Spider Costello's Web

Original art and stories by one Spider Costello, aka Jasper. He/it. All characters/settings mine unless otherwise specified.

[spider-costello]

Was scrolling thru my cat tag a bit ago over on my main @beastoftheblackhole and found a pic of a black cat wearing a little knitted wizard hat and decided to draw it. Kept altering the crop and the pose since the original pic is just the cat’s head until I ended up with a full body, and then because why not I started coloring it and used my real cat as reference bc his name is Merlin. So roundabout way of saying I drew my cat as a wizard.

[spider-costello]

Knitted kitten, or knitten

Knitted from this pattern. The collar is one of my cat’s kitten collars.

[jasperisafanboy]

given Recent Events:tm: I’m looking into setting up a Pillowfort and/or perhaps a Bluesky account. I would probably still post here, but likely only preview images, the way I’ve seen some people do with their patreons. I’m also trying to get a WebGlaze account, since I’m hearing that a certain reprehensible someone has struck a deal with Midjourney to sell art data to them and frankly fuck that. Once I have everything set up wherever else I go, I’ll do a pinned post.

[jasperisafanboy]

All right, y'all. Shit's looking increasingly dire around here, so I went and made a Pillowfort. Still haven't made up my mind on a Bluesky, though I might make one of those just to keep up with other artists I like who've gone over there.

[spider-costello]

It's not gonna be strictly fanart over there, I'm gonna post my original stuff there too. I'm not sure if it does multiple blogs the way tumblr does, but that's a future me problem.

[jasperisafanboy]

given Recent Events:tm: I’m looking into setting up a Pillowfort and/or perhaps a Bluesky account. I would probably still post here, but likely only preview images, the way I’ve seen some people do with their patreons. I’m also trying to get a WebGlaze account, since I’m hearing that a certain reprehensible someone has struck a deal with Midjourney to sell art data to them and frankly fuck that. Once I have everything set up wherever else I go, I’ll do a pinned post.

[spider-costello]

Apparently I did this drawing of motley a while back. Forgot it existed, was going thru my photos on my iPad today and found it. I still enjoy drawing him and his hair.

[spider-costello]

Saw the meme cross my dash the other day and since I’m blessed w the ability to draw beefcakes in bunny suits, I did just that. Top character is Aellan from my fantasy western @sacredandlost, bottom character is my men’s tits wizard Finlay, who I’ve never posted here so everyone say hello. The peanut gallery ogling them are their respective husbands/boyfriends.

[spider-costello]

Drew myself as a cat, am I one of the cool kids now

[spider-costello]

Yeehawgust: Cowboy Casanova

--

It was the slap heard across the prairie, Moss reflected idly, watching with something like pure glee as Garnet stormed across the saloon towards the bar, where Moss leaned facing the room with their elbows on the wood. Moss couldn’t help being grateful for their mask; it hid the smile and raised eyebrow on their face that Garnet would surely have taken offense at.

“I take it he wasn’t asking for directions to the inn,” they said as Garnet came to stand next to them.

“Don’t know what they’re seein’ when they’s lookin’ at me,” Garnet grumbled as they waved to the barman. “Ain’t like I look like a whore, an’ I’m travelin’ with a crow. How come they leave you alone, but not me?”

Moss had very little intention of answering that honestly; if Garnet was determined to be unaware of how attractive they were, with their full lips and the dusting of freckles like stars across their high cheeks, their big brown eyes, the way their smiles lit their whole face, Moss would leave them to it. Instead, they simply shrugged and said, “It’s the mask. No one can guess what I look like behind it and they’re afraid to catch plague if I look at them anyway.”

Garnet made an inarticulate grumbling noise into their whiskey. “They ain’t even got no sense of romance,” they said. “Might could be I’d give ‘em more’n a slap if’n they put some damn effort in, but naw, they just come on up an’ act like I oughtta be grateful they wanna go--”

“Pardon me.”

Moss and Garnet turned to Moss’ left. The man that stood there smiled crookedly, bright white teeth in a handsome sepia face, square-jawed and strong-boned. He tipped his black hat back to reveal proud black brows and eyes the same warm shade as freshly turned earth. Even Moss could see he was a well-shaped man, especially with the way his denim trousers hugged his hips and thighs and the way his waistcoat outlined the almost waspish taper of his waist.

“What, you aimin’ for a slap too? I ain’t interested!” Garnet snarled. “Piss off!”

The man blinked. “Eh?”

“What do I gotta do, wear a sign? I. Ain’t. Interested!”

“No, I...” The man looked at Moss. “I was hopin’ I could buy you a drink, Doc. Reckon we met, some years back. You helped my family through malaria.” His crooked smile came back. “Been hopin’ I’d see you again one day, want to show you my appreciation for what you did.”

