#with like music and special effects and everything

[jackactuallywrites]

All Seeing, All Knowing, All Loving Part 16

Warnings: Filthy music taste and thirsting!

Summary: You flirt with Ghost and then immediately regret it (but not really)

Notes: I have blessed you with my music taste (specifically my writing smut playlist)

Word Count: 2,066

ao3 link

It was just a film. That was all. It was a film, with some very talented actors, and some truly marvellous makeup artists and special effect artists.

Yeah, no, it wasn’t working. You were still freaked out. Even if, logically, you knew that zombies weren’t real and were, in fact, a biological impossibility, you couldn’t help but have that prickling feeling in the back of your neck. It didn’t help that Soap and Roach were playing silly beggars and sprinting around your apartment, knocking things over and making banging sounds that made you jump every single time. It was freaking you the fuck out. The brightness of the phone wasn’t doing much to soothe you, and you’d turned all the big lights on, yet still, your heart was racing. You shifted uncomfortably on your sofa, pulling your blanket tighter around you. Yeah, if there was gonna be a sudden apocalypse, a blanket would keep you safe.

The ping of your phone made you jump, and you huffed at your own anxiety. It was a film, dammit.

‘Ghost: What are you up to tonight? :-)’

Well, that made you feel better. Christ, you hoped he wasn’t planning a surprise visit; you were covered in Doritos dust, and there were soup stains on your pyjama bottoms.

‘You: Just having a little film night. How about you?’

‘Ghost: What you watching?’

‘You: Train to Busan. Korean zombie film! You gonna tell me what you’re doing or is it a state secret?’

‘Ghost: (image)’

Ghost was in the gym. He’d sent you the most stereotypical picture, sat on a bench, wearing a plain green t-shirt that you could see was drenched in sweat. His face was still fucked up; you could see it now that he wasn’t wearing the balaclava, though the bruises were beginning to change colour, tinged with an ugly green around the sides. You were sure that he was flexing his arms; his biceps looked bigger than you remembered. What would it feel like to be wrapped up in those? To have that big beast of a man on top of you?

‘You: TAKE IT OFF. :)’

Mm. You needed to be put down. What thirsty gods had possessed you to send that?

Immediately, you locked your phone and threw it to the other side of the sofa. There was laundry you could do! That would distract you. You dove into the chore with enthusiasm you never usually had, striding into your bedroom and stripping your bed with ferocious energy, throwing everything into the corner of your room, then scooping it up and carrying it out. You paused in the living room to gingerly check your phone, but there was no new message. Argh. At least you’d replaced your zombie fear with something more real. You placed a pillow on top of your phone and then walked into the kitchen to stuff your bedding in the washing machine, trying not to think about the inevitable rejection coming your way.

With the washing machine on, you went to the airing cupboard to get yourself fresh bedding, picking out a nice dark green cotton. There was no connection between you sending a risky text to Ghost and then getting fresh bedding. None at all. Naturally, Soap had decided that you absolutely needed his help putting the bedsheet on, leaping onto the centre of the bare mattress and watching you struggle with the corners of the fitted sheet. He liked to jump forward and slap at your hands as you smoothed out the wrinkles in the sheets, getting fresh white hair all over the nice, clean bedding, as was his way. You just about managed to stop him from crawling inside the duvet cover, finally ending up throwing him in the living room so you could make your bed in peace. He made his displeasure evident, yowling outside your door as you made your bed, but you ignored him, focusing on making an absolutely perfect fresh bed. Military standard, even.

You needed another task. You hadn’t taken a shower yet. You could do pre-shower makeup! That would kill at least half an hour minimum. Right, you needed your slut pop playlist and all the makeup you’d bought, thinking a bold red lip was going to be your new daily thing. Ah, the optimist you were. As soon as you opened the bedroom door to get your things, Soap came sprinting in, leaping onto your freshly made bed and zooming around in circles on it as though the duvet was the most exciting thing he’d ever seen. You gathered the essentials, fresh knickers, makeup bag, waterproof Bluetooth speaker, and your phone which you had now turned onto ‘do not disturb’. Yeah, you were ignoring him; he wasn’t ignoring you.

Oh, you were serving c u n t. Clearly, the very spirit of Gaga and Petras had touched you through the speakers, the spirit of artpop on your face in a bright splash of watercolour painted across your skin. It did look a little bit like you had clown bruising. But, you’d killed half an hour! You took a few photos for posterity, sent them to the group chat, then stripped off and hopped in the shower, bidding farewell to your look. With Gaga blaring while you showered, you really did feel as though you could win a lip sync, ignoring the fact that the shower did drown out a lot of your voice. You had to force yourself not to dance after almost slipping, deciding that dying like this was not how you wanted to go, even if it would be a little funny for the paramedics to hear the music.

With your face back to normal, you wrapped your hair up in a towel and pulled your dressing gown on, carrying the speaker into the living room, still blasting your slut playlist. Roach didn’t approve, skulking into the kitchen away from you. Hater.

For a moment, you didn’t hear the knocking, too lost in the beat of your music, but as the song ended, you heard it in the brief silence between tracks. Ah, shit. Your neighbours didn’t care for loud music. Absolutely no taste. You turned it down slightly, but not completely off, as you went to the door, peering through the peephole.

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Ghost was on the other side of the door. No balaclava, still wearing the t-shirt he’d been wearing in the gym. It was a text! A jest! Why would he come to your door? Fuck. You dithered at the door uncomfortably; you had nothing on under your dressing gown, and your knickers were stuffed in your pocket. Christ. How much of Petras had he heard? He reached forward to gently knock on the door again, and you panicked. Okay. You needed to change. Fuck, your good clothes were on the clothes horse.

“I know you’re on the other side of the door, darlin’.”

Oh, motherfucker. Of course, he would. Stupid military ass. He looked directly at you through the peephole, a very satisfied look on his face. “You only brave over texts?”

Oh, he knew how to play you like a fiddle. You immediately pulled the chain off and opened the door, your face defiant. “The chain got stuck.”

If he knew you were lying, which he probably did, he didn’t call you out directly, just giving you an amused nod, “Sure. May I come in?”

You stepped aside to let him in, only slightly embarrassed at the music that was still pumping out of your speakers. Ghost stifled a laugh, raising a brow and nodding towards the speakers, “These lyrics accurate?” Oh, Kim had betrayed you. He tilted his head to the side, “‘Treat me like a slut, little dirty bitch I love to fuck.’” You could feel your cheeks flushing, and you crossed your arms, “She makes good music!” Ghost looked like the cat who had caught the mouse and was having far too much fun playing with it. “Doesn’t answer my question, love.” You quickly stepped forward to press pause on your playlist before ‘Bring Wet Cunt’ started playing, and Ghost laughed, “Come on, you shy now?”

You took the towel from around your hair and threw it at his face. Like every other time you’d thrown anything at him, he caught it before it hit his face, laughing. His eyes flicked over your dressing gown, “Anything else you want to throw at me?” Christ alive, what had gotten into him? One flirty text, and he was trying to get you naked? Okay, no, you could do this. You were a bad bitch. You tried to look nonchalant, shrugging at him, “You expect me to strip for you when you won’t even take a single shirtless photo for me?”

That was the wrong move. You could see the way his eyes lit up, pupils widening. He leant in, close enough so you could smell his sweat mixed in with his cologne, intoxicatingly delicious, “It’s only coming off if you take it off.” Okay, be cool. You had to remember to breathe, taking in a slow breath, then pushing it out. You could be that bitch. You were going to wipe that smug smirk off his face. And maybe take him to bed. Your hands reached out to grab the hem of his shirt, beginning to lift it up, revealing just a touch of his lower stomach and the dark blond hair that led down into his joggers.

Ghost’s hands flashed out to grab yours, dropping the towel as his fingers encircled your wrists, his top dropping back down. Your anticipation was quickly replaced with smugness, and you broke out into a wide smile, looking at him triumphantly, “Oh, suck it! You chickened out.” His eyes narrowed, “Did not.” You bathed in your victory, “Uh huh. So this,” you wiggled your hands, still caught in his grip, “that’s not me winning?” He looked you up and down, eyes dark, “I’m stopping you from doing something you couldn’t handle.” He dropped your wrists, taking a step back from you, “‘sides, I need to get back to base.” It was impossible not to poke the bear. “You running away from me?” He snorted at you, “Nice try, love.”

The man seemed to have a lot more self-control than you; he seemed entirely uninterested again, looking around your apartment, “Where’s our boys?” You frowned, then realised you were jealous of cats, and gestured to the bedroom, “Soap’s ruining my freshly made bed, and Roach is… somewhere.” Ghost clicked his tongue a few times, and Soap came running out of the bedroom, meowing loudly as he rubbed against Ghost’s legs. Roach came sauntering out of the kitchen, only giving a singular chirp as he jumped up onto the coffee table. Ghost fussed them both, and you sighed, leaning against the wall, “You ever gonna tell me about the names?” Ghost didn’t look at you as he answered, scratching Roach’s shoulders, “Through memorial, we reach immortality.”

You raised a brow at him, but he didn’t elaborate. Memorial. So your cats were named after dead people? Ah. Dead soldiers. That explained the weird nicknames. You didn’t push the topic.

Ghost turned away from the cats and approached you, bending down to grab the towel as he walked, holding it out to you. As you took hold of it, he yanked on his end, pulling you closer. His hand snaked around the back of your neck, holding you in place as he whispered into your ear, “You think you’ve won, but you’ve just proved again how desperately you want me.” He straightened up as he let you go, his fingers tapping on your chin to make you look up, “Don’t quit trying, though, love. I do enjoy your little attempts.”

With that, he moved past you to the door, unlocking it and letting himself out, letting the door close behind him.

Every time you thought you had one over him, he pulled the rug out from under your feet. You groaned and shook out the tension from your body, deciding that you really needed to up your game. As you walked toward your bedroom, you dug in your pocket to get your clean pants out, but there was nothing there. Had he pickpocketed you? For the love of fuck.

Ghost had stolen your fucking underwear.

[justwanderingtheblog]

The full transcript for the video essay is below. ⚔

Xena started out in 1995 as the poorer sister show to Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which hosted the character’s brief but memorable debut appearance in a trilogy of episodes entitled The Warrior Princess, The Gauntlet, and Unchained Heart.

A villain-turned-ally, Xena was rescued from the footnotes of television history when the dailies for her first episode came in, and sight of her in action triggered studio executives to call for a spin-off series. 

And so Xena: Warrior Princess debuted later that same year, with absolute beans for a budget, relying heavily on freelance writers and with little faith from executives. The head of the studio at the time was firmly of the belief that Hercules was the real star property. Female heroes, he told producer Rob Tapert, were not successful in television. 

Yet Xena would be beating Hercules in viewership by the end of its first year, and would go on to battle for the number one spot in the Nielsen ratings as the most popular syndicated drama both in America and internationally, occasionally beating out, among other things, Baywatch. By the end of its run, it had swept up numerous awards for both soundtrack and costume design, including multiple New Zealand Television Awards and Emmy nominations.

Filmed in New Zealand with both American and Kiwi cast and crew, the show aired for six years under executive producers Rob Tabert, Sam Raimi, and RJ Stewart.  It featured two protagonists - a reformed ex-murderous warlord and her young innocent sidekick - as they went up against Greek Gods, mythical monsters, and the Warlord of the Week. 

And this show had everything: Ass-kicking. Gay rights. Ngila Dickson’s costumes. Helen of Troy. Bruce Campbell. Comedy. Norse gods. A bomb-ass soundtrack. Heartbreak. Lord Celeborn as an ethnically ambiguous warlord. A Footloose episode. Homelander as the future King David of Israel. Betrayal. Gina Torres as Cleopatra. Jesus, kind of. Karl Urban playing like five different characters. Jesus again, kind of. Lao Tzu’s boss-ass wife. Trans rights. 90’s special effects. Xena teaching Hyppocrates how to be a doctor. Excalibur. Censored episodes that may or may not have aged well, we’ll talk about it. Beauty pageants. Lesbian vampires. Haldir of Lothlorien in a turban. Musical episodes. Time-traveling archeologist reincarnations. Doppelgangers. 

The show was breaking the fourth wall before it was cool. Historical accuracy? We don’t know her and we don’t care to. Xena ran so that the crowd chanting “We Will Rock You” in A Knight’s Tale could walk. 

Anyway, the eponymous hero was played by Kiwi actress Lucy Lawless, who made her debut in 1989 on the New Zealand sketch comedy show Funny Business, and since the end of Xena has gone on to recurring roles in, among other things, Battlestar Galactica, Spartacus, Parks and Recreation, Ash vs Evil Dead, and most recently My Life Is Murder - plus cameos in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and a particularly memorable episode of The Simpsons. She was also in Eurotrip. 

There are a lot of behind-the-scenes factors that account for Xena’s success, but a lead actor can make or break a show, and Lawless, the last-minute replacement for British actress Vanessa Angel who dropped out of the project due to illness, was a fucking powerhouse from note one. 

It was pilot season in the television industry, and following Vanessa Angel’s departure, the production team found itself scrambling for a replacement. Others were offered the role, but the proposed three-episode arc simply wasn’t worth leaving Los Angeles for the duration of filming. In the end, they just grabbed a local actor who had appeared briefly in a recent episode of Hercules, dyed her hair black, and put her back on set. 

In Lucy Lawless’s own words, she was the lucky local kid who got the gig, and in her hands, the character became immediately iconic. Nearly six-feet-tall with broad shoulders, a deep voice, a first-rate murder glare and some absolutely fucking feral fight-scene energy, her portrayal allowed the show to soar out from under Hercules’s shadow and into groundbreaking - and bar-setting - campy action-hero legend. 

The show’s secondary protagonist was a peasant runaway and aspiring bard named Gabrielle. Sidekick, moral compass, comic relief, and eventual love interest, Gabrielle was played with warmth, charm, and wonderful comedic timing by American actress Renee O’Connor. 

And rounding out some but not all of the extensive recurring cast were also Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Hudson Leick, Karl Urban, Danielle Cormack, and the late, great Kevin Todd Smith. 

The show also helped prep the New Zealand industry for the juggernaut that would be the Lord of the Rings, with Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, and Ngila Dickson all working on Xena before going on to receive Academy Awards for LOTR. Dozens of cast members and stunt crew featured in both productions. Sam Raimi went on to direct some of the most successful superhero movies of all time with Spider-Man. Xena’s main stuntwoman Zoe Bell would go on to double Uma Thurman on Kill Bill and earn a place as one of Hollywood’s most iconic stunt workers, while riding double Dayna Grant would work on Wonder Woman and Mad Max: Fury Road and eventually start her own stunt school.

A cult favorite among scores of fans from every walk of life, Xena: Warrior Princess is still upheld today as one of the best shows for women in television history, and the show’s impact is hard to over-state. 

If you enjoy The Witcher on Netflix and want a genderswap where Geralt actually treats Jaskier with respect, or liked the battle scenes in Wonder Woman but thought you’d prefer a character with more grit who had committed multiple war crimes, or you love characters like Arya or Brienne on Game of Thrones but want more sapphics, zero rape and a much worse budget, Xena is the show for you.

So. This is the deep dive that no one asked for. 

Toss a Coin to Your Warrior Princess

Xena the Warrior Princess is born in Amphipolis, in northern Greece, to an innkeep mother and a father of mysterious origins. As the story goes, when a local warlord attacks her village, the teenage Xena encourages her peers to fight back rather than surrender and her younger brother Lyceus dies, as do many other men from their town, leaving her first in line to bear the blame. Alienated from her own people, she decides they need a standing army as protection from further attack; then she takes the surrounding towns as a buffer; then she begins raiding along the Thracian coast. Ten years down the line, with multiple bitter betrayals, a secret child, crippling injury, and a lot of death under her belt, Xena is a rampaging psychopath who mostly refuses to kill civilian women and children, but definitely kills everybody else. 

And then - and here we catch up to the trilogy of episodes that were her first television appearance, still in fledgeling form, as an antagonist on the show Hercules - she plots to kill the son of Zeus. He turns out to be a little out of even her league and she fails, finds herself in a moral quandary over the life of an innocent, loses her army, and finally turns her back on the evil deeds of her past. 

Important to note here that Xena was initially meant to die after the completion of her three-episode arc, but her character was so goddamn good that they yoinked her from the storyline and gave her a self-titled show instead.

At the start of Xena: Warrior Princess, our eponymous former-villain is ready to give up violence - and perhaps her life - altogether, when she sees a group of villagers being captured by slavers and decides to rescue them. This is how she meets her soon-to-be best friend Gabrielle and they wander the land together, defeating evil and helping the innocent, all the while Xena is aware that nothing she ever does will fully balance the scales of redemption. 

Women in Action: By the Numbers

Xena: Warrior Princess was in many ways an action show before anything else. A part of Universal's “action block,” it was heavily influenced by Hong Kong martial arts and wuxia films; particularly Brigitte Lin’s Bride With The White Hair, a film from 1993 about an orphan turned warrior on the path of bloody revenge. 

And the place of importance that both the character of Xena and her show hold in the history of fighting women on-screen is legitimately hard to exaggerate. 

To quote an Entertainment Weekly article from the year 2000, published upon news of the show’s coming cancellation, "The warrior princess was always allowed to be mean.  Not ”steal your boyfriend” or ”diss your outfit” mean — which had been the usual lot of the TV tough girl — but ”mess with me and I’ll crush your skull” mean." 

They’re not wrong, but the show wasn’t just groundbreaking because it featured an actress in armor.

While the number of female-lead action franchises have always dragged significantly behind film and television viewership demographics, according to audience gender surveys, moviemakers and showrunners have been handing weapons to the occasional scantily-clad actress for ages. 

And this is where we’re going to talk about not-Xena for a bit. 

It was Dr Caroline Heldman who popularized the term “fighting fuck toy,” which she uses to refer to hyper-sexualized characters that may seem empowered, but whose agency has been entirely stripped for the sake of making them into a sex object instead of a complex subject.

Sometimes we can even see a character evolve in or out of this state; one who is introduced as intelligent and comparatively utilitarian, but is later, even if temporarily, silenced and displayed as eye candy. Similarly, there are examples of the opposite; where a character’s introduction featured more shallow characterization and frequently put them on display for voyeuristic enjoyment, but who under the care of a different creative team were allowed to flourish and become more three-dimensional. And more practically dressed. 

Comic writer Kelly Sue DeConnick similarly coined the “Sexy Lamp Test,” namely the idea that if you can remove a character, no matter how badass, from your piece of media and replace them with a sexy lamp, without this having any effect on the plot, then your character has no real agency. 

And admittedly, some small part of that “fighting fuck toy” trope may be a characteristic of the action industry in general - Rambo doesn’t exactly market itself on three-dimensional emotional complexity and Hollywood has frequently pressed ludicrous and unhealthy expectations of fitness onto its male action stars. But Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, and today’s plethora of superheroes - these legends of the western screen rose to fame through their ability to sell their action scenes. Not their ability to look good in heels and a bra while occasionally waving around a sword that they shouldn’t have the muscle to lift. 

Today, the pantheon of successful female action heroes who have been allowed to get dirty, look ugly, and wear utilitarian gear - who display both a complexity of character and the ability to throw a convincing punch - is always growing, but that growth is slow. 

Flashback to the year 1964; the film, starring Sean Connery, would be the first major blockbuster of the franchise; the poster featured a naked woman in repose; and the tagline was, “James Bond is back in action! Everything he touches turns to excitement!” 

Based on Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, Goldfinger launched a public craze for the franchise, and it had some of the most iconic and enduring elements of Bond; Oddjob’s chakram hat, the line "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" and the Bond Girl whose name just barely scraped past American censorship - Pussy Galore. 

These days, if you’re talking about complex, well-written characters in film, Pussy Galore isn’t the first to come to mind. The titular villain’s right-hand-woman-turned-reluctant hero and love interest, Pussy Galore was played by Honor Blackman, formerly of the British secret agent show The Avengers. 

On one hand, well. Femme fatales with few layers - both in personality and in clothing - are a dime a dozen in Bond films, but there is a lot that modern audiences might not remember about the character. 

Honor Blackman had learned basic judo for The Avengers, in a studio full of practitioners who had never taught a woman before. After a childhood using what she called her “terribly good uppercut” to protect her brother from bullies, Blackman spent two seasons of the show executing judo throws on concrete floors before giving up the reigns to Diana Rigg. When she went on to Goldfinger, her judo coaches went with her, and fans at the time remembered her as tough and intelligent, one of the first actresses ever to portray any form of martial art on the western screen; she had brought Bond to his knees and this was shocking, however briefly. 

The next year, she published Honor Blackman’s Book of Self-Defense; and while most of the techniques aren’t workable in any sort of day-to-day circumstance and the picture demonstrations all feature the author in high heels and tight dresses, it was still an absolute rarity on bookstore shelves at the time. 

An article in Life Magazine, 1966, said that Blackman was encouraging, quote, “pretty young things” to take up judo, promised readers that she wasn’t a man-hater, and assured them that Blackman only did her judo training before appointments with her hairdresser. 

It would take ten years to establish the first proper action woman on film, though, with the rise of Pam Grier in blaxploitation films like 1974’s massively influential Foxy Brown.

To quote Grier, “The 1970s was a time of freedom and women saying that they needed empowerment. There was more empowerment and self-discovery than any other decade I remember. All across the country, a lot of women were Foxy Brown. They were independent, fighting to save their families, not accepting rape or being victimized... This was going on all across the country. I just happened to do it on film.” 

And if there’s an ocean of change between Pussy Galore and Foxy Brown, there is an entire world between any Bond Girl and Ellen Ripley, who first debuted in 1979’s Alien. 

In the years between Ripley’s first appearance and her return for the equally iconic sequel in 1984, Sheena bombed in theaters and swept the Razzie nominations; and Red Sonja was released shortly after to equally terrible result, neither of them favorable entries in the short, shaky list of notable film heroes. 

A new icon wouldn’t arrive until 1991, when the release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day propelled the gun-wielding, chain-smoking Sarah Connor to legendary status. 

And this is about where the list maxes out. In fact, in Hollywood, it seemed that between the mid-70’s and early 90’s, Pam Grier, Sigourney Weaver, and Linda Hamilton were not only at the top of the female action pack, but almost made up its entirety. 

According to this 2016 research paper entitled The Deevolution of Female Protagonists in Action Cinema, 1960–2014, there were 255 American action films in the 1980’s; 91.8% of them had male leading characters. 

