Jeff Mach's Blog, page 74
November 16, 2019
An Abominable Army
Rule #1: Obey orders.
Rule #2: Unless they’re stupid orders. Or misinformed. Or clearly a terrible idea.
Rule #3: Basically, obedience is what helps us maintain the discipline and focus to execute both simple and complex tactics. And intelligent disobedience is what allows us to remove the heads of those who only value servitude.
Rule #4: If your Commanding Officer wants to inspire in you the kind of loyalty that will get you to do something nuts or suicidal, because you have that much faith in them, they’d better earn it. And if it’s really insane, they’d better go first.
Rule #5: Do not trifle with the Envoy.
Note: We’ve never had a chance to enforce #5. Because she always takes care of it herself.
~Training Manual of the Dark Army (Volume I: “Fools Die”)
Those who’ve incurred the wrath of the Envoy like to say that she’s a ball of fury, that she never smiles, that she opens her mouth only to yell, eat, or (if presented with a major artery) to bite.
This is because they’re usually idiots, and this is why the Army doesn’t care that they’re mostly dead now. They’re wrong; if she were that way, she wouldn’t have this job. Fury is sometimes an asset in battle, but hardly in delicate political circumstances. The Envoy is not a diplomat; she is a messenger (some would say a “harbinger”, but that’s pessimistic)—but that’s a job which requires finesse and precision and measured calm. When The General wants someone to take a moment to reconsider an action, when she has a serious proposal to make, when a city has a final chance to avoid being taken apart brick-by-brick and reassembled upside-down and under water, the General sends her Envoy in.
(And if, sometimes, when she visits a place, a royal throat is cut in the night, or an object disappears, best to blame it on coincidence. Because The Envoy is too far away for there to be any point in blaming it on her.)
Sometimes, if she’s fresh from to enacting a visitation upon a hostile territory, she pause in her return to stop by the local troop encampment for an inspection. It’s always good to know your own strengths and weaknesses, especially when you’ve a fresh observation of the enemy with which to compare yourself. And with the upcoming War, and the strategic position of this particular battalion, the General would want to be kept in the loop.
Besides, she was curious; she’d seldom seen any city, friend or enemy, which was so on edge. The streets bubbled over with restless energy as the inhabitants spoke of nothing but the Commander and his marauders. There clearly wasn’t a person in the city who hadn’t escaped near-death from some almost-skirmish. Then again, there clearly wasn’t a missing broom that he hadn’t personally stolen, and, to hear the reports, there wasn’t a single puppy he’d failed to kick. That was interesting; vicious sadists are not often the best leaders of soldiery. That’s because “inflict and enjoy the most pain” is of limited utility. It’s good for certain cultures, certain wars, certain goals. The goal of a commander is to “achieve strategic objectives with the available military resources”. Contrary to popular belief, the two do not always mix.
(She’s not defined by her role; but she’s very passionate about it. The Envoy is not lacking in hobbies; it’s just that her hobbies are military history, meditation, and the study of obscure weapons and poisons. Those are perfectly fascinating things, and while it’s very much like her that they aid and assist her in her avocation, she enjoys them for their own sake. It’s glorious to be out in a forest, looking for a rare and fatal herb; it’s fulfilling to enter a newly-conquered city and eagerly head to its museums and archeological sites; and if you ever want to see a contented look on her face, just find her ensconced in her tent, surrounded by academic tomes relating to the martial past and sipping a cup of tea. Granted, the tomes are likely impounded from recent spoils of war, and the tea contains within it a pinch of poison, but still, happiness is where you find it.
(The poison’s an old Audoghastian trick; if one has studied toxins sufficiently, one realizes that it’s impossible to avoid them completely, if someone both determined and knowledgeable has decided to introduce one into your environment. But if you build up a higher tolerance, you might have a chance of living through the incident, finding your would-be assassin, and deconstructing the unwisdom of their life choices in a thoughtful and impactful manner. You might also die; but that’s a soldier’s lot, isn’t it?)
Altogether, The Envoy’s default working expression was an outer calm which, if you poked at it sufficiently, revealed an inner calm as well. She was skilled, knowledgeable, a valued asset to the Dark Army, and at this moment, she was really, really annoyed at the possibility that she’d need to rip this fool’s head off. Which, seeing as how he was the Commander of a branch of her own Army, would hardly mitigate the rumours that she was feral as a polecat.
She’d arrived mid-morning, and it was now near sunset, and so far, she’d held her tongue. The General was not known for poor choices in personnel; the Commander was a legend; and it’s true that all the troops seemed fit enough.
But—
She’d visited many a salle d’armes, and heart the clash of steel on steel; but it wasn’t usually there as an accompaniment to (as she discovered once they’d made their way inside) a jug band.
The Dark Army was fairly informal, for a fighting force. Still, it was not common for a CO to be referred to by his troops as “You with the ugly mustache!”, especially when it turned out that the private had wanted their attention in order to settle a bet as to whether dinner was going to be roast mastodon or fried terror-bird. (“Both, buddy!” the Commander had replied, jovially, “unless you catch us something better from the lake.” The two had then taken up a friendly argument about the best worm to use to try to catch a giant lake trout. It had been insufferable, and they’d only shut up when she pointed out that, this time of year, the young infantryman would be better off finding a big beetle or two. “If,” she’d said sardonically, “your busy training schedule doesn’t preclude hunting around for bugs for a few hours.” The sarcasm was entirely lost on the youth, who thanked her amiably and skipped off into the forest.)
More than once, she noted enemy scouts. They apparently felt fairly secure, because their concealment was fairly minimal. (Granted, she was exceptionally practiced in noticing these things.) Interestingly, no matter what they observed, their pattern was similar: they’d gaze for a few moments from their nominal places of hiding…and then suddenly break and run off at a dead heat, as if four of the seven Hells were opening up behind them.
It was weird.
The City on the plains below, the one whose walls seemed fairly likely to be tested against the mangonels she’d inspected today, was in a panic. And not just about the siege engines (which were, admittedly, clean, well-maintained, and in perfect condition, if you ignored the fact that an off-duty sergeant was using one of the massive slings as a makeshift hammock). The priests, bards, and the Council of the City were vehement; some in denouncing the General, some in denouncing the sinful ways of the world around them; and most of all, in speaking their undying hatred of the sick, demented warrior who was…
…apparently joining a game of kickball with the soldiery. She didn’t know exactly what kind of animal had provided the bladder they were smacking about, but it must have been from something huge. Even as she watched, the Commander knocked the thing hard enough to launch it well over the defender’s heads.
It was a clear point scored…except that a long-legged scout, with a surprising turn of speed, sprinted underneath the thing somehow, and caught it, to the wild acclaim of the spectators, who raised jars of homebrew in her honor.
