LINKDING

summary: So here are my top 10 tips for ways to find what you need when AO3's tagging system has failed you. With real-life examples!

<blockquote>Dying, for a Jedi Master in the line of Yoda, was a gentle thing. or "Hi, Not Listening To This Anymore," Han said, appearing suddenly. "I'm dead."</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Yeah. About that. Did you know that the Falcon had a history of hyperdrive malfunctions? Because I did not, in fact, know that this ship had a history of hyperdrive malfunctions. What I am saying is, the hyperdrive seems to have malfunctioned."</blockquote>

<blockquote>Snow and Whitehead bring back miasma theory, and not before time.</blockquote> ➤ John Snow of the cholera epidemic, in an apocalyptic future, discovers the miasma (radiation) from the leavings of the Old Ones is what is causing illness

<blockquote>"I want to give you crazy kids some advice, while we have a little breathing room," Solo said, as Rey settled beside Finn in the little lounge area. "Voice of experience and all that."</blockquote> ➤ draws attention to some of the thematic similarities

<blockquote>Alison may run a thingy mafia, but she's not sure where the Marshall got the idea that it qualified her to negotiate with a mafia mafia.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“What is it this time?” Bahorel asked, laughing, from his precarious perch on the back of a chair near Enjolras. “Lose your hat again? Finally find an Evening pair who want a threesome?” Courfeyrac did not dignify this with a response. Instead he stuck his nose in the air and said, “If you must know, the Baron Pontmercy has finally proposed marriage.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>It turns out that Marius _can_ heal your wounds with words of love. Don't worry, it came as a shock to him too.</blockquote>

<blockquote>So Courfeyrac talked to Grantaire and Grantaire hooked him up with a man who loaned him about a dozen air guns modified to fire beeswax marking rounds, and some quilted canvas protective smocks, and then Courfeyrac cajoled all his friends into spending a week at one of his father's estates playing war games, which Courfeyrac still maintains was one of his better ideas.</blockquote> ➤ or: the Amis play paintball

<blockquote>In Which Cosette Fauchelevent allows her kitchen to be annexed by a group of rag-tag freedom fighters; or: How To Tell Les Amis Apart From A Very Long Way Away</blockquote>

<blockquote>The first time they kiss (for real, with intent) is the result of Byerly starting a subtle campaign to turn their two marriages into the foursome/sedoretu they were clearly meant to be (if any pair of canon couples is going to independently invent the sedoretu it's those four.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>So the thing is Miles wasn't the first Vorkosigan to have one golden year with his relatives on Beta, with the result that the first time Aral actually met Mrs. Naismith the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Oh hell, you're Lizzie," and Cordelia had a sudden revelation of the fact that her mother looked younger than her husband and said "Oh god, please tell me you didn't date," and Aral said, "Of course not, I was eight," and Mrs. Naismith said brightly "And I was the glamorous older lady who lived next door to his Grandma that he had an absolutely adorable crush on! Why didn't you tell me he was Livy's boy? He used to bring me cookies," and Aral decided he was just going to curl up into a ball and never come out, but at least after that there was no question that Miles was definitely going to Beta with his grandma for a year.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Cosette lives in an asteroid with her Papa. The whole asteroid is theirs. She remembers, vaguely, when they first came there, that they were just living in one little dark cave with a rickety atmosphere plant, but every year they do something to make it better, and now she has gardens, and a domed balcony where she can see the sun, and a library, and oh! so much. They're mostly self-sufficient but every so often her papa has to take their little rock-hopper and go get the supplies they can't make themselves from Mars, and she's by herself for weeks.</blockquote>

<blockquote>this is the AU where Valjean learned computers in prison, became one of the first silicon valley millionaires while still on parole, got sick and tired of all the media coverage about 'inspiring excon made good', sold his company to Yahoo and moved to a small town somewhere in America to raise his adopted granddaughter while her mother finished the fieldwork for a PhD, and he met Javert the local cop and promptly started turning his entire world upside-down. Enjoy.</blockquote> ➤ I particularly like the second chapter

