#thea harman

[ljsmiths-thenightworld]

Night World Volume III - Spellbinder

[pinkhazeandsilverchords]

[velociraptor-sisterhood]

[pastadoughie]

MY NAME IS SPELLED WITF AN E AND NOT AN A get it RIGHT!!

hai! im rowen (he/him) and i draw thingse soemtimze!! im a queer (trans, intersex, gay) 17 (5-1-07) yr old furry artist :3 u probably know my blog for drawing many many silly kitties and miscilanious creechers, but i do other things!

i do requests (no ocs or fandom shit, ONLY silly) and i take commisions (i am working on a website to organize all the prices and stuff, but for now, just dm me if youre intrested)

i do all my art on mspaint (win10 ver.) unless explicitly stated otherwise, i just use the default pencil tool on 4px (the largest default size setting) witch is a round brush with no antialiasing

i use a drawing tablet, the XP-Pen Deco 1 V2 (Celeste, He/Him), and an ASUS Harman/Kardon i7 14.5 In. laptop (Chelsea, She/Her)

my blog mostly runs on a queue, witch is very long and only goes onse a day, so sometimes extremeley old artwork gets posted. for this reason posts that are recently posted are not nessasarily recently drawn. furthermore, asks sometimes take an extremely long time to post after ive actually answered them, so please dont resubmit things. (+ i have far too many askse to actually be able to answer them all. so asks that are very similar to things ive already answered, are extremely time consuming, or are just not that funny, are unlikely to ever be answered)

rebeast : is for reblogs of other peoples content

rowencatfanart : is for fanart people have made for me (if you make any please tag it as such, as well as mention me in the post)

the beast speaks : is for all my original text posts

retchid opinions : are for my own text posts where i actually say things of value and have an opinion on topics

screaming and scampering : is for when i say bullshit that doesnt matter

consulting thea council : is for polls of mine

rowens serious art : is for serious rendered art of mine

rowens liddol guys : is for sillies of all kinds that ive made

biblically accurate rowen : is for art of non-kitty me, for blacklisting purposes (i like to not be reminded i am a person when im scrolling thru my own blog) mspaint animations : for when i animate things on mspaint (onion skin is for cowards i let my heart guide me) rowens animatics : are for when i make, animatics, its really self explainatory. rowens advertising : is for when i advertise my products or twitch or commisions or whatever. for blacklisting purposes the mewsifixtion : is for when i give out easter eggs 2 ppl who send me asks. asks for this are currently CLOSED rowensumptions : are for when ppl send me headcannons they have abt me thru asks S teir wimpering : for the text postre ive made that r actualey funny rows gross old ort : for when i reblog old art of mine i tag all asks with the username of the person who asked them, so if u want to find a previous ask of yours i answered you can just search your own username i also try to tag asks i answer with the date of when they were sent to me, and the date i actually drew them, because the queue can make this confusing,,, i cant really retroactively see the send date of posts i made before this tagging change, so some we will simpley nevr know,,, dates are written in american date format. so month-day-year i always tag the software i use for each artwork, but its pretty much always MSPaint (Win10), though i occasionally do image editing in Asesprite

the gray and white kitty i draw most frequently is my catsona! he is not an oc and is specifically meant to represent me

i ask that you please do not use drawings of him as personal branding (such as pfps, banners, avatars, ect.)

the samething applies to my fursona, valentine, though his design changes too much to give an accurate ref for, i generally will specify in the tags

i am generally fine with people saying that my catsona is cute but please dont make any overly explicit comments about my fursona, or on my posts in general. i am a minor (i dont care if you say like, ouyhh bark bark i love men i get it hes meant to be attractive but use some common sense)

furthermore. for people who have blogs with alot of untagged sexually explicit content its best you dont interact with me, i have my age set properly, so i do not see sexual posts that are properly flagged, but if your posts ARENT flagged, and you interact WITH ME, then thats on YOU for exposing a minor for sexually explicit content

if you have minors DNI in your bio and make a whole song and dance abt how ggrrr!!! i block ageless blogs and minors!!! and then go and reblog my posts with sexual comments then thats on you. and not me.

i dont care that much frankly, about seeing joke posts abt penis or whatever, but there is a line. and if you are trying to curate a specifically adult space on your blog then you also have to put in the work to not intentionally loop minors into that

also. please do not act overly familiar with me, im a 17 yr old on the internet and not your friend. and while i am not opposed to meeting people on tumblr, there is a line and you need to actually build some kind of relationship with me before youre allowed to act like that.

u can find me on tumblr (duh) : @pastadoughie : my main @leftoverdough : is my reblog sideblog @scungledfiles : is the web graphics blog i run w/ my friend (@soggiedsocks) (though we havent been as active as of late cuz mentol ealness + i have been fopcusing moar on this blog) youtube : pastadoughie (i havent posted in 6 months ouhm, oops,) twitch : pastadoughie etsy : scungledthings (i also share this with @soggiedsocks, when contacting my shop you will most likely be talking to him and not me.) if you would like to contact me FOR COMMISIONS directly you can also do so discord : pastadough email : pastadough01@gmail.com PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ONLY BUISNESS INQUIRIES!! stupid shit should be sent via ask or tumblr dm. DO NOT FLOOD MY EMAIL!! i WILL block you!! --- Last Updated : 5-1-2024

[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.