Meanwhile, some of the biggest blockbusters of the 80’s had been Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Batman, Rocky, Rambo, fucking Beverly Hills Cop. It was the decade of Lethal Weapon and RoboCop, of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. 

And yet by 1995, when Xena first aired, the list of American female action heroes was still painfully short. The Long Kiss Goodnight wouldn’t debut for another year, The Matrix for another four, Kill Bill for eight. 

In eastern cinema, the story was a little bit different. Heroines had been appearing in action films for decades already, from early wuxia films of the 60’s to the the kung-fu craze of the 70’s, the stunt-heavy films of the 80’s and the Hong Kong action cinema of the 90’s, which influenced Hollywood filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and shaped much of the fighting styles seen on Xena.  

As an example, by 1992, Malaysian dancer-turned-actor Michelle Yeoh had already cemented herself in legend on Supercop, where an all-out stunt war with Jackie Chan led to her jumping a motorcycle onto the top of a moving train without a wire. After the success of Jackie Chan’s Rumble in the Bronx in ‘95, Supercop finally saw a wide American release in 1996; the next year, Michelle Yeoh would appear as a Bond Girl in Tomorrow Never Dies, her mainstream introduction to a western audience. Now, over twenty years later, she has been in some of the biggest action movies to hit American screens, and with Everything Everywhere All At Once releasing in 2022, maybe also one of the best films in recent memory. 

And yet for actresses in America, to quote Star Trek Voyager’s Jeri Ryan in 1999, “If you’ll notice, the film industry hasn’t exactly capitalized on the success of action women. There was Sigourney Weaver. And Linda Hamilton. And…well, that’s about it.” 

So, what about television of the day? 

In Gender and Women’s Leadership: A Reference Handbook by Natalie Greene, the author neatly graphs Nielson rankings of the top 10 broadcast television programs on the four biggest channels for American network television. 

In the 1950’s, excluding repeats, only three of those shows - a whopping 6% - weren’t led by men, and more than half of the women on television were portraying housewives. 

In the 1960’s, the number rose to 14%, and then in the 1970’s, to 24.5%. Yet in ‘73, the year of Roe v. Wade, in an article for TV Guide, Leonard Gross reported that network executives were struggling to see the appeal in expanding these roles on-screen, with a CBS official reportedly asking, and I quote, “Who wants to see a prime-time series about a woman?” 

The same year, author Betty Miles, who penned "Channeling Children: Sex Stereotyping in Prime Time TV," ran a small study of the 16 top-rated evening broadcast programs at the time. According to her findings, men in action-adventure programming outnumbered women by six to one. Furthermore, fewer men displayed what she called “incompetent” or “bungling” behavior. 

The Bionic Woman was a rare superhero show which featured as its lead Jaime Sommers, a character of immense physical strength who often used that strength - as opposed to her sexuality, a more common feature of Charlie’s Angels - to achieve her ends. In both cases, they generally received their orders from higher-ranking men, but like the police duo Cagney and Lacey a decade later, they were notable heroes of the small screen. 

In 1982, the National Commission on Working Women sponsored its first “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” report, where it discovered that out of television’s top-ranked twenty-five shows and twenty-five newly introduced series, men still made up roughly two thirds of all on-screen characters. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of these were also young and white. 

Fast forward nearly a decade, when according to an article published by the New York Times, the same study now looked at 555 characters on 80 network shows for the 1989 to 1990 season. On screen, women now made up 43% of all roles, the closest it’s ever come to half on network television. And, quoting the same study, “Despite some exceptions, the study says, women are often still depicted on television as half-clad and half-witted, and needing to be rescued by quick-thinking, fully clothed men.” 

There were apparently also more aliens - as in, actual extraterrestrials from outer space - on broadcast TV than Asians, Latin-Americans and Native Americans combined. 

Similarly, by 1997, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University was co-sponsoring the annual “Boxed In” report to track gender statistics both on-screen and behind the camera in the United States. At the time, a time when women accounted for roughly 50.81% of the American population, they again only held only 39% of all speaking roles on broadcast television. 

By the early 2000, lovers of genre content had Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape. But even here, plenty of these characters were technically playing second fiddle to a lead actor. 

Throughout each decade, the majority of these shows were in the comedy/sitcom category, as opposed to drama or action, and the statistics are even worse behind the camera. Even on Xena, only a handful of episodes per season were usually written by a woman, and only five episodes were ever directed by one.  

So, what about your characters in positions of power on-screen? What about your captain, your boss, your general action hero? 

Just as Xena was kicking into production in mid-1995, Kay Koplovitz, CEO of USA Networks, was noted as saying that female characters who were too strong could be, and I quote, “intimidating, off-putting, and overbearing to men and women.” 

So let’s examine that a little. 

We’re only talking about television here, but what television presents as social or political standard often influences attitudes in real life; children and adults both are taught and impacted by on-screen behavior, and the easiest example of this is usually the Jaws Effect. Coined by Dr Christopher Neff at the University of Sydney, the Jaws Effect refers to the film’s massive and highly detrimental impact on how the general public viewed the shark species. It directly influenced an upkick in large-scale hunting, government-sponsored shark culling programs, and the impeding of shark conservation efforts. More than 100 million sharks are now killed each year. 

So when we look at the visibility statistics on screen as well as behind the camera in America, we are to some degree examining the social mindset of that era. 

In 1965, women made up only 2% of the US Senate; that number would barely improve until 1993, and by the time Xena aired in 1995, the number had come to a then-all-time high of 9%. 

We're still only at 27% today, by the way. Only three of these are women of color.

Anyway, television. 

Opportunities for actors of all kinds have advanced decade by decade, but much like the on-screen portrayal of People of Color or members of the LGBT+ community, this has happened slowly, in fits and starts, often through periods of progression followed by conservative groundswell. 

When the original Star Trek series premiered in 1966, its main message was a hopeful one; that the world of the starship Enterprise and its crew had evolved past prejudicial cultural barriers, representing a brighter, more hopeful tomorrow. 

Among the crew was Starfleet officer Nyota Uhura, played by the late, great Nichelle Nichols. She will be remembered as a trailblazer in a number of ways. Uhura wasn’t an action hero and she wasn’t first-billed on the show, but she was a technician and an officer; she spoke multiple languages, worked on the bridge of the Enterprise, and in 1968, she also was one half of what is commonly referred to as the first interracial kiss on American television, only one year after Loving v Virginia legalized interracial marriage across America. 

Surprisingly, Nichelle Nichols had initially planned to leave the show earlier than this - Star Trek was not a ratings darling, and far less of a utopia behind the scenes than viewers might have suspected. She had to deal with her lines being regularly cut from the script, as well as prejudice both off the set and from Star Trek executives. She had been offered other work on Broadway, and was set on taking it. 

Yet in 1967, at an NAACP function, she was introduced to a man who called himself her “biggest fan” and had apparently been intent on meeting her in particular. 

That man was Martin Luther King Jr., only a short handful of years past the March on Washington and the marches in Selma, Alabama for voting rights. Nichols’ immediate comment was, “I wish I could be out there marching with you,” and Dr King’s response was, “You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for.” 

Yet when she admitted that she was intent on leaving the show, his response was, “You cannot and you must not. Don’t you realize how important your presence, your character is? ... Don’t you see? This is not a Black role, and this is not a female role. You have the first non stereotypical role on television, male or female. You have broken ground.” 

It was the only show, he said, that he and his wife Coretta would allow their children to stay up and watch. Her role in the show was affecting how young people across the country thought, and how they saw themselves. 

Nichols stayed on the show for another two seasons, and in 1977, she officially partnered with NASA on a recruitment drive for the Space Shuttle Program that brought in unprecedented numbers of female and non-white applicants. Among them were Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, and Guy Bluford, the first African-American in space. 

She was also inspiration for Mae Jemison, who, fifteen years later became the first African-American woman aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. 

The progressiveness of Star Trek literally changed the metaphorical landscape in America, but it was not a straight-forward journey from there to the next bit of broken ground. 

Jumping forward to 1989, a Newsweek cover story reacted to popular shows of the day like Roseanne and Murphy Brown by moaning that independent women were “seizing control of primetime,” and that the "video pendulum has swung too far from the blissfully domestic supermom who once warmed the electronic hearth." This according to Susan Faludi’s 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which outlined what she saw as a media-driven pushback against the feminist advances of the 1970s in America. 

Even within the historically progressive Star Trek franchise, it had been an uphill battle. According to Marina Sirtis, who played Deanna Troi on Next Generation, quote, “Gene [Roddenberry] thought we had one too many women on the show.” She believed that she was only saved from being fired by actress Denise Crosby’s early departure in 1988, and went on to say, “The two remaining were in caring professions. So it was okay to be on a spaceship as a woman, but you had to be a nurturer.” 

Similarly, Gates McFadden who played Dr. Beverly Crusher was, quote, ‘scathing about the few times the women would be thrown together, not to work together, but to gossip,’ saying, “If the ladies did have a scene together we were dressed up in leotards talking about men.”

Then the X-Files first aired in 1993, and while it wasn’t precisely action-heavy, it was co-lead by Dana Scully as the rational, competent half of a flipped gender-dynamic partnership. A forensic scientist in the FBI who thrives at the top of her male-dominated field, she inspired the real-life Scully Effect; that is, the growing wave of girls inspired to join STEM fields by her character. Yet there was a significant pay gap between actress Gillian Anderson and co-lead David Duchovny for the first three years of the show, and Anderson spent those early days required by producers to stand physically behind, never in front of, Duchovny at all times. Series creator Chris Carter had even had to fight for her as their lead when the network originally wanted, and I quote, a “leggy, blonde model type.” 

Meanwhile, Kate Mulgrew on Star Trek: Voyager, which debuted just prior to Xena’s own first appearance in ‘95, was being warned against acting, and again I quote, “too butch.” Years later, executive producer Rick Berman would say, “We wanted Janeway to be a Starfleet captain, but we also wanted her to be feminine. And those two things don’t go hand-in-hand. If you look at female military officers who make it to the rank of admiral, they tend to not be babes.” 

Kathryn Janeway was the newest captain of the franchise, a fictional trailblazer. And yet it was only a handful of years before her place in the marketing of her own show was being eclipsed by Seven of Nine, a complex and interesting character in her own right who was Janeway’s crewmate on Voyager and a former Borg drone, and who wore four-inch heels every day and had to be sewn into the corset of her skin-tight catsuit before filming.  

And still, this was a significant outlier. Actresses on television in this era were largely on sitcoms, not in sci-fi/fantasy, and certainly not often in the action/adventure genre. 

And in September of 1995, Xena stomped onto this television scene in flat-soled boots, nearly six feet tall and the lead of her own wildly popular action show with near-unbeatable martial prowess and a decade of morally gray or straight-up evil deeds under her belt. 

And don’t get me wrong, the network and the marketing knew that Lucy Lawless and the rest of the female cast were total babes. Xena wore that corset, for god’s sake, and the show did sultry and scantily-clad frequently and with enthusiasm. But there was something downright butch about the way Xena stood. The way she spoke. And my girl had agency, complexity, and three-dimensionality for days. 

In her essay Xena: Warrior Princess Through the Lenses of Feminism, Melissa Meister states that, “Women on television have always been defined through their interactions with men. There has never before been a woman on television that was a signified woman without a male signifier. However the creators of Xena: Warrior Princess have managed to break through this cultural paradigm.” 

There were no regular romantic interests on Xena. She didn’t have a more feminine alternate identity. She got sweaty and dirty and angry and arrogant and vulnerable and, on an average day, didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought about her. 

In her 1994 book entitled Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media, Susan Douglas states, “It’s a bias of the TV industry, [this belief] that women will watch shows about men, but men won’t watch shows about women, and therefore half the audience will be lost.” 

And a handful of years later, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly - when Xena had already been out for two years - director Sam Raimi would be quoted as saying, “The audience is not afraid of watching some women break out of the conventional mold. Unfortunately, the Hollywood establishment may not be aware that the audience really wants that.” 

According to ratings Xena was a cult hit, the most popular syndicated drama series on American television by its second season, conventions were selling out, and half of Xena’s adult audience was male. 

….It was not just because of the eye candy. It was also because of the ass-kicking. 

In the context of the show, she’s not a fighting fuck toy, she’s not a sexy lamp, she’s not a McGuffin, she’s not a physically strong but emotionally blank slate, she’s not the only woman around for miles. She is a deeply flawed person who has joyously laid waste to entire armies, who has delighted in destruction and who is intensely caring for those she loves. She has her own identity, she has her own motivations, and just about every single episode passes the Bechdel Test with ease. 

Women in Action: Like the Harpies in a Bad Mood

It’s probably time to discuss the fact that the show also handled some of the wildest action scenes American television had ever seen. 

So, a little-known fact: Xena’s legacy as an action hero is actually pretty ironic, because actress Lucy Lawless notoriously hated filming the action scenes. She wasn’t a martial arts buff, she didn’t really play sports, and she wasn’t even one to visit the gym of her own free will. Lawless also told Starlog Yearbook in 1996 that her school nickname had been "Unco" for “uncoordinated.”

Renee O’Connor, on the other hand, loved learning the fight choreography, found ways to fit extra physical activity into her 12-hour workday whenever she could, and got joyously competent at handling her character’s various weapons in her own free time.

Yet Xena is still the one who walks on screen and just really looks like she could fucking kill you.

And don’t get me wrong - when I say that Lucy Lawless hated learning to fight, I do not mean that she didn’t put in the work. According to instructor Douglas Wong, she took to the training like a fish to water. She breathed real fire, she dealt with multiple injuries on set, and in interviews she always, always gave props first and foremost to the stunt team. 

Under the supervision of stunt coordinator Peter Bell, the crew was constantly innovating and bringing things to western television that had never been done before, all of which would prep the New Zealand industry for the upcoming Lord of the Rings films. 

The stunt crews constructed their own makeshift rigs to imitate the style of Hong Kong wuxia films, which were at the time influencing Hollywood more than they ever had before; their trial-and-error process combined with the tight budget even developed into something occasionally called "Kiwi-style wire-fu," with stunt action scenes usually filmed under the eye of the second unit.

The pilot episode of Xena even featured direct homage to 1993’s The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk, starring Jet Li, which was one of director Doug Lefler’s favorite films. 

Stunt workers got used to strapping themselves into their own harnesses and working through injuries, including the most legendary stunt performer to come out of Xena; Zoe Bell. 

But if action scenes are half stunt crew, sometimes that camera does need to be on your lead actor, and this means your fight scene is also only as good as your lead is convincing. 

That’s not always an easy thing when, instead of looking hard as nails, half the action heroines on screen look like they stepped out of Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood video. 

Don’t get me wrong - many, many actresses have put in long hours at the gym in preparation for action roles. They did the hard work and got fit and toned and fight-scene-ready - some even regularly practice multiple martial arts in their private lives - and should be lauded for it. 

But with all genuine respect to the many talents of Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson - all of whom have topped Forbes’s list of the most highly-paid actresses in the world for multiple years, and all of whom were helped in their rise to fame by action-heavy roles - 

- the world's highest-paid action heroes look like this. 

And I’m not here claiming that it’s easy for women to build muscle, or suggesting that physique should be prioritized over acting ability, or advocating for soul-destroying fitness regimes, but why don’t more of our heroines look as though they can actually lift the weapons they use to defend themselves? 

Look at Serena Williams. Look at these powerlifters and boxers and crossfit athletes and hammer throwers and bodybuilders.

Scarlett Johansson can obviously play any person, tree, or animal that she desires, but I personally have friends who could bench press her. I have friends of friends who could bench press her. I have friends of friends of friends who could - 

And hey, I’m aware that this is a topic around which we need to tread delicately. The last thing I want to do is add to unrealistic body image expectations, or shame someone for being small and having no muscles. I am also small and have no muscles. I also love that smaller actors, skinny actors, actors playing characters that are conventionally feminine, have a place in the action genre too, and I respect the choreography and the acting talent that makes those fight scenes believable and enjoyable. 

I also recognize the unfair fucking irony of looking at an industry that essentially forces its actresses to be incredibly thin and expecting it to produce stocky action stars from that same pool of A-listers. 

But there’s a reason that excitement blooms among audiences, however briefly, over the potential acting careers of ex-MMA fighters. One couldn’t accuse them of being particularly good at acting or necessarily the brightest bulbs, but damn if it didn’t look convincing when they were punching people, and again, there is a damn short list of heroines who look like they could actually bench press you without breaking a sweat. 

When you do see them, they are usually background characters played by stuntwomen who are experts in fitness, martial arts, and sports in their private lives. 

And as I’ve mentioned, Xena was not played by an actor with expertise in fitness, sport, or combat in her private life. So why does she still stand out in a field of her peers? 

In the 2011 film Colombiana starring Zoe Saldana, the lead character, Cataleya, is depicted in childhood as reading a Xena book and dreaming of growing up to be the warrior princess herself. The movie goes on to follow a grown Cataleya’s path of revenge against the drug lord that killed her family. 

Reviews of the film were mixed, but most of the praise was reserved for Saldana, who is a talented actress and, at this point, a certified action star. Most of the fight scenes in Colombiana are no more unrealistic than your average campy battle in Xena - okay, to be entirely honest, it’s hard to be less realistic than the gravity-defying battles that were apparently taking place in ancient Greece - but they simultaneously drew a lot of criticism in one specific area: reviewers and commentators felt that Saldana was too skinny to make a realistic action hero. 

In fact, one derisive Vulture article entitled Female Action Stars Have Gotten Too Skinny to Throw a Believable Punch went so far as to say, quote, “If there’s one major difference between the action heroine [Cataleya] idolized and the one she has become, it’s that Xena’s Lucy Lawless had some believable heft to her, while Saldana resembles a supermodel who could be toppled not just by a gang of thugs but a stiff breeze.” 

I find the article generally condescending in tone and you can decide for yourself whether this is a genuine or unfair criticism, but the words “believable heft” actually ring pretty true. Over two decades since Xena went off the air and we still remember the warrior princess for the way she fought. 

I even remember my marine corps vet grandfather - who, along with my grandmother, watched the show with general good-natured bemusement - making a general sort of comment about how surprisingly believable she looked. 

To quote a fellow fan, “Lucy Lawless was not a particularly burly woman, but somehow she made Xena seem like a fucking tank and I don’t understand how.” 

Because when she fights, Xena has power. Her hits have visible weight. Her shoulders are broad and she’s tall as hell and more than anything, even today, there’s something revolutionary about how absolutely bug-eyed, howler-monkey crazy Xena’s face sometimes gets when she fights. 

There are obvious exceptions to this, examples where our heroes are allowed to let their faces be as wild as they want them to be - you have the always-classic Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Charlize Theron as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, Dafne Keene in Logan, numerous warriors from Okoye to Nakia from Black Panther, and whatever the fuck was going on in the ‘Ronny vs. Lily’ episode of Barry. 

Also, if you’re looking for the exciting new places that the next generation of action stars could lead us, do yourself a favor and watch Prey starring Amber Midthunder. 

But in the years since Xena went off the air we’ve also had superheroes like Jessica Alba as Sue Storm in 2007’s Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, who has explicitly said in interview that she was directed to mute her expressions in emotional scenes in order to look more attractive on camera. And in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Elizabeth Olson discussed Joss Whedon - at the time, a man with the reputation as one of Hollywood’s feminist darlings - and his directives to keep her face largely calm and serene even in grief and rage, in sharp contrast to her wilder facial journey in WandaVision. The expressionless, always-sexy female action hero - whether a result of studio directive, character choice, or acting ability - continues to dominate the screen. 

Xena is not that. Actually, my best friend and I have a drinking game where you take a shot whenever Xena goes wild-eyed in a fight, and by the conclusion of an average episode you end up pretty drunk.

Just a Girl in Search of a Really Good Sword

So, who is Xena? 

There’s a lot more to her than the one-dimensional seductress we first meet in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, whose main goal is killing Greece’s biggest hero so that her own army will be unstoppable. 

Under the care of the writers for her own self-titled show, the evil Xena of the past became more wild-eyed, vicious, and cruel, determined to conquer the world – partly for the power, and partly just because she loved a good kill. Her favorite pastimes included burning villages and kidnapping children and choking men to death for the sheer fun of it, hitting rock bottom as something almost more animal than human. 

Just to hammer the point home, yeah, this is the kind of backstory and character development that is usually only given to dudes.

In the approximately ten years between her early warlord days and the start of her own show, she has come a long damn way. By the time we meet her, she still has moments of slipping, doubting, and of wavering back into her darker tendencies. She still seems to revel in a good fight, and that part of her that used to cackle while slitting throats will probably never be entirely gone. 

Yet the Xena we see on an average day is monotone and serious, Olympics-grade unimpressed with your bullshit, and maintaining a veneer of calm over all of her inner batshittery - which is very much still there, hovering just beneath the surface.

Subordinate to no one, more likely to focus on brute force than feminine wiles, she can also be butch as hell? At times she’s just downright masculine, gruffly uncomfortable with praise, impatient with her own tears, angry at herself for moments of weakness, and reluctant to be sentimental. 

The season one episode The Path Not Taken has genuinely one of my favorite scenes in the series, where we see her walk into a tavern and, being beset by unwelcome figures groping and leering in her direction, casually punches her way through the crowd before sprawling herself down in a chair and propping one leg on the table like a dude. 

So, who is she? She’s intimidating. She’s not really good at girly stuff, and the instinct to bedeck herself in plundered finery has mostly passed. She’s nigh impossible to embarrass. She loves her horse. She uses sex like a weapon. She uses weapons like a weapon. She has many skills. She never really screams, but has a hell of a battle cry, and she occasionally uses her best friend’s scrolls for toilet paper. 

Like with many iconic characters, elements of her look and style and personality also came down to actor input. 

The original plan had been to bleach Lucy Lawless’s ash-blonde hair to a lighter platinum in order to differentiate Xena from the other brunette characters she had previously played on prior episodes of Hercules. Lawless, though, suggested they go dark instead, taking inspiration from Argentinian tennis star Gabriela Sabitini.

They also wanted Xena to have a warrior cry - citing Tarzan as their inspiration, in fact - and Lawless was the one who came upon the zaghrouta, the traditional Middle Eastern ululation performed at weddings, celebrations, and funerals. 

But one of my favorite things about Xena is that she is just genuinely, honestly kooky, with a sense of ridiculous adventure and dry wit hidden behind her monotone. And I think we can, again, thank the cast for this one - in her own words, there were some episodes where they were just having fun and “crazy Lucy” bled over onto the screen. 

