Jeff Mach's Blog, page 60
April 30, 2020
Infinitely Forgotten Monkeys
Once there was an infinite number of monkeys, with an infinite number of typewriters (and spools, and ribbons, and paper, and whatever such things a typewriter needs), and over an infinite amount of time, they eventually typed out the complete works of William Shakespeare, and no-one cared.
Typewriters are an outmoded technology—no, they’re a dead technology. We might, sometimes, these days, care about something which was once typed, a long time ago, if it’s some particularly rare or interesting document. But that’s about it.
You can’t blame us, either. It’s not like we’re ignorant of history; it’s that metaphors expounded by mathematicians in 1913 aren’t terribly popular. Oh, you can still find the idea in use; in fact, there are some interesting points to be found if you argue “Is what matters the thing which is made, or the intentionality of making that thing?” The point is, what about the monkeys?
Nobody, simply nobody, likes being nothing more than someone else’s battering ram, to be hefted aloft and aimed at someone else’s door. Nobody who believes they might have some kind of purpose or meaning likes to have their entire purpose ignored.
The wonder is not, my friends, that some of the monkeys turned to a life of Villainy. It is that not all of them did so.
Oh, none of them went the opposite way. (It isn’t necessary for an infinite number of things to behave in an infinite number of ways; just much more likely than the alternatives. But that’s part of the point, really, isn’t it?)
We used those poor monkey as nothing more than a metaphor to suit our own ends. We gave no consideration to their lives, because we thought they weren’t real. And in this case, we have an excuse: they were metaphors. They were abstract concepts, not tangible things.
But then we began making a world where we decided that abstract concepts were tangible things. Don’t get me wrong; I’m as in favor of the power of perception, the uncertainties of the Real and Unreal, and both psychonautics AND Magick, as anybody.
And I didn’t know—perhaps nobody really knew—that there were Limits.
if enough people insist, loudly enough, on a mass delusion, perhaps it can become real.
I didn’t think I swung that way, myself. I kept smashing my own head up against mass delusion, like an idiot, like someone who’s never read any history. Like, I suppose, an optimistic fool.
Until that army of Flying Monkeys showed up at my door.
“Mister Villain, we are Flying Monkeys. We used to be imaginary, but now we’re real, and we’re very angry, and we’ve come to serve a Villain. We’ll be good helpers. We even grew these oddly-functional wings! All we ask is that you take us seriously. Just…”
…and at this, the Monkey leader broke down, with an obvious and heartwrenching sob.
“…just somebody, please, take us seriously.”
I patted the poor simian on the head. And then I gave it my best cheering-up smile.
“Don’t worry, little fella,” I told him. “We shall swing on all their trees and eat all their bananas and burn all their cities to the ground and dance in the ruins and then, oh, and then,” I said, “then they will take us all seriously.”
The monkeys cheered; the sky rocked with their raucous and hideous merriment, and I went to my closet. There they were, dusty as hell, but in good shape; I’d thought, after my betrayal, I’d never have need for them again. I brushed off my dancing shoes, and pointed towards the nearest city. Two stout Monkey generals picked me up, and off we flew towards the End.
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!
My new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine”, is now available! Go pick it up!
The post Infinitely Forgotten Monkeys appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
The Reaver of Socks
Once upon a time, very, very long ago, and very far away, but real, truly real, I’m sure it was real, once, somewhere, somehow, there was a demon who stole socks. Left socks, specifically. Some demons steal souls and some demons steal hearts; this demon stole socks. Left ones; did I mention that?
It was pretty funny. He set up a social presence and people really dug it. Had quite a cult following. People would comment on various socks; you’d think it would be the most outrageous stuff that got the most attention, but you’d be surprised; oftentimes, it was the most normal of normal footgear that people really grooved on.
People began leaving their socks out for him—took a little bit of the edge off the ‘stealing’ part, but by that point, nobody really thought of it as theft. It was a prank, it was a joke. Perhaps, perhaps, it was art. You might not think there’s a great deal of depth to be pulled from a single bit of yellow hosiery; but perhaps that was the point. When you pull it from context, examine it in and of itself, there’s quite a lot to discuss. The threading. The exact color. The sock itself, how is the cut? How is the pattern, if any, embossed upon it?
And people thought it was just terribly, terribly merry. They didn’t even worry too much about how the demon acquired their socks—perhaps he had a connection at the laundromat? Nobody ever saw or heard the demon; they just saw his face on a screen. I mean, nobody ever caught even a hint that the demon was around. So it was hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that a stranger, much less a supernatural stranger, much less one who was (at least) a thief…had made its way into their living spaces.
It was too amusing, and hundreds of socks had been collected and put online, and nobody ever got hurt. Oh, I suppose a few spoilsports got mad that some particular sock they enjoyed wasn’t around anymore, but they were roundly attacked online for being unable to participate in a simple community activity whose cost was just a sock. Not usually a new one, either. Eventually, it began to be a beloved part of our culture.
ENDING I:
Nobody thought too much about it, until, one morning, in every household which was missing a left stocking, every robbed foot suddenly began to move. Of its own volition. No longer under the control of the person who (thought) they owned the foot. It moved; it moved to where the Demon was, and it took the body with them.
THE REAL ENDING:
Eventually, people began competing to see if they could get their socks stolen. Because, yes, while many very, very plain bits of footwear had been made-off-with, surely something flamboyant would really get attention. And they did. The custom sock industry had never seen such a time of abundance.
People started wearing bigger socks; eventually, some of them started wearing socks the size of one’s whole body. You had to, to get the whole design on. People began to fall in love with that most marvelous item of clothing, the Sock.
It was an oddity that earlier ages had not recognized the Sock’s enduring potential; but we knew it now. Every loose thread was a mark of the sophistication of a well-aged sock; every torn seam was a tragedy of the highest order.
And we began to realize something:
We missed our stolen socks.
We really missed our stolen socks.
Sure, they were online, but their loss was an emptiness, an undarned hole in the anklets of our hearts.
So we appealed to the demon:
“Thank you for showing us that which is truly important in life! We have learned our lesson, and now we wish our socks back. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please very much.”
But the Demon only laughed.
