Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
Toys
|
It's really more of a Slap Slap Kiss Slap Slap Kiss Slap Slap...
This trope is all but universal in romantic stories. It frequently brings to a close the Will They Or Wont They phase of a Romance Arc.
When a male and female character spend a lot of time bickering, it is all but inevitable that sooner or later he will interrupt her in mid-rant by suddenly grabbing her and kissing her. (Less frequently, she grabs and kisses him.) The kissed one rarely resists, and usually responds wholeheartedly.
Usually this is triggered by their hostilities reaching a crescendo that results in an exchange of slaps, followed by a moment where both stare at each other in combined confusion and shock, after which they dive into the kiss.
Either way, the kiss prompts both to realize that they've been in love all this time - the rationale being that they wouldn't argue so much if they didn't give a damn about each other. Normally results in some kind of permanent change in their relationship. Like sex, or everything implied by a First Kiss in Anime.
Older Than You Think, dating back at least to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
Compare Shut Up Kiss, Love At First Punch, Takahashi Couple, and Destructo Nookie. Often considered in similar terms to Foe Yay by Fangirls. Kiss Kiss Slap is this in reverse (kissing, then fighting).
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Cheers, practically a Trope Namer, centered around the Will They Or Wont They relationship of Sam and Diane that seemed eternally poised to trigger this trope.
Sam: You are the nuttiest, the stupidest, the phoniest fruitcake I ever met!
Diane: You, Sam Malone, are the most arrogant self centered, son of a b...
Sam: SHUT IT! Shut your fat mouth!
Diane: Make me!
Sam: Make you?! My God I'm-I'm gonna, I'm GONNA BOUNCE YOU OFF EVERY WALL IN THIS OFFICE!!
Diane: Try it and you'll be walking funny tomorrow... Or should I say funnier?
Sam: You know... you know I always wanted to pop you one! Maybe this is my lucky day, huh?
Diane: You disgust me! I hate you!
Sam: Are you as turned on as I am?
Diane: More!
(They kiss passionately.)
- In fact, during the season two finale, they literally slapped each other.
- Frasier would reference this scene twice with Frasier.
- Niles and C.C. in The Nanny triggered a quantum leap in their relationship this way.
- Can you say Moonlighting?
- Buffy and Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Although that was more a case of "roundhouse kick, punch to the face, kiss."
- Also Cordelia and Xander.
- And Buffy and Faith, if you're a fan of subtext.
- Hawkeye and Margaret's brief liaison under fire in M*A*S*H is a variation on this trope. Even Hot Lips and Frank conveyed this trope note for note years earlier.
- Pretty much the entire plot of every instance of "The Needlers" , a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live.
- Happened in the penultimate episode of Two Guys And A Girl to set Pete and Ashley together.
- Happened completely literally in the late first season of Rome. Slap. Pause. Slap. Pause. Kiss.
- The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air: This pretty much sums up Will's relationship with one of his longer-lasting Girls Of The Week, Jackie.
- There was also a Girl Of The Week who was rude to everyone, and Will wasn't getting along with her for that reason. Carlton had better luck, however, and after the "kiss" part of the trope kicked in, he was able to get her to treat people in a civil manner. After discovering that Carlton was able to assert himself, Will tried doing the same thing as Carlton did...however, Will was just as unable as ever to get past the "slap slap" stage of the relationship.
- Drake And Josh: Josh and Mindy share the following heated exchange...
Josh: So today, you were just messing with my head?
Mindy: I think you deserved it after the way you screamed at me.
Josh: I still think that was a really obnoxious thing for you to do!
Mindy: I think you acted way more obnoxious.
Josh: Well, I'm just glad we're broken up!
Mindy: Not as glad as I am!
Josh: Oh, really?!
Mindy: REALLY!
(They make out.)
- On that note, Sam and Freddie of I Carly unsurprisingly become this at the close of the Tonight Someone Kisses special. Judging by their reactions after they share a First Kiss, the way they act towards each other won't change much.
- Although if you look closely, Freddie at least seemed to enjoy it more than he expected to.
- Maddie shares one such scene with a one-shot character, Trevor, a "merit scholar", on The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, ending with the most passionate make out scene ever on children's programming:
Trevor: I don't need a vote from some tree-hugger.
Maddie: If you have it your way, there won't be any trees left to hug.
Trevor: Oh, next you're going to blame the oil companies for global warming.
Maddie: Yeah, 'cause they're to blame!
