With friends like these...

Earning rest

Joy filled the ranks, climbing high with the blurting horns and sounding trumpets, casting their calls out over the the depth of the valley before the host of men. The sun went with them as they stepped down into hell, side by side, armor shining over their endless shoulders, gleaming from on high like the slow stroke of a divine. "Let's give them steel!" A man cries among the horde. Grins abound all around. These men seem to be marching into a mead hall, rather than down to their dooms. The truth holds them at odds. The truth, holds them firmly in graves yet dug. Legion of monsters, an endless writhing darkness lies before them in the valley. Clouds muffle and suffocate the sun ahead, dark storm clouds hang low and the only light is theirs, shrieking across their halls in bright flashes followed by the booming laughter of the hated demigogues. Yet the men, these men. Cry their victory cheers, rattle sword hilts on shields and hoist spear and pike high. They march to absolution. All true darkness, to these warriors, lies behind them. The rest is ahead, they need but earn it.

The pyromancer at court

The pyromancer grimaced and adjusted his hands. Flexing his fingers and snarling against the heat. Sweat beads on his forehead and slides down his cheeks, he can feel his flesh crying out, beginning to blister, just beginning to feel the lick of the flames in earnest. All of the king's court seems to hold it's breath. The sharp beedy eye'd gaze of the king blazes under that golden crown. A great arch of fire swirls over and about above the hands of the magic user. His black beard had once been long, when he was younger, his talent, had seen to that. The blaze that swirled and danced overhead, dazzled even his black eyes. It was out of control, fire always was. It seemed, an explosion in slow motion. Wild combustion, reigned at last by the will of man. The pyromancer's eyebrows scrunched down on his eyes and he snarled, bearing yellowing teeth. His robes went suddenly whipping all about his arms and legs, the room having suddenly filled with a gusting fiery wind. Something was wrong, this demonstration should have ended. He hadn't given any more energy to the spell, why was it escaping, eluding his will to contain it. In desperation, he searched the room for an answer. The king had climbed to his feet and was yelling something, swiping an arm from left to right, as if trying to erase the pyromancer's fire with his sheer anger, commanding it's extinguish. A simply dressed man, stood among the court. Out of place and set back against the far east wall. He was holding up a blue gem, and whispering to it, an oily, smirk of knowing malice on his face. His teeth gleamed and he made eye contact with the pyromancer. As the gems light faded the fire finally bust it's cage and filled the room with it's overwhelming power. The simply dressed man saw himself up a hidden stairway, and out up through a secret passage. A full minute after the explosion in the former king's court. The simply dressed scoundrel was pushing a large brick back into place and dusting off his tunic. He cast a look about the castle walls, smirked his oily smirk, and strode quickly to the edge of the castle's moat. Over it atop a lengthy thin board of strong wood. He kicked the board into the moat behind him, and walked at an easy unhurried pace into a busy street. No one stopped to question why he smelled ever so slightly, of smoke.

Rant on horror tropes

Giving a character in a story a long time to develop, and then killing that character off. Inspires a few emotions in a reader.
A sense of loss and a sense of dread. Showing your reader that you aren't above killing your characters isn't just for the heck of it. If done right. An important characters death, even when meaningless, should always have meaning. A dead important character impresses on your ready how real your world is. Oh...just because he's in love with what's her name and prince of wheresitwhatsit makes you think he can never die? Well..that's too bad because he stepped on a rusty nail and it went up through his leather boot anddd now he's dead from some unknown illness. Having characters in your work who resemble and are just as fleshed out as prince what's his name who died from nail gives your story a heavy sense of impending doom. Like maybe, just maybe, this book might have an unhappy ending. And every reader can get behind that kind of suspense

Something every single horror writer should know is that giving a character traits to love or hate, means everything. It's almost less important than the monster, heck it is more important than the monster. Because if you don't care about sally who's about to be murdered. That's just it you don't care. At no point while reading your work should a reader thing. Oh my god I don't care. That's an utter failure on the writer to capture your imagination. If you show the reader what terrible people a duo of murderers are, but then give them a deep past together and a bright future. Your reader will be conflicted, and that;s exactly what you want. Neither for or against them dying, but totally hooked by the possibilities.

