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alastor-simp · 3 months

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Bon Appétit! - Alastor x Fem Chef Reader

❥Summary- You were a very popular chef when you were alive, talented in making any dish in any cuisine. You sadly died from unknown causes and ended up in Hell instead of Heaven. You happen to find the Hazbin Hotel and applied for a job there as a cook. Everyone loved your cooking, including a certain red haired demon.

❥Tags: female reader, fluff, chef reader, friends to potential lovers, alastor is bad with feelings, slight romance, hazbin hotel gang, reader is an amazing cook, alastor is a foodie

❥Notes: I had this story idea brewing in my head for a whole week and I needed to type it out. Hope you guys enjoy it :)

"Hum hum hum hum~♫" Your head was bopping to the catchy jazz radiating from the radio. Your hands were placed against a metal bowl, one holding it and the other mixing it. Your name was Y/N, and you were the chef/cook at the Hazbin Hotel. During the time when you were alive, your dishes were very popular. You weren't extremely well known across the world, but everyone in your town knew about you and craved what you created. Your family owned a small restaurant, that was opened to all the locals. It was a bit difficult in the beginning since you were self taught, but as you got older, your skills improved. Over time, you expanded to other cuisines, ranging from American, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and European.

How you ended up in Hell was still mind-boggling. You remember closing up the restaurant, and heading back to your apartment, only to see a large bright light and then pure darkness. You woke up after that in a very strange area, the sky was a pure blood red and the people around you seemed almost fictional. A large sign that said "Welcome to Hell" was a clear enough answer to where you were. Well there was no way for you to go back to the living world, so you had to just deal with it. Finding a job wasn't very easy especially since many of the places you saw, had very grotesque dishes, and you weren't skill with cooking eyeballs and beating hearts. You stopped at a wall covered with different flyers, some for killing services and job offers. The one that caught your eye was the very colorful one, decorated with stickers and glitter. "Hazbin Hotel huh?" That seemed like a good place to start, especially since hotels had guests and needed someone to provide meals. Smiling, you grabbed the flyer and began making your way to your destination.

Having arrived at the hotel, you were greeted by the owner, "Charlie Morningstar." She was ecstatic that you wanted to come and help at the hotel, giving you a crushing bear hug. She did ask about your skills and was very surprised when you said you were skilled in cooking. Dragging you inside, she allowed you to introduce yourself to the others. They were quite an odd bunch when you first saw them, but they seemed friendly. The demon holding Charlies hand was Vaggie. She seemed like a tough cookie, given how intense she was looking at you. Two other demons were sitting at the bar, chatting away. One appeared to be a spider like demon and the other was like a cat. The spider, who Charlie said was Angel Dust, gave you a flirtatious wink along with a hand shake, while the cat demon, Husk, just gave you a small wave. A small clattering of feet came from behind you, causing you to turn. You saw no one there, but then you felt something on top of your shoulder. Turning, you were face to face with a mini female demon with a large eye. She was gazing at you, wearing a huge smile, before she jumped off and ran back to where she came from. Charlie told you that was Niffty as she then introduced you to another patron of the hotel. He was a large black snack with pink eyes, wearing a grey suit and top hat. His face seemed nervous, but he had a kind expression. He gave a slight bow, while shaking your hand, telling you his name was "Sir Pentious"

Charlie kept looking around, wearing a confused expression. "Hey Vaggie, have you seen Alastor?" Vaggie responded with her head shaking no. A large black circle soon appeared next to Charlie, then began to form into a person. The darkness soon faded away from the person to reveal themselves. The demon was dressed in a striped red suit, that went well with his monocle and bow tie. His bob hair cut was a crimson red, and were those antlers on his head. His fangs seemed very sharp, given how well you could see them through his wide tooth smile. "Here I am, Charlie my dear!" His voice was etched with static, reminding you of the old radio you had at your restaurant. "AH! Alastor! Just in time! I wanted to introduce you to Y/N. She is looking to work as a cook here." She push you closer to him, making you stand a few feet from each other. "Hello, nice to meet you." Giving a kind smile, you extended your hand out for a shake. The smile on his face widen, as he bent down, grabbing your hand and placing a kiss on it. "Charmed!" His gesture gave you small tingles throughout your body. He then removed your hand and stood back to his full height. "So you are talented in the kitchen I presume?" Smiling more, you nodded your head. "Yes! I am self taught and I started working in my family restaurant at a young age."

Charlie then butted into the conversation, eyes sparkling. "Wow that's so amazing. What kind of food did you serve?" You twirled your hair with your finger. "Well it was the classic family restaurant, so club sandwiches, mac and cheese, homemade pies, the whole lot. But, I wanted to expand my skills, so I explored other cuisines to try and master." Angel Dust had gotten closer and wrapped one of his arms around your shoulder, looking excited. "You any good with making Italian dishes toots?" Hehe it was cute how excited he was. You went over the list of all the cuisines you knew how to make, causing everyone's eyes to widen and mouths to drop, except Alastors, as he was still wearing a smile, but his eyes did expand a bit after listening to you. In a flash, you were pushed into the kitchen by everyone, faces adorned with wide smiles, waiting to see what you would make.

That felt like so long ago, as after amazing everyone's taste buds with your cooking, you were hired immediately on the spot. Realizing you were getting distracted from your thoughts of the past, you went back to cooking. Today you were making blueberry muffin cookies for everyone to enjoy.

youtube

(Love making these⬆️)

The batter was all set, and what you needed next was the blueberries. Heading to the fridge, you opened the wide door, looking for the small container. "Ahh found you." Finding the small container, you grabbed it, moving back to allow the fridge door to close. "Salutations, my dear!" a static voice spoke next to you, causing you to scream, as the container from your hand dropped to the ground, causing all the blueberries to spill out. "Al! Don't do that!" your response earned a laugh from Alastor. "HAHA! Apologies, my dear! Didn't mean to give you such a fright." He batted his eyes at you, trying to appear innocent, but you knew he was joking. "Yeah sure you didn't. Great now I'm out of blueberries since someone made me dropped them." Your legs bent down to the ground, grabbing the blueberries. Standing back up, you marched over to the trash bin and threw them away. A loud *SNAP* came from behind you, causing you to turn around. On the counter was a mini basket, containing fresh blueberries. "Oh thank you." Looking back at Alastor, you gave a thankful smile. "Your welcome, my dear! May I ask what type of concoction you are preparing?" He bent down, leaning against the counter, with his hands under his chin. Grabbing a few handfuls of blueberries, you went to the sink to give them a quick rinse, before coming back after patting them dry with a napkin. "Oh I'm making muffin cookies. Was craving something sweet so I decided to make a bunch for everyone. I'll save you a couple." You smiled up at Alastor, as you tossed the blueberries in the batter, and began to fold them in. Alastor grimaced slightly at that, and just wave his hand at you. "No need, my dear! I don't particularly care for sweets!" You nearly dropped your spatula at that. He didn't like sweets things?! You had made other baked goods and desserts in the past since you been here and you had assumed everyone had gave them a try and loved them, so it was a bit of a surprise when Alastor told you that he didn't like sweets. "How come?" Tilting your head at him, you waited for his response. Alastor raised his head, giving it some thought, before he looked back at you "Just don't like overly sweet things. I have a very limited palate, so I prefer to stick with that." His smile widen at you, sharpening at bit as he seemed to be thinking of something gruesome.

You continued to prepare the cookies, scooping them and placing them on a baking tray. A sudden thought came in your head, and you turned back to Al. "What sort of foods did you used to enjoy when you were alive?" Alastor raised an eyebrow at that. "My, a curious one aren't you? Well I grew up in the roaring 1920s in New Orleans, Louisiana. Oh, how I miss the sights and the bayous. I preferred venison and other meats, but I did indulge on other culinary dishes from time to time. Gumbo, Jambalaya, Po boys, oh my!" Alastor seemed almost in a trance, as he kept talking about his past. It was nice to see him so happy and excited, when discussing the time he was alive. "It sounds like you really enjoyed it." Alastor looked back at you, eyes holding a certain tender look. "Yes indeedy!" Your eyes remained locked on each other, until Alastors eyes glanced to the clock on the wall.

"Oh! Seems its time for my broadcast! Ta-ta, my dear!" Alastor gave his microphone stand a twirl, before disappearing into the shadows.Once he left, you couldn't stop thinking about what he told you, about his past life. The joyful look on his face kept replaying in your mind, when he was discussing the delicacies he enjoyed. "I want to see more of that expression" you thought. You continued to brainstorm, as you waited patiently for the cookies to be finished.

**Evening- Alastors POV**

"Ah! What a pleasant stroll that was!" Alastor had arrived back to the hotel, after just finishing his evening walk. He arrived back quite late, since the other denizens were not parading through the hotel lobby and lounge. Placing his hands behind his back, he headed in the direction that would lead him to his quarters. A pleasant smell was wafting through the air, stopping Al in his tracks. "My what a enticing aroma!" Alastor leaned his head back, taking in the amazing smell. His feet began making his way, searching for where the aroma was coming from. He had arrived in front of the kitchen doors, which were slightly opened and the lights still turned on. Peeking his head through the crack, he was surprised to see you in the kitchen still. Your air was tied up in a bun, while you were adorning kitchen apron. One of your hands was busy, stirring inside a large pot, while the other was adding in some seasonings. Alastor gave a small knock at the door, letting his presence be known. "Still cooking, my dear? It is way past your bedtime!" Turning your head, you flashed a large smile at Al. "Oh! You're here! Come sit, its almost ready!" Your crooked your finger at Al, telling him to come closer and take a seat near the kitchen table. Alastor cocked his head at you, still confused on what was going on. He soon took a seat, placing his hands on his lap. "Wanted to surprise you." He heard you say, as he watched you grab a bowl, pouring the concoction from the pot to the bowl. You saw you walk closer to him, placing the bowl down in front of him. Alastor's eyes widen at the site, before turning to look at you. "My dear, what is this by chance?" Smiling, you took a seat on the other side of the table. "Its seafood gumbo!

(Bowl in front of Alastor)

Alastor continued to gaze at you in shock, then back to the bowl , then back to you. "Did you stay up just to make this for me?" He saw your face flushed as you rubbed your neck. "I did yes! You appeared very happy when you told me what you liked to eat when you were alive, so I thought I would surprise you by making a Creole dish." Alastor continued to stare at you, his eyes going soft from how sweet the gesture was. The smell of the prawns and cajun spice was making his mouth water. "This is my first time making this, so I hope you like it." Alastor nearly jumped when he heard that. "My dear, you never cooked Cajun food before?" You shook your head no at him. "I always knew about Cajun cuisine, just never got to it. Now come on, hurry before it gets cold!" You gestured for him to start eating as you placed your hands under your chin, copying him. The smile on his face grew, as he looked back at the bowl in front of him.

**Your POV**

You were sweating like crazy. This was the first time you ever made gumbo, and now you were scared that you messed up. Last thing you wanted was Al to try it, then recoil in disgust. Your eyes watched him lift the spoon of the broth and place it in his mouth. His expression was unreadable, making you all the more nervous. As he took the spoon out from his mouth, you saw the gentle smile on his face. "Superb." He took another spoonful of the broth, placing it back in his mouth, letting out a pleasant mmm. Phew! you were glad he loved it. You continued to watch him eat, before getting up from the table and walking towards the oven. Alastor didn't even notice you leave, as he was too immersed in the dish in front of him. The savory taste of the broth and spice that kept flooding in was so nostalgic to him. Soon there was nothing left, and Alastor leaned back against the chair, letting out a satisfied sigh. "Absolutely amazing, my dear! Thank you." Alastor motioned his head to look at you, as he saw you removing something from the oven. "Your welcome! Hope you have some room for dessert?" Alastor gave a small grimace. "My dear, I told you before, I am not one for sweets!" Giggling, you placed what you had made on a bowl, before sprinkling some powder on them. "Are you sure? Something tells me these might change your mind."

Carrying a plate in front of you, you placed it on the table. Alastor eyes once again widen at the sight. In front of him was a plate filled with freshly made beignets, piping hot and covered in powdered sugar.

"Go on, try one." You stepped back and made your way back over to the chair. Alastor seemed a bit hesitant to try them, the feelings of his past and his dislike for sweets were battling with each other. Moving his hand slowly, he grabbed one of them from the plate, hovering it next to his mouth. Finally he took a bite. Alastors eyes enlarged again, as he took another huge bite of the beignet, before grabbing another one. Soon there were no more left on the plate, only crumbs remaining. "Ahhhhhh~. Delicious!" Alastor wore a peaceful expression on his face, as he leaned back against the chair. He then heard you break into fits of laughter. "What is funny, my dear?" He eyed you curiously, as you kept laughing hysterically. "Ahahahahaha! You...you have powder all over your face!" Your finger was pointed up at him, as you were trying to calm down from laughing so hard. Alastor jumped a bit, before rubbing his mouth with his finger, seeing a trace of white on it. "Here, I'll give you a napkin." Getting up, you went to grab him a napkin for coming back to him. "Thank you!", Smiling, he grabbed it and began to clean his face.

Once he was finished, he looked back at you. His eyes held so much emotion, as he continued to gaze at you. He got up slowly from the chair, standing up to his full height, as he pointed his head down towards you. Raising a hand, he placed it on your cheek. "Thank you again, my dear. But, why did you go through all this trouble to make this for me?" Raising one of your hands up, you placed it against the hand that was on your cheek. "I wanted to see that expression of yours again. You seemed such in high spirits when you talked to me about your past, so I wanted to make you something." Alastor chuckled down at you, finding your reasoning simply adorable. "You reminded me of something my dear mother use to tell me "A way to a mans heart is through his stomach."" Your whole face flushed at that, painting your cheeks a deep red. Alastor slowly inched closer to you, bending his head down closer. His lips had landed on your cheek, giving it a soft peck, before he pulled back slowly to gaze at you. "Thank you again, y/n." His body began to morph into blackness as he became one with his shadow, and then disappeared from you, leaving you a blushing mess.

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minty364 · 3 months

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DPXDC Prompt #108 Part 1

He remembered going to bed in his own bed last night. His own bed in his own room. This wasn’t his room, his bed, or even his pajamas. The body he was in didn’t feel quite right either, almost like it somehow knew he wasn’t supposed to be in it. Part of him wondered if he was dreaming but he was way too self aware for this to be a dream.

This room didn’t look like any of his brother's rooms either. It had a bunch of space themed trinkets, glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, and NASA posters on the walls. None of his brothers were into space as far as he knew so this had to be a strangers room. He wondered for a moment if he was kidnapped or something, but that didn’t sound quite right either. He was in a stranger's body so he must be in this person’s room. He had to figure out exactly what was going on.

Just as he was considering his options the phone by the table side started ringing. Damian didn’t really know where the tune came from but it sounded catchy. He looked at the caller ID and while the phone didn’t recognize the number Damian did. It was his own, hopefully he’d be able to get some answers.

“Hello?” He answered.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about all of this. My parents are inventors and one of their inventions backfired big time. I’m Danny” The voice on the other line was his own, a little jarring sure but it to be expected, if he was in someone’s body there was a good chance they were in his body. “My name’s Damian, Inventions? This is quite the backfire. I hope you have a plan to switch us back.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ve got a couple friends looking into it, they’ll be on their way in a bit to help with all of this.”

Damian was starting to get irritated a little at how this was going. Bringing outside ‘help’ into the situation just seemed more like a distraction from whatever ‘Danny’ had planned for Gotham.

“Right, Damian, so right now you're in my body and I’m in your’s… so, my parents' invention was only supposed to strengthen the soulmate pull, but because of my weird biology. We switched bodies instead.” Damian didn’t have word’s, the whole story sounded ludicrous. But at the same time, Damian couldn’t help but believe it was true.

The weird things about the body he was in, helped convince him and then, suddenly a thought occurred to him. Hesitantly he lifted his other hand up to his neck to check his pulse.

It was unusually slow, “Why’s your pulse so slow?” he couldn’t help but ask. He didn’t want to admit it but he was starting to freak out a little.

“Like I said, I’ve got weird biology. I’ll explain, but it isn’t a pretty story. I don’t really want to explain all of this but since you're in my body, you need to know so you can keep my parents from finding out. Deal?”

Having weird biology still didn’t quite explain things but hopefully a few things didn’t quite make sense, “You said your parent’s were researching soulmates? Why.”

“Alright, I’ll give you this one but seriously you’ve got to promise to keep my parent’s from finding out about things. They were a little upset that I haven’t found mine yet, my sister found hers so they were excited for me to find mine. Long story short, bad things tend to happen when my parents get excited.”

So from the sound of things Danny thought they were soulmates. That might have been true but there wasn’t a good way for them to prove anything at the moment. For now it would probably be better to go along with Danny’s plan. He didn’t like it but he could probably get a lot of information out of Danny’s friends if he played along. “Alright I agree to not intentionally reveal anything to your parents.”

“Work’s for me. What do you know about ghosts?”

#dp x dc prompt #dc x dp #dp x dc #danny fenton #danny phantom #Damian wakes up in Danny’s body #soulmates au #danny and Damian are soulmates #I dissociated hard writing this #Slight dissociation mention #Dissociation warning #I dissociate when I look at myself in the mirror #all my prompts are free to use #my asks are open

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jibunbosh · 18 days

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Mesmerizer is a satire of TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and the rest of the modern short-form vertical video format

A brief thematic analysis.

I'm sure there are countless people already interpreting the imagery and details in this wonderful song & MV, like here and here, so I won't spend too much time retreading that ground. Miku and Teto are dancing. Miku gets hypnotized. Teto signals for help, but gets hypnotized at the end as well.

That part is obvious enough, but that's still pretty surface-level. What is this seemingly hyperspatial horror scenario supposed to mean to us?

While checking to see if anyone before me's already come to the same conclusions as I did and if I should bother not writing this text post at all (lol), I came across udin's great analysis video. She comes to the conclusion that the song tackles themes of disillusionment with reality and the ways we indulge in escapism to relieve ourselves of the pains of the world.

I agree with that reading! From practically the very beginning, we have Miku call to us - the viewer - to push away our true feelings. Teto comes in to peddle a solution, inviting us to surrender and empty our minds - in her words, "pretending to know nothing."

You, the viewer, are a critical character in this masquerade. For nearly the entire video, Miku and Teto's eyes are unfailingly trained on you. Or, well... perhaps they can't actually see you, but they can see a camera, or whatever other aperture the point of view is supposed to be from. And they know they're being watched. (Who else would Teto be sending distress signals to?)

Let's put a pin on that for later.

udin notes very early on that Miku and Teto are, conspicuously, kept in vertical frames - very similar to the video formats of TikTok (and Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, and whatever other clones of the format exist.) You know, just like the animator Caststation's Rabbit Hole fan MV that went viral some months ago.

Hey wouldn't it be crazy if the song's producer, 32ki, released Mesmerizer shorts too haha. Wouldn't that be crazy.

Wow, wild.

These short-term vertical videos are captivating & alluring. If you're reading this, it's more likely than not that you've also found yourself caught up in them at least once, scrolling through the infinite algorithmic slurry and forgetting about the real-life issues you have at hand. Would you say, then, that you felt hypnotized? Mesmerized, even?

And so these two invite us to join their world and focus on the... uh... rectangle.

Their dances are repetitive, following the same loop. Their outfits are distinct, but their choreography isn't. They're copying the same formula, repeating it ad nauseam to the best of their ability.

They're doing a fucking TikTok dance.

Back to the pin I told you about earlier, with Miku and Teto looking at a camera.

Miku sways with the camera, eyes looking directly at it like a swinging pocket watch. She's been looking at it the entire time, after all. We've been seeing her via our screen this entire time, but, again, she doesn't necessarily see us. She's beholden to the camera, which she dances for day after day, caught up in its spell. She's hypnotized by it. Eventually, she breaks.

Teto, on the other hand, resists. For a while, anyway.

Despite her being the one jumping to us with the "solution" at the beginning of the MV, there's very quickly good reason to question how much agency she has in this. She dances for the camera as well, but she doesn't want to. She's signalling for help. She wants out.

Many content creators (as much as I personally loathe the non-specificity and soullessness of the term) have struggled with the adaptation to the short-form video format, and the preference the algorithm has had for these captivating, bite-sized videos. They're catchy, and easily drive up metrics. Practically anyone who's publishing their work via video format online needs to learn to adapt or fall behind, even if that means whittling their content down to fit the frame, the time, and people's shortening attention spans. Sometimes, that means compromising on specificity and completeness... or, in other words, the true representation of a full work.

