RE: THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND TWO: ETA CARINA]
04-05-2015, 09:09 AM
And then, in front of a live studio audience…
“Weeeelcome back, sports fans!”
The voiceover slammed them back to RealityTV, the audience’s roar crashing about itself into something far divorced from its organic origins. The cages were gone, the contestants captured instead in the spotlight beams from on high.
“It looks like our little gladiators have been through hell - schedule hell, that is!”
“That’s right, <unpronounceable wailing>! You wouldn’t book it from the look of them that they’ve been kicking back in sunny Eta Carina -
“Say, Jeff, does the glow of a nebula still count as ‘sunny’?”
“An excellent question, <heat death of a universe made aural>! It’s all stardust to me no matter how sloppily you package it!”
“Folks at home, if you want to experience this self-proclaimed ‘8th wonder of the Multiverse’ with your own photon-receptive organs, the fine folks at Supernova Tours have a package deal available. Just call the number currently tickling the back of your subconscious mind, and quote the promotional code ‘LTS’. Back to you, Jeff.”
“Thanks, <flesh shattering in defiance of all its material properties>! As you might be aware, Last Thing Standing’s been plagued from the start with all manner of mismanagement, and lucky for everyone that kind of meta-bickering is what passes for great TV in this corner of existence!”
“It almost makes you lose sight of the real heroes of this show, our plucky contestants waiting patiently down at Camera 3. What are they waiting for, you ask?”
“Is it facing their impending death for the singular purpose of others’ entertainment?”
“Spoken like an entity with no personal concept of mortality, Jeff!”
“Haha! But what’s this?”
The contestants felt the perspective shift with that final word, the gaze of a multiverse’s worth of viewers tuned in and turned upon them.
“It appears we have a special guest joining our roster tonight!” Jeff’s voice dropped several dozen octaves, you know, for dramatic effect. “A cerulean stunner striking out onto the multiversal stage tonight, she’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll shove a pistol through your face, she’s…. BEUNISSIMA! COEL Y OS! TIEMUASIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYY!!!
The darkness parted, and upon stage upon screen strode the populuxe princess. She was beaming but for the briefest second as the spotlights struck and the crowd exploded, and with that glint of fear she beamed all the harder. Most people would have only one chance at their debut.
Bennie knew for a fact she wasn’t most people.
---
The penthouse suite dining room, stand-in centrepiece of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s domain, was as much an integral piece of the agent as the suited woman - neither existed more than strictly required. It applied this conditionality to many facets of its personality, up to and including personality itself. The table itself was a solid slab of black marble Business, arrayed with laden dishes only so the champagne flutes wouldn’t look out of place. Everything sparkled.
To Bennie, the experience was of masterfully refined condescension, threatening as the very particular kind of laugh that she herself liked to think she could pull off. Our celebrity wasn’t quite disoriented - though she could recall the studio, the interviewer, as very recent; a direct contradiction of the nagging feeling that Bennie had spent the last <PROCEDURALLY APPROPRIATE TIMEFRAME> being very Professionally and Properly wined and dined.
Not quite sure how to proceed, Bennie reached for a glass of nothing specific. It was perfectly served and very very expensive, and its lack of other tangible descriptors didn’t improve her mood any.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority noted her discomfort, and laid down its knife and fork. Bennie couldn’t recall it having taken a single bite.
“An acquisition,” it began, “of the conceptual package (and associated sentient entities) Grandmastered by The Entity Formerly Designated As The Broadcaster, hereby summarised as Last Thing Standing, has been tendered and accepted following expression of interest. Your addition to the roster of Last Thing Standing was personally requested by the new owner, and it is on their behalf-” click-click, a smile flashed antiquated like a scratch between vacation snaps on a maltreated slide projector “-that we take great pleasure in presenting your employment contract.”
Bennie took an immediate dislike, but the mundane surreality of the situation had a rather firm hand upon her metaphorical shoulder, halting an interruption. The Broadcasting Standards Authority drew a stack of paper from nowhere, a trace too much insistence in its neutral tones that they’d already been over all this, a simple formality, it’s been a long day and let us sign posthaste.
