History WMG / TheWorldEndsWithYou

* The final confrontation was a [[SecretTestofCharacter]] for Neku, and Joshua never planned on upholding his end of the bargain had Neku decided to shoot. Josh just wanted to see whether or not he WOULD.

[[WMG: Joshua isn't Gay]]
N-No! Don't walk away from me just yet! Hear me out on this one, please?
* All right, let's start with the psych, as that seems a good enough place as any to launch into the gnarled branches of an epiliptic tree so far-fetched and crazy it could only have taken root deep in the twisted, padded bowels of an insane asylum. If you take a good, long look at the psychs of people in this video game, they tend to reflect that person's talents. Now, the psychs are the pins, which seem to work by shaping a stream of their user's unique Imagination into a certain form, or tuning it to a certain frequency, in keeping with the game's musical theme. But in order to attack the Noise, another component is required - an item of some sort, something of importance to the Player. This intimate connection with the item in question allows the person to hone their Imagination and channel it through the item almost subconsciously, because they do it all the time in the RG. We'll call this item a groove just for kicks. The combination of the Player's Imagination and the groove gives the Player a very unique 'psych personality' that is completely theirs and feels natural to use; in addition, it can only be accepted by certain pins. This is why most people can only use a few pins out of the bazillions they have floating around.
* Why is it necessary to have a psych that is comfortable and easy to use? The Reaper's Game is not trying to force Humanity off the immortal coil and into the blissful waters of erasure and oblivion; it's trying to reincarnate Artists, keep the numbers of Noise down to a manageable level, and create more Angels/Reapers/what have you. It's basically a giant recycling system that filters garbage out, refines the stuff with potential, and spits only the good stuff with strength and fighting spirit (spiral power?) back into the system. Suppose you suck at flipping pins or you got a psych that happened to be a weapon too heavy for you to use effectively, but are an excellent candidate for Angelhood in every other way - it doesn't seem like they'd want you to get picked off immediately because you keep dropping your psych. No, it stands to reason that fighting would only be up to the strenght of your imagination and your will to survive, not whether you can carry a sledgehammer. If that even makes sense.
* So, if we accept this idea for the purposes of argument, we can turn our eyes to the main cast. Shiki's groove would be Mr. Mew, which she brings to life using the psych Groove Pawn. This reflects her talent for bringing projects off the paper and into reality. Beat's groove would be his skateboard, which he rides into combat using the psych Respect; the shockwaves and explody things and stuff reflect his talent for both rolling around on a dinky piece of wood and also his whole SMASHING DOWN BARRIERS GRAAAWHR KICK REASON TO THE CURB AND PUNCH RULES IN THE FACE thing. Neku's groove is his headphones, which he can be seen to grab quite often during battle, particularly when using negative psychs - which probably take more focus to use, given their long-range effects. Neku can use all of the psychs because he can't remember his/doesn't have a specific talent - his Imagination has not yet been specialized, making it more balanced. The overall weakening due to spreading his Imagination around is counteracted by the fact that he has such high levels of the stuff. Rhyme's groove was probably her pendant, and it seems likely that she had the whole Neku thing going on with the whole "can't remember her dreams boo hoo" business.
* Joshua's groove, following in this vein, is his cell phone, which he spends a whole lot of time fiddling around with - calling people, tracking down tasty noodles, snapping photos for his blog, whatever he does with that thing. His psychs are Fall From the Heavens and Holy Light (Jesus beams), but we're going to focus on the former for now. FFtH is a pin that drops crap - well, in game jargon, obstacles - on people, right? There are NEVER any obstacles on the top screen, and the obstacles don't really stick around after being dropped. Where is he getting these things from?