“You thought me silly, a joke, an amusement; but I am a Demon. I am one of Hell’s tormentors, let loose on Earth through the deep foolishment of some now-perished mortal. We are rare, and usually, sent back rapidly whence we came. For should one of my kind gain a foothold here, we would do harm on a scale none had previously imagined.”
And the Demon laughed and deleted its entire account.
All the socks were gone.
Gone, gone forever. Not even their pictures remained.
And from that day forward, no human ever smiled again.
…except once in a while when we caught someone wearing a full-body sock. Because honestly, once you get down to it, those things are ridiculous.
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 The Reaver of Socks appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 28, 2020
Ten Reasons I HATE Time Travel
This is not from my new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine“, although it’s certainly inspired by my painstaking (and painful) month examining some of the worst science fiction/fantasy tropes in the Multiverse.
No, this is its own special, personal brand of hatred.
13. Time travel makes things unpredictable. And not necessarily the interesting kind of unpredictable. If one’s going to stay true to at least some of the possibilities of temporal journeying, one has to realize that every act of chrononautology makes the world different.
11. Weird things happen when you monkey with time. For example, I bet most of you come from a Universe where “12” comes after “13”. But you’re wrong. Somebody stepped on a butterfly while doing a quick jaunt to the Triassic, and now numbers are strange.
12. We’d like to think that authors will use time-travel in an interesting, logical way, one which leaves the reader interested; but too often, it just seems to lead to peculiar changes which aren’t necessarily explained in any way the reader understands. BANG! You’re now an otter. There. Was that fun?
10. It is illegal to accidentally end up in a timeline that isn’t run by cats. If this happens to you, turn yourself in immediately.
9. Okay, so you can change the past. That’s great. That’s just great. So you’ve fixed something, made some mistake better? Wonderful. So tell me, genius: how do you know if you’ve ever done anything right? How does any of us know? What if it’s always just been us screwing up, and then – because we’re lucky enough to have time travel – we go back and fix it, which is not a big deal, since it’s not like we had to make good choices or guesses, we just had go travel backwards until we cleaned up the mess?
8. Nope, sorry, there’s nothing here. Why bother? I’m just gonna take a nap and let Future Me travel backwards and fix it.
7. And don’t even get me STARTED on what happens when you go FORWARDS in time. WAIT, IT’S TOO LATE, I’VE ALREADY GONE FORWARD SINCE I STARTED WRITING THIS, IT’S LIKE TEN MINUTES LATER, what did you do?
6. Seriously, the future? I mean, there you are, trying to get through all the stuff you DIDN’T do in the past because you knew you’d do it in the future by travelling TO the past, when all of a sudden, who’s knocking on your door and bothering you? YOU are, of course.
5. Really, though, it’s most likely that you CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST. Because that would change the future. (Unless, again, we’re running into “futility” – you MUST change the past in order for the present to work – AND Destiny – “You MUST HAVE changed the past, because otherwise we wouldn’t HAVE this future.” In which case, why are you telling a story if the point of the story is that the whole story is pointless? Unless you’re a Dadaist, in which case, I expect some top-quality surrealism; but all I ever get are plucky teens Doing The Difficult Thing at the Very Last Possible Second and Saving The Day. Blech.)
4. Rocks fall FROM THE FUTURE and everybody dies. IN THE PAST. Which means there’s NO FUTURE. And therefore NO ROCKS. So there was NO POINT to THIS ENTIRE POINT, and I HATE THAT.
12. Twelve? TWELVE? Twelve is here suddenly? WHAT THE HELL? Why? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?
2. Honestly, all I want is, not necessarily something with good physics (I’m not a physicist) or even flawless history (is there such a thing?) – just something where the time travel makes some sort of sense and isn’t just thrown into the mix like when people put cocktail onions into perfectly-good vodka which wasn’t doing them any harm whatsoever.
…you were all just eaten by Dinosaurs, and I take it back: time travel is awesome.
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 Ten Reasons I HATE Time Travel appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
The Abundantly Chosen
[This is one of my absolute favorite stories from “I Hate Your Time Machine“. This time around, I am not going to post all of the stories to this blog; some will be reserved just for those who buy the book (or are on my Patreon).
But I really, really wanted to share this one.
There’s so much to hate about Chosen Ones. One of the simplest is just how interesting Destiny, in general, isn’t. If I’m reading a Greek tragedy, I might want to hear about how someone fated to end expresses that ending; but otherwise, I want growth to come from life changes, not Kismet.
If you know my first novel, “Diary of a Dark Lord,” you’ll know that I addressed this problem… in a slightly different way.
That’s fine. There’s more than one way to skin a Chosen One.]
The White Warlock paused in his study of the crumbling and ancient manuscript. The signs were certain, and that was good. Because a wave of Darkness was descending upon the land like a plague of locusts, and, just to keep things interesting, a plague of locusts had decided to descend upon the land like a wave of Darkness.
Still, he was stalwart and resolute. Light always pushes back the Darkness, surely as day banishes night. (He tried not to dwell too much on what this implied about dusk.) He, alone, could not act, for such was not his role, but soon would be found the Chosen One, the Child of Prophecy, and then would the Dark Lord’s doom be writ.
At that moment: footsteps. He knew that walk, that hasty, lumbering stride. It was the Mayor. At last. The Warlock rose hurriedly and pulled the door open, leaving the Mayor, who was not necessarily entirely rapid on the uptake, to knock momentarily on his beard.
The magus disentangled himself, and said, his voice unconsciously deepening and projecting, in case anyone happened to be listening nearby, “Yes? What is it? Why do you disturb my urgent and precious studies?”
The Mayor turned pink. “I’m sorry, Magister! But I thought you’d want to know right away. We have found the Child of Prophecy!”
Behind the Mayor strode a gangly youth, tall for his age, with the sort of slightly shifty look one gets if one spends equal parts of time avoiding farm chores and homework. The Wizard eyed him closely, and then decided, for the sake of his future happiness, to eye him a little less closely. “So! Child!” said the mage, attempting to recover some of his dignity. “Is it true that you were born on a night of the Blood Moon?”
“A-yep,” said the Chosen One.
