Latest Posts by je-suis-applebread - Page 2

I've felt very discouraged, demotivated and anxious today, so I decided to go for a walk (I don't usually do so, but when everything's inside me bad they help sometimes)

I decided to stay outside until sunset and when I looked at it I immediately got inspired and ran home to start working on it right away.

It somewhat helped so I wanted to post it here as well. Here's also the photo but it's not as saturated as it really was.

A bride and an ugly ass groom

My masterpiece

I WENT "THEY HAVE A _WHOLE_ INTERACTION AND THEY ALSO INTERACT LIKE THEY'VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR ETERNITY AND THERE'S NOTHING THEU DON'T KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER LIKE PLEASE YOU CAN SENSE HOW THEY DON'T MAKE EACH OTHER STRESSED EVEN A BIT PLEASE"

Like PLEASE I'M NOT THE ONE WHO NOTICED _HOW_ THEY INTERACT, RIGHT????

THE WAY I FUCKING SCREAMED WHEN THEY INTERACTED

(my summoning ritual for Fire Spirit is leaving Wind Archer alone at a romance island)

i cried guys. theyre so canon

Well if this ain't relatable af

i painted kaito in a minecraft style

Mydei: *lives*

Meanwhile Phainon somewhere:

(it's funny – Mei for Kiana and M-yd-ei for Kevin expy)

I love a character raised to be a weapon as much as the next guy. But what really gets me is a character raised to be a shield. Who can’t fathom being needed—or even being wanted— beyond keeping others safe. Who believe they are alive only to insure someone doesn’t die. no matter the cost. Characters who self-sacrifice not because they think they deserve it, but because no one else does deserve it, and it’s their job to protect.

Characters who’ve been told that’s why your important. Your worth something because this other person/ thing is important, and you are here solely to keep them safe.

Bonus points if it’s not a legitimate job they’ve been given. Maybe at one point it was, but now that they are free from it, they haven’t given up that mentality. No one is forcing or asking them to do this, but they need to. They need to in order to be deserving.

Not even 5 minutes after Mydei leaves Phainon can’t stop talking about his wife.

Even after the 3.1 Trailblaze Mission, when you talk to Phainon again, he always brings up Mydei.

h e l p

Comparing Phaidei and Other Hoyo MLM Ships (Part 2)

<- Part 1 is back that way.

In the first part of this, I laid out some of the ways Phaidei fits within Hoyo's normal pattern for queer-coded MLM ships: They're equals but opposites, perfectly matched; they've ostensibly got a "rivalry" as a cover for their laser focus on each other; their models are deliberately placed closer together in cutscenes than other characters' are, and they're intentionally paralleled to a heterosexual married couple. All of these are traits that other Hoyo MLM pairs also show, a sort of foundational standard for Hoyo's queer-coded MLM ships.

But then Phaidei just took a huge side-step around all of them, and started doing things that Hoyo hasn't done in any of their other recent games. (Tiny aside here: HI3 does wildly different things with its characters; I think that being first published when Hoyo was a more obscure company allowed them to get away with things--like the Bronya/Seele kiss and Welt and Co.'s cross-dressing, for example--that "modern" Hoyo games cannot get away with due to greater levels of public scrutiny.)

I said it in the other post, but it bears repeating:

You really aren't imagining things--Phaidei is actually different.

So I wanted to take a closer look at what was making it feel so unique, by comparing its differences to other popular Hoyo MLM ships.

Here we go:

1. The Feeling's Mutual

There was no heterosexual explanation for this framing.

In Part 1 of this post, I noted that Hoyo has a typical personality pattern they follow when queer-coding their male characters, particularly in using "difficult" personalities to create an artificial sense of distance between the characters. If one character is angry all the time, or tsundere, or using sarcasm to cover for their fear of getting close to others, Hoyo can mobilize that personality gap as a shield to give anti-LGBT+ players plausible deniability. Hell, there are people still out there genuinely convinced that Alhaitham and Kaveh have a toxic relationship. There are people out there saying Ratio despises Aventurine because he was mean to him one (1) time while undercover. That's how effective injecting a little bit of bickering into a queer-coded relationship is.

Hoyoverse is very, very familiar with creating this delicate balance of teasing the ship while feeding anti-LGBT+ players and censors just enough "Look, they don't like each other; they're arguing!" contrary material to avoid setting anyone off.

