#not to say that his character pre crystalized isn't interesting because it is

[saline-coelacanth]

What was Arin, Sora and Wyldfyre reaction to Oliver crystal king form? I can see Lloyd telling them to not be scared before giving Oliver tofu to calm him down

Ok, so first I feel the need to explain a bit of the timeline idea I had from rewatching part 1. So Oliver joins the team a little bit before they go to Imperium, and although he is initially told to stay at the monastery with Kai, he ignores that order and ends up following them anyway. He mainly ends up sticking with Lloyd for a bit until the part where Sora regroups with everyone and then she and Arin go off to save Riyu.

This is another point where Oliver is told to do one thing and then he ignores those orders to do his own thing as Lloyd tells him to stick with him and the others, but Oliver gets worried about Sora and Arin's safety and decides to go after them. He gets chased by some of the Imperium soldiers and this is when he goes into Outburst/Crystal King/Whatever I end up calling this form. Pretty much, he gets tired of these soldiers getting in his way so he goes a bit apeshit and just starts destroying anyone in his path. He eventually does arrive to help out Arin and Sora and they are both pretty terrified when they see him.

For added context, Arin grew up in Ninjago. He knows about the Crystal King and he knows all the stuff the Crystal King did. So, he is rightfully freaked out to see Oliver busting into the room, beating up bad guys relentlessly while looking EXACTLY like how he did when he was the Crystal King.

Sora doesn't have as much knowledge about the whole Crystal King stuff other than things Arin probably told her, but Oliver is still very intimidating. It doesn't help that she's dealing with the whiplash from first meeting him and realizing, "Oh, he's kind of just a goofball. A little weird, yeah, but he seems harmless." And then she sees him being a genuine threat to the enemies, she sees him fighting Ras and holding his own, and also seeing Arin's reaction to this whole thing would definitely make her freaked out.

Now eventually, Oliver does calm down and turns back to normal when he sees how freaked out his new friends are of him. He panics a little bit and tries to explain everything, but it's a stressful situation and they don't really have time since they need to get Riyu to safety and get back to the others, so they just put a pin in that for now.

After things calm down, Oliver pulls Arin and Sora to the side to explain some things and also to ask them not to tell Lloyd or the others about what happened because he's scared of what they'd think if they knew how ruthless he was against Imperium. They promise not to say anything and are pretty supportive of Oliver since they realize that he really does care about them and has a good heart.

And for a little bit of added context, Lloyd and the others haven't seen Oliver for a really long time. And even before the merge, he had been doing a great job at keeping his cool and trying to be good to make up for everything he did as the Crystal King, and the fight at Imperium was the first time Oliver had snapped like that in a long time while the ninja were around (or in this case, just Arin and Sora). He probably had some outbursts while on his own, but again, the ninja weren't there to see it. After Crystalized, Oliver puts a lot of pressure on himself to be good and to not fall into his evil nature, so even though he was ultimately using this other form for good, he's still scared that the others, especially Lloyd might not see it that way. Because his Outbursts, even when he was a little kid, has always been a bit of that evil nature coming out and making him violent.

Yeah that was a long explanation but TLDR, Arin and Sora were pretty freaked out, at this point in time Wyldfyre hasn't seen him in that form yet (and also pretty much just met him), and Lloyd and the other ninja don't even know about him being able to do that yet so they wouldn't have any reason to talk to Arin, Sora or Wyldfyre about it as of now

[letters-to-rosie]

I'm still reading Afropessimism so it's time for me to make my media studies degree do some exercise with my favorite boy

and someday I will write that proper Silco essay on why his politics make me sad lol but for now I will just say I stopped trusting that man when the word nation came out of his mouth

the whole idea of a nation state (as opposed to other governmental/social arrangements that precede it) is that the political entity of the state is something individuals who are citizens of the state are supposed to identify with. the nation state is supposed to represent them and protect them in some manner. typically, this is established by means of trampling on someone else who lives within state borders but doesn't (at the time of the state's formation) fit into the community of the state. (for more, there's this really good interview with Mahmood Mamdani where he articulates this and connects it to the current situation in Palestine)

for Mamdani, the idea of the nation state crystalizes with Spain's reconquista, which created an Iberian state that trampled over Jewish and Muslim people. from there, the idea that people's homelands might not take the form of states becomes foreclosed as the model of the nation state expands and subsumes every other political formation out there

and this (told y'all I was gonna put that degree to work) is what happens in the show. Silco, working on his nationalist project, envisions a future in which the people of his homeland have a political entity to represent them. but in the course of establishing it, he tramples over resistance to his very sketchy means of accomplishing this goal

what I want to think about more is how not to close out potential alternatives. I think the character who presents the best place to start with that from is Ekko (my boy). Ekko and the Firelights' political motives beyond 1) stop the expansion of shimmer 2) care for addicts and 3) beat up cops is left pretty unclear. I think the reason he sometimes get looked over is this lack of clarity, a lack of coherence, and that gives the feeling of not being able to judge him. while Silco's methods are bad, his narrative arc makes sense. his solution also makes sense. but is making sense the end-all-be-all of liberatory possibility? especially when one is up against violence that is senseless itself and in its gratuity?

