For Sale: One Feminist Linkblog, Slightly Neglected

When Fangirls Attack: Announcement

Those of you who still follow this linkblog may have noticed a sharp decline in the quality and quantity of posting here on WFA. Anna's always great manga posts are the notable exception, but sadly, she can't carry the weight for all of us.

The truth is that real life got in the way and got in the way hard, and we've come to some unpleasant truths. There's no way we can keep this linkblog going.

We're sentimental types though, and we like to think that WFA serves a purpose in the fan community. We'd like to see it continue and regain some of the relevance it had previously.

That's why I'm posting. We're looking for someone/some people who are interested in taking over WFA.

--Kalinara

Just as Kalinara's school gets really intense, I get transferred from working on aircraft to working on air traffic control systems -- a considerably more demanding job -- in a completely different country.  Something had to give, and really it was internet time.  I haven't really checked my bloglines since January (I haven't written anything substantial since last year), and I keep up to date through a couple mailing lists and through what I see on Twitter.  This is no recipe for keeping track of discourse of any type.  So Melissa and I sat down and decided it was time to let the brainbaby go to someone else.  We decided to leave ourselves because we knew we'd get picky and bossy as subordinates on any team.

Email me at ragnellthefoul[AT]hotmail[DOT]com if you're up for keeping track of the blogosphere and posting a regular linkdump.

Oh, and don't do it alone.  Bring friends, for sanity's sake as well as to spread the work out.

Another reason I shouldn't let this blog go dormant.

Everytime I let it see too long, the spam bots think I've abandoned and they can just drop tons of links in my comments. Bastards.

I'm not gone for good, dammit. I'm just resting.

And another thing...

Apologizes for all the slice of life crap lately.  You guys have no idea how much it annoys me when all I can come up with to write about is a diary of the day's events.  But I need to get back on the damned horse.

If I'm not careful I might end up someone who never blogs.

I'm trying to keep from falling into month-long periods without writing a word, but life gets in the way.  I have fun ideas for blog posts and stories that keep getting put off.  This job is much meatier than my last, or I'm just listless right now.  My week's been interesting to live through at least.

This morning I woke up and noticed missed messages on my phone.  I'd been waiting on a coworker to call and tell me he didn't need me to drive out of my way to pick him up, so I figured that was the message.  My conscience wouldn't let me leave his travel to chance, so I called back the number to doublecheck.

A deep voice answered with the name of the Maintenance Chief. I rolled my eyes and told my coworker that was very funny.  After the third insistence I realized this was indeed the chief of maintenance who'd tried to call me the other night.  He'd wanted me to let him into the building, since I was the building manager.  When I hung up and hurried because I actually had to pick up the coworker now, I comforted myself that I wasn't as bad off as that Congresswoman who hung up twice on the President.  And I avoided a very embarrassing conversation, because on Sunday I'd closed the car door on my dropped set of keys, bending the master key to the building (and my house key, and my apartment key--which led to waiting in the snow for the landlord to drive up with a new set on a day all of the locksmiths are closed--GOOD TIMES!) and I hadn't gotten around to replacing/bending it back.

In the afternoon I drove two hours and got lost in a hospital only to find that the doctor who referred me to this new office hadn't actually written out any diagnosis notes for the lady I needed to see.  My real first session was postponed so that she could track down my doctor, and in the interim I can try yawning.

Prior to that I found myself being sharply reminded by the flight chief that my job title is "technician" and not "file clerk" even though I am responsible for all of the files in the office.  I swore I'd never be that woman in the office who does all the clerical work, and here I am doing all the clerical work.  Why am I doing all the clerical work?  Because the boss needed someone to organize the papers and those idiots I work with wouldn't know organized if they tripped over a sorted and labeled pile of it in the lovecraftian pit of disrepair that we laughingly call a workshop.  (To be fair it may indeed be a workshop, but I've yet to see the tables cleared so I have my doubts.)  Also, I was the "New Guy" at the time the additional duty involving filing opened up.

This is all a typical day for me right now.

So I've been a bit too tired to write substantially.  Instead I've been amusing myself with Twitter.  Last night I suggested to Canton that Black Widow--who is in her 70s but still looks to be in her 20s due to funky Russian supersoldier experiments--isn't using epic birth control, but rather is post-menopausal.  From there we pounded out a premise for what is either the most awful or most awesome miniseries on the Internet--BLACK WIDOW: HOT FLASH.

We're bad people, yes.

(The title was Canton's idea.)

Tales from the Office...

All blog jokes aside, I don't consider myself a confrontational person.  Certainly not in real life, at least.  I've always considered myself meek to a fault, and especially shy in person.  I've even kicked myself for being far too much of a pushover.  A wallflower, meek and mild.  I worry I suck up too much to the boss and I let too many things slide from my coworkers.  I've always considered myself in person to be very much the opposite of my online persona.

