I want to talk about how the qsmp federation dinner blended canon and non-canon "storylines", and just how effective that was for engaging Philza "the fourth wall is for other people and I'll sneak away mid-lore" Minecraft: Those who don't watch Philza streams might not know, but cc!Phil identifying when his eggs are not his eggs is a regular occurrence. He knows when Chayanne's admin is portraying Cucurucho, and when Tallulah's admin is subbing in to play Chayanne. Phil keeps track of which admin is which as a means of judging what scenarios are safe for them. He knows what skills he's taught them and even some of the hardware limitations they're working with. So when someone else steps in to play them, its a risk, because it means he doesn't know how his kids are going to act.
Philza takes about a minute and a half to call out "Tallulah" as not his egg. But if you watch closely, you can see that it took him less than 15 seconds to identify that the wrong person was playing her. Early in the dinner (4:52:50 on Phil's stream), Philza noticed and pointed out to his chat that the chef was lagging in a way that Tallulah normally lags. When "Tallulah" shows up to the dinner, there's a moment when he looks away from her-- he's not scanning for threats, he's checking that the chef was still around. And then giving a knowing look straight to camera. For a bit after that, he keeps looking back at the chef and talking to "Tallulah" like she's real. Because what cc!Phil hasn't decided at that point is whether or not this is canon. He knows the admins have to switch around for practical reasons, which have never been canon before.
But it's already a risk. This might be q!Tallulah, but it definitely isn't the Tallulah that cc!Phil knows how to predict and protect. All of the earnest, half-in-character conversations between Phil and Tallulah's admin about how they both want to keep her safe and how best to accomplish that are suddenly for naught, because the wrong person is on the other side of that screen.
While most of the characters and audience got to doubt reality when the eggs transformed, the same sort of process happened for cc!Phil and his chat as soon as the eggs showed up. What we were doubting was the line between canon and non-canon, but it tapped into much the same emotions while overriding the tongue-in-cheek approach to canon that normally holds sway in Phil's streams.
It's just so cool to see storytellers embrace the limitations of the medium to enhance the story they're telling like this. What a fun stream that was!
