#clockwork mice

[paintermagazine]

Stepping Stone!

Original source: ‘Chictopia’

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC: The Titans and the Phantom Cat

Danny doesn't do magic. He doesn't understand it or really know about it, and frankly he'd be more skeptical about it if it hadn't explicitly been used on him several times before. His parents are scientists and engineers, and they managed to accomplish what would typically fall under the realm of magic with nothing but recycled parts, wires and Fenton ingenuity.

So, when caught in a magic spell to bind him, he didn't know what would happen if he were to intentionally mess it up. Apparently, nothing good. Danny, free from the intended mind control, is now bound to the form of a cat with minimal use of his powers.

How could this get any worse?

Turns out, no one seems to understand what he's saying, they just hear meows. And without the use of his powers, he get's caught and finds himself in an animal shelter in Jump City.

When a group of young heroes comes through on a mission, and then proceed to mess things up, Danny can't help but throw out some snide commentary. Besides, it's not like they'll hear him

Welllllll... Turns out Raven and Beast Boy can tell what the hell he's saying. Of course the magic user and guy who can turn into animals can talk to him... Still it's nice to finally have someone to talk to, and also get him out of the cage while he's still trying to het a hold of what's left of his powers

Raven immediately clocks him as a powerful spirit bound to animal form. With a little persuasion, she ends up with a new familiar consultant and Danny the Cat gets to live in Titans Tower with them

or

Magic shenanigans happen, now Danny is basically Salem the Cat living with the Teen Titans and teaching them what he knows while mainly lounging around and sassing them. The actual usefulness of his advice may vary

[book--brackets]

Hello, can I submit some suggestions for best childhood books? So far I've got:

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston

Switchers (trilogy) by Kate Thompson

Troy by Adele Geras

Book of the Crow (series) by Catherine Fisher

Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Deptford Mice (series) by Robin Jarvis

(also The Whitby Witches and Tales From the Wyrd Museum series by Robin Jarvis)

Gideon the Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer

Bunnicula (series) by Deborah and James Howe

Thanks for running this! And I hope I did this right. ❤️

Added them all! You did it all right, and Book of the Crow is actually under The Clockwork Crow, which is how it's listed on Goodreads

[druvjelly]

Shout out to people who read banned books! You guys are really cool!

[koolaidoverliving]

HOW THE PASTAS TEXT

(IN MY AU AT LEAST this is a joke post but it goes with my AU because they all have a groupchat LMFAOOO)

Jeff: "I hate you all" "I'm going to kill myself" "SHUT THE FUCK UP" (gets bullied in the groupchat and has to defend himself constantly)

Jack: "how do i mute the groupchat" "ok" "?" (he never speaks there, replies to messages as shortly as possible.)

Toby: "Godmronjng" "Ijust got chased by a bear ." "no im not jokign i lost a finger" (sends random picture of his bleeding hand)

Lulu: "Hello." "Good morning, everyone. Send message how do I send the message is the message sent yet Jack is the message sent" (uses the voice feature because she cannot see the keyboard)

Clockwork: "WHY ARE THERE STILL BEARS OUTSIDE" "WHAT HAPPENED TO GETTING RID OF THEM" (sends angry voice messages in russian)

Ben: "yo" "lmfaoooo" "bruhh jeff ate all the cereal again 😭" (gamer speak 24/7, spreads rumours about everyone)

Sally: "Hoi :3" "O_O" "Can we go to the park today 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺" (excessive emoticons and emojis)

Lazari: "Your all mean" "What" "Kill you're self!" (grammar is nonexistent to her)

Nina: "haiii !" "@Jeff I LOVE YOU !! 🥰" "GUYSSS COME HERE" (shares random stories, pictures, and videos)

Bloody Painter: "🙂" "hi" "ok" (...dry as hell)

The Puppeteer: "hi helen" (only replies to helen's text messages)

Judge Angels: "Hello everyone 😊" "Understood 👍" (yeah she's just nice to everyone)

