LINKDING

summary: “Go to bed,” he says. “It’s late, and I have people I still need to speak to at the party. We’ll play more tomorrow, hm? Uncle will take you somewhere fun, out of the palace. But shh, it’s a secret. We’ll sneak out together during the morning.” That’s such an exciting promise that sleeping at all suddenly seems impossible. And Uncle always keeps his promises, too, so it’s really happening. “Okay,” he says, and makes himself climb underneath the sheets. Uncle smiles approvingly. “Good boy,” he says, smoothing the sheets for him. “Sleep tight. Tomorrow is going to be a good day.” If Uncle says it, then that must mean it’s true. / The last day of Mobei-Jun's childhood, spent with his favorite uncle. ➜ svsss fic about Mobei-Jun as a young child, and his relationship with his favourite uncle Linguang-Jun, before the betrayal ➜ wahhhhh ;_; it's so GOOD, mbj is so young and earnest and trusting, and the reader (who knows what's going to happen) can read impending tragedy into everything lgj does ➜ the way lgj's betrayal permanently altered mbj's ability to trust, to believe in someone's love and care! the loss of the person he could otherwise have grown up to be!!! ➜ 2.5k words long

excerpt: We drove out to Joshua Tree for the star party—a gathering of amateur astronomers under a clear, dark sky. It was Holly’s idea, an impromptu adventure on a Friday after work: “Hey, Lou, do you want to go look at the moon tonight?” Holly had the best ideas and the worst ideas, and in the daylight, it was hard to tell them apart at first glance. I took a gamble. I said yes. And I meant it—I wanted nothing more than to lay down under the Milky Way with my hand in hers and gaze into forever. For a long time, our love was the biggest thing I knew how to believe in. ➤ an sff novelette about family dynamics, religion, queerness, trauma, and the beauty of the night sky ➤ it's a horrifying story even as it's also beautiful, exploring its ideas in ways that leave me not quite sure what to think about any of it, but in a way that's clearly done with purpose and care ➤ content note for explicit child murder. I am serious about the horrifying aspects of the story! but if it's something you feel able to read, it's definitely worth it imo ➤ 9k words in length

Excerpt: After we kill our father but before we leave the island, we argue. Cal doesn’t want to go; he’s afraid of the water. Even after the rest of us outvote him two to one, he refuses to move, crouching on the ground, pressing the ruined side of his face into the earth, snarling whenever we try to touch him. In the end Ari has to sit down with him and say something in a quiet soothing susurrus, like they do, and the whole time Mir is pacing in the waves at the very edge of the water, where it barely comes up to her ankles. She is moving back and forth and back and forth, with her eyes on the horizon, and when this is happening Father’s blood is still on all of our hands but mostly on hers. ➤ that's a very evocative short story title right there and it's like. yeah. that's what the story is about! ➤ a fantasy story about three teens who have escaped their powerful and abusive father figure, who are a team in escaping, who might not always like each other but who are bound together in inextricable ways ➤ the entire story takes place in a boat as they make their way away from the island, hoping to find the mainland, but it never feels static, it's always pushing you onward, as you get more hints of the backstory, of what exactly all the context is for the murder and the escape ➤ it's so good!!! ➤ also. it's told in plural first person? which is so cool. The three teens are the "we" and "us" of the narrative voice. it's so well done! I love when stories play with pov. ➤ also. trans characters! ➤ 5k words

Excerpt: I had warned a hundred mortals not to trust the boatman. I’d told them: No matter how much you pay him, no matter what you promise, it will never be enough. Yet somehow, I found myself surprised when he grabbed my wrist before I could step off the boat. I gave him my most forbidding stare, which only made him smirk as he held out his other hand. We had an agreement, I almost said. I caught myself just in time—I would have to shed my mainland habits, and fast, now that I was back. ➤ A novelette inspired by the fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses ➤ about one of the princesses who managed to escape, but who comes back ➤ a fascinating reimagining, leaning into the dangerous appeal of the fae, and the desire for belonging, and what you will and won't do for love -- or for freedom ➤ I've read a lot of retellings of this fairy tale and there are a lot of good ones but this one definitely ranks pretty high on the list! ➤ 10k words

