Okay I honestly think he would put a cigarette out on you and he would guilt trip you into a contract that ruins your life
Hear me out
(This is going to be a long ass rant so if you don’t want to hear me out, the tldr is that Tenna can be toxic sometimes but he isn’t intentionally evil, he’s just desperate)
My crackhead fandom theory that I honest to god believe is that Toby picked that part of chapter 5 to show in the winter 2025 newsletter because 1) it’s inconsequential enough to the main story to not give major spoilers to what the main parts of chapter 5 will be like AND, more importantly, 2) because the fandom was making Tenna too uwu cutie patootie can’t hurt a fly. (Could almost also extend to the “TVs are good at talking but not good at listening” line, but that might be TOO MUCH of a stretch than this capertee valley take)
The Tenna fandom was too pushed into his apron-wearing husband side! They weren’t tapping into his more toxic qualities!!
So while the fandom evens out, we’ll be getting a couple more “absolutely malicious toxic evil mf” interpretations until equilibrium is reached and we get a nice balanced.
Because Tenna can be lowtennauinely an asshole boss:
“Even the water spirits were put to the bottles and coo as coolers... A liquid contract... a waste of their natural figure. Ooh la la.” -Shuttah
“Look at all those contracts, man.. Can't believe Tenna's got 'em doing anything he wants!” -Pippins
“What do you MEAN you don't want to fight them!? Wh... What the!? Read the FINE PRINT in your CONTRACT, buddy! Now QUIT complaining and GO!” -Tenna to some Shadow Guys
“There once was the great wilderness here! Yes... But, the world became the theater, and us, children of Tenna's contract. Those that did not sign the paper, set off for the far land and were forgotten.” -Shuttah
“But he gets really moody if Mike isn't there... And takes it out on us.” -Battat/Green Pippins
“I'm always, y'know, adding lots of little, uh, bonuses to their contracts! Y'know!! Paid fruit-flavored vacation, left over glooby slime, you know!!” -Tenna to Small Mike, entirely missing the point and putting bandaids over wounds that need stitches
And this not to say that he is entirely an asshole and that’s all there is to his character because that’s not true.
But that he would put out a cigarette on you and he would guilt trip you into a contract but it’d be like: “no no it’s fine I don’t need you to let me put a cigarette out on you. Mike, erase this cigarette from existence.” *shrinks* “Sign this contract and tell me you’ll never leave me ever I’m still good please tell me I’m still good”
He’ll shrink to Kris’s size and yap about how he’s still a good TV and he’s still enjoyable!! Just turn him back on!! Plug him in!! Or he’ll start talking about how he set up but like it’s fine don’t worry about it he’ll just tear down all his hard work. And he’ll be 100% /gen too, he is that sad and desperate.
He’s not malicious, or evil, or purposefully toxic, but he’s not cutie patootie innocent either (as evidence by him being so desperate to be relevant that he trapped his last viewer into a prize capsule)
The jaypaw brightheart situation is so messed up and full of nuance not even just in a meta way but was intended to be that way in the text by the authors (in part) and it’s so often completely dumbed down to “grrr jaypaw was mean to Brightheart I hate him forever!!1!1” and it drives me fucking nuts. Like the culture of ableism in the clans that has raised Jaypaw to hate brightheart and cats like her (read: himself) is so potent in those first couple chapters and for once it is genuinely the intent of the authors for us to pick up on that. We are frustrated alongside Jaykit when his Clanmates constantly baby him or pity him or just in general treat him different from his siblings, which arguably Includes brightheart btw (“Brightheart paused from her washing. “How are you today, Jaykit?” … “I’m fine, of course,” he meowed. Why did Brightheart have to make such a fuss over him? He’d only been sleeping in the nursery, not out raiding ShadowClan territory!”) I know you can read this as Jaykit overreacting about Brightheart just being friendly, but I still think it supports the idea that after everyone is constantly treating him like this, yeah, small comments WOULD make him defensive because the history of behavior is frustrating! And it’s behavior that Brightheart herself has absolutely had to go through herself! And we know that even though she’s “proven” herself that culture of ableism is still rampant because of how Jaypaw treats her like a lesser warrior BECAUSE OF HOW HES BEEN RAISED and is angry that she’s his mentor. And I think a lot of people just assume this is the misogyny and like. Yeah, it is, because this is warriors, and it touches everything, but when people are just like oh Jaypaw hates brightheart bc he hates women and is ableist it’s like oh my god!! Maybe it’s because a) the authors hate women and are ableist and b) everyone in the clan has treated him like he’s useless and different and that Different cats are inherently Not as good so the internalized ableism is telling him Oh This Cat Isn’t As Good c) he hates himself!! Because it’s what he’s been TAUGHT to do by a clan (cough author team) that hates disabled cats! And you know what! To a certain degree I understand why he’s upset that Brightheart is his mentor! In the sense that I too would be upset if someone assumed just because there was someone else that is disabled means that she Understands my situation. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be blind! The stuff she could teach him—how to rely more on his other senses—is stuff Jaypaw says he already knows! He even notes that Longtail has a completely different lived experience than him because he was born with his sight and had to adjust while Jaypaw was born blind! Like not all disabled people are the same! Not even all blind people are the same! and I don’t think Jaypaw should have to just be nice and sweet and happy about his genuinely shitty situation! AND OF COURSE before people get mad I’m not saying it was Good and Fine of him to be terrible to brightheart. NO! She is a victim of this system too, she’s just learned to cope in a very different way and is trying her best to do what she can with what she’s been given! All I’m saying is that there’s all this tense difficult muddled shit to walk through and I hate how much it gets completely ignored in favor of brrr jaypaw mean for no reason he should die
Jaypaw is mean to her. He is also a young emotional character who Brightheart responded to by almost exclusively punishing him, which only made him worse. If you read Jaypaw as clearly and simply in the wrong you may lack critical thinking. This put it in way more detail than I would so yippee!
But seriously he was mistreated by his clan and notably Brightheart and the fact that everyone ignores that because Brightheart is a well liked character is BONKERS to me.
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