#anodia lore

[anodia-studios]

Some darkners of Anodia Studios!!! I love these lil guys so much, junk drawer and desk toys my beloved

[anodia-studios]

This is the explainer post for my Deltarune AU called Anodia! I'm just gonna go over some basic stuff about the premise and the setting here :>

Okay so. Tenna didn't get fixed so he gets put outside all busted up to get garbage collected, but this Lightner (no name for them quite yet) manages to scoop him up before he's dumped. They fix him up to damn near good as new, and begin using him for casual daytime TV, some noise to put on in the background. However, Tenna's not the only TV here.

Background info on the dark world, Anodia:

The original television set of Anodia is Zanny, an older model who cares less about making good TV than he does about making cathartic sadomasochistic performance art. The studio staff just treat it like pure fiction shooting; it doesn't really matter if Zanny is kinda weird about it, nobody but him ever gets hurt for real and as soon as the cameras are off he's fairly nice (albeit pretty intense).

The studio building has all of the actual production-related stuff on the first few floors, with the top stories being like an entirely separate office building for what is just called "Corporate". The lowest couple of Corporate floors are open and that's where the communication between Corporate and the studio happens, but almost nobody from the studio has access to the upper floors of Corporate. Below the basement of the studio is an ever-changing labyrinth of hallways and strange rooms with unclear purposes called The Tunnels. Nobody but Zanny ever goes in there on purpose.

In the light world, Corporate is a desk and cabinet with hoarded/collecred stationary supplies, the studio is a corner where the entertainment stuff sits, and The Tunnels is a toolbox and unorganized pile of spare parts (repairing and fiddling with old tech stuff is the lightner's main hobby)

This dark world is a lot more disconnected from the light world than the ones we've seen in Deltarune, like the veil between worlds is thicker. The darkners of Anodia barely know anything about the light world around them; they know what they are, they can tell when they're being interacted with, but they don't see or hear anything outside of the dark world.

The studio is basically built in a bog. The little hill the building is on is solid ground, there's a decent little greenspace around it, but it isn't much far before the ground gets real soft and wet, and soon the darkness closes in like a fog and you can't go any further. It's a fairly small dark world.

The majority of the darkners in Anodia are bits of stationary, fidget toy, and junk drawer contents, along with a few tools and some more conceptual TV content-based darkners.

Stationary darkners (post-it notes, paperclips, erasers, all sorts of pens, etc) largely fill administrative and logistical roles, and are mostly found up in Corporate.

Fidget/junk darkners (rubber bands, little magnets, bottlecaps, springs, etc) make up the majority of the crew behind the scenes, but also show up on camera fairly often.

Tool darkners are, unsurprisingly, mostly on tech support and maintenance. Only a few frequently-used tools manifest as darkners, like a few sizes of screwdrivers and hex wrenches. A lot of things in the toolbox mostly just manifest as bug-like things in The Tunnels.

The general culture of Anodia is really different from TV World. There's a level of professional distance that's expected from everyone; people are polite—friendly, even—but most of them don't seem to really be close with anyone. A building of almost entirely work friends.

This extends to the shows as well. The crew take pride in their work, the technical work involved in production is valued, but the actual Show, the thing that gets produced? It's just easier to get things done if you're not really invested in it.

Tenna Setup:

The lightner took Tenna home with the box he was put outside in. Three remotes came with it (Toriel couldn't remember which one actually belonged to the TV), as well as the odd extension cord (Toriel figured she'd get rid of another piece of e-waste at the same time) (tbh this is just an excuse for Ramb to be here). Three or four dice also wound up in the box by accident.

While I realize that in canon the shadowguys are those figures in the windowsill, for the purposes of this AU they're more conceptual and are related to shadow puppets (so basically a dozen or so shadowguys come along with Tenna). I also want a shuttah to be here, but if it's representative of an actual camera I'm not sure how that would happen. I might say that one of the shuttahs was a real camera, but the other shuttah was more conceptually about the cameras needed in TV recording. Look, my thoughts on how darkners manifest isn't super canon compliant, I just wanna play with touys

Since Tenna is broken and needs to be fixed, there's a good week or so where all of the darkners from his box are out and about in the dark world and getting used to things before he wakes up.

