#[thinks about spamton so hard my head explodes]

[acemmetry]

A Poor Man's Dilemma / Prologue p.1

Right, so, I'm going to be cross posting my fanfics on AO3 to here.

Without further ado, here's 'A Poor Man's Dilemma', my Deltarune fic. Coincidentally, also my first fic ever.

(Read it here if you so desire!)

----

It had been 2 weeks since Spamton's last break in to the mansion, and the Swatchlings were still finding pipis lying about.

The things were similar to that of a burr, latching onto fabric unfortunate enough to touch them and refusing to let go unless given a firm tug. The only difference was that pulling too hard would cause it to explode in your face. They were really quite the nuisance to remove, and often left Swatch wondering how Spamton even got hold of such things. Then again, when you're surrounded by garbage everyday, it shouldn't be too hard to find any oddities that people throw away.

They weren't all that concerned about it, however. After all, the salesman's trespassing had become less of a thing as of late, meaning the explosives were becoming less of a problem. Maybe, just maybe, he was finally giving up on reaching the basement.

Swatch immediately recoiled and shook their head at such a foolish thought. It was nothing more than wishful thinking. Everyone within the mansion knew that Spamton was hellbent on reaching NEO. Though the man had once been a valued customer within their establishment, his obsession with the thing had led him to getting kicked out. For good.

Suffice to say, he was no longer welcome there.

A buzzing from their left pocket pulled them from their thoughts, reminding them that it was time to wrap up for the night. Tucking the rag they had been wringing their hands with into their back pocket, Swatch turned and ducked underneath the curtains behind them, pulling them shut as they went. In doing so, they had entered the dining hall, which they had to cross to get to the front door. Making their way to the exit, they eyed their surroundings to ensure nothing was out of place. However, upon reaching the door, they looked over their shoulder to do a proper scan of the room before leaving. They had no doubt that their underlings did a great job cleaning up; they were just checking to make sure a certain someone wasn't hiding in their café. With everything proven to be as it should, they flicked off the light and stepped out onto the main street, closing the door and locking it behind them.

They had someone to meet up with tonight. It was preferable they get a move on.

The main street was always busy, day or night, with the neon signs of the surrounding shops serving as street lamps. To Tasque Manager, it was reminiscent of a mall, though the lack of roof overhead served as a reminder that it wasn't. Passerby who recognized the Queen's Maid would give her a wave before going about their business. She, ever the professional, only acknowledged them with a nod of her head. There was no time for pleasantries; even with Queen in sleep mode, there were still things to do. And it was her job to see them done before the Mansion shut down for the night.

For a good while, the Mansion had been dealing with a pest problem, worse than any maus infestation they'd had in the past. The thing left the halls in disarray, the pottery in shambles, and the staff stuck cleaning up after it. All other methods of removal so far had failed, and some of her coworkers had begun to doubt that the problem would ever be fixed.

His name was Spamton G. Spamton, Cyber World's former big shot and current lunatic. During the later part of his stay at the Mansion, he had found out about Swatch's old art project and had since become obsessed with it. To this day, even after his eviction, he had been crafting up schemes to get his hands on it. What he intended to do with the robot was unclear, but one thing was for certain.

He would never reach NEO. Fight it all he may, it would never become his.

However, he had been getting very close lately. His plans were becoming more elaborate, more unpredictable. It was usually every other night he broke into the Mansion, but now, he went weeks on end without so much as coming near Queen's establishment. Perhaps his plan was to catch them with their guard lowered? It would certainly make sense; the average person would start to relax if the danger had seemingly passed.

But Queen's staff were no average people. They were professionals, trained against such tactics. Though they were made to appear as harmless servants, they were, in reality, seasoned bodyguards, keeping to their duty of maintaining order within the Mansion. They knew better than to lower their guards, not while someone like Spamton still roamed the streets.

Alas, he was a chore, but not one on her list of errands for tonight.

A voice calling out her name brought her back to her senses. Rather than respond to it, she instead checked her surroundings and herself, sighing at what she found.

No wonder Spamton believed he could catch them off guard! While lost in thought, Tasque Manager had carried out a majority of the errands required of her that night. In one hand was a bag of new cleaning supplies, while the other held a box of assorted items up against her hip. She wasn't even on the main street anymore. How utterly shameful it was, to allow her thoughts to disorganize as they just did! She should always be at full attention when performing her duties. If she wasn't, everything could fall to chaos! Speaking of full attention... whoever was calling her name required hers.

She turned in time to catch Swatch falling into step beside her.

"Good evening", came their greeting. "Pardon my asking, but is something troubling you? I was calling your name, but you didn't hear me."

Tasque Manager's lips thinned as she averted her gaze to the space in front of her. So it had been Swatch calling her name. And she had ignored them! How rude of her! Perhaps she had been too lax in her self-discipline. She was so unorganized lately!

There would be time for mentally berating herself later. Right now, she was in the middle of a conversation.

"Apologies. I thought you had been some cat-caller, so I ignored you," she lied. She loosened her lips and curled them into a small smile, hoping Swatch would take it as a sign that she was at ease. "As you can see, I have been quite busy with her Majesty's errands." She shifted the box at her hip for emphasis. "Though I must say, today's list was quite small. There's usually much more to do than this." With a flick of her wrist, the bag of cleaning supplies she had been holding were stored away into her inventory. She'd need at least one free hand if she was to carry out her next errand.

Swatch hummed in affirmation before folding their hands behind their back, a telltale sign they were listening. Noticing this, Tasque Manager's smile softened into something more genuine. They were so polite and well-mannered, on or off the clock, and she couldn't help but admire them for that. Maybe someday, she'd feel the same way about Swatch that they felt about her.

