#heyer today

[classic8media]

A Normies Guide to the Alt-Right, the New Right & Their Tactics for Recruitment

OPERATION PULL OUT THE WEEDS AT THEIR ROOTS Be warned: This is for research purposes only. Some of this content may be traumatizing as it shows extremist views and explains acts of violence. Originally published on Medium on Aug. 24, 2017, as a warning to all who had ignored the warning signs before the Unite the Right Rally, which ended in the brutal killing of Heather Heyer. On Aug. 12, 2027,…

[deadpresidents]

Thanks for being real today.

I get people wanting to be hopeful.

But I can't with "it will be okay" and "we will survive this."

It was not okay for Heather Heyer, Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil & David Rosenthal, Bernice & Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger, Andre Anchondo, Jordan Anchondo, Arturo Benavides, Leonardo Campos, Angie Englisbee, Maria Flores, Raul Flores, Guillermo "Memo" Garcia, Jorge Calvillo García, Adolfo Cerros Hernández, Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, David Johnson, Luis Alfonzo Juarez, Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, Maribel (Campos) Loya, Ivan Filiberto Manzano, Elsa Mendoza Marquez, Gloria Irma Márquez, Margie Reckard, Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, Javier Rodriguez, Teresa Sanchez, Juan Velazquez, or any of the other people killed by white supremacists whose actions were aided and abetted by the Trump presidency. These people did not survive. Not to mention all the people who haven't survived COVID, but might have if the Trump administration had taken timely action. Or the women who have died after being refused appropriate medical care because of the rapist and his buddies that Trump appointed decided with some weird pastor in the 1600 said was more important than the lives of actual living, breathing, human beings. Or the school children who would not have been shot to death if we had actual gun control laws in this country, a thing that would have been possible to achieve if Trump had lost in 2016.

Yeah, sure, the majority of us in the United States will probably survive. That's how statistics work. And if that's what somebody needs to hear in order to move forward, then I guess saying such things has a purpose. But it's looking pretty shitty for anybody living in Ukraine and to me, it comes across as disrespectful to the people whose lives have been lost in no small part thanks to what goes down in US elections.

I needed somebody today who would say not only that this is not okay, but this is *really* not okay.

Thanks for being that voice.

Thank you for this. I can't help but write what I feel, even if some of it hasn't been the most optimistic message to send. There is a reality that we need to come to terms with in order to find some way forward. I'm pissed off and I'm disgusted with this country, so I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing because it is therapeutic for me right now and I'm too old to go around punching and kicking people.

I do want to say that I'm also cognizant of the fact that some people just need some time to allow this reality to settle. I certainly don't want to add to the stress or darkness that some of us are feeling right now. There is no denying that this is fucking terrible, but we will regroup and find a way through it. It won't be easy and we're going to have to fight, but I don't want anybody to think that there is genuinely no hope. There's always something that we can do, even if it seems bleak.

If I'm writing something or somebody else is saying something that you're not ready to hear, it's okay to do what you need to do to remain healthy. These posts are going to be here whenever you might feel like reading them. You can and should step away from this if you just need a fucking break. It doesn't mean you're any less ready or willing to fight this battle than anybody else. Even if Trump and the rotten MAGA cult takes control of every lever of power, you can gain a personal victory by not allowing them to completely crush your faith in the future. You can be depressed and despair, but do not give up. Do not give them that power over you. We will find a way. We will get through this. We will figure out what it is that we need to do and who we need to back and how we need to attack, but taking care of your personal health and well-being is more immediately important than the bigger political battle or the next step in the resistance. Take care of yourselves first and we'll still be here and ready to eventually harness this anger and frustration and fucking disgust to defeat the MAGA movement and Trump's Christian nationalist personality cult.

The main thing, though, is that if you're really having a tough time in the immediate future, step away, take some time, go for a walk, read something that has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump or American politics (if you need suggestions, I always have book recommendations!), and regroup. Again, we'll get through this, and as goofy and weird and ridiculous as Tumblr can be at times, there's always a community of people on this site willing to listen and help each other when we're struggling. So, if you are having trouble getting to tomorrow, reach out because there are scores of people here who will help get there with you.

[bignaz8]

Today, in 1749, Conrad Heyer was born. He crossed the Delaware with Washington and fought at Trenton. He died in 1856 at 106.

At 103, he posed for a daguerreotype portrait and is one of the earliest born humans captured on camera.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Georgette Heyer Master List

Is it just me, or has Georgette Heyer kind of... gone away? Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, she was a name I'd hear quite often. Especially in the circles of science fiction and fantasy fandom that also overlapped with the avid readership of Jane Austen or Patrick O'Brian, she was often recommended as a sort of Austen methadone. Over at Tor.com, as it was then known, fantasy author Mari Ness did a whole season of reading through Heyer's voluminous back-catalogue. These days, even as romance writing—and especially Regency romance, the subgenre that Heyer arguably created—has gained enormous mainstream visibility, and as science fiction and fantasy romance has become its own wildly successful subgenre, Heyer seems to come up less and less. One might have expected the success of Bridgerton, for example, to inspire some film or TV adaptations of her books (it was, after all, the reason the Austen fanfic series Sanditon came back from being cancelled after its first season), but so far nothing.

This might be one of those cases where the answer is contained in the question. The reason fewer people are reading Heyer is that, although she more or less created Regency romance, there are so many people writing within it now that readers looking for something like Jane Austen, but not quite, have a lot of other options on offer. Which makes it easier to notice the problems with Heyer, or simply the ways in which her style has fallen out of fashion. There is no sex in her books (and no queerness, obviously), but there are poisonous sexual mores—all her heroes have had mistresses who are, quite obviously to them and everyone around them, not the sort of woman one marries, while her heroines, even at the moment of declaring their love to their HEA, feel obliged to "resist" any physical display of affection. Her books are rife with chauvinism, antisemitism, and most of all classism (and frankly, I think the only reason racism is absent is that everyone in these books is white), and while this is arguably more realistic than a lot of starry-eyed modern Regency romances, it is also a reflection of Heyer's own prejudices.

Still, I took in all those recommendations a decade or more ago, and while I may be slow I will usually get around to reading something if a lot of people tell me I should. In the last year I've ended up reading a lot of Heyer—mostly stuff I had in my enormous TBR, or found at a used bookstore, or at the local library, so there's not a lot of intentional choice happening here. I'm not here to say that Heyer is an overlooked gem. All those problems noted above are very much present in her writing, and in addition she has some favorite tropes that she goes back to again and again—in a mere twelve books, the plot strand in which one character is kidnapped across the channel to France, while another character pursues them, going deep into the logistics of finding them and catching them up, recurs a surprising number of times. But she's nevertheless a more interesting writer than I think is commonly acknowledged today, more likely to pay attention to the psychology of her characters (and not in the modern, sometimes quite exhausting, therapy-speak way), and more interested in her setting (Heyer also wrote historical fiction, and some of her romances shade into that genre). I dipped into some of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton novels this year as well, and I have to say, beyond the fact that Heyer is just a better writer, it's a bit more palatable to encounter nasty sexual politics in novels written in the 40s and 50s, than to have to accept that the implied threat of sexual violence is but a stepping stone to true love from a writer whose books were published only twenty years ago.

Below are some thoughts on the Heyer books I've read so far. I will add to them when and as I read new ones, though I think I will continue to leave the selection of those books to happenstance.

S-Tier

Cotillion (1953) - This is the first Heyer I ever read, and to an extent it has spoiled me for the rest of her writing by being such a high water mark. Kitty Charing has been informed by her guardian that she will be forced to marry one of his nephews, and instead decides to run off to the city to find her own match, with the help of gadabout Freddy. The two end up first pretending to be engaged, and then trying to throw Kitty in the path of eligible bachelors, while inevitably falling in love themselves. This is a great book first because it's extremely funny. Heyer had a great ear for the absurd slang of the fashionable London set, and gets a lot of mileage out of Kitty's cheerful refusal to let logic or common sense stop her, and Freddy's Regency himbo antics. More importantly—and rather rarely for Heyer's writing—Kitty and Freddy are true equals. They're both a bit silly and a lot sheltered, but also able to rise to the occasion when it's required, and they lock into each other's wavelength early in the novel and never let go. Inasmuch as they change each other, it's only in revealing that they are able to pull off audacious schemes when someone they care about needs them to, and you can imagine the two of them having a long, ridiculous partnership in crime for the rest of their lives.

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle (1957) - Informed that Lord Sylvester, who has a bad reputation that is only partly earned, is about to propose marriage to her, Phoebe runs off with her best friend Tom. When the two of them run into trouble on the road, they are rescued by none other than Sylvester, which throws him and Phoebe together for extended periods, with predictable results. This format—older, powerful man; younger, sheltered woman—is one that Heyer returns to quite often, but it works better here than in any other of her novels. Sylvester isn't cruel or a rake; he's arrogant and high-handed, though often with some justification (most of his bad reputation comes from his self-absorbed, thoughtless sister-in-law). Phoebe isn't a naif, but an intelligent woman with a hidden career as an author that she's quite devoted to. The two of them develop a compelling friendship long before they fall in love, rooted in the fact that they are often the smartest person in the room, and able to help each other steer a tricky situation towards calm waters. The twist that threatens their relationship—before meeting him, Phoebe wrote a novel in which the villain was a thinly-veiled version of Sylvester—is highly original, and the novel's final act, in which Sylvester must pursue Phoebe and his kidnapped nephew into France, is one of the most hilarious sequences I've ever read. By the time the two get together, it's obvious that they could only be happy with each other.

