Stella - Cookie Madness

He's not driven to insanity normally by the ultimate dough, instead I decided to use APATHY as a substitute. Shadow Milk thrives off of "unpredictability" mascarading as control, he likes making events he can observe and adjust to what he desires. His own little circus. But with Apathy thrown into the mix, now all of a sudden "if everything is so meaningless then what joy is there to bring in a world where the unpredictable becomes predictable?"

This leads him to seeking out literally ANYTHING to give him a shred of emotion, some semblance of control over his psyche. Yes he managed to survive the original timeline AND form a perfect world full of delusional cookies believing they're in peace. But once the cycle becomes so boring and monotonous and there's little joy in catching the faulty cookies, he starts to go a little mad (you can compare this mentality to Timekeeper's, actually. Just with way more theatrics and desperation laced into it). To break monotony, he needs to start causing chaos. But if he does, it'll ruin the illusion of Paradise. So what does he do?

He breaks the cookies threatening to harm the world he's helped construct. Because bringing others down to his level makes him feel happy. No wonder he completely destroyed the Pure Vanilla Cookie psychologically from the timeline they invaded, he likes seeing him just as miserable as he is! Same with his past self who "hasn't seen the truth" in his eyes. Because what truth is there if HE HIMSELF is the new truth of this world?

He maintains complete control over the broken and in despair, because they are more likely to give into those sweet little lies to make the pain stop... Why wouldn't they? These conditions are horrible for any Cookie. Why should they keep suffering under the weight of their pain when they could just accept that they're trying to help them?

He prefers the fighters of this mentality the most. They're much more entertaining than the ones who buckle under the pressure in a matter of hours. His other half literally fills that void no matter what timeline he's from. The original who's been dealing with him since his release, or the new timeline where any shred of quiet defiance to give him an answer makes him both mad and ecstatic that he's actually FEELING something.

Imagine having a life stripped of so much meaning you claw and thrash your way back to the surface in a desperate attempt to grasp control over it.

Destruction doesn't manifest physically in this case, for Eternal Sugar it shows itself in a more psychological movement. She keeps her cookies happy and content, where no one is hurt and everyone is happy as she likes.

... But then some cookies start to slip. They begin to question things, try to push the rules, like rebellious little things. Why should she allow this to continue when it's clearly going to hurt other cookies. She can't have that, now can she?

So she takes them and gets rid of any semblance of "mental gunk" from their minds and souls, bringing them back to that peacefully ignorant bliss. It's a destruction of free thinking and autonomy in paradise which is what makes this so disturbing.

Adding onto this, she's also a lot more intense when it comes to her anger. Say something wrong too many times, and she will snap at you. Disagree with how things are run, and you are going to be scrubbed clean of that "filth" tarnishing this beloved world.

... Now doesn't that just sound a little cultish? Everyone follows under a false god/goddess (Eternal Sugar, Shadow Milk is more "behind the scenes" in this timeline but he's still very much present), they have set rules, set things they can eat and wear, activities they can do. There's no money, there's no kingdoms, absolutely zero hostility. Because that is not happiness, that's cruelty. And cruelty infects happy cookies, turning them filthy and cruel.

Everything must be under her command because if a single thing is out of place it threatens to destroy the whole illusion. So she destroys the threat first through "peaceful" means. By that I mean she wipes them clean of all rebellious and wicked thoughts until we're set back to base with nothing to show for progress.

And it's still the corrupted form of Change, the original virtue. Instead of forcing change, she is PREVENTING it from occurring in the first place. Because if change in any capacity, both good or bad were to occur, it would break everything about this paradise.

Sloth is also a key component in this because although she's slightly more proactive than Canon Eternal Sugar, she's still relying on a lot of her manipulation and care to lull cookies into this consistent, relaxed sense of security and peace. Sloth, to her, is the key to happiness because if every cookie is relaxed and peaceful enough then there will be no harm, only world peace!

Effectively, Eternal Sugar in this interpretation becomes a much more active manipulator and will do everything in her power to keep this peaceful, sweet, utopic narrative going. Because if a single thing cracks that perception, it all collapses under its lies.

Both Shadow Milk and Eternal Sugar are integral to this timeline for this exact situation. Shadow Milk monitors, Eternal Sugar acts. Both are psychological tormentors, but one dives fully into the misery whilst the other erases it entirely. Similar methods, opposites in execution. And BOTH are reliant on controlling those under them to keep this narrative going.

