Of Rivalship and RivalSlash
Jun. 30th, 2005 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotThe thing is, I love the rivalry relationship in fiction. But for the most part I don't go for slashing rivals. And I'm trying to figure out why.
I have a long-standing affection for rivalship. For the most part I'm not talking about the villain/hero dynamic (though that's closely related, and also fascinates me) but rivals. "Best enemies," who might have started out as actual foes, even trying to kill one another, but somewhere along the way they've become neutral, or allies, sometimes even two members of a team. But they don't get along, due to fundamental differences (or similarities) of personality, or philosophy, or sometimes just because one or both of them is an ass. And they're constantly trying to prove themselves over the other, always snarking, always, competing, always driving one another to new levels.
They're especially common in fight shounen, fighting face to face as much as back to back, and their chosen expression of affection is "Don't die and deny me the chance of killing you first!" To varying degrees, this is Goku and Vegeta. Ranma and Ryouga. Kenshin and Saitou. Sanzo and Gojyo. Ban and Shido. Yuusuke and Kuwabara. Zoro and Sanji. My latest crush, Yugi and Kaiba. They're countless, and I don't get tired of them.
All these pairs have two things in common: they're one of my favorite relationships of the series in question, often my absolute favorite relationship; for many of them one of the chars (most often the rival) is my favorite character of the series.
And, while slash exists for pretty much all of them, I don't have that much interest in reading or writing it for any of them.
It's a conundrum that's puzzled me for a while, ever since I figured out that yeah, I like slash. It would be pretty damn hot in a lot of these cases. And I can certainly see where it comes from: these chars all have chemistry. They're incredibly deeply bonded--some of them I even call soulmates, not in the romantic sense, but in that they're virtually tied together by fate, absolutely unable to ignore the existence one another, no matter how much it stings. They exist to play off each other.
If you convert that heated intensity to sexual passion, there's pretty much three ways it can go. The first is an unconsummated relationship. Either the attraction is one-sided, an unrequited love--but that's depressing, while not being the kind of high tragedy fangirls like me like to write or read; or it's all UST, which gets frustrating after a while. Sooner or later one craves resolution.
So the two rivals end up engaging in casual, meaningless, extremely sexy sex. Often repeatedly. But a few problems arise with this. For whatever reasons, in many such rivalships, one or both of the two are canonically involved with someone else (often romantically, though it can be an intense friendship or sibling love). While not universally true, I tend to be a canon whore, and don't care to see canon couples broken up, even for the sake of hot boysex, especially when it would be OOC for someone to abandon a loved one for the hated rival. Especially when those couples are OTPs, which a lot of them are for me. More on that later.
Even if both of the rivals are unattached, however, it's hard to maintain casual sex for very long. It's fine for a PWP, but in longer stories, only certain characters have the sort of mindset and life situation that could make a pair believably be fucking, while not having it affect their interactions outside of the sack. If it doesn't turn to something more, it's liable to start breeding resentment, changing the relationship dynamic. One of my favorite aspects of rivalries is the certain definite respect between the rivals; they may despise each other, but they acknowledge one another as equals (or close to); the competition doesn't have the same bite if they're not closely matched. Casual sex, using one another, can too easily damage that mutual respect. There's also the issue of the seme-uke dichotomy, difficult to avoid in animanga fic, in which a relationship requires a dominant and a submissive partner; if those roles are fixed in a story, they introduce an innate power imbalance.
Moreover, in its way, sex without romance, without caring, is even more frustrating than UST. It's almost getting there, but not quite. Because what much rivalslash is driving to in the end is the admission of mutual love between the rivals. Not necessarily verbally; that's pretty much impossible with some of the characters. But in deeds if not in words, the rivals manage to put aside their differences and become lovers.
Except--this undermines the whole rivalry. They might still snap at each other, might still fight and compete, but what's important is the way they truly feel. The intensity of their clashing is supplanted by the intensity of their devotion, and their aggression becomes a sham, a game, just a cover. The snarking still is funny, the peculiar ways of showing grudging affection still is cute. But the edge, the fire is gone. Any doubts about whether they really care, how important they are to one another, are erased.
