LINKDING

Summary: Martin Pale learns from Catherine of Winchester, several centuries too late. ➜ a yuletide fic, for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ➜ About the tudor-era magician Martin Pale and his relationship with his tutor, Catherine of Winchester, from the golden age of magic ➜ gosh wow I am just -- so blown away by this?! it feels like it fits so perfectly into the interstices of canon. The undeniable weight of reality that the whole piece has, even as it is shot through with shards of the numinous....the characters all being people who are difficult, and real, and not altogether pleasant, but you love them for how real they are. ➜ Pale and Catherine are so different from each other, yet so connected, and though we get to hear much of Pale's life, Catherine remains as mysterious to us as she is to Pale. And yet we know her from who she is. ➜ idk, idk, I'm not sure how to explain this better! I just....really recommend reading this fic. it is so satisfying. ➜ 16k words

excerpt: If you were to drive to my sister Violet’s house today, you would find yourself at a very different place from the one I encountered on my first trip. The road up the mountain has been paved, for one thing, to make it more accessible to the tourists who now support it. Back then if you were behind the wheel of anything other than a farm truck, you were as likely to wreck an axle or lose a tire to the ruts; not knowing, I’d driven the Jag that day. ➤ fantasy novelette about family, and two sisters trying to reconnect after many years of estrangement ➤ a quiet and contemplative sort of vibe ➤ the slow reveals were effective ➤ I'm not quite sure about the pacing/vibe of the ending, but overall still a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable story ➤ 12k words in length

excerpt: Taifa of Tuluz Spring 1194 “A wondrous thing is happening at the university!” said Avram to Isaac the Blind. “Like nothing you’ve ever seen!” “I daresay you’re right,” Isaac answered, “since the last time I saw anything, I was younger than you.” ➤ historical fantasynovelette set in a muslim kingdom on the iberian peninsula in the 12th century, with a jewish scholar as the viewpoint character ➤ I love the setting, richly full of a wide variety of types of people and languages and religions, with universities and scientific progress and people doing magic, all interacting with each other ➤ the mystery at the heart of the story is that someone is stealing people's languages of study, on purpose, leaving behind only whatever their first language was. why, and how? and is it reversible? ➤ it's about people's relationships with language and with knowledge and with the world. it's great! ➤ 14k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Even death is no match for a trio of elderly, stubborn, ever-sparring sisters, who refuse to rest in peace while their grudges live on…</blockquote> ➤ an original story about ghosts and toxic family dynamics and feeling trapped ➤ the three sisters who are the main characters are all difficult people in their own way, and all fully-realized characters I truly believe in ➤ I loved that it's a story where the moral isn't "family should always stick together." family can be wonderful but it can also be awful, and sometimes you're better off apart ➤ 14k words in length ➤ I think it would be stronger for being shorter but I still enjoyed it

Summary: <blockquote>During one of the much smaller disasters that preceded the really big disaster, I met a lot of my neighbors online. I can’t remember if we set up the WhatsApp group because of the pandemic or the civil disorder or both. My Minneapolis block had always been reasonably friendly—people would take their kids around on Halloween, and I knew the names of my next-door neighbors—but everyone on the WhatsApp group got closer. When the Internet and cell phones went down, my next-door neighbor to the north, Tanesha, built a little booth in her yard out of plywood, with corkboard inside and a roof, and painted WHATSUP on the outside, so people could leave each other messages inside. When I went in the first day to check it out, people were already posting up notes asking to swap stuff—coffee for condoms, cat food for diapers, a bike repair for a plumbing repair. The stores were empty but maybe someone on the block had what you needed.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>The Old Master thinks Chen-Chen is bored, and sends him on an interesting case . . .</blockquote> ➤ during the time when LC is working on healing mcs as much as can be done

Summary: <blockquote>The slow purpling of the evening sky makes their robes blend into their shadows, their shadows blend into the still water stretched out before them. Home, Jiang Cheng thinks, satisfied, and A-Ling exhales softly against him, and everything is good, and none of them move to leave.</blockquote>

