Chapter Text
“WELCOME, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES! IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER THOUGHT-PROVOKING EPISODE OF... UNDERGROUND MYSTERIES! TODAY, WE’LL BE FOLLOWING THE HARROWING TALE OF A BRAVE ADVENTURER, OVERCOMING THE ODDS ON THEIR JOURNEY THROUGH THE UNDERGROUND!”
Fast Forward...
“-ALL KNOW THAT WATERFALL CAN BE A DANGEROUS PLACE FOR SOMEONE AS DIMINUTIVE AS YOURSELF! AND THAT’S NOT EVEN TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE MAELSTROM OF SPEARS BEING THROWN ABOUT! YET, YOU NEVER GAVE UP-”
Fast Forward...
“-FTER EVERYTHING, AFTER OVERCOMING ALL OF THE ODDS AND EMERGING VICTORIOUS ON THE OTHER SIDE... HOW DOES IT FEEL? YOUR GOALS MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AS LOFTY AS THOSE OF THE EVERYDAY PASSENGER ON THIS RIDE OF LIFE; YOU WERE ALWAYS A QUIET, UNASSUMING SOUL, YEARNING FOR SOMETHING THAT YOU LACKED-”
Fast Forward...
“-VER GAVE UP. SO, PLEASE TELL US... HOW DID IT FEEL TO FINALLY FREE THE CHEESE FROM ITS CRYSTALLINE PRISON?”
The mouse didn’t answer at first. It sat on the table, sniffing at a pen in front of it. Mettaton gingerly placed the mouse back in its designated spot, closer to the microphone. It paused for a moment, before letting out a dull “Squeak.”
“...TRULY BREATHTAKING, FOLKS. WORDS OF WISDOM THAT WE SHOULD ALL STRIVE TO LIVE BY. I’D LIKE TO THANK OUR VERY SPECIAL GUEST-”
He motioned back towards the table, only to notice that the mouse was no longer present. It could be seen briefly as it scuttled towards the back of the studio.
“...OUR VERY SPECIAL GUEST WHO CLEARLY HAS MORE INSPIRING ADVENTURES TO EMBARK ON. PERHAPS WE’LL HAVE ANOTHER HEART-WRENCHING JOURNEY TO REPORT ON AT A LATER DATE. UNTIL THAT DAY ARRIVES, WE MUST CONCLUDE TONIGHT’S EP-”
Stop.
Life on the surface had brought its fair share of challenges for Mettaton.
Despite his universal appeal, flawless appearance and captivating personality, breaking into the media of the surface wasn’t as much of a cakewalk as he had expected it to be.
In the beginning, challenges were to be expected; there was no way that the integration of monsters into a human-dominated society was going to be seamless. Before anything else, there were politics, legal quandaries... the details that Mettaton usually had someone else work out for him. He didn’t really involve himself in such issues unless absolutely necessary.
As a whole, though, things had gone surprisingly well. That was helped in no small part by the fact that modern humans were apparently unaware of the existence of monsters; following the war, any traces of monsterkind were totally removed from any historical records. It had reached a point where monsters were considered to be no more than a myth!
Of course, while some humans were quite welcoming, and some were overcome with a vaguely endearing curiosity, others were... decidedly less pleasant. These unpleasant types made the process of settling in on the surface much more difficult than it needed to be.
Still, nothing would stand between Mettaton and his dreams!
Between radio shows, scattered television appearances and the odd live show, Mettaton managed to make a name for himself. It wasn’t long before the MTT brand had become popular; not yet a household name as he had hoped, but enough to secure him his own TV network. Though he hadn’t quite gained the celebrity status that he was hoping for, he was certainly making solid progress.
Of course, that came with a challenge that never really reared its head in the Underground: competition.
In the Underground, he could do whatever he wanted on a whim. He could produce any idea that pleased him, pick up or drop any show that struck his fancy and drop them just as easily. On the surface, however, he lacked such freedom; should any of his products fail to meet expectations, they would get the axe.
As much as he hated the stifling of his creativity, he could tolerate it for the time being; once he had become the star that he was destined to be, he could do whatever he wanted! The road to success may be a long one, but he’d be building an MTT Resort at the end of that road before he knew it!
Still, he was afforded some liberty in his works; the executives only really stepped in when his works were expected not to turn a profit. He did, however, have one on-going project that he was given some extra leeway with: Underground Mysteries.