Now, wait just a minute. I've thrown Gojyo into a freezing river just to make Sanzo take care of his hypothermic ass. I write fifty thousand words just to get Zoro to say "I hate you" to Sanji and have it unequivocally mean "I love you." Obviously I like admissions of caring between rivals as much as the next fangirl! So why the anti-slash, even when it's not interfering with my chosen OTPs?
The difference is the nature of the connection. Friends of a certain type can still be rivals, still compete all-out. Romantic lovers should be more supportive of one another, depend on each other in different ways. This is why in so many rival pairings, the rivals do have close relationships with other people--they need others they can rely on, absolutely and unconditionally, without the stress of the rivalry. I love that kind of relationship, too, the total, trusting partnership, such as Ban and Ginji have. But it's a completely different dynamic from rivalship. I enjoy both, and don't especially want to see one transmuted in the other. Especially when I can often have both.
Which leads back to my OTPs. In certain cases I'll be fond of one pairing partly because it allows for exploration of another relationship, without the need to make the latter romantic, since the romance is already present. In Dragonball Z, I loved reading Buma/Vegeta - but while I found them a fun pairing, even more I liked Vegeta and Goku's incredibly intense connection. And it was a rare B/V story that didn't have at least a bit of that, because it's pretty much impossible to write an IC Vegeta without mentioning Goku sooner or later. Vegeta defines himself by how he measures up to Kakarrot.
--Incidentally, you'll note that while my OTPs will vary between het and slash, not a single rivalship I've referenced is male-female. This could be because men and women compete in fundamentally different ways, and therefore don't have that nearly perfectly matched, competitive championship drive that is essential to rivalry. It could also be that in the great general tradition of romance trumps all, it's pretty much impossible to find a male-female love-hate relationship that doesn't canonically become love-love eventually.
There are varying degrees to rivalry, obviously. It tends to be that the less intense the conflict, the easier I am about slashing it. I've developed a taste for Zoro and Sanji, partly because while they have rivalry tendencies, they're not so dependent on it as most (they aren't really evenly matched competitors; Zoro lives for the fight, and Sanji doesn't) and what they have is pretty clearly friendship anyway, albeit of an abusive and argumentative sort. ZoSan also is one of the few pairings that I could see as completely casual sex without it messing up their dynamic, just mutual pleasure between comrades, and that's how I like to write and read it. The moment it crosses the line into a love story, I lose interest.
What it comes down to, in the end, is that while I love the dependency of rivalship, and enjoy seeing the relationship acknowledged, I don't really want more than is already there. The complex relationship that draws me to rivals is that idea of needing someone else, not because you want their body or enjoy their presence, but because that other, striving against you, challenging you, defines who you are. In the end, I don't want rivals to admit, "You're important to me in spite of our differences," but, "You're important because of them, because our rivalry makes me who I am." Which I find as involving and affecting a bond as any true love affair.
I have a long-standing affection for rivalship. For the most part I'm not talking about the villain/hero dynamic (though that's closely related, and also fascinates me) but rivals. "Best enemies," who might have started out as actual foes, even trying to kill one another, but somewhere along the way they've become neutral, or allies, sometimes even two members of a team. But they don't get along, due to fundamental differences (or similarities) of personality, or philosophy, or sometimes just because one or both of them is an ass. And they're constantly trying to prove themselves over the other, always snarking, always, competing, always driving one another to new levels.
They're especially common in fight shounen, fighting face to face as much as back to back, and their chosen expression of affection is "Don't die and deny me the chance of killing you first!" To varying degrees, this is Goku and Vegeta. Ranma and Ryouga. Kenshin and Saitou. Sanzo and Gojyo. Ban and Shido. Yuusuke and Kuwabara. Zoro and Sanji. My latest crush, Yugi and Kaiba. They're countless, and I don't get tired of them.