* His Imagination is the obvious response, based on the points above. He appears to open up a mind gate (watch the top of the screen closely, you see stuff voip out of blue light that just so happens to be the same color as Joshua's light-beam-up-to-the-top-zone thingy that shows up right before initiating battle) and drop chunks of solid Imagination onto the Noise, chunks that can only remain tangible for like, three seconds, before vaporising and condensing back in his head again. That's right, he fights with the fuckin' WATER CYCLE. So, then, what do chunks of pure Joshua Imagination manifest as? Not as handbags, not as skirts, not as stilettos or provocative pictures of his Proxy posing promiscuously. No, what occupies Joshua's head are cars, traffic cones, and motorcycles. This seems to imply that Joshua thinks about cars and driving a whole lot. In fact, the most powerful item you can throw at those Noisy critters is a - not pink, not rainbow, not blue - RED PICKUP TRUCK, which is the stereotypically straightest, most flip-the-bird-to-mother-nature vehicle ever invented, next to the Hummer. What the hell...?
* "But ah," you cry, smirking smugly and shaking your head in a display of extreme impudence as you fap to Josh/Neku fanfic under the prosecution's bench. "That evidence is all circumstantial! Pure conjecture! But I'll play along, just to humor you - you do realize that gay people are perfectly capable of liking pickup trucks and motorcycles, don't you?"
* Why yes, yes I do realize this. In fact, we have a trope for that - straight gay, if I'm not mistaken. But look at Joshua - does he LOOK straight gay to you? Of course not, that's why you're writing fanfiction about Josh-Josh all dolled up in drag and sexing up poor, poor tortured Nekky with his fishnet stockings and chiseled abs or whatever. But liking pickup trucks alone is not enough evidence to point to heterosexuality, I'll grant you that.
* But Joshua has another psych - the infamous Holy Light pin, better known as JOSHY'S JEEZUS BEAMS. Oh, yeah, strike down the hordes of Satan with giant phallic columns of holy light - this seems only to hurt my case, right? Well, turn your eyes to the most powerful attack outside of Fusion that Joshua can launch - his Super Jesus Beam, to the fandom. Now, this attack involves twin angel women who may or may not be naked clutching on to giant spears and doing a poledance that ultimately results in all lesser creatures in the area exploding into static with a loud exploding noise, leaving nothing but severely damaged demons and A TRAIL OF WHITE FEATHERS SPLATTERING OUT INTO THE GROUND IN THEIR WAKE WHEN THE SPEARS WITHDRAW FROM THE VAGINAL FOLDS OF THE MIND GATE BACK INTO THE UNZIPPED FLY THAT IS JOSHUA'S SUBCONSCIOUS.
* Which is basically the strongest, most powerful thing his Imagination can summon and force through the dinky little pin, remember. And it's not that he's scared of women clutching giant spears - remember, psychs wind up reflecting your talents and beliefs and stuff like that It seems that Joshua's actions and Imagination are telling us very different things about our "favorite" little jerkass. Which would YOU put faith in - what oozes out of the lying little prick's dishonest mouthole, or what his subconscious mind is kicking Animal ass with?
But this *is* all conjecture.
* "DAMN STRAIGHT THAT'S CONJECTURE," cries the yaoi fangirl, who feels threatened by this revelation. The yaoi fangirl has not been thinking about Joshua's psych - in fact, the yaoi fangirl was mostly just thinking about how hot Joshua shoving his private dick extraordinaire down Neku's sweet, innocent, ukely digestive tract would be. "That isn't PROOF. In fact, it's downright STUPID."
Well, okay. But that isn't all I've got, now.
* Or rather, that isn't all the game will give us. I now turn to pure, raw canon for evidence. Feed Joshua a salad - which is not the manliest menu choice, I'll concede - and Joshua will give you a happy response. Feed him crepes, coffee, and other generally non-fattening foods, and he continues to react favorably.
* Now, feed him a bowl of meaty, greasy, salty steak ramen. You get the "MMMM, I'm in paradise~" sound clip shot directly into your eardrums, as if Josh is trying to sing you his gratitude. Feed him some chili dogs, some power bars, some energy drinks - the response is always Paradise!
