#🧩 Role Swap 🗝️

[solitaireships]

okok two things i wanted to ask:

have you ever thought of an au where all your fos are put together in one big au? :0 i've sorta seen some modern aus around here and there where people do it so i'm curious if you've ever done that before!

i'm curious: how different is the role swap au to the actual canon between shepard and hoffman? does it all play the same in the end? different? (@eveningshards)

Hey Haze!

I haven't really thought of something like that tbh! I've been asked a couple of times on twitter about how I think James and Bruce would interact if they met each other, and tbh that's always something I've struggled to kind of think of, like I for some reason just cannot imagine characters from different media interacting with each other i say like i haven't written a ship fic for james and miguel. Like it seems cool in theory, but idk if it's something I'd be ever able to come up with ideas for

With the role swap for Shepard and Hoffman, in some ways it follows canon fairly closely, but in other's it's different. Namely bcs Shepard is not as brutal as Hoffman is, even when she's a serial killer. She would be very committed to the ideology behind Jigsaw, and that means that every test she makes is a legitimate test where it's hard to pass, but still possible to. This means there's no reason for John to basically put in his will to kill her if she gets out of hand the way he did for Hoffman, and it also means that the events of S.aw 3D would be very different from how they were. Maybe that means that movie would actually be good lol

But I do think that in the end, she would end up being in trouble with the law. Not bcs Jill tells the police tho, instead it would be because one of the people who managed to survive her traps ended up figuring out who she was. That or Perez didn't get killed during the equivalent of the scene where Hoffman's exposed, idk for sure since this is still a very undeveloped au like all of mine are lol

Either way, she ends up having to go into hiding, and that's how she meets Hoffman, paralleling how she ends up meeting him when there's an active manhunt for him within their canon. It's probably slightly lower stakes than her saving him tho considering she never gets locked away in the bathroom like Hoffman does bcs of the aforementioned not having her murder be part of John's will

But from there, things are pretty similar to the standard Shepard and Hoffman dynamic, just flipping things around to match with their differing roles of serial killer vs "I can fix them". But also Hoffman has more "damn she's a serial killer. Kinda hot. If she kills again then I guess I support women's wrongs" vibes bcs he can be inclined towards evil as a treat

[solitaireships]

AU Masterlist

Hello, and welcome to a post where I talk about the AUs that I have for my f/os. Yes I have never talked about any of these beyond vaguely mentioning a couple of them exist, but I wanted to have this list out here and idk, maybe this will make me actually talk about them. All of them are listed with the tag I'll use for talking about them, as well as a little bit of info!

This list will be updated as I end up coming up with more AUs! And if I ever make a fic or anything specific to these AUs, there'll be links added here to that

Divider source

🦾 Modern AU 🌙

This is a pretty standard modern AU, taking place with more real world scenarios than usual for James and Helena. In it, James works at a high school, teaching woodshop and physics classes, and Helena is a therapist. With this being set in the real world, there are a couple more things that come up with it that don’t in rw.by. With no Faunus allegory for racism here, there’s more to touch on with James being half Taiwanese as well as Helena being whitepassing and a quarter Korean. The differences in technology also means that James’s prosthetics are more realistic than they are in his and Helena’s usual canon, and he also tends to use a cane or wheelchair more often to help with mobility

The main point of this AU is just having some nice domestic stuff with the access I need to more modern references. Also James gets to be more mentally healthy bcs he doesn’t have to feel like the whole world is on his shoulders (tho he does still have PTSD from his time in the military)

🦾 After the War 🌙

This is a canon divergent AU focused on Helena and James, with the main source of divergence being that Helena managed to pull James from the vault in Atlas and get him to safety in Vacuo before the kingdom was destroyed. She’s quick to advocate for him despite how most people would gladly see him thrown in a cell and never set free again, and through her and Winter, she’s able to basically get him a pardon at the cost of his rank, Huntsman license, and with the requirement for community service helping the Atlesian refugees as well as some mandated therapy

This is basically a happy ending AU for the two of them. James gets to go through the process of admitting his mistakes and finally accepting he needs help, and Helena doesn’t have to lose her husband. So it’s a win-win scenario for them and also everyone else

💫 Modern AU 🌙

A modern AU for Chae-Yeong and Helena. In this AU, Chae-Yeong quit running Vermeil Industries to focus on being a public defender, and Helena is a therapist. There’s similar ideas here behind what’s with James’s modern AU, with this being based around more real world scenarios and having more to say and do with Chae-Yeong and Helena both being whitepassing mixed white and Korean women. Chae-Yeong does still have sharper canines than average, though, just for me <3

There’s some nice domestic fluff to be had with this AU, and it allows me to make Helena and Chae-Yeong more obviously comic book nerds. Things are happier and a lot more stable, with Chae-Yeong having more space to work through some of her anger in ways that aren’t her regularly risking her life

💫 General Vermeil 🌙

In this AU, Chae-Yeong was the leader of her and James’s team— Team CHRI (cherry)— and she ended up becoming the general of Atlas because of that. This means that she never quit being a Huntress, and she never became the Scarlet Shepherd, which then also means that she has a lot of deeply buried issues that make it so she is in a much worse space than she usually is. But she and Helena are still together, and Helena can try to fix her wife as she goes further and further down a darker path.

