A day late! Sorry – I wasn’t happy with some of this and redid it. I’m still not completely happy with it but, well, deadlines. Though after some interesting conversations on the spiderforest discord I am increasingly convinced by the idea of seeing this as a first draft. (To be revisited one day? Maybe, who knows.)

For the avoidance of doubt given the subject matter: Gabriel’s surname has been ‘Tate’ in my notes since long before I had heard of his repulsive namesake, and while I thought about renaming him, given associations, I decided I didn’t want to cede any ground.