on Archive of Our Own.The story itself can be found here.
After going through her breakup with Blitzo similar to how she did in canon, Verosika ends up stranded in the wrath ring with no cash and no place to seek shelter from the pouring rain. Luckily for the pop star, a certain thespian comes across her and decides to lend a helping hand to the poor succubus. That chance meeting would wind up having a massive impact on both of their lives and send them down an entirely new path, one that would give them the love that they had been so unfairly denied in the past.
(In short, it's an AU where Moxxie was with Verosika Mayday instead of Millie.)
The Thespian and the Pop Star provides examples of:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Verosika and Vortex are introduced long before the events of the canon series even start.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Thanks to Moxxie's influence, Verosika is a lot less bitter and ill-tempered than her canon counterpart, being much more cordial with the people she's involved with.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In canon, Verosika Mayday and Moxxie only had one interaction where she was implied to sexually assault him. Here, they're romantically involved with one another.
- Adaptational Sympathy: We get to see a firsthand look of how her breakup with Blitzo affected Verosika and it's hard not to feel at least a little bit bad or sorry for the poor succubus.
- Almost Kiss: Occurs in chapter 3 right before Verosika and Moxxie go on stage together for the first time, being interrupted by a stage manager just as they were about to kiss.
- Alternate Universe Fic: Takes place in a timeline where Moxxie and wound up with Verosika Mayday instead of Millie, who is heavily implied to have broken up with him before the story's events took place.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Occurs in chapter 4 after Moxxie decides to vacate himself from Verosika's life for the sake of her career, but the succubus is not willing to let him go so easily after falling for him and ends up spitting out her true feelings in a desperate attempt to avoid losing him.
- Another Story for Another Time: The reason Moxxie and Millie broke up is largely treated as this with the former being extremely tight-lipped about what went down.
- Artists Are Attractive: One of the things Moxxie and Verosika find appealing about each other.
- Ascended Extra: Downplayed, Verosika is only a side character in the canon series that has only been the focus of a single episode; but here she's one of the main protagonists.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Occurs in chapter 4, starting Moxxie and Verosika's romantic relationship.
- Berserk Button: Verosika's button is triggered whenever someone tries to hurt Moxxie in any way. The succubus flips out and goes on a veritable rampage when she realized her crew was trying to force themselves onto Moxxie.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Succubi and Incubi are demons native to the Lust ring and thus act like Extreme Omnisexuals, so when a cubi is demisexual like Kiki, they're treated as an "other" not unlike how queer people are treated in a heteronormative society.
- Break-Up Bonfire: Invoked, Verosika wishes she could do this to the box containing all the memoirs of her relationship with Blitzo but settles for simply throwing out of a fourth story window.
- Caught in the Rain: How Moxxie and Verosika meet.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Verosika has shown shades of this, getting rather upset when a fashion designer gets all handsy with Moxxie.
- Crush Blush: Verosika often finds herself being the victim of this when she's around Moxxie.
- Cuddle Bug: Verosika, according to Moxxie, REALLY enjoys hugging and cuddling him as much as she can.
- Darkest Hour: Chapter 10 ends with Verosika and Moxxie's relationship becoming strained after she finds out that he had snuck onto their bus in the human world under the belief that she couldn't protect herself, his actions reminding her of her ex Blitzo.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Downplayed and completely subverted, since it was only a rape attempt. But not only was this treated as a bad event in the story, but Verosika immediately regretted it and apologized to Moxxie, begging him not to dump her; while Moxxie was understandably disturbed by the experience but chose to forgive her as it was a simple moment of weakness on her part.
- Downer Beginning: The fanfic starts after the end of Verosika and Blitzo's incredibly violent break-up. After he had stolen her car and maxed out her credit cards, Verosika (who at this point isn't a sensation yet) is left stranded in a nowhere town in the Wrath Ring Caught in the Rain.
- Duet Bonding: Happens in chapter 3 when Verosika persuades Moxxie to do a gig with her, bringing the two closer together.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Verosika takes every opportunity to catch a glimpse of Moxxie's cute little butt that she can.
- Epic Fail: Moxxie is Giftedly Bad with video games, somehow getting himself stuck in a bullet-proof claw-crane machine.
- Evil Sounds Deep: When sent into a lustful frenzy, Verosika's voice takes on a far deeper and more demonic octave.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Moxxie and Vortex. The two form a bond after saving Verosika from a team of assassins together, which leads to the hellhound getting hired as Verosika's bodyguard.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Moxxie and Verosika both suffer from this, each demon still bearing scars from their previous heartbreaks long afterwards. Luckily, they're helping each other heal.
