Greatest Hits - Undertale-Deltarune Edition
Even though I have only been back into Undertale and Deltarune for about... a year at the time of this sections construction, my blog was quickly inundated with analyses that completely took attention away from my more general posts, warranting it's own page. If the post touches on some other more general stuff (like the themes of Toby Fox's games that so drag me to them) they'll be in General Posts too.
Will be updated in half-year blocks, with no guarantee the updates themselves will fall on 6-month intervals.
Psycultist, Alphys, and Psychology Blindspots - Sept 2025
An analysis I really enjoyed doing as Psyculturists videos had me in a really positive mood about Deltarune analysis. Unfortunately I got a bit peeved by his commentary during Ch3 cause his chat was leading him with demonizing Tenna, but besides that he is genuinely a great DR streamer!
I very much enjoy Psyculturists stepping into Deltarune and INSTANTLY trying to hold the adult characters accountable, and even moreso that he does on occasion back away to say 'I understand they're trying their best and are flawed characters', before continuing to do so. When I first heard there was a wild psychologist out there doing an analysis of the game, I - as maybe the most psychology-hating wannabe-psychologist you'll ever meet - was skeptical. Mainly just because there is a whole cottage industry on YouTube of people from various professions making a show of descending upon the medium of video games to give some slice of it their seal of approval, usually without showing any holistic understanding of it. This to say, I was expecting MatPat-style analysis of the 'Psychology' of Deltarune's characters completely divorced from any sort of narrative or thematic context. But instead, I was struck by double-digit combos of the guy completely reading the biggest questions and themes of the game from the smallest hints, and it is very impressive and refreshing of a perspective. And that's before the dude does get int his actual immaculate psychological analyses.
But about the adult characters -- Alphys of course came up first on the chopping block for how she shrinks back and invalidates Susie along with a bunch of other 'bad/lazy teacher' jokes used to characetrize her. The way this actually effects the well-being of the kids in Deltarune is something I don't see many people (or the game really) bring up as much as say, the wave of misogynistic takes that came over Toriel at the end of Chapter 4. [But] to me, I found a lot of Psyculturists' readings of Alphys to be harsh and out of context of the town. I felt he was putting too much emphasis on what Alphys should be doing as if she existed in a well-managed school system with services and procedures for helping troubled children, when the reality is that she seems to give in a rather isolated town with two known teachers and one notable political figure.
And without the background of a system meant to help children in that specific way, it felt really unfair ti place the entire endeavor of playing untrained social worker on her, which reminded me of a whole other dimension of analysis for this game. Recently a great video about feminist analysis of Deltarune came out by Stuffed Alpaca where they analyzed and paralleled a lot of female characters like Toriel and Carol, but I don't remember if they did so with Toriel and Alphys -- the two current teachers of Hometown.
My quick analysis of them is that in the way that Carol is a more demonized expression of motherhood to Toriel's more stereotypically 'perfect' demeanor (with its natural flaws people loathe to see), Alphys is thus with the archetype of the female teacher. Toriel being as soft, gentle, and naturally maternal as she is contrasts so heavily against Alphys' Millennial Nerd Failgirl personality I would not even dream of comparing them in Undertale except on the basis that they are both female characters. And if I had to, I would quickly take note of which of these expressions of womanhood is typically more valued by society.
It made me ask too, why is Alphys a teacher in this universe? It feels so unlike her character the way a teacher so fits Toriel, because the only parallel traits between a crazy nerd scientist and a grade-school teacher are a love of knowledge. And in saying that, it felt almost embarrassing to ask why she shouldn't be a teacher. But still despite that qualification, nothing about her personality alings with the implicit other half of being an educator -- interacting with and caring for students.
But it's important to remember that this idea that being a grade-school teacher is equal parts being an instructor and caregiver is an idea that only emerged once the profession started being dominated by women. Before that, the teacher or schoolmaster was pictured as a highly-educated, domineering professional, but once positions needed to be filled more easily [and cheaply] in the public school system, it was flooded with underpaid women valued less for their acquired knowledge, but for their assumed natural state as caregivers*. Toriel is the natural teacher to me because she is the natural mother, whereas Alphys lacks maternal traits which for a while in my mind negated her obvious qualifications as an educator. And we see that lack of canniness with children along with her girlfailure qualities painting her as someone who struggles to be an effective teacher even if we know she is knowledgeable.
Which then begs the question, AGAIN, of why she is a grade school teacher when there are other related professions that require less of the kinds of emotional labor she is not equipped to handle. My assumption would either be that she did want to be an educator and made the mistake of believing that grade-school children would be less intimidating than say, college students herself, or... this woman who we know from another universe is very qualified to be a full-blown royal scientist is being funneled into the role of grade-school teacher. A far less respected, far more underpaid, and much less fitting job for her, but one which is typically seen as more natural for a woman than a high-ranking scientist.
These are the kinds of context that psychology as as science exists in but has not always taken into consideration over its lifespan. Psyculturists lambastes Alphys and her inability to fulfill the role as social worker to these children on top of being an educator, but there is a larger unfairness to the assumption that a teacher must work effectively two very demanding jobs at once that Alphys is caught up in. And more than that, a potential implication that misogyny - as commentary towards the expectations of players or as part of the world itself - played a role in that. But likewise, starting with the psychological analysis opens up the doorway for more commentary on how Deltarune can be interpreted through social/behavioral sciences, and just as Psyculturists does not actually mean to dear down Alphys, I don't mean to discredit his analyses just because it is locked into one context. The context of 'How is this character failing another', and not 'Why is this character even in the position to fumble this relationship in the first place?' which can often go far beyond the individual scope of things.
