#i am not immune to chosen swap au

[weavingmemories]

(tag stolen from @bibliophileemily​ - hope it’s okay to take this as a springboard to ramble a little 👉👈)

replaying ToS as often as i have, i tend to have fun thinking a lot about new character dynamics every time i come back to it- and yuan/colette struck me a lot when i considered how yuan directly compares her “cloying attitude” to martel when he opens up a little (in the mithos the hero sidequest)- and it kind of all spiralled from there! (colette asking yuan if he was looking for a four-leaf clover in the ring sidequest is so absolutely adorable too LMAO. her just pointing out that maybe he wants to be happy and that was her reasoning... oh, my sweet angel.)

since i’ve been thinking a lot about my chosen swap au, i’ve often considered how colette’s involvement in the renegades would be a lot more active; she’d be a lot more invested in actually HAVING autonomy somewhere and feeling like she can work to change the world for the better on her own merit, after being largely ‘seen and not heard’ as the flourishing world’s chosen for show (and treated generally like glass by the noble class)- so instead of largely gaming all sides of the conflict like zelos does in canon, she’d be more stuck between a rock and a hard place with cruxis, but genuinely believe in the work she does with the renegades.

i’m still fleshing out the smaller details of the swap, but i think that in general colette learning how to wield her elemental magic (via aionis) and training with the renegades would really be the first time she feels like she can do something, and while yuan would probably be standoffish and busy for the most part, she’d really come to respect him, especially knowing how much danger he’s in and the tightrope he also walks behind yggdrasill’s back! i also feel like their closer contact and communications would kind of wear him down over time, since colette has so much genuine faith in him as a leader (and i can see her becoming close to botta too, since they probably do a lot more practical work together since he runs things more front-facingly!)

on the flip side, zelos’ journey (because his mana signature is probably not quite so close to martel’s) is kind of a dummy one just for the sake of turning over the hourglass- i think colette’s life would still be in imminent danger of becoming martel’s vessel if mithos found out just how close her match was, and how much of a clear shot he’d have at bringing his sister back. and so yuan probably is keeping very close tabs on her for that reason too! and of course, he’d probably have a lot of conflicting feelings about her- reflexively wanting to remain stubborn in his belief that she’s just silly, naive, etc. as a defense mechanism to opening his heart again, but really coming to appreciate her both for her familiar kindness but also her own unique personality!

i also think that in post-game, colette would want to keep working with yuan and the renegades as a force for rebuilding the world and helping out (and maybe even become his new right hand man?). and that could lead to something... who knows? :3c

[mallowstep]

In the seer au, with Jaypaw going to Windclan and working with Leafpool, would that lead to trouble later on if cats find out about him being Leaf/Crow's kit? Because seers aren't supposed to be in their families clan?

i don't want to say too much about it, lest i show my cards for the next few fics, but uh. okay i'm going to talk about the end of "it's been promised to another" which, if you're not up to date with stoalg, well (a) spoilers but (b) the end of ibpta has discussion both of death/exile and abortion.

anyway so saying the problem here is seers aren't supposed to be in their family's clan is like saying, "yellowstone just erupted, and also there's a power outage."

i mean yeah those two things Sure Are problems, but one of them makes the other basically irrelevant.

as far as the cats are concerned, jaypaw isn't related to crowfeather and leafpool. (short of like. he couldn't have kits with a half sibling that would be Bad.) but squilf adopted leafpool's kits, leafpool's kinship ties are broken, that makes them squilf's kits.

so Even If there wasn't a bigger problem, the being leaf's kit thing wouldn't be an issue.

she didn't even nurse them for longer than like. a quarter moon?

anyway. crowfeather is definitely irrelevant here. he didn't raise them in the Slightest, he's not their dad.

