OnceThereWasAPondering
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Summary
The player character of Need for Speed: Heat had to come from somewhere, maybe this was their beginning.
Showing up in Palm City without even a car to race in? She just rolls into town and then takes over the scene like she was fated to be there.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,080
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 11
- Hits:
- 188
Recent bookmarks
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the bread, the salt, (the tears & the cloth) by flipflopflail
Fandoms: Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types
10 Sep 2026
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Summary
Sometimes when she couldn't sleep at night and was listing out worries in her journal by her bed, Ilya came up.
Shane hadn't gone into detail about Ilya's family or his past in Russia but Yuna knew enough to form a very sad, very lonely picture.
Yuna knew Shane had been learning Russian, that David had surprised Ilya with shashlik and had been experimenting with other Russian foods when the boys had come for dinner. Yuna also knew it was quite possible that these things stung as well as warmed his heart.
Sometimes being faced with a portion of the thing you're missing, makes the absence of the whole feel that much bigger.
Yuna wrote down Ilya feeling that absence on his wedding day into her journal and bit on her thumbnail.
If people couldn't be provided, maybe something else from home could be.
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or: the russian orthodox wedding custom of a matriarch holding bread and salt for the happy couple and ilya not having a matriarch (or so he thinks)
or: yuna loves her son(s) very much and embroidery is very hardBookmarked by OnceThereWasAPondering
11 Sep 2026
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Bookmarker's Notes
I LOVE this characterization of Yuna, this author struck a beautiful balance between her logical planning side and her mothering instincts. The crafting frustrations were relatable, and the intentions adorable.
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Operation O Canada, or The Hollander-Rozanov Method of Soft Launching a Marriage by robbinscinquefoil
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
01 May 2026
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Summary
“Can’t hang out tonight, Hayd. I have plans.”
“Bullshit,” Hayden responds. “You never have plans.”
Objectively, this used to be true. Nowadays Shane has many, many plans, between his nightly plans to look at Ilya’s penis through Skype and his various long-term plans laid out helpfully in his notebook, Canva (For Ilya’s sake. He is a visual learner), and more recently, Excel. Shane loves that excel sheet. He’s colour coded it.
In 2017, Shane Hollander spirals and proposes to his boyfriend of 4 days (or 7 years, or 9 years, or not his boyfriend at all, depending on how you look at it), which leads to a lot of plans, weird theories in the Montreal Voyageur locker room, some Twitter drama, and Ilya Rozanov entering his WAG era.
Series
- Part 1 of Operation O Canada
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 118,812
- Chapters:
- 8/8
- Comments:
- 5,783
- Kudos:
- 34,548
- Bookmarks:
- 12,000
- Hits:
- 1,045,581
Bookmarked by OnceThereWasAPondering
09 Sep 2026
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Bookmarker's Notes
Shane and his beautiful mind make all the plans, and only some of them survive his anxiety, Sass, and feral anger responses. This author has some really fancy embedded texting and social media conversations, kudos to them for making all that formatting work. Ilya is portrayed very sweetly, and both of the pair have a wicked humor that was very enjoyable. I felt Shane's anxiety spirals on a personal level. The author also created some very cheeky click bait article titles and included a COVID interlude.
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Summary
"The Egocentric Temporal Order (ETO) bias is the finding that self-initiated action-events are perceived as having occurred prior to simultaneous externally triggered events."
Or: Time is a polite fiction that only matters if you're paying attention, and Anakin is neither polite nor paying attention.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 50,384
- Chapters:
- 23/23
- Collections:
- 4
- Comments:
- 1,491
- Kudos:
- 2,975
- Bookmarks:
- 1,239
- Hits:
- 78,901
Bookmarked by OnceThereWasAPondering
24 Dec 2024
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Bookmarker's Notes
Bookmarking as of reading 22 chapters.
I really enjoyed this author's Force theory (the author notes explore the concept further and add cute meme worthy moments of the story) and the way they smacked sense into Skywalker. I was ready to have to slog through the healing portion, but nothing like an emotional batch slap to get things back on track. It's funny, and a bit cracky, and all around just makes things feel right. That's not to say the story is without dark moments, it does draw on both Anakin and Ben's PTSD and doesn't shy away from the realities of war. It's well balanced and really well thought out!
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Update after reading fic marked complete at 23 chapters. September 3, 2026Honestly, my thoughts haven't changed on the content of the story. The side stories of Ekkreth breaking chains, and the religious views of Force wielders, give lovely depth to Anakin's missions. The fic ends rather abruptly, but at least it doesn't leave on a cliff hanger.
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Night Shift by Menty_B_Fairy
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
09 Mar 2026
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Summary
Shane Hollander is just trying to survive NYU biochemistry, hockey practice, and the graveyard shift at 7-Eleven. He's too exhausted to notice that his new regular customer is Russian mafia, or that Ilya's interest in him goes beyond terrible coffee and cookies.
When Ilya hands him a $10,000 designer scarf and matching gloves, Shane doesn't panic. He sells them for next month's rent. Any normal person would be terrified. Instead, Shane uses the leftover money to buy a Hello Kitty watch, pastel pink, childish, utterly incongruous with the danger circling him. He wears it to his next night shift without irony or apology.
Ilya notices immediately. He is fascinated.
(Currently under major editing. Can still be read.)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 192,729
- Chapters:
- 32/32
- Comments:
- 4,061
- Kudos:
- 19,348
- Bookmarks:
- 6,517
- Hits:
- 769,576
Bookmarked by OnceThereWasAPondering
03 Sep 2026
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Bookmarker's Notes
This author writes fantastic action scenes, the big gun fight was a true homage to action movies. On the other hand, the dialogue sometimes seemed a bit disjointed, side characters were pretty flat, but the overall story was a fun time to experience. Shane is hyper-competent, but far less anxious than he is in canon.
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Tags
Summary
While it was true that Desmond Miles had a terrible childhood, Desmond was pretty sure that between him and his three ancestors, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad would be crowned as the king in the most screwed-up childhood category.
And, instead of dying after using the device back in the Grand Temple, Desmond now had first-row seat in the tragic play that was Altaïr’s life in the Levantine Brotherhood.
Oh. And he gets to play the part of the doomed younger brother of Malik Al-Sayf, Kadar Al-Sayf.
You know what? Screw that. Desmond isn’t going to just let himself get killed because of Altaïr’s dumb arrogant ass. He’ll survive that day in Jerusalem even if it means becoming Altaïr’s own (dubious) moral compass.
Series
- Part 4 of Yew Branches
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 75,357
- Chapters:
- 5/5
- Collections:
- 2
- Comments:
- 455
- Kudos:
- 2,886
- Bookmarks:
- 751
- Hits:
- 55,227
Bookmarked by OnceThereWasAPondering
03 Sep 2026
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Bookmarker's Notes
This fic is 40% Desmond doing paper work, 40% Altair attempting to woo Desmond, and 20%both of them being anxious messes. There's a little bit of action, and Desmond is just a sweetheart. The fic goes from birth to the discovery of the Apple in the temple near Jerusalem; while the love story arc is complete, who knows what is to come for the rest of the brotherhood in the wake of Al Mualim's betrayals.