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peachyqueenly · 10 hours

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I will actually give you the dragons story and how that’s a narrative inconsistency that even bothers me, but tbh I mostly chock that up to that story honestly kiiiiinda being mid and a bit haphazard; mostly being an excuse for them to release Pitaya. Which is unfortunate cause I absolutely adore and even called the idea that Lily met and sought the truth from Pitaya, but they didn’t use the idea to its fullest whatsoever. That entire update was a full mess of missed potential I could rant more about both that’s for another day—

For me Odyssey says the opposite as while PV didn’t believe in her, the main character and who we (the audience) are meant to see the story through (Gingerbrave) did as a. He didn’t fully agree with how Clotted interpreted what he said and b. Later in the garden Gingerbrave remarks about how he believes she’s still out there somewhere.

I do see where your coming from too cause I don’t think they handled their split perfectly whatsoever I wish they devoted more time and elaboration on them recovering her soul jam and reviving her rather than it all being shoved into one chapter, but the one thing I stand on is how she’s still morally grey. PV, the fairies, and others forgiving her (cause DE being created was the result of her tripping and accidentally falling I feel that’s often forgotten, which is its whole other thing where I cannot stand the devs framing it as her choosing to become DE and reject the soul jam as it was either that or die in the dough which isn’t much of a choice), but good characters who are forgiven and not demeaned for their mistakes can still be morally grey to which Lily is. She will breach morals even unintentionally in her pursuit for the truth and justice, just not so far as to be like DE.

Also the update very much felt rushed but I largely chock that up to them introducing way too many plots into one update (Lily, beasts, fairies, etc) rather than just one issue.

I appreciate what you gotta say though it’s been a good thought exercise and things to take into account regarding my thoughts on Lily.

This fandom is going to send me to the gallows, but…

Cookie Run Kingdom: Secrets of the Narrative Death Kingdom and The Theater of Wasted Potential

TL;DR: The Beast-Yeast update murdered the story in cold blood and left a cast of cardboard cutouts behind.

So let’s discuss what I like first. I liked Elder Faerie and Shadow Milk, for the most part. They’re really fun characters in an update where 50% of the cast could be killed and nothing would change. (I do have issues with them, however, and that WILL be discussed later.)

The Faerie Kingdom could be really interesting. It feels like a perfect blend of the four ancient kingdoms. Cacaoian solitude, Hollyberrian and Golden indulgence perfectly balanced, and a Vanillian sense of community.

Voice acting was wonderful, too. Props to Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk’s voice actors specifically, I have been saying “silly-vanilly” to myself on repeat.

…alright, that’s it. On to what the update was lacking (everything).

GINGERBRAVE, WIZARD, AND STRAWBERRY

As always, Wizard was my favorite (he’s relatable). Otherwise, why are there three children on a very dangerous mission. They could just NOT be here and everything would play out the same. Pure Vanilla would still collect the shards, the Beasts would still break loose, etc, etc.

Also Gingerbrave poking in on White Lily after she specifically asked to be alone gives me just a little bit of the ick.

MERCURIAL KNIGHT AND SILVERBELL

Cardboard. They are nothing characters. Silverbell is a plot device to get White Lily into the kingdom, and Mercurial Knight does absolutely nothing. Seriously, what does he do.

They tried to do this kingdom’s guard character (think Crunchy Chip, Wildberry, Financier, Caramel Arrow, or Burnt Cheese) without considering anything that made those characters work. Key thing there- they’re actually characters. They have personalities. Mercurial Knight exists to serve the king. Everything else about it was deliberately wiped- it almost feels like Devsis just didn’t want to write his character and this was the solution.

The fact that these two characters are the playable ones and not Carameleon or Elder Faerie makes me upset, legitimately.

CARAMELEON

Another character you could completely remove from the narrative without effect. At least he has a personality, even if that is a little turd.

ELDER FAERIE

…shouldn’t have died. Here we go, here’s the hotter takes.

Elder Faerie’s death was completely unnecessary. The only interesting faerie, who would’ve had some awesome interactions with the ancients (I could go into detail about how he would’ve been a great foil to all of them, and how he was an excellent foil to White Lily), is the one that dies. For what reason? To give White Lily a kingdom and some new powers (that aren’t needed and she doesn’t use).

He gave what little was left of himself to her for no reason. The power he gave her wasn’t even used at the end, she simply sealed the Beasts back into the tree (which they were waking her up to do in the first place). It would’ve worked just as well had he collapsed again and had to have been taken away by the two faeries we do get stuck with (as I said, they’re barely even characters). And he’s DEAD dead, too. He briefly comes back to White Lily in a vision, and then it’s mentioned later that they’re having a feast in his honor (the “late Elder Faerie”). He’s not coming back, at least it’s not implied. One of the cases of wasted potential.

