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Marriage of Convenience 1: Dignity Left to Lose
Oct. 20th, 2025 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeDignity Left to Lose
Summary: In 1994, during the AIDS epidemic Booster Gold’s superhero career goes down in the flames of scandal, and he loses everything. It's as he's plummeting to rock bottom that he meets an aging trophy widow who’s been there before. Part one of the Houseboy Booster/Gladys fic.
Series: Marriage of Convenience, part 1 (Justice League International/Superbuddies fanfiction)
Word Count: 7000
Notes: This one has enough of a story behind it that I'm putting it in the comments! Houseboy kink dynamics, trophy widows, '90s homophobia, and the fine art of selling out behind the cut!
Summary: In 1994, during the AIDS epidemic Booster Gold’s superhero career goes down in the flames of scandal, and he loses everything. It's as he's plummeting to rock bottom that he meets an aging trophy widow who’s been there before. Part one of the Houseboy Booster/Gladys fic.
Series: Marriage of Convenience, part 1 (Justice League International/Superbuddies fanfiction)
Word Count: 7000
Notes: This one has enough of a story behind it that I'm putting it in the comments! Houseboy kink dynamics, trophy widows, '90s homophobia, and the fine art of selling out behind the cut!
Booster Gold has just been asked to leave, and he obeys, even though they’re likely not friends anymore, so obedience is no longer a requirement. He doesn’t want to make a scene. He doesn’t want to stay.
Booster knows his career’s out the window the moment the paper comes out tomorrow, but there’s a charity ball tonight, full of people looking to schmooze and spend, and if he can just get something tonight…
He reaches the charity ball late, but fashionably so, and when he arrives, his hair has been combed, his dirty clothes have been changed, cologne covers up the sweat, and his smile is pasted on.
He feels terrible, but he looks good, and that’s when he meets Gladys Thatcher.
Xenogals and more are for sale!
Oct. 20th, 2025 07:08 pmlb_leeHey! We have new stuff up for sale! MULTIPLE things for sale, in fact!
See, at cons for years now, we've been selling paper-only zines of some of our essay compilations. They've proved surprisingly popular, so now that my blog is unviewable in Mississippi, I figured what the hell, put them up for sale online as paper books and digital downloads! Mississippi lawmakers cannot stop you (yet)!
First: Xenogals! ($3 Ebook with transcript here; $5 paper comic here).
Rawlin spent 20 years eaten by a parasite god and 4 years coming back from it. But what does it mean to be a person again, to begin again? Who even is Rawlin now?
Mori, the resident godslaying monster dyke, doesn't know any more than Rawlin does... but she looks forward to finding out together. Herein:
Second: Quick'N'Dirty Plural History! ($10 ebook and subtitled vid here; $5 paper zine here) In 2020, an organizer for the Plural Positivity World Conference came up and said something along the lines of, “Hey, LB, wanna do something about plural history for our conference?” They said, “Sure, why not, how hard can that be?” and immediately learned the folly of their arrogance.
The paper listing is the zine only; Payhip (and itch.io) have both the hour-and-a-half long video (subtitled) made in 2020 and the 48-page zine. All of the content can be found for free elsewhere; this is just if you want to throw us some bucks for it. It’s intended as a brief, incomplete, inglorious history of just some of the people under the many-selved umbrella in America over the centuries: double/dual consciousness, multiple personality, dissociative identity disorder, soulbonders, empowered multiples, natural multiples, the genic slapfight, etc. It’s also meant to be a decent vaccination against bullshit and lies peddled by jerks!
I suppose if people really want the vid on DVD, I can make that happen? If you want that, let me know, and I can adapt things.
Third: Crisis Planning ($3 ebook here; $5 paper zine here). This is a compilation of all LB's crisis planning essays, intended for psychological crisis but also good for general purpose. You can read some of them free on the web, but this has them all in one place:
See, at cons for years now, we've been selling paper-only zines of some of our essay compilations. They've proved surprisingly popular, so now that my blog is unviewable in Mississippi, I figured what the hell, put them up for sale online as paper books and digital downloads! Mississippi lawmakers cannot stop you (yet)!
First: Xenogals! ($3 Ebook with transcript here; $5 paper comic here).
