Although Vanillite bear a strong resemblance to the Casteliacone – a popular regional snack which can heal nearly any status ailment – they are anything but delicious. It is not particularly rare for people to mistake a Vanillite, especially when sleeping or outside snowbanks, for a free Casteliacone, but a single lick will painfully demonstrate the difference.
Vanillite are ice pokemon, with as cold a body temperature as that implies, and when these pokemon contact bare skin – including that of the tongue – it is enough to instantly freeze a human. Those individuals unlucky or absentminded enough to lick a Vanillite will find not a cold treat, but a painful and embarrassing situation, for human muscles are insufficient to pry a Vanillite loose. Should the Vanillite be awake at the time, this is not a major issue, for these pokemon no more like being frozen to human tongues than the humans do, and will promptly float away. However, awake Vanillite are far more mobile and have open eyes, so are rarely mistaken for Casteliacones to begin with; far more commonly, the hapless Vanillite licker will walk around with an open mouth while shivering with a Vanillite stuck to their tongue in search of someone who can remove them.
Detaching a Vanillite is not a particularly complex matter. Most human trainers know better than to let their Vanillite sleep outdoors, so a poke ball can usually solve this problem; even if it is not actually caught, the process of materializing after the poke ball fails is enough to remove it from a human's tongue. But individuals who enjoy Casteliacones need not be pokemon trainers, nor know one nearby, and a prolonged case of Vanillite tongue can require extensive medical care to heal.
