SpaceDoggers

This cutesy little guy is the Saharan Silver Ant. It looks metal plated, but works with bug theming, kind of. And it makes more sense than making him a super complex robot with a bunch of things that would be found in newer tech (though he's a Darkner and doesn't really need to make sense).

"Oh but Treble? What about wireplay? Whatever shall we do without our Tenna wireplay?" Yes. I hear you. I never said he had to be completely insectoid, for a few reasons. One, just making a big ant and slapping a TV on it either means the TV part is also flesh and not normal TV stuff and I Do Not Like that.

Second, it's boring, just a little bit.

But most importantly, bugs aren't supposed to be that big. Once again, you could chalk it up to Darkner weirdness, but actual bugs don't have the same functioning organs as we do. They breathe through spiracles that connect to a tube system in their body. Getting too big, they would just collapse and not be efficient. The only reason bugs were bigger in prehistoric times was because of a higher oxygen content in the air, which meant smaller tubes were acceptable. Seeing as none of the Lightners notice any air quality changes, which a whole lot would be needed to support Tenna, that's likely not the case.

More likely, he's full of artificial parts. He definitely needs artificial lungs and filtering systems, probably some help with his digestive and circulatory systems, and wires taking the signal from behind his screen and making it useful to the rest of his organic body. He might also need some supports, because even though exoskeletons are great on small creatures, scaled up on something that big but kept thin enough to provide proper dexterity won't work. He's still full of plastic and metal and wires, just no fancy schmancy cooling fans or chips or anything. Just the things needed for survival.

Oh, but I'm not done. Plating everywhere would be too rigid and stiff, and not all insects are fully plated. Plenty have skin under the plating, and he would too.

Take this inchworm. Put him in your pocket now. But see how soft he is? They're really heaven to touch, so velvety. But that softness adds flexibility and sensitivity, both things Tenna needs. His skin is thicker than that, closer to soft silicone or human skin, definitely more resilient, but replies on the same principle. I think on his palms, torso, parts of his thighs (for fanservice ofc ofc), his claw pads, his joints (though those are reinforced with metal and plastic underneath), and his throat, there would be a lack of chitinous scales. They're not scales like a lizard, more like armor to reinforce his most vulnerable parts. Another insect to demonstrate this. Go my scarab.

Oh there are two scarabs. Very well then. These are purple jewel beetles, and see how they match his coloration? First, you can see the segmented body I was talking about, but that purple color is iridescence caused by microstructures in the chitin reflecting certain wavelengths of light. Or something. Don't quote me on that. The how isn't important, it's the what and the why (because it's pretty and eye-catching).

This could also point to his joints being less motor-powered and more by hydraulics and muscles and crap. Bugs tend to move by sloshing fluid around, especially spiders which actually make decent claw machines, see here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-use-dead-spiders-to-grip-objects-180980498/ . That's why they fold up when they die, the pressure drop makes it hard to keep their legs straight. If something happened to make him lose fluid, (which is usually yellow hemolymph in bugs but I'd be open to making it black or static too), he wouldn't move as well and would probably curl up, though he could move a bit since he doesn't just rely on hydraulics and has tendons and muscles too.

His chitin looks very mechanical, having vents along the sides which are his spiracles, connecting to his artificial lungs, those are also what the vents on his head are. He also has a few access ports for his mechanical workings in the chitin. He does have a cord tail which originally could be rolled and stored up in a chitinous abdomen with a soft underside, this abdomen was removed by his manufacturer along with his mandibles and arms 3 and 4 to make him more "approachable and humanlike" because the sharp edges were too scary.

He also didn't always have those yellow shoes. He was probably digitigrade at one point, and the length of his absurd banana feet supports that argument a bit. Maybe he had even longer legs but started walking on the "foot" part of the leg to control his height, have more stability, and look more like the Lightners. If he took the shoes off instead of having horrible human feet he would have two claws on the feet. I'll show you this katydid foreleg as an example.

The underside is a bit more padded and it does fit comfortably in the shoe, but you can see how the flat walking surface isn't as big as Tenna's fucking shoes.

A thing about his face, it's all projected. If he projects a structure like a mouth or nose, it's solid and he can feel it. If he projected eyes and you poked them, it would hurt like real eyes. This is why he does not have eyes. He can see from behind his screen, the whole of which is basically a protected "compound eye" (it doesn't have the lenses but shh shh) and the field of vision usually starts from the upper screen portion. His antennae are also really good sensors, he replies more on touch, smell, and hearing than sight. He has color vision but the definition is blurry and he can't always tell what he's seeing. I had a whole headcanon lore about him being raised by newspaper-based Addisons and him projecting the nose to be like them, but different things, different place.

He probably was a larva though if he was a baby. I know he wasn't a baby when he showed up, he just kinda spawned in, but I'd like to think he got some sort of childhood, even though the lack of one is why he's like this, maybe. He was just a grub so small.

This could also be why having his arms removed didn't let them be automatically fixed in many stories, because you can fuse metal and plastic. It takes a while and few molt cycles for him to properly regenerate a bug, the inner metal can be fused but the chitin needs to actually heal.

Anyway I think that's all for now? Idk man it's been 20 minutes that's what I have.