The idle chatter between the two temporarily shifted into a topic on the Mansion's resident pest. Together, they theorized a few methods on how to permanently remove him from the premises before dropping the whole subject altogether. Though neither liked the man, what had happened to him...

...

...it wasn't any fault of their own. There was no use dwelling on it.

°°°

Tasque Manager, having found the last of the tasques sent out on patrol that day, relieved it of its duty, thus finishing all her errands. Swatch had long since made their way back to the mansion, meaning she was all alone as she made her way to the Trash Zone. The place was filthy, unsanitary, and unorganized, but also the quickest way home thanks to its portal door. Recently, it had been given a lock that only mansion staff had the key to. It was inconvenient for the average citizen, but if it prevented a certain salesman from using it, then there was no need to change it.

Upon reaching the door, she wasted no time in unlocking it. As is the norm when using a portal door, any memory of turning the handle and opening the door was forgotten, and suddenly, she found herself in the mansion. As quiet as possible, she closed the door behind her, making care to relock the way to the Trash Zone. With a sigh, she turned to the quiet halls of the mansion and made her way to her room, where hopefully, she could catch up on some sleep.

(Originally written 7/22/22)

[choose-your-own-dentistry]

oughhhh i’m having a hyperfixation moment

[bigshotautos]

need 2 get words out of my head or my head will explode like a confetti party popper. thinking about potential jevil / spamton meetings based on the scraps we know in canon

so the way i see it, there’s a couple of paths ways their previous canon interactions can go. since we know spamton has at least SOME knowledge of jevil, we can think about to what extent he knows about jevil, and how they were involved. like obviously im a biased party and a Win scenario for me is them being aggressively married in such a sickeningly loving way that people around them cant stand them, but even non-romantcially there’s plenty to think about

1) Spamton and Jevil knew each other mutually in some form. Can postulate just HOW, maybe as Jevil acting as a physical intermediary for their mutual contact. At some point, Jevil gets imprisoned and Spamton sees Jevil’s spiral into his warped worldview as something he wants to avoid at all costs, maybe even envies Jevil for the power he has but isn’t using ‘properly’. This one makes sense since Jevil alludes to Queen, and Tasque Manager comments on the Jevilstail / Devilsknife, implying she knows him (potentially, Jevil being in contact with Spamton while he was at the peak of his career in the mansion). In this scenario, Jevil probably likes to fuck with Spamton because he’s an easy target and has an ego the size of the mansion, and Spamton can’t stand Jevil but can’t do anything about it because he’s the only real physical contact he has with his mystery benefactor, and on a one to one fight he’d get curbstomped. Further evidence for this is the fact that its hinted at that Spamton lobbied against merry go rounds as public transportation because he doesn’t like clowns, lines up pretty well that exposure to a certain clown would bring that on.

The events of Deltarune go down like usual, and they’re forced to be around each other after Spamton gets turned into the Dealmaker or Puppet Scarf.

2) OFFSHOOT of the first one, except instead of being catty with each other, they’re actually pretty good palz. Spamton and Jevil knew each other previous to the events of the game, but were allies rather than enemies. Partners in crime. Menaces. In cahoots. Since the Dark Worlds are implied to have been way different before the events of the game (with free travel between kingdoms somewhat hinted at with Queen able to the King, Dark World characters in general knowing each other between chapters), they could have been brought together in the same way as scenario 1. EXCEPT shit goes down on Jevil’s front, like, say, him taking his games too far for the liking of the kings, and then getting put in the slammer. Likewise, things start to rapidly go downhill for Spamton, and he makes a bunch of calls that no one answers. Definitely not Jevil, who’s been locked up by his closest friend in his native Dark World. (In my personal headcanon, thinking of the outside world as a prison is something he cozied up to some time into his confinement as a coping mechanism that he bought into HARD).

At that point he could develop the grudge against Jevil, and as his life continues to spiral, twist that into hatred born from abandonment, especially right as shit hits the fan and he’s uniformly left by everyone important to him in his life. Game happens as usual, when they reunite in Kris’ inventory they’re both much worse off than when they had last seen each other and Spamton has to reconcile the years of feeling discarded with the reality of Jevil going through their own shit and not being able to see him anymore.

3) Jevil does not know Spamton physically and they’ve never met, though Spamton has heard a lot about Jevil. Basically, in this situation Jevil is living rent free in Spamton’s head and Spamton is so fucking mad about it and builds up a complex around it that’s twisted as his life goes to shit. It could be kind of a scenario 1 thing, where Jevil is an example of being corrupted and something to be avoided, being jealous of the praises people sing to him, etc. This idea of Jevil being this lesser, underachieving failure of a person could come from him being locked up and Spamton hearing about it.

Game goes on, they meet up in Kris’ inventory and Spamton has SO much baggage involving him and Jevil literally does not know him at all, or if he had known of him he’s long since forgotten because he just wasn’t remotely on their radar and wasn’t worth the brain space. Looney Tunes antics here, where Jevil has a TON of fun fucking with him and Spamton basically gives him the reaction he wants every time because he hates the shit out of him and is also scared of clowns. Canon backup is Spamton alluding to Jevil, Jevil not mentioning Spamton once.

OK. i think that about does it. the hardest one for them to become friends in would probably be the third scenario, where jevil doesn’t see common ground between himself and spamton at first. easiest is obviously 2, where they were pals beforehand. REALISTICALLY its probably something along the lines of 1 but who knowz, when ch 3 and on come out all of this speculation could be for Naught. happy to let this shit stew in my head though. so basically they go from rocky acquaintances to friends to besties to Married.