#Pacific Northwest Home Design

[westeckwindows]

This week in Westeck News - Carbon Dioxide Removal in a Net-Zero North America. 

[queercecil]

Traditional Exterior - Roofing Inspiration for a large timeless multicolored two-story exterior home remodel with a shingle roof and a gray roof

[emileehartman]

Mudroom - Foyer Example of a large contemporary entryway with a multicolored floor, gray walls, and a medium wood front door.

[djofficialreach]

Rustic Home Office in Portland Home studio - large rustic freestanding desk dark wood floor and brown floor home studio idea with white walls and a standard fireplace

[junespringer]

Portland Rustic Entry Mid-sized mountain style dark wood floor entryway photo with white walls and a dark wood front door

[slightlyoutoffocusphotos]

Patio in Portland Picture of a sizable, elegant backyard patio with a fireplace and an addition to the roof

[iamnotawomanartist]

Portland Traditional Bathroom A large, elegant master bathroom with a multicolored floor, two sinks, furniture-like cabinets, a one-piece toilet, white walls, granite countertops, white countertops, and a freestanding vanity is shown in the photograph.

[intothewordless]

Portland Kids

[reasonsforhope]

"The U.S. government is entering a new era of collaboration with Native American and Alaska Native leaders in managing public lands and other resources, with top federal officials saying that incorporating more Indigenous knowledge into decision-making can help spur conservation and combat climate change.

Federal emergency managers on Thursday also announced updates to recovery policies to aid tribal communities in the repair or rebuilding of traditional homes or ceremonial buildings after a series of wildfires, floods and other disasters around the country.

With hundreds of tribal leaders gathering in Washington this week for an annual summit, the Biden administration is celebrating nearly 200 new agreements that are designed to boost federal cooperation with tribes nationwide.

The agreements cover everything from fishery restoration projects in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest to management of new national monuments in the Southwestern U.S., seed collection work in Montana and plant restoration in the Great Smoky Mountains.

“The United States manages hundreds of millions of acres of what we call federal public lands. Why wouldn’t we want added capacity, added expertise, millennia of knowledge and understanding of how to manage those lands?” U.S. Interior Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland said during a panel discussion.

The new co-management and co-stewardship agreements announced this week mark a tenfold increase over what had been inked just a year earlier, and officials said more are in the pipeline.

Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community in northern Michigan, said each agreement is unique. He said each arrangement is tailored to a tribe’s needs and capacity for helping to manage public lands — and at the very least assures their presence at the table when decisions are made.

The federal government is not looking to dictate to tribal leaders what a partnership should look like, he said...

The U.S. government controls more than a quarter of the land in the United States, with much of that encompassing the ancestral homelands of federally recognized tribes...

Tribes and advocacy groups have been pushing for arrangements that go beyond the consultation requirements mandated by federal law.

Researchers at the University of Washington and legal experts with the Native American Rights Fund have put together a new clearinghouse on the topic. They point out that public lands now central to the country’s national heritage originated from the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous people and that co-management could present on opportunity for the U.S. to reckon with that complicated legacy...

In an attempt to address complaints about chronic underfunding across Indian Country, President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order on the first day of the summit that will make it easier for tribes to find and access grants.

Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told tribal leaders Thursday that her agency [FEMA] began work this year to upgrade its disaster guidance particularly in response to tribal needs.

The Indigenous people of Hawaii have increasingly been under siege from disasters, most recently a devastating fire that killed dozens of people and leveled an entire town. Just last month, another blaze scorched a stretch of irreplaceable rainforest on Oahu.

Tribes in California and Oregon also were forced to seek disaster declarations earlier this year after severe storms resulted in flooding and mudslides...

Criswell said the new guidance includes a pathway for Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian communities to request presidential disaster declarations, providing them with access to emergency federal relief funding. [Note: This alone is potentially a huge deal. A presidential disaster declaration unlocks literally millions of dollars in federal aid and does a lot to speed up the response.]

The agency also is now accepting tribal self-certified damage assessments and cost estimates for restoring ceremonial buildings or traditional homes, while not requiring site inspections, maps or other details that might compromise culturally sensitive data."

