#general skulduggery. obsessed

[thelonelynindroid]

He's so caffeine dependent. I need him

[panicbones]

reading YA as an adult is so funny cuz all i can think is child where are your parents. why arent you in school. you are 12

[beigetiger]

My brain is fucking overanalyzing a two-page phone call scene in Resurrection so now I’m just gonna spill my thoughts, probably pretty skin-deep analysis but I’m doing it anyway

Needless to say, spoilers ahead

This entire scene does a really good job highlighting how unbelievably not normal Skulduggery and Valkyrie are about each other, even after five years apart.

First off, the book never actually says who started the phone call, and the dialogue is vague enough that you can’t really guess. I actually really agree with this choice, because making it clear which person called the other could have made the weird dynamic going on in this book seem much more one-sided, as opposed to the mutual obsessiveness shown in this scene. The chapter shows nothing of the beforehand of the call (how Valkyrie got to the hospital, etc) and shows nothing of it afterwards, ending the chapter when the conversation seems to reach its natural conclusion and Valkyrie hangs up.

There’s also barely any description of the setting that Valkyrie is in. Valkyrie basically spends one or two sentences describing the clinic and stating that she’s in an empty room, and then that’s it. It doesn’t go into any sort of detail into where in the clinic she is or why she’s there, so the viewers have to guess. The scene also barely shows Valkyrie’s inner thoughts, so the scene is mostly just the dialogue between the two characters, which adds a feeling of objectivity and also makes the scene feel more closed-in, which is probably a good representation of what Valkyrie was feeling at the moment (due to the shock factor of abruptly losing someone and then talking to weird version of them a few hours later).

In fact, Valkyrie’s inner dialogue is mostly just used at the very start, where she mentally notes his voice. This on top of only starting off using pronouns instead of their names shows a repeated familiarity between the characters that immediately tells us who’s perspective we’re looking at, no names necessary. Showcasing the familiarity between the characters is also important to do here because they’ve recently been apart for five years and it’s reassuring to the audience to know that they’re still freakishly close.

Also, Valkyrie being so desperate to hear Skulduggery talk that she’s willing to sit there and listen to him talk about how he’s going to literally murder her. There is so much going on there, from Valkyrie’s current shitty mental state (it’s already shown in the book that she puts up with a lot of bullshit, this just adds to it) to her borderline denial that anything is wrong with her partner (like how in the next chapter she just repeats to herself that Skulduggery is fine and everything will be alright).

Skulduggery, of course, is calling her out by claiming that some part of her does understand the direness of the situation at hand, even if she doesn’t want to. He also does it in an almost taunting “there is nothing wrong with me, I’m not trying to fight this corruption at all way”, which MIGHT be true at that moment, or might be a bare-faced lie that he’s trying to make Valkyrie convinced of in order to also convince himself. After all, he does later manage to fight off Smoke’s corruption TWICE, and you cannot convince me that some part of him wasn’t trying to beforehand.

Adding to my previous point about the familiarity between the characters, Skulduggery is quite willingly (and gleefully) open to Valkyrie about his emotional state, how he’s coming to his current moral conclusions, how it feels from his perspective, and so on. While he’s definitely more generally emotionally open when he’s corrupted, he never quite goes into the same detail about it with other people as he happily gives to Valkyrie, which is a trend across the books (and again, reinforces to the audience that these two are still close).

He also acts incredibly exhilarated at Valkyrie’s knowledge of how his mind and motives work (as shown by “do you think I’m gonna kill your family”), since it shows him (as well as the audience) that Valkyrie still knows him really, really, well. It also adds a sort of serial killer vibe to the dynamic that makes it more interesting to consume for the readers.

And not really related to the scene, but the transitions between chapters in this book (including this particular chapter) are really smooth and make for some very funny moments, such as subtly calling the in-series stand-in for Trump an idiot, or talking about “the most beautiful woman in the world” only for the next chapter to immediately cut to talking about China. Also, the repeated chapter transitions between Sebastian and Omen were REALLY subtle foreshadowing for the twist in Until the End, which really shows how much Landry planned out phase 2 before writing it.

There are more words in here than there are in the actual chapter.

[rationalisms]

hard agree w your post about male characters being so humanized by fans at all levels of pathetic and powerful, meanwhile female characters remain one-dimensional “queens” at best. (an aside, there’s a fun song called “don’t call me queen” by jaguar jonze and haru nemuri that touches on this phenomenon.) would you mind sharing some of your favourite female characters and strugglewomen? i’m in the mood to get obsessed with a new fictional failgirl ☺️

ty for the song rec! it's a fun bop :')

also re: recommendations-- if you haven't watched person of interest or read the southern reach series yet you absolutely should do so immediately do not pass go do not collect 2000 dollars

partly because they have incredible female characters, yeah (root (poi) and the biologist (southern reach) are two of my favourite characters of all time and poi in particular also has shaw, carter, the machine, control, kara... so many good women) but also because they are both just legitimately incredible in so many other ways, too. especially the southern reach series.

off the top of my head some other stuff with female characters that are fun in the way men usually get to be:

obligatory locked tomb recommendation even though i'm pretty sure everyone on tumblr has heard of it by now lol. so so so so many awful, pathetic, deranged women in it though <3 in so many flavours. so it's still a mandatory mention

borne (by the same author as the southern reach series)

thoroughbreds

dishonored 2 and dishonored: death of the outsider (emily, billie, and delilah are all So Good. u should start with disonored 1 because it's a continuous narrative trilogy and also it's a good game but fair warning that the first game is slim pickings when it comes to any women at all lol. DLC does have delilah and billie in it at least.)

