#director's commentary: The methodology is “if it makes me laugh it deserves to stay in”.

[yourfavouritetragedy]

First Kiss

bringing to you the content that matters in life... (tntduo funnies instead of angst in this trying time) seriously shoutout to @tntduo-brainrot-is-real because I haven’t written this much in this short a time period (even tho i’m not doing the official timeframe) for ages. can’t believe prompts can actually work giving you ideas if you’re determined enough lol

TW for referenced (mental) hospitalization in this one (it’s vaguely a university AU) (still using Nicholas as headcanon cquackity name to differentiate between cc)

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The first time Wilbur saw him, he knew. He had found his match. This one, this one — he will be my rival. He walked too confidently, spoke too much, and had the most annoying voice Wilbur had ever heard. 

His name was Quackity — Nicholas Quackity, but people only ever called him by his last name; he was that kind of bastard. Wilbur Soot f*cking hated people who go by their last names — pretentious, “popular” pricks, the lot of them. Quackity fit the bill, attracting friends and admirers alike. Wilbur assumed they were all vapid. 

The first time Wilbur spoke to Quackity, he was rude. He looked surprised, and then hurt, but Wilbur didn’t feel bad because they were already enemies. The pathetically short man just didn’t know it yet. (Much later, Wil would learn that Quackity had even admired him before this fateful first conversation. He felt a bit sorry then, having developed a more amicable relationship with him.)

Their relationship progressed from there, escalating from passive-aggressive exchanges to pranks and even sabotage. Things that would be too cruel towards other people they did without question, their relationship occupying some space apart from normalcy. 

The first time he touched Quackity, he had grabbed Wilbur’s hand as he was trying to swipe his pencil. Wilbur, in a fit of lacking any thoughts whatsoever, grabbed the wrist grabbing his with his other hand. He didn’t even realize he had never touched Quackity before until he could feel the blood under his skin. Quackity ran warm. 

He blushed, for some reason. It was effective (the wrist-grabbing, not the blush) in getting Quackity to let go of his hand. Wilbur also dropped the pencil, but he held on to Q’s wrist. 

“Soot.” Quackity always called him “Soot” because he knew he hated it. He paused, trying to figure out what to say, then slightly shook his head to dismiss any unusual thoughts. “Let go of my wrist,” he demanded. 

Wilbur let go. He had the strange urge to punch Quackity in order to get him to grab Wilbur again. 

(He gave into the urge a few weeks later.) (It was worth it, it was totally worth it, consequences and all.) 

Quackity was probably the most interesting part of his life, he reflected. Wilbur didn’t have many friends, especially since he was hospitalized last year and that scared some foolish people. Quackity didn’t care about that. He hated Wilbur like he would any other person — or rather, he hated Wilbur especially much in a special way (Wilbur was certain about this because he wanted them to be special) but not because of the mental illness at all. 

He enjoyed hating Quackity back, because he was unpredictable. Fascinating. Captivating. If Wilbur ever realized he was as enthralled as the groupies he despised, he would have been ashamed. 

The first time he realized he was attracted to Quackity, it was Tommy’s fault. Wilbur was ranting about him again, going on and on about how Quackity had such an insolent look on his face all the time, how he (probably) was a goddamn capitalist bootlicker who (probably) thought money had real value, how he made such repulsive dirty jokes that made Wilbur feel all wrong. Tommy got a funny look on his face when the topic turned to how Quackity’s eyes were too unique, what a bastard, I could look at them for hours, and have you seen his face? It’s unfair that he’s blessed with that pretty face with those pretty f*cking lips. 

Wilbur paused. “What?” he exclaimed, needing to know the reason behind Tommy’s strange face. 

“Nothing, nothing!” he said, throwing up his hands. He had his phone in one, which showed a “how to support a gay or bisexual friend” page that Wilbur either ignored or didn’t notice.  

“Seriously, tell me, Tom.” Wilbur got serious. “If it bothers you that I complain about him too much, I’ll stop.” He didn’t want to #toxic. 

Tommy quickly shook his head. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just…” He sighed. Deeply. And painfully. Long-suffering-ly. “Are you sure the only thing you’re feeling for this guy is hatred, Wil?”

“What? Yes, of course! What do you even mean?” Wilbur asked animatedly, afraid of where this was going. 

Tommy’s cheeks turned pink, and he turned his face away. “You seem to ah, you seem to be a bit hot for him, a little, y’know….” 

It was Wilbur’s turn to blush, but he pretended his face was red out of anger. “Me? Be attracted to Nicholas Quackity? I'm offended that you would even think that possible!" He jumped up. “I need to take a walk, Tommy, after hearing you habour that ridiculous notion.” He ran out of the room to promptly daydream about kissing Nicholas Quackity. 

