Tag: Violet Crepuscular

Keeping Up With Violet Crepuscular REPRINT

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

From July 20, 2025

All right! Who here thinks it’s easy to keep up with Violet Crepuscular and her hysterical romance, Oy, Rodney? Bang your head on the table if it’s you.

She blames it all on me, of course. “You call yourselves an editor? Pfaah!

“Yeah, okay,” she admits: “I’m the one who brought in the June Taylor Dancers and the woolly mammoths. I didn’t know they were going to dry up your brain! Sheesh, I thought you were going to use them! Serves me right for thinking I oughtta has an editor.”

[My reply: “Ah, Violet, Violet! They should’ve named you Venus Flytrap.

3,400+ Venus Flytrap Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free ... ((Picture of Venus Flytrap, with fly.))

“I have raised you from obscurity, and you bite me in the tuchas! Now we have 500-plus chapters of drivel. And it’s not my fault! Again and again you have ignored my editorial suggestions. And this is what happens! Find yourself another editor.”]

She tried to have me arrested, but there is no law in the UK against quitting an impossible editorial job. But I found a note taped to my door.

“Your days they are numbered! Prepare to be Doomed!”

How do you prepare to be doomed?

 

An Additional Word from Violet Crepuscular REPRINT

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4,698 Happy Hamster Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - iStock

She’s not yet done with us. Ms. Crepuscular wishes me to add this message to her public:

“I was going to write about Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s expedition to Hamster Island, but readers’ brusque and ungrateful response to my literary marvels totally distracted me and made me lose the thread of my plot!

“Well, readers, you’ve only cheated yourselves! How you would have been delighted and fascinated by a visit to Hamster Island! Where hamsters have gotten entirely out of hand! Where they dominate every other form of life–and exercise on the hamster wheel is a Mandate!”

She has left the door open, just a crack, for a vast outpouring of apologies and sympathy from readers wishing to appease her.

But there’s nobody out there but impossible-to-please malcontents.

‘Take THAT, Ms. Crepuscular!’ REPRINT

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

From August 17, 2025

Ha-ha-ha! Poetic justice returns to the Internet. The bad guy gets dunked in dirty water. And Violet Crepuscular gets beaned–all’s right with the world!

You may remember Ms. Crepuscular challenging her readers to provide hints of a massive do-over of her immortal romance, Oy, Rodney. Here are a few examples.

Pooba City, OK: “Aw, shut up already!”

K’smagge, Eurasia: “Do we get a prize for reading this?”

Imago Humana, New Jersey: “There’s a guy in Piscataway who writes better than you do–and he’s locked up!”

Bisstong, Rumania: “I learn English for this?”

Despite her protestations that “most” readers are positively crazy about her work, we’ve got her number. You can run, Violet, but you can’t hide!

INTERRUPTION: What? You wonder what happened to Mr Pinball? No, he has not been dunked in dirty water. To say nothing of Willis Twombley, or Lord Whatsisname (the one with the big house).

You’ve got it bad, kimosabe. Try to find a health hot line.

Appointment With Doom! (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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Pin by Ross Johnston on totally judging books by their covers | Book humor, Book parody, Romance novels

From August 29, 2021

Squeaky-toy madness has gripped all Scurveyshire! You can’t hear yourself think, and even the dogs can’t stand it anymore. Worse, questions are being asked in Parliament. “There still is a Scurveyshire? It wasn’t wiped out in the Wars of the Roses?” And the always popular, “What the deuce is wrong with those people?”

Chapter CDXL of Violet Crepuscular’s interminable epic romance, Oy, Rodney, promises to be a turbulent one. And on top of all that, Ms. Crepuscular is thinking of adapting it into a Broadway musical. “I may have to find a way to pull the substitute vicar from Zanzibar out from under the regular vicar’s backyard wading pool,” she gravitates to her readers. “But hey, as long as you’re going to have a stageful of squeaky toys, you might as well take advantage of the music that they make.”

We have a sneak preview, right here, of one of the most popular squeaky toys now being squeaked by everyone in Scurveyshire:

“I have never heard anything so beautiful!” rhapsodizes Ms. Crepuscular. “No wonder the caecilians–” (I thought she’d forgotten those, but no such luck)–“are stirred up all over the tropics: stirred up to go to Scurveyshire!” We are not told why these secretive, little-known amphibians should be irresistibly drawn to the sound of squeaky toys.

“But take a good look around your house!” counsels Mr. Crepuscular. “If you have a dog, you probably have two or three squeaky toys. And where there are squeaky toys, you’ll find caecilians! Well, I mean, you can try to find them. They’re always hiding.”

Children’s Letters to Ms. Violet REPRINT

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Making fun of romance novels. Genius! | Book humor, Romance novels ...

From July 22, 2020

Due to circumstances entirely beyond our control, we were unable to present our weekly update of Violent Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney. Ms. Crepuscular has contacted us and rebuked us with what she has described as “an avalanche of an outpouring of support from the children of the world.” We did not know children were reading Oy, Rodney.

