🐸 if I may ask, why do you think shadow milk is the least sympathetic beast? Does it have to do with his inability to cope with the truth and denial/projection of that failure onto others?
He just irritates me lol. I like him a lot, but also he irritates me. Pinch his cheeks and then put him through a shredder
Also as per the information we currently have, I just personally think his reasons for corrupting are the weakest
Mystic Flour: I gave, and gave, and gave, and all anyone ever did in return for my bottomless generosity was take. In my naïvety I believed that all people are simple and good at heart, and that in understanding and granting their wishes, they would achieve peace and I would move further along my journey towards enlightenment. I struggled to fathom greed, selfishness, cruelty, until these things appeared at my doorstep and forced my eyes open. And what I believed greeted my sight were all those who I selflessly tried to help, whose wishes I was happy to grant, taking my goodwill and squandering it for their own shallow, selfish and ultimately meaningless purposes. I came to the bitter conclusion that all hopes are futile and desire is the foundation of all suffering, refusing to acknowledge the inherent contradiction in my desire to rid the world of desire, for doing so would force my pain and resentment towards the world into the light and unveil me as having become that which I so wholly despise
Burning Spice: I am weary of the cycle of change, that endless loop of life and death that in itself is unchanging. Everything I build is only destined for ruin; I have watched civilizations fall time and time again, succumbing to whatever force undid them no matter what effort is made to prevent it. And in the midst of drowning in these murky waters where everything appears the same and I lose all sense of time and space, I find myself no longer able to care. Never have I had the time or permission to grieve what I lost; I could only stand by and watch everything wither over and over again, all becoming dust while I alone remained. For it was not my duty to grieve, nor to care; it was to ensure that the cycle continued, and that was it. And for lack of maturity and wisdom and any meaningful connections to ground and sober me, I instead chose to numb myself, taking my rage and pain and placing it onto others in the form of indiscriminate violence, for the only fleeting purpose I find in being alive is in suffering, whether that be others' or my own. If all is destined to crumble no matter what then I shall take matters into my own hands and crumble it all myself
Eternal Sugar: My joy and mental stability are entirely dependent on that of others. My empathy and maternal instincts slowly but steadily warped into an incessant need to coddle and control, for in surrounding myself with only positivity, my ability to contend with negativity withered away, leaving me as vulnerable and helpless as I came to see all life on earth. The truth that happiness is fleeting and cannot be guaranteed, not even by myself, is a dagger to my fragile, bleeding heart; to hear a person cry out in sorrow already brings such pain, to hear a thousand cries a thousand times over despite my attempts to soothe them is unconscionable. I thus chose to surrender to delusion entirely, convincing myself and others that if I simply kept everyone within my reach and oversaw all that they did and everywhere that they went, and made them know only sweetness and never anything else, then the dream could both be real and everlasting. So many times, innocents came to me wishing for happiness; so many times I tried to bring it to them; so many times did that happiness eventually fade. There is meaning in suffering, there is wisdom, there is growth - but I care not for it, refuse to embrace it, for I believe nothing justifies suffering of any kind, except that which I unknowingly inflict on those I take into my arms and refuse to let go of
Silent Salt: I never wished to corrupt. I never wished to turn my back on mortalkind. From the moment my creator placed me on this earth, I stood with the weak, lended others my strength, formed bonds with all those I could, for I had believed that only through unity and cooperation could a better world be made. I foresaw the eventual decline of not only my holy compatriots, but myself as well, and knew I must act while there was still time; thus I gave all to both the present and the future, making myself and my knights the enemy of oppressors worldwide while at the same time risking my power and well-being to pave the way for new heroes to one day rise and replace us. In the end, I was cruelly betrayed, both by my fellow gods who had become demons behind my back, and by those my knights and I had fought for for so long. In my rage, I, too, answered the call of corruption, lashing out and slaughtering those that aided and abetted my knights' senseless massacre; and in my subsequent guilt and shame, pleaded for my one remaining friend to end my life, for I believed the only good I could do for the world was perish and spare it the stain I would leave upon its tapestry. In the end I chose to make the ultimate sacrifice and seal myself and my fallen friends away in prison for all eternity, allowing mortalkind to curse and forget us, believing it was all that was left to be done to stop the darkness. But now I see how pointless that is; the darkness persisted without me, in spite of me, because of me. Even my successor corrupted, when the new Virtues I created were meant to be inherited by the pure and true, thus proving my incompetence. I sequester myself in the shadows of weathered tombstones and in the ruins of my stronghold and of my hopes and dreams; empty and alone, a cold and bitter shell of myself. My dream for a better world is dead, solidarity is no more. There is nothing and no one left for me but the all-consuming silence. This silence is all I deserve
Shadow Milk: I was lonely and people didn't want to listen to me when I told the truth, they only wanted nice lies. So I became a liar for them, since that's what they apparently wanted
I know there's a lot more to it than that, I know I've watered a lot down. But at the absolute most basic level, that is how he comes across to me, and in comparison to the others, that's the worst and most pathetic reason to crash out
