#honestly there is no situation in which we DONT try to adopt a baby dragon

[chaos-lioness]

Today my DND group adopted a baby dragon by luring it out of a cave with pies and I feel like I finally understand the true meaning of the game.

[lorylilybomber]

Okay so I have an anime crossover issue:

I am watching and LOVING the Fruits Basket reboot. And I am also a long-time lover of OHSHC. And it occurred to me that, while crossovers are often very cringey, the opportunities between these two shows, if handled correctly, work like a dream. And there ARE plenty of FBxOHSHC fanfics out there.

The problem?

Hardly any of them seem to take proper advantage of the opportunities presented. The largest percentage of fic I’ve seen can be placed into one of two camps: “look at my OC she’s the secret 14th zodiac member and she goes to Ouran” or “Haruhi is actually a sohma and the secret 14th Zodiac member”

First off: look—there is no wolf in the Chinese zodiac. There is no fox, or raven, or jaguar, or—just, stop.

Second of all, there’s plenty of new ways to play with this crossover concept that are lots of fun to read—because they don’t have to change the rules of either universe!

(also, why do the Sohmas always have to go to Ouran? Can’t it be the other way around? I’m just saying, as sweet as Tohru is, she is canonically nowhere close to winning any sort of scholarship to attend school at Ouran, even if the sohma boys do.)

Imagine, if you will, some of the following scenarios:

Tamaki, in one of his usual bids for host club bonding and commoner research, arrange for the host club to attend a commoner high school for a month. In order to convince Kyoya to come with, Tamaki specifically chooses a high school that is attended by members of the influential-yet-hermit-level-elusive Sohma family. Once they’re there, of course, Tamaki wastes no time establishing a place for the host club to continue their activities, because beauty must be shared with the world, of course!!! From there, imagine some of these scenarios:

1: Tamaki hears of the school’s Prince, and seeks out Yuki in order to induct (or, more accurately, abduct) him into the Host Club whether he likes it or not. (On that note, imagine how the Prince Yuki fan club might react to the Host Club’s presence).

2: Contrariwise, Tamaki knows of the Prince, but is more interested in the school’s aloof Tsudere Type, Kyo. Cue Kyo being incredibly angry and flustered as Tamaki and the twins keep kidnapping him to try and induct him. Possibly include Tamaki noticing kyo’s feelings for Tohru and deciding to coach him on how to be a true gentleman.

3: Imagine Shigure’s reaction to EITHER of those events.

4: in a different or perhaps related chain of events, imagine Tamaki meeting Ayame, essentially adopting him as his senpai, and the learning about his estranged relationship with Yuki. The Tamaki Suoh we know would immediately commence Operation Brotherly Reconciliation before you could blink.

5: imagine after establishing the Commoner High School Host Club, Momiji decides this looks fun and wants to hang out there. They don’t take him on as a host, since they already have Hunny, but he’s still happy to have made a bunch of new friends! And the best part is!!! They’re all guys!!!! And they’re (almost) all emotionally available!!! Which means he can hug them without restraint!!! He hugs Hunny! He hugs Tamaki!!! He thinks about hugging Kyoya but second guesses himself!!! He hugs Haruh—wait.

6: immediately after point number 5, Kyo and Yuki are rapidly switching between panicked and confused. While Yuki and Haruhi are basically Spider-Man-pointing at each other saying “Explain????” Kyo does one of two things:

7: he blurts out something relevant but woefully poorly contexted to Haruhi like “WAIT HOLD ON TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT.” Which elicits a violent reaction from the twins/Tamaki which is headed off by Kyoya/Mori.

8: he grabs Momiji and starts shaking and yelling at him for being stupid and Hunny’s affection for a) his new friend and b) cute bunnies translates into him twisting Kyo’s arm or otherwise kicking his butt to take Momiji away from him because remember, kids! “picking on [Hunny’s] friends is a no-no!”

9: Kyo is dumbstruck because wait this twerp knows martial arts? Cue a running joke/side arc throughout the story in which Kyo keeps trying to get Hunny to fight him because getting beaten up by a twerp is stupidly emasculating and Kyo needs to win back his pride. Meanwhile Hunny sees no reason to fight or indulge Kyo and keeps refusing him (you know..because he’s actually a mature 18 year old). The arc may end in Kyo learning to humble himself and asking Hunny if he could maybe teach him some moves? Followed by Hunny beaming at him and saying yes.

