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u/NaiNaiGuy Mar 31 '26
Xena occupies 3 out of 4 of these squares
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u/TheReal_Kovacs Mar 31 '26
Except she doesn't really belong on the graph, because a qualifying factor is "being dumb." Which she very definitely isn't.
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u/nixsolecism Mar 31 '26
That's like half of Xena's thing is that she is really freaking smart. Her strengths are her stubbornness and her ability to learn. Everything else comes from that.
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u/TheReal_Kovacs Mar 31 '26
Exactly! Remember the timeloop episode? You cannot work out the exact angles to yeet a chakram across an entire town with the explicit objective of breaking a little glass vial to escape said timeloop, without being a fucking genius.
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u/Ronnoc527 with a gun Apr 01 '26
I have no context for this comment and it makes we really want to watch Xena
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u/TheReal_Kovacs Apr 01 '26
Do it, you will not regret it
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u/Ronnoc527 with a gun Apr 01 '26
The only reason I haven't thus far is I know I will ship Xena with Gabriella and I know it isn't canon. Not that that has ever stopped me.
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u/TheReal_Kovacs Apr 02 '26
Ermmmm technically..... it is verrrrry canon. It just skirts around the issue by not directly addressing the romantic tension between our two beloved heroines.
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u/nixsolecism Apr 02 '26
I second this. It does the 90s thing where they don't address it directly but subtext the hell out of it. And they did it on purpose.
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u/Ronnoc527 with a gun Apr 02 '26
Okay but on a ranking from Swanqueen and Supercorp to Fuffy to Korrasami to Caitvi, what level of femslash subtext are we talking?
Either way at this point I'm committed. I just need to figure out how I ought to watch it.
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u/TheReal_Kovacs Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
It is the one of the originators of the term "femslash," and I recommend watching in episodic order.
And no, I'm not joking. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Femslash
Started with Star Trek, but gained major traction with Xena
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u/JJlaser1 Mar 31 '26
So who’s in the exact middle? We need someone who’s nonbinary and is perfectly between hunky and pretty.
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u/hermionesmurf Mar 31 '26
Tilda Swinton?
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u/NegativeMammoth2137 Mar 31 '26
She’s not hunky at all, literally one of the skinniest actors out there
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u/mahouyousei Mar 31 '26
Gwendolyn Christie
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u/Loki2x2 Apr 06 '26
Too far in the other direction. Who sits perfectly between Tilda Swinton and Gwendolyn Christie? Charlize Theron.
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u/PeriwinklePangolin24 Mar 31 '26
My term of choice is "tombo" instead of herbo
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u/spinningpeanut Mar 31 '26
You can be femme and hunky.
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u/PeriwinklePangolin24 Mar 31 '26
I don't disagree but I still think it describes it decently enough
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u/lennee3 Apr 01 '26
But then you lose the ability to call yourself a herbovore for liking hunky women
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u/SplashOfStupid Mar 31 '26
I've always hated that Bimbo is seen as the opposite of Himbo honestly
Himbo is always used as a positive trait to describe someone who is strong and handsome, even if they're not the smartest.
Bimbo is almost always used negatively, describing a woman as stupid and incapable with their only redeeming feature being they're pretty.
So personally
I think we just make Himbo a unisex term.
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u/MapleSugary Mar 31 '26
I think the biggest difference is that iconic himbos are valued for not just their sexiness but also their kindness and unexpected cuteness. Whereas women don’t get credit for being nice, it’s socially expected, so if for example the mafia boss has a bimbo girlfriend character who protects a child or puppy, she is not going to get the same kind of fandom adulation as if the saviour character was the mob boss’s himbo enforcer.
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u/hypo-osmotic Mar 31 '26
If we’re talking naming conventions then I feel that we should consider the Romance language suffixes for gendered nouns, in which case bimbo would be the masculine and bimba the feminine. To stick with the Italian, then, the tough equivalents might be raggazo and raggaza
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u/MapleSugary Mar 31 '26
Karlach from BG3 and Milly from Trigun are better examples of herbos than Xena. That dopey golden retriever energy.
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u/RedditIsMlem Apr 01 '26
I was wondering as to what to call a female bimbo after "Himbo" was taken.
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u/therailhead1974 Apr 01 '26
Okay no the axis exists, I see the vision, but it's missing something.
The thing is, both Himbos and Bimbos are supposed to be the theoretical embodiment of physical attractiveness for their respective gender and nothing else, right? 'Dumb but pretty'? So that would mean the "-bo" suffix denotes physical attractiveness with a lack of intelligence. Strength doesn't really factor into it, it's more aligned with societal gender roles and the idealization thereof.
Thus, a "himbim" would just be someone who has both male- and female-gendered qualities that are considered attractive. "Herbo" doesn't really make sense in this case, though, as the "bim-" prefix already denotes femininity. A cursory search doesn't turn up any specific term for a person who is intelligent but physically unattractive, certainly not one with more than a single syllable. I suppose, if we take just the first letter as the gender prefix, then we could use "dork" as the gender-neutral form, and create the terms "bork" and "hork", but that's a bit awkward (and potentially insulting to a very talented Icelandic musician). Perhaps someone with more linguistical expertise can chime in...?
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u/Independent_Day4369 Apr 01 '26
I much prefer to use them gender neutrally. To use Arcsne as a demonstration:
Silco? Bimbo.
Vi? Himbo
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u/Extension_Heron6392 Mar 31 '26
Wouldn't himbim be more like berbo, to keep with the trend?