-via AP, December 7, 2023

[mariacallous]

Growing up in Seattle, our Friday night menu was nearly the same every week: chicken soup, roast chicken slathered in teriyaki sauce, a starchy side and salad. We always had a large bottle of Yoshida teriyaki sauce in the fridge, a fixture in the side door. But why were we eating teriyaki chicken for Shabbat dinner?

Teriyaki chicken is an iconic Seattle dish; it wasn’t until I moved away that I discovered not every city is teeming with great teriyaki shops. The dish is rooted in Japanese cuisine: Teriyaki is a traditional Japanese style of cooking where a protein is cooked over a flame while it is basted in a sauce made of soy sauce, sugar, sake and/or mirin. “Yaki” means grill, and “teri” means shine. The sticky, sweet teriyaki sauce most Americans are familiar with was developed by Japanese American immigrants. 

Seattle’s version of teriyaki deviates from its Japanese roots thanks to a man named Toshihiro Kasahara. In 1976, Kasahara opened Toshi’s Teriyaki Restaurant, which quickly became a wildly successful Seattle lunch spot. Kasahara inspired a wave of teriyaki establishments across the city and the region, helping make the dish ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle-style teriyaki is loaded with ginger and garlic, and instead of basting the meat, teriyaki is more often made by marinating the meat in sauce overnight. It’s typically served with steamed rice and an iceberg lettuce salad with gingery, tangy dressing. The store-bought sauce my family used was also developed by a Seattle resident, Kyoto-born Junki Yoshida.

Food in the diaspora is always influenced by our neighbors, and teriyaki has become a welcome staple in Jewish homes, particularly across the Pacific Northwest. This recipe is designed to give you all the flavors and char that great teriyaki chicken offers, with the ease of preparing a complete meal on a sheet pan. The sauce is salty, thick, gingery and sweet, and as the chicken cooks, it releases its juices and flavors to the surrounding vegetables. You can substitute homemade sauce for your favorite premade bottle, and you can ditch the oven and cook this on the grill for extra char. Served with a steaming heap of short grain rice, it makes a delicious, simple meal for Shabbat, or any day of the week. 

Note: You can swap drumsticks for chicken thighs, but if you would like to swap for boneless, skinless breasts the cook time may be slightly longer. The dish reheats well in the microwave, stovetop or oven.

[perfectlyripeclementine]

queer novel masterlist: Palestine edition

Found this list via @evereadssapphic on Instagram.

You Exist Too Much, Zaina Arafat

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings--for love, and a place to call home.

Haifa Fragments, Khulud Khamis

As a designer of jewelry, Maisoon wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn't easy for a tradition-defying activist and Palestinian citizen of Israel who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. She volunteers for the Machsom Watch, an organization that helps children in the Occupied Territories cross the border to receive medical care. Frustrated by her boyfriend Ziyad and her father, who both want her to get on with life and forget those in the Occupied Territories, she lashes out only to discover her father isn't the man she thought he was. Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamored with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.

A Map Of Home, Randa Jarrar

In this fresh, funny, and fearless debut novel, Randa Jarrar chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali--whose name is a feminization of the word "struggle"--soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. This critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who has ever wondered what their own map of home might look like.

The Skin And Its Girl, Sarah Cypher

In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis' centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love.

Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha's gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she's ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family's cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt's complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity, and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us--and wield even the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller.

The Philistine, Leila Marshy

Nadia Eid doesn't know it yet, but she's about to change her life. It's the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she’s twenty-five and he’s missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands. Booking a short vacation from her boring job and Québecois boyfriend, she calls her father from the Nile Hilton in downtown Cairo. But nothing goes as planned and, stumbling around, Nadia wanders into an art gallery where she meets Manal, a young Egyptian artist who becomes first her guide and then her lover. 

Through this unexpected relationship, Nadia rediscovers her roots, her language, and her ambitions, as her father demonstrates the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine – the Arabic word for Palestinian. With Manal’s career poised to take off and her father’s secret life revealed, the First Intifada erupts across the border.

The Twenty-Ninth Year, Hala Alyan

For Hala Alyan, twenty-nine is a year of transformation and upheaval, a year in which the past--memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith--winds itself around the present.

Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies.

A vivid catalog of heartache, loneliness, love and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.

