LINKDING

Summary: <blockquote>Maribel heard but did not see when the new pig-boy was named. She never went down into the village of San Rafael if she could help it. But she couldn’t miss the wailing lament of the village mothers echoing from the church courtyard, a wrenching sound, though traditional and expected. It made Maribel shiver despite the heat. It had only been a month, Only a month without a pig-boy. But she should have known that the new one would have to be named soon. The sun was retreating, the nights getting longer, and that meant the high season for pilgrims was coming.</blockquote> ➤ in a village where people possessed by demons are turned into javelinas, cared for by a pig-boy for the rest of their lives, what happens when the new pig-boy has a little too much empathy for his charges? ➤ excellent use of fantasy alternate world to engage with questions of the failures of the justice system and the penal system, and the ways people become complicit with the system ➤ really well done pov character ➤ 5k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>He saluted her in that way he sometimes mockingly did, as a loyal general ought to greet the sagest of chief ministers. “Come on, now,” she said. “You can do better than that.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Wangji had long since stopped thinking of Wei Wuxian's body as Mo Xuanyu's. He grew used to all the ways it was different and the same from the last. But slowly, surely, now that they were comfortable, Wei Wuxian's face had begun to change again. The lines of his jaw became a slightly smudged drawing. Not all together unfamiliar, just enough that Lan Wangji second-guessed his own memory. There was one night Lan Wangji came home to find Wei Wuxian's eyes had changed color. He woke one morning and was taller, his silhouette stretching and growing like a shadow cast against the wall. His smile was the same. The way he pouted, and slept in, the way he kissed. His terrible jokes. Lan Wangji would get used to a new face too if the husband was still the same. / Or, the one where Wei Wuxian's face begins to change to look like his original body. It isn't easy on anyone. But it isn't so bad, either.</blockquote> ➤ The one where wwx's post-resurrection body slowly changes from mxy's to wwx's

<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>My god gazes at me, His eyes intense and unreadable. In one fluid motion, He closes the space between us, pulls the scarf from my head, and pushes His face into my hair. “What are you doing?” I cry, stumbling back. For fifteen years I have been a devotee, cloistered from the company of men, but my god’s expression is unmistakable. He regards me with hunger, as if He wants to devour me whole. I scream and run from the chapel.</blockquote> ➤ I read the mc as being ace

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

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

<blockquote>The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. “The Litany of Earth” is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos.</blockquote> ➤ a subversion of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos ➤ see also Ex Urbe's excellent review of this story: http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2951

<blockquote>The Prime Minister makes a visit to Komarr while Galeni is posted there, and the political becomes personal for them both.</blockquote>

<blockquote>She expects to hate carrying a child: to hate becoming ungainly, looking in her mirror and seeing a stranger. She fears the aches and pains the older wives complain about ceaselessly at parties.</blockquote>

AU based on the following: <blockquote>Because it was impossible, he allowed himself to imagine, just once, what it would be like to face Laurent as a man...if there had been no animosity between their countries, Laurent journeying to Akielos as part of an embassy, Damen's attention superficially caught by the blond hair. They'd attend banquets and sports together, and Laurent...he had seen Laurent with those he cultivated, charming and edged without being lethal; and he was honest enough with himself to admit that if he had encountered Laurent in that mode, all golden lashes and needling remarks, he might well have found himself in some danger.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Teal'c/Sam friendship (maybe some pre-het here) fic that is... weird. It explores some religious themes that I've had on my mind concerning Teal'c for quite a while. </blockquote>

<blockquote>"Our tsar has three sons. Handsome lads, if one appreciates such things. None are married...yet." The old woman snorts. "That's why you're here, though, isn't it?" "I'm to return the arrow to its archer. I know nothing beyond that. Other than it's," Vasilissa's mouth twists, "fate." "So you find it cruel?" The hut closes around her, the air warm and heavy. It's thick with the sent of rosemary and sage from the bundles of herbs hanging from the beams above them. The bones of previous suppers (hares and chickens and maybe even men) rattle in a hauntingly soothing melody. "I'd rather find it kind. But at the moment, I miss my shop." She shakes her head, and some of the syrupy warmth tugging at her mind fades. "It's childish of me, I know." "And you're no child."</blockquote>

<blockquote>Young Sam grows up, meets a girl, cracks a case, and tells a lie. Not necessarily in that order.</blockquote>

<blockquote>To the city of York, in the year of our Lord 1780, there came a young man who had fallen upon hard times.</blockquote> ➤ or, how Childermass came to work for Norrell. ➤ An interesting story, and somewhat unsettling and stick-in-your-head in the way that any good fic about the magic of JS&MN ought to. ➤ It's -- oh, I'm describing it wrong. But this fic is extremely effective at feeling utterly like a part of the world of JS&MN.

From Angua’s office, with the door cracked, being a captain wasn’t all that different from being a sergeant.

<blockquote>Now, I read The Prince in school, and remembered ideas including the stock “It is better to be feared than loved,” and “The ends justify the means,” but I also remember having no idea then why Machiavelli was a big name.  I’m pretty sure my teacher didn’t really know either.  In fact, most introductions to the works of Machiavelli that I’ve read didn’t even manage to make it clear.  After ten years as a specialist in the Renaissance, I think I can finally explain why. (the fundamental mistake most introductions to Machaivelli make is that they start by talking about Machiavelli. Context is everything.)</blockquote> ➤ THIS IS SO INTERESTING. First of an amaaaaaaaazing series of five posts about Machiavelli (links to the next at the bottom of each)

<blockquote>Atlantis reads the Great Books. . . of Pegasus.</blockquote> ➤ the one with "An Account of the Rape of Hilia and the Betrayal of Ptar"