#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.

[daughterofhecata]

2025 Book Bingo TBR

Alright, I'll try to get through @batmanisagatewaydrug's 2025 book bingo next year, and I have made a list in preparation this time instead of just filling out squares as I go and then scrambling for the last fills at the end of the year.

Let's see if I can stick to it, and also fill the last empty spaces.

1. Literary Fiction: [to be decided]

I don’t currently have any on my TBR I realized, so we’ll see. Certainly keeping the recommendations of Raven Leilani’s Luster, Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar as options in here.

2. Short Story Collection: Mariana Enríquez: A Sunny Place for Shady People [org. title: Un lugar soleado para gente sombría]

A biiiit of a placeholder, maybe, taken from the reading updates of Mr Gatewaydrug; sounds interesting but idk if I’ll be able to actually get my hands on it.

3. A Sequel: Xiran Jay Zhao: Heavenly Tyrant / Luke Arnold: Whisper in the Wind

I hadn’t gotten the memo that the sequel to Iron Widow is coming out next year and now I’m excited! But we’re also getting #4 of Luke Arnold’s brilliant fantasy noir series next April, so I’ll probably get to that first. Can’t wait to find out what my boy Fetch will be up to now.

4. Childhood Favorite: Derek Landy: Skulduggery Pleasant / Peter Freund: Laura und das Geheimnis von Aventerra

I’ve been missing the old Skulduggery vibes for a while now, so I might revisit the first book. Or see how the Laura series holds up; I was pretty obsessed with that as a teen but haven’t touched it in almost fifteen years.

5. 20th Century Speculative Fiction: Diana Wynne Jones: Howls’ Moving Castle / Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower

I’ve been meaning to read Howl for a while, maybe I’ll get around to it next year. Or I’ll read some more Octavia Butler, depending on how I like Fledgling (on my list for December).

6. Fantasy: James Oswald: The Damage Done. An Inspector McLean Novel.

Silly little crime novels are generally a personal favourite and I really like how Oswald weaves in and treats the fantasy elements of his world, so I’m looking forward to finding out what poor Tony has to suffer next – originally this book was planned for December, but got pushed back by readings for class.

7. Published Before 1950: Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

2025 will be the year I finally read P&P, I promise.

8. Independent Publisher: [to be decided]

I got it easy here tbh, Germany has a good share of it’s own publishers, so there’s bound to be something. Ideally I’ll get my hands on the third part of Christian Handel’s Hexenwald-Chroniken, because that’s from a very small fantasy publisher and I loved the first two parts, but idk if that’ll happen yet.

9. Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Christopher Tauber: Justus Jonas – Eine Interpretation

Since we Germans massively ran away with Robert Arthur’s Three Investigators series, we don’t only have like roughly 200 books more than the American continuation (incl. Crime Busters), we also have a couple spinoffs and one of them is a beautifully dark and painful vision of their future in graphic novel form and we’re getting a sequel to that in Febuary and I can’t wait to see how much that will hurt.

10. Animal on the Cover: [to be decided]

I don’t fucking know yet, I’ll have to see what book I come across.

11. Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Maurice Leblanc: Arsène Lupin. Das goldene Dreieck. [org. title: Le Triangle d'or]

This year I started making my way through the Arsène Lupin books in earnest and I still have a couple of those left AND I've never been to France – although I certainly aim to change that at some point, I'll definitely get to this book before I get to do that.

12. Science Fiction: Karel Čapek: R.U.R.

R.U.R. is a sci-fi play I’ve been meaning to read for a while now, because I love that both the concept of the robot and the word robot are a Czech invention (based on robota, which describes a form of forced labour). Also I loved what I’ve read of Čapek so far.

13. 2025 Debut Author: [to be decided]

Since I absolutely never keep up with things that get published, this is kinda the furthest thing from a free space for me, but I guess I’ll find something. Absolutely open to recommendations, and obviously also curious to see what other people will read for this space.