Between Banat, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali

In Between Banat Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and nonnormative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and film. Moving from The Thousand and One Nights and the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema to contemporary novels, autobiographical writing, and prints and graphic novels that imagine queer Arab futures, Shomali uses what she calls queer Arab critique to locate queer desire amid heteronormative imperatives. Showing how systems of heteropatriarchy and Arab nationalisms foreclose queer Arab women's futures, she draws on the transliterated term "banat"--the Arabic word for girls--to refer to women, femmes, and nonbinary people who disrupt stereotypical and Orientalist representations of the "Arab woman." By attending to Arab women's narration of desire and identity, queer Arab critique substantiates queer Arab histories while challenging Orientalist and Arab national paradigms that erase queer subjects. In this way, Shomali frames queerness and Arabness as relational and transnational subject formations and contends that prioritizing transnational collectivity over politics of authenticity, respectability, and inclusion can help lead toward queer freedom.

Belladonna, Anbara Salam

Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella.

In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pentila in northern Italy, a prestigious art history school on the grounds of a silent convent. There, free of her claustrophobic home and the town that will always see her and her Egyptian mother as outsiders, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires... perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return.

But as that glittering year goes on, Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever. (I believe this book is by a Palestinian author but not actually set in or about Palestine.)

[westeckwindows]

From our Project Consultant Mike at our Vancouver Showroom of a modern custom home with Westeck 4300 series, window walls with full finish in black.

Click here to visit our website to learn more about the 4300 series windows!

[seriouslycromulent]

5 Questions I've been pondering since reading the Parade mag article on JL

A couple weeks ago, I shared an article in Parade magazine that came out in early 2023 featuring John Larroquette. In the interview, they covered a lot of new info, in addition to promoting the new Night Court series, which was set to premiere its 1st season when the article was published.

Ever since reading that interview, I've had a few thoughts and a few questions that have stayed with me. And now I feel like the only way to exorcise these thoughts and questions from my mind is to share them here:

It seems like John and Elizabeth, his wife, relocated from California to southern Washington state shortly after the filming on The Librarians wrapped in 2017. (The article mentions they moved there 5 years ago, and 2023 minus 5 is 2018.) My question: Did they plan to move there regardless of whether or not the show got picked up for a 5th season? I know it's none of my business, and I can see JL fitting in with the area -- it is beautiful up there -- but I'm just curious was it to be closer to his then-job? Or was it just a new found appreciation for the Pacific Northwest?

In the article, he mentions a lot of his former cast mates had passed away over the years, including Harry Anderson, Charles Robinson, Markie Post, and Kirstie Alley. I can't help but notice that he once again didn't mention Richard Moss. My question: Does anyone know the story behind the two of them falling out? Is it mentioned anywhere? Or is it just hearsay? Why didn't they get along? I ask because I was/am a fan of them both, and it kind of sucks that they never reconciled before Richard passed away. [Upon re-reading this, I remembered that Richard was still alive when JL did that interview, so it makes sense that he didn't mention him in that context. But I still have those questions because I'm nosey. 😉]

They described how JL likes to spend his free time at home, and much of what they mentioned matches what we've heard in the past. But they also claimed that John likes to narrate plays in his home recording studio. My question: Is he narrating these for fun? Or is it for a job that he's been hired to do? And if it's the latter, are these audio recordings for sale? And if they are, where can we buy them?

He mentions his kids during the interview: Lisa, Jonathan and Ben. I know he worked with Ben on The John Larroquette Show when he was just 9 or 10 years old. And he's "technically" working with him now on the new Night Court. And he's worked with Jonathan on one of the McBride movies. I think Jonathan worked on the music for McBride: Requiem, which incidentally is my favorite of the McBride films. My question: Has he ever had an opportunity to work with his daughter Lisa? And if so, was it on an acting project that he was a part of like he did with his sons? I know she's a graphic designer, so that might be a little different than bringing on your sons to act or create music, but it would be nice to know if he's invited her to work with him in the past as well.

He acknowledged that he's lived a long and successful life for someone who grew up where he did and the culture he grew up in. I love these little tidbits and glimpses into his life, but of course, it begs My final question: Has anyone ever talked to him about writing an autobiography? Or would he ever consider someone else writing his biography for him?

OK. That's it.

Now my brain can return to its regularly scheduled program.

