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terajkMaybe if I give these guys 1150 words, they'll go away so I can write the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
white_lotus fic, because DAMN. (Also, wow, this got idtastic)
Title: Stars
Fandom: Ranma 1/2
Rating: T, cartoon violence, ableism
Characters: Ryoga, Ranma, Akane
Word count: 1150
Summary: The one where Ranma and Ryoga talk disability. Awkwardly. (Although Ranma cheats.)
Also at AO3
Ryoga lay on the roof of the Tendo dojo looking at stars; it was sort of like going on a journey without actually leaving. He counted them in the direction of a manga page, and had to start over when Ranma stepped over him. When he got to one-hundred-and-fifty, Ranma said, “Akane’d be upset if you got pneumonia or somethin’ and died.”
He looked over at him in his nightshirt (and lost his place again, dammit). “Speak for yourself,” he said.
“No, I mean, it’s gettin’ cold.”
“You’re the one half-naked, you pervert.”
“Ryoga, you jerk,” said Ranma. Then he let him brood in peace.
He thought of Akane, of course, walking past as he sat on top of Ranma and bent his leg all the way back (”Say ‘surrender!’” “Moron!”); rolling her eyes while Ranma jumped up and down on his spine. “Oh, she’s just bein’ a macho chick,” Ranma’d said when he’d asked. “Besides, she’s more mad at you, anyway.”
He’d yanked Ranma’s pigtail then, but it was so obvious now. She said words to Ranma (not sentences, but words), while she greeted him with silence or, on good days, noises like “Mm.” Then there was that time he offered to show Ranma the Steel Dragon Fist, which he’d learned from a zookeeper in Hokkaido, and she slammed the dojo door as she left.
Oh, Akane! How could he have been so thoughtless? (What had he even done?) It would shatter his heart into stardust, but he had to leave her so he didn’t hurt her any more. He had to--
“Freeze to death, then,” said Ranma suddenly.
“What?” said Ryoga.
Ranma sighed. “It’s just....you can’t go wandering around Japan in the dead of winter. It’s stupid.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Ryoga said. “I do it all the time.”
“Because you’re stupid.”
“What do you care what I do?”
“Because I don’t want your corpse on my conscience,” said Ranma. “And you already sorta live here. Why even...go wherever you think you’re going?”
“I like it,” Ryoga said.
“You like bein’ lost all the time?”
“No, fool. I...” And then he ran out of words. There were panic and terror and bugs and bears and cold (yes, cold) and exhaustion and not eating for days and loneliness, the crushing loneliness most of all (people gaping in horror when he asked for directions--what are you? a tourist attraction, maybe, but you don’t belong here otherwise, with us). But there was also the Shishi Hokodan and martial arts gymnastics and everything else he’d learned from teachers on his travels, all the things Ranma was excited to see. There was using so much of his brain to figure out where he was that he couldn’t even feel the loneliness. And there was mastery, too--the Having Finally Found the Damned Place, the doing things on his own. What Ryoga said was, “I...can’t explain.”
After a while, Ranma said, “I mean, it’s not like I go lookin’ for cats on purpose.”
“I suppose not,” was all Ryoga could think to say.
“Akane misses ya when you’re gone.”
“Akane hates me,” Ryoga said.
“She doesn’t hate you, she just...I don’t know what’s wrong with Akane,” said Ranma. He paused. Then: “And you make me have to fight Kuno, and he sucks. Also, his head is shaped funny. I always feel like I’m gonna fall off.”
“You could fight Mousse instead,” Ryoga offered.
“Enh, Shampoo’s better.”
“Fight her, then.”
“She cheats.”
“You would know,” Ryoga said.
“I dunno why you don’t stay at the dojo,” Ranma said. “Akane’s old man doesn’t mind ya. You do the dishes. And it’s not like you’re a bad teacher or nothin’--an asshole, maybe, but not bad.”
“I don’t need your charity,” Ryoga said.
