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sinkat-arts · 1 year

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Happy pride! I've had this scene in my head for a little while now, so I'm setting it free. A little Trans Daichi Daisuga for everyone;;; And also a little drabble... for context, you know.

CW: Needles, injection

Daichi watched as Koushi got prepped for their little Saturday morning routine. It was quick work by now - he’d been doing this for… how long now? He’d started helping Daichi with this task within that first month they lived together, so that was something like 5 years at this point.

Time flies when you’re having fun, Daichi thought, grinning.

“Oh, he’s smiling before coffee AND while I have a needle in my hand,” Koushi said, wearing a grin of his own as he teased. He shook the vial and held it upside down before drawing out .5mL of a hormone Daichi’s body couldn’t produce on its own. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Just… thinking about time. And you. And this,” he said, gesturing to Koushi’s little prep station. Every weekend, the same thing - three alcohol pads, opened before anything started for quick access, two different gauges of needles, a syringe, the vial, and a band-aid (also pre-opened just in case). He always arranged it just so on a makeshift metal tray that had been a lid to something in a past life, but had now, for almost 4 years, been Koushi’s makeshift nurse’s station. “Feels like only yesterday you started doing this for me… and now you’ve got it down to a science.”

Koushi’s eyes softened, likely casting his mind back into the past right along with Daichi. There was a lot of it, and while they’d had hard times… there was an overabundance of goodness. Smiles and laughs that never seemed to stop, even though by all rights, they should be sick of one another after more than a decade together.

“Had to,” he finally said, “You were so pitiful when you did it yourself… blame my overall pleasant and extremely giving nature. I’m basically a saint.”

“Sugawara Koushi, patron saint of needle shy and pathetic souls…”

Koushi scrunched his nose in distaste as he dropped to his knees beside where Daichi sat on the closed toilet in their bathroom. “Yeah, let’s keep workshopping that one.”

“Anything for you, St. Suga,” Daichi laughed as Koushi cleaned a spot on his outer thigh with one of the alcohol pads.

“That’s right,” he replied, now holding the prepped syringe in one hand, “Ready?”

“Be gentle,” Daichi said, leaning as far away from Koushi as he could, face scrunched in a grimace… though he peeked at Koushi out of one eye and one corner of his mouth was curled up in a playful grin.

“Really?”

“Hey, don’t blame me… I’m pitiful, remember? A delicate flower.”

“You’re a big baby… good thing you’re cute.”

“It’s my secret weapon… worked on you.”

Koushi rolled his eyes in what Daichi understood was mock exasperation before they both broke out in chuckles.

“It sure did,” he answered as he moved quickly to complete the injection. Only a moment’s work, but it was important. This little routine had once been Daichi’s alone - and Koushi wasn’t wrong, he’d hated doing it himself, had worked himself up and almost passed out a few times - but now it was theirs, together. Now, he could smile and laugh through it. And that meant the world to him.

The deed done, Koushi covered the site with a fresh alcohol pad as he rubbed circles in the muscle. Neither of them really knew if that helped settle or spread the liquid, but it seemed the thing to do, so it was done.

“And there we have it,” Koushi said, applying a band-aid as the finishing touch. As he did every Saturday, he kissed the tips of two fingers and pressed them over the bandage. “All set.”

“Hey,” Daichi said, looking down into the eyes of the one thing he was sure at this point he couldn’t live without, “Thank you.”

“Of course…”

“No, I mean it,” he said, tone turning serious. Sincere. “You may not be an official saint, but to me… it feels a lot like I’ve been blessed.”

Koushi’s eyes went wide for a moment before his face softened. He reached up and pressed a fist into Daichi’s chest, just a gentle, playful little punch. It was the language he fell back on when actual words failed him.

“Dummy. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Wanna make pancakes?”

“Hell yeah I do!”

And just like that, the Saturday morning ritual was complete. Breakfast was made and life went on.

And life was good.

#daisuga #sawamura daichi #daichi #sugawara koushi #suga #trans!daichi #needles #injection #sketchydoo #transgender #trans man #sure wish I had someone to do these injections for me #alas I fly solo

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secretgamergirl · 6 years

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Let’s talk about how Ranma is trans, and not as a metaphor.