* The point here is NOT how chili dogs resemble penises. Neither is the point about how "meaty, greasy," and "salty" sounds so very like a description out of Celebrian. Every time you eat a banana, are you trying to pleasure it with your warm cave? Or are you just in it for the potassium? Does making a slit-like opening in your biscuit and pouring honey in make you a lesbian? NO, because you're going to rip that banana apart with your teeth, chew thoroughly, and swallow the pulped-up flesh in a few minutes; you're going to cram that steaming hot, honey-oozing biscuit down your pie hole in a manner of seconds. Oh wait - does this make you a VORE FETISHIST, because you just ate foods that resemble genetalia and thought, "Mm, that was good!"? NO, it does not. So it stands to reason that - EVEN IF Josh is a weirdo - he's probably not pleasuring his chili dog. *Anyway - EVERYBODY really likes the chili dog (except Neku), and EVERYONE says weird suggestive comments when they eat something they really like (except, uh, Neku) - yet I hear nothing about Shiki pleasuring a chili dog, and neither do I hear anything about BEAT pleasuring a chili dog, and Beat seems to get hit with the gay shipping even harder than Joshua does. (It's just far less public.) Joshua doesn't appear too fond of vanilla ice cream, either; so he is CLEARLY not just saying he likes chili dogs because he wants to shove a greasy, chili covered member down his cavernous gullet. He probably JUST LIKES CHILI DOGS; this is probably because they make them out of ground-up chihuahuas at the Mexican Dog and apparently that's some really tasty shit right there.
* Well, maybe not chihuahuas. Maybe rabid Mexican cave rats, like in that one creepypasta. Now that I have exhausted that point, let me just say this - Beat and Joshua share a whole lot of food prefrences. Beat loves chili dogs, meaty steak ramen, bouillabasse (the spelling of which was apparently decided by a sadistic Frenchman after a few pints) and Joshua loves chili dogs, meaty steak ramen, and he likes bouleyllybase as well. Now, see, chili dogs and meaty greasy steak ramen are very "masculine" foods, don't you think? You don't see many girls chowing down on this kinda crap, because it is fattening, greasy, bad for your skin, and involves the slaughter of cute little animals. Also it takes a lot of gut space to eat a chili dog packed to the gills with chili and cheese and whatever else they're putting in those horrible things. In addition, these foods are quite messy. Most girls just don't like that kind of thing. Power bars and energy drinks are also thought of as quite "masculine," simply because society is a dickhead and hasn't yet warmed to the thought of track star ladies working out at the work out place. (They also aren't that healthy and they taste like napkins.)
* The point of this is that, while Joshua does like girly foods like salads and crepes, he LOVES manly man food. Which, along with liking pickup trucks and angel women, does not seem to ''fit'' with his public image.
* "But ah, my friend, what is considered stereotypically heterosexual in America is quite gay in Japan." The yaoi fangirl is trying to change the way the evidence is piling up by turning our perspective on its head. "This is why we have things like the bishounen - and you ''do'' remember where Joshua lives, don't you? Shibuya, Tokyo! And do you know where Tokyo is? No, it's not in Conneticut. It's in JAPAN."
* YES, I know that. But did you know - this kicks all of the "Joshua dresses gay and has gay hair!" stuff out from under its feet? Joshua's clothes aren't nearly as - let's face it - camp as Neku's; why, Joshua looks like he just swaggered out of a classy dinner function or something. Neku wears a purple shirt that looks like it's composed of a tube sock and a crumpled satellite dish, along with bright purple boots, (this alone sounds like something Lady GaGa would wear to the grocery store, with all due respect) and Joshua wears a button down and work shoes - and yet ''Joshua'' is the gay one? I'll admit that being in a constant state of well-dress in America will raise some eyebrows, but in Japan that's nothing to write home about, is it? Not that I'm saying Neku is gay, no - but aren't his clothes a little more, well...flamboyant? But nobody says Neku looks gay. Because it's a Japanese game, and people are weird in Japan. Particularly in Shibuya.
* Neku also seems to care more about his hair than Joshua does, because Joshua has a stupid haircut, and Neku's clearly got enough hairspray on his spikes to keep those babies in top condition for at least a month. So Joshua's cascading ash locks of hair mean nothing, really. Plus, Joshua's shirt is a liiiittle too big for him, and it looks like it was bought in the bargain bit at Natural Puppy, which DOES sell man clothes too, for your information. If you go to an area where Nat. Puppy is the top brand, you can see people wearing similar button-downs and thinking about how comfy and practical it is to chill in Natural Puppy threads. This seems to imply that Joshua is a penny-pincher, which seems to fit with his personality.
