#evil xena can get it

[pwaise-hestia]

[smallhatlogan]

Every show airing when I was a kid needed to have that “cartoonish misandrist learns that it’s not okay to hate men even as the men around her are THE WORST. Maybe she even gets to be enemies to lovers with a lovable misogynist” episode

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

⚔️⚔️ Sword gays showdown, grand finale ⚔️

*Camilla fanart by @friendamedes, used with permission

Propaganda:

For Camilla:

she prefers dual-wielding two short blades but can fight with pretty much anything. she's ambidextrous she's autistic she's even sex-repulsed ace. she sighs longingly when reunited with her weapons. she's from planet academia and dresses like an off-duty librarian. literally one of the most iconic moments of the entire series is when she gets challenged to a duel and absolutely wipes the floor with her opponent even though she doesn't even like rapiers that much. 'swords don't lie.' 

OK I’m sure you’re getting just about every character from The Locked Tomb but Cam is my favorite. She's a nerd AND a jock. She is in this deeply intense and loving and unhealthily codependent soulbond partnership with her best friend second cousin and prince. She is smart and deadpan snarky and fights like a grease fire and I have never been able to get that line out of my head.

For Gideon:

she's incredibly good w/ her two hander and less good with her rapier but she's still pretty good!! she is a horny lesbian who's taste in women seems to exclusively be "girls who have tried or are going to try to kill her". she's a redhead. i love her

Gideon’s a HUGE Butch lesbian and literally always wanted to use a broad sword. Specifically a broad sword. She said fuck rapiers. Uhhh literally dies to save the girl she cares for and the sword she uses then becomes like an altar for said girl. Gideon Nav Supremacy <3

oh she is the most badass swordswoman lesbian in media. she’s her gf’s cavalier, defends her in battle, she’s incredibly butch and buff

C'mon shes THE sword lesbian like... canonically 

Loves her broadsword more than anything on her home planet and practices whenever she can. Spoiler it’s possessed by her mom. Gave everything so her best enemy could eat her soul and become the new saint. The character of all time child of two separate threesomes, child of the god emperor, she’s dead, she’s butch, she’s a dork, she’s doomed by the narrative. She’s my favorite.

girlie is literally the swordswoman supreme. she’s the cavalier primary to her necromancer. she has a fuckoff huge longsword. she gets absorbed into another person SPECIFICALLY to swordfight for them. in a gay way too.

While everyone else was developing common sense, she studied the blade. This dyke's main weapon and true love is the long sword, but she's also passable with a rapier. The sword is, in her own estimation, pretty much all she's good for. That and her smoking hot bod and terribly charming sense of humor. 

"While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade." (Direct quote from the book). She's the most useless lesbian to ever exist, and she's obsessed with an absolute wet cat of a woman. Learned longsword mostly on her own and is such a genius with the sword she learned rapier in a few months (by personal experience, it's really really hard)

Most badass broadsword wielding lesbian easily slaying bone monsters and evil space wasps

The cavalier to her necromancer. very gay. in a complicated codependant lovehate relationship with the only other person her age she knew growing up.

For Xena:

It is HER! The OG woman with a blade! 

Her show was so iconic that any lesbian over the age of 30 knows her IMMEDIATELY because this show probably helped her have her awakening. Fandom foremothers and fathers rise up and get your gal a title.

An all around badass, bisexual woman, comfortable with many different bladed weapons. Her show was so much better than Hercules people forget his exists.

Xena is one of the OGs: once a baddie who turned good, she's a warrior who uses swords, daggers, and her trusty chakram to defeat evil and defend the innocent, while traveling with her kickass girlfriend Gabrielle. 

