#dual major

[lovezacblr]

Black tip reef shark (carcharhinus melanopterus) 🤓📚

[levemetal]

Dual calamities Qijiu AU save me.... save me Dual Calamity Qijiu...

Yes they are wearing each other's former coats/outer layer and tons of matching accessory and garment pieces why do you ask

Details under the cut/Rambling ahead

Dual calamities AU, post pidw. SJ kills himself on the shards of Xuan Su by swallowing them. Qijiu end up entwined into one ghost amalgamation, their combined regrets hatred spite and resentment and everything creating a nearly supreme/calamity level ghost. They go off indiscriminately murdering in the demon realm in a mindless unaware rampage, consuming ghosts and demons alike and becoming stronger until they are strong enough to be aware once more.

Luo Binghe becomes aware of the new calamity too late, due to his distraction with the Bingge vs Bingmei extra happenings, and ends up regretting it as he fails to catch up to them time and time again, despite attempting to chase down the new calamity that slaughtered half the demons in a mindless rage.

It could go down the Bingqijiu path or be simply Qijiu retreating somewhere to live in peace. Maybe being annoyed later on by Hua Cheng and/or He Xuan, maybe even Bai Wuxiang once. They kick Qi Rong off a mountain once, when he comes to annoy them for the title only to prove that is not a calamity (unfortunately for him, ily stinky green ghost). SJ is gonna have the time of his life roasting his ass. Qi Rong will leave both in pieces and tears.

Their only disadvantage really is that they cannot seperate too much, physically. But I imagine after being in each other's brains after the soul merge they don't particularly care to be (nor would they want to be. This is Qijiu we're talking about.) It's Qijiu's codependant dream. Xuan Su sewed them together and actually they are very very codependant and possessive after everything so this is just fine. They probably even have a Xuan Su blood weapon, that heeds both their commands and calls. While fighting they synchronise, with YQY being the strength and SJ the brains.

I imagine YQY is able to conjure the arrows that pierced him as spiritual projectiles, and SJ chains that bound him in the water prison. Their strength was cultivated by absorbing and devouring other ghosts and demons.

@ace-shenanigans came up with the lovely title "jade dragon stalks bamboo" which is a much better title than I could ever hope to come up with. Thank you for listening to my mad ramblings

I've been wanting to draw and think on this for a while, of how grotesque to make the initial ghost + the later higher cultivation form. But basically the kiln and everything would count them as one ghost, probably a dual title too. They'd be like a myth amongst the realms, retreating to a comfortable mountain peak with bamboo, occassionally off to hunt down slavers.

[kazuma-nyasogi]

imagine if you were already having one of the worst weeks of your life and then someone exploded you and hit you with a rock

[normiree]

Dr. Ratio but it's a College AU

[ermitanyoh]

ROCK & LAW (1/?)

[ominousvibez]

i know a lot of people tend to define dani/ellie's "obsession" as the ocean to go with danny's space obsession but tbh i feel like as dani gets older she's going to do a lot to separate herself from her identity as danny's "clone" and become her own person

like, that's why i love that the fandom has adopted the "ellie" nickname so much for her. i so wish the show went on for longer with more competent writers or the comic could expand on this maybe but i think finding her own identity and voice would be such a powerful narrative. you're made for one thing but you don't wanna do that, so now what do you do?

(tbh that kind of identity exploration is probably too anit-christian for b*tch h*rtman so i'm glad he didn't get to touch it)

it's canon that dani goes off and travels the world, so why not have her obsession be traveling? she's got a huge case of wanderlust. she likes the outdoors, she likes hiking and camping and is a huge granola girl. like, i think that kinda just fits her a bit more, in my opinion. traveling/exploration.

