Deadly S(i)moulders

Qeela // Storyteller // TS2// Belladonna Trove

[sushxisss]

"Menelaus was so mean in the Trojan War!” boy, if I welcome you into my house with complete hospitality, I feed you at my table and treat you like a brother. And when I have to leave for a FAMILY FUNERAL. You take advantage of my absence to LOOT MY ENTIRE HOUSE, You abduct MY WIFE while my NINE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER is standing right there. sure as hell I’d be pissed off too.

Menelaus is actually a better person than me, because he still tried to settle it with a peaceful diplomatic mission when he first got to Troy. If someone pulled that on me, the peaceful negotiation wouldn't even have been on the table tbh.

[raointean]

...he'll get there eventually

[batcavescolony]

Odysseus: I am different, I am no longer the man you married, it's been 20 long years but if you could just fall in love with me again?

Penelope: if you can do something for me

Odysseus: anything

Penelope: move my wedding bed.

Odysseus: I can't, it's made out of a living tree, to move it I would have to destroy it. How can yo-

Penelope: oh, I thought we were asking each other stupid questions?

Odysseus:

Penelope: 'FaLl iN lOvE wItH mE aGaiN' to do that I would have had to stop loving you.

[blended-ice]

falling in love again

[haley-harrison]

Calypso: The stars are beautiful tonight.

Odysseus: You know who else is beautiful?

Calypso (blushing): Who?

Odysseus: Penelope.

[tired0artist]

Once a year, Penelope orders for a painter to come and make a painting of Telemachus.

So when Odysseus finally returns, there’s a gallery of 20 paintings, showing how year after year, Telemachus grew into the young man he was now.

In some of them, Telemachus is dressed properly as a prince of Ithaca. In others, he is doing some of his daily activities (reading, playing with Argos, writing, playing the lyre), as the painter came around so often that the prince stopped caring to pose for an entire day in an uncomfortable attire.

There is one, that Odysseus finds himself staring at the longest.

It’s the twelfth painting. Where Telemachus is accompanied by his mother.

The young boy sits at her side, as she carefully teaches him to weave. It was painted in their room, as a part of the olive tree that is their bed, is also captured in the back.

Odysseus sobs, and thanks his wife for bringing the lost years in such a beautiful form to him.

Even years after his return, the King often is found in the small gallery, watching his son slowly grow with each step.

(I love this family your honour)

[queen-of-hobgobblers]

Penelope during the Ithaca saga:

[marivanilla05]

Made these for fun! (Free use is fine with credit in bio!)

(Edit: I made more in the reblogs!)

(original meme under the cut)

[roseofithaca]

Poseidon: How will you sleep at night?

Odysseus: Next to my wife.

Poseidon: And do you think she'll be proud of you torturing a god?!

Odysseus: Dude, she's from Sparta. Me telling her this is gonna be like foreplay for her.

[annerb-fic]

When you have a competency kink the size of China and the enemy you’ve sworn to hate for all eternity is the most competent person you’ve ever met.

[somethingelsefine]

Okay so I get it now. I get why the 1995 pride and prejudice is so long.

They needed to allow extra time for all the distant, longing looks, pining, and brooding. Fair enough.

[gaybuckybarnessss]

PAUL MESCAL & JOSH O'CONNOR The History of Sound (2025)

[thevalleyisjolly]

I love how Wake Up Dead Man subverts the usual mystery trope of the detective gathering all the suspects in a room to explain the case and reveal the murderer. They could have done that, but this is a story where we see domineering, charismatic individuals imposing their will and their power over people to do whatever they like - to tragic and horrific consequences for everyone involved. And Benoit almost -almost!- becomes one of those individuals. He literally climbs the pulpit to silence them all with a thunderous voice, to start telling the story that he wants them to see as the truth. If he had gone on, unmasked the murderer in front of everyone, he would have solved the case but been no different than Jefferson or Prentice. Not in the sense that he would act out of malevolence or that what he told the other characters was going to be a false version of events - but he would be one more righteous preacher on the pulpit, looking down and condemning the sinner. It is so significant that he has that Damascus moment, that he stops. He lets the murderer come forth freely, of their own will, in private, and it is Jud who hears their confession. No dramatic accusations or passionate explanations. Just a kind man and a good priest kneeling down with the culprit, listening to what they have to say, offering grace. And in doing so, he finally breaks the hold that the Wicks have had over the story and their parishioners for decades - not with anger or hatred as Jefferson wanted from him, but with kindness and compassion.

[purplewisteria7]

Another neat detail I noticed in Wake Up Dead Man is that when Father Jud says he’s just spent the past hour writing down everything that happened and summing up the story, it actually happens exactly one hour into the film.

[a-little-bit-oddish]

despite the fact that jud's form and view of christianity is a very pleasant one, i appreciate that no part of benoit blanc is converted. it's not like i expected benoit to become a christian obviously, but i expected him to potentially stay for a service at the end, when invited. or to show appreciation for what jud is building at his church. even just appreciation that he's welcome.

after the whole movie, when benoit is given the invite, he still says there's nothing he wants less than to stay in that church. it's very, very reasonable and realistic of a traumatized atheist, but i almost never see it depicted in this way. usually they come around to "see the beauty" in one way or another. i just really appreciate that they didn't do that.

[chaos-wanderer]

you might think an older gay atheist detective and a devout young catholic priest would make a terrible mystery-solving duo, but you would be dead wrong

[agentmilayawithshield]

"Wake Up Dead Man", and the thankless labor of women

One of the things that stayed with me the most, was reflecting on traditional gender roles in the Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude congregation and how it relates to religion in general.

Vera halts her life to raise a child she has no moral obligations towards. Simone is the church's biggest donor, keeping it operable basically by herself. Martha is the only employee handling administrative work in the church, keeping the treasure a secret her whole life. They are all endlessly devoted. They are all meant to be contrasts of Grace, the real "women of God," and in the end, it's thankless labor from all of them.

Vera's adopted brother is a selfish jackass who appreciates nothing about what she did for him. He saw her as just a free nanny to be "dumped" once his real father showed up.

Simone is being prayed on at her weakest and used as a cash cow, only to be told she can't be healed because she's a faithless woman.

And Martha only realises at the tail end of her life that her selfless devotion to a man and his teachings meant nothing to him. That he betrayed her the first chance he gets.

Wicks sees himself as blameless, has no standard for his own behavior. He's a disgusting, horrible man, who deserves none of their devotion.

When Vera and Martha realize that their whole life they trusted the story of the "harlot whore", only to experience the exact same treatment even after doing everything in their power not to be like her, that's the first time they can reflect on her, and when they finally realize:

"That poor girl."

[heydocverdant]

That’s part of why I liked that the church is renamed “Our Lady of Perpetual Grace” at the end of— instead of the church being built off the demonization of some poor suffering girl, it’s named for her as a reminder