She has many skills

[marley-manson]

man nothing in the world hits like a novel length xena fic all about her violence

the one i'm re-reading rn is like xena descending back into really horrific brutality because of her intense guilt over her evil past - like she's projecting onto a new enemy and lashing out extra hard, somewhat ironically, because she sees her past in this particular warlord army - and like, where else can you find a female character who gets this treatment from fandom?

the violence is so perfectly detailed to highlight how fucked up it is, gabrielle is horrified and trying and failing to pull her back, and it's all xena. she has all the agency in the world here, it's all about violence she's committing of her own free will, not forced by circumstances or survival or a mysterious organization, not born into the killer lifestyle, but just driven by sadism and lust for power, and now sadism and guilt

and while this particular fic goes extra hard on the theme of violence, like my favourite thing about the xena fandom is that it crops up to some degree in fic all the time, because it's such a basic aspect of the show. the last fic i read also coincidentally delved into xena's evil actions in her past and her guilt and her present day violence and how it impacts her relationship with gabrielle. conqueror fic where xena never turned to heroism is an entire popular subgenre. plotty action fic where xena grins while decapitating people abounds.

and on top of that 90% the fic is gay

absolute paradise honestly

[raisinchallah]

look if gabrielle ever wanted xena to like settle down with her and live with the amazons and raise their totally not evil this time magic baby together the only way it could work is like by amazon queen gabrielles decree they refocus all their efforts into constructing an insane complex death maze around the local outcropping of ambrosia and like advertise it far and wide making it like the disneyland of murder death kill labyrinths for people with ambitions of godhood and u know every few months when someone succeeds and gets the ambrosia xena can stop pacing around the camp all antsy and get that sicko grin on her face and go like fight the latest ambrosia obsessed freak to the death for a bit and like if its ever gabrielles unsettlingly close advisor who keeps trying to subtly drop hints to gabrielle about how amazon divorce law works and that its also super normal for amazon queens to take on many lovers and that she would do anything for gabrielle if like she ever decides to have delusions of godhood to get xena out of the way well that only makes it more fun for xena to have a crazy gravity defying death battle with and gabrielle of course is kept entertained by having a captive audience for her stories and impressionable girls she can mold into the first generation of amazon theater kids to act out her plays and of course rules and bureaucracy she can play around with yeah this is how they would save their marriage from xena like dying like a caged zoo animal in like a tiny concrete cage from boredom and lack of enrichment she just needs a monthly crazed freak to battle (the death labyrinth is for weeding out all the boring posers who wont entertain her)

[girl4music]

It’s interesting to think of Callisto not just as Xena’s arch-nemesis and main foil but also as Gabrielle’s mirror image and parallel because she can’t be much older than Gabrielle is. I mean Xena destroyed Callisto’s village when she was only a child. True, Xena was a teenager herself when she went on her 10 year long period of darkness. But she is obviously older by a good margin of years. I would say maybe 10 years between her and Gabrielle and 7 between her and Callisto. Say Xena was 16 when she began her dark period. That would make Gabrielle 6 and Callisto 9.

Which I think definitely checks out by the time we get to Xena’s army pillaging and destroying Cirra. Xena would be 20. Callisto would be 13 and Gabrielle 10.

So it’s interesting to think of Callisto as what Gabrielle could have been if Xena’s army had attacked Poteidaia instead of Cirra and murdered her family instead of Callisto’s. As I said - Gabrielle wasn’t special. There was nothing in her that would have made any real difference if those things had happened to her instead. Nothing but the love between her and Xena.

Which obviously she wouldn’t have had if circumstances had just played out that way.

If Gabrielle was Callisto and Callisto was Gabrielle.

And I like that Callisto tries to make Gabrielle see this when Gabrielle asks her if she felt anything when Xena confessed her crimes in ‘A Necessary Evil’ to a random village at her request in exchange for her assistance in stopping and defeating Velasca. She basically says: “Think about if this was you, would you be different?”

And Gabrielle wouldn’t have an answer for her…

Not yet. You see, to Callisto… Gabrielle fell in love with the villain. She wouldn’t possibly understand that. But Gabrielle wouldn’t possibly understand how Xena couldn’t be the hero. And it’s one hell of a dichotomy.

