Belligerent Sexual Tension / Other Media

Comic Books

• After Eden: Greg and Lea's relationship, while they end up together in the end, they have shades of these.
• Amulet: Enzo and Selina. They apparently have some sort of history between them, and when the group turns up at Selina's Station, she immediately greets Enzo by giving him a black eye. Later on they're seen to have had a couple of drinks and fallen asleep on a couch together. Then, when the group is leaving the next day, Selina offers Enzo a job whenever he eventually chooses to settle down.
• Battle: Charley and Kate start out like this due to Charley having accidentally wounded himself and Kate's fiancé having died in action at Gallipoli. Once she realises that he's not a coward, they warm to each other and soon marry.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
  • Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, Depending on the Writer. Donald can be a Jerkass at times, even with his gold-hearted moments, but Daisy is definitely a Tsundere. Newer cartoons tend to reinterpret Daisy as a borderline Cloudcuckoolander instead.
    • Italian comics add another layer to this with their Superhero/Anti-Hero alter egos: as Paperinik and Paperinika they vocally loathe each other, but, to their horror, can't deny to themselves they're also attracted to each other.
  • Scrooge McDuck and Glittering Goldie weren't originally envisioned like this by Carl Barks, but years later, Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck came along, and, well, just see the page picture for Slap-Slap-Kiss...and, for that matter, Kiss-Kiss-Slap. Although Destructo-Nookie actually more accurately describes the end of The Prisoner of White Agony Creek.
• The Internship: Between Cooper and River. Between Coop’s issues and River not taking any shit from him, the two of them come to argue several times. However, it becomes clear before long that River finds Cooper attractive, even though they try to hide it. Cooper eventually sees through it, and likewise feels the same. The two of them actually have sex at the beginning of Volume 4.
• Legion of Super-Heroes: Supergirl and Brainiac-5 in the Post-Infinite Crisis continuity. He liked her, but he didn't know how to show his feelings due to being socially awkward. She liked him back, but his jerkass, never-my-fault attitude infuriated her. Cue arguments and Kara punching and kissing Querl in the same single issue.
• Lori Lovecraft: Exists in spades between Lori and her New Old Flame R.C. in Lori Lovecraft: The Big Comeback. It seems that R.C. was Lori's first serious relationship, and she and he have very different views of that relationship ended. When the dam finally breaks, it results in them Making Love in All the Wrong Places.
• The Mythology Class: Rey and Misha's relationship is more romantic than sexual per se, but certainly very belligerent at times.
• Preacher:
  • Subverted a man deliberately tries to be the male half of this pair, and instead ends up eaten by an alligator.
  • Played straight with Tulip and Jesse, as Jesse is overprotective of her and goes behind Tulip's back to keep her out of harm's way, much to Tulip's frustration.
• Superboy: Between the New 52 versions of Superboy and Rose Wilson. The fight between Superboy and Wonder Girl in Teen Titans is even more blatant. All the two talk about is how cute they find each other while trying to smear their faces into the sidewalk.
• Tomb Raider: In the comics, Chase Carver and Lara have this relationship, though Lara usually gets the best of their verbal sparring.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Towards the end of the comic, it's revealed that Ratchet and Drift's perpetual Snark-to-Snark Combat was a same-sex version of this. They eventually get robot married.
  • Anode and Lug are also prone to being sarcastic and abrasive to each other. They're so close that Anode went to considerable lengths to bring Lug back from the dead. They, too, are robot married, at least according to the recap pages.
    Lug, Lost Light issue 1: I hate you. As in, I actively hate you. I am in hate with you.
    Lug/Anode, Lost Light issue 24: (to each other) [The Big Damn Kiss] I love you so much it's not even funny.
• The Umbrella Academy: The emotionally abused "siblings" Diego and Vanya had a bad breakup a while back, which exacerbated their many, many other issues. The breakup itself was not because they didn't want to be together, but because Vanya's inferiority complex wouldn't allow her to be with someone special, which is why they still hate being around each other years after the event.
• X-Men:
  • In Joe Kelly's run on X-Men (1991), Marrow was attacted to Cannonball, and expressed this by repeatedly threatening his life.
  • Sabretooth & Monet had this in Uncanny X-Men (2016). The first chapter shows them snarking at each other and Psylocke is surprised they're still bickering, before pointing out that they may be flirting. Despite the back & forth, they appeared attracted to one another. Sabretooth is very protective of Monet and always watching out for her, despite her sneering at him for it. Monet in turn has shown to give some non-platonic glaces to Creed now and again, in addition to openly saying she'll watch him while he lifts heavy stuff from the Blackbird. Though she's right back to snubbing him later.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron: Nrin Vakil and Ibtisam are fairly mild as this trope goes. They argue and gesticulate over topics, having various polar opposite views, but they serve professionally on the same squadron. Another member sees them arguing and muses that they'll either kill each other or get married—and after agreeing on something at last, they hook up.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin and Susie, to an extent. With Susie being more stable, Calvin plays much of the role of the avoidant—attracted Tsundere as well as all of the Jerk with a Heart of Gold one, leaving her mostly to react just as any reasonable person would. In one early comic, Calvin makes a hate valentine and dumpster dives for some dead flowers. Susie reacts as can be expected by pelting him with a snowball. As she's walking away and he's recovering, their thought bubbles reveal:
  Susie: Flowers and a valentine! He likes me!!
  Calvin: She noticed! She likes me!
• Garfield: The title cat and Arlene. Yeah, he's an egotistical jerk, but she's able to strike back at him. They're still considered an Official Couple as far as merchandise is concerned.
• Peter invoked this trope in an early FoxTrot comic strip, where he tells Paige that he thinks her friend Linda Downer likes him because of the way she talks to him.
  Paige: She called you a festering snot-ball!
  Peter: But it was the WAY she said it.

