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I picked "I pick the version I prefer and happily ignore the contradictions."

Well, I do try to explain away the YAXIs first, and if I can't, that's when I pick something to ignore. It has to do with the way I like to watch Xena. With some stories, particularly those I'm reading because my friends love them or because I have to for school, I'm okay staying "outside" the story. I can laugh at the cheesy bits, be moved by the insightful bits, and always remember that it is a story. But when it comes to a story I love, and particularly one of my obsessions, I see it as if it is happening. These characters did this, said this, were this, thought this, and not that, etc. The flashback YAXIs don't bother me so much because I can always say that Xena misremembered (or even the Argo YAXI...I always just assumed that Xena didn't bother to check because she was trying to keep herself at a distance from her horse initially). However, the character inconsistencies do bother me. It's hard to watch the middle of Married With Fishsticks or the Kindred Spirits wrestling scenes, because that's so much of a stretch for the characters who are already alive in my head. I even had a little trouble with ADITL when I first saw it, although not so much now with enough repetition. I have to ignore YAXIS that were things that simply could not happen in the progression of the story--i.e. both Ares saving Gabrielle from the pit and Ares not knowing Gabrielle was alive after the lava pit--and I also ignore some episodes that could not fit in the timeline of the rest of the show. I think of You Are There. It's a brilliant episode for itself, and it's hysterical, but it reminds you that it is a story. I don't think of Xena, Gabrielle, Joxer, Ares, Ephiny, etc. as characters--I think of them as people who did certain things at certain times--and there is no way Xena or Gabrielle could have ever interviewed for a television talk show. So I think of those types of episodes as fanfic...stories about my favorite characters that are fun to read, but didn't actually "happen." And then by contrast, there are plenty of fanfics (and, well, plenty of my own daydreams) that do fit with my internal timeline, so I think of those as having "happened."

The fact that YAXIs exist doesn't bother me. I view it as a kind of necessary evil. There are plenty of shows out there with better continuity, where I don't have to ignore a thing in order to make it all fit. But none of those shows tried the things that X:WP did, went to the places X:WP did, or created what X:WP did. So I just go forward happily with my own internal denial-chronology in my head, and enjoy seeing what stuck out to other people that didn't appeal personally to me.

OT: Haephestus,

although I had to develop a theory for all the nonsense that happened in season 7, particularly with Buffy continually going on about how if she died a new Slayer would be called when we knew the Slayer line rested with Faith)

Oh, this I've gotta hear! PM me if you post it in the Buffy thread, ok?