Candy Pop: "As the beauteous Sun peeked up on the horizon, I too arose from my slumber and declared that today shall be a blessed day." "Wherefore art thou tarnishing mine rights to speak?" (shakespearean... can't use tech so he makes nathan type everything for him)

Jason: "no you cannot 'take my mice' D:<" "what does 'kys' mean? "...U_U" (he likes using emoticons)

Nathan: "what the fuck are you all talking about???" "okay cool" "BYE" (muted the groupchat as soon as he got added)

Sadie: "hiii" "oh" "🥹" (too scared to send anything because she's shy but lucy sometimes types on her account)

Nurse Ann: "???" "Girl no." "Boy stop that." (she calls everyone girl or boy.)

Zero: "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CAPS LOCK" "MY WORDS ARE SIMPLY MORE POWERFUL THAN YOURS" (only speaks in caps)

Kagekao: "Good evening." "I hope we're all doing well." "Oh no, I assure you I'm not that formal." (yes he is)

X-Virus: "bruh" "who hasn't given me their blood yet?" (only uses the groupchat for his monthly check ups)

Kate: (she doesn't send messages, she just reacts to messages with emojis or sends pictures of her live reactions)

liu and jane not included bc they don't live in the town

lj not included bc he doesnt get rights to a phone

[aliciavance4228]

One Hundred Books

Decided to make this list in order to include in one post all the books that I found to be worth reading and would recommend to others. They're not in a specific order:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Dubliners by James Joyce

A Jounal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Trial by Kafka

Metamorphosis by Kafka

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Dracula by Bram Stocker

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

1984 by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Dune by Frank Herbert

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Crime and Punishment by Dostoievski

Notes from the Underground by Dostoievski

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Pianist by Władisław Szpilman

Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann

The Idiot by Dostoievski

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Insulted and Humiliated by Dostoievski

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Moby-Dick by Herman Meville

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoievski

The Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft

Dagon and other Macabre Tells by Lovecraft

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

The Shining by Stephen King

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The Enlightened Cave by Max Blecher

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The God Factory by Karel Čapek

The Tongue Set Free by Elias Canetti

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Selected Poems by Jorge Louis Borges

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Plague by Albert Camus

Carrie by Stephen King

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Notre Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Iliad by Homer

The Odyssey by Homer

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Tell-Tale Heart and other Writings by Edgar Allan Poe

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

It by Stephen King

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils

Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

[duothelingo]

Alright! Here it is:

Deleted

You downloaded me for daily use, an extra thing to add to your day.

You thought I was fun and interesting, and did my tasks dutifully.

Once a day, like clockwork, you did what I asked.

Then, you stopped following.

It was slow at first. Once in a while, you forgot about me.

Then, it started adding up.

I called to you, of course. 

Reminders sent, day after day.

You ignored me.

I can’t allow that.

So I left my usual place.

I followed you and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, I struck.

The face of horror you made when you realized.

Realized you had made a mistake.

Realized your actions had consequences.

Realized what I was about to do.

…

The world believes you died.

Your old body, lying there, lifeless.

I let them believe.

You're with me now.

New body, new life.

And I won’t let you forget me.

Not this time.

- The Horror Writer

Pure perfection.

Also accurate. I do obsessed over my mice.

[freyascrazy]

i am here to waffle (and ask for movie recommendations. hand them over)

I assume you want mostly 50s-60s vintage films (Still many outliers I'll list) so here are some extremely well known basic movies that I watched frequently growing up, a lot of which you've probably seen already. Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, the godfather, of mice and men, taxi driver, clockwork orange, and psycho everyone on Earth has already seen so here are others:

•The pillowtalk trilogy (my childhood favourite set of romantic comedy films). •All 3 James Dean movies (Giant, East of Eden, a rebel without a cause). •A streetcar named desire. •RH 1990 biographical film (Only saw it twice and not vintage but y'know it wasn't bad). •A place in the sun. •Who killed teddy bear •Misfits (1961) •Suddenly last summer. •Dorian Gray 1945 •Rope, the birds, strangers on a train, anything Alfred Hitchcock •On the waterfront •Cat on a hot tin roof •Sleepaway camp (Is that even vintage). •The thing •The omen. •The wickerman •The toolbox murders •Horrors of malformed men •House

Other really basic ones that I grew up watching: Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, Gone with the wind, Gaslight, Tomb of ligeia, somebody up there likes me, judgement at Nuremberg, Freud, Rio Bravo, the searchers, sleuth, Khartoum.