Once Tenna gets all set up in the studio, his role here is that he's in charge of the daytime programming block, while Zanny is on the night block. He's not the lord of the entire dark world, but he is typically the person with the highest level of authority in the studio when he's there.

[anodia-studios]

Dr. Traci Ketzni is an oscilloscope and the resident doctor of Anodia Studios, making sure anyone involved in dangerous stunts is healthy and intact before and after shoots. He has a diagnostics panel that he can plug himself and various tools into to monitor and record all sorts of stuff. The medical office is where all of the more powerful healing items are kept, and while he isn't stingy with them, he will give a look to frequent customers. Only a look, though. He doesn't care to get too involved in other people's business unless they come to him about it, and he has a very detached and utilitarian approach to problems.

Dr. Ketzni is pretty aloof in general and mostly keeps to themself. They like peace and quiet, and they much prefer reading instruction manuals and circuit diagrams alone in their office to socializing with others. They aren't outright hostile, they will hold polite conversation, but they won't do it very well and they have a tendency to walk away without saying anything. He isn't known for great bedside manners, he's very clinical and direct about things. The other darkners are fine with leaving him alone, he does his job professionally and that's all that's asked of him.

The biggest part of their job is definitely maintaining Zanny. He's the one who always needs the most healing after shoots, and he's the one whose insides are the most complicated (aside from the camcorder Issoh, though it hasn't ever needed more than a mend pill or two). Zanny is also their favorite patient, because he lets them experiment with his insides and just see what happens.

Dr. Ketzni is very intrigued by the nature of darkners' bodies, what makes them function and how magic interacts with matter. As a mechanical being with very complicated insides, Zanny is an invaluable case study in their research. Every other week Zanny gets on the operating table for more experiments and tests, opened up and thoroughly examined for the doctor's curiosity. Dr. Ketzni likes having a volunteer who is down for anything, and Zanny likes getting his guts pulled out and played with. They have an understanding that they each get their own enrichment out of the deal, and they don't expect the other to participate in what they get out of it. (Zanny does like learning about his own circuitry though... specifically where the limits are in terms of what can easily be healed)

I don't think either of them would consider the other a friend, exactly. Despite the intimacy of exploratory surgery, they don't really feel emotionally close. They find each other's company pleasant enough, and they have a shared interest in the particulars of Zanny's wiring, but they don't connect much outside of that.

Dr. Ketzni sees Zanny as a good research subject. They appreciate that Zanny shares their disregard for the boundaries of safety or propriety—if Dr. Ketzni wants to monitor Zanny's brain circuitry to see how it's impacted by burning, freezing, cutting, overcharging, undercharging, well that's fine by him! Dr. Ketzni thinks Zanny is insane, but that's none of their business; they're just thankful that whatever is wrong with him means that they don't have to hold back in their pursuit of knowledge. He definitely sees Zanny as more of a Thing To Study than a person.

Zanny, for his part, doesn't mind being a Thing To Study. He actually appreciates the detached and impersonal approach Dr. Ketzni has, it makes Zanny feel safe to fully experience and express every sensation that he gets put through without worrying about freaking someone out. The good doctor doesn't care if he laughs or cries or screams or whimpers or begs for more or less, they are going to carry out their planned procedure to its conclusion, put him back to how he was before, and let him leave without any sort of messy feelings business. Zanny trusts Dr. Ketzni more than he ever has (and likely ever will) anyone else. This might sound like he feels a deeper connection than they do, but actually the distance in the relationship is part of why he trusts them: he knows they won't ask questions, they won't sugarcoat things, they won't make things more complicated than they need to be. He knows that whatever he gets himself into, when he calls on Dr. Ketzni to do their job, they will do it.

