LINKDING

<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>Miss Gibson said, “In the spirit of truthful admission, Miss Bennet, I intend to spend some time devising the right question for you. If I may see you again?” Why did that sound strange? But she always sounded strange to people herself. And it was a familiar kind of strangeness, as if it were something she had heard before, only not like this. Mary, constrained by the principles of truth, could only admit that she would enjoy that very much.</blockquote> ➤ this fic is SUPER GOOD, I love everything about it!!!

<blockquote>Grandmother ruled Gir Niajra, and always had. Jummai felt certain this was so, mostly because it was impossible to imagine otherwise: anyone, anyone at all, seated so comfortably on that great golden throne except Grandmother? Anyone who could look or speak with such authority, to whom so many great and worthy people bowed down? No—only Grandmother. It had always been Grandmother, and it always would be. Then Grandmother died; and there was a war. (Or: Jummai is a princess without a throne—but she has no intention of leaving to others what is rightfully hers. She needs a wife with an army, and gets one; but her wife seems impervious to her tactical charm, she keeps making mistakes, and her cousin still wants her dead.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>How Bodhi Rook temporarily misplaced the two most important things in the galaxy, and how he found them again (with a little help).</blockquote> ➤ a fixit that still makes you cry is the best/worst. This was so good and now I care so much for Bodhi's family and for all of Jedha auuuuughhghg

<blockquote>features trade routes, magical fertilizer, and one girl's centuries-long effort to impress a woman who is already in a committed relationship with a boat.</blockquote> Yeah!!!! I've already read it twice since I discovered this story yesterday. the fantasist no longer has the story up so it's now posted on the author's website https://rebeccafraimow.com/2023/08/20/suradanna-and-the-sea/

<blockquote>Stranded on the planet Sigma Nox while searching for a missing away team, Spock and Kirk find themselves pitted against a disturbing native life form. With the captain out of commission on a regular basis and Spock struggling to preserve his stoicism, staying alive is difficult enough – but when a slim chance for escape surfaces, their resolve is truly put to the test. Together they must fight for survival in the heart of an alien jungle, and in the process, uncover the mystery of the planet’s past. Slow build K/S. Written for the 2011 Star Trek Big Bang on LJ - look for links to the mix and art there! Warnings: Minor character death. Mind control themes and sort-of-zombies. Dark at times due to twisted xenobiological shenanigans. Mild themes of stress-related weight loss. Heaps of TOS references and/or spoilers. Eventual smut. Freakishly long chapters.</blockquote> ➤ A very good fic! I loved the inclusion and importance of Longclaw, and how different she was while still able to work together with them. ➤ I was also very interested by the ecology/history/alien-anthropology of the planet, and although I am sad the fic didn't end by giving us conclusions about exactly what all is going on with this place, it leaves the characters also invested and wanting/intending to know more, which was good and worked for the fic.

<blockquote>Being an account, in pastiche style, of a boy whose story may or may not be the embodiment of the hero’s journey, and who therefore encounters a call to adventure, a wise advisor, a mystical weapon, a road of trials, a rogue, a princess, and a villain (in that order); and who, over the course of fighting an evil empire, finds himself attaining his goals, both symbolic and literal. In space.</blockquote> ➤ HOLY SHIT THIS FIC. Apparently the author intends to write the entirety of the original trilogy of star wars in this style but even if they never get around to the rest of it I can die happy because as it is this is 17k words about Ben Kenobi and the history of Tatooine in the style of the digression about the Bishop that starts Les Mis and IT'S SO GOOD.

<blockquote>Behind the scenes of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Byerly grapples with bomb threats, Council of Counts politics, fallout from a previous case, and the difficulty of maintaining a romance when one's profession blurs the lines between lovers, colleagues, witnesses, and suspects.</blockquote> ➤ the main story in this series. and GOSH it's like this fic was written JUST FOR ME, I have so many hearteyes. Lots of fictional politicking, and a main character who hits just about all the notes necessary to make a character particularly dear to me. so great.

