I going to be a bit controversial, but the soul jam aren’t evil they’re just doing their job..
I mean they was also make by the witch too!! Soo they was also give the task that beast was also give.
Did everyone forget about that !!!!
also they hold no body or right of emotional.only the job of the task. So yeah they may be cold and a jerk but they was just do the only thing they know .
I image late in the story.
Light of solidarity begins to learn more about being alive and realize so much to the point that they regret their choices ..
i think it would have been a lot better if soul jam was just what caused the CRK timeline to exist rather than being an essential part of cookiekind.
like maybe the witches created them to govern and shape cookie society specifically, rather than the flow of the world in general. perhaps the other timelines didn't because they wanted to see the cookies develop independently. also, the dragons and guardians should be significantly stronger than them (beasts included!)
CRK End of Arc 1/BY Episode 15 Thoughts: The loss of Potential
Ok, so basically, this is kind of both a #vent and opinion piece of my thoughts on how the whole thing ended (Spoiler: I didn't like it)
If you liked it that's fine, feel free to scroll pass. I just need to get it out somewhere.
TL; DR here: I wanted more interactions between the Beasts and Ancients, especially between Salt and Pure Vanilla who have the strongest similar but opposing values as well as Shadow Milk and White Lily who are extremely similar in nature to the point of almost being the same cookie, with the strongest point between them being their affection for Pure Vanilla. I had wanted so much more than what we got with the update; my expectations may have been high, but holy fuck the update needed to be cooked more.
The ending wasn't bad, imo?
Like, it hit certain beats well, when it was aiming for it, but it missed the marks on a lot of other aspects
But more disappointing is the loss of potential.
I don't necessarily mind Shadow Milk becoming the next big bad or absorbing the other dying Beasts as a sort of selfish/desperate action, but I am sad that the Ancients/Beasts never had the moment to interact outside of their "other halves".
Like Golden Cheese never had a chance to talk to Eternal Sugar, especially about how closely their goals align and how Eternal Sugar would feel and understand Golden Cheese
Burning Spice never had a chance to battle Dark Cacao or to belittle Pure Vanilla for being so "soft", and only had a singular interaction with Hollyberry.
Hollyberry never got a chance to interact with Mystic Flour in regards to being able to let go of the past (which is something Hollyberry, despite her awakening, is still struggling with).
But more infuriatingly, Shadow Milk and Lily (despite the former actually admiring and (on some level, arguably) understanding her in a way few cookies were able to do and the latter being a student at Shadow Milk's school when he was implied to have been the headmaster of) NEVER interacted again past episode 1 & 2. Never! And this is when Elder Faerie clearly meant a lot to Lily, who had to sacrifice himself to bring her back to stop Shadow Milk cookie. Like. that
(And no, I am not counting the persona Shadow Milk had when testing Pure Vanilla and White Lily cookie, because that could have easily been Shadow Milk or it could have been Black Sapphire, and either way, I don't count it.)
There are other iterations and interactions, including White Lily cookie with the other Beasts, and Silent Salt's view on the other Ancients (does he approve of them? Would he attempt to Judge them as well? Would he also kill them, if he deemed them unworthy of the Soul Jams?).
But the one missed interaction between Salt and the Ancients, that disappointed me the most is Silent Salt and Pure Vanilla cookie did not interact once. Not! Once!
And they arguably had the biggest conflict locked and loaded between them! Silent Salt wanted the Beasts Dead, and Pure Vanilla wants to give the Beasts (especially Shadow Milk, for obvious reasons) a second chance.
(To be fair, Hollyberry also wants Sugar to be redeemed and not be a Beast anymore, but Pure Vanilla (In My Opinion) was/is working towards it by attempting to talk with/work with Shadow Milk - who was resistant and stubborn against it - whereas Hollyberry seems to want Sugar to work it out on her own by herself, to not great results.)
Silent Salt should have been able to stab Pure Vanilla cookie for having the view the Beasts could be redeemed! For thinking Dark Enchantress cookie - who, in Salt's mind - could also be redeemed, and asking her to stop. Like, Salt should have (at bare minimum) attempted to murder Pure Vanilla cookie, if not outright succeed! There should have been a conflict between Silent Salt and White Lily cookie in regards to Pure Vanilla cookie! Because it was due to Pure Vanilla cookie being by Lily's side, supporting her, that allowed her to attempt to take the first steps towards redemption, to be better cookie than she had been before and to try and trust others again, to walk towards Freedom! Meanwhile, while he is attempting to do the best he can in his terrible mental state, Silent Salt is still stuck in his ways and being a stubborn and uncompromising Beast believing that the strong should always be strong, that the weaknesses were on the part of the Beasts and not also at the hands of Cookiekind. Had Lily been a virtue, God-made, Salt would have never forgiven her, nor allowed any second chances.