Last week at work, though, I got a surprise.

I understand completely why I have a reputation for tactlessness at work.  I've seen the memos these guys write.  Full of extra wording and platitudes around the point and--to quote my coworker who told me my memos were tactless--"buttering up" the other party to get what we want even after the matter has been agreed to over the telephone and the memorandum is merely a formality.  "Sir/Ma'am, Due to events entirely beyond our control we no longer have running water in the bathrooms.  According to regulations, we need to be able to wash our hands before we eat in order to prevent dying from some horrible disease.  If you could find it in your heart to send a plumber, we would be greatful.  Help us, Civil Engineering, you're our only hope."

I find that to be an utter waste of time.  I also think something like "Please repair the bathroom plumbling at your earliest convenience" is far more polite than necessary and should be sufficient for asking someone to do their fucking job anyway.  It also saves ink.

So it was no surprise to me that--after I asked Blunt Boss to brief the office on how to fill out a certain form and had been told by him to brief them myself because they'll listen to me because "women are scary" (I'd responded that my coworkers aren't afraid of me, they just assume I'll burst into tears if they push me too far and he'd insisted that was good enough so there was no getting out of it)--I was gently chided by Diplomatic Boss because "you get more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

Now anyone who knows how much I fucking hate that turn of phrase will appreciate how nice I was when I disagreed with him.  I said I had been nice but promised not to use any profanity next time.  He told me i shouldn't start a lesson with "You've been doing it wrong" which made no sense to me, because the whole point of the briefing was they'd all been doing it wrong.

This conversation took place at the end of shift in the middle of the office and led to my statement that I wasn't confrontational.  This statement was greeted with laughter.

Naturally, there was a bit more arguing and Diplomatic Boss declared no progress would be made on either side once I'd narrowed my eyes and repeated "...female logic..." in response to a description ("Here is male logic, here is female logic, and WAY over here--") by a coworker.  This coworker was the next person to talk to Diplomatic Boss about effective communication.

And for the record, earlier that day that coworker--who had indeed read comics in his life--had been insisting that neither Steve Rogers nor Bruce Wayne would return from the dead so his opinion is suspect.

I did get Diplomatic Boss to concede that I was a pushover about "some things."

All in all, I ended up thrown into a minor identity crisis by the entire incident before the weekend was even underway.  I understand that humans have these internal views of ourselves, and its naturally disconcerting to find out just how different others see us than we see ourselves.  But that wasn't it entirely.  See, I've been keeping this blog for some time as an outlet and I suspect its led to a personality change.  But exactly what sort of change, I'm not sure.  I chose the nickname Ragnell the Foul on a whim, after a funny description I'd read of Gawain's wife in some Arthurian encyclopedia or another.  I wanted to indulge my monstrous side a bit, I wanted to have a chance to be the sort of person who doesn't let shit get flung on her and the name seemed to exemplify that.

And there's an idea in the Wiccan community--a small shadow of an idea that doesn't always surface but its definitely something to be kept in mind when chosing a name (Wiccans often take a "Craft Name" for their religious life)--that we conform to our names.  That if you pick the name of a story character you end up living out that story.  (Think twice about naming yourself for that tragic hero who lacked self-awareness.)  That if you take a description, you end up living up to it.  (Be wary of using modifiers such as "sometimes" or "not exactly" in front of virtuous descriptors.)  I've noticed it borne out enough online, some people just fit their handles.  I've wondered at times if this is putting the cart before the horse--if we just unconsciously choose a good description of ourselves when we choose a name--or if human beings really are such pattern-seeking monsters that we unconsciously mold ourselves to fit the front we put forth.  And that little incident at work, and the realization of how much I've changed over the last decade as well as the realization of how differently I see myself compared to how I act has me mulling it over.  Did I become Ragnell the Foul somehow, or is it just the real me leaking into my professional life?

And why are the guys I work with so damned sensitive?

From the 4th Letter..

"You know what sucks about character death?"

One of those posts where I found myself nodding my head after every sentence.

Oh wow.

Chris is buying Tarot again, and I couldn't be happier.  Check it out:  The Stark, Existential Horror of Tarot #53

And since I'm linking, my first post at Robot6 is up:  Just Past the Horizon: Heroic appeal

YES!!!!!

Next DC Animated Film Confirmed: Green Lantern

According to the back-cover art of the upcoming Wonder Woman disc, the next DTV animated film to come from DC Comics and Warner Home Video will be Green Lantern. No details are available as yet, including the identity of the lead character in the green tights. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the animated film will be looking to tie-in to or promote the upcoming live-action film currently in development at Warner. We'll let you know as soon as we hear more.

Wonder Woman hits shelves this March 3rd.

(Hat/tip)

This pisses me off like you wouldn't believe.

