#skulduggery pleasant's wife

[larrikin-is-a-himbo]

Me @Ghastly:

[winter2468]

The murder of Skulduggery’s wife was, of course, tragic, but given that

Skulduggery’s known ex-girlfriends consist of China Sorrows and Abyssinia

Skulduggery’s wife was powerful enough to hold her own against China in a fight

there’s every chance that this woman was both insanely powerful and deeply fucked up.

[turnip-o-lantern]

Um what was skulduggery pleasants wife like for him to reject miss china sorrows like WHAT

She may be a war criminal but she is very very sexy so who even caaaares, dude

[mythicalm0thii]

can we as a fandom agree skul was def a twink when he was alive?? Was he badass? Sometimes but that man was definitely in a babygirl/girlboss relationship and i will be hearing no complaints

[neitherthehoneynorthebee]

AU where China Sorrows only succeeds in kidnapping Skulduggery's child, and so Skulduggery, his wife, Erskine, Ghastly and Hopeless mount a brutal, fully powered rescue mission which somehow succeeds.

[re-1124c41]

The ward was nearly silent. Outside, beyond the closed door, there were quieted sounds of machinery and voices, of trolleys rattling by and footsteps dutifully following them. With the window cracked open, there was a soft breeze rustling the sheer curtains and tickling over his arms. On the bedside stand, a whiteboard and marker sat next to a vase of flowers and several well-wishing cards.

There was a low hum of the monitor on the other side of the bed, a near imperceptible drip of the fluid in the IV bag feeding into the catheter at his elbow.

A gentle knock on the door, before it creaked open and someone peeked inside. It was enough to stir him from dozing into wakefulness.

He wouldn’t have recognized the man, if not for his hat and his suit. Something painful in his heart clenched as the visitor stepped quietly into the room. He tried to swallow, opened his mouth to speak as the man approached, but no sound came. The bandage at his throat was too tight, the injury too painful, to even utter a greeting.

“Good evening, Desmond.” Skulduggery Pleasant said softly. His face was a sloping sort of oval shape, with wide brows and light brown hair combed back. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

Desmond sighed and let himself deflate back into the pillows. He shook his head a little, and Skulduggery nodded.

“I’m very sorry for what happened,” Pleasant said sympathetically. “I hope the prognosis, however, is a positive one.”

Resignedly, Desmond nodded and reached for the whiteboard his wife had left at his side. He scribbled a short message, the catheter in his arm and the medication in his system making his handwriting sloppy.

They say I’m lucky. He wrote. They say it missed my jugular. Apparently I’m concussed too.

“Then I promise to keep this as brief as I can. You need rest if you’re going to make a fully recovery,” Skulduggery said sagely. “I wanted to see you, to make sure you are going to be all right.”

Desmond used the hem of the blanket he was tucked into to wipe the board clean. It left a black smear and residue on the cloth, but he didn’t care – he was already writing again.

Thank you for coming. I think I’m concussed.

“Yes, that is quite apparent, yes.”

Have you seen my wife? I’m worried about her. I don’t want her to be mad I missed Alice’s dance recital.

“I spoke with Melissa earlier, whilst you were in surgery,” Skulduggery replied gently “She’s not mad, she just very worried about what happened to you.”

The next question took Desmond a moment to put into words; finally, it felt best to take the most obvious approach.

Where is my daughter, Skulduggery?

Skulduggery was silent as he considered the question. Almost too quiet, Desmond felt, for comfort. He couldn’t have been certain, and he put most of it down to the concussion and the amount of hallucinogenic medication he was on, but the memories of the incident were…

Terrifying. They were awful, horrible memories that he wished, more than anything, were just conjuring’s of his badly bruised mind.

Skulduggery reached into the collar of his white shirt and a moment later, the face he was wearing shifted and melted away, receding back to reveal the polished white skull underneath. Desmond watched the process with fascination – once, the whole ordeal had frightened him. But now it was more of a morbid curiosity. Where did all that skin go?

“She is safe,” Skulduggery said eventually. He sat on the edge of the hospital bed, looking down at the hat in his hands. “She…she asked me to come and see you.”

Please bring back my little girl, Desmond found himself scrawling the words without a second thought. Please. I need to see her.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea right now,” Skulduggery replied gently. “She is going through something beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed, and until we know what we’re dealing with and how to make things right, I’m afraid that it’s better if she stays at a safe distance.”

Desmond could feel the tears dripping down his cheeks. His hands were trembling and there was nothing he could do to stop them. So it was real. The feathers, the screaming.

The blood.

Skulduggery reached over, somewhat awkwardly, and put a gloved hand over Desmond’s. “I am sorry, Desmond.”

Swallowing back more tears, Desmond scribbled again.

What will happen to her? Is she a monster?

“No,” Skulduggery said quickly. “She is…changing. There are things happening greater than you or I, and she made choices – she took the brunt of the forces at play to protect those she loved. For the greater good, but it has caused her a lot of change, and suffering. She never meant to hurt you.”

Can you protect her?

Skulduggery was still. “I can try.” He cleared his throat, and stood. “I’d better go, and leave you to rest.”

Wait, Desmond’s silent plea caught Skulduggery’s attention as he waved a hand to stop him leaving. I need to ask something of you. Please.

“Anything.”

He hurriedly scrawled his request, having to backtrack and smudge out a few mistakes along the way, but finally, he turned the board back to the skeleton.

You must have something magic to make people forget. I don’t want my family to be burdened by my daughter’s disappearance having anything to do with my situation now. My Stephanie is not to blame. Please, there has to be something you can do to make us forget.

For a while, Skulduggery seemed to think on it. Then he replaced his hat on his skull, reached into his collared shirt, and a new face, different to his previous one, flowed up over the bone. This one had black hair and deep-set eyes.

“I might have something that could work. You’ll need to give me a day or two to modify it, and there’s no guarantee it will even be successful as it’s untested on erasing events after the fact. But I can try.”

Desmond nodded along, before scrawling again. Let me be your test subject.

“I wouldn’t want to expose you to any possible side effects, Desmond,” Skulduggery began, but Desmond waved him away, and pointed at his scribbles again. Defeated, the skeleton wearing the false face sighed. “Very well. Give me some time, and I’ll be back.”

-:-

It took longer than a few days – in fact, it took nearly two and a half weeks, but true to his word Skulduggery returned. It was the morning that Desmond was being discharged, finally able to go home with his bereft family. Melissa was still tearfully speaking with the police, Alice clinging to her side and her hand clasped tightly in Desmond’s as he sat beside them in a wheelchair.

The next thing he knew, Skulduggery was stepping through the big automatic doors into the hospitals main foyer. It was the walk that gave him away; so purposeful, so dignified. Relief washed through Desmond at the sight of the skeleton detective – although, he was a little cloudy as to why he was so relieved. Since his concussion had eased and he’d regained a little more of his senses, he couldn’t quite grasp the details of that conversation he’d had two weeks ago.

He had had to erase all the things he’d written on the whiteboard – the doctors theorized it would likely take a few months until his vocal cords healed well enough for him to speak again, and even then, it would likely mean another few months following that in speech therapy.

“Edgely’s,” Skulduggery greeted them all kindly, and Melissa just about threw herself at the detective in a rage, demanding answers. How dare he be so absent when their family was so distraught? How could he live with himself when Desmond nearly died and Stephanie was gone?

