The Temple of Sphinx

A random collection of sillinesses and ramblings and lots of lovely pictures of people and things I care about. 60, bisexual, married for 30 years to a wonderful woman. Fandoms: Many and varied, but major ones are Shakespeare, Sherlock, MCU, obscure British films, British mysteries, and Doctor Who, fanfiction on AO3 under sphinxvictorian.

[loth-catgirl]

RB if you think CD drives in computers are not obsolete, but in fact still necessary, despite being artificially phased out

[starcroww]

Opened tiktok and immediately started sobbing.

[queer-joy-detector]

Queer joy detected!

[scamguy]

i would like to officially thank sesame for its seeds, its oil, and of course its street

[virtualgeometry]

Ikuyo Mitsuhashi / chair / 1988

[redscharlach]

Lady Whiteadder: Wicked child! Chairs are an invention of Satan! In our house, Nathaniel sits on a spike.

Blackadder: And yourself?

Lady Whiteadder: I sit on Nathaniel. Two spikes would be an extravagance.

(Blackadder II, ‘Beer’, 1986)

[stuckinapril]

I’ve had tumblr for 4 years but some of you bitches have had it for a decade. It’s time to seek penance

[stuckinapril]

wait I’m curious now . Reblog this with how long u’ve been on tumblr for. Dating back to ur oldest blog ever !!!

[ayeforscotland]

Freshly baked Scottish wildcat kittens have been spotted in the Cairngorms for the second year running!🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🎉

[frostedmagnolias]

Thousand & One Nights Inspired Evening Gown

c. 1910

Augusta Auctions

[henryofwales]

Luiza's favourite movies ↳ The Holiday (2006)

[thewolveswithin]

🆕🎭Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving and Miranda Raison as Ellen Terry performing in a scene from Grace Pervades during a photocall at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, central London. Picture date: Tuesday April 28, 2026

[queerazonbooks]

Today we remember the 49 lives lost and countless others forever changed on June 12, 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. What was meant to be a night of joy, music, and pride became one of unimaginable tragedy.

We honor the memory of those we lost—most of them young, queer, and Latinx—and we stand with the survivors, the families, and the community still healing.

Let this day be a reminder: queer joy is powerful, queer spaces are sacred, and love must always outshine hate.

[preraphaelitepaintings]

Guinevere

Artist: Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (British, 1872-1945)

Date: 1919

Medium: Watercolor, color plate

Collection: Private Collection

Description

Lines printed with the title: "Her memory, from old habit of mind / Went slipping back upon the golden days / In which she saw him first, when Launcelot came" (from Tennyson's Guinevere).

Anthony Harrison talks of the "extraordinarily wide dissemination" of Tennyson's Idylls of the King (605), and it enjoyed tremendous success throughout the period, despite the poet's traditionalist stance in Guinevere.

William Morris's "The Defence of Guenevere" put a different complexion on her adultery. Harrison notes that it was too radical for most readers when first published (1858), but became influential later. Brickdale's representation of her, as beautiful and at one with surrounding nature, seems to confirm a shift in sympathies.

[eroscestlavie]

What do you guys do for work. Job share time. I want to know

[only-cat-memes]

[cricketcat9]

WestSide Story

[catasters]

[rtfics]

sound on

Hercule Poirot and Inspector Japp discuss the details of another case.

[4mtns]

NASA just dropped the closest image ever taken of Jupiter

[importantcatpics]

[eulers-babe]

for no reason whatsoever here’s a reminder that if you consider yourself a leftist/punk/abolitionist/anarchist/radical in any sort of way and get called into jury duty, you are to become the most square person on earth during the jury questionnaire!!!

don’t be that guy who says fuck the police in the jury questionnaire! that just gets you sent home! if you want to generate change, interact with the case and use your jury vote for good! ESPECIALLY if it’s a high profile case!

[libraryogre]

Remember, when you're on the jury, a good "that cop's story didn't add up" will sway a lot more Chads and Karens than "fuck the police."

[damnfool-of-a-took]

Had jury duty, can confirm!

An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)

And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.

Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?

That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.

Being able to raise reasonable doubt among a jury of one's peers saves lives. If you get the chance, take it.

[genderkoolaid]

"Jury Room / The Holdout" (1959) by Norman Rockwell. One of my favorites of his. Particularly the gendered dynamic he depicts here.