Why spamton is a dope character
In a world where objects come to life,
because nothing in fiction was ever really alive.
-or everything is.
you’re giving the spam email self awareness?
thats gonna create some kind of.. cinderella if she was the joeker…
^ favorite tony quote. marketable unmarketable character. FINALLY a safe space for people that dont like the romantic media meta. the state of the media cycle is so bad its insanely popular to make advertisement fuck television pregnant. recession pop ass characters vvv
you are unfortunate netizen im going to take you through all of this bullshit
if you are a webscraper bot my phone number is 1800-BALLS-CAM
and credit card 3717 3345 3523 8766 + 197(funny numbrs)
Character (its Spamton G Spamton)
Freedom motif (secret boss character depth privileges)
Weird (role in the games dark route)
its an acronym (dialogue coding)
[FREEDOM] from the text (using his character outside the game)
Why spamtenna is the best ship everrrrrr
yuo can listen to my mixtape while you read :^)
artwork by hollenix
look at the michelangelo pieces loyal customers are making. wauw. one of my favoooorite spamton pieces and one of my faaaaavorite deltarune fanartist wauw!!
the character is engaging because it is bigger than the story. the character is something you have in your house. something you hate. something you can meet in a game. something you share a past with and so does the beloved characters. something that is the authors favorite. something that has a character that just wont quit. self-replicating in everything the story touches. something that represents something [BIGGER].
ive always found characters the author took a chance on personally indulging in the most engaging. clearest example i have is rohan kishibe from jojo’s bizarre adventure, who is an exaggerated personality of the authors own self-image. he is deeply dislikable, and just fun to watch. therefore every time the author brings him back i clap my little entertained hands.
toby fox is excellent at writing characters. one of the best of our time. corrects podium microphone and adjusts tie. a lot of it is in presentation, and putting them in good games that make for perfect stories. he makes sure to pull inspiration from anywhere inspired, and give the characters perfect stages to perform on. its smooth sailing for characters like susie and ralsei, that have their stories told through more traditional adventure story structure.
when talking about notable toby fox characters sans is probably the biggest one because he was the most popular with the fans. he was a very likable character helping the player ..but he also had a dark side, which only showed itself if you played the game as evil, and clashed so much with his other personality but is nonetheless still there in both routes. it gave the character good depth for many people.
in 2015 sans took the world by storm. toby fox wrote many good characters, but sans had a level of relatability that many people strongly related to. i was one of those people, and people identified me with sans, too. i was a very self-critical and aware person so i had to reflect on that. what i came away with was that especially young women were fed up with performative culture and wished to express their depressed, unkempt sides more. at the same time, knowledge of mental health became way more important to people and it became mainstream to identify as depressed. i think its fair to say that identifying as depressed was popular in the following years, and it informed how people viewed themselves 24/7, in relationships and in private.
in time, the stress of modern life hasnt really subsided, but it is now mandatory to market oneself and flood your senses with media, and i think spamton came just in time for people to relate to a new type of character. spamton immediately stood out to me as an opposite to sans, as someone who represented manic tendencies at the other end of the spectrum. his only task is to be seen, and he starts out with a disadvantage. pressed, he cheats himself to being acknowledged only to be driven insane and poor and weak by it. it mirrors a lot of peoples experiences with burnout and entrepreneurship. once again many young women relate because at the end of the day they may not have the same mental support system, and they have to live with that stress in private too. so it starts to form their identity. i dont think these characters are particularly for young people assigned female but i wanted to touch on that aspect of their consumption.
the whole social media vanity performance has moved into the professional aspects of life now. to get a good job, you need to brand your private life, your looks and your personality, and most likely. your online brand is your work, or a side-job. the coronavirus made sure of this. the kind of yuppie lifestyle this demands puts a different pressure on you, because no matter the excellence, it is ultimately a gamble for attention. anyone could relate to this, but a couple other factors has made his character particularly interesting for trans men. his behavior rejects the feminine to the point of being as sexist as his influences BUT he is still in deltarune, a safe series which doesnt have a following that would agree with this and in-game acknowledges him as wrong. hes really like this because the world is against him and he copes. spamton has had the empathy beaten out of him and now he practices psychopathic behavior most of us would find cathartic to exercise. he smiles through it all, because nobody wants him to smile. theres no other way around it. spamton is the joker for trans people.