(The Envoy had seen veteran soldiers drink hard, but that was usually when they were off-duty. Or at least, when the sun was down. Or, you know, going down soon.)
The whole camp was like that. The whole day was like that. They participated (in what the Envoy felt was a manner so overly-familiar it threatened to destroy distinctions of rank altogether)—in a foot race, a horseshoe pitch, and a lunch…
She was no believer in unnecessary austerity, and, as anyone with a reasonable grasp of military history will tell you, an army travels on its stomach. But most mess halls do not serve a 7-course midday snack. With wine pairings.
Fascinatingly, someone shot an arrow into the fabric of the structure. Clearly, they’d intended to send it through and into the hall itself, but even a longbow has limits. From the flopping noise the thing made as it hit the side of the tent, it had clearly been shot from far afield.
The Commander sent a pair of runners (armored runners, and she approved of that much) to fetch the thing. They did. Wrapped around the shaft was a missive. The Commander read it without comment, then dropped it on the table and went back to his honey-roasted quail. (He’d invited her to go hunting with some of the other troops. She’d declined.)
The letter said,
“Go back to the Abyss, abomination!” She’d looked inquiringly at the Commander; his only comment was, “Their punctuation is improving.”
And now, at last, they were finally returning to their starting point, the Commander’s ridiculously oversized tent, which was furnished in a manner that would have made any reasonable den of sin and vice shake its head and say, “Really, don’t you think the orange-and-purple shag carpet is a bit much? At least in combination with that giant flamingo drinks cabinet?”
The Commander sprawled in a chair; it was an actual piece of furniture with back support, which almost surprised her. At this point, she would have expected a chaise lounge recovered from the home of a disgraced libertine. (And almost immediately, she saw where her mind had pulled that image: there was such a thing, right over in the corner. It was serving as a third reserve backup auxiliary bookshelf. She recognized some of the titles, and for a moment, she felt an ounce of fellow-feeling. Then she crushed that thoughtwave; she should probably leave tonight, and the news she would bring the General was not good.)
“Commander, I need to speak with you before I leave.”
“But of course.” He poured himself a glass of wine. It was, she noted, an extremely large glass. But he merely sipped it delicately and placed it on the table before him. He indicated the chair opposite, but she ignored it and stood, if anything, straighter.
“Sir. Commander: I have not once, among hundreds of armed camps, seen a stronghold more entirely, inappropriately unprepared for war.”
He raised an eyebrow, a gesture she found inappropriately flippant. She grew quite still. In a perfectly even tone, she stated, “I have found discipline to be lax in every area. Military protocol may be altered, but cannot be inappropriately ignored. You are our bulwark against an absolutely implacable foe, one who is determined to drive you from the face of the globe, and with you, three thousand of my General’s troops, whose only crime was to be under your command. It will be my recommendation that you be replaced in your command, and that you, personally, lose your head. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Bravery and idiocy wear very similar faces, and sometimes, it’s impossible to tell them apart. The Commander, rather than being nonplussed, smiled in what seemed to be genuine amusement. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind, Envoy?”
The Envoy knew at least three different ways to kill someone using your mind alone. None of them were easy or pleasant for either side, but she had to master the urge to try all three at once. “That is what’s on my mind, Commander.”
“No, I don’t think it is.”
The temperature in the room dropped precipitously; there have been ice ages which were warmer. And her voice was sub-glacial:
“If that was a flirtation—”
“—then I’m a dead man right here and now, obviously,” replied the Commander. “I’m not an idiot. I have no intention of serving our General by seeing who, among two of her officers, can draw a blade faster, especially when I’m fairly sure it’s you.
“You’re a professional. I imagine you don’t get mad unless you need to; or at least, you don’t let it out. Honestly, you’ve looked steamed since afternoon cocktails. If I wasn’t deeply confident in your self-control, I wouldn’t be anywhere near you without about three layers of honor guard and, preferably, a couple of spiked trenches. I recognize that. I thought a typical day in our camp might be a pleasant break in your routine. But apparently not.”
There was a pause. Then she spoke:
“Fine. I just want to know what the Hell is wrong with you. You’re supposed to be the backbone of our forces in this region, and you know this region’s strategic import; you must know. And you’ve been using our army’s resources to run what appears to be a full-scale dress rehearsal for Saturnalia! Seriously, man, what’s wrong with you?”
“Why, haven’t you heard, Commander? I am an abomination. What could be more wrong than that?”
She probably wasn’t going to strike him, but he hastily put up both hands in a warding gesture regardless. He went on hurriedly:
“Our enemies are speaking of my endless atrocities; every day they tell more hideous stories and the legend grows, and they are more and more terrified.. Their morale is destroyed, their thoughts are scattered, and their will is broken.”
“But you’ve clearly done nothing besides indulge yourselves and lounge about in dissipation!”
“Not true! We often take bracing exercise and drill in our weapons; how good for the soul it is to work up an appetite for one’s meal with energetic display, and how lovely we all look, marching about in our uniforms! We are in the best of spirits and in excellent health; and if our aim is true from hunting game and making merry sport, rather than mere target practice, how much the better?”
She could have controlled her exasperation, but why? He was right; she was angry, and if he was going to be cavalier, then she’d be direct. Moreso than usual. “Dammit, you’ve done nothing to harry and harass the enemy! Your reputation for savagery and barbarism is wholly inaccurate!” The Commander smiled. “Ah, but consider our opponents.. They despise us. And though they’d never admit it, they love to do so, and that means, like all humans, they make bigger and bigger stories, each one seeking to outdo the next in outrage and anger. The less we do, the more they imagine we’ve done. The one thing that’s impossible, in their minds, is that we are civilized creatures.
We harry the enemy by living well. You’re an historian; you know the import of morale. How could ours be any higher? And how could theirs be any lower?”
The movement of a weapon ought seldom reveal itself before it reaches a point of commitment; a fighter should expect that the next strike could be at any target, from hamstring to carotid artery. The Envoy would not be who and what she was if she believed every first instinct.
“Why does the City hate you?”, she asked.
“I was once military advisor to a member of their Triumvirate. When our friendship ended, he chose to make sure he would not be blamed for the rift. So he spread word far and wide that he’d fled my company because of my perversity and unquenchable inner darkness. My own comrades told me to ignore it, that truth would shine through. The results of that belief…well, they are why my sole commander is the General now.
“And thus, their scouts see us at table, making conversation, and they assume we we can’t simply be eating venison, as they do; our plates must be full of nightmares, and we must be insouciant cannibals. They note our parade discipline and believe it’s because we are possessed by demons, because why attribute actual skill to a beast? And so they look at all, and see what they most desire. The less we act like a fearsome army, the more they’re sure that’s exactly what we must be. They can turn anything we do into a tale of our horrific natures.”