See what this guy just did

Lemme give you a hint.  See, one of the big historical complaints about letting women in the military is that they would distract the male soldiers and basically serve as company whores.  It's been used as a barrier for quite some time.

So this guy takes a survey that notes that hey, a lot of Marines have STDs (How shocking that people would have spontaneous sex when they have a job that might result in being blown up!) and a number of them had them before being recruited.  That in itself is a good an useful survey, the sort of survey that lets Public Health know where to focus and lets medical staff know what to ask about and educate on dsuring annual physicals and lets the post exchange know what to stock up on discreetly.

But hey, look how he starts the article:

Thanks to desperate recruiting methods required to staff those wars, the U.S. Marines may be turning military service into a male sexual fantasy land, where recruits are paid actual money to cohabitate with drunk, stoned, horny teenage girls.

And ends the article:

This is great news for randy young men weighing a career in the Marines -- as long as they're fastidious about wearing rubbers.

This blogger frames a potentially life-saving public health survey as the Marine Corps recruiting sexually adventurous young women to sleep with all the horny young men they recruit.  He basically outright says that USMC women are sluts and that the military is a huge co-ed orgy.   To his credit, he stops short of suggesting that the other girls are just trying to snag a pilot for marriage but he's still driving home the same shit that was said about nurses, that was said about the WACs and the WAVEs, and that's whispered about military women right now.  That they're immoral sluts who are there to sleep with the guys in the unit.

That they don't belong there and are there for the sexual gratification of the male troops.  Which--I don't care if you're pro-war or pro-peace or selective about what war and what peace--is just plain misogyny, and fuck him and everyone else who pulls that kind of shit.

That's disappointing.

So today I got into an argument on the internet. I laid out precisely what was wrong with the post that bothered me, as cleanly and neatly as possible. I was perhaps a bit sharp. The original poster certainly thought so. She answered me fiercely, and her post included a link to her personal blog. Worried I'd gone too far too soon based on the tone of her response--but unwilling to cede any ground based on the content her response--I took a step back, a deep breath and restated my position in a slightly more easy to understand way.

Then I glanced at the personal blog. Like most of us, she had a twitter widget. A multi-tweet widget, and the most recent tweet expressed happiness that someone got "really angry" (which was untrue, I'd been angry but not enough to break out any of the dark metaphors I'm so fond of in my rants) over something she wrote, and giddy expectation of the hit increase over the fight.

And suddenly all the fight was deflated from me.

Anyone who reads me knows I love an argument. I love when two people who really stand behind what they believe get into it. I love the intellectual part of the discussion, the careful sifting of your opponent's opinion for weak spots and the distillation of your own point of view into its basic essence. I love strengthening my arguments and sharpening my mind. I love trying to come up with the most clever word to leave on. I love getting angry and arguing with someone who's just as passionate as me about what she believes.

Despite what it may seem, I really don't like getting angry for anger and attention's sake and I especially don't like dealing with those who do. I love getting angry for channeling it into something productive. I love anger as a purifier, as inspiration for cutting phrases and complex metaphors.

I want to interact with people with guts and honesty or least some creativity and energy no matter what side they're on. I want to fight someone who knows the rules of the duel, who even if they aren't invested beyond playing Devil's Advocate puts a little heart into the fight. It gives me energy and between the two sides we can make something really worth reading if we're both in top shape.

But here I've encountered someone who was anticipating the attention of a fight, just as she was saying in the comments that she didn't want a Blogwar. Knowing about that disconnect... it takes the fun out of a fight. If the other guy isn't really as angry as you are, and isn't primarily concerned with getting as clear and pure a point across as possible... It's just not worth fighting over anymore.

And all that lovely rage turns to sadness in the face of insincerity, and I'm listless where I should be inspired.

It's a little like finding out a friend was only pretending to like you.

Better that I would have lost on the mental battleground, because then I would have either a new friend gained by an apology or the seed of vengeance planted in my heart and all the fire that grew from it. Instead I've got a dull feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

I miss my trolls.

Addendum: What we learn from the House

Despite all the problems I detailed last post about Derleth's continuation, I'm glad the House fragment was published because we get some substantial information on the Conrad and Kirowan characters from it.

We learn that Conrad is a fan of a crazed poet named Justin Geoffrey, to the extent that he's investigating the man's family history and trying to find out just why he was able to write such darkly beautiful poems. It further drives home the impression that Conrad was a goth as a teenager. Not with the attitude that everyone hates him or the eternally depressed outlook some goth kids seem to have, but the sort of goth kid who only reads the work of writers who committed suicide and tries to break into the funeral parlor at 3 AM so he can see what a real dead body looks like. The really creepy kind of goth kid.

