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In Defense of Ares (And Polyshipping!)
35 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, we learn all about Zoe's (they/them; it/its) history with Xena. We also get to enjoy diving deeper into Hellenic Polytheism, Xena/Gabrielle/Ares, and the legacy of the show itself! Plus we're trying out video for the first time!
If you would like to be a guest on the show (and you know you do), you can submit a guest form here! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnY3gRGuWdzcqUGMoWaBBPbRJY1rxQGfdESOgymKC6uM6Rng/viewform?usp=dialog
Social Media
Zoe's Tumblr: @thingsisaidweredumb
Zoe's Religious Tumblr: @pinkhellenicgods
My personal Twitter/Tumblr: @ellisthemighty
Podcast Twitter: @talkxenatomepod
Thanks for listening/watching! See you next time!
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Transcript
Introduction and New Format
00:00:20
Speaker
hey so hello and welcome to Talk to Me. This is the podcast where i talk to however many Xenites as I possibly can about their experience with the show and the fandom and whatever else they want to talk about.
00:00:37
Speaker
Um... if you're If you've been watching, or well, you've been listening for a while, ah you might notice that this is new. We're on video. You can see us. um It's never happened before.
00:00:50
Speaker
Trying it out. Who knows? Maybe it'll work out, and maybe this will be how it is forevermore. Don't know. But we'll see.
00:01:02
Speaker
Let me know how you feel about it. Um, but today, oh also i might get a better background at some point because this is not the vibe. We're, we're renovating my house currently.
00:01:19
Speaker
Um, because ah i was just telling Zoe earlier, my grandma moved in and we are having to do a bedroom musical chairs at the moment.
00:01:29
Speaker
Um, so, everything. My parents are going upstairs. My grandma's in my room right now. I'm on the couch at the moment. Or remodeling everything. It's crazy. It's crazy pants.
00:01:41
Speaker
Um, so, things are messy. Things are rough. Anyway.
00:01:48
Speaker
It's not good. But it's fine. So, anyway, we have a guest.
Guest Introduction and Excitement
00:01:55
Speaker
Thank God. That's the whole point. Would you like to introduce yourself?
00:02:00
Speaker
Hi everyone. um My name is Zoe. I use they them pronouns. um I am i so excited to be here. Ever since I first watched the show, i was telling Elizabeth, ever since I first watched the show, it became like a dream of mine to be on a podcast to talk about Xena. And so like, I'm just so excited to be here. This is like truly a dream come true in a really weird, dirty way.
00:02:26
Speaker
That's such a specific dream. I know. I was like, it's like like it's this such a weird thing to hope for myself that I don't think it's ever going to happen. And then like, I just happened to see your Tumblr post and I was like, oh my God.
00:02:42
Speaker
And then you messaged me and I was like, oh my God. I was literally, I was sitting in my partner's bed and I got your message and I literally went, oh. my god and he was like what's wrong and i was like i'm gonna be on a xena podcast and he was like oh you're so excited about that it yeah well i'm happy to have you like i said i'm i'm trying to get like as wide a variety and scope of xenites as humanly possible i want to survey the world
00:03:20
Speaker
This is why I have always wanted to be on a podcast because I feel like I have such, I don't want to say unpopular, but like differing opinions to a lot of people.
Unique Opinions on Xena
00:03:36
Speaker
i love you um and so I've always wanted to just like talk like with my words, with my voice about it. yeah Because typing is just a whole different thing. And it's like a,
00:03:48
Speaker
Not that I don't like writing. Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
It's work. Yeah, I get it. ah Yeah, and I also like it because I have my own opinions, but I don't have um a very strong, like, I'm very like, whatever, man, when it comes to, like, whatever people go with. So I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
00:04:14
Speaker
Who cares? talk Talk about it. Do what you want. But okay, so we're gonna start out with the sort of basic ah things that I like to talk about with everyone and then we'll get into some very exciting specific topics.
Personal Connection to Xena
00:04:30
Speaker
I'm very looking forward to this conversation in particular because I'm i'm so intrigued.
00:04:39
Speaker
Um, so, um, first off, we will start off with the very beginning and how you found Xena in the first place. Um, okay. So this is one of my absolute favorite questions on the list. And it's because I have a youngest sibling whose name is Xena.
00:05:01
Speaker
And great name for a lot of my life, we weren't allowed to watch this show, not from like a, oh my God, it's the gays or like a blah, blah, bla blah, blah. You're like, there was none of like the conservative talking points. It was literally my mom.
00:05:26
Speaker
She felt kind of targeted by pop culture. Because I was born in August of 91. And then in like, I don't know, I think it was spring of 93, Sesame Street introduced the character Zoe. And then when I was little, people would ask me if I was named after the character.
00:05:48
Speaker
And my mom would get really annoyed because no, I wasn't. And then when my sister Maya was two, Maya Angelou released her like, um,
00:06:01
Speaker
Oh, I don't remember that book, that poetry book.
00:06:07
Speaker
Anyway, she released this like really famous book that I can't believe my brain is blanking on right now.
Xena's Historical and Queer Significance
00:06:14
Speaker
It's in my box of books in the other room. um I'm moving. It's not that I don't have my books out. Usually they're on bookshelf.
00:06:25
Speaker
um Anyway. I want to say it's where the mockingbird sings, but that might be something else. Anyway, maya Angelou was labeled... Paige Bird?
00:06:38
Speaker
Maybe? Something about it. i don't know. Anyway. She was named poet laureate by Bill Clinton in 1994, and my sister was born in 1992. So she also had people ask her if she was named after Maya Angelou. And she was always like, no, my mom was so annoyed. And then when my sister Zena was born in 94, was like, good, there's no there's no pop culture Zena anything. But then the character was introduced in Hercules in what, 95?
00:07:10
Speaker
And mom was like, I'm going to revolt. And then they started. They signed ah ah for a spinoff show, and then that spinoff show became way more popular than the original show. And now we call this the Xenaverse, not the Herculesverse.
00:07:29
Speaker
And my mom hated it the whole time. how did she How did your mom find the name Xena in the first place?
00:07:40
Speaker
So we're Greek. And so Zoe means life in Greek. And I always used to joke with my sisters about how God liked me better because the word Zoe is sung in him so many times because it literally means life.
00:08:00
Speaker
um But ah so my mom named Zena after Xenia, the exact same word that the character is named after. Gotcha.
00:08:11
Speaker
It's just what happened to me. Yeah. Man. Bad timing. Yeah, for real. The worst timing. I think the worst timing.
00:08:24
Speaker
I maintained because Xena hated it when she was growing up and she would introduce herself to someone and they'd be like, ooh, like the warrior princess. But I maintained to her that when I was in high school, I had the worst brunt of the TV show associated with your name. Because every single time I introduced myself in class, at least four of the shitty boys would go, Oh my God, Zoe, one, one.
00:08:51
Speaker
And I was like, I'm going to hit you all. My name's not even spelled that way. Stop. So I i told Zina that I had her there.
Impact on Storytelling and Queer History
00:09:02
Speaker
yeah But when she finally agreed to let me watch the show, it was 2014 and I had begged her because um TV history and culture and like the importance of it was like something that I was like autistically interested in, like big special interest for me, watched a bunch of historical shows that were historically important to the medium of television. And I had this huge gap where I hadn't watched Xena. And I was like, that's like one of the most important TV shows in television history and in queer history. I mean, like, I know everybody gives Buffy the musical episode because once more a feeling is more impactful than Illusion. But like, come on. Like we, Xena did have the first musical episode and like, there's so much that that show about the way the show is structured, especially since, um, the X-Files was on the air at the same time. And, and they were both trying to like figure out how to serial a TV show. Well, um, because prior to that, the shows weren't really serial, you know, like never shows had an episode, but they,
00:10:24
Speaker
weren't, they didn't follow big plots, you know, like, so Zena was really revolutionary to how television is made and told and what stories can be told in television.
00:10:36
Speaker
And then also it's like ah a big point of queer history, which is another special interest of mine. And so I was like, Zena, please, please, please, please. please please I need to watch the show. It's like a big gap in my knowledge and I i need to watch it. sure So she watched a couple episodes and was like, okay, it's good. You can watch it. And I was like, okay, thank you. And then at the same time, i had a friend, Alicia, who was watching the show. And she was like, oh my God, can we watch it together?
00:11:11
Speaker
and so then like she kind of became my buddy who would come over and we would watch Xena. oh that's great. I watched it psychotically alone and ah went insane my dorm So with my poor roommate watching me like crying my mind. Yeah.
00:11:36
Speaker
I get it. I get it. poured up poor Poor soul. a poor soul um Yeah, okay. So, i guess, so, okay. Well, we kind of talked about, well, we got we hit when and how, sort of. Did you watch it? Yeah.
00:11:54
Speaker
A little bit. So, I guess, tell me more about sort of what your first impression of the show was. You already knew a little bit about it before you watched so So I've been thinking about this question since you sent it to me. And honest to God, i think it would be most relevant and interesting to tell you my actual, the actual first time I ever watched a scene of this show. So I was a small child and my dad was
First Impressions of Xena
00:12:22
Speaker
dating a woman at the time.
00:12:24
Speaker
um And I was in fourth grade. And um my, the woman my dad was dating, she had a daughter who was also in fourth grade. So in my state, fourth grade is where kids learn like all about the history of the state. And so there's like a a big fourth grade project that every fourth grader does in the state of North Carolina. where they build a scrapbook binder thing of like important things about North Carolina. It's like this big, huge thing. It's like the year long project for, you know, the social studies class is this. It's pretty much all you talk about is North Carolina history.
