23 he/him 🏳️⚧️🇺🇸🇩🇴 Minors DNI please. Multifandom, selfship bullshit, and whatever else I feel like idk. My name is Mel. This is my place to yap about embarassing stuff. Yippee!
tenna x reader one shot inspired by a tweet i made: "lightner with self-loathing, so they get upset at seeing themselves reflected on the tv’s glass but Tenna thinks that hatred is aimed at just them looking at Him i mean what who said that" aaand i decided to expand upon it (after some intrigue!!)
tenna's probably wildly ooc and i apologize for that 🙇♀️ im not a writer i just make silly pictures.... this was supposed to be just hcs but it grew too big and the story swallowed up the author (me)
You were locked in a staring contest with yourself. 'I don't want to exist anymore,' rings in your head. 'Get over yourself,' fights back. You aren't fully convinced with those words; you feel uniquely more deserving of the disdain pointed your own way than to others. It hadn't been as much of a problem until just recently, when it escalated. And right now you can't even stand your own reflection. Every time you look at yourself you can only muster up disappointment at best but loathing at worst. As such, you've tried to avoid mirrors when possible but when you catch a glimse of you face in the dormant TV screen, you instinctively frown. Your gaze sharpens, your brow furrows. You look away, unable to stand your own face, before leaving to busy yourself with any distraction to bury how you feel.
In the dark world, Tenna's stomach dropped seeing his lightner look at him with such contempt. He wasn't a stranger to occasionally, VERY RARELY (because he's so good at his job) airing a program that wasn't always a hit! But... he's not airing right now. You hadn't looked at one of his programs like that. You looked at him with that expression. You usually gave his lightworld form a warm smile...! But now...
Guilt flooded Tenna's body. He had to have done something wrong. He didn't know what and he didn't know when but he had to have messed up and messed up BIG to recieve such an expression. And he had to fix it. He didn't want to be thrown away, he didn't want to lose you. He wouldn't be able to take it if he did. And before he had realized it, he shrunk.
Tenna immediately calls Mike because if anyone knows what he did wrong it'll be him! After all, Mike records everything he ever does or says! And he needs to know what he did in order to know how to fix it! But reviewing it, Mike can't find anything out of the ordinary. Even through their consolation telling him, "C'mon, boss. You know your lightner really loves ya! I don't think ya did anything to upset 'em." But even with all of Mike's efforts Tenna can't be convinced. Maybe his lightner just got... bored of him. He didn't know he could shrink more.
You've worked all day to distract yourself from falling into a pit. But eventually the distractions run out and all you want now is to visit Tenna. When you arrive in the Dark World, its harder to find him than usual. You're used to him greeting you at the fountain, getting scooped up in his arms as he spins you around in a hug, far too excited to see you again! But this time there's no one waiting so you begin the trek back to the studio through the snow.
Shadowguys and Zappers and Pippins are busy at work but Tenna's still not around. Upon your arrival in the Green Room, Mike quickly locates you. "Sorry, da boss's been cooped up in his office all day. He's been, uh... feelin' pretty glooby lately, but maybe you could help 'im. He really cares about you," is unfortunately the only explanation you get.
You give a gentle knock on the door before slowly opening into the office. Tenna's nowhere to be seen but his sniffles are certainly heard. Rounding his desk, you see him sitting on his desk chair, barely taking up any space. Tenna curls into himself when he hears you approach-- he can't bear to look up at you. What if you have that expression again? What if you came here in person just to tell him how much you're sick of him, and you're finally throwing him out for good, and he'll be all alone again. You sit on the floor, lowering yourself to his level. His antenna are drooping over his turned-off screen.
"Hey, what's got you so glooby?"
Tenna can't resist your voice. He slowly lifts his head and, seeing that ever-sweet expression on your beautiful, perfect face, he takes a deep breath and immediately begins crying.