14. Memoir: Rob Halford: Confess

Rob Halford’s autobiography has been on my list for a while, I haven’t been able to get it via library so far, maybe I just have to bite the bullet and buy it.

15. Read a Zine, Make a Zine: New York’s Worst Responders. NYPD and 9/11.

I’m always interested in reading about the ways the police system is rotten to the core (I want to say, the ways in which it fails, but lbr, it’s a feature, not a bug, the system works exactly the way most cops want it to), and this has been on my list for a while. The making of a zine is another question.

16. Essay Collection: [to be decided]

If anyone has recommendations?

17. 2024 Award Winner: Cari Hunter: A Calculated Risk

Took a look around the Lamda Awards, this sounded most interesting to me as someone still a crime novel reader at heart, we’ll see if I’ll get to ths or maybe switch in something with a German award.

18. Nonfiction: Learn Something New: Ingrid Strobl: Die Angst kam erst danach

I'm cheating a bit here, since I already know quite a lot about WW2 and the Shoah, but I don't have much knowledge about the role of female resistance fighters yet, and I'm really looking forward to learning more about that. But maybe I'll swap in something about the Golden Age of Piracy or Störtebecker, if I come across something.

19. Social Justice & Activism: bell hooks: The Will to Change

What can I say. Tumblr put it on my radar and I really need to read more theory anyway.

20. Romance Novel: [to be decided]

I’ll probably take a detour through the library’s romance section at some point and chose something that sounds at least a bit appealing. Rereading You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty for the third time in as many years probably doesn’t count, does it?

21. Read and Make a Recipe: [to be decided]

22. Horror: [to be decided]

If anyone has recommendations, please do tell!

23. Published in the Aughts: Ellen Kushner: The Privilege of the Sword

Kushner’s Riverside series is a personal favourite (well, Swordspoint and Privilege of the Sword are, I never read Fall of the Kings and don’t plan to rn), and I’ve been meaning to reread this.

24. Historical Fiction: Laurent Binet: HHhH

Putting this here as a kind of placeholder, maybe. I’d like to reread it, I think, it’s about one of my longest standing special interests, and we talked about it in class recently, because it really gets into the question of methodology re: historical fiction/writing history/historiography/etc.

25. Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: [to be decided]

I’ll wait with this until the next time I visit my parents and get a chance to duck into my favourite bookstore, or I’ll keep it for after the move and ask at a bookshop/the library there to build rapport with my new book dealers.

[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

[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 😅

[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]

Should I talk about Battlescape Mevolent and Serafina? I know I should because they’re supposed to be relevant, and I do have a few ideas for what I want them to be doing.

Alright, SO. They escaped the Eternity Gate because it broke after the Faceless Ones got out (courtesy of Malice) and the chaos that the Faceless Ones immediately tried to inflict ended up breaking the prison containing them. Naturally, Serafina died a few moments later, but Mev managed to resurrect her through the same sort of ritual he used to bring himself back after he’d died so many times, and they both quickly retreated somewhere safer where people might not immediately find them and attack them.

Nowadays, they mostly roam around Ireland with a band of followers (similarly to Skulduggery and Valkyrie, although Mev and Sef don’t really have a base) bringing chaos with them wherever they go. Mevolent has the god-killer dagger, but it really isn’t that useful in battle and he mostly uses to to take out people he doesn’t want to see again from a close range.

Mevolent probably went through some pretty rapid-fire character development after escaping the Eternity Gate, because now the Faceless Ones were revealed to be pretty shammy and he’s now separated from his zombie torn kingdom in Dimension X. While he wants to go back to Dimension X at some point, he knows it’s too broken and hostile towards him at the moment under Meritorious’ rule and so he’s decided he wants to stay in his current dimension (gonna be honest, the term Dimension Y is growing on me) so he can eventually take it over and then use that to go back and dominate Dimension X.