00:13:15
Speaker
So we both had the same part of our scrapbook do on Monday. And it was what, sun Saturday, i think. Anyway, my dad and his girlfriend made a plan where I was supposed to be locked in one room and Hannah was supposed to be locked in another. And we were not to come out until we finished this thing. And then they were going to read it together and decide like, not like a competition of who did it best, but just like,
00:13:48
Speaker
it does this have factual information? Does that have factual information? What did we learn? Like who learned what? Like kind of stuff. I don't know. Like, the and so i went into that room and that room had a TV in it and I just turned it on.
00:14:09
Speaker
And because nobody told me that I couldn't, you know, didn't, i it was a scene where they were in a chariot and I don't remember which episode it is, but I can see it in my head. They're on a chariot.
00:14:27
Speaker
Well, there is a chariot kind of moving through and then there's a puddle and the puddle sticks up and then Gabrielle is on the back of the chariot. So it must've been season one it must've been like that first episode, the pilot episode where Gabriel is on the back of that chariot. trying to get to Xena.
00:14:48
Speaker
Or like Chariots of War maybe?
00:14:52
Speaker
Maybe. don't remember. All I remember was there was a chariot and it hit a mud thing or it hit it like a spot of water and then like their mud got everywhere and then my dad walks in and he's like,
00:15:08
Speaker
what are you doing? Why are you watching Xena Warrior Princess? And I was like, oh, is that what this is? And he was like, you're not supposed to be watching that. Like, regardless, you're doing your homework. And I was like, yeah, I just turned on the TV. And he was like why did you turn on the TV? And I was like, well, I don't know.
00:15:27
Speaker
My first impressions of the show at that point were, oh well, I don't want to watch this anyway.
00:15:35
Speaker
okay I had this conception that it was like a period piece. Like an actual, like, like, like tries hard period piece. Sure.
00:15:49
Speaker
So when I started watching it, I was like, ah this is nothing like what I expected. Cause it doesn't take its period piece-ness seriously. In fact, it makes a joke out of it quite often.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yes. Absolutely. I was relieved. but
00:16:13
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So it occurred to me that for people that listen to the podcast regularly, they're going to hear me tell the exact same stories over and over again because I'm having new conversations with people every every episode. But they just have to deal with it.
00:16:31
Speaker
And you're just they're just going to know me so well. shh by the end of this. um But the very first scene of Xena that I saw was from Fens, Femmes and Gems.
Host's Childhood Memory
00:16:45
Speaker
What an episode to at it was It was a clip on YouTube. I was probably eight on my unmonitored Kindle fire.
00:16:57
Speaker
um And I was on YouTube and somehow ended up at a Xena clip. And it was the, come on, Gabrielle, let's get wet scene.
00:17:10
Speaker
God. and
00:17:14
Speaker
And obviously, you know, i didn't get any jokes or anything. um But I saw Joxer was there in his monkey, you know, ape form in that episode, jumping around making monkey noises.
00:17:35
Speaker
And that was my only... impression of this man so i was like what is this why is there a monkey like is this man okay it's like is what's happening no he was and and was and so i i never did find out what it was as a child i just clicked off i was like this monkey man is not it i was like this is not this is not it and so so it wasn't until i got to season three and was watching fems and gems in context and that scene came on and i was like i've seen this before i'm having like severe deja vu and it was and i was like wow jockster was just um
00:18:29
Speaker
under a spell this whole time. That's so funny. But yeah, I definitely was like, there's this one weird video clip I saw of some monkey man with these two ladies at a river. And I was just like,
00:18:44
Speaker
yeah Anyway, so that that was my very first scene that I saw and then forgot about for years. That's hilarious. That's so hilarious.
00:18:55
Speaker
But, um yeah. Yeah. ah anyone who complains about hearing that story more than once needs to deal with it that's funny and i would listen to that forever but all right so let's go into ah
Favorite Character: Ares
00:19:13
Speaker
this is very broad but favorite episodes favorite favorite everything um My favorite everything is going to be anything that involves Ares. Ares my favorite character. He's the love of my life. This is what's made, um like,
00:19:30
Speaker
this is what's made my opinion so like this is the reason why i wanted to be on a xena podcast is because there is just not enough love for aries in this fandom sure and i think lots of aries antis out there yeah for real lots of them and i don't think that i don't think that i don't think that's right um He is such an adorable little baby. they The way they wrote this character to be a lovesick puppy. I mean, like, I feel like I've made this comparison on Tumblr before, but he feels like the Xenoverse is Spike.
00:20:10
Speaker
like spike from buffy is like lovesick puppy who wants so bad to be a badass and he's also like a badass but like in a lovesick puppy kind of way that's aries badass but in a lovesick puppy kind of way and i find it so endearing and my favorite moment to show is when he gives up his godhood to save gabrielle and hope i mean um Eve, sorry, long baby. that was different That would be a way different plot.
00:20:42
Speaker
every plot But when he gives up his godhood to save Gabrielle and Eve, it's like just such a soft moment because it's not about, like it's all about Xena, but it's not about Xena. Like in that moment, he saves people that he claims he hates.
00:21:01
Speaker
um He saves a child whose life would, you know, do away with everything that he knows. And he does. He walks away from his literal family, from the powers and the immortality of being a god, simply because he doesn't want her to suffer like that.
00:21:21
Speaker
And, like, yeah I mean, you know, like, how do you how you hear that and not just let your heart explode? Like, that's just, like, an adorable... adorable little baby boy. um And then my favorite episode, um as one could entertain from all of that, is obviously Aries Has a Farm.
00:21:42
Speaker
ah Of course. I mean, that's that's just classic. It is just classic.
00:21:50
Speaker
look
00:21:53
Speaker
That's just classic, you know? Got them three in the bed. exactly exactly got them three in the bed somebody scooch over no i um but yeah um um no i get it i get it i'm not a crazy aries fan but i do like my male characters to be a little pathetic so i do i exactly like i get it you understand i get it i do
00:22:27
Speaker
um i see and the interesting thing is he's more pathetic on xena than he is is on hercules obviously because he's in love with xena and he's not in love with hercules but he's still pathetic on hercules like because he's always losing and because like the whole thing is you know like the zeus loves hercules more than aries thing which is like a thing for myth too but like It's just, it's so fun because like on both shows, he's always losing and is always like the sad, pathetic one.
00:23:03
Speaker
And it just like makes the part of my heart that is a raging feminist who kind of always wants to see men wishing that they could become better. You know, I feel like.
00:23:19
Speaker
I feel like Ares was made for me. he's He's scratching that itch. yeah I'm sorry? He's scratching that itch. Exactly.
00:23:31
Speaker
Very much so. I get it. I did it. I do. By the way, if y'all see this little one over here, that's Persephone. Come on. She likes to be by the light.
00:23:46
Speaker
Like a moth. Yeah, very much. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, I'm very basic. I'm i'm a Gabrielle. Stan.
00:24:00
Speaker
Between... i don't know know. I was going to say between the two of them, Gabrielle's my favorite, but that's not true. I don't think good between the two of them. the two Yeah, I don't... It's not fair. is
00:24:15
Speaker
It's not fair, yeah. Um, okay. Awesome. How about a least favorite, least favorite thing? Least favorite thing. Um,
00:24:31
Speaker
I don't love it all.
Cultural Shifts in Xena
00:24:33
Speaker
It's not that I don't have a least favorite thing. It's that I don't, my brain, like, I don't think when I think of Xena, I don't think of my least favorite thing. So I've got like, you're fine. That's fair.
00:24:46
Speaker
Honestly, i think it's... um I think...
00:24:57
Speaker
I think that there's some things that the writers wanted to explore that they either didn't have the resources for or didn't have the the time to figure out properly.
00:25:15
Speaker
like the musical episode. i think that was a really great concept, but I don't think the execution is quite there. And I think that part of that is that there hadn't been a musical episode that they could figure out what would make this more, like what would make this work better.
00:25:39
Speaker
um and i so so i think part of that is just like the struggles of being first at something um and then like in terms of characters or whatever like i honest to god love every minor character i truly like i in this latest watch that i did um
00:26:06
Speaker
i I like the show more and more every time I watch it. Like i I, I, dislike less things the more I watch the show. And in this most recent watch, there was not a single character that annoyed me. And usually autolycus has bothered the crap out of me. And jocks are usually pisses me off by the end of it. But I was like, not annoyed at either one of them. And honestly, I was sad when the time shift happened and we lost them um And then I guess the time shift would be my least favorite thing about the show is that we did do that time shift and shift into Rome.
00:26:47
Speaker
um Yeah. I think the tone shifted then too, but also the world was changing. That was like, I think season five was the 99.0 year. It might've been,
00:27:01
Speaker
oh year or it might have been Season four. No, I think it's, I think that's season five. Yeah. Yeah. So like though there was major shifts happening in the world at that moment. um And, you know, I wasn't old enough to really pay attention to global politics at that time. i started paying attention a couple years later.
00:27:26
Speaker
um But i was old enough to have kind of paid attention um like I did watch the impeachment trial, the Clinton impeachment trial, and talked to my mom and my grandmother about you know Monica Lewinsky and how like it wasn't her fault that any of this happened, but also like you know everybody in the whole world was making all these horrible misogynistic jokes. And then... like
00:28:01
Speaker
The nineties were kind of like a time of expression, that free expression that kind of got cut down really harshly in the two thousands. And 1999 was this really awkward year where like everybody could feel the shift.
00:28:19
Speaker
And so you can see it in media. Um, and Zena is not the only show that, that takes a more conservative turn in that year. So I a kind of just write that as like what's going on in the world at the time.
