LINKDING

Summary: “It started with the ghost,” Horatio said after a moment, clearly coming to a decision. He looked upset, finally, but in a frustrated way, not in the way you would expect from someone who had just witnessed four people die, and one of them in his arms. “I got roped into it because of the ghost.” // Why Hamlet chose to put his trust in Horatio. ➜ yuletide fic - for Hamlet ➜ taking an interpretation that Horatio and Hamlet barely knew each other before the start of the play, and running with it from Horatio's pov ➜ I love the way this interpretation shapes the story! ➜ And Horatio's pov is so good. the way he feels helplessly drawn into the mess by Hamlet's charisma, never sure what he can do or what he should do, but unable to make himself step back and leave Hamlet alone ➜ because Hamlet IS so charismatic, and so visibly struggling at the same time! and there's so much depth there that Horatio simply cannot have the context to understand, but he wants to, he wants to be there for Hamlet ➜ but in the end, of course, all he can do is tell everyone what happened. ➜ I'm so emotions!!!! ➜ 9k words

Summary: <blockquote>Gotta move, gotta choose / You've got a difference to make / Don't let it happen again Judas makes an agonizing decision, again and again and again.</blockquote> ➤ a Jesus Christ Superstar vid which draws on many different productions of the musical, both stage and film, to look at Judas's relationship with Jesus ➤ I love how it gets across how intense and agonising a relationship it is, and the use of many different sources helps hammer home the inevitability of its tragedy too ➤ 3:45 in length. music only, no added sounds/dialogue. subtitles are available.

no summary ➤ fic for The Left Hand of Darkness, set generations after canon! ➤ a young person of Gethen dreams of journeying out to join the rest of the Ekumen; their parent tells them the story of the Envoy and of Estraven ➤ I love this outside perspective on the characters we know and love from canon, and what must have/might have happened to them, and the stories they've become in the generations since! ➤ the original characters are wonderful also, bringing a great dynamic to the discussion of what it means to be a Gethenian vs an Outsider, and to the consideration of what a story means and what it means to tell that story ➤ yuletide always brings fabulous left hand of darkness fics and this one is no exception! ➤ 2k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>After the end of everything, Hark returns to his old, familiar job at Sanctuary. Life, however, does not return to normal. It begins with small things—things far too small to notice. Open windows that ought to be closed, doors that slam themselves shut, objects in the wrong places. Coincidences. It becomes something far worse.</blockquote> ➤ fic for the Frances Hardinge book "Deeplight" ➤ focusing on the friendship between Hark and Jelt ➤ absolutely perfect creepy vibes, and capturing what's compelling to Hark about his friendship with Jelt despite everything ➤ also perfect bits about Quest as mentor-figure! ➤ 4k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>"Twins are the same" is a cliché. Or, Dorachar- Clifford, the early years. char-and Jean</blockquote> ➤ Fic for the two-person roleplay game Debrief (I LOVE DEBRIEF!!!!) ➤ featuring Dora and Jean, the wives of the player characters in the game, and I love how it makes them real people with their own complex relationship with each other! ➤ I also love what it does with footnotes, it is a GENIUS way of doing pov things for this particular canon ➤ ahhhh there are so many great details in the fic too! ➤ 3k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>"Anne had thought herself quite finished with wanting, but this want, once stumbled upon, would not quietly lay itself down in the grave with the others." Eight years changes a person, but not beyond all recognition. Fred Wentworth and Anne Elliot, years after a final break, find that they are more alike, in some respects, than they thought before.</blockquote> ➤ a rewrite of Persuasion featuring butch 4 butch Anne/Frederick ➤ god it's so GOOD and I am so EMOTIONAL about it ➤ I love all the ways in which it is both the same and different, the ways their identities affect the things they do and the choices they make ➤ and I mentioned in an earlier post how meaningful it is to be able to see gender non-conforming people like me in historical fiction, living their lives, finding ways to be happy, finding their community. shaking hands with them across time. I see you and you see me. ➤ making Persuasion specifically be the story told is so perfect too because of how it's about getting to know yourself better when you've had time to grow up more ➤ also there's lots of excellently-researched historical content ➤ and lots of feels ➤ READ IT READ IT READ IT ➤ it's such a lovely ending and I nearly cried about it ➤ 47k words in length

<blockquote>A triptych on the theme of half-belonging.</blockquote>

<blockquote>at last / my love has come along</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I won’t leave you alone, Lord Estraven,” Genly said. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. In exile or at home. On the Ice or at the hearth.”</blockquote> ➤ just the right vibe to fit the book