Trevor: Oh, cry me a river!
Maddie: If I did, you'd just pollute it!
Trevor: You bleeding-heart liberal!
Maddie: You establishment puppet!
Trevor: Do you wanna kiss me as much as I wanna kiss you!?
Maddie: I'm surprised someone as smart as you would have to ask!
London, to a nearby museum staff: Didn't see that comin'. (The man nods)
- One episode of Frasier subverts it by having Frasier in the slap phase with a coworker, but when (in a Continuity Nod to the Cheers example) he asks if she is as turned on as he is, she just says no and looks disgusted. Since the station manager saw the situation, everyone in the station has to attend a Sensitivity Training.
- A straight example of this trope occured in an earlier episode in a very similar situation, but without the Shout Out to the Cheers line.
- A version of this trope occurred in the episode Daphne Returns where Daphne and Niles' first fight leads to them kissing and then having sex for the first time.
- The rebooted Battlestar Galactica has raised this to the level of an art form; nearly every canonical couple has engaged in it at some point and to some degree, often in the most literal sense (see — unsurprisingly — Lee Adama and Kara Thrace; also Saul and Ellen Tigh).
- In the case of both Adama/Thrace and the two tighs this pretty much defines their relationship from beginning to end.
- Deserving of special mention are Chief Tyrol and Callie. The first slap was actually Callie Murdering The Hypotenuse by shooting Tyrol's Cylon lover right before his eyes. The slap back came later that season, when Callie woke Tyrol up from a nightmare and Tyrol, possibly believing he was still dreaming, he beat her so brutally that a disclaimer warning of excessive violence was broadcast before the episode. Two and a half episodes later, they were married and expecting. Admittedly there was a one year Time Skip in the meantime, but Jesus H. Christ... To twist the trope further into the realm of the bizarre, they were one of only three couples on the show that were relatively stable and supportive. At least until the forth season, but I probably shouldn't say any more...
- Burn Notice takes this and runs with it, since both of the "combatants" are trained covert ops. After a short fight with heavy subtext, one finally gets the other in a choke pin... but then they start making out.
- Ellen from Slings And Arrows does this twice within three episodes of each other: the first time with Geoffrey, the second with her brother-in-law Eric.
- Worf and Ezri Dax from Star Trek Deep Space Nine have a heated argument while stranded on a forest planet, intensified by the feelings shared between Worf and Jadzia Dax, Ezri's symbiont predecessor. It eventually degrades into name-calling and fisticuffs, and a passionate kiss with (implied) off-camera relations.
- Speaking of DS 9, Odo and Kira in "His Way". Not too heavy on the slapping, but a heated argument in the middle of the frickin' Promenade should count too. Also, the way Worf and Jadzia got together in "Looking for Par'mach in All the Wrong Places".
- Early in the first or second season of Next Generation, Worf explains to Wesley that this is how all Klingon courtship works. The woman screams and throws heavy objects, while the man reads love poetry and ducks a lot.
- Chief O'Brien has this almost done to him as well. He's working with a female Cardassian engineer and the two of them won't stop arguing over everything. Soon he learns that she believed that he was flirting with her.
- The Tick (live-action): Batmanuel and Captain Liberty
- Scrubs: Jordan and Dr. Cox. Although it's more of a Stab Stab Sex sort of thing.
- Gene Hunt to Alex Drake in Episode 1 of Ashes To Ashes (immediately after grabbing her breast in the supply room):
Gene: Now then, Bollinger Knickers. You going to kiss me or punch me?
- (She did not, needless to say, kiss him. Nor has she yet, but let's face it — it's only a matter of time.)
- Dick and Mary from Third Rock From The Sun have this quite often. Most bizarrely, the first episode has Dick kiss Mary, she slaps him, she kisses him again, then he, confused, slaps her back.
- Receptionist Amanda and Nick Pepper of Ugly Betty revert to this after quite a few scenes of sexual tension, coming to a close when both tag each other out of a game of company paintball — and consequently decide that their catfights actually turn them on.
- Spike and Lynda of Press Gang conducted their kissing-and-slapping exchange while on the set of a Saturday morning children's cartoon show, where Lynda was supposed to be promoting the wholesomeness and public-spiritedness of the Junior Gazette.
