...as Tezuka is to Ryouma

[branchandroot]

Some musings on the relationship between Tezuka and Ryouma, because Lynn got me thinking.

See, one of the things I find rather obnoxious about the Pillar Pair frenzy is that way too many of those stories take it for granted that Tezuka and Ryouma are already together or, at least, in love.

And I think that's totally unrealistic.

Aside from the fact that Ryouma gives no indications whatsoever of being romatically cognizant of anyone at all, yet, his relationship to Tezuka is not inflected romantically. At all.

He's obsessed with Tezuka. Tezuka is his lifeline, his living example that there's another way to be strong than Nanjirou's. His avatar of possibility--both his own possibilities for real growth and the possibilities of meeting other strong and interesting players if he progresses in tennis.

As for Tezuka, I think Hal got it in one. Tezuka also sees Ryouma as an avatar--Tennis Incarnate. And Tezuka is suffuciently obsessed with the game itself that he will do anything it takes to let/make Ryouma advance and fulfill his potential. If there's love, it's an utterly aesthetic thing, not romantic at all.

Tezuka and Ryouma are not in love. It would be (and, in fact, was for me) extremely difficult to get them to be in love. Their absolute focus on each other is a wonderful thing to play with, but it IS NOT ROMANCE.

Comments

[prillalar]

I'll comment fully on this when I get home, but I just wanted to say:

As for Tezuka, I think Hal got it in one. Tezuka also sees Ryouma as an avatar--Tennis Incarnate.

You were the one that said that. I just absorbed it, because it was very smart. :)

[branchandroot]

I was? *blinks* Oh. Cool. ^_^;

[prillalar]

I would agree that there isn't likely to be any hearts and flowers romance between them; it doesn't fit the way they are with each other. Though I think that they could each have that with someone else, someone who could coax them into it.

But I don't know how much more likely it is for their mutual obsession to become sexual. That's how I prefer to write them, when I write them at all. (This is the oddest OTP I have ever had -- I rarely write them, I almost never read them, I just think about them all the time and occasionally regurgitate LJ essays where I complain about not being able to understand Tezuka.) But is it supportable from the canon either?

As a genre, slash requires us to interpret the canon in a way that's usually canonically unsupportable. So we overlay some assumptions to start off -- "assuming that Harry and Draco are attracted to men..." So I'm less bothered by interpretations like this than I used to be.

I guess what I'm trying to say is while I agree with you that a romantic/in love/dating type relationship between them is unlikely, I don't find it obnoxious that other people interpret them that way.

It's a bit odd to me, but people often want to romanticize/domesticate their favoured pairings, even when it's frankly bizarre. Mulder/Krycek curtain fic and all.

And you know, I wrote some romantical TezuRyo once too, just because I couldn't help myself, I wanted them to be together like that. And then I published it on ff.n under an assumed name. There was no curtain shopping, though. *g*

[branchandroot]

I don't object to the assumption until it becomes so entrenched that people forget it's an assumption and start talking/writing as if all the getting-them-together work has already been done in canon. Then I start getting annoyed and counter-reacting.

With Ryouma and Tezuka, especially, it seems like seriously short-changing the characters' existing relationship. I actually mind less when we're inscribing romance/sex onto a blank space or even simple hostility. Things are so amazingly tangled and intimate, in a weird way, between these two, the blithe leap straight into undying hearts and flowers offends my story-sensibilities.

*wry* Nothing but nothing puts my hackles up faster than people claiming that some pairing or other is "canon, omg it's so canon!". I mean, honestly. Can't these things stand on their own merits as shameless over-reading? ^_^

[prillalar]

I don't object to the assumption until it becomes so entrenched that people forget it's an assumption and start talking/writing as if all the getting-them-together work has already been done in canon.

Okay, yeah, I totally get that. :) And as well about the simplification of their relationship -- it seems to miss the point of exploring their connection in the first place. Which is so much more complex than a sports series has any right to be.

[fromastudio]

The Tezuka and Ryoma dynamic is one of those things that's fascinating to analyse (and you got it in one, and I don't have a lot anything else to add)

It doesn't interest me a lot in fic. As far as I've seen (and I tend to skim those stories rather than read them, so my position's pretty unsupported), most of the better thought-out TezuRyo stories tend to tread pretty much the same canonical ground and trot out a fairly narrow range of conclusions. And to be honest, I think that's fairly inevitable given the dynamic of those two as presented in canon. Which is not to say that innovative stuff hasn't been produced, because it has. two_if_by_sea and telegraph50freein particular. But for me fic-wise it's easier to generate material from their respective individual journeys, than from their relationship to each other.