Something tickled the back of the celebrity’s brain, before lashing out with a kick and a holler of HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE. She surveyed the room the best she could without turning her head; if there was a door Bennie had come in through it lay somewhere behind her.
“Who the fuck do you think you are.”
The woman didn’t bother looking supercilious, its power overwhelming an obvious a remark on things as the day of the week. Bennie was unimpressed
“I am the Broadcasting Standards Authority,” began the Broadcasting Standards Authority, “acting executor of Last Thing Standing. It would-”
“That’s a gameshow?”
“Yes, and broadcast across the Multiversal cluster in (and my employer has requested I here quote my employer) ‘an unprecedented range of demographics-spanning profile spectra’-”
The parentheses felt less like a knife to the temple, and more like its unnecessary subsequent twist. “Multiversal-? Shut up. Press-ganging me into some contest I’ve never heard of? Like that’s ‘unprecedented’,” scoffed the celebrity. “I’m Princess. Beunissima. Fucking. Tiemuasyi.”
Brostauth seemed unmoved. “I have an agent for this kind of thing.”
A less authoritative sort of Grandmasterling might have actually bothered to have done exactly what had been requested of it - patiently introducing Beunissima to the Multiverse, to battles, to the exciting career opportunity she had ahead of her. A more standard kind of Multiversal entity might’ve shown some frustration at this contrived role it had been shoved into, squashing just enough of the infinity of its existence through a mold into a facade capable of charisma, rhetoric, or empathy.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority instead brought her less-than-enthusiastic employee-to-be up to speed with a flash of pure reality. Bennie took the information dump(truck (collision)) to her cortex surprisingly well, though her brain itched a little as it filtered from there through to her hippocampus and other regions.
The Multiverse, the inverse incomprehensible smallness of everything as Bennie had known it not ten seconds ago, bloomed before her, lending a fresh perspective that at least made the whole situation sensible, if not quite palatable. The princess massaged a temple, trying to get a sense again of where she stood in all this.
“So this is all just a formality, then.” She smirked. “Theatrics.”
“My employer deemed a better use of your services to Last Thing Standing were you a willing and informed participant. To the former, they have requested your creative inputs-” no disapproval there, what were you talking about “-for the betterment of Last Thing Standing.”
Bennie digested that (the lawyertalk was somehow tougher to parse than raw fact), exhaled sharply, and sat down again with the contract. For a minute or so, the only sound in the room was swiftly-turned pages of fine print, though Brostauth could hear the tiny shutter-flick-click of Bennie’s ocular implants scanning.
“Seems pretty straightforward,” Bennie eventually lied. “Other than the Meducin and the Hotel California, which I would’ve expected more on the likes of BIOSFEAR or some godawful collaboration of the Travel and Discovery channels, there’s nothing I can’t handle. Not that I couldn’t, granted, but this thing’s enough of a scruffy pastiche as it is.”
“Your filming schedule (Appendix XVI) notes a five minute in-studio segment to make any changes.”
“Workable,” sniffed the princess. She peeled a separate appendix (labelled “Rounds”) from the stack, blitzing through the pages. “No, no, potentially, over my dead body, save it for the mid-season ratings drop, no, if you’re desperate, absolutely not...”
The Broadcasting Standards Authority didn’t flinch as Bennie ripped out a scant tenth of the sheaf and tossed it back to its end of the table. “Those are my recommendations for the-” Bennie glanced down at the top sheet of the dossier “-rounds. Make the next one something cozier, though - I can’t tell if you’re trying to run a travel infomercial or an attempted-avant-garde kids’ cartoon.” She glanced up again, the disarrayed sheets neatly arranged and paperclipped in front of Brostauth (unmoved). Bennie’s unflappability cracked momentarily, she slid the main brick of contract within writing’s reach and rearranged herself in the chair.
“Bear in mind,” beamed Bennie, screaming internally, signing with a flourish and stabbing the pen through the contract, into the table, “I’ll come and kill you and your boss just as soon as I figure out how. Don’t think the crowd wouldn’t be all over that.”
