#the backup plan

[many-mikeys]

Good work.

I don’t want to do this anymore-

I made you and you’ll listen to me.

But you have-

I don’t care. You are a super weapon only. And you’ll fucking act like it.

Yes Arceus…

[egophiliac]

some more Twst pokemon as my brain melts at the impending episode 7 drop tomorrow! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I went with Gholdengo and Cufant for Kalim, and Seviper and Malamar for Jamil! I went back and forth a looooot on whether to give Malamar to Jamil or Azul, but ultimately I think it just fits Jamil better. (Seviper was a given though)

[comfortfromyourpain]

Alex O'Loughlin

There’s somethin’ in the way he moves ‘cause just his walk…kills me. *THUD*

[ramadebuzunar]

the grand mage said i can't grind on their staff :(

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: The Backup Plan by Jill Shalvis

Although I know she has been a well-known romance author for years, this was my first Jill Shalvis book. I am very grateful to the lovely Isabelle at Headline for sending me a copy dressed in its beautiful winter jacket as seen above and for giving me the opportunity to read it!

Alice is about to come into a big inheritance and it happens to be the delapidated Wild West themed B&B where she spent much of her childhood. She’s inheriting the place with two of her former friends because all three of them helped out the recently deceased owner Eleanor. Now Alice, her ex best friend Lauren and long-time crush Knox find themselves thrown together to renovate the place. They know that they’ll need to lay some rules down if they’re going to get along and survive the partnership. Little do they know that friendship, love and acceptance are all just around the corner.

As this is a romance with a forced proximity trope, I knew that the rules that they laid out would probably be broken. This predictability is something I love about rom-coms because it means they’re easy reads and my mind can pretty much relax while the story unravels. The drama is handed over to the characters and that’s exactly what happened.

Alice has dreams of following her passion for cars and opening her own mechanic shop, employing only women. Her love for cars is a hangover from her childhood when she spent many happy hours with her dad. Alice came across as very driven and stubborn, so I had no doubt that she would do whatever she set her mind to. I knew that the only thing that could possibly steer her off course would be a handsome face and a string of flirty comments.

Much of the humour comes from Lauren, the local historian and librarian. She was definitely my favourite character and I got really excited about her budding romance with local hardware store employee Ben. Lauren definitely has her secrets throughout the book and as a private person, I found her much easier to relate to than Alice. I couldn’t really understand all the reasons for her estrangement from Alice but I could tell they really cared about each other, so I was begging them to kiss and make up for the majority of the book!

A lovely little bonus was Pickle the Samoyed. I would have really appreciated some more Pickle content but I really enjoyed what I got. Any cute dog in a rom-com always needs to be amplified and Pickle fitted in perfectly with the cosy, warm vibes of the entire narrative.

The Backup Plan is a light-hearted romance with some lovely characters and some steamy sex scenes. It’s about patching up old wounds and finding where true happiness is, so if you’re looking for a very low-stakes, sweet story about friendship and found family, look no further!

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW

THE BACKUP PLAN (Sunrise Cove 3) by Jill Shalvis at The Reading Cafe:

‘excellent, heartwarming story’

http://www.thereadingcafe.com/the-backup-plan-by-jill-shalvis-a-review/

[thereadingcafe]

[bookwyrmshoard]

The Backup Plan, by Jill Shalvis

I have been drifting away from contemporary romances and contemporary fiction lately, but I plowed through The Backup Plan in under 24 hours. The characters grabbed my attention early on, and kept it -- especially Alice. Which surprised me, because Alice is not the sort of heroine I usually relate to.

Shalvis writes "prickly, hard-edged heroine who is really protecting a soft and deeply wounded heart" in a way that reminds me of some of Nora Roberts's heroines. Being a heart-on-my-sleeve type myself, it's not a personality type I identify with or even understand well outside of fiction, but Shalvis completely sold me on Alice. And I was almost as invested in Alice's partners in the inn, Lauren and Knox.

To my mind, The Backup Plan is not technically a romance; it's a novel with a romance subplot. (Two of them, actually; one major and one minor.) The main plot isn't "two people fall in love"; it's "three people, all running from painful pasts, learn to stop running, face their fears and their pain, and (re)build relationships." Although their personalities and lives are different, all three main characters are on the same emotional arc, more or less: facing their past traumas, healing, and finally taking the emotional risks they have been avoiding for years.

Their approaches to this reflect their individual personalities, of course. And it's all complicated by the pieces of the past that they share… in particular, the departed Eleanor, whose influence on their lives was profound, and also the death of Alice's brother Will.

