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>“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>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.

➤ 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????

➤ 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

➤ 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"

the sequel gives a tidy summary of this one, which is: <blockquote>We were coming up on our three-month anniversary, which meant Ty was about to finish his third full month of being a psychic. I'd given him spectral herpes -- consensually! wholly consensually! -- on our first date, which had not-coincidentally been in a creepy haunted house where we'd needed a combination of my highly contagious paranormal abilities and his in-progress Asian Languages and Cultures undergraduate degree to keep us from being siliconed to death by animated anthropomorphic sex toys.</blockquote> ➤ the sequel is "This Story Is Full of Scorpions: Seriously, Dude, Don't Read It"

➤ the story of the scribe who wrote down the Revelation According to John, and of John, who is kind of unstuck from time

➤ The captain of the football team and the head cheerleader's stepbrother.