#xena did it first

[girl4music]

I love it when supernatural/fantasy or otherwise just genre shows throw in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ references in the show writing. It’s like they’re acknowledging what the art/entertainment industry won’t. That ‘Xena did it first’ with many things that so many other show creators or movie makers had the doors blown wide open for to do because of it.

Bad ass main female protagonists,

WLW representation

The first TV musical episode

Uber and femslash fanfiction.

I could go on…

It’s like they’re paying tribute to it. And so they should. Because we owe a lot of things to Xena.

That show changed the game so fucking much. And it’s nowhere near appreciated and celebrated enough.

Buffy, Charmed and Wynonna Earp have all payed tribute to Xena. I couldn’t be prouder to be a fan of all of these amazing shows and will always support them.

[pwaise-hestia]

Xena invented wibbly wobbly timey wimey

[allthoseripplingpectorals]

Xena said "if this is to be our destiny, let's see it out together. Even in death, Gabrielle, I will never leave you."

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Date last night went pretty well and I'm wondering if I should message today inquiring about an interest in date 2 or if I should wait for them to reach out

[arytha]

[ID from ALT: A digital fullbody art of my OCs, one of which is Aither, Epoch's Founder in a hooded cloak, and the other is Era as he appears in his first life. Era is positioned mostly with his back to the viewer, prevented from turning fully towards the viewer by Aither, who is gripping his arm. Era's eye, with his face in profile, glances forward. Aither is completely turned away from the viewer, his cloak a blend that starts with white and cream colors on the top, and ends with blended streaky red and blue panels with defined, rounded black edges at the bottom. Era's complexion is more ashen than normal, and he is dressed in the same cream color as Aither, with white pants. The background is white save for a simple pale red and yellow aurora. End ID]

Remember. This is for all of us.

[lizzieisright]

Just saw a post about Xena and immediately remembered when my therapist asked me what formed my taste in women, and I had no clue so she asked me if it was my mom (4'9, girly, wears obnoxiously tall heels) and I was like hell no.

But then I remembered I was obsessed with Xena when I was little (even played pretend like I was her) and it clicked.

So thank you Lucy Lawless for turning me gay.

[clumsycapitolunicorn]

.

[the-femslash-wishlist]

Yes, yes, The L Word intentionally excluded.

Place your answer in the tags if it’s none of the above, especially if it’s The Facts of Life, or South of Nowhere, or Sailor Moon, or Skins, or Rizzoli & Isles, or Grey’s Anatomy, or Person of Interest, or Orange is the New Black, or Orphan Black, or Steven Universe, or Agent Carter, or The Bold Type, or Killing Eve, or Captain Marvel, or The Haunting of Bly Manor, or Critical Role, or Warrior Nun, etc. etc. etc. eta: or Legend of Korra, or Wicked, etc. etc.

It was hard to whittle the choices down to 12, okay?

[girl4music]

Being a fan of Xena and Buffy is hard because you see Buffy get praised for absolutely everything that Xena already did and arguably did much better than Buffy.

First female main protagonist that kicks ass.

First TV musical episode.

First protagonist CORE GANG/ensemble cast.

First longtime WLW couple (subtext counts if it’s X&G, don’t care that it’s not maintext or canon. It is to me.)

First UBER/ALT REALITY/GENRE episode.

First feminist male creator (and still is respected for it)

But at the end of the day.

I just feel sorry for Charmed fans.

Because that never gets anything.

[coolnonsenseworld]

A few years ago, when all the "klance in [year]???" comments were peaking, I had this idea to make a series of button pins that would make fun of that. This is how the series started - there is a pin saying "this pin is from 2023", one saying "this pin is from 2024" and now "2025 - yup, still going".

I've never questioned how much time has passed since I started liking the characters or enjoying the fandom. I just do. Sailor Moon still brings me a lot of joy and it's been what - 25 years? Supernatural or Naruto still have some new corners to discover. ...Did you ever expect to see them in the same sentence? I am also on my Xena rewatch without a single second thought. So why did VLD specifically become this questioned? Why do people apologize for liking it and "pray" for people who enjoy it? I think deep inside everybody has an answer for it. Feels like a subject for a whole ass essay. Alas, they stay a part of my life and I'm not planning to change it. To be frank, I don't think this is ever something that happens with things you love. They just last.

And as a side note - I drew this for 2025 pin specifically because first - floating klance - never gets boring to me as you might notice. And second of all - I wanted this to have that post-s8 ff feeling, where they find their peace and happiness. I love how with the years they keep getting their new happy endings.

mmezzy.bigcartel.com

[jenniferstolzer]

Telling the Tales of the Fiercest Warrior Princess...

