First Merida, now Xena. Ya done good, LEGO. Ya done good. Now where’s my “teenage vampire hunter” minifig?

A few of my favorite minifigs from LEGO’s new Series Ten—including a librarian, Medusa, and a Roman Centurion—are behind the jump. For the rest, head to Nerd Approved.

Oh Project: Rooftop, how we love you. This redesign of Batman and Robin comes from Michelle (Mick) Bouschor. What can we say besides this is the thing we’ve been waiting for all our lives we never knew we were waiting for? Check out more redesigned Batmans at Project: Rooftop.

(via kjdawson80 on Twitter)

Previously in Redesigns

We’ve reported before on the military’s efforts to create female-specific body armor, which is kind of an important thing to do because it’s not the ’50s any more and women do go into combat situations and would like their armor to fit them if they’re gonna get shot at, y’know? The latest update on the situation, back in July, was that Army engineers were developing an armored vest with “bra-shaped darting,” a technique inspired by Xena: Warrior Princess (AIYIYIYIYIYIYIYI—OK, I’m done). And now, just over two months later, the Xena-fied armor is leaving the lab for the battlefield on the persons of 19 women with the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

I’m a die-hard Trekker but that doesn’t mean I have to love everyone who’s ever acting in the long-running saga. For every George Takei or Wil Wheaton, there’s a William Shatner. The Star Trek actor has certainly made a niche for himself in recent years acting as the spokesperson for Priceline and performing in other comedic offerings but he’s also turning into a documentarian. Previously he directed The Captains, a film more suited to his expertise, and a Trek fan documentary called Get a Life, but now he’s set his sights on fans of Xena: Warrior Princess and it’s safe to say he’s out of his depth. 

Lucy Lawless will finally make an appearance on Parks and Recreation after a scheduling conflict with the television series Spartacus: Vengeance prevented her from playing Tammy 1, Ron Swanson’s first ex-wife. Hit the jump to find out some details about her role and consider yourself spoiler warned!

Here at The Mary Sue, we’re no stranger to the problem of armoring women for battle — in pop culture, we’re half-naked and totally unsuited for combat, and in real life, our armor doesn’t even fit and we’re totally unsuited for combat. What’s a lady soldier to do? Take a cue from Xena: Warrior Princess, apparently.

There are a lot of people in the entertainment industry who don’t get the recognition they deserve: CGI actors, crafts services, janitors, third assistant directors, the list goes on and on. On that list, alongside all the script supervisors but put in vastly more physical danger are the stuntpeople. They may not get to make the speeches at the Golden Globes, but we see the efforts of their work in every action and superhero movie and TV show we watch, and in plenty of other places as well.

Flavorwire put together a great (and thorough) slideshow of actor and their stunt doubles, but let’s take a look at some of the ladies behind our favorite ladies:

We’d like this list to serve not only as a celebration of LGBTQ characters on television, but also as a reminder that this is not the end all be all of queer representation: there is so much work to be done, and maybe one day we’ll be able to publish a power grid of queer characters without a disclaimer accounting for all the identities overlooked and misrepresented. These characters are fighting against broader cultural norms and prejudices in a way that improves the lives of queer people everywhere, if only just a little bit.

Last month, we did a list of ten female heroes who don’t wear costumes and don’t have super powers… even though most of the people around them (or the people or things they’re fighting) have one or the other. You guys seemed to really like it, which was nice, I mean that’s what we always strive for; but you also had a lot of good ideas to add to the list.

So, naturally, we decided we had to do another one.

We ran across these pictures on tumblr recently and just had to figure out in what context they were taken. Were Lucy Lawless and Jeri Ryan at a con? Just hanging out?

Was Seven on an away team that found a planet who’d based their culture on mythological Greece or more likely ancient artifacts of mid-90s television?!?!?

Turns out it was a joint TV Guide interview from 1999 about television’s ass-kicking leading ladies.