Tenna kneels down and clasps his hands, rambling, "I don't know what I did wrong but whatever it was, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I wanna fix it because I love being your TV so, so much! I can't be thrown away! Please, please, angel, don't throw me away... I can do better, I can be a better TV for you! Just please... I don't wanna be thrown away..." His voice is breaking like its getting a bad signal. He tugs at his antenna while tears seep from his screen and fall onto the leather of the seat below him. He's shaking.
You startled seeing his reaction. Tenna has shown his insecurities plenty of times before but this was... "Woah, hey, you didn't do a single thing wrong!" You move to secure and gently cradle your hands around him. You're always so gentle with him even though you know he's physically much stronger than you. Before he even realizes it, he's moved to grasping onto your fingers. It's tight and you can feel his claws but he's afraid if he lets go, you'll leave.
After a pause, Tenna asks, "When you looked at me with such a dark look earlier... I thought... maybe you'd gotten sick of me..."
Your eyes widen when you make the connection behind the question and entire misunderstanding. "Oh... oh that wasn't directed at you! I'm sorry. I just... whenever I look at myself I just remember all the things I... don't really like about me. So when I saw my reflection..." you trail off. "I didn't mean for you to think anything was your fault. And I'm not throwing you away! I just missed you. You always try so hard to make me happy, or give me a distraction when I need it, to make me feel like I'm at home. So I just wanted to come see you. Being around you always makes me feel better and like everything'll all be okay."
You thought this would relieve him to know it wasn't anything he did, expecting him to start growing to normal size again. But... he hadn't yet. While it was relieving for him to hear and he wasn't quite as small as before... he still feels bad. Something was wrong with his lightner and he didn't even realize. He should've been able to cheer you up. He should've known something was wrong and here he was, feeling bad about himself instead of doing his job! You were consoling him! He should be helping you feel better! He's supposed to be the distraction! He's TV! He...! He...
...He doesn't want to just be a distraction from this. He doesn't want his lightner to ever feel that way about themselves. He doesn't know what happend to make you think such things about yourself but you're too sweet, too funny, too patient and kind... He's trembling a bit but turns his screen back on and turns to you, holding your gaze for a moment.
Your soul feels heavy seeing him like this, so you give him a comforting smile. Tenna's voice is uncharacteristically small when he says "I don't want you to have to deal with those feelings alone. I don't want you to deal with them at all. You don't deserve it... and I'd always do anything and everything to remind you how much you mean to me."
"And you mean everything to me too, Tenna. I just... feel like I should be able to deal with issues on my own. 'N not make you deal with my problems, I guess. I know it doesn't make much sense to say that about myself when I always wanna help you out. But... you're just so great, it kinda feels like I don't deserve you sometimes? I really hope you know you've only ever been the best thing that's happened to me."
Hearing this, Tenna stares at them for a brief moment before sniffling, and that signature, goofy, wiggly smile appears on his face. Hearing your words, he quickly grows back to size. He effortlessly scoops you up in his arms, hugging you tightly. The static leaves a familiar, comforting feeling as he nuzzles your face with his screen.
"Sweetheart! Ohhhh, my star!!! Don't deserve me? I don't deserve you! You're the perfectest lightner I could have ever dreamed of. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes!"
"How is that supposed to work? You don't even have eyes!" you teased him.
"Pssh! Eyes, screen, antenna, doesn't matter! It's just some of that special TV Magic," He waves it off. "If you ever can't love yourself, then I'll just have to give you extra-dextra attention so you could never forget how wonderful you are!" Tenna looks into your eyes. "There isn't a single thing about you that I could ever hate, " before he lightheartedly says to a nonexistent audience, "(Closest is how you have to use a smartphone or laptop, but in this day and age, can’t be helped!)”
You laugh at his dramatic display and reassure him, "Even if laptops and smartphones do exist, and are very handy for lightners, they'd never compare to a TV as perfect as you."
You watch his tight smile wobble before a flower blooms from his nose and he smiles even wider. "And I hope you always remember nothing could ever compare to a lightner as perfect as you!"
Alright, I’ve been rotating this CRT in my head like a rotisserie chicken since June, and it’s basically Colliholly tradition at this point to put out some x reader headcanons for my character obsessions.
