LINKDING

<blockquote>“Hi, Becky.” She calls every year. If asked, Sam would not have a good explanation for why he picks up; Becky is unfailingly unpleasant and usually manages to call at a bad time. “Did it really happen?” Sometimes, when he's had a bad day, or when she's really being rude, or when he's just tired of playing therapist to someone he hasn't seen since they were ten, he considers saying no. “Did what happen?” he might say. Or “Sorry, who is this?” Or, if he really wanted to be cruel, he might just not pick up the phone. But—and here is the thing he cannot explain to other people—he knows why she calls, and he would never do that. If she didn't call, he would probably do it himself. He needs reassurance he isn't crazy as much as she does.</blockquote> ➤ Packs a lot into a very short story, telling you the important stuff through implications rather than spelling everything out

<blockquote>When Miles Vorkosigan is seventeen years old, he enters Hassadar District University to become an astrocartographer like his mother before him.</blockquote> ➤ YESSSS

<blockquote>A tale of the first Thief of Eddis, as told by the Queen Thief.</blockquote>

<blockquote>‘I think people are dancing,’ Otabek says. ‘I’m not dancing with you!’ Yuri yelps, and then realises that Otabek never said he wanted to dance with Yuri. Good. Yuri doesn’t want to dance with him. Or anyone. No dancing. ‘No dancing,’ Otabek says, apparently reading Yuri’s mind. They stare at each other for another moment. ‘You want to get out of here?’ Yuri says, and then braces himself for - for what, he doesn’t know. Mockery, perhaps. Too-enthusiastic agreement. Anything.</blockquote> ➤ this fic is tagged "friendship for spiky people" and that is it exactly and it is GREAT

➤ Jack has to help sew Stephen up after a meeting with a contact goes awry

<blockquote>Graduate student Krrra, a member of a spacefaring tentacled race of methane breathers, attends an academic debate on the authorship of the famous play, Rmrreo and Jlljeet, which surely could not have been written by the human refugee Benvolio. Things get a little out of tentacle. Any resemblances to actual anti-Stratfordians, living or dead, may or may not be coincidental, because I'm lazy.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Valjean/Favourite IN ENGLAND</blockquote>

<blockquote>Sesame Street Elementary Primary Source Project, Topic #3: Monsters didn't always live on Sesame Street. When did monsters first come here? What were their lives like? Interview someone who knows Sesame Street's history and find out.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Johnny said, "Devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again, I done told you once—you son of a bitch—I'm the best that's ever been."</blockquote> ➤ fanfic of a song about a devil trying (and failing) to bet a musician's soul away based on who's the better musician. And what a great place to take the premise.

<blockquote>Miss Wilhelmina Laurence never leaves Nottinghamshire, and certainly not in the winter of 1805. When the Reliant captures an exhausted Amitie on her way out of a storm, Miss Laurence is grimly preparing for a country ball. Usually a merry occasion even for a confirmed spinster, this particular event is soured by the presence of Bertram Woolvey, who is likely to make Miss Laurence’s particular friend and neighbor an offer and therefore deprive her of her most beloved company.  When the queer porcelain egg hatches, several weeks later, and the officers are gathered around with the reluctant sacrifice stepping forward nervously, the black dragonet ignores them all. It takes seven men to hold the creature down long enough to harness it, even though it is a newborn. The dragonet does not stay silent for long, protesting at its treatment quite vehemently in both English and French–but it pays no attention to any man in particular, and seems in fact to resent them all. The officers are relieved as well as unsettled. They do not name it, but make for Madeira with all speed. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Enjolras and Feuilly, on the moon as anywhere else, have certain preoccupations.</blockquote> ➤ lunar base au continues

<blockquote>Of martial arts both recreational and not, and of many kinds of roses.</blockquote> ➤ more lunar base au, in which Cosette learns la rose couverte!

<blockquote>So the thing is Miles wasn't the first Vorkosigan to have one golden year with his relatives on Beta, with the result that the first time Aral actually met Mrs. Naismith the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Oh hell, you're Lizzie," and Cordelia had a sudden revelation of the fact that her mother looked younger than her husband and said "Oh god, please tell me you didn't date," and Aral said, "Of course not, I was eight," and Mrs. Naismith said brightly "And I was the glamorous older lady who lived next door to his Grandma that he had an absolutely adorable crush on! Why didn't you tell me he was Livy's boy? He used to bring me cookies," and Aral decided he was just going to curl up into a ball and never come out, but at least after that there was no question that Miles was definitely going to Beta with his grandma for a year.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It wasn't right for a girl to have a wolf, they said, not for a normal girl. There was something queer about a girl with a wolf, not quite natural. Certainly it wouldn't do at all for a girl to be seen in society with a wolf at her side, like some kind of heathen foreigner, or worse—an American! In smaller towns, they might put down a girl's wolf the very day of imprinting, before the bond had a chance to settle. A few days of sickness, fever and an upset stomach, and she'd be all right. She wouldn't even remember, a girl that age. That was what they said. (Rebecca and psychic wolves. Warning: contains a mostly off-screen animal death, for those sensitive to that.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>The kid bit her lip for a second. "Um. If you had a really annoying boy who wouldn't leave you alone, what would you do?" "Punch him," said Eliot matter-of-fact.</blockquote> ➤ in which Eliot semi-accidentally starts teaching girls how to fight

