Care To Join Me?

[rionaleonhart]

I did manage to find a good picture of smug Joshua in the end, so I've now created two manips of Joshua Kiryu wearing a tiny skirt. I'm not proud. If my previous entry failed to meet your Joshua-in-a-tiny-skirt needs, though (or even if it succeeded; sorry!), here you go:




Here he is posing flirtatiously and looking immensely pleased with himself. As well he should, because not many people could wear that tiny skirt as well as he does.

One reaper in The World Ends With You tells you he'll only let you pass if 'pretty boy' ('You're speaking to me?' asks Joshua) comes back in head-to-toe Natural Puppy, a girls' clothing brand. If you do dress Joshua in Natural Puppy, the reaper will say, 'Wow... you actually kinda work that.' I can readily believe it. (And then he doesn't let you pass after all, because he doesn't have the authority to remove the wall. The game just wanted an excuse to make you dress Joshua in girls' clothes.)

The clothing system in The World Ends With You does create some odd mental images sometimes. In my game, Joshua ended up wearing a patchy biker jacket over a girl's school uniform and work boots. Shiki is wearing a full-body cat suit and a pirate hat. Beat is carrying a rubber duck.

I'm going back over the chapters at the moment, trying to get all the Secret Reports, and there are so many things I missed the first time around! All this optional dialogue! The main thing I've gathered from my further exploration is that Joshua flirts with Neku even more than I'd originally realised.

There was a wonderful moment when I was trying to work out the location of one of the hidden items: I stared and stared at the clue 'SHOWN A DREAM', becoming increasingly frustrated as I had no idea what it meant, and then gave up and exited the menu and realised I was standing directly in front of the gigantic SHADOW RAMEN sign.

Ahahaha, awww, if you buy enough at le Grand the shop assistant develops a massive crush on you. I was already fond of the le Grand assistant because he was one of the few shopkeepers who didn't obviously resent me when I hung around for a while and then left without making a purchase; I suppose that was because just seeing Neku was enough for him. The proprietor of Shadow Ramen, meanwhile, assumes that you have a crush on him and gets really nervous whenever you're around. I'm tempted to max out friendship with all the shop assistants now, just to see how what they say changes (and to stop them getting annoyed when I leave without buying anything; stop making me feel bad, fictional shop assistants! It's starting to make me feel awkward when I leave shops without buying anything in real life!), but that would cost me an awful lot of yen.

I sort of want to write The World Ends With You fanfiction, but I don't have any ideas! Where are you, inspiration?

Comments

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

I like him in a tiny skirt!

The surest way for you to start writing fic is to declare that you're definitely not writing it. (It also helps if it's one of your "Should never be written, ever" ideas.) So start thinking of "This would be interesting but a terrible idea!" stuff and inspiration will come!

[rionaleonhart]

...oh, dear, I do actually have a terrible idea lurking at the back of my mind. If I end up writing awful Joshua/Neku psychokinetic bondage porn in the middle of the scramble crossing, with Neku invisible to the many passers-by but Joshua visible, I'm going to blame your comment.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

To be fair, your idea is far more specific than my comment.

[rionaleonhart]

I was going to say 'I genuinely don't think I'm going to write it, at least', but we all know how that ends.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

True, you'd pretty much be dooming yourself at that point.

[sai_salamander]

Gotta say, he is shockingly cute in that skirt. He really does wear it well, doesn't he *_*

[rionaleonhart]

I was surprised and delighted by how well it worked! (Have you been playing The World Ends With You at all? I think you mentioned that you had a copy, and I sort of desperately need to talk about this game. The Joshua-Neku relationship in particular is so interesting.)

[sai_salamander]

I have the rom on my R4, but I've sort of got distracted from even finishing Phoenix Wright by the arrival of Black 2 XDD ideally I should finish PW and then move onto TWEWY cos I was super intrigued by the opening section, but pokemon Riona. Pokemon.

[rionaleonhart]

I'll admit that Pokémon are a very good excuse for getting distracted. Whenever you do get back to The World Ends With You, though, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[sai_salamander]

I think it's very safe to say that I will also require someone to squee at, so I am looking forward to creating a squee loop with you :D

[bond-of-flame08.livejournal.com]

He is rocking that mini-skirt.

Just saying.

Also, I can understand completely about needing someone to talk to; when I first finished the game (I was completely spoilt when I went in, however, and kudos to you for not spoiling yourself!), I could not shut up about Neku and Joshua's relationship. Still can't, really.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME.

[rionaleonhart]

Speaking of being unable to shut up about Neku and Joshua's relationship, I tried to explain that relationship to my housemate (who's never played The World Ends With You) shortly after finishing the game, because I had a lot of very strong feelings that I needed to express.

I hadn't anticipated that the explanation would take twenty minutes. It took ten minutes just to explain the game's concept and set the scene before Joshua even showed up. At the end of the twenty-minute rundown, my housemate just looked at me and pointed out that nothing I'd just said had made any sense.

I have no idea how you managed to get a good enough grasp on The World Ends With You to write fanfiction before you'd even played it (and good fanfiction, too! I've read the first couple of chapters of Of Skinny Behinds and Dresses, and it's really making me smile; you've got such a knack for characterisation and dialogue), because that game is ridiculously confusing. (But I love it so much!)

While I'm here, I suppose I'll answer a couple of points from your message on fanfiction.net, so we're not holding simultaneous conversations in two different places:

I suppose I just love the fact that he and Neku didn't immediately have hawt smex, like so many people make them. It annoys me to no end! I'm guessing you ship them?

I do indeed! Their relationship fascinates me endlessly; I love just about every possible interpretation of it, whether it's friendship or romance (in my head, their relationship mainly hovers in some weird undefined area in between). If they ever had sex, though, I imagine Joshua would be much more into the 'screwing with Neku's head' aspect than the physical screwing (this would probably be quite fun to read, and I'd be tempted to write some psychological warfare sex if I weren't so atrocious at writing anything remotely sexual). I have trouble imagining sex as an expression of love with those two.

(I recently discovered 'imagineyourotp' and 'imagineyuorotp' on tumblr. The former suggests ridiculously fluffy scenarios like 'Imagine person B of your OTP getting sick, and person A goes out of their way to leave work and when person A gets home, they cuddle with person B', none of which work for Joshua/Neku at all; the latter has parodies like 'Imagine Person A of your OTP stealing Person B's car and running them over with it', many of which work for Joshua/Neku surprisingly well.)

You also asked whether I was still into Doctor Who; I am still watching it, but I've never really been as strongly into it as I was during the Ninth Doctor's series. I do think Matt Smith's Doctor is excellent, though (and for some reason I wrote several thousand words last May about Canton Everett Delaware III, who appeared in exactly two episodes).

Sorry for rambling so much at you! I'm just thrilled to be able to talk about this game with someone who actually knows it.