#parallel and analysis posts will continue

[raayllum]

See you again

[murder-kill]

the non-main character I think about the most is Isaac, mainly because he gets a large role in alnst by being a mostly neutral outside observer and narrator. because of this, there's actually a bunch set out for his character.

people joke about him having the worst time in alnst, which is true, but also why he's interesting to me. he has the worst time, but still survives while not being the perfect guy. he's a survivor, and he survives due to his logical mindset, which is both his strength and his flaw - he can solve issues in the moment, but fails to stop anything at the root. also, he's bad with people, making him a terrible leader figure for the rebellion, but a perfect tactics guy. this makes him perfect foil to his brother, Jacob, who is the exact opposite of him, a dreamer and the rebellion's leader.

our diva explores this difference using Jacob and Isaac's differing treatment and regard of hyuna. Isaac doesn't see much further than what's in front of him, and can only judge/help based on that (sneeze). Jacob sees further, and is able to actually help her problems by looking to the cause (cold).

Isaac's advice to till in remember everything exemplifies both his temporarily effective solutions, and poor people skills. he says to till that he needs to learn how to forget, which we can assume is how he copes. this is terrible advice for till. till already uses selective forgetting/ignoring to cope with the traumatising events of his life. but the advice still has an effect, even if unintentional, forcing till to face his unhealthy coping mechanisms, and that's his character development. but Isaac isn't a main character, so we don't get to see him develop past this temporary solution to grief. he has to keep being this way, because he's a survivor. like hyuna, has to simply keep moving forward without regard to himself, because he's the one that's been left behind and he has to take responsibility for all that's left, even if he isn't suited to it.

[lexthe13th]

apparently i must be the one to write about the parallels between jeremy and andrew. has no one else done this. are we serious. it's right there. in front of you.

[mihai-florescu]

Am i not chronically online enough. What is a variant?

It's the hot new thing on twitter where you take a character and put them in a collage with 8 others you think are similar. I love finding parallels between things i love so it's not really anything new to uhh. Kin assign characters. But it becoming a trend where people also provide explanations of their thought process with these collages has been really fun to see. It's also an insight into everyone's personal inner libraries of knowledge♡

[kuroshika]

@lesbian-hannibal @7x16pm @shatteredlesbian

barking because the scene before had nothing to do with hannibal but will brought him up anyway because even if he wasn't around he was still so intertwined with will that will's first thought would be 'no, of course this isn't something he'd do' because they'd reached that stage where the lines were no longer just blurring but becoming symbiotic with each other because will's want for hannibal to continue needing him has made him begin to start unconsciously copying hannibal and the parts that he seems unwilling to part with (the parts that he needs) because if will can imitate what hannibal needs so flawlessly maybe hannibal will continue to need him and he's slowly realizing how much he likes what hannibal has been easing him into and he's trying to fight it while still unconsciously mirroring hannibal because he's slowly becoming his other half, his dark mirror, and -

whew.

[intermediatefanficenjoyer]

The Moon Monster, the circus and an internalised fairytale

Analysis of The Moon Monster story and its significance to the plot of TFC (co-written by @readersofthevoid)

The special AMA revealed a very interesting piece of information, that being Pierrot’s favourite fairytale.

According to this post by @thekuronaqueen, The Moon Monster could be the story of St George and the Dragon. It writes out the whole story in more detail (as well some of its religious/cultural history, it’s a very interesting read), but the following fragment is what this analysis is based upon:

A young warrior decided to face the beast. When the full moon lit the night sky, he would mount his horse and wait, spear in hand, watching the heavens. One night, he saw the dragon in the sky and charged to meet it. The creature was about to devour a young woman when the warrior struck, piercing its neck and chest with his spear. Unable to defeat him, the dragon took flight, and the battle continued across the sky until it reached the moon. There, the struggle left craters on its surface, and the dragon was finally slain. George chose to remain on the moon, keeping eternal watch over humanity’s fears and dangers, from where he continues to protect the oppressed and the unjust.

Now, why we believe this is Pierrot’s favourite story: St George did what he could not - save the young woman from being devoured by the dragon. The parallel here to Columbina is clear (and tragic), but it also inspires two other interesting ones - Pierrot as St George and Harlequin as the Dragon.

