#different paths au

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Considerations for Miyana's future in the Different Paths universe:

I really think she and Karim are Bad For Each Other and should be kept far apart. I've already started his end of that story in Karim Goes To Therapy (which needs renamed, it's grown a whole extra plot), because frankly he was introduced first on my rewatch and I haven't caught up to her mannerisms as much to write her yet.

However, from what I do know and remember about her: she's just as racist as Karim is. She wants Janai off the throne just as much, if not more, than he does - and has wanted that longer. So she's equally awful, but more conniving, with more patience, and she's willing to play the long game. However, when it came down to it and her children were at risk, she was willing to take concessions to keep them safe and free, if not in power.

So, in the interests of not woobifying a genuinely awful woman but also not acting like women are irredeemable:

Still keep her and Karim apart. She may make a pass, because political advantages to having the prince in her pocket, but she fails. She turns her attention to other people in power, her peers. She finds some other powerful, manipulatable man, and starts building her plan slowly.

Except, then things change for the better around her. Since she and Karim aren't colluding to undermine his sister, since Karim and Janai are communicating better, everything isn't falling apart, they don't get the kind of support she was trying to get. She keeps facing setbacks, keeps gritting her teeth and moving cautiously, always cautiously.

She still gets to have kids. She doesn't even lose her power in this version. She just slowly loses her chances at the throne. She's forced to be content with what she has, and slowly watching her kingdom leave her behind. Her children grow up into a more accepting world than she planned, and she gets the choice Janai gave her in canon much, much later - lose her children, or lose her attachment to the past and her power grab. It's not so harsh as in canon - she's just smart enough to realize her children are distancing themselves from her because of her radical conservative behavior, and she'll lose her personal relationships with them if she doesn't cut it out.

She still chooses her children.

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You’ve mentioned wanting to write something for Ram and his pride, as well as possible relief efforts that Lyrennus is leading to help out the Sunfire elves. Are they characters where you’d feel able to combine the two story elements by having his pride go as part of the relief efforts, and Ram sometimes being there between travelling elsewhere or else visiting them all once in the location? I’m just curious if it’d possibly be compatible to handle doing both simultaneously, plus it could give you a couple of extra already named characters on scene to use from the Moonshadow Forest. Wait, on a separate note, it occurs to me that if one of Ram’s pride mates is extremely confident in being gay there’s even potential for him to initiate, and quite possibly fail miserably in, a hilarious attempt to flirt with Karim made at some point. (I don’t intend to apply any pressure about any of this to be clear, I just was pondering the idea and thought to see what you had to say about it and why)

I probably could? I already started writing something with Lyrennus going out with the relief efforts, and it's focused in pretty narrowly on him and Karim right now. I suppose it's possible that Verace or Anthea accompanied him - Anthea's job as village maintenance would be more useful later on rather than with initial relief efforts, but Verace's courier side job might bring him out of the forest right away. Verace is not exactly gay, though - he's a manwhore who doesn't really pay attention to anyone else's gender, to be clear. I hadn't thought about it until I saw the ask, but there's possibilities there.

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Can't remember if I asked this before or not...

But do you have thought on the Different Path Taken Assassins and Fam to baby Sarai from later down the line?

I don't think this has been asked before, I don't remember going over it. I actually haven't thought that far! I've been focused on finishing up Arc 1, and trying to figure out how much would change in Arc 2 with how much I've switched up the political landscape of Xadia (side note, I know it happens all the time irl but that doesn't make it any less confusing in a fantasy world when a country and a continent have The Same Fucking Name. In this case I mean Xadia as in the world of Xadia, not the magical-half-that-the-dragons-rule).

