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quonitThis is a nnnnormal post for normal people. It's got SPOIILLLERRRRS for chapters 3 + 4 of Deltarune. Which are AWESOME and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND and also if you haven't played them this post will be toootttaaaalllll nonsense. It's not even main route stuff it's secret boss stuff.
Bonus heads up: There are a LOT of video embeds in this post so if your internet's bad or you can't listen this post will probably be way worse to you!!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Deltarune is cool af I've just been too busy with Friend Facts to really engage with it as much as I did with Chapter 2 released! Poor Spamton ghost is getting neglected- it'd actually kind of take a big effort to do his next update, and I just haven't had time so even though people have been asking he's gotten nothing as of late! AAAHHH!!!
The reason I've been talking about it again is. Well. I think mostly because of this remix
I listed it in my livejournal "Currently Listening" Music thingy a few times. I've just been listening to it for months!!! It's an awesome remix and severely underrated!!! I like songs. Lots of people like songs. THIS song is cool though. It's got so many parts from Spamton (or maybe Spamton has parts from it?) and just sounds ssooooo intense and focused. I just like. The noises that it makes. The specific kind of beeping and how it repeats in almost an unnatural sound and the part at 2:26 where it overlays it sounds dark and ominous in a way that really makes me think.
And also Freedom Motif why is Freedom Motif. That's the most obviously odd part to anyone. They are the notiable exception to the Freedom motif always being related to Shadow Crystal bosses, and the Knight is the notiable exception to the Shadow Crystal bosses having Freedom motif.
Many subsequent memes have been made about this fact
[Source]
[Source]
So. If you really like a song. And listen to it a lot. You kind of start to ponder what the hell its about. The characters that the song is for. Why the hell do the Mike impostors get the freedom motif- they're silly! And they're not just silly, they're completely optional. And not only are they completely optional, this is not even their battle theme. This is the song that plays during the Battat minigame where you dodge rocks and get supercats
I guess the easiest way to start is with the game.
In Chapter 2, Mike was first mentioned by Spamton who talked about him a lot as someone who had abandoned him. Extremely vague and enigmatic figure people could only do their best to theorize may have something to do with the person on the phone who used to give Spamton advice that turned him successful. Here's a short video from the time
In Chapter 3, we hear a LOT more about Mike! Tenna just CASUALLY CALLS OUT TO "MIKE" ALL THE FREAKIN TIME during his sets! As if he's just his "sound guy" or whatever! Here's an animated version of CANON DIALOGUE
From the way Tenna speaks to this "Mike" person you can kind of sort of inference this is probably how Spamton interacted with Mike back when they were still working together. Just this sort of omnipresent and invisible god-like being that can do whatever you ask on a whim. Sure. Whatever
You don't meet this "Mike" in Chapter 3 though. You only catch his stench!!!!!!!!
In Castle Town of Chapter 4, you can unlock "Mike's Room" with a 4 digit code that's the phone alphabet for the word "Mike". Your control scheme is completely changed to mouse mode where you pet and use your Mikerophone for game mechanics. It's fun and gimmicky! When you enter the room, you meet, like, presumably Mike, but he just sort of seems like an unimpressive regular person...? But then it falls apart rather quickly and it turns out it's just 3 regular Darkners pretending to be Mike.
They're a parody of pretty much every single popular "Who is Mike" theory answer that people had back in Chapter 2 era. "Is Mike Tenna's alter ego" joking about the Mike is a TV theory, "Mike is definitely a cowboy" woody theory jokes, "Mike is definitely a cat" Friend Mike jokes.
Pff, this video with all the fan-mikes...
Then the green Pippins has their very famous conspiracy board of red string about who Mike could possibly be- providing the Deltarune fandom what's essencially a self insert for all their theorizing.
As far as trios they're actually really memorable! When it comes to trios usually there's the main that's the most memorable, then the second kind of sort of, and the third I can literally just forget. In this instance the three of them are very distinct in appearance, personality, and none of them feel redundant in any way!
[My trio arts] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Green Pippins is the head of the operation, the most interested by far in discovering Mike. Definitely the leader if you had to point to any of them. Honestly what I find most interesting about his character is they're straight up reasonable?? Like sure they talk about some crazy theories but dismiss them in the same sentence. Especially since Tenna would punish his employees whenever """Mike""" didn't do something, it makes sense three of them would just step up and do it themselves! It is literally affecting their lives!
[Source]
The Zapper is extremely laid back and talks in a pretty low, lazy way. He's following along of course, but isn't super paying attention to anything haha. He works as a really good counter for the Pippins, since the Pippins can be extremely intense so it's funny to interupt his extremely thorough thoughts and accounts of details with something silly only kind of related. It works well!
The last of the three is a CAT and does not TALK because Shadow Guys only make music notes as is known. Is EXTREMELY ADORABLE and literally a kittycat integral to the trio.