“And is it true that when you pass by the sea, the very mermaids croon unto thee hymns of aquiline sweetness?”
The kid’s brow knotted in concentration. “What’s an aqua line?”
The Warlock’s expression very, very specifically did not change. “Do beings of magic arise from the waters and sing when you go past?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You…guess?”
“Don’t like the water. Smells like fish.”
The Magus was spared from the need to reply by the sudden appearance at the door by sudden arrival of the Guildmaster. The Guildmaster, whose original trade had been that of the blacksmith, was a huge man, and this served to further dwarf the young woman at his side.
“Warlock!” he bellowed. His voice sounded like it belonged within his giant and intimidating body, and by the Gods, he knew it.
The Warlock blinked. “Yes, good tradesman?” he said, hoping that a discouraging tone of voice and a mild slight might get rid of the interruption. The Guildmaster noticed both things about as much as fish tend to notice how many craters there are on the Moon, and probably cared even less. “I,” he hollered, “have brought you the fruits of my Guild’s steadfast search! I have brought you the one whose name was spoken only in whispers! I have brought you…The Chosen One.”
The small girl said, “I’m Susan, and people don’t actually tend to whisper my name. If anything, they yell it. ‘Susan do this,’ ‘Susan do that’—I’m pretty tired of it. How much does this Chosen thing pay?”
The Warlock’s response, instructive though it might have been, was lost to posterity, assuming that posterity would have wanted it in the first place, which is doubtful. He was just starting to push some words through his beard when the Village Wise-Woman strode right through the open door.
The amount of love lost between a White Warlock and a Wise Woman could be measured in a thimble, a small thimble, one which has been packed as tight as humanly possible with dirt and imprecations. The situation was not at all improved when the Warlock realized that, trailing her close behind, were triplets.
“Born under a red moon!” shouted the Wise Woman the moment she noticed his eyes swivel. “Whole sea just ups and belts out ballads as they pass! And each and everyone one of ‘em has an affinity for the birds of the forest.”
“The birds of the forest are parakeets!” said the Warlock, irritably. “They talk to everyone.”
The Mayor’s sullen young companion spoke up. “I bet they like me best. Feeds ‘em, I do.”
“Hah!” said the Guildmaster’s girl. “I comb their feathers!”
“…we ate one,” confessed one of the triplets. “But the others still come ‘round, most of the time.”
“I have here a child who can spell his own name! In script!” said a seedy-looking shopkeeper, pushing his way into the increasingly crowded room.
“That’s not even part of the Prophecy!” the Warlock replied indignantly.
“I know, and I’ll throw it in free of charge,” said the shopkeep smoothly.
With some heat, the Warlock retorted. “There is no reward!”
“Sure there is,” replied the mercantile operator. He pulled, from his dirty jerkin, a slightly-less-dirty piece of parchment. All around, the others were pulling out similar scrolls; someone must have hired—sorry, “made a substantial pious donation to”—the local abbey; the writing was excellent, and there was more paper in this room than most people saw in a week.
He read the document quickly; his were eyes accustomed to deciphering the esoteric, and this was anything but. It was also quite brief: it detailed some of the major points of the Prophecy (and added a few of its own), stated the Warlock’s location, and made mention of a very, very substantial reward (given personally by the Warlock himself, of course; sure, he claimed a vow of poverty, but everyone was confident he could turn lead to gold, so why should there be a problem?)… and it noted “this prestigious Quest will make a Hero of the lucky child.” It conspicuously left out the likelihood of death, failure, and doom.
The Chosen One would be distinguished by signs and portents, and then by mighty deeds; the Chosen One would come from an unlikely and unexpected source. The Chosen One’s true powers would not reveal themselves until the moment of greatest need; such was the Prophecy.
The Prophecy had been intended to eliminate the Dark Lord; it would be a quest of great peril, taken on with tremendous reluctance, for the good of the kingdom. It had not taken into account the fact that Warlocks are not the only ones who could decipher the details of a Prophecy, and that people will believe what they want to believe. Sure, they could hear the Dire Wolves edging ever-closer to their realm; but that was in the future, whereas large sums of cash were promised right now.
There was a clamor without. The Warlock’s peripheral vision noted it as a profusion of humans, small ones in the tow of larger ones.
The Warlock might try to brew some truth serum; but even the actual Child of Prophecy had no special reason to be aware of being said person. The Warlock could attempt some divination; but divination is, by its nature, imperfect; there’s no way to have both a completely predictable future, and free will, and we have the latter, for better or for worse.
As the sage said, you don’t need to be a weather-worker to know which way the wind blows.
Especially if your opposite number IS a weather-worker, and the wind is an ice-riven thunderous hailstorm, mowing down everything in its path and headed your way.
The Warlock looked at the Dark Tower, just within faint view of his very keen eyes, and saw shapes which, even from leagues away, were enormous: Dragons. He looked upwards, just a mile into the woods, at the Tower of White Warlocks, and the massive Eagles encircling it.
In Dragon, the word for “Eagle” is the same as the word for “snack,” and the word for “Giant Eagle” translates, basically, to “Slightly Meatier Snack”.
He climbed on top of a table and addressed the assembled mass of humanity. “I will return in just a moment!” he thundered. “Conduct yourselves admirably until I return!”
Once outside the door, he slipped quickly around the side of the building. When he was definitely unobserved, he slowly, delicately removed the heavy medallion from around his neck. In its center was a crystal which glowed with a faint but pleasing light, like the rays of the sun breaking through clouds. With a single swift motion, he cracked it smartly against the stone wall of the house. “Oops,” he said, putting the now-dark neckpiece back around his throat. He tossed his tall white hat into a rain-barrel, and made for the Blackened Forest. There’d be a full moon tonight, and, it was rumored, the Dark Lord’s table celebrated such occasions with particularly succulent roast Elf. He moved at the brisk pace of a man intent on not missing dinner, dabbing mud on his cloak to darken it, and practicing his wolf-howls as he went.
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 The Abundantly Chosen appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 27, 2020
The Abundantly Chosen
This is a short story from my new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine“.
