#cookie analysis

[lych33dragoncookie]

Oh look, another update that the fandom has whined and complained about that I enjoyed oh so very thoroughly. Everything ranged from standard & interesting to outright delightful. And you all know me; you know what parts of it I found delightful. Let's talk about that, really quickly!

Shadow Milk Cookie is now, in every sense but the literal, a parasite.

Spoilers below the cut. It's time for Holly to ramble on about her clown again.

Oh, you beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bastard.

If you couldn't tell by now, I adore, utterly ADORE when villains get to be thoroughly horrifying and despicable. And this update gave us SO much to chew on in that regard, when it comes to Shadow Milk.

For one, I adore the fragmentation he displayed in that first cutscene he got. The multiple souls and consciousnesses present within him as a result of him pretty much eating the Ultimate Cookie are clearly taking their toll; and if I had to guess, those MEAN ass comments that were flung his way were likely a direct byproduct of having anyone BUT himself present in his mind, for once. An outside perspective, souls who see him for how utterly pathetic and self-destructive he is.

On a more functional level, though... this combination is a terrifying one. The Ultimate Cookie is a being of subsumption. It seeks to add all life to itself, and reach a state where all are one. You combine this with Shadow Milk Cookie, someone full of wrath and desperate for control, and what you get is something utterly catastrophic. A parasite, who will spread itself and remake the world in its own image, who will DELIGHT in the suffering of those it makes itself a part of. This is no longer an urge to survive or not be lonely or anything of the sort; it is the impulse to spread combined with a valley's worth of spite. And nowhere is this more evident...

Than in what he did to Silent Salt Cookie.

This? This is absolutely grotesque. Silent Salt was trapped in his grasp, and pumped full of souls until they started erupting out of his body, while he screamed in agony. This isn't just revenge, this isn't just getting back at someone, this is a horrific display. Personhood and autonomy ripped away, replaced with Shadow Milk's very own will, an entire person distorted and forcefully bent into a different shape. There is truly little more despicable a villain can do than to take someone and force them to become something else, something more useful, and to delight in the physical agony that process causes.

The worst part of it? This isn't even part of the whole "Ultimate Cookie making Shadow Milk act unstable and erratic" thing. This is perfectly in line with things like what he did in Vanquisher of Darkness, and not too far off from his usual methods. This euphoria, this delight at seeing Silent Salt in pain, his body forcefully transformed, Shadow Milk's very essence bursting out of him, it's all his own.

And then?

He does similar to Elder Faerie Cookie. Reduces him to nothing more than an energy source, something to fuel his propagation, to reach further through the world and make it all his own.

Through spreading himself across this world, making it all merely a part of himself, he has become its god. The parasite spread, further and further, until it became the world itself. What happened to Silent Salt could not have been unique, either. Oh, no, absolutely not. Knowing what happened to him, and seeing what the future ended up becoming...

Chances are, he did this to ALL of his former "friends". Put a little bit of himself in them, let the souls work their magic, and shape them into something else entirely. Even his past self... there can only be one star of the show after all, right? It must have felt so thoroughly satisfying to snuff out that weakness and repurpose it for something greater.

I'm not quite sure how to transition out of this post. All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed every little bit regarding Croissant Cookie and Timekeeper Cookie as well, and that I was genuinely giggling and stimming like crazy any time this asshole pulled something absolutely horrendous that could not by any extent of the imagination ever be justified.

Villain-fanatics are eating quite well this update, are we not?

[lych33dragoncookie]

Only the masterpieces that survive the fiercest flames earn their place in history.

(Analysis post)

Alright, they absolutely cooked this update. Like, undeniably so. I was admittedly not that huge of a fan of the last 2 beast yeast chapters we got; they had really good ideas, and Mystic Flour is a wonderful character, but... Dark Cacao hasn't really been done enough with for it to feel like it had the amount of weight it could have, and it really doesn't feel like much about him actually changed at all. Combine that with a complete lack of interesting dynamics and you have a lot of very good and genuinely pretty well thought out story concepts with extensive cultural research, executed in a way that feels more like a traditional old-school story that weakens the attachment the audience feels to the components of said story.

