LINKDING

Summary: <blockquote>It isn't even an accident, precisely—that might be the most humiliating thing about it. Lan Wangji had tasted the tea, expecting it to be precisely what it revealed itself to be; Lan Wangji had wanted to feel its effects, to gauge them, although he had expected them to be mild. He had brewed the tea himself. An entirely uncoerced and foolish act. Lan Wangji has a misadventure with an aphrodisiac. It works out for everyone.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>In many ways it seems that John's life revolves around William Laurence.</blockquote> ➤ from granby pov, about finally moving on and finding happiness in his relationship with little

<blockquote>Nie Huaisang doesn’t expect Lan Xichen to consider him still worth liking after everything he’s done. (He also doesn't want to admit to himself how much he'd love to be proven wrong.) Nie Huaisang had painted, in the dark of night with only the light of a dozen candles and a luminescent pearl, a vast fire-scourged plain. In the midst, offset and growing out of a rocky shelter, he’d added a single shoot of green bamboo, tall and straight despite everything. Balancing the bamboo on the other side of the scroll were two lines of poetry: The grass is burnt but not destroyed by the prairie fires / When spring winds blow they bring it back to life. Rolled up in the painting’s scroll was a note that Nie Huaisang wrote right before committing to sending it. The note, which was even more terrifyingly honest than the painting, read: I will do my best to become worthy once more of being considered your friend.</blockquote> ➤ more kind than many fics about the two of them! and I love the knifey fics but this vision of their future is good too

<blockquote>A flint, a flask, a rocketship, A glint, a glass, a dome, A spark, a signal spiralling A million miles from home.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In which Wei Ying plans his return to the theater world (again) and a-Yuan moves in.</blockquote> ➤ I adore everyone in this fic, I love that everyone gets arcs, either relational or professional, and half the relationship arcs are platonic; and I love how much they all care about each other and support each other in their various ways! (and I love that nhs's arc is about his relationship with himself and his identity?)

<blockquote>Of all the goddamn people in this city, it's Jiang Cheng she runs into at two in the morning. "Your sister is going to kill you," Wen Qing says, instead of, I'm sorry you gave me your number and I never called.</blockquote> ➤ Sweet and soft and warm ➤ series consists of: a wish right now a place much simpler another hand after you fold

<blockquote>In the weeks before Shang Qinghua's marriage to the King of the Northern Wastes, he invites Liu Qingge to go fishing.</blockquote> ➤ good at creating vibes!

<blockquote>It is said that in the course of history, there were four legendary beauties that, in some fashion, caught the attention of a ruler and through their influence, shaped history. Airplane never actually wrote any of that into the original story, but sometimes things come together in unexpected ways. (Four standalone chapters.)</blockquote> ➤ ahhhhhh this is just suffused with a feeling of earnest happiness and it's so lovely

<blockquote>Mo Xuanyu thought that this Wei Wuxian person whose body he’d stolen must have been a really interesting person, mostly because he’d been here for three days so far and nobody’d noticed the switch yet.</blockquote> ➤ there's clearly a lot of context missing that mxy doesn't have, and it ends before any of that is resolved, but mxy's little story of accidentally possessing teen wwx's body is still lovely

<blockquote>“Who the hell is this? D’you know what fucking time it is?” “Hi, Patrick. And yeah, sorry about the time. It’s just—I kinda need you to bail me out? Well. Me and like seven other girls.” “...Kat? Kat Stratford?” Or, five times Kat calls Patrick, and one time Patrick calls Kat. Post-movie.</blockquote>

<blockquote>And Ruth said: 'Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people; and thy orgasms shall be my orgasms.'</blockquote>

<blockquote>Nie Mingjue opened his mouth, closed it again. He couldn't be sure, but he thought Lan Xichen might be smiling. Fascinating as that thought was, it was derailed by another, far more powerful realization: He understands. He's like me. He needs to explore. The drop changes both surveyor and navigator. What else can we expect, we who send them into darkness, to explore unknown worlds? - Lan Yi, from the introduction to Planetfall and Rise: An Exploration of the Surveyor-Navigator Bond.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Are you cold?” he asks, because Shang Qinghua is usually cold. Mobei-jun does his best to keep him well supplied with furs, and warm cups of tea, and other necessities, but he still sometimes catches him blowing on the tips of his fingers in between drafts of trade agreements. “Ah, a little,” Shang Qinghua says, rubbing at his cheek with one hand, “but it’s all right, my king.” Mobei-jun says nothing, only extends a hand to tap him on the head, once, carefully. He stabilizes Shang Qinghua’s temperature with the touch, and watches as his cheeks go flushed. “There,” he says.</blockquote> ➤ from mbj's perspective. So earnest and tender! and clueless! it's great

