But I did think the "O'Toole" name choice was a pun too far...

Nora Roberts is uneven in the quality of her writing, but there are some books of hers I really enjoy. I like the Donovan series, but I think one of my favorite books of hers is Tears of the Moon, the story of the long-friendship-turned-romance of "the dreamy, musical Shawn Gallagher and the pragmatic, no-nonsense handywoman Brenna O'Toole." If I thought at all about why I liked this book, I had a vague notion that I was enjoying the reverse of gender norms in having a strong female handywoman. I've been feeling the mysterious urge to reread it for awhile now, and I finally did last night. This morning I realized that the reason I like this book is because Shawn is basically Tsuyoshi, and Brenna is basically Koichi. And this is how they fall in love.

I've been thinking recently about what all my favorite slash pairings have in common, and it turns out Shawn and Brenna share these qualities, as well. My thoughts owe a lot to Joan's hairy vs. smooth distinction. Some of my pairings, for reference (in smooth/hairy order): Heero/Duo, (Yamato/Taichi, Ken/Daisuke), Fraser/Kowalski, Brett/Danny, Hutch/Starsky, Koichi/Tsuyoshi. It seems that the hairy one is more social-friendly, more outwardly focused, and the smooth one is focused more internally, and then with a laser beam of focus toward the romantic partner. For some of these pairings, the characterization that gives the hairy and smooth ones those traits is a little more fanon than canon, but those are the characterizations I think of when I think of the pairing as one I enjoy. I don't want to go on listing a huge catalog of supporting examples, because that would be tedious, but it's just something to think about.

( I've been thinking about this in regard to Kinki for a little while )