the she

ok I’m incredibly dumbfounded on this so cookie run super fans: explain to me how White Lily cookie and Dark Enchantress cookie just coexist? Is White Lily like a clone?

The hints that they were seperate to some extent existed for a long while; the Lily in the opening cutscene was NOT hinted to be an illusion that is an assumption and hc by fans. The Lily Gingerbrave sees seems to have been one, but that’s not the same as the one during the final battle.

Two, this one admittedly relies on having seen stuff, but Lily and DE were coded as seperate units since the beginning of the game (overworld quotes, etc). Which meant the intent was always to have some way seperate them. Was how they did it perfect? No I feel imo they should have just made de and Lily wholly seperate and Lily is led astray by DE and helps the CoD for a time after the horror she saw. But eventually leaves and has to redeem herself. But people forget DE had a character since before Kingdom and that character just doesn’t mesh well with Lily and so the two being their own characters just was the easiest solution to the plot holes posed by acting like they were. It’s not that Lily is good and DE is bad; DE is flat and Lily is more rounded hence the way they don’t mesh well together.

Before they throw hate at me.

I'll just say that I didn't invent the ship, someone came up with it and I haven't stopped thinking about it, I needed to get it out of my head, okay?

And if I'm being honest, my eyes hurt right now, so I'll just leave this here and go.

If you want you can think of a name for this ship, since I have no idea.

And by the way, this is from early awakening au, just to be clear.

resting

its all "fuck canon" and "fanon ftw" until youre asked to care about girls because then its all "how could i ever be expected to like such an underdeveloped character?!"

In my experience

If I said White Lily what then

Before I start this I wanted to mention how it seems, atleast with the lore we get with Mystic Flours update that cookies used the beasts and their abilities, and eventually the beasts snapped and murdered many of them. A bit dramatic but I kinda see where they come from, I mean maybe they stopped doing the things cookies asked first but then the cookies started 'rebelling' idk anything better to call it, and then the beasts started murdering them. Anyways that's all I have for that topic now onto something quite different.

Warning for all you White Lily lovers and defenders, I am going to be complaining about pretty much everything about her, so please if you don't want to see this, scroll past, if your fine with it, do whatever, but this is my opinion so please don't comment stuff like how I'm wrong. Also I wanted to add this isn't ment to be targeting any of you White Lily defenders and supporters, I just wanted to express what I think of her, and its that i really dont like her. So with all that said, I'm going to go ahead and essentially hate on White Lily.

1st of all, Toxic Purelily shippers, I know not all of you are bad, and I haven't ran into any of you, but I've seen some comments on anything that ships one of these two with someone else, and it's kinda annoying, they say stuff like 'this is cute, but I ship Purelily' or 'purelily canon' seriously there's no need to bring that up, if you don't like it scroll past, if you do like it don't mention how you like Purelily better because whoever created the posts probably don't ship them if they are shipping either of them with another cookie, and they honestly didn't ask your opinion on it. Also back when the costumes first came out, a lot of purelily shippers used those as their defense that it's canon, but they just ignored that in Pure Vanillas costume description it literally says he was put under a love potion, that would make Purelily canon or not, a bit toxic, especially if White Lily knew he was under a potion control, cause that's just being a shitty friend either way. If she didn't know, I guess it's better, but still it makes Purelily somewhat toxic because now we don't really know if PV had any romantic feelings for her before the potion.

2ndly Her being Dark Enchantress, because I remember back before golden cheeses update or before it was confirmed she was DE many people wanted her to be DE, but now after GCs update, and that she's actually at fault for something(actually lots of things, bc she also caused the beasts to be free) everyone's saying she's not Dark Enchantress, and in a way their right, her body didn't become Dark Enchantress, but I'm pretty sure her conscience was still in DE, therefore she was atleast somewhat aware of her actions, and if you guys say she isn't aware because she was corrupted, you better act the same way with the beasts, cause generally, it's the same thing for WL and the beasts. Generally rn in my mind WL is to blame for quite a lot of stuff in game lore.

3rd, she got off the hook too quickly, literally everyone(not GC) forgave her for pretty much ruining their lives, She destroyed PVs Kingdom and is the reason he didn't remember like anything when we first met him. I can't say much with HB, but I'm guessing something happened that she's at fault for, Dark Cacao's son literally tried to kill him, because of her(yes it was the sword, but it doesn't take a fool to guess that the sword was made by her power) and Golden Cheese literally lost everything because of her. Then Elder Faerie died because she became DE and that caused the beasts to be freed, and then Dark Cacao's Kingdom is dying of a plague caused by Mystic Flour because the beasts were freed.