* If we cut out his appearance, psych, and food preference, all we have left to go by is how he acts. Now, let's see - Joshua is a DISHONEST, SNEAKY LITTLE WEASEL who NEVER GIVES A STRAIGHT ANSWER (ha-ha). So WHY do you expect me to believe that when he "flirts" with Neku he means every word from the bottom of his coal-black heart? Speaking of this "flirting" - where is it? Think about it - he only calls Neku "dear" ONE TIME in AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE in a manner that seems to imply JEST, in the same universe where everybody is fucking obsessed with CHILDREN'S PIN GAMES. It's a PARODY. He takes a picture of Neku's "ass" in a comic that has NOTHING to do with the game's plot, and therefore is not canon in the slightest - and even then, I thought it looked like he was taking a picture of Neku's retarded outfit (he was wearing a PINK RUBBER MOHAWK for God's sake) than his bum, but that's probably just me. The "watch my behind" thing struck me just as how Joshua talks - using Grandma-like words and bizarre analogies or whatever, putting in high contrast to Neku, who just says damn hell ass screw it *angst*, Beat, who talks like he's trying to be black, and Shiki, who talks like a regular girl with all the likes and the totallies. Neku would have been like, "you watch my back and I'll save your ass when I have to," and Beat would have been like "we INNIS TOGETHER, MAN YO FRIZLLE MY NIZZLE" or whatever. The giggle...well, there's not much to say about that, except his RG form has probably not hit puberty yet. He looks like he still has some baby fat, but that's unrelated.
* Maybe it's just where I live (the middle of Texas) but lots of dudes I know happen to do stuff like this all the time. Far more intensely than Joshua ever did, too - here we have butt-slapping and lithping injured girlfriend talk. If you call someone gay, they'll play along (unless they're not quite so quick on their feet, in which case they protest). The goal of this all is not to be gay as a goose, it is to ''make the girls giggle.''
* This brings me to another point - Joshua is [[spoiler:the Composer]], and he knew about the Game. If we think about it like this - The Game is full of Players, directed by the Conductor and the Composer, making Music - who's going to hear this Music? The Audience, of course. He seems to have awareness of us - occasionally he'll glance at the fourth wall - which brings me to the thrilling conclusion:
* Joshua is playing up the Ho Yay angle in order to score fangirls. Seriously, he's doing pretty much the same thing as Kick-Ass, except on a broader scale. Neku is aware of this (he glances at the fourth wall as well - he and Joshua are the only two to do this), and does not condone the practice - particularly because it makes him look bad, and also because yaoi fangirls are confused and seem to have yet to realize that Neku is a male. Seriously. Show me a Josh/Neku fanfic and I'll show you weirdo transgender yuri.
* Why does Joshua do this? Attention, girls giggling and talking about him, bragging rights, knowing that HE gets the most attention. Power. It's all a power play. Take out the fourth wall element and it still works. If you have ever made a gay joke about Joshua being a silly gay, or if you have ever written/read Josh/Neku fanfic, or anything of the sort, you have fallen for his trap, too. Judging by the sheer quantity of Josh/Neku fanfic/art/whatever, humans are very easily manipulated.
* Alternatively, he's just messing with everybody. He likes to watch you squirm in discomfort because it makes him feel ''awesome.'' I'm willing to bet money he trolls people on 4chan.
* '''tl;dr Joshua is a lying weasel, the end.'''

All right, let's start with the psych, as that seems a good enough place as any to launch into the gnarled branches of an epiliptic tree so far-fetched and crazy it could only have taken root deep in the twisted, padded bowels of an insane asylum. If you take a good, long look at the psychs of people in this video game, they tend to reflect that person's talents. Now, the psychs are the pins, which seem to work by shaping a stream of their user's unique Imagination into a certain form, or tuning it to a certain frequency, in keeping with the game's musical theme. But in order to attack the Noise, another component is required - an item of some sort, something of importance to the Player. This intimate connection with the item in question allows the person to hone their Imagination and channel it through the item almost subconsciously, because they do it all the time in the RG. We'll call this item a groove just for kicks. The combination of the Player's Imagination and the groove gives the Player a very unique 'psych personality' that is completely theirs and feels natural to use; in addition, it can only be accepted by certain pins. This is why most people can only use a few pins out of the bazillions they have floating around.
