Neptune let out a "whoosh" of air as she collapsed into what felt like the fluffiest couch in existence. In reality, it wasn't an more fluffy than usual, but after everything she'd been doing lately, it felt like she had just flopped herself down on a cloud. Smiling a satisfied smile, she closed her eyes and let the fluffy fluffiness of the fluffy couch of fluff (if only there was a way she could say "couch" with the word "fluffy!") take her away.

"I can't believe it's been a whole year..." An oh so familiar voice brought Neptune out of her fluff-induced stupor. Opening her eyes, Neptune was greeted with the sight of her wife joining her on the magic carpet of fluffiness — though from her reaction, she didn't appear to find it any fluffier than usual. For shame! "Can you, Neptune? It doesn't feel like it's been that long at all."

Sitting up, Neptune scooted towards her wife — an action that initially got Noire sitting up straighter herself in embarassed surprise, before she settled into letting Neptune lean into her. With that, Neptune grinned to herself and almost found herself purring in satisfaction, like a kitten that had just found its favorite spot again after an especially tiring day. She was tired, okay?

What had she been so interested in the couch for? Noire was the only source of soft she would ever need!

"Not to burst your bubble, my dear, but... It hasn't been." Neptune pointed out innocently, looking up at Noire with a "look at how cute I am you wouldn't shove me would you?" sort of look. Noire quirked a brow in response — Neptune was clearly about to say something that was going to frustrate her, as she tended to do. "Not for us, anyway! For us it's only been a little over a month... Well, okay, so there was the stuff going on before Histy called you and Blanc and Vert was going on too, but-"

Noire sighed.

"You know that's not what I meant!" Gently shoving Neptune to the side — and forcing herself not to smile when Neptune made an adorable little cry when she collided with the arm of the padded couch — Noire stood up and pointed to the calendar on the wall. "One year ago today is when this all came into existence! It was one year ago today that everything began! See?"

Peeking over the arm of the couch, Neptune up and looked at the calendar. She tilted her head. Furrowing her brows, the CPU made a face that made her look like she had encountered some kind of enemy that fought with confusing math problems.

"Noire... Why do we have a calendar that does that?"

"Does... what?"

Neptune jabbed a finger towards the offending calendar, eyes narrowing with an accusatory glare. Noire actually jumped at the sudden change from cute to... well, whatever that was!

"It's only been a month in the story, and we're in the story right now! We shouldn't know if it's been a year or a week or a decade! This is going to totally ruin the immersion of the readers!" Neptune crossed her arms, shaking her head as clicked her tongue. "I can't believe you, Noire, not understanding such basic things about storytelling... It's a good thing you're not the one in charge here."

The black haired CPU could only rub her temples. Why did Neptune have to be so difficult? Besides...!

"Aren't you the one who's always going on about being the main character this and being the main character that?" Noire tossed a hand through her hair, making a 'hmph' sort of noise as she set her hands at her sides. "If anyone has been ruining the immersion, it's you!"

"Jeez, Noire... Of course I can do that, I'm the main character." Neptune placed her hands on her hips and looked at her wife as though she was speaking dogoonese. "You've had this whole scene backwards from the start! If anyone is ruining the immersion..." Neptune ran a hand through long hair that wasn't there, in a perfect immitation of Noire. "It's you for forcing us to take on each others' roles!"

"W-W-What are you talking about...!?" Noire cried indignantly, throwing her hands out to her sides as she returned to the couch to stand in front of Neptune. They hadn't switched roles or anything like that! She had just been appreciating all of the things that had happened to them this past year — was that so wrong?! She didn't think so!

As Neptune looked at her with that look on her face, such a taunting, cocky look, a look that made Noire want to question if this past year — or month, as Neptune had so annoyingly put it — was worth it at all, an idea slowly began to sneak into her mind. It was an idea that would never get to come up without the context Neptune had presented to her now, but since it was there, ripe for taking advantage of...

"Fine... Since, like you're saying, our roles are reversed..." Eyes sparkling mischievously, Noire lowered herself onto the couch — or rather, onto the person on the couch... or more specifically, into a position that Neptune simply would not expect from her. A position right above Neptune, practically on top of her even. "Then I can take your role here and do this kind of thing, right?"

"W... What are you..." Swallowing, either due to nervousness or anticipation, Neptune's eyes widened as she stared at the black haired goddess hovering over her. Noire seemed to have one thing on her mind and one thing only. But... But...! T-They had something to do here, didn't they?! What was Noire trying to pull...?! Had she forgotten that they... What were they doing again...? "T-This isn't what we're supposed to- The scene, Noire, the scene!"

Noire placed a finger on Neptune's lips, her own lips mirroring the smirk that Neptune herself often wore when she pulled stunts like this.