CALLISTO: “My goodness, are you trying to figure me out? I’m flattered.”

GABRIELLE: “Answer me. Or are you afraid?”

CALLISTO: “Let’s play a game, shall we?”

GABRIELLE: “All right.”

The way Callisto HITS when interpreting Xena and Gabrielle as a love story is so god damn DELICIOUS.

“You fell in love with the destroyer of my soul. Why would you think I would ever give mercy to you? But you’re no different to me. Circumstances saved you.

Instead of Xena destroying your life, she rescued your life. As my hatred for her grew, your love for her grew.

You could never understand me, little girl.”

But of course we know she does… eventually.

But she still looks at Xena as the hero. And that will always be the delicious striking difference with this.

In Callisto’s eyes - Xena is the villain.

In Gabrielle’s eyes - the hero.

What makes the difference? Honestly… Nothing but the circumstances because Gabrielle is no different.

Gabrielle fell in love. Callisto fell in hate.

Xena refused to let Gabrielle praise her - celebrate her. Nor did she ever ask for Callisto’s forgiveness. Ever.

She told her she was sorry but she didn’t force a narrative that she knew was absolutely impossible no matter how much Gabrielle believed in her goodness.

This show is not about heroes vs villains.

It’s about actions vs consequences.

The circumstances are the only difference between. And storytelling like that will always last because it will always be relevant and resonant for real people.

And once again - I have to highly praise the writers for refusing to let the protagonists off with plot armor. For refusing to sugarcoat the events and situations that happen in this show just because they’re the heroines and they’re a representation of women loving women. Because it’s also a representation of women hating women and that deserved to be just as focused on and just as much respected as the love story there.

Callisto was never undermined and I am so grateful. And great storytellers never have to sacrifice anyway. They can simultaneously tell a beautiful story of love, forgiveness and devotion and tell a compelling story of revenge, hatred and burden. That is great writing because it’s always honest, realistic and authentic.

And Callisto is emphasised xBILLION in a WLW love story because she becomes the main conflict in it.

Then everything that happens suddenly is MORE because the romance in this show doesn’t ruin it.

It only ever makes it more worth watching because the writers knew exactly what they were doing with it because not a single character arc ever suffers for it.

👏👏👏

[nattensijus]

devi is an insane episode and by insane i mean it drives me mad while watching it. gabrielle as a goddess. the way she LOOKS. xena and gabrielle behave like a married couple but also the whole xena is doubting gabrielle's newfound power thing. can i just mention gabrielle's outfits again. also i'm obsessed with the dynamic of eli and xena. xena saying fuck it i'll do the exorcism to get back gabrielle. gabrielle's whole "Am I sizzling, now?! Am I burning?! Am I still evil incarnate, Xena?" monologue?? GABRIELLE LICKING HER FACE???

[beigetiger]

Trying to write about Skulduggery and Valkyrie in an AU. It is turning out very long, so in the meantime I’m gonna talk about what the Sanctuary is up to.

This au pulls the very stereotypical “most of civilization has collapsed”, so Roarhaven is incredibly crowded full of people mortal and sorcerer alike, and the city is shielded at certain times of the day to protect from threats (most notably Mevolent/Serafina or the Faceless Ones).

Like, when I say packed, I mean packed. Pretty much the whole city is stacked on top of each other and some people are seeing if they can connect the buildings together to form one massive structure, and even that isn’t enough to hold all the people now penned up in this city. Splashes of magic are becoming even more widespread, especially among mortals, to the point that some of the police have started to crack down on it. There are also people who can’t afford places to stay who all sleep together under one big tarp to conserve body heat, it is a mess.