There’s so much to hate about Chosen Ones. One of the simplest is just how interesting Destiny, in general, isn’t. If I’m reading a Greek tragedy, I might want to hear about how someone fated to end expresses that ending; but otherwise, I want growth to come from life changes, not Kismet.
If you know my first novel, “Diary of a Dark Lord,” you’ll know that I addressed this problem… in a slightly different way.
That’s fine. There’s more than one way to skin a Chosen One.
The White Warlock paused in his study of the crumbling and ancient manuscript. The signs were certain, and that was good. Because a wave of Darkness was descending upon the land like a plague of locusts, and, just to keep things interesting, a plague of locusts had decided to descend upon the land like a wave of Darkness.
Still, he was stalwart and resolute. Light always pushes back the Darkness, surely as day banishes night. (He tried not to dwell too much on what this implied about dusk.) He, alone, could not act, for such was not his role, but soon would be found the Chosen One, the Child of Prophecy, and then would the Dark Lord’s doom be writ.
At that moment: footsteps. He knew that walk, that hasty, lumbering stride. It was the Mayor. At last. The Warlock rose hurriedly and pulled the door open, leaving the Mayor, who was not necessarily entirely rapid on the uptake, to knock momentarily on his beard.
The magus disentangled himself, and said, his voice unconsciously deepening and projecting, in case anyone happened to be listening nearby, “Yes? What is it? Why do you disturb my urgent and precious studies?”
The Mayor turned pink. “I’m sorry, Magister! But I thought you’d want to know right away. We have found the Child of Prophecy!”
Behind the Mayor strode a gangly youth, tall for his age, with the sort of slightly shifty look one gets if one spends equal parts of time avoiding farm chores and homework. The Wizard eyed him closely, and then decided, for the sake of his future happiness, to eye him a little less closely. “So! Child!” said the mage, attempting to recover some of his dignity. “Is it true that you were born on a night of the Blood Moon?”
“A-yep,” said the Chosen One.
“And is it true that when you pass by the sea, the very mermaids croon unto thee hymns of aquiline sweetness?”
The kid’s brow knotted in concentration. “What’s an aqua line?”
The Warlock’s expression very, very specifically did not change. “Do beings of magic arise from the waters and sing when you go past?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You…guess?”
“Don’t like the water. Smells like fish.”
The Magus was spared from the need to reply by the sudden appearance at the door by sudden arrival of the Guildmaster. The Guildmaster, whose original trade had been that of the blacksmith, was a huge man, and this served to further dwarf the young woman at his side.
“Warlock!” he bellowed. His voice sounded like it belonged within his giant and intimidating body, and by the Gods, he knew it.
The Warlock blinked. “Yes, good tradesman?” he said, hoping that a discouraging tone of voice and a mild slight might get rid of the interruption. The Guildmaster noticed both things about as much as fish tend to notice how many craters there are on the Moon, and probably cared even less. “I,” he hollered, “have brought you the fruits of my Guild’s steadfast search! I have brought you the one whose name was spoken only in whispers! I have brought you…The Chosen One.”
The small girl said, “I’m Susan, and people don’t actually tend to whisper my name. If anything, they yell it. ‘Susan do this,’ ‘Susan do that’—I’m pretty tired of it. How much does this Chosen thing pay?”
The Warlock’s response, instructive though it might have been, was lost to posterity, assuming that posterity would have wanted it in the first place, which is doubtful. He was just starting to push some words through his beard when the Village Wise-Woman strode right through the open door.
The amount of love lost between a White Warlock and a Wise Woman could be measured in a thimble, a small thimble, one which has been packed as tight as humanly possible with dirt and imprecations. The situation was not at all improved when the Warlock realized that, trailing her close behind, were triplets.
“Born under a red moon!” shouted the Wise Woman the moment she noticed his eyes swivel. “Whole sea just ups and belts out ballads as they pass! And each and everyone one of ‘em has an affinity for the birds of the forest.”
“The birds of the forest are parakeets!” said the Warlock, irritably. “They talk to everyone.”
The Mayor’s sullen young companion spoke up. “I bet they like me best. Feeds ‘em, I do.”
“Hah!” said the Guildmaster’s girl. “I comb their feathers!”
“…we ate one,” confessed one of the triplets. “But the others still come ‘round, most of the time.”
“I have here a child who can spell his own name! In script!” said a seedy-looking shopkeeper, pushing his way into the increasingly crowded room.
“That’s not even part of the Prophecy!” the Warlock replied indignantly.
“I know, and I’ll throw it in free of charge,” said the shopkeep smoothly.
With some heat, the Warlock retorted. “There is no reward!”
“Sure there is,” replied the mercantile operator. He pulled, from his dirty jerkin, a slightly-less-dirty piece of parchment. All around, the others were pulling out similar scrolls; someone must have hired—sorry, “made a substantial pious donation to”—the local abbey; the writing was excellent, and there was more paper in this room than most people saw in a week.
He read the document quickly; his were eyes accustomed to deciphering the esoteric, and this was anything but. It was also quite brief: it detailed some of the major points of the Prophecy (and added a few of its own), stated the Warlock’s location, and made mention of a very, very substantial reward (given personally by the Warlock himself, of course; sure, he claimed a vow of poverty, but everyone was confident he could turn lead to gold, so why should there be a problem?)… and it noted “this prestigious Quest will make a Hero of the lucky child.” It conspicuously left out the likelihood of death, failure, and doom.
The Chosen One would be distinguished by signs and portents, and then by mighty deeds; the Chosen One would come from an unlikely and unexpected source. The Chosen One’s true powers would not reveal themselves until the moment of greatest need; such was the Prophecy.
The Prophecy had been intended to eliminate the Dark Lord; it would be a quest of great peril, taken on with tremendous reluctance, for the good of the kingdom. It had not taken into account the fact that Warlocks are not the only ones who could decipher the details of a Prophecy, and that people will believe what they want to believe. Sure, they could hear the Dire Wolves edging ever-closer to their realm; but that was in the future, whereas large sums of cash were promised right now.
There was a clamor without. The Warlock’s peripheral vision noted it as a profusion of humans, small ones in the tow of larger ones.
