Alec would lose his fucking shit <3 if you ever want to see Alec go full ballistic, that would do it. Scorched earth on whoever did it if he can find them. As for how he would feel...honestly, mostly angry and deeply upset that he wasn't able to prevent it. Powerless, in a sense, which would make him all the more possessive of Isabelle and determined to seize and exercise power where he can. There would also be a teeny little bit of grief in there that he would force to present as yet more anger, or else in intimate moments as tenderness with Isabelle. He would never fully get over it.

Alec always knew that if he had children he would probably sexually abuse them, simply because he knows himself and how much of a selfish, ruthless bastard he is, not to mention that he and Bertrand already broke the incest taboo when they were children. So he sort of assumed from the start with Isabelle, long before he was attracted to her. This plus his obsession with her starting when she was five led to years of grooming and eventual sexual abuse from age twelve upwards. He raped her for the first time when she was fourteen.

Isabelle's memory is fairly unreliable and shifts a lot, so the timeline of them tends to be off. However, she does have a few memories she can single out as among the earliest. The first one involving Viola is at a Christmas party, and is mostly just an impression: Viola, beautiful and sparkling in a red gown, laughing and talking to other women who could never compare to her. Isabelle distinctly remembers feeling a sense of distance between them, that Viola had something she would never possess.

Meanwhile her earliest memory of Alec is a little more concrete, and takes place when she's around two or three years old. It's Alec sitting in a hallway at a pediatrician's office with her, reading the poem Hurt No Living Thing. He started teaching her to read fairly early, and a lot of her first memories of him involve reading.

Omega!Alec would be similar to trans man!Alec in the sense of feeling even more intensely than in canon a deprivation, a sense that his body could be more powerful and more suited to his drives. He would be sexually frustrated at all times, and this would come forward in how sadistic he would be with his partners. He would love torturing alphas and keeping them enslaved to him through drugs, blackmail, manipulation, love, or more literal imprisonment. He would also have himself sterilized as soon as possible, probably in his mid to late twenties, to prevent pregnancy.

So, as always, evil man. He'd just have a more specific set of targets, although he'd torment his share of fellow omegas and betas as well.

Probably not as horrible as you think, but definitely not problem-free. A massive part of why Lynn is with Alec in the first place is because he's a bad person. She's not surprised he committed yet another sexual crime. Because she's not in love with him the way she was with Cy and their relationship is a lot more casual, the emotional impact his actions have on her is a lot less, and easier to dismiss. It also helps that she knows that Isabelle isn't in Alec's life anymore and that Lynn is disinterested in punishing Alec after the fact.

Still, Lynn would be disappointed in herself for once again feeling this attraction towards an awful man, even if she does ultimately continue the relationship because she can't find a reason to stop more powerful than her own horniness. I could see it being something that comes up in her mind during her spates of self-loathing.

Alec would be more unsettled and upset by Lynn finding out. He treasures his memories of being with Isabelle and would find exposure both violating and a relief. Although he's glad Lynn takes it...relatively well so he doesn't have to kill her, he's left with a sort of rage that she knows about something so private and intimate, but also takes some comfort in someone knowing after years of secrecy.

As for how it happens, it's actually fairly likely that in all the homemade porn Alec and Lynn watch together, one day he simply forgets that he left an Isabelle tape in the VCR. Lynn would recognize Isabelle from pictures she's seen before in a family context.

Alec would probably find it cute, and he's pretty good at sweeping shy people off their feet, so it wouldn't be a deterrent. Depending on the situation he'd either be charming and warm or more seductively charismatic until he gets what he wants.

Thank you very much! And they all have such unique ways to do it, too....

The family tends to favor French food, partially because Viola's a ouiaboo and it's some of the rare rich food she'll allow herself. They get it cooked at home often. However, Alec specifically has a lot of nostalgia for Indonesian food from his time in Bali, and will go out of his way to try new Indonesian restaurants.

Oh thank god someone actually read that fucking essay I wrote to the end. Thank you! Yeah, it's honestly a distinct possibility. I don't think f!Alec would want another child at her age (she's probably between 44-47 when they start having sex) but she's also very bad at saying no when m!Isabelle wants to come inside her. He starts begging mid-fuck and she says yes before he's even got the words out.

Assuming we're talking cis swaps here, there's actually a pretty drastic difference between a swap for just Alec and Viola vs a swap for the whole family! But I'll talk whole family.

Alec...honestly almost makes more sense as a cis woman. The favoritism shown to Bertrand, the religious abuse, the emphasis on the need to control her emotions and present a perfect facade to the world....all of these things would have a more gendered tint. As a result, Alec would be a very femme woman who takes pains to present as humble, self-effacing, compassionate, and charitable while internally still being the rampant egotist and unrepentant sadist we know and love. Also, like canon Alec, she would enjoy crossdressing and would probably be something of a leather daddy. The main difference here is in how she presents herself to the world.

Viola, meanwhile, would lack the unshakeable confidence of his canon counterpart. He would be angrier and more frustrated by his insecurities around his masculinity. His wife is older, more powerful, and physically larger, and babytrapped him when he was eighteen; Viola walks around with a chip on his shoulder feeling like people see him as less of a man than he'd like. Like canon Viola, he copes with both control and the loss thereof—he runs a tight ship professionally and in the household, and is a more involved parent, but also indulges in substance abuse. He finds both shame and pleasure in how Alec dominates him.

Now if we're talking Isabelle also being a boy, the family dynamic is very different. Alec projects her dead twin Bertrand onto him (assuming Bertrand wasn't also swapped) and Viola projects himself onto him, so both parents are very strict and maintain high standards for their son. Viola would be more involved and would prioritize academic success. Alec would be less indulgent than in canon, although no less affectionate, and would prioritize public image and perfect obedience.

