#its just there have been so many things that happened every year

[dolche-tejada]

"I respect shirakumosolos opinion because he's realistic"

Saying villains shouldn't get an happy ending because it's unfair isn't realistic, it's just moral. And claiming these villains deserved to die because "an eye for an eye" isn't either, it's the classic edgy teenager bs you can find everyday on the Punisher subreddit.

"and I also see what you're trying to convey but the world didn't work like that."

Yes and that's kinda the problem in MHA. The Hero Society is consistently framed as heavily fucked up but in the end, problems are either swept under the rug or superficially addressed. Yet Horikoshi treats this situation as if everything was fixed or soon to be when no, shit barely changed.

"You are disappointed with the ending of the manga because the Hero is alive and well after they save the world from the villains."

Nope, I'm actually disappointed by how villains are either dead or incarcerated for life in miserable conditions despite Horikoshi spending hundreds of chapters building up themes and a development for them which should have logically resulted with them being saved.

If a story promise its audience something only to do a 180° at the last minute and pretend it was the logical conclusion, it's perfectly legitimate to call out this bullshit for what it is.

And since this is the topic of this post, I'm also annoyed by how Horikoshi unfairly favored the heroes with a blatant lack of consequences for their actions and stakes overall while the villains suffered from them at every corner. Not by the heroes winning a conflict they were obviously going to win at the end...

"Villains who caused the mass destruction in Japan, which in turn cause harm to the public."

Which doesn't change anything to my point. Yes the LoV committed atrocious crimes across the plot, it's undeniable. But the thing is it isn't the point, the question wasn't about whether they should be forgiven or if they deserved a redemption. Hell Tomura, Toya or Toga never even asked for that to begin with, none of them seeked forgiveness (at least not for killing people).

Their entire point was about them being saved by Deku, Shoto and Toga, this was literally their arc but they weren't. Horikoshi can sugarcoat that with all the "Toga was truly happy thanks to Ochako", "Toya got to reunite with his family" or "Tomura got his soul saved by Deku", it's just narrative gaslighting.

Despite all his speeches about trying to understand and rescue Tomura, Deku didn't save him. Worst, he never made a proper plan to save Tomura or tried to talk with him despite this being literally his goal for weeks

The only thing Deku did during the final arc was beating the shit out of him so hard his body crumbled to dust. That and taking a look at his backstory...

Toya spending some time with his family is sweet but it would have been way more coherent if Horikoshi wrote an ending where he was actually saved by them like they textually intended to. Instead of painfully keeping him alive for a few years before passing out offscreen...

As for Toga, I'm pretty sure that suicide doesn't count as "being saved" either, even if it's to save someone you care about.

"I see your point and I truly wanted the Lov to live but they already redeemed themselves by saving the people they care about.

Except again, that was never the point, this story wasn't a redemption one about a group of "evil" characters trying to be better and actually doing so by sacrificing themselves at the end.

It was a story about a new generation of heroes learning from the mistakes of the previous one and improving society by saving villains instead of just beating them to a pulp (something textually framed as wrong many times) among other things.

But again, it just didn't happen. None of them were saved.

"Toga bleeding to death trying to save Ochako not because she scared of Tartarus"

Meanwhile Toga a few instants before sacrificing herself

"because she finally have someone who understands her and sees her. A friend."

And because from her own admission, she knew dying was still better than rotting her whole life in prison, even with Ochako for friend.

"Shigaraki is free from AFO control. Cool."

And he died like 15 seconds afterwards due to Deku beating him into dust so it may just be me but I don't get how he's supposed to be free now.

"No concrete proof that villaint will murder innocent people. Didn't Dabi confessed on the live TV that he killed 30 peoples include innocent people?"

This point concerned Twice, why are you switching the subject on Dabi ?

"The hero shouldn't kill the villain but the villain can kill the hero?"

When your job is literally neutralizing criminals without killing them, that you can effortlessly subdue them at any point and that they are trying to run away, yes stabbing them in the back is rationally not justified, in addition to being also outright fucked up.

"I can't take the logic because look at Batman and Joker."

Yes and Batman isn't in the wrong for not murdering him. I've already had this debate hundreds of times, I won't refute the same eternal bs arguments once again.

"Eye for an eye."

Believe it or not but most modern societies have evolved over the last few centuries beyond this childish and stupid approach of justice.

Also for someone who truly wanted the LoV to live, it's strange that you're reasoning exactly like the people who wanted them dead.

You know, I think this ending would have been slightly less of a fucking disappointment if the heroes hadn't been so unfairly favored by Horikoshi compared to the villains. I mean, seriously

Deku destroys every bone in his body multiple times throughout the story and is warned that if he continues, he'll permanently lose the use of his limbs ? Everything's fine, his body's just got used to being reduced to a bloody pulp somehow so there's no consequences for him. In fact even when he literally loses his arms to Shigaraki, he gets them back two minutes later thanks to Eri because guess what ? Her horn still works even when cut off from her body. How convenient.

Gran Torino gets his ribcage obliterated by Shigaraki ? Don't worry guys, he'll survive that despite his old age and injuries, and this to have no particular role in the plot afterwards.

Bakugo dies heroically trying to buy time before Deku arrives ? Lmao, did you really believe it ?? No of course not, Edgeshot just uses his last-minute Deus Ex Machina to save his life at the cost of his own and- Oops nope he's fine too, my bad !

Hawks murders a criminal fleeing for his life in cold-blood ? The best Hori has to offer is him completely free and in charge of the HSPC.

And no, losing his quirk isn't a real consequence for him because not only it literally played a major part in saving the world with Vestige!Hawks raising an insurrection among AFO's quirks, but also because his quirk has always been the element through which people exploited him.

Endeavor abused his family for years and completely destroyed his eldest son ? No jail time and no media backlash for that, the only blame he received was due to the heroes' failure to stop the League during the Raid Arc.

And don't even get me started on this bs about facing hell or whatever for what he's done : He's literally free and wealthy ; he has Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto, his sidekicks and Hawks on his side ; and all the difficulties he's apparently going to suffer are off-screened.

Deku had to sacrifice OFA and his future hero career to save the world ? Guess what, Bakugo invested all his time and money to make him an Iron-Man suit and now he can still be a hero with everyone else.

There are plenty more examples of this but I think you get the idea. Now let's take a look at the villains' ending :

Toya is now a piece of charcoal kept artificially alive for the few years he has left, unable to move a finger, and whose few minutes a day during which he can stay awake will be spent talking to his father who abused him as a child.

Toga, a literal teenager, killed herself to save Ochako and because she knew it's still better than rotting at Tartarus her whole life.

And not only did she die but she did by bleding to death. Let me repeat for those who have trouble grasping what I've just said : In a manga where the heroes can survive having their heart blown to bits, being impaled Kakyoin-style or smashed against buildings like a fly on a windshield, one of the main antagonists died of a fucking hemorrhage…

As for Shigaraki, after learning that his very birth and all the tragedies of his life have been orchestrated by AFO, after all this development and narrative promises about him being saved in the end... Deku just kills him.

Because despite all his speeches about saving him, it seems like the best our MC could do was beating him both physically and mentally until he crumbles to dust…

Compress on his side is apparently locked up for life and kept alive by machines too.

A begging Kurogiri tried in a desperate attempt to save Shigaraki, only to be unceremoniously blown up by Bakugo and dying off-screen without anyone giving a shit, including Aizawa and Mic.

And Spinner will now spend the rest of his life struggling with the extra quirks inside him that affect his body and mind, while having to cope with the thought that his boyfriend best friend and companions have either died alone or are locked away for life in horrifying circumstances.

Clearly not the same as with the heroes...

Now don't get me wrong, even if they suffered just as much from the consequences of their actions or the plot as the League, this ending would still be a disaster in terms of writing but AT LEAST it wouldn't reek that much of hypocrisy.

[andhumanslovedstories]

There's so many horrible things happening in America right now that it has been interesting to see what individual horrors hurt me personally the most. I grew up going to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Musicals, plays, concerts, that weird bust of JFK, playing around on terrace during intermissions, putting on a velvet dress that you're going to ruin dropping a milk dud in your lap and not noticing until it's fully melted, wearing the pinchy shiny shoes that are the training bras of women's formal footwear, operas I didn't like but did love, jazz I didn't understand but still fascinated me, red carpet, big stairs, the absolute nightmare amount of experiences I had as a new driver as I repeatedly got trapped in the Kennedy Center's fucking private DC island or whatever the hell is going on traffic-wise, free performances on small side stages, getting to see an enormous production on the Center's most enormous stage, all of which was accessed by walking through that a long, tall hallway lined with flags of the world that made you feel like a dignitary attending the most important even in the world.

And now Trump's taken it over. He fired its board. He appointed one of his loyalists to run it. I want to throw up.