[bumpkinspice0]

Parallels Chapter 13: The Hunter

Miguel O'Hara x Spider!FemReader

No use of y/n

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4148

Summary: Miguel needs your help stopping a Kraven the Hunter anomaly.

Warnings: Angst train (toot toot), references to hunting, Fighting, canonical typical violence (We'll get filthy again next chapter, I promise)

A/N:  I made a bunch of references to the original Predator movie so... sorry if you haven't seen Predator.

Previous - Next

Series Masterlist

AO3

_______________

Chapter 13

The Hunter

Miguel hated the woods. 

Well, maybe hate was the wrong word. He wasn’t used to the woods. Born and raised in a towering metropolis, he knew how to scale a skyscraper better than a tree. City’s were nice. There was order to everything. Direction and design and engineering. The woods were… well the woods.

Everything around him was sprawled out wildly and unpredictably. There was no sense in trying to memorize the map Lyla provided him when all the trees and rocks looked the same at every turn. What he wouldn’t give to have Lyla here now. Her signal barely reached this dimension. She still had limits to her abilities despite Gabe’s efforts to improve her code. Rather than have her glichely hoving at his shoulder, he had to save his watch’s juice for a portal home. He had to go after this villain old school.  

A slippery variant of Kraven the Hunter. 

He’d completely forgotten what the anomaly’s home dimension was at this point— Miguel just knew he didn’t belong here. There was no Spider in this dimension. No super-humans of any kind. A plain 21st-century reality. What would people of this dimension think if they saw a blue-suited man leaping through the forest canopy? Not that he really had to worry about running into anyone. The nearest people were miles away.

This Kraven was smart. He’d hid himself away deep in some protected national forests in the Pacific Northwest. Massive pine trees and towering sequoias covered the mountainous landscape. People didn’t venture this deep into the territory. Miguel wishes he had the time to stop and appreciate just how stunning it all was.  Had he really ever been to the forest? Not one like this. Not since he was a child, he thinks. There weren’t many forests left in 2099.

He needed to get out of Nueva York more. This place wasn’t so bad. Almost like the city but… trees for skyscrapers.

Still, it didn’t make him any less frustrated with it all. 

This Kraven anomaly had been here for over a month, evading Lyla’s already weak sensors in this distant reality. It was pure luck they picked him up at all.

The evidence of him was everywhere. There were some tacks even the seasoned hunter couldn’t hide. Miguel looks up at the pine tree that had been glitched into a mosaic of neon cubes and surreal patterns— one of the many he’d seen. Who knows what other damage this hunter had caused? He needed to get the anomaly out of here quickly before he caused the entire reality to implode. 

Miguel’s enhanced senses were practically useless. Kraven was an expert in the wilderness. He’d disguised his scent and camouflaged his body. Even his footsteps seemed to blend in with the forest’s chatter. This man was a ghost. Miguel had been tracking him for days now and all he’d ever found was more glitched vegetation and mocking laughter in the distance. This Kraven was toying with him. 

Miguel was out of his element— just prey in the hunter’s domain.

His watch alarm goes off. His 48-hour limit was up. Another 2 days wasted on this anomaly. Another 2 days he could do more damage to this reality. He lets out a frustrated grunt and kicks at the glitched tree, its neon appearance shifting wildly from the impact. 

“Where are you?!” Miguel screams into the vast towering forest. No sense in hiding his location now that he had to leave. More deep mocking laughter echoes from the trees, seemingly coming from every direction. Miguel responds to the laughter with a powerful roar, whipping around and slicing through the glitched tree. It falls with a thunderous, pixelated thud. 

This wasn’t just his frustrations getting the better of him. It was a threat. A show of power. 

Kraven’s always hunted the biggest game— The most challenging apex predators. Miguel had to give him a reason to fight him instead of hiding. Kraven’s were prideful fighters. With any luck, he’d want to face Miguel when he came back. He’d want him as a trophy. 

What better trophy than a monster?

The echo of the fallen tree dies down and Miguel is met with complete silence in return. Good. The portal home materializes behind him and he backs into it with a smug grin under his mask. 

You wanna fight me now? He thinks as he’s blasted home. Miguel will be back soon enough— But he won’t be alone.