We learn that Conrad'll write to public officials in other towns requesting information about supernatural occurances, and that he knows how to phrase those questions so that those officials to answer him. He's a skilled researcher, and despite his really odd interests no one ever dismisses Conrad as a crank. Judging by the info he's gotten in The House he probably comes off as a journalist or a biographer when you meet him in person. His occupation might be somewhere along those lines.

We learn that its understood that Kirowan will accompany Conrad on any stupid venture he decides to undertake, at least as much because of his own interest as because of friendship with Conrad. One of the few lines Derleth cut from Howard's fragment was Conrad's statment about Kirowan: "I don't even bother to ask him to accompany me on my weird explorations any more -- I know he's as eager as I."

And we learn that Kirowan is five feet and ten inches tall. From there we can infer that O'Donnel and Vrolock are both at least a few inches shorter because Kirowan was described as tall in Haunter of the Ring. That really doesn't help with solving the mystery of who's narrating the other stories, but I'm a nerd and I can't help but notice little details that help me get the staging right in my head.

The Story That Should Not Be.

August Derleth is a writer both revered and reviled by mythos fans. While this man did the public service of founding Arkham House and keeping Lovecraftian horror alive, he also took it upon himself to take fragments that had been tossed aside by better writers and continue those stories after the writer's death as "collaborations." The back of my Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard collection includes an unfinished Conrad and Kirowan fragment entitled The House. My Nameless Cults collection includes a copy of The House in the Oaks, Derleth's completion of that fragment. This stroke of luck gives me the dubious honor of being able to compare both forms of the story and conclude that its for the best if writers leave unfinished works alone.

See, it wasn't actually Derleth's parts but Howard's that bogged the story down. This isn't a knock on Howard's skill, because the fragment is an unfinished unedited story. But what Derleth does for the first half of House in the Oaks is reprint all of Howard's fragment The House with only elaboration and no discernable pruning. By the time Howard stopped writing he had introduced Conrad, Kirowan, the mystery about the poet Justin Geoffrey, and the House. All necessary elements Derleth continued with when writing his story. Howard also introduced the artist Skuyler and the mayor of Dutchtown. Derleth kept both of these characters. They serve as exposition that could easily have been given by Conrad and disappear during the second act. And by that I don't mean disappear as characters are meant to disappear in a horror story, but they go off in their own directions and don't have any actual bearing on the plot.

Here's the thing:  Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft? These guys aren't normally found in English books as masters of the art form of the short story but they damned sure knew what the hell they were doing with it. These old pulp mag writers either became experts at polishing and pruning and editing their works or they didn't get published. Even paid by the word they didn't waste a single one getting the point across. Every sentance drove the point of the story home by adding to the plot or by adding to the atmosphere. So when the legendary Robert E. Howard makes a story start with four characters introduced not all at once (as a group in an argument, as he did in Children of the Night) but one by one in their own separate elements, either he's going to fucking use four characters or he's going chuck a couple of them to tighten up the story later in the drafting process.

Derleth came up with a good story, I think. But it was a two person story. There was no reason for all four of them to go to the house as the story unfolded, or even for the other two characters to have appeared in person. The exposition from the conversations with the artist and the mayor could easily have been worked into things said by either Conrad or Kirowan. Conrad was already noted as having corresponded with the mayor, any exposition or permission the character gave in person could have been from a letter. Even Skuyler's big important moment when he tries to break into the house but was stopped by Conrad could easily have been transferred to Kirowan. (I've read nothing of the character to suggest he was above property damage under the circumstances). There was no reason to have those characters there other than because Howard introduced them. Derleth should have either made use of them or cut the last two pages from Howard's prose and started his own part earlier.

No doubt Howard fans would have cried out in horror at the butchering of his words, but when has that ever stopped a writer?

Personally, I'd have preferred if he just wrote his own story because while House in the Oaks actually turns out to be a good tale its hardly a satisfying end for a character like Conrad. In it, James Conrad finds himself preoccupied by the House and spends a night there. He is tormented by dreams and ends up dying after attempting to burn it down. He only explains the matter in a letter to his good friend Kirowan.

Now, an occultist who ends up becoming obsessed with a gateway to the next world is a very satisfying story provided that occultist has not already encountered other worlds on two--possibly three--distinct occasions and been close to other people who have also encountered those worlds. I could see this happening to a brand new character, but not freaking Conrad. There is, I supposed, the slightest basis for an argument that he's a different character because he's called James in this story and John in another. But 1) character names change in drafts and 2) he's best friends with a sensible narrator named Kirowan, a guy who is understood to accompany him on any stupid errand than he embarks on.

Anyone who can read knows this isn't a fitting end for Kirowan, so Derleth's story wouldn't have worked with the roles reversed either.

I'd even go so far as to say it wouldn't have worked with O'Donnel, because while O'Donnel would've burnt down the house I can't see him following it up with suicide. I can see him following it up by digging up the oak trees by hand and then hunting down the Geoffrey family to make sure the weird genes didn't get passed on. (Because when that sort of character loses his sanity, he takes a whole bunch of people with him.)