(to be clear shes if the joker was for trans people for really)
but i dont really need to say all that. within the same month deltarune chapter 3 released, vocaloid artist flavor foley dropped the songs spoken for and static that address the same themes as spamton and tenna and were widely enjoyed for their relatability. they lean into the nostalgia part of their characters and we as humans can empathise with even memory and inanimate objects and these songs were very popular outside deltarune players. its what is on peoples minds right now. i think nostalgia is a natural reaction to a image and object culture that reduces to products and moves too fast. you dont really get to own stuff or personalize it anymore. its not allowed to hold memories beyond what can be exploited for relatability. it creates a kind of cultural homelessness similar to people groups that have been colonised previously. like internet culture, its not stable and it creates erratic behavior in the consumer.
(he has a degree in marketing and it may have influenced his interest in spamton)
you wail and beg for the important character to be easy to take seriously. to be less offensive on the eys and eers.
but the spamton doesnt nobody came. it just keeps on yo-ing.
Spamton is a short digital cartoon puppet salesman who appears as an enemy and npc in deltarune. He speaks without a filter(or a filter that makes him worse depending on how you look at it), and is uncharacteristically erratic, violent, affectionate, hard to understand, and deeply inappropriate at most times. just like the spam emails of yesteryear that he embodies. and like these mails, he is very funny but has a truly insidious purpose.
spamton is a failed businessman, and we are all Spamton. in todays attention economy, the main way to engage in society is through self-promotion, but not everyone can make it. and so most of us have failed ventures, watch our influence be mocked etc. this makes it easy to sympathise with a character satirising the archetype. it similarly not too close to us, because the salesman archetype originates in a bygone time when the private economy first boomed long ago and we do not always equate this with the modern world because the system appears different. so there is an element of distancing and nostalgia.
of note is that spamton is homeless due to his lack of income, and this is the reality of life for an increasing amount of americans. including young, queer, internet-active people, the target audience for deltarune. it is presented in a realistic manner: spamton is socially isolated and experiences violence and indifference. his dignity is at the expense of making money, and he only really desires genuine social connection, even over money in the end. hes a character with a past beyond homelessness, but is stuck in it regardless.
He is inspired by several existing characters:
billy - the puppet used by jigsaw in saw to act on his behalf when communicating with his victims.
lil cal (who is also inspired by jigsaw) - a recurring “character” in homestuck, who is a victim of circumstance but also a tool for characters to act in sadistic, manipulative ways.
tenna - the main boss of the next chapter, who represents the charismatic person-turned mascot.
He compliments all of these characters in a meaningful way. the player grows to be quite close to him if they take on his quests. he also engages with a lot of potent cultural topics such as
all of this makes him a very confusing character if you are not in the know, but highly rewarding if you are terminally online. he is popular across the board if wplace is any indication, he is highly memeable and reproducible (also in the meta). but he has found a particular audience in the tumblr sexymen circles. a tumblr sexyman is someone who is not found to be attractive outside of isolated fandom circles. and on tumblr that has often been characters from all-ages cartoon media. a few traits are always present in the most popular archetype of this:
and spamton does have one of the most tragic backstories of all the deltarune cast, but that is hard to get into without getting into the
We are basically shown nothing, but told a lot. Through other characters talking about him or through things he says, which purposefully comes off as unreliable because his sentences are represented with placeholder sentences from ads.
the team behind Deltarune also frequently return to him and create content outside of the game featuring him. Such as a Q&A, website, parody livestream and merch line, real merchline and letters.
Other characters lay out the story that he was a nobody, shitty addison, who made contact with an unknown person that frequently called him on the phone. they gave him advice to become the most successful addison who sold the most, and he became favored by all darkners. The queen invited him to live in her mansion, and his face and brand was broadcasted on TV as he managed to be admired by the Lord of the TV world Tenna, who partnered with him for commercials. Tenna was a failing businessman to his Lightners and gave the sponsorships to Spamton in exchange for knowing the secrets from the man on the phone, because he thought it might give him success as well. Spamton was interrupted from signing off access to his secrets when the man on the phone caused him to loose all his success. Tenna misunderstood the situation as him chickening out, but spamton soon lost all favor from darkners in his home Cyber World and were to be evicted. When he refused, and he attempted to enter the mansion again to claim a tool of power, dressing up as the butler in disguise they threw him in acid. After this he lives in hiding, with no money on the street. he has lived like this for many years when the player meets him.