Rawlin spent 20 years eaten by a parasite god and 4 years coming back from it. But what does it mean to be a person again, to begin again? Who even is Rawlin now?
Mori, the resident godslaying monster dyke, doesn't know any more than Rawlin does... but she looks forward to finding out together. Herein:
- Selves (re)discovery!
- Smooching
- Anatomy lessons!
- FEELINGS!
Second: Quick'N'Dirty Plural History! ($10 ebook and subtitled vid here; $5 paper zine here) In 2020, an organizer for the Plural Positivity World Conference came up and said something along the lines of, “Hey, LB, wanna do something about plural history for our conference?” They said, “Sure, why not, how hard can that be?” and immediately learned the folly of their arrogance.
The paper listing is the zine only; Payhip (and itch.io) have both the hour-and-a-half long video (subtitled) made in 2020 and the 48-page zine. All of the content can be found for free elsewhere; this is just if you want to throw us some bucks for it. It’s intended as a brief, incomplete, inglorious history of just some of the people under the many-selved umbrella in America over the centuries: double/dual consciousness, multiple personality, dissociative identity disorder, soulbonders, empowered multiples, natural multiples, the genic slapfight, etc. It’s also meant to be a decent vaccination against bullshit and lies peddled by jerks!
I suppose if people really want the vid on DVD, I can make that happen? If you want that, let me know, and I can adapt things.
Third: Crisis Planning ($3 ebook here; $5 paper zine here). This is a compilation of all LB's crisis planning essays, intended for psychological crisis but also good for general purpose. You can read some of them free on the web, but this has them all in one place:
- How to measure your level of distress (aka: how bad shit is)
- How to ask for help (and who to ask)
- How to make a pocket crisis plan zine
- How to make a plan in case you get hit by a bus, put in a coma, and need your loved ones to manage your life affairs and make healthcare decisions without you
- Medical and legal stuff, wills, and body donation stuff
- How to pack a go-bag (and get the fuck out of there!)
Fourth: Headspace Essays ($3 ebook here; $5 paper zine here). Have you ever been enchanted by stories that focused on psychological or imaginative geography, such as American McGee’s Alice, Ib, Inception, Mentopolis, or Psychonauts? Have you ever wanted such a place for yourself, or just a bullet-proof means of entertaining yourself while waiting for the bus? Well, in this handy dandy zine, you can learn! Contains all our posted headspace essays... and Anatomy of a Dance, the final essay which has yet to be posted online! Ooh-la-la! 32 pages, 5.5" x 8.5", black and white.
Whew! Doing all this has made me realize that having to cover itch.io AND Payhip is really annoying, guys! Adding another store page really increases the work load. I may end up closing down the BigCartel page because Payhip has opened up to physical goods, but that is a problem for Future LB!
Whew! Doing all this has made me realize that having to cover itch.io AND Payhip is really annoying, guys! Adding another store page really increases the work load. I may end up closing down the BigCartel page because Payhip has opened up to physical goods, but that is a problem for Future LB!
"Mother, this lap is defective. Fix it!"
Oct. 20th, 2025 04:52 pmlb_leeSo, the cats apparently adopt various roommates and their rooms so as to maintain somewhat separate territories. We (and our room) have been adopted by Tiptoe, a sixteen-year-old lady who meows like she smoked a pack every day of her nine lives.
( a picture of said cat, and a story of her terrible catstomer service experience )
( a picture of said cat, and a story of her terrible catstomer service experience )
Distant as a northern star
Oct. 19th, 2025 10:05 pmsovayThe oldest gravestone still extant in the Ancient Cemetery in Yarmouth dates back to 1698, but I did not encounter it as I photographed a small selection of winged death's heads and lichen. Afterward I went back to the salt marsh where my camera with unnecessary aptness apparently died.
( Wood and whisky, time and tar. )
Judah Thacher d. 1775 had a rather bland angel at the top of his gravestone, but some unusual stars and curlicues down the sides and above all both fancy lettering and the best memento mori I saw in the entire burying ground:
Reader ſtand ſtil & Spend a Tear
Think on the duſt that Slumbers here
& When you think on yͤ State of me
Think on yͤ glaas that runs for yͤ
I just side-eye my camera taking it to heart.
