LINKDING

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

<blockquote>“Nah. We are one hundred percent shit-outta-luck,” she said, voice high and brittle as she leaned back from the computer. She gave a tight little laugh as she gestured at different possible trajectories, the different deflections achievable with nukes or booster rockets or heroic space missions. The wall of screens in front of us showed projected death tolls and ecological changes, with a lot of graphs that dropped sharply right at the end. “Earth is, uh … not to be melodramatic about it, but, absolutely doomed.”</blockquote> ➤ this is AMAZING

<blockquote>“You know,” Diana says as she strides back to you, “China’s really hot right now—with their new open-door policy, lots of people are (clamoring?) to invest there; I have people calling me all the time, asking if I have A-grade Mandarin.” She sets a brochure down on the desk and sits back in the executive chair across from you. “Have you considered selling your Mandarin?” You trace your hands over the brochure, feeling the embossed logo. China’s flag cascades down to a silhouette of Beijing’s skyline; you read the Simplified characters printed on the brochure, your eyes skimming over them so much more quickly than you skim over English. “How much?” you ask. Diana leans in. “A-grade Mandarin is going for as much as $800,000 these days.” Your heart skips a beat. That would be enough to cover Lillian’s college, with maybe a little bit left over—it’s a tantalizing number. But the thought of going without Mandarin gives you pause: it’s the language you think in, the language that’s close to your heart in the way English is not; it’s more integral to who you are than any foreign tongue. English you could go without—Lillian’s Mandarin is good enough to help you translate your way around what you need—but Mandarin?</blockquote>

<blockquote>The day I found out my Uncle Will was still alive, I had been out spraying the crops in a full crinkly hazmat suit. The Earthers I was working for were nice people, but they always whined about the suits. To me they seemed light and airy, hardly even an annoyance compared to a vacuum suit, so I was the one who would get sent out first with the sprayer when the blight warnings came in from the provincial capital in Edmonton. I didn’t mind. It was the tenth month of my indenture on Earth, and I had almost gotten used to the smell, but even so a little overlay of antifungal didn’t change it much.</blockquote> ➤ (I cried)

<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>When 19 year old Frederick Wentworth gets his heart broken by Anne Eliot, he conceals the fact from even his most intimate acquaintances. But his sister Sophia is not easily hoodwinked.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Daerion was dangling upside-down from an apple tree when the King came for the first time to Minas Tirith.” Thorongil touched many lives when he served in Gondor, more than at first he knew. This is a story of Aragorn in Gondor, seen through the eyes of a young boy from Minas Tirith.</blockquote> ➤ Okay I ended up caring entirely to much about the pov oc character

<blockquote>At twenty, Aragorn discovers that he is the hereditary captain of a people he has never met, but it will take many years and he will endure many hardships before he becomes a true leader of men.</blockquote> ➤ Five chapters, each of which is a different point in Aragorn's backstory. I love watching Aragorn slowly mature into who he's capable of being over the course of the story, and especially enjoyed the first few chapters when he's younger and uncertain

<blockquote>A survivor of the barricade of the rue de la Chanvrerie, saved by a man who saves others.</blockquote>

<blockquote>To earn her place on the Falcon, Leia has to be useful, so she tries to learn everything she can.</blockquote>

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

<blockquote>Shiro is in the habit of keeping things to himself. He's always been private, and he prefers to keep his thoughts to himself unless there's a reason to share. He doesn't get that option anymore. Or: Shiro got hit with truth spell magic and he might drop dead of embarrassment Also Or: 5 times Shiro told the truth (because magic made him do it)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Fisherwoman Mika Sandrigal was lost at sea. She knew where she was in relation to the Candorrean coastline and how to navigate back to her home city, Maelstrom. She knew the time of day. She knew the season. She knew the phase of the moon and the pattern of the tide. She did not know the year.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Azelma looks forward to a pampered life in America, and resorts to fantasies as an escape from her life of abuse and neglect--but she finds that her father's plan to get rich through the slave-trade has implications she didn't consider.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When your father dies, say the Coruscanti, you are left clutching a star map for a different galaxy.   In this, as in many things, Leia is her fathers' daughter.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A detective is called to a space station to solve the mystery of whether--and how--twelve astronauts are accessing the surface of a forbidden planet.</blockquote> ➤ oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh this is INCREDIBLE

