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keystoyoursouls · 2 months

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Spoiled

Proofread and co-written with my lovely mutual, @razzle-n-dazzle

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Vox groaned as his monitor vibrated and beeped, sounding off his alarm to get up. He started to sit up, before getting smacked in the face by Valentino, who was still deep in dreamland and had no intention of getting up at the ever-so early hour of 8 AM.

Vox growled, now fully awake. He tossed Val's arm off, sitting up and stretching as he turned off the alarm. He looked to his side, noticing how his boyfriend took up half of his large bed. And that their girlfriend was missing. It was usual for her to be the first one out of bed, so Vox thought nothing was wrong.

When the Vees started their throuple, they developed unspoken rules or agreements, things they would do for each other. One of those things, food. Velvette took care of breakfast, since she was usually an early riser. She was usually up at 4 or 5 in the morning, so why not put together something quick for her boys? Vox would take care of lunch for the three of them, usually just ordering something from a nearby restaurant and having it delivered. He wasn't the best in the kitchen. And, by order of elimination, Valentino would make them dinner. He was fairly skilled and everything he made was good, so they had no complaints.

Vox stretched and yawned loudly as he walked to the kitchen. There was no sound of sizzling bacon, or the smell of fresh pancakes, or the beeping of the Keruig finishing their coffee. It was a little odd. That when he noticed the note written on the whiteboard on the fridge.

Busy schedule. Every demon for themselves. Love you, lazy fuckers.♡♡♡

Velvette

Vox smiled gently, starting the Keruig as he looked for something easy to make for him and Valentino. It didn't happen often, but they were used to the times when one of them had to skip their meal. Sometimes work just got in the way and there wasn't much you could do.

He found a box of pancake/waffle mix and followed the instructions on the back of the box, hoping that he wouldn't find a way to burn them this time. He turned and looked over his shoulder as best as he could when he heard foot steps coming towards the kitchen. A familiar groan and sigh filled the air as Vox felt two pairs of arms wrap around his torso. "Coffeeeeeee..." Valentino whined, pressing his forehead against the back of his monitor.

"Made it fresh," Vox said with a little smile, reaching up and grabbing Valentino's ridiculously large coffee mug.

"Where's Vettie?" Val asked with a yawn, taking his mug and filling it to the brim with black coffee.

"She had a busy schedule. Her note is on the fridge," he said, gesturing over to it as he finished up the last waffle.

"So you decided to burn breakfast?"

Vox glared at him. "One more comment like that and I'm breaking your dick. She'll probably get things sorted out in a couple days."

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One month. Velvette had been busy for one whole month. The longest time any of them had fend for themselves for a meal was two weeks, when Valentino had to work late for some porno he just had to finish. Velvette would leave before Vox or Val had gotten up and come back long after they were in bed. The couple of times they stayed up to wait on her, to try and get some explanation, she worked 50+ hours straight and passed out in her studio. If they tried to visit, all they got was "she's busy and not taking visitors", and her assistants wouldn't take any excuse or threat they gave. If they texted her, she would ignore it for hours and only give a response like "srry I was bsuy" and not give any other explanation. It was started to get really fucking sick. And they missed her cooking. You can only have so many almost-burnt waffles and half-cooked pancakes before you will willingly starve yourself until lunch.

Today at lunch, Vox ordered from Velvette's favorite restaurant and brought the food up to her studio. He ignored the interns trying to sheepishly explain why he couldn't go in, and he just barged in through the doors.

The studio looked terrible. It was like a hurricane came through and wrecked the place. Clothes, fabric, and various accessories laid strewn across the floor, and every surface was covered in similar messes. And the only sound echoing throughout was Velvette screaming some jumbled mess at her underlings.

Vox could finally see how badly this past month had affected her. Velvette always put thought and effort into her appearance. She wanted to keep up with the trends and look fabulous. But this look... It was disgusting, to say the least. Her red hair was thrown up into a messy bun. Not an aesthetically pleasing messy bun, an actual messy bun. Her hair was unwashed and unbrushed, just thrown up into a ball on top of her head and held together with a couple of hair ties. Hair was falling out of the "bun" and falling on her face, making her look almost deranged.

Vox got a better look at her face as she whipped around to yell at someone else. She wasn't wearing any makeup, which never happened with Velvette. Without any makeup, you could finally see all the stress on her face, the bags under her eyes from the lack of sleep, and what looked like the start of crows feet.