The song's writer, 32ki, has been releasing songs on YouTube for several years. Their first YouTube Short, however, was posted only a year ago: a short, whittled-down segment of their previous song, CIRCUS PANIC!!!, hoping for it to win the ProsekaNEXT song contest. It was their first song to achieve widespread popularity and hit a million views.

The shorts, however, aren't the "true" versions of the song. The full song just won't fit.

We're being mesmerized as consumers of this endless stream of content, rather than appreciators of music and art. However, that relationship isn't completely symmetrical across the plane that is the 4th wall. Miku and Teto are trapped not by their attention spans, but by a compulsion to project their "truthful acting" and peddle that window into a colorful, problem-free world.

We, as the collective audience, need not dwell on any one thing for too long - we need only swipe, and move on to the next video. However, Miku and Teto are trapped behind the screen for eternity, day after day.

They're the only characters we get to see, of course. There's no evil 3rd voice synth character that's plotting to keep them trapped in there. We can't put a face to whatever force is hypnotizing them and trapping them behind the screen. It's faceless - like the inscrutable algorithms of YouTube recommendations or the TikTok For You page, or the impersonal corporations that develop & maintain those aforementioned apps. Miku and Teto's likenesses, on the other hand, are being exploited and extracted from for their entertainment value, being strung along by that metaphorical hypnotizing force like puppets on a string.

Many people, represented by Miku, enjoy their success on such platforms. It's freeing and liberating to throw oneself wholeheartedly into such an endeavor, of course! Others, represented by Teto, harbor their doubts of the emotional veracity of such a medium, but know they have little choice lest they face destruction... perhaps not literally as a person, but as an idea.

Wouldn't it be easier just to let oneself be swept away by it and give in?

#mesmerizer #analysis #kasane teto #hatsune miku #vocaloid #rambles #text poast

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coochiequeens · 1 year

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An update to an older story that’s goods news!

When Jenny Nguyen signed the lease to create her dream bar, she wasn’t sure it would stay open for more than a few months.

But earlier this month, 43-year-old Nguyen’s first-of-its-kind establishment in Portland, Oregon, celebrated its one-year anniversary. Aptly named The Sports Bra, it’s a sports bar where only women athletes appear on the TVs.

Business has been good, despite the niche business model and record inflation sending food and beverage prices soaring. The Sports Bra brought in $944,000 in revenue in the eight months it was open in 2022, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

It was profitable in that first year of business, Nguyen adds.

“It turns out, it’s pretty universal — that feeling of being a women’s sports fan and going into a public place, like a sports bar, and having a difficult time finding a place to show a [women’s] game, especially when there are other men’s sports playing,” Nguyen says.

Initially, she wasn’t sure the idea would work at all. The vast majority of money and attention historically goes to men’s sports only — a big reason why The Sports Bra was reportedly the country’s first bar to only play women’s sports on TV.

It’s also not the kind of thing Nguyen would ordinarily do: She describes herself as “very cautious, risk averse.” But her obsession with women’s sports and frustration with its lack of representation on television screens drove her to empty her life savings — about $27,000 — and give it a try.

“Me, personally, I thought the idea was brilliant and that [it was] what the world needs,” Nguyen says. “But I had no idea that the world would want it. I just wanted to give it a shot.”

How The Sports Bra went from running joke to reality

Nguyen is a lifelong basketball fan who played the sport at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, before tearing her ACL. She’s also a longtime restaurant worker who spent three years as Reed College’s executive chef.

In 2018, Nguyen and a group of friends wanted to watch the NCAA women’s basketball championship game. They went to a mostly empty sports bar and still had to plead with a bartender to switch one of the smallest TVs — which played without sound — from a men’s sport to the women’s championship game, she recalls.

Together, they jumped up and down celebrating “one of the best games I’ve ever seen,” Nguyen says, as a buzzer-beating three-point shot sealed the championship title for Notre Dame. Afterward, she was struck by the normalcy of her situation.

″[We’d] gotten so used to watching a game like that in the way that we did,” she says, adding that they’d only find better viewing conditions “if we had our own place.”

Days later, she channeled her disappointment into a hypothetical: What would she name her bar? “The very first thing that came into my mind was The Sports Bra,” Nguyen says. “And once I thought it, I couldn’t un-think it, you know? It was catchy. I thought it was hilarious.”

For years, she joked about it. Then, the fallout from social justice movements like #MeToo and the country’s racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder left her wanting to make a meaningful impact on the world and her community.

Nguyen, who came out as a lesbian at age 17, says she doesn’t always feel welcome at most traditional sports bars. The Sports Bra could help her, and anyone else who’d rarely felt accepted in other sports establishments, feel like she belonged.

“I thought about, if we can even get one kid in here and have them feel like they belong in sports, it’d be worth it,” she says.

Helping other women’s sports bars get started

At first, Nguyen had her savings, and $40,000 in loans cobbled together from friends and family. That would keep The Sports Bra afloat for three months, based on her cost estimates for labor, inventory and other overhead.

In February 2022, she launched a Kickstarter to raise $48,000 — enough money for an extra six-month financial cushion, to build up the sort of regular clientele any bar or restaurant needs to survive long-term.

To Nguyen’s surprise, the campaign raised more than $105,000 in just 30 days, thanks to a viral article in online food publication Eater. “At that moment, when I was looking at that Kickstarter graph, I thought to myself, ‘This might work,’” she says.

But the money, which came from around the country and world, was no guarantee of success. Actual people in Portland still needed to frequent the bar.

Today, there’s often a line out the door. Women’s basketball icons like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi showed up, for an event sponsored by Buick, earlier this month. Ginny Gilder, co-owner of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, has even waited in line to watch her team play on The Sports Bra’s TVs, Nguyen says.

That’s a far cry from the Kickstarter days, which Nguyen says only happened after she was denied business loans by multiple banks and small business associations. The denials commonly cited the high risk of a unique concept run by a first-time entrepreneur during a pandemic, she adds.

Even the bar’s core concept is a struggle: It’s hard to find enough women’s sporting events to fill up the televisions. Only about 5% of all TV sports coverage focuses on female athletes, according to a 2021 University of Southern California study.

Nguyen says she’s taken to reaching out directly to sports networks and streaming services, some of which have hooked her up with access to more women’s sports content. She also spends an inordinate amount of time “scouring” TV listings, a process she likens to “taking a machete and chopping through a jungle.”

But she’s no longer alone. Another bar specializing in women’s sports has opened in nearby Seattle, and Nguyen says she’s in touch with a handful of other prospective entrepreneurs asking her for advice on opening similar visions in other cities.

“I would love to have as many people experience the feeling people experience when they walk through these doors,” she says. “It feels very selfish to keep it to this one building that holds 40 people at a time.”

#USA #oregon #Portland #jenny nguyen #The Sports Bra #A sports bar for women and women’s sports #She was originally denied business loans

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strawbeerossi · 9 months

Text

One Margarita

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Luke Alvez

Description: When a popular tiktok song makes its rounds around the BAU, the poor men of the BAU have to listen to the women belt it out constantly.

Content/Warnings: Pure fluff honestly, the whole team is silly, the girls have fun, suggestive dialogue, dramatics of Spencer Reid

Word Count: 0.8K

Navigation || Masterlist || Request

Another post I’ve had locked away for a while! Sorry for not posting this last night as promised, I had entirely too much to drink last night lmao.

Tagging my two besties @daddy-dotcom and @rainaaaskyy

There were some songs that were just meant to be catchy, no matter how annoying they could be. The rise of catchy songs came with the likes of TikTok, especially when it is filled with people who get famous for dancing to the most random songs or it inspired artists get their work into the world.

Some songs were made for humor related purposes, which birthed some of the most catchy pieces of music that would have anyone driving the surrounding people insane. Case in point, Penelope came into work excited to show the girls of the office one song she found on the app.

At first, they made fun of it and they all had their laughs, then the five of them put together a dance for themselves. That made the rest of the BAU endure the group acting like a group of teenagers who just had their favorite band release a new song that they needed to listen to until they got sick of it.

Spencer felt like he was going insane, Matt couldn’t help but laugh every time they broke out into their own song, Dave just thought they were insane but he found himself humming along with the girls, then there was Luke who thought it was the most amusing thing he’d ever seen. It was like Y/N would sing it everywhere and even if the song was one of the dumbest ones he heard, he’d admit that it was catchy.

That was why he’d belt it around their shared apartment, which would always result in the two getting into a laughing fit that left both of their stomachs hurting. He would even do his own improvised dances for each line of the song, which again, could have Y/N crying laughing.

It was a slower paced day at the office, everyone getting caught up on the paperwork that they hadn’t gotten around to yet because they were caught in an endless loop of jumping from case to case. They had to work fast because evil never seemed to give them a fucking break.

So, it became bustling with everyone gathering up reports and getting ready to give them to Emily to have them finished and filed away. To nobody’s surprise, it wasn’t long until Tara was humming the familiar melody.

“No. Please. I’m begging you..” Spencer groaned as he brought his hands up to cover his ears. “This is worse than prison. You know that? A million times worse.” They always appreciated the dramatics of Spencer Reid. “I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know, just stop torturing me.” He breathed out.

Luke was already laughing at the man’s actions. “You know they sing it because you have that reaction, right?” He asked, making Matt stop to lean against Luke’s desk. “He’s got a point, Reid. If you laugh about it, they will do it less.”

Y/N was coming in from the kitchenette while shaking her head. “No such luck, boys.” She laughed as she was skipping to her desk. “I think you should embrace it, boy genius.” She had commented, ruffling his hair on her way to her desk with a smile.

“I think you boys are just overly dramatic.” JJ piped in with her own opinion while heading over to her desk in order to finish the finishing touches on one of her reports. “No, we are not. That song drives me bonkers.” Spencer responded, his nose wrinkling as he was looking at the two men in front of him. “You’re telling me you like it?”

“It’s not so bad.” Luke responded while Y/N gestured to her boyfriend. “He sings it too! Don’t you, Alvez?” She smirked while lifting her coffee mug to her lips. “I do, yeah. It’s catchy!” Luke began to laugh as he put his hands up in self defense with a grin on his face. “We went out to dinner last night and I got a strawberry margarita and he started singing it!” Y/N emphasized while laughing at the memory of the previous night.

“Make fun of me all you want but you weren’t opening your legs after that drink at all.” Luke bit back while chuckling as his girlfriend’s cheeks were red.

“Give her one margarita and she’s going to bed.” He sang while the rest of the office was reduced to their own fits of laughter. “Face it, Cariña. Nobody is getting head or anything of the sort after you’ve had a sip of a margarita. You’re out of commission.”

Y/N was waving her boyfriend off while laughing. “You’re never getting head from me again, Alvez.” She teased while looking back at her paperwork. “You’ve ruined it for yourself!” She laughed at the male, who was putting his hand over his chest in a dramatic fashion. “That is the worst punishment ever! I’ll buy you a margarita after this as an apology.” He mused.

“Then I'll be happy while I'm going to bed.”

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wordsarelife · 1 month

Text

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞: 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞

pairing: theo nott x fem!reader

summary: you’re not particularly happy about theo’s song, all while he doesn’t even admit it’s about you.

warnings: none i think, apart from cursing :)

notes: mention of twitter because i refuse to call it X (elon musk is a puppeteer and i’m not falling for his schemes)

this is also still a bit of introduction, getting their dynamic and getting to know the other characters (april!!) better.

previous part | masterlist | next part

you woke up to your phone, flooding over with messages. most of them were from your best friend, april.

you and her had met in first grade, stumbling into each other. she had been new to town, knowing no one. it only took a week for the two of you to become the best of friends. she knew best of your hatred for theo, how it all had went down, from being friends to not even looking in each others direction.

y/n?!?!!!

the first message read. you ignored the twenty following ones and scrolled down to find the latest one.

give me a call when you're up. you won't believe this

you sighed, internally sacrificing the idea of a calm morning and raising your phone, already calling her.

"hey" she said and you could hear the unsureness in her voice.

"is everything okay?" you asked confused. april was normally the opposite of calm.

“yeah” she muttered and then it all came out at once “theo wrote a song and i’m pretty sure he wrote it about you. get ready, i’ll be there in fifteen minutes, okay?”

“he did what?” you asked flabbergasted, while you put her on speaker and opened twitter, checking if there was any evidence. “what the fuck” you muttered once your eyes landed on cursed legacy’s latest post.

“did you see the post?” april asked alarmed “you did right?”

“yeah” you muttered while you scrolled past the reposts “i mean pixie dream girl? do i look like a pixie dream girl?”

april was silent and you closed your eyes exhausted.

“i’m sorry, y/n”

“not your fault” you walked into the bathroom, already putting toothpaste onto your toothbrush “well have some time if you’re gonna be here in just fifteen minutes”

“i thought we could drive to sammy’s and have breakfast”

“just what i needed to hear now” you breathed “i’ll see you in fifteen”

“yeah” you could practically hear her smile “wait! don’t listen to the song alone, okay?”

“yeah” you muttered “i promise”

“it’s not as bad as it thought it would be” april said as soon as you had sat down in her car.

“you’re only saying that to make me feel better, aren’t you?”

“no, i promise I’m not” she assured “you will think it’s bad the first time you hear it, but it’ll become more and more harmless”

“how many times have you listened, april?” aou asked through clenched teeth.

“only like fifteen, but i needed to analyze”

“sure” you rolled your eyes “you don’t have to lie to me, it’s alright if you like the song. my feud with theo has nothing to do with you”

“really?”

“really” you nodded. you loved april incredibly, she was the sweetest person on earth.

“i only like it so much because enzo sings the backing vocals” april had been in love with enzo since the third grade. even though you had told her about a million times that enzo was in love with her too, she never acted on her feelings. you weren’t sure if it was because she was scared or because of you and your hatred for theo. still, enzo was your favorite out of the band and april knew that. you would never have a problem with them dating, you just hoped she knew that too.

“and?” you raised your eyebrows, sensing that there was something else she wasn’t telling you.

“and it’s really catchy” april admitted.

“well, I never said that theo can’t write, i’m just not a fan of him as a person, but his band and their songs are alright. so are you going to let me hear the song or are you not finished briefing me yet?”

she smiled, before she pushed the play button. you noticed her fingers trembling and the unsureness as she send you as smile, before she parked at the side of the road.

“what are you doing?”

“saving our lifes” she shrugged.

before you could ask her anything else, theo’s voice was already flowing through the car. the song was a mix of pop and rock, it took a lot to not bop your head along. the melody was really addicting and you hated theo even more.

“maybe the song isn’t even about me”

april send you an uncomfortable expression. you could tell that she was sure it was “maybe”

she's an average girl, with tangled up hair,

her laughter's like nails on a chalkboard, it's more than i can bear.

she flutters around, like a clumsy old crow,

leaving chaos behind her, wherever she goes

she's a mess wrapped in chaos,

a thorn in my side, no matter the cost.

she'll stumble and fall, then blame it on me,

i'm tired of her games, can't you see?

“well, it definitely is about me” you nodded with a forced smile.

“yeah” april nudged your arm “but the chorus is kinda nice, i guess”

you send her a look and she smiled apologetically. as soon as the song had ended, you were more than glad that she had decided to park. you got out of the car and the first thing you did was scream at the top of your lungs.

“fucking idiot!” you screamed “what the fuck is wrong with him?” you turned to april who had been quick to climb out behind you.

april shrugged her shoulders. “i don’t know” she said “how could he?” the way she forged the anger made you almost laugh. she was trying to be angry, she really was, but april was really rarely angry, not even when you two would fight. she wasn’t making fun of you, she was trying to relate.

“i’m gonna climb up the stupid tree, smash his window and throw everything that he loves out and when i’m finished.. then, then i’ll burn his stupid song book! ha!”

“you should totally do that!!” april screamed back “or maybe we could take all this anger and put it into something useful?” she suggested

“like destroy his car?” you perked up.

“no” april smiled while she walked back to the drivers side and took out a blog and a pen. “you could write everything that your feeling down and after we had breakfast, we’ll burn it on the bridge on our way to school”

“i don’t know if that will cure the murderous rage i’m feeling right now”

“we could try?”

you nodded and couldn’t help but smile at the way she was always trying to fix you. sometimes you wondered if she stayed up late only to google therapeutic ways to handle anger or sadness. she had never ending ideas considering that topic.

while she drove you both to sammy's you spend your time writing down everything you were feeling. the absolute anger and general questions and critique you had considering some of the song lines. when had you ever blamed him for something that happened to you? you could only think of a few things and all of them had been absolutely rightful. what games was he talking about? the way you were not interested in upkeeping any sort of relationship and he made it his daily task to annoy you to the best of his ability?

who was really playing games?

you finished your writing right as april parked the car, resulting in one full and another half page and a single sentence scattered on a third one. you held the two pages in her direction and watched as she put them in her bag.

"we'll burn them after" she assured you "what about the third page?" she asked as she noticed the single piece of paper you were folding up.

"that is for me" you explained "i don't want to forget how i felt"

"okay" she smiled unsurely "as long as you didn't plan theo's murder on that, it's fine"

"no promises" you shrugged and april laughed as she followed you into the restaurant.

✦•〰〰〰〰〰★🎸☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★〰〰〰〰〰〰•✦

you ran into theo sooner than you had anticipated, almost making him topple over on the stairs of the school. april was right about to run into you, but could stop just a second before colliding. she turned her head to the side to look around you and theo, noticing enzo behind the other boy.

“hey enzo” she greeted smiling.

enzo smiled as he noticed her, a rosy blush creeping onto his cheeks. “april, hi” you could see that he was trying to say something else, but before he could do so, theo started talking.

“watch where you’re going”

you sighed “just who i needed”

theo smirked, already guessing that you knew about his bands new song. “what was that?”

“nothing” you shook your head “what is wrong with you, theodore?”

“woah, theodore huh?” he raised his hands, laughing as he saw how angry you were “that does not sound like nothing”

“don’t act stupid” you rolled your eyes “you know exactly what I’m talking about”

“do i now?” he quirked a brow.

“pixie dream girl, really?”

“our new song?” theo wondered “what about it?”

you would’ve loved to just give him a gentle hit so he would fall down the stair, but you were smarter than that, at least you hoped.

“it’s obviously about me”

“well, it doesn’t say your name”

“no” you dragged the word out “but we both know you called me pixie since we were kids. don’t act dumber than you are, theo”

“no need to get offensive” theo tried to nudge your arm, but you pulled it back before he could reach it. “so you accept that as your official nickname? because as far as i remember you always hated me calling you that”

“i still do”

“so then the song is not about you” theo shrugged.

“one line literally says ‘she turns behind the window glass’ and my window is the only one that happens to be right in front of yours” it was a bit shameful that you could recall the line from the top of your head and you had to admit that the song was kinda catchy.

“it’s about a fictional girl”

“sure” you nodded, smiling ironically “just like daddy issues is. do you really think I’m an idiot, theo?”

“do you really want me to answer that question?” theo shot back and your smile died down. the two of you knew that both songs had been written about you. theo was good at writing songs, but also at fighting with you, so it had been easy to recall the lines he had said to you after he had incorporated them in his song.

daddy issues had come out with nine other songs a few months ago. it had been the second single on cursed legacy's debut album. you hated to admit how much the track had hurt you, how theo was able to use something you had trusted him with, against you. he was one of the few who knew about your issues with you dad and he had always been able to calm you down after one of many fights. to hear the sentences he used to whisper to you, used in the chorus really felt like a knife in your back.

but you and theo weren't friends anymore and you had to accept that you would never be again. he wasn't going to go easy on you.

“stop writing songs about me” you said, finally having enough of the endless back and forth you were used to with him.

“stop making stuff up” theo answered with a smile, before he straigthened his backpack and turned around, walking down the rest of the way.

“we have geography” you reminded him.

he just shrugged, before he turned around. “you don’t mind bringing me your notes later, do you?”

“fuck you” you spat and the grin on his face frustrated you.

“is it alright if i accompany you two?” enzo’s voice made your head turn. you had completely forgotten that he had been there the entire time.

“sure” you nodded and he smiled gratefully.

✦•〰〰〰〰〰★🎸☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★〰〰〰〰〰〰•✦

it was only during english that theo and also mattheo, who suspiciously always disappeared when theo did, turned up again. without an invitation, theo sat down in the open seat beside you. april was sitting on your right side and next to her enzo, who had also followed right after your friend for the next class and was seemingly not about to leave her side. so this arrangement left place for theo and mattheo to sit down on your left side.

