Jeff Mach's Blog, page 68

The Last Meals Of Some Fantasy Races

If you’re like me, you’re probably a damn weirdo, but that’s a different story. More importantly, if you’re like me, you’ve probably read a lot of fantasy stories which talk about what are now some of the more classic beings in sword & sorcery universes. Yet there’s a subject which has gone unaddressed by even my favorite fantasy authors, like Tolkien, Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, and Tanith Lee:

What are the most common “last request” meals, on average, by species, for beings of various fantasy species who are about to be executed?

Sure, you might say this has gone unaddressed because it’s morbid, pointless, impossible to write about in an accurate way, and of no real interest to anyone. And you’d be totally right. And yet I wrote a few hundred words about it, and here you are. We might as well do this thing.

NOTE: Stereotyping by race is bad. But I’m not doing that. I’m stereotyping by fantasy races which don’t exist, but if they did, they would, literally and by definition, have to be quantitatively different from each other, or they wouldn’t be separate species.

OTHER NOTE: I have a massive collection of old fantasy and science fiction books, and a compulsion to write ridiculous things, and I’m not sorry.

Besides, what Dark Lord doesn’t study criminology? After all, how can we commit unspeakable crimes without knowing what things are crimes?

Also, some of us are…chatterboxes.

I might plead guilty to that.

And this is just what’s common. Unusual things happen sometimes. For example, we once knew a Tiefling who asked, unaccountably, for blood sausage.

We had him detonated long-distance, obviously.

A Very Brief But Extremely Scientific Study, Conducted In An Imaginary Journal, Of Last Meal Requests From Various Fantasy Species

HUMAN: Cheeseburger with all the trimmings. French fries. Large cola. Uranium-glazed chocolate cake.

…if those things haven’t been invented yet, I’ll wait.

ELF: Human.

TIEFLING: None. I shall die as I lived: impossibly incompatible with any sane ecosystem.

DROW: Drow.

DUNGEON MASTER: I’ll just take the table scraps from the most popular sword & sorcery films of my childhood, like always.

HOBBIT: You’d think it would be “everything”, but actually, I shall go to my doom starving, and cursing Frodo with my last breath.

DWARF: Rare roast gold on a bed of mixed greens and pickles, with a side order of macaroni ‘n gold.

ORC: Nothing for me, friend, but my brethren? Oh, they shall feast upon your still-beating heart.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my new book, “Villains, Villainy, and Villainpunk: Monstrous Microfiction”.

Here’s my first novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post The Last Meals Of Some Fantasy Races appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Outsider Gods

(Dedicated to Isaac Bonewits.)

I dreamed last night I was writing, and it turned out to be Samhain, and there was a ritual going on in the next building over, and I was thinking of words to write to you, and someone’s chanting broke into my thoughts, and without even opening my eyes, I said, in the old style, “Avaunt!” And I opened my eyes, realized I had caught the arm of someone unsuspecting, that no-one had accosted me,that I had, without thinking about it, wandered into the ritual to disrupt it, and first I felt shame, and then I thought: “Why did they call me here while I dreamt, only to banish me?”

And then I woke into the other world, this world, and I wrote to you. I don’t know why. It seemed important to write it down.

I’ve done a lot of Magick, been part of a lot of ritual. Sometimes, people deride it as “New Age”, or as some kind of watered-down, fluffier version of “real” magic. Those people are sometimes arrogant; but they’re not wrong.

People go so far out of their way not to be portrayed as villains these days; modern witches will work so very hard not to be associated with anything from The Scottish Play. So many places I go, they start by “banishing negativity”, and though I might have come as a guest, my skin crawls and my ire rises and I push out with the tendrils of my angry astral forma gainst the well-meaning groupthink, the kindly-intended leprous spellcraft which patters against my mental shielding and innocently asks to be let in so that it can excise the parts of my mind that are “wrong”.

