Like eight years ago I had some Luo Binghe thoughts and Mikke thought I should write them up for tumblr, which I didnāt do and then didnāt do some more, and then I wrote a very bad version and then I slunk away in online essay failure because Iād tried to make them clever and I ruined it for me. But they were pretty good Luo Binghe thoughts honestly so hereās the caps:
#VERY VERY GOOD THOUGHTS#SY!SQQ really never acknowledges the effect of the decisions he DID have agency in#and rakes himself over the coals for the ones he didn't which is another interesting window on how he's both placed himself in and outside#the narrative context for most of the book. the story arc rules everything (but he's not really part of the story!) except he IS because#he's the villain (but he isn't that's just his narrative ROLE)#sorry I just have a lot of thoughts about this man's brain. who's doing it like him (no one thank god) - via @noswordinourlake
I'm starting to think that the Shelter does not house a Dark World, but is rather a direct entrance into the Depths. Or at the very least the Dark World in there is an actual example of a Darker World.
Because there's a bit of an emphasis on going underground, or rather, going "deeper," right? On multiple occasions basement or basement-like areas have had a sort of mystique surrounding them. Queen's basement, aside from just being a creepy and confounding place, is described in a rather pointed way by Spamton.
LISTEN. IN THE [Deep Abyss] OF QUEEN'S [Mansion]
(The Japanese version of this line is a more obvious allusion to the Depths from what I can tell. There he says [[귱귵]] and the word choice for Depths, as referred to by Jevil, in Japanese is "귵.")
And the Holiday House's basement literally plays a slowed down version of mus_smile, just like the Shelter does. I'm not kidding. While down there, Noelle even helpfully equates basements to the creepy "underground levels" from Dragon Blazers, saying the latter caused her to form a fear of the former.
The reasoning for this quality is fairly obvious I'd say. The deeper you go, the "closer" to the Depths you get. Dark Fountains are described as being "thrusted" or "pulled" from the Earth, so a Dark Fountain formed beneath its surface might be terribly potent. Or perhaps from there you could directly "reach" the Depths. Outside of the context of fountain creation, odd occurrences being more frequent the deeper underground you are might also just be a mechanic of Deltarune's world.
There's a lot of miscellaneous things that tie into this idea of going deeper. The song coming from deep beneath the lake. The Digital Roots/BIT ROOTS songs that both play in underground areas. Manholes.
If at least my observation about the nature of depth is on the money, then two very pertinent questions arise.
Does this retroactively imply anything about the Underground?
Is Lancer's love for digging going to become extremely important later?!?!
Airplane Bro and Shen Yuan both make me frequently throw up my hands and go, "Why are you LIKE THIS?!" But personally, Shen Yuan is actually the one is gets that reaction from me more often.
Airplane Bro is a deeply depressed and exhausted guy who's absolutely given up on dignity and normalcy, and is also hot for an evil demon and at least knows it.
What Shen Yuan is doing at any given moment, apparently wholly convinced (between, you know, this deeply traumatic situation and probably also being quite young) that he is a Normal Guy having Normal Reactions to things and engaging in Very Normal And Very Smart Behavior, is way funnier and embarrassing to me. I don't think his logic is always necessarily bad, he's dead right about some stuff, but still... what a guy! A guy who has something deeply wrong with him (affectionate).
May i add that and often overlooked part of Shen Yuan's character is that he uses humor to cope. He is living in an extremely violent fantasy world with a metaphysical entity that at least partially controls his actions. He has been traumatized since that first week he woke up in a new world!!
And his humor is a bit.... hard to read sometimes. He pretends things are okay. He makes sarcastic comments. He provides extremely judgy commentary on what other people are doing or what they did in pidw.
And i think another big portion of how he copes with the whole transmigration is by seeing himself as the most normal person around. After all he's a normal guy from the modern world therefore everything he thinks and feels and such must be normal.
He openly admits that repressing everything else is something he is doing because if he thinks about his life too much then it's too much for him!