Sometimes I miss DC so much. I love the Pacific Northwest and expect I'll live here for the rest of my life, but this isn't my hometown. I grew up the edge of the District. I've lost cumulative years of my life stuck in traffic on the inner loop and outer loop. Because of the Smithsonian, it used to be so baffling to me that anyone ever had to pay to get into a museum. I've used the Washington DC zoo as a shortcut to a different part of the city because it's free to enter. You couldn't count the amount of knockoff Spider-man popsicles that I've eaten sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My reading tastes were molded by Kramer Books in Dupont Circle. I spent afternoons walking around the National Mall, normally just a big empty field until there's an event--book fair, country music program, international cuisine, whatever--at which point for a day or a weekend or a week it becomes a sea of tents and stages. I went to protests outside the Capital and the White House about the war in Iraq. I froze my toes off watching Obama's 2008 presidential inauguration.

It seemed like everyone's family touched the federal government in some way. Everyone's family had moved here because they were military or state department or a political consultant or worked with an NGO or some other reason that meant you had to be here, in the nation's capital. Plenty of people had connections to the federal government that we more hush-hush. Like kids in class straight up going, "I have no idea what my parents do for a living. They're not allowed to tell me." High schoolers regularly, accidentally drove into the CIA parking lot and got escorted out because the premises were that accessible. My family moved here because my dad is a reporter who ended up covering international trade. (Imagine how much his job sucks right now.) He switched beats one summer to cover the White House instead. He got to fly on Air Force One. He got official Air Force One M&Ms. I was SO disappointment my dad didn't work there for Bush to call on him by nickname.

Every day my family got The Washington Post. I read the comics and the kid's page, then the rest of the Style section, then Metro, then news. I learned to read from it. We wrapped our delicate Christmas ornaments with its pages. We used yesterday's papers to clean our windows because they didn't leave streaks. I took journalism in high school. You can't IMAGINE how much and how frequently we talked about Watergate. When Post changed its motto to "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after Trump's election in 2016 that meant something to me. I knew Bezos owned the paper now, but that was still my paper, and the motto spoke to something I fervently believed: if people just knew what was happening, they wouldn't allow it to happen. If you expose a problem, people will naturally agree that it is a problem and that we should do something to fix it. Flash forward to Trump's third fucking campaign, and the newspaper wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate. Chickenshit cowardice. Then they change the motto. "Riveting Storytelling for All of America." Eat shit. You're nothing now.

Politics in America is just telling everyone how much you hate Washington, DC so that they'll elect you so you can move to DC. Well, guys, the city fucking hates you too. Republicans will never give the District actually meaningful political representation because no one in that city would vote for them. It's not just the policies; it's the contempt. No one in the new administration loves the city they schemed and lied and stooped to take over. It's just iconography to them, and all they care about is taking that iconography for themselves. Trump doesn't give a shit about the summer program for the Kennedy Center. He has never seen a show at the Kennedy Center. When he was president, he never attended the annual awards. He's trying to destroy one of the most significant places of my life and I'm genuinely unsure if he has ever stepped for inside of it.

[kosmicdream]

the biggest problem with my writing

it would be really difficult to explain the writing process chronologically for FFAK because its like. oh yeah mop was made as a concept in 2017 and he was made specifically to interact with dr slate after rock's death. i wanted to make a creepy janitor (a weed), former convict, that had some weird personal history with spoon. he would be determined to try to work with slate to get revenge.. i didnt know what had happened yet but at this point in the comic, im only just starting to draw scenes of them interacting. mop/nail essentially started as a side character for slate's perspective, obviously didnt stay like that but.. i mean, nail did not start as fork's fork. that just fit together somehow in a way where its impossible for me to think it otherwise, it might as well always have been that way. but nail didn't exist for the first three years of the comic and when i did actually decide on his character i basically put the spoon/rock fight on hold (again) to just draw nail/spoon scenes.

i can't say this was the smart choice or whatever its just what ended up happening. i think a lot of arc1 was built on impulsive choices like that, which comes with good and bad of course.. i dont write the same way anymore, but it still happens sometimes. gaueko/kamila were not meant to be a ship but their chemistry felt so natural to explore i decided to dive into it and let that happen as part of the comic. now in 2025, not only am i actually drawing scenes i wrote for 2017 in FFAK, but also finally drawing scenes in NRD that i also wrote in 2017. Not sure how it happened where i'd be doing that for both of them at the same time in 2025, but that's how it ended up. Its just strange how it did because its also so likely for me to end up going with a new idea impulsively (like making nail) that i put aside something else planned for the new idea (the rock/spoon fight.) Even if i eventually do return to the older scene, the order of events are totally changed. Granted, in the end i AM happy i waited to draw the spoon/rock scene, but not exactly for the narrative reasons - i just know in ch12 i was kind of like.. over-rendering everything in a way that i think would have made drawing that action scene a nightmare. by the time i got back to it in chapter 14, i had figured out how to dial things back and not over work my pages as much anymore. not that over-rendering made everything worse, but overall the experience of making pages was not as effective and draining. 

Not sure where im going with all these thoughts, but it is curious to me that I made nail/mop about 3 years into making FFAK.. which by the time FFAK was that old, a lot had happened in the story and development wise for the story. When i think about it now, its hard to conceptualize just how much I wrote/made during that time. Now i feel a lot more conservative with my ideas and plans, but thats also partly because i am always accommodating FFAK. When there wasn’t any FFAK.. that space to make a lot of things was totally open. I didn’t feel restrained. That was great! But im very different now in every aspect of the creative process. I am very restrained in many ways, of my time, my choices..ect.. I have to calculate it with everything else im already doing.. In a strange way though I think I prefer it. I make a lot better choices for the stories, but they don’t come easily or quickly which can be frustrating. Its just so different and i wonder if that differences are going to be seen and felt in this second arc as much as it is from my perspective? I don’t know.. I still havent drawn it yet, so that part is still a mystery on how it’ll be received LOL.. Just a lot i’ve been thinking about lately. My (unfinished) fairy comic is already 5 years old now and im like.. What..? but its true.. I started working on it in 2020. It does NOT feel 5 years old. Because when FFAK was 3, it already had changed so much in that time. 3 years was like a lifetime of experiences for FFAK. 5 was even more than that. Comparing comic experiences doesn’t ever really make sense logically though. They all have their own paths for growth.. And i see that more & more now especially with NRD, which I have never BEEN at a better place with creatively than I am now. Its like the love of my life since last year, which I would have never expected.. But that took me like 8 years to get to. Usually you expect the honeymoon period of a story is going to be in the early years ,when the idea is ripe and new and exciting.. And sure, NRD had that but its not like it is now. It has never felt more alive and interesting to me to work on. 

There’s been a lot of years of struggle with NRD too, where I almost felt like I was wading through the mud and not sure if it was even a story worth telling cuz it just felt like it was holding me back, reminding me too much of my life i was trying to move on and heal from. But last year i had a breakthru and now im in a sort of different struggle with it where I dont want the comic to end anymore. I will try to though, but as its getting closer to it its like a mourning process has started. It both feels impossible to end the comic because of how hard/long is to actually draw things LOL but also impossible like emotionally to let go of. I made NRD during the fallout of.. A LOT of things in my life but also specifically a break up of a long term relationship.. I’ve been single all this time and now the comic is like. My surrogate boyfriend almost? 

Im AWARE of this intense attachment to it and its like.. My comfort blanket that enables this loneliness in me to not do something different in my life to change that loneliness. Part of me feels like i CAN’T yet. I have to finish the story! But that’s not really it.. I think that if its gone, I won’t have a "reason" to enable my isolation, and by reason I mean purpose in a goal that I’m determined to accomplish that is significant to me.. Which of course, finishing a story will always be one of the biggest motivations in my life despite avoiding it so much, as much as possible in some ways to get to the point and moving on from it. Sometimes its hard being so aware, knowing myself through my own art and writing that my biggest problem is not being able to let go. 

[thoughtdaughtermadz]

¨Carpe Diem,¨ Keating whispered loudly. ¨Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.¨

When asked about living, most people will tell you about working. When asked about living, most people will tell you about suffering. Very few responses come, where people will tell you about trees. Where people tell you about oceans they´ve swam in. Very few responses come, when asked about living, where people actually tell you about living. Most people's definition of living is often closer to misery. Don’t let that become the definition of your life, before it already is.

The pressure to conform, is a pressure almost too forceful to deal with. It is strong, and will have you within its cold grasp quickly. Before you know it, you’re sunk into the couch, wondering where your potential went. I wonder if the Dead Poets ever found themselves in that position, ten years later, wondering if their passions went with Neil. Were they trapped in that coffin with him, threatening to burst out? Or were they still inside them somehow, buried deep? There was a poet somewhere inside of Todd, and I believe that a fraction of that poet was Neil. But Neil is dead, so where has that poet gone? Is the poet with the sweaty-toothed madman, under that blanket of truth? Is the poet inside him fighting to come alive again, now that now that the thing that created it has died? Is Todd dying, because Neil already has? Are our passions our life’s worth? Are all we are, what we have inside us, and what we can do with it? These, are questions you should ask yourself.