The Envoy thought of the boiling City. Her time there, both in the open and in secret, had been filled with exactly such stories. She was confused; but take enough blows in combat, and you need to learn to get past even the most jarring hits. Her tone was now one of genuine curiosity:
“But will we win this way?”
“Ah, my friend,” the Commander said, carefully filling a second glass from his bottle and handing it to her, “We already have.”
She sat, and she drank. Outside were the sounds of a bacchanal coalescing. She looked at him. “Do you need to go join that?”
“Nah, it’s my night off. They’re roasting a boar; they’ll bring some over later. Hopefully.” He walked over to the tent flap and shouted, “Orderly! Cup of tea! Please.” He moved back to the bookshelf, pulled out a volume that had to weigh as much as the shortsword at his side, placed it on the table in front of him.
She stood up. “I should go.”
“And what are you going to tell the General?”
She waited a moment, as the orderly came in, threw a jaunty salute at him (and then a rather crisper one at her), and looked over at the other officer, book in his hand, tea and wine within easy reach.
“I’m going to tell her that you really know how to party. For an abomination.”
And then she was through the tent flap and gone, as if she’d vanished into the sweet-scented twilight air.
The post An Abominable Army appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 10, 2019
The Dragon Place
It is helpful, if not wholly accurate, to say that for a period of time roughly around the European Middle Ages, it was the fashion for Dragons to treat humans with contempt.
It’s helpful, but I’ve got some misgivings. It’s like the maps we used to study before ocean voyages: better than nothing, even some of the errors are dangerous in the extreme. The map, as has been said before, is an attempt to represent the territory; it’s not the actual territory.
So let me guide you through a few of the more treacherous shoals.
To begin with, Dragons don’t really have fashions as we know the term, as there’s really no faddishness in Draconic culture. Humans can take something trivial and hold onto it for a remarkable period of time; Dragons will give that sort of thing, essentially, a momentary flicker of the mind, conceived, processed, and done in the space of a breath or a snort. No small thought is likely to need more examination than that, and it certainly doesn’t require the oddly human trait of trying on a visibly useless idea as if it might really matter.
(And no large Draconic rumination really fits any human terms whatsoever.)
Secondly, and to address the latter part of the opening thought, Dragons are also without a word for for “contempt”. If something is beneath them, they don’t really address it unless forced to do so; and their term for “The necessity of dealing with some annoying but pressing little thing” would translate more literally, as, “Delayed disintegration.”
But no one is likely to produce a really accurate bridge between dragon and human speech, one which conveys the thoughts of the former properly through using the distressingly inadequate tools of the later. If I want to form any meaning at all, I’ll have to make do the best I can with approximations. I’ve called the aforementioned practice a “fashion” to indicate that while it included very serious and meaningful choices, they were made, essentially, out of whimsy. They were decisions of an aesthetic nature, at least in the sense of how Dragons see aesthetics.
…I’ll never get anywhere if I keep trying to explain this in terms of Wyrms. Let me go back to thinking like a human. Forgive me; I’m rusty at this.
All right. To put it briefly, there’s many direct Draconic actions which are incomprehensible to mammals, sentient or otherwise. We don’t understand their mating flights, their oddly rhyming songs, or the tantalizing references to their city, located in a very deep part of what they rather distressingly call, “The Hidden Ocean.” So you’ll pardon me if my story is little roundabout; I prefer to put my knowledge in context. I am looking to convey a level of threat which is, to you, entirely hypothetical. I’m hoping I can make it more concrete by offering you an explanation for a certain piece of human history.
In essence:
There’s a period of about three hundred years when Dragons captured princesses, slew knights, and took and hoarded treasure because they felt it would really get our goats. (Also, during that time, they got many of our goats, and ate them)
And again, there are some easy mistakes to be made here. The first would be seeing their actions as petty; the second would be seeing them as suggesting that this means Dragons cared enough about our feelings to want to be jerks to us. Not so. What they really wanted to be was monsters.
Ever stood at the feet of a mountain and looked up? Or the top of a deep canyon, looking down? Ever stood on the same side of a river as even a small Jaguar, or looked through aquarium glass at a relatively harmless Mako shark? Have you ever felt something strange in your hindbrain, signaling danger and a need to flee?
It’s quite likely you have. And those things are mundane. Those are not intelligent beasts. They’re not long-lived. And they are, for want of a better term, of the “natural” world. We see the bones of vast dinosaurs in museums and imagine how we might feel if they were living beasts. We often figure we could handle it (perhaps)—especially if we were tackling the things in a human fashion; behind walls, covered by powerful weapons, comforted by technology. The most vicious T-Rex could hardly stand against the mortar shells of a hundred years ago; how inconsequential these creatures would be now! They’re scarcely threats to any reasonably-armed persons of the current day.
Dragons are different. Their hides are not of earthly flesh; I can’t speak to their endurance (though to withstand deep-sea pressures, they must be incredibly strong). I don’t know of their magic, or any magic really; what human does? I know enough to recognize that I really do not want to know more. I do not want to search them out any more than I already have. And, trust me, neither do you.
A long time ago, they must have seen us rise, and known we’d be something that resembled a threat. Not to their existence, perhaps, but to their chosen lifestyle; it’s not as relaxing to fly aimlessly about the world when you have to spend half your time running into jets and knocking down cruise missiles.
Why didn’t they kill us all? I don’t know. They are lizards; what mammal can truly speak to their motives? Instead, they terrified us. I don’t mean in general. I mean at gut level. I mean they implanted in us a certain mortal terror which appears to be essentially universal throughout the species. They did something to us to make us fear them by instinct.
Yes, I love them, and dream of them, sometimes. But this is why we wish them away. This is why we find the aforementioned dinosaur bones and think, “This is what it must have been; there were no Dragons, just these bits of massive skeletal structure, inspiring wonder and awe in early peoples”. Balderdash.
Early in the development of our minds, something reptilian got deep in our heads and stayed there. Who knows what they must have felt, abandoning this world to us? As I said, I don’t imagine it was entirely necessary; I assume it was some kind of choice they mad. Knowing them, it wasn’t something “Moral”; at least, not as we know that term. Like I said: aesthetics: why put in time on a planet riddled and pockmarked with idiot hominids? It hardly seems to please one’s senses.
So they vanished. Somewhat. But before they did, they put in an extended appearance, in a place and time where they’d implant on our culture, before we had the technology to record them well. Thus they showed up as horrible Leviathans, devours of the innocent, slayers of the strong, jealous acquirers of a wealth they didn’t even need: Monsters.