Bennie meant it as an idle, bitter threat; the petulant parting shot of the resoundingly crushed. Brostauth, employer’s best interests in mind, foresaw her own destruction at the princess’ hands, and grinned a smile both genuine and alarming. “We eagerly await your patronage.”
“In the interim, however, Ms. Tiemuasiy, you’re needed on set.”
---
Bennie cut a striking figure, all Lichtensteinian flats and geometric silhouettes against the indistinct blackdrop of offstage and the audience. She took the scene in with a subtle tilt of the head, made sure she had every other contestant’s attention.
“Greetings, Multiverse!” she sang, voice booming unassisted over the cacophony. She raised a regal hand - the other contestants would’ve jerked on the spot if they could’ve, fruitlessly tested their restraints - as she strode forward into centre stage.
“This queen of the small screen’s no novice to the televised elimination tournament circuit - she’s dismantled ensemble casts bigger than what’s lined up for her today!”
“I must say!” Bennie glowed. “It is an absolute pleasure to be here, and I eagerly look forward to all of you meeting me. Although…” her eyes narrowed, she twirled about, gestured with theatrical abandon to the still-frozen six-and-an-inn.
“I seem to have brought the game back to eight contestants!” Leon flinched at the last word, though the confusingly attractive alien drew no especial attention to him. “In a deathmatch? That can’t be right!” She laughed, one hand on her hip and the other twirling out of nowhere what must’ve been a microphone. Her speech was still voice-over crisp.
“No drama! No tension! No tenterhooks in heartstrings! I’ve seen infomercials with higher stakes than this.”
Something about Bennie - no, everything about Bennie, right then - provoked indignation. The formless crowd bristled at the cock of her head, the prim-pernickety disapproval, the smirk, the gall. The <bleep> did this backspace popart hack know about anything?
The other contestants felt the hatred, let it curl cold and cozy in their stomachs. Who the <hell> would revel in joining bloodsport like this?
Leon, seething with the best of them, got the best (most foreshortened) view of the microphone as it unfolded into a wicked little pistol. His eyes widened. “Wait-”
ZZVWAP-
“Shooting Stardust! Looks like this princess isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty! We’re going to need a cleanup on Round 2, <intrastellar deathcore remix>!”
“If this were any other programme Jeff, I’d probably raise contention at a non-Earthlet being the one who gets executed in front of the live studio audience, but that’d be a blue pot calling out a blue kettle. Poor guy never got much screen time, no chance to gain an edge wordways with the crowd.”
“Not that you’ve got much experience with that!”
“Haha, yeah. Did you know the vocal chords of my physical manifestation extend to nearly half a light year long?”
“That’s an <layered ululations> fact for you kids out there! Please remember that parental guidance is recommended for Last Thing Standing.”
“Anyway, if we see how our contestants are doing, wow, that sure is a lot of blood. You guys call that blood, yeah?”
“Close enough! It looks like the initial plasma round wasn’t enough to finish him, so our intrepid assassin is bringing those pretty little blades of hers into the fray. She’s going to want to mind all that blood, though, the set’s adamantium surfaces quite neatly disguise the highly corrosive-”
“-I’m going to have to stop you there, Jeff, because Ms. Tiemuasyi appears to have done. Her. Homework! That, or she’s making one heck of a fashion statement with those inch-thick gloves. If that jellyfish doesn’t have a trick up its sleeve, it’s jam on toast for him!”
“And that’s done it! The crowd goes wild as-”
The crowd went wild as Bennie threw down a sizzling glove, freeing a hand to pointlessly tuck her hair back. The circle Nizzo had been trapped in flashed like a camera, vanishing away the acid and corpse and leaving a single, still-smoking hilt of an energy sword.
Bennie let the noise wash over her for a breath, before striding into the circle and doing a neat 180 so she faced back into the ring of contestants. Her sword leapt back into her waiting hand, an unexpected but welcome feature. This was acceptable.
The demurest of curtsies. An exaggerated wink. “Back to you, Jeff,” said Bennie.
“Well, how about that! After the break, we’ll see what the contestants have in store for them in Round Two of…….. Last! Thing! Standing!”
