Saw this post

And then my goblin brain happened and I turned it into this

In the Forests of the Night-- perfect name for the episode, perfect follow-up to A Time to Heal. The entire ending got me in the tear ducts. 

ROLLEY’S BACK, Vincent’s journal entry (“so much rage… where is the hope?”) Father trying to lure Vincent back to live with the community and Vincent’s cut lines of “promises to keep”, Diana’s sister?? and Alex and her birthday present (independent like Diana), Rolley’s tolerance and trying to wheedle drugs out of Vincent, Vincent’s rage and threats at Tony (no mercy, straight to threats of death), the wheelings and dealings of the drug men, GABRIEL OF COURSE, Father holding Rolley, Vincent going ham on the drug den, Gabriel smirking that Vincent is alive, Joe’s back, Rolley’s gone (of course), Father trying to talk Rolley back (like he can’t with Vincent) and failing (like he has with Vincent.), Diana’s cut script dream (fascinating implications) and piercing her finger on Cathy’s white rose, Joe’s here, Diana trying to talk Joe away from the truth but being stymied by Joe’s survivor, Diana apologizing to Cathy, Vincent didn’t harm Horner (still didn’t cross the line Paracelsus tried to force with Spirko), Vincent writing in his journal about how his actions “ruined” only him, lost children (his son, Rolley, other kids), Snow’s ring, Lewis shaking during Gabriel’s speech and knowing his death is at hand, “my enemy, my brother”, Lewis unplugging his own chord, Diana tracking Vincent (that line Vincent said of “saving him from himself”-- can’t remember exact line but he’s not wrong), Joe confronting her in her apartment, Vincent’s “nothing up there but death”-- what a change, Father’s wise speech about fatherhood and choices (and indirectly talking about himself letting Vincent make his own choices and respecting them), “this isn’t really about Rolley”, Diana hunting down Tony just as Rolley shows up, the piano music crescendoing as Rolley runs and Vincent sets out on the prowl and Diana finds him, “there are no safe places for anyone”, Diana frustrated he’d destroyed Gabriel’s place without knowing it was his, “and did it help him? Is he better now?”, Diana’s been there too, Vincent has nothing but THESE and Diana immediately saying “those can’t help you find your son”-- WHAT A PARALLEL to Cathy’s “these are my hands” (uhoh, that’s probably why he’s using them now, UHOH), “I can make Gabriel bleed night after night” (there’s that “enemy, brother” that Gabriel expects from Vincent), “by then it won’t matter who wins, Vincent”, and “what kind of father do you want your son to have?” is powerful, if he continues alone he will lose everything, “where is the hope, Diana?”, Diana tears up as he walks off, ROLLEY PLAYING THE PIANO THERE’S THE HOPE-- all who are lost can be found or can find themselves, Vincent tearing up, A LETTER TO DIANA ON HER BALCONY WITH SNOW’S RING. 

Okay, now for some questions~. I've been consuming so much new information that I've gotten fuzzy on some old bits.

I know that Oz/Kansas and Shangri-La was a specific tie to Devin as a character and Vincent's relationship with him; but when/how did it transform over into a singularly "Vincent" allegory-- or was that a creation of Nan's in A Darkling Plain?

And hope this is not too personal, but I was curious: is your Gossamer name a reference to this series or "wholly original"? ;))

Tyger, tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night...

Let's unpack this one, shall we?

First of all, a reminder. This episode, as well as the final two, were cut from the mid-season winter schedule when the show was canceled and were only aired the following summer, five months later. So we knew about them, but didn't know if we'd ever get to see them or not. Nan had already started writing the stories for AWTN 1 and had to go back and do some revisions to reflect the new information we learned about Diana (specifically) and what the show might look like going forward after the baby arc.

And ITFOTN was jam-packed with Diana info. Lovely tidbits that 4th season writers snatched up in greedy little hands. Like the fact that she had a sister, Susan, and a niece, Alex. The things she said to Susan about the impact V had on her life - obliquely, of course. The way she tried to steer Joe away from V and then apologizing to Cathy for it after Joe left. Vincent's downward spiral (again) and his utter frustration and sense of helplessness and feelings of being so alone in his hunt for his son - and his inability to help Rolley. Gabriel's "My enemy, my brother," sentiment. Oh, and what you saw as Gabe's smirk upon learning V was still alive, I saw as more of a grimace that he hadn't managed to kill him and there was more to come before he could claim victory.