China got aged down to about her forties in this au because of the magic blast, which really led to her being annoyed that magical explosions kept tampering with her age. She’s no longer the principal of Corrival and now she lives on the edge of town running a business as a Signum Linguist (since Signum Linguists are in very high demand in Roarhaven). She doesn’t create Splashes, but she does make weapons and/or enhancements for soldiers, particularly mortal ones (which I will get into later).

Corrival Academy is technically no longer functional but many of the teachers do still teach, and they find places and times to do it so that students can show up in groups and learn. Teachers like Fletcher and Militsa are partially helping the Sanctuary keep organized and on-task and partially trying to organize and actual school for kids since the last one fell apart. Also Militsa broke up with Valkyrie again on account of Val being an evil god (AGAIN), and now she and Fletcher are disaster besties who’re trying to keep it together. The two of them somehow managed to keep Xena alive until her death at an old doggy age.

Ghastly is still running things over at the Sanctuary, and he is having a VERY rough go of it. On top of mortals finding out about magic and chaos ensuing, he also has to deal with the fact that he now knows that Skulduggery is Lord Vile (because of what Cadaver told him) and that Valkyrie defended him for years (and has now turned into a slightly deranged god). He, Tanith, and Temper have been working together to create different military units with different purposes now that they have more demographics of people to keep track of, protect, and make use of. In short, Ghastly is even more burnt out than he was before the apocalypse.

The mortals have also been making themselves useful, usually working as soldiers for the Sanctuary. I talked about technomages a bit earlier, and I am talking about them now. Lots of the mortals now living in Roarhaven have been going out of their way to equip magical tools (usually weapons) to help them keep up with the sorcerers. This has led to them basically forming into military units working for the Sanctuary and has greatly increased their firepower, making them slightly less appealing to attack.

On top of Temper, Tanith, and Ghastly at the top of the Sanctuary, Dexter Vex also has a little group of his own who technically don’t work for the Sanctuary, but stay in Roarhaven and are more than willing to do tasks alongside them. Aside from Dexter, this team consists of Saracen (who was revived in the same way as Anton), Kierre, Aurora, Frightening, Donegan, and Gracious. Kierre showed back up when the Sanctuary (aided by China’s sigils) figured out a way to fix her boyfriend, and Aurora and Frightening found each other in America shortly after the general apocalypse (North America did not take it well) and then hopped over to Ireland to find Dexter. The Monsters Hunters did something similar to this except that they were in England at the time, and Saracen basically respawned in Ireland.

One of the people who is not present at the Sanctuary (or in Roarhaven at all) is Anton Shudder. He’s off working for Valkyrie for reasons that I plan on explaining in a later post, but he (and Valkyrie) are missed dearly by their friends.

Unlike most of the other groups in this au, Roarhaven isn’t actually aggressive and doesn’t go out of their way to pick fights with other gangs, instead working to act as a safe space for refugees from the war. They’re also completely stationary, which is why they have the part-time shield to protect them from attacks. Valkyrie is willing to spend resources to protect them, but they don’t entirely trust her and so she tends to give them space. They do get visits from her occasionally though, and she’s described as feeling like a harbinger of doom.

Much words, sorry to spam you all with au stuff

[ivyinforests]

I’m thinking about an absolutely epic Xena/Legends of Tomorrow crossover and it’s so cool. Believe me. But it’s mostly got me thinking about how Sara and Xena have such similar arcs (did horrible things after ‘just surviving’ went too far, lost a lot getting themselves back, dead sibling, resurrection (not a spoiler as both die constantly), bisexual, strong themes of love being the most important thing to rely on, REALLY good at combat, was temporarily blinded, fun combo of evil and awesome exes, moved from side character/love interest to lead of a different show, silly episodes interspersed with heartbreaking questions about morality, redemption, and whether living a good life is something they can ever hope for, sabotaging relationships to spare the other person, that one tragic ex-gf who they still have a lot of regrets about, etc) and I really do have predictable taste in shows.

