"Mother, this lap is defective. Fix it!"

So, 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 )

Xenogals and more are for sale!

Hey! 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:

• Selves (re)discovery!
• Smooching
• Anatomy lessons!
• FEELINGS!

32 pages, 5.5" x 8.5", black and white. Text-only transcript included for ebook.

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!

Marriage of Convenience 1: Dignity Left to Lose

Dignity 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!

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.

 

( Before you know it, there'll be nothing left to sell. )