#heavily recommended checking it (and her other shit ((go read breaking dawn NOW))) out

[soup--champ]

from @anonymous-dentist’s ADORABLE merpepito au

[aenariasbookshelf]

Darcy and Jane’s Post-Apocalyptic Road Trip, part six

The continuing road trip adventures of a Jane Foster attempting to avoid the US Government and a heavily pregnant Darcy Lewis just keep expanding.  

Technically this fic takes place in an alternate universe offshoot of The Incrediblesverse, but you don’t have to read those fics to understand this one.

(parts one and two) (part three) (part four) (part five)

At some point I’ll edit this thing up and post it properly to AO3 (and get a proper title...and chapter breaks...you know how it goes.  This story seems to have taken on a life of its own).  Until such time, however, this story will live here on Tumblr…

I’ve started posting the story on AO3 here.  I’ve only got the first part up there, but it’s been expanded greatly, so I do recommend checking it out.  Someday soon I’ll put the rest up there as well.

Infinity War spoilers ahead…

Part Six: in which the women spend some time on the road, ask a few questions, and maybe a little explosion or two.

I’ll admit, I’m not as thrilled with this chapter as I’ve been with others, but it’s at the point where it’s not worth holding back and fiddling with anymore.  And, if I post it now, then I can move on to the next chapter which is where things are going to get a bit more interesting...

This chapter does refer to something about Darcy that’s been brought up in the Incrediblesverse numerous times, though not in this spin off...until now.  Any questions, you should probably refer back to the original story line, or ask me - I’m more than happy to answer your questions. :)

**********

It's hard to talk with a stranger camped out in their backseat, even if that stranger has been vetted by Steve and was specifically sent there to keep them safe.  Still, she did get Darcy out of a sticky situation back at the store, and she trusts Steve's judgement.  "Soooo...why archery?" Darcy asks, twisting around in her seat to look at Kate.

Kate's busy sorting through her cache of new arrows, sorting them into stacked piles that mean something only to her.  "It's one of the few acceptable rich kid hobbies," she replies, not looking up from her handiwork.  "At least according to my dad.  Not like he paid much attention anyway.  He barely even blinked when I told him I was heading out to Iowa to train with the best archer around."  She looks up, rolling her eyes rapidly.  "Actually, no, what he asked was why the hell would I even want to head out to Iowa?  Said that there's nothing out there but corn."  She shakes her head.  "Yeah, he's one of those."  

"Is bodyguarding something you do often?  Or is this just a side job for you?" "How much of an answer do you really want to that question?" Darcy sighs, pressing her fingertips against her temples as her eyes fall closed.  "Oy vey." Kate leans in closer, poking her head between the two front seats with a smirk.  "All right, my turn to ask questions - how do you know Captain America?" "I bought him a slice of pie once." **********