Her outfit looked so out of style, as well. She would put thought and dedication into each outfit she wore, making sure to stay up on the latest trends and wearing what was in style. But this? It was like she just grabbed a random outfit and changed as she was walking to her studio. And Vox was about 50% sure that her clothes were on backwards. Velvette looked like a mess. Vox knew he had to do somethi-

"WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK DO YOU WANT?!" Velvette screamed, finally noticing his presence. "GET THE FUCK OUT!!!"

"Yes ma'am." Vox put the food on the nearest table and practically ran out of the studio. As he walked back to his control room with a heavy sigh, he called Valentino.

"Hello, my darling~" Val said, making no big deal of throwing in the background. "How was our little princesa?~"

"Terrible, to put it bluntly," Vox said. "We seriously need to get her home tonight."

"Understood. Are we-"

"We're gonna have to. Cut your shoot early."

"Yes, sir~"

"Now is not the time, Val! Just cut the shoot and meet me outside in ten minutes."

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"Are you sure you don't want me to start cooking yet?" Valentino asked. Him and Vox had spent the whole afternoon shopping around, getting wine and ingredients and various gifts for Velvette to have a relaxing night in.

"Yeah. You'll have enough time when she gets back," Vox said as he paced by the bar. "She'll probably come storming in and rant for a while, at least 15 minutes but definitely close to 30. And then she's gonna take a shower-"

"And that will take close to an hour because she needs to clean at least a week of dirt and grime off her body," Valentino cut in, heading over to the bar.

"Yeah, probably closer to a month of dirt. I swear, she looked like walking shit...." Vox commented. "I can't imagine how stressful this month has been for her... Don't touch that!" Vox smacked Val's hand away from the full decanter of wine. "All of that is for Velvette. She's gonna need it. Get your own bottle."

Val rolled his eyes and grabbed another bottle. "You know she's going to drink half of it and throw it at the wall."

"And you know that she learned that maneuver from you," Vox said accusingly. "Just head into the kitchen when you hear a slamming door and work your magic, ok? This is for Velvette."

"I know, I know." Valentino sighed and chugged his glass, pouring a glass for Vox as well. "She's never pushed herself this hard. I just wish we knew what was going on..."

Vox took the glass and kissed Valentino's hand, gently rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. "We'll figure out tonight. It's gonna be ok..."

Valentino gave him a gentle smile, staring lovingly into his eyes. "You always know what to say..."

"That's why I'm the forefront of the fastest growing tech company in the city, possibly all of hell," Vox said cockily, taking sip while Val let out a laugh. He was about to let out another smart quip, when the front door slammed open and a certain someone stormed in.

"HOLY FUCKING HELL, I AM GOING TO KILL SOMEONE!!!" Velvette yelled, storming into the living room. Valentino turned tail and went to the kitchen as quick as possible, while Vox started pouring one of many glasses of wine for Velvette.

Velvette snatched the glass out of Vox's hand and drank it all before throwing the glass at the wall, just like Valentino said she would. She pulled at her hair and screamed at the top of her lungs while Vox poured another glass.

"Bad day?" He asked simply.

"Bad day?!" Velvette said with a murderous grin. "BAD DAY?! IT'S BEEN A BAD MONTH!" And off she went, yelling and screaming about everything that went wrong. Incompetent staff, late shipments, and worst of all, Claire. Fucking Claire. She was the worst model Velvette had. She was more demanding than Velvette herself, somehow! She had gotten the job because she was friends with another overlord, some hoity-toity bitch ass from a club in the entertainment district. Sophia or Sarah or whatever the fuck her name was.

"Anytime I try to fire her, she runs to that stupid little club with her stupid little friend and they come parading in the next day, demanding I put her in the next fucking show or on the cover of the next fucking catalog," Velvette said, finally slamming the wine glass on the bar rather than throwing it against a hard surface. Vox simply took the glass and refilled for her to pick up the next time she passed.

"And you know what?! There may not be another fucking catalog because that bastard Geoffrey CAN'T SEND A SIMPLE FABRIC SHIPMENT TO SAVE HIS SOUL!!!!!!" Velvette yelled, chugging the glass again. She stood in the living room, surrounded by little piles of glass while she panted. She finally looked at Vox, copying his blank stare. "Well?"

Vox was silent for a moment, trying to pick something to comment on. "Claire sounds like a bitch."

"Trust me, she is a nightmare." She approached the car and sat down, sighing and laying her head down on the counter. "I swear you would think it's Lucifer himself in disguise. I would think so too if I didn't know he staying at that...Hackshot Hostel with his daughter or whatever..."

"Hazbin Hotel," Vox said, pouring another glass for her.

Velvette shot her head up and glared at him. "Don't correct me."

"Yes ma'am."

Velvette gave another heavy sigh and took a little sip from the glass this time. "I'm just so tired..."

