>>534374602
>Am I going insane?
No, you're just underestimating people's pessimism. While the dev notes at first say that they're merely "considering scaling back some of the existing pairing elements" and will be asking in a survey about this, further down their "Renewal Plan" for revising the existing story already includes "Reducing male-female coupling elements, among others." Making it sound like a foregone conclusion.

And as you say, shipping has never been a big part of the story. In the main story it's essentially confined to pairing Lathel with Justia, pairing Gray with Schera with the complication of Liatris being head over heels for Gray, and Olivier with Hansen. So if they're "revising" the existing main story to "remove coupling elements", they're basically saying they're going to neuter Gray's relationship with Schera and Liatris, and Lathel's relationship with Justia, and Olivier's relationships with Hansen; in hopes that people won't complain when Justia, Schera, Liatris, or Olivier get "encounters" with the master of the Gluppy Restaurant. There's simply not much else they could be "scaling back" as far as pairings in the main story.

People don't see that going well, for the story, for Lathel and Gray's characters, or for Olivier's backstory.