#New York by Night

[math-rocks-and-lizard-bats]

If I was Kindred and Margot “Fuego” Walker (as played by @quiddie ) got ME a snack, and asked me to kill him. I would. Rey and I aren’t different in this aspect. I was gonna make a sorry Rey but I’m different but I’m not.

[fuckyeahlabynight]

NY by Night Update!!

There was a Word of Darkness news stream yesterday/last night with Jason Carl and it included an update on New York by Night.

He apologised for the delay in trying to get season 3 going in 2024. Between trying to schedule 8 busy role players and dealing with illness, (Jason got "a severe case of Covid which morphed into double pneumonia" which took him a very long time to recover) they were not able to make it happen this year. They are currently working on another "window of opportunity" in everyone's schedules to film season 3.

The VOD of the news stream is available here. This clip SHOULD skip right to the NYbN talk, but if it doesn't, that begins around 14:40.

[godaweful]

alexander ward i have grown very fond of you it seems

[centaurianthropology]

NYbN Belated Meta: Isaac and Fuego (Season 1 Retrospective Spoilers)

Since watching the season 1 retrospective on ‘New York by Night’ on the Project Ghostlight patreon, two things have been spinning through my head like rotisserie chickens for the past while.  One of them is outright stated, one is far more implied, but I am gnawing on them, fascinated by them, desperately needing to write meta about them so I can get all my thoughts down.

Now, below the cut are two things I either learned or realized while watching the retrospective.  That means that there are spoilers for said retrospective.  If you’re a fan of NYbN and want to read this, I seriously urge you to go and sign up for the Patreon and watch the retrospective first!  I do not want to make people feel like the information below the cut is in any way a replacement for the massive amount of information you get from that.  It’s two things.  Essentially a taster for the feast that lies one Patreon subscription away.

Cool?  Cool.  Let’s get into this.

Okay, let’s start with what may be my favorite revelation from the retrospective, that makes such sense once you know it:

Isaac’s hoarde is people.

This is such a cool concept for a Tzimisce!  There are so many ways it can be fucked up, and so many ways it forces the player and the character to act as a team player far more than the Tzimisce might be wont to do otherwise.  It is simultaneously monstrous and an enormous weakness, and that is such a great way to set up a character.

It also recontextualizes so many of his actions once you realize this.  It not only plays into his position as running a protection racket and craving prey that need things from him, but his particular attachments to Michal and Angela make so much more sense.  They were real life colleagues and the closest things he had to friends, who then became the first people in his hoarde.  His fierce protectiveness of them also makes so much sense in this context, as people messing with Michael or Angela are people messing with what is HIS. 

Particularly after finding out that he’s more or less incapable of feeling most human emotions, I find it super fascinating that his Beast probably feels far more than Issac would on his own.  That possessiveness his Beast has is possibly the closest he’s ever felt to real love or friendship (all twisted by wanting to own the people his Beast decides to latch onto, adding a real layer of horror to all his relationships), which makes Isaac the inverse to a lot of Kindred: his Beast almost makes him more human, giving him more of a sense of human emotions and attachments than he might have ever had otherwise.

That puts him in a really unique position: he is particularly weak to social needs.  And nowhere is it more obvious than with his coterie.  The second they were all paired off by Richter, Isaac essentially looked at these three other vampires and decided that they were now part of his hoarde.  I once said Serif was the first of them to really embrace being a coterie, but she wasn’t.  Isaac was, just in far more subtle ways.  Despite Fuego having a car, he insists on having Michael drive the coterie as a group; he even has Michael get the minivan especially to accommodate his coterie.  He invites them to his house quite quickly.  Many Tzimisce never invite people to their houses, because they don’t want people touching their things or messing with them.  But of course Isaac invited them over: his hoarde needs to be in his house, so they each now have rooms he’s laid aside for them.  He logically knows that, as Kindred, he can’t just force them to stay with him (although he’d try it), so he needs them to want it.  He has to be an actual friend to them to get his hoarde to stick around. 

And that, interestingly, adds another layer to Rey’s betrayal in the finale.  Because not only is Isaac pissed that he almost sold them out to the Camarilla, but he is suddenly in danger of losing a part of his hoarde.  He may find Rey to be irritating almost constantly, but Rey is also his, and Rey wanting to leave them for the Camarilla?