Good

False Colors (1963) - Returning from his diplomatic post abroad, Kit Fancot discovers that his twin brother Evelyn has disappeared, right before he was about to propose to Cressida Stavely. Persuaded by his mother to impersonate his twin for one night, Kit quickly finds himself hosting Cressida and a whole raft of other characters in his country home, while trying to keep up the charade and, of course, keep from falling in love with Cressida himself. This is a book that's interesting more for the background than the main romance—Kit and Cressida are quite sweet, but more because they're a point of calm amidst the chaos of all their relatives and friends. But it's that chaos—especially Kit's mother, an airheaded inveterate gambler whom Kit nevertheless adores— that is the real source of the novel's fun. The fact that Kit and Cressida are able to put all the various crises around them to rest is what convinces you that they will be a good couple, but it's not their further adventures that you'd like to follow.

Charity Girl (1970) - While visiting relatives, Ashley Desford encounters Charity Steane, the penniless ward of a family who are mistreating her. When Ashley later finds Charity running away, he convinces her to let him try to find her a respectable situation, and places her with his childhood friend Henrietta Silverdale. In any other novel you'd expect Ashley and Charity to fall in love (and indeed this is what several characters in the novel assume—when they're not assuming something more salacious). Instead, Ashley's efforts to untangle Charity's family situation, get the best of her odious relatives, and find a safe place for her are a method of throwing him in company with Henrietta, whom he has for years insisted is only a friend. It turns out that Ashley and Henrietta, having rebelled against their families' plan to marry them off at a too-young age, have been shame-facedly pretending that they haven't fallen in love for ten years, and it's only by becoming jointly responsible for Charity that they can work their way around this predicament. The stakes aren't particularly high, but the scenario is original enough (especially for Heyer) to make this a worthwhile read.

Interesting

These Old Shades (1926) - Infamous rake Justin Alastair encounters a runaway, Léon, on the streets of Paris and takes him in as his page. It doesn't take long to realize that Léon is actually Léonie, but the untangling of her convoluted family history—a tale of swapped babies, mistaken identities, and false heirs—is the business of much of the novel, during which, of course, Justin and Léonie also fall in love. The potboiler plot is quite fun, as is Léonie herself—having pretended to be a boy for years, she is at once indifferent to the mores she's expected to adopt as a respectable young lady, and immediately won over by fancy clothes and balls, which allows her to triumph over opponents in both high and low society. But this can't quite get around the problem that Justin is twice Léonie's age, and also a pretty bad person (the character previously appeared in The Black Moth (1921), where he was the villain, and a subplot in These Old Shades even throws Justin into the company a woman he had kidnapped in the previous book). Despite the force of Léonie's argument that she actually wants to be with Justin, this is a book better enjoyed for its rollicking, adventurous middle than its romantic conclusion.

An Infamous Army (1937) - Heyer was simply mad for the Napoleonic wars, and this is one of several books she wrote set in and around them. As aristocrats and officers await the arrival of Napoleon's army in Brussels, Colonel Charles Audley encounters Lady Barbara Childe, a widow with a scandalous reputation. The two feel an instant, powerful attraction, but end up having to navigate Barbara's habit of playing games with her suitors, and Charles's impatience with them, before the battle of Waterloo erupts and forces them both to confront more pressing issues while also realizing the depth of their feelings for each other. It's nice to have a central couple who are older, more experienced people, but An Infamous Army steps away from Charles and Barbara quite often. Sometimes this is quite interesting—the absurdity of 18th century warfare, with Wellington throwing balls for the who's who gathered in Brussels while everyone debates when to flee the city—and at other points quite tedious—several subplots in which Charles's extended family play forgettable matchmaking games. In the end, however, Heyer's interest is in Waterloo itself, with the novel culminating in an 80-page, blow-by-blow description of the battle. This can sometimes be quite moving, when it captures the sheer extent of the carnage, or the confusion of individual officers. But mostly it's just descriptions of military tactics, which is not what I signed up for when I picked up a Regency romance. By the time Charles and Barbara find their way back to each other, you'll mostly be feeling exhausted rather than overjoyed.

A Civil Contract (1961) - Adam Deveril is called home from the peninsula by the news that his father, a viscount, has died, and that the family finances are in such dire straits that Adam may be forced to sell their ancestral estate. The only solution, Adam is quickly made to realize, is for him to marry rich, to which end he's introduced to Jenny Chawleigh, the daughter of a fantastically rich but boorish merchant. In most books we'd expect Adam and Jenny to fall in love, and it takes a while to realize that this is not going to happen. Adam continues to think wistfully about Julia, the woman he had been attached to before his finances made the idea of proposing to her impossible, and the narrative is at pains to point out that he doesn't feel any attraction towards Jenny. What A Civil Contract is about, instead, is class relations. The complicated push and pull between Adam and Jenny's father Jonathan as they negotiate one's social position, and the other's wealth; the delicate negotiations between Adam and Jenny as she learns to understand the importance of tradition to him, and he realizes that she is actually capable of being a great viscountess if he just trusts her a little. The whole thing is a lot more Edith Wharton than Jane Austen, with some great scenes in which Adam is torn between genuine appreciation of Jonathan's energy and intelligence, and disgust at his determination to tear down everything old and replace it with whatever is newest and most expensive. In the end, however, it's all a bit too bleak, and Heyer doesn't quite have the courage to let us sit with that. She tries to assure us that Adam and Jenny have found a genuine partner in each other, and that this, too, is a form of love, but this is not very convincing. In the hands of another author, A Civil Contract would have been the half-tragedy it actually is.

Meh

The Convenient Marriage (1934) - Intending to propose to the eldest Winwood sister, who is already in love with someone else, the Earl of Rule is persuaded, by her younger sister Horatia, to marry her instead. That's basically the story—a marriage of convenience for both parties that turns into a romance. But while in other books Heyer has made a meal of this premise, The Convenient Marriage never convinces you of either its lovers being especially suited to each other, or the rather thin obstacles it places in their path. There are some interesting worldbuilding details—some information about how the invitations to Almack's used to work, or about the mechanics and norms of duel-fighting. And towards the end, there are some good scenes in which Horatia has to outsmart a kidnapper, or her brother has to arrange a highway robbery to retrieve a stolen jewel that might destroy her reputation. But ultimately, the fact that this is all in service of a couple who aren't particularly engaging (and whose age difference—35 and 17—is hard to get over) makes the whole thing a bit of a slog.

Cousin Kate (1968) - Kate Malvern is at the end of her rope, having been chased off yet another governess position by an employer with wandering hands, when a long-lost aunt invites her to visit her country home. When Kate arrives, she soon realizes that her aunt Minerva plans to pressure her to marry her cousin Torquil, and that there are secrets in the estate and the family that are being kept from her. This is Heyer working in the Gothic mode, complete with an isolated great house, a young woman being manipulated and lied to, and a dreadful family secret. It's reasonably well done for what it is, but there were better authors than Heyer working in the Gothic mode—by 1968 you could have read something like Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree (1961) or Nine Coaches Waiting (1958), both of which do much more interesting, innovative things with the Gothic form than Heyer is even attempting. Finally, there is the fact that the dark secret being kept from Kate has to do with mental illness, whose handling is as tragic and sensationalized as you might expect from this author and era.

Yikes

Devil’s Cub (1932) - The sequel to These Old Shades, this book centers on Justin and Léonie's son Vidal, who has all of his parents' faults and none of their charms. After killing a man in a duel, he schemes to run off with a silly middle class girl, whom he of course feels no compunction about ruining. When her sister Mary takes her place, Vidal is shocked to realize that he has compromised a "respectable" woman, and tries to convince her to marry him. There are further twists, but none of them can get around the fact that the main character of this book is odious, and that the supposed love story between him and the girl he has kidnapped and ruined is highly unconvincing. Not helping matters is that an older Léonie periodically appears to explain that her son has done nothing wrong and that marrying Mary will obviously be the best thing for him, which frankly feels too much like the voice of the author for comfort.

The Spanish Bride (1940) - Based on the real experiences of Captain Harry Smith and his Spanish war bride Juana, this is another novel deeply rooted in the minutiae of the Napoleonic wars, beginning on the peninsula and culminating, of course, in Waterloo. In itself this might simply be boring, but right off the bat we get a scene in which Harry and other officers stand back while their soldiers, enraged after the bloody siege of Badajoz, murder and rape their way through the town for several days. Harry's marriage to Juana is arranged in the wake of this atrocity as a means of protecting her, despite her being only fourteen years old. The rest of the novel is spent careening between detailed descriptions of various battles, and cutesy interludes between Harry and Juana as they settle into their marriage—Harry often exasperated by Juana's stubbornness and emotional outbursts (I don't know, man; if you didn't want a wife who behaves like a child, maybe you shouldn't have married a child); Juana almost slavishly devoted to him but also prone to jealousy and anxiety. (Harry Smith left copious journals so one assumes his side of the story is fairly realistic; Juana Smith's feelings on the whole matter are, as far as I know, lost to history.) The whole thing is alternately boring and gross.