Radio

• Invoked by Linda Smith in a 2006 episode of The News Quiz, during a discussion of French and British cultural posturing about the EU:
  Francis Wheen: Chirac said he wouldn't have a joint press conference with Blair, because he doesn't like him, and Blair said "That's all right, I'll have one of my own, so I can say what I like about you..."
  Linda: But do you think that one day, those two crazy kids will stop arguing long enough to realise they're in love?

Tabletop Games

• The patriotic head of the Tau Fire Caste Commander Shadowsun and the dashing renegade and resident Char Clone Commander Farsight of Warhammer 40,000 are sometimes depicted as a particularly violent version of this. Amusingly, as of 6th Edition they actually complement each other extremely well on the tabletop. Inquisitor Adrastia and Kap'n Bluddflagg from Dawn of War II: Retribution also have hints of this, which is particularly impressive in light of the fact that one is a xenophobic religious fanatic trained from birth to hate and kill aliens and the other is an asexual alien fungus that reproduces from spores. They fight demons.
• Shadowrun: Mika and Ma'Fan, rival physical adepts and professional thieves who disagree on more or less everything. Mika's a technophile, Ma'Fan is Walking Techbane. Mika has a very secular view of magic, Ma'Fan has a very spiritual view of it. They consider each other Worthy Opponents, but there is definitely an underline thread of tension between them to the point that Fastjack eventually tells them to just fuck and get it over with because he's tired of their bickering.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse: Ra and Fanatic clash both personally (Ra is a huge egomaniac, Fanatic is the most intense person in the universe) and theologically (Ra is tied to an Egyptian god, Fanatic is kinda-sorta an angel and an extremely devout Christian), but they also have a simmering attraction that Word of God summarises as 'Oh, we hate each other, let's go touch...butts...or something'. When Ra dies, Fanatic is really broken up about it.