[sniperct]

with xena being from the 90s is there anything specificically dubious or of the time that people should know of ahead of time before going in? ie the similar vein to warning people of tng test of honor and other drek in 90s trek?

hope you dont mind the ask, youre just one of the few people I see around still chatting about xena

some of it is YMMV. the entire show plays fast and loose with all kinds of mythology and magic from not just Greece/Rome but as far away as brittania, norway, china and egypt. (all the gods of each culture seem to exist simultaneously and occasionally interact/chat with each other.) But generally plotlines are one of the following:

Xena's evil past has consequences

Warlord/God acting up and needs to be defeated

A god is being mischievous and needs to be outwitted (aphrodite, cupid, some others are common here)

something silly/over the top/campy

Gabrielle is trying to figure out her life's direction

Xena's Personal Beef with Rome and Caesar in Particular

sometimes multiple or all of the above (see Fish Femmes and Gems)

Up to season 5 on my current rewatch, I'd say The Way is still probably the most culturally insensitive (they actually had to record a PSA on hinduism over it). The two leading up to that didn't seem to get any backlash that I could tell when reading about it. (its a three part story that's super important to the plotline and character development of the show and hammers home the soulmate angle, especially the second one). But I'm no gonna speak for that culture or anything, just what I read on the wiki. But the third part I know enough to feel uncomfortable with it). Ripped from the wiki:

The episode was pulled from syndication after protests from Hindu groups. It was finally allowed to be reshown with the addition of a public service announcement at the very end by Lucy, Renée, as well as a spokesman for the Hindu community explaining that the producers took liberties with the Hindu religion.

In general, jokes and silliness overall tend to land well, especially if you enjoy camp.

While it can be clumsy in some respects overall it handles gender and race pretty well, there's a variety of women of various roles. They had someone in drag at a fashion show episode who (who late IRL came out as trans) that was handled really well. The Amazons are very much sexy but also deep and spiritual.

Casting generally appears to be race blind with regard to heroic roles, evil roles and the more complicated grey area 'seeking redemption' roles and mostly seems to try to cast appropriately on a cultural basis. Like warlord casting seemed to be like 'are you a big guy? you're hired!'

Nothing ever seemed to approach test of honor's level of bad IMO, except maybe The Way.

(I'd argue there's even some meta commentary with regard to centaurs and centaur culture and how its treated)

Its got some of your standard 'guy likes girl, does stupid shit for girl' type stuff but he gets character growth and ultimately he's family. He's the little brother, 'only we can bully him but god help you if you bully him' type of dynamic. Someone hurts our proto-himbo joxer and xena and gabrielle go for the throat. Then ten minutes later are roasting him.

The only episode I really skip is the gross one involving lice and a skin rash(but at least they let the lady heroes be gross, quite frequently in fact). Maybe also skipping the married ...with children parody episode too. The Way could maybe get by with a summary but I wanted to watch it again specifically to see where it fell on the character part. Pretty important to jumpstarting Gabrielle's peace arc.

[dadrielle]

lolololol fine, twist my arm why don't you, here are my Gabrielle and Imogen thoughts.

Ok, so, one thing I like to turn around in my mind and talk a lot about is how Gabrielle’s moral confidence was shaken after the Rift (for non-Xena-fan followers, this was a series of events that put Xena and Gabrielle at odds and culminated in Gabrielle’s demon-spawn daughter killing Xena’s son, and Gabrielle having to kill her daughter like, twice (neither one stuck)(lol)). She went from having a very strong concept of her own internal moral framework to being unsure and casting about for something she could adhere to in order to regain some sense of knowing The Right Thing To Do. She became even more vulnerable to culty people like Najara and Aiden and Eli, because she was desperately seeking an external scaffolding to hang her morals on because she no longer trusted herself. This lead directly into her misguided pacifism arc, and then into her decision to ultimately put aside that search for her own path in order to follow Xena’s full warrior path, which is really the great tragedy of her character.