here's where Afropessimism is so interesting to me. the theory is about anti-blackness and argues that humanity is able to define itself against blackness as a metaphorical ruler (I have some historical examples that are interesting, but then we'd be here all day; if you're really interested go dive into Matthew Perry and Japan). because this antagonism is pre-logical, it doesn't make sense. it challenges the very idea that suffering and redress for that suffering can be made sense of. the solution to it isn't in sight. but the challenge is to sit with that. it is to know that the answer doesn't have to be right in front of you for the fight to still be worth it.

a big part of why I don't vibe with the whole concept of nation states is that I've always been like "why am I supposed to identify with the country that enslaved a bunch of my ancestors? like what good does that do me?" and I frankly have decided that it does me no good to do that. as a descendant of enslaved people, I also have no nation to go back to and join. what do I wanna do instead? don't know. the longer and longer I live, the idea that I have to feels like an unfair imposition. I've read multiple commentaries that read the Firelights as anarchists. anarchists get asked that same question a lot.

what do we do with a form of redress that doesn't make narrative sense? what kind of restoration could be meaningfully taken out of the situation in the show? in a way, it's interesting, because the show has source material that's very public. we know, ultimately, no matter what questions characters like Ekko pose the idea of Zaun as a nation, that's what happens anyway. it's like a psychic wall of impossibility prevents anything else. it has to become a nation because in a world of nations there is no other choice. so I don't fault Silco for thinking it would be a good idea. I wish he had more of an imagination, though.

[star-light-shadows]

Mike is almost certainly going to be a Shadow Crystal Boss. Here's why:

So what makes a Shadow Crystal boss?

The first Shadow Crystal boss was Jevil, and aside from being really out of the way and giving us a Shadow Crystal for completing his fight, the narrative uniqueness of Jevil stems from an implicit past encounter with a Dr. W. D. Gaster.

Particularly, during this encounter, Dr. Gaster apparently revealed secrets to Jevil that caused him to go nuts like he is now. Secrets that Seam says caused their worldview to become "Darker yet darker" as a result of 2nd hand exposure. Causing Jevil to begin saying things that "Didn't make sense, but didn't quite not make sense either."

The idea of Gaster having access to and spreading forbidden knowledge is already something incredibly in line with what we know about Gaster from Pre-Deltarune.

The 2nd Shadow Crystal boss is everyone's FAVORITE [[Number 1 Rated Salesman1997]], Spamton G. Spamton.

Spamton is also suggested to have had a past run-in with Gaster and since then has similarly gone kooky bananas. Gaster communicated with Spamton on the phone and was said to be speaking through Garbage noise the whole time, which fits into the eldritch unknowable wrongness that surrounds Gaster.

It may be tempting to assume that Gaster once again spread cursed knowledge to Spamton and that's why he's gone nuts, but such is actually not the case. Instead, Spamton actually went nuts because Gaster left, taking with him whatever unnatural edge his partnership seemed to give Spamton, causing Spamton to abruptly fall from fame and fortune into poverty.

However, Spamton isn't simply Insane. Along with that, he has a strange speech quirk where his voice gets taken over by various ads. Such a quirk is never mentioned by the Adisons who knew him prior to Gaster despite it being extremely noticeable and frankly offputting in nonhumorous contexts.

What's especially interesting is that his speech in two specific instances gets replaced with what instead of ads seems to be a signal of someone calling for help in the darkness. Suggesting what could already be assumed that these ads overriding Spamton's dialogue are signals he is receiving from across Cyber City.

Such an implication seems to connect to one other noticeable quirk with Spamton's character, his puppet-ness.

Spamton is blatantly associated with being a Puppet in the NEO battles, with green marionette strings coming from the sky piloting him, but even outside these battles, he's presented in a way that's reminiscent of a different kind of Puppet. A Ventriloquist's dummy.

Ventriloquism involves making a Puppet seem as if it has a voice, speaking words that the ventriloquist is actually speaking.

This obviously connects to Spamton's speech quirk, and we're meant to assume that all of this is a result of Gaster's involvement in Spamton's affairs back in 1997. Implying that at that point in the past, Gaster made Spamton a Puppet and highjacked his voice via ventriloquism.

From this, we can conclude that Gaster used Spamton to further spread his influence and/or the kind of cursed knowledge he had spread to Jevil before. (Presumably in the direction of some person or group that existed in the Cyber World, although Dark-world world boundaries in Deltarune are hella vague so it's impossible to be truly sure.)

This combined with the fact that Spamton directly references Jevil as if having met him, (despite Jevil having literally zero relevance to Spamton as a character,) suggesting that the Shadow Crystal bosses have connections to each-other, which presumably is going to be a running theme, generates an interesting potential premise.

One of the next Shadow Crystal bosses is going to once again have been driven mad by Gaster's forbidden knowledge, but this time through Spamton's ventriloquized mouth.

However, I believe that there is an existing character that's been established that we can be relatively sure is the future Shadow Crystal Boss in question: Mike.