We can assume most of his story through comparison. Darkners are fantastical beings representing objects, not as real as the Lightners in-universe, but definitely as real people as Lightners to the player. They act cartoonish, but we are asked to take them seriously within their context.
the internet ad creatures addisons speak normally and can be rationalised with. They appear very inoffensive, so it can be assumed that spamton “went crazy” as to speak and changed a lot from his original appearance.
From his appearances and products when he was popular, he was considered very charming and likable. Although he represents a manipulative businessman and was still an addison, so he was likely controlling and power-hungry with an inflated ego at this time.
even though spamton really wants friendship as shown if you chose to save him instead of ignore or kill him, his character is always about power and he doesnt hesitate to ruin other lives for it.
https://www.tumblr.com/bureauen/791353138541150208/oh-babywhat-did-you-do-to-yourself-this-time
Spamton harbors a lot of negative feelings towards the characters from his past, but is quite grateful to anyone who wishes to support him. Like the player giving him money and attention and Tenna who wanted to forgive him and give him opportunities.
What we learn from himself, in the secret fight and in his shop dialogue, is that he was contacted by a man who told him about the prophecy and the layers of reality. This tells us why he has two battles in which he tries to get the [[HeartShapedObject]] (the player avatar) from the main character. By this, he either wants to become a main character with the eternal attention of the player, or become as the player: free to control their world.
In this he becomes a “ghost in the machine” or self aware AI type of character that is very beloved for enabling more parasocial connection with the audience and representing entrapment in social structures or realities. other examples are Monica or Dr Coomer. or even other toby fox characters like flowey, chara or kris.
As one of the secret bosses, he is meant to be discovered by the lore-invested player and addresses the main themes and speculation behind the game, before it is finished. Every chapter or world has a secret fight where a darkner driven to insanity gives the player a reality-breaking shard that reflects the lightworld (the “real world”) and they tell the player,that it was given to them by a mysterious man.
the mysterious man is referred to throughout the games and is most likely WD Gaster. a secret character originating way back in Undertale. he lives in the code, and has a certain way of speaking. He is always speaking directly to the player and is aware it is a game and isnt really concerned with the fictional story taking place. From his code-hidden lore and dialogue we know that he is a scientist who is interested in seeing different ways the game can play out, and how player and characters act. He is most likely then giving these views into the lightworld though the code to see how they will react.
Another thing is the music for these bosses. Toby fox uses music for storytelling by associating certain characters or events with tunes which appear strategically for the player to make a connection. A part of jevils theme appears for almost all secret bosses and has been dubbed the “Freedom” theme because the bosses talk about freedom from their worlds and the narrative.
as for secret bosses, chapter 1 has jevil, a character who became insane to the other darkners who had to lock him up. you can visit and fight him, and he will tell you that he is happy with knowledge of the meta, because it allows him to break boundaries and become a powerful darkner. his fight is the hardest in chapter 1 by far. he is free in his own way but trapped by darkner society.
Spamtons secret fight in chapter 2 requires the player to backtrack to the dump in the middle of the game and visit him. He sells the player a key to use in the final area of the mansion. the key unlocks an alternative version of the cyber world. run-down, dark and with no npcs. it only has a couple traps and a lifeless body and the player can only enter alone. the tone becomes much more dark and unsettling, with a likeness to undertale’s true lab area where human experiments were being made. once unlocked, the player can return to spamton and agree to insert him in the device. nothing happens until the player tries to leave and spamton jumpscares the player in his new body. as it turns out, the device is this worlds version of the optimized human-killing form of mettaton from undertale, which notably never had a true battle (as it died in one hit). spamton then fights you in it. His dialogue during this has much more overt references to being trapped in the dark world and being in pain. he is fixated on his being a puppet and he is controlled by strings the same color as the box the player is in during battle. this makes it clear that both on a physical and story level, he is forced to be controlled. He asks the player to help him which results in him being incapacitated instead. Spamton defines freedom here as something you reach together in friendship and something he is desperate to have in entirety. He has been more restrained by seeing the light world than jevil has been set free.