I'm not exactly sure what in particular triggered me to really start thinking of them more often lately? I've described before "I like Battat is normal he just got himself caught up in one of the mysteries deltarune fans aren't anywhere near close to solving either and he has no idea how much it relates to secret bosses and the fabrication of their world lol. HE'LL NEVER FIGURE OUT WHO MIKE IS... HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO SPAMTON".
Anyways now I can finally show you just a liiiittle bit of my drawings.
I was trying to draw one of my scripts I had for that insane anime I watch but my canvas got hijacked... I had one sketch... two..... then I decided to just make a whole page so it was postable. Why not. Also I'm gonna call him Battat now for the remainder of this post and explain later.
Pippins are dice, and their heads are drawn as hexagons but it's meant to be like a styalized representation of a dice from an angle. A lot of artists keep his head just a hexagon, I went ahead and went with a cube! Half of his face is harshly shaded because of the sharp edge. I've been told by multiple people that it makes him look like an anime villain, which is great. It's the kind of vibes he should have when he's "Got it alllll figured out" right before someone points out a contridiction which has him miming ripping his hair out.
I also have the mouth only really prominantly open on one side, again because it makes the edge slightly more convincing. His other features like eyes I slowly made more square shaped, along with fingers. The top left corner was the later of the ones I drew lol, mostly just to demonstraight how small he is.
His head is floating, because Pippins are dice and in a lot of their attacks their head spins or falls off. Who needs a neck if your head isn't even attached to it, anyways!
I am evil
I ALSO MADE HIM AROMANTIC. I like shipping as much as (more) than the next guy, but I am now understanding the pain of being a fan of a semi popular character except 90% of the art with him is shipping art. And you're not a fan of the ship.
As a disclaimer if you ship any of these things, I don't care I'm just talking about fiction here. Be free!!! It's a beautiful world out there!!! If a ship makes you happy there's nothing wrong with it! These are just my opinions!
One of the most popular ones is Battat/Tenna and it's so like. Narratively bad in my opinion. Battat is so much funnier of a character if he turned himself into an unpaid servant for this stupid idiot JUST to find out who Mike is and not get punished, but he doesn't like him, just like everyone else who works for Tenna. And it also invalidates Tenna's story also because Tenna's supposed to be this jerk that no one likes. So if he actually had someone around who did genuinely like him that ruins his plot!
I also just straight up don't buy it. When he thinks that the Fun Gang is gonna rat him out to Tenna he's like "Go ahead, snitch to Tenna. The games up anyways" while adjusting his tie kind of smugly. Like he clearly doesn't actually care about Tenna's opinion of him, he was purely and simply just annoyed that he may lose his chance to get more information on Mike for good. And when he learns Tenna isn't even in Castle Town anymore, he's just relieved no one's gonna tattle on them and doesn't seem to even have the thought of missing him cross their mind.
Usually when people write it it's like Battat was just this gay stalker highkey that just wanted an excuse to be around Tenna more often. Not true!!!! For an AU it's fun but WHY IS THIS 40-60% OF THE FANART AAAAAA!!!
I was told about this version of Battenna that's aparently more popular in the Japanese fandom where it's one-sided on Tenna's side lol.... He keeps flirting with "Mike" and wants to be in a relationship with him and Battat just has to go with it because he doesn't wanna blow cover or get Tenna to not like him but is THOROUGHLY not into it the whole time. Much more in character.
The second most popular ship is Polymikes which is just the mike impostors x each other. It's like, innofensive... doesn't really spark any emotions in me? Personally I see them three as a slightly more "recent" development and mostly know each other on a scheming basis. It's like, maybe it could eventually develop into a romance, but currently they're best friends and Battat is too preoccupied with keeping the Mike scheme together and everyone in check to even realize he has made friends. It's low on his list! Like he's just genuinely never thought of it. I think it's more fun to imagine them in the middle of their story instead of like, a fully developed high functioning intimate polycule. Make them more complex, lol
All Battat enjoyers immediately click off this post because I'm dissing their ships. Look Battat is the same color as the aromantic flag and there's dreadfully little aromantic rep! I can claim him just this once lol. Maybe some random aro rep will make some random person on the internet feel good about being seen and lighten their day a little!
I didn’t specify anything else label related because I’ve really got nothing clear in my head aside from just that. The neopronouns are because he’s not like OTHER Pippins! Mostly vibes based. I want to use neopronouns but I’m too worried about other people being annoyed or struggling with it... Which is kind of a bad thought to have, but whatever...
Here's a comic that's not finished. I'm too busy with FF aaaaaaaaaa
I refined Battat's appearance more, definitely sticking with the squares and adding freckles because I saw other artists do that with Pippins (because dice numbers) and I thought that was cute. This comic is basically a niche joke no one is gonna understand!!