He's not driven to insanity normally by the ultimate dough, instead I decided to use APATHY as a substitute. Shadow Milk thrives off of "unpredictability" mascarading as control, he likes making events he can observe and adjust to what he desires. His own little circus. But with Apathy thrown into the mix, now all of a sudden "if everything is so meaningless then what joy is there to bring in a world where the unpredictable becomes predictable?"

This leads him to seeking out literally ANYTHING to give him a shred of emotion, some semblance of control over his psyche. Yes he managed to survive the original timeline AND form a perfect world full of delusional cookies believing they're in peace. But once the cycle becomes so boring and monotonous and there's little joy in catching the faulty cookies, he starts to go a little mad (you can compare this mentality to Timekeeper's, actually. Just with way more theatrics and desperation laced into it). To break monotony, he needs to start causing chaos. But if he does, it'll ruin the illusion of Paradise. So what does he do?

He breaks the cookies threatening to harm the world he's helped construct. Because bringing others down to his level makes him feel happy. No wonder he completely destroyed the Pure Vanilla Cookie psychologically from the timeline they invaded, he likes seeing him just as miserable as he is! Same with his past self who "hasn't seen the truth" in his eyes. Because what truth is there if HE HIMSELF is the new truth of this world?

He maintains complete control over the broken and in despair, because they are more likely to give into those sweet little lies to make the pain stop... Why wouldn't they? These conditions are horrible for any Cookie. Why should they keep suffering under the weight of their pain when they could just accept that they're trying to help them?

He prefers the fighters of this mentality the most. They're much more entertaining than the ones who buckle under the pressure in a matter of hours. His other half literally fills that void no matter what timeline he's from. The original who's been dealing with him since his release, or the new timeline where any shred of quiet defiance to give him an answer makes him both mad and ecstatic that he's actually FEELING something.

Imagine having a life stripped of so much meaning you claw and thrash your way back to the surface in a desperate attempt to grasp control over it.

While the FountGPT jokes are funny, I don't believe that's how his insanity began. I'm going to put the speed run answer, and then elaborate more with details and quotes from the Dominion of the Beasts.

1) The Fount's unhappiness stemmed from having no equal. A power imbalance meant to leave him as simply a commodity. He had no one to share the burden. Know the weight. His cup was empty, yet he was expected to keep pouring (building off of him having no equal, there was no one who was able to let him feel seen in a way that mattered). Developmentally, he is alone, surrounded by the ignorant who think they know best.

2) The Cookies kept asking questions that have no generic answer. (I keep getting reminded of those stories of people trying to use ai to try to get out of escape rooms or ask ai to help them remember facts from their own life).

3) Neglect. I, personally, love it when characters are the child of a feminine god and are left to do whatever. Two birds, one stone (mommy issues and religious trauma).

4) He has lost all of his autonomy. Do you realize how big that is? In the scenes where Pure Vanilla Cookie glimpses a few of the Fount's memories… it doesnt matter if he lies or tells the truth. The Cookies will be mad regardless. Loss of autonomy is an awful thing to realize about your situation. It is a hard truth to bear. So… it becomes far easier to lie about your situation. Pretend you like lying- toying with everyone, like they're your play thing and not the other way around, speaking of…

5) He is truly just a reflection of His Cookies. They distrust one another, they believe there has to be something they can do to change their reality, they believe they can be just as great as the Fount himself if they just have the right diet (a hierarchy jump from mortal cookie to Virtue? Almost reminds me of how Shadow Milk turned himself into what he is now…)

Now, onto the nerdy bits in detail >:)

1) WITHOUT EQUAL

"Fount of Knowledge! Fount of Knowledge!"

"Yes, how may I be of service?"

"Fount of Knowledge, you know everything! So… can I ask you something?"

"Ah yes! What is it that you wish to know?"

It's always stuck out to me how Cookies always address the Fount like this first. In day to day practice, my main observations on religion have come from Christianity, and it reminds me of how prayers begin with lengthy titles to address God. I'm including The Lord's Prayer with it beginning as, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," which, is by no means an exhausting way to begin an adress. However, it's not a common way to strike up a conversation with a friend, an equal.

Is this use of adress meant to get the divine's attention? To show awe and reverence? Either way, it places a clear differentiation: I beseech an audience with the being above me.

And the Fount does not seem to know what to do with this song and dance. He is here to answer questions, not an elaborate back and forth. He is here to disperse information, a servant to the Witches. He is not god. He is higher than the other Cookies, but he is here for a purpose, not to be worshipped (at least, not yet. Part 5 in this run down is where I think that point swaps).