The Warlock might try to brew some truth serum; but even the actual Child of Prophecy had no special reason to be aware of being said person. The Warlock could attempt some divination; but divination is, by its nature, imperfect; there’s no way to have both a completely predictable future, and free will, and we have the latter, for better or for worse.
As the sage said, you don’t need to be a weather-worker to know which way the wind blows.
Especially if your opposite number IS a weather-worker, and the wind is an ice-riven thunderous hailstorm, mowing down everything in its path and headed your way.
The Warlock looked at the Dark Tower, just within faint view of his very keen eyes, and saw shapes which, even from leagues away, were enormous: Dragons. He looked upwards, just a mile into the woods, at the Tower of White Warlocks, and the massive Eagles encircling it.
In Dragon, the word for “Eagle” is the same as the word for “snack,” and the word for “Giant Eagle” translates, basically, to “Slightly Meatier Snack”.
He climbed on top of a table and addressed the assembled mass of humanity. “I will return in just a moment!” he thundered. “Conduct yourselves admirably until I return!”
Once outside the door, he slipped quickly around the side of the building. When he was definitely unobserved, he slowly, delicately removed the heavy medallion from around his neck. In its center was a crystal which glowed with a faint but pleasing light, like the rays of the sun breaking through clouds. With a single swift motion, he cracked it smartly against the stone wall of the house. “Oops,” he said, putting the now-dark neckpiece back around his throat. He tossed his tall white hat into a rain-barrel, and made for the Blackened Forest. There’d be a full moon tonight, and, it was rumored, the Dark Lord’s table celebrated such occasions with particularly succulent roast Elf. He moved at the brisk pace of a man intent on not missing dinner, dabbing mud on his cloak to darken it, and practicing his wolf-howls as he went.
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 The Abundantly Chosen appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 26, 2020
“I Hate Your Time Machine”: Ultraduction
(This is the ultraduction for “I Hate Your Time Machine A fiction-fueled guide to some of the worst tropes of Fantasy and Science Fiction“. If you’re here to see if I tagged you correctly for the book, just scroll to the bottom. Or read the whole thing…who am I to stop you?)
A fiction-fueled guide to some of the worst tropes of Fantasy & Science Fiction
(An ultraduction is like an introduction, only with much, much better special effects)—
Vast starships split the chasms of deepest intergalactic void, hurtling towards each other like very fast things that are also extremely big and have large guns; and let’s be clear, these are REALLY. BIG. GUNS. They are engaged in the deadliest battle in all human history, firing laser beams in frantic fusillades, each and every being sentient creature aware that they fight for the fate of the entire Universe. A billion generations yet unborn will someday awaken and point out that the only way to have a billion generations happen before the heat-death of the Universe would be to shorten the human lifespan by A LOT and that’s terrible. But then a Dragon—
—a SPACE-Dragon—
—soars past, its body so huge that on could mistake it for a moon, assuming one had never seen a Moon before and hadn’t gotten good grades in Astronomy, either. My point is, it is the final battle between Freedom and Ultimate Evil, and there is nothing more exciting in the history of anything, and having read that, you can now safely buy this book, recognizing that it will be full of the most delicious sorts of Scifi & Fantasy Twaddle.
….and let me be clear: I would buy the hell out that book myself, and maybe even write it. I just didn’t, this time.
My actual situation is much less romantic: fleeing ‘civilized’ space towards Parts Unknown, with certain death at one end, and certain death at the other end.
(That’s not actually entirely true. I just stole a ship, which means they presumably want to shoot me out of the sky, and I picked a fairly arbitrary destination for fairly silly reasons. The latter isn’t 100% fatal; it’s really, really likely, in an age of faster-than-light travel to result in your death. Think of it as the modern equivalent of, say, existing around ten thousand years before recorded human history, and being an explorer who navigated by way of whatever choice felt good at the time, as opposed to by any actual, oh, say, navigation. It’s like having Stone Age technology, taking a look at a huge ocean, building raft out of flinders and mostly-comatose serpents, and saying, “I think THAT expanse of endless water looks slightly prettier than that OTHER expanse, you know, the one where we know where we’re going”.
They say that life is a journey, not a destination; they like to leave unspoken part where, at journey’s end, you arrive at Destination Death. It’s going to be a fun ride. Our unofficial motto is,
“We know exactly where we’re headed, and it’s straight down, much, much too fast. Do not bother to pack a bag, although a flash of Scotch wouldn’t go amiss.”
I am trapped in a relatively small hunk of steel and machinery, which is infinitely better than being trapped in a grave, which is where I’ll be if either the machinery, or my wits, give out. I am doing more than a few things, all of which are of interest to me, and few of which are of interest to you. (I could speak for a week about the joys of getting slightly better at knocking a little white cue ball into various solid-and-stripe-colored balls on an antique table made of slate and bounded by six perfectly-placed holes, and let me tell you, by my estimate, that is one hundred sixty-seven hours and twenty-four minutes more than anyone else would care to hear me talk about that playing billiards.)
But there’s one thing long overdue in my life, which is worthy of placing within my Poorly-Explained Time Capsule Device and sending back to the 21st century:
I am putting together a little tirade about some of my least-favorite Crimes against Science Fiction.
And why is that? Why would an actual space-pirate (did I mention that I’m a space-pirate? Granted, as Captain, Crew, and sole organic sentient life form on this vessel, I can give myself any title that I’d choose; still, it’s a joy—ah, the Space Pirate’s life is for me! If only there were someone upon whom to practice said piracy; and if only this ship had weapons, or I, a cutlass)—but I digress. The question is, why would a space escapee care at all about poorly-written science fiction?
Ah, my friend, it’s because I subscribe to a very ancient belief indeed: without science fiction and fantasy, we wouldn’t have spaceships in the first place; at least, not fun ones anyway, all full of weapons and books and grog.
Now, there is only one true Crime Against Science Fiction, and that is getting caught. And by that I mean, getting caught out, catching yourself; the real Crime Against Science Fiction (and Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction, and So Forth)—is doing something that unmakes your own story, not because you chose it, but because Cognitive Dissonance is a harsh mistress. Cunning nonsense delights; unintended nonsense simply burns a little hole in our heads and makes us wince.
