#exchangedfatesau

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...

...Idiot.

You're an idiot, Pure Vanilla cookie. To think that you, of all cookies...

Could even hope to help her...

Much less the others. Even now, you can barely keep up your facade. You put yourself back together with the false promise of hope.

Your warm smile cannot fool me.

I am you. Behind closed doors I can hear your cries. Your anguish.

Your pain and misery. Your helplessness.

"I'm so useless", you wail, "how did it end up so dire?!"

Deep down, you know why. Your efforts, however desperate, are futile. You cannot stop this. You are doomed to watch them all fall to themselves, and you cannot change fate. That is the knowledge you wish to erase.

If only you saw it sooner.

If only you noticed that things were unraveling in front of your very eyes, maybe you could have prevented this.

If only you saw. Her famine. His wrath. Her desperation. Her silence.

You're supposed to know better.

Be better.

You're supposed to save them.

But you can't even save yourself.

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There she is, in all of her glory. Ancient!Mystic Flour Cookie, or Rice Flour Cookie if you will. Now the first thing you'll notice is that she's more colorful! That's for a few reasons, one! The gold-green combination is nice to look at and contrasts with Dark Cacao's pallet. Two, she's got different roots now!

If you don't know, Mystic Flour is heavily influenced by Guanyin; a Bodhisattva called on in times of crisis. Mine, however is inspired by Tara. Tara is a goddess in Buddhism that, like Guanyin, answers when there's spiritual or physical trouble. Unlike Guanyin though, Tara can take many forms and even has physical incarnations like Princess Wencheng (who was a main inspiration for her design.) It's very interesting stuff, and I do recommend taking a read into it.

Enough of the waffling though, transparent pics below!

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Small Edit: Eternal Vanilla has been changed to Everlasting Vanilla Cookie.

And Pure Vanilla makes four, or should I say Eternal Vanilla? Hmm? Not a bad name considering it took me forever to think of one for him. Seriously, you might not know(or maybe you did if you saw any of my past posts), but I suck at naming things.

Transparent and alternative images below! Also, don't forget to reblog this post! It's a great way to show your support, and I do love reading what you all have to say.

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This cookie. This cookie has haunted me ever since he got released from that damn tree. Everywhere I go, I see his face. His jester aesthetic. And that smile. That damn smile.

Shadow Milk Cookie... ...is now punt-sized! Meet Blueberry Milk Cookie, the first of the new ancients and the face of the New Yogurt Republic. Yes I am aware that this is the most common name for his uncorrupted self, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Transparent image below!

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...I don't want to see another Dark Cacao sprite for a bit. I think I might get angry.

Midnight Cacao Cookie, AKA Dark Cacao has been completed! And he was... An experience. If I consider Baneberry my golden child, Midnight is my problem child. I changed his design around so much before settling on this one, and I'm just glad he's DONE.

Transparent and sprite without fade effect below! No alt. dough color this time.

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Repost because I think Tumblr killed the first one. Brief explanation, I posted this an hour ago and it was doing well! I check the tags and this post isn't showing up at ALL. If anyone knows what might've happened, I would love an explanation. Anyways, thank you to everyone who liked that first post, I really do appreciate it! I'm glad you like her as much as I do!

Here's a fun fact about Baneberry for compensation: She's the third hero in the AU to corrupt. While on her trip, a messenger from her kingdom finds her and gives her the news that Pitaya Dragon Cookie took over. When she comes back, the entire kingdom is in chaos. She finds them, beats them up and realizes she barely managed to beat Pitaya. That worries her because even after all the work she put in, she's only barely strong enough to take back her kingdom. She starts to turn from there as she tries to be stronger for everyone.

Original text starts... Now!

Hollyberry my beloved. Behold, Baneberry Cookie! The first in a series of sprites based on my Exchanged Fates AU! I adore her so much, she turned out even better than I expected.

Transparent images and an alt dough color image are below!

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Finally. After maybe two weeks, I've finally completed them all. ...Kind of. Allow me to introduce the final member of team ancient. Fleur de Sel Cookie, formally known as Silent Salt Cookie. A literal "white knight." And after Burning Spice, I needed this so bad. This is my first time making armor of any kind, and I was straying from the silhouette we saw in the Beasts' introduction. So it turning out well was a pleasant surprise. The color pallet was a struggle, though. It went through a lot of changes before reaching here to try and keep him from blending in with the other ancient designs.

