#my hand built bowls are always wonky

[claypigeonpottery]

sold

the mice, dancing around the inside of a bowl

based off art by Gerhard Heilmann

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (6)

(c!Technoblade x fem!Reader)

(some of y’all seemed to like chapter 5! so here’s chapter 6 like promised! and remember, you get chapter 7 if this one is shown some love, so remember to comment and reblog! thanks y’all! <3)

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True to their word Tommy and Tubbo came back to see you the very next day, having gotten up early (well early for them) to get ready and head out. Wilbur had wanted to go with them but he’d gotten caught up in presidential matters and couldn’t, much to his dismay. Too bad for him though that neither boy cared to wait on him since according to Tommy,

“It’ll take you hours to handle that stuff, I’m not waitin’ that long!”

So the pair bailed and Wilbur was left to sigh as he continued his work. And the following day he was blindsided by plans for a new public building everyone was wanting to get built in L’manburg. And they couldn’t plan it without Wilbur’s approval and supervision so while he handled that for the next few weeks the two boys would sneak off to spend time in your village.

They were both pretty good workers, at least when they weren’t goofing off and getting into shenanigans. You can’t count how many times you’d caught Tommy trying to build structures out of cobblestone in the village. He’d argued that he was improving the village but you threatened to eat his portion of the day’s lunch if he didn’t get rid of whatever tower or thing he’d started construction on. He’d always kick up a fuss but would take them down before the day was done. A few times Tubbo would run screaming for you, telling on Tommy for whatever new cobble thing he was trying to build in secret. Tommy either rushing to tear the structure down or chasing after his friend and screaming at him for being a ‘little snitch’.

You knew the two were just playing and they never failed to finish the tasks you gave them so you were mostly just amused by the pair. Though that didn’t stop you from scolding them when they inevitably broke something of yours or the villagers’. But thankfully the times when scoldings or lectures were needed were pretty rare. You’re not sure if this is because the two boys were actually taking your words to heart or not though. But regardless, the time spent together was nice.

Which meant when the two boys mentioned them needing to go to the Nether and asked if you wanted to tag along you said sure. You remembered the classic Nether and even saw parts of the Nether update, but you’d never gotten a chance to explore it in depth. You’d planned to before.. well before you’d ended up here. But that never happened. And once you ended up here you could have gone to the Nether but to be honest it just wasn’t on your list of priorities. You’d been too focused on improving the village and then building your home and stuff. But you figured there was no harm to checking it out now.

-0-

“We’ll either have to go back to L’manburg where there’s already nether portals or we’ll have to find a lava pool around here to make a new one,” Tommy said to you and Tubbo, though more specifically to you. 

You raised an eyebrow and asked why, and both boys started replying at the same time, Tubbo trying to explain that they didn’t have any obsidian on them so it was the only options and Tommy just saying ‘because that’s the options unless you’ve got obsidian’ in his usual blunt manner. 

Without thinking about it you opened your inventory and took out a stack of obsidian and a flint and steel and held them up to the pair. Their eyebrows raised and Tommy started asking you why the hell you had so much obsidian on you! But you just half shrugged and glanced away, saying you kept an approximate assortment of items on you at all times. The boys gave each other a ‘what the hell’ look before Tubbo shrugged and said who cares then asked where they should build the nether portal.

Tommy suggested building it in the village, but you nixed that idea right away. Tommy huffed and asked WHY NOT and you said you weren’t going to open an actual portal to HELL in the middle of your village. Any number of hostile creatures could come waltzing through and kill your villagers or even burn the place down. Tommy winced and softly mumbled that yeah that was a possibility. You rolled your eyes and Tubbo suggested building it outside the bamboo walls surrounding your village. You agreed and then you three set off to find a good spot. 

Thankfully finding a spot a safe distance from the village, on a hill too, was pretty easy. And you made the portal as one usually does. At one point you misplaced a block of obsidian and the two boys laughed and Tubbo said that now the portal was going to be all wonky looking. And Tommy was in the middle of saying you sucked at building when you thoughtlessly deleted the block of obsidian before lighting the portal with the flint and steel. All was silent. 

. . . .

“WOT!? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?” Tommy practically screeched. 

You blinked and looked at the two gobsmacked teens before realizing you’d just pulled some not exactly possible shit. They were giving you two twin Looks that basically screamed for you to explain yourself. But you just stayed silent for a minute before just saying not to worry about it. Internally you winced at that unintentionally dodgy answer but the two boys just kept pestering you, demanding to know how you’d done that. You sighed, knowing they’d keep on pestering you. So you decided to tease them a bit, just for laughs.

“You two can’t expect me to give away all my mystical secrets, can you~?” You said with a sly grin, waggling your fingers when you said ‘mystical’, just to play up the drama.

The two clearly did because Tommy went on a rant about how that was ‘such bullshit!’ and you can’t just ‘pull some weirdo shit like that and expect no questions!’ and more. You laughed and held your hands up in mock surrender before sighing a dramatic sigh and said fine, you’d reveal one of your secrets. But they had to swear not to tell anyone. Like you expected the two agreed without a thought. Then you took a deep breath and laced your fingers together in front of you, telling them to copy you. They did without question, both looking eager to learn. You told them to close their eyes and breathe steadily and listen to your voice. They did and you couldn’t hold back the smile as you continued,

“Alright, keep your eyes closed. Focus on my voice. The key to my master block breaking skills is quite simple really,” you said as you silently inched back, keeping an eye on them both as they stood there, eyes closed and hands clasped in front of them. Your smile grew into a grin as you felt the strange warmth of the nether portal envelop you, purple tinting your vision as you continued,

“The key is to just never reveal your secrets!”

By the time they registered exactly what you said you were almost totally through the portal, and you started laughing your ass off when you heard Tommy scream,

“READER! YOU BASTARD! COME BACK HERE-”

But it got cut off as you were sent through the portal, the last thing you saw was the two boys lunging for you before your view darkened and the almost suffocating heat of the Nether hit you in the face. You stepped forward and yelped as you almost walked right off a cliff into a lava lake. You hurried to put up a wall of obsidian for the boys coming in after you. You didn’t want them to fall, it would have ended poorly for them if they did. 

But you couldn’t focus on that shit right now! You had to hide! There wasn’t much around you to hide behind. You were in a large mostly flat area with some flames here and there and a lava lake behind you and a large wall of netherrack in front of you some ways away. You glanced back when you heard the portal activating again, signaling the two coming through. That’s when you glanced up. With a snicker you jumped up onto the top of the portal and laid down on your side, perfectly able to see down. You stayed perfectly still as the portal made its usual strange sound before it spat out the two boys you’d come to care for in a maternal fashion. You’d almost laughed when they smacked right into the wall you put up to keep them from tumbling to their doom. Tommy cursed before following Tubbo to the other side of the portal.

Tommy was definitely fired up, Tubbo laughing as they boys scoured the area for you. They didn’t see a glimpse of you, which felt crazy because you’re in WHITE. In the Nether! You should stick out like a sore thumb! And there was nowhere within running distance to hide so that made Tubbo sputter and ask how fast you were exactly! You bit your tongue to keep from laughing and watched them start walking away from the portal, calling your name and demanding you ‘show yourself this instant!’ as they did. You just watched them go with a grin, deciding to let them wander around a bit before you popped back up.

You laid there as they got further away, heading for what looked to be a crimson forest about 50 or so blocks to the left of the portal. As you laid there you sighed. Breathing in the Nether wasn’t fun. It honestly just made you want to grimace, this place honestly felt like a shitty dry summer day in a desert. Overwhelming and too humid to do anyone any good. You just wished it wasn’t so warm to breathe in. If the air was cooler, at least by a handful of degrees, then you’d probably be able to enjoy this place. But you supposed it could be worse. It could be a suffocating WET heat, like trying to breathe through a bowl of hot soup. 

At that point you glanced around and noticed you couldn’t see either Tommy or Tubbo anymore. So you figured it was time to go hunt them down so they could try to interrogate you. You walked along, passing a couple zombified piglins as you did. They each had thousand yard stares like regular zombies so you didn’t pay them much mind. Though you noticed when you passed by the regular non zombie piglins they all looked at you, snorting enviously at your golden jewelry. You couldn’t keep the smile from your face. You had to admit that it was nice to have someone appreciate your accessories. The number had increased since you’d started wearing the bangles. The armorer who first made them saw you liked them and so started making more jewelry.

Now you had the bangles, a couple anklets, more than a couple necklaces (both chokers and longer ones), plenty of rings, and even some pretty dangly earrings coupled with some studs. Your ears shockingly hadn’t been pierced when you’d gone to put them in after getting the gift. Which was weird since they’d been pierced before? But it wasn’t a big deal, you’d pierced your own ears before so you just did it again. And when you’d shown the boys they’d said you looked nice but they just didn’t appreciate jewelry like you did. Though you could see the piglins certainly did, but that was probably just because they were gold. But it was nice to have someone like them regardless.

You were appreciating the gold rings on one piglin’s tusks (and idly wondering if you’d be able to do the same for your antlers?) when suddenly you heard Tommy start shrieking. And not his usual angry shriek but instead one that was full of panic and fear. You jolted when you heard him yelling Tubbo’s name frantically, sprinting towards their cries without even saying a parting goodbye to the nice piglin you’d been standing with. Which was good because without wasting time with pleasantries you were able to find Tubbo and Tommy fairly quickly. Only downside was when you found them it was with them backed against a wall in the crimson forest with nowhere to run with a very angry hoglin ramming its huge tusks against Tubbo’s rapidly breaking shield, Tommy right behind him, both screeching and cursing at each other.

You didn’t even think as you charged at the hoglin. When you got up behind it you acted on pure instinct, desperate to get it away from the two screaming kids. So you grabbed its hind leg and yanked it back, momentarily shocked at how easy it was to do so. But you couldn’t worry about that right now. You pulled the hoglin back then swung it around before tossing it a few yards back. It landed with a heavy THUD, clearly taking damage, squealing in anger as it got back up and shook itself off. Though it snorted angrily it didn’t try to attack you but instead tried to go around you to reach the two boys. But you didn’t give it the chance before you were literally grabbing it by the tusks and spinning your body around before slamming the hoglin into one of the nearby tree sized crimson fungus. It smashed through the trunk, destroying two blocks in the process. The hoglin lay crumpled on the ground, weakly trying to stand only to die shortly after when you stomped on its neck.