The Grand Sophy (1950) - Charles Rivenhall is informed that his family will play host to their cousin Sophy, whose diplomat father is being sent abroad. Accustomed to keeping house for her father, Sophy quickly takes over the Rivenhall household, rearranging her cousins' financial and romantic lives while a stunned Charles is at first outraged, and then won over. This is a solid premise, but the execution is appalling. Sophy is a bulldozer who interferes in people's lives not because she cares about them but because she always thinks she knows better, and eventually she comes to feel more like a bully than a savior. That Charles is attracted to these qualities might be taken as a defensive trauma response (or, in the hands of a more open-minded author, a kinky tendency), but at no point did I even begin to believe that Sophy had any romantic interest in him (there are a number of Heyer characters who would make a lot more sense if they were queer, but Sophy, in particular, is so clearly a lesbian that the very idea of her happily married to a man breaks one's brain). Adding insult to injury is a lengthy sequence in which Sophy "defeats" an odious Jewish moneylender—read, a collection of poisonous antisemitic stereotypes in human form—whom her cousin has borrowed money from and who, completely unreasonably, expects to be paid back until Sophy threatens him with a gun. I will no doubt ruffle some feather by placing this book—generally held to be one of Heyer's best—so low, but reading it nearly put me off her for life. 

[mariacallous]

Anxious to find precedents for the frightening and ultimately deadly white nationalist, “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, some media outlets have likened the images of the recent mayhem in Virginia to the chilling ones of theGerman-American Bundrally that filled Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, with 22,000 hate-spewing American Nazis.

That rally, the largest such conclave in U.S. history, shocked Americans at the time. They had seen the press accounts and newsreel footage of the Nazis’ massive Nuremburg rallies; they had read about Kristallnacht, the murderous, two-day anti-Semitic pogrom of November 1938, which the Bund — the fast-growing, American version of the German Nazi party, which trumpeted the Nazi philosophy, but with a stars-and-stripes twist — had unabashedly endorsed.

But that was in Europe. This was America. New York City. For Americans wondering whether it could happen here, the Bund rally provided the awful answer.

“22,000 Nazis Hold Rally In Garden,” blared a front-page headline in theNew York Times. Inside, photos captured the restless throng of counterprotesters outside the arena and the Bund’s smiling uniformed leaders.“We need be in no doubt as to what the Bund would do to and in this country if it had the opportunity,” the Times opined in an editorial later that week. “It would set up an American Hitler.”

Some 78 years after the Bund rally at Madison Square Garden, a new generation of hectoring troglodytes descended on Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1939, Brown Shirts at Madison Square Garden felt emboldened to seize a Jewish protester who had rushed the podium where the Bund’s German-born leader, Fritz Kuhn, was speaking, and beat him near-senseless.In 2017, members of the so-called alt-right held a torchlight rally in Charlottesville, and the next day, one of those white nationalists went even further and allegedly used his car to mow down anti-Nazi protesters, killing a young woman, Heather Heyer.

Those who have studied the Bund’s rise and fall are alarmed at the historical parallels. “When a large group of young men march through the streets of Charlottesville chanting, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ it’s only steps removed from chanting ‘death to the Jews’ in New York or anywhere else in the 1930s,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “When those young men chant ‘blood and soil,’ it conveys the same meaning as those decades before who chanted ‘blut and boden,’ referring to the Nazi glorification of and link between race and land.”

“I don’t see much of a difference, quite frankly, between the Bund and these groups, in their public presence,” said Arnie Bernstein, the author of “Swastika Nation,” a history of the German American Bund. “The Bund had its storefronts in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles — today’s groups are also hanging out in the public space, but in this case, they’re on the internet and anyone can access their ‘storefronts,’ or websites, and their philosophy, if you can call it that, is essentially the same.”

For the Bund, the unnerving 1939 Madison Square Garden rally was at once the organization’s high point and—as a result of the shock and revulsion it caused—its death knell. It’s too soon to know exactly what effect Charlottesville—which was smaller, but more violent than the Bund’s 1939 demonstration—will have on white nationalists or how the American public, which is still processing the horrific event, will ultimately respond to it.Will Charlottesville be the beginning of the end of this reborn generation of American Nazis? To foretell where we could be headed, you need to know how the Bund’s version of it all played out 78 years ago — and how this time is different.

The rise and fall of the German-American Bund in the late 1930s is essentially the story of the man behind it: Fritz Julius Kuhn.

A German-born veteran of the Bavarian infantry during World War I, Kuhn was an early devotee of Adolf Hitler who emigrated to the United States for economic reasons in 1928 and got a job as a factory worker for Ford. After a few years in the U.S., Kuhn began his political career by becoming an officer with the Friends of New Germany, a Chicago-based, nationwide pro-Nazi group founded in 1933 with the explicitblessing of German deputy führer Rudolf Hess.

At the time, imitation Nazi parties were sprouting up throughout the world, and, at least initially, Hess and Hitler hoped to use them to incorporate new areas, particularly in Europe, into the Greater Reich. But soon, FONG’s low-grade thuggery—coercing American German-language newspapers into running Nazi-sympathetic articles, infiltrating patriotic German-American organizations, and the like—became a nuisance to Berlin, which was still trying to maintain good relations with Washington. In 1935, Hess ordered all German citizens to resign from FONG, and he recalled its leaders to Germany, effectively putting the kibosh to it.

Kuhn, who had just become a U.S. citizen, saw this as his chance to create a more Americanized version of FONG, and he seized it. With his new German-American Bund, Kuhn had a vision of a homegrown Nazi Party that was more than simply a political group, it was a way of life — a “Swastika Nation,” as Bernstein calls it.

Although Kuhn dressed his vision in American phraseology and icons — he approvingly called George Washington “the first American fascist” — the Bund was, in fact, a clone of its Teutonic forebear, transposed to U.S. soil. In deference to his Berlin Kamerad, Kuhn gave himself the title of Bundesführer, the national leader. Just as Hitler had his own elite guard, the SS, Kuhn had his,the Ordnungsdienst or OD, who were charged with both protecting him and keeping order at Bund events. Although the ODwere forbidden to carry firearms, they did carry blackjacks and truncheons, which they had no compunctions about using on non-fascist heads, as they did at an April 1938 Bund meeting in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, when seven protesters were injured by members of the OD.

Like the German Nazi Party, the Bund was divided into different districts for the eastern, western and midwestern sections of the country. The Bund also had its own propaganda branch, which published a newspaper as well as the copies of “Mein Kampf,” Hitler’s testament, which all Bund members were required to buy. Kuhn also oversaw the establishment of a score of gated training and summer camps with Teutonic-sounding names like Camp Siegfried and Camp Nordland in rural areas around the northeast, where his card-carrying volk could be indoctrinated in the American Nazi way, while their dutiful fraulein polished their Germancooking skills and their brassard-wearing kinder could engage in singalongs while practicing their fraternal Seig Heils. Every so often, Kuhn would pull up in his motorcade, bless the proceedings and deliver himself of a sulfurous Hitler-style harangue — in English.

In effect, the Bund was its own ethnostate, as today’s neo-Nazis would call it. And it worked: By 1938, two years after its “rebirth,” the group had become a political force to be reckoned with. Its meetings each drew up to several thousand visitors, and its activities were closely followed by the FBI. With the anti-Semitic radio broadcaster the Rev. Charles Coughlin having faded from the national scene following FDR’s landslide second-term win, Kuhn was now the country’s most vocal and best-known ultra-right leader and anti-Semite.

It was just as the Führer would have wished. Except that the Führer didn’t wish.

One year ahead of the outbreak of World War II, Berlin still hoped for good relations with Washington. The Reich refused to give Kuhn’s organization either financial or verbal support, lest it further alienate the Roosevelt administration, which had already made clear its extreme distaste for the Nazi ideology. Berlin went so far as to forbid German nationals in the United States from joining the German American Bund.

The Führer’s brush-off didn’t deter Kuhn and his volk, who continued to sing the Reich’s praises.

Nor did they mind the Kristallnacht of November 1938, the nationwide German pogrom set off by the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew in Paris, which led to nearly 100 deaths, scores more injuries and the decimation of what remained of German-Jewish life. Comparing the assassination to the attacks on Bund meetings by anti-Nazis—the spiritual predecessors of today’s so-called antifa — its propagandists claimed the Kristallnacht massacre was a justifiable act of retribution. The Bund’s endorsement of the horrific event increased the American public’s hostility toward it, while causing the most prestigious German-American organization, the Steuben Society, to repudiate it.

That didn’t discourage Kuhn either. Now, he decided, as the sea of opprobrium rose around him, was the moment to step into the spotlight and show just how strong the Bund was.

That’s what the Madison Square Garden rally was about. On the surface, the conclave, billed as a “Mass Demonstration for True Americanism,” was supposed to honor George Washington on the occasion of his 207th birthday. But the unprecedented event was really intended to be the German-American Bund’s apotheosis, proof positive to America and the world — as well as Berlin — that the American Nazis were here to stay. “The rally was to be Kuhn’s shining moment, an elaborate pageant and vivid showcase of all he had built in three years,” Bernstein wrote in his 2013 book. “Kuhn’s dream of a Swastika Nation would be on display for the whole world, right in the heart of what the Berlin press called the ‘Semitized metropolis of New York.’”

Although the mass demonstration was intended for Bund members, walk-ins from sympathetic Nazi-minded American citizens were also welcome. Kuhn had big dreams: One of the posters that adorned the hall optimistically declared, “ONE MILLION BUND MEMBERS BY 1940.”

Skeptics wondered whether the Bundesführer would be able to fill the massive arena. Any doubts on that score were quickly allayed, as the 20,000 Nazi faithful who had driven or flown in from every corner of Swastika Nation filed into the great hall. Meanwhile, an even larger crowd of counterdemonstrators, eventually estimated at close to 100,000, filled the surrounding midtown Manhattan streets.