Excerpt: I was no friend to the god of high places, of peaks and spires and rope bridges over narrow canyons, and I had no reason to expect that he was a friend of mine. But my mother kept asking, what could it hurt to ask for his favor. What could it hurt to try. ➤ a fantasy short story about a disabled woman going on pilgrimage with her mother, and ending up helping out the god whose temple they go to, who has been beseiged by another god ➤ I enjoyed the portrayal of the relationship between parent and child, where the parent is very genuinely caring and doing her best to be helpful and has been an important ally against the ableist world.....and also is just. a bit much. and can't accept that actually the child is an adult these days who's very happy with her life as it is! ➤ 3k words

summary: or: A piece of Ancient technology requires some honesty to grant access to its workings; Rodney and Jeannie find themselves telling each other a few unspoken truths. ➤ sga gen fic about Rodney and Jeannie's sibling relationship ➤ in order to access the Ancients' science thingy they need to tell each other truths....enough to make the door-opening device accept them ➤ some petty things get said but also, in the end, some pretty major acknowledgements ➤ I love this sibling pair and it's always a delight to see a fic focusing on their relationship with each other! ➤ the balance of their conversation and truth-telling and how it shifts over time is so well done ➤ 4k words in length

quote: There are seven hundred aliens hidden in Miko’s backpack, and the Galactic Security Agent currently studying her passport (hopefully) has no clue. The agent is an alien themselves, some tentacular species with assistive devices hooked into its uniform to mist its soft skin every few seconds. A puff of evaporated solution exits from one of the devices by its neck as it draws her passport closer to its pitted eyes. ➤ a scifi short story set in space, about a smuggler who left her sister behind when she left the shitty planet she grew up on ➤ but her latest mission has her returning to that planet to deliver the goods ➤ (the goods are hundreds of teeny tiny sentient bioluminescent jellyfish fleeing civil war) ➤ I enjoyed the worldbuilding, and the difficult emotions about family, and how the things that felt world-endingly true at 17 don't need to be true forever ➤ 7k words in length

quote: Dad says Auntie was beautiful when she was young, with a bright-eyed gaze, pure yet alluring, and a slender, curving waist. When happy, her face was like springtime. When sorrowful, she was like a thin willow bending in the wind. Sometimes I try to imagine my aunt’s youthful beauty, and I end up thinking of those fox demon women in Zhiyi novels, eyes flickering like stars. With a slight twist of the demon’s waist, your soul is hers. But Auntie was the type who’s a thousand miles removed—aloof, full of rebuffs. Every boy who saw her back then suffered pangs of desire, yet they shunned her. Before Deng Baolin met her husband, she scratched the faces of thirteen boys. She was a prickly beauty, a thorny rose. In short, she was completely unlike the person before my eyes. ➤ scifi short story translated from chinese; originally published in 2021 ➤ it's a fascinating outside-outside pov, a nephew telling the story of his aunt, whose story is that of her famous physicist-astronaut husband ➤ the multiple layers of abstraction work well for this story -- and the narrative loops around itself in how it's told too, wandering forwards and backwards in time to circle around the heart of things ➤ which is really a story about family and about place and about how you decide what to prioritise in your life ➤ it's lovely and thoughtful and wistful. I really liked it! ➤ 7k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Jiang Cheng realises that his own nephew has never tried his mother's signature dish, and takes it upon himself to rectify this. [Recipe at the end]</blockquote> ➤ post-canon, jiang cheng realises jin ling has never tasted his mother's soup ➤ cue the epic quest to learn how to recreate it, and the things he learns along the way ➤ lovely fic about family and about food ➤ 4k words in length ➤ thanks to stultiloquentia for the rec!