Transparent Image below!

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Of course, nothing lasts forever... The brightest to burn are always the first to adjourn.

Surprise! I told you there was more. Every story needs their antagonist, and it wouldn't be a swap if there wasn't a Dark Enchantress somewhere. This is Oblivion Knight Cookie, the DE adjacent in the swap. And I think he came out looking great all things considered. Transparent and an alt without the soul jam are below as always!

I'd like to thank you all for sticking with me this far! Really, the amount of support I've received for this is so mind blowing to me. I'm not done with this yet, far from it in fact. We're just barely getting started! The next posts will be getting everything all organized and we'll go from there, so I hope you all will stick around to learn more about these guys!

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I'm walking into uncharted territory. From here on out I'm working with silhouettes, thankfully hers is relatively simple. So here, my version of Eternal Sugar, now Date Sugar Cookie! Yes I considered Pink Sugar Cookie. No I didn't like it.

Fittingly, I've taken a more Greek inspiration for Sugar's design. I mentioned she gave off both Ancient Greek and Christian vibes, and look at that, Greece has both in spades. The olive wreath and the Greek pattern on her cape pay homage to it while she keeps her halo and angel wings.

As always, transparent image below!

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Golden Cheese arrives fashionably late as the final ancient in this collection! In this AU her name is Opulent Cheese Cookie, and like Dark Cacao before her she was difficult to get nailed down. But I'm glad she came out alright.

With her finished, I can now say that the beasts are complete. Now I 'll have the difficult challenge of trying to work out new designs for characters that technically don't exist yet. Silent Salt is going to run me over like a tractor. Expect some time for that to start, though. As always, transparents and alts below! Thank you all so much for the support for this project!

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3/5 complete! Wilted Lily is finished! Weirdly enough, I think she might be too plain, but seeing the details the others have I think it works out. Transparent images below!

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WIP. Are you seeing the vision? I think I'm onto something here...

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Here's problem child #2! Burning Spice/ Ghost Spice Cookie! Good grief, man. Trying to alter a design that's already simple enough with his pre-existing color pallet sucks. Add onto the fact that his soul jam is on his chest makes it worse, because now you have to make sure any additions don't cover it. Really, I'm just glad it's finished so I can move on to Silent Salt.

Transparent Image below!

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Potential Swap AU pt. 3(OLD)

I'm still thinking about making this official, mind you. Anyways, welcome to my third blog about this speculative AU project thing. Which isn't so speculative anymore, surprise! I call it Exchanged Fates, and all past and future updates about this AU will have the tag #exchangedfatesau. Today, we've finally reached the last Beast-Ancient pairing, Shadow Milk Cookie and Pure Vanilla Cookie! A fair warning, this one is longer than the others, so be warned. I talk waaaay more here.

Preamble There's a reason why these two are last. Knowledge is a pretty hard virtue to make something out of, and it's even harder when Truth and Deceit are two classic foils. You can make the truth a problem, but lies are always going to be tricky to make a good thing. Initially, Truth would be made into Judgement, but I scrapped it once I realized I couldn't think of anything for Deceit. So I took a break for a bit. I had a birthday and then several historical events just slapped me in the face-

Eventually, I had an epiphany. And I'd like to show you all now, if you'll allow me to. Behold,

Pure Vanilla Cookie, Beast of Despair and Shadow Milk Cookie, Ancient Hero of Hope

...I can feel my Danganronpa phase resurface. No time to waste, let's begin with Pure Vanilla. Throughout the story, he's presented as a paragon character, the most virtuous of the ancients. And it's somewhat true, but there's more to him than just altruism. He's quite sharp, able to discern the plans of his enemies and very emotionally intelligent, but is prone to some self loathing and suffers from an inferiority complex. I'm not *quite* well spoken enough to make a deep analysis on him, although I wish I was. He's so interesting to me and the fandom kind of brushes him off as this sweet old man-twink. Now he is, but there's so much more going on with him. If anyone does a deep analysis into him, I want to know immediately.

