“Mary Russell” has her own Twitter account, maintained by King herself. (It’s not a fan account, as she has occasionally linked between the two on her author’s Facebook page, which is how I found the Twitter account in the first place.) I don’t like this very much. It feels too cute to ask us all to believe that this character, set very firmly in her time, is still alive and well, along with Holmes, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, and John Watson, nearly a full century after the books are set. A lot of people seem to like it, though, so I’m happy to leave it alone as a concept. However.

About a week ago, @mary_russell tweeted, “Just because a body was woman found on the Queen’s Sandringham estate our phone won’t stop ringing. Holmes and I may have to visit Mycroft.” My eyebrows raised. Certainly not in the usual vein of her tweets. I thought for a moment that King decided to make up a tale to have us all follow, so that she could later write a book about it. Fun, I thought! But it still wasn’t sitting right with me, so I googled. Then my mouth dropped open.

It actually happened. A young woman, later identified as a teenager, found dead and possibly murdered on the grounds. And Laurie King thought it would be “cute” to have Holmes and Russell on the case, as it were.

Subsequently, Holmes has gone down to London for a consultation, and a few other tweets have happened, including these from yesterday and today:
“Just heard from Holmes and reading between the lines it appears Brother Mycroft is asking Holmes to hie off to Sandringham. I may join him.”
“Although neither of us actively pursue cases these days, but…I’ll not leave Holmes to do this alone. If I go silent that is the reason.” “Holmes will consult again today, but not go to Sandringham (Mycroft and I had a few words). Really, the local constabulary will handle this.”

I can’t tell you how offended I am. A woman–now we know she was a 17-year-old girl–is found dead, and King is using this as a way of padding her Twitter feed? A girl died, probably scared and alone, and King’s response is to tweet about it as a fictional character and claim some role in the case? I’m appalled. Half the people following her probably don’t know it’s real. They think, probably, that it’s a fictional turn. One woman tweeted back that she’s worried for Russell and Holmes, and wonders if this is going to make it into another memoir. I can see how it would make for a good Russell/Holmes story. You could write a dandy story with the possibility of royal involvement, danger, scandal on the Queen’s estate, there’s a lot to be done with it. But that would be fiction, and this is real life.

It’s one thing to have Russell tweeting from 2012. Her immortality, such as it is, is only conferred by the limits of her fictional existence, but it’s cute enough, I suppose. I love the idea of characters coming in and out of our world, it’s a main plot point in one of my nebulous novels. But this goes beyond the limits of decency for me. By all means, make up a fictional case and have Russell get as involved in it as she wants. Make it up. But for pity’s sake, don’t use a real tragedy as a jumping-off point for your interaction with your fans, claiming agency where none exists.

“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”  – Mary Oliver

The truth is, the only person who’s going to care what you do today is you. Well, you and Mary Oliver, maybe. A lot of writing books talk about the importance of walks, the importance of boredom, the importance of letting ideas come to you, of sitting and really puzzling over an idea or three until they come together. I bombard myself so thoroughly with outside noise (present company included although, blog, I love you) that those pieces of perfectly useful advice are usually laughable. There’s e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Ravelry, online journals of friends, blogs of strangers, so many opportunities to fill my brain with other things! Even worse, the things I should be doing…

I Should Be: (A short list*)
- writing a story
- keeping a paper journal
- writing a blog post
- working on the novel
- researching for the novel
- controlling myself from starting new stories just now
- revising something
- reading a “good book”
- reading a “fun book”
- reading the paper
- watching a movie
- catching up on that TV show I like
- knitting
- cross-stitching
- quilting
- tidying this mess of a place
- doing the laundry
- figuring out dinner
- running errands
- making lists
- keeping up with all the little Shoulds that crop up in a day
- seeing a friend I haven’t seen in a while
- boxing some stuff up to give away
- losing weight
- doing research
- volunteering for a cause I believe in
- looking for ways to make money with my art
- looking for ways to make money
- searching for a job
- deciding what I want to do with my life
- thinking deep thoughts
- being brilliant

And somehow, I should do all of this today, or I am an utter failure. A frowny-face on the Good Behavior Chart stuck up on the front of the Refrigerator of Life, looking vainly at the gold and silver stars all the other kids got. (Because of course I think everyone else is better at this than I am, oh how I make myself laugh.)