This story would've worked with any new character, or any unfleshed out names from Howard's series like Taverel or Clemants. It doesn't seem right to off Conrad that way, though.

Remember the old Blog@Newsarama crew?

Well... We're back, baby!

Just thought I'd point this out.

Snell decided it was only fair to point out some of Gil Kane's placements in old Green Lantern after complaining about Ed Benes in JLA.

Take a look, and notice that Kane managed to do an awful lot of ass-shots without sacrificing the integrity of the story for it.

December 31st, 2008

On this the very last day of 2008 I would like to take a moment to say something to the entire blogosphere: I'm disgusted with all of you.

Yes, all of you. Even those of you in the corner that don't realize I read your blogs. Yes, I'm disgusted with you.

Why? Well, I keep a very large bloglines file that I read through regularly when collecting WFA links. And in the past couple months I've taken to collecting and posting WFA on a regular basis.

Last week, Heidi MacDonald posted this (in response to a post of Caleb's on Blog@Newsarama) addressing the lack of female writers at the Big Two. She was answered by email and in a few scant places across the blogosphere. Strange, because Heidi and Caleb posted on two of the most widely read blogs in the community.

I had to search for these answers, because in my community we were discussing something else, also coincidentally brought on by a post of Caleb's on Blog@Newsarama. The thin veneer of the conversation was about legal standards for obscene material involving fictional children, the potential harm of these legal standards and appropriate punishment.

The actual conversation was about Val D'Orazio's feelings and whatever crazy thing she said this week.

I ended up with a few links to Heidi's post, a good response from Cheryl Lynn and several posts worth of links to Val. I also got one post that said that WFA was addicted to drama, which got me ranting on twitter (twanting?) about how if no one posts about anything but Val all I'll have to link are posts about Val!

The truly galling part of this--pointed out to me on Twitter by Cheryl Lynn--is that Val is the elected head of the venerable comics charity Friends of Lulu.

From the organization's website:

Friends of Lulu is a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is to promote and encourage female readership and participation in the comic book industry.

This is a worthwhile and noteworthy goal.

The conversation started on Heidi's blog--the one for which she is currently being hammered by the indie community attempting to derail the conversation from the specific topic of writers at the Big Two by calling her too negative, by bringing up artists, by bringing up how many women are in the independent comics community which all detracts from the main complaints which is that the two largest and best known comic publishers in the country--DC and Marvel--who control some of the best loved characters in our culture are neglecting to involve women in shaping their universes (Credit to this list of grievances also goes Cheryl Lynn)--falls directly under FoL's sphere of interest.

And here we are bitching (yes I said bitching with full knowledge of the misogynistic background to the term and its effect) back and forth about her feelings and how appropriate it is for the head of a feminist organization to taking her particular stance while totally ignoring the issue that is the point of that conversation.

I don't blame Val. I don't like Val, but I don't blame her for this. That would be like blaming root beer for not tasting like birch beer. Val is what she is no matter what position she holds. Instead, I blame all of us for talking about her instead of the issues we're pretending to be talking about. (Initially I just blamed all of you because I've been blogging about Robert E. Howard the whole fucking time but now you've got me blogging about Val and I feel disgusted with myself.) We should be better than this.

Happy Fucking New Year, Comics Blogosphere. You've rekindled my deep loathing of humanity.

A Thought

We were goofing around on Twitter and a thought occurred to me. The Spirit was a good property to begin with, and the Frank Miller treatment--Frankification, as it were--has reportedly drained all of the originality and beauty out of the source material. But there are properties out there--popular properties--which the exact same treatment would improve.

Just imagine...
Frank Miller's Twilight.

I think I might be able to fly with that thought.

So it's come to this... blogging about writing.

For the sake of believable narration I've spent the past four days fiddling with wording in a story. I've got the normal problems, how to reveal the setting and the setup without seeming forced. On top of that, I've settled on first-person narration as the ideal point-of-view and the main character is a fourteen-year-old girl.

And to be perfectly honest, even back when I was a fourteen-year-old girl I had a great deal of trouble getting the impression of a fourteen-year-old girl across in my writing. It's my reading history. I started out with the antiquated children's fairy tales we all did, Alice in Wonderland, the Chronicles of Narnia but rather than make my way into more modern and realistic fair I cherished the dreamy atmosphere brought about by a slightly old-fashioned narrator. When I floundered around for older reading material I found myself hunting down Sherlock Holmes stories. I went the way of the goth otherwise, devouring Edgar Allen Poe and other Victorianized literature. Kept to the same fairy tales, though the interpretations I read continued to grow up. I burrowed into the depths of the nonfiction section of the library to consume acres and acres of classical mythology and world folklore, almost all of which is recorded in the antiquated style. When finally I broke free of that library to explore the deeper realms of horror I gravitated towards HP Lovecraft rather than Stephen King.