The fandom calls green pippins "Battat", the Zapper "Jongler" and the Shadow Guy "Pluey". However... TECHNECALLY.... These are just the names for their minigames. "Battat" is a noun for the rocks that can hit you in his minigame. Pluey is based off the french word for rain and the game is catching cats raining from the sky. They're all based on french words actually. It's just their minigame names! Buuuuuut like who wants to go "That specific Shadow Guy" or "Small Mike" every time they're refering to these characters? And they're WEIRDLY FITTING NAMES TOO! Pippins just LOOKS like a Battat! And I meannnn if you read the text a certain way you could kiiiind of make an argument those could be their intended names.If there's ever merch I doubt it'll use it tho and the Mike fans will all just die. It's one of those instances I do think canon should just adopt the fanon consensus! But the game also does call Gerson "old man" the entire time.....
Ralsei is concerned because of completely conflicting views on fulfilling born purpose etc whatevs. I do want to hear Ralsei's thoughts on the secret bosses. The Mikes just straight up made their own room in castle town and he didn't have a hand in that at all! What's that about??
Ok you're watching my mike playlist with me now that's what we're doing mhm we're hanging out
Oh hey it's that animation meme Zarla made for the ladies once that's cool
People like to make ANGST as per usual I just find it funny from a distance? like you guys are really going off haha good for you. And then tactfully analyzing what they're up to lol
This video is straight up awesome I just like. Like it's only 20 seconds if that but it just sort of gives you this big picture in your mind of some 330k word fanfic you're deep into making you wonder what all lead to it. I don't know where the audio is from so that also helps!! It's so cool!!! The half second flashes!! very awesome
I wonder what the Japanese fans are up to. This is so seriously drawn
I love Don't Hug Me I'm Scared it's so good lol. This version of Friend is so funny to me. "He's the smallest one" pff
So one thing you might notice is this smiling cheshire cat thing is in a lot of these videos. You know, FRIEND! That CREEPY FACE THAT APPEARS IN THE DARK SOMETIMES and has NEVER BEEN MENTIONED IN DIALOGUE!
Friend is another enigmatic character that has scarecely been mentioned in dialogue nor to any of the characters seem familiar with it, except for Noelle kind of sort of because in the Cat Petterz game she blogged about on the Spamton Sweepstakes she talked about a score-lowering Rarecat that looks like Friend. That is the most amount we know about it. For the most part it shows up as a scary face in the dark
Often when depicted artists will also give it this tail from the prophecy, bc this thing is scary and the prophecy thing is evil so maybeeeee
"But why associate it with the Mike impostors" THEY HAVE EVERYTHING TO DO WITH FRIEND. Their literal entire game mechanic is changing how the entirety of how the game of Deltarune is usually played so you can do this optional boss fight where most of it is pppeeEETTIIINGGG CATSSS like CAT. PETTERZ. For NO REAL REASON! They're microphones, why are they using cat based attacks!? Why is this a game of Cat Petterz. It is literally one of the only Switch 2 games utilizing the Mouse Mode just so it is known you are a cat petter.
Pluey is straight up DRESSING as Friend. Not to mention their ACTUAL fight song is called "CATSWING"
Oh hey this fan animation is actually really highly polished- wait a second is that the artist who I collabed with 3 years ago. It totally is. What a lucky find
Hey so remember how I said Air Waves plays during the minigame well here's the minigame
At 0:00 there's just several continuous seconds of not just some Friend jumpscare but like just stays. onscreen. It's weird auhg!! creepy!!! what the hell!!!!!!!
So I've got three theories about the Freedom Motif. One is definitely wrong, one is probably wrong, and one is correct.
First the wrong theory. which is mostly inspired by Zar's "~DO YOU WANNA BE A [Heart] ON A [Chain] YOUR WHOLE LIFE!?" post. The post is a relfection on how Spamton's desire for freedom is given new light with the newer chapters.
Spamton doesn't want to be a puppet, he thinks that ascending to "Heaven"/the Light World will free him from this. He tries everything in his power to, and the player can as well, but no matter what you do, in every route, he ends up as an item in your inventory. You can be kind and try to help, and make him no doubt feel less bad than if you just crushed him, but like everything in Deltarune your choices do not have an effect on the ending. Just the steps between.
None of the characters are free! Kris is a puppet. Ralsei has simply resigned himself to being an item because he thinks it's what he should do, not fighting against it like other bosses. Jevil claimed freedom by just saying he was, but he never stopped being a joker card. He was literally imprisoned. Spamton never becomes free of just being the spammy mailman. Gerson encourages Susie to carve her own path, basically telling her to be free, but nothing he does contridicts the prophecy in any way!
