sonhoedesrazao:

So I’ve just read the crackiest fairy tale ever. It’s a Russian story called Maria Morevna. Allow me to recount it. 

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Everything is Deathless and nothing everything hurts

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

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• 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

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

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.

Yes, Marya thought, the smell of woodsmoke and old snow pushing back her long black hair. Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear at all.

Deathless - Catherynne M. Valente (via shadowbabies)

hotpielookedlikehotpie:

| favorite quotes | 

She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like a death. And now Ivan sat there, studiously not eating his bread smeared thickly with butter, waiting for her attention, her regard, but she could forget him in a moment if Koschei pulled her towards him like a little moon, and she knew it, and she felt herself splitting and tearing between them, her human heart, her demon heart.

from Deathless | Catherynne M. Valente

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: gematriya)

Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

(Source: toosoonmadeglad)

hotpielookedlikehotpie:

| favorite quotes |

I will tell you why. Because you are a demon, like me. And you do not care very much if other girls have suffered, because you want only what you want. You will kill dogs, and hound old women in the forest, and betray any soul if it means having what you desire, and that makes you wicked, and that makes you a sinner, and that makes you my wife.

from Deathless | Catherynne M. Valente

W H O   I S   T O   R U L E ↪ a marya morevna fanmix
                                                           D O W N L O A D ↺

“But marriage is war, and you do what you must to survive—because only one of you will. Only one thing matters: Who is to rule.”

❖ Sweetest Poison Instrumental ⇥ The Clockwork Dolls

❖ Woman King ⇥ Iron & Wine

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see
a woman king
sword in hand
swing at some evil and bleed

❖ Touched ⇥ VAST

touched
you say that I am too
so much of what you say is true
I’ll never find someone
quite like you
again

❖The Knife Thrower ⇥ Mirah

you say this is a game so take your place
then you set the mask upon your face
my silhouette in the air you trace
and the dagger performs with a start

❖ Confess ⇥ Jillian Ann

I must confess
I love without regret
and I must confess
I live without regret

❖ This Girl Is Taking Bets ⇥ Thea Gilmore

this girl is a black eye, she’s a bruise on your knee
she’s the ashes of the people that you really meant to be
this girl’s the resurrection, she’s the comeback
she’s the absinthe and whiskey, she is poetry and prozac

❖ Extraordinary Machine ⇥ Fiona Apple

if there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me
be kind to me
or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it
I’m an extraordinary machine

❖ Army of Me ⇥ Bjork

stand up
you’ve got to manage
I won’t sympathize
anymore

and if you complain once more
you’ll meet an army of me

❖ Evil Night Together ⇥ Jill Tracy

we’ll drink a toast in the torture chamber
and you’ll go down on a bed of nails
we’ll rendevous in cold blood
I’ll tie you up to the third rail

❖ Before I’m Dead ⇥ Kidneythieves

moon hangs around
a blade over my head
reminds me what to do before I’m dead
night consumes light
and all I dread
reminds me what to do before I’m dead

❖ No One Knows ⇥ Lennon

run my hands over you under the table
no one really knows what we’re capable of
no one really has to know

❖ You Don’t Own Me ⇥ Rasputina

you don’t own me, no
don’t try to change me in any way
you don’t own me, no
don’t tie me down ‘cause I’d never stay

❖ Everywhere and Nowhere ⇥ Wendy Rule

I’m dancing along to the night
a frenzied and wild exchange
a dangerous spark is alight
and willing inertia to change
where all that was certain is strange
the only thing constant is change

❖ Black Black Heart ⇥ David Usher

all these blessings, all these burns
I’m godless underneath your cover
search for pleasure, search for pain
in this world now I am undying

❖ The Devil and Me ⇥ Hera

then he came and he stood by my window
told me it’s safe, that he’ll carry me home
why, why do you sit by the window
I’ll take you out, aren’t you sad on your own?

hotpielookedlikehotpie:

| favorite quotes |

Lebedeva’s eyes shone. “Masha, listen to me. 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.

from Deathless | Catherynne M. Valente

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.

(Source: theladymelisandre)

Masha, listen to me. 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: ivannikolayevich)

(Source: ivannikolayevich)

“War is not for winning, Masha. It is for surviving.”