#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.

[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

[kestrellady]

Book Riot's 2023 Read Harder Challenge

Challenge Link

COMPLETE 24/24

My 5th year working on this "get out of your comfort zone" reading challenge.

Full list below the cut.

1. Read a novel about a trans character written by a trans author. Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee I loved the world building in this book and the realities of living in a horrible situation such that you can't always think about how horrible the situation is. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, but I can't tell if that was on purpose or a set up for a second book.

2. Read one of your favorite author’s favorite books. Frederica by Georgette Heyer I saw someone say that Naomi Novik mentioned this as a favorite and I can see why! It's clever and hilarious in the best Georgette Heyer way. The last chunk had me in stitches!

3. Read a book about activism. Between the World an Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates This is a very personal book, told as a series of letters from the author to his son, about growing up Black and the generational differences he sees between his and his son's generation, about what he's learned about the world, and what he's had to un-learn to love his son better.

4. Read a book that’s been challenged recently in your school district/library OR read one of the most-challenged/banned books of the year by a queer and/or BIPOC author. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi This book definitely deserves all the hype. It's very readable and the way it's organized, paralleling the author's own life and journey, makes it very accessible and relatively nonthreatening. I think a lot of people who've bought into the panic would be very surprised by the actual content.

5. Read a completed webcomic. Crumbs by Danie Stirling This was a super cute graphic novel about figuring out what you want from life and learning to tell the difference between what you want for yourself and what the people around you want for you.

6. Finish a book you’ve DNFed (did not finish). Wild Women and the Blues by Denny S. Bryce I dnf'd this book at about 25% a couple years ago, mainly because I just couldn't get into it. This still isn't quite my thing, but I did feel like it got more interesting as it went along and there was a neat twist at the end.

7. Listen to an audiobook performed by a person of color of a book written by an author of color. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, narrated by Lisa Reneé Pitts This includes the statement from the Combahee River Collective, as well as some interviews with the founders and others reflecting on the Collective and it's impact today. The narrator did a great job reflecting each interviewee's voice.

8. Read a graphic novel/comic/manga if you haven’t before; or read one that is a different genre than you normally read. The Sandman Vol. 1 by Neil Gaiman I read lots of manga and I've been getting into comics, but this was my first foray into DC. The volume I read had the first three Sandman arcs and I definitely want to keep reading, though I might not watch the Netflix series.

9. Read an independently published book by a BIPOC author. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer This is an incredibly beautiful book of essays looking at nature through both the scientific and indigenous lenses and finding the places they overlap and complement and how listening to nature can help us move to a better future.

10. Read a book you know nothing about based solely on the cover. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected on Water by Zen Cho This was a short read about a group of bandits contractors trying to deliver some religious relics to a prospective buyer... and dealing with the nun they accidentally picked up on the way. The world building is lush and evocative and I really enjoyed it!

11. Read a cookbook cover to cover. The Sad Bastard Cookbook by Rachel A. Rosen, Zilla Novikov with Marten Norr (Illustrator) This is a fantastic (and funny!) little cookbook of meals you can make from stuff in your cabinets when you have no energy to cook. I'm already looking forward to adding some of these to my cooking rotation. And it's available online for free!

12. Read a nonfiction book about BIPOC and/or queer history. The 1619 Project created and edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones This is the book form of the New York Times Sunday edition from 2019 that commemorated the first arrival of enslaved people in the British American colonies, expanded and updated/revised. It was a good balance between longer essays that take you step by step through American history with shorter essays that focus in tighter on particular moments and topics. A must read to really understand why the US is the way it is.

13. Read an author local to you. The Eye of the Mammoth: Selected Essays, by Stephen Harrigan I actually got to meet Harrigan when he came to one of my undergrad classes and he talked about one of the essays included in this collection. This collection spans 30+ years of his writings, with many of the essays focusing on Texas and nature. I think I would have like to see a year for each essay, since it was sometimes difficult to pin down when he was writing.

14. Read a book with under 500 Goodreads ratings. The Holver Alley Crew by Marshall Ryan Maresca This is the first book in the third of the set of interconnected Maradaine series. It took a little longer for me to get into than the other books, probably because the cast is a lot bigger, but was still a fun read.

15. Read a historical fiction book set in an Eastern country. The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki A family trying to marry off the two youngest sisters in 1930s Japan. Largely slice of life, but with a fairly abrupt, slightly odd ending. (Also, I don't really like this prompt. What's "Eastern country" supposed to be? If you mean Asian, say Asian.)

16. Read a romance with bisexual representation. A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (The Last Binding #2) This was such a fun murder mystery on a cruise ship with magic. I loved the first book and was looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint!

17. Read a YA book by an Indigenous author. Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith A spooky mystery with a great twist at the end. I really liked all the references and homages to other works, mostly horror, but also Rain is Not My Indian Name, which I loved as a kid and didn't realize was by the same author.