Which... makes it absolutely bizarre that they made almost no effort to do this with Phainon and Mydei.

Sure, on paper we're told that Phainon and Mydei are rivals. Phainon describes it as "He's both my friend and my foe." And yes, they have their quips (Phainon's "It's exhausting talking to you sometimes" comes to mind).

But animosity--the genuine desire to one-up each other--is completely missing from Mydei and Phainon's "rivalry." They aren't Sasuke and Naruto. They aren't Izuku and Bakugou. They don't actually even want to beat each other--they want to be equals. If you defeat Mydei in the 3.0 competition, Phainon immediately folds and calls the contest off. If you let Mydei win, Mydei immediately folds and declares no contest.

Although Aglaea notes they compete because they're "impulsive youths," what she was actually missing is that Mydei only let himself be goaded into Phainon's hot bath competition because he was worried about Phainon and wanted to take Phainon's mind off the failed trial. Then, immediately after beating Phainon in the hot bath challenge, he lets Phainon win the "take more people home" challenge, to tie up their score again.

In fact, Mydei and Phainon's relationship is so devoid of the actual back-and-forth typical of other Hoyoverse MLM ships that at one point, Phainon even asks for it:

(Though he's equally quick to demand compliments from Mydei too.)

Instead, virtually every line from Phainon and Mydei through both 3.0 and 3.1 reiterates that they care deeply about each other, and are concerned for not only each other's physical well-being but also each other's mental and emotional health. They freely and consistently support each other both on the battlefield and off, confessing their struggles and relying on each other for advice. Whenever they're separated, the game intentionally hammers home how worried they are without the other around.

Over and over and over again, the devs tell you how well Mydei and Phainon know each other and how much effort they're putting in to take care of each other:

The game doesn't let us forget that they are one another's "closest person," and that the respect they have for each other is mutual. Although I wouldn't go so far as to speculate they actually recognize romantic feelings, canon makes it clear that they are aware their emotional connection goes both ways. They don't just value each other's battle prowess, intelligence, or usefulness--they value each other's feelings explicitly, every single time emotions are expressed between them in the game's text.

In fact, Mydei even scolds Phainon for approaching their goodbye with a straight face; he knows that Phainon is hurt by their parting, and he wants Phainon to be honest, as Mydei is being honest in turn:

The rainbows in the background really sold the scene, ngl.

This isn't Renheng, where resentment has taken away any glimmer of joy. This isn't Ratiorine, where even if Aventurine were in a more stable mindset, Ratio's inability to spit out his feelings might keep them from going anywhere. Even with Haikaveh, the Hoyo ship known for Alhaitham's devotion, Kaveh's own struggles and refusal to accept Alhaitham's kindness are an active plot point keeping them from progressing. Maybe you could draw a parallel between Phaidei and Cyno/Tighnari for levels of "mutual," but even then, Cynari interactions are often left off-screen or in the background, for the players to fill in the blanks. On the contrary, Phainon and Mydei's fondness for each other is constantly in our faces.

The devs wanted players to know Phainon and Mydei are invested. We're supposed to see how much they want to be near each other.

More than that, we're supposed to understand just how deeply they trust each other.

Okay, okay, yes, I know this is massive foreshadowing to the inevitable betrayal and tragedy impending (come on, Amphoreus wouldn't qualify as an ancient Greek drama without it!), but I think that a lot of people are missing the key here: By this point in the story, Mydei already knows how he's going to die. He knows someone is going to stab him in the back and finally end his immortal life. When he entrusts Phainon with this secret, he's not trusting Phainon to keep him safe. He's trusting Phainon to do the opposite.

He's telling Phainon: "I want it to be you."

If the prophecy can't be changed and fate is set in stone, then Mydei wants Phainon to be with him in his final moments, to be the one to finally set him free from the "curse" he perceives his own immortality to be. Of course it would be Hoyo who makes "I want to die by yours hands" into a declaration of ultimate trust, but it is an explicit statement of trust, in a way that very few--if any--other modern Hoyoverse MLM ships get to show each other on screen.

Phew, that was a lot!

