"we need to be out of control. we crave it."

the fierce maenad bitch of true blood's second season. guys, how fucking cool was she? her whole goal in life was to throw wild orgy parties & be the bride of dionysus. she always had these wonderful fruit platters in her giant mansion & rolled the best joints & wore the most incredible outfits that i coveted with my very being. i can't believe there were actually people who didn't like her and i get that i say that about a lot of my favorite characters and i get that i tend to like a lot of difficult women (which i will never apologize for, they're the fucking best) but maryann. MARYANN!!

"Things without all remedy/Should be without regard: what's done is done."

the serpent under the flower. a darling. lady macbeth is the sort of woman who could build & destroy empires with a smile -- yet for all her ravenous ambition, she is human, she requires love & attention.

actresses have commonly reacted to the prospect of playing her with horror, because they cannot seem to cope with her immense transformation from beginning to death, with the gap in between where macbeth is rising and the lady seems to be deteriorating both mentally & physically. this must be her humanity shining through, though -- the depression in reaction to the slaughter of lady macduff & her young child, the depression at being rejected by her husband, who refuses to see her. when the play begins, they are one. macbeth calls her "my dearest partner of greatness" and by the time he is at her peak, he has killed her through separation. my dearest partner of greatness. she does more than just whisper in his ear. don't forget who takes the daggers from macbeth's hands and goes back into that room. who manages the dinner party where her husband's dead best friend has shown up with grace and wit, who faints when she must, who regrets her sins deeply, who upholds everything they have worked for while she is cherished.

also the earlier acts macbeths are basically my role model for a perfect marriage. ALWAYS.

witch goddess of aeaea. i have to keep repeating this: circe never lost. she took odysseus's men and stripped them down to their real selves -- pigs -- she rearranged them & locked them up, these trespassers, these unwanted guests. don't think the theme of begrudging hospitality is lost to the women of the odyssey. don't think the irony of a woman's space, created through patriarchy and completely inaccessible to men, is lost to us. circe took odysseus to her bed because she wanted him there, and she let him go because she wanted to let him go. she sent his men to hades to die twice -- she set off a chain reaction of undoing the male body the moment they entered her realm, unwelcome & demanding, completely ignorant of the power of home & sisterhood.

the youngest of odysseus's fleet dies on her island, drunk off wine -- and they must bury him there, in the soil of the earth that is an extension of circe herself, her body & her nature, taking what she wants & undoing it as she pleases -- weaving at her loom to evoke the patient wives of brave men -- singing to call them in -- letting them go again, but after a year and never without a price.