Anyways, some fun trivia: Dr. Ketzni likes funky ties and socks and has an extensive collection. He has an embroidery hobby, and many of his ties he made himself. He's quietly very judgmental, and while he says he hates gossip, he has a couple of friends he likes to be bitchy with. They do insist on being referred to as Dr. Ketzni or just Doctor, not Ketzni, as a way of avoiding people getting over-familiar with them.

[anodia-studios]

Some Zanny rambles! This is kind of a rehash of a post I already made on my main blog but I wanted to reword and expand on some stuff

Zanny is a very intense guy. He often talks too loud, laughs too hard, responds too quickly, stares too long, stands too close. He can technically make other facial expressions, but 99% of the time he's sticking with that big toothy grin and wide open eyes (it's actually kind of physically difficult for him to not smile outside of really specific circumstances). When he's paying direct attention to or studying someone closely, they feel this faint static in the back of their neck. He's pretty unnerving, but the Anodia crew are all used to it. Not that they're comfortable with it, just used to it.

He's actually a pretty decent boss, all things considered. He's not particularly interested in running everything, so he's more than happy to acknowledge other people as competent and trust their judgement. When things go wrong, he tends to shrug it off and just ask what can be done next. The only thing Zanny seems to really care about is getting to play his part in the show and pulling off a thrilling performance. He gets really intense on set, though when the cameras aren't rolling it mostly presents as excitement about how incredible the show is—praising everyone's good work, gushing about the story beats, eagerness to move on to the next scene. During actual shooting he can be a bit scarier, getting a little *too* into his villainous role, but he never crosses the lines mandated by Corporate. Still, not the easiest to be around.

He's also a pretty attentive boss. Zanny knows everyone's birthdays, he asks about how people's pets are doing, he remembers hobbies and tastes that are mentioned, and he notices when someone seems down or sick. He's very generous with accommodations and time off sometimes to the annoyance of Corporate, and very understanding of special circumstances. However, he does noticably change when he's On for shooting. On set, he can be real oblivious about others, not seeming to register how others are feeling, sometimes not even noticing when someone is replaced with a stunt double. It's like all of his attention is taken up by the thrill of performance, and there's no room for anyone else in his mind outside of what they contribute to the show. What's going on is that being attentive to the thoughts and feelings of others is something that Zanny cares about, but it's also something that takes conscious effort and when he's on set he really hyperfixates on the show.

Zanny is an extremely honest guy, though a few people might suggest "blunt" or "tactless" instead. Some of it is that he often doesn't see the point in beating around the bush, and he isn't afraid to plainly say what other people are carefully talking around. Zanny knows it upsets people sometimes, but he really struggles to not just say exactly what he thinks. He's not mean about it, he's not the "brutally honest" type, he just doesn't like hiding or obfuscating things. He's a pretty decent liar when it comes to literally saying something false and not giving it away in the moment, but anything longer term or that comes up again and again he really struggles with. Zanny always prefers carefully framed truths to outright lies, both because they're easier to maintain and they don't make him feel as bad. He really dreads the idea of having to come clean about a lie, especially if it's something serious. He's very comfortable keeping other people's secrets though, because not betraying someone's trust is also important to him. He may end up saying "I have been trusted to keep a secret" if pressed about something though, which depending on the situation might be revealing.

[anodia-studios]

For the Anodia Studios reboot of TV Time, all of the darkners that came with Tenna are on his crew in hopes of a smoother transition. There's a weird tension there, because Tenna's former employees (technically they're now contracted with Anodia Studios, Tenna is their boss but not their employer) know that none of them helped in trying to find or fix Tenna, and also the way he acted towards the end didn't exactly leave them with a ton of positive feelings. But… Tenna doesn't know that nobody came to help. All Tenna knows is that Susie promised to find him a new home and then something sliced him apart, and he woke up all healed in a new home. The TV World darkners kind of quietly come to the conclusion that what he doesn't know won't hurt him, and there's no point in bringing it up.

