at last, the long awaited (by like. two people LMAOOO) chapter 3 of the dbh cherik au fic is finally out !!!!! HEHEHEHE
oh my god, did i struggle with this one 😭 not only is this chapter absolutely packed with new information, but it kept getting longer..... and longer...... and longer....... until it ended up at 13k words ALSKDJFHD
not to mention my laptop breaking in the middle of it, or my pretty intense deltarune hyperfixation that hasnt entirely gone away........ yeah no it feels like this chapter has cursed me, im glad that its done 😭😭
hope yall enjoy !! were starting to delve a bit more into the investigation, as well as some of the angst thats gonna keep getting worse
Have been thinking a lot about Noelle-Player and Spamton-Benefactor parallels recently
Other versions of the art and analysis of the parallels under the cut
The benefactor and the player both manipulate Spamton and Noelle with the promise of helping them become free/become stronger. However, they only provide them with a very surface-level type of freedom and strength. Additionally, the benefactor and player both keep a queer couple apart, the benefactor by cutting off Spamton’s communication with Tenna, and the player preventing Noelle and Susie from forming any close relationship in the first place.
Not only that, but both the dynamics between Spamton and the benefactor and Noelle and Kris in the weird route mirror an abusive heteronormative relationship, and also involve a trans character being forced into a traditional gender role they do not want. With Noelle and Kris this is pretty obvious, with Kris, an androgynous non-binary person, being forced into a traditionally masculine role by controlling Noelle, while she does everything they say, like how traditionally women are expected to “submit” to their husbands.
With Spamton and the benefactor it may not seem as obvious at first, but Spamton is a trans man being forced by the benefactor into a more traditionally feminine role. (For anyone still not convinced that Spamton is trans, I highly recommend watching this video). Think about how women are traditionally expected to be financially dependent on their husbands. We know that Spamton was fully financially dependent on his benefactor, since the moment they abandoned him his sales dropped, and he was eventually evicted and became homeless.
This contrasts to his relationship with Tenna, where Tenna says that he gave Spamton life advice, and was probably teaching him skills that would help him become more independent. Similarly, in the normal route, Susie helps Noelle become stronger in the real way, learning to stand up for herself, unlike in the weird route where, while her magic is becoming stronger, she is still under the control of the player.
Furthermore, in the weird route, Spamton repeats the mistake of relying on a higher power to gain his freedom. He enables the player to abuse Noelle, similarly to how he was abused, hoping to escape his circumstances. It’s a cycle of abuse.
All of this links to how the weird route forces characters into limited roles that they do not want, while the normal route is about defying the roles pushed on you and challenging the idea that “you can’t choose who you are in this world.”
Finally, these parallels can lead to some theories on how the weird route may progress in future chapters. One idea I thought of is what if the player convinces Noelle that Susie doesn’t care about her at all, similarly to how the benefactor made Spamton believe that Tenna abandoned him, to separate them further?
back in 2024 i started making a gotham season 3 fangame exploring some of the choices oswald makes starting in ep6 and how different things could've ended up by the end if he had done things differently. what would have happened if oswald followed through with confessing to ed in the beginning instead of inviting him to dinner? What if he never killed isabelle? This visual novel would've explored certain scenarios across 4 endings and 5 routes, one of them being the shows canon story.
however, i dont believe I will ever finish this, as it has been on indefinite hiatus for well over a year with no sign of coming back as I have many other projects taking up my time and inspiration. but the first chapter is fully done, and has just been collecting dust on my laptop because some of the art is incomplete, so i figured i would reformat it and take out the choices so that it could be read easily and post it on ao3 in hopes that someone would enjoy this
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
if you would like to play it yourself though, you can download it here (pc only)
just be warned that there is a LOT of placeholder art, i tried to include as much of the complete art in this without being too much of a nuisance, since some of them are required to get the full context of the story
I don’t think being villainous or having an undercurrent of a wounded, toxically masculine ego behind his desperation precludes spamton from being trans. like. There are plenty of trans men who project their own warped views of masculinity onto others who have a healthier outlook on what it means to be a man (or even just on gender in general). Also, simply from a storytelling and writing point of view, if characters are presumed to be cis by default, why would a writer go out of their way to include multiple parallels and connections to at least two other characters who are trans coded just to say “this salesman character who constantly shits out eggs is definitely cis”?