He would continue to deny it for about two days, before resigning himself to the fact that he was miserably, hopelessly, pathetically in love with the guy he hated most. 

He didn’t even need to act different to get romantic payoff out of their interactions: They had long ago started teasing and flirting with each other. Gratuitous touching went along with that territory, and keeping his face cold let any amount of staring pass unnoted as glaring. 

The worst part was not knowing what went through his rival’s pretty little head. Did he really blush just then, or was that anger? When he talked about wanting Wilbur carnally, was any part of that serious? As an unpracticed liar himself, Wilbur was no good at figuring out what was an act. Being left in the dark nearly drove him mad, trying to figure out Quackity’s true intent behind every action. 

The first time Wilbur Soot kissed Nicholas Quackity, he wasn’t sure if he meant it back. It was a dare, or a challenge, or something. (Maybe it was an excuse.) 

“Yo, you taking out your girl for dinner?” Quackity had called out upon seeing him leading Niki to his car. He casually strolled over to them. 

Wilbur instantly turned away from his car and closed the door he just opened for Niki. “Not f*cking cool, dude,” he said, “Niki is my platonic gal pal. slash gen.” He crossed his arms. 

Niki looked at him weird, and then simply sighed. Quackity smoothly replied, “Well, maybe you can fit me into that opening in your schedule, baby.”

Wilbur scoffed. “Please. You wouldn’t be able to handle my charm, dear Quackity.” Figuring that statement needed elaboration, he added, “You would perish on the spot from the sheer power of even just a kiss of mine.” 

Quackity laughed. “You’re so full of yourself, Soot. Prove it.” 

Niki preemptively opened her phone to look at #girlbossing posts on Instagram. “What?” Wilbur startled. 

He took a step forward. “You heard me. Prove it. Kiss me.”

Wilbur laughed. Nervously. “Well, Quackity, there’s no chance you’ll actually perish from my kiss, I’ll admit that, so I see no way for me to win here.” He didn’t move away. 

“You win,” Quackity said, “if I say you’re a good kisser. Objectively. And remember, I’ve kissed a LOT of guys.” He winked, just to be an asshole like that. 

Well. Wilbur was fairly confident, having gone through a few casual relationships himself, some of them with the same people as Quackity, and he was never one to back down from a challenge, at least not one from his beloved rival. And here it was, a chance to finally kiss him  with no possible repercussions. “Okay,” he said. 

Quackity drew back in shock. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d agree to go this far. I kinda thought you were homophobic because I’m gay and you hate me.” At Wilbur’s concerned and then affronted  look, he said with a glint in his eye, “Oh no, I’m still very much up to kiss you. Let’s do this, sweetheart.”

Wilbur leaned down, but stopped. “You’re too short,” he said with a grin. Quackity was, indeed, a full head shorter than him. 

“No, you’re too tall. Bastard.” He sighed. “Lift me into the roof of your car,” he said with the air of someone tired of having to solve all the problems in the relationship.  

Wilbur did just that, and for a fleeting moment Quackity was in his arms. He put one hand on the car to balance and he leaned in. “Don’t knee me in the balls,” he whispered. 

“Don’t give me ideas,” Quackity replied. His breath was hot on Wilbur’s lips, and he suddenly couldn’t bear it a second longer. 

Wilbur didn’t bother to start off soft, pressing into him, so Quackity reciprocated. Damn, this is as good as I hoped. Wilbur scraped his lip, too afraid to bite him outright. Quackity bit him outright. Okay cool. He moved his other hand to tip his head back, and Q pulled him down. Wilbur felt him run his fingers through his head and shivered. They kissed way longer than was necessary and there was definitely a lot of germs exchanged. 

“Okay,” Quackity admitted, breathless, when they finally pulled apart, “I will give you this one thing: you are a good kisser. Let’s do this again sometime.” 

Wilbur couldn’t help but push his luck. “Do it again, like, for fun?” He turned away. “Or, y’know, seriously… with. feelings,” he mumbled out. 

Quackity stared at him. “You f*cking idiot. I’ve had a crush on you since at least a few weeks after we started flirting. Even Slime could tell, and you know it can’t distinguish between romance and friendship.” He neglected to mention that Slime “Charlie” Slime figured it out because 1) Quackity explicitly told it that kissing was romantic previously 2) Quackity talked to it quite a lot about how much he wanted to kiss Wilbur. 

He refused to let Quackity trap him like this. “Okay, then can you tell me how long I have liked you?” he retorted. 