"hey, pixie" theo greeted, still spotting that annoying smirk of his. you would have loved to smack it right off his stupid face.

"i had hoped you wouldn't be coming back"

"and just leave you hanging like that?" theo raised his brows "i could never"

you could've guessed that he would show up for english. you hated to admit it, but theo was pretty smart and english was not only his best, but also his favorite subject. it often seemed like he was mrs walkers favorite, considering she loved to read what he wrote and you had to admit he was doing a great job at writing the bands owns songs, even if some of them were about you.

"you're right" you nodded your head, acting as if you just remembered something "now that i think about it, i remember how little maturity you have in you"

"shot right through my heart" theo gestured to his chest and mattheo next to him had the nerve to giggle.

"what are you laughing at?"

mattheo's smile died down. "i see, we're not having a particulary good morning, are we?"

"well, you're onto something, genius" you said sarcastically.

"jeez" mattheo tried to hide behind his best friend "she must've heard the song" he whispered loud enough for you to hear"

"obviously i did, riddle" you rolled your eyes "does at least one of you have critical thinking skills? because this is getting repetitive"

mattheo kindly ignored your comment about his intelligence. "i really don't get you, i didn't think you would be this angry, honestly. i mean, it's just a harmless song isn't it?" mattheo shrugged "who can say that a band wrote a song about them?"

"harmless?" you repeated laughing in disbelief "you called me and i quote 'clumsy old crow'"

"oops" theo looked up the ceiling, as if something interesting was happening up there. you could see the amusement on his face and you hated how much fun he was having by only listening to you and mattheo talk.

"we also called you enchanting if it helps" mattheo smiled.

"it doesn't" you deadpanned and his smile faded.

mattheo shrugged "as i said before, i'm not getting you. the song might not be the nicest, but you have to think into the future. in ten years you can brag about the song!"

you send him a look "not the nicest" you repeated "your little bitch friend here is a petty asshole, who cannot, for the love of him, let go of anything" you said every word as slow and calm as possible, so mattheo was able to follow your train of thought. "and also i am thinking into the future. right now your band is as famous as my left toe and will probably always be. in ten years one of you will, a hundred percent, be in jail and if it's not zabini, i bet it'll be you. so, nothing to really brag about, you get me now, matty?" you leaned back in your chair with a triumphant smile. mattheo was pretty stunned at what you had said and it took him a few seconds to find his confidence.

"wha- i'm not gonna be in jail" he crossed his arms. theo next to him just shrugged and mattheo looked at him in betrayal. "okay, maybe, but only because i threw out a tv from a hotel room after we got that record deal"

theo's head turned at him as fast as yours did.

"record deal?" you asked.

"yeah" mattheo laughed, before he turned to theo in confusion "you didn't tell her?"

theo shook his head "it's not like we're the best of friends, mate"

"well, i thought because of le-" theo had elbowed his friend into the side, which made mattheo shut up immediately.

"what about leo?" you leaned over theo, knowing that he would rather ignore your question than mattheo would.

before mattheo could answer you, or theo stop him from doing so, mrs walker walked into the room, effectively shutting up the whole class.

you took one last irritated look in theo's direction, whose eyes were fixated on the teacher in front of you, before you turned to the book april and you were sharing, opening it to the right page.

taglist:

@7s3ven @madi-potter @shereadsandcries @getosbeloved @mischieftom @wolfstar-jpg @t00thfairy20 @chcrrysblog @aestramjackson @elina3011 @kr1nqu @hopeless-y @mitskiswift99 @fallingblackveils @ahead-fullofdreams @helendeath @schaebickel @chubbychasermattheotruther @punkprincess03 @subparslytherin @girlbooklover555

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matrixbearer2024 · 3 months

Note

HEYYYYY so ive been thinking, what if reader is like good at singing and one day when vox tells her he’ll be out for a meeting and then they start busting down them tunes not knowing vox came back and then after theyre done singing vox is just like “wow that sucked” (bro does NOT want to compliment them🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️🚫🚫)

Sing-Song Shenanigans

A/N: HAHAHAHAHA I've been wanting to incorporate this into a new interlude and now this has absolutely given me the chance to- Vox at this point is practically wrapped around our dear Reader's pinkie, he's just in denial about it not to mention absolutely clueless. He compliments (Y/N) easily whenever he can pull the charm but his default is usually: "Haha lol u suck + ratio" while he not so subtly overheats and melts on the other side-

A/N: Also- this is the song Reader sings- I know the voice for Vox is outdated but the point is just it's his song that Reader sings lololol- Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this one and as always- happy reading!

youtube

You honestly didn't know if you should've expected this or not.

For someone as egotistical as Vox-

It kind of made sense that he would've straight up written his own theme song.

You only joked about it offhandedly-

Only for him to actually send you an audio file with a song he wrote and SANG.

Did he just have the file on hand or something??

You just looked up at the TV screen dumbfounded.

"I never aired it, I was just an up and coming overlord when it was made."

Came his nonchalant reply, you could only guess he shrugged but since his face was all you saw it was just a guess.

"I'll give it a listen later, you weren't finished with your story!"

"Right, where was I?"

And just like that, you both continued talking well into the night.

You'd actually almost forgotten about the audio file when Vox disconnected and bid you good night and adieu.

But seeing it in the chats when you opened your phone reminded you.

Well, it was probably cringe and you could make fun of Vox the next time around-

So you gave it a listen.

Only for the song to be pretty catchy and good.

Like the beat was stuck in your head good.

You didn't think that would've been the case at all.

And he said he didn't air this??

What the hell Vox???

Before you knew it, the darn thing ended up playing on loop more times than you would dare recall.

Too bad you couldn't include it into your playlist since that would mean having to publish it.

And you were just not ready to have that conversation with Vox yet.

Especially when it meant admitting that you liked listening to his singing.

And fuck THAT.

You absentmindedly hummed the tune on the way to university-

While you traversed between classrooms-

Even during breaks.

It only hit you that it actually was stuck in your head when you were asked about it.

"Yoooo (Y/N), what's that new bop you're listening to? It sounds pretty good from just your humming."

"Oh uh... it's a song a friend wrote. He sent it to me to... ask for my opinion!"

"Really? Can you send it to me too? I want to give it a listen!"

At least they didn't notice your awkwardness answering their question.

But because you didn't want to make it seem even weirder-

You hesitantly agreed to let your friend listen in as well.

Only for them to seriously cement what you didn't want to hear.

"Dude! They should publish this! It's a banger!"

"Eh? You think so?"

You knew the last thing Vox needed was another ego boost.

Maybe you could just keep silent about this whole thing?

"Hell yeah! What's their name?"

Or not.

Fuck.

"Of the song-?"

"The artist you goof, what does your friend call themselves? Surely they've got to be making music for a while with this experience."

Your friends had absolutely no idea you were friends with a technology demon overlord.

Even if it was their shenanigans that summoned his presence in the fucking first place!

You still couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or grateful for that fact-

What the hell were you even supposed to tell them??

"Uhhh... Vox?"

"Vox? That's a weird name. I almost thought you said 'aux', like the aux port."

You didn't notice that before, was his name actually an alias?

You weren't even surprised at this point if it was.

"Y-yeah, it's a mix of the words voice and aux! He came up with it!"

You pat yourself on the back for that bullshit reason, who cares at this point if it was right or not-

You could always just ask Vox personally later.

"Well you should ask him if we can make a music video for it!"

"Excuse me what-"

That immediately made you blank.

Did you seriously hear that right-

A fucking music video???

Problem was, you were way too deep into this conversation to back out now.

"Yeah! It would work for the music project the school's been encouraging!"

Right... the community music program your university's been doing to help spread the names of up and aspiring artists.

Problem being how in the fucking hell were you supposed to dodge a very blatant unspoken issue.

Which was the fact the song's writer and producer had been dead for DECADES.

That and you didn't even want to think of the ego boost Vox would get if you told him that your friends wanted to make a music video of his theme song.

They didn't know about him, but you were sure it would immediately go to the overlord's head.

Could this day get any worse??

"Uhhh- yeaaaah- I'll see what I can do?"

"Come on (Y/N)! You've got to at least try and convince him! This'll be a hit once it's out!"

You hated that you agreed with the fact the song most likely would be a hit.

Especially with the new rise of electro-pop.

God fucking damn it-

So that's how you found yourself pacing your living room waiting for Vox to finish with his meeting.

Well, if you guys were to make a music video anyway... might as well practice right?

Vox was a little bit concerned when you suddenly shot him a message during a meeting asking to meet up.

Especially when he couldn't really figure out what was wrong.

You seemed just fine a while ago?

Did something happen in class?

He looked back at your messages in the chat while he wracked his brain for any clues.

"Hey uh- if you're not busy I need to talk to you?"

"Why the rush doll? Miss me already?"

"In your dreams Samsung! Something came up and I need to talk to you."

"I'm in a meeting right now but I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks."

Suffice to say, he rushed the meeting so it would end quickly.

Vox didn't really even care that there were some things that still needed polishing with the presented concept.

It was a problem he could deal with later.

First, he needed to check what was wrong with you.

So you could imagine his surprise when he saw you on his feed dancing and singing.

Had you connected your computer up to the TV while waiting for him?

Vox just silently watched your antics while a familiar tune played in the background to accompany your actions.

"So I'll corrupt, manipulate, control what they see~"

Admittedly, the overlord found himself enraptured by your movements and singing.

He really couldn't help but stare as you danced around and performed to no one in particular.

If he'd only known that you would like his music sooner-

Maybe he'd have sent you more.

"I am the master of obscuring through our technology~!"

Vox didn't really think much of the song he'd sent you the other night.

A slight nervousness hit him when he was about to sleep wondering if you'd like it-

But clearly-

He didn't need to be worried at all.

"I'll sell your every single weakness back to you for a fee!"

A part of him wanted to just appear and see if you'd notice-

But the risk of cutting your performance short stopped him from going through with it.

"Don't be a fool and stand there droolin'-"

Vox couldn't help but chuckle, well-

That line was more ironic that it should've been in this situation.

"Get those Eyes. On. Me!"

His fans whirred loudly at this point, while your dance moves were quite clumsy and even random compared to more seasoned dancers-

Vox couldn't help but think you were just friggin adorable.

"Take a chance, play my game, get the rush in your veins~"

He really tried to keep his cool-

The overlord really really tried.

But he couldn't help the stupid grin on his face when he discreetly appeared on your TV.

"I'm sending out my signal download into your brain~!"

That was when he realized your eyes were closed.

It seems like whether or not he'd have appeared you wouldn't notice.

"And I'll be conquerin' the airwaves, I'm on all of your screens-"

As much as it was his theme song, Vox felt like you could rock the vibe just as well.

Which was so hilariously disconnected that he couldn't help but softly chuckle imagining it.

Well, maybe it was about time you realized he was actually here.

"So pay up motherfuckers, you belong to Vee!"

You screamed in surprise when you heard his voice from behind you.

The direction of the speaker was far enough for you to realize your digital companion appeared on the TV.

Of course he just had to join in at the last moment!

Wait-

"HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN THERE?!"

Your face was beet red from embarrassment, he wasn't supposed to see any of that!

"Long enough, I didn't realize you liked the song that much dollface!"

You practically swore at him up and down as Vox laughed and mercilessly teased you.

He seriously could've given you any hint if he arrived!

The fucking jerk-!

"I'm not doing it for you! My friends gave a listen to your song and they want to make a music video for it!"

Vox hummed thoughtfully, he was still on his high watching you get all shy and flustered.

You were so fucking cute-

"I'll agree to it on one condition."

You were almost too scared to even ask, weighing your choices before eventually daring to inquire.

The grin the overlord gave you immediately made you regret pushing forward with it.

"Fine fine, what's the condition?"

"That you perform and sing in the music video and send it to me."

"What?! Why?!"

Vox just laughed at your expense, the fact you were practically steaming out the ears because of him was the most entertaining thing he'd seen all day.

"Why not? Can't I have a look at the final product I'm agreeing to?"

You stuttered and huffed, he had a point there.

Fucking hell....

You should've never agreed to that fucking music video!!!

"Oh shut up, you just wanna see me sing and dance."

"Not really, your performance sucked."

"Oh fuck off Vox!"

The overlord just continued to laugh at how blushy and red you got.

Maybe he did enjoy your singing and dancing.

Well, it's not like he'll ever admit it.

#vox x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel x reader #vox #hazbin vox #hazbin vox x reader #hazbin hotel vox x reader #vox x you #get off my screen series

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scenteddelusion5 · 3 months

Note

Could you write a Vox x Alastor’s Child? Wherein reader views their fights as a “bonding activity” because it relieves stress for the both of them because they’re not willing to kill each other due to not wanting to hurt reader and they’ll be civil when they need to be. A large chunk of their rivalry being due to Alastor seeing Vox as trying to steal his child from him (making them his partner both romantically & business wise, them becoming an actor) and Vox seeing it the same way with Alastor trying to drag them on random outings when they’re supposed to film or have time together. - @am-i-interrupting

"Two households, both unalike in dignity, In our unsightly hell, where we lay our scene," PART 1

Vox x gn reader (Alastor's child)

Note: At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this one, especially because i had already written a daughter character, already have a daughter oc myself and then would have this child. But then I had this Romeo and Juliet inspo in mind and now I wanted to do it.

!!!!! NOTE ABOUT REQUEST !!!!!

So I really liked the idea of this Vox and Alastor dynamic but I can't write short stories so instead I'm doing a 2 or 3 parter about how they got into this dynamic. So they aren't like how you requested yet.

Word count: 3436

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

"Two households, both unalike in dignity, In our unsightly hell, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where denizen blood makes denizen teeth unclean, From forth the innovation of these two foes, A pair of star-crossed lovers arise,"

Y/n sat on the balcony of their father's mansion. Nothing but trees, or at least hell's version of trees, could be seen from there. The bustling city was ways away from the territory most denizens were too afraid of to enter. The book they were reading was written a small auteur in hell, it was obvious that he had taken great inspiration from a much more famous work. An old-fashioned, cannibal and a modern man, with more savoury tastes, falling in love, their families hate each other yada yada yada. Nothing they hadn't read before.

The demon, whom resembled a deer, put their book down and started messing with the knobs on their older radio. It sprung alive with the voice of their father; Alastor the Radio Demon, feared all throughout hell. On his broadcast played a catchy jazz song that, every once in a while, got interrupted by agonizing screams.

"That was an amazing number." The Radio glowed green as he spoke. "It brings me all the way back to the nights I spend in the speakeasies. Let's continue on-"

Everyday Alastor would broadcast the news and gossip of the week at exactly 10 a.m. and Y/n would always tune in.

"- Oh, and make sure to stay clear of the Carmine mansion this evening. The overlords are having a little get-together. So if you don't want to be served for dinner, I recommend you go home early tonight."

Right, Camilla Carmine was holding a party to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Carmine industries. Y/n was so excited. Normally their father wouldn't let them go to parties, but considering he would be there, he allowed them to go this time.

"Lastly I have a personal message to my favourite fan. I couldn't have wished for a better fawn. I hope you liked the breakfast I cooked especially for you, that demon was a struggle to catch. Hahaha," he laughed, "see you after the broadcast. Let's put on (song), it's not really my style but considering it's your favourite, I can make an exception." Their song slowly came on while Alastor's voice faded.

Y/n hadn't made friends outside of cannibal town. They had to admit they were a bit nervous...

The day went by faster and faster as the night grew closer. Y/n had put on their green gown/suit. It was beautiful; adorned with black lace, a pattern of turns and roses sewn into it.

"What do you think?" Y/n asked while turning around.

Alastor, whose suit didn't look all THAT different from his usual one, studied them up and down. "You look delightful, fawn. Every single demon in that building will see green from jealousy."

"Thanks dad."

Despite the fact that cars were already owned by most citizens in the time Alastor was alive, he preferred to walk, even to such an important event as this. So, when the two off them arrived, they stepped in through a side door instead of the big red carpet where the limousines dropped off guests.

"Remember Y/n, don't talk to people you don't know and if something goes wrong, find me or Rosie." Alastor's antlers started to grow and static filled the air. "I'll destroy however dares to hurt you."

"Don't worry, dad. I'm an adult, I can take care of myself." They laughed off their dad's threatening stature. "But if something happens I can't handle, I'll go to you."

The ballroom was decorated with black gold and white. All kinds of denizens were roaming around, from high standing overlords to imp servants. There were no familiar faces. The only other overlord Y/n had ever met besides Alastor was Rosie. Even so they had immediately split up from Alastor in favour of exploring the buffet table.

After picking up a plate, they started picking the tastiest little snacks. There was even a few dishes with demon in them provided for the cannibals.

Vox had spent four hours making himself presentable in a fancy blue suit and a new screen protector. the other Vees had matched his style. So when the three stepped out of their high-tech car and got bombarded with paparazzi, it was clear that the three belonged together.

It isn't often that they had the chance to converse with other demons of their status. It was the perfect chance to make new connections.

Vox had gotten the chance with a few other demons before it happened. His eyes landed on the most beautiful person Vox had ever seen. Their looks hypnotized the tv-demon... Which was supposed to be HIS power.

"Hey Voxie, you never guess who I saw~... Voxie? Vox... VOX!" No matter how hard Valentino tried, he wasn't able to capture Vox's attention. "What are you looking at?..." Following his colleague's line of sight, Val's eyes landed on them too. "Oooohhh, I see~ Should I go talk to them for you, maybe I can convince them to stay the night in our bed."

Vox slightly buffered. "What! NO! I'm going myself, yeah, I can handle this myself."

Y/n was enjoying a lovely tea sandwich with raw, demon heart on it, when a person they didn't recognize came up to them.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." The man with a tv for a head grabbed their hand and placed a kiss on their hand. "I'm Vox, and you are?"

"Y/n, and it's a pleasure to meet you too," they introduced themselves before shoving another tea sandwich in their mouth.

"You must really like those sandwiches."

Y/n aggressively nodded her head. "YES! Here try one!" they shoved one of them in Vox's face who reluctantly eat it.

"Wow, that's... an unique flavour."

"Yeah, heart does taste very peculiar but I like it."

It put Vox off that the demon had spoken so casually about cannibalism, however, he was even more put off that he was just fed ACTUAL DEMON. So, when they weren't looking, he drank an entire glass of champagne in one go, hoping to wash off the taste.

"Anyway... I was hoping to dance with you." Vox offered out his hand but pulled it away again when he saw the dissapointment in their face.

"I would love too but I don't think my father would be happy to see me dancing with anyone. I'm sorry."

He thought about it for a few seconds. "Y'know I'm quite familiar with this place, there is a smaller ballroom a few doors down. If you want to, you could take me up on the offer there." The overlord suggested.

Normally, Y/n would've never said yes. Going to an empty room with a stranger who must have quite a lot of power. Only an idiot would follow him... Maybe they were a bit of an idiot but Y/n was intrigued by the man, so much so that they decided to go.

"Alright."

Hours went by while the two of them danced, talked and drank in the empty ballroom. Y/n felt themself falling deeper and deeper in love with the handsome stranger. The confident way he spoke, the way he buffered and glitched whenever he got flustered, the way he would get angry when they hurt his pride by laughing at his attempts to woo them. He was perfect.

"Now, tell me Vox. Who exactly are you? Like, I know you your name but you must have been invited for a reason, so...??" Y/n asked.

"You mean you really don't recognize me?" Vox asked flabbergasted. "I'm the CEO of VoxTech." The other demon still looked confused. "The biggest tech company of hell? We release new products almost every single day."

"I'm not big on modern technology, I died during the 1920's," Y/n explained, "I tried using a computer once and it didn't go well."

"Well, that's really no good. As a demon of high society, you should keep up with modern invention, if you ever want the help I don't mind teaching you how to use it." Vox stared at them lovingly. "You know what, I'll even give you a phone. Give your address and I'll send you on-"

"HEY! Vox!" A girl with pink and purple hair walked in. She wore a poofy pink dress and her face was covered in make-up. Her bloodshot red eyes landed on the person standing next to her friend. "Oooeeehhh, and who are you?"

"Velvette, Y/n. Y/n, Velvette." Vox introduced them to each other. "They have been great company tonight, right love?" He caressed the side of their face."

Y/n got redder and redder as the conversation went on. "Yeah, it was great."

"Well, sorry that I gotta burst your bubble." Velvette interrupted the sweet moment between the two. "But the Carmines are about to have their speech and you know how pissy those old fuckers get about shit like this."

Y/n looked at the clock hanging on the wall and realised they had been gone from the party for hours. "Yeah, I should really be going back too. My father is provably worried about me."

