Your Special Advocate
"Your Special Advocate" introduces Ezra Gaskell who chairs the Dunwich Committee on Student Safety. There are a couple of things I tried to do with this story. Other writers portray the weirdness of Miskatonic University as either overt or covert. I prefer covert and so tried to filter that through my own experiences at the day job working with student safety where parents tend to panic over everything. I also wanted my story to be thoroughly modern and not read like a Lovecraft pastiche—my main character’s best resource is his smart phone and he’s never met an antiquarian. And lastly, my worldview runs counter to Lovecraft’s in pretty much every way. I wanted to make sure my story reflected that (hence the Dunwich connection)—
“Listen,” he said. “Right now, you feel the entire universe is against you.”
“That’s exactly how it feels,” she said. “It really, really does. Like the universe wants to squish me.”
“Maybe the universe is against you.” He shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think that’s how the universe works—that idea always seemed both egocentric and narcissistic to me—but who knows? What I do know is that I’m not against you. I’ve got your back.”
