LINKDING

Summary: Rebecca Heminges has never liked watching Othello. She thinks she'll like the King's Men's new tragedy even less. ➤ historical rpf about 17th century theatre actors associated with shakespeare ➤ I've never heard of these characters before or the play they're putting on that's central to the themes of the fic but the the fic does a good enough job introducing it all that it works nonetheless ➤ a really interesting and thoughtful work about life vs fiction, and acting, and finding a new life, and the realities and ramifications of abusive relationships ➤ I loved it, and I see the author has written other fics about this group of characters and I want to read them too! ➤ 5k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>In your head, the dead man wakes up crying. He stutters into awareness just as you manage to stanch the tears welling in your eyes, a response to the pressure of his presence on your limbic system. Your fingers brush, irritated, against the port at the back of your neck, catching at the ridges of the drive that carries his consciousness. He’s confused, lashing out to wrest temporary control of your limbs from you in quick staccato bursts before you can yank them back. “Stop that,” you snap, and then, remembering your client, soften the message with a “please.” Your right pinky twitches and you lasso it in, exerting your will over its movement. You splay your hands on your desk and watch them carefully, pay attention to your toes lest they start off on unwelcome dance routines, but in your head the dead man quiets, and you know he’s beginning to understand.</blockquote> ➤ sci-fi story about a woman with a port-drive into her brain that allowed her to be a great child actor when she was young, and gives her a career as an adult of plugging in the mental backup of a dead person to visit bereaved families who want their beloved dead back again ➤ about identity, embodiment, and not knowing how to want things ➤ also about body-sharing ➤ in second-person pov which works so well for the things this story is about and the things it's doing! the main character is someone who spends most of her time being someone else, after all ➤ it's so compellingly written! ➤ has the perfect ending, which can be so hard to pull off right ➤ 7k words in length ➤ this is the first published story by this author, and something this great is her first; I am excited to think of where she might go from here!

Summary: <blockquote>After she gets rescued from BreharWallHan, Jena does her best to sit through medical care and meets another patient.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>This is the first poem Xu Anshi gave to us; the first memory she shared with us for safekeeping. It is the first one that she composed in High Mheng—which had been and remains a debased language, a blend between that of the San-Tay foreigners, and that of the Mheng, Anshi’s own people. She composed it on Shattered Pine Prison, sitting in the darkness of her cell, listening to the faint whine of the bots that crawled on the walls—melded to the metal and the crisscrossing wires, clinging to her skin—monitoring every minute movement she made—the voices of her heart, the beat of her thoughts in her brain, the sweat on her body.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jane believes herself to be alone in the world, but she is not alone.</blockquote> ➤ Helen's spirit continues to follow Jane and protect her, after Helen's death

<blockquote>'I am a mere secretary, unwise in the matters of war,' Xiao He said to Xiahou Ying over wine a few nights later, 'but am I to understand that you've not only spared a man who broke our law but also made him a commissary colonel?'</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I don’t suppose you’re able to see what might let us out of here, though?” Lan Xichen asks, with just the slightest edge in his voice. “What I noticed of the array earlier suggested it’s waiting for something, but I didn’t have enough time to see what.” Wen Ning shakes his head, then remembers himself again and says out loud, “No, nothing now. I saw that we’d tripped something when we came in, but...” The bright characters of the array that activated the trap had flared out too quickly for Wen Ning to work out how it was constructed, and he’d been more than a little distracted grappling with the yao besides. Not for the first time, he wishes he had Wei Wuxian’s memory for small details seen once. “I agree there must be a way to open it, though. This cave doesn’t feel like it wants us dead.” A sentient fierce corpse and a sect leader walk into a cave...</blockquote> ➤ lxc & wn post canon

<blockquote>They have just made it through the syllabus and started on actual instruction when, with twenty-five minutes left, the fire alarm goes off. “Probably a drill,” says Mercedes. “Not on the first day,” Vidal counters. “Some clown pulled the alarm.” “Or some clown set a fire,” Mercedes says, cheerfully. Nile sighs before she can stop herself. “I wasn’t planning on dying today, and I’d rather not,” she mutters in English. Isidra snorts, packing away her things. “You millennials and your gallows humor.” Nile lets herself laugh at that, but not as long as she’d like to. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Mara took us down into the caves because we were bored, and because she was the oldest so it was her job to figure out what to do when me and Kay were bored. No one had found a new hiding place for Hide and Seek in three years, and all the board games in the game room were either for grown-ups or babies, and we weren’t allowed to play Hiding From The Martians anymore after the time when we burst out of the storage locker screaming, “Aaaaaaaah, it’s the Martians!” at Dr. Hatae and made her drop her geological samples all over the floor, which took her three hours to sort out.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It feels like ghost stories should mean something, but it’s not at all clear what. I managed to get about a hundred pages out of the question, “What do these mean, anyway?” when I wrote my doctoral dissertation to get my PhD in Folklore, all without reaching an actual conclusion. My mother helpfully pointed that out when she read the manuscript. “If I give them a real answer, they’ll just complain about it,” I said. “So just tell me, Leah,” she said. “What do you think ghost stories mean?” “I think they’re the manifestation of people’s desire for answers about death and eternity,” I said. “But I could be totally wrong, especially since there’s a whole category of ghost stories that don’t seem to have anything to do with identifiable dead people.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>What it says on the tin</blockquote>