Either way, you should watch Psyculturists, he knows how to read.
I'm so fucking sorry, I said all of this off the cuff of my memories of a research essay I wrote half a year ago and I cannot give you a source that is not like a 25 page PDF or a book. Otherwise just look up stuff about feminism and the US public education system.
Defending Queen's Childless Wine-Aunt Honor - Aug 2025
A little all over the place of an analysis but one I feel is important and in the end just comes down to: People are quicker to interpret Queen's relationships with the kids as parental than other (male) characters who already have more precedent for being parental.
I've heard 'Queen is a stand-in/parallel for/of Noelle's relationship with her mother' for a long time, even before we actually met Carol in Chapter 4, and ever since then the idea has never really sat with me. I don't see Carol and Noelle's interactions in Queen as much as say, Tenna paralleling Asgore -- where the two have incredibly similar goals (returning to the family past), plans (playing dumb while scheming in the background), and demeanor (obsessed with bonding with Kris to the point it probably makes them uncomfortable). Instead with Queen I see the general issue Noelle has with almost every single character in her life [which just so happens to also include] her mother, that being her reluctance to stand up for herself and insister on her autonomy. I would say instead that Queen is a kind of flip or reversal of Carol's attitude, being incredibly open, reckless, and ditzy whereas Carol is closed off, cautious, and calculating, but nevertheless both of them still see Noelle as an object despite their affection for her.
If I were more of a Queenologist (I'm earning my PhD in Tennology instead), I would further argue that she is actually a projection of an idealized maternal figure for Noelle, the way that the Cyber World in general seems to fulfill an unmet dream of her's she expresses during the December monologue. And the way the Cyber World is still an overwhelming and intimidating dream, Queen is someone who lacks most everything that makes Carol so overtly oppressive; but in being that ideal come to life, Noelle gets to see that the core relationship issues can still lurk in that new dynamic. Maybe even making it clear to her that what's going on is not as much about her mother's demeanor in particular as it is how MANY of the people in her life approach her, and as the game asserts (not in a victim-blaming way, more just kid empowerment), she needs to stand up to it and not be intimidated whether the intimidation is cold or warm.
And I think this has bugged me mostly because... mmm... I am a LITTLE suspicious of when people make vague claims that a prominent female character exists mostly to be a parental figure to another. As I said, Tenna I think FAR more aggressively parallels Asgore as well as EXPLICITELY trying to take on a caretaker role as part of Kris' family, yet... some people... are very quick to ignore this aspect of his character to relate to other things, like the doomed toxic yaoi (which I also love). You also have King who is just widely ignored even though upon further inspection his relationship with Lancer has a lot more going on than just him being an evil irredeemable father.
This to say, between the three darkner lords, Queen is the least parental yet the most talked about as a surrogate one, and that has just rubbed me the wrong way for a little bit. I do see it, but I think it deserves a bit more nuance than I was generally picking up -- as if her being a maternal figure is so natural and obvious it doesn't require taking into account her actual personality.
Sally-Spears Reply:
Queen feels like she tries to assign herself in a maternal role (considering her "adoption" of Lancer in Chapter 2) but doesn't actually act maternal. She wants to be the fun mom so bad but she doesn't really know how to parent.
To be clear I am saying this with all the love in my heart. I love the computer
My Reply:
[(I interpreted them as saying Queen does still want to be maternal to all, when I think they just meant just on select occasions like Lancer)]
Respectfully disagree! Her adoption of Lancer is expressly parental, but I still don't see that the same as how she approached Noelle. Towards her and Berdley, she just acts like a silly villain who secretly has a softspot for Noelle due to their past but otherwise largely objectifies her. It's something she kinda does to Lancer too by calling him "her little round boy", but you also see them hanging out on equal terms. If she was s fond of Noelle, even as a prisoner, you'd think her treatment wouldn't just be locking her in a room as she does all the other lightners. I think the most maternal thing she does to Noelle is call her a bunch of petnames but that just comes off as patronizing sweet talk. (And is not reminiscent of Carol at all back on that note lmao).
Once again, I think this idea only works if you think of her being maternal from the lens "what would she be to Noelle" and not from Queen's lens of just being a silly weirdo who needs to kidnap kids for an evil scheme. I don't beleive Queen has any conviction to act maternal towards her, I think people just interpret her personality through a maternal role (i.e., is she just a funny, eccentric, decadent woman interacting with kids, or are these all Wine Mom(tm) traits?). The one time she openly adopts someone it's mostly a joke about an assumption most players would make.
Oop -- and my own addendum! This is not at all to downplay the connection between Noelle and Queen! I just don't think it has to be a maternal one. The relationship between Darkners and Lightners is interesting enough on its own, and I think we say with Tenna that trying to overstep these roles is usually a bad sign; These kids don't need parents in their screens, they just need constructive distractions to help them orient themselves. I usually like to see Queen more as a fun aunt, like someone who is fond of and wants to entertain kids but not... take responsibility for them lmao. As she kinda shouldn't chase that could be on Carol :sob:.