Xena won my March fanart poll. It's my first Xena/Hercules type fanart and I wanted to capture the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. I hope I did a good job!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you know if Cassie ever get called "Cassandra" in cannon, or is that just a popular headcannon? Because it's always bugged me when characters in fanfic call her Cassandra, even though I know it's not actually a big deal. I'm %100 projecting, as someone whose given name is usually a diminutive of a larger name, I'm aware of that, so I'm not out to make a big deal out of it either way, I'm just curious

Nooooo I also have a huge peeve about fic characters (especially Jake) calling her "Cass" or "Cassandra." We never learn her full name in canon, so it could be "Cassandra" or just "Cassie" or anything else. And only Ronnie calls her "Cass."

#54 says "Jake always called me Cassie. Never Cass like Ronnie did." I love that detail. Jake uses people's correct names, never their nicknames — he never uses "Xena" or even "Rach" or other common shortenings. Heck, he'd probably use "Aximili" if Ax didn't introduce himself as "Ax."

Which is why I gnash my teeth over first AniTV, then later the Animorphs Graphix, having Jake use "Cass." It's one of my favorite details from canon that he is so freaking careful about names. He learns people's names and titles and then uses them ("Aunt Naomi," "General Doubledday, sir" #53). It's why he hates being called "prince," because it's not correct, AND HE WOULD NEVER USE "CASS" OR "CASSANDRA" HOW DARE YOU.

[fazedlight]

Finished my Xena rewatch, with my first-time-watcher partner. We ended up watching mostly in order (we did consider spaghetti order, but I am lazy), except we pushed When Fates Collide to the very end.

Which I think was a good choice, because:

It resolves AFIN, in a reasonable way

Has a hell of a lot of weight for a series finale. "I'm willing to burn down the universe for you" in the most literal sense.

Final drop of I have many skills, my beloved

It's been really fun rewatching the series with fresh eyes, especially realizing how Gabrielle has grown, and consciously appreciating how absurd Lucy's acting abilities are. (How many actors can play three distinct characters in an episode, and keep them believable and legible, even as the characters are pretending to be each other? My god.)

10/10 show, I miss you my battle dykes ❤️

[autolenaphilia]

I recently finished my re-read of El Goonish Shive. And it was like rediscovering a piece of myself I had rejected. That sounds melodramatic, but the comic was important to me when I was a child.

I was a big fan of the comic from my early teens in the latter half of the 00s. And then in early 2017, I rejected the comic, stopped reading and being a fan. I even wrote an insufferable goodbye message to the fandom on the fan message board. Frankly it’s so insufferable and haughty that I thoroughly apologise for subjecting anyone who read that forum to that message.

I made arguments about pacing and worldbuilding in that comment, that in retrospect are clearly pseudo-intellectual. They were nothing but intellectualizations of my personal emotional turmoil at the time. The real reason I stopped reading El Goonish Shive was because I was repressing being trans. I was not turned off by the pacing, but by how trans the comic is.

And it’s really fucking trans. The comic had frequent sci-fi/fantasy gender transformations (mostly male-to-female) since the start of the first Sister arc in June 2002. My childhood self found these easy cost-free male-to-female sex change transformations interesting for reasons I could not name at the time. The comic was also very gay, and was so from early on. Ellen/Nanase might be the first textual lesbian relationship I ever read about. That was also something that moved me deeply, without me fully knowing the reason why.

And by the time of the Squirrel Prophet arc in 2014, it started bringing more realistic depictions of trans people when Tedd, a character that at that point had regularly transformed themselves between male and female for twelve years worth of comics, was explicitly said to be genderfluid.

We got a textual trans male character in that same arc, and in the following arc, Elliot’s gender identity is revealed to be not far off.

It might have started as a transformation comic (and both furry and size transformations also play a part), but the transgender themes were always there, and it became explicitly about trans characters by the mid 2010s.

And things got too trans for the badly repressed egg I was in my early 20s. I wasn’t turned off by the pacing as I claimed, I began feeling uncomfortable because the comic spoke to feelings I had decided to repress. I thought reading EGS was a folly of my youth, turns out the real folly of my youth was to stop reading it.

Any negative feelings I had towards the comic just evaporated when I transitioned, and I slowly began re-reading the comic, and catching up. And while the comic is flawed, the early comics are rough (especially the very beginning), and the pacing is indeed rather slow, I still love it so much.

I also recently watched I Saw the TV Glow. It features the fictional tv show The Pink Opaque, a young adult urban fantasy story, with obvious lesbian undertones. The most obvious real-world tv show inspiration for the show in the movie is of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that also inspired EGS. The main characters childhood fandom of The Pink Opaque is obviously meant to represent how queer people often find solace from their awful environment in various forms of media with queer themes. For many people it was Buffy or Xena: Warrior Princess. So many of us had their equivalent of The Pink Opaque.

