#Xena and Gabrielle Kiss

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

One subtle way that Xena got around the studio censors was to have Xena and Gabrielle always sleep side by side, with zero personal space, rather than on opposite sides of the campfire.

Even when they'd get to sleep in a bed, they'd always share it.

They might not have been able to come out and say it, but the show made it clear that these two slept like an old married couple, and on rare occasions, when studio heads weren't looking, they even got to cuddle.

[girl4music]

This is taken from Xena’s Hong Kong Origins (with Rob Tapert, Liz Friedman, Doug Lefler & David Pollison) on the Anchor Bay DVD's.

Here you have complete validation that even though they did not intend to start off with having Xena and Gabrielle be together as a romantic couple, or at least best friends in love, they eventually wrote to that natural progression in their relationship and they fully accepted and embraced them as a WLW ship - which I've said all along is what they did but I'm sure you'll appreciate the evidence.

[whenfatecollides]

It's 2025 can we get some media literacy and stop calling xena warrior princess queerbait already

[invisible-pink-toast]

some of my favourite kisses

[whats-your-ysl]

[bogappreciation]

in wicked part 2 after the "for good" number I want elphaba and glinda to kiss plausible-deniability-style, like xena and gabrielle on gabrielle's hetero wedding day

[rippledawn]

Also Gabrielle looked fucking pissed when Miss Artiphys kissed Xena 😂

More gay behaviour baby! 😁

[longblondehairgabby]

[shayrose5494]

Ok, hear me out...

The only way I will accept a remake of Xena, is if they cast Emma D'Arcy as Xena and Olivia Cooke as Gabrielle.

No I will not be accepting criticism of this, lol.

[rogue-bard]

I really wanna watch Xena again but I remember being feral about the queerbaiting as a little KID (though obviously I didn't have the words for it lol), and I can't imagine how frustrating it will be as an adult.

On the other hand I survived 15 seasons of Supernatural (barely)

[girl4music]

You really can’t escape ‘The Quest’ kiss though. Every other kiss in the show you can say there’s “extenuating circumstances” to it happening (yes, even ‘Return Of The Valkyrie’ one because Gabrielle still did have to be awakened by true love’s kiss) but even if you were to contest that that wasn’t Xena, first of all, you have the fact Autolycus has no romantic/sexual interest in Gabrielle whatsoever and you also have the fact it’s Gabrielle’s experience only. So even if Xena didn’t “intend” to kiss Gabrielle for whatever reason, Gabrielle is still fantasizing that she did. You can’t get around it being a kiss simply because they both wanted to kiss.

It’s the only kiss in the whole show between them that does not have a reason for why it happens besides from that they wanted it to. It’s simply a kiss to be a kiss.

Then you add on the understanding that what caused Xena to lean in for a kiss at that moment was to show Gabrielle she felt the same way for her back. That she reciprocated her feelings and that she didn’t have to explain to her or encourage her with words. She knew.

All that was left to do was prove it through the action.

So she did and she didn’t hesitate because she knew.

That’s all Xena was waiting for. Reciprocation from her.

And I just love how it’s never made a big deal of at all how Gabrielle feels back because it doesn’t have to have some great grand romantic gesture to it. It’s funny how people always want more from it in that way but I say it works perfectly fine just the way that it is. A kiss. She just accepts the kiss to be a kiss and that’s enough.

Yeah, she comes out of it a little shocked, a little confused but it’s not out of not feeling the same.

If anything - it’s out of the disbelief that Xena does. But Xena heard every word. Maybe even heard every sob. It was time to act on her desires - for both of their sakes.

Even after that - to me anyway - the slow burn continues. They’re still not officially a couple but they’ve entered the territory of best friends with benefits. They’ve entered into more than friends.

After ‘The Quest’ it’s anybody’s guess where it goes. Whether they do become official, whether they don’t.

But what can’t be denied because of this very moment is that they both feel something that’s beyond platonic.

If they didn’t have this kiss - or really the entirety of this episode - then there’d be a stance for some deniability. You’d just trip over yourself because you’d have to jump through too many hoops to try to explain away this kiss.

But it just simply cannot be explained away. Like at all.

The creators went ahead and did it and all bets were off. You can deny that they never officially got together as a couple. It’s easy enough to do. But you can’t deny this.

This is canon. This is maintext. This is a romantic arc. You’re not athletic enough to jump that many hoops.

[whenfatecollides]

why are ppl in my notifs fighting for their lives saying that xwp isn't queerbait skdkdk we all know it isn't, anyone who thinks otherwise just has obviously Not watched the show

[whats-your-ysl]

[stardustedknuckles]

Some of the things people do on Xena are more erotic than any porn I've ever seen, holy shit. I just watched a woman eat an apple from within the hand of a man and it was like a 45-second ordeal and I fully had to look away.

[normcore-tertiary-character]

Suddenly noticed people have been counting and gif setting the Buddie hugs in canon and immediately jumped to comparing it to Xena and how we have gif sets of their kisses. These women kiss! On the mouth! Xena grabs Gabby's ass during one! Another is her giving Gabby True Love's Kiss to wake her from a sleeping spell!

And Xena/Gabrielle is somehow "not canon"

[agathabridgerton]

recalling that xena vs scully poll from a few months back and i found it and now i'm laughing my ass off bc one of the points in favor of xena was that she like gave birth to the messiah and it's like well actually scully did that too so it's not like xena's special for that okay in fact they should team up and kiss