But fun moments aside, Xena also has a lot of pride, and that pride is one quality that hasn’t changed much from the olden days. She knows what she’s good at - almost everything - knows how she looks - awesome - and is still very, very used to being in command. She’s spent a lot of time giving orders and having them followed, and she’s not the type to play second fiddle, not to a general or a king or a god. 

So Xena is a woman with red in her ledger. She still struggles with good and evil, having what you might call a “relapse” about once per season, and spends the rest of the time carrying that burden on her shoulders. She doesn’t believe she deserves or can ever earn forgiveness, but will spend the rest of her life trying. Not because the scales will ever wash clean of all the innocent blood she’s spilt, but because she’d rather pay for her mistakes with her life rather than with her death. 

And it’s not like she never struggles with guilt again. In season one’s The Reckoning, she allows herself to be tried for a murder she didn’t commit before ultimately choosing to live. In season two’s Remember Nothing, she wishes that she had never picked up a sword, before being shown, in the classic style of It’s A Wonderful Life, what the world would be like without her. Later on, Forgiven, hardly one of the best episodes of Xena, ends with the characters being ritually cleansed of their sins, and Xena refuses to participate, clearly still believing she doesn’t deserve it.

Callisto, the best villain of the show and the childhood survivor of one of Xena’s many slaughters, is the embodiment of that guilt. She was created by Xena, the same way Xena was created by the warlord who attacked her hometown. 

So Xena bears the burden of making her the way that she is, feels hypocritical for judging her, and feels responsible for every crime that she commits. 

And yet in one of their later encounters, Xena announces that she is done paying for Callisto’s crimes as well as her own – the blame for Callisto’s actions moving forward goes to Callisto alone. She’ll take the blame for what she did to Callisto, but not what Callisto has done. 

Angsty ex-assassin types have kind of always been my thing, and the way Xena deals with this has honestly always been my favorite. There is no real schism between who she is and who she was; it’s not a separate personality, she never changed her name. Xena is Xena is Xena, and she’ll take the consequences of her actions squarely on her own shoulders. 

All Consequences Are Your Own Creation, and There's a Price You Must Pay

Redemption is a funny concept that gets thrown around a lot in meta character discussions. People talk about redemption for villainous or simply antagonistic characters like Darth Vader, or Kylo Ren, or Severus Snape. 

And for me, the bar has always been set by Xena. And also by Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, I guess, but we’re not here to talk about him. 

At first glance, it may look as though Xena’s redemption arc takes place during the trilogy of Hercules episodes that were her introduction; she’s evil in the first, conflicted in the second, and has sworn to fight for good by the third. 

What makes her such a good character is that this - her riding off into the sunset swearing to fight for justice from now on - isn’t the end of her redemption arc. 

It’s the beginning. 

Also I have a pet theory that the reason it actually stuck this time - as opposed to times previously when she’d had opportunities to start fighting for justice - is opportunity. She didn’t just have a role model and then a moral compass that she wanted to do right by; her army was physically taken away from her and she couldn’t so easily fall back into her old ways again, as she nearly does several times later in the series when that type of power is handed back to her. 

In the pilot episode, we see her burying her armor and her weapons, and it’s viewer’s choice whether she’s planning to live a peaceful life, or if she’s planning to die. 

And that makes sense, to me. She knows that temptation comes from opportunity, and she never really stops being a woman who loves to wield a sword. 

As the series goes on and she fights evil on the side of justice, she still wears her infamy like a cloak. She didn’t choose a new name when she started killing innocent people - she was Xena, the same Xena as the well-intentioned farm girl she used to be. And after she turned Good, she was still Xena. It was all part of her legacy. 

Throughout the series, some people hate her, spit on her, and try to exact their revenge for the things she’d done. She spends her time walking an interesting line as someone who knows she deserves whatever they want to dish out, but doesn’t intend to die. Someone who’s come close to letting herself be executed more than once, but has always realized that she wanted to live, and that her death wouldn’t actually benefit the world. 

And she does spend the series living. Because she might as well. Because no one thing - not her trial and death, not her saving someone’s life, or a thousand people’s lives, could ever make up for what she had done. Saving one life doesn’t cancel out taking another - and even if it had, she’d have had to toil for decades to even come close to evening the score. What she has to do, the only thing she can do, is spend the rest of her time on this earth doing good. Helping people. Making things right.

Even while she has friends who would absolve her of her wrongdoings, the main narrative of the show supports her perspective, not theirs. It reminds us that the scales will never balance, and she never pretends that they will. 

It’s one of the main reasons that the finale of the show never sat right with me, conceptually. 

Because what Xena teaches is that “redemption” isn’t doing one good thing and then dying. Sacrificing yourself to save one or many, after being responsible for the murder of untold innocents, is meaningless on the grand redemptive scales of the cosmos unless it comes alongside a massive ideological shift. And even then, redemption isn’t a fixed end goal that can be worked toward and arrived at. 

It’s a journey, and the journey literally never ends. 

A Friend of Humanity 

There were a lot of supporting and recurring characters on Xena, played by a lot of talented actors and actresses, but I’m just going to run down my favorites before we move on to bigger topics. 

This list is non-exhaustive and I’m not including villains or love interests. We’ll get to those later. 

So, in no particular order - 

Cyrene 

Xena’s relationship with her mother, Cyrene, kind of kills me. It's a dynamic I think you really rarely get to see on television, because she is afraid of her own daughter. They’re uncomfortable with one another, even when they’re working on forgiveness. There’s blame and guilt and half a lifetime of broken trust there, and it’s all wonderfully played in the pilot episode by Darien Takle. 

It’s the same episode where we hear the warlord Draco warning Xena that people like them can never go home -

- and soon after, when Xena finally comes home after years of warlording, this is how Cyrene greets her. 

Their relationship is messy and difficult and I honestly love it. 

Lyceus 

Xena’s younger brother Lyceus is only in one episode, but we first hear his name in the pilot where Xena, visiting home for the first time in about a decade, goes to visit his grave. 

Lyceus was one of the many victims of the warlord Cortese’s attack on Amphipolis in Xena’s youth; Cyrene blames Xena for his death the same way the rest of the villagers blame her for the deaths of their sons. If only she’d done nothing, let them bow to the warlord’s commands and give up everything they owned to his raids, Lyceus and the others wouldn’t be dead. 

Xena mourns him, she feels guilt over his death, but in the first season we never learn much about him as a person. He’s just a long-gone, once-beloved martyr. 

And then in season two, in one of my all-time favorite episodes entitled Remember Nothing, we meet Lyceus. 

It’s the It’s a Wonderful Life episode - Xena gets the chance to see what the world would have been like if she had never taken up the sword. A lot of things are actually worse, but one thing, at least, is better - her younger brother is alive. 

And he’s kind of great? They look nothing alike and he’s not particularly war-like, but especially in comparison to her wet blanket of an older brother who we met briefly in season one, Xena and Lyceus clearly have a close and loving relationship. He gets her, and more importantly, he’s an idealist with convictions of his own. 

He’s not some idiot victim that Xena dragged into a fight over a decade ago; they’re partners in crime, comrades in arms, and he’s clearly a person who decided that fighting was necessary of his own volition, and who was willing to give his life for the cause just like she was. 

Autolycus 

The thief Autolycus is portrayed by Bruce Campbell at his Bruce Campbell-est, and he’s honestly always a lot of fun. 

I love how the two of them bounce off each other, and even though Autolycus isn’t the character with the most depth out of everyone on the show, he has charisma for days and it’s always fun to see him show up. 

As an aside, the actors also got to reunite in 2015 on Ash vs Evil Dead, to generally rave reviews. 

Joxer 

This might be a controversial one - a lot of fans hate Joxer because he’s obnoxious, because he likes Gabrielle, because he gets between her and Xena. It’s all true, but he’s so stupid that he activates all of my protective instincts and I kind of adore him. He was also played with great comedic skill by Ted Raimi, which I applaud. 

Lao Ma 

We’ll talk more about Lao Ma later, and she could also arguably go on a list of Xena’s love interests as opposed to friends and allies, but she deserves a place here as well. 

She was one of the standout characters of the entire show, due to a wonderful performance by Jacqueline Kim; striking, gentle, incredibly powerful, but cunning and quietly manipulative in her own way, Lao Ma was a fantastic mentor to Xena at a time in her life when no one else was gentle or kind to her. 

She brought Xena back from the edge, and nearly, nearly, got her to turn away from evil a decade before Hercules was ever in the picture. 

Ephiny 

Ephiny was by far my favorite Amazon, and I’m going to be real here, it’s just because Danielle Cormack is a really good actress. She’s won multiple television awards in Australia, and she always lent some wonderful grit and groundedness to any episode she was in. 

Minya 

Alison Wall straight-up won a New Zealand Television Award for her turn as Minya, a fairly beloved character who partially exists to poke fun at the show’s fanbase, but rather than feel insulted, that fanbase largely just embraced her. 

She is also a thespian. 

Salmoneus 

Salmoneus was originally a character on Hercules, and he first meets Xena there, in The Gauntlet. 

I really love the fact that he’s seen and known her - not precisely at her worst, but way before she was at her best, and then continued to be an occasional if rare companion thereafter. Robert Trebor’s comedic timing is genuinely brilliant, and not unlike Autolycus and Joxer, I love that Xena’s often grumpy but secretly a bit soft on him and his antics. 

Hercules 

I’ve mentioned Hercules a fair few times already, so we don’t need to go too much in depth here, other than to say how unfortunate it is that Kevin Sorbo turned out to be a genuine bigot, because I liked Hercules’s relationship with Xena. I liked that he was just a good guy - not too exciting, but that’s fine. 

I’m a massive sucker for Outsider POVs, and the idea that he and Iolaus had fought against Xena and now were her friends was just kind of fascinating to me. I’d genuinely love to read a story from Hercules’s perspective as they part ways after Unchained Heart and he begins to hear rumors of her heroic and selfless exploits. 

And yeah, he could technically also go on the romance list. 

Don’t Be Shy, Your Mother Wasn’t 

While on that topic, let’s talk about how much Xena got around! 

I would argue that after a lifetime of being screwed over by men she trusted, she eventually realized that screwing was a damn good entrapment technique and has been using it to great effect ever since. More than that, though, I’m pretty sure she’s just an allosexual woman who loves a good tumble, and doesn’t see things like modesty or bodily shame as worthwhile or as applicable to her. 

Try groping her without consent, though, and she will literally breathe fire in your face. 

Anyway, I think over the course of her three-episode introduction and the six seasons of her own show, she had:

1) People she was taking advantage of, like Hercules’ best friend Iolaus.

2) Bad boys she liked to tumble with while they partnered up, spending some time being mutually awful to each other but whom she later grew to respect, like Borias.

3) Bad boys she had UST with but didn’t really respect at all and strung along more than anything, like Draco. You could also potentially put Ares in this category, if you’re going by the sizzling chemistry and ignore the episodes that implied he might be her dad. 

4) Evil or unscrupulous men who had screwed her over by taking advantage of her young trust and naiveté, like Julius Caesar - yes, that Julius Caesar. And yes, if you hadn’t realized already, that is Karl Urban. 

5) Random one-episode dudes that were maybe powerful fighters or good at heart, but beyond that her interest made little to no sense, except for uneven scripting, like Ulysses.

6) Good people she genuinely admired and maybe also felt thankful toward, like Hercules and arguably Lao Ma. 

7) Bad boys she actually liked, like Marcus. 

8) And Gabrielle.

I’ve seen Xena’s canonical romantic entanglements tackled through a number of different lenses in the past - is it progressive that she’s so unashamedly sex-positive with men and Gabrielle, is it regressive objectification to portray her in so many sexual situations, is her ownership of her sexuality refreshing, is it conceptually outdated for so much of her character growth to be pinned to the influence of various men and Gabrielle... and I’ll be honest, I’m not very interested in analyzing that, but we can break it down a little. 

Xena says some interesting things about men and romance in general, even putting aside her insistence to Gabrielle that the “strongest tree in the forest stands alone.” That’s the voice of experience talking. That’s a woman who’s been waiting a decade to stab Julius Caesar in his stupid face. 

Anyway, I’ve always been fascinated by something she says in the first episode to Gabrielle about Gabrielle’s boring fiance - don’t worry, he dies pretty quickly - when trying to convince Gabrielle to stay with him. “He looks like a gentle soul. That’s rare in a man.” I’ve always loved how it sounds as though she’s speaking from her own experiences, with some bitterness, some world-weariness… but then, Xena also underneath it all wants Gabrielle to stay with her, and Xena knows that she herself isn’t always gentle at all. 

Even more telling is her conversation with the warlord Draco. “[You look good] except for that ugly scar….  You picked the wrong woman to get rough with.”

“It never would have happened if you’d been more cooperative.”

In a world where sword fights, warlord antics, and inter-army politics featured in nearly every episode, Xena as a series was largely free of explicit rape threats or references. Maybe it was because the show, for all its ability to delve into dark themes, was angling for campy empowerment rather than gritty realism, or maybe it was because Xena herself was capable of beating the living tar out of almost anyone alive. Game of Thrones the show was not, and whatever might be said about the importance of accuracy in on-screen protrayals of human depravity, Xena’s general refusal to use explicit sexual violence as a plot point is extremely refreshing in retrospect. 

Anyway, Draco follows up their previous discussion with this line: 

“I dreamt of being with you in love or against you in battle. You won’t give me the satisfaction of either, will you?”

Xena seems to get into a lot of love-hate relationships, or maybe a lot of ‘I’m sexually attracted to you but one of us is going to end up killing the other” type relationships.  

She was happy to seduce her targets while she was evil, and seems equally untroubled in using her sexuality for her own ends once she turns good, as well. Some of this might have been the show selling sex to the audience, but a lot of it just outlined the fact that Xena was far from a shrinking violet. She had sex with Borias on a horse, for God’s sake.

If we temporarily take the issue of inconsistent characterization in early seasons, back when they still thought the audience wanted one-off romantic entanglements, and toss this aside, gurl had a pretty bad track record, and she definitely had a thing for bad boys. 

I hesitate to phrase it this way, because “bad boy” is usually used in the context of a Bonnie and Clyde, ‘sweet innocent girl meets a rebellious dude and gets corrupted’ sort of way. Xena had a thing for bad boys in the sense that she used to also be a bad person, and still had a significant wild side that just genuinely enjoyed beating the shit out of people. 

She was mostly on an even footing with her partners, except for a couple of, uh, highly unusual cases. As the series goes on, we see in flashbacks how Xena lost both her naiveté and any remaining willingness to be subservient in a partnership. 

Some of these you can also hand-wave as the writers not yet having found their footing. In season one’s A Fistful of Dinars we learn that many, many years ago Xena was engaged to be married to some motherfucker - I forget his name, we’ll call him The Fiancé - who then sort of lost interest once he’d ‘conquered’ her and they both fucked off to do their own thing. She never trusted him again until he died saving Gabrielle and turned out not to be such a schmuck after all. 

I don’t know what to do with that shit, other than point out that the themes of that episode - Xena’s youthful naivete, her willingness to join up with a powerful and untrustworthy man for the sake of her own personal gain, and her blindness to his eventual betrayal - would come roaring back with a vengeance only a season later. 

In season two, the episode Destiny grants us a flashback to early on in her warlord years, where Caesar, probably her longest and most consistent human enemy outside of Callisto, tricked her, betrayed her, and took away the last of her innocence as well as her sanity for a while. 

It’s something that the ‘grown-up’ Xena of the eponymous series would never have fallen for, or even been interested in, but chronologically she’s not even twenty years old when it happens, and boy, does it mess her up. 

As was written so skillfully in the 2009 essay Xena: Warrior Princess – Role Model for the Ages, “Xena’s biggest mistake with Caesar was believing that he saw her as she saw herself, the self reliant, independent woman worthy of him because she was his equal.”

The betrayal, the injuries, the death of her only remaining ally, all of these things broke Xena in a way that few things would before or after; she went from a power-hungry local warlord on a slippery slope to an absolutely bloodthirsty maniac, and, hot take here, she never entirely, 100% went back. 

I admittedly kind of love how, even several seasons down the line, Xena loses some of her usual stone-cold rationality when dealing with Caesar, as if every time she sees him, she can’t help but be re-enveloped in the fury and anguish and humiliation of being left for dead on that beach. There’s something very compelling about a character who’s usually cool as beans just losing a little of her self-control around this one asshole who taught her an awful lesson about trust more than a decade ago. 

The only other man in her life to consistently bring out such complicated emotions is Ares, the God of War, who depending on the episode might have been her lover or maybe her dad? It was ancient Greece, just try not to think about it. Ares had been instrumental in shaping Xena’s life from the shadowy sidelines, and reveled from afar in the destruction she wrought. He gave her guidance, strength, blessing, favor – she gave him war and death, and it probably turned both of them on more than a little bit. He felt personally scorned and infuriated by her eventual turn away from evil, and he spends the rest of the series trying to trick and cheat her back into her old ways.  

I honestly am not crazy about the idea that all her resistance to Ares’ wiles and general imperviousness to the flirtation of powerful men was a result of bitterness from youthful experience, rather than just, you know, logic, but there it is. 

And then at the end of all things there is, of course, Gabrielle. Who she loves, teaches, protects, lies to, is lied to by, and is occasionally betrayed by – and isn’t that a thing I like to think about sometimes - but this time, you know, their destiny is written in the stars or some such, they make peace, and they journey on together. 

Xena also had a magic baby. I don’t know where else to talk about that, so we’ll put it here. 

To be clear, I absolutely adore the backstory involving Xena and her first child, Solon. We meet him for the first time in season two, when we learn she’d fallen pregnant by her warlording partner Borias who was slowly learning the error of his ways and would soon die for it. She had given birth to Solon back when she was still pretty evil, and had given him away to be raised in secret by someone else. Even back then, she’d known that the best thing she could do for him would be to get him away from her, and that fascinates me. 

Then there was this whole thing where Gabrielle was impregnated by the devil and gave birth to a clone of herself who murdered Xena’s son and lead them into a violent cycle of mutual blame that culminated in a musical episode, but that’s not important right now. 

Xena’s Magic Baby came around in season five, mostly because Lucy Lawless was pregnant in real life. On the upside, there was something kind of groundbreaking about a pregnant warrior having sword fights on primetime television, but on the downside, it became one of those Magical Impregnation Destiny Alien Baby tropes. 

Shows – good shows, shows I like – seem to unfortunately do this all the time. Amy in Doctor Who, Sharon in Battlestar Galactica, Scully in X-Files, Gwen in Torchwood, etcetera. A leading woman gets pregnant, and it has to be a magical impregnation that aliens put there or that secretly spells the doom of all mankind. 

Wombs being used as a plot device annoys me, and I genuinely wish Xena had just gotten randomly knocked up by accident instead, or that the ever-friendly Aphrodite had decided to give the happy probably-bisexual couple a gift in the form of a bun in the oven. 

Instead, because it was season five and the writing for the show had taken what you might call a turn, Xena’s second child, a daughter named Eve who was destined to bring death to all the Gods of Mount Olympus, was the result of immaculate conception via a reformed divine Callisto, thus enabling cracked out parallels to be drawn between Xena and the Virgin Mary. 

Which… no, thank you. 

Anyway, all of this relationship talk may lead you to wonder - 

"Does Xena ever think about settling down and getting married?" "No, she likes what I do."  – Hower and Gabrielle, on Xena 

So let’s talk about Gabrielle. 

The earlier incarnations of Gabrielle remain my favorite. Renee O’Connor is a talented, funny actor, with abs for days and who could undeniably whoop my ass if she tried, but I somehow never bought Gabrielle as a full-fledged warrior. As the seasons went on her outfits got tinier and her weapons got pointier, and I wasn’t always convinced the dual-knife thing was the most natural progression for her character. 

Her growth from being a naive, wide-eyed girl with dreams of being a bard in season one, to being a competent and independent woman with complex moral struggles of her own in later seasons, was absolutely a satisfying one. 

But simultaneously, she had a tendency to be gullible or short-sighted. She had already betrayed Xena once or twice by the mid-point of the show, and I was slower to forgive than our eponymous hero was. I was a spiteful nine-year-old. 

What you can’t really deny, though, is that for better or for worse, she is Xena’s best friend. She’s loving, she’s kind. She works as Xena’s moral compass, sort of in the same way, if you’ll forgive the comparison, that the Doctor on Doctor Who needs a companion sometimes to curb his wilder impulses. Xena is gentle with Gabrielle, in a way she is with almost no one else. 

The show straight-up admits that they’re soulmates. 

There’s also an absolutely heart-pounding scene at the end of season four where Callisto finally takes Xena out of commission and Gabrielle, having recently sworn off weapons altogether in a quest for peace and pacifism, just absolutely starts murdering people left and right in order to save Xena’s life. I remember watching this moment on television when it first aired, and O’Connor sells the absolute hell out of it. 

As an aside, the birth of Hope and everything that unfolds from it is also makes for such an interesting lesson on character perspective. Gabrielle is traumatized from her experience, desperately clinging to the idea that she can pull something bright from the darkness, potentially being influenced by the evil wiles of the creature that was in her womb, and convinced that she can nature-vs-nurture raise her half-human, half-demonic child to be an ethical person. Xena, who has all the experience of a brutal killer but is a mother herself whose moral line has always been drawn at murdering babies and who would usually do anything to protect a child of Gabrielle’s, sees Hope as something more like a demonic tumor; a thing in the shape of an infant who has more real kinship with the chest-bursters from Alien. Xena turns out to be right, of course, but you can see why, in the moment, Gabrielle’s actions may have seemed not only more compassionate but more logical. 

And, well. 

Harold, They’re Lesbians 

In retrospect, one thing is particularly obvious to me now, in a way it totally wasn’t as a pre-pubescent watching the show when it first aired, and it is that by the finale, Xena and Gabrielle are in a really blatant non-platonic relationship. 

The year was 1995. 

The very first on-air kiss between two women in American television history had only been featured in the legal drama L.A. Law about four years prior, in 1991. Then in 1994 a parental advisory warning was posted before the scene where Roseanne Barr kissed another woman on her self-titled show. 

At the time that Xena aired its pilot episode, the first lesbian marriage on American network TV wouldn’t happen for another year. Ellen Degeneres would not come out and face the subsequent cancellation of her show for another two years. Will and Grace wouldn’t air for another three years, and The L Word wouldn’t for another nine. 

These were the times, literal decades away from shows like Modern Family, from Pose, from Heartstopper, from Orange is the New Black, and from Our Flag Means Death. 

And it was in this social atmosphere that Xena became famous - or, depending on who you spoke to, infamous - for its “subtext.” 