Why is it necessary to have a psych that is comfortable and easy to use? The Reaper's Game is not trying to force Humanity off the immortal coil and into the blissful waters of erasure and oblivion; it's trying to reincarnate Artists, keep the numbers of Noise down to a manageable level, and create more Angels/Reapers/what have you. It's basically a giant recycling system that filters garbage out, refines the stuff with potential, and spits only the good stuff with strength and fighting spirit (spiral power?) back into the system. Suppose you suck at flipping pins or you got a psych that happened to be a weapon too heavy for you to use effectively, but are an excellent candidate for Angelhood in every other way - it doesn't seem like they'd want you to get picked off immediately because you keep dropping your psych. No, it stands to reason that fighting would only be up to the strenght of your imagination and your will to survive, not whether you can carry a sledgehammer. If that even makes sense.
So, if we accept this idea for the purposes of argument, we can turn our eyes to the main cast. Shiki's groove would be Mr. Mew, which she brings to life using the psych Groove Pawn. This reflects her talent for bringing projects off the paper and into reality. Beat's groove would be his skateboard, which he rides into combat using the psych Respect; the shockwaves and explody things and stuff reflect his talent for both rolling around on a dinky piece of wood and also his whole SMASHING DOWN BARRIERS GRAAAWHR KICK REASON TO THE CURB AND PUNCH RULES IN THE FACE thing. Neku's groove is his headphones, which he can be seen to grab quite often during battle, particularly when using negative psychs - which probably take more focus to use, given their long-range effects. Neku can use all of the psychs because he can't remember his/doesn't have a specific talent - his Imagination has not yet been specialized, making it more balanced. The overall weakening due to spreading his Imagination around is counteracted by the fact that he has such high levels of the stuff. Rhyme's groove was probably her pendant, and it seems likely that she had the whole Neku thing going on with the whole "can't remember her dreams boo hoo" business.
Joshua's groove, following in this vein, is his cell phone, which he spends a whole lot of time fiddling around with - calling people, tracking down tasty noodles, snapping photos for his blog, whatever he does with that thing. His psychs are Fall From the Heavens and Holy Light (Jesus beams), but we're going to focus on the former for now. FFtH is a pin that drops crap - well, in game jargon, obstacles - on people, right? There are NEVER any obstacles on the top screen, and the obstacles don't really stick around after being dropped. Where is he getting these things from?
His Imagination is the obvious response, based on the points above. He appears to open up a mind gate (watch the top of the screen closely, you see stuff voip out of blue light that just so happens to be the same color as Joshua's light-beam-up-to-the-top-zone thingy that shows up right before initiating battle) and drop chunks of solid Imagination onto the Noise, chunks that can only remain tangible for like, three seconds, before vaporising and condensing back in his head again. That's right, he fights with the fuckin' WATER CYCLE. So, then, what do chunks of pure Joshua Imagination manifest as? Not as handbags, not as skirts, not as stilettos or provocative pictures of his Proxy posing promiscuously. No, what occupies Joshua's head are cars, traffic cones, and motorcycles. This seems to imply that Joshua thinks about cars and driving a whole lot. In fact, the most powerful item you can throw at those Noisy critters is a - not pink, not rainbow, not blue - RED PICKUP TRUCK, which is the stereotypically straightest, most flip-the-bird-to-mother-nature vehicle ever invented, next to the Hummer. What the hell...?
"But ah," you cry, smirking smugly and shaking your head in a display of extreme impudence as you fap to Josh/Neku fanfic under the prosecution's bench. "That evidence is all circumstantial! Pure conjecture! But I'll play along, just to humor you - you do realize that gay people are perfectly capable of liking pickup trucks and motorcycles, don't you?"