<blockquote>A series of one-shots set in a universe where Vader turned double agent for the Rebellion about three years after ROTS, and Leia is now his primary contact with the Rebellion.</blockquote> ➤ I was surprised by how into this fic I was! Because I am the most predictable person, though, my favourite thing is the slave folk stories from Tatooine about the trickster figure Ekkreth. But really everything is great. ➤ 20 parts as of last checking (Feb 2020, but last updated in 2017): Shape-Changer Words in the Heart (Words in the Heart) Cannot Be Taken The Slave Who Makes Free Decryption Codes A Larger World The Emperor's Speech Optimal Functioning Trickster Steals the Moon Flowers for the Emperor Bedrock The Only Verdict Aftermath Trophies Children of the Force Empire Day The Unstolen Child Rocks and Water Sometimes as Many as Seven Apology Accepted

<blockquote>An Imperial officer loses a bet and has to get Darth Vader a present for Life Day.</blockquote> ➤ omg. from the premise I thought this would be silly crack but it's actually treated pretty seriously as a premise? ➤ Great outside pov perspective with these little indications of what the Imperial propaganda teaches about Jedi, for example. ➤ In which an imperial officer does research to figure out the identity of the pilot who destroyed the (first) death star.

<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>'Fanny was the mute earth to Mary's leaping fire, the gnarled oak to her fluttering songbird, the mirror-bright millpond to her restless waves. If one could somehow, with propriety, squeeze both ladies into a single body, the resultant heroine would be beyond anything shewn by Mrs. Radcliffe! She might paddle down the Amazon, contest a knotty theological point with the Pope, battle venomous water snakes with a hat pin and a bottle of hartshorn, and sink into a dead faint at the villain’s merest glance, as if he were some species of basilisk!' Or, Mansfield Park meets Northanger Abbey</blockquote> ➤ AMAZING, Mary-centric, Mary/Fanny with caving adventures and great patische voice, though I fear I do not know the canons in question quite well enough to appreciate everything as much as I ought.

<blockquote>A serial story of what-if: what if Cam had been a little more injured, and what if Jack's clone had been a little less willing to walk away.</blockquote> ➤ I've been intending to read this fic since 2009, but I'm glad I didn't read it at the time because I only had a link to "A Howling in the Factory Yard," and didn't know there was a whole 'verse it was part of. ➤ A frigging amazing story. Starts with lots of background and contextualization and becoming a community, all of which is great, then when the plot happens JD is so isolated while having to do hard things which is so much the better having come after the build-up, and then he gets to go home. ➤ This page doesn't have the concluding fic arc linked and it was several days after reading the fic that I discovered it did exist; the series wasn't actually abandoned, it just wasn't crossposted from dw. ➤ On first reading I was feeling super betrayed because that meant the emotional arc was never wrapped up. But after I found book three, it did everything that's needed and is great: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/tag/brokenship-wings

<blockquote>When I was a very small child my Aunt Semele was struck by lightning and died.</blockquote> ➤ HOLY CRAP this fic is good. also I don't have the right feelings tag for it and don't know what the correct feeling is to describe how the fic made me feel. Feelings are hard. ➤ also bonus A+ commentary: http://amo.dreamwidth.org/228448.html

<blockquote>We tend to have this idea that categories, like "bird" or "food" (or like "human" or "white", which is what this is all really about) are like solid boxes. Entities are either in them or out of them, with a clear and unchanging boundary, and everything inside is an unsorted & equal jumble, and everything outside ditto. This notion gets strongly underscored by our cultures, so it can be hard to ... er... unpack. But the fact is, cognitive categories aren't actually like boxes. They have internal structure, and fuzzy boundaries (which people can draw in different places, and move depending on context), and these things matter hugely in how we think about and deal with oppression. I'm going to start by talking about research on the category "bird", because there's been a lot of it (c.f. Eleanor Rosch's work in the 70s and early 80s, which kicked it off), and it's pretty neutral so it'll be easier/less triggery for people to think about the category structure. So! The "bird" category has (somewhat culture specific) internal structure. For example, most Americans will agree that a robin is a better example of a bird than an albatross, and an albatross is a better bird than an ostrich. (And while bats are not birds, they are better birds than horses are, and horses are better birds than refrigerators are; so the gradations continue to some extent outside the category boundary).</blockquote> ➤ such a great post