These are kinda long, putting em under the cut! Hopefully I did him justice, tried to get him down as accurate as possible: featuring the good, the bad and the strange. ♡
First, getting the obvious out of the way: He absolutely adores you, you’re the best thing that’s happened to him in a long, long time. He loves the attention you give him and he wants to be around you all the time, and when you’re not physically around him, he’s thinking of you. He isn’t without his faults, though: he can be sensitive, moody, insecure, clingy and emotional. The best way to describe Tenna is intense. His emotions are big and he feels things strongly, whether positive or negative. He just needs a little patience and a lot of reassurance when he’s struggling.
A total romantic cornball at heart. He’s certainly picked up a LOT from all the cheesy romance movies he’s seen! Romantic dinner dates, dancing under the moonlight, long walks on the beach. He’d fantasize about doing all that with you. Tenna loves love.
He can be a bit of a flirt and a tease, too, in his own goofy way. However, flirt back and he loses his composure immediately.
An old-fashioned gentleman. Holds the door open for you, pulls out your chair, gives you his jacket when it’s cold, brings flowers on dates, dresses nicely and puts on cologne before dates. Something caught your eye when window shopping with him? He’ll buy it for you with 0 hesitation, even if you tell him you don’t need him to buy you anything, you better believe you’ll be receiving it as a surprise gift later on. He will remember.
In fact, he remembers a lot about you, even the stuff you say in passing you forgot yourself. Is it bordering on obsessive? Mayyybe just a teeny bit. He doesn’t mean for it to come off that way, he just really cares about you a lot.
Loves to spoil you in general, it makes him feel useful and wanted.
Loves dancing, and is good at it! He loves dancing with you, even if you’re not good at it, he’ll happily guide you. He tries really hard to keep his form shrunk so he can properly dance with you (which doesn’t usually last long).
Would hide his claws and teeth and robot body from you at first, because he’s worried they’re too different and unsettling and he’ll scare you off. (But boy, if you told him you actually liked these aspects of him, you better believe he’ll do a total 180 and begin teasing you with them).
Loves pet names! A huge pet name user. “Star, starlight, darling, dear, dearest, sweetheart, my love.” His employees around you will be sickened by how utterly sappy he is. Will melt if you use them on him, too.
Loves making games for YOU. He eagerly listens to what kind of games you like or have been playing so he can incorporate elements from those games into his.
Constantly doing lots of silly voices and saying movie quotes. I like to think he’s constantly making goofy references and doing voices when talking with you a la Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. Anything to make you laugh, it’s his favorite sound in the whole TV world.
Loves dressing up and doing goofy roleplay with you. He has a whole wardrobe of costumes to choose from!
If you’re ever upset - Tenna is the king of distraction and entertainment, baby, he’s a literal TV. If you’re upset, he’ll be internally panicking and glued to your side and doing whatever he can to help until you’re feeling better. Plus he gets to spend time with you too, it’s a win-win! (Plus, maybe it’s a bit selfish of him, but knowing he can be there for you and be helpful in that regard also benefits him as well. Again, he wants to feel useful and important to you.)
If his relationship with his Lightner family wasn’t an indicator - he’s also very much a caretaker at heart. If you’re feeling sick and/or glooby, he’ll be fretting over you until you feel better, doing everything he can to help. Even if he has to go to work, you’ll be in his thoughts the entire time he’s away.
He enjoys cooking, and he’s gotten pretty darn good at it after having spent so much time watching cooking shows, though he doesn’t have much of a reason to cook when he’s alone (those TV Time executive dinners work just fine!) He loves that you give him an excuse to make food, though, he enjoys it most when you two get to cook together.
Gets jealous easily, unsurprisingly. Spend too much time around one particular person versus him and he’ll start to worry. He wants your eyes and your attention on him! Don’t you know TV is all you need?
This is more of a general Tenna HC, but I think he’s always hot to the touch. CRTs aren’t known for having a good cooling system. Pair this with the fact he’s also simply a high-strung workaholic, and you have a recipe for a very (literally) hot robot. Good for cuddling on cold days.