Nothing on the list above is insurmountable. Shoulds aren’t necessarily bad. Like jealousy and lists on the internet, Shoulds just mirror what we want, so that we can see it clearly. But Shoulds are insidious. Even if I’m doing one thing on my list of Shoulds, I’m not doing any of the others at that moment. I struggle with this all the time, (there’s that time-word again!) the physical inability to be in two places at once. Some of these activities are easily combined. I can write in my head while I do the laundry, and then go run and transcribe some thoughts when I finish. But mostly, I need mental space to do a lot of these things, and many of them don’t combine so easy.

We all have our own Shoulds. I, for one, would like to release myself from their tyranny. To stop making the things I love into mere boxes to check as I try to justify what I’m doing with my life. Join me, and together we will rule the galaxy! (At least, we should…)

So in celebration of time this coming year, I will do my best to enjoy engaging in its passing, no matter what I’m doing. I only get this time once. I am determined to make the best of it, even (or perhaps especially) when I’m sitting, doing nothing, staring up at the sky.

“Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”  – Shel Silverstein

In the end, no one really cares what I do but me. I’ll live my life, as well as I can, within the constraints and possibilities offered by each day. So, off I go into the wild blue yonder. First, though, I think I should eat something and put a book in my bag. In case there are queues in the wild blue yonder.

*I edited this post half a dozen times so far to add items to the list.

I thought about responding to you in the comments, but found I had far too much to say.

You are part of the problem. I appreciate that you feel you’re trying to “help” by telling me, essentially, that I’m whining into the wind, and nobody cares, and it’s never going to change anything. (Nobody is here defined as “white male creators of media,” because I assure you, a lot of people care very deeply.) That I shouldn’t wait for an “apology from the king,” and that women need to write our own stories and find our own audiences. So, we should be good little girls and go sit in our corners and be quiet, hmm? Scribble for ourselves and each other in our own communities, and be satisfied with that. First of all, those communities already exist. Your charming assumption that I need to be educated on how to create them shows me just how much you actually pay attention, as much as you claim to “sympathize” with me. I am sensing an uncomfortable shift of the shoulders, here.

“Speaking out” is an incredibly important part of changing something. It’s the beginning of change. The personal is political, power to the people, how do you think that happens? If we all just bow our heads to the authorities and scuttle off to our corners to lick our wounds and write our indie stories in a fog of bitterness, it doesn’t. Sharing experiences, realizing that others have the same problems, the same feelings, that’s so powerful. It adds fuel to the fires within us. Because other people feel the way I do. They have the same discomforts, the same needs. You should know this, given that you claimed authority on social movements and change. (You were wrong, by the way. Change only happens if the mainstream acknowledges you. It’s true of the Civil Rights movement, the Feminist movement, right on back down to Constantine converting to Christianity and before even that. There have always been fringe societies operating differently, no one calls them change. They call them crazy. And I have to tell you, personally? As a woman? I am tired of being called crazy.)

Now, you may not be totally happy with what I’m speaking out about, it may be putting your back up in unfamiliar and uncomfortable ways to see lots of posts on and discussions of the state of the female in creative media, how women really oughtn’t be simply sex objects or princesses in other castles, and deserve more attention and depth. By the way, I am so grateful to you for saying “it’s good reading,” and you “like discussing it, sharing it with others.” Wow! Oh, I feel so respected. This next point is important, Kevin. I am not doing this for your entertainment, or anyone’s entertainment. Remember when you so patronizingly said, “You have to dedicate yourself to a worthy cause”? I am dedicated. You just aren’t fully comfortable with the cause, even if you do “get” it.

As well, and I know this is a cheap shot, but telling me, “Bella is such a bad female character that guys find her repulsive” is the blinking neon sign over the seedy motel of your hypocrisy. “Guys” wouldn’t care about her, wouldn’t know about her, if so many women hadn’t begun yelling so loudly over the Twilight books. “Guys” hopped on the Twihate bandwagon because those books were such extreme and egregious examples of misogynistic, idiotic, underestimation of young women and men that it was safe to dislike them. Twilight is safe to hate, too, because it doesn’t threaten any of the media traditionally aimed at men. Also, Twihate scored them serious points with the ladieez.