Those 'already in love' stories seem fairly endemic to whatever pairing is overly popular in a given season? I mean, there sure are lots of those TezuFuji ones around. (although slightly less obnoxious in a canon context due to the dynamics of the characters. But still.)

[branchandroot]

Exactly. I did a short arc for them that didn't entirely satisfy me. It started with the whole idea of Ryouma having, basically, a teacher-crush on Tezuka, and how that might work out over time. But to do justice to the thing it would have to have been longer, and far more involved. Simple romance just doesn't work out very well with those two characters.

The MomoRyo arc worked /much/ better.

[maeran.livejournal.com]

Ah, so I wasn't the only one who twitched whenever someone said, "Their love is so CANON!!!"

Although I tend to do that for every pairing, no exceptions. I don't see enough canon evidences for any pairings to believe so-and-so is an established pair in TeniPuri. And I believe here is about when I shut up and slink off to sunset, yes? ^_~

[branchandroot]

*wry* Definitely not just you, babe. And there /isn't/ any canon pair in tenipuri! That's the point! That's why we're all running around slashing the boys with each other, because the text didn't! *sighs* In the words of Mr. Tulip, It just makes me so -ing despondant.

[ver2frog.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you. thank you. I skipped over from HP, and the HP-PoT people are VERY into Tezuka/Ryouma. I like canon Tezuka. I like canon-Ryouma. There's jsut so much about them. But put them together and it has all the sparks/interest of a wet towel for me. And not in a good way.

I can't believe I read GEN in this fandom.

*wanders off in facepalm*

[branchandroot]

*wry* I suspect that's a reflection of Aja's interests. And it really is wonderful that HPers are being converted to PoT. Except that I so don't want to see ship wars here like HP has, HP is insane that way... But, yeah, there's a lot of shallow pairing-fic going on as a result of the rush and it gives me heartburn.

*laughing* I can't believe I write mostly gen for this fandom, these days! I think most of my early readers, who loved me for my smut, have given up in despair. *mournful face*

It's so true, though. Most of the TezuRyo interest is the tension and potential and lack of closure. Fic that skips straight to "Reader, I married him" gets bland.

...and now I have given myself JE-PoT crossover bunnies, and I think I need to go lie down until they go away. *mildly horrified at her own brain*

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

I foolishly posted a mild objection to the TezuRyo frenzy as it exists (which, I admit, was kneejerk and not very well reasoned or stated) in achiasa's journal, and got in return a reponse from Aja that required a whole post in her own journal.

I love Tezuka, and I love Ryoma, but the pairing doesn't interest me. I haven't given much thought to why, and obviously I need to. But I do know that the insane fangirling of it by the HP-PoT authors as omgsocanon!111 is really annoying to me.

[branchandroot]

Yeah, the socanon thing always annoys me, whenever it shows up. I mean, I'm sorry if some people's kinks can't stand on their own without needing to claim that the author agrees with them, but "there's a lot of interesting tension" does /not/ equal "canonical romance". That is not what canon means. *snorts* I suppose that's what I most want to beat people over the head with: the standard definition of "canon" and "evidence".

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

I think maybe it is that some people like to read their subtext as text. *wry*

I have figured out what bothers me about TezuRyo in particular, though. The key point IS that to me they are too much the same. I identify too strongly with them both, and therefore can't see them in a romantic pairing, because in a way they are both me. My favorite pairings are always made up of a character that I see as me, and one that resembles someone I would be attracted to, for various reasons, as a real life person. This is why I like both TezuFuji and FujiRyou, but not TezuRyou even though I love all three characters.

And. I could keep rambling indefinitely about that, but I think I will go ahead and make a post of my own about it. XD

[branchandroot]

Aaaah, yes. It is one of those things where you have to wonder what on earth they'd talk about, if they did get together, because... wouldn't they think all the same things already? Wow, how boring.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused: did you mean to leave me in this filter?

[branchandroot]

The general fandom-stuff filter? Of course.