- The Vicar Of Dibley had something similar to the Fraiser subversion but played more seriously: Geraldine, the title character and a liberal female vicar, is always trading insults with the arch-conservative councilman David. At one point in the series, he reveals his love for her, interpreting her snarking as flirting. In actuality, she doesn't really consciously like him much at this point. This declaration starts his character on a more Pet The Dog path and makes her better disposed to him.
- From House, Greg House and Lisa Cuddy: "I try to make you miserable. You deny that it's making you miserable. You try to make me miserable so I'll stop making you miserable." How romantic...
- Done in Friends between Ross and Rachel. Rachel is very pregnant and overdue for labor, and the doctor has advised several home remedies, including sex, to speed up the process. They try everything else and nothing works, so Rachel insists they have sex. Since she had been very mean to Ross that entire episode, Ross declines. Rachel then starts angrily ranting at him how this is all his fault and so on, but is interrupted by Ross kissing her. Rachel is surprised and Ross says, "I don't care what it takes, I am getting that baby out of you!" Rachel immediately starts having contractions and Ross says, "I am good!"
- An episode of Saved By The Bell featured Slater and Jessie arguing as they always do before launching into a kiss.
- Star Trek Enterprise. In "Precious Cargo" Trip Tucker has this happen with the beautiful yet arrogant First Monarch Kaitaama, among a bunch of other cliched scenes.
- The Daily Show. Samantha Bee and Jason Jones (married in RL) pulled this off...while acting as Dick Cheney and Ahmad Chalabi
 .
- Laura and one of her love interests had the Insult Insult Kiss variation of this in an episode of Family Matters.
- Lost. Ana Lucia tries to get Sawyer's gun-she asks him for it, tries to steal it, and gets caught. She and Sawyer fight before he pins her down and asks her what she's going to do, and she kisses him, leading to them having sex. She steals the gun after, when he's too distracted to think about it.
- Played around with in the season 4 finale of How I Met Your Mother, between Barney and Robin. The two are unable to admit their feelings without provoking the other into an automatic rejection response (as both are relationship averse). Leads to a long, rapid back-and-forth "I love you"/"Lets be friends" style exchange that escalates in aggravation until they become so confused and frustrated they simply kiss.
- When John Hart and Jack Harkness meet again on Torchwood this is exactly what happens, although they substitute punches for some of the slaps. It helps that they're both omnisexual mansluts.
Anime and Manga
- Tenshi Na Konamaiki can be fairly described as forty-nine episodes of slapping, followed by a kiss.
- Ranma 1/2 stretched out the trope to breaking point by doing seven seasons of increasing romantic tensions (and slaps — and punches, and roundhouse kicks, and exploding ki attacks), but never getting to the kiss.
- Well, consensual kiss, anyway. Their first kiss was when he thought he was a cat, their second kiss was when she was possessed by an evil doll, and so on...
- A tradition proudly carried on by Rumiko Takahashi's later series, Inuyasha. Though Kagome is a bit more level-headed than Akane, she's still ready to yell "Sit boy" at Inuyasha if he pisses her off...
- Practically every series with a Tsundere as the winning girl.
- Kousuke and Ryoko in Spiral ~Suiri no Kizuna~ and Alive. One of their fistfights actually scared away a bear.
- Kazahaya and Rikuo of Legal Drug seem to be heading in this direction (considering that both their bosses and the rest of the universe seem to be nudging them together), but since the series has been on hold since Vol. 3 it is impossible to tell.
- This is the essence of Melissa Mao and Kurz Weber's relationship in Full Metal Panic!, although they've only reached the "kiss" stage in the novels on which the anime is based.
- Suzuka is chock full of this. The manga has a rare "kiss-kiss, SLAP!!" scene both initiated by the girl depicted.
- Shikamaru/Temari is often depicted as this in the Naruto fandom. This is unsurprising, as they are essentially a Foe Yay pairing promoted to Official Couple status.
- This Troper recalls reading a ShikaTema fanfic in which, after an argument with Temari leads to angry sex, Shikamaru is forced to view his parents' many fights in a whole new light.
- The second half of Black Lagoon's seventh episode is an extended *BANG*-*PUNCH*-Indirect Kiss sequence between Rocky and Revy.
- In Blue Drop, Hagino and Mari's huge fight at the school's swimming pool results in both of them landing in the water and exchanging a kiss—probably, since that moment is obscured by lots of bubbles.
Film
- Blades Of Glory has this between Stranz and Fairchild van Waldenberg. Um...right.
