#vulpine posts

The first place this pink-and-yellow-eyed dot pinge appears is in the basement in chapter 2, in the darkness by the teacup ride. It is a face in the darkness with one pink eye and one yellow eye, and a smile. The first thing you're likely to notice is the pink and yellow motif in it's eyes. While pink and yellow appear all over Deltarune, it particularly seems connected to Spamton, who has pink and yellow glasses, and is fought in the very same basement you find this face. However, this connection isn't as direct as you may think, as the reason Spamton has colored glasses is to impersonate Swatch. Swatch claims that spamton tried to copy his look to get into the mansion, and Spamton confirms this in the Spamton Sweepstakes. Pink and yellow seem to be a symbol for a broader idea, something represented by Spamton, Freind, Asgore, the Flower King dark world we'll see in chapter 5, and some other things in the world of Deltarune.

It's true shape seems to be the one seen in Ralsei's lore dump, an Endogeny-like creature with ears that resemble that of a cat. That's not the only indicator that it is a cat, as it appears in a Cat Petterz minigame according to Noelle. The cats in Cat Petterz are "made of circles" according to Noelle, and if you look at Petz 3 and Petz 4, the real-world games Cat Petterz was based off of, you'll see what she means, pets made of small circles clumped together. People who misunderstand what "made of circles" means claim Freind is the tail of hell, as the prophecy panel depicts a string of large circles, but that is not actually what Cat Petterz looks like, and not what Freind already looks like anyway. Freind does not appear to have a tail, although it could be obscured, nor could it be made of circles. It's appearance in Cat Petterz is notable however, because that means it exists in a light world videogame. This is one of the strangest aspects of Freind and I still don't know what to do about it. Perhaps Freind is a virus from the Deltarune world that was able to get onto Gaster's Device?

If you look in the game files, you'll see that the object is called DEVICE_FREIND and the sprite is called IMAGE_FREIND. This has the device/gaster naming style, linking it to Gaster and the meta/connection to the real world elements of Deltarune.

It seems to mostly appear in places of deep darkness, though one spot is a little iffy on that. It appears in the darkness of the basement in cyber world and a darkroom in dark sanctuary, in the darnkess of what us likely outer space in the Battatt minigame, in the darker than dark part of Ralsei's chapter 3 loredrop, black screens in the sweepstakes, and black floors in the sword route, which all seem to indicate this, but there's one more where the connection is weirder, but it's already the weirdest as-is. That is of course, when it is summoned by Eram in it's boss fight. Eram is a mostly black being found in places of complete darkness in the sword route, as well as the videogame version of the Shelter, which seems to be connected to the depths/deep darkness and gaster and the knight, creator of dark worlds, so there is still a link to deep darkness here, though more tenuous.

It appears to be antagonistic/harm-causing, as it laughs at you while moving twoards the screen in Ralsei's lore dump, sometimes gives negative points in the Battat minigame, jumpscares you in the Spamton Sweepstakes, and is an enemy spawned by Eram in it's boss fight. It is unlikely to be pure evil, as it is often proteayef as, however, as Toby doesn't like making characters be pure evil.

Eram, during it's boss fight in the sword route version of the shelter, spawns several of it as an enemy. The fact that they drop healing does not seem of note to me, as all enemies in the sword route do this. This is one of the weirdest ones, and seems to indicate there may be multiple Freinds.

Freind appears in multiple different dark worlds. It appears in the basement of Cyber World and a dark room in the Dark Sanctuary. It also appears in the sword route game in TV World and in the Battat minigame in Castle Town, though those last two are a bit odd, the first two still indicate it can either travel between dark worlds or is not just one entity.

One more thing I would like to mention is that Pluey's resemblance to Freind is likely not due to an actual connection to Freind, but is instead meant to reflect the theory that Freind is Mike. The whole Mike section is meant to represent different Mike theories, with none of them being the real Mike. This seems to indicate that Freind is not Mike. The only things here that might actually be relevant to actual Freind are the Battat minigame and the "You see pink and yellow, and you say, a FRIEND!" line. Said line seems to indicate the connection between Spamton and Freind's pink and yellow being more symbolic rather than a direct connection.