Of course, of course one of the tires on the SUV has to blow, right after sunset, in what's probably the most middle of nowhere place Darcy's ever seen.  Even the tumbleweeds seem lonely, she thinks, exiting the car and stretching her legs a bit, staring off across the gloom, towards the rainbow of colors lining the far off horizon.  It's surprisingly warm out, even though there's still a chill in the air.  Desert nights are very strange, she's learned over the years.  "Please tell me we've got a spare," she asks, peering around the corner of the car where Jane and Kate are attempting to clear a space in the trunk compartment.   "Just one, but it should be enough."  Jane wipes some sweat off of her forehead, and readjusts the little headlamp perched there.  "We'll be fine as long as we don't lose any more tires." Kate hops onto the back bumper so she can get a better look at the roof rack.  "We can probably stash a few spare tires up here, if we can find a place tomorrow that still has any." "We can put the dead one up there first - I've got more than a few bungee cords back here."  Jane grunts, then there's a scratching noise and a solid thump, the sound of the spare tire hitting the ground with a cloud of dust puffing up after it.  "There we go.  Do you see a jack in there also?" "I think so?  I hope so." "Well, you two have fun sorting that out.  I'm going to go find a boulder to pee behind." Darcy knows not to wander too far into the desert, not at night and especially not after the apocalypse, but it's good to get out for a bit.  To shake the dust off of her feet and her skin and soak in the night air.  She turns her face up to the sky - out here all the stars are visible, twinkling down like everything on Earth is as usual and all they have to do is shine on.  But she knows that's not the case, from the tale that Steve had told her and the feeling inside of her bones that something is deeply, profoundly wrong in the entire universe right now.  A lazy elbow from her baby glides across the inside of her stomach, pulling her back inside her body, and she runs her fingertips over the little protrusion, feeling him push against the pressure.  "We're gonna get through this, baby," she murmurs. The baby kicks at her again, and Darcy shakes her head, smiling.  "All right, let's find a place to pee before you kick my bladder open." ********** "So, what makes you so special?" Jane doesn't startle or drop the wrench at Kate's blunt question, though it's a very near thing.  "Excuse me?" Kate taps her fingers on the tire that she's holding upright, and shrugs nonchalantly.  "It's not every day that Captain America reaches out to a retired fellow Avenger to get two people out of the country, especially when the world's gone to even more shit than we've ever seen before.  So...why you?" Jane continues loosening up the lug nuts of the tire, taking her time to think about the question.  She likes Kate well enough, but they've only known each other for a few hours, and Jane's not one to trust easily, not after everything she's been through.  And nobody but Darcy and Steve really needed to know just yet that she'd had one of those damn stones inside of her once upon a time and lived to tell the tale.  "I'm an astrophysicist," she settles on.  "I specialize in Einstein-Rosen bridges; wormholes that will let you travel between two otherwise unconnected places in space.  Given that this whole shitstorm was caused by crazy aliens from outer space, I guess the Captain thinks I can help them get out there to figure out more of what happened and get the Earth back to some semblance of normality."

“If we can even get back to what we once had,” Kate says with a heavy sigh.  “This may be our new normal.”

“Not if I can help it,” Jane says, grunting as she removes the final lug nut.  “All right, I can do this,” she mutters under her breath.  “I can build high tech, sensitive equipment to monitor the outer reaches of space, I can change a damn tire.”

**********

Darcy doesn’t go back to the car, not just yet.  Out here, under the desert night sky, it almost feels like the world hasn’t changed from a few weeks before.  Like if she just turns around and goes home, her mother will be there waiting with Steve so they can go to her next ultrasound appointment.  But that’s not the world anymore.  Hell, given the state of the world she doesn’t even know if her baby will have the opportunity to grow to adulthood, which is the scariest thought of all.

A shiver goes over her skin, making her feel even more unsettled than usual.  The sky’s gone fully dark now, but the moon is there, a glowing partial circle that manages to illuminate things here in the middle of nowhere.  And it looks...so innocuous.  Happy little stars and wispy little clouds that flutter past the moon.  But the rest of the universe is dealing with the same shit that Earth is also, if she understood Steve correctly.  

Half of the entire universe was obliterated in the blink of an eye.

Maybe there’s a universe next door that they can escape to for a little while.

There’s a rustling off to the side of her somewhere, low and alarming.  Darcy stiffens up, head whipping around to try and pinpoint where the noise is coming from.  Dammit, shouldn’t have lingered, she thinks.  

The rustling happens again, and before Darcy can even think about running away she feels energy swell up under her skin, and a bright light flashes behind her eyes.

**********

“What the hell?” Kate says, spinning to try and see where the flash of light, followed quickly by a small cracking noise.  

“Darcy?” Jane calls out, dropping the wrench and straightening up.  The tire’s mostly done anyway, so she runs out into the desert, headlamp bobbing along, trying to follow where she’d last seen Darcy wander off.

“Dammit, Foster, wait up!”  But Jane’s got bigger things to worry about, namely making sure that Darcy hasn’t been injured by whatever they just saw out there.  If her suspicions are right, however, Jane’s fairly certain that light wasn’t something that was harming Darcy.  A minute later Kate catches up with her, arrows in one hand and bow in the other, ready to kick the ass of anything that gets in their path.  “I can’t,” she pants as they run, “protect you if you don’t wait for me!”

“Too bad!”

They run behind a boulder and then skid to a halt, because Darcy’s there, one hand on her belly and the other over her heart as she breathes heavily.  “Are you okay?  What the hell was that?” Kate asks.