New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Police Commissioner Lewis Valentine were prepared for both the Nazis and their adversaries, wrapping the Garden with a security cordon of 1,700 policemen — the largest police presence in the city’s history — including a large contingent of mounted officers to keep the two sides apart. LaGuardia, an Episcopalian whose mother was a Jew, loathed the Bund, but he was determined to see to it that the Bundists’ right to freedom of speech would be respected. Americans could judge the poisonous result for themselves.

Inside the Garden, things went pretty much according to Kuhn’s faux-Nuremberg script. As drums rolled, an honor guard of young American Nazis marched in bearing the flags of the U.S. and the Bund, as well as the two fascist powers, Nazi Germany and Italy. One by one, the various officers of the Bund stepped forth to extol America (or their version of it) and condemn the “racial amalgamation” that had putatively taken place since the good old unmongrelized days of George Washington. Anti-Semitism, naturally, was a major theme of the venomous rhetoric that issued forth as the newsreel cameras rolled.

Finally, after being introduced as “the man we love for the enemies he has made,” the jackbooted Bundesführer himself stepped up to the microphone to deliver one of his trademark jeremiads, scoring the “slimy conspirators who would change this glorious republic into the inferno of a Bolshevik Paradise” and “the grip of the palsied hand of communism in our schools, our universities, our very homes.” When he paused, he would be greeted with shouts of “Free America!”—the new Bund greeting that had replaced “Seig Heil!”but with the same intonation and raised arm salute.

According to Kuhn, both the federal government and New York City government were Jewish agents. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose antipathy for Nazism was a matter of record — “Nazism is a cancer,” he said — was actually“Frank D. Rosenfeld.” “Free America!”District Attorney Thomas Dewey was “Thomas Jewey.” “Free America!”Mayor LaGuardia was “Fiorello Lumpen LaGuardia.” “Free America!” And so on.

Of course, Kuhn’s followers had heard it all before. Now it was time for the world to listen. The people would rise up, and as Kuhn’s role model, Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s minister of propagandaput it, the storm would break loose.

The storm was certainly rising, both inside and outside the Garden.

The only alteration to the script took place when, halfway through Kuhn’s speech, a young Jewish counterprotester by the name of Isadore Greenbaum decided that he couldn’t bear Kuhn’s diatribe anymore and spontaneously rushed the podium and attempted to tackle him.

He almost made it. On the newsreel footage of the rally shown in movie theaters throughout the country the following weekend, viewers could see Kuhn’s shocked visage as the Jewish kamikazeshakes the podium. Next, they saw the hapless Greenbaum set upon by a gaggle of furious OD men, who covered him with blowsbefore he was finally rescued by a squadron of New York policemen. It was all over in a moment—but it was a moment that horrified America: A bunch of Nazis beating up a Jew in the middle of Madison Square Garden.

The Bundesführer took the interruption in stride. Kuhn proceeded with his speech.

And then it was over, and the thousands of Nazi faithful dutifully exited the arena. As far as the Bund was concerned, the rally was a success — a shining moment for America’s most prominent fascist. But the rally further angered Berlin, which was then preparing to go to war with the Allies — a war Germany still desperately hoped the U.S. would steer clear of.

LaGuardia was proud of the way his city and his police force had handled the Bund’s rally. At the same time, the orgy of hatred at the Garden sealed his determination, along with that of Thomas Dewey, to take down Kuhn, and the Bund along with him, by investigating his suspicious finances (the married Kuhn liked to party and kept a number of mistresses, evidently, at the Bund’s expense).

A subsequent inquiry determined that the free-spending Kuhn had embezzled $14,000 from the organization. The Bund did not wish to have Kuhn prosecuted, because ofFührerprinzip, the principle that the leader had absolute power. Nevertheless, with the implicit blessing of the White House, Dewey decided to go ahead and prosecute.

On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to two-and-a-half to five years in jail for tax evasion. On December 11, 1941, while he was locked away in Sing Sing prison, Germany declared war on the U.S. Kuhn’s support for a government now actively hostile to America gave the federal government the pretext to revoke his citizenship, which it did on June 1, 1943. Upon Kuhn’s release from prison three weeks later, he was immediately re-arrested as a dangerous enemy agent. While Kuhn was in U.S. custody in Texas, Nazi Germany was destroyed, its quest for global domination permanently halted, and Hitler was dead. Four months after V-E Day, the U.S. deported Kuhn to war-ravaged West Germany. His dreams of a Swastika Nation had been smashed to pieces. He died in Munich in 1951, a broken man, in exile from the country he had sought to “liberate.”

To be sure, historical comparisons are, to an extent, folly. For all the similarities between the Bund’s 1939 rally and the white nationalists’ Charlottesville demonstration, there are substantial differences.

Fortunately, no one with Fritz Kuhn’s particular demagogic skill set has emerged to lead his neo-Nazi descendants, though there are those attempting to play the part. “I am worried that a Kuhn figure could marshal the disparate alt-right groups,” said Arnie Bernstein, “be it a Richard Spencer, David Duke or someone of that ilk.”

Another difference is while the Bund’s rally and the violence that spilled from it was denounced forcefully by America’s top political leaders, President Donald Trump’s half-hearted condemnation and shocking defense of the Charlottesville mob as including “very fine people” has no antecedent, at least in modern American history. “We have a president blowing dog whistles loud and clear,” said Bernstein. “You never saw that with FDR.”

The Bund’s rally was at once the group’s apex and its death rattle. But it’s only in retrospect that one can make such pronouncements; nobody yet knows exactly what Charlottesville — and Trump’s response to it — will mean for the alt-right. “The striking ambivalence coming out of the White House” could help to galvanize Nazi sympathizers, said David Harris of the American Jewish Committee.

But much as the Bund–generated images of Nazi barbarism and violence drove everyday Americans from apathy 78 years ago, “Charlottesville will also mobilize anti-Nazis to stand up and be counted,” Harris said. Much as the Madison Square Garden rally did on the eve of World War II, said Harris, “I choose to believe the net effect will be to marginalize the ‘blut and boden’ fan base.”

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'll be completely honest, I just kinda feel like the romance genre needs to accept that dubcon/noncon, whether or not you want to read it, was a big part of the genre's history.... and no amount of rerelease editing is going to make that go away.

You wrote a book; it was a long time ago; you followed conventions of the time; you maybe wouldn't now; but you were in fact writing into a genre that did raise you creatively on this element being a big part of it.

No issue with authors wanting to voice what they'd change, make edits with author's notes (and without the erasure of the original content). But pretending it didn't happen does nothing to help us, and it frankly makes it harder to treat the genre as one deserving of serious, potentially academic, analysis. If you're erasing the original work because it makes you uncomfortable, how can we discuss it honestly and analytically and contextually.

This is a very different matter in some ways, but—Eloisa James (an academic scholar who got her doctorate from Yale and taught at Fordham at one point, among other things) backed out of writing the forward to a special edition Georgette Heyer book because of the antisemitic content being removed. It erases an important part of the work, however we may dislike it. How can we DISCUSS the book if the book has been mangled and its history compromised?

"But it's less readable with the bad content", I mean, yeah. For a lot of readers, noncon and dubcon takes a book off the table. And that's so valid. And it's also true that no book can be for everyone. It Happened One Autumn is not for readers for whom dubcon and noncon is a hard stop. I so respect that. I frankly think it's a bit insulting to butcher a book like that in order to get readers who have hard limits to read something that like... famously did. Just let them pass on a book.

I mean, the reality is that for the AUTHOR, there are many reasons to make edits likke these, and again, I'm not necessarily against releasing a VERSION of your novel that better matches your perspective today... as long as that's very clearly not the only version around. For the publishers? It's money. It's making a book more palatable to a larger group of people.

But also... some people like reading dubcon and noncon. And that's okay. And they should have books with content that they like to read, too. And it's fine. There's a huge history of women reading that content specifically to process complex feelings about their experiences and their feelings about their places in the world, and also to simply have fun, and... yeah. That's valid, too.

I just have a lot of feelings about this practice, and it really does come back to a love of the genre and wanting everyone to have books that they enjoy reading (while acknowledging that literally zero books work for everyone and that's OKAY). And a RESPECT for the genre too, and a desire to make it something you can study, if you so please, like any other. I think there's a way to satisfy readers who want to just read for fun and people who want to read for fun and take the genre seriously. We just don't need to make every book cozy and without people who have flaws in order to do so.

[ticklishfiend]

A Plan Fit for an Angel (Good Omens)

(Lee! Aziraphale/Ler!Crowley) (brief lee!crowley/ler!aziraphale)

Summary : Crowley’s dignity was positively shattered being tickled by Aziraphale two weeks ago. Well, only one way to fix that: getting revenge. [see part one here! this is a sequel]

a/n : i lobe them sm

Word Count : 3626

hope u enjoy! :)

. . .

There are two types of demons: Those that like to strike as soon as they see their target, and those that plan their evil-doings methodically, thinking out every angle so they can strike their prey when they least expect it.

It might shock some to find that Crowley tends to lean more towards the latter.

It had been two weeks since Aziraphale had pestered Crowley with those god-awful jokes, relishing in his demon’s irritation. Two weeks since Crowley had been tickled into the couch cushions so Aziraphale could win an argument.

So for two weeks, Crowley has been planning.

And planning for Crowley doesn’t mean he just thought real long and hard about how he’d make his move. No, planning requires research. Lots and lots of research.

