Lil Bugs

i’m cackling imagining criminal-justice-major-andrew minyard as a paralegal. like he’s simultaneously really good at his job bc of his eidetic memory. but is also an absolute asshole to attorneys. and occasionally alludes to having committed felonies.

in honor of that post going around about andrew becoming a lawyer once he retires

i raise you, once neil motherfucking josten is allowed to retire from exy and his dues are paid: he becomes a math professor

just imagine that

him receiving a letter one day, when he's in his mid forties, from ichirou, saying that he's paid his debt, that he's free to do what he wants

and neil, bless his heart, instead of allowing himself some much needed and deserved rest, thinks, what else could i make a living out because god forbid he does nothing with his days

(cue andrew screaming into a pillow somewhere)

and like that he goes back to university, gets a degree in teaching maths however that's called, and suddenly they're professor in maths husband with lawyer husband

(honestly that's so hot of them)

like imagine, you're an accountant student, getting ready for your calculus class (or some other difficult physics or math class), your classmate turns to you

"hey did you hear mr. thompson retired? it was about time not gonna lie, but i heard from some girls that he was some messed up looking guy, these people have lost their minds hiring thugs now"

and you nod bc what else are you supposed to do

and you sit there waiting, until five minutes from the start of the class, he walks in in all his auburn scarred glory, your exy idol, the guy who you followed until he retired and dropped off the face in the earth, and you think what the fuck is neil josten doing here

and then

"hello everyone, my name is neil josten, im your new [advanced mathematics] professor, today we're just gonna check the syllabus"

iconic

Even if Dead plate wasn’t queerbaiting, it was DEFINITELY shipbaiting. The dialogue option about whether Rody is jealous of Vince’s possible gf, the hair drying scene, the way he stops correcting Rody about not calling him Vince… u guys r tumblr girlies, you knew damn well what you were doing LMAO. There’s nothing wrong w that lol - it makes for a fun dynamic - but don’t claim that queerbaiting never came into it pffft

My co-developer and composer who worked on the game are both men, calling us "tumblr girlies" is a bit condescending and disrespectful.

To queerbait or shipbait, it means we were taking advantage of possible queer characters and relationships as a means to appeal to queer audiences while maintaining ambiguity about the characters' sexualities. We don't believe the game was baiting anyone since again not only the sexualities of the characters aren't ambiguous as it was fully stated they were written as queer the moment they were designed way before the game was even developed, we've expressed multiple times that while the game does have themes of queerness and cannibalism the main plot and intention behind the source game was always intended to heavily focus on exploring the horror that comes from toxic and unhealthy obsessions and mindsets and how far one is willing to go for them (Rody's self-sacrificial and desperate love for Manon, Vince's selfish obsession for perfection, Rody and taste, etc). The game is about a waiter seeking out and realizing what happened to his ex-girlfriend, that's always been the main plot, Dead Plate is a game in the thriller/horror genre and there was not a single mention of the game having any possible romance in it nor the queer identities and interactions of the characters were used to promote the game in any of the official game pages or promotional material to draw in more audiences, so hearing that you're watering the game down just as some kind of shallow bait is a bit disheartening.

Sometimes characters just happen to be queer, and not all media with queer characters are strictly about romance. Their relationship is still up for audience interpretation and people can take them as whatever they like if they want to enjoy them like that as long as they aren't hurting anyone but we never meant to intentionally bait anyone into trying out the game using their queerness, and that as queer writers ourselves we've expressed time and time again how we wished people to check out the game for the overall narrative and message it has rather than for people to only focus and view the game as shipping material since we believe the game offers a lot more than that.

Deleted textpostlines from Strangers From Hell

kiss me as if you're punching me

The Monsters’ Little Monsters

The Princess

Amalia Theadosia Day

The Demon of Exy

Emilio Isaiah Minyard-Josten

The Cutest

April Brianna Minyard

The Overachiever

Anais Margot Minyard

protagonists as brothers... brotagonists

I want "Neil died in Baltimore" Andrew and "The Moriyamas killed Andrew as a warning" Neil to meet

intertwined, sewn together

Short comic based on last mha ep.