To hear it told today, the evolution of Xena and Gabrielle’s half-spoken relationship was half the result of coy winks and playful nudges by the writing and production teams, half the result of audience interpretation, and the actors were more or less the last to know. 

Lesbian writer and producer Liz Friedman, who was with the show from the first through fourth seasons, said in a 1996 interview with The Advocate that, quote, "We never wrote Xena to be a lesbian, but it's not our show, it's the audience's show. If the fans want to read Xena that way, great." She also went on to say, "They're such a perfect little butch-femme couple. What they do between episodes, I don't know." It was probably the most ambiguous interview she would give on the topic. 

And as an aside, if you try to call this show “queerbaiting” today, please remember the era of television we are discussing. This was not Sherlock, this was not Supernatural or Once Upon A Time, this was a show literally being made twenty years ago under the veil of censorship, closer today to something like The Untamed than an endless tease like Supergirl.

They tread carefully, though, within the guidelines of network television. According to executive producer Rob Tapert, showrunner RJ Stewart was careful, not wanting to take advantage of the audience or reduce the relationship to pandering. On the flip side, the studio was so worried that Xena would be perceived as a lesbian show that from the start, Xena and Gabrielle were not allowed to appear together anywhere in the same shot of the opening titles. 

Watching at home as a child, I wasn’t completely ignorant to the rumblings of Xena being a lesbian show, but was mostly aware of it via mildly distasteful teasing from amused family members, which was itself a lot to unpack when I finally returned to the show as a more self-assured adult and fell in love with it all over again. 

Meanwhile, Xena's status as an LGBT icon was quickly becoming the stuff of legend. There were essays, there were magazine features, there were theses. An article featured in the Village Voice by writer Michael Musto is what Lucy Lawless credits with cluing herself and their wider audiences into the show’s subtext, and from that moment, the cast were in on it too. 

No one among the show’s production went on to acknowledge the subtext more than producer Liz Friedman. In 1996 on One in Ten, a Boston-based LGBT radio program, she said, "That's one of the best parts of the job, getting to throw in references that I know the fans who are interested in that will pick up on, but don't necessarily flash any irrevocable red lights. We opened up a show with the two of them fishing naked, and we're about to have a Halloween episode that will certainly have some nice moments for our queer fans, a little lesbian vampire show." 

In season two, Xena and Gabrielle shared a sort-of on-screen kiss, and the follow-up was the most highly watched episode of the entire series to date. We don’t have empirical data on this, but it’s largely thought to be because about a bajillion queer women tuned in to see if it would happen again. 

By season three, the characters’ flings and romps with male characters were steadily dwindling, and Lucy Lawless, in a 1997 interview with Playboy Magazine, was playfully joking that Xena’s dream vacation would be “a biennial sailing trip to Lesbos.” 

As early as 1998, there were rumors of a prospective episode featuring the poet Sappho, played either by Lucy Lawless herself or by out lesbian actress KD Lang, falling in love with Gabrielle. An anonymous and unconfirmed source later said the episode had been shelved because it would be impossible for subtext to not become, well, main text. In the same year, SNL poked gentle fun at the show’s lesbian fanbase, and an all-lesbian marching team comprised of a hundred and twenty-two marchers attended the thirtieth-annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival dressed as Xena. ‘The Marching Xenas’ would continue appearing in Pride parades far and wide. 

In 1999, Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor attended the same festival themselves, dressed in costumes from the show, and Subaru winked at Xena fans in a lesbian-focused car ad. 

By the year 2000, a small fan committee had raised the funds for a Xena-themed parade float on an eight-ton flatbed truck, complete with a banner reading, "Temple of Xena: Warrior Dykon." I have been tragically unable to find pictures from that year. 

Then in 2001, the same year that known dickhead Kevin Sorbo whined publicly that Xena was different from Hercules due to it being, and I quote, “heavily into lesbianism,” episode nineteen of season six featured Xena buying Gabrielle tickets to see a performance by Sappho. 

They later kissed on the mouth and proclaimed their love for each other. You know, like gal pals do. 

The same year, Lucy Lawless pretty officially outed Xena in an interview with Conan O’Brien, and a couple of years later, in a 2003 interview with Lori Medigovich of Lesbian News, Lawless said, “Gay, gay, definitely. There was always a 'well, she might be or she might not be' but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me. Now it wasn't just that Xena was bisexual and kinda like her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was, ‘Nope, they're married, man.’”

Then, speaking with Michael Musto for Out Magazine, she said again, “Where there's smoke, there's got to be fire.  It was clear from the writing that it was a love relationship.” 

The interviewer also asked her whether, post-finale, Gabrielle was now having sex with Xena's ghost, to which Lawless obviously replied, "I hope so,” because she is a legend. 

Notably, she was also named the Star 100 Ally of the Year at the Australian LGBTI Awards in 2017, after once again attending Sydney Mardi Gras. 

And while we’re on the subject of Xena’s record with the LGBT+ community, I guess this is also as good a place as any to talk about actor Karen Dior and the season two episode Here She Comes… Miss Amphipolis. 

It was the beauty pageant episode of Xena - you heard me - and it featured our heroes taking on secret identities within the competition in order to solve a mystery, prevent a murder, and potentially stop a war. 

For those not in the know, Lucy Lawless was the former ‘Mrs New Zealand’ of 1989. 

Anyway, one of the other contestants was Miss Artiphys, played by bisexual former adult film star and HIV/AIDS activist Karen Dior. 

There are a few places where the script pokes fun at Miss Artiphys, but the episode largely handles her with grace, dignity, and sympathy, and there is a very good reason for that. The character was created by Chris Manheim, the writer for this episode, in honor of her brother, a drag performer who had passed away due to complications with AIDS in 1992. In fact, the episode is dedicated to him; “In loving memory of Keith K Walsh.” 

Karen Dior - whose legal name was Geoff Gann, and who used male pronouns for the duration of his life,  so that’s what we’ll use here as well - had also been diagnosed with AIDS in 1995. He ultimately passed away in 2004 from AIDS-related complications, and like many others of his generation and the one gone before, deserved so, so much better. 

In 1997, when his episode of Xena aired, the Reagan administration was well over, but stigma against those who suffered from HIV/AIDS was still rife and misinformation about how the disease could be passed - for example, through a kiss - absolutely abounded in the mainstream. 

It caused a stir, then, when the episode ended with Miss Artiphys kissing Xena full on the mouth. And it was apparently Lucy Lawless’s idea, specifically with the purpose of challenging that stigma. 

In an interview with New Zealand Women’s Day in 1997, Gann was quoted as saying, “Lucy and I just bonded instantly. [...] She gave me so much support. [...] It was just supposed to be one of those beauty-pageant kisses on the cheek, but Lucy suggested I should grab her, dip her and give her a really passionate kiss instead.” 

And yeah, Miss Artiphys is wearing Xena’s clothes in that scene. It’s complicated, don’t worry about it. We’re going to talk about the outfit next. 

Leather Unmentionables

The outfits in Xena largely took shape under the watchful eye of Ngila Dickson, legendary costume designer who brought home a New Zealand Film and TV Award for her work on the third season, and who would later go on to win an Academy Award for The Lord of the Rings.

Xena’s original costume, though, as well as the others in the Hercules three-parter, was designed by costume expert Barbara Darragh, who was inspired by art nouveau and, some have suggested, traditional Maori designs, such as the koru, which is based on the native silver fern. And also bats, apparently? Yeah, I don’t know. 

As the three-off became a spin-off, Xena’s iconic leather and bronze went through a few design alterations for comfort and practicality under Ngila Dickson’s guidance, appearing both as a two-piece and as a single unit. 

Lucy Lawless donated her own version of the costume to the Smithsonian Museum in 2006, cementing its legendary status. 

Action heroines in sexy outfits are not precisely a new concept. Feminine versions of traditional warrior garb, except with more corseting and a lower cut, are still pretty much the norm. While one end of the action spectrum does boast practical outfits like those worn by Ellen Ripley or Kara Thrace, the other side of the costuming scale has historically teetered toward Boris Vallejo; pin-up girls with swords and goddamn high heels. 

And inarguably, Xena: Warrior Princess had some ridiculous, bikini-inspired, midriff-baring outfits. Gabrielle’s shirts and skirts just got consistently smaller as the seasons went on. Don’t get me wrong, I think this outfit is gorgeous, I’m just a little annoyed they had Renee wearing it during fight scenes, but as we’ve covered, Xena and realism were not precisely friends. 

I’d also love to see a proper breakdown of the costuming changes between Ngila Dickson’s departure and Jane Holland taking over in season five. 

Still, up through season four especially, they also put their characters in shaman-inspired Siberian furs and some decidedly unsexy evil warlord garb, all of which I hated as a child for being “too weird” but all of which I now begrudgingly respect as an adult. 

Xena’s usual outfit, of course, was a little skimpier. 

So that’s not great, obviously. If your lead is portraying a wayfaring warrior, you’d think the emotional and physical comfort of the outfit would be a higher priority. 

And I am always for better armor, both for the sake of historical accuracy and for believability, as well as the sake of providing actresses and stuntwomen with proper protection.

But I would like to point out a double standard in the way certain detractors try to automatically dismiss Xena’s iconic costume as impractical, or even claim that it detracts from the show’s standing as a feminist tentpole. 

To be clear, I’m not here to write an essay comparing the bare chests and leather speedos of 300 to the cleavage-flashing, stomach-bearing corsetry of Xena. Objectification, unrealistic standards and fetishized bodies can exist on all sides of the spectrum, but we all know there is an inherent difference between a property created by men with the intent of portraying their male characters as a hyper-masculine, pride-driven wish-fulfillment ideal, and a property created by men with the intent of portraying an actress sexually for the sake of the - usually male - audience’s enjoyment. 

But still, for all of this, I’m fairly defensive of Xena’s costume. You can say that she’s showing too much skin, or needs more armor, or call the breastplate fetish wear, but. 

She is genuinely not showing much more skin than your average hoplite warrior in ancient Greece. I mean, yes, her chest is obviously more visible and she’s not wearing a helmet, because heroes in modern film and television almost never wear helmets, and she’s not carrying a shield, for much the same reason. And also because she can canonically catch arrows. But her costume is essentially just the busty version of this. 

You know, bare arms, lace-up sandals, carved abs, exposed calves. 

I mean, Xena partially comes from “sword-and-sandal” type films, which featured Steve Reeves dressed like this for 1958’s Hercules, and the episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys that Xena was introduced in literally opens like this. 

Besides, things like plate armor were rare for ancient foot soldiers - gladiatorial armor was showy and sparse covering at best; artwork shows ancient Egyptian infantry as sporting no armor at all; and according to Greek historian Polybius, some Celts, according to legend, ran into battle naked. 

Xena has shoulder guards and arm guards and the outfit hits her knees, which is more than you can say of 2017’s Wonder Woman. 

And above all else, she is still, tragically, a standout among female action heroes - aside from your Ellen Ripleys and your Sarah Connors in their pseudo-military gear, your Brides and your Furiosas and your Dora Milaje - for wearing flat. fucking. shoes.

Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman wears wedges. Natasha Romanoff wore wedges. Trinity wore chunky heels. The characters in Into the Badlands and Underworld and Rush Hour and Charlie’s Angels and Batman and Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy and the goddamn lady in Jurassic World all wore high heels during major action scenes. 

Dayna Grant, longtime horseback stuntwoman for Xena who also went on to work on Wonder Woman, spoke in detail in multiple interviews about how the worst stunt injury of her life was caused by a pair of flimsy high heels that caused her to slip, become impaled by a dagger to the face, and go into cardiac arrest.

Flat soles aren’t just a stylistic choice. They’re important for safety. And the idea of putting your lead actor in comfortable sneakers and literally building the boot around them, as they did on Xena, should not still be revolutionary, but here, as in so many other ways, she was ahead of her time. 

The Producers Sincerely Hope You Were A-MUSE-D By This Episode

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the soundtrack, which is almost a trademark of its own within the world of Xena, alongside the iconic outfit and the sweeping New Zealand landscape. 

Composer Joseph LoDuca was a long-time collaborator of Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, the three having first met in 1980, and his first-ever film score was for Evil Dead. He then worked on, among other things, Hercules, Xena, He-Man, Leverage, Spartacus, Ash vs Evil Dead, and Chucky. 

The most well-known parts of the Xena soundtrack are its various non-English anthems, namely the Main Title and a battle track entitled Warrior Princess, which accompanied Xena from her first appearance on Hercules. Apparently LoDuca had written an Eastern European-style chant for an earlier episode that producer Rob Tapert loved, and from there came up with the idea of Bulgarian singing. 

Xena hailed from Amphipolis, which was in the ancient region of Thrace; while the city was firmly within modern-day Greece, what was once known as northern Thrace is now within the official boundaries of Bulgaria. The name “Xena” means “guest” or “stranger” in Greek, and the production and the actors have both implied that the character’s heritage lies here in the north, perhaps amid the Balkans.

This is partially reflected in the soundtrack, where they brought together a Bulgarian women’s chorus with eastern European rhythms and heavy drums, the Bulgarian kaval flute, the gaida bagpipes, cymbals and conches and didgeridoos. It was dark, it was exotic, it was warlike and fantastical, and it resulted in seven Emmy nominations for LoDuca before the show was over. 

It also helps when your main star has a Broadway-ready set of pipes and can contribute to some of the most haunting and memorable tracks on the show. 

Nowhere is this more evident than in Xena’s first and best stab at a musical, season three’s The Bitter Suite, which predates the famous Buffy episode by three whole years and is an absolutely wild trip of a story, with several of the main cast singing their own songs, while others were matched with startling accuracy by professional singers, like the late Michelle Nicastro for Callisto.

With lyrics contributed by multiple guest writers and dances choreographed by Broadway veteran and multi Tony Award nominee Jeff Calhoun, the music of The Bitter Suite resulted in two Emmy Award nominations. 

It is also one of the best showcases of the late great Kevin Todd Smith. 

And speaking of him, the script for this video essay is already at fifteen thousand words, but let’s talk villains for a hot second. 

Sleazy Warlords Who Deem It Necessary to Drink Magic Elixirs That Turn Them Into Scaly Centaurs

This is going to be a highly abridged rundown of the greatest hits, as opposed to a comprehensive list of every antagonist ever to grace the show, and if you’ve watched Xena, you probably already know who I’m planning to talk about. 

Callisto 

Callisto, played spectacularly by Hudson Leick, is probably still the biggest fan favorite out of every villain on the show.

And to anyone uninitiated, I understand how this outfit and her slight build might recall something like Sucker Punch or a generic metal bikini villain from a video game, and call to question how convincing she could possibly be as a warlord or a villain, but ignore that. Trust me. Callisto was anything but generic, and half the reason it works is because the way Leick plays her is absolutely wild. 

We’ve talked a little bit about her already - how Xena’s army burned her village, somewhat on accident, when Callisto was a child. That Callisto saw her family die, swore vengeance, and is somehow both more evil and more pitiable than Xena was at her worst. She’s the embodiment of Xena’s guilt, her existence and her many murders a constant reminder of the evil deeds that Xena will never outrun, and she’s fun. 

Just. So much fun. She was also genuinely dangerous, genuinely tragic, and never used a single expression, emotion, or gesture when five would do. 

Also there was a series of episodes where Xena and Callisto swapped bodies, during the period where Lucy Lawless had a broken pelvis after a horse stunt gone wrong for a Jay Leno skit, and both actors did a genuinely spectacular job adapting one another’s body language and speech style. 

Ares 

This brings us to Ares, as portrayed by Kevin Smith. 

Maybe he was an evil bootycall, maybe he was her dad, it was ancient Greece and the scripts aren’t consistent on it anyway, don’t worry about it. 

He was probably the longest-running villain on the show, the invisible force that mentored Xena through her evil years, brought her to her chakram, and reveled in every war she started and atrocious deed she committed. She was, in his eyes, his greatest accomplishment, and when she turned away from his path, he took it pretty personally. 

Like, it’s actually hilarious how mad and scorned he is about it. He spends a lot of the show trying to convince her to return to him, to greater or lesser success, and trying to get her killed when she refuses. Their dynamic is fun, Kevin Smith was overwhelmingly charismatic on screen, and he also got more opportunities to stretch his skills as the show went on. 

There’s a whole episode in season six where he’s lost his godhood and Xena somewhat sadistically tries to teach him to live on a farm while nostalgically reliving her own childhood, and it’s one of my favorite fluff episodes. 

Also, yeah, Smith and Lawless had pretty insane chemistry. 

Caesar 

The last member of what you might call the Big Three was Julius Caesar, portrayed with perfect smug condescension by a young Karl Urban. 

There are no words for how much I hated this man as a child. He had betrayed Xena, he had humiliated her and broken her, he didn’t respect her, and I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone in my life -

- Except for this one guy from the 1959 film Journey to the Center of the Earth. He’d killed a pet duck named Gertrude, I was eight years old and I wanted him dead, it was a whole thing. 

Anyway, as a massive, massive Lord of the Rings fan, I cannot describe my shock on realizing this absolute bastard bane-of-my-existence was also Eomer of Rohan. 

As I mentioned earlier in the essay, Caesar met Xena when she was young and naive - there is no continuity to the Xena timeline, but at a guess she was still in her late teens. She captured him, seduced him, and ransomed him back to Rome, parting on what seemed to be good terms. 

Thinking that he was now an ally, they planned to meet again - but instead he brought an army with him, killed all of her people, broke her legs, and left her to die. 

Whenever they meet again in the series, there’s an incredible sense of tension due to their long, messy history - lots of mutual disdain and that weird energy of two people who used to have sex a lot and now despise each other. 

Their story mostly concludes in the Ides of March episode in season four, and it is a powerful, heavy one, not least because the implication that Caesar may have won - that he, despite all Xena did to fight against him, may soon become the all-powerful emperor of Rome - makes it one of Xena’s worst defeats in the series. 

Alti

My last favorite villain came later on the show, and while she isn’t quite on par with the other three, I think she’s definitely worth mentioning here; and that’s Alti, portrayed by Claire Stansfield. 

I don’t include her on the list because I think the writing necessarily utilized her in the best way possible, or because the flashbacks to her time with Xena make a huge amount of sense within the timeline, but because Stansfield portrayed her with convincing power and menace. 

She always felt a little not-human - a little too mysterious, a little too all-seeing, and too mystic for Xena to just beat hand-to-hand. The actress had this fantastic throaty voice, and a lot of presence, and you need that if you’re going to be a convincing and worthy antagonist against Lucy Lawless. You need to be able to stand toe-to-toe with her and either look or act just as impressive, which is why, I think, so many of the other antagonists and warriors on the show fell slightly short. 

And it’s not just because Xena is tall and dark-haired and pale-eyed and those things make for a powerful visual. They were constantly hiring gorgeous model types in an attempt to hit this combination again - like with Velasca, with Livia, with Varia. They tried to make Livia a whole lot of something by giving her the nickname “The Bitch of Rome,” but we all know who that really is. And look, respect where it’s due, Velasca was a lot of fun and Varia had a lot of fans, but lightning never quite struck twice. 

Even Athena was a well-acted antagonist on season five, but it’s an issue when your day-to-day protagonist is just straight-up more intimidating than the literal Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare. 

Just before we close this section, a quick shout-out to a few honorable mentions; first and foremost Najara, one of the only warriors to ever actually straight-up beat Xena in a fight. 

Xena is such a sore loser that it’s genuinely hilarious - she’s good at so many things that she’s always on the backfoot for a second when she finds someone of her own skill level, and because she never really had to learn how to lose graciously, she’s just so bad at it. 

I know their personalities are worlds apart, but sometimes I feel like she and Thor would get along really well. 

Moving on, there’s also Dahak and Hope, who didn’t have much personality but whose arc was tied into some of the most emotional and tumultuous times in the show; and Draco, who was always a good fun time. 

We also got a lovely fun performance from Renee O’Connor here - any of the show’s doppelganger episodes were a great opportunity to watch the actors show off their range. 

Also this thing. I thought this thing was cool. 

….Anyway, the main villain of the show was plot consistency, so. 

#MaoriActressForXena

A few years ago I started a casual discussion on social media regarding my opinion that - given how a Xena reboot was at the time supposedly in the works, the filming location of New Zealand, the Maori designs that apparently influenced the style of Xena’s armor, my recent bingewatching of traditional haka performances, and the original series’ unfortunate propensity for casting Maori actors more frequently as villains than as heroes - the reboot was an opportunity to feature a Maori actress as the new Xena. 

Of course, every actor deserves the opportunity to play an original character and make him or her iconic in their own right rather than simply re-treading the past, but there is no reason for these options to be framed as an either/or.  Yes, the industry should focus on original properties and on casting the best actor for those properties without bias; but simultaneously, in rebooting a popular franchise, why confine the search for a new lead to actors who happen to resemble the original, unless context calls for it?

Anyway, I didn’t expect or get many responses to my post, but the ones I did receive were… enthusiastic in informing me that a Maori actress in the show’s ancient Greek setting would be “unrealistic.” 

Unrealistic. In Xena. 

The series that traveled from Zhou Dynasty China to Roman-occupied Britain in about a year and covered events from the Trojan War to Arthurian legend to the Bible. 

The series where Kevin Smith, who played Ares, was of mixed European and Tongan descent; where Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, was played by black actress Galyn Gorg; where Cleopatra was Gina Torres; Manu Bennett took a turn as Marc Antony; Tony Todd played Cecrops the Lost Mariner; Tamati Rice was both a pseudo-Vercingetorix of Gaul and the literal Archangel Raphael; and the man introduced in the first season as Xena’s former one true love - you know, before Gabrielle was properly a thing - was played by African-American actor Bobby Hosea. 

Greek or Mediterranean descent has never been a requisite for actors on the show. Why would it be? Historical accuracy is not friends with Xena: Warrior Princess and never has been. 

If it were, a New Zealander of Irish ancestry wouldn’t have been cast as a Bulgarian warrior in Greece to begin with. For reference, the distance from Ireland to Greece is about equal to that between Greece and Sudan. 

Listen to me. There is one hard and fast casting rule for a series of Xena, and it is that Karl Urban needs to play at least four different characters. 

Somewhat vindicatingly, a couple of years later, Lucy Lawless was asked at Palermo Comic Con what her thoughts were on the potential reboot, and yeah, her answer was that she would like Xena to be played by a Black actress, so. 

Anyway. Let’s spend a second talking about the way Xena portrayed culture and race. 

