LINKDING

summary: She'd never been anyone's favorite before he'd told her that, the lesser daughter of a prestigious family that had enough heirs and spares that she could be given away and the act called an honor. It was a scary but lovely thing to be the best, the most loved. When she'd heard those words she'd clutched them to her chest and hoped she'd never prove them false. That did not mean that she did not hate him, too. // OR: Ning Yingying loves her shizun; she loves Binghe, too. These things come into conflict, whether she wants them to or not. ➤ an svsss fic set in the original PIDW, about Ning Yingying ➤ and holy shit this fic is so good, so everything I didn't even know to hope for from a fic about pidw nyy, I am all emotions?! ➤ the complexity of nyy's relationships with sqq and lbh, the mix of love and hate, the way she doesn't feel able to do anything but to witness and to go along with how things are ➤ and seeing the awful things that happen through her eyes.....it's so powerful and bleak and believable ➤ I adore this fic, I'm just absolutely blown away by it ➤ 9k words

Summary: <blockquote>The far stall in the ladies room in the Land of the Dead was backed up again. The day had already started terribly, with an email that hit my phone as I walked the 387 steps from my staff cabin to the front desk, an email from Lana saying Vera, I wanted you to find out directly from me that I’ve started seeing somebody. Call if you want to talk.</blockquote> ➤ about queer intergenerational friendship and mentorship, about being a young adult trying to find your place, about death and what it means to you, about living through the death of all your peers and coming out the other side, about hope and love and making connections. ➤ holy shit this gave me so many emotions. READ IT READ IT READ IT. ➤ also I adore the title. pinsker writes great titles. ➤ 6k words in length

<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>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>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>Wen in body, Wei in motion, Lan Wangji is certain he has never hated, nor loved, any being so much as he feels towards the boy in his room. After Wei Wuxian's death and his own severe punishment, Lan Wangji must decide the direction his life will take.</blockquote> ➤ lwj & a-yuan, as lwj slowly recovers from the discipline whip ➤ brief sequel also good, about sizhui's courtesy name ➤ series consists of: Velle: to will, to wish Wynn: joy

<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>

<blockquote>“I’m serious," Jin Ling presses. "You think Lanling Jin can survive another scandal? Another horrible sect leader? I have to be perfect! That’s what this entire conference is about!” “I thought it was about fostering inter-sect harmony,” Lan Jingyi deadpans, which, damnably, is a direct line from the invitation. / A year after the fall of Jin Guangyao, Jinlintai opens its doors to prove there is nothing to hide. Jin Ling is just trying to survive the week. </blockquote> ➤ jin ling processing his complicated feelings about his dead uncle jgy, and his place as sect leader

<blockquote>To someone who knows how to look, Gusu Lan is watching and waiting, one eye on the horizon. When Wei Wuxian fails to return to Cloud Recesses on time, Lan Sizhui takes matters into his own hands. </blockquote> ➤ fic from sizhui's pov, but lots about how/why it makes sense for wwx to keep traveling post canon

<blockquote>Beside her, the second clarinet shifted in his seat and grumbled, “I thought there was going to be a new conductor. What’s the point of holding rehearsal without a conductor?” The complaint lit the first clarinet’s seething anger. He should shut his mouth and tune his clarinet. Yes, the new conductor was late, but the ensemble had all gathered, when, for too long, they hadn’t known if they would ever gather again. Two weeks at home, with nothing but shrieking children and her mother and sister-in-laws’ chorus of laments—oh our menfolk, oh the senate, oh the drought—was enough. She needed this. Didn’t they all, right now? They would have an ordinary rehearsal if she had to drag each one through it by their nose.</blockquote> ➤ Oh wow this is gorgeous, intense and beautiful and real, and the slow careful building towards the perfect end

<blockquote>It had been shaping up to be a really lovely party, and honestly, quite a nice cultivation conference in general. Instead, his last surviving brother was exchanging polite bows with Jin Rulan, and Nie Huaisang was going to spend four days on edge.</blockquote> ➤ (JGY is a character in absentia, not actually present in this fic) ➤ augh (complimentary)

<blockquote>Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make horoscope charts, or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She told the panditji to get his blood pressure checked before he told anyone he was short of breath. The day before the Human Spaceflight Programme was suspended, she called Ekta in Sriharikota and said she should come home. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Four times Han definitely didn’t need anybody’s help, and one time maybe he did.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The king had already enslaved two grinders for failing him. I didn’t want to be the third. Sitting in the best room of the grinders’ workshop, I rubbed the almost-finished hematite mirror over and over with a grindstone of fired clay, specially tempered for polishing. The king stood behind me, his gaze burning the back of my neck. Sweat beaded in my hair, between my elbows, under my knees. With a word, he could doom me to a lifetime of hard labor and rip me away from everyone I loved. I kept polishing.</blockquote> ➤ I really liked this one

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

<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>Leia dreams of a beautiful woman with long curly hair. Sometimes, she's smiling brightly, and sometimes, she's sad, but Leia knows, deep in her heart, that this is her birth mother, and that she loves Leia very much.</blockquote>

<blockquote>'Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game.</blockquote> ➤ Doctor and companions

<blockquote>Lien would like to return to her egg now.</blockquote> ➤ Lien's hatching and childhood

<blockquote>“What is taquitos,” she asks her house, carefully, in its tongue.</blockquote> ➤ this is SO GOOD

<blockquote>In which what was meant to be a silly fic about Luke's farmboy water obsession turned into a story about grief, mourning, culture shock and friendship.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For a moment, Luke's half-amused at himself, for misunderstanding such a simple question, one that's asked all the time on the homesteads - who are your people, where are you from? / On Yavin Four, after the Death Star, before the battle, out of the ashes, Luke Skywalker becomes a Rebel pilot.</blockquote> ➤ Luke is asked about his next-of-kin

<blockquote>What would my head be like?</blockquote> ➤ oh no too many feels how do I

<blockquote>The Force isn't the only kind of power</blockquote> ➤ Leia-centric, post-movie. This fic leaves me wanting to swear at it, in the most complimentary kind of way. HDU give me all these feels, fic!

<blockquote>Rey is XO of a piece of junk, her captain is a foul-mouthed Wookiee who doesn’t respect people who respect authority, and there are pictures of naked people glued to the ceiling of the Falcon. She honestly couldn't be more thrilled.</blockquote> ➤ soooo apparently this fic is EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I WANTED after the movie. goddamn.

<blockquote>Poe guesses he’s a little fucked-up now, more than before. He certainly has a lot of nightmares. He tries to take it in stride. It doesn’t really surprise him. What had he expected? (Dead, he thinks. You expected to be dead.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Journeymen journey, and Menolly must prove to herself and to Pern that she is worthy of wearing Harper Blue. Accompanied by Sebell, she undertakes her first journeywoman’s assignment to perform at a Ruathan Gather.</blockquote> ➤ WELL I clearly still have a lot of feelings about Pern, because I was crying by the end of this fic. (no, it's not a sad ending!)

<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