Back from the dead with my beast yeast 15 rant (spoilers ofc): because what the fuck
Definitely the best part was Gingerbrave’s and his buddies, but everything else felt really rushed, like it was a first draft.
DevSisters shouldn’t expect Crk players to have also played Ovenbreak so they don’t have to fucking explain Sugar Swan’s existence and why DEC didn’t consider her as a possible threat, who at this point hasn’t been mentioned in the main story AT ALL, a literal Deux Ex Machina. Genuinely pissed me off.
The handling of the Beasts was especially frustrating, on god. Minusing Silent Salt and Shmilk, what kind of ending was that for them??? For characters that had as much presence as they did, how they were treated in this finale was so souring and underwhelming, and most of all abrupt, like the writers just gave up on writing them.
At first I was super duper pissed and angry, and then I sat in it a bit and realized it would genuinely make absolutely zero sense for DevSisters to remove their biggest cash cows behind SM (though Silent Salt is OFFICIALLY gone now and he was the second most popular beast hnghhhh). Now I’m just really irritated. All in all, horrible decision.
In regards to Silent Salt, though I felt his part was clunky, it made thematic sense for him, his main goal was accomplished and finds honor and peace in dying if it means to succeeding in doing the right thing for cookiekind. Let him be with his husband again.
However, though it works for him, it’s a lot more messy to give that ending to White Lily.
Though I agree with a lot of the points made about how this was a disturbed decision to make, mainly the one about how throughout the story our girl was very much suicidal, it’s an unfortunately common trope that tells mentally ill people that yeah they should kill themselves actually the world would be better for it. What makes me mixed however is that the good WL we know is a mere fraction of her original self, that being DEC, and to me I never saw them as completely different cookies, just one who completely succumbed to selfishness and self preservation and the other who is struggling to hold onto altruism akin to that of Pure Vanilla, and so I still connect the good WL for being responsible for both wars since it was her own actions intended or not that led to so much destruction (this is very much a personal hot take and completely understand if y’all don’t agree).
Continuing on from this train of thought, I interpreted good WL’s goals of life to fix her mistakes, to protect cookiekind from the monster she created once and for all understanding that only she can really do that (aka she made her bed and now she has to lie in it), and by the point she dies I don’t really interpret her as suicidal (I think she overcame that in her beast yeast chapters by being able to finally create a healthy perspective on the meaning of Freedom), but instead she goes out with a better perspective on life and able to move on in peace with her actions while alive, and I think that’s the best you can wish for someone when they pass, that they are at peace and not in anguish with it (and shes like 1000 she lived a long ass life). It felt thematically fitting. Personally like to think shes now has a polycule Silent Salt and Elder Faerie Cookie in cookie heaven or whatever.
However, I’ll repeat, I completely understand why people hate it and agree with why, and I also do agree they could’ve handled it a lot better.
Now onto the worst offender, Shadow Milk Cookie. This fucking bitch ass motherfucker.
Thought I’m a ShadowVanilla shipper, it doesn’t mean I’m a Shmilk stan, its more like he’s my son in law who I’m massively disapproving of but can’t do anything about it. But oh my god they couldn’t just quit when they were ahead could they.
I think I genuinely dislike Shadow Milk’s character now. Though I will begrudgingly admit his actions make sense, he just shows zero redeeming traits throughout this finale where I’m like “maybe he’ll change even just slightly”, THE FUCK HE WONT. My best guess is that they are going the She Ra Catra route where they are gonna keep writing him to be worse and worse until he hits rock bottom and then scramble to redeem him with not enough time on the clock before this shit show ends (and I think they’ll handle this way worse, because Catras worst matched Shmilk this episode, I just don’t think the writers are good enough to satisfyingly redeem him at this point).
Also, just the decision to make him the next big bad, though I would argue didn’t come out of nowhere, just wasn’t it. It didn’t feel that earned, mainly because how clunky and poorly paced the whole chapter was, maybe bc it feels like such fanservice, I dunno. I did find it baity when they were literally dangling the potential of him self reflecting in the previous chapter only to have him quadruple down instead, it’s realistic but he’s already doubled down already wtf. He doesn’t feel complex anymore, just another one note big bad, by stripping away the complexities of a character that can really hurt their appeal and likability. They’ll probably return to focus on those complexities, but will it be good?