On the topic of workaholic, he often brings his work home with him. He’ll eagerly want to talk to you about all the ideas he has for his show, or your opinions on scripts or sets, all the way up until bedtime. Sometimes you’ll have to remind him to rest.
Tenna is your hype man and biggest fan! Tenna is endlessly encouraging, especially when it comes to creative pursuits. As a writer, actor, director, and game dev (lol) himself, he knows how difficult the creative process can be. He will always encourage you to create, and if you’re feeling down with art block or lack of inspiration, he can relate. He wouldn't want you to give up. Don’t let him down.
Loves gifting you things with his face or brand on it. His heart swells when he sees you in one of his TV Time shirts, or drinking from an “I Love TV!” mug he gifted you. It makes him feel like he’s yours, and you’re his. It strokes his ego, too, and helps reassure him that you do indeed love TV. I don’t think he’d outright admit to any of these things.
One of my favorite aspects of Tenna is that he’s honestly a bit of a goofy weirdo in a somewhat offputting but ultimately well-meaning way. And by this I mean he will sometimes drop random offhand maybe-slightly-questionable comments around you like it’s nothing. Things like “Huh, you smell different than yesterday!” or “Your hands are so small compared to mine!” unprompted. Yes, if you were a worm, he’d love you, and then proceed to tell you he’d make a worm-sized podium on TV Time so you can still be a contestant on his show. Thanks Tenna.
One aspect of Tenna that’s interesting to me is that, unlike many other Darkners, he seems to pride himself on having (or so he thinks) a particularly special relationship with Lightners, whom he adores. So huge bonus points if you imagine yourself as a Lightner/human here. He loves your hair, your eyes, how soft and squishy you are, how organic you are - Your differences make you endlessly fascinating to him and he can’t get enough of them.
On a related note, I think Tenna has that personality trait of someone who utterly adores their loved ones but can be contemptuous/cold to like, everyone else, particularly other Darkners. This is especially the case if you’re a Lightner in this scenario. He WILL “they asked for no pickles” on your behalf. You will definitely have to remind him to be kinder to his employees.
He has a habit of fishing for compliments and reassurance from you. I don’t think he’s always fully aware of when he’s doing it. Praise and reassurance in general is addictive to him. He’ll eagerly ask you what you thought about his newest show and what you liked about it, just so you’ll sing your praises for him.
If it wasn’t already clear, I think Tenna is far from a perfect partner. For one, I think the iron grip he’s got on his employees partially stems from his fear of being abandoned, and partially from simply not being a great boss in general. He doesn’t intentionally try to be a bad boss, and with you in the picture, he tries really, really hard to be better about this, because he wants you to think of him as good. He wants to be good for you.
Tenna may be the King of Only but he is also unfortunately the King of Scrutinization. No one out-overthinks Tenna. Do you somehow seem mildly less interested in his show and ideas than usual? Or maybe you had to cancel plans with him due to something coming up? Oh boy. He’s going to worry, worry and worry some more. Maybe you no longer love TV like you did before? Everyone leaves eventually, this is no different than before-
Tenna will start to spiral, and if left unchecked, ends up creating a self fulfilling prophecy where he can end up hurting his relationship with you because he’s just so caught up in his head from overthinking. You will have to help pull him out of these spirals when it happens.
Tenna has been through a lot, but he really does love you deeply. Just be very patient with him, and talk to him when something seems off, and give him lots and lots of reassurance, and he’ll be yours forever. He’d certainly want to be yours forever, and I just know he’d try his hardest to be the best, most loving partner possible.
I wanted to make Tenna some more outfits that weren't "uhhh i unno its vaguely this" so I dinked around on pinterest looking up thrifted outfits until I found some, then reasoned what Mettaton would dress him in within his scope of NEEDING to look obnoxious and cheesy. So the outfits being decently styled mixed with just absolutely ridiculous balances out between the two of them I think <3
Anyways I dressed him up. I have other outfit ideas but I did not realize it was 5 am until I finished the third one LMAO
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
romaincrisis