How many Mozarts never became musicians, because they washed clothes for four hours a day? How many Kafkas never wrote their ‘Metamorphosis’, because they had to have dinner done by five every evening? How much potential was wasted, because incredible minds rotted away in houses for fifty years? I wish to know just how different media would be today, if passions had been explored. To me, this is why telling women to “get back in the kitchen”, is in a way, telling them to go kill themselves. But that might be just me.

‘The Dead Poets Society’ is a story of rebirth and death all in the same. Mr. Keating was an anomaly of a man to most faculty and some students at Welton. His ideas and actions left everyone wide-eyed. But what he did for that specific class of juniors, was something I’ve only ever hoped I could experience. He was the first person, possibly in these boys' entire lives, to show them to think for themselves. He taught them that the greatest poets or writers were also considered anomalies for their time. He taught them so many things, things that no one taught me, but things that I had to teach myself. To improve, is to be introspective. Looking inside yourself, at all, could be terrifying to some. But it isn’t, to the ones who do so periodically. When you are familiar with yourself, the things about you that you want to run from, are things you sit and drink lonely with. Things you have already made peace with, or even better, you work at everyday to make better. So what happens when you finally look inside yourself, and like what’s there? You be happy there’s nothing to hide from, and live your life blissfully ignorant, until you realize that there will always be slip-ups, relapses, and regrets. Life isn’t perfect, and neither are us as humans. Seeing is better than being blind, and the next time you’re asked about living, tell the truth. Tell whoever asked you, that life is about finding yourself, and most importantly, that life is worth finding yourself for.

Just a little something I wrote that’ll end up going to my English teacher

[deadchannelradio]

@jpeg-dot-jpeg no yes exactly you understand exactly whats happened here money means nothing to jason he's just bored and Dick has like three pennies and a dead moth in his pocket and semi-upscale dining pays the bills. he's a brilliant server and people love love love love him he makes so much cash in tips it's just that he burns it all attempting to keep a roof over his head and tires on his motorcycle and eating 2x a day. Jason is just bored and its fun do to something he doesn't need to be good at. Dick always hits a wall however when his coworkers begin to see him as like a normal guy and so he doesnt even get the reward of being the restaurants pet freak anymore on top of having to deal with customers. and so because theyre really hesitant to fire him he just starts doing things that every server wishes they could do but wont because they want to keep their jobs.

people are like "um this is cold" and dick will grab a fork and take a bite of THEIR MEAL and go "no it's not" and walk off. "hey i didnt like this i want to send it back" you ate all of it "I didn't like it" and i don't like you. do you want dessert or just the check. it's not just rude people when people do the accidental "enjoy your meal" "you too!" he'll go "aw thank you!" and sit down with them. "hey there's a hair in my soup" (looks) "thats gross." (leaves). he spills drinks on people on purpose. he just decides to act like someone who was maybe raised in a cave by wolves who had no sense of social niceties boundaries or like how to talk to other human beings. it's been a long time since i thought about this specific au/thing that is always kind of happening in the background of specific fics i write or think about writing and i was never FOH and haven't been BOH in over a year so i don't have as many examples as i did at one point.

it sometimes doesn't even work. he does this at every restaurant he works at and sometimes he just has to quit. he's a really good server he could sell a towel to a fish. he had to quit this one i think. it's been years since he worked there on purpose and he still gets calls like once a month asking if he'll cover.

anyway i bring that up because i think jason's singular hobby is that he's a line cook. which you would argue isn't a hobby at all and i would agree with you but Jason doesn't know how to have fun outside of the context of work and restaurants take all kinds of nutjobs. he interviews and shit and gets the job because he doesn't care about things like "being paid" a "livable wage" and seemed like he was on the least amount of drugs at the time of the interview. upon showing up the first day he's getting settled on the line and the servers come in to be like hey whats up man welcome and like the 5th server is none other than dick grayson. they look at each other in silent horror for 5 seconds before dick visibly comes to some sort of decision and is like. Hi Man I'm Rich Nice To Meet You. and jason is like. im jason. and then they have to pretend not to know each other from there on out until dick gets fired for exhibiting freak behaviors

[anachrosims]

I’m healing up with six holes in my torso and laying here in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about the state of the world.

I’d like to think that B*den leaving the race, and H*rris losing, would be a wake up call to the left; that sometimes we have to support shitty people to prevent shittier people from getting back in power; and that the US has yet to culturally come to terms with its history of racism and misogyny. And no, it’s not fair that we’ve had to choose between lesser evils just to tread water—it’s stupid, vile, horrific, to ask people to vote for politicians who are still more like rulers than representatives, especially when those people are directly impacted by systemic bullshit every day.

But it just boggles the mind, that so many of y’all either forgot or weren’t clued into the damage Dump did in his first term, and were so willing to do things like tell me to kms just because I was encouraging my fellow Americans to vote. At the end of the day, no, it’s not about me—it’s about what you’re willing to do to make a better future happen, and stupid petty bitch squabbles online ain’t gonna do shit for anyone.

I’m laying here being kept awake by a future that is as uncertain as it ever was in my life, and any other. And as I get older, the more I internalize that time is the one thing we can’t get back—time with loved ones, time to make the most of opportunities, time to just sit and turn off the screens and just BE alive. Too often, time is stolen from us—by abuse, illness, loss, and other hardships. But it’s still up to us to try and make the most of what time is left.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t have any pithy clapbacks, snappy one-liners, wordy manifestos. I don’t have any solutions—suggestions, maybe—and God only knows I can’t tell you where my own life will be in five years, let alone our collective fate as a species. All I can truly champion with any certainty, is the truth that we should try to put more love into the world—tell someone you love them, go on that road trip while you can, make time to visit someone you cherish, donate excess items, food, time to those who need it. Leave nothing unsaid with those you love, while you still can.

… Sorry for the lack of my own content. I’m a week into recovery and my laptop started spluttering out, so I’ve traded it in (by proxy since lol I ain’t leaving the apartment like this). I need to set the new one up, but I’ve been bedridden and sleeping through the healing process. (I am in fact about 10lbs lighter. They removed ten g-damn pounds of fibroids and uterus out of me.)

Anyway, thank you to my followers and mutuals. Please, remember you are loved. Go pet an animal, go watch your favorite movie, go hug someone you love. Life is… not easy, by any means, but doing those things can make it a little more bearable.

[roseazura]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐋𝐮𝐥𝐥

𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 – 𝗥𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗮 𝗭𝗼𝗿𝗼

Summary: Although the goal of a guardian is to ensure the safety of his protégés, which he did wonderfully, sometimes he, deep down, wanted a break.

Genre: Fluff, Romance, Comfort.

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader.

Warnings: Pure fluff, maybe a little overthinking, established relationship, no mention of (Y/N).

Words count: 3.7k

Spanish version

A/N: Hello there! This is the first mini-story published so I hope you enjoy it. I did my best to portray the beloved Zoro in the best possible way, there is also a good chance that there will be more content about him here. It should also be noted that English is not my native language, so please forgive any errors. Have a good read!

A guardian, in its essence, is a person in charge of protecting, watching over or taking care of something or someone. For Zoro, it was something that went far beyond simple protection or surveillance, for him a guardian was someone who defended with skill and honor, a figure who stood firm, sword in hand, ready to face any threat that approached. A guardian represented an insurmountable barrier between danger and those who depended on his protection.

For that reason, when the veil of midnight was approaching and the sea swallowed every trace of light that did not belong to that of the moon, accompanied by the symphony of the whistling of the wind passing between the sails and the waves crashing against the ship, causing it to emit some creaks and squeaks, at that moment, Zoro took the position of night lookout to make sure that, while the others rested, the Merry was safe.

After years of training and a lot of experience, his vision had become as sharp as his swords, allowing him to have a better view when the light was practically low, like now. Credit was also given to his Observation Haki, of course, but his physical capabilities were also notable.

In the silent night, standing behind the railing of the Crow's Nest and with one of his hands resting on the handle of one of his swords, his state of wakefulness served to distract him, there was not much to do when you were the only one awake in the middle of the night and with the sole objective of being alert in case something bad happened. He did not want to call a bad omen, much less put the crew at risk, but on many occasions, he sometimes had the slight desire for something to happen, something that would make him fill himself with adrenaline and give meaning to his sleepless nights. Something that would give meaning to his role as guardian.

However, in another corner of his mind and perhaps his heart, he also wished he could take the place of any of the crew, whether it was Luffy to just sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night to try his luck that the Stupid Cook hadn't locked the fridge with padlocks, or even Nami to sleep in peace without worrying about the scandalous companions she shared the ship with. Any of them, except the Cook, he wasn't that desperate either, but he would be any of them for just one night so he could rest.

Resting was not a concept he was used to, since he was a child he had been in constant movement, either training or traveling from one place to the other in his old job as a Pirate Hunter, so danger and adrenaline had always been part of his daily life. Now, as a young man, the idea of taking a break was almost like a joke, an impossibility, as much as he wanted to do it, something in himself wouldn't allow it, as if he were failing his code as a swordsman and guardian.

Like he was failing himself.