First: St George. He watches from the moon at a distance, used a spear to slay the beast, to stop an innocent being eaten by it. Is that not what Pierrot does? He stalks the MC, watches us when we approach the black tent, even ‘spears the dragon’ during the tent scene with Harlequin. Despite his obsessive and violent tendencies, he puts in great effort to do so at a distance, without getting up close and personal (at least not when MC can see him).

His weapon of choice is also interesting: he prefers his daggers and throwing knives despite being stronger than the other circus members. Not only does that weaponry sound very similar to what St George used, but it also allows him to keep his ‘monstrous’ strength and claws hidden from the MC. It allows him to portray himself not as the beast but as the protector. He tries to be the one who guards MC at a distance, who prevents the dragon feasting once more. He is the one who, in his mind, is the one that will stop another tragedy. He internalised a fairytale and believes that, if he acts like the hero, then things must go like they do in the story. The young person targeted by the dragon cannot die if he plays his part.

The dragon. The parallels between it and Harlequin are pretty clear: reptilian tongue, green, sly. Hell, the special AMA even confirmed he is a fire-eater - another thing that ties him with the image of the beast. Obviously, Pierrot sees Harlequin as the dragon - the destroyer, the devourer - but does Harlequin see himself the same way? It’s a popular theory in the fandom that Harlequin makes himself a ‘villain’ so that Pierrot has someone to hate, to stop him falling into the catatonia he was likely in after Columbina’s death, but what if it goes a step further?

Harlequin is a storyteller and, given his previous friendship with Pierrot, he likely knows that this is a story the other cherishes. Is it possible, then, that he plays along with the ‘story’ because it keeps Pierrot sane? Given that they are all performers who shed their former identities and names only to embrace their new ones as the stock characters of the Commedia Dell'arte, they’re used to performing and playing their part, so what’s one more role?

Or is it perhaps because he too has internalised the role of the dragon. That way, he was a mighty, ruthless being, not a starved, weak monster that had to consume one of its kind to stay alive. Maybe the role gives him as much sanity as it does Pierrot.

The final piece of the puzzle: the moonless night. Moonless. St George is associated with the moon, from where he protects the oppressed. There was no moon the night Columbina died: there was no one to save her.

Pierrot is no moon, not quite. He cannot be if Columbina was killed. But perhaps he can be another celestial entity, one that watches and protects when you are in danger and there is no moon to save you. He is not quite the moon, but he can be the stars - the ones that adorn his costume and the one on your pin. He is not exactly like St George, but he makes every effort to be, so that things can stay as they are in the story. So that no one he loves is devoured again.

[momentaryl0ss]

UPDATE, MAJOR UPDATE 💀

This is addition to my theory over here and this bit might make it concrete evidence. I am in shambles right now, I just remembered this while doing a re-watch for analysis purposes. And this definitely means that there in fact were First Shadow parallels/mentions in Volume 2 like we were promised, just extremely subtle for buildup in the Finale.

Watch this.

"An-And we like biking to Melvald's for malted milkshakes"

During his coming out speech, he mentions biking to Melvald’s for milkshakes. And that’s…

That's not a thing. Melvald’s is a convenience store in the show. There are no milkshakes there because it isn't a diner. It sounds like a minor continuity slip right? People do it all the time, and the Duffers can be excused for something as minor as this.

However, Melvald's Diner is present in—you guessed it!—The First Shadow play on Broadway which is about Henry Creel 💀.

"The First Shadow" is canon to the lore of Stranger Things and we all know it. We know that Melvald’s used to be a diner in Henry Creel’s time—

"...a recurring place tied to routine, emotional connection, and more importantly there, teenage intimacy".

It eventually becomes the convenience store we know, but the emotional imprint of that location belongs to Henry, and not Will. And the Duffers said you wouldn't need to see the play to understand the show and we wouldn’t know about the diner without the play.

And don't the Duffers love a good plot twist...?

The question's obvious right? Why is Will referencing a version of Melvald’s that existed before himself? And worse, why is NO ONE CLOCKING IT???? DO THEY KNOW???

And we know for a fact that it's always been Mike who's noticed first whenever there's been something off with Will. These are the two people who know each other best so perhaps that explains why Mike's actions were delayed?

Not to mention that malted milkshakes specifically went out of style by this point. Even if we consider that Melvald's might have a soda fountain or a milkshake corner(?), malted milkshakes need to be prepared fresh and hence require greater investment. Which I doubt a renovating diner would do to something no longer trending.