Moss tilted their head. They looked at his stance, the way he stood with his hips canted forward and his thumbs tucked in his pockets and the deliberate angle of his hands. His shirt stood open at the neck, showing his collarbone and a slice of muscled chest. His smile broadened the longer Moss took to reply. It was a very calculated display. They didn’t wonder how he’d recognized them; there were no other crows that dressed like cowboys, the way Moss did and always had done.

“No, thanks,” they said. They put their back to him, ignoring his sputters, and looked at Garnet. “Let’s move on, I want to reach the Cleef homestead as soon as possible.”

Garnet, very poorly hiding a grin, set their whiskey glass down. “You got it, Doc. ‘Sides, bet Winnie’s figured out how to get the stable doors open, better make sure she ain’t makin’ trouble.”

“That cat is far too clever for her own good.” Moss tipped their hat to the cowboy, almost as an afterthought. “Good day, hope your family’s well.”

“I-I--wait, if’n you’re goin’ to the Cleef homestead, I could go with you!” The cowboy’s smile was back. “It’s a ways out of town, you ain’t likely to reach it ‘til tomorrow.” He took a step towards them. “An’ nights are cold ‘round here. Mighty lonely. Best spend ‘em with company.”

Garnet scoffed in disgust. Moss turned and looked at the cowboy, the kind of full-on stare that had made stronger, better men turn meek as new lambs. Even with the mask, its force was impossible to ignore. The cowboy flinched under its assault.

“Take no for an answer,” Moss said, “or you’ll find out exactly what kind of damage a crow is capable of. Don’t forget, medicine kills as easily as it cures.”

The cowboy went pale. Moss swept out of the saloon, duster billowing in their wake, Garnet on their heels. Once outside, Garnet let out a cackle like a coyote’s howl.

“Moss, you gotta teach me that look,” they said. “That was the funniest shit I ever seen, I thought he was gonna pass right out!”

“I’ve had to deal with one too many fools ignoring my advice, thinking they know better just because they’re local leaders.” Moss shrugged. “And it works pretty well on overconfident cowboys who think a nice smile is all it takes to charm their way into my bed, even though they’d never be welcome there. Makes them remember what I am.”

“So you’d never say yes to any of ‘em? He wasn’t bad-lookin’, could’ve done worse if’n you’d wanted to roll him.”

“My tastes don’t run to men like him. They barely run, anyway, more sort of... amble, at best.”

“Huh.”

By then, they’d reached the stable. Garnet headed in ahead of Moss, going straight for their horses and the calico cat asleep on Garnet’s saddle. Moss watched them work for a moment from the door, the easy way they had with both their own horse and Moss’ horse, who was a temperamental bastard at the best of times. To Garnet, he was as friendly as a dog. Moss hid another smile behind their mask.

No, Moss’ tastes did not run to men like the cowboy at all.

[spider-costello]

Yeehawgust: Meowdy

[[back at it again w my cowboy plague doc and their cowhand friend. let’s see how far i get this year. also they have names now bc i was gonna use them somewhere else. (didn’t but that’s neither here nor there.)]]

--

Moss didn’t hear it, but Moss’ hearing had never been good. It was Garnet who heard the little squeaks as they brushed their horse, Garnet who paused and swatted Moss’ shoulder until they stilled and looked around, Garnet who stood listening as intently as a wolf on the prairie.

“What?” Moss asked.

“Shush, I’m listenin’. Heard somethin’.”

Moss shushed. They trusted Garnet’s ears far more than their own; the number of times Garnet had heard a rattlesnake before Moss did was into the double digits. If Garnet said they’d heard something, Moss believed them. Both stood still in the stable, Moss awkwardly holding their medical bag and saddlebags, Garnet with their head tilted so their left ear faced forward. For a long moment the only sounds were the horses shifting their weight and the faint sounds coming from the street beyond. (Moss had already forgotten the name of the town they’d blown into this time; it could have been any one of the frontier towns they passed through. This one hadn’t even asked for Moss’ help, it was simply a place to spend a night.)

Then the sound came again: a tiny voice, not much louder than a mouse, some small animal obviously distressed. Garnet immediately moved towards it, heading for a dim corner of the stables, where a pile of ropes lay coiled in an untidy mess. They crouched down and began carefully moving the rope aside. Moss watched, ready to move if Garnet wanted their help.

“There you are!” Garnet said after a moment. “Aw, ain’t you the tiniest thing.” They slowly straightened up, bent around something held close to their chest, and turned around. A wide grin had lit their dark face. “Look, Moss.”

