alee_grrl | Network

Bill's plane left just before 8. It's a 30 minute drive to the airport if traffic and weather are not factors. We were at the beginning of rush hour and it was dead dark and pouring rain. I was glad he drove. Oh also, we couldn't get out of the Timber Ridge garage! We had to call security and they had to come down and trip the door. This was an inauspicious start but it turned out fine. The airport did not seem particularly busy.

As I was driving away, Google maps said they had found a faster route home, did I want it? Sure. You can basically go on interstate highways the entire time which would be fine except for trucks and several tricky highway changes. OR you can go non highways which is also fine except for the last 6 miles which are twisty, curvy. The faster route this morning was the latter which turned out to be fine. There was a lot of traffic but it was not stopped and it did allow me to go slowly which was also fine.

And the garage door opened.

And now Biggie is looking for Bill.

I put in a load of laundry before I left and it's now cooling down on my bed. I wanted to make sure I had all the hanging clothes hanging when the closet designer comes tomorrow.

I decided to not wait until April to start on taking a semaglutide. I sent a note to the doctor. It will be expensive but maybe only until April and maybe the side effects will kill the whole project. But I'm ready to give it a start now.

I have exercise class at 10 this morning and I have dinner ordered to be picked up at 5. And that's the entire agenda for today. Maybe I'll go fold and hang that pile on my bed before class.

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: awake

olivermoss

Okay, now the next Heated Rivalry sequel is confirmed

cimorene

Sgt. Sheepshanks
Mr. Sheaf
John Weatherup
Alec Quilter
Ebenezer Peabody
Superintendent Goodwilly
Grosvenor Mairs

oursin

That piece about people having AI spouses is online: As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers.

NB we note that 'Lamar' says that the breaking point with his actual, RL, girlfriend was when he found her doing the horizontal tango with his best friend, but it's clear that there were Problems already there, about having to relate to another human bean who was not always brightly sunshiny positively reinforcing him....

what would he tell his kids? “I’d tell them that humans aren’t really people who can be trusted …

I'm not entirely persuaded that individuals haven't made up imaginary companions (even way on into adulthood) before - I seem to remember some, was it in Fandomwank back in the day, accounts of people being married on the astral plane to fictional characters?

This is not entirely 'wow, startling news' to Ye Hystorianne of Sexxe: The Phenomenon of ‘Bud Sex’ Between Straight Rural Men.

I am not going to see if I actually have a copy of the work on my shelves, or if I perused it in a library somewhere, but didn't that notorious work of 'participant observation' sociology, Tearoom Trade argue that many of his subjects were not defining themselves as 'homosexual'.

I also invoke, even further back, Helen Smith's Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895-1957 about men 'messing about' with other men in Yorkshire industrial cities.

And there is a reason people working on the epidemiology and prevention of STIs use the acronym 'MSM' - men who have sex with men - for the significant population at risk who do not identify as gay.

I had, I must admit, a very plus ca change moment when I idly picked up Katharine Whitehorn's Roundabout (1962), and found the piece she wrote on marriage bureaux. In which she mentioned that the two bureaux she interviewed tried to get their subscribers not to be too ultra-specific in their demands - that if they met potential partners in real life they would be more flexible.

Was also amused by the statement that 'Men over thirty are always very anxious to persuade me that they could have all they women they liked, if they bothered'.

vriddy

THE K-9 FANDOM TAG WAS CANONISED ON AO3 WE EXIST FOR REAL!!!!!

I made a feed :D

ao3_k9_fandom_feed

catherineldf

RIP, M.Christian

This is a heartbreaker of a post to write. I don’t remember when I first met Chris online, but we were all part of a fairly large community of erotica writers who also crossed over into other genres from the late 1980s to the early 2010s, by which point the literary erotica markets largely disintegrated. Everyone knew everyone else to some extent or another. We all shared TOCs, appeared in each other’s publications and socialized in person, if we lived close enough. Since I am in the Midwest, I didn’t get to do much socializing in person, but I did meet Chris and a bunch of other folks at an erotica writers conference in Vegas in the mid2000s.

In my experience, Chris was kind and genial, loved to write, wrote very well and enjoyed supporting other writers. Their body of work, between erotica, horror, science fiction and nonfiction, was enormous and well worth reading. I appeared in at least 3 of the anthologies that they edited and they sent me a great lesbian ghost for one of mine. I also had a short essay in Chris’s nonfiction book about writing and selling erotica. I have no idea how many TOCs we shared, but it was a lot. I blurbed a couple of his/their books along the way, as well. Most recently, I released a new edition of Chris’s terrific gay vampire novel, Running Dry through Queen of Swords Press.