The only character you might be able to argue is kind of free is Susie. Whenever you do control her, you often actually have very little say in the matter. She brushes off your decisions casually, fights without being told. And this further goes even deeper if you consider the parallels between Deltarune and the in-universe story "Dragon Blazers" which is based on the Delta Rune religion.... Where Gerson tells her her role isn't one of the heros, "You are the dragon", which was supposed to be the villain defeated in Chapter 1- which she very nearly was! She was an antagonist the entire time, until she changed her mind. If you apply this to the prophecy itself, "The girl", who's meant to be one of the three heros, probably isn't meant to be Susie. The girl has a sword instead of an axe after all... Unless you don't buy any of this in which case SUSIE IS ALSO NOT FREE
(Might as well put this here bc it's cool and I've got too big of text here. Watch with subtitles!)
If you're not fulfilling your Darkner's role of being the character version of the item that you are, then you're fulfilling your role in the prophecy.
Except........................
The Mikes??? Kind of??? Like think about it. Battat is a dice. Pippins all have attack patterns based on gambling or rolling the dice. Zapper is a remote, good for doing things like turning off the TV. Shadow Guy is uhh idk get back to me on that later. The point is that by roleplaying as Mike they're not doing their object purpose whatsoever. Battat even rejects "Maybe we should use our normal attack patterns?" outright, which could mean nothing.
Obviously they don't feel free, and they're not doing it on purpose- they were only pretending to be Mike so that Tenna wouldn't bother them. But they are straight up a walking contraditction. They are not microphones, and yet they developed a completely unique attack style for the game that has absolutely nothing to do with the object they are. The Freedom motif could mean something!???
That's the cool fanfiction theory. Next is my less-wrong theory.
The motif might have something or other to do with Friend. We don't know anything about Friend, but they have a LOTTTT to do with Friend. Maybe Friend will be freedom related and it was strong enough so that the minigame where Friend shows up has the freedom motif because of it. Can I expand on this? Not at all even a little bit. I don't know what the hell that cat is.
Lastly my theory which is correct.
I think Toby Fox is just messing with us. They break the consistancy of the lietmotif so that you can't expect anything. It is objectively funny to give the freedom motif to the cat minigame. Really that simple!
Despite my strong belief that saying "You're just thinking about it too hard" is anti-intilectual and there is genuinely nothing wrong with making crazy theories- something the Mike trio somewhat exemplifies, to be honest, I don't like most Deltarune theories. I am generally reluctant to look at other people's theories as well! The fandom and all discussion tends to be incredibly toxic where people will be extremely close minded, only thinking of their interpretation being the best one, and will be extremely hostile about it. People just repeating videos verbatum to tell an artist that they're drawing their comic wrong, videos constantly he/him-ing Kris, just absolutely no room for discussion.
Chapter 4 era theories especially have been pretty bad, since we've really just been given so many more questions than answers. People really don't have any good evidence to draw conclusions onto, because the game just gave us so little. We do not know what the person on Kris' phone is planning, we do not know what happened to Dess, we can barely piece together a coherent backstory let alone figure out the future. There are so many loose ends! So many questions! And as much as I despise all these things, I'm pretty hypocritical myself because I can get extremely annoyed discussing how to interpret game text myself!!!!!!!!! I know exactly where these people are coming from!! I'm just self aware enough about it to back off and explain outloud that I don't know shit!!!!!!
All that said, though, I think that I'm kind of contractually obligated to offer up my own "Mike Theories" given I've just been thinking of Mike for days.
In backstory my guess is that Spamton, during his BIG SHOT era seems to have known Mike and talked to Mike around Tenna. and from what we see from what Tenna expects Mike to be, Mike was some omnipresent being capable of making Spamton successful, probably. Then after Spamton's downfall/he left, Tenna still expected Mike to be around, and so the impostors stepped up to take his place not knowing the real Mike left. There are holes in this theory but that's kind of what I think
As for who Mike actually is- as I said I genuinely believe we do not have enough evidence in the game to know. Could possibly even be a psudonym for some completely new character that wouldn't have made sense to bring up in earlier chapters. The joke behind the Mike trio is probably less of a "you're stupid for asking" and more of a "aw it's cute you're trying to figure it out even though you're just as clueless as these guys". I feel that it's basically deconfirmed Mike could be friend because one of the jokes is "MIKE is definitely a cat!" like all the popular fan theories were referenced.
However....
"In some ways the author is literally the puppeteer pulling the strings. "MY DELTARUNE". What kind of other person is able to reveal the world is imaginary? Obviously someone who knows it's imaginary!" "It just kind of consolidates some ideas. What if the author is involved in this bullshit? What if he's just fucking around."
"I mean it kinda makes senseeeee... Creation so large it destroyed the author..... spread across time and space... lacking a physical form... [...] Lots and lots of ties to Titans. The Knight having hole hands. [...] If Mike is tied to all this bullshit, and is also an omnipresent god, why would there be more than one omnipresent god?"
"It just makes sense! Think about it! You got Spamton on the phone! Capable of making him successful through straight up magic! The author can do that! We know who was on the phone just disappears on a whim so is quick and silly like the fuckin narrator! Playing Spamton like a toy! Playing all of us like a toy! Like the god damn narrator!"
