imadethisjusttopostthis

[imadethisjusttopostthis]

Of course! I completely understand, I've had a bit of a hard week as well.

I agree that there are definitely some hints that Pure Vanilla was originally intended to be blind. However, it's more than fair to say the concept was scrapped in later drafts. A lot of visual exposition is delivered through dialogue, and it can be easy to miss who said what on your first read throughs. I assume they thought someone with such a major role in the story like Pure Vanilla wouldn't be able to properly give that to the audience.

Of course, I don't think that discussing alternate readings of a text is necessarily a waste of time, regardless of the funny names in the source material.

Guys pure vanilla is blind I feel like I see you guys forget that a lot...

[imadethisjusttopostthis]

Yes, obviously blind people aren't always 100% incapable of sight, and most can still make some things out, but those aren't the rules I set, now are they? One of the (objectively few) pieces of evidence you gave was that Pure Vanilla read in braille, rather than normal lettering. Ergo, your argument was that Pure Vanilla is blind enough that he can't read. Don't move the goalpost and then chastise me for meeting it at the original spot.

I'll put my point as plainly as possible: There is not a single compelling argument for Pure Vanilla being blind, and you still haven't given any hard evidence beyond anecdotal. Cite canon sources.

In order for the complete and utter dismissal of every time Pure Vanilla sees something in canon with "he can make out certain things here and there but still impaired enough to be considered blind" to be valid, you first need to make a conclusive argument for a level of visual impairment that would be applicable. Which, again, you have not. As of now, it's just Ignoring a Common Cause-- that Pure Vanilla isn't blind.

You, yourself, brought up the idea that Pure Vanilla couldn't read or write with the "braille" in his info page, so that point is now-- by your own admission-- completely off the table.

You've also admitted that he's not using his staff as a visual aid-- "blind healers staff to still being able to make out shit with a blindfold- implying he can still see roughly the same with or without it."-- so, therefore, any mention of him being able to see clearly is his own unassisted vision, right?

I suppose it's my own fault that I didn't specifically highlight the times when Pure Vanilla saw things clearly from a distance. The lines weren't as clear-cut as the reading ones, and I thought those couldn't be contested, even if you misinterpreted the context in which they were said.

Wafflebots, from a distance, and the village, from an even further distance. He also sees barricades nobody else does, also from far away.

Being able to tell the damage of the Vanilla kingdom from a good distance away.

The person with cataracts who couldn't recognize faces easily? Pure Vanilla can easily discern age and emotion in the first image. He recognizes the scene in the second. In the third, he has a vision of his friends tied up.

The whole premise of this scene (Pure Vanilla's memory 2 in BY-7 I think?) is that he's examining the emotions of the figures in a painting and recognizing how the hallway he was previously in has changed.

Again, Pure Vanilla being able to see his entire flock of similar colored sheep, notice one was missing, and see that it had a small irritant in its eye.

In BY-2, the stage is said to be fairly far away, but Pure Vanilla can still participate without any assistance.

I have more examples, but I feel I've made my point, and you clearly didn't look at the ones from my last reblog, as it contained most of the examples listed here. Without sufficient evidence, saying that Pure Vanilla must "[have] better sight than some other blind people" is just flat out ignoring every bit of contradicting evidence, and is wrong.

I'll concede to your point if you prove that he uses the staff to see-- which would be backtracking, but is also the only argument you've put forth that currently has any possibility of merit. It puts his adult form in a sort of grey area, but then that implies there was something to cause his loss of vision between his school days and his adult form. It can't be any sort of illness, as it's explicitly stated in Cookie Odyssey that the ancient heroes can't get sick and don't age, so the only other option is a traumatic event of some kind. For example, when White Lily destroyed the forgotten academy, which is my personal headcanon.

Points I've made:

Pure Vanilla can read and write without assistance.

"Blind" in this context is metaphorical, and a literal interpretation isn't corroborated in any other canon text.

He can see things from a distance easily, and with clarity.

His staff is just a staff, not a visual aid, and it has an eye due to the relevant imagery of the rest of his story.

Pure Vanilla's blindness, if he is so, had to be the result of an undisclosed traumatic injury.

Guys pure vanilla is blind I feel like I see you guys forget that a lot...

[imadethisjusttopostthis]

Hey man. You’re like… unequivocally wrong about this.

The “braille book” is not only never said to be that, but it also doesn’t actually look like braille? Braille has to be really small (each letter fitting under a finger pad) in order to be effective. While it’s possible the incorrect braille could be a stylistic choice, there’s lots of other examples of Pure Vanilla reading and writing normal words.

As for the "Blind healer's staff" treasure, it's very likely intended to be metaphorical. The extensive motif of Truth as being non-literally blinding (PV and FoK both having their eyes closed, WL ignoring everything else in pursuit of the Truth of the world, the wizards being blind to the suffering they've caused in pursuit of the Truth of the night, etc) is simply that: a motif. None of the mentioned characters have ever been shown to be even a little bit vision impaired.

As for his literal staff, there's just no evidence that it helps him see. The mention of its eyes being closed when Pure Vanilla's are open is a (frequently disproven) tidbit that doesn't actually imply anything about Pure Vanilla's vision. The burden of proof falls upon you to prove your claim, and without substantial evidence, the staff support falls through.

Even if his eyes are closed all the time, he's only one of four characters crk chose to do this with, and none of the other three (Prune Juice, Mystic Flour, and Moonlight's second costume) have any visual aids, and they all see things just fine. If Pure Vanilla keeping his eyes closed was evidence for him being blind, then it should also be evidence for the others being so as well.

The most frequent examples of this are in C-7/8 and BY-7/8. You can reread the story and check my examples for yourself.

Pure Vanilla reading White Lily's normal, untranscribed report card from over her shoulder.

Pure Vanilla writing and passing notes which contain visual instructions to find a normal book.

Pure Vanilla reading a normal book and writing words and symbols completely unassisted.

Pure Vanilla mentioning reading a textbook and currently looking at yet another book

Pure Vanilla seeing something White Lily is holding and inquiring about it.

Pure Vanilla visually looking at the gingergang and making assessments based on the fact they're visibly children.

etc, without the staff

etc, in BY-1/2.

He's able to take part in Shadow Milk's show with no visual assistance, read letters, recognize shapes and people from a distance.

This continues in BY-7/8, here he is reading a book that visibly has words in it, describing a type of cards based off what he can see, and reading words on a table.

Later in the story, where his staff is either mangled (Truthless Recluse) or completely eyeless (Awakened), he can still see. Doing visual things such as chess, cards, and observing a board game.

Pure Vanilla describing seeing a small detail visually in Shadow Milk's memories.

By-7/8 also has a major plot point of Pure Vanilla seeing and noticing when something is visually wrong with another being. The very first cutscene is an example of Pure Vanilla seeing things from a distance (counting a herd of sheep) and noting that something's wrong with the missing sheep (Freaky eyes).

Not to mention that in both C-13/14 and BY-3/4, we see Pure Vanilla's letters to Dark Cacao, which are written in normal words.

I've hit picture count, so I can't add more examples in this reblog.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with headcanoning Pure Vanilla as being vision impaired in any capacity (I personally headcanon him as being legally blind AND that his staff is a visual aid) but it's just inaccurate and annoying when people insist it's canon.

General fanon already mischaracterizes him so bad, and adding another misconception onto the pile won't help matters.

Guys pure vanilla is blind I feel like I see you guys forget that a lot...