Skulduggery Pleasant - Blog Posts
Highly emotional about Skug's reaction to the empty world in Theatre Of Shadows.
Like. This is a man who has spent hundreds of years stripped bare like an exposed nerve to sensory input. He can't close his eyes. He can't put his fingers in his ears. He can't sleep. He's "learned to" sort-of sleep by meditating, but he has no way to fully turn off to the world around him.
He's also massively ADHD-coded, a condition associated with sensory processing issues - specifically, hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli, leading to sensory overload.
Add to that, that Necromancers all seem to have a heightened sort of sensory perception - they can all sense the echoes of negative emotions like fear, despair and misery. At a certain power level - which Melancholia reaches in DB - their entire way of processing sensory stimuli, the way they see the world, changes.
Skug is a natural Necromancer. He developed his abilities long before he joined the Temple as Lord Vile, and Vile very quickly outpaced the most advanced teacher they had for him. So he's probably had very little - if any - training in how to deal with those added sensitivities or tune them out. As a dead person commanding death magic - and someone so powerful he can use highly unstable Necromancy without his channelling object - he's probably more sensitive to these things than your average Necromancer.
So in Vile, you have an immensely traumatised torture survivor who's lost all human ways to cope with his pain (he can't comfort eat, he can't get drunk, he can't lose himself in sex, he can't sleep, he's lost his loved ones, he has no way of recovering at all), who's also already hypersensitive to how bright and noisy and Too Much the world is, and now has no way of disconnecting from all that stress, while his senses have been dialled up to 11.
So? Those random, pointless little solo expeditions into dead universes? Were actually probably a desperate man's last resort in trying to decompress, to find somewhere he could get some fucking peace and quiet. Somewhere to just make all the lights and the noise and the emotions that aren't his go away, to make it stop. The only outlet he had, to escape a world that was still hurting him. The only place he could relax.
Anyway vile needs rainymood.com and a lie down in a nice dark room thanks for coming to my ted talk
Always fascinated by this.
Love the effect of friendship and love on behaviour, especially that of villains or otherwise morally grey characters. This also suggests that the fundamental difference between Lord Vile and Skulduggery is love - love is what created Vile (Skulduggery losing his family and being consumed by rage) and love is what killed him too (Val’s companionship and love of Skul allowing him to move on and improve himself.)
I adore this duo so much - platonic soulmates for the win!
I’m a little obsessed with Skulduggery telling alt Vile that he’s the superior one in DotL because it’s such a fascinating trope subversion.
The typical trope is that a character who is a morally good person is faced with an alternate version of themselves who is stronger, but also evil. Then said character must battle with whether or not they value being strong or being good more.
And this is why I love Skulduggery here so much. He has spent nearly his whole life being the despicable one. He’s cruel. He’s strong and he bullies those weaker than him. Even if he is clever, he is ultimately a brute who’s spent so long being used as a weapon that he’s come to love it. He’s been strong his whole life, he doesn’t want to be strong anymore. He wants to be good in order to please Valkyrie.
And finally, he is faced with a version of himself who is even stronger than him, but also a worse person. He is finally the better person, even if that makes him weaker. He’s happy to be the good one. Even if it means getting literally dragged off and tortured, he gets to know that he’s not as awful as he could be. It is no moral battle for him, it is finally being able to claim moral victory.
And he’s never really worried, even when they take him away to be tortured. Because Vile is alone, there’s nobody in the world who loves him. Skulduggery, on the other hand, has someone who’d burn the world down for him. He doesn’t need to be stronger because he has someone he can rely on. And that’s how he gets away with claiming superiority to Vile. His growth as a character over the series has resulted in there being someone who will break him out.
Anyways, subversion of annoying tropes for the win. Skulduggery’s relationship with Vile fascinates me.
So true. Looking back on this series as an adult - or a not twelve year old - has made me question a lot of what happened in this series. Still love it with all my heart though. Can’t wait to properly re-read and be completely horrified!
Honestly I think that Tanith and Skulduggery’s friendship is CRIMINALLY underrated in this series. They are so unhinged.
They really said “hey why not?” And decided to illegally co-raise a teenager for YEARS together in spite of barely knowing each other. They’re both hyper-violent and get mad when they can’t punch things for long periods of time. They try and kill each other a LOT. A WHOLE LOT. And they just…don’t care the next time they see each other. These were the people that decided that it was alright to use a thirteen year old as vampire bait and to NOT come with backup.