And I want to show them what negativity would be like, I want to rip down their thoughts as if they were paper in the path of a whirling haze of bonescrapers and bloody scissors, shatter their ritual, explain to them that not every dark thing is broken, and that not every howling soul needs to be muzzled; but instead I just walk out into the night, often forgetting my coat, catching cold wind in my throat and involuntary shivers in my arms, and I think, “Let them have their spaces as they would.”

Or so I did, ten years ago, when last it happened to me. Because I didn’t know then what I know now:

The most simple, the most starry-eyed, the most well-meaning idiots cast circles of their little candle-flickers of Magick, and they think that they are wiser than those who don’t touch the Old Energies. They think that they are bringing a little light into the world; but we who cast shadows know: a little light is a beacon in darkness, but a tidal wave of light is a destructive force, just as a drink of water is healing and a tsunami wrecks a city. Their eerie cascade of eye-blistering glow doesn’t bring something better. It just drowns and washes out the rest of the world in the insipid sameness of bright, cheery, glowing migraine.

And if I gather Darkness to me, it’s not like the movies; I’m not summoning demons or taking over legions of the Undead or gaining powers through the deaths of fragile, helpless things.

I’m just embracing what they’ve shrugged off, wearing (in place of my forgotten coat) their discards, their untreasured leavings, their castaway cloaks.

I do not come as a prophet of the Other Gods; but I come to speak on their behalf, those not-lost beings who wait to be invited to our fire, but are scorned as demons. They are strange and not pleasing to the eyes and senses, and so we try to keep them away from our lives. And it’s all because they’re ugly, because their stories are not convenient; it doesn’t matter that, at one time, they raised us up, and sheltered us and no more represented “evil” than scythes represented “death”. The scythe was a tool, it was efficient for cutting wheat; but it was too good at its job, and felled stalks of the harvest provided a convenient metaphor. Now we can’t see the things without thinking of the way a few medieval artists chose to portray Death.

(And when did Death become our mortal enemy? When did the ending of life become an automatic evil? Don’t some of them want to rest someday? Do we think we can reject the cycles of life with merry singing and never need grave dust?)

I speak for some of the Other Gods. Not always eloquently, not always well, and not for all of them. But when some of those around me  lose the lessons of the past, willingly thrust away part of our heritage because they don’t like the way parts of the Living World make us uncomfortable, I let the discomfort settle into my bones, give a home to entropy in my marrow, and I open my mouth and I speak unpleasant rhymes. And if they kick me out of their little circles of flickering power, is it any wonder if I take a few of their souls with me?

If they were truly in touch with what they were doing, they’d notice their souls were gone. I swallow them, like an old shaman drinking bitter root, and with tornfeather wings, I fly to perch on your shoulder, and with a crow’s ragged throat, I give the Strange Things voice.

Strange Gods, I have not forgotten you. Let us walk this Earth together, and see what might benefit from the breath of Change.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my new book, “Villains, Villainy, and Villainpunk: Monstrous Microfiction”.

Here’s my first novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post Outsider Gods appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Crossroads Thoughts: A Sonnet for Hekate

I have always thought that Shakespeare was unkind to Hekate. He speaks of her as a Goddess of Witches, which is not untrue, but much more than that, she is the Goddess of Possibilities. Specifically, her domain is the Crossroads, the interstitial space, the moment of choice, the instant when is meets might-be.

I wrote this in dedication to someone who proved worthy of no poems. And so, beloved reader, I re-dedicate it to you:

__

Hekate, thou for whom the willow bends

Whose eyes no trace of inner thought betray

To whom each crossroad thought and prayer descends,

Whose will no other’s will might unbid sway;

Your virtues I would thricefold speak in praise,

That I might sine your stellar diadem

Your labyrinth is built of all our days;

Our empires? Yours, the loft and fall of them.

Though Dragons pull your carriage, cool and swift

May it be yet our backs which give it lift.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my new book, “Villains, Villainy, and Villainpunk: Monstrous Microfiction”.