But I think this is one of the clearest and most defining differences between Phainon and Mydei and other Hoyo MLM ships--the devs took away players' ability to claim they don't get along. You might still be able to call them "just friends" or "brothers in arms," but unlike Alhaitham and Kaveh who fight, Ratiorine who scheme, or Renheng who are actual enemies, Mydei and Phainon explicitly like each other. They trust each other. They seek one another out.

It might seem like a small thing on paper, but this is actually a big thing in practice. Hoyo is pushing the boundary here, reducing the avenues for deniability. It is harder for anti-LGBT+ fans to claim that Phainon and Mydei don't have obvious in-game ship-tease than for virtually any other modern Hoyoverse MLM ship. (By the way, this is why people have resorted to calling Phaidei "industry plant yaoi;" because they can't deny the queer-coding is actually there this time, they instead have to try to de-legitimize the ship in other ways, such as dismissing it as nothing more than bait.)

This also means Hoyo has less of an "out" if people start to really question. It would be harder to explain away Phainon and Mydei's relationship than it would be to explain away even Alhaitham and Kaveh's. Alhaitham and Kaveh have "They're always arguing" and "Their friendship was ruined by their fight" or "They're just roommates," etc. to lean back on. Phainon and Mydei... are really bad at even pretending to be rivals...

All of this to say: Hoyo made a bold and deliberate choice allowing two of their mainstream male characters to be so emotionally close and attentive to each other on screen. They went outside their own current comfort zone for this one, guys.

2. We're Conspicuously Missing a Twink

Moving on from Phaidei's emotional differences, I wanted to talk specifically about Hoyoverse's perspectives on gay men, and how easy it is for companies to slip into not only stereotypes for gay characters, but also extremely heteronormative portrayals of gay relationships. As sad as it is, it is easier to market queer-coded male characters if they fit into the expected pattern for heterosexual relationships: a highly masculine man to "wear the pants" in the relationship, paired with a delicate, effeminate man to obviously be the bottom.

Now, don't get me wrong: Gay relationships come in all varieties; people have different preferences, and categorical groups like "twinks" and "bears" exist so people who have those preferences can find each other. Obviously plenty of hyper-masculine gay men do want more effeminate partners. But "masculine man with feminine man" isn't the only kind of gay relationship around, despite what yaoi ship-tease might suggest.

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... Hoyo does have a pattern. Plenty of their queer-coded MLM ships fall into this same general (and kind of stereotypical) profile: a masculine man with a more feminine man. Alhaitham is inexplicably ripped and represents calm rationality, while Kaveh is "the spitting image of his mother," has to wring out his wrists when he uses his own weapon, and represents passion and romanticism. Ayato is the head of his clan; Thoma holds housekeeping classes for Inazuma's other housewives. Xingqiu is the "refined" rich boy in ruffles; Chongyun is the down-to-earth working lad. Wriothesley is the most masculine man in Genshin Impact; Neuvillette mothers the entire race of Melusines. Over in Star Rail, Aventurine covets pink diamonds, bathes himself in sparkling perfume, and is so tiny Ratio's hands can encircle his waist. (I don't actually think Aventurine is that feminine, but trying to pretend that he isn't designed to evoke queer tropes is just silly.) Moze is as ripped as Alhaitham, while Jiaoqiu is... very pink. I'm going to talk more about Renheng in a sec, but Renheng is also this way, with the more "delicate"-looking Imbibitor Lunae to Yingxing/Blade's solid frame.

Mydei and Phainon don't fit this pattern at all. Both of them are as tall as Star Rail models come, and while Mydei's build has an impressive degree of bulk, Phainon is no slouch either:

Neither one of them is visually effeminate in any manner, and they're also not effeminate in personality or role in the story. Neither of them is a housekeeper or a home-maker; (again, poor Aventurine catching strays, but:) neither of them is in the business of blinding people into deals with their good-looks or careful facade of helplessness.

Theoretically we could say the devs tried to squish Mydei into a more heteronormative role by giving him traditionally "feminine" traits: he cooks, he plays house with children, he puts milk in his juice and turns it pink, he's paralleled almost exclusively to his own mother... But his role in the plot is such a quintessentially masculine story (son of a self-fulfilling prophecy, father-killer, god-slaying warrior, king to his people, aura-farming champion of the Amphoreus battle cutscenes, etc.) that clearly we are not meant to perceive him as a stereotypically feminine figure. The whole "malewife Mydei" thing comes across as so comedic because he is so masculine.