Unacceptable.  Isaac immediately tries to convince Rey that the Camarilla would never take him, or even if they did, they’d never let him forget what he was.  And this isn’t even necessarily a lie.  Isaac is a master of using limited truths to get what he wants; he rarely outright lies, particularly to his coterie.  He simply deploys limited facts in the best configuration to get them to decide to play things his way.

And this is where we get to my second revelation, not outright stated, but more observed throughout the retrospective: Aabria and Alex made incredibly similar characters.  Isaac and Fuego are both both overtly and far more subtely manipulators.  They are both inherently social, both need people to function.  And they are both very territorial when it comes to getting and keeping the people they’ve chosen.

We’ve already talked about Isaac’s need for other people, but Fuego’s is all about how she was built.  Aabria explained that she was an exploration of soft power.  Aabria looked at how many people looked at the Ventrue as craving power and interpreted in a very patriarchal ‘I’m going to be the boss’ way, so she decided to explore ultra-femininity and subtle power.  She was a community organizer, bound to others and to the network of  a community since she was a child.  She gets her control through getting others to give her what she wants by convincing them it was their idea in the first place.  Fuego is built to be the power behind the throne, but that requires that another ass be seated in that chair.  So she needs people nearly as much as Isaac does, but because it’s less of a compulsion for her (leaving aside the revelations about Fuego and blood bonds, because THAT is a whole different discussion), she’s able to be more clear-headed about it. 

I loved learning how quickly Fuego clocked what Isaac was about and started feeding into it.  I took it for granted that Fuego’s lack of knowledge about Kindred society was genuine, but I now we know it at least in part was an act.  Certainly, she has genuine gaps in her understanding, but I she exaggerated her ignorance, because playing young and dumb is a great way to seem non-threatening, and to assess people around her without letting them know.

And knowing that, you can see her trying to figure Isaac out from the jump.  When he offers them a ride, despite her explicitly telling him she has a car, she immediately asks if she owes him something.  She phrases it like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but Fuego clearly knows about boons.  She’s trying to figure out if he’s boon-fishing by this car-ride, and she’s trying to figure out how honest he’ll be if he thinks no one has any knowledge but him.

And in that scene a few important things happen.  Isaac explains Boons without using the word, but at least gives them a broad—and more importantly accurate—portrayal of what would and wouldn’t incur a boon.  He also makes clear that this is just on his way.  It’s practical.

And that gives Fuego a lot to chew on.  Isaac is trustworthy, at least to an extent.  But if he’s not after boons, he has to be after something else.  And then he offers them rooms at his place (despite both Rey and Fuego actually having really nice places of their own).  And then he keeps offering them accurate information, but no more than they ask for.  He keeps trying to lure them to stick around.

And she’s got him clocked, at least sort of: he wants them to be around him.  And more specifically, he wants they themselves, rather than anything they have or could bring him.  She figures out Isaac wants to be the guy with the knowledge first, and keeps on with the ignorant-baby-Kindred act.  I’m not sure if she’s also realized his far more base need to have them around him as often as possible, but she has to suspect something like it.  Even by their first big argument, her punishment for Isaac being an asshole about her murdering a security guard is to choose to walk home, to choose to not only refuse a ride from him, but to absent herself from his presence.

I seriously hope that season 3 does someday happen, because I desperately want to see how Isaac and Fuego’s relationship evolves.  I want Isaac to finally lose his cool and try to dominate his ‘friends’ into not leaving him.  I want Fuego to finally drop the ignorant act and let him know exactly what she knows and how long she’s known it.  I want them to be forced to lay their cards on the table, to get into a situation where they finally see one another without the masks. 

It’s hard to say how that would work out. 

They could fall apart.  They’re both so poisonous.  Isaac’s need to keep the coterie around is so extreme it’s forever threatening to spill over into dangerous and toxic territory.  Fuego has to be secretly in control and gets furious when she either loses power or is forced to confront how low down the totem-pole she really is.  They could so easily be oil and water once they finally see one another as they truly are and understand the depths to which each would sink for what they want.

Or they could get closer.  The level of respect that they might be able to develop if they ever saw eye to eye could make them a terrifyingly adept duo.  If game finally recognized game, and they both understood how well they played the exact same field, they might be able to get over their differences and find ways to work around their mutual issues of pride and control to be a power to rival anything in the Bronx.