I love the way Diana came in as clean-up crew after V destroyed the warehouse, digging to find out who saw what and whether Lew had been on the business end of V's claws or not. No claw marks = nothing to tie his injuries directly to V. Knowing the warehouse was Gabriel's even if she didn't know for certain how she knew it and having it confirmed by Lew's body language and avoiding her eyes. Pressing Tony for exactly where he'd encountered V because she was determined to stop V from destroying himself. And all that because of her driving need to protect him - even if it's from himself.

And her confrontation with Vincent! Pure gold. The way she strode into that alley and got right up in his face from the get-go. The look V gives her when she asks, "Did it help him? Is he better now?" The dismissive look she gives his hands, her "Until you kill him or he kills you. By then it won't matter who wins," trying to get him to see that what he's done and wants to continue doing makes him no better than Gabriel. And, of course, the gut punch she delivers with "What kind of father do you want your son to have?" Yeah, powerful is a good word to describe that. I still stand up and cheer every time I watch that scene. I think if she thought she could've gotten away with it, she'd have smacked him upside the head and told him to open his eyes and see that he doesn't have to do this on his own. But the "If you continue alone in this, you are going to lose everything," worked too. She cuts him zero slack and that is exactly the kind of person he needs in his life. No one has ever confronted him that way, with cold, hard truths. And what do you know, it works. After V discovers Rolley back Below and at the piano, he realizes there is still hope and lets her in, gives her the ring, along with his trust - a very large thing indeed. And it's obvious she knows what a huge deal that is and will do everything in her power to help him find his son. I just love her to pieces.

Okay, got that out of my system. 🤣

Everything else you said? Big thumbs up!

I would recommend that you watch The Chimes at Midnight and Invictus together, as they tie up the baby arc. A few trivial things about those two eps: Perlman directed Chimes and did a nice job of it. GRRM wrote Invictus and you can tell - it's a banger of a script. Don't know if you're light sensitive, but FYI Invictus has two scenes with pretty heavy flashing/strobing sequences. The final scene of Invictus was culled from one of the first scenes of The Reckoning and edited in before broadcast since it wasn't known at the time if CBS would ever show the 3 "lost episodes." So you get to see that same scene in full in The Reckoning. I can't say enough about both Chimes and Invictus; you'll just have to see for yourself. It's a wild ride.

As to your questions: I think the Oz/Kansas and Shangri-La thing was simply Nan picking up that thread from the show and expanding on it, as she was so good at doing with many things.

You asked about my stuff on Gossamer but did you mean AO3? Because everything I have on Gossamer is under my own name. I chose wonderland on AO3 because when I'm writing and really get lost in it, I often feel like Alice must have when she fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Like it's a whole new reality. Does that make sense?

Illustration for the fairy tale by N. Kozyreva “Peek and Kreek” by Олеся Космодемьянская

Post-Dare Seize the Fire Headcanons

Coming in hot with some new (updated?) headcanons now that Dare Seize the Fire is finished!

SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously (but if you haven't read it already, go do it now! It's all up on Patreon for free (or will be by next week at least)!):

No one told Ather about this, so they all think she's completely in the dark and has no idea that Risika is Lila's actual child (because somehow everyone thinks she's weak and oblivious), but she figured it out on her own pretty quickly. She kept her mouth shut, though, because she didn't care enough to get into it (and figured the truth will come out eventually anyway).

Alexander takes the revelation much better than Risika does (though he's shocked and needs time to process, and he's devastated at the revelation that both his mother and his sister are vampires). This is because he's had a much easier time of things. His magic came easier; he was privy to more of the story than Risika was; while Pandora was a harsh mentor, he knew the reason for why she was treating him so harshly and he probably got regular (implicit) assurance that he was strong and powerful; only Pandora was lying by omission to him (as opposed to Risika having a bunch of people who knew her/were in proximity to her, who knew the truth and were actively keeping it from her). Still, while recognizes that his mother left them in order to protect them, he is disgusted by the fact that 1) she had an affair with a vampire in the first place (and so he blames her and her youthful indiscretions as the cause of all this), and 2) she seems to have conspired with Aubrey to ‘corrupt’ Risika. In the end, while he does acknowledge and love Lila as his mother, he cannot forgive her.

