Metaposts that will [HYPERLINK] your [BLOCKED] clean off

UTDR analysis of all kinds. Inspired by my friend @spamtonology, icon commissioned by my other friend from @puppypuppypuppypuppy

[evilspamtonology]

This is Evil Spamtonology

ASKS, ANONS AND SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN!

Hello! I'm mafa @rubsjuice, she/her, and I enjoy media analysis of all kinds, even more so of Deltarune. I've been relentlessly roleplaying Spamton for four years, and I've thought a lot about this little guy, things that after a long time of restricting them to my friends' discord server, I feel the need to share with the wider community. Check read more for more info.

The owner of @spamtonology is my friend and gave me their blessing to name my blog this way because they're nicey and polite and I'm fucked up and evil.

This blog will (attempt to) focus on Spamton, but it will also branch to other UTDR characters, concepts, and worldbuilding, because a good character is nothing without his world and baby, Spamton is living in it.

TAGS:

not my own - reblogged from others

yes my own - additions/discussions from reblogged posts

[character name] and [game] - organizational, so you can check all posts referring exclusively to "spamton" or "kris" or only the posts that are about "deltarune", for example

info - organizational information about the blog

not a metapost - personal posts or shitposts

When applicable, I will also add extra tags for discoverability:

utdr

undertale analysis

deltarune analysis

[character] analysis

DISCLAIMERS:

These are all my own analysis of the written text of UTDR, as well as making cross references with other media and concepts I've come across in life. I in no way am claiming that what I'm saying is the truth, nor that it is the only acceptable interpretation of the UTDR narrative. To do so would be intellectually disonest and honestly I hate that.

My posts are intended for an adult audience. While I won't be posting explicit content, nor am I interested in doing so, I might talk about things that are upsetting or uncomfortable. I cannot and will not forbid teens from reading my blog, and I will do my best to write my posts in a way that's accessible for everyone, but I will not go to lengths to make anything I say kid-friendly. If you're in middle school and onwards, you are well-equipped to follow an intellectual discussion that is not sugarcoated or advertiser friendly, and I will not pretend you aren't.

You are allowed to fuck or not fuck Spamton in any way you'd like, I don't care and that's not the objective of this blog. You don't need to ask me anything of the sort. Play clown games, win clown prizes.

[lynaferns]

I don't have the brain to explain this more neatly, but I think there's something to talk about with objects that the owner holds a grudge to and Tenna.

Like, people can keep an object for different reasons, is important or useful, or it has sentimental value. But for the same reason they can throw it away, because it's unimportant, not useful anymore, or it holds a bad memory for the owner.

(THIS POST IS TOO LONG *tiny pumpkin starts dancing while carrying a page cut*)

Tenna is fun but he also keeps reminding Kris for the whole chapter about the old times they can't get back to, the time spent in family and with friends watching TV or playing games.

He's an object that holds both sentimental value for all these moments created, but he also holds grudges from when the family was falling apart.

I had the idea that the whole Dreemur family feels this way about the family TV. But it mostly affects Kris, I think.

Toriel was the one who mentioned wanting to get rid of it, because it's old and not used anymore, she was the last one to watch it even, before unplugging it for years. But it could be also because seeing the TV in the living room reminds her of those good old times, and... the stuff that happened during the separation. It makes sense she's wanting to move on from it and getting rid of the TV is a logical step to her (besides the is not used anymore part).

There's also Asgore, who spent nights sleeping on the sofa and watching TV, which is something we know he keeps doing in his current house because his situation is bad.

We don't know Asriel's opinion or feelings about the current state of things.

And then there's Kris. Whose feelings are more complicated to explain (for me, help). Kris misses the old times, they want to go back to being happy. There's this pressure they feel about growing up and time passing too fast. But they don't want to think about the bad stuff that happened. They want to play with friends and have fun adventures.

Tenna is both the good stuff and the bad stuff. He was what gathered the family together, but he's also what Kris used as a distraction from their parents fighting, until the method didn't work anymore, so now, even though Kris doesn't really hate Tenna, they do feel a resentment from reminding them of the bad times. Even though Tenna doesn't do it on purpose, he just holds too many memories of the whole family and all the years that have passed.