[moonlightreal]

Night World unfinished business

Strange Fate’s B-plot is Ash helping the protagonists of the previous books as the apocalypse approaches. It looks like the “help” is just hat he shows up with a helicopter and rescues them from the dragons, who are threatened by the younger Harmans and Redferns and their soulmates. But before we learned that I thought about other situations Ash could find the characters in. So, what unfinished business do the characters have?

Secret Vampire

Poppy and James are setting out to find Poppy’s father, a lost witch. He’s apparently been… being a hippie… all over the country, led by his psychic powers. So what interesting things has he gotten up to over the years? How does he react when he learns about the Night World and that his daughter is now a vampire? Poppy’s brother Phil has chosen a human life, but we know that’s not going to work out for him. How does the Night World pull him back in? Could he have a soulmate? And how do they break the hews to poppy’s mother after she has mourned her child?

Daughters of Darkness

Ash may be off being a knight but his sisters are still in a small town. They’ve defeated the local werewolf, but he might have family coming to inherit the homestead. We also have three vampires who have never lived modern human lives, starting at modern human high school with Mary-Lynette and Mark to help them fit in. Could fierce Kestrel or responsible Rowan have human soulmates?

Spellbinder

Thea has given up being a witch to be with her soulmate. Everybody thinks she’s forgotten all about the Night World, and if she lets on that she remembers she’s toast. But she’ll still be in high school with her friend Dani and two Circle Midnight witches who will probably bully her. How will she manage every day without reaching out to Dani and spilling the beans?

Blaise has been exiled to the Convent under the steely eyes of Great Aunt Ursula. She’s sure to find some way to wreak havoc. Blaise has a lot of sequel because she’s such an awful person that it could be fun to get into her head, see what motivates her to be so terrible and what it would take to get her a redemption arc.

Dark Angel

Gillian is a lost witch, and will probably study witch lore with the only witch she knows, Melusine who works at a witchy shop. Gillian’s next goal will be to help her mother, a lost witch who had psychic powers that she couldn’t control and turned to alcohol to calm her nerves. Gillian will have to help her mother recover from her addiction and learn to use her powers.

Gillian also has a special gift: she can see spirits, thanks to coming back from the dead. What other spirits might she encounter? Will she become a kind of medium, helping lost souls fix their unfinished business and find peace? Gillian has a lot of sequel potential.

The Chosen

We left Rashel and Quinn heading to join up with Circle Daybreak with a traumatized human girl turned vampire hunter named Nyala and Timmy, Rashel’s childhood friend Timmy who is a made vampire stuck at four years old. So their first problems will be getting their friends some help,. What kind of mental health resources does Circle Daybreak have? Is there a way Timmy can be turned human again, or a spell that can make him age so his brain will develop and he can have a life as a person? Rashel also wants to reach out to the vampire hunters she knows and help them see that vampires are not all totally evil. I’m sure that will go completely fine and they definitely won’t want to murderize her for betraying the cause and fraternizing with the enemy! Yeah Ash could definitely rescue her from pissed off fellow vampire hunters.

Then there’s Rashel and Keller’s twin retcon. I’m not sure if I like it because it gives Keller more possible family plots and Rashel some learning-to-shapeshift plots, or dislike it because it’s so obviously a retcon. But it would provide interesting situations for Rashel to be in. What if she got stuck since she’s new to shifting?

Soulmate

Hannah’s sequel story is how she and Thierry set up Circle Daybreak as a thing with its own enclaves and towns and communications network. How did they find the decent Night People? Did they make any mistakes and invite in anyone who later turned out to be a real jerk? Does Hannah want to try to find other people from her past lives? She could also be a source for prophecies, maybe she was there in some ancient temple when a seer received the prophecy in the first place, Hannah could remember the exact words and describe what it was like to be there.

Soulmate is also the book that introduced a friendly werewolf. I feel like the werewolves went underused in the series, the whole “nobility of the pack” thing never turned up or got any screentime. Maybe Ms. Smith just didn’t want to do the whole alpha/beta/omega thing that everybody else does, but everybody else does it because it’s kinda fun plot stuff! Or a writer could do anything else they wanted with the werewolves, there’s not much canon culture for them, so it’s a blank canvas.

Huntress

Jez has plenty of background but one thing we don’t know is how Circle Daybreak learned the apocalypse is coming at all, and what the signs are?

