#soup talks about his new hyperfocus

[lordofthesoups]

Every time i see the king in yellow written as KIY i read it as KYS its gotten to the point that my brain has hardwired the initials KYS to send a pure bolt of ADHD super hyperfocus beam straight to my soul as i read someone randomly talking about the king in yellow

[tumblunni]

Random headcanons about the Qu species cos we never really learn much about them in the game except "they are funnie and cute". But i mean. THEY TOTALLY ARE! So i am love them and think more the thoughts.

* Okay so first off why is it that we see so few of them and all the ones we see are apparantly raised in a family of one elderly mentor and one student with apparantly nothing like a human parental structure? One of the few additional facts we got revealed in supplementary materials is that Quina is 89 in human years but this is considered "young adult" by Qu standards. So i'm assuming they have pretty damn long lifespans! Oh man, Qus are final fantasyverse elves?!?! I mean.. Lives amoungst nature... Mysterious and magical... Dedicates their long life to the pursuit of knowledge...it all adds up o.O theyre just elves if elves were funny instead of majestic! Normal elves do the same thing but with books n magic n archery n shit, seriously they just fuckin did ctrl + f replace everything with cookery terms. I HAVE CRACKED THE CODE, YOU GUYS

* okay sorry where was i LOL! Alright so i was thinking an explanation for Qus being so rare and seemingly not having a nuclear family unit = maybe theyre literally just spawned from nature? Like theyre technically a type of monster, just one thats more intelligent and able to form their own society. They just poof up out of the mist every now and then, and wreak havoc on whatever ecosystem they landed in with their Ultimate Super Adaptation Blue Magic Powers. So Qu Marshes are sorta like orphanage/lookout spots where elder Qus will try and find wandering bebs and invite them into the wider society. Most Qus are constantly nomadic, on the search for new recipes, and only the oldest ones will return to their childhood home and dedicate themselves entirely to teaching le youth.

* Either that or i dunno maybe Qus are like dragons in some kinds of fiction? Yknow the thing where a dragon egg is indestructable and lasts forever and takes a hundred years to hatch. So its rare for a parent to manage to keep ahold of all their kids long enough for them to be born, and most qus just wake up in a random place in god knows where and never find out who theyre blood related to. But their society is built more around these found family chef teacher structures so they dont really feel like they lose anything compared to humans. Also whenever a qu wants to pursue some other hyperfocus aside from cookery, they tend to seek out a human as their mentor/parent. After all, humans are everywhere and do lots of things! Its just a lil confusing sometimes cos the blacksmith accepting this random foreign exchange student doesnt expect them to get super attatched and start calling him dad! ("What do you mean you have nowhere to live??")

* oh and yeah i dont think that ALL qus forever have exactly the same personality and goals in life cos 'this entire species does one hobby' is a very stupid idea. Its just that they come from a very harsh and wild environment where you have to eat weird poisonous plants and dangerous giant monsters or else you starve. So itd make sense theyd develop a civilization around it when its a vital part of their existance and like.. The ability to acquire food more easily would be the entire reason WHY they coul start a society, cos otherwise it takes up 90% of their day every day. And developing complex cookery very quickly would also make sense because learning to prepare otherwise inedible stuff into edible form would be the greatest invention of early history! So food is just valued very highly because of those foundations of their society being one built on starvation. Nowadays theyre more able to eat enough to survive but that culture stuck around and they still celebrate even the smallest bowl of rice! So i think its totally probable that there are many Qu who have other hobbies and leave the qu homeland to pursue them, but i also think theyd still keep those cultural values of appreciating cooking even if they had other goals in life. So they do get the reputaion of "only ever chefs" from humans.

* Also to go with my headcanon of Qus being less of an anthro animal like most of the other races and more 'anthro vague concept of scary monsters in general, if they were actually nice and baked pies'. What if kid qus go through a tadpole/caterpillar stage where they actually are just monsters? Quina shows their baby photos and its just this big terrifying fangy blob in a cute onesie. I'm thinking that bebys would spend their childhood mostly feral and dangerous and then metamorphose into their more humanoid form once they become intelligent enough. So the length of their childhood stage could be shorter if theyre raised around other qus and learn to talk earlier. But probably those who rush through development like that would be physically smaller and weaker? Like higher magic stat vs higher defense.

* Qus have a more fluid concept of gender compared to humans. Its not like all of them are genderless but they're comparatively more accepting of people like Quina than humans are. The sexual dimorphism in their species is low so they mostly indicate gender through fashion sense and..well.. Saying "i am [insert gender here]". And their life is full of so many much more dangerous and important things so why the hell would they waste time thinking so much about dumb stuff like "uwu this person is somehow wrong about their own gender and i cant let it go until i prove it". So to a qu it would make literally no sense how humans are all "ugh this trans person is really [birth sex]" like uhh hello she said is girl, where problem??? Humans all look equally identical from a qu perspective so it all seems stupid.

* Similarly i think maybe qus adopt people from other species fairly frequently? By qu law, Vivi would be considered a qu citizen because his grandpa was a qu. If you're raised in the qu ways then you're not a human, that just doesnt make sense! Maybe you're a smaller weaker qu but youre still one of us! There are distinctions in the language between being part of the species and being an immigrant to the culture, but there isnt any predjudice about it. Qus get their reputation of being "stupid" because theyre very carefree and simple i guess, but thats not necessarily a "stupid" thing. They've advanced past a lot of bigotries humanity is still stuck on, because their society around hospitality like this. The power of food!!

* Also they don't speak "broken english" because they're stupid, like dont say that when you never made any effort to learn their damn language. I kinda have the headcanon that maybe qus speak all sorts of different languages since their culture highly values the idea of travelling the world to learn more cookery? Like they only have trouble being a master of any of these languages cos they learned SO MANY and its hard to remember all the different rules. Why do humans have so many countries!!

* I like the idea of Qus having the old medieval "perpetual stew" tradition. Having a family crock pot thats always bubbling with whatever miscellaneous leftovers everyone brings back with them each day. But maybe qus have a big community version? Just a giant town cauldron. Itd probably have way higher odds of giving terrible soup if literally everyone is throwing in ingredients with no regard for each other, but the roulette aspect would be fun, lol!

* Qus have a reverse of usual human traditions for guests. When a qu is a guest in someone's home its expected that they'll cook something for the people who invited them in, and the family will be hapoy to get a chance to share new recipes with this stranger. So its common to open your kitchen to anyone and keep a good stock of ingredients just in case. Similarly, the main way Qus judge if a human is trustworthy is to challenge them to cook something or take down some tasty boss monster. According to legend, humans first came into contact with qu society when a legendary knight slayed a ruby dragon and helped feed a villaige for a week. So thats why qus decided to trust humans,but still some individuals might be wary until you prove a similar feat of cooking strength. Any fellow gourmands are instantly accepted though, and many taverns across human society boast that they are "qu approved". The coveted "five yummy yummies" rating is ever elusive!

* Qus really like Fancy Hats

* i really like Fancy Hats

* this is why i love the qus