[dragonnon]

bro... WHY DID THEY MAKE THIS SO SIMILAR....? GUYS WITH FLOWING THINGYS ON THEIR HEADS WHO ARE DEAD AND WHERE MADE TO LOOK LIKE THEIR WRIGHTING STUFF

[lemongogo]

college … wasted on the youth (me)

[doyoueverjustwomen]

hiiii guess who’s playing dd

[hoesonpointe]

[semi-mortal-crayons]

Aura Blackquill if she had more lesbian swag (I love her anyways)

[probablygayattorneys]

He’s such a sad mad

Haunted by ghosts who are still alive and dead alike

I just want to hug him tight and never let go and tell him it’ll be okay

That he is strong now

That Bradley loved him and even if he betrayed him the love was still there and that matters

That his dad is resting in peace

That his mom can take can of herself

That Mila and Rachel have each other and are more than capable and he doesn’t have to be superman all the time

That I’ll never let Nintendo do to him what they did to Ashley

[pynkhues]

I'm curious about your thoughts on something. I saw some people talking about how the show might revisit Lestat's death next season since there's definitely parts of it we didn't see, and they were saying that we also don't know for sure if Lestat was trying to kill Claudia there. He says "She should never have been made, Louis. Look what she did to us. She's corrupted everything. Antoinette will be much more agreeable to our life together" as Antoinette seems to be forcing her to drink the poisoned blood. Louis is looking back at this through the lens of thinking that Lestat DID later kill Claudia, so it's obviously possible that if we do revisit the scene, we'll see that this happened a little differently than what we initially saw (as the flashbacks in 2.7 added information or differed slightly from what we saw). But just going by what we did see, since that's what we have for now--what do you think? I feel like it's totally possible that Lestat had gotten to a point in that kind of feverish nightmare they were all in where he really was trying to kill her--that he was angry at her AND maybe genuinely thought she couldn't survive/be happy ever. He'd have to be pretty crazy to think that Louis would be okay with him killing Claudia in front of him, but "Antoinette will be joining us" is a pretty crazy thing to think Louis would ever be okay with, so, yeah, he was a little crazy there. And once the fever broke, which it seems to have done while he was recovering in the coffin, I can absolutely see him regretting that horribly and wanting to save Claudia at the trial if it had been possible (since I think he clearly seemed very distressed by what was happening to her from the beginning of the trial). I think the show is telling us that he always loved her underneath the anger, and we'll probably see more of that next season, and that fits with the trial, whether or not he wanted to kill her in 1.7.

But WAS he trying to kill her in 1.7? Would making her drink poisoned blood kill her? That's never listed as a way to kill a vampire. It just seems odd -- if he wanted to kill her, is there not a better way to do it? It would certainly make her very very sick, so is he trying to weaken her and then kill her, like she intends to do to him? I guess that's possible, though he's a LOT stronger than she is, so would that be necessary? Is he possibly trying to weaken her so that he can take Louis and leave without her following them? Or even weaken her so he can take her with them without a struggle?

Anyway, whether or not he was trying to kill her, I assume he'll talk about what he was thinking then and how his thinking changed by the time of the trial. But I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on all this?

Oh, I definitely think it's going to be revisited, anon. I think Rolin's mentioned a few times now that we haven't seen the last of the murder ball, but even putting that aside, I think the effective confirmation of them bringing ghost!Claudia into next season at SDCC is more or less confirmation of that.

One of the things I've been thinking a bit about lately is the specific cocktail that Claudia makes for Lestat, which is a combination of laudanum and arsenic, and kind of feels like one of the few things corroborated narratively in the episode, as we get it both through Claudia's mouth / her diary:

And then, a beat later, as Louis narrates the plan:

Laudanum and arsenic are two very, very specific drugs, the former of which was actually out of mainstream use by the 1930s when Claudia and Louis were plotting Lestat's murder. They're also very loaded for the show in a number of ways.