- Father Goose does this. The first time, Leslie Caron slaps Cary Grant, he calmly slaps her back, and she dissolves in tears and runs away. The second time, she slaps him, he slaps her back, she slaps him back ... cut to Trevor Howard, reaction to the news that they want to be married.
- Taken to a ridiculous extreme by the movie Mr. And Mrs. Smith. The two main characters practically demolish a house with gunfire in an attempt to kill each other. They then proceed to punch, kick and smash objects onto each other, demolishing even more furniture in the process, until they grab their weapons again and get to a Mexican Standoff. Surprising nobody, little time passes before they put down the guns and start kissing and ripping each other's clothes off (although to be fair, as a married couple they were already long past the Will They Or Wont They stage. Also, as a pair of professional assassins, they weren't trying to kill each other for personal reasons.)
- In Whitecoats, this is done with out the will they or won't they, in this case the Slaps were a fist fight where they gave as good as they got, with the rest of the cast trying to pull them apart. It ended when they started making out.
- Iron Man has an argument between Tony Stark and Christine Everheart cut directly to them having sex. However this is a one night stand and isn't a set up for a relationship.
- The more subdued scene later on with Tony and Pepper is more standard but still ends up subverted when it inspires Pepper not to sleep with her boss but to mull over just how screwed-up her relationship with him is.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has a classic example of this: Indy and Elsa are arguing. Indy goes on about how "Since I met you, I've nearly been incinerated, drowned, shot at, and chopped into fish bait" blah blah, then kisses her. She slaps him, says, "How DARE you kiss me?!" then kisses him back.
- Star Wars - Han Solo and Leia, anyone?
- Enchanted: Giselle is first turned on by Robert when he makes her feel angry for the first time in her life.
- Played straight in Lethal Weapon 3, where Riggs and Lorna end up kissing after the infamous "my scar is bigger" contest.
- The Singles Ward has another classic example, where Jonathan and Cammie, after having gotten off to a rough start, get into an argument in the kitchen, during a party at his house. They criticize and mock each other, stepping ever closer together, until a friend walks in to find them making out.
- Outlander has a rather non-standard use of this. Kainan knocks Freya unconscious during his attempted escape. The following morning, Freya gives him a good sock upside the head in return. Freya warms up to Kainan after hearing that he killed a bear all by himself. By the end of the film, they're married.
Literature
- This situation very accurately describes the relationship between Aravis and Prince Cor in The Horse and his Boy:
"Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarreling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently."
- There's a similar case with a young Vulcan couple in Diane Duane's Star Trek novel,Spock's World. The chapter is set pre-Surak, after all.
- Ron and Hermione in the Harry Potter series, set up much the same as the above, but with more teenage angst.
- How about Stab Stab Kiss? Vlad of the Taltos series and his wife, a former assassin, fall in lust/love after she kills him and he is revived from the dead. This is subverted later, when the series takes a more realistic perspective toward this kind of tumultuous relationship by having their marriage fall apart very quickly when the two discover how different they really are.
- Alluded to in the prequels to Eddings' Belgariad. The heirs of Astur and Mimbre were Locked In A Room "to kill each other without disturbing honest people", with the sole purpose of having them accept marriage.
- Pretty much defines the relationship between Garion and Ce'Nedra.
- Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride And Prejudice — a scene where the two of them argue about what the other's worst qualities are makes Darcy's Clingy Jealous Girl Caroline Bingley worried enough to try to distract them with the piano... which just leads to more UST.
- It's actually somewhat of a subversion...the Slap Slap Kiss feelings are actually only coming from Darcy. Elizabeth geuinely DID detest him at first; there was no "Kiss" in her Slap Slap.
- The real ur-example is most certainly the Sumerian poem The Courtship Of Inanna And Dumuzi, in which the Tsundere goddess Inanna spends most of the story berating the shepherd Dumuzi for not being a farmer, until they have a good argument and Inanna becomes smitten. They spend the rest of the story having awesome sex. Yeah, this is Older Than Dirt.
- Averted in Animorphs, where Marco and Rachel exhibited many symptoms of this trope... but it turns out that they really couldn't stand each other. There are indications of attraction and mild flirting, but Rachel and Tobias are set up as a couple from the very first book. Later in the series, Marco makes it pretty clear that he thinks Rachel is a rageaholic violence junkie and Rachel gets very impatient with his snark and suspicious caution. The trope is also played with to a certain extent: they seem to flirt in earlier books, Marco's immediate reaction to seeing that Rachel has been split in half is that there's one for him now, Nice Rachel says she would go out with him if he asked her, and in the Wonderful Life / What If book, where they never became Animorphs and Rachel never really got to know Tobias, they did end up going on a date.