Conversely, Phainon, despite being the "gentler" of the two characters, the one who is described as having a soft heart and being outgoing and kind, is even less suited to being called feminine. His "Messiah"-esque role in the story, literally being the "prodigal son" of Amphoreus, paints him as the very picture of a classical male hero. Even more so than Mydei, he is a private and closed off person who hides his heart--and his own identity--from those around him, traits more often stereotypically associated with emotionally-closed-off men than female characters.

Up to this point, Hoyoverse had a relatively stable pattern in the MLM ships they baited in their recent games. They primarily played it safe, sticking to queer-coding relationships that both visually and narratively reflect heteronormative relationships.

But Phaidei once again broke the mold.

This time, Hoyo chose to queer-code not the more delicate-looking man (although I guess there's still plenty of time for Anaxa, I shouldn't sell him shorter than he already is lol), but two overtly masculine male characters, who can't be readily projected on to a stereotypical heterosexual relationship. This was a big departure from the norm, and I think this actually deserves a lot more respect than people are giving it. Hoyo didn't have to pick their two muscle-bound warrior male leads and make them close and caring. They didn't have to expose themselves to the obvious question: "Why are two 'manly' characters being so soft on each other?" It is harder to pass off Phainon and Mydei's queer-coding as accidental, or suggest the fans are just reading too much into it, when nothing about them can be mistaken for a "traditional" heteronormative relationship. For a game produced in China, where standards for depicting men and masculinity in media are so high, making the choice to bait two masculine men together (let alone this expansion's "hero," who is an expy of a beloved former character), was a very bold and risky choice on Hoyo's part.

Companies don't make bold and risky choices on accident.

Finally, I wanted to make one more point about why I appreciate Phaidei's emotionally attentive depiction--it's because there's a whole other realm they could have taken the "definitely going to turn into a villain" queer-coded main character. As I mentioned in the first part of this post, queer-coding villains is a trope as old as dirt. When you queer-code a male villain particularly, you add an extra layer to the danger: Now the male villain is not just a physical threat, but a sexual one. Adding queer-coding to the male villain conflates homosexuality with deviance or perversion and suggests sexual violence even if nothing ever truly occurs.

Maybe the real Hoyoverse queer-coding was the red flower petals we threw along the way.

I said I was going to bring up Renheng, and here it is: Unfortunately, Blade and Dan Heng fall into this latter pattern a bit. Although he has his reasons, the game's portrayal of Blade's "pursuit," especially in the early portion of their story, casts Dan Heng into the role of the victim, a young man being hounded by a crazed stalker who refuses to let him go. Their cutscenes, including Dan Heng's nightmares, paint Blade as an overwhelming presence who invades both Dan Heng's physical space but also his mental space, making it impossible for Dan Heng to escape his clutches. This "We must pay the price together" absolutely reads, out of content anyway, as some sort of yandere death pact. Their lightcone is literally called "Nowhere to Run."

Even though Blade is not deliberately engaging in any form of sexual behavior, his obsession with Dan Heng gives some impression of a cliched "depraved homosexual" and the implication that sexual violence could occur is present through their early interactions. I'm not going to lie, part of Renheng's early appeal was how scary and dominating Blade came across as. The subtle sexual implications of pursuit are the point. As things progress, of course, we saw this dynamic dissipate, which I think speaks to the devs reflecting a bit on how they want Blade to come across to audiences.

We know that Phainon is headed for a downfall. It's been so obviously foreshadowed at this point that there's really nothing much more to say than that--however, even though he will likely also descend into villainy like Blade, and even though we know he's very likely going to kill Mydei... I don't think that the devs will use Phainon's queer-coding as part of his Flame Reaver identity. I don't get any sense that the dev team will conflate Phainon's potential homosexuality with depravity, or use it as a motive for his descent into villainy (he might be gay and a villain, but he won't be a villain because he is gay). I definitely don't think we will see the kind of sexually-threatening physicality between Flame Reaver and Mydei that the devs did earlier with Blade and Dan Heng, even if "stabbing someone from behind" does have an inherent sort of sexual symbolism.