Again, we don't know anything lol it's just for fun.
I might make a follow up post at some point with updated drawings of the Mikes and a finished version of the comic, we'll see. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauhhhhhhhhhh
[DW Post]
Bonus heads up: There are a LOT of video embeds in this post so if your internet's bad or you can't listen this post will probably be way worse to you!!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Deltarune is cool af I've just been too busy with Friend Facts to really engage with it as much as I did with Chapter 2 released! Poor Spamton ghost is getting neglected- it'd actually kind of take a big effort to do his next update, and I just haven't had time so even though people have been asking he's gotten nothing as of late! AAAHHH!!!
The reason I've been talking about it again is. Well. I think mostly because of this remix
I listed it in my livejournal "Currently Listening" Music thingy a few times. I've just been listening to it for months!!! It's an awesome remix and severely underrated!!! I like songs. Lots of people like songs. THIS song is cool though. It's got so many parts from Spamton (or maybe Spamton has parts from it?) and just sounds ssooooo intense and focused. I just like. The noises that it makes. The specific kind of beeping and how it repeats in almost an unnatural sound and the part at 2:26 where it overlays it sounds dark and ominous in a way that really makes me think.
And also Freedom Motif why is Freedom Motif. That's the most obviously odd part to anyone. They are the notiable exception to the Freedom motif always being related to Shadow Crystal bosses, and the Knight is the notiable exception to the Shadow Crystal bosses having Freedom motif.
Many subsequent memes have been made about this fact
[Source]
[Source]
So. If you really like a song. And listen to it a lot. You kind of start to ponder what the hell its about. The characters that the song is for. Why the hell do the Mike impostors get the freedom motif- they're silly! And they're not just silly, they're completely optional. And not only are they completely optional, this is not even their battle theme. This is the song that plays during the Battat minigame where you dodge rocks and get supercats
I guess the easiest way to start is with the game.
In Chapter 2, Mike was first mentioned by Spamton who talked about him a lot as someone who had abandoned him. Extremely vague and enigmatic figure people could only do their best to theorize may have something to do with the person on the phone who used to give Spamton advice that turned him successful. Here's a short video from the time
In Chapter 3, we hear a LOT more about Mike! Tenna just CASUALLY CALLS OUT TO "MIKE" ALL THE FREAKIN TIME during his sets! As if he's just his "sound guy" or whatever! Here's an animated version of CANON DIALOGUE
From the way Tenna speaks to this "Mike" person you can kind of sort of inference this is probably how Spamton interacted with Mike back when they were still working together. Just this sort of omnipresent and invisible god-like being that can do whatever you ask on a whim. Sure. Whatever
You don't meet this "Mike" in Chapter 3 though. You only catch his stench!!!!!!!!
In Castle Town of Chapter 4, you can unlock "Mike's Room" with a 4 digit code that's the phone alphabet for the word "Mike". Your control scheme is completely changed to mouse mode where you pet and use your Mikerophone for game mechanics. It's fun and gimmicky! When you enter the room, you meet, like, presumably Mike, but he just sort of seems like an unimpressive regular person...? But then it falls apart rather quickly and it turns out it's just 3 regular Darkners pretending to be Mike.
They're a parody of pretty much every single popular "Who is Mike" theory answer that people had back in Chapter 2 era. "Is Mike Tenna's alter ego" joking about the Mike is a TV theory, "Mike is definitely a cowboy" woody theory jokes, "Mike is definitely a cat" Friend Mike jokes.
Pff, this video with all the fan-mikes...
Then the green Pippins has their very famous conspiracy board of red string about who Mike could possibly be- providing the Deltarune fandom what's essencially a self insert for all their theorizing.
As far as trios they're actually really memorable! When it comes to trios usually there's the main that's the most memorable, then the second kind of sort of, and the third I can literally just forget. In this instance the three of them are very distinct in appearance, personality, and none of them feel redundant in any way!
[My trio arts] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Green Pippins is the head of the operation, the most interested by far in discovering Mike. Definitely the leader if you had to point to any of them. Honestly what I find most interesting about his character is they're straight up reasonable?? Like sure they talk about some crazy theories but dismiss them in the same sentence. Especially since Tenna would punish his employees whenever """Mike""" didn't do something, it makes sense three of them would just step up and do it themselves! It is literally affecting their lives!
[Source]
The Zapper is extremely laid back and talks in a pretty low, lazy way. He's following along of course, but isn't super paying attention to anything haha. He works as a really good counter for the Pippins, since the Pippins can be extremely intense so it's funny to interupt his extremely thorough thoughts and accounts of details with something silly only kind of related. It works well!
The last of the three is a CAT and does not TALK because Shadow Guys only make music notes as is known. Is EXTREMELY ADORABLE and literally a kittycat integral to the trio.