The three swiftly made their way back to the main ballroom, Velvette joking about the two lovebirds the whole time.

Once there, they gathered by the crowd standing around a podium. Carmilla was standing there, already holding her speech about the start of her company, the amazing growth and the future. Although a very basic speech, demons were at the fact that the Carmine had mentioned future dealings and couldn't wait for the opportunity to become a part of them. One of them seemed to be the handsome TV Demon that Y/n had hopelessly fallen in love with over the course of the evening.

"Excited I see," Y/n said while pointing to the electricity coming off of Vox, "I'm not sure that a deal with Carmilla is going to happen if you electrocuted her."

"Hey! I'm a great negotiator. Thank you very much!" The man joked.

Alastor had kept his child in his sight the whole evening.... Until he didn’t. They were right over by the buffet table just a second ago. Y/n couldn’t have gone far. So, he went on a search, but after an hour, he found nothing. He even asked Rosie for help but no luck. He had stayed looking until Carmilla started her speech and even then Alastor still kept an eye open for her.

What he never expected to see, was his child, his lovely, well-behaved, miracle of a child, to be joking around with his nemesis. And were they.... Blushing?

Static filled the air around him, symbols floated around his head. The terrifying shadow of his ever-growing antlers made every demon and demoness run out of his way.

Once he got really close he could hear their conversation.

"You're such a dork!" His child laughed.

Alastor could only see their back, but he knew what their smile looked like right now. Unlike his plastered smile that hid his emotions, Y/n's was genuine.

"I'm the dork? Have you se-" Vox's eyes drifted to the strange red symbols, when he noticed Alastor standing there. A small x on his forehead, eyes like dials and his smile wide.

Normally, during their fights Alastor would be somewhat lenient with him. He still roasted Vox to the living world and back but he never outright tried to murder him. This meant that he had never experienced the true wrath of the Radio Demon. But right in that moment, Vox felt like his days were numbered.

"Holy shit," Velvette muttered.

Noticing the two Vees were looking behind them, Y/n turned around and as soon as they did, Alastor switched back to normal like clockwork.

"Oh, hey dad!" Y/n greeted him sweetly. "What are you doing?"

"Oh nothing, little fawn," the Radio Demon spoke, distain clear in his tone of voice, "now tell me, why are you wasting your time conversing with such vermin? Especially, a styleless one like that insecure, copycat, picture box."

Vox was still staring between the two of them. Y/n was Alastor's child! The one the Radio host always talks about, the only thing that freak actually seems to care about. Why did it have to be them the overlord had fallen in love with at that ball?

"You are the Radio Demons child!" The man freaked out.

"I didn't think you would care about that..." Y/n's face turned into a frown, unlike their father’s whose grin only grew wider.

"I-I" The tv started buffering. " I don't..."

"Come one Y/n, let's find someone with more class." Alastor turned around, his child in toe.

"Wow, can't believe you got the hots for that man's child." Velvette quickly snapped a picture of Vox's stunned face and send it to Valentino. You'll never guess what happened. She typed under it.

Y/n looked down at their shoes, not wanting to see their father's victorious grin. "I can't believe you just did that."

"Whatever do you mean, little fawn?"

"You know what," they replied sounding angry this time, "why did you scare away the first real people I made friends with here in hell?!"

Y/n had never had an attitude before, never talked back, never even sounded annoyed. It scared Alastor for a few seconds. "That... Vox isn't the type of person you should make friends with'."

"Isn't that for me to decide?" Tears filled their eyes and their voice was strained. "I want to go home."

Once home, Y/n attempted to rush up the stairs but was stopped by Alastor’s shadow grabbing them by the arm. They were struggling to get away when Alastor cupped their face with his hands and looked suspiciously in their eyes. He was searching for something.

"Let go of me!" Their eyes glowed as they screamed.

When Y/n tried to pull away again, Alastor's grip tightened. "You've never acted like this before. He must have hypnotised you, so be a doll and let me find his spell!"

But no matter how much he searched for even a sign of demonic manipulation. Did Vox not hypnotize them? Then why were they.... Because of Alastor's second of confusion, Y/n could quickly pull away. They rushed up to their room and locked the door.

Alastor just stood there, stunned until a knock came from the door. He straightened his suit before opening it.

"Hi Alastor, I saw you two... Leave and thought you might need a listening-ear." Rosie stepped inside and made her way to the dining room. "Besides I could really use a cup of thee after such a long night."

"You know me too well, Rosie. I'll get some snacks too."

"They've never even raised their voice at me before but one hour with that noisy rectangle and Y/n is acting like a rebelious teen." Alastor took a bite from the index finger snack. "I tried to look for a sign of hypnosis but there was nothing. What did he do to them?"

"Ever thought about it that Vox didn't do anything?" Rosie suggested.

Alastor's pupils turned into dials. "Hmm? What did you just say?"

"Ya have to think about this differently." Rosie took a sip from her tea. "A demon always buried in their books with little to no interaction with the outside world goes out for the first time in years and meets a charming man who's interested in them. It's just like one those romance tropes they always reads about."

The other overlord considered it. "Then what do you suggest we do about it. How can I show them that they deserve much better?"

"First of all, have a conversation with them. A genuine one."

"And then?"

Rosie's smile showed her sharp teeth. "Then-"

Vox was still buffering from that crazy night. He fell in love with ALASTOR'S CHILD, for god's sake. He was connected to his advanced computer, rebooting his systems. Images of Y/n, memories he saved in his files, flashed over the many monitors in his room. The doors to his office opened revealing the other two Vees.

"Damn, Voxie. You've never had to reboot after we've 'hang out' before." Valentino leaned over his colleague's shoulder. "You aren't going to demote me from being your favourite, right?"

"I wouldn't sound so confident Val. Vox was pretty hooked last night, you should've seen him." Velvette pulled up the picture she took. "This photo doesn't do his obsession justice."

"Stop it, Velvette." The TV Demon unplugged himself from the computer set-up. "It's never going to work out anyway. And it's all that shitty, old demon's fault!"

"You really think that?" Velvette asked. "I mean, they looked pretty interested to me... You could always go over to them and explain yourself. Oh and while you're there, try to find a snoop that'll make my drama Sinstagram go viral."

"Voxie doesn't need them. Just stay with me and I'll make you forget them in just five minutes." The moth demon's cigarette smoke formed a heart.

The screen buffered once more. "Get out! The both of you."

"I'll wait in my room." The two Vees made their way out.

Once he was sure they were gone, Vox pulled up another file. Y/n's beautiful face showed on the screen and their addicting laugh filled the room.

Y/n sat against their door, crying. They could see the moon through the balcony window. It's red light filled the room. They couldn't believe their father had reacted like that. And they couldn't get the face Vox made when he released their connection to the Radio Demon out of their head. It plagued their mind since the moment it happened.

Their room seemed so small, so empty, so cold. Nothing had physically changed but mentally, emotionally, everything was different. They got a taste of that beautiful romance and it was taking away from them in the blink of an eye.

Y/n was so deep in their self-pity that they didn't notice the moonlight was blocked by something. They were jolted out of their own thoughts by a knock on the window.

Looking up they saw none other than Vox standing there. His suit was covered in dirt and branches that he got certainly caught in on his way there.

They quickly walked over to open the door, stumbling on their way.

"Y/n, I- uhm, you must find it weird that I show up on you balcony like this." Vox's screen got slightly red. "I wanted to apologize for this evening. I don't care who your father is, I- uhm I care about you."

"Vox, I need you to be honest with me. Did you hypnotize me?"

Y/n's sad look broke his heart. Who got into their head that he hypnotized them?

"Y/n, I didn't and I will never do it." He put his hand on their cheek. "I promise."

Blush decorated their face. "Then can you tell me what's going on between you and my dad?"

"Of course."

The two sat on their bed, cuddling. Vox had told them about everything. The start of their feud, his constant fighting with Alastor but also the fact that he fell in love with them at first sight. It was a lovely, domestic moment.

"One time I got so angry at your dad that I made a complete smear campaign against him. it didn't work out, he completely cut off all my broadcasts, all seventy channels."

"I think he once told me about that," Y/n laughed, "you get more under his skin then you think. Even before he saw he two of us together."

"If you say so..."

Their banter went on for hours. The two did their best to keep sounds to a minimum so Alastor wouldn't find out.

"Oh, before I leave, here." Vox handed them a white box. "it's a phone. I made sure to remove all spying devices and I programmed you a special assistant. It should help you figuring out how it works."

"You put spying devices in people's phones?"

"Uh-I"

"Don't worry, I get it. It's hell. There is no need to explain yourself."

"Right." Vox tried to laugh it off like Y/n was doing. "It's getting late, I should go. Wouldn't want the Radio Demon to know I'm meeting up with his daughter without a chaperone."

This time when Y/n was separated from Vox, they felt fine. Because they knew that he loved them. They were still longing for him, but not in a sad way. It was pure, romantic love.

Part 2

Masterlist/request guidelines

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel vox x reader #hazbin vox #vox x reader #vox x you #hazbin

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in1-nutshell · 2 months

Note

ANOTHER EARTHSPARK REQUEST SINCE THERES NOT MUCH!

So, I wanted a terran bot buddy that kind of acts like Rumble, kind of- since I wanted to see Soundwave becoming their dad2 and the minicons being their adopted siblings unintentionally lol

And I meant unintentionally, maybe they met sometime before the “Decoy” episode, which leads a bit of an angst thing since I also wanted to see the minicons a bit shocked seeing Buddy being with the autobots

Oh!

Oh... this is going to be fun...

On a serious note though, where is Rumble? And where's Ratchet?!

Hope you enjoy!

Bot Buddy the Terran with the personality of Rumble meeting Soundwave and the minicons

SFW, Platonic, Slight Angst, Cybertronain (terran) reader

TFE

Buddy was one of the livelier Terrans between Twitch and Thrash. Defiantly the hardheaded one.

Having a mini rover as their alt mode, Buddy often liked riding around in the back blasting whatever tunes that were on the radio or on their playlist. And being the smallest Terran also had its perks.

“Have you seen Buddy yet?”--Robbie

“I’ve looked in the barn, and garage.”--Thrash

“I flew over by the cows, no sign of them.”--Twitch

Twitch looking at Bumblebee, who’s leaning against the barn door.

“Have you seen them?”--Twitch

“I don’t see them.”--Bumblebee

Twitch groans before looking back at the group.

“They couldn’t have gone that far, they know they aren’t supposed to go out of the fences.”--Mo

“…But what if they did?”--Twitch

“They wouldn’t do that… would they?”--Thrash

“We need to find them before dinner’s ready.”--Robbie

“How much time do we have for that?”--Twitch

“15 minutes.”--Mo

“…”—The Maltos

They all spread out to go look for Buddy.

Bumblebee looks around for a bit before tapping the barn floorboard.

Buddy pops out of there filled with dust and some cobwebs here and there.

“You know you should go and tell them where you are.”--Bumblebee

“Nah, this is revenge.”--Buddy

Bumblebee looked at them curious.

“Revenge?”--Bumblebee

Buddy picks off some of the cobwebs off their arm.

“Thrash didn’t catch me during our trust fall exercise and Twitch decided to take me flying. She knows I hate flying.”--Buddy

“What about Robbie and Mo? What did they do?”--Bumblebee

“I… I honestly don’t remember…”--Buddy

Buddy suddenly feels sad and extreme worry.

“…”—Bumblebee and Buddy

“…You should get back to them.”--Bumblebee

“I should get back to them. Hey guys! I’m here!”--Buddy

They definitely had a bit of an attitude, but they were fiercely protective of their family.

They were not afraid to throw their servos at anyone who decided to hurt their family in any way shape or form.

No one was going to mess with their brothers and sisters except them.

When they first met Autobots, he felt weirded out by their prolonged stares.

Especially Megatron’s.

Buddy wanted to ask, but they never got around to asking.

Mainly because they were looking after their siblings while also doing the stuff they liked.

Buddy accidentally dropkicks Thrash during training.

“Oh! Sorry Thrash!”--Buddy

Bumblebee coming to Thrash and Buddy.

“Rumble you can’t just dropkick—”--Bumblebee

“Rumble? Who’s Rumble?”--Buddy

Bee freezes a second.

“Forget what I said. Just no dropkicking during training.”--Bumblebee

Buddy raises an optic through their battle visor but lets it go.

Buddy had fallen behind the group when they were introduced to Arcee and went to go and find Bumblebee.

They blamed the speed of their alt mode for not being quicker.

Buddy came out of the woods transforming and landed in front of their siblings ready to fight the other minicon.

To their surprise, all three stopped at the same time.

They looked… shocked.

Buddy in battle stance.

“Listen I don’t know who you guys are, but you better leave me and my siblings alone.”--Buddy

“Rumble?”--Frenzy

Buddy falters their stance a bit.

“Who’s Rumble? I’m Buddy. You know what never mind. Just go away!”--Buddy

The three snap out of it and charge up a sonic scream at them all.

Thanks to a catchy tune the scream stopped.

Bumblebee came from the ridge and started fighting the minis.

Buddy saw one of them charging a scream at their teacher.

“Bee look out!”--Buddy

Buddy took the hit instead and flew off the ledge to the battle below.

“BUDDY!”—The Maltos and Bumblebee

Buddy hit a couple boulders on the way down and ended up falling on the side of the battle. Their pede got stuck on some rocks rendering them immobile.

Arcee went to go and see Buddy, but the rocks were still pinning her down.

Optimus tried to go but got tossed to the other side by Soundwave.

Soundwave and Megatron were now in a stale mate servo locked in place.

Megatron looked quickly where Buddy was. They were still trying to get their pede out from the larger rocks angrily muttering.

Soundwave looked were Megatron was looking and his grip nearly faltered.

The minibot rubbing their helm with a pede stuck on some rocks looked so much like…

The sound of rocks crumbling was heard above Buddy as huge chucks started falling.

Buddy looked up in fear at the rocks starting to come downwards.

They felt more fear from the link from their siblings.

Oh no their siblings…

What was going to happened to them?

What was going to happen to their family if they got squashed?

“BUDDY!”—Megatron and Optimus

Soundwave threw Megatron to the side and sprinted to the minbot, throwing the rock from their pede, snatching them, tucking them safely into his chest compartment and ran out.

A couple of larger rock did hit him, but he made sure to protect the compartment with his frame.

Soundwave heard the frightened screams from inside which pushed him to get out of there quicker.

The last big boulder made him trip onto another pile of rocks.

He landed on his back, servos crossed his chassis and laid there for a bit.

Everything was quiet.

Soundwave slowly sat up in pain and opened the chest compartment.

Buddy spilled out into his arms.

Buddy just stared, shivering from fear, at the larger Con that had just saved their life.

They noticed that Soundwave’s servos started to shake too.

They gently patted them as he set them down next to him.

“Thank you—”--Buddy

Megatron tried to snatch them up, but Soundwave grabbed Buddy’s servo tightly.

“Soundwave, while you’ve done an admirable—”--Megatron

“Rumble.”--Soundwave

The bots freeze a bit.

“Where is Rumble now Megatron?”—Soundwave

“Soundwave—”

“Where is he!?”--Soundwave

With That Megatron yanks Buddy out of his grip and Arcee kicks him in the face, falling unconscious.

“Buddy?”--Megatron

Buddy buried their face into Megatron’s neck cables shaking like a leaf.

“I—I want to go home now… I want Mom and—and Dad.”--Buddy

Megatron can only hold tighter as he walks them over to their siblings.

Later that day, Buddy would try brushing the feeling of fear for of the dents they were going to have to explain to Dot to their siblings.

Robbie and Mo seemed less convinced than Twitch and Thrash, but they didn’t press more on the matter.

Dot and Alex were more concern with Buddy nearly getting crushed, but Buddy reassured them that they were fine and now had a cool story to tell.

Truth though was that they were far from fine.

They were terrified.

They were terrified of that name.

The name that had been bouncing all around today.

The name that everyone seemed to associate them with, but they didn’t even know who they were.

The name.

Rumble.

#transformers x reader #maccadam #bot buddy #tfe x platonic reader #tfe x reader #earthspark x reader #earthspark x platonic reader

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malarign · 11 months

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studio nights

(when you help him write lyrics for his new single)

contains: idolbf!Jake x fem!reader | genre: a little bit of angst and a little bit of fluff | tw! crying | wc: 0,6k

reblogs, likes and comments are highly appreciated!!!

author’s note: guess who is back 😼 honestly as a musician, it is probably the most disappointing part - not being able to come up with any good melody or just being unsatisfied with your work, but i guess all creators can agree on that :’)

Jake buried his face in the palms of his hands as yet another phrase slipped his mind. He never thought writing lyrics would be so difficult yet here he is hopeless since all the good words seemed to be nonoperative. Not only lyrics were his problem, but all the melodies also didn’t sound as good as he wanted. He thought all those years of musical education and violin playing would be helpful but somehow made it even worse, setting expectations so high, it was almost impossible to reach.

Suddenly the sound of a new message notification resounded in the quiet studio. He immediately reached for it thinking it could be you. Thankfully it was.

y/nie 💞: hi my love! are you done or should I come over?

He thought for a while and bit his lip. The last thing he wanted is you to see him in that state. His hair was messy, he didn’t shave for a while, and his eyes bloodshot red from crying and being in front of a computer for a whole day. The only moment he left the studio was to go to the toilet and when Jungwon asked him if he had maybe seen their choreographer.

He finally decided to just apologize for being at work until late hour once again.

His phone lit up again showing another message from you.

y/nie 💞: well too bad cuz i’m already at hybe :)

The message made him freeze. He really didn’t want you to see him like that, having a feeling that you were going to scold him for not taking proper care of himself. He quickly grabbed his phone to take a quick shower before you came only to see you as soon as he opened ten door. He noticed the bag of his favorite snacks and a bright smile on your face, which slowly faded away as you saw how in bad shape your boyfriend was. He thought about how disappointed you were, not knowing the only person you were mad at was yourself, feeling guilty for letting that happen.

“My love…” you finally spoke and caressed his cheek lovingly. This faint touch made his lip quiver as tears started to flood his eyes.

You closed the door behind you for some privacy and engulfed him in a tight hug, that he needed so much.

“I feel like a failure. I can’t even come up with the easiest lyrics,” he cried trying to calm down at the same time.

“Jake, look at me,” you spoke and cupped his cheeks. “It’s okay to have a block, I know how difficult it is to write good lyrics and that’s why I’m always so proud of you and how far you’ve come. You never fail to impress me and many others.”

He nodded at your words which spoke to him perfectly and resolved his doubts.

“Thank you,” he simply said and smiled at you.

“Can I maybe help you? Can I see what you have already?”

A little skeptical about your idea he showed you his notes full of scribbles and crossed-off words. You took your time in reading his work and soon gave your feedback, which to your surprise seemed to untie some knots in his mind. You watched as he slowly nods and writes it down hastily, regaining his confidence thanks to both your comment and good remarks.