It disappeared with a small ‘poof’, leaving behind a hide and some raw pork. You grabbed them up before walking over to the stunned teenage boys by the wall. You started checking them over to see if they’d taken any damage and then once you were sure they were okay you started asking them why on earth they’d come to the nether without shields and weapons! Tubbo said his sword had had lower durability than he’d thought and it broke when he was fighting off the hoglin! And Tommy shamefully admitted to having his sword but… dropping his shield when they were climbing across the crimson fungus. Then he’d apparently fallen and gotten surprised by the hoglin, who had done a good chunk of damage to him before Tubbo jumped down (taking damage in the process) to try and help him. All in all the two looked super embarrassed. You just shook your head and said they were idiots, but you were glad they were alive. 

While you grabbed two shields and a sword from your inventory Tommy went nuts, saying that was the coolest shit he’d ever seen anyone do ever! You gave him an amused look and asked what he meant. The killing the hoglin thing? He’d never seen someone kill a pig? He gawped at you and yelled out that NO he’d seen people kill hoglins, but he’d never seen anyone basically fight one with their bare hands! Tubbo cut in and added ‘and live!’ to the blond’s statement, which Tommy nodded along with. You just rolled your eyes and handed them the shields and Tubbo the sword before calling them silly for getting so worked up over you killing a hoglin. Then before they could rant more you pulled them both into a gentle side hug and sighed,

“I’m glad you’re both okay though, you scared me back there. I don’t want either of you getting hurt. So please be more careful, okay? For me?”

The two boys softened at that and each timidly wrapped an arm around you, feeling bad they’d worried you but… oddly happy that you cared enough to even BE worried. Which was a weird train of thought for them. Neither had any parents save for Philza, and he was mostly just a loose dad figure. He was a good guy and helped care for them but he also believed in letting them figure stuff out on their own and didn’t really offer help unless they asked for it. But you felt different. They’d only known you for a few weeks but it felt like longer. They felt safe with you in your village and yeah you had your rules but they strangely didn’t mind following them. It made you happy and when you were happy they were happy too.

Though the touching moment was brought to a sudden halt when Tommy suddenly shrieked. You and the boys looked down to see a baby hogling ramming its tusks against the blond boy’s ankles. You laughed and reached down before smacking it on the haunch, causing it to squeal in shock and run away. Tommy grumbled and cursed the small thing, making you and Tubbo snicker. But then you asked them what they needed from the Nether. Turns out they needed blaze rods and were going to loot a nether fortress. You said that sounded dangerous and asked them if they had any food to restore their health or even fire resistance potions. And well they had food so, not a total facepalm moment. But then they asked you where your weapon was, and your shield! Did YOU have food or fire resistance potions? You blinked and said you’re sure you had some of that stuff yeah.

They pestered you until you pulled out your enchanted axe and shield. You didn’t really need the shield you didn’t think but it seemed to put the two boys at ease so you carried it as you followed them through the nether. Idly you made sure to leave a trail of cobblestone behind you all, so you’d know where you’d come from and could find your way back easier. And it turns out that was a smart move because you all walked a long way, through at least 4 different biomes, before you stumbled across a nether fortress. Said structure loomed over you three, looking utterly massive and low key intimidating. You squinted and told the two boys you could see a couple zombie piglins and wither skeletons up on the landings walking around. Tommy groaned and said the wither skeletons were a pain in the ass but knocking them off the edge was pretty easy.

The rest of the evening was spent following the two around the nether fortress, helping them collect potion ingredients and fend off mobs. And to your utter shock you three had discovered that you just… didn’t take fire damage! Like, at all. You’d been busy helping them knock back a couple wither skeletons when unbeknownst to you three a blaze had approached and shot fireballs at you, hitting you square in the back. You honestly hadn’t even noticed, being too busy with helping Tommy fend off a skeleton. It was only after you knocked them all off and Tubbo yelped about you burning did you pause and ask what he was going on about. You understood when he screamed that you were on fire. And yeah, when you looked down you actually were. But it… didn’t hurt? It wasn’t even burning you or your clothes. You just blinked stupidly before simply patting it out. As you three stood there silently it seemed Tommy became fed up as he shouted,

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU!?”

Which just made you start laughing your ass off, only able to offer him a shrug because honestly you didn’t even know yourself at this point. Tubbo started giggling as well which eventually got Tommy to crack a smile before he broke out into laughter too. You all finished laughing and Tubbo suggested that maybe it was a fluke? Tommy nodded and said maybe you just got lucky or were in shock or something? Though that was disproved when you checked yourself and your skin and clothes were totally fine, no burns at all. Tubbo grinned and suggested testing it. You raised an eyebrow and he pulled out a flint and steel before lighting a patch of the ground on fire. Tommy’s eyes were wide but he was grinning and looking at you, probably wondering if you were actually going to do it. You were anxious, because all your previous life experience told you ‘fire bad’ but… you were curious too.

So you stuck one foot into the fire. And… nothing. It felt warm for sure. Sort of like if you stuck your hand in front of a space heater. Very warm but it didn’t hurt. So you just stepped into the fire and it crawled up your skin until it was licking at your face. But you were totally fine. Tommy and Tubbo laughed incredulously, with the blond saying this whole thing was fucking insane. He asked if you were sure you hadn’t drank any fire resistance potions? You shook your head no and Tubbo pointed out that surely they would have seen the potion particles if that were the case. Tommy hummed but agreed before saying that despite this all being neat and shit that they still had the rest of the fortress to scavenge. Tubbo followed him with you leading the rear and on your way inside the brunet laughingly said he was going to use you as a blaze shield. You just gave a fake offended gasp and just said, ���Rude.” which made both boys snicker.

-0-

True to their word they’d used you like a human shield. But since you took no damage you just rolled with it, actually finding all of this pretty amusing by now. And after you’d all gathered more than enough blaze rods you’d separated from them for a bit. Mostly just sticking around the sand path that led back to the portal while they searched the rest of the fortress for nether wart and mined for glowstone dust. And while they did that you sat on a block of sand and pulled out some food to eat, mostly out of boredom than from any real desire to satiate any hunger. But while you were munching on a golden carrot a little piglin child came up to you to admire your golden jewelry. You smiled down at them, inwardly cooing over how adorable they were with their little baby tusks. And you almost died when they let out a happy squeal when you offered them a chunk of your golden carrot. You’re not sure how long you sat there with the baby piglin but after eating a couple carrots together you placed down another block of sand before using your finger to draw pictures in the sand, much to the child’s delight. They copied you and started drawing pictures too. Most of which you couldn’t recognize but they were still cute.

“OI! Reader! C’mon, we’re done!!” yelled the blond boy from up the path a ways. 

The baby piglin snorted in distrust and hid a bit behind the sand block, showing they didn’t really trust the two players. You chuckled and said you were coming to the two boys before standing up and dusting yourself off. Then you glanced down at the tiny little piglin and smiled before pulling a gold ingot from your inventory. The baby piglin snorted enviously then squealed loudly when you handed them the ingot. They couldn’t take their wide eyes off of it, making you giggle at how precious they were. But sadly you had to go so you gently patted their head and said goodbye. They managed to tear their eyes away from the gold to snort sadly as you left. Part of you felt bad but the bigger part knew they couldn’t follow you to the Overworld..

After leaving the Nether you broke the portal, not wanting to risk any nether creatures accidentally stumbling through and getting hurt. And with a glance around you saw it was getting late. To the point where Tubbo and Tommy would have to rush to get back to their houses before night fell. So you saw them off, giving them some food for the trip and even giving them another hug goodbye. One you noticed they relaxed into faster than before. Then they were off, calling out goodbyes and saying they’d be back either tomorrow or the next day. You waved bye and said you looked forward to it, calling out your usual ‘be careful!’ before you couldn’t see them anymore. You frowned a little. Despite them having armor and weapons you still worried about them travelling alone at night after they visited you. You think next time you’ll walk them home. Just to make sure they were safe.

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@salinesoot @lady-bee-fechin @kacchasu @putridjoy @lunawritesstories @galaxypankitty3030 @paradigmax @zachariethememerie @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @hufflepuff-demigod @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale​

[secret-rendezvous1d]

what about matthew proposing to you?

(i also heard somewhere he wants to get eloped😉)

Okay, so, I wanted this to turn out cute so-

The house is quiet when she walks through the front door.

She expected the crackle of the fire to be filling the living room, the television showing a telly programme that he was invested in watching, the kettle brewing because he fancied a cup of coffee before they cooked dinner together, and she expected there to be some kind of sound in the house that made it known to her that he was home. And he was home because his car was parked in the driveway in front of their house and both his house keys and his car keys were left in the bowl on the table in the porch. 

Shrugging off her jacket and leaving her bag on the vacant sofa in the living room, she takes a walk into the kitchen with the focus on preparing what they were having for dinner; peppers stuffed with spicy chicken and rice and plenty of veggies with a salad to go on the side. 

Except the glow in the garden catches her attention. 

What the heck is going on? is all she questions in her mind when she looks out the window.

Forming a pathway to the middle of their garden, where their summer gazebo had been built, there were tea-light candles flickering in the gentle breeze of the evening. 

“What’s all this for?”

“Come here,” Matthew signals for her to follow the path he had set, a little out of place and a little wonky but the gesture was there and she could tell he had spent a while planning this out, and she’s confused. Getting more and more and more curious with each step she took, the faint silhouette of his body becoming much more clearer as she got closer and, it was then, that she notices the suit adorning his body. “Don’t go asking questions yet. Just, stand there.”

She comes to a halt where the candles began to billow out into a full circle, the demeanour of his body changing and he looked... nervous. He looked stressed and almost scared of what was about to happen and it made YN have a need to know what was about to happy. The tension becoming unbearable because she hated surprises.

“Matthew-”

“No, no questions yet,” he hums, stepping forward and taking her hands in his, the soft pads of his fingertips so gentle with hers, “just, let me talk.”

