LINKDING

summary: Sokka’s ready for everything. He’s got his gear. He’s got his tickets. Nothing can shake him, the best-prepared spectator at the 2020 Olympic Games... Until he meets Lee, a young dancer with a strange knack for broadswords, and they fall into a game all their own. ➜ atla modern au about the olympics ➜ ft sokka, enthusiastic fan of all sports, making the most of going to the olympics ➜ and making friends with a dude called Lee who he has fun sparring with in the evenings ➜ and, totally separately, getting extremely worked up in support of an athlete named Zuko in the bronze match for men's epee ➜ I LOVE sokka's pov here, he's such a delight, and you can really tell why Zuko likes him so much! ➜ just a very charming story ➜ 21k words long

<blockquote>“Do you—” Quan Yizhen started, and then on the other side of the room Pei Ming started up his jackhammer, so he waited, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and then said all in a rush, “doyouknowHuaCheng?” Xie Lian blinked. “You know—him?” she asked, in case 'San Lang' was some kind of private name, a secret code just for her. She liked the thought of that. Quan Yizhen shook his head vigorously, his curls bouncing. “No!” he said. “But Yin-ge said you were with him at Home Depot and you left together!” Xie Lian stared at him. One of the employees that had helped her a few weeks ago had been called Yin something, she was pretty sure, but that’s about as far as she could follow what was happening here. “Yizhen, if you don’t know Hua Cheng, why is this… notable?” “He’s famous. Or like. The bad one. Infamous. I thought—” His eyes gleamed. “I thought maybe you fought him.” / Retired (read: disgraced) famous boxer Xie Lian meets a helpful stranger while at Home Depot attempting to fix her collapsing roof.</blockquote> ➤ the mafia element is very minor

<blockquote>Frederick Wentworth has always loved to skate, but skating has not always loved him back. Especially when it came to his Olympic dreams and pairs figure skating career with Anne Elliot. (Persuasion Olympics figure skater/ hockey player AU.) TW: for some mild modern racism-in-sports talk, and Louisa's canonical head injury.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Wei Ying grabs a pen from Lan Zhan’s desk, curling his legs into a lotus pose under the arms of the chair so he can easily spread the journal out across his lap. Even upside down, Lan Zhan can read his large, messy characters scrawled across the top: Lan Zhan and Wei Ying’s Rules for Dating. Perhaps this was a bad idea.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“It is a well-known fact across the major leagues that one does not smack Lan Wangji’s ass.” Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. Everyone smacks everyone’s ass in baseball. It’s how the game is played. Lan Wangji does not get to be exempt from this most sacred of baseball traditions. Wei Wuxian will make sure of that. / Or, a Major League Baseball AU</blockquote> ➤ I loved how many years this fic spans, and how you can see them grow and change and settle into themselves

<blockquote>Wei Ying is at his first Grand Final, rated fifth in the solo cultivator rankings, with the Qishan and Lanling silver medals tucked away in his sock drawer, and he’s about to walk into the arena for a match that everyone knows he’s going to lose. A modern competitive cultivation AU.</blockquote> ➤ love the premise of this modern au

<blockquote>The guy is so stupid hot that Wei Ying doesn’t turn away in time. He can’t be absolutely sure, but he thinks the guy sees him sort of turned towards him. Not as bad as being caught outright staring at someone on the subway, except that it’s actually probably worse, because they’re in the cultivation gym’s locker room.</blockquote>

➤ I was not expecting this ridiculous charming original hockey-bro series to end up being about, like, an aro dude who loves his people very much and collects a houseful of poly family but I AM 5000% HERE FOR IT ➤ also like....this is like the perfect mix of charming fluff with Things Actually Happening and it's great ➤ I just love how much Luc loves people and is so chill and confident about how he does it, and I love all the people he loves ➤ Main series consists of: Superstition Deke Split the D Breakway Other People Until the Whistle ➤ Side stories ("Depth on the Bench") worth reading consist of: https://archiveofourown.org/series/625667 The Cure for Anything (Crash POV) Nikolai Budnikov calls Luc Chantal his dad, chirps his accent and his cooking: READ MORE If the light's good (Svetlana day in the life) Indivisible and Inviolable (Svetlana backstory) I've got your name written here in rose tattoo (Svetlana's brother)