Why yes, yes I do realize this. In fact, we have a trope for that - straight gay, if I'm not mistaken. But look at Joshua - does he LOOK straight gay to you? Of course not, that's why you're writing fanfiction about Josh-Josh all dolled up in drag and sexing up poor, poor tortured Nekky with his fishnet stockings and chiseled abs or whatever. But liking pickup trucks alone is not enough evidence to point to heterosexuality, I'll grant you that.
But Joshua has another psych - the infamous Holy Light pin, better known as JOSHY'S JEEZUS BEAMS. Oh, yeah, strike down the hordes of Satan with giant phallic columns of holy light - this seems only to hurt my case, right? Well, turn your eyes to the most powerful attack outside of Fusion that Joshua can launch - his Super Jesus Beam, to the fandom. Now, this attack involves twin angel women who may or may not be naked clutching on to giant spears and doing a poledance that ultimately results in all lesser creatures in the area exploding into static with a loud exploding noise, leaving nothing but severely damaged demons and A TRAIL OF WHITE FEATHERS SPLATTERING OUT INTO THE GROUND IN THEIR WAKE WHEN THE SPEARS WITHDRAW FROM THE VAGINAL FOLDS OF THE MIND GATE BACK INTO THE UNZIPPED FLY THAT IS JOSHUA'S SUBCONSCIOUS.
Which is basically the strongest, most powerful thing his Imagination can summon and force through the dinky little pin, remember.
And it's not that he's scared of women clutching giant spears - remember, psychs wind up reflecting your talents and beliefs and stuff like that It seems that Joshua's actions and Imagination are telling us very different things about our "favorite" little jerkass. Which would YOU put faith in - what oozes out of the lying little prick's dishonest mouthole, or what his subconscious mind is kicking Animal ass with?

"DAMN STRAIGHT THAT'S CONJECTURE," cries the yaoi fangirl, who feels threatened by this revelation. The yaoi fangirl has not been thinking about Joshua's psych - in fact, the yaoi fangirl was mostly just thinking about how hot Joshua shoving his private dick extraordinaire down Neku's sweet, innocent, ukely digestive tract would be. "That isn't PROOF. In fact, it's downright STUPID."

Or rather, that isn't all the game will give us. I now turn to pure, raw canon for evidence. Feed Joshua a salad - which is not the manliest menu choice, I'll concede - and Joshua will give you a happy response. Feed him crepes, coffee, and other generally non-fattening foods, and he continues to react favorably.
Now, feed him a bowl of meaty, greasy, salty steak ramen. You get the "MMMM, I'm in paradise~" sound clip shot directly into your eardrums, as if Josh is trying to sing Spanish lullabies to his food or something weird like that. Feed him some chili dogs, some power bars, some energy drinks - the response is always Paradise!
The point here is NOT how chili dogs resemble penises. Neither is the point about how "meaty, greasy," and "salty" sounds so very like a description out of Celebrian. Every time you eat a banana, are you trying to pleasure it with your warm cave? Or are you just in it for the potassium? Does making a slit-like opening in your biscuit and pouring honey in make you a lesbian? NO, because you're going to rip that banana apart with your teeth, chew thoroughly, and swallow the pulped-up flesh in a few minutes; you're going to cram that steaming hot, honey-oozing biscuit down your pie hole in a manner of seconds. Oh wait - does this make you a VORE FETISHIST, because you just ate foods that resemble genetalia and thought, "Mm, that was good!"? NO, it does not. So it stands to reason that - EVEN IF Josh is a weirdo - he's probably not pleasuring his chili dog. Anyway - EVERYBODY really likes the chili dog (except Neku), and EVERYONE says weird suggestive comments when they eat something they really like (except, uh, Neku) - yet I hear nothing about Shiki pleasuring a chili dog, and neither do I hear anything about BEAT pleasuring a chili dog, and Beat seems to get hit with the gay shipping even harder than Joshua does. (It's just far less public.) Joshua doesn't appear too fond of vanilla ice cream, either; so he is CLEARLY not just saying he likes chili dogs because he wants to shove a greasy, chili covered member down his cavernous gullet. He probably JUST LIKES CHILI DOGS; this is probably because they make them out of ground-up chihuahuas at the Mexican Dog and apparently that's some really tasty shit right there.