Yesterday, I had a quick, joking exchange with a friend, riffing off the general premise that the protagonist of the classic manga series Ranma 1/2 is a trans girl.Today I woke up to a slew of hateful, low-effort comments (the C-word is always a weird one to throw at a trans woman), largely objecting to this premise, so, I’m going to sit down now and show my work.

I was actually going to do this either way, honestly. Reading Ranma 1/2 and indignantly shouting “in what sense is this a ‘curse!?’“ is a pretty significant touchstone for damn near every trans girl born after 1970 or so.

For those who haven’t read it, Ranma 1/2 is a manga series by Rumiko Takahashi, which ran from 1987-1996, which also spawned a hit anime series, which itself had a lot of spinoffs, a dozen or so videogames, and a recent live-action special. The original manga itself was one of the first to ever be published in the U.S., and has also seen a recent reprinting (with an effort at colorization which I can’t say looked great). The basic premise is that it’s a long-form comedy series whose title character is A- a super talented martial artist, B- dealing with the fallout of a decade and a half of Ranma’s father making promises on Ranma’s behalf (including multiple arranged marriages), and C- being one of half a dozen or so characters over the course of the series to have fallen into one of hundreds of adjacent springs which each curse whoever falls in to change back and forth between whatever drowned in them and their original form based on exposure to cold and hot water respectively (Ranma gets Hot Girl, everyone else gets some wacky animal, basically).

It’s great. You should read it. Maybe watch the anime too. Also I’m going to spoil the ever loving hell out of a point or two in writing this, but I’m mostly going to do it sequentially, and it’s not really a series about major plot twists and reveals. Except maybe the bit I’m sticking between breaks here:

Spoiler country: I’m literally planning to sit down with the whole series and go through volume by volume here, but the series very much starts in media res, and it’s important to the purpose of my thesis here to look at everything with some backstory context that doesn’t really come out until like volume 30-something.

Specifically, Ranma’s parents are horribly abusive scumbags. Both of them. You don’t have to get terribly far in for the running gag about Ranma’s father Genma being a terrible person, prone to physical abuse, subjecting his own child to intentionally traumatizing experiences, forgoing any sort of normal childhood for her (going with feminine pronouns here, try to keep up) in favor of a world-traveling regimen of martial arts training, and of course, pimping her out with arranged marriage promises to whoever he owes money or favors to.

What comes out later though is that a big motivating factor for Genma’s abusive parenting is that Ranma’s mother, Nodoka, made Genma agree to raise Ranma to be a “man among men,” to be enforced by penalty of both Genma and Ranma committing ritual suicide should he fail.

That is, unfortunately, a very relatable experience for a hell of a lot of trans girls. Personally speaking, my father adopted the philosophy very early on in my life that he would rather have a dead “son” than a living daughter, and starting when he first picked up on my obvious girliness, he also decided on pursuing a sink-or-swim course of turning me into a “manly man” by forcing me into a series of life-threatening situations to “toughen me up” and pushed me to start dating when I was something like 10 years old. My mother was a lot more low-key about it, at least I formally came out to her, but, yeah, I relate. It’s not hard to imagine very-young-Ranma doing something obviously girly to give her parents similar concerns, and her resulting preoccupation with being tough and nominally rejecting femininity as a means of playing along with her parents’ pressuring her isn’t me doing a trans reading, THAT much is directly in the text.

The rest of the backstory mostly comes out in the first few volumes. In order to man Ranma up, Genma takes her on this international training mission, engages her to both a friend, and a food vendor he can’t afford to pay. Eventually this trip takes them to the cursed springs (so they can do the whole spar while balancing on bamboo stalks thing), splash splash, he’s a panda, she’s an ideal-feminine version of herself, basically. And Ranma picks up another couple of rivals/maybe-love-interests on the way home, because Genma picks a weird time to head back to Japan and force Ranma to live with his friend and his 3 daughters and enforce an arranged marriage to one of them.

Now leaving spoiler country.

So, jumping right in from the beginning with all this in mind...

