LINKDING

<blockquote>Simon Illyan likes to live dangerously. It's a bad habit for the Chief of ImpSec.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Don’t get too comfortable,” Haakon said to me in a low tone. “What do you mean?” I said. Everyone exchanged a look. It was Namja who finally explained. “The third cargo capsule from the homeworld is going to land at Newton’s Eye in about 650 hours.” “But . . . ” I stopped when I saw they didn’t need me to tell them the problem. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Umbernight was just around the corner. Much as we needed that cargo, getting to it would be a gamble with death. I remember how my mother explained Umbernight to me as a child. “There’s a bad star in the sky, Michiko. We didn’t know it was there at first because there’s a shroud covering it. But sometimes, in winter, the shroud pulls back and we can see its light. Then we have to go inside, or we would die.”</blockquote> ➤ Good worldbuilding, evocative writing

➤ backstory between Cameron Mitchell and John Sheppard in Afghanistan

<blockquote>The plan comes apart almost as soon as the three of them enter the prison. Poe thought they were doing pretty good until that point. They got into the spaceport with their cover identities in place, made it onto the ship that delivers supplies and new prisoners to Kedai Station in the far Outer Rim, survived the trip with a bunch of bad-tempered and legitimate criminals with nothing more than some bruises and a headache, and got shoved through intake until they were finally spat out as official residents. The whole process had felt like being digested, but they had a mission to accomplish, so they tried to blend in and not get involved in any trouble. Poe assured Finn and Rey over and over that they’d be smuggled out on the same ship that brought them in, job done and back to base. So of course things start to go wrong immediately.</blockquote> ➤ I love the OCs, and the intense horrible feeling of the place pressing down on our characters is really effective.

<blockquote>Mark is pretty sure there's something up here with him, hunting him.</blockquote> ➤ tagged with "psychological horror" and holy crap, this is really good and intense/effective. I am deeply hoping that the demon-alien was just a figment of Mark's mind because otherwise there's MORE of them there on Mars for future missions to have to deal with and just NO. (also the relationship stuff was good))

<blockquote>However you tell the tale of Bluebeard, he always dies. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to kill him.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Ignition and cognition.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Steve Rogers has to live the same day over and over. Bruce, Tony, Pepper, Jane, and Thor try to help him. Then things go from bad to worse.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Aral breaks an oath he made to Simon.</blockquote> ➤ or: on consent issues. (in an entirely nonsexual context.)

<blockquote>Five Alternate Universe versions of Mulan: canon AU, historical AUs, modern AU, sci-fi AU, with each highlighting a different aspect of the Mulan story.</blockquote>

<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.

<blockquote>Now adults, Calvin and Susie face the end of the world, which Hobbes somehow foretold.</blockquote> ➤ wip through part 5. Series consists of: Preparation Fireless Planned Reflection Decisions

<blockquote>“Don’t heal me with medicine,” he wheezes. “Stitches—fail. They fail like doubt. Tell Aelana what you want... want done, and—if you truly want it, she will give you the power to forge it....” “Are you mad?” I scream, my nostrils filled with the fetid scent of blood and bowel-shit again, and oh my Goddess my father is just like the soldiers—</blockquote>

<blockquote>Child Ballad 32 is a loathly lady story. The only popular version I know of is Steeleye Span’s “King Henry,” on Below the Salt. I have had this album for well over a decade, and occasionally I found myself wondering about the monstrous lady in the story, and even more about King Henry, who agreed to kill his horse and hawk and hounds to feed her. I don’t know that I’d easily forgive someone who forced me to kill my dog. This had been kicking around in my head for the better part of a decade, and then I was privy to a very odd conversation in a bookstore about people with extreme forms of body dysmorphic disorder, and then I drank a lot of coffee and drove for about forty-five minutes and “King Henry” came on the CD player and I went home and wrote the story in one long jag, which probably explains a few things about it.</blockquote>

<blockquote>She doesn’t want to kill the soldiers on this iteration; she’s never killed anyone before, and doesn’t want to start. But unless she can get poor, weak Sammi out of that prison in the next fifty/infinity minutes, they’ll start in on him with the rubber hoses and he’ll tell them what he’s done. And though she loves her brother with all her heart, it would be a blessing then if the Americans beat him to death.</blockquote>

➤ the one where Merlin is an antiques appraiser who moves in with Arthur in the house Arthur's renovating. And Uther's crazy and murderous and thinks he ought to be king.

<blockquote>In another world, Geoffrey Tennant is a man haunted. No, wait. In another world, Geoffrey Tennant is haunted by a very specific ghost. This Geoffrey Tennant sticks to generalities, thanks.</blockquote> ➤ the tone and the voices and so forth are absolutely perfect, and if postcardmystery errs as usual too far on the side of sparse to the point of things being occasionally incomprehensible, at least for this fic it works

<blockquote>Four scenes, very loosely linked, mostly by sex and violence.</blockquote> ➤ Angel and Spike, in all combinations of soul-having

➤ In which, prior to Atlantis, Rodney picks up John in a club when John's on leave, and turns out to be utterly unlike any top he's known before. Fascinating dynamics ➤ (in which I have STRONG OPINIONS on my headcanon of what happens after the end, namely, THEY MEET AGAIN.)