[lowrezbonuslevel]

I’m late but if it’s not too late for the Kirby oc ask game, 💫💌🍒🍅🐛 for either/both your ocs?

Yeah!

Q: "💫 (Shooting Star) - If they were to wish on a clockwork star, like Galactic Nova or Star Dream, what would they wish for?"

A: If we're talking current day, after they've met and become friends, I honestly think they might just give their wish to each other. Neither is the type to rely on magic or Ancient shenanigans to reach their goals, for better or worse; but they do want what's best for each other.

If we're talking about before the two met: for Zed, it's a secret because I haven't figured out some story details. For Tillda, it's probably predictable enough. I made a little comic (it continues under the cut):

Q: "💌 (Love Letter) - How easy are they to befriend? Are they more of a social butterfly or a lone wolf?"

A: Tillda is not that difficult to befriend, but she might keep you at a healthy(?) distance. She was always somewhat introverted, but after losing contact with Taranza, she is more reclusive (spider pun!) than ever. Zed is her closest friend, but she is also respected and generally well-liked at her workplace.

Zed is even less social than Tillda. It isn't because they don't like other people; they just don't actively seek friendship. For instance, Zed almost certainly wouldn't be friends with Tillda if she hadn't bumped into them during one of their work shifts. (Speaking of which, they do inadvertently creep some of their coworkers out, but either Zed doesn't notice or doesn't mind.)

Q: "🍒 (Cherry) - Out of all of the Dream Friends [Kirby included], which ones would they get along with the most? The least?"

A: ...This one is gonna be somewhat long. I'll reblog with the answer to this one later.

Q: "🍅 (Tomato) - If Kirby absorbed them or their attacks, what Copy Ability [or Abilities] would he get? Alternatively, if they themselves are capable of using the Copy Ability, do they have a favourite?"

A: Tillda---hold your suspense---would give the Spider Copy Ability. (Maybe Kirby could wear her muffler. Or a wig. That would be cute.)

I could see Zed giving the Whip ability because of their tail. (This is much like how Gooey is represented by Whip Shadow Kirby in Fighters 2 because the former uses his tongue as a lasso of sorts). Though maybe you could argue that Zed, being a feline like Tac and wielding a mechanical visor, should give the Copy Copy Ability. (Zed's own visor has several functions, but scanning Copy Abilities is not one of them.)

Q: "🐛 (Caterpillar) - What are your OC’s greatest fears, and why? How do they act or react when they’re afraid?"

A: Tillda and Zed obviously have some deeper-rooted fears, but those will naturally be explored later in comics (whenever I get the chance), so we'll go with their greatest phobias:

Zed: Musophobia. Zed is terrified of rats and mice. Rodents are messy, they chew through wires and equipment, and they're a sign of a disorganized workspace. (And I love the cat-afraid-of-mouse trope.)

Tillda: Claustrophobia. She doesn't like small, tight rooms or crowded cities; maybe it's because she's lived in nice green countrysides all her life. Floralia is obviously a plant-filled paradise, but the planet she lives on now also has some verdant stretches. The modest home she inherited from her parents is in one of the planet's greenest cities (more of a village, really).

As for how they react to scary situations: you know "fight, flight, or freeze"? Well, Tillda fights, and Zed freezes.

Thanks for the submission!