Image ID: Luo Binghe with a high ponytail wearing a red and black outfit consisting of a qipao-styled sleeveless shirt with red cherry blossom print, a robe-like mid-length black jacket with grey gradient on the sleeves and dark red trim, and high waisted black pants with white trim
Yue Qingyuan turned his head. āQingqiu-shidi, head to the Luo River with them.ā
Liu Qingge had finished picking out his disciples and returned. āWhat about you, Sect Leader?ā
āIāll hold them off while I wait for Zhao Hua Monasteryās assistance. Iāll be with you right after.ā
āZhangmen-shixiong, can you handle this by yourself?ā Shen Qingqiu asked. āOr I could stay behindā¦ā
Yue Qingyuan actually smiled. āWhen asked to stay, you leave. Yet when told to leave, you try to stay. Xiaoā¦ Shidi, really.ā
#[choked] i'm fine?#svsss#yue qingyuan#shen qingqiu#I need to do a head count of how many times he's actually noted to smile in the book#cause I think The Smiler has become his sorta default role in fanon but now I wonder how accurate it is#ANYWAYYY god this moment...#HE ALMOST SLIPS. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ??A DECADE?? MORE?#weh....#3 page essay someday on YQY's relationship with SY being so healing for him
@baixue-temple so when are you writing the essay š
Spoiler alert! The big keyword here is mutual trust.
(putting this under a cut because jfc it really did get huge)
Okay so in a past post I talked about my thoughts on how PIDW Yue Qingyuan and Shen Jiu end up in that ouroboros of fuckery, and how it's partially because Yue Qingyuan recognizes that Shen Jiu is destroying himself, right. And that no matter how much trying to stop him further degrades their relationship, Yue Qingyuan can't stop trying to protect him, as he always had, even when Shen Jiu genuinely doesn't want him to anymore for his own sake.
But where before Yue Qi the kid only had to protect Shen Jiu from the world (and also protect others from SJ which in turn ensures the first desire), Yue Qingyuan the man wants to protect Shen Jiu from himself now too. But obviously with the state of things between the pair being what they are, the situation only grows out of control until finally Shen Jiu has been arrested for all his crimes, real or imaginary.
Here, Yue Qingyuan wants to hear from Shen Jiu's own mouth that he didn't kill Liu Qingge, because as much as he truly doesn't want to believe it, as much as he wants to believe this is another instance where maybe Shen Jiu is being wronged by others or the world at large... he clearly doesn't know if even he can believe that anymore.
Huge loss compared to their first scene where Shen Jiu's saying that he wants those other kids dead, and Yue Qi is like yeah okay buddy.
Shen Jiu's pattern of barking louder than his bite + saying the opposite of what he's truly feeling is already pretty well documented, and Yue Qi seems equally aware of it even if he doesn't always interpret it correctly. So I think there was always this trust he held that, as much as Shen Jiu howled and snarled, it didn't matter because he knew deep down that there was a person in there capable of good things. At least until all of the evidence of Shen Jiu's wrongdoings come home to roost and Yue Qingyuan has to finally confront how much of it's true, how much of it is false but believable, and how much he's also responsible for because he was so lenient on him. And that's where you get Yue Qingyuan asking if he did kill their sect brother and if he feels any sort of regret about Binghe.
The loyalty? Still there of course, for both of them.
But the actual trust? I think it's all but gone at this stage, and even if they had lived it may not have been salvageable.
Okay but what about Shen Yuan/Shin Qingqiu though.
First off, I believe that Shen Qingqiu's "memory loss" and subsequent "personality change" is no doubt upsetting to Yue Qingyuan. But I think it also quickly begins to take some strain off of him too in his self-appointed position of both protector and keeper of Shen Jiu's life.
We know from the extra that he worried a lot about Shen Jiu's place in the sect. He was going to Qing Jing peak to make sure he wasn't being bullied, he was presuming that Shen Jiu slept off the mountain because he'd been kicked out of the dorm, and he flips out when he finds him at the brothel because of both his cultivation getting damaged and of his reputation. All of this on top of being a head disciple and being groomed to be the future sect leader!
How much of his time was dedicated to checking in on Shen Jiu, I wonder, or in smoothing over fights and tempers from flaring? My guess is uhhhh a lot, lol.
But now? Now Shen Qingqiu's getting along with his peers. He's stopped abusing his disciples. He's talking to Yue Qingyuan for hours. For the first time in over a decade, even if he's still fretting and worried, he doesn't have to constantly be on alert.
(Though I don't think this alertness ever entirely goes away. The "spirit stones gambling" bit comes to mind:
Shen Qingqiu presumes he's worried about the sect looking bad -- but tbh I think he saw tension between Shen Qingqiu and two peak lords and immediately went into Xiao-Jiu's Going To Argue With Someone Oh Dear mode despite it being harmless lol)
I'm getting off track.
