Jeff Mach's Blog, page 54

Ugly Half-Memories

JK clung to me, not like a leech, more like a heartworm, inseparable, and we felt unable to live without each other. She lied about who she was, where she came from, what her life was like. I lied and told her I might love something other than my work. She wasn’t Irish (that was, perhaps, the funniest lie)—but since she pretended to be for half a year, she adopted many charming mannerisms that accompanied a lilting voice beautifully. In lyrical moments, sometimes I do the same—though I’m only one-sixteenth Irish myself.

MK made herself indispensable in my life, knew that the way to my soul was through my work. Ironically, when I was no longer famous, no longer beloved, no longer easy to love, that’s when MK, who kept saying she was devoted in ways that all the “glamorous people” (her words) could never be…why, that’s when she decided to stop helping me. My love wasn’t conditional, wasn’t based on the things she did for me; but it wasn’t a fool’s love, either. She did things for me because she wanted to brag she’d done something for someone famous; when I became ugly-famous, she wanted and needed nothing I could give her.

The Girl from Wonderland had a temper. She never did fight fair. No-one I’ve ever met was as good at getting under your skin, and every time she got you really mad, she’d taunt you, take everything she knew about you, every secret sadness or pain you’d ever disclosed in friendship, and throw them at you, trying to see what hit you hardest, trying to see what hurt you most. Then, a little while later, she’d be crying on your shoulder and apologizing.

There was consolation in knowing that she did this to everyone, but it wasn’t much consolation. Few people were as good as she was at making you feel worthless.

When she was brutally physically murdered, her exes and her friends, myself included, wept; I still can’t believe I’ll never see her again; I still can’t believe her light is extinguished; I can’t believe some monster took her life.

But none of us is surprised she was murdered. We say it quietly—and was say, and we mean, that no-one deserves murder.

But while most of us us are horrified, and some (myself, again, included) are more than a little horrified—I can’t say I’m surprised. It was a tragic life with a tragic end, and she had some great people around her who helped and supported her, and some of those great people always told her she was brave and strong and capable of doing anything, and I believe it was those of us who always told her she could do anything…

…who gave her the confidence to enter a bad situation, thinking she’d come out okay, and I think we murdered her.

C was a good chap. It was his utter decency which made it inevitable that he would become a monster. We live in strange times.

W said I was a sociopath, with no personality of my own. I’m not; that is as close as I can imagine anyone getting to a completely opposite picture of how I feel. They never bothered to look behind the persona they saw onstage. It was their dearest desire to believe that, because I could get on stage and draw the cheers of thousands, I was some kind of machine, some dystopian pop-star, reflecting what the audience loved, having nothing real of my own. They never understood that I had a self offstage, partly, because they wanted to believe that my stage success was due to some trick or some manipulation, but mostly, because they wanted to believe everyone was like them, no empathy, no love, just a face you sliced off someone else and wore in public to fool the shills. I feel bad for them, but if they were drowning, I wouldn’t trust them with a glass of water.

H is a ghost. I know she was real, but I also know that the monster in my closet is really hoping I’ll leave the room and turn out the light so he can grab a quick nip of the whiskey I keep in my desk drawer; and this is why nightlights are a wise investment.

Are these stories true? Are these people real?

I don’t know. One day, for the evils I was said to have done, they cast me out of the World, thinking it would make me gone. And what crawled back has the memories of the person I was, and the responsibilities; anything he did or did not do, that is now 100% on me, mine to figure out as best I can.

Time used to make me more wistful for my former loves, and I imagined them as being wondrous beings, now tragically lost. Now time has made me see them all as monsters. These are strange days, and we tell ourselves strange stories, now.

The post Ugly Half-Memories appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Martian News

Mars and Venus were at war. This is not a metaphor of any kind; it turns out that there’s sentient life on Venus, and sentient life on Mars, and they’re bipedal and speak English and read newspapers.

If all of this seems implausible and looks like it would fly in the face of logic, reason, and science, we’d like to remind you: none of those things have faces.

Earth cultures are extremely diverse, for a number of complicated reasons. But Martians and Venusians are monocultural. That’s not, strictly speaking, necessary; but we figure, if we’re going to make astronomers and linguists and evolutionary biologists sad, we might as well create some misery among anthropologists.