“But-”

He shushes her and she giggles, a smile lifting up his cheeks, and the silence is almost painful for her. She can hear his ragged breathing but it disappears into the rumbling of the tyres of passing cars that drove by their house and she could hear their neighbours coming home from the way the front door slammed and echoed around their lower level, his hands were shaking in her touch and it wasn’t because of the breeze that caught in the trees around them and, as much as she tried to make eye contact with him, he couldn’t bring himself to look up from the ground.

“Okay, so,” he clears his through with a tacky grunt and it takes her back at how groggy it sounded, “uhm, so, we’ve spent the last few years together and I feel like I know you like the back of my hand. No, I do know you like the back of my hand. I know the position you like to sleep in so you get a full night, I know what ticks you off and what makes you angry so I steer away from doing that so I don’t upset you, I know what you secretly love and what you hate but pretend to love because everyone around you loves it and I know what you say you hate but class as your guilty pleasure,” his voice sounds hoarse and there’s a catch in his words, “I know you better than anyone else knows you.”

It’s then when he looks up and his eyes are glossy, shadows cast by his facial features from the flickering candle-light surrounding them, and he licks his dry lips.

“And I want to keep getting to know you. I want us to keep learning about each other and I want us learn new things together and do exciting things together and I want to teach you new things and have you teach me new things,” his thumbs rub over her knuckles and she looks down with a blush in her cheeks; she had a inkling where this was going, “YN, I’ve had the best few years with you. You were my best friend, my friends with benefits, my girlfriend and now, I want so much more with you. And you deserve something so much better than candles in a garden but I knew that as soon as you left this morning, and you kissed me goodbye and went to meet my mum for brunch before going out with your friends, I knew that I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life.”

She feels her chin wobble with tears and her eyes sting and, as a stray tear trickles down her cheek, she can feel the cool breeze against her wet skin.

“I want to kiss you every morning like we did this morning, I want to wake up next to you every morning and kiss you because you always look so gorgeous when you wake up and I want to fall asleep next you every night and hold you under the covers because you’re so warm and I want to do routine tasks with you and be the one who runs and grabs toilet paper for you because we ran out. Who goes and gets tampons and pads in the middle of the night because you have none left. Even if I have to go in my pyjamas,” she snickers and rolls her eyes at him, a smile staying put on her mouth, “I do anything for you. I want to be the best husband I can be, to carry on being your best friend, because you’ll be the best wife ever and I need to up my game.”

He takes one hand from her so he can fish in his blazer pocket, taking his other hand from her hold so he could kneel before her on one knee.

“I love you, I’m always going to love you, and nothing will ever change when we get down the aisle and say ‘I do’ to one another,” and hear it goes. She tells herself not to cry but how can she not when he’s done all this for her? How can she hold back her emotions when she was about to have everything she had ever wanted in life? “What do you say, baby? Will you marry me?”

And she’d have been a fool to say no to him when the love she had for him felt like she would explode. xx

[yandere-sins]

Not the same person, but I really LOVED your Hawks x Winged!reader shot! Can I ask for some kind of spin off, where Hawks is looking after a reader(maybe getting their hairs done, or preening their feathers) and being very possessive about it, cooing what a cute birdie his Darling is, while reader tries not to panic because they dislike ppl touching their wings as a part of trauma? I'm sucker for yanderes being super creepy while doing generally sweet things.

Ah yes, I think every now and then everyone needs a reminder that their yandere is only doing things for them. Because they love them, right? That’s a really good point there, tehe (･ωI got a little off-request here because inspiration sometimes wants a different way than the request is, but I hope it’s still enjoyable!

»»————-———— ♡ ————————-««

If being bound to chains from the walls around you really was in your best interest, you had your doubts. In fact, you had your doubts about a lot of things. Like being kidnapped, held captive in a dark room, with deadbolts keeping the door shut, and presumably, underground. Yes, your wing-quirk was rare, but not to be underestimated, and if anyone knew this, then Hawks.

The only companion you had, was that damn cuckoo clock on the wall opposite from where he held you throughout the door. The sound of the - immensely funny how Hawks found - gift was something you’d never ever forget again in your whole life. How could you? It made sure you never dozed off more than an hour before tearing you out of your much prettier, much more peaceful dreams, and you despised it for it. 

But at least, it let you know about dinnertime. The only time that Hawks more or less managed to keep up routinely. He was worse with feeding you breakfast, and lunch was almost entirely canceled with the job the hero had, but for dinner - he always said - he wanted to be home. Home with his favorite nightingale for bonding and cuddles afterwards, his idea of a relationship.

Yours... not so much.

Food was something you learned to appreciate. It helped you stay sane to have something warm between your teeth, gave you some strength to wring with your captor for the space you needed afterwards. But Hawks- no, Keigo’s views on how you two should hang out, not only differed from yours but also, any you knew ‘normal’ couples did. Then again, what was normal when your partner was a madman?

As much as you resented the cuckoo for its loud, annoying screams of time, you couldn’t help but feel relieved that you’d be let down from your wall prison, able to move your wrists without the metallic clanking against your ears again. Even with two large wings, you were glad to be put back onto your feet, the strain on your wings’ roots - where they were steadied against the wall with metal chains too, becoming harder the longer you had to endure it. You tried not thinking about the fight that would break out in the morning when he demanded to put you up into chains again, believing this was nothing you should be worried right now. Because when you heard the first turn of the lock on your door, you knew you were in for more trouble than the ones still one night away.

Keigo whistled a happy tune as he pushed open the door, his slippers scrubbing over the floor while he carried in a tray of various little bowls. It seemed like typical japanese food, but you were sure there was nothing more than fast food inside. “Hello, my Dove. How’s your day been? Have you been hanging out here?” Snickering about his own joke, you learned to ignore the stupid remarks. 

You had been commendable lately, making sure to have good conversations with him and to humor his need to be close to you, aside from being a little unwilling to get back into chains every day. He at least didn’t seem mad about that, and you sometimes even thought to see the hints of pity in his eyes whenever he did what he thought he had to. So whatever you had built up with him in terms of a relationship, you didn’t want to mess it up with a useless comment when he was in quite such a good mood. 

Turning the switch on the light, the room lit up, even though the heavy curtains usually didn’t allow much light inside, and you blinked a few times to adjust to it. From his pocket, Keigo made a big show to pull out the keys to your chains, and with the hints of a thankful smile, you helped adjust your limbs to make it easy for him to reach the locks. After so many negative sounds, the clicking of them, with the following release of your arms and wings, was a delight rarely experienced by the average human, and you breathed a breath of relief to be freed of your restrains.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, ready to take careful steps towards the table in the corner of the room. However, suddenly he stepped into your field of vision, denying you an easy walk forward, instead, bringing you to a wonky halt. From his grin and open arms, you weren’t sure if he wanted something or if that was just to make you stop, but you decided against trying to pass him, watching his wings sway expectantly with more confusion on your side.

“Don’t you think I deserve a ‘welcome-home’-hug after my long day of work? I’ve been thinking about you all day long! Have you thought about me too?”

Truth be told, whatever had brought him to the conclusion that he deserved anything from you, must have been the same bug that had told him to kidnap you. But once your initial hesitation wore off, you tugged in your wings as tightly as you could to your back, before approaching him. The one-sided hug wasn’t quite what he must have envisioned when he asked for it, but the torture wasn’t long for you anyway.

You only briefly missed his eyes inspecting your wings which seemed to shift every time he moved his hands on your back, but you assured him of his question, which was enough for him to hear for now. “Yeah... Thought about you too.”

However, when you sat there for dinner, Hawks was different enough for you to notice. He was usually the one to always steal from your sparse array of chicken wings and fries, but he seemed absentminded on his chair for the duration of your meal, nibbling on some snagged bone, eyes always falling back over to your wings even when you moved them as far away from his view as possible.

“I think you chipped a feather with your struggling,” he eventually muttered as you wrapped up the bowls, thanking him for the meal. “It’s been bothering me since this morning, what if more are broken?”

You couldn’t help a worried glance over your shoulder, but of course, without spreading them and maybe a few mirrors to see the backside, you wouldn’t be able to determine if everything was okay. “Maybe you should let me take a look-” he offered, a fast hand reaching out for behind your back, but you flinched out of the way fast enough, catching his wrist just in time with a loud, “NO!”

Keigo didn’t spare you the sharp glare from below at your dismissal of his help, letting out a loud hum before retracting back to his seat. You didn’t miss a heartbeat to sit sideways on your chair, bringing your wings as far away as possible from him. “If there’s a broken feather, we need to mend it, Birdy, Darling.”

“I am sure they are fine, just a little... shuffled, yeah.”

“Mhm, I’d still like to see,” he insisted, standing up. He wasn’t a super tall figure in comparison to a lot of his colleagues, but he sure could look menacing when he hovered over you. The only good thing about it was the open space beneath his arm, that you slipped through quickly, giving yourself a mental pat for quick actions.

The only thing you didn’t consider was that Hawks always was quicker. Quicker in hunting people down, quicker in bringing them to the police, and quicker in catching you, knowing exactly what you were going for the moment your eyes fell on the open space. It had been a long time for someone to touch your wings. Even from Hawks, you had mostly kept them away, so you already had forgotten the feeling of a hand brushing into your feathers, gripping them tightly.

With a weak, panic-induced squeal, you stumbled to the side, pulling him with you as his hand held on just a bit tighter under your frantic movements. You could feel the feathers ripping from the root one after the other as he didn’t let go, your breathing picking up speed and lungs unable to handle the stress of the rapid air pouring in and out. Your hyperventilation did nothing to stop him, and with every sound of their fickle stems breaking you remembered more and more the circumstances of your upbringing.

It was just like when they had used you as a feather-maker before. The people you trusted most had regularly plucked them out to sell and make accessories for buyers, even when you bled and asked them not to. This was barely any different, especially not when Hawks clicked his tongue in annoyance the more you struggled.

