Chapter Text
The theme music was a jingle straight from a bygone era, brass horns, janky synths, and too many cymbals. A strident voiceover shouted over the noise: ITS NOW TIME FOR YOUR FEATURE PRESENTATION
A burst of confetti
A blinding cascade of studio lights clamoring to get into position
The stage erupted in manufactured joy as Tenna strutted through the artificial fog, arms thrown wide. His screen-face lit up with a pre-rendered grin. "WELL WELL WELL! What a BEE-YOO-TIFUL audience!” he beamed, reveling in the moment. “Welcome, welcome, welcome to the ONLY place where everyone leaves a winner....Or at least with a keychain!”
Canned applause. A little too canned. Too uniform. Hired extras filled in the empty rows, their smiles brittle and eyes darting toward the camera director’s cue cards. One woman in the front row clapped half-heartedly while scrolling something on her wristwatch. Somewhere in the back row, someone actually coughed.
The camera panned across the set: a candy-colored carousel of gaudy props, before finally stabilizing itself to point on center stage "Let’s get this party SPINNING! It’s time to meet today’s contestants!”
A glitzy platform ascended from below the stage, accompanied by a musical sting that ended with a sour trumpet note.
No one mentioned it. The crew hoped no one noticed. Tenna’s eyes did, though. Or would have, if he had eyes. His screen-face didn’t twitch, but inside, a crack began to tighten.
Three individuals came into view, seated on high-backed stools with their names in blinking marquee above their heads.
"We’ve got Jerri from the neon wastes of Lower Litropolis! Tell us, Jerri, what makes you spark?"
"Uh... I like stamp collecting," Jerri said, blinking nervously under the heat of the lights.
Tenna’s smile flickered. Literally. A momentary static pulse rippled across his screen-face. He laughed too loudly.
"Stamps! Incredible! Riveting!! Next we’ve got Lumo, a synth-mechanic with hands insured for five million credits! Lumo, are you ready to win big today?"
"Hope so. My rent’s due."
The laugh track kicked in a second late.
Tenna’s jaw tightened slightly beneath his screen. The cue cards on the side stage were fluttering, stagehand was late flipping them.
"And last but not least, give a shocking round of applause for DeeDee, an adrenaline blogger with over 200,000 followers!"
DeeDee struck a pose, but the camera failed to pan. Camera 3, camera 3! the director hissed into a headset. Once she came into frame she continued with her introduction nervously “It’s so fun to be here, Tenna! Big fan! I watched your show when I was little.”
Tenna’s grin froze.
When I was little.
He made a buzzing, robot-laugh sound that didn’t quite match the moment.
“That’s our contestants! Are YOU ready to win some WONKALOUS WACKY WIDGETS?”,
The audience responded with a cheer that was clearly mixed in post.
The podiums rose with a hydraulic groan The once-flawless chrome looked dull under the lights. Every segment was harder to get through than the last, Tenna's smiles felt forced. His transitions lacked flair. His usual exaggerated gestures shrank.
And the audience(paid or not)could feel it. He felt as though the studio was crumbling around him...(because it was) Malfunction after malfunction. A question:
WHAT’S THE CAPITAL OF GLOBOBIA?
Four options. All misspelled.
The buzzer buttons buzzed early. DeeDee got locked out before the timer even started.
Tenna tried to smooth it over. “We love enthusiasm here! The system’s just... eager! HA!”
Then the stage lights dimmed for half a second.
By the time they reached the final showdown they had to resort to other means and decided to bring the old WHEEL OF WHIMSY out of retirement to cap the program off with some prizes, a desperate attempt keep what little engagement they had left.
“JERRI, you’re up first! Give that wheel a SPIN!”
Jerri stepped up. The lever stuck. She tugged. Nothing.
“Bit of stage fright, huh?” Tenna joked through clenched static. “Here, let me...”
He yanked. The wheel lurched into motion with an ungodly squeak. Sparks flew from its base. The lights on it flickered. It landed on “Fuzzy Prize Pack,” but the arrow bounced forward to “Mystery Box.”
“Oh! You’ve landed on the MYSTERYYYYY BOOOOOX!” he shouted, pushing the energy up. But the spotlight didn’t follow the cue. Instead, it stayed on Lumo, who was picking lint off his jacket.
Tenna’s fingers twitched, but he quickly recovered "MYSTERY BOOOOOOX" He tried again. This time there was a pan to an empty space, imprints in the dust where the MYSTERY BOX was once housed.
"Where's the box!?!?" He hissed into the mic.
A prop intern rushed onstage mid-broadcast, dropped it with a thud, and ran off. The lid cracked. A plushie prize fell out, half-stuffed and clearly not regulation.
Tenna stared at it.
The loose buttons of its eyes stared back, taunting him.
His animated smile twitched.
“CUT TO COMMERCIAL.”
Not a cue. Not a flourish. Just raw. Loud.
Everything went black.
Tenna sat in his dressing room, gripping the sides of his swivel chair. His posture was too straight. Too rigid. His glowing screen-face flickered between a frozen smile and a faint static haze.
The mirror across from him reflected not his face, but the bright glow of a man still pretending to perform. The golden dressing room bulbs hummed, washing his suit in a nostalgic glow that made it look more like a costume than clothing.
There were stains on the rug. Crumbs. A half-eaten branded snack bar from “Tenna's Taste-Off” — one of the many failed cross-promotions.