stoker

the imperial radch series

and then there were none (2015)

unironically skulduggery pleasant lol

shadowrun: dragonfall (you should play hong kong too but my two fave female characters are in dragonfall)

widows

like any sarah waters

pathfinder: wrath of the righteous (kingmaker has a rly gr8 female character too but there's a lot less companion content in it than wotr so ymmv on whether it's worth it if you're just playing it for her. good game in general though!)

like any shirley jackson but especially we have always lived in the castle

i had Some Issues with the power by naomi alderman but it was still a fun idea executed well

divinity: original sin 2

extraordinary attorney woo

unironically final fantasy 13 lol again

these ones don't really count because they weren't conceived as women but if you play as a woman it adds a fun extra character/narrative dimension imo: prey, tyranny, cyberpunk 2077

this is more of an adjacent rec but if u like cheesy genre lesbian stuff with various permutations of dirtbag women then read like any lee winters book lmao

i hope you'll find at least some stuff you like!! definitely am gonna shoot awake at 3AM going "oh no if forgot xyz how" but this is a good start i think kdfgjd

[s-exy-sapphillean]

Making a pinned post just so i have something down for now. This will be ugly & probably be messy and i'll replace it when i can be assed to put actual effort in

(Rewriting this in increments so it will be a bit choppy until i'm done. Everything most important is summarized above the cut)

About Me:

You can call me Indigo or any variation of my username, it's all aliases anyway

Triple scorpio but you'll have to guess which signs

AuDHD, c-PTSD, DPDR, PPD, physically disabled

I'm a microlabel enthusiast and hoarder and i do absolutely make my identity my entire personality

TLDR for the rest:

I'm multifandom, will graham fictionkith otherhearted, crit-inclus, very passionate about bisexual politics & history

DNI: zionists (& "neutral"s), russia defenders, radfems (not just of the terf variety), proship, "pro-para", yaoi obsessed fujos, biphobes, transandrophobes, transmisogynists, anti-microlabel, aphobes, anti-bdsm, if you're incapable of viewing things you enjoy critically, if you still engage positively with Harry Potter, non-critical helluvaverse fans, vivziepop defenders, Riko Moriyama fans/defenders, jeanee haters

Simplest way of putting my identity is "nonbinary bisexual" but rly i'm an agender multigender nonhumasc genderfaunet gendervoid sapphillean biromantic pansexual nebula-demiromantic transfag (+more)

I used to do art and am trying to get back into that

I have many fandom interests but my hyperfixations tend to be strong, so there will probably be times where i engage almost exclusively only with 1 or 2 things (currently)

Some of my interests include: spiderman but especially *into the spider-verse*, deadpool, batman, *batfam*, jason todd, poison ivy, loki, hoyoverse (unfortunately..) including genshin *star rail* hi3rd and zzz, the magnus archives, hatchetfield musicals, starkids in general, dungeon meshi, *hannibal*, gravity falls, flatland (by edwin abbott), the owl house, *ajin*, tokyo ghoul, yuri on ice, creepypasta, stars align, *all for the game*, hunger games, skulduggery pleasant, my little pony, danganronpa, dexter, supernatural, queer history, *queer labels & flags*, and more but i always forget about stuff

I severly kin Will Graham but i don't care about anything like doubles

Disclaimers:

I dont capitalize correctly and dont have a good eye for aesthetics so my posts might be an eyesore to you if that's something you value.

I am very critical of media i enjoy and i kind of hate when people make excuses for flaws in the things they enjoy or ignore them

I'm crit-inclus, not rad-inclus. I think labels need *some* limits to have any meaning at all anymore (& i think it's important that they do have distinguishable meanings so people are able to specify their experiences) but also multigender & agender ppl so often get no consideration and much of this discourse is dominated by both binary and monosexist thinking on both "sides". I get into discourse a lot on other platforms but on here i'm more likely to just block you.

I am very passionate about bisexual history and politics and do post/repost/engage with posts about it a fair amount

I enjoy horror & dark themes in media. Art and writing have helped me a lot with exploring the horrors of my own trauma. For this reason i absolutely can not stand people romanticizing/sexualizing/excusing/etc these things, please see "DNI" section for further detail. People trying to get me to romanticize the type of trauma i experienced stunted my ability to work through it as a teenager until i received proper therapeutic intervention. So absolutely 0 tolerance from me and i will not be nice about it.

I can be a bit intense about writing & characterization and thus sometimes intolerant of ppl's views of characters i care about if they contradict my own view.

DNI / block reasons:

Zionists and/or pro-Russia

I will not engage with/tolerate proship of any kind. If you romanticize/excuse/sexualize rape, incest, pedophilia, etc in any way, tolerate others doing this, or try to argue the whole "uhm akschually proship just means anti-harassment" just block me, or at least be open enough about it that i can avoid you or block you myself.

Radfems of ANY kind (terfs, tirfs, swerfs, baeddels, etc)

"paraphilia supporters/positive". Get therapy, your "paraphilia" is not a queer identity and it's not kink. Stay away from me.

Ppl obsessed with fujo culture make me uncomfortable

Biphobes, transphobes, transmisogynists, against microlabels, against xenogenders and neopronouns, disrespectful towards polyamory

You don't believe transmasc ppl experience misogyny, don't believe transandrophobia/anti-transmasculinity is real, don't believe biphobia is real

You erase characters' canon or implied bisexuality

You believe "blackwashing" or racism against white people is a thing

Anti-kink (once again: your attraction to kids or animals or ur interest in comitting rape & abuse are not kink, stop conflating the two based on "paraphilia" pseudoscience)

Fandom specific DNI/block reasons:

Harry Potter fans are inherently on extremely thin ice

I don't care if you just like hazbin hotel and/or helluva boss but if you make excuses for the issues in the shows or defend vivziepop...