And even if it's (obviously) not Tenna's fault that the family got apart, it can feel like it is, since they don't desire to watch him anymore because he's a reminder of that time in their lives.

In the end, with an object like this, the best thing you can do really is get rid of it. It does better mentally to the owner.

But in Kris' case, when Tenna is finally out of the house and there's an empty space where he once was, it feels like something is missing.

Like, the way I see it, it doesn't matter where Tenna ends up or what happens to him. It won't make Kris feel good.

I ended up derailing, but I think you can get my point. Maybe someone who's better at writing their thoughts down could make a better analysis, but alas, I'm not that someone, so you get my word soup.

This is written half from what I know from the game and some Headcanons. I still need to replay it, especially the 4th chapter, there's an egg that I missed and I believe this one has more information about Kris.

[tvlandofficiall]

like, it may just be me, but this feels really pointed. i really don't think this points to the man being the therapist so much as it points to him being involved in whatever incident kris is in therapy because of.

[pinkbutterflygaming]

The Relationship between Susie and the Player... (Deltarune Analysis)

I had a sudden realisation when Susie talks about her experience with piano. This scene is an obvious nod to Susie's experience with learning healing, but... I think there's another, far deeper meaning to this scene.

What Susie experienced with the piano... is actually EXACTLY what happens in that earlier Piano scene when you attempt to solve the puzzle yourself.

If you were to ever to do ANY attempt on the song to unlock the door... Kris makes sure to mess up your notes before you even have a chance to finish. They forbid you from playing. The same exact way Susie was forbidden to play.

And so they had someone else play. Someone better. Kris.

Susie describes her past experience with piano as an attempt to further connect with Kris. But ironically, Kris was the one who was better. The one who basically took over the inexperienced one after they were told they weren't allowed to play.

Kris never let's us get near the piano, and makes sure to always fumble up the notes, "A Concert For You."

Susie's experience isn't a parallel to Kris at all. It's a parallel to the Player.

And we further connect this to the Healing arc with Ralsei. Where Ralsei teaches Susie to heal, but never actually let's her do healing when it's actually needed.

In Ch 4, Kris allows us to play piano, but further prevents us from trying when it's truly needed or when it's something complex.

But this also shows us that not all things are so simple. Kris is someone that truly loves piano, so it makes sense that they don't want someone else in their body to command them to play, for Kris, playing piano is their freedom, and its not something that they want someone else to take.

...Yet at the same time, there's nothing wrong with you wanting to play, even if it sucks. Because maybe, just maybe, it might become someone else's freedom too.

Neither are in the wrong in this matter. Between Susie and the better piano player that took her place, and between the Player and Kris... no one is necessarily wrong here. Things here are a lot more complicated than that.

This isn't the first time where Susie's character is aligning closer to the Player than Kris and Ralsei, with her becoming the one to speak for us for certain things when we're unable to, such as her vocalising the frustration of having people keep secrets not long after Ralsei and Kris kept hiding secrets from the Player.

Also the fact that the Ch 4 extended scene where you struggle against Kris in Dess' closet has Susie accept BOTH Kris and the Player equally rather than preferring one side over the other. She just doesn't realise it's two seperate ppl at once.

Not to mention how the Player and Susie are actively synergizing with each other in the best way possible.

Susie is the only one whose abilities you can directly enhance midbattle. Rude Buster's dmg gets raised by z spam (ch 1 + 2) or z timing (ch 3 + 4). And her healing gets enhanced the more you allow her to heal.

And it just so happens that Gerson' fight is also essentially TRAINING THE PLAYER to use these mechanics. It teaches you the z mechanic to parry. It forces you to let Susie heal to enhance it. It wasn't just training for Susie. It was also training for YOU to learn how to work with Susie as a duo.

Its really funny cause Susie's heal isn't a "Prayer" like other healing spells. And yet, Susie's heal requires a higher being's interference to raise its effectiveness.

