fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2621 ]

[ SECRET POST #2621 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2621 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Hard Candy]

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[Luther]

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13. [SPOILERS for Teen Wolf]

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14. [WARNING for incest]

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Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I recently read a comment on a fandom forum from a person complaining about how prevalent this trope is and how it happens because two men being mutually sweet to each other is too gay. But the person didn't mention any examples and when I wracked my brains, the only examples I can think of are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and House and Wilson.

Am I missing some really obvious examples here? Can you guys think of some more? Is it really that prevalent?

I think it's more that "asshole men" is a popular character trope (especially lately) and you can't exactly have two giant assholes on your show, you have to have someone who's likeable so enter the best friend. I don't think it has anything to do with nice guys being "too gay" or whatever. That's just weird.

Kinda ironic how those two examples are some of the widely slashed duos.

You could make an argument for Abed and Troy from Community, but really only on occasion. Most of the time they (sob) were sympatico.

Hm. Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation, back when they were pretty tight friends? And Tom later realized Jean-Ralphio was the worst.

It's the "best friends" thing that's hard to get around. Personally, I feel like I know more close-but-professional relationships that have that dynamic, or friends-but-not-that-close, or mentor-mentee situations.

I don't see where the gay bit comes into this, but my first thought was Tony and Sid from Skins. (Though that friendship goes beyond slightly dickish. And idk if it was just me, but near the end I felt like Tony might've had some unrequited feelings for Sid.)

There's also Arthur and Merlin and Travis and Wes from the shortlived Common Law. Duke and Nathan from Haven, too. (Though most of these characters wouldn't actually call each other best friends willingly even though they are, so maybe they don't count.)

Edited 2014-03-08 02:40 (UTC)

I totally shipped them, at least onesided >>;; The way Tony behaved around Sid definitively looked like "An Asshole Who Has His First Legit Crush And Doesn't Know How To Behave Now" to me. Plus, it's canon Tony is bi. IDK about Sid, though. Tony /is/ pretty damn important to him, but a lot of Sid's character growth comes from his crush and later (messed up) relationship with Cassie, in the same way Tony's growth comes from him.

Yea, that's 100% true. Though I'd go even farther and say that Tony looked in love with Sid by the end of the series (and you're right in that, hell no he didn't know what to do with those feelings), and Sid was so focused on Cassie that he never fully realized it or could have returned those feelings. IDK if he ever would, even if his relationship with Cassie hadn't taken off, but I don't think those two are too far fetched.

Psych, Shawn is a total dick to Gus. But to be fair, even though he's less verbally rude, Gus throws him under the bus just as much.

NCIS, everyone in the team is tight but they also bicker and snipe at each other constantly (especially Tony-Gibbs and Tony-McGee).

...I feel like there's more than that but it's what comes to mind first!

Steve and Danny from Hawaii 5-0!

Ack that went in the wrong place

A lot of duo relationships on TV have this sort of dynamic (regardless of gender) just because it's entertaining. It means you can have jokes at the expense of both characters, creates tension, and also makes actual tender moments seem more meaningful by contrast. To put it another way, watching two people being super caring and supportive of each other 100% of the time gets boring after a while.

Anyway, here are some 'dickish' best friend duos (the dickishness depending on how you interpret the friendship):
- Starsky and Hutch
- Jim and Blair (The Sentinel)
- Fraser and Ray V and/or K (Due South)
- Leonard and Sheldon (Big Bang Theory)
- Shaun and Gus (Psych)
- Merlin and Arthur

Most of the 'dickishness' in these examples can also be explained for plot reasons. I think the person who made the original comment doesn't understand... anything. (Lol.) They are interrogating the text from the wrong perspective. (Double lol.) Plus, if having best friends squabble all the time because the alternative is 'too gay', why do so many people interpret that squabbling as sexual tension, huh? Huh??????? (Triple lol.)

I think they meant specifically where Friend A is more dickish to Friend B than Friend B is to Friend A (like your examples), because it is a slightly different animal than best friends who squabble a lot -- it's unequal, which makes things trickier than equal mutual dickery.

I might have to laugh if the original commentor realizes that manly bickering friends includes Starsky and Hutch.

nayrt

Huh? I don't understand this comment.

OP said their thread was based on someone thinking really sweet friends are "too gay." Starsky and Hutch bicker/fight/are dicks all the time, but they're widely regarded as pretty subtextually gay. I just think it's funny.

I think all fictional friendships like this have internal mechanisms for balancing things out. For example:

Barney Stinson and whoever-he's-bugging-this week out of the other four main characters on How I Met Your Mother. None of them take Barney seriously, so his dickery is rarely anything more than an annoyance, and usually more of an amusement.

Shawn towards Gus on Psych -- Gus probably knows his life would be a lot more boring without Shawn and a lot less fun without being able to rant and rave at Shawn's dickery, so even though Shawn's dickery is frustrating in the short run, it's a positive in the long run.

Hutch towards Starsky in Starsky and Hutch -- He treats Starsky like dirt 25% of the time, which is okay because he only does it during the lazy and light-hearted parts of the episode, and treats him like a prince the other 75% of the time.

Tony towards Rhodey in Iron Man. Rhodey pointedly breaks up with him when Tony crosses a line, showing that his friendship with Tony is definitely by choice, not because he's letting himself be treated badly.

Fry and Bender on Futurama -- Bender is a horrible abusive tyrant to Fry. OTOH, he also sacrifices his life more than once for Fry. This is terrible, but a) it's a cartoon and b) Fry is too sweet and stupid to hold a grudge, but just smart enough to remember the good things Bender does. This is also terrible and fucked-up, but everyone in Futurama is deeply fucked-up so just roll with it.

Miles and Monroe on Revolution are both really horrible people to each other but the show keeps reminding you that they are "brothers," except I could write a long list of things done wrong. Monroe sleeps with Miles's fiancee, Monroe gets Miles's brother killed, Miles almost kills Monroe, and tons more that are super major plot points.

Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. I haven't read them in ages, but I remember Ford getting impatient with Arthur's uselessness early on.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Tom is a total dick in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Hamlet could be seen as being a dickish with Horatio.

Pierre and Andrei, Dolokhov and Anatole, even though Anatole is too stupid to notice when Dolokhov is undermining him.

If I didn't think Raffles and Bunny were sleeping together, they would be the poster children for this trope.

+1 to Tom Sawyer.

I hated him so much when reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Poor Huck. Man, fuck Tom Sawyer on the real. What an asshole.

Oh gods, Raffles, so much. There were moments where I genuinely wanted someone to stage an intervention or something and get Bunny out of there. He needed so much help, but Raffles was the opposite of help.

Though, yes, totally doing it.

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[ SECRET POST #2621 ]

Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?

Re: Fictional best friend duos where one friend is sorta dickish to the other?