At any rate, Mars and Venus were at war. Space War. It was very ugly. Because there were Martians on Venus and Venusians on Mars, and on each planet, the ‘alien’ species was treated with horrible prejudice. This was not cool, but as Earthlings were too busy yelling at each other to notice that all of their telescopes had been defective for centuries, there wasn’t much we could do about it, seeing as how we didn’t know any of these beings existed.

One cold day on Venus (I can’t be bothered to look up the temperature of Venus, so let’s assume that this was the kind of cold that’s a bit uncomfortable, but which won’t freeze you alive. Actually…oh. It’s very, very hot on Venus. Well, I’ll just forget I learned that.)

—one cold day on Venus, two Martians were sitting on a park bench. One was reading a Martian newspaper, the other a Venusian newspaper. It wasn’t even a reputable Venusian newspaper; it had poor journalistic standards even for its time, which was 1949.

They sat in silence for a while. Eventually, the Martian with the Martian paper looked sternly over at his companion.

“Forgelvax,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Forgelvax looked up from his paper. “What do you mean, Beepleprog?”

(For your information, Maritans think YOU have a silly name. So there.)

Forgelvax looked upset. “Why are you reading that horrid Venusian propaganda? Why aren’t you reading a nice, helpful Martian paper?”

Beepleprog shrugged. “Look, Forgelvax,” he replied, “when I read a Martian paper, I hear that Mars is in trouble, I hear that the fighting is bad, I hear that the harvest is doing poorly, I hear that the slithy toves continue to gyre and gimble in the wabe. It’s all very depressing.” He tapped the Venusian paper. “Now in this rag, I hear that Martians control the economy, Martians own all the pet shops, Martians are getting into all the best schools, and Martians are going to take over the world. I know that it’s lies, but it makes me feel great!”

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

The post Martian News appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Villainpunks For a Better Reality

I used to stay up all night playing ‘Resident Evil 2,’ and it wouldn’t stop until the sun came up.. Then I’d walk outside at dawn’s first light, looking at the empty streets of London, and it was like life imitating art.. It felt like I’d stepped into an actual zombie apocalypse..

~Edgar Wright

We keep trying to escape this reality; is that because this reality isn’t good enough?  No, not at all.

It’s just that we keep realizing this reality’s deficiencies.  Carl Sagan said, “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”  And that’s true.  But…

It’s pretty damn arrogant to think we understand the Universe.  I’ll be honest; it took me something like two years to figure out exactly how I liked my morning coffee.  It took me ten years to realize that I look bad in shorts.  We seem to think that a small portion of a human lifetime is enough to tell us what’s “real”.

And at the same time, it’s pretty damn self-destructive to think that we can’t understand any part of the Universe, that we’re totally out of control. Jut because the Universe is big doesn’t mean we’re insignificant; it means we sometimes need to think big if we’re going to make something work.

Friends, reality is malleable.  We are human beings; we are not slaves of destiny, we are not machines, we are not programs.  We change the world simply by existing within it.

That’s part of what Villainpunk says: “To hell with a world where run around saying everything we don’t understand is evil; let’s just create BOUNDLESS IMAGINARY VILLAINY!”  This is why the Post-Apocalypse says: “To hell with your day job, this future is more ALIVE.”  That is what Goth says: “Forget the insipid joys; a REAL joy should be able to exist in the face of the complete and exquisite knowledge of sadness and remorse.”

We are beings of imagination and creation.  Go ahead, try to tell us what’s “real”.  We’ll fight back with a reality ridiculous and implausible, a reality flawed in every way except…

…except that as humans, we can make it real.  And that is Villainpunk and Renaissance Faires and Zombies and Goth and Halloween…but it’s also the fascinating technologies around us, the things we take for granted, cell phones, computers, video games, knowledge and information. Understanding alone is much less limited than anyone thinks it to be; Moore’s law alone proves it.

We’re humans.  Our only limits are imaginary, and we can break imaginary rules any time we want; ask anyone who’s ever played Dungeons and Dragons.

Never let Reality hold you back. You can do better than that.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

 

The post Villainpunks For a Better Reality appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

I HATE Your Prophecy

[I don’t know any authors who enjoy writing their book descriptions; if there’s anything that feels like the opposite of telling a novel-length story, it’s trying to entice people to read the thing using only a few hundred words and, if possible, no spoilders. But after a few tries, I have something I rather like, and I wanted to share it with you. You can pre-order the new book, “I HATE Your Prophecy“, by using this handy link.]

The Dark Lord Alice would be much happier if she’d gone mad.