"I know, Vettie. Why don't you get cleaned up?" Vox said gently. "We got you some of that sugar scrub you like to use, and your favorite face cream." He went around the bar and helped her up, guiding her around the piles of glass to the bathroom.

"The one with the charcoal and brimstone mix?" Velvette asked with a smile.

"Mhm. And when you get done pampering yourself, I'll help you tame that rat's nest your hair has become."

Velvette covered her mouth and giggled. "Honestly, it's not that bad. It's certainly better than that hair catastrophe of '06."

"All I remember was you became a sobbing mess because you were going to have to shave your head," Vox commented. He stopped outside the bathroom and gave her a little push in. "Get yourself cleaned up, honey. Val should finish dinner soon after you get out."

Velvette smiled brighter. "Santa Fe Chicken with seasoned rice-"

"And garlic seared potatoes, yes," Vox finished for her. He smiled, watching her cheer to herself before shutting the door. He went back to the living room, watching as Val swept up the glass piles.

"I was gonna get them, Val," Vox said, taking the broom for him to finish sweeping up.

"I know," Val said. "I'm still waiting for that damn chicken to thaw, so I wanted to help. How's Vels?"

"She's doing better. She definitely needed to rant to someone." Vox took the dust pan, sweeping up the last couple of piles and throwing it all away. "She's in the shower now, if you wanna check on her."

"I won't interrupt her. She probably needs some along time." Val stood there, starting to stare into space while silence filled the room.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Vox asked, going back behind the bar to make them both a drink.

"How easy do you think it would be to get Claire to sell her soul to me?" Val asked, looking over at him.

Vox let out a laugh, pouring some alchohol and mixers into a shaker. "It won't be easy. If she's friends with Sophia, then she might have already made a deal or something. But...she could be accidentally caught in the crossfire of a turf war. Or accidentally get pushed off the roof."

"Or accidentally get shot 20 times," Valentino growled.

"Now, now, we can't shoot her. That's too obvious," Vox chastised, shaking up the drink and pouring it in one of the few glasses they had left. "Drink that and go back to the kitchen."

Val sighed gently and kissed his monitor, taking the glass and walking back to the kitchen.

And now, Vox was alone. He sighed as a comfortable silence filled the air. He searched the rows of bottles for something to drink, and pulled down a clear rectangular glass bottle, a little shorter and wider than most, that seemed to be delicately crafted; With smoothed out rigids and designs that capsulated the bottle. It smoothed out by the top and closed in to create a vase-like-opening, and sitting on top was the lid, square and designed to match the bottle. Vox smiled to himself and poured himself some of the amber liquor.

Velvette had gotten it for him a few years ago, when they first got together. She wasn't the best with words at the time, so she often expressed her love or gratitude with gifts. She said it was an "infinity bottle", and you would "sacrifice" the last two or three drinks of every bottle of whiskey or bourbon or whatever you drank, and you pour it into the bottle. Over time as you slowly fill the bottle with these "sacrificed" drinks, it would develop a unique flavor profile, built by memories and nights of drunken laughter.

Vox drank the small glass, and he couldn't help the smile that slowly appeared. He put the bottle back on the shelf and started to clean up to keep himself busy. He tidied up the bar area (and made a mental note to order more glasses), swept up any remnant pieces of glass, and cleaned up a few tiny messes in the living room. He got Val to help him move the coffee table as well before gathering up Velvette's hair care products and setting them on the side table in the living room. When there was nothing else for him to do, he finally got changed into some pajamas and sat on the couch, waiting for Velvette to come out.

Soft footsteps sounded through the living room, causing Vox to look over his shoulder. He smiled, seeing Velvette wrapped up in the new silk pajama set they had gotten her. It was a solid lavender color, with dark purple pentagrams sprinkled throughout. She wrapped herself up in the matching silk robe, with a black bonnet in hand and her hair in a towel wrap.

Velvette gave him a gentle smile. "You really went all out, didn't you?"

"Of course. You've worked so hard," Vox explained. "You deserve to be pampered, Vettie."

Velvette walked around the couch, plopping down on a pillow on the floor in front of Vox. "I think you two spoil me more than pamper me."

"Vettie, we don't spoil you enough." He took the towel off her hair, letting the tangled mess fall free of its cotton confines. He grabbed the paddle brush and some detangling spray, starting on a small section of the mess while Velvette searched the channels for something mildly interesting. She became enamored with some fashion competition, leaving her quiet and compliant while Vox slowly worked his way through the tangles.

