#Whether it was because of fans

[dnalt-d2]

Alright-y, so in case anyone missed it, we've recently gotten some information from Quackity that he's most likely doing some new project, that seems to involve multiple languages, once again. Kinda like QSMP?

Maybe EXACTLY like QSMP…????

Or maybe not

Basically, the way I see it, it is pretty likely that this is QSMP-Related, what with the images that he's been posting recently, with the GODDAMN EYE GUY

However, even if it is QSMP-related, there is something that would need to be addressed

And that's that it's incredibly unlikely we'd be getting QSMP back in the form we knew it as

Honestly, I don't really see many of the Admins returning, Egg or otherwise. Whether it's by their own choice, or the choice of the powers-that-be. And I think we all know that all the Admins, Egg or otherwise, were a huge part of what made QSMP special

In addition to that, there's also a chance that with that sort of outcome, a lot of the Creators wouldn't be coming back either. I could kinda see some of them not returning even if the Admins DO come back. I know a few of them had more sour experiences with QSMP than others did, and I couldn't really blame them for not wanting to give it another shot

So even if this is QSMP, there's a HIGH chance it won't be the same server we knew

But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. After all, I'm pretty sure the Eggs weren't initially MEANT to be as big as they were, which means that there HAD to be some plans for other stuff at one point or another

Hopefully…

Now obviously this is ALLL just, as usual, ✧˚⊹SPECULATION~!⊹˚✧

I'm not a psychic, and I don't know jack-all about what's been going on behind the scenes regarding QSMP or anything Quackity-related. I'm just making educated guesses and reminding everyone to temper their expectations, and try not to be too disappointed if this isn't exactly what you were hoping for

Because even if it isn't, I think it could still be something pretty fun, and I'll probably at least give it a chance regardless of whatever it winds up being

(Except maybe Purgatory 3, because I think I had enough of those vibes during my recent Purgatory 1 Re-Watch)

…

(Oh who am I kidding I'd probably end up checking out Purgatory 3 at least once I have a problem okay???)

[bluemoonscape]

Big fan of characters who “kill” their younger selves. Characters who resent the past version of themselves for letting them get hurt, who look at that kid and feel revolted by the foreignness of it. Characters who feel they have to cut the child out of them like a tumor because it’s hurting them too much and if I don’t kill you you’ll kill me. Nearly nothing remaining of that past self but for the little connections and mannerisms they can’t kick, and when it shines through, it’s a terrible, tragic thing, because the child is still in there. It’s in there and it’s grotesque in its suffocation. But it’s there.

[abellarts]

[ID in alt]

jon should have been able to sock him at least once before s5

[perdamian]

hey guys… we all know that it’s okay for mithrun to have a caretaker for the rest of his life, right? that even after he heals and potentially regains his desires he will probably still need support?? that the goal of healing is not to become a “normal person”, but to build skills to navigate the world in a way that accommodates your disability??? that relying on the people around you is not a failure, but proof of your desire to live????

[sygneth]

"The Fall of the Starmaker"

[cookieshapedrat]

She deserves the universe…

[ohgreat-moretapes]

-Tim

[theactualsunshinechild]

I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!

That's right. Two hands.

One for his chalk.

One for his codex.

Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.

[aquanutart]

[internetgiraffekid1673]

I'm sorry. I had to.

[triangular-static]

irregular

just read flatland and i am 10x less normal about bill cipher now. it's so interesting to think about passages of this book with him in mind

(and also as its own book it's very interesting to read as an examination of dimensions and as a satire of victorian society, i very much enjoyed it)

but one of the first things that i noticed when my friend was looking at website codes at the same time i was reading the first half of the book was:

the code for bill cipher's mugshots is irregular. having read flatland this being the code seems like a reference to how shapes with irregular sides are labelled as criminals and morality is very heavily judged on whether your angles are equal or not. the term REALLY sticks out to me having read the book, given it carries. a lot of weight there.