Usually, almost always, a horror story, has a horrifying ending. If your main character doesn't die, it's a surprise or a lame ending to the story left unfinished. So if you introduce characters who both have possibly done things worthy of being killed, war crimes, murder, shady dealings. But then give them reasons to live, family, bright future, happiness on the horizon. You'll have your readers stomping their foot at how unbearable it is when the end is nigh upon them. "Oh I don't really want this asshole to live! But his poor wife! And his kids! They were going to live happily ever after nooo!" But then you'll also have the side that roots for their death on-board with the impending doom. "Yes! Kill them! Screw these assholes get em monster!" This is how you retain all of your audience while also providing a thrill ride everyone can enjoy at the same time. I once listened to a creepypasta narration called "8-ball" Where a guy closes shop at his job only to find an 8-ball on his car, he shakes it and asks a question and it says it doesn't know at first, but he shakes it again and asks it "Am I in my car right now?" It says no. The guy laughs it off, takes it with him in his car and asks it again. "Am I in my car now?" And it says yes. He thinks its a coincidence. He asks it if he's in his house yet and it says no, but when he gets in there it says yes, then he starts to freak out and in his paranoia, he asks it. "Can you see me?" It says yes. "Where am I?" In your living room. So he flips the fuck out and the story suddenly falls a fucking part. It suddenly and without much reason or warning gives the guy a reason to go back to the shop where he works to get a "magic knife" and he kills a monster and the 8 ball crumbles....it felt so rushed, so forced. You cant have supernatural horrible monster 8-ball magic ended by, guy with magic knife saves the day. Doesn't it feel lighter? Less horror more twilight zone? That's what good horror writers avoid, the twilight zone ending. Where nothing makes sense and the punchline is "OH THE HUMANITY, NOTHING MAKES ANY FUCKING SENSE ALL A SUDDEN." Good horrific stories, have good realistic reasons they are scary.

Moving onto another topic I'm particularly addicted to. Vampires. I could rant about the portrayal of vampires in fiction and movies all day long. The overall presentation of the last ten years plus, is hot garbage. A vampire, a strigoi, a vampyre, Muroni. These are true feinds. Diabolical creatures whose one true motive is greed. The lust for human blood. General consumption, lust and wanting is their calling card. They are universal throughout folklore and almost every language has a word for the concept of them. Now, you go and take a monster, dress it up and take away what makes it horrible and scary, and you no longer have a monster. Take a monster and give it a beautiful face and voice like angels, but have it gutting people and slurping entrails. Then you still have a monster. See the difference? Just compare edward cullen, to Alucard from the Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate Animated show and you'll see what I'm talking about. One sparkles in sunshine, the other wields twin magnums, has thousands of damned souls in his body, and kills and slaughters, mocking his victims and teasing them before utterly destroying them and drinking up what's left of them. Vampires are representatives in literature for the dark hunger of human beings. The selfish and the greedy. I think today's average American reader could really get behind the horror inherent in a monster that represents greed. American's including myself are real good at being greedy. This watered down cucky version of the vampire menace isn't good for a story. It......sucks~ -Jeopardy loser horn here.-
If a vampire kisses you, expect to be bitten shortly.
If a vampire looks at you for more than a second, it's thinking about killing you.
If a vampire is in a position of importance or a role of authority, it's to better control it's source of food, or to attain a source of food while perhaps in a state of vulnerability.
Need I remind everyone that a vampire, is immortal?
That fact, doesn't seem to be as striking to some people as it should.
As a writer, making a scenario where. "Average dude" runs into a vampire, can be tricky. Because a vampire can basically do whatever it wants to anyone who doesn't already understand it's nature. Ignorance is a vampires greatest weapon. If it's just you and a human shaped empty husk of a being perfectly suited to hunting you down and killing you without a chance of failure whatsoever, it's going to win. So I actually struggle finding good reasons my "Average human" Wouldn't just be consumed like a meal they try to fight back or talk or do anything other than die.
A vampire can die in many ways, but doing it takes pre meditation and careful, careful fucking preparation. According to folklore, every vampire has about the same weaknesses but they all differ heavily in certain areas, the key ones are; Sunlight, Nails (Driven through certain body parts), A wooden stake (The wood type can be incredibly important), religious symbols or artifacts of faith, and certain mumbo jumbo rules like threshold crossing and whether or not dirt is in the vampires coffin when he sleeps in it or not or if you put a rose on the coffin lid orrrr if he has recently shape shifted into an animal or not because some vampires, like Dracula, can only change at dawn or dusk. So many and I MEAN SO MANY factors go into whether or not you can even conceivably kill the vampire or if he cant escape or if something can go wrong. Attempting to kill a vampire on your own with no preparation is basically suicide. I think people have lost touch with how terrifying that is. That's the terror inherent in trying to stomp out a supernatural force, it's like trying to calm wind with your bare hands. You better be bringing your own mumbo jumbo if you want to stand a chance.

