Saturday, June 18th, 2005 01:21 am
"You irksome, adolescent, egomaniacal bastard. You have irritated and enraged me for the better part of thirty years, and I won't stand for another minute of it. In the interest of persuading you once and for all to shut up and leave me the hell alone, I will tell you, just this once: I love you, you little prick. I love the way you pull on your pants in the morning, I love the way you drink your tea, I love the way your hair falls in your face when you read, I love the lines around your eyes when you laugh. I've loved you so long I hardly know when I began, and I love you so well I shall never be able to stop. Your feeble little mind can hardly wrap itself around the degree to which I love you, and you needn't preen yourself overmuch for your bravery today, because if you hadn't said it, I surely would not have been able to contain myself much longer. I love you, and only you, and shall never love another my life long, and when you are tired of me and toss me out on my ear, underneath my hatred will still be love, and more love, and yet more. And if, by some undeserved mercy of God, I am fortunate enough to die before you, my last words to you will be: I love you, Sirius Black."
~ From a story by [livejournal.com profile] fabularasa (yes, I realize I gave you the link to her website, not the fic itself. Read through all the stories till you get to it. You can thank me later. ::grins::)

Why, I ask, am I so amused and touched (not necessarily in that order) by pairings in which one parter is a profound irritant to the other? Clark/Lex is never so delightful to me as when they are in their Superman/Luthor mode, when Ryouga is constantly flailing at Ranma, Zelgadis enraged to no end by Xelloss, Sanzo pissed beyond belief at Goku, when Gojyo wants to throttle Hakkai, and when Snape is at his snarliest with either Black or Hagrid.

I mean seriously. Is it just a sadistic urge? Is it an entertaining plot device that's neat to watch? Do I like it so much, because it feels so realistic, and wtf does that say of my views on life? ::gigglesnort::

Ah well, so works the random fannish mind. Off to sleep. fannish party tomorrow, yay!
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 01:37 am (UTC)
Your moodtheme icon kills me. *puts a finger under Hakkai's chin and makes him stand up and stop bowing* "trouble" yeah right.

The snippet is SO tempting but *I* am still up and I'm three hours ahead of you. Not gonna bite. Though the hatelove (or at least, irked!love) thought...yeah, I do that too. I love watching them fight their way into the sack, but I don't know WHY. I'm interested to see what your flist comes up with for this one...

Oh. And. Totally self-pimping, totally OT, totally inexcusable, but also totally gonna forget if I don't tell you now: I know you friended my writing journals; you may have missed the recent announcement that they're both retired. [livejournal.com profile] triskaideka____ is the place my fic will be now, for original and fandom, though it's totally up to you whether you friend/watch it or not. Just giving you a heads-up. ^_~
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 01:55 am (UTC)
Why, I ask, am I so amused and touched (not necessarily in that order) by pairings in which one parter is a profound irritant to the other?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think it's just another example of the 'Pride and Prejudice' syndrome that plagues so many romance writers. Two characters meet, get off on the wrong footing, annoy the hell out of each other, then finally see how wrong they were and live happily ever after. The more evolved amongst us may pause to wonder if that Happily Ever After is all it's cracked up to be, or if they go on to annoy the hell out of each other forevermore.

Just my opinion obviously, and the fact that I tend to write stories where that deliberately *doesn't* happen may also be a telling factor.

Gina
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 03:06 am (UTC)
I think it's a touch of the real, and a touch of the passion. When you're in love, and you're in love with someone you love,...it's not necessarily that it lacks that, but it's a tamer sort of thing. Kenaz. The gift of controlled fire. A candle, a torch, a hearth. When something comes up that's irritating about your partner, it tends to be more of a nagging thing, and once the kindling ignites, it's hard to bring it back down before there's some kind of damage done.

But when you're in love with someone you hate, and it's the very things you ought to hate about them that draw you in... Fehu. Wildfire. Moth and flame. Things don't explode in quite the same way because they're always out of control. Always burning, always consuming... Striking like lightning, burning down to embers, simmering, licking up again...

Damn, I need to go write some hate!porn. ^^;
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 04:45 am (UTC)
I think it's that they manage to maintain just the right level of antimosity to keep things interesting without tearing things apart. I mean, it's entertaining watching people bicker. I want my characters to live snarkily ever after. Cause otherwise they'll get bored and break up. And fighting is good for make up sex, or plain old angry sex. And, well, every couple fights, so that does give it some realism. Also, the idea that someone could love someone even though their omgsoobnoxious, and maybe even a little because of that.

Or, a line from Theo's speech (though she was talking about leaders, it still applies) -- "I don't want somebody perfect. Cause I like telling people when they're wrong."
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 07:39 am (UTC)
*looks through my list of pairings and fandoms* I suspect I must love reading and writing snarky dialogue!

Part of it, I think, is that I grew up in a noisy family who bickered a lot, so I'm very familiar with sniping and ragging as a means of showing affection. (When the SO first met my family, he complained that we fought all the time - it took him a while to get his head round the concept that we weren't really fighting at all, everyone was having fun!)

Another part of it is just my worship of subtlety in fic. Characters who go around saying 'I love you' are, well, a bit dull and obvious - characters who go around saying the opposite, and yet the love still comes through in the writing anyway, that's my kink.
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 10:17 am (UTC)
Ohgod. That is possibly my favorite love confession in all of fandom. I love [livejournal.com profile] fabularasa to eety beety bits. I think she's the person who sold me to the pairing. :D

And personally, I think it's more fun because it's more realistic for me. I don't know any people who sigh their love to each other in moonlit confessions and the like. Most of them tend to snipe and rib at each other. And really, I think it's cooler. Because, you know, bad side with the good and all.

Or, you know, we're just all terribly messed up. *g*
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 01:03 pm (UTC)
I just read that again this past week. I have been rereading old favourites of hers the last few days to recover for the drama of the RPG I watch. Stone Cold Sober kept me up until 3 am last night and is another I love. I was stunned that anyone could make me believe in that particular pairing but is is my #2 now, Lupin/Snape (being slightly less antagonistic then Snape/Black) is my favourite, in the the HP fandom.

I think it's also that pairings like that are so hard to do that when done right they are a thing of beauty to behold. Jack/Norrington from PotC are another I love to read, when done well.
Saturday, June 18th, 2005 02:20 pm (UTC)
:D

omg, I totally forgot about this author -- and the fics! -- until now. :D

*runs off to read*
Sunday, June 19th, 2005 04:01 pm (UTC)
I noticed that you had Gojyo ready to strangle Hakkai, and not the other way around. Because one would think that Gojyo would be more irritating, but he isn't. Just an observation.
Also, pissed-at-Goku!Sanzo is cute!Sanzo. Especially with his little gun.