lighthouseborn

[lighthouseborn]

"i'm as scared as i get / i don't want any part of this" deeply unkind things to reflect in a song about aiming somewhat blindly at your goals and. the conces quencing.

[lighthouseborn]

hm

[lighthouseborn]

Sørlandet on route to Aberdeen, 2025

Video by Richard Sibley

Source

[lighthouseborn]

All the Way to Saint Martin

or: an accounting for the time between the sinking of the HMS Monarch within the Devil's Triangle and Henry Turner's arrival on the shores of Saint Martin some thousand kilometers away.

Henry awoke by steps. First, a feeling of motion and of ache; rocking, rocking, rocking, and a burning on his lips and in his throat and through his chest. Next, the sound of the wind passing his ears. And water lapping, splashing, as it did around the base of a swift dinghy. Thereafter he found himself looking up at the sky. It was clear, deep black sprinkled with stars like embellishments on a lady’s dress. The storm must have passed. He was, again, adrift on his little raft of ragged planks. Only, as he noticed the drag of the water around his arm, he was not drifting. He was moving with purpose, and in a direction that opposed the local current. But how? He was not kicking. He didn’t think he could. He couldn’t even seem to sit up. But he could move his head. He turned.

  An ageless, aquiline profile jutted up out of the water, her dark hair long and heavy down her back. Sensing his attention, she turned to look at him. She smiled. His mind divided itself, utterly beguiled and swamped with a sense that he was in danger at once. Her ivory teeth were sharper than they ought to have been, her pupils large and dark and inhuman. Still, he felt not a hint of fear: if she’d wanted to harm him, she’d had every opportunity before he regained his wits. Instead, he could see by her grip on the remains of the Monarch, she was pushing him through the water. He knew. He knew what she had to be, to be where she was, to look as she did. To drag him against the ocean itself this effortlessly. He knew, but his curiosity overwhelmed him nonetheless. With effort, Henry rolled himself onto his elbow so that he could peer over the edge of the raft.

  Her tail, rosy golden and shimmering, disappeared into the black of the ocean, the odd scale flashing as it caught the light of the nearly full moon. Scintillae, Henry thought. It looked just like sparks flickering against the darkness. He tried to speak and produced naught but a weak croak, though that was enough to rip so harshly through his throat his eyes watered. To make things worse, his breath caught and he coughed. It went on for a full minute. Henry had to lay back against the boards to recover from the way it made his head swim. The mermaid laughed quietly, with a strangely knowing air.

  Henry swallowed hard. Finally, in a horrible rasp, he managed his question.

  “..Where… did you come from?”

  “The gate of the still waters,” she told him. Her voice was honey-rich and crisp with an accent that nearly sounded Spanish. “I follow you out.”

  Followed him?

  “Why?”

  “The gate kills sailors, even those the butcher does not.” She turned from the horizon ahead to regard him with a sharp interest, then. “You are not a sailor. Sailors, all, give up, and I take them. You reach. And the fate speaks though the water, speaks ‘Not yet, Henry Turner’. I reach back.”

  Sparks in the water. Henry closed his eyes. He’d thought someone had taken his hand.

  “Fate,” he echoed, abundantly dubious.

  “I know fate, as you know death.” A statement unsettling enough on its own, it came paired with a gentle laying of a hand at the very end of his ribs. The very middle of him.

  “There is no fate.” Henry insisted hoarsely, ignoring the flip his stomach turned.

  “As there is no death.” The mermaid agreed.

  Henry opened his eyes. The mermaid peered down at him, her smile greatly amused. The water plished and ploshed against the little raft in the silence. Neither mythic being nor the son of one look away from each other for a long while as they slid through the water, defiantly forward. The contact broke only as they passed through a swell. The water rolled over Henry’s chest. The mermaid dipped beneath the surface, her form blurring as she moved beneath the boards to his other side and took a new hold, adjusting their course. Henry blinked, and she was head and shoulders above the waves again, beautiful and strange. Dangerous and nonthreatening.

  “How long?” he asked, hushed. The mermaid angled her head in question. Henry had to clear his throat again. “How long have you been following me?”

  “Half a moon. Three more nights.”

