LINKDING

excerpt: We drove out to Joshua Tree for the star party—a gathering of amateur astronomers under a clear, dark sky. It was Holly’s idea, an impromptu adventure on a Friday after work: “Hey, Lou, do you want to go look at the moon tonight?” Holly had the best ideas and the worst ideas, and in the daylight, it was hard to tell them apart at first glance. I took a gamble. I said yes. And I meant it—I wanted nothing more than to lay down under the Milky Way with my hand in hers and gaze into forever. For a long time, our love was the biggest thing I knew how to believe in. ➤ an sff novelette about family dynamics, religion, queerness, trauma, and the beauty of the night sky ➤ it's a horrifying story even as it's also beautiful, exploring its ideas in ways that leave me not quite sure what to think about any of it, but in a way that's clearly done with purpose and care ➤ content note for explicit child murder. I am serious about the horrifying aspects of the story! but if it's something you feel able to read, it's definitely worth it imo ➤ 9k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>"...Before, the angel’s identity and mission had always been simple. For that matter, its identity and its mission had always been one and the same. It had been Study, or it had been Mincha, or it had been Comfort. Whatever it was, it was, wholly. In every moment it had known that it was exactly what it was meant to be. Like a single pure note sounding. Lately it felt like a whole chord – maybe several instruments at once, some of which might be dissonant – and it couldn’t be sure which way the chord would resolve. Every moment seemed to bring a new revelation of who and what it had become..."</blockquote> ➤ a lovely post-canon fic about Uriel after When The Angels Left the Old Country, as its relationship with Ash evolves but remains the cornerstone of its life ➤ also full of Jewish geekery (as the tags of the fic say too!) which feels so right for fic of this book! ➤ 3k words in length

<blockquote>Students were marching that day through the center of the city, protesting a new law for the housing of prisoners’ souls. The young person who organized the march had written a very earnest note imploring Sor Ana to join them and speak against the proposal. Naturally, she had refused. A holy sister who had renounced the world outside the cloister could not very well turn around and play figurehead to a secular political movement. But politics was one thing, and personal opinion another, and so on the day of the march she left the Holiest House to go out to the city and watch the protesters pass by; it seemed the very least she could do.</blockquote> ➤ "it's about the irreconcilable differences between your past self and your present self, and also about robot nuns"

<blockquote>Before she touched it, Leora closed her eyes and whispered a small truth to the golem: "I googled my foot pain thing, and I think I might be developing bunions?" It was a tiny truth -- nothing like enough to breathe a golem to life -- but it was still important to be respectful. She might not come from a long line of golemkraft practitioners, but some traditions were there for a reason.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Besides, I wanted to give Rebekah another lesson in numbers. And now that he had suggested it, I wanted to teach her alef-beit, too. Perhaps I would paint her first page of letters with honey, to teach her that learning what she does not yet know is sweet.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The first forgery Booker ever made was a new identity for himself as a gentile. Wherein Booker loses his family, reconnects with his heritage, and maybe finds something a little like faith.</blockquote>

<blockquote>My god gazes at me, His eyes intense and unreadable. In one fluid motion, He closes the space between us, pulls the scarf from my head, and pushes His face into my hair. “What are you doing?” I cry, stumbling back. For fifteen years I have been a devotee, cloistered from the company of men, but my god’s expression is unmistakable. He regards me with hunger, as if He wants to devour me whole. I scream and run from the chapel.</blockquote> ➤ I read the mc as being ace

<blockquote>Fuckos in this stupid town think nobody notices how when the tide just keeps coming in without going out again that "some" neighborhoods get sunk forever as an "unfortunate side effect of coastal flooding" while others become the sexy hip cool new "seafloor village." I'd cackle every time some bullshit golden-brick seawall crumbles and takes another mansion with it, but now there's straight-up UNDERWATER house tours for a zillion dollars a ticket, the same way they used to show off their giant Christmas trees and shit but even more pretentious cause now I guess they host in designer scuba gear. "Oh, this old thing? Blub blub, there's sand in my butt, no wait it's diamonds, ha ha!" (That's how they talk probably.) MEANWHILE where MY shitty old apartment used to be is now an undersea God-damned HOTEL AND CASINO.</blockquote> I don't think I've ever read something like this before? VERY strong sense of voice, and I liked the validation of anger in the face of ➤ injustice and oppression.

