The Mascot

“Are you kept up late at night all night long by irritating late-night commercials selling you products you don’t really need?”

“Shut it off.”

“Invest in the Commercial-Proof Lock, and you’ll never be infiltrated by ads ever again!”

A mace was brought down, destroying the screen, smashing it to bits.

“Whaddya know? It works!”

The Mascot had grown in popularity since his first violent appearance during the satirical airing of an advertisement. At first, there were howls of outrage from concerned parties about the amount of screen-on-screen violence shown on screen. But gradually, these calls for bans faded away as they became unencumbered to these acts of violence. After all, they only affected one singular victim who miraculously kept coming back to life, only to be mercilessly abused again. As long as it was the victim and not them, they could witness the ensuing punishment to their heart’s content.

So the Mascot kept growing in popularity despite all thoughts to the contrary. It was originally meant to be a one-time deal, and even the creators were surprised at the appeal. There was a danger of possible media oversaturation, that prolonged exposure to the Mascot would make the populace sick. But the people simply couldn’t get enough. They wanted the Mascot in any form possible. And the Mascot’s design was malleable enough to be contorted in any shape that closely resembled its original form.

There was a lucrative Empire built out of a Merchandising blitz, including (but not limited to) plush dolls, comic strips, movies, television shows, radio programs, stage plays, amusement parks, orbital satellites, trading cards. The Mascot was surrounded by a wide range of supporting cast members, which redoubled the amount of potential merch with every new addition, though none were as popular as the main Mascot itself. These products eventually expanded into adult items far beyond the age and price range of the target audience.

Because the Mascot was so easy to metamorph, it endlessly mutated into unrecognizable forms by rabid fans who took the character’s evolutionary design throughout the ages to appeal to a younger audience, and created numerous iterations that further warped the Mascot’s already warped features. There were multiple crackdown attempts, but the sheer volume of fanworks far outweighed the Merchandising Empire’s control.

In a surprise move, the creators relented, allowing these copies to exist, making it public for all. There were howls of protests from the Merchandising Empire, threatening to take direct action, but the creators insisted on making their proclamation official. They felt the Mascot was a symbol that should be shared, and shouldn’t be beholden to anyone. The creators were confident that these imitations wouldn’t last, since true customers would be able to tell the difference. And even the cheap knockoffs couldn’t match the intensity of the original.

That manifesto was all the imperative the Merchandising Empire needed to remove the creators from their ownership, since they were showing utter disregard for their own property, displaying a concerning mentality with flawed judgement. As soon as the creators were put in a mental institution for ‘the betterment of their health’, the Merchandising Empire wasted no time expanding their merchandise. Within a year, the creators no longer had access to their own creation, and it was solely in the hands of the Merchandising Empire, who stripped the Mascot of all its defining personality. The fewer characteristic traits it had, the easier it was to transplant the Mascot onto other works. Stories that involved one character could be easily substituted for the Mascot with no one (save folklorists) being the wiser. This blankening further spread the Mascot’s likeness worldwide.

The Merchandising Empire’s counterintuitive actions should’ve been the death knell to the Mascot, but against all preconceived odds, his popularity only continued to increase. This led some to speculate that there was some deep dark motivation behind the Mascot’s ensuing fame, other than that it’s simplistic design was majorly appealing. Still, rumours persisted, particularly when actors who portrayed the Mascot came into unfortunate ends late in their career, their past roles eclipsed by their brief association of the ubiquitous icon.

It didn’t seem to matter what disasters or scandals plagued the Merchandising Empire. Even when the Mascot’s reputation declined in intervening years, even as public saturation point stagnated, even when the land air and seas were saturated with leftover unsold merchandise, even when the quality of the products was no longer held to it’s once-high standards, and the mere mention of said negligible quality was equivalent to being a cheap joke, the Mascot’s popularity continued to thrive.

Then the ONEs came, and the outrage that erupted over the Mascot’s original appearance occurred again. Only, this time, it was over the blatant disrespect of appropriating from their culture without proper compensation. It turned out that in the numerous mutations undertaken, the Mascot unintentionally resembled the race of creatures known as Bians.