Soooo… did you see the latest update/patch to Deltarune? Especially the Lore relevance? If so, thoughts?
It's interesting! I admit, I'm not interested in FRIEND in general or all the FRIEND theorizing, I feel like we don't have all the pieces we need, but I have been seeing a lot of people tying Spamton to it, saying its why Spamton changed his appearance and went into hiding and it wants the Pipis for the protein. It's an interesting theory but I feel like it's missing some things. I'm just going to list what we've got so far for my own reference.
Spamton and the Addisons hung out a lot, he was a failure but dreamed of being something more. The other Addisons were a bit embarrassed by him.
Around this point he talks with Noelle who responds to his spam emails, which is the first time anyone ever did so. In gratitude he gives her a Pipis, so he always had the ability to make them and passed them out.
Spamton got desperate and started talking to someone on the phone (unknown if he found them or they found him), at which point he became a big shot, alienating his former friends. He moved into Queen's Mansion.
There was some overlap here where he met Jevil, played "games" with him and possibly dated him, then got rather scared of him and clowns/merry-go-rounds in general.
The voice disappeared and his career started to crash. In desperation he started praying to the Neo body in the basement (where FRIEND is spotted for a brief moment when you go down there, along with some empty item boxes. Supposedly corrupted data is stored in the basement, which is locked normally).
When he was about to be evicted, Blue Addison came to check on him and found the phone off the hook like he'd disappeared mid-conversation, with just garbage noise on the other end.
The other Addisons pretend they don't know about what happened. Spamton moves into the dump (which he hates and resents), then tries to enlist Sweet Cap'n Cakes to get the body.
When that doesn't work he disguises himself as Swatch to try and get the body (the colored glasses, the black and white outfit) which also doesn't work. Spamton's glasses are the same color as FRIEND's eyes rather than Swatch's colors, but it's possible he couldn't get his hands on ones the exact shade, since the rest of his disguise wasn't very close either.
He implies during this period that people beat him up a lot, possibly for money?
When you talk to him he says his "transformation" from an email guy to a [[It Burns! Ow! Stop! Help Me! It Burns!]] guy was due to communion with [[Unintelligble Laughter]], but it's hard to pin down specifics with his weird speech patterns. He says this transformation will soon get him to surpass Jevil but unlike him he's going to "shoot for the sky" and get on the path to... [[The Big One]]. After that he locks up on "I'll get so" and ends with [Hyperlink Blocked].
He's not scared to talk about his transformation but he IS very scared to talk about the Knight.
During his battle, he throws Pipis everywhere, and in Snowgrave he fills the whole mansion with Pipis when he moves in there. He loves his Pipis and loves having them around! They explode into little versions of his head. They are definitely implied to be egg-like (or a clam) or alive in various ways, although Spamton says only he can call them that.
His dream for getting Neo is to be free, to escape outside control and his literal/metaphorical puppet strings, to escape the "dark" and reach "Heaven". He's haunted constantly by phones even after his fall from grace, with a constantly ringing phone in his shop and a lot of his attacks in the Neo body being phone-related. There are even phones in his boss music! More than anything Spamton is associated with phones. Interestingly, one of his attacks involves his own face shooting out of a phone and hurting himself.
When you beat him peacefully, he says the power of friendship will give him the chance to "live for himself/his friends", again alluding to outside control of some kind. In Snowgrave he does associate freedom with killing though. He also implies that he tried desperately to get back into contact with the voice/his old friends after they left him to no avail, and that he lost the miracle/magic when he tried to "see too far".
It's implied that some person or being can speak through Spamton at points and he's not aware of it when it happens, but that's not explicitly confirmed.
During his successful period he worked with Tenna on TV Time and the two of them became pretty close. Tenna pressured him into signing a contract revealing the secret of his success, but just as he did the phone rang and he ran off in a panic. When Tenna listened to the phone, he just heard garbage noise, much like Blue Addison at the mansion. It's possible Spamton ran back to the Cyberworld for safety and then got a second call there but it's unclear.
Tenna can no longer recognize Spamton in his current form, or at least he makes a big show about it to avoid talking about their breakup. The Addisons know it's still Spamton though and where he is.
Mike knew that Spamton signing the contract was a bad idea and Spamton seems defensive of him, so presumably they were close enough for Mike to have enough of an idea that Spamton's benefactor needed to remain secret, even if not exactly why. Mike left Tenna along with Spamton and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Spamton probably never saw the original Manhole game/boss or the FRIEND colored controller, even though those two things share motifs with his antics in Snowgrave.
Spamton is really happy Tenna kept the Pipis, saying it shows he cared. Enough to come out of his item even to say so! It'd be very funny if that meant he was happy that Tenna was going to get hunted by FRIEND as a result lol. I don't think that's the case though. Tenna inversely is deeply ashamed of the Pipis and hides it, although he's still protective of it. People do judge him for having it though.
Spamton apparently made enough Pipis while at TV Time to serve as a general food source for employees. You can still get some in the Exec. Buffet where it's referred to as "caviar" in scare quotes.
Someone asks how Spamton feels about cats and he seems fine with it, although he says puppet/cat is an elemental pair (Would that make him strong against cats?)
He's not ashamed of how he looks at all, saying it's due to him becoming a BIG SHOT and says anyone could do it.
He also says he feels like he's dying every day and he's getting more burned/charred inside.
Spamton A. Spamton IS chased out of the recording studio by the FBI and runs around in the streets being pursued by something before begging Spamton on the phone to save him to no avail. He says Spamton hired him as an impersonator. Perhaps to hide his identity from FRIEND??? :OOO
Anyway, what we know about FRIEND from the new dialogue is that someone who loves cats has a pack of cats that will relentlessly hunt someone or something that has protein until they get bored. Pink says that people have changed their appearance or gone into hiding to escape them. The idea is that the voice on the phone is the person who had the cats, and they sicced them on Spamton after he broke the contract. But we know Spamton changed his outfit to mimic Swatch to get into the basement for the Neo body, so he didn't change his appearance because of that. And he was evicted from Queen's Mansion when his career crashed, although he DID disappear on that last day when he got that phone call. And if the cats were after protein, you'd think he wouldn't be throwing Pipis everywhere all the time since they're so egg-like. He's also happy to tell you where his store is... although he does tell you to come alone.
It's implied that Spamton became enslaved to someone's control, either in exchange for the help he received or after he signed Tenna's contract. We know he panicked and ran (or disappeared) at least twice at a phone call from them. Even so, that person clearly hasn't lost track of him since Spamton's haunted constantly by phones. They know exactly where he is and he's still under their control, even in the Neo body to Spamton's surprise. It's possible they sicced FRIEND on him to punish him for signing the contract, or to find him once he disappeared and bring him back.
Even so, Spamton doesn't seem scared or concerned about cats and actually should be strong against their attacks, which doesn't seem to point to him being brutalized by cat demons regularly (although he does talk about people beating him up a lot). Pink does say the cats get bored and fickle, so they could have just lost interest in him. You'd think even seeing a cat demon once would stick with you though!
FRIEND seems so tied to super secret ARG/Egg stuff, and Spamton has a complete arc and overarching theme all on his own. You could tie FRIEND to him with this new dialogue - the only other person I can think of Pink could be referring to is the Forgotten Man, who has definitely gone into hiding between screens and refuses to show his face or say his name and also is carrying protein with him. Maybe Mike too? Hard to say. I just feel like something's missing... but then again it could just be my general disinterest in FRIEND talking, haha.