Zoro sighed, what was he doing thinking about that kind of thing? Without a doubt, being alone at night took its toll on the mind; too much time in silence made thoughts stir like bees in a honeycomb. Although soon his solitude was interrupted by the creaking of the mast that supported the Crow's Nest, as if something, or rather, someone, was climbing up it. He didn't have to think as hard to assume who it was, and he couldn't help the slight upward curl at the corner of his lips.

"Nothing interesting tonight?" your voice came before your figure until your head peeked out of the trapdoor of the Crow's Nest, flashing a smile at the swordsman.

"You say it as if there had been something interesting the previous nights," Zoro snorted, which made you giggle as you finished climbing the Crow's Nest, walking towards him, “Can't you sleep?”

You shook your head once you reached his side, leaning your torso forward to rest your weight on your forearms on the railing, "I took a nap in the afternoon, I guess that gave me enough rest to have energy now.”

Zoro hummed in response and a comfortable silence continued, now not only could he hear the soft salt breeze and the waves but also your calm breathing, which made him feel calmer, accompanied.

He didn't know when he had become so accustomed to your presence, he was only aware of it when he was able to relax his guard being with you, when his mind was completely calm and his body was relieved from just having you close. At first he believed that you had some special gift with the ability to calm those around you, but over time he learned that it was just your effect on him.

"The night is beautiful, don't you think? The advantage of being in the open sea is that it gives us more visibility of the stars," you broke the silence but your voice was not abrupt, tranquility flowed from it with the same fluidity of your words, "You're lucky, you can see this every night, although surely for you it must already be something vain.”

Zoro clicked his tongue with a sly smile, shaking his head and then looked up at the stars. Indeed, that night the stars shone brighter due to the lack of nearby lighting, but if it had not been mentioned before, he would not have given it any importance.

"Something like that, I just don't pay much attention to it, I must be focused on other things beyond the sky." With that said, he lowered his gaze towards the horizon again, continuing with his task.

Unaware of it, you looked at him, Zoro always looking like the formidable warrior he was, ready for battle and prepared to defend the crew if necessary. Strength, bravery and loyalty, that was what he constantly demonstrated. However, you saw and noticed beyond that face, beyond what he exhibited to the world.

Even the strongest person deserved to rest, no matter how unwavering they might appear, tranquility was always necessary to strengthen themselves and continue with their daily tasks. In the face of exhaustion, a break to revitalize those energies, to continue living.

In addition to being extremely strong and capable, Zoro was extremely stubborn and proud. For him, he would go first into battle even though he was seriously injured, rather than wait to heal while the others fought for him, while putting themselves in danger. He was admirable, of course, and it was one of the qualities that had fascinated you the most from the first moment you met him, but in many cases you wanted to be able to intercept all that warrior spirit and make him see that rest was also part of the greatness of the strenght.

There he was, dignified and rigid in the middle of the night, watching while everyone else slept with the goal of keeping them safe, even though it sacrificed his necessary hours of sleep. He was incredible, that was more than a fact, and although his face remained serene and handsome as always, you noticed those details that betrayed his fatigue, such as the subtle darkened rings under his eyes, his lowered eyelids and glassy eyes, as well as his slower and heavier blinks, and the way he moved his shoulders every so often in an attempt to change his position to stay alert. Without a doubt, Zoro needed to rest.

"Did you learn to sleep with your eyes open or are you not even trying to hide the fact that you're staring at me anymore?”

His raspy voice brought you out of your thoughts, more like a daydream, which caused you to quickly change the direction of your gaze, thereby preventing him from noticing the blush on your cheeks at first glance, although from the chuckles you managed to hear from him you knew that he had noticed it anyway. No matter how long you had been together, it was still hard not to be embarrassed by your infatuation with him.

"I think I stopped giving importance to hiding since we were clear about what we felt, I don't see any more sense in doing it, don't you think?" Despite the shame because he caught you, the situation was comical in itself, so why not respond with the same grace.

He hummed in response and his lips curved into a smile, "You're right, I don't mind you staring at me either, I can find it flattering even, as long as you don't do it in the middle of a fight or you'll be in trouble for being distracted." He continued, earning more laughter from you.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll save my moments of admiring your face for when we're alone, and anyway, even if I'm distracted by your blinding beauty, I know you'll have my back covered." With a playful smile, you gently nudged his arm, which spread his smile.

Moments like this were treasured by both of you, due to your lifestyle, tranquility was something that was in short supply in those days, so being able to enjoy some time alone, without much to worry about other than responding to the other's teasing comments with something equally intelligent and playful, was truly sacred.

But as much as you enjoyed being by his side, under the cover of night and on a calm sea, there was something that flooded your heart since you could notice it, a feeling that was the main motivation for you to stay awake that night.

Cautiously you stood up and put your hands on his shoulders, applying a little pressure to notice how tense his muscles were, a symbol of tiredness and, at the same time, a way to stay awake. He shuddered at the touch, but he let you be, to which you continued to massage his muscles with delicacy and precision, which brought sighs of relief from him.

"You need to rest, you know that?" You whispered as your hands moved almost expertly over his shoulders. Zoro sighed and called your name tiredly, knowing what you were going for, but you interrupted him, "Yes, I know it's your duty to keep an eye out during the night in case something happens, I really appreciate your effort because it's how you protect us, but don't you think it's time for you to take a break?”

Of course he thought about it, more than once since the weight of his sleepless nights and few hours of sleep during the day became more intense, especially when with each hour the night drew closer and, with that, his job as a watchman. But he would never admit his needs, nor would he complain about his role, he should not show that weakness, who would they trust if he weakened with something as simple as guarding?

"It's not that easy, love," his voice, even when raspy and lower with exhaustion, remained soft towards you, without a hint of reprimand.

"I know it’s not, big guy, after all you're the one in charge of protecting us, which is a pretty tough job considering we're trouble magnets sometimes," that comment made him laugh softly, which made you smile wider, he was more relaxed, "but thinking about yourself and your needs from time to time doesn't make you selfish, rather it helps you stay strong, both for yourself and for us, and that's a good thing, right?”

When Zoro did not respond instantly it was because he was meditating on your words, a skill that you could proudly boast of which consisted of making that huge and stubborn man pay attention to you, or at least listen to you, even if your thoughts did not coincide with his at that moment. Maybe it could also be due to the analgesic effect that your massages were having on his body and mind.

"You are always looking out for us, Zo, you are the first to jump into the fight when one of us is in danger and the last to abandon it until you see us all safe. That is admirable, very honorable such a swordsman." Your massages continued at the same time that your words flowed with affection and warmth, wanting to make your intentions clear, "I trust you blindly, if you are in the equation, I know that I will be fine, and for that reason, I want you to be well too and with your needs taken care of.”

Zoro listened to your words, he really listened to them, he let them flood his mind and hug his heart so that the feeling reached his soul. He knew that you cared about him, more than he would have thought anyone could care about him, so it felt comforting and good to have that kind of unconditional love and support. After all, he felt the same way about you, he would give anything to see you safe, happy and at peace.

However, although he wished that he could let himself be carried away by your sweet words, that he could give himself the rest that his body and mind had been crying out for for a long time, within him there was still that sense of honor and savior complex that required him to stay awake and alert, far beyond any shred of basic need that his body demanded of him. If he gave in to his tiredness and something bad happened, if he put the crew at risk, if he put you at risk, he would never be able to forgive himself.

Sensing his hesitation, you stopped massaging his shoulders and instead turned him around so he could look at you. Face to face, you smiled fondly at him and brought your hands to his cheeks, caressing them with your thumbs.

"Nothing will happen if you take this night to rest, you can't lie to me, you know very well that you need it," your voice was like a balm for his insecurities, something that had always managed to calm him, "You are human, my love, an extraordinarily strong and skilled one, but you feel and need like anyone else, and you deserve to rest.”

Zoro watched you in silence, letting your words walk him from head to toe, and he only dedicated himself to admiring you. You were so gentle with him, with so much dedication to giving him that much-needed break, with so much concern for his well-being that you made his heart go crazy and hurt at the same time. What had he done to be in the care of an angel? He had spent much of his existence on the rustic side of life, dedicating himself every day to getting stronger, alone, and now he had someone by his side who would give anything to see him healthy, stable, happy.

He loved your eyes, of course he had rarely said it out loud, but they had a charm that left him breathless, they seemed to shine every time they saw him and that caused a warm feeling in his chest. He used to get lost often, but your eyes were like two lighthouses that guided him to you, every time he looked at them only you and him existed and mattered, and he could never have been more grateful to have that pair of stars in his life.

"Plus, I bet Mihawk takes his breaks from time to time too," your gaze took on a mischievous glint, making him chuckle, "To have gotten to that position, he definitely had to take a break… And drink a lot of wine, but we can skip that last part for now.”

Zoro continued to chuckle as he shook his head, amused by the way you were trying to convince him to go to sleep. Honestly, he admired your persuasion and perseverance, although deep down he also reproached the ease you had in reaching his heart. After a defeated sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned towards you, pressing his forehead to yours as his hands found your waist, which he caressed with his thumbs. You smiled and enjoyed the moment, raising your hands to his hair to caress it.