<blockquote>Dear Dan, It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from you.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Captain Roberts has a talk with his son about the nature of souls.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Hello. Thank you. Breathe deep. My name is Thundertooth, of the line of Crookeye. Though, to be fair, you might know me better from some of my other roles." A TED tale from modern Dinotopia.</blockquote> ➤ authors' note: <blockquote>So my snapshot into a citizen of Dinotopia in a modern, global setting kind of maybe took a slight sidestep into an analogy on agency and representation in film, sort of, and oh god, I made myself sniffle for a T-Rex's homecoming.</blockquote>

<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>On the second day of Vordarian's Pretendership, Count Vorhalas has an unwelcome visitor.</blockquote> ➤ Love the ending, honorable enemies

<blockquote>“Botheration.” He tied off the thread in the fine blue leather of the gloves he was stitching and snipped it with the little pair of silver shears he’d snuck out of the master’s shop. Be his hide if he were caught taking them home, but worse if he bit the thread off instead of snipping it neat. No telling what his saliva would do when the guild brownie added the beauty spell to it.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I tried the entire broad band to no effect. Another few Muspels straggled in from our race, and the little kids from the preteen course started to cluster theirs up with us, together, hanging in a constellation outside the station. Finally I heard a voice, but it was not a response, or at least not the kind of response I wanted. “Attention, incoming ships. This is the Chornohora Station auto-response system. The Station customs and immigration personnel are unable to process your ship at this time. Please proceed to another station for your trade and leisure needs. Chornohora Station is closed for quarantine. Please proceed to another station for your trade and leisure needs. Chornohora Station is closed for quarantine. Please proceed . . .”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mr. Abraham Lincoln Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History 1400 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20004 United States of America 12 February 2168 Dear Sir, I hope you will forgive the impropriety of this personal letter sent without the benefit of previous acquaintance, but I feel compelled to write you in order that I might, indeed, introduce myself, and also so I might render to you my personal wishes for your hale and happy birthday. And, as I am scheduled to go on display in just a few days’ time, I would additionally like to express my genuine and incalculable pride that I am soon to be joining your illustrious ranks. I do not know what, if anything, you have heard of me in the media—I myself am never exposed to such things and know not what they say—but I have led a quiet life thus far, one much devoted to the study of my impending duties and, to better acquaint myself with my peers, of the other personalities currently on display.</blockquote>

<blockquote>See that line where the sky hits the sand? It calls me.</blockquote> ➤ what a great idea for a vid, and well executed too!

<blockquote>Basically team vid for the Rebellion/Resistance.</blockquote> ➤ wow that inspired a lot more feelings than I was expecting, good work vid

<blockquote>The story of Fantine's bird.</blockquote>

<blockquote>He's shivering as he emerges from the pod. No surprise, he was frozen for like a billion years. I do all the stuff on the script, all the "Fear Not! You are a welcomed citizen of our Utopia!" stuff while I'm toweling him off. Apparently he's about as good as I am with awkward silence 'cause it's not three seconds before he starts making small talk. "So, how'd you get to be a. . ." He waves his hand. "A Tour Guide To The Future?!" "Yeah." The guy smiles gratefully at me. "I imagine you had a lot of training. . . ?" "None whatsoever!" I chirp. He looks confused. "Allocator chose me because I incidentally have the exact skills and qualifications necessary for this task, and because I had one of the highest enthusiasm scores!"</blockquote> ➤ this story is weird and incredible and I was very surprised to be having feelings by the end given how much I was giggling through most of the story. I love it.

<blockquote>Diana, a hundred years and change.</blockquote>