XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS Season 1, Episode 1, ‘Sins of the Past’

And look exactly where Gab's hand goes in that last pic -- and the look on her face as it does.

Janey Godley (20 January 1961 – 2 November 2024)

Kira with a bat, you know? 🔥✨

Rare video game recommendation from me: if you ever enjoyed the Quest for Glory series of point-and-click adventure/RPG hybrids, I heartily recommend checking out Heroine's Quest. It's an extremely well-polished classic adventure game in the Quest for Glory tradition, meaning it allows multiple solutions to many of its obstacles, and more importantly it is entirely free! (Although you can buy a separate DLC that costs a few bucks and comes with a few extra goodies.)

every time I see some bigshot scientist revealed as a fraud my knee-jerk reaction is "hell yeah elisabeth bik got 'em good" AND IM RIGHT

SHE NEVER QUITS!!!!

ICONIC!!!!

> Elisabeth Bik is on patreon <

She is not directly paid for her work to vet papers, she has been hit with legal action & death threats by scientists who hate that she's exposing them and their financial fraud, and she keeps at it every single day, combing through thousands of papers to make science more fair. Please consider supporting her!

QUEEN!!!

Fuck em up Liz!!!

Seriously, y'all should read about her and the recent news in scientific fraud, it is fascinating and important.

I got carried away with this Diana doodle while I was taking a break from doing work hehe

Hildeburh Introduced in the poem, Beowulf. Is the daughter of the Danish King Hoc and the wife of the Finn, King of the Frisians. Her story is sung by a scop during festivities. Hildeburh in her marriage to Finn thus acts as a freothuwebbe or peace-weaver, an important concept in the poem. However the peace was not kept and Hildeburh lost her brother, Hnaef, son and husband in battle. Hildeburh's position as a link between the two kingdoms and her stoicism are central concepts to the story. Lora Freeland illustration from Dragon Magazine

Tracey Lee Cocco, a background actress for Star Trek: TNG. She never delivered dialogue, but someone counted, and she was in more Star Trek episodes than William Shatner was. Jonathan Frakes supposedly gave her character the name of “Lt. Jae” in an on the spot ad lib. 

Whoever Lt. Jae was, she was clearly a well rounded crewman with a broad skill set. She was seen doing dozens of different jobs, from conn to technical work, and she clearly was extremely friendly with the otherwise aloof Picard and Riker. 

the snail in adventure time

Saving this one for me when I want to respond judgily to something without actually saying words

#Icon#Sits shoulders touching with the captain but never says a word on screen#Just does what needs doing and clocks out#We love it. She knows what happens to non-command staff who talk a lot on this show

So, according to IMDB:

Tracee Lee Cocco (born 2 March ) is an actress, model and stuntwoman who worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. She was most visibly seen as Lieutenant Jae, a regular background character on The Next Generation, between the fourth and seventh season. She was one of the background performers who also appeared in the three Next Generation feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Insurrection. Cocco also worked as stand-in for Alice Krige ("Borg Queen") in Star Trek: First Contact.

In "Descent" she played one of the Borg drones mentally damaged by Lore's experimentation. On Deep Space 9, she could sometimes be seen in alien make-up in Quark's and played several aliens such as an Antican. Cocco was one of several regular background performers from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager who participated in the filming of the interactive movie Star Trek: Borg; she is most notably seen as a Starfleet science officer visible in the corridor aboard the USS Cheyenne at the start of the movie. She also appeared as an alien bar character in the 1996 video game Star Trek: Klingon.

According to the call sheets, Cocco was scheduled to appear in the fourth season episodes "First Contact" in a scene in Ten Forward, "Galaxy's Child" in scenes on the bridge, and "Identity Crisis", "Qpid", and "In Theory" in scenes in Ten Forward and engineering but was either not filmed or cut from the final episodes. She was also scheduled to appear at the ops station in the fifth season episode "Ensign Ro", in engineering scenes in the episodes "The Game" and "Conundrum", in corridor scenes in "Ethics", in Ten Forward scenes in "The Outcast", and on the bridge in "Imaginary Friend" and "I Borg" but was not seen in the final episodes.

Mugshot of a teenage girl arrested for protesting segregation, Mississippi, 1961.

Her name is Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Her family disowned her for her activism. After her first arrest, she was tested for mental illness, because Virginia law enforcement couldn’t think of any other reason why a white Virginian girl would want to fight for civil rights. She also created the Joan Trumpauer Mullholland Foundation. Most recently, she was interviewed on Samatha Bee’s Full Frontal on February 15 for their segment on Black History Month. Don’t reduce civil rights heroes to “teenage girl”.

She’s still alive!!! She’s 74.

Thank you Joan. 