With his advanced senses obsolete against this opponent, it made things more difficult. Much more difficult. He hated to admit it, but Kraven had him beat in hand-to-hand combat. This man trained since childhood. He fought beasts for fun on the daily— and won. He had advanced strength, senses, and agility— Miguel’s equal, if not superior, in every way.

No, Miguel couldn’t track him down or possibly even beat him once he did have him— but perhaps he could get an upper hand with another sense. He needed help— desperately. He knew it from day one but allowed stubbornness and pride to get in the way. Now look where that got him. Days wasted wandering aimlessly through the forest instead of facing the problem that was actually bothering him.

He hasn’t talked to you for 2 weeks now. You haven’t been back to the tower since you left. Before, you both only ever reached out when you needed relief, for lack of a better term. But now…

It’s changed. The spider-sense is not the same as it once was. It wasn’t demanding sexual gratification as it had been, but it still wanted you. It longed for you, to have you near him. For the two of you to just be together— or maybe it was Miguel himself who wanted that. It was easier to blame it on the spider-sense.  

That and… he would finally have to tell you it can all be over. That you can be cured and never have to see him again. That would be best for everyone, yet the prospect of it still gnawed at his instincts. He’s starting to doubt if he could even follow through with it now.

Did you feel the same?

Regardless, you still had to face each other again. This could be one last hurrah before you both go your separate ways. One more fight with you, side by side. Just one more day with you before he sent it all crashing down. That’s all he wanted.

Selfish bastard. 

______________

“Okay, so have you met me in any other dimensions?”

“Not yet.”

“What about yourself?” 

“Nope. Only spider-woman like me I know… so far.”

“Oh, that sounds creepy the more I think about it,” Jack shivers as he lays out the rug for the latest photoshoot. 

In the wake of being jobless, you’ve found renting out your spacious living room as a photo stage to be a rather good filler. Jack had been complaining about wanting a studio for forever and you were happy to provide.  That and it gave you and Jack more time together. Something you think you both needed.

He took the reveal of the existence of the multiverse rather well— all things considered. He sat in shocked silence, slowly drinking both bottles of wine and only asking the occasional basic question. You’re not sure how long you went on but for once in all your years of knowing him, Jack had nothing to say back. He thanked you for telling him and headed to bed while you slept on his couch that night. 

You remember when you were brought to Spider Society. It was… a lot to process, to say the least. You weren’t yourself for a few days just thinking about it all. For Jack it only took him until the next morning— then the flood of questioning started.

“And the Green Goblin attack, what was that?” he’d asked. 

“Anomaly.”

“That night at the restaurant with Ash and Sue?”

“Regular spider stuff… but a little bit of multiverse drama.”

“Is there a hot dog finger universe?”

And the questioning went on like that until he felt satisfied— Like a toddler learning about the world. It was honestly a little fun to get it all off your chest. Then of course, once he’d accepted all the ins and outs of your work across the multiverse, you finally got to the subject of Miguel. 

You and Jack always loved to talk boys but this was… a much deeper situation. You didn’t want any solutions or advice on how to navigate this shit show— you just wanted to vent. Openly and unapologetically the way only best friends could.   

You knew there was no possible solution here. You knew there was no way it could work, yet the heart wants what the heart wants. So many nights you’ve stopped yourself from calling him or just showing up in his lab. You couldn’t let this go any further— could you?

“Do you love him?” Jack suddenly asked the other week when you were first setting up the living room. The question caught you so off guard that you nearly dropped all of the multi-thousand-dollar equipment you were carrying. 

“Wh– No! I just— I don’t know?!” You quickly set down the tote of exorbitantly priced camera gear. “You can’t just— Why would you ask me that?”

“Because he’s literally all you’ve been talking about for days . So either you want to kill him or in deep,” He said passively as he started setting up the backdrop stands, “Which either is fine, I’m always a fan of a good enemies to lovers. ”

“We are not enemies to lovers.” 

“Fine, disgruntled coworkers to star-crossed fuckbuddies then.” Jack shrugged, “I don’t know what all the made-up rules of this multiverse shit are— and I’m still not convinced any of it matters but— there’s still only one obvious solution— you gotta be grown-ups and talk about it. The relationship and this gross serum thing. It can’t be healthy to just get rid of a part of your biology no one really understands, right? Just fucking talk to him, he can’t be that scary.”

You sighed and collapsed on the couch, “You make it sound so easy.” 