Not long, and you found yourself in the stranglehold of his arm, bits of fluffy feathers falling from his hand as he finally pulled it away from your wings again, keeping you locked helplessly in his hold. “Calm down, it’s not like I want to hurt you.” There was nothing harder than to calm your racing heart and ragged breath, but you at least tried, especially when the air to breathe became thinner in his chokehold.

“Look, I found the bad boy,” he cooed, holding up his hand triumphantly to show you one long feather he had pulled out, slightly crooked at the end. Though you believed you started to see stars, clinging to his arm desperately, you nodded, quaking a ‘Thank you’ to him as best as you could.

Finally, he let you go, your body sinking to the ground, unable to hold up as every limb seemed to shiver uncontrollably. It took you a good minute to get some control over yourself again, the pain on your neck finally setting in too, and you shuddered just thinking about what just happened. But it wasn’t like Keigo ever gave you time to work through your experiences, especially not when you were so vulnerably open to him now.

You couldn’t possibly have seen his arms coming as they hooked under your shoulders, pulling you back up and over to the bed on which he sat down himself, letting your body glide to the floor. If anyone knew how to treat wings and tickle their instincts, it was Hawks, so it shouldn’t have surprised you as much as it did as he drove his hand up your spine, triggering your feathers to ruffle unwillingly. Immediately, you wanted to jump away again, but with a reprimanding ‘Ah-Ah’ his legs wrung around your torso, keeping your locked in your place despite your wiggles. 

It became only worse with the feelings of his hands brushing down your ruffled feather again, spreading them over his lap to get a really good look at them. “There are so many more broken ones. We have to take care of them, you understand that, right? It will only hurt so much to lose a few for the sake of keeping you healthy, I promise.”

“No... please...” you muttered as you heard his words, noticing his fingertips combing through every feather to inspect them one by one. “Don’t be a child now, I know what I’m doing. Just be a good birdie and let me handle this, [Name].”

There was no more resisting his words, Keigo being deadset on fixing your ruined feathers, one way or another. “Take a deep breath,” he advised, and you felt the hot tears roll down your cheeks as those words reminded you of the past. Hearing you following his instructions, Keigo did a trial tug, seeing just how much you’d flinch from it before strengthening his legs around your torso, knowing it would cause a lot of stirring if he really pulled it out.

“On the count of three, my Dove.”

[cdyssey]

Miscalculations

Summary: The toll of being in the multiverse for too long finally exacts its price on Olivia Octavius. A/N: I've been babysitting for family friends these past two days, and the little one made us watch *Into the Spider-Verse* five times over, so I wanted to write something.

AO3 Link At the end of Olivia Octavius’s world, there is blood, so much of it, too much—staining her shirt dark around her midsection where old incisions are prying themselves loose, and dribbling warningly down her mouth in a thin line.

Cellular decay.

Accelerated decomposition.

As her erythrocytes continue to implode upon themselves, her organs will shut down one by one until the lack of oxygen finally squeezes upon her tired heart like a vice.

She was out of her own dimension for too long.

If you stay in this dimension too long, your body’s going to disintegrate. Do you know how painful that would be, Peter Parker?

She thought she could have control of the multiverse if only she could stabilize her body with exposure to gamma radiation, theorizing that the treatment would do as it had done for the infamous Bruce Banner and reinforce her cellular structure—but she miscalculated.

And Olivia never miscalculates.

No, that isn’t true, an awful voice in her head says, right here and right now, on her fucking death bed. Her conscience has always gloated rather than informed. You miscalculate all the time.

“No, goddammit,” May Parker growls. “You do not get to leave like this.” 

Surprise jolts through her unpleasantly considering everything that is happening to her body; with an effort that isn’t minimal, the physicist opens her eyes to see a familiar shape kneeling by her side, pressing gnarled hands to her stomach wounds, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding.

But there is so much of it, too much.

Out of the periphery of her eye that isn’t blackened, she can see the shadows of the various Spider-Fools simply standing a few feet away, watching. For they understand, better than maybe most, that there is nothing to be done, no more fight to be had.

May Parker’s hands are vivid with her blood, drowning in it.

“What?” Olivia attempts a bloodied smile that doesn’t quite cut through the pain in her eyes. “You want me to walk away in cuffs? Cheeky, cheeky, May Parker. I thought you were oh-so-straight-laced.”

“Shut up,” May snarls, and the scientist is startled to see that there are tears in her cornflower blue eyes, threatening to spill over, to leak, to pour.

And then she knows.

She knows, she knows, she knows.

That May Parker still loves her, too.

That maybe she never stopped.

And the realization of it takes her breath away, what little of it is that is left.

“May,” she says, her voice surprisingly soft, even though her shivering hands are firm as she slowly brings them up to rest upon the other woman’s. “Cellular decay. Multisystem organ failure. Within a few minutes, I'll likely go into cardiac arrest. It will be quick, maybe even painless.”

“No,” May mutters. “No, no, no. We could get you to a hospital, offset the worst of your symptoms until we can regenerate cellular life in you. An ambulance is coming. ETA five minutes.”

“You’re thinking with that big, ‘ole heart of yours again.” The thing Olivia loves and hates most about the old bat—how much she cares. It’s sickening. It’s stupid. It’s wonderful. “I’ve lost too much blood, and my exoskeleton implants are compromised, which—“

But May cuts across her with an explosive swear.

“—likely means that your spine is also compromised,” she finishes, eyes closing in horror. 

Liv smiles weakly, a gesture which ends in her coughing up phlegm and blood.

“Correct.”

Doc Ock’s comeuppance has finally arrived, both decades late and years too soon. It is quieter than she imagined it would be, less of a kaleidoscope of many colors than it is a coagulated darkness. She can see black beginning to edge upon her vision, eradicating the excess, eliminating anything that isn’t May Parker.

How fitting.

“I went to twenty-seven different dimensions, May,” she whispers, “and they were all so beautiful—vivid, unique, and extraordinary, each a fully realized universe unto its own...”

When she closes her eyes, she can conjure them even now, the shapes of them, their textures, their scientific impossibility... and it is with awful reluctance that she pries them open again. The darkness is so soft and inviting. Oblivion isn’t as scary as she had imagined it to be.

Maybe she can explore its expansive confines, understand it in the same way she does quasi connectivity in dimensional warping.

Or maybe Olivia Octavius can simply rest.

That might be a nice change in pace.

“Liv...” May whispers, though, and it’s more than enough of a reminder for the sole reason she’d ever stay if she had a choice.

(She doesn’t have a choice.)

“And in every world, I did what a scientist just a tiny bit full of herself would naturally do. I searched myself out. In every dimension... and I asked myself, damn, do I really look like that? In eighty-nine percent of the worlds, I had a bowl cut, May! A godawful bowl cut!”

“Is this really what you want to talk about?”

“Yes—I mean no. No.” Olivia’s dark brow furrows as she herself tries to remember the point of bringing up the twenty-seven universes and the self-exploration and the bowl cuts. Her brain’s a little wonky at the moment, dull and heavy, like a rock sunk in a lake.

But then it hits her.

Realization and remembrance.

Dimension 24. Earth C-432.

The cats. The apartment in Brooklyn. The cozy sweaters. The peace.

“In the 24th iteration of Earth I visited, I looked a lot like I do now—geeky, foxy, big hair, and less than enviable eyesight... I was intrigued naturally, and so, when I found out where I lived, I paid myself a little visit.”

She knocked politely on the door before not so politely letting herself in, tentacular extensions swarming.

She always did like a dramatic entrance.

Fuck, Olivia J. Octavius moaned. I invented inter-dimensional travel again.

May E. Parker looked up from her mug of coffee and simply raised an unimpressed brow.

Well, at least you didn’t smash the door this time.

“I'd... she’d never gotten the implants, so she was paralyzed from the waist down... do y’know what that means?”

Of course May does.

Beneath Liv’s hand, her knuckles tense, the ridges warm against her cold palm.

“We never separated then,” she rasps, her voice strained, a hundred emotions thick. “I must have taken you home from the hospital, like I told you I would.”

“Yeah.”

A single tear leaks out of the corner of Olivia’s blackened eye, dripping down her cheek and falling away. If she'd been able to, she would have tried to wipe it away before May Parker could see.

“Were we happy, Liv?” She whispers, and she looks guilty about it. She has never cared much for hypotheticals, while Olivia built her entire career upon them—a delicate balancing act, always doomed to collapse one day.

She just never wanted to admit it.

Indeed, she just wanted to see how high she could go.

She didn't want to touch the stars.

She wanted to rip open the fabric of the fucking universe.

“We have two cats, one called Marie and the other Curie... and we live together in an apartment in Brooklyn. Nice place. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts just around the corner. Parker visits at least three times a week unless he’s busy saving the city or the world or whatever the hell else he has it in his mind to save. He has a kid—a boy named Ben, but everyone calls him Fox because of the hair.”

We like to beat each other at Scrabble, even though we’re both sore losers. Four times a week, we head up to Columbia to do guest lectures on particulate matter and cellular structure and quantum physics. You’ve organized all of our medicines in alphabetical order, and I tease you about it because of course I do. Once a month, we replace the flowers on Ben Parker’s grave and have a picnic in the cemetery. We’re thinking about moving to a tiny house on Long Island that’s more wheelchair accessible, and we can hear the ocean every time we wake up in the morning side by side. There are wedding bands on our fingers, simple, understated, even though I'm pretty fucking sure they're made of anti-metal. In a different world, in an entirely separate universe, we are together forever, as long as we both shall live.

“I think so. I think we were happy,” she finishes quietly, “but I didn’t stay long enough to know for sure.”

“Too bad,” May Parker finally says, her tears falling freely now.

With the last of her strength, Olivia squeezes her hand.

“I... I heard myself say one thing, though, right as I was leaving.” 

By leaving, she left a gaping hole next to their door just for the hell and spite of it. 

“I chose correctly, it seems.”

In that warm apartment, May E. Parker laughed bluntly before she returned, quite dryly, You never miscalculate, do you?

“Never.”

Always.

Olivia Octavius miscalculates all the time.

[thelastspeecher]

Hey look it’s another ficlet that I’m too lazy to come up with a title for.  This time, it’s the Angiewolf AU.  It’s basically just cute domestic stuff, but it also includes Stan asking Ford if he’s ever actually seen a baby.  And that’s all the info I’m giving.