"Malted milkshakes are a 50s thing. Malvald's is a convenience store now in the 80s, but it was a diner in the 50s. You know, back when Henry was a kid?" -Some Anon

As I mentioned in my post before, Vecna's power is fucking with people's minds. He (and the Mind Flayer) are elite gaslighters. His stronger powers hinge on mindscape, memory, emotions and identity. That's how he fucks with people and gets them vulnerable. And Will has always been the receiver, he picks up on 'signals' that are thrown his way and we know for a fact that Henry and Will are connected.

My question is, "How much of Will is still truly Will?"

The simple answer is all of it. The longer and slightly more crazier answer is that most likely, when Vecna fucked with Will's mind in there to display his fears and rip him away from a sense of love, he didn't get out cleanly. He left some portions of his own memories in there to mold, reflect and amplify his fears. It would explain why suddenly over the course of a day, Will downsized his feelings for Mike into a crush. Vecna is deliberately causing this to happen, he's poisoning Will.

If you want another parallel of this to "A Wrinkle In Time", Charles Wallace (Will Byers) is slowly taken over by IT as IT promises him that they really are similar and that no one would be able to understand him as much as IT does.

Back to the canon. That’s where the Patty/Henry parallel starts to feel deliberate with Byler in Volume 2.

Vecna is trying to actively warp Will's emotions, the same way Brenner warped Henry's emotions in the play. Brenner manipulates Henry into pushing Patty away by framing emotional attachment as dangerous and hence basically solidified the Mind Flayer's control over Henry. And now we’re seeing that Vecna is doing more or less the EXACT SAME THING with Will.

Or it could just be that the Duffers forget details a lot 😭

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Alrighty, so I know I already said that with Spamton and Tenna both imitating the other out of a mutual sense of jealousy, it’s often really hard to tell who is copying who with all of their similarities… But I decided that I’m going to try anyways! I’m gonna go over all the similarities and parallels with Spamton and Tenna and try to decide which one is copying which based on analysis and context clues but mostly just Vibes.

The red suit with a yellow tie look

Aesthetically this look definitely gives me a more Tenna-like Cheesy 70’s Entertainer Vibe. And, like, the red-yellow-white-black color scheme perfectly match the standard colors of RCA cables…

Coupled with the Addisons all wearing the same and very different outfit...

It feels most likely to me that Tenna started out with that look and Spamton was copying him (until their falling out and Spamton's attempts to impersonate Swatch to get to the NEO Body).

Dialogue Quirks

Well, I know a lot of fans describe Spamton’s brackets as, like, trying to do Tenna’s bombastic fonts and failing. But… I think it a bit more complicated than that. Spamton’s brackets don’t always correspond to places where Tenna would’ve added a font (especially as Spamton uses brackets much more frequently than Tenna uses font effects) and the brackets also seem to be connected to mad-libs style of internet ads, embedding hyperlinks in texts and Spamton literally parroting other internet posts.

And also, like, generally mimicking the vibe of a virus-ridden and ad-swamped machine, which is obviously very on-brand for Spamton.

However, it’s also very obvious that this brackets quirk is not something any other Addison posses, and was not inherent to Spamton from the start. He used to speak a lot more normally…

He'd shoot his mouth about making it big someday. "You just watch!" "Someday, I'm gonna be a big shot!"

It seems after all I couldn't be anything more than a simple puppet. But you three... You're strong. With a power like that... Maybe you three can break your own strings. Let me become your strength.

So it’s still something he developed later, after becoming a Big Shot and meeting Tenna, so it’s possible the brackets thing started as a failed attempt to mimic Tenna’s fonts but mutated into its own thing as Spamton continued to spiral ever downwards.

Another thing to note is a quirk of Spamton's speech in the Japanese translation. While his speech in general is a bizarre grammatically-incorrect jumble of various types of letters, he also has a notable preference to render Japanese words that contain the sounds "desu" (です) and "dai" (だい) with the words "Death" and "Die" in Latin letters.

And meanwhile Japanese Translation!Tenna has a tendency to render sentences that end with "shou" (しょう) as the English word "SHOW".

These two quirks have very clear parallels. And since Tenna's wordplays make a lot of sense with who and what he is, while Spamton's constant references to 'death' only really makes sense for after his breakdown, Spamton's quirk might have started as an attempt to copy Tenna that ended up being twisted into it's own disturbing thing. Probably the closest thing to an explicit example of Spamton trying to copy Tenna's charming showmanship but just coming off as disconcerting and threating instead.