And again, it was all to give White Lily things she did not need, nor were beneficial to her character or the narrative. Him dying didn’t raise the stakes, either. It was conveyed just fine how powerful Shadow Milk was by how he converted the entire kingdom into a circus and game show with only a fraction of his power and no physical body.

SHADOW MILK/THE BEASTS

At the end of BY-E1, I thought that the worst thing Devsis could do with the Beasts is not use them.

At the end of BY-E2, I’m thoroughly disappointed.

Shadow Milk got to run around for a little bit, which ended up not progressing the narrative in any direction at all. We never even got to see the other Beasts. Granted, they’re likely to appear in later updates (if the writers remember they exist- they’ve basically forgotten about the Cookies of Darkness by now), and may even have a similar release framing to the Ancients. That doesn’t mean the way they were utilized now was great.

Don’t get me wrong- I love Shadow Milk. He’s so goofy in a way that still tells the audience that he IS a threat. He’s immensely powerful, and would provide an interesting plot development upon his full release (a likely alliance with Dark Enchantress, seeing how he seems to like her). But him simply being sealed back into the tree… not great.

Alright, if you’ve read this far, hear me out. These are the ones that I’m probably going to get my head on a pike for. If you’re going to be nasty, you’re going to be blocked. Cool? Cool.

PURELILY V FAELILY

Devsis cannot write ships.

PureLily has been teased for FOREVER, and even in an update where the two finally appear together, where the action of collecting soul shards is driven almost entirely by Pure Vanilla’s simping, the two are not together. I genuinely thought we were getting a PureLily confession at the end of BY-E2 with them talking on the bridge, but it’s just another call to action.

I honestly don’t think we’re getting it to be canon anytime soon. Y’all enjoy the little crumbs that is the bond story.

And not to mention FaeLily.

Ignoring all of the outside drama and focusing on what happens in-game, this ship just… suffers. It’s completely nuked in BY-E2.

Elder Faerie and White Lily went from “Please, stay with me, stay by my side” and a note that Strawberry Cookie “think(s they) shouldn’t be reading” to “Continue my legacy.” And, y’know, Elder Faerie dying. Devsis realized they were potentially writing a deviating ship and decided to kill it on sight rather than let it influence the plot. It could’ve made for good characterization for White Lily, Elder Faerie, and Pure Vanilla. What happens when the one thing he’s been holding out for, he’s been chasing, he’s been wanting more than anything, isn’t his? Could that make him more susceptible to Shadow Milk’s lies and trickery? How would that change his dynamic with White Lily? How would it effect the plot going forwards?

Overall, not a great update for shippers unless you thrive on scraps (which, I guess works for this fandom. Y’all thrive on nonexistent ship fuel and honestly? Respect).

WHITE LILY/DARK ENCHANTRESS AND THE GREATER EFFECT ON THE NARRATIVE

…no. Where do I start.

Sorry White Lily fans and Split-Soul enjoyers, this isn’t great. I don’t like White Lily being up and about now. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and undermines the potency of the story.

What made Dark Enchantress such a great villain, and so terrifying, was that she used to be one of the Ancients, one of the greatest heroes in the history of Earthbread, and was broken so completely that she abandoned her morals, her friends, her everything. She had the power of a Soul Jam somewhere inside her, and if she could learn properly to wield it, it would make Earthbread a habitat of paranoia, waiting for her overtaking.

It also added complexity to both sides of her coin. Yin-Yang. What bad traits were so engrained in White Lily that they overtook her in the oven? Which good traits could potentially remain in Dark Enchantress? What does this mean for her path to redemption? Is it even possible, or will she fall victim to a disease with no cure? If it is possible, how will White Lily mend the bridges she’s burnt? And when it comes to the Beasts, we heard the line of freeing them from both White Lily and Dark Enchantress. Is Dark Enchantress to be feared because she broke into the Faerie Kingdom, or was that a glimpse into the darkness that overtook White Lily?

That’s just not there now. White Lily is all of her good and Dark Enchantress is all of her bad and Beast-Yeast has spent it’s time tearing up what it has laid out over the past three years.

In Odyssey, there was an intense emotional weight that came with Pure Vanilla having to confess that Clotted Cream was telling the truth. In Chapter 10, there was a finality that came with Dark Enchantress telling Pure Vanilla to shove his “self-righteousness back in the oven” when he extended his hand to her. The past three years have told us that like it or not, White Lily isn’t here anymore, and what’s left of her remains deep inside the void of Dark Enchantress’s soul.

