Let us scream into the void for our batshit insane jester into the void together-
What do you think about Shadow Milk Cookie who once had a lover during his days as a cookie free from corruption, and when that day comes where he wreaks havoc onto Earthbread, his lover stood against him and lives freely during his imprisonment.
To see their fragments in the present, whether it's their name or their achievement as one of the cookies who went against a beast... Or to know how they're known as a cookie who loves a beast until their end.
(can I be 🍡 anon?)
Shadow Milk Cookie does not take your betrayal well.
Not agreeing with his philosophies is one thing, but acting out against him— helping those wretched witches seal him away— he won’t forget it. He stews in his rage, replays the moments of your treachery over and over again. He doesn’t blame you, he blames the witches. Those cowardly, despicable, rotten farces of gods. You are incredibly misguided by them, that’s all it is. You just need a little shove in the right direction, and once he escapes, he’ll happily provide that.
While Shadow Milk Cookie does not think you are at fault, he does believe that your actions warrant some sort of punishment. He pours himself over this during his imprisonment; ways to get back at you, make you suffer a little before he feels you’ve earned his forgiveness. Nothing he thinks of ever feels severe enough, there is nothing you could possibly do to mend his broken heart. (Perhaps if you stay by his side; spend the rest of eternity repenting and groveling, proving your loyalty and remorse, never estranging yourself from him again… maybe then, he’ll consider taking pity on you.)
After he breaks free from imprisonment, he’s all smiles and theatrics. Naturally, it’s a deceptive cover. Beneath his conniving grin is a deep-seated resentment. He tears the silver tree asunder with a manic smile and a burning desire for revenge. There are many things he intends to reclaim:
First of all, the other half of his soul jam.
He’ll run circles around that false little hero— as he finds that Pure Vanilla is surprisingly susceptible to corruption. It’s an excellent warm-up after laying dormant for so long, and Shadow Milk Cookie intends on enjoying every second of that thief’s descent into madness.
Then, once that’s out of the way, he’ll come for his silly, misguided, deceitful little lover next.
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I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.
I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.
Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.
All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:
“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”
Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.
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some of my thoughts and interpretations of the scene between Jones Hall and Schubert Green (the director of the play), and the scene between Jones and the actress playing Augie's wife:
assuming Conrad was already dead by the time these scenes take place, the moment between Jones and Schubert could be read as Jones processing his grief and going through the stages of grief. he shows some anger, or rather frustration, and he begins to question his own performance and interpretation of Augie (“am i doing him right?”). he's obviously affected by the story, he keeps getting his heart broken every night as he performs the play, and he searches for a meaning and a reason, bargaining with the play director (“do i just keep doing it? without knowing anything?” isn't there supposed to be some kind of an answer out there in the cosmic wilderness?”) Jones says he still doesn't understand the play, and Schubert reassures him, saying that it doesn't matter, that he should just keep telling the story. now this is the moment when i think the context shifts and the subject of the conversation turns to Conrad and Jones' grief. by telling the story/performing the play, Conrad's memory as well as Jones' grief are kept alive. Schubert's “you're doing him right” can be read as Jones doing a good job at performing Augie, but also as Jones doing right by Conrad, by what he wrote and his memory. there's no right way to mourn/grief, but Jones is mourning Conrad in his own way by playing the character that they both created and keeping Conrad's art and memory alive.
acceptance comes in the scene between Jones and the actress. Jones doesn't remember the dialogue, but the actress does, and by recollecting the deleted scene of the dream, Conrad speaks to Jones one last time through the wife/actress. “i think you'll need to replace me” “i think you'll need to try. i'm not coming back, Augie.” thanks to these words, Jones finds comfort and closure, as Conrad, across time and space, in a scene written even before his untimely death, urges him to move on. Jones remembers Augie's final line in the dream: “all my pictures come out”, which could also be read as Jones' performance, because even when he thought he didn't understand the play or what he was performing, he was doing it right, and with this understanding, he can now consciously use his own grief in his performance.
as Jones returns to the play, and the car with Augie and his family leaves Asteroid City, both Augie and Jones move on.
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priest: i don't, ah, quite know what to say to you. if you are in such terrible danger, why are you taking it all so calmly?
constantine: hmh! i dunno, father. i had a bloke beaten to a pulp earlier this evening. that sound calm to you?
priest: you did what...?
constantine: i must've been off me bleedin' rocker. i've never done anything like it before in me life, y'know?
constantine: but there's header gets his guts blown out, and george is stickin' his head in the noose, and helen gets ... jesus, then friggin' sarah bites me head off — ! everything's coming to bits in me hands and it's so easy to just see red and now, shit, they could've killed the tosser for all i know!
and now i'm just like the bastards i've hated all me life! kill him! fire him! close them down! piss all over him! screw you, i can do whatever i want! i so much as blink and you're dead, pal! i'm in charge!!
...
constantine: 'scuse me, father. i'm always like this when i don't get me own way.
