death hath no dominion

Welcome all children of the revolution, tsars and tsaritsas, domoviye, volchitsas, birds, vila & leshies! But please, no Ivans. Fan blog dedicated to the perfection that is Catherynne M. Valente's novel 'Deathless'. Home of the official campaigns 'Aneurin Barnard for Koschei' and 'Alicia Vikander for Marya'.

[sithslord]

So I grabbed my king and ran away to a land of death, where I reigned and people whispered that I’d been dragged.

[fuckyeahdeathless]

Need more Koschei in your life? I mean there’s only so many times you can read Deathless, amirite?

This rp blog is REALLY awesome go check it out. I, personally, have spent eons just scrolling through just fangirling my little volchitsa heart out. Enjoy loves :)

[apesofdoom]

Death Witch

[130186]

[canadiansliveinigloos]

Zuhair Murad

[soracities]

And wasn’t it sacred, the sweetness we licked from each other’s hands? And were we not lovely, then, were we not as lovely as thunder, and damp grass, and flame?

Cecilia Woloch, from Anniversary (via 5000letters)

[andie--fitzgerald]

so I mean admittedly I’m probably not in my rightly objective mind saying this because I’m riding an Aaron Johnson wave like it’s a 40ft’er on the North Shore of Oahu but. 

I’m having Aaron for Koschei feels??

Someone please tell me they could potentially see it. 

[quotlandia]

Do you know what it took for me to be here? Do you know what hells I’ve shed on my way to your mouth?

Khary Jackson, from “How to Make Love” (via pigmenting)

[andie--fitzgerald]

this is dumb i'm sorry but can you tell me what do you think exactly happened at the end of deathless?seems like everyone has a different idea and i'm confused :(

it’s not dumb, I’ve gotten like 5 asks about this actually a lot of people seem confused. Obviously I wanna start with the fact that this entire book but esp the ending is super open to interpretation. I think Valente makes a really good point of talking about how fairy tales carry so much meaning because WE GIVE them so much meaning. Not just as a society, but each of us individually. So pretty much whatever anyone sees in the story or the ending is valid. 

Because I saw Marya as a symbol of Russia herself, I felt that the ending addressed the end of the cold war (Russia’s people taking the country back for themselves and not for any prince or any dictator, or at least that was the idea) as well as the ‘end of the fairy tale’ in as belieavable a way as possible. Throughout the story Valente meets and tackles every fairy tale/mythological trope she can get her hands on with this narrative. The ‘fairy tale ending’ is no different. In the end, it was always Koschei for Marya, but what Marya really needed proven to her was that he felt the same way. That after she left he was changed. That she had made an impact on him and wasn’t just another marriage, just another pretty girl, just another spin of the fairy tale wheel. We get a clear idea of just how much it tore Koschei apart that Marya left from her meeting with Baba Yaga. So basically, Marya gets what she needs and is finally able to believe that Koschei needed and loved her as much as she needed and loved him. 

It’s important to address here that I also always saw Koschei as a metaphor for Marya’s life. Ivan is the human boy. Koschei is the wild energy of living her life, of being selfish, of being happy, of being queen, of being a soldier, of being fully alive. That is what Marya has when she is with him. That is what she loses when she chooses (for a time) to bask in giving herself over to a human man and her love for him (though she also gains the experience of human infatuation and passionate love and domesticated marriage). The end of the book, more than anything for me, was Marya dying and meeting Koschei (her life) again in that death and finding relief in both (there is a bitter but beautiful poignancy to the reality of this ending after Valente gives her audience the honey sweet taste of what life might have been like, the real fairy tale dream it MIGHT have been had Koschei nver put his death into the egg with Yaichka, which is still my favorite part of the entire book tbh). 

It is also about the story coming to an end with an implication that it will start again as soon as it has ended. Because that’s the nature of being deathless. Wherever there is a girl picking up the book for the first time or a father telling his children the story of Marya Morevna, Queen Across the Sea and Koschei the Deathless, the story is alive. It is a breathing organism that never dies because we never let it. That story is always being told or talked about in some part of the world. And that’s how you get Deathless ;)

[vilarps]

[foggydevils]

LITERATURE MEME  |  DEATHLESS BY CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

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.

[wordsnquotes]

Let me glimpse inside your velvet bones.

Edgar Allan Poe (via wordsnquotes)

[facinaoris]

make me choose |

cleopatriapeterson asked hecate or medea

[swcnlake]

FAIRY TALE IDEAS:

A fairytale were a young girl is kidnapped and forced to marry a demon king. “We are equals now,” she says, “I want to rule beside you”, and the king agrees. But she lusts for blood, destruction and chaos, slowly draining her husband of his power, control, life. When at last he tries to fight back, he’s thrown into gaol, left to rot for all eternity while she rules his kingdom with a cold heart and an iron fist, his people now loyal to her and only her. 

Inspired by this text post

[theloupgaroux]

It’s not so bad, my darling. Being dead. It’s like being alive, only colder. Things taste less. They feel less. You forget, little by little, who you were. There isn’t much love, but there is a lot of vodka, and reminiscing. It’s rather like a university reunion, but the cakes and tarts are made of dust. And there is always a war on. But there was always a war on before, too, wasn’t there?

Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via mazzello)

[theoneohseventh]

Deathless fancast: Marie Avgeropoulos as Marya Morevna

“I am Marya Morevna, daughter of twelve mothers, and I will not be denied.” [x]

[anachronisticfairytales]

Miles Johnston

[130186]