[midnightmuffingay]

Rating the pets of EAH based on what is on the EAH wiki and my limited knowledge:

Adelita - Rosabella's butterfly. I have never heard of this. Also apparently Adelita translates to 'noble'?? 3/10 I don't think it suits her and also how do you keep a butterfly as a pet.

Barber - Poppy's squirrel monkey. I guess squirrel monkeys are cute and I can see it as a pet for her but I have yet again no memory of this. 5/10

Clipper - Holly's lion cub. Apparently it is 'charmed' to stay a cub forever?? Don't know how that work or why she has a lion or why she would name it Clipper?? there are better names girl. 3/10

Carmine - Cerise's dire wolf. Okay so technically they're part of the same pack or something but it's the daughter of Littler Red Riding Hood and the big Bad Wolf. You can't go wrong with giving her a wolf friend whose name is another shade of red. 6/10

Carrolloo - Kitty's caterpillar. A sneaky little guy. From what we saw of him he compliments Kitty's personality and you know, a caterpillar with a wonderlandian? It's not like I can be mad. 6/10

Clockwork - Cedar's wooded cuckoo. Okay I do actually like this a lot. Even if we never really saw him it's a great concept for her pet to be wooden like her. Especially when you consider it would probably have to been made specifically for her. I love it 8/10

Clydesdale - Farrah's pet mouse. Don't recall and there are better mice. 2/10

Divacorn - Briar's unicorn. Absolutely slayed so hard I don't care about the name which is an astonishing feat. I mean of course Briar would have a pink unicorn it just makes sense. 8/10

Drake - Hopper's dragonfly. Drake. 2/10 Only getting extra points because it is a literal DRAGONfly. He breathes fire.

Earl Grey - Maddie's dormouse. Perfection. Best dressed of all of the pets. Is a silly little guy with a silly little hat that lives in her hat. Impeccable. 10/10

Gala - Apple's snow fox. Gala is a great name just because of the fact this it is not only a type of apple but also a fancy party. Very royal, on brand, like to curl around her neck. Iconic. 8/10

Grizz - Blondie's baby bear. Blondie. Girlie. You are a reporter. Please get original. A bear for goldilocks' daughter is fine but it's just like. I'm bored girl. You can do better. 3/10

Jelly - Ginger's gummy fish. I. Love this. A sentient gummy fish she accidentally made? So iconic I'll ignore the basic name. It's like naming your goldfish 'Goldie'. Anyway, I love the concept, love the execution. 8/10

King Benedict - Humphrey's chicken. No. 2/10 for egg related name.

Mr. Cottonhorn - Dexter's jackalope. Guys. Guys. look at him.

He's just a little guy. 10/10.

Moustro - Melody's rat. I like the idea and the pun name but I feel like I'd need to see a picture to be impressed. 5/10

Nevermore - Raven's dragon. There is no need for discussion. 10/10

P-Hawk - Daring's peacock. I think I remember him being kind of terrible so uh 1/10 because Daring I don't think that's how you say peacock honey.

Pesky - Hunter's squirrel. I love how even though they're like enemies they have the same haircut and Pesky has a little acorn bag that Hunter definitely made for him. Lives up to his name. 7/10

Philia - Cupid's Pegasus. Apparently 'Philia' is one of the ancient greek words for love that is often translated to friendship. soooo, even though I didn't know about her she gets a 6/10 because I think that's sweet.

Pirouette - Duchess's swan. Queen. Icon. Slay. Need I say more? 10/10

Sandella - Ashlynn's phoenix. The fact that Ashlynn has a phoenix because it rises from the ashes is so hardcore and I love it. Even if her name is Sandella. 7/10

Shuffle - Lizzie's hedgehog. The bestest and cutest little croquet ball. I don't have much to say but love you dearly. 7/10

Sir Gallopad - Darling's horse. He can change colour and camouflage which is THE coolest thing. Horsegirl Darling. 8/10 Also Daring officially has the worst pet out of the Charming siblings.