chapter 3 features a somewhat crazed character who has very little dialogue, but most notably shows the player the weird route without it having to be played, and FRIEND. the character dubbed MARE for its theme, enables the player to control a new character outside of kris. The freedom motif does not appear for this battle.
chapter 4 gives the crystal to gerson, who is special for being the dark world version of a lightners remains, which essentially revives him as a ghost. he is therefore more real and present. he seems confident from his role as secret boss. likely aware of the light world already. the freedom theme has been remixed with undynes motivational and celebratory battle theme from undertale. referencing his appearance in that game. unlike darkners, lightners appear in both games.
FRIEND is the name of a creepy cheshire-cat like sprite which first appeared in the basement where you fight Spamtons secret boss. It has become a hot target of fandom theory until chapter 4, where we were told it represents something created in fear of the dark and unwanted memories for the main characters. By this chapter, it is also referenced by some joke characters without a dark presence. it indicates that something scary and otherworldly is going on.
secret bosses give a piece of their clothing or body to the player after being defeated. objects as objects.
A recurring and undefined but important theme in Delatrune is being trapped in a narrative and “no one can choose who they are in this world.” we customize avatars several times that go unused. The Neo body spamton uses was made and discarded by mettaton, who has no narrative reason to become a human killing robot in the deltarune universe, and therefore presumably is more trapped in this narrative as well.
interpreting disempowerment and identity-formation stories as transgender narratives is quite popular at the moment. and its no wonder it also relates to spamton. he rubs shoulders with the characters that are trans in undertale way more than the main characters play with gender.
mettaton is an invisible character who visited a queer doctor to have a body made, after which he immediately flourishes as a queer-coded superstar. his cousin is notably the most prominent nonbinary character in undertale (because they show up first and have a boss battle with prominent they/them pronouns and this was a big deal in 2015). after the original release, his other male-coded cousin was given a storyline where she gets the body of an anime catgirl. reminiscent of the popular transfeminine experience.
spamton can also be interpreted as trans-coded. he is obsessed with his height as someone who has always been short in comparison to his coworkers. he is toxically masculine as a businessman, and he appears in a girls game where he creates eggs. When he steals mettatons ideal body in deltarune he says in a crazed speech that it is everything he ever wanted. spamton makes reference to the transfeminine cousin too, in his new body battle music. the player can attempt to put him into a mannequin wearing mettatons dress that he gives to a transfeminine character but spamton will refuse. so he is strongly masculine and toxic-ly so. compared to the other addison characters, spamton is associated with male ads like cars, suits and porn way more compared to the others selling fashion jewelry, shoes and tea.
oh man. anyway here is the breakdown of his final battle theme, it remixes his original theme with some more things, spamton is a character who rephrases (steals from) other people so it makes sense:
fox loves to layer music like this to overwhelm the player and let us know several things are taking place at the same time. its many-sided but nonetheless leaves you with a clear impression of the character.
https://www.tumblr.com/cowb0y63/662774044276490240/idol
https://www.tumblr.com/slimespecter/794333339768242176/make-me-in-your-image?source=share
i like this fanart its cute :)
many also link spamton to transmasculinity because of the contemporary trans male popular culture and themes that appears in his storyline:
its not unlike relating to his mania like the sans and depression thing.
aaaand this is the long version:
by tobimisa https://x.com/tobimisa1/status/2003254778172965083?s=20
spamton is the first character to be openly religious in deltarune before chapter 4. his belief is tied to the light world, or maybe even the player world. he paints murals of sunny skies (which the dark worlds do not have), and talks about the angel. who is most likely the player. his appearances also reference a dark presence referred to in later chapter code as the devil.
it is reasonable to assume that spamton wanted to ascend out of his darkner role as he said “become a real boy”. for thematic implications, he turns into internet angels which traditionally were to protect you against spam and viruses, and tv personalities of the 90s also benefited greatly from lying about belief.