Volume 1, Chapter 1- Ranma and Genma show up at the Tendo’s with Ranma in girl mode. Not really a conscious choice here, since it’s raining that day, and Genma’s not in the mood to wait. What’s notable though is that (aside from obvious annoyance at all the the shocked poking and prodding) Ranma seems to be totally cool meeting these people in girl mode. She’s really relaxed, happy, makes quick friends with Akane, totally comfortable:

Honestly I could probably prove my whole point here just by running through the series and tallying up Ranma’s expressions, this is a pretty consistent thing.You would expect, if Ranma were actually a boy, that the idea of meeting new people while in girl mode like this would be awkward and humiliating, and feature facial expressions and body language more like the ones we see when Ranma has to explain the situation after a hot bath (during which she flat out has the thought “might as well go out like this, they’re going to find out eventually):

V1C2- One quick flashback/exposition later, Soun (Genma’s friend with the daughters), expresses his shock about the true horror. Ranma, irritated- “Whadya mean ‘true horror?’“ ... and then proceeds to actively dodge some hot water, staying in girl mode after both get splashed to demonstrate things live, and there’s a bit here where, Akane having walked in on her in the bathroom while in boy mode and both were naked (comedy manga and all), Ranma notes that it’s “no big deal for her to see a girl naked,” because she’s seen herself plenty of times, and has a quick prideful comment about her appearance in girl mode.

The rest of volume 1 is spent introducing the first of many rival/love interest characters. Nothing that really supports or hurts a trans reading unless you want to focus in on Ranma being a girl in this dream she has after getting groped by a creep, or already having spent enough off camera casual time in girl mode for Nabiki (Akane’s sister whose whole character is basically trying to turn a profit off how sexy Ranma is) to have a bunch of cute candid pictures to sell.

Most of volume 2 is spent introducing Ryoga, another rival/love interest (mainly just the former at first, but relationship webs for this series get weird quick), and a couple of other characters who feel really important but get dropped in a hurry (remember Dr. Tofu? The guy Akane starts the series off with a huge crush on? Because Takahashi forgot all about him after this). V2C9 however starts off with this:

Again, Ranma never looks this happy in boy-mode. This early on, we already see her just, voluntarily going girl mode to hang out all day, because she enjoys herself like this.

V3C10- After a volume spent on the other half of the brother-sister pair of rivals/love interests volume 1 devoted a lot of pages to (the Kunos, ultimately not real prominent characters), wherein Ranma will wear a girly leotard and compete in rhythmic-gymnastics-based combat, just won’t get caught doing so when in boy mode, Akane decides to teach her how to skate, which she insists on being in girl mode for because:

Yeah... there’s a definite pattern here. Stuff she’s too self-conscious about doing in boy mode, she’s comfortable trying when presenting as a girl, and it’s never about embarrassment, really, but not wanting to be seen as some sort of girly boy (for fear of violence). Appearing to be a girly girl is of course just fine, but only if she’s definitely going to pass. Again, very relatable. Later in the series, she doesn’t even bother trying to rationalize it like this, and pretty much just spends almost all her free time in girl mode, and gets a decidedly more feminine wardrobe. Oh and then they have a pairs-figure-skating duel with these two one-off characters, because the guy randomly gives Ranma her first kiss without her consent.

That rolls into the start of volume 4, which throws way more fuel out there for any Ranma/Ryoga shippers than I remembered, and then we get a big stretch of introducing new characters who stick around and are fairly major, including the remaining two characters of note with curses, without a lot of gender stuff coming up beyond Ranma switching modes to try and throw off rival/love interests in various ways. The next thing worth pointing out isn’t until the end of V5C8. Ranma ends up stuck in girl-mode because pressure point manipulation makes her a wimp about hot water. Having a fight scheduled as a guy though, she shows up with a bunch of cheesy magician’s tricks, before throwing off a big bulky robe and:

So... OK we dropped the premise of not wanting her manly image tainted by wearing a girly costume pretty quick. This is her own plan, this is in public, she chose this outfit herself. Again, super self-conscious any time she’s in public in boy mode, but when she’s undeniably a girl, she’s super comfortable with basically anything. Heck, that costume gets shredded like 2 pages later, and the quick bit of public nudity doesn’t even phase her. Oh and the next story arc (V5C10) has her just getting a cute swimsuit and hitting the public pool to relax. Plus some new casual clothes:

And formal wear for V5C11...

