#uh. yeah.

General context: pinecones get ripped from post-Construct and shoved into this weird high school setting; no one except for Skeptic (and Hero but that's a whole separate tangent and we don't have time for it) remembers anything, and everyone is acting just a bit weird. They are also all stuck in a time loop of a single week repeating where Oppy/MC joins the literature club by request of Smitten/Sayori in the lead up to the school festival (aka, the actual story of DDLC... sort of). This goes on for 6 years with Skeptic being the only one to be aware of the loops and, understandably, he loses his mind and eventually pulls off a Monika (he fucks around with game's code, deletes Smitten, causes Cold to go insane, and does some other messed up stuff... I'M TRYING TO BE BRIEF, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS-)... and then what happens after depends on the version/ending of the AU because yes, we have like 10 different versions of DDPC because we're insane.

OKAY ACTUALLY TO EXPLAIN THE DRAWINGS-

"Fake friends" / polaroids: voices that are not named Skeptic or Hero have fake memories that replace their actual post-Construct ones, and for the literature club members, they are based on the actual DDLC character's backstories and stuff. So for Smitten and Opportunist, because they're replacing Sayori and MC, they're childhood best friends. So, naturally, Smitten and Opportunist have a bunch of fake memories of them growing up together and doing all the stereotypical childhood besties stuff, like building sand castles together! Or playing at a playground together!

...but of course, none of it is real. Voices never had a childhood, and they never had the chance to grow old, after all. And so these polaroids, despite looking so real, are all fake.

"Hey, what is that weird creature?" / Pink Haze: ...I CAN'T EXPLAIN PINK HAZE, THERE IS NO TIME FOR THIS-

Ahem, to try to be brief, basically, the world/the game/whatever entity really tries to get the voices to follow the script of the original game (DDLC... again, sort of) for that sweet-sweet romance, and so when voices act a bit weird or are yearning for "the wrong people" (usually happens when Oppy is thinking too much about Skeptic, or when other voices are thinking too much about not-Oppy, uh, because Oppy is the MC), they get... a gentle reminder of sort, a little fog in their brain that pulls them back to the romance script... a pink haze, if you will.

Anyways, we gave the world/the game/the entity a mascot, the little critter on Smitten's shoulders, that's Pink Haze personified... or I guess creature-ified. Credit for the design goes to @slay--the-dragon :D

The kiss / SmitOpp: ...Okay, I give up, I can't give any sort of brief explanation for this one, it's beyond me, and I'm tired. Uhhhh, something something, Opportunist deletes Skeptic, gets his post-Construct memories back, and immediately regrets what he's done, absolutely distraught, something something, Smitten is possessed by haze, something something, Oppy gives up because he can't do anything and kisses Smitten. Something something. Yay :D