#watch marathon

[utootoot]

i got my food ready and I'm gonna binge watch madoka magika suggested by oomf who also recommended me look back, I'll update y'all on the comments as I go.

EDIT: WHAT THE FUCK

[eingestaubt]

Three weeks ago I decided to watch all of the 8 seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation since Netflix will take it down on January 8th. I'm already at season 4 so wish me luck!

But I can't stop watching it, help. I just go out occasionally to have a walk in the snow. My ADHD brain is fully committed to reach my goal.

[girl4music]

‘To Helicon And Back’ is such a fascinating but heartbreaking episode. There’s so much to be said about the role-reversal transition in the episode and how it affects and progresses everything that follows on from it in the Spaghetti Order of the episodes.

Everything Xena wanted to avoid with Gabrielle travelling with her has happened - only, it really has nothing to do with them travelling together, but rather the obligation and responsibility of the Amazon nation. Although, you could argue that if Gabrielle didn’t meet Xena and didn’t travel with her at all, then she’d never have became an Amazon Princess. 

GABRIELLE: “Xena, you should take command. Take it!”

XENA: “The Amazons aren’t going to listen to me, Gabrielle. You’re it. You’re it!”

This is the only place where Gabrielle is the leader. Where Xena has to follow Gabrielle’s order. Where Xena has to ask for Gabrielle's permission. Where Xena has to stand outside and wait for Gabrielle. Aside from a few who were infatuated with her, the Amazons barely batted an eyelash at Xena. Some couldn't even tolerate her. Every time they visited the Amazon village, it was always "Our Queen's back!

... Oh, and Xena's with her."

I think the Amazons felt the same way Gabrielle's birth family did about Xena. That she took their pride and joy away from them. They were always abandoned and someone was left to reign in her place as Regeant so they never truly had an AMAZON QUEEN in Gabrielle.

Regardless… This is the only place where Gabrielle is the Alpha and Xena is the Omega. So when Xena says "You're it". She means her own presence is invisible to Gabrielle's tribe and that the Queen, in this moment especially, was all that could be seen. Gabrielle was it because Xena was expendable and inconsequential to the Amazons. They simply didn’t care if she was there. They only cared about Gabrielle returning to them.

It’s not ever Xena’s story when it’s an Amazon-heavy episode. It’s Gabrielle’s because Gabrielle is their own and the only reason why Xena is allowed to be there as part of their community is because she’s Gabrielle’s.

Xena has no control or authority with the Amazons and she’s absolutely fine with it because she knows she doesn’t deserve it. So she just acquiesces to the fact that the dynamic between her and Gabrielle is in opposition to how it is when they’re anywhere else and maybe some part of her actually likes the fact that within the views of the Amazon nation, Gabrielle is the hero and Xena’s the irritating tag-along sidekick. They don’t need her there and she’s fully aware of it but she knows Gabrielle needs her there because she knows she’s her whole life and she can’t possibly be the hero or the warrior without her there with them. Yeah, some part of her likes it. Loves it even because she’s happy Gabrielle is getting all the attention. But there’s a larger part of her that is absolutely fucking terrified of what that entails and does not want it to ever happen.

GABRIELLE: “I don’t want to be buried with the Amazons.”

XENA: “Alright. Well, in 50 years, when the time comes-”

GABRIELLE: “Xena, I want to lie with you, with your family, in Amphipolis.”

XENA: “What about your family?”

GABRIELLE: “I love them but I’m a part of you. I want it to be like that forever. I love you.”

I think the most tragically heartbreaking thing about this episode and its role-reversal transition is that Xena had to face the reality of her worst fear coming true in that Gabrielle is becoming more and more like her as a warrior in such a way where she always knew would be the inevitable outcome of their partnership but that Gabrielle would never have considered would because when she told her sister in the first episode that she was going to be a warrior just like Xena… she had no idea what the hell she was getting herself into. But Xena always did and Xena can’t do anything about it now. She can’t stop it. She’s absolutely helpless in preventing the transition from happening at this point. She just stands there watching the nightmare unfold before her very eyes. Looking into a mirror reflection of the sins of her past in the one conscious being in existence that saved her from her own damnation and in ending her own life before it had ever really began. Just the same as how she was forced to see it happen in ‘Remember Nothing’ and so she pulled back out of the deal with the Fates in giving her a second chance to live a simple quiet, peaceful life without bloodshed.