“Yeah.”  Darcy waves her hand at the scrubby bushes, motion at the twisty little tracks in the dirt.  “I got spooked by a snake.  Sorry for freaking you out.”

Kate shakes her head, hefting her bow up high.  “That still doesn’t explain the flashy thing, or the noises.”

“Just drop it,” Jane sighs.

“But - “

“Let it be.”  Jane shakes her head.  “We don’t have time to linger.  Our goal is to get to Alice by dawn.”

The look Kate gives her is highly suspicious, but she doesn’t say anything because Darcy begins walking back to the car, leaving the other two to scramble after her.  Just before they reach the car, however, Jane pulls Darcy to the side, out of the earshot of Kate (she trusts her, she really does, but there are some things that Kate doesn’t need to know just yet.  “That was a flare up, wasn’t it?” she asks in a low voice.

Darcy nods, chewing at her lower lip.  Both women were all too aware of the sudden onset of Darcy’s explosive energy issues after their adventure with the Dark Elves, and while Jane hates to use the word magic because that implies there’s no cause or rationale behind what has happened, they haven’t found a satisfying scientific explanation yet.  Not even Thor knew what had really caused this in Darcy, though he was able to give Darcy some of his mother’s books on magic to at least help her channel the energy as needed.  

“There really was a snake,” Darcy says.  “I got spooked, and then bam.”  She flicks her eyes in the direction of the car, where Kate is settling down in the backseat.  “Once she’s asleep I’ll look at some of Frigga’s texts to see if I can find anything to help with this.”

“We can ask Thor once we see him also,” Jane points out.  “Maybe he’ll have some new ideas.”

“I hope so.”  Darcy runs a hand back through her hair, then over her stomach where even Jane can see a slight rippling where the baby’s moving inside.  “I feel better, but I can still feel the energy inside me wanting to come out.  It feels like...like it likes what’s happening in the universe about as much as the rest of us do right now.”

“So in other words, not much.”

“Yep.”  Darcy takes another deep breath, like she’s trying to center herself back on Earth and come down from the stars.  “Okay, you drive, and I’ll see if I can meditate so I don’t blow up another damn tumbleweed.”

[losreviews]

A Wandering Best Comics of 2017 List

Well hello! It’s this blog, the thing I put on hiatus in order to focus on my degree and then did not check into all year!

If you don’t follow me on any other social media, I have some good news: I have, in fact, finished my library degree! Goal accomplished! I’m in this funny place right now where I was working hard and was completely burned out, and then suddenly wasn’t working, and now I’m enjoying relaxing but also realizing I need to get back to a place where I can work on things again. Write things again. Be focused and productive and not on a mental vacation. Oof.

First, before getting to the fun stuff, I am going to officially announce that I won’t be formally returning to this blog. I may use it as a space to write reviews that are more serious than a quick goodreads review and not serious enough to fit with Women Write About Comics or another venue, but I’m not going to follow a this-many-a-month goal. I want to focus on other projects, so while this blog has served me well, I think I’ve found other ways to discover, support, and signal-boost diverse media that require I step aside from LOS Reviews.

That aside - year end lists! They can be fun! Last year I wrote about comics I love in which ladies smooch other ladies, but this year I am going to do something much more disorganized. A consequence of focusing heavily on school is that my to-read pile has become wild and unruly. As I let things I wanted to read pile up over the year, I did read a few things that were just too good or too exciting - or that I could easily access during a break. My #1 favorite thing that I read this year was Soolagna Majumdar’s Marge Simpson Anime zine, which I wrote about for WWAC’s Small Press Faves of 2017 list. In addition, here are some random titles that helped me stay afloat through a grueling final year of graduate school.

Print Comics

Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez

This big, gorgeous comic released by Nobrow Press contains some of the best art I was privileged to ogle in 2017. Sandy, a young artist, has the unique ability to bring the lush fantasy world of her mind to life. Or, perhaps, she can take aspects of her own imagination and gift them to existing magic within the world, and build a warm, vibrant, safe fantasy space. When the new girl at school takes dangerous interest in Sandy’s abilities, she must learn to own and harness her inner power. If, like me, you are feeling very burdened by work, know that this is a quick read meant for middle or elementary-aged readers. It’s sort of like coming across a stunningly delicious appetizer at a fancy party; it’s brief, but so good that you immediately want to eat another (or read it all over again.)