Here, though? I have no complaints so far. It was absolutely wild in fact, to the point where I don't think it's gonna happen again (nor am I entirely sure it should ever happen again). This was back to back, non-stop, smack to the face one after the other. The moment the first point of conflict came up, it was just shit happening left and right; even in the mandatory moment of rest where we chill out for a bit, it's revealed that hey, these sandstorms? Yeah the sand is actually ashes. It's the remains of all the people that live here. Whether they died off on their own or were killed by someone else.

And if that wasn't enough, very shortly after;

... It's fucking crack.

So, people die and kill each other here very frequently, and not only are their remains visibly on display, their ashes also become sandstorms that make it near impossible to navigate the land; on top of being something that people snort like cocaine to become more energetic and aggressive.

We started fucking wild, dude. This whole thing is pulling no punches.

Though, I do wanna note; I really, really enjoyed the interactions between Smoked Cheese and Golden Cheese. It shows not only how forgiving she is, but how these two have known each other for an incredibly long time, and know each other well. They're incredibly comfortable around each other, despite it all, and despite how brazen and Very Much Not Strategic the queen here can be. I really, really enjoyed them.

Always fun to see a recovering villain do things for good, but in their own unique way that's still not exactly heroic but definitely effective and, at times, very gratifying.

Though I enjoyed all this, there's one thing I wanna talk about above all else.

The star of the show. Note that every single part was enjoyable, of course, and he wouldn't be half as interesting without Golden Cheese Cookie to serve as a parallel, but they've cooked up something special here.

So far, Burning Spice's extent of onscreen appearance is very, very short, but... I don't think I need to tell you that he's already made an impact and a half.

Christ, that's violent. With the sound effects and everything too, god damn. But, I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a pretty superficial source of judgement for this character. It's very very telling of what kind of person he is now, what he's all about, what he's willing to do, what he likes doing, but...

More than anyone else in recent memory, the devil is in the details. So let's look at those details.

Nothing too much so far, other than how much he absolutely loves destruction, but there's already a trend; namely on "Nothing lasts forever. It's as simple as that", "In the end, everything becomes dust.", and "You, too, shall see that destruction is the only way.". There seems to be an infatuation with the natural process of everything fading away, turning to dust and dying out. An entirely honest one, believing that there is just about nothing else to life. These will be important to keep in mind.

Here, we see a bit of his current relationship with his own immortality. He doesn't seem to mind the idea of losing it, finding something that may eventually take him down, but he still takes great pride in it. These lines, in text, seem somewhat miserable (and trust me, they definitely are), but the voicework in just about every language conveys that they are said in a more neutral, even potentially proudly manner. Again, not much on their own, but...

Here's where we get into the fun part.

This. This is the crux of their character. At the start, him and Golden Cheese cookie were more or less the same. Benevolent royalty, close and personal with their subjects. Beloved, and loving.

And then, they lost it all.

One way or another, their kingdoms were lost, reduced to almost nothing. They were overcome by grief, desperate, unable to cope with their loss. One tried to latch on as hard as possible. Preserve what she could, blindly, replacing the harsh truth of reality with an idealized, constructed world, where no one would ever have to know pain ever again. She shut herself off, and retreated in the safety and peace of a false reality. She would rather have lied to both herself and all her subjects than face reality. And eventually, she had to learn to move on. Let herself and her kingdom heal more naturally, facing reality. The other, meanwhile, was desperate to let go. He detached himself, trying to move past the pain of loss. But, of course, he couldn't force it to happen. No one can. And so with the grief of losing that which he held dear, continuing to be faced with the reality that nothing is forever, over and over, while he endured, the world slowly turning to ash around them again and again... It's no wonder something in there eventually cracked.

What will it take to destroy me. Nothing is forever, and yet, I am.

Nothing is forever. And yet, I am.

With time, misery turned to mania, and in an attempt to overcome their grief, they embraced it, in the worst way possible. A coping mechanism gone horrendously wrong. That destruction, that loss, the inevitability of death... It's not painful, no. It doesn't have to be. It can be thrilling. Exhilarating. A new reason to live. If all you care about turns to dust anyways, if that's really the only logical destination... Why not have some fun with it? Why not embody that inevitable, unstoppable force? Why not become what you fear, so you no longer have to be afraid anymore?