Arsenic as a chemical was first isolated by the famous alchemist, Albertus Magnus, which in itself feels like a nod to Lestat's first death at the hands of another alchemist named Magnus - and also was widely known as a domestic killer in the 17 and 1800s for its high use as a pigment dyes. It was used in wallpaper, fabric, art, with a number of tragic cases of babies dying from arsenic poisoning from simply sleeping in nurseries with arsenic dyed wallpaper. The risks were better known by the 1900s, but arsenic was still used as an insecticide through the 1940s and even today is used in small doses to kill some types of cancer cells. In the 1930s though, when Claudia used it, it was used for a string of working-class spousal poisonings, which, y'know! Makes a lot of sense, haha!

The choice of laudanum I think though is especially interesting, because laudanum was highly restricted and pretty uncommon by 1914, two decades before Claudia buys it. If it was just about sedating Lestat, the show would've used any sort of barbiturate which were wide spread and easy to get at that point in history, instead of a Victorian-era drug that had been heavily restricted by that point in history.

So why laudanum specifically? I think because it was a sedative targeted specifically at women (although men did take it too) in the treatment of pain and female hysteria. To me, it puts this scene specifically in conversation with this one from back in 1.04:

I think there are a lot of ways that you can interpret this choice on a narrative level (I personally think it means a lot of things, and could talk about it all day, haha, but I do think the main takeaway is that it's a delightfully petty move on Claudia's part to effectively emasculate Lestat by treating him for hysteria in the way he suggested she should be, right before she kills him).

But yes, haha, sorry, this has taken a bit of a tangent - - my point is that I think you're right. The poisoned blood alone was never going to kill any of them, and Claudia making Lestat take it was specifically about weakening him enough to kill him, but the reverse of Lestat having Antoinette force Claudia to take it? I don't know. I think it could've gone a lot of ways? They were all in such a heightened state of emotion that I can see Lestat thinking that if he can just incapacitate her enough to talk Louis around, he might be able to pull this together, I can see him in that moment of it feeling so consumed with Claudia as a romantic rival instead of his daughter that he wants her dead, I can see him thinking Louis might finally actually kill Antoinette and become the monster he wants him to be if he thinks Claudia's under threat, I can see him like you said thinking that if he weakens her enough, he and Louis can runaway together with or without her, gosh, depending on how next season goes, I can even see him having thought if he could sedate her enough to tell her about Gabrielle he could send her off to travel with grandma, haha.

I generally do lean towards the thought that he wasn't planning on killing her though. Lestat's never killed a fledgling, and I totally agree with what you said about Louis' recollection of that night being coloured by the fact that he thinks Lestat did kill Claudia, which we know that he didn't, and I expect that to be explored next season. Either way though, he certainly wanted her incapacitated.

[aran-morinorea]

More of a Diplomatic incident please?

“No!” he cried, “How terrible! Who is?” And then, to both of them, “We should kill them.” Actually interacting with Tar-Glóriel in an informal context somehow made Elrond understand Celebrimbor’s choices both more and less. Celebrimbor was starting to look just as alarmed as Elrond was a few minutes ago, but honestly if Elrond knew the answer he would have considered the offer. Rejected it, almost certainly, but consideration would have happened.

[akascow]

wish i could go to college for things im totally interested in but like not smth i want to pursue

like i love film and cinema and symbolism and foreshadowing and what certain colors and angles represent in movies and shows its so goddamn interesting

but going to school for film means going to school For Film

if that makes sense

i dont wann be a film student i just think film is interesting to learn about

i dont wanna pursue film i just want to know every little thing about it

[notmoreflippingelves]

Krisnix and cykesquill?

Krisnix (I Ship it)

What made you ship it?