<blockquote>Being an early history of Aragorn Elessar Telcontar, called Estel, Thorongil, 'Strider,' et cetera.</blockquote> ➤ very effective at setting a mood, not quite sure what mood to tag with tho

<blockquote>The girl does not come to Mebuyen, so Mebuyen goes to the girl. She is standing ankle-deep in the river, looking down, her mouth open. Mebuyen notices, as she draws closer, that the child’s calves are skinny, her cheeks chubby, and her SpongeBob Squarepants sando has a bullet-sized hole above her ribs. Mebuyen frowns as she steps into the river, waiting for the girl to speak.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Ah yes, the ill-fated expedition of 2031,” he said, shaking his head. I was delighted to recognize in his heavily accented English the speech mannerisms of Bihar, the state in India where I am from. Biharis are not very common on the moon. But before I could say anything about my origins, he launched into the story behind the space-suit.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When Satan himself came to Lolly, she didn’t recognize him. She wasn’t on her guard—hadn’t been for years. Why should she be? Her immortal soul had long since drowned in rum and rotted under gobs of treacle toffee. If any scrap was left, it was too dry and leathery to tempt evil. But even the most pious of parsons wouldn’t have recognized the Devil in the guise of a dead woman floating face-down in the Mersey.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Two women who have been friends since they were children—one a recovering alcoholic brought up by parents who believe they’re alien abductees, the other an orphan with an eating disorder—contend with a secret that might doom their friendship.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Our job is to make people happy,” she purred, raising a playful eyebrow. “Fulfill their requests. Help them make connections.” “Connections with their fellow eniyans,” I shot back, pointing at the Iyami Aje mission statement on my cube wall, engraved on a glittering obsidian plaque. “With their own fragile kind. I don’t work like you, Bola.” I fiddled with the ergonomic levers of my swivel chair. “I don’t just ignore the hazards of getting entangled.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>The five other fairies scowled at her. They too were all drunk and well fed, and the meal in their bellies was taking on the sour heaviness of an unpaid debt. They had all brought trinkets for the baby, of course, all the gifts that could formally be expected by a low nobleman—which was why six of them had been invited in hopes of getting at least one blessing—but the feast had also exceeded what could formally be expected for their having deigned to grace the occasion. They could hardly refuse the cake, either—and didn’t want to—and would have a lingering sense of a favor owed.</blockquote> ➤ eyyy I like this

<blockquote>Maia's aunts all take an interest in Vedero's passion for astronomy.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Whispers said this new girl was officially called Brenda, but that was just as stupid as all the other Agency names, and the girl wouldn’t remember it after Processing anyway. At first I said we should call her Dishrag or Milkbreath, but even Flash thought that was too mean, and Flash is as nasty as hot sauce and lye. She’s the one who named me Ghost, on account of I’m small and shadow-dark and she thinks I creep around too much in the night. She got her name ’cause that’s how fast fosters send her back after their cat turns up dead and they realize the devil has blond hair and dimples.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Dilemmas are discussed, and solved (with the aid of some tea).</blockquote>

<blockquote>Pierre Vorrutyer leaves the countship to his cousin By -- if he can be persuaded to take it.</blockquote> ➤ Stands well on its own but I'd love to have more in this au!

<blockquote>Scarlett accidentally wakes the dead in the bottom of a coat closet, with a half-naked boy pressed against her and a bottle of tequila she’s too drunk to drink. That’s all it is, in the end: flesh against flesh, and a few whispered secrets. A ghost story she swore she would never, ever tell.</blockquote>

<blockquote>After retiring from competitive skating, Yuri Plisetsky goes to Hasetsu to train for Victor's ice show. A lot has changed, but the welcome he gets from Victor and Yuuri makes it feel like home.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Light and genteel laughter spilled out of the foyer. A large group of Barrayar's high society had just arrived, clustering in small groups as they waited to be greeted by the Emperor. Ivan hesitated on the edge of the group, mind racing in circles as he scanned the crowd. He resisted the urge to rub at the spreading patches of red on his hands. I don't want anything to do with this.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Over the course of his first six months as the heir-apparent to the Ethuveraz, Idra learns a great deal of his uncle the Emperor.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Hsst," said one of the girls next to them. "Do you fight sharks a lot?"</blockquote>

<blockquote>In the thick of the Great War, intelligence officer Reginald Jeeves is injured, and forced by circumstance to rely upon the help of hapless, well-intentioned medical orderly Bertie Wooster</blockquote>

<blockquote>Two playwrights walk into a tavern.</blockquote> ➤ author's note: <blockquote>If you've been following the early modern news circuit (and if you're reading this fic, odds are you do), you might have heard about the newly fashionable theory that the three parts of Henry VI were the collaborative effort of Shakespeare and Marlowe. My main issue with this theory hinges on the definition of the word 'collaboration', which we as fan authors know can mean so many different things.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Shangguan Wan-er could think of no reason for the Empress to summon a palace slave to her presence. No good reason. It would be the first meeting of two of the most powerful women of Chinese history.</blockquote>