You say change happens slowly. I agree. Some changes take longer than others. This change wouldn’t be hard to accomplish, in a practical sense. The incubation time on a Hollywood blockbuster is about two years. Novels are generally published about two years after acceptance. For comic books, much less time. For television shows, much less time. We’re all a captive audience for the seriously hyped media. Things could get better tomorrow, and yet, they are getting so much worse. Everyone was so excited for the DC reboot, and what did we get? Tell me. Cast back in your mind to the shocking, insulting reboots of the female characters, at a time when more women than ever are becoming interested in comics. That’s change, all right. That’s overt sexism. That’s practically violence, on the level of pen and ink. “Get away, girls, we only see you as sex objects, don’t you DARE come in to our tree house.”

I don’t give a flying fuck about apologies from the king. I saw this particular emperor naked a long time ago. They’re meaningless, anyway. It frustrates me when my male friends tell me, “I feel like I need to apologize for my penis.” I don’t want that. No one should be made to feel lesser because of their gender. NO ONE. WHICH IS MY POINT. It is not pie-in-the-sky idealism to want my characters to be better written. To be given more depth, more complexity, more lush details so they stand apart from their backgrounds. I don’t want all female characters to be written as sword-wielding monoliths, I want them to be written better, so that I can see them, so that if they are kidnapped or raped or murdered horribly, as sometimes stories demand that they be, I feel something for them other than distaste at the actions and wanting to shake it off as quickly as possible. Because so many of them are worthless, now. It hardly matters. Violence gets more gory, we are desensitized to it, because the characters – male and female – are so poorly written we would hardly care otherwise. It’s like making one’s barbie dolls have sex, plastic bumping against plastic.

And all this, I want for the men in my stories, too. So that all characters are worthy of each other. So that we can move away from cardboard cut-outs. This is a change that could happen right now, if the creators were worthy of their creations, or their audiences. They can be. I know they can be. These are smart people, men and women, but mostly men, I know. They can write better, dream bigger. Make room for others.

There is nothing wrong with me wanting this right now. Because I want it for all of us, so very badly. And don’t you dare tell me I have to convince anyone that I’m a person. “Proving” to the menfolk that I can be just as interesting and important to a story as they are is horrid, because they know. They have wives, and daughters, and mothers and sisters, and they’ve loved strong, interesting female characters in their time as much as I’ve loved the strong male ones. They know. Oh, they know. They just don’t want to admit it, because they would have to work harder. Which is short-sighted and stupid, because I have money to spend like any one else. I just don’t tend to spend it on media aimed at women, because I find that tripe the most insulting of all.

This is an important debate, there are so many sides to it. But at the end of the day, we want the same thing. We want good, entertaining stories with strong characters. I am just increasingly unwilling to settle, on my side of the gender balance. And one final word. Perhaps men will always see women as “women first.” I am willing to state that biology does play a part. But before you dance too far down that essentialist excuse for a path, please remember that those strong, good, female role models you had saw you, the whole person. They did not make a hundred different assumptions about who you were and what you were capable of, simply based on your gender. Just think about that. Think about how our best relationships are not based simply or merely on gender. We see the person beneath. I want more to see. And yes. I want it now. No one should have to wait to be a person.

I thought for a long time before I pressed the “Publish” button on this post. Hell, I thought for a long time before I started to write this post. Worried that it wouldn’t be “nice” of me. That it might hurt your feelings. That other people I know are going to think less of me for such a direct response, or attack, or something. To hell with that. You can take it. You have most of the heroes and superheroes on your side.

All my sincerest regards,
Miranda

I am betrayed by the stories I love. Betrayed, belittled, ignored, used, punished, raped, tortured, and killed. I have little clothing, and less agency. I am a plot device, a cliche, as much a part of the hero’s journey as the Totem or the Mentor, and about as well-rounded. I have worn many names and many outfits, my hair has been raven, fiery, chestnut, and golden. I have been femme fatale, ingenue, princess, whore, with and without the heart of gold. I am reviled when I am strong, I am ridiculed when I am weak. I am a woman.

I am betrayed, too, by the world I inhabit in my life outside of stories. The world of geeks and nerds, the world of swords and sorcery, ships and starships. The realms of fantasy, science and fiction are still a boy’s club, though it gets better. Oh, how it gets better too slowly for me. I was raised on Batman and Star Trek, a legacy that brings me joy to this day, this very minute of writing. But there are shadows in the corners of my eyes, monsters in the alleys of the City of Invention that I love. For I am not striding down the streets, chest thrown back, my chin raised. My hand is not on the hilt of my sword, no challenge to all comers is present in my eyes. I am a woman. I am in danger here.