I appreciate that even in a story headed for the obvious "stabbed in the back by the villain form of the man I loved," the devs seem like they will avoid any portrayal of gay men as predatory.

3. Leave Room for the Trailblazer

In part 1 of this post, I mentioned that Hoyo uses the placements of characters in scenes to indicate closeness, and I already pointed out that Mydei and Phainon stand really... really... close together, much closer than they stand to other characters.

However, it's not just that their models are literally positioned closer together in cutscenes--it's that their body language explicitly closes other characters out. Plenty of Hoyoverse MLM ships are ship-baited by moving the models of the male characters closer together, but very, very few of them are positioned to so consistently exclude even the player.

For comparison, consider the well-known scene where Alhaitham brings the Traveler and Paimon to his and Kaveh's house, which was framed with both domesticity and intimacy:

Although Alhaitham and Kaveh are also prone to the "stand shoulder-to-shoulder" thing that Hoyo does when they want to imply closeness between characters, the framing of their scenes nevertheless leave enough space for the Traveler and Paimon to be active participants in the conversation, enough space between Alhaitham and Kaveh for Traveler to not look blocked out.

For example, despite standing next to each other in that moment above, the camera deliberately cuts Alhaitham out, so that only Kaveh and the Traveler duo occupy the shot. Later on, Alhaitham bridges the divide between the Traveler and Kaveh, turning away from Kaveh toward the Traveler--once again, the conversation and scene are open to the Traveler, and thus, to the player.

Here's a live demonstration of my earlier point: Alhaitham and Kaveh stand closer together than the player and Candace, indicating their closer connection.

Other scenes play out similarly--although Alhaitham and Kaveh are close, their body language doesn't actively exclude other characters or the player from feeling like part of their conversations.

Over in Star Rail, we see the same general situation. We know that Aventurine rarely stands close to other characters, with Ratio being the one relatively consistent exception, but even so, the camera will usually give them some breathing room, making it feel like there's enough space for the player on the other side of the screen to be part of the moment:

Meanwhile Blade excludes both Dan Heng and the player, putting us on equal footing to Dan Heng and giving the impression that the player and Dan Heng are standing against Blade together. There is still room for "us" in this scene.

However, once again, Phaidei proves the exception. Mydei and Phainon don't just stand close--they don't even want to share air with anyone but each other.

A very normal way to have a group conversation. Definitely.

Consistently when standing side-by-side, they turn inward to face each other, rather than facing other characters in the conversation, literally forming a closed unit despite the fact that they're supposed to be in a group scene:

The thirdest third wheel to ever third wheel.

If it wasn't enough for the devs to just imply that the Trailblazer isn't able to break through Mydei and Phainon's circle, they decided to call it out in the text itself, echoing the player's own thoughts: "What about me?"

As I mentioned in the first part of the post, the devs also consistently use specific camera angles to capture both Mydei and Phainon in the frame together, at the same time, further emphasizing the closed nature of their conversations.

You will never see so many over-the-shoulder shots again in your life. You are the outsider looking in!

Perhaps most telling about the devs' intention to create an intimate air for Phainon and Mydei's conversations is that literally everyone else disappears when they speak to each other. For example, Phainon and Mydei's first goodbye takes place in the Garden of Life, which is actually a pretty bustling plaza with numerous NPCs. But every single NPC was deliberately removed by the dev team for Mydei and Phainon's scene there, to allow them a private moment:

Even in their final farewell, where Mydei was seen off by a literal bustling crowd of NPCs, not a single person is visible during their goodbyes--until the exact moment Mydei reminds Phainon that the whole rest of the world is waiting for him. The whole rest of the world didn't even exist for Phainon until Mydei forced him to remember.

It's not just the Trailblazer (and us, the player) who is third wheeling Mydei and Phainon's relationship. They literally exist in a world of their own when they speak to each other. No other modern Hoyoverse ship is on this level of excluding even the player--excluding even the damn NPCs!--to make a point about their closeness.

I thought I was going crazy the first time I was watching these scenes, thinking "It can't be that the devs actually went that far in framing Mydei and Phainon as a pair." But they did. They actually did.

The envelope has been pushed off a mountain, my guys.

But that still wasn't enough for the devs. They needed to go further.

