LoriMae

LoriMae is the friendship between Mae Borowski and Lori M. from the Night In The Woods fandom.

Part One: Home Again
Mae runs into Lori on her way to Gregg on her first day back home. Lori recognizes her as “Killer” and tells Mae that the incident that got her that nickname is still a big deal to middle schoolers like her. After telling her that “Our parents told us not to talk to you”, Mae makes a joke about Lori’s mother sounding like a lovely person, but Lori bluntly tells her that her mother is dead. Mae apologizes, but Lori tells her that it’s fine.

Part Two: Weird Autumn
Mae sees Lori after construction is done on the stairs to the church, meaning she can finally climb the roofs like she used to. Lori is sitting on a roof by herself and seems to be fairly happy about seeing Mae. Lori makes a comment about Mae’s age, which Mae chides her for. Lori apologizes a lot about it, which in turn annoys Mae. She tells Mae that she lives by the tracks and Mae says that she loves the sound of the trains, but Lori makes a joke about having to wake up with bits of ceiling on her. Mae tells her that it was nice chatting with her, but shows annoyance at Lori still addressing her as “Killer”. The next day, Mae visits Lori again and Lori tells her about her desire to direct a horror movie, already having designed a make-up effect of a stabbed eye and planning to go to “horror movie school”. Mae has the option to tell her that she finds this rad. The day after that, Lori invites Mae to the tracks if she looks for her that day. Should she say yes, they will have a conversation about rotting pumpkins and Lori suggests that they’ll watch a train squash a metal thing. They wait for a train to come by while talking about their sleep habits and Lori reveals that she has some issues about her looks, with Mae reassuring her that those will go away with age. Though it isn’t shown what happened to Lori’s “metal guy”, Mae’s comment implies that it’s unrecognizable, with Lori calling it “art”. At Harfest, Lori is not sitting on a roof for once, but instead sits by the statue where Mae met her for the first time. Mae asks her if she’s hyped for Harfest, but Lori calls it dumb, saying that she’ll spend the evening watching old Dracula movies and eating a pizza she bought for herself. Mae compliments her, saying that Lori got life figured out more than she did at her age.

Part Three: The Long Fall
Mae finds Lori on a rooftop again that day. She asks Mae if she went to the Harfest and Mae tells her that she ended up in a play because of Bea. Lori says that she spend the night eating pizza while watching a horror movie, to which Mae replies that she thinks she had seen a ghost yesterday. Lori first calls this “awesome”, but apologizes when Mae said that it wasn’t at all awesome for her. The next day, Mae finds Lori on the rooftop, drawing concept sketches for her movie. When Mae asks what it’s about, Lori gives a short summary which actually manages to creep Mae out. Mae asks further questions about the movie before she leaves. The day after that, Lori was planning to go to the tracks again and invites Mae to come along. Should Mae agree, they have a conversation about Casey and smoking. Lori suggests repeating the process of squashing the same metal piece, but slightly differently this time. Lori then tells Mae that she has a weird fascination with serial killers and occasionally has intrusive thoughts about it, but Mae tells her it’s okay to have that as long as she doesn’t act on them. When Lori calls back to the incident that gave Mae her “Killer” nickname, Mae insists that she wasn’t actually trying to kill that guy, it just came over her. Lori apologizes for saying that. Lori then mentions that she likes pictures of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs where the dinosaurs are watching it happen, Mae comments that she finds it weird that every picture of the meteor is like that. After Lori and Mae check on Lori’s “art piece”, Mae hastily warns her about the kidnapper she saw at Harfest, but avoids details. The picture Mae draws in her notebook afterwards shows two tin soldiers: One simply being squashed flat, the other being squashed into the first one; Lori’s “art piece”. A day further, Lori can immediately tell that Mae isn’t feeling alright and asks her if she’s okay. Mae replies that she’s just tired, to which Lori suggests taking cold medicine and eating crackers and ginger ale. She then tells a story of her being forced to school despite being sick, but Mae spaces out, so their conversation isn’t as long as the other ones they had.

Part Four: The End of Everything
After Mae’s “incident”, Lori can be seen at the church, calling Mae her “friend” and praying that she’ll be okay. She says that Mae is a nice person, even if she doesn’t know it and that she wrote a part for her in one of her horror movies.

Epilogue: Stars
When Mae sees Lori again, she immediately asks if Mae is okay. When Lori asks why Mae was in the hospital, Mae tells her the truth, only for Lori to assume that she’s just joking. Lori admits that she got worried, to which Mae reassures her that she’s super tough. When Mae asks Lori if they’re ever going to find out who messed up the mural, Lori nonchalantly admits that she did it. Mae is chews her out on it, Lori says that she only wanted people to notice how messed up Possum Springs is, Mae agrees that the town isn’t the best, but it’s their town. When Mae asks what her family does for the holidays, Lori admits that her father usually abandons her for Thanksgiving. Mae suggests that she could spend Thanksgiving at her place, only for Lori to panic. Lori tells her that it’s best to leave her alone for a bit, but also thanks her for hanging out with her. Mae tells her to not make a mess as a goodbye. At the end of the game, Mae admits to either Gregg or Bea that she mainly hung out with Lori because she believes that the kid needs a role model.

Fanon
LoriMae is a rarepair in the Night In The Woods fandom. Generally, people tend to love Lori, finding her to be very adorable and her friendship with Mae to be incredibly wholesome. But since people have to actively look for her to find and interact with her, shipping her with anyone tends to be rare. She still gets more fanfiction on AO3 than one would expect. Romantic fanwork for this pairing does exist, but it tends to be even rarer than regular Lori fanwork, largely due to the five-year age gap between Lori and Mae, with the latter being a legal adult. Regardless, this hasn't stopped people from interpreting Lori's panicked reaction at the end of the game as her having a crush on Mae.

Fandom
FAN FICTION