Her grief came out so venomous, it felt sharp to Desmond even though it wasn’t aimed his way. He hated when things drove his beautiful wife to such fury.

Skulduggery was pressing something between his hands, saying words that didn’t quite make sense to Desmond’s ears. Suddenly Melissa stopped her wrath and listened, confused. Alice was squeezing his hand tightly, completely wrapped with the words Skulduggery spoke. Something about a mugger, with a knife, hiding out in Grimwood. That sounded like it made sense, Desmond’s addled mind decided. Someone who hadn’t meant to hurt him, just tried to rob him and it all got out of hand so quickly, someone with enough remorse to call an ambulance before fleeing the scene.

Stephanie’s panicked eyes were fading from the picture. Like an oil painting that was having something new painted over the top. She wasn’t gone – well, she was, but she had gone on a case. Off saving the world again. Different colours changed the shape of the scene. A blurred face hidden by a dark mask. The flash of a blade, painted over claws covered in blood. That’s right, wasn’t it?

Whatever was in Skulduggery’s hands was glowing a beautiful soft lavender, brightest at its core. Desmond marveled at it as the skeleton’s deep voice seemed to captivate even the police officers standing around them, two of them no longer trying to physically restrain Melissa from attacking Skulduggery. Her eyes were clouded, uncertain. Then they cleared, and she was nodding along like it was all perfectly simple.

All of a sudden it was over, Skulduggery pocketing the thing he’d been holding onto. He was here to wish them well, to bring them his deepest condolences once again about the horrible mugging gone wrong just the other day. That they were doing everything in their power to track down the person responsible and bring them to justice.

Relief was the first of many things Desmond felt. Thank goodness Skulduggery had come to see them, to reassure them they were going to be safe. The skeleton detective was saying something about posting someone on guard around the Edgley house for a few days, just to be sure. Grimwood had already been locked down and safe guarded against any other potential intruders. They were on the case, hunting down the mugger so that this would never happen again.

Everything was going to be all right. Desmond gave his little girls hand a squeeze, and she looked down at him and smiled. He couldn’t crane his neck back very far without putting painful pressure on the healing wound across his throat, still heavily bandaged, but she reached down and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a big hug.

Shortly after, they left the hospital, Desmond successfully discharged and sent home with a lap full of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications. A follow-up appointment scheduled with the doctor for next week to check on his throat injury. Melissa drove them home in a subdued silence, Alice in the backseat staring idly out the window. Skulduggery had given him a plain white envelope when they had parted ways with the detective in the parking lot, and as the girls had been fussing about getting all of Desmond’s things from his hospital stay packed into the boot, the skeleton had passed him the envelope with the instructions that it was only to be opened when he contacted Desmond that it was safe to do so.

Desmond was still confused by that instruction. Why wouldn’t it be safe to open the envelope at any other time? Why did he have to wait? Surely, he reasoned with himself, if Detective Pleasant had said so, then it was to be done.

And then their eldest daughter vanished. Stephanie had disappeared, as if into thin air, barely a week later, with no trace or sign left behind. Grimwood was completely deserted – even the blood on the pavement outside the front entryway had been power-washed clean. Where he’d had that run in with that mugger, where his injury had occurred.

The heartbreak was immeasurable. He felt like he’d rather the pain of his throat being slashed all over again, if it would stop the pain and sorrow in his heart. Oh, how Melissa and Alice cried. There were many nights of lost sleep in the following weeks, many visits from the police and many more from Skulduggery, promising that everything and anything that could be done to find their first born child would be done. But their beautiful dark-haired daughter was gone.

Still, Desmond held onto the envelope, like whatever was within it held all of the answers to the universe, answers he somehow knew he wasn’t ready for. Answers beyond his comprehension of the world.

But curiosity won out eventually. It didn’t take all that long, really, for Desmond’s resolve to wear thin. He lasted several months, lasted through many trips to the doctors and through many sessions of speech therapy. Through the long days of bereavement and through the many hours of holding his sobbing wife, of cradling his youngest daughter until she cried herself to sleep. The envelope sat in the back of his sock drawer, where he’d forgotten about it many times already; some times from the outstanding circumstances and some times because he had thought it such a good hiding place, surely no one would find it. Until he had come across it in search of a pair of socks with no holes in the heels, and he had remembered. And the curiosity had started chewing at his mind again.

Finally, one night when Melissa had gone to fetch Alice from a slumber party that their daughter had wanted to come home early from, Desmond took the mystery envelope and taken a walk down to the pier. It had been one of Stephanie’s favourite places to spend her teenage years, if he was remembering right. It gave him some comfort facing the prospect of opening the envelope he’d been made to promise he wouldn’t dare peek into until he was told he could.

He had considered calling Skulduggery, to double check if it really was all that serious that he not open it, but had reasoned that if the sly detective really hadn’t wanted him to look inside it, he wouldn’t have given Desmond the envelope in the first place.

So he sat on a rock, running his thumb over the white folded piece of sealed card, and tried to imagine what was inside.

Then, he slipped his thumb under the seal, and gingerly tore the envelope open. Into his hand fell a long, dark grey feather, speckled with white. It was beautiful.

The night of the incident came flooding back to him, almost knocking him right off the rock he’d perched on. Getting out of the car at Grimwood several months ago now, hearing the sounds of pained cries and retching. Seeing his eldest daughter, blood and dark matter running down her arms, vomiting into the plant pot on the front step by the door. The panic in her eyes, the way her teeth bulged and grew sharp. The thudding in his chest as he felt so torn – to run screaming from the horrible scene, and to run closer, to bundle his baby girl up into his arms and try and protect her.

The way she’d shoved him away, the strange gurgle he made, echoing in his ears, as his breath suddenly went all strange and something hot went running down his neck and stained his shirt. The way he’d fallen back against the car, the way Stephanie had been screaming and crying. She had fallen to her knees in front of him, blubbering and saying she was sorry, she was so sorry -

The sirens overhead, waking in the ambulance. Opening his eyes to the ward after the emergency surgery. Who had called the ambulance? The tears as his wife and daughter came running in on the heels of the doctors.

Desmond was shaking. It was a splash of salty sea-spray over his face that brought him back, found his feet under him. Somehow he’d stood up in his shock, stumbled right to the edge of the pier, still clutching the feather, as if he were ready to cast it into the sea.

Oh, he remembered now. The conversation with Skulduggery. He had wanted to forget, and he had ruined it. Whatever the skeleton detective had done, Desmond had gone had ruined it for himself. Oh, you stupid man.

He took a step back, let himself plonk back down onto the rock, and held the feather close. He couldn’t stop the sobs as they shook his whole body. His daughter had turned into a monster, and now she was gone. And he would have given anything to forget all over again.

[lazulian-devil]

As promised to @maidofdarkness23, here is the first of several breakdowns on the villains of Skulduggery Pleasant.

The Villains of Skulduggery Pleasant

We start at the beginning, in Phase 1, Book 1 (which doesnt have a subname as far as I know, its only titled Skulduggery Pleasant).

Ready?

Nefarian Serpine

Certified best villain ever (I am not biased).

Alright, so first of all:

We are talking about Book 1, the beginning of the series and a book that (in comparison to all the others) is still working with a world that hasnt been established, ideas that arent entirely fixed yet and vibes that are still a little different.