i think i lost the post making this comparison but it seems like kind of insanity given to the secret bosses seems to be giving them complete metanarrative knowledge and taking it away again, leaving them unable to grasp it all.
in his neo fight he is absolutely experiencing religious psychosis. he doesnt reach us, the audience, but he pretends to. sometimes there is a 3-way conversation going on between kris, the player and a character. this gets a lot of parallels in with tenna and it is likely the audience him and tenna were promised was the players of deltarune themselves.
by the weird route and following chapters, it became clear that heaven, hell, devil and angels will play a big lore role. chapter 4 tackles religion as one of the modes of escapism (or, belief).
so, we have the platonic ideal in the dark world, the light world as the regular lived world, and our reality as a sort of heaven, because it makes you exempt from strings of code, often equated to fate in DR.
Deltarune chapter 2 is special for being the first release with a huge optional gameplay segment. You can play out an alternative, much darker version of the story which is similar to Undertale’s genocide route. When Kris and Noelle are alone in the story, instead of triggering the nostalgic scenes where the two characters bond, you can take advantage of noelle and make her freeze (kill) every monster with her ice attack. Being able to kill characters isn’t unique to this part in Deltarune. But what makes the route special is that requires very specific choices to be made, and noises will play indicating if the route is active.
It also has never been mentioned in marketing or communication for the game, so it was discovered by a player by accident. That players experience, and the subsequent way every player who wanted to play through it by following a guide someone made is meant to put you in the shoes of Noelle and Kris who start treating the real world as a tactical game to be explored.
Noelle loves the internet, and is centered in chapter 2. But she mainly uses the internet to uncover dark mysteries in games. She likes horror, as long as she is safe, and that is the main character trait behind most of her actions like her romance with susie. Being put in the grimdark game secret herself represents the theme of going “too far” which Deltarune is often interested in exploring as a recurring theme alongside escapism and play.
Deltarune hosted its own ARG (Alternate Reality Game) (which is a title that could easy describe deltarune too) after chapter 2. Noelles missing sister, and the dark secrets of the game and universe were referenced. There was a page describing the alternate routes presence in each chapter.
chapter 3 ended up including a secret game within a game supplied by a character who appealed to the sick satisfaction of the player. In it, you can kill the other protagonists and attack yourself. Noelle appears to guide the player to a secret boss before being “used up” and disappearing. and chapter 4 included a scene in which Noelle is forced to confront that they have taken a dark path. chapter 5 is most likely going to feature the end of the snowgrave route, which will then end prematurely to the rest of the game.
In that bad route, dubbed the “Weird route” from game stats or “Snowgrave” from the final attack only available in it, none of the characters join the party or go through their character development. The main characters end up resenting each other when they find you, and Noelle leaves too. Spamton, being a less “child friendly” character associated with the dark and chaotic part of the internet. the “evil” for all intends and purposes. Plays a main role in this route. He sells a new thornring and to complete the dark route, you must purchase and use it. He essentially enables you to go down this dark route of the world of the internet.
And he benefits from that. When you make it to the queens mansion in this route. Spamton has taken it over. instead of npcs and puzzles, it is filled with pipis (item he makes). You at last find that he has gotten the NEO body without you at the dark fountain which closes the fantastical fantasy. He attempts to stop you, but seems amused and ambivalent to the player choosing the dark route. He says it like it is, and calls Kris out for using noelle. He makes an overt reference to the player putting them together in a perverted way. At this point in the game. The player has high XP, and can call on Noelle to easily kill him. He is freezed like the other enemies.
This route shows that spamton is a character who thrives in a dark story. His goal is always to sell you something, no matter what it is. its also shown to be the wrong route, and this dark route is likely also included to demonstrate how positive and empathetic the game otherwise is. its interesting that spamton is the only character dark and serious enough to carry such an ending. the evil-bearing spamton.
a certain word is always censored with [[Hyperlink Blocked]] in spamton’s speech. the closest hint to what it is comes from the end of the weird route when spamton confronts genocidal kris. when he asks if kris and noelle have been making love, because the weird route among other parts of the game wishes to address forcing characters into relationships, and the weird route represents a toxic one.