Black Dawn

There is prequel potential here. We’ve never seen much of life in a Night world enclave. How did the masters here learn Delos is the wild power? What was his life like before Maggie descended upon it?

Witchlight

Again prequel potential. How did the witches figure out Iliana is the Wild Power? What is the Witch Child prophecy? Is it ancient or did Aradia just have a vision recently? An ancient prophecy that witches have been debating about for ages works better since people can have different views about what the Witch Child is all about. We don’t even know what the prophecy is but if it were something like “a lost witch with a pure spirit who will lead all witches down a new path” that could mean that her spirit is purely witchy and evil.

[floripire]

“You’re a Harman. A Hearth-Woman. That’s the most famous family of witches; they’re like - they’re royalty.” / a redux of this / @soulmateprinciple

Piolo Pascual as Raul Dalisay † Chelsea Clark as Floribeth Dalisay Jennifer Morrison as Selena Harman †

Arifin Putra as Draco Saros † Brianne Tju as Blaise Harman Blake Lively as Nissa Harman †

Brandon Routh as Daniel Avery † Olivia Holt as Thea Harman Cariba Heine as Sophia Harman †

[xdarkeningkrystals]

I seriously hope that Julie Plec doesn't get Night World some time in the future. Sure, it's with a different company and L.J. Smith owns the rights but I dunno. Greg got ahold of The Forbidden Game and Julie will ruin Night World, ESPECIALLY since those book are over 20 years old. 15 years was already too dated for her, Imagine her doing political garbage with Night World's Council and the whole Matriarchy with Hellewise and Maya trying to over throw her. She would not even care for The Soulmate Principal and warp the rules of it or make it that someone has multiple Soulmates (and not like Sarah Strange's). Or do her own version of Game of Thrones with the Redferns and the Harmans. OOOF.

And say goodbye to Redhead Poppy and Jez or Blond/e Ash, Thea, Hannah, Thierry, Iliana and Gillian.

[jacobbseedd]

I’m gonna be doing an oc master list on hear just so everyone can see it more better this is also gonna have the people relationship to .

Oc master list :

Eden gate :

Michaela Reece Campbell - Jeanine Mason

Katarina Maya Morgan - Elizabeth Gilles

Jayda Raven wright - Danielle Victoria Perry

Bryson Kai grant - max Parker

Adam Blaine Strickland - Travis fimmel

Trenton Enzo collymore - Kori Sampson

Jayla Rae ford - aj Naomi king

Renne Mia Huxley - Lauren cohen

Natalie Quinn Kramer - Katheryn winnick

Lindsey Cerys Morris - Bryce Dallas Howard

Braeden Weston Raymond - will Graham

Audrey Cara baker - Maia Michelle

Keira Beth white - Madeline peutch

Nicholas Matteo Pearce - Kyle Allen

Preston James huff - Richard harman

Darin Shane Reid - Brant daughtery

Martinez Campbell - Tom ellis

Stephanie woods - inbar lavi

Nadia Jane Sutton - Katheryn newton

Felix Micah porter - Freddy thorp

Parker Lance Dawson - Tyler Blackburn

Maliah cass Gordon - Morgan Crabtree

Kayden Lucian Morgan - Chris Evan’s

Michael trace Sullivan - will poulter

Antonio Kyson chambers - Kieron Moore

Blake chandler miller - Matthew naszka

Cassidy everly Quinn - Madeline cline

Relationship for oc :

Jacob & Michaela

John & Katarina

Jayda & Braeden

Bryson & Audrey

Adam & Natalie

Trenton & jayla

Renne & Nicholas

Lindsey & Keira

Preston & Nadia

Darin & Felix

Parker & Maliah

Cassidy &

Kayden &

Michael &

Antonio &

Blake &

Resistance:

Larissa Leah Palmer - Marie avgeropoulos

Terrence miles Harvey - Chris wood

Chase Luca gray - Theo James

Malcolm Jay Bryant - Ryan Guzman

Lauren grace Shaffer - Hillary Burton

Annabel Kaylyn Chavez - rose Salazar

Charles gage fisher - Pedro pascal

Elena Katie smith - Lucy hale

Izaiah Theo Farley - Federico massaro

Conner Ryder knight - Logan lerman

Robin Kelsey Norwood - Diana agron

Sean Corey Harrison - Alexander Ludwig

Aiden Nico Davenport - Rafael l Silva

Davina Brielle Ramsey - Rachel Zegler

Sage Damon Harrison - Travis van winkle not yet posted

Relationship:

Larissa & Conner

Terrence & Joey

Chase & Jess

Malcolm & Mary

Eli & Robin

Lauren & Earl

Charles & Adelaide

Isaiah & Skyler

Cameron & Annabel

Tammy & Sean

Aiden & Davina

Shaw &

Miner oc :