“Weren’t you listenin,’ jackass?” asked Ranma. “Kuno is annoying--and not in the ‘still sort of okay’ way you are. I’m askin’ this for me.”
Ryoga did have sympathy for the awfulness that was Kuno, so he thought. “And what does Akane think?” he asked.
“Didn’t I tell ya? She asks about you all the time when you’re gone. Idiot.”
Ryoga settled back, looked at the sky. But what if--? he thought, but didn’t ask; he couldn’t ask that because this was Ranma and anyway he didn’t think he could put it into words. But he would try. “What if (you see more of me and make faces and decide I don’t belong with you after all) my sense of direction is worse than you think it is?”
Ranma laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. “Ryoga,” he said, “half your challenge letters tell me to meet you at, like, ‘the blue car by the mailbox’ and I have to write you back just to work out a real place. Then there was that time when we were playin’ baseball and you ran the bases backwards and knocked Mousse over and broke all his glasses and Shampoo was so shocked, to this day she refuses to translate the stuff he called you. And Nabiki still talks about when--”
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Ryoga said.
“It’s not like we care,” Ranma said. “I mean, Ucchan probably does--she never got over the three-legged race thing--but you’re just...however you are.”
“But you make fun of me all the time,” Ryoga said.
“Oh, please,” said Ranma. “You’re the one who keeps tellin’ me to act like a man. Akane always says I’m a dummy. You once asked Mousse how many fingers you were holding up and punched him in the face. And everyone thinks Kuno’s an idiot.”
“Kuno is an idiot,” said Ryoga.
“See?” said Ranma. Then: “Come live with us, Ryoga. If you want.”
And he did. He did want to, very much, but-- “I like to do things myself,” he said. “Can...can I pick a place and have you show me where it is? A place we’d go all the time? Like, the Cat Cafe?”
“Why not? We could challenge Mousse and Shampoo.”
“And by you,” Ryoga said, “I mean you. Not Akane.”
“Of course not,” said Akane suddenly. “No one ever means me.”
“How’d you get up here?” Ranma asked.
“The same way you did, dummy.” Then she said, “What is this? A martial artists’ stargazing convention?”
“Uh,” said Ryoga.
“Because it if is,” Akane said, “I’m sitting here. It’s my family dojo. Move over, Ranma.” Ranma did. When she sat between them she said, “If you’re going to challenge Shampoo, take me with you. She actually fights me, unlike some people I could name.”
They watched the stars together for a while, saying nothing, and even though Akane was angry Ryoga felt...safe. It was strange and scary in itself. And just when he couldn’t stand this new feeling anymore, Ranma said, “Damn, it’s cold out here!”
white_lotus fic, because DAMN. (Also, wow, this got idtastic)Title: Stars
Fandom: Ranma 1/2
Rating: T, cartoon violence, ableism
Characters: Ryoga, Ranma, Akane
Word count: 1150
Summary: The one where Ranma and Ryoga talk disability. Awkwardly. (Although Ranma cheats.)
Also at AO3
Ryoga lay on the roof of the Tendo dojo looking at stars; it was sort of like going on a journey without actually leaving. He counted them in the direction of a manga page, and had to start over when Ranma stepped over him. When he got to one-hundred-and-fifty, Ranma said, “Akane’d be upset if you got pneumonia or somethin’ and died.”
He looked over at him in his nightshirt (and lost his place again, dammit). “Speak for yourself,” he said.
“No, I mean, it’s gettin’ cold.”
“You’re the one half-naked, you pervert.”
“Ryoga, you jerk,” said Ranma. Then he let him brood in peace.
He thought of Akane, of course, walking past as he sat on top of Ranma and bent his leg all the way back (”Say ‘surrender!’” “Moron!”); rolling her eyes while Ranma jumped up and down on his spine. “Oh, she’s just bein’ a macho chick,” Ranma’d said when he’d asked. “Besides, she’s more mad at you, anyway.”
