LINKDING

summary: She'd never been anyone's favorite before he'd told her that, the lesser daughter of a prestigious family that had enough heirs and spares that she could be given away and the act called an honor. It was a scary but lovely thing to be the best, the most loved. When she'd heard those words she'd clutched them to her chest and hoped she'd never prove them false. That did not mean that she did not hate him, too. // OR: Ning Yingying loves her shizun; she loves Binghe, too. These things come into conflict, whether she wants them to or not. ➤ an svsss fic set in the original PIDW, about Ning Yingying ➤ and holy shit this fic is so good, so everything I didn't even know to hope for from a fic about pidw nyy, I am all emotions?! ➤ the complexity of nyy's relationships with sqq and lbh, the mix of love and hate, the way she doesn't feel able to do anything but to witness and to go along with how things are ➤ and seeing the awful things that happen through her eyes.....it's so powerful and bleak and believable ➤ I adore this fic, I'm just absolutely blown away by it ➤ 9k words

Summary: <blockquote>The far stall in the ladies room in the Land of the Dead was backed up again. The day had already started terribly, with an email that hit my phone as I walked the 387 steps from my staff cabin to the front desk, an email from Lana saying Vera, I wanted you to find out directly from me that I’ve started seeing somebody. Call if you want to talk.</blockquote> ➤ about queer intergenerational friendship and mentorship, about being a young adult trying to find your place, about death and what it means to you, about living through the death of all your peers and coming out the other side, about hope and love and making connections. ➤ holy shit this gave me so many emotions. READ IT READ IT READ IT. ➤ also I adore the title. pinsker writes great titles. ➤ 6k words in length

<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>He is not gone. Lan Wangji has to practice the thought sometimes. He is gone is a thought that he has worn into his being through years and years of tracing and retracing, and his mind flows easily into those hollowed lines the way water always finds its course. He has to step out of the house, out into the early morning, and think: He is not gone. Even though I cannot see him, he is not gone.</blockquote> ➤ ohhhhhh

<blockquote>It had been shaping up to be a really lovely party, and honestly, quite a nice cultivation conference in general. Instead, his last surviving brother was exchanging polite bows with Jin Rulan, and Nie Huaisang was going to spend four days on edge.</blockquote> ➤ (JGY is a character in absentia, not actually present in this fic) ➤ augh (complimentary)

<blockquote>Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make horoscope charts, or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She told the panditji to get his blood pressure checked before he told anyone he was short of breath. The day before the Human Spaceflight Programme was suspended, she called Ekta in Sriharikota and said she should come home. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Four times Han definitely didn’t need anybody’s help, and one time maybe he did.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The king had already enslaved two grinders for failing him. I didn’t want to be the third. Sitting in the best room of the grinders’ workshop, I rubbed the almost-finished hematite mirror over and over with a grindstone of fired clay, specially tempered for polishing. The king stood behind me, his gaze burning the back of my neck. Sweat beaded in my hair, between my elbows, under my knees. With a word, he could doom me to a lifetime of hard labor and rip me away from everyone I loved. I kept polishing.</blockquote> ➤ I really liked this one

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

<blockquote>The only traces of the future Vetinari were the nose, the hands, and the stillness. (Young Vetinari with Sam Vimes as John Keel, from Night Watch.)</blockquote> ➤ OH NO this is great ➤ (note extra snippet from older Vetinari's pov in comments)

<blockquote>Bandits came for Lalasa’s family and burned the whole farm out, except for her, because she had been at the river washing clothes. Lalasa did not miss her father or her brothers for all the long years of her life, which should tell you something about her. She cried for them anyway, and that should tell you something too. -- Retelling of Page and Squire from Lalasa's POV.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Ronon's making his own future; John's there for him. Ronon thinks it's time to take the next step in their relationship; John has reservations. Neither of them wants to talk about it, but they do anyway. (Contains canon pairings).</blockquote> ➤ I enjoy the stuff about the differing significance of certain terms and actions across culture/language

<blockquote>King's wives; king's sons.</blockquote>

<blockquote>They got to know each other very well very quickly, but over the course of their marriage, there were some things she kept to herself.</blockquote> ➤ RLY GOOD Padme-centric fic

<blockquote>The Force isn't the only kind of power</blockquote> ➤ Leia-centric, post-movie. This fic leaves me wanting to swear at it, in the most complimentary kind of way. HDU give me all these feels, fic!