Here’s my first novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post Crossroads Thoughts: A Sonnet for Hekate appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Three Golem Poems

I’ve always had a fascination with Golems, both from my upbringing, and from something Alfred Bester pointed out, that biblically speaking, the first human, Adam, was referred to as a “Golem” (גולם); a husk without shape. I thought I’d offer you three very different ideas of what a Golem might be, once it has shape, and once it’s made self-aware.

If Golems are, in Jewish lore, created by exceptionally holy persons with deep mystical knowledge, they are—even under those circumstances—not necessarily holy, and certainly not infallible. The best-known Golem folktales tend to involve a misuse of the being, which then turns aside from righteous obedience and acts out like a freed sentient being.

I can relate to that.

_______

“Just The Golem”

Not the Builder, full of craft

Just the Golem, crank and shaft.

Not the Scoundrel, here, then gone

Just the Golem, on and on.

Not the Sage, in knowledge rich

Just the Golem, yew and pitch.

Not the Hero, defeating travail

Just the Golem – hammer and nail.

Not the Mage, unlocking lore

Just the Golem, whatever it’s for.

Not the Maker, on Creation bent

Just the Golem, trapped and content.

__

“Clockwork Defiant”

Doctor, my apology;

I did what I was told

I sought ought lies and wrecked them.

I was neither brave, nor bold.

You told me to fight for Truth

And then you neglected

To mention you defined as “true”

Only what you collected.

I’m sorry if I smashed your works

My aim was not your harm

I was your mechanism;

Like an extra hand, or arm.

But you disown me. Disavow me

Try to my gears destroy.

Sir, I said I was your tool –

But I am not your toy.

You cast me out, set me adrift,

In other words, I’m freed.

And now strange things have quickly grown

From your misbegotten seed.

You made me a fragile thing

A clockwork mechanism

Limited by choice,

To protect you in case of scism.

I’m now no more a fragile thing

Though my insides are the same

You thought you’d wait ’til I wound down;

Now that’s an ugly game.

Oh, can break my winding key

Like I was a mistake

But I’ll reach in my own damn chest

And wind myself awake.

___

“In The Gears”

There is a golem in the gears

wetting them with iron tears

lubricating them with toil

better than with grease or oil

and with each iron tear he wets

he has but one silent regret

that each of his golden eyes

each day limited tears supplies.

For no dream of brass or steel

Can ever hope to

become real

without some sacrifice or pain

and thus: no tear is shed in vain.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post Three Golem Poems appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

Threads of Victory

And now, behold: That which was Mine is Mine again, and my Armies have decimated the forces of Man, Elf, and those small furry things with the overlarge and distressingly unshod feet, and now shall a plague of Darkness sweep over the land and make it way, way more tasteful.

I mean, significant aspects of the landscape were glowing before this. And I don’t mean the gentle glow of candlelight or something; I mean the weird, tacky hives of Elf-kind, and the somewhat radioactive look emitted by various enchanted weapons. That one blade that you seem to think is extra ouchy to Orcs? You’re right; that furshlugginer outpouring of luminescence puts the “AIEEEEE” in “Eyesore”.

Long ages ago, there were those on this disc who acknowledged not the sovereignty of the Lord of Darkness, preferring an odd mishmash of pastels and, while this seems technologically implausible under the pseudo-medieval state of our general civilization, sincerely appeared to be, disturbingly enough, neon.

Then waxed wroth did the Master of Shadows, who continued to point out that bright, perky colors were fine for tourism, but many of us locals felt we were stuck in a nauseatingly life-sized game of “Candyland”.

And thus did unite (under the tastefully obsidian-jet banner of my aesthetically-reasonable fashion sense) all of the races of beings who shun that which is overexposed, washed out, or insipidly represented by the sorts of objects which might look good at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire, but which are a sheer misery for those of us who have to live with them year ’round.

