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Quackity has a prized possession.
Everyone knows about it. It’s a red leather notebook, with birch-colored pages bound by a black string. It’s small enough to fit in the pocket that’s on the inside of his suit. It has slits on one side of its cover (where Quackity keeps small stuff like gold nuggets and a picture), and comes with its own red quill. Quackity’s had this book since the first day in the Dream SMP; made by himself from the extra leather and sugar canes he had. In the notebook, there are schedules and timetables and checklists, but the first few pages are filled with doodles and a map of the SMP.
The checklists started when he’d built his house and needed to organize everything, the clutter messing with his brain (and they’ve stayed ever since).
The schedules and timetables started when he became Vice-President of Manberg, when Schlatt had suggested (more like ordered subtly) that he make some schedules that “assured the well-being of Manberg’s citizens”.
(They all knew that it was to keep them in line.)
Making those schedules and timetables was tiring on its own; he remembered once he had to remake a schedule enough times that his brain had felt like a puddle and sixteen hours had passed in that one task.
When he joined Pogtopia, he got rid of everything that tied him to Manberg.
Everything, except for the red notebook.
Sometimes he looks back at the perfect schedules and timetables and checklists and then looks at the scattered chests, the grass patch built into the wall, the criss-crossing paths of wood and stone. His hand itches for his quill, on how he could organize better, but stops himself every time.
This isn’t Manberg. You’ve left.
He doesn’t know what to fill the notebook with anymore. So he puts it at the bottom of his chest, buried under other stuff.
It stays there until Wilbur asks Quackity about it.
(“Do you have any songs in that notebook?,” he asks him one day, when Quackity plays Wilbur’s guitar.
Quackity looks at him in confusion. “What?”
Wilbur sits down next to him, legs crossed. “Well, you seem to be rather attached to that notebook, and you play guitar, so I just assumed you write songs or something like that.”
“Oh…,” Quackity trails off. “No, sorry,” he smiles bashfully, plucking on the strings of the guitar. “There’s nothing in it.”
Wilbur shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he calmly replies, then looks to the guitar in his hands. “Play something for me,” he asks, and leans back on the cool stone wall. Quackity chuckles, and starts playing the tune for Money Machine - It’s just them bonding over songs that could be considered shitposts and laughing.)
Quackity pulls the dusty notebook out of the chest, and skims through the ink-filled pages until he lands on a fresh one. The quill in his hand itches for him to write something on the blank page, to make a checklist, a schedule-
He takes a deep breath.
From where he’s sitting, he can hear Tubbo and Tommy laughing. He can smell the bread that Niki’s baking, and he can see the potatoes that Techno’s farming and replanting. The song that Techno’s humming under his breath is oddly familiar. Wilbur’s playing a melody on his guitar somewhere above them, and the melody syncs with the humming-
His hand moves before he can comprehend it. He’s written a full eight lines when he realises that he's writing something and they’re song lyrics.
He feels some sort of joy at the fact that he has something to fill his notebook with.
(He carries it around with him, accompanied by a quill, to jot down any inspiration he gets any time.)
Wilbur asks him after a while if he’d started writing songs in that notebook. Quackity’s eyes lit up and his hand went for the red leather notebook while he excitedly talks to him about the stuff he’s proudly written about. Wilbur reads over them in silence before giving a proud smile to Quackity, saying that the lyrics are good.
It fills him with joy. He feels at home.