You spend long hours in that one small studio, thinking of good and catchy phrases and tunes in the hope that maybe both of your names are going to be listed in the final credits of the album.

thank you for reading! back to the masterlist

permanent taglist: (send an ask to be added) @nicholasluvbot, @en-chantedtomeetyou, @kpopstanmeg, @skzenhalove, @nfrgirl

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omegalomania · 1 year

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i think what i admire most about this record after sitting with it for a full day is the marriage of its musicality and its lyricism.

lyrically..."nihilistic" is a really good way of putting it. i was honestly kind of floored by how goddamn bleak so much of the lyricism on this record is. there's so much desolation, so much hopelessness, so much struggling to find meaning in meaninglessness. lyrically, i think this might be some of pete's darkest but also some of his best work. there's so much grappling with the feeling that maybe it's all pointless. maybe none of it fucking gets better. maybe you're always going to be fighting to figure out some kind of sense and feeling displaced and the further you look toward the horizon, the more the inevitability of the end scares the living shit out of you.

so much (for) stardust is utterly desolate lyrically. even little granules of hope feel tongue-in-cheek or in denial. so...what? does anything ever get better? are we all just flailing around, trying to make our stupid lives make sense? but at the same time, fall out boy are the happiest they've ever been as a band. they waited five years so they could savor making this record and they were genuinely excited to share it with all of us. pete is wearing skirts and letting his hair down and they're playing songs that once got them booed off stage with fearless love in their eyes and they're looking after each others' mental health and supporting one another through it all. what does it mean for a band to release something this somber at this point in time for them?

the "reality bites" pink seashell speech sums it all up kind of perfectly. so maybe life is inherently meaningless, but at the same time...there's good food. there's beautiful weather. there are still good movies, and the sound of rain on the windows, and hope, and friendship, and joy. maybe there's no point. but that doesn't change that there's still laughter. there's still love.

and that's what's in the sound of this record. the big, cinematic swell of an orchestra. the upbeat chirps of a synth. the screeching of a guitar and some bouncy, catchy goddamn riffs that'll live under your skin for days. this is a record you dance to and cry to. (cry a little, cry a lot, but don't stop dancing, don't dare stop.) sonically, this is a record laden with grit and delight and a powerful sense of purpose, from catchy pop hooks to roaring, cinematic anthems. it sits in delicious contrast to the words but it doesn't undermine them. it complements them. happy music for sad people.

of course there's pain, and there's frustration, and the world is full of tragedy and hopelessness and maybe the worst part of it is that it doesn't go away once you grow up. as you get older, you don't ever magically learn how everything clicks together. you just have to fumble through it and hope for the best, even if it feels like it never gets any easier.

it's a hard lesson to learn. but you aren't alone in it. so what fates do we share? we're all stardust. we all share the same end. we are not alone in our fears and uncertainties and we will not be alone at the end either, not really. we came from stardust and to stardust we will return.

i think if there is a hope i can take away from this record it's like...this feeling that it doesn't get better, really. but you do get better at living with it, and to someone like me, that's vital. years ago i had to come to terms with the valuable, painful lesson that i will not, mentally, neurologically, ever get "better." there will never be a point where i am "cured" of all that i must live with. but i've grown better at living with it. and there are things out there that i'm living for anyway - good food, better friends, and maybe a long-anticipated record you need to put on replay for a good long while as you soak it in.

maybe none of this matters, in the end. but if it doesn't, then this is what matters. this.

"if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

#fall out boy #so much (for) stardust #*making poasts #*meta #expanding on some thoughts i was going on abt in the gc earlier #this is pretty freeform and it doesnt sum it all up for me but i tried my best #im allowed a little bit of sincerity from time to time #that parting quote is from angel the series. which is a show i have mixed feelings on but its an important quote to me so

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jellyluvr · 1 year

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Two firsts

- Jpm x virgin fem reader 𖦹•°.

Uh so the title is really bad, but I promise the fic is good. I hope. :') special color 4 James too

Tw: facial, James bein a little forceful, reader loses virginity, some blood, and a creampie. 🤧

S: you went down to the bar in the hotel to have a drink but James had other plans for you.

You had been staying at this cute little hotel you found. Atleast that's what you thought. It was nice. You loved it, even if you had only been staying there for a few hours. I mean, it was a wonderful place. All big, nice rooms. You even got some sort of special treatment.

But, tonight you were going down to the bar. You looked in the mirror, fluffing your hair and posing to make sure you looked nice. Of course you did. You looked perfect. Your black dress hugged your skin, your chest framed perfectly in it. Your little heels were even better, black with twinkly accents.

You looked down at your heels, observing them on you and in the mirror. You hummed to yourself. You looked good.. but was there something better you could wear? You sighed, moving your head up to stare at yourself in the mirror. No.. this was good. This was great, really. Anyone would like it down there. If they didn't, they could kiss your ass. It'd probably be some junkie with no sense of self care. This.. this was good.

With that, you walked over to your purse and pulled out a lip tint, a nice rosey color. You dipped it in, letting some fall to make sure you didn't apply too much. Then, you walked back to the mirror, getting close and squinting your eyes. You focused on your lips, the small brush grazing over the inner part. You rubbed them together, wiping some in the right direction with your thumb.

Damn you looked hot.

You'd probably smash yourself if you ever got the chance. Not that you hadn't already.. but you weren't exactly an angel. Yea, you were a virgin. But you were a bad virgin. You always dirty danced with men at different clubs, never getting their number or going out to their car. You were simply just a virgin that wanted to save her sweetness for the right person. Of course you acted innocent and nice. That was the only way you could get guys to melt in your hands.

When you found out their real personalities, their eagerness.. you left. You just left, not looking back. You weren't obligated to have sex. You could be a virgin forever if you wanted.. but you only wanted the right man. The right man to fulfill your needs. Your wants.

You put the lip tint back in your small purse, then took it in your hand before walking over to the door. You practiced your walk as you did, also in the halls after you shut your door and made sure to lock it. You liked how old fashioned the hotel was. Still using keys and having to pick up ice.

You admired the work they put into the hotel, the nice carpet and archways. You loved the hotel. Cortez was catchy too. That was the main reason you came, and because there was a bar.

You had never drank before. Not even the smallest amount. That was why the bar was so special to you. Yeah, you were pretty young to drink but no one was stopping you?

You continued to walk down the halls, fixing your heels every moment. You hated these heels. You also hated the way the yellow lights illuminated your face. I mean, you probably looked horrible now. But, you strutted down the hallway, clearly walking with a purpose.

You turned the corner, the elevator greeting you. You walked in, your heels clicking on the glass. Then, of course, you pressed the number one on the golden buttons and waited for the doors to close. Thankfully the elevator was so well kept there was a nice shiny surface to check if you looked good on.

You got closer to the reflection and made sure everything looked good. No smudges.. so that was great.

The ding of the elevator brought you back to life, also the little bit of shaking. As the doors opened, you watched a few people come in. You were glad they didn't look as good as you.

You walked out, shaking your head slightly to get some hair out of your face. And finally.. you saw the bar. But, there was a man, talking with the bartender.

She looked nice, a cute dress honestly. But, you still hopped up on one of the red leather stools and settled there. You let your weight sink into the sticky seat before turning in it. You loved spinny stools. They were your favorite.

"Ooo, what's your name?" The bartender asked, cooing at you for whatever reason. You laughed lightly, a little embarrassed from the call out.

"Y/n." You responded quickly after your giggles, but the man turned to you watching as you got settled.

"Pretty name for a pretty lady.." Liz said, chuckling to herself, "mmm, but anyway, what'd you like, hun?" She asked smiling at you as her nails clicked against the glass top of the bar.

You looked at all the choices and you didn't really know what to choose.. it was all really overwhelming.. maybe just a beer? But what beer?? Shit...

"Are you even old enough to drink?" The man asked, staring at you. You just looked over, your body becoming stiff. "Uh, yeah? Duhhhh???"

It was so obvious you were lying. The man chuckled to himself, then looking over to Liz.

"Get her a shot, a shooter. Surprise me." He smiled at her, his dimples peeking through while Liz let out a soft hm, then turning around and doing whatever to make a shooter.

The man then turned to you. "You think you can handle that?" He asked, clearly mocking you in some way. You just stared for a second, nodding. You were still stuck on what a shooter was but you didn't really care. You didn't mind embarrassing yourself in front of anyone.. not even him.

"How old are you, dear?" He asked in a more sweet tone than earlier. Then took a sip of his whiskey, reveling in the taste with a click of his tongue.

"I'm y/a." You said proudly despite the number being pretty low. Especially low.. and you were drinking?? How rebellious of you.

"Really?" He said, seeming to be a little shocked. He looked over at you, taking a glance at your boobs before pulling himself back together.

"Well, would you like to go to my office after this? I am paying for you after all.." his finger tip grazed over the rim of his glass while he awaited your answer. He knew it wouldn't be no.

"Sure." You said, not seeming to be too afraid. He looked nice.. hot outfit honestly. He really pulled off the suspenders. And his hair? It was slicked back perfectly, his brown eyes almost matching the jet black. You really almost got lost within him.

But then, Liz passed you your shot and you immediately looked down at it. A slight tint of pink was in it, but mostly clearish. You smelt it, clearly a bit suspicious of it.

"It's just a shot, it won't kill you." He said, watching you closely. So you took the glass and thought about it. It was a shooter.. so like the movies? Just shoot it down?

You shot it down, but you immediately winced at the taste. It burned your throat.. your nostrils almost burned. James laughed at how you acted. It was obvious you hadn't ever drank before. Let alone a shot being your first.

"Mm. Did it taste nice?" He looked at you, a grin on his face. All you could get out was a mhm before getting up off the stool, your thighs sticking to it.

"Okay.. let's go please?" You asked, looking down at the ground while you tried to get that taste out of your mouth.

James laughed again, drinking the rest of his whiskey and paying Liz. She knew exactly what was going to happen but she didn't say anything. She just stayed quiet, picking up the glasses and putting them somewhere.

"Alright then.." he got off his stool with a little huff before beginning to walk, not seeming to care if you were following or not. You immediately caught up, stumbling a bit from your heels.

"Follow me, dear." He said, walking over to the halls connected to the upstairs. You followed like he said, eventually catching up to be beside him. Then, you walked for awhile before coming up to a room. 64.

He pulled a key out of his pocket, it clinking and clacking before he opened the door, guiding you in.

It looked nice. 2 chairs infront of you, a closet, another closet on the left?, the bed to the right, and facing the bed the bathroom on the left. You sat down on the bed, looking around. You enjoyed the retro looks of the hotel. You loved it.

James' room looked different than all the others.. more fancy. Or retro. You still liked it though. You let the room sink in while you listened to James lock the door, then walk over to you.

"So, what would you like to do first, my dear?" He asked, his voice smooth but rocky at the same time. But, you really didn't know. Not unless he wanted to fuck? But you we're too young for him.. I mean, that was what you inferred from him being so shocked about your age earlier.

In reality, James was just thrilled. He always preferred younger and prettier girls.. they were most easy to kill and touch.. everything was for his pleasure, really.

"Charades..?" You said sheepishly. James immediately began to laugh, his body coming closer, putting you face to face with his junk.

You couldn't really tell if he was hard or not, it was rude to stare. James clearly didn't care about that rule though. His eyes went to your chest once more, then back up to your eyes.

"I think I have an idea.." he hummed, his hand pushing you back on the bed. Once he did, his hands grazed over your chest while you just laid there in shock. You didn't even get to comprehend what was going on.

James' veiny hands slipped under your slutty dress, immediately toying with your panties. James smirked, looking up at your surprised face.

"This okay?" Before you could even nod, his fingers had slipped in your panties. They went in between your folds, touching your slight wetness.

"Already wet for me?" He chuckled lightly, taking his fingers out before his hands pulled you closer to him, your thighs pushed up against his. He dropped your legs, his hands now focusing on getting his pants off. He kicked them off his feet, unbuttoning his shirt as soon as he did.

James was now presentable. Only his underwear were on and you saw how his erection was building.

"Take that dress off, please?" He smiled, already pulling up your dress so you had the help. You pulled it off, feeling your heat rise as well. Once it was right on your chest, you pulled it off your head your tits bouncing from the friction.

"Mm.." he hummed, snapping your panties against your skin before pulling them up, revealing your heat. He looked down at your pussy, then back up at your face. 'When he reaches down to feel how wet you are' meme was starting to make a lot of sense.

Before you could say anything, James' underwear were off and he pushed into you, making you gasp for air. He looked at your face, laughing lightly before thrusting a little harder. He heard your moans, but he didn't seem to care. You'd have to get accustomed to his cock soon, and you being a virigin didn't help.

"God, you're tight.." he groaned, his hands holding onto your thighs as he thrusted into you at a good pace, making your chest bounce up and down.

He began to thrust harder, making you squirm a bit, maybe even yelp. You whimpered at the painful feeling, trying to find the pleasure. James continued to assault your pussy, making you cum all around him. It didn't take long, not at all. James was still going though.

"Mmm! Fuck!!" You shouted, James smiling at his work. He looked at your stomach, it moving just barely from his size. His right hand went on your stomach, pushing down to give himself more pleasure.

James groaned, feeling his orgasm near. You just let him fuck you relentlessly.. you started to like the pain.. the pleasure. It mixed well. Especially with his size.

James continued to thrust, all the blood in his body going to the tip of his cock while he continued to pound into you. His forehead began to sweat, his hair getting all messy from his movements. But then, you felt a gush of heat inside you and a moan from James his last thrust sloppy. You moaned feeling him pull out... your pussy coated with your arousal and dripping with his white cum.

He panted looking down at your cunt, then sticking a finger in your once tight pussy to stuff you with his cum even more. He pulled his finger out, a little bit of red on it. Your eyes widened, his too.

"Mm.. what a tragedy. You lost your virginity to a man you don't even know." He laughed lightly, crawling up on the bed beside you while you just laid there in utter shock.

"Can I taste you..?" You asked, looking over to him. He looked at you, another devilish smile creeping on his face.

"Sure.. go on." He encouraged, leaning up as he watched you move in between his legs. You looked at his cock, it being soft.

Your hand wrapped around his shaft, slowly moving up and down. James let out a little moan, his cock growing hard again despite the over sensitivity.

You looked at his tip, your lips ghosting it while you looked up at his face, a smile on it. Your tongue peeks out and you began to kitten lick his slit, wincing at the taste. You quickly got used to the salty flavor, letting your lips enclose over his tip, your tongue twirling around to pleasure him.

He moaned a little more, his hand moving up into your hair as he guided you. He bobbed your head up and down, more noises coming from him. You gagged a little, but he continued.

"Fuck..." he groaned, his voice raspy now. His tip hit the back of your throat, then his tip went to your lips and repeat. Finally, he let go.

"Open your mouth.." he said in breathy tone. So, you did, your tongue out. You watched as his hand went to pump himself, him letting out squeaks along the way.

He continued, feeling his next orgasm creep closer and closer before he came. He had originally aimed for your mouth, but he didn't really care. I mean, his eyes were closed. Once his thick cum left ribbons of white on your face, he opened his eyes, laughing a little.

"You look so pretty like that, sweetheart." He sighed, still smiling to himself. You wiped the cum off your face, letting it into your mouth while you savored the taste.

—20 minutes later—

James had fallen asleep and you had taken it as your chance to get dressed once more. You went to the bathroom, looking into the mirror while you tried to fix yourself up, also trying to get his finish off.

But, once you looked at your lips you saw the lip tint was still there.

It was good you used it for this occasion.. it couldn't help but make you smile.

‐☆ 𝕭𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖘 ☆‐

I don't have a divider currently so you have to make do** with that. (I used the wrong due omg)

Sorry if this is bad, I did try. Plus it's long asf. Anyways, ty 4 readin

#evan peters #evan peters characters #evan peters fanfic #evan peters smut #evan peters x y/n #evan peters x reader #james patrick march x reader #jpm x reader #jpm x y/n #james patrick march #james patrick march x you #jpm x you #ahs hotel #ahs smut #american horror story #american horror story hotel #evan peters icons #evan peters x female reader #ahs

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andreabandrea · 5 months

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The AndreaBandrea UTY post

I need some place to put my Undertale Yellow (UTY for short) thoughts & criticism, and this is my blog, so I might as well put them here. If you don't want to see constructive criticism about Undertale Yellow, don't click below the readmore!

Pretty much everyone I talk to really likes this game, and honestly, I'm really sad that I don't like it more. I like some parts of it quite a bit! But I have mixed feelings about other parts-- I think the writing and characterization could have been a little more impactful than they were, and I’ll be discussing that here. I don’t want to just rag on this game without expressing suggestions and parts that I do like in more detail, so those will be covered as well.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't have negative feelings towards the development team or fans of this game in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for the creators of Undertale Yellow. This project was obviously a massive undertaking with a lot of love behind it, and I'm glad to see that it's found success and a community of people who do enjoy it.

The reason I’m writing this post is that, again, I liked parts of this game and wish I enjoyed it more. If I didn’t like it at all, I just wouldn’t engage with it at all anymore. I also haven’t really seen any other people expressing constructive criticism on the game’s writing, so it’s felt more important for me to express these thoughts, be heard, and see if others feel the same way.

The Good

I'll start off with the things I like. The art, the animation, and the music are all fantastic. I was very impressed by the battle backgrounds and the little touches, like the way Clover runs. Clover doing things like reaching for other’s hands, giving fistbumps, drawing their weapon, changing their expression at times-- they feel very dynamic and fun to play as.

The music is really catchy and fun. I love the iterations on the battle theme-- Snowdin’s battle theme having bells, for example.

I also had fun with most of the fights in the game! I liked the unique mechanics that came into play (e.g. the lasso in North Star's battle). I think that changing the way Clover attacks compared to Frisk feels organic and fun.

I also love the mail system. Ever since you could deliver and receive letters in Paper Mario 64, I’ve been hooked on mail as a storytelling system in video games. I think the letters you receive are interesting and clever, and it’s a great way to keep past characters relevant in lieu of a cell phone.

I’m going to be discussing criticism of the characters later, so I’m going to take a moment to talk a little about things I liked about them. I really like Martlet’s optimism and belief in humans. Starlo made me laugh quite a few times and the Feisty Five have a great dynamic with each other. A lot of the background characters in the game are fun-- I like the one who serves you at the Honeydew Resort. The fact that you can go back to these vendors later on and get four new topics to talk about is fantastic and makes the world feel a lot more alive.

The Slightly Less-Good (and more disclaimers)

The writing is where the game falls short for me-- and it’s sad for me, because the writing is the heart of Undertale. I don’t think that the writing is bad by any means! I like the characters and story well enough, but- again- I just wish that I liked them more. I’ll try to incorporate suggestions so this isn’t just a total downer post without anything backing it up.

I want to express something about the ‘suggestions’ that I’ll be offering after the criticism. I know that Undertale Yellow is now out, and the team isn’t going to go back and change it now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to make it sound as if the team should change Undertale Yellow just because I have some reservations about it. I’m just one fan out of many. In the very off chance that a member of the Undertale Yellow development team is reading this--

First of all, hi!

Second of all, I know that changing major parts of Undertale Yellow at this point is very unrealistic, and I wouldn’t want you to. If anything, I’m honored you’re reading my ramblings at all. I’d be touched if you’d be willing to take some of my words to heart as you move onto your next creative projects.

The reason I’m including suggestions, therefore, isn’t because I think that the team should or must make these changes, but because I don’t want to just sound excessively negative about this game without offering a little feedback.

I don’t presume that my criticism and suggestions are objectively correct or better than what the Undertale Yellow team created. This is my personal blog, and these are my personal rambly thoughts about Undertale Yellow. The reason I’m including so many disclaimers is because I’ve gotten into discourse before due to poorly thought-out posts about Undertale, and I hope to avoid that this time. I don’t want to just not post something on my own blog, though, because I’m afraid it could be misconstrued or possibly upset somebody. So, I’m trying to discuss this as carefully as I can.

As one final disclaimer, I'll say that I know that it was more likely than not that I'd be at least a little disappointed by Undertale Yellow. The original Undertale was a very important game for me, and very little could reach that standard. (I think this is one reason why Toby decided to do Deltarune, a sort of AU/spinoff rather than a full-on "Undertale 2", and I respect that decision.)

I also think that quite a bit of my criticism is subjective-- several of the characters didn't fully click with me and several of the jokes just didn't land for me, personally. More people than you might think just didn’t connect with the regular Undertale, either. I’ll be talking a little about my subjective opinion on characters, but I’ll try to explain why I feel the way I do rather than just say, “XYZ character sucks because they’re lame, moving on.”

With that said, the post. I’ll be addressing my criticisms from smallest to largest. To begin, I’ll recap the plot of UTY to better analyze aspects that I do and don’t quite like. Spoilers abound.

Undertale Yellow Plot Recap!!!!

The central story of UTY, to my memory and understanding, is as follows:

In the past, a fallen human being went on a rampage in Snowdin and hurt Kanako, the daughter of Chujin, a former royal scientist and monster who happens to be a boss monster. Dalv, an unrelated monster, was also hurt in this incident and sealed himself away in the Ruins in a self-imposed isolation. Chujin’s family (presumably him or Kanako, but not Ceroba, as she doesn’t recognize Dalv) felt bad about this and left him corn from Starlo’s farm as a gift. But, when Chujin died, the corn gifts stopped coming.

Stepping back a bit, after the incident, Chujin developed a deep hatred for humanity. He invented a security robot called Axis and told it to go kill the human. Axis did this (and we will return to this later). Chujin kept the soul (at least, for a time) to experiment on.

At some point in this, Axis failed to impress Asgore and Chujin was fired as the royal scientist. At some point as well, he began to teach Martlet how to build puzzles. Martlet got a job in the royal guard and Chujin disapproved because humans are very dangerous.

Due to experimenting on his own boss monster soul in an attempt to find a way to turn regular monsters into boss monsters so that monsterkind could potentially stand up to the threat of humanity, Chujin wound up very ill and then passed away. He left video tapes to his wife, Ceroba, asking her to finish his research. However, he asked her to leave Kanako out of this so she could live a normal life.