Again, there’s no subterfuge or convoluted circumstances behind these. She just had an excuse this volume to present as a girl full-time and dove right the hell in. By V5C12 she’s at the maximum possible level of confidence, wearing a tight swim-suit to the beach that advertises her trans status. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there myself:

Not a double entendre there, for what it’s worth. It’s really about watermelons.

After that there is a long long stretch of development arcs for secondary characters, the introduction of a dirty old man, and a lot of variations of Ranma and Akane’s relationship being tested with jealousy-inducing misunderstandings with the spare dozen or so love interests lying around. There’s a hell of a lot I could analyze here if I wanted to make a point about Ranma’s sexuality, but, I’m only really concerned with her being trans for this, and contrary to popular belief, whether or not she’s into guys at all has no bearing on that whatsoever. For what it’s worth though she’s totally bi and so’s Akane and you have to bend over backwards to argue otherwise for either of them.

That being said, I’m close to a quarter of a way through here, so I might as well keep going through the end of volume 10. Don’t want to make this more than a 4 part series if I go the distance with it. The next noteworthy thing we have is the introduction of Ukyo, the focal point of the more grounded queer content in the series. Let me just say first off that taken out of context this page resembles every conversation I’ve ever seen between two trans girls:

There are a LOT of angles I could come at Ukyo from. First off, she’s got a ton of trans coding. Ranma thought she was a boy when they were friends as kids (while their fathers were trying to hook them up). Everyone else also thinks she is when she’s first introduced, because... she dresses like a guy at school and wears a chest binder. She gets really angry about being misgendered by Ranma while having a revenge-fight with him (she’s the other girl Genma arranged a marriage with, for the sake of free food, which he just kinda stole, you see), plus as seen above, she has major body image issues. So, again, whole lot of trans coding (and that’s before HER rival/love interest shows up).

Regardless of that though, hey, the only actual friend Ranma ever had as a child, and who remains the healthiest relationship in her life is a girl, so, that’s something to note.

Also Ukyo is kind of the only character in the cast who isn’t a huge jerk. She patches things up with Ranma more or less immediately, and proceeds to try and untangle the absurd relationship web that’s already getting pretty damn convoluted. And I mean, good on her for trying, but here’s how that goes:

Yeah, that’s Ranma in a floral sun dress crashing a date between Akane and Ryoga. I believe this is V9C6. She gets way too into character and they end up making out, by the way. I defy anyone to find a way to rationalize this plan if Ranma were a cis dude OR was strictly into girls.

Oh and getting into V10C10, there’s this goofy plot about Akane accidentally swallowing a magic pill that makes her fall in love with the first guy she sees, and uh...

It’s been a while since I’d read this. It gets pretty damn on the nose. Anyway, the last storyline I’m getting to tonight starts with V10C16, which introduces Ukyo’s rival/love interest, Tsubasa:

Tsubasa is unambiguously, exclusively, into girls. Also unambiguously AMAB:

I’m actually not really a fan of Tsubasa. Ranma’s a really relatable trans girl with a well developed backstory, with some serious gender-based hangups that, while totally not cool, are totally rationalized by her traumatic childhood. Ukyo is a very nice girl whose friends are all trans, and it’s less clearcut whether she’s cis or trans. The page after this one it comes out that she previously attended an all-boy’s school though, which supports a trans reading. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to read her as a trans girl with supportive parents who never misgendered her, but only recently started in on HRT after entering high school, so, hey that’d make sense.

Tsubasa though... being unambiguous with all of this, so after the reveal with get a clumsy 1980s Japanese explanation, responding first to Akane shouting “cross-dresser!?” with "I am not! I’m just an ordinary boy who likes to dress up!” Again, very 80s Japan. Also between the into-girls reveal and the AMAB reveal, Ranma’s personal hang-ups lead to a single chapter of her trying to “fix” Tsubasa, encouraging dating guys. So, yeah, kind of an awkward stretch. On the upside, Ukyo already knows Tsubasa’s whole backstory, doesn’t find any of it at all odd or notable, and figured everyone else was also just cool like that. Again, Ukyo is just great. You can do a whole lot worse than using her as a model for realistic queer characters in fiction.