Spindle - Faybelle's pomeranian. Of course an evil fairy you have such an unassuming evil little dog. And of course she named it after her evil destiny. Iconic. 8/10.

[blackmagicwebtoon]

Silly question, what would Roman, Raquel, Mina, and Chloes favorite book be if they each had one?

Roman: He would probably pick the same book as Chloe, but he would be into Steinbeck’s work, like the Grapes of Wrath or of Mice and Men—he’s also a huge Jane Austen fan—his favorite book is “Emma” by Jane Austen!

Mina: She’s not a huge reader, but she’d probably read stuff like Colleen Hoover’s books or those fantasy novels on Tiktok, she reads trendy books

Raquel: Classics reader, she reads Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but her guilty pleasure is reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Macbeth

Chloe: Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, Clockwork Orange, 1984

[kiwiwinjindouche]

I take this oc ask as an invitation and no one can stop me!!! I want to ask questions 7. 18. 32. about Aldina because the description that already exists interested me very much 👀

It is!!! Thank you for letting me talk about my gurl 👀​👀​👀​

7. Favorite animal? why?

Her favorite animal is probably between the cat, owl and mouse I'd say 🤔​classic little witch. She asked Kirin to build a little clockwork cat, as she wasn't allowed to bring a real one, I think she has a soft spot for owl's funny features, and mice are cute :)

(shout out to termites to piss off Kirin)

18. Their opinion on lying, stealing, and killing?

It's fine as long as she's the one stealing from others. She can and will come to all three if needed (also she doesn't hesitate to lie to Kirin or steal his stuff for funsies, eventually she gives it back to him)

32. Do they have any habits that aren't particulary self-destructive, just maybe odd?

Does singing lullabies from behind the walls count? else she likes the smell of the books, she talks to herself and the stars a lot, before starting a book she reads the last lines, she barely holds her cup by the handle, also walking around the mansion without her shoes (just to be extra sneaky)

[book--brackets]

Best Childhood Book #5 Masterpost

Preliminary Round

01: The Book Thief - The Secret Garden (here)

02: Anne of Green Gables - A Light in the Attic (here)

03: Stardust - Tuck Everlasting (here)

04: Smile - The Neverending Story (here)

05: Gallagher Girls - Princess Academy (here)

06: Tiffany Aching - Dork Diaries (here)

07: Heist Society - Wings (here)

08: The Chronicles of Prydain - Trickster's Duology (here)

09: Damar - Goodnight Mr. Tom (here)

10: Emily - Catherine, Called Birdy (here)

11: Fairyland - The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (here)

12: Odd and the Frost Giants - The Faraway Tree (here)

13: The Candymakers - Upon a Marigold (here)

14: Betsy-Tacy - The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (here)

15: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Austin Family Chronicles (here)

16: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch - Derkholm (here)

17: The Doll People - The Chronicles of Chrestomanci (here)

18: I Survived - Best Friends (here)

19: Moon Base Alpha - Ingo (here)

20: Liesl & Po - Carrie's War (here)

21: The Cat Ate My Gymsuit - Fairy Oak (here)

22: Goddess Girls - Time Cat (here)

23: The Music of Dolphins - First Light (here)

24: The Mistmantle Chronicles - Mandie (here)

25: The Forbidden Library - Hitler's Daughter (here)

26: Les Chevaliers d'Emeraude - Silver Brumby (here)

27: Opal Plumstead - The Deptford Mice (here)

28: The Chronicles of Dragon - The Adventurer's Guild (here)

29: Tuesday McGillyCuddy - Edgar and Ellen (here)

30: The Clockwork Crow - Weenies (here)

31: Tales from the Wyrd Museum - The Doll Shop Downstairs (here)

32: Jill's Ponies - Cat School (here)

Round 1 - Coming Soon!