"You are very persistent, you know that?" He smiled still without opening his eyes, to which you giggled, finding his comment funny.

"I know, if I weren't we wouldn't be here, don't you think? And considering you're as stubborn as a century-old oak, I'd better be.”

Laughing in unison, he pulled you close to him with gentle firmness and brought your lips together, savoring the sensation that washed over him every time he kissed you. If your voice was a balm, your lips were an elixir, more delicious and addictive than any Sake he had ever had in his life, and of which he would never tire of trying. Of course you followed the kiss with all the enthusiasm there was, losing yourself in the moment shared with the man you loved most in the world.

As you separated, Zoro left another short and chaste kiss, somewhat reluctant to having to move away from your lips, which made you smile, and soon you opened your eyes, taking a little more distance between both faces to look at each other better.

"We can't leave the Merry without a watchman and I doubt any of the others will be awake or willing to wake up." He reasoned, although more resigned to the idea of going after his break, which was a good sign.

"I'll stay, and before you protest! You know perfectly well that I'm capable of taking care of myself, the Merry, and you guys, it won't be a problem for me." You assured with a smile, now noticing the indecision in your lover's eyes, worried. Your smile turned into a tenderly one and you leaned towards him to place a kiss on the tip of his nose, "I'll be fine, my dear Zoro, just as you would do anything to keep us safe, I would do anything to make you okay, completely okay.”

And there you were, with that ability to make him fall at your feet with just one look and to feel like a teenager in love just by hearing your voice, by just hearing you call him “my dear.” What had you done to him? It seemed even comical at some point, but love was as mysterious as many of the waters they still had to explore.

With another resigned sigh, which seemed more like a defeated snort, he nodded slowly, finally convinced, "Very well, I will listen to you, but only if you promise that if something happens or you suspect something is off, anything, you will wake me up.”

You nodded, with an inner pride that he easily identified in your eyes by the way that shone. Adorable, he thought, only you could be happy about something as basic as him prioritizing himself over the crew.

"I promise, love, although you'll see that you will have a long, restful sleep until morning." You assured confidently and placed your pinky at the level of his eyes, to which he, after raising one of his eyebrows in surprise and letting out an incredulous chuckle, intertwined his own pinky with yours.

You decided to accompany Zoro to the cabin you shared, both to make sure that he was, in fact, resting, and to keep him company until he fell into the world of dreams that he had not had the luxury of enjoying for a long time. When Zoro was ready and under the covers, you sat next to him on the edge of the bed, gently caressing his strands in a way to make him succumb to sleep more easily.

"It's not fair that you have so much power over me, it's dangerous." He whispered, sleepy and with his eyes closed, which made you smile softly and you leaned down to kiss his forehead.

"I consider it more than fair, big guy, especially since you have the same power over me." With that answer, he grinded, satisfied.

When minutes passed in silence and Zoro's breathing became slower, you assumed that he had finally fallen asleep, and you devoted yourself to watching him, admiring how good he looked. His features and muscles relaxed, his chest rising and falling calmly, his hands extended without being gripped on the handle of a sword. He looked at peace, calm, resting, like he so deserved to be, and like you were always going to want to see him after so much having been together.

About to leave his side to let him sleep and take his position guarding, a whisper of your name made you stop, returning your attention to him.

"Thank you for this, for everything, you don't know how much good you do me." He recited sleepily but sincerely, and when you thought your heart would explode from so much love, he finished: "I love you, baby."

In that moment, your heart accelerated at the same time that your chest warmed, as did your cheeks, trying to process the happiness, tenderness and love that invaded you thanks to such words full of feelings. Oh, you undoubtedly loved that man with every breath that left your lungs and with every beat of your heart, and that would continue to be so as long as life allowed you to.

With one last kiss on his cheek, you whispered, "My pleasure, my love, thank you for staying strong and being here. I love you with all my heart, my guardian."

With your mission accomplished and your heart satisfied, you went to complete your new goal, the smile never leaving your face for what you had just achieved.

A guardian is known for their strength and dedication, able to give their life for those they have sworn to protect, but at the same time now allowing themselves to be guarded. The guardian, in their turn to be cared for, is like an ancient oak that rests among younger trees to recover and renew itself. Without losing their essence as a protector, they accept the support of those around them, trusting that their rest and recovery strengthen their ability to protect in the future.

Because in the end, everyone deserves to be protected as much as they protect, everyone deserves to have someone who cares about their well-being and ensures their safety and stability. Being a guardian does not inhibit you from feeling, from needing, from being vulnerable. They, as well as their protégés, deserve to be valued, remembered and deserving of affection and rest, and that does not take away the weight of their role as protector, much less the greatness of their strength.

[iliterallydecepticanteven]

My boss asked if I could come in and work a few hours on my birthday next month (it's on the weekend this year and my normal work schedule is just weekdays) because we have a very time sensitive and expensive two day experiment lined up and ngl as someone who doesn't really like her birthday or has the best memories associated with it, getting paid time and a half for a few hours to fuck around with super expensive shit sounds pretty fun.

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

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@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[puppppppppy]

i think the reason why im so drawn to spirit tracks and pkmn scarvi is that having the legendary/princess as a companion rather than a goal that marks the games completion makes me feel satisfied the way i would after helping a friend

my brother always teases me about how I still havent finished botw after almost 7 years bc "id rather be out picking flowers" which i wont say is untrue. and yes i know Zeldas been holding off ganon for 100 years, yes i can get some sort of idea what her relationship with link was like by recalling memories and going through her diary. ive always loved botw for its unique storytelling and setting which makes it stand out, because it lets you get to know who you're saving.

but because theyre memories, it only works if theres something for the player to investigate that already happened. its retroactive (but effective nonetheless)

on the other hand, spirit tracks does something similar but instead of having the player try to piece together memories and interpret them as a spectator, you actually have an opportunity to get to know zelda yourself by talking to her and working together. besides making it a gameplay mechanic, giving the player control over how they interact with zelda makes it so much more personable.

and I find that making the goal feel personal instead of an obligation gives me more of a reason to work towards it. I know what kind of person botw zelda was but as the player, shes still very much a stranger to me. but spirit tracks zelda? thats my friend!!!! she invited me to go to the beach after we get her body back!!! i dont want to whip her to make her move faster thats mean :(

you know how hostage negotiators are trained to introduce themselves and get to know the person theyre negotiating with because its harder to hurt someone when you know what their favorite food is? its kinda like that, because it feels like im helping a friend than being told or led to do smth

and although i havent played scarvi myself, i feel an attachment to koraidon and miraidon even just watching playthrough clips because its like!! thats my weird scaly dog!! it loves sandwiches and we're friends!!! you know!!!!!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[justwanderingtheblog]

A partial transcript for the video essay is below.

“Women on television have always been defined through their interactions with men. [....] However, the creators of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS have managed to break through this cultural paradigm.

The character of Xena is a woman without male signifiers. The text of the show does not revolve in any way around Xena's interpersonal interactions with men. On the contrary, the show most directly revolves around Xena's interpersonal interaction with her traveling companion, Gabrielle. [....] They have come to define each other through their experience together. 

XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS is one of the few shows in the history of television that has gone an entire episode without having any starring or [major] supporting male actors.”

- Xena: Warrior Princess Through the Lenses of Feminism, Melissa Meister (1997) [Abridged]

In 2015, after many years of public speculation and fan campaigning, NBC Universal officially ordered a reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess. 

And helming the production, alongside the obligatory credits to originals Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, would be writer and executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (deadline.com). 

It is not currently 2015, and the project is no longer in the works, but some friends and I have still chosen to spend our time talking about it, as well as pitching a few ideas ourselves, even though we each have but one life on this good green earth.

As always, disclaimer - these are just our dumb opinions. Also, spoilers. 

The Mid-2000’s Xena Movie That Never Happened

When Xena: Warrior Princess ended its six-season run in the year 2001, it left a lot of fans desperate for more. Not just because the series was groundbreaking, or the fanbase was so passionate that it continued to hold official conventions every year, but because of the way it had ended. 

Namely, with the death of the title character in a two-part finale entitled A Friend in Need.

This was a decision that the production team defended as fitting for an Ancient Greek hero on the quest for redemption, and the finality of it seemingly satisfied the cast and crew after six exhausting, physically demanding seasons. Still, it’s also an ending that, in the years since, Lucy Lawless has stated she hugely regrets. (https://nypost.com/2001/06/28/we-have-no-apologies-for-xena-dying/) 

Instead, many fans prefer the light-hearted Many Happy Returns, or the alternate-universe exploring and timeline-resetting When Fates Collide, as their personal end to the series. 

On a side note, one of the main reasons I personally dislike A Friend in Need - aside from the unnecessarily brutal nature of Xena’s death - is that it just doesn’t make much sense to me. According to the plot of the episode, Xena needed to die and die permanently in order to save the trapped souls of several thousand villagers whose deaths she had semi-accidentally caused over a decade before. 

