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dolliedarlin · 3 years

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i m p l i c i t ⏤katsuki b.

p a i r i n g : bakugou x f.reader

s u m m a r y : ever since you were young, you were forced to meet with the person dubbed as your finance, Katsuki Bakugou, a Baron’s son who had quite the temper but peaks your interest in every way possible

l e n g t h : 1.9k

g e n r e : olden days au ; fantasy au ; arranged marriage au ; Bakugou is a tsundere ; and we love him for it ; reader is an amazing bean that can keep up with him ; kirishima is your brother ; best brother ever ; rumours are toxic ; never base your opinions on someone solely on rumours ; you attract a stalker ; it’s not your fault ; he just as a twisted yandere mind ; Katsuki is your hero ; he makes your heart flutter ; and he makes your knees weak ; i really want someone to protect me and say what he said at the end of this

w a r n i n g s : swearing from our lovable explosion murder king ; acts of stalker/yandere ; sword fighting

a / n : i didn’t plan on posting this but mother nature decided to pay me a visit today so i basically lazed around in my bed groaning in pain and half starving bc it was too painful to get out at times for food. instead i started writing this imagine again that i had began months ago. this is inspired by Ranma 1/2, which is an anime that i loved watching when i was much younger, it’s not well edited because i’m kinda dizzy rn but i hope you enjoy it!

— first of all, before either you or Katsuki were born, the arrangement for your marriage to each other was already settled by your parents, hence why you were immediately introduced when you were children

— neither of you knew what marriage or engagement meant but you both associated it with seeing each other

— it wasn’t something Katsuki liked but you didn’t quite mind it, he always gave you really interesting reactions that you quickly came to like

— as the two of you grew up together, you always tried your best to get close to him but Katsuki was adamant at pushing you away and keeping you at arms length at all times

— despite all that, you wanted to catch his attention, which meant that you took interest in all the things that he found interesting too. that included: sword fighting, horse riding, duelling ; spicy foods ; battle tactics ; magic etc

— Katsuki always tried to ignore you but secretly appreciated how skilled you had become over the years. you were still nothing compared to him but you were able to battle against a majority of qualified knights and still be the last one standing

— he only scoffed at you because your talents were wasted; you’re too kindhearted to ever use your honed skills properly - it irritates him that other women push you to conform to etiquette, tea parties and high society when you were better than that

— you’re better than shallow conversations about the latest fashion, or the art of sipping tea, calligraphy and painting because he knows how much you train and how much effort you put into your education outside of such insignificant things

— Katsuki knows that you can handle yourself better than any other nobleman he knows of, he’s seen you help your father with his business and vigorously train with your dukedom’s knights

— what’s the point of all that effort if you weren’t going to show anything for it?

— because of that Katsuki always acted like he hated having you as his fiancée despite your optimism about him, as well as your patience and understanding of his unique way of expressing himself

— because the two of you are forced to spend a lot of time together by your parents, you’ve has been able to understand Katsuki and his mannerisms better than anyone else as your mother has always taught you to be openminded - she’s never been like the other noble ladies of society, hence why your father married her

— now, you were following in her footsteps. there’s been much gossip about your unladylike behaviour but you didn’t care, all you needed were your parents’ love and the love of Katsuki. he still needed some more time to come around but you’re positive you’ll get to him soon enough

— you’re positive there’s a different gleam in his eyes whenever he looks towards you now. it had always been one of hatred when you were much younger but his expressions frequently soften around you nowadays.

— no matter how subtle it may be, you always notice

— many rumours circulated about you the first time you had shown your skills openly amongst the knighthood. it had first started with your knights who praised you highly but, as soon as those whisperings reached outside the dukedom, many noble ladies started to gossip about your misdemeanour.

— surprisingly, those rumours were shut down in under a week and you didn’t know why; usually such good gossip material stayed for months and only faded with the years so it was peculiar to have it die down so quickly

— what was suspicious was that, as soon as your rumours died down, stories about Katsuki surged forward.

— when you conversed with other people, they would say how horrible they feel for you having to marry such an aggressive and dislikable fiancee. they would then over-exaggerate all the belligerent and misunderstood characteristics of Bakugou, even making up disgusting rumours that painted him to be more villainous than he actually was.

— “how shameful,” you spat with disgust, glowering down at the noble ladies frozen in their seats, “how dare you openly gossip about my fiancee right in front of me, the nerve! you should know better than to act like such children. if you have nothing better to do then i suggest you leave the kirishima estate immediately and never expect to be invited back,”

— they tried to beg you for forgiveness, seeing as your father held such power in high society, being one of the four noble dukes of the kingdom serving directly under the king as they all had noble blood.

— nobody expected your father to marry you to a Baron’s son. Katsuki didn’t have a higher title than you but your fathers had gone to war together and remained loyal friends ever since, Baron Bakugou went on to acquire his title of Braon after his service in the war but many people still looked down on him from his commoner origins. to think that such educated ladies of high society would use that as leverage to gossip however they wished.

