"But the thought arrived inside her like a train: Marya Morevna, all in black, here and now, was a point at which all the women she had been met—the Yaichkan and the Leningrader and the chyerti maiden; the girl who saw the birds, and the girl who never did—the woman she was and the woman she might have been and the woman she would always be, forever intersecting and colliding, a thousand birds falling from a thousand oaks, over and over." — Deathless, Catherynne M Valente (via honeyspider)

plantagenet:

E V E R Y  I N C H  O F  M Y  T A R  B L A C K  S O U L | a deathless fanmix for my darling wife ivannikolayevich

[download]

• AVE MARIA | regina spektor; the muscles of the intellectuals are atrophying / nobody’s running, nobody’s hiding / they’re lit by a light that isn’t even the sun / lit by a light that isn’t even the moon / ave maria, ave maria / now how many times have i told you not to go there? / how many times have i begged you not to ? / and how many times have you snuck down to that cellar?
   
• TWO HUNGRY BLACKBIRDS | samuel beam; if i could be over you when the sky starts falling would you be smothered under me? / if i could be under you if the earth was burning would you be crying over me? / poetry tempered with tragedy / tempted and pulled when you cry upon my sleeve / two flocks of blackbirds meet in the air
   
• THE BEAST | laura marling; i’m pulled by the pull on my throat, i’m pulled by the rope / i swing from the trees into the slope / hold my head high, just by the tip of my toes / and he lies, he lies so sweet that I choke / tonight i choose the beast, tonight he lies with me
   
• OFF TO THE RACES | lana del rey; my old man is, a tough man / but he got a soul as sweet as blood red jam and he shows me, he knows me / every inch of my tar black soul …likes to watch me in the glass room, bathroom, chateau marmot / slipping on my red dress, putting on my make up / glass film, perfume, cognac, lilac fumes, says it feels like heaven to him
   
• BENEATH YOUR TREE | bowerbirds; i can drag my legs across the desert but my lips will still thirst for you, dear / yet i feel your pains like a furnace / though it burns, i go on / i keep on crawling
   
• TAKE TO THE SKY | tori amos; this house is like russia, with eyes cold and grey / you got me moving in a circle / i dyed my hair red today / i just want a little passion to hold me in the dark / i know i’ve got some magic buried deep in my heart, but my priest says ‘you ain’t saving no souls’, / …and here i stand with this sword in my hand
   
• TIGER MOUNTAIN PEASANT SONG | fleet foxes; dear shadow, alive and well, how can the body die? / you tell me everything, anything true / in the town one morning i went / staggering through premonitions of my death / i don’t see anybody that dear to me / …i don’t know what i have done / i’m turning myself into a demon
   
• TO THE LIGHTHOUSE | patrick wolf; now the bombs drop around our feet / do we throw them back or bow and greet them? / everyone now is so terrified of the glowing dark and those orange skies / “build your castle, stop throwing stones ‘cause those firebirds are coming down on our homes.”
   
• IN ANOTHER LIFE | vienna teng; in another life i was married at thirteen / you were killed at twenty-one on a minor battlefield / i was buried beside my second stillborn child / my last thought it seemed was a fever dream… / and we feel it like the shiver of a passing train / that other life deep underground / you and i, side by side / we are the next time ‘round
   
• A HEART ARCANE | horse feathers; it was a year so wild not a month was tame / it’s where your friends all foul your name / while you would drag your feet, you’re inclined to do the same / can you believe what they done? / gave you half of what’s left, which was none / your starving for sure, your searching for words, the last thing you heard: / you’re turning a page, they’re telling you now / you’re dying of young age. 
   
• STREET SPIRIT (FADE OUT) | radiohead; cracked eggs, dead birds scream as they fight for life / i can feel death, can see its beady eyes / all these things into fruition / all these things we’ll one day swallow whole / and fade out again and fade out again

"You will live as you live anywhere. With difficulty, and grief. Yes, you are dead. And I and my family and everyone, always, forever. All dead, like stones. But what does it matter? You still have to go to work in the morning. You still have to live." — Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless  (via winterthenfell)

(Source: chyertimaiden, via honeyspider)

"The stallion snorted, and his breath curled in the cold. “Marya Morevna, we are better at this than you are. We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. Never have your folk delighted us more, been more like family. For a devil, hypocrisy is a parlor game, like charades. Such fun, and when the evening is done we shall be holding our bellies to keep from dying of laughter." — Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via widespindriftgaze)

"A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape." — Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via cake-light)

(via melonylotseven)

Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

(Source: toosoonmadeglad)

I do, yeah! Roxane Mesquida just—is my Marya, really definitively in my head. I’m a bit more open about the men: Emma pointed out that Oscar Isaac would be a bit of snowy-lashed alright for Koschei and I shall give her that without reservation, and in the absence of actual Russian actors for the part don’t you think Nikolaj would be golden (literally) for Ivan?

Oh, and I was thinking Lotte Verbeek would be a good Lebedeva, all you have to do is watch her Giulia Farnese to get that, but also what if Tricia Helfer. What if Tricia Helfer.

She didn’t ask to be beautiful, or to be born in a lake, or to live forever, or to not know how men breathe until they stop doing it.

(Source: trouver-sa-voie)

hotpielookedlikehotpie:

| favorite quotes | 

the old order, it is good for the old. a farmer wants his son to be afraid of beautiful women, so that he will not leave home too soon, so he tells a story about how one drowned his brother’s cousin’s friend in a lake, not because he was a pig who deserved to be drowned, but because beautiful women are bad, and also witches. and it doesn’t matter that she didn’t ask to be beautiful, or to be born in a lake, or to live forever, or to not know how men breathe until they stop doing it.

from Deathless | Catherynne M. Valente

(via melonylotseven)

Makeup ads inspired by Madame Lebedeva.

“Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied.”

(Source: theladymelisandre, via whoistorule)

isabel. 20. machine woman problems. en passant
ASK & SUBMIT & INTRO & LJ

queens and huntsmen, physicality stanning, theater feelings, hilarious myopia, nonstop verbosity, delusions of grandeur. fictional moral compass not found.

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