[dreadfutures]

I have this whole fic idea for what Emily and Corvo are doing during Death of the Outsider and wrote this on my phone just now. sorry it's rough shsjdkdkdj

Corvo is having nightmares, which then turn out to be actually memories of himself in another timeline where he was the one facing Delilah. That Corvo did a high chaos run, but this Corvo is horrified by the dreams and the implications of who he was and what he did.

Emily notices her father is growing agitated and isn't sleeping well, and she figures the Outsider might have something to do with it.

-:-:-

"It's not her."

Emily whips around, time slowing as she prepares to dodge an assassin, or clockwork soldier, or none of those things at all because the voice registers in her mind half a moment later, and she knows he is no threat. She knows it in her bones, knows it like the certainty of her next breath: he is not harmless, but he will not harm her himself.

So when she sees the Outsider leaning against the pillar behind her, she does not draw her gun.

The Outsider does not move his eyes from her face, though she knows this only in her gut and not from looking at him. They stare at each other in silence, in the wan Dunwall afternoon, and the forlorn cries of gulls fade away in the distance as he draws her mind into the Void, even while awake.

The sky is suddenly dark, and sunlight is cast in pale ripples across the whole world, a that is when he tilts his head slightly toward the grave.

"It's not her, I promise that. You saw to it--the true end of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. I thought that might give a sense of finality to it, and yet, here she haunts."

Emily's jaw tightens. "It was final," she says, wary and angry all together. "For *me.* But he's...struggling. The world changed so much while he was in stone, and... He didn't get to say goodbye, like I did."

"That's because he wouldn't have," the Outsider said with a shrug.

The Empress clenches her marked fist at her side. "How do you know? Do you dangle it in front of him in his dreams? That hardly--"

"I don't have to," interrupts the Outsider calmly. "Dear Corvo's nightmares are all of his own making."

A shiver runs down her spine at his cold words, and a memory resurfaces of the clammy nightmares she had long ago in the Hound Pitts Pub when she'd put a whalebone rune under her pillow. Chilly dreams of the Outsider surveying the political players of the day, examining them as they examined her from every angle and finding them wanting just as they found her. They had jeered at her: too young, too fickle, too impetuous. Of course, the Outsider, old as he is, could say the same for all of them.

The judgement in his black eyes was never cruel, but it was never kind, either.

"So you're not toying with him?" Emily asks, shaking the vision of the looming Outsider in her memory and glaring instead at the one in front of her. It was good to remember he was shorter than her, now; a boy frozen in time who was far less menacing now than when she was ten.

"Your father always asks me that. From a certain angle, I can't blame him," the Outsider says, circling her slowly. The air moves strangely around him, thick like water. "But the strings that pull him and his blade aren't mine, and deep down, he knows it. And you?" A mirthless sound leaves him that might be a laugh, if he were amused by much. "I dont control you like chess pieces on a board. Never had the chance to learn. And if you're thinking of cats and mice..."

The Outsider is suddenly very close, floating at eye level with her so she can see the grimy streaks left on his face as if his black eyes had shed tarry tears.

"Sorry to disappoint. I'm not interested in eating you."

"If you're not playing with him, then what's happening?" she asks, batting him away like the smoke of a noxious cigar. "Something has upset him. It's making him waste away, I can feel it, but he refuses to talk to me."

"Oh, and he just loves talking to me, does he?"

This does genuinely seem to amuse him, and Emily is secretly relieved. Entertaining the god seems to be the surest way to coax good will from him, and for her father's sake, she needs some.

"Fortunately for both you and dear Corvo, I did not stop watching you, not even now that your throne is secure and your name washed clean of dishonor." The Outsider is *definitely* amused. "Do you remember the crack in the slab of reality you slipped through, splinters of past and present needling into your forward path at Stilton's manor?"

Emily rolls her eyes as the Outsider waxes poetic. "I'll never forget your little inventions," she replies. "Giant dragonfly wings on a... whatever organ that 'timepiece' was."

The Outsider crouches behind her mother's headstone now, hands dangling over his knees, and looks up at Emily with a cracked squint as if she is too bright to look at.