00:28:38
Speaker
So it has less of a, it's less of something that I dislike and more of just something that I'm aware of. You know, if that makes sense? Sure. Yeah. like I said, i i I, I harp on it less. Like it matters less to me than each time I watch the show.
00:28:58
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, I think a lot of, not a lot of what I don't like, I have my own issues with season five, mainly because like, I wish we got more into how Gabrielle feels about like, Xena's pregnancy and Eve and all of that, especially after, you know, her magical mystery baby that turned out to be evil, and then Xena's magical mystery baby that just sort of
00:29:30
Speaker
is assumed to be good sort of off the bat um i think that's i agree that there's a missed opportunity to deal with that but see the fandom deals with that so well yes yeah the very true very true speaking of the fandom excellent segue um The next question is, what has your experience been like in the fandom?
Fandom Experiences
00:30:01
Speaker
um So the first time I posted anything on the fandom or like anything on Tumblr fandom related, um i got yelled at. Because I said, tell me that Ares doesn't love Xena. And then they were like, oh my God, you're so homophobic. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:30:23
Speaker
No, me. where did that come from? Why do you assume that I don't love Gabrielle and Xena Gabrielle just because I said something positive about Ares and his love for Xena? Because two people can love Xena at the same time.
00:30:41
Speaker
Like, right Whether we want to go polyship, which we'll talk about later, or if we want to go like love triangle, which is what I think they were actually going for, like two people can love Xena at the same time.
00:30:57
Speaker
And so like we can chill out about that. um But then it was made very clear to me by multiple people coming in and attacking me, like literally sending me a non-hate, telling me that I was...
00:31:10
Speaker
a bad person and that the Xena fandom was not for me. a lot of people called me straight and a woman and I am neither one of those things. And I was like, literally, okay, fine.
00:31:29
Speaker
um So then the decision to love Xena privately became like my thing. And I only recently started to,
00:31:40
Speaker
talk about it more online again because I feel like in the past, you know, 10 years or so, um there's been more of an acceptance towards other opinions in the fandom.
00:32:00
Speaker
Cause now talking about it, I don't get that kind of hate. So thank goodness. And now now you're on a podcast talking about it. So I know, right. Yeah. And if anybody sends hate, I will find you.
00:32:16
Speaker
No, I'm kidding. My thing has always been like, my thing has always been like, I just, there's no need for like this dogmatic allegiance to your ship.
00:32:30
Speaker
yeah And it doesn't matter what fandom you're in. Like there's always going to be people who like seriously believe that their ship is the only thing that you can take from this show yeah and like I just I I want to tell anybody in any fandom who believes that like I implore you to listen to other people because I promise you there's more you can take from this piece of media than this ship and that doesn't mean that that ship is not good or that you shouldn't take that from the piece of media like ship whatever you want but like
00:33:08
Speaker
This story, the story of Xena and the story of Xena and Gabrielle even isn't limited to their relationship with each other because they do a lot and they have a lot of relationships with other people. And their relationships with other people strengthen their relationship with each other. And I think that's one of like the best parts about this ship is that like,
00:33:35
Speaker
they they learn, like Xena learns that Aphrodite is important to Gabrielle. And so regardless of Aphrodite being just another god to Xena, she sticks her neck out to save her because Aphrodite is important to Gabrielle.
00:33:53
Speaker
And it's like, things like that are also what enriches the ship and the show. and so like, I'm glad we can talk about them.
00:34:04
Speaker
without people yelling at me. but and i And I fully accept the idea that that was just one bad day and like I just happened to post in a tag that was being... But I also am willing to accept that that was because like that was like 2016 and 2016 Tumblr was a much different place than 2026 Tumblr is.
00:34:29
Speaker
i think the website as a whole has chilled the fuck out. as a lot of those more aggressive people moved to tick tock.
00:34:43
Speaker
The tick in the talk. Yeah. ti him What a b place. What a place. Truly. Yeah, that's fair. That's totally fair. I think right now we're in what I know.
00:34:58
Speaker
i'm Mostly my interaction with the fandom is I'm on Twitter all the time. um And I think our Twitter community is pretty solid.
00:35:11
Speaker
Pretty good. mar about The oomphs are united. um so but um but i The only negative experience I had, and I didn't even really count it as a negative experience because to me it was just so like ridiculous, was I got an anonymous message that was like, um I had been making a thread of me and my boyfriend at the time watching Xena because he had never seen it and he agreed to sit through and I was like man it'd be really funny to have this thread of me like and making my straight boyfriend watch Xena and um i got a message I was like why are you on here posting about Xena if you have a boyfriend and I was like
00:36:04
Speaker
Uh, well...
00:36:08
Speaker
Because... ah Because, a I'm bi, so bi people exist. But also, anyone can like this show.
00:36:20
Speaker
Like, even if I was straight, like, you can still like Xena and still interact with the fandom. very much think and that what... That message that you got is...
00:36:32
Speaker
like along the similar vibe of the message that the messages that I got, you know, because I just think that there's, and again, we're going to talk ah more about this when we talk about Shiloh's legacy, but I think that there's um a part of the way culturally we've downplay like we've upplayed xena as like the lesbian show that the idea that people outside of that demographic would like it is gets limited and that's just such a limiting view of the show especially since i would consider xena herself to be by right yeah and i mean i was like
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I was like, and you know what? My straight boyfriend at the time enjoyed the heck out of himself watching it. but And for him. Yeah, and I was like, so even if he had to um
00:37:37
Speaker
even if he he had to correct some kind of historical inaccuracy every five minutes he would be like, that's not was like, that's not how archery worked.
00:37:48
Speaker
And I was like, okay. Okay. I understand that because i' so there's there's some parts where I will have to just pause and go on a rant about what history actually looked like. Yeah.
00:38:02
Speaker
Because that's not historically accurate. But they didn't ever make it to be historically accurate. Like there's yeah things that were happening, like especially when they go to Asia. It's like, okay. Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
Okay. There's like thousands of years in between which you're talking about. All Yeah. But anyway, yeah, yeah. He enjoyed it until we broke up and I highly doubt he's still watching it. But you know what?
00:38:33
Speaker
Maybe he sees this podcast and he's like, why are you talking about me? Anyway. um I kind of want to say a disparaging comment about him just in case he does. mean, I don't know anything about him, but like disparaging. Yeah.
00:38:46
Speaker
Listen, if he's an ex, then he's an ex for a reason. Is he not? no, no. He's good. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. Okay. Okay. I'll believe you. Yeah.
00:38:57
Speaker
We are still friendly, on friendly terms. I'll believe you. He's chill. Anyway. um So, um okay. Well, I feel like we're we're really getting into the The meat of it? The meat here. Well, i I'm going switch order of questions, actually, because i want to ch I want to get the light stuff out of the way, and then we can get into more meatiness. So I'm going to save one of the questions for the very end, two of them, actually.
00:39:28
Speaker
Okay. So we'll do, have you ever ever met anyone? And then we'll go into our specific topics.
Convention Experience
00:39:35
Speaker
Okay. No.
00:39:38
Speaker
Succinct. I like it. Simple, pure. um I was at a convention that Renee was at once, but the line to talk to her was so much that I opted to not do that.
00:39:57
Speaker
um
00:40:00
Speaker
And that's the only time that I've ever been even remotely in the place where that could have been something that happened. Sure. Yeah. If Kevin Todd Smith was still alive, you bet your bottom dollar though. i First in line. You are first in line.
00:40:19
Speaker
Truly. Especially since he was like a musical artist. Like, do you understand how much I have a thing for men who play music? soft boy characters who also make music. Like, come on again. i'm a yeah by James Marsters fan. i am a Dean Jensen Ackles fan. i would have been Aries Kevin Don Smith fan.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. Yeah. i um got to meet Renee last year. um Which was crazy.
00:41:00
Speaker
it was crazy. easy um ah But yeah, yeah, the line was really long. I had my tickets and stuff beforehand and all of that because um I had heard that she was gonna be like the next state over from me and I was like, we have to go right now.
00:41:20
Speaker
I don't have a choice in this matter. am contractually obligated So, hopped in the Yeah, but it's okay.
00:41:36
Speaker
It's fine. But, um yeah, hopped in the car, was like, we gotta go. We have to go. um And it was crazy. She did a q and a session.
00:41:51
Speaker
picture. Got my... picture got my um autograph
00:42:02
Speaker
hold on props props i need a prop department have fallen okay okay everyone let's go oh look at that yes There it is. Did you pick the picture?
00:42:29
Speaker
I sure did.
00:42:33
Speaker
i sure did. And I felt, I saw all the other pictures that everyone else had. And then I had this one and I was like, yep. Proud. Yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
yeah i was like, you know what? I'm going with this one. I love later seasons, Gabrielle and her hair.
00:42:53
Speaker
There's me and my fit. Maybe people can see. Okay. That's me sitting.
00:43:06
Speaker
Prepared. There was some very nice older women there who were like, oh, you've never met her before? And then they called her over so I could ask her a question.
00:43:21
Speaker
oh that's so cool. There she is. And then here's my picture.
00:43:32
Speaker
Oh my God, that's so cute. Look at y'all. And your little hand part. Yes, I know. I was like, they... very quick experience they're like getting people in and out of there in the photos you have like just enough time to get up there and be like this is what i want to do blah bla blah so i walk up there and i'm like can we do a hand heart please and about like that and she was like yeah of course you know whatever and i was just like oh so cute oh and one more
00:44:10
Speaker
i don't I don't mean to be a braggart. No, I'm loving it. Please, brag about your fun family experience if you want. This is really the peak of my existence.
00:44:26
Speaker
Oh, I see why. so Yeah. yeah Yeah. there There it is. Whoop, there it is. Yeah.