Here are three quotes from three letters. They are intended to make me feel guilty.

From Daisy Hokus, Brzwirdzjeczow, Eastern Europe: “My daddy is sad all the time, but when he reads Oy Rodney he is happy and runs all over the house singing and dancing. You must write more Oy Rodney to make him happy. I am 3 years old.”

From Randy Pokus, Ongs Hat, New Jersey: “Our teacher Ms. Typhus yells at us all the time and makes us scared only when she reads Oy Roddny by Vilet Crepustular she doesn’t yell at us anymore she just giggles!”

From Hector Vechter, Harpoon Harbor, Alaska: “Our family is very poor and when winter comes we have to sleep outside because nobody likes us but when we have some Oy Rodney to read it is better than food, better than warm clothes, so you can just imagine how deprived we felt when we didn’t get any.”

There is, says Ms. Crepuscular, “a whole wheelbarrowful of these letters” and I had better just watch out or the world’s children will be coming after me with pitchforks and torches.

Meanwhile, the literary agent who first discovered her has been put to death by the literary agents’ guild.

Whelk & Crayfish: Incompatible? REPRINT

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Crusty's Trombone Lessons ('Oy, Rodney') – Lee Duigon

From June 20, 2021

“The curse of true love never did run smooth,” philosophizes Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter CDXXIX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “Here Cupid  must deal with a recalcitrant crayfish and a whelk with a chip on its shoulder!”

Resuming his courtship of Lady Margo Cargo, Lord Jeremy Coldsore is dismayed to find his pet Whelk, Stuart, and her pet crayfish, Oswin, just don’t get along. This could prove to be an obstacle to their marriage.

When Stuart and Oswin are put in the same aquarium, they sulk. “This is terrible!” expostulates Lady Margo. “How can you and I live together in wedded bliss, if our pets are going to detest each other?”

Her crusty old butler, Crusty, offers a novel solution. “Normal people,” he says, “would just leave the two bugs in separate aquariums.” Lady Margo removes her upholstered wooden leg and clouts him with it. “You have no romance in your soul, Crusty!” she aviates.

This is an astonishingly feeble chapter, even for Violet Crepuscular. Has her well of invention finally run dry?

“I am not the kind of writer whose well of invention runs dry!” she confides to the reader. “What I’m doing, actually, is setting the stage for a well-nigh indescribable catastrophe which puts the planet itself at risk!

“Remember what Constable Chumley always says: ‘Yair flivvick ma’ wye when yair groptie fain cry!’ It is the guiding principle that guides me from one chapter to the next.”

Who can argue with that?

Rodney Repeals the Law of Gravity (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From May 31, 2020

I could hardly wait to read this chapter; but as usual, Violet Crepuscular’s literary genius has thrown us a curve ball.

“Dear Reader,” she introduces Chapter CCCLXIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “I simply must share with you my romantic evening with my neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, who has quite forgiven me that episode of inadvertent but well-nigh fatal poisoning. In short, we had a date!”

I don’t see how it could have been much of a date. Mr. Pitfall insisted on dinner at their local Alternative Foods restaurant–“Their termite puffs are out of this world!” exults Ms. Crepuscular–but when he discovered they had only curbside takeout service, she writes, “That lovable Pitfall temper flared up again and he began pounding on the door, demanding to be let in for a proper sit-down dinner. One thing led to another, until finally the romantic silly man was dragged off by police. I might have been arrested, too, had not my lively writer’s imagination inspired me to pretend I was the mayor.” Way to go–why didn’t I think of that?

And so, with the chapter already more than halfway over, we come to the wicked medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, cursing all of Scurveyshire by repealing the law of gravity.

You might have expected that all the shire’s people, animals, and buildings would float straight up until they left the earth behind and were lost in outer space. That is what usually happens when you repeal the law of gravity. “Imagine the sorcerer’s surprise and disappointment,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, “when nothing happened! It seems this is one of those spells that must be regularly practiced in order to get it right. So this time its only effect was to grow rather unsightly beards on The Lying Tart’s bar maids–and one of them already had a beard, so so what? A most discouraging failure for Black Rodney!”

So what about the aristocratic thief, Sir Robin Banks, hiding out in an uninhabited wing of Coldsore Hall, just across the hall from the room where Crusty the crusty butler has hidden Lady Margo Cargo’s priceless glass eyes and family jewels?

“I will take up those matters,” Ms. Crepuscular promises, “after I find some way to raise bail for Mr. Pitfall. He gets so downhearted when he’s in that holding cell!”