When all the Teleporters were dying off and there was only a few left, Skulduggery fully trusted that Tanith wasn’t the one killing them while not trusting just about ANYBODY ELSE. But yeah, this bounty hunter lady he’s known for two years cannot possibly be the culprit.
When Skulduggery is yelling at Valkyrie for hanging out with a vampire after he got back from the Faceless Ones dimension, everyone else was too scared to say anything EXCEPT for Tanith, who told him to shut the fuck up.
She also saw him turn into Vile while they were all in Dimension X? And as far as we know, she HASN’T TOLD ANYONE??
There’s more as well, they are such a crazy duo. They aren’t even codependent on each other and yet keep coming back to team up with each other, even if all safety and reason would say to probably not trust the other. Why do we not talk about them more.
Genderbent Skulduggery Pleasant that nobody asked for,
Bonny- beautiful, attractive, one letter away from bony
Legerdemain- in French literally “light of hand”
This is literally the plot of skulduggery pleasant
Shit man, this wizard war is fucked. I just saw a guy clap his hands together and say "the ten hells" or some similar shit, and every one around him turned inside out, had their tibia explode and then disappeared. The camera didn't even go onto him, that's how common shit like this is. My ass is casting frostbite and level 2 poison. I think I just heard "power word:scrunch" two groups over. I gotta get the fuck outta here.
Phase 3 announcement and a bingo card I hastily made (UtE and HBL spoilers be warned) of some stuff that may or may not happen
There were several moments where I had to put the book down and take a walk because of the random bs Derek had thrown in there
Readers of until the end, do you have any out-of-context thoughts or reactions to share? I haven't read it and likely never will
one of my favourite things about the SP discord server: Uno bot was renamed Jon because someone's phone kept autocorrecting it
Kenspeckle, giving Valkyrie an eye test:Can you please read this for me?
Valkyrie who has skipped god knows how much school: No I cannot. What's up I'm Valkyrie I'm 13 and I never fuckin learned how to read
now I just want to know how big the original spider was
friendly reminder that people canonically fuck spiders in the sp universe
As much as the SP fandom takes the piss out of Dirty Laundry, at least he's not Just Kidding Rowling
At the suggestion of various people in the Skulduggery Pleasant subreddit discord, I've made several cursed (and crappy) photoshops that've been made into stickers that I feel everyone should see
Skans. I made it when someone suggested fusing Sans with Skulduggery. I died a little when the server was boosted and saw it had been made into a sticker emoji thing
OhGodPleaseWhy (or something along them lines). Scrolling through a conversation and someone said they wanted a dabbing Skul. Done in half an hour with a bootleg photoshop and lots of regret
Finally Ricarduggery. I wanted to make the Holy Trinity of bad photoshops and someone suggested this. Why did I do it? Idk but it took me about 20 minutes and I'm pretty sure it took half of my will to live
I think he would've been if Skul and co never found him
Correct me if Im wrong ...
But isnt Fletcher technically a neoteric just like Nero?
The gap was gaping. It was a gaping gap
Could people drop some of their favourite inspirational/meaningful skulduggery pleasant quotes :)
Wait.
THERE'S TWO SP DISCORDS??
it’s 2am but why is this so funny
Before Skulduggery got his facade Valkyrie stole his hat multiple times.
Change my mind
Gist: yeet your soul
Energy thrower: yeet the lasers
Elemental: yeet the fire
Necromancer: yeet death
all magical disciplines can be described using the word “yeet” prove me wrong
China still has a crush on Skulduggery. Pass it on. QUICK!
china still has a crush on skulduggery pass it on
Rereading Skulduggery Pleasant is sometimes painful.
Stefanie (first book) : I suppose this is a big deal for you, huh? Finding out that your gods really existed?
Skulduggery : Ah, but we don't know that. ...
Told by the men who gets tortured a few books later by these gods ...
Most heart breaking moment for me picking up Skulduggery Pleasant again, weeks after reading the last book two times… now book 8 and first read sentence this morning…
Ghastly Bespoke returned to Roarhaven.
Instant cry.