Imogen does not reach that point through the same means, of course, but she likewise struggles quite a bit with trusting her own moral sense. She is constantly asking others whether people or actions are good or bad, and second guessing her own actions and worth and motivations. She desperately wants the answers to be easy because they never have been and she is exhausted. She thinks she might be tainted; how can she trust herself to make the right calls? And I think that makes her more likely to both want to believe in authority figures and to be particularly let down by them not being all they’re cracked up to be. Had the Vanguard found her before Laudna, it’s very possible they would have been able to recruit her against her better instincts. I don’t think she would be a true believer and would ultimately rebel against the human cost of the project but without the Hells and Laudna in particular she too would be very much vulnerable to cults.

In both cases, they do actually have strong beliefs and a core desire to help rather than hurt people. But they don’t trust themselves to do it correctly and that gets them in trouble. In both cases, too, the strength of their love is also seeded in this weakness. Gabrielle refused to believe that Hope could be intrinsically evil. Imogen wants so badly for her mother’s actions to come from a place of care. But that lack of self-trust means that when they lean too far into their ability to understand the motives of and have compassion for others, it becomes paralytic instead of balancing.

I hope that Imogen’s arc takes her on a different path than Gabrielle’s; as I said, I think Gabrielle’s ultimate decision to model herself on Xena more fully is a very tragic one. I don’t think she ever quite manages to regain full trust in herself. However, since Imogen’s arc started from a place of self doubt and since that lack of self-worth is the core problem in the Hells generally, I am hopeful that she will develop in the opposite way and ultimately gain a firmer trust in her own ability to do the right thing as best she can.

[olderthannetfic]

TV does indeed provide mental support for millions! So who's hosting the Xena watchalong?

Or Farscape, or The Sentinel, or Highlander, or Buffy if we can get past Whedon's crap I guess, or whatever existing closed canons have fandoms that would love more people and potentially a lot of people who would love these shows if only there were time to watch them for the first time and people to watch with

Or AtLA/Korra or Steven Universe or Owl House, idk, idc, point is canon is already closed so the writers' strike cannot impact its future, and there will be people who have loved the show for ages to discuss it in a non-spoilery manner with new viewers

--

I suspect the crybabies saying that strikes are bad only want new episodes of their current favorite shows, not some random other thing.

And the show you should all obviously watch is Beyond Evil. ;)

[faithandbuffy]

I feel like an aspect of gabrielle that isn’t talked about enough is that she can be an absolute dumbass to the highest levels. She’s trying to learn to flip like xena and xena’s like “this took me years to learn, pls be careful” and gabrielle says “slow learner huh?“ and then IMMEDIATELY breaks her ankle. She tries to use a bowl like the chakram and knocks herself out. She gets attacked by a rabbit. She gets seduced by pretty much any religion, cult or obvious evil person they ever meet. She’s so silly <3

[marley-manson]

001 | Xena

Thank you! 💖

Favorite character:

Xena!! Everything I could possibly want in a female character, and a fandom that largely enjoys it rather than downplaying it.

I loooove that the writers went into the show (Xena, not her first appearance on Hercules probs) essentially writing her as a male archetype almost no concessions to the fact that she's played by Lucy Lawless other than pronouns and some het. She's cold and stoic - it's not until the first season finale that she even really displays a raw emotion other than mid-fight glee, including when her own mother draws a sword on her, and when she has to kill a man she loves to some extent. She's the strongest, toughest, most competent person in any room at all times, and everyone knows it and defers to her, absolutely including men. Early on there are a few scenes where she's hit on and punches dudes, but that actually goes away pretty quick as she just tends to command a certain sense of respect. It's an ideal female power fantasy - not to survive patriarchal violence, but to live without even having to spare a thought for it.

She's complex and nuanced and the narrative is very interested in exploring her as a three dimensional character.

