LINKDING

<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>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>A long, hard road to a happy ending.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Jewel of Athat was mainly a cargo ship, and most spaces were narrow and cramped. Like the Outer Station, where it was docked, it was austere, its decks and bulkheads scuffed and dingy with age. Inarakhat Kels, armed, and properly masked, had already turned away one passenger, and now he stood in the passageway that led from the station to the ship, awaiting the next.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The mule nipped at Marjan’s hand as she burdened it with her packs. She pushed its nose away, careful not to hurt it. She needed the mule to be well. Her life — and her unborn child’s — depended on it. She led the mule outside the stable and carefully latched the door behind them. She didn’t want the other animals to suffer from the cold. Bad enough she was stealing the mule. She didn’t want Iresna and Gavek to lose anything else.</blockquote> ➤ in which women born with a special mark can do magic, but only if with their mother or their daughter. And this sort of magic has been outlawed, so it is dangerous to have a daughter as a marked woman. I liked that the in-laws in this story are good people!

<blockquote>A little girl who missed the sun suffered a terrible act of cruelty. This is what happened to Margot, after.</blockquote> ➤ this is based on a short story I've never read, but it's perfectly possible to follow this fic without being familiar with the source material

<blockquote>They are not so very different, Ariadne and Pasiphaë, Icarus and Daedalus, Ariadne and Icarus.</blockquote>

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

<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>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>Fantine goes out to a dance with Tholomyès, and meets an angry young man.</blockquote> ➤ first in a continuing series (Less Miserable, of which all is great series consists of: Angels and Devils A Smaller Surprise Behind the Curtain A More Joyous End Joint Venture

<blockquote>This is the story that was supposed to be about owls and ended up being, in part, about Israel's bombing of Lebanon in 2006.</blockquote> ➤ REALLY GOOD. I'm not sure the ending quite lives up to how good the rest of the story is, but that doesn't really matter given how good the rest of the story is

By chance, Fauchelevent and Javert meet at a tobacconist's. ➤ yes good

<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>By this point, Dorothy was my doctor. Let me be more specific. She was the geriatric specialist who was evaluating me. On Mars. I was in for what I thought was a routine check-up to make sure I was still fit to be an astronaut. NASA liked to update its database periodically and I liked to be in that database. Not that I’d flown since I turned fifty, but I kept my name on the list in the faint hope that they would let me back into space again, and I kept going to the darn check-ups. Our previous doctor had retired back to Earth, and I’d visited Dorothy’s offices three times before she mentioned Kansas and the prairie.</blockquote> ➤ THANKS FOR MAKING ME CRY. Wow what a good story

<blockquote>Two indecent exposure citations, one best friend, one amazing sex partner, one unexpected mentor, and a Starfleet-funded study of intercultural sexual norms. Sounds like a normal academic year for Gaila.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It starts when J.Lo decides he wants to take the SAT.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In Japan, it is not too much to say that everything is about appearances.   It is a habit cultivated over a life-time, and not one easy to break.</blockquote> ➤ a Miko character study ➤ series consists of: Zoh-onna Omote Tadaima ➤ also at https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182813

<blockquote>Fantine lives after all. Not as much changes as you might think -- except for her.</blockquote> ➤wow so many feelings so much excellence, and it totally sounds like Hugo's narrative voice on top of it all

<blockquote>Fuyumi can read between the lines of Mako’s file. The justification for having Mako on the base is paper thin -- strings have been pulled and favours have been bartered, and somewhere along the line someone decided Fuyumi was the perfect combination of talent and expendability to be brought into this mess. It’s only slightly closer to a compliment than an insult -- the balance tipped by the child at the centre of this, nine years old and heart-breakingly brave.    -- Scenes from the year after Stacker and Mako first meet.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Carlos is having the strangest dreams, and the strangest headaches, like there's something he's supposed to be remembering. Not to mention the intern's wedding coming up, and that new chemical StrexCorp wants him to develop. It's going to be a busy week.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In which Montparnasse finds that the perils of walking in the Rue de l'Homme Arme are twofold: first, that one might begin to think; and second, that one might come across a weak old man.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Tybalt always asked, in his way: he did not order, although Bastiano would never have thought of refusing. It was most often a wordless thing, a gesture for Bastiano to remain kneeling after he had set aside Tybalt’s riding boots, a pointed look when Tybalt had spread himself out in a chair just so. If he had drunk too much wine at dinner, perhaps there might be an inarticulate request, clumsy and indirect: words had never been Tybalt’s skill, and sometimes Bastiano thought that he could only ask for this at all because he pretended not to. (some consent issues may apply due to social power differential)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Variation on a theme by Hugo: Enjolras and Grantaire have a contentious conversation about the legwork that goes into a revolution. Set in the run up to the April Revolution (Seoul, 1960), and genderbent, because.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For lack of anything better to do, Azelma pays a visit to her brother.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I am enchanted with you,” said Bossuet, and these words, not chosen well, were spoken with the grace of somestairs trying to put pants on. (For the kinkmeme, prompt is: Canon-era AU where Musichetta is a famous soprano and Joly and Bossuet catch her eye when they come to the opera together.)</blockquote> ➤ OVERCOME BY FEELS

<blockquote>When Gaila escapes from the Syndicate a little earlier than she planned, she finds an unexpected companion - a Vulcan Starfleet commander.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Troy and Abed meet the in-laws.</blockquote> ➤ one of those fics where I'm like I KNOW I READ THIS BEFORE AND FOUND IT JUST AS AWESOME THE LAST TIME SO WHY THE HECK IS IT NOT BOOKMARKED. Sometimes my past self is very frustrating!