18. Read a comic or graphic novel that features disability representation. Monstress, Vol. 7: Devourer by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda This is a fantastic dark epic fantasy series. It's got gods and monsters and politics and a disabled main character doing her best to save the world rather than destroy it.

19. Read a nonfiction book about intersectional feminism. Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks A short, easy to read primer on the history, goals, and struggles of the feminist movement. bell hooks is one of the must read authors for anyone interested in the subject.

20. Read a book of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author. An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo I really enjoyed this collection by an American Poet Laureate. These poems were interspersed with memories and histories of Harjo's Mvskoke people and often in conversation with other works.

21. Read a book of short stories. The Moon Over the Mountain and Other Stories by Atsushi Nakajima, Translated by Paul McCarthy and Nobuko Ochner A book of historical Chinese stories written by a Japanese author. Some of these I really enjoyed and some kind of meandered. I was glad I'd read an abridged Journey to the West and had that context.

22. Read any book from the Ignyte awards shortlist/longlist/winner list. Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard Short fantasy novelette about a spare princess trying to figure out her place at court after being returned from being a child hostage. The setting was really neat and I would have loved getting more of the politics of the world.

23. Read a social horror, mystery, or thriller novel. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff This is a novel made up of short stories with an overarching plot. It was so good! I think I'm missing a lot of the references, since I've never done a lot of classic sci-fi or horror, but it was still really good. Each short story focuses on a different character, so it was interesting to see all the different backstories and outlooks.

24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat! A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa I read this one for my reading around the world challenge, but I'm repurposing it here for the 2015 Read Harder prompt #19, a book originally written in another language.

[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

[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.

[flickerofembers]

A few more points as to why Bridgerton is a fantasy show with the aesthetics of the regency era rather than a show based in that time period, and why it actually makes MORE SENSE for them to be so:

1) Georgette Heyer. Many people have made this point before me, but I’ll make it again anyways because I haven’t seen it mentioned on tumblr. Georgette Heyer is the author credited with establishing not only Regency Romance as a genre, but historical fiction in general. Like how Dune can be pointed to as the origin of many sci fi tropes, Heyer's works are the origin for what we see as the Regency era in our modern pop culture - not works from the actual era itself. This includes Jane Austen, who often wouldn't mention specifics of the Regency Era that we would now as she was a contemporary writer who saw all of it as normal, thus unnecessary to comment on.

Heyer put in a LOT of effort to make her novels as historically accurate as possible, but she was working off of what the mid-1900s saw as historically accurate, which is quite different from what we know today. They had a habit of placing their own morals back onto the past and didn't have access to as many sources. The Victorians were worse with history than this, but can be used as a similar example. In the Tudor house I work in, only 50% is original, as the other 50% was changed by the Victorians to reflect what they saw as history. I repeat: they found historical evidence (the house) that didn't fit with their version of history and instead of thinking that maybe they were wrong, they changed the evidence to fit their narrative! This is the type of history Heyer would be working with, and while she took steps to try and be as accurate as possible, the Regency Era depicted in her novels is undeniably wrong. So the Regency Era that all media in the genre is based on due to cultural bias, whether purposefully or not, can be seen as fictional and historically inaccurate.

2) A much shorter point: Queen Charlotte. It has already been pointed out that Queen Charlotte being black is not true to history, but it's also interesting to note that Charlotte died in 1818. Season 3 of Brigerton is set in 1815, so if we want to be historically accurate, in 3 seasons time (assuming each season continues to be set a year after the last) Charlotte will die, or she will at least die in between seasons 6 and 7. Queen Charlotte is one of Bridgerton's main sources of conflict and removing her would make life more difficult for the writers trying to create B and C plots not present in the novels. Also killing her off would leave dangerously few main characters of colour for a show based on the idea that not all the nobility in the Regency Era were white. I highly doubt they would do this if the show manages to last for this many seasons, thus making the need for the show to become historically inaccurate just for plot purposes.

People can complain all they like about films and TV shows that seem to be trying to put on a front of historical accuracy, but Bridgerton clearly isn't one of them, nor should it be.

TL;DR everything in the regency romance genre is technically historically inaccurate due to cultural bias, and making Bridgerton true to history would make the plot worse. So people should STOP COMPLAINING.

Seeing people slam the costumes in Bridgerton season 3 as if they haven't been historically inaccurate as a DESIGN CHOICE™ from Day 1. (Even some of the best period costume YouTubers have said this.) This series is about romance and drama and seriously hot people in gorgeous outfits and settings. And seeing those hot people yearn and yearn until they fuck nasty/make sweet sweet love. It's wish-fulfilment. The Queen is black and the first two seasons had interracial couples and the Ton isn't all-white. There's an underground queer artist scene. We're here for the vibes, not historical accuracy. There's other things to watch for that.