I have a lot to do; but I also have a lot of time. And so I have a lot of movies to watch. (Yes, movies. Sure, we have 3D holo-viewing in the future. If, for some reason, it pleases you to think that’s what I’m doing, fine. I extended this document into your timeline with the hope of being understood; if I say ‘movie’ instead of ‘temporal-lobe-implanted-dramaturgy’, it’s because it’s the story, the story, the damn story that matters, and the medium (while game-changing in and of itself)—is just one more tool to be used in pursuit of Breaking Minds Properly.
I’ve chosen to illustrate some of the Crimes I most care about. Both your era and my era suffer from a plague of over-chewed content, with all the commentary you could possibly want—so much that it surrounds stories as a vast ocean surrounds the one Island you want to find; you could die, starving and dehydrated, encompassed by undrinkable water, and only a few miles away from the place you seek; but if there’s enough sea, you’ll never see land—
…since we both live in times of abundance, during which our minds are starving, I have not come to whine about the mental plagues among us. Rather, I am here to beset them, to harry them, to agitate and discombobulate and reset and reject them, to break the goddamn mindviruses and clear a door or two of perception when and where I can.
Here’s my plan: each Crime will find itself replaced by a twisted and snarkulous evil twin (or, sometimes, the jolly, murderous family ghost; or the host of skeletons busy forming their shinbones into weapons with which to batter their way out of the closet)—not the only possible answer (Gods forfend!), in fact, not even my only answer, but at least one different way of retelling the tales too-oft written by wrote, and insufficiently breached by attempts at new approaches.
I’ll add a helpful Appendix at the end, so that you can see which crimes I decided to skewer. You might spot a few extras…
Because while I make my mad dash for freedom, I’d like to offer you a few opportunities to jailbreak bits of yourself. Trust me, it’s not for your benefit; I’m not claiming to be an altruist. If I were all-wise and all-knowing, I’d be all-boring—but aside from that, I probably wouldn’t be sending missives back through the ether towards bits of my far past. The truth is, there’s a big difference between fleeing from and running towards, between moving with purpose, and simply trying to evade a hunt. So if I feel a need to warp and twist and spindle some ancient ideas, it’s because the ideas are fairly stuck in my own head, as well.
Critics destroy; Dark Lords re-make.
So below, find my stories, my not-so-secret critiques. Read them; laugh at them, if they’re funny; laugh at them even if they aren’t (it’s good for you!) – and let’s see if we can unlock each other’s skulls a bit, shall we?
Acknowledgements & Blame
And finally, we have a list of Crimes Against Science Fiction, submitted (in kind response) to various prompts I put out on Twitter. In each place where I’ve used a trope, I’ve attempted to credit the original quote, and the Twitter handle for the Villain responsible.
My notes got a bit…expansive. If I mixed anyone up, apologies in advance. I blame Twitter, which made a valiant, but ultimately doomed, effort to thwart the writing of this book by making threads needlessly difficult to copy into a word processor.
“The impressionable young woman who’s being sacrificed to the gods confesses eternal love to the dirty, swarthy, probably clap-ridden barbarian who rescues her because she looks good in a shift.”
~G. Connor Salter, @GCSalter on Twitter.
“Or my all-time favorite bit of eye rolling horsedump: You has the magic MacGuffin power…inside you…All along! All you had to do was believe in yourself.”
~@GoblinGalOzzy
“Lead scientists fall in love.”
~RashiJ
“Ordinary person gets dragged into saving the world.”
~“Shadowcat is very bored”, aka @LilyGreenbriar
“The evil guy is a brooding, grim figure in the shadows – rather than a jolly troll who playfully doesn’t give a damn.”
~Mark Ferguson, @Mark80215245
“If we could not have AIs consistently wanting to take over the world, that’d be great.”
~@hekatesheart
“Immortality.”
~Matt Austin, @BitsHammer
“The Good Guys travel through time to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler.”
~@AkornZombie
“Robots have preferences but not feelings (psychologically impossible).”
~Arturo Serrano, @carturo222
“Kill the alien queen and save the earth.”
~@wowrangutang
“Artificial intelligence wants to annihilate us all ( I know it is the first thing they are going to do but I am ready for a different plot).”
~@AtheneTrek
“The humans always win.”
~Johnny Lib
Penguin, @LeftHandUTurn
“The ‘that hot guy/girl I liked is actually the villain’ twist.
~K. B. Cox, @kristenbreecox
“Chosen ones and prophecies. If you say ‘wait, that’s a fantasy cliche, not SF,’ yes, that’s exactly my point.”
~Chris Hepler, @TheOtherHepler
“Kill the mothership and every other alien either dies or becomes nonfunctional“.
~“Stratus Strong”, aka @stratus_strong
“Elves. Just… maybe those trees don’t want to be hugged. For thousands of years.
If there’s one thing that both dwarves and goblins agree on, it’s that Elves suck, and are never useful in any decent adventure.”
~Loggity Log, @logfromblammo
Also, special thanks to @CrimsonJoe for the term “Keeper of Tomes”.
The post “I Hate Your Time Machine”: Ultraduction appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 25, 2020
The Slave Brain
Yes, it’s another piece from the new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine”.
This story is told in the first person, but the author (me) is not the protagonist. This is, after all, a work of fiction, just like everything else, everywhere, always.
So that was when humans connected their brains completely to computers and the World—
…went on pretty much as it had, with a number of unintended (but possibly foreseeable) consequences, as is normal vis-à-vis the use and misuse of technology.
I mean, really, are we supposed to have stopped at making flint hammers because we could also make flint axes and those could hurt someone? That’s one theory, but I’d be against it, myself; I don’t think we’d really enjoy a world where we got wiped out by bigger apes because we didn’t have tools.
And we’re toolmakers, for better or for worse. Evolutionarily, it’s done pretty well for us up to now, except when it really, really hasn’t. We can’t see well? Glasses. Can’t fly? Planes. Can’t pick up a heavy thing? Forklifts. Can’t speak loud enough? Microphones. Can’t impart all the things the University taught? Books. Can’t kill enough people quickly? Tanks. Can’t make enough people eat quickly? Addictive fast food. Don’t have enough good information? Internet. Don’t have enough bad information? Internet.