It is a very POWERFUL visual and dialogue that wrecks you at the end of ‘To Helicon And Back’ because you know just how painful it is for Xena to have to face the reality that this is it now. That it’s finally happened in this life and reality and it will keep happening from this moment onwards because she cannot do anything about it anymore. There’s no deal with the Fates to break. No alt-reality to change or destroy. She can’t reverse time or do anything to prevent what’s happening at and in this moment.

Gabrielle has chosen Xena over herself in every way and in so doing has forced Xena to bear witness to the sacrifice Gabrielle has made in becoming just like her.

XENA: “You won.”

GABRIELLE: “I don’t think I did. With each battle, I lose more of myself.”

XENA: “War’s tough on the soul, Gabrielle.”

GABRIELLE: “Yeah.”

It’s in this moment that they both feel this role-reversal transition as one being passing into and becoming each other because that was always the nature of their soul and therefore their inevitable fate.

[girl4music]

Marathon watching the Spaghetti Order of Season 6 of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ hasn’t really given me a new or fresh way of perceiving or interpreting the show. It’s just all the more validated the perception and interpretation I’ve always had of it to begin with.

The one I’ve written about in my character study thesis that attests that Xena and Gabrielle became each other and passed into each other as one being.

I think the Spaghetti Order gives you more evidence of that truth because the show ends on Gabrielle’s arc and in ending on Gabrielle’s arc instead of Xena’s, what it does is it shows you how much ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is about the BOTH of them. Not just Xena.

I really appreciate that because Gabrielle is my favourite female character in all of TV art/entertainment. She’s has the greatest, most detailed character representation and development I’ve ever seen and she’s extremely well written and portrayed.

I’m glad I did this. I’m glad I decided to watch Season 6 of the show in the Spaghetti Order because it just all the more validates to me that Gabrielle is as lead as Xena as a main character and therefore their love relationship is incredibly profound because everything they are as individuals informs what they become as a ship and you don’t get that in WLW/queer ships now.

You just don’t.

So censored or not - they’re absolutely the greatest representation of WLW or queer love in TV history.

I stand by that statement so adamantly and I know I always will because what’s really missing in WLW or queer ships in TV art/entertainment today is that of which they had absolutely no problem giving in Xena. Providing and representing two lead female main characters that had a love relationship that was fully cultivated because of the massive focus on both as lead characters individually as well as a WLW ship.

It was an interesting experience but it hasn’t told me anything I didn’t already know or understand about it.

All it’s done is made me double down on all of that. I mean I watch this show extremely differently to most people because I view the whole thing as an epic love story. I view it as a romance over all else. So no matter which order I watch the episodes in, I’ll always see and believe of it as an epic love story between two women and I don’t care if it’s severely censored. I don’t think it matters at all. In fact I think it’s what makes it better. I think the WLW representation is greater because it is censored and the creators/cast/crew had to navigate around those restrictions and limitations in such a way where writers or producers wouldn’t even bother today. And so you’d never get the epic adventures both these lead female MAIN CHARACTERS go on that just ends up making their relationship stronger.

You know… maybe writers and producers of WLW ships should try to censor themselves every once in awhile so that they can force themselves to dig deeper than the surface of what they think representation is because Xena is a whole other fucking level of quality that you just don’t get today regardless of censorship. So you don’t see them kiss and have sex every other episode. It’s not a loss. It isn’t because everything else of which makes it valid is there 10x to the power of what we are given today. It is much greater WLW representation. You can’t convince me otherwise.

I really think the only thing that matters is what the creator’s intention with it is. You figure that out and you’re good to go. You don’t need anything else.

“It is in its own way a great romantic love story even though we didn’t want to play any of the lovey-dovey stuff out of it. We just wanted the characters to encounter that and act in a certain way that told us that they had those feelings.” - Robert Tapert. (Executive producer and co-creator of Xena)

[smellslikepoorlifechoices]

friend: you can’t watch all the Harry Potter movies tonight, you’ll fuck up your sleep schedule

me: okay....that sounds fake but okay......