Jessica Nora miner - Rosamund pike

Calvin madden price - Tyler hoechlin

Trey Draven Sanford - Aaron Taylor Johnson

Emery cordella combs - ayo edebiri

Jayne rose Frey - Alexandra Breckenridge

Liam Cole mullens - Jesse Williams

Relationship:

Jessica & Calvin

Trey & Jayne

Emery & Liam

Kids oc :

Thea raine seed -

Cod oc :

Olive Maeve Rowland - Leah pipes

Makenna sky marks - Zoey deuch

Relationship:

Olive & soap

Makenna & konig

Red dead redemption two oc’s

Eliza Jane Evermore- Isabel may

Rdr2 relationships:

Eliza x Micah Bell

These are all my master oc list and I hope this makes it better some of my people are brother or sister with my sister oc just in case if anyone wonders why there are a last names that are the same .

[tlouhq]

+3  wanted  connections  added .

briar mihalev, our nina dobrev, would like her older brothers (2) who are utp. the suggested faceclaims are any applicable fcs. contacting this player isn’t necessary. ⸻ ( there were originally a total of four mihalev siblings, but after a massacre that took place when briar was six, one of their siblings and their parents were killed, leaving her the only survivor. the other two brothers were at school when this happened, and were therefore spared from being privy to the macabre event. they did however have to pick up the pieces after this horrific loss, and the three remaining siblings were taken in by their aunt and uncle. everything else about them is totally utp! if they aren’t currently human, they would need to be a species that starts as a human . )

julieta, our kitty chicha, would like her soulmate who is a nightworlder. the suggested faceclaims are alexander skarsgard, sebastian stan, cillian murphy, woo do-hwan, jacob elordi, lucien laviscount, casey deidrick, open to suggestions. contacting this player is necessary. ⸻ ( messaging me is only necessary if you’d like to use an fc that isn’t listed! juliet is as wild as her jaguar counterpart, and she’s been on the move for the vast majority of her life. she prefers the wilderness to civilization, and hasn’t stopped for long enough to make many meaningful relationships. meeting y/m would change this, and would shake up her world view. everything beyond that is completely utp/can be figured out through plotting! )

thea harman, our katherine macnamara, would like a soulmate who is a any species. the suggested faceclaim(s) are dylan o’brien, matthew daddario, chris wood, any male fc. contacting this player isn’t necessary. ⸻   ( im going to leave this open for plotting purposes & also because i don’t want to restrict your muse. this can be her canon soulmate eric ross who’s human, any canon character, or an oc! thea is a gentle soul for most the most part, but she can also be quite resentful and hold a grudge for a long time. she prefers to keep close to the nightworld, even though she doesn’t fully agree with the traditions, however, having terrible experiences with humans and her family history, she’s wary of them, and has very little regard for them, and in turn prefers to interact with them as little as possible, so if her soulmate was human that would be interesting. if you do want to discuss this further, or have any questions, you can dm @ wvtchlvght.)

[incorrect-night-world-quotes]

Thea: What time do you usually go to sleep?

Ash: Whenever I collapse is purely up to the gods.

[pinkhazeandsilverchords]

[shadowcatgirl09]

The most famous and prestigious of the witch clans, directly descended from the legendary Hellewise Hearth-Woman and by extension, her mother Hecate Witch-Queen

[bluephoenixpostsblog]

My book cast of Spellbinder. Sofia Carson as Blaise Harman , Mitchell Hope as Eric Ross and Dove Cameron as Thea Sophia Harman. Eric is a sweet and caring guy that reminds me of King Ben of descendants that's why Mitchell would be a good candidate if spell binder was to be onscreen. Before I decided to read the book I wanted to use to characters who would match Thea 'and Blaise' s close sister bond regardless of Blaise' selfish tendices. Both girls potrayed a lovely friendship between Mal and Evie that's why both Dove and Sofia are perfect as Thea and Blaise

[moonlightreal]

The big Strange Fate factoids roundup

Presented here is every bit of information about the plot of Strange Fate I could find, with links to sources. Canon is in bold, my commentary is in normal text, links are all here so if they don’t link you should be able to copy-paste. If you find anything I’m missing, please send it to me! I found sources for all the orphaned factoids that had been floating around in my brain, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more out there.

Have fun! (it’s nine pages long...)

What about Strange Fate—really https://www.facebook.com/notes/684528395496843/?locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfYTUg-qPuddohcLG_4yYui3c9CIr3W9GNa_yAwvyD7JeBCZ13KAEuoBWZhHUpOcR1A

I used new stories about what happens after a year to all the soulmate couples in the Night World series. They all had exciting stories to tell: Ash Redford is doing good deeds to make amends so that Mary-Lynnette will accept him as her soulmate. Poppy has developed her telepathy into a weapon against evil. Rashel and Quinn are married, as are Thierry and Hannah. And one lucky couple is expecting a baby.