Isabelle himself would still be nonbinary, I think? Just AMAB and more male-leaning. He would be better at blending in socially but paradoxically feel more alien, since he can tell he's faking. To try and escape this he would spend a lot of time by himself, and would usually be found in his room composing. Both inflicting and withstanding pain would help him feel relief, and he would embrace his sadism more. He would feel less guilt about Alec's sexual abuse of him and I think would have a deep rooted belief that, if he gets a sibling-child from her, he'll finally feel less alone. Her age doesn't deter him.

Huh! Wild thought. If it did happen, I think he would kill her in a very prolonged, ritualized way, paying tribute to all their time together and how much she once meant to him. One last enormity before they part ways, or before her way ends.

Any situation I want to put Alec in tends to go immediately on my to-write list! Part of why it's so long. But here are a small selection of favorites: -Alec betting Isabelle or Viola while gambling -Alec and Viola both tormenting the same twink -Alec killing Bertrand

Isabelle is very aware, because part of why she pursues the people she does is because their toxic tendencies are very apparent and so she doesn't feel like she'll get a nasty surprise later. It's easier if she knows all along.

She does actively choose it for that reason, since it soothes her fears, but also if she stopped she would definitely feel the lack. Isabelle spent her entire childhood under the extremely comprehensive oppression of an abusive man, and it's what feels right to her on both conscious and unconscious levels. It's a hard habit to kick.

As for how she feels about it, that depends on how her mental health and love life have been. Sometimes she tries to do better, but most of the time she accepts it because she thinks it's better than trying to date someone she thinks is nice only to end up abused anyway without having seen it coming.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by red flags? The relationship between Isabelle and Cy is a remarkably healthy one! If you're talking about my recent post about how Isabelle's type is essentially just really toxic individuals, Cy is honestly a deviation from her type, at least in how he treats her. They bond as friends before they're D/s. The core of that platonic bond is (in my opinion, Null's might be different) the way they're both sort of alien to most of the people around them, vulnerable in some ways but closed-off in others. Isabelle doesn't find out about Cy's past crimes until well into their relationship.

That's so kind of you! I know plenty of people have reservations and I totally get it, but that just makes me all the happier when the writing Null and I do together lands well. Thank you very much for taking the time to say so!

Tall, dark, and dangerous. Isabelle looooves someone who gives her a bouquet of red flags on the first date. She also likes her partners at least a decade older than her, and rarely dates in her own age bracket. She's very attracted to power, violent or otherwise. Anyone too kind, optimistic, or idealistic is likely to make her uncomfortable in the long run, but it's not insurmountable, and can make the relationship stronger if she manages to stick it out—but she rarely does. She's out to get hurt.

Potentially! I've had AUs where she's killed one or both of her parents. My lovely friend Ira wrote a fic where she and Alec kill Viola together, and it's entirely possible for her to snap and kill either of them. Killing Viola would twist and scar her; killing Alec would, under most circumstances, shatter her. But it really depends. I've always known that if Isabelle had children of her own, she'd defend them from Alec as far as she possibly could, and that could include murder.

Isabelle doesn't realize she's not cis until she's already been exploring her gender for years, and at most she considers herself sort of a weird gender-fucked mess since concepts of cis, trans, and nonbinary are all kind of foreign to her. At first Isabelle conceptualizing herself as "not exactly a woman" is because of how she dehumanizes herself, but when she's in her mid twenties she realizes there's more to it than that.

As for when Isabelle starts exploring gender, she's liked taking male roles in games since she was a toddler. Sometimes she's a princess, sometimes she's a prince, sometimes she's a horse. She started actually aiming to look like a boy when she was a preteen and experiencing puberty, trying to stave off dysphoria and the body issues her trauma was giving her. This is part of why she cut her hair short when she was eleven, and why she tried to dress masculinely when Alec wasn't there to interfere. In general, it becomes more considered and deliberate with age, until you get 26yo Isabelle referring to himself as a manwhore.

This conversation takes place after Isabelle has already left the household, so she wasn't going to get anything anyway. Viola would probably make a provision for some inheritance if Isabelle actually shows up to claim it, though.

At his least realistic, which tends to be when he's on drugs in his twenties, Alec thinks immortality is either attainable or already in his grasp. However, even someone as fit as Alec isn't immune to the realities of aging, so as they start to set in during his late middle age Alec simply decides not to think about it. One day he sits down with Viola and tells her to draft a will for him, that he will leave everything to do with his death and the time after to her, and then from then forwards he does his level best to ignore it. He doesn't handle it well.

Odd way to give a song rec, but consider it received! This slaps.

"I must say I resent your referring to Isabelle as a hobby. Excluding her, because I don't think she fits the definition, I really enjoy torture. There's just nothing like it. Consensual or not, sexual or not, within the bounds of sanity and sense or well beyond in the blood soaked far reaches of human capability...it's just good old-fashioned fun. Nothing else scratches that nasty little itch in my psyche so well. I do consider it a way to celebrate, especially at its extremes, and the impracticality of really delving into it means it's hardly something I can do every week. It tends to be special."

"I'd like that...I think. But of course I would have to talk it over with Father. I'm not sure it's something I could handle."

Sure do! I'll probably use it for that AU and several others.

Alec is good at dancing, but it's not his favorite thing. He pretty much does it as demanded in social situations or when he's got restless energy at an event that permits it; for instance, if he's full of cocaine and at a club. For me to answer what his favorite dance to do is, I would have to know any ^^; Sadly I do not, so I'll just say he likes grinding.