My presence as protagonist is bewildering to the men around me. As a woman who loves what they love, I am a woman, who loves what they love. I have no right of my own to their inheritance. I am a victim of my genetics. I am here on sufferance. It took Star Trek three separate series and nearly seventeen seasons on the air before someone had the guts to write a female captain. Janeway is the most reviled of the Star Trek captains, for reasons that in other series made Picard and Kirk heroes. She, on being born a woman.

My opinions in the outside world are suspect and apparently easily shot down. I am accused of minding the shocking objectification of women in games, movies, and TV shows just because I’m a girl, as if there is a whole class of problem I just wouldn’t have to bother about, if I were not female. That, in fact, my concerns and questions about the role and treatment of women in geek media are so much noise to be listened to with a long-suffering expression and an uncomfortable shift of the shoulders. As if to say, “I know this is wrong, but I don’t want to have to stop loving what I love…” I understand you, you know. I understand all too well. I am a woman.

My love of so many stories is a double-edged sword. They mean the world to me, and yet I am forgotten. Tintin, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, they are nearly bereft of women. As if there is only, or ever could be, one woman. “The” woman. Is it any wonder women are at each other’s throats, when the wisdom of stories tells us there is only room for one of us? In rich and vibrant worlds, expansive enough to hold dragons and magic rings, or spaceships that soar through the air, technology as if by magic, there is no room for more than two or three female characters?

I exist on the edges, in the subtext, and behind the scenes. I am a cackling crone when I work magic, an untrustworthy minx when I am clever. Perhaps I am unbalanced, insane, a slave to my urges and emotions, like Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Harlequin. Perhaps I am Lady Macbeth, forever washing my hands of the sin of ambition, rotting in the dungeon of public opinion with Cersei Lannister. Or Desdemona, proven trustworthy too late, as death is the punishment for even the imagined indiscretions.

I write, and I read, and I try so very hard to be brave when I come to my keyboard. Brave enough to write complex, capable people. Brave enough to say that a character can be a woman and not spend the entire book being a woman. That she, like her male counterparts, can simply be who she is. Brave enough to define a woman by what she does and says, rather than by how other characters perceive her. Brave enough to make her more human than a Disney Princess with a dark past. But it is a frightening place in the City of Invention. I must be special, but not too much. I must be likable, but “strong.” To survive, to have any hope of surviving, I must make men want me, and women want to be me. But not too much, or else I will be accused of being a fantasy. I have news for you. All of this is a fantasy.

I walk through the streets of the City of Invention with my chest out, and it does not matter what size or shape that chest is. My chin is raised, and there is a challenge in my eyes to all comers. Try and stop me. Try and distract me. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will resurrect me. We must fight this fight until we win. We who claim to represent truth more fully than life itself.

I am a woman. This is my story, still untold, though such things get better. Oh, but they get better too slowly for me.

But, the fact remains, I saw the new Three Musketeers movie, and it was a blast. Sometimes literally. If there is an award for Best Use of Airships in a Motion Picture, this movie takes it away from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow like candy from a baby.

I am by no means blind to the film’s many issues. After all, there are airships in The Three Musketeers. Now, I have not read my Dumas in a long time, but I recall nothing in my reading about a huge, hot air balloon galleon. (What is it with modern filmmakers and putting hot air into Dumas adaptations? Does anyone else remember that huge balloon Jim Caviezel arrives to his party in, in The Count of Monte Cristo? Does anyone other than me love that movie?)

The film bears only passing resemblance to its source material. Some of the changes make for some rip-roaring good fun. (See airships, Milla Jovovich doing a Fifth Element swan-dive off the roof of Versailles in her eighteenth century underwear, Milla Jovovich running through a hallway filled with fine wires that will cut her to pieces, a la Resident Evil. In fact, most of what Milla Jovovich does is cribbed from something she did in another movie. Which, as this movie is set in the early 18th century, and the rest of the movies she’s known for are very much not, may be part of the problem.)