He’d yanked Ranma’s pigtail then, but it was so obvious now. She said words to Ranma (not sentences, but words), while she greeted him with silence or, on good days, noises like “Mm.” Then there was that time he offered to show Ranma the Steel Dragon Fist, which he’d learned from a zookeeper in Hokkaido, and she slammed the dojo door as she left.
Oh, Akane! How could he have been so thoughtless? (What had he even done?) It would shatter his heart into stardust, but he had to leave her so he didn’t hurt her any more. He had to--
“Freeze to death, then,” said Ranma suddenly.
“What?” said Ryoga.
Ranma sighed. “It’s just....you can’t go wandering around Japan in the dead of winter. It’s stupid.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Ryoga said. “I do it all the time.”
“Because you’re stupid.”
“What do you care what I do?”
“Because I don’t want your corpse on my conscience,” said Ranma. “And you already sorta live here. Why even...go wherever you think you’re going?”
“I like it,” Ryoga said.
“You like bein’ lost all the time?”
“No, fool. I...” And then he ran out of words. There were panic and terror and bugs and bears and cold (yes, cold) and exhaustion and not eating for days and loneliness, the crushing loneliness most of all (people gaping in horror when he asked for directions--what are you? a tourist attraction, maybe, but you don’t belong here otherwise, with us). But there was also the Shishi Hokodan and martial arts gymnastics and everything else he’d learned from teachers on his travels, all the things Ranma was excited to see. There was using so much of his brain to figure out where he was that he couldn’t even feel the loneliness. And there was mastery, too--the Having Finally Found the Damned Place, the doing things on his own. What Ryoga said was, “I...can’t explain.”
After a while, Ranma said, “I mean, it’s not like I go lookin’ for cats on purpose.”
“I suppose not,” was all Ryoga could think to say.
“Akane misses ya when you’re gone.”
“Akane hates me,” Ryoga said.
“She doesn’t hate you, she just...I don’t know what’s wrong with Akane,” said Ranma. He paused. Then: “And you make me have to fight Kuno, and he sucks. Also, his head is shaped funny. I always feel like I’m gonna fall off.”
“You could fight Mousse instead,” Ryoga offered.
“Enh, Shampoo’s better.”
“Fight her, then.”
“She cheats.”
“You would know,” Ryoga said.
“I dunno why you don’t stay at the dojo,” Ranma said. “Akane’s old man doesn’t mind ya. You do the dishes. And it’s not like you’re a bad teacher or nothin’--an asshole, maybe, but not bad.”
“I don’t need your charity,” Ryoga said.
“Weren’t you listenin,’ jackass?” asked Ranma. “Kuno is annoying--and not in the ‘still sort of okay’ way you are. I’m askin’ this for me.”
Ryoga did have sympathy for the awfulness that was Kuno, so he thought. “And what does Akane think?” he asked.
“Didn’t I tell ya? She asks about you all the time when you’re gone. Idiot.”
Ryoga settled back, looked at the sky. But what if--? he thought, but didn’t ask; he couldn’t ask that because this was Ranma and anyway he didn’t think he could put it into words. But he would try. “What if (you see more of me and make faces and decide I don’t belong with you after all) my sense of direction is worse than you think it is?”
Ranma laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. “Ryoga,” he said, “half your challenge letters tell me to meet you at, like, ‘the blue car by the mailbox’ and I have to write you back just to work out a real place. Then there was that time when we were playin’ baseball and you ran the bases backwards and knocked Mousse over and broke all his glasses and Shampoo was so shocked, to this day she refuses to translate the stuff he called you. And Nabiki still talks about when--”
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Ryoga said.
“It’s not like we care,” Ranma said. “I mean, Ucchan probably does--she never got over the three-legged race thing--but you’re just...however you are.”
“But you make fun of me all the time,” Ryoga said.
“Oh, please,” said Ranma. “You’re the one who keeps tellin’ me to act like a man. Akane always says I’m a dummy. You once asked Mousse how many fingers you were holding up and punched him in the face. And everyone thinks Kuno’s an idiot.”