<blockquote>On Posthe Tuwa of the Year One in the reign of Argaven XII, Harny Sord of Gernahan gave birth to a pervert.</blockquote> ➤ I like what it does with pronouns, just no third person pronouns at all for people in somer (not in kemmer)

<blockquote>The first indication there was something peculiar happening in the Inner Palace came heralded by the news that Prince Jing had returned injured from exile in the northernmost battlefields of Da Liang and it was revealed that the Emperor had not only granted an audience with Concubine Jing, but consented to allowing her to tend to Prince Jing herself, heretofore unprecedented liberty.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Do you know people die of tooth infections?” “Stupid way to die,” Wei Wuxian mumbles. “I agree,” Wen Qing says. “So: you’re going to the dentist.” / While on the run, Wen Qing drags Wei Wuxian to a free clinic where they are confronted with someone from their past lives, a root canal, and the devastating suggestion of how things could be different.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Nie Huaisang doesn’t expect Lan Xichen to consider him still worth liking after everything he’s done. (He also doesn't want to admit to himself how much he'd love to be proven wrong.) Nie Huaisang had painted, in the dark of night with only the light of a dozen candles and a luminescent pearl, a vast fire-scourged plain. In the midst, offset and growing out of a rocky shelter, he’d added a single shoot of green bamboo, tall and straight despite everything. Balancing the bamboo on the other side of the scroll were two lines of poetry: The grass is burnt but not destroyed by the prairie fires / When spring winds blow they bring it back to life. Rolled up in the painting’s scroll was a note that Nie Huaisang wrote right before committing to sending it. The note, which was even more terrifyingly honest than the painting, read: I will do my best to become worthy once more of being considered your friend.</blockquote> ➤ more kind than many fics about the two of them! and I love the knifey fics but this vision of their future is good too

<blockquote>The second time he dies, it’s almost funny. He laughs—or well, he tries to. It catches on his broken ribs, comes out a rasping gasp instead. It’s funny. Really. The Flower Crowned Martial God, dying of a broken neck amidst the wildflowers.</blockquote> ➤ xl's many experiences of death over his hundreds of years

<blockquote>He’s twenty-nine when he gets out of the Kiln. He thinks. Time moves in its own eddies and swirls — in the streets, in the war, in death. He thinks he died when he was eighteen and he thinks there was about a year there before he wound up in Mount Tong’lu and by his best guess, it’s been ten years since he’s seen the world outside of this mountain. So the newest Supreme Ghost King, first since the White-Clothed Calamity, emerges from the fire and wreckage of Mount Tong’lu a year shy of thirty. He steps out of the fire and the ash with teeth bared, and below his feet, the world shakes. / The road from Wu Ming to Crimson Rain</blockquote> ➤ Hua Cheng's story during the 800 years he's looking for his god!

<blockquote>When the former Madam Lan hears that the new Sect Leader Lan married a criminal who is kept in the same house where she once lived, she has only one choice. She has to return to Cloud Recesses to rescue Wei Wuxian!</blockquote> ➤ first chapter is what's in the summary, second is lxc's response to his mother's return

<blockquote>A company data analyst is assigned to find someone to blame for Murderbot going rogue. Doing so requires the company making connections between data points it had not previously made.</blockquote> ➤ yeah. YEAH.

<blockquote>Generations after the events of the novel, Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao come out of retirement to investigate a series of mysterious fires targeting the watchtowers.</blockquote> ➤ the fic works well as is but I am still desperate to know what the solution might be that will honor yao-guniang's ambitions and keep her safe from yao-zongzhu at the same time!