— hellblazer #81, "rake at the gates of hell pt. 4"
babygirl you are just....so, sooooo offputting. (and grieving, and guilty, and terrified, but yeah: offputting.)
anyway, it's issues like this one that remind me why i kind of hesitate over some of the retcons in the recent spurrier runs, like the one with him now having opened dream's pouch of sand and stolen some before they even met. because like, it's easy enough to look at john constantine now — with 70 years of worst possible choices and unresolved trauma crystallizing underneath his skin to cover up all the soft, hopeful bits where he's used to getting hit — and assign him arbiter of ill intentions, magus of wasted potential, saint of shit choices, but man . . . he was new to this, once. he was still new to this 80 issues in.
80 issues in, and he's not used to losing friends yet; he even has time enough between catastrophes to grieve each individual one. still has enough left to live for at this stage to necessitate running and hiding, instead of bodily throwing himself at the problem like he learns to later, or sitting apathetically by to do nothing except smoke and watch the world fall apart when he finally gives up. fuck, he still apologizes.
and you're telling me this guy, this soppy wet cat motherfucker hiding from the devil in a church basement, so guilty over not knowing what happened to the guy that he paid people (paid chas, so chas could pay people) to attack that the bottle he's holding in this scene isn't even his second or third........this guy's past, more innocent self lied right to the face of DREAM OF THE ENDLESS and got away with it?
hm. i just don't know about all that.
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FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 11 - Surrogate
Masterlist
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Characters/Pairings: Leofard Myste & Warrior of Light
Rating: Teen & Up
Additional Notes: Takes place at during HW patch 3.5. Major spoilers for the Shadow of Mhach alliance raid questline.
Ao3 Link
Lady Raimille. The picture painted by Stacia's tale was everything an orphaned child could want from a parent. Everything except that she'd passed on too soon — but not before giving her foster son one last gift.
The noblewoman’s real portrait hung above them, enshrined in Leofard’s quarters. Presiding over his affairs and his family; watching over the man himself. Moro'a knew that paintings like this cost a considerable sum to commission, and that taking care of them required specific knowledge and attention; unexpected obligations for a sky pirate.
But the painting gleamed, immaculately free of blemishes. “I had wondered as to the origin of his vessel's naming,” Cait Sith said softly, his voice touched with emotion. “‘Tis a most beautiful painting.”
Moro’a’s time in Ishgard had also taught him that portraits like this one were made to memorialise — a likeness captured in brushstrokes, preserved from time. Remember me as I was, in this moment. Remember what this person means to us. Situated where their loved ones could gaze upon them, and never forget.
I doubt I'll ever feel worthy to sit where he sat.
Throughout their adventures, Leofard had pretended as though the portrait wasn’t there, and it was all Moro’a had needed to know not to bring it up. He’d accepted it without judgement, without ever considering otherwise. What was he here for, if not to hide from ghosts and broken hearts; from memory?
But now that Stacia had told them what Leofard would never impart himself, the pieces that made up the leader of the Redbills had finally begun to click: why a man who prized freedom so highly would build his new home a stone's throw from the Holy See, and why the loss of his airship had made Leofard retreat into himself, like a creature seeking familiar refuge.
It seems she kept him safe until the very end, Utata had said, and Moro’a’s heart had clenched so tight that he thought it might shatter.
It wasn’t any of his business. The voidsent had been stopped, and Cait Sith had found a new home. His time with the Redbills was coming to a close. It’d been an engaging distraction, which was precisely what Moro’a had needed; there were no stones left to overturn, no more accidental revelations to be had. He would go his separate way, into the unknown, and then…
Later, as he was stowing the few essentials he’d brought into the manacutter, Moro’a heard footsteps approaching. He turned to see Leofard, who was already dressed in a clean set of clothes and red-tinted goggles. “I almost forgot,” the sky pirate said, as breezy as could be now as he held something out in his hand. A Redbill scarf.
“You didn’t have to,” Moro’a murmured, feeling a strange mixture of reluctance and guilt.
“And I say otherwise, Warrior. I reckon you’ve done more than you’ll ever need to to have earned this.” His hand stretched closer, and Moro’a considered refusing. He was ready to quit this place, to move on. I’m not who you think I am, he wanted to say.
Instead he found himself reaching out for the scarf, and tucking it in with the rest of his things.
If, after he'd said his farewells, his hand reached under the collar of his shirt to gently hold the necklace that rested against his chest, to remember, he was the only one who needed to know.
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nona's age is so fascinating because her soul is billions of years old, however the soul of the earth specifically shaped by john and personified as alecto is only ten thousand years old, and then she's been asleep for most of those millenia, so alecto was only really around for a few? hundred years. and alecto's consciousness specifically manifesting as nona is only six months old, living in the body of a nineteen year old.
same is true for pyrrha though on a much smaller scale. she was presumably in her 30s (edit: someone pointed out that she's in her 40s or 50s actually, ty for the correction) when she died the first time, and then is resurrected and lives for a couple hundred years at canaan house, in the body of an unaging 30 something. and then she dies again, but her consciousness lives on for ten thousand years in someone else's unaging 30 something year old body-except she's not present for most of it. so when we see her in nona, she's only been back for a few months really.
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