I believe… that there could have been Someone Who Could Bear The Weight. I am such a desirerer for The Virtues Being Inexplicably Close… but, alas. I do not think DevSis will bestow such a fate to my darlings.

I do think its worth note that Shadow Milk Cookie started off rather confident that the Beasts were his friends. I think it would be oh so very interesting (especially considering the current plot) that he would lie to himself that he wasn't alone in all his sufferings. That his fellow Virtues were also Going Through The Wringer. So the perpetual lie that they were close and that they were oooobviously friends… hm.

["…How utterly pointless… Do they not seek true meaning? True purpose?"]

YES, FOUNT, SO TRUE

They (the Cookies) are asking for answers to questions that do not fit the psychological development that the Fount is at! So caught up in isolation, he has no room for the compassion necesary to hold space for "children" to "be slow" because he never experienced that.

The Fount seems to be far more concerned with philosophy. Philosophy HAS NO ANSWER. It is a discussion, a conversation. When I took an (intro) philosophy course, the professor was always urging us to think about how [insert previous philosopher we talked about earlier in the unit] would reply to this new philosopher's stance on a matter.

THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER, ONLY CONVERSATION. DEBATES. and for that, there must be an equal, One Who Can Rival His Intellect and Make Him Think. One Who Can Think Like Someone Who Isn't Themself.

So, yes, while these questions could be categorized as beneath him, these questions are not what he was baked to do. He wants to lead Cookie Kind to a specific kind of future, not one were they all become hyper reliant on him to tie their shoes and make them sandwiches. They are using his gifts in a way that harms a student, not fosters growth, and he resents that.

2) O, FOUNT GPT, FOUNT GPT!

"I suspect my neighbor talking bad about me behind my back! Should I let it go? Or should I say something?"

A question depending on both Cookies' temperments, comfort levels, emotional maturity, the stakes involved, does there need to be self-reflection? Do you need to recruit a mediator- do you even have someone who knows both cookies well enough to be able to play mediator without it seemingly like everyone is ganging up on one Cookie? There are so many variations, but most answers lead to: Talk to them, not me. 

"There is a Cookie I like, but I just can't muster enough courage to talk to them. How do I confess my feelings?"

Again, depends on the Cookie. Who are you? And who is this Cookie you hope reciprocates? I don't mean names, but rather, what do you both like? Would you two be the type of couple to enjoy the gushy, song-writer, hand-holding, bouqet buying aspects of love? Or do you two find love in the quiet, unspoken parts? Do you both like big scenes or something private? Is it only you who likes grand gestures or does the other as well? Ultimately: this Cookie ought to be falling in love with you, not the advice I can give you. Love cannot be outsourced.

"Is there anything I can do to improve the weather? Perhaps, an offering to the spirits?"

First of all- the spirits?? Forgive me, but aren't the Witches, like, the divine beings the Fount is directly under? Yes, I don't think spirits and the Witches would be mutually exclusive faiths to walk, but asking the guy who has such high status because of his relation to the Witches? …..weird

 "What should I eat to become as smart as you, Fount of Knowledge?"

How naive to think that just eating a few specific meals could recreate the utter divinity coursing through his very jam. How childish to believe that Others could Be Him so easily. Laughable. Next.

"I saw this strange dream… in it, a Bear Jelly was wearing a crown and dancing! What could that possibly mean?"

From everything I have researched about dream analysis and the encounters I've had talking to others- that is SUCH a subjective question.

A real example of how things can vary- I have watched two people discuss a nightmare one of them has had. One talks of a snake she has seen in the dream. She speaks of it with fear, with the assumption that the snake is full of trickery, betrayal, double-crossings. The conclusion for this person was that the snake was her subconscious telling her that someone she was close to was untrustworthy. Out to get her. Smiling in one moments and baring fangs the next.

HOWEVER.

The other person in this conversation simply went "oo! I love snakes."

When snakes appear in her dreams, they usually are a reflection of how deeply she wishes she had a pet snake, or simply, how cool she finds snakes to be. They are not an omen, like snakes are for the first person. The way the brain views certain objects at a subconscious, emotional, state, will determine the role it has in a dream.

All this to say, the Fount would not know this, unless, of course, he was a mental health professional in this Cookie's life. He would need the human connection that requires an emotional tie, not one of simply servitude.

"I had a pouch of Coins hidden under a tree, but it's not there anymore! Where can I find it?" 

Brother…. it's like when people ask ai to remember things it simply would have no way to ever know….