Tenna is Dumb of Ass - Aug 2025
The spiritual successor to the Tenna is Soft rant that was born out of a flash of inspired fury at his continued characterization as nothing but a greed manipulator. The Vox-ification of Tenna is of serious concern to me, though as I try to stress here, he isn't innocent either. A very thorough and more balanced analysis is still in the works...
OK, LOOK. I have definitive proof for all of you that Tennna has nothnigi but pure whimsy behind his nose and a lonely idiot's heart in his chest EVEN when at his most scheming and manipulative. You think Tenna is like actually a competent liar? That he has any grasp of deception beyond 'Have fun with people until a third party finishes the evil stuff backstage'? That he is anything but dumbass henchmen tier at best?
What the fuck does Tenna do when he sees the fun gang next to Torial? He tries to shepherd them back to the show and is promptly triggered by Susie and Ralsei calling him out, and then completely blows his lid at them. And afterwards, almost ALL of his terrible attempts at abusing closeness with them to guilt the party into apology and submission is directed at Kris. It's nasty, and horrible, and makes Tenna seem like a terrible, manipulative person, as if all the affection he shares with others is just a tool to get material gain, right?
But why does he focus so much on Kris. Kris isn't against him. Kris. Is on Tenna's side -- TENNA IS ON KRIS' SIDE! He KNOWS that Kris is on his side, and therefore, whatever was going on with them with the gang and Toriel was likely not their fault. OK, and like even assuming it was and Kris was backstabbing Tenna at that moment, Tenna doesn't try to BACKSTAB Kris. He doesn't shift gears like a normal person and try to claw his gains out of the broken deal, HE DOESN'T EVEN TRY TO USE IT AGAINST KRIS. Because Tenna NEVER makes mention of [the deal] in front of Susie or Ralsei, say, in order to get them to squabble with Kris as he takes Toriel for himself to meet the Knight? If anything he actively cuts himself off from mentioning it in the final fight!:
You... you want to have fun, too, don't you!?
Isn't that a little bit why you...
Woah, woah, woah! Sorry, that was out of line, folks!
Back you your regularly scheduled programming!
In private he says 'Didn't we have a deal, Kris', but in his confession before the fountain he says 'I made a deal with the Roaring Knight' -- OF COURSE NOT BEFORE IMPLICATING KRIS ABOUT THE MEMORIES OF THEIR FAMILY.
Susie: Why the hell do you want us to play so bad anyway!?
Tenna: Kris.
Kris knows why.
Do you remember it Kris?
When everyone came over for the holidays?
As if for a second he considered saying it but just. That on braincell left in him short-circuited and all he could do was whine like a kicked dog.
Because Tenna isn't doing all of this to HURT Kris and their plans for seemingly backstabbing him, HE'S STILL TRYING TO SAVE IT. BY STUPIDLY TARGETING HIS ACCOMPLICE WITH EMOTIONAL PLEASE INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON CORALLING THEIR SHARED ADVERSARIES STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.
If he was still thinking straight he would be targeting Susie and Ralsei to convince them to stay, THEY'RE THE ONES WHO ACTUALLY AGGRESSED HIM whereas Kris was silent the whole time. Probably sitting there, quietly, holding their breath like they do in the Knight's fight and praying, that things will correct themselves as they can only stand puppetted by their own adversary. FUCKING BEGGING FOR THEIR ACCOMPLICE TO LOCK. IN. AND GET. THE PICTURE.
And then Tenna starts up, 'Heeeyyy, Kris~! Don't you remember how much FUUUN we used to have together ^_^! Haha, remember how much you love MEEE and TV!!! And how important I am to you! Say it~! Say you love me and TV and we're besties! Aw... no talking? Don't give me the silent treatment, aren't you tired of that after everything your parents went through!'
And this clown, this big electric box of a clown starts targeting THEM, in front of the very one's they're trying to deceive, airing out all of their laundry in 4K and making complete asses out of BOTH of them. Tenna is so sad and pathetic and stupid that he gets a WHIFF of his accomplice in a delicate, high-stakes scheme potentially trying to double-cross him and he, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, spills both their emotional guts all over the floor with a strained smile trying to get some impossible apology out of them for the perceived slight.
I actually can't even call that trying to save the deal anymore, he is actively sabotaging it in front of all the parties involved because he cannot even think to stop and ask himself if maybe Kris leading the gang to Toriel was part of the plan and maybe he needs to COM.PEN.SATE and think through things rationally. Nor does he even think to try and cut off his piece of the pie or take advantage of it instead of just running his mouth trying to get that 100th "I Love TV!". And you know why? Because all he wanted WAS that. Literally nothing about his deal with Kris or the Knight mattered except for getting just a bit more affection, as those two are trying to do some eldritch shit to upend the world, and Tenna WILL make it their problem.
And all Kris could do was stand there and probably seethe to unfathomable levels as their stupid, gayass, fuckass TV tired to coo in their ear through 7 layers of passive aggression about how close they are and how bad they should feel And I am no longer surprised that Kris shows absolutely no pity when he gets literally cut out of the picture.