"The Smooth Taste of"

THE SMOOTH TASTE OF NEO

THAT'S THE SMOOTH TASTE OF TV TIME!

Hmmm… I’m going to say that since Spamton brings up ‘the smooth taste’ much more often (even using it as an item description for S.Poison), while Tenna only uses it once at the peak of his breakdown…

That gives me that vibe that it’s originally a Spamton-ism, probably taken from one of the products he advertised as an adbot. Especially since Tenna pairs it with…

Cungadero

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT WE WILL BE TAKING [ A Ride around Town on Our Specil Cungadero]

With how much ‘Cungadero’ has been tied to Spamton specifically, and the fact that it’s heavily implied to be a car, and Spamton is themed after a used-car-salesman as part of his inherent essence as Spam Mail (used car salesmen are also seen as scammy frauds), I think it’s pretty obvious 'Cungadero' is his thing.

Tenna probably heard him say it, didn’t understand what that meant and started occasionally using it as a generic exclamation (to be fair, Spamton does that too sometimes, "HOLY [[Cungadero]]"), combining it with words like ‘cowabunga’ to try sounding ‘hip and modern’.

On a similar note, I will probably file most other car-related expressions as originating with Spamton as well.

Spamton feels the sweet breeze as he takes a ride around town.

Wh-what's wrong with ME having the car!? THEY weren't gonna win it!! I was... just giving it a daily TEST DRIVE! Checking on that "sweet breeze"!

The Juice!!

[Turn Up The JUICE!] [Turn Up The JUICE!] [Make Sure You Don't Get It On Your Shoese!]

Fresh from the Juice, Fresh from the Juice! Make sure you don't get it on your shoese!

Since Tenna brings it up as an old 'cartoon commercial' he used to broadcast...

Anyone remember THAT jingle!? Haha!

I think it most likely originated with Tenna and Spamton just is quoting/paraphrasing him.

NEO

Sick of the CLASSICS!? We'll make 'em NEO! NEO shows, NEO programs, just watch, watch, WATCH!

Considering how Tenna only uses it in an attempt to prove he can be modern, I think it’s likely that he got that word from Spamton. The name probably originated with Mettaton’s name for his ideal body, and Tenna picked it up from Spamton after the salesman became obsessed with it.

The Audience

Spamton turns to the audience and laughs. Spamton appeals to the audience with a festive jig! Spamton begs to the audience, Spamton prays to the audience. There is no audience. Spamton begs the audience to stop taking the furniture out of his room.

COME ON KIDS, THE AUDIENCE LOVES IT!! CAN'T YOU HEAR 'EM CHEERING!? LISTEN!! … WHERE… WHERE'S THE AUDIENCE? WHERE'D THEY GO…? WHERE ARE THEY!? THAT DAMN AUDIENCE! I GAVE THEM SO MANY POINTS TO BE HERE TODAY!

While obviously views, clicks, public opinion and customers are important to an adbot/advertiser/salesman, looking back, it is kinda weird to describe them as ‘the audience’. Like, it’s not Unambiguously Wrong, there are times when a salesman might need to play for an audience but… it does seem to fit a lot better with Tenna’s whole thing.

So I think it’s most likely that Spamton NEO’s fixation on ‘the audience’ is at least partially born of his experiences with Tenna and appearing on TV Time programming. Like he's flashing back to it the same way he's flashing back to the day he was evicted from Queen's Mansion with the "begs the audience to stop taking the furniture out of his room" thing. Although obviously the 'praying' bit is more born of Spamton's growing religiously-themed obsessions.

Also…

(Bonus, while Spamton in his Full Inventory Rant shouting that “I'LL BE IN MY [Trailer]!” already has show-business theming, in the Japanese translation he says he’ll be back in the ‘Green Room’ (楽屋) instead, reinforcing the idea he’s copying showbiz lingo from Tenna and/or flashing back to his time in TV World.)

Pipis

Considering how heavily Spamton is associated with them and how he immediately takes Tenna keeping one as a sign that Tenna care for him, I think it’s pretty obvious that it was Spamton's thing from the very start.

Whirligigs

Since whirligigs are kind of a cheesy old-fashioned toy, they definitely feel more like a Tenna Thing to me. TV World was probably always selling funny whirligigs at the studio’s gift shop, and so Spamton now associates them with the concept of merch in general.