I often think about how peole use ai in things like escape rooms. The ai, most likely, has never seen the room. Yes, you can take pictures, but it cannot explore. It cannot test its theories, it does not know what the employee told the group prior to entering, etc etc etc. Not to mention that I feel it's insulting to say ai can think, but perhaps that's just me.

TLDR you can't know something if you were never there.

So, no. If even the Fount of Knowledge had the chance to hear or read about where your coin pouch walked off to, it wasn't hidden very well… That is not something someone is baked to know or could quickly learn about. I do not think he is Hive Mind Synched to constantly get all the new information of this world. Sorry, but I'm not so easily convinced.

3) Neglect

This one requires a scene from that arc where Pure Vanilla gets a glimpse in to the Fount's memories, so, spoilers for that (and I'll probably make a post about that whole string of scenes in its own thing one day).

But the Witches left. They left their little Virtues to fend for themselves. To my knowledge, there's nothing canon in an explanation to what happened to the Witches. Perhaps there's answers in other games by DevSis, perhaps it's buried in the last few updates that I'm not up to date on. I've seen things about the Witches being turned to Cookies…? But I don't see that in Cookie Run: Kingdom. However…

I don't exactly care. Why? Because the Fount and Shadow Milk Cookie are not operating under this knowledge, so it does not better serve the understanding of his mischaracterizations by solving mysteries even he has never been allowed to know.

"But… Does this mean… Do the gods… the Witches… not care about us at all?"

(This is said by the Crayon-Doodle looking version of Shadow Milk Cookie (CD-SMC) which seems to display a Him That Isn't Him? A version disociated away, detatched, meant to question, but not be distressed. The begininings of Shadow Milk Cookie. But, based on the fact that this is a flashback of sorts, this iteration of Shadow Milk Cookie could be a role who is not meant to be emotional about what happened, just a story teller. Yes, the world collapsed and turned to fire. So sad, so sad… anyways!)

"Ugh… My head feels blank… What just happened…?"

(Pure Vanilla Cookie, acting as the Fount of Knowledge (FoK-PVC))

"But the Witches still won't intervene… Why…? When will they show up? How much more chaos will it take? Are you not curious? Why this world was created?" (CD-SMC)

"I… Hrgh… My head…" (FoK-PVC)

THE FACT THAT FoK-PVC ALWAYS TALKS OF HIS HEAD HURTING WHENEVER THIS VERSION OF SHADOW MILK COOKIE APPEARS TO TALK ABOUT THE ABANDONMENT FELT BY THE WITCHES' ABSCENCE- oh, I'm so horribly average about my thoughts on this.

My man is a breeding ground for dissociaive-based mental illnesses and that is so so important to me-

But that simply cannot be a topic that gets carelessly shoved in to this. Mental health / psychology is a deeply cherished subject to me, and I would not want to throw my hat in to the ring without the DSM-V and ICD-11 and a few research papers cracked open- at least to reference. This? This is me just talking opinions and observations. Nothing more than conversation.

Ahem-

To keep it in loose terms- its giving…. child-cannot-handle-that-parent-may-not-love-them orrrr child-is-afraid-that-their-parent-is-truly-gone. Regardless, it is the grief and denial that Affection Is Gone. It makes perfect sense that a child would "act up" or "act out" if it means they get attention. If you are desperate enough, good attention vs. bad attention has no real seperation. Attention is attention, and the Fount is starved of it. Starvation… no wonder Shadow Milk Cookie likes his wild beastly metaphors (my baby).

But a child will always blame themself. Perhaps, they may say otherwise, but I believe that the closest wound, the one that they keep concealed under their cloaks of deceptions and illusions, will always be "I wasn't good enough to be loved." And maybe? Even they do not know that is the wound they are harboring, too scared to check how infected it's become after all these years- fear of having to face it all.

The best lies are the ones even the liar believes.

4) THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE / LOSS OF AUTONOMY

I think I will expand on this one more so in a different post… I have many thoughts that are just kind of… swirling. Not exactly corporeal, but there's a lot on this subject. TLDR the hopelessness that emerges when one feels that they have lost the ability to make a meaningful impact on their surroundings…. that they are merely a vessel for things to be done to them…. I don't think I really need to explain why that is distressing.

5) A REFLECTION; SOMETHING MORE

I FEAR IM LOSING STEAM- but I'm keeping this here because I KNOW I'm going to want to write on about this AT SOME POINT-

Anywho, thanks for reading! I think it's important to say I had this same tiktok playing on loop while I wrote all of this [https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTSxc4uc8/] so shout out to that editor for giving my Fount Brain