And for me, it was not a tv-show but a webcomic. El Goonish Shive was The Pink Opaque of my childhood. And like Isabel did with the tv show in I saw the TV Glow, I rejected my childhood fandom as silly kid’s stuff, as part of my repression. But also like Isabel, if I had looked inside me, I would find EGS and my love for it.

[lol-jackles]

https://www.tumblr.com/ienjoybeingahater/777733368614895616/dean-winchester-is-the-open-wound-in-the-body-that

Hi there. I hope you’re well.

When you have a minute, I’d love to see your thoughts on the post linked abive. I agree to an extent, especially about writers stealing Sam story lines and giving them to Dean. They use the example of Jack and the writers trying to force a bond between him and Dean, when Sam was obviously his parental figure. Though, I think Jack, as characterized, always saw Sam as his main parental figure. I’d also argue that they cut Sam's much deserved anger short in Season 9, so Dean could have a strop for a season and a half because he was pouting over the fact that Sam didn’t instantly forgive him for violating him with the Angel situation.

Anyway, I just wonder how much you agree with their point that Dean became central focus of SPN.

Dean definitely gut more screen time, but I still think Sam more often had the plot focus, only the late seasons did a shitty job of fleshing them out enough, like Sam being a leader vs a follower with the BMOL in Season 12.

Anyway, thanks for any thoughts you decide to share on this.

Link. Oh boy. I will start with that ienjoybeingahate is not wrong, but not for reasons they or you may think.

The OP appears to treat Dean as a co-lead protagonist or a deuteragonist, had he been one then yes his character arc would have been beyond frustrating. But he's not, he's a support protagonist because less than half of the stories revolve around him, more like 20%.  Dean does not have important stories separate to Sam’s, nor does he have his own supporting cast; most of Dean’s interaction with Cas and other supporting characters are not about him but rather about his reaction to their stories because the role of the support protagonist is not only to support the lead, but also support the side characters.

Yeah, Dean is unfair towards Sam but 1) that’s what brothers do, and most importantly 2) that’s what happens to main characters, they constantly get shitted on. One of the biggest reliefs in real life is realizing you’re not the main character. In The X Files, Mulder was called a loser even by the freaks and rarely given grace.  Xena was constantly reminded of the sins of her past in Warrior Princess.

OP's biggest gripe is that Dean doesn't change, and I admit I've on occasion complained about Dean’s defeatist attitude, a plot device that can get tiresome since season 5. Still, it was a plot device that usually works as part of Sam’s Hero Journey  arc. For example, from Sam’s point of view, Dean’s endless self-inflicted apathy is part of the long list of crappy-things-to-do-to-Sam.  In episode 13x05, Dean temporarily killing himself so he can go into the dead zone to find the bodies and free the souls, while a good idea (I guess???), was still a very crappy-thing-to-do-to-Sam as there was no discussion, just “here’s a needle give me five minutes being dead okay see you later.”  It’s been ongoing since season 2, so I don’t blame Sam in season 14 for thinking the Mal'ex magic box business is just the latest in a long string of events of Dean causing himself harm and then giving up at the first inconvenience.  Sam’s angry speech in episode 14x11 “Damaged Goods” was not only about Dean cutting Sam out of his plan with no discussion but also for giving up by using blind faith in fate as an excuse (“since when do we believe in fate?”).  Sam’s speech in episode 14x12 “Prophet and Loss” recounts their long history of defying fate and surviving literal and figurative hell because they had faith in themselves. Dean is forgiven for forgetting this lesson every season because the plot device kicks in just in time to give us some of Jared’s finest acting of Sam’s decade-long frustrations with Dean’s obstinance, causing him to breakdown and ask, “why don’t you believe in us?”, like a child asking why adults do stupid things when the adults should know better. 

Dean’s defeatist attitude is part of the determinism (Dean) vs free will (Sam) philosophy that ran through the series by Sam confronting and challenging the authority figures in his life: John Winchester, Dean Winchester, Lucifer, and then God. They all wanted Sam to be something he didn’t want to be - John’s solider, Dean’s companion, Lucifer’s vessel, and Chuck’s story.  Eventually, Sam acquiesced to their demands but on his own terms, he became a hunter to leave a legacy, became Dean’s partner to save him, became Lucifer’s vessel to save the world, became Chuck’s story to defeat him and bring free will into the world through Jack, a Nephilim he essentially raised and influenced. New God Jack’s perception of humanity is distilled down to, “When people have to be their best, they can be.”  Looking at Sam, Jack promised a hands-off approach but also people don’t need to pray or sacrifice to Him. Sam has tears in his eyes, he is after all losing a son.  But what Sam gained is his faith in himself. his trust in people and the greater good often gets thrown into his face, but Jack becomes the kinder, gentler God whose message is to trust in themselves, for that is where God resides.