<blockquote>Rey is XO of a piece of junk, her captain is a foul-mouthed Wookiee who doesn’t respect people who respect authority, and there are pictures of naked people glued to the ceiling of the Falcon. She honestly couldn't be more thrilled.</blockquote> ➤ soooo apparently this fic is EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I WANTED after the movie. goddamn.

<blockquote>A young Alderaanian girl sees a princess on Bespin</blockquote> ➤ on cloud city

<blockquote>Poe guesses he’s a little fucked-up now, more than before. He certainly has a lot of nightmares. He tries to take it in stride. It doesn’t really surprise him. What had he expected? (Dead, he thinks. You expected to be dead.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>(Or, a pregnant Diana Maturin, nee Villiers, spends her confinement at Ashgrove Cottage, writes many letters, and sends one.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Do you know what it is like, she would say, to be twenty-nine years old and trapped in your childhood room? No, the curse came before and after the dancing, not during. The curse was a locked door every night; the curse was a father who would sell his daughters for an answer; the curse was a choice between strange men’s lives and our own freedom. The curse was a soldier who would barter a stolen secret for a kingdom, for my body in his marriage-bed.</blockquote> ➤ the stories of each of the 12 dancing princesses. WHAT A GOOD

<blockquote>Most people who have reached their eighties without raising children have every right to believe that they will go on not raising them, and Judith and I were no different until the day they turned up with the social worker, neatly scrubbed and pressed inside their vac-suits and carrying cases with all their remaining worldly possessions. There were three of them like stairsteps, their black hair cut in fringes across their foreheads and their dark eyes shining out disconcertingly familiar at me. But it wasn’t until the social worker said, “Mr. Chao and Ms. Goldstein, these are your grandchildren, Enid, Richard, and Harry,” that I remembered, sheepishly, about the genes we had given all those years ago, to that nice couple from New New Prague, before they left for the Oort Cloud.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Before Seam technology, all we could do with the excruciating clarity of hindsight was fix systems errors and try not to make the same mistake twice. We could save people in our present, and we could save people in the future. Now we can save people in the past, too.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In 1830, Cosette buys a fan, and has a short conversation about mothers and motherlands. In 1833, she tries to buy another.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In the wake of the Narada Incident, Number One tries to prevent war from breaking out on the edge of the Neutral Zone, and Jennifer Colt tries to survive her assignment as Admiral Pike's new assistant.</blockquote> ➤ genfic about a female character dealing with grief/loss, it's like this fic was meant for me

<blockquote>It's one thing to stand and scream "We are not things!" It is something different to sit down in the quiet that follows and find what that means.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Inspired by the lyrics, a tale of five people who love each other very much coming together at Christmas.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart.” --- “I am fastest,” Volly said, and he knew this was true. The other dragons told him so; no one was faster than Volly, not in the entire Aerial Corps. “We will save friends.” -- Volly is a courier dragon, not a hero, until the day he's both. (Volly POV)</blockquote>

<blockquote>He had always thought he would end up married to his work. He had studied hard, worked diligently, brought himself to the attention of the right people--and ended up with an appointment to the Chrestomanci’s personal staff, as high as one could rise in Flavian’s chosen profession if one hadn’t happened to be born with nine lives. And when he got there he’d found Mordecai waiting for him. Mordecai, who threw all his previous ideas into confusion.</blockquote> ➤ AUUUUUUGH OVERCOME WITH FEELINGS

<blockquote>“Jane, you’re an astrophysicist, not a storm chaser,” said Erik Selvig, and he was wrong. She was just an astrophysicist too. (A Jane Foster character study)</blockquote> ➤ oh my god this is everything

<blockquote>SHIELD goes down. Pepper Potts deals with the aftermath.</blockquote>