It’s not that lunacy is pleasant for someone who enjoys control, but it’s not exactly unprecedented among sorcerers of a certain puissance. There are so many ways it can happen: attempt a spell more complex than you can handle; summon something whose Will turns out to be far greater than your own; learn certain kinds of knowledge which most humans were not meant to know and find out, too late, that you don’t sufficient understanding of the Cosmos to keep your mind from snapping, and you reached too far, too fast…

None of these are exactly enjoyable; but at least there’s a certain wild joy in going off your damn rocker and spending your nights howling imprecations at the Moon.

Unfortunately for Alice, that’s not her life. As far as she can tell, she’s still a rational being—as rational as any Human, at any rate—but the damn World has clearly, unabashedly gone completely damn bonkers.

Based on everything she can see and scry and learn, based on the tale of every Bard who passes through and every delegation of peasants seeking assistance, there can be little doubt that insanity has spread, like far-flung ash from a particularly large and angry volcano, all throughout civilized lands.

(That’s assuming that any of them were particularly civilized to begin with…but at least, in the past, they weren’t actively destroying each other, and themselves, as if they were out to win a prize for Best Self-Immolation Of The Year.)

It gets worse, of course.

All this would be alarming to even the most aloof of beings, even if they left her out of it. But the White Wizards were doing just the opposite. As experts in discovering reasons to be terrified—sorry, we meant, as experts in identifying sheer evil—they’d decided Alice was one of the great enemies of Humankind. And now they’re sending a human puppy mill of Chosen Ones to slay her.

Something’s got to give. Alice doesn’t know what it is, but even if she survives all of her adolescent attackers (each one convinced that it’s their Destiny to destroy the Dark Lord)—there’s not a lot any individual being can do if everything else is swept up in a tidal wave of Madness. No Sorcerer, no ten Sorcerers, could survive the onslaught of a planet gone nuts. So Alice has to do something about it.

While not getting killed.

And despite being seen as a nemesis of Mankind.

…which isn’t exactly untrue…

And as we enter the tale of the Dark Lord.

Things are about to get weird, dark, sorcerous, and very complicated, and all we have is a sense of humor, a strange plot, and unlikely assortment of oddly-recruited Chosen Ones…

So now, Alice, with the aid of a handful of former Chosen Ones (oh, it started out as quite a lot of former Chosen Ones, but most of them didn’t survive Alice’s testing process. No-one ever said that The Dark Lord was nice)—

…Alice and a few of her onetime would-be assassins need to figure out what the Hell to do when all the other sentients on their planet seem bound and determined to transform the place into one giant cinder.

As far as Alice can see, there’s only one thing they can do:

Die. Horribly.

The White Wizards are fighting hard to save Humankind by destroying it. This makes perfect sense, if you’re certain that Humans are so flawed and broken that there’s no way to save them.

The good news is, The Dark Lord has a clever plan…

… and the bad news is, that’s totally a lie.

The Dark Lord has been a solitary creature all her life; but she knows that she doesn’t have an answer. So she’s decided to train some of her ex-murderers in the Arts of Magic, and hopefully, between the four of them, they’ll come up with something.

Each of them was Prophesied as the one who’d wipe out the Dark Lord. The Prophecy lied. And if Destiny doesn’t control their lives, then they do. They have the chance to save themselves, and maybe some of the World, as well.

Granted, it seems a whole lot more likely that they’ll just be char-broiled when the mobs finally come to tear down the Dark Keep.

But we’ll see. If Destiny’s not running the show, then anything could happen….

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

The post I HATE Your Prophecy appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

And Once And Once And Once

Once upon a time, there lived a magical fairy. How magical was she? She was so magical that she didn’t have to put up with being trapped in a story, and she left.

Once upon a time there was a mighty Giant so tall that his head pierced the very clouds. The clouds, in response, grew terrified, and left the Kingdom forever. All perished in the resulting drought.

Once upon a time there was a Knight so gallant and bold that he was beloved by all the people. The King and Queen, sensing a potential political rival, sent him off to wars in the farthest region of the World, and he was never seen again.

Once there was a narrator who really didn’t want to tell fairytales, and it might have showed.

Once there was a Queen so wicked that she had storytellers tell stories about how Wicked a Queen her mother was. Now there was someone who could have used some Royal Therapy.

Once there was a Hunger that had no name, no shape, no thing but a great mouth, a vast appetite, and an ability to digest things despite apparently having almost none of the body parts necessary for life processes. It was weird, and yet, it was invited everywhere by those who believed that it was the inevitable shape of a creature of this sad world.