Speaking of Jack, the Dean and Jack subplot happened because the writers were building up their relationship for the sole purpose of tearing it down when Jack accidentally kills Mary.  The problem was their relationship wasn’t developed organically because the writers needed a plot device. The writers can’t have Sam and Jack having a falling out, so it had to be Dean and Jack.  As I mentioned earlier, OP is not wrong but not for reasons they may think. Writers didn't "cater" toward Dean because of his fans, but because they were after their own residuals. Writers create new side characters and get residuals everytime their character appears in an episode. The easiest way for writers to give their characters more screentime is to have them interact with Dean because he’s the go-to character to support the supporting character. Helped that Dean is consistently written inconsistently, so Dean can be anything the writers want him to be when he supports their own character. Writers don't want their creations to interact with Sam because as the main character, it is the job of side characters to support Sam’s story. Once the support character’s job of revealing a side of Sam is done, they are usually killed off and there goes the writer's residuals.

Dean did not "destroy" Castiel by becoming an accessory to Dean on behalf of the Destiel shippers. Castiel was "destroyed" because he outlived his purpose after season 6 and Misha couldn't find a better job. Season 6 was Castiel’s best season in terms of character development because it made sense from his arcs in season 4 and 5.  Castiel as a villain actually makes sense because angels are lawful-evil assholes and despite Cas’s best attempts he can’t escape his nature, which is the point of Dean’s arguments about monsters. From season 7 onward, Cas became a plot-driven character instead of a character driving the plot. Stories shouldn’t move the characters like lifeless game pieces. It’s the characters that should move the story forward. The characters’ choices should impact the story and not be inconsequential. (My unpopular theories  here and here and here and a short version  here on why Misha was initially hired as a regular for season 5 & 6 and rehired again as a regular for season 9-11.)

OP's "From the very beginning, Sam had potential, potential for something beyond hunting, beyond the endless cycle of death and violence that consumed their lives. He had dreams, ambitions, and a future that should have been his"

Did OP not see the series finale "Carry On"? Sam left hunting and its endless cycle of death and violence and accomplish his primary goal that had kept him driven and move the story forward, attaining normal life. It was never about eradicating monsters to extinction or avenging his mother’s death.  Sure, Sam is very good at hunting and even became a leader, but they always made sure to show that Sam doesn’t have passion for the family business other than saving people’s lives.  Claire Novak shows way more enthusiasm for the job. 

OP's inability or refusal to see Sam as the main character may be colored by mistaking the character with the most POV as the main character. But as any Dean stans will tell you, Dean's POV means squat because Dean isn’t being talked about by other characters. Dean and his POV mainly revolve around Sam. To quote a casual observer I found on tumblr: Sam gets the larger story arcs in the show and Dean gets more of the “silly and fun” filler episodes.

Sam is dynamic character who went from a college student naive about the supernatural world, to becoming a skilled and effective hunter and then a leader and later a father figure to a future God, and finally a father with a family of his own.  Dean was essentially the same character from start to finish but that’s fine for a support-protagonist, in fact it was essential for the show’s formula.  Yes Dean is a supercool character because the jerk-with-heart-of-gold is practically a fail safe archtype.

"I’d also argue that they cut Sam's much deserved anger short in Season 9, so Dean could have a strop for a season and a half because he was pouting over the fact that Sam didn’t instantly forgive him for violating him with the Angel situation."

I semi-agree that Sam's anger was cut short. First, remember that Dean isn’t going to learn the same lesson each season, which was why he made Sam’s anger over the Gadreel possession about his (Dean) own issue and left Sam alone (with Cas in the bunker) to hunt down Gadreel… only to run into Cain got the Mark to, huh, kill Abaddon instead for some reason. That "reason" was Jensen's years long campaign for a Dean-centric storyline, which he got for season 10. That means the last half of season 9 was rewritten to set up Dean's "rare" storyline (Jensen's quote here ). I explained here why season 10 didn't work, the jist is because Supernatural was not set up to have Dean as the main character.

Back to Sam's anger, he told Dean the unvarnished truth: Dean didn’t want to be alone. This gets brought up again by Billie in season 11’s “Red Meat”, and in season 13’,’s “Advanced Thanatology” when Dean tells Billie that he’s dragging down Sam. Dean does have self-awareness but he can't live a life without Sam, so Sam has to give up just about everything so that Dean wouldn't be alone. In season 8, Dean gave his blessing and permission for Sam to return to the ordinary life he always wanted for himself but, you know, only after he (Dean) dies. Which is what Sam did in "Carry On".

In the end it was okay that Dean's character growth was minimal because he’s Han Solo, the comfort food of the series.  We don’t want mac & cheese to change. Dean is the awesome sauce but not the main course, which I explained in the “Support Protagonist” tag.

July 2015 Comic Con:

Interviewer:  Let’s talk about growth in Dean’s character. Jensen:  Or lack of growth?

Link.