The cast suffers from a dichotomy of mindset. Half of them think they’re in a serious adaptation of an important literary work, and half of them read the entire  script, rather than just their own lines. Matthew Macfadyen, as Athos, is very much unaware that he’s starring in a romp. He gives his lines with all the gravitas and biting inner conflict that he can muster, as a man who wishes he could go back and sacrifice all his principles for the woman he loves. (He doesn’t realize that the woman he loves is an alien zombie clone, but this just endears him to me further.) He also thinks he’s a young Alan Rickman, but I can’t help but be charmed by the effort he puts in.

All the musketeers seem like they would be perfectly at home in a movie that was way more concerned with being good. Christopher Guest is understated and just a little bit flat as the Cardinal, but I can’t help imagining that he plays Richelieu much more as the man himself probably was; smooth, quiet, and deadly when crossed. We don’t see much of the “deadly.” The Cardinal’s power is mostly poked fun at for comic relief. The actors playing the teenage king and queen are sweet, especially the king, as he bumbles and struts his way towards manhood. They, too, seem to think this is supposed to be a Good Movie.

And then we have the rest of the cast. D’Artagnan was utterly forgettable. The writers changed a few key moments that muddy his personality considerably. In the perfect world in which I am in charge of characterizations, D’Artagnan is a swaggering country boy who can back it up with his swordsmanship, and is an incurable romantic at heart. He truly believes in the musketeers he wishes so badly to be a part of, true love, his king, and his country. (In that order.) This actor played him as all swagger and no heart. Rochefort, played by Mads Mikkelsen, phones it in so thoroughly I had to wonder if he was awake. The two of them had a sword fight that was clearly supposed to be epic, on the roof of Notre Dame, but I could barely keep my eyes open for it. It did happen right after an airship battle, so it was a little anticlimactic. But still.

Milla Jovovich wasn’t a very good Milady, I’m sad to say. There was no mystery to her, in part because of a bizarre scene the writers shoehorned in at the beginning to explain how freaking airships (did I mention the airships?) have any place in this tale. She didn’t seem threatening, or sinister, or even particularly sexy. It was an…interesting choice, to play Milady DeWinter as “cute.” There isn’t a single scene in which she acts like she believes anything she’s saying. Her death scene, which has moved me to tears in other versions, was perfunctory. I called the ending when I saw her fall backwards off the airship, because it was so clearly telegraphed.

Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham swaggers around in ridiculous outfits, a truly disturbing haircut/beard combination, and a dangly pearl earring he might have found attached to Jack Sparrow’s (Captain Jack Sparrow’s) dreads. He is so thoroughly unbelievable as the slimy, power-obsessed bad guy, it hurts to watch him try. In another kind of adaptation, (the sort actually based on the book) he would have been excellent as the man having an affair with the Queen of France, endangering the fragile balance of power in Europe in order to steal a few moments with the woman he loves, but can never truly be with. But here it’s all empty swashbuckling, the geopolitics of which are never fully explained. He looks like he’s having a pretty good time, all things considered. (“I get to be the bad guy? Really? Not even conflicted? Just bad? YAY!”) He’s just not that good at it.

But even with all these problems, the movie is fun. Pure, unadulterated, unapologetic fun. Watching the airship battle? Fantastic. The musketeers? Hot, good at sword fights. The teenage contingent? A little smarmy, but all in all, fun to watch. Because this movie had airships. The dialogue was witty enough, the action was exciting without being gory, some of the actors did a great job. Everyone looked pretty in rich costumes heavy on the brocade, lace, and jewels. The swash got its brains buckled out.

It was FUN. Would it have been more fun if it had been a better adaptation, one that took advantage of the rich story of the original, without just adapting a bunch of adaptations? Oh, yes. But this was a great way to spend a couple of hours, and I was delighted when my suspicions that they were setting up for a sequel were confirmed. (And that they were confirmed almost exactly how I predicted they would be.)

6:50: I should get up. It’s not even 7! I could get so much done if I just get up.
6:52: I could write! I could have more than an hour to write before I’d even have to think about getting out of bed.
6:55: My alarm is going off in five minutes anyway, I should just get up.

7:00: Well, there goes the alarm. I ought to get up.
*strangely, fingers find the snooze button instead* *in fingers’ defense, snooze button is the entire screen of the phone, whereas to actually turn off the alarm takes dexterity and sticktoitiveness, qualities sorely lacking one who has just been awakened by a buzzing, whining phone*

7:05: There goes the Snooze function! Really ought to get up.
7:10: There goes the Snooze function again! Really should get up.
7:15: There goes the Snooze function again! Really should get up.