Nefarian Serpine - for all his flaws - embodies this hard. He is almost larger than life in the first book, a reputation that he doesnt really hold in his other Leibnitz dimension appearances. In comparison to every other villain of the week, he lives in an ellaborate, gothic castle filled with hollow papermen and everytime the castle is described, the accompanying thunder and dark clouds are implied.

He never has much screentime, but Dereks perspective style writing lends him just enough depth that his cartoonishness turns sinister and plotting. His interactions with Bliss showcase a man that is deeply aware of his wrongdoings and yet consistently smiles into the face of distrust and hatred. This man knows how to play the game. He is too sure of himself, which makes reading about his movements and actions so full of dread. The question is not only "What has he done in his past?" but the much worse question of "What is he actually doing right now?"

How far will he go, surrounded in his castle by papermen, alone, twirling a wine glass.

In essence, Serpine is a silly villain, so cladden in clichés and stereotype that he is almost larger than the sum of his parts. His shadow is bigger than his body.

The first book establishes that he alone is the reason for Skulduggery Pleasants misery, loss of wife and child, as well as skin and body. A traumatic position that (afaik) no other villain even so much as came close to. The stakes are - of course - world saving level, but they also hold a personal pain that very few following villains in Phase 1 come close to.

In terms of atrocities commited against Skulduggery, hes probably second to none. Even China just followed his lead and never actually plotted or - worse - put them into motion.

The interest in most other villains comes down to

A) saving the world.

B) some kind of moral or ethical conundrum about the world of sorcerers.

But very rarely

C) literally facing the root of your trauma (for Skulduggery) or establishing a root (for Valkyrie).

(Quick Sidenote: Serpines death signifies both Skulduggeries "closure" with his old self and Valkyries acceptance of her new self. Once again, Serpine is not only a foil but also a catalyst).

It is also a great setup to reveal Skulduggerys less heroic sides: His wrath and his care for Valkyrie and Valkyrie alone. The two things that would, throughout the whole series, stay consistent.

Serpine is foil to Skulduggery in even more ways than that, revealing that the same cocksureness and self importance is an incredibly annoying feat in literally anyone else. Going up against Skulduggery must be infuriating, because going up against Serpine definitely is.

And hes also funny.

Have I mentioned how fucking funny Serpine is? Wanting to turn Skulduggery into a piano, absolutely able to hold his wit against the onslaught of insults and quibs exchanged.

Its also important to distinguish this Serpine from the Leibnitz Serpine. His Leibnitz equivalent foils a Skulduggery and Valkyrie that are much further along on their way to madness - he acts just enough like his original (after all, its only been like, what... Six? Seven? books?) but there are still some differences. I'll get to that. Someday.

Back to OG Serpine.

What do we have so far?

Serpine is an almost cartoonish assortment of tropes (the hand, the castle, the general vibe) but somehow, it works. Hes just a little "more" than his tropes, alluding to a three dimensionality he doesnt actually posess, but we have enough to believe it to be there.

He is clearly a product of the series not being established, which explains his constant later downplays (him being the weakest between Vengous, Vile and Serpine for example is only established long after Vengous and Serpine are dead).

He is the most personal villain that the Duo - and especially Skulduggery - face and its hilarious, that its literally the first book.

He is in so many ways exactly like Skulduggery. Full of himself, magically skilled beyond sense, insane (Im looking at you, Faceless Ones Dimension), obsessed with his own aesthatics, also literally a former Mevolent Higherup/Endboss/what do you even call that, witty, sarcastic, smart and able to plot etc. Etc.

He is both the door finally closing for Skulduggery and the door being blasted open for Valkyrie.

We'll come back to him, dont worry. His weirdass villain castle is used by Scarab and Billy-Ray in another book and he plays a passive role even after his death (like the opinions of the Dead Men, China Sorrows trauma, etc.) and even an active role as his Leibnitz replacement.

Solid 10/10 villain.

Im sorry that this got so long and I hope it made any sense and/or provided new insight to literally anyone.

I wrote more of this: Heres Part 2 with Baron Vengous and heres Part 3 with Batu.

[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.

[the-ghost-of-a-spirit]

Canon Skulduggery Pleasant things you just needed to know.

He let a bee in to the bently once. it flew in to his ribs.

Speaking of ribs, according to a thing, Serpine used his ribs as a xylophone

Also, he can play guitar

HIS DAD IS A GOD. AND THE ONLY GOD OF HIS TYPE.

oh, and his aunt is a serial killer - He could have had to solve a case on her (does that make sense?) (if not someone might have been killed, and as a detective he had to find the killer and it was his aunt.)

He has bad taste in woman.

He has a room of bones. given to him by friends

He is fluent is Shakespeare english.

He was probably allergic to cats when he was alive

He insulted some guy's wife

Peg, (the sister the goblins) had a crush on him

I FORGOT HE HAD A STUTTER

HE HAD A STUTTER PEOPLE - people thought he was possessed by a demon - he would have been exorcised

[whimsylueur]

Spoilers for the end of Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer

On one hand, Skulduggery is now aware of the complete nature of his wife and child’s deaths, the murderers responsible revealed in full. Nefarian Serpine, Murder Rose, China Sorrows.

On the other hand;

How to go about bringing China to justice.

[fictional-character-fight-poll]

Skulduggery Pleasant vs. Starfire

Propaganda under the cut:

Skulduggery Pleasant:

He's a skeleton- as in, he's already died and came back as a skeleton. He can fly, and light fires with his hands. He has a gun, and a cool car. He's "lived" for hundreds of years (444 years to be exact). Also he's the most powerful former general of an army of sorcerers trying to take over the world, with black armour containing the powers of necromancers, who can kill anyone almost immediately. Pre-first death, he used to be in an infamous resistance group called "The Dead Men", named that because they kept going on missions which people deemed as Suicide Missions, and then they kept coming back alive. He was literally only killed when his wife and children died in front of him (so he went mad) and then he was poisoned by a trap so he could no longer move. His body was burned, his bones were thrown into a river and his soul stayed with his bones and he quite literally pieced himself back together. This guy cannot be killed.

Starfire:

She is an alien, and has a number of abilities because of that, including superstrength, flight (including in space), and starbolts, which are bolts of energy she can release from her body. Additionally, she is trained in hand-to-hand combat and various weapons, so she can fight even without the superpowers.

Reasons as to why one or the other would win are encouraged in the notes. Send in additional propaganda and I'll add it to the post!

[candiedloveapple]

Someone on the Skulduggery Pleasant subreddit asked what happened to The Butcher after Rue fucked his wife and someone commented "they unalived him OP. That was literally their one objective" and now I can't help but think back to

[sitaka-irony]

If I had a magic wand, there are a few things I might change about the Skulduggery Pleasant series, but the first thing is I’d like to see more of Ghastly and China together as unlikely friends.

Together they make a strange commentary on beauty ≠ goodness. At first, she doesn’t think much of him other than ‘he’s Skulduggery’s friend who does not like me so I better be careful around him.’ In the beginning, he doesn’t trust her as far as he can throw her, but he does trust Skulduggery and so he turns the other cheek. As time goes on, he starts to warm up to her and they bond over fashion and literature, finding out they have a lot in common. Who knew?

