LINKDING

<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>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>

<blockquote>Tybalt grows up.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mgr. Myriel wakes early to find his brother praying on his doorstep.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Featuring John Sheppard as The Man.</blockquote> ➤ oh dude so many feelings. ➤ Lovely established relationship fic about Rodney and John's actual functional relationship in amongst all the difficulties of life on Atlantis.

<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>Dana's back. Intern Vithya is new. Cecil and Carlos are just the same, but different. Today, Night Vale is the safest place on earth.</blockquote> ➤ or: Night Vale during the US government shutdown

<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>