Well, maybe not chihuahuas. Maybe rabid Mexican cave rats, like in that one creepypasta. Now that I have exhausted that point, let me just say this - Beat and Joshua share a whole lot of food prefrences. Beat loves chili dogs, meaty steak ramen, bouillabasse (the spelling of which was apparently decided by a sadistic Frenchman after a few pints) and Joshua loves chili dogs, meaty steak ramen, and he likes bouleyllybase as well. Now, see, chili dogs and meaty greasy steak ramen are very "masculine" foods, don't you think? You don't see many girls chowing down on this kinda crap, because it is fattening, greasy, bad for your skin, and involves the slaughter of cute little animals. Also it takes a lot of gut space to eat a chili dog packed to the gills with chili and cheese and whatever else they're putting in those horrible things. In addition, these foods are quite messy. Most girls just don't like that kind of thing. Power bars and energy drinks are also thought of as quite "masculine," simply because society is a dickhead and hasn't yet warmed to the thought of track star ladies working out at the work out place. (They also aren't that healthy and they taste like napkins.)
The point of this is that, while Joshua does like girly foods like salads and crepes, he LOVES manly man food. Which, along with liking pickup trucks and angel women, does not seem to ''fit'' with his public image.
"But ah, my friend, what is considered stereotypically heterosexual in America is quite gay in Japan." The yaoi fangirl is trying to change the way the evidence is piling up by turning our perspective on its head. "This is why we have things like the bishounen - and you ''do'' remember where Joshua lives, don't you? Shibuya, Tokyo! And do you know where Tokyo is? No, it's not in Conneticut. It's in JAPAN."
YES, I know that. But did you know - this kicks all of the "Joshua dresses gay and has gay hair!" stuff out from under its feet? Joshua's clothes aren't nearly as - let's face it - camp as Neku's; why, Joshua looks like he just swaggered out of a classy dinner function or something. Neku wears a purple shirt that looks like it's composed of a tube sock and a crumpled satellite dish, along with bright purple boots, (this alone sounds like something Lady GaGa would wear to the grocery store, with all due respect) and Joshua wears a button down and work shoes - and yet ''Joshua'' is the gay one? I'll admit that being in a constant state of well-dress in America will raise some eyebrows, but in Japan that's nothing to write home about, is it? Not that I'm saying Neku is gay, no - but aren't his clothes a little more, well...flamboyant? But nobody says Neku looks gay. Because it's a Japanese game, and people are weird in Japan. Particularly in Shibuya.
Neku also seems to care more about his hair than Joshua does, because Joshua has a stupid haircut, and Neku's clearly got enough hairspray on his spikes to keep those babies in top condition for at least a month. So Joshua's cascading ash locks of hair mean nothing, really. Plus, Joshua's shirt is a liiiittle too big for him, and it looks like it was bought in the bargain bit at Natural Puppy, which DOES sell man clothes too, for your information. If you go to an area where Nat. Puppy is the top brand, you can see people wearing similar button-downs and thinking about how comfy and practical it is to chill in Natural Puppy threads. This seems to imply that Joshua is a penny-pincher, which seems to fit with his personality.
If we cut out his appearance, psych, and food preference, all we have left to go by is how he acts. Now, let's see - Joshua is a DISHONEST, SNEAKY LITTLE WEASEL who NEVER GIVES A STRAIGHT ANSWER (ha-ha). So WHY do you expect me to believe that when he "flirts" with Neku he means every word from the bottom of his coal-black heart? Speaking of this "flirting" - where is it? Think about it - he only calls Neku "dear" ONE TIME in AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE in a manner that seems to imply JEST, in the same universe where everybody is fucking obsessed with CHILDREN'S PIN GAMES. It's a PARODY. He takes a picture of Neku's "ass" in a comic that has NOTHING to do with the game's plot, and therefore is not canon in the slightest - and even then, I thought it looked like he was taking a picture of Neku's retarded outfit (he was wearing a PINK RUBBER MOHAWK for God's sake) than his bum, but that's probably just me. The "watch my behind" thing struck me just as how Joshua talks - using Grandma-like words and bizarre analogies or whatever, putting in high contrast to Neku, who just says damn hell ass screw it *angst*, Beat, who talks like he's trying to be black, and Shiki, who talks like a regular girl with all the likes and the totallies. Neku would have been like, "you watch my back and I'll save your ass when I have to," and Beat would have been like "we INNIS TOGETHER, MAN YO FRIZLLE MY NIZZLE" or whatever. The giggle...well, there's not much to say about that, except his RG form has probably not hit puberty yet. He looks like he still has some baby fat, but that's unrelated.