There should have been more drama between the Ancients and the Beasts, especially between Ancients, with Pure Vanilla admitting that he wants to be Shadow Milk's cookie friend to the other Ancients! The Beasts should have been allowed to react to that and realize Shadow Milk was hiding more than they initially anticipated with his Ancient. Silent Salt should have attempted to take out another "flawed" soul jam holder Pure Vanilla cookie, and there should have been a strong negative reaction from not only White Lily cookie but also Shadow Milk cookie! Shadow Milk and White Lily should have been forced to team up to protect/save Pure Vanilla cookie from Silent Salt cookie!
There could have been so much more, and in this update, we got approximately jack shit of it.
We only got the Beasts interactions, and NOTHING between the Ancients and Beasts interactions.
Hell, we barely got any interactions between the Ancients! Even with White Lily cookie dying in front of them, none of them went to Pure Vanilla and wept with him, they just kept their distance! they barely felt like friends in that moment.
And also, this thing:
This creature? I hate this thing.
it's not deserved. There is currently, at the time of this post, no explanation, no reason, and no purpose as to why Lily's and Salt's soul jam should have fused together into the Soul Jam of Solidarity. Nor why it fused to attack Shadow Milk cookie.
(I have seen people call it the Soul Jam of Hope, and I refuse to call it that until the story itself explains what the hell this is and why this happened.)
Literally, this ruined the tragic ending they were going for, and made the vibe weird.
Because even though another one of their Best Friends died in front of them - AGAIN! Because Pure Vanilla pulled that shit the first time, and it traumatized them all! - they were all shown to be happy and celebrating instead of mourning her passing! Lily dying is not a good thing! The narrative made it clear that when Pure Vanilla did it, it was a desperate action and also a bad idea and also that he needed to work WITH people!
and yet, Lily ended up returning to nature for no clear reason (IMO, because I was blindsided by her death as were at least ten others).
Really kills the vibe. Plus, with timekeeper coming into play, there's almost certainly the possibility that this is all going to be undone by some time-travel bullshit, so a lot of what happened here will be rendered moot.
There's more, somewhere, I could say, but I am tired and angry of this update.
Maybe social media isn't helping but hooly fuck, this was a disappointing way to end the 5th anniversary.
Beast-Yeast ending, thoughts, conclusions and so on (not a story analysis, more of general thoughts)
almost finished BY 15 of crk
on 15-15 to be exact, playing Destiny's Plan levels rn
and a small... not retrospective but kinda yeah. thoughts in general under the cut
little backstory - I checked Twitter the moment I could the day update came out and couldn't watch it the way I wanted until yesterday and I've been playing the update with small pauses this whole weekend stopping to play events and such
so I was well aware of what people thought and what people are thinking rn when it comes to this update, new character and the story in general, I've muted a fair amount of people just to get rid of the posts about the leaks and not the ACTUAL story bc it's like 3 hours long and not many actually played through everything at that point
and yet still even with the story only more critisism came up and only more people were pissed off at so many things and I... wasn't
just in general wasn't - it's my whole thing with ANY storyline in ANY story - let the writers and creators in general tell the story the way they want to tell it, and if they're affected by the audience (in some cases) keep that in mind as well
and I did, I played through every single story and if I didn't I was well aware of the events that happened there and how do they connect to what
and so when it was time for BY 13-15 I was ready for the worst.