Hell, even a four-way mutual blood bond seems entirely possible with the mess of ugly co-dependency and family issues swimming around the Minivanarchs.  Isaac explicitly wanted everyone blood bonded to him, because that was a way to get them them to want to stay with him without ever having to force the issue.  Fuego has complicated addiction-flavored relationships with blood bonds, and has a need for community.  Rey might bind himself to everyone either to protect them or as a way to get them to accept him again, if he decided to go that route.  And Serif is made of endless family issues, craving a true connection not poisoned the way her connection to Argus and her mother is.  And if anyone could make Isaac blood bond himself to the group, it would be a fully-informed Fuego knowing how much he needed them all to stick together.

It could be glorious.  It could be terrible.  It would probably be the prettiest trainwreck of four needy assholes needing one another to death you’d ever seen.  And I hope that someday I get to see how it plays out.

[crownedinmarigolds]

My problematic faves sippin'!! Both commissions from @lunarlorekeeper! I love these two so always exciting to be asked to draw them! I hope I've done the actresses justice.

[lightcolours]

New York Flip Side Perspectives III

[eclecticfiend]

The Anarch Coterie as (semi-)viral Tweets p.2

[mystickingstuff]

NY by Night's first season is legit my favorite. Of course I love season 2, but season 1's last episode is just a rollercoaster of amazing moments. From Fuego side-eyeing Rey when Isaac asked them to be polite in his sire's presence to their whole talk with Vaclav to their discussion about Reyes's shady deal with the Camarilla. Like, it's everything. Man, I miss that coterie SO MUCH.

*and I miss my ships, okay.

[bloodoftremere]

[To Rey] We've talked before. Either you're gonna trust us, you're gonna trust me, or you won't. I don't think I have anything to say to convince you.

[havenarchive]

🩷 Four years of rec lists on Haven! 🩷

Featuring works by @analisegrey | Analisegrey, @bluegreenamber | Bluegreenamber, @bonzai-bunny | Bonzai_bunny, @deadtwinksdetectiveagency | Deadtwinksdetectiveagency (Heckofabecca), @demenior | Demenior, @elle-thereafter | Thereafter, @fasterthanmybullets | Fancastical, @gavilansblog | Gavilan, @hermitized | Hermitized, @ibovaryyou | Handwritten, InTheMidnightHour, @kanzaki19 | Kanzaki19, @kingsleytealeef | Jaskofalltrades, @ladyofrosefire | Ladyofrosefire, @luddlestons | Luddleston, @maplegingeroatmeal | A_Orbit, @motherfuckingnazgul | Julomaiboulomai, @notaficwriter | NotAFicWriter, Of-stardust-and-sunlight | Stardust_and_sunlight, StasiaReader, Thedamnephilimfangirl | AnnabethMcGrace, Thehourglassmuse | The_hourglass_muse, Valakiir | Luckyowlsfoot, Verflixture | Verflixt, Vexing-imogen | Vexing_imogen, Williamvapespeare | Williamvapespeare

and with fics for Critical Role, Baldur's Gate 3, The Untamed, Dead Boy Detectives/The Sandman, KinnPorche, Love in the Air, DC, The Magnus Archives, Yuri!!! on Ice, Star Wars, Delicious in Dungeon, Challengers, Inception, and New York by Night.

✨ Find the list here ✨

[conteur-reveur]

Rey: "You don't think that's the beast talking?"

Serif: "Maybe it is. So?"

Isaac: "You don't have to fight it all the time."

Fuego: "You guys fight it??"

[fuckyeahlabynight]

The cast of season 1 of NY by Night (the Mini Vanarchs) sit down with Xander Jeanneret to discuss... memories and plans so far unfulfilled. 😈

This is just a teaser. More will be found on their Patreon on Jan. 10.

[godaweful]

no wonder isaac brooke is like this he was picked up out of high school (???) and embraced by this centuries old freak who lives in the middle of a river and talks like this. honestly from what we know about him he's shockingly well adjusted and normal for a kindred of his kind.

[centaurianthropology]

Things I Will be Obnoxious About: Project Ghostlight

Hi all!  Remember a few years ago (or maybe you don’t; maybe you’re new or maybe you have retrograde amnesia) when I spent a healthy while banging on about a Vampire: The Masquerade live-play series called ‘New York by Night’?

