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You've been Warned!!

I missed the Deciet Trio so freaking much and this update fed me and I need more. From the teacher & student dynamics, Candy's insistence to push through even though shes obviously struggling, Shadow Milk referring to them as kids, Sapphire's genuine concern for his Master, and not to mention Ash Salt being beyond done with their chatting but confused as to why the duo are pushing themselves so far when Shadow Milk is more like a prison warden to her and not some... weird father/Boss figure. Like ugh, I missed this so much 😭

While we saw their dynamics during the Spire arc and subsequent episodes involving the trio, I still find it funny/sweet/interesting how Shadow Milk treats Sapphire not only like his pupil, but the second in command of all his plans. While Candy is like the bright eyed kid who's willing to learn and do anything following them around. Don't get me wrong, we all know how Sapphire defentily got the brains and "street smarts" amongst him and Candy, but its just another layer that shows the Fount of Knowledge who at some point actually did enjoy awnsering and teaching cookies still is in Shadow Milk, just buried beneath lies and purposeful ignorance of what he's actively doing. It also enforces how much Trust he actually has in them, not only to follow along but to Trust Him in return.

Of course when Candy has a question he was plenty eager to catch her up to speed but its so sweet how they just kinda let Candy be a "kid".

Another note, while Candy is too busy being Candy atm, Sapphire's growing concern over Shadow Milk's well being is so sweet. He clearly doesn't think this whole Ultimate Dough being inside of Shmilk is a good thing, but he's not willing to really push because, well, Shadow Milk has always "handle" everything else so, even if he hasn't quite been sounding or acting like...himself all the time, he'll be fine by the end of the day right?

Right?

I think there's a good possibility we might see some Sapphire (probably Candy too) jumping over to the heroes side at some point. The realization that this isn't Shadow Milk anymore, but the Ultimate Dough controlling him and they need help getting their Master back so they can go back to being the Deceitful Trio and yk not trying to recreate the multiverse (which I mean, I'm sure is fun if your boss isn't going literally more insane than he already is). Very much a "Hey, you don't want your homes destroyed and we want Shadow Milk back to normal so how about a truce".

Oh...

yeah, i'll never make him happy. EVER and no, i'm not the light of knowledge ok? i'm totally not hijacking this or whatever. yep uh-huh

Perhaps experimenting would allow him to time travel freely like Timekeeper Cookie since Sage of Truth was capable of glimpsing other timelines through his other realm. His magic seems to be space-related. And him being a powerful cookie made directly by a Witch could make the trek easier.

The possibilities of Shadow Milk Cookie are endless when it comes to magic.

I understand what Sage of Truth was getting at about him discovering new ways and would take the opportunity.

Shame the Ultimate Cookie and the souls of Burning Spice, Mystic Flour, and Eternal Sugar made him go mad. So much potential being wasted. Sage of Truth even said SMC wouldn't have been as rash if the Ultimate Cookie hadn't influenced, so SMC could have created the perfect world he wanted for himself and the Beasts if that dough hadn't messed it up.

I won’t lie I still see “Sage of Truth” as a bit of a bad ending for Shadow Milk Cookie/The Fount of Knowledge because he’s still rejecting half of the Light of Knowledge at the end of the day. It’s just that instead of rejecting Truth, he’s rejecting Deceit and not realizing the biggest part of the Soul Jams that they themselves apparently don’t get: there isn’t a “Good” or “Bad” side of their aspects per-say, just that they can turn “bad” or “chaotic” if pushed to a particular extreme.

Heck we could even see that with the Light of Change itself with its two holders, Burning Spice Cookie and Golden Cheese Cookie. Burning Spice gave into grief of losing everything he has cared for and as a result, opted to destroy everything so that he wouldn’t form any attachments to others. Golden Cheese, after going through the exact same thing though, went on the complete other side of the scale and decided to dig her heels in, rejecting even the concept of death and hoarding all that was “Hers” and, had things done differently she could have been the Beast of Greed or something else with an overly large amount of Abundance.