Theatre

• Older Than Steam: The classical Western theater example is Beatrice and Benedick from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Don't pretend you didn't see that coming.
• Some productions of The Taming of the Shrew play Katherine and Petruchio this way.
• Some productions of Henry IV, Part 1 play Hotspur and his wife this way. The arguing is all there, and it's up to the actors involved to sexy it up. The 2012 BBC production has the two of them very hands-on.
• The musical Anne & Gilbert, inspired by Anne of Green Gables makes the title pair into this.
• Amanda and Elyot in Private Lives absolutely exemplify it. They were married, but fight both physically and verbally to the point of having divorced, but as they find when they actually meet again after remarrying different people, they are perfect for each other.
• Sarah and Sky in Guys and Dolls.
• Marion and "Harold" in The Music Man. For obvious reasons—she is a responsible librarian, the Only Sane Man (woman) in her town, and he's a con man, and Harold is probably not even his real name.
• Both Glinda/Fiyero and Elphaba/Fiyero in Wicked have elements of this, even though Fiyero is only a very light Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Even stronger with Elphaba and Glinda. The song "What is This Feeling" is this trope.
• Betty/Rizzo and Kenickie from Grease (both musical and film), doubling as the Beta Couple to Sandy and Danny.
• Fred and Lilli in Kiss Me, Kate. They're also playing Katharine and Petruchio in a musical The Taming of the Shrew.
• Amalia and Georg in She Loves Me—at least in person. Ilona also gets snippy with Steven (Kodaly).
• In the musical Louisiana Purchase, Jim and Marina have a duet listing everything they hate about each other, titled "Outside Of That I Love You."
• In Dream Girl, Georgina Allerton is an aspiring young novelist with an overactive imagination, and Clark Redfield is a cynical literary critic with a caustic streak. When she first meets him, she wants to kill him, and does so in a Dream Sequence. She can't put him out of her dreams so easily, of course. He convinces her to go on a dinner date when her impression of him is still that of "a boorish, conceited newspaperman" who must be "planning to spend the evening making me feel uncomfortable." The last Dream Sequence in the play has her trying to elope with him.
• Marcello and Musetta in La Bohème are probably the most famous operatic example of this trope.
• In Newsies, it's quite telling that Jack and Katherine's first kiss comes in the middle of a shouting match.
• Like their animated counterparts, Anastasia's Anya and Dmitry cannot seem to be in the same room as each other without arguing, but they also are clearly attracted to each other, particularly when Dmitry shows her St. Petersburg and when they dance in the "Learn To Do It" sequence.
  Anya: I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to pay me a compliment.
• The 1958 musical Whoop-Up has a song called "Quarrel-tet," where the two main characters display this trope while two other characters discuss it.
  Man #1: They fight all night with each other
  So how right can they be?
  Man #2: You're wrong, they're right for each other!
  They just disagree!
• Shucked:
  • Between Maizy and Beau. Each of them feel like the other doesn't trust them, they're both stubborn and willful, neither of them knows how to back down, and they've wanted to be together all along.
    Maizy: We're not "arguing", I'm right and you're just sayin' things
  • Between Lulu and Gordy. She hates that he's a Con Man who is conning her best friend, but she's also very attracted to him. He knows she's on to him but thinks he can use her to get closer to Maizy and (hopefully) clear out the blue rocks.
    Lulu: I bet you can whisk an egg with that tongue.
    Gordy: No, but I can definitely fertilize one.
    Lulu: (aroused) I like the way I don't like the way you talk to me.

Visual Novels

• Klavier Gavin seems to be coming on to Ema Skye in Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice during the very few times they actually talk to each other—though it mostly annoys her. She constantly—and not always behind his back—calls him a "Glimmerous Fop".
• The "Unlimited Blade Works" route of Fate/stay night includes a refreshingly mild example of this. Shirou is socially awkward and something of a Deadpan Snarker and Rin is a grade-A tsundere. It never degrades into actual violence, and very rarely more than grousing (this applies to both individuals for differing reasons, and both resort to grousing more to hide their embarrassment than anything). Also refreshing is that this does not define their relationship; it only tends to occur when either party gets flustered due to praise, teasing or (in Rin's case) having the subject of their feelings brought up. Outside of these events, they're able to maintain an effective partnership that is more affected by the difference in their methods and worldview than their attraction.
• Battler and Beatrice in Umineko: When They Cry, as part of their ongoing Mind Game Ship. Battler's hostility is entirely justified, as Beatrice claims to have killed him and his entire family, and she'll do it as often as it takes to make him believe her.
• Any given Voltage, Inc. Romance Game is all but guaranteed to have at least one route based heavily in this kind of relationship dynamic, if not more than one. By far most cases are thanks to the guy in question being an arrogant alpha male who either has difficulty expressing affection or just plain enjoys picking on the protagonist to get a rise out of her. Or both.
  • Pirates in Love: Russell and Eduardo.
  • My Forged Wedding: Yamato, although in his case it's more on a level of mutually playful banter.
  • Be My Princess: Keith.
  • Seduced in the Sleepless City: Ryoichi.
  • Love Letter from Thief X: Takuto and Riki.
  • Office Secrets: Toranosuke.
  • 10 Days with My Devil: Kakeru and Satoru.
  • Our Two Bedroom Story: Minato.
• Brandon and Vera in Vera Blanc. But as they are both Deadpan Snarkers what can you expect.
• Yuuji and Yumiko go through most of a sex scene in The Eden of Grisaia doing nothing but teasing (Yuuji) or snapping (Yumiko) throughout the entire thing.
• This will take place you-as-the-Player Character go for the paths of either Mayumi Kamijou or Mikae Morikawa in True Love Junai Monogatari, since both girls are Tsunderes: Mayumi is a Type A (cold to the PC, becomes warmer with time), Mikae is a Type B (sweet to others but snappy to the PC).
• Gavin and Tyrna is Sword Daughter spend a lot of their time together butting heads. As a half-elf, Gavin struggles to maintain the legendary elven calm and control over his emotions, so the more attracted he grows toward Tyrna, the more belligerent he becomes.
• Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem:
  • Romance with Prince Zarad takes this form, since Zarad is The Casanova who's used to women falling for his charm. Most of the belligerence is supplied by the player character as she stubbornly refuses to be charmed, and involves a lot of cheerful antagonism and friendly insults.
  • Prince Jarrod is a Royal Brat who's used to cowing people either with his status or with sheer overwhelming aggression. The player character has to have the courage to stand up to him to even have a chance of forming a relationship, leading to plenty of belligerence on both sides.
• Arguably in all three routes of Halloween Otome, but especially in Mr. Bandages'.
• In Steins;Gate, this is the kind of relationship between Okabe and Kurisu.
• Amnesia: Memories actually deconstructs this in Kent's route. He has an aggressively logical and rational outlook on life and the heroine cannot get herself to be fully open about her feelings for him, so they never managed to have a conversation that didn't deteriorate into an argument. When the heroine loses her memories, she also loses her inhibition to be more open towards him, and this is when the two of them actually manage to properly communicate with each other and come to mutual understandings.

