𝙰𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝 𝙼𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛

They wear suits, but they don't even know basic etiquette.

…what? you thought this was one of those funny posts where they cut it off at “in this essay i will”? i’m not joking. buckle in. consider this my application to join the cool kids who like gingerbrave club, okay? but first i think i should say that im not a doctor or psychologist. i just like research and funny little goobers. this is a combination of those two things i like. it’s all in good fun, and this is purely within a fictional context. that being said lets get started.

The hero complex and lack of self-importance is especially one I think about often, with how he always seems to be a pillar of support for those around him, including those who should be supporting HIM (cough cough. adults like Pure Vanilla). He always seems to know what to say, what to do, to lift people up. He gives them hope.

It's like parentification of the eldest sibling except he's an orphan and his sibling(s) are dead. ANYWAY.

I'm gonna add on to the points you all made here and say that a huge part of this is likely due to a lack of properly established identity/sense of self, which brings with it a lack of self-assuredness, exacerbated by the way his peers treat him, and all leading back to his very first experiences in the Witch's House. (IT ALL COMES FULL CIRCLE!!) Let's review.

The attachment issues this kid has are INSANE. They are so egregiously unrecognized by most everyone and yet they are SO present. In Witch's Castle, he specifically states that he is afraid of his friends deciding they don't want to be friends with him anymore.

In Ovenbreak, he withdraws from genuine conflict with his friends when its getting too heated and its clear they can't come to an easy understanding.

He ALWAYS says yes when someone needs help. No matter how big or scary the task is.

He NEEDS to make himself useful. He needs to be strong enough to protect everyone. To take it all on his shoulders.

Sure, maybe he really is just the hero type. He's got a big heart, and he genuinely does care for cookiekind.

It's just strange how he preaches self-love and acts confident with himself yet he does everything he can to make sure the people he cares about still like him and want him around. He'll do anything if its for his friends.

It's almost like he doesn't think he's worthy of their friendship otherwise. Why else would he be so scared of them leaving him?

Maybe because he loses all sense of self when they do. Who is he without his friends?

He's GingerBrave. Sure. He's the bravest cookie in the world. Yeah. That's what everyone says. But I don't think he actually thinks that. First off, his dialogue for his wishes in CRK is "I want to be braver". Pretty small and insignificant piece of evidence but bear with me. Why does that have to be a goal for him if he's already the bravest there is?

Not to mention that he seems to feel the need to PROVE that he's brave when he's really internally losing his shit.

In those moments, he forgets that one of the bravest things one can do is to admit when they're terrified. But he can't show that kind of vulnerability--Not to his friends. Not to other cookies. Because they need him to be brave enough. To be strong enough. It's CLEAR that that's the case, because otherwise why would cookies as strong as PURE VANILLA COOKIE keep coming to him for help and guidance?

The praise, the expectations, the pressure. His peers hold him to high standards, and he makes them even higher for himself because he needs to make SURE everyone else sees that he's meeting theirs. He lets others define him because its all he has. He doesnt study magic like Wizard Cookie. He isn't a shy gamer like Strawberry Cookie. He never truly had a chance to figure out who he is because he was never supposed to be anyone in the first place. He didn't get a childhood, a soft introduction to the world. He was never even meant to be alive.

That first action he took. Breaking out of the oven, defying his fate of being eaten! That's what made others see him for the brave cookie he is. But the truth is, all that was was an act of survival instinct. It wasn't some monumental moment of getting over some fear, it was a child trying not to die in his first moments of living. Yeah. It was brave. But to him it was life or death. And it just so happened to define him from that moment onward.

Bounce light is something I didn't cover but I adore it!

To achieve this effect in practice, I find it easiest to work from the light source as a base. I might inch the hue slider a bit towards the object color if I am okay with there being a range of colors in my light source (this is most often the case, otherwise it's monochrome and not interesting in the way we're after here), I will inch my hue just a tad in the direction of the object, and I will knock the object color towards the grays to compensate the rest of the way. If the object color is very different from the light source, it's going to get more gray and less hue shift from the light source, while an object that is closer to the light source ranges will get to be closer to its original hue and less gray.

For example, if I have a red object in cyan light, I'm not going to do much of anything to the hue since they're on opposite sides of the wheel and instead I will just drop the red to gray. If it's a very saturated red it's going to be a darker gray. If I have a yellow object, though, I'll inch the hue from cyan to maybe something a bit greener, and I'll only drop the saturation a little bit. It'll look strange if you're just starting out, but once you get more colors in it will be more cohesive. They are relative to one another, after all!

Tl;dr Most solid colored objects by and large scatter light as opposed to transmitting or emitting it, which means that they are responding to colors in the light source. If you don't have a suitably matching color in your source, your object won't respond by being the color you expect it to!

Now, I don't mind Kingdom focusing on other characters. Ovenbreak does it too, its what allows for so many fans to enjoy the franchise in their own ways, because there's a character for everyone! My issue is when they decide they DON'T need to give certain characters, their MAIN CHARACTER, any prior development. And look, I get it. GingerBrave and the others have been around forever. Everyone already knows about them!

Except that's not always the case.

A LOT of people who start playing Cookie Run Kingdom, have Kingdom as their FIRST introduction into the franchise. OR. They just don't play any of the other games.

So their very first experience with the main character(s) of the game/franchise is a tiny little tidbit of exposition (ie. The oven trio escaped from the Witch! She was eating cookies!).

And the only one who actually talks about witnessing this is Strawberry Cookie.

That is the MOST prior information you get about the three of them, aside from the generic story tabs that you can read that they haven't changed AT ALL since the first games they arrived in. Yes, it is possible to get attached to a character without having a shit ton of backstory shoved in your face. HOWEVER.

I just feel like?? Maybe people would actually pay more attention to them if they had a reason to ROOT for these characters from the BEGINNING?? Such as actually showing them trying to escape from the Witch's house. Being terrified for their lives but determined to live and get out of that horrible situation.

Maybe people wouldn't constantly disregard them if they weren't basically just made out to be accessories to the "cooler" characters throughout the entire story.

THEY WERE BAKED BY WITCHES, ARE APPARENTLY GOING UP AGAINST GROWN ADULTS AND WINNING, KNOW THE REAL REASON WHY COOKIES ARE BAKED AND ARE JUST SO FULL OF POTENTIAL, HELLO?????

WHERE ARE THE FICS? THE FANARTS? THE THEORIES????

WHY IS THERE NOT A LOT OF WORK ABOUT PURE VANILLA ADOPTING THEM BECAUSE THAT'S THEIR DAD! THAT'S THEIR FATHER! I DON'T CARE THAT HE IS FUCKING A JESTER! I CARE THAT HE LOVES THOSE KIDS, AND RESPECTS THEM, AND TRUSTS THEM, AND HAVE FAITH IN THEIR STRENGTH BUT STILL WORRY!

I CARE THAT TAKING CARE OF THEM WOULD BE A FORM OF REDEMPTION FOR FAILING HIS KINGDOM AND A GREAT HONOUR TO HIM ALL AT ONCE!

GIVE ME MORE ABOUT GINGERBRAVE, STRAWBERRY COOKIE AND WIZARD COOKIE BEING AWESOME, AND COOL, AND STRONG, AND CRYPTIC, AND SIBLINGS AND CHILDREN!

LET THOSE KIDS BE COOL TOGETHER IN 100K FIC PLEASE!!!!!

EDIT:

Anyone wants to team up with me and fix this problem? I got ideas. Lots of idea. Ideas that aren't necessarily good for the kids' mental health but very entertaining and dear God I sound like Shadow Milk Cookie.