Until The Special Comes Out I'm Just Going To Write It Myself

WE GETTIN FUCKIN MARRIED 

mouthwashing epic rap battle

I have a passion for bizarre stock images.

kofi=honeyspawprints

Chatting around a bit with my partner, something clicked for me.

Okay, I guess I'm making a semi-detailed Eternal Sugar analysis post before the Shadow Milk one? odd, but that's because honestly it's gotten to a point where I would rather wait for the APV update before doing anything with him (partially because i wanna get the chance to go on my high horse about how all the SMC redemption hype was horrendously misguided and never likely to come to fruition), so I might as well dump out some thoughts related to Eternal Sugar, considering she's logically up next after Shadow Milk and before SIlent Salt.

... So we all agree she was the previous Sugar Swan or something of the sort, right?

Kind of a wild thing to put out when we know so little, but what little we do know is more than enough to place a firm connection.

First, something I IMMEDIATELY noticed that stuck out to me while I was looking around at the Earthbread map.

They are right. Next. To each other. The Forgotten Sugar Paradise is not all that far north from the Dessert Paradise. And, what is it that we can find inside Dessert Paradise, at least back in Ovenbreak's continuity?

The Eternal Sweetness. Ignoring the fact we've not seen it outside of how it looks when Black Sugar Swan has it, the general role of the Eternal Sweetness is to keep Dessert Paradise as well. A paradise. A place where nothing needs to hunt for food, nothing dies, everything just kind of perpetually lives forever in harmony and peace.

Now, I hopefully don't need to tell you that this thing being called the Eternal Sweetness raises an eyebrow when the Beast with big pink feathery wings is called Eternal Sugar Cookie, and said Eternal Sugar Cookie's domain is basically RIGHT next to Dessert Paradise, said domain literally having the word Paradise in its name.

THIS is where I'm taking a few leaps for my predictions on Eternal Sugar's motives, but hear me out here.

I genuinely, genuinely think Peril in Paradise could be used to draw some parallels. Despite Sugar Paradise being a place where nothing can die and nothing decays, it happened that a heart consumed by selfish and corrupted desires got its hands on the Eternal Sweetness, causing that eternal life and peace to slowly but surely decay into nothing. Mold had started growing on plants, the inhabitants of the land started hunting for food, and death was introduced to a place where death was never meant to be.

So, we can potentially tie this back to Eternal Sugar.

Eternal Sugar Cookie is the Beast of Sloth, originally holding the Virtue of Happiness. Clearly, there HAS to be some relation to Dessert Paradise, considering the frequent reuse of certain words between Eternal Sugar's stuff and Dessert Paradise. Here's what I'm thinking; originally, the Forgotten Sugar Paradise was Dessert Paradise, or its predecessor of some kind. Here, Eternal Sugar Cookie took up the role of the land's watcher and protector, preserving the life of all the resided in it, much like what the Sugar Swan would do later on. I'm personally thinking that, at some point, something similar to what happened in the Peril in Paradise story happened here. For one reason or another, death and decay were suddenly introduced to the paradise; withering, hunting for food, lives actually at risk. Unlike what happened back in Ovenbreak, Eternal Sugar was likely unable to stop it, or was only able to stop it way too late, with a significant portion of the paradise's lives being taken. And that's when something in her mind broke.

Having forcefully been introduced to the concept of death and decay, the protector of paradise would become desperate to never let that happen again. A crippling, debilitating fear of death. So, what would they do about this? Preserve the world's beauty, by force. Make sure that nothing will ever have to spend energy, never have to decay, never grow ill, never age, never be tarnished. Asleep, forever, perfectly preserved. To her, the only way to ensure precious, beautiful lives will never be taken again is to fully embrace sloth, and ensure that nothing ever has to move so much as a finger, never put itself at risk, never be in any danger, never age, never rot, never die. Pristine. Peaceful. Eternal.