00:44:39
Speaker
I would say that for rest of my life. Unprompted, she was just like, um, she was just like, should we have a hug or something like that? And I was like, uh, should we?
00:44:53
Speaker
i think so. but but Um, so... But not in this was after my mother, who was right beside me, went, she's your biggest fan.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I was like, mom, mom, please. Please, no. oh please no Please. should have a hug out of it, so you can't be that bad. Please stop. I know, because I think she then thought that I was, like, 12.
00:45:21
Speaker
twelve um But it's fine. It's fine. It doesn't matter. Anyway. oh So um let's get into these special topics.
00:45:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:45:41
Speaker
You, okay.
Spiritual Journey and Polytheism
00:45:43
Speaker
um For those of you who don't know, on my form, there's a little spot where you can put in whatever you want to talk about. And this is great.
00:45:53
Speaker
this is I saw it and I was like, yes, yes. I'm sat. I'm here. um So you are, is it?
00:46:06
Speaker
Hellenic polytheist. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Excellent. Please. it It gives me but a rundown.
00:46:17
Speaker
Okay. Um, so Hellenic polytheism is the, um, Um, that's the name of the ancient Greek religion. Um, sometimes people will call it other things like Hellenism or Hellenismos or, um,
00:46:38
Speaker
dodeca theism. I like that one. That one came from, that one came from the number 12 in Greek, you know. um And so the, the prefix, the Greek prefix for 12 is dodeca. then the theism would be the religion. So dodeca theism. And,
00:47:05
Speaker
I personally can find flaws with every single one of those words because in ancient Greece, they didn't, they didn't have a word to describe their religion. it was just like, that was just what life was. So there wasn't like a word that they could say, like, i identify with this religion. um so I find it more accurate to just call it Hellenic polytheism. Hellenic means Greek. Um,
00:47:34
Speaker
in Greek and then it is polytheism of the Greeks is the way that I got there or the way that, you know, linguistically you would get there. um But so I have actually been worshiping the gods since the second time I watched the show and it's tied into like the second time I watched the show because I started, I i found this like religious awakening.
00:48:11
Speaker
um ah the first time I watched the show, i loved Aries so much. And my family, um, has ancestry to Thrace, which is one of the very few places that Aries was actually worshiped as like a main God because,
00:48:31
Speaker
while we in like modern America think of Aries as the god of war, the vast majority of ancient Greeks worshipped Athena in that role. And Aries was specifically about brute force and the bloodshed of war. And Athena was about the strategy and the thought of war.
00:48:56
Speaker
And so she was who people prayed to more often, because the strategy is how you win a war. You don't win a war with force, you win a war with strategy. um And so Athena was who they prayed to more often and Ares became kind of synonymous with the fear of war.
00:49:17
Speaker
So soldiers would pray to Ares on the battlefield that he would not get their blood shed that day. Yeah. But in Thrace, there were multiple cults of Ares where people specifically worshipped him as a major god.
00:49:35
Speaker
um And so since I have familial um lines that I can trace back to ancient Thrace, I was like, well, the fact that Ares is my favorite character here, like he's speaking to me in a way no character spoken to me since Dean Winchester. Like there's got to be something here.
00:49:56
Speaker
um And so I looked up the actual God Aries and I read his page on the website, theoid.com,
00:50:10
Speaker
which um is kind of like a Wikipedia, I guess, for ancient Greek mythology. um But it's like, well, it's changed owners. So now it's less so but at the time, it was very, very like, good sourced academic stuff.
00:50:33
Speaker
And it was like all about the actual myths and like the actual worship of the God. So I read it and I felt like
00:50:46
Speaker
This is not what I thought it was. Okay. I was wrong. And I kind of put that on like a back burner in my head. And the second time I watched the show, I still had this feeling that there was something spiritual that I was connecting to, but I didn't know what it was. And then I saw a Tumblr post that was like, um,
00:51:09
Speaker
like a quiz that was like, here, take this quiz and we'll tell you which Greek God that you're most likely to worship. And I was like, this is silly, but I was in the living room with my roommate and my now partner.
00:51:23
Speaker
we were roommates at the time. That old chestnut. Huh? I said that old chestnut.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah. Um, So anyway, we were, i was in the living room with them and we were watching Xena and I was like, maybe this will say something to me that'll make sense. And so I took it and it said that Apollo was the one that I was most likely to worship, which always, which made sense to me because, you know, connection to the sun and the color gold. And like, I, as the Leo have always felt like,
00:52:04
Speaker
connections to those things spiritually and, um, and then also music and like mental health and like everything. And I read his page and I was like, oh, I get, yeah, I feel, yeah. And then I went and, and looked at the, the two gods that were runner up in that quiz, you know, that, cause like the old you quizzes told you what percentage,
00:52:34
Speaker
you had. Anyway, so I looked up Aphrodite and Hermes and their pages also felt like they spoke to me spiritually. So then I like took a breath and looked at the Aries page again and I found some things that really felt like they resonated with me. And then um I was a a very staunch atheist growing up and became more agnostic as I grew, but I had never really prayed. So that night I went into my room and I didn't know what I was doing. And I lit a candle and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I like just named four.
00:53:24
Speaker
There were four gods I wanted to talk to. So I just put them in the four corners of my room. And was like, okay. And I looked up at the corner and I was like, hi, Apollo.
00:53:35
Speaker
i am excited to potentially worship you. This is what I've got going in my life. And then I just like started talking and then I picked up my guitar and started playing a song for him. And then looked over at the other corner. was like, all right, Aphrodite, I think you're wonderful because of this, that, and the other and blah, blah, blah. And then I just started playing her a song and then like did the same thing for Hermes and Aries. And then,
00:54:00
Speaker
Um, and then that felt really good. And I was like, wow. Okay. And then I did a lot more research and, um, I firmly believe that, uh, religious research is never finished, like, because there's always more to explore spiritually. And then it has led me to a lot of historical research, um, which is super fun and interesting.
00:54:27
Speaker
Um, So that's like how I got here. Wow. And then
00:54:38
Speaker
I'm sorry. That's like, as far as I had thought to prepare. No, that's fine. That's such an open-ended question. I don't want to just like keep talking, but, um, no, that's fine. That's fine. I think that's good. I think that's a good, I think that's a good intro.
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's good. Um, Yeah, i had not known too much about it. um I did a little tiny dip into the tumblers because I figured that's the place to go. um And um I thought it was super interesting. um I had a very, very brief stint with the pagan club at my college.
00:55:21
Speaker
um And there were some people in that club who um worshipped um Greek gods and things like that that I found super interesting because I grew up doing like Percy Jackson and and all of that stuff and I always loved Greek mythology but I had never um it it had never I'd never interacted or sort of realized that that was something that people were still um we're still doing because people teach it as like a like a dead thing you know like an ancient thing that's not that's like but something we talk about in the community a lot too is like because a lot of things that were culturally important to the ancient Greeks didn't disappear um they got adopted into
00:56:19
Speaker
Greek Orthodox Christianity. And growing up in the Greek Orthodox Church, there's a few things that I immediately recognized. um Some of the chants that we do still have the same rhythmic stylings that came from Homeric hymns.
00:56:44
Speaker
Some of the chants like actual traditions came from, like, for example, in the Greek Orthodox tradition, 30 days after someone has passed, you make pie kind of thing called a koliva.
00:57:10
Speaker
And the recipe for this was, came from um I don't remember what it was called in ancient times, but it was a part of household worship to Zeus. So you would make this for 30 and let it ferment for 30 days and then eat it And so now it's become a thing of like, you make this 30 days after someone's died and then eat it And it's just like really interesting how like,
00:57:40
Speaker
There are some things that just like didn't disappear, but they got adopted into other things. So finding that living, breathing religion comes in kind of parsing apart what happened when practicing the religion as it stood became the legal.
00:58:00
Speaker
Where did those things go? Um, yeah and then piecing it back together and everybody's got different ways that they piece it back together. Some people are, try to be as historically accurate as they can be and others try to be looser.
00:58:19
Speaker
Um, but in my opinion, we're all doing a lot of both. So the more historically accurate people call themselves, um, um,
00:58:33
Speaker
reconstructivists because they're reconstructing the religion and then people who are more um less focused on historical accuracy i guess would be more revivalists and the idea we're were're reviving an old really a dead religion the end of the day though I have learned from this that there's never a truly dead religion because all of the religions that are not talked about anymore are still being practiced just in smaller numbers and in not a way, in a way that's not
00:59:13
Speaker
collective. Does that make sense? Sure. um Sure. Yeah. And since a lot of the joy of religion comes in collective worship, it's really um become a thing where like online groups and temples have become big and important.
00:59:36
Speaker
So the way that the religion is being revived is in a different way than it was oh when it was, you know,
00:59:49
Speaker
when there was lots happening, but like in Greece, it was illegal to worship the ancient Greek gods until I think it was 2017. Oh, wow.
01:00:01
Speaker
So yeah, it was illegal to to do that in Greece from the time that it became illegal, like, you know, went when Christianity was still...
01:00:14
Speaker
pretty new um to 2017. So it was like 2000 years. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy.
01:00:28
Speaker
Wow. Huh.
01:00:33
Speaker
So let's, going to move into um the betrayal not betrayal, my God, the portrayal of the gods.
Depiction of Gods
01:00:42
Speaker
Um, and Now, I know before in our chats you've mentioned a lot about Hercules.
01:00:47
Speaker
um
01:00:50
Speaker
I'm just gonna let you talk on this because I've never seen Hercules ah and this is just simply simply not my forte. um So I shall let you take over. Yeah.