Tickling isn’t something Crowley would call a regular occurance between the two of them. Yes, it happens, has happened, but if you were to ask for something defining that they do together, tickling would be quite low on his list, if it made it there at all.

So maybe, before he strikes, he’ll need something of a…refresher.

Aziraphale stood in the bookshop’s tiny kitchen, making himself a cup of tea. Crowley stood at the doorway, wondering if his angel knew he was there.

“I know you’re there, yknow?”

Ah. So he does.

Doesn’t matter. He knows Aziraphale will continue to read through his book on the counter, waiting for his water to heat in the kettle like Crowley wasn’t even there. He was too comfortable in Crowley’s presence…making him far easier to attack.

So Crowley sauntered behind Aziraphale, miracling up a feather from his wing. He heard a page being flipped.

“Whatcha readin’?” Crowley asked, before placing the feather under Aziraphale’s shirt without having to move a finger. Real magic truly was the best thing since sliced bread (trust him, he was there when it happened, sliced bread was quite the invention for the time).

“Oh it’s a lovely book, I’ve read it many times but somehow I keep coming back to it. Georgette Heyer’s ‘The Black Moth.’ Quite a page turner; it takes place in 1751, during the—AH-!” Aziraphale flinched, his right arm gluing itself to his side.

Crowley smirked behind Aziraphale, still looking over his shoulder at the book. His finger waggled near Aziraphale’s coat, a magic tether traveling from it to the feather. “What was that, angel?”

“Er, nothing I just—well I think there may be something in my shirt. I do hope it’s not a bug,” Aziraphale said, before snapping his fingers. A feather floated down onto the pages of his book. A black feather, to be precise.

Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “I see.”

“How peculiar,” Crowley grinned. “Wonder how that got in there?” He walked right out of the room to avoid further accusations, all of which would probably be correct.

Stage one: complete.

Now onto stage two. Snake time, baby.

Crowley very rarely switched to his snake form these days. Really no need, plus any time he did he was usually beaten within an inch of discorporation by a horrified human. So no, he doesn’t typically take his snake form anymore.

But occasionally, when he’s feeling rather…well, one might use the word clingy (Crowley detests such accusations), he’ll be a snake for a few hours just for the excuse to curl up on Aziraphale’s lap while he reads.

This usually embarrasses Crowley, not exactly one open to admitting his love of cuddles and pets and head scratches. Which is why he’s especially excited about snake time today, since he’s getting to embarrass Aziraphale this time and not the other way around.

He’d taken his form around 20 minutes ago, giving himself time to adjust to the change and alert Aziraphale of his body today. When he heard, Aziraphale went and made a cozy spot for himself on the couch, beginning to read his book. It was a silent code to Crowley that Aziraphale was ready for cuddles whenever he was.

It was no surprise when Crowley slithered his way onto the couch, his now curled body finding purchase on Aziraphale’s lap. The angel got to petting, resting his book along the serpent’s scaled back. He scritched softly at Crowley’s head, running his hand down the length of his now much longer body.

Crowley almost got lost in the comfy-ness of it all when he felt Aziraphale stray too close to his underside, a sensitive area on both of his bodies. Ohohoh, the plan, yes right, I’ll get on that now.

With the sneakiness only a serpent could possess, he slowly moved his tail around until he found the area buttons can’t close up on Aziraphale’s shirt, and slithered his way in. Bingo.

He only allowed himself about an inch’s worth of entry, can’t get too confident now. He waited a few moments, listening for Aziraphale to stir or speak up. He didn’t move, though, so that’s a good sign. Now he can strike.

Crowley fluttered his tail back and forth, like a rattlesnake in slow motion. Aziraphale huffed.

“Is that you down there?” He asked, voice a little wobbly like trying to hold something back. Got ‘em.

“Is what me?” Crowley said in his tired, I’m-far-too-comfortable-to-care voice.

“It is you!” Aziraphale let out a giggle through his words, moving Crowley around in his lap to stop the incessant tickling that was still taking place on his lower belly. “Aha-! Crowley, stop!”

“I really don’t know what you mean,” Crowley yawned. “And stop moving me, m’comfortable.”

“I will not!” Finally, Aziraphale found the end of Crowley’s tail, pulling it out of his shirt and readjusting Crowley in his lap. “Now you stop that or I will be putting you off to the side.”

Crowley huffed, his body adjusting under his head in a way that almost looked like his head was laying in his arms. “Whatever. Didn’t even do it anyways. Punishing me for something I didn’t do? Now that’s just cruel.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, going back to petting Crowley while fixing his gaze back on his book.

Well, he really didn’t wanna risk ending this. Might as well enjoy it and plan for the next stage in his great scheme.

Which, as it happened, took place the very next day, snake Crowley no more.

Aziraphale sat on his favorite chair, listening to a record he recently bought at Maggie’s shop. He was the picture of content.

Crowley was bouncing on his heels ready to ruffle the angel’s feathers.

“Mmyes, some good ole’ Stravinsky. Rather liked that guy, with the whole y’know, riot debacle,” Crowley made his way around Aziraphale’s chair, leaning against its back. “Great fun that was.”

“Yes, that was a rather difficult event. I was there, you know, but I truly was only there to see the show,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley hummed, having heard the story before. He looked at Aziraphale’s ear below him, giving a puzzled look.

“What’s that in your ear?”

Aziraphale furrowed. “My ear?”

“Yes yes, there’s something in your ear.”

Aziraphale’s hand shot up to feel around his ear, “Where?”

“No you—you’re missing it, it’s nothing but a piece of fuzz, I think. Here, let me-“ He shooed Aziraphale’s hand away, before using his pointer to gently prod and scrape along the shell of his ear.

Aziraphale’s shoulder shot up. “Aha, wait, wait—there’s really no neheheed-“ He batted at Crowley’s hand, but couldn’t dissuade him.

“No seriously, I can get it if you just give me a moment-“ he wiggled the finger, and this time Aziraphale shot out of his chair with a quick giggle before turning and giving Crowley a pointed look.

“You’re messing with me,” Aziraphale straightened his coat before giving his ear a quick scratch. There was a smile small on the corner of his lips.

“Now why would I do that?”

Aziraphale shot him a look, “I’m not sure, but I know that’s what you were doing.”

Crowley walked toward Aziraphale until they were eye to eye. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, before walking out.

Stage three: complete, but Aziraphale was definitely onto him now. Time to set the real plan in motion.

Like it started, Crowley’s plan took place in the back room, wine in each of their hands as they talked and bickered and laughed with each other.

After having made Aziraphale laugh at one of his favorite stories to tell, Crowley smiled and remembered. Admittedly he had gotten a bit tipsy and nearly forgot about the whole thing until he saw his angel folding over in laughter just moments ago. Made him remember what this was all for.

He glanced over at the desk, noting Aziraphale’s current book having a very familiar bookmark peeking out of its pages. He had actually noticed this days ago, but was waiting until now to bring it up. Clever demon, he thought.

“What’s that there in your book?” He gestured lazily at it, sitting up like it was of great intrigue to him.

“Oh that’s…” Aziraphale looked at the book, like it was the first time he’d noticed it there. “Well, it’s my bookmark, of course.”

“Mmyes obviously it’s your bookmark. I meant what is it, exactly? Cause I don't know if I recognize this one.”

Aziraphale looked a bit flustered. “Erm, well it’s…it’s a feather, actually. But it works just as nicely as a bookmark.”

Crowley hummed. “Aren’t your feathers white, angel?”

Aziraphale looked without words for a moment (oh how Crowley just loved flustering his angel), before straightening his back with newfound confidence. “Well I didn’t say it was my feather, did I?”

“No, you’re right, you didn’t,” Crowley said, resting his chin in his palm as he relaxed over the arm of the sofa. Sometimes he likes letting Aziraphale think he’s won before pulling the rug out from underneath him. “Is it mine?”

Aziraphale was definitely blushing now, but he stayed on guard. “Yes, it is. You…put that blasted thing in my shirt the other day when I wasn’t looking. When it fell into my book I…well, I didn’t have a bookmark before and then I did. It’s really as simple as that.” He smiled at Crowley all clever, taking a sip from his wine.

Crowley gave Aziraphale a puzzled look. “You think I put that in there?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Well obviously. You’ve been messing with me for days.”

Crowley smirked. “Have I now?”

Aziraphale glared at him. His eyes were a bit squinted, very suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything. You’re accusing me of something I have no recollection of. I’m just asking how you think I was messing with you,” said Crowley, thinking ‘that’s right, lure him in.’

Aziraphale hesitated, like treading over thin ice. “…you’ve been teasing me, and you know it. You—you’re doing it now!”

Crowley couldn’t hold back his grin anymore. “I mean, can you blame me?” said Crowley before standing abruptly. He took a swig from the bottle, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and sat it hard against the table. “You messed with a demon angel. You never mess with a demon.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. He set himself back further into his chair, hands holding onto the arms.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ohh, don't act all innocent now. You were quite the tease a couple weeks ago, as I remember,” Crowley pointed a finger at Aziraphale, who actually started…grinning.

“You’re still worked up over that, aren’t you?” Aziraphale asked, a clever smile taking him.

“No—no, that’s not what I mean-“

“Oh I’m sure. But you can’t really deny that apparently, you’ve been thinking about this quite a lot,” Aziraphale looked as smug as ever.

Crowley was admittedly a little stuck for words at the moment. His mouth formed around rebuttals but they never made it past his throat.

He growled before rushing over and grabbing Aziraphale by the lapels.