<blockquote>and then one day while beauty’s re-alphabetizing her magic library and trying to decide where to put that enchanted mirror the beast comes up and he’s like hey so this is awkward but are you like………………………………..in love with me……????????? and beauty’s like oh uh wow haha um sorry no you’re…sort of a tiger and the beast is like thank goodness because if you were i’d have to turn back into a human and i’ve kind of gotten used to being a big lion thing with horns and the ability to speak english for some reason like why would i want to go back to being a spindly little man and then beauty laughs and she’s like okay well can you go catch us a wild boar for dinner, dear</blockquote> ➤ this is the best beauty and the beast retelling

<blockquote>chirabella asked: Marius & Enjolras, bodyswap.</blockquote>

<blockquote>…this is all John Scalzi’s fault. I accept no responsibility whatsoever. Address all complaints to him. Forever. Oh god, I was supposed to finish a book today, and instead I started writing Wonder Twins fan-fic. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Jason Fox is at the grocery store with Peter, a shopping list, and an envelope that breaks down about 3:1 coupons to cash by thickness when he finds out that he's thirty years old.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Bitty comes out to Johnson in the Haus kitchen after baking four pies in a row. Bitty bakes when he’s nervous, but he also bakes when he’s happy, when he’s tired, when he’s irritated, and when it’s Tuesday, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. Unless you peeked ahead to the last panel first to check for cliffhangers, but Johnson would never do that.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jon is making love to Laurie on four hundred and twenty-three separate occasions. She is sixteen and she is thirty-six and she is in love with him and she is angrily leaving him as he stands watching her from three angles at once. He doesn’t understand what went wrong. Four hands are surely better than two. Maybe she felt crowded. She’s saying something as she goes, about paying attention, but he’s distracted by remembering the way she smiled at him at fourteen seconds past 6:39 pm on January 17, 1978, and by the miniscule reflection of her blue polyester-blend lace underwear off the head of the nail in the floorboard she crosses as she leaves the room. He’ll listen to her five years from this moment and feel apologetic, but by then she’ll be gone and he’ll be in a different galaxy, which makes resuming the conversation difficult.</blockquote> ➤ I love this???

<blockquote>"What are you doing here?" she hisses beneath her breath as the other sales associate busies herself conspicuously at the register. "I have this under control. I know what I’m doing." "You are posing as…" The Winter Soldier lets his voice drop. "A very personal stylist.” Hawkeye rolls her eyes. “I am a personal stylist. I have a resume and everything.” "You picked out Barton’s clothing once?" The Winter Soldier says. From the fitting room, the Little Spider calls, “Can I try these in teal?”</blockquote> ➤ also on ao3 at http://archiveofourown.org/works/2507933

<blockquote>I’m not sure this is pairing fic or breathplay, melannen, but uh, here it is. Warnings for…violence and strangulation and Montparnasse, I guess….</blockquote> ➤ yessssssssssss

<blockquote>Kate has definitely considered what would happen if she ended up in a dude's body before, but it was, like, Noh-Varr, or maybe James Deen. Somebody whose ride you'd want to take for a test drive. Kate loves Clint, but let's be real: there's only one place she's going to carry this metaphor, and that's the car wash.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Cinaed: haha, jam asked for a merfolk/library Les Mis au Cinaed: maybe I should do one where Madeleine refuses to become mayor and becomes the town librarian instead (while running the factory), and Javert has to enlist his help because his squirrels are acting strangely and he’s gathered such a large collection of books </blockquote>

<blockquote>"You're over thirty, right?" Tamika asks. "I need to find someone over thirty to interview for school." They'll be pounding down the door, then. There aren't many people that old in Night Vale.</blockquote>

<blockquote>sometimes the darkness follows you home</blockquote> ➤ HOW DID I NOT HAVE THIS BOOKMARKED ALREADY???

<blockquote>Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl's lips, and I started thinking about what I'd do if that happened to me. </blockquote>

➤ the one where Javert falls through a hole in reality from the Seine onto the Ankh. ➤ continued at http://ceruleancynic.tumblr.com/post/80004250086/i-am-from-the-gutter-contd