LINKDING

<blockquote>The original Shen Qingqiu suffers a severe deviation that unsettles his daemon, transforming them into a childish and inconstant creature, too curious and without any memories of the life that has made him so bitter. His soul is now unrecognizable to him and everyone can see his humiliation. Shen Yuan isn't exactly happy to have transmigrated into Proud Immortal Demon Way at all, much less as this doomed scum villain's daemon. A His Dark Materials Fusion AU. Knowledge of HDM not required.</blockquote> ➤ enjoyed this more than the average daemon au, I think because both the daemon and human are characters I care about, and so I cared about their relationship. genius idea to make sy sj's daemon!

<blockquote>“It is possible,” Hua Cheng began slowly, for once looking like a real person and not a god who had meticulously chosen a human suit in which to travel this petty and boring mortal world, “I may have lied a little, to my cohort. I may have told them, a few of them, not many, I was married.” “Okay,” Xie Lian said, assuming he was talking about his special someone. “To you.” “WHAT.” Or: After a meltdown goes viral and ruins his acting career, Xie Lian moves to LA. Unable to find work, he slips into a severe depression, until Shi Qingxuan hooks him up with a new roommate, an art student who has apparently been telling everyone they're married.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Luo Binghe has it all: the respect of the cultivation world, the home he always wanted, and Shizun's love. There's just one problem: if Shizun ever finds out he's a demon, it's going to ruin everything.</blockquote> ➤ I feel like the ending needed a little more emotional settling time after how very long lbh had been angsting about this stuff; it felt a little too abrupt for him to be making jokes about sqq liking him being a monster, for example. but overall a really delightful fic

<blockquote>Sometimes Lan Zhan doesn’t work through lunch. Sometimes he makes conversation with coworkers in the halls. Sometimes he goes home instead of spending the last hour trawling through Grindr. But mostly, that’s exactly what he does. The sameness is comforting. His life spools out in easily measured increments: capsule collections, yards of hand dyed textiles, ninety day lead times, sell through figures, cost of goods sold. Every date in manufacturing can be calculated backwards and forward from a single horizon point: the date that the goods must arrive into the country where they'll be sold. Other than that, nothing else really matters.</blockquote> ➤ well this is devastatingly good

<blockquote>Lan Qiren finds a boy on the streets of Yiling and the world changes. A story in three parts</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Zhan looks so sad. He holds out his hand and says "Help." "Aish, this man," Wei Wuxian sighs. "What's wrong?" Lan Zhan holds out his hand a little further, insistent, and Wei Wuxian sighs again and takes it. A costly mistake that results in getting pulled deeper into Lan Zhan's apartment, squawking protests about how he's still wearing his shoes that Lan Zhan ignores. He leads Wei Wuxian down the hallway to the bedroom at the end. Then he shoves at Wei Wuxian's shoulder until he loses his balance and sits on the edge of the bed. Then he climbs on after him. / Thirteen years after he dies on New Year's Eve, Wei Wuxian is reunited with Lan Wangji.</blockquote> ➤ an amazingly good sense of place as well as development of the mood created by the narrative in the reader

<blockquote>Seven Necessities. Seven Tenths Full. What makes a meal, and what makes a family.</blockquote> ➤ A story told through encounters with food. Suffused with deep feelings, both the pleasure and the pain and the longing (both for what cannot be and for what, in the end, can be). It's beautiful.

<blockquote>One of the first things Wei Wuxian’s new co-star said to him was “this show isn’t a gay love story.” Vignettes of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian performing Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, not in order</blockquote>

<blockquote>Wei Ying hiccupped a bubble of blood out of his mouth, and he shifted on the sword, sending a swift terror through Lan Wangji. He pinned Wei Ying mercilessly close, tightly enough he could support Wei Ying’s entire weight even if his feet left the steel. Wei Ying had closed his eyes on the cliff at Nightless City and let himself fall back. Lan Wangji’s heart had leapt out through the wall of his chest. Lan Wangji had stopped him, pulled him forward and thrown down a teleportation talisman and swept him away. He would not, could not let him slip through his hands now. / Wei Wuxian survives, goes into hiding in Cloud Recesses, and Forest Gumps his way through the events of the timeskip, which alters their course.</blockquote> ➤ author tags this "this AU is gentler than canon but isn't a complete fix-it" which...yup. But also the author's inspiration was wanting Jin Rusong to not die!