Risika takes this very badly. In the span of an hour, her entire life and worldview has been turned upside down. She's the very last person in the entire world to know the full truth of this and she feels betrayed. She resents that so many people seemed to have banded together to decide what was good for her and what information about herself she should and shouldn't be privy to, and she had no say in any of it. Even her victory feels hollow, like she had just fulfilled her role as a pawn in someone else's game. Both of them, her mother and her brother, knew that she was out there and they left her completely alone. Her brother seems to have preferred it if she had died instead of giving in to her vampire needs or defending herself against Aubrey. Her own mother allowed her to suffer at the hands of Aubrey (though Lila said that she never would've allowed it if she knew the lengths he would go to). Hell, even Jager, the one vampire that she was sort of on ok terms with, was basically lying to her face the entire time. Even the one reliable fact she had to grasp onto for all these years, that Aubrey was her enemy and that once she defeated him, she would be free, is completely subverted. I think coming out of this conversation, Risika was ready to fight Aubrey again and kill him this time, but she thought better of it and instead, impulsively decided to go after Kaleo (which, I think, ends up being the incident that Brina references in Promises to Keep).

Even though Aubrey's interest in Risika began mainly as an interest in her power (cultivating it, claiming it for himself, etc. I'm still not sure) and then turned into being about righting a wrong/keeping his word, I think that after literal centuries of looking out for her and interfering with her (I’m sure it was more than those two other times mentioned in ITFOTN) and basically getting to know her from afar, Aubrey gradually developed a strong respect for her and genuinely does care about her (full disclosure, I'm a hardcore Aubrey/Risika shipper, so I think he eventually falls in love but doesn't realize it until after she wins the fight (which is either too late or exactly appropriate depending on how you look at it)).

Though Aubrey kind of laments in Chapter 21 that he didn't run into Alexander first (since his powers were much stronger and more apparent than Risika's), the more Aubrey gets to know Risika, the more assured he is that she's the stronger of the two (both in terms of power and character) and it's a shame that so many had written her off in the beginning (the first thing Lila said to him after finding out about Risika was to ask what happened to Alexander and he wasn't privy for her reasons behind that).

And along those same lines, though he's only observed/interacted with Alexander a few times after he 'killed’ him (when he kicked Alexander out of his vampire cafe and when he (probably) was eavesdropping on Alexander's reunion with Risika), from those few times, his disdain for Alexander only grows (as is the case, I'm sure, for most people who interact with Alexander).

Kaei is the de facto mayor of New Mayhem and Silver is secretly afraid of her.

by Gustaf Emanuelsson

Aurora Borealis (Lapland, Finland)

Returning the Head of the Forest Spirit

the amount of games made with unity though...

night in the woods, ori, cuphead, untitled goose game, hiveswap, hollow knight and silksong, pokemon bdsp, pokemon go, fate: grand order, fire emblem engage, genshin impact, doom (switch port only), ultrakill, among us, yugioh duel links, yugioh master duel...

so many games Will be impacted it's not even funny. Fuck Unity.

𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰’𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴

For those of you who have enjoyed my Hawksong fic, The Ties That Bind, or who grew up loving the original and all of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' other books, big news!

There's a new book out!

Seize the Fire is a collection of questions answered, from why Rachel Weatere looks like a goddamned hawk shapeshifter to why Kaleo didn't just out and out kill Sarah Vida at the start of Shattered Mirror. All posts go free to the public after one week, so even if you can't pledge to Amelia's Patreon, come and read! The Den is back (again lol) and waiting for you in the shadows of our world!

In the Forests Of the Night

The place you destroyed belonged to Gabriel. It was his. I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true.

Gabriel?

Vincent, why? If you didn’t know, why did you do it?

I had a friend. His name was Rolley. I did it for him.

And did it help him? Is he better now? Vincent, I’ve been there too, and this is not the way.

Then where is the way? What would you have me do? He has my son and I have nothing but these! (lifts his clawed fists)

Those can’t help you find your son.

They can make Gabriel bleed! Night after night, until –

Until you kill him, or he kills you. By then it won’t matter who wins, Vincent. What kind of father do you want your son to have? If you continue alone in this, you are going to lose everything.

Then where is the hope, Diana? Where is the hope?

Dare Seize the Fire first impressions

Lila is a great narrator. I love her voice and how thoroughly she's retroactively reading Kaleo to filth

@ Kaleo

Second impressions: Will Backlist & Chill be covering this? Eventually? Please?(!)

The Mystery of Light

— by Sydney Laurence (1865-1940)