Web Original

• Legion of Extraordinary Dancers delivers a fun example, as always. In this case, the two characters (Ninjato and Katana express this through DANCE. However, Ninjato is captured and held at an enemy headquarter, and made to dance (it's more tasteful than it sounds—they used to be close friends, and Ninjato likes to dance). Katana sneaks in mid dance and they subsequently convey the epitome of this through dance. The bad guys are so in awe of their performance that they don't even get up out of their seats until Katana spirits away Ninjato.
• Chelsea and Tucker from Anon had a ton of this throughout Season 1, eventually they become a proper couple in Season 2. After their break-up in Season 3, the sexual tension starts up all over again and it becomes almost a cycle until they finally reunite for good and marry in Season 5.
  • Dani and Hunter before and even after their marriage. Their clashing personalities cause a lot of fights, but no matter how many times they leave each other they always find their way back.
• Simon and Jeremy from Shadow of the Templar. They have sex often, but are extremely poor at admitting how important the other is to him, with Simon vigorously denying that Jeremy could even be his friend. Jeremy's love of treating Simon like an amusing playmate and infuriating him with his cool and unruffled demeanor doesn't help, though he does seem to be more conscious about his own feelings and makes the occasional barb about Simon's capacity for denial.
• Although ship-sunk with an embarrassing date, the Nostalgia Chick/Nostalgia Critic ship caught new fire with her The Transformers: The Movie-Bratz-reviews arc and Kickassia and thereafter alternates between this at best and The Masochism Tango at worst.
• In Echo Chamber's Unresolved Sexual Tension episode, Dana's "I hate you" directed at Tom marks a moment of belligerent tension (if any), but The Stinger leaves things a bit more unresolved.
• Lizzie and Darcy, naturally, in the The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Especially after Darcy declared his love for her and she is absolutely flabbergasted.
• Ultra Fast Pony: According to Spike and the Gala song choir, Twilight and Princess Celestia both have crushes on each other. Yet Twilight seems to resent Celestia, and Celestia hides her romantic gestures behind acts of petty antagonism. For example, when Twilight shows up late to the Grand Galloping Gala, Celestia declares that Twi must spend the whole night at her side, as "punishment".
• SF Debris: Parody Janeway develops a brief crush on Picard during "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" when he compares her voice to Chewbacca having sex with a set of bagpipes. Janeway also supposedly has this reaction to herself in "Deadlock".
• Played for Laughs between some members of SMPLive:
  • Cooper goes out of his way to torment Joko at any given opportunity, including via flirting.
    Cooper: Joko, where are you?
    Joko: Your mom's house, fucking her!
    Cooper: Listen! That's also my house! I want you to come to my house and fuck me, Joko!
    Joko: Nooo!!
  • Schlatt has shades with both Wilbur and AntVenom, saying about the former "I'm gonna beat the shit out of him, and then I'm gonna kiss him", and having a rivalry with the latter mixed with a Celeb Crush.

Other

• In Sweden, there's a common method to referring this trope through the taunting phrase "Love always begins with fights" in order to prevent two children (often between a boy and a girl) from fighting to implement that they actually love each other, which would lead them to immediately stop. However, it could lead to Unfortunate Implications that love in relationships is always abusive or starts out abusive— although most children are smart enough to know that this is obviously false— and are only afraid that the others may find that statement true. Children will point out the obvious (that love does not end well when it begins with fights) when the statement fails to convince the children to stop fighting.

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