[pureshadough]

hello iam pureshadough & i am the only shadow milk cookie fan ever invented. this account is primarily dedicated to the pairing shadowvanilla from cookie run: kingdom but has evolved to also be a space for me to Post Analysis Sometimes But Mostly Just Complain about the game itself. once in a blue moon ill post fanfiction or get into insane new art mediums and style shifts to satisfy my whims. This is my house and you are trapped forever (joke)

i am very opinionated in my tastes as relates to sm&pv and thus am prone to deranged posts criticizing canon & fanon alike. this is from a place of love unless it is about timeline of fate

i have a bunch of what-ifs and aus and the like that you are welcome to send me asks about whenever you so please even if its concerning like a year old post or whatever

the art on this account will always be safe for work but i may discuss adult topics on occasion

you are responsible for your own happiness

tumblr, my ao3, and youtube (unlisted) are my only social media. do not repost my work elsewhere without my permission; credit is appreciated in cases of personal use

check out my shrine on shadowmilk.moe

[pureshadough]

crk cn shamil va did an execution clap cover? apparently??

[pureshadough]

well the CN account posted this to bilibili and like yeah fuck it why not but i don't know if this is his VA there's like zero information rn

[pureshadough]

crk cn shamil va did an execution clap cover? apparently??

[pureshadough]

shadow milk's longing to connect with the witches again permeates everything he does its not even funny

i would go so far as to say he's never even hated them - felt negatively towards, yes, but most of his performance as the beast of deceit has always been a matter of not just lying to others but to Himself about the way he's feeling at a given moment, so to swallow Crushing Abandonment down with a false bravado & prattling on about an intent to kill them when he Absolutely does not have the will to do so is definitely not off the table

what's become evident through pure vanilla's POV in kaleidoscope of the void is that the witches vanished at Basically the Worst Possible Time for the fount, wherein the public's innocent curiosity about cookiekind's nature had curdled into the first question the fount could not answer - be it because he did not know, or because he could not will himself to do so single-handedly - and in the absence of the ability to get a direct answer, this became a point of existentialism for all parties. what do you do when Knowledge itself does not know how to handle a question?

that's why i treat said question as the likely root cause of early earthbread's especially self-destructive tendencies, but in the fount's case his own disillusionment was not because of the nature of the question itself, but because the witches suddenly weren't around to provide an answer (or insight into how to handle a negative reception to one). the fount's unmet call for help left him in a state of confusion and despair - then curiosity and experimentation. lies initially meant to tide over a group of cookies (who were already intent on destroying themselves, regardless of his answer) became deliberate goading;

because if his struggling is not enough to get their attention, then what about a cookie lesser than him?

equal to him?

what about a whole continent's worth of suffering?

and now, thousands of years later, with the revelation that the punishment he once thought they brought on from the sidelines in response was instead at the hands of another cookie, shadow milk's behavior in act 2 escalating to the point it has - a despair-induced, self-destructive pattern that has been amplified to its worst possible extreme by the ultimate dough - would make enough sense all on its own... but also, with each new snippet of info we get about his grand plan to become "the god and messiah of earthbread", the more it starts to sound like a last-ditch effort in the hopes that by following the literal creation myth - something that the fount was likely taught by the witches and internalized early into his existence - that starting earthbread over from scratch will finally force the witches to come back, because that is what they are destined to do. that's how their story has to play out.

so like, all this just makes me wonder what the fuck they're attempting to cook on the side with This

[pureshadough]

No because genuinely I respect those Shadow Milk fans who’ll just defend him with their lives and not care for anything else besides him.

Bc I could never imagine not attaching Pure Vanilla to his side at a constant because of just how canonly soul bound they are, like sorry they’re a package deal I can’t separate ever.

(Do feel like by not enjoying Shadowvanilla even slightly you’re missing out on a good 80% of Shadow Milk’s character and identity tho lol)

I salute them in the most deadass way go defend your blue shart

real asf

[pureshadough]

scraps

[pureshadough]

i do have to give my respects to the diehard shadow milk fans out there who don't care for shadowvanilla in tandem

[pureshadough]

Bonus points to the handful of people out there who are instead profoundly invested in some of the most conceptually specific crackships i have ever heard of

[pureshadough]

i do have to give my respects to the diehard shadow milk fans out there who don't care for shadowvanilla in tandem

