#the dark lantern

[acornwizard]

a page from my sketchbook! The Dark Lantern- a folklore figure said to misguide and steal souls, however they actually spend most of their time rescuing unfortunate travelers

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Autumn Garden by Boris Groh

[toyastales]

Bat lantern from 1930.

[frownyalfred]

eldritch green lantern ideas:

ring slowly starts fusing with the finger it's on until one day the finger just glows, there's no more ring

bleeding green (duh)

so willful that reality tends to bend around them in small instances, like coffee always being warm or never having to wait for the elevator, or someone nearby tripping

the ring stops translating other languages because they just start understanding/speaking them eventually

the constructs chosen by Earth Lanterns stop looking like Earth items and more alien, older, ancient

Lanterns slowly forgetting to take off their uniforms and just start wearing them all the time

separating them from their ring will cause very, very bad things to happen

not eating or drinking for several days, then several weeks, then several months at a time without noticing

unintentionally feeding (mentally) off of strong-willed people, and even encouraging disagreement just to sit in the middle of it and feel something almost warm again

[dailydccomics]

Absolute Power artwork by Dan Mora

[leavesandpumpkinspices]

Spooky and cozy Victorian Halloween Mood ✨

[shrimpricebowl]

oh thank god

[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[n3arell-art]

“I thought this lantern might help?” // “No version of this where I didn’t come get you, is there?”

[aeturnum-mendacacium]

everybody has fics or headcannons that Bruce's speach was influenced by how he's such a dad, or batman, or a serving cunt but like what about how his speech Is influenced by how he talks normally as "Brucie wayne" to people?

I imagine he's got that posh accent when he's speaking when he's acting as Brucie Wayne and says 'darling' at the end of his sentences and it became a habit when he's not in the cowl

This is also partly because justice league's ears almost fall off when batman is scolding them( wearing a domino, cowl was damaged on mission,no voice modulation) because why does batman have a Italian-posh accent and who just called Superman darling.

[from-the-gray-spaces]

27 days until the first day of Autumn ❤️ FOLLOW ME ❤️

[acornwizard]

Colati gets a ref too!

Colati is a fun character, because they appear in all the different narratives of Ignite the Moon, and with a different role in each one. In one, they are a helpful and compassionate mentor figure, and in another, they are a mischievous antagonist, and a force to be reckoned with. Whats more, they may even be in kahoots with terrifying forces! It's a good thing they're so laid back...

[ex0skeletal-undead]

The time has come... by Roman Dubina on Instagram

[natureaestheticdreams]

@natureaestheticdreams for more🪵

[cerealmonster15]

skully (scully??) in his element: alone in a quiet dark room with NOTHING but a single pumpkin and a light inside😌