The answer is that it was a pretty mixed bag. It was the 1990’s, the show took place mostly in ancient Europe, almost all of the showrunners, producers, writers and directors of the show were white, and I’ll be honest, I say ‘almost all’ just in case I missed something while scrolling IMDB. 

As I mentioned, there were numerous people of color employed as actors and stunt workers on the show. As the show filmed in New Zealand it featured a number of Maori actors, including Jay Laga'aia - who would become known for his role in Star Wars: Episodes II and III - in a recurring feature as Draco, who was given more three-dimensionality than the usual warlord of the week. Also present was Lawrence Makoare, who rose to international renown playing numerous villains in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. 

But especially in earlier seasons, the majority of the people of color on the show were playing one-off villains, doomed warlords, former slaves, and background henchmen as opposed to any of the main - oh my God, that’s Game of Thrones, I’ve just described Game of Thrones. 

I think they did actively try to be progressive sometimes? 

According to producer Rob Tapert, the thought they were doing ground-breaking work by putting Xena into an interracial relationship in the first season. He later even said that they received protest letters over this depiction.

I thought this sounded fake, and decided to do some research. 

It sounds absurd today, more than 50 years out from Loving v Virginia, but until 1997, Gallup polls were still showing a less than 50% approval rating of black-and-white interracial marriage in America. 

Which, as the child of a multi-ethnic family myself, was interesting to learn. 

It supposedly hovers at around 94% today, which, what the fuck is up with that last 6%, America? 

Anyway, this was less than a decade after a 1991 article from the New York Times reported that Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, found one in five white people surveyed to still believe that interracial marriage should be illegal. 

So, I mean, going back to Xena’s love interest, Marcus, this may have been unusual at the time and the actor did a great job with this character, but also he was in like three episodes and ended up dead, so hashtag #theytried, I guess? 

On top of this, conversations on cultural appropriation and whitewashing hadn’t entirely hit the mainstream yet, so there were a few - let’s say costume and makeup choices - that don’t entirely hold up today. Like the Horde. I mean, what is this? What’s going on here, guys?

One of the hallmarks of the show is also in the characters’ travels to far-away places - Britain, Scandinavia, China, India. Some of these depictions created mass controversy at the time, and we will definitely talk about that. 

But one major, fan-favorite is the character of Lao Ma, who appears in season three’s two-episode flashback arc The Debt I & II, both of which are set in China and the Mongolain steppe during Xena’s reign of terror. Portrayed with strength, complexity and grace by Korean-American actress Jacqueline Kim, Lao Ma was not only instrumental to the plotline of two of the best Xena episodes ever made, she was a major figure in the younger Xena’s life. A scholar and a leader and a warrior and a teacher, she was one of the only people to actively treat the young warlord with kindness and compassion and mercy, and probably the person who came closest to turning Xena away from evil before she met Hercules. 

These episodes aired in late 1997, and at the time a lot of people took her character to be incredibly positive representation for Asian women on screen. In retrospect, things were a little more complicated. For one thing, Jacqueline Kim, who portrayed her, is, as mentioned, not Chinese. For another, from a modern perspective, her status as mentor of mystic arts wasn’t exactly breaking stereotypes; for a third, she didn’t survive the series. 

In a 2019 interview with Sarah Kuhn, Jacqueline Kim discusses how the filming process was, quote, “Just super fun and awesome. And working with Lucy was so liberating, because she is game for everything and super professional and funny and smart.” She also, quote, “loved that they weren't trying to hide that [Lao Ma] was Asian or say it's uncool to be Asian. She's Xena's mentor, she's the coolest person there!”

At the same time, she revealed that the producers had wanted her to do an exotic accent - not specific to a region or time period in China, but just generally, stereotypically Asian. Other actors on set were even putting on those accents, but she stood her ground, and her version is what went on-screen. In a later interview with Michelle Erica Green, she would say, “I love all the license that Xena takes, I love the campy aspects and the huge margin of disbelief. But one of my points in this exotic accent thing was, Xena's not speaking in a Greek accent. It's usually asked of somebody who has a 'different-looking' face that they sound foreign or different, and I've got a problem with that.” 

She was also intent on making sure that the character had complexity. She wrote her own backstory for the Lao Ma, and would later say, “I liked that she was human above everything. I think sometimes people can dehumanize Asian women and make them sort of perfect or they can make them emotionless.” 

She also tells a fun story about this scene, where Lao Ma is hiding Xena from men intent on hunting her down, and transfers air to her mouth-to-mouth. 

The abridged version of how she tells it is like this: “We had only ten minutes left in the full day. Everyone was stressing out because we were going into overtime. Lucy had been in this disgusting water all day. She hadn't complained. 

I remember all these men standing around and saying things like "We don't have time", "It's too important, it's too hard, there's no way". They didn't think we'd be able to find each other underwater. 

Lucy looked at me and I looked at her. We were both very businesslike about it. And we did it! We just did it! We were just like two tomboy-ish girls diving underwater. 

I remember it was just fun. The directors are always changing, and the tone on the set is up to the lead person. And she sets a fun, hard-working tone.” 

And then, on the other end of the spectrum, we have the episode The Way, which caused such an outcry that it was literally censored from television. I haven’t rewatched these episodes in a very long time and we don’t have time to unpack the full mess, so I’m just going to lay out the abridged facts. 

In season four, the show had a series of episodes set in India. The final episode of this arc, entitled The Way, also featured several Hindu gods; Krishna, Hanuman, Kali, and Indrajit. There’s also a white hippie Jesus-type named Eli, who preaches peace and non-violence. 

Amidst the conflict of the episode, Indrajit captures Gabrielle and Eli, defeats Xena, Xena turns into the goddess Kali and teams up with Krishna to defeat Inrajit, and saves Gabrielle. The god Hanuman is also there. 

Yeah. 

They allegedly did consult with Dr. Ravi Palat of Auckland University, but there were to my knowledge no writers, directors, or producers of South Asian descent involved in the production of the episode, which opened on a smorgasbord of Indian cliches and featured the characters wearing these costumes. It was… a choice. 

Anyway, word got out about the themes of the episode and really riled up one particular white New Zealander who some have later suggested had a literal brain tumor at the time - he repeatedly wrote to the studio in protest and also contacted a number of Hindu organizations in the United States, leading to wider outcry by the World Vaishnava Organization and the American Hindus Against Defamation. 

On February 23, 1999, production staff received a letter from Tustas Krishnadas, Press Secretary of the World Vaishnava Association, in protest of the episode, which still had not yet screened. 

It is a very long letter, but I’ll pick out a few statements: 

“To treat Krishna as a fictional character who can be manipulated by script writers for the sole purpose of creating an interesting plot is not pleasing to sincere devotees of Krishna. Even if Krishna is portrayed in a "good" or "favorable" role, it is still of great concern because it gives the distinct impression that He is fictional.” 

The letter protests reports that Xena attacks Hanuman, that Hanuman doesn’t counterattack, that Xena doesn’t apologize, that Hanuman is respectful but receives no respect in return, that Hanuman is not properly respectful to Krishna, that Xena speaks condescendingly to Krishna, and that’s a sentence I don’t often say. That Hanuman offers false instruction on how devotees are able to call on Krishna’s attention, etc. 

Quote, “If we consider this scene carefully, we see that through the eyes of the Xena staff, the Vedic scriptures are not only fictional but they are also untruthful or contain lies. [...] It is shown by Xena that Krishna is at the beck and call of the proud and the faithless.” 

He also protests that the show has replaced real religious icons with fictional characters, and states that Xena turning into Kali is deeply offensive to the demigods. He then says that Americans clearly think Kali is like The Hulk, which. Is pretty funny, like, that’s actually kind of a read on how Americans treat other cultures sometimes. 

Also, this: Quote, “We also get the subtle message that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, and great devotees of the Lord such as Hanuman give their blessing to lesbian relationships. [...] In this show we have Krishna and Hanuman helping unite Xena with Gabrielle, her lesbian girlfriend, which may be misinterpreted as an endorsement by Sri Hanuman and Lord Krishna of the lesbian lifestyle when in fact it is condemned in the Vedic literature.”

Lol. 

In April the producers, who said that they “produced this episode to illustrate the beauty and power of the Hindu religion,” met with Sunil Aghi, founder of the Indo-Americans Political Foundation and a Democratic activist in the United States. 

“We should not be seen like the people who protested against Salman Rushdie," Aghi said at the time, and counseled them to remove certain specific scenes from the broadcast. 

Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor also taped a 30-second public service announcement with Aghi to air alongside the episode The Way. 

Afterward, an article from June 1999 on Hinduism Today stated that, “Hanuman is not harmed by Xena. In fact, they strike up a close friendship. Lord Krishna is depicted in a loving, Godly manner.”

The same online paper’s staff allegedly enjoyed the episode, and their New York correspondent, Lavina Melwani, former editor of India Worldwide, cofounder of the Children's Hope charity and prominent member of the Sindhi community, even said, “My husband and I enjoyed the show. It conveyed the philosophy of nonviolence and love very well. It brought Hindu ideas into the mainstream, reaching an audience that would not be exposed otherwise.”

Hinduism Today concluded that, “The producers have obviously worked hard researching Hinduism.”

But still, the furor in the US and India grew; some said that the show should have consulted with religious people instead of with Aghi, who represented a more secular organization. 

There was ongoing outcry from the American Hindus Against Defamation, the World Vaishnava Association, the Hindu Students Council, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. There were petitions with thousands of signatures. There were floods of hate mail. There were pickets outside of Universal. 

The episode was pulled from the re-release schedule and there were official apologies from the studio. 

Some Xena fans started a counter-campaign called Xenites Against Censorship, and their petition had more than ten thousand signatures from over ten countries, decrying the censorship and pointing to the show’s usual disrespectful treatment of the Greek gods - which was generally to have Xena beat the shit out of them at every opportunity - which obviously ignores the fact that worship of the ancient Greek pantheon was not a living religion, unlike Hinduism.

The episode was eventually re-released several months later with one specific clip of Xena headbutting Hanuman removed, but it still drew continued protest on the basis that these figures should not be depicted on television for entertainment regardless. 

Meanwhile, the show’s initial consultant, Dr. Ravi Palat, was expressing confusion at the outcry, stating that in Bollywood, quote, “There are hundreds of movies which portray Hindu deities as fictional characters.” 

Also, in a 2021 YouTube comment on a video by That Movie Chick entitled That Time Xena Went to India and Almost Got Canceled, Rajneel Singh, the actor who played Indrajit, wrote an open letter on behalf of himself and fellow actor Rajiv Varma, who played Krishna. Both of them, he says, were practicing Hindus at the time. 

The comment outlines how he’d heard no complaints from New Zealand's Indian community during the filming process; that it being 1990’s New Zealand, most of the actors were thrilled to have featured roles in Xena as the show rarely portrayed Asian or Indian characters; that as practicing Hindus they thought, quote, “the production was pretty fantastic and largely accurate;” that it was surprisingly on-target and not offensive; and that, quote, “the complaints were started by a very strange white hippie dude and the nearly all of the organizations who opposed the show and protested it were considered to be ultra-conservative and right-to-far-right Hindu organizations.”

He concludes that, as a person of color in the film industry, quote, “I have nothing but thanks for Rob Tapert and Lucy for pushing hard to find ways to make their show diverse and get diverse stories into it, in the 1990's when there was ZERO precedent for it.” 

So. That’s… a lot. Like, I don’t know how to conclude all of this, other than to say be careful when portraying world cultures and living religions when you have zero producers, writers, or regular cast members of that culture or religion. 

I do think that if these episodes aired today, the global discussion would instead surround the question of whether The Way was a fair, respectful, three-dimensional and nuanced portrayal of a culture and its people. 

And if a reboot of Xena does ever go ahead, this is one of the ways in which they now have a chance to do better. 

Xena Was Permanently Harmed in the Making of This Motion Picture

As with any long-running series, there is a lot of fan debate about what constitutes the best years of the show. 

For a while, both the actors and the writers flourished more and more with each year, as did the budget. Season three is often considered to be something of a golden age. Producer Liz Friedman, writer Steven Sears, and writer/producer RJ Stewart all left the team for a time after season four, and their presence and influence was inarguably missed. 

It was the time of a lot of turmoil behind the scenes; scores of crew members left to work on Lord of the Rings, which was fully monopolizing New Zealand’s filmmaking industry at the time. Executives were focusing their energy on other projects, Lucy Lawless was pregnant with her second child, and new writers were brought in who seemed, at least from the outside, to be somewhat in over their heads. A time skip left behind some fan-favorite supporting characters. The subtext was diminished, for a time, replaced by a sudden focus on random male love interests, and the ratings - coincidentally I’m sure - plummeted. 

Season six was considered something of a return to form, and it continued to have excellent one-off episodes, but by this time the writing was on the wall, leading to a massive-two part series finale entitled A Friend in Need. 

So, we don’t talk about A Friend in Need. It was certainly crafted with a lot of careful effort and attention by the cast and crew, and some of the creators and some fans hold it near and dear to their hearts, but to many of us, we have collectively decided to view it as non-canonical. 

Xena broke a thousand barriers and buried a dozen stereotypes; no one likes to think of it betraying its legacy of feminine power and queer love by also falling into the trope of permanently burying its bisexual lead. 

The finale aired in 2001, when discussions of that trope were only just beginning to hit the mainstream, and undoubtedly the cast and crew thought they were crafting a fitting end for a Greek warrior always searching for redemption. 

Lucy Lawless has since changed her view on the show’s ending, discussing it in multiple interviews and telling Entertainment Weekly that it was a, quote, "huge regret," saying, "We didn't realize really what it meant to people. We thought, 'Oh, that's a really strong ending.' Now I just say to fans, 'Let's pretend that never happened'." 

Epilogue

So where is Xena today, more than twenty years down the line since the series finale? 

The legacy of the show is still hard to overstate. Our modern slate of sci-fi, fantasy, and action projects would simply not be what it is today without the ground-breaking work of the cast and crew in 1995.

Without Xena’s success, without the efforts of its creatives, there may not have been a Buffy or Dark Angel. There certainly wouldn’t have been a Cleopatra 2525 or perhaps and Alias, or a La Femme Nikita, all of which were stepping stones for Gina Torres before she landed Firefly. We might not have Kill Bill as we know it. And just as there is no warrior princess without Terminator and no Terminator without Alien, literally every action heroine we’ve seen since has found her path just a little smoother because of Xena. 

And let’s be honest, it’s half-responsible for a lot of design elements that are now ingrained into the public consciousness. 

It changed New Zealand’s film industry, partially through the Xena to LOTR Pipeline - you can even see some of Richard Taylor and WETA Workshop’s fledgeling work in early episodes.

But arguably, nowhere was the impact stronger than on Xena’s audience. While it was on air, fans claimed that the show was empowering them to leave abusive relationships.  For others, even for personal friends of mine, it was part of their first wake-up call that they were not heterosexual. Some fans wrote their Masters thesis about Xena.

For me, it spawned a life-long fascination with ancient history and travel to foreign places. If you flip through family photo albums, there are half a dozen photos from the late 90’s of tiny me wearing Xena memorabilia, like, yes, this is a costume that my mother made when I was nine years old, which I revamped a decade later for Comic Con and then again a decade after that for the Renaissance Faire. 

So, what else has happened in the years since Xena went off the air? 

Kevin Todd Smith passed away following an accident on a film set in China in 2002. He is still very much missed. 

Um, Condoleezza Rice was unfortunately nicknamed the “warrior princess” by members of her staff, which mostly makes sense if you’re talking about the war crimes. 

In 2005, the scientific team that discovered the dwarf planet 2003 UB313 nicknamed it "Xena." Later the same year, the team found that 2003 UB313 had a moon, which they of course nicknamed "Gabrielle."

In ‘06, Lucy Lawless was actually present at the deathbed of a longtime Xena fan, was there as her family, friends, and her partner remembered the revolutionary life that the woman had lived. 

Lawless was also arrested at an oil-drilling protest in 2012 and continues to be an advocate for climate consciousness. She remains outspoken online and occasionally just absolutely bodies Kevin Sorbo when he’s being an asshole on Twitter. 

In 2013 Jennifer Sky, actor for Amarice, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times to discuss how liberating Xena had been for her. After an abusive teenage modeling career that resulted in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, her time on the show learning “horseback riding, archery, and numerous fighting techniques” had been, quote, “shout-it-to-the-heavens inspiring.”

The last Xena Convention was held in 2015 - rumors of a revival several years later having been derailed by Covid-19 - but over the years, Xena fans have raised tens of millions of dollars for charity in total. 

The first Wonder Woman movie finally came out in 2017 and Lucy Lawless wasn’t in it, which is fine, I definitely feel fine and normal about that. 

Rumors of attempted reboots of the show have since come and gone. 

I would love to see the original cast back - following in Linda Hamilton’s footsteps for Terminator: Dark Fate - and watch them walk into the sunset happily ever after, passing the baton down to a new generation. Whatever path they take, I hope they move for more diversity not only on-screen but also behind the camera and in the writer’s room. 

It’s not Xena if it’s not pushing boundaries, it’s not Xena if it’s not progressive, and they now have the opportunity to do so much better than they could in the 90’s. 

Moving down the list, in 2021, tennis legend Serena Williams released the ‘Xena’ line of her personal sportswear brand. The website states that the clothing is “made for your inner warrior princess.”

The same year, Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor finally reunited on screen in Lawless’s show My Life Is Murder. 

And in 2022, a literal statue of Xena would have a cheeky blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange and the Multivers of Madness.

To quote producer Richie Palmer on the commentary track, “The great Lucy Lawless. This scene pays tribute to female heroes and villains. She's the embodiment of both, so it's really appropriate for this moment.”

Nature is healing. 

Post-Credits

Also. 

In the 1950’s and 60’s in Italy, the industry was briefly dominated by what came to be known as ‘sword-and-sandal’ or ‘peplum’ films, which were low-budget historical or mythological epics in the vein of Hollywood blockbusters like Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, and Spartacus, and included Steve Reeves in what is still one of the most iconic portrayals of Hercules in 1958 - the same year in which American author Daniel P Mannix coincidentally published Those About to Die, an in-depth historical fiction account of the lives of Roman gladiators - before enthusiasm for this genre ultimately faded away. In 1972 future Hollywood scriptwriter David Franzoni dropped out of grad school to motorbike across Europe, and was inspired by the many ruins of ancient arenas that he saw on his tour, a journey that stayed with him for over twenty years. Meanwhile, fantasy and historical epics were persona-non-grata at the box office, aside from the brief sword-and-sandal revival of the 1980’s which included Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian, a character Schwarzenegger was later uninterested in returning to, so the script for the follow-up Conan the Conqueror was changed to Kull the Conqueror in 1997 and the part was given to Kevin Sorbo, who was at that time starring in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, the parent show of Xena: Warrior Princess, where the titular character could often be seen battling Rome both in the arena and outside of it. At this same period in the late 90’s, the previous Eurotripper David Franzoni approached Hollywood producer Douglas Wick and suggested a film set in a Roman coliseum, for which he then worked up a draft based upon Mannix’s 1958 book Those About to Die and the idea was sold to DreamWorks with Ridley Scott coming on to direct as principal photography began in January 1999. That film, released in the year 2000, was obviously Gladiator, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and alongside the New Zealand-produced Lord of the Rings trilogy, ushered in a new Hollywood era of historical epics that include Troy, 300, Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander, and of course King Arthur, scripted by David Franzoni himself. The screenwriter for Troy would later go on to work on a new series that was greenlit for HBO in 2008 entitled Game of Thrones, which would become one of the biggest television shows of the decade after its premier in 2010, the same year as the television series Spartacus premiered, which was created by Sam Raimi and executive produced by Rob Tapert and appeared on Starz co-starring Lucy Lawless. 

I’m obviously not saying that Xena is the reason we have Gladiator. I’m just saying that it was a part of cultural zeitgeist at the time, and it’s important for us to pay respect to every complex thread that has led us to where we are in pop culture and art today. 

A Rambling Account of the Badassery of Xena: Warrior Princess

A video essay about Xena: Warrior Princess and her place in the history of action women and queer women on screen.

0:00 - Intro

8:23 - Disclaimer

8:44 - Toss a Coin to Your Warrior (Princess)

10:48 - Women in Action: By the Numbers

37:59 - Women in Action: Like the Harpies in a Bad Mood

49:57 - Just a Girl in Search of a Really Good Sword

56:29 - All Consequences Are Your Own Creation

59:47 - A Friend of Humanity

1:06:51 - Don’t Be Shy, Your Mother Wasn’t

1:22:55 - Harold, They’re Lesbians

1:36:13 - Leather Unmentionables

1:47:06 - The Producers Sincerely Hope You Were A-MUSE-D

1:50:32 - Sleazy Warlords Who Drink Magic Elixirs

1:59:13 - Blonde-Haired, Blue-Eyed Horde Girls

2:15:31 - Xena Was Permanently Harmed in the Making of This Motion Picture

2:18:02 - Epilogue

2:27:21 - Credits

[heartyearning]

not trying to get at this person specifically and to an extent i understand that this movie could be polarising but anyway none of that is impt i just. i know i rage on letterboxd one liners so often but this is the disease of star power and let me be clear i suffer from it as much as anyone but this concept of person > character (by which i mean: celebrity character created by media maintained by audience and made personal by fan > story and functional element of the media engaged with) is crazy. it's fucking crazy. can't exactly remember who started this trend but wasnt it that shakespeare actor in the 18th/19th century who put special effects in his costume anyway he was a bitch and when you get to heaven you can tell him i said so

[dunmeshistash]

Ryoko Kui Q&A (part of the Autograph event in Shanghai, China)

Here's the full Q&A copied from the post by Minute_Profession_34 on reddit

Original on weibo

About Ryoko Kui

Q: You have created a lot of interesting short manga in the past, do you have any favorite short manga by other artists?

A: A classic choice though, I think it's the collection of short stories by Fujiko F. Fujio. Other impressive works include "Hanshin: Half-God" by Moto Hagio, "Hanashippanashi " by Daisuke Igarashi, "茄子" by 黑田硫黄, "Skygrazer" by Ishiguro Masakazu, and "Tabi (The Journey of Life)" by Irie Aki. However, I haven't really read many short manga compilations.

Q: Do you prefer to create short manga or longer ones?

A: Long manga.

Q: Do you have a game that you highly recommend to fans?

A: Although not a game title, Steam Deck is the best thing I have bought in the last few years.

Q: What kind of music genre do you like?

A: I'm really not a music person and don't listen to music at all. Sometimes I listen to something like Tropical House.