The point is that he got to relax. Even with all his mixed feelings about SQQ's changes, I have to imagine that the relief of knowing that Luo Binghe wasn't strung up in a shed or that Liu Qingge wasn't hearing "I'm going to kill you!" on a regular basis was a balm. It's clearly something he wanted, having once thought that maybe Shen Jiu and Liu Qingge could be friends!
But also! I think that he also gets something that he thought he'd never get again: for that concern to be visibly and vocally reciprocated.
(Hope you don't mind me snagging pics from your other posts lol)
This is never to say that Shen Jiu didn't care about Yue Qingyuan, now matter how much he may have said as much. The fakerrrrrrr. But obviously the relationship was Not Exactly Ideal to put it gently by the time this year would've rolled around in PIDW.
But a big note here for me is that Shen Qingqiu reassures Yue Qingyuan that this is not his fault.
I can't imagine what it must've been like to have willingly born the presumed hate of someone you loved so much, someone whose hate you 100% think you deserve...
...only to have them turn around one day and say things like "hey, you shouldn't hold yourself responsible for things you couldn't control"?
Anyway, this goes on for a while until Shen Qingqiu gets his own version of the water prison scene. But now Yue Qingyuan says with his full chest:
Obviously we have no clue what Shen Jiu's arrest looked like because it happened at a different year and circumstances, and we don't get any writing of it directly. Yue Qingyuan may not even have been present for it, for all we know? So we can't say he wouldn't have responded the same way either.
Buuuut...
PIDW-Yue Qingyuan was having to pull strings to visit Shen Jiu in prison before begging him to admit to even one of the accusations against him.
SVSSS-Yue Qingyuan is about to flatten Jin Lan City.
Lacking a lot of context for PIDW, there's no way to say for certain how it'd differ -- but as presented in text, it feels like quite a contrast in where they're at emotionally.
Fast forward quite a bit to Maigu Ridge and AO3's Favorite Tag! Xuan Su Reveal.
Would this have happened if, somehow, they were in the same situation but it was Shen Jiu instead of Shen Yuan? I mean, possibly! He's clearly affected by the telling of the truth of Su Xiyan's end to Tianlang-Jun, maybe he still would have been inspired to tell his own truths, being so close to death. But also... I could just as easily see Yue Qingyuan still taking his secret to the grave, because even if it's something Shen Jiu desperately needed to know for so many reasons, because he could have expected Shen Jiu's reaction to be one of intense anger/hurt/etc, something he'd likely want to avoid consciously for Shen Jiu's emotions, subconsciously for his own, and either way create a lot of the familiar cycle of guilt and self-blame.
But Shen Qingqiu isn't like that, not anymore.
I think the Xuan Su reveal gets to happen, not just because of but at least partially because of the trust and affection that Shen Qingqiu has demonstrated for Yue Qingyuan, and because of that Yue Qingyuan finally gets to open up about his biggest trauma and regret that's haunted him for so long.
And then of course, the finale where Yue Qingyuan sees him off, to be happy with Luo Binghe.
Listen. It's deliciously angsty to focus on Yue Qingyuan not knowing that Shen Jiu is gone and that he's been left on the mountain alone. I eat that shit up too, cause it's great!! But at the same time, the sweet to the bitter is that Shen Yuan really did change Yue Qingyuan's fate.
Not just the literal death of thousands of arrows, but from an end where he'd who's lost trust in his most important connection, bore the guilt for deaths/abuse of his martial family, and ultimately was only recognizable as a broken sword.
Now, he's not just alive, but in a place of being where he can see off Shen Qingqiu, trusting that he's safe and happy. He's content knowing he can stay behind and make sure the sect is a home his shidi can always come back to. He can live his own life now too.