01:01:03
Speaker
yeah um So all in all, I think that the show suffers from a thing that a lot of media about the gods, especially American media about the gods, suffers from. And that's this almost pigeonholing of the gods into their domains.
01:01:27
Speaker
So like we're used to thinking about, and a lot of this comes from like a, monotheistic world view. um But we're used to thinking about the gods as singular dimensions like Ares is the god of war Aphrodite is the god of love Athena is the god of wisdom Zeus is the king of the gods and like all of these things are true but those gods in their actual worship in antiquity are a lot more complex than that and the gods in mythology are also a lot more complex than that
01:02:12
Speaker
and they're they have multiple realms um Hermes is ah psychopomp which means that he assists in communication between the living and the dead like he he has something to do with the transition between living to dead and he assists in communication between the living and the dead so he's got some sort of like relationship with death but like in i usually see hermes painted as the god of travel or um the messenger and while both of those things are true neither like they can't both be true and one of them is only true you know what i mean so like
01:03:05
Speaker
every god had multiple applications of their worship but that doesn't really fit into the monotheistic way that we think of god because if that was true for the polytheistic gods then like what was even the point of switching to monotheism is kind of like what I've heard um from people. And, and it's usually not in a religious context. Usually I hear this in, from people who were talking about like, what who are telling children, like why we don't talk, why we don't have,
01:03:51
Speaker
the ancient Greek gods anymore. And they say like, well, because people got tired of asking for, you know, one God for one thing and another God for another. so now they ask for everything from one God. And it's like, okay, well, that's not really exactly how it worked in antiquity either.
01:04:10
Speaker
um So I think that pigeonholing the gods into their thing, role is a place that the xenover suffers from that said some of them did a some of them are really good interpretations
01:04:34
Speaker
now not everyone is going to agree with this i want to go ahead and make that very clear because i don't want if you have hellenic polytheists listening to this podcast, I really don't want them to come attack you or me. ah So I'm just going to preface that everybody's going have differing opinions on this because everybody's got their personal relationship with the gods. But for my personal relationship, both Aries and Aphrodite are excellent portrayals.
01:05:05
Speaker
Um, Aphrodite being the best portrayal of Aphrodite I've ever seen. And I have spoken to some other people who agreed. I've spoken to some people who disagreed, but you know, ah again, we all have our personal relationships with these gods. Um, but the portrayal of Aphrodite, I, I just rewatched an episode of Hercules, um, where they, um, it's called the apple.
01:05:35
Speaker
and they take the myth that starts the Trojan war who Aphrodite coming to Paris with a golden apple telling him that you know like if he picks her as the most beautiful she'll give him this golden apple that will make any woman fall in love with him and then he takes it because he wants Helen um So he tells Aphrodite that she's the most beautiful. And so they do that same s thing
01:06:12
Speaker
um in this episode and it causes chaos and it's like, you know, destructive and whatever. And so then they eventually have Aphrodite take the spell away and she's giggling about it. And Hercules says to Aeolus, who's his buddy who,
01:06:33
Speaker
you know, travels with him, um that Aphrodite is not as dumb as she looks and that she knew this was going to cause chaos. And then you just hear her laugh.
01:06:47
Speaker
And I love that because like Aphrodite in myth is frequently painted to be kind of like not a troublemaker, but just like
01:07:15
Speaker
having fun is something that is important to Aphrodite and enjoying life is something that's important to Aphrodite and watching the mortals be mortals is just the best television you could give her.
01:07:32
Speaker
and So watching that be how they portrayed her felt and the fact that they didn't make her
01:07:44
Speaker
mean and catty with it. You know what I mean? Like they allowed her to be bitchy and kind of snarky without being catty and mean. Yeah.
01:07:57
Speaker
And I think that that speaks to a very true part of who I know that God Aphrodite to be. and then as far as Aries, we've talked about this like fact that he's a pathetic lovesick puppy.
01:08:13
Speaker
and like the actual Aries in myth is not a pathetic lovesick puppy. Although him and Aphrodite have their very famous affair um Because in myth, Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus and then cheats on him repeatedly with Ares.
01:08:39
Speaker
And both Harmonia and Eros are Ares' kids. of And then Hephaestus finds out and then attacks. It's like a thing, you know, it's like a whole big thing. And they did kind of deal with some of that in Hercules a little bit.
01:09:02
Speaker
But they would take the myth to kind of twist them um the same way that they did in Xena. Yeah, I feel like that's also something that could have been brought out, actually, because I remember I'm of trying to think what episode that is. Maybe, i guess it's Motherhood in season five. It's like the season finale of season 5 and where all the Xena's finally like killing all the gods and um she like cause her and Gabrielle go and like uh or she she kills um Hephaestus or whatever and um from the for the rest of the episode like Aphrodite's like wearing black like she's like in mourning um and
01:09:55
Speaker
It's not really, it's not explicitly, like, said or mentioned or anything like that. She's just, like, in, like, the black version of her outfit for, like, the rest of the episode. But when he dies, she does, like, a little gasp but and pretty much it for that. but In Hercules, they they show him having a crush on her So in Hercules, they show him talking about wanting to marry her and they show him intervening in a couple of places that she is at, you know, um, in a way to try to win her favor.
01:10:35
Speaker
So they do deal with it a little bit in Hercules. I don't think that they ever for have them actually get married. Um, which I'm glad that they didn't, um,
01:10:48
Speaker
do that but they also stick pretty they don't tend to um
01:11:01
Speaker
they don't tend to they they they respond to the olympians as siblings rather than as potential mates and in myth they're both siblings and potential mates. um but But this show was not made in an environment where that could be a thing. so yeah So it's not really a thing.
01:11:33
Speaker
um a And they don't ever talk about how Hera and Zeus are siblings. you know It's kind of painted as if these two people only know each other because they're married to each other, not because they're siblings. And even when they talk about the Titans, they don't talk about how Zeus killed them and blah, blah, blah, until they talk, until the twilight, when they need to get Cronus's rib.
01:12:04
Speaker
And then they talk about how Zeus killed Cronus, but they don't talk about what happened when Zeus killed Cronus or anything like that. So again, there's like, this space to not acknowledge that the gods are all inbred.
01:12:24
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. that'd That'd be a tough sell. it would It would be. it would be. Yeah. But I really like how they kept the relationship between Ares and Aphrodite important anyway, because we do see after the twilight um Aphrodite get really, you know, she, she doesn't, she's sick and and she's being taken advantage of because she doesn't have,
01:12:54
Speaker
the war half. Like that's why Ares becomes the God of War again is because like they realize that that's caused wreaked havoc in the world. And i I liked that they allowed them to be close and balance each other in the show as well as they do in myth.
01:13:18
Speaker
Because Aphrodite in myth is the one who kind of really goes after Ares and is very much like you be next to me um and other care like the other gods in myth don't like Ares um and that's also something that both shows do kind of show the in the twilight arc you do see the other gods be like Ares
01:13:50
Speaker
Why are you the way that you are? like sure Can you just not get out of the way and let the real gods do the work? like You are a fake god. You don't really exist. Get out of my way. And he's like, I have as much a right to be here as anyone else. And they're like, do you?
01:14:09
Speaker
um And so that stuff comes from like actual myth. And then in Hercules, it's a big plot that Zeus likes Hercules better than Ares.
01:14:23
Speaker
And I'm also glad they kept that because that's also true to myth. And a really interesting part of the Hercules myth is how much he hates, how much Ares hates him.
01:14:38
Speaker
But also Hera is like, clings to Ares like her little darling and then gets pissed off at him for not being as lovable to the rest of the gods and like becomes one of her things that she's mad about is like nobody treats Ares right.
01:15:00
Speaker
um Which they didn't show. But I get why they didn't. because they were trying to show Zeus and Hera as a united front. But they did show Hera, you know, like obviously the whole plot of Hercules is the the trials, which are Hera's tests of him, you know, curse basically.
01:15:27
Speaker
So they do talk about that a lot. um But I think that the most... true to character anything that the that's either show did was Aphrodite losing her powers when Ares did yeah yeah thank you for that cause I feel like just ran through a lot I know that was great that was great really i i like I said I don't know a ton about Hercules so that was that was really great
01:16:04
Speaker
And i have a feeling that a lot of people listening probably also don't know a lot about Hercules. so e'sen
01:16:15
Speaker
It's nowhere near as good Xeno. Like, hands down, it's nowhere near as good. um it is also gay, but in a in a less overt way. um I refuse to believe that Eolus and Hercules are not also banging.
01:16:36
Speaker
um But they deny it. Whereas Zina and Gabrielle don't ever deny it. They lean into it. um So, and then Eolus is very much the like, peacock, oh my god, I love women kind of thing.
01:16:54
Speaker
But again, like that can be a very gay thing, you know? oh Yeah. Yeah. But it's also a lot more
01:17:09
Speaker
I don't want to say boring, but it is a lot more boring because it's got a lot less of an interesting hook. Like, Xena's whole plot is that Xena herself wants to be redeemed from her past mistakes. And Hercules' whole plot is that Hercules himself, just by the nature of who he is, is always under attack from the gods.
01:17:39
Speaker
And it's kind of like roaming the world because Hera has cursed him. And now it just happens to be his job to save people.