And somewhere through all of this I developed that sort of voice. That antiquated, slightly dusty voice to my writing (and yes, even my speaking at points) that is just tough to shake.

I know that old and creepy are all acceptably mainstream geekeries, and I'm not saying for one second that I'm the only one suffering from this affliction. (There's certainly enough of us to make it a geek stereotype.) It's just disconcerting to realize that this style of writing and speaking comes so naturally that it's your natural voice, particularly when placed against the voices you hear every day at work, the normal rythm and cadence of human conversation that suits the modern mainstream era and that capturing that is what's necessary to capture the character you're trying to write. It just feeds this paradox where if you write what comes naturally to you it sounds off when you read it back, but you can't seem to naturally write what sounds right when you read it back and I needed to stop and vent a bit about that.

This is ultimately why nonfiction comes more easily. The voice sounds somewhat academic and authoritative and sounds very natural when analyzing art and literature. As part of a work of fiction? Well, this voice was developed in the reading realms of fantasy and horror from narratives specifically aimed towards creating an atmosphere of fantasy and horror. It is not a character voice, at least not for fourteen-year-old girls who aren't already little goths.

Sticking to nonfiction won't do me any good if I want to be anything more than a one-story wonder, though...

Maybe I should go with third-person limited in the future. The normal, natural voice is easier to get across in small snippets of dialogue.

Professor John Kirowan, Badassery 101

I think I've figured out just why Haunter of the Ring makes me so deliriously happy every time I read it.

Here's the Project Gutenberg text. The story is short and fun. Take a read and see if you can recognize just what in that story structure fills my heart with light and joy.

Need a hint? My first fandom--and by this I meant not only the first property that had me hunting down books in the library and searching for information on the internet but to this day the only property for which I will regularly read the fanfiction which are called pastiches in this fandom and the only property for which I will use the term "canon" when referring to the original published works--was Sherlock Holmes. I am so utterly attached to this property that not only do I have fond memories of the stories, I have fond memories of my experiences reading the stories. I still remember clearly stealing my brother's copy of Boy's Life magazine and happening upon the Classics Illustrated adaptation of "The Speckled Band." I remember absorbing takes on Hound of the Baskervilles in cartoon form on Saturday mornings with an interest that I didn't realize would soon be channelled into no less than twenty-four readings of the novel itself over the next sixteen years. I remember late nights at the Carbondale Library after Girl Scout meetings, waiting for my ride and sitting between the fiction shelves, reading and rereading the gigantic four-volume collection of the original fifty-six stories and four novels. I remember my English teacher being disgusted at my preoccupation with "junk literature" when he caught me skimming the course material for a Doyle-written story (in fairness, we'd studied "The Speckled Band" in an earlier year, so it wasn't a completely absurd expectation). I remember hunting down every pastiche in every bookstore in San Antonio just to get my hands on more stories of Holmes and Watson together (don't offer me the Laurie King stories, it must be Watson as the partner and no other). I remember my fascinated revulsion at The Last Sherlock Holmes Story and realizing that my being unable to put that book down in disgust, and my mentally assigning it to an alternate universe is what marked my interest as a full-blown fannish obsession.

Ultimately I can say that Baker Street has possibly been the only fandom that has brought me nothing but joy in all its forms.

In addition to that, in the last few years a different set of classic short stories has captured my imagination. A boyfriend who will forever occupy a favored place in the Hall of Exes introduced me to a series not notable for its characters like Doyle's gift to the world was, but for setting and atmosphere. I'm speaking, of course, of the infamous Cthulu Mythos and Lovecraftian Horror/Weird Fiction setup which has had immeasurable influence on our modern science fiction, fantasy, superhero, and horror genres.

And without even going back to look at my collection, I can't help but recognize that Haunter of the Ring follows the Sherlock Holmes short story structure, but in a Lovecraftian horror setting. That's a recipe for joy for me.

(Needless to say, I do own the Shadows Over Baker Street collection and if anyone manages to write a comic book that combines Holmes and Watson with Green Lantern and King Arthur in a Lovecraftian horror setting I want to be buried with a copy.  Get on it, Internet)

Take a look at it, readers. In the first act the narrator joins his best friend--the story's hero--to find that his friend has a distraught guest. The act is devoted to exposition as the guest reveals his problem--complete with homebrewed explanation that isn't even entertained by the hero--and hopes that the hero can make some sense of this insanity. The hero asks a couple of seemingly frivolous and distracting questions and agrees to look into the matter.