Projecting onto Kristoph. I first started to be curious about the ship at about the same time that I got into the fandom a few years ago. Discovering the k*nk meme was pretty groundbreaking for me in terms of introducing me to a lot of ships that I might not otherwise have considered. (As I believe I've mentioned, I'm pretty indifferent to both narumayo and narumitsu so I was definitely looking for other pairings to get into besides the obvious slash option and obvious het option). Krisnix started appealing to me pretty quickly due to the inherent tragedy and drama of such a ship. However, it took me finding fanworks that leaned more into Kristoph as a comedic and/or tragic character (as opposed to just him as the designated evil villain in endgame narumitsu) and emphasized his vulnerabilities that really got me into the pairing. I really credit the Count of Monte Cristo AU, the Frozen AU, and these two pieces of fan art for really getting me to latch onto a more nuanced, emotional Kristoph and to the ship.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

As a former English major, I tend to get feral over ships that utilize some of my favorite literary devices. And there is so much to work with for krisnix. The "doomed by the narrative" trope, particularly given that the fact that Kristoph's actions even before they met inevitably doomed any relationship (romantic or otherwise) that they might have had before it even began. Not to mention Phoenix's savior complex vs. the man who it is too late to save.

There's this sense of Kristoph as a dark mirror/foil of Phoenix, and given that Kristoph's influence canonically brings out a very dark side ( hidden cameras, forgeries, manipulation) of the otherwise "heroic" Phoenix, I like to contemplate that the reverse may have been true as well--that Phoenix's "light" might have penetrated Kristoph's darkness even if only a little and if it was already too late. The yin-yang potential fascinates me. I also love the fire and ice imagery motif that surrounds them.

I also love the intriguing possibilities of the 7-year gap--the opportunities for closeness, catching feelings in spite of one's self in a way that is all but inevitable when you spend so much time together, the idea of Kristoph at least somewhat co-parenting Trucy with Phoenix, wondering exactly how much of their "dinners" were genuinely for mutual surveillance and how much was because they grew to enjoy each other's company, speculating as to when Phoenix realized Kristoph was involved in his disbarment (my headcanon is less than a year) and if Kristoph ever realized Phoenix was on to him.

They're also so weird about each other in a way that's so interesting to me. The solitary cell scene is frankly bizarre in a lot of ways, but I am always taken aback by how quickly the two of them fall into their old rapport. Kristoph is literally in a jail cell because of Phoenix, and yet they are super polite and friendly to each other. Honestly, Kristoph in this scene seems far more upset about the idea that Phoenix's "friendship" might have had ulterior motives from the start than he is about the fact that said false "friendship" resulted in Kristoph's incarceration. (Phoenix's bringing up their friendship, trying to snoop in Kristoph's mail, and questioning why Kristoph killed Zak are the only times in this scene that Kristoph's facade slips. Otherwise, they're just bantering like old times. Why are they this weird? I don't get it but I love it anyway).

I also love a lot of the relationship tropes that the ship plays into: uptight loves impulsive; repressed loves outspoken; contrasting visual aesthetics; fake relationship/becoming the mask; foe yay; things we left unsaid; the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers-and-not-necessarily-in that-order pipeline. It's all so good.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

The unpopularity of this opinion has fluctuated over time, but when I first started shipping krisnix, there were really strong fanon for all of the following: 1. Top and/or Dom Kristoph who liked subjecting poor poor Phoenix to times that were neither fully safe, fully sane, and/or fully consensual. 2. Helpless cinnamon roll woobie Phoenix who has NO IDEA about Kristoph's various crimes until a Savior™ (usually Miles, occasionally Apollo, Trucy, or Maya) comes and explains the plot to him even though canon implies he puts this together on his own and pretty quickly. 3. Kristoph is a generic sociopath incapable of any real feeling and diabolically clever who gets off solely on POWAH and does evil for evil's sake.

None of these headcanons/interpretations had any appeal or rang true for me, so it was hard for me to interact even with some of the people who shipped it because they shipped in in the opposite way/ for opposite reasons that I did. I even had someone tell me in no uncertain terms that I was shipping it "wrong" for headcanoning a more vulnerable, conflicted, nuanced Kristoph who wasn't a pure one-dimensional generic villain, who had real and genuine feelings (both for Phoenix and in general) , and who was overall more likely to be submissive and/or a bottom than dominant and/or a top.