  Half a..? He looked to the moon high overhead, the nearly complete round of its face. The first night had been moonless. Half a cycle of the moon: fifteen days, plus three. That explained the way that every inch of him cried out for rest. Why his hunger had disappeared, only to return infrequently as a terrible stab of pain. Henry’s frustration bloomed. His eyes began to ache as though he was going to cry. Ache as they might, not a single tear rolled forth. It just became another thing about this, another discomfort laid on him here in the middle of nothing, going nowhere. Going-

  Going somewhere. He’d quite forgotten that the mermaid wasn’t just following him but, since the moment he’d woken -and it stood to reason, since she’d pulled him back to the surface after the storm- pushing him along. Taking him somewhere. He’d missed the sunset, and though the sky was as favored for it as one could ask, he knew precious little of the way to guide himself by starlight. Only ocean surrounded them. He was almost afraid to ask… rather, he was quite afraid to ask, but decided he preferred to know than be dragged along in ignorance.

  “Where.. Where are you taking me?”

  “Where you aim.”

  Saint Martin? But how did she know? Before he could even shape the first word to ask, the mermaid shushed him quietly, and he found he no longer had the will to speak.

  “Fate brings me to you, Henry Turner, tells me your name. You think this all she knows?” Her tone was scolding and gentle in equal measure, dual tones harmonizing in their very dissonance. And it was the second time, he realized now that it had been pointed out, that she addressed him by name. He did not know what to do with the realization. It was as contradictory as the rest of her; a form of threat and, yet, a thing of no real consequence. “You do not drown this night, because of this, and so you will seek what you find. I carry you to the start. She determines what comes next.” With finality. No more questions. The mermaid then brushed the backs of her slender fingers down along his cheek in a soothing gesture that, curiously, reminded the boy of his mother. “Trust,” she instructed him, “and rest.”

  On the final word Henry yawned, a heady drowsiness swarming up over him so that his eyes fluttered shut and his body stilled and settled with the long exhale. Eighteen days at sea and rocked by the waves that had called him all his life, that seemed to be all it was going to take. Henry wondered, in a dreamy spiral, what a mermaid did when she slept; floated through the water, or tucked herself into some nook? Did she sleep at all? If she… she… She, the mermaid. With sudden urgency, he fought the weight of drowsiness, pried his eyes open to ask—

  “-your name? What are you called?”

  She laughed, sweet and musical, and for a moment the stars seemed to dance, and the light reflecting off of the water seemed to glow.

  “Palírroia,” the answering croon. She lifted her hand from the water once more to sweep careful fingertips down over his eyes, leaving behind delicate pearls of seawater that rested, cool, on the back of his eyelids. “Sleep.”

  Henry sank into darkness. He dreamed of nothings; of a sea made from grassy stalks and a ship formed from woven laughter. He dreamed he danced with a star all the way into the sky, where mermaids with tails of patterned silk slept tucked into beds of cloud fluff.

[lighthouseborn]

i know im in a minority here for some reason but i just don't understand how so many people saw dmtnt and came to the conclusion that liz left the sea. "she wouldn't!!!" so why! are you assuming she did!!!! nobody said that!!!!!!!!

[lighthouseborn]

girl (gn) help im in hostile territory

[lighthouseborn]

like this post for something.

[lighthouseborn]

His eyes are more serious than they used to be, June 23, 1924 Journals of Anais Nin 1923-1927 [volume 3]

[lighthouseborn]

THE MUMMY 1999, dir. Stephen Sommers

[lighthouseborn]

*he'll get there, don't rush him

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Close your Eyes and just listen ....

Bark Europa

Source

[lighthouseborn]

“It’s been raining for days.”

“Looks like the rainy season is finally here.”

“Shall I put on a pot of tea?”

“Turn up the heat/put another log on the fire, the rain brought a chill.”

“Close the window, you’ll ruin the flooring!”

“You’re sopping wet.”

“What on earth were you doing out there?”

“Fine, you can come in, but take off your shoes.”

“I don’t need you tracking mud everywhere.”

“The sound of rain is so nice.”

“You’re going out? In this?”

“You can’t go out there, it’s pouring down rain!”

“I like the rain and all, but being stuck inside is so boring.”

“The day would be a lot less boring if you learned how to sit still.”

“I cannot believe we’re stuck in this!”

“Maybe we should find somewhere to take cover until it stops.”

“Does it ever stop raining here?”

“Oh no! The rain ruined our picnic.”

“Want to go for a walk in the rain?”

