Fannish 5: Five most difficult conflicts between characters that you like

[selenak]

I define "conflict" as something that comes from within the characters for the purpose of this meme, not as something external (i.e. interference by third party, higher circumstances etc.).

1.) Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto. (X-Men in various incarnations.) Now these two exist in dozens of somewhat differing continuities, in

Comments

[ffutures]

I really liked the West Wing fic, don't think you needed to do a really big story.

[selenak]

Thank you, that's very kind of you to say.

[syredronning]

I'm on a B5 re-re-re-re-re-re-watch lately, and the developments between Londo and G'Kar are just as awesome as ever and never get old. The most fabulous hate-love relationship of all time :)

[selenak]

Indeed it is!

[londonkds]

I keep saying it, but it's true, Patty and Ellen is also the only female relationship on TV at the moment, or possibly ever, that is slashy in the m/m sense of allegedly platonic intimacy and drama, rather than in the more common sense of "overt homoeroticism for sincere interest in writing non-straight women or for crude fanboyservice".

[selenak]

This is so true.

[local_max]

Oh you are so, so right about Laura/Gaius -- and I love the point about "surprising lack-of-hate-for-any-side humanity": I sometimes forget how much Gaius' ability to live with his own deeds (both deliberate and accidental) actually does carry over into a lack of judgment of basically anyone else -- though it takes him a while to get over his initial snobbery. (Or, you know, he eventually starts being able to judge others -- I'm thinking of his scene with Lee about Kara Thrace near the end of s4 -- but it's not from a position of being above anyone.)

[selenak]

Re:  initial snobbery, of course with the later revelation that Gaius' entire "upper class academic from Caprica" persona is a creation in reaction to his farmer-from-Aerolon origins, this also looks very much as him clinging to past privilege/safety, in the same way he keeps returning in s1 to his house in his head, until his Kobol experience makes him let it go. But while he's absolutely not free from the occasional pettiness and petty grudge (case in point: so, Felix, you're obviously here to spy on me, fine, I'll just make you look suspicious to Adama and Roslin because dammit, you should be here because you like me),  he's one of the very few characters on the show who at no point succumbs to hate as a way of dealing with what's happening. His ways of looking for excuses for himself never include going the "curse the Cylons/humans/individual X, they're to blame for my misery!" route. I first started noticing this when he talked to Head!Six on Kobol, when she brought up Cylons learning the lessons of killing from humanity, and he

[local_max]

You're so right, and it's an angle I had never really thought about before. Man, for the first time since...well, honestly, since the finale, I actually want to rewatch the whole show now, just to track Gaius and Laura more closely. *swoons*