the infamous 'last sighting of a barbary lion in the wild' photo taken by marcelin flandrin (1925) haunts me to my core. there's something so achingly poetic about it.

The Sign of Four illustration by Richard Gutschmidt (1902)

this man personally inspired decades worth of showa scientists inventing shit like ultra death beams and juice that makes your eyes explode who think that these inventions could be used for the betterment of mankind somehow

They Turned the Tide of Some Disastrous Fight, from Parsifal, or the Legend of the Holy Grail by Willy Pogany (1912)

faeries are not real but i wish thwy were so i could spray one with raid

I feel like people miss the point of the "war is bad" message

What it's supposed to mean is that war is terrible, it's destructive, it ruins lives, it leaves scars, and you should only partake in it when there are no other options, because even if you win, even if you survive, you will not be the same, which is why the phrase used to be more commonly known as "war is hell"

But "war is bad" seems to have been construed by people in fandom into "any fighting is bad, if you fight you're morally terrible and impure, you should not fight at all, no matter what", this is annoying in fandom, as it often misses the point fiction is trying to make, but what's worrisome is when people apply this to real life, as I have seen people do regarding russia's invasion of Ukraine

And that's almost never the point of "War is Bad" works

Works like lotr, atla, transformers, the clone wars, etc all have themes on how horrible war is, but they categorically do not say it is wrong to fight, what they say is usually along the lines of "war is terrible, and what makes it so terrible is that we have no choice but to fight, it would be ideal if we didn't have to fight at all, but we must fight, because not fighting is not an option, because not fighting, not opposing tyranny, conquest, and evil only allows those things to exist unimpeded"

“Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley on the lifestyle of Lord Byron (via timemarauder)

More Sherlock Holmes because I love him!

I have been watching the Granada series (I’m about halfway through series 2) and I love it.

References for the drawings: “Smoking is strictly forbidden in this compartment” is based on a moment in the Granada episode The Greek Interpreter. The “three pipe problem” quotation is from The Red-Headed League (short story). The black outfit, basically I just wanted to draw my version of Sherlock in the Granada outfit. Tiny Sherlock with scarf and blanket is because of how wrapped up he was in The Musgrave Ritual (Granada). The hat quotation is from The Blue Carbuncle (short story). And the deerstalker and cane drawing is just for fun, no specific reference.

STEPHEN FRY and HUGH LAURIE Jeeves and Wooster | 3.03 'Introduction on Broadway'

Goth girls love trains

Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman & Steve Barton

The Phantom of the Opera 1986

For the last time: Mary Shelley and Lord Byron were friends. She didn't hate him. His death was a very painful loss to her. She didn't write Frankenstein because she was stuck in a house with him and he was an unbearable person. For God's sake, just read her journals and letters.

THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON part 3 (part 1) (part 2) as promised here they are enjoying committing a crime (to quote Watson: "I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers").

Nearly made myself ill drawing them holding hands WHAT IS IT WITH GAY PEOPLE (me) AND HANDS

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series!)

disgusting

Jeremy Brett 🌹

this part of the gift of the emperor is always so funny to me "not unlike jealousy" girl you wrote several paragraphs about it