Chris’s fiction ranged from the smoking hot to the atmospheric and suspenseful. While they finaled for multiple awards, they never really got the wins and recognition outside the erotica writing community that they deserved, which is a damn shame. I was reaching out to Chris to tell them that I had just nominated Running Dry for the SSBA Awards in the Horror category when I got the bad news. 😢

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I’m trying to track down an estate contact. In the meantime, I plan to keep their book in print until I hear otherwise. Author royalties will be set aside until I have a designee or will be donated to some of the organizations they cared deeply about. In the meantime, remember them for their work. Read it, enjoy it and pass it along to your friends. Chris would like that.

https://books2read.com/runningdry

And their website: http://www.mchristian.com

UPDATE: I have spoken with Chris's brother and have gotten permission to keep Running Dry in print and to pay him the royalties. In the meantime, Samuel needs help getting to Eugene, covering associated expenses, etc. If you're in a position to help, his Venmo is @Samuel-AddisonMuncy

prettygoodword

A second week of words from Polynesian languages, though this one is arguably an edge case:

mai tai (MAI-tai) - n., a cocktail containing rum, curaçao, orgeat, and lime, and sometimes other fruit juices.

Thanks, WikiMedia!

One of the characteristic drinks of tiki culture and thus, entirely typically, has nothing whatsoever to do with Polynesian culture. The drink was invented by Victor J. Bergeron in 1944 for Trader Vic’s, the original Oakland, California, location for his chain of tiki bars — though Donn Beach of the rival chain Don’s Beachcomber (later Don the Beachcomber) claimed Bergeron simplified one of his earlier drinks. The name is supposed to be from Tahitian maitaʻi, good (note that’s three syllables), and the story is that one of the first taste testers exclaimed “Maitaʻi!” (or “Maitai!”?) when sampling it. I am … dubious, and some dictionaries go with “origin unknown.” [Sidebar: Mai tais were not introduced to Hawaii till 1953, which I mention solely to have a hook to add that the Hawaiian cognate of maitaʻi is maikaʻi and the Maori cognate is maitai (two syllables). Which last … hmmm.]

---L.

fred_mouse

I've done my approximately-annual tidy up of dreamwidth subscriptions. I've stopped following a set of blogs that haven't updated in ~2 years, left roughly half the communities I was in, and changed a few other details. The main exceptions on keeping people who don't post are people who comment often enough that I remember; at least one of those I've left their access but unsubscribed. The other exception is people who I'm very much hoping will turn up again one day (and one who, sadly, will never be back, but whose name makes me smile to see it in the list).

If, as happens with this, I've managed to remove your access and you are someone who does actually want to see the occasional locked post, please comment on this post. I'll put a locked post up shortly; it will read 'test' or some equally inane thing.

spikedluv

I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a couple walks with Pip and the dogs, hard-boiled more eggs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and changed kitty litter (my favorite Sunday chore!).

I went with the Cinnamon Orange tea again, and this time I didn’t let it steep too long. Much better! I watched the Bills game. It was another close one, but they pulled it out in the end, thankfully. That interception at the end was the icing on the cake.

I finished the Amelia Peabody book and wrote ~500 words on a new fic for Fandom Trees. *fingers crossed*

Temps started out at 32.4(F) and reached 39.9. We had sun in the morning and snow showers in the afternoon, followed by the snow squalls we were warned about. With the wind and the snow, I’m guessing I’ll be leaving late in the morning because the roads won’t be great.

Mom Update:

Mom sounded good when I talked to her. She’d had all the visits today! First my brother, then Niece L with Toddler A, followed by Sister A, followed by Sister S. The three (four) of them were there all at the same time. Mom agreed that having visitors makes the day go by faster.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: grateful

tyger

Spent most of the day out with A! It was very nice! :D We didn't do anything particularly interesting, but we caught up and it was great, yessss.

This evening, though, got hit by the anvil of tired at like. 10ish. So finishing my daily evening tasks (mostly stupid games, but also knitting!) has been. Difficult.

Not helped by what seems to be a big Firefox lag spike! I thought it was just the internet being slow on one particular site, but it's got worse over the course of the evening and yeaaaaah. Welp, time to turn off my computer overnight! That'll clear out the ram-cobwebs, as it were...

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: Birthplace

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

rionaleonhart

I love this stupid show so much. It's a shame that I've run out of episodes; it brings me so much joy. Still, at least there's fanfiction! (And rewatching. I've now seen the episode '90 Degrees' four times in the course of approximately a month, on account of showing it to everyone I know.)

There's something very nostalgic about how loud and ridiculous Robert is; writing him brings me back to writing Jeremy Clarkson, back in my Top Gear days. They're both a lot of fun to write!