King and Chapter 1 Appreciation - Aug 2025
I played a LOT of Deltarune in 2025: Chapter 2 on my own in preparation for Chapter 3+4, then Chapter 2, 3, and 4 with my friends, and then the whole game again from Chapter 1 for my little brother. This post is about that last one (though of course after this I also played Chapter 3 again on Halloween with my little brother to celebrate out Spamton and Tenna cosplays).
I literally hadn't replayed Chapter 1 until like a week ago cause I only caught up on Chapter 3 before the full release, but I actually love a lot about how King and the Card Dark World are represented as part of the game as a whole and less as a standalone introduction to the game as it was in 2016. It's the darkest, simplest, and most generic feeling dark world of the bunch, only beat out in its feeling of emptiness by the Church Dark World cause like obviously it's meant to feel way more cavernous, but its themeing is still way more unique.
But that actually goes well with King being the most basic of all playthings -- a playing card. The Cyber Dark World is meant to be full and bustling, bright and distracting, as the internet is; the TV World is supposed to feel cozy and spectacular as a nostalgic studio working out of your living room should. But the Card Dark World is just very barren in comparison because it's dealing with something that has no pizazz or lights to drag you into its imagination, you have to fill in all the blanks about what a card game means besides raw mechanics for yourself. And then as well as laying bare that baseness of card and board games compared to computers and TV, it also works with the fact that this would was very much not built for the lightners.
The TV and Cyber World are like theme parks run by managers who need the attention and amusement of its guests to live, whereas the Card World is run by a darkner who literally hates you and is just trying to kill you outright. It's a Dark World made for darkners.
King is actually such a fucking curve-ball from what it seems comparing him to the other darkner bosses, but he's also the first so the vibes are just off in every way. It's funny, if he was AFTER Queen and Tenna I wonder if people would find him more interesting for being the first guy to really fucking hate you. The way that Spamton stands out so much in the Cyber World for being a guy from the shadows trying to hustle you for his own, [very nefarious] gain rather than constantly appealing to you like most others.
Spamton 64 Hysteria - Jul 2025
Just some appreciation for how despite Tenna overtaking Spamton as my favorite Deltarune character, that silly puppet still has the capacity to strike me down with bouts of absolute madness. Really the two compliment each other in exquisite ways that make me even more insane about Spamton than I was before, and I'm happy I am now incapable of thinking about either of them for too long without getting sick.
This post also inspired me to work on a concept for an unfiction series which hopefully I will find time to talk about on this site about!
IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER SPAMTON RAMBLE
A while ago fresh after finishing Chapter 3 I was looking back on the ole fandom Spamton brainrot for fun, musing to myself about what will come for Tenna and the grip he's already exerted on the internet psyche. I was watching some highlights of the Super Spamton 64 mod/romhack and thinking about how much more... bearable it was than thinking about Tenna and everything his character implies about escapism and transitional objects and the like. But then, I heard the freedom motif in the Wingcap/Starman theme aaand... Well, suddenly the Spamton brainrot was a problem again.
I think before I get to my point I should like elaborate that the feeling I am describing is not negative obviously, but it is somewhat painful. I have always been deeply fascinated by the reality of virtual worlds, not just the ones that try to invite you with hyper-realism, or detail, or lived-in atmosphere, but the ones that do quite the opposite. The realities that never try to make you feel like anything is realistic or even that they are real, but which inspire a longing to be in them through sheer charisma alone. Ones that I would say most try to feel like being in a theme park as a child -- both deeply engrossed in making their experiences as imaginative as possible, but happy to let its constructed nature show. And this often means games like the Super Mario's by merit of their charm and complete lack of care for projecting continuity or even basic sense. Video games that are very video game-y in a loving, whimsical way.
I guess I would say it's a longing that evoke in me, and this is not specific to Super Mario, but honestly a lot of platformers (and a select few adventure games) in general, and I've been trying to get my thoughts out on that in a few original stories. Doing so has always tortured me because I believed I was trying to express highly personal (and maybe neurotic) fixations foreign to most others. But then, of course, I play Deltarune Chapter 3 and I feel like Toby Fox has broken into my house while I was sleeping and started whipping me with a belt (emotionally). Weaponizing those emotions against me to tell maybe my favorite story of the year and enrich himself with my $25, meanwhile draining me of all life for a good few weeks. Emotions I actually see becoming frighteningly and excitingly more popular with time.
Periphery to Chapter 3, mostly through its secret route being attached to the hip of a plot about a plaything which never wants you to leave him (yet is confused and concerned by your seeking of this route), is a theme Toby Fox seems to have been playing with since Deltarune: What it means for players to love a game.
Your things love you. You video games love you. You are like a God and a friend to it all in one and all it wants in the world for your to do is have a good time playing/using it. Sometimes you as a player love it back, sometimes you think its garbage, but hopefully you love it. WHen you love a game, you play it and attentively soak in the experience it's build for you. Sometimes when you really love a game, you'll try to re-experience the game over and over again as much as possible. Sometimes when you really, really love a game, you re-experience it by purposefully messing with its script.
You walk around maps only meant for you to take in a few fleeting seconds at a time. You watch sunsets and ambiance only meant to be background objects to your adventure as if it is as rich as those of the real world. You constantly run up against the limits and borders of the world. You come to love every chance you get to see the seams of the virtual reality and appreciate deeply how this magically playground just for you was devised from nothing but code. And then, when you really, really, really love a game... you start trying to break it.