And you’re free to disagree, of course, but I don’t get it. It’s not my intent to appear callous here, it’s just, they were already dead. Could they not have waited another few decades for my girl to die of old age? The script could easily have been tweaked to demonstrate that the souls would be released someday anyway when Xena went peacefully in her bed at seventy. And the whole point of her redemption arc in the series was that it was only through her actions in life, not the event of her death, that could in any way make up for the damage she had caused as a young warlord.

[“The only thing she can do is just do good now, on a day to day basis. But she’s paying a debt she can never repay, and she’ll always be paying ten cents on the dollar.” - Tuentin Qarantino]

Death doesn’t fix that. 

Anyway, after the ending of Xena: Warrior Princess, it didn’t take long for official discussions of a follow-up movie to begin circulating. By 2003, writer Katherine Fugate - who had penned season six episode When Fates Collide - was signed on to the project, and Universal had granted a budget of around $50 to $60 million dollars, looking forward to a release within the next few years. This budget would at the time have put it in the general financial realm of movies like Kill Bill, Elektra, Hellboy, Reign of Fire, and V for Vendetta. For context, would have been well under the budget of The Mummy Returns but triple that of Hong Kong-based Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 

We unfortunately have no existing copies of Katherine Fugate’s proposed script for this film, although it was later suggested that she intended for the story to take place in Egypt, where Gabrielle would have successfully completed the necessary resurrection for her and Xena’s adventures to continue. (https://twitter.com/DavesXenaFever/status/1593860122010300421) (https://i.reddit.com/r/xena/comments/q4yafk/got_the_xena_omnibus_nice_to_read_season_7_as/) 

Meaning that officially, canonically, Xena the warrior princess would no longer have been dead. 

Fugate is primarily a rom-com screenwriter, known for films like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, and there is a great breadth of opinion regarding her episode When Fates Collide, ranging from calling it a fan favorite to calling it glorified fanfiction. It features a lot of ‘greatest hits’ style character appearances, but the alternate universe nature of the plot also necessitates that our leads are intentionally out of character, meaning that we as audience members had never really seen how Fugate would handle them in canon.

Regardless, by around the year 2004, Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor were both signed on to the film, but in the background, a legal dispute was brewing between Rob Tapert and Universal regarding who owned the official rights to the character. The project slipped into development hell and has been there ever since. 

Katherine Fugate did make an appearance with at several Xena Conventions to discuss it, like in 2010 - and I’ve found footage from 2011 and 2012 where she performed, along with some other cast members, a skit about her attempted pitch to Rob Tapert. (https://ausxip.com/conventions/2012Burbank/sayyes.pdf) 

Yes, that is Farscape’s Claudia Black in Lawless’s role for the sketch, and I actually kind of love it. That show and her character on it were both criminally underrated. 

At the Xena Convention in 2015, Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor, and other cast members even enacted a short play written by Fugate for the fan audience, wherein Xena came back to life and found Gabrielle again, although there’s obviously no way of knowing how closely this matches what the final product of the film would have been a decade prior. 

But by this point, both Rob Tapert and Lucy Lawless had already been alluding for years that a reboot was much more likely than a continuation. It appeared that Universal was unlikely to move forward with the project any time within the next ten years, and no solid developments were announced until the reigns were officially handed over in 2015. (hercules-xena.fandom.com) 

The Screenwriter and the ‘Bury Your Gays’ Trope

Javier Grillo-Marxuach boasts writing and/or production credits on multiple series, such as the first (and best) seasons of Lost on ABC and the highly acclaimed Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance from Netflix. Most controversially, he also worked as a producer for The 100 on the CW, and wrote the season three episode where protagonist Clarke Griffin infamously watched her girlfriend Lexa get killed by a stray bullet, only a few short scenes after the two of them had finally managed to consummate their relationship for the very first time. 

And a lot of the direct blame for this was laid, perhaps unfairly, at the writer’s feet. 

But first, some historical context about why this was a thing. 

The year of Lexa’s death was 2016, a decade and a half since Xena: Warrior Princess had ended with the death of its own queer leading woman. It was also fourteen years after Tara was killed by a stray bullet on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, slotting in to a century of LGBT+ characters being treated as expendable, as lamentable, or as depraved figures headed for an inescapably tragic end. 

And as we take a brief look into the history of this antediluvean convention, it’s important to remember that we’re not comparing numbers, we’re comparing percentages. You could take any piece of media facing allegations that it treats characters of a certain demographic as disposable and create a neat pie chart proving that an equal or greater number of deaths register among your fictional census majority. 

But the real question is this: How many queer characters existed to begin with? How many had leading, featured, or recurring roles? Because in this discussion, casualty numbers hardly matter when your casualty rate is fifty to a hundred percent. 

Anyway, this is often referred to as “Dead Lesbian Syndrome” or the “Bury Your Gays” trope, and if you want an in-depth look at this and how it has influenced LGBT storytelling in Hollywood, there are a lot of video essays by creators much more knowledgeable than myself on the topic. 

Suffice to say we can trace many of these issues directly back to early 1900’s moral panic and censorship, culminating in the Hays Code, a set of supposed “moral guidelines” which ruled the motion picture industry from 1934 to 1968 and did not allow for the portrayal of any supposedly “immoral” act without the application of an appropriate punishment by the film’s end. This made way for a flood of coded queer characters, either portrayed as tragic victims or as villains swiftly punished by death. These laws also forbade positive depictions of interracial relationships, disrespect of authority figures, villainous portrayals of the clergy, and favorable views of sex outside of marriage. 

Fast forward to today, and the TV Tropes page on the “Bury Your Gays” phenomenon has over a hundred entries 

Happily, portrayals of queer love on screen have only grown both more numerous and more nuanced, leading to discussions about whether intelligent, sensitive writing can allow certain on-screen queer deaths to transcend or subvert the trope. 

Yorkie and Kelly on Black Mirror as well as Bill and Frank in The Last of Us live long, beautiful, triumphant lives together, from a certain point of view. Could the same be said about someone like Dani, in The Haunting of Bly Manor? 

Or flipping to a completely different perspective, how do you classify the death of someone like Oberyn Martell, in the context of a show like Game of Thrones that was famous for killing off so many of its supporting and leading characters? 

Either way, successfully transcending this trope certainly seemed to be the unfulfilled hope of the writers and showrunners on The 100. (telltaletv.com) 

But instead, the episode - alongside the concurrent deaths of lesbian characters on other shows like Jane the Virgin and The Walking Dead - kickstarted a fury across the entire internet. 

And therefore when it was announced the very next year, in 2017, that Javier Grillo-Marxuach would be helming the new Xena: Warrior Princess reboot, which, to reiterate, had ended its original run in Xena’s own controversial death a decade and a half prior, fans, as I’m sure you can imagine, fucking lost it. 

The thing is, it’s important to note that the decision to kill off any major character does not always come down to the writer for that episode. These are often top-down decisions, and showrunner Jason Rothenburg, three weeks after the episode first aired, said in an open letter that, quote, "knowing everything I know now, Lexa’s death would have played out differently."

But despite this, it was the screenwriter for the episode who took a majority of the heat online - some of which included unnecessary personal attacks, like, it shouldn’t have to be said in the year of our Lord 2023, but don’t send people death threats - we don’t condone personal attacks against members of production, and neither should you.

And in a later series of interviews and posts on his personal Tumblr page, he addressed the controversy a number of times. 

Quote, “It was a really unfortunate confluence of creative decisions that had the wrong and most unintended impact, and that could have been avoided, but weren’t.” 

He would also elaborate, “My wife was actually producing a web series about the lives of trans and queer women in Los Angeles during the time I was writing on The 100, and I’m a friend of Amber Benson and — you know, she’s Tara Maclay, she’s the original shot by the stray bullet girl. It’s not as if I was not aware of the pitfalls of where we were going. You hope and pray that you can give a voice to the story that your showrunner wants to tell in a way that isn’t going to be injurious, and what you’re ultimately seeing is that a group of people who had the best narrative inventions created an outcome that sadly hurt a lot of people.”

And, “For me, personally, my response to this was to engage fully and to listen actively and to commit in a way that was respectful to the anger that was being expressed.” 

He went on to say that, as a member of a minority group himself, he understood the anger; that he had hope for better handling of such issues in the future; that he couldn’t apologize for what had been written without feeling that he was betraying the production and writing team, but that he also recognized his own social privilege even within his minority status as well as the power of his position in the industry, and that he was listening to fans about their opinions and experiences. (telltaletv.com) 

So. Did he seem compassionate, well-intentioned, and as though he was taking the issue seriously, and deserved the benefit of the doubt from fans? 

….Yeah! I think so. 

The Road to Rebooting Xena

The new showrunner had a lot to say going into the pre-production phase of the reboot. 

He had been a fan of genre television since the 90’s, enjoyed Xena, and was familiar with its fandom. When he heard that NBC was looking to do a reboot, he immediately asked his agents to get him in the room. In fact, he saw it as an opportunity to apologize for his role, active or not, in the death of Lexa’s character. 

