Lucynka

I only wish it had been more fruitful (no pun intended)!

THIS SUMMARY/COMMENTARY IS FINISHED, AND IT'S A BLAST, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ, EVEN THOUGH IT SPOILS EVERYTHING.

Honestly as entertaining as the story itself (maybe even moreso?). 😂

Interesting! And certainly, using food/vegetables as terms of endearment is not unusual, even today, but silent comedy guy up above seems to be the type that just LOVES ONIONS, and can't read the room and/or understand that not everyone feels the same way.

Alas! The onions in "Love and Onions" are just a symbol of the poverty heroine Nancy wishes to escape from (her neighbor is seemingly constantly cooking them, which stinks up their apartment building).

I am sadly no closer to understanding why the man up above is so in love with them. 🧅🤷‍♀️🧅

3/3

Marquiss, btw, was the author of "Twenty-Minute Princess," one of the stories featured in my pulp romance anthology, THE BEST OF ALL-STORY LOVE: 1929, and which @keristars.bsky.social so wonderfully described/criticized here. 😂

2/3

Took a quick break from manuscripting Beulah Poynter's FIRES OF YOUTH to read Walter Marquiss's "Love and Onions" (LOVE MIRROR, December 1932), to see if it might allow me to answer this question from @romgothsam.bsky.social. Perhaps onions were a big cultural thing at the time?

1/3

I'll report back if there's anything of interest to be found inside!

I have a romance story from 1932 called "Love and Onions," and I feel I need to read it now. For research.

The next moment he dropped on his knees before her and, seizing the folds of her dress, crushed them against his mouth. "I love you!" he sobbed. "I love you! And I've hurt you! I'm always hurting you. I don't want to, Jean, but I'll keep on hurting you. You know I will! Why don't you leave me? I worship you, but I'm no good, I'm a rotter! No good! No good in the world."

I mean, he's exhausting, but he's at least not without a sense of self-awareness, you know?

In other news, officially more than halfway (probably about three-fifths of the way?) done with the manuscript!

Realizing that part of why Beulah Poynter's FIRES OF YOUTH reads so strangely as a romance is because it's basically TWO romances? One a pretty standard marriage-of-convenience plot (with HEA and everything), and the other a very noirish "doomed lovers" plot. 🤔 #pulp #romancelandia

Carlos is actually pretty interesting, bc while he's explicitly ½-Spanish, he's far from an outright VILLAIN (as was usually the case w/ Latin characters at the time), and more just…tragic? And, like, white heroine Jean actually enables him a LOT—in an alt. universe, he def could've been redeemed.

"I can't—somehow realize it yet. One moment I loved him, the next, I hated him—hated my brother—and my hand killed him! Damn it! Damn it!" He held it before his eyes staring at it with absolute loathing. "I wish it had been torn from my wrist. I wish Dave Lawton HAD shot me! I wish I'd never been born!" "Carlos, please." "If one of us had to die, why wasn't I the one? John was of use in the world, I'm not. I'm a rotter—no good, never was, never will be! I've proven it! Proven it further by bringing you along with me. Go back, Jean. Go back while you can."

Carlos is a shit-heel, but I WILL give him some points for legit urging Jean to go back home. Earlier, he even expressed a desire to face the consequences of his actions, and—knowing how things pan out for him—one suspects it would have actually done him good.

(Beulah Poynter, FIRES OF YOUTH.)

Naps are good. 😴 I'm (obviously) looking forward to how you would summarize the rest of it, but no pressure!

I think part of it is that he's lanky enough to make the boxy, oversized Romulan fashion work? Or at least not look abjectly terrible?

Plus, I'm a sucker for a good enemies-to-friends plot. 😂

Also, sorry not sorry, this is apparently going to turn into a part-time Star Trek: The Next Generation account for the foreseeable future. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

A screencap from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Enemy" (3x07), showing Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge and Centurion Bochra on the bridge of the Enterprise. They're both caked in mud, but hey, that's nothing a shower couldn't fix.

Ngl, I always kind of had a thing for this Romulan in "The Enemy."

(Something, something, his quilted Brutalist uniform would look a lot better on my floor?) #startrek #tng

A screengrab of the post for "Yesterday's Enterprise," from Tumblr blog Fashion It So (sttngfashion.tumblr.com). It reads: Here's the flyer Geordi made to publicize his club: [A screencap from the episode, where everything's going to shit in Engineering. Alt!Geordi stands front and center and things are very smoky and fuchsia around him. Overlaid are the words "CLUB WARP CORE" (in the TNG font, of course), "dance it out - 2200 hours - until ?" and then off to the side, "shake your dilithium crystal!"] Only Data showed up

Again, I really miss Fashion It So. #startrek #tng #clubwarpcore

sttngfashion.tumblr.com/post/1621254...

Why had she done this thing? Made John a pawn in her game of chess when solitaire should have been her part?

Ngl, I love a good game metaphor.

(Beulah Poynter, FIRES OF YOUTH.) #pulp #romance #romancelandia

I'm tempted to print this thread out and put it on my wall. 😂

And Montanye just seems to have been relatively good at representation? There was another one of his that didn't make it in (too Orientalist), but the sheik in it is actually Brown, and tho he isn't endgame, he's proven to be honorable.

This whole thread, omg. A+++ 💯💯💯 😂😂😂

It's in reference to "Wooing Wings," the second of the two novellas (and the final story in general) of THE BEST OF ALL-STORY LOVE: 1929. #pulp #romance #romancelandia

I know I'm not saying anything that isn't widely known already, and nothing I didn't already know before, but still: "Yesterday's Enterprise" is so fucking good, goddamn. #startrek #tng

💖💖💖

And that thread!!! I am waiting with bated breath for your reaction to the rest of the story. 😂

Aw, thank you!!! Such a substantial review means a lot, and I'm so glad you've enjoyed it!

I know I said it before, but thanks again for tagging me and letting me know what you think as you go through it—it's been a real delight to experience it through someone else's eyes! 🥰

Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller. First panel, Nancy talking to a logger sawing a tree and pointing to a carved piece of trunk. Nancy: Can I have that piece? My boy friend carved it. Logger: Sure. Second panel, Nancy is watching the log burn in the fire place. Nancy: I'm mad at him.

Every once in awhile I think about this Nancy comic and it makes me laugh every single time. Absolute perfection.

Hah, yeah, tell me about it!

This whole thread is a delight. Mouton is my hero. 😺

Thanks—I appreciate the updates! And yep, those are my story images (I was actually the one who discovered the "prequel" in Illustrated Love)—no worries if you'd lost track of where they came from. 🙂

New newsletter dropped today, with an .epub of this story! Forgot to mention it before, but it's technically illustrated (just one illustration, as it's a pretty short story, but still)! #pulp #romance #romancelandia

Pleased to be able to provide some info on Littell! (If you don't mind, a credit to me for the story scans/photos would be nice, though. 🙂)

I don't have a collection of her work out yet, but one's in the works for this year—alas, it'll (probably) be her 1928-1929 stuff, so no Pussy Fane just yet.

I had to double check, but yes!—part 3 begins with Glen's POV.

The emphasis on structure for the serialized stories is really something else (complimentary)—each part a strict 6-8K words (for instance), and ending on a hook. It can make for REALLY tight, propulsive writing.