As I have said, fanon de jour has fluctuated significantly overtime and more and more people who headcanon/prefer a Kristoph more similar to the version that I enjoy have come out of the woodworks and shared their fanworks/head canons/meta with the world. (*Waves affectionately to all my beloved krisnix frens and mutuals. You know who you are. *) That being said, with the release of the AA 4-6 Trilogy port, I have noticed another shift within the larger fandom towards the "Hello Naughty Phoenix, It's Murder Time" Kristoph interpretation again, which makes me rather sad/anxious. I just wanna be able to project onto and shamelessly woobify the pathetic blond blorbo without worrying about people telling me I'm not allowed in the krisnix sandbox anymore. And like I think I'm probably safe enough but there's still a little fear.

Cykesquill (I Ship It...albeit much more casually)

What made you ship it?

A combination of being somewhat indifferent about the fandom-preferred ships for them (Juniper or occasionally Apollo for Athena; Nahyuta for Blackquill) , the fact that I already actively shipped Athena in a similar-ish pairing that is just as (if not more) "problematic," and the fact that telling me I am not "allowed" to ship something/shouldn't ship is far more likely to encourage me to ship it than actively deter me. Also I project pretty heavily onto Athena so naturally I'd be drawn towards ships that are narratively and thematically interesting for her.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I tend to be especially drawn towards ships that are (or have the potential to be) agents of narrative/character development for the characters as individuals. And this is especially the case for Athena and Simon. They were quite literally created with and for each other.

You can't really think or talk about Simon Blackquill without first talking about Athena Cykes--about the fact he was willing to risk and even give up his life to protect a sensitive, frightened child from an experience (prison and/or execution) that would've destroyed everything about her. You can't really think or talk about Athena Cykes without talking about Simon Blackquill--about the brave, kind young man who comforted and protected her when no one else would but who wouldn't let her comfort and protect him back.

Everyone always talks about the impact that narumitsu have on each other, and I'll admit that they do. But the thing is...there are other people in Phoenix's and Miles' lives that have had as greater or greater an impact on each of them than they have on each other. (Mia, Maya, Dahlia, Trucy, debatably Larry, Apollo, or Kristoph for Phoenix; Gregory, von Karma, Gant, and debatably Kay, Gumshoe, and Ziska for Miles).

For Athena and Simon, there's really no contest, they are the single most important and impactful person in each other's life. Yes, Apollo, Phoenix, and Juniper also influenced Athena. Yes, Fullbright, Metis Aura, and the spoiler character also influenced Simon. But none of them did so to the level that Athena and Simon influenced each other. To quote Wicked, "Who can say if I've been changed for the better? (I do believe I have been changed for the better.) But because I knew you, I have been changed for good." That's it; that's them.

Additionally, they do have some other tropes that I enjoy: grump and sunshine (though Athena is so much more complex and complicated than just a "sunshine" and Simon can also be much more playful than the typical grump); the couple that saves each other; contrasting visual aesthetics; height difference; "we're both hella neurodivergent albeit in different ways,"

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

The fact that it's a valid ship in the first place? I've legit seen the argument that you can't ship it because hypothetical future step-incest. Which is absurd in and of itself but especially cause it's presuming a reality that could not possibly exist. One where Metis not only lives (so we're starting off very canon-divergent) but also returns Aura's feelings, assumes that because they love each other that they would of course have to get married (which not every couple want) and therefore Simon now is hypothetically Athena's step-uncle in the future and this possible reality should be treated as such even if it doesn't exist. And just if you have to conceive of so many steps in order to justify why not to ship a pairing, maybe your case against isn't as strong as you think. Also very curious to hear what OP thinks of double-in-law marriages (ex: Person A marries Person B and then Person B's sibling marries A's sibling) because like those exist in real life???

send me a ship and I’ll answer three questions based on if I ship it or not.