( Wood and whisky, time and tar. )
Judah Thacher d. 1775 had a rather bland angel at the top of his gravestone, but some unusual stars and curlicues down the sides and above all both fancy lettering and the best memento mori I saw in the entire burying ground:
Reader ſtand ſtil & Spend a Tear
Think on the duſt that Slumbers here
& When you think on yͤ State of me
Think on yͤ glaas that runs for yͤ
I just side-eye my camera taking it to heart.
(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2025 09:41 pmsorcyressToday I went to the Renaissance faire!
Yes, this means MD faire, _obviously_. I should maybe try out King Richard's again sometime, since I'm running on decade+ old memories, but honestly, nothing I've heard about it since has implied that I actually should try it out. So if I want to go to a rennfaire it means I pack a bag and get on the train and head down to Maryland!
I went with my mom, and my partner Tuesday, and also Tuesday's mom and sibling and sibling's-partner. We saw some shows! We ate some food off of sticks! I bought some pretty shiny things! It was a good time!
I have forgotten that I pretty deeply hate attending jousts, which is a shame. I enjoy the part where there are impressive feats of horsemanship. I really _really_ do not like the part where we are baying for the death of the competitors. Stage combat is neat and fun to watch from a technical and talent perspective! It feels...it feels pretty uncomfortable to be in the stands surrounded by people who do not seem to be appreciating this aspect of it and instead just want violence.
Also very loud and overstimulating. I would enjoy more being much further onto the edges of the crowd.
I was very happy to get a new coin necklace, and was excited by more designs than would fit on one coin, which feels hopeful for the future. I own five of them now! And also one of the new designs this year was _spider_ which feels amazing prescient for a year in which I'm increasingly using these as The One Official Jewelry I Wear Like From A Spellcraft And Ritual Perspective. Good to have a spider included!
I also bought matching fidget rings for me and Tuesday, because they're quite lovely. And two pairs of hairsticks! One set from Kathleen (although she herself wasn't present) at least in part as a reminder to go buy a bunch more from her through the internet. The other set is really nice maile flowers that I quite liked and obtained from a place near the jousting field. It's possible I shouldn't be left unsupervised for too long at faire, or I will find nice things to use to put up my hair :3
And the weather was perfect to wander around! Sitting was good, standing was good, there was nice breeze so I wasn't ever overdressed but I also wasn't chilly -I brought my gloves and didn't need them, and decided at the last minute to leave the midlevel cloak in the car (I wore the lightlevel and didn't even consider the heavy one)
We watched the Skum perform Othello, which was especially interesting because I don't actually know that one --got a much better idea now though! And later we watched Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy, who Tuesday and I saw when we came to faire together two years ago. He remains _extremely_ funny. I also saw a few swords get swallowed, and quite enjoyed some Piper Jones from afar.
And I stopped and had a nice conversation with Miss Nancy, and we saw Pepto in passing (with an amazing viking ship wagon for her kids), and I chatted a bit with the Beef Jerky Guy.
So it was overall very good! I am pleased to be home now though, which is to say, at Cameron and Jake's place in Bal'mer. Tonight I need to finish some sub plan stuff, so that tomorrow I get to stress-free ride a train back home. (I do like riding a train, except when they have two hour delays that start late enough that mom already kicked her friends out and started driving to the station to pick me up. Looking at you, way down.)
I hope your life is also good.
~Sor
MOOP!
Yes, this means MD faire, _obviously_. I should maybe try out King Richard's again sometime, since I'm running on decade+ old memories, but honestly, nothing I've heard about it since has implied that I actually should try it out. So if I want to go to a rennfaire it means I pack a bag and get on the train and head down to Maryland!
I went with my mom, and my partner Tuesday, and also Tuesday's mom and sibling and sibling's-partner. We saw some shows! We ate some food off of sticks! I bought some pretty shiny things! It was a good time!
I have forgotten that I pretty deeply hate attending jousts, which is a shame. I enjoy the part where there are impressive feats of horsemanship. I really _really_ do not like the part where we are baying for the death of the competitors. Stage combat is neat and fun to watch from a technical and talent perspective! It feels...it feels pretty uncomfortable to be in the stands surrounded by people who do not seem to be appreciating this aspect of it and instead just want violence.
Also very loud and overstimulating. I would enjoy more being much further onto the edges of the crowd.