Mike is a Character Spamton references whom he seems to miss and mourn as if he's an old friend whom he no longer is in touch with, the one and only character that Spamton seems to still hold fond feelings for.

However, if Mike had simply left Spamton because he wasn't rich anymore, Spamton should HATE him. There are a huge number of people whom he hates in Cyber World because they ceased working with him after losing his fame, and it's unlikely that Spamton would care so deeply about Mike if he had only become Mike's friend because of his short time of fame anyway.

So what happened?

Well, Most likely what happened is that Mike left because he was scared of what was coming out of Spamton's mouth. Gaster was speaking some horrible truths from Spamton's mouth and Mike couldn't take it and just up and left. Something Spamton blames himself for.

But even after leaving for another Dark World (which is apparently just a thing Darkners can do,) the forbidden knowledge followed him, and eventually, he went mad just like Jevil did.

It's possible that he might be the Shadow Crystal Boss of the 3rd chapter, given the vague possible connection between Mike and Tenna, a force who is going to appear in chapter 3, but it is not wholly necessary, and I'd say it only has a shot above pure chance if the time where Spamton mentions both Mike and Tenna in the same conversation is to be interpreted as implying Tenna tarnished Mike's reputation or something similar.

[moorishflower]

see the thing about Dream is

the thing is

it's very tempting to look at Tom Sturridge and go ah yes my sad scrungly wet cat anthropomorphic personification, because he does have Those Eyes and That Hair, and then it is very tempting to look at some panels of Dream in the comics and go ah yes my depressed weird friend who lives in a void, except sometimes i feel that this is too humanizing, especially if you're talking about Dream pre-1300s

and i think in the comics in a lot of his pre-Hob Gadling interactions with mortals you can see that he is balls to the wall batshit insane

his track record with loving mortals is absolutely bonkers

>Nada, Queen of the First City, pursued Dream and then when she discovered who he was went "oh shit, humans loving the Endless is forbidden by my people, we definitely shouldn't" and Dream confronted by a mortal he couldn't have went grabby grabby hands, convinced her to fuck him anyways, and then condemned her to Hell afterwards because the sun nuked her city and Nada, grieving, said she didn't want to be Dream's Queen (on account of the sinning)

>Killala of the Glow, an alien lady precursor to the Green Lanterns who punches through to the Dreaming by accident and Dream falls in love instantly, he knows her for basically 3 months and invites her to a cosmic entities convention to show her off, does not tell her that all of these people are literal quasars and planets and shit. she freaks out understandably, seeks comfort in the arms of the sun of her world (encouraged by Desire), and Dream, seeing them embracing, just fuckin leaves her there "the sun'll get her home," he says, "they're going to the same place, i'm not crying YOU'RE crying"

>Alianora, who was sent by Desire to help Dream fuck up some old gods, was given her own private island and also one of the Dream-Stones (for show fans, the ruby is a Dream-Stone!). i sincerely believe the only reason that Dream lost interest in her is because she spent so long in the Dreaming that if she tried to wake up she would die, and Dream is absolutely fascinated by things that can change (prob because that's his tragic character flaw is he can never change himself quite enough)

he don't got a great track record with his non-mortal lovers either (Thessaly, An Witch, and Calliope, the Muse), but over and over again with mortals, brief and ephemeral and changing, Dream cannot regulate himself. he burns super hot, super bright, and then either gets sucked back into work, or the fact that he has 0 Chill puts his lover off entirely. he has no concept of compromise and he's unable to not throw himself wholeheartedly into love. having Dream love you must be like being loved by a hurricane or the core of the earth. can you imagine what that would be like? having the attention of something that huge and fathomless and ancient focused on you like a laser? it would be like being crushed under a mountain.

this is why i think Hob Gadling is such a fantastic foil to, and the Premier Ship Of, Dream. Hob Gadling also throws himself wholeheartedly and joyfully into every new thing, Hob is out there living his best life and telling stories and i think he mentions doing cocaine in like the 90s in one of the comics? but, point being, Hob doesn't ever let immortality go to his head. he is the most mortal mortal that ever mortaled, he just happens to have a concept of eternity that, no matter how infinitesimally, actually approaches what Dream is.

it's just that the dynamic you get now, with a mortal who understands the true concept of endlessness, is "Hob I have brought to you a brooch forged from the heart of a dying star, pearls harvested from oysters that have never seen the sun and never will, sapphires infused with the waters of Eden"

"oh that's gorgeous dear how thoughtful I'll put it on the shelf with the Polished Sphere of Crystallized Auroras and Hope"

and then Dream fucks off to do his job for like 8 years and Hob isn't too fussed because he spent like 6 centuries waiting for this weird wet cat of a man to fuckin introduce himself, he can wait a few years for them to meet up for dinner again

anyways i wrote all of these as a partial explanation as to why Dream is so fuckin weird and turbo in Husbands, and it's because he's a sad scrungly pathetic cat man AND he's also an enormous endless eldritch creature that has no concept of emotional regulation but also a terminal fascination with the changeability and fragility of mortals that translates into absolute fucking insane love