01:17:52
Speaker
And that's a lot less of an interesting story than woman who did a bunch of bad who wants to become better like right one of those is interesting other one is just okay that's a man yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's not that i don't recommend hercules it's just that if you're going to go into it do so with the acknowledgement that you will be watching a bunch of men walk around being men's
01:18:25
Speaker
Yes. And that you'll also be looking at Kevin Sorbo's face the whole time. Yeah. that Although there is one hilarious scene where there's like an alternate universe. Um, and the Hercules from the alternate universe comes over to the, you know, real universe. And, um,
01:18:48
Speaker
He expected to have like a bunch of powers or whatever, i think. I don't actually remember. Somebody was going to be like, that's not what happened in the plot of an episode. Whatever. Anyway, I don't actually remember the episode. All I remember is that he comes over the real world and the first thing he does, he tries to do something. It doesn't work out. And he goes, disappointed.
01:19:15
Speaker
And I swear to God, that is one of the funniest things I've ever watched on my TV screen. Just Kevin Sorbo just go, disappointed! And I'm like, that's how I feel when I look at you.
01:19:31
Speaker
yeah i've i've I've seen that clip. It was pretty... It's hilarious. So funny. It's pretty good. All right. So let's move on to the poly shipping extraordinaire.
Polyamorous Dynamics
01:19:48
Speaker
um Dear to your heart. is Okay. So what I want to say, I've i really thought about how I want to approach this. Okay.
01:19:59
Speaker
What I want to say is that.
01:20:02
Speaker
When Ares is putting them on ice and he tells Xena that when she kicked ass, she was his. when When she was doing nice things for other people, she's Gabrielle's. But when she kicked ass, she was his. And that to me is like the center of the Polly ship.
01:20:25
Speaker
Xena can never really get away from Ares and she doesn't ever want to. Like you don't, you see Xena try to resist her love for Ares quite a bit in season five.
01:20:39
Speaker
You know, like you see her think about it. You see her, honestly, you see her try to resist it a lot in seasons one through four too. He tries to tempt her and you'll see her think about it. You'll see her potentially think,
01:20:55
Speaker
have it maybe it's just a moment, maybe it's a whole episode, but you'll see her have like these kind of moments where she's like, maybe, maybe.
01:21:08
Speaker
And it's enough that it strings him along, that it keeps him there. um And I think like, obviously Zina and Gabrielle are the ship of the show. Like, obviously.
01:21:24
Speaker
And that was, they were written that way. Like, it's not that, like, the fandom came and picked this up and made Xena Gabrielle, like, the ship of the show. It's, like, the whole point of the show is that these two people are soulmates and that they happen to find each other at the right moment. And, like, it's a really beautiful thing.
01:21:43
Speaker
But, like, Xena already has soulmate that she's been... working with up to that point and that is Aries and um he never leaves like he's there the whole time and it's because
01:22:08
Speaker
he finds something special in her and dare I say it Xena likes to feel special like
01:22:20
Speaker
I think that's part of what she loves about Gabrielle too, is that Gabrielle is like, Zena, you're special. You're good. There's something that's specially good about you. And prior to that, Zena had only heard you're special. You're bad.
01:22:36
Speaker
And I think that part of marrying this kind of like, fights badassery kind of part of herself with doing good. Part of that is her realizing that these two halves of herself don't have to be a competition. They can work together and they can, it's kind of like the meme of like, it doesn't have to be fighting or, you know, saving people or being good. Cause Zena's got two hands.
01:23:10
Speaker
And so I feel like that's very much how I feel about the poly ship. You know, like we don't have to have, like obviously Gabrielle makes Xena better in a way that Ares doesn't, but Ares makes Xena a badass in a way that Gabrielle doesn't.
01:23:29
Speaker
And we need both of those halves to make Xena the person that she is. So I ship the poly ship in that way. And then to go to my beautiful baby, old areas had a farm and that beautiful scene that you mentioned of them being f together.
01:23:48
Speaker
i just think that the way that scene is shot, like, I don't know. I'm not saying that we're supposed to, but I think that maybe we're supposed to see uh,
01:24:03
Speaker
budgeting polyship, you know, that they're never going to go for. You know that they're never going to go for it. But you as the audience member can see it happen. You can see where it would be, you know, like I feel like old areas had a farm with like the writers being like, okay, people don't seem to understand this. So let me show it to them.
01:24:24
Speaker
think this is what you could be looking at. You want to write your fan sections about like them having a cozy life. Okay. This could be a part of their cozy life.
01:24:36
Speaker
And like, yeah, it could be. um And I think that um why not, you know? Yeah. I do get it. It's not um necessarily fully for moi.
01:24:54
Speaker
But I get it. And I understand. i understand. Not for everybody. um I am a real big poly shipper in general. Like I tend to, I tend to look at a love triangle and be like, but why not both?
01:25:15
Speaker
um So I know exactly why I picked up this love triangle where I did. yeah But I also think there's a lot that Xena, that Ares and Gabrielle have, because like I said, in old Ares had a farm, there's that scene where um um Ares says, do we have anything in common? And then Gabrielle looks at Xena and the the camera turns to Xena and then he goes, yeah, you're right.
01:25:43
Speaker
yeah i'm like I love that moment. I feel like there's so much that the two of them could learn from each other that they don't know they could learn from each other, you know what I mean? And I feel like the only way they would be able to do that is if everyone just accepted, okay, this is a thing that matters to both of them.
01:26:07
Speaker
But again, and I don't think that, um I don't think that Xena, the show was,
01:26:16
Speaker
um i don't think that, I don't think that the culture that the show fits in, in other words, like, um, 1990s American culture was ready for, i mean, they they weren't even ready for the lesbians. I don't really think they were ready the polyamorous trial.
01:26:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, yeah, definitely not. Cause well, there's also that Aries Gabrielle stuff in, um, succession um and um uh the episode that eli dies in where
01:27:03
Speaker
gabrielle's like throwing her sides at the tree and stuff and aria shows up um and he has that weird moment of like let me show you my powers or whatever and um Yeah.
01:27:18
Speaker
I always, I feel like, and and that episode I know had some stuff cut out of it because some stuff of, uh, like Gabrielle potentially being sort of Aries's, um, mentee, I guess.
01:27:34
Speaker
Um. I didn't know that and now I want to track that down. i think I heard, I think I heard Renee talk about it somewhere.
01:27:47
Speaker
of how there is supposed to be more because I feel like when you watch that episode it does feel a little yeah it does it feels a little jarring I've always thought that I'm pretty sure there was supposed to be more to that but i don't exactly know what that was or if it ever got filmed or if it was just I'm gonna look it up later because I am really interested now yeah but I definitely heard that and it definitely made sense with how sort of the pacing of that episode felt and stuff like that but yeah no I've I've I've not swam Xena Gab's Aries too too much
01:28:30
Speaker
um The thing is, there aren't very many people swimming in it either. Like i said, when i first when I first tried to talk about Ares loving Xena, I was attacked. And I think that it's it's been, you know, the last time i was attacked, I wouldn't even say attacked, but somebody did like a few months ago.
01:28:57
Speaker
respond to a post I had made about the poly ship and they were like, but why would you try to take that away from Gabrielle? And I was like, I'm not taking anything away from Gabrielle. You are taking something away from Xena. Like Gabrielle still has Xena, like just because, but I think that there's this, our culture still exists in a very like,
01:29:25
Speaker
monogamous way and and i just i don't i think that hopefully there will be more people in the xenet gabrielle aries club um as like culture loosens up but since we're in such a backlash right now like we're in such a you know let's move backwards kind of space i think it's going to be a hot ass minute before we get there.
01:29:57
Speaker
But I think there's just less buy-in that... Because again, like i the polyship doesn't take away anything from either one of them. but people still view it as a potential threat. And I think that it's because of this monogamous view where, um, similar to the monotheism of like, why would you try to get multiple things from multiple people? This idea that like, what makes a relationship that's lasting, what makes a long-term lifelong relationship, what makes the ones that work, so good is that this one person is this other person's everything.
01:30:45
Speaker
And like, that's not a healthy way to view relationships. It's also not a realistic way to view relationships because in reality, the long-term relationships that work the best are the ones where the people don't try to be each other's everything.
01:31:03
Speaker
And, you know, have their own lives outside of each other. And so I think that that kind of thinking though, isn't really, some fandoms don't do well with it.
01:31:21
Speaker
And I think that it's just going to take some time to get culture in general. Okay. With it before fandoms are willing to yeah entertain it.
01:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think it also might be a thing of um
01:31:39
Speaker
people's interpretations of the sexuality of the characters, because I know that I think a good ch people see Gabrielle as a lesbian, so it kind of cuts them off from the Xena-Gabrielle-Aries thing, like it... it is not something they don't want to see or think about gabrielle being with a man um because i i do see her that way but i also am someone who like i i have i have my things that i like and my things that i believe because i do think gabrielle's a lesbian but i do i'm not against dabbling in other things Well, I also think Gabrielle is a lesbian. I think that Xena is bisexual, which is yeah for sure something that the fandom pretty much agrees upon is that Gabrielle is a lesbian and Xena is a bisexual.
01:32:36
Speaker
And then, so I have, I see no reason why Aries can't be, I mean, I don't ship it as a triad because I see Gabrielle as a lesbian. I ship it as a Yeah.
01:32:49
Speaker
So it's Gabrielle and Xena and then Xena and Ares. And then Ares and Gabrielle have a weird friendship that's weirdly competitive. But, like, also the basis of their weird friendship that's really competitive is if you hurt her, I will kill you.
01:33:10
Speaker
And, like, that... is such an interesting dynamic because you just you just you get the if you hurt her i will kill you vibe from a lot from like from like family members a lot like you hear that a lot from like a dad but it's like really interesting to view it in the way of like i am also dating this person and if you hurt them i will kill you Like yeah I, I will protect this. I am dating this person. And part of what I see is my responsibility as their partner is to protect them at all costs.