“Weeeelcome back, sports fans!”
The voiceover slammed them back to RealityTV, the audience’s roar crashing about itself into something far divorced from its organic origins. The cages were gone, the contestants captured instead in the spotlight beams from on high.
“It looks like our little gladiators have been through hell - schedule hell, that is!”
“That’s right, <unpronounceable wailing>! You wouldn’t book it from the look of them that they’ve been kicking back in sunny Eta Carina -
“Say, Jeff, does the glow of a nebula still count as ‘sunny’?”
“An excellent question, <heat death of a universe made aural>! It’s all stardust to me no matter how sloppily you package it!”
“Folks at home, if you want to experience this self-proclaimed ‘8th wonder of the Multiverse’ with your own photon-receptive organs, the fine folks at Supernova Tours have a package deal available. Just call the number currently tickling the back of your subconscious mind, and quote the promotional code ‘LTS’. Back to you, Jeff.”
“Thanks, <flesh shattering in defiance of all its material properties>! As you might be aware, Last Thing Standing’s been plagued from the start with all manner of mismanagement, and lucky for everyone that kind of meta-bickering is what passes for great TV in this corner of existence!”
“It almost makes you lose sight of the real heroes of this show, our plucky contestants waiting patiently down at Camera 3. What are they waiting for, you ask?”
“Is it facing their impending death for the singular purpose of others’ entertainment?”
“Spoken like an entity with no personal concept of mortality, Jeff!”
“Haha! But what’s this?”
The contestants felt the perspective shift with that final word, the gaze of a multiverse’s worth of viewers tuned in and turned upon them.
“It appears we have a special guest joining our roster tonight!” Jeff’s voice dropped several dozen octaves, you know, for dramatic effect. “A cerulean stunner striking out onto the multiversal stage tonight, she’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll shove a pistol through your face, she’s…. BEUNISSIMA! COEL Y OS! TIEMUASIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYY!!!
The darkness parted, and upon stage upon screen strode the populuxe princess. She was beaming but for the briefest second as the spotlights struck and the crowd exploded, and with that glint of fear she beamed all the harder. Most people would have only one chance at their debut.
Bennie knew for a fact she wasn’t most people.
---
The penthouse suite dining room, stand-in centrepiece of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s domain, was as much an integral piece of the agent as the suited woman - neither existed more than strictly required. It applied this conditionality to many facets of its personality, up to and including personality itself. The table itself was a solid slab of black marble Business, arrayed with laden dishes only so the champagne flutes wouldn’t look out of place. Everything sparkled.
To Bennie, the experience was of masterfully refined condescension, threatening as the very particular kind of laugh that she herself liked to think she could pull off. Our celebrity wasn’t quite disoriented - though she could recall the studio, the interviewer, as very recent; a direct contradiction of the nagging feeling that Bennie had spent the last <PROCEDURALLY APPROPRIATE TIMEFRAME> being very Professionally and Properly wined and dined.
Not quite sure how to proceed, Bennie reached for a glass of nothing specific. It was perfectly served and very very expensive, and its lack of other tangible descriptors didn’t improve her mood any.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority noted her discomfort, and laid down its knife and fork. Bennie couldn’t recall it having taken a single bite.
“An acquisition,” it began, “of the conceptual package (and associated sentient entities) Grandmastered by The Entity Formerly Designated As The Broadcaster, hereby summarised as Last Thing Standing, has been tendered and accepted following expression of interest. Your addition to the roster of Last Thing Standing was personally requested by the new owner, and it is on their behalf-” click-click, a smile flashed antiquated like a scratch between vacation snaps on a maltreated slide projector “-that we take great pleasure in presenting your employment contract.”
Bennie took an immediate dislike, but the mundane surreality of the situation had a rather firm hand upon her metaphorical shoulder, halting an interruption. The Broadcasting Standards Authority drew a stack of paper from nowhere, a trace too much insistence in its neutral tones that they’d already been over all this, a simple formality, it’s been a long day and let us sign posthaste.