“Maybe so—but only because I needed to plan out exactly how I was going to get you back,” Crowley growled, grip tight on Aziraphale’s coat. He liked how nervous the angel suddenly looked. “Like I said, angel. You don’t tease a demon.”

Crowley let go of him, walking back and almost pacing in thought. He waggled a finger in the air, “But I can’t do it now. No, no you’re expecting it now. I’ve gotta get you when you’re totally off your guard,” He plopped himself back down on the couch, pointedly not looking at Aziraphale.

“So…you’re not tickling me now?” Aziraphale raised a brow his way, taking a slow sip.

“No, I’m not.”

Aziraphale shrugged, placing his glass on the table. “I’d let you.”

Crowley paused. He looked at Aziraphale like the angel had grown an extra arm. “You’d let me?”

“Well, yes. I don’t actually hate being tickled. You just keep doing it when I’m in the middle of something, or I’m trying to relax,” he said, which was the last thing Crowley was expecting. “If you just asked I’d be happy to oblige.”

Crowley was near seething. He wasn’t actually mad, just utterly irritated by how nonchalant Aziraphale could be about the whole thing. Crowley was beyond embarrassed when Aziraphale tickled him the other week. How could someone not be embarrassed by it?

Crowley shook his head, “It’s the principle of the thing. You tickled me when I wasn’t ready, I’ve got to do the same back,” Crowley took a much needed swig. “S’how revenge works, angel.”

“Be my guest then. I’m happy to wait,” Aziraphale grinned, so pleased with how quickly things had turned in his favor. Sure, he was still going to get tickled eventually. But now he knows the real context.

Crowley was still so flustered over his little tickle attack the other week, that he had been meticulously planning on how to get Aziraphale back just to regain his dignity. He couldn’t deny how adorable that much effort and thought was.

Crowley grumbled, throwing his head against the back of the couch. “Grrrrbut it’s not as fun now,” he slumped. “Now you know it’s gonna happen. Shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Yes, maybe you shouldn’t have,” Aziraphale said. “Because now, once you do tickle me, I’ll have no choice but to tickle you back immediately after.”

Crowley gaped at him, actually letting out a low chuckle. “Oh really? Well that’s not fair, is it? Supposed to be tit-for-tat, don’t you think?”

“No, no I don’t think so. See, it doesn’t affect me nearly as much as it does you. That’s the fun in it.”

“It does not affect me. S’just not right for a demon to have such a weakness. Makes sense when you’re an angel, s’why you don’t give a shit.”

“I’ll have you know it’s perfectly normal for a demon to be ticklish. I tease you for it because it’s fun, but it’s not like you can help it. It’s your vessel, dear. And it’s a vessel I think you should take much more pride in than you’re giving it right now.”

Crowley just grumbled again, not really having a good response. He knows he can’t help it, but it’s still so…weird. It’s not just because he’s a ticklish demon. It’s that he’s a ticklish demon who actually finds it a little bit fun when his angel is the one tickling him. That’s the part that’s got him all screwy.

But it’s not like he could just say that.

So he stewed for a bit, thankful for Aziraphale allowing him his stew time in peace. The angel sat contentedly, sipping on his wine and basking in the lovely tension their bookshop always seemed to hold.

Crowley stewed and stewed. Pinching his lips together, sipping on the wine, reaching over and filling Aziraphale’s glass when he realized it had gone empty. But he had to say something eventually, because obviously Aziraphale wasn’t going to speak first.

And also because he kind of still wanted this to happen. Just a little.

“Fine.”

Aziraphale looked up. “Fine?”

“Yes, fine, whatever, just get over here and let me get my fffffucking revenge already.”

Aziraphale grinned, already beginning to stand. “I thought you said I couldn’t expect it when you get your revenge?”

“Oh that’s still gonna happen,” He smiled as Aziraphale sat next to him, the demon already crawling into his space.

“You do remember I’m getting you back as soon as you’re done, right?” Aziraphale said with a nervous titter in his voice, backing up towards the arm of the couch.

“Yeah I know. Guess that just means I’ve gotta make this count,” Crowley said as he fully closed in on Aziraphale, cornering him into the couch. He just hovered, for a moment, his hands floating over Aziraphale without touching him.

Aziraphale swallowed. “Well…?”

Crowley grinned. “Well, what?” He wiggled his fingers, and Aziraphale tittered anxiously.

“Are you going to…?”

“Can’t say it now?” Crowley’s eyes were devilish as he smirked. “Is someone getting nervous now that I’ve got him cornered?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, a meek attempt at confidence over the situation. His slight squirming and tight lipped smile gave him away. “No.”

“No?” Crowley asked, before jerking his hand down near Aziraphale’s side, laughing at Aziraphale’s flinch. “I haven’t even touched you!”

“But you’re going to!” Aziraphale practically whined, a ghost of a giggle lacing his voice. “Just get on with it, I’m not sure I can take this.”

Crowley smiled genuinely. “Oh alright. But just because it’s you.”

Finally, after waiting oh so patiently for this moment the past two weeks, Crowley struck. He went straight for Aziraphale’s sides, thankfully unguarded since the angel had taken his vest off hours ago. Aziraphale yipped, trying to hold in his laughs for a brief moment before falling into those angelic cackles Crowley could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“AH! Ahaha—Crohowley!” he laughed, sliding down unconsciously and only stretching his body out more for Crowley. “Wahahait!”

“Oh no, I’ve done plenty of waiting recently,” Crowley said, delivering sporadic pokes up and down Aziraphale’s torso, the angel’s cackles shooting up as he did so. “See, s’not so fun when it’s you getting tickled, huh?”

“It’s fuhuhun! Just—“ he was cut off by his own loud laughter as Crowley shot his hands into his armpits. Arms slammed against his sides, twisting and turning every which way because it was just too much. “—tihihickles!”

Crowley chuckled, ecstatic. “Bet it does,” he said, pulling one hand out from its trapped state in Aziraphale’s underarm to reach up and give his ear gentle scratches. Aziraphale squeaked, a hand shooting up to protect the ear. Seeing the opportunity, Crowley shot his hand right back under his arm, and Aziraphale shook his head through his laughter and shock.

“Nohot fahahair!” Aziraphale blushed, unsure of what to do with his hands. He opted to batting them around uselessly.

“You’re playing with a demon, angel, what did you expect?” Crowley said, before taking both hands out to squeeze, pinch, poke, prod and scribble all over Aziraphale’s tummy.

Aziraphale’s laughter was all over the place now. It was like he couldn’t decide whether to give deep, belly laughs or squeals and giggles fit for his angelic persona. The tips of Crowley’s ears grew warm at the sound.

“This is hysterical, by the way,” Crowley laughed, pinching Aziraphale’s hips and watching as he barked a laugh, twisting and gripping onto Crowley’s wrists. “I mean I knew you were ticklish, but this is priceless.”

“You’ve made your point!” Aziraphale giggled out helplessly. “I gehehet it! It’s bahahad! It’s sohoho baahahad—!” He fell into a giggle fit that made it impossible to hold a conversation, wheezing pitifully.

“I could keep going, yknow. Show you actual demonic torture,” Crowley grinned when Aziraphale shook his head, cheeks plump and pink from mirth. “Say you’re sorry and I’ll consider it.”

Aziraphale slapped Crowley’s arm playfully. Crowley poked softly but quickly over Aziraphale’s torso, easing up on the tickling just enough for him to get some words out. Aziraphale panted a bit, giggles lacing every breath.

“Okay okhahay! I’m sohohorry!” Aziraphale giggle, pushing Crowley’s hands away from him. Crowley let his hands be moved for just a moment, before giving one last quick squeeze to Aziraphale’s hips just to make him yip.

Crowley smiled down at his angel, watching him catch his breath and try to will away that blush from his cheeks. Aziraphale looked up at Crowley with a pointed expression, “Wily serpent.”

Crowley laughed, “You asked me to!”

“I did not ask you to. You obviously wanted to do it so I…obliged,” Aziraphale shrugged, the lie plain as day on his face. Crowley couldn’t help but snicker.

“Yes, of course. Obliging the temptation of a demon really is your forte, after all,” Crowley teased, laying his front down on Aziraphale’s, making himself comfy. “Had your fun?”

Aziraphale sighed through a smile, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Crowley’s back. “Well…not quite.”

Crowley’s face puzzled before feeling Aziraphale’s grip tighten around his torso. His snake eyes grew twice their size, “C’mon angel, play fair.”

“This is fair. I told you what I’d do if you tickled me,” Aziraphale kissed Crowley’s forehead, not giving him a moment to think about that shit before digging his fingers into the backs of Crowley’s ribs.

“FuhuAHK-!” Crowley jolted, falling into helpless laughter on top of his angel. He squirmed and giggled and held onto Aziraphale’s body even tighter just so he could resist throwing himself off.

“‘Demonic cackle’ my behind,” Aziraphale teased. “You’re far too sweet for that, my dear.”

Crowley blushed, hiding that and his smile in Aziraphale’s neck, not missing the way the angel giggled whenever his nose brushed the skin.

The plan ended up being much more than successful. It was everything Crowley could’ve ever hoped for.