... You know, at least that's what I think is going on here. The next chapter could contradict this reading, but... From what all we have right now, it seems like Golden Cheese and Burning Spice are two completely different paths for the exact same type of pain. They are, in a way, the same, but diverge in almost complete opposite ways where it counts.

Spice is genuinely equal parts absolutely terrifying and absolutely miserable; a balance that is incredibly hard to strike in writing, but always absolutely fascinating and wonderful to observe when it happens. I have to say, the more I found out about them, the more I couldn't keep my eyes off everything they have going on.

I'm loving every little bit of this update. Mad props to the devs for cooking something up here that I am genuinely incredibly invested in, almost to the same degree as White Lily and Dark Enchantress. Banger update. Absolute S tier material.

TL;DR: Burning Spice is terrifying, miserable, and ridiculously cool. Everything about this update was an absolute merciless flurry of consecutive gut-punches. And I loved every second of it.

... Now we sit and wait for Shadow Milk's release next year.

[lych33dragoncookie]

So, like... Anyone mind telling me when this fanbase gaslit themselves into believing all the psychological manipulation stuff Shadow Milk did in his main 2 Beast Yeast episodes was done purely out of loneliness or longing or whatever? Sure he started getting weird about it near the later half and DEFINITELY strange about it near the end there but...

Come on, don't genuinely try to look me in the eyes and tell me he did any of that because he felt like he had to or because he was lonely. In part, yes; that's why he was so damn happy to see Pure Vanilla start seemingly seeing things his way, and start acting more like Shadow Milk himself, but... that's not it. That's not JUST it. There's more. Of course, there's more. Do you lot not get it by now? He loves... LOVES, suffering. He. Loves. It.

"Oh but he doesn't-" What? Doesn't enjoy this? Doesn't like it? Isn't on board with it? Wrong again.

He loves every little bit of it. He's totally on board, and seems to consider this its own fun little form of art. "Oh but that's not manipulation" yeah, this instance isn't. He's just here to mess a little with Wind Archer. It's here to show just how sadistic he is, and how he draws absolutely no lines in the sand whatsoever so long as it's entertaining. Now, if you want to see him toy with someone else for his own amusement and sheer desire to inflict harm on a psychological and emotional level...

This last instance in particular is really amusing to me. We see him pull this exact little gambit again, on Pure Vanilla Cookie... I suppose he has his own preferred little methods of getting what he wants, hm~? He has quite a good read on them both, too. He knows they're each other's rocks; just as well as they are each other's weakspots. Such is the nature of trust and a tight-knit bond, isn't it? Something he'll gladly take advantage of... And, the best part is, HE LEFT HIS MARK ON HER! Oh, he did...

Though, that's not too hard to do, is it? It's more like... tearing at holes in already-torn fabric. Honestly, I cannot imagine how much restraint it must have taken to pull them away from each other at the spire... though, he probably got a chuckle out of watching them fall right into his little trick; playing at each's sense of doing what must be done no matter what, their little obsession with fate... and, besides, they probably expected to get separated sooner or later, anyways, right? It's just such an obvious, beautifully obvious little bit of bait... and they took it hook line and sinker, just like he wanted them to. There is no way he didn't get at least a little bit of amusement out of that.

Ah, but, we really haven't gotten to the most severe example of what he's really capable of, have we? It's an example people barely ever explore, frankly. And, I can't blame them! The focus is on someone else for just about the entire chapter, and at first glance she can just sort of be disregarded as a bit of a trope ball, but... trust me, she's the biggest example I could possibly provide. Not White Lily, not Pure Vanilla...

Her.

Oh, but she's so happy obeying his every whim! Serving him with her whole life! Doing absolutely everything to earn even the slightest of his affections, no matter what! Yes, exactly, my dear strawman; and that's exactly what's wrong here.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Most of the time, people aren't created a certain way. What someone is comes as a result of how they're molded, be it by themselves or their environment. The shape a person takes is not determined by their creation, but rather their experiences thereafter. Now, dear reader, think for a moment;

Could this possibly, possibly be natural? Could this possibly be the result of anything other than hard, cold, deep-rooted conditioning? He threatened to kill her. He. Threatened. To. Kill her. And she didn't flinch. Not for a moment. As a matter of fact, she went right back to adoring him, ceaselessly, without any hesitation in her heart. Eager, as always.