By the time the Requiem Ball comes around, they’re consulting each other for shoe and tie choices (with China slipping some leadership skills and political wisdom to her Elder Mage pal along the way). And China is absolutely walking on eggshells while Ghastly talks about how wrong he was about her, how he’s pleased to see that at least she’s treating his best friend right since it’s obvious they’re on the verge of getting back together— unknowingly highlighting the terrible guilt she feels as her secret comes out. When it does, Skulduggery comes to Ghastly: “You were right about her, she can’t be trusted.” Of course, Skulduggery’s pain is Ghastly’s pain, but Ghastly himself feels a deep betrayal. He can’t deny that he really, truly thought there was more to it.

By the time LSotDM rolls around, and China is practically run off her feet, who should she run into at Roarhaven but Ghastly. He vaguely knows of some slight reconciliation with Skulduggery, but what about him? What about his broken trust? He helps her, obviously, but he has to know what the hell happened, what all of this was really about.

She tells him. He probably deserves to know, after all this time. Maybe he doesn’t forgive her, but at least he truly understands.

But he promptly dies with the secret.

And there stands China, alone on the inside with the jerkass that murdered one of only a handful of people she ever gave a shit about while she was down for the count. It happened right down the hall and she had no idea. How cruel. She plays her old game of “whose side is she really on?” but she’s absolutely boiling inside. Skulduggery reserves the right to kill Ravel, but she takes her vengeance by avenging Ghastly’s legacy. He may not have wanted to be an Elder but he always wanted to do the right thing. There is war and strife, and it’s time for her to step up and lead. There’s little she can do to fix the sins of her past, but right here and now, she can be a powerful ally to the right side of things. And maybe there’s something she can do about Tanith for his sake, even though she couldn’t care less about Tanith.

Ghastly, of all people, is her shot at redemption.

Also, so long as I’m waving around a magic wand, I’d make Dexter about 20 times more flagrantly bisexual and reveal names of Skug’s wife and child.

[mythicalm0thii]

I am completely torn between wanting an appearance of Skulduggery when he was alive and absolutely nothing about him showing up so I get to keep my silly little hcs because I fear Derek will ruin my boy

[skulduggery-pleasant-bp9]

The Dead Men meet M/n – Skulduggery Pleasant x Kid!Male!Reader (Part 2)

Again got longer than I wanted it to be, Part 3 is in the making. I explained on update-blog-bp9 everything. Please give it a look. ^^

WARNING!: Abusive adults, mention of murder, mention of Violence, mention of being hurt, blood x gore, Fluff AND MORE ! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!! It takes place in the Mevolent War..

The Dead Men sat on the couch and relaxed, while M/n was out of the house. He looked for more herbs, to make more of his balm for them. While he collected them, he was deep in thought of what his Taken name could be. Sure he loved to be called Little Fox, but that isn’t a name now, is it ? It is a nickname, nothing more and nothing less. They only call him that, because he doesn’t like being called and referred to as “Kid” and “Child”.

The Dead Men offered to help him, but he refused their help, saying that they don’t even know what they would have to look for. It was a very good argument and they decided to stay and keep watch. Skulduggery wanted to talk into M/n’s head that he could just show and teach them what to look for, but M/n wanted to collect the herbs himself.

“What do you think we should show him first ? For him to get a feeling of how to be a child ?”, Saracen asked.

“Maybe play some games ? Like hide and seek, catch...cards ?”, Hopeless suggested unsure.

Ghastly turned to Skulduggery.

“You have a child, Skul. What do you think he needs ?”, he asked.

Everyone looked at him.

“Well, I know for a fact that kids need a lot of attention, care and love. My child is friends with other kids his age. It usually helps them to understand each other and to not argue about silly things all that often. They play a lot. My child is up to a lot of mischief when I was around. But the most important thing, a child needs, is having complete trust in an adult. Otherwise, you can forget about it.”, Skulduggery explained shortly.

They looked at one another.

“Who will try to bond with Fox ?”, Dexter asked.

Everyone looked at Skulduggery. His eyes widened as he realized what that meant.

“No ! I already have a child. Not planning on another one ! The kid would get attached to me ! How would I explain this to my wife, without letting it seem, that I’m not lying, that I didn’t cheat on her in the war ?! She is a very jealous woman !”, Skulduggery protested.

“You are the only one who handled a kid before.”, Anton pointed out.

“We have no idea how to act with one around.”, Erskine added.

“You are a Father. You can deal with kids.”, Ghastly deadpanned.

Skulduggery stared at them all and then slumped on the couch.

“Fine, but you will explain that to my wife.”, he gave in.

The rest of The Dead Men smirked and gave each other a high five in victory. Skulduggery grumbled moodily at that, but stayed seated. Then the door opened and inside came M/n again. Welp time to start acting like a Father now.

Skulduggery got up and approached M/n.

“Do you need any help, Fox ?”, he asked.

“Yes actually. Can you heat up the stove and get out a big metal pot ? I need two full and one half a cups of water too.”

Skulduggery nodded and went for the kitchen.

“And a wooden spoon !”, M/n added hurriedly.

“You got it !”, the male replied.

“Question, Fox.”, Ghastly started.

M/n looked at him.

“Yes ?”

“Which room is who’s ?”

“You can decide. I didn’t sort any bedrooms to anyone.”

With that he carried his herbs into the kitchen and watched Skulduggery prepare everything.

“Well then we should claim our Bedrooms.”, Erskine stated.

“Without Skul and Fox ?”, Dexter asked.

“They get the rooms that are still free.”

“That’s rude. Fox made this happen in the first place. If he wouldn’t have repaired the house, we would be wet, cold, dirty and sick tomorrow. If it is really supposed to rain heavily from tomorrow on for four days, we would have been screwed without his help.”, Anton defended.

“Fine, fine, we wait for these two.”, Erskine gave in.

They waited for 30 minutes and then heard Skulduggery and M/n laughing. Ghastly got up and went to the kitchen, curious what they were laughing about.

As he entered he just stared at them. M/n was covered in remains of herbs and Skulduggery’s hair was wet. They still laughed.

“What happened here, you two ?”, Ghastly asked with a small smile.

Skulduggery turned to Ghastly, smiling and trying to catch his breath.

“This fine gentleman insulted me and paid the price with wet hair and clothes.”, M/n started.

“And in return, for his gracious hospitality, I covered his head with the remains of the herbs he used. Aren’t we beautiful, Ghastly ?”, Skulduggery finished.

Ghastly snorted at that question.

“Very beautiful indeed. I bet your wife loves his husband with soaking wet hair and clothes, smelling like a dog. And no one ever hated a flower child. Perfect for weddings.”, Ghastly wheezed out.

M/n and Skulduggery stared at him in slight offence, then at each other and smirked. Skulduggery got out the flour, while Ghastly was too busy to not laugh like an idiot and looked away. M/n grabbed a bottle with water and some remains of the herbs, he couldn’t use in the balm.

The two grinned evilly at each other and then M/n swung the open water bottle, spraying Ghastly wet. The tailor yelped as the cold water soaked his clothes. He stared at the big wet spot on his clothes and opened his mouth to protest, but Skulduggery already swung the open flour bag and covered Ghastly from head to toe in white flour.

“Poof.”, Skulduggery snorted out, which made M/n snort too.