Also to end on a lighter note, when Tsubasa first shows up, the immediate battle for Ukyo’s affections (and yes, this IS immediately after Ranma passed on just dating Ukyo, letting Ryoga and Akane be a couple, and having relatively no drama) which takes this form of a competition to see who can sell more of Ukyo’s okonomiyaki. And, of course, this is Ranma’s strategy:

CONTINUED HERE

#trans reading #ranma 1/2 #ranma #trans

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thebugcollector024 · 5 years

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I’m pretty damn sure nearly no one’s gonna see this but let’s take a moment to talk about what pride really means, specifically in the LGBTQ+ community.

For centuries, being part of this community was seen as shameful. The main goal of our people has been, for far too long, to hide who we are, because we are ashamed. Think about it. How many times has a non-cishet kid been told to “just tone it down a bit,” in public, by an adult they trusted? How many times have parents told their non-cishet kid that they’re “dissappointed” or “ashamed” of them? How many times have non-cishet employees been told to “keep it out of the workplace, please” by their boss? How often are non-cishet people told, derictly or indirectly, that they shouldn’t be proud of themselves, that they should hide who they are? These examples are only what happens in more progressive countries in the modern day. We can’t forget the police raids, the body count that this empire of shame is built on. We can’t forget that that body count continues to grow, even now.

What is the opposite of this shame that has been instilled in us? Pride. Pride is one of the most beautiful, powerful resources we have. Let me tell you why.

One of the most important parts of leading a happy life is respect. At your very core, you must respect yourself, and that means being proud. That means having pride. Pride is the “you can’t do that,” that gets you to stand up to someone. It’s the “you can’t do that to me,” that gets you to stand up for yourself. It’s the “I’m better than that. I can do better than that,” that gets you to open your mind and be a better person. These statements and beliefs, all of which I directly derived from pride, are the driving forces of change. They are what creates the separation between yesterday and tomorrow. They make today the best day we’ve ever had. They cause change. Pride is what changes the world. Pride is progress. Pride is unity. Pride is kindness and respect. And most of all, every single soul who has ever lived and given due respect to their fellow inhabitants of reality deserved to have pride. The only real shame here is how long, and how many of us have gone without it.

To many, my previous examples of how non-cishet people are shamed seem obvious and blatant, but there are other, more subtle kinds of anti-pride sentiments that are going unnoticed, some of which are often spread by non-cishet people themselves. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “transtrender” before. This word often gets thrown at gender non-conforming people who are openly proud, wear bright colors, have brightly dyed hair, use neo pronouns, have uncommon identities, or fit the “cringe tumblr trans kid” stereotype. People who fit into this stereotype are often quite close to the charicature that cis people draw in order to make fun of trans people. Thus, they are rejected from the group, called “transtrenders” as many believe they only identify as trans so that they can be trendy, called cringy, treated as invalid, and are all around treated like second class members of the LGBTQ+ community. They are shamed for their identities, pronouns, and physical appearance. Tell me, how can you claim to be truly participating in pride if you are shaming people like this? These people deserve better. You deserve to be better. Don’t do this to people, especially to people who are also in the LGBTQ+ community.

Additionally, many of us who openly practice pride in our identities are criticized for being too loud, flamboyant, or open. How many of us have heard the phrase “I’m fine with LGBTQ+ people, I just don’t like the ones who make it their whole personality!” Do not listen to those people. Do not “tone it down” or stop making jokes or posts about your non-cishetness simply to please them. There is nothing more prideful than being as loud, flamboyant, strange, non conformative, open, and happy as you damn well please. Scream it from the roof tops if you want. Spray paint it on the walls, write it in the sky, who ever you are, whatever you have to say.

Remember,

Pride can be loud

Pride can be bright

Pride can be odd

Pride can be straight up annoying

Whatever you want to be, pride can be as well.

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