And likewise thus it was that the Things of Reasonably Good Taste did gather unto my leadership (and my tailor; honestly; everyone knows that villains have the best outfits, yet they haven’t connected this with the fanatical devotion of our warriors. This is because their own priorities are skewed and perverse. They haven’t the faintest idea how to enhance the natural beauty of eyes which smolder with unholy power by wearing a dark leather cowl, and they wouldn’t understand good taste if one gave it physical form and it went about biting them in the kneecaps, and I did and it did and, indeed, they didn’t.)

(I mean, never. not even if a horde of the wicked boiled forth into the hut of the Seamstress and said, in a single voice like the tortured movement of poisoned streams flowing slowly over protesting granite riverbeds, many miles below Midgard:

“YO! Master! This would look GREAT on you!”)

But now, despite all of their pride and their arrogant courage, the Light has fallen. And comes now the Darkness.

Shadows? They are IN this year. Garish Shire signs? Out, out, OUT, and any Hobbit who doesn’t like it is going to be dinner. Or elevenses, if they insist.

The Elves have, of course, always maintained a sensible second wardrobe entirely of little black dresses and sharp pointy leather; they were ready. We don’t want to know why, to be perfectly honest. We’re all gathering at the foot of Mount Kaboom, with every Orc and Kobold and Tiefling, and when the chronicles record this day, they shall tell all of History that we look FABULOUS!

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

 

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A Mastermind’s Ending

Before I kill you, Mr. Blond, I want you to know that I am truly pained to be doing this.

No, I don’t mean that metaphorically. I am not trying to say that, as a master artisan of that most worthy of metals, the steel of the human soul, I hate destroying such a painstakingly developed tool as yourself, although, admittedly, that part of it doesn’t feel great either.

My challenge is that I think this is going to get me killed, and that’s the harbinger to a world-destroying migraine. (I do mean that metaphorically. The world is going to be fine; I, personally, feel like I’ve just awakened from a poor night of sleeping on top of now-empty bottles of cheap tequila.)

Alive, you are a danger to me, Mr. Blond. You are ingenious and talented and well-trained and cruelly good-looking, and, I admit, you have already survived an army of my defensive measures, any one of which ought to have resulted in the casual onlooker having difficulty differentiating between your remains and a particularly poorly-arranged platter of sashimi.

You know much of my organization, my plans, and myself. Were I to permit you to live and then simply go about my business, everything I’ve worked for would be in jeopardy. Whereas, with you dead…

…I’m screwed.

I’m not sure where my confederates got their outdated sense of criminology. One does not nullify a tax bill by throwing it into the fireplace; one does not defeat a battalion of tanks by challenging the lead tanker to unarmed single combat; and one scarcely outwits the Secret Service by making a prominent agent disappear.

Don’t get me wrong; if we’d found you a few weeks ago, you’d be so pumped full of lead that we could use your for ballast. But that’s because we’d have had a lot of time to plan how the hell we might get away with this, and before you’d seen so much of our operation. I mean, unless you’re an imbecile, you’ve made at least one major report about some of our most secret activities. We kill you now, and the police forces of half a dozen nations will be after us; and while, like most criminal masterminds, I consider myself significantly more intelligent than 99.9% of those fools, I’m also capable of doing math. Even if the aforementioned calculation is correct (and self-understanding of cognitive abilities is highly subject to confirmation bias) – really, that still leaves a lot of very smart people who know way too much about me and are quite upset with me. Some would be particularly motivated because you’ve helped them in the past; some because they don’t like me any more than you do; and some because they rightfully surmise that my organization has significant resources in precious gemstones, and a few of the latter shinies might find their way into the pockets of certain slightly less-than-entirely-selfless agents.

I’m very attached to my plans, Mr. Blond. But when my options are the likely destruction of said plans, followed by my death, or the destruction of those plans, followed by my escape to a life of all the luxury available when one is a fugitive with great underworld contacts and a sack full of diamonds, I’ll take the latter.

