#purelily

If something close to this happens, I'll do a redraw

time: 39 minutes

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In "Spire of Shadows", after the Tower keeper's riddle, Pure Vanilla Cookie was quick to allow White Lily Cookie to leave on her own... again.

Dude, what the actual hell!? You've already seen what happens when you leave this girl alone to search for knowledge related to the witches...TWICE!! IT ALWAYS. ENDED. IN DISASTER!! If anything, Pure Vanilla Cookie should've become clingy here. White Lily Cookie just returned to life; a second chance for him to try to make things right with her, and as I said, things go horribly wrong when she's left alone.

Since "Spire of Shadows" was all about Shadow Milk Cookie orchestrating a trap for Pure Vanilla Cookie by exploiting his knowledge about him, imagine that this riddle from the academy actually reminded Pure Vanilla Cookie about the incident, and against Shadow Milk Cookie's predictions, instead of letting White Lily Cookie go he insists on her staying. It would've been foreshadowing of Pure Vanilla Cookie's issues with her, it would've been another instance of Cookies acting outside Shadow Milk Cookie's "script", it could have been White Lily Cookie's moment of realization that their dynamic has grown unhealthy and her need to cut it off, and could've been foreshadowing of "Queen of the Nether Realm".

Imagine "Towerkeeper Cookie" seeing Pure Vanilla Cookie refusing to let White Lily Cookie go, but Shadow Milk Cookie needs to isolate him for his gaslighting to work, and White Lily Cookie, being his biggest anchor to his past and emotional crutch, is an obstacle to get rid of. So he "encourages" White Lily Cookie's decision and manipulates Pure Vanilla Cookie into feeling guilty. Just like his piece of memory did before (minus the guilt tripping).

Either DevSis didn't think Pure Vanilla Cookie's psychology through , or they didn't want to focus on his issues beyond those he had with lies for now.

Or they hadn't yet written/thought that far yet. I mean, White Lily Cookie said she wanted to find out about the power of the Guardian; girl, you're in the supposed "Spire of ALL knowledge"? You think you won't find out about it there, or in the Silver Kingdom's library? DevSis must've realized White Lily Cookie's reasons to leave the group in the Spire were stupid, because in her episode, she's looking for Silent Salt Cookie in the catacombs. Sure, if Dark Enchantress Cookie realized the binding spell had traces of Silent Salt Cookie's power, White Lily Cookie must've realized too. I think this little plot hole could've been resolved if White Lily Cookie had just said she's returning to the Faerie kingdom to investigate Elder Faerie Cookie's power; having cookies she's responsible for now around would make Pure Vanilla Cookie a little more trusting of her capacity to rein herself... but Syke! She lied, and instead left for the catacombs! Imagine if Shadow Milk Cookie had revealed to him that even his precious best friend lies to him. This could've become another ammunition to use against Pure Vanilla Cookie to make him fall into Deceit.

I still want to believe in "Codependent PureLily", especially on Pure Vanilla Cookie's side. This is kind of stuff this ship needed to be interesting in the ShadowVanilla shippers' eyes. This is how you stop shipping wars: you balance the underdeveloped "wholesome" ship by adding emotional depth so those that like ships with layers can start appreciating it. At least that's how it happened to me.

I'd already seen a drop of complexity in PureLily with the whole "Pure Vanilla Cookie's image of White Lily Cookie is split, and he might have a Madonna/whore complex towards her", but the implications that his survivor's guilt only exacerbated an existing codependency that has lasted since a tragedy in childhood adds a whole angle to the "childhood friends" dynamic people said it's what made PureLily "boring".

So good job, DevSis! You got a ShadowVanilla shipper interested in its "opponent" ship. But of course, I wasn't involved in the wars, so I cannot say if this method would work with the more "passionate" shippers. From both sides.