You defend Riko Moriyama (aftg) in any way, ship him with any of the other characters and/or post or engage with content that defends or redeems him

You hate on renee/jean

You don't consider kaeya and itto (genshin) or argenti (star rail) bisexual

You take issue with trans headcanons that make a character the "opposite" gender

You call bisexual m/f ships "straight"

If your favorite GF character is Ford you're on thin ice

That's it for now. This will definitely be expanded on a lot when i have the energy to rework this

[dorianslayyy]

13 Books Tag Game

Tagged by @bubblegum-blackwood

1) The last book I read:

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - I absolutely devoured this sequel, omg. Obviously it’s nothing fancy or anything like that but hey what’s wrong with a smutty YA? Not to mention DRAGONS

2) A book I recommend:

Perfume by Patrick Süskind - when I read it I had no idea it was a whole entire modern classic, I just picked it up at Oxfam for like 3 for £1 or something but, wow, I can 100% understand how it earned that status! If you like an eery not-too-long horror story with the most beautiful imagery describing some fucked up gothic storylines and a lot of social commentary, you’ll love this book!

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

Ahhh ok, im gonna say In Memoriam by Alice Winn. The ending was… idk I wasn’t really a fan of the ending, I thought it kind of disengaged and took away from the struggles and severity of war and sexuality the rest of the book portrayed but until that point the rest of the story was everythingggg, there’s a sweet forbidden romance/coming of age/found family in the 1910’s propelling into a story of the horror of WW1 and losing everything you know. All I can really say is that I read it all in one go (more or less) and it had me laughing and sobbing throughout

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more):

I mean… there’s an obvious choice here - The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. HOWEVER I’m going to absolutely cheat and also say Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, the drama, the trauma, the vast majority of these characters are awful and I love it 🤌🤌

5) A book on my TBR:

So many… so so many… I’m gonna say House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski tho because it was expensive and it’s cool looking and I’ve actually been meaning to read that for a while but boy howdy it’s huge

6) A book I’ve put down:

The Tale Of The Body Thief by Anne Rice UGHH I’m trying so hard!! It’s so many words with so little going on, and I do enjoy it, I really do, it’s so goofy, but it’s so.. i mean verbose isn’t really quite the right word but you know what I mean. Sorry mutuals :( I just need a break to read something short and silly - which I’ve almost finished the little series I’m currently reading

7) A book on my wish list:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch - it sounds absolutely soul crushing and miserable, I know this completely contradicts what I just said about being in the mood for a silly read but <333

8) A favorite book from childhood:

Omg 10000x the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, guys you don’t understand, as much as I would love to talk about how my mum and I used to sit and read Anne Of Green Gables before bed or my Enid Blyton obsession when I was like 6, Skulduggery Pleasant was my absolute jam - I must’ve read that series (the original 9 + spin offs) a million times in primary school. I did keep up with phase 2 when that was coming out but I don’t know if I’ll bother with phase 3, I’m just too old now and phase 2 wasn’t all that imo - I think it’s sort of beating a dead horse at this point :( but the original 9 and Maleficent Seven/Armageddon Outta Here were my childhood and I definitely absorbed Valkyrie Cain into my identity as a child so that series probably shaped a big part of who I am and my hobbies as an adult

9) A book you would give to a friend:

Love On The Brain by Ali Hazelwood. Silly, nerdy, fun, a cute little Pride and Prejudice-esque enemies to lovers feat. women in STEM

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own:

Ok so anyone who’s seen my other poetry blog @apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway knows my obsession with The Complete Poems of Wilfred Owen (I have a lot of difference versions) AHHH by far my favourite poet - as you can imagine with such a young man, you can clearly see his changing mentalities, his growth as a person and a writer, his influences, and really gather a lot of context for what’s going on with him in general through his poems. And he grew up in all the same areas I grew up in and hung around as a kid/younger teen, which I think adds to my personal interest in him too. Idk ig we’re very close friends on a parasocial level lol.

And ofc there really aren’t that many poets around that give such visceral, truthful, and emotional insights to the First World War as Owen does (also a queer icon). He was my intro to war literature and I have tattoos relating to him, he and his work are just incredible to read about, would highly recommend having a look at Siegfried Sassoon’s war poems too; another very blunt poet who was a celebrity and war protestor at the time and happened to mentor Wilfred Owen, as well as being linked with other influential folks of the time such as Robbie Ross, Stephen Tennant, Rupert Brooke, and Ivor Novello. Ok Ill move on :,)

11) A nonfiction book you own:

Surprisingly I quite like nonfiction, mainly history and essays from philosophers and the like. Speaking of, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good And Evil is a pretty solid one I own, I’ve never read anything where the author begins by calling himself and all his coworkers socially inept incels 🥹 but even though I don’t remember the specific reason I bought it (I was reading it to argue against some other philosophers in an essay in college and I really don’t remember who or what it was) I remember it being a really interesting read

Or yknow in a more traditional sense of non-fiction, I also have Notes On A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig. Really helped me get through some stuff, if you’re struggling with anxiety or feeling a bit down lately I’d very much recommend

12) What are you currently reading:

Omg ok, The Hitchhiker Trilogy by Douglas Adams, I’m currently on book 3 of 5 - Life, The Universe, And Everything. Really silly and nonsensical space bs but somehow also a bleakly satirical social commentary on the unseriousness of our ‘serious’ world. Really enjoyable, fairly political to some degree, really short (around or less than 200 pages a book), really fun. Martin Freeman truly was the perfect casting for Arthur Dent in the film of the first book. Full of that quintessentially British cynical humour and of course plenty of cups of tea

To give a little preview, the second book literally opens “The story so far: In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

13) What are you planning on reading next?

