LINKDING

quote: The last person in the world lay asleep at the top of the tower. She waited not in a bed of silk and roses for the kiss of a destined lover, but huddled at the foot of a steel door in the hope that she wouldn’t have to be the last person for more than a few hours, that if she stayed right where she was, her family would come to their senses and return to her. Her name was Lena. She was nine years old. ➤ post-apocalyptic novelette about a girl who's the only survivor left in a tower that protected her and her ancestors from the outside world ➤ the whole story is just Lena and her interiority as she faces the realities of her situation, as she grows and changes and develops the strength of will to do what needs to be done ➤ and it's so well done! I was captivated the whole time ➤ 10k words in length

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>

<blockquote>Up on the spoil heap Morag found a robot. This wasn’t that unusual in and of itself. She was always finding them, or parts of them anyway, frozen in contorted attitudes like dinosaur fossils, plastic housing cracked and aluminum limbs splayed. What was different about this one was that it was walking. Morag would go up the spoil heap two or three times a week, as a way of supplementing what she got from her farm. She was a lot slower going up than when she’d been a young woman, but she was still fitter and stronger than most, and, if she brought a stick with her, it was more to poke about in the buddleia growths than to lean on.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“It was like this behind the Iron Curtain.” The woman in the grocery line was wearing a cowboy hat and had the leathery skin of someone who’d spent their entire life in the sun. Smoker skin, Payne’s mother had called it. She always loved finding ways to blame people for their misfortunes. Payne thought about ignoring the woman, pretending not to hear. Instead, she tapped her headset, shutting off her podcast. “Pardon?” “In school, studying communism. Hours of lineups to buy bread and butter. Hear the teachers tell it, you’d get to the front of the line just as they ran out. Wasn’t supposed to happen in the so-called free world.” “In the free world, your shelves are fully stocked and having to wait for a cashier is a violation of human rights.” Payne’s lips were numb. Hadn’t Butch said this, last night? Smoker Skin tipped her hat. “You know during Stalin, every house over there was haunted?” Yeah. This was why she didn’t talk to the living anymore.</blockquote> ➤ unnerving but in a good way

<blockquote>Post-BvS AU: Batman killed Superman—and then Metropolis was wrecked by Doomsday, not long before Steppenwolf arrived and conquered the world with innumerable swarms of parademons. Bruce's nightmare has come true, in every way but one: what's left of humanity is fighting to survive in a hostile wasteland as Steppenwolf manipulates the power of a pair of mother boxes to gradually reshape the planet to serve his needs. But rumors of a threat that could be greater still are finally forcing Bruce to consider taking truly drastic steps. Like bringing Superman back from the dead.</blockquote> ➤ "basically amounts to Justice League: Fury Road"

<blockquote>“Nah. We are one hundred percent shit-outta-luck,” she said, voice high and brittle as she leaned back from the computer. She gave a tight little laugh as she gestured at different possible trajectories, the different deflections achievable with nukes or booster rockets or heroic space missions. The wall of screens in front of us showed projected death tolls and ecological changes, with a lot of graphs that dropped sharply right at the end. “Earth is, uh … not to be melodramatic about it, but, absolutely doomed.”</blockquote> ➤ this is AMAZING