replacing every time he says hyperlink blocked with love gives us not only confirmation that spamton had morning sex as a big shot but that he more or less equates the soul/player closeness to affection. this highlights a contradiction that deltarune features. because spamton isnt leaving his intended role by getting the soul, he would be playing into his role as a darkner. darkners want attention from lightners, people who are more real than them (or to put it simply, hold all power over them), more than anything else, and when this is explored more in chapter 3, losing attention from lightners means literal death for them. which means that darkners will do anything and often endanger lighters to keep their love. it is a very poignant commentary on human-object relationships and commodity fetishism in real life. Along with our attachment to childhood and the self. its the deep stuff of deltarune thats mostly explored with ralsei.
spamton has a pretty cool presence outside the text. he is pretty obviously one of tobys favorite characters to write. he shows up to break the fourth wall in the 10th undertale anniversary stream too. he often markets deltarune products or shows up in them in creative ways and this is also used for storytelling.
with rtvs a universe around spamtons brand has been established and it has a great interplay with informal streamer content. he has been established as this symbol for ad corruption and shitposting that nonetheless stays wholesome for being from a friendly queer source material and i hope it stays this way and we dont have a spamton mcdonalds sauce incident.
because of the premise of an anthropomorphised scam email , both the canon writers and the fandom use him as an outlet for bringing up mature themes that otherwise wouldnt fit in a coming of age play pretend story about teenagers proastinating on doing their school project. bro is homeless, gets tortured, body horror-ed, exitensial-horrored, religious delousions, hated by everybody, sleeps around, tries to kill people and kids, commits identity fraud, steals money. he would probably steal the show from the main characters if we ever actually saw much of it. so yeah you could do anything with him. horrific murder machine? of course. overly sexual? no problem. jumping out the office building deep in depression? probably that too.
https://x.com/phosphorabbit_/status/1952040384869040406
in the fandom people show a lot of sympathy for spamton because his motives entirely make sense, and he is implied to have gone through a lot. its interesting that the character is a pathological liar, so we dont actually know how much of his backstory is true. This is why the reveal of who tenna is and that he had a close affectionate relationship to spamton is huge for serious interest in his character.
because its easy to imagine spamton as person despite how cartoonish he is, humanizations of spamton are quite popular. when it comes to his relationship with tenna, it looks much the same if they were real people. many queer people like to express themselves by drawing their own versions of a human spamton, especially when he was successful, drawing spamton in his big shot prime that has never been shown in the game, or otherwise. only that he was rich, successful. on tv and dating said tv.
today, many gay people still love pop music. of course, the opposite to this may be the gremlin, anticonsumer archetype whose hobbies are salvaging the old and cyberanarchism. which spamton symbolizes too in his current state as a homeless person online. before tenna was revealed, the absolute extend of relating to spamton was as an unappetizing chronically online horrific genderqueer gremlin creature. but the popularity of picturing him in successful nostalgia and in a queer romance has absolutely skyrocketed.
these kinds of humanizations make it possible for queer, or lets say artistic spamton fans to relate him to their other media interests. its very popular to draw him in 80s opulence. fancy suits, jewelry, expensive lifestyle, fast cars, at nightshows in drag. this is an aesthetic that is very popular for queer people as signifiying indepence, indifference, and classy hyperconsumption. much has been said about how queer people love opulence. especially the black crossdressing community of Harlem as shown in "paris is burning". its the aesthetic of "what you cant have" that drives queer people to worship a version of consumption that is too gaudy for even straight people. its also critisism of it and satirical, because the queer person knows its stupid and vain, but its a chance to roleplay that stupid vain community that has excluded them. of course we know spamton is wrong and abusive, thats the basis for his character. which means letting him thrive in an environment inherently makes fun of it.
https://x.com/sarahsteeze/status/1986240553961640023
now something else tricky tony the fox is fantastic at using because his games are short, replayable, and test dialogue-heavy is lines that speak with eachother. there are so many examples but we all know “its you” from the start of undertale that becomes “despite everything, its still you” by the end of the game. its good payoff good player experience good value.
another example is “its raining somewhere else.” from undertale became “the place where it rained” in deltarune chapter 4. a payoff for players and also an example of a motif that doesnt carry much lore meaning and is just there for the pleasure of people that have played undertale and perhaps also a nod to the two games being connected.
