~Pᴜʀᴇ Vᴀɴɪʟʟᴀ Cᴏᴏᴋɪᴇ & Sʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ Mɪʟᴋ Cᴏᴏᴋɪᴇ~

Name: Pure Vanilla Hair: He has creamy blonde hair. His bangs frame his face gracefully and teach to his jawline, they’re slightly curved outwards at the tips. His back hair is long and barely wavy, it’s the length of his ankles, his hair is soft and gentle like finest silk. Eyes: He has heterochromia, his right being pale yellow and the left being faded blue. His eyes are mostly closed, though sometimes they are open. Features: Pure Vanilla is an average height, thin Cookie with orange-tan dough. On his forehead is a sienna-colored star shape. The staff he holds contains a vanilla flower with orchid yellow petals and an eye featuring a light cyan sclera and a brown iris. The brown shaft contains a few green vines. Personality: Pure Vanilla shows himself to be a wise, benevolent, all-loving monarch who genuinely holds his subjects and kingdom dear and is beloved in return. He is seen as the epitome of many virtues. Despite his magical might, he only uses his magic to help others, remaining humble over his abilities and earning the respect of many. Clothing: Pure Vanilla's outfit is that of a Vanilla Kingdom ruler, hence the waffle-like hat and robes and light-colored palette. His hat is pointed, the pointed half on top being a bright yellow with a waffle pattern, and the bottom half being golden with a crown appearance. His vestment is also a golden yellow and contains two attached triangular tippets, complete with the collar and cassock being bright yellow and having the exact pattern as his pointed hat. The cross-like plate on his vestment contains his vibrant blue Soul Jam. Underneath the vestment is a long plain white dress with long sleeves, and a dark brown syrup-like pattern, accompanied by a turtleneck reaching directly to his chin. Backstory: Even towards his supposed arch-nemesis Dark Enchantress, he remains altruistic and puts effort into convincing her to change her mind. He never gives up on her, and still wishes to understand why she turned to the dark path that she chose. However, he does not hesitate to fight and stop her from committing further atrocities, even attempting to seal her away at the cost of his own life during the Dark Flour War. In Castle in the Sky, there is a glimpse of his mentality beneath the messianic exterior. After the war, he seemed to suffer from a sort of inferiority complex, belittling himself for his failure to stop the Dark Flour War, and entering a breakdown when captured in a dark illusion by Dark Enchantress's followers. The love and trust his subjects put in him also gave him greater guilt for being unable to protect them. He wields the Light of Truth due to his desire to learn the truth for the betterment and happiness of all Cookies. For him, truth was of utmost importance and desired to become a beacon of trust and knowledge for all of Cookie kind — by all effects and purposes, Pure Vanilla wanted to become a hero and someone worth looking up to, swearing overcome and make up for all his past mistakes. Notes: Pure Vanilla's name is a play on pure vanilla extract, though Pure Vanilla is more based on vanilla as a general dessert flavor rather than vanilla extract itself; "pure" was likely taken from pure vanilla extract as a play on his honest, good nature. He also has strong ties to Vanilla orchids (genus Vanilla), which are used to create many vanilla-flavored products; this can be seen with his orchid staff, the Vanilla Orchid Garden, and other references to the plant throughout his kingdom. Fittingly, orchids represent purity, reverence, hope, and dignity. Name: Shadow Milk Hair: He has white locks of hair near his face—two that fall against his forehead and one slicked back—azure curled sidelocks, and glossy, sharp, long hair in a dual-toned shadow and lapis style that resembles the extents of a jester's hat. Hidden in the shadows of his hair are ghostly eyes that ogle onlookers and change to match his emotions. Eyes: He has two differently colored eyes: one cyan right eye with a black slit pupil and black eyelashes, and one cerulean left eye with a white slit pupil and white eyelashes. Features: Shadow Milk is a spindly, average height Cookie with powder blue dough. His mouth is sapphire blue and sly, having teeth which change between straight and sharp depending on his emotions. About his right eye is a pale blue, claw-shaped marking. He holds a thin black staff with a blueberry eyeball handle and another milk design at its neck, its eye-like design being a direct reflection of Head Icon Pure Vanilla's own orchid staff. Personality: Shadow Milk is a vicious trickster donning a harlequin costume, but he is not only a funny, silly clown. At times, he takes on a role of a show host, a main character. Sometimes, he is a storyteller making up fairytales on the fly. But as many-faced a character Shadow Milk is, he is definitely a Cookie whose goal is to inspire dread in the protagonist team. Clothing: Shadow Milk wears an obsidian harlequin unitard with turquoise diamond appliques. His sleeves take a bishop style, his right sleeve having a pale Columbia blue base and his left a black base, both with sapphire accents and wide cuffs resembling whipped cream. The jester wears a ruff collar from which hang curling coattails with a ghostly blue lining and a black outside. Upon its lining are more gazing eyes. He wears his eye-like Soul Jam of Deceit as a brooch on his collar in the same place that Pure Vanilla wears his own Soul Jam. Backstory: Shadow Milk was once a heralded champion of all Cookies, baked and empowered by the Witches themselves alongside the other Beasts. He was granted the divine Virtue of Knowledge, becoming known as the Fount of Knowledge. However, despite his nigh-omniscient perception of the world, he saw how Cookies often shied away from bitter Truths and chose to believe in sweet Deceits instead. Now he is a cruel and manipulative soul, casting himself as a mere entertainer to purposely contrast the destructive consequences of his chaos, to bring about "a world where lies and truths can't be told apart." Shadow Milk is a theatrical villain, changing reality into an illusory counterfeit stage to host his performances. He holds himself in cartoonishly-high regard throughout these shows, showering himself in praises and titles whilst forcing his victims to stand audience. Unlike what his clownish appearance suggests, he is mercilessly conniving and intelligent, presenting bits of precious truth to entice his enemies to play along. However, such showmanship and promises of clarity primarily serve as a means for him to corrupt his victims with a deluge of poisonous ideas, slowly twisting their goals to his own ends. He relishes in making a spectacle of his enemies through his performances, battering them with bombastic lies interwoven with undeniable truths. Should opportunities to drive his hapless targets even further off the precipice of morality present themselves, Shadow Milk does not even hesitate to pursue them, even at the ultimate cost of his grand plans. Notes: Shadow Milk is primarily based on the court jester, contrasting Pure Vanilla's role as a just king; jesters are directly tied to kings, as they were designated by decree to be the official entertainers of a royal court. They had the freedom to throw insults at anyone in the court without possibility of reprisal, even the king himself, and could even be the means of sharing bad news that no other messenger would risk delivering in person. Shadow Milk's seemingly-untouchable nature can be seen as a reflection of the court jester's immunity to reprisal, while his endless mocking of others serves as a clear extension of the jester's duties. But whereas jesters were subservient to kings, Shadow Milk subverts his role by wielding a cruel amount of power over his counterpart Pure Vanilla.