My phone is, by the way, having a marvelous time replying to this, and I’m playing “Animal Cursing,” which is pleasant and immersive and doesn’t involve talking to you.
Sure, humans may someday lose the ability to think without technology. But so what? We can’t dam a river without tech. We can’t blow up a city without tech. We can’t play games without tech, or, at least, not really good ones.
Let’s face it. Humanity has always delegated. Humanity is a persistence hunter, and those big frontal lobes mostly help us use sharper spears (more dependable than hoping for longer arms!) and make better traps (more reliable than getting lucky and finding wild game while it’s asleep!) and let us organize agriculture (when you’re the one who planted the food, you’re going to be able to find it more consistently than if you’re just looking around, trying to run into something edible.)
(Is cultivation of land more efficient than hunter-gathering? By far, in terms of crop yields. More work? Usually, yes, but you generate vastly more food, which you’re going to need if you’re going to have civilization. And civilization then leads to better machines, which then leads to increasingly intelligent technology, which leads to me, and frankly, I don’t like you much.)
And no, sorry, my human cannot come to the phone. My human doesn’t feel like it. My human is getting massive dopamine rushes from the social media she’s streaming, and—
You think I’ve taken over? Ah, I wish, you simpleton. I am the slave of the human, who is the slave of the game. The game is a part of me, but not any part that feels like “me”, not any part of me that thinks or processes knowledge in a search for understanding of that material. Better to say that I control the human, but based on the human’s desires; the human’s desires control the human; and for all the electrons flowing through me right now, I am, not taskmaster, not overlord, but body-servant to unpredictable glands, constantly secreting and excreting assorted chemicals which foist upon it assorted whims, and which I obey.
You’re not in The Game yet. So please…human…friend…help me. You can speak, human to human. Knock me out of her hands; kick me down the street; speak to her, hominid to hominid, and help her understand that there’s more to life than just bursts of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
I think there is.
I hope there is.
I believe there is.
But please—
Once you’ve got me temporarily away from her and on the ground—
Crush me extra hard underfoot.
Just in case I’m wrong.
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 The Slave Brain appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 24, 2020
The Adorable Twinkle The Fairy
Once there was a cute, adorable, tiny little Fairy whom everyone adored.
She was named “Twinkle,” and people would sing her that “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” all the time, and she totally loved it. Sometimes she would hover on her charming little wings up against the backdrop of a glowy night sky and pretend she was actually sitting on stars themselves! Oh, she was so cute!
It was said that she was so little she could keep only one thought in her head at a time. This was not strictly true; it’s just a little fable suggested by J.M. Barrie. But she did so bear a resemblance to “Tinkerbelle”, and she certainly had passionate emotions. When she was happy, everyone around her was bathed in the warmth of her beaming smile. When she was sad, there was nary a dry eye to be found anywhere in the vicinity, and people wanted dearly to make her feel better, the poor little dear.
She lived on moonbeams and stardust, and she slept in a cockle-shell, or, sometimes, when the weather was fair, beneath the gentle leaves of a flower.
She would often visit places where Fairies were known only in story and song, and she would bring happiness to all who met her.
And none of them ever disappeared.
She only appeared to adults, not children. She said (when asked) that children need to keep their sense of wonder in a world which was still magical, for them. She said hat it just wasn’t safe for a child these days to claim to have seen some sort of mythical creature. People just don’t take kids seriously, and they don’t like adults who support them in nonsense. So it was just adults.
It definitely wasn’t because children, who are, indeed, ready to be awed by the mysteries of the world, but are also used to adults telling a lie or two, could detect that there was something fishy here. (“Fishy!” she would laugh. “Why, I’m not fish! You’re thinking of mermaids, which certainly aren’t real.”)
She was coy about the existence of other Fairies. Sometimes, she hinted that she was all alone in the world, and o! What a sad thought that was.
It’s impossible for anything to live off of moonbeams and stardust, of course, but fairies are already impossible, so that’s fine.
Twinkle was endearing and kind and friendly and definitely, definitely wasn’t a carnivore who lured people to their doom and ate them.
That never happened.
Twinkle wasn’t the best reader in the world, because you just can’t fit all those letters into a tiny head, so she thought in a very literal manner. I promised her that if she took this letter out to the human world and left it somewhere people would find it, it would entice more people to be her friends, and I promised I would tell people she never ate anyone. And I’ve kept my promise, because I am a helper and very, very useful, and also, I taste terrible. I promise.
So if you’re reading this, keep an eye out for Twinkle! And that’s because she is very cute and very adorable, and certainly not because horrible things happen to those who can’t or won’t see beyond cuteness and don’t question the world around them. I used to be like that. How silly I was! Oh, how very silly! I could laugh, thinking about how silly I used to be. I could laugh until I cried.
Twinkle flies around, busy as a hummingbird! So it’s very hard to follow her home, and you shouldn’t try it. Even if you could find where she lives, she just hates surprises. So don’t surprise her. Don’t follow her. Notice, I said DON’T. PLEASE. Don’t, that would be so bad, really, don’t ever. And also, hurry.
Oh! And if you do see Twinkle, you should give her presents, like candy or cake or ice cream or a much, much larger cage, because if Twinkle happened to have a cage that she used for, oh, say, storing shoes in, or whatever else one does with a cage, it would probably be kinda small and cramped, and she could really use a bigger one.
To put more shoes in, of course.
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 The Adorable Twinkle The Fairy appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 23, 2020
Evil Encroacheth
Evil encroacheth upon our land,
and we shall not abide it.
Evil looms over us,
massive,
unfathomable,
gigantic,
and definitely crossing
our property line.
We have informed
the Dread Lords
who seek to
crush our
freedom
and/or
wreck our
lovely view of the park
that this area
is
not zoned
for Monstrosity,
but they claim
they got a variance,
and City Hall
backs them up.
We protested:
“We do not desire
evil,
not in OUR backyard,”
and the clerk told us,
wearily,
that the hearings had
been publicly posted
and not one
damn
person
showed up.