She's formerly evil and still revels in violence, and it's amazing. She's often on the verge of going too dark again and needing to be pulled back from the edge, and she snaps in a few episodes including one where she attempts to murder Gabrielle, pre-meditated and all. She's framed like a horror movie monster in a few episodes, something I always love to see in a protagonist.

And on the flip side, she's fun! She steadily loosens up the more time she spends with Gabrielle doing good, and she can be very playful at times, and it's awesome to see in contrast to the first season.

I'll never be over her and idt there'll ever be another female character who can truly compare. Xena is a product of the tone of the show, and that tone is dead now.

Least Favorite character:

Borias, mainly for his appearance in The Debt as the only man who has ever had physical power over Xena - while her legs were broken - and for clitblocking Lao Ma.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

Xena/Gabrielle (and Mel/Janice who counts under this umbrella) Gabrielle/Aphrodite Xena/Ares Xena/Lao Ma Xena/Callisto

Character I find most attractive:

Gabrielle. I mean just look at her abs

Character I would marry:

Gabrielle 💖

Character I would be best friends with:

Gabrielle lmao.

a random thought:

Xena has the best clipshows of any show I've ever seen. Almost always worth watching for the absolutely delightful framing devices.

An unpopular opinion:

I get shallow entertainment out of the scenes where Xena seduces men in the later seasons lol. Like firstly, I love that the show really pointedly toes a line and she never actually sleeps with them past like season 2, because she's in a relationship with Gabrielle. I also love that they show Gabrielle being annoyed or jealous if she gets into it. The show is blatantly playing both sides and trying to appeal to het viewers as well, but very deliberate in never contradicting X/G and I can appreciate that.

But also I love how dominant Xena almost always is, both in bed and in how she just interacts with men, and how it's always framed as something she wants/how she behaves by default rather than something she does for the dudes, who are generally more ambivalent about her topping. Like, ultimately it's a fantasy for subby male viewers, but it doesn't feel like it so it's enjoyable to me.

This is popular with the het fans lol, but they're the minority so it still counts.

my canon OTP:

Xena/Gabrielle, and yes it absolutely counts as canon for the purposes of this question.

Non-canon OTP:

Xena/Ares

most badass character:

Do I have to say it after my ode to her up there?

pairing I am not a fan of:

Gabrielle/Joxer, Gabrielle/Virgil, Gabrielle/any dude. Xena/Borias in terms of canon relationships.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Najara!!!! I absolutely adored her in her first episode, she's an amazing foil to Xena. She would've been a perfect recurring villain after Callisto, with her moral ambiguity, her deliberate choice to kill vs Xena's bloodlust, her more grandiose ideals vs Xena's more do good when its in front of you philosophy, etc.

Then her second episode just eviscerates her character and turns her into a caricature of a ~crazy girl~ and it's awful. The actress probably wasn't available for a recurring role, but like, she could've been written off more respectfully, or never given a second episode at all to assassinate her character. Boo.

favourite friendship:

Gabrielle and Aphrodite, I think. They're very cute together. Though shout out to Gabrielle and Ephiny, since I did find it quite touching to see her again in season 6.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by:

None, I don't really think of characters this way.

ask meme

[raisinchallah]

every day i see posts like oh i wish there were stories about what if the brothers at arms in battle were women i wish there was yuri where they experienced hardships and high drama and extreme stakes i want to see hot evil women in media we need the energy of iconic queerbait back again oh i want whatevers going on with men in shounen anime but with women what you want is xena warrior princess literally you are all fake evil women fans if you dont want to watch xena warrior princess oh you want women who cant be together because one of them has some horrible curse some kind of thing keeping them apart something that could kill them both ruin their lives yeah you want xena warrior princess literally its about how you can never ever ever make up for your evil past that could haunt and infect the woman you are slowly growing to love even though you know the life you lead could destroy you both its about how it does nearly destroy them and they try and kill each other and have evil homoerotic enemies and about pain and revenge and how to live with all of the things you have done and what is the meaning of redemption and its also about being insane and gay and having 100 evil exes and 100 fascinating complex exes who died horribly and you live with a debt to them on your soul and its about being the only gay person in your village and stalking the hot woman in leather that shows up cuz you will never get another chance to get out of this town and never marry your boring high school boyfriend but you have no idea the weight of what you are agreeing to and the life you idolize could destroy you but also make you into exactly the person you always wanted to be and its about evil women trying to break up other womens relationships yeah do any of the pathetic writhing worms of shows you watch and pretend you yearn for shows that respect women do they have multiple episodes based around complex love triangles involving three women and fights to the death yeah i didnt think so..... fake women fans the lot of you