- In Xanth, Ogre-style-love is violent to the point of being perceived as rape by virtually all of the other non-Ogre cultures.
- Mort and Ysobel. There's a good two pages dedicated to a conversation in which they insult each other.
- Pratchett sums up their relationship in Soul Music: [Mort and Ysobel] took a strong and immediately dislike to one another and everyone knows there's only one inevitable outcome to that kind of relationship.
- In Pyramids this is mostly the case for Pteppic and Ptracy until it is revealed they're half-siblings
- DS Edgar Wield and Edwin Digweed in Reginald Hill's Dalziel And Pascoe novel Pictures of Perfection, largely because neither of them is Genre Savvy enough to realize that Hill is parodying Pride And Prejudice.
Webcomics
Music
- Used in Muse's Knights Of Cydonia music video (which is done in the style of a 70s Sci Fi movie). The love interest slaps the hero in a bar, then the slap is shown again, but they're now in a bedroom and wearing less clothes. Again, with less clothes, but he grabs her arm and they kiss.
- The whole point of the 80's Latin-American pop song "Dame un beso" ("Gimme a Kiss") by Yuri, which plays it up as comedy.
Comic Books
- In the Frank Miller-written comic book Allstar Batman, a retelling of the Batman mythos that is slowly becoming more and more of a parody of the 90s Dark Age of comics that Frank Miller helped create (it is fervently hoped, anyway), Wonder Woman is characterized as a man-hating shrew, someone who thinks men do nothing but destroy the planet and even calling some random onlooker in the street a "sperm-bank". She meets up with the rest of the Justice League, including Superman and, after saying that she hates their guts (several times, using the same wording) she suddenly starts making out with Supes. After that she returns to her ultra radical feminist self with no explanation given for the two heroes suddenly massaging each others' tonsils.
- A frequent move of Catwoman's when she goes up against Batman. The final issue (#82) of her most recent series is just one example.
- In 'Boy Meets Hero' by Chayne Avery and Russell Garcia, villain Cold Snap and her protege 'Zack Savage' get a moment like this, hurling insults, complete with "Are you as turned on as I am?" "More!", at which point she jumps on him and they start kissing.
- Scrooge Mc Duck and Glittering Goldie in the Don Rosa story "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek," pictured. The action cuts to outside the cabin, where there are sound effects of yelling and crashing … and then, suddenly, silence. Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson attempt to rush in, shouting "They killed each other!" but the more Genre Savvy Judge Roy Bean prevents them from ruining the moment.
Video Games
Theatre
Western Animation
- Alvin And The Chipmunks: Alvin and Brittany are forever fighting, but clearly have the hots for each other.
- Captain Planet: Linka and Wheeler
- In Daria: After the title character gets into an argument with Jane's beau on whether or not they actually have anything going on on the side, the two come to a mutual agreement that Tom breaking up with Jane is inevitable — and that, furthermore, it has nothing to do with Daria, and neither would choose to get involved in the first place... That is, until Tom kisses her. Twice.
- Beast Machines: Rattrap and Botanica.
- Teen Titans: Beast Boy and Raven, anyone? "Slap Slap Support" and "Slap Slap Commiserate" in the animated series; Kiss in the comics.
- Courtney and Duncan develop this sort of relationship on Total Drama Island.
- Scrooge McDuck and Glittering Goldie on Duck Tales — Their idea of romance is taking turns tricking each other out of a fortune... and making out afterwards.
- One Scrooge and Goldie comic utilized the trope directly, with Goldie kissing Scrooge before knocking him out; then, later, the two mutually beating each other with waves of thrown crockery before going suddenly silent to get romantic.
- Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex own this trope.
Machinima
Professional Wrestling
- Here's an example between Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McManhon, then-General-Managers of WWE Raw and Smackdown, respectively. Strangely, it was never mentioned again after this.
- Glamarella started this way.
Other
- Limyaael hates this trope and wrote a Rant specifically about ways to avert this kind of romance.
- In a great deal of Fan Fic to be found in the Kung Fu Panda-verse, it seems to be the consensus that if Tai Lung and Tigress were to become a couple, this would be the nature of their relationship—if not outright Masochism Tango.
|
|