<blockquote>My name is Tetley Abednego and I am the most hated girl in Garbagetown. I am nineteen years old. I live alone in Candle Hole, where I was born, and have no friends except for a deformed gannet bird I’ve named Grape Crush and a motherless elephant seal cub I’ve named Big Bargains, and also the hibiscus flower that has recently decided to grow out of my roof, but I haven’t named it anything yet. I love encyclopedias, a cassette I found when I was eight that says Madeline Brix’s Superboss Mixtape ’97 on it in very nice handwriting, plays by Mr. Shakespeare or Mr. Webster or Mr. Beckett, lipstick, Garbagetown, and my twin brother Maruchan. Maruchan is the only thing that loves me back, but he’s my twin, so it doesn’t really count. We couldn’t stop loving each other any more than the sea could stop being so greedy and give us back China or drive time radio or polar bears. But he doesn’t visit anymore.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The night is humid and warm, sticks to our skin like a wet T-shirt. Luz pokes the fire with a piece of scrap metal she found lying by Gunner’s feet. It sends a swarm of sparks flying into the air. Taking that as an invitation, others come flocking to our little circle. No matter the temperature, the kids gravitate towards the fire at night, so I always try to have one going near sundown. “Give us a poem, Daddy?” the new kid says, one of Luz’s strays. His name is Roy. He’s probably a little older than Luz. Maybe in his twenties. I think of asking for something in return—the kids need to learn the rules of this world, and better I teach them in my way than someone else in theirs—but I hold back. Just this once, I feel like giving one away.</blockquote>

<blockquote>HiQIRR rates this highway U/UR: unsafe/urgent repairs needed. HiQIRR rates most highways U/UR. Two hundred four point eight miles ago HiQIRR rated a highway DC/6: degraded/check again in six months. HiQIRR experienced unexpected procedural harmony. Krace says that means HiQIRR is happy. Krace says to use round numbers like two hundred.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Ann Crothers looked at the clock and frowned and turned the fire lower under the bacon. She had already poured his coffee; he liked it cooled to a certain degree; but if he did not get up soon it would be too cool and the bacon too crisp and he would be angry and sulk the rest of the day. She had better call him.</blockquote> ➤ originally published in the 50's.

➤ in which the seed vault is post-apocalyptic legend

<blockquote>I really really wanna thank you for dancing to the end.</blockquote> ➤ also at https://archiveofourown.org/works/17722736

Summary from wikipedia: <blockquote>The Comet is a science fiction short story, written by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1920. It discusses the relationship between Jim Davis (a black man) and Julia (a wealthy white woman) after a comet hits New York and unleashes toxic gases which kill everyone except them.</blockquote> ➤ An early work of afrofuturism

<blockquote>The end of the world, in Duxford, where the last bus leaves at six pm and the one shop shuts at seven and you find out at a quarter past that the world is ending tonight, and everyone all round the internet is heading for Disneyworld and flying airplanes and making love and there you are, alone, in Duxford.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The bad news: In 111 days, an asteroid will strike the Earth in a cataclysm that promises to destroy human civilization as we know it. The good news: There's been a murder.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Now adults, Calvin and Susie face the end of the world, which Hobbes somehow foretold.</blockquote> ➤ wip through part 5. Series consists of: Preparation Fireless Planned Reflection Decisions

<blockquote>The ineffable sadness of time travel.</blockquote> ➤ opening lines: <blockquote>You were sent to avert the nuclear apocalypse, but they sent you too early. It’s the 1950s and everyone seems fine.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Even if we never wear these shirts, lie on these sheets, eat off these tablecloths, they will still flap out blue between the buildings, an unexpected line of colour like a grace note. (And should we live to bring them in they will smell like fresh sunshine.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Bunnies ... in ... SPAAAAAAAACE!</blockquote>

➤ in which there's an apocalypse that's background and incidental, and Methos and Duncan survive the Gathering.

<blockquote>I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry</blockquote> ➤ an apocafic, written in excellent Austenian style.

<blockquote>Story Notes: Written in August 2007 for the ds_snippets prompt of "sideways." Apocalyptic, so--all that that implies. Viciouscats' very lovely DS apocalypse ficlist got me in this mood. Uh, thanks? </blockquote>

<blockquote>The Wraith make it to Earth, and John and Daniel are left to pick up the pieces.</blockquote> also on ao3 at http://archiveofourown.org/works/10242179

<blockquote>Six months after a devastating attack against Earth, Sheppard gets a promotion and a reassignment to Russia, where he encounters evil aliens, Rodney McKay, SG-1, a possible plot against him -- and a series of unexplained visions.</blockquote> also on ao3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/26295

➤ In which, after the end of the world, Rodney has issues and John has issues but together they are functional