If you think abt it, both the Player and Susie are similar in the sense that we're both outsiders to the grand scheme of the narrative, and are both trying to figure out what the heck is even going on in this town. You fought Kris in Ch 4 to help Susie while Kris is working with the Knight.

Even though everything abt Susie should make her clash with us (her ability to override choices, ignore our commands), she's the one who is the most aligned to us in terms of how we feel and experience the events of the story, and she is the one whose dynamic with the Player, has been nothing but purely beneficial to each other.

Not many people fully analyse the relationships between the Player and other characters outside of Kris (and sometimes Noelle for Weird), and I think Susie's dynamic with the Player is one that should really be looked into.

[evilspamtonology]

Tenna Master Thesis

This is just a few observations I've accummulated over the past few months but also written as semi-informal roleplay/fanfic characterization notes, without accounting for character voice; this is not an exhaustive analysis either

I'd divide Tenna's character in like three spheres

Your older relative

Raised by TV

Gay Walt Disney

Your older relative

Tenna is "your older relative" in the sense that his relationship to the Dreemurrs is like one of the First things you have to figure out about him, and it's a very important one. He behaves distinctly as Dreemurr's close relative, because from his perspective he Is part of the family, he watched it grow up and watched it split apart. You can't decouple this from who he is, his relationship to Kris in particular. I like to see him as "grandpa", because I think that him being Old is important to showcase, but a lot of people see him as an uncle figure to Kris; whether this relationship is reciprocated by Kris is up to you. In my understanding it is but just like your grandpa can be a source of comfort he can also be a source of hurt. Especially when you grow up, and when things change, and he doesn't realize it or doesn't know why. I treat his relationship with the Dreemurrs as parasocial, but a lot of other people treat it as romantic (as in, Tenna sees himself as part of Asgore and Toriel's relationship and is Kris' co-parent), or as a creation/creator relationship, or something akin to religious, it's dealer's choice imo

And also related to that, the way their divorce affected Tenna is also important. He has PTSD flashbacks to it in the middle of the game, canonically. If an explosive divorce such as the one it's implied the Dreemurrs had is traumatizing to a child who can hide in a corner of the house and try to muffle the noise, imagine how traumatizing it is to a guy who can't move and has to listen to it. And this can affect him in many ways to your taste! He might get triggered by arguing or yelling, he might be conflict avoidant (though it doesnt seem to be an issue in canon exactly), for me it affects the way he views his own divorce, and relationships in general.

So still in this sphere there's also the fact that Tenna is an old television, who is obsolete technology and has an obsolete purpose in an increasingly digital world, and his entire purpose is to be watched. And this is the source of his entire emotional conflict in Deltarune — he is Not coping with the fact that he is being left behind. He wants attention, but not just for attention's sake, but to be treasured and loved and told that he's still good, that he still matters; in a way, it resembles a lot the struggles elderly relatives face, when they talk about being isolated from their families, discarded, ignored or not useful anymore, and also conflicts that parents have with teenagers who are struggling with mental health, because their child suddenly changed and they don't know what they did wrong, and all they want is to see their baby smile again. This is his core motivation in chapter 3, why he made the deal with Kris and spent the whole chapter with a gun on his back trying to stall you, and even back in Big Shot times, when he attempted to sign that contract with Spamton. It has all always been to get validation that he is still worth something to his family.

Raised by TV

With this, I mean that his worldviews are typically traditional — usually what is considered classic, wholesome, family-friendly for television. My understanding of Tenna is that he is a guy whose entire understanding of the world comes from everything that is shown on television (good and bad!) and whichever dynamics he can observe from the Dreemurr family. His understanding of the world is very cognitively rigid (most obviously seen in him not knowing what an email is), and at times very old fashioned, and this works more in detriment of himself than of other people.