(trust me, there were many excerpts i could have chosen from. even the narrator is very biased against irregular shapes. like. from the way it's used it pretty much reads as a flatland slur)

yeah. i don't know if the unfair link between morality and irregularity existed in euclydia, but with this as a code? it's not impossible. euclydia is not identical to flatland from what we know, but there are still places where they match other than just the base concept.

bill being implied equilateral by the axolotl makes this interesting. while he could definitely be labelled irregular in other ways (his eye), being equilateral would mean he doesn't fit the main flatland definition. but that doesn't mean they wouldn't use it as an insult anyway.

his exact angles could have shifted, which is possible in flatland (and he shapeshifts to forms that look far less equilateral in the show, so i don't think he's really that confined in shape at least currently), but i think him being equilateral yet being the one to destroy euclydia could also be interesting as a subversion of the flatland bias. though him being irregular by a small amount would also align with themes he already has. i think both could work.

but, if irregularity IS as heavily punished in euclydia as it is in flatland, one of his parents being named scalene (a term that is notably quite absent from the book! instead they use phrases like "irregular isosceles", from what i could see. i love when things are made significant by omission), is very interesting as well, if it's more than just a name.

given scalene seems? to be able to lead what seems a fairly normal life from the bare snippets we have? i think if there is discrimination of this nature in euclydia, it could be less extreme, and may be one of the cases where the worlds are different.

but irregular being used in relation to bill as a criminal makes it seem like something in his universe, at least. or maybe it got picked up from a different 2d world and applied to bill later?

at the very least, it adds a layer to his aversion to answering this question in the ama:

TL;DR: the website code "irregular" leading to the color version of the mugshots is likely a reference to flatland connecting it with criminality. which is interesting if that means being irregular is a notable thing in euclydia as well, but even if it's not, it's an interesting reference!

[nanami-is-nanamean]

Oh my god. Oh my god WAIT--

HOW TF HAS NO ONE MADE A DO I LOOK LIKE HIM EDIT OF TOJI AND MEGUMI LIKE--

HELLO???

EXCUSE ME????

And yeah the first two are from the same scenes roughly but AHA--

I MEAN CMON DUUUUUDE

EVEN THEY CRAZY SMILE IS THE SAME

Pleaseeee the song is perfect for them

[starcurtain]

1/?

I use an automatic translator, I'm terribly sorry in advance for any possible mistakes!First of all, I want to wholeheartedly thank the author for the excellent analytics of phaedei! It's hard to overestimate how useful this turned out to be for me as a person who is also starting to look at peyring, but wants to find this line between queerbating and queercoding, between real chemistry and potential and just a pragmatic desire to attract an audience "at any cost."

I would like to leave comments on the entire text, but it seems that I need time for the material to settle in my head and I can draw objective conclusions. But for now, I can write my thoughts on the thesis that it is "atypical" for Hoyoverse to portray MLM dynamics outside the heteronormative framework, because I don't quite seem to agree with him.

I can't say that ship with characters who don't have a clear imbalance of canonical feminine/masculine traits is something new and unusual for Hoyo games.The desire to reduce one character to a feminine image and the other to a masculine one is often more a product of fandom activity. In the canon, these qualities could be distributed much more heterogeneously and ambiguously.

Ayato and Thoma have an imbalance of power, but not femininity and masculinity, and many, on the contrary, interpret Ayato as more refined and aristocratic, "with delicate marble skin" and all that, and Thoma as a more down-to-earth person accustomed to rough and dirty physical work (he is not only a "housewife", but also a mercenary and a "problem solver").

Aventurine and Ratio have a size difference, which fandom can interpret as a classic "yaoi" pattern, but at the same time, Aventurine is not canonically more feminine, shows many traits associated in society with masculine and even toxically masculine behavior, and Ratio is more sexualized, wears makeup, monitors hygiene, contains in his lore and name, references to goddesses (the words "veritas" and "ratio" themselves are linguistically feminine) and does not show bright masculine features. Even the way the characters sit in the materials with them is an example that they did not try to position Ratio as a "big rude man", but Aventurine as an elegant twink.

Thank you for such a detailed response to the post! I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and I read all the parts of the ask you sent in!

Regarding this point, I'm not sure if it was unfortunately lost in the translations, but I did actually mention this in the original post:

"I don't want to say that Hoyo's track record on this front is bad, because honestly it's not. Their male characters often have surprisingly complex expressions of gender identity, with interesting blends of masculine and feminine traits."