Ceroba agreed to finish this research, but Kanako found out about it and asked to be experimented on because she, like her father, has the power of a boss monster. Ceroba agreed to experiment on her, which injured Kanako and caused her to ‘fall down’. Ceroba sent the near-death Kanako to Dr. Alphys, the new royal scientist, who was collecting ‘fallen down’ monsters for her own experiments with determination.

Plot summary over. I’ll take a closer look at some of these aspects going forward.

UTY Plot Criticism

I don’t feel like this is a bad story, necessarily. With that said, it doesn’t feel quite as tied together as Undertale’s story does, and I think certain aspects don’t land.

First, I feel that the majority of the plot elements about Chujin & Kanako get dumped on you at the last minute. You might be thinking that the story about Chara & Asriel is also dumped on you at the last minute-- and to an extent, this is true. You do get a massive amount of information regarding their story near the end of the game, in the True Lab.

However, Chara & Asriel's story is a massive part of the narrative from the very beginning. You meet 'Asriel' (Flowey) in the very beginning of the game. Toriel is in the Ruins due to the fallout of Chara & Asriel's deaths. Asgore and the monsters are trying to kill Frisk and steal their soul because of this, and the royal guard has taken it up as their mission. Sans is aware of an anomaly that will end everything (implied to be the player), and he would have 'killed Frisk where they stand' had he not made a promise to Toriel. And so on.

I’ll be reviewing criticism of the game’s plot in sections themed around each major character. I will be discussing suggestions about each character in their respective section here, as I discuss things I didn’t quite like about each character, my suggestions are intrinsically tied to why I didn’t quite like them.

Dalv

The connections between characters and the Chujin & Kanako plot feel a bit tenuous to me. Similarly to Toriel, Dalv is in a self-imposed isolation in the Ruins due to a major incident in his past. He fears humans due to the attack he suffered in Snowdin, and he suffers loneliness after losing his friend (who left him corn). When he sees Clover, he wonders if this is “some sort of haunting” (implying he knows that the human who attacked him was killed).

In the pacifist route, Clover can prove to Dalv that not all humans are evil and Dalv can move out and learn how to trust people again. This becomes a recurring theme-- Clover, pure of heart, proving to monsters that humanity isn’t that bad after all.

However, Dalv then disappears from the story. His motivation is to basically be left alone, but once you prove to him that humanity isn’t so bad, his role in the story is essentially complete.

I feel that, by comparison, Toriel’s motivation is more active-- to protect humans who fall down from Asgore. It’s this motivation that drives her to return at the end of the true pacifist route and ultimately make the true ending of Undertale possible.

Dalv’s passiveness makes him a weaker character to me. Now that you’ve proven that you’re his friend and humanity isn’t so bad, I would have liked to have seen him take an active motivation to protect his friend or help them in some way. We don’t have to copy Undertale beat for beat and have him dramatically save Clover from Asgore or anything, but it would have been nice to see him vouch for Clover in some way at some point.

Now, for the final time, I know that UTY is released and major changes aren’t likely. Some of my suggestions are “I would have liked to see this, but this change would require redoing the entire game,” which I don’t think should or could be done at this stage. This is just daydreaming and- if I’m praising myself highly- potential considerations for the devs’ future works (and the works of any other creatives who are reading this).

With this proposed major change to Dalv’s character out of the way, I’ll suggest instead the most minimal possible change that I would like to see, so my suggestions don’t feel entirely like just daydreaming.

I really like how Dalv sends Clover a letter about his moving out to Snowdin. This is active of him in terms of motivation-- Clover is his friend and he wants to keep in touch with his friend. I’d be absolutely thrilled to see a little bit of extra dialogue for him in an update. After you go back to Snowdin and see him, I think the dialogue he already has is totally fine! But, I’d be really happy if he’d take initiative and tell Clover a little more about his experience with the past human, or invite them to rely on him, too.

Martlet

Martlet felt… a bit restrained in terms of her writing, to me. I think that one aspect of Undertale’s writing is that it’s not afraid to go over the top. Papyrus isn’t just silly, he wears a costume every day and cartoon eyes pop out of his head when he’s surprised. Undyne isn’t just determined, she aspires to be a badass anime heroine. I like Martlet just fine, but she never had a moment where she really stood out to me in this way.

Martlet’s defining traits are that she likes puzzles, she loves reading and abiding by the rules of the royal guard, and she believes in humanity and wants to help Clover. As I said before, I really like this optimism and belief. I’d like to see more of it.

Near the end of the true pacifist route, Martlet says that she was taught in the royal guard that humans are scary, but Clover proved to her that humans are kind. This felt very abrupt to me at the time-- we know that Chujin disapproved of her joining the royal guard due to his own trauma, but Martlet had no personal involvement in the last human’s violent actions.

Martlet doesn’t seem to have any reason to dislike humans more than any other monster. We learn in her diary that she essentially joined the royal guard out of a desire to help people and build puzzles, and also because she needed a job.

If she’s just supposed to be a representative of the average monster and their feelings toward humanity, and her growing to like Clover is meant to represent how all of monsterkind could grow to like humankind, that would be one thing-- but I think that she specifically is meant to represent a person who wholeheartedly believes that humans can be good and that humans and monsters can live in harmony. In the no mercy route, she repeatedly pleads to Clover to do better, that they don’t have to act this way, that she wants to help them. That’s not the response of the average monster, who fights Clover or tries to flee from them.

I believe the intention is that Chujin & Martlet represent either end of an ideology axis (no pun intended). Chujin believes all humans are evil no matter what, but Martlet believes that humans can choose to be good. But why does she choose to believe in humans other than a sense of personal optimism?

I would have liked to have seen some defining event that made Martlet choose to believe in the goodness of humanity. I would have liked to have her being kind and optimistic to a fault be more of a defining trait-- to have that go over the top in an Undertale-style way. A lot of her interactions with other characters just personally weren’t very memorable to me.

Martlet spends a lot of the game sidelined. She loses you in the Mines. She gets thrown in jail in the Wild East. She has to go back to Snowdin once you're freed. Yes, she's there for you in the true pacifist route, but she's otherwise pretty absent through the neutral/true pacifist routes.

I recognize that the main characters in Undertale can be absent after you leave their respective sections of the game. However, you're able to call Papyrus & Undyne as much as you want, and you get a major hang-out (or “date”) with each of them and Alphys which gives time to expand on their backstory and character arc. Martlet doesn't get that. We even get a little bit of time to hang out with Dalv after we become his friend, but Martlet shoves us on a boat and hurries us to the next area as soon as we beat her. And sure, we get to talk to her on the boat, but it’s just a bit of silly dialogue-- it doesn’t really expand on her character. It feels like a missed opportunity.

So, yes, my major suggestion on her would be to zoom in more on her belief in you and let her be a liiiiitle sillier and more over the top, and give more opportunity for Clover to hang out with her.

At this stage, however? In this proposed minor ‘dialogue update’, I’d be really excited to see a little something more from her. Maybe a letter? She does send you one, but only in the neutral route to tell you to meet her on top of the apartments. It would be a good opportunity to either let her be silly or explain a bit about when she came to want to believe in humans-- or both, ideally.

Starlo

I honestly have very little to say on Starlo. He seems to be the fan favorite, and I did find his section fun! Ultimately, though, he's just kind of… there? I mean, he's on the periphery of Ceroba's (and Chujin and Kanako’s) story because he's her childhood friend (and his family grew the corn that Chujin gives to Dalv), and yes, he later on reminds her that she can still choose to be a better person because he also almost killed Clover! However, every monster in the game almost killed Clover.

There’s nothing wrong with having a silly character who wears a costume and isn’t a major player in the plot. I feel like Starlo is similar to Papyrus in this way. But Papyrus isn’t just a goofball, he’s the monster in Undertale who believes unerringly in Frisk & the player’s ability to do better because he firmly believes that you can make anything happen if you just try. This belief helps elevate Papyrus from comic relief to an actual rounded character.

I don’t feel like Starlo has any sort of strong conviction like that. We do learn that he wants to bring hope to the Underground by roleplaying as a sheriff in the Wild East town, giving them a slice of (supposed) surface life. I think this is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more of it. In the no mercy route, he does bravely stand against you because he’s a sheriff and it’s his job to bring justice to murderers like Clover.

My expectation when I first met him, a fellow cowboy (gender-neutral), was that he’d have his own ideas about justice. I expected that he would clash with Clover about these ideals, and neither of them would be quite right or wrong-- and this would prove that justice can’t be measured mathematically, and one outcome can’t be applied to all situations.

But, he’s not at all bad the way he is. He has a lot of fans, after all. The minor change I’d suggest now that the game is out is that I’d be interested in learning why the cowboy aesthetic specifically appealed to him. Maybe a diary in his room explaining that Westerns are the epitome of ‘justice’ to him? I’d like to see a peek into the motivation that transformed an ordinary farm boy into someone who could bravely stand against a murderous human.

Ceroba

I’ll be honest. I want to like Ceroba, but I don’t.

I understand that there's an attempt to mirror Asgore in that the war against humanity, in general, has taken Ceroba's partner and her child from her-- and ultimately, Clover forgives her and helps her learn how to move on. It's about letting go, just like Undertale. I get that. But Ceroba’s story doesn't land for me, personally. In order to talk about Ceroba, I need to talk about her husband, Chujin, because Ceroba spends so much of the story acting out Chujin's will.

Whereas monsters in Undertale do attempt to kill Frisk and steal their soul, and Asgore has killed other children before, it's framed in a very 'video game' violence sort of way (again, Undertale has these meta elements). Ultimately, in the True Pacifist route, none of Frisk's deaths have stuck, and Asgore's actions- while reprehensible- allowed for Asriel to break the barrier once and for all.

Chujin, in the video tapes he leaves for Ceroba, implies that Axis’s murder of the human- presumably a child, like Clover and Frisk- was very violent and bloody. It feels a tiny step beyond the 'video game violence' aspect, for me. While it’s shown that Chujin regrets this, it still doesn’t change the way that this violence is expressed in the game.

Instead of giving the human’s soul right to Asgore to bring monsterkind closer to freedom, Chujin- who has already been fired by Asgore, I should add- chooses to keep the soul and experiment with it.

This is very selfish, even though he has good intentions. He’s told nobody else about his experiments with his soul at this point- not even his wife- and Asgore has told him to cease all activities as the royal scientist.

While monsters do want Frisk's soul for their own selfish reasons, they notably do not butcher them violently, succeed in this, and still try to get painted with the same quirky and fun brush that the other characters get.

After Chujin dies, he leaves detailed instructions for his wife to continue his work-- and although he says "don't involve Kanako", he leaves her all the tools she would need to experiment on Kanako, and notably, no other way to finish his work except to experiment on Kanako.

As I said, Kanako finds out about this and asks to be experimented on. And while she does give consent, she is a child. I cannot stress this enough-- she is a child who just lost her father and is still wracked by grief. Kanako is a child who cannot possibly know what she is consenting to.

Ceroba chooses to experiment on Kanako and more or less kills her. And then she chooses to send her 'fallen down' daughter to Alphys's experiment, despite the fact that Kanako presumably has some sort of trace of human soul/determination left in her-- which could have compromised Alphys's work as well.

Let's return to how I said that Ceroba is a mirror for Asgore. She's made so many mistakes and it's cost her her family and she can't stop now or it will all be for nothing. She's done horrible things, just like Asgore.

But the difference is that Asgore is the king of monsterkind. Asgore has no desire to kill human beings. He declared war on humanity in a fit of anger and grief, but the Underground had lost hope due to the loss of Chara & Asriel. Believing that Asgore could gather seven human souls and free them all brought hope back to the Underground.

His actions, while wrong, are selfless-- and much less explicitly violent and more 'cartoon violence'-like. Chujin & Ceroba have the well-being of monsterkind as their own pure intentions, but their actions are far more selfish and violent. Axis, Chujin’s creation, massacred a human being. Yet we're still expected to find them silly and fun and relatable-- it just feels unusual.

I’m not someone who hates nuance or morally gray characters. One reason I’m so sad that I don’t quite like Ceroba is that I love morally gray women. It’s just that we’re not allowed to really dislike Chujin or Ceroba for what they’ve done, and instead we’re supposed to see Ceroba- and Axis- as silly and relatable like the rest of the characters.

Immediately after Ceroba’s boss battle, instead of processing what just happened to a greater extent, Clover chooses to sacrifice their soul for monsterkind.

I understand that the intention is that Ceroba's grief and Chujin's desperation to protect monsters from humanity contributed to Clover's decision to sacrifice their soul. However, the idea is- to me- abrupt. Ultimately, too, Clover's decision is just as much about how much they love their friends (and how it's impossible for them to hide out in the Underground forever) as it is about Ceroba and her family.

Chara & Asriel’s deaths, Asgore’s war on humanity, the war of humans and monsters-- these elements impact every part of Frisk’s journey. But Chujin and Ceroba’s actions, while impactful on Martlet and Dalv to varying extents, are only part of Clover’s journey. And Chujin and Ceroba did awful things for this comparatively minor impact on the plot.

EDIT: Further analysis about how Ceroba doesn't have a lot of agency and spends a lot of the plot just acting out Chujin's will, as well as the inconsistency in her characterization (and feelings about sacrificing Clover and the well-being of Kanako), with input from @carlyraejepsans. Thank you!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more from Ceroba without any influence from Chujin- maybe an interaction explaining her relationship with Martlet and an additional conversation about Martlet’s nearly unwavering belief in humans vs Ceroba’s inherited grudge against humanity- but I don’t know where this would fit in. Adding more time for Clover to process Ceroba’s boss fight before sacrificing their soul might throw off the pacing.

In general, though, Ceroba's boss fight- while flashy and fun- ultimately feels pointless with how little she learns from it and how quickly she changes her stance on using Clover's soul for the benefit of monsterkind, and what will happen to monsters after they break the barrier. To quote @carlyraejepsans in the ask linked above:

In addition, it's like the writing didn't want to commit to her delusions and little character development. She feels that her daughter is alive and thinks she can save her—wait no that was a lie—wait it wasn't. The moment she's defeated she goes "Agh, what was I thinking!" out loud (which is already a questionable writing choice imo but i digress), and recognizes that sacrificing Clover for her plans is horrible... and then 5 seconds later Clover chooses to sacrifice themself to break the barrier and whoops nevermind she's suddenly the one getting the others onboard with the idea... wait. didn't she say she was making the serum because the humans would've only slaughtered them again if they broke the barrier? oh wait wasn't that also chujin again? whoops.

I would have felt better if there were more room to view Chujin and Ceroba in a critical light (and time to view Ceroba outside of just being a mom and wife). I can’t think of any ‘minor’ suggestion that wouldn’t require a lot of editing.

Axis…

And... okay. Let's talk about Axis real quick.

I want to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, but I need to point out that this security robot's name is "Axis 014." If you don't know what I mean by pointing this out, I'll just say that both of these terms are nazi dog whistles and allow you to look up the specifics.

I recognize that, by this point, it’s too late to change his name. I’d at least be grateful if the team would acknowledge this and confirm that they aren’t nazis.

Axis’s name makes his actions far worse in retrospect. He, as a security robot wants to kill a child, but he isn't able to anymore because his programming has changed. So, as a legal loophole, he forces them to hold 'a weapon' (a trash can lid) so he can justifiably kill them. This is the same robot that brutalized and murdered a human being in the past at Chujin's behest.

It feels tone deaf and ultimately the one thing I’d just outright call bad about UTY. I don’t think it was intentionally done this way, but I don't like that we're supposed to find this nazi-aesthetic police brutality robot "quirky and relatable" like the Undertale cast. In the true pacifist ending, he falls in love with a robot made out of a trash can and his eyes turn into cartoon hearts and etc. It’s even more jarring than viewing Chujin & Ceroba in a fun/relatable way.

In the no mercy route, Axis will defend himself and claim that his programming forced him to kill the human and he didn't want to. This "just following orders" defense feels weak to me as well, personally. Axis clearly delights in harming humans, going out of his way to try to kill Clover. But also, Axis spends a significant amount of the game displaying a very similar amount of free will to the other characters. He’s not just a janitor robot that sweeps back and forth.

He’s a nearly sentient being-- and the fact that there are these nearly sentient robots makes Alphys’s accomplishment of creating “a robot with a soul” (at least, so she claims-- Mettaton is only the ghost in a machine) much less impactful to me, personally. Yes, Asgore thinks that Chujin failed in creating a sentient robot, and so it’s impressive that Alphys supposedly did it. But I don’t know why Asgore wouldn’t be more skeptical of Alphys’s accomplishment after Chujin failed more than eight times and set fire to his flowers.

I think that Axis is ultimately a missed opportunity to make a really villainous character. This concept that he disobeys his programming- used as sort of a parallel for law, as a security robot- to attack Clover could have been explored to further the ‘justice’ theme. He doesn’t write his programming (the laws), he just carries it out (violently enforces the laws).

The ‘minor’ suggestion I’d make, though, is to just acknowledge the name.

Undertale & Meta Elements

Now, we’ll be addressing my largest criticisms-- the omission of meta elements and the way Flowey is written.

Undertale Yellow never quite stopped feeling like a fan game to me. And it is, of course-- but I think that it feels as if it tries so hard to be Undertale (in the writing style, the humor, etc) that it fails to forge an identity of its own, and that holds it back from being just a fangame to a fangame that succeeds in expanding on the original creative work.

At the same time, although UTY tries to feel like Undertale, I don’t think it captures certain elements that make Undertale be Undertale.

Whereas Undertale was ultimately about video games as a medium and the normalization of violence in them, UTY doesn’t have this level of metatextual commentary. UTY does have a running theme of 'justice'-- and I don’t think this is bad! After all, if Undertale already said all there was to say about video games and violence, why retread that path? I respect that UTY knows its limits and simply focuses on justice as a concept instead.

At the same time, Undertale isn’t just an RPG about mercy-- it’s an RPG about RPGs. The fact that you can talk to and spare enemies isn’t just a quirk of the game, it’s what the game is about. This is one thing that makes Undertale great that UTY doesn’t focus on.

UTY doesn’t completely ignore these elements, of course. Flowey takes over resetting for you, and you do have three distinct paths based on whether or not you kill enemies-- the ‘true pacifist’ path, the ‘neutral’ path, and the ‘no mercy’ path (I will not be calling it the ‘genocide’ route, especially in light of recent world events). Through whether or not you choose to kill enemies, the theme of ‘justice’ is explored-- who is Clover seeking justice for? In the true pacifist route, Clover seeks justice for the monsters, while in the no mercy route, Clover seeks justice for the fallen humans before them.

However, Flowey taking over the mechanics of saving and resetting for you makes concept of ‘the player’ obsolete. I recognize that not everyone in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom quite enjoys the concept of 'the player' and the meta elements of these games due to the fact that there can be implications that playing Deltarune (as an example, which ups the meta elements quite a bit) can actively hurt Kris and make their world a worse place. However, Deltarune isn’t a complete work and we don’t know this for certain. Additionally, I feel as if at least acknowledging Toby's intentions are important to analyzing the work, no matter what one's personal feelings are about them.

The Importance of the Player

The presence of you, the player, is important in Undertale. Frisk is a subversion of the 'blank slate protagonist' trope. You think that you're able to name them and control them, but in the True Pacifist route, Frisk begins to act on their own (they walk slowly in some parts of the True Lab because they're presumably afraid, etc). In the end, you realize that Frisk is their own person with their own name, and you as the player have to let go-- when Frisk & the monsters go to the surface, Flowey (a mirror of the player themselves) urges you to let them go. Don't treat this as a game anymore-- don't replay and wring out any last drops of content you can. You enjoyed it, now move on.

But many players want to see the No Mercy route because it’s the last thing they haven’t done in the game, and they don’t want to let go. And that's where the role of you, the player, becomes undeniable in the game's story. What is the No Mercy route except playing a 'typical' RPG in the way it's meant to be played? You grind to become stronger, killing every enemy that stands in your way. And when you've killed all the monsters and become as strong as you can be, you've won.

Many players didn't do this because they hate the characters in Undertale and want to hurt them-- if they hate them, they likely just wouldn't play the game. Many players did it because they like the characters in Undertale, and wanted to see what would happen. They couldn't stop playing. And this is exactly what Sans means in his dialogue during his boss battle-- to paraphrase, "you think that because you can, that means you have to."