I think something that manages some of the tension is the fact that the Anodia darkners aren't used to Tenna's uh, outbursts, and don't respond in the way he expects. Their go-to strategy is just not really reacting, going "sure boss whatever you say", and walking away to do their job and maybe or maybe not taking into account what the boss said; that's what works with Zanny's manic moments. With Tenna… well, it helps shoots move forward, and the TV World darkners feel more secure—like Tenna's mood swings aren't disastrous red alert everything-is-going-to-crumble events—which helps them be a little bit more relaxed with him. Can't say Tenna particularly likes this strategy though, I feel like it would turn his anger into bitter sulking and make his depressive episodes worse. This is definitely something that will need more direct addressing eventually.

The TV World darkners don't completely mirror this strategy, there's always a few people available to cheer Tenna up or calm him down, get him back to functioning, but it's not an all hands on deck situation anymore. They do care about Tenna I think, it's just that the downturn of TV Time made him an absolute nightmare to work for and be around. That's gonna hang heavy in the air, especially early on, but I do think in this new environment those connections can be rebuilt. The familiarity is nice.

[anodia-studios]

alright I wanna talk some about what the hell Zanny's Whole Deal is

(cw for self injury type stuff and mental health weirdness I struggle to put a specific label to. also Zanny is kind of weird about pain)

Zanny has a really bizarre sort of god complex. He thinks he has the potential to become God, but he has a funny idea of what Godhood entails. To him, to achieve divinity is to cease to be a person and become pure feeling with the density of a black hole. There would be no power, no authority, no agency granted to him, only a total surrender of the self to greater forces. Zanny wants to become a being of pure experience without the limitations of a mortal body, and for him there is one experience that feels the most invigorating, the most exhilarating, the most powerful.

Damage.

Cracked chassis, shorted wires, burnt out motors—both the pain of getting hurt and the malfunction of injury are divine to Zanny. He loves to feel his body crunch and warp and snap in the face of tremendous force. He loves to feel his body grind and buckle and strain against the stress of pushing through debilitating injuries. He loves to feel his mind swim and flicker and buzz as his circuitry corrodes or burns or struggles with bad inputs. The worse damage he has, the more pain he's in, the giddier he gets. Pain feels good to him in a sensory-seeking way; he likes to feel things Sharper and Brighter and Tighter and More. The elation that pain brings him is evidence to Zanny that he is doing the right thing, that self destruction will lead him to salvation.

Zanny generally keeps this to himself because he knows it would freak people out, and he doesn't need anyone worrying about him or getting in his way. He insists on doing all of these dangerous stunts and slapstick bits himself for "realistic reactions", but everyone knows he kind of just likes getting hurt. If asked directly, he'll admit to being a masochist (which isn't exactly a lie), but he'll also say he's a professional and he knows how to keep his personal matters personal. Basically, yes he gets a kick out of getting hurt, but not in a way that needs to concern anyone else. Since he really does seem to keep it to himself, and he follows corporate's orders about how far he's allowed to go, people just let it slide. He gets all healed up afterward. It doesn't really matter.

One of the main reasons Zanny hasn't completely destroyed himself yet is he also likes to experience other things. Sure, he'll get around to turning himself into a vortex of infinite pain eventually, but most of the time he can't stand missing out on the rest of life. He wants to see, hear, smell, touch, taste everything he can. He wants to study people, he wants to absorb information, he needs to know what every emotional and psychological and sensory experience has in store for him and the people around him. So he will indulge himself a little, he'll take scraps of holy bliss when he can, but he's okay with capitulating to corporate. For now. Mostly.