7:20: Okay, so instead of getting up, I will simply task myself with thinking about my plot while I lie here, half asleep.
7:25: *snoozebuttonflail* …so then they’re going to discover wireless communication…
7:30: *snoozebuttonflail* …her sister likes the pilot dude…
7:35: Oh, for pity’s sake! *manages to turn alarm off* Now I will think and write and be awake!

7:40:
7:45:
7:55:

8:00: DAMMIT. *has to quick get up and rush to be at work on time*

Thank you, and good night.

I saw a screenshot or two of Catwoman, from the new Arkham City Batman game. Now, I try not to let the objectification of women in video games get to me. Really. I promise I don’t. I understand that fundamentally, video games are largely made by little boys for little boys, except I honestly never saw a 6-year-old actually care about OMGBOOBIES when he wasn’t explicitly told to by other media, so let’s find something else to call them. Immature men, how about that? That about covers it.

So, to rephrase: I understand that, fundamentally, video games are largely made by immature men for immature men, and these men live in a fantasy land where women look a certain way, i.e., like they’re from comic books. As stabby as this makes me, I understand. Somewhere along the line, tits-ass-legs became more important than storytelling or characterization or respect or anything. AWESOME. (Some might argue that this didn’t happen “along the line,” that it is just “the line.” To which I repeat: AWESOME.)

So, I saw these screenshots. And really? Really?! Even Catwoman looks shocked by how much skin she’s showing! Or maybe she’s just cold. Come the hell on. She’s a thief. She’s supposed to be sneaky. And that means not having her entire, lily-white chest exposed, glowing like a beacon in the darkness. Part of her appeal, too, is that she can be the sexiest thing on two (sometimes four) legs, and do it with her shirt on.

I know being overtly (sometimes ridiculously) sexualized is part of her character. But this Catwoman could have had her shirt skipped up another six inches and still had cleavage showing. No one would have complained. She would have been completely wank-worthy, I promise you. While we’re on the subject, her catsuit could have been zipped up completely and not damaged her sexiness one iota. After all, wasn’t this hot enough for you?

But, that isn’t how things work in Immature Game Designerland. More is always better there. More boobs, more skin, more legs. Also, as much of it should be naked as possible.

I know I’m not the target audience. After all, I’m a woman, and I have the brain cells left over after seeing that to question how practical and/or necessary all that skin showing is.The people who designed this character clearly didn’t think about that eventuality longer than it took to say, “ZOMG let’s make her shirt unzipped really far and then have her flip around and stretch OMGBOOBIES.”

I love the Batman universe, I had a great time with Arkham Asylum, and I love Catwoman. Being able to play her is going to be a blast in Arkham City. But seriously? To go so far into the realms of good character design and then unzip her catsuit so it looks like she’s leaping around on her way back from a mammogram?

Charming, really.

I mention being at ComicCon because it was there that the seeds of an idea were planted. There was a fair amount of Steampunkness going on there, and as always, I find myself intrigued. I must admit to having a fairly tumultuous relationship with Steampunk. I don’t like glorifying the Victorian Age. It was sexist, racist, classist, pretty much every “ist” you can think of. The culture, the aesthetics, it was all pretty, but so twisted at the same time. I don’t think changing from electrical to steam power really redeems it all that much. But, I am happily willing to be wrong. Especially since I find myself drawn to it so often.

I set about thinking of what might have happened if in the 1870s, there was an overarching threat like World War I or II. An attack on British soil from an indomitable foe, requiring change and a certain flexibility of thinking. What would have happened if, smack at the height of Victorian England, something happened that caused rapid strides in technology, with corresponding ripples into the society? What if?

Now I’m writing. We’ll see what comes of it. I love my characters, and it’s so true that the more writing you do, the better you get at it.

I’m also getting a head cold. I hope the two aren’t related.

While I understand Maria Tatar’s point that books for children have become blatantly darker in recent years, I think she’s underestimating how dark they always were. Let’s look at her examples in a different light for a moment.

