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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

The ways in which Isabelle's hypothetical Bertrand trauma would vary from her canonical/Nullverse Alec trauma would give Isabelle more initial anxiety about abandonment and attachment, I think. Having been neglected by Bertrand, she would probably be clingier with Cy, and would go out of her way more to please him. This is also a product of how her sexual behavior would change—Isabelle typically shows promiscuous behavior because she's trying to fill the void Alec leaves, but I think in this case she would do it more to get attention and affection.

However, I also think that Isabelle's increased independence due to Bertrand not suppressing her the way Alec did would mean that she moves on from that phase relatively quickly. She would have an easier time standing on her own and would depend on Cy less for stability once she's internalized that he likes her and isn't going to withdraw from her. Isabelle would also be less "baby mode" and soft overall, so the tone of their relationship would probably be different. She'd need less caretaking of a cg/lg sort and more emotional reassurance.

Oh, God, that's a disturbing thought to me. But then, it all is! I don't think Bertrand has the temperament for parenthood like he would like to think. Mourning Alec, he'd look for him in Isabelle, and failing to find him there would leave him frustrated with and distant from her. There would be a hot and cold of him pushing her away and making attempts to bond and recover something of the bond he and Alec used to have, and eventual sexual abuse in her teens, but not as comprehensive grooming as Alec inflicted on her. Importantly, Bertrand also wouldn't discourage Isabelle's independence the way Alec did, and sometime in her late teens or early twenties she'd be unleashed as a "deeply dysfunctional but still able to get by" adult.

"Oh. I like that they're soft and warm, and that they make it so I don't...have a shape. I like being shapeless."

I don't think I'd describe Alec as transphobic in general, but he is insanely selfish, and he wants a daughter rather than a son for reasons that have to do with his issues around his twin brother who he murdered, as well as societal sexism and Alec's own preference for women.

He's comfortable using masculinity as a carrot in the whole carrot/stick thing he has going with Isabelle. For her tenth birthday she wanted a suit, and he gave her one; when she's sixteen he takes her hunting; things like that. But at the same time he would never allow a form of gender expression that contradicts his desires. When he wants Isabelle to wear a dress she'll be punished if she tries to wear anything else and medical transition, if Isabelle wanted it, would be completely out of the question. She's his daughter because he wants a daughter, and that's final.

It's worth noting that Alec doesn't know what Isabelle's gender identity actually is, and neither does Isabelle. With my canon taking place somewhere unspecified in the 20th century, both of their knowledge is a little limited, especially Isabelle's. Alec knows that trans people exist but if he had to guess what's going on with Isabelle gender-wise, he'd describe her as a bisexual woman who wants to be butch.

Twitter post a while ago! Might as well reannounce it now: Isabelle is genderfluid! Most of the time she's agender but sometimes she's a man or woman. I use she/her pronouns for her by default because that's what she uses for herself by default, but eventually in fics you'll see me mix it up to he, they, or it when her gender slider has shifted. I have a whole fic planned where he's in boy mode and convinces Alec to take him hunting.

I've talked a little bit about it Isabelle was a cis boy before here (https://neospring.org/+r/f3ed44f87b) but I'll happily talk about it more! Both cis and trans this time.

I ultimately think that Isabelle's "boy personality" already exists when her genderfluidity shifts boywards. The traits of his that become more prominent then—competitiveness, protectiveness, violence, a desire for control—are born of having Alec for a male role model. If Isabelle was a boy all the time, whether cis or trans, I think he would be ashamed of his submissive desires the way Isabelle is ashamed of her dominant desires by default.

However, he would definitely still have them. To reconcile the desires he would be bratty and manipulative with his male doms, but wouldn't really enjoy it as much as he would total submission, which he would find with Cy (assuming Cy is down to dominate a man other than Eden).

In general boy!Isabelle is more in touch with the anger and aggression that our usual nb!Isabelle already possess, and the ideals he tries to live up to are different. Basically every trait of Isabelle's that is societally seen as "masculine" he leans into, while leaning away from things seen as feminine, but the fundamental personality is the same.

