🧛

After fifteen years this hyperfixation isn't going away, so we're blogging about it. Mostly dedicated to the Night World Series, but there may be some other supernatural fun thrown in. Vicennial on AO3 if you've been lacking in vampire fanfics.

[ljsmiths-thenightworld]

L.J. Smith, Author of ‘Vampire Diaries’ Book Series, Dies at 66

She wrote seven books in a series that went on to be a hit TV show. After she was replaced by ghostwriters, she reclaimed her characters onl

[moonlightreal]

Oh good! I hoped that "actual news" would write about Ms. Smith's passing, I was worried that nobody would notice but us niche longtime fans.

[bi0garden]

It’s nice to see her get recognition, I just wish it wasn’t after her death

[bivicennial]

Gutting to hear. I can only hope she knew how influential she was.

[incorrect-night-world-quotes]

Ash: You'll have to be more specific. A lot of things are my fault.

[ljsmiths-thenightworld]

Night World Flowers by vi0letdreamer. Posted June 25th, 2012 on Deviantart.

[moonlightreal]

Another Strange Fate preview

Strange Fate sneak preview in the third omnibus edition, April 2009

The girl was Kierlan’s soulmate. There was no doubt of that now, just as there’d been no doubt since they were children.

Kierlan should have, by everything her knew of the Night World’s laws, been comforted by this. He should have felt unassailable.

Instead, he felt very assailable indeed.

But why? They’d woven the eternal, unbreakable thread between them. He’d kissed, her, and it was a kiss that he was still dizzy from. Sarah had melted in his arms. And he’s seen the silver cord.

They were soulmates. Even if they were parted, the cord would connect them. Nothing could sever that cord…

...except Sarah herself.

Kierlan had a chill of premonition. Maybe it was best to impress upon Sarah, and especially upon her subconscious, that once the cord was woven, she had sealed her fate. Sarah’s kiss and what it had called forth had determined her destiny.

But first he needed to get Mal, his soul’s brother, out of the way.

He glanced out Sarah’s window, the one that looked down on the front lawn. Mal was gazing down at Sarah, who lay on her still unmade bed, as if the sight of her had turned him to stone. Maybe it had. Who knew what Mal had done to keep himself from coveting Sarah?

Kierlan was probably the only person in the world who knew that Mal loved her. And Mal was no poacher. From the beginning Mal had acknowledged that Kierlan had a prior claim, and had given his solemn word not to infringe on that. He’d given his word that Sarah would be Kierlan’s and that he would never interfere.

Until recently only one person had known that Mal had broken his word. Had lied.

And that person wasn’t Mal. It was Kierlan.

Kierlan had used his powers, ruthlessly and without concern for Mal’s mental well-being, to cut through Mal’s elaborate defenses and show him the truth.

Not that Kierlan didn’t see the reasons for Mal’s treachery. After all, if there were no reasons to love Sarah, then Kierlan wouldn’t have loved her since he had met her; although, at six, he hadn’t really known it was love. He’d simply known that the fragile fairy-child with the windblown hair was his, sworn his and sealed with their kiss shared under the oleander bush. Kierlan hadn’t understood his powers then, but he had known that Sarah, with her heart-shaped face and aquamarine eyes, was part of him.

Bringing himself to the present with a jolt, Kierlan glanced out the window again. “You’d better get your car,” He said. “We’re going to have to get her and all her stuff out of here fast.”

“You mean kidnap her? Where?”

“Circle Daybreak, of course. Hurry up.”

But Mal, who usually too orders immediately, stared at him with those cloud-gray eyes. The chiseled features under his shock of dark hair expressed no emotion. “What about her stepfamily?”

Kierlan swore. “I’ll send them a freaking telegram!”

“No, I mean what if somebody sees us taking her and—”

“You worry too much. And that wasn’t a suggestion!” Kierlan didn’t like using the whiplash voice on Mal. But he had to get him away from Sarah before she woke.

Mal stood absolutely still for just a moment, then saluted Kierlan and departed silently.

Alone with Sarah at last, Kierlan sat by her on the bed and gently called her name. Her lashes were fluttering; she was deep in a nightmare-dream.

How did Mal do it? Mal always said he just spoke to her softly. But Kierlan didn’t have either the dispassionate voice or the time; he’d used a lot of Power already , and he knew how he wasnted to use the rest of it.

There was no choice but to control her mind directly.

He slipped in unnoticed, leaving her the privacy of her dreams, and told her to wake up. Wake up, Sarah. Now.

Kierlan? Sarah blinked and opened her eyes.

“It’s all right,” he said immediately, “you’re safe.” but Sarah was looking around the room in bewilderment.

“I’ve never dreamed this before.” she said, “I mean, me being in my room again while I was still in the middle of the other dream.”

“You’re not dreaming.”