- First-Name Basis: Moxxie and Verosika reach this point soon after Verosika moves into the former's apartment in Imp City.
- Fish out of Water: Invoked by Moxxie. He notes that the sheer sexual liberation unique to the Lust Ring is unnerving to him.Moxxie: Living in the lust ring. It’s so different from what I’m used to, everyone here seems so much more…free-spirited, than they do in the other rings.Verosika: That’s the spirit of lust for you. No shame, we just let it all hang out and have a fuck ton of fun doing it.Moxxie: True, but I could do without the demons who take such sayings in a more literal sense. The sheer number of nudists I saw when we first arrived here was a little unnerving.
- Forceful Kiss: Verosika performs one of these on Moxxie in chapter 5, having fallen into a lustful frenzy due to a mixture of arousal and jealousy. While Moxxie does enjoy it after a few moments, things go wrong fast.
- Freudian Slip: Verosika accidentally tells Moxxie she loves him before they actually start dating.Verosika: Thanks Moxxie, I Love You.
"Moxxie: What?
Verosika:' APPRECIATE! I said I appreciate you! - Funetik Aksent: Milo, the fashion designer who creates Moxxie's new outfit, has one of the vague mid-European variety; replacing 'w' with 'v' and 'th' with 'z'.
- Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode: Chapter 9 is a night out for Verosika and her posse at a barcade, with all of the guys visiting the "arcade" part in an attempt to apologize to Moxxie, while the girls hang out at the bar.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: How Moxxie winds up snapping Verosika out of a lust induced frenzy, he wasn't proud of it.
- Girls Like Musicians: Verosika certainly admires Moxxie's fretwork on the guitar, although it's more because Verosika thinks their respective musical talents go well together.
- Greasy Spoon: The place Moxxie takes Verosika to get her out of the rain in chapter 1, it's even described verbatium:A real greasy spoon with worn out booths, a busted jukebox in the corner, croney old waitresses, and the scent of fried food wafting through the air.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Verosika turned into one of these when a fashion designer got a little too close to her boyfriend for her tastes.
- Held Gaze: Occurs between Verosika and Moxxie in a dressing room right before their debut as a duo, with an almost kiss following shortly after.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Moxxie is completely unaware that his kind heart and loyal tendencies caused an absolute bombshell succubus to fall for him, nor did he mean for it to happen.
- It's All Junk: What Verosika regards her mementos of Blitzo as, she treats them accordingly.
- Innocent Innuendo: During the intro to chapter 6, it appears as though Moxxie is fingering Verosika while they're driving to a music festival turns out he was only giving her a shoulder massage.
- Interrupted Intimacy: After narrowly escaping a riot at a music festival with an unconscious Vortex in tow, Moxxie asks Verosika if he could "go to second base" with her and the succubus is happy to oblige. Just as Moxxie is about to feel her up however, Vortex wakes up and ruins the moment entirely.
- Let's Duet: Occurs in chapter 3 where Verosika and Moxxie play a gig together, causing Verosika to finally accept her feelings for Moxxie.
- Love at First Note: Moxxie's guitar skills are what set Verosika on the path to falling in love with the imp.
- Love Confession: Verosika does this in chapter 4, which convinces Moxxie to stay by her side even after the owner of a record company strong-armed her into kicking him out of their band and going solo.
- Marshmallow Hell: Verosika gets a kick out of doing this to Moxxie and it's how she gets his songwriting journal away from him in chapter 3.
- Mythology Gag: A minor one occurs in chapter 8, the very first line that Coco says to Moxxie is the exact same one she said to him in canon upon their first meeting:Coco: Aw look, he’s got a widdle bow tie!
- Near-Rape Experience:
- Occurs in chapter 5 when Verosika becomes overwhelmed by her succubus instincts and almost sexually assaults Moxxie, thankfully she snapped out of it before things went too far and immediately begged Moxxie to forgive her.
- Happens AGAIN during chapter 8 when Moxxie meets Verosika's newly hired crew for the first time, the entire group also becoming overwhelmed by their primial instincts just like Verosika after they pick up on Moxxie's virgin status.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Verosika tends to have this problem when it comes to Moxxie, often hugging the imp against her on a regular basis and subjecting him to Marhsmallow Hell.
- Offscreen Breakup: Occurs between Verosika and Blitzo right before the story picks up. HEAVILY implied to have occurred between Moxxie and Millie in the past.