<blockquote>In 1823, in the small, bare yard behind the inn at Montfermeil, there was a wolf on a very short chain. M. Thénardier maintained this wolf so that he could tell people it was his wolf-brother, from his days fighting with the armies of the Emperor; and tell how it had helped to carry a great general to safety amid the carnage of Waterloo.</blockquote>

<blockquote>So here is 2,000 words unpacking this old Tumblr post about e/R soulmark AUs, which still gets reblogged now and again ,and gets the best angry retags. Will there be more of this story ever? IDK does the world really need lots of depressed, cynical rambling about the classist/racist/colonialist assumptions that underlie “words on the wrist” scenarios and then everybody dies?</blockquote> ➤ aww yeah my kind of soulmate/soulmark fic ➤ also on ao3 at http://archiveofourown.org/works/3394883 where it is titled "J'ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m'en reste"

<blockquote>One of the side-effects of Drifting is that Drift partners are no longer capable of being sexually attracted to each other. At all. Dr. Newton Geiszler is not happy about this.</blockquote> ➤ this fic is perfect to me

<blockquote>Cinaed: haha, jam asked for a merfolk/library Les Mis au Cinaed: maybe I should do one where Madeleine refuses to become mayor and becomes the town librarian instead (while running the factory), and Javert has to enlist his help because his squirrels are acting strangely and he’s gathered such a large collection of books </blockquote>

<blockquote>Enjolras sighed, and tugged at the lacy hem of the apron with two fingers, as if it was some strange foreign object from which he feared contamination. “This costume will not fool anyone. I did grow up in the country,” he said. “I know what a milkmaid looks like. It’s nothing like this.”</blockquote> ➤ with art by nisie

<blockquote>The news from M-sur-M, where all the men are mysterious, all the women are virtuous (especially the ones who aren't) and all the domesticated rodents have complicated inner lives.</blockquote> ➤ or: Simplice keeps up a correspondence with Baptistine

➤ as of last update, contains: "The Pirates! In an adventure with threesomes," "Part two: In which the pirates receive an invitation to breakfast" "Part Three: The Pirates Encounter A Monster from the Depths of Hell"

➤ HOW long have I had this open in a tab waiting for the day when I would come up with a useful way to tag this? GIVING UP NOW. ➤ The comments to this post have Melannen's various responses across a wide variety of fandoms to that meme where a person comments with a ship and you answer with a bit about how various tropes would happen with that shop.

<blockquote>This fic contains Old Men and squirrels. ...nope, that's basically it. That's the fic. Old men and squirrels.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It’s traditional “Write random AUs instead of your nano story” time here at chez melannen. So, to inspire Sath, here is the first 1000 words of the Les Mis SF AU-Fusion-Crossover that has been haunting me since I first got into Les Mis fandom. ENJOY. I feel like this one truly captures the spirit of Les Mis canon.</blockquote> ➤ or: the space au where Marius has been in stasis for a few hundred thousand years and when he's revived all his friends are dead

<blockquote>I am the one who arranges the tags That are put on the works and and fall into bins. They come down, and I wrangle them round, And then I canonize or make them syns.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Carlos's friend, who may or may not in fact be an angel, moves to Night Vale, and things start to get strange in a new and different way, even for Night Vale.</blockquote> ➤ the last in Melannen's les mis crossovers series.

➤ does what it says on the tin

<blockquote>In the south of France, a group of young men once came together to teach, to learn, and to fight for the rights of all humankind.</blockquote>

➤ does what it says on the tin

<blockquote>I think want I most want out of this version is Enjolras and bb!Vetinari being VERY INTENSE at each other about politics in Snapcase's Ankh-Morpork, and then not having any sex at all. Ever. (I actually have had all sorts of THOUGHTS about the political philosophies underlying much of Discworld for a long time, it kind of needs an Enjolras to be intensely republican about it, so much.) Meanwhile, wizzard!Grantaire tries to pick up Young Vimes at a tavern, but ends up just getting him very drunk while listening to him rant about his love for his bitch of a City, and begins to suspect he has a Type.</blockquote>