4th, She was let off the hook in general, this one is with the Witches though. Let's go back to what the beasts did before imprisonment, like I said earlier they were probably being used and got fed up with it, so they killed the cookies, still a bit dramatic but whatever, they didn't seem to be trying to fight the Witches they were just killing cookies, and they were imprisoned for eons because of it, But WL aka DE literally wanted to steal the others soul jams and actually (this is from what I recall) wanted to fight the Witches, or something like that, but the Witches don't do anything? That's just annoyingly unfair, DE wanted to actually fight the Witches but she got away scotch free, but the Beasts killed cookies(still a bit overly dramatic) and they get imprisoned for who knows how long, that's just kinda stupid.

5th, the power imbalance. The Ancients have half of what the beasts powers were, and at the beginning of the games cut scene we see that PV is pretty damn strong because if I recall correctly she stopped using her magic and actually brought her arm up to shield herself, therefore the black void or whatever was probably mostly caused by PVs magic. And thats half of Shadowmilks magic, Shadowmilk may have still been regaining his strength, but he still most likely should've atleast came closer to winning, rather than whatever happened in game(I'll admit though it was cool to see SM get this shadowy jester mask in the cutscene) and also the whole reason he lost was probably just to promote her costume, which is in general annoying.

6th, Shadowmilk was right, she's half a cookie, and could still become DE again, and I'm pretty sure she probably will, but she was given this power, which by is pretty stupid, because Elder Faerie I'm pretty sure used that same magic on SM earlier and he still died, so how was White Lily, half a cookie, probably still has a bit of corruption in her able to defeat SM with it.

7th, The Mystic costumes, they suck, they look like piss, and honestly weren't even needed. A Frost Queen Mystic costume would've made probably lots of players actually excited.

8th, the fact that all of the horrible events in the game were caused by her curiosity, I get that curiosity isn't always a bad thing, but the saying 'curiosity killed the cat' exists for a reason. She was way to curious about things she shouldn't have been curious about, and instead of listening to the cookies that told her to maybe stop before it's too late, she still went searching for answers, on that topic, why was finding out how they were created so important to her in the first place, literally why PV backed out before he went too far, she should've too. What happened to her was her own fault. She didn't need these answers they weren't going to be revolutionary for cookie kind, and when she got the horrid answer she became DE(which wasn't necessarily her fault because she fell into that jam or whatever) but she most likely still had some of her conscience while she was DE and instead of talking to her friends, who after being proven that DE was infact WL and were told the truth about their creation, they would've most likely sided with her. But she didn't do that, she decided to try and steal their souljams.

Okay I'm done now, I'm going to be honest I generally hate her with my whole heart, her designs cute, and her voice is amazing, but I really don't like her. I literally got her on one of my first pulls in her gacha and I have her turned off on the dashboard, I'm serious when I say I hate her. I'll say it again please don't come at me for this, it's my opinion, I'm in no way saying it's correct or anything like that, but it's my opinion I'm entitled to it, just as you all are entitled to yours, so I'm not saying you can't have your own opinion on her, I'm just saying what mine is.

Op I don't think you realize how excited I was to read this bc SO MANY lily stans can't actually handle her character.

I'd like to elaborate on some of this because I am willing to take it five steps further.

I don't think people fully understand just how devastating the first beast yeast update was for the silver kingdom, not because we found out about the beasts, but because it ended up glorifying lilies character in the long run, and making this absurd idea that lily is the strongest circulate. The power scaling is ridiculously out of context and anybody I see going on about how she is the strongest will deny ever trading pitayas power or the fact that she DID seek power to fulfill her goals, power that wasn't initially her own. The trust Elder Faerie put in her is ultimately misplaced and irresponsible.

The one thing Pure Vanilla got right is even now a behavior that is seen in Dark Dnchantress is to seek power; after all he recognized a lot of these behaviors and still sees some of lily in dark enchantress. The big two whammies is the switch up about DE suddenly not being lily ((I have seen a variety of claims and I WILL be diving into them)) and the fact that lily is praised and taken out of context to be made better than she is (this comes in the forms of misinformation and not reading the lore or paying attention to detail, I have seen people outright denying the lore or otherwise say "it's subjective" when the context calls for us to take it literally)

This is seen throughout every single step of lilies and dark enchantress's character alike. Every event. And I think it is unfair just how praised and put on a pedestal lily is, because ultimately it defeats everything that the story is trying to tell us. In all honesty a lot of this behavior I see is defending lily but giving nobody else the same grace or understanding.