10: how would Kyoya react if he were to learn the Sohma secret? How would he negotiate with the Sohma family? Could he? What stops Hatori from wiping their memories, if anything?

11: How would HARUHI react? Miss “Believes in nothing paranormal?” How would Tamaki react? As the King of Sticking His Nose Into Your Business, he may attempt to make it his mission to break the curse. (Of course, he fails in the end, but they all become friends anyway.)

OR, perhaps they don’t even need to go to the same school at all. Imagine this:

1: Kyoya, in preparation for running some of his family’s hospitals, or perhaps as part of a special inspection, or a possible acquisition, or whatever else, visits a hospital owned by the Sohmas

(Listen, we know that the sohma’s HAVE to own at least one hospital. Preparations for any possible Zodiac birth would have to be EXTENSIVE. Imagine if they’re anticipating a new Dragon? All Sohma women are now compelled to have water births. Why? BECAUSE SCIENCE SAYS SO, SHUT UP, WE’RE DOCTORS. Once the new Dragon’s been born? NEVERMIND NO MORE WATERBIRTHS DONT ASK QUESTIONS. They have veterinarians on call who never really know for sure why they’re paid to just keep a special phone on them, but one day they’re called into a human hospital and forced to sign a huge stack of NDA’s before being brought to a delivery room. One day when he’s training his replacement the kid asks “hey why are you making me read about how to care for baby seahorses?” And the older doctor gets faraway flashback eyes, shakes his head and says “just keep reading, son.” I could honestly go on. I would read an entire fic just about the people working at one of these hospitals.)

Anyway, Kyoya is at the Sohma hospital when something curse related happens. You can honestly pick. Either way, Kyoya goes through an interesting spiral:

2: first, after getting himself the fuck out of there as soon as Hatori’s eyes are off of him, he has a barely-self contained nervous breakdown the minute he gets himself alone in his room because the idea of Kyoya instantly accepting anything remotely fantastical is ridiculous. His friends are worried about him but have no idea what happened because if Kyoya vocalizes it, that means it’s real!!!! And he!!! Just can’t!!! Also, he REALLY doesn’t need the twins teasing him and calling him insane or Haruhi asking if he has a fever.

3: then, after he collects himself, he begins doing his Kyoya thing and collecting information. Obviously a condition (he refuses to call it a curse) with such a easily exploitable trigger couldn’t have been kept a secret for so long. So the Sohma’s are keeping people quiet somehow. There isn’t any history of people disappearing around the sohma’s, so it’s either money, threats, or induced amnesia. So, of course, Kyoya prepares for all three. (Of course, even if they WANTED to kidnap or kill Kyoya, his connection to the Ootori family and its extensive police force would prevent that.)

4: and still, even if this curse idea is utterly ridiculous—and it is—this is the biggest piece of negotiation material Kyoya has ever acquired, and its on the SOHMAS. The one family that almost never deals with anyone. With the sohma’s being such a powerful yet reclusive family, he’s not about to let such a large chip go that easily.

5: cue a delightful mental cat-and-mouse game between Kyoya, Hatori, and eventually Akito. Akito getting involved means Shigure is definitely involved as well, if he isn’t already after Hatori.

6: Akito, being a very impatient person, wants Kyoya either hypnotized or under their thumb YESTERDAY. But he knows he can’t just bring him to the house without raising many important eyebrows. So what is he to do to get Kyoya to cooperate?

7: they could go for the heart, perhaps. Kyoya’s best friend Suoh seems stupid enough. Akito begins to charm Tamaki (who Kyoya has not informed of the curse) and establish a sort of power play in front of Kyoya—“see, he likes me, I can get him to go anywhere I want.”

8: Contrariwise, Akito decides they can’t target his best friend Suoh for the same reasons he can’t target Kyoya. Oh, but...look here. A commoner named Fujioka with no money or status, hardly any family....he’ll do fine.

7: if Tamaki gets in a room alone with Akito, the dynamic could get interesting. After Akito turns scary, Tamaki might take a bit of a beating, but then (as the bighearted and surprisingly wise person he is) he starts talking to Akito, and trying to genuinely connect with him. Whether this works or not would be up to the author.

8: If Haruhi was in a room alone with Akito, presumably brought against her will, she would probably be confused and annoyed, but eventually a little frightened and out of her depth (Akito tends to have that effect on people). But she would also piss Akito off VERY fast, with how observant yet practical and blunt she is. She would say some things that hit Akito hard, and she would probably be attacked fairly quickly. Shigure or Hatori would have to step in to protect her, and perhaps SHE learns about the curse in the process.