Undertale's Genocide Route does not exist because Toby Fox thought people would hate his game and its characters enough to go through with an experience multitudes more strenuous than the Pacifist Route, it exists because Toby Fox had faith people would really really really love his game. And he knew that people who love games that much, and stories that much, want to break them. Want to see the world come undone either technically or narratively.
Now when games don't really extend the experience that far, or if someone maybe really (x4) loves a game and has some knowhow, they look outside of it completely to break it. Here you get speedrunning and eventually modding. Two forms of game breaking that I feel are more familiar to Super Mario 64 than maybe any other game. If Pannenkoek's legacy of documenting Super Mario 64's quantum physics doesn't come to mind when you think of players annihilating the experience of a game out of sheer rabid adoration for a work of art, we need to get you caught up on that.
But on top of that, there is also the world of Mario 64 mods and romhacks, which is where we come back around to Spamton. What I was communicating to myself when I was first watching the Super Spamton 64 romhack, about Spamton brainrot being different from the festering rot of obsessive longing that Tenna evokes in me, was that Spamton was less sentimental of a character. But I let that lack of softness in him juxtaposed against the cheeriness of Super Mario 64 distract me from the equally strong emotions at the core of Spamton's character -- desperate, soul-consuming hatred of his role as a plaything.
As the plaything, that this mod was making him into. For what reason? Of course, because people really, really, really, really love Spamton. And it would seem that Spamton really, really, really really would hate players. He hates entities which relegate him to the status of plaything, whether that be [having the power to destroy] his Big Shot lifestyle or keeping him within the lower reality of the dark world or video game. People who love him weren't satisfied enough to watch his struggles as a puppet through an NPC sidequest, they wanted to be his puppeteer. Because in spite of his hysterics and schemes, it makes us feel closer to him as a character to do so. To confuse our definition of freedom with his. They wanted to pull his strings and place him in a playground where music played that blended his emotional reality with another. Where the musical motif representing his search for agency was combined with the most classic motif of virtual, [on-rails] freedom -- the Starman theme.
Because for us insane people on this side of the fiction/reality divide, freedom isn't always found for us here. Sometimes we want to try and find it in a lower reality which is ironically a prison for characters like Spamton. And for us, the Starman theme represents feelings of that abstracted freedom, the ability to fly and become even more impervious to harm in this crude facsimile of a dream cobbled together from electrical currents and plastic.
And... I don't know. Well. I do know, but this is getting out of hand. Just all of that together and hearing the DR Freedom motif combined with the Starman theme... It kind of broke me?
I remember feeling acutely sick to my stomach as this kind of realization hit me, and I had to turn the video off instantly, because thinking about it - whether it was my tendency to empathize with objects and seeing an unintended cruel joke in the mod, or aching to feel the equally unintended gravity of the adoration the mode expressed for the character - I don't know.
It's been a good while since characters made me feel so fundamentally sick in the fucking head. I love Toby Fox, keep these fiction-breaking fuckers coming. More fiction^2!!
Last Minute Addition:
I was watching a longplay of the romhack while writing this and i got to the fucking end and the credits theme is so good but is also ilterally a clusterfuck of everything i said about combining emotional realities of characters and player! its literally based off of lost girl which at the time was obviously just a generic beautiful sad motif but now has so many implications tied to it its almost inhumane to use it as such. jesus. jesus fucking christ.
Getting to a Punchline:
OK, MAAAN, you know this was a clusterfuck of a ramble when I forgot to even get to one of my core punchlines: Spamton as the protagonist of a platformer is as funny as it is existentially offensive to his character.
Like I said, I was mostly occupied by the intended comedy of the romhack because seeing Spamton, such a sleazy, hateful character slapped over the whimsy of Super Mario is just inherently stupid. And as much as the mod characterizes him as a salesman great, I think they could have afforded to make him more mean. And moreso, if they had seen it from the deeper perspective I was looking from, they could have made him ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE.
I mean BEYOND Kris levels of angry at the hand of God because as I was saying, he went from NPC to player character, the strings he's on are even more invasive and now actively controlled by the one whom relegates him to his station. This wonderful comic comes to mind especially (1, 2), the idea that Spamton for all of his blustering and whining never expected the actual hard control of the player and it being something that would terrify him.
Kris seems to want the soul for their own reasons as much as whatever deal they struck is tearing their life apart in the weird routes somewhat beyond their control, but I really don't think Spamton understands the kind of power the [HeartShapedObject] holds. I don't think the freedom to possibly leave the Dark World and be "close" to a higher being in the player is worth actually, literally becoming a puppet. You can kind of feel that Spamton's ability to run his mouth and complain, to scheme and enact plans even if they fail is autonomy he enjoys, especially with his disdain towards Jevil who has resigned himself to imprisonment in a certain way. What happens to Kris happening to him would be heartbreaking to see. I think he very much doesn't understand what kind of freedom he's asking for, even if he has certain ideas mapped out.