[pureshadough]

kefir's downbeat when confronting the beast of ignorance isn't so much conceding to despair and doubt in the fashion that truthless recluse in canon did so much as he just. Forgets. What he's even doing any of this shit for. and i think that's very fun

by gradually losing sight of the virtue of discovery while in orchid's domain kefir is subject to a foreign sense of Stagnation and later a Crisis of Purpose that orchid bends to his personal benefit in getting the dude to simply Give Up. much in the way shmilk has to assemble a careful arrangement of lies to get pure vanilla to break, whittling kefir down is an affair that takes prolonged, patient effort - but by the time the ancient hits that point where orchid can more or less Delete his fucking brain and take the other half of his soul jam back, he realizes there is a spark buried within his heart that Feels Something towards the dude, which is a pretty novel experience for someone who's lived in near-catatonic levels of depression while imprisoned for several thousand years. so he decides to Keep Him.

falling to ignorance leaves kefir in a very dissociative state (even after the fact he really doesn't remember much of his time in orchid's domain prior to his "students" finally locating him and getting him back on his feet, such is the nature of Oblivion) but even when his sense of time and space and self are completely Fucked the one thing that remains true is how completely ENAMORED he is with orchid. upon first hearing of the beast it was seen by others as more of a clinical fascination towards someone (Some Thing) who held the key to the then-unknown history of the virtues he and his allies possessed, but after having his drive to learn AND general cheery persona stripped away that interest was boiled down to the proper Longing that had always been the true undertone.

because kefir, like all of the other modern virtues, is Maladaptive and Traumatized. he is a man who has defined himself by his own shortcomings and is desperate to Understand As Much As Possible in the hopes of one day finding something that makes HIM feel Understood, in turn. even among the other "ancient heroes" he's always been the ensemble's Oddball, even as a successful academic he's always been the Untouchable Savant, even with his newfound allies he is a figure to be Admired and Followed. so to be put in a situation where NONE of that informs his decision making, having no awareness that he ever even had a "mask" to wear to begin with and in the "care" of someone who claims out the gate to know him better than anyone else on earthbread does its like. (voice of guy who just got healer cookie-d an hour ago) You're my other half? And I get to stay with you forever??? Waow. That's so kind of you. It's so nice to feel cared for. It's so nice to feel seen.

[pureshadough]

What does Wilted Orchid think of Kefir? Considering how obsessive Shadow Milk seems to be over Pure Vanilla, I'm curious.

Oh good god what a question

the pastor of knowledge was EASILY the most beloved of his virtue-holding peers - not to suggest they weren't all revered, but the sheer degree of unconditional compassion that the pastor held for cookiekind put him a tier above. this love is precisely what ended up Undoing Him, even, as he inevitably found himself beholden by Purpose to bestow knowledge that would only serve to bring pain and suffering to his own people. after sparing his kingdom of that fate by enveloping all within his reach in Ignorance, he detached himself from the idea of Loving or Giving anything ever again in the process. he could not risk ever exposing others to the burden of truth he shoulders, as much as it hurts to be so terribly, horribly alone

ENTER SHARP FUCKING KEFIR COOKIE, who is Orchids Worst Nightmare with her insatiable curiosity and fascination towards those selfsame "forbidden" truths orchid has dedicated his existence to safeguarding. the beast has never been a stranger to "sparing" (vegetating and/or murdering) any over-curious souls who get too close to the sun in that respect, so when he met his effective Foil properly one-on-one he was VERY prepared for the task of whittling the pioneer of discovery's willpower down into Blissful Nothing. by all accounts it was not a tall ask given what he knew in advance about kefir via everyone's favorite existing canonical methods (post-DF war other realm stalking), so this all went to plan without much in the way of personal investment beyond a broad interest in regaining that other half of the soul jam

The Problems arose AFTER kefir succumbed to ignorance, because in spite of her identity being reduced down to not but Broken Belief, her fascination (affection?!) towards orchid remained an inexplicable constant even when she literally had No fucking idea what was happening or who Either of them were. Orchid's reaction to this was. ????????????? Not describable in human language but mostly Bad. it shifted the dynamic away from Inflicting ignorance as the means to an end (the end is murder) instead towards Thousands of years worth of repressed yearning being dumped onto a Single Guy & gaslighting their Fated Other Half into believing they existed only as an Object for orchid to personally treasure, protecting them *FROM* truth but also protecting them *AS A* truth in their own right as an extremely maladaptive form of reciprocating that affection.

once kefir got his shit together orchid's main response was Terror, Mostly, given how their awakening basically directly entailed them confronting those exact truths that orchid had fought for eons to never, ever let another cookie find out about, but of course kefir embraces that aspect of Knowledge in a capacity that orchid did not, would not, could not. rather than Verbally expressing to him that his methods have been Wrong all this time as is the pattern in canon the awakened ancients very Existence in that moment proved as much. That was the moment orchid realized he hated kefir just as much as he loved him. That was also the moment orchid stopped crying for the first time in several thousand years. Suffice it to say their relationship is kind of complicated in both directions

[98chao]

artfight attack for my friend @pureshadough ..!