Everything I had! My life advice!

Hmmm… honestly I could see this parallel being entirely accidental. Just, like poetic irony that their inherent similarities as people makes them mirror each other even when they’re apart.

But if I had to assume one of them used the phrase first and the other was copying it, at least subconsciously, I would say that this is a case of Spamton copying Tenna. If only because Tenna is using it to describe their partnership falling apart a long time ago, while Spamton NEO is talking about something that just happened. so I can imagine Tenna shouting it at Spamton as their relationship was collapsing or something like that, and that’s where he got it from for the Weird Route Boss Fight.

(I mean, he’s already projecting hardcore on Kris and/or the Player, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to throw an accusation originally thrown at him.)

Also, while both of them were helping each other during their partnership, with Spamton taking on the role of the newcomer rising modern Big Shot and Tenna being the more established and experienced and washed-up businessman - it would make more sense for Tenna to give Spamton ‘life advice’ specifically.

Spamton Value Network

Okay, so, like, I don’t think the Spamton Sweepstakes are necessarily canon in the sense that it’s probably not an event that really happened in the world of Deltarune, but it is canon in terms of characterization. Like, that is what Spamton would have done if he got this sudden windfall of love and popularity and was inexplicably left in charge of a charity event.

So I do still want to mention the implication that if Spamton was given the resources, he would have tried to create his own Shopping Network. Like, yeah, it is a webcast and it contains multiple anti-Tenna screeds, but it’s also undeniably aping something Tenna would’ve broadcast. So I think this counts as Spamton trying to copy Tenna's shtick.

Although the other thing to note is the visual similarities between the Spamton Value Network and the assets used for Tenna’s intro.

Since Tenna is usually ‘stuck’ in the 70’s or 80’s, before the popularization of 3D graphics, while Spamton is stuck in the late 90’s, just as these kind of graphics reached the mainstream, I think its most likely that Spamton is the one who taught Tenna how to use CGI - hence the aesthetic similarities... and also the... general quality.

Mike

Okay, seeing how Mike is Tenna’s right-hand-man and exists (?) in TV World, it might be reasonable to assume that it was Tenna’s thing originally and Spamton is just the only other person in the universe who became convinced of MIke’s existence.

But… there are multiple implications that Mike and Spamton’s relationship was actually closer than Spamton and Tenna or Tenna and Mike.

Tenna always said "Mike acted different" after the other guy left. WHAT other guy!? WHAT different!?

And the Spamton Q&A actually implies that, unlike Tenna, Spamton is not fooled by the Fake Mike Trio and knows they’re not actually Mike. Which maybe implies that in this specific case Spamton is more tethered to reality than Tenna is… or maybe it’s just that Spamton understands Mike’s existence more.

So I think it’s... not an unlikely scenario that Mike was Spamton’s thing originally, he convinced Tenna of his existence and got Mike a job at TV World, and then during his downward spiral, his self-loathing was so strong that his fucking… imaginary friend or whatever chose Tenna over him. But Tenna still doesn’t fully understand how Mike works and just kinda goes along with it, which is why he’s easily fooled by the Mike Impersonators.

The nose!

Okay, so this is one I am kinda… conflicted about. I think it’s obvious Spamton had his glorious nose from the very start, seeing how it’s a trait shared by all the Addisons. But Tenna… on the one hand his nose being detachable and reusable might suggest it is artificial

(The TV Dinners are great and healthy!) (The white nose ice cream cones are made from Tenna's OWN noses!)

Haha! It's ME, SMALL MIKE!!! I'm the REAL Mike!! Finally!!! Now I'll get to organize Tenna's nose drawer all by myself…

On the other hand sometimes Darkner ‘Biology’ is just Weird like that and the nose is used to make a stylized ‘TV’ logo…

And it does fit with his insect-like theming… but also also ants specifically don’t have a proboscis…

Basically, I think it’s pretty likely that Tenna’s nose is artificial and an attempt to copy Spamton, as the salesman made him believe a long and pointy nose is an obligatory mark of a successful modern businessman and an objectively appealing trait…

…but also I think it’s just as likely both Spamton and Tenna always had the Nose and as soon as Tenna saw Spamton for the first time he was all like “Oh yeah, this guy is OBVIOUSLY highly-successful, objectively appealing and extremely-attractive - JUST LOOK AT THAT NOSE!!” And I switch between the two depending on what feels funniest at the moment.