Even further headcanons. Truly, I am unstoppable.

I'm sorry for all the psychoanalyzing! I wanted to study psychology, but I couldn't. So I vent by doing psychoanalysis on book characters.

Guys... I'm fine! No worries. I felt kinda low last week, no motivation, messed up a few things...so I felt unable to update. I'm better now, and I promise to update in a timely manner in the future.

Thanks go out, yet again, to Guest53 for the review, especially the requests. You have no idea how much I needed that motivation right now...

Anyway, as to your requests:

1) Is being written right now.

2) In my headcanons, Iblis didn't have a Tammuz, mainly because his father neglected him. More of the topic below (and maybe in future chapters).

3) Um, actually there is already a half-finished plot of mine in which exactly that happens. There's a human sorcerer who, out of revenge, works a complicated spell to rob all evil djinn off their powers, but the spell goes wrong and merely changes everyone's gender and yes, Iblis becomes a woman for a brief period of time. The story also involves making out with Nimrod (once) and, as a consequence, a little daughter being born...but do you really want me to publish that?

Also hi to Justreading. Yep, I'll do the other books. It's currently a work-in-progress. You're not alone, fellow Basta admirer! Actually this site has a few good Inkheart fics with Basta, I advise you check them out if you haven't already. I dunno what I had with Lucius Malfoy...he was blonde and had a walking cane...weird how that always happens to me. And I totally agree with you on book seven! The whole plot was basically angsting and camels.

Also Anonymousyoyo? Thanks for the review, you rock. My mom had a crush on Loki! It was embarrassing. Tom Riddle?...Oooh, I understand you very well.

1. Iblis usually is the kind of drunk who sits somewhere alone glaring into his drink until he slides gently under the table. He doesn't drink to party, is all I'm saying. But God be with the world if he decides to go out and have a good time while drunk. He'll throw on his nicest suit, twirl his cane all classy as fuck, and hit the town, leaving burning rubble and mayhem, crushed dreams and a line of broken hearts that reaches from here to hell in his wake. He'll be an enthusiastic dancer, he'll be persuaded to do anything really (he'll do stuff on a pole if you ask him very nicely), and he'll inevitably wake up next to random people. Men, women, Jenny Sachertorte.

One time, Nimrod had to go and stop drunk Iblis. It was a scarring experience. As soon as they ran into each other, Iblis grabbed Nimrod by his tie, dragged him to privacy, hurled him against a wall – which surprised Nimrod, who is a bit taller, broader and usually physically stronger – dropped to his knees and this is where things got nasty. Let's just say he loses any sense of restrictions he might possess in sober state.

Nimrod doesn't really touch alcohol much anymore.

2. I imagine all Ifrit being really really flexible, from all the time they spend as snakes. This gets really useful for sex-related stuff.

3. When John first met him in book 2, Mr. Vodyannoy says about his tribe, the Jann, that some of them are all about doing good, others, um, not so much, but overall they're a decent bunch.

Now I picture the Marid and Ifrit as absolutes – absolute good, absolute evil. The other tribes are just kinda... stuck in the middle? Like, the Hufflepuffs of the djinn world? As in, some of them just want to be left alone, morally gray, and some just love and care for everyone, even the evil guys, without judging, and there's a kindly Jann woman somewhere who sometimes gets scoffed at by the Marid, who'll pop over to Iblis with donuts or something and has offered him to come to her with mental health problems and sometimes he even does that. And that particular girl can move around Vegas without being molested by Ifrit or mundanes, and if anyone tries to mess with her, the offender is discreetly pulled into an alley and dealt with. She could work secretly as a therapist for the evil tribes or something.

3.5. Iblis doing therapy is actually a precious headcanon of mine, if only for all the trouble his poor therapist would have with him. Like, he'll stubbornly insist that everything's fine with him, but at the same time has these giant mental black holes with things like self-care and stuff, why should he care for himself, his only purpose in life is literally causing as much trouble as possible until Nimrod comes and kills him. And his therapist would say "You're not worthless", but Iblis would just laugh it off, yes of course he's worthless, fact, where would he have gained worth from, people like Nimrod have worth, but him, no, I don't think you understand who I am, ma'am. And she would be so frustrated, because she can't explain to this highly intelligent grown man the simple concept of self-worth.