Shen Yuan talks a lot about how much Yue Qingyuan supported him. I don't think he realizes just how much his support meant in return. :']
you really hit the nail on the head that we often forget about how much sqq did for yqy. one scene that comes to mind is their exchange during the siege, where sqq reminds yqy of his responsibilities. it's always struck me how impactful those words were. and now that you've pointed out "mutual trust" as one of the things they've fostered in their relationship, "I trust you know what to choose" must have hit hard; because in choosing the opposite yqy would be breaking the trust sqq has in him. and it hits HARDER when you think about the fact that previously yqy had asked if sqq didn't contact them post-resurrection because he didn't trust his sect siblings (him). yqy doesn't get a chance to doubt the status of their relationship pre-jin lan city because sqq hastens to explains he just woke up (and he literally came straight to cqm), and then leaves with lbh just to protect the sect.
and it is 100% true that we often focus on sj's side of the relationship and never think about how yqy must have felt all those years, where he couldn't even spent a peaceful time drinking tea with the person he loved the most. i'm so glad you pointed out how good it is for yqy to have an affectionate, companionable relationship with sqq. "reciprocity at last" indeed. and i think it made yqy become an even better version of himself. because while he always had to put sj and the debt he felt he owned over the sect, the world and his own principles, sqq is constantly guiding/teaching yqy: you shouldn't feel responsible for this, i'm not more important than the safety of the sect, etc. whereas before sj would push and push to see how far yqy was willing to go for him, sqq doesn't allow yqy to do any of that.
I think trust is a huge deal for Yue Qingyuan, both from Shen Jiu and Shen Qingqiu. He got parentified as a kid so early, he knew that other kids needed him for survival and safety... but that doesn't necessarily correlate to them wanting him. It could just as easily have been any other older child. I think the fact that Shen Jiu, someone who so clearly from a young age had no reason to believe anyone or anything could keep him safe, not only trusted him but looked out for him in turn was a huuuuuge deal for Yue Qi -- thus making it all the more crushing when he failed to live up to his promise, and making the fall for Shen Jiu all the harder because he really had put all his trust/loyalty eggs in one Qi-ge shaped basket.
God that scene where YQY asks SQQ why he didn't contact them and asks if SQQ didn't trust them, I totally forgot about that, OUGHHHH IT'S PAINFUL. For the normally chill and careful Yue Qingyuan to ask that so bluntly, damn that one hits right in the gut.
and i think it made yqy become an even better version of himself. because while he always had to put sj and the debt he felt he owned over the sect, the world and his own principles, sqq is constantly guiding/teaching yqy: you shouldn't feel responsible for this, i'm not more important than the safety of the sect, etc. whereas before sj would push and push to see how far yqy was willing to go for him, sqq doesn't allow yqy to do any of that.
I'M SHAKING YOUR HAND EXCITEDLY. Yue Qingyuan becoming the best version of himself is so true. My heart will always break for Shen Jiu who kept pushing and pulling on his YQY out of fear and heartache, but it was so satisfying to see that Shen Qingqiu was able to find a way for Yue Qingyuan to finally settle in a happier middle ground between his past and the present.
was rereading this post for reasons and reading this bit you said
PIDW-Yue Qingyuan was having to pull strings to visit Shen Jiu in prison before begging him to admit to even one of the accusations against him.
SVSSS-Yue Qingyuan is about to flatten Jin Lan City.
Lacking a lot of context for PIDW, thereās no way to say for certain how itād differ ā but as presented in text, it feels like quite a contrast in where theyāre at emotionally.
I think we have context clues that it wasnāt at all like that, if YQY was present in the first place --and I think he was, he wouldn't allow a peak lord or sect member to be put to trial without his presence-- because SQQ is WAY TOO SHOCKED at YQY unsheathing Xuan Su, even if just an inch.
Reportedly, ever since the Cang Qiong Mountain Sectās Peak Lord of Qiong Ding, Yue Qingyuan, had succeeded his position, heād only drawn his sword twice: once during his succession ceremony and once when heād battled a descendant of the heavenly demon bloodline (incidentally, Luo Bingheās dad). (ch.6 jin lan)
One must understand that regardless of whether it was the original work or in this world, he had never witnessed a scene in which Xuan Su left its sheath. Who knew what Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was thinking either, keeping it secret at all costs and refusing to write it? All talk and no action: heād built that sword up in great detail again and again, then at the very endāa scam! With not a single thing to show for himself, Yue Qingyuan was pierced with ten thousand arrows and perished. Goodbye. (ch.20 impending war)
Aaaand in the svsss timeline YQY was just thiiiiis close to unsheathing Xuan Su before Maigu Ridge happened: first at Jin Lan, where just a fucking inch caused such a POWERFUL effect on everyone around, and then at the siege, where MQF, and then SQQ, helpfully stopped him:
Yue Qingyuanās hand grasped Xuan Suās hilt.
Heād barely done so when, next to him, Mu Qingfang anxiously said, āZhangmen-shixiong, you were in secluded cultivation and forcefully interrupted your training, then faced these strong foes. It was already terribly hard on you. By pushing yourself to draw your sword now, Iām afraid your body will reallyā¦ā
"(...)Zhangmen-shixiong is the head of this sect. On your shoulders rests the safety of every disciple on the twelve peaks. I trust you know what to choose.ā
The hall was dead silent. Yue Qingyuanās face froze, and the knuckles of his hand gripping the sword went stark white. (ch.13 coercion)
(fun times at cqms! how is it that sy!sqq made yqy simultaneously better and worse hahaha. the wifebeam effect-- too strong, too dangerous)
Sooo yeah. i don't think YQY drew Xuan Su at SJ's trial :) be it because he didn't fully think SJ was innocent, or because he was reigning in his impulsivity, or both, or any other reason
sy!sqq be unleashing the crazy in every man he meets in pidw. lbh's mental state deteriorates until he goes full yandere for a while there. gyx puts his place at hhp at HEAVY risk just to help him; lqg be fighting lbh every day for 5 years just to get his shixiong's body back (like, if you read liushen as platonic IT IS EVEN MORE INSANE than if it was romantic), and yue qingyuan.......... amicable elder brother type, the pushover trying to keep the ceiling from falling down and failing at that, whose OP parasitic sword literally drains his life when he uses it, was 1)ready to FIGHT EVERYONE at jin lan city for THE INSULT!!! to sqq's reputation 2)was so fucked up after sqq's self-detonation he had to SECLUDE HIMSELF in the ptsd caves 3) was going to try to fight lbh like that ANYWAY and 4)ALMOST locked sqq up TO PROTECT HIM, bc he couldn't BEAR IT ANYMORE which is like, the most extreme thing he's ever done he'd never be able to do the same to shen jiu, shen jiu would glare at him and he'd wilt DO YOU GET ME?
Maybe youāve talked about this before but Iāve been a bit confused on what people mean when they mention the newsletter changed their opinion of Tenna and/or Spamtenna? Is it because Tenna made Spamton sign the contract despite Mikeās warning? I keep seeing this as a disclaimer (ex: āthis art I drew of happy spamtenna was before the newsletterā)
Tenna didn't "make" Spamton sign the contract; he wrongly believes that he was being coercive because of his feelings of guilt about Spamton's disappearance. Since he doesn't have any information about what happened after Spamton ran away, from his perspective, the only thing he could possibly blame for Spamton being gone is the contract, and thus blame himself.
In actuality, the contract is a non-issue from Spamton's perspective; he doesn't complain about it, because he signed it willingly. He alludes to it in the line "to [$!$!] me over right at the [Good part]!?", and contrary to popular belief, the contract is the "good part". I talked about it in more detail in this post, but Spamton sharing his secret was only half of the agreement; the other half was Tenna making Spamton his co-host and committing to him for life, which would include supporting him in case he lost his income; it was mutually beneficial. The "[$!$!] over" was Tenna not answering Spamton's phone call(s), which is what Spamton is actually upset about and was obsessing over, because he believed Tenna changed his number to cut ties with him and abandon him. As of Chapter 3, he has learned that Tenna actually still loves him, so he's getting closer to learning the truth (that they were actually separated by outside interference).
...However, people are media illiterate, so they treat character dialogue as a Wikipedia entry and take Tenna's claim about "making" Spamton sign the contract at face value. And they also don't seem to realize that Tenna was giving something to Spamton as well; it was not one-sided.
I find the misinterpretation annoying, though I will say, it is a bit funny that it took some people until the newsletter to come to this conclusion, when the newsletter didn't actually reveal that much? Tenna was already framing himself negatively in the Sword Route monologue. He claimed he "sweet talked" Spamton into the contract (implying coercion or trickery of some sort), and then described how as soon as the contract was signed, Spamton got that phone call, panicked and ran away, and then he doesn't really address that? So if you were to take his words at face value, you should've already believed everything was his fault even before the newsletter. But I guess some people really needed him to make it even more explicit by claiming he "made" Spamton sign.
Ironically, the newsletter actually gave us a new bit of info that points against the idea of Tenna forcing Spamton to sign. Tenna claiming that he "sweet talked" Spamton into signing or "made" him sign implies resistance or at least hesitance on Spamton's part, and yet he doesn't actually mention Spamton doing or saying anything in opposition to the contract, and instead reveals that it was Mike suspecting that Spamton couldn't sign and that something bad would happen if he did. If Spamton was so against signing and had to be coerced into it, how would that not have come up? He certainly would've known it was risky for him, so how is it that Mike was expressing that worry and not him? It's because he was actually fine with signing, though he probably wanted a guarantee of stability in return for taking that risk, and he got that guarantee through Tenna's half of the contract, so he signed.
[EDIT: I'll add that while the newsletter made it explicit that Tenna knew something bad might happen to Spamton, I'd argue his Sword Route monologue already implied he either knew or had reason to suspect that the contract was risky for Spamton, if his claims about "sweet talking" (coercing) Spamton into signing the contract were to be taken at face value; if Spamton was resistant to signing, the reason for it would've likely come up. The newsletter confirms that Tenna was told it was risky, but reveals that it was Mike and not Spamton trying to dissuade him from it, thus implying that Spamton was fine with signing it. Him not telling Tenna it was risky, or underestimating the risk, is likely why Tenna ignored Mike's warning; Spamton is the one with the secret, so Tenna would've assume he knew better. Tenna and Spamton were making a reckless decision together, and Mike was trying to be the voice of reason.]
Lowkey funny seeing some people act as though Tenna knowing that something bad might happen to Spamton because of the contract would be some kind of big revelation to Spamton that he'd be upset about, when like. Bro doesn't caaare. He also knew, and he signed anyway, because he wanted to. And now that he knows that Tenna never abandoned him and did actually love him the whole time, he's absolutely gonna believe that the risk was worth it, just like he did back then. He's at peace with losing the income he was making with his benefactor's help as long as he can live a stable, comfortable, happy life with his husband and kid(s). Now he knows he could have.
Feelings of misery surrounding the contract are a Tenna thing, since, in the absence of any information about what happened to Spamton after he ran away, the contract (and, by extension, himself) is the only thing Tenna is aware of that he could possibly blame for Spamton being gone, especially with Mike seemingly agreeing with that. He doesn't know that the thing that actually ruined everything was the outside interference that prevented Spamton from calling him.
Tenna believing the contract to be a point of contention doesn't actually mean it is, especially when Spamton, the one who experienced the bad consequences, doesn't claim it is.
dear everyone on tumblr who needs to host images elsewhere (e.g. to embed on ao3 etc), please give squidge a go!! it's free, it's nonprofit and it's geared towards fandom so nsfw images won't get deleted!! and please stop using imgur if you can because they blocked the uk rather than acquiesce to the fucking internet safety laws, which I can't really hold against em but it does mean all imgur pictures just show up as big purple boxes now
im not gonna do a whole ramble on it because i feel mildly embarrassed at the concept but my take on tenna is that a lot of people view him so cynically because they can't imagine ever acting the way he does & think they're above it. but it doesn't take a particularly long amount of time being rejected and confused for you to lose your mind
The brain worms are once again compelling me to talk about Spamton.
I feel that, despite being popular, he gets misunderstood a lot. There's one specific misinterpretation that I want to talk about here, which I feel comes from people unconsciously projecting their own perception of him onto how other characters in-universe must be perceiving him.
Basically, irl fans of Spamton perceive him as a weird, but charming little guy, and there's all the (both joking and serious) fanon about him having a ton of exes/easily attracting partners, but this is not how he's actually shown to be perceived by other characters. (There's also the misconception that he easily abandons his relationships, which I'll touch on too.)
In-universe, he's seen as an annoying, unwanted little freak by most people, and he knows that too.
His Light World counterpart is spam emails, which are, at best, simply ignored, or at worst, actively hated (maybe sometimes people find them funny to laugh at, but that's it). This appears to affect the way he's perceived in the Dark World too. He got called a freak (in a derogatory way) by at least two other characters - Tenna in the Sword Route and one of the Addisons in Castle Town.
(Notably, in the first case, Tenna is talking about big shot era Spamton. The one that was successful and was not yet a puppet with distorted speech. Even at his best, Spamton was seen as a freak.)
Spamton didn't have many interpersonal connections even while he was successful. The only canonically positive connections he used to have throughout his life (that we know of) are the Addisons, Swatch, Tenna and Mike. And there's also Noelle, sort of.
And I actually want to touch on Mike and Noelle first, because I think they're the most helpful in demonstrating how a person may earn Spamton's affection and what that says about him.
Spamton still displays a fondness for Mike, and one of his answers in the Sweepstakes seems to imply he knows the real Mike and not the impostor trio. And if the real Mike is the realistic microphone, so far we have no indication that he can talk (though he may be able to communicate through actions). But what he can definitely do is listen.
Noelle's interaction with Spamton is a little different than all the others, since she wasn't in the Dark World and didn't know he was a person. But she read her spam emails for a while. She didn't reply to them or buy anything (though she took the pipis Spamton gave her), she just read them. Again, the thing she did that earned her enough affection from Spamton that he gifted her a pipis was simply listening to him. (He'd feel particularly validated by Noelle's attention, since Lightners are stated to have been sort of like gods to Darkners.)
So, the way to earn Spamton's affection is by simply listening to him talk. The way that, alone, is enough to win him over, probably implies it doesn't happen often.
Assuming it's true that Swatch only viewed him as a "valued customer" and didn't think of him as a friend, I think what I described above explains why Spamton thought they were friends. He's so used to being seen as annoying and unwanted, probably being told to shut up and/or go away on a regular basis, that if Swatch simply listened to him yap for a while and didn't minimize his feelings when he was upset about something (being a "shoulder to cry on", as Spamton said during the Sweepstakes), Spamton would've interpreted that as friendship. His standards are pretty low.
And think about it. Spamton was living in Queen's mansion for a while, but the only connection he's mentioned to have there is Swatch? There's no indication that he had any meaningful connection to Queen or Tasque Manager or anyone else. If he had, he would've certainly felt betrayed by them upon his eviction and would've been talking shit now. So they weren't his friends, and he didn't even mistake them for friends.
And if he was this charming, suave guy during his big shot days, wouldn't he have had more friends?
Before he met his mysterious benefactor, the Addisons tell us that he was unsuccessful (seemingly in both the Light and Dark World) and his products never seemed to hit - but the thing is, someone who's charming and suave would be able to sell even shitty products.
The stuff the Addisons sell isn't that great - an example of this is how if you buy their tea in Chapter 2, it will become Rotten Tea by Chapter 3 and will be described as "A tea that has deteriorated after a short while due to its poor craftsmanship". The Addisons' products probably weren't much better than Spamton's, if they were better at all. It wasn't the quality of his products that failed him, it was his lack of social skills. The other Addisons could've probably done alright selling the same stuff.
But now I'd like to further analyze his relationship with the Addisons. They do display some level of attachment and affection for him, but paying more attention to how they talk about him...
They say that every night at the cyber grill, he would "shoot his mouth" about making it big one day - a negative descriptor, even when talking about a time when they were choosing to spend time with him nightly.
When they tell us about him finally becoming successful, they say they were so jealous that they stopped going out with him. They don't indicate any actual wrongdoing on his part, and the phrasing of "He didn't need us anymore, did he...?" with the triple ellipses and question mark suggests uncertainty. It was an assumption, not something he actually said to them. (He was being a hater in his Sweepstakes answer, but their narration that's biased in their own favor doesn't indicate that this is how he acted at the time. They only mention their own jealousy.)
And there is something important one of them says a bit earlier:
Note the emphasis on "he". They were upset that it was him, specifically, that became so successful.
They thought of him as lesser than them.
So when he was the weird little pet freak of the group, even if he was a little annoying, they liked him. There was a charm to him. And he was in his "rightful place", so to speak - he was less successful than them. And that made sense to them.
But once he not only became successful, but became more successful than them? That bothered them. How is he, some freak with bad social skills, doing better than them? In their eyes, he didn't deserve this. If it had been one of them four that became so successful, the other three probably wouldn't have abandoned the successful one this way. Their success wouldn't have felt as offensive to the others.
So, this is what they were like as friends to him. Not that great. And yet, it appears that he still thought of them as friends for a while after they stopped going out with him.
When asked about his relationship with them in the Sweepstakes, Spamton said (paraphrased into normal sentences) "I know now our friendship was all fake. Even the ones I thought I knew would never be seen with me in public. Bad for business!? Who is!?". This is describing a different event than what the Addisons talked about. They stopped going out with him when he was a rising star. He would not have been "bad for business" at that point, or someone you wouldn't want to be seen in public with.
But now, after his downfall and puppet transformation, when he looks and sounds quite off-putting to people? That makes a lot more sense. And what this means is that they abandoned him a second time. Sure, they feel bad for him, but not enough to actually do anything. Their business is more important than his well-being, so they just let him be homeless and live in a dumpster.
And this was what it took for him to finally stop considering them his friends. He hadn't let go of this relationship even after they stopped going out with him, until they failed to support him in a dire situation.
He knew he didn't have many connections, and he valued those he did have (or at least thought he had). He's never the one to cut someone off first. He only cuts people off once they have cut him off first (or wronged him in some other way), or at least once he believes they have done so, as appears to be the case with Tenna.
Considering the pipis, the secret mail room in The Legend of Tenna, and all the old items still being kept in the Z-Rank changing room, Tenna clearly did care - and still cares. Spamton himself (excitedly) says as such in the pipis cutscene.
But something happened after their separation that caused Spamton to believe otherwise.
He's probably trying to say "phone number" here, but being screwed over by his speech distortion. It makes more sense contextually.
But given that Tenna clearly cares, it wouldn't make sense for him to have changed his phone number like that, especially since this likely occurred soon after Spamton ran away. At that point, Tenna would've still been waiting for him to come back; he would've only gone into denial about the situation later to cope with the pain of Spamton's disappearance.
Tenna was the realest of Spamton's connections. The one that did truly care for him. The one that loved him. The one that would have helped as much as he could. And perhaps an outside force wanted that connection gone, so that Spamton would be left completely alone.
And it's only after all of this that Spamton completely closed himself off emotionally and stopped trying to make real connections, only viewing people through a strictly selfish lens of "what can they give me?".
(Yet, at the same time, if he's defeated violently on your first encounter with him, he criticizes you for hurting him without paying for it, implying that he would be willing to tolerate violence if he's financially compensated for it. He's so desperate for money that he will both try to exploit others for it and also let himself be exploited for it.)
However, if you defeat Spamton NEO peacefully, by trying to set him free, he quickly turns around and gives friendship another chance. The kids showed him genuine compassion, so they're his friends now. Even once it turns out that they can't set him free, he still becomes an ally. They made a real effort to help.
He has rarely been shown such kindness by others, especially after his downfall, so it's not something he takes for granted. It will take a while before he feels comfortable opening up emotionally, but he has decided to try trusting someone again.
TL;DR: In-universe, other characters have always seen Spamton as a weird little freak, even while he was successful, so he never had that many interpersonal connections. He valued those he did have, and wouldn't throw them away until he was wronged by the other person first. Being betrayed and abandoned by everyone he used to know gave him severe trust issues and made him cynical, but he's quick to give friendship and trust another chance once he's shown genuine compassion.
thereās nothing wrong with overly self-indulgent shit like honestly
make that fuckin beauty and the beast au with your otp
draw your favorite character broken and bloody for no reason
make a self-insert thatās super important and powerful
write porn of that obscure ship centered entirely around your personal kinks
headcanon your faves as your sexuality, gender, etc
have fun man
i mean in the past iāve made fun of all these things but iāve grown up and chilled out and honestly? fiction is your platform to go nuts. have a great time. do what you want to
just respect other peopleās boundaries and donāt go forcing your headcanons down other peopleās throats, because they deserve to have a good time too
enjoy fiction however you want to and donāt let other people tell you how itās supposed to be enjoyed
i wrote this post almost 8 years ago, in may of 2017. in 2018 a long, aggressive harassment campaign run by the exact sorts of people the reblog was about got this account terminated a few months before the nsfw ban. it took me a while to come back to tumblr and once i did, it took me even longer to openly post about profic stuff like this again. i never in a million years expected to see some old post of mine cross my dash today with almost 70k notes; as i recall, it had a few hundred when this account still existed.
iām not nearly as confrontational anymore, but if thereās one thing thatās still true, itās that i stand by everything i said. and iām glad i said it. scrolling through the notes, i found some old comments disparaging me or this message, but what was important to me was all the comments that said something to the effect of āi needed to hear thisā.
i want more people to hear this, really. i want people to know that you can do whatever makes you happy in your fictional works. those characters arenāt people, and you canāt meaningfully hurt them. things you explore fictionally donāt mean you condone or desire them irl. ābadā or cliche writing doesnāt somehow hurt other people, and really, it doesnāt hurt you either. self-indulgence in art is not a crime.
please create what brings you joy. block people who upset or attack you. avoid what you dislike and uplift what you enjoy. fandom is only as serious as you make it, but itās not activism, and itās not a test of morals either.