Reaching more into assumptions, I'd think that if this is the motive, she'd want to keep everyone and everything encased in glass, unmoving, asleep, undying, preserved forever, their beauty on full display for all of time. Hell, if you wanna make her REALLY scary, have it so that by the time we meet her, she already has a small collection; cookies, dessert animals, other sapient beings all encased in glass, asleep. Like they'd been frozen in time. And, honestly? Even though she would be the antagonist, she could have a weird relationship with Hollyberry where unlike all the previous ancients, there's no actual animosity, no personal sense of antagonism. Thinking that, ultimately, yes, Hollyberry should be preserved, she deserves to, as someone so strong and loving and passionate, qualities that deserve to be preserved and regarded beautifully; despite how much they think in opposite ways (With Hollyberry rightfully thinking that the only way to live life is to LIVE it, to its fullest extent, as happily and vividly and eagerly as possible).

... You can also make it yuri, if you so please. Something like Eternal Sugar going on about "Why? Why won't you let yourself be preserved? You are so beautiful, so perfectly baked and formed and well taken care of, so loving, and yet you're okay with all of that being lost? Why? Why won't you let me save you? Why are you so willing to let something so beautiful rot and fade with time?", genuinely desperate to make sure that what seems like her beautiful other half can be preserved forever. Not gonna happen canonically, most likely, but I think it would be fun and proooobably make sense. Probably. We'll see.

But yeah, those are my personal predictions for Eternal Sugar. I'd be really happy if they came true, honestly! Bringing in some more old-school Cookie Run lore and stuff for one of the Beasts would be a good way of making her stand out, and feel quite gratifying for more long-time fans. Really excited to see where the writing team takes her.

Breaking news: Eternal Sugar positions troops around Sugarswan’s nachos

We can love the person he has turned out to be without whitewashing the crappy things he has done

Guys, I know Darius is cool, but can we please stop victim-blaming Hunter and acting like the way even the good adults in his life treated him is NBD?

‘Cause I keep seeing a lot of “okay Darius was mean to Hunter at first, but Hunter was a brat who got the job because of nepotism, so…” comments.

And look, I really think people in general are hugely underestimating just how badly Hunter was screwed over not just by Belos but by *ALL* the adults around him.

1) Let’s start by establishing something first: Hunter was never a brat to anybody in the castle.

Now, to be clear, even IF Hunter had been a brat, people 30 years older than him should still have not made his bad situation worse. If there are two people, and one of them is an adult while the other is a kid, the adult is supposed to keep their cool even if the kid acts out. You can punch up but you can’t punch down.

But that point is moot because all the evidence we have points at Hunter being a little nerd who adored the adults around him and was desperate to please them.

Exhibit #1: Dana’s official art, where Hunter freaks out over being slightly less overworked because it will make Lilith hate him. Even with the mask, you can tell he has a frantic expression.

Exhibit #2: the Hunter’s Palisman Observation stream, when Hunter has a question and is looking for an answer, he reaches out to the Coven Heads to ask them. He sees them as wise and knowledgeable, and wants to learn from them. That makes it extra hurtful that “Darius ignored me, as per usual. Eberwolf hissed at me, also as per usual.”

Exhibit #3: in ASIAS, we learn that Hunter genuinely loves rules and authority. Does that sound like somebody who’d disrespect an adult in charge?

Exhibit #4: pretty much the entirety of ASIAS. The whole reason Hunter went to Hexside is because an adult who technically ranks below him gave him an order.

There is a grand total of TWO examples in the series where Hunter talks back to an adult.

The first one is when he sees Kikimora again after she tried to murder him.

Note that he never tells Belos what she did, even though he didn’t realise that she had recognised him by his burnt hair, so he thought that she had actually bought his “travellers found me” story and wouldn’t be able to respond to his accusations with any of her own. He could have easily thrown her under the bus, and actively chose not to, even after she almost killed him.

The second one is in ASIAS, where an angry Hunter confronts the Coven Heads after they rescheduled the meeting behind his back, right after they physically pushed him aside hard enough to almost make him fall and walked away smirking at his misery.

Note that, immediately after, he looks like this. Arguing with the Coven Heads makes him miserable. He doesn’t want to fight them. He’d much rather ask “how high” when they say “jump.” But they still casually assault him.

They all knew that Belos had given him the order to leads the meeting. And they knew that Belos is a control freak who is infamous for his lack of mercy. They knew that Belos would see their decision to reschedule as Hunter’s fault, even though they did it behind his back.

If you think he was being arrogant or whatever here, I want you to look me straight in the eyes and tell me that if your coworkers screwed you over in front of your infamously vicious boss and walked away smirking while pretending they can’t see you and literally pushing you around, you would totally keep your cool.