Wherever they went, you won’t find them. Because they don’t want you to find them. And you won’t find me, either.
They weren’t really that aggressive about devouring every single princess. I don’t think they really cared. Some of us ran away, through the strange dark at the back of their caves We thought we might perhaps flee to some part of the world of Dragons, somewhere that might be hospitable to us. I can’t say if that’s what the world around me is like now. I don’t even have a name for where I am. It’s a complicated fate. Sometimes, the barriers are thin, and I might speak to a dragon (after a few hundred years, they begin to grow on you.) And once in a while, I speak to other humans. Humans who are close. It’s not the worst life. If you don’t mind eternal longing, intermittently interspersed with bouts of fear. Me, I like these halfway points. Interstitial spaces are more common than one would think, and so I’ve kept up with the human world, and human tongues, and I stay something resembling sane. My family died of the Plague, which was lucky. It gave me perspective, early on, that there are potentialities worse than existing where I am now.
Besides, once you’ve spent enough time talking to Dragons, you really can’t go back. There’s a dormant part of our mind which never troubles you unless you awaken it. But it’s awakened in me now. I don’t want to go back to a world where everyone thinks like a human. They’re all so… small, and trivial. It’s hard to care about their joy, or their screams. I’m a monster now, and I like it.
But you, little human. You should turn back. This is just a warning: however you found this place, turn back. Whatever you think you’re doing, turn back. This is not a good place to be. This is not a human place to be. I’m sure you think I exaggerate. Human language is extremely inadequate for conveying the ineffable. But let me give you the closest approximation I can of the unknown, the vast strangeness I inhabit. It might look like ordinary land to you, but wait until you are halfway across something you think you recognize, when up from depths which ought not exist on solid land, arising like the peculiar storms which swallow ships, looming up over you for half a mile, blotting out whatever would be a “sun” if there’d ever been such a thing, but now you know there never was, that what you always thought was a light source was just a fragmentary shiny ripple in the overwhelming shadow of the creature’s wings. Don’t do this. You should leave this place. For here?
Here Be Dragons.
_________
Jeff Mach is a writer and creator who has long aspired to be the sort of person who neither needs to promote his other work at the bottom of his short stories, nor speaks of himself in the third person, but sadly, in both regards, he has failed.
To find out more about Evil Expo, the Convention for Villains, click here.
To learn about my darkly satirical fantasy novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN,” click here.
To be hurled into the depths of the cosmic Void, simply wait, my friend. Simply wait.
The post The Dragon Place appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 8, 2019
Those Who Have Seen The Blight
And Blessed are those who have seen the Blight.
The tree has roots very deep in the soil,
but we’ve found a leaf with a bite of the Blight
(and Blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
We’ll cut it off, cast it into the night,
and so keep the tree well, and safe from the Blight.
(and Blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
Although, although, if this leaf isn’t right,
It could mean (it might, it might)
That there’s a branch that’s been blanched by Blight.
So to upper branches we’ll swiftly alight
to check to see if vision bright
might note another touch of Blight
(and Blessed are those who’ve seen the Blight.)
Behold! It seems, it seems we were right;
Someone of most exceptional sight
Has spotted a hint of the hideous Blight
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
The tree is strong, and of great height;
The loss of a branch is a difference slight;
And it’s well worthwhile to ‘ware the Blight
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
…And now we’ve a moment of tangible fright.
Some of those with the excellent sight
Have spotted more Blight. They have spotted more Blight
On some branches that we thought were totally right.
But now, to some eyes, when the sun’s very bright
It looks like this we’ve found us some more of the Blight.
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
So off come those branches! But now, this fright:
Where else might be found the unseen Blight?
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
Something’s wrong. Our chests are tight:
Why can’t we better see the blight??
surely we should fix our sight,
so all of us can see the Blight.
And these things, too, does not seem right:
They’re not sleeping through the night,
The ones, the ones who see the Blight.
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
I think this branch might have the Blight.
(cast it, cast it into the night.)
I think that branch might have the Blight.
(cast it, cast it into the night.)
and now we’ve learned to fix our sight,
and now, we, too, can see the Blight,
and none of us sleep through the night.
If you even think it might be Blight,
cast it, cast it into the night,
For if you think it might be Blight,
I promise you, you’re always right.
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
Learn from us this lesson bright:
We had some who didn’t see the Blight,
and it turns out they weren’t right,
for some of those who had the Sight
realized: those people were the Blight,
and some we cast into the night,
and some suddenly saw the Blight,
and all realized (as well we might)
that nothing is ever safe from the Blight,
not once you’ve learned the proper sight,
the sight which knows how to see the Blight,
and we know everyone who’s right
knows how, knows how to see the Blight
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
now we cut away all that might
have ever been touched at all by the Blight,
and in solemn vow and rite,
we cast them all into the night.
But this is troubling. Everywhere my eyes alight
Seems to have a touch of Blight.
Surely that cannot be right;
But you die if you question the Blight, the Blight.
So either there’s something wrong with my sight,
or everywhere’s alive with Blight.
If the latter, no future’s bright
not if everywhere is Blight.
And if the former, then the night
has swallowed up many who never had Blight.
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(but that can’t be right.
That can’t be right.)
And now, none of us sleep at night.
Not fair. Not fair. Not fair or right.
We cut the branch, cast it out of the light;
So why aren’t we freed from the bite of the Blight?
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
(and blessed are those who have seen the Blight.)
_______________
Courage, as has often been said, does not lie in never feeling fear or never being afraid, but in overcoming fear. Fear likes to be fed, and it doesn’t care whether you’re giving it meat or gristle.
The more we tell each other that we need to live in terror, the more we’ll do so. That’s part of how we work.
You can feel there are bad things in the world, and have negative emotional responses to those things, without letting those things govern your life.
I write things. I put on events.
The post Those Who Have Seen The Blight appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 7, 2019
Always Underestimate The Bad Guy
You should always underestimate the bad guy. Because to do anything less is overestimation by default; and that’s both unwise, and, probably, a sin of some kind (who thinks highly of monsters?). It is nearly impossible to conceptualize how someone might engage in the poor life choices necessary to take up Villainy; this should be obvious for any hero, and, indeed, anyone (and it should be everyone, shouldn’t it?) who is on the side of light and good.
For who would be a Villain, save those who lack either lucidity or correctness of thought, or both? The path otherwise makes no sense, for several reasons.
I. As we all know, crime doesn’t pay.
(For certain definitions of crime.)
(And certain definitions of “pay”.)