4. Deploy Shoujo Manga Trope #57

I know I just said that Phainon and Mydei's relationship doesn't map well a typical heteronormative male/female relationship, but that doesn't mean the devs gave up on any and all attempts to apply typical romantic cliches to Phaidei. On the contrary, the dev team's thought process seems to have been "Hey, we're doubling-down on our queer-coding for Phainon and Mydei. How can we make it really, really, really obvious they're a ship?" And then they literally spun a roulette wheel of romantic tropes and threw every single one of them at patch 3.1 at the same time.

We have the "romantic lead beautifully framed by red rose petals blood glitter":

The "You used my love to manipulate me" subplot:

Phainon begs for compliments, and Mydei's reaction is to look away demurely and call him a scoundrel?? Am I seeing things?!

This is where he'd be blushing like a tomato if he was a female character.

The "please look after my dear husband when I'm gone" tragedy trope:

THE RING???

"LET'S MEET AGAIN IN THE NEXT LIFE"?!!

What do I even say about all... this...? Do I even need to say anything at all? Has any MLM ship in a recent Hoyoverse game gotten remotely as many romance flags? Alhaitham, where is Kaveh's ring?!

What I actually want to say isn't a specific breakdown of any of these moments, but what they mean in totality. Remember that Hoyo made every one of these choices with deliberate intent. They knew what the picture would add up to. These are explicitly romantic tropes that are extremely difficult to interpret in other lights.

You are supposed to read "If there's a chance in the next life" as "I want to be reincarnated with you; I want to meet you again; I want to be with you in a softer world."

You're supposed to think of the ring as a wedding ring. For one, Gorgo would only have gotten it through her marriage to Eurypon, but even more so--there was no reason this item needed to be a ring in the first place except to evoke images of wedding rings. We already knew from 3.0 that Castrum Kremnos used crests and seals for identification. Why make it a ring and not just the crest of Castrum Kremnos? Furthermore, why involve Phainon at all? The audience would never have known any different if Chartonus just said "Found this I did, have it you should, Mydei." It's a ring and it's a ring deliberately from Phainon because the devs want you to see it as a wedding ring.

What an incredibly bold move on Hoyo's part, and I don't even really mean just in the context of being a Chinese company, but even in the context of being a global company. Hoyo lives and dies by the revenue of their character banners, and choosing to explicitly and (nearly) exclusively apply romantic tropes to their male lead and deuteragonist in a brand-new patch cycle was a legitimately daring choice. Their deliberate application of romantic staples to an MLM ship, in a way that is difficult even for anti-LGBT+ fans to write off, was a very, very calculated decision. I genuinely hope it pays off for them. I hope Mydei and Phainon's banners both sell well, so the devs' receive a clear message in turn that fans appreciated their boldness and their commitment to creating queer content for these two characters.

I'm just going to end on one final note, about a scene that you may have noticed I conveniently skipped. Yes, the most conspicuous scene of them all:

5. A+ Censor Dodging

By some miracle of obliviousness, some Olympic-level mental gymnastics, or by sheer force of will, I think some people might still have made it to this point thinking that Phaidei was not being deliberately baited by the devs. You could maybe, somehow, convince yourself that the blood glitter rose petals and the shoulder-to-shoulder emotional conversations were just coincidences, that the tsundere "I'm not worried about him" was just dudes being tough guys, that the Trailblazer was a third wheel because Phainon and Mydei are "just good friends."

But then devs said "No, we need to be unmistakable. We need to make ourselves 1000% clear. We are baiting the yaoi fangirls, guys; please stop ignoring our hard work."

If going further than they've ever gone with Mydei and Phainon's body language wasn't enough, if Phainon's being willing to kill a god to save his man wasn't enough, if implying a wedding ring wasn't enough, what else could the devs possibly do to remove all plausible deniability and make it undeniably clear that Mydei and Phainon are queer characters (even if it is only for the benefit of yaoi fangirls)?

They can do something they've never done in their recent games before: Imply actual sex between male characters.

(Side note, Hoyo lesbians have had this implied sexual content pass from the beginning. You will always be famous, Beiguang. It's only the male characters that can't even have implied sex. 😂)

Obviously Phainon and Mydei are not having sex in the game. The dialogue even goes out of its way afterward to remind us that they remained fully clothed in that bath, thank you. But the refusal to show what was actually happening--censorship used as a tool to imply--the cut to the black screen, the narration of one animal pursuing another, the discretionary water droplets between the moaning... (And another little edit because @mynabirb made such a good point in the tags: The fact that they chose to "censor" this with a butterfly, the literal symbol of romance in Amphoreus, is almost too much. The devs really did say "Time to silence all doubts.")

