o.O tezuka/ryoma moments

[cimorene]

hahahah, what was all that

at the end, i don't think inui really expects tezuka to respond (beyond 'un' or 'aa', which is what tezuka usually says) when he says he wonders if ryoma is ready for his match, but apparently he's spoken directly to tezuka. because tezuka says it's hard to say--ryoma said he wanted to create his own mood. (this possibly doesn't sound amusingly suggestive in japanese, though. or maybe it does!)

then ryoma is practising alone. unfortunately, sakuno appears and acts stupidly and bizarrely hesitant and mumbles "ryoma-kun..." (STAB) and takes so long to finish her sentence (about the golden pair having lost) that i was gritting my teeth and making go on! movements at the monitor. but anyway, ryoma spaces out completely about her presence when something she says happens to remind him of something tezuka said to them during their fateful first match on the clay courts.

we go to the golden-tinted land of flashback (not to be confused with the golden light of passionate, pure-of-heart tennis moves... or is it?) to be shown what an impression the match made on ryoma, and also that more conversation took place during it than we were shown in 25-26. tezuka tells ryoma that there are a lot of strong players at the nationals.

ryoma says, "better than you?" which could be a serious queston or could be more of his flirting cheek, but it's hard to tell because of his panting.

then we see the kneeling pose again, ryoma looking up at tezuka and tezuka saying, "why don't you find out for yourself?" and then we see tezuka smiling. slightly. eta: i meant to say here, but forgot, something along the lines of TEZUKA. SMILING. TEZUKA SMILING. i mean. what. aöslkdjfasölkdf. the fact that it's a tiny quirk of the mouth is even better. he knows ryoma can't resist that challenge. and he loves ryoma's determination and his confused wide-eyed submissive sweaty panting kneeling pose./eta

then we pull out of the flashback to ryoma's [extra-]wide eyes. he hits an extremely powerful shot, slams it straight down to the ground on the return and catches it in his hand when it bounces back up. the tennis ball has tezuka's face on it, and tezuka is saying, "if that's the case, echizen, then you should become seigaku's pillar of support."

then ryoma looks up (obviously to meet the eyes of the imaginary buchou he is having this conversation with) and a monochromatic parade of all the strong players from other schools sort of flashes by like a slideshow. "bring it on, all you guys!" ryoma grins to himself, while the sunlight slants picturesquely over the side of his cap.

Comments

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

i really hope this is the start of many more tezuryo gleefests meta posts from you. i'm grinning incessantly here.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i will try to make it be. the world can always use more meta tezuryo glee, after all. but sometimes i suck at putting the squee into complete sentences and pressing 'post'.

but i just had to because. *.* tezuka. SMILING. ryoma obsessing right back. aöslkdfjasödljfasökldfj. is this REALLY going to just keep getting more and more blatant and symbolic and suggestive and continue to be the greatest thing ever?

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

is this REALLY going to just keep getting more and more blatant and symbolic and suggestive and continue to be the greatest thing ever?

Yes.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

hahah. i guess i shouldn't have phrased that as a question. i'm still in a state of continuous fannish glee/shock about it though.

ahhhhhhhhh even your icon makes me squee. GOD. THEY'RE SO PERFECT.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

I am sort of in a similar state of shock that you are this infatuated with them this early on, because I have visions of you, just, progressively devolving into an ever more euphoric, mad state of apopleptic glee.

I have been up all night but suddenly feel the deep urge to make more canon tezuryo icons.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i stayed up until 9 am. CRAZY. simultaneously reading (trying to find more good shinji/kamio :/), writing the golden pair ficlet, and watching 33-39. i only napped for 3 hours. but fannish glee is such a nice way to make yourself sick!

am i unusually infatuated unusually early? i guess i am, but this canon is really great. and i do tend to get quite wrapped up in my fannish obsessions, although not usually to quite this level of incoherency.

i need tezuryo icons. but i always want to make my own icons and i never have enough time to do it.

just now i saw achiasa's posts of the manga scans and... o.0 so pretty! why don't i see more icons of the manga! i guess because it's black and white. but still.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

sdjfl yeah, I'm back awake after almost exactly 3 hours of sleep, and here i am again. :))