I'm not exactly sure what in particular triggered me to really start thinking of them more often lately? I've described before "I like Battat is normal he just got himself caught up in one of the mysteries deltarune fans aren't anywhere near close to solving either and he has no idea how much it relates to secret bosses and the fabrication of their world lol. HE'LL NEVER FIGURE OUT WHO MIKE IS... HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO SPAMTON".
Anyways now I can finally show you just a liiiittle bit of my drawings.
I was trying to draw one of my scripts I had for that insane anime I watch but my canvas got hijacked... I had one sketch... two..... then I decided to just make a whole page so it was postable. Why not. Also I'm gonna call him Battat now for the remainder of this post and explain later.
Pippins are dice, and their heads are drawn as hexagons but it's meant to be like a styalized representation of a dice from an angle. A lot of artists keep his head just a hexagon, I went ahead and went with a cube! Half of his face is harshly shaded because of the sharp edge. I've been told by multiple people that it makes him look like an anime villain, which is great. It's the kind of vibes he should have when he's "Got it alllll figured out" right before someone points out a contridiction which has him miming ripping his hair out.
I also have the mouth only really prominantly open on one side, again because it makes the edge slightly more convincing. His other features like eyes I slowly made more square shaped, along with fingers. The top left corner was the later of the ones I drew lol, mostly just to demonstraight how small he is.
His head is floating, because Pippins are dice and in a lot of their attacks their head spins or falls off. Who needs a neck if your head isn't even attached to it, anyways!
I am evil
I ALSO MADE HIM AROMANTIC. I like shipping as much as (more) than the next guy, but I am now understanding the pain of being a fan of a semi popular character except 90% of the art with him is shipping art. And you're not a fan of the ship.
As a disclaimer if you ship any of these things, I don't care I'm just talking about fiction here. Be free!!! It's a beautiful world out there!!! If a ship makes you happy there's nothing wrong with it! These are just my opinions!
One of the most popular ones is Battat/Tenna and it's so like. Narratively bad in my opinion. Battat is so much funnier of a character if he turned himself into an unpaid servant for this stupid idiot JUST to find out who Mike is and not get punished, but he doesn't like him, just like everyone else who works for Tenna. And it also invalidates Tenna's story also because Tenna's supposed to be this jerk that no one likes. So if he actually had someone around who did genuinely like him that ruins his plot!
I also just straight up don't buy it. When he thinks that the Fun Gang is gonna rat him out to Tenna he's like "Go ahead, snitch to Tenna. The games up anyways" while adjusting his tie kind of smugly. Like he clearly doesn't actually care about Tenna's opinion of him, he was purely and simply just annoyed that he may lose his chance to get more information on Mike for good. And when he learns Tenna isn't even in Castle Town anymore, he's just relieved no one's gonna tattle on them and doesn't seem to even have the thought of missing him cross their mind.
Usually when people write it it's like Battat was just this gay stalker highkey that just wanted an excuse to be around Tenna more often. Not true!!!! For an AU it's fun but WHY IS THIS 40-60% OF THE FANART AAAAAA!!!
I was told about this version of Battenna that's aparently more popular in the Japanese fandom where it's one-sided on Tenna's side lol.... He keeps flirting with "Mike" and wants to be in a relationship with him and Battat just has to go with it because he doesn't wanna blow cover or get Tenna to not like him but is THOROUGHLY not into it the whole time. Much more in character.
The second most popular ship is Polymikes which is just the mike impostors x each other. It's like, innofensive... doesn't really spark any emotions in me? Personally I see them three as a slightly more "recent" development and mostly know each other on a scheming basis. It's like, maybe it could eventually develop into a romance, but currently they're best friends and Battat is too preoccupied with keeping the Mike scheme together and everyone in check to even realize he has made friends. It's low on his list! Like he's just genuinely never thought of it. I think it's more fun to imagine them in the middle of their story instead of like, a fully developed high functioning intimate polycule. Make them more complex, lol
All Battat enjoyers immediately click off this post because I'm dissing their ships. Look Battat is the same color as the aromantic flag and there's dreadfully little aromantic rep! I can claim him just this once lol. Maybe some random aro rep will make some random person on the internet feel good about being seen and lighten their day a little!
I didn’t specify anything else label related because I’ve really got nothing clear in my head aside from just that. The neopronouns are because he’s not like OTHER Pippins! Mostly vibes based. I want to use neopronouns but I’m too worried about other people being annoyed or struggling with it... Which is kind of a bad thought to have, but whatever...
Here's a comic that's not finished. I'm too busy with FF aaaaaaaaaa
I refined Battat's appearance more, definitely sticking with the squares and adding freckles because I saw other artists do that with Pippins (because dice numbers) and I thought that was cute. This comic is basically a niche joke no one is gonna understand!!
