LINKDING

<blockquote>Eli was just about to give up on the evening when the cops arrived. A collective groan rose through the patronage as the lights in the bar snapped full up and a little joke of an air raid siren began to wail from over the bar. Eli glanced down at his watch before he remembered that he wasn’t wearing one tonight — or much of anything else, for that matter. He shifted his wig a little more securely into place, though he didn’t think it helped the illusion much, not at this hour, not after this many beers. Shit, why hadn’t he tried a little harder tonight? Maybe he could have passed as someone’s little sister, tagging along for a night on the town! Yes, Eli thought, because homosexuals brought their little sisters along with them to the bars all the time. The place was practically overrun with them. No faggots here, officers, just a bunch of little sisters out past curfew. He wondered how many palms the owners would have to grease to make the cops believe that.</blockquote>

<blockquote>She drew herself to her full height when she saw me, setting her chin at a regal angle, announcing without words what she thought about herself and where she stood — or at least, what she wanted everyone to think she thought. “Well met,” she said, drawing the back of her hand hastily across her heat-warmed cheeks, rendered pink by sunlight. She took three sharp, shallow breaths, then squared her shoulders again. “I am come for audience with the Great Queen Ereškigala, ruler of the worlds below and mistress of souls.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Novice Theo was not supposed to hate. He was expected to feel some negativity, of course, but he was not supposed to. Purging that was part of his novitiate training, burning away everything but love for and devotion to the Great Tetratheon that blessed their land. He had been with the Brothers for ten years now, and he had entered freely, wanting nothing but the serenity and discipline that a life of godly service promised to bring him. He wanted to be pure of heart and spirit. He yearned for that inner peace, earned through deep contemplation, which he could then reflect outwardly to better the entire world. But oh, he hated Novice Clarence.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A string of murders must be solved by a would-be assassin who can't remember the last two years of his life and the magician who took those memories from him.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In the growing dark, he saw the place shimmer like an oasis against the last pink-orange light of day. A series of exposed bulbs lit the tall sign by the turnoff from the main road that labeled the short, boxy building as The Golden Spoke. Bud didn’t have to look at the matchbook in his hand to confirm it; he’d looked at it plenty already, at least a dozen times a day every day since he’d had it passed to him by another sailor in another port. On the front flap was the establishment’s name and cross-street address. On the back were four words: FEMALE IMPERSONATORS OF DISTINCTION.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“You think you could try to go back to sleep?” Marcus asked, pawing for his glasses. “Just give it a shot?” There was a pause, and Marcus really, truly hoped that this time, finally, his five-year-old son would shrug, turn around, and head back to his room, and that would be the end of it for the night, and he could shut his eyes and not open them again until much, much closer to his wake-up alarm.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Racquel held her breath for a moment, hoping madly that it was something else — a new project, maybe, or an unrelated item, or maybe not even about Leigh at all. Then her eyes focused on the headline: At Speculative Smorgasboard panel, Leigh March reveals she’s had romantic relationships with both men and women.</blockquote> ➤ I really loved a lot of things about this story and had a lot of feelings, but I'm feeling left hanging by the ending because it never actually addresses Racquel's concerns about being out despite the changes at the end clearly making their relationship at the very least an open secret!!!

<blockquote>The throne room looked different from this angle: an inch or so off the floor, with a guardsman’s shiny leather boot pressed against the back of his neck. It was a fine angle from whence to observe the delicate work and mother-of-pearl inlay. It was a terrible angle from whence to face the king. Unfortunately for him, Marcelo was not there to appreciate the architecture. The truth was, he could barely even see the king, given the way he was being forced to bow. But he wasn’t there to look at the king; he was here to be looked at. Alas that he hadn’t known he’d be making a court appearance today. He might have worn more flattering trousers.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A failed attempt at reincarnating a supersoldier meets his former self's old boyfriend.</blockquote> ➤ incredible worldbuilding and characterizing, as always for shukyou. I was particularly drawn in by the questions of identity in this story.

<blockquote>A solitary man meets a friend in the snow. It was difficult to believe in such a chill, even as Hrolf stepped out into it. Breathing it in was like taking a blow to the chest every time. With his hands, hobbled as they were in fur-lined mittens, he redoubled the scarf around his mouth and nose. The morning sky was the clear blue-grey of a bird's egg, but he would not see the sun's weak winter face today, not this late in the year. It would give him enough light, though, to do what was needed.</blockquote>

➤ in which the main character regularly smuggles information across a Wall in a fantasy dystopia, and ends up getting roped into smuggling a couple of people across. I had so many feelings????