I don't think it's that you're unusually infatuated early, but, hmm. I think it's like this: if you come into the show blind without knowing about Tezuka/Ryoma as a ship in advance, it takes you until at least ep 25-26 to start seeing it kick in. If you come into it already aware of Tezuka/Ryoma then it just hits you over the head at every single turn. You're definitely not the first person to be this compelled by the subtext early on, but it feels a bit different with you, somehow, I think because you're watching it in a mostly isolated context, and there isn't this sense that you've been herded into the ship by the HP fandom prodding you along. achiasa's experience with tenipuri is a lot like yours too, actually - she got into the fic first and then watched the show basically on her own, already knowing about tezuka/ryoma - and she's the most adamant shipper I know. Which speaks only good things for what's to come, because I'm not kidding when I say you're not even near the good stuff yet. :))

The manga scans being in black and white are a deterrent, i think - and the manga starts out a little roughly drawn, honestly, then gets better as it develops. The manga is basically stunning by this point. Konomi is so talented. There are the fanbooks, too, much of which is in color, and you'll see lots of icons that come from those scans.

I, for one, am always a huge proponent of black and white icons. ;)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

well, that's true, i haven't been pushed into the ship by the fandom, but i'm sure i was influenced because i got into it through your recs. so i started reading the very best tezuka/ryoma stories, and then kept going through all the other ones, and i'd already read almost all of them i could find by the time i started watching. but it's not like with, say, sga where people might ship sheppard/mckay because it's handy to be in the same sandbox as the most talented writers--because it's certainly not like it isn't there in canon. if you didn't get it in ep 25-26 regardless, i'd think there was no hope for you at all.

because I'm not kidding when I say you're not even near the good stuff yet. :))

i have to take your word for this because you keep being right about everything (asödklfasödjfasö damn you ♥), but really--i mean, it's already become good! not like it can't get better, but it's already good. i mean, i'm already incoherent, if long-winded.

asödklfö. i need an icon with both of them in it.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

they hit several of my kinks, though. i mean...:

1. i love stories about growing up. and puberty.
2. i love misanthropic characters.
3. i love mentor-protege relationships and age differences.
4. i love schoolboy fic.
5. i love hilarious deadpan characters like tezuka.
6. i love characters who kick lots of ass (usually together), although i guess many people love that.
7. i love when someone waits for someone in a love story.
8. i love longing glances and eyefucking.

there's more, i think. like the secondary characters and how they fit in and other great things about the show, but i'm more aöslkdjföaskld about this one pairing.

mmmm. i need icons of them in their black school uniforms. those uniforms have no business being so hot.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

Yeah. ♥ I love all your reasons, and I never thought about it til you spelled it out like that, but they all hit me hard, too - especially the mentor-protege relationship. That is quite possibly my favorite trope of all time - specifically when the mentor is a lifelong friend who knows you so well- knows all your weaknesses but has never stopped believing in you. My favorite movie of all time is The Philadelphia Story, which is very closely linked in spirit to Emma, which is my favorite novel of all time. Both of the primary relationship relationship dynamics in those movies are similar to Tezuka/Ryoma to me. It's a trope you can find everywhere, but I don't think you'll ever find it so strongly, anywhere else. Really, "pillars of support" is the perfect terminology for it. They are each so strong and unbending in their own way, but they support each other so completely.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i've never seen the philadelphia story and i don't know much about it, though i've heard of it. i've seen your comparison of tezuka/ryoma to emma before, i think, and i can see how you draw a parallel. tezuka and ryoma aren't really lifelong friends, although, hah, meeting at twelve and fourteen and then spending foreeeeeeeeeeeever together is pretty remarkable. but i guess i see it as quite different because of the tension and all the complications between tezuka and ryoma from the beginning. their relationship is never easy or innocent friendship.

however, ... YES to the bit about pillars (although i am still not used to blithely accepting the corniness of the whole "pillar" metaphor). that they're equals, that they have such strong characters and are so alike and so different, and the way they both recognise this from a distance and are drawn together but they stay independent. it's really just so great, them, the whole thing.

(this is one of my favourite tropes too, which can be inconvenient to read about since chan is one of my least favourites and they tend to overlap each other in the same fandoms. but it's why i love diana wynne jones's novelisation of tam lin, fire and hemlock, and why persephone & hades is my favourite myth, although that interpretation of it is mostly in my head.)