After the last official Xena Convention, he even got in touch with a group of fans holding a retreat near LA, went out with them for a drink, and spent hours chatting about the show and its impact on their lives. He later claimed that the experience had really helped him in writing the script for the reboot, and in focusing on what important to people about the franchise. (telltaletv.com) 

He even promised that, under his hand, Xena’s relationship with Gabrielle wouldn’t be subtext, but main text. Quote, “There is no reason to bring back Xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication in the 1990s.”

And as for the tragic ending, he would say, “I am still working on the beginning of the story and am not sure how/where it will take us. But frankly, I think that if they should die, old age is the way to go.” (hollywoodreporter.com) 

Then, in an interview with Gizmodo, “A great deal of the appeal of the show lies in certain pulpy elements – like Gabrielle’s bare midriff, Xena’s leather miniskirt… And it’s hard for me in the post-Brienne of Tarth era to reconcile with the idea that Xena and her friends can meet every challenge in such skimpy outfits. I think we are going to have some very lengthy discussions about how to bring those elements into the present day without missing the boat on what makes Xena exactly what she is.”

I’ve talked at length about my many varied opinions on Xena’s costume - mostly that the corseting and low cut should be updated for comfort but that her outfit otherwise is of the same general shape and coverage as that of an ancient Greek hoplite - sans helmet and shield - and that the show was actually strides ahead for putting her in flat, sporty running shoes and building a comfortable boot with knee-pads around them. 

But no one needs to be fighting evil in a bikini, and extra protective garb for actresses and stuntwomen is something I will always advocate for, so this could only be a net gain. Besides, according to the same interview, the important elements wouldn’t change. 

Quote, “There are a few things that are sacrosanct: the Chakram and the quarterstaff, of course, Gabrielle’s ambition to become a bard, and—most importantly—that Xena and Gabrielle be soul mates.”  (https://gizmodo.com/) 

All in all, this left fans feeling more hopeful about the project. 

The Reboot is Canceled 

When in 2017 it was announced that the showrunner and the network had parted ways due to "insurmountable creative differences," the news was met with general disappointment. And while rumors swirled, it was made clear that disagreements over the Xena/Gabrielle relationship had not contributed to the reboot’s demise. (themarysue.com/javier-grillo-marxuach-leaves-xena-what-now/) 

NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke, interviewed in the same year, said, “We looked at some material; we decided at that point that it didn’t warrant the reboot. I’d never say never on that one because it’s such a beloved title, but the current incarnation of it is dead.” (hollywoodreporter.com) 

Just like Xena. 

The Lost First Season

I want to preface this section by saying that the writer seems like a very nice man with nothing but the best of intentions, and I wish him well both in his personal life and his professional career.

It’s important to understand and acknowledge that it is rarely a cut-and-dry affair to separate which elements of a script were mandated by studio involvement, and which were wholesale the creation of the screenwriter or other unnamed creatives potentially involved behind the scenes. 

I will also be making a genuine effort to separate my emotions regarding the concept of a story element being different from something in the original series, and the concept of that story element being inherently objectionable to me. All opinions to be stated here are highly subjective.

Content warning for discussion of sexual assault and child abuse. 

The Planned First Season of the Reboot The vibe of the reboot would have been somewhere between Gladiator and [Mad Max] Fury Road. The tone would have less slapstick action comedy, and instead present action scenes that were, quote, “pretty harrowing.” If there was humor, it would come from the dynamic between the two leads; Gabrielle as plucky and verbose, Xena as the “straight man” with no sense of humor.  Under the assumption that the original series had largely embraced “camp” out of necessity due to lack of budget, the new show would live in a more grounded world where the stakes felt high and the threat of violence was very real.   Xena and Gabrielle would also not have started out as a team in the first episode. Instead of a naïve farm girl, Gabrielle would begin the series as part of the nomadic Scythian tribe, because Scythians supposedly had a more liberal attitude toward women and a greater propensity for producing female warriors. Despite this, Gabrielle would still be a callow youth with dreams of being a bard.  Xena was to be an orphan who had been sold into slavery in childhood, fought her way out of servitude, and became a warlord. She views the world as a horrible pit of violence and betrayal and she has no faith in humanity.  Xena had been a solo warlord in the past, but now she was operating as a second in command. 

To avoid the hated concept of Xena having been “turned good” due to Hercules’ “sweet loving,” she would instead begin the series working alongside, and in a sexual relationship with, a villainous Hercules. He would be completing his mythical twelve labors, and while she was actually responsible for most of them, he was taking the credit. Hercules would now be closer to the Hercules of myth. (An asshole.)  But in the pilot episode, Hercules betrays Xena, puts her through the gauntlet, takes their army and leaves her for dead.

Gabrielle finds and nurses Xena back to health, all the while having no idea who Xena really is. In return, Xena trains Gabrielle as they head toward Athens, initially pretending altruistic motivations while using the opportunity to get herself back into fighting shape. Gabrielle is traveling because she wants to become a bard, and Xena just wants to murder Hercules in revenge.

Then we meet the Scythian king, who claims that Gabrielle is the exact spitting image of his daughter the princess.  He decides to marry Gabrielle off to the leader of a rival tribe, in order to create an alliance against a massive enemy army currently laying siege to the Scythian capital. 

Xena and Gabrielle part ways, until Xena discovers that the rampaging evil army is actually lead by Hercules. Hercules sacks the Scythian capital, murders its inhabitants, and takes Gabrielle as a hostage. This storyline would be one example of how the Xena reboot intended to take tropes from the original and play out their more realistic consequences.  At the Scythian king’s behest, Xena rounds up some soldiers and chases after Hercules’ army. This mission to rescue Gabrielle will end up turning her from evil to good and function as her first step toward redemption.

It would take about three episodes to reunite Xena and Gabrielle, at which point Gabrielle would be a bit brainwashed, and it would take another couple of episodes to acquire the services of a healer. In other words, it would take true time and effort to get Gabrielle to a place where she was really Gabrielle again. Overall, the format of the series would be less episodic and instead focus more on long-form storytelling. Xena’s quest to save Gabrielle would take up a good portion of the first season. The world would be realistic instead of campy, grounded instead of magical, and more feminist than the male gaze-y original. The phrase “more anti-male” was also used.  Returning characters may have included Callisto on the warpath, as well as Joxer and Autolycus as old soldiers who had once worked with Xena.  Xena and Gabrielle would fall in love in main text, not subtext. And neither of them would die an untimely death. 

Quote, “If this were a television show about a dude, the story would be about how this knight errant winds up going after a princess and rescuing her, and they fall in love. There was a time when […] I actually had Xena kiss Gabrielle at the end of the pilot, when she tries to rescue her before Hercules takes her away.  “Or Gabrielle kisses Xena because Xena has made her first real selfless gesture by coming back to rescue her.  “And the note [I received] was ‘well, that needs to be earned,’ and my note back was ‘hey, if this were a show about a dude, it would be considered earned by now.’  “So the real thing would be to have done a love story between two women over the course of 13 episodes, and then by the end of the 13 episodes, they would have finished this adventure, sort of walked off into the sunset, and it would have been open for more.” (www.tor.com) 

Once NBC had ultimately turned down the project, there were also brief discussions about the possibility of taking the reboot to a different platform.  Rather than Gladiator vs Mad Max, it would have been more akin to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The story would include more supernatural elements and likely feature Xena fighting Jason and the Argonauts, who had recruited a villainous Hercules to their team. 

[FREE DISCUSSION]

[START NOTES FOR FREE DISCUSSION -

Xena's Backstory

Something that that has always been so rare and unique about Xena’s backstory as a female warrior is that, while she was born into a violent world, choosing a life of violence was something that she did of her own free will. 

There’s something so incredibly gender-neutral about her journey being spurred by Cortese’s attack on Amphipolis. This could easily have been the story of a man whose village was under threat, decided to fight back, saw some of his family killed, and ended up on the slippery slope to turning warlord. That was basically the plot of Robert Eggers’ The Northman. 

Fighting Cortese was arguably not even a necessary act in order to preserve her own life. I know that Xena’s continuity is non-existant, but in the season two episode Remember Nothing we see her in a what-if scenario where they never decided to fight back, and she’s still alive! So is her brother, and the attack didn’t kill her mother either. They bowed down to Cortese, gave him everything they had, and the implication is that at least some of them would still have survived. 

Xena chose to pick up that sword, because she’s the kind of character who always will. Because she will never sit there and do nothing while there’s potential action to be taken, and because - and here’s the really rare thing in a female hero especially - she kind of likes the violence. 

I know that a reboot is a reboot, and not everything can remain the same, but I also can’t help but feel that rooting Xena’s backstory in child slavery, it fundamentally changes who she is by entirely changing her early-life motivations for picking up that sword. 

Childhood Abuse Storyline

I absolutely believe the writer when he stated that he wanted to write a more feminist Xena story, and that because of this, I’m sure that in creating this new backstory for Xena - where she was a young slave in this world of high stakes and real violence - he did not in any way intend to imply that she had experienced sexual violence in childhood. I really want to stress that I am not trying to put words in anyone’s mouth here. 

