thank you for the drabble word! I tried to take a stab at your little guys.
“Alright everyone. In response to anonymous feedback -”
Vanessa shrinks in on herself, giving away the chance for anonymity Chris would have liked to award her;
“- I would like to propose a bit of a culture shift in how we treat and speak to one another. These new communication guidelines apply for rehearsals, but, very importantly, also for stage performances - and, before you ask, Dennis, TV recordings, radio reads, as well as any other creative pursuit. Understood?”
Dennis nods a little too quickly; it's a good thing Vanessa is handing out the leaflets.
…Dennis can read, right? Right.
“Starting today, the following phrases are banned: ‘break a leg’, ‘blow them away’, and, of particular importance, ‘knock ‘em dead’. We don't need any further self-fulfilling prophecies on this stage.”
For the fic writer ask game, I'm going to ask number fourteen: is there anything outside your normal content that you want to write?
Also asked by @ladyculebras!
14 ⧽. is there anything outside of your normal content that you want to write?
At this point I've written a lot of different genres and covered a lot of different ground, so I'm sometimes not sure what my normal niche is! But for something I haven't written or don't usually write, I like the idea of writing a murder mystery or thriller, or an original romance novel. I'm not sure I have good enough ideas at this point to carry a mystery/thriller story or compelling enough OCs to write an original romance, but someday I'd like to try my hand at it.
For the unfinished fanfiction meme: do you have anything lying around for The Good Place?
I don't have any ongoing projects for The Good Place, but I do have unused notes from a rough draft of eating in:
"Oh!" Tahani says, her eyes widening as Michael's words sink in. "A soulmate? But I don't... I thought I didn't... Like. Women. In that particular way. Well, I did enjoy that one kiss with my good friend, Keira... and that other kiss with my great friend, k d..."
Eleanor sighs. "Oh, fork me. This is the Bad Place."
For your one-word drabble challenge, your word is 'knife'!
Hello Riona, my friend!
A little bit of joshneku be upon you!
"That's new."
Joshua smiles beatifically at him. "Do you like it, dear? I thought it would make the ordeal a little more personal. I got you one, too~"
The knife he tosses barely misses Neku's hand. It sinks a whole ten centimeters into the mural behind him. He won't even be able to get it out before Josh is upon him.
So much for fairness.
"Is there really no other way?" He's pretty sure the twister kids slid into the UG even though they were still alive; but perhaps that was because it was already so unstable.
"Nope!" There it is again - the smile, and something Joshua isn't saying.
Oh well. Neku trusts his partner has good reason to drag him back into the UG.
"Let's get this over with, then," Neku says, and bares his throat.
As you've just reblogged a picture of them sleeping on each other, I'm compelled to request Joshua and Neku for the 'only one bed' meme!
It's been a hot minute since I played Twewy, and I've never written about them before, so please bear with my fanon thoughts.
(Ask meme here, some slight neo:twewy spoilers below the cut)
"There is only one bed."
"An astute observation, dear." As usual, Joshua doesn't bother giving away more than the absolutely has to. Neku doesn't need to know how long he's had this flat, that Joshua procured it so he could safely stash Neku away in case of outside interference. Precisely such as the one happening right now.
"If you need clean clothes, you'll find some in the wardrobe."
For whatever reason, Neku doesn't appear to appreciate the reminder of the bloody hole torn into his shirt. He looks down tiredly, twists and stretches out the gap in the fabric. Though the wound is closed now, faded as all marks of death do in the UG, the damage to the fabric remains.
Instead of asking the important questions, such as "how did we get here" or "where even are we", not to mention the "why did you shoot me, again?," Neku just inspects the clothes.
"So that's where they went. I should have known you were the magpie." Neku's face turns to a grimace when he sees the Lapin Angelique limited editions stashed away. "Of course."
Despite the situation, Joshua finds himself smiling like old times. He shrugs. "What can I say? They suit you."
"Whatever you say, bunny boy." Ah yes. He too remembers the too-comfortable purple sweater, it seems.
"Not everyone can be a natural puppy, dear." Unfortunately, nice as it is to have the last word with Neku - who looks about ready to jump him, not in the pleasant way - they have business to attend to.
"Kitchen's over there, it's stocked with non-perishables. Shower is behind that door. If you're bored... find something to do. I would advise against going outside for a while." There is nothing but the void outside, after all, partially stabilised by Joshua's presence. But once he leaves, the only thing standing between Neku and his erasure will be the sigils Joshua has kindly asked Hanekoma to carve into the walls, and they cannot protect Neku past their bounds.
Which is simply unacceptable, after all the trouble Joshua went through to bring him here.
He follows Neku's gaze when it flickers to the window. It displays nothing but bright, white light. The glass rattles beneath the pressure of a thousand disjointed voices, a roiling mass of thoughts and feelings unrestrained, intent on crushing all that's left of Shinjuku's soul into blessed homogeneity.
What a waste of potential.
The voices still when Neku's eyes find his again, his quiet determination pushing out the noise. "Alright," he simply says, an admission of trust as natural as breathing.
The sudden lack of outside pressure, as Neku Sakuraba's soul harmonizes with his own, almost sends Joshua to his knees; after hours of being constrained tightly into his corporeal form, it feels like he could fall apart with every breath now.