4. When Iblis found out about Alexandra, his first reaction was "So that MORON has an estranged WIFE out there he went and MARRIED somebody what the HECK am I not GOOD ENOUGH anymore or WHAT...OFFENDED"

5. I guess if Iblis and Alexandra ever met, they would be at each other's throats over Nimrod.

"He loves me more!"

"Nu-uh, he loves me more!"

"Well I'm his wife, so there!"

"Well I'm his...uh..."

"HA! You're so pathetic!"

"No, you are!"

"Please stop fighting, I don't want either of you to get hurt..."

6. Iblis rescuing Nimrod when he's in peril, giving him a scolding for being "so damn reckless, were you just trying to get yourself killed there idiot, I swear to God, are you doing this on purpose to annoy me", swiftly getting rid of all enemies, then getting them both to safety. Because only Iblis gets to kill or otherwise harm Nimrod, nobody else. Nobody. Yes, that's the reason. It is. It really is. His own hand or none. It's not that the years of fighting this exceptional djinn produced some affection, no nope noooo. Iblis doesn't HAVE feelings.

7. So yeah, maybe Iblis and Alexandra would fight over Nimrod. Or maybe they would share...

I mean imagine Nimrod gets in trouble, like, pre-canon. Imagine Alexandra and Iblis temporarily teaming up, because of course they can't stand each other, but they have (different motivations but) the same goal: protect Nimrod at all costs. And, since they are very similar in temperament (anger-management-issuuuues...) at all costs means at all costs.

And then imagine Nimrod somehow getting the three of them to live together, and trying to help with their issues. Imagine them in a poly. It could be called Nimlisandra and it would never work (poor Nimrod being sandwiched between the djinn equivalents of a tsunami and an active volcano). Dear God, if I had infinite time and inspiration, I would write a fanfic about this...

8. Iblis getting freed from the jade armor and going through actual PTSD. I love how people are writing fics where Iblis gets freed, but they always are... not quite angsty enough for my taste. He basically just gets up and says "Well that was that, and now I have some more evil to do". Which is great! Not to discredit anyone's writing!

But did you think of all the possible trauma and the angst? Can you imagine how traumatic it would be for a severely claustrophobic person to be trapped in a very small space, possibly without being able to even move, absolutely powerless and with no hope for rescue, with nothing else to do than lying there waiting for death thinking about his failures? Just saying. He probably would have nightmares about the jade armor. It could influence his character almost to a turning point.

9. If you encounter Iblis, you should generally just run. But if you happen to free him from a bottle and get on his good side (which is a thing, it really is), and he doesn't destroy you but actually grants you three wishes, you may ask for a night. And there's a pretty high probability that he might actually go for it. He'll even buy you dinner first, fancy dinner at a high-brow restaurant, so be sure to wear something nice.

10. Iblis has a conscience, and it speaks with Nimrod's voice.

11. John/Zadie should be a thing. Or Dybbuk/Zadie! (I really don't like Philippa/Dybbuk. I can't explain. I just don't like it.) Also, I was very sad with how things went with John and Faustina, especially since she said she'd found a way to not get hard-hearted, but then she did. Bit of a puzzle, that one.

12. How things would go if they were asked to describe each other:

Nimrod would start with "Iblis is evil and needs to be stopped. He has done many horrible things. But that's not the only aspect to him..." and then he would launch into a detailed, hour-long description of every nuance of Iblis's being (looks, smell, sound of voice, general habits, vices and weakspots, list of evil deeds in chronological order, what he knows or guesses of his past, things that may speak for him).

Iblis would shrug and say: "He's a moron".

But if you probed a bit it would turn out that Iblis has an overly saint-like, almost romanticized vision of Nimrod. Nimrod is the epitome of good, the yin to his yang. Nimrod loves and cares for everybody, and can do nothing wrong ever. Nimrod isn't even able to feel petty things like jealousy, antipathy, or even lust; he's probably a virgin or asexual, he's just too holy for a thing like sex. Never has he ever slept late, used swear words, or been unkind to any living being.

Of course, as we all know, Nimrod doesn't quite live up to that reputation, he has his sides and causes, and whenever his image of him gets disproven, Iblis would be shocked and probably berate Nimrod in the style of "Nimrod, GOD, don't kill that BUG YIKES what's gotten INTO you, you're supposed to be the GOOD GUY" and so on and so forth.