All this to say, I think he has some sort of obsession with appearences for himself and represses a lot of thoughts and feelings because they are not "TV appropriate". Maybe he refuses to swear, even after the parental locks are removed. Maybe he is sex repulsed, or refuses to talk about or do things that aren't fit for prime time, or for children's programming. I think this reflects the most on how he views himself, his thoughts and desires, as things that need to be corrected or deleted. I mean, he canonically does shock therapy, and as I put it in the tags of this post, he doesn't need it. He would probably consider getting a lobotomy to make his big feelings go away if it didn't mean he would implode and kill like the entire room with him. It's important that he doesn't uphold anyone else to these standards — he's the only one who's not allowed to be queer, who's not allowed to be upset, who has to keep smiling and being a perfect role model all the time, Or Else The Censors Will Get Him.

I also think this gives him a relatively sheltered worldview, because it comes from watching rather than experiencing. A lot of his efforts into doing things he never did before feel very plasticine or canned because all he has to compare it to are TV shows, where those things are romanticized, simplified, or boiled down into tropes.

Gay Walt Disney

So this sphere has to do with two things essentially: his queerness vis-a-vis being an entertainer, and him being a Capitalist who Exploits People. Maybe queerness as entertainer should've gotten piled with the Raised by TV aspect but I like the phrase "gay walt disney" okay. I think it's hard to deny he's some shade of queer, most likely gay, and I think it's also interesting to intersect this through the lens of what this meant for movie and television entertainers during history. Being a Friend of Dorothy was frowned upon and considered career suicide if found out as recently as the mid 2000's. I wouldn't doubt for a second if he revealed he used to have a lavander marriage with someone before he got with Spamton (and, for the record, I think Spamton was very much some sort of queer awakening/queerness as freedom experience for him! But this is not about spamtenna. goodbye). The whole pipis scene in the closet (sans Spamton, or papyrus Spamton) is very much an allegory for this type of scandal, and what he believes would happen if people found out about it even though this world is not a world that does this sort of bigotry, which I think is a fascinating cognitive disconnect between himself and the world he lives in.

And then it segways into the other fascet of his identity, which is that he is The CEO Of A TV Studio. He's got privileges over his staff, and he is more than willing to exploit them, whether under duress or not. This disconnect with the common man/class consciousness from him (did you know it goes both ways? A bourgoise is class conscious when their interests align with their class, which for the purposes of this analysis is Getting More. More Richer; More Famous; More Big.) can be used to showcase the fact that he just says completely out of pocket things with no regard with how they sound like. Sure, this can be attached to autism — and this is also a very good reading of him & one I share — but I also think that his lack of tact can also come from a lack of understanding how the common folk connect to each other. Because he is inherently of a different class.

On top of unfair contracts (and an implied weird situation with worker unions, based on the fact there are mafia mobsters in his world and they are Numerous) he also pays his employees with company coin, makes them spend it on company stores, and if I were to speculate, I'd say TV World is very solidly a company town, where everyone who lives there works on the studio, or at the very most there are small businesses made to support the people who work in the studio. The concept art for TV World's city makes it look beautiful and a well-developed place, but there's nothing saying it's not a company town. Even Walt Disney's EPCOT was designed to be beautiful.

All this to add too, I don't think this makes him less sympathetic. If anything, it's humorous to imagine him going "how much could a banana cost, 10 dollars?" Tenna being a capitalist who exploits people and who is, to put simply, a bad boss, and him being a deeply sympathetic character whose struggles and traumas are meaningful are not mutually exclusive; even the worst person you know does not deserve cruelty. I think this dychotomy gives him a depth that is interesting to explore in writing.

Final notes

There's a lot more to say about him — about his relationship with Spamton, about his relationship with the Dreemurrs, about common interpretations of him (BPD, physical disabilities, relationship with queerness, aro/ace/aroace, etc), but I kind of don't have the time or energy for that and some of it would honestly benefit from their own post. Anyway I hope you like it thank you I love you

[evilspamtonology]

Currently working on my Tenna studies post doc and getting one-sided beef with a bunch of people

[evilspamtonology]

Is ANYONE ELSE also worried about the fact Grillby is not present in Deltarune. And nothing is mentioned about him. And his name is scratched off Sans' grocery store very poorly like it was made in a hurry. What is going on. What happened to him

[eyegengrauu]

lets all give it up for tenna with chronic conditions + internalized ableism folks !!!!!!!!!