[pureshadough]

kefir…………

orchid is that you

[pureshadough]

[pureshadough]

give it up for keforchid summer

[pureshadough]

WALRUS

[pureshadough]

@walrus-tusk-615bc for the love of GOD post that here later please

[pureshadough]

WALRUS

[ruchi-writes]

enemies-to-lovers is about power, actually

I think a lot of people misunderstand why enemies to lovers is so popular. It’s quickly become one of the most pervasive tropes in many novels. Is it the banter, the tension? That’s definitely part of it. But if that were true, then friends-to-lovers and literally any romance with good dialogue and characterization would scratch the same itch. For some, it does, but for many…enemies-to-lovers just hits different. 

My theory is that it isn’t actually about love, not really. I think it fulfils a fantasy that no other trope can provide: the fantasy of being seen as an equal. 

Think about what specifically makes someone an enemy in fiction. It’s not just someone the MC dislikes, it’s someone who can affect them in tangible ways, maybe even have the power to ruin them, challenge their worldview, expose their weaknesses, etc. The relationship begins with conflict because the characters are fundamentally opposed in some way. It doesn’t matter why, but they’re fighting. There is a struggle for dominance. 

I would argue that the most impactful enemies-to-lovers moments are never the romantic moments, they’re the scenes where power shifts. They BOTH lose: they’re forced into a position that would have horrified them at the beginning of the story. They end up needing (or wanting) each other. 

That’s why I think people are often disappointed when a supposed enemies-to-lovers story turns out to be a milquetoast attempt where they’re just kinda mean to each other for a few pages, and then immediately start making out. Where’s the risk, the actual threat? If the characters aren’t capable of genuinely affecting one another, then the relationship isn’t actually transforming in a satisfying way. The appeal is in the fact that they have power over each other, because the eventual trust they build requires real surrender.

Because here’s the thing about enemies; they pay attention, and usually more attention than anyone else. They notice weaknesses because they’re actively looking for them, they notice strengths because they need to account for them. They notice habits, blind spots, ambitions, fears. 

They study the MC with a level of scrutiny that borders (and later crosses) intimate, but unlike friends (or supporting characters in the MC’s corner) they’re not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, they don’t overlook flaws out of affection. Which is exactly what makes the eventual romance so satisfying. It feels earned. 

It’s easy to imagine being loved by someone who sees the best version of you, but it’s an entirely different thing to be loved by someone who has seen you at your worst. That’s why this dynamic often feels more convincing than romances where the characters are immediately into each other.

I imagine there are many who go through life feeling misunderstood, or worse, that the people who love them only love the polished, perfect version they present to the world, almost like impostor syndrome. But what if there was someone who couldn’t be fooled by this carefully constructed image? 

When someone more powerful chooses someone, maybe the fantasy is protection. When it’s someone less powerful, the fantasy might be admiration. But if there’s someone intelligent and observant enough to see the MC as an equal, the fantasy there is the most intense and honest validation. 

Which means enemies to lovers was never about turning hate/annoyance into love, it was about turning power into vulnerability – which is a terrifying loss of power, which THEN leads to intimacy. 

[sunrise-lemon-bar]

Definitely think you're on to something, op. Makes me think of @the-modern-typewriter and her masterpieces.

[the-modern-typewriter]

Yeah, I agree OP. It's about power and vulnerability!

Enemies to lovers at it's best is a wonderfully versatile kind of romance, because in the good ones you get things like:

How do you navigate opposing world views? Who challenges your ideals and values to make you a better person? How do you compromise? Because, in a good enemies-to-lovers, it can't actually be that the antagonist was never right about anything or that the protagonist was perfect, or there wouldn't be that mutual respect/attraction. They affect each other. They change each other.

Sacrifice - it's easy to love your friends, it can be easy to love when it doesn't cost you anything, but loving an enemy? What would you actually give up for love? What wouldn't you? When is love enough and when isn't it?

Redemption - not in the 'sad backstory' way, but in the way that you can be forgiven and loved despite the most monstrous or shameful things you have ever done

All of these themes tie into vulnerability, our sense of self, and our power over ourselves and others.

In a good enemies-to-lovers story I don't think it can ever feel like they are just together because it's a romance story. You have to earn it.

Enemies-to-lovers interrogates what it means to love, and how we define love, in a way that I don't think other genres do as much. But I'm also hopelessly biased so!

[pureshadough]

iam worlds slowest animatic maker