Books 4 and 5 of The Hitchhiker Trilogy, and then I suppose I had better carry on reading The Tale Of The Body Thief :D

Tagging whoever wants to have a go, it’s super fun, sorry if I went on a bit on some of these 😅

[musicals-and-mushrooms]

hello! My internet name is robyn, and i like stuff like dnd, critical role especially, book series like nevermoor, kotlc and skulduggery to name a few, cozy video games that generally make you cry (spiritfarer, finding paradise, stardew valley, undertale) and musicals! Currently obsessed with six so thats cool. Im not comfortable disclosing my age, but id generally prefer if people over the age of like 21 or so didnt follow me, but not a hard limit i guess. Ill probably just reblog some stuff, occasionally post bits of my writing and other cool things, should be fun!

[cirrus-grey]

Tagged by @stormlightarchivist! Thank you!

Three ships:

Jon/Martin from The Magnus Archives: I don't know what to say about this one other than to point silently at the 196 fics I have currently posted to my Ao3 account starring this pair and give you the slightly unhinged grin of the truly obsessed.

Gracious/Donegan from Skulduggery Pleasant: My rarest of rarepairs - for the longest time there were only five fics total in the tag for these guys and I'd written four of them. But they're an evergreen ship for me, lighthearted and fun, and one that I'll keep going back to for a long time to come even though I stopped reading the books years ago.

Arthur/John from Malevolent: Even though I don't ship them romantically they deserve to be up here, because they give me the same happy brain-buzzies that romantic ships generally do. I've known them for far less time than any of the others ships here but they've already made a definite home for themselves inside my brain and I'm rotating them in my head quite often :)

First ship: Aziraphale/Crowley, aka Air Conditioning, aka the Ineffable Husbands, aka Consenting Bicycle Repair Men, from Good Omens (book). Look, it still weirds me out that these two are just common names on tumblr now, the fandom was so small when I first joined. Anyway I still very clearly remember the day, after first reading the book, where I was daydreaming about possible post-canon fates for the characters and my brain decided to present me with the image of Crowley pushing Aziraphale up against a bookshelf and kissing him. It caught me quite by surprise but introduced me to the wonderful world of fanfiction once I decided to look up whether anyone else had considered this interesting possibly, so I can't complain XD

Last song: Danse Caribe by Andrew Bird

Last movie: ..............Christmas Vacation. It's not a movie I chose, nor even one that I necessarily enjoy beyond the occasional slapstick laugh, but my parents put it on for Christmas day and I haven't seen any others since.

Currently reading: Technically Moby Dick via emails but I'm... significantly behind. More accurately Reaper Man via audiobook, which I am getting through at an alarmingly fast pace.

Currently watching: Been rewatching the early seasons of Community lately! Also the American version of the BBC show Ghosts.

Currently consuming: Nothing at the moment (I just brushed my teeth) but when I saw the notification that I'd been tagged I was eating a chocolate covered pretzel

Currently craving: Uhhhhhhh... nothing really.

Tagging: @albertinesimonet, @tired-beholding-bitch, @clever-raptor? Only if you want to!

[shamelesskimchifiend]

𝐇𝐞𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐲

Okay if you're looking for a fic rec, leave. Right now. I'm wasting your time.

I'm just here to talk about lalazee, again. Did I mention I really like her work? Cause I do, if you didn't know. Did I mention I'm obsessed with everything that she's written and can't read any other fanfics thanks to her because she's THAT good? Yeah honestly fuck her for that. I'm reading her newest fic right and off the bat, the writing, the way she describes stuff from bakugous perspective is flawless like, I'm pretty sure, that's actually how he think yknow? And just how she writes in general, it's so good like so novel quality, and why isn't her stuff printed, my literature teacher would approve. But it's not like boring descriptive, it's more unusual, like she uses the most unexpected words to describe unexpected things. Do you understand what I'm saying? No? Then go read her work for yourself. And she's so FUNNY. SHES SO FUCKING FUNNY. I laugh so hard I forget I have my finals tomorrow. Oh. Oh I just realised I have my finals tomorrow. WELL THAT'S TOO BAD CAUSE I'M REREADING THIS SHIT ALLLLL NIGHT. I cannot stress how good the banter she writes is. I live for some good, flirty, sexual, sarcastic banter. And she spoon feeds me. I lick that stuff right up. And her writing makes me horny but that's besides the point. I just wanted to say that cause I want people to know she literally changed my life. On the list of things that changed the course of my life are listening to mindless self indulgence, reading skulduggery pleasant, watching anime, playing volleyball, discovering lalazee is UP THERE. Okay wait basically all of that came from me watching anime but still. I just want everyone to get on this hype train because she deserves is all. She is so incredible.

Oh, just in case I forgot to mention, I'm in love with lalazee.

[aspenlovesmedia]

So, fun fact about me.

I have an entire story I started because JK Rowling pissed me off so much I decided I’d write an alternative to Harry Potter that is non problematic and has good rep in it (at least I hope, but that’s what research and sensitivity/beta readers are for). This isn’t the first time I’ve made a story because something pissed me off, this is just the funniest one because I also made almost all the main cast queer and a huge plot point revolves around a character being trans. That and I actually think through my worldbuilding.