13. Valentine's day headcanon:

Nimrod receiving, like, a handful of cards: from Layla ("love, your sister"), from Alexandra ("thinking of you" or something along the line), from Jenny ("thanks for being a great friend"), a few other friendly ones from women he knows. And an anonymous one (male hand) that says:

"Marid,

Sometimes I regret having to hurt you.

You've always been there and stuff, so...yeah.

You kind of matter to me.

That's all, k, bye.

(wow I'm so bad at this)"

14. I strongly dislike Dybbuk, but something about his story is just so very tragic. Consider this: all the bad stuff that happened to Dybbuk was set off by his (somewhat naive but) totally innocent and, to a degree, understandable desire to go and meet his real father. He didn't want to switch sides and turn evil, he just wanted to hang around with his real dad for a few. And then he never met his father.

Wait, what? Of course he did! Sure. But he didn't know it. And it was his real dad who shamelessly abused him for his evil plan, and is responsible for the loss of his djinn powers (well, for the most part) and then bloody died without ever having talked to Dybbuk as a father and Dybbuk doesn't know.

So yeah, if you want to experience some Dybbuk feels, you might wanna listen to the song "Dear Father" by Sum 41, that really aces the whole thing.

15. The other night I was snooping around the CotL wiki and there was that article about the seventy lost djinn of Akhenaten. And there was a thing that made me laugh, direct quote: "Philippa Gaunt correctly guessed that they were hidden within the Egyptian scepters (...) through Iblis's drawings". Now I know the person who wrote this meant "the drawings of Sekhem scepters Iblis was looking at", but now I imagine Iblis sitting somewhere with a sketchpad on his knees and a pencil like a total art nerd constantly sketching everything around him. Sekhem scepters. Pyramids. Cairo skyline. London skyline. Vegas skyline. Portraits of other Ifrit. Nimrod. Anything.

16. I spent a lot of time on tumblr lately and read into things like lgbtq+ representation and how it's so badly needed in the media. And now I want someone to ask Iblis: "How come you have so many children, but all boys? Do you drown the girls in a well or what?" and Iblis being like "No, but, funny story, my son Charles was actually born Charlene. When he came out to me I thought like 'aww, but I wanted a daughter so badly' but it turned out that one was a son too, so I got him some decent hormonal treatment, and then we hit one of those djinn plastic surgeons, and yeah." Or an asexual Teer kid, and Iblis (with his giant libido) being taught a life lesson about just not wanting it.

17. I love how there are fics where evil Dybbuk works with Iblis to get accepted by him as a son. If I wrote something like that, their meeting would go as follows:

Dybbuk:(bursts into room) Hey dad look, I'm evil now!

Iblis: (turns around slowly and menacingly) Hi evil... I'm dad

Aaaaand now I want to write a fic about evil Dybbuk somehow getting adopted into the Teer family and really getting to know his father and his brothers and the rest of the lot and realizing Aww man, this isn't at all what I imagined. Because umm, why is his evil dad trying to educate him? And why does he not comply to Dybbuk's every whim like his mom used to? And he's always saying things like "You forgot to tie your laces" "Did your mother never teach you table manners? Disgusting" or "Son, you're literally a massive prick all the time always, seriously how did the Marid put up with you?" in this arrogant uppity voice of his and this is just the worst.

18. Appearance headcanon: Iblis having actual battle scars on his body from when he got caught up in some destruction he or someone else caused or a fight with another djinn got physical. Ifrit are notorious for their tantrums, I imagine fights over leadership or something happen and they do get physically violent

19. An AU where everything is basically the same, but Nimrod and Iblis are living together at Nimrod's place in an odd-couple-scenario

20. Oh God, Nimrod finding a nasty scar on Iblis and retracing it and saying quietly, "I was the cause for that, wasn't I?" And Iblis says "Huh?" And Nimrod explains: "Remember, ten years ago, when we fought at [place] and I made that chandelier fall from the ceiling? It was just an accident, and you were bleeding and oh god I'm sorry" and he feels horribly guilty and works himself up over it, but Iblis is all like "oh yes I remember, you put up a pretty good fight, I barely made it, haha, you were awesome, those were the days"

21. Would djinn have body hair? Has anyone ever thought about this? Like, human body hair is meant for protecting humans against the cold, right? Would that even make sense with djinn, what with their higher body heat and whatnot? Also, they literally "wash hands" with fire, wouldn't they singe their body hair whenever they used their powers? So, considered it doesn't make sense for djinn to have any body hair, how the heck did Iblis grow a beard

