LINKDING

<blockquote>Almost the instant Brienne was out of earshot, Bronn turned to Podrick, jerked his head towards Jaime and asked, “Has he fucked her yet?”</blockquote> ➤ I love how through Jaime's eyes Brienne is so....so clearly The Best

<blockquote>Three weeks into their delightful slog across Westeros, during yet another charming day of shitting in the woods, eating half-raw squirrel, and trudging his feet bloody, the single most dour and uninteresting woman Jaime had ever met in all of Westeros stopped in the middle of a field, drew a deep breath, and said, “When I was seven, my aunt came to visit with her son. My father told me that as the daughter of the house, it was my duty to show hospitality to my guests and to be gracious to them. I wanted to make him proud. So for three weeks, I let my cousin follow me around and talk to me about spiders.” “Spiders?” Jaime said, mildly interested. It was the most she’d volunteered in the entire time. “He was five years old. It was all he wanted to talk about. He’d describe them to me. He’d talk about how they ate by sucking the life out of their prey alive. He’d catch them and bring them to me and want me to hold them. One of them bit me and my hand swelled to the size of a melon. He told me spiders fall into our mouths from the ceilings while we sleep.” “He sounds truly charming,” Jaime said. “It must run in the family.” “And in all my life,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’ve never, ever, met anyone as annoying as him. Until you.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Marry me instead,” Jaime said.</blockquote> ➤ a commenter said "I love so much that Jaime frames it to himself, the whole story, as him wanting to rescue Brienne, and in the end it's devastatingly clear that deep down he wanted her to rescue him, and she did." and like...yeah

<blockquote>Ratchet shrugged tolerantly when Optimus asked his opinion. "I think it’s more a lark than anything, but we can all use a lark, now and then."</blockquote> ➤ the transformers find a use for more human-style sexual contact between robots

<blockquote>“I never went down,” Ratchet said.</blockquote> ➤ every single transformers fic Astolat has written so far is basically: given different base assumptions about how the universe works, how to end the war. And I love all of it, omg, both the different choices of worldbuilding in each fic and also the commitment to ending the war. ➤ (look, yeah, I know that I know nothing about transformers and don't care about this fandom at all, sometimes it's just really soothing to read well-constructed fic about characters I don't have any emotional investment in)

<blockquote>“Well, uh, congratulations,” Ultra Magnus said, blankly. Cyclonus paused and said sincerely, “Thank you, Magnus,” looking touched, and then punched him in the head.</blockquote>

<blockquote>If it was anybody’s fault, it was that loser Starscream.</blockquote> ➤ in which the war is stopped via dance parties

<blockquote>“This is like some kinda bad dream,” Ironhide said aloud. “No,” Cyclonus said, low and harsh. “But it will be.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>So I asked for prompts on DW and potted_music said "Geralt/Emhyr AU in which Emhyr is a witcher too" and I was all lol, how on earth could Emhyr have ended up as a witcher, and then this story happened.</blockquote>

<blockquote>He hadn’t come here with a contract. He’d come here to get the faces out of his head: the bloodless dead sprawled in heaps through the streets of Beauclair, the morning after the rampage Detlaff had unleashed; the blank eyes of the boy in the orphanage tilting his head to let Orianna drink from his throat, with the lullaby she’d been singing him still hanging in the air. Wasn’t working that well so far.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Uh,” Geralt said, staring down at the glass bowl. “Ribbit,” said the frog.</blockquote> ➤ You know, I know nothing and care nothing about this fandom (five fics in, I'm still having trouble remembering the main character's name....sorry, witcher fans!), but I hope astolat keeps writing these ridiculous tropey delightful fics about these dudes at such a fast rate because they're such fun to read

<blockquote>Geralt was reasonably sure this was the worst damn day of the worst damn month of his life, and it hadn’t hit bottom yet.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I had often wished for the chance to meet His Imperial Majesty, of course, but hardly under these circumstances. I’d really envisioned something more along the lines of a command performance for the court, or perhaps a ceremony of decoration as a Master of the Arts.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“You need not thank me,” Emhyr said. “I have an ulterior motive.” It annoyed Geralt to be surprised. He should’ve known from the start. “Yeah?” The words came out with a little bite. “Have another daughter you need me to track down?” “If I wished to hire you, I would hire you,” Emhyr said. “No: I want you to come to my bed.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Emhyr was looking at him for once, with a strange expression. “I have misjudged you,” he said, sounding irritated actually: how dare Geralt surprise him. “I get that a lot,” Geralt said.</blockquote> ➤ in a number of ways it's a thematic retread of astolat's smallville fic about Lex conquering the galaxy with Clark as his consort, but I'm pretty okay with that, it's a fun set of themes, and astolat's really good at writing that kind of ruthlessly competent person who sweeps people up in his charismatic path. Totally readable while knowing 0 about canon.

