#and saying anything to the contrary would absolutely put her in legal hot water and probably lose her her job

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

hey um. i realize the moth guy in the voice loss episode is probably just an one off antagonist and really not crush material but breadcrumbs about him please? he sounds hot in a pathetic evil red flag way.

No need to apologize - it's always fun to talk about our writing! Arc is technically a shared OC, originating from a RP with @den-of-collars - he's primarily a rival idol to Mothiva. Tends to be our stock bastard, when we want to antagonize her and/or introduce extra idols to a scene (usually both).

His brand is Edgy Punk Bitch, in the palatable way that Edgy is often worn down to for mainstream consumption and he very much profits off of the "good girl/bad boy" type dynamic that working with Mothiva affords him. Earlier drafts of him were a lot more frat-boy-ish and he's still got a few traces of it remaining, but his public-facing personality's drifted a lot more towards "stereotypical punk".

For the most part, he's a common-or-garden asshole who thinks it's fun to antagonize Mothiva - the threat is from his position as an idol she has to play nice with or face massive consequences, and the fact that he sees little wrong with pushing that antagonism further and doesn't really care about the impact besides his own benefit and what reaction he can get out of Mothiva.

He's a few years younger than her, and currently in the "making a name for himself" stage of the whole fame cycle, whereas Mothiva is near the peak of her appeal and trying to struggle though the plateau in her earnings where she's more or less reached Everyone Who's Interested and now has to keep the line going up before her bosses lose interest - what's important to Arc is putting himself out there and getting an audience, and a "ship" with Mothiva is a very efficient way of getting that attention.

The dynamic itself means he's a lot more "stand-out" - he tends to take centre stage because he gets a lot more leeway for talking over other bugs and being Rude, where Mothiva has to abide with common-courtesy rules at absolute minimum, and he's good enough at turning the tables during banter that she has to censor herself in order to avoid saying anything... inadvisable.

It would be a bit more mutually beneficial, but as previously mentioned, he likes to antagonize Mothiva to the point that she'd rather gargle bees, and any integration beyond dropping hints during interviews and making the occasional hint-heavy love song would be very likely to have their brands clash too much to be properly marketable.

He's got enough in common with Mothiva at that stage that she sees something of herself in him, and she hates his guts partially because of it and partially because of the general antagonism.

Also, to be fair, it is literally his job to be hot. Part of being an idol is Aesthetic Appeal - being hot enough to sell yourself to the widest possible audience. You've fallen for the marketing tactic. Congratulations!