Site Updates-
I'd like to let everyone know that we now have a brand spanking new forum. It has been completely revamped, with a cool new look, as well as many new features. I can pretty much guarantee you that you have never see a forum like this one anywhere on the Internet and, as is usual with TwistedJenius.com, has been heavily customized to meet our particular aesthetic criteria.

We have also made a few other site improvements as well. For instance, we have new footers with links, at the bottom of each page. This should make TwistedJenius.com even easier for you to navigate. Vicious has also been working very hard on a lot of back-end stuff (things that you can't see, such as programming) that has made this site even more efficient and easier to load and surf through. All of these things should help to make your stay here that Twisted Jenius, an even more pleasant one.

        - False Prophet

Villain Books-
The Devil's Soapbox, a book written by my good friend Frederick Madden, is now available for purchase. It contains a series of essays about many various topics and is an excellent read for anyone who is in need of a powerful dose of misanthropy. At times both humorous and harsh, this book offers a unique and unapologetic perspective that you're not likely to find very often in today's all too politically correct world. And to make it even better, yours truly was responsible for the editing and the cover art of the book. Go order yourself a copy tonight!

And speaking of dark literature, I have been considering putting together an essential villain reading list for some time now. However, it looks as though Lord Malignance has already beaten me to it. In his Library of Evil, he lists lots of excellent villainous resources. I was pleasantly surprised by the thoroughness of this catalog (though, I would have also included The Satanic Bible) and I suggest that you check it out.

A few entries that really popped out at me were, Supervillains and Philosophy, The Essential Writings of Machiavelli, The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction and, of course, one of my favorite books of all time, Neil Zawacki's How to Be a Villain. Great stuff!

        - False Prophet

Pessimistic Worldview-
It seems that another year is upon us, and I for one, am feeling very good about the future. However, I have noticed a trend of pessimism which seems to be going around a lot lately. Many people don't seem to have much hope for the future. They look around and see only signs of decline and decay. Their outlook is rather bleak.

I'd like to point out that the common view that the world is going to hell, says a lot more about the people who are thinking it, than the actual state of things. Although most people who look at things this way will never admitted it, I believe that this is not merely a result of pessimistic thinking, but a secret wish on their parts. Their world view comes as a result of the fact that they have no hope and in their desperation, wish for the rest of us to share this fate. These are truly disgusting creatures.

I'd like to remind all of my fellow villains out there, on this New Year's Day, that just because there is a lot of gloom and doom mentality spreading among the masses, there's no reason for you to join in. Don't play along with their pity parties! They are victims by nature and that is all that they can understand.

Remember that your attitude is a very important factor in determining your quality of life. And if you're having a good time and entertaining pleasing prospects for the future, while others are not; then that just makes it all the more enjoyable! Learn to laugh as others bitch and moan about the state of our world. Don't give them the satisfaction of thinking that you're one of them, that you have the same pitiful outlook as they. Rise above them and let the victims be victims. You are on a different level and have no need for such depressing and ultimately self destructive views!

        - False Prophet

Cool Products/Merchandise-
Being a bit of a materialist, I enjoy weird, unusual and fun types of merchandise. Today, I thought that I'd share a few sites that feature these enjoyable, aesthetically appealing, funny and strange types of products. Many of these are considered "geek" sites and that probably isn't a coincidence.

ThinkGeek- "Smart stuff for smart masses"

The Green Head- "Discover the coolest new stuff daily for your home, life, office and beyond!"

Opulent Items- "Home of usual luxury"

Nerd Approved- "Your source for preposterous products"

If you take the time to look through some of these pages, I think you'll find many interesting things. And who doesn't like "interesting things"? Speaking of interesting things, we have a few cool products of our own.

        - False Prophet

Dark Creativity-
When it comes to dark, creative endeavors, many people seem to wonder about the motivations, general thought processes and attitudes that go into these ideas. Here are a few quotes from some of the biggest names in "dark media", which might help to give you a little more insight into this subject.

A nun: "Why do you feel the need to bring all of these terrible ideas into the world?"
Wes Craven: "What world do you live in?"

Reporter: Why do you choose to write horror novels?
Stephen King: "What makes you think I have a choice?"

H. R. Giger: "I feel like a tightrope walker; I see no difference between work and free time. Suddenly, I became aware that art is a vital activity that keeps me from falling into madness."

Edward Gorey: "To take my work seriously would be the height of folly."

H.P. Lovecraft: "The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life."

John Carpenter: "And while it's true that we traffic in dark areas of violence and horror in our profession, because we get everything out on the screen and don't carry it around with us, we really are mostly nice guys."

Marilyn Manson: "I view my job as being someone who is supposed to piss people off. I don't want to be just one-of-the-guys. I don't want to be just a smiling face you see on television presenting some vapid kind of easily- digestible garbage..."

And as for the thought process that went into our work, here that Twisted Jenius? Well, it just so happens that I wrote an entire Rant about that.

