In the Beginning, you had to be somebody to write an advice column. Oh, it wasn't like you needed an advanced degree or anything, but you had to have a certain majesty, an authority, a grandeur. Usually you had to have written a book. That was because advice columns ran in newspapers and magazines, which had a certain number of spaces and no more.
Then came the web. Suddenly, there was an infinite amount of space for advice (and everything else.) Big-name, paying web sites snapped up the big-name, paid advice columnists in an attempt to seem respectable, like something printed on paper. Medium-sized web sites grabbed out the columnists who had never written a column before, maybe, but at least had some arguable qualifications. Little web sites and zines scrabbled after with 'advice columnists' whose qualifications consisted of a self-christening with a nom de plum like "Gothic Miss Manners" or "Breakup Girl" (the only good heros are.... dead.) In short, all you needed to be an advice columnist was a snappy title, a web site, and a set of extremely noncontroversial beliefs about how humans should interact.
In yet another Compleat Villainess experiment designed to lower the bar, we will now see if I can get by without the noncontroversial beliefs. So, if you've got a question about world domination, or mad cackling etiquette, or how to get Chianti stains out of black spandex, Ask the Villainess. (If your cheesy browser didn't like that, the e-mail addy is villainess@wickedness.com)