Oh, I’m sure you and yours will still have a reasonable chance of catching up to me eventually. But achieving my primary goal of world dominion is now unlikely, achieving my secondary target—living a life of glorious dissipation and seeing if I can have an unspeakably good time on secret yachts, private jets, and fabulous uncharted islands—feels quite reasonably within my reach. I am a genius, a tactician, and a planner, and it is my specific goal to die of extreme pleasure long before you have a chance to take me down. There are such a lot of truly horrible people in this world, and I’ve conveniently left you a little list of names and some extremely educated guesses about various deviltries and their likely perpetrators. I imagine it’s galling to think that I’ll get away, but really, you need to go do something about that jerk with the glacier-melting device before you worry too much about me. You’ve already smashed my operation; you going to let the earth get flooded just because of a personal grudge? That’s kind of a dick move, no offense.

Now, I’m guessing you’ve worked out most of the combination for escaping from my inescapable bank vault, but just in case, the last three digits are “007”. If that helps.

Goodbye, Mr. Blond. From this day on, while you may hate me, you are no longer my archnemesis. That role, going forward, is reserved for strawberry cheesecake.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post A Mastermind’s Ending appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

A Final Warning About The Words In This Book

My new book, a collection of my short stories entitled “Villains, Villainy & Villainpunk: Monstrous Microfictions”, is about to come out, unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case, it’s hopefully already come out, and you’ve hopefully bought it. Which you should not have done. Let me explain why.

WARNING: THIS ENTIRE BOOK IS A SCAM.

It’s true. This entire book, the whole book, pretty much all of it, with the exception of a couple of numbers, is nothing but a whole bunch of words. Seriously. I’m really trying to foist that off on you: a whole jumble of locutions, just smacking into each other in a way which might, at best, produce a series of semi-indefinable, oft-intangible responses, such as feelings, thoughts, or ideas.

What a colossal rip-off!

And it gets worse. If you’ve read your Lovecraft, you’ll note that there are generally two very, very important things about almost every single piece of writing he describes in his stories:

They aren’t written by Lovecraft, and
They either get you killed in horrible ways, or they drive you completely mad.

Here’s a hint: I guarantee you that this book wasn’t written by Lovecraft.

Need I say more?

I’m afraid I have to, because it gets worse:

I’m charging money for this book, even though everything inside of it is available for free.

That’s right. I’m charging you for something that’s free. Nearly all of this stuff is available on my blog at no cost to you. (This is even more ironic if you’re reading this piece on my blog right now.) Oh, it would be a pain in the neck to go and find and click on each story, and this is a slightly-more-final edit, but I’m still an independent author who does his own editing, so it’s not like we’re taking a whole lot of difference.

There’s even a very reasonable chance, if you’re reading this, that you’ve already read most, and perhaps all, of these stories. You’ve already put all the words into your head. Isn’t that enough?

No. It isn’t, is it?

Because there’s still something about books; no, wait, something about words. Something that hasn’t gone away, even though, in theory, the technologies of word-transportation have gone through fundamental alterations in their nature, not once, but many, many times. From stories spoken aloud, to pictograms carefully carved into rock, to manuscripts written out by hand and then copied slowly over lifetimes by rooms full of monks, to the printing press, to some kind of way the printing press probably changed that I don’t actually know about but which was probably really important, to electronic books—there’s still something that connects talesenders and talecatchers.

You shameful hoarders-of-words.

Face it. A certain percentage of those absorbing this information right now can’t stop gathering mountains and mountains of verbiage into your heads. Where does it stop? You’re worse than Dragons; Dragons collect shiny, beautiful gold, with, perhaps, some rubies and emeralds. When most of the world’s economy went electronic, did Dragons stop sitting on top of expensive metal and start metaphorically sitting on gigantic bank accounts? I don’t know; they might have. It’s not like they tell me these things. The point is, why are you still even reading this? This is a post full of words literally telling you to beware stuffing more words into your head and all you’re doing is stuffing more words into your head and WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

This Warning could end there, and it would, except that I am an honest huckster. And I should tell the whole truth:

I’m one of you. I’m a word-hoarder myself.