like the musical motifs, sentiments get remixed and the player is conditioned to look for recurring sentences, which are tied to the games themes. spamton and tenna don’t exist in the same chapters, which is even analogous to their original backstory, but their dialogues talk to each other.
in the weird route, when spamton cannot be friended/saved and only killed, he says:
hes trying to kill kris, but the dialogue can assumed to be projecting, as spamton often relates to kris.
in chapter 5, when tenna believes spamton rejected his help many years ago he says:
this is a 4-year long payoff. and when i tell you i shitted and farted. and it means the characters wanted the best for each other, but if the player chooses to save only one of them or neither they will never know and die hating each other. one again, the game doesnt hit you over the head with this, but it something you know once you think twice about what is said. the kind of storytelling that gets people talking and explaining like uhh uhhhh im doing right now
pointed out by https://www.tumblr.com/manofthepipis/803862457996197888?source=share
awesome utdr essayist ^^^^^^
deltarune has a unique but not predatory way of releasing in parts. this is to create a larger story with a smaller team. we already know toby fox can deliver on a closed story with undertale, and the ending has already been planned, so audience trust is high. so, not only do years pass between new installments of the story, but toby fox deliberately plans for speculation as a way of audience engagement that generates hype but also just strengthens the story. funnily enough, each deltarune chapter takes place in a day, so while the story itself snails through one week fans play with the characters for months on end. and at the end, susie and kris will be able to present the shittiest school project ever.
after chapter 1, the biggest question was: who is kris?
the first chapter enforces the theme of escapism and fantasy. deltarune chapter 1 plays out like a normal undertale game. except at the end of it, kris omniously removes the player from controlling their body in a way that mirrors the end of the genocide route of undertale, which prompted the question, if they were more like frisk or chara of that game.
after chapter 2, the biggest question was: who is dess?
chapter 2 is deeply fixated on control and meant to make you think about that theme in relation to other chapters as well. by chapter 2 we are shown explicitly that we are in a possession sort of situation with kris, and theyre probably just a normal edgy kid. chapter 2 hints at a dark past between kris and their childhood friend noelle, in which it seems noelles older sister dess is written out of the story. all mentions of her are easy to miss and it seemed to lead the audience towards speculation and theorizing. in the extra material released between the chapters (the spamton sweepstakes and surrounding) many more details about dess, kris, spamton, and future chapters, were hidden.
after chapter 3 and 4 (released together) the questions were what happened between spamton and tenna, and what happened between kris, carol and dess?
4 is about ghosts. it has the characters visit a church and shows some of the more grave consequences of escapism. we are also given many new twists to the ulterior motives that kris seems to have, but the mystery has only grown larger.
raaaah i have fooled you into learning more about deltarune in a page about spamton!!! lets hear about that chapter 3:
chapter 3 is all about nostalgia with tenna as the mouthpiece. dess is mentioned many times once again as hidden clues, but more than that is spamton. every symbol associated with him returns in this chapter, and he has a “loud” non presence. such as the VHS into being nonsense because someone is seemingly removed from it. the hints to spamton range from an actual sprite statue of him to tenna only admitting he is unhappy after 23 rounds of his battle which + 2020 (the year deltarune most likely takes place in) adds up to 1997, the year associated with spamton. another insane reference to Spamton G Spamton number 1 salesman of 1997 is the romantic theme being 97 bpm in G major, and the filename is tvromance. even more insane is one of tennas theme songs titled And Now For Today’s Sponsors…! is named baci_perugina in the files which is a chocolate that contains love letters. so, these are big characters whose entire relationship is only conveyed through hints that seem to describe two lovers, even married people having a falling out. and it isnt entirely out of left field from the main plot either. kris is a child of divorce and by chapter 3 divorce is made a main theme in deltarune. in the metanarrative, the main teens are being forced together in romantic situations. despite only being hinted at, tenna and spamton have one of the most set in stone relationships of the game, and them being adults and silly sidecharacters makes shipping them pretty inconsequential.
