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niffy-y · 6 months

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C!Wilbur and C!Quackity’s dynamic is so. Interesting to me.

I’m going to go chronologically, and break it down in the way that I view and imagine the lore.

The Elections

When Quackity first joins the server, Wilbur is at the top of his game. He had just won his country's independence, people were singing his praises, and as the cherry on top, he was rigging his own election. He was winning, unopposable.

Then Quackity comes in, and suddenly Wilbur is faced with someone with equal passion, brains, cunning, and fire, and Wilbur feels threatened.

And from Quackity’s view, he has met this charming, slimy, bastard with a silver tongue. Quackity is incredulous that Wilbur could be so smug as to try to rig his own election. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. So Quackity does something about it.

And this leads to the spark of their rivalry, the most physical kind. Opponents of an election. Wilbur’s place on top is now threatened by this young, scrappy malcontent, and Quackity has just found out how underhanded the supposed leader is, the man people sing praises to.

But here’s the thing, Wilbur sees himself as above Quackity, and Quackity does too. Because Wilbur has everything, a country, friends, the world behind him. And because now Quackity is someone with a good chance at taking that all away, Wilbur feels threatened.

Because of this, Wilbur talks down to Quackity, mocks him, tries to break his spirit, tells him that there is no way he wins the elections, and most importantly, his words ring true. Quackity doesn’t have support, his vice sleeps through half of the debates, and Wilbur can twist his words and make him a joke and a fool in the eyes of the people. Quackity can’t win a game that Wilbur made.

So what does Quackity do? He changes the game. He brings in Schlatt, and suddenly Wilbur has his back against the wall, as he realizes that it’s not good enough to just get over 50% of the voters, if Quackity and Schlatt pool their votes. Wilbur is losing control, all because some scrappy young misfit came in and ruined what he had created.

Wilbur can’t understand how this pathetic man managed to outsmart him, because he truly doesn’t think Quackity could equal him.

Then–and this is most important–Quackity wins.

Quackity, to him, has beaten the smug, underhanded bastard Wilbur, by playing his game better than he did. And Wilbur is devastated. He has just lost everything, and Quackity took it away from him.

Manburg

But here’s where things change.

Because Schlatt is now in the picture. And he’s a bigger fish than Wilbur could ever fry. He’s more dangerous than Dream, at this point, because where Dream is crazy, Schlatt’s psychotic. Dream has motives, reasons to do things, whereas Schlatt operates on anger, malice, and spur of the moment decisions. He is too unpredictable, and this comes to a head when he exiles Wilbur and his little brother from their own damn country, forcing them down into the underbelly of the city, in a cave system that runs so tangled and deep, the walls grow hot as they near the Nether.

And Wilbur seethes. In his eyes, Quackity got Schlatt on top through an unfair strategy, giving him the power to hurt Wilbur. Wilbur knows that he couldn’t have done it without Schlatt, without pulling the rug from under Wilbur’s feet, and Wilbur still views him as pathetic. Because Wilbur lost unfairly. Quackity would have never won if Wilbur had prepared.

Their positions have almost entirely flipped, for a short while, now Quackity is on the top of the world, or at least, second to Schlatt. And for this, Wilbur holds a twisted fascination in the man, becoming obsessed with taking him down.

Pogtopia

So what does Wilbur do? He rebels, he starts a resistance, and he begins scheming to take Schlatt and Quackity down. Because here, Schlatt is the biggest problem. And his sanity begins to slip just a bit, he begins to lose his footing, but he doesn’t care. So what if he hears small voices in the crackling of a fire, eyes watching him from the cracks in the walls. So what if there are buttons on the walls? Better to destroy all evidence of a rebellion than to be caught.

Then Schlatt does something.

It doesn’t matter what, but it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and Quackity finally concedes to himself that Schlatt’s regime has gone too far.

Because while he put up with it, he noticed how unnecessarily cruel Schaltt was being, how unfair he was, and he found himself resentful of being Schlatt’s lackey, his lapdog. His second place. And he hears whispers. About Wilbur, the former president’s quiet rebellion.

And he runs.

He finds Wilbur and Pogtopia, and offers his help. And of course Wilbur is suspicious, and hostile, and sickeningly condescending to Quackity, demanding Quackity’s reason for trying to help, and asking if he’s finally realized the mistake he made by not teaming with Wilbur, in the smuggest, most sickly sweet voice Quackity has ever heard.

But here’s the thing–Quackity is hurting. And he just tells Wilbur that he needs to get rid of Schlatt, and won’t elaborate.

Because admitting defeat would mean admitting that he never won.

And Wilbur sees Quackity, his shining rival, now cast down exactly as WIlbur had been, by the same man, (ignoring the fact that Quackity willingly brought himself down because he saw the unjustness in Schlatt’s regime, whereas Wilbur was forcibly exiled) and he gets an idea (the cause of 99% of C!Wilbur’s problems).