Something tickled the back of the celebrity’s brain, before lashing out with a kick and a holler of HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE. She surveyed the room the best she could without turning her head; if there was a door Bennie had come in through it lay somewhere behind her.
“Who the fuck do you think you are.”
The woman didn’t bother looking supercilious, its power overwhelming an obvious a remark on things as the day of the week. Bennie was unimpressed
“I am the Broadcasting Standards Authority,” began the Broadcasting Standards Authority, “acting executor of Last Thing Standing. It would-”
“That’s a gameshow?”
“Yes, and broadcast across the Multiversal cluster in (and my employer has requested I here quote my employer) ‘an unprecedented range of demographics-spanning profile spectra’-”
The parentheses felt less like a knife to the temple, and more like its unnecessary subsequent twist. “Multiversal-? Shut up. Press-ganging me into some contest I’ve never heard of? Like that’s ‘unprecedented’,” scoffed the celebrity. “I’m Princess. Beunissima. Fucking. Tiemuasyi.”
Brostauth seemed unmoved. “I have an agent for this kind of thing.”
A less authoritative sort of Grandmasterling might have actually bothered to have done exactly what had been requested of it - patiently introducing Beunissima to the Multiverse, to battles, to the exciting career opportunity she had ahead of her. A more standard kind of Multiversal entity might’ve shown some frustration at this contrived role it had been shoved into, squashing just enough of the infinity of its existence through a mold into a facade capable of charisma, rhetoric, or empathy.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority instead brought her less-than-enthusiastic employee-to-be up to speed with a flash of pure reality. Bennie took the information dump(truck (collision)) to her cortex surprisingly well, though her brain itched a little as it filtered from there through to her hippocampus and other regions.
The Multiverse, the inverse incomprehensible smallness of everything as Bennie had known it not ten seconds ago, bloomed before her, lending a fresh perspective that at least made the whole situation sensible, if not quite palatable. The princess massaged a temple, trying to get a sense again of where she stood in all this.
“So this is all just a formality, then.” She smirked. “Theatrics.”
“My employer deemed a better use of your services to Last Thing Standing were you a willing and informed participant. To the former, they have requested your creative inputs-” no disapproval there, what were you talking about “-for the betterment of Last Thing Standing.”
Bennie digested that (the lawyertalk was somehow tougher to parse than raw fact), exhaled sharply, and sat down again with the contract. For a minute or so, the only sound in the room was swiftly-turned pages of fine print, though Brostauth could hear the tiny shutter-flick-click of Bennie’s ocular implants scanning.
“Seems pretty straightforward,” Bennie eventually lied. “Other than the Meducin and the Hotel California, which I would’ve expected more on the likes of BIOSFEAR or some godawful collaboration of the Travel and Discovery channels, there’s nothing I can’t handle. Not that I couldn’t, granted, but this thing’s enough of a scruffy pastiche as it is.”
“Your filming schedule (Appendix XVI) notes a five minute in-studio segment to make any changes.”
“Workable,” sniffed the princess. She peeled a separate appendix (labelled “Rounds”) from the stack, blitzing through the pages. “No, no, potentially, over my dead body, save it for the mid-season ratings drop, no, if you’re desperate, absolutely not...”
The Broadcasting Standards Authority didn’t flinch as Bennie ripped out a scant tenth of the sheaf and tossed it back to its end of the table. “Those are my recommendations for the-” Bennie glanced down at the top sheet of the dossier “-rounds. Make the next one something cozier, though - I can’t tell if you’re trying to run a travel infomercial or an attempted-avant-garde kids’ cartoon.” She glanced up again, the disarrayed sheets neatly arranged and paperclipped in front of Brostauth (unmoved). Bennie’s unflappability cracked momentarily, she slid the main brick of contract within writing’s reach and rearranged herself in the chair.
“Bear in mind,” beamed Bennie, screaming internally, signing with a flourish and stabbing the pen through the contract, into the table, “I’ll come and kill you and your boss just as soon as I figure out how. Don’t think the crowd wouldn’t be all over that.”