              Stan entered Ford’s house.  As he closed the door, he caught sight of Angie dozing in his armchair in the living room.  Unbidden, a fond smile spread across his face.  He walked over to her and kissed her forehead.  Angie smiled faintly, then kicked her leg with a low growl.

              “She still dreamin’ of chasin’ cars?” Fiddleford’s voice asked.  Stan turned around.  Fiddleford stood in the entryway to the kitchen, drying a bowl with a dishtowel.

              “Seems like it.”

              “And here I was thinkin’ her sleepin’ habits were wonky before,” Fiddleford said, shaking his head.  “But I can’t blame her.  Bein’ pregnant is hard work with one baby.  With three…”  Stan glanced back at Angie.  Her large baby bump was evident no matter which position she slept in.

              “Yeah, she’s pissed that she mostly just feels like sleeping,” Stan replied. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets.  “She misses going on hikes.  Or walking for an extended period of time.”

              “Mm.  I’d say it’s the wolf in her, but she’s always been someone who don’t like to stay still.”  Fiddleford sighed.  “Well, she’s overdue, so any day now, she’ll be tired fer a very dif’rent reason.  Fer that matter, so will you.”

              “Mm-hmm.”

              “Say, how’s the house comin’ along?” Fiddleford asked brightly.  Stan grinned.

              “It looks great so far.”

              “‘So far’?  I’m guessin’ that means it ain’t done yet.”

              “No.  But it’s getting close.  I’ve been helping out here and there, but Dan keeps chasing me off, telling me to stick to cutting down trees for now.  Apparently he doesn’t think I have the appropriate ‘credentials’ to build a house,” Stan scoffed, sketching air quotes with his fingers.  Fiddleford rolled his eyes.

              “Would ya like yer babies to live in a house what was made by a professional? Or one what was built by a feller who didn’t even graduate high school?”

              “…Point taken.”

              “Any idea when it’ll be done?”

              “Not until September,” Stan answered.  Fiddleford grimaced.

              “Two months from now?”

              “Yeah.”  Stan rubbed the back of his neck.  “So, uh, whenever the kids decide to show up, we, uh, we might have to keep crashing here. Until the place is all done.  I mean, we could probably find somewhere else, but it’d cost money, and we already spent a good chunk of what we’ve got saved on the house and baby stuff.”  Fiddleford raised an eyebrow.  “Fine, a good chunk of what Angie’s got saved.”

              “Well, I don’t have any quarrel with y’all stayin’ fer a couple months until yer accommodations get in order.  You’ll have to talk to yer brother, though, since he’s the one whose name is on the deed.”

              “Eh, should be easy enough,” Stan said with a shrug.  “He’s been losing his mind over getting to ‘observe werewolf pups’. He might even be disappointed when we finally move out.”  Loud footsteps thundered down the hall.  Ford stormed into the living room.  “Hey, Ford, I just got back from the house and-”

              “Angie,” Ford said sharply, ignoring Stan.  Angie’s eyes snapped open.  She pushed herself into a more upright position.

              “Yes?” she asked blearily.

              “Care to explain something to me?”

              “…I can do my best.”

              “You haven’t transformed in nine months.  Why the hell am I still finding your fur everywhere?” Ford demanded.  He tossed a pile of fabric at Angie.  She picked up the fabric, revealing it to be one of Ford’s sweaters, caked in caramel-colored fur.

              “Yer guess is as good as mine,” she said after a moment.  She yawned and refolded Ford’s sweater.  “Maybe the old stuff is gettin’ kicked up.”  She laid her hands on top of the sweater.  “I take it yer fin’lly sick of havin’ a pregnant werewolf livin’ with ya?”

              “I wouldn’t say sick-” Ford started.  Angie waved a hand.

              “Sure, sure, you’d say somethin’ like ‘I’ve collected as much data as I can’. But it secretly means yer sick of me. Which ain’t a problem.  I’m as eager fer us to leave as you are,” she said airily.  Stan cleared his throat.

              “Yeah, about that…the house won’t be done for another couple months,” Stan said. Angie let out a loud groan.  Ford turned to face Stan.

              “Really?  Dan works so fast normally.”

              “It’s a bigger order than your place was.  We gotta make sure it’s accessible for werewolves.  Also, since we’re having three kids, we figured we should have more than one bathroom.”

              “Smart move,” Fiddleford said with a nod.  Ford ran a hand through his hair.

              “When exactly will it be done?” he asked.

              “September.”

              “September?  But that’s two months from now!”  Ford rubbed his face.  “Living with three infants and a postpartum werewolf will definitely impede my research.  They’ll be crying at all hours of the night and day, chewing up my shoes-”

              “Chewing your shoes?  Have you ever actually seen a baby?” Stan asked.  Ford ignored him.

              “I mean, living with a currently gravid and hormonal werewolf is already affecting it enough.”

              “Good Lord, do ya have to say ‘gravid’?” Angie griped.  She crossed her arms.  “Just say ‘pregnant’.  Or ‘expecting’.”  She rolled her eyes.  “And I’m so sorry that I’m makin’ yer research difficult.  Yer not the only one unhappy with the sit’ation.  I’m overdue with triplets, Stanford.  Would ya care to trade places?”

              “…No,” Ford said quietly, wisely deciding to back off.  But it was too late.

              “I haven’t shifted in months, which is somehow makin’ me even more uncomfortable than the pregnancy is!” Angie exclaimed.  “I can’t get up without help, I crave a million types of food I shouldn’t eat, I have to pee all the time, I don’t have nearly enough energy to do anything that I enjoy doin’, I-”  Angie paused, a strange look on her face.

              “Angie?” Stan asked.  Angie let out a cry of pain.  “Angie, what’s wrong?”

              “That- that was a contraction,” Angie whispered.  Stan’s heart plummeted to his feet.

              “It was a what?”

              “A contraction.”  Angie stared at him, her eyes wide.  “I’m in labor.”  Stan stared back for a second.  He finally registered what she had said.

              “Shit!”  Stan jumped forward to help Angie out of the armchair.  “Where’s the- you put the bag somewhere-”

              “The bedroom,” Angie instructed.

              “Right!”  Stan rushed away.

              “I’ll call Ma ‘n Pa,” Fiddleford said.  Angie nodded.  Stan ran back into the living room carrying a duffel bag.

              “Got it!”

              “By the way, Stanford, thanks,” Angie said.

              “For what?” Ford asked blankly.

              “Tickin’ me off enough that I fin’lly went into labor.”  She took the arm Stan was offering her.  “We’ll call when there’s babies fer ya to visit.  Don’t wait up.”

[davidmann95]

Best comics of 2018?

A handful of disqualifications up front: since they’re just beginning, I’m not counting Electric Warriors, Martian Manhunter, The Green Lantern (though Evil Star explaining his name in #2 might be my favorite moment in comics this year), Ironheart, DIE, Shazam!, Killmonger, The Batman Who Laughs, or Miles Morales: Spider-Man, all of which almost certainly would have ended up somewhere in here with some more time. Additionally, I switched to a new online pull list system in March, so I don’t have a list of what I got before then - if I’m forgetting about something great that came out early this year, there’s a good chance that would be why.

Honorary Mentions: While there were plenty of comics I was happy to keep up with, a number stood out as exemplary examples of straight-take relatively traditional capeshit: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and companies’ Justice League, Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America (which would probably go among the best of the best if the art was a bit more consistent or the lineup more to my personal tastes), Brian Bendis and Nick Derington’s Batman work in the Walmart 100-Page Giants, Donny Cates’ Thanos and Doctor Strange work (the latter might not have quite made it, but that last issue with Irving and Zdarsky was gangbusters), Steve Orlando’s brief Wonder Woman run with Laura Braga, ACO, and Raul Allen, Tim Seeley’s Green Lanterns, Nnedi Okorafor and Leonardo Romero’s Shuri, Robert Vendetti and Bryan Hitch’s Hawkman, Saladin Ahmed, Javier Rodriguez, Rod Reis, Dario Brizuela, and Joe Quinones’s Exiles, Captain America by both the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee team and the current Ta-Nehisi Coates/Lenil Francis Yu lineup, Dan Slott and Valerio Schiti’s Tony Stark: Iron Man when it’s committed solely to being a superhero comic and not Dan Slott trying to be Contemporary, Brian Bendis, Patrick Gleason, Yanick Paquette, and Ryan Sook’s Action Comics, and Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli’s West Coast Avengers. 

On the slightly different side of things, Steve Orlando and Giovanni Timpano showed how you do an intercompany crossover right with The Shadow/Batman, Max Bemis’s Moon Knight while not living up to all it could have been - and likely to age poorly - had moments of truly bizarre grace, Saga was Saga even if I’ve lost the plot, Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt concluded as well as we all might have hoped, Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt’s The Wild Storm continued to build up steam in its own fascinating style, Doomsday Clock remains utterly captivating in spite of itself, and Tom Peyer and Jamal Igle’s The Wrong Earth is making the most of a deceptively tough premise. On the one-off end, Chip Zdarsky and Declan Shalvey’s Marvel Two-In-One Annual is an essentially perfect off-kilter Doom/Richards story, Action Comics #1000 had no chance of living up to all it needed to be but was largely a great set of Superman stories regardless, and while the remainder of the miniseries has thus far been fine, Tim Seeley and Carlos Villa’s first issue of Shatterstar was a strange, special delight.

My Favorite Comics of 2018

Rock Candy Mountain: Technically Jackson - the rail-rider who can beat Any One Man in a fistfight - reached the end of his journey for hobo heaven this year, and flat-out, every Kyle Starks comic is a perfect one. This is a book where the first issue has a dude beating ass with a beautiful savagery that leaves an awestruck onlooker declaring “He’s got punch diarrhea and their faces are the toilet bowl”, and by the end it built up to one of the most moving climaxes of the year. It’s a comic about fallen men finding redemption in friendship and in dreams, and also there’s a cage fighter who calls himself Hundred Cats because it would be really hard to fight a hundred cats.