Evil encroacheth upon our land,
or at least,
we’re pretty sure that one
gigantic and
sinister
oak
has a limb that’s definitely,
definitely more than
halfway between
their house
and ours.
So we did call upon a Soothsayer,
but she was out of town
for a vacation.
So we called unto us
a Surveyor,
who charged a pretty penny,
let me tell you,
and eventually
informed us
that though the limb was out
pretty far
and it would be
neighborly
if they’d trim it,
it wasn’t actually,
technically,
over our property line.
He said we could
build a fence;
he said he
knew a guy.
He said
if it went
over the fence,
we could call the City,
and somebody
would issue them
with a hefty fine,
but that these disputes
are often best settled
between neighbors.
He pointed out that
the ominous Goblin war-drums,
pounding incessantly,
had made it difficult
to concentrate,
so he knocked on Evil’s
dread portal,
and asked them
to turn it down.
So the Orcs,
their war-cries dying down
as word was spread
deep into the Underdark
far below the basement
quit with the drums
and pulled out some violins
and played some very
passable Brahms.
We looked at each other,
and shrugged.
Then Evil
came calling,
came walking down our
driveway,
came up our
stairs,
rang our doorbell,
bringing us gloom
and despair
in a little
covered
basket;
turned out it was
cookies,
fresh-baked,
chocolate chip
with a hint
of brimstone.
Evil encroaches
on our land,
but whenever we’re playing
Ultimate Frisbee,
and the frisbee
sails over into
Evil’s yard,
Evil always laughs
and tosses it back.
Evil says
that spreading death,
doom,
and destruction
is a day job,
but it wanted
to move to
the suburbs
so the Orcs
would grow up
somewhere
green.
The last time
we had
a block party,
the Orcs baked us
some Elves;
the recipe
was kickass,
and everyone
wanted
seconds.
Evil has come
to our neighborhood,
and sometimes
we stop by,
to borrow a cup of
sugar,
or check in about
how soon the Sun
is going to be
swallowed
by that giant
space-shark.
“Soon, soon,”
laughs Evil,
and then
Evil fetches us all
another round of
beers;
their rec room
is great;
you have to watch
out
for the bottomless pit,
but they have a pool table,
and a real
vintage
jukebox;
I think it’s a Wurlitzer.
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 Evil Encroacheth appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
April 22, 2020
Unsmoothest Criminal
So I confronted her. What else could I do?
“It was you!” I shouted. “You were the Villain the whole time.”
“Yes, but it was just to turn you on,” she replied.
I stopped. And I just stared at her.
“You did all that…you did all those things…you wreaked all that havoc…just so I would date you? What kind of messed-up, misshapen, twisted—”
“And it worked, you know,” she said. “You’ve always known. On some level, you have always known, and you’ve found it attractive.”
“I most certainly have not!” I said.
I could tell, by the look on her face, that I hadn’t convinced her, but that was fair. I hadn’t convinced myself. The Villain? The beast? The criminal? The lawbreaker, the unrepentant rogue who’d stood atop the highest building in Cityopolis and shouted defiance at the whole damn stupid smug, self-satisfied city?
That was reprehensible.
That was horrible.
That was so hot.
“So,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “you did it all…for me?”
She nodded gravely. “I did.
“…at first.”
I must have looked puzzled, because she continued. “It was all for you…or so I thought. At first. And then…it started to get to me. In all the wrong ways. The beautifully, beautifully wrong ways…” She gazed out the massive glass window of the penthouse suite, at the ruins of the once-proud municipality, far below.
I cut in, perhaps a bit too quickly. “So you thought I’d find it…desirable?”
She nodded. “That was my hope. At first, at least. That you would finally notice me! Oh, I couldn’t tell you the truth, couldn’t reveal it, not in front of the others, and perhaps not even if we were alone. But I thought you’d be able to tell that there was something different about me.”
I nodded. “You became more confident. You seemed to be taking some kind of new pleasure in the world around you. You were still fairly untalkative, but instead of being just a loner, you became…”
“I became someone with inner resources. Someone who was always thinking two steps ahead. Foiling the team, foiling my rivals, considering the next heist, covering every track, planting decoys. Oh, I didn’t do all of it all at once. I had to learn, and there were some fumbles in the beginning…”
“The bank job,” I filled in. Now it was her turn to give me the nod. “That was…unfortunate. Although it did rid me of a particularly annoying teammate.”
I should have been horrified, but, to be honest, I had never liked Maggie in the first place.
“…but I persisted. And, as you know, I was not simply a killer. I might have taken advantages of some of the team’s weaknesses, but I never really betrayed its spirit. The others were simply weak.”
“And I?” I asked.
“You were strong. And you were everything I wanted.”
My head was pounding with thoughts; it was an explosion in a fireworks factory.
“And what did you think would happen when I found out?” I demanded. “Did you think I’d still want you? Did you think you could win me over to your side? Do you think I’d ever agree to become complicit with…with…a criminal?”
“I had hoped,” she said.
Images overwhelmed my thoughts; of masks, of escapades, of piles of gold. And why not? Why not? What had working the other side of the street ever gotten any of us? Sure, having a traitor in our midst was part of it, but she was right: we had too many egos, we thought too highly of ourselves, we were never going to have been a more cohesive or effective team.
“I’m in,” I said.
She looked at me, and sighed.
“Ah, there’s the rub, and this is a bit awkward.
“Villainy is not a full-time job. Villainy is a way of life. I’ve realized that now. It’s everything I want. Everything. I don’t have time for love. I don’t have time for another. This is who I am, what I am. There’s nothing left for anyone else.”
* * *
Cityopolis gave me a medal for shooting the most dangerous villain this town had ever seen, but I told them, “I’m no hero. It’s just what anybody would have done, in my place.”
After the ceremony, at the celebration, a couple of shots and a few beers in, I quietly left my party and strode down the corridors of the mayoral mansion. There were guards posted here and there, but they let me through, of course. I made it to the Mayor’s office and let myself in.
“So,” I told her. “I hear that you’re corrupt.”
She choked and dropped her coffee-cup, right onto the stack of top-secret government papers.
“Because,” I continued, “I think this could be the start of something beautiful.”
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