— word of your actions on behalf of Bakugou spread quickly and the two of you became a couple that shouldn’t be trifled with.

— after that day, you always defend Katsuki and never miss the opportunity to express how much you admire him and care for him even if he doesn’t tend to reciprocate it

— you do this when Katsuki’s friends make an appearance, they consisted of your brother, Eijiro, Denki of house Kaminari (son of Marquis Kaminari) and Hanta of house Sero (son of Marquis Sero).

— they usually don’t visit the estate but this time they decided to utilise the knights training grounds for extra duelling practice and happened to catch you just as you were walking out, having finished your own training

— as soon as introductions and polite greetings were exchanged, came the jokes and jives.

— “I wouldn’t blame you if you eloped with someone else on your wedding day, Lady (Y/N), knowing this guy’s attitude,” Denki snickers as he points his thumb at your fiancé, who growled lowly in return.

— “i wouldn’t dare do something like that because, even if this is an arranged marriage, Katsuki will be the only man for me” Katsuki didn’t expect you to be so forward and couldn’t help the blush that coated his cheeks from your response

— Denki whistled in a mix of astonishment and amusement, “Katsuki’s a lucky guy!”

— “he looks really happy to hear you say that too, sis,” Eijiro teased as Hanta grinned from beside him.

— “shut up! we came here to train so let's train already, you dumbasses!”

— the days go by and life is good; the quicker your wedding day approaches the kinder and gentler Katsuki treats you. it wasn’t until the kindness you practiced with everyone you met, no matter their status, became something more in the twisted mind of an unknown individual that you encountered within city streets, while out shopping

— one act of kindness made the stranger crave for your touch and sought you out in the most deviant method. he sent constant letters multiple times a day and even mailed one with his most intimate item of clothing, not only that but he always stood at the gates of your estate, waiting for it to be opened just to slip in and try to meet you again

— of course, he didn’t get far because of the security brought on by your dukedom’s talented knights stopped him at every devious attempt. each incident was reported directly to your brother, who was training to inherit the duchy as soon as your father retired

— Eijiro was having none of it and devised the best plan of action he could, knowing that his image as the heir of the dukedom needed to be thought of so that his people wouldn’t be against him when he took over his capable father’s place. he resisted the urge for an immediate confrontation to plan with you, about how you wanted to defuse the situation

— however, as soon as word got to Bakugou, he ran over on foot to confront the man at your estate, just as Eijiro came down with a squadron of knights and you at his side

— lost in his own world, your stalker immediately reached out for you the instant he caught sight of your figure. on his face, he had a twisted smile and manic eyes, his breathing became heavy as if to savour the same air you breathed not too far away from him. it was frighting and chilling to see such an unhinged man. he was so deranged, he didn’t mind the swords and pointed glares directed at him by all that were present and Katsuki, who was fast approaching from behind

— “Get. Away. From. Her!” Katsuki shouted in anger as he drew his sword and slashed at the young man, making you jump back with a gasp.

— “Bakugou!” Kirishima warned as he pulled you into his chest for protection from the clashing of swords

— “Katsuki, be careful!” you cried. confronting someone with such an unstable mind could go horribly wrong and no matter how skilled your fiancee was, you couldn’t help but worry

— Even though this was the first time Katsuki ever showed his feelings for you in such a dramatic gesture, the worry you had for him consumed your joy as his opponent drew out his own sword and started lashing out with worse coordination than your junior knights.

— what he lacked with technique, however, he made up for in agility as well as his own unpredictability. it made it hard for Katsuki to predict the path of his opponent’s sword so for a time, he was constantly dodging his blade. it didn’t take long, however, for the game of endurance and stamina to come into play and slow down his opponent enough for him to fight back with more accuracy.

— “you revolting rat!” Katsuki growled swinging his sword with might only to grind his teeth when his sword is narrowly dodged. not one to give up, however, he goes in once again and finally lands a hit that forces your stalker to crumble to his knees, “you try and pull that shit with (Y/N) again and I’ll be doing more than just beating you to the ground,” it was an obvious win for the blonde.

— “And what would that be?” your stalker still had fight in him that came off as more irritating than anything else Bakugou had ever encountered in his life of servitude as a royal knight and baron’s son.

— just to prove his point, whatever it may be, Katsuki goes to stand beside you and pull you into his chest with his large hand at your waist

— “landing your ugly, disgusting ass in a fucking coffin!” the venom in his voice was evident and it made you shudder, curling up into his chest for comfort, not knowing that the next words he’d shout would have your knees weaker than any training could ever do, “(Y/N) is MY Fiancee! you touch her and I’ll kill you!”

n a v i . | bnha mlist

#bakugou x reader #bakugou imagine #bakugou fluff #bnha bakugou #bnha olden days au #bnha fantasy au

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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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