How To Show Emotions

Gods, that would be awful. In the livestream today tho he said that Valitsa was his favorite ship ... and joked about Fletcher only having a minor appearance in SOW. So I guess it's not likely

Yet another thought

I really….really hope Landy doesn’t pair Valkyrie with Fletcher for the end of the series? Like I’ve just realised, it’s the exact kind of shit he’d pull.

It is so nice to know that none of the people I know irl know of this blog

The Art Of Starting Over - Prologue: Before

It´s finally here!!

When shortly after Ian Doyle´s arrest Louise Thather is killed, Emily has to make a decision that has the power to change the course of her whole life.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31474595/chapters/77854214

i really like looking at google image searches for “firemen rescuing cats” or something because you get super cute pictures like

AND THEN THERE’S THIS ONE

The war between the sanctuaries lasted roughly two months, so Val´s been on her period at least once during that time, right? 

I can so imagine her being even grumpier than usual and of course it has to coincidence with a mission where they have to hike for several days AGAIN. That´s downright annoying on a good day, but when she´s on her period Val is fuckin angry, because it HURTS and all she wants is a nice hot-water bottle and some chocolate. Instead she has to walk the whole freakin day. 

The other dead men are really confused. They can clearly tell she´s in pain, but they have no idea what´s going on. Even Skulduggery can´t tell. He´s been a skeleton for so long that he just doesn´t consider some basic human functions anymore. Anyways, it takes them so long to figure it out that it´s downright embarrassing. But once they figure it out, they make a point of buying her chocolate as soon as they are back from the mission and even after the war, after Valkyrie was gone for five years, Skulduggery continues bringing her chocolate once a month. Gotta keep the monster fed if you don´t wanna get chewed out yourself. 

Valkyrie just thinks it´s creepy that he knows better when she´s gonna be on her period the next time than she does herself. Like what the fuck? There´s observant and then there´s creepy, Skulduggery! She doesn´t mind the chocolate though. That´s always welcome.

What do you think China’s childhood was like? Every book, her view on it seems to change..

tbh it’s actually quite interesting seeing China’s different takes on her childhood, because in a way I don’t think she’s ever really recovered from it unlike Bliss, who got out at such an early age. Indeed, often when discussing her past, China always compares herself to her brother, portraying herself as weaker, slower in escaping - but the interesting thing is, she never really mentions what it was they escaped from, rather than just the mentioned indoctrination of all believers.

But the first time she really mentions her opinion of her childhood, and not just her general experience as a worshipper, she brushes it off, saying:

It had been a happy childhood. Completely insane, but happy. - MC

What’s even more interesting is through the rest of this extract, China keeps making jokes about her questions of faith + the general situation

True, she had generally had more fun in the old days... and she didn’t have to spend half her day praying. She’d never been able to understand why the Faceless Ones weren’t praying to her. - MC

But then, what I find interesting is the subtext in any of her memories of her childhood - they’re awful and yet she almost normalises them. And even when she admits to some of her troubling memories, they’re pretty watered down:

All though her childhood she’d had trouble sleeping, plagued as she was by the stories her parents would tell her of the Faceless Ones.

Doesn’t that make you feel happy? And China had said, No, Mother, it gives me bad dreams, and her mother’s face had changed in an instant and China had spent the next three days on her knees, praying to the Faceless Ones, begging for their forgiveness. - B

It’s a pretty horrifying image, a young girl (which China is very much implied to be in this extract) being forced onto her knees for three days straight because she dared to voice her fears.

Idk if it’s a coping method or something, but in a way, I see it as China almost blocking out the trauma of her childhood - we see her mention it occasionally, but most of the time she just laughs it off (which is really worrying)

I think something people often forget is that unlike some worshippers of the Faceless ones, China didn’t choose to be one, she was born into it - she had no choice, she was practically indoctrinated and it’s clear that some traumatic things happened behind the scenes that enforced her to stay obedient

What’s even more interesting is that when China leaves the church of the Faceless Ones, she doesn’t go straight to the good guys, she isolates herself and she also has some very interesting conversations about myths/fantastical elements in the world, with this being one example:

“I’ve heard nonsense. I’ve heard something that doesn’t even deserve to be called a rumour. - SP

Seems like another one of her coping methods up until TFO is to deny the existence of these gods, these legends, because in a way China never got over the indoctrination of the Church - if she fled and the gods were real, she’s damned. So if she brushes it off, just like her childhood trauma, pretending it’s not real, then she can cope - she’s not damned, which seems to be a prominent fear of her childhood

untroubled by half-remembered visions of doom and damnation + she had hidden her fears from her parents and suffered those nightmares in silence. - B

It’s interesting to see the relapse of faith in this most recent book - I’ve discussed my predictions for China in this post but I think it’s pointing towards an unraveling mind in many ways, as we also see China having a lot of flashbacks to her past as if she’s starting to relieve a lot of her repressed trauma - that could be because of Solace’s influence or something else, who knows..

Just dawdling on the painting and having some fun. Edit: Added the HD frames of the gif

Clarabelle: If I wore a shirt inside out, the entire universe would be wearing the shirt except me.

Kenspeckle: Congratulations, you just explained Gödel's theorem in a single sentence.

This is amazing!!! Thank you so much! I´m such a sucker for soft dead men fluff

Hey, hope you're doing well during all this craziness! Since you asked for a writing prompt: how about some dead men fluff set during LSODM?

Hi! This has taken me absolute ages bc of online school and I am so sorry. Hope you’re doing okay too and thanks for the request!

Weiterlesen

I made a Skulduggery Pleasant tier list! :D

If anyone’s interested in ranking some of the characters:

https://tiermaker.com/create/skulduggery-pleasant-characters-aruairi-langermann-493663

PS: sorry if the character names are a bit small