[eyegengrauu]

@rubsjuice pulling you tags bc i like them GRINS

i also love doing specbio shit with darkners in general bc i think a large part of their innards are literally just vague Darkness and things like organs. well. appear when theyre needed and relevant. but i also like mechanical darkners being a bit more complicated. theres a lot more stuff going on in there compared to something like a game piece to keep things running

anyways all this to say YUPPPPP i love difficult patient tenna stuff so much bc it just feels so fitting for him given everything we know + what he's been through. he's a fascinating specimen especially bc of being a CRT he's literally basically like. an endangered species of some variety. he's treated like something to deal with, something to handle, like some kind of zoo animal taken to the vet. like something to observe, to watch, to pick apart

this is once again his #objectification. no harm may have been meant but it doesn't mean he wasn't still objectified during it. turned into something to poke and prod at and figure out what's going on. and he Does need the help! he Does need to Physically get fixed when he falls apart to keep him together. but he still is considered less than a person and often times even necessary pain and observation can still cause harm and lasting effects on a person. he's always watched and never seen

[rubsjuice]

He's always watched and never seen!!!

I like playing with darkner biology worldbuilding from the perspective that there are Species of darkners (like ambyu-lances, addisons, pippins, ruddins, cuptains, etc) who have perfectly standarized biology for their species and then theres Special darkners who are one-of-a-kind whose biology is pretty much fantastical (Jevil doesn't need to eat, both him and Seam are immortal, Rouxls has no organs at all, etc). And Tenna's one-of-a-kind Cabinet Man makeup leaves him in the middle of the way where he doesn't have enough fantastical characteristics to not have to worry about anything health-related and not enough biological characteristics for specialists to know exactly what his body is doing.

Naturally, being sick or injured is a nightmare for Tenna! It's not just objectification (though there is a lot of it too) but it's also otherization, because he's not enough of any characteristic to belong to any "kind" of darkner. It's a very isolating experience in a situation that is very worrying! And in a check-up visit a doctor could just be looking at his numbers and go "well this isn't normal. But is it normal to you?" and he'll have to sigh and go "I don't know" and that's gonna be the end of the conversation. And then maybe the doctors start babbling about making estimates and doing tests and saying medical jargon he can barely keep up with and inviting other doctors from other rooms to take a look and discuss findings and all he wanted was just an answer to this new pain he's been feeling.

And this would certainly bleed into mental health professionals too. I think even in an environment where he has a kind and strong support system he'd be uneasy about seeking help from any professional regarding his mental health issues because he has no idea if the psychotherapist will just be the same as the other doctors and want to study his psyche instead of helping him figure out his traumas and feelings. Like no wonder the only guy he will be vulnerable in this way is the obsessive producer/personal assistant that he pays to do everything for him (love battat to death but lets be real i dont think this guy is a licensed therapist) and whose only goal in life is to make Tenna happy in the short term.

I just. AUGH! So many thoughts about the television. I'm glad you liked the tags it's been an idea i've been cooking up for a while

[beezah-beez]

OKAY so i think a huge part of Tenna’s character is the fact he is a performance artist. I will say I was in performance art groups for an undisclosed amount of years and there’s. There’s a certain vibe 🆗 there’s specific mindsets and attitudes that I feel Tenna speaks on in rly specific ways that I dont see dug into very often.

Tenna’s whole psychology sort of orbits around the fact he’s an entertainer. He lives to serve you, but he’s not exactly necessary. His self-worth and self-expression and overall ability to keep others happy are all psychologically melted together. You can see he genuinely loves to entertain and finds it very fulfilling, but the nature of that requires a level of people-pleasing and repression.

more under the cut bc this is fr a 4 page essay

Being a literal object made to serve the lighteners definitely underscores this, but I can't think of any other darkeners that are this, uh… neurotic? unwell. about it. (well there’s a certain puppet secret boss im side-eyeing but he psychologically goes the other direction. Flips a middle finger to god and tries to ascend to another dimension. classic.)