01:33:50
Speaker
And you are someone who is also with them and you also help hold the value that you want to protect them with all costs. So I know that if I cross them, I'll become your enemy.
01:34:04
Speaker
So I better like, get my shit together and handle this relationship right. Cause I don't want to be your enemy and you better get your shit together and handle this relationship right. Cause I don't, I don't want to be your enemy.
01:34:17
Speaker
And like, yeah it gives this like incentive to like meeting the challenge of the relationship that I find to be so interesting. Cause I, ie do see places where I think Gabrielle
01:34:37
Speaker
You know, like Gabrielle entertains the idea of being a warrior, I think, in part because she wants to be able to protect Xena. She wants to be able to show up for Xena in that way. And i think that, you know, obviously Ares saves Gabrielle because he doesn't want Xena to hurt in that way. because he views himself as her protector.
01:35:08
Speaker
So just think that there's so much interesting dynamic in the way that Xena and Gabrielle, I mean, Ares and Gabrielle hold a level of respect for one another because they both recognize that Xena's the most important thing to both of them.
01:35:28
Speaker
And I find that to be like where the meat of this is. and like And again, like, I don't see it in competition with, you know, like the lesbianism of it all, because like, it's a non, it's a platonic relationship between Zena and Gabrielle. I mean, between Aries and Gabrielle, it's just ah
01:35:55
Speaker
like a, it's one that's a at acknowledging Like, this is what's happening. And therefore, it is a very queer relationship.
01:36:08
Speaker
But I also don't think there's anything straight about Aries either.
01:36:18
Speaker
Yeah. that's a that's a That's a statement I've just made that a lot of the fandom would come attack me for, but I don't care. You don't tell me that. And I understand that this was the 90s. I get that this was the 90s. But he's in the 90s wearing the George Michael earring. Like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think not.
01:36:44
Speaker
Exactly. yeah
01:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, I need to get into my... Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot... I discovered this recently. There's a lot of Ares, Jaxer fanfiction out there. i get that. I completely get that.
01:37:03
Speaker
I get it. Because i was I was going back in time, and I stumbled upon, like, of a cache of Ares, Jaxer fanfic, and I was like, what is happening? I'm so interested.
01:37:16
Speaker
I need to... i need to you You should look it up. It's... I... i was a little flabbergasted.
01:37:27
Speaker
i i was i was very intrigued. um But yeah, no, I need to get more into polyshipping, I think, because I've i've been into... um I've read a lot of... And I've seen a lot of Xena, Gabrielle, Aphrodite...
01:37:45
Speaker
I've read some Xena Gabrielle Aphrodite that I really love too. Yeah. And then I just, I just finished a book series that had poly couple in it.
01:37:57
Speaker
um And I don't know the terms, but they were all in a relationship together and it was great. And I was kind of surprised cause I've never, I've never been a poly shipper before.
01:38:13
Speaker
But it it ate. It did. I was enthralled. So.
01:38:19
Speaker
So.
01:38:24
Speaker
Did you find the Ares joxer? I sure does I sure did. This is written to be a poem from joxer.
01:38:36
Speaker
oh wow. And it's like, it's so funny. Yeah, you you have a lot of you have a lot of... I'm really excited. You have a lot of entertainment and research to come.
01:38:48
Speaker
i sure do Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's go to our final little bits.
Xena's Cultural Impact
01:39:04
Speaker
um We wanted to end on some talk about Xena's legacy. That'll go good with... um our last sort of questions in the basic question um area.
01:39:18
Speaker
So, obviously Xena has,
01:39:25
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of incredible that it has the the fan base that it does 30 years on, the you know cultural relevance that it does 30 years on.
01:39:35
Speaker
um It's just crazy. It's crazy that people, you know, like me, for example, who, you know, were not alive, um feel like it is, you know, I first watched Xena after watching Killing Eve.
01:39:56
Speaker
And... um What a different vibe. Yeah, yeah. And um I had just finished watching the the end of Killing Eve, the finale of Killing Eve.
01:40:08
Speaker
um which was awful and um hurt my feelings very strongly made me feel supreme anger. as And then I was like, i have to watch something else. I have to watch something else. And then I watched Xena and and I think it really says something that me and so many other people say that even with, you know, the the representation that we have today, even though, you know, it can always be better.
01:40:43
Speaker
um zina still feels like some of um the most sort of genuine and most relatable um representation in terms of like queer representation than like queer shows we have today which is really um i i have thoughts on that yes yes yes go speak um so it's actually the same thing it i feel like it ties into something that i talk a lot about it in religious spaces, which is the difference between playing something and being something. It's like, we always talk about in, in the modern polytheistic worlds of like this fear of like playing your religion. Like your religion is something that you put on is like a ah show that you do rather than living your religion, like living and breathing it. And like,
01:41:39
Speaker
You know, cause like there's the pagan online world is like really big with like pretty altars and showy things. And then you can like do a festival with just yourself in your bedroom and do like a whole ritual thing. And it can feel really much like a play that you're putting on rather than something that you're like living and breathing and doing.
01:42:06
Speaker
I feel like part of what makes Zena such a real good representation of like the queer community is that they did have the limitation where they weren't supposed to play it.
01:42:20
Speaker
So they had to live it. So you see Zena and Gabrielle be a couple more than you hear them be a couple. And I was thinking about this actually. um I'm doing a rewatch of 9-1-1, which is like the new fandom that I'm trying to follow my ass into. i love this stupid franchise and I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't because Ryan Murphy is the devil, but like, whatever, I'm in love with it. And so I'm just going to deal with that and, and be in love with it. But anyway, so I'm rewatching 9-1-1 and,
01:42:58
Speaker
um Bobby and Athena have this interesting relationship where you never see it develop. And there's like never.
01:43:12
Speaker
But they both talk about it being so important to them. You see it develop in the way that Athena's kids respond to Bobby. You see it develop in the way that the other characters talk about that relationship. But you don't see it develop in like seeing, like you see them go on their first date, but you don't see a lot of that. you It's like literally at the end of the episode, it's like a tag.
01:43:41
Speaker
So you see like a few seconds of it, but you don't like ever really get to like, you know, see them talk about difficult stuff. And I mean, you do a little bit, but not really a lot. um But Xena and Gabrielle, you don't hear like you, the other characters do talk about them being soulmates, but for the most part, you see that relationship develop in those little moments between them. And,
01:44:12
Speaker
the audience picks up on what happens there. And then there's some more overt moments like the kiss in Autologous's body in season two that very much should scream to the audience, this is a relationship. This is a relationship. yeah This is a relationship. And it's moments like that that make me wary of ever calling it non-canonical like it is a canon relationship and it is textual too and like i refuse to call it like a ship that never went canon because of the 90s because that's not accurate it's a ship that went canon in the 90s in a way that had plausible deniability and
01:45:01
Speaker
that right there means that we get to see it in a very real lived space outside of expectations.
01:45:15
Speaker
And I think that's what makes it feel so real. who Yeah. Yeah. Today it feels like people are checking off boxes.
01:45:28
Speaker
And Ryan Murphy started that.
01:45:34
Speaker
You can thank Glee for a lot of this.
01:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's that is yeah part of what's so important about Xena. They're very good at at showing, not telling. In lots of ways. In lots and lots and lots of ways.
01:45:53
Speaker
but most importantly with the xena gabrielle relationship um yeah absolutely it's crazy to me it's it's so um everyone describes it as lightning in a bottle but it is just like that you know something people talk about wanting a reboot and stuff like that and well i get scared i think i Because like to me, Xena lives in a space with two to three other shows.
Humor and Serious Themes
01:46:31
Speaker
Almost everyone will be able to recognize that Xena lives in the space that Buffy and the X-Files live in. I think that Ally McBeal is in there too, but some people might have some objections to that because it doesn't have the same impact culturally that Buffy, Xena, and the X-Files do. But I think it did have the same impact culturally in the 90s and early 2000s. I just don't think that it had the same effect last quite as long. But I think that because these shows were in the 90s little campy area, they're able to tell stories that are a lot deeper and more meaningful through the camp of it. It's why I think crazy ex-girlfriend is one of the greatest shows of all time. And it's because through the humor, they're able to tell such a serious story.
01:47:37
Speaker
And I think that that's one of the things that modern TV lacks is the, the joy, the fun, the ridiculousness, that this could be whatever we want to be.
01:47:49
Speaker
um And I think that one of the things that makes the lasting impression that Zena has on us is the fact that it has that like fun and joy of the 90s camp.
01:48:08
Speaker
in addition to the very serious and deep emotional stories. And so we as the an audience are able to cry and lose our minds alongside of laughing and giggling.
01:48:23
Speaker
ah And then that I think gives us more room to rewatch. Like it becomes more rewatchable because it's not so oh you know, it's not like, yeah this is a woman who did bad and now she is going to redeem herself through fighting for good. It's like, it's so much less heavy handed than that.
01:48:52
Speaker
Yeah. And like, because of that, it, it doesn't feel as heavy for us to
Modern Media Challenges
01:48:59
Speaker
watch. And then also, i think that there's something to the whole, like,
01:49:07
Speaker
eight episode seasons are not gonna garner a big fan base. And I think that part of why the fandoms of old are still kicking so hard is because we don't really have good options for modern media.
01:49:27
Speaker
um Because modern TV has structured itself in a way weirdly weirdly um That it's like
01:49:41
Speaker
it both needs fandom to survive and makes fandom impossible. Yeah. And I don't think that that model is doing super well personally.
01:49:56
Speaker
um Not but i got in my house, is it? Yeah, but I think that I think that the 90s camp shows are benefiting from it.
01:50:07
Speaker
but And I also think that the 2000s shows are benefiting from it too. Like The Office is benefiting from it quite a bit. So it's Parks and Rec.