1, the love potion. Suddenly we have forgotten about the guild relics. There was a love potion since the guilds first featured update when they introduced the three bosses we have today, to start this off let's list some of the more popular claims I've seen

"it was just a drop" the love potion in the guild notes that a single drop is enough to become dangerous, because of the calibur of risk the production of the product is banned. This is the first piece of evidence that makes this claim deflectory, the other is that I believe in every single piece of media that a love potion is featured in warned that even a drop can be a catastrophe. That love is a powerful thing and shouldn't be tampered with, and a love potion wouldn't be true love, it's just an empty (and often lustful) fabrication of the real deal. This ties in with the "pure vanilla is too obsessive over lily" statement, why do you think the love potion WASN'T an exact parody of the one in the play that the costumes are based off of? That love potion was a prank on a guy, to fall in love with a goat, after he committed a disrespectful action himself. This makes the "it's based off of a play" argument invalid, it's too concerning to brush off, especially when you look at the ending of the costumes story, which sounds much more unnerving than romantic if you ask me.

2, Lily and the switch up about being Dark Enchantress. This is something I have shifted through for MONTHS to try and understand, and I have come up with the best reason I could on what's really going on in game.

Dark Enchantress was looking for lily fragments, right? We remember that when we met the shard of lily early in game, and when she was absorbed into the crystal as a means to give dark enchantress juuust enough power to escape. DE herself notes that she's been collecting them, that there were multiple at one point in time.

And now we have learned an important piece of information: as long as both exist at once, neither will be whole. Dark Enchantress must have known this upon slowly collecting lily shards, this infers that lilies body did split into two, but are still teathered because they came from the same dough and soul, the very same essence. From the beginning we've been given hints about lilies own behaviors, before beast yeast it was easy to infer that lily has always behaved questionably and that becoming friends with pure vanilla smoothed some of it out. The one April fool's update gave us a small hint that upon lily whites story, you are getting a version of a story that happened in the academy, otherwise she would have never been included after absolutely nothing on her for a while before hand, especially about the aspect of love, the biggest question that's still up in the air about her. Lily was short tempered, and even without that update we can see that, very easy to be angered or defensive just as dark enchantress is.

Pitayas update also proves pure vanillas statement about lily gaining power for her goals true, and disproved that lily could learn dragon tongue. She couldn't! That's the entire reason she traded the knowledge of a single word that had power. I see this claim and feel like many of the fans do now actually pay attention, and their views on a character is simply because they may not want to admit their fave is flawed, because they ignored that too. It's actually pretty gross that upon the absolute destruction of pure vanillas kingdom they still maintained that lily and DE were the same, but suddenly we see the reality of that bc cheese just showed it instead of said it, and she's not enchantress anymore...?? That's not right, cheese has every single right to be upset with her. I see people getting mad about pure vanilla being in denial about it, but what else are you going to do when you were friends with someone for THOUSANDS of years since childhood? They were the only two capable of the experiments they performed, dark enchantress uses this knowledge and has done so for matcha. I'm sorry, but the lily we have now is a small fraction that realized this was wrong, that didn't want to be bitter. When dark enchantress says "with the help of nobody but myself" what she really means is lilies already toxic tendencies, the fact that she got selfish and arrogant towards the end is exactly what manifested into dark enchantress and lost her the light of freedom. And it's exactly what lost the beasts their virtues as well.

3, getting off Scott free just because the light of freedom saved some of her soul, the fact is lily didn't think about the others and what would happen in her wake, her quest for the truth. After being warned multiple times by her best friend and others like elder faerie and deciding not to tell pure vanilla anything is nobodies fault but herself, what is happening is nothing BUT a prison of her own making, and pure vanilla blames himself for not being able to save her. But from what? Nobody asks what. The "what" is from herself. You cannot save somebody from themselves and lily only stopped when it was already way too late, that's a trait of selfishness "I thought the truth could set everyone free..."