Maybe it's just where I live (the middle of Texas) but lots of dudes I know happen to do stuff like this all the time. Far more intensely than Joshua ever did, too - here we have butt-slapping and lithping injured girlfriend talk. If you call someone gay, they'll play along (unless they're not quite so quick on their feet, in which case they protest). The goal of this all is not to be gay as a goose, it is to ''make the girls giggle.''
This brings me to another point - Joshua is [[spoiler:the Composer]], and he knew about the Game. If we think about it like this - The Game is full of Players, directed by the Conductor and the Composer, making Music - who's going to hear this Music? The Audience, of course. He seems to have awareness of us - occasionally he'll glance at the fourth wall - which brings me to the thrilling conclusion:
Joshua is playing up the Ho Yay angle in order to score fangirls. Seriously, he's doing pretty much the same thing as Kick-Ass, except on a broader scale. Neku is aware of this (he glances at the fourth wall as well - he and Joshua are the only two to do this), and does not condone the practice - particularly because it makes him look bad, and also because yaoi fangirls are confused and seem to have yet to realize that Neku is a male. Seriously. Show me a Josh/Neku fanfic and I'll show you weirdo transgender yuri.
Why does Joshua do this? Attention, girls giggling and talking about him, bragging rights, knowing that HE gets the most attention. Power. It's all a power play. Take out the fourth wall element and it still works. If you have ever made a gay joke about Joshua being a silly gay, or if you have ever written/read Josh/Neku fanfic, or anything of the sort, you have fallen for his trap, too. Judging by the sheer quantity of Josh/Neku fanfic/art/whatever, humans are very easily manipulated.
Alternatively, he's just messing with everybody. He likes to watch you squirm in discomfort because it makes him feel ''awesome.'' I'm willing to bet money he trolls people on 4chan.
'''tl;dr Joshua is a lying weasel, the end.'''

** Considering this series has both a TroperTales page and two WMGs it must be a conspiracy of former players to prepare future players. Note to self if I must die, die in a city.

<<|WildMassGuessing|>>

The Reapers keep referring to one of them running that week's Game as the Gamemaster. The Reapers also speak about the various rules of the game (and being constrained by them), even though they themselves dangerously powerful, can live lives in both the RG and UG, and supposedly rule over life and death itself. Even though the game should last 7 days, many missions refer to having a 60 minute time limit, suggesting that time is as flexible as needed by the Game. All these facts are also common features of pen and paper [=RPGs=]! Neku and the other main characters (Beat, Rhyme, Shiki, Joshua) are all PCs, and Mr. Hanekoma is the GM. Obviously the system they're using has some form of permanent death system [[spoiler:(Rhyme's death); Mr. Hanekoma setting up the Rhyme Pin was just the GM creating a clever workaround for the pact rule; Beat's defection to the Reapers was just character development and a way to avoid the problem of what would happen to the Beat/Rhyme pair for the next week; Shiki winning the Game and later returning was simply due to her player bowing out of the group and later coming back.]] Neku's ability to use so many pins is a result of NOT min-maxing: all the other PCs did and as a result reduced the number of pins/abilities they could use, in return for more power for the attacks they COULD use. Co-incidentally, this actually sounds like an awesome pen and paper RPG, and this troper would actually like to play it...

----

Because she's god and he's Jesus....

[[WMG:Red Skull pin in RG be the equivalent to the Player pin in UG]]

* This Troper would rather it be in Shibuya. We've already gone with the big city approach, let's try a smaller town. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building could be that game's 104.