After what felt like an eternity, Vox was finally able to pull the brush through her hair without snagging on a knot, and Velvette was criticizing the outfits the models were wearing. Well, she was criticizing the models more than their outfits.

"Blimp, elephant, fatass, skinny-ass, no ass, and.... Well, she just looks fugly," Velvette commented, drying some of the product out of her hair.

"Nah, she looks hot!" Valentino said as he brought in a couple plates of food.

"Hey! You should only have eyes for me, limp dick!" Velvette chastised. "She's not even that cute! Roadkill looks cuter than her!"

"She's hot because she looks like you," Val said with a smirk.

"Oh. Well, I guess I do see some resemblance," she said with a little blush.

Vox just laughed, helping Velvette get her hair in the silk bonnet. "But no demon in hell compares to you, my love."

"I know! You boys are fucking lucky you bagged me before some Sin did!" Velvette stood up and took her plate from Val, simply smirking at their laughter.

"Really? You think you're good enough for a Sin?"

"I'm good enough for Lucifer himself!" Velvette sat on the couch and got comfy, while Vox and Val cackled with laughter.

"Glad to have you back to your old self, Vettie," Val said as he calmed down.

"Well, when I get spoiled, I act spoiled." She smiled and leaned forward, giving Vox a kiss on his monitor. "Thank you. Seriously."

"It's no big deal, Vels. You deserve it."

"I cooked. Don't I get something?" Val complained.

Velvette rolled her eyes. "I'll suck your dick later."

"YES!"

And with that, they fell into a comfortable silence. Velvette made an occasional comment about some terrible tailoring, and the boys would agree, but not much else was said for the next few hours. After they ate, Val slowly migrated to the couch, sitting between his lovers and pulling them close. Velvette nuzzled up to his chest, and Vox did his best to lean his head on Val's shoulder. Having a tv head did make some problems when it came to cuddling.

Vox felt himself slowly falling in and out of sleep, hours passing in what felt like minutes. Late in the night, Val gently shook him awake and pointed to the girlfriend. The boys smiled, watching her mumbled about shoulder puffs and cravats in her sleep.

"Do you want her arms or legs?" Vox asked softly as he stood up.

"I'll take the arms this time." Val wrapped his arms around her torso and pulled her up. Vox grabbed her ankles and they carried her to the bedroom, gently placing her in her rightful spot in the middle of the bed.

Vox laid beside her, holding her close as his monitor darkened. Val joined soon after, throwing two of his four arms over them like he was trying to protect them, or trap them in the bed. It was probably him trapping them in bed.

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Vox groaned as his monitor vibrated and beeped, sounding off his alarm to get up. He held up a hand, catching Valentino's arm that was about to smack his monitor. He shoved the arm away and sat up, turning off his alarm as he yawned and stretched.

Vox looked beside him, noticing the absence of their girlfriend from the large bed once again. His heart sank slightly. Did Velvette run out again? He quickly got out of bed and practically ran to the kitchen. A smile came to his face when he saw Velvette at the stove, still in her pajamas as she made breakfast.

"Are you gonna keep standing there or are you gonna say hello?" Velvette said, breaking the silence.

"Just taking in this rare and beautiful sight," Vox said. He hugged her from behind and kissed the top of her head. "Morning, darling..."

"Good morning, my love." Velvette patted the side of his monitor. "I do have to head in to the studio, but it's just for a few hours. I'll be done by lunch and then I'm all yours."

"Good. You need a whole week off after that whole shit show," Vox pulled away, grabbing some mugs to make each of their coffees.

"Agreed," Velvette said with a sigh. "I just hope I can take care of Claire once and for all..."

"Oh, don't worry about it, Vettie. Me and Val have it handled," Vox said with an evil smirk.

Velvette turned and smiled at him. "I swear, you boys spoil me..."

#this is literally so good omg

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keystoyoursouls · 11 months

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Giving Meaning to AO3 Kudos

So, you published a story on AO3 and you’re starting to collect kudos. What are these magical things and how do you know if you’re doing well? As someone who plays around with kudo statistics for fun, here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Most people don’t leave kudos.

Look at some of your favorite stories (the ones that are both fun AND well-written) and you’re going to see that the hit-to-kudo ratio is shockingly low. Like, 15% or less and 15% is RARE. You’re lucky if you get one-in-ten people to hit that kudo button. So don’t be discouraged if you get 50 hits and 5 kudos. Those are actually great numbers!

