Deerpire

i havent drawn a lot with these two ^ but do know that the whole mike situation lives inside of my brain rent free forever and ive really really really wanted to talk about it and explore the topic more.

Particularly with this one, i wanted to draw some parallels that i personally find interesting from a thematic standpoint with deltarune's weird route within the context of deltarune as a whole. Not a theory really, mostly just comparing two scenarios that i feel are somewhat similar thematically that i dont see a lot of people talking about!

The fake mikes scenario within chapter 4 is more or less played pretty comedically. its an absurd little hidden boss fight where you fight "mike" using your mouse (or two) and a microphone and by the end of the fight they're revealed to Not really be mike, but three standard enemies from chapter 3 dressed in various costumes to look like microphones… or something. this "mike" we were fighting has been fake the whole time, and nobody even KNOWS who mike is! tenna keeps talking about him but nobody's ever seen him! it pokes a bit of fun about the directions fan theories end up going, done in good fun. its fun! its funny! it is essentially a cute little gag scene to unlock some minigames.

and then you think about any deeper implications to all of this and it gets into psychologically horrifying territory rather fast. this guy that we know as essentially tenna's right hand man, and therefore very closely involved with tenna, has been faking it the whole time. three strangers are wearing the face of tenna's right hand man; we still don't know what the "real" mike's relationship to tenna was other than likely being a friend, but that relationship… changed. we know mike disappeared when spamton left and, well. when he came back, he was… different. acted different in ways he never did before. somethings been off.

"small mike" or battat or green pippins, whoever you wanna call him, tells us "I do his therapy, his psychology, his analogies, his first aid, his last aid," (among other things, but this is maybe one of the more telling quotes). Regardless of whatever Mike was doing before, "mike" is in a position where he is attempting to give care to tenna. he has stepped into a care giving role of some variety and holds power over tenna in this way.

and while we don't know exactly what chapter 5 is going to have in store for us with the mike room scenes (as im sure it'll go farther than what we've seen already) we get a glimpse into it with the december 2025 newsletter scene. the long term effects of the fake mike shenanigans are showing and time is running out for them. i think that tenna admitting that none of this has felt real is maybe the first time battat comes to understand what all of this has Doing to tenna's mind, which we Know is Quite fragile, especially so after chapter 3.

Anyways, all of this leading up to what my illustration above is meant to be alluding to as an analogy to some of the themes found in weird route.

i like to think of battat as an audience stand-in in this analogy; much the same as the soul is. He is "inhabiting" the "body" of Mike, or at least subsuming his place in life, much like We, the Player, are doing with Kris. In deltarune, We, as the player, thematically and literally, are an intrusion. we aren't a welcome presence within Kris's life regardless of whether we "do good" by them or lead them down a much more wretched path. we are an unwelcome observer to kris's life and the lives of their friends.

this analogy isn't one to one, but thematically battat is in a similar position; just that his "vessel" is one that is already gone. there's no vessel to bother so he has a bit more wiggle room in terms of what he Can do. but he is still an intrusion into tenna's life. he wasn't meant to be there, not like this. he too, is an uninvited onlooker to, what we can presume, are some of tenna's darkest and most vulnerable moments if he is the one dealing with his… therapies, given tenna doesn't seem to have anybody else to talk to about his woes (and boy does he have woes).

But so too, i think that in pursuing fake miking, he has created. well. a "weird route" for himself that he is going through with. Like keep in mind, this is something nobody is ASKING him to try to do. at any point. tenna didn't even ask him to do this. He decided to try something WEIRD in response to tenna "taking it out on us" when nobody was in the mike room and going into the Absolutely batshit direction of "i should pretend to be tenna's missing friend" instead of like. talking to him like a normal person. did anybody in tv world try this ???

i dont think people realize how weird of an action this is to take. its like your boss getting too annoying or yelling too much and in response instead of talking to them or your other supervisors you decide to catfish them as if you're their ex spouse. its not a normal thing to do at all. its WEIRD!!!! its another way tenna gets objectified as well. he's treated as an obstacle, something to deal with; as a tool to gain power, instead of as a person in the game with feelings and thoughts and worries and needs; much the same as Noelle is treated within the alternate route. She's a tool to be used up to become stronger. She's a tool meant to inhabit something greater.

and i think that he... enjoys this position. he enjoys finding these things out, he enjoys living the life of somebody else that he feels he can overwrite and implement things onto. he enjoys the power and control he has over his appearance, his actions, his voice. enjoys putting clues together and theorizing and picking things apart from this new perspective of his. the power he holds over the powerful darkner boss of his realm, as somebody meant to be his closest confidant. much in the way that we as players... enjoy playing and analyzing deltarune. He is driven by a curiosity, a curiosity about something he can't know, because nobody knows. he's curious to see what happens. curious to find out who mike is. we're curious.

i think there is a lot of tragedy to be found in the idea that it's very very likely battat could have had everything he would have ever wanted; likely could have found out who mike was pretty fast. could be less overworked. likely could have been actual friends with tenna, if this is not the path he had gone down. But he did. and upon realizing what it was doing to tenna, he puts the mask back on anyways. <- this is his version of placing the thorn into the finger. putting the mask back on.

and i dont even think it is completely out of malice that he's doing these things either, not that it makes it any better that he is literally gaslighting tenna. but he stepped into a situation far above his head and it was unknowingly the worst decision for himself and tenna that he could have ever made. and well. i think that parallels our position as an unknowing occupant within kris's body within deltarune's story rather well (you accept everything that is about to happen from now on). casual cruelty and cruelty in carelessness, in thoughtlessness, as a centering theme in deltarune, and so on....

Within the illustration, Small Mike is depicted as observing a thorn in tenna's thumb, possibly to take it out, but not seeming to take action in doing so. the thorn is an old wound, one that was there before he got there. mike could totally fix this of course! but if its fixed, will mike still be needed? we can just put a bandaid over this situation of course. But if you don't take the thorn out, the wound is going to fester and fester and fester, never to properly heal. meaning that of course mike is always there, never not, to dress the wound but never to remove the thorn because it's already embedded far beneath skin, farther than he can ever reach, because "mike" isn't in a position to be able to help. not without ripping the bandaid off and splitting the skin to remove the thorn first. Not without it hurting and hurting and hurting the longer it festers, hurting when you cut through flesh and blood.