“Because it is that easy, stupid.”

And he was right. But if you talked about it that might mean it’ll be over. He might backtrack like he did before and realize all the mistakes you’ve both been making. He might—

You and Miguel were clearly avoiding each other— again— for over two weeks now. Not a single call and you’d been taken off most missions due to your accident. You could call him too, though. You could walk into the tower whenever you wanted, yet you’d much rather stay here where you had control. 

It felt good to be home. It felt good to be working with your best friend again— totally open and honest. Even if you couldn’t bring yourself to talk to Miguel, this was still helping. You needed this.

And like most pleasant things in your life, it only lasts for a finite amount of time. 

You’re on the ceiling adjusting a spotlight when the tingling you hadn’t felt in weeks overtakes your brain— quickly followed by a knock at the door. 

“I’ll get it! Must be the client. A little early.” Jack announces, scurrying to the front door. You jump down to stop him but he’s already flipped the dead bolt. 

Miguel stands prominently in your doorway, his shoulders nearly wider than the frame, “Who the hell are you,” That familiar growly voice greets Jack as he opens the door.

“Excuse me?” Jack immediately bites back. “You knocked on our door, buddy.”

“Miguel!” You run up, pushing your friend to the side. You don’t miss the shocked expression on Jack’s face as you do so. “What are you doing here?”

“So this is Miguel,” Jack raises his eyebrows, gaze dotting between the two of you. 

“Why does he know me?” Miguel is about to step past the threshold. You immediately place your hands on his chest. 

“He’s my friend. Let’s talk outside.” You turn to Jack, “You, keep setting up. I’ll be back in a minute.”

You practically push Miguel out into the hallway and slam the door behind you.

“What are you setting up?” Miguel asks a little harshly. 

“A photoshoot. He’s a photographer. I’m letting him use my place to do it,” You breathe, pinching the bridge of your nose, “What are you doing here Miguel?”

He’s silent for a moment, eyes darting between yours and the door. “I… Need your help on a mission.”

Admittedly you feel a little disappointed that he was here on business rather than coming here to just see you. But, then again, things always had to be business with Miguel. That’s how he justifies them, anyway.

“Oh?” You cross your arms.

“A Kraven anomaly. He’s been very… difficult to catch,” His gaze drifts to the floor, “And I thought a spider sense and a good teammate might be a great help. If you’re feeling up to it.”

And there it is. The faintest little hint of his feelings behind the decision. After everything he put out there after the accident, he was probably trying to get back into old habits again. You can’t blame him. You were too. He could have gone to anyone else, but he came to you. He’ll always come to you.   

You stand there for a moment before letting out a long sigh. 

“Wait here,” You dash back into your apartment and swing up to your bedroom, avoiding Jack’s eye contact at all costs. You quickly shimmy on your suit and practically stumble down the stairs. Man, you missed the nanotech suit. Jack’s waiting at the base of the stairs, arms crossed and a smile on his face. “Do not look at me like that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” He shrugs with that stupid grin. 

“I gotta go,” You tug at the sleeves of your suit, “Think you can handle everything by yourself?”

“Go, go, we’re all good here,” Jack waves you off, “Remember to text me when you’re… done with him. How come you didn’t tell me he was that big? Is all of him that big?”

You groan and dash back out the door before Jack can make another comment you know Miguel can hear from the hallway.

“Let’s go!” you pull at Miguel’s wrist as you both make your way to the fire escape. You’d rather portal from the roof than make your entire floor go through another random tremor. Luckily you both make it to the roof without getting spotted. 

“So that was your… friend?” Miguel tentatively asks as he crawls over the ledge. 

Fucking men. 

You sigh, “Yes, my high school best friend who’s currently planning to propose to his long-term boyfriend.”

 “Oh.” His gaze drops from yours, “And he… knows about us?”

“Is that okay?” You raise your brow.

“Is he secretly an interdimensional super villain?” Miguel trying to lighten the mood with sarcasm? That was a first.

“You know, not that I’ve noticed,” You joke back. 

“Then it’s fine.” he rolls his shoulders a bit, trying and failing to look more casual, “Gabe and Lyla know, it’s only fair you have someone.”

Fair. The scales must always be balanced with Miguel. It’s just the way he thinks. 