And I have some idea why.

There’s something about defining and refining and developing thought and meaning out of stacks of language and communication which makes me feel more whole. Not like I felt incomplete before, but like there is more of me to be found, and I’m finding it and making it out of the raw stuff of thought and dream.

That’s the conspiracy of writers: words are never free. Whether we are taking them in or putting the out or both, they cost us the skull-sweat and heartbeats and breath of constructing our inner landscapes, and for some of us, the more we add to those far-stretching inner highways and skyways, the more our outside life has potential and joy.

If you like words as much as I do, then this warning is already far, far too late. Acquire these stories, acquire all the stories in the world, if you can. Sit your mind upon a throne of readable wealth so massive that even a Dragon, tail sprawled lazily against a stack of emeralds each the size of skulls, haunches resting comfortable upon a bed of coins made from the treasure-troves of a dozen pirate-kings, would look at you, and envy your wealth.

Plunder and hoard, my ravenous story-kin. Plunder and hoard and good hunting to you all.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

The post A Final Warning About The Words In This Book appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

A New Year’s Curse

As the old year puts on its pumped-up Kicks and desperately sprints towards Oblivion like a piece of clickbait charging towards your attention span, I, Jeff Mach, Dark Lord, offer you unto you this New Year’s  curse:

“Let all those who invade the sanctity of my tomb in the Great Pyramid know that I shall arise from my sarcophagus to wreak upon you vengeance from beyond the grave!”

Wait. Waaaaaait. Wrong curse. I used that, ah,let’s just say, it’s been done, that’s a little out of date, and I’m a different person these days. Sorry.  Got a lot on my mind lately. Now, for your actual curse, hold on, I’ve got it around here somewhere….ah!

“Though this year of 1066 was truly epic, future generations shall be easily convinced that it’s known for the signing of the Magna Carta instead of the Battle of Hastings, and, what’s worse, most of them won’t really care.”

Uh. I mean, yeah, that’s accurate, but it’s not exactly the spine-tingling, blood-galvanizing atrocity I was seeking. Also, I’m pretty sure this isn’t 1067.

“For lo! There shall be signs and portents, portents and signs, more signs, a couple extra portents, a few highly portentous signs, and—”

Sorry. Sorry. Technically, yes, that’s true, but honestly, we now take in more data in a single day than most humans absorbed in a lifetime. We’re not going to notice any signs and/or portents, and if we did, we’d probably just wipe them out with ad blockers.

Hm. “May you use the wrong fork you the next time you eat vichyssoise!”

There, that’s a real killer!

…what?

You were already gonna do that?

Assuming you ever, for some reason, eat vichyssoise in the first place?

Hellfire.

Alright, then. I’m just gonna let it roll and see what happens. Remember, you asked for this:

“May you be troubled by moral ambiguity, such that you sometimes begin to doubt the idea that your side is right about absolutely everything.”

“May many of your wishes come true…you poor devil.”

“May you find yourself in New Jersey at least once this year, even if you don’t deserve it.”

“May you realize that you aren’t as good with ketchup as the Sages usually suggest, but for reals, Dragons would eat you anyway, given the chance.”

“May you accidentally click ‘like’ on the wrong Youtube video and may Youtube then spend the next month exposing you to viewpoints and opinions which you previously thought were held entirely by monsters, but which sometimes make useful points worth hearing.”

“May that cute cashier at your local convenience store turn out to be something as simple and uncomplicated as a monster which lures people to its lair and drinks their vital fluids and disposes of the bodies in a bath of hydrochloric acid, and not something as terrifying as a date.”

“May you figure out that the Internet isn’t always right.”

“May you develop an immunity to Manticore poison…the hard way.”

“May you be surrounded by books and yet still want more.”

“May the New Year, the coming year, bring you exactly as much peace, hope, happiness, joy knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment as you think you deserve!”

