LINKDING

<blockquote>Where Genly Ai went, after Winter. [Written for Yuletide 2010.]</blockquote> ➤ oh, wow. Very effective at grounding in setting such that it evokes a strong consistent feeling throughout. Plus excellent alien anthropology

<blockquote>It is not an enviable position, being a bridge, particularly a bridge with visions. But sometimes, to build the future, that's what you need. Or: Harry and Corlath's daughter comes to Istan.</blockquote>

<blockquote>As far as I know, dying in a malfunctioning shuttle does not violate the treaty. But I’m not a politician. (Seivarden finds herself in the hands of the Presger. If they even have hands.)</blockquote>

<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>A drawn-out annexation, a hammered dulcimer, an old-fashioned entertainment titled Sovereign of Tavern Dancers and the story of how One Esk first found its voice.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When an underdog candidate promises a handsome reward to anyone who will help him win an election, world famous election advisers Mosca Mye and Eponymous Clent are on the job. The job is more complicated, not to mention more dangerous, than Mosca expected.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Did you win your year?" "I sure did," she said. "By a mile."</blockquote> ➤ a really good fic for a book I didn't care for at all - impressive!

<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>A little girl who missed the sun suffered a terrible act of cruelty. This is what happened to Margot, after.</blockquote> ➤ this is based on a short story I've never read, but it's perfectly possible to follow this fic without being familiar with the source material

➤ Jack has to help sew Stephen up after a meeting with a contact goes awry

<blockquote>Released from his role as Prince by the birth of a son to the Emperor and Empress, Idra is allowed to attend university. But he can't escape his past so easily, or perhaps at all, particularly not when he meets someone who walks under a similar shadow ... Three years post-canon.</blockquote> ➤ about a friendship between Idra and that quiet awkward sister (Paru Tethimin) of the dude who did the betraying

<blockquote>My name is Lieutenant Tisarwat, and today I’m going to tell you about the rise of Anaander Mianaai.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Even the sweetest pup will bite if handled roughly, and Regan is no innocent. The making of a girl who embraced her demons and turned them to her purpose.</blockquote>

<blockquote>There was a witch who lived up in the mountains, and I never heard but that she was a good one.</blockquote> ➤ apparently it's based on a folk story called "Raw Head and Bloody Bones" which I'd never heard of before! ➤ This is the story of a witch and her razorback hog familiar, and what happens after an unscrupulous man kills her hog. It's really good!

<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>On her wedding night to King Henry VIII, Katherine Parr discovers that a strange curse has been laid on all the queens of England...</blockquote> ➤ crossover of history with 12 dancing princesses - where there's a curse that all the queens of england will dance in hell until henry's line is ended. And it works so well! It's great seeing all these queens interacting with each other

<blockquote>"I am forced to admit," said Lucilla Marjoribanks, holding the magical sword firmly with both hands, "that this is somewhat removed from my sphere of expertise."</blockquote> ➤ Best fic idea, best crossover idea, WHAT A GOOD. The one where Lucilla incites a confrontation with the fairies who have been running roughshod over her neighbourhood.

<blockquote>Johnny said, "Devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again, I done told you once—you son of a bitch—I'm the best that's ever been."</blockquote> ➤ fanfic of a song about a devil trying (and failing) to bet a musician's soul away based on who's the better musician. And what a great place to take the premise.

<blockquote>There are kings who live underneath the sea as well as above it. Kings have daughters there too, in the manner of kings everywhere, and fathers there must find something to do with them as well as we do. There is no place so remote that no man can settle and own it. There was a king once, who owned the sea and lived in it, and he filled it with his daughters, and he owned them too.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It wasn't right for a girl to have a wolf, they said, not for a normal girl. There was something queer about a girl with a wolf, not quite natural. Certainly it wouldn't do at all for a girl to be seen in society with a wolf at her side, like some kind of heathen foreigner, or worse—an American! In smaller towns, they might put down a girl's wolf the very day of imprinting, before the bond had a chance to settle. A few days of sickness, fever and an upset stomach, and she'd be all right. She wouldn't even remember, a girl that age. That was what they said. (Rebecca and psychic wolves. Warning: contains a mostly off-screen animal death, for those sensitive to that.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Elliot thought he was prepared for elven culture. He finds he is really not prepared for Serene’s parents. “I am Fire-Red-Hair-Blows-in-the-Wind,” the elf man said, leading them up a grassy path. Up ahead, there was a wooden mansion that seemed to have grown organically between three massive oaks. “Please call me Fire. Although I went by ‘Fred’ for a while when I was travelling among the humans; do use that if it makes you more comfortable.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jason Fox is at the grocery store with Peter, a shopping list, and an envelope that breaks down about 3:1 coupons to cash by thickness when he finds out that he's thirty years old.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Isheian was grateful to serve. But that didn't mean she did not want more.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The adventures of Behiye bint Kasim, Captain of the pirate ship Canavar, and her engineer and companion Bulbul.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Luke and Elliot sort out their relationship (with some interruptions from unexpected monsters, travel between worlds, and post-camp career planning angst).</blockquote> ➤ SO GOOD

<blockquote>Sometimes adventures are very quiet things.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Or: five projects that Knives Chau regretted letting Darren Nichols talk her into.</blockquote> ➤ HOW IS THIS SO GOOD, HOW DOES IT WORK SO WELL

<blockquote>Scenes from a reunion</blockquote>

<blockquote>I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Flavia, brought up in the last lingering light of Roman Britain, was carried off from her burning home by a 'laughing giant' of a Saxon, in a raid during which her father and friends were brutally killed. Three years later, her brother found her again - married, and with a child by that same 'laughing giant'. Given the chance to escape back to the Roman British, with her brother and her child, she chose to stay with her husband rather than go with her brother. This story explores what those years were like for Flavia, and how she could come to make that choice.</blockquote> ➤ I am so so happy this fic exists. it's amazing