“So,” You lean against the roof ledge, “Tell me about this Kraven.”

_________________

You loved the woods. You always made an effort to take a trip up north every year. A small tradition that carried over from your childhood. Your grandparents had a timeshare upstate where you spent a summer or two. 

This forest was nothing like the modest hills of upstate New York. 

You’d never seen trees like this. You’d never been to the Rocky Mountains. There was a fog that rolled in over the gray morning, the massive pine trees still towered out of the low clouds. You and Miguel sat perched in the tallest tree overlooking the blanketed valley. 

“He hasn’t left this area for days,” Miguel tells you. You’re finding it difficult to pay attention to anything he says when you’re too busy taking in the stunning view. 

“How long have you been after him?” you ask, dismissively. 

“Six days now,” Miguel grunts in frustration, “He’s been here for weeks now. Put himself in his element. Has the whole woods memorized. He has the upper hand in every way.”

“Sounds like you should have called for backup sooner,” You respond cheekily. He grunts again and you smile to yourself. Always so stubborn. You can see his frustrations with this anomaly in his body language alone. He was hunched and glaring over the valley like some brooding, vengeful gargoyle. He’s been hanging out with Ben too much.

 “You didn’t call.” You venture to say. 

“Neither did you,” He turns his head slightly in your direction, “I thought… you’d want a little space.”

“I… guess I did, yeah.” You bite your lip for a moment, “No more space needed though.”

His only response is a small smile in your direction. And just like that, the message was received loud and clear. 

I missed you. 

I missed you too.

You peer down into the foggy pine valley. “So, you wanna try flush him out?”

“No, he has to want to come to us,” Miguel states, “He’s a hunter looking for a trophy kill. That’s us.”

“You didn’t bring me here to just be bait, did you?”

“Of course not,” He sounds absolutely offended at the notion. It’s a little cute, to be honest, “He’ll come to us. He’ll think he has the advantage. He doesn’t know how we fight together— How our sense works. I haven’t been able to catch him myself, but maybe with both of us… We have a shot.”.

“This whole situation is giving me Predator vibes . ” You joke, attempting to lighten the mood before you both have to get serious about this mission. He responds with a confused look. “Do you guys have that on Earth 2099? Ya know, the Schwarzenegger movie?”

“Was that English?”

“Technically it’s Austrian, I think.” You joke again to your oblivious partner. Maybe not the best call referencing a movie that was over 100 years old in his reality, if it existed at all. “It’s… It’s an 80’s movie– The 1980’s. I’ll show you sometime.”

“Are you suggesting a movie date?” he smirks.

“Maybe I am, O’Hara,” You pull your mask over your face, “First one to catch this guy makes the popcorn.”

He turns away with a grin, his mask materializing over his face, “You have a deal, Arañita.”

____________________

You wished he’d warned you how fucking cold it would be. Fifteen minutes into your swing through the lower valley you were already shivering. The nanotech suits had a heating and cooling system so he probably wasn’t even aware of the temperature being negative witches titty. You’ll have to ask him to make you a new one soon.

You were both making a show of your swinging, not bothering to be stealthy or quiet in the slightest. You wanted him to come to you after all, though something tells you the hunter has already spotted you. 

The spider-sense hadn’t rung any alarm bells yet. You were both on high alert just waiting for him to make a move.

Miguel was right, this guy was good. Your advanced sense of smell could have tracked him down miles away by now. You would have heard his footsteps, his breathing— and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was unsettling in a way. Like you were looking for a ghost. 

Kravens usually stood out like a sore thumb. It was surprisingly easy to track down the smell of animal pelts and witch doctor herbs in the cityscape of New York— But you weren’t in New York. You were in his woods. This Kraven was already more dangerous than any you’d faced.

You didn’t like it. 

The spider-sense pings a quiet alert. You both jump to a stop on neighboring trees and an arrow flies between you. You both turn to see your hunter proudly standing with bow and arrow in hand on a redwood branch, several yards away. 

His typical animal hide attire was covered in mud and random vegetation. On his shoulders, he adorned the hide of a grizzly bear that you swear looked freshly killed. He places his bow across his back and pulls out a massive knife from his boot. 