Honestly, it could go many different ways. But basically I wanted to demonstrate how Fruits Basket/OHSHC crossovers could be much more unique and interesting with fascinating character dynamics, whether the story is a comedy or a drama. Then, as a few honorable mentions:

Everyone compares Haruhi and Tohru’s Mom situation. But how would Haruhi react if she learned Momiji’s situation?

The twins harassing Kyo. Or, the twins harassing Haru and triggering Black Haru.

Tamaki charming Tohru and poor Tohru not knowing how to react (and Yuki and Kyo getting Very Frustrated.)

Shigure and Tamaki becoming friends because of course they would.

Shigure and RANKA becoming friends because OF COURSE THEY WOULD.

Ranka being a regular at Ayame’s store.

Etc etc etc. and that’s with just the more major characters. Hanajima and Uotani interacting with the host club would also be hilarious.

Anyway, point’s made—Fruits Basket and Host Club are fantastic crossover material, and deserve more unique content!!!

[lesbianrobin]

some thoughts on That Episode of got (spoilers!)

arya and sansa are That Duo now and i'm fucking living for it

i've never in my life wanted sansa and tyrion to be together and i still dont really want them to like be married and have kids but i do want them to be bitchy best friends and roast all of westeros in between venting to each other about their trauma

missandei was in this episode for like thirty seconds but she was beautiful and strong for all sixty of them

theon....

it was dark as fuck and i understand that cgi is a lot but jeez louise i kept thinking that i was missing character deaths bc of how unclear and dark it all was

the whole time i kept saying "baby baby baby oh my baby" whenever anybody was in danger even though before i turned on the episode i was like "lol i only care about sansa"

speaking of danger it's kind of bullshit how many people lived. like i would be fine with it and even be celebrating but they made such a point of showing all these characters in mortal peril over and over again and it got kind of ridiculous that they were getting out of such impossible situations. i'm kind of hoping that later on it'll be stated or implied that either bran was warging or the lord of light was intervening to protect the plot-relevant characters bc at this point that's all that makes sense

arya stark is that bitch oh my god

the hound seeing his bitchy murderous adopted little sister that robbed him and left him to die in danger and immediately overcoming his fire-induced trauma response to go and help her? that's some good shit

jon buddy you tried but you also just like left sam to die and screamed at a dragon so did you really try that hard???

honestly i really respect the fact that everybody wasn't completely logical or brave or selfless or whatever in this battle. so many men were crying or on the brink of tears and it felt so much more real because of ot

lyanna mormont is also That Bitch but like times a thousand oh my god .... hero......

theon...... babie.......

in this house we love and respect the dragon queen even if we don't agree with all of her tactics because she legit just lost all of her people and her oldest friend and her kids were fighting each other and she still got her ass up and fought off zombies despite never really fighting before. also she used ser friendzone as a human shield at one point which was very sexy of her

sansa and tyrion i have no words besides Tender.... those scenes were something i didn't know i could even hope for from canon and then they HAPPENED!!

That Scene with theon i literally said "oh big sexy" out loud

i think that missandei's line to sansa is setting up a future alliance/agreement between sansa and dany. now that dany has proven that she cares more about her people than her throne, i think they can actually have a proper discussion rather than hiding their true intentions behind pleasantries. they also focused on sansa and her fear and her reactions a LOT this episode so i think they're actually setting her up to rule!! there's not really any reason to have focused so much on her if she isn't going to be a major player in these last few episodes

arya in the library my fucking lord. maisie did SUCH a spectacular job as did alfie and sophie and emilia and fucking everybody honestly!!! bran showing the slightest bit of emotion for once when thanking theon like... really hurt my heart it was so perfect

people are saying how anticlimactic it was to just end the threat of winter in one episode but winter is still here!!! i don't think we should jump to conclusions and assume to know what's gonna happen. food stores are still an issue, as are shelter and transportation in the midst of winter. the practicalities of maintaining an army and a people are going to be very important in both the battle against cersei and against fuckin nature itself.

also we don't know where bran was warging to the entire time, and there's a significant chance that we aren't quite done with magic.

game of thrones has always been more about humanity than anything else, so i think it's actually kind of cool and fitting for it to come down to humanity at the end of it all.

yes it was kind of fucked up and racist and shitty to just put all the dothraki and unsullied up front to die but we don't have time to unpack all of that and i'm white so i feel unqualified

i have so many thoughts but it's 4am and i have a final tomorrow so... this is me signing off