“Can I have a blanket?”

“Sorry to intrude. This rain came out of nowhere.”

“Look at the sky! The lightning is insane.”

“It’s getting pretty intense out there.”

“A rainy day, warm blankets, a cup of tea, and a book to tie it all together.”

“Let’s go for a walk in the rain.”

“Here, this should warm you up.”

“Come in here before you catch a cold.”

“Ugh, that’s just a silly old wives’ tale.”

“I pity the poor souls caught out in this.”

“Aren’t there any books to read?”

“Rains smells so different in the city.”

“The rain smells better in the countryside.”

“Nothing like the sound of rain to go with a good book.”

“Careful, the tea is still hot.”

-draws on the fogged up windows-

-Flips loudly through book-

-sighs- “It’s so cozy in here.”

[lighthouseborn]

#listen there are times when he looks like henry and times where he doesn't and it has nothing to do with his face or styling you know? #most of titans does Not (with a capital n) look like henry at all #because dick is a much more grounded and self critical character and he spends a lot of time weighed down and putting up fronts #and the....... the Manner just isn't there it's not the same #but here in this movie ---again when it's not playing too far into the comediac aspect of the role--- there's a movement and lightness that. #Yeah. #anyways slkdfjg;lsdkfgj

no yeah exactly past me

lighthouseborn​:

hi, these both come from (here) and i am only here to go “Yeah” about them

actually a lot of this movie like. some of it is a little too hammed up because it’s a comedy and it’s like that on purpose but the parts where he is playing the character straightforward, without the exaggeration, have a lot of Henry energy and i cant stop thinkin about them so here’s some favorites

Keep reading

[lighthouseborn]

Spinner dolphins in the water near the Na Pali Coast of Kaua'i, Hawai'i

[lighthouseborn]

Brianna Pastor, Good Grief

[lighthouseborn]

no because actually im constantly thinking about scifi verse because i am, what you might call, a big fat nerd. and a treas.ure p.lanet flavored thing where i can keep so much of like. his aesthetics and nature and probably even some of the societal roles that put things the way they are right but then also it's. space tech. and laser guns. and magical creatures are just deep space creatures and the weird doors are tech and. you see the vision yes? and then realistically i could just. lore blend that into most settings where i'd want to put him. especially ones where maybe someone else has the hyper space travel but iirc treasure planet isn't quite there except for the big magic door, which is the exception to the concept.

they also completely ignore that open air space travel on a Ship makes. no fuckin' sense bds;lkgj;sdlfkgj but i can live with that. yada yada handwave atmosphere on the decks idk. it's cool shut up don't worry about it.

[lighthouseborn]

  There's no hiding the doubt that pushes at his expression, so he doesn't even bother to try. Just woke up. Sure. But there are times to push and times to leave things lie and– “I can make coffee if you like.” He's got a feeling pushing will act like less of a check and more of a shove. That's reason enough for him not to. They can finish their other conversation first, at least.

  Or as much of it as they can before she drops out.

  He starts prepping the coffee without waiting for answer. Tea's more his go-to, but these steps are still familiar enough that multi-tasking proves no challenge.

  “What is it this time?” Ghosts? Ghouls? Spoons rattle and a bag of heavy, crunchy grounds come down out of the cabinet. As a thought half-after, he checks the expiry date. Still good. “I don't know if you know this but your text read like you'd filled out a Mad Libs.”

She has to think about it. Really think. The fact that she has to think at all says more than her answer ever could.

Inhale.

Pause. More than twenty-four hours is nothing. More than thirty-six hours...thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nineNo.

This isn't the time for counting. Counting might help with sleep, actually. She doesn't want to sleep. That's the whole problem.

Exhale.

Right. He's still waiting for an answer. Her mouth opens. Closes. Oops. She forgot to think of an answer. He's been waiting too long. She chuckles and sheepishly raises a shoulder. That's an answer, sort of. It shows him that she's paying attention. That her glassy-eyed stare doesn't mean she's passed out with her eyes open again. She blinks away the fatigue, shakes her head, then gives a more animated shrug. That doesn't mean it's a better answer.

"Um." She pulls her head back. Furrows her brows. Wrinkles her nose. Grins. "That's a dumb question. Just woke up right now. I was totally zoned out."

@lighthouseborn asked: “...When was the last time you slept?”