"I think you're going to like this scene much more."

As Noire lowered herself to meet Neptune, the smaller CPU quickly came to realize that Noire was very right about that.

From the next room over, Histoire sighed as she clenched her tiny, shaking fists. She knew that, much as she wanted to go in there and yell at the two CPUs for messing around, should she enter that room, the rating of the story would have to go up without question. Shaking her head as her cheeks continued burning bright red, Histoire withdrew a particular item from a drawer.

Luckily for her, while it might have taken three days to knock some sense into those CPUs, it didn't take three days to install earplugs.

"This is not the way they were supposed to open the special one year anniversary chapter... They didn't explain how the scenes here are meant purely for fun and do not take place within the story at all, how this is meant to thank the loyal people of Gamindustri who have followed our saga for this past year, or how some were meant to be silly behind the scenes segments while others were meant to be random occurrences that could never happen within the confines of the story... There's no way anyone seeing this will understand that the various, completely unconnected scenes within this special anniversary chapter exist outside of the story's 'canon' and are there only as a way to give thanks and to provide some light hearted celebration without the opening scene that they were supposed to provide for us! How will anyone know what's going on now? Ohhhh, I should have gotten someone else for this job... Worst of all, because we didn't get this chapter out on time, when it's finally out there, it will be over a year when this is finally seen! Oh, what should I do, what should I do... It will probably take me three more days to find someone else who could do this scene without messing it up..."

Sadly, Histoire would not realize she had taken care of the job herself for three years, during the press conference announcing The Proposal — The Movie: The Book.

Now initializing...

The Proposal
Super Duper Special Almost-Entirely-Non-Canon One Year (and a little extra) Anniversary DLC Special!
Press Start to Begin!

"Um... Noire, something seems funny about that last scene..." Neptune shot a look at the black haired CPU, who was sitting next to her on the couch facing the biggest TV screen that either of them had ever seen. The two of them were watching over the first batch of Special Stages together, ones that had actually, somehow, been written long before the idea of "Special Stages" had even come around, and Neptune had immediately caught something being off with the first one. Were they already in legal trouble...?!

"We messed up is all." Shrugging, Noire simply began reaching for the remote to get the next scene going. It looked like they had a pretty long way to go... "This whole 'anniversary' thing was supposed to be in one really, really long chapter that came out on the one year anniversary of the main story to celebrate a whole year of running and all of that. A year's not that long, is it?"

"For regular people, it is. I remember that in a year, Compa- I mean, the baby one, not the one you know, anyways, she got more teeth and was moving by herself more and she even stopped pooping her pants as much." Like she was making the most normal comment in the world, Neptune suddenly burst into silly fourth wall breaking things with examples of her harrowing feats of "motherhood" in the other dimension. Noire just stared at her, jaw dropped. "W-What? I know we didn't talk about it in the game all that much, but diapers don't change themselves! Not all the time, anyway!"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of this..." Despite how she was acting disgruntled by this knowledge, the fact that Neptune, even in that game, had had a hidden motherly side... Inside, Noire was rolling on a bed and hugging a pillow, squealing about how cute that was. Or something to the girlish effect. Naturally, her outer reaction was one of simple disdain and disbelief instead of anything even remotely resembling how she really felt. "A-Anyway, this whole 'Special Stages' thing that we're in right now instead of the main story only even came into existence so that the anniversary stuff, and maybe future stuff like it, has somewhere to go instead of clogging up the real thing. The anniversary thing could end up just being it for the special stages too, though..."

"Ohhhh... So that's why this was written like it had just come after the end of Part 2?" Neptune grinned darkly as Noire nodded positively to her question. "I get it. Starting with 'I can't believe it's been a whole year' right after Nep Jr. woke up... That woulda been awful! You know, I kind of wish we had done that anyway. Wait, does that mean this whole set of anniversary special stages is going to be written like they were the next chapter in the main story? Instead of being their own thing like they are now? Isn't that kind of lazy?"

Noire gave Neptune a very pointed "you are not one to talk" look before she continued.

"We'd been shooting this, I guess if you want to call it that, for weeks. Almost two months, Neptune. The references and jokes based on it being a chapter in the main story and the 'real' world aren't big enough deals to go through all of that. Can we please start the next one now? There's one I want to get to before Histoire gets back..."

Neptune raised an eyebrow. With Noire's expression... The way she was starting to get antsy... She could push this subject and risk having Histoire walk in right at the good part, forcing them to fast forward... Or...

"Well don't keep me in suspense, Noire! Turn it on already!"

"I-I'm doing it, I'm doing it! Gosh..."

Really now initializing this time...

The Proposal
Super Blah-Blah-Blah Special!
Press Start Again to Begin!