From… I thought it was the author’s note from amazon for the hardcover editions, but it has a picture signature so may have been from LJ Smith’s website.

Although Thierry is an old vampire, he isn’t the oldest vampire. There is one older, the one who Changed him. She provides another thread that binds the series: the pitiless Maya. Maya is the first vampire, the witch who finds the secret of eternal life—and chooses to use it for evil. But there will be plenty more about her, including a look at the young Maya, her sister Hellewise, and their mother, Hecate Witch-Queen, in the upcoming Strange Fate.

From LJ Smith’s blog

18 August 2010, Ms. Smith answering a question about how she developed the idea of silver cords

https://web.archive.org/web/20131226172041/http://webmail.ljanesmith.net/blog/2010/238-more-news-a-the-silver-cord-a-dont-despair-delena

Imagine how Sarah Strange of Strange Fate, the last, LONG overdue Night World series when she sees two silver cords connecting her to the two guys she loves best in the world. Can I say confused? Maybe flummoxed is better.

And the silver cords have an additional function that won't be explained until Strange Fate finally comes out--I hope and pray in 2011. Something that may make it all make sense at last.

19 December 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20120512010007/http://www.ljanesmith.net/www/blog/2011

An image of Hecate Witch-Queen’s family tree of all the Redferns and Harmans with notes about what books the characters appear in. Here’s the list for Strange Fate:

Hecate herself, Hellewise, Iliana, and Aradia,

Thea and Blaise and Aunt Ursula

Phil and Poppy and their mother Phillipa, and James

Gillian

Maya Dragonslayer, the first vampire

Thierry and Hannah

Delos and Jez

Rowan, Kestrel and Jade and Ash

and

Mal Redfern Harman, vampire and witch

Ms. Smith also says,

I hope to do the same thing for the shapeshifters, although information about them is much more sparse. STRANGE FATE will clear up much of that confusion, and at last there will be enough about werewolves and other ’shifters to put onto paper. Right now, most people know that Galen Drache of the First Family of the Shapeshifters, whose chosen shape is a leopard to match his soulmate Keller’s black panther, has a cousin named Kierlan Drache who also chose a shape in the large cat family. And if you look at the very bottom of Hecate’s family tree you’ll find the vampire who is also a witch, although he hasn’t cultivated his powers, Mal Redfern Harman. (Witches are matrilineal—they pass the name through the female line). They’re the two soulmates of the human girl Sarah Strange.

So Mal is a hybrid and Kierlan the wild power is some kind of big cat. So much for my idea that he could be a good dragon! Also Hecate and Hellewise appear, and Maya may not be as dead as previously assumed.

24 June 2012 answering a fan question about recommending her own books, Ms. Smith posts the blurb for Last Lullaby https://web.archive.org/web/20130508094847/http://www.ljanesmith.net/blog/2012/560-some-interesting-questions-from-ziggy

or those who actually can fly: my latest book, THE LAST LULLABY, over 700 pages, and once part of STRANGE FATE. It is the tale of Brionwy and her guttersnipe friend, Crispy, who . . . oh, here’s the blurb:

THE LAST LULLABY is the story of Brionwy, daughter of Branwen, a courtesan in the harem of the Lord Overseer, Rajan Adani, who is the head of a Great House under the rule of the Masters. In this post-Apocalypse story, magic exists, but is rarely seen. Brionwy befriends Crispy, a little girl, or fawn, who has escaped from the pens in which all humans but the serving slaves of the Overseer, the guards, and the “humble and pathetic” Beauties in the harem are kept like animals.

Crispy has named herself for the burns that cover half of her body and have withered one of her arms. She considers herself slightly abled because of her baby arm; it looks useless but is almost as strong as the other. Tough, cynical, and quick to laugh at herself or others, Crispy’s life changes the day that she peeps through a hole in the harem wall and listens to Brionwy playing her lute and singing a heart-rending lullaby. Together, the two girls who come from the most different backgrounds imaginable, and with the help of Crispy’s gang of dwarfed, misshapen, deaf, and otherwise abled misfits, solve the mystery of a strange prophecy that leads to the secret of the nearby caverns and of how to fight the Masters. Despite the fearsome Guntra, Head Dwenna of Brionwy’s Concubine Pavilion; despite the Overseer himself, Brionwy and Crispy find themselves leading a revolution that will change the lives of all who belong to the Overseer’s Great House forever.

When THE LAST LULLABY comes out will be up to the publisher who buys it. Unlike all my other books since THE NIGHT OF THE SOLSTICE, I wrote it before trying to sell it.