2) The nepotism excuse also doesn’t work.

Nepotism is supposed to make your life easier.

Hunter is a child covered in scars with huge eyebags and absolutely no social life whatsoever who rolls over and shows his neck the second an authority figure expresses any displeasure with him.

It’s plain to see that getting Belos’ “special treatment” is harming him.

Hunter eventually does pull out the “Belos’ nephew” card, in an attempt to get Darius to back off.

But by this point, he:

- knows he has disappointed Belos, something that he fears more than death (as per Eclipse Lake)

- has been assaulted by the other Coven Heads…

- …who added insult to injury by pretending they couldn’t see him, really rubbing it in that they find him worthless

- and then Darius, a man twice his size and thrice his age, grabbed him, spun him around, and stole his clothes

Tl:dr: Hunter is not acting entitled here, he is acting *cornered*. He is lashing out because he is scared, and like any scared kid he is calling out to his “dad.”

And the moment Darius tells him that he has to earn his position as Golden Guard, Hunter immediately agrees to do anything. There is no entitlement there, only a desperate desire to be good enough.

3) On the Boiling Isles, a half-a-witch is at best a social outcast and at worst a target.

For starters, a half-a-witch can’t get an education. You have to be able to perform spells to be allowed to go to school.

Granted this is for Amity’s advanced class, but the idea is that you have to get there eventually, even if it takes you much longer than the gifted students. In order to go to Hexside, you must at least have the potential to use magic.

Before Luz came into the scene, glyphs were a forbidden knowledge that had been lost for hundreds of years. Add in that palismen are close to extinction, and there is simply no way for a half-a-witch to do magic.

So, you can’t go to school. But can you at least get a job?

Ah. No.

Eda gets robbed in public by an officer of the law, in plain view of a huge crowd, and their reaction boils down to “sucks to be powerless.”

A half-a-witch essentially has no rights. They are not treated as citizens. It’s completely legal to ban them from essential functions and to refuse them pay for their labor.

If Eda had not found the Selkiedomus’ treasure, she and her family would have starved.

The discrimination against magicless creatures is so bad that even Hooty, arguably the nicest character in the show, still expresses scorn for them.

Hunter wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest here.

Being magicless is basically the BI equivalent of being disabled in a society that actively favours eugenics.

 4) So, what did Darius do that was so bad?

Now, before anybody takes this post as Darius bashing, I want to bring up why he did it.

- Darius was clearly traumatised by the death of his mentor…

- …who not only died, but also died in circumstances that must have been highly suspicious at best, so that Darius never even got proper closure and has been living with that open wound for years…

- …in addition to the fact that Darius is extremely protecting of his loved ones, so that he must have felt the urge to protect the memory and legacy of his mentor…

- …and that’s made ten times more painful if the replacement, who acts like the antithesis of everything his beloved mentor stood for, looks almost exactly like his mentor.

Can you imagine the grief is somebody you love with all your heart dies, and then some time later they appear to come back as an insult to everything they were?

So, I’m not denying that Darius had his own reasons here, nor am I arguing that he is a terrible person.

In case you don’t know, I like Darius so much I wrote a meta titled “Why Darius is a much better person than Fandom gives him credit for.” I like the guy, okay?

Nevertheless, he almost caused irreparable damage.

One of the reasons Hunter is so desperately loyal to Belos, is that Belos is the only one who never looked down on him for his lack of magic.

Now of course the bitter irony here is that Belos is racist against witches.

But Hunter didn’t know that.

All Hunter knew was that every person he ever met thought he was worthless for the way he was born, *except* for Belos, who said he was special.

And what does Darius do? He goes and reinforces Hunter’s belief that nobody but Belos will ever accept him.

Now, we know that Darius wasn’t really talking about magic there. We don’t know if all grimwalkers lack magic or just Hunter, but either way, later context clues indicate that he was talking about “strength of heart” or something like that.

Nevertheless, he most definitely came across like he was saying that Hunter has no place in the EC because he has no magic.

And Darius is not stupid. He had to know what he sounded like. And he didn’t bother correcting Hunter’s assumption, let him believe that the problem with him were the circumstances of his birth.