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

Summary: <blockquote>In which Vucub-Kamé is worried, Hun-Kamé is in denial and Casiopea Tun is perfectly happy. (post-canon)</blockquote> ➤ fic for Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Gods of Jade and Shadow ➤ such a fun pov choice to have it from Vucub-Kame's perspective! ➤ I loved the arguments between Vucub-Kame and Hun-Kame, and between Hun-Kame and Casiopeia! ➤ 2k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>According to the ways, when the head of a household passed away, his womenfolk had to refrain from lifting their feet in dance and their voices in song until the moon cast its full light down for the third time. During that interval, which, to be clear, could be three months, the mourners remained cloistered in their home and performed ritual ablutions to cleanse themselves of death, while their family and friends slowly entombed them within walls of food containers and condolence cards. When her mom asked Oona to join her in observing this ancient duty, Oona said nah. The explosion that followed was totally understandable, but through it all Oona remained immovable and flippant.</blockquote> ➤ about the difficulties of being a teen girl whose dad just died, and who is trying to figure out her identity as an othered visible minority, with a large and close-knit multigenerational family whose older generations are more connected with traditional culture and who want her to be too ➤ the traditional culture is selkies ➤ yeah it's a GREAT premise and I love how carefully and believably the selkie culture is imagined, and what the experience of being part of a landed selkie family would be ➤ very emotionally affecting too! ➤ 8k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Mirae sits on her bed, parting her hair with one hand and feeling for the access port on the back of her head with the other. She finds the notched edges of the cap and twists counterclockwise until it comes loose. Her eye twitches as she slides the plug into her skull. The sensation isn’t strong enough for her to say it hurts, but she doesn’t know how else to describe it. Her post-op recovery had been difficult. She had fever dreams of worms crawling into her brain through the still-healing metal port. Even after she was fully recovered and ready to be plugged in for her first update, images of the plug’s pin connectors piercing too deep and puncturing her occipital lobe made her hands shake.</blockquote> ➤ a short story about a young woman who was given a neural implant to improve her abilities and skills in school to be able to get a good job ➤ about parental expectations and abusive control ➤ trying to figure out who you are and what you care about when you've never been given the opportunity to be anything but obedient ➤ I had feelings ➤ 4k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>I tell Mateo to meet me at a wine bar. It’s a quiet, low-key spot—ideal for first dates, because it’s easy to make a speedy exit in case the red flags start flying—or worse, if the men in blue come knocking. It’s been over an hour, and we’re on our second glass of wine when I realize there are no red flags. He’s not just monologuing, he’s asking me questions too. This is actually a good first date—and when was the last time that ever happened for me? But I can’t help but worry that the puddles from this afternoon’s shower may have dried up. Any time there’s a pause in the conversation, my head swivels to the exit to check for the men in blue.</blockquote> ➤ a beautiful story about fear and trauma and being an immigrant or from an immigrant family, and queer romance and the wisdom of the people who love you, and how something that can help save you and that can bring joy and fun in your life can also be an unhealthy coping mechanism if you take it too far. I loved reading about Javier and Mateo as they developed their relationship!

Summary: <blockquote>Lucy could play pretend in the countryside with the Professor and Miss Plummer and Peter and apparently Edmund, who Lucy had said was meeting him in London where they could easily get Susan before they met up with Eustace and Jill at the junction and on to Professor Kirke's— What fun, all the Friends of Narnia in one place, and just after they all thought they'd seen a Narnian. Well, I wouldn't go again, not for the richest jewel in all Narnia, Susan decided. One goes where one's invited, and Susan was going to a party.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>“I think the member coordinator saw our Chinese names and was like, ‘Better send all the Chinese Jews to these guys,’” Ning said. “All the better!” Wuxian said, grinning. “Double holiday for everyone!” / The Wens host Sukkot/Mid-Autumn Festival.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>This is the first poem Xu Anshi gave to us; the first memory she shared with us for safekeeping. It is the first one that she composed in High Mheng—which had been and remains a debased language, a blend between that of the San-Tay foreigners, and that of the Mheng, Anshi’s own people. She composed it on Shattered Pine Prison, sitting in the darkness of her cell, listening to the faint whine of the bots that crawled on the walls—melded to the metal and the crisscrossing wires, clinging to her skin—monitoring every minute movement she made—the voices of her heart, the beat of her thoughts in her brain, the sweat on her body.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mianmian sets her drink down on the floor with a clink. “If she’s that perfect, it’s no wonder she can put up with you two.” The room goes silent. Across the room, Wen Qing’s expression has morphed from this might be a crisis to this is absolutely a crisis and we need damage control, stat. Jiang Wanyin bristles, opens his mouth to say something mean in response. Lan Wangji is more worried about Wei Ying, who has gone very, very still beside him. He knows that Wei Ying’s relationship with his adoptive family is complicated—a web of obligations and resentment that might never be untangled; he knows that Wei Ying constantly felt like a burden, and that Jiang Yanli was the only one who offered unconditional affection. / or, lan zhan reflects on sibling relationships while wei ying scrambles to get his jiejie the perfect birthday gift</blockquote> ➤ unfinished, possibly abandoned, but the one chapter stands alone just fine