But.. nobody but her was concerned about that, they were concerned about making cookies stronger which is why they rallied behind pure vanilla, his light of truth after all was trying to find the same truth, but in a different way that wouldn't just benefit himself. It would have set nobody free but lily, and now that she's witnessed (what we now know to have been cookies WITHOUT LIFE POWDER, normal cookies that you and me easy during Christmas) the tragedy, which mind you we also now know the cookies were created by good witches, that dark enchantress's goals are ... futile. They weren't based on reason in the first place, let's stop pretending that they were. I'm tired of seeing this idea that lily was suddenly right and everyone else was wrong, that cookies like pure vanilla are so terrible because they DIDN'T actively go out of their way to perform an act of transgression for a goal (finding the reason we exist, yk the big philosophers question). Lily has nobody to blame but herself, and we shouldn't be blaming anyone BUT lily.

4, THE POWER IMBALANCE. "lily is canonically the strongest ancient!" No she IS NOT. There are a few claims people use to support this, one of them is silver bell and the strength comparison statement. Silver bell was not just talking about lily, silver bell had said that he'd heard about the heros of light (the ancients) on crispa, but being in beast yeast the only records of the heros are the old ones, and the small bits of knowledge that the jams have found new owners, it is a fearsome power. Lily just so happened to be the showcase of that power, that put it into perspective of BEING as powerful or more than elder Faerie. If you read this right, that doesn't mean it's just Lily. It goes for all the ancients and Lily was just the first encounter they'd ever had to actually be able to visualize the fables of the ancients. "She was able to learn dragon tongue!" I was state once more she couldn't, which is why she traded knowledge for the power of one single word instead, which also means some of the power that she has isn't even hers. "Her spell circles are huge!" So are pure vanillas, atk≠full power. If we look at the circles he's capable of in the dark flour war (about 9x or more larger and complex) then we should probably be happy that he doesn't put all that energy into attack, and the endless implications that he is so much more powerful than he ever lets on simply because he prefers to use it elsewise. Shadow milk wouldn't have been trying to get him to cut down the silver tree if his power wasn't able to veto lilies or elder fairies entirely. You can also account for the fact that DEVSIS is not used to making games like this, it is the first game that they have made when it comes to coding in RPGs. Of course the cookies that are released earlier, including the ancients like pure vanilla, hollyberry, and dark cacao will not have skills that are as complex or as powerful as golden cheese and lily. Luckily next half of this update for mystic flower cacao will be getting a huge buff and hopefully they'll stick to their word about skill rewrites. It is unfair to use the individual cookies skill animation to influence the Canon.

All in all this may have gotten too long but there's a lot of just not reading or paying attention in the fandom, and this is just on lily. Out of all the characters that do make me mad, A lot of toxic lily fans can't accept that their fave is allowed to be flawed, this is the same with de fans which would be a whole other post. that's what makes her so important to the story. Her story device is perhaps one of the most complex I've ever seen and I appreciate that. It's dishonest to yell that somebody doesn't appreciate a complex character or only hates her because she's a woman simply because you don't want to hear criticism on the characters you love most. If you cannot also love them for their flaws you don't really have a right to say you're a supporter! Almost everything in the name of her defense is a smear on other characters, and those smears are actions that lily has performed herself, such as abandonment or cold shoulders. It's not right to favor one character and then shit on all the rest because you feel protective over them, that doesn't make for a good environment at all and it's rampant in this fandom! It makes it known as a toxic fandom and that's BAD.

Okay first of all the love potion is not the least bit implied to be about Lily and pv just because they are the two named students does NOT mean it was either of them who gave it to the other. There is zero evidence for this and Lily’s straight up confusion and attempts to push PV away from her show she was less likely to attempt something like that. Also let’s not imply Lily drugged someone when she didn’t okay thanks cool.

The love potion in the bond story had NOTHING to do with Lily and is not a metaphor or something it’s a parody of a Shakesphere play (albeit one I don’t really think is funny). The fairies HE ruled (not Lily him) gave it to him as a prank. Lily in the bond story knew he had been given the potion and so knew the feelings were caused by that, it’s why she kept him at a distance in the bond story. It’s a coincidence at best. If they wanted to say that pv was given a love potion by Lily, they would have done so by now.

And in case the parody isn’t obvs enough the title of the bond story quite literally references the story it’s parodying. They do alt aus like this all the time for costumes see sherbet and Pearl’s costumes from last year where she was hades essentially.