Why did Hunter befriend the Emerald Entrails? Because he accidentally stepped on a griffon’s tail. It was sheer dumb luck. If Hunter had put his foot a couple of inches aside, he never would have met Willow.

If not for a single stroke of extraordinarily unlikely good luck, Hunter would have gone back to the castle more convinced than ever that Belos was the only person in the world who could ever give a damn about him, the only one Hunter could ever love and trust.

Darius’ words would have driven him even further into the grasp of his abuser.

This is on top of the fact that Hunter canonically reaches out many times to Darius and Eberwolf over the years, and they always responded by giving him the silent treatment. Again, “Darius ignored me as per usual, Eberwolf hissed at me also as per usual.” How can they blame him for being an ignorant fanatic, if they have systematically rebuffed any and all of his attempts to talk to the only people in the castle who are not Belos’ stooges?

And on top of the fact that “you always do as you are told” is one hell of a line to give a kid *who gets blades thrown at his face* if he says a single word Belos doesn’t like. Hunter’s devotion to Belos is also his shield from violent beatings. If Hunter ever acted “rebellious” to Belos, Belos wouldn’t just send him to his room without dinner.

5) Has Darius changed?

Duh.

6) So what’s the problem?

Remember when people were like “Amity is doing right by Willow now, but she still needs to apologise”?

And when people were like “Alador has finally started walking in the right direction towards eventually becoming a decent father for his kids, but the first step was admitting that he treated them horribly”?

As far as I know, nobody was like “Amity is cool now so there is no need for her to say sorry to Willow, and Willow kind of sucked anyway” or like “Alador is cool now so wtf does Amity have to bitch about and move his hand away, just hug it out and ignore the past”?

What this whole tl;dr essay boils down to, is that S3 needs to have a scene where the good adults in Hunter’s life acknowledge that they did him dirty, without excuses and without victim blaming.

That’s all.

What if you could find the Divine Beasts in the Depths?

You’re in this dark, alien environment, strange noises echoing around you, the inescapable anxiety your only companion. Squinting in the distance, you see a frighteningly familiar shade of blue flicker, faint in the distance.

Cautiously moving forward, you begin to realise the blue belongs to something much, much larger than a possible guardian. Eventually, an ancient behemoth looms overhead, still, silent, and empty, both at rest and unnervingly calm. A strange, restless melancholy replaces the sense of creeping dread, no less uneasy than before.

Entering the resting stone, in the corner of your eyes, you see movement flicker. At first you think a spirit, perhaps the Champions still linger… but deep down you know they’ve passed on… right?

Echoing footsteps fill the silence as you press on, avoiding gloom where there had once been malice, a desecration of a sacred resting place. You see the flicker again, turn on your foot and see for a split second, a beloved friend, an uneasy rival, a stalwart protector, a steadfast leader, an ally, a painful reminder of your worst failure. Even now, years later, it stings.

You try to get their attention, but there is no response. Instead, you watch. And realise. And mourn again. There are no spirits here. Not in the vast, decaying depths, not in the final resting places of a final hope.

These are echoes of the ones you knew. You can see them in the corner of your eyes sometimes, going about preparations for that ill-fated battle. It’s eerie, made no better by the Grand Poes gently swaying, their locations random but making uncomfortable sense.

Sometimes, on unlucky days, it is not preparations that these echoes go through. Pain torn screams faintly heard as their final moments are played out, a play on an eerie stage.

Vah Medoh groans in the dark, as the image of her pilot slams limply on her back, wing torn, and struggles to get up, defiance in his glare even now.

Vah Ruta cries a warning, as her pilot slumps over the controls, never seeing her killer, her last thought to warn the others.

Vah Rudania braces herself, as the echo of her pilot does the same, but the shield shatters, a flash of phantom heat coating the area, followed by darkness.

Vah Nabooris strides steady, until her pilot, fatigued from a relentless assualt, makes one fatal misstep in her final dance, lightning crackling in the air.

The stone beasts are restless, aware of the new threat, and unable to let go of the last pilots they’ll ever have, desperately trying to fight once more. But instead, they lay still, silent, a monument to their pilots lost to time.

What if you could find the Divine Beasts in the Depths?

Since pomni looks normal, what would she look like in full freakshow effect ?(like the virus finally getting to her)

Always remember, you guys asked for this

Silly lighthearted comic about the villain trio! :D