Yeah, I still love that show, but unfortunately for me and for the team that made it, the real world very much happened, and they weren’t able to continue the series as they had planned.  That show is now on a more-or-less indefinite hiatus.  From what I’ve gathered, the will is very much there in both the cast and crew to return to do season 3 (and fingers crossed, maybe more!), but not only are schedules hard to wrangle for four busy players, but the show was initially budgeted to have the first three seasons filmed over the course of a month, something which didn’t happen.  So now spinning it up would necessarily require an increase in funding first just to get it off the ground again.  So, yes, complications.  Unfortunate, unavoidable complications.

Oh, and by the way, how did I know about that tidbit about funding?

I learned it from the very first large drop from ‘Project Ghostlight’.  This is a now-forming new Vampire chronicle (a long-form game for folks who aren’t as up on the terminology specific to this series of TTRPGs) that formed when the cast of season 1 (my beloved) desperately wanted to keep playing together, but didn’t have a venue or the time to do so without making it a more formal thing than a get-together at someone’s house once a month.  Named after the single light always left burning in a theatre when all other lights are out and the building is empty between performances, Ghostlight is four people who ended up being close friends just wanting to keep hanging out and making spooky things together.  And they are bringing in friends!

We don’t know about setting, characters, or much of anything yet, as everything is still early days, but the cast and crew are currently as follows:

Alexander Ward – Storyteller (that’s GM to those folks in the D&D world)

Joey Rassool – Director and Producer (and hopefully also sometimes player??  I thought he was one of the big breakouts of season 1 NYbN, and was hugely impressed with his playstyle)

Aabria Iyengar - Player

Mayanna Berrin – Player

Xander Jeanneret – Player

Gina DeVivo – Player

Luis Carazo – Player

For those in the TTRPG space, I don’t need to tell you that cast is stacked, and it’s stacked with veterans of both NYbN and its predecessor LA by Night.  These are the announced players so far, and it’s not clear (maybe not even to them) if they’ll bring in guests or keep to this main cast, but no matter what this is the sort of cast and crew that made me sit up and notice.  This is a cast and crew made of some of my favorite people in the TTRPG scene, and clearly people selected for their ability to really lean into the terrible choices and darker tone of VtM. 

And even before they’ve fully spooled their new chronicle up, we’re getting treats over on their Patreon.  The first, which I have already watched through several times and makes me so very happy, is essentially a postmortem of season 1 (and a little 2) of New York by Night by all four players, moderated by season 2 player (and Ghostlight player) Xander Jeanneret.  They clearly love the show and their characters, and clearly want to get back to it, but there also seems to be a not-unwarranted concern that season 3 simply might never happen. 

So this panel gives us a LOT of information about their characters, motivations, plans, and behind the scenes peeks at how the players were going about the game in season 1.  There are spoilers for a lot of stuff I had sort of suspected, and plenty of stuff I hadn’t, which was thrilling.  I was definitely wrong about certain character motivations!  What fun!  It’s an hour and a half long, and such a lovely look at how these four met, became friends, made a lightning-in-a-bottle season of a TTRPG show, and never lost the itch to play again.  It’s an immensely satisfying and somewhat bittersweet revisit of one of my favorite TTRPG projects.  It’s so wonderful to see all four of them together again, and how well Xander meshes with the group. 

So, yes, this is a warning that I’m going to very likely be obnoxious about this show once it goes up. This is also encouragement for those of you who enjoyed NYbN, Vampire: the Masquerade, spooks, goth shit, or even just TTRPGs and you’re interested in a new system, to throw a little bit of love toward the Patreon, and if you can’t do that, to stay tuned for Ghostlight and get hyped with me.

And maybe, if you haven’t, to check out New York by Night in the meantime. It may be on indefinite hiaitus, but it’s really fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I fully intend to rewatch season 1 of New York by Night with the information I now have about all the characters.  I’m excited to see if I catch nuances I missed the first time through.

[samcarter34]

I am happy that they've confirmed that they at least haven't given up on New York By Night, but it is wild that it's been so long the cast has reached the 'eff it, I'll do it myself,' phase.

Anyway, Project Ghostlight seems like it will be interesting.

[kindredbynight]