. . .

a/n : hope u enjoyed! consider reblogging if u liked it <3

[maudlintrash]

nine people you want to know better

how lovely to be tagged by @bonolewis !!

last song: THIS COULD NOT BE MORE EMBARRASSING BUT I JUST OPENED MY SPOTIFY AND THE LAST THING I WAS LISTENING TO WAS MAIN ATTRACTION BY JEREMY RENNER 😭😭😭😭😭

currently watching: murder she wrote!! I'm well into season 8 and when i finish it i'm going back around to the beginning...

currently reading: I just finished reading Venetia by Georgette Heyer today so I'm counting that (it was delightful. i am having Emotions about it), and I'm about to start The Unknown Ajax by... you guessed it! Georgette Heyer!

latest obsession: Iiiiiiiiiiiii can't stop sewing and thinking about sewing. other than f1 my current obsession is planning for and making costumes for carnevale next year!

I think a lot of people have done this already but I'll go the route of tagging some pals and some strangers! @toffee-and-tandoori @sssneakiest @ecoustsaintmein @its-always-silly-season @dandojpg @mcl4r3n @baku2017 @heck @gokartkid

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 25, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 26, 2023

Exactly four years after he announced he would challenge then-president Donald Trump for the leadership of the United States, President Joe Biden today announced his reelection campaign, along with running mate Vice President Kamala Harris. The contrast between the 2019 announcement video and the one released today shows how both the country and Biden have changed over the past four years. The earlier video featured former vice president and presidential hopeful Biden alone. It began by focusing on Charlottesville, Virginia, and the promise of the Declaration of Independence, written by Charlottesville’s famous resident Thomas Jefferson, that all men are created equal. Biden claimed that while we haven’t always lived up to those ideas, we have never walked away from them. They are the foundation of who we are. In the video, Biden contrasted the ideals in the Declaration of Independence with the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where Klansmen, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis came out into the open and were met by “a courageous group of Americans.” The resulting clash took the life of counterdemonstrator Heather Heyer. Trump answered the horror over the riot by saying there were “some very fine people on both sides.” “With those words,” Biden said, “the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment,” he continued, “I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had seen in my lifetime.” We were in “a battle for the soul of this nation.” He urged us to remember who we are. Biden’s 2019 campaign video was a rallying cry to defend American values from those who were trying to destroy them. Now, four years later, after winning the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes and working with Democrats and some Republicans to pass a raft of legislation to shore up the position of working- and middle-class Americans that rivals that of the New Deal, Biden’s message is different. Like the previous video, today’s message begins with footage of an attack on the United States, but this time it is the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn our democracy and keep voters from putting Biden into the White House. But Biden is not the centerpiece of this video; the American people are. The video is a montage of Americans from all races and all walks of life, interspersed with images of President Biden, Vice President Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff talking to people, laughing with them, hugging them, supporting them. It is a picture of community. Over the image, Biden says that fighting for democracy has been the work of his first term. “This shouldn’t be a red or blue issue,” he says. He has fought “to protect our rights, to make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally, and that everyone is given a fair shot at making it.” In contrast, the video says, MAGA extremists are threatening our “bedrock freedoms.” They have taken aim at Social Security while cutting taxes on the rich, dictated healthcare decisions for women, banned books, and attacked gay marriage, all while undermining voting rights. We are still in a battle for the soul of the nation, Biden says. The question is whether in the years ahead, “we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.” The video switches to upbeat music and faster energy as Biden says, “I know America. I know we’re good and decent people. I know we’re still a country that believes in honesty and respect, and treating each other with dignity. That we’re a nation where we give hate no safe harbor. We believe that everyone is equal, that everyone should be given a fair shot to succeed in this country.” “Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they have to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote, and our civil rights. And this is our moment,” Biden says, as the music changes and the video shows images of Americans coming together, laughing and working together. “We the people will not be silenced,” Biden says. “Let’s finish this job; I know we can,” the video ends. “Because this is the United States of America. And there’s nothing, simply nothing, we cannot do if we do it together.” “Let’s finish the job,” says writing across the screen. It is a revealing moment. If Biden announced a presidential run in 2019 to recall the United States to its principles, he is running in 2023 on an extraordinary record of legislation and the idea that he has restored competence to Washington. And unlike Republicans eager for their party’s nomination, he appears to revel in highlighting the people around him rather than hogging the spotlight, while he touts the work the government has done for ordinary Americans. Politico’s Eli Stokols observed that some major media outlets treated the president’s announcement as a less important story than a new revelation that yet another right-wing Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, didn’t disclose that he sold real estate to a wealthy man with business before the Supreme Court, or information coming out about the ongoing lawsuits against the former president. Stokols suggested the Biden campaign was quite happy to let the Republicans tear themselves apart in public while the president stays in the background, permitting Americans to forget the federal government is there—as they were able to in the past—because it is operating competently and without drama. As if to honor that theme, Biden announced that Julie Chávez Rodríguez will serve as his campaign manager. The former director of the White House office of intergovernmental affairs, focused on working with state, local, and tribal officials, she has been described by a colleague as “a get-sh*t-done staffer.” Rodríguez is the granddaughter of union activist César Chávez. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who had left open the possibility that he would run as a progressive candidate, promptly threw his weight behind Biden and announced that he would support the incumbent president, suggesting the Democrats are unified behind Biden's reelection. The Republican National Committee responded to Biden’s announcement with an entirely computer generated video warning of what the world would look like if Biden were to be reelected: a dystopian future full of international and domestic crises (including an economic crash, which promptly led Twitter users to speculate that House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s threat to force a crisis over the debt ceiling was part of a larger plot to destroy Biden’s booming economy before the election). In keeping with the party's construction of false narratives, the “news reports” in the ad are fake; the images are computer generated. MSNBC’s Steve Benen notes that the ad “accidentally makes an important point.” Unable to find anything horrific about Biden’s actual record, “the RNC found it necessary to peddle literally fake, made-up images referring to events that have not occurred.” Bloomberg columnist Matt Yglesias tweeted: I feel like if you have to use fake [images] of hypothetical future bad things that might happen if the *incumbent president* stays in office, that itself tells you something.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[fantasyfantasygames]

Angria and Gondal

The Tale of Angria and Gondal in the Glass Town Confederacy, Exhumation Games, republished in 2004

Dungeons and Dragons is the first widely published tabletop roleplaying game... but not the first one written, nor even the first one to be distributed. So far as game historians can tell, that honor goes to The Tale, the name of a game invented and played by the Brontë sisters: Emily, Anne, Charlotte and Branwell. The game started development in or around 1826, and revolved around the fictional locales of Angria and Gondal and their inhabitants. From the Brontés' Blackwoods Young Men's Magazine (edited by "The Genius") to Far Beyond This Place, the play-by-mail game between Virginia Woolf, Sylvie Underwood, and Georgette Heyer, there was what we might now think of as a thriving underground RPG scene for nearly a hundred years.

Exhumation Games is a wife-and-wife team dedicated to the unearthing and reproduction of these earliest of game 'zines. They scan originals, track down rare reproductions, create PDFs, and place them on the Internet Archive. You can also find the two of them at conventions, selling them in booklet form at what must be very little profit if any.

The rules of The Tale are written in what we might now think of as a "Miss Manners" or FAQ kind of way. Things are a lot closer to online forum roleplaying than, say, Fate or Apocalypse World, but there are some distinguishing features that mark them as roleplaying games rather than freeform shared storytelling. Some of the rules from the Second Volume (edition) include things like:

When Telling The Tale, begin and end with a pinkie promise, so that all may know when this act has started and ended.

Good and kind Tale-Tellers do not make one another cry or shout.

When Writing The Tale, what is written cannot be unwritten, save by the agreement of all players that an error has occurred. Write with forethought.

Do not send a letter until you have received one, except to report an unexpected turn of events, after which, wait to receive two. Out-of-character missives may be sent at any time.

One cannot demand that another's character follow the events given them by history.

Mock not the words of the Genius!

The Genius shall adjudicate the greatest and most momentous of events by a means agreeable to all, or, should but one author disagree, then agreeable to all save one.

Quoits shall not be used as a method for adjudication.

Anything not described in the rules is entirely fair game. The examples of play included in The Tale show the players inventing unexpected twists, recovering memories from amnesiac characters, and even revealing that a character has returned from the dead! Players have a fair amount of authority over the world, and are expected to contribute to it.

The Genius, their GM equivalent, mostly handles disputes and compiles the new versions of the rules. Sometimes the resolution mechanics involved the skill of the players, sometimes the perceived or established skill of the characters, and sometimes pure a flip of a coin or toss of a die.

Early on, characters were described and established more or less at the whims of the sisters. As things went on, things became more formalized, so that by the 4th Official Revision each character was expected to have a biography of "not less than 75 words nor more than 150" that described their past and personality, in which key phrases were underlined in a manner very similar to HeroQuest. I really appreciate Exhumation Games publishing multiple editions of the game - it's fascinating to see how it evolved over time.

The art is entirely pen sketches, mostly of men, sometimes women, with the occasional map. The maps are sometimes even painted in with watercolors.

All in all, The Tale is a fantastic piece of RPG history. I'll see if I can review some of the later games in its lineage some day. Some games from the early days of modern RPGs don't really hold up today, but The Tale's later editions could still be played and enjoyed 200 years after they were written.

[leftistfeminista]

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supported Antifa in its battle against Trump and the Alt-Right, including the antisemitism of the Alt-Right, which MAGA Zionists willfully ally with out of their hatred of Palestine.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourns the martyr Heather Heyer and wishes speedy healing to the wounded anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in the United States as they confronted a racist, fascist rally on Saturday, August 12. The martyr and the wounded are part of the global list of those who have fallen in the struggles of all peoples to confront racist powers and they will always be remembered as such.