1 Feb 2013 Sarah Strange description https://web.archive.org/web/20130703170137/http://www.ljanesmith.net/blog/2013/592-sarah-strange-of-strange-fate

I'm not really sure if this is the right place to post this, but I did do an avatar for Sarah Strange. As I work toward what I hope is the end of this book, really how extraordinarily fond I am of her, although she does not have outstanding brains and beauty. Sarah's qualities are more internal, and though she may have an ordinary face and ordinary brown hair, she has a deep, fierce love for all creatures flawed or fallen, or helpless, or striving. She loves forests and sees trees as dryads. She loves animals. She may be a little flat-chested, a little clumsy, a little naive, and a lot shy, but she never stops trying, or loving, or doing her best to understand.

Here she is, with brown hair that is always a bit disheveled and falling in her face, and with the Avatar version of her best feature:  aquamarine eyes that always look as if they are full of unshed tears.

4 Feb 2013 Strange Fate chapter 1 outline https://web.archive.org/web/20130628210912/http://www.ljanesmith.net/blog/2013/594-strange-fate-chapter-1-outline-with-ch-1-download

Ash and redhead: Ash: I’m trying to make amends for the harm that I did to you. Madelyn: At two o’clock in the morning in a cemetery?  Are you crazy?  First you stalk me and hide out in my closet so you can come out once I’m asleep in bed—” “I didn’t stalk you.  I don’t need to stalk you.  I just used a little magic to come in your bedroom window—” “And now you’re telling me all kinds of impossible lies—“ “They’re not lies.  I don’t lie anymore—well, not much anymore, and if you’d just give me a chance—“ “If you think this is the way to win a girl’s heart, then I have a hot news flash for you—” “But it is the way to win a girl’s heart.  Um . . . not your heart, is sort of the point.  Someone else’s . . .” “You brought me out here to talk about some other girl?” Madelyn hits him. Ash explains:

Who he is

What he is

What the Night World is

What he’s trying to do for his soulmate

Who Mary-Lynnette is 

Ash is divided into boredom of going through rote explanations (Madelyn is Lightly Bitten Girl #97) and an uncanny sense that something is around.  That something is stalking him.

Eventually he turns around, sees nothing, looks higher …  and higher … and higher … and sees evil red eyes staring down at him.    His mind reels.  He sees a flash of purple, shouts, “Look out” to Madelyn and dives for her.  She dodges, spraying him with pepper spray.  He staggers back; there is a black (violet-edged) flame like a burst from a flame-thrower and then there is only Ash, and a white silhouette of a woman on a charcoal-black wall.  Dreamily, Ash goes and scrapes a little of the charcoaled blackness off the wall outside the shadow when he once again feels something behind him.  He whirls and finds himself staring at Sarah: description (aquamarine eyes, ordinary face, mouse-brown hair). Sarah wakes up, tosses mouse-brown hair off her face, and realizes she is late for school.

You can also read the whole chapter. Mary-Lynette is in college. Sarah is fifteen or sixteen, so younger than the other characters. She dreams of Ash and appears to him as a ghost. So, astral projection. She has an instinctive loathing for vampires.

Ask LJ question about Strange Fate’s release—undated but accessible without the wayback machine. https://ljanesmith.net/ask-l-j/

“I don’t know.  As you’ve probably heard, I wanted to publish this epic in two volumes, but Simon & Schuster did not.  I had what I felt was a complete volume already finished—the first half of Strange Fate, called The Mystic—before I began to write any of my recent Vampire Diaries books Nightfall, etc).  At this point, I don’t even have a signed contract for Strange Fate, but I keep working on it, these days using the ‘cameo appearance’ of old soulmates and friends in place of seeing a post-apocalypitic fututre with Brionwy and her young friend Crispy.”

And, yes, it is true that Brionwy’s Lullabye was originally part of Strange Fate, but the post apocalyptic future that Sarah Strange dreamed about Brionwy and her friends sort of took over the whole book.  So I had to extract them, and instead had Sarah dream about the soulmated couples you’ve already seen in Night World.  This turned out to be much better for Strange Fate anyway, as you get to see Poppy and James, and Phillip and every other pair of soulmates in the series, even if its just a cameo role.  I plan to write Brionwy’s Lullabye as a book of its own.  I do love the characters.”

Question about strong female characters

Some of my characters don’t start out as strong girls. They start out as shy, introverted or gentle girls, like Cassie Blake of The Secret Circle, or Jenny Thornton of The Forbidden Game. Then the story is about how they become stronger, through their terrifying experiences and their concern for other people. Strange Fate has this kind of a heroine, Sarah Strange.”

The stories https://web.archive.org/web/20191019132319/http://www.ljanesmith.net/stories/stories

These stories take place during the apocalypse, while the Wild Powers are off on their mission. You should go read the whole thing, but here are the factoids I got from each of them.

Thicker than Water

The characters live in the Circle Daybreak town of Harmony, with Thierry and Hannah basically ruling as king and queen. The town has cryogenics and a scientific/magical effect that makes time pass slower in the “underground tower that is the heart of the town.” The town has a park on the surface where shapeshifters and vampires can hunt animals. Dragons try to infiltrate the town. San Francisco has been destrpyed.

