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[quibbs126]

Alright, so here’s this au idea I’ve been working on recently

So some time ago, I saw an au where Dark Choco Cookie and Whipped Cream Cookie were raising a young Princess Cookie (I don’t remember if they adopted her or she’s actually theirs, because their designs do make it plausible), and I guess it got me to wonder “well what if Dark Choco Cookie ended up raising Tiger Lily, the one who was left on her own, instead?” Then a couple days ago that idea resurfaced and I started doing some drawings and coming up with ideas

So as shown in the first picture, in this au, sometime after his banishment (but before he joined the CoD, as that seems to have been a relatively recent point in the timeline), Dark Choco ended up in the Hollyberry jungle, and there he found a young Tiger Lily Cookie (around 4-6) all by herself. Maybe she was like, trying to steal his food or something. Anyways, he was shocked to find a small child in the jungle all alone, and tried to help her find someone that knew her or could take care of her, and then upon realizing that she really was all by herself, save for her Butter Tiger, he decided that he couldn’t just leave her there and took her in

And then things just go from there, he raises her and things ensue, not much else to tell you there

I do have more notes about this au, I just don’t know whether I should put them before the design details or after

Screw it, I’ll just put ‘em here

So as stated, this is before Dark Choco joins the Cookies of Darkness, and as such, in this au he never actually ends up joining them. Everything up to Dark Choco getting banished is still the same though

Also as such, Dark Choco is not a villain; a neutral party at worst

The two basically just travel around Earthbread, never staying in one place too long. They don’t really have a set home, but they’re fine with that. The one place they don’t go is the Dark Cacao Kingdom, due to Dark Choco being banished from there and him holding to Dark Cacao’s wish to “never come back”. They do go to the other Ancients’ kingdoms, but they tend to steer clear of the capitals, due to both social awkwardness and Dark Choco feeling uncomfortable with the idea of seeing his dad’s old friends after everything that happened. This is why Dark Choco and Tiger Lily have not met the Hollyberry royal family yet

For now, Tiger Lily Cookie is staying with the name Tiger Lily Cookie, which is a tribute to her Butter Tiger. Also I’m not sure what Dark Choco would call her

Because she was raised by a Cookie, Tiger Lily speaks proper Cookie language. That does not mean to say she won’t hiss or growl at someone

As Dark Choco no longer has an active ticket to the plot, I’m not sure when they’d show up. I want to have them appear during the Hollyberry storyline (since it’s relevant to Tiger Lily, Dark Cacao’s storyline is next and would be good for his development, and also the sheer chaos), but I’m not sure how to fit them in, other than them just randomly showing up

Speaking of which, Dark Choco is aware Tiger Lily looks a lot like Jungleberry, and he knows Jungleberry and Royal Berry were dating and has wondered if they’re related, but he doesn’t do anything about it because it’s been years and he has no clue if Jungleberry even has kids, and even then, he doubted Jungleberry would leave her kid out in the wilderness, whether intentional or not, and if she were dead, then Dark Choco Cookie doesn’t know any family of hers

As shown, Dark Choco Cookie ended up eventually forfeiting the Strawberry Jam Sword years prior to when he did in canon, due to his time taking care of Tiger Lily and him realizing that following the sword is not a path he can take anymore with Tiger Lily. It’s a decision between the sword’s power and Tiger Lily, and he chose Tiger Lily, and he’s much happier for it. As for what happened to the Strawberry Jam Sword, I’m not sure, but I do want to bring it back in somehow

Also the Butter Tiger is still here. It met Dark Choco Cookie not long after Tiger Lily did, but the two ended up reaching some form of mutual respect, as each saw the other truly meant the girl no harm. Butter Tiger does not have a name (other than Butter Tiger) out of respect, and Dark Choco treats the cat like an equal, knowing he’s not some mindless beast and is very intelligent

The second picture was just me messing with concepts, and just me wanting to draw Dark Choco doing her hair

Then after that I tried to come up with some actual designs for them in this au

So for Tiger Lily, I based her look mostly off of her Snow Warrior outfit and some Dark Cacao soldier outfits, though as I say there, I think she looks a bit too much like a Dark Cacao warrior, despite her never actually going there. I also originally gave her a guandao, but I changed it to just a normal spear because I thought it was too similar. I decided to keep her stripe markings because Butter Tiger. As for the eyes, I wanted to make them more normal, since she’s not a feral child, but I wanted to keep in elements of her wild upbringing, so I gave her slit pupils like Crunchy Chip Cookie (another thing I want to mention, while her eyes usually stay like this, they can sometimes go back to her usual eyes, typically when she gets surprised or is being feral). I also gave her a braid like Hollyberry’s huntress outfit, because I liked it and I thought it would be a good way to keep her hair long and not have it drag on the ground

Next for Dark Choco, I mostly drew elements from his most recent design. I made his hair longe because (mini ramble warning) I had heard something about how back in old Korea (I heard China did it too), there was this thing about how you weren’t allowed to cut your hair because it was something given to you by your parents, and cutting it was essentially like cutting off ties with your family (and also it was sometimes a criminal punishment?), and this seemed to be something that Dark Choco and Dark Cacao followed with their hair. Given Dark Choco’s short hair in his Prince of a Lost Kingdom costume, it’s likely that his hair was cut after his betrayal, whether by him or his father (I like to assume it was him due to his guilt over what he did and him thinking there’s no going back for him now). Something else I’ve noticed is that with his short hair, it never looks like it’s naturally that length, rather it always looks like it’s cut, leading me to believe he regularly cuts it as a way of punishing himself and not allowing himself to let go of what he did. Here though, he’s gotten character development and has been letting himself heal and start over, finding a new purpose in life, and thus, he’s let his hair grow longer. It’s nowhere near what it used to be, but it’s a start. I also gave him lighter colored clothes to symbolize the fact that he’s more positive, and is also more on the good side here. Also he has a different sword because no SJS

Anyways yeah, I think that’s all I had. I know I had a few more ideas I wanted to sketch out for this but I didn’t. In any case I hope you enjoyed this!