But now they’re two different people. Everyone reassures White Lily that Dark Enchantress isn’t her, Gingerbrave even fighting the claim when Shadow Milk points it out in BY-E2. One of White Lily’s voice lines refers to Dark Enchantress as “her creation.” Gingerbrave even tells White Lily that Dark Enchantress manipulated HER to get free, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you ask me. It made sense when it was that last little part of White Lily’s soul, dazed and confused, a ghost upon Earthbread, but ultimately Dark Enchantress all the same. How did Dark Enchantress even manipulate White Lily? Or Gingerbrave and Co? She was trapped in a stone and unable to do anything! White Lily’s spirit wandered there looking for answers, and the main five followed her there! And if that really was White Lily, why didn’t she just return back to her body (which shouldn’t be a thing- Dark Enchantress was physically rebaked from White Lily’s original body)?

And I don’t buy the “but White Lily feels bad! She knows it’s her! They talk about how she might go back to the Darkness! They’re two halves of the same whole- neither can be complete as the other exists!” I don’t care. Two halves seems like an excuse to wipe both of any moral grayness, and it doesn’t effect anything else. They’re still both super powerful.

This isn’t the time for White Lily’s return. The best time for White Lily’s return, of course, would be when Dark Enchantress is gone. Narratively, it’s bad. If you want to collect the soul shards and bring White Lily back, fine. But the way to do that best would be to alternate episodes looking for her soul shards with episodes looking for allies in the war- or even combining the two! Recruiting another dragon? Maybe Ananas found a strange stone on the beach! Looking for another Elemental? Fire Spirit seems to like shiny things…

And then, at the END, they’re reunited. Dark Enchantress will be weakened, fighting with herself as White Lily struggles to get free. As she does, before she can regain control of herself, she’s defeated, and White Lily may return.

But no, this is the story we have.

With all the references to her returning to darkness, I hope it’s foreshadowing. The narrative needs an “all is lost” moment because this update played out like an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (right down to the tree, the chaotic deity, the friendship…). If neither can be whole while the other exists, let Dark Enchantress be the reigning identity. Show us how White Lily struggles within her, the war between the two now internal. Let some focus on the Cookies of Darkness and how their interactions with Dark Enchantress will be effected. Hell, make the whole thing topple from the inside out because a little bit of White Lily is showing through.

This “find, recruit, defeat, repeat” pattern has gotten to the point where something needs to change, or the story will suffer even more from it.

Again, if you’re gonna be nasty, you’re gonna be blocked.

I hope you enjoyed the read, thank you for hearing me out.

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peachyqueenly · 12 hours

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I very much agree with all the fairies except elder being cardboard, and the others not being particularly important. And not sure if I feel elder should have died or not but personally agree with you cause I feel it was just an excuse to give Lily a kingdom when it doesn’t really serve her character… part of what was interesting was how she was the one ancient without a kingdom and who was least likely to ever want to rule one…

The beasts are also a mixed bag for me they were entertaining but I agree with you that they felt underutilized in the grand scheme of things.

Now with that out of the way… this gets long and is not meant to be mean merely me being someone who’s spent three years analyzing White Lily.

I’m not gonna say it was perfect, but the idea that Lily is ‘good’ and DE is ‘bad’ betrays how it’s not that her flaws were erased by this split. It’s not that simple and never was or will be as Lily doesn’t even accept them saying she’s not DE cause she knows she has the capacity to be like DE. She rejects that mindset though which is a powerful story for those in her situation— instead valuing her love for others over her anger.

Also DE being Lily wholly wouldn’t have really made sense either as DE shows very little of what made Lily… well, Lily. DE doesn’t even have the capacity to show respect to those on her side— Lily would never have acted like that. DE fundamentally rejects who White Lily was and is why the split happened. Not to mention that DE is just…. Kinda dumb in ways one of the smartest people on earthbread wouldn’t be.

This isn’t even entirely DE’s fault but the fact the devs tried to make a rather basic ‘evil for evils sake’ villain into a story that just doesn’t work. DE had a character and story since her over break days that just does not mesh well with who Lily is, so they needed to write something like this. And personally I’d rather it be like this cause I think stories like Lily’s about choosing to be kind and help others despite one’s hardships is important for survivors. I don’t see that kind of story enough I mostly see revenge fantasies which… while good in a vacuum, isn’t and shouldn’t be the only sort of morally grey or flawed victim we see. Hell, we have a better example of this sort of arc in CR with Black Pearl and her abandoning the kindness she had as White Pearl.

It’s not that neither is whole shadow milk was talking out of his ass; the two have gone on to live and walk different paths. It’s like a physical manifestation of the two paths she could walk. Which if your not a fan of fine but from a narrative lens was one of the only ways for the plot to make sense given Lily’s soul jam very much still existed and was not in DE’s hands; it not belonging to DE was by far the biggest clue as to DE and Lily not entirely being the same.

The story has for three years hinted at the two being separate in some way. Gingerbrave made a passing comment in Odyssey, her soul jam again, even DE herself not really lining up with the idea she’s wholly Lily.