“Kuno is an idiot,” said Ryoga.
“See?” said Ranma. Then: “Come live with us, Ryoga. If you want.”
And he did. He did want to, very much, but-- “I like to do things myself,” he said. “Can...can I pick a place and have you show me where it is? A place we’d go all the time? Like, the Cat Cafe?”
“Why not? We could challenge Mousse and Shampoo.”
“And by you,” Ryoga said, “I mean you. Not Akane.”
“Of course not,” said Akane suddenly. “No one ever means me.”
“How’d you get up here?” Ranma asked.
“The same way you did, dummy.” Then she said, “What is this? A martial artists’ stargazing convention?”
“Uh,” said Ryoga.
“Because it if is,” Akane said, “I’m sitting here. It’s my family dojo. Move over, Ranma.” Ranma did. When she sat between them she said, “If you’re going to challenge Shampoo, take me with you. She actually fights me, unlike some people I could name.”
They watched the stars together for a while, saying nothing, and even though Akane was angry Ryoga felt...safe. It was strange and scary in itself. And just when he couldn’t stand this new feeling anymore, Ranma said, “Damn, it’s cold out here!”
no subject
Date: 2011-12-22 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-22 06:59 pm (UTC)If you're interested, there's a scanlation of the whole manga here. (It's around 7,000 pages altogether). One of my favorite things about it is that there's this huge collection of really, really bizarre people, and they all manage to live together without necessarily liking each other. (Although most of them like each other more than it appears on the surface.)
The thing that is probably the strangest about Ranma 1/2 to someone who hasn't read it is that a lot of characters turn into things when splashed with cold water, and hot water changes them back. Ranma changes into a girl (the manga is famous for its exploration of gender), and there's Akane and
RyogaP-chan in my icon! :Dno subject
Date: 2011-12-22 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-22 11:50 pm (UTC)Aw, thank you! I'm especially fond of Ryoga. (We share an impairment! And it's not one I see portrayed in fiction--especially not portrayed as accurately. So he is very fun for me to play with!)
I don't know if the artist thinks of him as having a disability. it's never called a "disability" in the manga, although some of the dramatis personae pages identify him as "navigationally challenged." But I love how he's portrayed: his impairment is obvious to everyone in the cast and causes him a lot of problems that the manga doesn't gloss over (he wanders in the wilderness for weeks on a regular basis, for one thing). though these problems tend to be hilarious even as your heart breaks for him. This is how EVERYONE'S problems make you feel, usually. And while most of the other characters just say he has "no" sense of direction, he calls it more poetic things like "wretched." But all the other characters just accept he's like this, after getting over their initial shock at seeing him Disabled in Public. They say things like: "Ryoga way always wrong way" and "I thought he was just a normal boy with no sense of direction!"
But he is still an accomplished martial artist who does many awesome things and saves the day and gives Ranma a run for his money, fighting-wise. So he's not portrayed as weak or helpless at all. (Also, Ranma considers him his one true rival--and Ranma has LOTS of rivals!)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-22 11:58 pm (UTC)I read some of your descriptions of how your own impairment works and it's really interesting to me. I really enjoy finding out how the inside of other people's heads work, especially when they are very different to mine.
Anyway, thanks again for such cool writing :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 02:12 am (UTC)what I remember from reading it was the way each of the characters had their own thing, that those things were individual and not necessarily about each other, but which were evoked by their interactions with each other.
Yes! I love how everyone has something(s) that they're sensitive about, or that cause them a lot of problems, or whatever, and their interactions with each other sort of...bring them out (I don't want to say trigger them, that's not the right word), and *their* sensitivity brings out someone else's, and they go back and forth like that.
In the anime (I can't remember if this happens in the manga), Ryoga punches Ranma off somewhere and gets lost looking for him; when he finds him again (finally), he accuses him of being a coward and running away. Which knocks into Ranma's need to prove he's a "real man," so he's like, "No! YOU wandered off and got lost!" Which upsets Ryoga further, and it's all downhill from there.