You can't tell me she was made like this. You can't tell me this comes from a sincere place of love, care and affection; a nurturing of any kind. If it were, how could she take a death threat so lightly, act like it never happened, not even act at all scared as a result? No, my dear reader, no... She wasn't made like this. This isn't natural. Why would it be? How could it be? Remember...

The act of Shadow Milk turning to deceit, deciding to make the world his', turn it into his stage; that act was what created Candy Apple Cookie. He was set in his goals, already, by the time she was made. Now, with the previous information about his character given... What do you think happened?

Here you are, having decided you're the one above all. That the world shall be yours, all yours, and only yours. And, now having embraced the power to do exactly that, you've been given something interesting. A blank slate. Someone who didn't have a life before you. Someone who was never given the chance to be their own person. Someone who only knows that they were created as a result of your actions. Someone who, with very little effort, could be whatever you want them to be.

Is it any wonder her obsession runs so deep? Is it any wonder she won't flinch at the threat of him ending her life? Is it any wonder the possibility of any, any kind of attention from him is all that fuels her every action? No. It's all she's ever known. He's all she's ever known. And, chances are, he made sure of that.

It really doesn't feel like his neglect of her is exactly something he doesn't realize he's doing, either. He treats Black Sapphire Cookie so much better, with so much more respect, calls upon him constantly... and yet, little Candy Apple Cookie is left there on the sidelines. Waiting. Hoping that eventually, maybe, someday, her devotion and efforts will be rewarded. And, I ask you, dear reader; why would she do this, if she didn't know what she was looking for? What she wanted?

Do you not see the picture forming, here? He knows what he's doing. He was given a blank slate, someone he could mold however he wanted. He had to make her like this. The praise he gives to Black Sapphire Cookie; who's to say Candy Apple Cookie's never known it? That, when she had been more recently created, the two weren't more actively involved with each other? That Shadow Milk didn't recognize her efforts, didn't praise her, didn't give her the kind of attention he currently gives his other underling... Only to stop doing that. Slowly. Slowly, but surely. Leave her hungry. Leave her wanting more. Make sure she dedicates her every living breath to trying to get it back. To getting back the only thing she's ever known. To keep trying and trying to please the very reason she exists, the only one she's ever had, no matter what.

Now, I know this isn't exactly in the text, but... are these really farfetched assumptions to make, knowing him? No. No they aren't. Specially considering just how deeply ingrained all of this seems to be for poor little Candy Apple Cookie. Is it any surprise? The whole damn world is supposed to be in his hands, anyways. She belongs to him, as far as he's concerned. He couldn't care less. And she'll likely never realize that, because this is all she's ever known.

... Candy Apple Cookie's whole existence is just miserable, isn't it?

Ahem.

I hope I've made my point. Never once was all that stuff he did in Beast Yeast 7 & 8 just about Pure Vanilla Cookie. I feel like I've proven demonstrably enough that this is all him. He loves inflicting pain. He loves tearing his little playthings apart bit by bit. He's powerful, extremely so, but he'd rather put in the effort to make sure he breaks those he takes an interest in, instead of just destroying them outright. He holds no regard for anyone but himself, and he knows damn well how to make someone feel despair crushing their very being, slowly and painfully. He's not misunderstood. He's not just weird and unable to carry out his desires normally. He's an enormous sadist who loves taking control and playing with his food as much as he can, delighting in every single moment of suffering; knowing just what heartstrings to pull at to break someone.

He may be lonely, but that's a mere byproduct. He did this to himself. None of this is a facade. It's not a farce. It never was.

You're not looking at a victim. You're looking at a monster. He knows damn well what he is. And he loves being who he is. No matter how deeply unfulfilling it may be. It's all he could ever want to be.