White Lily Cookie was basically wearing "I will die" necklace while Silent Salt Cookie wasn't ever hiding that he will probably die and take other Beasts with him
so I was ready for many things, I sure wasn't ready for the act that people would go crazy like they're of the Shonen Jump manga's fandom yelling about leaks without even remembering the story
joke's on you. I was like that as well I enjoy the process of deciphering the actual story behind the leaks
but I ALWAYS take them with a spoonful of salt (not enough to kill though) bc usually leaks are phrased in a way that is not indicative of the full picture and manga chapters just don't have it in them to fully break that
so when I saw posts of people assuming the worst and making up their own story I thought 'wow this doesn't sound like crk I know at all' because it wasn't
I played though 90% of the chapter and not at ANY point was I feeling like the story didn't connect to the previous points at least not emotional ones, it is NOT a logical story, it's emotional one
of course at the lowest point Sugar Swan shows up bc it's a type of story like that
ever heard of lotr? ever heard of mythical stories of heroes saving the day when all seemed lost? no??? too bad. because BY storyline as well as Crispia storyline is written in this manner
Beasts were ALWAYS written like tragic figures and it's no surprise they're given this kind of an ending after all
level Trajectory was one of my favorites of the whole BY 15 and I'd be honest - it's one of my favorites in BY storyline in general if only for the fact that it is just a set of moments of EVERYTHING from before in chronological order AND a way to remind you who you're dealing with
and so, why did I startt talking in general about it all if people are literally hated for saying anything positive?
because I liked the story.
and because I think that projecting the fact that the story didn't fit your view while fair, I did so myself couple of times and I'm not proud of those moments, is NOT what any kind of story deserves
I am a person, who was craving this kind of ending and a story that has a balance of sad, hopeful and tragic ever since I first started reading BY storyline back in November 2024 and read through BY 7-8 in winter of 2025, I WAITED for the fandom to have at least ONE story to closely walk with the actual canon and show me what I waited for, and I didn't find anything
and to be fair it's not like that ever happened before - fandoms in general have a bad habit of ignoring the canon, it's normal and if done right even entertaining - I had my fair amount of fics and AUs written over the years that ignore canon just for concepts I'm no saint
but at the end of the day canon is what the real story decides to go with.
...
Imagine a storyteller in the library that tells a story every week
But day to day their audience change and some decide to take their friends with them, maybe they missed couple of days, the other people would tell them missed details, and they would imagine how the Storyteller told them while not exactly knowing the actual story, since the Storyteller might've used different phasing
Weeks go by, story changes, Storyteller has the story they wanted to tell in mind, but the people are growing dissatisfied because of so many missed moments and oh so many things
They've created their own stories that didn't match with what the Storyteller was telling, so they left and never came back, telling behind the Storyteller's back that their story was awful that they hate it
And then. the story ended. Storyteller told their audience that next week they will tell something different, because the story ended with a promise of a character now following any story that they might tell
And the past audience that was so small it felt so insignificant came back just to be dissapointed again, maybe some of them heard the rumors how the story would end and they were immediaty dissapointed
No one could actually tell at that point and the story was over, people would then go on and argue of the meaning of this in a following week
While if anyone actually had listened to the story in full as it was intended without making up wishes and being dissapointed by them not being fullfilled like oh so many people were… maybe they would focus of the positive, maybe not, but that's their own experience
...
I don't know the specifics of the kitchen of crk and I can in no way say that what I just told is in any way reflective of that, but it's how I see it and how I approach stories in general
I love fairy tales, always did.
I love tragic endings, they make me feel something and envoke emotions that happy endings don't
I love hopeful stories, that have their own balance and lessons we can take away
so when it came to crk I left at one point feeling like the story I liked of White Lily Cookie, of existential questions and tragedy changed into something else, and I wasn't interested in that as much as I wish I would
I didn't really like the period of crk when we only ever met a new Legendary or trio just kept meeting the Ancients, but it was all important in the end and I couldn't have been happier to learn that last year
I love Beast-Yeast, I dislike how Silent Salt Cookie was treated as if he wasn't the most dislikeable Beast because of his sense of justice and a wish to kill all Beasts, himself included, I did enjoe that story bit, but in no way was I a fan of the whole "wow this cookie is so stuck in his own head!!! he didn't even try to understand anything!!!" part of the story
but that's what makes an interesting story, if I liked every cookie of crk it wouldn't have worked
it seems as if people who hate Shadow Milk Cookie don't really know that.
but this is not the post about that, this is the post of retrospection, and even if I haven't yet seen the actual ending of 15-15 I'm getting ready to mourn White Lily Cookie just how I mourned her all those years before, thinking she would never be playable because I didn't believe in the story
and yet Beast-Yeast happened and as it turned out it was all just setting up the best storyline I knew
because I love stories like this.