Quackity blinked. “Um. Either forever or a week.” He had no idea. 

“Wrong. Kiss me again,” Wilbur requested, leaning in. 

The second time Wilbur kissed Quackity, he knew it was meant fully, which made it even sweeter. 

Niki turned to Tommy, who had magically appeared at the scene, unable to ever escape the homoerotic tension between these two, and handed him five British pounds. “I really thought they were going to announce they have been secretly dating for weeks. By the way, I’m homophobic now.”

[damienthepious]

director's cut of the recorder scene in ch.11 and/or the braiding bit at the end of ch.12?

[Pick a short passage from any fanfic I’ve written specifically Scattered On My Shore today I’m being picky, and send it to me, and I’ll give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet]

faldskjfasdklf i already did part of the recorder scene but someone else also asked for the end of ch12 so i’m gonna do an earlier part of the recorder scene, yeah? yeah. that’ll work. After Arum confronts her, when she pulls her.. hrm. her counterpoint.

[“Skip ahead on the recorder,” she says. /// “What?” /// “Skip to entry four two one one. Should be… eighteen to twenty after the one you just played, I think.”] Rilla knows exactly what entry she wants him to hear. She knows the exact entry. That’s interesting, isn’t it? She doesn’t remember exactly what number entry Arum just played. But she knows the number of the one she thinks he should hear.

[“Why?” he snarls, ducking his head and clutching the recorder close against the bandages on his midsection.] Arum is perpetually suspicious, but he’s amping it up right now. He’s furious, he’s hurt, and now he’s fucking confused, because what the fuck else could she want him to hear? What does she think she can pull, to trick him again?

[“Because there’s something else you should hear, too. You heard what I said when I first found you. You should hear what I said after. If you really think that I’ve been using you for some sort of spy work, then the rest of it should interest you too, right?”] She’s trying to be matter-of-fact. She’s trying to do this without getting emotional herself (this will break down). This isn’t a fight. She just wants him to listen long enough that she can explain.

[He hesitates, his expression tightening. “Perhaps I have no interest in hearing myself cataloged, doctor.”] This could still be part of some trick. And. honestly. Hearing her like that in the first recording hurt. He didn’t realize how much he trusted her until it broke, and he doesn’t want to hear another recording of her speaking about him like he’s some animal.

[“Please. Just- listen to it. And then you can decide if you want to- I don’t know. How you want to proceed. But before you make any sort of decision, please- please just listen, Arum.”] If this breaks bad, Rilla doesn’t even know what that would mean. Will he start trying to leave, again? Will he just- shut down, emotionally? Will he just stop speaking to her entirely until he’s just well enough to slink out the door and disappear?

[Arum stares at her for another long moment, suspicious with a growl in his throat, and then he moves his thumb, sending the recording forward with a thin squeal of sound. He overshoots the start of the entry a little, and it cuts in just in the middle of a word.] Here’s something: Rilla doesn’t say please very often. It means something when she says it three times in one little speech. And Arum is curious, despite himself. Maybe a little morbidly so. How much worse could it be, he wonders. How much deeper can i push the blade. A lot of Arum’s impulses are vaguely self-destructive, that way.

[“-ter than that, and it seems like his frill is really starting to knit together properly. Finally. It’s been tricky since it’s only a half-conscious thing, the flaring, but- I mean, it’s hard to complain about. It’s always so funny when he gets indignant and it just- fwoops out like that and-”] The second recording is about a lot of things. First: contrast. It’s tonally opposed to the first one. It’s personal, instantly. It’s not cold, the way the other one was. She’s excited, she’s enthusiastic, she’s noting rather unscientific points. Also if you imagined Rilla making an absurd hand gesture when she says the word “fwoops”, you are correct. Also, I don’t know why Arum’s frill became a Thing in this fic.

Also, hilariously, I’m pretty sure that the first chapter, where cleaning it wakes him up, and this sentence, from this scene, were the first two things specifically about Arum’s frill that were written. Him perpetually exacerbating his cuts by flaring it came later.

[She laughs on the recording, breathless, and Rilla remembers this moment with exact clarity.] She remembers this moment with exact clarity. This was important. This was a shift. Off screen, which was kind of a Choice. I could point out when this happens, in the fic, but I’ll hold on to that, I think. Some of the ways that Rilla reacts to things give it away, a little bit. You could probably narrow it down if you tried.

[The door to his room had been cracked, she could just see half his face through the gap as he rested, the gentle light of early morning on his scales and his expression untroubled in sleep-] Love this image. Would sacrifice a limb to project the image i have in my mind into actual art.