... And I love that about him. Oh, how utterly so. <3

[lych33dragoncookie]

Please do rambling on both black sapphire and candy apple PLEASE!!!! I'M BEGGING YOU TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND ANALYZE ABOUT BOTH OF THEM!!!! I'M TRYING TO GATHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE TWO FOR MY COOKIE RUN KINGDOM AU AND I'VE BEEN GETTING INFORMATION BUT THEY'RE NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH!!! SO THAT'S WHERE YOU COMING RAMBLE ON ABOUT THEM I DON'T CARE HOW LONG IT IS OR HOW LONG IT TAKES JUST PLEASE DO IT IF YOU WANT TO!!!!

Oho!!! Trust me, I will gladly provide my own takes on them without hesitation, because I have pretty strong feelings about both, specially Candy Apple.

I feel like starting with her is the best choice, for that matter; because boy, are a lot of her deeper character traits horrendously overlooked. I've actually talked quite a bit about her before, particularly in this post. But, to summarize; She's fucking miserable.

This is someone who won't so much as flinch at being threatened with death by her master (Remember that little card rip scene, everybody? Come on, no matter how much you ignore it, it will always be there.), whose whole sense of self is centered solely around him. And, knowing Shadow Milk, this is likely by design. People aren't made a certain way. People aren't born innately possessing certain personality traits or behaviors. Everything develops around their circumstances, and the choices both they and those around them make. Consider, now, how much weight she seems to give to the fact that Shadow Milk Cookie is responsible for her creation. The likeliest thing is that the adoration wasn't ever innate, but rather taught. Drilled into her head, made out to be the only thing that could ever give her any worth. That he's the only person she could or should ever love.

I also want to make a strict delineation that the father-daughter dynamic so many people seem to project upon them is one that is NEVER implied, and outright disproven by the fact her interest in Shadow Milk seems to be outright romantic. Lines about her wanting him to be hers' and the like—and while I don't like bringing up April Fools artwork, it's still an official depiction of her owning body pillows of him, which I think someone would never fucking do with a parental figure.

Either way, I feel like her desperate adoration and unrequited love for Shadow Milk is something that's there by his own design. After all, if you let someone know what love or attention taste like, they'll be all the more desperate to get it back when it's suddenly gone. We have to take into account that the act of biting into the Apple of Deceit happened a long time ago, and that Shadow Milk was likely the first of the beasts to corrupt, so he could very easily have given her attention and praise for a little while when she was getting started out as his underling, then drop the pretense and start purposefully ignoring her unless she's made him angry. Doesn't matter how badly he treats her, since she'll always have the memory of those little crumbs of attention to hold on to and keep chasing until the bitter end.

A headcanon I particularly like, provided by one of my partners, is that at some point or another, she might have actually tried to break free of his grasp, go out into the world, find someone who actually loves her. But, she's socially inexperienced, she's only known him, and she's ultimately not exactly the most emotionally stable. Whether by bad luck or Shadow Milk's own doing, her efforts went horribly wrong, and her heart was broken; with only one person to crawl back to. And, perhaps, when she returned, he gave her a warm welcome. Make her think that yes, this is the only one she could ever love, the only one who could ever be right for her. Of course, followed up only with more neglect; so she'll have something to chase after and stay loyal and eager for. ... Yes, this is a Harley Quinn type headcanon, bite me. She's always been a Harley to me, and I think that's the route that makes her relationship with Shadow Milk the most interesting.

Right, so, uh.

I won't have as much to say about Black Sapphire. Sorry! ^_^'' that said, I do have some stuff to say about him, because he is interesting in his own right.

First things first; while Candy Apple was incidentally made by Shadow Milk, I believe Black Sapphire is absolutely nothing of the sort.

While Candy Apple Cookie's powers and immortality are probably innate, there's reason to believe that Black Sapphire was "blessed" with his position rather than being born into it. I've seen a few people HC that he was originally an inhabitant of the Faerie Kingdom, and while it would be neat to imagine Shadow Milk pulling a fast one on that accursed old man by snatching away one of his precious little faeries, it feels quite implausible. Faeries seem to keep their wings no matter what, judging by Sugarfly Cookie's being tattered yet still somewhat functional. You could interpret that his wings got turned into the little devil wings, but the positioning on them is all wrong compared to the other faeries; add on top of that the lack of any other Faerie design traits, and it really doesn't seem likely. The option I find more likely and also more interesting is the notion that he was one of Shadow Milk's students, back when he was (or still tried to pass himself off as) the Fount of Knowledge, and that this is one of the very very very few that actually fully embraced Deceit, interested in the sheer power a manifestation of it could hold. His respect for Shadow Milk is most likely like that of an underling for a mob boss, based almost entirely on power, capability and prestige. Not highly personal, unlike Candy Apple Cookie's.