(Actually, I’ve never seen any real proof of this. But it stands to reason that if, say, you steal an object of great value, at relatively low cost to you, and you sell it for a high price, you will go broke. That’s just simple math; if your cost is low and your revenue is high, then you’ll succeed, unless you’re a bad person, in which case, Mother Nature will remove all of the vitamins and protein from your money, rendering it worthless.)
Besides, even if you DID make a good living as a Villain, would it really be a worthwhile life? You’d have to live in fear, because
II. Criminals are a cowardly lot.
Well-known fact.
I was just speaking to an angry mob of my acquaintance, and I remarked, “…besides, criminals are cowards, right?” And they all replied, “Absolutely, Mr. Hero, criminals are cowards, black is white, and everything you say is true, only please do not hurt us. And please tell the rest of the mob that we agree with whatever it is you are trying to say, wholly and its entirety!”
Now, could villainy inspires such ideological purity and such a sense of security in social settings? Surely not.
III. All villains have fatal flaws.
I was recently speaking to a heroic friend, and he pointed out to me that antagonists always lose, because their evil is inherently, fatally flawed. I asked him why that should be, and he shrugged and responded,
“Sorry, I have to drag myself off to a hospital now. Somebody with a slingshot hit me with a pebble from my home planet, and I may die.”
IV. Heroes are peaceful, but villains get into unwise confrontations on a regular basis.
I mentioned this to a certain alleged villain of my acquaintance, but he declined to comment. Technically, he couldn’t; his mouth was immobile, because he’d been on a trip to the convenience store when the League of Protagonists jumped him and broke his jaw.
League spokesbeing “Stupendously Fantastic Person” explained, “It could have been a trip to get evil chewing gum.”
Thank you, O League, for protecting the mastication of that which is good and right.
V. Most of all, Villainy is no fun.
Come on. Who wouldn’t want to live a safe and happy life of constant mutual surveillance, as you and your fellow Heroes make sure that none of you ever deviates from expected behavior? (And if any of you do—marking you as a potential rogue, or a doppleganger, or robot double—you get taken down immediately and without question, before you can take actions you might later regret.)
We all know that all humans are fallible, so if you create your own moral and ethical code, you could create something monstrous. That’s why you should rely on large groups of humans to do your thinking for you, because who could possibly be wiser than a large group of primates who compete with each other for food and dominance?
Remember, if you must be yourself, you will be excluded from being part of a faceless army of soulless do-gooders who’ve never examined the real-world implications of their implacable rules and societal norms.
In conclusion, I am going to go and procure a cape and a death weapon the size of Jupiter. I hope you have found this discussion as instructive as I have!
Yours in service,
_________
I write songs and books and stories and a whole lot of tweets. I’m a Villainpunk and reformed Steampunk. I like words. Words are nice.
Nobody should ever, ever, click here .
The post Always Underestimate The Bad Guy appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 6, 2019
The Monster Beneath
Such horrible things live under the bed
(Keep handy that funeral wreath)
But I am the boy who crawled under his bed
And ate the monster beneath.
The monster beneath, the monster beneath
(For that’s where monsters be)
Monsters are everywhere, underneath everything;
Monsters are made of me.
Such a horrible thing was under my bed!
Fairytales tell lies
They speak of fang and poison and claw
But worst by far are the eyes—
The monster beneath, the monster beneath
(For that’s where monsters be)
Monsters are everywhere, underneath everything;
Hiding monstrously.
When I confronted the Monster Beneath,
He was bigger and stronger and faster
But I had my heart,
(my dark, dark heart)
And that was the creature’s disaster!
The monster beneath, the monster beneath
(For here do monsters be)
Worse than the creatures of myth or tale
Are the monsters who are we.
________
I was really ill when I wrote this.
I suppose it would make a good story, if I wanted to tell it that way. I was at an event run by people who I thought were my friends, and something was off. I couldn’t tell what. I ended up spending pretty much the whole weekend in my room, feeling ill (not with a cold, not with something contagious, but with something that felt like something was just stepping on my chest). And I wrote the beginnings of a song cycle about Dark Lords, being a monster, and Villainy.
There is a surprisingly epic story of deceit, treachery, and ugliness, but it’s a terribly mundane thing, and not really much fun to put into print. What I did get out of it was a number of songs…and the beginnings of what would later become Villainpunk.
Lose fake friends, gain a new genre, and get to become a Villain?
I feel very lucky, to tell you the truth.
For my darkly satirical fantasy novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN,” click here .
This is basically always a link to the Inspirobot.
The post The Monster Beneath appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 5, 2019
Zombie Apocalypse Entrepreneur
(I’ve seen a lot of alteration in the way people view the word ‘entrepreneur’; it started with this image of someone struggling to create some kind of business from their garage; then there was an assumption that you were some kind of Internet billionaire; and now there seems to be a frequent image of somebody who’s kind of a rich hipster.
Your Zombie Apocalypse may vary, but in mine, nobody’s really rich, unless “full of iron-rich blood!” counts. And all the hipsters were eaten first. By each other.
It’s hard, trying to start a business when most of your client base is dead. But I’d make it work. I always do. )
DAY 227. Tuesday.
TO-DO
1. Maintain positive attitude.
2. Be a go-getter.
3. Figure out why it’s always Tuesday.
___
6 a.m. Wake up screaming
6:15 a.m. Realize it’s actually other people’s screams. Go back to bed.
6:45 a.m. Wake up screaming. Mutter something that’s unprintable, especially since nobody is making books anymore. Wake up.
7:30 a.m. Wash using stockpile of Handi-Wipes. Put on sunglasses, umpire chest protector, pants. Bash can of food with rock. Remember (again!) to try to find a can opener.
8:15 a.m. Drain bathtub into jars. Try not to breathe.
8:30 a.m. Look for coffee. Realize there’s still no coffee. Bash head briefly with stick until feel relatively alert.
9 a.m. Pick up baseball bat. Leave through garage. Swing twice, knock down zombie, turn slightly, deliver headshot. Lock garage.
9:15 Load Volkswagon.
9:30 a.m. – 10 a.m. Think about how excellent it would be if the Volkswagon had working engine. Listen to endless crackling noises on portable radio and pretend it’s the Beach Boys. Remember to get batteries, life.
10:30 a.m. Push Volkswagon. Pause to slay living dead with bat. Be grateful that there haven’t been a lot of them yet. But there will be. There always are, on Tuesdays.
10:31 a.m. Remember that yesterday was Tuesday.
10:32 a.m. Remember that tomorrow is Tuesday.
10:33 a.m. Why?
11 a.m. Keep pushing Volkswagon.
11:30 a.m. Get winged by survivalist who thinks I passed too close to his shack. Open trunk. Toss him a bottle. Get invited inside for lunch.
