed (someday) from our nefariously obtained lists. <-----real address! Use with care! 11. Oh, who asked you? You did, way back at the beginning. Don't you remember?*** 12. But why do people on this list insist on talking about Weasels? What else is there to talk about when waiting for the next new episode? We can't talk about Magic versus Science, or debate whether something is Holy Ground or not all the time! Only most of the time. Otherwise we'd be right back with that old regenerating/nonregenerating severed hand thread or the female hormones thread or half a dozen more too bloodcurdling to be mentioned here. After watching the dead ponies race around and around and around on the screen, it came as a welcome relief to sit back and watch Sally Struthers' World Weasel Vision commercial about those poor underprivileged Ferrets. Kip Guinn was the director of the infomercial, and a fine one it was. I believe it has been nominated for an Oscar in the category, "Outstanding in his Field in Short-Shorts, Directing a Wiggly Furry Ferrety Pack of Mustelidae." 13. Is there Weasel merchandise? Omigod. You must be coming down with that virulent fever, HL-RAM***. You heard that there is a prototype of an Armani leather duster, complete with subpoena pocket. And possibly pawprinted, numbered Weasel Rubbins lithographs as well. The prices will be announced as soon as the Weasels rub up the colorfully illustrated contracts. Those friendly operators are still standing by, waiting to charge your card right *now*... and fill your order *eventually*. The CD-ROM of the "Weasel Chronicles" is due any year now, order today! The screensaver, even later! By then, you may be cured. Or have converted your monitor into a nice planter, with nary a furry animal or Immortal action figure in sight. Action figure? Hey, we need those ASAP!! I'm calling Fusion and suggesting it... not of HL:TAS, though. 14. Can someone email me a copy of the first year of Weaselmania? I'll gladly pay postage for the trouble. Please don't mention that four-letter word C*PY again! 15. Well, then can I get a synopsis? This is it, kid. Here's a magnifying glass for reading between the lions. Enjoy! --O ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} ;} We hope you have enjoyed the Weasel FAQ and have no further questions. Which would be a good thing, as we have no further answers to explain the fan-omenon that is Weaselmania. Respectfully submitted, Ginny Baker RE57@aol.com not a weasel, but a SABRE2th TIGGERESS...will that be cash or charge? Fares subject to change without notice. * Wendy is an alumna of a school whose mascot is the Badger. She is a lawyer in Washington. She once responded to a remark equating lawyers with weasels by signing off "I'm not a Weasel, I'm a Badger" but she has since reversed herself, since "we don' need no steenkin' badgers" on the list. Kip Guinn amused himself by poking fun at her (with Weasel Pokers, of course) and building an Anti-Weasel Defense Bunker behind his living room couch (unfortunately, just now he is very ill, and we miss him very much). But after a while, it will all start to make a weird sort of sense, and then you'll know you've got it bad! Other references are to other well known running jokes (or running battles!), and so I hope you find this mess of use. **Psyche! There is no HL IV FAQ, though there ought to be. Perhaps someone will think it into existence prior to its creation, so as to avoid the dreaded copyright entanglement. It dates from when we wrote a better sequel ourselves after HL III came out, and adroitly avoided problems with TPTB by simultaneously agreeing that HL IV was thought up in the past by all of us, long ago. Someone (Brian MacLeod?) was going to stitch it all together in all its anarchic, anachronistic, messy, naughty glory. ***Highlander Related Acquisition Mania. Don't worry, another recycled joke. But then... how many HL related items *have* you bought???? ****Don't you wish you'd never asked about Weasels in the first place?? ;} *****See the story A Weasel's Tale for the stirring adventures of Shelley the Pirate. I get to punch the big red button at the end. I seem to be in charge of Ferret Recruitment. I sure hope it doesn't spawn as much Bandwidth as Watcher Recruitment or Roll Call!!