2. The more popular your story is, the worse that the hit-to-kudo ratio can be.

Look at the front page for any fandom (sorted by kudos) and you’ll find that many of the top stories don’t even have a 5% hit-to-kudo ratio. There are a few reasons for this. The first one is simply that people are going to give a popular story a chance even if it’s not something that they’d normally read, so you get hits from people outside of your intended readership. Those people give it a look, confirm that it’s not for them, and then click off. That’s a hit you wouldn’t have had in a less popular story and those add up. The same thing can happen for long fics where people see your story in their feed again and again, so they finally give it a look, only to confirm that they were right and it’s not for them. That’s not the only issue with long fic hit counts, though!

3. Longer fics have worse hit-to-kudo ratios than short fics

The other reason that you might see terrible hit-to-kudo ratios for front page fics is that a lot of the top fics are long fics and longer stories tend to have worse hit-to-kudo ratios. My theory on this is that it has a lot to do with how AO3 tracks hits. If you’re logged into an account, then you count as 1 hit. If you’re not logged in, then you get counted based on IP address, meaning that one person can get counted multiple times if they’re reading over multiple devices or on one device over multiple connections. I played around with my phone once and I was able to give 2 “kudos” to the same fic (as a guest) because I started reading at home and then finished reading while at work, meaning that my IP changed. I was also able to give another kudo from my personal computer. So that’s 1 me counting as 3 separate hits. I made up for it by giving kudos for each one, but most readers won’t know to do that.

This issue is not going to have a large impact on short stories where people read it in one go, but for a longer story? Yeah, you’re going to see artificial hit inflation. I’m going to give an example of this by looking at the homepage for the MCU fandom. (Which I’m using because it’s popular, meaning a large reader base to help normalize the data, and I used to be in it, so I know which stories are worth recommending)

Mistake on the Part of Nature by idiopathicsmile clocks in at a single chapter with just 1,274 words. It has 306,790 hits and 30,410 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of 9.9%

Hide A Heart Of War by RayShippouUchiha has two chapters and 13,617 words, which is still within the single sitting length for most readers. It has 245,554 hits and 20,298 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of 8.2%

This, You Protect by owlet has 33 chapters and 64,326 words. It has 575,980 and 23,340 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of just 4.1%!

All of these fics are awesome, all of the fics are rated T, and all of the fics of similar quality in writing, but as the chapter and word counts goes up, the hit-to-kudo ratio goes down.

This is true even if you control for author. Here’s the numbers for the three stories I’ve finished in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom (the number in red is the hit-to-kudo ratio):

My long fic might be the most popular in total hits and kudos, but its ratio sucks compared to my short fics.

4. Know what good numbers are for your fandom

I found the lack of meaning behind kudos annoying, so I went into the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom (where I’m currently writing) and took a look at what counted for good kudo numbers to give myself a goal. It’s a smaller fandom, so the kudo numbers are NEVER going to rival the MCU fandom's. There’s just not that many readers. In the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, anything over ~365 kudos means that you’re in the top 1% of stories (by kudos). Knowing that gave me something to aim for and a reason to get excited when I hit certain kudo milestones. I don’t recommend doing this with short stories because short stories easily fall off the radar, but it’s a fun thing to track with long fics! It certainly gave meaning to the kudos when I was writing Ma’at and that matters because comments are sparse! (More on that in a bit)

5. Explicit stories don’t follow the usual rules

I don’t personally enjoy smut for smuts sake, so I don’t read a lot of sex-heavy stories (I prefer it as a spice, not the main dish), but I have noticed that sex-heavy stories tend to have a much lower hit-to-kudo ratio than stories that are clean or even other E stories that only have a handful of explicit scenes. Not sure what to make of that, but I figured that I should call it out so that the smut writers of the world don’t look at this guide and assume that their awesome writing is bad because the ratios are off!

In Summary:

Don’t just look at how many kudos you have to see if people like your story. Keep in mind that your hits count, too. More hits, more kudos! If you’re working with short fics, a hit-to-kudo ratio of around 10% is great! For long fics, 4% is really good. When I was writing Ma’at, I had an initial hit-to-kudo ratio of about 12%, but it dropped WAY down as the word count grew higher. I’m expecting my current long fic to trend the same. It’s currently at a lovely 12.3%, but I don’t expect THAT to last.

A Note on Comments

No matter how popular your story is, you’re never going to see a lot of comments

My story, Ma’at, is currently in the top 50 stories for Yu-Gi-Oh (sorted by kudos). I have almost 700 kudos and I had over 180 subscribers while the story was in-progress. In spite of that, I never saw more than 25 comments on a given chapter and even that was pretty rare. I normally clocked in between 10 and 15 once the story got popular. This is why I started to look into kudo statistics. Those were my main source of feedback and I wanted to find meaning in them.

#ao3 stuff #good to know #saving my self esteem fr

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