 

Trouble in Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From June 9, 2019

I am happy to report that Byron the Quokka has returned. He was not able to squeeze Ms. Crepuscular through the bars of the holding cell, but he did succeed in rescuing the manuscript, along with a note from Violet to her readers. We quote:

“My dear readers, it’s really too silly for words, my being in jail like this for the sake of a few harmless toothpaste rolls which I eat all the time and have never gotten sick! True, Mr. Pitfall ate all two dozen of them–but it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t stop him. And it’s not like he’s died or anything! The doctors expect him to be back on his feet in just a year or two. My thanks to Byron the Whatchamacallit for saving my manuscript! The detective who read it said he would surely destroy it, as a service to world literature. Yours sincerely, Violet M. Crepuscular.” She will not tell us what the M stands for.

Moving on, we now have a Chapter CCCI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, which is somewhat below her usual artistic standard–or anyone else’s, for that matter. In this chapter, all of Scurveyshire, led by the few survivors of the Peasants Benevolent Assn., is in an uproar. They have assembled at Coldsore Hall to yell at Lord Jeremy.

“They’ll skedaddle, ol’ hoss, if you let me shoot a few of ’em,” offers the American adventurer, Willis Twombley. “Back home, them Elamites was always tryin’ to riot their way into my palace.” He thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. “But they always gave up when my archers started usin’ ’em for target practice.”

“I’m dashed if I can see my way to that, old boy,” expostulates (I just work here) Lord Jeremy. “If they’d just stay away from that deuced wading pool in the vicar’s back yard, they wouldn’t get sucked under it in droves.” He finally placates the mob by promising to get rid of Black Rodney, the medieval sorcerer responsible for all these objectionable happenings.

“How you gonna do that, Germy?” wonders Twombley. “Him bein’ a ghost and all, and havin’ just blown half the roof off’n your house, I mean.”

Jeremy smiles slyly. “But we now know what he’s afraid of, don’t we?” he replies. “Antimacassars! We’ll drape antimacassars over all the shire!”

Here the chapter breaks off. She had to stop writing, Byron reports, because the jailer was coming to take her for a walk. He had only time to gather up the manuscript and, as he put it, “vamoose!” The quokkas have been watching a lot of old Westerns lately.

A Readers’ Revolt (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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39 Romance novel cover parodies ideas | romance novel covers, romance, book humor

From March 20, 2022

Violet Crepuscular unleashed a storm of controversy with Chapter CDLXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, in which she asserted that a supernatural being in the form of Mickey Mouse dwelt in the cellar of the hovel inhabited by Mr. Bigcheeks, lineal descendant of the medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney.

“I have unleashed a storm of controversy with Chapter CDLXX of my epic romance, Oy, Rodney,” she writes. “The proles out there think Mr. Bigcheeks’ paranormal unexplained familiar is Mickey Mouse.

“Morons! Heretics! Do they think that I, the Queen of Suspense, do not know that Mickey Mouse did not exist in the Victorian Era? Do they think that I think some guy from Disney World was fomping around Mr. Bigcheeks’ cellar in a Mickey Mouse costume?”

She confesses that she has been snowed under with mail from readers objecting to her use of such a glaring anachronism–angry letters and emails from as far away as Solitude Island in the Russian Arctic, and the desolation that is Kerguelen Island in the South Atlantic. Or wherever it is.

“My sainted monkey!” she continues. “Haven’t these widget-cobblers figured out that if things can be sucked under the vicar’s backyard wading pool… things can also come out from under it? Do they presume to know exactly what kind of things–and beings!–can be spewed into our world from underneath the pool?

“And would they trust me, the Queen of Suspense, to provide a totally rational explanation for the apparent appearance [she’s on a roll] of Mickey Mouse in Victorian England? Heck, no! They just want to complain!”

Disney Mickey Mouse - Emmy Awards, Nominations and Wins | Television Academy

“I’ll get them for this,” Ms. Crepuscular adds. How she proposes to do that is a secret. “They’ll wish they were walled up in the Great Pyramid with Old King Cole, by the time I’m done with ’em.” We spare the reader any further fulminations. If you really want to read the whole thing, she’s scrawled it on the rest room wall at Jolly Cholly’s Ham House.

Violet Wins an Award! REPRINT

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🤩 Suspenders For Women: How To Wear? [Female Outfits, Tips] 2022🤩

From August 1, 2022

Violet Crepuscular, author of the epic romance Oy, Rodney and self-anointed “Queen of Suspense,” now has a real title to hang on her wall.The Brmytsov suspender factory in Vorozhnyrmytz, Kazakhstan, has honored her as “Queen of Suspenders.” [Note: the model in the pictures is not Ms. Crepuscular.]

Ms. Crepuscular has declined to comment, although neighbors say they have heard her “yelling and breaking things.” “Queen of suspense, not suspenders!” she has reportedly exclaimed. “I don’t even wear suspenders!” [Lewd expletives deleted.]

A dinner will be held in Ms. Crepuscular’s honor at the Restaurant of Tasty Joy, on the skirts of Myzhnytskquoe Mountain.