This is one of the ways that Flowey is a mirror of the player. Flowey didn't start killing out of malicious intent, but because he had become so bored and isolated that he just "had to see what happens".

Chara's role at the very end of the No Mercy route is to call you out directly for this. They tell you that their power was yours. Their words were very misconstrued by fans for a long time, and they themselves wound up as a scapegoat for the No Mercy route-- but ultimately, there's no reason for Chara or Frisk to kill every monster in the Underground. The only reason is because of you, personally. You want to see what would happen. You want to grind and play it like a typical RPG.

They call you out for this if you don't want to delete the game world at the end. Why go back to that world that you've already destroyed? Why play nice with the monsters that you just massacred because you can?

Why am I talking about this at such length? Because I believe that ‘the player’ and how they interact with the world of Undertale is important. Characters lampshade the UI and battle mechanics often-- Flowey talking about the world as a game and ‘saving’ and ‘loading’, Papyrus telling you to “press C to open the dating HUD”, Sans explaining ‘LV’ and ‘EXP’, and so on.

This is my personal opinion, and I recognize this is very nitpicky, but I feel that not acknowledging this or adding to these meta elements in some way makes UTY weaker for me.

Flowey’s Role in UTY

Flowey essentially saves and resets for you because he's bored, and he wants to use Clover as a tool to access Asgore’s five stored human souls. His role as a mirror for the player becomes him essentially just acting as a stand-in for the player. While this in itself can invite self-reflection, I think that the execution of his role is a little awkward.

We learn at the end of the neutral route that Flowey has already reset the timeline hundreds of times by the time we first start playing the game. According to him, Clover always ends up at a dead end (they choose to stay in the Underground for the rest of their life) or they die (and they can’t reset of their own power). Thus, Flowey chose to set Clover on an alternate path by sabotaging a lever in the Ruins, which made them fall into the Dark Ruins and meet Dalv.

Flowey then tries to kill Clover and absorb their soul because they, again, hit a dead end. Yet he gives up on it after a while because Clover won’t stop fighting back, and he thinks he can just reset and try again anyway.

At the end of the true pacifist route, Clover instead opts to sacrifice their soul willingly to Asgore & monsterkind. Flowey comments that he could just reset (and you still can, if you want to play again), but Clover “earned their rest” and he calls them a friend.

This progression from “Clover is a tool that Flowey is using to access the 5 human souls” to “Clover is a friend and Flowey willingly lets them die and stay dead” feels undeserved and underdeveloped to me.

"But, Andrea," you might say, "Flowey went from trying to kill Frisk as Omega/Photoshop Flowey to hugging Frisk as Asriel really quickly too!"

Yes, but in that short time, Frisk and Flowey/Asriel had a Whole Thing where Frisk 'saved' him like everyone else and he learned he needs to let go, too. It was a short time, but it was a poignant time. By contrast, Flowey is pretty much absent throughout most of UTY's true pacifist route. Sure, you could easily say that he just got bored of Clover and gave up-- but that, too, doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I really hate to say this, but I feel that Flowey’s writing in UTY cheapens the original Undertale for me, which is why this is one of my major criticisms of the game.

Flowey's entire character arc in Undertale is about how he was stuck with the same places and same people for an endless amount of resets. In my opinion, the limited amount of places and characters for him to interact with in Undertale only adds to how trapped he is (and the Underground being so small really strengthens the concept of "there's overpopulation and the monsters are running out of time to find a solution/earn their freedom" that we see in the game, but I digress).

So when something finally changes and he meets Frisk, it's deeply impactful to him. Finally, someone new to play with! Finally, potential for change! Even though Flowey admits that, even if Chara came back, there's a great chance that he couldn't really love them due to his lack of soul, just experiencing something new for the first time in ages is as close to love as he can possibly get. So Flowey:

Starts to believe that Frisk is Chara, this person he ‘loves’ or wants to love, or some manifestation of Chara.

Refuses to let Frisk go, even if that means- when Asriel has the power of seven human souls- just resetting the Undertale timeline over and over instead of going to the surface or doing anything else.

For Flowey to have gone through everything that he does in UTY- all these new places, all these new people, Clover included- weakens this, in my opinion. And sure, there's very heavily implied to be lots of places that Frisk doesn't explore and people they don't meet-- 99% of New Home and its residents, for instance. But Clover themselves is the real problem for me.

No matter how many times Flowey reset with Clover, I really struggle to believe that he would get bored of a human being that easily. He even said that Clover's actions and choices would sometimes change from reset to reset, and he only recently learned how dramatically he could alter their path by sabotaging that lever in the Ruins. Clover isn't a static being-- and even if they were, they're at least a new static being.

And although we learn in the neutral route that Flowey can't really absorb Clover's soul because they fight back too much, I can't believe that would stop Flowey so easily. What about at the end of the pacifist route, where Clover has given it up willingly and it's being transported in a little jar? Clover’s body is separated from the soul, now-- could Clover still fight back?

Or, what about if Flowey tried to kill them as soon as they entered the Ruins? Or, what if Flowey played nice the entire route and then at the end tried to convince Clover that if they sacrificed their soul, he would take it to Asgore for them? With access to full control of the timeline, I don't think Flowey would give up on this. We learn in Undertale how painful it is for him to be soulless and how desperate he is to access power so that things will change.

For Flowey to acknowledge Clover as a 'friend'- maybe even a true person, not just a compilation of dialogue- suggests character growth. It suggests remorse for his resets that he isn't capable of having and doesn't have until the events of Undertale. I just don't feel like it’s earned.

Flowey is, of course, an unreliable narrator.

At the end of the no mercy route of UTY, Flowey expresses that he never saw Clover as a friend-- he only enjoyed watching them die over and over again. It should be noted that this was said while under extreme duress (Clover is LV 20 by this point and has killed everyone save for Asgore), and this route isn’t canon in the way that the neutral and pacifist routes are.

With that said, if we agree that Flowey can’t feel love as a soulless being, then I could argue that this is about as much of a ‘friend’ as anyone could be. This is how he wanted to keep Frisk (“Chara”, in his mind) for eternity when he had the six human souls + the entirety of monsterkinds’ souls-- just watch them try over and over again, for eternity.

Why am I contradicting myself? Because, let’s suppose that Flowey doesn’t mean Clover is a ‘friend’ in the traditional sense- that they earned his respect and he cares for them in some way- but Clover is a new toy that he got bored with and gave up on. I feel like this, too, makes Undertale a little weaker.

If Flowey did have some type of positive regard for Clover, but was willing to let them go, then it feels- to me- like Frisk’s role in his story isn’t that significant. Frisk helped him learn how to let go and move on, but Flowey has already demonstrated being capable of this. The circumstances are different- if Flowey gives up at the end of Undertale’s true pacifist route, it’s over for real, whereas if he gives up at the end of UTY, he can just wait for another human to fall- but I feel like the core feeling is the same. Flowey, by the start of Undertale, doesn’t strike me as someone who’s capable of letting go.

So, how would I have changed this?

I recognize that- again- Undertale already made these points about video games and violence, and Flowey has his entire character arc in that game. For Flowey to have more of an arc in this game would potentially make this game no longer line up with canon Undertale or weaken Undertale further. And why retread old ground that Undertale already talked about?

I respect the decision to tell a self-contained story, but the meta commentary about video games in Undertale is so significant for me that I personally would have liked to see a bit more of it in Undertale Yellow. I also recognize how much of my criticism of Flowey’s writing in UTY is subjective. It feels unrealistic for me, his arc feels abrupt for me, it makes Undertale less poignant for me.

A lot of people love his inclusion in this game, and it’s very novel to see Flowey as a friend throughout most of UTY and hear his snarky commentary on demand rather than having him as an enemy who’s absent through most of the game, as he is in Undertale.

The Flowey Suggestions

First, I’ll be honest. I know this is not and has never been possible, but my easiest solution to the dilemma of Flowey’s lack of a character arc- and the lack of an ability to give him a character arc- would have been to just remove him from UTY.

I think that Flowey’s inclusion in the story of the yellow soul human and his role saving and loading could have been interesting. It goes against certain story elements implied in Undertale, and popular fan theories-- and I don’t mind that, if something meaningful is done with it. But, I feel as if Flowey’s relationship to Clover isn’t impactful enough to justify including him.

To clarify on ‘implied story elements’ and ‘popular fan theories’:

While I might be misremembering, I thought that it was implied in Undertale that Flowey came into being after Asgore had already collected six human souls, and that a significant amount of time had passed since the last human had fallen down.

I won’t go into it at length because this post is long enough and I, again, am not an Undertale expert. With that said, it’s also implied that all human souls are capable of saving/loading/resetting in the Underground. If you make Frisk tell Asgore that he killed them before, he just nods as if he’s used to it-- and he’s the one character who we know has killed humans before.

Now, how did Asgore successfully kill beings that can just reset the game whenever they die? Well, Sans faces the same dilemma in Undertale’s no mercy route. There’s no way that he can permanently defeat you, the player, who is a real being. Therefore, the way he ‘wins’ is by infuriating you enough with his difficult boss fight until you give up and stop playing Undertale (or, at least, reset and make better choices).

Think about all the times you’ve played a game, got stuck on a hard boss, and never played it again. While it’s not ‘canon’ to the story- giving up on your copy of Mario doesn’t mean Bowser really wins- functionally, giving up on a game means that the story ends for you. This is how I believe Asgore captured the six human souls, even if they were also capable of resetting like Frisk is-- he fought them until they gave up.

Humans all are said to have great amounts of ‘determination’, not just red soul bearers. We don’t even know what trait the red soul exemplifies. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s determination itself.

The bottom line is that I don’t think it would be unrealistic for Clover to be able to save/load/reset on their own, or for Flowey to not exist yet during the time they fell down.

But, I get it, Flowey was in UTY’s demo that has been out for seven years. He’s in the trailers. He couldn’t be removed at any part of development, and he sure as hell can’t be removed now.

My second suggestion would have been to zoom in on him, instead. While the prequel is about Clover, the yellow soul human, I would have liked to see it be about Flowey in a significant way. I kept hoping for Clover to have an opportunity to ask Flowey at some point, “why are you helping me, anyway?”.

This is my personal interpretation, but I’ve come to believe that Flowey thinks that the reason he’s stuck as a flower is that it’s a punishment. Because he, as Asriel, refused to fight back, he failed Chara, and now they’re dead. Now he’s stuck as a rinky-dink flower with no soul, he can’t love his former family, and he can’t stop playing this game.

In the no mercy route of Undertale, Flowey feels very much like he’s trying to appeal to Frisk- the person he believes is Chara- in a way like a younger sibling trying to impress an older sibling. He says he’s impressed by how you killed everyone. He helps solves puzzles so you won’t have to slow down. He brags to you about how he’s also a heartless killer.

Notably, he talks about his past. He tells ‘Chara’ that he was afraid to start killing, at first. He said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but he just had to know what would happen.

Then, Flowey laughs and says that you (Chara) know how liberating it is to be this way-- to kill people and shape their fates. He ‘recognizes’ Frisk as being actually Chara because of how they killed everyone in the Ruins.

But we have no indication that Chara was a violent or evil person in their life. I believe that Flowey is partially projecting and partially recognizes Chara because, in the last moments of their life, they were telling him to kill. He always knew that Chara hated humanity and wanted power to better the position of monsterkind. This is why Flowey brags about how he has a plan to get the human souls, and once they do so, they can go to the surface and “finish what [they] started.”

To Flowey, in my opinion, killing people isn’t just about seeing what happens. It’s about trying to understand and appease Chara and doing what he thinks he should have done all that time ago, as Asriel.

I bring this up because I think that I would have liked to have seen this be explored in Undertale Yellow. Flowey is still a very misunderstood character today due to being an unreliable narrator. I believe that a lot of Flowey misinterpretations are due to taking him at face value-- hearing him say that he’s an unfeeling, manipulative, patient killer and agreeing with him.

But Flowey contradicts himself at several points. He gives up his “catch these friendliness pellets” trick after you dodging just a few times. These aren’t the makings of a perfect manipulative killer, but an impatient child. That’s who Flowey is at his core-- a child.

I recognize that, again, if Flowey told all of his tragic backstory to Clover and they became true friends, this wouldn’t fit with canon Undertale and his actions in that game. Flowey and Asriel distance themselves from each other, and it wouldn’t make sense for Flowey to tell this to Clover-- especially if he just views them as a tool to use and play with.

I think, however, it wouldn’t have been impossible for Clover to have learned this information about Flowey in a way that could still be canon compliant with Undertale itself. Hypothetically, maybe the “hopes and dreams” statue in the UG Apartments near the Core could have sparked intrigue in Flowey.

Maybe analysis of Flowey could have come up during his neutral route boss fight-- after all, Clover appears to peek into the minds of Ceroba and Martlet during the true pacifist and no mercy run boss fights, respectively. We already get a little of this- Clover has to run through a hallway of flowers in Flowey’s boss fight, and we hear sad and scared dialogue that’s presumably from a past version of Flowey himself. However, it’s not necessarily new and doesn’t quite add to Flowey’s character in my personal opinion.

I feel that including Flowey’s story more in some way would justify having Flowey in the game, and knowing the history of Asriel & Chara could factor into Clover’s decision to give up their soul for the sake of monsterkind. Chara, too, sacrificed themselves willingly, after all.

I don’t have a ‘realistic suggestion’ that could be implemented with a dialogue update because these suggestions are so vast-- and, ultimately, very personal and subjective. I have very strong feelings about Flowey.

Meta Elements of Undertale

In Undertale, you’re asked when you should or shouldn’t fight. As a pacifist, you can get through the Ruins without killing anyone. Flowey will then ask you what you would do if you met a relentless killer. Would you betray your morals and fight? Or would you give up and let yourself die?

Undertale is the friendly RPG where nobody has to die. While you have to kill Asgore at least once to do the neutral route, and you do have to fight back against Omega/Photoshop Flowey to end his battle, the game ultimately posits that there never is a good time to fight. You don’t beat Omega Flowey by being stronger than him, you do it by appealing to the souls and allowing them to rebel. You don’t beat God of Hyperdeath Asriel Dreemurr by beating him up, you do it by saving your friends- him included. The game, again, is about an inversion of the necessity of violence in video games to me.

I would have been interested in seeing an exploration of when it is necessary to fight, and this could be done through the lens of ‘justice’. Would Clover fight if it brought them closer to justice (on a pacifist route)? Is it morally correct to kill one person if it saves thousands?

Sparing someone is always the correct option in Undertale. In that way, the true route is quite linear-- there’s one solution that works for everyone. What if there were situations in UTY in which there is no single correct option that works for everyone? What if Clover were placed in situations in which they had to act as arbiter and decide between two outcomes and what is right? It could have been like how they get forced to solve the trolley problem in the Wild East, but with consequences.

Adding to putting a ‘twist’ on the elements that Undertale introduces with its combat system-- what if sparing someone ultimately enabled them to keep hurting others? What if fighting to weaken someone was the correct solution for once? These inversions could have built on the meta elements of Undertale, and I think that it would make Clover’s decision to sacrifice themselves to bring justice to monsterkind more poignant to me.

Again, I have no ‘realistic’ suggestion for this in the full release of UTY. I think that the plot about justice alone isn’t bad, but I would have been happy to see it tie into the gameplay a little more.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that UTY tries too hard to be Undertale without iterating on the aspects that made Undertale memorable. The characters feel like they fail to pop or relate to the game’s story in meaningful ways, and to me, the main story isn’t executed as well as it could have been (and far darker than the main Undertale in ways that don’t feel as if they’re handled sensitively).

I will say, again, that this project is very impressive in scope, and I applaud the dev team for finishing it and releasing it. I recognize that a lot of my distaste is subjective, and creating another Undertale is a fool's errand considering the acclaim that Undertale got. I recognize one final time that my suggestions are just daydreaming, and this game has already found a lot of success-- which I think it deserves.

I tend to criticize a lot of media I like, which might sound contradictory to some, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I don’t like something, I won’t engage with it. I think that the original Undertale has its flaws, too. At the end of the day, I like UTY, but no media is perfect. This is how I think it could have been better, and I hope that I think other creatives who want to make Undertale fanworks (or any creative works, for that matter) will take these thoughts into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

#bandrea blabbers #long post #the uty post

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honey-flustered · 2 years

Text

Cruel Little Vixen 1

Rockstar!Perv!Eddie Munson x Journalist!Reader

Enemies to Friends to Lovers (18+MDNI)

Summary: Lacking in magazine sales, your boss assigns you to follow the life of Lead Singer/Guitarist of Corroded Coffin ‘Francis The Freak’ a.k.a. Eddie Munson for a month to write an article that could potentially save the magazine. Eddie Munson wanted fame but didn’t know the consequences of this include pretending to be someone he’s not. When rumors begin to float around causing some notoriety for his reputation, his manager agrees to an exposé of his life to make him seem nicer to a broader audience much to Eddie’s chagrin. Now the two of you are set to make your time together a living hell.

A/N: So my side blog Usetheeauthor has been shadowbanned for about 3 days now. I’m currently working on getting that undone but until then will be posting some of my work here. This is a new story. It’s 8 parts maybe. It was meant to be a one shot smut but I love writing series so here we go!

>>>>>Series Masterlist Part 1 of 8

Series Music Playlist

Word Count: 5.0k+

Warnings: graphic language, violence, sexual content, sexual tension, misogyny, gross!eddie, perv!eddie, mean!eddie, mean!reader

It’s Friday night and the air is thick. Bodies pressed up against bodies yet it to each fan present it was all worth it. The crowd roars as the members of the band Corroded Coffin walk onto the stage. There was Drummer Jessie Blue, Bass Guitarist Mel Tomas, Background Vocals/Pianist Judas Argo, and finally…Lead Guitarist/Lead Vocals Francis The Freak, the man you once knew as Eddie Munson.

When he got famous, he changed more than just his name. He was an entirely different guy from who you knew back in high school. You never knew him much. Hardly crossed paths but he was actually quite polite the few encounters you’ve had. Now you couldn’t help but roll your eyes every time you see him on TV. He’s an absolute douchebag yet his fans eat it up. Trying to see the appeal would be considered beyond your comprehension.

Tonight was the night you’d put your disdain for him aside. You needed to remain professional if you were going to get through this article about ‘Francis The Freak’. Your job had assigned you the mission to spend an entire month with the rockstar gaining insight on his personal life as a means of bringing up sales for the magazine company. You hesitantly accepted the mission. Although you knew this could be your big break, you couldn’t possibly see yourself enjoying this time knowing the kind of person Eddie was now. Nonetheless, you took the challenge, attending the concert as your first assignment in diving into the life of the rockstar.

Your intentions for the article was to write the truth regardless of the ugliness of it. However, the group’s manager believed you’d write anything that would make Eddie Munson look good. As ‘Francis The Freak’, Eddie had a bad reputation because of his bad boy persona. He was rude, loud, messy, violent…pretty much everything people should hate but the crowd loved it. The backlash really came from the parents of his younger fans who feared the 80s rockstar dabbled in satanic worship. This obviously affected some album sales. So in hopes of showing his humane side, the manager agreed to the exposé. It’s a quid pro quo kind of situation. They get the album sales, your company gets more magazine sales.

The metal band begins to play it’s first song, “Cruel Little Vixen” and the crowd immediately goes wild.

“Stay away from her, She’s a disaster. Rips your heart out then eats it for supper. She has no fucking desire to fit in. Watch for her fangs, She’s a cruel little vixen.”

Even if you weren’t a fan of their music, you could admit that the songs were really catchy and you’d even found yourself swaying to the rhythm. It’s captivating witnessing someone from your high school being incredibly famous. Here you were looking up at a man you once saw stood himself on top of the lunch table and make an impromptu speech about denouncing popularity. You’d always got the feeling he’d become famous. After all, he is super talented, charismatic….really good looking.

You felt like a fish out of water. You’d never been to a metal concert before and there were things that made you question whether some things were a regular occurrence. Like when the girls would beg for Eddie Munson to spit on them or the men who’d pour beers on their heads as proof of their devotion.

By the end of show, you were left both befuddled but entertained. It was quite a show and slowly you understood the hype.

Once Corroded Coffin thanked their fans, they headed off stage to their dressing quarters. This was your move now. You flashed your backstage pass to the security guards strutting your way to the dressing rooms when you noticed a line of fans waiting to meet their idols.

Scanning the area, you spotted the manager of the group trying to control the screaming fans. You walked up the man, clearing your throat. His eyes land on you, confused.