As we discussed previously, it was specifically mentioned that Gladiator was a big tonal inspiration for the reboot, and that very much involves a male character who is pushed into gladiatorial slavery and tries to fight his way to a certain type of freedom. My assumption here would be that this is an attempt at an almost gender neutral backstory for Xena; following in the footsteps of Maximus and Spartacus and the classic story of a slave who physically fights their way out of oppression. 

It’s also worth mentioning that in ancient times, sexual abuse of slaves was certainly not limited to any one gender. 

But what I am saying is that, if one is not careful, writing a character as a young female slave within a purposely more realistic, more grounded world where the threat of violence is intended to feel real and present… because of certain social structures that have been present throughout history, because of assumptions that a modern audience is likely to make, and also because of the purposeful tonal references to Mad Max: Fury Road which uses sexual assault and sexual slavery as backstory for the majority of its female characters… a portion of the viewership would read any mention of a female character in slavery as implication that that character could have experienced sexual violence. 

And I think, because we’re here to ruminate not just about this specific reboot attempt but about why we love Xena and about what made that series so special for us and special as a tentpole of the female action genre, we need to talk about that.

To divorce it, again, from the specific context of this reboot, because, as I’ve covered, I’m sure it was not part of the writer’s intent, and instead now that the topic has been raised, discuss it just as a general trope of the genre, including how we feel about the trope in particular connection with Xena as a character and as a franchise. 

Sexual Assault on Female Action Heroes

One of the earliest big-screen female-lead superhero movies ever made was 1985’s Red Sonja, which is about a woman who, after rejecting an evil queen’s sexual advances, is assaulted and left for dead by a group of the queen’s soldiers, before being granted powerful combat skills by a nameless spirit in answer to her cry for revenge. One of the most recent big-screen female-lead superhero movies was 2021’s Black Widow, which follows a number of women who were raised from childhood in a brutal all-female elite spy program that included combat, seduction training, a forced hysterectomy and probably a fair amount of assault.  

The ‘Rape and Revenge’ and ‘Rape as Backstory’ pages on TVtropes have hundreds of entries. I’ve seen these general themes threaded into the stories of tough women on screen in The Last Kingdom and Outlander and Peaky Blinders and Spartacus and Gladiator and 300 Rise of an Empire and Tank Girl and The Witcher and Vikings and Westworld and The Boys. 

It’s not just in schlock like Sucker Punch and I Spit On Your Grave or whatever, it’s in prestige films and television shows, films and shows with characters that I love. It’s Game of Thrones, it’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s Mad Max: Fury Road, it’s Jessica Jones, it’s The Killing Joke.  It’s in some of the most iconic female action stories of our lifetime, in Foxy Brown, in Kill Bill. It nearly fucking happens to Ripley in Alien 3 and in Terminator 2 one of the orderlies licks Sarah Connor’s face while she appears to be catatonic. Even when it’s not explicit, the threat and implication remains; there’s the dream sequence in Battlestar Galactica that actress Katee Sackhoff said was “written like a rape scene,” and then there’s whatever the fuck is going on with Princess Leia’s golden bikini in Return of the Jedi. In the early 1990’s, Mark Millar even wrote a 22-page comic script called “The Rape of Wonder Woman” and pitched it to DC as a joke, but DC apparently actually considered publishing it. 

Sexual assault, written delicately and meaningfully or otherwise, is a part of some male characters’ backstories in fiction, and there is a lot to talk about there too. It gets played for laughs far too often, but even beyond that - like, I mentioned Outlander before and there’s a lot of issues surrounding the series’ treatment of Jamie Frasier’s assault and the author’s enthusiasm in that area. 

Just percentage-wise on screen, though, assault is overwhelmingly a part of women’s stories. You can write a thermian argument, or push the merits of portraying the worst depths of human depravity on screen, or insist that its inclusion is realistic in a world where a thousand other things aren’t, but I’m sick of it. It’s old. It’s boring. It’s been done. I’m over seeing it included where it’s not necessary. 

And in retrospect? It may come down to the overall campy vibes and general themes of empowerment rather than realism, but whatever the reason, I am so, so grateful to Xena for keeping it mostly a non-element in the show, and especially for keeping it far away from Xena’s personal backstory. 

So I just hope when including this child slavery element in the reboot, the production would have been really clear with the audience that this wasn’t their intended implication, because I can see viewers mistakenly getting that impression. 

Xena's Martial Prowess

Also, it’s worth noting that while being possessed of great martial skill and supreme physical strength isn’t in all cases an unassailable defense against acts of unwanted sexual aggression, the other reason that assault wasn’t overly present in Xena: Warrior Princess is that she could kind of just rip a person’s head from their neck if she wanted to, and there was something incredibly refreshing about that. 

There are a few times when people on the show tried something on with her, and she punted them straight across the room. A quick little poke-poke and they were down for the count, and the extreme catharsis of watching that, of having watched that as a kid, just the relief in knowing that she could walk into all of the dark alleys you couldn’t and walk out again unscathed? Magical. 

Empowerment On Screen

This is off topic now, but it’s interesting, because I do think that this topic naturally engenders a very complicated discussion about what is empowerment, what is a feminist piece, what is a piece that promotes equality for a marginalized group.

And inevitably, there’s two sort of schools of thought, that I think should and do coexist to some extent, which are; 1) show an unflinchingly realistic take on extreme suffering in order to promote awareness and evoke sympathy, or, 2) create a fictional environment of strength and empowerment and joy and where the characters’ struggles lie elsewhere. 

I think we need both. There is room for Jessica Jones or I May Destroy You as well as Wonder Woman or Xena. Or for It’s A Sin to coexist with Our Flag Means Death and Paris is Burning and Queer Eye and Heartstopper. 

And finding which properties are which is really important. Jessica Jones was a really important show.  But Xena isn't and shouldn't be that.

There’s a lot of nuance when it comes to the things we portray on screen in the name of realism. Is the portrayal respectful or is shot in a manner that’s borderline pornographic? What traumatizing imagery or concepts are you potentially adding to the general cultural atmosphere? 

One of the best things about Xena was that she was so much larger than life, so much more powerful. Any episodes where the violence became graphic or felt particularly gendered actually were rare to the point that they really stuck out. 

Xena the Orphan

I liked Xena’s mom. I liked her relationship with her mom, I thought that was a really rare, cool thing to see on television, a daughter trying to come home after a life of violence to a mother who is ashamed of and also afraid of her, and it makes me sad to lose that dynamic. 

Xena as Second-in-Command

Would she do that? Did she ever, aside from sort of doing it with Borias? And even that didn't last long.

There’s an old essay with a quote I really like, it talks about how Xena was so rare in the 90’s because she wasn’t defined by her relationship with men. And in her own self-titled show, that’s broadly true. This is more parallel with her first appearance in Hercules, maybe, so deserves a little more leeway, but. 

If we want this to be more feminist, I feel like there’s an opportunity to start the show like season one episode one, without starting her off focused on her interpersonal relationship with a man and without putting one in a major supporting role that as the main villain would have him in a recurring appearance every episode.

Xena, Betrayed?

With that one random fiance, and with Caesar, she was very young. In the original show she was never "betrayed" by a love interest as an adult with a flourishing warlord career - that was only a thing of the distant past.

Darphus she never really trusted; she just thought he wouldn't dare make a move against her.

Are they making her more naive or gullible for the reboot?

- END NOTES FOR FREE DISCUSSION]

And anyway, in the autumn of 2018, the script for the proposed pilot episode of the scrapped reboot would leak online.

Episode One: Destroyer of Nations

My only comment before moving on to the live script reading is to remind viewers that all opinions to follow are subjective and we do not condone personal attacks against members of production. 

Also, again, warning for blunt discussion of sexual assault and child abuse. 

 [FREE DISCUSSION]

What We Would Want in a Reboot?

[FREE DISCUSSION]

Custom concept artwork of Xena's costume for a revival series with the legacy actors © @benevolenterrancy .

The Canceled Xena Reboot | An Over-Analysis of the Leaked Pilot Script (1/2)

A video essay about the canceled Xena: Warrior Princess reboot and our dreams of a revival with the legacy actors.

0:00 - Intro

1:22 - Disclaimer & Title

3:48 - The Mid-00's Xena Movie That Never Happened

7:07 - The 'Bury Your Gays' Trope

16:32 - The Road to Rebooting Xena

20:03 - The Reboot is Canceled

20:48 - The Lost First Season

53:57 - Episode One: The Destroyer of Nations

1:45:22 - What Would We Want in a 'Reboot'?

2:01:35 - Credits

[asfdhgsdkjhgb]

god is swuarshing me beneath his thumb like i am an aphid or perhaps a clover mite. yeah. its slow and painful and im small. and also meek

[perihel1on]

really really funny to post a whole long well-thought-out thing about how i no longer identify as plural then immediately get into a week long argument with myself(s) about whether that's true

[sysig]

Physical media is forever (Patreon)

[james-spooky]

this is a test