#nathaniel steepleton

[tartan-tardis]

Guess what I’m reading again….Have some Watchmaker sketches 😊

[hedonistbyheart]

This is a bit odd, but I've been tempted to do it for a long time. I tried my hand at using Thaniel and Mori's names as palettes, based on my synesthesia.

Mori is nice enough to basically have the ace flag as his name, to my great amusement, so that's not so bad, but Thaniel's name is a mess of non-compatible colours, lol.

[bizarrebazaar13]

FL-inspired book recs!

brought to you by hotel wi-fi

Locations

The Royal Bethlehem: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Room in the Tower” by E.F. Benson. these are short stories, not novels, but they are fairly quick reads and are about locations where reality becomes twisted. the yellow wallpaper deals with mental illness and medical neglect, while the room in the tower is more about the overlap between dreams and the real world.

Port Carnelian: Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. ok, hear me out on this one. if you’ve ever thought port carnelian would be great if it actually dealt with British colonialism and racism in a meaningful way and also had a murder mystery, you might like this book. a much younger Mycroft Holmes goes with his friend Cyrus Douglas to Douglas’s home in Trinidad to investigate a series of mysterious deaths.

Ladybones Road: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. Nathaniel Steepleton finds a gold pocket watch in his bedroom one day, but he cannot open it or even hear it ticking. six months later, it opens on its own, and an alarm goes off at the precise time that a bomb explodes in Scotland Yard. he then goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, who claims the watch was stolen from his shop. Mori has a gift for elaborate clockwork, and though he seems kind and relatively harmless, Nathaniel is sure he is hiding something.

Ambitions/Major Storylines

Early Light Fingers: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. it’s a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but it can still be understood and enjoyed even if you don’t share my Sherlock Holmes autism. I specified early light fingers, because the mystery of what exactly the house of silk is, and the theme of corruption in highest levels of society, reminds me a lot of exploring and learning about the orphanage. just a heads up, this book is centered around a murdered child, and deals with the systemic abuse and neglect of children in victorian london. its biggest content warning is also its biggest spoiler, so I won’t give it here, but feel free to ask me. I had it spoiled for me on accident and still liked the book a lot.

Late-game Nemesis: “The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Pierce. another short story, it recounts in three parts the murder of Julia Hetman, as told by her son, her husband, and Julia herself. it specifically reminds me of the dreams of the dead section of nemesis.

Evolution: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. Tory Stewart becomes obsessed with mermaids after her sister Anne’s disappearance. Anne was filming a mockumentary about mermaids in the Mariana Trench, but the ship she was on disappeared, and was recovered weeks later with no trace of the crew. footage was found that appeared to show the crew being murdered by mermaids, but it’s largely believed to be for the movie, not real. seven years later, Theodore Blackwell recruits Tory as part of his mission to return to the Mariana Trench and capture a live mermaid. it hits sort of the same spot for undersea survival horror that the diving bell section of evolution did for me.

Exceptional Stories

The Bloody Wallpaper: Sign Here by Claudia Lux. hell is an office. literally. Peyote Trip sold his soul while he was alive, and now works in hell, convincing other people to do the same. he’s one deal away from a big promotion, and all he needs is the soul of one last member of the Harrison family. normal laws of space and time don’t apply, the real hellscape is capitalism, and secrets don’t stay hidden forever… sound familiar? in terms of violence and body horror, I don’t think it gets much worse than the text of the bloody wallpaper. one of the main characters does have a pretty brutal backstory involving christianity-related child abuse though.

Totentanz: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. set in late 1920s Mexico, the story follows Casiopea Tun and the Mayan death god Hun-Kamé on a journey across Mexico and eventually into the underworld. Casiopea finds Hun-Kamé’s bones in a chest in her grandfather’s house, and when she cuts her finger on one of the bone shards, Hun-Kamé becomes bound to her. together, they must find the rest of his body, which has been scattered around Mexico by Hun-Kamé’s brother Vucub-Kamé, who took over control of Xibalba from him. Hun-Kamé intends to retake Xibalba, but he and Casiopea must face sorcerers, demons, and twisted family dynamics- and that’s before they even get to the underworld.