They used to love me.
He could still hear the roar of the crowd, once upon a time. Real cheers. Real laughter. Lines around the block just to get into the taping.
Now?
Extras. Hired energy. Hollow noise.
Tenna’s fingers tapped a rapid beat on the armrest — tic-tic-tic-tic-tic — the sound of failing patience. Inside his chassis, something buzzed faintly. Overheating.
A knock at the door.
Mike.
“Go away,” Tenna said flatly.
Mike opened it anyway, poking his head in with the casual bravery of someone who’d been through all Tenna’s stages before... Meltdown, rage, guilt, recovery.
“You alright?” Mike asked, already knowing the answer.
“No.”
Mike stepped inside, his clipboard nowhere to be seen, this was a rare gesture of non-professional concern.
"I brought coffee"
Tenna slightly perks up in his chair before turning slowly, he gingerly takes the mug from Mike, it reads #1 boss scribbled crudely in black sharpie....It does little to lift, he let's out a wounded sigh.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Tenna finally said.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I figured.”
Tenna looked up sharply. “You figured?”
“You’ve been glitching mid-promo. You forgot three sponsor lines last week. You skipped the staff check-in for the fifth time and you fired the new intern for bringing you still water instead of sparkling."
Tenna narrowed his eyes "...I was making a point"
Mike just raised his eyebrows.
Tenna sagged. “It’s falling apart.”
Mike nodded. “Yeah.”
“I am the show, Mike. And it’s falling apart.”
A long pause.
“You ever think maybe that’s the problem?” Mike said carefully.
Tenna blinked. “What?”
“You’re the show. All of it. You’re the host, you’re the creative lead, you’re the brand manager. You’re even doing your own wardrobe now.”
“No one else gets it right.”
“You’re doing everything, Tenna. And you’ve been doing it all by yourself for too long. Even when you had people to help you, you wouldn’t let them. You’d bark, rewrite their work, overrule their choices. You scared off your last producer. You threatened to replace the band with MIDI files because they asked for dental.”
“They were playing flat!”
“They were tired. You’re exhausting everyone. Including yourself.”
Tenna stood, suddenly. “So what, Mike? I give up? Let the show die? Just... stop?”
“No,” Mike said. “You stop trying to do it alone.”
Tenna glared. The light on his screen-face warped, glitching into fractal reflections of his frown.
"Oh so that's it? You want me to roll out the welcome mat for another snake in a branded blazer!?! He made us a joke. I'm not letting that happen again, I don't care how shiny the pitch deck is or how many zeros are on offer!"
He was frantic, voice cracking slightly. Mike waited for him to regain his composure before he continued "You think I don't remember? He turned our sign-off segment into a goddamn auction.
“[[TONIGHT’S EMOTIONAL CONCLUSION BROUGHT TO YOU BY HYPER-STIMULANT SHOE POLISH]]!”
You cried on-air once. Do you remember that? You cried. And right in the middle of it—mid-tear—the lower third banner flashes:
“[[SPECIAL OFFER: TEARS BOTTLED AND SOLD. COLLECTIBLE. BUY 2, GET DESPAIR FREE.]]”
Tenna flinches a little. Mike steps closer, voice hardening
"He sold ad space on your coat.
He put QR codes on your sleeves. He tried to sell branded tissues during the in memoriam segment.
He ran that one ad, remember it? “[[FUNERAL HOMES FOR PETS YOU HAVEN’T MET YET]]”?
That played twice. Once during the kids’ segment.
And let’s not forget the scented ads.
Yes, scented. He rerouted the AC to blow out the smell of “[[BEEFY POWER GEL: LIVE LIKE YOU’RE NOT ROTTING INSIDE]]” during commercial" He laughs humorously "if I ever see that little parasite again I'll knock his goddamn teeth in, I can promise you that."
There's a beat of silence between the two, both of them sitting uncomfortably with the memories of past broadcasts before Tenna timidly asks "Then who?"
Mike leaned forward.
“You need someone who’s not scared of you. Someone smart. Organized. Someone who can deal with the chaos and tell you when you’re being a jerk.”
Tenna turned away.
“I don’t need a therapist.”
“Debatable. For now though, you need a secretary.”
Tenna whipped around. “A secretary? What am I, a bank manager?”
“You’re a collapsing star trying to run a game show. You need gravity. Someone to keep your orbit stable.”
Tenna snorted.
“Someone who can handle the emails, the schedule, the guests, the sponsors, and maybe tell you to take a nap before you scream at another intern.”
“I don’t scream,” Tenna lied.
Mike pointed at the busted microphone on the makeup counter.
Tenna sighed. “Fine. You find someone, you train them. But if they try to reorganize my filing system—”
“They will.”
“—I’ll have them disintegrated.”
“Great. I’ll tell them that during onboarding.”
That night, Tenna stayed late in the studio.
He wandered the empty set like a ghost in his own cathedral. The wheel was still tilted from the failed game. One of the mascot suits was slumped over a bench, its foam hands wilted. The lights had been dimmed but not turned off, just enough glow to cast everything in golden decay.
He walked up to the main camera. Looked right into the lens.
He remembered what it was like to feel seen.
Not just watched. Seen.
Back when being on screen made him feel real.
Now it made him feel like he was fading pixel by pixel.
He reached out and touched the camera lens gently, like brushing a mirror.
“You still in there?” he whispered to himself. “Or did they change the channel?"