Either way, his respect and loyalty to Shadow Milk Cookie as opposed to the Fount of Knowledge would have gotten him on the good graces of the master of deceit, and enabled him to be blessed into immortality. I don't think he was ever corrupted; more likely is that he was like many other curious minds we've seen before in CRK, willing to play with morality a little to push the boundaries of what's possible. Creative, dangerously so.

Oh, and for the big one;

I am a believer that Shadow Milk played a hand in the fall of the other four beasts. And this particular line has stuck out to me ever since someone pointed it out to me. A rumor. A false rumor was spread, and it caused Mystic Flour's meditation to be disrupted by her being struck down by greedy cookies.

As pointed out in his bio, Black Sapphire Cookie spreads rumors on Shadow Milk's behalf; with a magical influence of sorts to make people more drawn to believing them. We saw him do this in Episode 8, too; disguising himself as a common cookie, and spreading rumors that would cause conflict and chaos across all of Earthbread.

Both of Shadow Milk's underlings have been around for a while; ever since he bit into the Apple of Deceit, at minimum. And if he was the first to corrupt, then... Yeah, I'm almost entirely certain that Black Sapphire Cookie (on Shadow Milk Cookie's behalf) is responsible for putting the final nail in Mystic Flour's coffin. Stop her from any sort of recovery, and make sure she spirals into the worst possible path.

With that out of the way, something about both of these little underlings that I've had on my mind for a while now, but that I've never said much on:

I think Candy Apple Cookie and Black Sapphire Cookie both closely reflect different traits of Shadow Milk Cookie. A sort of separation of the Left Brain and Right Brain, so to speak.

This is more nebulous and not something I can provide solid evidence for, but it's something I feel is worth noting, anyways. While playing through Episode 8 all the way back when it released, I started noticing something interesting. Both of Shadow Milk's underlings seem to reflect two sides of him.

Candy Apple Cookie is impulsive, obsessive, emotional, prone to fits of childish rage and focused strictly on one subject of obsession. This mirrors Shadow Milk's own emotions, his weird obsession with Pure Vanilla, his sheer emotional instability and volatility. The part that desires and that wants to get its way no matter what, and which will become extremely irritated or downright wrathful if things don't go its way. Obsession, desire, anger. Who Shadow Milk Cookie is, no matter what he expresses or what impression he wants to give off.

Black Sapphire Cookie, meanwhile, represents the more outwardly nasty side of Shadow Milk. The part that thinks. The manipulation, the cunning, the plans, the showmanship. The decisions made, the act of setting the stage. The part that enables his sadism, that makes elaborate multi-step plans both to get what he wants and to maximize suffering, the part which hates when things don't go as they were planned, unless it's to its benefit. Planning, game-mastering, conniving. Who Shadow Milk chooses to be, and who he chose to be a long, long time ago.

Of course, to try and split Shadow Milk Cookie himself into two this way would be reductive; Candy Apple Cookie and Black Sapphire Cookie exist as they are, their traits often clashing but rarely entangling. In Shadow Milk's case, both of these "halves" are deeply intertwined, and result in someone with a colossal fucking god complex who is extremely sadistic and who will never connect with anyone as a result of feeling that no one else could ever be as important. ... Though, it's very telling from this lens, that Candy Apple Cookie is neglected, while Black Sapphire Cookie is respected, prioritized and praised, isn't it? Of course he'd have a higher fondness for the one who aligns more with who he wants to be.

With that, that's about all I have to say about these two, compiled into one neat little pile.

Ahem. I didn't intend for this post to get this long. Guess that's how you know I'm getting back into the swing of things, eh?

[halffizzbin]

rafu-sen replied to your post: umbralillium replied to your post: i wonder what...

oh so like moonpies

Yes SORT of, same basic components, except there's only one graham cracker and the marshmallow part is huger.