I was very happy to get a new coin necklace, and was excited by more designs than would fit on one coin, which feels hopeful for the future. I own five of them now! And also one of the new designs this year was _spider_ which feels amazing prescient for a year in which I'm increasingly using these as The One Official Jewelry I Wear Like From A Spellcraft And Ritual Perspective. Good to have a spider included!
I also bought matching fidget rings for me and Tuesday, because they're quite lovely. And two pairs of hairsticks! One set from Kathleen (although she herself wasn't present) at least in part as a reminder to go buy a bunch more from her through the internet. The other set is really nice maile flowers that I quite liked and obtained from a place near the jousting field. It's possible I shouldn't be left unsupervised for too long at faire, or I will find nice things to use to put up my hair :3
And the weather was perfect to wander around! Sitting was good, standing was good, there was nice breeze so I wasn't ever overdressed but I also wasn't chilly -I brought my gloves and didn't need them, and decided at the last minute to leave the midlevel cloak in the car (I wore the lightlevel and didn't even consider the heavy one)
We watched the Skum perform Othello, which was especially interesting because I don't actually know that one --got a much better idea now though! And later we watched Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy, who Tuesday and I saw when we came to faire together two years ago. He remains _extremely_ funny. I also saw a few swords get swallowed, and quite enjoyed some Piper Jones from afar.
And I stopped and had a nice conversation with Miss Nancy, and we saw Pepto in passing (with an amazing viking ship wagon for her kids), and I chatted a bit with the Beef Jerky Guy.
So it was overall very good! I am pleased to be home now though, which is to say, at Cameron and Jake's place in Bal'mer. Tonight I need to finish some sub plan stuff, so that tomorrow I get to stress-free ride a train back home. (I do like riding a train, except when they have two hour delays that start late enough that mom already kicked her friends out and started driving to the station to pick me up. Looking at you, way down.)
I hope your life is also good.
~Sor
MOOP!
Open-Source Machismo
Oct. 19th, 2025 02:24 pmwriterkitSo LibreOffice does not come with autosave enabled by default.
It's surprising that it took me this long to realize that, but *autorecover* comes by default (set for every half-hour, which I think is a bit long) so it hasn't really come up until I had a few crashes in ways that didn't trigger the autorecover. What I actually went looking for was whether there were backup copies somewhere, but instead I came upon a bunch of posts in various discussion places of people going "Why is this not enabled by default" and people responding, essentially, "if you can't handle saving manually go back to Windows."
It does *exist*, but you have to go like four menus deep to enable it.
There is no reason not to default to autosave being on except attitude.
Half the time I wonder if open-source people actually *want* uptake of their stuff or if they're hoping they can keep out the undesirables by making it hard to use.
It's surprising that it took me this long to realize that, but *autorecover* comes by default (set for every half-hour, which I think is a bit long) so it hasn't really come up until I had a few crashes in ways that didn't trigger the autorecover. What I actually went looking for was whether there were backup copies somewhere, but instead I came upon a bunch of posts in various discussion places of people going "Why is this not enabled by default" and people responding, essentially, "if you can't handle saving manually go back to Windows."
It does *exist*, but you have to go like four menus deep to enable it.
There is no reason not to default to autosave being on except attitude.
Half the time I wonder if open-source people actually *want* uptake of their stuff or if they're hoping they can keep out the undesirables by making it hard to use.
Understanding Without Believing
Oct. 19th, 2025 12:54 pmlb_lee(inspired by chatting with frameacloud)
Rogan: So, those cursed tapes. I'm positive some of you are like, "Rogan, why are you doing this to yourself?" Well, for years, I've wanted to do a big thing on the whole ritual abuse/RAMCOA/OEA culture/identity and multi, because it's still relevant and important (and frankly scary). There were at least two plurals I considered friends once who went down that rabbit hole, with awful consequences, so it's personal. I want to understand what happened to them and why... and because I'd prefer to do it without rabbitholing myself, I turn to older records from the past.
frameacloud)Rogan: So, those cursed tapes. I'm positive some of you are like, "Rogan, why are you doing this to yourself?" Well, for years, I've wanted to do a big thing on the whole ritual abuse/RAMCOA/OEA culture/identity and multi, because it's still relevant and important (and frankly scary). There were at least two plurals I considered friends once who went down that rabbit hole, with awful consequences, so it's personal. I want to understand what happened to them and why... and because I'd prefer to do it without rabbitholing myself, I turn to older records from the past.