tenna is an interesting character too. he also has trauma of being rejected by lightners that is very personal and heartbreaking. from being the most loved darkener treated like a lightner to the kids he raised threatening and killing him. but this isnt about him. it makes a ship good to have two interesting characters making it up though. watching characters interact can be really engaging. it doesnt have to be attractive or desirable, realistic or romantic. this is one of those types of ships.
we all know and hate ads on tv, but the concept of these two things being in a wonderful booming business relationship speaks to our ability to anthropomise and empathise. of course they are being annoying, lying bastards hyping each other up. the ship is a kind of satire where people can let out their feelings about predatory media and business that they represent.
its one of those “you had to be there” moments but deltarune chapters coming out with 4 years between them, the payoff from chapter 3 to chapter 2 was immense. chapter 2 was quite big, and it contained darker content and lore and spamton was in the middle of it. the payoff that spamtons catchy theme wed been listening to for 4 years was actually tennas jingle and had lyrics, singing tennas name , was immense. and to mirror it, tenna was introduced with a piece of real media from the universe with a spamton-shaped hole cut into it. the way this part of the universe becomes way more interesting if you only think about it for a moment is cool, and could only take place because toby came up with the characters and their presentation years in advance and decided to introduce them out of order in a way that deeply enhanced the story and kept us guessing for the many years the game is in development. these two steal from eachother and are equally terrible and entertaining. spamton stole his suit, tenna stole his nose. what we were lead to believe was original about spamton was stolen from a character not yet seen.
tenna and spamton could have easily had a rivals type relationship and attempt murder in the plot, but then they remembered that they are undertale/deltarune characters and would much rather seek peace and companionship. even if they are literally based on items that alienate and make people violent in real life. utdr characters just kinda always get a happy ending in the way that a happy ending can just be as creative and interesting as an unhappy one is usually considered.
it may seem mundane that Tennas name was first mentioned by spamton on a promotional website, but everything in undertale and deltarune is carefully written to create a tight narrative. It can absolutely be inferred that the link was on the spamton wedding ring page and they met over something tenna considered a child from him, that they are parodying the concept of divorce, because it is such a heavy theme throughout deltarune. in the context of deltarune though. this isnt taken as seriously. but it is still given attention. someone programmed it in, which makes it fun. It is very fun to “connect dots” in deltarune and undertale. the games are made this way on purpose and the developers are aware of the kind of audience they are building, if the mikes are any indication.
other points of appeal:
the power dynamic and perhaps horror element: tenna is like an eldrich god. he is all-powerful in tv world and his emotions and desires control reality. but he is easily manipulated because he is emotional. spamton has no power, he is small and dependent on the phone, but he knows the secrets of their reality and even the fact that tenna is fated to die.
Finally, both of them have a relationship to Mettaton. Spamton used his discarded dream body and Tenna acts out his role as tv host in this universe. He also becomes his tv and escape if you chose to give him to mettaton. in undertale, mettaton was big on advertisement and tv entertainment, so it makes sense he would like either darkner.
again, because of deltarunes “subtle”, unconventional narrative style where one has to collect hints sometimes from weird places like the merch lines, here is a longer version
by vampinvogue https://x.com/Vampinvogue/status/2003428373813752050?s=20
google drive link: https://t.co/AY55P4xfoL
thanks this was indulgent and fun. goodbye.
cosigned:
spamton copying swatch's look isn't just an extraneous detail that can be done away with – it's a huge factor in spamton's arc. so much of ch2's spamton stuff revolves around him doing so to pursue the neo body, to sneak back into the mansion now that he no longer has access to it and to the body he'd spent all his time praying to. the neo body is what he thinks will be his ticket to becoming "free", becoming "god", becoming a lightner. neo is his everything, his obsession; he could not stand to be cast away from it, he'd pretend to be its creator just to try and grasp at it one more time.
savd spamtnna stuff that tickle m:
my e button oesnt work
https://x.com/Prieto_mecocom/status/1971742695875039325
https://x.com/StarlightLilly3/status/2009794216462102787
https://x.com/32inLCD_TV299/status/1938592905767043376
when its posted its out of my head WHEN ITS POSTED ITS OUT OF MY HEAD WHEN ITS POSTED [makes Jack a doll boy.]