About the creation & worldview of Dungeon Meshi

Q: Is the main storyline of the comics conceived at the beginning? Is the final ending adjusted during the serialization process?

A: I decided everything from the beginning. It may sound overly pretentious to say that, but I am the type of person who cannot move forward with each and every story unless I have decided on the main flow of the story. Of course, there are parts that I changed during the process because I thought, "I was going to do it this way, but it might not be natural," and there are parts that didn't work out the way I wanted them to. However, I think the story turned out to be roughly what I had in mind at the beginning.

Q: Will people outside of the dungeon incorporate the use of magic into their daily lives?

A: It would depend on the region. There are many sorcerers in elven and gnome cultures, but I don't think you will find many in dwarf and most short-lived cultures.

Q: What secrets of ancient magic are the elves hiding? Why would one be punished for doing anything related to ancient magic?

A: It is about the existence of Demon. They restricted that information because they didn't know what effect it would have on the world if the existence of Ddemon became known.

Q: How do adventurers know the time? Is there any dungeon having a different time flow from the normal world?

A: Some people bring things like clocks, but most only use their biological clock. There are also Dungeons where the flow of time is different from that on the ground.

Q: In the world of Dungeon Meshi, how do you deal with natural disasters, what would Laios or Marcille or Canaries do when there's a drought or a storm?

A: I don’t think it is so different from us.

About characters in Dungeon Meshi

Q: It’s about to give the new puppy a name again. Can Laos still beat Falin?

A: 7 out of 10, Laios will win. Or it may be decided by rock-paper-scissors or a raffle.

Q: Who will inherit the Golden Land after the passaway of Laios? The children and grandchildren of Yaad? Or the descendants of Laios? Or will there be a new Devourer?

A: Maybe the descendants of the Laios will inherit it, or maybe it will be passed on to someone with no blood ties at all. Or perhaps the monarchy will be abolished.

Q: Will Laios continue to eat monsters in the castle? And who will cook, maybe someone better than Senshi?

A: Many people in Merini are good cooks, but Senshi's cooking must be special to Laios. He may invite Senshi to cook from time to time.

Q: Where will Falin prefer to travel to?

A: She may prefer places where she can see landscapes and cultures she has never seen before.

Q: Would Marcille befriend a half-elf, such as Fionil? Since half-elves shouldn't think too much about longevity amongst themselves. Or would they not consider race as a factor to make friends but by fate?

A: Because mixed species in this world grow at very different rates and have very different abilities from person to person, there is often not much of a sense of sameness when you first meet them. They may or may not become friends as a result of interacting with each other as we would with any other human being.

Q: Is there any special meaning of Marcille and her mother's ribbons on the neck? And what about Cithis’s ribbon?

A: In elven culture, people with magic tattoos on their necks sometimes wear decorations covering their necks to hide the tattoos (mainly military personnel) This has spread to the general population, and many people wear decorations on their necks even if they do not have neck tattoos. Marcille and her mother's ribbons are just for fashion. While Cithis may have something special.

Q: Why wouldn’t Cithis wear a gorget? Or she’s not afraid of Dungeon Rabbits?

A: Maybe it’s suffocating or simply not liking it? The head-cutting Dungeon Rabbit is a fearsome monster, but it is not the first thing for the rear guard to be on the lookout for.

Q: How will Izutsumi and Falin get along with each other?

A: They may work together if necessary, but I doubt that Izutsumi will actively show interest in Falin (as she does with everyone).

Q: Itsuzumi has a beast soul mixed with a small amount of human soul, and does she shapeshift between a beast-man and a beast form like Lycion?

A: It can be done, but once transformed, she may no longer want to return to her human form.

*This Q&A seems to be strange

Q: What would Thistle do if he attended the former dungeon masters meetings?

A: Perhaps he would feel angry at the incompetence of other masters (their dependence on the devil).

Q: How did Milsiril accept Helki to stay by her side? After all, she hated elves and was bullied by her Canary teammates.

A: In the past, Helki was abandoned by his comrades for various reasons, and she could not leave him alone.

Q: Has Kabru ever had a real relationship with a girl? If so, what race or personality type of the girl was she?

A: I don’t think he cares about race, etc...

Q: What kind of soba will Mithrun make?

A: I hope he can make delicious soba.

Q: I would like to know the name of Mithrun’s brother or his brother’s crush!

A: His brother's name is Obrin (オブリン). I haven't thought of a particular name for his brother’s crush, so I'll name her appropriately now. Hmmm. Sultha (スルスハ).

Q: Since Mithrun used to assist Canary from behind, I wonder what kind of weapons he was good at using? Or was he good at using no weapons? (this is new info from the Korean Q&A)

A: He used a magic staff similar to that used by Pattadol. He was issued with the same one by the team. However, he no longer carried it because he lost it easily.

[obae-me]

How He Kisses

Hey there, so things are...kinda awful right now, and while I don't want to fully distract myself from my other works I'm chipping away at, I did want to post something a bit short and sweet to hopefully- well, saying "to make everyone feel better" feels sort of self-inflated, but if I can make everyone stop and think about something happy for just one second, that's more than I can ask for. I have no idea how similar this is to my hug headcanon ones. Not really checked for too many errors, this was all kind of done in the spur of the moment, but I don't think that matters too much.

Lucifer

Proper and slow. He likes being patient, kissing you once before pulling back to look at your face. He feels a sense of Pride when he can see the effect he has on you, knowing that he can comfort you like this. He's a perfectionist, he likes the whole experience to be included. That's why he likes to do it more often when you two are alone, knowing he has the freedom to do whatever it takes to make this moment perfect. Whether it's music, a lit fireplace, over a dinner, under the comfort of a blanket, everything is set up for you. To show his love for you, nothing less than high quality will be accepted. The kiss is simply the bow that ties everything together. And he'll take his time to relish in this moment with you.

Mammon

Fervent and greedy. He cannot contain his love for you. Even around his brothers, he lets it slip. So when you find yourselves alone, it's like pulling the lid off a stuffed container. Your eyelids, your ears, your forehead, cheeks, chin, lips, none of them shall be spared in his spree. It's almost frantic, as if he doesn't get as many now, he'll never have them again. He craves all of you, and he wants to be only yours in equal measure. Love, soul, attention, all of it is for you. It's as if he has to make up the seconds lost whenever you're apart. He never wants it to end. He hardly breathes. Every one is just as good as the last, and he is focused on making it just as wonderful an experience for you as well. After all, he wants you to be greedy too. Tell him your every desire.

Levi

Eager and grateful. Push past the anxiousness and the self-doubt, and you find a Levi that adores you more than anything. Like an ultra rare drop he can't get anywhere else. If he can stand in line for days for something he wants, he will stand with you till the end of time. His kisses show that, how deeply in love he is for you. Given the chance, he has the confidence to prove to you how special you are to him. Every kiss gets him more excited than the last, and in turn, he's determined to do whatever it takes to make you feel just as joyous as he is in these moments. Thank you for being here with him, your presence means more to him than you currently know, and he'll spare no effort to start showing you that.

Satan

Meek and curious. Whether or not it is considered if he's kissed someone before, every time he kisses you, it feels like the first time. He almost always has a distant look on his face, as if he's thinking about a million other things at the same time, and every million of those thoughts is something about you. He learns something new every time and commits it to memory. Which way your head naturally tilts, where you prefer his hands to be, how many you like, how long they take, he's going to remember them all. Well, he says that, but oftentimes its as if his mind wipes after every kiss. It's hard to think during those moments. But he's not worried about it, that just means he'll have to keep going. He has no plans to leave your side anytime soon after all.

Asmo

Uplifting and addictive. He likes to kiss for every occasion, every emotion. Happy? Kiss. Excited? Kiss? Sad? He says he saves his best kisses for those moments especially. Maybe it's shared love that makes his kisses almost tingle, or maybe its some kind of magic. It makes you feel light. And he'll give you as many as you want. He adores kissing you, not able to get enough of it. It's as though he's almost on clockwork, having to give you an embrace at perfect intervals throughout the day. He can't get enough of you, and he can't help but get giddy at the thought of running to your side and letting you know exactly just how much he loves you.

Beel

Warm and encompassing. Gluttony often gets mixed up with Greed, but this is one of those instances where the differences are clear. Every kiss is slow, and feels as if it lasts several lifetimes. It's as if he's drinking you in, savoring this moment in it's entirety. Of course he'll come in for seconds, and thirds, and fourths, but it comes steadily. Something about his kisses fills you with a warmth that's hard to describe, similar to soup or a hot beverage seeping through every part of your body to endure the coldest of days. It makes your toes curl like they're in warm socks. It makes you feel as if nothing can get to you. And with him around, nothing will.

Belphie

Soft and persistent. No amount of drowsiness can stop him. Even if he's asleep, the demon that will normally sleep like the dead will wake himself up and make sure to give you a kiss. They're so gentle, and it's difficult to tell if its tied to his personality, or if he's afraid of hurting you. Sometimes they're as light as a feather, almost tickling you. If you're falling asleep, they'll never wake you, only guiding you towards sweeter dreams. With every movement you make, you'll almost recognize the sensation of his kisses. They're like a promise, an assurance, that even in the deepest darkest of dreams, he's right there. They always lull you into a sense of peace.

[venusqq]

im convinced imaginary friends are a lie made up by the american media to sell more mental illness so. participate in my research

[gay-dorito-dust]

Can I request headcanons for Sunday, Boothill, Welt, Gallagher, Blade, and Dan Heng react gn s/o who always makes it a habit to tell him that they love him whenever they can like when they wake up, before going to sleep, before they leave, and when they return?

Welt: loves, loves, loves the domesticity of it all.

It never fails in making him smile knowing just how much you love him, so much so it was enough to melt his heart as he smiles softly every time he heard you say it.

For it never gets old for welt and never will as its quite possibly his most favourite thing to hear.

He feels warm, loved and happy knowing you felt so strongly about him to make a habit of letting him know just how much.

‘I love you too my dear.’ Welt would say with a chuckle, pressing a kiss to your forehead. ‘So much.’ He adds fondly as he strokes his thumbs against your cheeks as he looks at you fondly.

‘Not as much as I love you.’ You cheeked as you pressed kisses into his large hands.

‘My dear don’t start something we both know you can’t finish.’ Welt replies with a chuckle.

He didn’t want nor need much in life to be happy. He’s a hopeless romantic and this was the easiest way to his soft, old heart.

Blade:

Not use to it at first.

He grows stiff and doesn’t know what to say in response because it wasn’t everyday someone openly admitted to loving him at any given moment.

So the more you do tell him you love him, the more Blade will grow accustomed to having that one special someone who’s seeing his scars and still looks at him as though he were the most beautiful man in existence.

Someone who loved him unconditionally and wasn’t afraid to show it, whether in public or in private settings.

Sooner or later Blade would become addicted to you saying you love him at any given moment and will sometimes not let go do your until you did tell him you love him.

‘You’ve known what I’ve done and yet you still feel brave enough to admit that you love me?’ He asks.

‘I do,’ you replied, ‘and I don’t regret ever admitting that I love you because if I ever did it’d be a lie. I love you beyond words but am forced to use words because there is no action that could truly convey how much I love you.’

‘Then I hope you don’t live to see the day where you regret saying those three words.’ Blade then said seriously as he keeps you close.

‘I won’t.’ You assured him and all he could do in response was chuckle humourlessly and say. ‘Don’t make promises to someone you’ll later regret giving ownership of your heart.’

Sunday:

It’s like music to his ears.

It’s all he wants to hear from you and now he has it, he felt as though he had everything he could possibly want.

He’s selfish with your love and wants it all directed towards him, and so to hear you admit your love for him at every possible opportunity makes him feel more entitled to you and your love.

He don’t want you uttering those words to anyone else other than him for the rest of your life together.

‘Say it again.’ He’d say.

‘I love you.’ You reply.

‘Again.’ He then says with a look in his eye.

‘I love you.’ You reply once more.

‘Good.’ Was all he said before he’d go on about his day.

He often wouldn’t let you leave until you’ve told him you loved him enough to satisfy his own greedy desires.

Dan Heng:

Blushy baby who loves gets all weak in the knees when you say you love him whenever you could.

He can’t look you in the eyes the first time you said it because it took him aback that badly.

Now however Dan Heng only smiles and lightly blushes as he scratched the tip of his nose.

You’ve still got a strong effect over him and he knows that you’ll be the death of him one day with your sweet words and affection. He swears upon this.

He could be doing something a simple as reading a book and you’ll come along, sit on his lap and rest your head against his chest only to casually say that you love him; causing him to go rigid as you could obviously hear his heart go at a million miles an hour.

He swore you got a thrill out of his reactions and seeing him caught unawares, he just knew you did but he couldn’t help but love you for brining light and unexpected joy into his life.

Boothill:

Can’t stop smiling whenever you tell him you love him.

‘Really sugar? You mean it?’ He’d ask.

‘Of course I mean it Boothill, why would I say something I don’t mean?’ You replied.

‘Never mind, just say it once more for your handsome boy?’ He’d try to the quickly change the subject with a smile.

He just doesn’t see what was there to love about him at all but he feared that if he brought this up to you then he was questioning your genuine feelings for him, which wasn’t what he wanted.

He knows you adore him to death but he doesn’t understand what appeal he has going for him when 90% of him was unfeeling metal, and the only part of him that could feel was his face.

It was something that he frequently felt invalidate about, but hearing you say you love him gives him a semblance of confidence that he had been missing after getting his new body.

He needed someone to look at him and think he was beautiful, handsome and above all a sweet soul and that’s what you did, but you also did so much more for him then anyone else had and he didn’t want to throw all of that away because he felt as though he wasn’t worth you.

Gallagher:

Enjoys the moment as much as he possibly can.

Acts like he didn’t hear you the first time when he did just because he wants to hear you say ‘I love you’ in that heavenly voice of yours.

‘Don’t think I caught that one, this old dog doesn’t hear as well as he use to.’ He says with a cheeky smile.

‘Of course he doesn’t.’ You scoffed before continuing. ‘I love you, you old dog.’

Gallagher smiles sleepily as he brings you into his chest for an extra five minute nap. ‘Love you too, you punk.’ He said affectionately.

He loves the moments where it’s just you and him, living in your own little fantasy where no one else besides you two exist, and drinking in the love and how happy you made each other without really even trying.

He loves how playful you can get, how serious you can get with it and for it to always end in you saying ‘I love you.’ A hundred percent of the time.

And Gallagher would love nothing more then to hear you say if a hundred times more in the future.

[thexsilentxwordsmith]

Dad!Simon Riley x Fem!reader

Simon Riley: Girl Dad

From the request here ; pic screenshot from this video

“Can I come in now?” you ask, popping your head into the nursery as Simon finishes getting your 3 month old daughter Anna ready for the day. 

She wriggles in his grasp, babbling away as he mutters in a hushed tone to her about keeping still for daddy.

"Ya think this is funny yeah," he teases her, tickling her chubby tummy before trying to wrangle one of her legs in his grasp.

It’s like music to his soul the way the happy talking sounds she makes touches his heart and it only makes him want to do whatever he can so that she will keep making them for him. That’s why it always takes longer than usual to get her dressed when he does it.

You crane your neck trying to sneak a peak, but his voice stops you. “Not yet,” he says and moves his body to block your view. 

He doesn’t want you to see before he’s ready. The outfit is one he picked up the other night on a whim, the moment he saw it he knew Anna had to have it for today, and he wants to get it all on to give the full effect. He finishes straightening her up and tucks her body sitting up in the crook of his arm. She is content as can be being snuggled at the side of his chest, happily clapping her little hands together as they turn to face you. 

“Well?” he asks, brow furrowed and body slightly tense as he waits for your critique. “How'd we do?”

You match your daughter’s vibrant smile as you see the outfit Simon’s bought all on his own: a bright yellow corduroy romper with frill capped sleeves, little socks with suns on them, and a big yellow bow to match. Your heart swells full of emotion at the sight; it’s just an outfit, sure, but it really means so much more than the sum of its parts. You know just how far Simon has come in his journey with her and it truly warms your heart to see him so smitten with the little babe this way.  

When she first came home, there wasn’t a moment when Simon wasn’t on edge around her, nervous that somehow, someway, he would end up hurting her. She seemed so small to him in those first days, so incredibly delicate as she lay sleeping in her bassinet like the most perfect doll, that he was certain that someone as rough around the edges as him would never be able to be near her without breaking her and that was something he was not willing to risk.

She is his gift, his light, a treasure that came from out of all the years of heartache and hardship and he would never let anything bad ever happen to her.

It took some time and a lot of encouragement on your part, but finally Simon found his confidence and never looked back. Any chance now that he can get he is holding her, changing her, feeding her; anything and everything he can do to show her his love by his actions alone. And whether he gives himself the credit for it or not, he is doing a marvelous job.

“How did I know you'd choose something yellow?” you laugh as Simon glares at you, trying not to crack that fake tough facade. 

It is becoming a pattern for him to choose yellow things when it comes to Anna. When she came home from the hospital a few months ago in that yellow onesie, it was like a flip and been switched and that was it; that was her hue from then on. It is strange, Simon never really had a favorite color before that special day and then suddenly yellow was never the same. Now he cannot imagine his life without it.

His face breaks into a smile as he shakes his head, not ready to admit that he is becoming predictable. “Come on, did I do it right or not? Just want to be sure it looks fine on her. We got a big day and I want it ta be perfect.”

Your face brightens as you look her over again. “She looks adorable, Simon,” you reply cheerfully. “You did good, baby. I think you’re really getting the hang of this dad thing.”

Looking down at her in his grasp, he beams with a sense of accomplishment and his tense shoulders ease. Parenting is not something Simon ever thought he could be good at, he never thought he would be the one with the chance at having a family, but each day he is making strides in the right direction to becoming the dad he desperately wants to be.  

“Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own today?” you ask as you watch Simon place a delicate kiss to the top of Anna’s small, wispy-haired head. “Cause I can stay if you need me to. All I gotta do is make a call and let them know I can’t go.”

Simon shakes his head and reaches for you with his free arm, pulling you by the wrist until you step close enough that he can wrap his arm around your hip to pull you against him opposite your daughter. “Ya worry too damn much, sweetheart,” he says as his hand finds your cheek, his thumb stroking across the soft skin before he is leaning his face in towards yours. 

His full lips catch you in their tender embrace, a kiss that is full of emotion, and in an instant your eyes flutter closed as you relinquish yourself to him. You let all those worries fall away as the gentle touch of his lips, the heat from his breath, the passion flowing through his kiss calms your mind. He conveys so much without ever speaking a single word and in a flash you are put at ease.

Slowly he breaks away, already missing your taste the moment your lips part. Eyes still shut, he rests his forehead against yours, rocking all three of you back and forth a moment as he enjoys the feeling of having his entire life resting comfortably in his arms. You both open your eyes after a time and look down at Anna babbling away to herself, before looking back at each other. This is all still new and unchartered territory, so the both of you are working to figure it all out, but so far it has been anything except bad. 

“I promise, I got ‘er. We’re gonna be just fine,” he says quietly. “Isn’t that right, princess?”

At the sound of his voice Anna turns her face to find his and it lights up as it always does whenever her favorite person talks to her. She even employs her recently-learned skill of giggling happily to punctuate that she agrees with whatever it was she was just asked, even though she doesn’t understand a word of it.  

Simon kisses your forehead to be sure the worry is completely gone. “It’s just a couple hours on base and then we’ll be home the rest of tha day,” he says. “Besides, might be nice to show her off to the guys. She does look real pretty today.” 

“That she does,” you agree as you quickly check the clock on your phone and with a kiss to your baby and one more for Simon you are gone, leaving the pair alone.

Simon gets to work double checking everything in his backpack that he has to bring for her: extra diapers, wipes, bottles, toys, anything he could need while he is out. It’s in his nature, years of military training has come in handy as he is prepared for it all. Satisfied, he turns back to the baby at his side. “Alright princess,” he says, “ready to go see where your dad spends all his time when he ain’t at home?”

The moment he’s walking on base, black backpack filled with essentials strapped to his back, tiny baby girl dressed in bright clothes tucked in his arms, he’s drawing curious stares from everyone he passes. This is the first time she has gone to base with him, so of course people are going to be inquisitive about things. How can they not? Simon looks like… well, Simon: intense, stoic, intimidating. Even in just his black t-shirt and jeans, with his lightweight balaclava on, he is still an imposing figure. Never one to be shy per se, Simon still does not like the attention on him, but since he is with his little angel he doesn’t care. He is proud to show off the best damn thing he has ever helped to create.

The contrast between him and his daughter he knows is jarring and Simon laughs to himself at how absurd this must look for someone like him with such a coarse demeanor to be handling such a precious, sweet thing. Who would have thought that the scary skull-masked military officer would have a family of his own? It is a shock he is sure. 

“Seems we’re gonna be the talk ‘round ‘ere today, princess,” he says as he looks down at Anna, secure in his grasp as they continue on towards his office.

She is too busy looking everywhere her little head can turn to be bothered by anything. Being out and about with her father, seeing things she’s never seen before, which is pretty much everything, has her interested and engaged with the sights around her. Those small brown eyes, the ones that are a carbon copy of his, stare on as she silently takes everything in.

He makes it to his office and gets set up, grabbing everything that he needs in one tight spot as he sits Anna up in his lap with a toy for her to play with. She is content for a while as he goes through paperwork, occasionally he gives her a tickle or readjusts her on his thigh, something to show that he hasn’t forgotten she’s there with him. 

Barely an hour has passed before Anna begins to whine and fuss and Simon knows what that means: she’s hungry. He grabs the prepped bottle out of the bag and walks to the small microwave in the corner of the room, warming it and testing it on his wrist before he moves back to his desk and sits back down in his chair, cradling her in his arms against his chest as he places the nipple of the bottle in her mouth.

“There ya are, luv,” he comforts her until she settles into him, “I gotcha. Daddy didn’t forget.”

Unknown to Simon, there is an unexpected guest that has just appeared near his office door, though before the person can even knock to announce themselves, they are caught by surprise at the sight before them. Johnny, who’s come to deliver something from Price, stops right in his tracks and stares at the scene before him.

He stands there, watching as Simon tenderly holds this little infant in his arms, quietly rocking back and forth as she drinks her bottle. Every now and again he speaks to her softly, the skin around his eyes tightening to indicate there is a smile underneath the mask. There is an ease to his movements as if he knows exactly what he is doing and it genuinely shocks the young sergeant. Who could have ever guessed that this would be something Simon would be such a natural at?