Space Battle Lunchtime Volume Two: A Recipe for Disaster by Natalie Riess

I reviewed volume one last year so I won’t spend much time giving you plot synopsis etc., but volume two came out this year and wraps up the story. I LOVE these comics; Riess creates a very pretty, kooky alien world in which each creature’s species-specific traits and personality feels immediately well-developed. Riess’ skillful use of visuals to give her characters - human and alien alike - unique personas appeals to me because I quickly feel exhausted when reading lengthy high fantasy that spends ages detailing all the aspects of a culture or society. This is really how I prefer to learn about an entirely made-up world: as quickly and efficiently as possible, with all emphasis on character development. These comics are light hearted, queer, action-filled and fun, Riess just knows how to press all my buttons!

The Lunch Witch by Deb Lucke

I read the first two (only two? no idea) volumes of this series this year, and IT IS SO FREAKING GREAT! The comics follow the spooky exploits of Grunhilda, an older witch who finds herself in need of a job, and ends up working as a lunch lady at a nearby elementary school. Grunhilda is NOT a good witch, or at least doesn’t intend to be, and she doesn’t really like children. The books are fairly dark for a middle grade series, excitingly creative - there’s a page that is actually burned and missing 1/4 of itself - and tackle morality and the value of helping others out of a sense of compassion and desire for companionship versus seeking selfish reward. They are fun, surprisingly deep, and supported by a really cool website that has things like recipes for Engorged-Tick Scones and a Bad Advice column! Love love love it.

So Pretty/So Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen

I was lucky to randomly pick up the preview zine for this book at CAKE last year, and as a huge fan of Jane Mai’s comics - I maybe wrote an article about her that feels somewhat like an embarrassing love confessional - I was super excited for this book to come out! So Pretty/So Very Rotten is a mix of comics, essays and interviews about Lolita subculture, from the perspective of two Asian-North American cartoonists (I’m pretty sure Nguyen is Canadian? Correct me if I’m wrong, I have been known to not realize people were Canadian. See: Ellen Page) who either have been or still are very much participating in and deeply connected to Lolita. It is well-researched, accessible and totally engrossing. I am not a femme person and have been on a sort of slow burn, low-key journey in which I try to de-couple gender from clothing in order to feel more comfortable in how I present, and this book hit me at just the right moment. Through interviews and essays, Nguyen and Mai dive into how many view Lolita as a genderless (or perhaps gender-full?) exploration of the feelings the clothing can create both for individuals and communities. The comics get quite dark and often lean into the rottenness Lolita allows; in some ways, that rottenness feels like an opportunity to let the truth of the darkness of ourselves out, or to reveal how tough and ferocious those who dare to dawn frills truly are. I cannot recommend it enough.

Wuvable Oaf Volume 1 by Ed Luce

I purchase-requested this baby from the library and was deeply pleased when they bought it and when, recently, I saw that the cover was beat up a bit, indicating that I truly am not the only one who wanted it! Huzzah! I’ve been meaning to read Luce’s comic since I bought a Divine poster from him a couple CAKE’s ago, and it did not disappoint. This giant tome tells the story of Oaf, a hairy, scary-looking ex-wrestler who is in fact quite squishy, loves cats, and wants romance. It’s a gay subculture-y comic that is strange enough to border on being fantasy (Oaf can do some wild shit with his hair, and one of the cats SEES THINGS) and loaded full with comics/pop culture Easter eggs. The wrestling flashbacks are maybe the best bits, so I’m excited to get my hands on volume two, which looks more focused on the wrestling.

The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal + Five Years Ago and Three Thousand Miles Away by EK Weaver

OK confession: I read the webcomic and this was actually a reread prompted by my inability to walk past the big, gorgeous softcover collection on the Iron Circus table at C2E2. “I think it’s time I buy TJ & Amal” is I think exactly what I said to Spike Trotman, whose response was something like “of course it is!” (Shout out to Sheika Lugtu who was walking the floor with me and also was like, um yes, buy it, dummy.) I had not read the follow-up short comic previously, in which Weaver posits three possible endings for the boys, two of which keep them together, one in which they break up. It was a perfect, bittersweet tease/companion to a beautiful book about two queer men who kind of fall in love over the course of an emotionally tumultuous road trip. Weaver digs so deeply into her characters, exposing all their weaknesses, failings and fears, and watching these two boys who are strangers at the beginning of the story be completely vulnerable with each other is a gift. I often longingly look at the softcover on my bookshelf and consider rereading it, only to remind myself that no, I need to finish that paper! Except I don’t now, because I did finish school... hmm...