[yourgoodfriendjh]

here you go! the result of me completely ignoring everything I need to do for about three afternoons straight

[welcome-to-the-end-of-eras]

Ranking the pulleyverse characters based on how much I like their names

Obviously this list is subjective but like. We all know that some of these are objectively true.

1.) Keita Mori: I personally think this is a top tier name. It flows well together, it fits his personality, there’s a lot of cool symbolism behind/because of it, it’s really a fantastic name for a character. No notes, 10/10.

2.) Raphael: it’s a really cool name, and I think it’s fun that he doesn’t have a set last name; it’s adds a bit of mystery to things. That and calling him Raphael TheBedlamStacks is funny as shit to me. Is it a little dramatic??? Yes, but so is he so it works. 9.5/10.

3.) Valery Kolkhanov: again, I think this name is super fun, and super creative, and it really does fit his personality well. I’m only putting it lower than Raphael because I thought his name was Valerie (English pronunciation) and I got my hopes up for the first proper female pulleyverse mc, but if that weren’t the case his name and Raphael’s would be equal. 9/10.

4.) Joe Tournier: Comparatively a pretty average name, but I have to admit the French last name sounds kinda pretty. If his name had stayed Jem Castlereigh or whatever the fuck, it would be significantly lower on this list. 8/10

5.) Konstantin Shenkov: I like this slightly less than Valery’s name because it’s a little bit clunky comparatively, but it’s definitely not a bad name. Don’t like that Konstantin is spelled like that tho, it looks a bit odd. 7/10.

6.) Aubrey/River Gale: there’s something off about these names that I really can’t put my finger on, but it’s just. Slightly off-putting to me. They’re such an ethereal person that I feel like their name should be a little. More, yknow??? If they were River Sterling that would be a different story, I like that name a lot, but River Gale sounds anticlimactic almost. 5/10.

7.) Thaniel Steepleton: this kills me. This kills me so bad. It’s no secret that he’s my favourite, my babiest of girls, but god almighty pick a different fucking nickname. It sounds so stupid. Nathaniel isn’t a bad name, it’s a bit proper but it’s definitely not a bad name, so why on god’s green earth would you remove the easiest two letters to pronounce and call that a nickname, it’s fucking stupid. And it sounds so British, it’s atrocious. 3/10. And that is ONLY because of how much I love him.

8.) January Sterling: objectively speaking, the reason behind his name is funny as fuck, but literally any other normal person would just. Go and change his name. Or let him go by his middle name. Why he decided to stick with January is beyond me. 1/10.

9.) Merrick Tremayne: it’s so British. Like. Annoyingly British. Love him to death but his name sucks so bad, and it just puts me in mind of the evil stepmother from Cinderella. RIP to the real Merrick Tremayne, you never had to get made fun of in school for how bad your name is. 0/10

10.) Missouri Kite: I cannot STAND this name istg. “Oh it’s translated-” HOW DOES A SPANISH NAME TRANSLATE INTO A WORD IN TWO SEPARATE LANGUAGES??? MISSOURI COMES FROM A NATIVE AMERICAN DIALECT IN THE MIDWEST REGION OF AMERICA, AND KITE IS A RANDOM ASS BRITISH WORD FOR A PIECE OF FLYING CLOTH, HOW THE FUCK DO THOSE COMBINE TO MAKE A NAME??? IT’S SO STUPID. -5/10.

Edit: I didn’t include Flint Kang and that was an oversight on my part, but tbh I don’t have much of an opinion. I’m going to say he’s a step below Shenkov, his name is also a little clunky but also a little nasally so it’s not as nice. 5.5/10.

[rhetoricandlogic]

THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET by Natasha Pulley

RELEASE DATE: July 14, 2015

Set mostly in 1880s London, Pulley’s debut novel twists typical steampunk elements—telegraphs, gaslight, clockwork automata—into a fresh and surprising philosophical adventure.