Thank you to

apiphile, who helped to inspire this fic; I wrote a couple of lines as a joke in response to one of his comments, and then I just kept going!

Title: Broken Hearts and Broken Bones
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Chris
Wordcount: 2,300
Summary: Robert attempts to seduce Chris. His techniques leave a little to be desired.

( Broken Hearts and Broken Bones )

mific posting in

fan_writers

Hi everyone and welcome to 2026!

I wrote a brief discussion of this important topic on my journal, so feel free to hop over and join in. I was inspired to write it by my current fannish obsession, but it's a multifandom, and indeed, profic, topic.

The post's here.

mific

You'll have picked up that there's a lot of sex in the show (and book) Heated Rivalry. And, unsurprisingly, there's a lot in the fanfic.

And one thing I'm having to deal with is a bunch of otherwise perfectly readable authors referring to "cum". It almost knocks me out of the mood, but not quite.

Having issues about spelling come as cum is doubtless linked with me being older than dirt and having learned English not just in school but from reading a hell of a lot of novels (before sinking without trace into fanfic). And I probably associate cum with porn dialogue, so that's partly an embarrassment thing, and partly me being a snob.

Anyway, I did some research on the interwebs and the most frequent viewpoint is:

cum is the noun
come is the verb

From etymonline.com, cum dates from 1973, initially used as a noun and mostly in porn, now used more widely and as both a noun and verb. Come is obviously a lot older, but as a synonym for ejaculating it seems to date from the 1500-1600s, and as semen, from the 1920s.

Which is all very well, but I just have a visceral dislike of the word cum. I'm going "ew, gross", like Shane when people use the term "lovers". It looks like a spelling mistake to me, and I doubt I'll ever use it in a fic except in a fake porn video title. So that leaves me stubbornly using come, or writing in a way that avoids the word altogether, because I am also not going to use "semen" or (worse) "ejaculate", except in very specific circumstances. Not to mention "reach completion" or "climax". Nope. Slang terms like jizz, spunk and spooge are sometimes okay in dialogue though, or in the pov of characters where it wouldn't be ooc.

What about you: come or cum? Enquiring minds want to know! Don't feel limited to its use in Heated Rivalry - this applies in most fandoms, and in some profic, I bet.

dark_kana posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) Trying to get things done and organised

2) Listening to good music

3) Either working on my photo albums this evening or rereading Prince of Tennis manga

siderea

"What I 'erd, this nobby, 'iz bird got fingered over a tin o'beans, only shot the poor cow, didn't they? So, like, everybody's tooled up, an'..."

– V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd, 1988

oursin

Happy birthday,

1crowdedhour,

dabbleswithpoisons and

sjkasabi!

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August 2025

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Page Summary

susandennis - Early dark and wet
princessofgeeks - A thought on Episode 3...Heated Rivalry
olivermoss - Unrivaled
cimorene - Names from Freeman Wills Crofts
oursin - Humanz B weerd ('throughout the whole of history', or at least, seldom for the v first time)
vriddy - 📣 K-9 fandom tag canonised!! 📣
catherineldf - RIP, M. Christian 😢
prettygoodword - mai tai
fred_mouse - Subscription tidy up
spikedluv - The Day in Spikedluv (Sunday, Jan 11)
princessofgeeks - HR stories about Shane's family
tyger - Goddamn anvil of tired...
jazzyjj in awesomeers - Just one thing: 12 January 2026
rionaleonhart - Fanfiction: Broken Hearts and Broken Bones (The Goes Wrong Show, Robert/Chris)
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 12-01-2026
mific in fan_writers - Come vs cum: a vocabulary discussion
mific - Come vs Cum: a vocabulary discussion
dark_kana in 3_good_things_a_day - Monday 12/01/2026
siderea - IYKYK [cur ev]
oursin - (no subject)

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Page generated Jan. 16th, 2026 04:42 am

Celebrate the Dreams of Others

Dream a little dream with me

Network

Early dark and wet

A thought on Episode 3...Heated Rivalry

Unrivaled

Names from Freeman Wills Crofts

Humanz B weerd ('throughout the whole of history', or at least, seldom for the v first time)

📣 K-9 fandom tag canonised!! 📣

RIP, M. Christian 😢

mai tai

Subscription tidy up

The Day in Spikedluv (Sunday, Jan 11)

HR stories about Shane's family

Goddamn anvil of tired...

Just one thing: 12 January 2026

Fanfiction: Broken Hearts and Broken Bones (The Goes Wrong Show, Robert/Chris)

Interesting Links for 12-01-2026

Come vs cum: a vocabulary discussion

Come vs Cum: a vocabulary discussion

Monday 12/01/2026

IYKYK [cur ev]

(no subject)

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August 2025

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