Once upon a time, someone invented naps, and you should find that person, and feed them pie.

Once there was a way to get back home again; once, but no longer.

Once there was a free taco day, and there was great, if temporary, happiness in the land.

Once upon a time, there were cats, and that was nice, but then they were all devoured. BY OTHER CATS. We have no words.

Once there was an Ogre who thought he looked great in a black strapless dress, one which was covered with sequins, and he did, and everyone told him so, and his story wasn’t very exciting, but sometimes a lack of excitement is better than unholy terror.

Once I cried out to the cold and pitiless fates, “ISN’T THIS ENOUGH?” But it was not enough, and they never did answer.

Once there was a Magic Mirror which kept telling me I was the prettiest in all the land. I knew that I was not, that the mirror lied to me, trying tell me what I wanted to hear. But I kept telling the mirror I wanted the truth, and the mirror kept thinking I was lying, until one day I removed the Magic Mirror from my home and set it in a warehouse, across from another mirror, and all day long, it tells itself that it is pretty, fearing its own wrath, and I suspect it lives an exhausting and frightening life, but the shiny screen of lies is no longer in my life, and now I am free to go and find out what I really look like, and even if I am ugly beyond belief, I am unchained from the babble and the lies, and that, o my darling friends, o my unworthy foes,

that is a very happy beginning.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

 

 

The post And Once And Once And Once appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Debunking The Evil Overlord List

Now, you might well ask, “Dark Lord, why are you debunking Peter’s Evil Overlord List – sometimes called,

The Top 100 Things I’d Do

If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

And the answer is quite simple:

I have seen the error of my monstrous, Villainpunk ways. I am now devoting my life to sunshine, planting non-carnivorous flowers, and using my technomagical skills to create potions that make kitties even more cute and adorable.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the thought. Turn away from Villainy? At the very time when people are making up the most amazing, the most fascinating, the most utterly and completely inaccurate loathsome tales about my unspeakable (and, indeed, generally impossible) deeds of churlery? NO WAY!

It’s just that many people actually haven’t heard of the Evil Overlord list; as the Internet has grown, we’ve learned a great deal, but certain artifacts of original iniquity have been lost or become obscure.

And so I have come forth to tell you: The Evil Overlord List is a TRAP!

Yes! It’s true!

In point of fact, the vast majority of the list is made up of erroneous information, designed to lull heroes into a false sense of security by reminding them of the foolishness of we silly villains, and to separate some of the Villainous wheat from the Villainous chaff.

…”But, Dark Lord,” I hear absolutely no-one asking, “if this is true, why unveil its secrets? Why weaken the cause of Villainy, even slightly, by debunking the falsehoods within this list?”

Ah, my friend. Remember that strategy is a high-stakes poker came played with Death for the very highest stakes in a no-holds-barred bareknuckle battle to the finish, using a triple-edged blade, on an ever-shifting gameboard that is constantly surrounded by alligators and, for some reason, tiny ghostlike figures who interfere with one’s natural desire to eat as many power pellets as possible.

Many Heroes and Villains have already figured out these tropes, and solved them. So in some cases, there’s no harm in my adding to a knowledge that’s already out in the world.

And then….

I know that this may shock you, but –

every once in a while, Villains lie.

Yes, most of my discussions will be clarifying the record and explaining why the Dark Lords and Fiendish Villains of old were NOT as foolish as the modern record would like to represent them.

And some of them are traps. Plausibly-logical, calmly-reasoned TOTAL AND UTTER DEATHTRAPS OF FALSE INFORMATION WAITING TO SLAY THE UNWARY.

Let’s face it. Many of us have experienced situations where a perfectly true, evidence-based, documentable thing has been interpreted as some sort of Unspeakably Foul Plot.

Well, if that’s how the forces of Good want it, that’s how they get it. As I begin this project, I’ll know:

They can assume I’m telling lies, and that mistake will ultimately be fatal.

Or they can assume I’m telling the truth, and that mistake will ultimately be fatal.

Or they can assume that the World is complicated and we should have some reasonable conversations in order to better-understand each other, as opposed to simply fighting to the death all the time.

Which they will NEVER, EVER DO, and that mistake will ultimately be fatal.

yours in Villainy,

~Jeff Mach, Dark Lord

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

The post Debunking The Evil Overlord List appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Dead Dragons

Once there was a gallant knight,

Who said, to a Dragon, “Beware, foul wight!