I haven’t touched it in I think a year (maybe a bit more? Idk) but I ended up talking about it to a friend today and ngl I might revisit it. I’ve been rereading my planning doc for it and honestly I still love it. It needs some work (obviously lol) but I put in work for this thing like I forgot how much worldbuilding I did for it.

You can see the Harry Potter influence which is semi intentional (again, this story was kinda made to spite JK Rowling), but it uses some of my old story ideas from another story I had. I just brought the characters and some of their story elements into this universe and one thing led to another and it worked really well with the lore I wanted to include so it worked out. There’s also some Percy Jackson and Skulduggery Pleasant influence in there too because those series are actually incredible and are some of the biggest reasons I want to be a writer in the first place (especially Skulduggery Pleasant, I was so obsessed with that series).

Sorry this is so long and rambly, I just haven’t touched this story in a while but I wanted to talk about it. I’ll probably do a post tomorrow on the characters and general plot but it is late right now and I am tired so I’ll leave it there for now.

[thelaithlyworm]

"with zero elaboration"

no, no, it is the elaboration.

okay, so, in general, chinese webnovels have much less regulation than chinese dramas and sometimes produce content that cannot be aired as is, so adaptations can go through some weird gymnastics when putting a pre-written story on the screen. yes, that does include sexuality but it also includes commentary on politics.

it is extremely rare that a chinese drama set in or around the modern day will feature a crooked leo or civil servant; they just don't go there. if script-writers want to talk about crooked government shenanigans, they set it in the republican era or earlier. (compare and contrast the skulduggery in m9 vs. reboot!characters' comments about 'turning it over to the police' as the unqualified good thing to do.)

which brings us to the book plot of IT, a mysterious force influencing the lives of wu xie and his jiumen predecessors. eventually in the books, eventually, people will explain to wu xie that they're actually talking about a cabal of government officials obsessed with immortality and possibly planting a prominent person who died in the 60s in a place he could resurrect. that sense of inescapability etc. etc.

the drama which officially covers the era where IT is introduced and explained, ultimate note, carves all that shit out with a cleaver (understandably). when it talks about IT it gets very handwavey, talks about the ancient past, claims IT was inspired by king mu of zhou pre-BC (which... isn't exactly wrong, but overly generalised). sand sea also shifts some key past events from the late 70s, early 80s, to the 40s and places the question of 'why?' on fo-ye and the wang family's doorsteps.

these are all understandable adaptational choices, but they do leave a bit of a gap. and in truth, all that book!wu xie learns is very expositional and second-hand -- a dry bone that gives him a 'why?' without much feeling to it.

the fog village flashback, set in the republican era and thus free to get frisky, gives us the juicy, bloody meat. the feelings, the loyalty, the obsessions, the pain... that weird detail that wang zanghai himself didn't approve of immortality. it tells us what living with IT was really like.

on a side note, while the mute riders do exist in one of the books that lost tomb 2 adapts, they have an expanded role in the drama, giving us a view into graverobbers' entwinement with politics in ancient times, and another angle on why someone might press for immortality (qian zhi's sickly, lovely prince), as does lost tomb 1's bonkers court drama flashback.

tl;dr -- i agree with you absolutely, the fog village flashback was beautifully written.

zhang buxun story arc my most beloved and yet most personally baffling part of tlt2. it's a film-length character study in how power corrupts absolutely and how horrific things are justified in the name of idealism, to the point that it can tear apart even the most deep-seated loyalties. it has so little to do with the show's main plot it could've been its own spinoff/standalone. it has some of the most put-together and thematically resounding screenwriting in all of dmbj. it plays out as a flashback sequence three-quarters of the way through a show where the plot totters along and every other flashback scene has been mediocre at best. it's one of the most homoerotic narrative arcs in the entire franchise. none of the characters involved are from the novels and were made up for the show. they shoved cheng yi into a republic era tragic romance film starring a doomed polycule in the middle of tlt2 with zero elaboration and it's among the most well executed parts of any dmbj adaptation. i. what

[beigetiger]

Actually writing out this AU in full because I’m deciding to be cringe and free

Also I think it would make a good writing exercise

This is a Skulduggery Pleasant AU that basically serves as a replacement for Seasons of War (although I made it up before Seasons of War). If I was an interesting person with time on my hands, I might try to actually write it out in book form, but oh well.

Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Tanith, Saracen, Dexter, and Luke (no Serpine this time) are sent to Dimension X to kill Mevolent, as goes in SoW. However, Lord Vile isn’t doing his draugr thing and Mevolent probably doesn’t have any plans for all-out war.

They end up getting involved with the Resistance, which leads to them going around and getting into fights with Mevolent’s people (in which Luke dies, because the man can’t fight for shit). Eventually, the main gang gets separated in a pretty nasty fight (Dexter, Saracen, and Tanith go one way while Skulduggery and Valkyrie end up a ways away). Skulduggery ends up being possibly killed in an explosion (Val can’t see, but explosion happened right where he was supposed to be standing) and Valkyrie, disoriented, attempts to flee.

However, Mevolent chases her down and takes her prisoner. He decides she has the potential of a good general and starts assigning her to work alongside Vile and Vengeous. Valkyrie, naturally, tries numerous times to escape and/or follow through with the mission and kill Mevolent, but he always catches her and tortures her whenever she tries something, so her will to leave dies pretty quickly. (Also, Serafina from the main dimension shows up with a shunter at some point, so now Mevolent has his wife back. She mostly ignores Valkyrie and is pretty condescending when they do talk, much like their canon interactions).