Because Ghastly still had his mouth open, some flour fell in his mouth, which he spat out and then coughed at. He glared at Skulduggery, ready to scold him, as M/n threw the remains of herbs on him and then laughed.

Ghastly looked at his clothes in dismay and then at M/n and Skulduggery, his friend, that behaved like a four year old right now. They were both laughing their asses off.

“Such a pretty man ! Mr. Bespoke is a very pretty male now !”, M/n howled in laughter and fell on his back on the floor.

Skulduggery laughed louder at that.

“Now no girl will say no to you, Ghastly, Buddy !”, Skulduggery laughed out.

The tailor just glared at them with a small smile, giving away that he wasn’t actually mad at them. Clothes can be washed after all.

“Who would say no to this pretty specimen ?!”, M/n wheezed out.

Skulduggery fell to his knees, not having laughed that hard in a long time. Ghastly chuckled and then picked up the open flour bag, which was still half full. Skulduggery and M/n noticed that and got up, backing away from the tailor.

“Now, now, Ghastly ! We can talk about this !”, Skulduggery stuttered out as Ghastly got closer to them.

“Too late, Pal. I will make you both white !”, Ghastly yelled playfully.

Skulduggery quickly grabbed M/n and carried him out of the kitchen, running as fast as he could.

“NEVERRRRRR !!!”, Skulduggery yelled after he passed Ghastly, who looked at where they just stood, dumbfounded.

He snapped out of his stupor and then started to chase them with the bag of flour.

“GET BACK HERE YOU TWO !”, Ghastly yelled.

Skulduggery ran through the Living room, giving the rest of The Dead Men a sight of how they looked. It made them chuckle and shake their heads softly. Not long later Ghastly entered and they actually started to laugh loudly. Even Anton did. Ghastly looked so ridiculous !

The tailor stopped dead in his tracks as they laughed and swung the bag of flour over all of them with one swipe. They gasped and stared at him. Dexter and Saracen even had to spit out some flour.

“That’s what you get !”, he sassed them and continued to run after Skulduggery and M/n.

They stared at their clothes in dismay.

“GET BACK HERE, SKULDUGGERY !!!”, Ghastly yelled.

“YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE !!”, Skulduggery yelled back.

M/n and Skulduggery entered the Living Room again, Ghastly very close behind. Now or never ! Ghastly swung the bag and hit Skulduggery’s back with the flour. Skulduggery felt that and pouted.

“MY CLOTHES !”

“Mine are worse than yours, stop whining.”, Ghastly scoffed playfully.

“I don’t care about YOUR clothes ! I care about MINE !”, Skulduggery complained playfully.

He set M/n down and turned to look at Ghastly with a glare.

“This means war, Bespoke.”, he growled out.

The tailor dropped the bag of flour and lifted his arms in surrender.

“Now, now, Skul ! It was just a little revenge !”, he protested.

Skulduggery jumped on Ghastly and tickled him, making Ghastly break out in uncontrollable laughter.

“Skahahahahahal ! Ahahahahaha ! Stahahahahap !”, Ghastly screamed out between laughs.

“Hmmm....Nope !”, Skulduggery replied, smirking.

He continued to tickle him until Ghastly let tears slip, then he stopped. Ghastly pouted at that, but refused to say anything. Was probably for the better. Just then everyone noticed that M/n was missing and Skulduggery looked in the kitchen for him, spotting him clean up the kitchen floor.

“Fox, we can do this later. You don’t have to clean this up now. Let us make dinner instead !”, Skulduggery suggested.

M/n looked at him and smiled.

“Okay.”, he replied and got up.

He threw the rug away and then went to wash his hands, which Skulduggery followed after too. Then he pulled off his jacket and folded up his sleeves of his white dress shirt. They met in the kitchen again.

“So what shall we make ?”, the man asked the boy.

“Hmmm...Colcannon and Champ ?”, M/n asked.

Skulduggery looked in the fridge and the cabinets. He found everything they would need and then nodded.

“We can make it. We have everything. You wanna make it, Fox ?”, the male asked.

“Yes !”

At that Skulduggery got everything out and on the table in the kitchen. M/n got out two knives and two cutting boards, bringing them over to the table. Skulduggery got out a big pot and filled it half with water, then he put it on the table and they got to peeling the potatoes.

Skulduggery was surprised that M/n could peel them so skillfully, but then again, his biological Father probably made him do that...

“I love peeling potatoes ! It reminds me of Máthair... I always helped her in the kitchen.”, M/n said saddened.

So his MOTHER taught him this. Alright, luckily Skulduggery was wrong this time, that the Father made M/n do that.

“Always ?”

“Yes ! She was sometimes very clumsy... So I offered to help and after I bothered her for a while, she taught me some stuff about preparing food. I mostly cleaned the kitchen up after too, so Máthair can rest. Athair always hurt her when she wasn’t done cooking when he returned from wherever he came from, or the kitchen wasn’t spotless. He always wanted food on the table and kitchen spotless clean before he is home.”

Ah, as Skulduggery feared. M/n’s Father did also abuse his wife in front of his own Son. That made his blood boil.

“I miss her...”

Skulduggery snapped out of his silent rage and looked at M/n, who had a frown on his face now.

“What happened to her ?”, he asked the boy.

“The bastard came home, that’s what happened.”, M/n snarled angered.

Skulduggery stopped peeling his potato and stared at M/n in shock. The boy can curse.

“Mom and I just finished cleaning the kitchen that night. And that asshole came home. He was very calm, emotionless like most of the times when he came home. I was never allowed to eat on the table with him and my Mom when I turned two years of age. He wanted to starve me, but she always let me sneak food in my room, before he came home, so I had my food in my room. Something was odd about him that night. I refused to go to my room and eat. I waited in the shadows and watched what he was about to do to her this time.”, M/n said in monotone.

Skulduggery continued to listen closely.

“After they were done eating, he jumped up from his seat and rushed over to her, she couldn’t react that fast and her Necromancy object was in her pocket. She couldn’t defend herself this time. He grabbed her hair and banged her head against the table, as hard as he could. Over and over again. I ran out of the shadows and attacked him as he slammed her head against it a second time, bit him in his right leg. He manipulated the wind and threw me harshly against the wall, continued to slam her head against the table. I got up ready to fight again....as her skull split open... Then he stopped. He dropped her disrespectfully to the floor, grabbed me harshly and dragged me out of the house, to his new flame and a new location.”

Skulduggery’s knife dropped to the floor, his blood ran cold, body frozen in horror. So that’s what happened to his Mother... And the child saw it all. How badly he wanted to kill that man right now !

M/n took a deep, sharp intake, tears running down his face and wobbly smile on his face.

“I should be traumatized...yet I just feel sad and boiling rage. I should be scared of him, I should be unable to talk about it, but I only feel rage...I want to kill him, Mr. Pleasant. That is not what a five year old should want, right ? What is wrong with me ?”, the kid asked the grown up.

Skulduggery looked at M/n with a very honest gleam in his eyes.

“We are all different, Fox. Don’t forget that. You ARE traumatized, but not in the way others would be. Your rage is your coping mechanism. You are not scared of him, because he killed someone you loved dearly. You want revenge. I would want revenge too, if someone killed my family. I wouldn’t fear them, I would actively hunt them down. You might be only five years old, but he triggered your rage none the less. There is nothing wrong with you. It is normal. You are grieving. It will take you a while to get over it.”, Skulduggery calmly explained.

