DE: The other way around

[yakalskovich]

Construct a role reversal AU of some kind, by which either power imbalances, gender roles, allegiances etc. of your characters are reversed, and ponder a little about how that would play out.

Comments

[athelstanthescribe]

I know you don't often answer your own DEs, but I'd love to see your answers to this one.

[yakalskovich]

Actually, the idea for the DE had come about because I had spent the duller parts of yesterday's bus rides to and from Innsbruck pondering a modern AU for 'Vikings' in which the power balance was shifted towards Athelstan being the one with agency in the story. I came up with an American setting in which the Vikings are an Appalachian community of underprivileged 'hillbillies' and Athelstan a scholar from some East Coast college sent there as a teacher by the stipulations of his scholarship, like the doctor in 'Northern Exposure'. The clashing values and the slow learning from each other would work out quite well that way.

But to stay in the historical era, I suppose that we'd have to transplant the story of the Viking raider and the monk to Ireland, as I don't think the Anglo-Saxons had a habit of enslaving captive enemies, but the Irish did. In that scenario, Ragnar would be captured during his first raid west -- to Ireland, not England -- and given to a nearby monastery to be put to work. Athelstan gets to oversee him as he speaks the man's language, puts him to work preparing the skins in the scriptorium and doing menial work around the monastery, repairing the monks' cellae etc., and teaches him Irish while they learn about each other's cultures. When the Vikings return to raid the monastery itself, Athelstan knows enough about the Vikings to bargain with them so they leave with minimal bloodshed, and Ragnar has picked up enough Christian values from his monk (in addition to most likely loving him) to stand up to his former comrades, get them to take what they want, and leave with them. The plot of the story (fanfic, whatever) would take it from there, with their connection shaping Irish-Viking interaction right until the founding of Dublin.

For Father Harman, the obvious role reversal would be that he'd be tempted by the vampires and agree to be turned, after which humanity would be totally fucked, because of his knowledge and the utter ruthlessness for the sake of his cause he displays even as a priest. It wouldn't be a very long AU.

It would be very interesting if Dorian Gray was poor -- maybe even a rentboy who sat for some preraphaelite painting, was given his portrait by the painter, and then made his wish / pact. He'd still be forever beautiful and indestructible, would fall in with a very dark crowd of sexual sadists, and fight his way out using blackmail and the occasional murder. Once he seriously joins forces with Brona / Lily who is an immortal resurrected former Irish prostitute and basically the Bride of Frankenstein running free in victorian London, they would be unstoppable and start to amass wealth, live high on the hog, and turn into Cockney crime lords in the East End who try and use their money to uplift their entire neighbourhood while having as much fun as possible, but never quite achieving the respectability they crave -- which canon!Dorian of course despises, as he grew up with it, but which poor!Dorian would see as something desirable. I'm thinking about his character arc taking a detour towards that of Long Susan from "Ripper Street".

Lady Margolotta as a male vampire might be a bit more straightforward and lacking in subtlety and not go quite the way that she does in canon; in turn, she wouldn't be able to teach Vetinari exactly the way she teaches him (presumably) in canon backstory, which would make both these characters slightly less of underhand string-pullers than they are in canon. He would still found the Überwald League of Temperance, but perhaps the part with the newspaper and the experiment with the orc would have to happen differently, or maybe not at all.

A Dark!Will being the murderer and Hannibal being a blameless psychiatrist who becomes smitten with him is almost a fandom trope; at least I have seen variations of it on AO3 more than once.

For the rest, I get nothing.

[clayforthedevil]

aah what an interesting DE!

Hugo's pretty clear that without his ideals and his family Bahorel would have been a criminal, and a pretty damn successful one; probably an assassin, or a general wetworks guy. It would be exciting! And easy! A country struggling through decades of civil war and power struggles creates such a job market for the right sort of entrepeneur.

It's also pretty well implied that Joly would have pursued medicine and science regardless of his personal financial situation--but without access to an education and without his larger sense of ideals, Mad or at least Quack Science would have been the inevitable result. He'd probably have made a decent living as a snake-oil salesman; maybe he'd even have offered real medical services. Like dentistry.



For Gringoire I guess the opposite alignment would be "socially powerful/ actually has any aspect of his life together" which could plausibly have happened! His father was a tax farmer before getting killed (amazingly,in a way unrelated to being a tax farmer). If his father hadn't died, he would probably have inherited that post , which was a pretty powerful job. Given his general easygoing attitude (if he had anything like a mean streak, it would have activated by now) he probably would have been extremely easy to talk into charging the lowest feasible payments, never realizing half the wealth such positions usually carried, but being way less despised than most tax farmers, too.


And Djali, of course, would have turned to a life of terrifying Goat Crime without the fine example of her tutors. Her evil bleats haunt the night.

[harryhotspur]

THIS IS HARD I think almost all of my characters would be very different people if they had any more or less power than they already do.

If Arabella were a man, for example, I think her personality would be quite different, but it's hard to know exactly how. Or, rather, her base layer of good humor and wit would still be there, but its expression could change in so many ways if she were in a position where it was socially appropriate not to be constantly trying to please people and smooth over situations. She might still be a perfectly sweet, charming person, or that freedom could have caused her to develop more of an edge. I don't know! Liz is similarly so marked by her social limitations, I can't quite tell which parts of her personality would transcend and which would just disappear entirely.

If Segundus were rich, he'd just be the anti-Norrell, really. Open and welcoming and really eager to discuss and share all of his magical resources.

If Harry swapped sides in his rebellion, he-- probably wouldn't be dead. If he were lower class, he'd probably be a soldier anyway, and probably would be dead. If he were a woman, he'd probably be married to his now-wife's brother Edmund, and his/her dad and uncle would be trying to persuade her to persuade him that he should definitely for sure lead a rebellion in pursuit of his right to the throne. Again, would lady!Harry still be a stubborn, hot-tempered mess, or would she have internalized more socially acceptable gendered expectations? whooo knoooows

If Marius had gotten to be raised by his father, he'd be poorer and probably not a lawyer and everything would be a heck of a lot better. Though he'd probably still be a Bonapartist.

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric would have been more sly, more political, manipulating Constantine into raising him as an advisor rather than a lover and clashing constantly with Leo.

At Constantine's death, Sinric would have taken part of the army with him into exile, sided with the younger brothers in a bid to oust Leo from the throne.

Escaping to Frankia when the brother are caught and mutilated, he becomes a powerful figure in Charlemagne's court and stands in the defence of the city when Vikings raid.

Having seen what useful allies the Varangians can be, he brokers a truce with the invaders and commands a small army under the Western Roman Empire. Turning his sights on Byzantium and Irene's faltering rule, he convinces Charlemagne to let him bring the godless bitch to heel and engineers the palace coup that ends her hold on the Eastern Empire.

By the siege of Paris, Sinric is a powerful general and lord in his own right and brings men and equipment to Ragnar's aid. He makes the most of his connection with the Danes to weaken Charles' reign and claim certain Frankish border lands for his own