Sorry! Got sidetracked there, anyways! Why despair, hmm? Let's head back to his negative traits, the self loathing and the inferiority complex. Pure Vanilla struggles with his self image, blaming himself for how the flour war turned out and feeling as if he failed to protect the ones closest to him. Even after restoring his kingdom, he struggles with these feelings. Granted, it's not as bad as it was before, but you can still feel bits of it in Odyssey and in Beast-Yeast. Despite this, he still pushes onwards, being a beacon of hope for many. But there's only so much the soul can take. Even he can recognize when someone has to be stopped for the greater good, even if they did mean the world to him.

Fittingly, if he was one of the first to gain his soul jam, he'll be the last to turn, how tragic. Pure Vanilla would try everything in his power to save his friends, and when his efforts are unsuccessful, he has to stop them alone. Of course, the former ancients try to turn him to their side, and the battle of wills is long and painful. Since the roles are reversed, Elder Faerie exists and tries to help where he can, but he can see the writing on the wall and prepares for the worst. Eventually, Pure Vanilla falls. Despite everything he's done, nothing changes. He isn't strong enough to save them, and he isn't strong enough to stop them. He's only delayed the inevitable for himself, and even now his soul jam has begun to corrupt. Forced to face his own helplessness, he turns, finally joining his friends in sowing chaos across Beast-Yeast.

The Timeless Kingdom, once a refuge for escapees of the the other kingdoms, becomes stuck in time. Y'know how Blue Diamond emotionally manipulated those around her to make them submit to her will? Imagine that but worse. The kingdom feels like it's frozen in time. Nothing ages or rots, just... distorts. The moment you step foot there, you can feel your strength waver. Walking around, you see people consumed by agony as they stay in place weeping aloud, their bodies warped by a deep sadness as their hollow eyes stare back at you. Unlike the other beasts, Pure Vanilla's palace is open for anyone to visit, almost like he's flaunting his strength. You'll soon understand why. If you make the dumb choice and see him, you'll find him kneeling behind a veil. He'll greet you and talk to you for a moment. But don't be fooled. He's still a beast, and before you know it, you're overwhelmed. Visions of your greatest regrets flood your senses. Every action you've ever taken, every right and wrong choice flashes right in front of your eyes. Fight all you want, you're eventually consumed by it all, and become like the other residents of this forsaken kingdom. Forever reliving your worst moments in a never ending mental purgatory. If some of this sounds familiar, I took some inspiration from Bloozstella's blue diamond swap AU for this, by the way. Go check that out if you have time!

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Now... Shadow Milk Cookie. The fandom's new favorite blue gremlin/pos. He's clever, charismatic, perceptive as hell, a lover of the theatre, and very cocky in his abilities. The very first time we see him, he gets to work immediately, corrupting some fairies, tormenting Pure Vanilla Cookie, and taking over the faerie kingdom, and that's just him toying around with them all. Interestingly enough, despite being the embodiment of deceit, he shares more truth than lies with the players and the hero gang, revealing Dark Enchantress' plans and telling them that all the other beasts have been awakened after his temporary defeat. His lies have been fairly obvious for the most part, which is a bit strange. I wonder if there's a reason for that...

So... Why hope? Why in the witch's oven would I make such a menace hope? Because of how he handles the truth. In canon, Pure Vanilla doesn't handle the truth too well. He'll confront it, but he has a tendency to get consumed in himself or worry about how others would take it. Shadow Milk, even before he turned to darkness, feels like he would embrace it without hesitation and keep moving like a runaway train. Pure Vanilla is reactive, Shadow Milk is proactive, and his curiosity and determination could make him overcome any obstacle. Probably why he's so dangerous, asides from the immense power he has.

You can probably guess that my head canon for him is that he was the last beast to turn evil, so naturally he's gonna be the very first cookie to get his soul jam! And he starts in the Blueberry Academy. Kind of, it's not formed yet when he begins. Our shadow menace starts out as an aspiring scholar/adventurer and thrill seeker. He's definitely a nerd, kinda like Wizard Cookie, and begins his hero's journey exploring the world. On one particular expedition, he visits the continent of Beast-Yeast, but doesn't make it that far before passing out. He wakes up in the company of fairy cookies who took pity on him, and is taken to Elder Faerie. Unsurprisingly, he tells Shadow Milk Cookie to go back to Crispia once he's recovered because this place is far too dangerous for him and he'll die. Unsurprisingly he takes this as a challenge, and during his stay he reads up on the place in the library. Far too invested to leave, he starts exploring beyond the kingdom in secret, and finds the soul jam deep within the forest.

Eventually he gets caught, and Elder Faerie wants to take the soul jam away from him, but whoops! It's already attuned to Shadow Milk and there's nothing he can do about it. Realizing there isn't much he can do, he at least offers to train him to use it properly, prompting a few training sessions before sending him off. When Shadow Milk gets back, he doesn't establish a kingdom. Instead he goes to find others like him first. For his research, of course. Eventually he ends up forming the group of the Ancients, and finally establishes his kingdom. He doesn't feel like he'd have a traditional kingdom. Rather, it would be more like the Creme Republic! It's a hub of the arts and sciences, a place where the brightest and most creative cookies can show their talents to the fullest potential. He finally founds the Blueberry Yogurt Academy in his "kingdom", and he, alongside a personal council makes the rules. In reality, the council does all the work and he acts more as a figurehead so he can focus on his own personal projects. He's definitely the most hands on with his subjects, hosting events, mingling with the commonfolk, exploring, etc. At least before the Dark Flour War... But that's a story for another time.

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Finally... I'm DONE. No more foundation, now I can just think and edit. Mystic Flour's part is outdated with her release and now I have to rectify that in the future. I hope you all enjoyed this miniseries! I will be taking questions on both this AU and Fading Letters. I'll try to answer any questions a lot quicker this time, and hopefully the rest of this month is uneventful. Please.

This is being posted at like, 1 AM in the morning, so good night everyone! Hope you have a peaceful night!

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In the distant past, after the chaos and flame subsided, many creatures baked by the witches scattered across the world. Among them were the Five. Five cookies graced with Soul Jam of the purest kind...

That's how the story begins, that much hasn't changed. A group of five heroes, chosen by forces greater than themselves to protect the world of Earthbread against the forces that seek to destroy it. But the line between heroes and villains is one that can easily shift under the right circumstances.

And these five cookies, heralded and held up as saviors of cookie-kind, became nothing but agents of chaos.

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Exchanged Fates is an alternative universe(AU) that takes the Five Ancient Heroes and switches them with their primeval predecessors, the Five Beasts. Essentially, the good guys are bad and the bad guys are good. The difference is that this AU will be using the existing traits (and speculative ones for unreleased characters) of each character rather than just switching personalities. This also provides unique and varying kingdoms, locations, and character interactions, as well as completely new characters.

Every ancient has switched with their respective beasts, meaning:

Pure Vanilla > Shadow Milk Hollyberry > Eternal Sugar Dark Cacao > Mystic Flour Golden Cheese > Burning Spice White Lily > Silent Salt

Any posts related to this project will be located under the tag #exchangedfatesau. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to ask me in my inbox or in the comment section! Your support is greatly appreciated!

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Quick Menu

Original Concept Text Post

Concept Post #1 Concept Post #2 Concept Post #3

New Beasts

Everlasting Vanilla Cookie Baneberry Cookie Midnight Cacao Cookie Opulent Cheese Cookie Wilted Lily Cookie

New Ancients

Blueberry Milk Cookie Date Sugar Cookie Rice Flour Cookie Ghost Spice Cookie Fleur de Sal Cookie/Oblivion Knight Cookie

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What about relaxation for Eternal Sugar and Greed for Golden Cheese?

Rambling/Concept Post pt. 2 (OLD)

My first ask! Thanks for asking, by the way, and sorry that this took so long to answer. I've been staring at this draft like the void, and it started to stare back.

Anyways, enough about my procrastination. That sounds good, at least for Eternal Sugar! Greed just feels kinda easy, not to mention that greed is seen as a good thing in her story specifically. Spinning greed back to being a bad trait feels like it dampens a bit of her story. That does give me a different idea for her, though. Golden Cheese Cookie, Beast of Gluttony and Burning Spice Cookie, Ancient Hero of Renewal

So you might be wondering, "Gluttony? Why gluttony, that has to do with food, doesn't it?" To which I say, I will get to it. Abundance is having [something] in excess, and Golden Cheese was drowning in wealth, subjects, and power before it was stripped from her during the Great Flour War. The reason why she was greedy was for the sake of her kingdom and went to great lengths to provide for them and her allies.

Which brings us back to why. Why gluttony? It's because Gluttony doesn't have a reason. It doesn't have a reason why it needs to consume, it just does. It is mindless, driven only by basic instinct and a lust for more because it needs more. Gluttony doesn't care if it deserves it or not, it needs to be fed and it will have what it wants. It is greed without reason. And it's a great fit for an ancient who loses sight of why they were greedy in the first place.

So... What exactly would her kingdom look like? Considering it's completely gone, GC would use the digital world she created as a blueprint. While she has the cheesebirds to help with reconstruction efforts, she lacks the resources needed. So, she begins searching for materials, and that's where the trouble begins. GC looks at the blueprints and decides it's simply not enough, so she begins expanding. And she doesn't stop; the kingdom becomes a tumor across the desert with more and more areas being built. Nowhere is untouched, and trying to explore the place is impossible because there's always new rooms, new entrances, and new things to explore. It's practically a maze with Golden Cheese at the center, always wanting more and never having enough.

Now onto Burning Spice... After beating myself up about how to make destruction a positive trait, I eventually decided on Renewal as their soul jam. Renewal, according to Merriam Webster, means "to make like new", and yes, I know it's close to change, but this was hard okay? Canonically, they give me warrior brute vibes, and I think their kingdom is just a complete wasteland. Like, there isn't anything there but monsters and sand, and maybe some old houses that survived. And technically their resting place, but that barely counts. When your known trait is destruction, it's kinda hard to think of anything to do for it. Maybe in the past they had a more permanent area? Spice seems to have connections with the Mala tribe, especially with Capsaicin Cookie specifically, but again, speculation.

I imagine Spice's (new) territory to be nomadic. Fitting with the theme of Renewal, they don't have any permanent homes and move between Spicy Spider Valley and the area surrounding their tomb in a pilgrimage of sorts. They of course have Burning Spice as ruler, but also a group of advisors that can make calls in their absence. I think the way they get their soul jam is they go on a solo journey through the wilderness to try and find himself or something, I can work out the details later.

Hollyberry Cookie, Beast of Ambition and Eternal Sugar Cookie, Ancient Hero of Serenity

Thankfully, this is way easier. Hollyberry is a boisterous, loving individual and my absolute favorite Ancient. For a while, my favorite update was the Dragon's Valley update, and I adore her interactions with Pitaya Dragon. But enough of my rambling, we're here to talk about her becoming ambition! Now this is pretty straightforward, passion and ambition are similar after all. But the difference between the two is that passion is a feeling, and ambition is a mindset. Taking one's passion and hyper focusing on a specific thing could make it into an ambition. And that's not always a good thing.

Having ambitions is great! Letting those ambitions run wild is ill advised, however. Balance is important to have, and if you don't keep that in mind, your ambitions can make you go to extremes and you might do things you never would've just to reach them. How Hollyberry falls is through her passion for the ones she loves. It starts innocently enough, she gets worried about the well being of her family, so she tries to get strong enough to protect them. She starts with trying to connect with her soul jam more, then finding artifacts that could boost her strength, and then all of a sudden she's trying to unlock the path to divinity. Whoops, how'd that happen? Interestingly enough, the Hollyberry Kingdom would probably end up the least affected by Beast!Hollyberry's actions. All they know is that she said that she would be going on a short trip and she hasn't come back yet, so the kingdom wouldn't change unless Pitaya got tired of their stalemate and made the entire kingdom their playground in the meantime.

Next and last for this post, Eternal Sugar Cookie! Also very easy, her new virtue is serenity! Eternal Sugar gave me HEAVY fallen angel vibes, although interestingly enough she gave me Greek vibes as well. Their territory is definitely some version of the Garden of Eden, what with the paradise name and seraphim wings and all. They feel like Mystic Flour's exact opposite, and while Mystic Flour tries to free everyone from all desires, Eternal Sugar seems like the type to indulgence in ALL of them and encourage pleasure over everything else.

So how do we make them into an ancient hero? Since serenity is a state of peace, perhaps they find it by complete accident. Maybe they start out as their usual slothful self but they don't find satisfaction, so she goes on some quest of self discovery and finds the way to peace or something like that. You know those relaxation gardens that people make in their backyards with the koi fish and the bonsai? Sugar's area feels like it would have that vibe, hidden away from most people.

And I think that's it. The next and probably final post is about everyone's new favorite gay ship! And they're very tricky. Again, sorry this took so long, I was running on empty for a WHILE. Hope you enjoy!