LINKDING

Summary: “It started with the ghost,” Horatio said after a moment, clearly coming to a decision. He looked upset, finally, but in a frustrated way, not in the way you would expect from someone who had just witnessed four people die, and one of them in his arms. “I got roped into it because of the ghost.” // Why Hamlet chose to put his trust in Horatio. ➜ yuletide fic - for Hamlet ➜ taking an interpretation that Horatio and Hamlet barely knew each other before the start of the play, and running with it from Horatio's pov ➜ I love the way this interpretation shapes the story! ➜ And Horatio's pov is so good. the way he feels helplessly drawn into the mess by Hamlet's charisma, never sure what he can do or what he should do, but unable to make himself step back and leave Hamlet alone ➜ because Hamlet IS so charismatic, and so visibly struggling at the same time! and there's so much depth there that Horatio simply cannot have the context to understand, but he wants to, he wants to be there for Hamlet ➜ but in the end, of course, all he can do is tell everyone what happened. ➜ I'm so emotions!!!! ➜ 9k words

no summary ➤ fic for The Left Hand of Darkness, set generations after canon! ➤ a young person of Gethen dreams of journeying out to join the rest of the Ekumen; their parent tells them the story of the Envoy and of Estraven ➤ I love this outside perspective on the characters we know and love from canon, and what must have/might have happened to them, and the stories they've become in the generations since! ➤ the original characters are wonderful also, bringing a great dynamic to the discussion of what it means to be a Gethenian vs an Outsider, and to the consideration of what a story means and what it means to tell that story ➤ yuletide always brings fabulous left hand of darkness fics and this one is no exception! ➤ 2k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>After the end of everything, Hark returns to his old, familiar job at Sanctuary. Life, however, does not return to normal. It begins with small things—things far too small to notice. Open windows that ought to be closed, doors that slam themselves shut, objects in the wrong places. Coincidences. It becomes something far worse.</blockquote> ➤ fic for the Frances Hardinge book "Deeplight" ➤ focusing on the friendship between Hark and Jelt ➤ absolutely perfect creepy vibes, and capturing what's compelling to Hark about his friendship with Jelt despite everything ➤ also perfect bits about Quest as mentor-figure! ➤ 4k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>"Twins are the same" is a cliché. Or, Dorachar- Clifford, the early years. char-and Jean</blockquote> ➤ Fic for the two-person roleplay game Debrief (I LOVE DEBRIEF!!!!) ➤ featuring Dora and Jean, the wives of the player characters in the game, and I love how it makes them real people with their own complex relationship with each other! ➤ I also love what it does with footnotes, it is a GENIUS way of doing pov things for this particular canon ➤ ahhhh there are so many great details in the fic too! ➤ 3k words in length

<blockquote>“I won’t leave you alone, Lord Estraven,” Genly said. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. In exile or at home. On the Ice or at the hearth.”</blockquote> ➤ just the right vibe to fit the book

<blockquote>Malcolm Connor is staring at my bike. It’s not for the first time. </blockquote> ➤ pre-ot3

<blockquote>In a minute, Shprintze thinks, the fiddler will say what every other neighbor has said: oy, what a trip! Are you sure you’ll be safe? Oh, well, but you’ll see your sister, and that meshuggeneh radical of hers, and maybe if you’ve the time you could bring a letter to my cousin, who lives in the Pod'iacheskii neighborhood – In fact what the fiddler says is: “Since you’re going, I’m thinking I might come with you.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Sarah McBride Anderson is best known for her work as a suffragette and later as the Representative of Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District, where she served from 1925-1937 (the first woman to represent Massachusetts, and the seventh woman in the US House of Representatives). Less well known is her lifelong friendship with J.A. Pendleton, the celebrated novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner. The two women met at college, where they roomed together. Although the correspondence between the two women after their college years has been published, these letters (excerpted from Anderson's letters home to her family during their college years) have not, and provide a fascinating glimpse into their friendship.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A collection of fragments from Angharad Scott’s research and correspondence. In which another, less familiar, world is revealed, and stories are told. I have stood in the shadows of the lamassu. I have explored a Palace of unending rooms, utterly silent beyond the rushing of waters below and the caw of birds above. Your stories are true — and more than that, they are only a fraction of the stories that can be told.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is not the same blade; yet it is still a good weapon.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Experimental faster-than-light travel sends Genly ten years into his own past, onto the Gobrin Ice.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Twelve excerpts from Teixcalaan and from Lsel Station.</blockquote> ➤ every time I read a fic like this, composed of excerpts from various documents, I think to myself that I really need a tag for that but can never come up with one I'm happy with or remember what I've used in the past. SIGH. Anyway this is a truly excellent specimen of the genre!

<blockquote>In Teixcalaan, these things are ceaseless: star-charts, disembarkments, and Shrja Torel's ridiculous, illogical, impossible-to-get-rid-of envy for her best friend's job and imago. (Mahit and Yskandr are very similar. Shrja is not.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Geoffrey, legacy, and the Henriad.</blockquote> ➤ the feelings crept up on me without me noticing until the end of the fic and just - YEAH. What a good.

<blockquote>It was just as well they called it the Forlorn Hope.</blockquote> ➤ Jenny before the events of the book

<blockquote>A Staryk girl with a Jewish name</blockquote> ➤ YESSSSSSSS this is so good

<blockquote>In the garden; after the war.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Everyone deserves a little happiness before they die.</blockquote> ➤ does a great job of Barney's pov

<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>Nani and Lilo grow up and together and apart.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Millie struggles with control.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"If God did not exist, it would have been necessary for man to invent one." A man, a girl, a wombat, and a demon pray, or try praying, to four different gods.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Gerta was correct about most of what happened when they got home: there was a lot of crying, and a feast. Then over the following weeks came the endless retelling of the story that she and Janna had put together with her grandmother, after the first bout of crying was over but before the feast.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A chance meeting between two women in Monte Carlo.</blockquote>

<blockquote>She had burned with love. It was a fire that had lasted over twenty years. Well, all fires ran out of fuel in the end. A study of Hesero Nelaran and Setheris Nelar, in the first spring after their reunion.</blockquote>

<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>Sisters of Bilhah is the largest registered charitable organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees who were citizens of the former United States of America.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“If it’s the first time that is the worst, and it gets better after that, then I won’t—won’t you—I don’t want him to be your first,” Agnieszka is saying, hotly. She gnaws at her lower lip, staring down at Kasia, still clutching their hands together. Her face is blotchy and pale all at once. “Let me. I’ll—with you. Let me do this for you, with you.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>(Or, a pregnant Diana Maturin, nee Villiers, spends her confinement at Ashgrove Cottage, writes many letters, and sends one.)</blockquote>

<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