<blockquote>Captured in battle and stuck in the Mede capital, Costis has given up all hope of seeing his country again. But Eugenides has a habit of turning up where he's least expected.</blockquote> ➤ cackling with glee over how perfect the characterization is throughout this fic. WHAT A GOOD.

<blockquote>Sophia Wentworth was devoted to her brothers before she found happiness. Then she wanted the same for Frederick . . .</blockquote> ➤ THIS IS SO GOOOOOOD. I mean, the forward momentum disappears towards the latter part of the fic after Sophia and Croft are happily together and the focus shifts more to Frederick's romantic woes, and I could wish it had focused a little more on Sophia/Croft's comfortable happy adult relationship, but even so the fic was fabulous

<blockquote>There are too many Elaines in the lab.</blockquote> ➤ holy crap I am SO INTO THIS FIC

<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>Bucky becomes Natasha. Natasha becomes the Winter Soldier.</blockquote> ➤ I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. THIS IS SO GOOOOOOOOOD

<blockquote>Having just been given command of the Attacotti, Alexios finds himself traveling backwards in time to the very moment when he was put in charge at Abusina. He has the power to erase his greatest disgrace, but the consequences of doing so are nothing he ever expected could happen.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jack is well acquainted with failure.</blockquote> ➤ I don't even know the tv show this is based on so I'm reading it as deeply au biblefic and holy frick this fic is just so amazing? I've already read it like three times already in the last few days

<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>Hamlet in space, starring sensible and heroic Ophelia, genderswapped Claudius, clones Rosencrantz and Guilderstern and alien Fortinbras. (Alas, there are no sharks in space riding motorcycles, nor is there a time machine.)</blockquote> ➤ HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING

<blockquote>In the two weeks following the events of Star Trek Into Darkness, a Starfleet officer tries to put Starfleet back together again. As a friend pointed out, anyone looking for a fic with plot and subtlety should probably not read this fic. It might work whether you liked the movie or not, but I wrote it in order to address multiple aspects of fail. It should probably be titled, Why I Love Starfleet.</blockquote> ➤ I cannot even with how perfect and right this fic is.

<blockquote>Screw the bet. Rodney was going to prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Oh, and incidentally, he might just catch the United States Air Force with their pants around their ankles.</blockquote> ➤ series still wip but the stories stand alone. Probably abandoned at this point - last updated in 2010. (I first bookmarked in July 2009, Whizzy's google docs version, which no longer seems to work. Thankfully it is on ao3!) ➤ series consists of: Black Helicopters at Dawn Big Dish Guy Wrong End of the Rescue Tensile Strength Black Mountainside Blown Away

<blockquote>Les Amis de l'ABC, at the beginning and the end.</blockquote> ➤ or ALKDHFSLDFJDLKFS ALL THE AMIS FEELS FOREVER OH NOES

<blockquote>To the city of York, in the year of our Lord 1780, there came a young man who had fallen upon hard times.</blockquote> ➤ or, how Childermass came to work for Norrell. ➤ An interesting story, and somewhat unsettling and stick-in-your-head in the way that any good fic about the magic of JS&MN ought to. ➤ It's -- oh, I'm describing it wrong. But this fic is extremely effective at feeling utterly like a part of the world of JS&MN.

<blockquote>Elizabeth repairs David - but slowly he begins to realize he is malfunctioning in a way she can't fix. And he doesn't want her to.</blockquote> ➤ Look, all I knew about Prometheus was that it was a movie with a robot and aliens and scientists and spaceships. THAT DOESN'T MATTER. This fic reads amazingly and beautifully without need of background knowledge.