All these pairs have two things in common: they're one of my favorite relationships of the series in question, often my absolute favorite relationship; for many of them one of the chars (most often the rival) is my favorite character of the series.
And, while slash exists for pretty much all of them, I don't have that much interest in reading or writing it for any of them.
It's a conundrum that's puzzled me for a while, ever since I figured out that yeah, I like slash. It would be pretty damn hot in a lot of these cases. And I can certainly see where it comes from: these chars all have chemistry. They're incredibly deeply bonded--some of them I even call soulmates, not in the romantic sense, but in that they're virtually tied together by fate, absolutely unable to ignore the existence one another, no matter how much it stings. They exist to play off each other.
If you convert that heated intensity to sexual passion, there's pretty much three ways it can go. The first is an unconsummated relationship. Either the attraction is one-sided, an unrequited love--but that's depressing, while not being the kind of high tragedy fangirls like me like to write or read; or it's all UST, which gets frustrating after a while. Sooner or later one craves resolution.
So the two rivals end up engaging in casual, meaningless, extremely sexy sex. Often repeatedly. But a few problems arise with this. For whatever reasons, in many such rivalships, one or both of the two are canonically involved with someone else (often romantically, though it can be an intense friendship or sibling love). While not universally true, I tend to be a canon whore, and don't care to see canon couples broken up, even for the sake of hot boysex, especially when it would be OOC for someone to abandon a loved one for the hated rival. Especially when those couples are OTPs, which a lot of them are for me. More on that later.
Even if both of the rivals are unattached, however, it's hard to maintain casual sex for very long. It's fine for a PWP, but in longer stories, only certain characters have the sort of mindset and life situation that could make a pair believably be fucking, while not having it affect their interactions outside of the sack. If it doesn't turn to something more, it's liable to start breeding resentment, changing the relationship dynamic. One of my favorite aspects of rivalries is the certain definite respect between the rivals; they may despise each other, but they acknowledge one another as equals (or close to); the competition doesn't have the same bite if they're not closely matched. Casual sex, using one another, can too easily damage that mutual respect. There's also the issue of the seme-uke dichotomy, difficult to avoid in animanga fic, in which a relationship requires a dominant and a submissive partner; if those roles are fixed in a story, they introduce an innate power imbalance.
Moreover, in its way, sex without romance, without caring, is even more frustrating than UST. It's almost getting there, but not quite. Because what much rivalslash is driving to in the end is the admission of mutual love between the rivals. Not necessarily verbally; that's pretty much impossible with some of the characters. But in deeds if not in words, the rivals manage to put aside their differences and become lovers.
Except--this undermines the whole rivalry. They might still snap at each other, might still fight and compete, but what's important is the way they truly feel. The intensity of their clashing is supplanted by the intensity of their devotion, and their aggression becomes a sham, a game, just a cover. The snarking still is funny, the peculiar ways of showing grudging affection still is cute. But the edge, the fire is gone. Any doubts about whether they really care, how important they are to one another, are erased.
Now, wait just a minute. I've thrown Gojyo into a freezing river just to make Sanzo take care of his hypothermic ass. I write fifty thousand words just to get Zoro to say "I hate you" to Sanji and have it unequivocally mean "I love you." Obviously I like admissions of caring between rivals as much as the next fangirl! So why the anti-slash, even when it's not interfering with my chosen OTPs?
The difference is the nature of the connection. Friends of a certain type can still be rivals, still compete all-out. Romantic lovers should be more supportive of one another, depend on each other in different ways. This is why in so many rival pairings, the rivals do have close relationships with other people--they need others they can rely on, absolutely and unconditionally, without the stress of the rivalry. I love that kind of relationship, too, the total, trusting partnership, such as Ban and Ginji have. But it's a completely different dynamic from rivalship. I enjoy both, and don't especially want to see one transmuted in the other. Especially when I can often have both.