The wild powers are fighting against hundreds of dragons. Iliana has acquired the title Mistress of Air.

Hannah has gone with the wild powers on the mission. Thierry has not. Keller and Galen and Rashel and Quinn are still in Harmony.

Everyone was very impressed by Sarah, she’s “almost a dryad” and has prophetic dreams. So everybody met her at some point.

Keller and Rashel are twins, born to one human and one shapeshifter. Timmy has been retconned to Rashel’s friend not her brother.

Those who Favor Fire

The Circle Daybreak members have started wearing white flower pendants as identification and also as to who you gave your allegiance to. The jewelry serves as a key to get into Harmony. Thierry is basically king, but at least Iliana has her followers. Circle Daybreak has many trained professionals who have taken out the nastier Night World enclaves and imprisoned the nastiest vampires and shapeshifters.

There was also a “time bubble” in San Francisco.

Cambridge Massachusetts has been destroyed as the beginning of the apocalypse. The dragons suddenly start destroying cities with Circle Daybreak enclaves in them. Fire, weirdly colored sky. The dragons put a telepathic call on all humans and most of them walked off to meet the dragons. Some stayed behind to capture people who didn’t hear the call. Mary-Lynette didn’t, so probably having a soulmate protects you.

Sarah and her boys are in Harmony when things go down. Thierry gifted her a helicopter, which she gives Ash so he can look for Mary-Lynette.

Mary-Lynette rescues a girl names Devi who has very important pictures faxed from her mother in antarctica… The mother is studying meteorites and has found something that Devi thinks might save the world. We don’t know what the pictures are, and how a human would find the answer to the problem of “dragons” isn’t clear.

This is the last Ash rescue story and it happens as the apocalypse kicks off. So if Sarah has been dreaming the other stories as they happen, then a good bit of Strange Fate happens before the apocalypse. What is Sarah doing while she’s awake all that time?

Strange Fate Previews and chapters https://web.archive.org/web/20191020013828/http://mail.ljanesmith.net/stories/sneak-peeks

Poppy, Phil and James

Poppy has become a badass warrior with her vampire strength, and can use her telepathy to control human minds. She can also use it as an anti-dragon weapon, with help from James and Phil! Also Phil has joined Team Circle Daybreak and is riding the helicopter with Ash.

Aradia had a vision that whoever is controlling the dragons knows that the youngest generation of Harmans and Redferns, especially the ones with soulmates, are able to fight the dragons.

Brionwy’s Lullaby

In this dark future beautiful human girls are courtesans, raised in basically harems to be food and mates for vampire overlords. They are guarded by eunuchs and kept in line by “dwennas” women who raise, teach and discipline them. The girls are drugged but it’s not clear why. When one girl has a baby, it is taken away and the mother is told it has died, but clearly it’s still alive and taken for some dark purpose-- whatever could be darker than the purposes we already know about!

Brionwy has been taught that she has human dignity, she’s been taught to fight, and she can read pre-apocalypse books. She understands the idea of post-partum depression, and read the words which I guess makes sense in a place where people have lots of babies. She learned to not drink the everyday drugs.

There is a special drink that makes the girls sleep when a dragon visits so they won’t all go to it and get eaten. Maybe the dragons can’t control their calling ability.

Anyone not beautiful enough lives in pens to breed more slaves and be food for dragons.

So Brionwy’s story will be about finding out what’s happened to the vanished babies, escaping the harem and probably meeting the girl Crispy who lives out in the ruins. And then, who can say? Their future will be erased when the wild powers stop the apocalypse

Blurbs

Google books blurb https://books.google.com/books/about/Strange_Fate.html?id=jZFmkgEACAAJ

Simon Pulse, 1998 - Juvenile Fiction - 224 pages

Sarah Strange and her lover, the gentle vampire Blade, watch their peaceful life in New England come to an end when Sarah's family is asked to hide an arrogant male witch whose supernatural powers draw Sarah into his clutches.

Google books blurb 2

Hodder & Stoughton, 1998 - Witches - 224 pages

Sarah is a human girl who is happy to be with Blade, a strong yet gentle vampire she regards as her soulmate. However, when an arrogant witch called Kierlan comes to town, Sarah is strongly attracted to him. But who is her true soulmate? In the NIGHT WORLD series

google books blurb 3 https://books.google.com/books/about/Strange_Fate.html?id=k0BEPwAACAAJ

Simon Pulse, Dec 31, 2030 - Juvenile Fiction - 528 pages

Vampires, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters -- they live among us without our knowledge. Night World is their secret society, a secret society with very strict rules. And falling in love breaks all the laws of the Night World.

Sarah Strange's life was what you might call ordinary. Then her mother died.

Now Sarah has visions -- visions of a place where dragons darken the sky and a young girl is fighting to survive.