[girl4music]

You know, ‘The Quill Is Mightier’ might be a comedy and a bottle episode but it does have a very significant scene in it. No, not the 3 naked dancing Gabrielle’s.

The scene with Gabrielle and Ares bonding over their admiration for Xena. When I watched that scene, I realized that a love triangle of sorts was forming. But what I didn’t realize was that that love triangle would become a fundamental part of the show. So it might be a bottle episode but it sets up something that becomes the crux of what ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is. Which is a physical embodiment of Xena’s nature and struggles with balancing between the dark and light because that’s what Gabrielle and Ares represent as a dynamic in the same way as Willow, Xander and Giles represent the physical embodiments of the metaphorical parts that make up the character Buffy Summers in ‘BtVS’ - which becomes a fundamental part of that show too.

That constant conflict in the Warrior Princess’s heart is probably the most important storyline of the entire show. And sure, you’ve seen them tackle this both thematically and narratively so far in the writing. But Gabrielle and Ares are the physical embodiments of it. Gabrielle and Ares are what represent Xena’s storyline characteristically as if they are the literal symbolism for it because when those two characters come together - even without Xena physically there - Xena is always what’s present in the scene because Gabrielle and Ares can only ever get along if they think or talk about Xena.

Well, that’s Xena. That’s how Xena can even function. Can even be the Warrior Princess. Can even be anyone. In order to be herself she has to have the dark and light working together - working as one total balanced force within her because both the light and the dark (or the good and the evil) are that of who she is as a character.

Back then, bottle episodes were still important episodes for characterization if nothing else. And - obviously - if characterization is the point of the show (meaning: if it’s character-centric over plot-centric) then bottle episodes are still worth watching because you get the foundation of more significant storylines through them. There are many episodes I can mention that are known as “bottle episodes” that are the same:

‘A Comedy Of Eros’, ‘A Day In The Life’, ‘Punch Lines’.

They all set up something that becomes significant. ‘A Comedy Of Eros’ sets up the Gabrielle/Joxer subplot. ‘A Day In The Life’ sets up domesticity/maritalness of the Xena/Gabrielle relationship. ‘Punch Lines’ sets up the Gabrielle/Aphrodite friendship. All are significant parts of the show that make it much more valuable to watch.

‘The Quill Is Mightier’ is a bottle episode but it’s more significant than you realize because of this one scene - which is a very funny scene. But there’s more to it than that. And you might not even pick up on it if you haven’t even watched the rest of the show but you may have a moment where you may say to yourself something to the effect of what I did like… “I think something’s happening here” or “We’re going to come back to this.”

Don’t dismiss that moment. It’s incredibly important. It covers a whole chapter of my character study thesis and it is one of the main factors as to why I wrote it.

That dynamic between Gabrielle and Ares. Which you have to admit is one of the most important dynamics of the entire show because it informs and influences Xena. A character that is so pushed and pulled constantly into the two extremes of her nature that she can’t be ‘Xena’ without both those extremes being in equilibrium in her.

Unless she herself is working as a total balanced force.

Plenty of episodes show you the truth of this but these two characters - as a dynamic - are what represent it so don’t dismiss this scene and don’t dismiss this episode.

Bottle episodes in Xena may seem like nothing on the surface. But go deeper,… and there’s so. much. there.