You don't have to fly into the sun
Oct. 18th, 2025 10:32 pmsovayHaving somewhat wiped out my reserves with the glories of Corporation Beach, I only made it out to the salt marsh for about an hour between low tide and sunset, which was still great. I saw the copper-glaze glint of fiddler crabs in their burrows in the crenellated banks of mud. I saw the dark-fringed silhouette of an osprey sailing over the green-rusted brushes of cordgrass and salt hay, where they nest with the encouragement of the Callery Darling Conservation Area which includes the wetlands around the Bass Hole Boardwalk. The engine noise floating over from Chapin Beach turned out to belong to a powered paraglider who so annoyed me by effectively buzzing the boardwalk that I let all the other sunset viewers with their phones out enthusiastically take pictures of him. The long-billed, long-legged, unfamiliarly tuxedo-patterned shorebird stalking the deeper edges of a sandbar looks to have been a vagrant black-necked stilt. With the tide so far out, I am afraid there was little chance of another seal.
( Take a little comfort from the little you've done. )
After which I ate dinner, read a little, and passed out for about an hour and a half. Family and friends have been sending me pictures of No Kings, the necessity of which I hate and the turnout of which I cheer. My mother told me about her favorite sign she did not carry: a photograph of the butterfly, the only orange monarch we need. I loved everything about the spare, specific exploration of marginalized languages and historical queerness in Carys Davies' Clear (2024) until the slingshot of the ending as if the author had lost a chapter somewhere over the side in the North Sea. Since the Cape is still autumnal New England, I am drinking mulled cider.
( Take a little comfort from the little you've done. )
After which I ate dinner, read a little, and passed out for about an hour and a half. Family and friends have been sending me pictures of No Kings, the necessity of which I hate and the turnout of which I cheer. My mother told me about her favorite sign she did not carry: a photograph of the butterfly, the only orange monarch we need. I loved everything about the spare, specific exploration of marginalized languages and historical queerness in Carys Davies' Clear (2024) until the slingshot of the ending as if the author had lost a chapter somewhere over the side in the North Sea. Since the Cape is still autumnal New England, I am drinking mulled cider.
Tape Notes: "Treatment of Adult RA Survivors," with Een, Ray, and Dettling
Oct. 18th, 2025 09:08 pmlb_leeBack from the con! It went well! We are very tired but want to upload the notes of Tape #2: "Treatment of Adult RA Survivors," from the 3rd Annual Orange County Conference on Multiple Personality and Dissociation, Hypnosis, and other Strategies, 1990. Hope y'all got your shit-wading boots!
No Kings rally
Oct. 18th, 2025 07:32 pmredbirdcattitude and I went to the No Kings rally on Boston Common. It was a large crowd, large enough that we couldn't really hear the speeches, but that's OK, we were there to be part of the crowd. I saw some good signs, including "Of course he hates veritas" and "America runs on dissent", for local flavor, and "No kings [large image of the One Ring with a slash through it] to rule them all." Almost all the signs were homemade, and different.Happily, it was warm enough for me to unzip my hoodie and show off my Boston Dyke March T-shirt, and for other people to wear t-shirts, some of them more relevant than others. I was amused by the person in a football jersey: the local NFL team is called the New England Patriots.
There were also a bunch of inflatable animal costumes, including at least three chickens, a dinosaur, axolotls, an octopus, and a pink unicorn. The unicorn was blowing bubbles. I bought a T-shirt with a drawing of a frog and the word "resist."
The above paragraph would have made no sense a month ago, but we are living in weird as well as scary times, in which the administration apparently sees the Emergency World Naked Bike Ride as a threat.
And deregulate the couple at the bottom end
Oct. 17th, 2025 11:20 pmsovayThe very first thing that happened when I climbed over the huge barnacle-scaled chunks of granite and weathered pilings that form the breakwater at the western edge of Corporation Beach was that I saw a seal: sleek, dulse-dark, bobbing its head in the waves not more than two breakers offshore. It looked at me. I sang it the seal-calling song learned from Jean Redpath. If I had just spent the afternoon till sunset sitting on the breakwater and watching the tide come in serpentine-green under thick foam and burst into spray that showered me to the shoulders of my coat, it would have been a wonderful time.