        - False Prophet

SomethingLikEvil Interview-
You may remember that in October, I was interviewed by Napalm Nick on his blog. This was a very fun experience. Now Nick has interviewed another friend of mine, who often goes by that name SomethingLikEvil. I think that you'll find this interview to be a very interesting read.

Now, you may be asking yourself "why are you linking us to this article when it has nothing to do you?" Well, as side from plugging my friend's site, the person that he's interviewing is going to be releasing a book soon and this book (The Devil's Soapbox) is a project that I was able help with. You see, yours truly edited and created the cover art for this tome. I will be providing more information about The Devil's Soapbox, in future Sell Out Copies.

I'm going to leave you with a link to SomethingLikEvil's rather fun blog. It is called Jake's House and, appropriately enough, features tales of the exploits of "Jake", a nice young man who just happens to be a serial killer; enjoy!

        - False Prophet

Atheists In Foxholes-
The phrase "There are no atheists in foxholes", has long been used by religious folks to suggest that, when it comes down to it, in times of great stress, everyone reverts back to a belief in god. Aside from being inaccurate (it has been shown time and again that there are atheists in the military) this is a disgustingly horrible argument for the validity of the belief in "the almighty".

Even if we suppose that the assumption behind this famous saying was true, and everyone who found themselves in such a desperate situation, where their life is at risk, did suddenly begin to embrace a belief in a higher power; that would only prove that people become irrational when they are faced with tremendous amounts of anxiety and fear. Emotions often run counter to rational thought and when people are feeling intense desperation and stress, they're often unable to think very logically.

In fact, the phrase "There are no atheists in foxholes" actually helps to point out the wretched nature of faith in general. This sentiment is expressed nicely in the quote by Oscar Wilde: "Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground". Faith tends to manifest as a result of earthly suffering and other various negative emotions and attitudes. The fact that many people can't stand the idea that "this is all that there is", causes them to want to "believe" that there is something more.

I would think that arguments for these kinds of believes would be much more convincing if people tended to turn to god when things were going very well. But, of course, you never hear the religious folks claiming that "There are no atheists in luxurious, five star resorts"! Even they recognize that a belief in god is best fostered in situations where people are suffering.

        - False Prophet

More Evil Links-
In accordance with our mission to bring you all of the relevant evil that can be found around the web, here are a couple more interesting pieces of sinister Internet content.

First up we have How to be EVIL, from a site called Propergander. This page features a nice little list of ideas about how to get started in playing for the dark side. As the author of this piece says, "Being good sucks. From now on, I'm going to be nothing but evil. It's fun and it's easy too!" We couldn't agree more.

Our next offering is a fun, Villainesque site called Evillair.org. Being "Your source of everyday evil!", this site's focus is mainly on "evil on a smaller scale". This is a truly excellent idea if you think about it. While most sites of this nature feature more large scale evil schemes, there are very few that give us so many tips and tricks to fill out our day to day evil needs. To be realistic, most of us will not spend the majority of our time actively pursuing world conquest and so it's good to have some mundane acts of malice to occupy us during our slow days; between grander evil plots.

These are just a couple more examples of the evil that you will find around the web. I'd encourage you to look back at the Sell Out Bank, to find more entries like this.

        - False Prophet

About "Selling Out"-
As you probably know, we tend to use the term "sellout" or "Sell Out" (the two-word variation, which is the official title of this page) quite liberally here at Twisted Jenius. However, one interesting thing that we have often discussed in our internal conversations is the simple fact that we are technically not willing to actually sellout very much at all.

On the surface, we are willing to be very commercial in some respects, and we definitely don't have a problem with things like marketing or greed. But if you really think about it, in order for us to really "sellout", we'd have to make ourselves "less evil" or more consumer-friendly. We'd have to stop doing things that frighten, anger or otherwise alienate large portions of the population.

Now, you may be asking yourself why we don't just do that, as watering down Twisted Jenius would definitely be more profitable. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with "artistic integrity" or any other useless nonsense such as that. The truth is that we just couldn't stomach doing anything that was more "mainstream" (if we could, it would make things significantly simpler). Having to immerse ourselves in something like that would repulse us to no end. That's the reason that we created Twisted Jenius in the first place, in order to get away from that kind of stuff and do what pleases us.

Despite the fact that Twisted Jenius may not be for the majority of people, I still believe that there is a niche demographic out there who craves dark and villainous content and that we can offer something unique for them. Are you among those interesting individuals?

        - False Prophet

Calling All Villains-
We are now looking for contributions to the Sinister Creations section of Villainesque.com. If you have anything of a Villainesque nature, that you would like to see featured on the Villainesque.com web site, then please post it in the Villainesque section of the forum. You can also private message Vicious or myself (FalseProphet), in the forum. Submissions can be anything from an essay that you wrote, to a work of art that you drew or even a link to a site that is relevant to villainy.

This reminds me; if you know of any other websites that you think should be included among the list of Villain Links, please feel free to suggest those in the Villainesque section of the forum as well. I should also add that in order to ensure a certain level of quality, all submissions will be subject to approval by the two overlords of Twisted Jenius. Standards are a good thing.

        - False Prophet