<blockquote>Stephen took hold of Jack's face again, but not this time to cherish. He held him still—Jack making a mild complaining sound—and moved back far enough for the lantern-light to fall upon Jack and bring him into focus. There—there, on his jaw, where Stephen's hands had grabbed him—a faint smudge of the silvery dust. And on the side of his neck where the shirt lay loose, another trace of it, glittering like assassins' knives; Stephen remembered how he had combed all of his treacherous fingers through Jack's hair, stealthily savouring him. Contaminating him.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Malcolm Connor is staring at my bike. It’s not for the first time. </blockquote> ➤ pre-ot3

<blockquote>In a minute, Shprintze thinks, the fiddler will say what every other neighbor has said: oy, what a trip! Are you sure you’ll be safe? Oh, well, but you’ll see your sister, and that meshuggeneh radical of hers, and maybe if you’ve the time you could bring a letter to my cousin, who lives in the Pod'iacheskii neighborhood – In fact what the fiddler says is: “Since you’re going, I’m thinking I might come with you.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>She had not taken her hand from his throat. Harriet, as an author of detective fiction, had given no small amount of thought in her life to the properties of the human jugular. Even before her wretched time in Wilvercombe, she could have explained exactly where to cut to deprive a man of his life’s blood. She traced that path now with the edge of one fingernail. Peter’s eyes did not leave hers, and he did not move an inch, holding himself utterly defenseless. Harriet was the one who swallowed.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Sarah McBride Anderson is best known for her work as a suffragette and later as the Representative of Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District, where she served from 1925-1937 (the first woman to represent Massachusetts, and the seventh woman in the US House of Representatives). Less well known is her lifelong friendship with J.A. Pendleton, the celebrated novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner. The two women met at college, where they roomed together. Although the correspondence between the two women after their college years has been published, these letters (excerpted from Anderson's letters home to her family during their college years) have not, and provide a fascinating glimpse into their friendship.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A collection of fragments from Angharad Scott’s research and correspondence. In which another, less familiar, world is revealed, and stories are told. I have stood in the shadows of the lamassu. I have explored a Palace of unending rooms, utterly silent beyond the rushing of waters below and the caw of birds above. Your stories are true — and more than that, they are only a fraction of the stories that can be told.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is not the same blade; yet it is still a good weapon.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For Murna, it had been as if she expected to take up an ill-balanced blade that had once slipped and cut her, and found instead a bright and shining dirk that fit her hand as if made for it. Murna and Conory pick up the pieces, after the events of the book.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For some reason, Ali had assumed that Lawrence would be better with his English officers.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Experimental faster-than-light travel sends Genly ten years into his own past, onto the Gobrin Ice.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Twelve excerpts from Teixcalaan and from Lsel Station.</blockquote> ➤ every time I read a fic like this, composed of excerpts from various documents, I think to myself that I really need a tag for that but can never come up with one I'm happy with or remember what I've used in the past. SIGH. Anyway this is a truly excellent specimen of the genre!

<blockquote>In Teixcalaan, these things are ceaseless: star-charts, disembarkments, and Shrja Torel's ridiculous, illogical, impossible-to-get-rid-of envy for her best friend's job and imago. (Mahit and Yskandr are very similar. Shrja is not.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Geoffrey, legacy, and the Henriad.</blockquote> ➤ the feelings crept up on me without me noticing until the end of the fic and just - YEAH. What a good.

<blockquote>It was just as well they called it the Forlorn Hope.</blockquote> ➤ Jenny before the events of the book

<blockquote>At the end of his life, retired Stabile of the Ekumen Genly Ai shares a part of his story on Gethen that he never told.</blockquote> ➤ Wow, that was really good. Did an amazing job of feeling like something that fits with canon

<blockquote>A Staryk girl with a Jewish name</blockquote> ➤ YESSSSSSSS this is so good

<blockquote>In the garden; after the war.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is not an enviable position, being a bridge, particularly a bridge with visions. But sometimes, to build the future, that's what you need. Or: Harry and Corlath's daughter comes to Istan.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Everyone deserves a little happiness before they die.</blockquote> ➤ does a great job of Barney's pov

<blockquote>The first thing he does, when everyone is dead, is listen.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Was it this thin before, When I raced through to the end In a single breath? Did I guess motivation Where none is given, None implied?</blockquote>