( Penny on the water, tuppence on the sea. )
Being now officially unemployed after an internal ten and really fifteen years at the same job and having Robert Carlyle on my mind, I should probably just rewatch The Full Monty (1997). Tomorrow I plan on a salt marsh.
( Penny on the water, tuppence on the sea. )
Being now officially unemployed after an internal ten and really fifteen years at the same job and having Robert Carlyle on my mind, I should probably just rewatch The Full Monty (1997). Tomorrow I plan on a salt marsh.
Copperscript
Oct. 17th, 2025 11:00 pmpsocopteraCopperscript, KJ Charles, 2025 romance novel. Having just read several of these I wasn't going to indulge again so soon, but then I got it from the hold queue, and then I ended up in a Direct Tire for a couple of hours and was like "am I going to use this time to make progress on the book I am bogged down in? no I am not", so here we are. This one is back to the post-WWI timeframe like Think of England (but I don't think had any character cameos)? A police detective gets involved with a handwriting analyst with supernatural-level powers of handwriting insight. I thought Charles did a nice job walking the line of "this *is* unlikely, the characters are aware of that, and in fact that skepticism drives a bunch of the plot" and "it works exactly how it needs to for plot purposes". Fun!
LB will be at Watertown Zine Fest, tomorrow, Oct. 18, 11-4!
Oct. 17th, 2025 10:09 pmlb_leeOn Saturday, Oct. 18, we are tabling at Watertown Zine Fest! It runs from 11-4, at the Watertown Public Library, 123 Main Street, Watertown, Massachusetts 02472. We have cranked out a bunch of paper-only zines, including our headspace essays, queer short stories, and a 32-page Mori/Rawlin comic, Xenogals! Come drop by and check us out!
On Friday, October 24, we will also be New England Graphic Medicine Summit. 10-11 AM, giving a presentation on Many-Selved Portraiture. Located at MCPHS University on Longwood Avenue, but online attendance is also possible! Come see us show off many-selved artistic efforts! There'll be a slideshow!
On Friday, October 24, we will also be New England Graphic Medicine Summit. 10-11 AM, giving a presentation on Many-Selved Portraiture. Located at MCPHS University on Longwood Avenue, but online attendance is also possible! Come see us show off many-selved artistic efforts! There'll be a slideshow!
eye doctor, and errands
Oct. 17th, 2025 06:50 pmredbirdI went to my eye doctor today, for my once-a-year eye exam.
I told the assistant, and then Dr. Lazzara, that my vision seems a bit worse in the last year, and also that I thought I needed new glasses, because the current pair have gotten scratched over the last few years.
The new glasses will have a slightly different prescription, and Dr. Lazzara thinks the new glasses will solve the problems of blurring and difficulty with small print.
He also suggested that I use the hypertonic saline twice a day, and see if that gets me more hours of reasonable vision: the Fuchs dystrophy isn't much worse than a year ago, but I was already noticing effects a few years ago. This is the main reason I go out to Arlington to see an ophthalmologist, instead of just visiting an optometrist closer to home.
Since I was going to Arlington, I stopped at Fabric Corner for iron-on patches to mend a pair of jeans, and went to Penzey's after the eye doctor, for ground cumin and high-fat cocoa.
I told the assistant, and then Dr. Lazzara, that my vision seems a bit worse in the last year, and also that I thought I needed new glasses, because the current pair have gotten scratched over the last few years.
The new glasses will have a slightly different prescription, and Dr. Lazzara thinks the new glasses will solve the problems of blurring and difficulty with small print.
He also suggested that I use the hypertonic saline twice a day, and see if that gets me more hours of reasonable vision: the Fuchs dystrophy isn't much worse than a year ago, but I was already noticing effects a few years ago. This is the main reason I go out to Arlington to see an ophthalmologist, instead of just visiting an optometrist closer to home.
Since I was going to Arlington, I stopped at Fabric Corner for iron-on patches to mend a pair of jeans, and went to Penzey's after the eye doctor, for ground cumin and high-fat cocoa.