QUEEN of the NEIGHBORHOOD
I B E A R W I T N E S S
songs for catelyn stark“Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died.”
- A STORM OF SWORDSi. DAUGHTER OF THE RIVERS
but when a southern anthem rings / she will buckle to that sound / when that southern anthem sings / it will lay her burdens down
southern anthem . iron & wine
ii. THE ROCK MY LIFE WAS BUILT UPON
you tell me summer’s here / and the time is wrong / you tell me winter’s here / and your days are getting long
tears in your eyes . yo la tengoiii. ONE DAY SHE WOULD ALLOW HERSELF TO BE LESS THAN STRONG (BUT NOT TODAY)
in spite of it all, i wake up every morning / in spite of it all, in spite of it all, he said, i wake up everyday / i wake up ‘cause there’s no other way
1000 years war . emily wells
iv. A MOTHER OF FIVE, NOW THREE
so shake the leaves off the trees / watch them float down the stream / your son, your daughter / floating in the water
i sing i swim . seabear
v. A CREATURE OF DUST AND BITTER LONGINGS
and i can hold a thunderhead in my heart / and in my bed i can dream a winter’s gale / and wake up drenched a stormy pale, a stormy pale
icebound stream . laura veirs
vi. MY FIRSTBORN SON AND MY LAST
i bear witness to / how your dying choice betrayed your voice / i bear witness to / how the wind wore down the hills of you / i bear witness to / all the shapes that grow inside of you / but will you bear witness / will you bear witness to me?
i bear witness . winterpillsvii. STONEHEART RISING
and i’m going to dress as a raven in black / long are the shadows when light you lack / and see the birds are stirring, lo they wake / and i’m gonna keep on strolling until i ache / and there’s so many plans to make
night rambling (rolling) . martha tilston
viii. MOTHER MERCILESS
they’re all gone, she’ll rot / wishing as she swam / … / they’re all gone, she’ll begin / as just elements again / … / ”they’re all gone” she said / with soar achy fault lines / still following guidelines / a stone’s approach
the loop . mimicking birds
In my End is my Beginning
Dimensions 40” x 29” x 4”
Lightbox mounted threadless embroidery 2011Using manipulated lace patterns, formalised through alchemical symbolism this series attempts to illustrate a a temporary moment of continuity; a state George Baitialle believed could only be experienced in death or through sexual climax.A triptych of embroideries sewn without thread, and mounted onto a light source allowing the pin holes which would normally be concealed to become filled with light exposing the sharply punctured surface and creating an almost cosmic surface.
what to wear when…clawing from the grave to roam the woods for prey. powerful and half-mad from hunger, her jaws yawning open, jowls quivering in fury. her teeth gnash and grind, her eyes blaze and burn. venom gushes through her thick-as-rope veins that bulge blue beneath translucent skin, poison pulsing gently under taut muscles. she’s convulsing, craving, livid and snarling, tossing her head and flinging frothy spittle, snapping her jaws. she’s feral; there’s no taming her now.
post 39 of an infinity-part series
what to wear when…reanimated as living origami, rustling and creased, shuffling about gingerly, unused to the way new bodies tear and crinkle. some people panic and surrender to shredders and lit matches. others carefully slick adhesive along their translucent limbs to fashion papier-mâché armor. most lie very, very still - flat and clean and very, oh, very, very still and safe until they’re casually crumpled into a bin.
post 31 of an infinity-part series
For what Atwood calls her “European wedding dress”—built from fabric found in Paris and gold details recovered in Italy—the designer says she immediately had a vision for the garment’s basic structure and toyed with the details once it was on the stand. “I knew that I wanted to do a caged collar,” she recalls. “I knew that I wanted to have an open sleeve with lacing up it, and I knew the basic shape.”
what to wear when you’re…a bold collector of hearts (literally and figuratively) who experiences her own humanity so viscerally that she is turned inside out (literally and figuratively). her anatomy is the tangible manifestation of her narrative arc. her body is her battlefield, her womanhood a weapon of war.
part 5 of infinity
When the dead rise in movies they’re hideous
and slow. They stagger uphill toward the farmhouse
like drunks headed home from the bar.
Maybe they only want to lie down inside
while some rooms spins around them, maybe that’s why
they bang on the windows while the living
hammer up boards and count out shotgun shells.
The living have plans: to get to the pickup parked
in the yard, to drive like hell to the next town.
The dead with their leaky brains,
their dangling limbs and ruptured hearts,
are sick of all that. They’d rather stumble
blind through the field until they collide
with a tree, or fall through a doorway
like they’re the door itself, sprung from its hinges
and slammed flat on the linoleum. That’s the life
for a dead person: wham, wham, wham
until you forget your name, your own stinking
face, the reason you jolted awake
in the first place. Why are you here,
whatever were you hoping as you lay
in your casket like a dumb clarinet?
You know better now. The soundtrack’s depressing
and the living hate your guts. Come closer
and they’ll show you how much. Wham, wham, wham,
you’re killed again. Thank God this time
they’re burning your body, thank God
it can’t drag you around anymore
except in nightmares, late-night reruns
where you lift up the lid, and crawl out
once more, and start up the hill toward the house.
By Winkout
Everybody has read/seen this right? I remember it was part of this fest on LJ years ago but yeah. Just keep clicking it is one of my favorite fics/fan arts EVER.
(No actual character death. Just. Yes.)
“i’m fucking gay! apparate!” still resonates with me.
felivian
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.”
So that whole ‘The Indian Sherlock’ thing got me brooding over the shitfit some parts of fandom tend to throw at the prospect of a Holmes and/or Watson that aren’t British - and how by ‘British’, they in fact mean ‘a very narrow idea of ~Britishness~ that includes the following attributes: white, English, and coded as upper to upper-middle class’.
And how, if you don’t think that’s true, you should try to imagine fandom’s reaction if the next big Holmes adaptation to come along had Holmes and Watson as British, yeah - young black British men, living case to case on a council estate in a dodgy area of London. How fandom would react if Sherlock Holmes didn’t employ street kids and homeless people like trained animals to do his bidding, but instead was part of that invisible underclass; if instead of having his eccentricities tolerated~ by Scotland Yard on account of being the Great White Genius, Sherlock Holmes, BME, school dropout, and sometime addict, was regarded by the police as practically a criminal already, one more thug, one more junkie, one more dealer in the making. If he had to choose between buying the week’s groceries or palming a twenty to a bored constable for the chance to spend five minutes on a crime scene, in the hope that whoever’s under enough pressure to deal with crime rates in the neighbourhood will pay him enough for a perp to feed himself and Watson for a month or two. If the greatest threat to his safety were police brutality, or the prospect of being done for a snitch; if his arch enemy weren’t Moriarty, but the systemic poverty and inequality that has him helping out his oppressors just to get by, and that makes the other side of the law look more tempting to someone with his skills every day.
And then I realised that I want this adaptation LIKE BURNING, that I have already headcast Holmes and Watson as John Boyega and Leeon Jones, and that from now on whenever I watch Sherlock I will be imagining this instead and crying softly deep within my soul.