Which leads back to my OTPs. In certain cases I'll be fond of one pairing partly because it allows for exploration of another relationship, without the need to make the latter romantic, since the romance is already present. In Dragonball Z, I loved reading Buma/Vegeta - but while I found them a fun pairing, even more I liked Vegeta and Goku's incredibly intense connection. And it was a rare B/V story that didn't have at least a bit of that, because it's pretty much impossible to write an IC Vegeta without mentioning Goku sooner or later. Vegeta defines himself by how he measures up to Kakarrot.
--Incidentally, you'll note that while my OTPs will vary between het and slash, not a single rivalship I've referenced is male-female. This could be because men and women compete in fundamentally different ways, and therefore don't have that nearly perfectly matched, competitive championship drive that is essential to rivalry. It could also be that in the great general tradition of romance trumps all, it's pretty much impossible to find a male-female love-hate relationship that doesn't canonically become love-love eventually.
There are varying degrees to rivalry, obviously. It tends to be that the less intense the conflict, the easier I am about slashing it. I've developed a taste for Zoro and Sanji, partly because while they have rivalry tendencies, they're not so dependent on it as most (they aren't really evenly matched competitors; Zoro lives for the fight, and Sanji doesn't) and what they have is pretty clearly friendship anyway, albeit of an abusive and argumentative sort. ZoSan also is one of the few pairings that I could see as completely casual sex without it messing up their dynamic, just mutual pleasure between comrades, and that's how I like to write and read it. The moment it crosses the line into a love story, I lose interest.
What it comes down to, in the end, is that while I love the dependency of rivalship, and enjoy seeing the relationship acknowledged, I don't really want more than is already there. The complex relationship that draws me to rivals is that idea of needing someone else, not because you want their body or enjoy their presence, but because that other, striving against you, challenging you, defines who you are. In the end, I don't want rivals to admit, "You're important to me in spite of our differences," but, "You're important because of them, because our rivalry makes me who I am." Which I find as involving and affecting a bond as any true love affair.
Nenya (not logged in)
Date: 2005-08-23 12:33 pm (UTC)Thank you! It's funny -- I try to write what I think of as false canon -- that is I want to confuse people as to what actually happened and what is my own invention. An odd ambition (possibly). At the risk of sounding like a mutual admiration society, I thought Closing Day was one of the best Mokubas I'd ever read -- I've been recommending it like mad. I'm also really into the time travel story, although my sympathies go out to anyone else misguided enough to take on the idea of time travel and all the complications. (That's a joke -- I'm impressed at how well you wove all the necessary explanations in, and love the image of Kaiba standing in the street laughing when he realizes he's succeeded.)
Anyway, on vacation with possibly limited Internet access, looking forward to reading more...
Re: Nenya (not logged in)
Date: 2005-08-25 08:51 pm (UTC)You do a very good job of intertwining the canons, and with your own additions. Kaiba as motorcycle freak, and artistic inventor; the reason he always wears long sleeves - I have to remind myself that's 'your' Kaiba, not actually the 'real' one ^^
And gah, yes, time travel can give one quite a headache ^^; which is why I kept "Scenario" reasonably short. Except my sis and I got to plotting again, and came up with an even more complicated idea, involving an entire AU universe intersecting with the regular one. I happened to mention to her that I wanted Yugi-tachi to have the opportunity to understand why Kaiba is the way he is - one thing that annoys me about the anime's Noa arc is that they witness some of what screwed Kaiba up so badly, but it doesn't seem to give them any sympathy for him, which I just don't buy. So I was wondering what would happen if they got to meet a Seto without Gozaburo's influence, from a universe where his real father never died...except then we started postulating more about said universe, and what would have happened if Kaiba Gozaburo had gotten a different heir. One thing about Kaiba that I don't see mentioned much is that from what little evidence we get of the past, Seto wasn't just an okay kid - he was an exceptionally bright and altruistic child (a 10 year old, dealing with his own hardships by vowing to make other children happy?) If Gozaburo's 'training' was enough to twist that Seto into the borderline psychopathic Kaiba we know and love, what might it have done to a boy who had much darkness in his heart already - and what might that mean for the rest of the world...