Darkest Night is a webcomic by Molly Ostertag, published on Substack. It can be read here
.note It was later published as a graphic novel under the title The Deep Dark.
Magdalena Herrera is a high schooler growing up in Joshua Tree, and she is keeping secrets. In between caring for her grandmother, her job, and an unfulfilling affair with a fellow student, she’s got a mysterious task in the basement of her home that leaves her coming out every night with her hands bloody. But a reunion with an old friend challenges her mediocre expectations of life, and threatens to let her dangerous secret escape.
Darkest Night includes examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Magdalena Harrera is always called "Mags" by her friends.
- Art Shift: The comic occasionally has animated panels in .gif format.
- Asshole Victim: In the first chapter, a young boy named Emil yells at young Mags and Nessa, throwing a stone at the former. He turns out to have died in an attack by Mags’ monster. That said, both Mags and Nessa are horrified upon learning of his death, making this a Downplayed Trope.
- Auto Erotica: Mags and Ava have sex in Mags' car, which turns out to be the last time.
- Bilingual Bonus: Mags and her abuela (grandma) speak untranslated Spanish to each other.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nessa’s ex-boyfriend Aaron puts on a show of being apologetic and reformed when trying to get back with her. But when she turns him down, he drives her to an isolated spot and pulls out a gun, threatening to kill himself and then Mags.
- Butch Lesbian: Mags is a short-haired lesbian with a masculine clothing style. She's also taller than either Ava or Nessa, with a stockier build. When she goes in a hot tub along with Nessa, the latter has Otto (her uncle) give Mags his "butchest" swim trunks to wear. Mags wears them with a sports bra.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- Early in the story Nessa mentions having broken up with her boyfriend Aaron. He shows up in Chapter 7, attempting to get back together with Nessa and threatening her if she doesn’t.
- Mags's uncle is mentioned a couple of times as having his own creature. He turns out to have been the fortune teller Mags and Nessa had met.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Mags and Nessa were friends as kids, until the latter moved to the East Coast. Now having returned to southern California, she’s very noticeably interested in getting closer to Mags, but her old friend is reluctant due to lingering guilt over letting her monster escape during a sleepover with Nessa. However, they do get involved after this initial hesitation.
- Driven to Suicide: Nessa’s ex Aaron corners her and threatens to shoot himself if she doesn’t get back together with him.
- Fainting: Mags faints at the party, concerning Nessa. This turns out to be from blood loss as she fed the monster.
- Gayngst: Mostly averted. Mags is openly butch and lesbian, Nessa is transgender and her ex-boyfriend was awful for reasons other than transphobia, and the Catholic Herrera family is perfectly accepting of them both while still religious. However, Ava’s reasons for her affair with Mags could be viewed as working out her queer awakening in an unhealthy manner.
- LGBT Awakening: Nessa says she realized she's bisexual due to liking Laura Dern wearing shorts in Jurassic Park.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Bisexuals actually, but Nessa is long-haired with feminine clothing, the same as Ava, liking Butch Lesbian Mags but also guys.
- Magical Realism: Interspersed with mundane drama is a blood-drinking monster mystically linked with Mags and an apparently real seer.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Butch Lesbian Mags is secretly having sex with Ava, a more femme girl who has a boyfriend. Later she gets involved with her feminine trans woman friend Nessa after she and Ava break up.
- Monochrome Past: Inverted. The present is in grayscale while the past flashbacks are in color. Color returns to the present after Nessa saves Mags’s life.
- My Greatest Failure: Mags is devoted to her duty of feeding the monster in her basement, because the one time she neglected to sate its hunger it escaped and killed a boy. However, she eventually learns its escape wasn’t her fault; while she was sleeping Nessa secretly opened the creature’s cage, not understanding what it was or why it was trapped down there.
- Nice Girl:
- Mags is a kind young woman who's always caring for others and says it's her nature.
- Nessa too is very sweet.
- Old Friend, New Gender: Nessa was Mags' friend as a child before transitioning much later. She'd told Mags about her gender dysphoria even then but they didn't meet again before Nessa had transitioned.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Mags is only called Magdalena by her grandma.
- The Reveal: One flashback leads to two reveals across the story. Nessa admits that she was the one who let out Mags’ monster, which causes Mags to realize that, since the creature didn’t attack Nessa the moment it was free, it only attacks those she wants it to harm.
- Secret Relationship: Mags is initially seeing Ava secretly since the latter has a boyfriend. The pair break up due to wanting different things.
- Self-Serving Memory: Aaron's conversation with Mags is juxtaposed with what he pictures and what she’s really saying, the line art overlayed over each other. He pictures a dialogue where she’s open to getting back together, while in reality she’s uneasy and uncomfortable around him.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: The scenes change when Mags gets intimate with Ava. Later this also happens when Mags has sex with Nessa.
- Sexy Shirt Switch: Nessa puts on Mags' shirt the day after they have sex, teasingly saying it's an attempt to ensure they have more than just a hookup.
- Shout-Out:
- Nessa jokingly claims she named herself after Vanessa Hudgens. She also says Laura Dern was her bisexual awakening.
- California fast food staple In-N-Out makes an appearance in Chapter 2.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Ava smokes a cigarette after she has sex with Mags.
- Synchronization: Mags can't kill the creature because whatever is done to it happens to the creature's host as well. Mags' uncle attempted to suffocate his monster with a plastic bag, and when it passed out he did too.
- Tarot Troubles: During a party, a strange fortuneteller approaches Mags and does a cold reading of them with cards. Mags is confused to see the deck the stranger uses are not tarot cards, but an ordinary playing card deck.
- Wrong Genre Savvy:
- After Nessa learns about Mags’ monster, she incorrectly assumes that it’s a curse that can be broken like in other fantasy stories. She expects to go shopping for magic herbs, holy water, and the like as if she were hunting a vampire, but she is told by the fortuneteller that Mags’ monster can’t be killed apart from Mags, as it is a part of her.
- Downplayed in the case of Nessa freeing Mags’ monster all those years ago. She did correctly deduce that it was a mistreated prisoner who would do better outside, but didn’t know Mags controlled its urges and thus accidentally sicced it on a neighbor.