12:00 a.m. Ahhh, stewed pigeon and fresh(ish) cigars. Watch television with survivalist. Agree that you get the best static when you point the screen to the southeast. No idea why that is.
1 p.m. Push car to town with survivalist. Put out sign. Start hawking.
“GIN! GIN! You’ve smashed all the stores and searched all the basements! All you’ve got left is hand sanitizer, which will kill you fairly quickly. My homemade gin is guaranteed to kill you slowly! Buy now! Buy now! Will accept cans of food, bullets, and help fixing a Volkswagon! Especially the Volkswagon part.”
5 p.m. Eat well-deserved candlelight zombie-steak dinner with survivalist at the best restaurant in town, namely, “The Only Restaurant In Town”. Sell them remaining gin.
6 p.m. It is dark. Decide, along with restaurant staff, to sleep in the building overnight so as not to be consumed by the living dead.
8 p.m. Well-deserved sleep, completely unbroken by screaming.
8:15 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:15 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m. Awakened by screaming, some from zombies, some from other people in the building, some from self.
11 p.m. Drink gin. Fall into stupor.
Wake up next day. Push car home.
Do it all over again.
Next step: Learn to make whiskey.
The unspeakable Villainpunk Jeff Mach frequently seeks new, interesting ways to rewrite this part, and then often ends up just shifting a few words around, going back in time to before he wrote this initially, and hitting “Publish”, so that this is technically new. Don’t tell anyone.
Jeff is a writer and creator who has long aspired to be the sort of person who neither needs to promote his other work at the bottom of his short stories, nor need speak of himself in the third person. Sadly, in both regards, he has failed.
To visit Plato’s Cave, click here .
The post Zombie Apocalypse Entrepreneur appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 4, 2019
A Villainly Alphabet
(This is from my other book, “The Big Bad Wolf’s Villainly Alphabet“. But that’s a children’s book…or at least, it is if you’d like to raise some little monsters. I feel like poem under 500 words is fair game for a blog post. Besides, most of the next pieces are rather long and rather sharp around the edges. This is a nice, pleasant little rhyme. I even took out most of the death bits. I think.
Also, today we confirmed V is for Villains at Evil Expo. So this seemed appropriate.)
A Big Bad Wolf’s Villainly Alphabet
(to be read to anyone who needs more Horrible Role Models in their lives)
A is for “AAAAARRRGGGHH!”, that answer to wishes
(The last sound to come from things nice and delicious.)
B is for Belly, giant and fat
Let’s fill it with children, and maybe a cat.
C is for Creature, full of venom and fizz
(It’s not your name, but they think it is.)
D is for Darkling, what we are inside
(It’s our kind of sparkling. We wear it with pride.)
E is for Evil, obviously;
Marked for easy retrieval in our memory.
F is for Fall, as in “Fall from grace”;
When the sky is a lie, the ground’s an embrace.
G is for Glamour–the magickal sort
Which kidnaps poor mortals to Titania’s court.
H is for “Horrors!” – only some of our making.
They pretend to hate them. (And they are faking.)
I is for imp. With dark minds and bright hair.
(Don’t confuse them with House Elves. Those things are a nightmare.)
J is for Joker, and this is why:
When the world is exploding, you laugh, or you die.
K is for kneeling – a thing that’s expected.
They hate us because it’s a thing we’ve rejected.
L is for Love. It’s all you need.
(To have your heart eaten. Take heed! Take heed!)
M is for Murder – but just of the soul
(What happens when you play Society’s role.)
N is for Never, and please be our witness–
That’s when we will finally consider forgiveness.
O is for Opening – of hearts and minds
To all of the misfits, lost toys, left-behinds.
P’s for Penumbral–on the outskirts of dream
Where we like to live, like cats seeking cream.
Q is for Quisling, the treacherous touch
(They know who we are, and why we see them as such.)
R’s for Revenge, as always it’s been
(Revenge is expected. What’s never known? WHEN.)
S is for Stolen, like hearts or like breath
Or like stealing your name–the same thing as Death.
T is for Truth – in quite short supply
(LEAST valued by those who most falsehoods, decry).
U’s for Unholy, those who are ranked
Against automatic obedience to the sacrosanct.
V is for Villain, that glorious being
Who sees things that others would not dream of seeing.
W is for Warped, the strange kind of mind
That lets us seek out, and scheme, and find.
X is for Xenomorph. We can relate
To changing your form, for changing your fate.
Y is for Yelp, a cry of distress
(When you find that order is really a chaotic mess.)
Z is for Zero: What they say crime pays.
The first time we heard that? WE LAUGHED FOR DAYS.
Now we’ve completed our Abecedarian Villainy
This word of advice: Don’t tell ANYONE.
that you heard it.
all.
from.
me.
November 3, 2019
Why The Witches Of Salem Didn’t Smite Those Who Burned Them
“I laugh to keep from crying.”
–saying of the Old Country
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a non-zero amount of time wondering why the Witches of old Salem, back in the Burning Times, which is to say, the Witch Trials, didn’t smite more of those who killed them.
Having spent a significant portion of my life studying, not simply Magick (which, as many modern practitioners will tell you, can be a perfectly healthy and natural thing, practiced daily by our ancestors and practiced frequently by many students of that craft)—but rather, because I’m horrible, the sort of occult secrets normally forbidden by anyone who either is, or once was, relatively sane—
(come on. How many people do you know who’ve studied biology? Some, right? Of those, how many thought that the best thing to do with their degrees, both morally and practically, would be trying to reproduce the killer plague from some apocalyptic scifi or horror novel? Not a lot, right? Fortunately.)
—having steeped myself in studies of things which humans were never meant to know and which no mortal mind ought attempt to comprehend, I’m reasonably equipped to give you some useful thoughts on this subject. And, unlike most of my colleagues, I see no reason to hide the fruits of my understanding behind cryptic glyphs or codes, since, haha, I have an almost-total faith that people will continue to believe the convenient idea that I am writing fiction here.
Though honestly, this bit is pretty obvious. I’m not going to be giving away any secrets of the Dark Arts; you could arrive at these conclusions through a real quick skim of some Crowley, a little understanding of history, and some basic inductive reasoning.
Or you could just stare at your phone and scroll through social media a couple more times. Go on. I’m pretty sure there’s some more pictures of household pets doing hilarious things. I’ll wait.
Welcome back.
Broadly speaking, there’s three major points you should consider, in terms of the vengeance of the Witches of Salem. Here’s why they didn’t simply blast hexes out upon their hunters:
First: Vulgar magic is quite difficult.