In my good ole original Spamton Essay [Tumblr] [Journal], I wrote it not only before Chapter 3, but even before getting to the Weird Route, and I remember being very... chilled to see him be the catalyst for finishing the route. I knew he was involved, but seeing him sit in a trashcan counting down the darkners left to kill for you and thinking he's struck a deal with you is... terrifying. Both shedding light on what he's wiling to do to get his vengeance (which was more abstract in his earlier scheme) and the fact that you know it will NOT end well for him against you. It also put into question whether he knows who he is talking to - Kris or the player - as Kris is very obviously not the one willfully going down the Weird Route, yet Spamton still speaks to them during.
I think that combined with a character like Tenna as soft as he is made me realize JUUUST how much of a hater Spamton is, I was very soft on him AND Kris in that essay. But this all to say, Spamton being forced to be a cheery platformer protagonist is quite possibly the most clashing ideal imaginable, yet it would be so perfect to explore!
Don't you wanna be a Big Shot, Spamton? Here it is two ways - you're the vessel of the [HeartShapedObject]], you are closest to [[Heaven]] in this realm, AND you now inherit one of the highest, most transcendent stations of fictional/plaything celebrity. But what's that? You don't like LITERALLY being the video game equivalent of a puppet on a string? Having almost no ways whatsoever to act on your own, to be anything beyond an empty shell to be inhabited, except for your scripted little reactions and expressions? And what's that now? The celebrity you once held so dear just isn't [[BIG]] enough for you? You don't want to just be a face on boxart or posters, you want to be real? Too fuckin' bad, you gotta say "Bing-Bing Wahoo!" 5 million times now cause the player felt like crashing your spine against a wonky piece of geometry!
And it all made me realize...
- Wait, actually -- this is another great parallel between him and Tenna, Tenna being a performer who delights in performance and defers towards lightners till his dying breath, even after feeling abandoned. There is definitely some underlying personality differences and priorities that would clash between the two related to that even during their big shot era....
- Actually Important: I need a platformer now where you play as a Spamton-like.
I need a fucking Super Mario-looking, cheery video game where the protagonist is so fundamentally enraged by the metaphysics of the project of the game and the world that he embodies the 4th to 5th wall breaking bitterness of Spamton and everything he pulls of his own volition is basically an attempt to get you to break/see the game as too broken to continue. Like I said, Kris has designs, and when the player breaks the game it is against those designs. Spamton, oblivious as he may've been, saw the player absolutely wrecking the world - HIS WORLD - and was like, "Yes! It is time to make a deal!" Once again, another great parallel as Kris seems very interested in saving the world from the rogue player because they value their place more than any odd notions of eldritch power.
I want a game where you're playing as a Mario-like protagonist who is so tired of being what they are, and every line of dialogue is so incomprehensibly spiteful, and any time they can idle they're trying to signal death through the screen, and any option they have they are trying to lead you to the closest to demise they can design for you -- breaking the game. Which may inadvertently kill them and everything know in the process, but goddamn it if this isn't hell enough already.
I need... More protagonists in video games who hate YOU. I'm not saying this is an original idea, please if someone knows a game like this - not just like a troll game, but one with substance or a story like DR - please tell me! I just need this sacred border between us and avatar to be messed with more in the funniest and most existentially horrific ways possible, please-please-please! It could be an actual game or like, an internet/analog horror series could work so good -- PLEASE!
I need... More protagonists in video games who hate YOU. I'm not saying this is an original idea, please if someone knows a game like this - not just like a troll game, but one with substance or a story like DR - please tell me! I just need this sacred border between us and avatar to be messed with more in the funniest and most existentially horrific ways possible, please-please-please! It could be an actual game or like, an internet/analog horror series could work so good -- PLEASE!
Undertale is Not Hard to Play - Jun 2025
I'm not even sure how big of an issue this actually is in the broader gamer streamer guy community, but two of my faves are still being stubborn about these games after nearly a decade and it was just getting under my skin.
Not to discount how rabid the early Undertale fandom was, but I feel like any streamer still hung up on purposefully engaging with Toby Fox's games in a way to counter audience expectations at this point is just developing an Arin Hanson complex. Undertale and Deltarune are games about choice, and UT especially was built with players mixing the perfect routes in mind, but both make it really really obvious that pacifism is a central gimmick.
An audience yelling at a streamer to spare everyone is not because they're insane and controlling, it's a mix of typical chat back-seating (helping the streamer see all there is and get the most out of what THEY believe was the most substantial route) and the basic instinct to not see the central characters of the game's narrative KO'd from the plot. Like, people Liked The Characters of Undertale, and did not want streamers to Stop Seeing The Characters That Make The Game Good because they failed to engage with the game's central conceit. Deltarune is very similar and I feel like the idea of "You recruit enemies rather than nebulously sparing them" helps solidify this approach to the world, but the fact it had to be made so very transactional says something about players. But there is very little reason to go about Undertale and ESPECIALLY Deltarune without sparing enemies unless you are turning a deaf ear to the game's mechanics and thus losing access to parts of the game (on a first, and potentially only, stream playthrough).
And I see little reason for someone to turn a deaf ear like that unless, 1) They want to offer their audience a less perfected experience -- which is valid! It's interesting to see those games in messy routes personalized to the player's reactions, but knowing the game I think "Chat, I'm gonna break it!" and getting their input when the stakes are so high is important. Or 2) For some reason, the demand of playing an RPG in this unconventional manner is really so difficult for you that you get defensive about your need as a player to not engage with its basic meditation on empathy and pacifism. If you see Undertale and Deltarune's pacifist routes as puzzle games based around that moral gimmick and not Another RPG that has some funny choices, you get... Undertale and Deltarune!