“But I was only three years old that night !”

“That doesn’t matter. You loved her and you already hated him. It only fuelled your hatred to rage.”

“So...I’m not a Monster ?”, he asked, wiping his tears away.

Skulduggery smiled at him. An honest smile.

“You aren’t a Monster. HE is the Monster. And if I am going to be fully honest...me and the rest of my Team are Monsters too. We are in a war and kill to survive. Those who don’t kill, die. We are more of a Monster, than you ever could be.”

M/n looked at Skulduggery with wide eyes. The adult continued to give him a warm, honest smile, which made M/n soon smile too.

“Th-thanks...”

“It’s no problem. And just call all of us by the first name, little Fox. We don’t mind.”

The boy nodded softly.

“Now I have to wash my knife....”, Skulduggery sighed, picked it up and went to the sink.

He washed his knife and then came back. M/n seemed to be in deep thoughts as he finished peeling his potato.

“What are you thinking about, Fox ?”, Skulduggery asked as he grabbed another potato.

“About my Taken name...what I wanna be called...”

“Any ideas yet ?”

“Only that I want Fox to be in it... But I still need a first name...”

“So Fox is your surname ?”

“Yes. I’m planning on it...”

“Hmmm... How about something that means ‘Dark’?”, Skulduggery suggested.

“Dark ?”

“Your past wasn’t all that bright, black foxes exist, you seem to like darker colors and even though everything you’ve been through was dark, you made it out, like a clever Fox. It might suit you.”, he explained.

M/n thought about that as he peeled another potato.

“Hmmm...Good idea. Thanks !”

“Sure.”

With that they continued to peel potatoes and then they cooked the food, preparing the rest for the dish. After a while they finished and served the food to the rest of the starving Dead Men.

After that, they both got thank yous and compliments, then they all went to bed.

-The next day-

M/n was still asleep, as Skulduggery gathered The Dead Men in the Living room.

“What happened ?”, Anton asked, seeing how serious Skulduggery was.

“I didn’t want to tell you yesterday, what I heard from Fox. I know how his Mother died.”, the man informed.

“How ?”, Erskine asked.

“His Father killed her in front of him. Bashed her head against the table until the skull cracked open. He tried to stop him and safe his Mother, which didn’t work. His Mother was a Necromancer and his Father is, what I assume, an Elemental Mage.”

They stared at him in utter shock, horror and rage. Oh they wanted that man dead now.

“Also he was bloody three years old when that happened.”, Skulduggery added.

“I want to kill him.”, Anton growled out.

The rest nodded at his statement. Then they heard a door open and close, Ghastly ran to the kitchen, making breakfast.

M/n arrived in his new shirt and pants, that Ghastly adjusted for him. The pants previously belonged to Anton and the shirt to Hopeless.

“Good Morning. What is for Breakfast ?”, M/n greeted.

“Good Morning !”, the Dead Men said in a chorus.

“And Ghastly is making pancakes.”, Dexter answered.

“Cool ! I didn’t had these in AGES ! Last I had pancakes was when I was two years old and Father was gone for a whole week.”

“He made a food order, right ?”, Ghastly asked from the kitchen, mixing the pancake batter.

“Yeah. He called it a menu card. Most of it was disgusting pea soup and only vegetables with over seasoned meat and sauces. He loved it over seasoned, but I was too sensitive with my taste buds for it. He always smacked me when I asked him for less seasoning this time, or when I said it is too spicy for me. Said I acted like a pathetic girl...”

“Then what did you have ?”, Dexter asked the boy worried.

“When Ma was still alive, she smuggled me some good seasoned food in and then over seasoned the rest that still cooked. Other times I wasn’t so lucky and had to either starve or steal some bread.”

The Dead Men were in murder mode at that. They already had a plan forming in their head, how to find him and kill him off.

“Now say... Skulduggery, does your Team have a name ?”, M/n asked curiously.

“We do. We are called ‘The Dead Men’.”

M/n’s eyes widened in shock at that. Then he laughed loudly.

“YOU ?! He is scared of YOU ?! Hahahahaha !”, M/n laughed out loud.

“Who is scared of us ?”, Anton asked.

“My producer ! He heard of you and was scared shitless. Said to someone he won’t join them when you are around ! You might be Killers, but you act so nice and goofy right now ! I can’t take it serious that he is scared of YOU ! Hahahahaha !”

The others chuckled and Ghastly was on the stove, cooking the pancakes.

-With ???-

“How could you possibly be this STUPID ?!”, yelled a woman at a male outraged.

They stood in a burned down building. Searched every inch of a body, but there was nothing.

“He was a stupid 5 year old ! How was I supposed to know the mistake had some brains ?! At least we are rid of him ! So why do you care so much about him surviving it, woman ?!”

“If that brat tells anyone about what you and I did to him and his Mother, we will be hunted across the whole world, you dimwit !”

The man’s eyes widened at that in understanding, now panic set into him slightly too.

“He is a brat. I bet he died in the forest and ended up as food for animals.”

“Are you counting on that ? He ESCAPED a 5 story building, set in flames, ALIVE !”

Alright, that made the man feel dumb now.

“He probably went back to his home village. We go there and ask if anyone has seen him and say that we are looking for him. That he went missing. The mistake is a child, no one believes kids. They always lie !”

The woman was in thoughts and then nodded.

“Fine. Wear some poor looking clothes and then let us go. The sooner we find the brat, the better.”

The man nodded and they rushed off, back to their home to get their plan into action.

-With The Dead Men-

They finished Breakfast and played a card game. It was Rummy. M/n also played with them and he won three times in a row. Oh wait...we have to correct ourselves...

“Rummy !”, M/n yelled and finished the game again.

“Oh c’mon !”, Dexter complained and threw his cards away in frustration.

Anton sighed and put his cards down.

“God damn it !”, Erskine moaned frustrated and threw his cards on the table.

“I was so close...”, Saracen said saddened and put his cards down too.

“Me too, Rue.”, Ghastly sighed and put his cards down.

Hopeless put his cards down in silence, but smiled. At least M/n had fun.

“Welp, I wasn’t close at all, so I’m fine with losing.”, Skulduggery voiced and put his cards down too.

“If you want I can tap out and you play alone ? I seem to make some of you angry...”, M/n voiced concerned.

“No, no. Vex and Ravel are always that childish when they lose.”, Hopeless told M/n.

“Oh....okay ! Do you want to play another game, maybe ?”

“Like ?”, Ghastly asked.

“I heard about a game with dice... You put six in a cup, shake it and when you have two dice with the same number, you take these and try to get a third one... Do you know the game’s name ?”, M/n asked.

“It used to be called The Dice Game, but many call it craps nowadays.”, Skulduggery said.

“Why would anyone call a game...shit ?”, M/n asked confused.

The rest of The Dead Men snorted and Erskine, Dexter and Saracen exploded in laughter. M/n looked at them confused and concerned.

“What ? Crap is another word for shit, right ? Or poop ? Both ? What’s so funny about it ? It’s stupid that a game with rolling dice is called a word related to poop.”, M/n said defensively.

At that Ghastly and Hopeless exploded in laughter, Anton chuckled, slamming his fist against the table to not laugh loudly and Skulduggery continued to snort.