<blockquote>Crumpled at the base of Koi Tower’s long stairs for the second time, Jin Guangyao presses his face into the stone, takes a deep breath despite re-broken ribs, and arranges his features as carefully as he knows how. Then he stands, moving carefully around the pain, and bows deep, arms held straight and true. The walk back up the steps to his father's side is painful enough to wipe the smile from his face; it is not painful enough to prevent him re-taking his place as seneschal, bowing again at the top of the steps. As he straightens, he prioritizes his plans for his father’s demise over all else.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“It’s okay that you miss him,” said Lan Wangji, a familiar litany to them both by now. “Do you feel sad?” “I feel sad,” A-Yuan repeated, shoulders hitching with tiny hiccuping sniffs. “When is he coming back?” “I don’t know. I am not sure where he is.” But this seemed to frustrate A-Yuan. “Xian-gege! I miss him! Please, baba?” He looked up at him with wet cheeks and a wide, quivering frown. “Please baba can you ask him? I really miss him!” He sobbed again, heartbreakingly. It stabbed straight through him, cracking open the reservoir of loss and helplessness that was all his own. His child’s grief did that, sometimes. It always took him by surprise. He caught his breath sharply and gathered A-Yuan into his arms, holding him tight until the pain ebbed. “I will try,” he said softly into A-Yuan’s hair, when he could speak again. He never made uncertain promises and tried not even to raise uncertain hopes, but his son was hurting. His son believed he could make it better. He couldn’t not try. Wen Qing might at least know who this “Xian-gege” was. He would text her in the morning. It would be a start.</blockquote>

<blockquote>AKA: The one where Geralt is a bartender and Jaskier sings karaoke.</blockquote> ➤ series consists of: when midnights break their sleep so I'm the dragon (big deal) a heart i couldn't silence

<blockquote>Simon doesn't remember.</blockquote> ➤ au of what happens post-chip. I have a lot of feelings on Simon's behalf since he doesn't know what he ought to be feeling!!!!

<blockquote>"If Vader captures you, if he threatens to torture or kill you, you tell him you're Padmé Amidala's daughter."</blockquote>

<blockquote>Enabran Tain has retired, and Garak has been second-in-command of the Obsidian Order for over three years. His next assignment is the interrogation of Cardassia’s newest detainee, a Federation doctor charged with espionage. AU in which Garak was never exiled. Set during early season 3.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Yuuri wakes up in Victor’s room the night after the Sochi Grand Prix Final banquet. Did they sleep together? No. Instead, last night, Drunk Yuuri taunted Victor that he hadn’t earned the right to get in his pants…and spelled out exactly what Victor would have to do to get there. Now, Victor intends to do everything on that list… ~ “The conversation,” Victor says, “went something like this. You said I wasn’t getting in your pants that easily.” Victor says this in a normal tone of voice. Anyone could hear him. Yuuri looks around, but if anyone is paying attention, they’re pretending not to. “Naturally, I asked what I would have to do to get in your pants.” “Ah.” Yuuri blushes. “How embarrassing. What do you mean, naturally? Why would you ask that?” Victor tilts his head. “Because I want to get in your pants. I thought that much was obvious by now.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Napoleon sends a letter to the upstart sea-captain who stole his dragon, Laurence sends one back, and a correspondence begins under the uneasy eye of the admiralty. ------When Laurence had admitted the matter to Granby his lieutenant exclaimed, “God, does Boney want you drawn and quartered as a traitor?” which seems perfectly possible.</blockquote> ➤ the main plot turns out to be the dragon plague which means auuugh (the laurence/napoleon is not any kind of endgame relationship in this particular fic ftr)

<blockquote>Cosette gets drafted in the first round to the Washington Capitals. Eponine gets drafted in the fourth to the Pittsburgh Penguins and she can do this, she can totally do this.</blockquote> ➤ oh no this is so GOOD

