- on mothers

lady bird/ @death-born-aphrodite/ everything, everywhere, all at once/ rupi kaur/ unknown/ maia baia/ your best american girl- mitski/ lady bird/ unknown/ @inkskinned

― Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice‎

Arya and Catelyn, mother and daughter

Arya XI - A Storm of Swords // Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais (1851-52) // Sainte Jeanne D’Arc by Paul de La Boulay // Arya XI - A Storm of Swords // Three Ages of Woman by Gustav Klimt // Mother Wound Healing by Bethany Webster

on mothers

Nayyirah Waheed, Salt//Annie Ernaux, I Remain in Darkness//Ella Wilson, Take Care: Mothers, Daughters and Inheriting Self-Hatred//Sam Gordon, A Mother's Hate//Karl Brjullov, The Last Day of Pompeii//wych elm, Susan Smith//Lady Bird (2017)//@bitterl//Pheobe Bridgers, Kyoto//@filmnoirsbian,the killing grounds//Acacia, mommy//John Green, Turtles All the Way Down//?

04/29/23

sophokles, elektra, trans. anne carson // the bear

@nosebleedclub / feb. #9

ava, tula, and viola: on mothers and daughters

burrow's end ep. 3 // mitski // ep. 2 // supernatural // ep. 3 // annie ernaux // ep. 3 // ritika jyala // ep. 1 // maia baia

there's a really sad parallel theme running through arya and cat's stories and it's that both of them are considered to be Doing Womanhood Improperly and struggling at how to reconcile their own feelings with the expectations of the people around them...

cat spends her whole life with arguably more power than most women would have due to her atypical life; first, as heir presumptive of riverrun, then, as acting lady of riverrun, and finally, as ned's beloved wife. all of this gives her the freedom to do wild stuff like travel to KL in secret, take tyrion hostage (and outwit him at nearly every turn!), get involved in conspiracies and politics and help raise banners, to use her shrewd mind and her intellect in a way that challenges and excites her....but when ned dies, every single iota of power is stripped from her and handed to robb by law and there's nothing she can do to reign in her fifteen year old son who makes mistake after mistake and drowns out her voice because it conflicts with his....

and as she struggles through her complete loss of power, unable to decide for herself where her path will go, unable to give commands, unable to argue for the safety of her daughters, helplessly watching her father die, arya goes on her own journey that involves a complete loss of power. arya's womanhood is a constant threat looming over her head so she leans into her non conformity to save her own life and fears that her newfound strength and harshness will make her mother turn from her for Being A Lady Incorrectly, never knowing that her mother is so desperate to get her back that catelyn has decided she's through being a proper lady and starts arguing back, starts acting without asking, starts showing her resentment on her face and gets herself banished by her own son...

both of them spend all of the first two books struggling with their womanhood only to have a flashpoint of realizing they can simply stop following the rules because the rules are unfair - from arya's " I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth" to catelyn freeing jaime from the dungeons, they realize the Rules of Men will never help them, will never save them, and turn to their own intellect, their own grief, their own cunning and despair and violence, to do what the Rules of Men have never been able to do and that is to keep them as women safe.

And its with each other, I think, that they will only be able to lay down their despair and grief and find both peace and comfort in this new definition of womanhood that they've both carved out for themselves!

the mother wound.

Léon Perrault, Mother with Child // Piss River, Kevin Morby // ? // nocturnal animals (2016) // ? // shameless // mother's apron // Amanda Lovelace // sharp objects // Bethany Webster

YOU’RE A MONSTER, BUT SO AM I

elektra - sophocles, transl. by anne carson / the overture to tannhäuser - paul cézanne / letter to my rage: an evolution - lidia yuknavitch / elektra - sophocles, transl. by anne carson / easier than lying - halsey / incendies - wajdi mouawad / edit by darkrume​ / ‘things you wanted to say but never did’ project - geloy concepcion / enough - suzanne buffam / the witch doesn't burn in this one - amanda lovelace / höstsonaten (autumn sonata, 1978) - dir. ingmar bergman / wildflower wildfire - lana del rey / softer, softest - hole /  asoftwrongness / crazed - katherine quinn / feuchtgebiete (wetlands, 2013) - dir. david wnendt / on earth we're briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong

She knew better than to think I'd stay in my room when I knew...

there is a rage i reserve only for my mother, and i’m sorry about that too.

untitled (to mom) / lynne shako / lady bird, directed by greta gerwig / spellbinding photos of a mother and daughter lost in their own fantasy world, sahara borja / motion sickness, phoebe bridgers / class of 2013, mitski / @filmnoirsbian / “things you wanted to say but never did” project, geloy concepcion

Cause of death: thinking about my mother as a little girl with hopes and dreams she’ll never reach

07/02