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21. Writer. Bibliophile. Student. NorCal. Caffeine addict. Procrastinator.

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"On the third day of each new moon I must be free to do as I wish, and you must swear an oath on the body of the Boar whose flesh gave you sworn warriors that you will not attempt to see me or come near me on that day. Fear not, I will not leave the Castle nor try to escape you. This is my condition, and it cannot be altered.” — The Orphan’s Tales: In The Night Garden, Catherynne M. Valente

"There are only two positions one can take toward anything in life: hope or fear. Hope strengthens, fear kills." -Bloodfever, Karen Marie Moning

"I need coffee in an IV." -Lorelai Gilmore, GG

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

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

"Someone ought to write a novel about me. I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar."

—Lebedeva, Catherynne M. Valente’s “Deathless” (via sendmedaughters)

Cat Valente is writing a companion novel to Deathless. 

…tentatively titled Matryoshka. This is not a sequel, but a side-by-side novel to complete what I’m calling the Leningrad Diptych. It is a retelling of Ivan and the Firebird set during the children’s evacuation of Leningrad. Some familiar faces will pop up, as in all Russian fairy tales, but it will be a story all its own. The gender-shifting trickster Grey Wolf, the Water of Life and Death, firebirds, valkyries, talking dolls and the return of Baba Yaga—Matryoshka is a dark mirror of the London evacuation and a journey into the heart of the war.

Matryoshka will be out in 2015.

"Koschei turned, gripped Marya’s chin, and kissed her — not on the cheek, not chastely or unchastely, but greedily, with his whole, hard mouth, cold, biting, knowing. He ate up her breath in the kiss. Marya felt he would swallow her whole."

—Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via corcordium)

"Perhaps all a Tsaritsa is is a beautiful cold girl in the snow, looking down at someone wretched, and not yielding."

—Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via honeyspider)

aseaofquotes:

Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

"If you think my brother is any different, girl, then there’s no help for you. He’ll burn you down like wax if you let him. You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart. And maybe it will be. But he’s so hungry, he’ll eat you all in one sitting, and you’ll be in his belly, and what will you do then? Hear me say it, because I know. I ate all of my husbands. First I ate their love, then their will, then their despair, and then I made pies out of their bodies — and those bodies were so dear to me! But marriage is war, and you do what you must to survive — because only one of you will.”
Marya swallowed hard. “I’m not like that,” she whispered.
“We’ll see. When you’re flying along in a mortar and pestle with the moon screaming in your ear, and you look so much like me no man could tell us apart, we’ll se what you’re like. Only one thing matters, almost-soup: Who is to rule."

—Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless (via painauchocolat-)

“The little domovaya said she’d known you all your life, and that you were wicked and had left her, too, but also that you would come back, probably. Wicked creatures never stay away for long, she said.” -Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente