“The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstances.” ― Roald Dahl
Thinking a lot about this quote in regards to Pure Vanilla's relationships with White Lily and Shadow Milk and what each of them need to be happy and fulfilled. Specifically the fact that while White Lily loves and cherishes Pure Vanilla, she also resents him and feels frustrated and held back because he's too 'safe.' His caution is warranted and even she acknowledged that he's usually right, but it feels stifling to her because it stops her from exploring and experiencing things the way she wants to.
Meanwhile, Shadow Milk has spent eons feeling frustrated and ill at ease, watching cookies tearing themselves and others apart for senseless reasons, giving advice that goes unheeded or being expected to bear the mental load of others because he's the Fount of Knowledge and that is, supposedly, his job. All the while he has constantly changed his body, his name, and whatever else he can in desperate but ultimately futile attempts to find something that feels right. Something Comfortable. Something Safe.
White Lily quietly resented Pure Vanilla for pushing back and fighting against her ideas because it made her feel like she had to either give them up to keep being friends with him or go behind his back and do it any ways without him knowing about it. Fount of Knowledge WANTED someone who would debate him and offer different perspectives and insights than his own that challenged his way of thinking and expanded his world view.
White Lily privately associated the safety that Pure Vanilla offered with stagnation, insisting that boundaries needed to be challenged and rules broken in order to allow for growth. And yet the Vanilla Kingdom flourished under Pure Vanilla and created all kinds of new technology and magic that is the basis of a lot of the things still used in the Creme Republic (A part of me can't help but wonder if this perspective is why Dark Enchantress targeted the Vanilla Kingdom the way she did during the first war, to try and destroy everything Pure Vanilla and his people built because she disliked that it conflicted with her own ideas on how innovation and creation was supposed to work and she wanted to prove that her way was better).
But Fount has been desperately seeking something safe. Something reliable and true. Something that won't abandon him, won't push expectations and responsibilities that he never asked for on him. He resented conflict because all too often it was done for reasons he felt were asinine and petty and yet HE was expected to step in and resolve it despite the ones involved not listening to any advice he gave. And as his resentment and anger get, eventually he decided that if these foolish creatures wanted chaos and deceit this badly, then he was going to give them exactly that.
The boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg.
The safety that White Lily saw as a box, a cage that kept her from where she wanted to be? It's the same safety that Fount of Knowledge quietly longed for, a soft place to rest and recover without judgement or expectations weighing him down. It's what Shadow Milk NEEDS, even if he is afraid to admit it and let himself be vulnerable after centuries of pain and disappointment.