M/n was so confused and felt hurt. They laughed at him... Just like THEY used to... He got tears in his eyes.

“This is not funny ! Why are you laughing at me ?!”, he yelled at them, with tears running down his face.

At that everyone stopped instantly laughing. They looked at M/n, who hugged himself tightly and tried to disappear from his chair. He tried to curl up in a ball, to hide from everyone.

“Hey, hey ! We didn’t laugh at you. It just sounded funny. You are right, of course ! But it just sounded funny. We didn’t laugh at you, promise.”, Dexter quickly tried to reassure.

“Sorry if we seemed to laugh at you, Fox. We didn’t mean to make you cry. Please wipe those tears. We will play the game, okay ?”, Anton tried to calm him down too.

M/n looked at them and felt stupid for thinking that they laughed at him. He nodded, but stayed the way he was and stared down. It concerned The Dead Men. Mostly Skulduggery.

“Fox...did it trigger you to a bad memory ?”, Skulduggery asked carefully.

M/n looked at him and nodded subtly. The adult took a deep breath.

“Mind sharing ?”, he asked the boy.

“Nothing interesting. It’s just...THEY always laughed at me. I hurt myself by accident, they laughed and then...degraded and hurt me. I said something stupid, they laughed at me. I misspoke a word, they laughed and said that I am too stupid to form correct words. I...have these moments sometimes where I wanna say a word, but have a speaking mistake, without meaning to. It’s something I can’t turn off. I guess it’s born on... I know how it is spelled and said, but when I say it, I misspell somewhere and the word is messesed up.”, M/n covered his mouth quickly.

It happened again... Instead of “messed up”, he said “messesed up”. The Dead Men stared at M/n, but nobody was laughing. Not even smiling. They were in shock that M/n had that issue and that his biological Father and Stepmother were that brutal to make him insecure about it.

“Relax, little Fox. We understand. It just happened. You and we knew you wanted to say messed up and that misspelling took place. Don’t worry. No one is gonna laugh at that.”, Hopeless said calmly.

M/n stared at them and they all nodded. No one found it funny. He slowly uncovered his mouth and took deep breaths.

“Okay...Thank you for understanding.”, M/n said softly.

“Does it happen often ?”, Anton asked.

“Not as often as it should, I suppose. It happens randomly and only from time to time. They get really bad when I am pissed off, scared or even sad. Oh ! And when I am hyperactive.”

“Hyperactive ?”, Dexter asked.

“Don’t let me eat too much sugar, otherwise I’m going crazy for a few hours and do a lot of stupid things.”

“Ah...”

“Sugar rush. It usually leads to being hyperactive. In that state your child keeps you on your feet for a very long time. My child was hyper once. Was not fun, guys, I tell you.”, Skulduggery explained dryly.

“Noted. Not too much sugar.”, Saracen said.

“I can eat three cups of sugar a day, but not more.”, M/n explained.

Hopeless wrote that information down.

“I wrote it down.”, he informed them.

They all nodded at that in understanding. For the rest of the day they chatted away, collected herbs, cooked food, prepared their weapons, checked on them, if they still are in good condition, Ghastly made a few new clothes and M/n was mostly in his room, reading a book.

That was until the evening....

M/n asked Hopeless to go collect some more necessities. And when he asked, Ghastly, Ravel and Anton also needed some things. So he made a list.

-The next day-

Hopeless was in the village. He looked at his piece of paper, that he wrote the stuff on, M/n asked of him to get. Ghastly asked for a few pieces of cloths, Hopeless forgot to buy, Anton asked for more food, to restock and pack the kitchen full and Erskine asked for a survival in the wild book. It didn’t help that it was pouring that day too, as M/n warned all of them. The boy gave him a bracelet that was supposed to avoid the chances of Hopeless getting sick.

After a while he had the book, groceries and cloths in a waterproof bag. All he needed were M/n’s requested items. He was on his way to the last shop, as he was stopped by a man and woman, both were mages.

“Hello Sir. We need your help urgently !”, the woman greeted with desperation.

“What can I help you with Ma’am, Sir ?”, Hopeless politely asked.

The woman mage pulled out a picture and showed it to Hopeless, who’s blood ran cold, as he saw the person in the picture.

“Have you seen this boy, by any chance ? He ran away and we are looking for him. His name is M/n L/n.”, she asked.

M/n L/n...So that was his given name...Hopeless studied the picture.

“Hmm...I’m so sorry Sir, Ma’am, but I didn’t see this kid anywhere around here.”, he lied smoothly.

They looked at him, disappointed and the woman started to cry.

“I just want my Son back home, where it’s safe ! I’m so worried ! What if he is dead ?!”, she cried, worried sick.

“I’ll keep an eye out, Ma’am.”, Hopeless assured.

She looked at him, hopeful, then took and held his hand tightly.

“Thank you, Sir ! Thank you !”, she said happily, the man nodded with a smile too.

After that, they parted ways with him. Hopeless hid behind a tree, got out his small notebook, wrote a message, got out a trained mouse, bound the message on it and sent it to the rest of The Dead Men. Then he followed the pair, without anyone noticing.

-With the rest of The Dead Men-

M/n annoyed Anton as to why he didn’t like hugs, to which Shudder didn’t want to answer.

“Come on ! Tell me or else I will hug you !”, M/n threatened.

“I just don’t like them, Fox.”

“You must have a reason why though ! Or are you just hiding the fact that you never got a hug ?”, the boy insisted.

Shudder stayed silent and not long later, spotted Hopeless’ trained mouse running to them. He picked it up, took of the piece of paper and read it. His eyes widened.

“Dead Men gathering !”, he yelled loudly.

Everyone piled into the Living room quickly. Anton made it sound very urgent, so they picked up pace.

“What is it Anton ?”, Dexter asked.

Anton gave the paper to Skulduggery, to read its contents out loud.

“ ‘Gonna be home late, Fox needs a constant eye on him. I think he is in danger. I’ll try to find out more, see you later...Hopeless. P.S.: Don’t let Fox out of the house.’ “, Skulduggery read out loud.

“Danger ?”, Ghastly repeated worried.

“Okay we all got the message. No going out, Fox, and you have no privacy, until Hopeless is back and tells us the situation.”, Skulduggery said, worried.

M/n gulped and nodded, staying seated on the couch, scared. Anton rolled his eyes, already hating himself for what he was gonna do, and sat down next to the boy, pulling him into his side.

“Don’t worry yet, Fox. Maybe Hopeless gave false alarm.”, he told the boy.

M/n hugged Anton tightly, making the adult notice how much he was shaking.

“Shh...Shhh... As long as you’re with us, no one can hurt you.”, Anton soothed.

He looked, worried, at the rest of his Team. They looked at M/n and Anton too, worried sick. Hopeless was almost never wrong...

Masterlist HERE !

[lazulian-devil]

The Villains of Skulduggery Pleasant 2

Now before I start, I want to point out that Book 2 has an absolute myriad of Bad Guys™.

The book introduces not only Dusk (who is great at making everyones day just a whole lot worse. Just fun to be around. Only bit Valkyrie, killed the Lord Vampire of Dublin™ Moloch and is generally just... So much fun!), but also the whole Diablerie Subplot (oh look, China is getting a backstory upgrade), Billy-Ray motherfucking Sanguine (who is in one way or another responsible for a third of my favourite quotes from the books), the Torment and Roarhaven (and all that bullshit), the reflection quite literally cracking (this could never possibly become important later on), the whole Faceless One dimension and whatever was going on with Thurid Guild.