<blockquote>Sure enough we could not outrun the hoverbikes. Understandable—yes? Yes. We were a new thing, a sharp thing; not a fast thing. So we stood and panted, and the bikes idled a few handsbreadths above the rain-slick tarmac. The Nero’s men fanned out before us. We said, “Boys!” and also, “Let’s not do anything hasty,” and also, “Always be closing!” No reaction from these little vessels of intent, their faces obscured in the shadow thrown by the weed-choked overpass where they had cut us off. We’d made it, oh, perhaps two miles. Sprinting south, pursued. A body wants to go north; sometimes circumstances intervene.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The money was necessary but the thing of greater value was the life force of the ghost. Powering spells took energy. It had to come from somewhere and she could either siphon from a living person. Or she could consume a ghost. One of those choices also paid the rent.</blockquote> ➤ a fascinating world to look into, through the eyes of a believably difficult sibling relationship, but the ending note feels wrong

<blockquote>AIs don't always feel emotions the same way humans do. They don't always express those emotions in the same way, either. That makes living and working together a challenge, but one that the crew of the experimental advanced research transport The Perihelion are more than willing to rise to.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I thought I’d see a whole closet-shaped box be swallowed by the closet we already had. You thought the new space would be invisible. Neither of us, at the time, had the words necessary to describe what was happening in our narrow hall that afternoon; words like spatial distortion and physical impermanence weren’t in my vocabulary yet and they certainly weren’t in yours. All we knew was after the installers left, we could push a small beige button discreetly set within the closet’s doorframe and the dubbed “guest” or “nice” closet would disappear, replaced with one filled with our more well-used things</blockquote>

<blockquote>Her name was Ursule Javert, and she lived with the police inspector who was not her father. Once, she had been called Cosette, but that was in a time she tried not to remember.</blockquote>

<blockquote>SecUnit and Dr. Bharadwaj's documentary is skyrocketing in popularity...which means Bharadwaj is getting a lot of mail. One message in particular might just change SecUnit's life.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Qin Su frowns up at him with her hands on her hips. How did you know what I was thinking? she does not say, but he hears just the same. Jin Zixuan blinks at her. I heard you, he thinks carefully. Can you hear me?</blockquote>

<blockquote>Wei Ying makes his voice bright and says, “Well, take this one!” and deposits A-Yuan into Mo Xuanyu’s arms, and this time the look on his face isn’t just an almost smile. A-Yuan fists a chubby hand in his hair and gazes that way babies do, open and amazed. “Gah!” he says. “Gah!” Mo Xuanyu says right back. / Or: Mo Xuanyu finds a home for himself.</blockquote> ➤ love wwx's voice in this fic

<blockquote>The Empress bowed apologetically. “Please, your majesty, it’s all my fault. Several weeks ago the Grand Empress Dowager met with a man who reminded her of Lin Shu somehow—something about his appearance, nothing he said—she thought he was Lin Shu. We should have tried more strenuously to correct her…” “Who was this man?” “Sir Su, Su Zhe, the scholar visiting Jinling.” The Emperor hmphed. “Well, that’s simple enough then, isn’t it? Have this Sir Su come visit her."</blockquote>

<blockquote>I was the one who found you, did you know? You’ve heard this story so many times before. But let me tell you one last time, Liyana.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The first time Lan Yuan hears a story about the Wen remnants, he is seven years old. The second time Lan Sizhui hears a story about his family, he is seventeen years old. / Or, the things the cultivation world says about the Wens in the Burial Mounds and the things Lan Sizhui learns much later</blockquote> ➤ About sizhui's understanding of his Wen identity as he grows up

<blockquote>Wei Wuxian prompted him as gently as possible. Really, he was dying to know. “Who, exactly, did the juniors think I had some fantastical romance with while out fighting a war?” Lan Sizhui opened his mouth, and then closed it. Wei Wuxian smiled at him encouragingly, ignoring the growing concern and trepidation in his ribcage. The resentful energy there didn’t ignore it, snapping at it in a way that didn’t make him calmer. Sizhui looked at the ground. “Hanguang-Jun,” he mumbled. Wei Wuxian choked. (OR: Wei Wuxian runs into his son, who has questions about romance that lead him to a realisation, and then, somehow, they end up back at Gusu)</blockquote>