“Look, Toots, I already let these girls know that the band’s not ready to meet anyone right now. If want to see ‘em you’ve gotta wait til ya get the say so. Alright?”

“Okay. No. It’s Y/N. Not ‘Toots’. Mr. Neds, I’m from Tone Magazine. We spoke over the phone about 3 hours ago. I’m here to interview Mr. Francis.”

His face loses color and mouth goes agape, realizing his mistake. “Um, erm, I-I apologize, Ms….”

“Y/L/N,” You answered, trying not to roll your eyes. He pretended as if he didn’t remember your name. You were one of the biggest writers out there and he dared to play this act all because you were a women when he desired a male interviewer. The desire for an male interviewer solely based on the idea that you’d only fall for his charms, fuck him, and forget all about the article. It’s sexist and tasteless accusation to say the least. “Am I allowed to go in now?”

“He’s a little busy.” Mr. Neds chuckles nervously.

“I can deal with bratty rockstar behavior, Mr. Neds. I’ve got nothing to fear.” You brushed past him, walking into the dressing room only for your eyes to land on a fully clothed Eddie Munson pounding away inside a fully naked groupie girl seated spread eagle in his dressing room chair. You let out a loud gasp causing them to look in your direction. Quickly, you shut the door.

“Umm, so he was definitely ‘busy’.” You say, a tinge of embarrassment creeping up on your face.

“One second.” The manager says putting up his index finger then rushes inside. You put an ear to the door, you can hear muffled yelling. Then, the door swings open and it’s the groupie girl who’s now disheveled and angry, shooting you a look before walking away.

Mr. Neds exits the room, letting out a big breath. “So, that’s cleared.”

“O-okay, I guess I’ll go—”

“Wait,” He halts you in your tracks. “There are several things you need to know about interviewing Francis.”

“Okay.”

“So far we’ve gone through 3 interviewers before you. Francis isn’t easy to interview. In fact, he hates them so he does things to ruin them. First interviewer was a woman. Fucked him and wrote a revenge hate article about him when he avoided her calls. At least if it were a man, they wouldn’t write fake crap because they’re pissed at Francis avoiding them, too. So I hope you understand, I still have my biases about you being female.”

“A bit discriminatory since men would definitely write lies as well but go on.”

“So, first don’t fall for his flirting. Second, he’ll try to flip the interview on you. He’ll ask you questions and you’ll completely forget the task at hand. Like the second interviewer we worked with, Eddie started asking him questions, guy realizes he never wanted to be a writer and was only trying to appease his mother, never wrote the article. Lastly, Francis may not speak at all. Or he’d just give you a hard time, circling around or giving vague answers. Ended up driving the last interviewer to the brink of insanity trying to get a word out of him. Made that guy also quit the field altogether.”

“Pardon my french but he sounds like a pain in the ass.” You admitted.

“A pain in my brain to be more exact. I literally take medication to ease the amount of migraines I get dealing with these boys. But their my boys at the end of the day.”

You nod although you just couldn’t agree with someone deteriorating their health for the raising of 4 grown bratty rockstars.

“Simply remain unwavering but polite maybe slightly kiss-assery.” He continues to advise.

“I think I go it.”

“Good. Then by all means, you are free to go.” He makes a slightly bow, gesturing you to the door.

“Nice! Thank you.”

“Hey, how does she get to go inside?” One awaiting fan asks.

“Yeah?” Another chimes in.

You walked in the room, choosing to let the manager deal with that on his own. When you entered, you were given a moment to look around the room. Eddie’s bandmates were in the room the whole time in the back playing video games unfazed by his previous tryst.

You shook your head in disgust until your eyes landed on Eddie. He’s sitting on top of the vanity table, lightbulbs around the mirror shining behind him like he was a divine being. He was even more gorgeous up close. His beautiful dark curls cascading a little passed his shoulders, soft red lips, body filled with tattoos, beautiful chest sweaty with the exertion of tonight’s show, his happy trailing leading down to his leather pants constricting over his large…(gasp) He’s watching you! You immediately snapped out of your trance faking a smile.

“Mr. Francis! It’s a pleasure to meet you,” You held out your hand. “My name is Y/N Y/L/N from Tone Magazine. I’m a huge fan of your band.”

He looks down at your outstretched hand then back at your face, refusing to shake it. You awkwardly lower your hand.

“Huge fan, huh? You didn’t look like you were based off your reactions during the show.”

“Y-you seen me in the crowd.”

“You were about a couple feet away from front row. It’s kinda hard to miss.” He flicks at his lighter, lighting the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Right.” You nod. Obviously there were so many fans within the crowd. You still felt surprised that out of all the faces in the sea of people that he’d looked at and remembered yours.

He gestures you to have a seat. The seat where he’d recently plowed someone in.

“No thanks.” You declined.

He smirks. “Why?”

He finds this amusing!

“I’m just more comfortable standing.”

He shrugs, taking another drag his cigarette.

“S-so, could you tell me a little about your upbringing, Mr. Francis?” You pull out your little journal and pen from your jean’s pocket, anticipating his answer.

“You can call me Eddie. I’m not on stage.”

“Of course.” You nod still awaiting his answer.

He just stares back at you, smoking. He’s giving you the silent treatment. It’s cute that he thinks that that’ll work on you.

“I’m fine standing here in silence, by the way,” You say, dropping your fan persona. “Your body language will only reveal to me what you wish not to speak.”

“Oh yeah?” There’s a glint of interest in his eyes.

“Mhmm,” You confirmed. “Like the way you’re manspreading right now. It indicates to me that you wish to assert your dominance over me. I’m not intimidated though. I work mostly around men. Deal with that shit practically everyday. And this relaxed ‘i don’t give a fuck’ attitude is all act. I think you care a lot. You want this interview as badly as your manager does because you want people to love you again.”

“That all you got?”

“You’re 21, a huge metalhead in high school, liked D’n’D, and you’re a huge dork.”

He snorts then chuckles. “Anyone could get that information. In Hey Hello Magazine’s interview, I expressed some of these aspects of my childhood.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t voluntarily read Hey Hello Magazine. Besides, I’m just that good.” You lied obviously you went to school with him so you’d know these things but he didn’t remember you so you’ll use this to your advantage.

He hops off the vanity dresser, sauntering over to you. His combat boots hitting against the floors loud enough for you to tune out the noise of the members hooting and hollering in the background from their video game fun.

When he’s finally in front of you, he towering over you. You never remembered him to be so tall. You look up at him holding his gaze so he knew that you weren’t fazed.

“Now tell me what I’m thinking right now?” He says face only inches from yours.

“I can tell you what I’m thinking. I think you should step away from me or else I’ll be forced to defend myself. You reek of sex and sweat.”

His face is blank at first. You worried you went to far with your assertiveness but then he smiles down at you. He finds you a lot more entertaining than moments ago.

“Ya know what I’m in the mood to meet some fans. Boys! How ya feeling? Should we get out there?” Eddie calls out to his bandmates.

“Yeah, why the hell not?” Mel Tomas speaks up ending the game. The remaining boys quickly follow heading over to the front of the room.

“Wait! What about the interview?” You say while trying to hold your composure.

“We’ll get to that…eventually.” Eddie winks.

—————

Eventually was as close to never than it was to soon. Eddie purposefully took time with each fan going over the allowed time per fan. Every now and then, he’d look at you behind him, shooting you a teasing smirk. He knew you had little time on your hands with him today. This was his little game. What he didn’t know was that you were willing to be player two. For now, you’ll be patient. You’ll be good. Slowly, you could break him the way he thinks he’ll break you.

Once the signings were completed, the boys headed back to the dressing rooms to gather their things for departure. The other boys were a lot more kinder to you even asking you questions about being the only girl working as a writer for Tone Magazine.

The entire band was attractive. Attractive enough that it made you feel a little insecure. You weren’t ugly, quite the opposite actually, but you’d always worn things that people would deem you as a plain jane or basic. You didn’t stand out much because you were comfortable in the background. That’s the way you liked things. As a writer that’s how it worked, you let your words speak for you not your appearance. So it wasn’t surprising that neither of the men tried to hit on you although you couldn’t say it didn’t get to you with the way they’d flirted with the other girls.

“So how’s the first day?” Eddie asks you, pulling you from your thoughts.

“Terrible actually. I picked up no significant information out of you. If you would’ve only cooperated, I would’ve gotten what I needed for today and you’d still get to meet and greet your fans without me moping in the background.”

“Except I wanted you to suffer. I like seeing you mad at me, kitten.”

“Don’t call me that. I already had to chastise your manager for calling me ‘Toots’. I’m not your pet so don’t give me a pet name. My name is Y/N.”

“What’s your deal, anyway? Laugh a little. You’re so fucking uptight that if I were to stick a lump of coal in you, it’d come out a diamond.”

You can feel yourself begin to burn with rage. “That is a complete misconception. Coal cannot turn into diamond!”

“Way to get ‘em there, Y/N.” You thought, sarcastically.

“And I’m not uptight,” You continued, your back pressed against the dressing room door and journal clutched to your chest. “You have been rude, crass, and extremely obnoxious. You know what, I think I’ve gotten all that I needed for Day 1’s article actually. So, I thank you in a way for giving me exactly what I’ve been looking for. I can already see the headline now: Francis The Freak is a narcissistic—”

His hands slam hard against the door, resting them on either side of your head. You jolt at the sudden action, rendered speechless. He’s staring down at you the way a predator stares down at its prey but then he gives you his famous toothy smile.

“I look forward to reading it…kitten.” He whispers, saying the pet name in broken syllables for emphasis.

You stare up at him like a deer caught in headlights. Mustering up the little courage you have, you pry one hand from around you, searching around for the door knob while your eyes remained lock to his.

He looks down between you before removing himself slowly from you, his expression still littered with amusement. You managed to open the door, glaring at him one last time then walked out of the room and slammed the door behind you.

—————

“And then he called me uptight and invaded my personal space. The guy’s such a fucking asshole.” You were currently having a bottle of red wine and venting with your best friend and roommate Chrissy Cunningham.

“I know but he’s sooo hot. Ya know, he once had a huge crush on me back in high school.”

“You only ever bring it up nearly every time you see him on television.”

She chucks popcorn at you, giggling. “Shut up! I only bring it up all the time because I was so close to fucking him. When Jason and I broke up, I was more than ready to give in. I chickened out last minute because silly me had feelings for Jason. I regret it. But he did end up eating me out and I swear to you I met God that day. He didn’t even ask for anything in return just enjoyed making me cum. They don’t call him ‘freak’ for nothing.”

You and Chrissy also went to the same high school along with Eddie. You weren’t friends with her either since she was the popular cheerleader and you were more of an in-betweener. She was always very sweet so you never had any ill comments about her. When you’d both gone to college, your friendship formed there and the two of you became inseparable.

“I could’ve went on happily without knowing this,” You laughed. “I already had my pure eyes tainted by him penetrating some random girl before me.”

“That’s just the life of a rockstar, baby.” Chrissy shrugs.

“It’s exactly why I could never date a musician.”

“Yeah, same. Unless you can give me his digits.” She says sticking her tongue playfully.

“I love you too much to put you through that. Trust me, you don’t want to deal with him.”

“I’m sure they all can’t be bad. What about Jessie the drummer?”

“Oh, he’s the sweetest. Very polite. Complete opposite of Eddie. Actually had a great convo with him. Wish I were interviewing him instead but he’s not the one in need of clean slate.”

“And Mel the guitarist?”

“He’s intelligent but super condescending at times. Doesn’t mean to be, though. He’s like the philosopher of the group.”

“Judas the Pianist?”

“British.”

“British isn’t a personality trait.” She laughs.

“It might as well be. But I guess I can say he’s shy but also really funny when he gets going. The artistic one.”

“So then what does that make Francis The Freak?”

“The bad boy minus the sensitive side. Total douchebag.”

“I just can’t see that with Eddie. He was an absolute sweetheart when I knew him.”

“Fame changes you. Honestly, he’d still treat you a lot more nicer than he would me. You’re what he’s expected to interview him so he can gawk and stare at.”

“Oh, come on. You’re so pretty. If I were into girls, you’d be my type.”

You snort, shaking your head. “You’re only saying that because your my friend.”

She cups your face lifting your head to face her. “No. I mean it. And you should give him a chance. It was only the first day. You’ve got 30 more to go. Who knows maybe you’ll be a huge Francis The Freak fan at the end of it?”

You pull away from her embrace. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”

—————

The next day, you were given a call from your boss who didn’t seem pleased by the first article you’d written. You’d think he’d be happy with this kind of story since it would make up for the juicy content needed to boost sales.

“You could’ve at least ran it by me before you decided to publish it.” He yells into the phone.

“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Bauman. But this is my experience unfiltered. Even if you were to intervene, I’d write the same thing. The people need to know. If anything, I wasn’t nearly as a harsh as I’ve should of been.”

He sighs. “What will I do with you?”

“Maybe give me a promotion?”

“Nice try but no. You hadn’t proven to me that you’re ready for that. I believe in you. I do, Y/N. Obviously, I’m an advocate for women in male dominated work spaces but...”

You rolled your eyes, knowing where this will lead. It was always advocacy for women but you’d always receive the short-end compared to your male counterparts.

“You can’t let your emotions get the best of you.”

“So, I’m just an emotionally fueled woman is, that it?”

“Not what I said.”

“You actually did maybe not explicitly but it’s very apparent.”

“I’m only giving you advice. Boys will be boys. They’re young rockstars who are used to being hounded by interviewers. He’s obviously not taking it seriously because he’s over it but if you befriend him first then maybe he’ll get to talking.”

Now it’s your turn to sigh. “I guess I’ll be…nicer.”

“Good. Now I’ll need you to drive to this address today. 3638 Birch Street. It’s Francis’s home. You’ll be spending day 2 with him all day.”

“All day?!”

“That’s what I said. Good luck and be nice.” He quickly hangs up the phone just as you were about to protest.

You huffed. This is going to be torturous.

—————

You arrived at the home which although large was surprisingly humble for his status. Ringing the doorbell, you awaited patiently for someone to answer the door.

The door opens revealing Eddie in only a robe, his hair messy. You were surprised to see that he’d answered and not his staff. His smile quickly drops.

“Oh, it’s you.” He groans in a disappointed tone. “I was hoping it was the pizza guy.” He turns around then turns to look at you again. “Unless you have pizza.”

“No!”

He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Come in.”

“Thanks for the warm welcome.” You say sarcastically, following him in.

You looked around. There was no staff whatsoever. No guards, or maids, or butlers. Simply just Eddie. It was actually refreshing seeing someone who’s clearly so rich not care for those things.

“Did you read my article, by the way?” You say, smiling smugly.

“Yes, I did.”

“I hope you learned your—”

“I love it.” He simply states causing you to have a full stop moment.

“You love it?” You asked incredulously.

He nods. “That part where you said ‘I attempted to see his point of view in life but then I realize I couldn’t get my head that far up my ass.’ It was actually pretty clever.”

“Why aren’t you pissed off?”

He leans across the island table between you two. He’s the one that’s smug now, knowing that he’s won this round. “I think it was witty, funny, somewhat true. Except you forgot one thing.”

“What’s that?” You crossed your arms.

“That I made you blush. You felt things that you probably hadn’t felt in a long time. Possibly never.”

You stutter and stammered. “I-I’ll have you know that it wasn’t that I was blushing. I was just embarrassed by the situation entirely. I may have shown my bitchiness a bit too soon and now it’s causing this rift between us when I only meant to befriend you.”

“You were?” His eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Well, yeah. But now I’m not so sure I’d like to be friends.”

“Hey, I think we can definitely be friends. I’m willing to bury the hatchet. After all, your article did help boost my popularity a little.”

“How on earth?”

“People find the situation hilarious. Now I’m seen as some funny yet eccentric troublemaker,” He puts a hand to his chest, sporting a fake sincere look. “I’ve gotta thank you for the boost, friend.”

You seethed.

Eddie - 2, Y/N - 0

“I’m gonna go for a swim.” He says walking around the island counter.

“What about the interview?”

“Geez, you’re like a broken record. If you wish to get to know me, why not try to make it subtle and fun? You can always take a swim with me, too.”

You thought back to the advice your boss told you. You were approaching this the wrong way after all. Befriending him was your best bet.

“You can go for a swim but I’m not going in with you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a bathing suit.”

“Just go in your underwear.”

“Oh, hardy har har but no. This is meant to be strictly professional.”

Eddie stands in front of you. You shoot him a look of confusion only to morph to shock when you notice him untying the robe.

“No.” You turn your face away the very second he throws it open.

“Relax. It’s nothing you haven’t seen.”

“I immediately excused myself when I walked in. Didn’t even allow myself the chance to linger for a second. I do not wish to see your dick now.”

“And you won’t. I’m wearing swim trunks underneath,” He puts a black polished finger under your chin, turning you to face him once again then tugs at your chin to look down. He was, in fact, wearing swim trunks but god his body this close looks so appetizing now that he’s wearing even less. “See. I wouldn’t intentionally flash you. It’s not what friends do.”

“Then why’d you trick me like that?”

“Because I like seeing you mad, remember?” He lets go of your chin and heads out to the backyard.

“Friends don’t like making their friends mad!” You called out after him.

————

You were currently sat at the poolside, journal in hand while Eddie swam away answering questions with less resistance.

“This is a pretty big house. Must get lonely being all by yourself.”

“I don’t live alone.”

“Who is she?”

“He’s my uncle. Took care of me most of my life while my mother was in and out of my life and my dad in and out of prison.”

“Oh,” You felt terrible for assuming. “Your uncle seems like a very strong person. I’m glad he took the tole of being your guardian.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely strong. I’d do everything I could to pay him back for all the times he’s cared for me. I wasn’t an easy kid but he stuck it out when my parents couldn’t.”

“Seems like you’re providing him just that kind of appreciation.”

“I guess. But I could do more. I want to make sure he never has to worry about anything ever.”

Today was genuinely surprising for you. Chrissy was right. Maybe he’s still a sweetheart.

You look up from writing, noticing things had gone quiet. Eddie was nowhere to be found. The moment you thought to peer over to look in the water, Eddie springs out of the water right front of you causing you to throw the notebook into the pool.

“Eddie! You dick!”

“You can just write it again.”

“I had really good things to say. Now I’ll completely forget them.”

“It’s at the bottom of the pool. You wanna go get it?”

“What do you mean if I want to go get it?” He gives you a mischievous look, his hands resting on your thighs. Your eyes widened. “No, Eddie. No.”

It was too late. Eddie yanks you down into the pool and you go underwater. You’re frightened. You couldn’t swim so all you could do was hold onto him for dear life.

You both come up for air, your arms and legs are wrapped around him tightly. He’s laughing but you were trembling like a wet chihuahua. Then, he notices the fear in your eyes and he grows concerned.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Can’t swim. I’m scared.” You were in the deeper side of the pool your biggest fear.

He rubs your back to comfort you. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I always assume everyone can swim. That was really crappy of me. Let’s get you out of here.”

His hands cup under your butt, lifting you back up onto the poolside. Then, he pulls himself up. Your knees were to your chest, still trembling.

Eddie felt terrible. He was only having harmless fun. He didn’t mean to scare you this badly. Taking a towel, he wraps it around your body then rubs his hands over your arms.

“I’m sorry.” He repeats, eyes pleading for you to answer.

“Um, it’s okay,” You finally say. “I should tell you. I have a fear of swimming pools. It’s a stupid phobia. I know but it’s because of a traumatic experience I had in my childhood.”

“Like you nearly drowned?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” He says once again.

“You already said that.” You laughed.

“I know. I just feel like shit.”

“That’s a first,” You remove the towel from your body. “Maybe I should go home. I could get some new clothes and be right back.”

“Or I can hand you some clothes while yours are put in the dryer.”

“It would save me a trip.” You shrugged.

You noticed Eddie stare before his eyes quickly avert. And was he…blushing?

You looked down at your white top. It’d gotten wet and your nipples were erect and visible even through your black lace bra. You shot one arm over your while the other lightly shoves him.

“You perv! You wanted this to happen.”

“No, I swear.”

“Oh, right.”

“Have I been dishonest with you?”

“Plenty.”

“Name one time.”

So much for having a friendly moment, the two of you bickered back and forth well up until the pizza arrived. While he munch away at his slice, you watched him from the corner of your eye admiring his ranges of emotions. He was more than just an angsty ball of horniness. He can be a decent guy when he’s more comfortable with you. It was nice to see him so concerned for your well-being but what really made you feel a little giddy inside was the fact that you managed to make him blush, too.

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