Tabula Idem: A Queer Tarot Comic Anthology edited by Iris Jay and Hye M

I’ve been working through some kickstarter rewards I haven’t yet had time to read, so because I’ve got this big pile I’ve of course had some mediocre reading experiences and some surprisingly stunning ones. This anthology falls into the latter category; while I was interested in it enough to fund the kickstarter, I didn’t expect to love it so deeply upon reading. I only just became interested in tarot this year and there’s so much to learn, but Tabula Idem felt like a perfect way to start considering how to interpret cards on my own, and how to go beyond what might be traditional readings and factor in aspects that account for being a queer person. Each story in the anthology focuses on one aspect of a Major Arcana tarot card, and they range across genres with queer and trans characters of all kinds of identities. I read a lot of anthologies and sometimes they can feel tedious, but this one slowed me down and made me savor each tale, wanting to experience the affect each artist pulled out of each card.

Girls’ Last Tour by Tsukumizu

I’m pretty sure this manga series was recommended to me by the inimitable Claire Napier, and I did not expect to love it as deeply as I do. In this time of high-energy, high-action, sometimes trashy but generally fun dystopian literature, Tsukumizu offers a slow, gay, philosophical exploration of a post-apocalyptic world in which mammoth city structures vastly outnumber humans. The young girl protagonists initially are unsure if they are the only humans left in their world, and slowly make their way through a strange, towering, layered city largely in search of food so that they can continue to survive. They contemplate the value of being alive and sometimes ask big questions, but also generally enjoy each other’s company, get excited about rare opportunities to take warm baths, and recall distant memories or known concepts from the pre-apocalyptic world. It’s definitely not a series for everyone as the pacing is so slow, but Tsukumizu’s rendering of the very tall, very brutalistically designed city is engrossing and makes the pacing worth it. Really, it’s a story about two girls asking deep questions and pondering them over an unlimited amount of time, and that feels just right.

Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimura

I think I started reading this series last year but really got into it this year; I binged volumes 4, 5, and 6 in a single night, and 7 is currently waiting for me in my backpack. It’s kind of the antithesis of Girls’ Last Tour in that the tone is always frantic and wild, in accordance with the high energy of the otaku girls the series celebrates. I love that Higashimura offers up a variety of characters who are obsessed with different things - I always think of mega nerdy people as being into things like games and comics, but of course Tsukimi is a jellyfish otaku. Kuranosuke’s character development has been particularly interesting, as he becomes a sort of emotional-connection otaku, obsessed both with pursuing a fashion career that allows him to submerge himself in the feminine clothing that connects him to his mother and won his heart at a young age, and with being emotionally tied to a group of friends who are actually passionate about things. (We get some glimpses of Kuranosuke’s other friends and they all seem pretty shallow.) The series is very fun, and I love Higashimura’s autobio author comics in which she basically exposes lots of embarrassing things about herself and how nerdy she is.

Webcomics

I read a LOT of webcomics and several ongoing series that I’ve been reading for eons have been faithful comforts this year, including Strong Female Protagonist, Gunnerkrigg Court, Questionable Content and Monster Pulse. I wanted to talk about some comics I don’t think I’ve ever plugged before, so these in theory are all things I started reading this year.

Manners’ Magical Monster School by Jessica and Jacinta Wibowo

This cute comic follows Wilbur, the lone human at a magic school for monsters, and his roommate, Amira, who’s big secret is that she is a demon. The pair are a sort of odd-couple; Wilbur is a sweet, chubby kid who got bullied before the frankly terrifying Amira became his best bud, while Amira is an over-confident punk who isn’t super great at having feeeeeelings. I first discovered Jes n Cin via their webcomic Tales from the Well, which is also very good, but is a bit more serious in tone. I particularly like the coloring - it’s all this warm, sort of watercolor-ish wash (I have no idea what materials they actually use, sorry!) and always look forward to the next update.