Dark Knights: Metal: This is the final, perfected form of traditional Event Comic Bullshit. Everything good about Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia’s Batman post-Court Of Owls is retooled and reenergized to fit the scale of a Crisis event, everything that I would have considered to be a weakness regarding their partnership either burned away or placed in a context where it becomes a strength. This is the Morrison approach to the DCU rightfully ascendant and presented in a form even more fit for mass consumption, and manages to live up to being the first classic-style, large-scale DC event comic in almost a decade - Marvel may blow its own load every six months until it’s simply got nothing to offer anymore, but DC waited until they really and truly had something, and that something was bloodsoaked magic.

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (by Chip Zdarsky and assorted artists): I actually wavered a bit on whether this belonged in the best of the best as a whole; most of the issues this year were definitely very good (regarding Zdarsky’s run specifically, I haven’t checked out the Spider-Geddon tie-in stuff), but more on the honorary mention end of the scale. Ultimately however, the Amazing Fantasy arc and #310 are Spider-Man comics I’m going to be coming back to for years to come - the latter is going to end up in every ‘Best Spider-Man Stories Ever’ softcover from now until the end of time - and they tipped the scales.

Batman: Very much in the same boat as Spidey above; a lot of this year didn’t do it for me in the same way as this run has in the past, but The Best Man is the best thing anyone’s done with Joker since Morrison, the ‘wedding issue’ itself worked really well for me, Cold Days made a premise that’s often stymied creators work as well as people have always wanted it to, and the Dick team-up issue was a perfect little summation of a relationship, nevermind how much this year succeeded in getting me hyped up for things to come.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: This is one of those comics where it’s so consistently good in such a specific, quiet way that people stop talking about it, but for real, this has never not in the top five or six things Marvel is publishing at any given time for as long as it’s been around. Erica Henderson leaving right before hitting the Kraven story that had been building literally since its first issue 3 years earlier could have been disastrous, but North and new artist Derek Charm manage to hit their own rhythm and continue delivering one of the funniest, cleverest, most sincere superbooks on the stands every month.

Mister Miracle: Yeah, it really was that good.

The Immortal Hulk: So is this, and if I have to name a single best comic of the year, this has probably gotta be it. Al Ewing’s been Marvel’s best creator for a long, long time, and putting him and Joe Bennett (who holy moley, I don’t think anyone would have guessed had this in him) on a tentpole character Ewing’s got genuine reverence for worked out even better than a fanboy like me might have expected. It’s sublime horror, it’s perfect Marvel comics continuity bullshit, and if the superhero is at heart a morality fable, this is very much a soul-searing apex of the genre as it speaks of how we can all go wrong.

Eternity Girl: …or maybe this is the best? It’s probably gotta be this, Hulk, or Miracle. Mister Miracle’s where the comparison really becomes clear, as they’re both books way out on the fringes of the DCU dealing with a character grappling with depression amidst the mundanity of their cyclical existence. However, as perfectly constructed and rawly human as Mister Miracle is, this hits a lot more of my own buttons and expresses its own brand of more surreal emotional authenticity, and rather than the expected and beautiful next step of a pair of already-acclaimed creators with an established partnership, this was a shock coming out party for Visaggio and Liew, who do things stylistically just as odd to see in a DC Comic as anything King and Gerads came up with. It seemed to sail under the radar for readers but also seems to be racking up awards, and I hope this’ll attain the reputation it deserves in years to come.

Ice Cream Man: Likely the respectable fourth place to the three above, while I can’t quite sing its praises in quite the same way when it’s playing so hard-to-get that I can’t quite put a pin in what it’s ultimately about, oh my GOD this is as good as gut-punch horror gets. Not simply grody shock-value stuff, but pit-of-your-stomach-everything-in-the-world-hates-you-and-you-were-wrong-to-ever-believe-in-love shit that’ll rattle your bones and fuck you up good. Not usually a horror guy myself, but this is an essentially perfect comic.

The Man Of Steel: Screw all y’all, this kicked ass and after how hard the Rebirth books blew it - Jon and the new status quo were both excellent, Tomasi had good bits here and there alongside some quality fill-in teams, but those books were still aaaaaaaaaaassssss - this is exactly the fresh start Superman’s needed for years. Granted the Fabok interstitials had some wonky pacing, but this was on-point and insightful for Superman as a character, exciting as hell, and has thus far led to nothing but more good comics as far as I’m concerned.

Milk Wars: Did the various tie-ins live up to the bookends? Nah, though the Shade/Wonder Woman story was pretty good. But those bookends? Friends, those books were AAA+ sup-per-he-ro-bull-SHIT, and while I was initially let down because it seemed as though it would have Superman in a major role and then didn’t, this is even more of an apotheosis of the Morrison approach to the genre than Metal. ACO is ACO, Eaglesham slaughtered it, and Orlando and Way should be as joined at the hip as cowriters as Abbnett and Lanning used to be. This is a gold standard for strange, edgy, colorful, wondrous, fucked-up superhero comics, and there should be a million more like it every day.

Justice League (by Christopher Priest and assorted artists, primarily Pete Woods): On the exact opposite end of the scale, while I don’t think I can say I enjoyed this book as much as the current Snyder-helmed gonzo cosmic adventures, I absolutely feel this was the better of the two. More importantly, this run is the successful version of what just about every other Justice League comic of the past 15 years has been trying and failing to be as the post-Authority, post-Ultimates, post-Civil War take on the concept. It’s as smart and atmospheric and bold as a book like Justice League ever CAN be, building its exploration of the conceptual stress points of the team around one and two-part adventures and clever character dynamics, illustrating an interesting new take on how to handle the main team book with the power players: taking their ability to handle physical threats as a relative given, a structural conceit acting as a delivery mechanism for the politics and people in play. It hardly breaks new ground in terms of redefining the superhero concept, but it’s as far as they’ve gone with the marquis characters without ending in disaster, and it’s an approach I’d love to see more often applied to this scale.

Superman: Walmart 100 Page Giant (by Tom King and Andy Kubert): Of all the places for King to do a regular Superman comic, huh? Still, we’d already seen what he’d done in that Batman two-parter and Action #1000, so I’m more than willing to take what we can get (even if most are going to have to wait for this to come out in trade). There have been four installments so far: the first is the sort of stage-setting that’s common to this type of long-form arc but with a distinctly different atmosphere than how this is typically done with the character, evoking a sort of Miller-tinged Golden Age flavor connecting Superman back down to Earth before throwing him into the stars. The third is a great Fuck Yeah Superman Doin’ Superman Shit throwdown that gives Kubert a chance to shine. The fourth and most recent is haunting, inspired, moving, and tight as a drum. And the second begins as the worst-case scenario of Tom King doing a Superman comic, and ends as likely my favorite Superman story of the last 5 years. If it continues in its current direction, Superman: Up In The Sky is almost certainly going to be a perennial people are going to rank among the best Superman stories of all time for decades to come, and everything I’d want out of this team tackling my favorite character.

Detective Comics (by James Tynion IV and assorted artists): I’m honestly surprised at myself for putting this here, but I just have to hand it to this run - which had to go quite a ways to win me over, between its opening gambit with Batwoman’s status quo and centering the whole thing around my least-favorite Robin (even if it won me over to him over time) - as basically being the platonic form of Dang Good Superhero Comics. Not boundary-pushing, not the sort of thing you’ll remember in 20 years, but just really fun, exciting, good-looking, slick, character-driven adventures building on themselves into the logical culmination of 21st century popular Batman stories. This is Batman 101, but in a good way, and I honestly think that on reflection it’s gonna hold together better as a Batman run than its immediate predecessor in Snyder/Capullo.

You Are Deadpool: This is the smartest, funniest, most inventive big two comic of the year and even if you’re so tired of Deadpool that your skull bones are threatening to suddenly contract and spear your brain in an attempt at saving your weary soul from the prospect of seeing any more of him, you should get this.

Superman (by Brian Bendis and Ivan Reis): I noted Action Comics among the honorable mentions, as while it’s a dang good comic that I enjoy a great deal - and Ryan Sook may well have established himself as my ideal modern Superman artist - it’s very much the best possible version of *exactly* what you’d expect from Brian Bendis doing Superman. This, on the other hand, feels like Bendis stretching himself to do something truly different in a way he hasn’t in years, and the results are stunning. I won’t pretend Rogol Zaar has amounted to much of anything as of yet, but Bendis has acclimated to the realm of Cosmic Superman Punch-Ups in a way no one could have reasonably seen coming; he’s managed to sidestep his usual issues by anchoring each issue in a crazy setpiece and a single perfect Superman character moment, and Reis is doing work here than can unquestionably stand alongside his Sinestro Corps War heyday. Whether it’s #1 having Superman fight an astro-goilla in the middle of a questioning on his responsibilities to humanity, #4 going full Shonen in the best possible way with probably my favorite fight scene of the year, or #6′s storybook mythmaking building to the best, cruelest needle in the balloon possible, or the consistent delightful fucking with Adam Strange, every issue here has something I didn’t know I badly wanted to see, and damn if that isn’t exactly what I want in my Superman stuff.

Assorted one-offs: Along with the major arcs and runs, we’ve got stuff like the Thanos Annual and DC Nuclear Winter Special, as good as anthologies of this kind get. T-shirt Superman got one last ride under Morrison in the Sideways Annual, fighting his way out from under the wreckage of a weird DiDio book to get exactly the sendoff he deserved. The Injustice 2 Annual, of all things, was a perfect piece of bittersweet character work. Invincible #144 satisfyingly closed out The Best Superhero Comic In The Universe by essentially also doing Invincible #145-500 or so, putting this often tumultuous title to bed with the dignity it had earned. And finally, Slott and Marcos Martin’s The Amazing Spider-Man #801 was a perfect minor mediation not even on the title character so much as the basic moral appeal of the genre as a whole.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

A submission for 'One Hell of a Faimily'

If you are willing to take such from un-Tumblred folks such as I.

