Yaana

While Shadow Milk isn’t a favorite of mine, What makes him most appealing to him his this interesting trait of his: His genuine fascination for other cookies. It's one of his very few redeemable qualities, and while it's rare to see, but we get more of it throughout the story.

I noticed this most in Timeline of Fates episode 2. The first half is one of my favorite parts of Act 2 so far, Croisant vs ShadowMilk + Her girlfriend: Ash Salt cookie. The climax of Croissant outsmarting the father and daughter was a great character moment for her, but also an interesting character moment for Shadow Milk.

Despite tricking him, he is able to be genuinely impressed by her craftsmanship. Why this matters so much is because this completely conflicts with a significant trait of his: Hating being tricked/outsmarted.

We see this quite a bit with Dark Enchantress as well (which is why I adore their small little evil relationship, and why in my ideal ShadowKeepr dynamic would be similar to theirs but Shadow Milk takes teeper more seriously)

Note: Shadow Milk’s Dark Enchantress’s “human” form is one of my favorite moments in ep 15. I could spend a whole post dedicated to why.

I know there are one and two other moments in the story like this, but they feel less genuine and more condescending as he is more in tune with the Jester persona there. This moment in BY 2 here is an example.

The reason why I consider this quality “Redeemable” is because its implied that that's one of the factors that kept Sage from corrupting

The reason why Shadow Milk’s insanity has escalated to the level it has in the story is because cookies keep betraying him. Everytime he gets outsmarted in Act 1 he comes worse afterwards. In the War alone he gets betrayed twice, leaving him more powerless than he has ever been. There is nothing more that Shadow Milk despises that being betrayed completely off guard.

Despite briefly ranting about this he is later able to applaud her efforts. Probably because he did see her attempt coming but he is able to appreciate the thought. The cleverness and Intelligence able to pull it off. 

Shadow Milk loves “interesting cookies”. It's why he's so drawn to complete messes like Pure Vanilla, Silent Salt and White Lily. And why he loves it when noble cookies corrupt, because it his eyes it make them more “interesting” characters (also self variation + control)

The significance of it is that this fascination is a genuine trait of his. It's purely honest to who he is as a person and not a ‘role’. Sure you can say it's a fount of knowledge thing, but it's more deeper than that, because it's found in Sage as well, who is the ‘true’ Shadow Milk in a way (Sage is still a performance though, just a more genuine one). 

This joy of learning about interesting cookies conflicts with his hatred for them. Its why Sage would never deploy the methods Ultimate Shadow Milk would, it's why Shadow Milk gets tricked, because he gives these cookies the opportunity to impress him, but also take advantage of him. 

the golden goddess

He was so funny this chapter.

Stayed up till 3am to play it but its okay we ball

Bonus...

It seems like shmilk brainwashed wind archer and everyone else into thinking his new order is direction for their world,and they must kill the main timeline as it is a "weed" holding them back from the new world.

I don't have the screenshots but in one cutscene while he was attacking Dragon Island and destroying the spear, he says "is that the strength of a dragon?" implying he had not encountered a dragon before.

But later when he encounters Ananas he says "persistent in every timeline" to which implies he has fought Anana's before.

The previous scene could have been a flash back though, since I found it odd that Archer was attacking the village only to do it again later.

-> kid who likes water

-> spooky scary gem of ultimate power

-> island of Pure Life

Basically all my issues I’ve had with the Story so far are absent here. Its episode feels like a breath of fresh air that we haven't gotten in God knows how long. We haven’t had anything that feels remotely like a breather since I thiinnnnk the Millennial Event update? For the first time in a long time we get to just have fun. It feels so much like a Crispia episode but with real stakes and important lore that are actually engaging. It's genuinely funny at parts with that Summer fun feel but there is still lots of action for this is a very plot relevant episode. 

My main issue I’ve had with Act 2 so far is that the sequence of storytelling has felt disjointed. Each episode had 2 or 3 plotlines happening at the same time, constantly switching between them without letting them breathe properly. The Pacing was weird, as so much was happening, at a very short amount of time yet somehow it kinda felt slow because the plotlines were being sliced up and jumbled together. 

This episode has been the first episode since Beast Yeast 14 that just told the story linearly. One plotline with beat after beat and my is it so refreshing to just be focused on one thing. The Dialogue this episode just felt more characterised as well, especially between Strawberry Crape and Expresso howe have been overlooked for so long and I am so incredibly glad they have been given their chance to shine. I’m liking Ananas and Night Raven a lot as well, and overall all the characters were done great here. 

I do take issue with the explanation for why the Elementals aren’t here. I know they tried to explain that the power they paid for the war was too great so they got to recharge now. But they explained it kinda terribly. Like Bro tf you mean they are “sleeping”, wake tf up the universe is going to collapse?! I know they didn’t want the story to be Elementals vs Corrupted Elementals (Which I really do want though) but rather Dragons vs Corrupted elements. But It wouldn’t  be hard to write the elementals in a way that they are still plot relevant but won't instantly solve everything. While I'm not an elemental cookies fan, nor have I watched/played Played Oven Break aside from some of the TDB stuff, I know that the implementation of the Elementals in Kingdom has been messy.  So I can see why some can feel let down by this. 

I saw a few fans disappointed that the Night Raven didn’t get much screentime, but honestly I think he was used quite well here. I like that he was this underlying dark force that contrasted the warmer light hearted tone with the protagonists. Obviously ep 6 will give us much more of him because that's where the real fight between him and Anananas takes place. Also I liked how he was being built up throughout the story, I think if we saw too much of him, we would lose that suspense that he was creating. 

I find that I tend to feel a bit unsatisfied with the first half of these updates (Eps 1 and 3) the second half makes up for it (2 and 4). These stories are told in pairs, and I appreciate that its not rushing into crazy action off the bat but building up towards it and setting these plotlines up to be built upon later. I’m quite happy with episode 5 so I have hopes that 6 would continue the momentum.T he story is getting better and better and if it's kept up, we got a great Arc on our hands! :D