Barbarous by Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh

I am fairly certain I’ve raved about how much I love the Johnny Wander autobio comics before, but Yuko and Ananth’s forays into fiction are always fantastic and I am especially in love with Barbarous. The series’ protagonist is Percy, a magic-user who was studying magic but maybe dropped out of school (there was some kind of mysterious incident that pushed her to start couch-surfing around) and is sort of OK at using it but also still has a lot to learn. She is hired to do maintenance work by mysterious but classy landlord Cecillia, and her immediate supervisor, Leeds, is a sort of blunt but kind... giant dinosaur? He’s very cute. Anyway, Yuko and Ananth are building a cool magical world that is close to our own but also includes lots of really great, modern fashion/costuming. Percy and Leeds’ friendship is like a baby goat or a calf; its legs are not strong and it stumbles a lot, but it’s really cute. I love it.

Quiet Brain! by Samantha Davies

This isn’t so much a comic as it is a series of illustrations of adorable, sort of anthropomorphic animals saying inspiring, sometimes kinda brutally honest and deep shit. I read nearly all of them in one go on a long train ride and while I’m normally not the kind of person who is into like, inspirational feminist cross stitches and shit like that, something about this struck a chord. Davies has a panel-less comic called Stutterhug that is all about movement, emotion and moments of connection between (anthropomorphic animal) creatures. Quiet Brain! emphasizes how skilled the artist is at communicating emotion through facial expressions; it’s a simple thing that I didn’t know I needed until I read it.

Ascent by Kevin Lam

I’ve been reading this series since probably before 2017, but I found this year that I particularly looked forward to the new comics. Ascent is, simply, the story of a diver lost in the sea, making a mostly lonely journey to the surface. Given an endless amount of time to contemplate general concepts about life, the diver does so. They consider the purpose of making a journey that may never yield a successful end, the point of accepting a friend that literally attaches themself to you - it’s a very cute baby squid - and the merit of just giving into exhaustion. Retrospectively, I think this comic really embedded itself into my psyche this year because my graduate school journey felt similar. I climbed up several difficult hills which were small enough that I could see the top, but knew another hill awaited me. Recently there have been some spooky happenings in the comic, and I’m excited to see where Lam takes the diver next.

Girls Have a Blog by Sarah Bollinger and Tara Kurtzhals

I don’t actually read this creator pair’s main comic, but I’ve really enjoyed this autobio dive into their post-art school life, trying to make comics as a career work. They go through many ups and downs but perhaps uniquely do much of it together, and the act of processing both with each other and via comic is very satisfying. I especially enjoyed the arc where Tara found herself unable (emotionally) to attend a school reunion, because I found myself in the same position when my five year college reunion happened last summer. Often relatable but perhaps foremost a look into how making life work as a freelance cartoonist is TOUGH, this is some really enjoyable autobio! I’m excited for season two to start in 2018.

Everything Shing Yin Khor makes

OK so Shing has some webcomic short stories and projects going on, but I wanted to do kind of a blanket shout-out because I’ve enjoyed everything she’s shared this year, from her delightful watercolor comics to her installation work. I first encountered Shing when I picked up the Blood Root horror anthologies she produced out of Sawdust Press, and reviewed the third issue in one of my first ever pieces for WWAC. This year I was surprisingly and suddenly blessed to briefly attend the American Library Association conference, and the highlight was meeting Shing in person. She was there promoting her graphic memoir The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 which Zest Books will release in February 2018, and it was such a delightful meeting that I re-engaged with her other work. Whether it’s building art installations and twitter bots that use oracles and fortune telling to explore kindness, or watercoloring stunning sci fi/fantasy worlds that contemplate workplace dynamics, immigration and travel, everything Shing creates takes on a journey that tilts your perspective, makes you gasp in wonder, and gives you a hug. If I were to make a list of creators whose work I’m super excited about in the coming years - it would be a very long list, and honestly I’m sort of constantly making that list through my critical/review work - Shing would be at the top. Funding her patreon will ensure you keep up with all her incredible creations.

2017 was certainly a year but there is always great art coming of the indie self-pub world. I will do my best to keep you informed about all of it.