From her wikipedia page: 

(Here’s a documentary about her in case you’re not big on reading. )

Her great-grandparents were slave owners in Georgia, and after the United States Civil War, they became sharecroppers. Trumpauer later recalled an occasion that forever changed her perspective, when visiting her family in Georgia during summer. Joan and her childhood friend Mary, dared each other to walk into “n*gger” town, which was located on the other side of the train tracks. Mulholland stated her eyes were opened by the experience: “No one said anything to me, but the way they shrunk back and became invisible, showed me that they believed that they weren’t as good as me. At the age of 10, Joan Trumpauer began to recognize the economic divide between the races. At that moment she vowed to herself that if she could do anything, to help be a part of the Civil Rights Movement and change the world, she would.

In the spring of 1960, Mulholland participated in her first of many sit-ins. Being a white, southern woman, her civil rights activism was not understood. She was branded as mentally ill and was taken in for testing after her first arrest. Out of fear of shakedowns, Mulholland wore a skirt with a deep, ruffled hem where she would hide paper that she had crumpled until it was soft and then folded neatly. With this paper, Mulholland was able to write a diary about her experiences that still exists today. In this diary, she explains what they were given to eat, and how they sang almost all night long. She even mentioned the segregation in the jail cells and stated, “I think all the girls in here are gems but I feel more in common with the Negro girls & wish I was locked in with them instead of these atheist Yankees. 

Soon after Mulholland’s release, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton E. Holmes became the first African American students to enroll at the University of Georgia. Mulholland thought, “Now if whites were going to riot when black students were going to white schools, what were they going to do if a white student went to a black school?” She then became the first white student to enroll in Tougaloo College in Jackson, where she met Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ed King, and Anne Moody.

She received many letters scolding or threatening her while she was attending Tougaloo. Her parents later tried to reconcile with their daughter, and they tried to bribe her with a trip to Europe. She accepted their offer and went with them during summer vacation. Shortly after they returned, however, she went straight back to Tougaloo College.

She ultimately retired after teaching English as a Second Language for 40 years and started the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation, dedicated to educating the youth about the Civil Rights Movement and how to become activists in their own communities. 

I watched a YouTube video once (by a guy who’s name escapes me) about the importance of making sure the stories of white activists are told. His point was that it’s not about lavishing praise on them just because they were white and “woke”, it’s about letting other white allies see that others have come before them who were willing to sacrifice and do the hard work. This way they can see themselves in someone and realize that destroying inequality isn’t a fringe interest or just an “us vs. them” issue. It has to be ALL OF US.

So obviously the first worst thing to ever happen to Barbara Gordon's character was regressing her back to Batgirl again after all her character growth.

But the second worst thing to ever happen to her is the perception Oracle is somehow tech support for the batfam specifically and not that she used to run her own team and regularly work with the actual Justice League.

I think these problems are somewhat connected in that they both relegate Babs as to being strictly in the batfam's orbit and make her appearance in comics contingent on her relation to another (usually male) batfam character (frequently Bruce or Dick). And it sucks to see because it not only regresses her character growth but it restricts her story from growing further than being support in other characters' lives rather than having her own independent life. It was her job to know things! She got shit done! She used to make cameos in seemingly unrelated comics (e.g. Suicide Squad, Blue Beetle, Green Lantern, etc.) because she was such a staple within the wider superhero community! Sure, her most frequent appearance were either with her Birds of Prey team or in Gotham-related stories, but she played an important role in the greater DC canon that I miss now.

Edith Cavell (4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse during the Great War in Belgium who saved countless lives of both Allied and Central Power soldiers. Not only was her modern nursing techniques invaluable to the Allies, she and her colleagues hid and helped some 200 soldiers and Belgian men escape German-occupied Belgium during the Great War and safety make it to France and Great Britain.

She was caught by the Germans, thanks to a collaborator, charged with treason and was found guilty—not that she denied her actions in any way, she confessed fully to what she had done. At the time, the sentence for treason was death, and though she was a nurse, and a woman, it made no real difference once she broke the Geneva Convention. Despite political pressure put on Germany by the still neutral United States, and Spain, Cavell’s fate was sealed.

The night before her execution she confided in a chaplain from the American Legation, that “They have all been very kind to me here. But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity: I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.”

Edith Cavell died by German firing squad on 12 October 1915, she was 49-years-old.

“What Jeanne d’Arc has been for centuries to France,” wrote one Allied journalist, “that will Edith Cavell become to the future generations of Britons.”