When monsters first came to the surface, human media and documentaries were saturated with a glut of one-note concepts. “What is a soul?”, “How does monster biology work?”, “Where did monsters come from?” and other drab questions that had been asked and answered who-cares-how-many times over.
Not to mention such charming questions as “Are monsters going to eat my babies?” or “How can I defend myself against the monster menace?”
One thing was abundantly clear; these were all questions asked and answered by humans.
With all of these questions about monsters that had been asked and answered by humans, a brilliant idea had dawned on Mettaton: what questions did monsters have about monsters?
That was the premise of the show. The pitch went well, and Mettaton was given the greenlight to produce the first season of the show, which had been a smash hit. Human viewership dwindled, but the ratings among monsters were phenomenal – enough to warrant another season, at least.
Of course, no matter how gallant and dashing he was, Mettaton was still only one monster. At some point, the well had begun to run a little dry. Admittedly, the past few episodes weren’t necessarily up to standard.
The idea behind “Poor Lighting/Rich History” had been solid. A small civilization hidden away from the rest of monster society? The possibilities were endless! The difficulty with that one lay with the interviewees; not only were they wildly uncooperative, but they were also quite difficult to understand. As such, despite the episode being one of his longest, it ultimately contained no information of substance.
The idea behind “One Should Never Apologize For Their Art!” was more of a stretch. It was news to him that Hotland even had an art club! He had expected it to be a quaint, heartwarming episode – perhaps not the most informative, but it would have nice visuals and a positive atmosphere. In hindsight, someone should probably have informed him that the club only had a single, very apologetic member.
Still, there had been some quality content that could be salvaged from those episodes. They may not have been his finest works, but they were nonetheless quality content, as could be expected from the MTT brand. Today’s episode, however, contained one massive, glaring problem:
“WE SPENT AN ENTIRE EPISODE... ON A MOUSE.”
This was rock bottom. Even the concept of “Preservation of an Ideal (Meal)” was weak, but Mettaton hoped that he could do something interesting with the idea. What ensued was, to be blunt, not very interesting.
“LOOK, IT HAPPENS – THERE’S A DUD EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. EVEN THE GREATEST OF THE GREATS CAN’T AVOID IT.”
He was joined in a conference room by three of his most trusted allies; the few people that had access to the inner-workings of Mettaton’s creative process. Though Mettaton knew that there wasn’t a single idea in his head that he couldn’t turn into solid gold, it did make sense to have a few differing perspectives involved with his planning and preparations.
“STILL – THERE ARE QUOTAS TO BE MET IF THIS PROJECT IS GOING TO STAY AFLOAT. IF WE WANT THIS SHOW TO KEEP GOING, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING BIG – SOMETHING THAT WILL WOW OUR CURRENT AUDIENCE AND REEL IN NEWER VIEWERS!”
“Well... do we want to keep it afloat? I can think of a few more interesting topics that we could be covering! Ahuhuhu~”
Muffet, one of his closest allies, certainly loved to test his patience. Still, no matter how infuriating her attitude could be at times, he couldn’t deny the productive values that it brought to the table – having to explain and justify his projects was invaluable when it came to deciding what needed to stay and what needed to go.
“YES, WE WANT TO KEEP THIS PROJECT AFLOAT. DESPITE ALL OF THE CHANNELS OUT THERE ANSWERING QUESTIONS FOR HUMANS, NOT A SINGLE ONE IS ANSWERING ANY OF THE QUESTIONS THAT MONSTERS HAVE! THIS SHOW MAY NOT HAVE A MAJOR IMPACT, BUT IT’S SOMETHING FOR US!”
“I see...”
She leaned back in her chair, sipping at a cup of tea nonchalantly. She clearly had no intention of continuing the conversation, so he’d have to assume that his argument was persuasive enough to sway her.
“SO... IT’S TIME FOR A BRAINSTORM! DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY NON-SPIDER RELATED IDEAS?”
Outside of a sharp glare from Muffet, there was no response.
“PERHAPS AN EXPOSÉ ON THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE ROYAL GUARD? THAT MIGHT DRAW IN SOME OF THE HISTORY BUFFS!”
“U-um... sorry if I’m making a mistake, but... didn’t we already scrap that idea?”