<blockquote>Three makes some choices.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Dashwood ladies are mixed race. Some things change, but others do not.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It’s too late for any of Hanguang-Jun’s rabbits to be awake -- one of the sundown chores for young disciples is to herd them back into their hutch -- but the rabbit field is as good a spot as any for quality sulking, so Lan Jingyi makes his way there. Someone has beat him to it. Lan Jingyi stares at Hanguang-Jun. Hanguang-Jun stares passively back. When Lan Sizhui is swept away with the Ghost General, off on a new adventure, Lan Jingyi is the one who returns to Cloud Recesses alone. </blockquote>

<blockquote>“Well, when I asked Wei-gongzi what you might want for your birthday, he asked me what I could give you that no one else could.” Lan Sizhui can’t help but smile. It’s so Wei-qianbei to answer a question with a question. “A-and I thought… if you wanted, I could…” The next words are so quiet, Lan Sizhui struggles to hear them. “I thought I could show you our family.” For Lan Sizhui's birthday, he receives a glimpse behind the curtain of all that was. </blockquote>

<blockquote>“Okay, it’s a robot, but it’s just programmed to turn itself off again?” the boy asks. “How is that different?” The inventor straightens up, smiles broadly. “It’s a fully functional, self-aware AI,” he says. “It isn’t programmed to turn itself off, it chooses to because I programmed it to be in a constant state of existential terror!” The boy looks up at his father. “That’s kind of awful,” he says.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This is not a “raising the protagonist” fic. This is a “raising the protagonist’s future wife” fic. Or rather, it’s Shang Qinghua trying to be a mentor to a teenage (demon) girl with anger management issues and bad decision making skills, and his debatable success.</blockquote> ➤ canon divergence from pidw, where the only transmigrator is sqh, and he ends up a kind of mentor for shl

<blockquote>This is Chapter Thirty or so in a whole ongoing saga that I don’t have time to get into right now. I’m jumping in at the point when my Machiavellian twin brother Charles decided to take over Mars, and I decided to help. My big failing is I never figure these things out until I’m already in the middle of them. But I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Qiren finds a boy on the streets of Yiling and the world changes. A story in three parts</blockquote>

<blockquote>During the unbearable years of tyranny, the political prisoners of the Anchorite Hegemony made a solemn covenant: when the time came, they would cross the last miles to freedom on their feet. For reasons of youth and idiocy, Tishrel thought he would have a choice in the matter. The doors of his cell would open, and rather than flee into the sky, he would make the journey as he had made his way through the years in captivity: with what dignity he could, one foot after another.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Dear child, I would like to tell you a story. I’d like to have one ready for you the moment you open your eyes. This is the gift I intend to prepare to welcome you to the world, for a story is a most elegant and efficient program. When human children are born, they are given fairy tales, which help them compose an identity out of the haphazard information that surrounds them. The story provides a structure. It gives the child a way to organize data, to choose—and choice is the foundation of consciousness.</blockquote>

<blockquote>If Evina waited much longer it would be full dark, and the tavern would almost certainly have a godforsaken bard by then. As if that weren’t bad enough, by the pricking of the hair along her arms, there had to be at least five other mages in easy walking distance. No surprise, really, given King Redinado’s annual quest. That’s what forced her to the capital, after all.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A year after his apparent death, Liu Qingge finds Shen Qingqiu's frail mushroom body buried on a mountainside in the borderlands. Consequently, the task of nursing his beloved shixiong back to health—a task which he is both unequipped for and determined to succeed in—falls upon Liu Qingge's shoulders.</blockquote> ➤ lqg is Interested in sqq but nobody acts on any feelings but there is Fraught Tension

<blockquote>"Are you alright?" Jiang Cheng asks. "What happened?" "Jiujiu!" Jin Ling says, his voice panicked. "Jiujiu, it's Wei Wuxian! He's hurt!" Jiang Cheng freezes. Wei Wuxian gets hurt on a night hunt. Jiang Cheng is displeased to find out that he's been wandering around on his own instead of living with Lan Wangji in Cloud Recesses. He ends up fixing it.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Head disciples Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge are caught by slavers and locked in a woodshed. It’s a rat trap meant for rat boys, and Liu Qingge isn’t one. Shen Qingqiu would’ve been pleased at his humiliation, if he wasn’t certain that this—either the trap or Liu Qingge himself—would utterly destroy him. Somehow, they make it out as friends.</blockquote>