<blockquote>Captain Laurence of the Amitié has been spying on the French for years. Nothing in his experience prepares him for the possibility of becoming captain to a Chinese Celestial – a dragon meant for the French Emperor – and certainly not for the subsequent attention this provokes when he is, therefore, the only person capable of negotiating with China.</blockquote> ➤ every time Laurence lied to Temeraire I was so sad and upset! This whole fic is just a much unhappier feeling universe in a lot of ways :( ➤ Author labels this pre-napoleon/laurence/josephine, but that content is just a couple extremely mild hints from napoleon really

<blockquote>Obi-Wan didn't become Qui-Gon Jinn's apprentice, and Ben didn't exile himself to Tatooine. On Bandomeer the two meet.</blockquote> ➤ marked as a wip and hasn't updated in a year, but it feels like a good ending place to me so it doesn't read like a wip. ➤ This fic is a lovely look at how being part of the Agricorps instead of the Jedi Order can actually be a /good/ thing

<blockquote>Temeraire is dead. The entire country knows his name after the Battle of Dover, and now Temeraire is dead. “Well,” says Admiral Croft, “At least you can join the navy again, eh, Captain?”</blockquote> ➤ gaaaaah this is so heartbreaking but also I am really mad that the author killed Tharkay off too

<blockquote>Mark Watney never manages to make contact with Earth and NASA never realizes that he survived the storm and evacuation on Sol 6. So, needless to say, the crew of the Ares IV is incredibly surprised when they land on Mars to find a scruffy, malnourished, mentally unbalanced, but still-alive astronaut waiting for them.</blockquote> ➤ There are sequels but I don't find them nearly as compelling

<blockquote>Detained far from where he should be by random chance, Obi-Wan meets an unusual slave.</blockquote>

<blockquote>ObiWan lost the duel on Mustafar, but instead of dying, he finds himself on a ship leaving Tatooine, with his old Master and a familiar young boy. As events begin to unfold, can he stop the future he knows from occuring? TPM AU, ObiAniQui bonding, DONE!</blockquote>

<blockquote>In the chaos of conflict as a Republic crumbles into an Empire, two babies are smuggled to safety to keep them safe from a Sith Emperor's attention. It will not be enough. Their lives take very different paths, one raised as the Alliance's New Hope, the other as the Empire's Son.</blockquote> ➤ ft. Luke as raised by Palpatine and Leia as raised by Obi-Wan. Mostly Han pov. This fic is complete. ➤ The sequel, Empire's Son II, is found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11540131/1/Empire-s-Son-II ➤ Read sequel through ch 10. (Since completed & I need to reread & finish.) ➤ The first fic was a lot about Luke but the character with the growth/change arc that actually reached a conclusion was Han. ➤ The sequel is clearly setting itself up to be about Luke having his own character arc now because it has done a thing that is going to make Luke have to finally, like, make a decision. Eventually. At some point. I hope. LUKE YOU CAN LEAVE PALPATINE IT'S OKAY.

<blockquote>You can't go home again, and you can't hide from the past. Ten years after Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker doesn't want anything to do with the Jedi or the Empire, but that doesn't mean they don't want him.</blockquote> ➤ the first chapter (about half the length of the full work) is a complete story in itself. The remaining two chapters are abandoned beginnings of sequels.

<blockquote>Cool was the breeze in the evening, along the darkened street. The city was retiring, closing shutters at every suite. But even in that stillness, you could hear the faintest sound, Of the music that was playing -      playing, swaying - The music faintly playing from the jazz band underground.</blockquote> ➤ The Highwayman rewritten in the prohibition era! In very good verse in the style of the original!

<blockquote>Welcome to The Great British Bake Off.</blockquote> ➤ I did not expect a modern AU involving baking to have this much in the way of Lady Pole feels

<blockquote>Five paths Lady Capulet never took, in short form.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When Marius Pontmercy is accused of attempted murder, it's up to Jean Valjean to prove the young man's innocence. To do so, however, he will have to confront his past as well as the man prosecuting the case, Javert.</blockquote>