(they have no father, they have two moms. squilf and mothwing. mothwing isn't supposed to be a parent but uh. well. she Loves Them a Lot a Lot a Lot.)

but yeah, nominally at least, the cats wouldn't hold jaypaw's bio parentage against him in any way.

being in windclan is definitely highly sus for him, because they take this stuff The Most seriously, but they also. so as a reminder, the status at the end of iaffl is

mothwing and flamepaw in thunderclan

spottedleaf and kestrelpaw in riverclan

cinderpelt and willowpaw in shadowclan

leafpool and jaypaw in windclan

(some of them may have their full names but i'm being quick.)

and so there's really no possible solution to the problem? like. okay, so...jaypaw and willowpaw are a Potential swap, since both flamepaw and kestrelpaw results in someone returning to their birth clan, but shadowclan wouldn't want to give her up because she knows all the Clan Specific Deal. (jaypaw would know stuff for windclan, but significantly less.)

anyway, you see the difference between ideals and politics here. ideally there wouldn't be a problem, but the clans would not like it.

but of course! leafpool is a seer. and so figuring out What to Do about Her is way much very much the bigger problem.

at the end of ibpta, she basically has three choices: die, be exiled, or abort her kits. she chooses option four: try to avoid her other choices.

like, the clans are uh, very much Not Pro Choice. okay general reminder: my warriors worldbuilding does not reflect my views about the world. i am not trying to build a good world, i am trying to build an interesting one.

anyway.

when your infant mortality rate is ca. 50%, every kit's life is precious. killing kits (including unborn ones) is a crime punishable by Instant Death.

leafpool is a seer so who fucking knows what would happen, because harming a seer is punishable by anything from a Big Time Long Term punishment to Exile to Death. highly dependent on the level of harm (accident, accident but serious, any level of intentional harm), but like. cats know who the seers are. it's important to know before you bring an apprentice to battle.

god it's been Ages since i rambled about stolag's world building. mothwing's piece is like. the biggest chance to expand on that and it's through such a low-battle time it doesn't come up. why must i be like this.

so yeah so! who knows what would happen bc by that logic you get: leafpool kills kits → leafpool must be killed → leafpool either has to kill herself or whoever kills her must be killed

(you might be saying, "wouldn't a murderer for punishment purposes get immunity?" to which i say, "this is not that type of world. the rules about seers trump every other rule. even where it doesn't make sense.")

anyway, obviously that's not super relevant because that doesn't happen.

if leafpool was discovered when she was pregnant or nursing, the kits would have been given to a windclan queen. they may or may not be told about their birth, but the other clans certainly wouldn't.

leafpool would be exiled or killed. it's not super clear what would happen, but either way, she would lose everything.

kestrelpaw is the oldest apprentice, i believe, but willowpaw would be chosen for obvious reasons. windclan is probably best equipt to deal with this Particular situation, because windclan elders share the burden of knowing the whole hymn. so willowpaw would have people to teach her everything she needs to know.

willowpaw would receive her full name after learning the full hymn, and windclan would have to trust that the stars would guide her to oversee the correct rites. (singing days, fasts, and approving names of kits.)

(and who would name her? she would be instructed to pray on it and starclan would give her a name. not sure what i would name her. windclan doesn't have any sense of passing names on, so while if this were in thunderclan or shadowclan she would be named willowface, willowbark, or willowleaf with some level of certainity, there's no such convention.

i might name her willowshine or willowlight.

which might give away that her name isn't necessarily going to be willowshine in stolag.

but i digress.)

anyway! that makes willow the youngest medicine cat, and cinderpelt the oldest (without an apprentice). so shadowclan jaypaw instead.

anyway! yeah the fact that she's his mother is certainly a problem, but it's almost insignificant to the greater problem that a seer had kits.

a scuffed knee compared to a broken femur, if you will.

so yeah, there'd definitely be a problem, it just wouldn't have much to do with the family relationship. if, say, he was a squirrelcrow kit, windclan would be a-okay with him staying, because crowfeather isn't his father in any meaningful sense.

hope that makes sense! sorry i started rambling about politics again.