<blockquote>York, 1997. A schoolteacher reads a peculiar essay on the history of Faerie.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Besides, I wanted to give Rebekah another lesson in numbers. And now that he had suggested it, I wanted to teach her alef-beit, too. Perhaps I would paint her first page of letters with honey, to teach her that learning what she does not yet know is sweet.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"A quiet companion, a noble friend! / Has no compunctions 'bout biting your end!" Jaskier stops, frowns, and repositions his fingers on the lute's neck as if trying to work something out. "Are you singing to Roach?" Geralt asks, leaning over the saddle horn. "I'm not hallucinating?" Jaskier looks up and smiles brightly, cheeks pink from the sun. Something in Geralt... doesn't like this. "Well, you do take excellent care of her, but a little praise can go a long way, you know."</blockquote> ➤ Does this neat thing with putting together a collection of little vignettes that slowly begin to build together into something more. ➤ The first fic felt like it was leading somewhere from the beginning and the other two took more time to feel like more than vignettes but it's worth continuing on all of them because they're sincerely great. ➤ series consists of: Ivy on the Hill Clover, and Other Beloved Weeds Moss on River Stones

<blockquote>Sandy Nissley was the youngest of five children, and by the time she was ready for high school her father was retired. The Nissleys’ large old early twentieth century duplex at Twenty-Four-Twelve North Second Street had become three bedrooms and a whole storey too big for them, and Sandy’s parents decided to move into something a lot smaller. They weren’t going far, and Sandy would be closer to her school. The change didn’t turn Sandy’s world on its head. But she dreamed about the house she’d grown up in.</blockquote> ➤ about the relationship between a girl and a house

<blockquote>From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches. </blockquote>

<blockquote>there was a time when i, viciously in love with you, started believing that there was a being, a living conductor of our feelings, like a—a fairy, i suppose, winged, tiny, invisible to the human eye but wondrously fast and glittering,</blockquote>

<blockquote>The night is humid and warm, sticks to our skin like a wet T-shirt. Luz pokes the fire with a piece of scrap metal she found lying by Gunner’s feet. It sends a swarm of sparks flying into the air. Taking that as an invitation, others come flocking to our little circle. No matter the temperature, the kids gravitate towards the fire at night, so I always try to have one going near sundown. “Give us a poem, Daddy?” the new kid says, one of Luz’s strays. His name is Roy. He’s probably a little older than Luz. Maybe in his twenties. I think of asking for something in return—the kids need to learn the rules of this world, and better I teach them in my way than someone else in theirs—but I hold back. Just this once, I feel like giving one away.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Change is a constant, like the seasons and the tides.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Gabriel took the tiger by the ears, because somebody had to, and he never had a plan for getting off. Max is somewhat more practical.</blockquote> ➤ I've never even heard of this fandom before but this fic is actually lovely as is with no context, you figure out enough of the context to be going with from the fic itself.

<blockquote>Victor used to glance in the windows of marque studios and look at the flash on the walls sometimes, with curiosity more than longing. What would it be like to feel someone else’s soul? There are songs about it on the radio. Romantic. In his actual life, it’s always Yakov saying, “get over yourself, get more sleep, stop daydreaming on the ice.” Or it was.</blockquote>

<blockquote>7 September - Peter wires that he will be back next week.</blockquote> ➤ a very good depiction of what it is like to be waiting for something wonderful

<blockquote>Paula after the events of the movie.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Soon, the year’s longest night would choke the last vestiges of warmth from both land and men. The numerus, sequestered in the easternmost fort of Gallia Belgica, was barely a hundred miles from the frontier that had brought legions to their knees.</blockquote> ➤ wonderfully atmospheric. very winter in feel, and then the warmth of the caring between the characters

<blockquote>“you have learned love but not self-consciousness, because love does not beget self. there’s no need for heart and body to love; no need for mind or soul though you have both, programmed for one and grew the other like a struggling sprout in a crack on the pavement, just for him, just like him. ” The Passenger and the Computer, in the midst of the all black everything. Time once more has meaning, and humanity must be redefined.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The currents seemed to pull the empty ache out of her, as though her body were just a translucent husk. And then the sound of her heart beating inside her would remind her it was time to surface, and she would feel the slight throbbing of her body asking to live, and reluctantly, made aware again of her natural place above water, she would rise.</blockquote> ➤ about a free-diver in the mediterranean. A lovely story of grief and loss and living, well-grounded in its setting.

<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>