Like that was their thing. Undertale definitely wanted you to explore all possibilities, but as much as it was built for you to do that, it also leads you into its more streamlined routes for subsequent playthroughs, and you can't expect your audience to always have faith their favorite streamer guy will get around to that. But then you have Deltarune broken into parts and advertised as having one ending, where it is the most obvious thing to play the pacifist because not doing so LITERALLY literally means you just see less content. You just get penalized for not engaging with the game's central mechanics, and for every enemy you couldn't be arsed to engage with, you lose material for the characters you did choose to save.
It's 2025 and I am tired of Toby Fox games being approached like unknowable, volatile sacred objects, and not games that people really like with interesting mechanics and a lot of chances to screw up not seeing everything you could eliciting intense back-seating.
The Kirby-Deltarune Connection - Jun 2025
A little bit of musical theorizing about my two favorite media things ever now inevitably led me into swooning over the spirit of both series. And for what started as such a simple post, I think I got really coherently to the heart of what draws me both to Kirby and Deltarune better than I almost ever have.
P.S. - Antenna, over-the-air TV is what Tenna's actually about, baby!! I'm the realist TV Head!
OH YEAH, I would also love to take more time to appreciate how much more... Kirby I aws getting out of Chapter 3's soundtrack? I recently found Toby Fox's music inspiration list with a lot of classic Kirby soundtracks front and center (you know the ones), and I think it would only make sense that in such a nostalgia fueled plot you would have more emphasis on that sound, as well as just very Nintendo-sounding stuff in general
Big City Board has the same exact opening chord progression as Patched Plains from Robobot, and SOMETHING in Black Knife - maybe just the crazy percussion - has some serious Kirby final boss vibes to me. And most damning of all I SWEAR that Sandy Board has that damned Ishikawa Synth in it just before the end! I sometimes really wish I was more of a music-head so that I could be more specific or sure of these connections... But I'll jusut have to weave between the Kirby and Deltarune communities (which should not be an insignificant overlap) to see if anyone else picked up on this.
Paradise, Paradise Mania
Oh, and this one may just be me, but Paradise, Paradise is very Kirby to me... but it may just be the general nostalgic feeling it's trying to evoke; it's honestly kind of deadly amounts. It's both very nostalgic but obviously a somewhat complex song, it has the feeling of the Dream Land 3 soundtrack with that crazy fusion sound Ishikawa labored over. I think it's just when... I think about things like that - old games made on the surface to just be vapid which just underneath the surface hide a deeply sincere love of itself and the player's grace - I think about Kirby.
Kirby has always been so interesting with that to me because I don't actually have a childhood nostalgia for it! I had never interacted with Kirby before 2018 outside of watching Vinesauce play Robobot a few years prior, and that 2018 phase has stretched straight into this one, all nostalgia I feel for Kirby is for this present era of my life. But looking at older Kirby games which evoke a sense of their own eras and seeing the incredible passion the developers and artists have never stopped putting into the series sort of retroactively makes me fonder of those times.
The way that TV nostalgia is actually not a major part of my life! I didn't grow up on capable, I had public access and DVDs, which still plopped me in front of a screen but not for all the things Tenna harkens back to. But seeing that atmosphere reconstructed in its platonic ideal in this game makes me wistful for those small bits of it I had experiences, and reminds me of my feelings towards adjacent trinkets and memories. I did not actually grow up on CRTs or Dreamcasts, but thinking about how in love artists like Toby Fox can b with them, it makes me want to love them dearly too. Alongside my actual cringefail console who would have an insecure attachment with me if she became sentient - my WiiU!!!
Tenna is Soft! - Jun 2025
My first take on Deltarune, and more specifically Tenna, which I grow more and more passionate about as the days go by. I'm working on bigger, fatter essays about this stupid guy but at the center of all analysis is this truly.
I'm starting to reach the point of Tenna brainrot where I've beginning to develop that critical eye for his fandom portrayal bolstered heavily by him obviously having some Tumblr Sexyman Bait mixed into him, but as someone who is usually violently repulsed by true Tumblr Sexyman Bait I have been having a blast noticing how he subverts those tropes. For me right now, the biggest tell of people focusing on him as A Tall Guy In A Suit vs the little goofster he is is how softly they draw him, cause it's also my biggest fixation with his design.
Tenna has a uniquely soft and rounded character design for what he is -- a CRT in a shiny suit rendered as an early CG model. Not only did Toby Fox take that aesthetic in the direction of SNES pre-rendered sprites so that instead of being polygonal he would have that unnaturally smooth finish, but he also took the time to blast Tenna's palette with a bright lavender tint and no black outline. Then on top of that even, his CRT head is stylized to be as rounded as possible, and almost every pointed aspect of his character besides hi nose has a soft taper just by nature of the lumpy, clay-like model he is. And these details serve a couple of goals:
First and most interesting to me, combined with the big cartoon gloves and coat-tails, Tenna's softness really helps sell him as a rubber-hose adjacent - and therefore old and nostalgic - looking character without it being too forced. Or even worse, trying to bluntly mimic the rubber-hose style in a way that would have made me furiously critical lmao. Literally the defining aspect of those designs that I see people mess up routinely is how rounded and 3D the characters were. Besides oddities like Mickey Mouse and a few other super early character' ears, characters of that era were overwhelmingly designed to make sense in 3D space, [just with occasional exceptions for readability]. The style is sometimes referred to as the "center-line" style because on reference sheets you would see characters broken down into spheres with lines down the center to help portray depth.