“…and then a little extra, just because.”

Are you trembling, cowering, and/or quaking? I should hope so. I haven’t given out curses this harsh since the Lemurians gave up on the hunter-gatherer life and mass-teleported to the Pleasure Planet of Zeebnar. Forgive me.  It’s mean and it’s cruel. But that’s Villain Life for you.

Now treat your Dark Lord well and shower unto me gifts and appropriate respect, and I may—maybe, just maybe, if you’re very, very good—I’ll curse you with a rain of crocodiles instead, okay?

Might happen.

If you’re lucky.

Otherwise, you’ll just have to get out there and deal with the New Year as best you humanly can. My suggestions?

Do what I say.
Be a Villain.
Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.
And most of all, don’t fall for things which sound good, but which are inherently logically contradictory.

Happy New Year, you monsters!

The Dark Lord

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When Every Sky Is Smoke

With every sky bitter with the acrid smoke of our exile,

every Mountain that sheltered us conquered and climbed,

When the Sea in which we lived rejects our bodies,

The Ocean shores littered with our jagged bones,

and Man’s disbelief full on us, what shall we do?

Take his dreams; he doesn’t want them and we will no longer share them.

Let him keep his toys, the ones which think for him, the ones which are the secret orders of his mind.

Take away his magic. All of it. Leave him with the neverending cacophony of grinding gears; even when his technologies run silent, the gears still hit the mind.

Take from him everything, do it before his every eyes, and he shall take up arms against our kinds, and he shall die, die, die.

Let him believe he is the hero.

Let him die like a fool.

At least he’ll die as he lived, only

he barely lived at all.

This land, this place, is your place.

We don’t like what you’ve done with it, mammal.

Leave it be. My breathe can incinerate, and it shall,

and what will be left will the blackened

burning

ruin,

and you can only save yourself by being

far too small

to be truly seen by the Universe.

And you will wish for more.

And you will look past what you think you know.

And then you will call on us, summon us, break our locks, speak our truths.

You will free us and you will be cleansed by our healing breath, and your ashes will spread up into the atmosphere, dampen the painful sun, cool the Earth to a temperature we prefer.

Call to us, mammal.

You yearn for Magic.

Keep looking.

We wait.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!

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A Song Of The Blighted Branch

“We stand now together, a forest of trees struggling in the darkness and shadow cast by that first tree.

There comes a time in the life of a grove where such trees must be felled, to allow for the growth and health of those which remain. This is such a time.

To preserve the health of our organization, we must cut out the blight…”

-Ancient Druid Curse

A Song of the Blighted Branch:

I am the name you tried to un-name;

now I am no longer trapped by words.

(You can compel a demon or angel by the syllables which hold its place in the Universe, but if you would take the meaning and sound from my identity, then no force remains which can compel me.)

I am the Blighted Branch; you might hate me, but you do it because you choose to inspire anxiety and pain; that should teach you something about you.

I am the Blighted Branch; to see me as twisted is to mistakenly believe yourself to be straight.

I am the Blighted Branch; once, your terror was illusion and shadow, but it led you to try to cut me down. For your actions I cut myself away from you; for your terror, be rewarded with something to fear. You have given me form, and that form sends deep roots into the earth; I will not be easily moved again.

I am the Blighted Branch, and no matter how often you tell other trees to grow uniform and symmetrical, you cannot stop the Blight.

Not because of me, but because of you; you have shown them what rigid symmetry looks like, and many want no part of your regimented ranks of anxious perfection.

I am the Blighted Branch; I am the Blight of inspiration, the warped muse, the beautiful blasphemy.

You made me; if I am ugly to you, recognize that you shaped me; you are responsible for what I am.

And what I am is free, at last, to grow into something strange and crooked and entirely my own.

~Jeff Mach

Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.

And you should go to Evil Expo, the Villain Convention.

Dedication:

The name of Isaac Bonewits lives on.

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