Shimmering Stardust

#587 Rage Quitter

Talk about a sore loser

don’t like mustard

also mayonnaise. ew

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt

The crowd roared in confused enthusiasm as Tenna gave a gracious flurry of low-FPS bows, pausing only for the occasional stink-nose at his audience plants who weren’t throwing enough 3D roses.

Eventually, the room fell silent. It was Senshi’s turn to speak.

He puffed out his chest, took a long, sweeping look over the audience… and shook his head.

“I can see not all of you are eating properly.”

The crowd murmured with embarrassment.

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to take the turkey out of your icebox. I have seen the ingenious technology with which your people store food... and I have also seen the waste which results from such convenience.

“The food you take had a life. Beasts grew fat on the grass of the field, plants grew from the sun’s rays, and mushrooms grew from minerals in the cracks of caves. And yet, it sits in your iceboxes, collecting moisture until it perishes.

“Eat what is given to you. Because its life will make you stronger, too.”

Without another word, Senshi left his podium and stepped away from the stage. The crowd murmured in confusion. “Is he really like that?” somebody said. “I only remember reblogging the photosets of him tripping and showing ass.”

--

Back in the Green Room, Tenna wrung his antennas nervously.

“Y-y-you think they liked me!? They HAD to!! I mean, I don’t know what Asgore was thinking, getting that weird haircut and running that food waste campaign, but… YOU thought I did good, didn’t you, Kris?”

Laios nodded aggressively, a streak of blue face paint peeling from his forehead.

“You did AMAZING, Tenna! By the way, now that we’ve seen all your insider campaign secrets, do you have any more videos of Susie? Especially her tail... If I could get a look at that, I could finally tell if she’s a dinosaur or --”

THWACK. Fake antlers butted Laios’s head.

“LAIOS?? Weren’t we dressed up to help SENSHI???” Marcille hissed, gesturing awkwardly with her hooves.

Suddenly, Tenna turned to the two adventurers.

“Hey, WAIT a second. SOMETHING’s not right here...”

Laios and Marcille held their breath.

“Where the heck are my POINTS!?”

Just then, the door opened. Chilchuck took one step into the room, whistling and holding a large bag.

Everyone turned to him.

Chilchuck paused, took a step backwards, and closed the door.

“CHILCHUCK!!!” yelled Tenna.

“How come Chilchuck got to stay Chilchuck!?” yelled Marcille at the same time.

--

i really hate to break this to you, but no matter how palatable you try and make a fandom, ‘normal’ people will still think it’s weird. there is basically nothing you can do to make a fandom be perceived as ‘normal’ by people who are not in fandoms, especially if the fandom you’re trying to sanitise is an anime fandom.

fandom is not meant to be perceived as ‘normal’. fandom was built for the freaks, by the freaks /affectionate , and the only reason that people care about being perceived as ‘normal’ now is because of the influx of people entering fandom spaces during lockdown and shaming others for ‘weird’ content that’s been around since the dawn of fandoms.

if anyone tries to blame you/the content you make for how a fandom is viewed, they’re just a fandom cop trying to shame you into catering to them. do not listen to them.

i’m being so serious when i say this — the ‘weird’, or ‘problematic’, or ‘freaky’ content that you make is not harming your fandom in any way. in fact, it’s improving your fandom and playing a part in keeping your fandom alive, whilst also slowly-but-surely fighting back against the rising tide of puritans trying to destroy fandom culture. do not listen to anything a fandom cop has to say, it’s all purely self-serving virtue-signalling designed to shame others.

this and also the only difference between fanfic writers and writers who sell their own original works as careers is that fanfics aren’t monetized. that’s all.

being a “professional” writer doesn’t mean your works are inherently better than fanfics. I’ve read so many fics that are more professionally written than some published books.

Me when I write for 2 hours: 500 words

I imagine I caused Tolkien much grief by turning up to hear him lecture week after week, while he was trying to wrap his lectures up after a fortnight and get on with The Lord of the Rings (you could do that in those days, if you lacked an audience, and still get paid). I sat there obdurately despite all his mumbling and talking with his face pressed up to the blackboard, forcing him to go on expounding every week how you could start with a simple quest-narrative and, by gradually twitching elements as it went along, arrive at the complex and entirely different story of Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale – a story that still contains the excitement of the quest-narrative that seeded it. What little I heard of all this was wholly fascinating.