Max and Steph roleswap AU where Steph’s the school bully/self-proclaimed God of Hatchetfield High. She started dictating what everyone can and can’t do and who’s cool and who’s a nerd and whether Kyle can date Brenda (the answer’s still no, by the way!) to gain a sense of control. Solomon scrutinizes her every move and doesn’t let her do ANYTHING that might make him look remotely bad and affect his reelection prospects. Her mom dissapeared after winning the Honey Queen pageant (but as far as Steph knows she just up and left). She has absolutely no control in her home life and had to find it elsewhere.
Do you see my vision?? We’d get a sapphic Stephgrace version of Dirty Girl. We’d get Mariah as the villain. She’s the star QB. To impress the high school football obsessed voters, Solomon forced her to either do that or cheer. It turned out she was actually really good at it and she started getting praise and admiration for once (she also gets none of that at home). Between that and being the mayor’s daughter, nobody can stand up to her. Kyle and Jason are her lackeys. Kyle still gets punched in the face for calling Grace a two bagger. Max is around and he’s like “no, I agree with Steph, Grace is kinda cute” he gets decked in the face too because he BETTER not be thinking of asking her out (poor Jason has to carry them both out).
Max is still a jock, but he plays a sport nobody at Hatchetfield High really cares about (idk lacrosse maybe), so he’s more of a fringe cool kid. Not having the power over the school he has in canon, he had to find a different way to cope with his Whole Deal so became more apathetic and adopted a cool/tough guy persona instead. He usually manages to fly under the radar, but Steph does pick on him occasionally - she copes with Solomon constantly insulting her intelligence by doing the same thing to others and Max “I’m so fuckin’ scared of skele-uhns” Jägerman is an easy mark. Kyle usually joins in out of desperation for Steph’s approval. Jason will too, but only when the others pressure him into it.
Max needs to get his grades up or he’ll be kicked off the team, so he cheats off one of the nerds, gets caught and eventually asks them to tutor him. Doesn’t matter which one, pick your poison depending on which ship or friendship you want to be the Lautski of this universe. I’m gonna make it platonic and say Richie because I love their potential friendship dynamic, I love aroace Richie and I love treating friendships with the same narrative weight as romantic relationships. Steph says hell no, the Pasqualli’s incident happens and Grace convinces them all to plan the prank.
Of course, Steph wouldn’t fall for it like Max did. She realizes what they they’re up to almost immediately, but she’s still delighted. She finds it kind of funny and endearing that they thought they could scare her with cheap costumes and creepy music. She likes that they planned the prank to get her to change her ways because it means they still think she has the potential to be good. Then she falls and they do Grace’s bury the body plan, but this is the mayor’s daughter and the police can’t write it off like they do most disappearances in Hatchetfield so they’re hot on their trail.
Also, I’m losing it thinking about how powerful Solomon’s death would be. And how fucking scared Max would be during the summoning.
hello, npmd fans of tumblr dot com! happy pride month! do any of you think that stephanie lauter, peter spankoffski, and grace chasity all hold hands and kiss? because i sure do!