He brings Quackity into Pogtopia, lets him help, because it shows how he’s the better person. He will cast aside his rivalry in order to help Quackity, and he has no problem saying it directly to his face. And Quackity realizes the underlying message. Wilbur, his rival, has crafted the opportunity to sell Quackity out as a traitor, therefore permanently bringing him onto the side of Pogtopia lest Wilbur tell Schlatt.

Wilbur found a way to gain power over Quackity, putting them back on the same plane again, each one able to sell the other out.

But it is here, where something also changes. Because in the dark caves of Pogtoipa, Quackity notices Wilbur’s change. The once charming, bright, charismatic leader is now a twitchy, manic, unsettling husk of himself, his royal blue coat and tricorne exchanged for a tattered trench coat and beanie. And Quackity finds a silent part of himself mourning the loss.

And Wilbur begins thinking almost the exact same thing. Quackity, his once fiery rival’s smile has dulled to a resigned grimace at everything. But Wilbur doesn’t get sad, he gets angry. Angry at Schlatt, angry at Quackity for letting himself get there, angry at the world for putting them in those godforsaken caves. And this anger poisons his mind even more, chips away at his sanity even though he doesn't even understand why.

So here, their rivalry quiets, because they have to trust each other. They are allies, in a sense, and the dark caves get lonely at night. And they don’t talk, instead seeking solace in silent presence. An extra healing potion brewed and left out in easy reach. Niki’s birthday.

November 16th

Then, the fight happens, and it happens fast. Quackity loses track of Wilbur, but he doesn’t care as the scene of Schlatt keeling over keeps playing in his head, as he fights to protect his precious lives.

And Wilbur watches the fight, and I could go into the details of why he blows up L’Manburg, but I won't, here. But he blows up L’manburg, and the last thing he sees are Quackity’s eyes, wide with shock before he is stepping into a train station where he will wait for–to him–13 ½ years.

And Quackity watches Wilbur blow himself up, and his heart practically tears itself apart with conflicting feelings. He is happy that his rival is dead, that the lying, underhanded, bastard is in pieces now. But a strange void rips itself into his heart.

Because now, there is no one to challenge him. No one for his anger to focus on, no one to thwart his moves and banter with.

The Butcher Army and the Fiances

Now, Quackity has no rival. So he makes one. He goes after Technoblade, looking for some release to his anger, his conflicted feelings that keep him up at night that he doesn’t understand. Quackity is no longer the vice president, no longer part of Pogtoipa, just a side liner in a country he originally opposed. And he feels like he has no place. So he starts the butcher army, and what does he get? A pickaxe to the face and a blind eye.

So, Quackity turns to something else. Maybe, if he finds love, the weird, spacey feeling in his heart will close up again. And yes, he does find some fiances who he loves with every inch of his heart, and he feels like he might have a place, he builds an entire country for them to live in, transports each grain of sand to create a desert–until they leave him. Forget him.

And Quackity grows bitter.

Las Nevadas and Wilbur’s Revival

And now, here’s where it gets interesting, and possibly a little mushy.

Because this whole time, Quackity hasn’t had a place. Not an equal place. Not in the election, he was the new guy who didn’t fit in. Not with Schlatt, where he was simply the lackey behind the monster of the regime. Not with his fiances, he was always an outsider, the third wheel in his own relationship. Not even in Las Nevadas, where he stays in his office, where people see him, but not him.

Come to think about it, the only time where he was evenly matched, where he truly had a place, was being Wilbur’s rival. Someone who he could keep up with, someone who could keep up with him, and someone who always made a place for him, to argue with.

Then Wilbur is revived. And when he sees everything that Quackity has done, he is in shock, because now his rival, the man he used to view as pathetic, has done what Wilbur couldn’t do–he built a country that stood. Quackity is no longer the passionate, good hearted, yet pathetic man Wilbur once saw him as. For the first time, Wilbur sees Quackity as his equal.

And when Quackity sees Wilbur, his glory gone from years in limbo, his coat tattered and a five o’ clock shadow gracing his face, he feels powerful. He has beaten Wilbur, the man has been reduced to a shadow of his former self, no matter how desperately he tries to deny it. And he feels like Wilbur has been brought back down to Quackity’s level, screwed over by life in the same way.

Yet, when they talk, they remain on equal ground, throwing insults and banter back and forth just like the old days. They match each other head on. Each of them are fascinated with what the other has become. One man fallen from grace, one man risen to every challenge.

So when Wilbur starts the burger van, Quackity smiles as their rivalry is lit once more.

Because this is their place. The one place where each of them are truly equal, one cannot get one over the other for more than a day.

Rivals, yet they walk side by side.

Someone tell me I did NOT just write almost 2k words about C!Tntduo omg congrats if you got to the end, these are my insane ramblings, in their first draft, not proofread.

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