We could see the same thing with Hollyberry Cookie and Dark Cacao, with Hollyberry drowning herself with juice and adventures and neglecting her responsibilities (which she still would have been doing if Pure Vanilla hadn’t sent her a letter), and Dark Cacao cookie being so staunch in his resolution that he was beginning to get tunnel vision against the Licorice Sea and neglecting the welfare of his other cookies at the beginning.

Going back to the Sage of Truth I could honestly see a similar thing happening. He understands why every other version of himself turned to deceit and even explaining the logic of him discarding what gives him pain (in most cases the cookies). But… he did the same thing in that Timeline as well, and there’s a bit of a tipping point between what is truth for being honest, and what is truth for cruelty’s sake, and Sage of Truth is ok that razor’s edge, looking at some of his quotes in game, his lines, while being truthful, still can carry a hostile edge at times:

“Why does everyone try so hard to hide their ignorance? Tsk.”

“Do I really need to spell out everything? Come on, think!”

“Ugh, come on! Why do you refuse enlightenment?!”

“Admitting your ignorance is the first step towards the Truth!”

All this to say the Sage of Truth still has just as much of a chance corrupting as the rest of the Founts, just that his corruption would look vastly different from the other versions of the Founts. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if the reason he was so nice to Timekeeper Cookie was because he saw them as an equal or of higher status/intelligence to himself based off of the nature of their time traveling abilities.

(It's important to note that LoD asks him this after Shadow milk thinking about how he desired companionship, and after episode 8 where he showed that sliver of longing he was hiding for so long.)

But, when the light of truth asks this question of "Is this truly YOUR will?", It is specifically to target the non-progressive ideas that he constantly preaches out loud and instead brings to light the inner desires that he refuses to speak aloud, his truth. The light of truths question is ultimately to put him in a spot of self actualization, what was he really doing this for? Why does he continue on this poisonous path of decay and delusion?

While these questions may be good and for him to ask, they're scary. They leave too much room for too many possibilities. They aren't as indefinite as the scripts he's perfectly constructed, they don't give him the protection power that he believes burying himself in lies has given him.

LoD was asking SMC if he was still protecting the truth he was hiding behind the lies. Basically, Deceit was asking Shadow Milk if he was ready to face the truth after it sensed a piece of his "truth" was exposed by the light of truth to Pure Vanilla.

The light of Truth was calling his "truth". Is this what you truly desire? Causing all this chaos, helping his friends descend more, playing the deceitful jester. It's asking if that's what he really wants. It's asking if Shadow Milk about his truth. That droplet of loneliness that was it hinting to Pure Vanilla that Shadow Milk is "going off-script" to what he might truly want. Further hiding from his "truth". We see hints of it. Him "teaching" others, calling the Beasts "friends" despite their lack of companionship till the very end (and the scene from Act 2), becoming angry at any lack of control, etc. That's why he rejects Truth so hard. He's not ready to face it but he's destroying his sense of self running from it.

I like this concept because it seems to me that, even though it's split apart, the light of knowledge is still communicating to SMC. We don't see that with the other souljams trying to reach the original bearer. We haven't seen the other Beast Cookies communicate with their lights, so we can at least say that Shadow Milk's souljam was more communicative than the others. Both voices of Deceit and Truth were possibly trying to indirectly sway Shadow Milk from falling further. Each in their own way trying to reveal Shadow Milk broken sense of self. Pieces of the Light of Knowledge trying to reach its original owner to guide him away from this, but the souljam of Knowledge is fractured inside Shadow Milk so its voice is not loud, even when spoken through its two halves.

A guide on my process for colouring like in the Arcana which I developed through studying the style.

Now, this is just for sprites or for neutral lighting. In the case of most memories/CGs, you have more interesting colours to use, but the process is identical. There are just extra steps.

Using my favourite memories for each character as examples (hopefully, you can tell which ones) you can see this process. All of this happens on layers above the base drawing.

Usually, you set a colour-filled layer to the setting “multiply” over the entire drawing, then using a “screen”, “add”, or “hard light” layer, you add the lighting. Depending on the intensity of the lighting, the outline will be coloured to be lighter.

The shading colour rarely changes, aside from slight hue changes.

Misc advice/tips/tricks below. I may update it depending on if I get further questions.