He also assigns Lord Vile to keep watch over her and make sure she never escapes, so he ends up following her around a lot. She doesn’t like him and is very verbal about this, but there really isn’t much she can do to get rid of him. Meanwhile, her knowing Vile’s secret identity (presuming that nobody else in Dimension X knows) and just knowing a whole lot about him in general leads to him becoming just slightly obsessed with her, making him even more controlling and hard to get rid of.

At this point, being tortured (formerly regularly, now on occasion) and being an active part of an oppressive regime by the man she’s supposed to kill has badly worn down on Valkyrie and she becomes borderline suicidal, but never kills herself because she keeps insisting that Skulduggery survived the explosion and will eventually come rescue her, even as Vile actively taunts her by saying that he’s dead and she’ll be here forever.

Valkyrie eventually latches on to Lord Vile as a sort of temporary replacement for Skulduggery, because it has been over a year now and she is struggling to keep going. It also makes his obsessiveness slightly less unbearable.

Now, during all this, Dexter, Saracen, and Tanith have been going around, uninvolved with the Resistance, and quick-striking and killing as many of Mevolent’s Redhoods and Sense-Wardens as possible. Is it making a dent? Not really, but they’re hiding their time until they get an opportunity to get into the palace. They know that Valkyrie has been captured and has become a general, and they also believe that Skulduggery is dead, so they really don’t have anything better to be doing.

They eventually hear about a new Resistance leader described as being similar in appearance to Lord Vile and very good at organizing the Resistance fighters, and immediately the three of them get suspicious and go over to meet the guy. It turns out to be Skulduggery (who insists an explosion could never kill him) wearing bits and pieces of his shadow armour, but not all of it. Dexter, Saracen, and Tanith are, of course, livid, because he pretty much stranded them and left Valkyrie with Mevolent for a year. They’re also angry about the whole “being Lord Vile” thing, and Tanith gets to slap him before they tentatively agree to team up with the Resistance and start doing assignments with them.

Around this time, Skulduggery starts sending Valkyrie anonymous letters through a spy network in the castle basically talking (in VERY loose language) about what’s been going on in the Resistance lately. She puts two and two together and realizes that it’s Skulduggery, which makes her suddenly much more hopeful about the future and able to keep going a little longer.

Eventually, she quietly goes out and meets up with Skulduggery in a forest somewhere to verify that it’s actually him and he says that she has the potential to be useful within the castle, but isn’t able to get into much detail before she has to leave. She’s too happy to see him to be angry at how long he left her in that castle without contacting her or trying to save her.

As it turns out, Lord Vile has seen some of the letters they were exchanging and also figured out that Valkyrie was probably talking to Skulduggery, and he goes to confront Valkyrie about it. It leads to a fight, they throw each other into the walls a few times, but Vile eventually agrees to not tell Mevolent on account of the fact that if he found out, he’d probably kill Valkyrie and then Vile would have nobody to talk to. His only condition is that Valkyrie stop exchanging letters with Skulduggery, to which Valkyrie resentfully agrees.

A week or two passes and Dexter, Saracen, and Tanith are captured by Mevolent, which leads to Valkyrie trying to find ways to sneak them out of the castle (while Vile tries to stop her). Skulduggery, now with a fully-organized Resistance, attacks the castle in hopes of getting all his friends back and killing Mevolent in a single blow, which leads to the castle becoming a chaotic war zone that ends with Valkyrie using the Sceptre to kill Mevolent (causing the explosion that allows her to absorb the katehedral crystal), Meritorious to be freed from prison by a Resistance fighter, and the Resistance getting Serafina, Vile, Vengeous, and the rest of the castle to stand down.

With their mission accomplished, the gang teams up with Professor Nye to find a shunter who can take them home, leaving . Does Lord Vile try to stop Valkyrie from leaving? Probably, but at this point there really isn’t much he can do about it now that she’s been reunited with Skulduggery.

By the time they make it back home, it’s now been close to two years and everyone has assumed they are dead. Militsa was grieving for Valkyrie and was frustrated that Val was gone for so long when she got back, but could also clearly tell that Valkyrie did not have a happy time in Dimension X. People try to get the five of them to talk about what happened and what caused them to take so long, but all of them mutually agree that nobody wants to or should discuss what happened. Instead, they make an effort to move on with their lives, rest of the series happens as normal.

[marzipanandminutiae]

i know you've only mentioned it very quietly in the tags of that one ask, but please feel free to talk about skulduggery pleasant at any time. please.

(i've re-read the original series, and read all but the final book of the new series this year, and my 11 year old self's obsession has been revived. it's nice to know that one of my favourite tumblr people also has china sorrows brainrot)

I haven't read it in ages and I'm so behind, but I loved it around age 14-16. Just the slightest bit outside the target audience- not that it mattered.

Also my first exposure to fantasy media set in Ireland that wasn't...well, all Mysticism and Fair Folk and The Old Ways(TM). Which is embarrassing to admit, but I am American, so. Less modern Irish lit makes its way over, in general.

[diableasura]

A review of phase 2 of the SP series in general and UtE in particular

So I finished Until the End and if I had to summarize phase 2 in one word it would be 'retcon'. 

It was clear that by the end of the last book derek had clearly stopped caring about the rules he previously established and was just bending his lore to fit the narrative instead of the other way around, which is obviously not good since it basically destroys the stakes of the story and challenges my suspension of disbelief. At this point my disbelief has plummeted to the ground and shattered into a million pieces derek, thats how suspended my disbelief currently is.