So uh, yeah. Book 2, for being actually quite short in comparison to the absolute Grimoires Derek would later be known to write, is a dense friggin book. You might ask yourself "Wow, this sure is a whole lot more dense than the first one" and thats because Landy had at this point already won and be nominated for enough awards that his writing adventures would be a solid thing for him.

The first book was a leap of faith, the second was the beginning of a saga.

(Tangent: I personally think Landy plans and writes books in pairs of threes, as even Phase 2 was originally supposed to be nine but then turned into six books by force of publisher. Because I read them on a Kindle, I am very much aware of how much longer they have gotten with each installment and I think that he, like many an author, would absolutely benefit from cutting down some of the sizes of his books. But book 2 is still very much on the shorter end, if not the second shortest book of the series).

So, after all these absolute bangers of villains, who will I focus on? The one that dies (which is honestly how I think I should do these. Just slowly talk about everyone who actually dies and leave the "I will appear in a trillion books" villains for last, in favor of my sanity).

Baron Vengous.

In a world filled with sarcastic, silly villains, Vengous is the stern military guy that doesnt talk a lot.

And I mean that literally. Besides like... One or two speeches the guy just doesnt talk much.

Ive managed to complete Book 7 in my reading insanity and have read up to 13 before that (reading them as they come out) and I can say with a solid 78% conviction that he is the most "normal" villain and antagonist the series has ever had.

Hes straightforward. Hes methodical. His status as a General of Mevolent is based not only in honestly insane levels of power, but in his pure military might brain and body.

Baron Vengous is the absolute most opposite anyone could have written to Serpine. He almost seems specifically written to oppose him in as many ways as possible. If Serpine was the Vibe, Vengous is the Antivibe.

You get my point.

We actually get an in depth look into him later (where? Leibniz. In terms of trouble, always assume Leibniz) and even among those people, he is somewhat normal. Apart from his wife.

Oh and the other character trait he has. What was that again? I can barely remember.

Ah. Right. Faceless One fanaticism to the point of self destruction.

It makes you wonder what he did after the Amnesty, as he is broken out of prison by Sanguine at the beginning of the book and its never quite explained why. Serpine was just vibin' in his castle. Maybe he did some human sacrifices to his beloved gods and got caught for it. Who knows. (Afaik, its never explained what he did after the Amnesty to end up in prison in the first place and at this point, Im convinced it doesnt really matter and was just a neat way to introduce Sanguine).

But Vengous just isnt a very... Interesting character. He only works so well because Sanguine is a delight anywhere he shows up and Dusk is just utterly terrifying. The Baron is almost too normal among them.

You need proof? Fine. Let me grab my Kindle real quick.

Insert transition music.

Alright, so. Vengous first appearance (Chapter 3: Vengous) paints him as the man in control, the guy who has been in prison for eighty years (Im sure cellphones blew his mind) is out and looking for revenge. He doesnt say a lot. His first actual words are "You're late." to Dusk (who he later points out in his internal dialogue isnt even a man to him). This gives us two insights into his character: First, his stoic mentality. He just murdered someone. Hes entirely calm. Lifes are a casualty to him. And second, he holds enough power or reputation that a very skilled vampire is not only working for him, but accepts being talked down to by this man.

Later in Chapter Ten: The Armour, Sanguines inner dialogue says "The Baron was not a man to be trifled with, especially at a time like this". Once again, we have a whole chapter that shows of several things (passively) about the Baron. He is a planner (shown by his knowledge of the armor and its requirements, the supposed knowledge of where Vile died and his general tactical demeanour being described), he is someone who seems to be in control at all times (shown by him casually watching a bunch of infected under Dusks command dig away) and he is incredibly patient (shown in previous chapters by him being able to wait 80 years and then just "get on with it. Sure, hes mad at Sanguine, but his plans are more important).

And then we add something a little spicy in the mixture: Hes not only a fanatic, hes also an asshole. Ooooohoho.

Its Chapter 18 in which our Protagonists finally meet him and he simply despises Skulduggery. But thats not whats actually interesting. The Chapter reveals him to be self important. Sure, hes a leader, stoic, goal oriented. But hes also cocksure of himself. (A trait he shares with about 84% of all characters in the SP universe).

Skulduggerys taunts go right over him.

"Skulduggery nodded. "So, you married or something? Do I hear the pitter patter of tiny evil feet?"

"I will destroy you."

Normal reaction, ey? The scene goes on quite a while longer than that, but only hammers home this point even more.

The Baron believes himself superior. Righteous. Blessed, probably.

What kills him in the end? His self importance. And how does he react to his death?

"But... But this isnt how Im supposed to die", He said weakly. "Not... Not like this. Not by your hand. You're... You're an abomination."

And then he crawls towards the actual abomination he summoned, pleads it to tell them (the Faceless Ones) that hes sorry for failing them.

The Grotesquery moved its hand so that it touches Vengous' face. It looked almost tender, until the hand gripped and wrenched and the Barons head snapped to one side.

Vengous is a fascinating villain, because he stands calmly among the flashy and vibrant. In a long line of batshit insane people, his insanity is the one that hits closest to home. Many, many villains in the future would be obsessed with religion (the Necromaner Temple, the whole Diablerie plot, later on Darquesse). But all of them are so overpainted, so saturated, that many are just that: A mockery of real life fanaticism.

And the Baron still feels like someone who is rootes in reality. He truly believes that he and the Faceless Ones are superior. His last act is - and I cannot stress this enough - apologising to his gods.

This man. This stoic, straightforward man. This absolute unit. Former General of Mevolent. Words like a scalpel, tactician, wit and gumption combined.

Hes just as insane as all of them. But his insanity is so much quieter. So much more refined.

And that makes him scary.

While I would like to end here, lets summarise real quick:

Vengous has mostly two traits that make him stand out: Straightforwardness and Fanaticism.

Hes a pretty boring villain in comparison to his counterparts.

He is - at least in my opinion - one of the most realistic villains in the series. His insanity is believable and while its not as flashy as those of others, its a kind of insane that makes your skin crawl as soon as you think about it.

He stole Skulduggerys Armor. If you know that Skulduggery is Vile, there are some really interesting scenes that allude to it.

His Leibniz counterpart, for once, seems to actually improve on the OG one. He talks more and he even shows a certain twisted kindness to Valkyrie in explaining her everything. I would almost argue that the Baron of Leibniz is more interesting than the OG Baron. Also, silly wife Eliza. Such a stupid joke.

If he had been succesful, he would have actually ruined the world. Legitimately. The stakes were so high and the man remained so calm. Imagine trying to resurrect your gods. Imagine resurrecting Jesus, all the while having the vibes of a Military Dad with PTSD.

Im afraid that I never found Vengous that compelling. The writing in Book 2 is immaculate though and Dusk and Sanguine are amazing.

I give him a... 7? 8 out of 10?

Also: remember to stay hydrated. Eat a snack. Stretch. You deserve it.

Wanna read more of my mad ramblings? Heres Part 1 with Nefarian Serpine and Part 3 with Batu!