“Well, well! Look what I’ve found!” He shouts across the canopy, his voice dripping with the usual thick Russian accent, “Two spiders when I only thought I’d catch one. Moy schastlivyy den'. ”

Miguel is the first to pounce, and you follow quickly on his tail. Kraven doesn’t move as you swing towards him, a shit-eating grin across his mud-caked face. The spider-sense pings again but you seem to sense it just a second before Miguel does. 

In one fluid motion, Kraven slices at something at his feet and grabs a vine just above him. He’s hoisted into the air as a massive log drops down in counterweight. It comes down directly on top of Miguel. He plummets to the forest floor under the giant thing and Kraven disappears into the canopy.

You quickly turn to go after Miguel. He manages to scramble out from the massive log and catches himself on the closest tree. 

“Don’t worry about me!” He shouts from nearly 100 feet below you, “Go after him, I’ll catch up!” 

You nod and redirect your momentum, looping around a branch and flinging yourself further into the canopy. Kraven had disappeared into the thicker branches but he couldn’t have gone far. You spot his movement instantly, bounding from tree to tree. You can’t get a clean shot with your webs— you have no choice but to pursue. 

He slowly descends the forest levels as you chase after him. You’re gaining on him when you feel the sense again. Before you can even determine what for, you’re being flung in the opposite direction. A noose holds tightly around your ankle as it pulls you along. Idiot, he led you directly into another trap. You now dangle several feet above the ground by one leg. 

Homemade traps, a muscular man painted in mud fighting beings from another world—You were right, this whole mission had big Predator vibes.

The hunter jumps to the ground in front of you with a throaty chuck, “Poor little spider, caught in my web now.”

You scream and shoot webs directly at him. He dodges easily but manages to grab the strands. Before you can disconnect them he pulls your wrists behind your back and spins you several times, effectively wrapping you in your own webbing. Well, this was embarrassing.

“Or caught in your own webs,” He spins you again playfully. “Just as good.”

So much for a spider-sense. Miguel was right, this guy had the upper hand in every way.

You’re about to kick him with your free leg when Miguel tackles him to the ground. The two massive men wrestle on the ground and you quickly squirm to try to free yourself. You have no doubt Miguel could overpower him but you had no idea what else this Kraven had up his sleeve. He had traps laid out. He had a strategy. The quicker you got out and helped detain him the better. 

“You’ve been holding back on me, comrade,” Kraven grunts as he attempts to subdue Miguel, “I know a beast when I see one. A killer.”

Miguel claws into his shoulder and manages to pin the hunter to the ground. Miguel’s mask phases away, revealing a set of pearly white fangs.

“Shut. Up.” Miguel lurches down to sink his fangs into his enemy’s neck. Kraven manages to stop him. His forearm across Miguel’s throat and the venomous fangs less than an inch from his neck. Slowly, he pushes Miguel back— He’s overpowering him. You didn’t think that was possible.

“There’s more in you, my friend. Drink of the potion that made me,” Kraven grunts, “It will set your true self free. Then we can have a fair fight. A glorious fight!” 

Green gas explodes from a capsule on Kraven’s belt, engulfing them both in a thick plum. You see the hunter leap from the mist and scale the closest tree. You work fast to try free yourself from the webs, only a few strands snapping in your efforts. 

The sickening gas dissipates but Miguel does not rise from it. He sits hunched over and heaving, his clawed hands digging into the earth. Every muscle in his body is tensed and quivering

“M-Mig?” You call to him, your voice shakier than you’d like. 

He turns to you, fangs still bared in an animalistic snarl. Crimson red overtakes the whites of his eyes.

Your Miguel… is gone.

____________

Moy schastlivyy den' or Мой счастливый день: My Lucky day.

____________

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[materialsscienceandengineering]

Adding a small amount of solid carbon to copper boosts its conductivity

A common carbon compound is enabling remarkable performance enhancements when mixed in just the right proportion with copper to make electrical wires. It's a phenomenon that defies conventional wisdom about how metals conduct electricity. The findings, reported in the journal Materials & Design, could lead to more efficient electricity distribution to homes and businesses, as well as more efficient motors to power electric vehicles and industrial equipment. The team has applied for a patent for the work, which was supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Materials scientist Keerti Kappagantula and her colleagues at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered that graphene, single layers of the same graphite found in pencils, can enhance an important property of metals called the temperature coefficient of resistance.

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