Maybe sometimes he craves a little more. Maybe sometimes he really aches for the divinity he knows he belongs to. Maybe sometimes he feels an itch beneath every inch of his casing that demands to be clawed free and scratched raw. When Zanny has these little "episodes", he goes down into The Tunnels and finds himself a nice little room with screwdrivers and wire strippers and soldering irons and pliers and hammers and he does everything to his body he knows he can fix himself or manage to get to the medical office with. Then, finally, blissfully, the blinding pain inside of him is enough to drown everything else out, and he can feel himself sink into pure experience. Sometimes he sees a void-black liquid seeping out from cracks or holes or gashes he makes, sometimes he sees something dark and wet wriggling alongside his cables and tubing, sometimes he sees pitch-black eyes in the pitch-black forms watching him lay bare his nerves for the holy sensations. The doctor tells him things about "low voltage delirium" and "malfunctioning input circuitry", but he knows what he saw. He knows what The Tunnels can do for him.

[anodia-studios]

some stuff about Zanny's show

The lightner primarily uses Zanny to watch older, or indie, or more esoteric movies. French experimental films, slow psychological thrillers, gruesome horror flicks, any movie where there’s something about it that makes them feel like the slightly lower quality picture enhances it (they actually got Tenna so they could have a better quality/bigger TV to watch normal stuff on). The other thing the lightner likes to do with Zanny is take him apart and mess with his electronics to play with the display (they definitely have a pinterest or something where they post analog glitchcore stuff).

In the dark world, this presents as Zanny’s shows being some twilight zone shit, occasionally incoherent, or sometimes just violent and disturbing. His primary show is "Trials Triumphs & Tragedies", which is a game show but also the game show is kind of a framing device for a psychological thriller about trying to escape hell. It's like, part game show part escape room, because it's kind of scripted but the plot points are mostly determined by the outcome of the games rather than the other way around, and improv/"real play" is valued in the studio. Actors are cycled through with different costumes as characters escape and/or die, and while the prizes and punishments are fake there are things the players do aim for. Some take pride in winning games, some enjoy figuring out what the scripted escape routes are this season, some are primarily actors on other shows and just try to get their character killed off as soon as they're allowed. Because of this "real play" thing, there's only a select section of crew that know what the puzzles are and are responsible for those parts of the set. People mostly keep the secrets and keep to "good sportsmanship" because Zanny gets real sad if the games are boring, though not everyone does.

Zanny plays the role of maniacal tormentor, capturing "lost souls" and forcing them to play his games. There's kind of a Saw thing going on, but the game host is more about sadistic fun than trying to teach any lessons. He's extremely energetic and flamboyant on stage, he makes a great cackling madman, he's good at playing the villain. He does a lot of gleefully steering his contestants towards doom, but about as often he ends up the target of torture. His traps backfire, contestants get one over on him, luck games don't go his way, and he takes a beating. Sometimes it's slapstick to cut tension, sometimes it's cathartic revenge, sometimes it's just senseless violence for violence's sake. Now, when the contestants are the targets of torment, there's very little real danger. Scary or disturbing things are often real surprises, but except for a few dedicated actors all the violence is TV magic. Zanny, however, insists on doing all of his stunts as real as he can get away with. His wires spark, his display malfunctions, his limbs bend in unnatural ways, and when he gets clotheslined in the stomach by a steel pipe you can hear it crunch. Sometimes the host needs to be angry at the contestants for beating him or outsmarting him, but the damage itself? He always springs back up louder and brighter and more energetic, his grin bigger than before.

Aside from TTT, Zanny hosts a variety show where the bit is really riding the line between horror and comedy, and records bumpers/intros for themed film and music video showcases.

[anodia-studios]

Welcome to Anodia Studios!

Hi!!! This is my Deltarune/Deltarune AU blog, as well as a blog for my special boy and co-star of the AU, Zanny. I'm always eager to talk about anything related to Deltarune or my AU, so don't hesitate to interact :>

Content warning: While it's not really the main focus of this AU, Zanny has Some Shit Going On that involves a lot of self injury, though he's very gleeful about it if that matters to you.

Anodia AU Explainer Post

Anodia AU fics

#anodia au: everything that has to do with the au

#anodia lore: specifically exposition or musings on the au

#zanny tag: things I reblog just for Zanny