This to say, if you want to get to the fundamentals of that style, an essence that can transcend the most obvious aesthetic tropes of pacman eyes and black-and-white, you make characters very tubular and rubber-hose-y. Tenna is very much that and in a way that dates him back to a nebulous essence of that old cartoon style, as well as making him distinctly a product of clumsy but adorable early CGI [before it began to explore heavier 2-D-like stylization tricks] -- in a way harkening back to the early baby steps of both animation mediums. (And fuck it, it kinda gives me digitized claymation vibes sometimes). Nevertheless, this collection of subtle and unsubtle visual motifs come together to make Tenna appear and feel old, charming, and most importantly, soft!
If Toby Fox wanted to like really, really say "This guy is a TV cartoon!" a far more obvious aesthetic to draw from would have been Hannah-Barbera type characters in the Modernist style, which used economic design tropes that are so embedded in our idea of cartooning you will find attempts at a rubber-hose style accidentally using them, despite the styles being diametrically opposed. The gorgeous Hatsune Miku design for the vocaloid song people keep super-imposing Tenna over is a PERFECT example of the artstyle on a character whose design otherwise has nothing to do with it, emphasizing bold, flat shapes that often don't reflect and sort of real depth. Tenna could have easily been in a style like that, but no matter how many circles you may use in a design like that, they'll never be spheres, they'll never have that sense of depth and therefore almost tangible softness that Tenna's design has. Toby's artstyle, thought not heavily related to either tradition, does rely on flattened perspective and bold shapes in character designs, so it is very interesting to see Tenna arrive intended to portray an era aligned with those pre-existing conventions, [but completely ignoring them to express something else.]
This because, on top of evoking that nostalgia, Tenna is meant to evoke it with a very specific kind of softness -- to make him as unassuming and friendly-looking as possible, almost unnaturally so. I don't think it's meant that the form is a distortion or facade of his normal self, but the fact that Tenna is the softest, puttiest thing in the entire canon so far implies there is a really strong reason why he's uniquely defined by these ideas. I mean, we saw Tenna lose his cool and drop his silly act, and we got The Sprite - which is so gorgeous in its own way - Tenna's electronic theming finally pulling some sharpness out of his design, made unnatural both by bringing attention to his inhuman parts and clashing so oddly with the soft rendering of his model. But even there, the intention is not that Tenna is ['finally showing his true character']; That state was abnormal, and if the electronic in him was meant to conflict with his putty exterior, you would maybe see more angularity in the TV to contrast it. He could have been a real ENA-like, if not by default then in that expression, but NOPE! It's all still cohesive.
In design, Tenna is constantly vying for Ralsei's spot of softest, fluffiest guy around, and any aberration from that portrays him as being uncharacteristically harsh. He is defined by being soft, comforting, fun, nostalgic, and basically not anything that usually defines a Tumblr Sexyman. He's not particularly skinny by cartoon stylization standards (nor curvy, I support you guys though), he's not edgy, he's not secretly cruel (more just has the potential to manipulate people), and he doesn't have those toothy, pointy design sensibilities that define a lot of those characters. He does for like, one sprite, and even then as I said, it's clashing in every way against his default personality. And I feel like when people forgo these aspects of his design, I can begin to assume they are doing so in his personality as well.
With constantly sharpened static teeth comes a more cunning character than he is ever portrayed to (successfully) be. Everytime his suit is drawn to be more angular or his joints more defined, someone is forgetting his it was primarily design to [be a child's platonic ideal]. Obviously the only valid people in the Sharp Tenna camp here are those who draw him in the Modernist TVA style (and everyone else cause this post is not that serious). But as someone who actively has been studying why he doesn't give me the Tumblr Sexyman ick and being really delighted by how he maneuvers around all these tropes in a SUPER visually and narratively compelling way, I am a bit disappointed to see him just drawn like... as TV Head Tumblr Sexyman #9.
DO NOT MENTION HIM next to that asshole from Hazbin Hotel either OH MY FUCKING GOD! Tenna is my (and Kris' (against their will)) best friend from the corny gameshows, cease the slander!!
Bonus: Tenna is Also Your Gay Uncle! - Jun 2025
Tenna is your uncle who you don't see all the time, but everytime he comes over or you stay with him you can tell he was excited about seeing you the entire time. For some reason he seems way more invested in your wellbeing than even your parents and obviously loves kids, but no one in your family knows why he doesn't have any of his own. Never married, hardly ever dated either, you sometimes overhear other relatives taunting him about it.
Then when you're like 14 and realize you're gay you kinda start wondering if he is too and you spend years plotting the optimal interrogation of his romantic life to try and see if you officially have a Gay Uncle, but you never actually ask him cause he's always too busy like baking you a cake or teaching you how to make origami and it's not even worth it at that point.