Hello,

On Tue, May 8, 2018 at 5:56 PM Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:

>
> These are from two differently colored TODO cookies, not DONE
> cookies.
>
> There are text properties here:
>   face                 (:inherit hl-todo :foreground "#cc9393")
>   fontified            t
>   org-category         "research"
>   org-stats            0
>
> There are text properties here:
>   face                 org-todo
>   fontified            t
>   org-category         "research"
>   org-stats            0
>

I don't use the hl-todo package. But looks like you do, and it somehow
highlights only some "TODO" keywords based on some regexp.

How about disabling hl-todo completely in Org files, and then see if you
still get that difference in faces?
-- 

Kaushal Modi