And yes, I’m using a term from a tabletop roleplaying game. It’s partly because I think it’s a good term, and partly for my own protection; the more you think I’m talking about stuff that isn’t real, the less I am subject to the Psychic Censor. That latter might also sound like something I made up, but it isn’t. “Vulgar” magic would be the manifestation of our sorcerous will in ways which are not only visible to all those around us, but which also contradict the usual physical laws under which we live. Even if you do want to bend the world to your will, you probably don’t want your every momentary whim to come true. Ever had some driver cut you off on a busy street and had the sudden thought, “Hey, YOU, go to HELL” flash through your head? If it were easy to manifest thoughts as physical realities, you’d actually send them to Hell, and that’s no good. You’d probably feel remorse; they’d probably be missed by their friends and family, and besides, I’m pretty sure that condemning other drivers to eternal damnation is a moving violation.
Also, if sorcery could get around ordinary laws of nature, and do so easily, we’d use it all the time. We’re humans; we use any resources we can find. Oil, coal, sweat, innocence; the oddly naive belief that the only reason we’re unhappy is because somebody picked the wrong system or government or economics; the available retail spaces at your local mall; the highly-prized navigational paths which route us around those sea monsters that nobody wants to talk about… if we can squeeze utility out of a thing, we will. If magic were as simple as (for example) just saying a couple of “magic words”, and having flames shoot out of the sky, everybody would eventually figure out how to do that, and those who survived the first six months would all be living underground, and only venturing out of our holes when we were wearing protective asbestos suits. If there were any of us left.
Plus, sorcery itself would probably object. Natural law just happens; that’s what makes it natural. Magic defies natural law, and, as I have mentioned before, that has a cost; not for reasons of narrative symmetry, but for the purposes of having a workable Universe. Physics says that matter can neither be created nor destroyed; Magic says, “Here, I made you this matter, have some!” That’s a lot of work. ‘Physics’ is a set of existing principles which describe the action of things in the Universe; that’s not a thing which thinks. Magic is, as Uncle Aleister said, the art of causing change in accordance with will. If some force is going to take the stuff in your head, interpret it, and spit it out into That Which Is, that takes something close enough to ‘thought’ for my standards. And if something can think, it can get really tired of doing your work for you. You can do amazing things with Magic; but it doesn’t take a student of the Unseen to know that if you mess with it too hard and too often, things go very bad, very fast. That’s one of the many reasons why, in this world, those who most loudly proclaim their abilities are most often proven to be frauds; those with serious power don’t necessarily intend to share.
Which leads us to my second point:
Most of the people who were ‘caught’ weren’t Witches, and most of the ones who were Witches weren’t caught.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disrespecting those who had powers but were taken and executed. That doesn’t mean they were weak. It often meant that they didn’t think they’d done anything wrong.
Forgive me for injecting what you might see as a note of grim realism into what you (presumably, if wrongfully) believe is a work of fiction, but this was drummed into my head as a child:
“Jeffrey, you must never forget that the reason some of us didn’t make it out of Transylvania is because they thought they were good citizens, like everyone else; they hadn’t done anything wrong, and so they thought they were safe.”
(Doesn’t “Transylvania” make that whole thing sound a little more Halloweenish and comfortingly little less real? Please feel free to think of it as “a kooky fictional place full of creatures from ‘The Monster Mash'”, if that helps. It’s certainly more pleasant than thinking of it as ‘a part of Hungary, which became Romania when it was was annexed by the Third Reich in the 1940s”.)
Some of the Witches they caught never expected that anyone would come for them; they weren’t using their skills to hurt anyone. The town’s farmers didn’t sew fields of hemlock and feed them to the people; the blacksmith didn’t spend his time making human-sized beartraps and place them at random points throughout the town; the physicians didn’t go around trying to solve medical problems through removing your blood (oh, wait a minute. Yes, that’s exactly what the physicians did. But at least they thought they were helping.) And anyone who might have let on about having any abilities or powers, magical or otherwise, attributed them to some other kind of skill, or to prayer, or to old family recipes.
Anyone who really used the Dark Arts, who really, really sought to use the supernatural to influence those around them for the gain of the practitioner and the misfortune of others?
They were the most protected. Because they were always hiding. Plus, they had the natural advantage of the intentionally malicious:
Those who would harm none sometimes hold the naive, but understandable belief that innocence will protect them. Those who are fine with harming others have already figured out that nobody’s entirely safe.
(Which is the reason, by the way, that I do not believe that the any of the malicious spellcrafters of Salem took part in prosecution or promulgation of the Witch Hunts. There’s safety in leading a mob until the mob turns on you. And given enough time, it will turn. Malefactors like positions of safety, and there’s no real safety in a time of armed hysteria. Mob rule does hurt wrongdoers, in the same way that a blazing forest will likely take out that nest of cobras…and the non-poisonous snakes, and the birds, and every animal and tree in its path, and you, if you’re close enough.
(Television serial killers sometimes taunt us by leading us right past the door to the basement where they keep the bodies. Real serial killers are much less likely to do this; they don’t have plot armor.)
And the third reason is really less a reason than a question, and that question is:
who says they didn’t?
Because we’ve been through the Salem Witch Trials. We still learn about them in schools. We still have movies about them, and Rob Zombie videos.
So who cast this damned spell of forgetting on us?
You might think I’m kidding. I’m not. I mentioned earlier that the psychic censor tends to prevent really blatant manifestations of magic, like lightning bolts and fireballs. That’s true. But odd effects which come from seemingly-believable causes? That’s pretty much the basis of modern magickal theory.
Striking down all the witch-burners before the witches could be burned? Not, unfortunately, the kind of things that magic’s known to do.
But mass forgetting?
Mass rationalization of that long-ago-disproven idea that horrifying things await us in every darkened corner and at the back of every metaphorical cave?
That’s got magic’s pawprints all over it, friend.
You’ve got a curse. I’ve got a curse. EVERYBODY’S got a curse.
This is GREAT NEWS!
…you probably think I’m being sarcastic. I’m not. Think of what this means: the world isn’t insane. YOU’RE not insane. (Not unpleasantly so, at any rate.) And it’s not your fault, and it’s not the fault of people you don’t like, either, or (and this would be more disturbing) the fault of those you do like. It’s the fault of a bunch of individuals who went around burning Witches, and got us all smacked down hard in the process.
That doesn’t mean that your actions aren’t your responsibility. You’re cursed, not possessed. It just means we’re not doomed.
Now, we just need to break the curse.
All you have to do is:
Build a very large bonfire.
Find a bunch of people you REALLY don’t like.
Take the anger and pain you feel, and put it where it belongs.
Namely, roast it in the damn fire.