The fandom calls green pippins "Battat", the Zapper "Jongler" and the Shadow Guy "Pluey". However... TECHNECALLY.... These are just the names for their minigames. "Battat" is a noun for the rocks that can hit you in his minigame. Pluey is based off the french word for rain and the game is catching cats raining from the sky. They're all based on french words actually. It's just their minigame names! Buuuuuut like who wants to go "That specific Shadow Guy" or "Small Mike" every time they're refering to these characters? And they're WEIRDLY FITTING NAMES TOO! Pippins just LOOKS like a Battat! And I meannnn if you read the text a certain way you could kiiiind of make an argument those could be their intended names.
Ralsei is concerned because of completely conflicting views on fulfilling born purpose etc whatevs. I do want to hear Ralsei's thoughts on the secret bosses. The Mikes just straight up made their own room in castle town and he didn't have a hand in that at all! What's that about??
Ok you're watching my mike playlist with me now that's what we're doing mhm we're hanging out
Oh hey it's that animation meme Zarla made for the ladies once that's cool
People like to make ANGST as per usual I just find it funny from a distance? like you guys are really going off haha good for you. And then tactfully analyzing what they're up to lol
This video is straight up awesome I just like. Like it's only 20 seconds if that but it just sort of gives you this big picture in your mind of some 330k word fanfic you're deep into making you wonder what all lead to it. I don't know where the audio is from so that also helps!! It's so cool!!! The half second flashes!! very awesome
I wonder what the Japanese fans are up to. This is so seriously drawn
I love Don't Hug Me I'm Scared it's so good lol. This version of Friend is so funny to me. "He's the smallest one" pff
So one thing you might notice is this smiling cheshire cat thing is in a lot of these videos. You know, FRIEND! That CREEPY FACE THAT APPEARS IN THE DARK SOMETIMES and has NEVER BEEN MENTIONED IN DIALOGUE!
Friend is another enigmatic character that has scarecely been mentioned in dialogue nor to any of the characters seem familiar with it, except for Noelle kind of sort of because in the Cat Petterz game she blogged about on the Spamton Sweepstakes she talked about a score-lowering Rarecat that looks like Friend. That is the most amount we know about it. For the most part it shows up as a scary face in the dark
Often when depicted artists will also give it this tail from the prophecy, bc this thing is scary and the prophecy thing is evil so maybeeeee
"But why associate it with the Mike impostors" THEY HAVE EVERYTHING TO DO WITH FRIEND. Their literal entire game mechanic is changing how the entirety of how the game of Deltarune is usually played so you can do this optional boss fight where most of it is pppeeEETTIIINGGG CATSSS like CAT. PETTERZ. For NO REAL REASON! They're microphones, why are they using cat based attacks!? Why is this a game of Cat Petterz. It is literally one of the only Switch 2 games utilizing the Mouse Mode just so it is known you are a cat petter.
Pluey is straight up DRESSING as Friend. Not to mention their ACTUAL fight song is called "CATSWING"
Oh hey this fan animation is actually really highly polished- wait a second is that the artist who I collabed with 3 years ago. It totally is. What a lucky find
Hey so remember how I said Air Waves plays during the minigame well here's the minigame
At 0:00 there's just several continuous seconds of not just some Friend jumpscare but like just stays. onscreen. It's weird auhg!! creepy!!! what the hell!!!!!!!
So I've got three theories about the Freedom Motif. One is definitely wrong, one is probably wrong, and one is correct.
First the wrong theory. which is mostly inspired by Zar's "~DO YOU WANNA BE A [Heart] ON A [Chain] YOUR WHOLE LIFE!?" post. The post is a relfection on how Spamton's desire for freedom is given new light with the newer chapters.
Spamton doesn't want to be a puppet, he thinks that ascending to "Heaven"/the Light World will free him from this. He tries everything in his power to, and the player can as well, but no matter what you do, in every route, he ends up as an item in your inventory. You can be kind and try to help, and make him no doubt feel less bad than if you just crushed him, but like everything in Deltarune your choices do not have an effect on the ending. Just the steps between.
None of the characters are free! Kris is a puppet. Ralsei has simply resigned himself to being an item because he thinks it's what he should do, not fighting against it like other bosses. Jevil claimed freedom by just saying he was, but he never stopped being a joker card. He was literally imprisoned. Spamton never becomes free of just being the spammy mailman. Gerson encourages Susie to carve her own path, basically telling her to be free, but nothing he does contridicts the prophecy in any way!
The only character you might be able to argue is kind of free is Susie. Whenever you do control her, you often actually have very little say in the matter. She brushes off your decisions casually, fights without being told. And this further goes even deeper if you consider the parallels between Deltarune and the in-universe story "Dragon Blazers" which is based on the Delta Rune religion.... Where Gerson tells her her role isn't one of the heros, "You are the dragon", which was supposed to be the villain defeated in Chapter 1- which she very nearly was! She was an antagonist the entire time, until she changed her mind. If you apply this to the prophecy itself, "The girl", who's meant to be one of the three heros, probably isn't meant to be Susie. The girl has a sword instead of an axe after all... Unless you don't buy any of this in which case SUSIE IS ALSO NOT FREE
(Might as well put this here bc it's cool and I've got too big of text here. Watch with subtitles!)