Nathaniel Steepleton is a telegraph clerk at the Home Office in London. Grace Carrow is studying physics at one of Oxford’s new women’s colleges. Her friend Akira Matsumoto is the emperor of Japan’s second cousin. What connects them, although they don’t yet know it, is the eponymous watchmaker, one Baron Mori, a brilliant and mysterious figure who appears able to predict the future. Mori made Grace’s watch, whose filigree rearranges itself into a swallow when the lid is lifted: “Clever tracks of clockwork let it fly and swoop along the inside of the lid, silver wings clinking.” He also made the pocket watch whose ear-piercing alarm startles Thaniel out of the path of a terrorist time bomb. But did Mori make the bomb’s clockwork control as well? As the characters’ stories mesh and spin, they rearrange themselves like that filigree into intricate and surprising patterns. But this is more than just a well-paced, atmospheric mystery with elements of fantasy. Pulley is concerned with deeper questions of fate, chance, and trust. How dangerous is a man who knows in advance the likelihood of every possible event? When does probability crystallize into inevitability, and how could the future affect the present? The story thwarts expectations; whenever an outcome looks as predetermined as clockwork, it might well go another way.

Clever and engaging, this impressive first novel will reward both casual readers looking for a fun period adventure and those fascinated by the tension between free will and fate.

[dameferre]

the most common criticism i’ve read of the lost future of pepperharrow is ‘oh but why didn’t mori tell thaniel what was going on??’ thaniel steepleton. nathaniel ‘if you’re going to die, might as well get on with it and not make a fuss’ steepleton. mr. ‘i would happily die for mori to have a better life or even just die somewhere convenient if he could put my death to good use, my family have short life spans anyway’ ???? that thaniel??? baby girl he in no universe would let mori get a headache to save his life you think he’d go along with mori being imprisoned tortured and possibly killed a dozen different ways just for him??

literally the Only reason thaniel doesn’t object when he realises that mori’s walking into a trap is because he thinks it’s for either the greater good or mori’s future, if he thought mori was doing it for his benefit he would’ve killed all those guards himself and marched mori back to england and died the next week tf

idk if anyone else has read the watchmaker of filigree street but all time gold star rereadable book. every time i go back again i catch the tiny seemingly insignificant details that actually show the 10-dimensional chess throughout time and space that’s being played all in the interest of making sure one person is safe and happy. and then i cry

[marcelineuntitled]

forgot to post this here oops

[mx-myth]

I had an idea but I’m not sure I’m going to write it so I’ll throw it out into the void for y’all: PULLEYVERSE SOULMATE AU IN WHICH YOU GET A SYMBOL FOR YOUR SOULMATE (POSSIBLY APPEARS AT THE YOUNGEST’S BIRTH OR GAIN COLOUR WHEN YOU FIRST MEET) (SPOILERS FOR pretty much ALL PULLEYVERSE NOVELS) (feel free to use and write/draw/etcetera but please tell/link me because I WANT TO SEE)

Thaniel Steepleton who’s born with a mark spanning from shoulder to calf, a mess of gears and clocks and octopus legs (???) and lemons and random objects (that suddenly become clear the more time he spends with Mori because they relate to his clairvoyance) (his mark takes up so much of his skin because isn’t he just an ordinary man, isn’t Mori his everything?) (he gains a little lightbulb for Six once they “adopt” (cough kidnap cough) her and it moves around wherever she wants; even Mori’s mark makes way for hers because isn’t he the man who would do anything for those he loves?)

Keita Mori who doesn’t get his mark until decades after his birth but who isn’t bothered by it because he knows his soulmate already, and when it comes it’s morse code and piano keys and a single pocketwatch on a chain over his heart (his mark is only over his heart (and small in comparison to Thaniel’s) because hasn’t he held the memories of Thaniel close to his chest ever since he’s been alive, isn’t he the reason he loves and the reason he still lives? His beating heart personified?) (His mark for Six is also a little lightbulb that usually hangs behind his ear on a chain until she decides to make a game of it when she’s bored and rolls a die to decide where it will move next)

Merrick Tremayne who thinks he’s soulmate-less for the first several years of his life before he realises that there’s a spot of grey on the bottom of one of his feet; as he ages it grows up his leg and darkens in colour. He thinks it’s a coincdence that it’s the leg that gets crippled (even if twelve-year-old Keita couldn’t bear looking at it) until decades later Mori confesses that it was the only way to stop him from running after Clem. The last day he ever spends with Raphael it is indistinguishable from true stone; he dies with a rosary held in grey hands.