<blockquote>The first thing I noticed were his hands, which were stained beyond all washing by brown-black grease hiding in the creases of his knuckles and beneath what little of his fingernails hadn't been bitten down to the quick. They were delicate, though, I could see by the way that he set his glass on the bar and ran his fingertips around the damp rim where his mouth had just been; he touched it like he'd touch a lover, I thought, long before I knew he'd never in his life touched a lover that way. The scent of new money rolled off him, not in that flashy, obnoxious way tasteless barbarians turn gilded lilies with a few extra notes in their billfolds, but like a man who'd come to enjoy all the things that wealth could get him but still didn't feel like he fit in any of the places you had to go to get those things. He waited until the starched-collared bartender had wandered his way to the other end of the bar before inclining his head in my direction and saying to me, "I'll buy you a drink if you let me see that arm."</blockquote> ➤ steampunk arm-fixing

<blockquote>It was the Queer as Folk that tipped him off. But for the four months leading up to it, Gautam just blamed his brother.</blockquote> ➤ In which Gautam has a friendship with a ghost in his apartment, who talks to him via movie titles pulled up on Gautam's netflix account

<blockquote>A Jewish man disconnected from his upbringing re-finds meaning in traditions. "Eventually, his parents had talked Lemuel down to only two Transformers figures, and those he would carry in his pockets instead of his hands. Asher had not been there for the negotiations, but Lemuel recounted them in great detail in the car, several times over. "My pockets, not my hands, Uncle Asher," Lemuel said for about the twenty millionth time."</blockquote>

<blockquote>I admit, I wrote this story entirely so I could engage in this particular form of pronoun fuckery. If it seemed at all familiar, then you must be one of those beautiful and lovely people who also read Samuel R. Delany's brilliant Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. (In fact, the story itself was originally going to be titled 'The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities' until I realized I'd rather save stealing an auspicious title like that for something more substantial.) If you haven't read it, one, you need to, and two, let me steal the bit from the Wikipedia article where the pronoun thing is explained: [T]he Velm sections of the novel assign an alternate meaning to the pronouns "he" and "she" not related to physical sex. All characters, whether they are human males or females or evelm males, females, or neuters, are referred to as "she" in most contexts, and "woman" and "womankind" are used as generic terms for humans. The normally male pronouns such as "he" or "him" are used to denote sexual interest in the subject by the speaker.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A young athlete has to learn to grow up with his late father's legacy, his remaining family, dreams of stardom, and the mysterious man who may be able to teach him how to breathe underwater.</blockquote>

Summary from ssbb wiki: <blockquote>After agreeing to move in with her girlfriend, one woman shares an important secret; a reptile appears.</blockquote>

<blockquote>My name is Rainer, and I'm an alcoholic.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Hey, I know a thing or two about cars." Gabriel kept his expression pleasant, neutral. "Do you," he said, keeping his voice as noncommittal as he could while at the same time yelling over a shitty club backbeat. When he'd started sneaking into clubs at seventeen, using his older cousin's ID, no one had told him the real crime would be that he'd become sick to death of it all by the time he could do it legally.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Perhaps they've forgotten about us." "Don't be silly," said Jian, whittling at a knot he'd cut off the firewood. Bai had observed that Jian seemed to have no skill at whittling, and Jian had pointed out that he had nothing but time in which to improve. "They'll probably send our relief tomorrow."</blockquote> ➤ two soldiers keeping a watchtower

➤ the one about polyamorous bird people

➤ the one where the political candidate gets shot in the head and gets treated with an experimental procedure to replace the bits of his head that got destroyed with technology. And then he proceeds to continue his campaign.

<blockquote>OKNO OKNO can't tell at first which radio it's coming from. That's understandable; you've got twenty-six, all arranged on various shelves around your apartment. Twenty-five before you picked up the latest one, a little box from the thrift store, runs on two double-A batteries, not as useful in a catastrophe as the ones that you crank to life, but, well, you can't be cranking every minute of the day. And anyway, it's not a catastrophe. Yet.</blockquote> ➤ odd and I don't really understand everything but it's extremely compelling and well-written and it's totally worth reading.

➤ four boys telling ghost stories on christmas eve

<blockquote>The first time I kissed Frank was the night Joe Cornish died.</blockquote> ➤ Or to quote the author's notes: <blockquote>I credit this story's genesis largely to Ann Cvetkovich's An Archive of Feeling, which is a book about what lesbians have done and still do to memorialize their traumas from and contributions to activism in the early years of AIDS. In the midst of a larger discussion about the power of rallying around ACT UP's identity, some of the lesbian members told stories about how they were having affairs with gay men back then -- and could tell nobody, for fear that their other gay-rights-involved friends would completely shun them.</blockquote> ➤ It's weird to be tagging this history when its events begin only 30 years ago, but that IS ancient history when it comes to this stuff.

➤ the story of two actors on a cheesy soap

<blockquote>excerpted from Q&A: Julia Lee on How to Be a Proper Lady and Other Southern Atrocities But Lee, 31, has a sense of propriety that might give your grandma the vapors. A native of Nashville, Lee left her Music City home for the shores of Manhattan and has never looked back -- though she does go back to visit once in a while, she insists. Bless Your Heart is a less geographic and more spiritual return to those roots, interpreting the wisdom of several generations of Southern ladies and gentlemen for more modern sensibilities. TIME had me catch up with her to find out what it's like being a mismannered Miss Manners.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Well, if you do card sharps of the old west, obviously you need to have, like, one be a Jew and one a Chinaman and maybe one of them crossdresses as a saloon girl</blockquote>

➤ The one with the illusionist-pyromancer and the dragon palace in the mountains in the snow

➤ In which Mike is dating a prof who happens to be cthulhuan, and he and Jason and Ty keep cycling through different universes' versions of them ➤ sequel to "Mike Dies At The End"