As Anna is finishing the bottle, Simon looks up as he feels a pair of eyes on him to see Johnny standing there, obscured by the doorframe, silently watching. He sets the empty bottle down on his desk and moves Anna to sit upright on his thigh, leaning her against the crook of his arm so that he can pat and rub her back until she burps. 

“Can I help ya, Mactavish?” Simon’s distinct voice calls out, catching Johnny off-guard as he realizes he’s been caught staring.

“Sorry, L.T.” Johnny stutters out as he hurriedly steps inside the office, remembering why he is here in the first place, and sets some papers upon his desk. “Price sent these; says he needs ya to look ‘em over.”

Simon nods in understanding, his hand still rubbing the baby’s back. “Will do,” he agrees, thinking this will be the end of the interaction, but Johnny still lingers. “Anything else?”

“I heard ‘round base that ya had your little one here today. Had to come see if it was true fer myself,” Johnny admits with guilt. 

“Well, ya could meet ‘er if ya like, ‘stead a standin’ there just starin’.”  Simon nods his head down at the baby. “Johnny, this is Anna.”

The sergeant observes her as she begins to coo, her eyes catching the tattoos along Simon’s muscular arm, her petite fingers tapping and poking along the lines and patterns with delight as she loves to do when he holds her like this. She’s so engrossed that she hasn’t realized there is another person in the room yet.

Johnny clears his throat. “Didn’t mean ta stare, ya know. It’s just a surprise ta see she’s actually real, I guess.”

The original members of the 141 know about Anna, it wasn’t something that Simon could hide once she was about to make her way into the world, but it’s a bit jarring for the Scot to see someone that he had previously known to be so toughened by the world change so drastically. Anyone who gets close enough can see it in the lieutenant’s soft gaze: he adores the little girl and that is… interesting, to say the least.

Simon chuckles at the clear surprise in Johnny’s voice as Anna is still playing with his arm. “Bit absurd, innit Johnny?” he questions while watching her with a prideful twinkle in those brown eyes as she giggles. “Me with a kid? Doesn’t seem possible, does it?” 

“Ya seem a natural ta me,” the Scot admits in awe of how easily he makes it seem, as if he was given some secret knowledge that made him know exactly what to do and how to do it. “Then again I don’t know the first thing ‘bout babies. Wouldn’t even know where ta start.”

Simon is reminded about how when he first found out he was going to be a dad he had started reading all the books, researching all the things like a good, capable soldier would, but how all of that prep was nothing in the end as the moment she came into the world everything was turned on its head. It’s not like in the books, it’s so much better and it is days like today that make it worth all the worry and fear and anxiety he had to break through to get here.

“Easier than ya think,” Simon replies with a chuckle as he moves Anna around facing forward now. “Once ya get the hang of it.”

“Don’t tell my girl that,” Johnny laughs back. “Can’t afford one right now.”

Anna’s attention is stirred away from Simon’s tattoos and towards the other man standing in the room with them. She looks up at Johnny in awe, not having much experience with others outside of Simon and you, but Johnny shoots her his classic smile and he has her giggling again in a flash. 

“Well hey there Anna, nice ta meet ya,” he introduces himself before turning back to Simon. “I think she likes me.”

“It's your hair she's eyein’,” Simon points out, following her eye line.

Sure enough as soon as Johnny runs his hands over the mohawk cut into his hair her eyes light up. “Can she touch it?” he asks Simon and he nods in agreement.

Johnny falls to one knee in front of the little girl, leans his head down, and lets her put her hand in it. Her short, chubby fingers pull the strands as she laughs, the short, spiky pieces pricking her fingertips. She pulls away quickly before bringing her hand back in again, a sort of game that she repeats a few more times before Johnny gets back to his feet. 

“He’s a funny one, ain’t he, princess?” Simon questions his little one as he strokes his thumb around the smile that fills her tiny, round cheeks. “Ya like him, yeah?”

She coos, her little lips forming an ‘o’ so that she sounds like a dove. That’s the closest to a yes as they are going to get. 

“I sure ‘ope ya do, seein’ as I’m your dad’s best friend,” Johnny picks, looking to Simon to see his reaction. 

He rolls his eyes at the statement, but stays silent and doesn’t correct him. Instead Simon opts to end the conversation there, needing to get finished here anyway so that he can get back home. As much as Johnny’s company isn’t as grating as it first was, he is ready to spend some alone time with the baby before you get back. “Well, if ya don’t mind, I need to get back to it. Say goodbye Anna.”

Johnny agrees, though his mouth twitches like he wants to ask a question, but ultimately decides not to ask it in the end. He turns to leave, but Simon guesses at what he is wanting and calls out behind him so that he stops. 

“And ya can tell the others they can come see ‘er if they want,” Simon assures, “I know they’re probably itchin’ to get a glimpse of her too. That’s why they sent ya, yeah? See if I was up for company?”

Johnny turns around and nods his head. Fuck, they’ve been caught. “Will do, L.T.” he says. “Can ya blame us though? She’s pretty damn cute.”

And with that he turns back around. As Johnny leaves the office with the sounds of Simon and Anna at his back, he can’t help but smile to himself at seeing his friend finally have a bit of happiness; if anyone deserves it, it is Simon. Wait till the others see just how much things around here are going to change.

[mellowsadistic]

“That’s it, baby, let it all out,” I cooed. “Have a big cry. Daddy's here, little girl." I stroked my wife's hair gently while she bawled her eyes out like a two-year-old, sat on the floor of our bedroom wearing nothing but her sopping wet diaper.

She gasped in big lungfuls of air, her bare chest heaving with every shaky breath. “You… did something… to me!” she said between hiccups, batting my hand away and glaring at me accusingly. It seemed that I'd finally been found out.

"What did I do to you, sweetheart?" I asked softly.

"You... turned me... into... a cry... baby!" she sobbed, almost hyperventilating now, her words barely intelligible. "You... want me... like this!"

“That's right, darling," I said, and I saw her tear-filled eyes widen in surprise at my ready confession. "I want to be your Daddy. I want to take care of you. But you've always been so strong and independent. I knew I had to do something to change that, so I used some special hypnosis files, hidden in that night-time background music you like to listen to, to erode your emotional control. It's the same technique I used to take away your potty training.”

She looked at me in horror, but I just chuckled and reached out to stroke her tear-stained cheek lovingly with the back of my fingers. “It’s so sweet that you can’t control when you go pee-pee or poo-poo anymore." I patted the front of her soggy diaper. “And you look so pretty in your princess nappy!”

“You did this to me?” my wife whispered, so shocked that her wracking sobs had come to a halt. Her hand drifted down to the huge disposable diaper bulging between her thighs. "You made me need these?"

"Yes, baby," I said. "I thought making you incontinent would be enough, but even then you were still trying to be self-sufficient; insisting on changing your own nappies, refusing to let me comfort you after an accident. So now you're going to be emotionally incontinent as well, sweetie. No more bottling things up. No more self-control. When you get even the slightest bit upset about something, you'll be in tears."

“But whyyy?!” she wailed, her sobbing returning in full force. "Why did you... do this... to me?!"

“It’s not good for girls to hold in their feelings,” I said, running my fingers through her hair again. She seemed too appalled by what I was saying to even notice. “It’s so much cuter, so much more feminine, when you lose control and have a little meltdown instead.”

“But I don’t… want to be… like this!” she cried.

“I know, darling,” I said soothingly, “but this is how I want you. Daddy knows best. Being a tearful toddler suits you much better than being an adult woman. In any case, there's no undoing the effects of the hypnosis now, little one. I made sure it was completely permanent."

“No!” she wailed, bouncing on her wet bottom and beating her fists impotently against the floor. “It's not fair! I wanna be a grown-up! I wanna use the toilet! I don't wanna be a stupid crybaby! I don't wanna! I don't wanna!" Her words trailed off into incoherent blubbering as she devolved into a massive temper tantrum.

I couldn't help but smile. She looked so adorable! "Hush now, princess," I cooed, shoving a large pink pacifier between my wife's lips. Her mewling was cut off abruptly, and she started sucking on it at once - another product of the hypnosis files. She was left sniffling and whimpering quietly, her dummy bobbing rhythmically in her mouth. "Now I know you're very upset because Daddy turned you into a big baby," I said, pushing her back gently onto the floor, "but I'm sure a nice dry diaper will have you feeling better in no time. Legs up, baby! It's time for you to let Daddy take care of everything."

[hellenicrisis]

PSA to pagans and practitioners.

You don't have to speak your prayers or incantations out loud for a ritual or offering to be effective.

For the longest time, I tried praying out loud and speaking out loud during ritual offerings, and I was always uncomfortable. I tried everything, from using the ancient hymns, to writing my own prayers, even combining the two. Nothing worked for me, but I kept doing it because I thought that's just how things are done.

A ritual, prayer or offering is not less effective or special if you don't speak aloud. Not speaking is not an easy way out, it's not disrespectful to the gods, and it's not making the working less powerful. The thing that negatively impacts your practice is being uncomfortable.

If you work better silent, embrace it. It took me far too long to realise that working quietly is best for me. I'll put on some instrumental music in the background while doing my ritual offerings which helps me focus, and other than that, I enjoy listening to the sounds my materials make; the bay leaf crackling, the libation being poured, the sounds of setting things down on the altar. If I have to speak through that I feel distracted and nervous about forgetting what I'm supposed to say. I would much rather focus on my actions, my materials, my offerings, my energy, and my gods.

If you speak aloud and it works for you, fantastic! However, don't feel pressured to if you don't like it. We see so many people put on a show during rituals for social media. Don't think all rituals have to be like that.

[knottedhearts]

Lunch: B.E

Summary: You're at Billie's MV for "lunch"

The set was buzzing with energy as Billie’s crew moved around, setting up the final touches for her “lunch” music video. You sat off to the side, casually leaning against one of the chairs, taking it all in. It felt surreal to be here, watching Billie in her element. She was always so confident, so captivating when she was performing, but seeing her here, behind the scenes, made it feel like you were witnessing something special—something just for you.

The lights dimmed slightly, and everyone gathered into place. Billie shot you a playful smile as she adjusted her mic, then turned to the camera with a determined look in her eyes. You shifted in your seat, excitement bubbling in your chest. She’d been talking about this music video for a while, but you hadn’t heard the song yet, so you were eager to see what she had in store.

The music started, the beat smooth but edgy, pulsing through the air and vibrating the ground beneath your feet. Billie began to move, her body swaying effortlessly to the rhythm. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her—her confidence was magnetic, and the way she moved, with such ease, made your heart race. Her eyes locked with yours for a moment as she sang along, her lips curling into a knowing smile.

As the beat dropped, she started to jump around, her energy infectious. The camera followed her every move, but you were more focused on her—watching her expression shift, the way she owned every step. She was on fire, and it was impossible not to feel the heat radiating from her.

Then, she hit a line in the song you hadn’t been expecting. Her voice was smooth but biting, and it cut through the atmosphere like a knife. “I could eat that girl for lunch…”

You froze. The words were bold, playful, and completely unexpected. Your mind went blank for a second, processing the line, before your face turned bright red. Your heart skipped a beat, and you could feel the heat rush to your cheeks as your gaze fell to the floor, hoping she hadn’t caught your reaction.

But of course, Billie noticed. She always did.

She caught your eye again, her lips curling into a slow, teasing smile. Her gaze darkened just a little as she continued to perform, and with a subtle move, she bit her bottom lip—soft but with just enough intensity to make you feel it. You could tell she was playing with you now.

Billie then plucked a cherry from the bowl on the table, bringing it to her lips as she took a slow, deliberate bite. Her eyes never left yours as she chewed, her gaze practically smoldering as if she knew exactly what effect she was having on you.

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat, trying to maintain some composure, but the combination of her playful smile, the bite of the cherry, and the provocative line in the song was making your pulse race. You were fully aware that Billie was aware of your reaction, and it was a little embarrassing, but at the same time, you couldn't look away.

She winked at you mid-performance, the playful tension thickening in the air. The crew around you were focused on the shoot, but Billie had a way of making everything feel like it was just between the two of you, even in the middle of the chaos.

The song went on, but your attention was completely fixed on her—on the way she sang with such intensity, the way her lips moved to the words, and the way her presence consumed the room. With each verse, she added a little more playfulness, a little more heat. And as much as you tried to focus on the music, you couldn’t help but feel the electric pull between you.

Billie wasn’t done teasing you just yet. You could feel it, the way she was savoring the moment, enjoying the fact that she had this effect on you. It wasn’t just the lyrics or the video—it was her. And she knew it.

[distantdarlings]

BY THE FIREPLACE // t. nott

RATING: PG-13 / 2.9K WORDS

Theodore Nott x Fem Reader

+ SUMMARY - *Requested - based on this* You have been an Animagus for around a year now. You have quite a knack for learning everything you need to know about it quickly and Professor McGonagall really likes you. However, a fellow classmate, Theodore Nott, does not like you. And you couldn't care less. Both of you are in for a surprise when you accidentally meet in the library. (Fluff?, sort of Comedy)

+ WARNINGS - Language, nothing else really

+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -

Fantasy - Mariah Carey (don't judge me)

---

“And, ladies and gentlemen, please remember: ten inches of parchment on the side effects of incorrectly transfiguring a toad back into a human!”

Professor McGonagall’s voice pierced the slight murmuring that had started amongst the crowd of students. You suppressed a groan at the assignment, knowing well enough that you’d be putting it off as long as possible. It wasn’t that you weren’t grateful to be here, it was just rambling on about the properties of toad warts left over on humans after unfortunate experiments didn’t really get you going, at least, not like they did Professor McGonagall. 

You had found a kind of special liking for her after you had put yourself through the very exciting—albeit brutally difficult—process of becoming an Animagus. It had been your absolute dream since accidentally discovering that your mother was also one. You had been wandering around the garden during the summer between first and second year and had come across an absolutely beautiful doe. You had stopped in your tracks, taken aback by the creature’s beauty. Just as you were going to hold your hand out to the creature and offer it some of the grass blades clutched in your fingers, the creature before you changed entirely. Its long, graceful body curled into a small flash of light and then, without so much as a breath, your mother was back. Standing in the place of the deer. You could hardly believe your eyes.

Your mother was an Animagus and you thought you should be as well. She had warned you of the difficulties and hardships of the process and how annoying it was to have to get registered with the Ministry of Magic but you didn’t care. The wonder that had been in your eyes when you’d seen your mother transform surpassed all the cons of becoming one. You were going to be just like her. And now you were. Well…sort of. You were an Animagus but, much to your disappointment, you did not transform into a beautiful doe. You were a cat. Not a sleek black cat or a graceful Sphinx. No. You were a large, overgrown, long-haired European Maine Coon. At least, that’s what you were pretty sure you were. You hadn’t exactly performed a DNA test on your Animagi identity. You wondered if that would even work. 

The crowd of students urged you towards the door and out into the grand hallway just outside the Transfiguration classroom. The light poured through the gorgeously carved stained glass windows along the stone walls and illuminated everything in its wake. You absolutely adored the castle and its beauty and reckoned you didn’t stop and admire it as often as you should. 

A body bumped into you roughly, nearly making you lose the books clutched in your arms. You gasped at the sudden shock that went through your body when you realized you’d nearly missed a step down the staircase, your heart dropping through your ribcage.

“Hey,” you shouted. “Want to watch where you’re bloody going?”

The culprit turned with an annoyingly charming smile printed on his lips. His darkened eyes found yours amusedly and sent you a single wink. Your blood boiled.

“Sorry, darling, I’m in quite a rush,” he smirked.

“Doesn’t mean you can break through crowds like a giant,” you retorted, rolling your eyes. “Maybe you should take a second to think about the other people in this school and not just yourself for once, Nott.”

“Bite me, love.” 

Asshole. You watched the back of his head disappear amongst the rest of the students as they waded around you as if you were an island in the midst of an ocean. You could not stand that boy. He and his stupid friends had been nothing if not the most obnoxious people you’d ever met. Even from your first day, he was rude, loud, and annoying. No matter how handsome he was, he couldn’t just steamroll over people. And yet, because he wasn’t ugly in the slightest, everyone just let him do whatever he wanted. Him and all his friends. It made you so angry. 

Your eyes found your watch. You probably—erm, definitely, needed to get started on the paper for McGonagall’s class. That’s what pointed your feet toward the direction of the library. The thoughts of the warm hearth and those plush green chairs that hovered around it were calming the worries for this assignment. The library was—in your opinion—one of the most comfortable areas in the entire castle. It oozed comfort and warmth, much like your dorm room. It just felt soothing. You had noticed the amount of time you were spending in there was increasing as the days got colder. The fireplace in the dorms and common room were just as warm, of course, but those areas tended to be more populated during the day. And if you were going to get this paper done, you likely shouldn’t be surrounded by friends. You could be quite talkative when it came down to it—especially when it came down to procrastinating an assignment. 

One of the large wooden doors to the library came into view slowly as you sauntered down the stairs just before the entrance. You could practically feel the warmth radiating from the vast room. Sweetened chills broke out over your arms and a small shudder passed down your spine. You clutched your books a bit tighter to your chest as you pushed past the threshold and felt the warmth on your skin. 

You smiled gently as you made your way toward your usual fireplace. The smile on your face seemed to grow exponentially as you realized nobody was even in the general vicinity of your favorite spot and…thank Merlin…the tea cart had been brought around. The silvered, intricately designed cart that the librarian left out for wandering and cramming students sat right beside the fireplace. On it sat a few tea cups, a large, enchanted teapot that filled itself back up as soon as it was emptied, two sugar bowls, a large cream pitcher, and a few crumpets and cream horns. You might have died and gone right to the afterlife. 

You set your bags and books in your favorite armchair—the one on the left—and made your way over to the wonderful cart. You shivered in delight as you prepared yourself some tea, just the way you liked it, and grabbed a cream horn—or two. Wandlessly, you conjured the wool blanket that sat upon the foot of your bed and snuggled in amongst the cushions. This was absolutely delightful. Between the tea, the snacks, the warmth, and the dim lighting, your homework was the last thing on your tranquil mind. Your books and bag remained untouched. 

Once finished with your snack and beverage, you found yourself closely watching the curls of flames dance in the fireplace. Soon enough, absolutely without your consent, you were gently lulled to a deep sleep. Your eyes fluttered shut and your breathing stilled, your hands were curled against your chest and your knees were brought up against you. 

-

Theo rounded the corner of the main stairway just before the library. He had an enormous amount of work to do and figured he wouldn’t get anything done if he stayed with his mates. He watched his feet as they jogged down the stone steps, his bag jostling on his shoulder every few moments. 

Once past the doorway, his eyes found that set of green armchairs in the corner just in front of the fireplace. There appeared to be no one in them and he smiled a bit. Hopefully he’d be able to complete all of his work without any interruptions. 

He set his bag down beside the armchair on the right. He reckoned he should start on the paper for McGonagall’s class since it was likely going to be the most difficult way. He should probably just get it out of the way, then everything else would be a breeze. 

As he began to rummage through his bag for the appropriate materials to get started, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A white wool blanket lay spread across the other armchair and an empty tea cup, plate, and school bag were discarded beside it. He figured someone had been working there only moments ago and had slipped away for a quick bathroom break or something of the like. A groan began to build up in his throat as he realized he likely wasn’t going to be alone after all. Whatever…as long as they were quiet. 

Finally, his fingers brushed his quill set and the Transfiguration book. He pulled everything out and settled himself in the chair, preparing to get to work. A thought popped into his head as he spread everything out comfortably. He wondered who had been sitting there. If it was someone he didn’t know, he’d likely have no issue ignoring them. He kind of hoped it was none of his friends, though he could have sworn he’d seen that bag before. Maybe it was Enzo’s?

An hour or so of straight working went by before Theo came to a pause and set his things aside. He stood from the chair and pulled his body into a sweeping stretch that popped a few joints along the way. He groaned at the pleasurable release, grateful that he wasn’t so stiff anymore. His hands shoved in his trouser pockets and he began shuffling in place to try and work some feelings back into his legs. 

The person who had been there previously, he realized, had never come back. Being as curious as he was, he glanced around the library, spotting only a few fully concentrated students with their heads down. Whose stuff was this? He nonchalantly wandered over to the items and squatted down next to the bag. He picked it up gently and rolled the fabric around in his hands. He wasn’t trying to be too nosy, just wanted to see if there were any embroidered initials or names. Quickly, he flipped the top flap open only to discover a messily scrawled name imprinted over the white tag near the top of the bag. It was, much to his dismay, your name. That obnoxiously uptight girl in his Transfiguration class. Every day, in and out, rubbing everyone’s nose in the fact that you were bloody awesome at McGonagall’s class and everyone else was just shit. He wondered if you were cheating or doing some favors for other students. No way you were that good at that boring class. 

A slight movement out of the corner of his eye shocked him away from the bag. His hands frantically dropped the material and he backed away quickly, not wanting to be caught snooping. Yet, he saw nothing. He glanced around wildly trying to find the culprit of the movement but not seeing anything. He could’ve sworn he—

Another movement. From the center of the white blanket. A cat. A rather large one, at that. Yawning slightly and stretching its little limbs out. His heart nearly melted. 

“Aw,” he smiled, “hello there, love. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

He slowly slid his hand over the edge of the chair’s cushion and rubbed the back of his first two fingers over your head. Unbeknownst to him and your sleepy state, both were blissfully unaware of who was touching whom. You yawned once more and curled into his touch. He laughed softly at the movement and began petting your head with a full hand. A deep rumbling purr radiated from your chest at his movements. 

You weren’t sure what about this dream was so real, but bloody hell was it comforting. An unknown character in your dream was ever so gently sliding a hand over your head and occasionally scratching under your chin. Maybe it felt odd for them to do that, but it was so relaxing you didn’t care.

He stood back up and gently scooped your curled figure up, keeping the blanket wrapped softly around you. He took a seat in your armchair and placed you on his lap. His fingernails ever so slightly scratched over your head and smoothed the hair along your back. Your thick, bushy tail curled lovingly against his chest ever so often. 

Something that you didn’t know and something that Theo didn’t know, either, was that you had the subconscious tendency to transform into your Animagi identity when sleeping. Whether as part of a dream or mumbling in your sleep, every once and a while, you would slip down to your smaller self and remain curled up as such. It had been going on for a couple of months now and you had yet to notice it. Your roommates most definitely had but they had said nothing as they assumed it was a purposeful action. They figured it would be nice to sleep as a cat as well. 

The purring emanating from your soft chest rolled against his leg as he continued to brush his fingers through your fur. Your head occasionally curled further into his stomach at these gentle actions. This might have been the most relaxing dream you’d ever had. 

