✨️puf✨️

am i the only one who thinks that what happened to white lily is genuinely the worst case scenario for her? like her fate genuinely could not have been worse than that?

am i the only one who thinks that white lily didn't reach peace, but rather faced an insanely tragic ending by failing to achieve any of the things that she has ever wished for?

because the one thing she wanted more than anything was to be allowed to live as white. lily. cookie. not as a flower, not as a cream sheep, not as another cookie. as white lily cookie. this is not what she got. she got the opposite. her specific desire to learn, her sepcific interests, her individual fears, were just replaced by a vague wish to "live". "live" as whatever the nether realm might make out of her. wasn't the point of her embarking on the trials that she doesn't want to use her life energy to become another life form? wasn't she doing all of this so she can come back as the whole of white lily cookie with all of her mind, body, emotions, memories, flaws, everything? isn't what she got, returning to the world as some other life form, what would have happened to her anyway, had she accepted the river of oblivion right as she arrived in tartarus?

alas, the nether queen did warn her that the trials are a trap and that their purpose is making stubborn souls submit to having their life energy stripped from them and recycled back to other living beings.

but that's not all. this is simply not what the true white lily cookie would ever do. because the true white lily cookie had shadow milk in beast yeast 2 give her the choice between getting rid of him and saving her friends. and she picked neither. she picked both. she made her own third option. she saved both her friends and sent him back to the silver tree. this is white lily cookie. this is what her free spirit is. this is why her mind is so brilliant. because she never submits to pre existing paths others carved out for her. because when she seeks out knowledge hidden behind a locked door she chooses to view the knowledge as a river instead and find her own answer.

when faced with a choice between going through the trial to come back as a different life form and succumbing to the river of oblivion, the real white lily cookie would have found another, unique way to go back as white lily cookie. as exactly who she wants to be. she would have used her dark moon magic skills that she was so curious about to open a rift and get out. she would have somehow defined the laws of nature like the true scientist she is. to be herself. to be white. lily. cookie.

he CANONICALLY held together a very opressive system with the vanilla kingdom.

this line from all the way in the vanilla kingdom lore. it seems like a throwaway line when you first watch it because it does imply that cookies of certain flavour and textures were opressed at some point, but that's not even vaguely hinted at anywhere else so you just assume ignorance on the writers part and move on. but in itself that line does imply that, in the old vanilla kingdom, cookies of certain flavours were discriminated against. because why else would it occur to pure vanilla to mention that, in the new vanilla kingdom, flavours won't matter if he hadn't known a vanilla kingdom where flavours did matter. and the fact that the vanilla kingdom did discriminate against certain cookies based on their flavour does get confirmed when it is pointed out over and over again that the vanillians who came from the vanilla kingdom keep opressing the cookies with salty flavours in the creme republic. and suddenly this line holds a lot more weight, as you now know that it is meant to be pure vanilla finally recognsing the opressive system he has upheld for a good chunk of his slife for what it was. and beginning to attempt to actually change it.

and that's why pure vanilla is very interesting, because YES, he does genuinely want to help everyone, he does genuinely want to end suffering for all cookies. is he aware of how the actions he takes in attempts to achieve this actually affect cookies? hell no.

i need to remind everyone who goes on about how pure vanilla's mistakes are all out of wanting to help white lily and shmilk and who loves talking about how amazing and kind pure vanilla is and about how many good things he's done. that.

pure vanilla cookie. was the face of a canonically very opressive system. pure vanilla cookie. was on the highest position in the vanilla kingdom and didn't even bother to look at how the noble houses and the system as a whole were abusing certain members of this society (yes house custard existed in the vanilla kingdom. yes it is canon that the noble house system was a thing in the vanilla kingdom). it was only after the entire kingdom was destroyed that it occured to him that "flavours, textures" should not matter. and THAT IS AN INSANELY LONG TIME. and i'm very sorry to say this but. pure vanilla could have been internally beating himself up about it the whole time all he wants, that doesn't change the fact that he did nothing about it. that does not absolve him of being a bad person because of it.

my point is. as far as pure vanilla being a fictional character goes, choosing to hint at how pure vanilla helped create and upheld the opressive system that the vanilla kingdom was, IS an indirect means of characterization that wants you to see that pure vanilla cookie is NOT a good person.

pure vanilla cookie desprately WANTS to be a good person, but has a lot of self disvovery to go through before that

i do also need to say that my other point is. this does not make pure vanilla a bad CHARACTER. this makes pure vanilla a very INTERESTING character with contradictory beliefs and actions, which make him a morally questionable, but very INTERESTING, NOT REAL fictional character.

and YES this does matter to pure vanilla's relationship with shmilk and white lily because it shows pure vanilla's CONTINOUS failure in meaningfully considering how other people are hurt by his direct or indirect actions. like yes. if pure vanilla's ignorance was a matter of ONLY his raltionships with shmilk and white lily it would be a particular issue of communication/survivor's guilt and what not. but pure vanilla's ignorance extends to an entire fucking kingdom. seaweed cookie from the creme republic (espresso cookies childhood freind) lives a worse life because of pure vanilla's ignorance. this is a very important character trait. and his failure with those two is not his first or his biggest fuck up. it is the most recent in a cycle of being ignorant, causing harm, suffering, doing nothing to change, continuing to be ignorant. like sorry. no this isn't just a mistake made from suffering. pure vanilla fucked up because of utter ignorance in the academy. pure vanilla MAJORLY and CONTINUALLY fucked up because of ignorance in making the vanilla kingdom a place for ALL cookies to be happy. and pure vanilla fucked up again because of ignorance with white lily (shmilk too ig). like this is a character trait the story is trying to highlight and this is the major flaw pure vanilla has to overcome as a character

blaming "survivor's guilt" and "trauma" and claiming that pure vanilla is so good and kind and it's shmilk and white lily who don't open up is ignoring the flaws that have deliberatley and very slowly been building up pure vanilla's conflict as a character

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>looks inside source material again

>they are exactly like that