Black Dog Don't Believe in Sin

what little we see of his personal spaces i think also is really telling. his castle town room is small. it looks like the green room but its barely anywhere close to how big tv world was, or how big the studio was. We don't even really see any of tenna's personal spaces in tv world, at least in terms of a hypothetical office or bedroom or changing room (if he even has one).

... the closest we come is that hallway full of TVs where you bypass the parental locks and then well... The cold place. Nothing in TV world seems to particularly be his size in terms of actual, liveable, communal space: its all sized for his crew and not for him. and the places that are are.... these wide, empty spaces. He fits well enough through the corridors and hallways, but we see him shrink himself in the green room. he doesn't fit there. and i do think tenna had a hand in building the studio but i don't actually think he thought of himself First when going into it. he considers himself an afterthought.

i think weve only really seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of how badly tenna is doing post chapter 3. theres smaller hints. hes putting up his facade as he always is. everything has crashed around him in probably the most traumatic way it could have and he doesn't know what to do with himself. and now hes somewhere deeply unfamiliar, that he Did not have a hand in creating, and he doesn't physically fit here. he Can't physically fit here. hes too big.

nobody is gonna be shocked when i bring this up bc i talk about it a lot + basically all of my tenna thoughts circle back to this bc i genuinely think it is like. an extremely important aspect of understanding him. But i think this is also like. a very big part of him being a disabled character. Tenna experiences size discrimination. when hes the most like himself, at his default big size, he is rarely accommodated for.

And even in terms of like, Perception of him (both in terms of like. in-universe what i think other darkners may think as well as some fan perception stuff) i think people end up thinking hes going to be violent or imposing or otherwise aggressive just because he's physically large. but hes... just not. hes silly and whimsical and sweet and a big pushover. despite his size, he's quite fragile.

@rockinmusicquarterly

.... but like i dunno. he's a character that we meet at his very lowest (SO FAR!!!) that just. keeps getting kicked and kicked and kicked while he's down (and he's already BEEN down for a long time) without any chance to fully get back up on his feet. we're literally watching this man drown in real time begging and pleading (quite literally dropping to his hands and knees) for help and everyone LEAVES him for it. Not because they hate him, not necessarily because he's Mean to them specifically, but because they think he's lost his marbles and looks like he's gone full saturday morning cartoon villain on them trying to catch the lightners without knowing any of the context about the deal he made with kris and the knight that he Cannot tell them about (discussion for another day but it's also a very consistent trait of his to specifically be taken advantage of Himself because he's desperate and lonely and kept in the dark)...

and when he's finally offered some kind of understanding, finally given hope for the first time in... who knows how long, he's cut down while he's finally standing in what is probably Currently the goriest death in the game. and you can only save him if you remember to get all the required recruits and don't forget about him while on your escapades in the lightworld.

and again. it is not as though tenna hasn't made mistakes, hasn't made bad choices, hasn't done wrong. his contracts suck, he's pushy and arrogant and stuck in his own head. but i don't think he's at a point where he even Can look introspectively at himself and his issues yet, not without breaking down further. he's so deep within his spiral at this point, even within castletown, that i don't think he will be Able to pull himself out without receiving help First.