“Hey, man, been looking everywhere for—”

“Shush!” Theo berated the loud voice. Mattheo came around the back of the armchair with a look of confusion plastered on his face. He glanced down to see the feline stretched across his lap, an eyebrow raised.

“The baby is sleeping,” Theo whispered, smiling gently. His hands never stopped brushing you. 

“Did you find him—?”

“Oh my god, shhhhh!” Theo repeated. Pansy and Enzo followed the same path that Mattheo had. And just like him, their eyebrows cocked awkwardly. All three of them glanced at the other.

“I told all of you I was going to the library to get some homework done,” Theo whispered.

“Yeah, it sure looks like you’re getting a ton done,” Pansy rolled her eyes.

“I was...,” Theo insisted, “before this baby wandered up. Isn’t she just the cutest?”

“Yeah, adorable,” Mattheo mocked, a smile building its way onto his face. “I’d love to have McGonagall Jr. sat on my lap, if you know what I mean.”

Enzo and Pansy’s faces blended from blank to confusion to realization to stifled laughter. Theo was extremely confused and becoming a little irritated. 

“Ew, what is that supposed to mean? I don’t think all cats are related to Professor McGonagall—wait, she’s not even really a cat, she can turn into one. I don’t think she’s really related to any cats,” Theo argued.

“Yeah, man—not what I meant,” Mattheo laughed. His two companions began to laugh with him. “Whose bag and stuff is that?”

Theo glanced down at the bag and snack plate that had been left behind as he refrained from rolling his eyes. He probably shouldn’t admit he knew who the stuff belonged to as he totally figured it out by snooping, but they didn’t necessarily have to know that.

“That’s that really irritating girl that’s in McGonagall’s with us, you know? The one I ran into this morning and was like ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going, blah, blah,’ do you remember?” Theo spoke.

“Yeah, I remember,” Enzo giggled. “It’s almost like she's still in the room with us.”

“I know, that’s her stuff,” he nodded in the direction of the things left behind. “I was wondering when she was going to come back and get it but it’s been like an hour and she hasn’t come back.” Theo shrugged and returned his focus back to you who still remained curled comfortably in his lap. His thumb brushed over your closed eyes and ears. 

“Did she ever leave?” Pansy laughed. “Maybe she's still here.”

“Maybe so, I didn’t go looking for her, though,” Theo responded, brushing a finger down the slope of your nose.

“Yeah, she was acting kind of catty earlier,” Enzo spoke. The three students burst out laughing, clutching their stomachs and flicking tears from their eyes. Anger rose up the side of Theo’s neck.

“What is your deal? Is something funny? Anybody want to fill me in on the joke?” he asked. They remained laughing as hard as they could, almost as if they wanted to annoy Theo further.

“Whatever, me and my new friend are going to study elsewhere. At least she doesn't laugh at me,” he harrumphed and grabbed his things, keeping you cradled tightly in your blanket in his right arm. The three students didn’t stop laughing the whole way as Theo stomped off, taking you with him, and touching his nose to yours with a smile. 

“Oh, Merlin,” Pansy chuckled, a tear falling from her eyes. “So we all knew that she's an Animagus, right?”

“Yeah, she told me last year when her acceptance letter from the Ministry came in. She was pretty excited about it.” Enzo struggled not to start laughing again. “She's really nice and really smart, I think Theo can be a bit much sometimes.”

“Yeah, I agree with that….” Pansy responded. There was a few moments of silence before Mattheo tilted his head towards the other two.

“So, we’re sticking around for when she wakes up and realizes she's sitting on Theo’s lap wrapped up in a blanket like a child, right?” he laughed. The other two chorused a variety of ‘yes’ and ‘absolutely,’ as they made themselves comfortable at a table near the one Theo had assigned as his. This was quite possibly going to be the best thing that ever happened.

Part Two!

[floralscented]

──ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤpre-show pregame ㅤ ♫ ⋆ ｡ ♪ ₊ ˚ ♬ ﾟ .

manager!dean & sunshine. now playing ! greedy, tate mcrae. find sunshine's setlist here.

content warnings. pining. it's a warning bc it's BAD. also john winchester hate. but pls just consider that a given on this page.

he'd loved you since you were kids, dean did.

and he thought he'd been obvious. he thought he'd been obvious when you were both kids, and he'd handmake the dandelions you loved so desperately into rings ─ hell, he'd proposed to you with it.

but you were always destined for things greater than a childhood best friend from your small town you were always bound to outgrow. and so dean winchester did the most irrationally rational thing he could think of at the time, not wanting you to slip through his fingers like water.

he followed.

dean was actually still following you, trailing like a lost puppy.

"opener starts in ten," he says, flipping through the notes in his clipboard, "set should take around 40 minutes, give or take. that means─"

"i love you so much, dean," you say when you spin on your heel, and he's long past ever thinking those words will mean anything besides being platonic and useless to him, but it still makes his heart thump in his chest at the idea they could, "but you do not have to explain my set to me."

dean huffs his annoyance. "i was saying," he grumbles, grabbing a water bottle from the pack set up in the wings of the venue's stage, "before you rudely interrupted to try and be cruel to me ─ worked, by the way, gonna keep me up at night ─ that you have about an hour to eat, drink, do the social media thing, whatever you want. just in the hour constraint."

you were so pretty. your makeup was half done. you had the thickest layer of white powder underneath your eyes that he'd ever seen, and your lips were chapped, still. always chapped. because you're always running your mouth, he'd told you once. still true.

you weren't even dressed yet, either. there, on the rack outside of the dressing room he'd been following you to, was your allotted outfit. so glittery. everything was so damn glittery in the pop scene.

the things he did for you, really.

"you know i can't eat big before a show," you say, as if this is supposed to be new information to him, "did you get─"

"fruit tray, veggie tray, cold water, all already in the fridge."

"and─"

dean slow blinks at you. once, twice. "and your special good luck wine."

your smile is so grateful that it could make him a molten mess, right in the floor of sunset blvd's backstage area. you just had that effect on him, even when he wished that you didn't hold so much power. people looked at you and saw a star; dean looked at you and saw the stars.

he saw the little girl that climbed to the top of the monkey bars to balance on the thin bars, just so you had a wide enough berth to scream barbie movie songs at the top of your lungs to anyone who gathered beneath you. he saw a girl who burned through the school's printer paper to have sheet music of every song you liked. he saw a girl who used to come and sit on his bed while his dad screamed or snored downstairs, and sing half-finished songs to him while writing and rewriting their endings to cover up the sound of it.

they were still dean's favorite songs on your setlist, those ones that he watched come to fruition before his eyes. watching your passion bloom was prettier than any flower, made you prettier, somehow.

"dean?"

embarrassing. he clears his throat, straightens his spine, as if he hadn't just been caught in a daydream by the very person who haunted them. "go ahead."

"don't talk all professional to me," you chide, your lips giving way to the gentle tone of your voice, "i asked if you'd come in and have a glass with me. to celebrate."

your hand is closed around the big clothing rack, the door half open. dean's maybe not very observant when it comes to situations involving you, but he's also not a complete dope.

"you're changing."

you slow blink at him now. "and?"

dean does not know how to explain to you that this is a very bad idea. even if technically, the both of you were married by fairy forest law. you'd said that. he was just still playing make believe, still, whereas your ring fell off and into the thick green grass the same very day he'd given it.

so, he's incredibly mature, and instead says, "whatever." and follows you into your dressing room.

a chaotic mess of niceties, as always. all of your makeup is spilled out on the vanity, but it's not cluttered anywhere else but the vanity. flowers and fan gifts line the couch's arms and the coffee table. the tv is set to a nature documentary, a koala slowly eating a piece of bamboo while the narrator's voice rumbles lowly throughout the room.

two wine glasses in the center of the coffee table. horrible of him to let that get into his head. god forbid he start thinking you want him around and not just to monitor your performances and the finer details.

dean carefully slips around you to the mini fridge in one corner of the room. "just a glass, or─"

he never thought that something as simple as turning over his shoulder would cause so much regret within him. you, half naked, the oversized hoodie you'd shown up to the venue in halfway over your head. your bare stomach. your bare legs. the wire of your bra, now the cups, and─

he cleared his throat and turned away. dean needed to get his shit together.

"just a glass. it's the first show of the tour," your voice is muffled through that big ass hoodie, the big ass hoodie he knows you're currently changing out of, jesus, "can't be half drunk on stage. i'm not jensen or charlie."

right. his ( extremely one sided ) competition. what you, or they, didn't know couldn't hurt them.

so, instead of saying everything that starts spiraling when you bring them up, dean practices the underappreciated art of keeping the not nice words to himself, and moves to the wine glasses on the coffee table. fame hungry idiots, the voice in his head grumbles anyways as he pours one glass, egotistical pricks that don't deserve you, no one deserves you.

dean gives himself three minutes before he looks back at you again. just in case you're still practically strip teasing him, taking off your clothes painstakingly so.

no, you're in that sparkly dress now. the matching shoes sit beside your vanity amidst your chaos, right next to the chair you've planted yourself in. your eyes are lined dark, the white powder beneath them dusted away; your lips shine with pink gloss, no longer chapped but just as swollen. jesus. he's off his game.

dean watches as you swipe the lipgloss applicator across your plush bottom lip. he thinks he could die. "can't you tell," he starts slow, as if the words are pushing through his mouth without him being able to stop them, "that i want you?"

it's not the first time that he's confessed to you. but as always, you have this complex in your head, now, since getting famous, that seems to stop you from believing anyone could want you beyond what art you provide to them.

so it's no surprise when you meet his eyes in the mirror's reflection, a little smile pulled onto your lips, and you say, "i would want myself." your fingers lift and make a grabby hand for the wine glass he offered. "besides, what's to want? you already have me."

dean guesses you're right. still married, even if your ring has wilted and become part of the earth again. still married, even if your only obligation to him now is the fact that he works for you, or something like that. still married, even though he knows your hatred for the other bands under your label is a front. you don't look at dean like you look at jensen. you definitely don't laugh like you do with him like you do with charlie.

but who was he to be greedy? they didn't get to watch you put your ensemble together for your tour's first show. they didn't get to watch you eat blueberries that stain your lips brighter pink. they didn't know that the only thing that calmed your pre-show jitters was the national geographic animal documentaries.

so dean would wait, as he always had before, for his wife to turn the light back on for him, and lead him back into the forest, to the altar of their long forgotten vowed promises.

being greedy wouldn't get him anything.

song credits. making this an interconnected universe was such a good idea i cannot wait to write dean beefing (somehow LMFAO) with jensen. and charlie. but mostly jensen bc that's just so funny. wdym they're gonna look the exact same and never acknowledge it while they're throwing hands PLS.

sunny's monthly listeners. to play / pause on being tagged, comment sunshine! @titsout4jackles @moonstruksandco @starzify @ultravi0lence14 @itzavahere @sagegreen17 @bruceewayne @jays-bonnie-on-the-side @deansbeer @blushpinkdoll @warpedless @sabrinasopposite @k-slla @deansbite @foolinthera1n @honeyryewhiskey @angelblqde @whyyouegg @bluemerakis @fallbhind @jackleslvr @figthoughts @beausling @chevroletdean @mccartneyqp @bluestrd @sthefferrete @rubyvhs @tortureddarkstar @aileenunfiltered @frosttbitessam @theosaurous @blushpinkdoll

[undyingoracle]

hai omg can you do alastor reacting to the person he's courting giving him flowers instead of the other way around

Alastor reacting to you giving him flowers.

warnings: gn!reader. romantic scenario. might be ooc. sorry about that.

A/N: I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS IDEA. At first, I wanted to write something like him just getting flattered by it? but I think he would be more upset and disappointed that he wasn't the one who was giving you flowers. after all, "he's a gentleman and should spoil his beloved with that kind of gifts every time he got the chance to." (that's what he thinks, at least). Hope you can enjoy it anon! ;; thanks for your request. ♡

English is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes. feel free to correct me as long as you're polite about it.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝅭ㅤ𝅭ㅤ⎯⎯ㅤㅤִㅤㅤ୨ ♡ ୧ㅤㅤִ ⎯⎯ ㅤ𝅭ㅤ𝅭

February 14th. a date everyone knew the meaning of. a date where everyone did their best to show off to their loved ones, to spoil them or even fall into the deepest of the lustful desires.

however, for the radio demon it was a pretty irrelevant date. he didn't really saw the meaning of it, and therefore, he didn't get as excited as other people did, and it wasn't exactly because he didn't got gifts or attention during it, in fact he did get lots of gift, specially from people of the cannibal town (who seemed to like him quite a lot). however, all those gift were meaningless to him, and he even hate most of them, since they're usually some kind of sweets, and he isn't really a fan of them, so they ended up in the trash or someone else's hands. he just didn't cared about it, nor the people who gave it to him.

nevertheless, this time it was a little different. he had someone in mind he wanted to give a gift to, and since a few weeks ago that thought has been running around his mind. but being quite unused to being on the giving end on this dates, he was conflicted on what to get to his special someone. flowers? he already got them flowers before, a lot of times and a lot of different types and colors. chocolates? he couldn't even stand the sweet smell of them. other kind of desserts had the same effect. and just like that, he keep discarding ideas that wasn't good enough for him. he wanted to blow you mind, he couldn't just do the simplest things!

soon enough, he asked for advice to the best person: Rosie, who, after giving some other ideas that were also discarded, ended up suggesting that he invited you to have dinner together, but instead of going out to a fancy restaurant, both of you just stayed at the hotel and HE cooked the most mind blowing meal himself. that way not only was he able to show off his cooking skills, but he also was able to make sure that everything was perfect. to the decoration, to the lighting, to the ambience music, to the flavors. he was simply in control of everything. he agreed to this, he thought it was a perfect idea!

so the next day, he went to ask Charlie for help at having a space for you and him alone. she agreed excitedly, of course, and promised him that absolutely no one was going to interrupt their perfect date. so, with her help, he got the kitchen, dining room, and a balcony all for himself.

when the day itself arrived, he immediately started decorating the dining room and balcony, with just a little magic it was a quick process. the table had a pretty dark red tablecloth, in the middle of it were some light up candles. it was just what you expect to see at a table on a romantic dinner really, kind of the cliché stuff. the balcony, however, had some lights wrapped around the railing, you could find some flower petals from the table leading the way to the entrance of the balcony. he wanted it to be the most unforgivable night of your life! that way, even if you ever (tried to because hes not letting thay happen) leave him, you would remember him whenever this date came around.

he also cooked some fancy dishes, some simpler meals that he knew you liked, and Rosie got him some sweets (against his will) that she knew you would love. everything was made for you to love.

soon enough, the time for the date came around, and you showed up. as you were standing before him, he tilted his head, confused as to why you kept you arms behind your back.

— Darling, are you perhaps hiding something from me?

he asked as you giggled. then, you pulled a bouquet of flowers from behind you back and extended it to him, holding it with both hands as you said "happy valentine's day!" excitedly. he looked at you in shock. you got him flowers. and he didn't. you prepared such a beautiful bouquet for him, and he didn't? he felt disappointed in himself for not getting you something as basic as a bouquet of flowers. how could he not get something like that for you? how could he even think of not getting such a beautiful gift to you? he could have made it the best and biggest bouquet ever and he didn't! how could he-

— Hey, Al? Are you ok?

he came back to his senses when you spoke to him. he looked at your worried expression and just chuckled.

— You just took me by surprise, my dear! I wasn't expecting to get such a beautiful and heartfelt gift from you. I am truly flattered by such a cute gesture!

— You're sure? You seem a little... down.

— Well, I am a bit disappointed in myself. After all, such a beautiful person gave me such beautiful flowers, but I didn't get them flowers! How could a gentlemen forget to bring flowers to his date? For shame.

he replied in a joking tone, making you laugh. your laugh was absolutely worth everything to him, he adored it and he loved seeing you so happy.

— Don't worry silly! you already planned all this, didn't you? that's more than enough for me.

after you were done talking he extended his hand to you, taking the bouquet in his other hand as he lead your way to the table. he wanted that night to be something that you wouldn't forget, but he didn't planned for it to be a night that he also wouldn't forget because of a little surprise. not that he was complaining though.

[dramadramallama]

So. The Time of Fever. The story is pretty simple, but it was elevated by some choice cinematography and music... sooooo let me take two seconds to gush about the two kissing scenes.

Both scenes are shot to convey something very specific (how special the characters are to each other) and although not much is said, a lot is implied. I don't know how intentional it was, but they also end up almost a perfect "reverse" of each other.

The bare bones of the two scenes are as follows:

Kissing Scene 1: infirmary (public setting, neutral white, Dong-hee takes care of Ho-tae's wound)

tension, uncertainty/confusion, complicated feelings (shaky cam, tense dialogue)

something sets it in motion ("hyung")

music starts

slow and steady - dreamlike atmosphere (tension released)

outside interruption, music stops - back to reality, tension back up

Kissing Scene 2: bedroom/house (private setting, heavy color-coded, ends in pain for both of them)

comforting, easy-going, chill vibe (steady cam, silent book reading)

something sets it in motion (hand feeding)

no music

shakiness, quick movements - raw, not romanticized (tension goes way up)

minimal music - self-interruption - got a lil too real, tension goes down

If you watch them back to back it's even more obvious, I love iiiiiit. The contrast of it all!! YES. Sorry for my ugly GIFs, I just wanna illustrate my points lol

In the first scene, Dong-hee and Ho-tae let down their guard and enter a bubble of peacefulness, before it bursts. The scene starts off with quick, nervous dialogue, no music. The shots go from tight to even tighter, and the camera shakes a lot, reflecting the ambient tension.

The music, gentle and hopeful, starts as soon as both of them "fold". Ho-tae agrees to use the hyung honorific for the first time since ep1, and Dong-hee gently goes in for the kiss. The scene is drenched in white, the camera movements slow, to the point it's hard to notice whether they themselves are moving slowly or if there's a subtle slow-mo effect applied. It's unhurried, like they have all the time in the world.

The music swells into something very airy and dreamy as soon as their lips touch; the camera steadies, the shakiness fades—the surroundings too. Even when the camera pulls back a little, the framing is minimal—you can't even distinguish where they are anymore (in a school infirmary, behind a curtain, against a window). The only thing in focus is their faces, the rest is slightly blurry or washed out. It's not just visually that things fade out, there's also barely any background noise: no ruffle of their clothes, no school chatter, no bird chirping. it's just them, floating on a cloud, the heaviness of the moment gone, the initial anxiety soothed.

The moment, the music, the kiss—everything is interrupted abruptly by an outside element: the school bell. The bubble pops, like a dream they both wake up from—signaling the end of recess, back to harsh reality. Their eyes open, they freeze, and just like that, the camera shakes are immediately back.

The scene unfolds smoothly and clearly: it takes the characters from a moment of tension, to sweet release, steadiness, and calmness—it starts from something complicated and changes to something pure and easy, like a knot being unraveled—and then snaps them back to reality.

The contrast with the second kissing scene, happening in the same episode (!) is nothing but art tbh. Like I said, it looks like the reverse of that first scene, but it unfolds the same way. This time, it starts off quiet and gets thick with tension.

First, they're at home, not in a public space. It's not day-time. They're lying down. The private, safe atmosphere of the scene is reinforced by the warm colors. It's late autumn, it's getting cold. They set up a space-heater (it casts a reddish brown hue over them), place a comfy (red) carpet on the floor to keep the heat in and to laze around on. The camera is steady, the framing comfortable, no shakiness.

They're still facing each other, one is on his back, looking up to his book, the other one is on his stomach, looking down as his own. Everything conveys a cosy, relaxed but intimate vibe, without any agitation. Ho-tae is snacking absentmindedly on some seasonal fruit (clementine/mandarin). There's no talking. There's also absolutely no music. You hear everything, from the distant creaking of the house, to the pages rubbing together, to the crickets outside.

Then, comes what sets the scene into motion: Ho-tae feeds Dong-hee some fruit. Dong-hee takes it into his mouth easily. The mood switches. A lot of close-ups, and the camera movements become shakier, more chaotic: tension goes from 0 to 100. Where there was a lightness, softness to that first kissing scene, it's pretty much the complete opposite here. It's more intense, but there's a sort of ache, an urgency to it that was completely absent in the first scene. The breathing gets heavier, louder, no music to cut through the reality of it. It's been a while since I've seen such an erotic scene, without it being explicit.

When it does come, the music kicks in very slowly, just a few low notes of piano, not enough to cover the noises (the kisses, the breathing), the initial warmth of the scene becomes almost stifling. And just a few seconds later, everything abruptly stops once again, but this time, Dong-hee himself is the one putting an end to it. The camera very slowly tones down the shakiness, back to steady.

In this scene, the characters' comfort and peace crumble, the kiss doesn't appease, it lights a fire. Gets them inflamed and exposed. Takes them from innocence and easiness to desire and hurt, from sanity to fever. The hazy, nice moment catches fire and burns up too fast. Like Ho-tae's fingers twisting knots into Dong-hee's sweater, the feelings gets tangled up, and both end up getting hurt.

The first kissing scene was the beginnings of some clarity, they both let go of what holds them down, while that second scene is charged with angst, it weighs heavily on them. The parallel was just so good I needed to get this out.

[taylorswiftstyle]

The end of an era, but the start of an age.

Taylor’s music has been the soundtrack to all the most significant milestones of my life. My first crush. My first heartbreak. My first true love. My first (and hopefully only) walk down the aisle. Her words, her vulnerability, her unrelenting bravery and defiance to pave her own path no matter how much has stood in her way or how daunting the task ahead may have seemed. Whether in the face of heartbreak, of pain, of loneliness. At every turn in her life, and correspondingly in mine, I have found comfort, meaning, friendship, and inspiration in her music. I’ve often described listening to Taylor’s music as the longest relationship of my life.

When I first heard her in 2007, her debut album was the scaffolding I placed so much of my life upon. Taylor’s art has created a permanent ripple effect in the industry and in the millions of fans, like me, who have benefited from growing up in the wake of the lessons in life and love she’s carefully and painstakingly documented for her healing and ours. The topography of my life has been layered atop her art. Her words have been my one constant since I myself was just a girl … trying to find a place in this world. Naturally, I had to honour that album and that era on this final night with my ‘fit. I opted to wear the very same pair of Liberty boots that Taylor once did in the earliest days of her career. It made hearing “A Place In This World” all the more special. I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am to have found that place in the world she’s created with the words she’s chosen to share with all of us. 

Thank you, Taylor. For everything and for every era.