For I have come to slay your kind,

And steal what treasure I might find.”

The Dragon said, “You lack acumen;

A ‘wight’ is a ghost, or unlucky human,”

…but the Knight continued, as if he’d not heard:

“I heed not thy trickish word!”

“Note you this sword!” he did continue;

“It slices through the toughest sinew!”

The Dragon said, “Thy sword, I hail;

But I’d note I’m covered with armour’d scale.”

The Knight went on, “I have come hence!

And I’ve brought my own audience.”

And, indeed, in looking down,

The Dragon noted half the town.

They’d come out to see his end;

And to his funeral attend.

They cheered the Knight, and his actions spurred,

And they called the Dragon unkind words.

“You see!” the Knight, in triumph, cried,

“I now have many on my side.

We’re here to dispense righteousness

(And also, to loot thy treasure chests.)”

The Dragon then a sigh did heave.

“Are you sure you all don’t want to leave?

I don’t enjoy your smug disdain,

But I’d hate to see all of you slain.”

The crowd did boo. The crowd did laugh.

“Why, he’s a proud one, by a half!”

Said one wag, to loud applause;

The Dragon sighed, and clicked his jaws.

“I know our species are not friends

But must we work towards crosswise ends?

Leave me to my cave, and you to your lives

Everyone goes; everyone survives.”

The Knight then struck a Knightly pose

“Foul beast, too late – for everyone knows:

Dragons are sickly things, and weak

They’re scarcely smart enough to speak.

They do not fly. They breath no flame.

They’re easier than dogs to tame.

These things, our Bards have taught us well.

We know you’ve neither strength, nor spell.”

The Dragon shrugged and did let fly

A blast of flame more than twelve feet high.

The crowd, in turn, all eyes did roll.

“That’s just a trick,” the Knight did scold.

The Dragon said, “What do you believe?

What you’ve actually seen? – or the words you receive

From Bards, who (if I might remind)

Are not all truthfully inclined.”

The Knight cried out, “Now, that’s enough!

Speak thy no more of this lying stuff!

We know what’s true, we know what’s real

Because what we’ve been told matches what we feel.

If a truth’s displeasing, then – forsooth!

That alone proves its untruth.

The World is easily understood:

Those we like tell the truth, and are good.

Those we dislike, lie, and all of those

We’ll someday hang by their big toes.

And so, weird lizard, thy words do grate!

And thusly shalt thou meet thy fate!”

So saying, the Knight’s great sword did slash

The Dragon’s belly, where it made…no gash.

Instead, it bounced – in fact, it bent,

A thing the Knight didn’t live to resent.

For the Dragon sighed, and took one inhale,

And swishing, a tad, his giant tail,

Breathed forth a flame so vast and huge

It was like some mighty, fiery deluge.

But it wasn’t rain; it was pure heat.

And it fried six tons of human meat.

The Dragon gave a sigh of consternation;

Now he had problems of refrigeration.

But a local Wizard, for a moderate cost,

Cast, in the back of his cave, a Frost,

and helped him moved the tasty remains

Of a bunch of humans with too-few brains.

So now, the Dragon’s catching up on reading,

And he’s got lots to chew if he needs feeding.

And as for the town, it continued to exist

And none of the mob were very much missed.

Need morals? To start, know that many a Knight

Looks good in armor, but ain’t very bright.

And: some lessons are cruel, and ain’t lenient:

Reality’s real, even when it’s inconvenient.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

The post Dead Dragons appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

4 Tips For Mad Scientists

Sure, we’ve all been there.  You’re crawling out of the wreckage of your latest laboratory, watching your Monster go make friends with the people who’ve just destroyed years of your work, and picking little bits of adamantium, mithril, and frozen aether out of yet another utterly ruined labcoat, and you’re thinking, “Why?  WHY did this happen?”

It’s probably because you made one of the four classic Evil Mad Scientist mistakes.  Don’t be embarrassed.  It’s happened to the best of us.  Although it’s also happened to the worst of us.  Where exactly do you fall on that scale?  I think that’s a writing subject for a different day.  Anyway, let’s get started.

Things An Evil Mad Scientist Really, Really, Really Should Not Do:

4.  Never shout, “Fools, I’ll destroy you all” out loud.  Come on.  There’s always somebody listening at the wrong moment.  Haven’t you learned this by now?  Instead, try shouting, “Tea?  I love tea!  Also, cupcakes are yummy!”  That will confuse the mazurkas out of them.