<blockquote>“It is a truth universally acknowledged that an ice skater in possession of a Grand Prix medal— of whatever metal—must be in want of another.” Jamie and Lizzy Bennet, a brother-sister ice dancing duo from Ann Arbor, Michigan, are no exception, and are determined to win gold at the Pyeongchang Olympics. Newfoundlander Charles Bingley, the Canadian champion for men’s singles skating, believes they can make it. His coach, Québécois two-time Olympic gold medalist, Fitzwilliam Darcy... does not.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"No, see, we've all been trained a certain way. The training system is traditional; it's centuries old. Nobody taught you. You ballist like it's got nothing to do with war at all." A sleepy, extraordinary smile crawls over Victor's face. "Nobody else does it like that. That's why we're going to win."</blockquote> ➤ I don't know if it quite works for me as a YoI fic, but as an origfic it's GREAT, I adore the worldbuilding, I would read more set in this world! (and in fact can and have, the sequel is Gravity, ft. arranged marriage for Otabek and Yuri P.!)

<blockquote>Cosette gets drafted in the first round to the Washington Capitals. Eponine gets drafted in the fourth to the Pittsburgh Penguins and she can do this, she can totally do this.</blockquote> ➤ oh no this is so GOOD

<blockquote>John Sheppard goes west.</blockquote> ➤ The one where John's a ski instructor. I was convinced I'd read this fic before? But it was juuuuust published! So I guess that somewhere in the fandom's history there's another ski instructor au - wouldn't surprise me anyway. ➤ At any rate: I'm eternally delighted by how SGA au's, no matter how au, still often end with them getting to go to Atlantis. Because the otp is really an ot3: John/Rodney/Atlantis 4ever

<blockquote>Six weeks before the group stage of the World Cup, the French national team plays Patron-Minette in a charity friendly. It all goes downhill from there.</blockquote> ➤ wip through part 3 as of bookmarking

<blockquote>Jim Kirk, a man of long drives and large personality, stumbles into a career in the PGA Tour. Fame, fortune and notoriety await him as Jim collects national media attention, groupies, a new best friend, the ire of the first lady of pro golf, and also, maybe, the love of his life.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Ling's Motivation: "My competition challenges me to work hard. There are certain players who I constantly play against... [laughs] [eds note: likely referring to fellow All-World player Ben Watkins as the two have met in international competition a staggering fourteen times over the last three years] and I know that if I'm not playing my best game, they're going to blow me by."</blockquote>

<blockquote>a short romance about an opera singer and a hockey player working out their relationship issues against a backdrop of the nhl western conference semifinals and richard wagner's tragedy "Tristan und Isolde."</blockquote> ➤ the end seems a little too simplistic but EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS IS GLORIOUS so I don't care.

<blockquote>Written during Wimbledon 2011: Rudy, contender for the Wimbledon trophy, baffles the BBC commentators.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Tennis!AU, continued!</blockquote>

<blockquote>The tennis finished! I was watching the pre-men's-final coverage and it suddenly made me lol to think of the BBC commentators (Sue Barker, Boris Becker and John McEnroe among others) chatting about Rudy Miller pre-game. This is ABSOLUTELY NOT A WIP, it was more a random fleeting Wimbledon!AU thought.</blockquote>

➤ in which Rodney and John are skiers, reconciling after a 20-year misunderstanding.

➤ Rodney getting all excited about hockey

<blockquote>A series of snapshots from a life in which Rodney teaches at California State University Channel Islands and John owns "Boards, Boards and More Boards" a surf/snow/skate shop in Ventura, CA.</blockquote> The Vulgar Needs of Life The Pitter Patter of Large Furry Feet All That Is Gone Listen to the Falling Rain There's a Thin Line After Midnight Blood Makes Noise And I Say (it's all right) Semester's End We Could Do That, Sure A Very Gourmet Yule So Doing It Some Days? Not So Much And Then, Just Like That A Chicken Soup Kind of a Day The Wave from Coast to Ocean Kiss Me Like You Mean It All Over the Place

➤ The racecar AU

➤ The epic skating au