Neku's imagination is getting too powerful. Joshua needs to go.
Attuning to a higher plane, beyond the writhing mass of unwound souls, is easy now; power thrums and whirs beneath what passes for his skin. He doesn't say goodbye; sentimentality doesn't suit them, and Neku knows this.
He simply turns, and leaves.
Or. Well. He tries to, at least.
In a blur, Neku crosses the short distance between them, grabs a hold of his wrist. The imagination singes his skin, anchoring in reality what Neku shouldn't even be able to see. And yet.
"Where do you think you're going?," Neku asks, his face cycling too quickly through several complicated emotions for Joshua to catch them all. This close, he feels more than sees them, hurt and anger and longing flickering through Neku's soul, impossibly bright.
His touch burns.
"Back," is the simple answer, the quick answer, because Hazuki and his reapers have sought shelter in Shibuya and there are accommodations to arrange, borders to enforce to ensure the purification doesn't spread.
'Away,' he can't say, a word too feeble to resist the gravity Neku is using to pull him back down into reality.
"You just came back into my life. Death? Whatever. Did you think I'd let you leave as easily as that?" There's a challenge in Neku's eyes, the slight of several declined invitations to hang out clearly not forgotten.
Intriguing, that Neku has sharpened his imagination to the point of being able to reach into higher planes. If given enough incentive, Joshua briefly wonders, could he tear down the heavens? A slow smile spreads on his lips, the possibilities unfolding before him endlessly.
"And don't tell me that it's urgent. Pinkie and Lollipop can handle the game better without you."
With his one available hand, Joshua shrugs. "Arguably, it went rather poorly before. But that might just have been because of extenuating circumstances and the fact that I was stuck in an alternate reality."
It's fun to see Neku pale, frown, and furrow his brows in rapid succession, trying to decipher whether Joshua is messing with him or not. His grip on reality - and therefore, on Joshua - wavers, his fingers phasing through solid light into air.
"Running away didn't work out great for you, then." Neku glares, digs his fingernails in with renewed vigor. Perhaps the concept of alternate realities isn't too shocking, after what he's already been through. Neku has always been surprisingly resilient, even able to withstand the strain of being the composer's game partner. Or maybe he's just got other, more pressing concerns.
"Come on. Are you really too much of a coward to stick around for an hour? At least last time I got a week."
That's the problem with Neku. He no longer takes things lying down, doesn't accept his fate. That is, perhaps, Joshua's fault, but makes it all the more intriguing what Neku will do next.
"I don't owe you anything." No answers, no gratitude, no living. Not even to be truthful with himself. Because it wouldn't be an hour, or even two. If Neku drags him into his orbit, it would be difficult to leave again.
He's just too entertaining to observe.
"I disagree. I know you were watching, all this time." Neku smiles, now, sensing the shift, knows he's almost got what he wants. "You told me to find something to do. I think," he says, putting on the charade of a thoughtful face for just a moment, "that if you organize a sleepover, you should at least provide the entertainment."
And with that, he steps back and yanks on Joshua's wrist, sending them both tumbling into bed.
Dashboard osmosis: I don't know whether your dashboard exposes you to much Final Fantasy XV, but, if it does, I'm very curious to know your impressions of it.
Dashboard Osmosis Asks
I’ve seen a little about Final Fantasy XV, mostly in…ads for some reason? Is it a mobile game? I haven’t even played a non-puzzle mobile game in about a century (by which I mean a year)? Why am I getting ads about this???
Okay, so:
There’s a guy called Ignis and another guy called Noctis. People love to slash them. One of them has white hair?
There are two improbably-proportioned women who wear invisible bras underneath their clothes (this is the only possible explanation for the perkiness of their boobs okay). One of them also has white hair?
Each character carries a trident / magical spear of defence and doom. These are mostly used for the epic move called ‘waving them around to try and look intimidating’.
Oh there’s another guy called Prompto, who as far as I’m aware tends to get left out of the pairings. #sadface
THERE ARE BIRDS CALLED CHOCOBOS AND THEY LOOK LIKE OSTRICH CHICKENS AND ARE CRIMINALLY CUTE.
For the fic writer ask game, number fourteen: is there anything outside your normal content that you want to write?
Hi thank you for sending this!
I feel a strong pull to write original fiction, but it's still just a general desire rather than a focused idea.
So for example I want to see how my characterization skills transfer into creating brand new characters, rather than mirroring and building upon preexisting characters, but I haven't been able to cook up a story or characters to get started with. I've been itching to try it, but I haven't found specific inspiration yet. For now I'm patiently impatiently waiting!
Thank you so much for your good work in the noble and underappreciated field of shipping Robert Grove rarepairs! When I was poking through the Goes Wrong tags on AO3, I went 'oh, nice, someone else has written Robert/Vanessa!' and then 'oh, nice, someone has written Robert/Annie!' and then 'wait, these are both the same person with immaculate taste.'
Ahhhhh! Thank you!!! I've made it my goal to have a fic for every romantic pairing in TGWS (bar Lucy because I don't really know know how old she is in canon). Along with it, I've also made it my goal to have a friendship fic for each pair, this time including Luce.
I want to write more RobNessa though, because I think their dynamic is so funny, and adding romance to it would make it worse in such a good way for me.