When Sarah confides in her best friends, Mal and Kierlan, about the devastation in her dreams, she discovers that her friends are not what they seem. They are part of the Night World -- and they believe Sarah has a special role in their world. And if Sarah's visions are any indication of the impending danger and destruction, there is no time to lose.…

Goodreads blurb, dated 7 2012

Also on amazon dated 11 2006

Sarah Strange is a normal teenager with annoying siblings and a crush on two boys, Mal and Kierlan, who happen to be her best friends. But Sarah also has visions of a place where dragons darken the sky and feast on humans. When Sarah confides in Mal and Kierlan about her visions, she discovers her friends are not who they seem. They are part of the Night World. And they believe Sarah must help establish peace and harmony between humans and creatures of the Night World to stave off the apocalypse. And if Sarah’s visions are any indication of the danger, destruction, and devastation that the apocalypse will bring, there is no time to lose…

Risingshadow blurb https://www.risingshadow.net/book/22703-strange-fate

Sarah Strange is a fragile human girl – happy in Circle Daybreak with her soulmate, Blade, a gentle Vampire. Then Kierlan comes to town. He is an arrogant witch and a Wild Power, and Sarah is strongly attracted to him. But who is her real soulmate? And is the answer waiting in the Night World?

Blurb from Kinokuniya Malaysia

A long-awaited conclusion to the best-selling series finds Sarah journeying with Mal and Kierlan to the Night World to prevent an apocalypse in the dragon-oppressed world of her visions. Original.

I wouldn’t put too much credence on a blurb that might be translated from another language but it’s possible evidence that the three main characters go on the quest.

Speaking of which:

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Strange finds life a mass of contradictions. She’s an ordinary-looking girl, and yet two of the most popular guys at school form her circle of friends. Kierlan Drache and Mal Harman, who are as unalike as any two people can be. That ought to make her happy, but recently she’s been having romantic feelings about each of them—and has seen two silver cords: one reaching from her to Kierlan, and one from her to Mal. What’s going on? In addition, every night she dreams of a future where dragons and vampires rule the world, and of a brave child called Crispy. For a girl who hasn’t even heard of the Night World yet, Sarah has a lot to handle! Even worse, the Apocalypse has finally come—and even the Wild Powers see only one way to stop it. This is an epic volume, which stars all the most beloved Night Worlders from the other books. Be prepared, though, because seven go on a mission to save the world . . . and only two come back.

I found this blurb on a sales site as a review, on a site in Russian, and where I posted it. I didn’t make it up, I found it somewhere, but I can’t track it back to a source! And this is the only source for killing off five characters!

Or maybe Jez and Delos come home to their soulmates and Sarah and Mal go off on a different quest so are still alive just not coming back to Harmony, or maybe some characters become guardian spirits or time travel to the past or take up new lives in another realm… there are lots of not-actually-death options, but you know what I mean.

The first two chapters from the Fan Guide. As of 2009. Linking myself, though I’m not the only person to have posted them.

Sarah has a plant theme. She’s only good at art and math in school.

Sarah is in honors math, Mal is in regular math and Kierlan takes math at “the junior college.” There’s their academic-ness ranked. Kierlan flipped a girl’s skirt and Mal is “master of the cold stare.” Mal is described as having dark hair and very pale gray eyes. Not the Harman coloring! Kierlan has dark red hair and “tawny eyes.” Ms. Smith does love her golden-eyed characters!

Sarah gets migraines and in the middle of them passes out and has visions of the dark future. She smells roses before an attack.

Preview from the back of the third omnibus edition https://www.tumblr.com/moonlightreal/742175609526075392/another-strange-fate-preview?source=share

Kierlan considers himself and Mal “soul brothers.” They had a gentleman’s agreement that Kierlan would be the one to be with Sarah, though they both love her.

Kierlan can see his silver cord with Sarah, but not Sarah’s silver cord with Mal. Kierlan is desperate for Sarah to be in love with him and not with Mal. They met as children and he has been in love with her ever since. Kierlan believes Sarah could cut the silver cord between them.

This sneak peak describes being soulmates sort of differently than all the Night World books so far, describing the cord as being “woven” in a way that almost suggests a cord could be artificially created. It doesn’t come out and say it but… read the passage and see how it strikes you.

It’s possible that this scene happens right after the chapter in the fan guide. Sarah collapses at school, the guys take her home, this scene occurs, we get a flashback to Kierlan and Sarah meeting, then the boys kidnap her and take her to Circle Daybreak which is why she’s in Harmony for the apocalypse.

Art from LJ Smith’s website https://ljanesmith.net/gallery/

Kierlan’s animal form is a tiger.

...ok, so what’d I miss?

Next I have to turn this soup of factoids into a coherent topic-by-topic list of what we know and see how much of Strange Fate I can REALLY reconstruct! *cracks knuckles*