‘When In Rome’ doesn’t seem all that important of an episode at first. But then you realize Xena basically commissioned Gabrielle to kill Crassus. It’s painful cause you know Gabrielle is a person that genuinely does appreciate human life and won’t kill just for the sake of it. If it can be avoided, she will avoid it. Yet, she’s forced to decide time and time again for what to do in the heat of the moment and the conclusion seems to always be for somebody to die. Whether it be herself, Xena or other, and sometimes even at her own hand. She said she accepted the consequences of living her life with Xena early in their travels together, but I don’t think she accounted for the fact she’d have to kill just to keep her and Xena alive. Or, like in the case of this episode, to save Vercinix, a good, innocent man and a hero to his people, from being executed at the order of Caesar. It wasn’t just about sacrificing her own life, it was also sacrificing and betraying everything she stood for so that her and Xena could survive. Season 4 was the storyline for this. Choosing pacifism because she believed it was the right Way for her, then breaking it again when Xena was left vulnerable and defenceless and she had no other option but to make that split-second decision to kill those soldiers that were going to kill her. It was inevitable the way she’d end up. Whether it is a good thing or not is up to you and how you perceive the situations that happen within the episodes. Your better judgement.

This is the life Gabrielle chose. To experience and face all the violence, blood and pain again and again, being just as much a partaker in it as trying to stop it from happening… Just to be with Xena. That’s got to be the most tragically romantic, beautiful and powerful thing I’ve ever known. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Xena and Gabrielle truly are the greatest love story ever told, and I’m not just saying it because they’re my OTP. I’ll be damned if I ever find anything more romantic than Gabrielle’s insistence to throw away her morality for Xena. She’s going against her own sense of self time and again just to protect and defend people’s lives. Especially Xena’s. It’s a testament to how much and how deeply she really loves her and that’s so incredibly romantic. Wouldn’t you agree?

This is another episode where no one really cares about the Xena/Caesar fued. This episode belongs to Gabrielle and her struggle to betray her ideals by personally sending Crassus to the executioner. Commissioned and expected to by Xena, no less.

She's the heart of the whole story here. It all wraps tightly around her.

Just like 'The Deliverer', without what's going on with Gabrielle, it's just another cat-and-mouse Xena VS Caesar game and even though I love the Rome episodes, they're not as interesting as you think they are without Gabrielle’s stuff. And as great as all the other writers are with Gabrielle’s representation and development, only Steven truly gets what Gabrielle’s about. Him and Renee really make this show resonate far beyond a villain-turned-hero seeking redemption story.

Without Gabrielle - this show is half its watch value. Well and truly.

warrior women, xena warrior princess, gabrielle, character appreciatiom

kira as a daughter figure. kira seeking father figures and losing every single one of them, even sisko, and she's not even 35. what do you do with that?

she takes the father's place, again and again and again. she takes her first father's role in the bajoran resistance, she takes her cardassian father's role in the cardassian resistance, she takes command of the station when sisko is gone.

dukat took her mother, stole the place of a father in her life and ate it, and kira denied him the role of father-suitor when he demanded it of her--

and kira then stole his place as ziyal's father, giving ziyal space and resources and support that directly mirrors what ben provides for jake.

kira is a daughter who becomes a father. in this essay i will

Disney's unconventional "Cinderella" (1950) (long)

Having watched most of the many adaptations of Cinderella, I've come to realize what a unique adaptation Disney's 1950 animated classic really is. Unlike Snow White, which only had a few stage and screen adaptations before Disney produced its groundbreaking film, Cinderella had already been adapted many times before Disney's turn came, and Disney's version makes a surprising number of departures from the standard Cinderella "formula." It was definitely a fresh, creative Cinderella when it made its debut, and it arguably still is. Yet because it's become so familiar in pop culture, and today so often serves as our childhood introduction to the tale, it's easy to overlook its inventive storytelling choices. The 2015 live action remake uses several classic Cinderella adaptation tropes that the original 1950 film actually subverts!

Here's a list of the often-overlooked ways in which Disney's Cinderella stands out from earlier adaptations, and from many later ones too.

There's an aspect of Xena that I love, but have trouble putting into words. But I'll try: Xena didn't have a traditional sense of mentorship (especially male mentorship) or accountability to some authority.

It's difficult to break away from in female-led media. Buffy had Giles to guide her as a slayer. The Charmed Ones had Leo, who ultimately reported to the Elders. Mulder mentored Scully to an absurd degree in that her skepticism was never allowed to be right. Kara didn't break away from the DEO until she was basically forced to.

But Xena? She never had a group to report to. Her only male mentor was someone who was leading her down the wrong path. She found mentorship in Lao Ma, in a brief interlude that launched her into self-discovery. She found mentorship in Gabrielle, someone who in no sense "outranked" her but who simply brought her a different perspective at a time when she needed it. She feels like an independent person, which is something that seems to get afforded to female characters less often.

I'm really glad I grew up with Xena on my TV.