Basically, this is the opposite of the Shepherd’s Delight modern AU bcs this one is heavier, with Chae-Yeong going along a path closer to James’s one in canon (tho not exactly bcs of Chae-Yeong’s strict morals playing into things). There’s drama, there’s love enduring through the chaos and hopelessness, and most importantly of all there is a hot morally questionable woman in the form of Chae-Yeong

🕷️ Modern AU 🕸️

Yet another fairly standard modern AU, with this also being an AU where there’s no powers for Piera or Miguel. Miguel is still working as a geneticist at Alchemax, but it’s more grounded now in the kind of stuff that would be current. Piera is also still a reporter, tho the articles that she writes are for an online news site. Lyla is Miguel’s neighbor in this AU, and Gabriella is still alive and living with Miguel, with him being his daughter from his former marriage with Xina, who’s now spending her time traveling the world

Once again, here’s an excuse for a more low stakes domestic environment with things. It also lets there be more stuff with Piera and Gabriella, so we get to have some cute family moments in there. Also this does allow things to be happier and just overall lighter than things usually are because Miguel and Piera aren’t having to worry about fighting supervillains and the multiverse collapsing

🧩 Partners in Crime 🗝️

The premise behind this is that Hoffman and Shepard are both Jigsaw apprentices. They met a long while before they did within what I considered to be their main canon, with them having met about ten years before they did within that. A unique thing with this AU is that the two of them are married in this (note in main canon, they’re just boyfriend and girlfriend). When Hoffman’s blackmailed into joining up with John, he ends up telling Shepard about that, and she ends up helping out because she doesn’t want to make him deal with everything alone

Basically, this is an evil lovers situation. They sure are executing a ton of people and Shepard’s compromising her moral values, but they looked hot doing it. Plus, this makes a lot of people’s traps more survivable, with Shepard making an effort to make them actually winnable. They’re criminals and they’re on the run together and they have a family, and also they will fuck you up if you try to expose or hurt the other

🧩 Role Swap 🗝️

In this AU, Shepard’s the detective who’s a serial killer undercover while Hoffman is an escape room designer who ends up helping her avoid being imprisoned for that. Shepard’s way of doing things with traps is very different from Hoffman’s, with hers being much more winnable and because of that she never strayed from John’s ideology enough to be considered a problem. But a Jigsaw survivor ends up putting the pieces together enough to expose her, which leads to her going on the run and being taken in by Hoffman, who’s convinced he can make her better (and also finds the whole serial killer thing sexy)

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a ton going on for this AU, but I think the concept is neat so I think it should exist. idk if it’ll ever be something I go deep into tho

[solitaireships]

✍🏼💌🪐👯‍♀️!! —CCFM

I'm gonna answer these for Shepard since she's my newest one!

✍️: Overall, how does the fandom treat you? Are you a beloved character, or hated? Are you popular, or a minor side character? Anything in between?

Shepard would be a pretty significant character bcs she ends up saving Hoffman's life, so he would not be around without her. But I don't think that she would be popular, bcs while I'm not huge into the S/aw fandom, I know that much like with many fandoms, they are not a big fan of women, and they do not like it when you hc any character as being bi or pan. Especially with Hoffman being in a popular fanon mlm ship, I feel like people would take out some frustration on Shepard for daring to be a female love interest for him. But also I know the yuri warriors in the fandom would be there to love her despite her questionable taste in men (and potentially give her some toxic yuri with Amanda)

👯: What canon character are you most similar to?

I've said before that I myself am probably most similar to Perez or Kerry, so probably one of them

🪐: What would be your most popular AU and why?

I think that co-apprentice au would be pretty popular for them bcs it would be an interesting spin on things, with that meaning that the two of them would have met earlier, and it having the potential to set them up to be enemies. bcs if Shepard's an apprentice, she would be following John's ideals a lot more closely than Hoffman would, like she would make sure that every trap she makes is actually winnable and she would not be going completely out there for the sake of brutality. So you could get some fun drama in there with the possibility of her being called to counter Hoffman when he gets out of hand

That, or you get some couples that trap people together stay together stuff where the two of them are a little insane and a lot evil together. The showman ship with Shepard involved would make those traps pop off. There'd be themes and stuff

💌: How would your dynamic be portrayed? What might people focus on most? Any misconceptions?

I feel like the fandom would actually be mostly good about handling their dynamic, even if it probably wouldn't be a favored one. There's a bit of flavor to it that's similar to some of the other apprentice-based ships, but I think the main concern would be Shepard being made nicer than she is. bcs yes, she is someone who fully believes that anyone is capable of change and becoming better as a person. But also she isn't a push over, and part of what allows her to fix Hoffman so to speak is that she is willing to be a little mean to him