[“He’s beautiful,” she says, and she still feels the little stunned swoop that realization had made her feel.] yeah.

[“He’s… I didn’t know a monster could be so beautiful. I didn’t know they could be funny either, honestly, or- or-”] … uh oh. Also, one sentence away from realizing that she thinks he’s beautiful, she’s already upgraded him to “so beautiful”. Also trailing off on those ‘or’s stops a little floodgate situation. she was about to ramble. she was about to go off. and she realized what she was about to start doing. Remember, in the courtroom scene, where she talks about Damien? “I love his stories and his smile! I love that he makes me see the beauty in the hard questions, even when they make me uncomfortable! I love that he makes me grow!”

she just caught herself about to do something similar. Uh oh, Rilla. Uh oh.

[There is a pause.] deep breath, Rilla

[“Saints…”] ………. so……….. I talked with Sky, a bit, about how there are very specific Moments in this fic. When characters Realize certain Things. I feel like it’s probably pretty obvious, actually… exactly what Rilla is realizing in this particular moment.

[Another pause. Quite long.] Cataloguing symptoms, perhaps. Or maybe just reeling. Hey I wonder what Arum is thinking right now? Hm.

[“He… um. He’s improving by leaps and bounds, now,” she says, her voice a little clipped, a little muted.] Back to business. She. she doesn’t have time to think about this, right now.

[“He can almost stand on his own, though it tires him out. He’s… soon he’ll be well enough to travel, I think. Which means we’re going to have to have another conversation, soon, about- about exactly how we’re gonna get him back home.”] She doesn’t have time. She’s gotta do her job, first.

[“And that shouldn’t… it shouldn’t hurt to think about that, should it?”] Oh, Rilla…

[“It’s good. It’s a good thing that he’s… soon he’ll be well enough to go home, to be free again, to go back where he belongs and rest and recover where he’ll be comfortable and safe, but-”] That’s been the goal. Hasn’t it? Make him well again. Save his life.

[A little half-laugh. /// “I’m gonna miss him, is the only thing.”] A partial admission, if not the whole thought. and it’s… ridiculous, isn’t it? She’s had long-term patients, before. Never a monster, obviously, but- [“I’ve gotten so used to having him around, and- and even if he’s always arguing about the methodology he’s been so- it’s been nice to have him around when I’m doing my experiments, I mean- it would have taken me ages to think of modifying my bandages with machracnid silk, and the improvement to the elasticity is- but that isn’t even the point, you know? He’s just- he’s-”] just realized i never checked the script to see if i spelled machracnid right whoops ahem. I love the way Rilla rambles when she gets distracted by a thought. Hey i loved Moonlit Hermit did y’all know that? fljdjdkfdk

[Less of a laugh.] These are not fun feelings to examine.

[“It’s almost time for him to go home. It’s the only way to keep him safe. The longer he stays here-”] All three of them are fiercely protective, aren’t they?

[“I know Damien won’t hurt him, not anymore. I think he’s seen it too, he’s seen how- how much- he’s seen Arum, really seen him. I know he has.”] Rilla isn’t quite as articulate as Damien, especially when it comes to emotions. Seen him. Acknowledged him as a person, is what she means. Which, not verbally he hasn’t, but she knows anyway. Rilla isn’t as perceptive as Damien when it comes to people, either, but she knows Damien. And Damien isn’t actually good at concealing what he feels, whether or not he speaks his heart.

[“But every day Arum stays here is another risk, is another chance that he’ll be seen or- and if that happens, then what? I don’t care what they do to me, I’m not afraid of them, but Arum- he’s still not strong enough to defend himself, and even if he was, what would he do against an armed squadron of knights? I wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect him, and- he- I can’t let that happen. I won’t. I won’t let the Citadel hurt him.”] Hm, looks like i echoed Arum’s canonical can’t/won’t again. I swear that wasn’t intentional. Again, fiercely protective. And all of this- it hurts, to think about Arum getting hunted by knights. Rilla knows if things go wrong, she’s not going to be able to do ANYTHING. And she hates feeling helpless.

[“So- so… so he has to go home. It doesn’t matter that I-”] IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT I- IT DOESN’T? RILLA. IT DOESN’T MATTER? [“it doesn’t matter how I feel. I have to get him home. He deserves- he-”] Getting him home and making sure that he’s safe is more important than her own feelings. Whatever feelings those are, exactly.

[“Amaryllis?”] this scene is the primary reason i want desperately to do a podfic of this whole thing, eventually. I know. I know the exact intonation of every part of this, but I can always just HEAR the voice Arum is using here, in my head. gentle and unhurried and expectant. fun fact: they fcukging care about each other and i’m soft