As for her and DE DE literally still exists. It has LONG been implied DE and Lily are not exactly the same and to act like it’s poor writing or justifying Lily’s character when she didn’t choose to fall into the ultimate dough is just poor logic. Lily in her deepest core rejected DE as showed by her soul jam saving her body/what was left of her soul, and while it could have been written better it makes sense and I’m tired of DE’s actions being treated as Lily’s when even characters like GC know Lily isn’t evil and meant well. She just needs time as she said.

She didn’t get off Scott free again she doesn’t need to be punished for des actions cause she’s explicitly not de, and the trauma and PTSD of what she is going through is consequence enough I’m over people’s obsession with her needing to suffer to ‘atone’ cause what is that logic? That’s like acting like DoCo needed to be further traumatized when he didn’t. And the worst part is she HERSELF would welcome punishing her cause she fucking hates herself. She is the worst critic of herself and that’s exactly why others around her are sympathetic to her, cause they know no one is as hard on her as she is on herself for what happened. All she can do is help fix it there’s no point in punishing her for what is done is done.

She is irreversibly traumatized like all the other ancients and no she is not solely responsible for their trauma cause again de and Lily are explicitly not one for one. And the idea that she just should have not gone to TNoW is such victim blaming logic. Like hey maybe spare half of this anger for the witches who literally traumatized her in the first place??? If others trauma are valid why isn’t hers and don’t say it’s cause it’s her fault when it isn’t. A. The war isn’t the only reason they’re fucked up and b. Again DE is not 100% the same as Lily. And this isn’t new I had called this for literally years.

You talk about the fandom not paying attention when you literally miss key parts of Lily’s character that most people can notice if they look close enough— for example I have called literally everything that has gone down with Lily over three years. All because I actually pay attention and understand the point of her story wasn’t her being evil.

As for power scaling… I mean yea she isn’t the strongest and it’s not implied she is? All five of the ancients are equal in strength the thing that makes them weak to the beasts is their own self doubt and anxieties as was the case with Cacao too. But when they are at their best they could take the beasts as Lily did when she resealed the tree in the past.

Im sorry but this goes beyond yours twos opinions you guys are acting like fans of Lily don’t read or pay attention to her character when if they didn’t people like me and others wouldn’t have literally called everything that happened. Predicted it. Her arc was never about punishing her and it’s okay to just be honest and say you wanted it to be something it wasn’t. But don’t act all high and mighty and like you know her better than those who are actually major fans of her and maybe don’t put hate of her in the tags esp hate that has objectively wrong information???

Literally no one excuses her having a cold shoulder or abandoning people, people just understand that people like that don’t need criticism they need sympathy to grow and heal cause it’s often not for no reason people are like that. And it’s weird for characters similar to her who are sometimes cold like Cacao who the plot makes it point that he hurt people like his son are allowed to be sympathetic in your eye but not women like 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.

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.

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.

Agree to disagree, of course!

It’s been rattling around in my head a while too, but not in the same way. I really, really don’t think them being split the way they are works. It feels indecisive at best and narratively destructive at worst. While I do appreciate your points and see where you’re coming from, I’ve never picked that up from the story. I will give you some things, like Dark Enchantress saying that “she” (White Lily) came to the moonstone she was trapped in, but I’ve always interpreted that as Dark Enchantress rather not acknowledging her past more than them being separate.

To me, the narrative has doubled down a thousand times on “WL and DE are the same!” Going back to Odyssey, Pure Vanilla mentions explicitly that he needs to move on from White Lily because White Lily, as he knows her, is essentially dead. There’s also the huge plot point in Legend of the Red Dragon that grinds my gears when it comes to this: White Lily being Dark Enchantress is what nullifies the dragontongue contract and allows Pitaya and Hollyberry to destroy the summoned dragon without Hollyberry having to crush her soul jam.

And then there’s the fact that Dark Enchantress was physically rebaked from White Lily- so why is her body there?

And no, I will stand on it till my dying breath that the separation feels more like a complete divorce of the characters and an erasing of White Lily’s moral greyness. She feels bad about Dark Enchantress existing and the two being intertwined, but that feels like the extent of it. Everyone says she’s fine, she’s good, and she’s forgiven by all but one of her friends. She’s praised by the faeries, too. Elder Faerie knew she had fell, but kept her around anyways believing she was good.

To any regard, if the intent was to split the two, I feel it was done incredibly poorly. The update as a whole felt rushed, and neither character felt properly done for it to work. I think they should’ve stayed the same, or at the very least had a much, much more gradual split.

Thank you for voicing your opinion, and have a wonderful day!

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.