3. Try not to label your evil plan “My Evil Plan”.  Sort-of gives the game away, you know?  There you are, taking a hot selfie for your nondescript public identity, and there’s a red folder with “EVIL” stenciled on it in big letters.  Heroes always find that stuff.  It’s very frustrating.

2. We’ve been trying to teach you this for years, but I’ll say it now and louder: IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO GLOAT TO A DEAD ENEMY THAN A LIVE ONE.  Sure, the dead one can’t look sad and defeated, but the corpse IS sad and defeated.  Way, way better.

1. Want to hide the countdown to the launch of your Horrible Destructo-Device?  It’s easy.  Just resist the urge to count it down in a booming voice, and, instead, hide it in some innocuous set of numbers, like, say, a list of suggestions on the internet.

Speaking of which, DESTRUCTO-BOT, LAUNCH!

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

I write books. You should read them!

The post 4 Tips For Mad Scientists appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Choosing the Greater of Two Evils

[No, I don’t necessarily mean the 2004 album by Anthrax, although that’s not a bad idea, if it’s your thing.]

A Villainpunk problem:

We’re often told to choose between the lesser of two evils. This is frequently used to reference politics, especially in a two-party system, but really, we see this kind of binary in our life all the time. Which horrifying feed should we check next – Facebook or Twitter? How do you want to get your horrible news – live radio, or pre-recorded podcast?

(Personally, I think this is a good time to invest in audiobooks. And I don’t even mean my own. I mean that you eventually get to a point where knowing the latest happenings may not be as useful in your life as knowing whether Lord Dastardly gets away with the murder. [She does.])

But it can be quite hard these days. Everyone’s trying tell you that their Evil is lesser.

So, as a better algorithm: Go with the greater Evil.

Come on. The world is in a complicated and chaotic place. People appear to be making wildly illogical decisions all over the place – perhaps not everyone, all the time—but often enough that YOU are missing out if you’re trying to just make reasonable, wise, rational decision.

No, no. This is the time to make the WORST POSSIBLE DECISIONS.

Trust us. Would we write satire? NEVER.

“But, Dark Lord,” I can hear you say, because I am telepathic, and also, I’m the one writing the dialogue here, “Dark Lord, I’m worried. WHICH is the greater of two evils? When I’m confronted with evils, how do I know which ones to choose?”

That’s where that whole Free Will thing comes in.

Unsure which Evil is greater? Don’t just stand there guessing – TAKE ACTION!

Get out there and MAKE one of those Evils worse!

Unsure which food is worse for you? Quick, recite a couple of incantations from “The Mysteries of the Worm” over one of them. Now it’s DEFINITELY worse for you!

Unsure which video is going to give you the least accurate news? Hack your own feed and show yourself re-runs of CNN from 1987. Not only will it give you a terrible idea of what’s happening NOW, it’ll also be significantly more relaxing.

Not sure which game is more violent or bloodthirsty? (Wait, are those things evil, in a video game? Probably not, but we’re pretty sure that at least SOME parent groups disagree, so we’ll roll with it.) Easy… go out there, buy your OWN game company, and insist on nothing BUT a screen that’s full of high-resolution blood, penetrated by laser beams and the occasional death.

Remember, you don’t ALWAYS have a choice, and when you DO, it’s not always a GOOD choice. But you are NOT helpless.

You can ALWAYS make a difference: you can ALWAYS make things WORSE.

 

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

I write books. You should read them!

 

 

 

The post Choosing the Greater of Two Evils appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Not A Bunch Of Famous Poems Hideously Misused

There are three things you should know:

1. None of the poems below use the starting lines of much, much better poems.

2. None of them are about Zombies.

3. You aren’t even reading this right now.

4. I don’t know which one is “three”.

5. I might need more sleep.

6. Never trust anyone who says that there are only three things you should know about anything.

7. Especially if that person is me.

_______________

Some say the world will end in fire,

others say in ice

whoever said “In Zombies!” clearly got

to go vote

twice.

Two woods diverged in a snowy wood,

and I took the one less traveled-by,

because Google Maps said there was

a convenience store that way,

and I wanted

a Slim-Jim.

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?

Thou hast given me a sunburn,

and the bar is

full of tourists.

Because I could not stop for Death,

I stopped for Undeath instead.

This Dungeon contains my treasure-vault,

And a horde of the Undead.

(not in that order.)

Tonight I could write the saddest lines,

like “______________________