recs and links

The author says it's five times Steve had a panic attack, but mostly it's about how much Steve and Bucky love each other. *happy sigh*

Steve leans in and kisses him, hard and long, and says, "I'm in if you are." "We don't have to, you know, give this a name," says Bucky, still staring at the floor, and Steve says, "Why not? Let's not be stupid this time." "Let's not go hopin' for too much," says Bucky, and Steve pulls Bucky into his side, and says, "Yeah, maybe not." Pining, snark and porn, which is pretty much what I want from these two.

When Aphrodite strikes Batman with one of Eros's arrows, Wonder Woman goes on a quest to cure him, because even though they are totally in love, she doesn't want him to finally admit his feelings just because he's been whammied. Really nicely done.

Tony starts to laugh, says, "You think Steve Rogers would fuck you without puppies and hearts and rainbows, are you out of your tree, dude?" "I-" says Bucky, and tangles his metal hand in his hair, says, "I, he's Steve, and I'm me, I just, I didn't, um." "Look," says Tony, sitting down cross-legged on the floor next to Bucky, "even I can tell that if you want to ride that bronco, you have to buy a ticket, wait, no, that's a terrible analogy, er, Pep, I need a hand, here-" "He's in love with you," says Pepper, "and you are the only person who has ever met the two of you, I should imagine, who is in ignorance of that. Go home, Sergeant Barnes." This isn't really how I see Bucky, but this story pushes a lot of my buttons and it is both hot and sweet and has pining and unrequited love that is actually requited, so, yes. Also, Pepper remains the actualfax best.

“You’re trying to turn me into one of your X-Men.” “They won’t be the X-Men, this time.” Charles’ eyes burn with certainty; it’s like watching a moment of religious conversion. “This time, we’ll all be following you.” Erik doesn’t know whether that’s what he always used to want or whether it’s the scariest thing he’s ever heard. As Charles burrows down beside him, he murmurs, “Stop looking through the lens of the past. It can only cloud your vision now. See clearly, Erik. See what you’ve done, what you can do.” “The lens of the past tells me you’re an idealist. Sometimes you fail to see facts.” “I don’t need the lens of the past to tell me that sometimes you fail to see possibilities.” this time, it's Erik who goes back to the past to fix things. Lovely and melancholy.

There are women everywhere on the Mall, camped out and lined up and standing holding their signs: Women Need Constitutional Equality Now; Say Yes to the ERA. Hawkeye's stuffing ballot boxes for it up in Maine now. When they first started organising he sent her a cheque with an obscene message on the back; Margaret cashed it for the VA and sent him a note, put that damn mouth where your money is, Pierce. She misses him. *sniffle* Hawkeye et al, before, during, after. This is like checking in with old friends to see what they've been up to while you've been apart. Lovely.

Alice is not very pretty, at least not the way Lily is--she’s a bit overweight, with a round face and short, coarse hair and a bump on her chin that Petunia secretly thinks of as the hogwart. But she’s very bright and quick to learn, and she’s absolutely fearless, and she likes Petunia, and that’s enough. Actually, that’s more than Petunia has ever imagined. Alice always makes Petunia feel as if something wonderful is about to happen to her, and it's a new and heady state of affairs. This is really lovely, bittersweet in the best ways.

Charles gets three chances to go back in time and fix everything that went wrong with Erik and Raven. Nicely done.

A series of interviews between Lincoln Lee and Peter Bishop, set between episodes 4:04 and 4:05 “I had a home. I didn’t for the longest time and then I did. You wouldn’t fight to keep that?” Peter asks, his voice so very low. Lincoln feels flayed open by his gaze, hard as sapphire, recognition sizzles through him. I know you, Lincoln thinks, amused and startled and close to touching. Something inside of Lincoln realigns. “I am.” They’re never going to see eye-to-eye about which time-line is correct, they’re going to be forever opposed, and surprisingly, Lincoln’s okay with that. Sharp, smart look at one way Peter's return could (but won't) go.

Loki's bad, but he's not that bad. Plus the entire sequel is in the threads and linked to. Also archived here: http://katsu-fic.livejournal.com/38180.html but without internal links between chapters, and not completely yet. This is long (well, the sequel is long) and hilarious. (Note: she misspells Rogers as Rodgers a few times.)

Darcy is Peggy Carter's granddaughter, and Captain America owes her grandmother a dance. This is really lovely and suffused with melancholy. Couple of irritating narrative tics, but worth it.

Mia Dearden runs into Kate Bishop at a charity event. Snark and hotness ensue. Lady archers FTW!