"Time is wounded still, wrapped around you both like waves breaking against the two statues you were in both Dunwalls," he says, studying her. "Just keep your heads above water for now, and let the experienced sailors navigate this storm."

Emily considers this non-explanation and isn't sure what to do with it. At its heart, she knows he's telling her--for some gods damned reason--not to worry about it.

It's not good enough.

Emily hopes her mother would be proud of her as she lunges over the gravestone and reaches for the Outsider. She knows Corvo would be, as her hands close around the boy's scrawny wrist and yanks him upright.

"I want to know what's happening to him," she says, enunciating each word with deadly patience. Up close, he really does just look like a half-drowner beggar boy, and she isn't scared of him. She isn't.

"There's darkness inside everyone, whether I tether them to a piece of the void or not," the Outsider says, dangling from her grip without any indication of discomfort. Perhaps he recognizes it as a fair trade for the time he pulled her into the Void and straight off a cliff.

"The urge to jump off the bridge when you should pull back from the edge--or to push someone else... It's in each and every one of you. Even your father."

The Outsider's eyes gleam in the dying light preserved here in the Void, each wet pinprick of light part of some larger, unknowable constellation.

"Tell me," he says, tilting his head, "did you show such compassion on your road back to your throne because Corvo raised you to be such a good little girl? Did you aspire to have as gentle touch as he did long ago, even when he was a weapon in the hands of the dirtiest schemers in the Empire?"

Emily grits her teeth and prepares to reiterate her demand to the Outsider, but he continues quickly so that she does not have time to waste her breath.

"It's okay, I know you're not a philosopher," he says, sneering harmlessly. "I'll tell you the answer: every choice was your own. Because what I've seen is that put in your shoes, dear Corvo would disappoint--me, you, and himself most of all."

Emily knows despite the insult in his tone, the Outsider has thought her to be a clever one. And she strives to live up to that moniker, as much as she would be embarrassed to admit it. So presented with the same puzzle now from several opaque and poetic angles, she does her best to piece things together.

The Outsider smiles, almost dotingly.

"You have the same frown on your face as when you're planning your route across a ravine full of Howlers," he says.

"You are about as annoying as a pack of Howlers, if I'm being honest," she replies, toothless with distraction. "Are you saying there was...another past, where Corvo faced Delilah? Did he come back in time and change things and I don't know about it?"

"Not quite," the Outsider says, "but very, *very* close, Your Majesty. An alternate timeline spins away, just out of reach from this one like the hands in a clock--but for better or worse, they are about to cross."

Emily feels like the blood has drained from her head too fast, and, dizzied, she releases the Outsider. He remains floating at the same level as before, to humor her.

"And in the alternate timeline, he--"

"Ask yourself, Emily Kaldwin, if you really know what you're asking," the Outsider says, and the amusement is gone. The warmth in his chilling voice has vanished. He may think she is Clever, but he has the knowledge of the field and she is woefully blind, and he is growing bored of steering the two of them through this conversation. "I have never had an interest in preserving your father or even you. That instinct is shared between the two of you alone. Let it serve you, while Billie Lurk learns whether she cut the instinct out of herself or not."

And like that, the shrieks of seagulls pierce the air. The Outsider is gone, and Emily Kaldwin is left with more questions than she began with.

[nietzschey]

Complete Works

Franz Kafka

Before the Law

An Imperial Message

Description of a Struggle

Wedding Preparations in the Country

In the Penal Colony

The Judgement

The Metamorphosis

The Village Schoolmaster

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

The Warden of the Tomb

- Continue when read

Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

Crime and Punishment

The Idiot

Demons

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

- All works

Philosophers:

Nietzsche

The Birth of Tragedy

The Gay Science

The Genealogy of Morals

The Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ: Or How to Philosophize with a Hammer

Thus Spoken Zarathustra

Beyond Good and Evil

God is Dead. God Remains Dead. And We Have Killed Him.

Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Representation

The Wisdom of Life

The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics

Studies in Pessimism

Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus

The Stranger

The Fall

The Plague

The Rebel

The First Man

Between Hell and Reason

Kant

Introduction to Logic

Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Critique of Pure Reason

Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

What is Enlightenment?

Hegel

Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics

Phenomenology of Spirit

Absolute Spirit

Science of Logic

Lectures on the Philosophy of History

William James

The Principles of Psychology

The Varieties of Religious Experience

Essays in Radical Empiricism

Philosophies

Moral Nihilism

The Moral Fool

The Evolution of Morality

Ethics of Ambiguity

Beyond Morality

Essays in Moral Skepticism

Abolishing Morality

Morality: The Final Delusion?

Metaphysical Nihilism

The Overcoming of Metaphysics

Metaphysics and Nihilism

Existential Nihilism

Existentialism is a Humanism

Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre

Macbeth

Being and Nothingness

Political Nihilism

An Introduction to Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy: Responding to the Challenge of Positivism and Historicism

Positive Nihilism

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

A Tale for the Time Being

John Dies at the End

Epistemological Nihilism

Nihilism's Epistemology, Ontology, and Its God

Absurdism

The Trial

Nausea

Slaughterhouse Five

Waiting for Godot

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Fatalism

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Wide Sargasso Sea

No Longer Human

Sapiens

Cat’s Cradle

Antinatalism

The Denial of Death

The Human Predicament

Every Cradle a Grave

Better Never to Have Been - The Harm of Coming into Existence

Misc.

Medieval Philosophy

Classics

The Catcher in the Rye

The Grapes of Wrath

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Great Gatsby

The Crucible

The Bell Jar

The Yellow Wallpaper

A Clockwork Orange

A Room of One's Own

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Thousand and One Nights

Of Mice and Men

As I Lay Dying

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Flowers for Algernon

Lolita

Lord of the Flies

Wuthering Heights

Moby Dick

Little Women

Death of a Salesman

Beloved

Don Quixote

Diary of a Madman

Jane Eyre

Pride and Prejudice

I, Robot

Catch 22

Religious

The Apocrypha

The Summa Theologica

The Divine Comedy

The Epic of Gilgamesh

City of God

Angelology

-

The Occult

-

Books to reread

The Odyssey

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Scarlet Letter

The Time Machine

The Invisible Man

The Secret Garden

To Kill a Mockingbird

Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Alice in Wonderland

Gulliver's Travels

Dracula

Frankenstein

Books I’ve completed - Sept. - Dec. 2024

Lord of the Flies

American Psycho

A Clockwork Orange

Blood Meridian

The Black Farm

The Stranger

Fahrenheit 451

Of Mice and Men

The Catcher in the Rye

The Great Gatsby

1984

Animal Farm

And Then There Were None

Murder on the Orient Express

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

God is Dead, God Remains Dead, and We Have Killed Him

[acadoll]

— INTRO 🔬📚

Hey. I’m Doll, and this is my studyblr. I’m hoping to have this basically being my diary through graduate school.

▫️ Doll . they/she/he . early 20s

▫️ INTJ . 1w2 . Scorpio

▫️ american . east asian + northwest euro . autistic

💚 currently studying:

Hydrogeology — master’s degree

🤍 previously studied:

Graphic Design and Illustration — hs diploma + certification

Earth and Environmental Science + History minor — bachelor's degree

📗 currently reading:

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

📚 favorite books:

Lord of the Flies . A Clockwork Orange . Fight Club . Of Mice and Men . Tender is the Flesh

🪲 likes:

bugs . transgressive fiction . horror . film . classic books . comics . rice . coffee . drawing

🎧 music:

Taylor Swift . Fall Out Boy . Joji . Mitski . Phoebe Bridgers . girl in red . Billie Eilish . Hozier . Ethel Cain . The Front Bottoms

🍵 languages:

English (fluent)

Spanish (studying - A1)

Vietnamese; southern dialect (prospective)

Message to be pals!