Bennie meant it as an idle, bitter threat; the petulant parting shot of the resoundingly crushed. Brostauth, employer’s best interests in mind, foresaw her own destruction at the princess’ hands, and grinned a smile both genuine and alarming. “We eagerly await your patronage.”
“In the interim, however, Ms. Tiemuasiy, you’re needed on set.”
---
Bennie cut a striking figure, all Lichtensteinian flats and geometric silhouettes against the indistinct blackdrop of offstage and the audience. She took the scene in with a subtle tilt of the head, made sure she had every other contestant’s attention.
“Greetings, Multiverse!” she sang, voice booming unassisted over the cacophony. She raised a regal hand - the other contestants would’ve jerked on the spot if they could’ve, fruitlessly tested their restraints - as she strode forward into centre stage.
“This queen of the small screen’s no novice to the televised elimination tournament circuit - she’s dismantled ensemble casts bigger than what’s lined up for her today!”
“I must say!” Bennie glowed. “It is an absolute pleasure to be here, and I eagerly look forward to all of you meeting me. Although…” her eyes narrowed, she twirled about, gestured with theatrical abandon to the still-frozen six-and-an-inn.
“I seem to have brought the game back to eight contestants!” Leon flinched at the last word, though the confusingly attractive alien drew no especial attention to him. “In a deathmatch? That can’t be right!” She laughed, one hand on her hip and the other twirling out of nowhere what must’ve been a microphone. Her speech was still voice-over crisp.
“No drama! No tension! No tenterhooks in heartstrings! I’ve seen infomercials with higher stakes than this.”
Something about Bennie - no, everything about Bennie, right then - provoked indignation. The formless crowd bristled at the cock of her head, the prim-pernickety disapproval, the smirk, the gall. The <bleep> did this backspace popart hack know about anything?
The other contestants felt the hatred, let it curl cold and cozy in their stomachs. Who the <hell> would revel in joining bloodsport like this?
Leon, seething with the best of them, got the best (most foreshortened) view of the microphone as it unfolded into a wicked little pistol. His eyes widened. “Wait-”
ZZVWAP-
“Shooting Stardust! Looks like this princess isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty! We’re going to need a cleanup on Round 2, <intrastellar deathcore remix>!”
“If this were any other programme Jeff, I’d probably raise contention at a non-Earthlet being the one who gets executed in front of the live studio audience, but that’d be a blue pot calling out a blue kettle. Poor guy never got much screen time, no chance to gain an edge wordways with the crowd.”
“Not that you’ve got much experience with that!”
“Haha, yeah. Did you know the vocal chords of my physical manifestation extend to nearly half a light year long?”
“That’s an <layered ululations> fact for you kids out there! Please remember that parental guidance is recommended for Last Thing Standing.”
“Anyway, if we see how our contestants are doing, wow, that sure is a lot of blood. You guys call that blood, yeah?”
“Close enough! It looks like the initial plasma round wasn’t enough to finish him, so our intrepid assassin is bringing those pretty little blades of hers into the fray. She’s going to want to mind all that blood, though, the set’s adamantium surfaces quite neatly disguise the highly corrosive-”
“-I’m going to have to stop you there, Jeff, because Ms. Tiemuasyi appears to have done. Her. Homework! That, or she’s making one heck of a fashion statement with those inch-thick gloves. If that jellyfish doesn’t have a trick up its sleeve, it’s jam on toast for him!”
“And that’s done it! The crowd goes wild as-”
The crowd went wild as Bennie threw down a sizzling glove, freeing a hand to pointlessly tuck her hair back. The circle Nizzo had been trapped in flashed like a camera, vanishing away the acid and corpse and leaving a single, still-smoking hilt of an energy sword.
Bennie let the noise wash over her for a breath, before striding into the circle and doing a neat 180 so she faced back into the ring of contestants. Her sword leapt back into her waiting hand, an unexpected but welcome feature. This was acceptable.
The demurest of curtsies. An exaggerated wink. “Back to you, Jeff,” said Bennie.
“Well, how about that! After the break, we’ll see what the contestants have in store for them in Round Two of…….. Last! Thing! Standing!”
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow