For funsies, I threw together all three Deltarune OSTs into a playlist so I could listen to them back to back. But this led to me...noticing something, about NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A, BIG SHOT, and the audio version of Tenna's introduction VHS that Toby just threw onto the soundtrack for whatever bizarre reason.
So, I'm NOT the first person to notice that Tenna's got way more voice acting than any other character in Undertale OR Deltarune. He's got an entire 40-second cutscene where he's speaking the entire time! And he calls out his "IT'S!! TV!! TIME!!!" catchphrase every chance he gets.
When old video games around the late 80s-early 90s first started incorporating speech samples, they were often HEAVILY compressed, having very little resources to work with -- even on really good arcade hardware the speech quality was...not great, and it got even worse on home consoles like NES, SNES, and Genesis, sometimes making things difficult to understand. Not impossible, but difficult. Notably, there were two major issues this level of compression introduced: The first was basically Elmuh Fudd Syndwome, where Rs get distorted and basically drop out completely. A very famous example of this first type of compression error is the "Rise from your grave" sample at the beginning of Altered Beast.
The second, and I'd say more common type of error, is a distinct hissing sound on sibilants (S and Z sounds). The NES Ghostbusters title screen is a very good example of this one:
This is the one we hear HEAVILY in all of Tenna's speech (it actually gives him a pretty noticeable lisp!) Listen closely whenever he says "It's TV time!" and you'll hear that hissing from the compression on the first word, and during the VHS scene you can also hear it pretty clearly on "Coming Straight from your houSe!" and "The SenSation of your Screen!"
(This also applies to Jevil as well, since his voice samples are compressed in the same way -- you can hear it whenever he says "Metamorphosis"! I'm like 90% sure that all the voice acting in Deltarune is the same person, likely Toby Fox himself, using the same recording and compression so it makes sense.)
So, why am I talking so much about shitty 80s speech compression and Tenna's distinctive lisp from it? Because we've heard it before, in chapter 2. Specifically, in both of Spamton's battle themes.
You heard it here last, folks: throughout NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A and BIG SHOT, the phrase (what else) "Now's your chance to be a big shot" is repeated over and over -- in the former it's higher-pitched, sounding more cartoony, while in the latter it's pitched back down and sounds closer to a normal voice. But, in both songs, all sibilants (S sounds) have that same hissing error from the compression. And what's more damning, the "lyrics" in NOW'S YOUR CHANCE sound a HECK of a lot like Tenna's normal voice, while BIG SHOT's lower-pitched lines also aren't far off from certain lines in Tenna's intro VHS.
So, the gist of my theory is, the "singer" in both of Spamton's themes was actually Tenna the whole time. I like to think that, when the two of them first formed their partnership, it could've been something Tenna said to Spamton as part of his "sweet talk" in order to seal the deal -- "Now's your chance to be a big shot!" -- and even after taking off and developing his hatred of Tenna, blaming him for all of his misfortune, Spamton still remembers that one moment of encouragement. Or is just repeating it over and over in mockery. Honestly with Spamton you can go either way.
But I'm not done yet; I also own a talking Spamton plush. And one could reasonably assume that the voice "spoken" by it would be Spamton's canon voice, right?
Squeezing the thing usually plays one of the following lines:
"Now's your chance to be a big shot!"
"Now's your chance to be a big shot!" (lower pitched)
"Be a big, be a big, now's y- shot!" (I admittedly had to look up and copy this one from the wiki, I never could figure out what the hell he was saying before "shot" ^^; )
"Be a big, be a big, (laughing) shot!"
All four of these are clearly copied from his music, without any instrumental backing but WITH the heavy compression and hissing on sibilant sounds. Which means...Spamton is literally speaking in Tenna's voice. This likely means he's using Tenna's voice in the game, too -- I've seen others speculate that his bracketed adspeak text is actually supposed to be a failed / glitched attempt to copy Tenna's fancy speech quirk. If he's literally using Tenna's voice, then this is definitely plausible! As a walking advertisement Spamton is also clearly able to copy others, more or less word for word -- at one point during the Spamton Sweepstakes he even repeated something Noelle included in one of her blog posts revealed during the same event, complete with her XP emoji.
I would think that, if he's mimicking others' words, he can probably mimic their voices too, right?
And we already know Spamton LOVES mimicking more than just others' words/voices to try and get ahead. His current look -- black hair and suit and two-toned glasses -- was a blatant attempt to copy Swatch, according to his own shop dialogue, and some artwork (particularly that one air freshener) depicts Big Shot-era Spamton in a red suit and yellow tie, heavily reminiscent of Tenna's outfit.
So, if he copied Tenna's looks in the past to try and make himself a success, why not his literal words as well? Why not try to BECOME the Big Shot he saw his former partner as, in more than just taking inspiration?
One last thing to point out with this is that scene in chapter 3, you know the one.
So, Tenna doesn't recognize Spamton at all. That makes sense -- he's clearly changed a lot since his Big Shot days! But, something I find really interesting about this scene is how Tenna reacts, or rather DOESN'T react, when Spamton speaks to him. If you haven't seen someone in years, they're bound to look different, but still sound the same, right? And they were former partners, in whatever sense you want to interpret it. Tenna likely has tapes of their old shows and commercials together. He knows very well what Spamton G Spamton's voice sounds like...and in this scene, he didn't hear it. So, Spamton isn't just unrecognizable appearance-wise, but his voice has definitely changed since leaving Tenna behind too.
But what it's changed TO makes Tenna's overblown freakout so much more appropriate! Imagine if you walk into what you think is your own private room, your greatest secret lying exposed in the middle of the floor, and then suddenly this...thing appears, that kinda-sorta looks a little like your old partner but not really. And then it starts speaking -- "[Trash heap]!!! YOU KEPT IT!!!" -- IN YOUR OWN VOICE.
I'm with Tenna on this one. Foam that creature and GTFO.
So, was having some thoughts about this explanation, and what it means for Lancer, Rouxls, and most importantly, Ralsei.
Lancer froze literally five minutes after you let him out of Kris’ pocket. He didn’t belong in the Cyber World, and felt the effects immediately, becoming cold, weak, and sick before finally turning to stone.
Meanwhile, Rouxls took a LOT longer, being out of Kris’ pocket and getting into all sorts of trouble throughout the entire chapter! But, when we finally catch up to him, he’s dressed as and acting like a pirate...which, in a weird way, is kind of appropriate for Cyber World -- he’s a SOFTWARE PIRATE! And on top of that, his battle text makes tons of references to the video game Sim City, appropriate for a Dark World based around video games. It’s only when he abandons his “ship”, and the minigame, in order to attack you directly that he finally turns to stone, because he no longer belongs in that world.
Now, let’s talk about Ralsei. He NEVER turns to stone, and shows absolutely no symptoms at all, which...yeah, that’s weird. But, there is also that very plausible theory that the Light World object he corresponds to is Kris’ old horn headband. If this turns out to be the case...of course Ralsei belongs in Cyber World! He belongs in every Dark World we visit -- because he belongs wherever Kris is.
Some Cyber World (+ Dark World in General) Headcanons??
-Cyber City is fittingly VERY densely-populated, however surprisingly few of Cyber World's citizens are actually represented by physical objects in the Light World, since it being connected to the internet means a LOT of digital denizens can also live there. The internet outage in chapter 2 meant that most of them were MIA while we were running around the city, however.
-The Cyber Fields are kind of a mix of suburban and rural -- While most of the population lives in the city, there's a couple of small communities spread out there.
-That place where you fight Spamton NEO is an actual part of the city, specifically its Bad Neighborhood -- there's a secret passage between it and Queen's basement meant for if she needs to make a quick exit (like in cases of, say, a crazed puppet taking over her mansion by force). However, there are REASONS why you have to go through so many locked doors and gates to get down there, and it's also usually closed off from the rest of the city as well, for safety reasons. If you weren't on rails the entire time (and you didn't accidentally clip right through the floor like in a Bethesda game), you'd probably see lots of glitches, viruses, corrupted data, and old Spamton ads that no one ever bothered to take down / replace.
-Werewires aren't just Queen's attack dogs, they also serve in administration positions and offices throughout the city, as well as guards / police -- their wires act as a sort of hive mind, allowing them to communicate with each other and Queen directly. Pre-Knight, the transformation was completely voluntary, with some choosing to undergo it and some choosing to remain Plugboys instead.
-Werewires are also completely blind due to the wire literally taking up their entire face, and communicate mostly via sign and body language.
-In contrast, though? Werewerewires are indeed exclusive to Queen's mansion, and serve as her personal bodyguards, her last line of defense after the Swatchlings and Tasque Manager. It takes a LOT of strength to absorb the wire like that, which means they're pretty rare (like, the number that exist at any given time rarely gets into the double-digits), but they're still blind and speak via sign language like all the other Werewires.
-Music equipment robots like SCC actually used to be pretty common sights throughout Cyber World, the fourth most common Darkner species after Plugboys, Addisons, and Swatchlings! However, given their nature, Queen's ban on music unintentionally DECIMATED their population -- SCC's rebellion is about a little more than just fighting for their right to party!
-Also, speakers are the most common of these robots, given that Cyber World is in a computer lab!
-Swatchlings are flightless birds, however this does not stop them from trying. They can hover a little with their wings!
-Names:
Robots (other than Queen): Either really, really mundane (like just normal people names) or really, really weird (like Cakes), but almost always puns of some kind or follow a theme. It's also seen as perfectly normal for them to change their names when they think of a better one (and sometimes their gender while they're at it...) They HAVE serial numbers like Queen's, but they're entirely separate from their names.
Plugboys / Werewires / Werewerewires: Their serial numbers are their names, like Queen's, and may or may not shorten them into proper (and more pronounceable) names (though usually not -- you just learn to deal with names like 57-TE46V83 or J49N6-1C83.)
Swatchlings: Every individual one has an assigned Pantone number or hex code, which serves as their real "name", however they usually go by nicknames that match their color.
Addisons: Also tend to have punny names, but also almost universally have last names, which they pick themselves, usually just whatever makes them sound more marketable.
Other Cyber World denizens: Also tend to take the serial number approach, but are much more into using more pronounceable nicknames than the Plugboys. This is how you get things like "The Hacker" or "Frommt" -- those aren't their actual names, just what they go by.
However, Nubert is Nubert. There is no other name/number that can capture my man's majesty!
-There are actually Rudinns, Hathies, and whatever the generic Clubs and Spades are in Cyber World! However, there's very few of them, with their own small community out in the Cyber Fields, and they have a much more digital / computer-y look to them, given that they're from the Solitaire program rather than actual cards! (They're freaking regional variants like in Pokemon...)
-There's a number of gangs and criminal syndicates in Cyber World that mostly operate in the Dark Web, outside of Queen's reach -- Pre-Knight, her biggest priority was tracking down and reprogramming them into law-abiding citizens, which is why among certain circles she gained a reputation for being a harsh ruler. They mostly deal in hacked data, stolen passwords, crypto, and NFTs. Needless to say, The Hacker has links to ALL of them.
-There's a thriving fashion industry in Cyber World run mostly by the Swatchlings -- most clothes that people wear do indeed actually change color if exposed to different temperatures! Though, it takes a little more than just talking about summer heat or cold pickles in front of them.
-The Lightner internet isn't normally accessible to Cyber World's denizens, the Addisons and Poppups aside; only Queen has a really good connection to it, and everyone who wants to search for something or know anything about the Lightners has to go through her. She absolutely uses this to control people and secure her rule over them, but pre-Knight she did genuinely like looking things up for her citizens and making them happy.
-Everything in Cyber World is stuck around 1999 / 2000 because one of the computers in the librarby (possibly even Queen herself!) actually suffered the Y2K bug and glitched. It still all functions fine, but it's just kind of in a Groundhog Day-ish loop with the new millennium rolling over but then glitching and getting reset back to 1999 every New Year, and most of the Darkners in residence don't actually realize or care that it's been like that for over two decades now.
-There is very, very little water in Cyber World -- it's actually considered a very dangerous substance, and controlled appropriately, with special licenses and stuff needed to even touch it. What comes out of all the sinks and makes up that big lake behind Queen's mansion is actually something else, either oil / mineral oil, coolant, liquified data (a la TRON), battery acid, isopropyl alcohol, or maybe liquid shadows or something (since it's the Dark World). Or, more likely, a mix of all of these (drinking it is NOT advised!)
-Light works in reverse in the Dark World -- every "light" you see is actually something casting a shadow, with darker places appearing brighter and more saturated and brighter places being dimmer and more monochrome black and white. The only exception to this are Dark Fountains -- they really are as dark as they appear, like straight-up Vantablack, and even if there's no "light" at all around them they'll still be perfectly visible.
-If any actual light shines in the Dark World (like, say, if a Lightner took a flashlight in with them), everything it touched would either be cast in shadow (for dim lights like a candle) or become completely pitch black (for brighter lights), and if you shine real light on any Darkner it both temporarily blinds and causes them pain, and makes them appear as their Light World counterpart instead (or makes certain digital ones, like Addisons, vanish entirely!) Darkners have an instinct to fear and avoid real light at all costs, though, so don't try it!
-How I honestly headcanon Dark Worlds work is, they always exist as a series of parallel dimensions to the Light World, whether there's a Fountain or not -- a Dark Fountain merely connects a part of the Light World to its corresponding Dark World (and creates connections to other nearby Dark Worlds as well, hence why the door between Castle Town and Card Kingdom can no longer open, the connection's no longer there), and gives them and their Darkners forms that Lightners can perceive rather than the abstract concepts they usually exist as. This is why even a world like Cyber World, which canonically has "existed" for only one day, has all that history and backstory to it (most notably Spamton's whole deal with the year 1997) -- it's only been a PHYSICAL world since the Fountain's creation, but it's been around as a NON-PHYSICAL world for much longer!
-Related, when Kris seals a Dark Fountain, the Dark World still exists, it's just that the connection between it and the Light World is severed, and it all goes back to being abstract and formless, save for the Darkners they recruit and take back to Castle Town of course.
-I also think time works a little differently in the Dark Worlds, too, passing much faster than in the Light World -- which is why a chapter's entire epic adventure can happen in only a few hours. It also means that, even if the Cyber World Dark Fountain was created earlier that day in the Light World, to the Cyber World Darkners it's actually been a LOT longer, like a few weeks or so, giving Queen some time to really change things. (It also means that Card Kingdom's been abandoned for a REALLY long fucking time, in King Spade's eyes, and why Jevil says he'll sleep for "the other 100 years" when you Spare him...)
(Spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk if you haven't finished chapter 2 yet!)
Kris is the Knight, Gaster is the Knight, Ralsei is sus...
How about I throw an oddball one at you? What if Dess is the Knight?
In chapter 2, Queen implied that only a Lightner can actually create more dark fountains, and literally any Lightner can if they have enough determination and a blade of some kind. And she was VERY interested in Noelle specifically for the task, touting her strength and potential, without even considering the other three Lightners right in front of her.
Noelle was Dess' younger sister. And from context in this chapter, it looks a lot like whatever happened to her, happened when Noelle was very young -- before her first spelling bee, at least, since that's where she froze up (pun not intended) on the word 'December.' But, the most important part, we don't know WHAT exactly happened to Dess. One could assume she died, either in an accident or of whatever illness Rudy has, but as others have pointed out, there's no grave for her in the graveyard. And, like, yeah, she could've been buried elsewhere, but the simplest conclusion to draw from that is that she's still alive, but either went missing or ran away from home.
She was also stated a couple times to be close to Asriel, even going to the bunker with him, Kris, and Noelle at one point. (Remember, the latter two would still have been very young children at this point, and Dess and Asriel might have been teens, around the age Kris, Noelle, and Susie are now.) And from that one scene with MK and Snowy, we know that something very bad happened there once involving Kris...perhaps this was a reference to that same event?
If so...what if the four of them opened the bunker, and Dess went inside? Or maybe Kris even went in too, and Dess went after them to bring them back? It's pretty much a given that there's gonna end up being a Dark World inside, there's just too much building up to it at this point, so if either of them went in, they'd have a hell of a time getting back out! Kris came back, perhaps even traumatized into the weird kid they are today from the experience, but Dess ended up lost in the dark...a lost girl.
(Hm, wasn't that Noelle's song? I don't think it was really Noelle's at all. Sure, she got kidnapped a couple times, but at no point was she ever "lost"...)
So, here's where I'm going right off the deep end into conjecture. Dess disappeared, and since Asriel was so close to her, he begged his father, police chief Asgore, to find her, which he never did, and might have even tried a few things that ended up getting him fired. Like, maybe even going into the bunker himself, experiencing the Dark World within, and coming back and making all these crazy claims that no one else believed except for maybe his children? That'd definitely be reason to remove him as chief of police, and also affect his and Toriel's marriage.
So, after this, Asriel, a Lightner stricken with grief and Determined to find his friend...went to the dark supply closet at his school, armed with a knife (and maybe his little sibling's old red horn headband, if you want to incorporate the theory that that's where Ralsei came from), and stabbed the ground.
Bam, dark fountain, and Ralsei's kingdom. Unlile Dess, though, Asriel came back, not having found her either, and eventually moved on and grew up, but the fountain he made persisted -- after all, while any Lightner may be able to create a fountain, Ralsei implies very early in chapter 1 that only a human like Kris can actually SEAL them!
But, this is a theory about Dess, not Asriel. Just making one fountain might make you a knight, but not The Knight -- lookin' at Kris here. At some point, Dess, still lost somewhere in the Dark World, either gets desperate to find a way out and return home, enough to try and cover EVERYTHING in darkness despite the danger it poses, or...grows to like it there, a little too much, sorta like what Susie brought up at the end of chapter 2, making more fountains so the whole world can be as fun as it is in there. Whatever the reason, Dess realizes she can create more fountains, and, Determined, goes ahead and does so. And she spends a little time in each of the worlds she creates, manipulating events to serve her desires to reach the Light World again or cover it in darkness, and even telling a few specific people, who are lonely outcasts just like her, about her home outside of that world, and the things she's learned in her time away from it all. Things she may or may not have learned herself from a certain odd man hiding behind trees in secret rooms, and giving away eggs...
Or, another possibility, she's doing it all to try and lure the people she used to know to her by creating Dark Worlds where she thinks they'd be, like, say, her sister, and her sister's friend Kris, and possibly even Asriel -- remember, the first happened to be straight-up connected to the Dark World in the school supply closet. Man, it's 2021. We ALL know just how crazy being isolated from everyone you know for so long can make you, and Dess has been lost for YEARS. But, however lost we feel as we explore all the different Dark Worlds, don't forget, she's with us in the dark...
Also, one last kicker that I couldn't really stop thinking about. The Fun Gang/F$?! Squad/Whatever are supposed to banish the "Angel's Heaven", right? Well, didn't Dess and Noelle make an angel for their dad once, which is in his hospital room? And if everyone speculates she's dead after being missing for all these years, that makes her an Angel...and the Dark Worlds she creates are her Heaven.
Okay, one last LAST kicker, since I was replaying the start of chapter 1 as I was writing this and noticed it. The Knight jailed the other three kings of the classroom Dark World and put King Spade and his "strange son" into power, right? And might have even stayed around the castle for a little while to help steer the King's actions towards the Light World, and mess with Jevil?
Guys, Lancer knows the Knight. Personally. He would have said something by now if the Knight was in our party, or if we encountered them in either of the Dark Worlds we visited. So, the Knight is definitely NOT someone we've seen yet. Furthermore...remember when we first met the kid, and his catchphrase was "Ho ho ho!" And how Susie told him he sounded like a baby Santa Claus? Wouldn't it be a nice little coincidence if he picked that up from someone literally named December, whose entire family is Christmas-themed...
Things that I don't like, especially when you look at them together:
-The fact that "Knight" and "Night" sound exactly the same.
-The fact that Dark Fountains are seemingly only created at night.
-The fact that there's a character in Undertale called Knight Knight, who you Spare by singing to sleep -- making her name a pun on the phrase "Night night". Also, she can totally appear as a Lightner in Deltarune at some point.
-These lines from Seam at the end of Chapter 2, which a lot of people seem to interpret as a warning against staying in the Dark World overnight:
"...By the by, it's growing late, isn't it?"
"You should hurry home once you finish your business here."
"You don't want to get caught when the sun goes down..."
So, I realized something last night. Boxman didn't just pick any old street corner to drop off his kids.
He took them to the plaza, specifically to Gar's Bodega. He didn't hide the box, but rather put it out in the open was right around the corner of the building, where they'd be visible to anyone going into the place (if anyone besides Dendy were around to look, of course.)
He chose the heroes he'd tried to destroy countless times to care for them when he couldn't. He trusted that their love and friendship, the very things he despises, would make them accept the bots rather than automatically try to fight them, and make the plaza a good home for them.
Remember, Boxy was present when KO said "We're so thoughtful and kind, even to our enemies!" in Stop Attacking the Plaza.
He also knew damn well that the former partner who'd betrayed him and became a hero was right upstairs, and that his kids, once he set them free, might follow that exact same path and even oppose him directly if he ever found a way to return to Boxmore, but at that moment he didn't care. He just wanted them to be safe. And since he knew what it was like to be homeless and sleeping out in the elements or in a trash can, he knew even a hero home would be better for them than where he was going.
Hell...he probably intended for them to defend the plaza from TKO and SV, since Boxmore was completely lost. The plaza was destroyed, as the bots pointed out to Dendy, Boxman got exactly what he wanted in the end but...it wasn't the WAY he wanted, so it was wrong. And as small a gesture as it was, he'd help to fix it, and indirectly fight the man who'd taken everything from him as a bonus.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
So, here's a slightly different theory on what's going on with Venomous lately, with all the headaches and snapping at Fink and whatnot. Remember the dynamic that Boxmore used to have during its early days in Lad & Logic, with Boxman mostly overseeing the manufacturing and Mr Logic seemingly handling all the planning and business matters (as he was designed to do)?
That's the exact same dynamic Boxmore has again now that PV and Fink are there. Boxman's back to mostly factory management and design (as we saw in I Am Jethro), and Venomous? He's the one running the business side, and coming up with his own plans. Boxman's got a (business) partner once again, and now that the honeymoon period is over he's slowly fallen back into his old groove, and it's very likely that as he does so he's been unconsciously projecting a little bit of his former Best Friend onto PV, dumping a lot of the business work onto him and expecting it all to be okay since that's just how a business partnership works in his eyes. He may even expect PV to be the brains in their relationship, putting a ton of pressure onto him outside the business.
Of course, while it's natural for Boxy to do this, it's NOT natural for PV to take on Logic's old role. He never knew Mr Logic, he's never had any experience as co-CEO of a robot factory before, and on top of that, he's a human (more or less), not a robot, and can't possibly be expected to flawlessly handle running the business, plus his own supervillainy and lab work, PLUS co-parenting seven kids! (Heck, Logic never even had to deal with kids during his tenure at Boxmore, so PV's got MORE on his plate in comparison!)
And for an added bit of heartbreak in this, remember that PV's main way to unwind after a stressful day is to go out for a relaxing drive all by himself. What if Boxy's been getting very anxious about that as a part of his projection, maybe even a little clingy and possessive, demanding he go along or keeping him from doing it entirely? He may not yet trust that his new Best Friend won't leave for good, or won't completely switch alignment on him and become a hero for whatever reason while he's out in the world. With all the new expectations on him and his main way to de-stress unavailable, of course PV would be breaking down!
(Or, who knows, maybe PV just hasn't been on a relaxing drive since his car disintigrated. ^^;)
And worst of all, neither one may even be aware this is what's happening. Boxy's not one to dwell too much on his past and is probably doing it all unconsciously, letting his unresolved issues run wild now that he's back in the exact same situation. He's clearly still not over Logic's betrayal, with how hard he took Darrell's own and his vendetta against friendship in general, and still has yet to work through those issues in any way, much less a healthy one. And on the other hand, Venomous would have no idea where this behavior is coming from at all since he doesn't know about Boxman's history, and is still kinda unable to say no to him -- he doesn't realize that Boxman DOES need someone else to reign in his bad habits and force him to take on a little more responsibility, and that it's time to stop feeling sorry for the guy who once slept in his trash and stand up for not only his own health but also that of their relationship!
Let's just hope, for both their sakes but ESPECIALLY for PV's (and Fink's!), that all this comes up and can be dealt with soon!
Hey, remember my pet cracktheory that Darrell is a clone of Laserblast, or is somehow connected to him in some way? I finally cleaned up and sorted out my full list of weird things I’ve noticed that they both have in common, or that otherwise support that, or are just weird about this stupid robot in general. Because I wasn’t fucking joking about there being a lot of it. Probably not gonna actually amount to anything, especially with not much series left, but meh. It’s fun. Enjoy.
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Appearance/Body:
(Okay, I admit most of this section was pretty much killed by Darrell's canon human form in OK AU, which looked NOTHING like Laser at all. But just in case...)
-Identical body shape/proportions to LB/SF, with wider torso/hips and very thin waist -- maybe a little smaller because he's a teen (and a robot)
-Very close head shape to LB/SF/PV: square jaw (when it’s not exaggerated to make him cuter), similar rectangular shape and proportions if you include the braincase (since it would normally be inside his skull)
-LB's mask looks a LOT like Darrell's head, with the entire top half and most of the sides of his head covered and with circular ear...things
-That mask also tends to be quite expressive, almost functioning as a single eye sometimes
-Their big heavy boots are also kinda similar (Though honestly Darrell's boots look slightly more like Chip Damage's...)
-LB is based off of the superhero Cyclops, and Darrell is literally a cyclops
-Only robot that really seems to have an organic, human brain, and has human feet too along with Shannon -- even for just the feet, someone's DNA has to be cloned to make him, and not necessarily Boxman's.
-Darrell can grow stubble, according to that one tiny joke shot in Let's Watch the Boxmore Show; his face may be organic just like his brain and feet. Also worth noting, the specific spots on the side of the jaw where LB's/SF's stubble shows are covered by metal for Darrell -- when comparing Darrell and LB, each character's most distinctive visible features (one eye and brain, cheek stubble) are covered up on the other!
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Costumes:
-Darrell seems to enjoy dressing up as a HERO -- when he's in cowboy mode he plays a sheriff, and when the bots play Golden Statues he always plays the museum guard, both specifically hero roles!
-In fact, the costumes in general -- he definitely likes pretending he's someone else, rather than just being fashionable like his siblings.
-LB and SF both hide their eyes, and may have something unusual/distinctive about them, especially with Laser because of his eye-based powers. LB!SF in particular would hide his if there was something that might immediately get him recognized as his former identity. Perhaps only having one eye (hence the visor acting as one on occasion like I pointed out)? (We got to see behind LB's mask once in Gar's fear sequence in Face Your Fears, with one red eye showing where the mask was broken, but there it did look like he had two. However, Gar would never have seen what was ACTUALLY under there...)
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Habits/Personality:
-LB was an anti-hero, willing to do some fucked-up things in the name of good, while Darrell is an anti-villain, who focuses more on just doing his job, having fun, and trying to make his father happy than crushing the heroes out of malice
-Darrell's also just a terrible villain in general. Of course, he's directly killed another villain (or tried to anyway), and his idea of doing the most evilest thing was reporting Boxman's lies to the board and stopping him, AKA doing the RIGHT thing -- even with the betrayal, not very villainous of him, huh?
-Weird shared oral fixation? There's a very unusual emphasis on food/mouth things with Darrell (his lowkey obsession with eating, spitting Boxman into the spitoon in his office, brushing his teeth), and LB's trademark was always having that lollipop in his mouth.
-Hugging soft cute animals, like Rippy and Fink
-Darrell writes in concrete in You're Level 100, and LB does the same using his eye laser in Glory Days (in the POINT theme song)
-Neither one is a big fan of new members of their respective teams right away. LB refused to take junior members with him in both Glory Days and Let's Take a Moment, and doesn't seem to think much of them in either episode at all, aside from Silver Spark (and then, he still left her behind as one of his lookouts). Darrell...just freaking HATES new siblings at first, having a problem with every single one he gets, at least the ones we've seen (we didn't get to see his and Mikayla's introduction). He's also like this to siblings he considers inferior to him, to a point -- he and Shannon both got pretty jealous when Boxman started praising Jethro's "new moves."
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Boxman stuff:
-Timing is correct, Darrell and the others were created right after LB disappeared according to Lad and Logic, since Boxman only drew the first three members in his original plans to attack POINT, and Gar was already building the plaza by the time Boxmore was opened. This means the Boxbot quadruplets and KO were actually born around the same time, making them all 6-11 years old, roughly the same amount of time that's passed since the Sandwich Incident.
-Boxy was obsessed with POINT at that time (and still is, since he's kept the coordinates for POINT HQ memorized), and possibly LB himself (given his later attraction to PV)
-Boxman may also have some POINT tech and connections of his own? First off, access to a huge supply of glorbs, the easiest and closest source of which Foxtail and Carol have been protecting and heavily monitoring, and are normally very hard for non-heroes to get their hands on. Second, those boxes he sends the robots to attack in might use the same wormhole tech as POINT Prep's bus, since it looks a little similar both in transit and emerging at its destination, plus its driver sounds exactly like Ernesto. And speaking of Ernesto, that one time he straight-up drew a POINT drone as part of a family portrait…
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POINT stuff:
-There were six members of POINT before the Sandwich Incident, and LB was one of the original three, and seemed to function as co-leader alongside Foxtail. There are six Boxbots, and Darrell was one of the original four, and kinda leads them in battle alongside Shannon, especially once he becomes CEO.
-And coincidentally, the original six members of POINT also share colors and in some cases roles with the Boxbots -- Shannon and Foxtail are orange, Greyman and Ernesto are purple, El-Bow and Jethro are blue, Rippy and Raymond are green, Silver Spark is...difficult but her hair is pretty distinctive and works with Mikayla for yellow, and of course, Darrell and Laser are red. The robots' colors and relative ages even match POINT'S senior/junior members, with Greyman, Laser, and Foxtail representing three of the older Boxbots, and then Rippy, Silver Spark, and El-Bow representing the two newer ones and Jethro, who only recently was able to show his true personality/potential.
-"Junior Members" = "Junior Deputies"
-"Code Vermillion." I made an entire post on this a while back, but to summarize, Vermillion is a bright, slightly orange-y red, and in most episodes is Darrell's exact color. And Vermillion, as a red pigment, tends to darken over time into purple and black -- and SF and PV have connections to both glorbs (which Code Vermillion refers to), and to LB as well.
-Darrell has a bunch of weird similarities to Chip Damage as well, who is basically Laser's replacement at POINT, minus being the Charisma discipline rep: Robots made right after LB got iced, green powers, special limited-edition costumes/POW cards, similar dark gray boots, the remote controls (Wisdom class blackboard for Darrell, Final Exams for Chip), possibly both made with actual brain tissue (The flashback to Chip's creation had a brain on one of Greyman's screens), etc. Also, a dumb one, but...remember those Double-Dipped (KO and TKO?) Laser Chips (self-explanatory), that are "probably just a limited-edition" (Darrell).
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Other assorted weird things:
-Darrell’s laser eye attachment shown in Stop Attacking the Plaza -- still being worked on in the episode (and it looks like it has been for a while, since it had been some time since Boxman was in that specific lab...), but used by a Big Darrell in the opening, where it produces a very similar (green) copy of LB's beam.
-Darrell is right-handed, in a left-handed family -- he's shown eating with his right hand in Stop Attacking the Plaza while everyone else is using their left, looks like he’s wielding a lightsaber right-handed in Plaza Film Festival, and draws with his right hand in Villains Night In. Left-handedness is often associated with villains in fiction, so he may not be a full one? (Definitely not as sinister as the rest of them, hehe.) Though, some instances of Darrell using his left hand too, and other bots using their right, so I dunno how strong this particular point is.