As characters, Alice, Laurence, and Knox are almost equally important in the book. Almost, but not quite. And Alice and Lauren's broken friendship is every bit as important as Alice and Knox's growing relationship. But Alice is at the very heart of the novel. She's the one in the most pain, the one with the most self-destructive coping mechanisms, the one who most needs the other two in order to heal (though she would never admit it.) And so she was also the one I was rooting for the most.

There's a lot I like about this novel. I love the interactions between the characters, both the snarky interchanges (and the growing list of rules!) and the occasional deeper, more heartfelt conversations. I appreciate how each character grows throughout the novel, and how they become more supportive and understanding of one another. I also really enjoy how well Shalvis establishes a sense of place. The old inn and the Tahoe mountains felt real, to the point that I could almost smell the pines and feel the crisp mountain air. In a similar way, she uses small details to ground the reader in each scene and make the characters and their interactions come alive. But it's the characters and their growth and interactions that kept me turning the pages.

I'm still not ready to load up my TBR with lots of contemporary fiction again; the siren song of other genres is too strong right now. But I'm glad I took a chance on The Backup Plan!

[afraidparade]

pazu vanity (heavily referenced the original MV)

[introspectivememories]

goddd i just know that tim never takes off that fucking necklace. and you know bear doesn't have that much money so tge necklace was kinda cheap and it wasn't anything the bear meant for tim to wear regularly it was just like a keepsake y'know? wear it on a date or a nice outing. maybe when they're both home together. but tim is practically feral over it. like straight up refuses to take it off. it's turning his neck green at this point and everybody is soo done.

[bbygirl-aemond]

okay i won't lie i did giggle a bit when daemon tried to call the brackens on their bluff and they weren't bluffing and then he just LET THEM LEAVE my dude.... you're so bad at this

[hellenhighwater]

howdy sorry me again, specifically your narcissus piece made me bawl. do you think after your competition you would sell it? your other pieces are lovely but i was deadass SOBBING at his form

sorry for the double ask <3333

Yes! It's a long way from done but it will be for sale eventually! I'll post about it then and purchase details will also be on highwater-studio.com for that too.

[andrea-lyn]

It's a classic plan -- if Sokka and Zuko aren't married by the time they both turn thirty, they'll marry each other. It's one of Sokka's best plans, even if it's only meant to be a back-up. Most people don't spend their time making sure that the other person doesn't get married until the plan comes due, but most people are not Fire Lord Zuko.

Based on the below post even if "rivals" might be an outdated description of their relationship given that they're, you know, stupid in love with each other:

[bubblebaath]

globster RoR entry done :3 try it on!

[anheliotrope]

Let me explain what happened. I'm going to work through events one by one, ending with the state you see in the screenshot.

I am playing Ironman (basically no saving or loading except as needed to restore the game state after program shutdown).

I am playing on Genius difficulty (4/5, I didn't want to get my ass turned inside out by Superhuman difficulty)

I am besieging the enemy UFO.

I am 90% convinced the map is empty of aliens, save for the UFO.

I carelessly explore the map with the XCOM soldier seen at the bottom.

At 1 TU left, the XCOM soldier makes Line of Sight with an alien.

My reaction: Oh shit, oh fuck, uhhh.

1 TU is not enough for the XCOM soldier to scratch their fucking ass, let alone retreat or fire.

On the next turn that alien is going to turn around and without fail obliterate my soldier.

Nobody else has LOS on the alien and nobody, even if they spent their entire turn's worth of TUs could not possibly move into a position that can allow them to shoot the alien.

I select the XCOM that you see still selected in the screenshot -- Jungo Chiba.

I contort all of my brain muscles to try to find a way to save my beloved anti-xeno legionnaire.

Jungo Chiba has exactly enough moves to face up against the wall on a trajectory towards the alien.

I use ctrl+click to force Jungo to shoot in the direction of the wall in 3x Auto mode.

The first shot destroys a section of yellow-brownish brick wall.

The second shot destroys a section of wooden wall.

The third shot destroys a wooden door and the same shot hits the alien in the side, obliterating them immediately.

I pog so ungraciously and take this ugly ass screenshot.

(I move him one tile away from the hole he just shot for no reason.)

What a fucking legend.

Thank you for your service, Jungo Chiba.

[muse-write]

I love how Vergil is the archetypal responsible older twin, the smart, calm-headed one in theory, and yet in reality his already minimal amount of braincells decreases to 0 whenever he’s with Dante. Somehow they make each other both better AND worse. Lady and Trish are the braincell-holders in this crew, and every now and then they pass them to Nero, who in turn gives them to Kyrie for safekeeping.