O'Donnel is narrating here, and I have to pause on noting the parallels so that I can say WHAT THE FUCK ROBERT E. HOWARD?!! HE'S AN EXPERT ON ANCIENT WEAPONS--ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?! And those paragraphs on looking at the ruin of a good mind? That's just.. That's just so eerie. I'm utterly convinced--despite Evelyn's use of the name "Michael" rather than "John" in the next act--that this guy is the same guy who narrated Children of the Night (and Dwellers Under the Tomb) and that we have been tragically deprived of a kickass story where Kirowan and Conrad have to prevent crazed but badass weapons expert O'Donnel from murdering a bunch of innocent people. And even if Howard was not building towards such an epic tale of friendship and madness he fucking well should have been. The world must have this story, even if the author is beyond the veil. Someone with a ouija board needs to get on this right away.

Anyway, O'Donnel plays the role of "normal guy impressed by his friend" right away. He's pitying poor Gordon and commenting on Kirowan's impressive calmness and the traits that mark Kirowan as interested despite that calm. His narration is a little flowery at times in the way Watson's is. He plays the disbelieving voice when Gordon tells the story, draws out exposition from Gordon with his own comments and supplies vital social information.

Kirowan seems very Holmesian here. He's calm and soothing in a way that impresses the narrator. There's something in the description of how he poses his questions during this act that suggests Watson describing Holmes. It's how he cuts through the emotional parts with an even measured calm that O'Donnel seems to find incredibly relieving. The way his questions are set up show that he's focused on the problem itself and not the personal relationship between the Gordons. He only speaks up when he needs to get Gordon to give him the facts, he doesn't offer any explanations or any real comfort. O'Donnel describes Kirowan as calm until he gets a significant piece of information, then "Kirowan had suddenly come to life; it was as if something hard and steely had been sounded in him." This is comparable to Watson's usual description of Holmes as lazy and languid until his brain starts working, then he's like sharpened steel.

The second act introduces the other players in the problem, Kirowan asks more seemingly insignificant questions that the reader knows have a huge bearing on the case, and O'Donnel continues to be baffled and concerned for Gordon's mental health. Most importantly we meet Gordon's wife Evelyn and hear her side of the story. She's smartly brought two friends to back her up during this confrontation--one of which is a learned medical professional and the other of which just adds to the irrationality of the situation by threatening violence. The actual violence that speeds the plot comes from Evelyn, of course. The structure keeps to when the Holmes stories bring action into the mix, with a violent event at the end of the second act that spurs the heroes into action and the explanation offered in the third act. Standard mystery story stuff, of course, but bear in mind that Doyle pretty much made the model for the standard mystery story with his detective.

As Howardian female characters go (and I say this having not read the Red Sonya stuff), I have to say I'm impressed with Evelyn. She handles all of this really, really well. She knows she's in some sort of trouble and something weird's going on. It's incredibly upsetting and it's set her husband against her. So she grabs some allies of her own and tries to hash it all out reasonably. When she breaks down, it tends to be at points where its understandable to break down--right after she blacks out and finds her husband injured by her own hands when she comes to. Dr. Donnelly--who should know her better--displays some sexism towards her in his handling of the situation. And the other characters seem inclined to the sexist assumption that "Hey, women are just nuts, huh?" but they all stick to their knowledge of Evelyn as a woman who is most definitely not insane. Evelyn's sanity is driven home and even held up against the prevailing sexist attitudes at every opportunity. Her sensibility sounds like her defining character trait, which is really odd for a female character in this genre during this period. I have to commend Howard on this one.

But for all her strengths Evelyn DOES end up seriously hurting her husband. Well, perhaps because of her strengths as it turns out she's a pretty good shot. Fortunately, there is a doctor conveniently present and the duo are free to rush towards the villain's house for the final act and the explanation of the mystery.

And this is where John Kirowan breaks the tried-and-true Holmesian Detective story rules. He has a personal history with the villain. He figures out the crime not based solely on logic and evidence but on his memory of what happened to him. And the explanation is supernatural, a big no-no by Doyle's pattern.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, because the third act proves Kirowan's verymuch not a Holmes clone. He's just a horror genre character who fits nicely into the story structure. Really the Mythos setting and anything similar is not a safe place to put a Holmes clone character, because that sort of detective lives, eats and breathes reason and order and there is no room for reason and order in a world with the Elder Gods.

Thing is, John Kirowan also breaks the rules of Lovecraftian Horror heroes by actually standing in the room as the vaguely described Thing Which Should Not Be appears to eat people. By standing I don't mean he stands frozen in terror and panic but that he stays there in full sight of the damned thing without screaming and fleeing or being utterly unable to scream and flee like he wants to. Hell, not only does he not scream and flee at the mere shadow of the Haunter, he actually manipulates circumstances so that the creature manifests in the very room he's standing in! He anticipates the Haunter's arrival without playing the role of evil crazed necromancer and getting killed by it. That's not just nonstandard in a Mythos story, that's certifiably badass.