But until then, he’s stuck here, and his obsession with defeating Valkyrie has only grown. She’s more powerful and bizarre than ever, she’s absolutely fascinating to him and he would absolutely perform weird scientific experiments on her if he ever managed to capture her. His want to bring violence on Valkyrie also means that he often disregards Skulduggery (except for wanting the god-killer sword back) and thinks of Winter as little more than Valkyrie’s upstart sister, giving Winter a good personal reason to hate him. His and Valkyrie’s groups often clash violently with each other, and he’s criticized Valkyrie’s willingness to take in Nefarian many times before.

Serafina thinks that her husband’s obsession with Valkyrie is distracting him from their ultimate mission and so disapproves of it, but that only really means that she’d help him catch Valkyrie if that meant he’d kill her just a little bit faster. She’s a bit distracted herself though, as she no longer has access to her younger siblings and is dealing with the grief of being so suddenly and violently cut off from them. She’s already tried reaching out to Kierre, but by then it had been years since Kierre was dependent on her and she turned down her older sister quite confidently. Rune and Strosivadian are among the many people who went missing when global civilization collapsed and they have not turned back up since.

I also want Serafina to have a dynamic with China similar to what China had with Eliza Scorn, simply because I miss that dynamic and I think that both Mev and Sef deserve to have someone kind of distracting them from what they’re supposed to be doing. China is generally pretty safe from Serafina because she lives within the safety of Roarhaven, but it does give reason for Serafina and Mevolent to then attack Roarhaven more often.

I’m actually surprised I had this many ideas for them, because I planned on them being relevant but didn’t reeeeally have any specific ideas for what I wanted them to be doing in this AU until I literally sat down and wrote this out. I’m quite glad I have something now though!

[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!

[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.

[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

[whumperific]

Hopping in here again because I would like to know more.

I also would like to add: funnel cake is so fucking good, I highly recommend it. It's basically fried dough with powdered sugar on top, so yea, very American.

As for my asks!

1, 15, 17 & 21 (payback😈), 32, 33, & 45

Ahh thank you!! I love answering these questions! Ily 🧡🧡

Also, that does sound pretty tasty! If I'm ever in America again I'll definitely try some

1. If you have a lighter, what color is it?

I have a few lighters but they're all very cheap translucent plastic. I have a red one for my candles in my room then there's a yellow one in the kitchen that we use for birthday cake candles and stuff

15. What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you?

Honestly, not a lot of weird stuff has happened to me

Probably the weirdest is how I made all my friends in college - when I got to my first psych class everyone was there already so I panicked and sat in the closest seat, which happened to be next to the four queer people (the only queer people in the class) who also went to school with my best friend at the time so that was a weird but very nice coincidence. They're now all my closest friends

17. An earliest obsession you remember?

In my primary school me and all my friends went through a big Skulduggery Pleasant phase and I bought all of the books and we were all just very obsessed with it

There's not much else to the story lol

21. Your first celebrity crush?

Oh boy oh boy. Cheers for this (jk ily)

This is more of a character crush than celebrity crush but as a kid I was pretty much in love with Marion from Indiana Jones - my parents said I printed out a huge picture of her and stuck it on my door lmao

If we're going for exclusively celebrity then I suppose it would be Tom Holland?? Idk if this should be embarrassing or not?? It was more his characters than him as a person - I just really like Spiderman and he's hot and idk, I liked all his other characters too

32. Do you write better with a pen or a pencil?

I write better with a pen - it just feels smoother and nicer. Also, writing with a pencil makes icky scratchy sounds that I really don't like so if I'm able I'd always pick pen

33. A song that gets stuck in your head?

Hmm, it depends what I'm listening to at the moment but generally the "scream and shout" bit in Axolotl by Cosmo Sheldrake always makes my brain itch delightfully and tends to get stuck in my head

45. Favorite tea?

I'm afraid I don't really like tea (or any hot drinks really). It feels like a bit of a crime seeing as I'm British but it's just not for me :/

Thanks again Zombie!! 💚💚