Viola and Alec met when she was thirteen and he was twenty-five, when she was the golden child of an old and fading crime family and he was the up-and-coming right hand man of one of the most prominent crime lords in England. He caught her eavesdropping on a meeting, and although they both initially pissed each other off and each thought the other was full of themself, Alec found Viola entertaining and a kindred spirit in a few ways and Viola felt taken seriously by Alec and came to respect him in turn. Of course, he was absolutely grooming her. Their sexual relationship started when she was fourteen, and the more she fell in love with him and spurned other people, the more this formative dynamic got its hooks in her.

Viola sort of always knew that Alec was a bad person because of his job, because of his sexual interest in teenagers (like her), because of his open and unabashed sadism, among other things. Still, a few early moments helped her realize how twisted he is, such as watching him work, an incident wherein he had Viola assist him in raping another teenage girl, and his killing of his own brother. She has a love-hate relationship with his evil, but mostly it's love. She's a romantic that way.

If you're talking about in the Nullverse, very much not. That's how Isabelle escapes. Alec tells Viola that he wants her to act publicly as the mother of the child Isabelle is carrying to avoid scandal, and she decides she's had enough and gets the fuck out of there with Isabelle. Then they go to the US, which is where Isabelle enrolls in college and meets Cy.

He didn't, and it almost became a domestic violence situation, but Alec realized as he was about to hit Viola that escalating it like that right on the heels of Viola having learned that he sexually abused their daughter was a Very Bad Idea so he didn't follow through. He took out most of his anger on Isabelle instead because, of course, she's the one less likely to make him suffer consequences.

No worries! Yes, their relationship improves, but doesn't start seeing major progress until Isabelle is somewhere in her thirties; Yes! Viola gets THERAPY, even. What a concept! She comes to realize that Alec was nothing but an abusive manipulator, and how very badly she fucked up with Isabelle; Isabelle was in agreement that she needed to leave, because she knew that there was no end to the ways Alec would subject her body to his whims and that he would inevitably end up abusing any child she had with him as well. She grieved it and remains fucked up about losing him for a very long time, but gradually comes to understand how deeply wrong their dynamic was. Thank you very much for the questions!

Isabelle got pregnant with Alec's child, and Alec decided he wanted her to carry the baby to term and that they would raise it as if it was Viola's. This was too far for Viola, both because it was close to home with her own pregnancy trauma and because of how directly it involved her and how much it would demand her covering for Alec, so Viola took her money and Isabelle and dipped for the US, where she got Isabelle an abortion and some temporary housing. From there she got her into the uni where Cy teaches, and here we are!

Pretty OOC I'm afraid! Viola simply isn't the kind to go for incest; she tends to take those taboos fairly seriously, or at least seriously enough not to transgress them herself. However, if you wanted to think up a fanon scenario, I'd recommend two factors: intoxication, and Alec manipulation. Alec has treated grooming Viola into a threeway with Isabelle as a long-term project for years, even if he doesn't canonically succeed.

Oh, things would be very different if Isabelle was assigned male at birth. Isabelle was born in the midst of Alec's turmoil over his twin brother, Bertrand, and Alec projected a lot of those feelings onto her even with her being seen as a girl. If she'd been a cis boy instead, Alec probably would've been even more repressive, fearing that Isabelle would ultimately kill him the way he killed Bertrand when she was a few months old. I'm genuinely not sure that Isabelle would've survived as a cis boy.

The good news is that if boy!Isabelle did live, Viola wouldn't be so harsh or cruel to him, because he would trigger her trauma less. She would probably still be very distant, but not as hostile. Still, though, overall I think Isabelle would be worse off as Alec's son. As it stands her being genderfluid adds enough complications.

Viola spends years in denial of the fact that Alec is grooming their daughter until Isabelle, age fourteen, tells her about the first rape—after which she knows but blames Isabelle for what's happening.

That's very interesting! It wasn't intentional; I named Viola that because of the symbolism of the violet flower. It works tho!

Sure is!

Viola didn't want to have Isabelle in the first place, and would have preferred an abortion. Alec talked her out of it pretty easily, but months later when Viola developed pretty severe eclampsia (featuring hallucinations and seizures) during the pregnancy, his methods of denying her an abortion became more coercive. This culminated in Viola giving birth in critical condition, and Alec took newborn Isabelle and left Viola to recover without so much as a visit.

Viola absolutely resents Alec for this, but she also sees Isabelle as "that thing that took my husband's attention and love away from me when I needed it most." Not to mention that Isabelle is at the center of Viola's most traumatic experiences. Alec uses this as a means to drive a wedge further and further between them over the years to enable his abuse of Isabelle. Jealousy is his favored tactic, as well as strategically activating Viola's trauma to make her want Isabelle as far from her as possible.