That's not to say Kirowan doesn't go crazy in the last act. On the contrary, you can pinpoint the exact moment he botches his sanity check. I put it around the point he goes from just plain telling Vrolock how much he hates him to actively ranting like a James Bond villain. That only makes it all the more impressive to me because even when he loses his composure (and note here, he doesn't lose his composure to fear but to outrage) he still manages to lie and manipulate Vrolock into bringing about his own ruin.

Now there is quite a bit we can learn about John Kirowan from this story. He bears some outward similarities to the Great Detective even though he is not the same sort of character. He's a reasonable individual, but one with a definite interest in the supernatural and some serious ultraterrestrial experiences at his back. He has a very clear moral line that he won't cross but that he doesn't seem to worry about dancing on in the hopes of getting a shot at someone who has crossed it.

In Haunter, Kirowan comes out as a passionate and romantic character with a looming fridge in his past. It matches neatly with his emotionally charged narration in Dig Me No Grave. But in Dig and Children he covered that with an outward denial of the supernatural and just plain snapping at his friends. Here he covers it with the sort of self-control that extends to the other people in the room. That control is probably what makes him the person that someone like Gordon will run to when he's in trouble and doesn't know what else to do. O'Donnel seems to hang on this characteristic at several points in the narrative, and he presents it as a normal character trait of Kirowan's and not something unusual. This trait could explain just why in Dig it was Kirowan Conrad ran to in the middle of the night. Comparing the two stories I'd say at least part of this self-control is an unconcious, natural aspect of personality. Kirowan's own narration suggests that he's more likely to push out irritability than composure when he's agitated.

Today's Unscheduled Unedited TV Rant

One of my favorite television series is Newsradio--it makes me happy and I can watch the entire series repeatedly--but I swear if one more character refer to Matthew as a "sweet guy" I'm going to chuck one of my prized DVDs out the window. Matthew, the resident Weird Guy in the office, the low man on the totem pole so to speak is NOT a sweet guy. He's a fucking hyena.

In several episodes, Matthew momentarily gets the upper hand and starts to act like a complete asshole. Like when he punches Bill and suddenly gets Alpha Male Syndrome, or when Max shows up and Matthew enters a power struggle with him, or when Matthew suddenly becomes smart and condescending as hell, or any of the numerous moments when the punchline is Matthew suddenly saying something cutthroat or mean. And whenever this happens one of the other characters gets concerned that sweet but annoying Matthew is acting so unlike himself and tries to talk him down.

And the thing is, I've seen this behavior in real life. I've seen it at school, I've seen it in the military, I've seen it on the internet. For example, we had a guy in my last office office who got picked on. At first I would tell the guys to lay off him, and defend him when I thought things were overboard. Then came the day someone on shift let someone embarrassing slip and garnered the mockery of the entire office. And GUESS WHO was the one who went too far trying to cement himself as Not The Lowest Ranking In The Room. He failed because the other guy's embarrassment was fleeting, but we all got an ugly glimpse into his true nature. The process seemed to repeat itself whenever someone new became the butt of the day's joke. And almost always, due to his overdoing it, he would be the butt of the day's jokes again before the shift was over. In trying to leave the shitty social role he kept digging his way into it, because everyone quickly realized that if they didn't assert themselves over him they'd be in for ruthless teasing rather than the normal maintenance-world joking.

And the thing I started to perceive about this guy, and other guys who display the same behavior pattern is that they look at the social order like a wolf pack. The Matthews of the world figure there's a bottom and they are it, but there's a chance they can seize on someone else and not be the most put upon person in the room. And so he is very nice and deferential and self-effacing around the other members of the office because he knows they can and will kick his ass. But the second he sees the slightest bit of weakness he tries to exploit it.

And this is the sort of person that Matthew in Newsradio is patterned after. And the thing about this character type is that everyone assumes that--because they act sweet when trying to ingratiate themselves to the rest of the group--they are sweet kind people who can't cut a break. But the real nature shows through NOT when the social order offers you the least power, but when the social order offers you enough power to act out what you really want.

So characters like Matthew, created to be sweet sympathetic people? They aren't. It would be one thing, I suppose, if the guy acted sweet and deferential once he got the upper hand but Matthew (and the guy in my old office, and the guy from my old school and a thousand other "sweet guys" scattered across the internet) does not. He's an asshole just waiting for the opportunity to be an asshole. That's the punchline of at least a third of his jokes. That's why we enjoy watching the other characters push him around.

And why does seeing that the characters are fooled by Matthews sweet facade piss me off so much? Because of all the real-life Matthews who've managed to sell themselves as sweet guys, and all the fiction dedicated to selling this personality type as a sweet guy and because I just plain don't like people who put up a false front and succeed at it. Bastards.

RIP Eartha

Eartha Kitt has passed away.