Lily’s flaws aren’t DEs; Lily’s fatal flaw and what made her morally grey was her curiosity not callous cruelty like DE. Even as a child, she didn’t do what she did cause she wanted to hurt people. She made a mistake in the pursuit of knowledge and spent her life trying to make amends for it. Lily was the last person to ever be cruel, her final actions even being driven by her empathy for others and wanting to help people. It’s how she tripped. White Lily is still morally grey and flawed and needs to grow just now with the added weight of dealing with the guilt that ultimately DE’s existence is related to her.

Lily still has bridges to repair her connection to DE isn’t erased just cause of the soul split as seen by her interaction with Cheese, so again it’s not that Lily is the ‘good’; it’s that she isn’t a literal caricature of evil like DE was (straight down to her design being similar to others villains famous for their evilness like Malefiecient).

TLDR I agree with a lot of what you said but I really don’t think the idea that their split was bad writing. It’s been hinted at by the narrative for a long while and doesn’t negate the things that make Lily interesting. She was not interesting due to being DE she was interesting due to her own moral dilemma and greyness. This didn’t tear it apart it followed through on a lot of the foreshadowing the plot did. PV admitted he was wrong about how he saw Lily cause he was, it was an example of dramatic irony. The story and audience knowing something the characters don’t.

In my opinion I think it would have been more interesting if they leaned further into the hints about their soul split or the idea that maybe something evil in the witch’s dough (maybe related to her pet in crob?) used her body as a host; her soul jam saving her soul. It would fit the basic evil DE has been since her conception while letting Lily exist solely with her own flaws. Rather than the two being conflated. As I will admit that while the hints were there cause I and others saw them, it clearly wasn’t clear enough.

Personally I don’t think the idea the two were wholly the same would ever work just cause trying to take two characters made at different times and say they’re the same person just presents a host of issues. And I feel the devs realized that at some point in development too as they tried to decenter Lily’s connection to DE in her design (the design used to be so much more on the nose it hurt). I feel DE’s simplicity would also play well into the idea that she’s a puppet for a greater evil.

Sorry this got long I’m passionate about them both; obvs agree to disagree but wanted to try and say what I thought cause it’s been rattling in my head for a while.

This fandom is going to send me to the gallows, but…

Cookie Run Kingdom: Secrets of the Narrative Death Kingdom and The Theater of Wasted Potential

TL;DR: The Beast-Yeast update murdered the story in cold blood and left a cast of cardboard cutouts behind.

Voice acting was wonderful, too. Props to Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk’s voice actors specifically, I have been saying “silly-vanilly” to myself on repeat.

…alright, that’s it. On to what the update was lacking (everything).

GINGERBRAVE, WIZARD, AND STRAWBERRY

Also Gingerbrave poking in on White Lily after she specifically asked to be alone gives me just a little bit of the ick.

MERCURIAL KNIGHT AND SILVERBELL

Cardboard. They are nothing characters. Silverbell is a plot device to get White Lily into the kingdom, and Mercurial Knight does absolutely nothing. Seriously, what does he do.

The fact that these two characters are the playable ones and not Carameleon or Elder Faerie makes me upset, legitimately.

CARAMELEON

Another character you could completely remove from the narrative without effect. At least he has a personality, even if that is a little turd.

ELDER FAERIE

…shouldn’t have died. Here we go, here’s the hotter takes.

SHADOW MILK/THE BEASTS

At the end of BY-E1, I thought that the worst thing Devsis could do with the Beasts is not use them.

At the end of BY-E2, I’m thoroughly disappointed.

Alright, if you’ve read this far, hear me out. These are the ones that I’m probably going to get my head on a pike for. If you’re going to be nasty, you’re going to be blocked. Cool? Cool.

PURELILY V FAELILY

Devsis cannot write ships.

I honestly don’t think we’re getting it to be canon anytime soon. Y’all enjoy the little crumbs that is the bond story.

And not to mention FaeLily.

Ignoring all of the outside drama and focusing on what happens in-game, this ship just… suffers. It’s completely nuked in BY-E2.

Overall, not a great update for shippers unless you thrive on scraps (which, I guess works for this fandom. Y’all thrive on nonexistent ship fuel and honestly? Respect).

WHITE LILY/DARK ENCHANTRESS AND THE GREATER EFFECT ON THE NARRATIVE

…no. Where do I start.

Sorry White Lily fans and Split-Soul enjoyers, this isn’t great. I don’t like White Lily being up and about now. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and undermines the potency of the story.

That’s just not there now. White Lily is all of her good and Dark Enchantress is all of her bad and Beast-Yeast has spent it’s time tearing up what it has laid out over the past three years.

But no, this is the story we have.

This “find, recruit, defeat, repeat” pattern has gotten to the point where something needs to change, or the story will suffer even more from it.

Again, if you’re gonna be nasty, you’re gonna be blocked.

I hope you enjoyed the read, thank you for hearing me out.

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