The Red Queen and Captain Hook are powerful, unpredictable adults who have everything on their side. Resources, minions, the power to make all the rules. They can threaten, kidnap, and manipulate children. Flowers, insects, mermaids, food and drink, cute fluffy animals, even one’s own friends can be dangerous adversaries. These worlds, while brightly colored, are hardly safe places. The child characters are left to struggle and make their way as best they can. In “Alice,” Alice spends much of the book trying to please a tyrannical and terrible queen, while in “Peter Pan,” the children spend most of their time running from pirates and mermaids, with short breaks during which they save a kidnapped girl from drowning after an adult has tied her to a rock as bait.

Alice has to navigate an adult world where none of the rules make sense. She, in a sense, has to become the responsible adult, only with no power. Wendy has to be the voice of reason among a wild cadre of young boys, and on her last night in the nursery, no less! She is already too old to really play their games. Instead, she is nearly drowned by some beautiful mermaids, who see her as a threat. Alice only escapes the Red Queen’s playing cards by waking up. Wendy chooses to go back and be an adult, because she’s already too old to stay in Neverland. She’s partly grown up, assuming responsibilities beyond her years.

These romps are not as enchanting as the author suggests. I don’t have any small children of my own to ask, and the local constabulary frowns upon approaching random children in parks to do surveys, but what I remember from my own childhood (how relatively close it was, and yet how far off it seems!) is that I was much more scared by Alice in Wonderland than I ever was by Harry Potter. Captain Hook was a frightening. Neverland and Wonderland had no rules. The Potterverse, the world of His Dark Materials, even the grim future in Hunger Games, they all have rules, and not ALL the adults are out to kill the children. (Just a lot of them.)

She says “danger is balanced by enchantment” in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan,” but that seems to be a judgment based only on the conceptual backbone and atmospherics of modern YA. She talks about J.K. Rowling basing Dementors on her experiences with clinical depression, and that’s somehow less child-friendly than Lewis Carroll basing the Caterpillar on his experiences smoking opium? J.M. Barrie created children who would never grow up, immune to adult experience and responsibility. What was floating around in his psyche? Is it the children who don’t want to grow up, or the adults who don’t want them to?

Children and teenagers love these new versions of what children can accomplish. The books are immensely popular. So, I ask again: Is it the children who need to be protected from growing up, or the adults who need to be protected from realizing how unsafe their children really feel?

Here’s the deal. Every person has their individual strengths and weaknesses, desires, tendencies, and quirks. Shaped by our experiences, we venture out into the world to, one way or another, experience more. The intersection of all these different moments, lit up by the way our individual brains fire neurons in every direction, is who each of us are. Some of us are similar to others of us, while being less similar to yet others of us. Many of us have more in common than we don’t have in common, because we are all built along roughly the same lines. It’s the detailing that makes such an impact, rather than the chassis and basic collection of parts.

Most people are not secure in themselves. They are, in fact, insecure. Lacking the sense of a firm foundation, even if they have one. It is the rare human being who exists feeling perfectly secure in their own skin. Most people have to look outside themselves — to family, to a particularly close friend or two, to a job — for the kind of stability that really makes them feel safe. This isn’t a problem, and it isn’t a personal failing. Everybody needs somebody sometime, people who need people are the luckiest people, blahblah, you get the idea. Feeling more or less insecure doesn’t make you a good person or a bad person, or a better or worse person. It’s just how things go. To question is to try and improve. That’s what we’re doing, when we have a bout of insecurity. We’re questioning ourselves.

So, to bring this baby around, feeling insecure is a part of life. It’s part of the comparative existence most of us lead. We’re constantly trying to figure out what’s better, or not, and why, and who do we like more, and what’s our favorite this or that. It’s part and parcel of a consumption-based culture with lots and lots of advertising. Insecurities come up, because we all want to be loved and approved of, but we are all aware that we are not the only or the best or the most. A lot of the time in this culture, it is not all right to simply, genuinely be who you are. You have to “stand out,” when really, you should be able to stand out because of the things that you, individually, say and do. It is enough. I don’t have to be the only smart, pretty, red-headed writer, reader, musician, knitter, witty girl in order to be a smart, pretty, red-headed writer, reader, musician, knitter, witty girl. It is more than enough to be all those things. Flavored with everything else, concrete and ineffable, that makes me myself and unique.