Contrary to the assertions of some corporate media in the United States, the fascist rally in Virginia in “defense” of a Confederate statue is not a divergence from U.S. ruling politics but a reflection of them. The United States has always been built on the genocide of Indigenous people and the theft of Indigenous land, the genocidal confiscation of Black lives and Black labor and the globally murderous power of capitalism and imperialism.

Whether in Palestine or in Virginia, it is right to resist racist terror, including and especially that of the state. The far right in Europe, the United States and the Zionist movement share information, resources and propaganda against Black, Arab and other movements, peoples and communities (even while the far-right spouts anti-Jewish slogans alongside its anti-Black and anti-Arab hatred on American and European streets) – and the racist state powers and police authorities in the United States and the Israeli occupation are linked together with aid, resources and the common goals of Zionism and imperialism. We must also be united to fight racism, Zionism, capitalism and imperialism in all of our diverse, connected struggles for justice and liberation.

Zionist organizations and movements within the United States have been engaged in long-lasting alliances with fellow right-wing and racist forces around the world. While some are attempting to position themselves after Charlottesville as opponents of racism, these organizations are in fact defenders and proponents of racist oppression, not only in Palestine but in the United States and elsewhere where they have pushed for profiling and repression of Arab, Muslim, Black and other community organizing and even engaged in direct spying and surveillance on a range of anti-racist forces. Just as Israel traded arms and support with apartheid South Africa, the Zionist movement today is deeply engaged with other racist forces as has been vividly displayed on the streets in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Germany and elsewhere.

[stellarhangout]

6 years ago today, a fascist murdered Heather Heyer, and the constitutional right to protest is still under attack. We have the right to petition the government, but they refuse to listen to us.

FYI this isn't anything new. In 1970, the Ohio National Guard killed 4 and injured 9 unarmed college students. What was their egregious crime? Peacefully protesting the Vietnam War. This is why we always have to have solidarity and stand up for ourselves. They'll keep oppressing us no matter how the protest goes; we have to always fight back against this.

The first step is voting. Vote in every single election to insure the Republicans don't gain power anywhere. Yes, even random local elections in blue states. They will seize whatever opportunity, including a school board in California which just voted to endanger transgender students. (And no, if you're European, you aren't immune either. You have to vote and protest against fascist parties like AfD and Vox — it's a worldwide phenomenon.)

When voting isn't enough, we protest. And never back down, no matter how hard they try. Antifa protestors is how Mussolini was taken down from the inside.

We cannot let the fascists win.

[darlingofdots]

That comment seems kind of reductive about both fanfiction and popular romance, in my opinion. Fanfic and romance are really close cousins, and people who study them academically often use resources and theory from both fields (including me!) because the overlap is that big. @ibex-ascendant is absolutely correct and I (and many romance scholars) would even argue that Regency Romance as it exists today is a form of fanfiction that evolved from Georgette Heyer's romances in the 1920s and Jane Austen, and it functions basically the same as, like, soulmate AUs or omegaverse: there's no official manual that tells you how to play in this space and every author will do something slightly different with it, but through the process of lots of people reading and writing stories inspired by each other, we have established a general understanding and expectation of what to expect when we see a fic or pic up a book with this tag. A lot of romance is also just kind of fanfiction, anyway, considering how much of it is retellings/re-imaginings of pre-existing stories like fairytales or mythology. For some really meta shit, check out Maya Rodale's "Keeping Up With The Cavendishes" series--they're all Regency Romance adaptations of classic romcoms, including one that's a Regency adaptation of Bridget Jones' Diary, which is a modern adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, which is basically the blueprint for all of Regency Romance.

When I pick up a new Regency Romance, which is the subgenre I'm most familiar with so I'll keep using it as an example, I'm not expecting and don't really want an in-depth explanation of how the ton works and why the protagonists can't be caught alone together. I already know! I want to get to the fun bits, I want to see how this author writes certain tropes (which are often the exact same as in fanfiction! Seriously, if you read a lot of fanfic, I can almost guarantee that there is a romance author out there who writes the exact stuff you're into. Yes, even if you're into gay stuff. Romance really isn't just white cishets, people just don't bother looking past their own preconceived notions about this genre. But I digress.) or explores certain dynamics. Romance novels have a specific structure--not necessarily a formula! Think of it like a hero's journey but for two people falling in love--that a lot of shippy fanfiction also follows, because humans like stories to work a certain way and we've figured out that this is how we enjoy our love stories with happy endings. Look up Pamela Regis' Natural History of the Romance Novel or, for more of a writing advice perspective, Gwen Hayes' Romancing the Beat. Obviously there is a lot of variation in how that structure plays out and different authors can be good or bad at it, but to say that 'fanfic has different story beats than traditional fiction' is just a really inaccurate statement, unless you don't consider romance novels to be traditional fiction, in which case you should work on your biases.

I'd also argue that there is like, absolutely nothing wrong with fanfic-turned-published-romance. I kind of love picking up a book and reading the summary and going 'oh this used to be fanfiction' but usually that's because I have a pretty decent awareness of fanfiction and can usually figure out what pairing it used to be, but your average non-fanfic reader probably won't even notice. Yes, a lot of the time fanfiction only works as fanfiction because the character dynamics etc. are so specific to the source material that you can't really file off the serial numbers without destroying the whole thing, but the kind of fic that gets published usually is already an AU! A good writer, working with a good editor, can absolutely turn a decent fanfiction into a decent published romance novel.

I'd argue that the issue with fanfic-turned-published-romance has nothing to do with either of those forms or genres. There's probably way more of those around than anyone realises. But the ones you hear about are the outliers that have a lot of hype around them and like, I'm sorry to say this, but those aren't necessarily going to be the ones that are good, you know? You see this in fandom too, the most popular fics are not necessarily the ones with the highest quality of writing or the most complex and meaningful themes, the most popular fics are the ones that appeal to the broadest audience. That's just how it works, in any form of entertainment. So if you have specific tastes or high standards for what you want in a book, yeah sure you probably won't enjoy the One Direction fanfiction that was such a massive hit on WattPad that it got a publishing deal. Publishing deals don't go to the best, most nuanced, richest texts out there, they go to stories that people in charge of making money think will make them the most money. Simple as that. The company paying to print that One Direction WattPad novel is going to put in the absolute minimum amount of effort to make sure they're not going to get sued and then they are going to print it and enjoy the payoff. At the same time I guarantee you that there are a lot of fanfiction writers out there who look at the 80,000 word AU they're crafting and realise, huh, this is pretty good, and then they put in a bunch of effort on their own and shop it around as if it were any other manuscript and if they're lucky they'll get a publishing deal, and I might pick it up and go 'oh lol this used to be fanfic' and then I'll read it and have a good time because they're a talented writer of romance stories, which is what fanfiction often is.

TL;DR: stop making sweeping statements about entire genres based on non-representative samples especially if you don't know enough about those genres to back up your argument.

this comment on that vulture article about the "fanfic-to-romance novel pipeline" is very interesting and not something i've seen articulated...much to think about...

[micheleksdare]

Stand or Fall – Charlottesville, Virginia 2017

It was seven years ago today when young political activist Heather Heyer was killed when she was run down at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was killed at a rally that had started the night before by torch-wielding Neo-Nazis waving torches and yelling such awful shit like, “They will not replace us.” This saying is from white supremacist neo-Nazis who say that the…

[wausaupilot]

Today in History: Today is Monday, Aug. 12, the 225th day of 2024.

On this date: In 1965, Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc applies for a NL franchise.

By The Associated Press Today in history: On Aug. 12, 2017, a driver sped into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in the Virginia college town of Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others. (The attacker, James Alex Fields, was sentenced to life in prison on 29 federal hate crime charges, and life plus 419 years on…

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

I remember reading Georgette Heyer in high school and loving all of the books that my father passed on to me. I am not sure if I liked them because he suggested them or if it was because they swept me into romance and all I could think about then was boys, kissing them, and one day getting married. Since I had such fond memories of books by this author, I was eager to revisit this book. Once again, I found that a book I once loved was not as fun to read today.

I am not sure if my disenchantment had to do with the changes in writing style over the past half century+ since I read this book or if it was something else. I felt the book was not in tune with the era it was written about and it did not resonate with me – I had trouble getting into the story, didn’t find myself caring about any of the characters, or what was happening in their lives. I seemed more worried about the monkey, dog and parrot than the people and that gave me pause. I opted to skim a bit but not read it cover to cover because I decided that I would prefer to return to my memories of reading it long ago and how I felt then rather than read and not enjoy the story this time around. It may be a classic and worth reading but not worth reading right now for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca for the ARC – This is my honest review.

2-3 Stars

BLURB

"The Grand Sophy is my absolute favorite Georgette Heyer! Sophy is witty, charming, and an unforgettable heroine." --New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James Georgette Heyer is known as the "Queen of Regency Romance." When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy to sweep in and immediately take the world by storm. Sophy discovers that her aunt's family is in desperate need of her talent for setting everything right: Cecelia is in love with a poet, Charles has tyrannical tendencies that are being aggravated by his grim fiancee, her uncle is of no use at all, and the younger children are in desperate need of some fun and freedom. By the time she's done, Sophy has commandeered Charles's horses, his household, and maybe even his heart. The Georgette Heyer Signature Collection is a fresh celebration of an author who has charmed tens of millions of readers with her delightful sense of humor and unique take on Regency romance. Includes fun and fascinating bonus content--a glossary of Regency slang, a Reading Group Guide, and an Afterword by official biographer Jennifer Kloester sharing insights into what Georgette herself thought of The Grand Sophy and what was going on in her life as she was writing.