Now, go have a reasonable conversation with the people you don’t like.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some kind of goody-two-shoes morality tale. I am a Villain; I don’t go in for that stuff.
OBVIOUSLY the people you do not like are all EVIL MONSTERS. We’re not FORGIVING them. We are just making the curse REALLY CONFUSED. This isn’t about changing the world; it’s just a sort of metaphysical life-hack.
After the curse is lifted, and we start being able to treat each other like a bunch of fallible human beings who sometimes have opposing views, rather than a packet of horrifying vileness temporarily inhabiting human skins…
THEN you can go right back to hating everybody, but this time, do it for YOU. Don’t let some CURSE push you around; it’s up to YOU to destroy any real hope we might have of reconciling our differences.
We are enacting the horrors of the Witch-Hunt because we have forgotten where that bloody and destructive path goes. Stop that.
Go down that bloody and destructive path because you totally remember where it goes, and how much suffering and damage it did last time, and you feel super competitive, and you want to see if we can BEAT that score.
You can do it.
I have faith in you.
The post Why The Witches Of Salem Didn’t Smite Those Who Burned Them appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
November 1, 2019
In Praise Of Unspeakable Insanities
Now of my never-been home I sing;
Ah, how I miss you, Plains of Leng
Wedded to thee, without a ring;
How I miss you, Plains of Leng.
I feel distinctly out of place;
Lost in neither time nor space
I want to hide my heart and face;
Lost in neither time nor space.
I can hear familiar screaming
In the Vortex, swirling, streaming
My heart sings; my teeth are gleaming
In the Vortex, swirling, streaming.
All my fears and troubles gone,
I’m trapped in the Necronomicon
I don’t have to put my body on,
Trapped in the Necronomicon.
In other words:
If my mind seems in a steaming froth,
I’m trying to bring forth Azathoth,
If I dance with trance-like, hazy slow-step,
I’m wishing for Nyarlothotep.
If I pray for storms where foulest winds blow,
I beseech the coming of Yomagn’tho.
How I want to live under the muted sun, which
Rises weakly over thrice-cursed Dunwich!
If, in short, all my life, I’ve prayed and ranted
Into Other Dimensions, where Mankind’s doom is planted,
why not?
A misfit could spend all life’s days
Trying to learn regular human ways,
Spend your life fitting in, and what do you get?
The same trivial fears, and some student debt.
No!
Better to end, with horrified awe
In a Mi-Go’s embrace, or Shudde M’ell’s maw;
Better to be cast out by the Other Gods
Than have faith in humanity; just check the odds.
Who wrote this world? It’s far too first-draftian!
Forget it, and call forth horrors Lovecraftian!
Sure, we’ll all die in pain, ‘midst unspeakable insanities;
But—at last!—humans won’t be
the source of all inhumanities.
___________
I’m not a misanthrope. Because I don’t miss.
(I don’t know what that means, but I imagine it being recited in a deep, movie-announcer voice.)
The unspeakable Villainpunk Jeff Mach frequently seeks new, interesting ways to rewrite this part, and then often ends up just shifting a few words around, going back in time to before he wrote this initially, and hitting “Publish”, so that this is technically new. Don’t tell anyone.
Jeff is a writer and creator who has long aspired to be the sort of person who neither needs to promote his other work at the bottom of his short stories, nor need speak of himself in the third person. Sadly, in both regards, he has failed.
To find Mindfulness Mode (I’m not joking, or at least, I’m not exactly joking)–click here .
The post In Praise Of Unspeakable Insanities appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
October 31, 2019
A Halloween Monster Mash-Up
(On October 30th, my Twitter account, @darklordjournal, posted unto the world the following boast: https://twitter.com/darklordjournal/status/1189397497439047685:
I’m taking my Halloween poem up to Challenge Level: You name a kind of mythical or legendary monster (anything where I can google some references that are more than 20 years old) – and I’ll put it in the poem. (NO politics or real people, thx.) Hit me.
Here’s the first 13:
Demogorgon
What’s Halloween like with Demogorgon?
More fun than the ghost of J.P. Morgan
His very name’s said to be Heathen Taboo!
He’ll take you to the Mall to get matching tattoos.
The Banshee
Though some are more powerful than the Ban-Sidhe
Non can terrify more than she
For when you hear her monstrous wailing
It’s your candy she’s got! (A horror unfailing!)
The Kraken
The Kraken’s a creature that sanity shuns
Rising from the depths when Doomsday comes
She loves Halloween, so with set of sun
She puts on her costume of Leviathan.
The Ghillie Dhu
At first you think the Ghillie Dhu
Is harmless (and why wouldn’t you?)
But after the thirtieth round of brew,
The floor will crash right into you.
Buckbeak the Hippogriff
Ah, it’s that celebrity, Buckbeak
Been trying to see that guy for a week
He flies where he pleases, and seldom with me
I read about him mostly in TMZ.
The Beast of Bray Road
What IS the Beast of Bray Road?
Everyone wonders; none crack the code
Part Bear, part Wolf, and oddly like Man;
If one part can’t eat you, another part can.
Vampires
They lie in the dark, and how they conspire!
The species that humans call “Vampire”
Their horrible plots and most cunning snares
(Usually involve deciding which outfits to wear.)
The Bogeyperson
They hide behind doors and they lurk under beds
And nibble the nightmares they find in your head
When you turn on the light, they turn into dust
So be kind. Keep the lights out. No, really; you must.
The Hodag
The Hodag’s a mythic beast of Wisconsin
With fangs ’bout the size of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
We’ll never know their agenda or motive
(The last one was eaten by a locomotive.)
The Jötnar.
I’m always excited to see the Jötnar;
They always know where the good blóts are.
The smallest among them could drink a mead river
(So partying with them is tough on the liver.)
The Hydra
The Hydra’s heads regenerate
And Adventurers say, “Well, that’s just great.”
But if you cut off a head, and with flame sear the stump
You will, by TWO OTHER HYDRAS, get jumped.
(Yeah, I get that mythology says burning the stumps prevents the heads from growing back. Who do you think SPREAD those rumors in the first place? Monsters ain’t stupid, y’know.)
The Hippocampus
Secretly, the Hippocampus
Wants to have hooves (so it can stamp us)
They abide in Atlantis, in the watery deep
(And plan their return. And they. never. sleep.)
The Kraken (version II)
A horrible note: every three years
A nuclear submarine just disappears.
Humans believe they rule the waves
But nothing, ever, from the Kraken saves.
Imps
Dear Hominids (thou arrogant chimps) –
I hate to inform you, but you’ve got imps.
You thought you had plans? They’ve another arrangement
They’ll use your whole species for their entertainment.
The post A Halloween Monster Mash-Up appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
