XenaGabrielleForever

I think part of why XWP is so satisfying (at least to me personally, as a lesbian who does engage with a lot of M/M media because there are certain hallmarks of it that I enjoy) is that it’s not afraid to go the “psychosexual homoerotic torment” route the same way a lot of M/M media does. Like I think a lot of F/F media shies away from eroticized suffering when it comes to its female characters, which I understand because women’s suffering being sexualized is a widespread real-life problem and the whole concept is very loaded for a lot of us — but it’s not that this erotic angle is inherently misogynistic to utilize in fiction about women without making sure your audience knows it’s bad and they shouldn’t actually find it hot, it’s just that it’s harder to execute well, and many writers who care about misogyny would rather not deal with the added challenge of navigating that social context simply for the sake of including edgy eroticism in their work. What it does mean, though, is that F/F media that is able to execute this without coming off as secretly hating women kind of instantly outclasses F/F media (barring genres where it would be ill-fitting regardless) that doesn’t even try. To me.

Love that Xena gave us an episode featuring Lucy Lawless’s most hammed up southern USian accent and Gabrielle as a mean dyke-y whip slinging archeologist

Lucy FLAWLESS