Moss went over to examine the little ball of calico fur in Garnet’s hands. The kitten squeaked plaintively, her grass-green eyes nearly closing with it. She couldn’t have been more than a few months old, if even that. She reached up and batted at the end of Moss’ beaked mask, making Garnet laugh.

“Can we keep her?” Garnet asked. “Or, naw, I bet you reckon animals carry disease.”

“They do,” Moss said, reaching out to scratch the kitten between the ears with one gloved finger, “but I like cats. They kill rodents, and rodents spread more disease than cats do. You realize the traveling we do doesn’t lend itself to keeping a cat. And she might belong to someone already.”

“I know, but...” Garnet looked crestfallen.

Moss shrugged. “If she doesn’t belong to anyone, you can try keeping her,” they said. “She might run off some night, though. Hard to keep a cat at a campsite, and not all of the places we stay in towns tolerate cats. Might mean sleeping with the horses.”

Garnet’s grin was back like it had never left. Moss would never admit it, but they thought Garnet’s grin was the most blinding thing they’d ever seen. The inconvenience of traveling with a kitten was well worth that grin. “Chance I’m willin’ to take,” they said. “Thanks, Moss.”

The kitten, it turned out, was the last of a litter the innkeeper had been trying to give away for weeks. She was happy to let Garnet have the kitten, even sent up a bowl of cream and fish for her with Garnet and Moss’ supper. The next morning, they rode out with the kitten sitting on Garnet’s saddlehorn like she belonged there.

“What’re you going to name her?” Moss asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Garnet said. They grinned over at Moss. “Maybe I’ll name her after you, call her Winnie. She ain’t big enough for Winchester. Then again, you ain’t, either.”

Moss could only laugh.

[spider-costello]

Me: *folding laundry*

My brain: Tripp pants plague doctor

Me: …@ my brain do u just string words together or

[plaguedootdoot]

Th- the fact that I have this outfit in green and hadn't thought of putting this look together IS A CRIME

Thank you for giving me inspiration today 😭

[spider-costello]

Hi op here, oh my god that is incredible thank you for sharing this

[spider-costello]

Me: *folding laundry*

My brain: Tripp pants plague doctor

Me: …@ my brain do u just string words together or

[spider-costello]

Hey folks, went ahead and made a blog for the fantasy western! Nothing on it yet but if u wanna keep an eye on it, hop on over to @sacredandlost toot sweet

[spider-costello]

i’ve decided i feel the same way abt typing up a handwritten draft as i do inking/doing lineart: i don’t like it

only slightly related: contemplating making a blog for the fantasy western, stick like inspo stuff and maybe some art if i can make myself draw again and whining abt my process on it. should prob get a title for it first tho huh

[spider-costello]

Pardon the pun but yee fuckin haw

[spider-costello]

Catch me literally cutting and pasting smth in the fantasy western bc I’m rewriting a section and this bit o description still works but I didn’t feel like copying it by hand

[spider-costello]

Holy fuck I might have the first draft of the fantasy western done by the end o the week?? All I have left is a scene I skipped earlier bc it wouldn’t come out when I started it. I’ve been working on that thing for like a year and a half, it almost feels weird to be this close to the end. There’s still a lot to do to it, edits and revisions and such, but I’ll have told the whole story.

Fuck, lads

[spider-costello]

today i learned u can post novels on tapas *eyes emoji*

this is important news to me bc ive got two i’ve been working on for the better part of a year or more and i haven’t had any idea what to do w them--i don’t want to post them here bc this place is so hostile to creators these days, i don’t want them on amazon, i somehow doubt traditional publishers will take a chance on me, and i don’t want to just sit on them and never show them to anyone except my bf. its smth i’ve been thinking more abt lately, bc one of them looks like it might actually let me finish it?? the other one is struggling in the weeds bc covid anxiety nerfed my ability/willingness to work on it (it’s abt a pandemic lmao i started it in fucking 2018 thanks very fucking much) so that ones real *shrug* rn.

(tbh i feel like i’m in over my head w the pandemic novel and have been for a long time, so like. that might be a ‘put in a box until i’m worthy of it’ idea. like neil gaiman and ‘the graveyard book’. or was it ‘ocean at the end of the lane’. idk he did that w one o his books. anyway i’m not bothered by the thought of having to do that since i want to do it properly, especially now that i’ve experienced a pandemic for real.)

anyway novels on tapas. yes. might be how i publish this thing. maybe if it gets enough attention (he says, laughing into his shoulder) i’ll shop it around to print publishers, bc i’d rly love to see a book i’ve written on a store shelf. we’ll see. i gotta actually finish the thing first lmao