-Line to keep an eye on: "Just reboot yourself into a new body! I do it all the time for funsies!" from Rad Likes Robots. Related, Darrell reboots by exploding himself, which is how LB may have "died" and took on a new identity (if he's SF)
-Weird shit from Let's Not Be Skeletons: Potato demonstrates a skeleton remote wearing a cowboy hat, and in addition to turning people into skeletons they remove powers, just like that red orb, and they also left Rad's and Enid's boots intact for some reason. Darrell's also one of the biggest customers of the remotes, using his foes' weapons against them ("What do you say we snag more of them before they fall into the wrong hands? We could even use them against our foes!")
-When we first saw TKO's power manifest in You're Level 100, it was while KO was trying to defeat a giant superpowered Darrell. When we first saw TKO in physical form in Face Your Fears (as KO's "evil burp"), he was sent out to defeat a giant superpowered Laserblast head. When we next saw TKO in, well, TKO (as his true self for the first time), he defeated another giant superpowered Darrell!
-Really dumb one, the letter right before C and D is B, so the acronyms LB and LCD may be a thing?
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Turbo/SF/TKO connections, just in case those turn out to be related to Laser as well:
(Under the cut, since this is long enough already!)
-SF hints that negative emotions, particularly anger, fuel Turbo powers. Darrell has quite a few jealousy and anger issues in general -- "Gets flustered by petty insults," HATES new younger siblings (or existing siblings showing him up and getting more of dad’s attention), etc -- and seems to be way more capable of mayhem than usual when running on these emotions. They even gave him the power to defy his programming and (attempt to) kill Boxman!
-He can also have his power boosted by a ton in a very short amount of time, from level -4 up (down?) to level -100 and able to destroy the plaza in one shot, and for as brief as that level -100 thing was he STILL has yet to be topped as the most powerful villain in the entire series! But, Boxman doesn't do it often -- even regular Big Darrells are implied to NOT be that powerful normally. Perhaps he's holding Darrell back for a reason?
-A lot of emphasis on his brain, similar to TKO: the visible brain is obvious, he has the most noticeable hivemind, and he pilots Big Darrells from inside their braincases similar to how KO and TKO controlled Big KO (even the name's similar!) in TKO's House
-Also, he doesn't have to glitch or change colors with his mood like Shannon does, he can make decisions and go against his programming all on his own -- perhaps he runs mostly on that meat brain? Or maybe his brain is actually a mass of pink glorbs like Jethro got in I Am Jethro that unlocked his intelligence and potential?
-SF's speech to KO in TKO: "Everyone holds you back because they're afraid of your raw, natural ability. They want you small and nice, blissfully unaware of your true potential." Darrell in Lord Cowboy Darrell: "Nobody's gonna hold me back." Shannon to Darrell in Plaza Film Festival: "Where do you think you got all that natural talent?"
-TKO ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss. LCD ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss.
-That VERY noticeable purple glow in the "I'm the Daddy now!" scene in Lord Cowboy Darrell. Like, to the point it seemed specially painted for emphasis, rather than the normal animation.
-Also, Junior is pretty heavy evidence that Turbo powers do not necessarily = purple, as Junior's powers were all green (and so were Chip's Turbo-ish powerups!) Darrell also has green powers (that even carried over to his human alternate in OK AU, despite Shannon and Raymond getting Enid’s and Rad’s exact same powers and colors), and is sometimes surrounded by Turbo-esque greenish lightning when he's angry, the best example being at the beginning of Legends of Mr Gar after being trash talked (remember that he can't take petty insults; he was PISSED there!)
-(If it looks like I’m insinuating Darrell’s secretly got more power under the hood than even he realizes, I absolutely am.)
-Darrell still has his dark hooded cloak from the pilot, which looks a little like SF's.
-Darrell's the only one who wasn't invited to Junior's funeral, and doesn't give half a shit, instead using it as an opportunity to betray people and take on a new identity. Possibly like LB faking his own death, therefore not attending his own funeral, and taking on a new identity as SF?
-Sneaking through the vents = sneaking through the pipes (SF, maybe how LB survived given that pipe in Let's Take a Moment)?
-Weird broken halo imagery shared between both Darrell and SF in TKO. (Not my observation actually, pointed out by @david-yells-about-cartoons ) Darrell's cloud halo thing in that episode also looks almost exactly like the clouds swirling above KO as he shoots a power fist for the first time at the end of Let's Be Friends…