From the player's perspective--and examining this as a choice on the dev team's part--there is no way to read this scene other than "sexually suggestive." You're supposed to think "This sounds incredibly sus." Because it is sus. Because the devs added this scene knowing that it would intentionally make people think about the idea of Phainon and Mydei having sex.

Sure, this scene is really funny in context. You're supposed to come out of it laughing, going "Wow, they're idiots." But you will also, whether you like it or not, come out of this thinking "Damn, Hoyo really went all in on the yaoi bait, didn't they?"

You can't "Devs didn't mean it" out of this one.

Which is brave as hell on Hoyo's part, to be honest! Even if this is nothing but queer-baiting, they saw that sick yaoi fan money and decided to go all in on it.

Say it with me: A dev team from a country with notoriously strict rules against depictions of homosexuality in media, from a company with a huge global fanbase including many conservative and religious countries, and with a majority male target audience, went out of their way to undeniably include sexually suggestive gay content in their game.

Whatever their motivation--be it simply money or from a genuine desire to tell gay stories--this wasn't a casual decision. This took commitment. This decision almost certainly went all the way to the top brass of the team for clearance. Someone probably had to fight to get this added.

But they did it, and not with Kaveh and Alhaitham (the previously undisputed kings of current Hoyoverse queer-coding) but with two brand-new (to Star Rail at least) characters who have extremely important roles in the game's on-going narrative--major characters who can't be overlooked.

Phaidei is literally built different.

But I'm still left with one lingering question:

Is Hoyo queer-coding or just queer-baiting?

Even though I played 3.1 in a sort of stupefied haze because I actually couldn't believe what I was seeing in Phainon and Mydei's scenes, I also ended it with a pretty bittersweet feeling.

How amazing that Hoyo pushed the envelope so far with Phaidei... But at what cost?

Did Mydei really have to leave Okhema never to return? Or is he being banished from the plot because his relationship with Phainon was too intense?

Isn't this just the "bury your gays" trope, in essence?

Lore-wise, there isn't any reason Mydei actually has to leave Okhema forever. Sure, he presumably is going to fight the Black Tide where it manifests across Amphoreus, but what about that requires him to "never return"? Demigods aren't geographically bound to the locations their Titans blessed, or Aglaea and Anaxa wouldn't be able to leave the Grove. There shouldn't be any reason Mydei can't visit Okhema when he wants.

The more you think about it, the worse it looks that the dev team implied Phaidei harder than they've ever implied an MLM ship before, only to immediately turn around and go "And then Mydei left forever." As if the only way it's okay to make characters that gay is if you then get rid of at least one of them. (Speaking humorously, at the rate Phainon and Mydei were going, if the devs didn't get rid of Mydei, he and Phainon probably would have been making out on-screen by 3.2, but you know what I mean.)

Sure Phaidei can be the MLM Star Rail ship with the most support in canon--but only at the cost of never being seen together again, apparently.

I'm not sure I like this trade off.

However, I am telling myself to remain cautiously optimistic. We know that Mydei's role in the story is not done, and that he and Phainon are destined for at least one more reunion, even if it won't be a happy one. We've been told that Amphoreus's story will be "heart-warming." I choose to believe that the devs will try to scrabble some sort of positive ending out of all this. At the very least, perhaps we'll end with a "in another life montage," and get to see Phainon and Mydei finally meeting in that library.

So is Hoyo queer-coding from a genuine desire to include gay characters or just baiting hard to sell Mydei to fangirls?

I'd say let's wait and see. Amphoreus has barely started cooking.

In the meantime, I think it is worth examining (and appreciating) Hoyo's willingness to mix up their own patterns, break their own trends, and to try something truly new and different with Phaidei. Even if this is all the content we ever get, Hoyoverse did things they haven't done before in any of their recent games, and showed that they're willing to push the limits for queer content in order to tell the stories they really want to tell.

I am a served fan, Hoyo. Well played, well played.