Also where's this sudden obsession with family trees coming from?! When cassion being skulduggerys son was debunked I was so relieved cause the whole concept of skul having a secret child all along was so ridiculous and out of left field it never would have been a credible plot point, you only had to stop and think about it for more than one second to conclude that that new information clearly didn't fit in with what we knew from phase 1. It seems derek sensed my relief though, and decided to spite me with this last book, so now not only does skulduggery have a secret daughter who's painfully uninteresting he also has twenty one grandkids, twenty of whom aren't even named and can hardly count as their own characters.

When I heard about phase 2 for the first time I for sure didn't expect it to end with skulduggery having twenty one grandkids he knew nothing about.

This leads quite nicely into another problem I have which is that most of the new characters introduced in phase 2 are boring at best and infuriating at worst. Omen for the most part was bearable but his classmates are forgettable since minute one. But the character that actually pissed me off was Flannery like yes mr landy I get it I get that he's trump now can you please for one page stop portraying him so cartoonishly evil?? I mean this book series has had its fare share of one dimensional bad guys that do their job in the story but with Flannery the line between one dimensional and insufferable was crossed ages ago. I GET IT. FLANNERYS THE WORST. AND I KNOW THAT FROM THE PREVIOUS TWENTY CHAPTERS WHERE HE WAS THE WORST. I DON'T LIKE TRUMP EITHER MR. LANDY BUT CAN WE GET TO THE POINT WITH THIS CHARACTER. The fact I had to deal with Flannery for five books should be illegal. Same thing goes with Sebastian btw, derek kind of dodged that bullet at the last second by revealing him to be omen but that doesn't change the fact that the darquesse subplot appears in all five of the books and only has a resolution in the last one, which means that in the other four books it's mostly wasting pages.

Some characters do have some potential like abyssinia and crepuscular, but the story introduces so many characters and plot points at once every character except valkyrie ends up spread too thin. Some cases are worse than others like with tanith or fletcher, who has been turned into a glorified taxi and no, having him complain about it in the story doesn't solve the problem. Dexter is MIA for most of the books, and it feels like Saracen was only brought back so he could die a meaningless death. Astonishingly not even skulduggery is free from having to fight for the spotlight and that's insane cause he's skulduggery pleasant. His name is in the title of all of the books for fucks sake! He should've had so much more screen time especially considering how much he goes through in phase 2 but noooo, we needed to have two dozen chapters about Flannery and a dozen about Sebastian, those characters are sooo much more interesting than skulduggery! (sarcasm if it wasn't clear).

There was a scene in until the end where skulduggerys sibling suddlenly are revealed to be back because of [insert vague explanation with no previous build up] and its obviously another of the dozens of retcons from this book alone, but one that I actually liked because it opened a door into knowing more about skulduggery which would mean more scenes with him and valyrie but then BUT THEN just as his siblings are about to air their grievances with what skulduggery just did in the story one of his sisters tells valkyrie to leave and she just agrees?! We don't get to see that conversation and its so frustrating!!

But it was clear as I progressed through the story and skuls siblings didn't reappear that that plot point was gonna be explored in a future book, so it was no surprise when I read that skulduggery would return in the last page of the story. And honestly I can't help but feel a bit annoyed that we'll have to wait for that story to be told when I would have rather read it in this book instead of the story we actually got to read. The faceless ones conflict has been resolved and resumed so many times during the course of these books it's become almost funny (almost) so I'm mostly glad that it finally finally seems to be gone for good with this book and perhaps we can focus on skulduggerys siblings in the next phase (that is, if derek doesn't decide to add a hundred different plot points that are terribly boring and makes us have to sit through them to get to the story with actual potential)

TL;DR: Derek is a known iron man fan and he most likely named these last five books as 'phase 2' as a way to mimic the phases of the mcu, but i find it ironic how his book series is also mimicking the mcu´s phase 4 in terms of its drop in quality and its overreliance on nostalgia to keep the readers enganged. I didn´t want ghastly back in the story derek, i wanted a story with actual consequences and stakes, you´re trampling all over your lore, undermining the first nine books and alienating the fans who loved those first nine books with this new direction you´re taking as a storyteller. 

5/10 and I´m being quite generous. Reread phase 1 instead. 

[tleeaves]

Thank you for the tag, my lovely Silver! <3

Last song: Poison, Alice Cooper.

Last movie/TV show: 'The Peanuts Movie' (I was babysitting and the little lass picked this one, though I enjoy it too).

Currently watching: 'How To Get Away With Murder' (first time watching, just started last week, really loving the courtroom and university drama in all its accuracies and inaccuracies).

Comfort characters: my own characters, James Herondale, Matthew Fairchild, Peeta Mellark, Daniel Arlington "Darlington", Skulduggery Pleasant, Vi and Viktor (both from Arcane), Astarion (this is a weird lot to mix, I know).

Sweet/spicy/savoury: sweet sweet sweet (though I also love the other two).

Relationship status: single yet belonging to many very single. Been trying out the dating sphere for a little while now. Most of the time I develop feelings that aren't reciprocated, but also vice versa has been happening.

Current obsessions: 'The Count of Monte Cristo', were-creatures, foxes, D&D (but more like the lore and history, and RPGs in general, though I'm not currently participating in many), Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion, Miguel O'Hara, French language, chocolate oatmilk, French toast (favourite meal at the moment, hands down), wearing skirts and dresses and eye-liner (fairly new behaviours).

Last thing you Googled: 'you'

@manawari @sourlemons262 @stabbydragon @stxrwalker @griddle-cakes

9 people I would like to know better

Thank you for tagging me @drewstarkeysbae!!

last song? Heartbeat, Childish Gambino

favorite color? Red

last movie/tv show? The 100

currently watching? Invasion

sweet/spicy/savoury? Spicy

relationship status? Talking

current obsessions? Jack championnnn

last thing you googled? Jessica Lord (bc Matt Rife is dating her lmfaoo)

No pressure tags: @reychvmpion @runningfrom2am @rvfecamerons @serial444killer @corpsebasil @heavensghost @heavenhillgirl @11133 @polishlolita

[lassieposting]

What do you think the Dead Men / other skulduggery pleasant characters pet names would be for their SO?

