Utterly Unprofessional Introduction

So you want to join the SSGW Watch. Good for you. Or maybe you're one of those little stretchers and you think you're going to get information on the "enemy" now, hmm? Well, that's naughty. Put this down. Now. Put it down. And don't leave it open so you can read it while pretending to have put it down. I'm wise to that one.

Moving right along, let's tackle (or pounce, or flop, or whatever you personally do) some basic questions!

1) Where did the Stretchers come from?

A good question! Most *modern* Stretchers became one relatively early in life, generally in their early to mid teens after some sort of exposure to a vampire story and/or symbol of the backwards N (for which they seem to hold some arcane fascination.) Serial killer or demon stories have been known to cause variations as well.

The stretchers as a whole, on the other hand, arose sometime before you were born. Or after, depending on when you were born, really. Regardless of the when, evil noticed that it wasn't getting very much fresh blood. Well, literally it was. But not many people were joining the team. Their reasons were many, from fear of vicious entangles, to having to hang around evil people, to some trepidation at the compulsary "monstrous appearance," which generally meant that one's job totally torpedoed one's dating career.

What's more, they noticed that, inconveniently enough for them, those who did join were, well, *evil*. Evil people have a tendency to be bastards. Plus, getting any dungeon supplies or your favourite barbed spear that you lent them back was hell on Earth.

So in came a new idea. Make evil look sexy. While this inspired a great deal of backlash at first, management persisted. At the time it seemed comical for Igor to "dance," or for a seafoam green, bewarted (It's a word! I made it up myself!) witch to be showing leg, but it caught on over time. And now we're stuck with stretchers. Guess those old ones really *were* evil.

(Incidentally, this does not include Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones who absented themselves, claiming that they were sexy, you just needed tentacles, 1000 eyes, and an appreciation for blasphemous geometries from maddening realms out of space and time and sanity and thesaureses.)

Next installment will answer, "So why are stretchers a threat?"... or "How to evil-proof your herb garden for fun and profit but mostly fun when you watch another one of them get stuck in in that springy tree trap thing," depending on how I feel and if I can figure out a way to keep the trap from catching the postman.

Where have all the Baba Yagas gone?

Friend Orchid, in her blogthing, has pointed out a very disturbing trend: The SSGW (Stretch, Smirk, Grin, and Wink.) It is what the new generation of naughty people do. I think it is their way of saying, "I may be plotting to do some evil or another, but I'm still free Saturday night." Do not take them up by the way, for evil is about taking for yourself and good is about giving to others, and, well...there are certain arenas where those can be very important traits.

Regardless, the SSGW must go. Dreva is goodness and healiness and sweetness and therefore opposed to evil and stompiness and making kittens cry. What's more, we had a proper sort of evil when I was training, and I'd like to see a return to it.

Time was, you'd have an evil witch (there were good ones too.) And she'd not be a dreadlocked girl who wore lots of hemp, she'd usually be some sort of hag with an unusually crooked nose. If you asked her about natural foods, she'd say eating children was a perfectly natural thing to do, look at lions. Anyway, she'd cackle, and hiss, and look at things with a sort of evil manic gleam in her eye. In turn, good druids would go and smack her over the head with something or assail her with a vicious entangle and things would be done with. Of course, there was parity. I was a good druid, and I would pet the little fawns and heal birds with broken wings and generally smile and laugh and have a pleasant demeanor. Now goodness is always some new sort of brooding antihero with a tragic past who's short-tempered and surly and clich...rude with little apparent motivation.

But I'm not here to oppose good! I am here to fight evil, kyaa! Well, more like heal people who actually fight evil while I stand in the back where it's safe, but you get the idea. So I hereby form the SSGW Watch, in effort to find and in some way confront (or at least tease behind the back) those who are evil and Stretch, Smirk, Grin, and Wink. Kyaa!


P.S.- Coven are good witches, I am not saying we should assail them with vicious entangles. Many hugs to them.

More Doggerel

I was kinda bored and stompy, so I wrote this. It's not about anyone I know, just one or two people I used to know.


Shoot the poet, she can't write.
Cleanse the pages of her blight
And give me back the past
Five minutes of my life.

I've my own angst, I don't need yours.
And I wince in pain at "Saturn's dark pow'rs."
I've dealt with teenage angst by now,
But at that, I cry for hours.

It seems you've the illustrious fate
To with such poetic greats reside.
As "Little Miss Gothy Homicide."
And "Pretentious boy I used to date."

Most can't write, that needs no proof.
But at least they can admit the truth!
You think that you're the new Rimbaud
I think you're the new McGonagall.*

Now to be fair, I must admit
I seem to be a hypocrite.
But I don't write, I just scribble,
And I don't missay "poem" for "drivel."


*William Topaz McGonagall is considered a front runner for Worst Poet in the English Language. His work is truly awful, and he's been dead long enough that we can say it without feeling guilty. A lot of it is online if you wanna look it up.