<blockquote>It was the only the beginning of a relentless campaign of terror and romance.</blockquote> ➤ knowledge of canon unnecessary

<blockquote>“The Force is with all my family,” Luke says. “But so is the dark side. It comes to us all easily, with great power.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I need not wonder long,” he said, viciously low, “what sin has barred me from your sister’s hand; but ’pon my soul, Marcus, I had never imagined you to be quite so extraordinary a hypocrite.” The Earl’s face did not change even now. He answered gently, “No, dear Robert; you only seem to have imagined me a fool.”</blockquote> ➤ I don't recall the book well enough to tell if this is at all a plausible situation, but I enjoyed the fic anyway

<blockquote>Napoleon invades Britain.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jack and Stephen in space. No, really.</blockquote> ➤ I don't know how I managed to never notice this fic's existence before but it's SO DELIGHTFUL omg I'm so pleased that that amrev fic got me looking through astolat's archives again

<blockquote>All the awkwardness of seeking a volunteer for an attempt, which every soldier was convinced was as good as asking a man to cast away his life to no purpose, naturally recommended Colonel Hamilton's offer; in any case, Washington allow'd himself to be persuaded, and the operation was carried out an hour later, in a deserted and fallow field some half a mile from the encampment.</blockquote> ➤ TOO INTO THIS OMG ➤ (though the attempt at historical apostrophes in place of the e in "ed" words was kind of a fail. Occasionally there was even an apostrophe in a word where the "ed" is DEFINITELY PRONOUNCED. How am I supposed to pronounce "frustrat'd", please? Oh well, I'm willing to overlook this for a brilliant magician au)

<blockquote>“So what the fuck even was that last night,” Letty said to Mia, the next morning, after the guys went off to the garage. “Do they do this—” “All the time,” Mia said.</blockquote> ➤ Cackled all the way through

<blockquote>Three weeks after the plane crash, Brian sat down on the beach next to him, threw another empty coconut into the water, and said, “All right, come on. Other side of the island and back, have to get one of the mangos on the eastern beach on the way. Winner gets to fuck the loser.”</blockquote> ➤ I appreciated that this fic shipped the four of them without including the incest (and frankly a little surprised given that astolat has definitely written incest in other fandoms)

<blockquote>“We going to get somewhere anytime soon?” Dom said. Brian was staring out the windshield. “Do you trust me?” “What the fuck kind of question is that?” Dom said. “If you say yes, I’m going to take you on the worst fucking ride of your life,” Brian said. “Do you trust me?”</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Sit down,” the doctor said. He took blood, three vials filling up dark red. “Any medical conditions?” “No,” Dom said, and then his mouth kept going and said, “What if I want to volunteer for bonding?” The doctor peered at him over the glasses. “Do you want to volunteer for bonding?” It hung in the air. Dom felt it like a noose around his throat, squeezing. Twenty-five to life. “Yeah,” he said.</blockquote> ➤ idek, enjoyed this despite not being familiar with the franchise. ➤ I enjoyed the way that the plot revolved around a) road tripping and b) driving cars dangerously FOR THE GREATER GOOD; obviously a car-focused franchise needs car-focused fic. ➤ But basically I liked the characters and their choices and interactions and stuff? And enjoyed how despite the premise and the summary the majority of the fic is about them NOT bonding. ➤ (though I would also have enjoyed seeing the version of the the story that DID have them bond early on.)

<blockquote>"I didn't even know I liked cake," Steve said.</blockquote> ➤ (cake is a metaphor for sex) ➤ also I am beginning to be reminded, in all these fics about tracking down HYDRA bases, of Man From UNCLE and THRUSH.

<blockquote>"We are not alive!" Rodney yelled. "We are barbeque! You don't realize—the stasis pods, we barely have a clue how they work, they're completely experimental and Zelenka barely knows anything about them—Carson would never put us in there unless—"</blockquote> ➤ or the one where Rodney and John are stuck in an only half-decent virtual reality together for a long time and among other things solve a Millenium Problem. ➤ Also I keep being astonished at how many fics I DIDN'T BOOKMARK back in the day. Don't worry, people who follow me on pinboard, I'll stop harping on this subject someday, but I'm still busy judging my past self SO HARD

➤ the one where John is Rodney's mail order bride

➤ Seriously, seriously, HOW BAD WAS I at bookmarking back in my SGA days??? ➤ Anyways, this is the one where John is Rodney's mathematician.

<blockquote>This is our Vividcon 2012 premiere vid which we enter in the category of... best documentary. The VVC audience summarized it as "Dubconned into feels," which pretty much is both the story of this vid and fannish life in general.</blockquote> ➤ it's sort of... a vid about fandom, and about fannish friends luring you into things?