As I was writing the last paragraph, I had to change “being insecure” to “feeling insecure,” because I realized that by labeling insecurity as a state of being, rather than a transient state of mind, I was giving it the power of definition. How many times have we all said, “I’m insecure?” I know I do it, especially when I want outside validation of things I believe about myself. But, as Sarah brought up in her interesting post, there is a reluctance to give myself that support. It would make me look spoiled, or bitchy, or delusional, to be able to tell myself how capable and intrinsically interesting I am and believe it. So I sidle up to a friend and usually make a self-deprecating statement, to prime them to take over the reassurances that in all likelihood, I can probably give myself. This isn’t always true. We are all unsure of ourselves and our talents, and that’s okay. But I think if we exploded the idea (possibly with dynamite) that being proud of ourselves and pleased about our own particular abilities makes us blind, or full of ourselves, there would be a lot more room for healthy conversation about strengths and weaknesses.

Compliments are nice, don’t get me wrong. I love compliments. Reassurance is necessary, especially in a romantic context, because we’re more vulnerable to another person to begin with, and other people are their own complex and wonderful selves. Being unsure in that situation is fine. We never really know what’s going on in another person’s head, and we want to know. As humans we are reliant on words for that, but starting a conversation by saying, “Tell me why you like me!” sounds a little bit too much like “Give me compliments!” Feeling insecure is in its own way a defense mechanism. But it isn’t a healthy one. It robs us of feeling pretty good about ourselves, a lot of the time.

So, to once again try to bring this baby around to fiction, I think some of this behavior is learned. The comparative consumerist culture is one part of it. There is also the pressure on girls to be modest. We’re not supposed to be too openly proud of ourselves, even if we are aware that we’re great, which a lot of the time we’re taught not to be. This leads to “Who, Me?” Syndrome, which so many girls and women in fiction suffer from. There are two main varieties of Who, Me? Syndrome: Delusional and Manipulative. Delusional “Who, Me?” is characterized by a lack of self-awareness, leading to not being aware that one is largely an awesome and lovely human being. Focusing on one’s flaws, real and imagined, is a common side effect, and quietly sad comments like, “I’m not special/pretty/smart/good at x” are also signs that one is suffering from Delusional “Who, Me?” The usual therapy for this condition in fiction is a hot, amazingly special guy who sees in the girl  what she does not, and makes her believe it with his tender-yet-passionate raving about her and his passionate-yet-tender kisses. (Because the only reason, and thus the only cure, for a girl’s insecurities is boys. Yeah. Rant for another day.)

Manipulative “Who, Me?” Syndrome in fiction is usually characterized by a girl knowing she’s all that and more, but acting like she doesn’t in order to get male attention from that species of guy who suffers from the feeling that if he whistles loud enough, a white horse and shining armor is going to appear. (Again, rant for another day.) No good comes to these Manipulative girls. They are the bad girls, the mean girls, who are masquerading as Delusionals, and we’re given the strong impression in a lot of fiction that they will come to no good end, while the Delusionals will recover nicely with their hot men. Now, I agree that manipulating people is bad and wrong. But why, so often, are the antagonist women in fiction the ones who know they’re hot stuff? It sends a message to the women reading fiction, and especially to young women and girls. It says, “Pay absolutely no attention to how great you are. Focus on your faults so people will like you.”

Worst fortune cookie ever.

I just started reading a romance novel, and the first time we get anything from the hero’s point of view, he spends a bit of time in a rhapsodic reverie over how gorgeous the heroine is, and then thinks, “The fact that she seemed oblivious to her own beauty only made her that much more attractive.” I wanted to scream. This is what I’m talking about. To be fair to the book, the heroine doesn’t seem to be that delusional. But that mindset in the main male character drives me up the wall. Why is that more attractive?

There needs to be more room in the world for girls to think well of themselves. I’m not talking misplaced pride, or narcissism, or anything even remotely approaching them. I’m talking about being able to look at oneself and appreciate the good things. To be able to take a compliment without it becoming the center of your universe forever. To be able to take a piece of criticism in stride, or to not let a nasty comment get to you, because you are aware of the core of yourself as a valuable, viable entity without outside confirmation.

Feeling insecure is a part of life. But it shouldn’t be a substitute for a personality in a fictional character. Nor should self-confidence. People in the real world are amalgamations, so should people in fiction be.

Phew! That wasn’t a lot at all. Tune in next time, when I talk about my fictional role models, and the ways in which having insecurities contributes to a character. (Because as a part of fiction, as with being a part of life, insecurities have their place and their uses.)