Wally reacts badly to finding out M'gann and Superboy are together. Artemis reacts badly to that. I really liked Artemis' voice in this. And also, there are some really funny lines. (Robin is never sarcastic! Wally thought she would block it!) (animated!YJ)

That’s when Logan’s crispy, smoking corpse groans and sits up. Everyone shrieks, Darwin included. It’s not his proudest moment, but on the list of weird shit he can put up with, walking and breathing corpses do not make the cut. “What a jerk,” Logan says. His skin knits itself back over his bones as he stands up. “This was my favorite flannel shirt.” He tears the rest of it off. He makes as if to toss it on the ground, but then pulls a cigar out from somewhere, and lights it with the smoldering cloth. When he sees the rest of them looking at him, Logan exhales a stream of smoke and says, “What?” In which Logan, as the King of Not Giving Any Fucks, sorts everybody out for the best. Awesome and hilarious.

Loki turns into a cat. Coulson adopts him. This is adorable.

Diamanda, nee Lucy Tockley, comes back to Lancre and attempts to get revenge on Granny Weatherwax. I enjoyed this, not least because it has Vimes and Sybil teaming up with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.

"Look at it this way," Piers said. "It's not like anyone knows less about me than they do about a dwarf who's dressed in trousers. More, really, because a dwarf in trousers could be male or female. And everyone can see that I'm female." "I see that," Angua said, but she looked bemused. "I really didn't expect this kind of thing," she said finally. "I didn't think dwarfs were generally … well, very complicated in this particular way." Piers shook her head. "You have no idea." Dwarves are more complicated than even they expected. Really well done.

"But being as we are watchmen, it is our duty to watch. I shall have to know what happened one way or another, so it’s best you answer the questions, isn’t it?" The not-quite-a-suspect-yet in front of him narrowed his eyes. For a moment, Evans thought he might try you can’t talk to me like that again, but he passed on that in favour of blustering "That’s tidy, that is! And who watches the Watchmen, eh?" Evans’ smile grew wider. That was an easy question, ask any watchman. "Why, Sam 'Stoneface' Vimes does, sir." It had been a couple of decades now since the last of the genuine sammies had retired off the force, much longer since Vimes had died himself, but at the time it was widely agreed that a man like Sam Vimes wasn’t going to let a thing like being dead stop him from doing his duty. "Ha," Evans continued, "catch us derelict in our duties, sir – Vimes’d go spare! So don’t you worry about us, when you ought to be thinking about who it is can tell me for fact where you were on the night of Sektober fourteenth…" This is a wonderful look at how Vimes's legacy lives on after he's gone.

"Right, Thor's found the goats." "Tell me he's not eating them." The Avengers v. the NY State Fair. Hee!

Your life is the best story! Just start your blog today!

Charles sends his consciousness back to 1962 to seduce Erik out of becoming evil. Things are a little more complicated than he expects. This is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

Tony/Pepper + selkies = awesome! This is lovely.

The absolute perfect coda to remedial chaos theory.

Damian Wayne and Steve Rogers become penpals. Also, there are drawings of cats. Oh, my heart. Damian needs all the hugs, and Steve is awesome at giving them. (I'm not sure if this is actually complete, but it comes to a good stopping point where it is.)

chart of what does and doesn't happen in each timeline

styles to pretty up pinboard

Well, it's been a whole three days since I last posted here, clearly it's past time for more scripts. God, this Pinboard userscipt thing is basically an out of control obsession now. I'm starting to wonder if I should just abandon all my actual paying contracts and devote my life to my new Pinboard…

Excellent Carver vid.

Alicia gets drunk and Kalinda takes care of her. Sharp and lovely. "You think I betrayed you," she continued, stating the obvious in that way she used truth as a bludgeon. She used mistruths like a scalpel. Kalinda was a cache of weapons in a miniskirt and a misleading ponytail. "I didn't."

“Don't be ridiculous,” says Paris. “You know how I feel about showing my weaknesses. Besides, don't you want the full college experience?” Rory eyes her warily. “What's that supposed to mean?” “Sexual experimentation!” says Paris. “Who else are you going to explore your burgeoning sexuality with?” “With whom,” says Rory, because she always resorts to pedantry when she's panicking. “Paris, this is seriously not a good idea.” “It seriously is,” says Paris. And she's leaning in again, and Rory really should get off the couch, and she really should put a stop to this, but instead she lets Paris cup her head with one hand and bring their mouths together. This is adorable.