Tenna’s survival literally depends on if other people are happy enough with him or not. And to do that he’s forced to act a certain way. In obvious ways like always having to keep the energy up and ignoring conflict,

but this extends to trying to suppress his own negative emotions, thoughts, and needs, being forced to do things that are against his own morals,

and a fawn response to threats.

There’s a sort of conundrum with the nature of performing arts where it’s kind of inseparable from your physical self. Whether you're using your face, voice, hands, etc. (or your whole entire body, in Tenna’s case), when a comment or critique is made of your performance, there’s just one less degree of separation between the thing you put out there and your whole You (I love TV = I love Tenna :) no degree of separation from the abstract concept of TV and his own idea of himself). So there’s the whole self worth thing already tied up in there. I’m not even gonna get deep into that one I feel like we know where that one’s going.

But the other question becomes, exactly how much of myself am I willing to give up for approval? What’s the right way to balance self-expression and individual identity with giving the people what they want? ... Or do we bother balancing it at all?

(and this is true of any art anyone puts into the public eye, but performance art is just kinda extra weird about it, by nature. For example, actors are expected to get hair cuts, keep or change their bodies to be a certain way, they lack anonymity because their face is tied to their art, so you're expected to behave a certain way when you're off the clock too-- it just requires so much more self-editing.)

Tenna’s such a beautiful example of this. In a very unsubtle (imo) way you see him bulldoze his own emotions for the sake of performance, upkeep his own denial to try to keep the happy facade up, and go to lengths to hide personal information. And it’s obviously stressing him out.

He’s internalized it to the point where it’s starting to come out in odd ways that dont make sense anymore, too.

"everyone's gonna know I..." know what. that youre a single mother. babygirl what are u talking about. + we all agree that the audience in the second one is like. some sort of manifestation right. can a professional please give this guy some cognitive behavioral therapy im begging

And then the dude does not know when to give it up. In a bad way.

There's a saying that originated from broadway i think, “the show must go on.” There’s a cute happy song about it but the attitude in the showbusiness is very real. It doesn't matter what you're personally going through, you’re expected to show up and perform no matter what, Or Else. Or else you ruined everyone else’s months of hard work, or else the show will suck and it will be your fault. In a lot of performing art mediums, there’s no retries, either. You mess up on stage and your moment is stained forever :) so you better do it right! no pressure.

In Tenna’s case, the “or else” is “or else you get sliced into ribbons”. He’s expected to pack up Toriel, keep it a secret, and keep the fun gang occupied for an indefinite amount of time until the Knight picks up its to-go order. Ive said it before and ill say it again this dude is doing like 5 hours straight of comedy improv with a gun to his head HE DOESNT EVEN RLY WANT TO KEEP YOU HERE. HE RUSHES YOU THRU THE FIRST BOARD, ROUND 2 WAS VAGUELY SLAPPED TOGETHER, AND THE BONUS ROUND IS NONEXISTENT THE MAN IS FREAKING OUT BACKSTAGE TRYING TO KEEP IT TOGETHER. OR ELSE. 

And then he has a mental breakdown live on stage and he just has to keep going. What other option is there.

And then his crew leaves, and his friends leave, and Mike leaves. But Tenna doesn't get to leave. The show goes on. Until the very end he's still cracking jokes and trying to herd you back to the board. Even his boss fight with the fun gang is just More Games!! He acts genuinely confused if you start whacking him in his fight!!

it's kinda meta in a way that an amount of people read Tenna's on-stage mental breakdown as a sort of temper tantrum for not giving him enough attention, which is similar to the way celebrities irl get dismissed when they go thru mental health issues. so so many signs pointing to how much he actually does not want to do any of this and is very scared. i mean to be fair that's the lie he gave us right before his battle. (covering up the deal with the Knight for Kris)

Maybe Kris/the knight really DID promise a reward, but the way he gets nervous as hell and shakes when he's alone with Kris-- that's not the usual reaction to someone you expect a prize from. they both know what the consequences are.