OKAY SO

here's the rundown

DEAD MEN

ghasdug: they don't really use pet names. ghastly sometimes calls skug skul, which skug hates, but he gets away with it by dint of having done it since they were teens. they get together at 16 and for most of their relationship skug doesn't use affectionate nicknames or pet names for anyone. He does sometimes fondly call ghastly bespoke, though.

sexter: dexter is just dex, mostly - not just with saracen, but with all his lovers. saracen is like 5'9 to dexter's 6ft, so dexter fondly refers to him as big guy.

shudderkin: shudder isn't a pet name person, but he is pretty much the only person who regularly calls larrikin by his first name, rover. on the flipside, larrikin will answer to pretty much anything, and shudder promptly gets nicknamed altar boy, in honour of all that religious guilt he carries around.

other: ghastly was a sergeant major during the war. everyone who doesn't outrank him still occasionally whines "but sarge," if he's telling them off for something.

BAD BOY BRIGADE

violent: their relationship is a closely guarded secret for a long time, so in public they're professional: vile calls mevolent your grace, and mevolent calls vile general. in private, over the years, mevolent will sometimes fondly refer to vile as rouquin ("little redhead" or "little ginger" in Middle French). vile doesn't use pet names at all, but he does call mev mevolent, rather than an honorific title, which isn't something many people get to do

nefmev: they don't do pet names, especially not from nef. he's pretty smitten with mevolent, but mev sees him as a convenient casual hookup whenever he wants one, so he won't get away with over-familiarity in the same way vile could if he was the pet name type. he's one of mevolent's closest advisors, and in the war room, to a certain degree he gets to talk to mev like an equal and argue with him, but that doesn't really carry over to the bedroom. nef is used to messed up power dynamics, so this never really strikes him as odd.

sorrowscorn: they're both rather fond of darling

baronscorn: they have their own little awkward thing where she calls him husband and he calls her wife. the rest of the court are not entirely sure whether these are affectionate pet names or whether they are just strange ultra-repressed oddballs who think that's how normal people speak. vile and mevolent have a running bet.

GOOD GUYS (MISC)

cassdug: she's not flowery at all about her pet names - he's usually either love or lovey, depending on her mood. he doesn't really go in for them with her, but he does call her cassie in private, which is. very unusual for him, seeing as he pretty much never shortens names.

skulpine: skug calls nef nefarian. this is significant to nef because he isn't on first-name terms with leibniz!skug, and he gets visibly annoyed when og!skug keeps calling him nefarian in lsodm/tdotl. as his obsession shifts from skug-as-enemy to skug-as-ally, he starts to like the informality, because it makes him feel like skug likes him, and at a certain point he starts reciprocating by going from "the skeleton" or "detective pleasant" to skulduggery. these aren't actually pet names for skug though - he and og!serpine are on first name terms the whole way through book one, so this is normal to him.

valdug: pet names are pretty rare from him, and non-existent from her, but he does call her dear every now and then. neither of them are really the type that show affection like this.

skugwife: easily the most petnamey couple here - he's my darling and she's dearest. when they're courting and writing to each other, him at the front and her back in dublin, his letters begin with "dearest clary" and hers always end with "be safe, my darling". they keep this sappy shit up until she's killed, and even after - he vaguely remembers hallucinating her comforting him and telling him to come with me, my darling when he was being slowly tortured to death in serpine's dungeon, and that's the incident her ghost tells him about in tdotl - "we watched you suffer, we tried to get you to come with us".

vilekyrie: not so much a pet name, but i've always had a headcanon that when vile has nonverbal periods, he communicates with little shadow emojis like the sandman in rise of the guardians. he has one for her, like (🙎🏻), and mostly uses it to show he's worried about her if she's upset (🙎🏻❓) or that he's happy to see her/wants to show her something (🙎🏻❗) or say "I love you" (🙎🏻❤). sometimes his shadows will make the little signs in his sleep, and she can tell he's talking to her in his dreams. she sees it as almost a pet name. when he's talking though, they don't really have any.

(@bubblemoon66 do they have pet names in the spy!au? now im curious)

soldug: they mostly call each other by their surnames (pleasant/wreath) or by titles (detective/cleric), so their version of pet names is just...informality. if they use skulduggery or solomon, it's usually affectionate or concerned.

skug's siblings: after skug's mother is killed, he gets custody of the five youngest siblings. respair, the youngest, is only like four, and still has a little-kid lisp, and can't actually say 'skulduggery'. So skug gets to spend several unfortunate years as...well...skug thkug. respair grows out of it - eventually. raising kids is a thankless, embarrassing job.

BAD GUYS (MISC)

vilequesse: she frequently refers to him as my little toy or my pet. he doesn't really have one for her (but vilekyrie!au vile does have a sign for darquesse, and it's different to his one for val, which is. a relief for her tbh because for a while she's not actually sure whether he knows there's a difference)

tanguine: brs is a good ol' southern boy, so he has a whole bunch of names for tanith. honey bun, sweetheart, sugar, dumplin', all the typical schmoopy food ones. if she asks him something, he'll often answer her with either "yes ma'am" or "no ma'am". tanith, being all remnanty, isn't overly given to genuine displays of affection, but in a world where he survives tdotl and they figure it out, she mostly opts for babe