Today at dinner, I was chatting with my household, and was reminded of one of my favorite memories: the time I got to be a volunteer villain character at a themed summer camp for kids. One of my friends was a counselor/leader, and the camp in question was a magic-themed camp, and toward the end of the week, the kids were going to face off with the Big Bad of the camp: an evil school teacher that they'd been tracking the whole time. (Which was gonna be me!)
The team leaders had done a marvelous job setting up a series of events/games to build tension, and they had 'set the stage' so to speak each time by burning a particular kind of incense, so the kids would (subconsciously or consciously) associate incense = bad things.
Well, the end of the week came, and one of the guys running the camp brought me and another volunteer actor out to an abandoned school in the woods, and set up the gymnasium with candles and just... tons of that incense. The kids would know in the hallway that something Bad was lurking here. Other than that, and a bit of light filtering in from high windows, it was dark. I was hidden behind the curtains on the stage, and the other actor was lurking nearby, on the floor.
About fifteen, maybe twenty minutes after we set up, the kids and their counselors arrived, and the show was on. They initially had a confrontation with the other actor, who was my 'minion/monster', and when they incapacitated/defeated him, it was my show. I slipped out from the curtains, improving the handful of lines they'd given me, and jumped off the stage to confront the groups of kids there to stop me. My boots hitting the floor made a satisfyingly loud noise, and I got to act out casting 'dark magic' on one of the counselors, who 'fought back'.
I got to properly villain cackle and it echoed in that dark gymnasium. Oh my god, I will never forget how satisfying that was. Eventually, they 'defeated' me by breaking a 'rune' that'd been painted on a slate flagstone. I got to scream in agony and crumple to the ground. I chewed the scenery really hard. It was so much fun. Even my friend, who got me into that situation in the first place, who knew me well, was actually a little terrified, and he's not ashamed to admit it. He was holding it together to keep his flock of 8-12 year olds from freaking the hell out.
Eventually they handcuffed me and toted me away, dazed and harmless, and it was all I could do to not grin like a maniac. It was so, so much fun, and the day I got to let my inner villain out and scare the absolute crap out of a bunch of kids (and several adults!) is one of my fondest memories. <3
...I might be a bad person.