In conclusion: Tenna is a patron saint of performance art to me and all of his lovely complexes and mysterious deal with Kris perfectly represents the secret psychological horror that is to exist at an audience’s whims. Thank u for staying this long here take this shitpost as a reward

[evilspamtonology]

Does anyone else ever think about how there's timeline incongruity between light world and dark world. And retroactive history time is dilated in the dark world

Good example is Spamton having been Salesman of the Year in 1997, and this implying he was in TV World around the same time, which means it's also the same timeframe where Kris and Noelle would play together in their living room with the laptop and extension cord and stuff.

Except... Kris and Noelle are both teenagers at the current time the story takes place, which is *at least* 2020, judging by Susie's among us joke. They were not alive in the late 90s, or the early 2000s for that matter.

And yet this 1997-2001ish time period is extremely pivotal in the side backstories for a bunch of the older characters (Spamton, Tenna, Queen, Swatch...). This whole situation tells us that the retroactive history of dark worlds does not directly align with the light world in real time. It's probably based on the lightners' own perspective, which stories they think should've happened and how long a dark world's history should be.

Addendum about retroactive history: a concept name I'm borrowing from homestuck, but very descriptively it just means that, despite the world having originated *today*, it has history and its own internal timeline with its own series of events. It's NOT a *fabricated* timeline, in the sense that the constructs within that world didnt actually experience these past events, it's simply history that was created with the world when it was created. It *did* actually happen. And for Deltarune, the darkners are aware that they were both made alive right now, but their worlds have also existed for basically ever. I think Shuttah's exposition about "the days of black and white" illustrates this well.

Anyway. I think the fact that timelines between light and dark world don't align give us as a fandom a lot of flexibility for coming up with our own dates, expand the worlds and headcanon age ranges for characters, which I think is very cool. We don't have to worry that Kris couldn't possibly have been alive in the 80s to bring Ramb from the library computer lab to their house so that him immigrating to TV World from Cyber World a considerable time ago makes sense; Kris brought the extension cord home as a kid in like 2015 and then when Noelle would come in they would pretend the extension cord was a british immigrant that's been living here a long time. For Ramb, it was the 80s. For Kris, it was 5 years ago. With incongruent, independent timelines between light and dark world, these event dates do not conflict at all. It's an elegant solution if you're a guy like me and you're obsessed with making timelines and figuring out lore logistics.

[evilspamtonology]

Ive followed more people recently who have exposed me to tenna discourse id never come across before. Like what do you mean people think hes stable. What do you mean they make him take care of Spamton

Spamton had a more or less full character arc with NEO, he *literally* SPEAKS MORE SOBERLY WHILE HELD UP IN VINES RIGHT AFTER IT and every arguably post-chapter 2 dialogue we get from him is more stable than what we get in the chapter itself. Spamton achieved some sort of peace of mind that, crucially, Tenna didn't get.

I wouldn't say the roles would be reversed either; I don't think Spamton would want to, or would be good at, taking care of Tenna. At most he'd suggest drowning it in drinks, imo, and it would be interesting to see him try to take care of Tenna and they just ouroboros each other, but eh. Current-day Spamtenna needs to be carefully constructed or the cracks on how the writer perceives either of the characters show up real easily.

[rambampoline]

i might be stupid but does ramb's dialogue in the japanese version imply kris has been to tv world before?

Ok so. the implication of all the dialogue with ramb. with the dark worlds. with the characters. is that the kids were... well.. kids... and darkworlds originally were their little games of pretend. imaginary. an escapist fantasy for fun you do when you're little.

We don't fully know if fountains were involved exactly but the way he worded it made it seem it was just all in their little noggins and having a blast with one another. So, I'm gonna say no fountains were really involved with that.

dark world fountains, as per description in every chapter is: the thing that gives darkners specifically their FORM. It manifests what you PERCEIVE when you can't see things just right. (like the chair and shirt analogy ralsei gives) and so when your imagination goes wild, when the psyche of whoever creates it (or others) molds what is perceived in the dark-- the dark fountain helps make that all the more real.

Kris, Noelle, Asriel, and (probably) Dess apparently used to play pretend all the time. Then whatever catastrophic event happened first caused everything to fall apart bit by bit.