22. Also, do djinn get sunburn? I'm asking the real questions here

23. Nimrod is horrible at giving gifts. Remember when, in book 6, he gave Groanin diving equipment for his birthday? Like, why would Groanin want that, why would he be interested in diving...why, Nimrod, just why? So now imagine Nimrod giving all sorts of silly, unfitting gifts to his loved ones, and they smile forcedly and keep the stuff around because they love him^^

24. In book 3, Iblis expresses his dislike for mundanes playing guitar, which saddened me a bit (because I'm mundane & learning to play guitar and rock music literally saved my life). So I developed a few headcanons about Iblis and music.

One: Iblis dislikes guitars because an ex-wife who ditched him used to play (I even developed her character. She was Rudyard's absentee mom. Not sure if she'll ever appear anywhere or not).

Two: You know how there's often nothing more soothing than a classical piece, while rock music carries a lot of upbeat emotion, aggression even? So naturally, what with his character that's pretty much defined by an everlasting rage at everything, I thought Iblis could probably appreciate rock music, but what if certain songs/artists just trigger him, and whenever he hears them he gets really violent and destroys stuff. And as a consequence, he stays away from guitars in general and whenever he really needs an outlet he sits down at the piano and plays the Moonlight Sonata or whatever.

Three: Iblis only acts like he hates rock music to appear more sophisticated, but secretly he listens to the Stones or at least the Beatles. (He'll sing those mother-of-sad old Pogues songs when he's drunk.)

Sorry, I'm just very enthusiastic about all kinds of music. And Iblis, obviously.

25. You know how in book 4, when Iblis is captured, he turns right to Nimrod like "Uh, help please buddy?" I always found that oddly touching and thus now think that Iblis views Nimrod as a kind of safe-person he can just turn to when in need, despite them being enemies and such. Nimrod can't help helping people, and Iblis knows. If he were ever to engage in S&M activities, his safeword would probably be Nimrod's name.

26. Not so much a headcanon but a thing I really want to see: Jenny Sachertorte meeting Iblis and punching him in the face. No fancy vindicta shit, she just punches him in the face so hard it makes his nose bleed. Because while Iblis is my baby, the things he has done to her were still beyond horrible, and she had to go through so much and she's such a strong woman and frankly, she deserves having a go at him.

27. Accidental social justice Iblis. Let me explain: It's, like, a djinnverso tournament or any other event where good and evil djinn can meet on neutral terms. And someone sees Jenny Sachertorte pregnant/with little Dybbuk and proclaims very loudly: "Wow, look at how she's dressed. She was probably asking for it".

The next thing that guy knows, a tall intimidating-looking man has walked up to him and is now casually acquainting his head to the next wall. "Listen up, buddy" he snarls. "You're not wetting your pants in fear yet, so I assume you don't know who I am. I am the guy who raped this woman. Yeah, I know, I'm pretty despicable. But let me tell you something, firsthand experience: she didn't ask for it. I had to literally disguise as her husband. She didn't ask for it. Look, I represent everything that's bad in this world, and even I think blaming a woman for being raped because of a certain way she dressed or acted makes you kind of a dicknugget, good sir."

28. I always imagined that, at least before Iblis took over, things like the Tammuz ceremony were not or very sloppily done in the evil tribes. I headcanon Iblis senior (and Iblis himself at the end) as the kind of disinterested leader who was far too self-absorbed to bother to explain to some brats how the djinn came to be. Djuniors just got their dragon teeth out and then they were taught what they needed to know by their parents or mentors. Iblis, for example, didn't get a Tammuz at all, because his father adapted a kind of "meh"-stance towards his son. Basically, teen Iblis got his wisdom teeth extracted and then he had to damn well figure out how to get by (which was a common practice amongst neglecting Ifrit parents at the time). He learned the basics about his djinn powers from books and practiced secretly, until his father was out of the picture. As soon as Iblis was the leader (he took over at the age of sixteen and had a long way to go yet), some Ifrit elders took over his education.

Of course the Ifrit wouldn't have things like the Taranushi which is for good djinn, but I imagine them having other rituals (that my muse hasn't talked to me about yet).

29. Iblis making really sure his sons get a good education because a dumb villain is a dead villain.

30. Everyone-lives-AU.