China: What did you do?
Skulduggery : Remember when you told me not to burn down the sanctuary
China: YOU BURNT DOWN THE SANCTUARY!!!!!
Skulduggery: No, I had the fire put out almost immediately this is a success story
Everyone in the SP universe calling Ghastly ugly and I’m just here thinking he’s like one of the most handsome people I’ve ever seen. Others include Dexter vex, Saracen Rue and Erskine- because I still refuse to accept ghastly’s death
(via "A vibrant and abstract sugar and flower skull Calavera" Bucket Hat for Sale by RAZ1995)
guys i know the donation post has been marked as mature but i posted an extremely urgent update regarding magala's group yesterday and today with no movement. one of her camp members was attacked and beaten so badly she hasn't spoken since yesterday and she is at extreme risk of death. they need $1000 for treatment as they have no funds after paying off other hospital bills. PLEASE share however you can, this is extremely serious
hello, i'm a representative of the omen darkly defense foundation and i'm here to inform you we will destroy you utterly and strike your name from the records for implying that the precious wholesome darkly child is less worthy than the two dangerous, self-obsessed psychotics that currently pass for main characters. set your affairs in order while you can fool
Well, I don´t really know which post this is about but I gotta admit that I find Omen´s parts extremely boring and annoying ... I would apologize but I´m really not sorry
So the new SP cover is actually super lit??? Who would have thought. The purple colouring looks amazing and I actaully love how Skulduggery's Skul is drawn.
Only downside is how big Omen is depicted ... it suggests he'll play a big part again and I couldn't care less for his chapters
Time for random Dexter headcanons:
- He totally uses his magic instead of a microwave whenever he wants to warm up something. It´s way faster and so much cooler.
- He doesn´t like to stay in one place for too long but if he has to, then he´d always chose his apartment in Dublin. It´s home. Whenever he goes there, he leaves lots of trinkets he found during his travels. By now the apartment looks like a tourist shop. The other dead men call him a clutterer but Val thinks it´s wicked.
- There´s a framed picture of all the Dead Men together on his nightstand but whenever the others come over, he hides it because he knows that Saracen and Erskine would make fun of him.
- He's an overthinker. Sometimes everything gets just too much and it´s just too much pain. In those moments he really needs a drink - or rather one too many.
- While Saracen is the womanizer, Dexter is known to seek comfort in someone else´s bed when he´s drunk.
- All the overthinking causes insomnia. When things are really bad and he lays awake the whole night, he´ll watch documentaries on YouTube. That´s why he´s an expert on the most random and most useless subjects.
- Cats just love him. Even the really grumpy ones. He´s like a magnet for them.
- He heard about what went down between Ghastly and Tanith from Erskine but didn´t realize how much it hurt Ghastly until he talked to him at the Requiem Ball. He never forgave himself for not checking up on his friend sooner.
- Out of all the dead men he was closest to Saracen but Erskine was a close second. That´s why his betrayal hit him especially hard.
- Most of the time he prefers to listen and doesn´t talk too much unless he has to say something important. That´s why he´s the go-to person for the other dead men if they need to talk about something.
There are so many people in this fandom who just hate Valkyrie or think she´s annoying, but honestly I love her character.
She´s so incredibly flawed. She´s arrogant and rude. She often doesn´t think about collateral damage and thinks the end justifies the means, because that´s what she learned from Skulduggery. All those things make her a round and more dimensional character. I don´t wanna read about someone perfect. perfect is boring. I wanna read about someone who fucks up, someone who has bad character traits. Valkyrie does. She fucks up, she sometimes is a shitty person, but she always gets up again and tries her best.
In spite of her many flaws, she doesn´t stop trying to be a better person. Unlike Skulduggery she is able to get over herself and to admit that her (past) behavior is often questionable. Even though fate dealt her a shitty hand with the whole being Darquesse thing, she still tries her best. Obviously, she didn´t handle the situation very well back in phase 1, but she still basically was a kid back then. A very frightened kid who was told by Skulduggery again and again not to tell anyone else because they would find a solution...
So yeah, Skulduggery and everything in phase 1 fucked Valkyrie up, but at the end of the day she at least tries to be a good person and i respect her for that. Also, can we all just take a moment to appreciate how fucking much she loves her family and Xena?