The problem was that she was. He could tell that Sarah’s mind was still in REM sleep, her breathing rapid and irregular, her eyelashes quivering every few moments as if she were trying to focus on something in the distance and couldn’t.

One of the secrets of Kierlan’s success was his ability to adapt. “All right, you are dreaming.” he said, cupping a hand around Sarah’s chin to turn her to face him. “You’re dreaming about me.”

Sarah’s blush, which came up from her collarbones and never failed to arouse Kierlan’s wonder, was just as adorable when she was asleep as awake.

“Again?” she faltered. “I used to dream about you all the time, until… until the new dreams came.”

Kierlan’s heart melted. He could feel, amazingly, his own cheeks heat with blood. He hadn’t thought there was anything that could make him blush, not anymore.

“You dreamed about me?”

“Oh, all the time.”

It occurred to Kierlan that what he was doing was probably not quite fair. In fact, it was completely and distinctly unfair. In this dreamlike state Sarah was at his mercy; she would tell him the absolute truth about anything.

It was something he definitely had to take advantage of.

“Who do you love?” he whispered, taking her chin in his fingers and using his most intense gaze to hold those aquamarine eyes with the trembling, starry black lashes.

Sarah’s face went even softer, as if she could see glorious things behind Kierlan’s tawny eyes, as if she could see inside him and everything she saw made her want to melt in his arms

“Who do you love, Mal or me?” he repeated.

And the answer came back instantly, infuriatingly, “Both.”

Kierlan’s breath came out in a little explosion. “Look at this. See this?” He had to tip her head down to look at the silver cord that was taut between them. “Do you know what that means? It means that we’re soulmates. It means I’m yours and you’re mine. Mal hasn’t got anything to do with it. I’m your other half. You’re sworn mine, sealed mine, bound mine.”

The effect was not what he’d anticipated. Sarah was looking helplessly down, then she seemed to forget the silver cord, and her gaze wandered out the window. Looking for what? Mal?

Frustrated, almost frantic, Kierlan took Sarah by the shoulders. “You have to love me. You have to.”

And then he did something he knew he should be ashamed of.

He kissed her.

Helpless as she was, dreaming as she was, he kissed her.

And it was warm and sweet and long, and Sarah didn’t wake. She wound her arms around his neck and cuddled to him, little shivers going through her. In Kierlan’s mind, in Kierlan’s heart, in Kierlan’s soul, there was total anarchy, but overall there was only the thought of Sarah. His Sarah, sealed and bound to him forever.

Whatever might happen, whatever he might have to do, Kierlan had to keep Sarah.

I have no conscience or morality about this, he thought, holding Sarah, cradling her so that her soft, fine, freshly washed hair was against his cheek. He was thinking terrible things. Sarah had changed in the last few years. Her face was still waifish, her body still fragile, but there were changes. New curves under her simple T-shirts. Now, with her quiescent and seemingly happy, he was tempted to go farther—just a little…

No! Sarah had given him a kiss from her heart, even if he’d had to exercise all his powers of seduction to get it. The waking Sarah would never allow… she would beat him away… she would never speak to him, if he tried something like that. And even if she never found out, Kierlan would always imagine the beating hands, the shrieking. Even though they were soulmates, Sarah wasn’t ready to give him more.

But I still have no conscience, he told himself defiantly. I’m restraining myself for Sarah’s sake, and that’s all.

The thought of beating, thrashing hands and shrieking brought another scene to his mind, however. It made him remember vividly the very first time Sarah had kissed him. And suddenly Kierlan knew how to make Sarah his forever, without the possibility of interference by Mal, however tall and handsome and perfect Mal might be.

“Sarah?”

“Yes?” She was still asleep, with her great jewel-like eyes wide open in that gamine face.

“Sarah, can you remember when we first met? Do you remember that first day?”

Sarah’s features changed. Her eyelids went heavy, half-closed in bliss. Her mouth went so soft with adoration that Kierlan had to clench his fists to keep from stealing another kiss. Her whole face—glowed.

“I want to take you back to that day.” Kierlan whispered. “I want you to dream about that.”

He knew he was being hideously cruel and unfair. Those kisses had been won at a heavy, heavy cost. But just now he needed Sarah to remember how she’d felt about him before Mal had come into the picture. Kierlan needed her to remember how they had already been sworn together, so young.

“Go back.” Kierlan was whispering now, hypnotically. “I’ll go back with you. We’ll share our thoughts, our feelings. Go back to that first day…”

Unconsciously, Kierlan was swaying, and Sarah was swaying with him. Grasped in his arms, her mind dissolving in with his mind, Sarah was going back, and he was following.

[bivicennial]

The funniest thing that happens in Huntress is Hugh going "uhhh Morgead definitely doesn't hate you" to Jez because it means that Morgead's loser pining had gotten so bad that some guy he'd never met on the opposite side of their secret supernatural war was hearing about it through the gossip channels. Like no wonder he tried to sell a kid to the Night Council, dude was getting called Down Bad in the streets💀

[ljsmiths-thenightworld]

What’s Your Favorite Night World Book?