Xena as a Feminist Icon
01:50:17
Speaker
But I think that Xena is definitely getting, has has as much of a dedicated fan base because there's nowhere really for fans to go right now.
01:50:29
Speaker
Yes. But I also think that Xena holds like a space again, similar to Buffy and the X-Files where it was a big cultural moment firsts.
01:50:47
Speaker
And those big cultural moments of firsts don't get lost usually. You know, we we tend to talk about them and celebrate them. And because we don't have ah another lesbian love story that's as real as that one it's it gets shared and it continues getting shared and i think that one of the most beautiful things about television in general is how it's both so reminiscent of its time and transcends its time just because of how television exists so like you can't watch i i mean the
01:51:26
Speaker
I don't know, maybe I guess somebody less versed in television could potentially, but I can't watch Xena without being like, oh, I see the nineties all over this. Like the nineties just like scream at me.
01:51:39
Speaker
And it's not even just the camp, like the references are very nineties. The things they do are very nineties. I just watched an episode of, of, of Hercules where um Aphrodite goes, oh my God, gag me.
01:51:56
Speaker
And like, what 90s, what a 90s way to say that, you know? And it's just like, I think that it's just, it's so born of its time, but also the 90s were such an important era, you know? Like, then we're going to get into some like politics here, but like, the 90s had such a a sense of growth, which I spoke about earlier, this, a sense of freedom that was then capped in the two thousands and then shifted elsewhere in the 2010s. But, um but the nineties had a sense of freedom and they think that you can really feel it in the art.
01:52:46
Speaker
Those three shows being like the main ones, because like in the X-Files, you know, like, after the x files it spawned a huge thing where like people were actually women were starting to go into stem more and they call it the scully effect and then buffy spawned a bunch of women think remember realizing they could be strong so did zina and like the those two shows like because i think zina ends in 2001 2002 um
01:53:19
Speaker
two thousand and two awesome one 2001 Buffy ends in 2003 Buffy starts in 97 but I think the only reason why Buffy was a was greenlit was because Zeno was already on air and it's like I just think that the lasting legacy of these shows is tied together in this like the nineties was an important moment where like girl power and the spice girls were big. And like these three shows said something very feminist you couldn't ignore.
01:53:58
Speaker
And I think that that's like,
01:54:10
Speaker
I think that's the key. Like there's, yeah. the the 90s being like this place of where feminism was starting to shift and change culture in general was starting to shift and change everybody was thinking about like what are the possibilities what does the future look like and we get these amazing shows that show strong women being strong being powerful And I think that's a part of why their legacies are the way that they are.
Personal Healing Through Xena
01:54:48
Speaker
Yeah. Sorry, I get on a feminist soapbox and then I talk a lot. No, you're fine. You're fine. You're fine. That's what this show is for. It's it's talking.
01:55:00
Speaker
That's the whole thing. Um, so, okay. One, one last main question. Um, and we've kind of, I feel like we've touched on things like this. Um, but it's just sort of plain and simple. How has Xena impacted you?
01:55:22
Speaker
um well, it gave me a religious awakening, which was really fun. Um, there is that, um, I think that the biggest impact that Zina's given me, though, is a way to heal from a lot of crap that I dealt with as a kid.
01:55:43
Speaker
I mentioned that my youngest sibling is named Zina. I'm not on speaking terms with that person. yeah um And this show gives me oh in association with the name that isn't.
01:55:59
Speaker
my abusive sibling. um And it every time I watch it, there's something else I learn. There's something else I i stick with and and lean on. And the whole point of like, just because you've done something bad doesn't mean that that's all you are, um is something that speaks to me so deeply.
01:56:29
Speaker
And so every time I rewatch it, there's like a a new thing that sticks with me that yeah didn't last time. Like this past time I watched it, the Marcus's death really hit me hard. And like prior to that, like I've just always been like, whatever. But like it's because Zena saw a kind of redemption for Marcus and like was like,
01:56:59
Speaker
that it my heart broke and then like
01:57:06
Speaker
it's just it's i learned something more about not only like the show but also what i value and i feel like i find new ways to articulate my values um so i think that the most impact the show has had it is there on my mental health and on my ability to like process my trauma yeah that i've done things that have been done to me yeah i think a lot of people have been able to get that out of the show which is really really great for sure yeah
01:57:53
Speaker
I think it speaks to how good the art is because any good yeah piece of art is going to have that impact on you.
Importance of Queer Media
01:58:02
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, as we round two hours, i think we've, geez, I'm sorry. I talk a lot. on it I should have warned you. Don't apologize.
01:58:17
Speaker
Don't apologize. It's okay. It's all good. Listen, i'm having fun for these i scheduled I schedule these for when I don't got anything else to do that night.
01:58:28
Speaker
It is awesome good. That's good. So, ah one last thing and then I'll close. um Is there anything you want to say to your fellow Z-knights out there that are listening?
01:58:46
Speaker
um Give Ares a chance.
01:58:52
Speaker
No, open up heart Really, what I want to say is that, um you know, i think right now, more than ever, it's like really important that we like, because, you know, most most people in this fandom are queer.
01:59:13
Speaker
And I think that it's really important that we lean on queer media right now and and really look and focus on um because cause we're under like significant attack at the moment. and um And it used to be better. It used to be easier for us. And I think right now it's important to look at how did it become easier for us?
01:59:41
Speaker
And um one of the one of the places one of the ways it became easier for us was because of zena um it it did have a lasting impact on the queer community. It does have a lasting impact on the queer community. And it did tell a lot of people that they were okay and that they could
LGBTQ+ Representation
02:00:03
Speaker
come out.
02:00:03
Speaker
And they did. um It also told TV execs that you can show gay people on the TV and not immediately get no viewers. Like, it did a lot for us. And I think that it's important for us right now to lean on the community that we get from our shared art and most importantly looking at like what was happening and and how did we deal with it and and i don't think that just like a replication of that is necessary but like
02:00:47
Speaker
There's a lot that we can learn from Xena and its legacy and the fandom and everything ah when it comes to
02:00:59
Speaker
fighting homophobia. And I think that that I am personally really trying to focus on that as part of why I did this latest rewatch is because
02:01:12
Speaker
the stakes are too high right now to not lean on good queer art. so i guess what i want to say is that like it sucks out here but shows like xena make it better yeah yeah watch watch watch queer media read yeah to read listen watch read listen do all the things Right now, many we really need to stick together.
Call for Queer Community Unity
02:01:44
Speaker
We really need to be loud. We really need to be proud. It's June. you know yeah We need to feel like... And this June feels so sad. it just feels so blah. And I mean, part of that is that there's so much less rainbow capitalism everywhere. God, I miss seeing the rainbows everywhere. um Yeah.
02:02:07
Speaker
But Target doesn't have a pride section this year, and I don't think Walmart does either. And it should, it feels really sad out here. um yeah
02:02:21
Speaker
But I mean, at least we've got each other. That's what I just keep telling myself. We won't. Yeah. The eighties didn't kill us because we stuck together. And as long as we keep sticking together, we'll break out We will be fine.
02:02:38
Speaker
We as a queer community will endure. We're here queer, we're not going anywhere as long as we stick together.
Upcoming Queer Media
02:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
02:02:50
Speaker
Just as a quick aside, speaking of upcoming queer media um and a very popular show, um Bridgerton season five.
02:03:02
Speaker
I think it's season five. Yeah. think it yeah. ah hu I will be seated. I will be I'm planning on watching the show. I haven't watched at all because I've been like, oh okay, I'm going to wait for the fan to die down before I watch it. But now that they make this announcement, I'm going to watch the whole thing.
02:03:25
Speaker
Listen, I'm not a romance person. I'm not a romance person. I'm not really, no um And i have been sat, I've been on the edge of my seat too I've seen, watched every Bridgerton season i don't know what is in that show but um it's addictive, anyway this is a message, everyone better be watching the new Bridgerton season because I'm gonna need people to be talking about it because I know that I'm gonna be on the front lines
02:04:07
Speaker
fighting for my life. So... i need some I need some fellow soldiers out there. But, um... Anyway. Anyway. I just think it's... But I also think it's really great that a show like Bridgerton, um, this traditionally romantic show is doing this. the Riot would do that.
02:04:27
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. But but it'll it'll be good. Just don't look at some of the comment sections on Twitter and stuff. There's some people who are really not not happy about it. But those people are losers.
02:04:38
Speaker
Comment sections. Whatever.
Podcast Promotion
02:04:42
Speaker
Anyway, thank you so much for being on. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. This is such a fun use of my Tuesday evening.
02:04:53
Speaker
Of course. Absolutely. um Just as my closing, for those of you listening out there, um all of the social medias, my Twitter and my Tumblr, um are both EllisTheMighty.
02:05:09
Speaker
The podcast Twitter is TalkZenaToMePod. Check them out. um You can, um if you would like to be a guest on the show, there will be a form in the description of this episode.
02:05:25
Speaker
um And yehu should fill one out. because you know you want to be part of this. You know you want to be on here. um And ah Zoe, is there anywhere you want people to find you? um Yeah, my Tumblr is things I said were dumb.
02:05:45
Speaker
Just know if you're gonna, I'm a Swifty and that that isn't gonna change. So if you don't want to see Taylor Swift content,
02:05:58
Speaker
don't come caution. Yes. um And then my religious blog is pink clinic gods. um And so if anybody wants to talk gods, there is some Taylor bear, but limited.
02:06:15
Speaker
you want to. And, and, and all of that info will be in the description as well. So, okay. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll see you next time.
02:06:30
Speaker
do