I didn't hear about a cookie named Shadow Milk Cookie even once when I returned in January of 2024 THE Beast-Yeast update and was thinking the Ancient gacha was just as bad as it was before and also my phone was glitching REALLY badly at that point when playing crk
it still is, but I adapted to that
in any case I was not aware of ANYTHING when starting my playthrough of Beast-Yeast in November of 2024 nor was I aware of anything when playing in October, I was just back for yearly "what did I miss" check that I did every year since 2022
and yet the moment I started BY 2, after somewhat following BY 1 with "I'm ready to be really dissapointed don't bother" mindset, and heard the music and read some of the lines I was hooked, immediatly despite everything in my brain YELLING for me to stop and not get my hopes up that well... I was SURE White Lily Cookie would never be playable, was SURE if we didn't know about Golden Cheese Cookie something happened and she would ALSO not be playable... yet she is and she had an upgrade so... maybe that one new cookie that does not look like they're an npc might one day be playable!
... it was my thought process of first meeting Shadow Milk Cookie in November of 2024 trwo months and one and a half update before 4th Anniverssary update... that he debuted in as a playable character
and so on the day of last update connected to Beast-Yeast this month last of the 5th Anniversary updates I ran to Twitter early in the morning to see if Shadow Milk Cookie gets at least SOMETHING and was surprised to see people so upset and pissed off..... and see the most beautiful Shadow Milk Cookie's sprite ever looked
and cut to right now
I read the story, sure, it's not perfect, sure it's cheesy I didn't expect anything less and was ready for the worst
and now I'm anticipating that one part of the story I've watched only in en dub playing in jp usually and I'm happy
the story wasn't dissapointing because my expectations were nonexistent and I just wanted to see what story crk wanted to tell and my only dissapointment would be if the butchered Beasts into redemptions and understanding because I love them how they are, unchanged and it would've worked only with harm to their stories
and they weren't forgiven, redeemed or changed - they faced consequences to their actions again and the story of betrayal repeated again which was on point with how Beast-Yeast was set up on betrayal of any trust
just like how White Lily Cookie's story and connected to her story of St Pastry Order was of religion and faith in things people didn't even question while there were oh so many things they would not understand, it was one of the only storylines I read back in 2022, returning only to meet a wall of Crispia levels requiring too much from me to continue
in any case I was following the story because the moment I actually let my guard down a bit and read and listened to Beast-Yeast start and gave the game a benefit of a doubt
and the next update was fun! it turned out I missed this game, actually, it was just an unfortunate set of things that made me dislike some of it
and so. when it comes to it - the current update has every event I like and more, has any and all music I desire to put into my kingdom and crystals were not hard to get enough of for it, story sure was just a normal story you'd expect of hope, ex-machina characters and oooo we believe in you!!!!!! that shonen manga loves, but it was neat
I get to mourn the loss of my first ever favorite character of crk story and I say that having played crk since 2021 just short of the ending of Hollyberry update the moment game updated again though bc I got a glitch I had to actually report because my cookies were just... stuck in one place on the tutorial level
but sure I still played as far as I could and only dropped it because there's only so far you can go without being able to have favorites that are actually good in the game where you need like 5 of them
but nonetheless I cared for White Lily Cookie way more than I did for any other Ancient, just quietly sad that she would probably never be playable before DE in 2026
so as I'm about to read the ending having remembered why I loved her oh so much... I wanted to make this post to reflect on how I feel right now and just kind of face the fact that wow, so many people are upset and I'm... fine with it.
in terms of accepting character's death, "poor writing" or more like fairy tale writing or shonen writing mixed up, "character getting all attention" when he in fact is just hated on in general and just being happy to be able to actually update the game with horrible connection stopping me all week and even then just play it
I returned year after year to just look at the cookies in the kingdom because that's what I liked about the game the most and what is still my favorite part about it, along with music and visuals
sure, you can say I should be overjoyed bc Shadow Milk Cookie is my favorite, and he is. if anything else happened I might've been conflicted on that, but as it is he's one of my all-time favorite characters I've managed to see at all of his points in fandom from BY 1 to BY 15
not hearing about him if I didn't actively search for his existence in game or on wiki, to having him being mentioned with Tumblr Sexymen just because BY 8 blew up the hype to the point of no return, to now
and at every point I knew that he was hated, in general and just as a joke
it's not a new development nor is it surprising, all things considered
I can be both extremely sad about White Lily Cookie while being happy that Shadow Milk Cookie is just as horrible as he was in BY 1-2
and I've rambled long enough even opened BY 1-2 just to hear the music again
and because I want to put at least one picture have a screenshot of my team from the start November of 2024 of my team from 2022 somehow surviving though it might've been a weak team