But in the long run... I'm just less concerned with how Hoyo conceived of their characters in totality and more concerned with how audiences are encouraged to perceive those characters, as ultimately, the "gain" Hoyo sees from creating queer characters comes from audiences' interest. I believe the developers are very conscious of how players perceive characters and what consumers want to see from male characters. I think no one knows better how audiences will reduce characters (both male and female) to one dimension than the devs themselves lol.

And so, I just don't think it's accidental that a massive majority of Hoyo's MLM ships can be easily crammed into heteronormative patterns by audiences. Hoyo knows what sells and what fandoms love to do with ship-baited characters, and they provide just enough fuel for the fire to achieve the sales they want. Even while developing decent three-dimensional characters of their own, they invoke the fandom tropes on purpose to sell to their specific target audiences.

Characters like Aventurine and Thoma have masculine traits, yes--but then Hoyo deliberately uses feminine traits to market them, so that fans can apply their stereotypical heteronormativity. There's no reason for Thoma to be a housekeeper as well as a mercenary, right? He could just be employed by the Kamisatos as a "problem-solver" alone, but Hoyo added the housekeeper bit for... what reason? He's only a housekeeper because that allows fans to imagine him in a specific heteronormative role. Almost his entire hangout focused on "feminine" aspects (like knitting sweaters, a cleaning challenge, literal housekeeping classes, etc.) intentionally to make him appeal to fans, who Hoyo knew would then feminize him even further. And Aventurine does have masculine traits, I agree, but one of the core traits Hoyo used to sell him is being "in need of rescue," so that the players can feel like white knights for him and generate entire narratives of Aventurine being "healed" by the love of a big strong man (lol), a stereotypical plot that Hoyo deliberately helped along by making Ratio one of his "saviors."

And even though I said Mydei and Phainon was an exception visually, I think they follow the exact same pattern in terms of personality. The reason there's so much bottom!Mydei in fandom is because the devs have intentionally marketed him to take that role. They didn't have to make him a sweet tooth, have characters in-game call him cute for drinking pink milk juice, have him play house, or make him the one who makes food for everyone. Hoyo invoked the trope of the housewife on purpose to sell him (largely to women, but also deliberately to yaoi fans), and the fandom responds by exacerbating that portrayal even further.

I do applaud Hoyo for creating characters that have depth and can play with gender-related concepts in interesting ways, but I'm not willing to say they're oblivious to how fandoms will perceive, adapt, and reduce those characters to stereotypes.

They know exactly what they're doing when they put out another twink next to a big buff man, I promise. 😂

[peachiibon]

what if i combined both of my main interests right now. what then

warning for a mile long rant of cookie flavor speculations in the tags

[mermaidsirennikita]

Interesting convo about the suitability of Ancient Rome as a setting for historical romance led to the question of "If Ancient Rome not okay for historical romance setting, why Regency okay" (a good convo to have, imo), which then led to "Regency okay because we can say this duke was good to his servants which is an acceptable handwave; no acceptable handwave for Ancient Rome".

With the implication being that because the everyday exploitation is VISIBLE in Ancient Rome, whereas it's Off Elsewhere for the dukes (who benefited, let us be clear, from an empire based on slavery, indentured servitude, and colonialism, whether or not they WANTED TO), the dukes can get a handwave

And I find that. Pretty bad tbh.

[tobyfoxmademeascaly]

My number one, most deeply held, started-as-a-joke-but-now-i-treat-it-seriously headcanon is that Fourchenault is a bastard. A literal bastard.

It’d explain a lot about him, really! Why is he so concerned about his and his family’s image? Why does he carry himself so seriously? Why does he conform so heavily to Sharlayan’s social norms, in contrast with his father?

Well, those things would be quite neatly covered if Fourchenault had, for whatever reason, needed to work very hard to gain his current standing.

And if his very birth was a controversy, well, that would do it, wouldn’t it!

As well as explain why we have never, not even in the Encyclopedias Eorzea, seen even a mention of grandma Leveilleur.