Yana Gavrilovna had a plan. Possibly not a very good plan, but, eh. In this economy, there really wasn’t many options for a high school dropout in a village 70 miles from St Petersburg. She had no desire to be a housewife and she wasn’t pretty enough to be a whore. So, summoning the devil it was. She’d found the spells in a book in the old house in the woods north of the Markovs’ potato field, the one that had belonged to Yekatrina Fyodorovna, who everyone said had been a witch. Apparently everybody had been right because there were plenty of supplies and a giant mortar and pestle just lying about the place. All Yana had had to do was nick a few herbs from the Markovs to replace the ones that had gone moldy, and then puzzle her way through the really old fashioned text.

It was handwritten on mismatched pieces of parchment stitched together into a ragged leather cover and covered in writing, some in weird, spikey letters, some in a weird, long-voweled language, and half the time with Russian notations underneath. There were also a few spells in what she recognised as Church Slavonic, but they were all for good luck and plentiful harvests and that sort of goody-goody shit. The foreign spells were much more interesting.

She found no less than twenty three summoning spells for ‘spirits’, which she assumed was the polite witchy term for demon. She found herself torn between summoning a spirit of Heavenly Fire, which certainly sounded like Lucifer, and a spirit of shadow-dwelling snakes, which also sounded like the devil. The need to play music for the latter spirit decided it. Yana had all the musical talent of a brick, and no desire to risk offending some demon with her crappy voice.

She stumbled her way through the verses of the summoning, burning herbs and lighting candles at the appropriate moments. She was sure that the spell was supposed to be all aetherially beautiful and mystic sounding, but since she had no idea what she was reading out and kept stumbling over words, it just sounded like a six year old reciting poetry. Eventually, she got to the end, lit the last bundle of herbs in the candle and drew a wonky circle around the flickering lump of wax with the smoldering sage.

For a moment, nothing happened, and Yana began to feel like an idiot. Then, the candle sputtered, and the circle burst into multicoloured flames and all of a sudden there was a thing inside. Thing was definitely the right word, because Yana had no idea what she was looking at. It certainly wasn’t the sleek-looking horned gentleman in a suit she had expected. Television had clearly lied to her. Instead it seemed to be a thing made of sheets of light, almost like the aurorae they sometimes got this far south. After a short period of squinting it resolved itself into an immense face, almost that of a dog, but longer in the muzzle, with sharp fangs and catlike eyes.

It spoke without opening its vast maw, its voice echoing inside Yana’s head like a seemingly infinite choir. Sadly, it spoke in whatever the Hell language she summoned it in, so it might have been demanding her soul or complaining about the herbs for all she knew. Unsure how to respond, Yana just shrugged and asked, “You speak Russian?”

“Do I speak- of course I speak Russian,” it looked around, “this is Russia. Of course. First time I’m summoned in over a century, and it’s to some dingy hovel in Russia. I guess that explains the crappy incantation. You can’t speak a word of Finnish, can you, girl?”

“Finnish.” Satan spoke Finnish. Satan was a Finn. That… made a disturbing amount of sense actually.

She dismissed that train of thought with a wave of her hand, “I want to make a deal. Demons love that right?”

It looked at her blankly. Yana took that to mean she should go on. “Anyway, you lot always want the human girl to bear your spawn or whatever, and you got the magic, so, hears the deal, make me immortal and eternally young, and I’ll carry your kid. Sound good?”

“Please let me leave.” It looked almost despairing.

“Agree to the deal and I will.”

After a moment, in which the demon seemed almost like it was considering just staying there forever, it sighed, which felt really strange, and said, “Fine, alright, whatever. Just let me leave.”

“Awesome,” Yana clapped her hands together, “so, d’you need to do anything to knock me up or what?”

“I suppose this would work better if I was solid,” it said miserably, “human shaped too. One moment.”

The demon did… something, and it became smaller, and solid, and somewhat to Yana’s surprise, a fox. A disturbingly large fox, about the size of a horse, but otherwise, just a normal fox, the kind she sometimes saw in the woods. Then, the demon did something else, which sort of made reality go all twisty for a moment, and it became a young man, with bright red hair and glowing fox-eyes. He was actually kind of cute, all awkward and naked and- holy shit that was the biggest cock Yana had ever seen outside porn.

“I, uh, attempted to recall what human females prefer in a mate. My kind does not reproduce in such a… physical way.”

“No, no, we’re good.” Yana supposed that human men probably ought to be disappointing after demons, but still.

“There’s a bed over there, um,” she broke the circle with the toe of her shoe, “let’s, y’know.”

They did. It was very awkward and the demon, who apparently had no name pronounceable by humans but who Yana dubbed Vasiliy after a favourite pet dog, had no idea what he was doing.

“So,” she said after they were done, and Vasiliy was just standing about looking confused, “Assuming this takes,”

Yana looked a question at Vasiliy, who said, “It will. I am certain.”

“Then you just need to come back in nine months to give me what you promised and pick up your kid. ‘Cause I’m sure as Hell not looking after it.”

Vasiliy nodded, then asked, “Should I stay around or can I leave?”

“Go, go,” Yana waved him off, “ just remember to come back and gimme my payment.”

Yana walked back to the village with a limp and a feeling of smug accomplishment. Phase one, complete. Time for phase two.

Finding an actual witch, and not some random-arse Wiccan or neopagan, was actually a lot harder than summoning a demon. Google didn’t seem to work for this, so, at four months and already starting go show, Yana was forced to rely on somebody she really hadn’t wanted to. Her Babushka, her hyper-superstitious, extremely devout church-scrubbing, headscarf-wearing grandmother, who knew all the gossip, seemingly, in rural European Russia. Her babushka who would definitely know she was pregnant out of wedlock and lecture her for hours about sin and Hell and suchlike. Not that Hell was going to be a problem.

Still, her babushka could never know that.

Never.

Four hours of fire and brimstone later, she was able to ask about witches. Subtly.

“I don’t remember doing anything carnal four months ago, the only thing I can think of was I poked around in Yekarina Olekova’s old house, and everybody knows she was a witch. That’s why father Boris had to run her over with the combine harvester. Twelve times. So maybe she cursed her house and now I’m cursed and a what if it’s the kind of curse that needs another witch to remove it.” Yana used her best puppy eyes and crocodile tears. Apparently, it worked. Supposedly, there was a witch four villages over who kept trying to bargain for peoples firstborn. Babushka had told her that so she could avoid Anastasiya Karamazova, but, ehh. A week later she had borrowed her brother Aleksei’s car, purportedly to go see a doctor at the nearest hospital, and driven over to see Karamazova.

Karamazova’s house was a lot nicer than Olekova’s. Not just because it hadn’t been left to moulder for two years either. It was newer, built only a few years ago when Karamazova had moved here from the big city and had yet to try and buy babies. She looked about thirty, with stringy blonde hair and a kind face, laugh lines around brown eyes.

“So, I hear you’re a witch.” Yana said when she opened the door.

“Not another one,” she sighed, “I will call the police on you girl, don’t think I won’t.”

“No, no,” Yana held up her hands, “I’m not here to bother you. I’m here to talk business.”

Karamazova raised a brow and stood aside, gesturing for her to come in, “Then I apologise for my rudeness in making you talk over a threshold.”

When they were seated at a neat looking dining table, tea steeping in a pot in front of them, Yana began, “You are a real witch, right? Baba Yaga’s granddaughter, that whole deal, not just some Wiccan.”

“I am. Not that I like to publicise such.” Karamazova poured the tea and offered the bowl of sugar cubes. Yana took one and put it in her mouth, drinking her tea around it, while Karamazova did the same.

“Then, I have a deal for you. I’m knocked up, see,” Yana gestured to her belly, “and I hear you’re looking for a kid. This’d be my firstborn, and I don’t actually want a kid. So, I propose a trade.”

“Well, this is new,” Karamazova said, “Never heard of someone actually offering before. I’m guessing you don’t even want ten years with him or something.”

“Nope,” a thought struck Yana, “him?”

“I’m a witch, girl. Do you really think I can’t tell sex and gender, even in a fetus? Both male, in this case. A shame, I would have preferred a daughter, but needs must, and this boy will have power, I can feel it. I am interested. What do you want, then?”

“Money. I want to be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams for the rest of my life.”

“Doable. I will have to pull some strings, but it can be done.”

“Awesome. See you in, what, five months?”

“Yes. 13th of March, around 8:45 in the morning.”

“Cool. I’ll arrange to be at Mariinskiy hospital that morning,” Yana said, “think you can magic up the papers so they say he’s you kid not mine?”

“Easily. I will be there also. What name should I put down, then?”

Yana shrugged, “How about Timofey Vassilieyovich? Timo’s my favourite brother, and the father’s called Vasiliy.”

“That will do. Will I have to deal with the father?”

“Up to you. You’re a witch, I’m sure you can handle him. Although,” she smirked, “you might want to keep him around. Boy has no idea what he’s doing, but damn, he has got a good foundation to work on, if you know what I mean.” She waggled her eyebows and held her hands almost a foot apart, and Karamazova almost choked on her tea.

“I’ll see myself out,” she said, whilst Karamazova sputtered, “see you March 13th. Mariinskiy hospital, in Petersburg, and remember what I want.”

Winter came, and it went, and the only thing that really seemed memorable was that she got hugely fat, little Timmy seemed to decide bruising every organ he could reach was a great game, and there were far more aurorae than usual. Almost every night in fact, and a bunch of scientists kept turning up to poke at things with weird instruments and stare at the sky whilst scratching their heads. Other than that it was just the usual haze of her relatives’ and neighbours’ disapproval, she lost her job at the local pub, not that she really cared, and Timo agreed to put her up so she wouldn’t have to live with her parents. He really was her favourite brother. Also, he lived in Petersburg, and had a job as a journalist with the BBC, and could therefore be openly gay, which meant babushka would not bother her. She liked his boyfriend, too. Henri was nice, and Canadian, and told her stories about Montréal and his big, weird family and said that they’d happily put her up if she ever wanted to go.

Spring came and the canals filled with slush, and Yana became truly vast. Henri and Timo kept bringing her food and weird vitamin thingies and offered to adopt the kid if she didn’t want it, though they said they’d have to do that in Canada, where it was apparently legal for gays to do that and also get married. Yana spent a lot of her time looking up places she wanted to visit on Henri’s old laptop, and going to an English class that Henri taught. She figured English would be useful when she did travel, and she intended to travel and awful lot. She poked around museums and art galleries and looked longingly at fancy clothes and jewelry and expensive booze. And, come March 13th she made sure to be at Mariinskiy hospital bright and early around 6am, just in time for her water to break.