As soon as he turned to face her, Shyren shrank back in her seat. Shyren was a close friend whose opinions he valued very highly – even if it could, at times, be quite difficult to coax those opinions from her.
“I-it’s just that... you said that having Undyne in the studio would lead to difficulties in production...? Th-that the costs of any expected damages would, um... not be worth it?”
“...RIGHT YOU ARE, SHYREN. IT’S A GOOD THING WE HAVE YOUR SHARP MEMORY ON THE TEAM, EH?”
He didn’t miss the way her lips curled slightly upward, nor her bashful attempt to draw the attention away from herself. As tempted as he was to make a comment, he decided against it – there was an important task at hand, after all!
“WELL, IF WE DON’T HAVE ANY IDEAS OURSELVES... HOW ARE THINGS LOOKING ON THE FANPAGE?”
“umm... could be better, I guess?”
The final member of the team was – of course – his cousin, Napstablook. Though they weren’t quite as enthusiastic about performing as Mettaton, they were still happy to help out with the behind-the-scenes work.
“no one’s really engaging with the polls or the forum. To be honest, pretty much the only activity is one guy who basically blogs about himself in all-caps and another guy trolling him. That’s... not really helpful, I guess... sorry.”
Given Napstablook’s lacking self-confidence, Mettaton would never agree out loud, but... no, that really wasn’t very helpful.
“SO, TO SUMMARIZE... WE’RE OUT OF IDEAS, WHAT LITTLE CONTENT WE CAN COME UP WITH IS INFEASIBLE FROM A PRODUCTION STANDPOINT... AND THERE’S NO FAN ENGAGEMENT TO WORK WITH EITHER.”
“Don’t forget the abysmal ratings, dearie!” Muffet added.
“RIGHT. THANK YOU FOR THAT, MUFFET.”
An innocent grin was all he received in return. Mettaton did not share her amusement; he was gradually becoming frustrated, as it was very quickly becoming clear that this meeting would yield no substantial results.
“LOOK, WE’LL BREAK HERE FOR TODAY. DON'T THINK THAT WE'RE FINISHED HERE, THOUGH! WE’LL RECONVENE LATER IN THE WEEK... WE NEED TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING SPECIAL, TO GIVE OUR PEOPLE SOMETHING INTERESTING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!”
His words hadn’t quite roused his team in the way that he had hoped; everyone gave half-hearted agreements and assurances as they filed out of the conference room.
Mettaton stayed behind, looking back at the screen. It wasn’t often that he felt ashamed of his work, but... interviewing a mouse... at least he could safely say that that was rock bottom as far as ideas went!
He was interrupted from his thoughts by his cellphone ringing. After taking a few seconds to enjoy his amazing ringtone (composed by himself, of course), he answered.
“HELLO, METTATON SPEAKING! FOR ANY BUSINESS RELATED INQUIRIES-”
“Um, M-Mettaton? I-it’s Alphys!”
“AH, ALPHYS, DARLING! ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO HEAR FROM YOU! IS THERE SOMETHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH ON THIS FINE DAY?”
“Y-yeah, um... I was j-just wondering if, um... you were doing anything later? J-just, if you wanted to, y’know, hang out or... s-something?”
He thought about it for a moment. On the one hand, Alphys’ interests could be... underwhelming, at times. Not as a whole, of course, but she could get very invested in things that were... well, boring. He had to admit that, on quite a few occasions, their hangouts had been rather dull.
Still... she was his friend. As he had come to learn, sometimes you have to tolerate the interests of others (yes, even if said interests can be a drag) in the name of friendship. Not always, of course, but... friends don’t just leave each other in the dust over such minor disagreements. He could say that with certainty.
“OF COURSE, DARLING! I’LL WRAP THINGS UP HERE AND BE ON MY WAY AS QUICK AS I CAN! TA TA, SEE YOU SOON!”
He had hung up the phone before waiting to hear a goodbye on her end. He could still give it some time – she knew he was a busy robot, after all. He could hang around the studio for just a bit longer – perhaps inspiration would strike!
One more glance at the mouse on the screen, however, told him that it might be better to leave sooner rather than later.
One thought did come to him, though – Alphys was a scientist! If anyone could provide a unique perspective to his plight, surely it would be her?
With a newfound vigour, he found himself moving with just a touch more haste as he made his way towards Alphys’ house.