Repressing trauma and memories probably involved losing a lot of the memories and enjoyment with their toys and imagination for everyone. But when you create a dark fountain, that probably connects to a bit of the subconscious part of your brain and imagination. Not everything is blocked... but not everything is clear either!

[eyegengrauu]

been thinking about one of the posts i reblogged earlier about how tenna Physically doesn't really fit into tv world. he doesnt fit very well in tv world where most Communal spaces are built to accommodate people other than him, like the green room. and he Definitely doesn't fit into castle town, where he is physically shrinking in on himself Both from the stress im sure but also because he just .... doesn't really fit.

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.

his default size is big. like. i think thats the size he just kind of.... is. he can shrink yes, i think both controllably to an extent and uncontrollably in conjunction with his mental state. but hes big like that most of the time, at the times where hes most himself. and nowhere accommodates for him. hes a big, clunky CRT taking up room in a living room. a big, clunky CRT brought into a storage closet. and its making him miserable. <- says this with a big fucking grin on my face

[eyegengrauu]

@rockinmusicquarterly

YUPPPPPPPP THIS EXACTLY!

[secret-deltarune-theory-log]

deltarune fans can read but its like they tune out on important details. people think “kris doesnt like hugs” but the reason they think that is because asgore says “i forgot you don’t like hugs LIKE THAT” because asgore gave them a huge bear hug and shook them around. that doesn’t mean kris HATES ALL HUGS. be so real

[evilspamtonology]

Jevil's freedom from the narrative and what it entails (hehe tail)

Okay so every once in a while I think about how Jevil has been severely put aside not only by the fandom but by the game's narrative as well (the only *mention* of him so far since some guy said spamton lobbied to ban clowns in cyber city is the ACT BET 30 if you have him equipped on susie). I don't think this is a fandom problem, you can't choose or nitpick other people's favorites for them, it's whatever. But it *is* interesting that Jevil is removed from the narrative after his fight because it ties into his idea of Freedom.

I want to preface this analysis with the idea that, much like Homestuck, the narrative relevance of a character in Deltarune is also important to their themes, motifs and development. Whether they haunt the narrative, like Dess and the Forgotten Man, are forced up front, like Spamton (which, turns out is a bad thing for him, but more on that in a separate post) and Kris or simply do their part and are done away, like King and Jevil, the role they play also plays a part on who they are, because at the start of everything, Deltarune is, in-universe, a game itself, and a game has to have a cohesive narrative with main characters, villains, tritagonists, and so on.

That being said, Jevil's perception of his freedom, is that the world is a game, and everyone else jailed themselves by not acknowledging it, and to a certain degree he is kind of right lmao. But to escape this jail and become free, one has to escape the game, and he can't exactly do that, because he's bound to the game due to being a couple of lines of code and sprites in it. The best way to escape that he can achieve on his own, is to become narratively irrelevant. If you're not relevant to the narrative, you're not part of the game anymore. The Joker is removed from play.

I do feel a bit saddened that nobody gaf about jevil anymore, but perhaps that really is for the best. He lives on in my heart in my spamvil comics and in kris' pocket, that's all that matters

[evilspamtonology]

i bet seam and jevil had legendary truco games before AND after he was jailed

[alicelufenia]

"It's called Mancountry because there's a man here" has got to be the strongest evidence of the fandom's willfull ignorance of Kris Dreemurr's character, and the idea of transfem enbys in general

You're telling me the place that looks like a retro Game Boy game, where the first thing you see is Kris now having changed to their Light World appearance wearing the striped shirt that is Toby Fox's visual language for childhood and age regression, and the first inhabitants are all artifacts of Kris's childhood, that knew them when they were smaller (ie. younger), with slogans around like "It's a Man's World" and "This is a World Heritage Site" and "Non-men are a-ok too" and they colored in the 7 Flying Aces from a photocopied playing card and "Maybe the pink Ace was suspicious", where the man gives you an egg and says "There's no shame in an egg"—is called "Mancountry" because of the Forgotten Man, and no other reasons?