Secret Vampire

Daughters of Darkness

Spellbinder

Dark Angel

The Chosen

Soulmate

Huntress

Black Dawn

Witchlight

Voting ended onFeb 5, 2024

[ljsmiths-thenightworld]

We need some love for Witchlight! Any Witchlight fans?

[bivicennial]

I will never get over L.J. Smith writing the only book about shapeshifters in the series, establishing that they're monarchists, and then dipping. Like ma'am I need so much more information, please come back.

[bivicennial]

One of the little bits of worldbuilding lore I really appreciate in the NW is how both vampires and witches have very distinct cultures around raising children.

Like, Thea and Blaise lose their parents and are immediately taken in by an increasingly long list of relatives, because witches (especially Harman witches) do not let their children be abandoned. It's a very village-centric society. Everybody pitches in to make sure the kids are looked after and cared for, all 90s matriarchal commune style. Even when Blaise is actively causing like, mayhem and destruction, the Crone of All Witches decides to take her granddaughters on full time despite being ninety years old and running half the goddamn Night World.

Comparatively, the vampires have a very... aloof style of parenting. It's quite business-like, and focused mostly on monetary support rather than emotional care. Vampire kids are expected to teach themselves most of their survival skills basically on the streets. Darwinist, y'know? Because vampire children are given a lot of what humans (and witches, it seems) would consider very adult freedoms, and are treated as functional members of Night World society quite young. It seems to be expected that most vampire kids who aren't kept in an enclave will learn how to defend themselves or they'll get fucked up. And if they can't defend themselves, well. Weakness gets culled, and all that.

There's a lot of examples of it, too. Vampiric parenting is pretty consistent across the books. James's parents support him financially, but he lives in an apartment by himself at the age of, what, sixteen? Probably younger, considering he was living there for a while by the time Secret Vampire starts. And Ash doesn't seem to have any consistency in his life, but he does spend all his time partying in Las Vegas, while it's implied both his parents are living on the east coast in an enclave. He goes to fetch his sisters when his father tells him to, but he never gives the impression that he especially likes his father, and in fact suggests that if Quinn hadn't been around when his father called, he might have ignored him. There doesn't seem to be much love lost there. And we don't even have to get into Delos's relationship with his father, the guy who treats him like a living weapon at best.

Actually, the closest thing to a loving, functional parental vampire relationship seems to be Jez and Bracken, and they only have like one scene together. Even then, he let her run around San Francisco without supervision from the age of five onward, and that's never treated as being especially outside of the norm. He makes sure she has a place to stay and goes to school, but he doesn't seem to keep track of her daily activities at all, or he does and doesn't care what she gets into so long as he doesn't personally have to deal with it.

And unlike the witches, there doesn't seem to be as big of a push to take on extra kids. That's Morgead's whole thing, that he's got a bone to pick with all the elder vampires that just ignored him when he was abandoned by his mom. Even if they do take in the kids without parents (like Bracken does), vampire parents don't provide much attention anyway. With Thea, she sees a whole future surrounded by other witches and continuing her education under the tutelage of her family. She was eighteen and would have continued to be monitored and cared for for years. Whereas Ash got attacked at the age of twelve, killed a much bigger vampire, and every single person who could have watched out for him was like "yep he's good give him a credit card and let him go do whatever" and he just does.

Honestly, I could talk about each of the characters' childhoods in depth individually, but maybe I'll have to save that for later. Or fanfics or something.

[bivicennial]

I love that Ash Redfern (derogatory) and Ash Redfern (affectionate) are the same thing. And also that everyone in the entire series agrees about it.

[bivicennial]

You know what else was kind of a missed opportunity? It's canon in the series that vampires can have a huge variety in fang size, but all of the main characters have the discreet, cat-like, "sexy" teeth. No. Give Thierry saber-teeth.

[bivicennial]

I understand that since it's a YA series written in the 90s that obviously Smith had to tone some things down to keep them PG 13 but like. Listen to me. A ragtag gang of teenage vampires running around San Francisco with zero adult supervision would have a shit ton of weird tattoos and piercings. Especially if tattoos are looked down on in the vampire sections of the Night World. They wear leather and ride motorcycles; you absolutely cannot convince me that Morgead wouldn't get something stupid like FUCK tattooed on his knuckles.

[bivicennial]

The good part of writing for a fandom that is very, very small: Nobody cares if I mess up the canon a little bit

The bad part of writing for a fandom that is very, very small: I CARE

[bivicennial]

Hello and welcome to the five people who remember the Night World Series. We are a critically endangered species but twenty-five years of no new material hasn't stopped me yet.