<blockquote>Most boys in my position—or rather, most newly-minted young men—choose to discourse upon a familiar subject, such as the origin of our sacred holidays. But as many of you know, my mother is Lady Trent, the dragon naturalist. As such, I find myself drawn instead to a passage from the Book of Priests, on the impurity of dragon-kind.</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>"If God did not exist, it would have been necessary for man to invent one." A man, a girl, a wombat, and a demon pray, or try praying, to four different gods.</blockquote>

<blockquote>He had lived in secrecy for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to see the open plain in the daylight. When the one-eyed girl had found him, he had been hiding in a ger, squeezed into a stifling gap between the inner and outer walls. The herdsmen who he was visiting had put him there because they thought the approaching rider was an Imperial spy. They shouted at her, “Go away, mountain girl, go! There are no priests here.” But when he heard her say: “I have come from Kou,” he had wriggled out of the secret space and showed himself. Only something very dire could have brought her here to find him, a hundred miles away from the mountains of her home. And because she came from Kou, he had known at once that the saint must be in danger.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Teal'c/Sam friendship (maybe some pre-het here) fic that is... weird. It explores some religious themes that I've had on my mind concerning Teal'c for quite a while. </blockquote>

<blockquote>They always seem to meet by the water. Floki wants Athelstan to listen to the trees. Athelstan wants Floki to listen to the Gospel.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Alanna goes to the Mother of Mountains convent, but chooses life as a guard at the Temple of the Great Mother Goddess over marriage and life as a lady. Six months after taking up her duties, she unexpectedly encounters an intruder on the Temple's grounds.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Don’t heal me with medicine,” he wheezes. “Stitches—fail. They fail like doubt. Tell Aelana what you want... want done, and—if you truly want it, she will give you the power to forge it....” “Are you mad?” I scream, my nostrils filled with the fetid scent of blood and bowel-shit again, and oh my Goddess my father is just like the soldiers—</blockquote>

<blockquote>On Elephantine Island, a young Egyptian girl is sold to a Jewish officer of the military garrison.</blockquote> ➤ series consists of: From the Sun to the Shade I From the Sun to the Shade II From the Sun to the Shade III

<blockquote>Some men are born monsters . . . others are made so. In “Prophet,” Rance Ridley, the teenage son of a cult leader, lives on an isolated compound, disconnected from modern civilization. There is no running water. No electricity. And no law but the Prophet’s. When Rance is caught in an act of flagrant disobedience, his father delivers the ultimate punishment.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is said in the high stony reaches of Ekallatum where none live but goatherds and miners that the Great God Mithros was born in a cave. A slightly AU story of how Mithros might have come to be, and of the fall of Ekallatum, set in the Carthaki equivalent of the Bronze Age. T for Doomed Last Stand violence and character death, although you won't find any canon characters here besides some of the gods.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Angels don’t have faith the way humans do; the existence of God is a given. Aziraphale still has his feathers very ruffled over the matter of his sexuality; after all, as an angel, he’s probably not supposed to have one at all. Desire didn’t do the Watchers, who Fell for desire for human women, any favors. But it’s certainly not human women Aziraphale wants – does that make it better or worse?</blockquote> http://archiveofourown.org/works/364972

<blockquote>Martin Luther is really curious about Jean Calvin the man.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Doctor and Donna land on a rebel starship in the 37th century, and, of course, there are complications. Also, Mel Brooks' dream of ~JEWS IN SPACE~ is realized.</blockquote> ➤ series consists of Strangers Entered the Land So the Few Took On the Many… Sort of And Lo, There was a 'Miracle'

➤ A series of gorgeous and depressing looks at their relationship and at Kierkegaard. The fourth one got me a bit teary.

➤ The second coming of Jesus. To Las Vegas. Predictably, the messages sent by their superiors to Aziraphale and Crowley are a little confused...

➤ A fic on the problem of Susan. Does a really wonderful job of it. ➤ Also has really great characterizations for Susan and Lucy.

➤ The Vecchio family as seen through their priest

<blockquote> “This is a slightly unusual request,” said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. “As far as I know, it’s the first time anyone’s been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence Computer. I don’t wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your — ah — establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?” </blockquote>