If you're not fulfilling your Darkner's role of being the character version of the item that you are, then you're fulfilling your role in the prophecy.
Except........................
The Mikes??? Kind of??? Like think about it. Battat is a dice. Pippins all have attack patterns based on gambling or rolling the dice. Zapper is a remote, good for doing things like turning off the TV. Shadow Guy is uhh idk get back to me on that later. The point is that by roleplaying as Mike they're not doing their object purpose whatsoever. Battat even rejects "Maybe we should use our normal attack patterns?" outright, which could mean nothing.
Obviously they don't feel free, and they're not doing it on purpose- they were only pretending to be Mike so that Tenna wouldn't bother them. But they are straight up a walking contraditction. They are not microphones, and yet they developed a completely unique attack style for the game that has absolutely nothing to do with the object they are. The Freedom motif could mean something!???
That's the cool fanfiction theory. Next is my less-wrong theory.
The motif might have something or other to do with Friend. We don't know anything about Friend, but they have a LOTTTT to do with Friend. Maybe Friend will be freedom related and it was strong enough so that the minigame where Friend shows up has the freedom motif because of it. Can I expand on this? Not at all even a little bit. I don't know what the hell that cat is.
Lastly my theory which is correct.
I think Toby Fox is just messing with us. They break the consistancy of the lietmotif so that you can't expect anything. It is objectively funny to give the freedom motif to the cat minigame. Really that simple!
Despite my strong belief that saying "You're just thinking about it too hard" is anti-intilectual and there is genuinely nothing wrong with making crazy theories- something the Mike trio somewhat exemplifies, to be honest, I don't like most Deltarune theories. I am generally reluctant to look at other people's theories as well! The fandom and all discussion tends to be incredibly toxic where people will be extremely close minded, only thinking of their interpretation being the best one, and will be extremely hostile about it. People just repeating videos verbatum to tell an artist that they're drawing their comic wrong, videos constantly he/him-ing Kris, just absolutely no room for discussion.
Chapter 4 era theories especially have been pretty bad, since we've really just been given so many more questions than answers. People really don't have any good evidence to draw conclusions onto, because the game just gave us so little. We do not know what the person on Kris' phone is planning, we do not know what happened to Dess, we can barely piece together a coherent backstory let alone figure out the future. There are so many loose ends! So many questions! And as much as I despise all these things, I'm pretty hypocritical myself because I can get extremely annoyed discussing how to interpret game text myself!!!!!!!!! I know exactly where these people are coming from!! I'm just self aware enough about it to back off and explain outloud that I don't know shit!!!!!!
All that said, though, I think that I'm kind of contractually obligated to offer up my own "Mike Theories" given I've just been thinking of Mike for days.
In backstory my guess is that Spamton, during his BIG SHOT era seems to have known Mike and talked to Mike around Tenna. and from what we see from what Tenna expects Mike to be, Mike was some omnipresent being capable of making Spamton successful, probably. Then after Spamton's downfall/he left, Tenna still expected Mike to be around, and so the impostors stepped up to take his place not knowing the real Mike left. There are holes in this theory but that's kind of what I think
As for who Mike actually is- as I said I genuinely believe we do not have enough evidence in the game to know. Could possibly even be a psudonym for some completely new character that wouldn't have made sense to bring up in earlier chapters. The joke behind the Mike trio is probably less of a "you're stupid for asking" and more of a "aw it's cute you're trying to figure it out even though you're just as clueless as these guys". I feel that it's basically deconfirmed Mike could be friend because one of the jokes is "MIKE is definitely a cat!" like all the popular fan theories were referenced.
However....
"In some ways the author is literally the puppeteer pulling the strings. "MY DELTARUNE". What kind of other person is able to reveal the world is imaginary? Obviously someone who knows it's imaginary!" "It just kind of consolidates some ideas. What if the author is involved in this bullshit? What if he's just fucking around."
"I mean it kinda makes senseeeee... Creation so large it destroyed the author..... spread across time and space... lacking a physical form... [...] Lots and lots of ties to Titans. The Knight having hole hands. [...] If Mike is tied to all this bullshit, and is also an omnipresent god, why would there be more than one omnipresent god?"
"It just makes sense! Think about it! You got Spamton on the phone! Capable of making him successful through straight up magic! The author can do that! We know who was on the phone just disappears on a whim so is quick and silly like the fuckin narrator! Playing Spamton like a toy! Playing all of us like a toy! Like the god damn narrator!"
Again, we don't know anything lol it's just for fun.
I might make a follow up post at some point with updated drawings of the Mikes and a finished version of the comic, we'll see. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauhhhhhhhhhh
[DW Post]
