LINKDING

Excerpt: After we kill our father but before we leave the island, we argue. Cal doesn’t want to go; he’s afraid of the water. Even after the rest of us outvote him two to one, he refuses to move, crouching on the ground, pressing the ruined side of his face into the earth, snarling whenever we try to touch him. In the end Ari has to sit down with him and say something in a quiet soothing susurrus, like they do, and the whole time Mir is pacing in the waves at the very edge of the water, where it barely comes up to her ankles. She is moving back and forth and back and forth, with her eyes on the horizon, and when this is happening Father’s blood is still on all of our hands but mostly on hers. ➤ that's a very evocative short story title right there and it's like. yeah. that's what the story is about! ➤ a fantasy story about three teens who have escaped their powerful and abusive father figure, who are a team in escaping, who might not always like each other but who are bound together in inextricable ways ➤ the entire story takes place in a boat as they make their way away from the island, hoping to find the mainland, but it never feels static, it's always pushing you onward, as you get more hints of the backstory, of what exactly all the context is for the murder and the escape ➤ it's so good!!! ➤ also. it's told in plural first person? which is so cool. The three teens are the "we" and "us" of the narrative voice. it's so well done! I love when stories play with pov. ➤ also. trans characters! ➤ 5k words

quote: Andrew was convinced the writer had been trans. By this point his friends were tired of hearing about it, but he had no one else to tell besides the internet, and he was too smart for that. That would be asking for it. ➤ short story about a trans man who's obsessed with the m/m novels of a dead historical novelist who he's convinced was trans ➤ and about the dreams he has where he meets her and talks with her ➤ it's a story that feels unsatisfying but like, in a satisfying way? ➤ idk how to explain! it makes me want to reread it 3 more times and think about the way one's relationship with oneself is mediated through the stories one reads and loves ➤ it's really good ➤ 6k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Jin Ling didn't mean to commit zine fraud. Surely you get a free pass if you didn't know how taxes work?!</blockquote>

<blockquote>You are the young wife of Sect Leader Wen, and you're on the verge of discovering something important. About your husband, yes, but also about yourself.</blockquote>

➤ the one where a person finds a way to contact other universes, and uses it to discover if there are other worlds where this person transitioned genders, told entirely through the medium of text messages between Gaby and her au untransitioned self who's looking for understanding.

<blockquote>"I'm so tired," Wei Ying complains, tossing his hand down instead of Going Fish for the sixteenth time this game alone. "I can't even remember who's said what and now I'm losing, like, the easiest card game in existence." He looks tired, too. The spaces under his eyes are sunken, a bruised purple under skin that looks thin and stretched-out to the touch. Fragile. He's looked exhausted for days now, but even when they're curled up on the couch together, Wei Ying's head in Jiang Yanli's lap, humming an unrecognizable tune softly as she strokes his hair, he doesn't sleep.</blockquote> ➤ wwx going to his sister for a safe place when he's in a bad place with depression

<blockquote>Millennial vs Gen Z? Shen Qingqiu wishes. A young transmigrator has a new idol; Shen Qingqiu is very tired.</blockquote>

<blockquote>People in our neighborhood are always saying what a pity it is that two such fine-looking people as my cousin Bluma and her husband have no children yet. I don’t see that they’re so fine-looking as all that. Still, I’ve often thought that if Bluma had a little bit more business of her own to worry about, she might have less time to waste getting into mine.</blockquote> ➤ It's the sequel to "Further Arguments in Support of Yudah Cohen’s Proposal to Bluma Zilberman"! Which has been sitting in my notes waiting for me to bookmark it for an unconscionable number of years! It's great! I lovvvvve the outside perspective on Yudah and Bluma, and Shaina's narration is a delight

<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>Pop-star uber-sensation Jaim Janan rockets off to promote their third album atop a SpaceX Dragon VII capsule today, where they will stream a live musical performance from orbit, some 350 kilometers above the Earth. Before today’s launch, when asked if they were feeling nervous about the trip, the young pop star coolly responded, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.” It’s not clear how many of Jaim’s obsessive fans, or “Janatics” as they are sometimes known, recognized the star was quoting twentieth-century pop legend Elvis Presley [click for bio]. But by mid-afternoon #TruthIsLikeTheSun was the most popular hashtag on Twitter. —Naydeen Johnson for The Washington Post</blockquote>

<blockquote>Gregor carries her mother's vorfemme knife.</blockquote> ➤ trans Gregor who must remain closeted

<blockquote>Jade was the sort of backwoods girl who had a map of the countryside tattooed on her heart, and she could feel it in her bones when the pieces of her world shifted. So when the new family moved into the house across the road that late summer, she felt ripples of wrongness radiating out from them and their too-bright clothes, their bizarrely old-fashioned wood-paneled station wagon, and their rolling words that felt just a little to the left of normal. “Time travelers,” said Jade’s brother, watching them from the window the day they moved in. Jade stood nearby, not daring to move or breathe.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Anne was always the only girl.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Telimezh has devoted himself to the Emperor's service, but he has always kept something back- a secret that he fears, if exposed, would strip him of every honour.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I was in the middle of telling Lis I needed Bitty to mentor a trans frog when the tadpole comics came out. When Lis said, "Trans Whiskey?" I said, "Whiskey is shaped like a Dorito; how has he been on T for less than a year?" but we decided this was insufficient reason to stop me. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Hannah and Melanie: sisters, apart and together. Weather workers. Time benders. When two people so determined have opposing desires, it’s hard to say who will win—or even what victory might look like. This stunning, haunting short story from rising star Alyssa Wong explores the depth and fierceness of love and the trauma of family.</blockquote> ➤ Timeloop, basically, though it doesn't follow fandom's rules about how they're supposed to go. Which is fine, just disconcerting at first because I've had genre expectations trained into me! ➤ Also: Melanie is super definitely trans, and I love the deft way it's shown without ever saying the word or making a huge deal out of it.

<blockquote>Me Romeo, you Juliet.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Esca wants Marcus to see and love him, Cunoval’s son, and not the slave woman Rome thinks him to be. FTM!Esca.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mary's entire being is based around hiding who he is.</blockquote> http://archiveofourown.org/works/221211

<blockquote>I knew what story I wanted to tell (Kirk has trouble with Starfleet because of trans stuff), but then I realized that story didn’t make sense of tell, because presumably that wouldn’t be such a huge deal that far in the future? So mostly it’s a story about some minor falsified documentation annoying some people. YOU’RE WELCOME.</blockquote>

<blockquote>having to out himself as trans to a female friend when his period catches him unawares.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Dean's birth certificate is for 'Deanna Winchester,' same as their grandmother. Bonus points for John learning to raise Dean as a boy.</blockquote>

➤ living on the streets meant Aladdin was used to making his own rules, but his embarkment on a relationship with Jasmine means that it's suddenly an issue that he was born in a female body.

➤ in which the youngest Dashwood is trans.