Two and a half hours of pain and swearing later, she was presented with a scrawny little thing by fearful nurses, while the obstetrician was on the phone and babbling about birth defects and journal articles and scans. Timmy had red hair. She supposed she ought to have expected that. Still, she was curious so she unwrapped the little bundle to take a look. The first thing that struck her was the tail. Well, no the first thing that struck her was that he was definitely a boy, but this was her son and a baby and that was just weird. Anyway, he had a tail covered in red fur, a when she turned him over the fur climbed up his back, and down his arms and legs to peter out on claw-tipped fingers and toes. When ne opened his mouth to cry there were fangs, and when she opened his eyes they were shiny and golden, the irises so large she couldn’t see the whites. This came out of her. Awesome. Anyway, Karamazova had apparently bullshitted her way in and was staring at her new kid with an expression of shock.

“So, uh, full disclosure,” Yana said, “Timmy’s dad is a demon. But hey, here’s your kid, gimme my money.”

Karamazova handed over a credit card silently, and picked up the boy, wrapping him back up. She appeared to be still in shock.

“Might want to make the doctors and nurses stop talking about weird birth defects and journal articles, before they start taking pictures.”

Anastasiya Vladislavovna Karazova had known the girl had been keeping something from her when she’d made the deal. She had though that it was something minor though, probably about the father. That he was black or Jewish or something a rural Russian would worry about, which wasn’t likely to be an issue since she intended to move to a Western country where they’d be less likely to be murdered, or that she had HIV or a drug problem or some genetic disorder, all fairly easily dealt with for a witch of Ana’s calibre. She had not expected this.

The father, she assumed, entered the room shortly after she had retrieved Timofey. She assumed it was the father anyway, because he was shrouded in some very impressive shapeshifting magic. He went over to Yana and spoke to her, then he did something that imbued her with some of his power. Then, she pointed him to Ana, who steeled herself for an argument.

“You are not a demon,” Ana opened, “some sort of nature spirit I’m guessing. A fox? You feel like fire and the aurorae have been oddly active.”

He nodded, “She summoned me and seemed convinced I would want a half human child. She demanded that I agree to her deal before she would release me. It was a kind of ignorant determination that I have never known to be swayed by facts.”

“So, now you want the kid so the deal can be fulfilled, yeah?”

“That is so.”

“Well, tough,” Ana said, “She made a deal with me too. Her firstborn for riches beyond her wildest dreams, and I held up my end of the bargain, so Timofey is mine.”

“But I also held up my bargain,” He - Vasiliy, wasn’t it, the hell kind of name is Vasiliy for a fox spirit – said, “Eternal life and youth for her half human child.”

“She played us,” despite herself, Ana was actually kind of impressed, “I’ve never even heard of somebody being ballsy enough to sell there firstborn to both a witch and a demon. Let alone bully a spirit into this sort of bullshit.”

“We seem to be at an impasse,” Vasiliy said, a thoughtful look on his borrowed face, “we could duel for the child. I am fairly certain I would win. However, not here. Too many mortals. Do you know of a good place nearby?”

“Yeah… how about no,” Ana said, “It must have been a long time since you last dealt with humans, but we’ve got a thing called joint custody now. I have him for say, a week, then you have him for a week, and we take turns like that.”

“Oh.” It seemed like the idea had never even occurred to him. While Vasiliy processes this radical alteration to his worldview, Ana took care of altering the doctor and nurses’ memories, so they only remembered a sad still birth by Yana, and a perfectly normal birth by Ana herself. Vasiliy stood in silence while she filled out the various forms, so that her son would have a birth certificate, and not long after Timofey Vasilieyovich Karamazov was officially registered as such, he spoke up again.

“Where do you live?”

“A few villages over from our mutual friend,” she gestured over at Yana, who waved back, “but not for long. I intend to go somewhere far from Russia, where we will be safe. England, maybe. Or America.”

“How about Canada?” Yana called out, “Kid’s gonna have family there. My brother Timo’s marrying a Canadian guy, he might be able to set you up.”

She though about it. By now, the demon hunters had heard about the strange goings on in the region, and she had already had to ward her home like a fortress, and the only reason that had worked was because they were looking for something bigger than some witch. They’d be after her soon enough, and Canada was a good choice. Low key. Not the kind of place anybody would think to look. And Timofey deserved to have as much family as he could, especially family that could help track down his birth mother if he ever wanted revenge.

“Sounds good,” Ana said, “unless you got a problem with that?”

Vasiliy shook his head, “It is good. Canada is close to the poles, I can visit without drawing too much attention.”

“Cool, go look up Timofey Ivanov, with the BBC. Tell him you got my kid and he’ll help you.” Yana said, then seemed to fall asleep.

“What is the Beebeesee?” Vasiliy asked.

Ana sighed and looked at Timofey. He was going to have one hell of a family to out up with.

Three months later, they touched down in Montreal airport, papers declaring them political refugees in hand, and Anastasiya Karamazov walked out into the chaos of a Canadian airport and into the slightly terrifying arms of her sponsors, the seemingly unending relatives of Henri Larivière, Timofey’s newly-minted uncle. Gods help her, for she was going to need it.

Do with this what you will. I am done with it.

---- DUUUUDE THIS IS GREAT THANK YOU FOR SHARING!!

[peachhplum]

RENOVATION STORIES – A HAND BUILT KITCHEN REVEAL

Finally, our hand built kitchen is ready to reveal. We have had so much fun being able to cook and move around freely in here that this post has been a long time coming, thanks again for waiting! This project has been so much fun and the best bits have been finding and rescuing all the materials to make this space unique to us.We made almost everything ourselves (apart from the electrical items, hardware and the base units). Using reclaimed wooden floorboards and recycled crates cut down for the shelves, old pipes from under the floors for curtain and hanging rails and one of my favourite things – oak laths from a local restoration centre for a rustic look to conceal our over hob extractor. This is a super sunny south facing room which is flooded with sunbeams, so we will be adding more linen curtains over this picture window that looks out over our garden. I am going to use the same method of hanging clips to clip the curtains half way up so we don’t lose our whole view.I have battled my inner demons to leave our cookery books exposed – the multi coloured-ness of them all lined up makes me a bit crazy but they are the pages we leaf through every week. Recovering them all in brown paper to be matching seemed a step too far for things that will be used day after day. But – I might still do it ;)The open shelves have been brilliant and all the things on them are in heavy rotation, so no time for too much dust to gather. Dean’s coffee paraphernalia takes up one tidy shelf while my tea is spilling down to a second shelf. I do like to have all the loose tea one woman can drink available to me though. This month’s favourites are a chai blend from Steenbergs and Earl Grey from Newby.Having all our bowls and glasses ready to grab in easy reach has worked out really well, these are the things that we use most days and never have to rummage in a cupboard for (all the rest is is  a lovely cupboard in the living room). In the attic I found some old ceramic jars that we had bought years ago in a local junk shop – perfect for keeping our teaspoons and chopsticks at the ready. The crate was a welcome gift from our estate agent when we moved in here almost six years ago. We sawed it in half and made two shelves, then stained that and the oak laths for the cooker hood with a home mixed blend of Annie Sloan chalk paints, water and dark wax to match the old reclaimed wood shelves. I think it came out pretty similar!Trying not to dent and mark our beloved handmade elm worktops has been quite the challenge. At first we were a bit too precious about it – but we have eased up on ourselves and given in to the marks and patina that daily use over time will inevitably bring. The chalk paint on the cupboards is also getting a bit worn with use but for now, we like that aged look and it just makes room to repaint them in another colour maybe in the future?!I really don’t mix well with technology, but understand we need certain things to abide by building regs and obviously cook and keep our food chilled so we have minimal electronics and have hidden what we couldn’t live without. The cooker hood seemed huge but now it’s hidden within a custom built box and clad with these oak laths I love it. It as a very satisfying job to gently knock all the tacks in a row at just the right height and the sides are made from so ply off cuts which I stained to match everything else.The table and chairs are a random assortment, the bistro chairs were picked up over the years or given to us and the pine farmhouse table was grabbed in desperation on Christmas Eve last year when we happened to be visiting a local garden nursery. It was a serendipitous find as we had a new kitchen, guests coming over and nowhere for them to sit or eat!The wonky shelves where we keep all our favourite collected ceramics and pottery pieces are made out of a fallen eucalyptus tree that fell down in our garden in a storm the year we moved in. We saved it and took it to a local sawmill, who planked it for us. We then stored it for three years to dry and finally now have made something useful out of it. As you can see the wood is slightly buckled and wavy but I love that – even if it does make taking level picture hard.We have swapped out our grey linen curtains for natural ones as coming into autumn and winter we need as much light as possible. They are already lifting the mood in here on dark rainy days. I always get asked where we bought the light – it is the Fowey Pendant from Rowen and Wren (and I think it is now half price) I almost did a cry when I found out!It has been great fun filling this room with love, food and what we think are beautiful things, made by us or given to us by lovely friends and family. Please don’t think I am tidy, the table has never been so clear and behind the scenes is always mayhem. It’s very nice to treat myself to some flowers and actually be able to make the most of them – within a couple of days they will be swirling in a sea of books, papers, twigs and other nature finds, sourdough starter and soaking grains. Come back soon as I will be sharing our bedroom in all its new moody glory. Another room that had long been neglected, we made do for a long time – but now it is a cosy haven away from work. Just need enough sun to take some pictures now!

[claypigeonpottery]

a little kitty curled up inside a bowl 🥹

[claypigeonpottery]

sold

the four white horses always make me think of the Princess Bride

it’s difficult to capture the colour of this one. it’s a little too yellow in some pictures. the leaves were partially free hand and partially stenciled. the bowl’s a little wonky but not bad for my first large slab-built bowl!

carving the inside of bowls is such a pain though. I always tell myself I won’t do it again but then I do