- Oh, Crap!: Three of these occur in chapter 8: Moxxie when he realizes that Verosika's crew is about to jump him, Verosika and Vortex when they realize that they left their virgin imp friend alone with a gang of sex-crazed demons, and Verosika's crew when the realized they tried to sexually assault their boss' boyfriend.
- Opposites Attract: A kind and dorky thespian imp with an assertive and attractive pop star succubus. Need I say more?
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Occurs again in chapter 5, where Verosika frantically pleads this exact line to Moxxie in the elevator after the imp slapped her in his ‘fight or flight’ reflex when the pop star succubus almost took his virginity away.Verosika: Oh shit, oh fuck!Moxxie: Verosika-Verosika: I’M SORRY! I DIDN’T- I JUST COULDN’T HELP MYSELF! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!
- Poor Communication Kills: Because Verosika forgot to give her crew members a physical description of Moxxie before they came into work for the first time, they all wind up mistaking the imp for the office boytoy and attempt to sexually assault him after getting a whiff of his virgin scent.
- Post-Kiss Catatonia: Happens at the end of chapter 1 after Verosika lays a big wet one on Moxxie as a way of thanking him for giving her a place to crash for the night, Moxxie was fairly stunned by it.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Verosika Mayday. It's an AU where she's in love with Moxxie, that goes without saying.
- Samaritan Relationship Starter: When Moxxie first meets Verosika, he uses an umbrella to shield her from the rain, buys her dinner, and gives her a place to sleep for the night after Blitzo maxed out her credit cards in the Wrath Ring. Needless to say this is a big reason Verosika falls for Moxxie.
- Second Love: A rare 'two-for-one' example of the trope, Verosika and Moxxie are each other's second loves with Blitzo and Millie being their first loves respectively.
- Sexual Karma: By simply offering a helping hand to a crying girl in a rainy alleyway, Moxxie wound up in a romantic relationship with an incredibly attractive demon who is also one of hell's biggest pop stars.
- Stripperiffic: Given that it's a fic focused on Verosika Mayday and her crew of succubi, this is a given for their outfits.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The foundation for Verosika's affection towards Moxxie.
- Succubus in Love: Verosika Mayday is a succubus in love with Moxxie, an imp, it's pretty self explanatory.
- Take That!: Moxxie is not a fan of country music by any length, referring to it as one of the worst forms of artistic expression in existence:Moxxie: Every single performer sounded almost exactly the same and only sang about three topics: cars, alcohol, and how much they loved small towns.
- Team Member in the Adaptation: Moxxie becomes a part of Verosika's crew instead of working with I.M.P., often helping the pop star produce her music by providing his guitar skills.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Downplayed, it's not that Verosika is particularly tall (in fact she's rather average compared to most demons in hell) but it's more that Moxxie is just really, really short.
- True Love Is a Kink: It's implied that as freaky succubi and incubi tend to get, Moxxie's chaste and compassionate personality is a huge turn-on for them, Verosika and her crew nearly being overcome with an instinctual urge to mount him over it.
- Umbrella of Togetherness: Moxxie does this with Verosika when they first meet in order to get her to a nearby diner so she can warm up.
- Unstoppable Rage: Verosika falls into one of these when she realizes that her crew had tried to gangbang Moxxie against his will over a misunderstanding, screaming at and berating all of them for their actions.
- Uptight Loves Wild: A kind hearted and straight laced thespian falls in love with a wild and sexually promiscuous pop star; Moxxie and Verosika fit this to a T.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend:
- Verosika demonstrates this habit when she finds out her crew tried to force themselves on Moxxie while she was gone and goes off on each and every one of them with a rage fueled rant. If Moxxie hadn't intervened, she would have fired all of them on the spot.
- Verosika calls Vortex with this habit once more in chapter 9 after being informed by Apple that Moxxie (with bruises) had left the barcade a while ago. She manages to get into contact with her bodyguard and angrily demands where he and her boyfriend are. But when Verosika hears a bunch of gunshot sounds on the other line, the succubus becomes even more concerned and furious for Moxxie’s safety. Then the popstar goes on a WILD rough ride in her car with her succubi companions to quickly get to where Moxxie is ASAP. Verosika was about to reprimand her male crew for dragging her thespian lover into whatever shootout mess they’re in as she and her group arrive at Moxxie’s location… only to see that he and the male crew were just practicing hitting targets with gun weapons in a makeshift shooting range.
- Wretched Hive: Apparently, the entire Pride Ring is a cesspool of crime even by Hell's standards.