I've wondered if it would delay Aaravos' return enough that the assassins' other kids would be old enough to face him, Claudia, and Luna Devorans in Arc 3, but that's about as far as that has gotten. And that was mostly because in "RUN", the song that fuelled a lot of Aria's ultimate Look, the narration breaks off near the end to say "How do I escape? The air that's in my lungs - his bark commands the breeze and trees all bite their tongues - the wood bends to his will even the moon bows low no way out no solace nowhere to go! The hunter owns the woods the hunter owns the view the hunter owns the day the hunter owns me too-" which all hit. real hard. for a Moonshadow elf terrified of a corrupted moon archdragon. (also the line "Pray to the predator's what they say, but prey should know better than to obey" is gonna shape So Much of her character as a daughter of Skor and Callisto, ngl)

I can say at least that the assassins and their families would all be family for baby Sarai. I'm just still working on figuring out what kind of world she'll be born in, and therefore where they'll all be at the time. Aria's pride will be old enough to babysit her, for sure, which will be cute as hell. The other assassins will all also be trusted to take care of little Sarai, along with Rayla's pride (with the notable exception of Altari, less because Rayllum don't trust him with Sarai's safety and more because they don't trust him not to do something like teach her really annoying songs that THEY will have to deal with, not him). Rayllum are as attentive of parents as they can be, but they're also still going to be super high profile people, so they have responsibilities outside of Sarai's immediate care, so having so many people they trust with her will be invaluable. She definitely won't grow up feeling as isolated as either of them did.

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Different Path Taken Update

I shifted to posting entirely on AO3, due to data scraping issues on tumblr. I will post a link to the completed work when I have it done (hopefully by the end of the week), but in the meantime, the Battle for the Storm Spire is officially over on the AO3 version. All that is left is the conclusion.

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me constantly in my comments section

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So I've been catching up on your other TDP related stories. And with the small chance that this question may or may not send you into another Hero Forge spiral....

Have you given any thought to future Assassin kids? Aka, children of Ruthari, Andromeda/Elyrin, Ram/Astrid? I know Skor/Callisto are on the fence about having kids, so not sure if I can include them in this ask?

It did send me to HeroForge, which is part of why this one took so damn long to answer, lmao. A small part, anyway, I'm also just bad at clearing my inbox.

I've always had the thought Ruthari would try again now that Rayla's grown up, but it wasn't until this ask that I sat down to imagine what that kid would actually be like. Andromeda and Elyrin have twins right off the bat, a boy and a girl, and put a pause on any more for a while because two is enough to begin with, the elves don't seem to have large families. Skor and Callisto are definitely having at least one kid, I might stick them with just the one that formed in my head as I made her HF. I actually haven't considered Ram and Astrid having kids, I don't really have any thoughts on that front even after experimenting in HeroForge for a bit with the others.

The images of them came before their names. Ruthari's second daughter's name is Fyrenai (fear-en-ai). Androlyrin's kids are Talyr and Selai (sell-AY), and Skoristo's daughter is named Aria.

HFs under the cut:

Ruthari:

Fyrenai got Runaan's eye color and Ethari's eye shape, Runaan's hair and Ethari's brows, Ethari's jaw and Runaan's chin. She's heavily affected by growing up with Rayla as a big sister, takes after her in personality more strongly than either of their dads. She managed to tame a nightfox, shown here, which is something most people won't even try to do. She's got a knack for animals, though it's not the same as Ezran's empathy with them.

Andromeda and Elyrin:

Talyr:

Talyr took more after his mom, he'll be a warrior like her, probably going into the same profession the assassins become after being disbanded. He shares her aversion to covering clothes. Like both of his parents, he uses a blue horn stain, and I like these markings for his face.

Salei:

Salei (sah-lay) took more after her dad, in contrast, and became a bard. To separate her from her parents (who both use stringed instruments) she plays a pan flute. She should have smaller horns, especially at the base, and I'm strongly considering just making her match her brother, but I did hers first so I didn't think about it before. She's a softhearted soul who does her best not to live in constant fear for her more warlike family members, and clings harder to her dad as a result. She's just as fun-loving as he is, though, a bright spot in the dark.

Skoristo:

Aria is the daughter of Skor and Callisto, and her design was inspired in definite part by the girl from Lydia the Bard's music video for "RUN". Her name is derived from it too, being as close as I think a Moonshadow name would get to the Greek Ariadne, the princess who escaped the labyrinth. She's definitely growing into a warrior like them. She stresses Skor the hell out with her recklessness, he complains constantly that she's growing up just like Rayla, and he's never giving Runaan shit for his parenting ever again. Callisto is quieter about it but sets their mind to making sure she's prepared for Literally Anything, including training with magic.

The music video in question. I have also just now realized I used the same corset top for all three of these young women, but fuck, it worked so WELL layered with other things, it gave them all some of the delicate lines Moonshadow tend to have in their clothing that were hard to imitate.

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HeroForge Fun: Ram's Pride

The imagery for Ram's pride now!

Anthea:

Notes:

Her horns, as always should have wood grain type lines. Her staining is pink. I erred more on the side of pink with her because purples are my nemesis, being blue-yellow colorblind, but she would probably wear a mix of both regularly. I like the way the marks on her face turned out, other than that one on her nose should be more defined. The mark on her throat should be a full circle, though, with delicate lines leading to the waning moons on her shoulders, and waxing moon symbols on her thighs. Man, I should have put a flower in her hand, but I'm too lazy to go back and redo the screenshots. She'd be a florist if Moonshadow Forest had that sort of profession. As it is she's a general beautician and maintenance worker for the entire town, so she's simultaneously the most aesthetics-aware person you've ever met and the most down-to-earth gardener type you'll ever speak to.

Verace:

Notes:

Again, wood grain lines, his staining is pale blue. Ignore the growths around the base of his horns, too, they should be smooth, though the extra dimension down there is warming me up to the idea of Elaborate Horn Cuffs this bitch might wear if he ever gets married. His markings should be more defined, and he has a full moon mark over his ribs as well, for which he's more than happy to wear a cropped shirt to show off the edges. An awful flirt, often doesn't mean anything by it, but grows into a bit of a slut too.

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Do you have any thoughts abt what Ram’s mother/Lyrennus’s wife was like?

Some!

She had to be an incredibly patient woman, in the sense that she could wait out Lyrennus' temper tantrums without giving way to them. That sullen glare that Ram gives out in the show is something he learned from her - she gave it to his dad whenever Lyrennus started losing his temper around her or their son. It got to the point that just seeing it was enough to make Lyrennus pause and think about whether he really needs to be that upset about something, and calm down unless it actually merited that strong of a reaction.

As for who she was as a person, Selene (my hc name for her) was a very sweet, kind woman with a spine made of absolute steel. She had all the love and patience in the world, but that patience also translated into being incredibly stubborn. She was a seamstress, which was how she met Lyrennus in the first place - she makes clothes, and well, everyone needs those eventually. She was the instigator of their relationship, catching a fancy for the elderly Keeper and pursuing a friendship with him, much to his surprise.

Her workshop was outside the house, so it was usually Lyrennus home with their son instead of her, after Ram could be away from her. She did have a spare room set up for work when she had to be home, though. She taught both her husband and son to sew, and Lyrennus took up embroidery as a hobby after she introduced him to it.

She always had a ready smile for everyone, and was quick with a laugh. She had the same kind of all-encompassing love and compassion that Sarai does - offering it to everyone in equal measure, until lines are crossed that she can't abide. She's much more quick to just write off the perpetrator as if they don't exist, though, mentally Ghosting them, rather than responding with violence. She doesn't have much active aggression in her, rather tends to just refuse to put energy into things she dislikes. It undercuts her husband's temper rather nicely.

HeroForge of her, extrapolated from genetic traits Ram has and Lyrennus doesn't, and just filling in the gaps with what I liked:

Ram got his eye color from her, along with her more rounded face shape and small brows. He actually takes after her quite a bit.