Okay but can we agree that if Phainon takes Mydei from back he bites that tenth vertebrae or whatever it's called???

(also that Mydei absolutely loves the thrill of it)

Okay phaidei headcanon that one can only pry from my dead hands

Mydei's death by wound in the back is actually Safe, Sane and Consensual™ way to leave this world when Phainon grows old so what's better than to die the same day like some romance novel

(hopium)

HELP WHY KRIS AND SUSIE SO THAT "BREAKCORE MUSIC BE LIKE" MEME WITH ANYBODY CAN FIND LOVE (EXCEPT YOU) YOU KNOW THAT ONE

can they perform on your dashboard real quick

Just a day ago I was like "oh, phaideis, what a nice pairing that's just a pairing" and now hoyo absolutely defeated anyone who dared thinking of phaidei shipping competition and nothing can beat the allegations and I absolutely lost myself and I feel like I'm aboutta cry because I don't know how to react and what to think I just know I'm filled with inunderstandable emotions and I feel so much like screaming and kicking and autodefenestraring oh god how can i live in a world like this now I feel like I nearly _have_ to replay amphoreus with this hindsight because all this time i was like "haha funny phaidei coincidence/bait they obv did not mean it in phaidei way" and now it seems that absolutely everything there is was meant in phaidei way and I'm losing myself over this help

If there are no companies there will still be tasks to do, jobs to work.

If there are no workers there are no companies.

You know what it reminds me of? Arguments of russian government about Ukraine.

So, USA may also refuse to take no for an answer. It's a very sad world to live in.

Wouldn't count on that, Russia already had a precedent so I won't be surprised they pull that shit as well

Especially since they've fallen even worse someplaces (Elon being openly nazi and I didn't hear of Russia forcefully legally detransitioning trans people at least yet)

(when is the second coming ayo pretty please I'm fine with whatever I get for my sins if it finally ends)

I'm thinking of getting american news off of my tumblr feed because it keeps getting more and more distressing but I also don't use other media with said information and I don't want to fall out of loop that much

Im sorry i stumbled upon this only now⚰️🪦

He's not as much worrying about custody as he wonders how did he even managed to recover when these chaotic entities got under his custody while he was still in a condition far from perfect

Regarding your eldad faerie au-

Does he live in your au? Like he doesn't just go off and die?

Yep, he does not just go off and die. To summarise him living (still look at the pic though, it has not only details):

Pure Vanilla got as stubborn as his love of his life and refused to let Elder Faerie sacrifice his Life Powder for White Lily and did so himself, so when Elder Faerie launched that powerful attack he did not die and left White Lily as his succesor, he just needed some rest.

feel free to ask any questions im alrready craving for more

also, i like him with short hairbangs, im leaving him with short hairbangs even though i relaised they're long

Hey, anyone here knows fics where Ford spends more time with Mabel than Dipper pre-Weirdmageddon???

My first thought was "oh what if Mabel was the one to be scared shitless by project Mentem scene" but then I was like "hey what if Mabel was spending all that time with Ford actually?"

So liiiike...

Any fics where she basically take the place of Dipper in the topic of Ford?

I just imagine portaled Fidds and portaled Stan looking at the whole sea of portaled Fords, side eyeing them and then sticking together. And getting together after some time I guess

Damn I hope universe makes me stumble upon portaled fiddlestans. Could be different dimensions could be the same one I just really want some i guess

Feel like creating toxic af billford post canon myself because I didn't happen to stumble upon one all this time

Can't help laughing my brains out whenever I see charity billford getting in my feed/pos

THEY DID NOT ONLY GOT PAIRED STICKERS THEY ALSO WERE PUT ONTO PACK PROMOTION TOGETHER

DEVSISTERS DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO THE CLASS—

THEY HAVE PAIRED STICKERS AYOOO

KOHLZEST FOR THE WIN!!!!!

Has anybody researched defrosting properties of bird shit yet?? 'Cause those few day old stains are the only spots where my car didn't get ice caked

Has anybody done these yet?

Pt 3 Mystery Trio au

Fiddleford finally makes it to gravity falls yippee ✨

First / Previous / Pt 4 work in progress...

A fictional universe where people can't get oxygen from air for whatever reason so they instead consume oxygen cocktails as everyday part of their ration