Raphael who is bonded with the whole Tremayne bloodline; he has a mark for Harry and then one for Merrick’s father (whose name I forgot) and then one for Merrick himself (the marks disappear when the person dies, so sometimes they overlap when father and son are both alive, but how much of it does Raphael really witness, because of his “sleep paralysis”?); he ends with all of them carved into his skin when he fully becomes a markayuq and they all form one big picture (insects and spiders for Harry, tree bark Merrick’s dad (relating to the storybook and the sketch of Raphael in the tree), the leaves of whitewood trees for Merrick)

Missouri Kite with the mark of a lighthouse and two pillars that bursts into colour when he meets Jem Castlereagh, that instantly loses colour and recolours when Jem turns into Joe Tournier, and loses colour again when Joe leaves. Until he finds Joe Zhang, and he never loses colour again.

Joe Tournier with the mark of a lighthouse and two pillars but is confused as to why it’s coloured (he figures that he met them when he was young or something, or tries to reason with himself that it’s Alice’s); Jem Castlereagh knowing immediately once he meets Kite; and Joe Zhang, who learns he has the words Dearest Joe, Come home, if you remember. M branded into his mind, and finally decides that he can’t leave Kite again

Konstantin Shenkov with rusty streaks the backs of his hands, tinged with frostbite, and tiny text wrapping around his wrists that he can only read with a magnifying glass (it’s some stuff about nuclear things that he thinks came straight out of a textbook and doesn’t fully understand until he meets Valery)

Valery Kolkhanov with all of his veins and arteries lined in black; they all end on his back in an untangleable knot (he traces them and retraces them with his fingers and it’s what gets him through prison, the small joy of knowing that his soulmate is coded into his blood, even if he’ll only be a burden to them) (he doesn’t notice until Shenkov notices but in the knot on his back are the names of Shenkov’s children)

[viimsical]

hello just a gentle reminder that thaniel is GAY and HOMOSEXUAL and BRITISH

[asongaboutpirates]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton Characters: Keita Mori, Thaniel Steepleton Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, Banter, Missing Scene, Epilogue Series: Part 6 of Lost Moments Summary:

‘He wanted to drop everything and steal Mori away and get drunk at home, and shout at him for being so reckless, and die for him, or live for him, and everything.’

Thaniel gets to shout at Mori. Then kiss him. Then shout some more.

[tartan-tardis]

I re-read Watchmaker of Filigree Street recently and it’s just so so beautiful! Read it if you get the chance! 

[hedonistbyheart]

'Did I keep you awake?' he said, embarassed. (...) 'What? No' Mori leaned down over him and kissed his throat and the awkwardness dropped away.

The lost future of Pepperharrow

[buffintruder]

Grace: Mori is dangerous. He's a genius who could engineer worlds, he could be manipulating your every move

Me: well, okay I mean sure he is pretty powerful but he's just one person and that kind of manipulation seems like a lot of effort

Mori: hey, Thaniel, what weather do you want on your wedding day

Me: holy shit

[scryingparrish]

“I see sound. Mozart looks like this. You know. Fast strings.” “See? In front of you?” “Yes. I'm not mad.” “I didn't think so.”

[isogenderskitty]

do u know what's very very good actually... grace as the third wheel friend & affectionate menace to thaniel and keita who keeps like... low key guilt-tripping keita about stealing her husband, but like, as an inside joke?? i know that's probably extremely out of character but how fun and wholesome would that be... just bringing it up at any opportunity like she goes to leave the shop & she very dramatically is like "SIGH i suppose i will have to go home ALONE because my husband was CRUELLY SNATCHED AWAY FROM ME" & thaniel kind of like half laughs half winces and nearly spits out his tea & keita just waves without even looking up from his work like "ok bye have a safe journey"