A vampires presence in the world means that the devil's forces are present and on the move. Your fate is uncertain and you can die at any time due to some ancient hunger you had nothing to do with. Theoretically a vampire could take an entire army at night and never need for help. They could group up on the monster and stab it all they like but it wouldn't do jack because it's a vampire. To properly introduce vampires into your story should take some serious balls. It should take a writer a long time to decide whether they really want to bring a nearly impossible to destroy monster into this. Even if you knew a vampire couldn't take you on in the day, are you going to go into it's lair and attack it? Without knowing if it's vulnerable or weak to what you've got prepared? Or even if it's alone in there or if it's got friends? What of it's powers to command wolves to do it's bidding? Sure you might be A-Okay to handle a vampire with your religious mumbo jumbo but can you ward off ten wolves?

Yayyy rannntttt...thanks for reading this far...I have no good ending for this XD Just spitballing ideas for something I've been working on.

Speak to me, oh stanger.

Speak to me oh stranger unknown, speak to me of your life so I may better know this affect you have on me.
Speak to me oh stranger I've made known, speak to me of the spaces between your stars so I may know your world's endless glory.
Oh hold me close you I call home so I may feel the life about me.
Oh bellow my kith and kin, cry out your well deserved beauty.
Defy the cold and heat of death through our astounding legacy.
Allow me to hear and give me voice, show me the obvious choice so I may spit and bear my teeth at the universe's need to ground me.
I see your spaces among my stars and I judge them to distant mountains all about me, no distance is too far to bring you back beside me.
Hills high and valleys deep are nothing to what now tries stopping me.
Bitter strike and tender caresses are weapons I use to fight the sky that attempts to come down on me.
Join me oh stranger, join your voice with mine so we may bring a time that is our own and not that of all around we who dare and dream of things we cannot have.
Oh strange you once were but now time has passed unchecked and now I find a wife with her arms around me.

Madman and the Madam.

Through glen and grove she strode
Through time and space she flowed
Through here and there she moved
Through my darkness she glowed
Despite my love, she had to go
Despite my begging, she couldn't stay
Despite my efforts, they held my sway
Despite my struggling, her's didn't last
Without her, I have but the voices
Without her, I have no choices
Without her, I have no reason
Without her, I am not alone

Midnight my mistress.

Never have I heard a scornful word from her.
I plead for places to hide, she brings me close and cloaks me from hatred.

I beg for forgiveness, but she does nothing but accept.

She caresses my face with her chilled breath and her touch tousles my hair.

She cradles me when I sleep and she follows me when I sleepwalk.

She is the night and I am her humble devotee.

She is the night and I am but a man lost in her graces, looking out at those too foolish to see her boons.

She offers shelter, she offers a blanket to shade the weary for the oppression of the shining day which brings her end each morning and announces her arrival each evening.

I love her and she loves me, I can feel it.

I once hated her because of her sharp clarity of truth, which stung my senses and shocked me with fear.

A fear I now know as the very thing which keeps me wary every single day, and makes my heart pound with excitement every night.

Quality in life, is yours to find, and I find it during my midnight walks and my prowling adventures.

Others traverse her depths as I do, they are to be respected and treated as brothers and sisters, but also as contenders for night's favoring shadow.

To fear the dark, is to be apart from it, and to be denied the night's blessings.

To be one with the night as I am, is to take them for myself.

To respect my brothers and sisters is to respect the night.

To allow myself to be enveloped, is far better than allowing myself to be led like a sheep to slaughter.

To walk as I am on my own path under the night's grace, is to walk the path gifted to me by the night, and it is also to walk the path that would be otherwise stripped from me by the day.

Night mother, I pledge my love to thee, may you forever be, my destiny.