While Eden can be mean and has seniority, so to speak, he's still very much Cy's sub and that shows in the dynamic. He's an extension of Cy and an accessory to him; what he does is what he's allowed to do. He likes hurting Isabelle and has a particular thing for choking her, but Cy keeps him in line and he's still denied certain privileges like orgasms (when Cy says so) and getting to fuck Isabelle anally. From time to time she's also allowed to put on a strapon and peg him. Since they're both Cy's submissives, their dynamic is fluid in that how exactly it works depends on what will get Cy off on a given day.

Gender identity? That would be a series of brief conversations, as Isabelle honestly doesn't know much about it herself when she meets Cy. Growing up in a relatively conservative environment, Isabelle didn't get a lot of education on genderqueer identities. Being in the more progressive space the campus provides lets her explore more, wear pronoun badges at events, make queer friends, etc, but she still has a lot of hangups herself.

Cy discovering that she sometimes is a boy would be a partial accident related to something like him finding her packer or other boymoding tools. Isabelle would be comfortable enough to tell him that she likes a range of gender expression, and depending on how much she's figured out by then, would probably go on to elaborate a little on how she's genderfluid without using that exact word. Meanwhile Cy would decide early on in the conversation that he's just gonna indulge her regardless without thinking too hard about it or really trying to understand. He can take good care of his subs without understanding the why behind every what.

Isabelle first meets Lynn in rather humiliating circumstances, and the humiliation is deepened when "Lynn" is a man. This puts a distance between them that Eden never really cares to mend. There's a lack of feminine solidarity between them like there is when Eden is Lynn (which is a funny thing to say since Lynn enables Cy so much and Isabelle's not even really a woman, but still) that makes for more distance.

However, Isabelle's own trauma and general nonthreateningness enables Eden to open up to her a bit and share things in one instance that he wouldn't really share with others. It's not enough to form the kind of bond that Isabelle has with Lynn in Nullverse canon, though. When they do have threeway sex with Cy, he's less inclined to go easy on her than Cy is, which contributes to Isabelle's sort of morbid interest in him. She won't pursue it if she's in a good headspace, though.

As for twin!Eden, I don't really know! That AU is new enough that when I discussed it with Null there wasn't enough groundwork to go on. But honestly, I would expect that they'd be pretty distant. Cy likes to keep a small social circle too, so there's also a chance that if he already had two submissives he wouldn't go for a third. Who knows, though? Not me or Null at the moment, that's for sure.

Isabelle is a very cruel, demanding, imperious Domme who likes to sabotage her subs. In many ways she emulates Alec and enjoys taunting her subs as she torments them. While she loves doing aftercare, in the moment she can be very harsh and gets caught up in things, so anything not explicitly expressed as a boundary is fair game. Even if she's presenting femininely, she likes to be called Daddy. The soft, cuddly, motherly type of domming doesn't appeal to her at all as a Dominant. It's also worth noting that unless she has a source of domination over her coming from somewhere, she'll be dissatisfied sexually and personally, and she'll take that out on the sub.

Thank you very much! Isabelle's sadistic tendencies make her more dominant, which is something I think a lot of sadist subs can relate to: it's easier to express sadism in dominant ways, and to find submissive people who are willing to have a sadist get to work on them. However, she's also sadistic towards her Dominants, and when she's allowed to this is expressed usually in the form of biting and clawing during sex.

With some masochistic Dominants, like Alec, she might be allowed to actually inflict pain in a more ritualized and...premeditated, I guess? way. Like with Alec she did waxplay and when she topped him she was given very large, somewhat painful strapon attachments. It's very much a guilty pleasure for her, but one she can embrace when encouraged.

Oh, for sure. Sadism, low empathy, a tendency to stir the pot and experiment with their conversational partners, a detachment from humanity and fundamental belief that they themselves are not human...Isabelle takes after her father in many ways. These negative traits are tempered by her capacity for compassion and her sub-zero self esteem, but they're still very much present and occasionally destructive. More benignly, both of them are very moved by the arts, especially by music. They both also have strange senses of humor and are kinda oddballs.

Viola genuinely respects Isabelle as a musician and it's one of the vanishingly rare areas she won't criticize Isabelle at all. As a result, when they bond it usually has to do with that. Viola's offered guidance with Isabelle's musical development over the years and has acknowledged how talented she is. However, of course, it's not enough to build a relationship on.